I think you dialed the wrong romcom

Hot take: more people should be writing musicals for the natural end of a musical's life cycle--the humble high school/community production.

I am not saying those musicals should be ending up on Broadway! I think I'm more saying that I wish there were companies that had a stable of musicals that are well-written, not too young or too twee, and have some variety from the same 10-20 shows that every school puts on.

Shows with a decent-sized main cast, gender-flexible roles, vocal ranges written that are in achievable and healthy places for high schoolers and don't expect belts that many high school treble voices have trouble learning how to do safely. Shows with a variety of ensemble vocal and dancing lift for schools with different-sized programs. Shows that are topical and interesting.

Like, I think shows like Lightning Thief and Monstersongs are almost there? But they're short and small-cast, and I want full-length musicals written for a company, because shows with chewy secondary roles that expect things (but not too many things) from their ensembles are how younger performers are trained and supported into being prepared to take leads on.

Oh boy, Thom Jr. is the second greatest sufferer in the "why would you name all the children in your friend group after the ghosts that collectively haunt you" sweepstakes (poor Kalasin), and his suffering is not particularly alleviated by fandom.

Pierce mentions him what, twice, three times when he's old enough to have a personality (i.e. in the Trickster books), so there's not much to build from, but he's a scholar and a mage who opted against knight training and is so focused on his studies that he doesn't pay attention to trends and when his sister tries to get his attention he fobs her off. Wow! Groundbreaking! Totally novel for young red-haired men named Thom in this universe! And he sure does look like his uncle sans the purple eyes from what Pierce has partially-extracanonically said.

And it's really just the least interesting thing she could have possibly done with him? I get he isn't the main character, he doesn't need to be interesting, but any fond memories of her brothers would have been a good thing to make her less abrasive and also to make the choice between Tortall and the Copper Isles harder.

And then I think a lot of fandom (not that he appears in a ton of fics, so I'm extrapolating a lot from a little) just kind of leaned into that instead of complicating him and giving him friction with just being Thom Sr. All Over Again, the heir to a fief who doesn't care about that and only cares about his scholarly work (and who is obviously gay, which, like, I'm torn on that? Because on one hand it is an unqualified good to queer Tortall more and why NOT him, and on the other hand it puts my hackles up a wee bit to have everyone go The One Who Is Named After And Echoes The Subtextually Queer One Is The Queer One. Maybe he is! Many people do it convincingly, yourself included! But if it's the only thing he ever is, it feels like uncritically buying into Pierce's lazy characterization But Diversely).

A selection of possible Thom characterizations that don't directly contradict canon but give us something richer to work with than Non-Doomed Thom Sr.:

He wanted to be a knight and a mage all at once like Alanna, and when he told her this she reacted so weirdly that he immediately pivoted his life plans. He still practices weapons privately, probably more along the lines of knife work like his father than the sword

He wanted to be a knight but the weight of his mother's legacy scared him off of it OR he would have done it but he would have started the same year as Kel and he really didn't want to know which of them Alanna would have favored more

He's a loving and attentive older brother and dismissing Aly's hair was an aberration because he had a lot of tests that month/he'd been crossed in love/he was having a crisis of life path

His intensity about being a mage is because he feels that that, rather than knighthood, is going to be the most important avenue of protection for Tortall in the future

His intensity about academic work is a function of intensity about inheriting Pirate's Swoop. With two parents largely focused on different projects (being Champion and spymaster respectively) he's taken on many fief administrative duties unusually young

He's training his Gift very strictly and taking every course he can about magical ethics because the thought of being anything like his uncle makes him sick

And many more!

Any of those are compatible with whatever love interest situation, too, it just feels like giving him more to do than Get Swallowed Up Being A Magical Prodigy Who Barely Pays Attention To Anything Outside That.

Hmm, I've been trying to do a "stream of consciousness first thing that comes to mind" thing but unfortunately the first thing that comes to mind is [REDACTED FOR SPOILERS] soooo instead let us talk aboutttt

The Difficulties Of DMing High-Level D&D (They Are Different Than The Party Poopers Say They Are) (At Least For Me)

Because this has been on my mind a lot! For those playing along at home, my PCs just hit 14th level at the end of last session, and we're going to 20 (... and possibly beyond, given how much there is to wrap up. Bite off more than I can chew? Me? Never!), and there's way less support for upper-level D&D, which means I'm going to have to create a LOT more character sheets for upper-level encounters.

And there's this ourobouros of a problem with upper-level encounters, right? Fewer people play upper-level D&D and some of that's because a lot of campaigns fizzle, but then a lot of it is because a lot of campaigns are designed to end by level 10, 12 tops, and they're designed that way because upper level D&D is notoriously hard, so few people write material to help DMs who do run upper level D&D, so it remains notoriously hard, etc. etc.

And I get it! It really is hard to plan encounters that are a real challenge to an upper-level party, because by higher level D&D the PCs have acquired so many magic items and spells and other weird abilities that it's really hard to get them on the ropes without encounters dragging on for hours. So it's hard for DMs, which means it can get boring for PCs, which sucks, because for me as a player rather than a DM high-level play is what it's all about, you get to do so many cool and legendary things, which means that as a DM I am really invested in giving my players cool and legendary encounters.

I've seen some people complain "ugh, upper-level D&D is so hard to DM because the players are so OP and you have to counter all of their abilities to not be fucked" and my problem is the opposite! I want to know how to let my players use all of their cool abilities and still give them a challenging encounter!*

But genuinely as a DM whose strength is narrative and worldbuilding rather than Robust Strategic Encounters, it's really hard to do that! Either I end up with one boss monster that has so many abilities I forget a ton of them when I'm actually in the fight trying to track a million things or I end up with a ton of lower-level monsters whose abilities I'm aware of but which drag encounters on forever. And sometimes I'm successful, I find a good balance or steal someone's monster(s) that happen to work for my brain, but I don't always, and I feel bad for my players when I don't, and a lot of this would be solved by having more support for upper levels! Which should be built into the game because the payoff and the reward for playing a long campaign should be getting to use all the cool things you've picked up over time!

(Also to be fair my players make this especially difficult because, bless them, they are too goddamn ethical, so I have to make them fight things that can't be reasoned with 90% of the time because otherwise they'll get into Shenanigans. Like, just as a totally random example, getting sainted 3-5 levels early instead of getting involved in a clan war like I wanted them to.)

I've gotten into making clothes over the last few years (slowly, usually a dress or two a year) and just these past few days I hit a very important but very sad milestone: the first time a dress I made is going in the mending pile!

It's a linen dress I wear simply All The Time that has worn out in a few places along a line where there must often be a wrinkle in the back of the bodice when I'm sitting, so it stands proud and gets rubbed by whatever I'm sitting against (and probably is not helped by the weight of the skirt, which is long and gathered). So I'm sad to have to mend it, especially when it's going to have to be a pretty visible mend and I tend to be an invisible mending person when I can be, but I'm really proud that I made something I love wearing enough that I've worn it enough to need mending within ... oof, when did I make this one. Three years ago? Something like that?

Ah, mysteries, genre where the central fantasy is that problems are solvable and justice will come for those who harm others.

I am just so fascinated by The Sleuth, and I think that we have kind of lost them, in a way. The Sleuth is a force of nature, and not always necessarily the protagonist of the story they wind up in--often they are! But sometimes they are there to pull the protagonist into their orbit. (I was just having thoughts recently that a country house murder mystery is just a gothic that a Sleuth ended up in.) You learn things about a sleuth, they're shaped like a person, but a series about a Sleuth isn't a series about their personal life or character progression. (That's why it's helpful to have other protagonists around to learn and grow!)

And Sleuths are out of style, sadly! We have supergenius mystery solvers aplenty, of course, but their stories (Elementary, High Potential, really any network procedural or mystery from the last couple decades) are about their growth and their impact on the people around them long-term, so on and so forth. And that's good, that is also a good thing to do, I genuinely love Elementary! I just feel like it's been a while since there was a good Sleuth around.

This brought to you by me watching a lot of Murder She Wrote this summer and contemplating that Jessica Fletcher is the Last Great Sleuth.

I have spent way more of the afternoon than I would care to admit working on updating one of my more unnecessary and more beloved ongoing projects for my D&D game: updating my list of every NPC I have introduced to the game. Species, gender, description if there is one, role, any personality or voice notes I have for them. The google docs version I share with my players is now 46 pages long (because the spacing is entirely fucked up, my word processor version is only ("only") 36 pages).

An example entry, chosen by scrolling to a random page: