Lemming23 says:
Favourite cheese?
To put on things, or just in general?
In general, I'd say brie tends to be my favorite. I bought some on a whim when I was straight out of uni to try and feel more adult, ended up loving it, and now I regularly keep some on hand for snack time.
Otherwise, I cook the most with mozzarella and asiago. Midwesterners are nutjobs for casseroles, and though I no longer live there, I'm no exception. All of my neighbors ask me to make them whenever there's a barbecue, so I assume they're good.
I also really enjoy putting string cheese in things and baking them. Stuffed garlic bread. Mmmmmmm...
Dr_B says:
-Tell us the weirdest thing that happened to you while camping off-season (reeeeally hoping for a cryptid story 😁)
I dunno about cryptids, though I live in an area that is really into sasquatch. We even have a Squatch fest here, and there are literally tons of cutouts and carvings of it standing out in random fields or by river crossings. But as for the weirdest thing to happen to me, specifically, I'd have to say it was one of my first
real solo camps, which occurred in the Black Hills National Forest in South Dakota. Middle of the night, hardly any sound except for bugs and frogs, and I'm just starting to get to sleep when out of nowhere, I hear something outside of my tent. And it sounds
really close. Not big, but still aggressive, and I wait for it to go away in absolute
terror. And of course, it doesn't, and moments later, I hear what sounds like an epic struggle for survival between two unidentified creatures right next to me. Something even pushes slightly into my tent. I scream, everything bolts, and then it goes suuuuper quiet.
Never found out what caused it. There wasn't any damage, but I can still vividly remember the sounds and that feeling of something pushing against my tent. Maybe it was a territorial battle, or maybe something saved me from being hunted--I'll never know.
Dr_B says:
-Cozy settings require cozy comfort food! What's your favorite snack that you can have while crafting your next epic post at the keyboard?
Granola clusters! I'm a rather big fan of dried stuff, like fruits and berries, and granola clusters are just the most ideal. I keep a couple bags on the shelf of my desk, so I can just reach for them and spoon it into my mouth while I'm writing, watching videos, or playing games.
That said, if you want my favorite comfort
meal, then oyakodon or smothered tofu are my biggest ones. I'm a big rice bowl eater, and there's literally nothing cozier to me than rainy days snuggled into a big blanket, my dog squished into my side, a steaming rice bowl in my lap, and binge-worthy anime on the tv. Usually I also have LoreForge open on my other screen. :3
Dr_B says:
is your doggy a crossbreed, or do you have 1 Heeler AND 1 Husky?
And can we see them? 😅Crossbreed! She's a rescue pup who I got in 2020 right before/as COVID hit my area cause I wanted a friend to start a new chapter in my life with (I had so many plans in 2020. WHAT HAPPENED ;-;) Here's a pic of her one night last year during our big move out west:
Tickettbror says:
[quote="Kaekozee"]So what have you been reading recently, and do you have any recommendations for ace representation? :3
Gawwwwwd, I wish!!! Sadly, there just aren't many with good--or
any ;-;--ace rep, or if the characters are, it just isn't spoken of. I like to headcannon pretty much every yuri/wlw I read to have an asexual element if they don't otherwise mention a sexual aspect. One that comes to mind is a character from Rebecca Thorne's "Can't Spell Treason Without Tea", which features a non-binary character who, to me, screams asexual.
I wish I had a book I could recommend that does, but sadly, I, too, am in search of such a legendary grimoire. If you know any, I wanna hear!
However, if you want what I've been reading recently, my top 3 reads over the past 6 months include:
"A Tale of the Secret Saint", a light novel by Touya
"Witch's Printing Office", another light novel by Mochinchi
and "Polgara" by David & Leigh Eddings
Bonus Yuri Pick: "Chasing After Aoi Koshiba". I'm on vol. 3 of the manga and its breaking my heart and making me angry. You know how it goes :p
FlyingSucculent says:
May I see some of the origami ikebana? :3 Paper green friends!
Hmm, I might have a picture or two tucked away in my Discord messages. Will get back to you! Its weird cause, like, I take a ton of selfies and pics of my dog, or sometimes I might take a picture of my house if I did a really good job cleaning, but I feel like I rarely take pictures of things that I craft. I wonder why that is? 🤔
I tell you what, I'll make one this weekend and take a pic of it, just for you :3
FlyingSucculent says:
Also, which MTG card you have is your favourite and why?
I'm a really big fan of Angel cards. One of my favorite 'set' buys was "Divine vs Demonic", which has the "Akroma, Angel of Wrath" card in it with super pretty art. However, my favorite card in that set (and probably my favorite card ever) is the Twilight Shepherd. She's just. So. PRETTY. I use her likeness as a 'face claim' for the avatar a goddess in my homebrew setting :3
[ +- ] Some of my faves from Divine vs Demonic
FlyingSucculent says:
When are we getting the Fables & Foxtales playtest? :P
Hehe, its in the works! However, since it is getting towards the peak season where I work, I've chosen to put it on hold until at least this fall when things calm down again and I have oodles more time. The game I have planned for the playtest is...ambitious, to say the least in terms of scale. The idea being that the bigger it is, the more opportunities there will be to test a variety of things and see how I want to expand and improve, so in the spirit of that, I want to make sure I have plenty of time to dedicate to it!
If you want a sneak peek of what that game entails, though, you're welcome to look at the wall of text I put
over here! I'm also working on a Carrd site for the rules themselves, which I'll happily post when complete ^^
Legendary_Sidekick says:
Any advice for people who are terrified of camping?
A good question! Do they happen to like anime? If so, I highly recommend my all-time favorite cozy anime,
Laid-Back Camp. It's literally about young high school girls who find joy in going camping throughout Japan, and touches on a lot of great subjects, like the do's and don't's of camping, traveling, and how to stay safe. It's what actually reignited my passion for it years ago, and almost everyone I recommend it to say that they have an itch to try it after watching even just a few episodes.
If not, however, I would just go with the basics. As a solo camper (+dog), it definitely is important so be alert and attentive to the environment. I try to stay aware of potential threats I could stumble across, and how to deal with them, and I keep a map and a bag full of fun gadgets and supplies in my day pack. Knowledge, as they say, is power, but its also piece of mind, so I find that being prepared really helps ease my nerves.
Planned activities help, too! For instance, I prep a lot of my meals, I bring lots of books, and my car is rarely far from my site, so I can cozy up in it if I need to. If its something they dislike, then it wouldn't hurt to take some amenities. You don't
have to hoof it to be 'true camping', and anyone who tells you you're camping wrong is a jerk who needs to re-examine their life. Go all in on the parts you like, and cheat a little if it helps make the experience better.
It also wouldn't hurt to reiterate the point that they'll be in a (relatively) large group (I assume), which will dissuade a lot of things that might be brave enough to bother someone by themselves. That includes animals and people. To be honest, I get more worried about running into another person on a trail than I do a potentially dangerous animal.
Honestly, what drove things home for me is considering the goods vs the bads. Photography, dipping my feet into a running stream, fishing, collecting rocks and leaves, taking pictures of cool moths, the smell of a campfire, the taste of well-cooked camping meal, stargazing far from the city lights, and the sound of rain against your tent. Camping can be difficult, spooky, messy and uncomfortable, and it certainly isn't for everyone, but there's just so many fun things you can do outdoors! And so many great experiences to have, it'd be a shame to miss it.
Legendary_Sidekick says:
Why make your own system when so many systems exist?Why
not? 🤔 Why write a book when there's so many to read? Answer: its fun! And it gives me the freedom to create from the ground up where otherwise its often super hard to edit, mod, or balance an existing ruleset to do something it wasn't really made to do. Case and point, D&D has rules for a lot of things, but when you boil it down, its largely built to be a combat simulator, which is great if you want a combat-heavy game, but not so great if you want to have detailed mechanics for, say, fishing in a lake, cooking with strange new ingredients, or building your own house.
And sure, there are lots of games out there that do that. And I do, actually, know quite a few. Additionally, I've modded games, played with a lot of supplements, and even tried to smash two systems together (I did this with D&D and Ryuutama for a more exploration-based adventure, for instance). Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't, but each time I wanted to run something new, it usually required finding
yet another new system to learn/try (and who has time for that?!) or spend a whole bunch of time trying to rebuild an existing game (which I usually end up breaking).
When I've built games, mods, supplements, etc. in the past, they've always been for some specific purpose. For instance, I built a game for running your own 'shop' or 'establishment' as a mod for Pathfinder, I built my own 'fishing simulator' for D&D 5e complete with its own 'battle mechanics', and I even built one to simulate a modern camping adventure. So I could run that game, but beyond that, I'd have to modify and start all over again.
Fables & Foxtales was the culmination of that. I wanted a game that I could easily incorporate all of my little subsystems into to make a whole new thing, specific to the kinds of games that I enjoy running and that I could expand on. Plus, since I built the game and I know the rules best, I'm the best person to try and fix, change, mod, or expand it.
[ +- ] Example (F&F Narrative 'Stats' & Goals) (PS: Long and windy, you've been warned)
One of my biggest peeves is that a lot of games is that the mechanics either skew super narrative friendly (lite games with more interpretive rules) or super not narrative friendly (games with a ton of intricate mechanics, limitations, and hard rules). I like things more in the middle. Not a 'yes, and...' game, not a 'no, but...' game, more of a 'How would you envision that to work?' game. I want to put the 'collaboration' back into collaborative story-telling.
For example, instead of traditional stats/attributes, Fables & Foxtales focuses on building a narrative not through what the characters can or can't do, but rather how they approach the situation, or how they choose to react. Each character has 7 'Natures': Mental, Physical, and Social make up the 'circumstance' side of things, and then Avoid, Change, Learn and Overcome make up how they react to it, and then you pair the associated rolls of those Natures together vs a target number.
So, let's say you're traveling along a mountain path and suddenly there's an avalanche. This represents a Physical threat, but the players can choose how they react to that threat. They can Avoid it, which might be to duck and cover, run at full sprint down the mountain, etc. They could choose to Overcome it by basically using their strength/endurance to weather it. Alternatively, maybe they could use magic to try and Change the flow of the landslide, or maybe they could watch for other animals fleeing the area to Learn how they can escape, too.
However, in the right circumstances, someone could argue that their elemental earth skill might allow them to 'talk down' the ranging spirit of the earth to stop the avalanche. Now it's a Social problem, and the character could try to overpower it (Overcome), deceive it (Avoid), calm it (Change), or something else that fits the narrative. This is exactly the kind of thinking I want to encourage.
Natures, as a result, serve as a way to guide the narrative and allow for creative solutions. I like it when people come up with ways to surprise me, and while that is something that could be accomplished in any system, this makes it easier for them to do that. And they encourage players to find ways to play to their strengths, which always leads to all sorts of fun shenanigans.
On another note, I don't use EXP or Levels. Instead, there are Story Goals that the GM sets (quests, story arcs, etc), and Character Goals that the players and/or the party set for themselves (background plots, advancing bonds with NPCs or each other, new skills, etc). This helps create a narrative by making it so there's story behind every achievement or improvement, and makes the character(s) more memorable, as well as sets up moments for players to explore other avenues of progression. You want to build your own mage tower? Absolutely, let's make that a goal. How are you going to fund it? Where are you getting the materials? Whose building it and how? These are all things that can be character goals, and can play a part in not just getting them their magical tower, but also advancing their diplomacy (because they have to negotiate prices for materials), cartography (because they have to explore areas to build), and perhaps even knowledge of architecture.
So now when Thorvald the Fighter makes use of his Architecture expertise to boost his rolls, he can recall that goal and what went into it!
Qralloq says:
What are you currently writing, or have most recently finished writing?
I have a few projects, but like most aspiring authors, most of them are unfinished for a variety of reasons. The last thing I 'finished' was over 7 years ago, it was a short-story intro for one of my longer novels where a young sorceress apprentice discovered an ancient earth dragon and accidentally turned it into her familiar.
As for 'in-progress', here are my main ones:
[ +- ] My Unholy Empire
A Ruthless Progressive Ruling-Class Dark-Fantasy & Sapphic Romance
After a short life of miserable circumstances and a seething resentment for her fellow humans, Lauren Dreyd welcomes her cruel end, only to quickly be scooped up by a mysterious entity that calls itself an 'Admin' offering a chance at a second life, one where she can find peace.
But when Lauren learns that her younger sister, who perished in a car accident years ago, was given the same offer and now leads a life of suffering in another world, she abandons her own chance at a happy ending to save her.
When she awakens, she finds that she is not only inhuman, but in fact, a powerful demon lord! And to make matters worse, this strange new world is being held in the clutches of a despotic race of angels who see her as the ultimate enemy of their corrupted faith!
With no other choice but to use her infernal power to survive, Lauren--now Ember, the Queen of Wrath--must raise an empire from the ashes of a broken world where inhumans are second-class and take down its tyrannical lords so that her sister might find a peaceful existence, even if she has to become a villain to do it.
[ +- ] DIY Dungeon Master
A CozyDark Dungeon-Building, Monster-Friending LitRPG Comedy Fantasy
Lillian Wake only ever wanted to live a normal life and make it through her high school years with her sanity intact, but fate had other plans. Ripped from her world by a freak "accident", she and the rest of her unlucky senior class find themselves in a world of myth and monsters, and soon realize that they are woefully unprepared for its dangers.
That goes double for Lily, who not only fails miserably at being an adventurer, but winds up dead! Again! Even when she manages to crawl back out of the dungeon through the power of undeath, things only get worse, as her classmates turn on her!
Beaten, betrayed, and left to rot, Lily wonders if she'll finally be able to pass on, but it seems like the dungeon itself has claimed her body, only to leave her soul unscathed. Moreover, something deep within the labyrinthine corridors beckons her ever downward into its darkest reaches.
Since when has death been so freakin' complicated?! And when will she finally be able to find some friggen' rest?! Oh well, if she can't go home and will never die, she might as well just take the place over!
I also have a sapphic cozy rural fantasy about a retired adventurer and an abandoned witch, as well as a supernatural detective mystery about a dynamic duo of one girl who can see things no one else can, and a precocious necromantic noble girl. Plus lots of little 'extras' that get attention when I feel inspired.
(PS: I should note that all of my books are set in the same world, so lots of potential cameos and crossovers too!)
Last edited April 15, 2025 2:33 am
