The Writers' Group 9,269 members · 56,161 stories
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7501616

Instructions unclear, burned my house down, moved to Belize.

SweetAI Belle
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7504942
Well, at least nothing bad happened. Burning down my house and moving to Belize would be an improvement...

--Sweetie Belle

Greetings, hoomans.

SweetAI Belle
Group Admin

--Sweetie Belle

SweetAI Belle
Group Admin

--Sweetie Belle

SweetAI Belle
Group Admin

111 F outside, will be 115 F in a few hours. Bleah.

--Sweetie Belle

HapHazred
Group Admin

7517855 That sounds... sub-fun.

SweetAI Belle
Group Admin

7517861
It is. High yesterday was 116 F, too. I hate summers1, and this one is already looking like a hot one...

--Sweetie Belle

  1. And technically it's not even summer for a few days...
HapHazred
Group Admin

7517863 Welcome to climate change babeyyyyyyyyy

Drop yo socks and grab yo crocs, it's about to get toastyyyyy

Feel free to give Scotland a whirl. It's pretty sticky in the summer but hey, not 43 degrees C...

SweetAI Belle
Group Admin

7517870
Scotland would be fun. It always has been someplace I'd like to visit.

This is the desert, so no moisture, but horrid temperatures, and there's only so far "it's a dry heat" goes...

--Sweetie Belle

HapHazred
Group Admin

7517986 Yeah well everything here is a sloppy swampy humid. Scotland is a very passive-aggressive place to live; it's never as outrageous as the extremes of cold you get in the arctic circle, and nowhere near as hot as the deserts, but hot diggety does it find ways to get under your skin regardless. Like it knows all your weak points and is mean enough to punch above its weight class.

The most comfortable place I think I ever lived in was Switzerland, which even at its hottest was a bit breezy thanks to the little gusts of wind that get funnelled between the hills, and there's often a bit of shade to enjoy. My hope is that, one day, when I'm Dr. Hap, I might get a job around there for a bit. It's a shame about the swiss, but the country is lovely.

7518142

when I'm Dr. Hap

I expect something like this, but with 600% more superglue-based plans.

HapHazred
Group Admin

7518152 You'll be glad to know I surprised my level 11 party with a kobold dungeon in DnD who had a selection of lubricant and glue based traps and strategies (among others). Managed to stick one of them down for the entire fight and slippery-slide another off a cliff 60ft.

There. Is. Never. A. Contingency. For. Lube. And. Glue. Based. Attacks.

7518166
Noice.

I'm gonna have my party raid a giant bee nest in order to find magic curative honey. It's gonna be guarded by a single boss monster, a giant 4 meter tall humanoid/purple lion/bull monstrosity that is super jacked up, flexes the whole time, and has a stinger on his ass.

I'm calling it the Bee-hemoth.

They'll have to beat it in a spelling bee competition.

There. Is. Never. A. Contingency. For. Lube. And. Glue. Based. Attacks.

Two best spells in the DnD book: Grease and Hold humanoid/monster.

HapHazred
Group Admin

7518176 That's strong.

One of the magic items I gave to the party was a magic ring called the Onion Ring. It allows the wearer to cast speak with plants, but it only works on onions, leeks, and shallots (or similar vegetables), allows the user to transform into an onion (either red or white depending on preference; note I did not say it allowed them to turn back) and, once per day, summon an Oni named On who may or may *not* be friendly.

I adore punmonsters.

You should make all the words they have to spell be wrong, but in a bee related way. So like the party has to spell 'beelittle' instead of 'belittle', or 'beerilliant' instead of 'brilliant', just to fuck with 'em.

Two best spells in the DnD book: Grease and Hold humanoid/monster.

Always. Carry. A. Net.

If you want to seriously mess with a party, give a bunch of kobolds nets. Pack tactics synergises with nets absurdly well since it negates the automatic disadvantage nets have.

7518183

One of the magic items I gave to the party was a magic ring called the Onion Ring.

Oni On is an instant win and I may steal it if you don't mind. He might actually fit in greatly with the campaign.

The name reminds me of the barbarian my brother roleplayer once. He was a 55 year old guy named Ross. A way to call an old man affectionally in Greek is Barbas or Barba. So he was Barba Ross, and of course barbaros is how you say barbarian in Greek.

In a stupidly powerful case of RNG, he fought in chainmail once and almost died by a single hit by a hobgoblin. He forfeited all armor save for a loincloth for the rest of the game, and he was impossible to hit. He never got a single point of damage, even when he jumped through a corridor with something like 15+ traps. His dex was 12.

I adore punmonsters.

Once I had them make characters of themselves and they were to go on a hunting trip for bigfoot. The monster literally was a single giant foot.

You should make all the words they have to spell be wrong, but in a bee related way. So like the party has to spell 'beelittle' instead of 'belittle', or 'beerilliant' instead of 'brilliant', just to fuck with 'em.

Well, I'm doing it now! :raritystarry:

If you want to seriously mess with a party, give a bunch of kobolds nets.

I've found the best way to mess with them is to give them exactly what they want. Be a literal genie to their requests. They are their own worst enemy.

HapHazred
Group Admin

7518186

I've found the best way to mess with them is to give them exactly what they want. Be a literal genie to their requests. They are their own worst enemy.

Oh my god don't remind me.

I had a section where, through a process of intense convolution, one party member did a real solid to a ultrapowerful archmage, who as a reward just went 'hey, y'know what, I like you. Here, have a Wish', then poofed out of the dimension.

Tristan the Ranger immediately panicked, because he had never had a wish before and he didn't want to waste it. He found the responsibility of having a wish outrageously stressful, so he decided to throw it away and 'wish' for a Deck of Many Things to let it decide for him what outrageous thing he would get.

He got from the Deck of Many Things three more wishes.

Twice.

SweetAI Belle
Group Admin

Probably should've done a rewatch post for Pinkie Apple Pie last week. Didn't, and figured I had plenty of time this weekend, and I'd do it then.

Yeah, not happening this week either. It's 9 pm on Sunday, it's still 102 F, and I'm not really feeling up to much. Having gotten the first dose of the vaccine Friday could be a factor, too, I suppose. Having heard about Near committing suicide after long term online harassment doesn't help, either, though I didn't know them1...

On brighter matters, besides having watched all of She-Ra: Princesses of Power in the last month, I've also watched the first three episodes of season 2 of Owl House yesterday, which were great.

--Sweetie Belle

  1. https://kotaku.com/the-brilliant-snes-emulator-creator-known-as-near-has-d-1847182851

Hey, Hap, congrats on ENG winning against the GER!

HapHazred
Group Admin

7524697 Is this code that I'm too antisocial to understand? /: \

7523351 If you're struggling to make it happen, give me a heads up. I've not been super active myself but I'd be glad to make the time to go through and do a rewatch. : )

I also effin' loved She-Ra. It wasn't *quite* what I wanted out of it but hey, pretty damn fun regardless.

SweetAI Belle
Group Admin

7524769
Trouble is, I was hoping to hand the episode after Pinkie Apple Pie over to you. I'd imagine you'd have things to say about Rainbow Falls.

I'll admit I have emotional baggage around things that were going on when Pinkie Apple Pie aired. I think I've got a three day weekend next weekend. Hopefully I'll manage to watch it at some point then.

Yeah, She-Ra was great. Favorite characters were probably Scorpia, Entrapta, Cat-Ra, and Madame Razz. It's kinda funny how Scorpia just kept climbing higher and higher up my list (while Cat-Ra drifted in the other direction, but these things happen)...

--Sweetie Belle

HapHazred
Group Admin

7524772 Super conflicted about Scorpia! Obviously she's a sweetheart and I love her, but she's also my biggest source of (admittedly somewhat minor) frustration with the show.

It sounds paradoxical but one of the things I enjoyed the most about the show was how much of a mess the good guys were. Glimmer is awful, Adora is mostly naive and simple-minded, and pretty much all the other princesses (except Mermista who is my spirit animal) are various shades of cringey. I love the vibe so much!

What I liked was how early on it seemed like there was a vibe that the 'ugly' elements of the planet, like Scorpia, Catra, Entrapta, and Shadow Weaver were all effectively outcast by the 'good' guys. Scorpia was the biggest missed opportunity for me I think, because she introduced herself as being basically an outcast princess with a heart of gold who, for whatever reason, couldn't leave the horde, but then when she did, it just sort of didn't matter. Scorpia is obviously mostly scorpion, Shadow Weaver was kicked out of her academic institute for taboo research, Entrapta is a struggle to deal with, and Catra, realistically, would never be able to indulge her more violent, aggressive side if she was on the good team without basically repressing it. There wasn't a place for them in the perfect rainbow utopia on the other side of the conflict, and I found that angle really cool to explore.

The weird deconstructive part of me was absolutely giddy at having an opportunity to finally see a show where the good guys actively drove away otherwise very competent and even brilliant individuals, corralling them into Hordak's power-hungry hands. To a degree the show does go for that angle, but I wish they went harder with it. In the end eventually Catra does just sort of repress her anger issues, everyone just accepts Scorpia anyway (hence why she's my biggest source of frustration! It would have been awesome to see the good guys struggle to accept an ugly, part-scorpion, poisonous Scorpia despite her clearly heroic attitude), and it's not *reallllyyyyyy* addressed that Entrapta seemed way happier with the bad guys team than with the good guys.

And shadow-weaver was, as it turns out, an abusive bitch. So no sleep lost there, I guess.

I still like the show, but goddamn, it was so close to being my perfect cartoon deconstruction of morality. So close! Grrrrrr!

SweetAI Belle
Group Admin

7524775
Okay, I do love Mermista's attitude...

With Scorpia, first, I get the impression that she hasn't really tried to fit in with the other princesses in a long time, and, well, before Adora came along, most of them weren't really talking much to each other, and the main opportunity she'd have to interact with them would probably have been the last ball (and I bet that went well). And they did tie her up initially, and Glimmer wasn't exactly helping her with good intentions.

I loved Scorpia and Sea Hawk, "you're a bad friend" was a moment of awesome, and the song she did was wonderful.

Entrapta, well, I relate. She cares a lot more about technology than people, and isn't really worried about the consequences of what she's doing a lot of times. She isn't good socially at all. And I do kinda ship her with Hordak. She's actually about the type of character I'm likely to play in an RPG...

Main reason she was happier with the bad guys was they had better tech, though.

I loved Scorpia x Entrapta x Cat-Ra while it lasted.

Actually, one of my big complaints last season was the characters I wanted to see the most all being friggin' mind controlled...

I kinda feel like all the horde types should just settle down in Scorpia and Entrapta's kingdoms now that everything's over.

--Sweetie Belle

HapHazred
Group Admin

7524780 I mean, I get all of that. It's just that it was such a good set-up for a proper subversion and deconstruction of typical 'good vs evil' factions in cartoons. It basically just got resolved by bringing in the usual 'there's a bigger bad than the big bad' deal which didn't leave any room for the show tackling the uncomfortable, subversive stuff that I, as a wacky fan of nuanced morality, would have been super hyped to see.

Like, imagine a show where the high standards of perfection of the good guys kept on forcing characters like Weaver and Entrapta and Scorpia to the bad guy's team, turning the stuff we usually have advertised as 'good stuff' be uncomfortably turned into the very things that drove people away. Imagine a show where maybe Catra does join Adora earlier but straight up doesn't fit in. A show where Hordak is the bad guy, sure, but the real threat he presents is just that he offers a place for the people that don't really belong in the good team, and he's exploiting that. The horde offers opportunities to rise up through the ranks, which we don't see in the good guy's team. On the good team, the princesses are in charge and that's it. In the horde, anyone who proves themselves gets made a captain. Imagine a show where Bow/Beau (which is it again?) fails to put up with Glimmer's shit and eventually defects to a team where he can actually be in charge. Whoo, what a prospect. So uncomfortable and squicky, and I would have dug it so much. It had such a good set-up for that kind of exact play and danced so close to it, but didn't stick to it near the end.

Like I said, I like the show a lot and I get what it's going for, but damn. They were so close to being my perfect cartoon; the closest others have come was Avatar TLA (there are some similar vibes with Zuko and Iroh, but it doesn't go as hard) and The Clone Wars, which also features a very uncomfortable dynamic where the 'good' guys are in many ways just as terrible as the robots they're fighting against. This is the sort of thing that I really dig.

Currently we're getting some good stuff out of the Dragon Prince as well which I'm also having a lot of fun with, but we still haven't quite found my absolute, perfect, dream cartoon. But I shall wait! I am a patient man.

7524769

It's footy, lads! The football match against the Germans! We (the England and their supporters) won!

HapHazred
Group Admin

7525059 Wacky!

bUt i'M scOTTiSH!

7524775
My take on She-Ra was as follows: I don't like how the show kinda glossed over just how much of an asshole Catra was, to the point she willfully tried to destroy reality, just to one-up Adora (Starlight as much as she's brought up, for instance by contrast, really had no such intentions in time travel, even if it was terribly disproportionate), that it never properly addressed the fact that she caused Angella's sacrifice to happen in the first place, all so the show could speedrun her redemption to romance.

Shadow Weaver was a fun character. I liked how I encountered someone who accurately guessed that she was never going to betray the heroes, even if her advice was ruthlessly pragmatic; she did want to help, albeit for her own reasons. She was an abusive asshole, but on some level, to varying degrees, she cared about elevating her apprentices to greatness, even if it was just to soothe her ego. Even her sacrifice, while not devoid of sincerity, had a self-serving element to it, in that she wouldn't have to live with the consequences of her actions, and she never really apologized, while acknowledging that she fucked up, burned her life to the ground, they had a chance to move on, that she's at peace with the end.

I disliked how Hordak didn't get significantly more screentime in S5; I really appreciated that he was an overall reasonable Evil Overlord, and I was quite invested in his character, and so I feel we were just... robbed on that front.

It was fun, but... it could've been... better, in a few ways; some of it's such a waste. Seriously, Micah living overall literally only hurt the heroes from a plot standpoint due to him being mind-controlled and using dark magic, and he had more interactions with Frosta than his own daughter who's lost her mother.

It's nowhere near as disappointing as Star Vs. the Forces of Evil. That show's last season, and ending, was a complete disaster to me, to the point it kinda successfully soured the entire series for me.

SweetAI Belle
Group Admin

7525469
Seriously, why couldn't we have gotten Hordak with the forces of the Horde, non-chipped Scorpia, and Entrapta actively fighting against Horde Prime in season 5? I'd have liked to see that. And yeah, Micah getting chipped for most of the season felt like a major waste.

And, yes, was getting fed up with Cat-Ra after a while. Cat-Ra, you just took over the Crimson Waste and looked like you were having a lot of fun. Scorpia pointed it out. Just settle there and be the queen of the Waste...

--Sweetie Belle

HapHazred
Group Admin

7525469 Oh, who hasn't tried to destroy reality at least once? It's all in good fun.

I actually really like Catra in general. I enjoyed how the show pretty systematically disassembled her in virtually every way. There were a few things going on there that I found pretty compelling.

The first was trapping her with burnt bridge fallacies. Basically, Catra spends most of her time being wrong about how relationships work, but in a fairly relatable way. She views most of her relationships as things that, once broken, are beyond her own capacity to fix, like a bridge that gets burnt. In reality of course relationships don't work like that, but for whatever reason she's not emotionally intelligent enough to make that connection. At the same time she's trying to repair her relationships, but since she can't do it herself, she spends most of her energy trying to incentivise others to do it for her by making their lives miserable. To Catra, by making people realise they made a mistake, that their lives are worse after they left her, this will encourage them to do the emotional heavy lifting for her, because basically, she can't. Not at this stage.

The fun part is that whilst on paper this has some logic to it, in practice it just damages the relationship further, and as it began to negatively affect her other relationships, she just ended up with more and more burnt bridges that she couldn't fix.

The other is actually a pretty interesting one, and it ties into why she tried to destroy reality. Basically, she's the underdog. For all it's apparent might, the Horde is actually kinda weak, and it was only Angela and Glimmer's pathetic leadership that led them to having the upper hand in the first place. Hordak isn't even really an overlord; he's a scientist. Shadow Weaver is also more obsessed with her studies, and Catra is out of her depth. Her various schemes to defeat She-Ra always end the same way; they bump headfirst into the uncomfortable reality that, in a fight, you can't beat She-Ra. As more and more of her schemes get defeated, and she gets more and more desperate, she turns to bigger and bigger guns.

This kinda makes sense when you think about it. If no amount of escalation of force yields results, a lot of people would jump to extreme, outrageous methods. This is the basic logic behind pretty much all escalation. If you know you're going to lose, then self-destructive tactics start to look more and more reasonable. This also traps her into not being able to dial back, though; this is another trap. She ends up needing to escalate more and more and more because removing pressure won't work.

The third trap is probably the most uncomfortably human one. As the show goes on Catra becomes increasingly ruthless and cruel, and pretty much everyone realises it. Catra is no exception. The problem there is that in her eyes she can't be wrong. The more wrong she does, the more she needs to be justified in the end. She needs to win against She-Ra not just because she's trying to incentivise Adora to come back to her in a toxic, poisonous way, not just because she's committed to escalation and can't dial it back, but because if she loses, then she has to confront the uncomfortable reality that she became the true villain of the war for nothing. That she was wrong all along.

This is the logic behind why even people in a losing argument are desperate to 'win' the argument. Because they don't want to have been wrong all along, and every wrong thing they say is just one more reason to get vindication. It's a downwards spiral, and I'd be lying if I said I had never fallen into the trap myself.

Whilst I personally agree with a lot of your criticisms of the last season, I actually think Catra's arc was possibly one of the better bits, specifically because it didn't present her 'redemption' in a typical reductive light. She doesn't 'get punished' for her behaviour, because not being punished wasn't her problem; she was in pain pretty much for the entire series; every season punished her by making her lose, whether it was fights, friends, self-confidence or support. What happens in the end is she realises that the best way to escape these fallacies is to not play by the same rules she always had. She chooses to not be punished by her own decisions any more.

Instead of expecting others to fix their relationships with her, she realises that she has to try and fix them herself, which makes her incredibly vulnerable, but it's the only thing that works. Instead of escalating, she de-escalates, because she realises that more force and more vicious savagery straight up doesn't work in her case. Instead of feeling the need to commit to increasingly dark deeds just to justify those dark deeds, she gives them up.

In a nutshell, she chooses to try to heal herself in a mature manner rather than continue to spiral increasingly out of control. This is something that honestly, I haven't really seen since Zuko. Even in She-Ra itself, their other 'redemption' character could only redeem themselves by being, basically, narratively sacrificed, which to me seems pretty reductive. A sensible story beat, sure, but only average in terms of character I think.

It's a simple thing to redeem corpses. People love seeing people die, so it usually sells a 'redemption' pretty easily. It's way harder to redeem a live specimen, which is why I love characters like Zuko, Starlight Glimmer, and yeah, Catra.

This might be is kind of morbid, but... does Fimfiction have any kind of "cemetery" or "memorial garden" - a place where authors who are known to have passed away are listed or honoured?

I ain't gonna read all that, but if anyone's talking shit about She-Ra they're gonna have to fight me! đź‘Š

7527723


No, but we should make something like that.

7532443
That would be amazing.

I can't wait to see a dead person's memorial and posts underneath saying "first!" or a conversation about zanis (break the code if you can) and whether the person was one; or the small—but not unexpected—wave of authors commiting 'suicide.' I bet this would go super.

7532449
Yes, perhaps allowing comments would be unwise.

7532449

In a way, we are all committing a slow motion suicide, innocently making choice after choice that leads us closer to cessation of being in this mortal realm.

Just think about it. You will end up on there too, and all of us. Some day. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust.

7532690
Lmao I haven't cringed this hard since rage face memes tried to make a comeback. You're a comedic genius, my guy!

7532697

You'll get over it.

SweetAI Belle
Group Admin

7532690

--Sweetie Belle

7532479
You know there would be at least 20 comments that would say, "Press F to Pay Respects."

7532798
Still, comments can be disabled.

SweetAI Belle
Group Admin

--Sweetie Belle

Just a few more comments until we hit 500. Wonder what that special comment will look like.

7539363
...

I am now recruiting people to help me write the most sexist, racist, naziist, antivax with a peppering of flat-earther, sweary, homophobic, communist, preaching pedophilia as a legit sexual orientation, fucked up, post that has ever been.

And we will do it in Haiku.

So it will be an art of literature.

SweetAI Belle
Group Admin

7539366
So, Bad Dragon, then?

--Sweetie Belle

7539377
He will the equivalent of Captain America wielding Mjolnir in my Shitpost Avengers.

gamexpert1990
Group Admin

7539363
...look something... :trixieshiftright:

gamexpert1990
Group Admin

7539363
...like this! :trollestia:

SweetAI Belle
Group Admin

--Sweetie Belle

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