@CJB switched his Avatar and honestly I was unprepared
It’s great, but my initial reaction was oh who’s this new person they posting a LOT
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Honestly? Same. 
You’d think since I’m relatively new I’d be more just generally immune to changes like that but it took me a solid couple of moments to wrap my head around it.
Like, don’t get me wrong, I love the new pic, and I am totally here for it! But also, yeah it took me longer than I would care to admit to realize who that was!
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Haaaaa, I’m so sorry! I was spending time this weekend organizing all the art assets I bought since TMP and found this avatar creator. It wasn’t super useful for the characters in the narrative (because I didn’t want to impose my vision of them onto you all) but I’d made a little Saberlane as a test back in 2018!
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Every time I look your new avatar when it’s small and I’m far away, I can’t stop seeing the Hippie enemy from Earthbound.
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I’m okay with that.
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Breaks in between puzzles make me want to do more.
So anyway
kecapjoczvhgmmarvtbmtmgagguvybfkrzalpchwqgiespqvvnrqkactpjuwzvogqm
and if I made a mistake blame working it all by hand and getting it wrong five times prior
Edit like seven: I know there is still a mistake in there and because I did it by hand it’s annoying to figure out. Give me a few minutes and I’ll fix it
Edit like eight: I think I got it now
In case someone reads this way in the future: Summer Update - #172 by DjangoSolare
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Hey @CJB I just noticed certain story-relevant users don’t have pronouns listed. Is that by design or an oversight?
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There is, certainly, more to life than meets the eye. As an aside, making your encoded text not be in English is just mean. 
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I was of the opinion that it was a relatively common quote… though…
I took French in high school so I may have seen a poster with that on it daily. I figured as long as you follow the process properly it’ll come out right and all will be well enough 
It could have been worse. I was considering using a quote with an œ
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It didn’t necessarily make it harder? I’m not super familiar with the quote, but I definitely blinked once or twice at the end text, unsure if I’d done it right. Also, using an œ would definitely have been a step up, with the progressive cipher. Would have had to adjust the alphabets on it and everything.
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One big reason some characters don’t have them listed was that when this all started, back in 2016, sharing your pronouns online wasn’t as prevalent and the pronoun field is actually a custom feature that was added later to the forum.
But luckily that ended up leading to some wonderful changes in character.
For example, I believe it was @OracleSage first mentioning that she head-canoned Bash as non-binary or possibly trans, and I rewrote Bash’s character to fit that because I loved it and knew it would further enrich the story plans I had for them.
Same for Eaves being gay (though he was probably closer to “me” than any of the other original characters and was definitely “queer-coded”), Endri being a librarian, Portencia having two fathers (because the drawing I made for her wasn’t clear), and I believe Martin being a Flinterforge.)
If I know canonically a character’s gender identity and preferred pronouns I would absolutely add them going forward. As for Endri, Aether, and other characters primarily connected to The Briar Society, I am such a narrative nerd that I didn’t want anyone who didn’t know they were back on the forum noticing that their profiles had been updated.
No one probably cares about that or would even notice, but it’s how I roll. 
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I figured it would have something to do with updates to the forum. Okay I guess I’ll stick with my normal wisdom of “if I mess up pronouns please to correct me kthx”
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Possibly of interest to people here… Dr Amy Sturgis is paying Dark Academia titles to her social media this month.
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Has anyone attended an event in Skittish?
I just received a beta invite to create events and spaces with it (I’ve been interested in it for a year or so) and I see this as a REALLY interesting way for us to potentially connect with chat and voice persistently, watch movies and live streams together, and even create spaces for the Briar Society, guilds, etc.
I would love thoughts from anyone who’s used it or just ideas for using it in general!
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That’s the first I’ve ever heard of it, so no lol
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I don’t have experience with Skittish, but it looks similar to Gather, which I’ve not used to make events, but have attended events in the form of virtual larps. It has its limitations, but it can be super cool if used right!
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Gather looks so fun! I wish both had some of the other’s features, but I think something like this could be really useful for group gatherings, hangouts, reveals, etc.
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Happy holidays and Merry Christmas to everyone who celebrates it! I’m going to be away with the fam for a week but I can’t tell you how excited I am about spending 2022 with all of you. Love you all.
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It feels so nice to be back! 
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Can’t disagree with that!
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