#my quest to know everything there is to know about queer activism between the years 1950 and 1980

[morganmnemonic]

Any organization: Existed in Washington D.C. in the 1950s or 1960s

Dr. Franklin Kameny, dictator of the mattachine and early architect of gay pride:

#lgbtq #queer #pride #seriously reading about this man infiltrate the aclu and then take over the local glf is so funny #people founding an organization in Washington and then being like oh no #here comes frank #his colleagues in the msw watching him join and then co opt so many meetings #this man had so many different reputations and he earned every single one of them #frank kameny #mattachine society #my quest to know everything there is to know about queer activism between the years 1950 and 1980

[oswinsdolma]

Yes, it's nearly 2.00am (because that's apparently the only time I have inspiration to write essays) but I've been thinking a lot about this lately and wanted to get it off my chest, so here you go:

The main goal of Merlin becomes disturbingly fractured along the way, which opens up the gaps for the prophecy to seep through instead of following the expected channels, but it can essentially be boiled down to three key elements 1) build albion; 2) decriminalise magic and 3) save Arthur, but when all is said and done, we never really see any of those objectives achieved.

Now, there are a few reasons for this, both from a writing perspective and a plot perspective. The first, and one of the most obvious, is that this show loves irony. I won't go into a lot of detail here because I've already written a whole ass essay in this very subject, but in a nutshell, you can look at this from two perspectives: firstly, it's important to establish that this technique is purely about the angst: it's the writers' way of provoking a reaction from an anguished audience, but it's foreshadowed just enough to make it more painful than it is shocking. Alternatively, there is the more plot motivated irony in that it genuinely makes a good story. Irony is a technique that has been used for thousands of years, not just because it provokes a reaction from the audience, but because it allows you to explore your characters in greater detail than before, riddling them with hidden juxtapositions and internal conflicts that are never resolved quite in the way you expect. The irony in Merlin is the epitome of this, with the whole motif of Arthur needing to die for his reign to begin. It is a classic example of the simultaneous despair and hope that mocks you from the shadows.

Following this, there is another force at play that deals with half truths and seemingly imperfect contradictions, and that's prophecy. It's not really a secret that I have very strong feelings about prophecy and its effects on all the characters, Merlin in particular, and the fact that fate and destiny are such key themes in Merlin both makes perfect sense and wants me to smash my head into a brick wall. Prophecies are another common trope that often go hand in hand with irony (think Oedipus Rex, Macbeth, The Iliad, all that doomed hero shit that I inexplicably adore), the key to their influence over the plot often lying in how they usually come true in the most unexpected of ways. This links back to that initial theme of irony, but this isn't what makes me angry: what is infuriating is that prophecies tend to come true, no matter what, and most of the characters seem not only to know this, but to let it take their autonomy over their respective fates, driving them to disaster.

Let me elaborate: especially in season five (I'm assuming just for the added fall at the end), Merlin talks a lot about how "one day, things will be different". He tells sorcerers that one day they won't have to hide. That one day, they won't have to live in fear of who they are and what others think of them. And Merlin is right: while it is not explicitly stated, it's generally established that this is one of the things Merlin should actively be working towards. But here's the kick: except for a few specific circumstances, when has Merlin ever actively tried to change Arthur's mind about magic? Yes, he has taken a few opportunities, like with Dragoon saving Uther's life, or with the Dolma's final request, where he has encouraged Arthur to rethink his choices, but otherwise, his support has been lukewarm at best. Instead, his primary concern was always saving Arthur, so he can become the king the magical world hoped he'd be, but he left out a crucial part, trusting in the prophecy to fill in the gaps. He knew it would come true, but it was, almost predictably, in the one way he never dared to expect.

And in a twisted way, there's that thread of irony again: Merlin thought he was saving Arthur so he could one day become the king who would see magic as a force for good, but instead, he created someone who was merely a survivor. It was Kilgharrah who said it first, and he who would mention it last: they are two sides of the same coin. But as willing as Merlin was to give his life for Arthur, and vice versa, he was never really ready to give him his mind.

Another interesting thing to note is Merlin's fixation on the "Saving Arthur" lens of the prophecy over the "Restoring Magic" part. Now, there are a ton of ways you can look at this, depending on how far along the scale of Queer Analysis you are, so I'm going to try and address a couple. At one end of the scale, you have the fairly simple and very believable "merthur" take. This basically boils down to the fact that Merlin and Arthur may or may not be deeply in love with one another, and that drowns out any voice of reason that may unfold. This is actually fairly canon compliant, particularly looking at incidents such as the Disir, when Merlin chooses Arthur over his and his people's freedom, though that choice was clearly, in hindsight, misadvised.

At the other end of the spectrum, there is the idea that it is the work of Kilgharrah, Gaius and other responsible figures in Merlin's life when he was new to his role in destiny, who reiterated at every occasion that Arthur must be protected at all costs. This may have ingrained into Merlin's thoughts and influenced his decisions from here on out.

Between those two points, there is a grey area, and I am of the personal opinion that neither extreme entirely satisfies the situation. For me, I think the characters in question are far too complex to have such simple motivations, and that the true reason lies somewhere between the two: Merlin undoubtedly cares for Arthur, and while at the start, his actions in protacting Arthur may have been driven by other (largely superficial) motives, over time, their mutual affection blossomed to the point where certainly the more personal quests were motivated not by need, but by love. However, there is a divide here, and while the line in the sand smudges from time to time, it never really disappears: a lot of instances in which Merlin is trying to help Arthur are entirely overshadowed by destiny, and in time, Merlin comes to accept that Arthur and Destiny are, in fact, one and the same, and this is where that ever-present tragedy lies. For all he truth in here, Merlin doesn't get everything quite right: he sees Arthur as a balance that needs to be protected, without fully realising that he doesn't just have to keep the sides of his equation in equilibrium, but he actually has to start solving them if he wants them to endure.

Having just said all that, sometimes I decide to fuck over complexity for a few hours purely because I am a shameless merthur hoe.

Also, can you take a moment to please note that this last section is highly subjective and it is completely up to you as to what you decide!! This is just my opinion and you're welcome to agree or disagree at any point.

So, aside from the Angst Factor™ and twisted character development, why was the main goal never fulfilled? Unfortunately, that is a question far cleverer people than me can only speculate, as the writers alone know the answers, but I'm going to give my opinion a shot. Honestly, there is something beautifullly poetic about something that never ends, or ends when there could be something more. Humanity has struggled with endings-and beginnings- since it learned truly how to think, because that kind of finality, that inkling that there might have been nothing before and after something else is incomprehensible. In leaving Merlin in a place where the next point was uncertain, the writers left the story open for us. In depriving us of that catharsis, they effectively made sure that the story would never be over, not until we want it to be. And yes, it was painful. I can't think of an ending that was more heartbreaking than that curious mixture of closures and openings all at the same time (hell, I could write a whole essay based on this concept alone!), but it was also a gift, ironically like that of the prophecy itself in that we can choose what we want to do with it, safe in the knowledge that there will be a happy ending again, one day.

In summary, we might not be left with catharsis in the way we wanted. We might not have got the happy ending that could also have stretched on and on indefinitely. But we were left with something else, something equally beautiful as closure, but in the complete opposite way. Amongst the remains of allwe had hoped to build, Merlin left us hope.

#sorry for the inevitable ineloquence here i am absolutely knackered #bbc merlin #merlin #merthur #i'm going to regret this in the morning

[honey-piie]

Rule: tag people you would like to get to know better or catch up with.

@amazingbouncingassbutt tagged me in this thing so here we go!

1. Three ships in any order

Okay I’m gonna be honest, I haven’t really been consuming much media that I’ve found to have shippable characters in it lately?? Okay so I’m sort of still a little bit stuck on queliot... also I reread the lord of the rings books recently and man... Frodo and Sam really is the relationship and I will never get over it. For a third??? Uum I guess andreil from the foxhole court is still like up there, it’s like a go to for short fics and stuff and I do love em.

2. Last song

Leon by the Japanese house I think was the last one I put on myself but I’m not sure if it’s the last one I listened to cause me and my family and cousins were all cuing songs so actually I have no idea

3. Last movie

Probably Colette I think. It’s been a few weeks and I don’t think I’ve watched anything else since but I’m not entirely sure.. I watch movies very infrequently

4. Currently reading

Oh god... the question of shame. Okay so I don’t know if some of these even count as “currently reading” anymore, like how long can it go between picking a book up for it to count as “currently reading”? Okay but the ones that are listed as such on my Goodreads right now are Ovids metamorphoses which I haven’t been actively reading for like a year and a half, Arcadia by Iain Pears which I haven’t been actively reading since September, the death of the animal by Paola Cavalieri which I doubt I’ll actually finish but I still maybe want to, the world without us by Mireille Juchau which I kinda want to finish but I’ve not picked it up in too long so I’ve forgotten a lot and that makes it a pain to get into again, and lastly whiskey when we’re dry by John Larison which has taken me more than a month to not get even 40% into but which I really want to finish cause it’s a queer “girl dressed up as boy” western, which sounds like it should be great and so far I kinda like it but it’s also a liiitle slow going. Also I’m probably gonna start assassins quest by Robin Hobb tomorrow cause I finished royal assassin yesterday and I’m really enjoying the series! so like what I’m getting out of this is that high fantasy on audiobook is really where it’s at for me right now cause that describes the last four books that I’ve actually finished

5. Currently watching

Really not much.. I’m almost finished with queer eye season 5 but that’s about it really. I’ve been debating whether or not to watch the last season of the magicians even though they fucked up big time but I’m not sure yet. Also I’m gonna watch the new season of killing eve sometime in a near future hopefully and with all the atla stuff on here right now I kinda want a rewatch

6. Currently consuming

Some toast and a cup of lemon balm and mint tea fresh from my garden. I have so much lemon balm and the mint is spreading... I don’t know what the hell to do with them except tea so yeah.. here we are... it’s good though!

7. Food I'm craving atm

Right now I’m craving everything and nothing at the same time. I’m kinda hungry which is weird considering I’ve eaten a lot this evening, but I’m also not really in any mood for anything specific. Okay that’s a lie actually.. I’m always in the mood for some chocolate, preferably something with sea salt in it

I’m gonna tag @howyoutalktoyourgrandma and @themagicalmedusa if you wanna do it!!

#tag thingy

[distant-glory]

Georgia raves about books: warning for length

Alright, I’ve been meaning to do this for a while, but I wanna give a shout-out to two of my favorite YA series of all time. These books were formative for me, and I still love them madly.

Series #1: The Enchanted Forest Chronicles by Patricia C. Wrede

Consisting of four books (Dealing with Dragons, Searching for Dragons, Calling on Dragons and Talking to Dragons), this is hands-down the best ‘fairy tale with a twist’ series I’ve ever read. I picked up the first book when I was about eight years old, and still a favourite almost twenty years later. The books follow the adventures of a princess named Cimorene (who begins her adventures by running away from an arranged marriage in favor of living with dragons), her friends (and in the fourth book, her son), as they thwart the attempts of power-hungry wizards to steal all magic in the world.

Cimorene is an incredible protagonist. Although she dislikes her life as a princess, this is to do with the frivolous nature of her expected duties and not any rejection of femininity. Cimorene’s position of princess-in-residence to the dragon Kazul involves cooking, cleaning and organising--all duties that Cimorene embraces as a chance to do something practical. She rapidly gains Kazul’s respect, and when it becomes clear that the Society of Wizards is up to something, Cimorene and Kazul plot together to find out what they’re doing, and stop them--with the assistance of Morwen, an extremely down-to-earth witch who has a longstanding friendship with Kazul and develops an equal bond with Cimorene; and Alianora, the princess-in-residence to another dragon. Dealing With Dragons not only passes the Bechdel Test as a whole, but passes it nearly every chapter. (Book Three has a similar standard, and the only reason that Books Two and Four don’t follow is because their POV characters are male. That being said, neither male POV displays a shred of hypermasculine BS--Daystar, protagonist of Book 4, is particularly notable for navigating through his novel almost entirely on courtesy and kindness.)

The Enchanted Forest Chronicles are also notable for their take on fairy tales. The world of Cimorene and her friends is governed by the tropes of the fairy tales we all know--something that all the characters know, and navigate accordingly. One character in the first book reproaches himself for attempting to complete a certain quest on behalf of a king--when the king had three sons, and the two eldest had already failed in their task. “Anyone with sense would have seen that the youngest son was the one who would succeed; it sticks out all over,” he complains. But by unorthodox interpretations of the tropes that dominate their lives, Cimorene and her friends take control of their destinies--and help others to do so as well.

Having been written in the late 1980s/early 1990s, there isn’t a huge amount of diversity in these books. That being said, it’s explicitly mentioned that dragons choose their own names and sex, which is pretty cool!

There aren’t really any trigger warnings attached to this series--it’s entirely G-rated with no ‘onscreen’ death, and no particularly dark themes.

Series #2: The Stormbringer Trilogy (’The Rat and the Raven’, ‘Lightning Nest’, ‘Ravens Rising’) by Kerry Greenwood.

Anyone here a fan of Miss Fisher’s Murder Mysteries? This is the same author who wrote the Phryne Fisher books. The Stormbringer Trilogy technically has four prequels--The Broken Wheel, Whaleroad, Cave Rats and Feral, but you don’t actually have to read any of them to understand the Stormbringer books. (Though I would recommend reading Feral--it gives a little more background on some of the events referenced in Stormbringer, and gives you more depth on a few background characters.) I picked up The Rat and the Raven when I was thirteen, and it has the honor of being the only book I’ve ever been so engrossed in that I read it during class.

The Stormbringer books take place in a post-apocalyptic Australia, following an event called the ‘Three Days’--when a satellite weapon either malfunctioned or was activated, burning huge stripes of the world and plunging most of humanity back into pre-Industrial Revolution tech levels. In the wake of the Three Days, superhuman talents began to emerge in the survivors: one of these is Scathe, the Mouth of the Oracle in the town of Rat, who interprets the Oracle’s predictions to the townspeople, and whose touch is fatal. Rat’s tyrant is growing increasingly paranoid about the predictions of a ‘Raven’, who will arrive to depose him--and this paranoia sets in motion events that will drive Scathe to question everything he thought he knew about himself and the world around him.

Meanwhile, Bran and his band of ‘Ravens’--mechanical expert and resident asshole Swart (who gets worse in the first book, and then better in the latter two), Maori giant Mill ‘the Hill’, the deadly archer twins Thel and Flae, and the thief Dismas--are traveling to Rat to rescue fellow University students sold as slaves to local warlords...

Kerry Greenwood excels in creating complex and fascinating characters, and the Stormbringer books are no exception. The Ravens and their distinctive personalities create a series of compelling dynamics and move through distinct character arcs--from the developing friendship between the twins and Dismas, to Swart’s abrasive nature being gradually tempered, to Bran’s development as a leader. The realistic personality clashes that arise from such a diverse group of characters are both entertaining and satisfying--the nature of human bonds is a theme that runs through all three books, coming to a gratifying conclusion in Book 3.

As for diversity, this book was an eye-opener for me. Among our protagonists, we have one gay intersex character, two explicitly bisexual characters, two arguably demisexual characters, and liberal mentions of polyamorous and queer relationships throughout.

Trigger warnings: hoo boy. Although little of the really dark stuff is onscreen, several characters have been severely abused in the past; there’s a couple of battles and a handful of deaths described; and there are also a number of references to incest, rape, torture, suicide and animal abuse. Be mindful of your comfort levels.

#the enchanted forest chronicles #patricia c wrede #stormbringer trilogy #kerry greenwood

[queerforadventure-blog]

Episode 01 Setting Up for Adventure

You can listen to this episode at queerforadventure.buzzsprout.com, or wherever you find podcasts.

Franklin: 00:00:33 Hello and welcome to the very first episode of Queer for Adventure. This is a queer RPG adventure podcast that, um, we're making and we are, we've been working on it for many months now and we're really excited to share it with all of you. I am Franklin and I am the Creator and Dungeon Master of this weird queer experience. Uh, I uh, live in Seattle and I use he him pronouns.

Seren: 00:01:07 My name is Seren. Um , I use they them pronouns. I'm non-binary and asexual and that's about all there is about me.

Lo: 00:01:18 Hi, I'm Lo. I use she/her pronouns. I am bisexual slash don't really pay attention to preference and that's me. I'm excited to play this game.

Robby: 00:01:33 My name is Robby and I am open to pronouns and I am also particularly excited to start this campaign.

Seth: 00:01:42 Uh, I'm Seth, I use he him pronouns. I'm a gay male and I'm so excited to play this game.

Franklin: 00:01:55 Um, so we've all come together because we've been playing D&D together for about three years now. And you know, we're getting- we really wanted to jump on that, that D&D podcast bandwagon that everyone is jumping on. But also I personally, um, I've always loved stories. I've always loved listening to them. I love listening to podcasts and making my partner read for me out loud. It's audio books all- I've really invested in auditory stories and this is my big jump into becoming a storyteller myself. And I'm so happy to be able to share this, this endeavor I want to go on with people I really love and care about who have dedicated a lot of their time and passion to, to be here with me and let me throw crazy imaginary monsters at them. Um, so we are playing in a setting called Planescape. It is an old setting from AD&D, second edition, and while the setting is meant for second edition will be playing fifth edition. So there's a little bit of transcribing from one edition to the other and it's kind of crazy. So we wanted to give a little bit of a, just a little brief guide to what Planescape is.

Franklin: 00:03:19 It really takes place mostly in the city of Sigil, which is a very impossible city that is floats above an infinitely tall mountain called the Great Spire. And the city is in the shape of a torus, which looks like basically a donut or um, more aptly like a, the inside of a tire, uh, and the city is built, uh, inside that and ruled by a mysterious entity known only as the Lady of Pain. Um, this is really like a multi-verse plane hopping adventure. And um, just to give you like a brief lowdown of the different like categories of them. There are prime planes, which is kind of the worlds of that you and I live in. The forgotten realms is a prime plane. Gray Hawk is a prime plan. So all of these like normal, well air quotes, normal worlds where people exist, are prime plans, inner planes are uh, the like elemental planes, the ethereal plane, um, positive and negative energy- These are planes that kind of comprise more focused versions of what makes everything in existence. So we're talking about the plane of water, the plane, fire, air, earth, um, even down to such niche planes as the plane of ooze or smoke or lightening or radiance. Um, there's a ton of them and there are the outer planes, which is a lot more of the afterlife kind of thing. Well, this is where the gods live. This is where the all contained in the astral plane. Um, and this has to do a lot more with the uh, alignment system. So there's lawful good planes like Mount Celestia or there are chaotic evil planes like the abyss where demons come from. And um, and then there is Sigil which is connected to every plane in existence through portals. And to use a portal, you need a specific key. And a portal can be anything. It can be a doorway, it could be, um, a fountain... It could be almost any sort of bound space activated by any sort of thought or action or object. Um, and the city is just littered with them. And this city is, where this campaign is going to start where it's really gonna take place. Um, so our main idea of release dates is we're hoping to release every other week on Mondays.

Franklin: 00:06:10 So I think that now is a great time to start delving into these characters that you've all lovingly created. And I should start off by saying that these are characters that we have carried over from the last campaign that we ran. Um, it was a really fun adventure and a really great for me, the DM to learn all of the intricacies of Planescape because there is so much information and I will make mistakes. So please be kind with me Internet. Please be kind. Um, but we-we're starting at level seven and these, these characters have had some, some fun adventures, but I think when we get to need to get to know who they are individually. So let's start with Robby. Let's start with you. What kind of character are you playing?

Robby: 00:07:05 I am playing a female-identifying Tiefling who is multi-classing in warlock and fighter.

Franklin: 00:07:16 What is her name?

Robby: 00:07:17 Her name is Temerity.

Franklin: 00:07:20 So where was Temerity born in the multiverse?

Robby: 00:07:24 Well, as far as Temerity understands, she was born in Sigil, but her parents needed to relinquish her to, uh, protect her and she, they, she was relinquished to the prime material plane.

Franklin: 00:07:42 Okay. Um, do you, does she have any idea about who her parents are?

Robby: 00:07:47 Not really. Um, they, I mean, all that she may know is that they, maybe they were in a bit of trouble or maybe they sorta, needed to protect her, but otherwise, no. Uh, she was relinquished to a sister of her father's and, um, was raised in a city on the prime material plane. It was just was, uh, yeah. Other than that, she has no idea.

Franklin: 00:08:15 M'kay. Is the, is the rest of this extended family that she grew up with? Are, are they still around? Are they still alive?

Robby: 00:08:24 Yeah, of course. I mean, they live very simple lives, um, in a city doing, you know, general human stuff. Uh, but, you know, luckily she was easily accepted as a family to them.

Franklin: 00:08:39 How was it growing up as a, as a tiefling among humans?

Robby: 00:08:43 Well, surprisingly enough, uh, Temerity was really lucky to be born with mostly human-like traits. She did have some tells, like small little horns and a tail, but you know, that ridicule wasn't so bad compared to the fact that, you know, she was left by her parents.

Franklin: 00:09:02 Hmm. So what was she doing before she was level one?

Robby: 00:09:08 Well, uh, as a 16 year old girl, she was just doing teenage things. She was interested in what was popular and hanging out with the local kids. Um, maybe kind of starting to delve into the idea of like love and romance and flirting with boys. But, uh, for the most part she is, she was- or not for the most part, but she was also just concerned about like where she came from and who she was because she was obviously very different than those she was around.

Franklin: 00:09:37 Um, so why leave this whole life that she created on the prime plane behind?

Robby: 00:09:43 Well, I mean, "created" is an interesting choice because she just kind of was placed there. Um, so I think that there was a part of her that felt she never particularly belonged. But at the same time as she reached her 16th birthday, she, um, had a very prophetic dream where a beautiful entity came to her and told her to head to Sigil.

Franklin: 00:10:12 So did this, this, did this entity guide Temerity to there or did you find a way to Sigil on your own?

Robby: 00:10:21 Yeah. Uh, the, the entity kind of said like, find your father's bow and take it to Sigil. Um, and with that came instructions to head through a gate to, to there. Upon arriving to Sigil she quickly needed to adapt and she knew that she was gonna need to find a way to, to belong there.

Franklin: 00:10:49 And what was, what was that experience of going to the craziness of Sigil from the comparatively tameness of any prime plane?

Robby: 00:10:58 Yeah, I mean, she was very overwhelmed, but luckily, uh, the Revolutionary League spoke to her as something that was very sort of like anti-government anti-organization. And it seemed as though it's something that she would be able to do to infiltrate and find out more about what was going on there.

Franklin: 00:11:16 So she, it sounds like she's very much on a quest to figure out what happened to her parents in that situation. Would you say it so?

Robby: 00:11:25 Yeah, that would be, uh-Huh. I mean, yeah, as far as she may know they're dead... But they may not be and she's willing to find that out.

Franklin: 00:11:35 And- I think- I'm going to ask you a question that I think is really at the core of the f- the fun of philosophical roleplaying-ness of a Planescape setting is what does, what does she believe the meaning of the multi-verse is?

Robby: 00:11:51 You know, as a 16 old girl, I, I can only imagine she's wildly overwhelmed by the idea that there are more places and more beings and more ideas to life than she could ever fathom. So I would say exciting adventure and strange encounters.

Franklin: 00:12:12 Seren...

Seren: 00:12:14 Hello, Franklin.

Franklin: 00:12:14 Let's... let's talk about Eldred.

Seren: 00:12:17 Okay. What do you want to know?

Franklin: 00:12:20 Let's, you know, let's start off kind of where we did with Temerity. Where was Eldred born in the multiverse?

Seren: 00:12:25 Um, Eldred was born on a rather small prime material plane by the name of Viir. Uh, he was technically born on a boat, um, midway between like a major country and a smaller ones, the smaller country of Birn, um, which is where his parents were going to essentially like retire to, and settle down in. Like just like a small village there. Um, and that is where he was raised.

Franklin: 00:12:53 Are they, um, do you know their whereabouts or if they're still around, thriving?

Seren: 00:12:59 Yeah. Uh, Eldred's mother definitely died when he was a child because there was an awful famine in the town probably when he was about maybe, um, uh, very young, especially for an elf, maybe about like 10. Um, she ended up, um, I'm dying through that. Um, and he was raised by his father, um, who pretty much raised him in home- homeschooled him. And he pretty much like cohabitated with his father for about like eight years until he went off on his own.

Franklin: 00:13:28 So what was Eldred doing before level one?

Seren: 00:13:34 Um, that's a fun question. He did a lot of things. Uh, so Eldred, uh, was raised to be a wizard by his father. His father was also a wizard who is particularly, um, invested in the idea of, um, I guess the responsible usage of magic. Magic in that plane was very young, Um, and humans were kind of just getting their hands on it and they were using it pretty wildly. Um, and mostly to I guess a pretty like hazardous effect. So he was at the school that humans just shouldn't- no magic, don't teach it to humans, but elves and dwarves and other responsible races should have magic. Yeah. Um...

Seren: 00:14:19 [Laughing and Stammering]

Seren: 00:14:22 ...and be able to utilize it and control of that. Yeah. Use it wisely, but never- just don't, don't give that stuff to humans essentially. Um, so this was pretty much how Eldred was raised.

Seren: 00:14:36 Um, so he, when he went to go play his trade as a wizard, he's kind of, he was always kind of a chaotic person. Um, he pretty much did the exact opposite. Um, he went to become an arcane advisor for another country that was, um... not the best. He essentially became a villian. Um, he was, he was an evil wizard, basically is a theme I'm going for. Um, and he lived I think about 80 years doing that until, uh, an awful magical accident inadvertently opened up a portal that threw him into the Shadowfell, separated him from his spell book and he had to find his way through that for several years. He eventually escaped the Shadowfell, um, after pretty much losing all his magic, essentially going back to like level one, if I'm thinking in game terms. Um, and he popped out in Sigil, um, which completely confused him.

Franklin: 00:15:40 Now to be clear, Eldred is a sorcerer.

Seren: 00:15:43 Yes. He is a sorcerer now.

Franklin: 00:15:44 ... and not a wizard.

Seren: 00:15:45 No. Um, and he would never tell anyone he's a wizard now. He used to formally study magic as a wizard, but all of his magic now is sourced from sorcerer... Class... he's a shadows sorcerer, from basically from the Shadowfell.

Franklin: 00:15:58 Okay. So that that experience in the Shadowfell really not only affected him emotionally in the draining way, that the Shadowfell does it also tainted him in a certain way in the way that he could experience and use magic.

Seren: 00:16:14 Yes, exactly.

Franklin: 00:16:15 As we started that editing this, I realized that we never said what Eldred's player race was and just so that everyone knows Eldred is an High Elf.

Franklin: 00:16:27 I was going to ask the question, why did you leave it all behind but rather it was kind of like accidentally you were thrust into the planes. Yeah. Um, so what was that experience like for... for Eldred; Living and trying to escape from the Shadowfell?

Seren: 00:16:46 uh, probably pretty, pretty awful. Um, I can't imagine he had a good time through any of it; It being the Shadowfell. Um, I haven't really thought too hard about like the exact, like rise and fall of like what was happening there, but I know it was, uh, it was an awful ordeal and he pretty much put all of his hopes, um, and like what he could muster into getting back to the prime material plane. Um, but when he popped out in Sigil, um, that kind of changed a bit.

Franklin: 00:17:19 Mmhmm. Now, after he got into Sigil, did he try to um, go back to the prime material plane or did he or did he decide to settle there?

Seren: 00:17:28 I don't think he did. I think, um, being thrown from a place like the Shadowfell, which is so like muted and despairing into a place as colorful and just chaotic and bizarre as Sigil was a complete sensory overload for him. I think he pretty much was overwhelmed and almost gave up. But, he was approached by a member of a faction there, the Bleak Cabal, and they helped kind of like help him work through it and he eventually decided to just kind of settle there because there didn't seem to be really any point in going back to his prime material plane.

Franklin: 00:18:06 Hmm. So what does, what does Eldred desire? What is- what is his goal in life?

Seren: 00:18:12 I, I think he just wants like a quiet retirement. Honestly. I don't think he wants to do much of anything anymore and he's just happy, just existing.

Franklin: 00:18:25 So he's not really choosing to be an adventurer. Adventure is thrust upon him.

Seren: 00:18:30 Yes.

Franklin: 00:18:32 Um, and you know, back to that core Planescape question, what does Eldred believe the meaning of the multi-verse is?

Seth: 00:18:39 Uh, he believes that there is no meaning. Not that there is no meaning in like day to day interactions or, or life. He thinks that like people are like fine. Um, but, uh, there's no reason the universe was created for something. He went through a rise and the fall in life that was so chaotic. I think that I'm attaching any meaning to the universe would be stressful to him. Um, so he chooses to see it as just everyone existing in this world and just trying to get by the best they can.

Franklin: 00:19:14 Beautiful. Let's, let's talk about Kith.

Lo: 00:19:19 Okay.

Franklin: 00:19:20 Tell me, tell me, tell me about Kith.

Lo: 00:19:24 So Kith is a ghostwise halfling, um, that I am uh dual-classing in rogue and bard. Uh, and she is very young. She's like 22. Um, yeah. And she's pretty awesome. I like her a lot.

Franklin: 00:19:44 Um, where, where was Kith born in the planes?

Lo: 00:19:47 Uh Kith is from, uh, the Chondal Wood in the Faerun, uh, which is like, um, a large forest, uh, in the Chondath area. And it's home to a lot of different mystical creatures. But she's from a, um, clan of ghostswise halflings that are known for being night gliders, which they ride large gigantic owls.

Franklin: 00:20:13 So you have owl mounts historically.

Lo: 00:20:17 It's pretty Rad.

Franklin: 00:20:19 Um, who, who were Kith's parents?

Lo: 00:20:22 Um, so my parents were, uh, kind of the leaders of our clan. Uh, my father is Morn Mistwind, and my mother is Lilt Mistwind, um, he was the Klan leader in the night glider and- like the lead night glider and watch man in of our family. So they were kind of like the matriarch and the patriarch of our little clan hid in the forest.

Franklin: 00:20:43 Okay. So you were like the forest Moana?

Lo: 00:20:46 Yeah, I suppose so.

Everyone: 00:20:48 [Laughs]

Franklin: 00:20:51 Um, so living at, so rurally, um, actually no, I'll come back to that question. Uh, are, are those parents still around? Do you still have family?

Lo: 00:21:03 I mean, from what I know, most of my family is still alive. A lot of my background was kind of, um, for Kith was pushed forward by the death of her father, Morn, who was killed by a gnoll on like, uh, an outing in the middle of the night during a watch. Um, so the rest of my family is alive from what I'm aware of. I had three siblings and my mother. Nell, Boon and Gith are my siblings. Gith was my identical twin. Uh, and the reason why I'd assume that, uh, it's how I keep jumping back and forth between first and third,

Franklin: 00:21:36 Oh, thats fine.

Lo: 00:21:37 Gith is Kith's identical twin and they have like a very, very, so one major thing about ghost wise halflings is that they have telepathic abilities. Um, and Gith and Kith were extremely connected up until her father died. So she has an idea that they're alive cause she's still randomly get, um, like telepathic glimpses of Gith's life. So she knows for sure that he is and would assume by association the rest of her family is cause all of them are still in that forest.

Franklin: 00:22:10 What was, what was Kith doing before level one? What was level zero like for Kith?

Lo: 00:22:16 Um, so I'd say that level zero really took place. Um, and the main things that happened that have gotten Kith where she is today would be, um, her father's death. Uh, she started to travel a lot outside of the forest, which is very uncommon for Ghostw- ghostwise halflings in general. Um, she started traveling to different, uh, there's this group of studies called the free cities in, um, what is it Valhon... uh, Vilhon Reach. Um, so she would travel out and started busking the streets of different cities around the area. Um, and in her travels going through there and kind of trying to distract herself, she actually came upon, um, a circus troupe called Mr Malactic's Intergalactic Rambling Circus, uh, who traveled around a bunch of the different realms and planes.

Lo: 00:23:17 So once she found them, they were really, really intrigued that there was a ghostwise halfling that was out in the public like that cause it's not very common. Uh, and they saw that she had some busking talent and they brought her onto their troupe and she left with them and never went back to her home.

Lo: 00:23:36 So throughout her experiences, she would travel around with them. They taught her all the tricks of the trade. That's where she started to learn how to play instruments. Um, and she traveled around with them through a bunch of different areas and she was their true acrobat and, um, like swordsmen I guess I would say be the best way to explane her.

Franklin: 00:23:57 She had- like what, what, what was her act in this...

Lo: 00:24:01 Well kind of, depends on what their audience was. She's definitely very sarcastic, so she would kind of do different types of, um, like contortionism and she's like a sword swallower and also would play with the troupe musicians. So she kind of would just jump around and do different things depending, cause she was only with the troupe for like two years. So she was still kind of being trained by them on what she would be in the long run.

Franklin: 00:24:28 Alright. So how did you get from the, the intergalactic troupe. [stammers] What was the title of that again?

Lo: 00:24:37 Mr Malactic's Intergalactic Rambling Circus.

Franklin: 00:24:41 Okay. I-

Lo: 00:24:43 [Laughs]

Franklin: 00:24:43 Mr Malactic's Intergalactic Rambling Circus.

Lo: 00:24:48 Yeah. [laughs]

Franklin: 00:24:48 K, Got It. How did you get from this troupe to Sigil? What, what events transpired to get you there?

Lo: 00:24:59 So being the kind of sassy big mouth that she was, um, they were in a major trade city, um, performing for this like low level Duke called Fergus Wormwood. And she made the mistake of being very sarcastic in a song and he did not take lightly to it. Um, so she ended up arrested and captured and put into his holding cells and um, basically they drove her troop out of the city without her, so she became trapped and she kind of became like their personal court gesture- ah, jester and with being forced to do all these things and over the course of a year was attempting to escape multiple times and kept being trapped until she finally found this like random low life person in a bar that told her of the place a Sigil when she recognized as a place that uh, her troupe had talked about going to multiple times, they would make the rounds there every once in a while and she just hadn't been with them long enough to make it there. So once this person started talking about Sigil itself, she knew that's where she wanted to go. Uh, and they knew of a portal. So her final escape, she was able to go through a portal to make it to Sigil cause she figured that she'd be safe there. Cause she was explained that it was a very hard place to find people in.

Franklin: 00:26:25 Yeah, a lot of people go to Sigil to lay low, escape notice, not only from other, uh, other people, but devils, demons and even Gods. Um, so what does Kith want?

Lo: 00:26:41 Uh, so one Kith's prize possessions was a fiddle that she owned called Spellstring. Uh, it was an instrument made for her when she was being taught how to play, uh, by the troupe and that was taken from her, uh, and she was not able to escape with it and she also would really like to find her troupe again. So I think it's her main driving force. She has a connection to that, um, troupe very deeply and she'd love to be able to find them and she would love to be able to find her fiddle someday.

Franklin: 00:27:11 And then the big question, what does Kith believe that the meaning of the multiverse is?

Lo: 00:27:18 Uh, well, much like Eldred, Kith believes- doesn't really amount to anything in particular. Uh, she, A: Just mostly it doesn't have an interest in really thinking deeper than that. I think with everything that's happened to her in her life and also is just wholly disinterested in there being any higher meeting to the multiverse.

Franklin: 00:27:42 Now Kith is part of a faction, yes?

Lo: 00:27:44 Yes. She's an Indep. She's a part of the Free League.

Franklin: 00:27:48 Now, what, what drew you to join them and their philosophical stance?

Lo: 00:27:53 Um, I think Kith, learning about all of the factions and kind of seeing how Sigil works when she first ended up there, thinks that the majority of the factions are quite stupid actually. Um, and the Free League seemed to make the most sense to be able to protect herself because she recognized the need to pick a faction over not, and that one just kind of aligned the most with her being able to move about her daily business without really being too effective. And they also get a discount at the market. So, you know, I love that.

Franklin: 00:28:30 Um, and Seth! Last but not least.

Seth: 00:28:33 Yes.

Franklin: 00:28:33 Let's talk about FAIL/safe.

Seth: 00:28:34 Let's talk about FAIL/safe. These questions were hard for FAIL/safe, I feel like.

Franklin: 00:28:40 FAIL/safe is a very, a nontraditional character in, uh, in a normal D&D 5e setting because, uh, modrons are not a playable race for 5e yet. Looking at you Wizards. But um, but you're playing a modron, which is traditionally a playable race in landscape and, uh, it was very happy to find a, a homebrewed version of the Modron as a player race, uh, for, for this... Game. Game is the word I'm looking for! Um, so tell me a little bit about FAIL/safe.

Seth: 00:29:28 Um, well I guess to start because it's, he's different looking, so I'll just start with that. I suppose he's like a three by three foot cube that stands about six feet tall. Um, he's largely mechanical. He has small kind of like wings that rise from the, the back I would assume would be the back of his body. Uh, he has one large eye that is green with gold flecks and yeah, he's from, he's from the plane of Mechanus, which is where all modrons are from. So like a little on Mechanus is just, it's a plane of kind of like law and order, um, or like more so like planes of all of the laws. Like every law that has ever come to be or will ever come to be like exists in this kind of like large, terrifying clockwork city. And when I say clockwork, I mean like literally there are cities across like giant, giant cogs. Um, yeah. So that's like his base descriptors, I feel like.

Franklin: 00:30:48 Um, and he is more than just metal components in a construct. He is also, he's a very strange created organic-mechanical bea, right?

Seth: 00:31:00 Yeah. He has the organic pieces to him.

Franklin: 00:31:03 Um, so what was the- who are your creators?

Seth: 00:31:10 Right, It's like, that's where it gets weird, right?

Franklin: 00:31:12 This is where we get to be like-

Seth: 00:31:14 Who's... Who's dad? And I'm like, Mechanus is dad and Mechanus is mom, um, and Mechanus abandoned me. [stammering] My creator, FAIL/safe creator is Mechanus who is kind of the god of this plane who kind of dictates all.

Franklin: 00:31:41 Primus?

Seth: 00:31:41 Isn't it, Primus?

Franklin: 00:31:44 You said Mechanus.

Seth: 00:31:45 Oh, sorry. I met Primus. Primus, who is the god of this plane. Um, yeah. And what's really interesting, I, I feel like about modrons is that when, when they become playable, that's when everything changes, right? Because even more about them is when they are creatures and they exist on this plane. They only perform like one singular function and they can't understand anything above or below them past a certain point. They just understand kind of like the person who speaks above them, giving them an order and they serve kind of like one primary function and it's when they go rogue that they kind of start to develop.

Franklin: 00:32:37 So being part of like a hive mind, very super structured, uh, species of beings, there's- do you consider them family and what is, what does that relation to this species that you've kind of been separated from now that you're more of an individual?

Seth: 00:33:00 Uh, I wouldn't, I wouldn't consider or I feel like FAIL/safe wouldn't consider them as family. How I've kind of tried to conceptualize it and like terms that I could possibly fathom is a non-hive mind, fleshy creature is that it really just went from, it would be, it would be dramatic and it would be kind of like powerful, but it, I would never look back on the situation. So I imagine it's like working, like you work in a paper bag company and you literally are making kind of like one little piece of this paper bag pulling a lever every day, day in, day out. And it's bleak and it's gray, but you didn't know that it was bleak and it was gray and then all of the sudden you knew and you were just thrust away from it for knowing.

Franklin: 00:33:58 Now, how did this in devout individuality, the sentience really come to you?

Seth: 00:34:06 Um, so it came to FAIL/safe as an idea is kind of how I've been able to develop it. Is, it was like he was within mechanus. He created cogs basically. He was like a cog maker. Um, and he just got the idea to like add some sort of like filigree or some sort of frivolous kind of piece to the cog. And the moment that he did that, everything kind of changed for him. Like everything went silent and quiet and he was instantly kind of like thrust away an ex-communicated from this plane of existence and just left out in what I imagine is nowhere limbo, something along those lines. And he was just kind of left there for a long time before he was approached by kind of this man, uh, in red robes. And this man in red robes comes to him and kind of is like, I gave you this idea because I think that you can make great things and I'm going to set you up in this place to help you kind of find purpose. Because I feel like that's something that a modron would, would really need, is a sense of purpose because all of its entire existence has been that, so... Yeah.

Franklin: 00:35:42 Yeah. Um, and FAIL/safe is a cleric, yes.

Seth: 00:35:45 Yes. FAIL/safe is the cleric. He's a cleric of Oghma. Mainly Oghma, but part of that Pantheon and Oghma is the god of knowledge and ideas.

Franklin: 00:35:59 Oghma's like the head Honcho of the knowledge Pantheon. Um, so again, kind of similar to Eldred, you were, you were thrust into a life rather than really like setting out and choosing it yourself. But, uh, and, and you were led to sickle, is that correct?

Seth: 00:36:20 Yes, led to Sigil. Um, I pictured kind of living, uh, a short time before meeting our other adventurers and he was really just kind of like working as a kind of scribe at the time at one of the kind of churches of Oghma where they really kind of focus on transcribing information and developing kind of like libraries building knowledge, uh, where he found that he had a love for kind of like smithing, tools, and things. And I feel like the God of ideas would never kind of turn away a new one as long as it didn't... uh... Go against his tenants. So.

Franklin: 00:37:06 So among the lists- this whole transformation into an individual, what does feel safe really want?

Seth: 00:37:15 Like what does he want from his existence?

Franklin: 00:37:18 Yeah. What does, what does he desire? What is his, what is his current like goal?

Seth: 00:37:21 Uh, his current goal is to keep his friends safe.

Robby: 00:37:26 [chuckles]

Seth: 00:37:26 Uh, that will always be his current goal probably. Um, because these were these like, people to him probably serve as kind of like a... As a purpose as well. Right. So it's like his friends to him are, are really big. Our purpose for him. Um, and other than something so philosophical, he, uh, really desires to kind of create new technologies and catalog new technologies. And so he's trying to, uh, go to the different material planes go to the different prime planes go to the different, all of the different kind of planes of existence that he can and like catalog, kind of like the different metals that exist there, different ores, all of the different kinds of ingredients and bring them back and see if he can create things that will better.

Franklin: 00:38:22 So kind of like an experimental survey-smith?

Seth: 00:38:26 Yeah. He's trying to survey the universe and see if he can make better tools for them.

Franklin: 00:38:32 Fantastic. Um, and then, but you know, back to that- that core Planescape question, what does, what does FAIL/safe belief of meaning of the universes is?

Seth: 00:38:43 Hmm. I feel like he would feel like the meaning of the universes is creation. It's, it's all about kind of like... What you make while you're here. Um, but he isn't really in any kind of rush to do that because I don't, I don't think I die. I don't think I go anywhere. I just exist. I just keep existing. FAIL/safe just keeps existing.

Franklin: 00:39:14 Yeah, FAIL/safe is among all of you, uh, functionally immortal unless someone kills him.

Lo: 00:39:20 I never even thought about that ever but that's so true.

Franklin: 00:39:24 Until you start running out of replacement parts...

Everyone: 00:39:29 [chuckles and murmors of agreement]

Franklin: 00:39:29 which your in the fantastic situation of being able to make your own replacement. parts.

Seth: 00:39:34 Yeah.

Franklin: 00:39:34 So eventually I just imagined a thousand years from this, this time that FAIL/safe is just going to be built out of his own parts and welding's and...

Robby: 00:39:49 Ores

Franklin: 00:39:49 ...and...

Robby: 00:39:49 ...Ores that he's discovered on his own?

Seth: 00:39:53 Um, another like interesting thing I think is that right now he's probably under some sort of protection from Oghma, but because of that, because modrons like don't really live or die, there's actually kind of an imbalance in Mechanus from his existence because until he dies, they can't replace the modron, that's kind of like there because it's kind of what happens is like when a mo drawn is like killed in battle or on the great march or something like that. It kind of like just reappears in mechanus-

Franklin: 00:40:33 Yeah. Oh, sorry.

Seth: 00:40:34 It's fine. You Go.

Franklin: 00:40:35 Um, what it's, it's a really cool and speaks to the very super methodical order of the entire plane is that... say a quadrone dies on the march, then a tridrone below it will be promoted to a quadrone and then a duodrone underneath that tridrone will be how much tridrone and a monodrone beneath that will become a duodrone and then back in Mechanus, a new monodrone will be made. So it's this cascading form of promotion. Um, and then a new modron is made with the essence that went back to Mechanus all the way up to Primus.

Lo: 00:41:16 So it's not actually like a production line, like they just appear. So it's like if you take a duodrone and it turns into whatever... Whatever.

Franklin: 00:41:23 Tridrone.

Lo: 00:41:23 Tridrone, they, they just literally evolve like there's not-

Franklin: 00:41:27 They just-

Lo: 00:41:27 -or do they just go into like a workshop and they're like remade?

Franklin: 00:41:31 No they sudden-

Seth: 00:41:31 No.

Franklin: 00:41:32 They suddenly evolve like Pokemon. So-

Seth: 00:41:34 They evolve.

Lo: 00:41:34 That is so interesting! I never put two and two together with that part.

Seth: 00:41:37 Yeah. And like uh- now I'm like scared, I'm going to say... it's Primus. Primus.

Franklin: 00:41:44 Primus, Yes.

Lo: 00:41:44 Primus like the band.

Seth: 00:41:44 It can even happen with him. Like if, if the god dies, then...

Franklin: 00:41:50 A secundus.

Franklin: 00:41:50 A Secundus becomes the new god.

Lo: 00:41:53 Welp, It sounds like we have to go kill Primus.

Franklin: 00:41:55 That's a different campaign.

Lo: 00:41:57 [Laughs]

Robby: 00:41:57 No.

Everyone: 00:42:01 [Laughs]

Robby: 00:42:01 No, I'm scared.

Lo: 00:42:02 Yeah.

Franklin: 00:42:03 That's a whole different campaign.

Lo: 00:42:07 I would not want to fuck with the modrons at all, honestly. That sounds like they're- bad business.

Franklin: 00:42:11 They are intense.

Robby: 00:42:16 We were almost victim to the march.

Lo: 00:42:16 Yeah that was crazy.

Franklin: 00:42:18 Um, and you know that, that actually like segu-segues into a really fun thing. I didn't have any more prepared questions for you all, but I thought since we have had a whole campaign together, uh, and all of your characters have really bonded and become friends with each other in what in-game is a very short time, but in IRL has been almost exactly a year since we started that last campaign. Um, what are some favorite memories that your characters have of each other or what is your favorite thing about one of the other characters?

Lo: 00:42:56 "Human Doors Ceremony."

Everyone: 00:42:58 [Laughter]

Lo: 00:43:02 I think that is one of my favorite coined, terms from any D&D session we've ever had. Cause you mean like honestly it's pretty hilarious cause I mean the entire time we've been playing it's like watching FAIL/safe gain like sentience. And probably the funniest thing is when all of us realized that he didn't understand the concept of like somebody knocking on a door and having to open it.

Everyone: 00:43:22 [Laughter]

Franklin: 00:43:26 Yeah, I remember that. Having to explane the, the ceremony of knocking on a door and then answering it and greeting the person and discussing business and then inviting them in and moving out of the way to invite them in and the, the series of tasks. That was, that was a beautiful moment.

Lo: 00:43:47 That was pretty funny.

Seren: 00:43:48 The funniest part of that concept, how it happened was that we were literally under siege at night from rogues and he had to figure out how to answer the door.

Everyone: 00:43:56 [Laughter]

Lo: 00:43:59 So, yeah... So funny.

Robby: 00:44:02 Um, I think that one of my favorite moments was, um, we were trying to infiltrate the, um, headquarters of, uh, what was it?

Franklin: 00:44:18 The Harmonium?

Robby: 00:44:18 The harmonium to gather some information. And we were, there was obviously guards around and whatnot, but like Temerity had a heart to heart with FAIL/safe about what friends were

Everyone: 00:44:35 [Laughter]

Robby: 00:44:35 ...and how you like keep a watch out for your friends. Um, and it ended up being a really special moment and in the end it became like a really beautiful exchange of some gifts and some really like positive emotions.

Franklin: 00:44:52 That was really... that was session two!

Robby: 00:44:54 Yeah.

Everyone: 00:44:55 [Laughter]

Franklin: 00:44:55 That was session two.

Lo: 00:44:58 Because that was that paperwork place, right?

Robby: 00:44:59 Yeah.

Seren: 00:45:01 Well that's where I have like a good memory of Temerity being able to go in and just, um, say "eeeeeeh" to all the other employees.

Robby: 00:45:08 Yeah

Seren: 00:45:08 ...Cause that like her front job.

Franklin: 00:45:10 Oh yeah! It wasn't the Harmonium; it was the Guvners.

Robby: 00:45:15 Oh, yeah. [stammering]

Franklin: 00:45:21 [The Harmonium] was a different infiltration.

Robby: 00:45:21 Oh, you're talking about the... [Stammering] As a side note, um, as- when joining the Revolutionary League, they had decided that Temerity should, uh, help break down from the inside to the Guvernor's, um, faction. And so as part of a revolutionary that you are assigned another faction to help sort of infiltrate breakdown and sort of corrupt. So she has the Guvernors but is not afraid to also infiltrate others.

Everyone: 00:45:51 [chuckles]

Seth: 00:45:55 Um, I really loved, I really loved this was it, it was Harmonium. It was the Harmonium infiltration that we did then. Uh, it was a sneak mission, um, and FAIL/safe and Temerity went in and somehow made our way all the way through. We convinced like these guards to like help us through part of it. And the best part of all of it was Seren's ability to stay in character as Eldred because they literally just sat outside and waited for us the entire time.

Everyone: 00:46:35 [Bursts into laughter]

Lo: 00:46:35 That happened while I was gone.

Robby: 00:46:40 Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Lo: 00:46:44 ...cause I was like I do not have any recollection.

Robby: 00:46:45 Yeah. That was part of the efforts of finding Kith. We needed to get out of Sigil-

Lo: 00:46:51 Thats hilarious.

Robby: 00:46:51 and find a githyanki. I mean, it was-

Seth: 00:46:55 It was pretty good.

Lo: 00:46:55 I feel like that is what is always so impressive about your character, Seren, actually is your ability to stay true to what they're actually supposed to be doing.

Seren: 00:47:05 Its so hard with the Bleak Cabal because it like, really dissuades you from going in on the adventure. Cause really I could just lie face down on the floor and be like his character all like everyone's like doing something just super important. I have to find a way to like rationalize how to either get around it or how to like justify it for my character. It's a constant struggle. I'm thinking very hard all of the time.

Robby: 00:47:30 I feel like thie so pouty. They're just the poutiest of characters. Just like, nope, I'm not interested.

Franklin: 00:47:34 So do you all have any questions for me or for each other?

Lo: 00:47:41 I have question for you. Uh, why were you inspired to use Planescape as a setting in creating this campaign?

Franklin: 00:47:49 There are a lot of reasons, but I'd have to say that the first one was because I was first exposed to it through a character who I really liked. And that was Holly Conrad's character of Strix from Dice Camera Action. I love Strix and when I first was exposed to her in the Curse of Strahd setting that they were doing, I was like, "What is this fantastic being? I need to know more about it!" And learned more about Strix's, planar origins and coming from Sigil. So I for- The first reason was kind of a bit of fandom, but as I got to know the setting more, I thought it was really cool. This is a setting where you could have hags as like a hag coven be own a tavern next door or you could just be like, oh yeah, that's the xorn merchant that sells rocks. Um, and you could have this hyper fantastical setting where things that you would consider monsters and creatures to kill or be afraid of could be your neighbors. I thought it was really interesting and fascinating in that point, but also it was the most diverse setting that I've ever come across. I don't know, it's kind of just the hyper fantastical-ness of it really drew me in.

Lo: 00:49:17 I love that. I, cause I do feel I agree with you that Planescape is an interesting setting to do a podcast like this. Just with the overall general feel that we're going with it. I like that kind of tie into it cause I mean obviously other than just being a name, there has to be like a reason behind why we're doing the podcast that we're doing. I like it.

Robby: 00:49:44 I'll follow up by asking Franklin: Um, so do you feel like our characters, how you like reflect this idea or like what do you find interesting about them and helps that like it came sort of carrying on your hopes for this campaign and your Planescape setting.

Franklin: 00:50:05 I've done a lot of growth as a, as a DM trying to learn how to make a really good story and make it an entertaining game. Also making it like a collaborative storytelling experience. And I thought each of you brought really interesting, well developed and fun characters together. And we started that last campaign as trying- as an adaptation of the Modron March, which I went through and I realized I didn't love the "railroadiness" of it. And we very quickly went off script and your character's just made fantastic, Um, if foolish decisions that created a whole, in my opinion, a much more interesting campaign for our setting. And so, um, I really take a lot of inspiration for what the char- what you've created as characters and um, the backstories you've created in the decisions that you've made in that past campaign. Um, and I'm trying really hard to make it a really cool adventure that is about you all as the main characters rather than kind of fitting into a preformed uh, railroady plot. So I'm very prepared to... Possibly scrap a chapter if the- if I have to, but if it's for a better story that you're all creating and we're all having a lot of fun doing it, doing it, I am 100% willing to throw out all the rest of the stuff I've done If we create a better story. I hope that answers your question.

Robby: 00:51:53 Yeah.

Seth: 00:51:55 We'll do your chapters. We'll probably just do them backwards.

Franklin: 00:51:58 As is tradition.

Lo: 00:51:59 Oh, true.

Seren: 00:52:00 Okay. I have one for Franklin. It's um, very, it's a very deep question. Okay. Uh, are you going to fight a dragon?

Franklin: 00:52:10 Possibly.

Seren: 00:52:10 Wow! That's it. That's the question. We're playing Dungeons & Dragons, I want to fight a dragon.

Franklin: 00:52:20 There are quite possibly, I can't promise you, I don't want to give any spoilers, but there may be dungeons and they're quite possibly might be dragons.

Seren: 00:52:29 ooOOoo

Seth: 00:52:29 I've never fought a dragon in Dungeons & Dragons.

Robby: 00:52:31 [Laughter]

Seth: 00:52:31 Never, never. I've never even seen one in Dungeons & Dragons.

Franklin: 00:52:37 That is a bold-faced lie.

Robby: 00:52:37 But we haven't-

Seth: 00:52:39 Maybe in the distance. Did we walk past one?

Franklin: 00:52:41 You've, you've- That was like the first boss of the campaign.

Seren: 00:52:45 But it wasn't like a real dragon

Franklin: 00:52:45 Well, okay.

Robby: 00:52:46 It wasn't a real dragon.

Franklin: 00:52:47 Was constructed dragon, but its-

Lo: 00:52:49 It was a dragon nonetheless.

Seth: 00:52:51 You mean the paper dragon? The paper dragon. Ok, yeah.

Franklin: 00:52:51 You didn't know it was constructed until after it was over.

Seth: 00:52:54 I was going to mention that moment too. Like when Eldred leapped on that dragon.

Franklin: 00:53:00 Eldred for being such a frail character really is very lucky at grappling.

Seren: 00:53:04 Yeah, it is really pure luck. I don't have modifiers to support that.

Seth: 00:53:11 Um, I'll go am I supposed to?

Franklin: 00:53:13 Yeah, I think you're the last one.

Seth: 00:53:15 Okay. Um, I want to know how you go about choosing kind of planes for us to go to a little bit. Like they fit with kind of a plot or are they just kind of like devices for you to use?

Franklin: 00:53:37 I, I found a lot of inspiration going through the manual, the planes, the planeswalkers handbook, um, all of this old and new information. Um, I regularly binge, um, uh, Forgotten Realms Explained like planes videos and stuff like that. So I've researched a lot of information about these planes and I find them each individually very interesting and fantastical. And what I do is I keep all that information to the side and I think what is the next thing that would happen for them? Like do they need to go to THIS kind of a place? And then whatever that place is, I think of what would make this a really interesting setting? Um, would it be really cool to go to an army barracks? They have to go in and they have to take over the fort. Cool. That could be really cool. Where could that be? That could be in Acheron where it's all battles all the time. It's law, law and order at its most militant. That could be like, let's go hyper militant on this. Or it could be: what is, what would such a place be like on the beast lands? Would it be just, uh, just oh this open air type of baurier and beast filled type of place that has a very loose definition of what a military is. So I kind of take the idea and I just kind of cycle it through. What would it be like in this plane or this plane? Um, and to be honest, I, uh, found a really cool Reddit article where I just take random magic cards and I just lay them down and be like, oh, okay, here is the problem. Here is the NPC, here is the helper. Um, and I've done a bunch of those and 98% of them never make it into the campaign, but they're very interesting, nonetheless, but-

Lo: 00:55:50 Thats such a cool idea!

Robby: 00:55:50 I feel like it sparks imagination, at the least.

Franklin: 00:55:52 It really does. It sparks imagination and sometimes, for the settings I think, oh wow. This reminds me a lot of that plane. And so I just kind of go with it. Okay. It's a little bit of building the plane as you're flying it, but I feel like that's just DMing in general.

Seth: 00:56:08 Yeah.

Seren: 00:56:13 [chuckles]

Seth: 00:56:13 Who's next?

Everyone: 00:56:16 [general stammering]

Robby: 00:56:16 I was going to say, I have a, I have a question for Eldred or for Seren, playing Eldred. Uh, will Eldred ever decide that enough is enough. Like will, will Eld- and basically what I am- What Temerity is curious about is "will Eldred abandon us?"

Everyone: 00:56:36 [Laughter]

Seren: 00:56:37 Ah, wow. It would, it would take a lot. I feel like cause he's made some pretty chaotic decisions in his life before he'd be, he would first probably talk to you before outright abandoning you. I think you'd have to be doing something like really egregious, like you'd have to be literally like slaughtering people in the street and he'd come out and be like, Temerity, are you having a problem right now? Do you want to talk about it?

Lo: 00:57:07 So rational

Seren: 00:57:13 Yeah, probably. Probably like just I think unless we turned to absolute murder-hobos, I think it'll be okay... But you never know.

Everyone: 00:57:25 [Laughter]

Seren: 00:57:25 Test me. Go ahead.

Lo: 00:57:28 Yeah. On that same thing, because I feel like a lot of that is because of Eldred's apathy to most things. So if Eldred had to pick an emotion to, to actually like feel for forever, other than like apathy, what, what would it be?

Seren: 00:57:45 Other than apathy? Wow.

Seth: 00:57:48 We eliminated that choice.

Seren: 00:57:49 Yeah.

Everyone: 00:57:50 [Laughter]

Lo: 00:57:50 Do you like how I made sure of that?

Seren: 00:57:53 Just sealing all the exits for me.

Everyone: 00:57:57 [Laughter]

Lo: 00:57:57 I want a juicy answer.

Seth: 00:57:59 [Laughs] Yeah...

Seren: 00:57:59 I don't know. Like, oh, like a warm fuzzy feeling. I feel like he never gets that. Like when you're asleep and some blankets warming your house next to a fireplace. He just wants warmth basically.

Seth: 00:58:09 Yeah. That's sad.

Robby: 00:58:12 Like a good Sherpa,

Lo: 00:58:16 like the feeling of getting into bed after a long day.

Seren: 00:58:19 Or like waking up and then being able to go back to sleep being like half awake. That's kind of Nice.

Franklin: 00:58:24 The simple thing.

Franklin: 00:58:25 Yeah.

Seth: 00:58:26 Um, my question for Eldred is to piggy back off of it, kind of is what is Eldred's deepest darkest fear?

Everyone: 00:58:36 [Laughter and exclamations of disbelief]

Seren: 00:58:40 um...

Franklin: 00:58:41 Thats less of a piggy back and more of a just pull on like a full on pole vault.

Seth: 00:58:46 I mean you, it, the point of it is because you've experienced such terrible things. I'm like, is, is, are you afraid of that? Like the, just going back to that or is there something that you actually fear more than it?

Seren: 00:59:00 Probably having to face like he, when he really worries about is that- Oh hi! My DM's like leaning in uncomfortably close.

Everyone: 00:59:12 [Laughter]

Seren: 00:59:12 He would, he hopes that he didn't mess up his home plane because he did like a really like imbalancing like bizarre experiment that just totally... It shunted him into the Shadowfell. He has no idea if that, like caused a permanent problem there. Um, uh, it, he hopes it still exists to be great if that plane still existed. He loved that he's also as a tertiary fear, he's also a little bit nervous if someone were from that plane were to like come and call them out on that. But he liked it better than finding out if that he had, um, essentially destroyed a plane or irrevocably damaged it through carelessness.

Seth: 00:59:56 Yeah so the genocide of what? Your entire people?

Seren: 00:59:59 Yeah, he's hate that, he would hate that a lot.

Seth: 01:00:02 It's a thing to hate; that'd suck.

Franklin: 01:00:07 Let's do, let's do questions for Seth.

Seren: 01:00:13 FAIL/safe

Seth: 01:00:14 mmhmm.

Seren: 01:00:14 What is FAIL/safe's- I mean, Seth, Seth FAIL/safe, Seth, what is the preferred design aesthetic of FAIL/safe?

Seth: 01:00:23 Um, you have a baroque foot.

Everyone: 01:00:25 [Laughter]

Lo: 01:00:30 Let's get straight to the point, here.

Seth: 01:00:32 Highly ornate. Um, kind of like embossing on things, I feel like that's kind of his style because the idea behind it, right is that from this base function is, I feel like he started as a minimalist artists, right. Because he made cog the same cog over and over again. That served a singular function. That was the point of it. And then through kind of learning that there's more to it and there's the ability to kind of embellish and the ability to create like different things from those embellishments or different ways to do things. It kind of just fits. So everything's like highly ornate and weird, strange.

Seren: 01:01:15 Good answer.

Lo: 01:01:16 I feel like its an allegorical tale for going through art school.

Seth: 01:01:20 Yeah. Yeah. Sigil is, art school. Lots of different things.

Franklin: 01:01:26 Funny enough, there is an art school.

Seth: 01:01:29 Um, there is, oh, I'm going there.

Franklin: 01:01:32 Uh, just, just for reference. Um, cause I don't think that we mentioned it earlier. Eldred does have a prosthetic foot that, um, that was made by FAIL/safe.

Seth: 01:01:45 In like the one, one time we used the critical misses or whatever table.

Franklin: 01:01:51 Yeah. Massive damage table [Actually the Lingering Injury Table], which I really just need to bring back. I love that table.

Seth: 01:01:56 I do, too.

Seren: 01:01:56 Please keep that.

Seth: 01:01:56 I have a scar from it. I remember.

Franklin: 01:02:02 Oh yeah!

Seren: 01:02:02 So do I!

Franklin: 01:02:02 That was a bigger "scar".

Robby: 01:02:05 Um, FAIL/safe. Also made the quiver of Ehlona, that Temerity caries, which I imagine now is also very ornate. Hard to hide.

Lo: 01:02:19 FAIL/safe also made a mustache. So...

Robby: 01:02:21 Oh yes.

Lo: 01:02:22 I think that's my favorite thing. So far. Hard left question for FAIL/safe. Uh, what does FAIL/safe Think of death? Since you, I mean you're essentially immortal. I feel like you don't have any direct fear towards death for yourself. So as a concept, when you think about death in general?

Seth: 01:02:45 Well, I don't think he's had enough time to understand that everyone is so different when it comes to death. Um, I think he definitely, he looks at it probably much the same as him though, that it's like when you die, you go back to wherever you came from and you are remade. So like it's a transference of energy.

Lo: 01:03:13 So FAIL/safe is a Buddhist.

Seth: 01:03:14 Yeah, basically. I mean,

Lo: 01:03:19 Fair enough.

Franklin: 01:03:20 There's a faction for that.

Everyone: 01:03:22 [chuckles]

Seth: 01:03:22 Is there?

Franklin: 01:03:23 Oh yeah.

Seth: 01:03:25 Its not the Godsmen.

Robby: 01:03:27 So, um, my question for FAIL/safe is it is somewhat related that um, po- possibly having to do the same thing, but like when, um, due to his, uh, recent awakening, I imagine there was a lot of really fun things that you get to sort of like relive emotionally or sort of like tangibly. So like what are you excited the most to like role play with him when he finally like decides and or realizes about whatever it may be?

Seth: 01:03:59 um, I'm, I think I'm, I have this kind of moment in my head that I don't really want to fully give away, but like, I've wanted to kind of be like in an like an enlightenment moment where like everything kind of clicks for him and it becomes less about kind of like learning and more about kind of like, instilling learning because that's what, that's what ultimately this God who has chosen him, his building him up for because this God is the god of learning and usually of knowledge and it's usually through like, it's practice to like pass down that knowledge in some way

Lo: 01:04:50 Student becomes teacher.

Robby: 01:04:52 [laughs] Right? Right. It's like the, it's like that level of growth, which I think is really exciting.

Lo: 01:04:58 Uh, I have question for Temerity. Uh, if you were to be taking your career placement test, what would Temerity get?

Robby: 01:05:09 That's such an interesting question. I mean, like she, not only does her youth kind of like deceive her in that because she's really deciding a lot about who she is and where she's going. At the same time, like just being like sneaky and beautiful. Um, and exploring your sexuality at the same time. I just feel like, uh, I don't know, maybe a hairdresser?

Everyone: 01:05:38 [Bursts of Laughter]

Franklin: 01:05:38 It comes full circle!

Lo: 01:05:38 Everybody in this party is a haridresser-

Robby: 01:05:38 Almost.

Lo: 01:05:38 ...in the real world-

Seren: 01:05:38 Except for me!

Lo: 01:05:38 Except for Seren. So Robby's really just going to become himself.

Robby: 01:05:55 Sort of. But, but seriously though, I mean like it, it has a lot of parallels. I feel like it makes a lot of sense.

Lo: 01:06:03 I was afraid that you were going to say like a prostitute.

Seren: 01:06:05 [Cackles]

Robby: 01:06:06 No.

Lo: 01:06:06 Because he said beautiful and mysterious and something else. What else did you say?

Franklin: 01:06:11 Sneaky

Lo: 01:06:11 And then you start to talk about sexuality.

Seren: 01:06:13 I was getting kind of a Black Widow vibe.

Franklin: 01:06:16 Like a femme fetale?

Robby: 01:06:18 I agree. Without going this sort of like, you know, Austin Powers assassin route, you know, like

Lo: 01:06:26 Oh Temerity's going to become Beyonce.

Robby: 01:06:26 I, I know, right? Like I feel like it's someone that just like has the ability to converse with others, has a lot of like charisma and sort of like attracts others but also has the ability to sort of like influenced them and sort of like, ah, like offer them like things to enhance and persuade and manipulate... Like a hairdresser. And any of you hasnt had a relationship with a hairdresser, but that's what they're doing to you. I know from experience.

Franklin: 01:06:59 Don't give away our secrets. Jigs up, jigs up everyone. Any more questions for-

Seth: 01:07:09 Mines in the same vein. So I'll ask, um, I want to know if Temerity were a pop star, what kind of music would she play and, and would she dance.

Franklin: 01:07:22 Yeah. I love how FAIL/safe's questions were like "what is your concept of death?" And then Temerity's questions are like a Cosmo quiz, but I'm very interested in the answer of just Cosmo quiz.

Lo: 01:07:36 Oh Gosh, its so true.

Robby: 01:07:39 I don't know! Ummm...

Seth: 01:07:43 From the anime girl pictures, I have an idea.

Robby: 01:07:45 Yeah. I mean like I feel like, part- a part of me thinks that Temerity would be kind of like Jem & the Holograms and just like all kinds of beautiful pretty colors, but secretly is a superhero in disguise. But then on the other hand, maybe it could be like, um, who's that French? That French singer that was really popular for a minute. she had that crazy pop...

Lo: 01:08:09 Yelle!

Robby: 01:08:10 Yeah, Yelle. Well she can be very Yelle with the sort of like crazy patterns and the fun like dance moves that are like very like quick and jagged, and adorable and like in some foreign language.

Seth: 01:08:26 Abyssal!?

Lo: 01:08:27 Oh my God, No! She's going to be that... What is it that j-pop like metalhead band?

Seth: 01:08:38 Baby Metal?

Everyone: 01:08:38 [Laughter]

Lo: 01:08:38 Cutesy music and dancing and outfits and suddenly just like, "RRRRAAAAAAAAAAH"

Robby: 01:08:43 Very like death metal pop.

Franklin: 01:08:48 You're giving me so many idea here.

Robby: 01:08:53 She's an expert at the tambourine

Seren: 01:08:57 Serious question, Robby. Has Temerity ever been to prom?

Robby: 01:09:03 Uh, unfortunately, no. Uh, you know, she, she had very different agendas. Um, the boys were intimidated to ask her to a dance due to her, a demon-like features. Um, but recently at the end of our last sessions. She was able to, uh, be a, be a guest at a really formal events and that was probably the closest she's ever come to. Sort of like going to like a dance or sort of an event where she can dress up, meet a boy, have a great time, drink a little fizzy drink and leave with a good kiss.

Franklin: 01:09:49 Oh, that's adorable. Great. Questions for Kith?

Seth: 01:09:58 !!!

Robby: 01:09:59 Well, I'm going to stay on the same like flirty, flirty level, uh, with Temerity, and start by asking, uh, Lo. Is Kith ever going to be Temerity's best friend?

Lo: 01:10:09 Kith is already Temerity's best friend.

Robby: 01:10:11 Yeah!

Lo: 01:10:12 ThisIts funny cause one of my questions. I was going to ask everybody who's your closest friend in the party? Cause I feel like Temerity and Kith have like a particular yeah, bond because they both pretty young. Yeah. And we've just ended up in some hilarious situations and it just kind of make sense.

Robby: 01:10:28 So far so good.

Lo: 01:10:29 Yeah.

Franklin: 01:10:29 For Frame of reference, Temerity is 16 Kith 22 Eldred is like...

Seren: 01:10:35 334

Franklin: 01:10:40 And FAIL/safe is-

Seth: 01:10:40 um, I think I put like a 1,235-

Everyone: 01:10:46 [Laughter]

Seth: 01:10:46 but technically 2.

Franklin: 01:10:46 So there's some age gaps.

Robby: 01:10:50 He was born on the leap year.

Lo: 01:10:53 Oh my God, my birthday is February 29! In the game.

Seren: 01:10:59 I'm like-

Robby: 01:11:01 Oh, oh.

Lo: 01:11:02 cause February ends on the 28th...

Franklin: 01:11:02 There is no February in Sigil.

Lo: 01:11:05 I know, but that was the-

Franklin: 01:11:07 There also is no calendar in Sigil.

Lo: 01:11:09 You asked what her birthday was in the questionnaire and I put that Kith's birthday was "February 29th 'winky face.'"

Franklin: 01:11:17 And then I learned that Sigil had no calendar and I was like, well...

Seth: 01:11:19 They don't track time. Why? Because they don't have seasons or anything.

Franklin: 01:11:24 The do- Oh God, it's so weird. I'll, I'll, I'll tell you off- off-mic. The craziness that is that, and I'll tell you the listeners later. That's a whole thing.

Seren: 01:11:35 Uh, Kith. Please tell me more about Kith's cool journal that she keeps with her.

Lo: 01:11:45 Wha? The lock journal?

Seren: 01:11:46 Yeah.

Lo: 01:11:47 Yeah, totally. So Kith has this lock journal, um, where she records, um, every lock that she's ever come across that she's had to lock, pick being a rogue. Um, so this actually totally came up on like a whim. Like I hadn't even thought about it before. There was this period of time that happened. I'm trying to remember exactly what occurred, but I decided to record down a lock and then out of character thought that was kind of like an interesting quirk to have. Um, so then by kind of developing that further, I feel like that was a tip given to Kith, um, when she was with the circus troupe. That's like- if you want to be the best type of like rogue or lock picker that you can be, um, you have to study your subject, right? So Kith keeps a journal of every lock that she's come across and she tries to find patterns and also likes to, um, record a d like maker's symbols. Because typically when you're doing any sort of thing where you build that, you have like a...

Seth: 01:13:01 signature.

Lo: 01:13:02 -a signature that you put onto your things. So Kith tracks those to see if she can find common patterns or like a lock makers throughout the multiverse that, um, how common themes. Yeah. So that's where that came about. It's totally random. It just, I came up there one day.

Seren: 01:13:20 I thought it was like super cool for like months

Everyone: 01:13:23 [Laughter]

Seren: 01:13:25 Havent told you until now.

Franklin: 01:13:29 And then our final question,

Seth: 01:13:32 um, I am wondering like how did Kith reason with ever staying with this party?

Seren: 01:13:44 [laughs]

Lo: 01:13:44 Um, that's an interesting question because typically I don't think Kith would ever stay with a group for that long. Um, ultimately I think because it provided Kith A lot of entertainment in the beginning because literally the first venture that we ever did Kith watch somebody sell their soul to a lawyer devil and was very intrigued by this. And then, um-

Robby: 01:14:11 It wasn't too long until we were in the Beshaba Games!

Everyone: 01:14:13 [Laughter]

Lo: 01:14:16 Right? I think that really ultimately at first Kith stuck around because it was entertaining. Um, and then through realizing how interesting all of the people that she ended up with kind of, maybe it's feeling a little sense of home because she misses that. Yeah.

Franklin: 01:14:38 Aw!

Robby: 01:14:39 Baaarf.

Lo: 01:14:43 She would never tell anybody that.

Franklin: 01:14:46 Well, thank you all so much for listening to this, the setup episode of our upcoming adventure. This has been like a really kind of brief or maybe not so brief, really nice in depth introduction to these characters that were going to be playing in this new campaign. We'll have the first episode for you in two weeks time uh, released on Monday and I'm so excited to start a new campaign with these people. I really love these players. They are wonderful and they always show up and Seren and just gave me a wonderful battle axe and like, like spell book pin.

Seren: 01:15:25 No, a real battle axe!

Everyone: 01:15:26 [Laughter]

Franklin: 01:15:30 shh. Don't tell them the real secret. [stammering] I am super excited for all of this and you all are wonderful and do you all listening are wonderful and we'll see you in two weeks. Thank you. Bye.

Everyone: 01:15:47 Thank you. Bye.

Franklin: 01:15:53 Thank you for listening to our very first episode. Creating this has been a labor of love and we're so excited to release it for listeners like you, if you're liking what we're doing and you're excited about the next episode, share it with your friend, consider leaving a review, make art; Anything that you could do is super supportive for fledgling podcasts like ourselves. You can follow us on Twitter @queer4adventure. That is queer-the number four-adventure on Twitter. That's where we're really going to be posting most of our updates and information about any future episodes. We'll be releasing episodes every other Monday, so the next episode will be launched on February 11th. Our intro was created by myself, Franklin Falkowski. Our out-tro was arranged by Braxton Burks and our art was created by Nic Freeman. You can find Braxton on Twitter at @Braxtonburks and their band camp is braxtonburks.bandcamp.com. You can find nick on Twitter at @NicrNack that is, N-I-C-R-NACK and on artstation at artstation.com/nfreemen. They are two wonderful queer artists whom I have had such wonderful experiences with. So you should think about sending them money so that they can make more art for you. That's all for now. And again, thank you so much for listening and we'll see you in two weeks. Bye.

#queer #lgbt #lgbtq #dnd #dnd5e #planescape #podcasts #queerforadventure #ttrpg #rpg

[whimsicaldragonette]

ARC Review: The One True Me and You by Remi K. England

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Publication Date: March 1, 2022

Synopsis:

Up and coming fanfic author Kaylee Beaumont is internally screaming at the chance to finally meet her fandom friends in real life and spend a weekend at GreatCon. She also has a side quest for the weekend: Try out they/them pronouns to see how it feels Wear more masculine-presenting cosplay Kiss a girl for the first time It’s… a lot, and Kay mostly wants to lie face down on the hotel floor. Especially when her hometown bully, Miss North Carolina, shows up in the very same hotel. But there’s this con-sponsored publishing contest, and the chance to meet her fandom idols… and then, there’s Teagan. Pageant queen Teagan Miller (Miss Virginia) has her eye on the much-needed prize: the $25,000 scholarship awarded to the winner of the Miss Cosmic Teen USA pageant. She also has secrets: She loves the dresses but hates the tiaras She’s a giant nerd for everything GreatCon She’s gay af If Teagan can just keep herself wrapped up tight for one more weekend, she can claim the scholarship and go off to college out and proud. If she’s caught, she could lose everything she’s worked for. If her rival, Miss North Carolina, has anything to do with it, that’s exactly how it’ll go down. When Teagan and Kay bump into one another the first night, sparks fly. Their connection is intense—as is their shared enemy. If they’re spotted, the safe space of the con will be shattered, and all their secrets will follow them home. The risks are great… but could the reward of embracing their true selves be worth it?

My Review:

★★★★★

This was such a good, affirming, joyful book! As someone who is active in fandom but has never been to a con, and who spent a lot of years questioning my identity (queer: nonbinary, bi ace), I really identified with Kay and felt very seen. They are like my younger self, and the atmosphere of the con was incredible. While I didn't have much in common with Teagan, she was easy to like and I was still rooting for her breaking away from the strict mold the pageant forced her into. The story had its ups and downs of course but I felt so much queer joy radiating from the pages and wrapping me in this blanket of acceptance and it was so soothing. There are also some great messages about not judging people based on what they look like or enjoy doing. And the fandom representation is so good. Such an accurate portrayal of a03 and tumblr and writing fanfiction. I want to go to a con now. I would recommend this to every teen who is questioning their identity or knows someone who is. Sometimes you just need a dose of joy and affirmation and that's this book in a nutshell. *Thanks to NetGalley and Wednesday Books for providing an e-arc for review.

Favorite Quotes:

And yet, it never occurred to me before that any of these people could be considered truly beautiful. And there’s a vast gulf between not judging someone for their appearance and actively appreciating their beauty.

---

…but if I can take anything away from this weekend, it’s that I don’t have to look a certain way to be who I am. If I feel nonbinary, I am nonbinary. There’s no right way to dress or act to prove it.

#remi k england #mk england #the one true me and you #queer romance #wednesday books #fandom romance #netgalley #arc review #shilo reads

[unimportanthistory]

Who am I

Everything around me is evaporating. My whole life, my memories, my imagination and its contents, my personality - it's all evaporating. I continuously feel that I was someone else, that I felt something else, that I thought something else. What I'm attending here is a show with another set. And the show I'm attending is myself.

Be careful: everything fades, everything vanishes. Something must remain of us.

My world falls apart, crumbles, “The centre cannot hold.” There is no integrating force, only the naked fear, the urge of self-preservation. I am afraid. I am not solid, but hollow. I feel behind my eyes a numb, paralysed cavern, a pit of hell, a mimicking nothingness. I never thought. I never wrote, I never suffered. I want to kill myself, to escape from responsibility, to crawl back abjectly into the womb. I do not know who I am, where I am going—and I am the one who has to decide the answers to these hideous questions. I long for a noble escape from freedom—I am weak, tired, in revolt from the strong constructive humanitarian faith which presupposes a healthy, active intellect and will. There is nowhere to go. Except if nowhere is the place you want to go.

But when it came right down to it, the skin of my wrist looked so white and defenseless that I couldn’t do it. It was as if what I wanted to kill wasn’t in that skin or the thin blue pulse that jumped under my thumb, but somewhere else, deeper, more secret, and a whole lot harder to get at.

I act and react, and suddenly I wonder, ‘Where is the girl that I was last year? Two years ago? What would she think of me now?

I tried to remember. I had the choice of being constantly active and happy or introspectively passive and sad. I was going mad by ricocheting in between. At times I had no interests. I had no interests in anything. I had no idea how I was going to escape. At least the others had some taste for life. They seemed to understand something that I didn't understand. Maybe I was lacking. It was possible. I often felt inferior. I just wanted to get away from them. But there was no place to go. Suicide? God, just more work. I felt like sleeping for five years but they wouldn't let me.

It begins to seem to me at such times that I am incapable of beginning a life in real life, because it has seemed to me that I have lost all touch, all instinct for the actual, the real; because at last I have cursed myself; because after my fantastic nights I have moments of returning sobriety, which are awful! Meanwhile, you hear the whirl and roar of the crowd in the vortex of life around you; you hear, you see, men living in reality; you see that life for them is not forbidden, that their life does not float away like a dream, like a vision; that their life is being eternally renewed, eternally youthful, and not one hour of it is the same as another; while fancy is so spiritless, monotonous to vulgarity and easily scared, the slave of shadows, of the idea, the slave of the first cloud that shrouds the sun... One feels that this inexhaustible fancy is weary at last and worn out with continual exercise, because one is growing into manhood, outgrowing one's old ideals: they are being shattered into fragments, into dust; if there is no other life one must build one up from the fragments. And meanwhile the soul longs and craves for something else! And in vain the dreamer rakes over his old dreams, as though seeking a spark among the embers, to fan them into flame, to warm his chilled heart by the rekindled fire, and to rouse up in it again all that was so sweet, that touched his heart, that set his blood boiling, drew tears from his eyes, and so luxuriously deceived him!

And so I ask myself: 'Where are your dreams?' And I shake my head and mutter: 'How the years go by!' And I ask myself again: 'What have you done with those years? Where have you buried your best moments? Have you really lived? Look how cold the world is growing. Some more years will pass, and after them will come gloomy solitude; then will come old age trembling on its crutch, and after it misery and desolation. Your fantastic world will grow pale, your dreams will fade and die and will fall like the yellow leaves from the trees. . . . You know it will be sad to be left alone, utterly alone, and to have not even anything to regret — nothing, absolutely nothing . . . For all that you have lost, all that, all was nothing, stupid, simple nullity, there has been nothing but dreams!

I am nothing.

I'll never be anything.

I couldn't want to be something.

Apart from that, I have in me all the dreams in the world.

I see my life branching out before me like the green fig tree in the story. From the tip of every branch, like a fat purple fig, a wonderful future beckoned and winked. One fig was a husband and a happy home and children, and another fig was a famous poet and another fig was a brilliant professor, and another fig was Billur, the French translation student, and another fig was Europe and Africa and South America, and another fig was Constantin and Socrates and Attila and a pack of other lovers with queer names and offbeat professions, and another fig was an Olympic lady crew champion, and beyond and above these figs were many more figs I couldn't quite make out. I saw myself sitting in the crotch of this fig tree, starving to death, just because I couldn't make up my mind which of the figs I would choose. I wanted each and every one of them, but choosing one meant losing all the rest, and, as I sat there, unable to decide, the figs began to wrinkle and go black, and, one by one, they plopped to the ground at my feet.

I am in my old room once more, for a little, and I am caught in musing - - how life is a swift motion, a continuous flowing, changing, and how one is always saying goodbye and going places, seeing people, doing things. Only in the rain, sometimes, only when the rain comes, closing in your pitifully small radius of activity, only when you sit and listen by the window, as the cold wet air blows thinly by the back of your neck - only then do you think and feel sick. You feel the days slipping by, elusive as slippery pink worms, through your fingers, and you wonder what you have for your eighteen years, and you think about how, with difficulty and concentration, you could bring back a day, a day of sun, blue skies and watercoloring by the sea. You could remember the sensual observations that made that day reality, and you could delude yourself into thinking - almost - that you could return to the past, and relive the days and hours in a quick space of time. But no, the quest of time past is more difficult than you think, and time present is eaten up by such plaintive searchings. The film of your days and nights is wound up tight in you, never to be re-run - and the occasional flashbacks are faint, blurred, unreal, as if seen through falling snow. Now, you begin to get scared. You don't believe in God, or a life-after-death, so you can't hope for sugar plums when your non-existent soul rises. You believe that whatever there is has got to come from man, and man is pretty creative in his good moments - pretty mature, pretty perceptive for his age - how many years is it, now? How many thousands? Yet, yet in this era of specialization, of infinite variety and complexity and myriad choices, what do you pick for yourself out of the grab-bag? Cats have nine lives, the saying goes. You have one; and somewhere along the thin, tenuous thread of your existence there is the black knot, the blood clot, the stopped heartbeat that spells the end of this particular individual which is spelled "I" and "You" and "Billur." So you wonder how to act, and how to be - and you wonder about values and attitudes. In the relativism and despair, in the waiting for the bombs to begin, for the blood to flow and trickle before your own eyes, you wonder with a quick sick fear how to cling to earth, to the seeds of grass and life. You wonder about your eighteen years, ricocheting between a stubborn determination that you've done well for your own capabilities and opportunities... And a fear that you haven't done well enough - You wonder if you've got what it takes to keep building up obstacle courses for your self, and to keep leaping through them, sprained ankle or not. Again the refrain, what have you for your eighteen years? And you know that whatever tangible things you do have, they cannot be held, but, too, will decompose and slip away through your coarse-skinned and death-rigid fingers. So you will rot in the ground, and so you say, what the hell? Who cares? But you care, and somehow you don't want to live just one life, which could be typed, which could be tossed off in a thumbnail sketch = "She was the sort of girl....” And end in twenty five words or less.

And then… Perhaps when we find ourselves wanting everything, it is because we are dangerously close to wanting nothing. I wanted the whole world or nothing. Just like that, I wanted all of you to myself or none of you at all.

Remember when I told you that I have spent all my life resisting the desire to end it. Do you remember your reaction? It suddenly seemed to me that I was lonely, that everyone was forsaking me and going away from me. God I feel sick when I think how vulnerable, how fragile, how bounded I made myself in the eyes of you. I feel sick when I remember I gave you the power to hurt me. Yes, I was infatuated with you. I am still. No one has ever heightened such a keen capacity of physical sensation in me. I cut you out because I couldn't stand being a passing fancy. Before I give my body, I must give my thoughts, my mind, my dreams. And you weren't having any of those.

Maybe, maybe I’m in love with missing you more than I’m in love with you.

No, I don’t love; I don’t love anybody except myself. That is a rather shocking thing to admit. I have the selfish love of my mother. I have none of the plodding, practical love. . . . . I am, to be blunt and concise, in love only with myself, my puny being with its inadequate breasts and meager, thin talents. I am capable of affection for those who reflect my own world.

You’re dissolving. You are all dissolving. This city is dissolving. None of you matter any more. I don't know you, I have never known you and I am very pure. All that wine and those sticky kisses I had and the dirt that settled on my skin on the way back is turning into something pure. Isolation.

I know that if I were mad, after several days of confinement I should take advantage of any lapses in my madness to murder anyone, preferably a doctor, who came near me. At least this would permit me, like the violent, to be confined in solitary. Perhaps they’d leave me alone.

Here I am, a bundle of past recollections and future dreams, knotted up in a reasonably attractive bundle of flesh. I remember what this flesh has gone through; I dream of what it may go through. I record here the actions of optical nerves, of taste buds, of sensory perception. And, I think: I am but one more drop in the great sea of matter, defined, with the ability to realize my existence. Of the millions, I, too, was potentially everything at birth. I, too, was stunted, narrowed, warped, by my environment, my outcroppings of heredity. I, too, will find a set of beliefs, of standards to live by, yet the very satisfaction of finding them will be marred by the fact that I have reached the ultimate in shallow, two-dimensional living - a set of values. This loneliness will blur and diminish, no doubt, when tomorrow I plunge again into classes, into the necessity of studying for exams. But now, that false purpose is lifted and I am spinning in a temporary vacuum. At home I rest and play; but in there, where I work, the routine is momentarily suspended and I am lost. There is no living being on earth at this moment except myself. I could walk down the halls, and empty rooms would yawn mockingly at me from every side. God, but life is loneliness, despite all the opiates, despite the shrill tinsel gaiety of "parties" with no purpose, despite the false grinning faces we all wear. And when at last you find someone to whom you feel you can pour out your soul, you stop in shock at the words you utter - they are so rusty, so ugly, so meaningless and feeble from being kept in the small cramped dark inside you so long. Yes, there is joy, fulfillment and companionship - but the loneliness of the soul in it's appalling self-consciousness, is horrible and overpowering.

I am left for a moment alone. Disorder, a broken wine glass on the floor, spilt wine, cigarette ends, fumes of drink and delirium in my brain…

Though the past was no better one feels as though it had somehow been better, and that life was more peaceful, that one was free from the black thoughts that haunt one now; that one was free from the gnawing of conscience — the gloomy, sullen gnawing which now gives me no rest by day or by night.

I grew to feel the tender skin of sensitive child-fingers thicken; to feel the sex organs develop and call loudly to the flesh; to become aware of school, exams (the very words as unlovely as the sound of chalk shrilling on the blackboard,) bread and butter, marriage, sex, compatibility, war, economics, death and self. What a pathetic blighting of the beauty and reality of childhood.

Then I have my old diaries. At nights like this I get the courage to read a few pages. Most are teared into pieces, burned, blowed, flushed… They did vanish, but something did, something did remain of me. And what remained is not the pages, it is me. Perhaps nothing vanishes and the word change is merely a deception. In a certain sense the past is far more real, or at any rate more stable, more resilient than the present. The present slips and vanishes like sand between the fingers, acquiring material weight, only in its recollection. Now and even tomorrow, is nearly yesterday and everything is stupid.

I’m eighteen (even older) now. I want to believe in the word “change”. I want to change. Perhaps my life is nothing but an image of this kind; perhaps I am doomed to retrace my steps under the illusion that I am exploring, doomed to try and learn what I simply should recognize, learning a mere fraction of what I have forgotten.

[gascon-en-exil]

The Not Really Definitive Ranking of the Zelda Series: #1

#11-19 (link to #11, with further links to each of the others)

#10 - Tri Force Heroes

#9 - The Wind Waker

#8 - The Minish Cap

#7 - A Link to the Past

#6 - Link’s Awakening

#5 - Ocarina of Time

#4 - Twilight Princess

#3 - A Link Between Worlds

#2 - Breath of the Wild

#1 The Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Mask (including the 3DS remake)

I may say with a small degree of hipster-y pride that I liked Majora’s Mask before it was cool, that in fact this game has topped my personal Zelda ranking practically since it was first released. I’ve already written in exhaustive length about how much thought I’ve devoted to the most efficient means of fully tackling the game while working around its infamous time constraints, so none of that bears repeating. Even when MM was new I loved the fresh challenge the time limit represented for 100% completion, and I loved all the more that the game feels tailored specifically to reward that kind of playstyle. In addition to the usual item upgrades and extra hearts, there’s also the mask collection system, which culminates in a sequence of fairly challenging mini-dungeons that award the intentionally overpowered Fierce Deity’s Mask. What’s more, most of the masks unlock scenes in the credits montage that relate to their acquisition. My twelve-year-old self couldn’t get enough of this ode to complicated logistical projects.

In the years since I’ve also come to appreciate everything else that this game has to offer, including its profound and unique impact on the fandom. No other Zelda game has inspired such a curious combination of fanwork, ranging from creepypastas to fanmade remixes and reinterpretations of the soundtrack to extended philosophical essays on the game’s existential narrative and themes. It’s not difficult to understand how MM made the leap from cult classic to beloved mainline entry in the franchise when those of us who love it clearly love it so very much.

For a certain, rather complex definition of “love.”

At the same time however I can understand why all the attention MM has received in the past few years has come with a subsequent wave of backlash. Perhaps because of its separation from many of the key elements of the Zelda franchise this is a game that demands to be approached as a distinct entity. Players who come into MM expecting something resembling the typical Zelda experience (even on its initial release, when there were only five previous games to compare it to) will probably only come away with criticisms: it recycles the Ocarina of Time game engine and only occasionally does anything interestingly new with it, the main story is short and fairly easy, there are only four dungeons, and the time limit and restricted save system can feel too punishing unless you know exactly what you’re doing. That’s all it ever will be unless you bring something else to the experience, and for that reason I completely understand why opinions are divided over this game, and for reasons less easy to quickly identify than graphical style or gimmicky controls or linearity (or lack thereof) like all of the other controversial titles.

That demand for more from the player is one of the aspects of MM that makes it stand out so strongly from the rest of the series. From the moment Link passes through the door leading into Clock Town and the ominous “Dawn of The First Day: 72 Hours Remain” appears on the screen the game forces the player to engage with its world and its defining mechanic directly, in such a way that not even Breath of the Wild with its varied environmental demands has been able to match. With very few exceptions you are always on the clock from that point forward, which in addition to its obvious ramifications for gameplay plays perfectly into the tone and atmosphere of MM. The bright and outwardly cheerful world of Termina contrasts sharply with the mounting dread of its inhabitants as the moon looms ever larger in the sky above, and everything from lighting to music to NPC activity (in Clock Town and Romani Ranch, at least) builds on that feeling such that the player can’t help but feel it too. Link may have a Get Out of Apocalypse Free card in the Song of Time, but the terrible fate of Termina resonates powerfully nonetheless.

I could go on in that vein for quite a while, and in fact many people already have - reading deeply into anything and everything in this game, from the physical world of Termina to the overwhelming number of personal tragedies that play out over the course of the story and side quests to the ambiguous villains that are the Skull Kid and Majora’s Mask. This has been recently expanded upon even further with the revelation in the 30th anniversary Hyrule Encyclopedia that Termina is a creation of the Skull Kid, which adds further (disturbing) dimensions to his personality and helps to explain why this parallel world of Hyrule exists as it does. This is a game that encourages overthinking, or what some would refer to accusingly as “reading too deeply,” and as I’ve demonstrated myself that even extends to something as comparatively superficial as game progression. It is, in other words, a work of art, something that encourages thought beyond the surface level of entertainment. I’m not suggesting that none of the other Zelda games qualify as art, and indeed the question of the definition of art and how it applies to video games is far too large a subject to get into here. However, in my opinion no other Zelda game (with the possible exception of Link’s Awakening) delivers such a multilayered experience, and for that reason alone Majora’s Mask still takes the top prize.

And I’ll be honest - I have a literary academic background and years of experience reading into queer subtext for personal pleasure. Of course I’m going to love a game that gets me thinking on that level. I don’t even really feel the need to expound upon how I find MM enjoyable purely from a gaming perspective either; after all, a game with a great story and thought-provoking themes can still be ruined if it’s not fun to play. But for those curious:

There are no really frustrating side quests or minigames, which as I’ve mentioned several times before can really irk me in a Zelda game. Even the famed complexity of the Anju and Kafei side quest is somewhat overblown; it only consists of about half a dozen required events, and many of them are brief.

The dungeons all feel distinctive and cleverly designed. There may only be four, but there’s not a bad one in the bunch. (And while Great Bay Temple may not be my favorite water dungeon in the series, I will absolutely step up to defend it if necessary.)

The transformation masks are an amazing idea that demands gushing over. It’s like controlling four characters in one, to say nothing of the deeper implications inherent in the masks both collectively and individually. They all get a significant amount of use and excel in different areas, and they incorporate the abilities of several pieces of equipment held over from OoT, ex. the boomerang and iron boots for the Zora Mask, which helps streamline gameplay.

The experience of MM improves drastically once you learn to work with the clock rather than against it, which I suppose counts as this game’s biggest learning curve. The nice thing is that you don’t even have to master time management to complete the game; you can still make it to the end if you take fifty cycles or five (100% N64 version), four (100% 3DS version), or two (any% either version - I think).

There’s really little more I can say. MM was a phenomenal accomplishment of gaming that almost feels like a fluke. It was produced in under two years as the immediate follow-up to the most lauded game in history at that time, and yet it emerged as a wholly unique entity that still demands attention and analysis from fans even today. Like several others I’m now left to wonder if Nintendo will follow BotW with a similarly unusual and groundbreaking work. Given how thoroughly that game has shaken the foundations of this venerable franchise, the material is certainly there. I don’t know if any Zelda game will ever surpass this one for me, but I’m open to the possibility. I enjoy being pleasantly surprised (almost) as much as I enjoy obsessive scheduling.

#The Legend of Zelda #Majora's Mask

[haynespersson44-blog]

Rocketcases Goes Retro With Gameboy And Nintendo Controller Scenarios For IPhone Sevens.

These manuals are actually much more than simply home windows into exciting spots and loveable personalities. The boy claimed he was self-conscious" and also daunted" due to the happening as well as now spends lunch breaks in the collection to stay away from being actually aggravated by classmates that have actually seen the photo Rakesh satyal has written a great, fascinating, heartbreaking/heart-lifting account from the maturing of a 12-year-old queer indian-ohioan (second age: the parents arrived to the US as grownups) young boy. The Video game Kid online video reveals Davenport using his Equipment Live smartwatch as well as a Moga Pocket Controller to play video games like Pokémon, Tetris, and Super Mario Bros One of men, significantly, that frustration is actually taking the form of impotence Last year, sexual psychoanalysts at Nottingham Teaching hospital informed our company there are currently as numerous English males in their adolescents as well as twenties with erectile dysfunction in comparison to men in their fifties and sixties. While guys can still offer input, if your viewpoint contravene a lady's, our company ask that you perform certainly not downvote or abolish her response. Boys mature much more slowly than gals and also females possess more of their cortex determined for spoken functionality. The scary produced due to the picture of Omran echoes the uneasy international action to photos of Aylan Kurdi, the drowned Syrian kid whose body system was actually located on a seaside in Chicken. 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Sadly, Frances conceived due to the statutory offense, as well as that is suggested-- though not specified outright-- that this resided in large part this confluence of instances that triggered Frank's ruthless persecution from Boy. Joost Leunissen, among the research study's writers, remarked: This offers evidence for the hypothesis that gender differences in inter-group conflict could possess an evolutionary source, as just males appear to profit from showing gallantry." Translation: regardless of having actually gone on from our cavern period, males still rack up points by striking each other with stones, while ladies are actually expected to swoon. Lecturer Alan Smithers, supervisor from the Center for Education as well as Job Analysis at the College from Buckingham, mentioned gals started college along with somewhat better spoken capabilities, while young boys began along with a somewhat better knack for maths. In the very first phase from the book, Young boy dives from 1st person to Second person in order to describe her home life and then in the first chapter of the Second part from guide, Bird also jumps viewpoint (First person to 3rd individual) for a couple of webpages to define herself. The kid was actually stopped in Broken Hill, a separated mining area in the far west of country New South Wales, on Saturday early morning. It is greater than a many years due to the fact that the marketplace got out of bed to the possibility that males which review their girlfriend's glossies in the toilet could be prepared to dish out for something primarily customized to their very own demands. She was perhaps my favored cousin because of her connection along with her best friend George. The title from Wiseman's article is Everything you understand about young boys and also computer game is wrong". It might believe a little outdated right now, but Match Nightclub was actually the embodiment from male agony when that was first launched. He runs off leaving behind Child (who has obtained enchanting energies after waking up Nesfastax), to pursue him by means of the Palace from Magic (hence nitty-gritty). Concerning a Child is actually an uproarious, simple read that is actually ideal to cuddle up along with around Christmastime. A teen female named Elegance, who was actually raped, but nobody feels her and a teen boy called Ian, which is bestfriends along with Zac, the rapist. Kids were initially said to the kid had left behind as well as a brand-new woman had actually arrived, but at an exclusive installation the head instructor, training class educator as well as the pupil's special needs instructor appeared to realise the youngster would certainly be actually acknowledged. After your very first short play-through ends, you're nudged to get back in as well as observe what other experiences await-- as well as certainly, the Brothers Beard can take other roads and also uncover more remarkable factors. The warden is truly using the boys to seek graft submerged by Wild West hoodlum Kissin' Kate Barlow. From all guides I've reviewed that deal with rape as well as sexual assault( which I admit is actually few) I believe Some Boys is my preferred. I'm only a specific person that feels guys and also ladies ought to possess equal opportunities. As well as there is actually no one pathway: You might end up Burly Gentlemen mixed-up in around 30 minutes and think, That's this?" This is actually a fair inquiry. He found the co-operation of the proprietors from the best personal fine art pictures in the country: J. Going Here , Holly C. Frick, Joseph E. Widener, George W. Elkins, John G. Johnson, Charles P. Taft, Mrs. I loved the whole principle from observing 3 teenage gals on their summer season quest for kids. I assume a bunch of people have been trying to modify your thoughts about regardless if feminism benefits men today. The writer so strongly records the world through which you live, thus skillfully coats her enhancements, that it's additional real compared to the others. Others appeared surrendered to their location in life as well as appeared to approve that they were less apparent to guys on a daily basis. Overall, this book was actually a (sci-fi) glance at a worst-case circumstance, in a planet where modern technology ends up being thus sophisticated that this activates mankind. Initial perception propose Ash is an usual young boy but there are tips dispersed via the tale to presume Ash is even more special compared to even he knows. In a lot of the cafes, males rest consuming herbal tea and also checking out grainy images of young boys dancing. Well-written though there are a few locations where the expanded court hushes the vulnerable child. Probably that is since I haven't had good luck with the book nightclub options this year or even possibly because recently I've been actually becoming pickier along with how I judge books.