#Which might be a lot easier to come to terms with than the idea that maybe your parents never wanted you and chose to give you up

[lovebirdgames]

Hi everyone!

Here comes the long post that I alluded to recently: What's Next for Lovebird Game Studios. Buckle in!

You all know that I like to be very transparent when it comes to our game development. Sharing the journey with all of you has always helped me keep taking steps. So I’d like to share the decision we came to regarding which game to work on next, and I’d like to explain the thinking behind it as well. It may not be the news you were hoping to hear, but I hope you will also leave here with a sense of excitement and anticipation for what’s to come.

At this time, we have decided to not move forward with a sequel/fandisk of Band Camp Boyfriend.

This is a decision that does not come easy, especially since I know a lot of you were hoping for an Aaron route. We had a lot of fun ideas for the sequel we were excited for and it’s a bit of a heartbreaker to think they won’t come to fruition. I also adore our cast of characters and loved writing them, and will miss doing so. There are many different factors at play that went into making this decision.

Time. The reality is we both work full-time jobs and we have to choose our battles when it comes to this hobby. While the fandisk would be about half the size of the base game, we feel it would still take around approximately 3 years to release (I’d like to say 2, but let's face it: we are slow at game development). 

Money. We are incredibly grateful and proud to say that we made back the money we spent making Band Camp Boyfriend. We consider BCB a modest success. However, we don’t feel that the current player base is large enough to justify a sequel, especially since sequels do not typically perform as well as the base game. We have a feeling we would dig ourselves right back into the financial hole and not make it out the second time around.

Art. Particularly the backgrounds. Keep in mind that we commission the art for our games. Most otome games are easily able to pull off a fandisk because they have all of their assets from the base game. Since Band Camp Boyfriend took place in a bottle setting that the characters have now left behind, we would need a ton of new backgrounds for the school setting we had imagined for the sequel. Our background artist is no longer available, so we would have to shop around for someone with a similar style and buy a whole new host of backgrounds. And of course we would need new CGs, new outfits, new everything to really make it exciting.

Inspiration. During our “break,” the creative juices began to flow and we found ourselves gravitating to our next idea. I told myself I wouldn’t write or work on anything until making this choice, but I couldn’t stop myself. And I found myself writing the prologue for our next game and drawing concept art of the characters. Even while listening to music, the music videos that would play in my head shifted away from Band Camp Boyfriend and towards the next game. I guess after 8 years, deep down, I am ready to move onto a new story with new faces. My love for Band Camp Boyfriend runs deeper than the Marian’s Trench, but my heart is leading me into uncharted waters full of hammerhead sharks!

I’m happy to answer questions if you have them. Here are a couple that might be on your mind.

Q: Can’t you just make an Aaron DLC that takes place at band camp? Please, I will give you my left kidney!

A: I want you to keep your kidney, and I’m sorry, but the answer is no. I feel we have conquered band camp and there is no need to return to it. (We actually cut a route--the Leon route--and merged most of the ideas for it into the final route, because it was getting to be too much!) I’m totally burnt out on new ideas in that setting, plus it was wrapped up so wonderfully in that final route. I have no interest in doing another story there.

Another point - even though it would be easier in terms of art assets, we wouldn’t want to phone it in and do an Aaron Band Camp route, in case we were to change our minds about doing a sequel down the road. We would want to do his route as we envisioned it, so it’s best to keep that avenue open.

Q: Can you make a smaller game or just write new scenarios with what you have?

A: As we have learned about ourselves…we are not capable of making small games. Our ideas just keep getting bigger and bigger. We want to release substantial games with hours of playtime. So I guess the answer is no.

Q: If money is an issue, can you run a Kickstarter for the sequel so I can throw money at you?

A: We are probably not ever going to do another Kickstarter. It was a lot of work. It felt really bad when our first one failed and our motivation took a hit. However, I am glad it failed because we wound up releasing 3 years later than we had hoped for, but we didn’t have any pressure weighing on us from Kickstarter. We’ve seen a lot of successfully funded games get abandoned or delayed, and a lot of unhappy fans voice their displeasure and sour on a game completely. You never know what curveballs life will throw at you and these projects can easily face delays. We would hate to let you all down like that. We agree we would rather work at our own pace without that immense pressure. Also, I am kinda old fashioned when it comes to the trading of goods…you give money, me give you game! Unga bunga.

Q: So…that’s it? We’re never getting a sequel?

A: Ehh…all of this aside, never say never. If Band Camp Boyfriend unexpectedly blew up in popularity and had a mind-blowing amount of sales, then I would absolutely reconsider a return to Blue Mountain High School. But I don't really see that happening.

I really hope this news hasn’t made you too sad and I hope you’ll join us for the next game! Saying I am extremely excited for it is an understatement. I’d like to share a little bit of what we have planned and I hope it will get you excited as well, and you won’t leave here feeling too down.

If you loved Band Camp Boyfriend, you will certainly love our next otome game. It will carry the same elements of humor, romance, darkness, and drama you can expect from us—and this time, the stakes are even higher. (I know--what stakes could be higher than high school marching band?!)

The structure of this game will be a bit different. We’re dropping the crazy long common route because we feel like we’ve been there and done that, and it’s a huge headache. I love long common routes but now...I get it, I get why a lot of games have a short one or just have you pick a route, hahaha. This game’s common route will be much shorter (one whole day haha), but each romance route will be a beast in length with larger branches into various endings. The plot is so heavy that it would be best experienced in a specific order so a couple routes will be locked when you start up the game.

There will be heartwarming good endings, tragic bad endings, and somewhat bittersweet endings. And we shall once again have an original soundtrack and partial voice acting, so keep an eye out for that casting call! We plan to cast later in the process so we don’t keep our voice actors waiting around for light years on end.

There will be four main love interests to fall in love with this time around, though I’m certain you will fall in love with even more. This cast will be older, as well, with a 25-year old MC and LIs ranging from 24 to 30. I’m looking forward to writing a more adult story (not 18+, just in tone and perspective). I can’t wait to someday introduce you to them along with the rest of this memorable cast. Or maybe you’ve already heard of them…?

All of this means my social media activity is going to be eclipsed by writing and planning this next game for a while. Our platforms may be a bit quieter, but I will continue to check them of course, so don’t ever hesitate to reach out!

I’ll eagerly be anticipating the day we can start revealing the game and its amazing characters once we have something to show you. It was conceptualized way back in 2019 and been patiently awaiting its turn to shine. There will also be a free demo for you to meet the cast and dip your toes into the plot. For now, we gotta focus on the grind! But I know we have the perseverance to see this through because we’ve already done it once before!

Thank you so much for reading all of this. You deserve a yummy heart-shaped cookie with pink icing for doing so. We really appreciate you all so much! Please look forward to our next game.

♥ Lovebird Games

#lovebird game studios #indie game developer #otome #visual novel

[yeetus-feetus]

Because the foster system is absolute shit, and I'd imagine Gotham's foster system is probs 10x worse, I've had an idea.

We know Stephanie's baby is not Tim's. But we also know Tim was willing to step up and help with the baby regardless, we know he was there for the baby's delivery too.

We also know Stephanie is not ready for a child, and that's okay. She was still basically a child herself at the time and she also feared for her babies safety if she ever was to keep it. It's okay for her to choose to give it up.

But I propose maybe Tim is the one who gets too attached here. And he's confused with himself because this child isn't even his. But he loved Stephanie, he still does though it's platonic now, and I just think he'd see that baby and immediately love it just as much.

And Tim knows he could never take this baby on just by himself, and Stephanie would never let him because again, their jobs are too dangerous.

Tim is also aware of how trash the foster system is, especially in Gotham.

So I'm imagining Tim somehow convinces Ma and Pa Kent to raise this little girl, because he can't imagine anyone else more trustworthy and qualified.

They're always down for a new kid. Ma had wanted a large family all her life, but unfortunately she was never able to have kids of her own. Clark was a miracle sent to her from above and Kon was a blessing in disguise, Ma thanks the powers that be for the chance to raise both boys.

But the Kent's have never had a daughter, and I feel like they would welcome this baby in with open arms. A little girl for them raise and dress up, and Ma's already started crocheting her a cute little cardigan.

And I think Stephanie was more worried than her child's safety than anything else too, so I think she would feel a lot less anxious handing the baby over to the Kents.

Like think of the story potential of the Kent's raising this little girl. She's safe away from all the vigilantism, and she has a normal childhood with two stable parents, just like her mother wanted for her. And then the heartbreak of that vigilante lifestyle still finding this girl despite all this anyways.

Just imagine how devestating a storyline that could be. You sacrifice a relationship with this child so she can have a better life, and it's all for nothing, because there's your little girl in a Kevlar suit swinging from the rooftops.

It was inevitable really, vigilantism is in her blood. Gotham is in her blood.

It doesn't matter that all she's known are the rolling fields of farmland, the soft embrace of a small country town, Gotham is still something living and breathing inside of her, and no one from Gotham can ever truly leave.

And you can't even be mad at the people who raised her, you can't fault them for this because they have done everything within their power, they've been good parents.

All Stephanie can do is despair. Because Tim promised her, he promised this child would never have to know the struggles of their own lives.

Her daughter will never be safe on the crumbling rooftops of this cursed city.

But here she is anyways, despite all efforts and sacrifice.

Also I feel like, if this girl is raised by the Kent's, when she does eventually come back it will be much easier for her to build up a real relationship with her mother when they reconnect. Because as someone with complicated family, I feel like it's very common for a child to want to seek out their bio-parents even if the parents who raised them were super loving and caring.

Sometimes you find your bio-parent/s and you regret ever looking for them, regret ever asking the people who raised you to help you find them. But other times you get welcomed back with open arms, wet apologies, and a good reason for why they gave you away.

I just think it'd be something nice to explore. More representation ig. Like all of Bruce's kids have known their parents before being adopted. But we've never gotten to explore what it's like for a lot of people who never even knew their bio-parents.

I mean sure, we got a glimpse of that desperation to fill the feeling of a missing piece with Jason, but we all know how that ended for him. His mother was a really bad person, and she's the reason he ends up 6feet under.

But I really want representation that shows not all parents who give up their kids are bad people. Some of them are actually doing what's best for that child because they have the maturity to understand that they wouldn't be able to provide a safe and stable environment for a kid. They're puting the child's needs first.

And I'd really like to see the struggle of a child who's only known the people raising her as her parents and despite how good they are, still feel like something is missing.

#I understand Clark also sorta had this experience but like he has lazers that come out of his eyes and his bio-parents aren't alive #I want a story with similar premise I guess but with the child's parents still currently alive so she has to grapple with that fact #Clark was sent away because his parents died #Which might be a lot easier to come to terms with than the idea that maybe your parents never wanted you and chose to give you up #And then the part where you meet said parent and feel guilty for ever thinking you simply weren't enough for them #You learn that you were enough and that you are loved and that's why you were sent away #I just really want to see that #stephanie brown #dc #tim drake #ma kent #ma and pa kent #story ideas #adoption

[rthko]

Hey so here's a conversation you might or might not be interested in having but if you'd like to, it's been my understanding that you participate in the time honoured tradion of cruising (TM), so I was curious about how/why you first started engaging with that? Was it an intentional choice? Are there still live spots around where you live? Natural continuation from the grindr life? Feels like it isn't really a natural part of gay life for a lot of people these days and more of an active choice.

I do like having conversations like this! Now I do cruise, but not in the ways that first come to mind with the term "cruising." My experience is limited to bathhouses, bars, and parties with play spaces, but I haven't done it in, say, a park or a highway rest stop. Cruising refers to looking for sex in places known for the practice. Said sex does not have to occur there, so finding someone at a cruising spot and going to a second location is cruising, but a couple arranging to have sex in a park is not. There are definitely gray areas--is Grindr cruising, or is it an existential threat to the culture? What's the line between a plain old bar hookup and cruising? Is going to a cruising spot only to have sex with people you already knew cruising? Maybe someone reading this knows better than I do.

Knowing spots is and always has been a matter of word of mouth, but sites like squirt . org and Sniffies have made it a lot easier. People looking to cruise might look at these sites, or look for advice for their city in forums, or just know the right people who know their way around the "pickle parks." The spots I've been to are the easiest to find--obviously people are going to be having sex at a bathhouse. But there are other options--informal, discrete spots that don't (or can't) require an entry fee. You'd be surprised just how many there are, and not just in the cities you'd suspect. I just don't know much about this world, aside from the "official" brick and mortar spots.

I started going first out of curiosity, but then I kept finding more and more reasons. It wasn't a natural continuation from Grindr life but rather a reaction against it. I was sick of Grindr. I wanted to work on people skills, like dishing out and taking rejection respectfully, and without the ego-preserving move of a block button. I had a roommate and felt awkward inviting people over. I didn't have a car and had a hard time even getting to other people's places, and by the time I got there I'd lost my sexual appetite. I found being naked or in a towel in a space full of equally naked people helped me be at ease with my body. The men I had sex with couldn't find and contact me after the fact unless I deliberately gave them contact information. I felt more freedom to say no or change my mind in a place full of sexual possibilities than I would at someone else's apartment. I found a lot of reasons beyond finding voyeurism and exhibitionism hot--which I do.

I have learned not to focus too hard on the why. A lot of different types do it for a lot of different reasons, and that's part of the appeal for me. There are closeted and experimenting men, out and proud gays who view the baths as part of their identity, disrobed white collar professionals visiting my city for a conference, locals who can't host, and nobody's really asking who's who. This is the sort of contact that Samuel R Delany wrote about, overcoming the guiding rule of cities that we "don't talk to strangers." Michael Warner also has great writing on cruising and public sex, and challenges the idea that gay victory will look like normalcy and the end of cruising. Cruising is not as popular as it used to be, and I think it's important to acknowledge a lot of this comes down to policy and not a change in the gay conscience. Ironically, the very gentrification that scrubs away these spaces has made them necessarily through a tightening housing market where fewer people can host. I would not be surprised if I heard it confirmed that more gays lately are choosing to cruise--or already are and don't realize it. At the risk of over-simplified sentimentality, I'd be glad to hear it.

[hanibalistic]

#6F417E | EARTH-42 MILES MORALES.

genre | fluff, faint angst / reader is gn

synopsis | miles found you fainted in an alleyway one day, except you died two years ago.

word count | 8175

warning | briefe violence / use of spanish phrases translated from the internet :( let me know if i'm wrong about anything! / everything i know about e-42 miles morales is from the movie / this part deviates from the movie 

parts | one, two, three, four

There were four things you learned from what happened at the bank. 

One, Gwen's finishing touches to your glitch-prevention bracelet saved the essential parts of your body—neck down and hip up—from getting injured. Upon detecting the incoming air pressure released from the explosions, which the bracelet mistook as the effect of a glitch, it surrounded your torso with a protective shield that would have covered you fully if the blasts did not cause it to malfunction.

Two, the loyalty Rio has for her son was extraordinary. After Miles called her out to the back alley of the hospital building, she did not hesitate a second to sneak you into a vacant room and take from the hospital the medical supplies needed to treat you as best as she could. She did not ask any questions. It was one look on Miles’s anxious face, and she was on her feet, taking charge. Because of the safety measures Gwen placed in your bracelet, you did not sustain any fatal wounds, making it much easier for Rio to help you. The only problem you encountered was pain, a lot of it.

Three, Miles has done terrible things. He was the prowler, whatever that meant. The explosions were one of the significant steps in a bank heist that he, Uncle Aaron, and Gwen took up as a side project. Most of the time, they work on lucrative commissions offered by the likes of Kingpin, whoever that was. Kidnapping, assault, and even murder were not irregular to him. He confessed that he had killed someone before, and you asked him to stop it at that.

Four, after shutting yourself out from everyone, except for letting Rio bring you food occasionally, you realized you couldn’t care less about what Miles has done.

The thought haunted you, leaving you in an endless debate with yourself. How dare you let go of your conscience? How dare you treat a criminal with kindness? How dare you look a killer in the eyes and see someone different than their dirty past? To say you were distraught would be an understatement, as the accusations your mind kept throwing at yourself were the least troublesome hurdle to jump through. The most teeth-rotting matter was that you were guilty. You avoided seeing Miles because you knew once you did, the outrageous truth would hit you harder than the bomb blasts did. The fact that you still looked at him with love.

“Can I sit next to you?”

“Yeah–yeah. For sure.” 

You climbed on his bed and sat cross-legged next to him. Miles sucked in a breath when you touched knees, and suddenly, all his senses were focused on that particular contact spot. You picked at your fingers sheepishly, feeling rather silly about your week-long silent treatment. But you needed it for self-reflection and to come to terms with your conclusion. Miles waited for you to speak. He didn’t know if this was only a spur of the moment, and he wasn’t willing to take any risks that might chase you out of his room. 

“I thought about what you told me at the hospital,” you started, rubbing your hands. 

“I’m so sorry about what happened,” he said, turning his head ever-so-slightly to gauge your reaction. “I would never hurt you on purpose, [Name]. I really had no idea you were there.”

“I know,” you nodded with a faint smile, “I forgave you the night it happened.”

You felt he didn’t accept your forgiveness and supposed that was only natural. If you were in his shoes, the mental gymnastics you would do to keep yourself occupied with blam could rival his. The only thing that could get him to treat himself kinder would be time, specifically having you pass through it with him. Licking your lower lip, you rubbed your nose and hummed a soft, audible grin. He turned fully to you then, feeling less anxious.

“Miles, I don’t judge you for what you did or what you plan to do,” you said, your head mildly gesturing in emphasis. Concentrating in deep thoughts, you rubbed your eyes, sniffed comfortably, and faced him with a knowing upside-down smile. “Be it you have a reason or not, I don’t think I will ever–how do I say this? I don’t think I will distance myself from you, ever.”

He felt breathless, but it came from the incongruence between his mind and heart rather than the supposed relief that you accepted him. He was too accustomed to anticipating horrific reactions that he forgot people could be open-minded. You were not supposed to be okay with what he did. You couldn’t be okay with what he did!

“[Name],” he heaved out with an uncontrollable shake of his head, “my hands are bloody.”

You looked down at where he rested them on his lap. Were they? Miles’s hands may be bloody, but they were also a multitude of other things. They are a mother’s secret financial support; they peel the skin off fruits, stroke your hair when you cry to sleep and dance across your love handles in a ticklish haze. You reached out tentatively to hold them, finally realizing he was trembling. Was he scared? You didn’t react to it. His hands fit cozily in yours, as they always have, and suddenly, Miles didn’t fear the atrocity they were capable of. You broke him down, mellowed him out, rinsed him off all he’s ashamed of, and he—

“Mine will cover the stains for you.” You held up your interwind hands with a tight-lipped smile. “See? Can’t even see your palms anymore.”

—loves you, in a frightening way that it seemed like you felt the same way too. 

“[Name],” he hushed, his head dipping in exhaustion. “I’m not gonna stop berating myself.”

He wouldn’t, and it would hurt you less than it would hurt him.

You let go of his hands and watched him desperately scramble for you. It was a heartbreaking sight, even for a split second, to see his longing ragged out like an unwatered plant reaching for the faintest taste of rain. Getting your arms out and open, you refolded your legs into kneeling to pull him into a proper hug. Miles gritted his teeth to silence the screeching voices as he returned the hug immediately. When he closed his eyes and buried his face in the crook of your neck, feeling the usual crank of it because your neck was sensitive and ticklish, he began to calm down.

Feeling you pat his back, he supposed this was all anything should feel like. Love—a word capable of expressing an emotion of its terrifying caliber. What else could it be? True love is the inability to abandon, in the same way Miles waited for you even after you died, and you refused to let go of his cold-blooded hands made warm by holding yours. 

“I’m so sorry,” he said. “I would never hurt you on purpose.”

“I know.” You nodded with a sudden thoughtful hum. “Hey, you know what you can do to make it up to me?”

Miles perked up slightly and pulled away. He raised a brow when he saw the bashful smile on your face. You’ve got an idea, and he might not like it.

The pressure in your stomach dropped whenever Miles was pulled back to the ground by gravity. Not a second after reaching the floor, he was up in the air again, his boots allowing him to reach a much greater height and distance when he jumped. As the chilling air hit your face and hair, you realized Miles was right to bundle you up after he finally agreed to take you on a stroll high up in the air. 

When you raised the idea to him, his reaction was as he suspected: he did not like it. Or, well, he did not understand it.

You had told him about the faint memory of a floaty feeling the day of the bank accident, which, after he told you about him being the prowler, you could deduce had come from him taking an unconventional shortcut to the hospital. He made the mistake of admitting that he was hopping from roof to roof to get you there because the next thing you asked was for him to do it again, but this time you would be conscious of experiencing it. 

Perhaps he has possessed the convenience his prowler suit gave him for too long. He couldn’t understand being fascinated with the ability to be in the air. You briefly mentioned Spiderman and his interesting web-shooting function as an argument to get Miles to understand you, but how could he? He wasn’t even sure if Spiderman was real! Still, he caved into your wish, grabbed the boots he kept hidden in his closet because he refused to go anywhere with the risk of bumping into him for now, and brought you on a rooftop stroll. 

What was originally a safety hazard forcing his claws to wrap steel tight around your body soon shifted into something of ease. His heart grew in size at how much fun you were having, and for once, he reverted to the boy he was the first time he experienced the thrill this well-made suit gave him. He kept his eyes forward to map a path across the buildings, his claws helping him move closer to the sky. He heard your uncontrollable laughter, he wished he could see your eyes light up brighter than the moon above, and he envied the wind that brushed your face and hair. 

This was a good idea. This may be the single best thing he has done.

“Where are we going?” you whispered, tightening your arms around his neck.

“You’ll see. Hold on tight.”

Miles kicked his feet against the brick wall to hoist himself a good distance upward before forcing his claws through the concrete. He pressed the hand on the low of your back into his body, keeping you steady in one arm. You couldn’t bear to look around at the height you were stuck in, but the arm strength Miles has to support two weights while climbing up a tall building with one arm was surprising and, dare you say, attractive. 

The skyscraper was a place Miles hadn’t visited since ‘your’ death. Being here with you now did not make him feel better. He was careful where he stood on the edge of the highest point of the building; he wanted you to look over the bright borough.  

“Oh, no way! You brought me to the skyscraper?” you exclaimed, looking up at him. “You always said no when I wanted to come here.”

“I got reasons,” he huffed out quietly. Upon your silence, he peered down from the night view and saw you staring at him expectantly. He barely rolled his eyes in defeat. “You died here. You fell.”

The high-pitched hum you let out was comedically timed. Rigidly turning your head to face out, you could only imagine the exact height of this skyscraper as you could not see below the horizon. No wonder he didn’t let you on the ground—this would be one hell of a fall if history repeats itself. Miles chuckled lowly when you curled your arms tighter around his neck and slumped your weight further into him. You echoed his chuckle.

“Well,” you muttered, “definitely not letting go of you anytime sooner.”

“I’m not gonna either,” he said.

A sudden gust of wind blew at your face. You leaned closer to his neck for warmth, your eyes squinting at the building lights. It was too late into the night for the borough to remain bustling as in the morning, but the illumination from apartments, stores, and other high buildings made an equally homey view. The silence was enjoyable, too; just the open air and the inner sound of you counting your breath. 

“Was it embarrassing?” you asked suddenly, your voice hoarse.

“What is?”

“Me falling? I don’t know–“ your body shifted upward, forcing Miles to adjust to your new position–“did I look weird when falling? Did you see me fall? Did anyone see me fall–oh my god, were the police here?”

“I’m sorry. Where is this coming from?” he asked with a confused deadpan. “What are you even saying? None of that matters?”

“It actually does matter because I feel–“ you sucked in a deep breath dramatically–“I don’t like having too much attention on me, and if the police came, I feel that would be very awkward.”

“You trippin’.” He rolled his eyes.  

“What? That’s very valid!” You knocked your fist on the back of his shoulder. “Did I look weird when I landed? Did you see it? Did my brain splatter–“ You quieted down with an opened mouth when he flashed you a pointed look, but several suppressed giggles periodically left your lips as you moved your hands from his neck to cup his face. “Oh, I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to put that thought in your head! Don’t think about that!”

Miles’s eyes softened. He wanted to kiss the laugh lines around your mouth. “I wasn’t thinking about that.”

You breathed out the last of your giggles and then stared at him. He was thinking about you even with you here—you knew, you knew very well. Your fingers grew timid at his stare, but they refused to leave the curve of his face. They could only ghost across his skin in freckled spots, treating him with the care he has given you. Miles barely leaned into your touch. He tested the water first, afraid that you would pull away at his immediate engagement, and he fully pressed his palm to your hand when you kept it where it was. 

You brought his face to yours. “Hey!” you whispered with a soft grin when your nose touched. 

“Hey,” he returned. He was soft. You’ve made him soft, made him a messenger of affection. “Your hands are cold.”

“I know.”

You pursed your lips at the feeling of his nose scraping past the bridge of yours. He was leaning closer, inviting you to something more intimidating than standing on the edge of a skyscraper. 

“Miles.” your voice was hushed. “Miles, I’m shy. Can you kiss me first?”

He leaned forward to kiss you after dropping a relieved sigh. You closed your eyes at the sheer force of his desperation, your hands mustering up the courage to grip his face tighter and bring him to you. The taste of your lips cascaded over his conscience. You hit him, like a ton of bricks, like the feeling of flesh wrapped around a blade, like being in the center of a firework explosion. It was a feeling he would trade anything for; one could ask him for a lifetime in return for a second of your lips on his. 

“Woah! Did you forget you’re on the run, Miles?”

“Oh, jeez! Mayday, don’t look!”

You two broke away immediately at the uninvited voices. Miles puffed air into his cheeks with an eye roll, not even attempting to hide how irritated he was at the interruption. Still heaving from the kiss, your brows furrowed when you came face to face with four outrageously different-sized figures, all dressed in a variation of a Spider suit, with a literal toddler wearing a Spiderman mask too small for her head. 

“Who…?” you started slowly. “Spidermen…? Spiderman’s sidekicks?”

“Now that’s just disrespectful,” the one with spikes on his head commented.

“Oh, I’m sorry,” you muttered in response.  

“Who are you guys?” Miles asked defensively as he took a few steps back. He held you closer to him, his knees barely buckling in preparation to run. 

“How could you forget your mentor, Miles?” The man took off his mask and opened his arms as an introduction. “It’s me! Peter!”

“Oh my god, it’s Spiderman.” You slapped Miles’s chest to be let down on the ground, but he refused. Although his hair color changed, and he looked relatively scruffier than you remembered on the news, those features could not be mistaken. That was the face of the superhero you grew up seeing. “I thought you died. It was all over the news!”

“How could I be standing here if I died?”

“You know him?” Miles questioned. “I don’t know him.”

“Apparently not?” you mumbled. “Maybe he faked his death somehow?”

“Wait, what about me? You remember me! It’s Pavitr? We fought together! You saved my girlfriend’s dad, Inspector Singh?” He pointed over to his friends, his hair bouncing lusciously. “With Gwen and Hobie?”

“Gwen?” you and Mils exclaimed in unison. Her eyes widened at the sudden collective attention.

“Dude, what are you wearing?”

“Gwen, you’re a Spiderman–err, woman?”

“Okay, you’re seriously playing up the Spiderman jokes?” Miles deadpanned as he arched his neck to look at you.

You pulled a face before swinging your arms to gesture at five newcomers. “They’re literally here. Spiders, all of them!”

“I’ve never seen spiders stand on two feet.”

“Clearly, you haven’t seen a lot.” 

Miles sniffed with distaste. “Right. I’m gonna listen to someone with spikes on their head.”

“Miles!” you exclaimed with a harsh pinch to his cheek, then you turned to apologize. “I’m sorry. I think they look super cool.”

Taking a step forward, Gwen promptly eliminated the ongoing conversation by taking off her mask to reveal herself to you both. You tilted your head. She looked nothing like the Gwen you knew, and from her furrowed brows and darting eyes, she knew too. After a prolonged stare between you and Miles, the puzzles in her head piecing together, her relieved sigh was barely noticeable as realization hit her. She turned to her team with a shake of her head.

“This isn’t the Miles we’re looking for,” she said. “This is Miles from this Earth.”

“I knew that already,” Hobie smirked, hands in his pockets. “With the braids and all.”

Pavitr gasped with widening eyes. He pressed a hand to his chin and nodded. “Oh wow, I didn’t even register that. You look good, Miles!”

You punched Miles’s chest when he kept a brooding silence. He scoffed, smacked his teeth in dismay, then slurred out, “Thanks.”

“Okay, wait! Hold on, hold on!” Peter yelled without having gathered his thoughts. He shifted the weight of his legs, leaning on one hip, and pinched the bridge of his nose as a monotonous thinking noise churched out of his throat in a flat line. “But how? Our watch told us he was here. It gave us the signal that someone from Earth-1610 is here.”

“Someone is,” Gwen said. She turned around slowly, a look of uncertainty, then she pointed at you. “It’s them.”

None of them explicitly explained what they were talking about, but using your experiences and the confusing context clues, you could easily decipher the problem's gist. Something was happening on a multi-universal level. You didn’t know what exactly, but this felt to be a problem regarding that.  

“Gwen, I know you thought you explained the issue but you didn’t,” Peter muttered. He whipped his body around to you and held both hands in the air in a chopping motion. “Are you a Spiderman?”

“No.”

“Not you, big guy. You!”

“Oh, me?” You pointed at yourself for clarification and shook your head. “No, but there is one where I came from. Technically there are two, but the original one died, and he looked almost exactly like you! Just different hair color and… ski–never mind.”

“First of all, I had a feeling you were gonna call me fat. I’m not. I just look like a dad now, which I am. I have to clarify, okay? This is all dad weight, and this cutie-pie is my daughter, Mayday!” Peter said as he gestured toward himself and at Mayday. Then, he burst into a fit of confused noises. “Second, where you came from?” he repeated after you incredulously, paused for a brief moment, and then turned to Gwen, his eyes rolling. “Okay, yeah. I think I know what you’re talking about.”

“Psst… what are they talking about?” Pavitr whispered from the side, unknowingly having inched closer toward Hobie, who leaned down to his height for an explanation.

“That lad is Miles’s lookalike from this Earth. The one he’s clutching to him like a madman is from our Miles’s Earth, which is bonkers 'cause how did they even get here?”

“They’re not from here?” Pavitr widened his eyes. “That’s not good!”

“How so?” Hobie stood up straight.

“Oh, you know, with Miguel and everything,” Pavitr said as he twiddled his thumbs. “Actually, maybe not! I’m sure Miguel isn’t that obsessed about all of this.”

Just after his voice dropped, a portal emerged from behind where Miles stood. The second he noticed the faint glow flashing over his shadow, he jumped away to stand with the newcomers he was still wrecking his brain to familiarize himself with. You stared at the portal with wide eyes. Not once in your life have you seen technology like this, and when you glanced over at the others, you could see a certain dread on their face that peaked your heart rate. What got a bunch of Spider-people so agitated? It must be a real threat.

“Won’t you look at that,” Miguel appeared from the portal, his eyes looking as dead as usual. Following behind him were Jessica and Ben. “The whole gang is here.”

"How did you even find us?" Peter exclaimed in annoyance.

"Your watch, obviously." Miguel pointed at Peter's chest. "Your daughter took it.”

Peter gasped as he looked down at Mayday. He didn't notice it before, but sitting loosely around her wrist was the watch Miguel gave him that he took off before Gwen came to find him. He squeezed his eyes shut—shame on him for letting the same thing happen twice, even though neither was technically his fault.

Hobie breathed out a chuckle at Mayday before he elbowed Pavitr. “Do whatever you want, but I’m telling ya, you got to watch out for the things you say. You’re gonna jinx up the whole place like this.” Bringing his leg up so he could march over to Miles and stand behind him, he bent forward until his face was within Miles's earshot. "I suggest you run home now."

"What? Why?" Miles whispered, stepping away from the proximity. His attention shifted when Peter's obnoxious voice rang through the air.

"Jesus, Miguel! What do you want now?"

"The same thing you all want," Miguel said as he rubbed his wrist. He snapped his head over at Miles, who gulped when his gaze averted to look at you. He stared for a bit too long. "People who are not supposed to be here."

You. That man was talking about you. Miles didn't know what business he had. If anything, he thought himself a much bigger threat. But Miguel was looking at you when he spoke, so it must be.

He bolted the second he made that conclusion. He would deal with it if he later discovered he had come to the wrong one. For now, with the warning from a man whose words he could barely understand and a bunch of context clues he haphazardly strung together on the fly, he was unwilling to take any risk that would make him lose you. Wrapping his arms around your body to hold you into a hug rather than a carry, he instructed you to hang tight and took a few bold steps backward to the skyscraper edge so he could drop off its height.

"Wait, hold on, Miguel!" Peter shot his arm out to squeeze Miguel's shoulder when he saw that Miles would be followed. "You're after the wr–"

"Peter!" Gwen shot out a web aimed at Peter's back and immediately pulled him away from Miguel, preventing the man from telling the truth. Taking the slipping chance, the three slipped past in pursuit of you and Miles.

"What are you doing?" Peter asked incredulously, his eyes following the fading backs of his once colleagues.

Pavitr and Hobie approached them to catch up on their conversation. 

"Let Miguel chase him," she said sternly, her eyes fixated on Peter. "It works in our favor that he is occupied with the wrong Miles. It buys us some time to find our Miles."

Peter opened his mouth to speak, but no thoughts leaked out. Gwen's logic was sweet and sound. It would make everything so much easier for them if Miguel was temporarily out of the picture. But there was a pierce he felt, through his supposed moral compass, not at the blatant lie of omission he has to tell but at the fact that he would willingly send a grown man after two children, one of whom was just an ordinary civilian.

"Gwen, I don't feel like that's the right thing to do," he sighed.

"Maybe we can try to help both of them?" Pavitr suggested. "We can find Miles as fast as we can and then help the other Miles."

"They won't last," Peter said. "I don't know if that Miles has superpowers, but he's definitely not like us. I don't think their friend is capable of anything, either. Miguel will get to them before we can be done."

"You're saying if we want to help, we ought to do it now," Hobie sniffed.

"That's what I just said."

"I know. I was just repeatin' it."

"We can't afford to be distracted!" Gwen argued, her tone releasing from being firm to a pathetic, exasperated plead. "Don't forget, you're the one who exposed Miles's location in the first place. And now you've exposed ours!"

"Woah–Gwendy, calm down," Hobie said with a light pat on her shoulder. He spun to face Peter, humming at his distraught expression, then turned to meet in a general direction. "We're wasting an awful lotta time arguing about nothing. How about we get a move on, yeah? Pavitr's plan might work if we go now.”

"Yeah! I agree!" Pavitr clapped in agreement. “We just need to go in quick and come out even quicker!" 

“That made no sense,” Peter mumbled. 

“Maybe not to you.” Hobie shrugged.

“Focus, you guys!” Gwen hollered over the wind, catching everyone’s attention. She pursed her lips, her mind filled with a singular goal: save Miles Morales. “I’m going regardless of what you say," she said as she stepped to the edge of the skyscraper. Before she tipped over, she added, "I'm gonna save my Miles."

"Dramatic," Hobie chuckled with big strides forward, seemingly to follow after Gwen. "Better catch up, lads." He clicked his tongue confidently and mocked a salute as he fell off the edge. 

Miles was on the run. You already knew, but that fact punched you in the guts with even more velocity when you realized how quickly your surroundings were passing through. He was no longer holding you in an embrace-like position. After he made it down the skyscraper, Miles hoisted your upper body over his shoulder with his arms circled around your waist so he could better run at his regular speed, which you learned was abnormally fast, much different than the speed he picked when he was strolling around the area. 

Closing up behind you was a man in a Spider suit furiously galloping on all fours. You didn't even know they ran like that. You thought all Spider-people swung with their webs. Running like this may be faster than swinging around. Or perhaps the man's sheer will to catch the two of you amped up his speed. The only reason why Miles was able to periodically distance from Miguel was that he knew this Brooklyn like the back of his palm; all the detours and shortcuts were mapped in his brain, and he knew how to properly mix and match their usage. 

"Miles, he's crazy," you whispered, clutching his shoulders. "He's running like a wolf."

"Tu puta madre–" he spared a glance back and widened his eyes–"why is he chasing us? What did we even do?" 

Hopping off a building and into an alleyway, Miles slipped to the side and hid behind a wall. He pressed his back against the concrete wall to hide behind the shadow. 

The more he ran, the more he saw how it only delayed the consequence of getting caught. He could run home as suggested, but bringing trouble directly to his mother wasn’t ideal. On top of that, it may expose his prowler identity, which was the last thing he wanted. He could keep running, but eventually, he would get tired. He wouldn’t overestimate his ability to escape; a man that size running on all fours has the kind of stamina he could not rival. He had to fight with gimmicks to win, and his first option was to hide.

Taking the time to reposition you on his shoulder, apologizing with amusement when you shivered at his hands gliding past your hips to your waist, Miles carefully placed you back on the ground. When your feet hit the ground, he reached for the crown of your head, squeezing your head and trailing both hands down to your face. He pushed your face together, forcing you to pucker your lips. This was supposed to be a fun night. He felt terrible that this was how things led to. 

“How are you feeling?” he asked, smoothing his thumbs over your cheeks. “Are you okay?”

For the time being, you felt like you could be. His hands were warm, and his touch even warmer. 

“I’m sorry. This is my fault.” You smiled bitterly once he let go of your face. “He’s here for me, but I don’t know why.”

You haven’t done anything. Even arriving on this Earth was not a purposeful doing. You made no significant changes to this Brooklyn; even if you tried to, you would not have succeeded. You regularly lived as you would have in the universe you came from; staying at home, doing house chores, learning how to cook, getting groceries, watching movies, maintaining a good friendship, and falling in love. None of those were criminal activities! You have done nothing remarkable for a random Spiderman to get so upset with you!

“Be honest, [Name],” Miles started, touching your shoulders. He took a deep breath before squinting. “Are you secretly a world-class criminal?”

“If jumping universes is a crime, then–“ You hummed thoughtfully before shaking your head in disagreement. “Yeah, no. I’d just be a regular criminal because I only jumped once, and it’s by accident, too.”

“Actually, I never asked, but how did you get here?”

You suppressed a burst of laughter. “Are we seriously gonna talk about this now?”

“My bad,” he held his hands up in mock surrender, “is now a bad time?”

“A super bad–“ You screamed when a figure abruptly slid upside down beside you. Instinctively, the hand initially reaching for Miles’s face deflected from its path to punch the intruder in the face.

Ben swung slightly on his web, a curse pushed out of his mouth at the impact of your fist. He hadn’t registered you to be a big enough threat that he failed to block your sudden attack. If it had been Miles’s gloved claws swinging at him, he likely would have reacted. Miles smirked, almost feeling a sense of pride at the sheer strength of your punch. While you profusely apologized for doing something you didn’t mean to do, he grabbed your hand and ran down the alleyway. Mid-way through, he tugged harshly at your arm to bring you in front of him so he could scoop you up as he picked up his speed.

“I can actually run pretty fast,” you complained lightheartedly.

“For sure, baby,” he mused, his feet screeching for an abrupt right turn when he heard Ben’s voice calling after you both. 

However, just as he turned a corner, he was met with the wheel end of a motorcycle. Miles raised a hand up to grip the spinning tire. Before he could dig his claws through the material and pop it, he felt himself being pushed back by the heavy force, so he, tensing his arm muscles, attempted to deter the bike's path before the millisecond of him getting thrown back. His back hit a brick wall, knocking his senses everywhere for a brief moment as he haphazardly reached to cover your head. When he looked up, he was only met with the yellow shades of a woman in red. He huffed; if there was any indication that these people were getting fed up, it would be hitting him with a motorcycle.

“Jessica. You caught them!” Ben exclaimed as he emerged from the shadow, a hand massaging his chin that was pulled into a sneer. His voice was weirdly raspy as if he was playing up a character. “That stupid kid punched me. How dare they.”

“You showed up out of nowhere!” you retorted with an accusing finger pointed at him. “Also, shouldn’t you be able to block my punch? You’re Spiderman! You can’t block a punch from a teenager?”

“This kid is talking back to me. I feel a little distraught. I don’t know how to talk to children.”

“Shut up, Ben.” Jessica waved her hand before she turned to you both. She observed as Miles hopped back to his feet and glared at her. You looked less menacing, but your furrowed brows spoke caution and ready disobedience. She sighed. Another pair of moody teenagers. Miguel would not be happy about this. “Look, we don’t have time for this. You need to go back to where you belong.”

You pursed your lips in dismay and shook your head. Miles pushed you toward him when you circled your arms around his neck, and you slightly averted your gaze from the woman to avoid confrontation. Jessica squinted her eyes at the way you two held each other, a sudden inkling developing that she desperately wished to be wrong—you fell in love with someone from a different universe. She already felt bad enough about what had to be done to Gwen. There was no wrong in sticking to what she believed in. It was just unfortunate that she had to treat teenagers mercilessly to do so.

“You two can write letters to each other,” she said after gathering her thoughts and reverting to professionalism. Her job was to return all anomalies to their world, not limited to villains. Getting off her motorcycle, she slowly walked over to Miles, who didn’t get the sense of running away because of her regular speed. When she was within an arm’s length, she grabbed your arm. “We’re leaving.”

“No!” you refused and tried to shove her off, but she was persistent. 

“Dude, stop!” Miles attempted to step out of reach.

“Dude?” Jessica repeated with wide eyes. “Your mama taught you no manners?”

“His mom is great!” you exclaimed as you snatched your arm away from her grip. Your irritated eyes turned into a glare.

Miles nodded. “Yeah, she doesn’t throw a motorcycle at people’s faces.”

“Okay, I’ve had it.” Jessica laughed in disbelief. “I was trying to be nice, but that’s out the window now.”

Deciding to ignore her harsh tugs at your arm, you resorted to making sure you never let go of Miles instead. You intertwined your fingers that met at a point of his neck and buried your face to his shoulders, tuning out the world. Fear lingered in your chest like a haunting ghost, and it dimmed somewhat when you zeroed in on the feeling of Miles’s grip on your body. You were still here. He was still with you, holding onto you with a death grip. And you thought this might resolve itself eventually. Maybe these people would let you go if you two struggled enough together. Or perhaps it wouldn’t end well, but at least you held on as best as possible. At least you tried.

“Miles Morales.” Everyone paused to look behind Jessica’s shoulder. Miguel stood tall and alarmingly brutal just a few feet away. His dead eyes shifted from the boy to you, and he tipped his head into a brief greeting. “And you.”

Jessica took a deep breath; the real threat finally showed up. She released her hand from your arm and turned to face Miguel. There was something she wanted to say, not to deter Miguel from his plan to take you back to your Earth, but rather a few trying words to prevent him from executing any more brutality, especially when you were as harmless as a dove. The last thing Miguel should have on his conscience was inflicting injuries on a regular civilian. It would be good for him in the long run. Before she could open her mouth to speak, though, Miles buckled his knees and jumped up high. He was making a run for it again, but before his feet even touched the top of the wall separating the streets, his body barely turning away from anyone, a red string caught onto your wrist and snapped you out of his arms.

“¡Mierda!” 

He caught onto your ankles, engaging in a tug-of-war with Miguel that did nothing but put a strain on your limbs. Clicking his tongue, he gave one final hard tug at your feet before letting you go. You screamed, your body swinging toward Miguel at full speed while Miles, fully utilizing his boots, ran to sneak up behind the man and shoved him forward so Miguel would collide with your flinging body. Letting Miguel stumble in confusion and, out of instinct, reaching his arms out to catch you from a hard fall, Miles jumped forward and did the job for him. He secured you in his arms, wasting no time to bolt away. But Miguel was phenomenally quick to regain his senses, and his eyes glowed a bright red once he realized how difficult Miles was being.

He leaped forward, fangs and claws out to grab Miles by the back of his neck. As he swung the boy around, you dropped to the floor and knocked your forehead against the dirt. Miguel slammed Miles into the closest wall, denting the red bricks. He squeezes the poor boy's neck, not entirely cutting the air out of his system but suffocating just enough to make Miles feel outrageously uncomfortable.

"Ay, would you stop that, big man? You're gonna kill the kid!"

White webs shot out and attached to each of Miguel's wrists. He could recognize that godforsaken voice anywhere—Hobie Brown. Noticing the webs on his wrists, he groaned lowly in irritation. He might just snap (if he hasn't already, this madman) if he has to come across one more obstacle. Not allowing Hobie a second to pull him away, Miguel squeezed Miles's neck tighter to pull him out of the dented wall and threw him across the alleyway to the other side. The collision collapsed a hole through the bricks, creating an unnecessary ruckus.

"Now you've gone and done it," Hobie muttered, looking at the destruction. 

Your jaw dropped anxiously. You could faintly see Miles under the debris, showing no signs of getting up. He couldn't have died. Not only would that become a personal problem, you simply refused to believe a childhood superhero figure would kill someone you know and love. Scrambling to your feet with quickened breath, you took a weak step forward, his name hanging quietly at the tip of your tongue. When he didn't respond still, you tried to run towards him only to be pulled back at your wrist.

You looked behind your shoulder to find Miguel facing away from you. His grip on your wrist was firm, almost bone-breaking, to serve a warning. The same portal you saw him arrive in opened up, creating a gust of unnatural wind, and he was pulling you toward it. You attempted to break away, but he was much stronger. Nobody around seemed to be able to help you, not even Punk-looking Spiderman, so the only thing left to do was to hyperventilate for sympathy. This felt like an impending doom, where doom was actually just a few steps away on the other side of a portal. 

"Wait, please don't do this. I don't want to go home. I want to stay here!" you cried, a migraine developing from how you kept turning back and forth to look at Miguel and Miles. "Why are you doing this to me? Please stop, please!"

Sympathy rested in the hands of those who couldn't help. Miguel was as stoic as a rock to your pleads, and you somehow expected him to be. It was just heartbreaking to be proven right how difficult things could get. You kept sucking in deep breaths and forgetting to release them, causing your chest to expand awkwardly. You didn't know what to do, but you've got to try something! Anything! 

"Wait–I haven't said it! I haven't–" a deep breath–"I haven't said goodbye! I haven't said I love you! Let me say goodbye, and I promise–" another deep breath–"I promise I'll leave with you. Please. I promise, I cross my heart."

Miguel paused, and that mere action took everyone aback. He pursed his lips, a flicker of remorseful nostalgia showing in his eyes as he recalled the sudden death of his daughter. You didn't remind him of himself, but your wish was similar to what he would have asked for if he ever could re-experience the tragedy—he would want to say goodbye. He would like to tell his daughter he loved her. Heaving a sigh, he pinched the bridge of his nose. At least you were cooperative; he felt he could be kinder in this case.

"Do not try anything stupid."

Once Miguel released your hand, you ran and fell on your knees next to Miles. Pushing the debris off his body, you scooped him onto your lap and caressed his face. Sniffing away a tearful voice, your voice ended croaking anyway when you called his name, "Miles?"

He opened his eyes meekly to see doubles. It took him a good minute to concentrate on your face, and he smirked when he did. The first instinct to take you and run away was defeated by a pained back and exhausted legs. He would not overestimate his ability, even through immense desperation. He wouldn’t get both of you far enough to not get served something worse. This appeared to be it.

”Mi cariño. Hey."

You laughed; you still had no idea what that meant. Miles refused to tell you, and he also got his mom in on it. But you figured it was a term of endearment. Miles took off his gloves to hold your hand, pressing your palm to his face as he stared at you. Somehow, he couldn't muster up the courage to cry despite the continuous drops in his chest. It could be a pride issue, or he didn't want you to see him suffer in your last minute together. Last for now, at least.

"You're going to leave me," he acknowledged.

"Not on purpose," you replied.

“I know,” he hummed. “You love me too much to do that.”

He had thought about it before. There must be people you were dying to go back to in your world. Not a classmate, no. Not even a friend. But a parent, perhaps? Family members? A pet, certainly? There has to be something waiting for you back in your home. There was no method for you to jump universes yet, but Miles figured if you were raging to go home, it would show. The fact that you blended into his life so casually and permanently, to a point where you memorized his schedules and knew where little trinkets were located in his apartment, told him you chose him over the life you used to have. Every day you woke up, you preferred a life with him in it rather than what you had before.

“You do love me, right?” Miles asked for assurance, his brows furrowing. “I didn’t hallucinate that.”

You squeezed his cheeks—gentle palms over bloodied skin, gentle palms over gentle skin. No more violence, not more crimes. He was but a boy you loved. He doubts your affection, and you would go home with him burned in the back of your head, finding his touch trapped beneath your flesh once stripped naked. From a universe away, Miles was all you would remember. Smiling, you peppered kisses over his brows, his eyes, his nose, and finally his mouth. When you pressed your forehead against his, you scrunched your nose and nodded. 

“I do love you, Miles.”

“Yay, score.” He chuckled, then his voice quieted down to a low hum only meant for you to hear. “I love you too, okay? Aqui y allá, mi corazón es tuyo.”

“Time to go, kid!”

You smacked your lips and puffed an exhale. Running your knuckles down the side of Miles’s face, you nodded to yourself as an encouragement to get on your feet. Your feet budged, then your knees, but instead of standing up, you only shrunk your body closer toward Miles. You willed your voice to say a farewell, but it couldn’t under the threat that this goodbye would be your absolute last one, so you cried instead. Fat tears silently rolled down your chin, caught on your tongue, and forced you to choke on them.

Jessica rubbed her eyes as soon as her voice dropped. She shouldn’t have let Miguel talk her into breaking the moment. Instead of moving, you only leaned your body down and pressed Miles to your chest, hugging him. A passive protest, perhaps. You were not directly struggling but weren’t listening to them, either. She eyed Miguel when he sighed in defeat. He wondered which one was worse—chasing a rebellious kid with Spiderman powers or this. This one sure made him feel like the bad guy if anything. 

He reached for a portable trap box and threw it toward you without hesitation. Before it could reach you, though, a web shot out and pulled it backward, causing the gadget hit Miguel in the face.

“You need to reconsider your morals,” Hobie said in a scolding tone as he walked up from behind everyone. “Trapping a kid in a box. Are you mental?”

He has been watching everything unfold from the shadows, and clearly, he realized the differences in how he saw you and how the other three saw you. Your lack of cooperation was a sign of rebellion, which could be considered so to a certain degree. But Hobie knew to consider other factors; he looked at the bigger picture. There was nothing you could do here, literally. One web shoot and you’d be caught, and you probably already knew that. Your so-called sign of rebellion was less chosen and more forced by the hands of emotional turmoil. You were about to be separated from the boy you were in love with. It would make sense that you were physically unable to be the person to walk away.  

If you were going to leave Miles Morales, you must be taken and nothing else. You stood by not leaving him intentionally. Miguel was going to do that for you, but Hobie decided to take a much gentler approach. Trapping you in a box when you’ve done nothing wrong was, as he said, fucking mental. 

“Don’t struggle, yeah? It makes me uncomfortable,” Hobie muttered as he reached for your waist and pulled you up. He slapped his hands on your shoulders dramatically and turned you around. “The portal is gonna feel doozy. You might vomit. If you feel like you’ll vomit, do it when we arrive at HQ. Preferably all over the floor. Just splatter it around like a sprinkler.”

“Huh…?” You did a double-take at what he said. “That’s disgusting.”

“Vomiting? Yeah. Vomiting on an establishment?” He hummed and tilted his head. “Debatable.”

“I’m sorry, but I really am having a hard time understanding you, Spiderman,” you said, your sobs increasing because you thought Hobie might take it as an insult. 

“Why are you apologizing? You haven’t said anything you shouldn’t,” he said, the panic in his voice unnoticeable. “Also, call me Hobie, not Spiderman.”

“I’m sorry,” you squeezed your eyes as if to produce more tears, “I know that’s your name. I just didn’t use it because we’re not close.”

“Don’t be silly,” Hobie mused, a hand slipping from the top of your head as a makeshift pat. “I’m more friends with you than those three over there.”

You let the faintest giggle of disbelief escape your lips and turned back to Miles. Hobie continued to pull you away from the floor and toward the portal, not taking a moment’s rest. You didn’t struggle against him; eventually, your hand slipped from Miles’s.

#no because i can't believe i actually gone through with this #miles morales imagine #miles morales x you #miles morales x y/n #earth 42 miles x reader #earth 42 miles morales x reader #earth 42 miles x you #earth 42 miles fluff

[system-of-a-feather]

Alternative System Mind Mapping Method for Communication

[DISCLAIMER: This is not a professional or scientifically or anything really backed method, this is something coming solely from peer / personal experience.]

In regards to an anon ask earlier, I was thinking about it and one of the ways we've approached improving communication - particularly internal - in a way that is a lot less prone to flooding or dealing with trauma or anything too overwhelming - is by approaching it following the concept of Memory Webs

I haven't read up on them recently, but "Memory Webs" were a thing that our AP Psychology teacher in highschool made us do because the AP Psych test was term / jargon heavy. Memory in the human brain has been shown to be HEAVILY associative and the ability to remember and connect things tends to rely on following a "web" of connected topics, ideas, concepts etc from one idea to the next.

So in our AP Psych class, she gave us these GIANT books for Vocabulary Webs that we had to slowly work on, each of which required 6 other vocab words / related concepts, a summarized definition, and an image to represent it. By doing this, you added 6 cues to recall the word (increasing the chance you'd remember it), a visual cue, an episodic memory of working on it, and a definition - all in all improving how connected the word is to other concepts in your brain and making it easier to recall it.

I personally like to look at DID and our parts in a similar manner sometimes where the large issue is that a lot of the nodes in the web of associations are either disconnected or connected through a hard-to-find and/or small chain. In that sense, parts struggle to be held together because they are not associated concepts. It's hard to reach other parts because the dissociative walls (which in our unsubstantiated opinion is less a 'wall' and more so a lack of reinforced neural connections, so I would call them dissociative caverns) keep associations from forming

As a result, alternative to more traditional ways of mapping your system and parts, a method I've liked to internally visualize systems and navigating system dynamics is through a memory web manner. (I actually have never done it physically cause the Ray part of my brain - also the most prominent part writing this rn - rarely liked to front if he didn't have to and did a lot of stuff internally)

Here's a bit of a breakdown using six of our parts if any of you want to try it out.

We personally like it because it strips a lot of trauma and stress off of it and makes it a lot more of a positive and present engaging activity. For the purposes of this, I'll be using the free online app of Milanote cause we've used it before for OC associative webs and I think it'll do fine enough. (Honestly it actually might just be a good way to log alter information now that I'm looking at it if you are at a place in recovery where keeping track of that physically helpful)

So we can start by dropping down the parts we want to include in the form of boards

So from here, we have a bunch of disconnected parts. However, we find that a lot of these parts have things that mean a lot to them, that illicit a strong emotion or reaction from them.

Some parts may lack it more than others (often in our case trauma holders and/or trauma locked parts) and that's okay and to be expected. This is a visualization method and if there isn't much connecting a part that is 100% okay.

For demonstration sake, I will now add bubbles around each part of things that were pretty early apparent that each individual liked.

Also for the purposes of how I know our system works and how I plan to do this, I am actually moving Riku to the center and you will all see why Riku is such an S tier center point with this model

So you can see some connections forming.

Some key things you can take from this visual that also applied to earlier stags of how we connected

Lucille and Riku are and have always been pretty darn connected, they go back as one of the longest duos and were split almost as a pair to deal with academics

Chunn and Ray have a very shared interest of "I don't want to do anything leave me alone"

XIV literally was just a piece of shit early on and didn't have any immediate HARD connections with anyone largely because he never was interested in actually engaging in things he liked in a positive way as his "favorite emotion" at the time was "being pissed off"

Lin - an originally trauma stuck / loop - is very very poorly associated with anything that isn't overtly trauma related (and that is saying something cause Vocaloid is trauma related) and thus has very few connections to other parts

So looking at this though, there are a few things that have some similarities between parts. What you can do is make plans to try to foster the interests that you do have and try to generalize it a bit more to also encompass what interests other parts have. So lets engage in hobbies a little more - explore a few concepts that mean a lot to parts independently - and find some more generalized version of those hobbies

(forgot to add easy listening to Ray's and "only wearing monochrome*" to XIV's earlier) (*there are a lot of nuances and caveats)

Damn, look at that. It's messy and ugly to have in a 2D form. I absolutely hate it, this would be so impossible with our whole system. But HEY, it's very connected - and that's the goal.

Compared to the previous one, you can see how easily it can be for one part's interests to start to drift into another. Because they are largely and strongly associated features to each part, they are a lot more accessible when engaging in their shared / associated connections and interests which makes it easier for the them to stay together near the front, stay associated with one another, and work with and communicate with one another.

Of course anyone following this blog goes "Where tf is Birds" and that I left out because it would ruin the point of the web as it actually is one of our traditional "you are around the system a lot? okay pick a bird" which serves to 1) be a fun system culture thing 2) be a means of welcoming a part in and 3) helps establish a foundational connection; we do the same with music but with music its a lot more elaborate and I probably wont explain it for other reasons.

But overtime, by fostering interests that were already present and encouraging parts to broaden and generalize their specific interest a bit, you end up with a lot of overlapping associations that can greatly improve internal communication, co-fronting ability, and just general fluidity and easy of moving around the brain web.

It becomes a good way of trying to figure out what you can do to encourage and help build connections and associations between parts by seeing where things are similar / could have more overlap (combat and martial arts, different types of fashion, different types of music, different appreciation for arts, taking over the world, yada yada yada)

And you wanna know the coolest thing? When you step back from the whole web you can see certain things appear that stand out the most and have some of the most connections.

If you ever intend to go to Final Fusion, those are the things that will likely be the most prominent traits of your whole self

For us? [REDACTED BIRDS for the point of the demonstration], Music, Fashion, Taking over the World, Recovery and Healing, Buddhism, Martial Arts, Arts in general - they're all some of our largest traits that persist in almost all forms as individual parts, partially fused parts, and fully fused parts.

And the BEST part? Doing this didn't require us to touch trauma at all.

Of course in recovery that will come up cause PTSD doesn't ask permission, but its a very low stress way to help improve internal communication and engagement with one another.

#actuallydid #dissociative identity disorder #resources #advice #internal communication #integration #feather's unsubstantiated theraputic tools #unsubstantiated advice #alter: fei #final fusion #functional multiplicity #wishiwashi recovery #system mapping #system map #mind mapping #mindmap #recovery #healing #alter: ray #<- heavily authored by that part of this brain #system dynamics

[prokopetz]

Brief summary of my thoughts so far now that I've done character creation and played half a session (we broke in the middle but may come back to it):

1) 7 players and a GM is too many. I know you know this already but I want to reaffirm it because that was what we had and it was really hard to understand what was going on.

2) I made my character 100% random and then backsolved an identity from there, and it worked better than it had any right to. The Traits are very evocative and I immediately had ideas of what I wanted my God Eater to look like.

3) I'm not sure the Calamity Clock is explained as clearly as I'd like it to be; to be honest, Tests in general are explained in a pretty convoluted way. It felt like some of the less-experienced TTRPG players at the table struggled with them, especially coming from a 5e-only background.

Sorry if this isn't the most helpful feedback; I'm just getting my thoughts down before any more time passes and I forget how the session went. I'll do a more full writeup if/when we finish the session.

(With reference to this post here.)

I definitely agree that the process of making tests could use a cheat sheet, and that's something that will be present in future revisions. However, it's worth noting that it's probably impossible to boil it down to something that a player with a 5E-only background would find intuitive because of some pretty basic differences in what kind of games they are.

In brief, 5E (and Dungeons & Dragons in general) keeps its conflict resolution mechanics almost entirely GM-facing in order to make it easier to onboard new players. Those mechanics are structured in such a way that it's completely feasible for the GM to figure out the target numbers, the applicable modifiers, the range of plausible outcomes, and the interpretation of the results with no player input whatsoever, with the player's sole responsibility being to roll a die with the correct number of sides (and if push comes to shove, the GM can do that part, too).

Eat God, conversely, is designed from the ground up to readily support GMless play (the specific rules for that will be in a forthcoming revision), which means that its conflict resolution mechanics can't be purely GM-facing. It puts a lot more responsibility on the player in terms of figuring out what the hell is going on, both narratively and mechanically, because its design goals mean it has to.

That said, it might help to frame it for a 5E player like this:

Making a test in Eat God is like playing blackjack: rather than rolling as high as possible, you want to roll as high as possible without going bust; "going bust" means all of your dice came up higher than your relevant Facet.

Everybody gets one die to start. If you can use any of your Traits to help with whatever you're trying to do, you get advantage on the test and roll an extra die. Unlike 5E, advantage stacks, to a maximum of five dice.

Instead of having a separate "damage roll", Eat God gets "did I hit or miss?" and "how much damage did I do?" from a single roll. A test's "damage" is the face value of the highest die that didn't go bust; the rules refer to this "damage" as a capital-R "Result".

You can get bonuses or penalties to a test's "damage" based on how effective the GM thinks your approach is. The GM will generally tell you about these modifiers before rolling. A penalty can't turn a success into a failure, no matter your Result; just like in 5E, a successful hit always inflicts at least one "damage".

Instead of critical hits, Eat God has critical fuckups. These have a range of dice roll values that trigger them, just like conventional crits; for example, you might score a critical fuckup on a roll of 11+, just like a champion archetype fighter in 5E gets a critical hit on a roll of 19+. This range can vary depending on how goofy the GM thinks your approach is.

Critical fuckups are assessed on a per die basis, so if you're rolling multiple dice, it's possible to generate multiple critical fuckups on the same roll. Yes, this also means that rolling multiple dice makes you more likely to succeed and more likely to fuck up, and creates the possibility of doing both on the same test. This is intentional.

When you roll a critical fuckup, the GM doesn't have to make something bad happen to you right away. They can do that, or they can take the fuckup and bank it toward a countdown to a really big fuckup that affects the whole adventure. You can see this countdown, but the GM is not obligated to tell you what will happen when it hits zero.

#gaming #tabletop roleplaying #tabletop rpgs #eat god #game design #playtesting #swearing

[coldalbion]

Dis/nomers: On misnomers, magic-metaphors, and life in general

So, here's the thing: a lot of societal and cultural metaphors around magic and occultism are in the so-called West, frankly, bad and a product of the imprecision in the English language about "power", which themselves are inherently modelled on industrial-capitalist frameworks thanks to the Industrial Revolution, and steam power. Think about what you mean when you use the word "power" or "intent" and ask yourself whether you are once again running on 19th Century (colonialist ideas: for example see non-Indigenous misconceptions of mana) that boil down to thinking you're a steam engine or some sort of closed system - because that's what the whole popular idea of energy comes from. Why? Because willpower doesn't really exist. Now something seems to be going on, when we do certain things. But are we hoodwinking ourselves - barking up the wrong tree, being led down the garden path -by the porting in pop-metaphor? Sure, it's easier, but is the apparent ease and clarity obscuring insights? Is it preventing us from taking our place as part of a living world; not clockwork and piston but inter-and-intra-relating, inter-and-intra-being in an 'animist' cosmovision? Consider the metaphors you use, and wonder how they're using you. Because they are - we are thinking-with-and-being-with the ongoing worlding of a daimonic (agential) kosmos. And that All is doing the same-with-us. Remember, changing the metaphors we use can change the way we think, and how we are in the world. This is why I mutter about kenning, as found in Old Norse poetry, but also as a method of indirectly approaching experience by folding in the world. Kenning is, in one sense creating a poetic metaphor, a circomlocution that describes a thing without direct nominalisation. A wheelchair user can be a throne-walker; the sea is not just the sea, it is the whale-road and also Aegir's-cauldron, Poseidon's-stable, etc etc.

"It is no coincidence that a kenning is a poetic term of art, a doubling and metaphoric circumlocution of a singular noun or thing – the sea becoming the “whale-road”, a sword seen as the “icicle of red shields”. A singular referent now exceeds itself, drawing the relationality with the whole world of those present. This indirectness, far from detracting from the referent, deepens the knowing. Each portion of the kenning exceeds itself also, thusly thickening the field of the sword or sea, and, in enhancing its relationality, enlivens each further. Further, this means that the poet acknowledges the excess of the referents, comprehending that kenning may build on kenning, and the full, totalistic mapping of a referent is doomed to fail in terms of completion. This goes even beyond the usual aphorism from astronomer Carl Sagan: “If you wish to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first create the universe.” For each element of the apple pie is capable of being defined by the relationality of all presences, in all forms, positions, and configurations in all possible and impossible universes – and each of these in turn relate to each other as they will. This then, is the joy and horror, the wonder and terror of an animate, fluxing kosmos – there is always more." - Goêtic Atavisms, Frater Acher & Craig 'VI' Slee (See link above: also available on Amazon as well as from the publisher if you need that)

Do we want to live in a world circumscribed by misnomers, grandfathered in with extractive and clunky ways of perceiving the world? Or do we want to embrace the dis/abling wyrd strangenesses of the numinous? The liberatory power of the dis/nomer - the radical proposition that there is always more than can be named, can be contained? That we might ken more if we embraced blurry, uncertain periphalisms which spiral endlessly inward and down into pandaemonic, living, breathing labyrinths? If we immersed ourselves in relational eddies, tides and gyres eternally returning-and-coming-forth-again - dis/membered and re-membered anew? To dive into currents and flows - the multiplicitous assemblage of influences which are the very bodyof the oceanic river which Herakleitos warned us that we could never enter in the same place twice? What might we notice is already happening, already ongoing, that we are amidst, then? Might we spot the plurality of Minotaurs engaging in their diasporic fugitivity, nomads in their myriad labyrinths, far older, wiser, and weirder than we thought we knew? Spaces of monstrously numinous sanctuary, far beyond the ken of the Theseus (their supposed slayer) and his identitarian regime of denial, his heroic ever-intact status quo. Pity the ship-builders in their labour; they work do so under the threat of sword - or is it gun and bomb, these days? But while Theseus abandons Ariadne, Dionysos does not! And while Theseus eschews the sea route to perform his labours in order to gain heroic glory and satisfy ambition, his oceanic ancestry has the last laugh - both mortal father Aegeus (thrown into the sea that bears his name) and he (thrown off an island cliff - presumably into the ocean) were reclaimed; seized by the sea and its thundering white horses. What might it be, to be oceanically possesed as that hero's mother was? To have one's soul-sea stirred by the Earthshaker? We can but dream on the matter - while also slyly noting that Athenians kept the Ship of Theseus preserved, as mark of divine heritage in their feted city ruled by the demos. What matters now, in these days when even politicians talk of the so-called "will of the people", is matters of ancestry and history dismissed; lineages of language and its many influences ignored - no entanglements here, vine or otherwise, we assure you! But thankfully, the ship-builders know the way of wood and net and weave. They know how many planks pass through their hands, how many nails struck, how much pitch is brewed. They know there's more. They're craftsfolk after all - assemblages are their business, whatever the material - they know what mattering is. And isn't it interesting that the Temple of Hephaistos in Athens was once mistakenly called the Thesseion - The Temple of Theseus, before the moderns realised their mistake? Watch the words we use, and how they use us. Be seeing you.

#goetic atavisms #magick #occult

[ladamedusoif]

It might be the cold meds talking, but I feel like I need to have a ramble about writing - partly because I’ve seen a few “you write for YOU and whatever you WANT” posts over the last few days, some of which have been spot on and some not so much.

To clarify: this post isn’t about me. Or at least, it’s MOSTLY not about me. It’s just some observations about fic.

This is a lovely and important message. Ultimately, we do all write for ourselves. Of course we do.

But saying “write for you and only for you!” is easier when you’re someone who routinely gets hundreds of notes on a fic within the first couple of hours. Or when you’ve got a massive audience already. Or when you write something that seems to get more attention than anything else in terms of popular characters and tropes (ahem Joel age gap smut ahem).

Trends come and go in literature of all kinds, whether properly published works or fics. That’s par for the course.

But the problem is when it feels like only a certain kind of story gets any attention. When stories with real heart and love and care and feeling seem to be routinely ignored because they don’t fit the bill: they’re slow burns, they don’t involve popular tropes, but they’re proper stories that could exist without any connection to the fandom they’ve been written for.

And, worse, when the people writing those stories start to feel deeply disheartened and as if it’s just not worth it.

We talk a lot about anon hate (spoiler: don’t do it) and nine times out of ten that seems to be based on the idea of people writing potentially triggering or taboo topics saying they’ve received “hate”. (Sometimes this is actual hate and sometimes it’s genuine, considerate questioning around warnings etc.)

Thing is: the people writing the ‘unpopular’ stories get hate - genuine, real, nasty hate - too. This post isn’t really about me, but as an example: I’ve not turned on anon asks in months, because of the last shitfest. And I’m not alone, because I know what people have had sent into their inbox in response to the most inoffensive, sweet stories. It baffles me.

All this is to say - I wish people would be a little bit more open in what they want to read, and would recognise that “anon hate” isn’t just about puritanical prudes trying to “tell people what to write” as seems to be the general assumption. People keep trying to put a bit more diversity out there in the fic buffet, to write loving and carefully crafted stories, and for all the “write it for you” posts it still feels like it doesn’t matter. Like no one wants it. And that’s when writers start to think they’re awful, their ideas are bad, their style is weak.

Worse? They get shitty, mean-spirited asks and comments. (Even if it’s not “hate”. I’m still baffled by the people who say they couldn’t finish a one-shot of mine because there wasn’t a significant age gap between the Reader and the male character… but I don’t think that’s strictly hate, as such. Dispiriting, though.)

And what happens then? They stop writing. The stories cease. And the fic buffet becomes more and more one-note, more and more dictated by prevailing winds and a particular kind of purple prose style. And the readers - who might have found those stories if more people had engaged with them and reposted and shared them - wonder why no one seems to write for them.

A while back I wrote a tag that was something like “there’s room for everything”. Unfortunately, that “everything” remains a little limited, at least in terms of what actually seems to get picked up and gain traction. And “there’s room for everything” doesn’t mean that all writers are above reproach, either.

Try something new, people. Give a soft story a go. Who knows, you might like it.

#rambling rose #writing #support your local fanfiction writers #if there’s room for everything then there’s room for everything #does not mean you can’t take any criticism ever #it should mean more engagement with a wider range of stories #unfortunately that does not seem to be the way #fanfiction

[agent-carvour]

@agent-black-heart @peip-peeps @stuckinmyweb As promised, I am informing you about what I’ve gathered and the plan I have come up with so far.

First of all, it seems like Wiggly made a mistake. The deal didn’t clarify that John actually belongs to Wiggly, or that Wiggly can keep him. At least according to somebody who claims to be an expert, this means that if we get John out of the Black and White, Wiggly can’t just take him back. The good news is, that I think I already have a big part of that part of the plan figured out.

The simplified version of the plan is obvious. We send somebody into the Black and White and they get John out of there. Of course, in reality it’s a little more complicated than that. Wiggly won’t just allow this to happen, so we have to distract him. For that - and I am sorry, Colonel, I would have preferred to avoid this too - we’ll do another summoning. But this time, there won’t be a deal. At least not a real one. We just need to keep Wiggly entertained for as long as possible.

For the summoning, I believe Axel and I should be present. Axel would be the obvious choice to go get John, since they can travel in and out of the Black and White at will, and it wouldn’t surprise me if Wiggly has noticed how much snooping around I’ve been doing, so it might make him a little less careful, if he can personally keep an eye on us. We’ll also need a third person, but that’s a little more complicated. One of us needs to have blood that’s never been used in a ritual like this before. Mine was used in John’s summoning, and I’m not sure if Axel’s still counts as pure after everything that happened with Blinky. Colonel Schaffer, I’d really like for you to be the third person, but if your blood won’t work, we’ll have to find somebody else.

The deal we’ll be proposing has to be interesting. It has to entertain Wiggly and give us a lot of opportunity to argue among each other and about the terms with Wiggly, to buy as much time as possible. My idea is that we offer him one of us in exchange for John - just like he did - but with the fun little twist, that Wiggly gets to choose who he takes.

That’s team summoning, let’s talk about team rescue.

This is where you become very important, Webby. Do you think, if Wiggly is distracted, you can get John out of the Black and White by yourself? And if not, can you get somebody else in and out of there and protect them from the damage the Black and White is causing the human body? Admittedly, I don’t have a lot for this part. That’s because we’re still facing one major problem I haven’t mentioned yet.

John started physically changing the moment the summoning ritual was over. And I have reason to believe that Wiggly has continued to expand his influence on him. In other words, we won’t find the John we all know. As far as I know, some of you have already seen what’s happened, but for those who haven’t, just assume the worst. That should be about right. He won’t let himself be rescued willingly, and it’s very likely that he’ll be hostile towards us. That means we need a way to overpower him and to hold him here, once we’ve got him. Once again, we’ll need your help, Webby. Apparently a piece of your web can be used to shield somebody from the lords’ influence. It won’t fix him, but it will make it easier for him to fight Wiggly’s influence until we have an actual solution.

Speaking of which, I am working on that. I don’t have much to show yet, but I really hope I’m looking in the right direction. Either way, I don’t think we should start acting until we at least have a concrete idea of how to fix John. If he escapes before we can fix him, or if Wiggly manages to intervene, that means we’ve lost. We’re back to square one. No, it would be worse than that! Right now our biggest advantage is that we might be able to trick WIggly with the summoning. He won’t let us do that a second time. I know you all want to act as soon as possible, but we can’t risk throwing this one chance away. I don’t believe we’ll get another one.

But if you want to do something now, here’s a list with things that still need to be figured out:

- If the Colonel can’t be part of the ritual, who are we using instead? - Detailed terms for the fake deal that we can argue about with Wiggly - Ideally a way to guarantee that we can stop the summoning before any contract is made - If Webby can’t get John out on her own, who will we send to do it instead? - An ALternative if Webby can't get somebody in and out of the Black and White - Almost the entire rescue part of the plan, especially how can we overwhelm John and keep him here?

And of course

- How do we fix John?

As I said, I am working on the last point, so I’d be very thankful if you could take care of the other ones. I’m trying not to involve either of the Wilburs in the first half of the plan, because of their still somewhat existing connection to the lords, but I’m trying to work with them on the solution for undoing whatever Wiggly has done to John. And I might also ask another person for help on that…

As always, if you find anything new or have any ideas, tell me.

#hatchetfield rp #hatchetblr #{I had to edit this so much because shit keeps happening ;-;}

[dailyadventureprompts]

Drafting the Adventure: Dungeon Layouts

One of my most famous complaints about 5e D&D is that the section on creating and running dungeons (one of the most enduring and iconic parts of the game) is only six pages long, most of which is made up of art and random tables. This frustration is born out of the fact that I’ve been struggling to figure out some kind of guideline for exploration based dungeons since I started playing over twenty years ago. I’ve been routinely let down by how our hobby seems to default to “ just wing it” as a guiding design strategy,  especially when it comes to new players who haven’t yet developed the conscious competence to build dungeons that won’t derail their game in some fashion.

While I’ve tried attacking the problem from many angles over the years, one of my latest and most successful breakthroughs was realizing that most dungeons can be broken down into distinct “units” of gameplay, and that if I could develop an understanding of just how these units worked, I could develop a working methodology for designing dungeons regardless of how large or complex they might be.

After examining the conventions of videogames, escape rooms, theme parks, and even playgrounds, I ended up using the term “ playspace” to refer to these modular blocks of dungeon creation. It’s far easier to design a dungeon as a number of interlocked playspaces than room by room, and it's likewise easier for our players to remember a few evocative backdrops and their associated options, rather than trying to memorize the layout of a structure. 

Each playspace is meant as a significant chunk of dungeon material, playing host to atleast one significant encounter (puzzles, combats, skill challenges etc) with an associated number of minor encounters of different types for variety. Players might face monster lairing at the top of an old mineshaft, then fuss around the surrounding structures looking for a way to get the old elevator mechanism working. They might be collecting clues to solve a puzzle, only for the ghosts of the past to present elements of the dungeon’s backstory, along with a few hints. 

These encounters can take place over multiple interconnected rooms which are grouped together as a sort of thematic “bite” of the larger structure.  A “kitchens” playspace might include the kitchen itself, several storerooms, a wine cellar, and servants quarters where as a “battlements” playspace could be made up of the crumbling exterior of a fortress, a watchtower, armoury, guardpost, and a chamber beneath that the structure has crumbled into.

Below the cut I’m going to get into the three general types of features that make up a playspace and how best to chain them together to make a great dungeon, but to do that I'm going to need a lot of extra room and some god awful diagrams I made myself.

I want to use the playground as a visual metaphor for the idea of playspaces, so bear with me (and my sup par digital art skills) because I think you’re going to catch on quick.

Every playspace is made up of three main types of features: Hurdles, Diversions, and Slides

Hurdles are a soft barrier  to the party’s progression, everything from a stuck door to a cliff that needs climbing, to a mysterious message that hints at a hidden passage. Hurdles are meant to be solved, but they take some gumption on the party’s behalf before they can be passed outright. The use of multiple hurdles can offer an element of risk/reward as the party decides which path to go down next,  and can also softly encourage exploration before progression, if the hurdle is implied to be risky or one way.  A dungeon playspace that was nothing but hurdles would be a boring slog, trudging between one challenge and the next, so as useful as they are, it’s important to put breaks between them. 

Diversions break up the dungeon by offering stuff to poke and playwith, in many cases obscuring the most obvious route forward behind a number of minor steps and false starts. Rooms to search, environmental stories to uncover, hints about upcoming challenges,  oneoff combats or social encounters with minor dungeon denizens.  You’ll want to give your party a few varied diversions every playspace, some of which will be pure set dressing, while others are more substantial. At the same time, don’t swamp them with options. The average person can keep about four things in mind at a time and if one of those things is the party’s mission at hand, you don’t want to risk them forgetting about important elements.  

Slides are direct and one way paths of progression: a fight with a miniboss that blocked access to the next floor, the rope bridge snapping and dropping the party into the flooded cavern level below, pulling the relic from the altar and summoning a horde of “get the fuck out of here” ghosts that chase the party back to the entrance.  Some slides are obvious,  others are hidden and require discovery, a few of them might trigger unexpectedly and force the party to circle back around to where they were to either leave the dungeon or get back on track. The most important thing about slides is that they require setup, using hurdles and diversions to build the party’s expectations before delivering catharsis, the slow anticipation of the rollercoaster going up that first hill is what makes the drop after so thrilling. 

Now lets talk about how to mix these features ( and other playspaces) to make a larger dungeon

Imagine you were a kid looking at this playground and assessing your options of what to do next:  Even before you get onto the structure itself  you’re always presented with a variety of options on what you might want to do at any moment. 

Lets add a goal, some basic lock-and-key design, and imagine this playground is the ruins of a crumbling fortress

Now we’re getting into some interesting exploration: A group that pokes around the tube (crumbling outbuildings) and finds key B might have a significant lead on getting to the goal, but only if they think to climb up the balance beam ( a tough climb up a crumbling section of wall), choose to avoid the slide that will send them back to the ground ( a tough fight with an weight sentry), and get lucky in choosing which hallways to explore next. 

Another group that takes the more head on approach might try for the stairs only finding their direct way forward blocked, having to either engage in multiple hurdles before finding either the shortcut A, or stumbling into the combined slide/hurdle miniboss that guards access to Key C. After reaching the goal, since they didn’t find key B, their desire not to retrace all their steps and previous hurdles is going to lead them straight into that weight.

And here you can see how three very basic play spaces and a little forethought can make for a super interesting exploration based dungeon crawl. Give each zone a unique identity within the larger concept of the dungeon, and add some thematic challenges/encounters, and you’ve given both yourself and your party atleast a few sessions worth of classic delving fun.

As a side note: I feel like this term playspace is a bit more useful than “level “ which divides one section of the dungeon by difficulty rating and maybe theme, but isn’t very useful when it comes to imagining the structure when designing a dungeon top down. Likewise, when I think of fun and well designed dungeons in say.. The legend of zelda, the levels in those dungeons are made up of multiple interconnected play spaces, so I think the concept stands on its own.

#dungeon design #dnd #dungeons and dragons #d&d #5e #dm advice #dm tip #dm tips #dm tools #writing advice #drafting an adventure #d&d mechanics #homebrew mechanic

[unwhitewashthebadbatch]

Hello, really appreciate the work you're doing to bring awareness! I was wondering if you have thoughts/resources/suggestions etc. for fic writers who want to portray the clones well. I'm genuinely thinking that adding an author's note might be a good idea, but I'd love to have thoughts on respectfully mentioning the clones' appearance within fic itself. Thank you so much for all you do!

Hi, and thanks!

When it comes to writing, it's sometimes easier to come up with a list of "Dont's" than "Dos". This guide from NaNoWriMo is pretty straight forward!

Of course, there are some caveats: unless this is a modern AU, you can't directly say the clones are Māori because that term doesn't exist in Star Wars. However, this doesn't mean that their features don't! From another character's PoV, you could say they have even brown skin, dark eyes, and dark curly (not coily) hair with broad noses. You can tweak these for your level of prose, such as saying "warm" brown skin or coal-dark eyes/hair--but do NOT use food descriptions, as this is objectifying and dehumanizing. So no "chocolatey" (I have seen this) or anything like that.

Some authors like to code their characters as being from a certain culture, race, or ethnic background. Think of how Temuera Morrison portrayed Boba in The Book of Boba Fett and the Mandalorian, where he proudly put his Māori culture at the forefront of his fight in the latter show. I'm much less versed on the basics of Māori culture and ways of life than I am other cultures, so I personally don't know how to code the clones in the GAR as such. This is where research is important, both in terms of doing your own reading and reaching out to Māori cultural experts if they are willing to explain something.

One thing that I've seen that's quite popular in fics/art is Tā moko, which are the tattoos you may see some Māori with, like this:

However, Tā moko is sacred and, from what I understand, relates specifically to one's ancestors, whakapapa (genealogy, loosely), and rank within society. Non-Māori can use kirituhi. @/tu_edmonds on TikTok/Instagram is a Māori bassist for Alien Weaponry who has Tā moko and also has a video explaining the difference between that and kirituhi. He's also got loads of other good explainers for Māori culture and language.

Physically, don't be scared to make the clones short! Temuera Morrison himself is only 5'7". I don't know why they made the clones six feet. Morrison also has a stockier build, the way a lot of Māori do, so don't be afraid to describe them being bigger and less cut/lean than the 180 lbs they supposedly are in canon (although I refuse to believe that's true because that is incredibly thin).

This might be more than you bargained for, whoops! But these are the basic things I could come up with for describing clones in fics!

There are other ways to support #UnwhitewashTBB, if you like. I've been looking at and supporting @end-otw-racism (highly recommend you support them too!) and people will change the title of their fics or tag there works with #EndOTWRacism, as well as bookmark them/add them to collections? I'm not sure how exactly it works.

But if you or anyone else understands how this works, and your work is explicitly non-racist in nature (and focuses on the clones) I don't see why you can't also tag your work or write an AN that says #UnwhitewashTBB.

Hope this helps!

~ Mod CH

#ask #mod ch #star wars #the bad batch #unwhitewashtbb #uwwtbb #guide #maaori #Māori #writing help #fic #swtbb #tbb #temuera morrison #alien weaponry

[theheirofthesharingan]

Why do you think shisui and itachi stayed exceptionally loyal to konoha even after the mistreatment of the Uchiha clan? Do you think they should’ve rebelled against them and sided with their family?

Initially, both the boys were aiming to find a middle-ground where without any damage — or at least without any extreme damage — they could halt the coup, which would inevitably thwart the possibility of the war as well. That is why Shisui came up with the idea of Kotoamatsukami, the only thing that could work. It wasn't him choosing the village over his clan as much as it was his last effort to unite two powerful monolithic entities that were ideologically on the opposite side of the spectrum. Itachi was in full agreement with all of this.

It wasn't about changing the mind of one person, but the whole village that had been deliberately made to believe the Uchiha clan was responsible for the deaths of their loved ones, and had carried out an attack as powerful as that. If, as one final effort, Shisui could convince the clan with Fugaku's manipulation and arrest/deaths of a handful of the radical Uchiha, the peace attained would come at a much cheaper price.

But we know what happened. His plan with kotoamatsukami most likely would have worked, and Danzo couldn't allow that to happen. Shisui never reached the point in his life where he had to make one concrete decision in an absolute term. Itachi even believed that had Shisui lived to see the day when the massacre happened, he would have sided with the clan instead of the village, and they would have fought as enemies. But that's only Itachi's opinion. Who knows Shisui would have killed all four elders even before they ordered the massacre because of what they put Itachi through.

Itachi's case is different. I've written more about it here. Please go through this. Itachi's isolation from the clan wasn't only on the ideological terms but also their suspicions and their refusal to see the other perspective. Just like Shisui he also wanted to find a solution that would bring the whole conflict to an end with only a slight whimper, instead of what it came to in the end.

He became the biggest deviant in the clan because of him witnessing the war, which essentially turned him into a ninja that began to see the clan as a subset of the village, instead of a separate institution. He might have supported the clan had they come up with something other than coup to solve their problem. The whole idea of the coup was terrible and short-sighted, that even Fugaku, for all his experiences in war, didn't realize would not have worked.

In case Itachi sided with his family. The clan takes over the village, Fugaku becomes the Hokage, then what? The rest of the village that already saw them as a threat would have accepted it that easily? No. If anything, their fears would have come true. What they were told about the Uchiha would have been proven right. The rest of the clans would express their displeasure, followed by a lot of heated arguments, and who would have the time to exercise diplomacy in those moments? Add to that the clans taking sides (and the Uchiha would have been left on their own) would result in the defeat of the Uchiha. Even then, that would already cause tremendous tumult, enough to most likely attract the attention of the enemy nations. The last bit is a strong possibility. With Obito's involvement in the matter it becomes even more obvious, who wanted to destroy both the clan and the village.

Itachi hardly ever had any choice. Many people even bring the examples of the smaller villages being attacked and WW-IV not breaking out, but ignore that Konoha is a humongous village, and any tremor in it would be felt worldwide. Civil war would even be worse.

I come from a country where the rulers in the ancient times fought each other, making it easier for the invaders to attack and rule over us for close to one thousand years. I have no doubt that's what would have happened with the village and Konoha as well. It wasn't an easy choice for Itachi to make, but once he made it, he never backed down.

#itachi #shisui #ask #anon

[gendercensus]

On culture-specific gender words

I just had a bit of a ramble about this topic in the latest progress report, and I'll repeat it here for context.

I've been reading the feedback as it comes in, and based on some of that feedback I've been pondering the issue of culture-specific gender words. It's a very difficult issue, because:

If I add an umbrella term like "culture-specific gender" I feel like that won't help as much as people think. I think when you get right down to it there isn't a strict line between a general gender word and a culture-specific one.

I think a lot of people will check that box that the feedbackers were not intending, because when you get right down to it every term is culture-specific really, isn't it?

Marginalised groups relating to culture/region are by their nature fewer in number, which also means that their gender words are very unlikely to be entered frequently enough that they'll end up on the checkbox list.

The checkbox list is just a list of the most commonly-entered words, to make data-processing easier, but to an extent that creates a self-fulfilling loop of culture-specificity - people in marginalised groups come to the survey, don't see their genders in the checkbox list, immediately feel out of place, and check out again. Then their gender words are never anywhere near the top of the list.

So maybe it doesn't feel like the right approach to modify the checkbox list, but maybe the design of the survey can be improved to help people from marginalised groups feel more welcome and to encourage them to type in their culture-specific gender words, to address that bias.

This is something that comes up year after year, and it's always niggling at me, and I would really like to find a solution that feels satisfying! So, I'm thinking about it, and I will keep thinking about it.

Shortly after posting it, I updated some of the text on the front page of the survey a little bit. The previous wording had never sat right with me, and I realised that I could feed two birds with one scone.

Original wording: "As far as we know, most people fit tidily into one of these categories: [gender binary man/woman descriptions]"

New wording: "According to the white Western model of gender called the "gender binary", everyone fits tidily into one of these categories: [gender binary man/woman descriptions]" [See edit, below!]

I didn't announce this, but less than an hour later I got this in the feedback box:

"Not a complaint about the survey itself; Just wanted to say that dropping something like "white Western model of gender called the "gender binary"" maybe isn't the best idea. Not to mention that it's completely false. You probably only meant it as a joke or were trying to be edgy, but maybe think about what you're actually saying/writing beforehand."

I obviously can't take it into account or act on it at all, because they haven't given me any information about what's wrong with what I said or any corrections, they're just being passive-aggressive and ~vaguely ominous~

So I'm posting this as an example of the kind of feedback that has literally zero effect, and I'm inviting some feedback that is more informative and useful. How do you know a statement that I made is false? Why isn't it the best idea? In what universe is it "edgy" to point out that maybe the binary model of gender might not be universal in a survey aimed at people whose genders don't conform to the binary model of gender? I need multiverse co-ordinates, people!!

Anyway, obviously Tumblr is terrible for messaging, so the best way to send me feedback is to reply to this post (because it's all in one place), but if you want to contact me less publicly you can email me: hello AT gendercensus DOT com. For obvious reasons I am more interested in your thoughts on this if you're a person with a culture-specific/-exclusive gender, but basically all thoughts are welcome.

Edit, a few hours later: I've removed the "white Western" part now, because it didn't feel like a particularly constructive thing to include, and because I can't back it up with sources off the top of my head. I want to keep the introduction to just the pertinent information, as common-sense as possible.

So now it says:

According to one model of gender called the "gender binary", everyone fits tidily into one of these categories: [gender binary man/woman descriptions]

And I think I feel better about it. It implies that it's one of several models of gender, without raising it above other models, and race or region are not a factor but anyone not white or Western will hopefully read that and be reassured.

Further thoughts welcome, here or by email!

#feedback please! #gender

[whatsaudreythinkingabout]

Idk if u d0 r0mantic headcanons but… Dating Matthew Patel headcanons

I haven’t done romantic headcanons before (at least in terms of “x reader” stuff) but I’ll give it my best shot!

Quick disclaimer: I am a lesbian who is very much not attracted to men, so I’m approaching this from a purely objective standpoint just to get a better idea of how I interpret his personality & overall approach to relationships (& it’ll also help me flesh out my MattLee headcanons so I can get a clearer idea of their dynamic in my head)

So anyway:

Dating Matthew Patel

As I mentioned in my previous post about Matt (which you can find in the tags), after what happened with Ramona he became hesitant to pursue another romantic relationship because he figured it would only end badly, so he started to play up the whole “mysterious brooding loner” schtick so people would leave him alone. Unfortunately, this only attracted him more attention because 1. he was trying way too hard so it just made him come off as overdramatic and 2. there was a select group of girls in his grade who thought he was secretly a vampire and took him rebuffing their advances as “playing hard to get” (yeah this all technically takes place before Twilight [and by extension the vampire craze] comes out but it’s my headcanon & I’m allowed to have a little fun).

If he did catch feelings for someone, he’d probably start out repressing them pretty heavily like the angsty little bitch he is. He talks a pretty big game for someone who claims they’re so slick, but when the time comes to actually tell someone how he feels he shuts down & it would probably take him a while to work up the nerve to confess.

Either that, or he’d come in overconfident with some kind of ridiculous pick-up line, then cringe at himself on the inside whenever he inevitably crashes and burns.

However, once he does finally feel comfortable enough with a partner, he would be completely and utterly OBSESSED. This man is first and foremost a theatre kid, so he is dramatic as fuck and not afraid to show it. Expect a lot of big, flashy, over-the-top romantic gestures; gifts, food (I do HC him to be a good cook), nice dates, fully-choreographed musical numbers—you name it.

It’s been said that the difference between being in love with a hero vs. a villain is that a hero would sacrifice you to save the world, but a villain would sacrifice the world to save you. Matt might be more of an edgelord than a true villain (no matter how much he claims he’s totally evil, yeah sure you are), but regardless he would burn the entire world down if it meant the person he loved would be warm.

It’s also been demonstrated that for all his big talk he has a pretty fragile ego, so he’d fall apart at the slightest indication that you were mad at him. Just totally pathetic (/affectionate) malewife guyfailure energy

Overall he acts all doom & gloom on the outside but when he does love someone, he’d both die and kill for them

honestly that’s about all i got for right now. i might come up with more later but it’s a lot easier for me to do these types of things for female characters bc women

#scott pilgrim #scott pilgrim vs the world #matthew patel #headcanon

[rebeccathenaturalist]

apologies if you’ve been asked this before, but do you know a good way to find local native plant nurseries?

@swmngpools So there are a few things I do if I'm trying to find native plant nurseries in a specific place.

First, I'll search online for "[location] native plant nursery". Here in the US I usually search by state, though sometimes I'll add in the nearest major city, too. If my search is only coming up with general native plant sites and not nurseries in particular, then I'll put the location in one set of quotes, and "native plant nursery" in another--for example, "Seattle, WA" "native plant nursery".

I also try Google Maps. I navigate to the general area where I want to look--not TOO specific, especially if it's an area that is less likely to have native plant nurseries; I have more options where I live now in the Pacific Northwest than where I grew up in the Ozarks. I'll search for "native plant nurseries" or "native plants". Unfortunately, this doesn't always work as well as a general search engine because if there isn't an abundance of native plant sellers in an area, Google Maps tends to be more likely to show me general plant vendors. Searching in the PNW I get several hits on Google Maps, but searching around my old hometown in Missouri I get....Lowe's.

To be fair, Google Maps did also show me the well-established general plant nursery that my mom used to take me to when I was a wee kiddo in the 80's, and which is still around today. So if all you're getting is places like these, email, call, or visit them if it's convenient, and ask whether they carry or can order native plants. Or if they don't, see if they know of a place that does. You might also try landscaping companies; most of them stick to whatever non-native plants are popular, but there are some landscapers who do use native plants as well and may be able to help with sourcing.

While we're on the topic of going directly to people, if you're in the US most states have a Native Plant Society that can help you find sources for native plants. Other conservation entities, both here and elsewhere, may be able to help as well. This includes any private businesses, nonprofit organizations, or governmental entities that may be involved in things like environmental protections, habitat restoration and preservation, outdoor education and other activities, etc. Even if they themselves aren't directly involved in native plants there might be someone on staff who knows more about it.

Another thing I might try if I'm feeling a bit stuck is to ask in a relevant online group. For example, on Facebook there are groups like Pollinator Friendly Yards, that aren't region-specific, but that have people from all over who may be able to help you with resources local to you. And, of course, this is another good place to look for groups with native plant enthusiasts local to you--use the same search terms in Facebook's search feature that you did for your general search engine search.

One last option--if you know of a few native plants you might want to try planting, search for "[plant name] seeds" or "[plant name] starts", or even "buy [plant name]". You may have to search through the results to find someone actually selling what you're looking for. It's also possible that the plant is difficult to cultivate--or no one has even thought to try cultivating it--and therefore can't be purchased. Make sure that the specific species/variety is the one found in your area; a lot of people trying to help monarch butterflies in North America, for example, end up buying non-native tropical milkweed instead of whatever their native regional milkweed species is.

On that note, there's a lot of debate over "nativars", cultivars of native species that may be bred to exaggerate certain traits or make them more suitable for a vastly changed landscape. On the one hand it may seem like a great idea to have a plant that is easier to grow. However, nativars may actually be less beneficial to insects and other wildlife. For example, some nativars are cultivated with altered flowers, such as a double flower that has more petals than the original type. Pollinators are often unable to reach the nectar or pollen of these altered flowers. Nativars of a plant that normally has green leaves but that has been bred for more red in the foliage will be less likely to be eaten by herbivorous insects because the anthocyanins that cause the red coloration give the leaves a bad taste to deter insect predation. All of which, of course, defeats the purpose of planting native plants, since you WANT your native plants to be eaten by insects and other wildlife. So get the "wild type" native plant rather than nativars.

So those are my suggestions for seeking out native plant nurseries. Again, I want to emphasize that some places will be more likely to have them than others; the Pacific Northwest US has a great abundance, whereas a few cursory searches didn't turn up any in the Czech Republic. If you're trying to find native plants in an area where English is not the most common language, search in whatever the common language(s) is and you'll be more likely to get results if there are native plant nurseries or vendors in the area.

I hope this helps! Let me know if I can help with anything else.

#swmngpools #native plants #plants #habitat restoration #ecology #restoration ecology #gardening #garden #botany #environment #environmentalism #conservation

[huntunderironskies]

hi sorry to bother ypu again but i wanted to ask How would werewolves that still keep their old religion syncretized them together ? Especially when in regards of judaism

Okay, uh, this got really long, wow. Hopefully that makes it clear you have absolutely no reason to feel like you're bothering me because I love this stuff.

I do really hesitate to answer for Judaism because pre-Nicene Christianity and mysticism (and to a much lesser extent Sufism) are my focus areas so I am not an authority at all, but I can try. Also I've specifically taken a class on theological philosophy done by a fairly authoritative figure in free will theology so I think about the relationship between people and god/s a lot which means I can kind of give a generalist answer there. I'm primarily familiar with monotheistic faiths and those are the faiths that are going to have to do some extra theological legwork to explain everything so I'll focus on that.

This is SUPER long so I'm going to put it below a cut, I'll also talk a little about my OCs to give some ways that I've had characters hold syncretic beliefs in case that inspires some ideas.

Content...warning....???: Lots and lots of existential matters, big thinks on salvation, theology talk, etc.

First things first: I am very biased since religious mysticism is one of my academic interests but I think mysticism and in particular ecstatic mysticism would square nicely with werewolf existence. Mysticism is much more personal and visceral than more traditional faith paths and the sense of uncomplicated joy that comes with ecstatic practices would be a really welcome break from the usual werewolf things. For more tame forms of mysticism, the sense of unity and peace would be nice too but it's easier to imagine a werewolf drifting towards the more active forms.

Onto actually talking about syncreticism. This is something that Christianity and also to some extent Islam* is concerned about, but it's very easy to justify other powerful beings that aren't God if you've been faced with seemingly undeniable reality that beings more powerful than humans exist. You do have to kind of grapple a lot with the idea as humanity being God's ultimate creation but if you're a werewolf you're sort of faced with that idea already, I'll have to return to that point briefly later. The methodology given to me that metaphysicists use to justify the qualities of being truly worthy of all worship, henceforth referred to as a capital-G God for simplicity's sake, are that this hypothetical God would have maximal qualities, meaning that God would have the greatest possible power in all attributes.

You might be more familiar with the term omnibenevolence, omniscience, etc. in this case but for whatever reason maximal qualities gets used more. I would imagine because it's more directly indicative, it gets you out of the mire of having to explain that, no, omnipotence does not mean that God can create a rock that he can't lift. Trying to define maximal attributes** does get you into some weird places outside of the "rock you can't lift" trope, I know one thing we talked about in my classes was with regards to how omniscience could be defined. The ultimate conclusion was "holding all possible knowledge" but "all possible knowledge" didn't include every possible thought because it would not be reasonable for God to have the same knowledge that you or I might of "I am [name]," as that would imply that God is you or I and also everyone else who has any self-awareness. This is perfectly fine if you're a pantheist (as with the very confusing love of my life, Anne Conway, who I would conduct necromancy on just to pick her brain) but less so for most traditional monotheistic faiths.

All of this is to say: a werewolf who wants to hold onto monotheistic faiths can justify it easily and not have it be totally logically inconsistent. It's not that Luna, the Firstborn, or Father Wolf are false gods, nor are they Gods, they're just very powerful beings. You don't have to and in fact shouldn't worship them, they don't have the necessary qualities that are deserving of worship. You can emulate them to some degree, you can acknowledge they helped create you, that's fine. But your God is the one who has earned your worship. You don't start bowing before the first Rank 5 spirit that crosses your path, do you? Just because something is powerful doesn't mean it's worthy of your love and devotion.

And, I mean, maybe there's kind of a point in there. Any werewolf who has ever talked to a Lune can tell you that Mother Moon is kind of unstable. There's also the issue that Father Wolf is, you know, dead, no matter how badly the Pure Tribes wish that wasn't the case, so you can't do a whole lot with that.

Monotheistic pantheism or religiously focused panpsychism*** (which isn't out of the question for Christians, at least, Alfred North Whitehead and Anne Conway were panpsychists while Baruch Spinoza was a Jewish panpsychist) also provides a pretty easy out there and even kind of has some grounding since panpsychism and animism are closely related. If you're going with a Conwayist (this is a word I have just made up as one of the five people who really like Anne Conway) interpretation, you could have fully sapient Rank 6 spirits be another sort of middle-nature conduit between werewolves and God. Spirits can grant the omnipotent powers that God has, making werewolves more like-God, but they lack the omnibenevolent qualities and remain imperfect and not-like-God. Again, not things you should emulate, but part of God's perfect plan.

...actually I think I'm onto something here, I might have to double back to work on this later and make a Lodge with this as their viewpoint.

So on the upside for people who want to hold onto their original faith path, the thing about a lot of religions is when that magic is effectively real, suddenly miracles get a lot easier to explain. Prophets could be otherwise ordinary humans inspired by God but they could also be supernatural beings. Or you just start having your own miracle-workers who are supernatural beings guided by God. The Storm Lords in one game I ran were very connected to the Catholic Church and had their own secret saints they venerated, some of whom were Storm Lords, but not all. Storm Lords are very Catholic in general in my opinion. Big focus on stoically enduring suffering and trying to attain a greatness you'll never be able to really achieve. That's neither here nor there though.

Under this paradigm, Gifts are basically little miracles you can perform. Yeah, they're kind of grim sometimes, but so are the ones in saint stories. I mean, you get things like people carrying their own decapitated heads. Acts of God don't need to be tame or gentle or clean. Werewolves would absolutely be the more blunt-force instrument of divine power in this sense and it's something that a werewolf who believes this would want to embrace.

I think it also kind of helps out werewolves to know how closely connected they are to humanity and that a huge chunk of sapient supernatural beings (I would personally not say that God-Machine angels, spirits, most goetia, honestly kind-of-sort-of the True Fae, etc have both free will and sapience as a philosopher might define it but we are REALLY getting out into the weeds there) are born as humans. Some of them might still think of themselves as human, just either cursed or blessed by God, which still leaves humanity as the ultimate creation of God as suggested by the Bible. This is really more a Christian concern than anything else, though, I'm pretty sure Imago Dei is almost exclusively Christian as a theological concept.

That said there's definitely room to go the Lancea et Sanctum route and become incredibly self-loathing and see yourself as fundamentally damned or undeserving of whatever reward humans might eventually get. Living a life of extreme violence when most monotheistic faiths are generally against excessive violence would be a problem. Most faiths account for righteous wars of some kind (some Christian denominations would not, you'd really struggle as a Quaker werewolf) and the issue comes more in the form of Death Rage being indiscriminate. Directing violence at those who've earned it is fine, but you can't always do that. It's really hard to pull yourself away from the idea of being uniquely evil in that regard.

There might be a tendency to skew towards the Flesh due to that. Death Rage is fundamentally a werewolf's spirit-side coming to the front. They're not really a person anymore, they're a person-shaped conduit for death because they're in part spirits of the hunt. I think it'd be easy for a monotheistic werewolf to see their spirit-side as the "evil" half of their being and for in particular Christian werewolves...possibly also Sikh werewolves since I know that rage is one of the Five Thieves.

I did do a paper on Sikhi practice (I would have gotten to visit one of the few gurdwara in my region in-person and didn't because of the pandemic and I am still super bitter about it,) so I can touch on that a tiny bit as well. Sikhi syncreticism for werewolves would probably focus a lot on trying to control and overcome Death Rage. I cannot imagine there being a lot of Blood Talons among Sikh werewolves and the ones that are there would really, really, REALLY lean in hard on the "learning to control your Rage" aspects of being a Blood Talon.

Quick note on another consideration. For Muslim werewolves or any other Muslim supernatural being, the idea that anyone could become a prophet after Muhammad would be a huge theological no-go. Less of a big deal in the other monotheistic faiths, though. But a cornerstone of Islam is that Muhammad is the final prophet. I think your average Muslim Cahalith could and would make a case they have supernatural insight, but it's not necessarily God telling them how to guide humanity. I know that by Sufi folklore a few wali were supposed to have incredible awareness of events going on around them (the story I'm thinking of is an anecdote of a wali whose name escapes me who saw a bird suddenly fall to the ground dead and knew this was a sign that a sultan had died) but these miracles were not supposed to make them speak for God. Point is, I cannot imagine a Muslim Cahalith ever thinking of themself as being part of a prophet class from my admittedly still limited understanding of Islam.

Oh, Muslim werewolves would also have a leg up in the sense that it's acknowledged in the Qu'ran that anyone can become a Muslim, even jinn...or werewolves, and they'll still attain salvation so long as they follow God faithfully. I think you would see more self-loathing amongst Christian werewolves than Muslim or Jewish or Sikh werewolves, in short.

Also, not an expert on Zoroastrianism other than having a vague awareness of its influence on the other monotheistic religions and knowing the fun factoid that sometimes Zoroastrians were counted among the People of the Book early on in Islam's history, but I think that Zoroastrian werewolves would have a unique niche here in being able to justify their beliefs. From my limited understanding you could potentially qualify the Firstborn as being ahura while a lot of nastier spirits and ESPECIALLY Wound-related phenomena as being Aka Manah. It feels like a huge missed opportunity that there wasn't a Zoroastrian Lodge or that the Lodge of the Savior didn't have at least some Zoroastrian presence at some point or another. In its defense, the concept of the Maeljin being corrupted versions of werewolf Renown didn't exist until 2e (and to be perfectly clear, is a fantastic idea that makes the Maeljin and Bale Hounds more focused around werewolf concerns.)

Bloodless hunts would be super appealing to monotheistic werewolves as well. Claiming territory from wicked people, tracking down lost knowledge, that kind of thing. You'd also have to work a lot harder to make sure you're killing someone who deserves it. If they're sapient. Which, again, things like Shards and spirits arguably aren't. You can logic yourself into the position that the reason that murder is bad is because it's inflicting pain on someone pretty easily, you don't have to take a commandment at purely face value. If you explore why God has forbidden something, that gives you a lot more loopholes to work with. Ideally you want to be consistent with your logic, but not everyone is. The one issue is the Hunt has to be proactive by definition, while the most cut and dry examples of justifiable violence in these traditions comes from self-defense.

To get into how I've had my characters deal with theological issues...my only two still-Christian werewolves are Philippe (pictured in my avatar) and Levi (I've posted art of him a few times.) I'll talk mostly about Levi since his personal theology is the most complex and gives an idea of how weird theology can become if you're a werewolf.

Levi is a member of the Lodge of the Savior and is actively convinced that the material world is Hell while the Shadow is just another circle or facet of that. A lot of this is because the Flesh seems to have a direct link to whatever is inside Wounds, and it's way, way too easy to rip open a hole there. He can also see the God-Machine (long story) which really isn't helping.

Like most Thebans he's committed himself to hunting Malejin, killing Bale Hounds, and closing Wounds. He doesn't think salvation is beyond reach, but the way he's reasoned the world being as bad as it is is because in his personal theology, well, God can't help you if you're in Hell.

Most of this is heavily influenced by a regional cult called the Church of the Night Angel, which he is technically a member of. They believe that all sapient monsters are gifted their miraculous powers by a servant of God they call the Night Angel (who gets syncretized with a lot of minor deities and also is sometimes, albeit rarely, identified as Vahishtael,) but those gifts have been corrupted by a being known as the First Lie, the Spire, the Adversary, and about a dozen other epithets into what they are now (translator's note: the First Lie is the God-Machine.) The God-Machine, being jealous of God's wonderful creations, stole humanity from Him and trapped them in Hell.

They still have the chance to choose good, it's just harder than it should be. As such the highest duty they have is to fight the servants of the First Lie. These are defined as demons (beings without free will created by the First Lie to serve It,) the Pretenders (natives of the material world who try to deceive others into following them over God or His servant who has come to free everyone from Hell, the Night Angel, but ultimately serve a greater purpose in the world) and the Fallen-of-Purpose. The Fallen-of-Purpose are the worst of all these. The Pretenders and demons can't help what they are, but the Fallen-of-Purpose are monsters who make the active choice to do what the First Lie wants them to do by submitting to the evil parts of their nature.

Oh, to be clear as an aside, when I say material world I mean everything in the Fallen World. This includes places like the Hedge, Shadow, and so on. Those are just a different kind of Hell.

Note that as a supernatural taxonomy, this is a really bad one due to how loosely defined the categories are especially when you get really trigger-happy around things that aren't "of the Night Angel" and the Angelaltrists tend to speak very authoritatively about other monsters in extremely simplistic ways. Their attempts to fight the God-Machine also end up with a lot of splash damage and they kill both capital-D Demons and Angels without discrimination (and yes, under their taxonomy, Angels are demons. Don't think too hard about it.) You would be very hard-pressed to find an Angelaltrist who would take a Demon at their word that they've broken free of the God-Machine because all of them consider anything of the God-Machine to be ontologically evil by the transitive property. Things that are of the God-Machine are not of God and not of the Night Angel. QED.

Malejin are pretty definitively demons under this theory, and I'd almost say Levi is more an Angelaltrist than a Hound of God even if he kind of takes aspects of both. As a Storm Lord he primarily focuses his efforts on people who are being Ridden by Wound-corrupted spirits and people Claimed by the Wounded spirits, and of course to close Wounds as a preventative measure. He doesn't have to deal with any real regret for killing Claimed either. The person is long dead and the spirit killed them. You're just destroying a shell.

It's a matter of figuring out if the spirit should be eliminated for good from there. If it's a Wounded spirit, you're just conducting an act of euthanasia. It's destroying a rabid animal, nothing more or less. Better it die fast than letting it live through the pain of falling to the Maeljin.

He sees Mother Moon as being just one aspect of the Night Angel and a representation of her fiercer aspects, while Winter Wolf is an early creation of the Night Angel who is especially powerful and has attained something close to living sainthood. That's why he hasn't died yet (read: why his Avatars are still wandering about.) He's strong enough he's chosen to continue living and fighting, rather than taking the offer of eternal repose in the Night Angel's paradise that all good monsters are offered. This just makes Winter Wolf even more of an ideal to live up to.

Philippe is still trying to deal with the whole monster thing. After a very delayed rite of passage (which involved switching Tribes from the Storm Lords to the Hunters in Darkness) he's sort of settled comfortably-ish into his new life with some trepidation. He largely sees the Firstborn as being more or less real, but not possessing maximal qualities worthy of worship. Black Wolf is the kind, gentle mother you can always talk to but she's not God-- she kind of takes the place of Mother Mary here, or just a really, REALLY powerful patron saint. And when I've written them, I've had the Hunters in Darkness be pretty guilty of putting Black Wolf above Mother Moon and Father Wolf, sometimes to the point of thinking she's now surpassed Father Wolf as a hunter even when he was at the height of his strength. So he doesn't really dwell on them very much. Father Wolf is dead and Black Wolf is alive. Mother Moon doesn't really call that often.

He definitely sees himself as not necessarily of humanity but not undeserving of salvation because the idea of not being able to be saved doesn't square with an omnibenevolent God. Was the blood sacrifice of Jesus meant for him too? Well, probably. He can make the active choice to follow Jesus. He's making every effort to do good in the world. If you're looking at this from a process theology standpoint, the Bible was written from the perspective of humans, so of course they're only thinking from a human perspective and not including beings of free will that aren't human. That doesn't mean that God can't love someone who isn't human and that God won't save someone who's made the free choice to follow Him.

He's very focused on killing Hosts, unsurprisingly. It's pretty easy to justify killing them, they set themselves up as false gods, aren't really whole beings anymore, and like, when you get down to it, you're only committing one-one-millionth of a murder so that's like, a venial sin at worst. But do you feel bad for every blade of grass you step on? Do you feel bad for taking an antibiotic to kill a disease? It is technically killing something. But you can't keep living if you don't walk, and there's more blades of grass out there than you can count. You'll die if you let an infection spread and then you'll take other people with you because you were too soft. God understands that.

Also it's Wilmington, so he's in a target-rich environment. The Uglathu are a huge problem there and the whole region has been in an ecological death spiral for decades in part because of them. Otherwise he'd have to worry about diversifying into things that are harder to justify more often. He does avoid hunting humans and werewolves, all that said, and thinks it's generally the wrong thing to do except in the most extreme cases like Bale Hounds or Slashers. Especially for human criminals, that gets more into the area of things that only God can judge for. It's not a werewolf's place to intervene.

Well. Maybe you can gently nudge the human authorities in the right direction. But even that makes him feel a little guilty. It doesn't feel natural.

Sorry if this doesn't get into legalistic concerns much at all, I'm more focused on the metaphysical aspects of religion so I can't speak a whole lot to that. Werewolves being able to eat spirits would probably cause a lot of concern over what spirits are halal or kosher and what methods of killing them would be acceptable, but I have no clue how to answer that. I like thinking about how it is possible for something to become infinitely more full of light but not jurisprudence.

*post-script here to say that I had one of my professors, who is an expert in pre-Nicene Christianity and someone I admire a lot, say that generally speaking it was Christian theologians who really kicked off obsessing over what the qualities of God might be in the sense of "when we say God's hand is in something, are we giving human attributes to God and therefore suggesting God is like humans and not divine?!" type stuff. Rabbis tended to be more chill. I'll admit I've kind of taken what he says at face value since he's read a lot more material from that time period than me and also Saint Augustine had a huge impact on theology and he's the most neurotic man who ever lived so I would believe it. Him and his pears.

** another post-script to say that under this paradigm the God-Machine doesn't qualify as a God, we see plenty of proof the God-Machine is arbitrary and eminently fallible. While Its knowledge is obviously very far-reaching, and It's clearly acting with goal-focused behavior, you would have an incredibly hard time arguing Its actions are anything approaching benevolent and most free will theologians would take the fact It uses beings without free will as Its primary servants as hard proof It cannot be good

***yet another post-script to say that panpsychism is herein defined as all things possessing some level of mind, and that material differentiation are either inconsequential or purely illusion, if memory serves Conway was more in the first realm while Spinoza was in the second-- this will seem familiar if you've got any level of familiarity with Buddhism and after asking a few experts there's some consensus that Spinoza at least had some awareness with Buddhist philosophy and was influenced by it. It's less clear with Conway because we know way less about her life, sadly, and that's why I'm learning necromancy.

#werewolf the forsaken #chronicles of darkness #oh god long post warning #sorry you have activated my special interest trap card #oc tag #levi #philippe #ALSO REALLY SORRY TO ATARAXICPHILOCALIST I AM STILL WORKING ON YOUR ASK #I'LL TRY TO HAVE IT DONE TONIGHT