Roach

Header fonts on RPG

@Kuro
If you put the [h1] on the outside of the sup(s), it doesn't have the overlapping issue for longer text. It does, however, have bigger line spacing than regular text. And you might want to alternate sups and subs so that it doesn't displace it weirdly on the page.

_{^{Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Aenean dui turpis, porta vitae commodo sit amet, facilisis nec lacus. Integer malesuada leo eget diam tristique, et egestas lacus fermentum. Nullam porttitor, justo non commodo dapibus, nulla est fermentum enim, sed consectetur diam tortor vel tortor. Sed dapibus nibh justo, id tristique lectus porta a. Proin porttitor feugiat ipsum ac porttitor. Praesent nec cursus ante, tincidunt euismod elit. Sed eget finibus odio.}}

vs.

Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Aenean dui turpis, porta vitae commodo sit amet, facilisis nec lacus. Integer malesuada leo eget diam tristique, et egestas lacus fermentum. Nullam porttitor, justo non commodo dapibus, nulla est fermentum enim, sed consectetur diam tortor vel tortor. Sed dapibus nibh justo, id tristique lectus porta a. Proin porttitor feugiat ipsum ac porttitor. Praesent nec cursus ante, tincidunt euismod elit. Sed eget finibus odio.

Also, it looks better with an H3 as opposed to an H1 - almost usable, even :)

_{^{Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Aenean dui turpis, porta vitae commodo sit amet, facilisis nec lacus. Integer malesuada leo eget diam tristique, et egestas lacus fermentum. Nullam porttitor, justo non commodo dapibus, nulla est fermentum enim, sed consectetur diam tortor vel tortor. Sed dapibus nibh justo, id tristique lectus porta a. Proin porttitor feugiat ipsum ac porttitor. Praesent nec cursus ante, tincidunt euismod elit. Sed eget finibus odio.}}

RPG Pet Pageant - Voting Thread - Final Round!

3 points – Onyx!
2 points – Peep
1 points – McKenzy

RPG Pet Pageant - Voting Thread!

Category: Dogs
1st Pick: Bowie Look at that miniature tank!! He looks like he would vote for Brexit (lovingly).
2nd Pick: Gizmo Now that is the platonic ideal of a dog!
3rd Pick: McKenzy Who is she??? A model?!

Category: Cats
1st Pick: Onyx I wish I could vote 3 times for Onyx. I'm not a cat person, but I've fallen in love. That's him, the perfect cat.
2nd Pick: Hiro Let him eat PLANTS!
3rd Pick: Munju <3

Category: Misc.
1st Pick: Peep The uniqueness of entering a goth sheep into a pet pagent rocks.
2nd Pick: Danica I don't know an awful lot about bunnies, but this one looks cute as hell.
3rd Pick: Enigma Snake? Snake!? Snaaaake!

T H E L A S T A V A T A R ᶠᵉᵃᵗ ᴱˣˡᵗ ˣ ᴿᵒᵃᶜʰ

Down below, in a shoebox apartment that rattled with every passing train, Sakani was getting ready – if not for war, then for something that would be just as great an upset.

“Thanks for letting me have your sofa for the night,” she said, rubbing the back of her neck not just out of embarrassment but because the uncomfortable cushions left an almighty crick in it. No matter how many times she tried to crack it, the tension of a poor night’s sleep wouldn’t release. “Means a lot.”

Her host was a boy who ran in the neighborhood with her when she was small but sorted himself out well enough. Ren waved a hand as he buttoned up his white chef’s jacket, clean and pressed even if the vest underneath was fraying and threadbare. “It’s no hardship. You’d do the same for me or any one of us – or, you would, if you had a home to open up.”

A few seconds later, he realised what he said and stumbled over himself to apologise. “Sorry, that was insensitive. You will get your place back, no sweat.”

“Yeah…”

Sakani wasn’t so sure about that. Who’d ever heard of the RSF letting anyone go once they spirited them away? They were like a dog with a bone, and sometimes the bone was actually a baby rabaroo, but that didn’t seem to bother them, even if they were going extinct. Nobody ever told them to spit it out.

She cracked a smile instead. Ren had a good thing going. He’d make it to the Middle Ring if he worked hard, and nobody could say the boy didn’t hustle. His name was top of a list of people she couldn’t talk to about the Plans.

Plans – with a capital-P – were those made when airing grievances about the RSF and the Middle Ring and the Upper Ring. Toothless, under normal circumstances, but the disaffected customers of the Lotus Room spoke like they finally had enough when they said they’d help her get Gran-Gran back, one way or another. The last of their good will had finally spilled out of the cup.

“We’ll see. You’ve got bigger things to worry about, don’t you? Like this big catering job.”

“One man’s catering is another man’s washing dishes for sixteen hours and getting paid a pittance under the table. Long live the Republic?”

“No need to wish it well. It’ll outlive us,” Sakani said with a laugh. The tickle of exhaust fumes in her sinuses reminded her that she ought not to suck in so much of the air in, even indoors.

“Speak for yourself! I for one intend to live until I’m a hundred and fifty. Get better lungs.”

▲▼▲▼

Later, Sakani slipped out of Ren’s apartment with a hearty, back-slapping goodbye and an open-ended offer that if she failed to find a place to stay, she could come back to claim the couch – as often as she liked.

She left in the knowledge that she would not be taking him up on his offer.

Her mask sealed in her frown as she pulled the cords of the drawstring bag that held all her worldly possessions. The weight was light on her back; a small mercy given all the other burdens that liked to pile themselves on these days.

There were few other places she could go. Not back to anywhere associated with Gran-Gran. She could plead her case with the ladies of Lily Street, see if they could get her some work as a courier or a smuggler and front her some cash while she got back on her feet, or––

Or she could go and engage with the Plans that were being made with or without her, but that were definitely being made because of her. Rather than stumbling forward into normality, just waiting to be snatched herself for something she didn't do, she could walk towards the industrial area of town. She could take the back alleys that were poorly patrolled and slip into the union-workers' bar through the back entrance, plead her case to all those old uncles to be included.

Her legs were already moving. The spirit of injustice quickened her step.

T H E L A S T A V A T A R ᶠᵉᵃᵗ ᴱˣˡᵗ ˣ ᴿᵒᵃᶜʰ

.............................. ██████████████ ██████████████ ▲▼▲▼▲▼▲▼▲▼▲▼▲▼ 𝖭 𝖠 𝖬 𝖤 Sakani Dekar ██████████████ ██████████████ ▲▼▲▼▲▼▲▼▲▼▲▼▲▼ 𝖠 𝖦 𝖤 Eighteen ██████████████ ██████████████ ▲▼▲▼▲▼▲▼▲▼▲▼▲▼ 𝖦 𝖤 𝖭 𝖣 𝖤 𝖱 Female ██████████████ ██████████████ ▲▼▲▼▲▼▲▼▲▼▲▼▲▼ 𝖤 𝖫 𝖤 𝖬 𝖤 𝖭 𝖳 Air ██████████████ ██████████████ ▲▼▲▼▲▼▲▼▲▼▲▼▲▼ 𝖬 𝖨 𝖲 𝖢. Theme Playlist Aesthetic	████████████████████ ████████████████████ ▲▼▲▼▲▼▲▼▲▼▲▼▲▼▲▼▲▼▲▼▲▼▲▼ 𝖲 𝖳 𝖠 𝖭 𝖢 𝖤 𝖮 𝖭 𝖡 𝖤 𝖭 𝖣 𝖤 𝖱 𝖲 No person deserves to be persecuted because of who they were born as. While Sakani has never met a bender (that she knows of) she would hesitate to turn one in if she found them in the tea-shop, even if it happened to put herself and her livelihood at risk. Gran-Gran regaled her of old legends about their capacity for kindness and respect for nature – when nature was still a thing to exist. She also told tales of what catastrophic damage a bender could do when angry or even mildly peeved. Sakani makes sure to consider the good and the bad; above all else, a bender is still a person, and all people will do wrong by you if given the opportunity. ████████████████████ ████████████████████ ▲▼▲▼▲▼▲▼▲▼▲▼▲▼▲▼▲▼▲▼▲▼▲▼ 𝖧 𝖨 𝖲 𝖳 𝖮 𝖱 𝖸 Sakani was born in the Lower Ring to parents who owed debts to the Triads. To tell the truth, all she has of them are second-hand memories and inconsistent stories from people who kinda-sorta knew them. Sakani prefers to stick to the facts: they fled the city in the end when she was an infant or a toddler and entrusted her care to a family friend, an ancient woman known on the streets as 'Gran Gran'. For better or worse, Gran Gran treated her as she would her own grandchild if she had any, naming her as her heir and apprentice. While Sakani's nature leaned towards charity and solidarity with the underclass she was born into – especially the street kids whom she thinks of as little brothers and sisters – Gran Gran encouraged a vicious streak and stamped out some of that naivete. The goal is always to keep her own head above water first. Sakani worked in her tea-house, The Lotus Room, and can brew a mean cup of tea and play Pai Sho like the best of the old crowd. When she was old enough to scramble through the streets and the paths less trodden, she earned her keep in the practical side of moving "tea" around the city, and more recently expanding their "business" into the Middle Ring. Sakani could take or leave the violence of it. Her dream was (or is) a more on-the-book job labouring on the airship transports, though they would never take her for health reasons, according to Gran Gran. Recently, RSF raided the tea-house while Sakani was away and found no evidence of latent criminal activity, but according to witnesses, they took in Gran Gran anyway on suspicion of there being people of high spiritual energy sensitivity in her shop – benders. Sakani is sure that this is a great injustice and is trying to encourage (using her good reputation) a bit of enemy action against RSF in the Lower Ring – to very little success.
▲▼▲▼▲▼ ▲▼▲▼▲▼▲▼ 𝖤 𝖷 𝖳 𝖱 𝖠	▲▼▲▼▲▼▲▼▲▼▲▼ ▲▼▲▼▲▼▲▼▲▼▲▼▲▼ 𝖱 𝖤 𝖫 𝖠 𝖳 𝖨 𝖮 𝖭 𝖲 𝖧 𝖨 𝖯 𝖲
Wears a rebreather often, because her lungs are sensitive to the thick pollution in the air of the Lower Ring. It isn't so bad in high-altitude situations.	_ █████████████████████████████████ ████████████████████████████████ █████████████████████████████████ ████████████████████████████████ _______________ _______________ _______________ Gran-Gran Former Kingpin of the Lily Street Triad. Beloved grandmother to Sakani, even if not by blood. It is not difficult to reconcile Gran-Gran's loving personality with her checkered past and present, because she ruled her home with an iron-fist much like she once ruled the streets. Current owner of The Lotus Room, a tea-house affiliated with her former gang and a speck of civility and prestige in the middle of the Lower Ring.

---

@The Ghost Note

I am... in. Apparently.

inb4 obligatory penis

Microfiction&Poetry contest #2 - voting and feedback

Quick 'n dirty votes with brief reviews this time:

Stars ––

A sweet poem about the stars with good flow and imagery (in particularevening veilrings quite nicely). The rhyming scheme is on the straightforward side which isn't a detriment in this case because of the short length. I could imagine it in a children's book of rhymes, but, like, the good kind.

I also appreciate the attention to visual aesthetic by structuring it as a star-shape, which is quite a clever idea; however, I have to admit, my dumbass half-asleep brain thought it was an Illuminati triangle.

Hood of Shadow ––

Abstaining from reviewing this one because I don't really know what's going on here.

Interstellar ––

This poem displays good vocabulary and has occasional moments of clear, vivid imagery – notably sentries blinking – and it manages to stick to a rhyme scheme all the way through, which is no small feat. However, rhyme is only one small part of poetry (and heck, a whole lot of poetry doesn't rhyme!) and I can't help but feel that this ABAB/CDCD/etc. monotone holds it back and obscures the meaning and cadence of the piece.

Some pairings feel like they rely too much on a rhyming dictionary pressed into service, such as star/repertoire and memories/serenity. This not only results in lines that are difficult to parse, such as the alliterative but confusing none remain reaps the repertoire but also seems to be causing some clunky grammatical structures (or at least emphasizes what is already there).

Those that stuck out to me weretrust in them who are gone('them' feels like it should be 'they' or 'those'?) andNight must come to follow every daywhich just... doesn't have a good mouthfeel. I'm no expert in poetry but for me, reading this poem out loud is very difficult because of the lack of engagement with metre.

The Stars ––

A good piece that takes the prompt at face value. I think the paragraph describing them as 'wardens' has some of the nicest imagery, although I hesitate to call it 'nice' if only because it verges on the depressing. Humans suck, I guess!

One thing that stands out upon a reread are some tense inconsistencies. Between the opening few sentences and the rest of the paragraph. I don't think this necessarily a flaw in such a short piece – in fact, switching tenses from past to present could be used for greater dramatic effect – but in this case with such an introspective work, the navel-gazing may come across better in present tense, which a lot of the rest of the piece already seems to be in? Eg. "The grass is cool under my skin while gazing up into what could very well be perceived as the heavens. Symbols and pictographs dance amongst the sky, changing, evolving into something so much more wonderful than our minds could ever comprehend."

Written in the Stars ––

This is by far my favourite piece out of the entries. It is technically sound, with tight prose fitting together in a compelling narrative which is careful to avoid waffling. I found myself returning to this piece again because it fits in with the theme of stars but does not resort to simply running through superficial connotations, instead using them as a symbol for legacy and memory. The subtle, indirect comparisons between one star in the sky to one grain of sand on a beach to one man in an army about to go to war is very compelling because of its thoughtful craftsmanship.

If I have one "complaint" with this piece it's that the last paragraph is maybe a bit... smushed together. A paragraph break between the conqueror's thoughts and the 'decades later' would smooth over a bump where the characters blended together after the second one is introduced, though that too could be interesting if intentional, so this is just personal preference/nitpicking. This is some tasty professional writing.

My vote goes to Written in the Stars.

Friendships

Yes! There's only so much time you can spend chatting and writing with someone before your lives intertwine – especially once you find interests and common ground beyond that shared hobby of roleplaying, and get to know and care about folks as more than a username.

I met some of my closest friends here when I was seventeen, so five-ish years ago now. (6 for some, which is a scary thought!) While we started as just roleplay colleagues, it has extended into a routine of regular bad-awful-trash movie nights, video games and online boardgames, tv marathons, and for lack of a better word, 'normal' friendship stuff, just over a great distance. We've been friends since roughly the end of high school and through all of college/university, which means even if we're separated by an ocean, we get to enter adult mundanity and hit milestones at the same time. Growing up and going through such formative trials and tribulations together honestly makes it feel like some kind of familial bond.

^{Our plans for a 2020 meet-up were put on hold because of the Rona, though, so while I might love and treasure them, still gotta cross the hurdle of meeting the Americans face to face ._.}

Microfiction&Poetry Contest #1 - Voting and Feedback

Similar to what others have said before me, I'm not familiar enough with the medium of poetry to comfortably provide critiques either.

My vote goes to Sensitivity to Initial Conditions for the tight storytelling and wonderful, wistful characterization fit into a short 500 words. It tackled the prompt in a unique way, looking at both scientific and philosophical connotations of 'butterfly', and I have a new appreciation for microfiction as a genre having seen how it was able to round itself up and evoke such a vivid image under the limitations.

Still ruminating on which to give a runner-up vote to, as there are so many excellent options. May edit in a second later. Might not be able to choose. Hrrg.

Well done, all! ^^

Avatar - The Fall of Si Wong City

[app snipped - good luck in the rp folx! <3]