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A Few Modules for Ten Candles

Well, that title's pretty straightforward. For those of you who don't know, Ten Candles is a tragic horror RPG (read: everyone dies) played by candlelight. It's set to play in one 2-3 hour session, plus time for character creation. Can't have your players getting attached, now can we? The universe is a sunless apocalypse. Ten days ago, the sun went dark. Five days ago, They came. People started disappearing, and Their only weakness is light. Exactly what They are depends on the session, because it can be entirely up to the player on the GM's right. I recently got the playbook and I've been gearing up to play this system for a year now. Thing is, the playbook directly says not to prepare anything as a GM. Your players are going to derail it anyway, so what's the point? All you should do is prepare a module, something to read when you start the character creation process. I'm hosting my first session this Saturday, using the "Artemis" mod
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Semester Survival (Part 1)

I'm alive! And a junior in college! Gross! A short list of my responsibilities this semester include classes (of course), a part-time job, a work study job, and presidency of a radio club. Less formal responsibilities include joining journalism club as part of a deal with a friend, figuring out when and how and where I'm going to study abroad, and figuring out a possible relationship. This past week has been a whirlwind of appointment after errand after appointment. I spent all of my counseling hour venting about how busy I was, and that was at the beginning of the week. For any freshmen reading this and stressing about the future of their college careers, you might not have to worry as much. I'm overly ambitious (see: a certificate and two minors), and it's the beginning of semester rush. I can already see that my schedule will lighten up soon. However, I'll always be busy. Tack a short attention span and mental illness on and that's a

Another Opinion on Black Mirror Season 5

I've been watching Black Mirror since season one. I'm a sucker for psychological thrillers, science fiction, and existential crises, so this series is right up my alley. I'd binge watch seasons at a time and stay up all night trying to parse through them, relating and writing about the implications. The intricate plot threads in some episodes wrecked me. I love how a happy ending is never guaranteed, but there's sometimes the possibility, and you just never know. While some episodes fall short, that's to be expected in an anthology. But season four was by far my favorite. A strong set of intense stories, all stylized and interesting in their own standalone way. Black Mirror found its perfect groove in this season, its exact style solidified by Bandersnatch. The standalone movie-length feature solidified Black Mirror as a groundbreaking cultural phenomenon that everyone I knew was talking about. So you can imagine my disappointment with season five. I don't

...What?

What indeed. So, this blog is my third now. My first was "Queer Girl, Straight Hair." Interestingly enough, I was/had neither of those. Once I realized I was, in fact, genderfluid and really would rather be called a boy, I looked for a new name. That brought me to "Quill and Shield" on Wordpress. For its short four posts, it had a drastically different tone. QGSH had drifted to recaps of events I went to more than what I really wanted to talk about. And while I had fun going to those events and it gave me a real excuse to do so, it wasn't extremely helpful. Quill and Shield 1.0 had all feelings posts, things about my bucket list and the goings-on of a closeted questioning high school senior. Both of those are private now, so don't bother trying to find them. I got busy, I didn't find it a good coping mechanism anymore, and I drifted away from that blog. Fell out of a routine. That brings us to today. It's two and a half years later, and I rea