(no subject)

I dreamt Benton Fraser was turning into a skinny type old man
and was something like ashamed of it
because he just couldn't keep the weight on any more.
he felt he should have a nice layer of insulating fat, be all seal sleek,
but no, he was a skinny.
He felt vulnerable and unsexy
and RayK had to make him feel bettr about it
while feeling kind of insecure himself
because, you know, also a skinny.
But it would never occur to Ben to criticise someone else's body,
just advise them how much more they might need to wear for the conditions.
Besides, he liked his skinny partner.
It was just this one change in himself, out of all the changes, that he had not anticipated
so
it bothered him.

Flash season 3

Just watched the one with Mirror Master, the Top, and Snart
except despite how excited everyone got in advance there wasn't exactly a lot of Snart.
(kick the ball Charlie Brown)

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Episode had some good ingredients, but was just ingredients when it was done.

Makes me want to have another go at it with more theme and stirring.

(no subject)

So there's these stories on tumblr with a bunch of notes and they could be summarised as cute parenting stories
except
the basic pattern is
kids try to do a thing, parent says praise and is supportive and makes sure to join in, but surprise! He lied! But because he loves the kids, so it's cute.
... it is not cute.

I mean, it's two horrible foods they ate for years and one pretending they were bad at a thing so they could join the beginners
so it seems pretty ordinary
but that's just... you can't make good decisions based on bad data.

it is not actually helpful to pretend the food is good.
Because for one, then they never learn how to do feelings and practical fixes if they make a food fail. That's a useful skill too. Parent can tell them, you worked hard, but it did not work out, but the trying was sweet and you'll do better next time. That's a useful parenting thing.
Eating bad food for literal years because you don't want to criticise when someone tried?
not helpful.

And lying about their own skill level so they can follow their kid? Just follow the kid, that's honest, don't... lie.

Lying parents are not a cute story.

Because once there's multiple stories on this pattern then what else is a lie? The kids don't know. It could all be lies.



But I'm not going to say so on a very popular tumblr post because everyone else seems to think it's cute
and presumably trusts that there's only cute happy feels under the lies.

people.

Magic item and powerstone recharging

GURPS rules based magic says:
you can only use one powerstone at a time
you must be touching it, or touching something with the Staff spell enchanted on it that has a powerstone in it
powerstones recharge normally if six feet away from another powerstone, otherwise they divide the points among the stones, take twice as long for two, three times for three etc.

Obviously the simplest way to carry multiple stones is just take them off and put them different places. But then someone can wander off with them.

There's also the spell Knot which knots a rope or cord in such a way as it can only be undone by the password or by magic.

I was thinking: a bracelet can be made of a complexly knotted cord. Like I found one with 24 feet of paracord in it. You could fit a longer thread in if it was skinnier, and more complexly knotted. Obviously this stretches the definition of knot really really far, but that just means there's a more complex spell to learn or invent.

... in theory you could have knitting that won't unravel without a password. Or crochet. Or... stuff.

But what I was thinking of was a bracelet that packed a number of different powerstones close together, around your wrist or wrists, maybe even knotted so they touch your skin. Can't be removed without a password. But with the password they unravel to just be rope.

And then you can throw one end up a tree or use the thing to make a circle around you or some other shape as long as every stone has at least six feet of cord between it and the next stone. And it would recharge at normal speed. But you would have it knotted back around your wrist again - assuming no tree branch based critical fail - in a single casting of a two second spell.



Or you could have complex magic items where each bit had it's own power source and you needed to run a cord up a flagpole at night to recharge the thing.



Obviously you'd end up with different math than just getting one huge powerstone and letting it recharge at normal speed. Less overall bang, but faster recharge if you want to do a lot of smaller things in a row.

And it's always easier to find many small powerstones than one big one, because chance of crit fail destroying larger stones.



Of course this goes well with any knotting or fabric based magic, but those usually assume the knots or weaving or whatever happens at normal speed and are the gestural components of an enchantment. This is more like instant items.



I don't know. Might not be useful, but it's interesting flavour or spin.

I hate commenting on stories

I'm always stuck thinking I'll say the wrong thing and it will be Bad and make everything Bad forever.

But I have been commenting on stories, because I keep being the first one
probably because everyone from the corner of fandom that was interested all worked on the series together anyway

The Flash season 3

Julian, HR, and a giant monster.
Plus Caitlin's mum.

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Lots of interesting threads working pretty okay.