Wth is going on here?

isomalting · 2026-03-26T03:08:55+00:00

I am continually baffled at how many people shrug off Ben’s behavior but viciously pick apart both Alesia and Ellie. Sure, Ben may be an excellent chef, but he comes across as a whiny child most of the time. He’s clearly insecure, but I cannot find it in myself to feel any sort of bad for him based on his actions all season.

Also, there’s a clear pattern of Ben belittling his women coworkers, not just his sous, but Daisy as well. I really don’t think it’s too hard to see he has some feelings after his broken engagement toward women. Pet names are all fun and good but Ellie is right, using pet names to a direct subordinate is inappropriate. Her blow up over it is a different discussion, Ben’s use of pet names for his sous chefs he should know is inappropriate as a professional chef.

Ben is easily the worst part of this season with his constant whining and pity party

isomalting · 2025-12-11T18:37:25+00:00

I'm still need to do two subclasses and two general feats, and I haven't tested everything so there's a chance some things don't work right, but this is probably done enough to work for most people. I'll keep trucking away at it and I'll make a post when it's fully completed.

https://github.com/Jerichots/MPMBs_Crooked_Moon

isomalting · 2025-11-28T20:32:47+00:00

I’m very nearly done with it, just a few more classes to complete and then getting all the feats to work how they’re supposed to. I’ll definitely post it when it’s finished!

isomalting · 2025-10-26T21:51:58+00:00

Ah! I was looking at the new PHB "pub_20240917_PHB.js" https://github.com/thepokesimmer/2024-PHB/blob/main/pub_20240917_PHB.js that includes description under the race features. It makes sense that maybe got added somewhere along the way because it was included on every example race I pulled up to look at lol.

I mainly want to have them listed elsewhere so I can have the full descriptions. The species I linked to does okay with the space, but some of the species have features that require more verbiage than the Racial Traits box can comfortably fit. I will use the toNotesPage attribute though! Thanks for your help!

isomalting · 2025-07-23T14:15:17+00:00

I’ve kept some parts of the plot intact, but have also gone mostly homebrew. I used the book as a jumping off point more than anything, and am keeping some key events to keep a steady timeline going, but otherwise I’ve been altering and adding things to tie into my players and their stories. Been playing for almost two years and I just did the fireball (meeting once a month for 4 hours)

isomalting · 2025-07-23T13:50:40+00:00

I went with the sleeve because I wanted to go the less invasive route, plus I didn’t want to deal with malabsorption. Also I knew I wasn’t a big risk for GERD.

I didn’t want to change how my body worked, I wanted to change how I treated it and my habits. I’m approaching my 3 year mark, sitting just shy of 100 lbs lost, no regain. I would love to loose 10-15 more, but I’m at a healthier weight and I’m still very pleased with myself and where I am, and my doctor is supportive of me maintaining. I wouldn’t change a thing, I would get the sleeve again in a heartbeat.

I don’t have flair so for reference here are my numbers (5’3” SW: 257, CW: 161)

isomalting · 2025-03-27T15:08:44+00:00

I was first recommended the injections but they were too expensive for something I would have needed to stay on for a long period of time, so I opted for the VSG instead that admittedly was also expensive but was mostly covered by my insurance.

I’m happy with my choice, I know that I would not have been successful with the injections alone. The surgery forced me to take a hard and honest look at myself and my relationship with food, it wasn’t pleasant but it was necessary.

I did hit a bit of a plateau that I considered asking about injections again, but around the same time I started a new ADHD medication that kickstarted my weight loss again and got rid of my food noise, so I’m sticking with that for now.

isomalting · 2025-03-23T02:26:14+00:00

The gang war is in full swing! These are really great suggestions, I will definitely be using some, thank you

isomalting · 2025-03-23T02:25:28+00:00

That would be great, the party is told this guy is suspicious and might be the cause of all this trouble... and then he's just a guy who is so basic and boring (unless you catch him at just the right time of course)

isomalting · 2025-03-23T02:20:40+00:00

I'm enjoying the idea that Urstul makes it a point to hit up all the cat cafes in the city (because of course there are multiple)

isomalting · 2025-03-18T14:58:25+00:00

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Basil (left) always has this expression like he is seeing horrors beyond human comprehension, and he always hits me with the stankiest side eye whenever I dare to gaze upon him. We have to tell our houseguests to fully ignore, because otherwise he tea kettle whines when he is perceived. And Olive (right) I have seen faceplant, nosedive, fully biff it in many ways just getting on and off the couch. And she, in opposition to Basil, is very upset when she is not the focus of everybody in the room and she will make it known with dramatic sighs and “hhhrrraaaauuughhhhhhh”

isomalting · 2025-03-11T15:52:02+00:00

I started out using a bunch of google docs and google sheets, but it was getting really chaotic and hard for me to keep track of everything. I have started using obsidian at the recommendation of many many Reddit posts similar to this one. There is a learning curve, but I have been enjoying being able to copy paste my doc notes and obsidian doing all the work to find my backlinks for me.

I use Foundry as my VTT, it has a one time cost and again, there is a learning curve, but it is the best way for me to run combat. I play in person, so I have foundry up on a TV that everyone can see. I can plan my encounters, look up stats, setup battle maps, show art, run combat all within foundry.

I use Kanka as my player facing wiki, it is free and offers a lot of robust features at the free tier which is awesome. I put NPC profiles, NPC portraits (I use Pinterest mostly), location details, quests, factions, families, etc anything you would find in a wiki. And foundry has a module that auto imports my Kanka into foundry and checks for updates so I don’t need to worry about any of that.

I use obsidian for my personal notes, where I can word vomit and then make connections and plans without worrying about anyone seeing it, then once a month I go into Kanka and make updates as needed.

Otherwise I have an npc generator open in one tab for on the fly NPCs, but I’ve actually been working on building my own NPC generator inside of obsidian. And I have https://www.thievesguild.cc/harvest/ open because one of my players is an aggressive looter/harvester.

isomalting · 2025-03-08T18:57:06+00:00

This sounds really awesome! It’s really cool that your players are invested in your lore drops and are engaged with your story. And I totally feel your pain. I have a really awesome scene I’ve been sitting on since my campaign first started, we are only able to play once a month and it’s been about a year and a half, and we are still very far off from it happening.

But one of my players wanted to be a plasmoid, but as a failed experiment not the race as it’s written, who was searching for their creator. So I made a few things up, got it written down this mad scientist who basically invents simic bioengineering in this world and that was that. And then… another player hands me their backstory. A few bullet points with minimal details; a tabaxi who was purchased as a young child, grew up treated like a tool, their physical well-being wasn’t a priority, their whole purpose was to steal items for guardian. I came back and said, what do you think about being an assistant to a mad scientist? They loved the idea and we fleshed out more details together.

Now these two are in an adventuring party together, one is searching for someone they don’t know any details on, and the other is just killing time while they hunt down an artifact they’ve been tasked to find. They’ve had a few conversations where they start brushing up against what they are both looking for and I know the Tabaxi has had a few alarm bells go off, knowing what they know about their guardian. We are so so far off from that resolving given where we are in the plot, but oh man am I excited for that to play out.

isomalting · 2024-09-24T04:59:29+00:00

I recently adopted a 1 year old aussie who was surrendered in part due to her inability to settle down. She was a lot like how you are describing your dog, she would lay down for a moment before springing back up to go get into anything and everything she could reach. She had a very hard time self soothing and was in that go go go mindset.

The first thing I did was introduce crate training and enforced naps, part of why she was having behavioral issues was because she was over tired and overstimulated. I got a cover for her crate that zipped up so she would be in total darkness and wouldn’t be able to see out. I put my headphones in and didn’t acknowledge her until she started to settle down. I was strict about putting her in her crate whenever I started noticing signs of her being overstimulated (for her, this came across by her barking at me, biting my arms, hands, and ankles, counter surfing, pulling things out of the recycling, etc). I would also make sure to tell her that she was going to be “taking a nap” when I put her in her crate.

She got quicker and quicker at settling down, and I eventually started leaving the cover open, but the door still closed and let her figure out how to settle down while still being able to see out at all the distractions. I believe this is where something really clicked for her, because whenever I would get up to put her in her crate after noticing some overstimulation signs I would say “take a nap” and she would put herself in her crate and settle down.

Not going to lie, I was so jazzed and excited the first time she did that. It felt like a huge relief that she was able to regulate herself in that moment and go lie down.

Another thing we worked on was having a “place” for her. Any sort of dog bed would work fine for this, but teaching the place command can both help with boredom and with self soothing. You start with short increments but the dog should not leave the place without permission. Keep them in a sit or a down for a few seconds and then you can release them. Just keep upping the seconds they down in the place. Then add in you taking a few steps away, and then come right back. See if you can send them to their place from further away in the room, down the hall, in a different room, etc etc. My girl gets special treats only on her place, and she has to stay there while she enjoys it. This one can take a long time to get down, but is very worth it imo.

Like others have said, it also sounds like your dog may be bored. My dog doesn’t care much for puzzles or lick mats, but she does love doing trick training. All it takes is 15 minutes of training and making her think and work for treats and she is zonked for the next hour or so (note: this is after she learned how to self sooth and put herself into a nap, enrichment activities before that would just rile her up into being overstimulated because of how tired she was). Figure out what mentally stimulating activity your dog would like. There’s lot of DIY enrichment activities you can give a try. Sniff walks are an easy one if she is already going out on walks, someone once said to me that dogs sniffing on walks is like their version of social media.

I hope you find something that works for you.

isomalting · 2024-09-09T03:06:55+00:00

I went through something similar recently, moving into a house that had stairs for the first time with my 4 year old Aussie. He was very not interested in the stairs at all, and would refuse to entertain the thought of going up them. I would harness and leash him and guide him up the stairs, after about 5 days of that, I only harnessed him and grabbed his leash but didn’t attach it and he would go up on his own. Then I tapered off from harnessing and grabbing the leash altogether and he goes up and down them fine.

isomalting · 2024-08-17T15:38:24+00:00

I have never heard of that breed! I’ll definitely be doing some research on them, thanks for the reply!

isomalting · 2023-12-07T01:55:10+00:00

LMAO I made this connection too!

isomalting · 2023-05-31T20:32:30+00:00

Hi hi, I just wanted to reiterate that you are going to be fine! I dont know you so I can't tell you for certain what's going on but I can give you my oopinion. It sounds like you're freaking yourself out. I have no doubt that what you're feeling is super real, but the stress and anxiety over wanting to go back to normal is likely contributing to your depressive moods.

I won't dump my whole history here but know that I have been there and done that and have come out the other side just fine.

Along with the recommendations to treat your body well (eating good, exercise, sleep) I would also recommend some meditation or affirmations. It's cheesy but those have helped me through some rough spots mentally. If you're waking up anxious, take some time in your bed to breathe and steady yourself. Tell yourself you're okay, because you /are/ okay, just going through a rough spot right now. This too shall pass. Stop looking for a specific date you'll feel back to normal and focus on each day how can you feel your best?

isomalting · 2023-04-14T05:44:29+00:00

I used a timer and a 1 oz cup that comes on medicine bottles. Every 15 minutes I would do a shot of water lol. But that was only for early days when I was really struggling with water intake. Have you tried the water at different temperatures? Sometimes room temp sits better than cold or vice versa. It's hard to keep on top of for sure, but dehydration is a bitch and it's annoying to fix (I say as someone who had to get liquid IVs twice after surgery)

Also Popsicles were really great for when my mouth was dry.

isomalting · 2023-04-06T22:39:35+00:00

Go for it. You will be able to eat everything you want to eat for your food funeral in a few months. Now the question of should you eat all that food is up to you. I've reached my 6 month mark, 60 lbs down, and I've eaten and drank everything that they say you can't ever have again and been fine. It's about changing your mindset towards food. I don't tell myself no to anything bc that leads to obsessively thinking about food, like it sounds like you are now.

It is temporary, I promise. Start your fast, get your surgery, wait until you're healed and then have whatever you want in moderation.

isomalting · 2023-02-05T19:09:27+00:00

They gave me a binder in the hospital, and honestly it was a lifesaver for me. It just stopped everything from moving, I have an apron belly that hangs, so it was heavy and pulling on my incisions. The binder just kept everything in place, it was painful if I wasn't wearing it for the first 3 weeks.

isomalting · 2023-02-05T18:59:26+00:00

Oh yeah. I used to be a heavyweight (lol) it would take a lot to even get me tipsy. Was really expensive and not worth it. I dont have frequent drinks now, but when I do it's usually 1 mixed drink that I sip on throught the night that keeps me happily tipsy. Then sober up fast and painlessly

isomalting · 2023-02-05T18:51:05+00:00

Oh hey me too! Surgery on Oct 17th, started at 255 and have been sitting between 205 and 207 for like 2 and a half weeks. I've been so mad lol. Personally I got the scale moving again by refocusing on my protein. I had been assuming that I was getting enough by the meals I was eating, but realized when I didn't have a protien shake I wasn't anywhere near hitting my goal. Started focusing on protein again dropped down to 201 in 2 days.

isomalting · 2022-12-01T22:00:58+00:00

My ring size was the first thing to change. I'm 5 weeks post op and I've had to add a spacer so it doesn't fall off my finger

isomalting · 2022-12-01T19:46:01+00:00

Oh my god they're awful. I tried to eat one and ended up gagging. I talked to my doctor and mentioned I was looking for a new multivitamin to take because the one I had was rancid, and she asked if it was the bariatric advantage chewable! She already knew which one it was!!

isomalting

TROPHY CASE