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foreverkeeperoftheuniverse

bubonickitten

i’ve been watching kids baking championship and this show is so pure???

most of these kids are so damn sweet, like - one kid burned himself and two of the others finished early and ran over and started helping him finish decorating his dishes bc he was having trouble doing it one-handed. and when one of them gets voted off all the other kids are all “you did so good! don’t be sad!”

like… i watch cooking competitions w/ adult chefs and half the time they’re petty and condescending toward each other (depending on the show - obvi some shows are designed to be more antagonistic than others, e.g. hell’s kitchen, which is more reality tv than actual cooking show so they’re constantly bullying each other and just generally being shitty human beings).

but like, even on chopped and stuff, where it’s at least more civil (usually), you’ll still often have the adult competitors being really cocky and sneering at each others’ dishes like “yeah i think i got this one in the bag, i’m a way better cook than this other person”

meanwhile all these kids are like, “wow, everyone did such a good job!”

bubonickitten

also there’s this one episode in the current season where they had to make volcano bundt cakes and the one kid spends half his on-camera time talking about different kinds of rocks and where they’re found, and how lightning works and the structure of volcanoes and i’m just. this child is adorable wtf

bubonickitten

omg and the current episode i’m watching, they had to make cream puffs shaped like their favorite animals, and this one girl makes starfish cream puffs, but one of the arms broke off when she was decorating. so when she went in front of the judges she explained how she thinks starfish are cool because they can regenerate lost limbs, and that the starfish she made is in the process of regrowing a broken limb. i love this child

bubonickitten

oh my god. this episode they had to make macaroons and then stack them in a 5-inch tower/pyramid for some reason(???) and literally none of these children can get their macaroons to stack, they keep all falling over and one kid started crying and there’s this sad wistful music in the background and the judges are just like “shit. shit. what have we done. what is going on here. please don’t cry” and part of me is also like “nooo don’t cry” because these kids are so stressed out over these macaroons.

but part of me is laughing because the MUSIC is way too overdramatic, and the closeup shots of these macaroon stacks slowly falling over. oh my god, whoever edited this probably couldn’t do it with a straight face

duff’s like “guys it’s okay if you can’t get it to stack you won’t be disqualified, you just won’t be in the top” and the judges are going around trying to console these macaroon-beleaguered children and encouraging them gently and it’s just surreal to see these small children having deadly serious expressions while stacking cutesy pastel macaroons and trying not to lose at macaroon jenga and one of the kids is just whispering to himself “i’m going to make this $25,000 macaroon stack”

h e l p

bubonickitten

in this challenge they have to make a chocolate desert that incorporates spice and this one kid doesn’t like spice and wasn’t sure which to use so she dipped her finger in some cayenne and tasted it and pauses for a few seconds and then makes this ‘i have made a terrible mistake’ face (i am very familiar with that face) and starts flailing and goes “WHY DID I DO THAT”

and the judges came over and duff does the exact same thing and the kid’s like “NO DON’T it’s not that bad at first but then five seconds later you feel it” and then right on cue duff goes “AGH WHY DID I DO THAT”

Source: bubonickitten

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spontaneousmusicalnumber

sylvanas-girlkisser

Hi consider this your blessing from a certified forever GM, to please make your TTRPG characters Mary Sues.

Listen if you spend enough time in the hobby you will inevitably get people turning up their nose, saying you need to make your PCs “realistic”. These people are wrong! Especially when it comes to DnD. There’s nothing wrong with tropes but after a while all the human fighters who used to be in the army, and elf wizard trying to live up their family legacy start to blur together.

The same cannot be said for the diamond-skinned demi-goddess cleric who started her prayers with “Hey mom, it’s me”; the self-described “slutty pyromaniac” tiefling sorcerer; the ranger who wanted to domesticate an army of rats and declare herself “queen of the sewers”; or the slightly macabre mushroom druid who became a sheepgirl while trying to cast “trans your gender”.

mylordshesacactus

There is literally only one hard-and-fast rule in D&D character creation, which is one of basic courtesy to the DM and others–you have to create a character who, for literally any reason at all, would join an adventuring party.

(Like I said, this is basic courtesy; nothing is worse than the player who, when the DM introduces a plot hook, responds with “but why would MY character care? why would I get involved in this monster attack? MY character would just let the town guard handle it!”

The answer to “but why would my character want to get involved?” is “Because you’re not the only player at the table, and you’re not the main character in a novel.” Pulling the session to a grinding halt around your character’s…lack of interest in the entire game….is rude and unfair. This is a team-based game, and an understood rule of conduct is that you are going to be playing a character who will–reluctantly perhaps, warily certainly, out of fear or self-interest by all means, but will nevertheless–join forces with the rest of the group and have some form of engagement with the plot)

And get this.

The vast majority of players snottily talking down to the actually interesting and engaging character concepts for not being “realistic” enough? They violate that one rule all the fucking time. A lone-wolf jaded rogue sitting by themself in the corner might be “realistic,” but if they keep no-selling plot hooks and refusing to engage with the plot because “it would be out of character”, then they’re not a good character for D&D and their players should have made a better one.

Literally the only law of character creation is to make a character who will in some way, shape, or form engage with the fucking story.

Make characters who are INTERESTING and ENGAGING and FUN TO PLAY and yes, don’t let assholes ruin your fun, but also: You are probably objectively better at this than they are and you deserve to keep that in mind.

NEVER take character criticism from people who only have one rule they’re expected to follow and still can’t figure it out.