#World of Warcraft the Board game

[verysharpfish]

THIS IS NOT ABOUT TERRIC OF YORK

this is in fact about one of my teammates during World of Warcraft™️: The Board Game while we were fighting Lady Vashj who of course had cursed her approximately 17 times which would have meant her affect on the fight would have been actively negative to the goal of killing her.

"I'm not going to die!!!!"

"I think that's bad!!!"

[scrubbrushpainting]

Another recent project until I get my workshop up and running:

The Wrath of the Lich King board game, pieces painted up for a friend!

First time working with Army Painter Speedpaints, the heroes came out nicely! The colors really popped over the zenithal undercoat.

The enemies turned out alright, though the green was way darker and the blue-grey way lighter than I thought they would be, but they still looks decent.

And of course the titular Lich King, who I had to re-paint twice. Hardships aside, I think he turned out splendid.

All of them were matte varnished, and though I ran into a bit of frosting it unintentionally works in giving them a "rustic game pieces" look. The Speedpaint and varnish combo really killed the shine on the Lich King who now only has a subtle hint of his metallic armor.

Once I get painting again, I plan on getting better lighting for photos. These ended up really washed out, and look way better in person. I am excited to paint other board games in a similar style though!

[joelchaimholtzman]

Painting I made a few years back, inspired by the Gringotts dragon! Over the years I began to enjoy painting dragons more and more; The process of making intricate shapes and gestures is really fun to explore.

Hope you like it!

[professorscrublord]

After many long months of bad weather, supply shortages, and good old procrastination... it is finally complete! The Wrath of the Lich King board game pieces are painted, sealed, and ready to play!

[smoshyourheadin]

spencer’s funeral and his partner is the special guest and roasts spencer so hard and than revels that they are getting a cat together but everyone thinks it’d a baby announcement lmaoooo or however you wanna end it

Special News

pairing: spencer agnew x f! reader

a/n: anon i love this idea so much!! guys please don’t come at me for these terrible jokes i’m just a girl really 😜 also i’m posting sm rn go me

requests are open <33

“lebron james inspired us with his baller moves. steph curry inspired us with his words. spencer agnew inspired us by being a piece of shit, so we would never follow in his footsteps.”

you’re stood at the podium of the funeral, spencer in the coffin next to you holding a bouquet of plastic flowers as he tries not to laugh.

“spencer is a gamer, and we all know that. but if he spent as much time with me as he does on world of warcraft, i’d be the happiest girl on earth, but hey, at least he has a high gear score to keep him company whilst i cook.”

you see everyone laugh as you switch the paper, angela cackling over what you thought was a pretty shit joke.

as the laughter dies down, you continue on. “spencer and me only ever disagree over stupid things, and i think to myself, he must know he’s short when he has to look up to see eye-to-eye with someone who's shorter than him, because i’m always right. i’m sure courtney feels the same about shayne.”

at this, courtney yells “FACTS!” from behind one of the cameras, and you shoot her a wink.

shayne then stares you down, and all you say is “shayne don’t worry, i’m a short king ally!” which he just smirks at.

“i have some pretty bad jokes here, so let’s quickfire some.“ you mutter to everyone.

“if sleeping on my arm were an olympic sport, he’d have more gold than michael phelps.” this earns a giggle from spencer, as you have a folder on your phone of him asleep in the most awkward ways possible, always lying on your arm somehow.

“he’s so obsessed with video games, even his posture looks like it's from a character model that hasn't loaded properly yet.“ this makes everyone cackle, spencer opening one eye to glare at you, and you just laugh him off.

“your gamer boy posture is so bad, chiropractors have your picture on their vision boards on what to improve on.”

“do you guys think that,” you exhale through your nose at what patrick has written on your prompt card. “spencer’s idea of sitting normally the same as a pretzel’s idea of being straight?” which is so bad it’s good, making you crouch down to laugh.

you stand back up after a moment, your stomach twisting over what you’re about to do. it’s going to be so worth it, but gosh you feel bad.

“spencer, my lovely boyfriend, is a mt dew kickstart addict, certified gamer girl, and a soon to be father” and at this last statement, everyone gasps, and spencer’s eyes shoot open and he sits up. he looks at you intently, and you see him experience about a hundred emotions at once

you smile at everyone, turning to a camera, pulling out a printed off certificate of adoption, a picture of a tiny ginger cat taped to it.

“we got a cat!” you say, almost proud of how shocked everyone is

as you turn to look at spencer, you hear shayne’s laugh, and you look at spencer with sympathetic eyes, mouthing ‘i love you’ to him over all the laughter. he just smiles, knowing that this cat is going to be so loved by you both. especially you. because you love him so much.

as you sit back down, spencer sits up. having come back from the dead, he has some things to say. he goes through everyone at his funeral; alex, shayne, damien, tommy, selina, and then, you.

“and finally, my beautiful girlfriend, y/n. my bundle of sunshine, blinding and hard to look at directly.” you scoff at this, and he looks at you with a look that says this is a joke please don’t kill me when we’re home.

“i mean, come on, you cry at surf's up? i guess even animated penguins have higher emotional intelligence than you.” he manages to say through a fit if giggles. spencer always teases you for this, even though he cries at the NGE film. loser.

after wrap, courtney comes over to congratulate you on your cat, and just catch up generally.

“so, cat parents hey? proud of you girl” she says with a grin.

“yeah, i kinda feel bad scaring everyone into thinking spencer gets game in bed.” you reply, earning a laugh from her.

“don’t be mean to me! i’m a player you know?” spencer says coming up behind you.

“okay, sure you are mr ‘i cry at anime’.” you snap back.

he throws his hands up in defeat, and you kiss his cheek, going off to see amanda.

“she’s so cool.” courtney says

“yeah,” spencer replies. “she’s not that bad.”

she elbows him in the ribs, and he clutches his side

“i mean, she’s the best!” he says through strained teeth, courtney doing a proud nod before catching you up.

[moodyvoid]

Hi, How are you ☺️.

Can you guess the LOV's favourite games. Or just the Genre of Games they would like.

Sorry if someone else has already asked

Shigaraki has been confirmed to have played a lot of PvP games, but then switched to simulation games. We know he plays League of Legends (I’m pretty sure that’s where he got the name of the league from lmao) He was a League of Legends/Call of Duty/Fortnite gamer. I’ve joked about it before, but I think he’d actually really like Animal Crossing. The game is so reflective of taking on the role of a leader and caring for your villagers and making the town better for them (like he wants for the league members 😭)

Spinner is also confirmed to have liked League of Legends, and from the context we get about him and Shigaraki bonding over video games, I’m willing to bet their tastes are very similar— however he loves the Grand Theft Auto series. (That is how he learned to drive, after all). Also, I feel like he’s probably lost several months of his life to World of Warcraft.

-the rest of this is just my assumptions bc we have no canon info about the others gaming habits lmao-

Dabi doesn’t game very often, but he’s the only one in the league who is willing to play horror games. He probably also likes games like Dead by Daylight, but only if his role is the killer.

Toga gives me Sims energy and she works hours on making her sims perfect (yes, she will make people she knows irl). She also definitely plays dress-up games and dating sims.

Magne doesn’t strike me as an avid gamer, but she would LOVE playing the Jackbox party games with the league. She also gets mad competitive over board games lmao

Twice gives me classic Nintendo vibes. Super Mario, Pokemon, Legend of Zelda, Donkey Kong (etc.) He probably loves Super Smash Bros.

Mr. Compress also doesn’t strike me as an avid gamer, but Shigaraki once suggested Ace Attorney to him and he loved it. (this man lives for a courtroom drama)

Kurogiri unfortunately isn’t a gamer. However, I could see Shigaraki trying to teach him how to play video games and then Kurogiri trying to teach Shigaraki how to play card/bar games in return.

Giran 👈 THIS MAN GAMBLES ONLINE

AFO has never touched a video game in his life, and if he has, it was Pong— and he sucked at it.

[ts4wishbuildercc]

Ts4 Night elven grove from World of Warcraft (CC) 🌙

(Updated) !!!!

(functional build)

by Ts4wishbuildercc

functional night elf kitchen

+handmade treant, swimming pool and diving board XD

and magic healing relaxing in moonwell.....i know I'm horrible druid

Treehouse

stairs are in the trees (but functional, so you just have to send your sim to go upstairs someplace in the house and he/she shall find a way by themselves. (In trees are also hiding special efects from the game - so if you turn on the autumn leaves effect, it will bring you close to magic forest atmosfere.

♥

Large elven house ♥

(full functional)

Down stairs:

sry I'm not good in interiors , so do your magic. :)

First floor:

Sorry for light, i took this pictures from game in the morning.

A bedroom with functional cradle for your little elf . (I have my suspicions that the baby is a half orc..) XD

Only my Rare doesn't care... she's a well-mannered lady and here takes a bath in clothes. In the bathroom is also small bath tub for your toddler elf.

Second floor:

office of the High Priestess of the Moon and grove, sentinels room and children's room.

In the Night...❤

I have an old version of the game and I must reupload. But if you are interested in my ts4 buildings and this build, I'll try to add tray filles soon. Never done this before for another game so give me some time pls and check for changes. Then I must ask for permission of custom content authors or make a credits list with cc or download links. Sorry I am new in this entire thing. My wish is to build your favorite builds. People must have joy. That's what games are about.

Hope you like it. If you intersted in my other Ts4 fan and full functional builds from World of Warcraft , there is a link to another done: Undead Lordaeron house ! 🎃 :

And it's not the end of the collection of World of Warcraft fan mades.

PS: I'm not a creator of cc. I just build with them. Many thanks to all amazing creators.❤️

[beatboxing-puppy]

saw some posts on this website discussing what sort of videogames the dunmeshi characters would play and i think everyone is wrong. everyone is wrong except for me so im going to spell out exactly who plays what. putting it under a read more because im going on a damn tangent.

Laios: He's not a gamer he does not play games on purpose he will only ever play video games when his friends ask him to join them in their multiplayer things. One day tho Falin told him about Monster Hunter and now thats the only thing he plays aside from Spore and he has sunk countless hours into that damn game. Also he probably has played Some pokemon but he doesnt like PLAYING it he just likes it in concept he knows the name of all the pokemon

marcille: people keep saying she would be a cosy gamer playing animal crossing and stardew and other cute games ^-^ its so lalalaaaa NO!!!!!!! no she does not. Marcille plays games that stress her out on purpose marcille plays overwhelming micromanagey games like lobotomy corporation and rimworld and etc. She also likes games with deep lore and mysteries to discover. The only thing that doesn't fit in this category that she plays is Minecraft shes always in there CREATIVE MODE building virtual dungeons and other crazy shit. Also she plays on her work laptop with trackpad ok

Chilchuck: This one is for me. This one im just basing off my own dad ok. Chilchuck used to be a hardcore gamer in his youth but specifically he was playing stuff like world of warcraft and old school runescape he had really big setups so he could run several instances of the game at once on all his alt accounts so he could beat a boss by himself and he was really good at it. But then he had kids and didnt have time for this sort of thing so he stopped playing videogames aside from occasionally helping his daughters beat a super hard mario level. Later in life he probably discovered some shitty little low-commitment phone game like pokemon go or pikmin bloom or some daily sudoku puzzle thing and he plays it every day but its not that big a deal. He has been pressured by his friends and daughters to make a roblox account but he hasnt played it at all.

Senshi: THIS guy is the one that plays animal crossing. He logs in when he can but hes not on that every day grind. Also he doesnt play the newest one he doesnt play horizons he plays one of the DS ones. Wild world probably. He either doesn't like or doesn't know about the nintendo switch. Whenever one of his villagers say that they want to leave he'll nod solemnly and say smth like "Well... I suppose it'd be selfish to ask ye to stay, friend... Just promise me you'll stay safe and never forget me... Go and explore the world. Wish ye the best." Plus his island would be covered in weeds. He also has some mobile games he enjoys angry birds and candy crush and crosswords (gotta keep the brain in shape!) but other than that he doesn't videogame much because he prefers board games and tabletop stuff he isnt too jazzed about all this modern technology plus a console or a laptop and all that gaming equipment is a lot to lug around and hes a nomad he would NOT have that shit

Falin: Now FALIN is the cosy gamer. kind of. Falin plays animal crossing new horizons sometimes and has fun making a bad island on purpose. Very mildly "bad" tho the worst she'll do is use the drawing feature to hide a giant penis on the beach or whatever. Or she'll give her villagers silly outfits. She also plays minecraft (either skyblock or she makes a new world and explores and builds a couple houses and then forgets about it and makes another new world) and roblox (likes 'trolling' strangers by dressing up funny and acting kind of strange in roleplay servers but she's never actually mean or anything.) But the big thing she likes is story-driven indie rpgmaker games. She's the person who will say shit like "Yeah I played Blums Booglies the quest for Big Dinners and it was so good I cried for 9 hours" completely unironically.

kabru: social gamer like laios but the games he plays on purpose are the sims (he likes to cause them problems) and online multiplayer games (he likes to peoplewatch). I can also see him doing absurd and tortrous challenge runs of games like No items no pokecenter one type hardcore nuzlockes. im correct

izutsumi: ACTUALLY trolls people on roblox. And she plays needlessly gory flash games. Maybe she calls people dumbfucks over valorant voice chat sometimes

[jude-duarte-wannabe]

GTKM

so lovely's <3 just a few facts that will help you get to know me <3

what you can call me; shawny pronouns; she/her sexuality; bisexual height; 5'8 age; twenty-one hair/eye color; brown zodiac sign; taurus job; barista pet/s; a cat named icy aka my stink muffin siblings; nine [six sisters and three brothers] home county; new zealand nationality; scottish-scandinavian favorite colors; earthy tones [sage green, dusty pink, navy blue etc] year started watching formula one; 2022 [formula two fan originally] favorite tv shows; bones, criminal minds, bridgeton, resident evil infinite darkness, only murders in the building, ghost whisper, game of thrones, my lady jane etc f1 driver i support; oscar piastri [followed him from formula two] favorite movies; mortal engines, world of warcraft, stardust, john carter, lord of the rings, the hobbit, the princess bride etc favorite bands/singers; maggie lindemann, melanie martinez, panic! at the disco, hamilton the musical, ashniko, abba etc favorite season; autumn hobbies; reading, writing, playing video games, napping, drinking tea, making playlists and pinterest boards, playing cards agaisnt humanity and cuddling my cat relationship status; single as fuck

[bloodblanks]

creepypasta video game headcanons eyeless jack: horror games. his personal favourite would probably be scp: containment breach, although nowadays he just plays phasmophobia. he is very good at it. hoodie: animal crossing. yes, brian likes animal crossing. he likes decorating his pretty little island and has probably spent hundreds of hours on this game. masky: not the biggest fan of video games. (it’s because he’s bad at them and a really sore loser.) however, he will secretly indulge in world of warcraft. ticci toby: shooters. honestly, probably cs:go. he is not insane at the game but he is decent enough to enjoy it. he will happily hop on apex legends, overwatch, or valorant with his friends though. had a fortnite phase. yes, he knows the fortnite dances. yes, he terrorizes children that are in his lobby. jeff the killer: mortal kombat. he played it growing up, and is fairly skilled at it. he will play other fighting games like tekken or even smash bros, but he doesn’t like them nearly as much. partially because he just loves the mortal kombat designs, but also because he doesn’t like not being as good at the other games. will tryhard on smash bros at parties/group hangouts though. ben drowned: plays all games and is very good at most if not all of them. his favourite zelda game is probably breath of the wild. while ocarina of time and majora's mask are more nostalgic for him, he cares too much about having nice graphics. besides that, he probably plays league of legends. he is on the lower end of challenger. slenderman: does not like video games. he prefers traditional board games. video games are too flashy and... new for him. he might play chess on the airplane screen though if he has nothing else to do.

author’s note: i was inspired by this one post on tumblr that i saw today about creepypastas and games but i cannot for the life of me find it :( if someone links it i will tag the author.

[wishingstarinajar]

I know, I know I'm a scratched record

But I'm dying to hear your thoughts on the Wakfu finale when you get to it!

I just finished watching it and it's uuh... hmm. I read people saying the finale was "satisfactory" but I am not fully on board with that sentiment.

Too much left unanswered, not enough wrapped up, too rushed to get to the end.

I know the Waven game is a continuation of sorts, it takes place decades after Wakfu's conclusion so that game might hold some answers or closure, buuuuttt... I'm not interested enough in the game to play and find out. I guess I've grown a bit tired of the whole cross-media info/lore some franchises love to do (like Blizzard and covering important info across the Warcraft games, books and short stories).

Wakfu season 4 obviously has an open ending, no matter that it is the final season, so who knows what might follow. I'm just a little saddened that the story picked up a little too late this season but the animation, particularly during action scenes, was pretty great... when not using the same static images of characters xDD They loved that a little too much but I understand the budget wasn't that big so I can't really fault Ankama for it.

Did I like this season? Mmmyyeeaaah, it's a mixed bag. Better than season 3 but not better than the first two seasons or even the OVA episodes. Glad it exists but I don't feel super satisfied with its conclusion.

HEAVY SPOILERS ahead, so be mindful but gonna share some thoughts:

Seeing Joris play a bigger part in the second half of the 4th season, and him vibing with Adamaï made me very giddy and happy. Love that for them, hope they become good friends. And thank fek neither of them died. RIP, Qilby, Armand and Brakmar (maybe?). The guys who needed to redeem themselves got their chance, at least.

Goddess Eliatrope was a big disappointment and an unlikeable character but I guess that was kind of the point...? Angry that she totally ignored Chibi and Grougal, like what the fuck even? Didn't even show a hint of acknowledgment towards them. What if they wanted to meet mom, huh?? And what even happened to Baltazar and Glip, who were in Emrub with the same kids that were asleep in Goddess Eliatrope's belly? What did she do with them?

But hey, at least my headcanon that the Sadida and Eliatropes will combine into a single kingdom/people (which I also wrote about in my Rebirth fic) actually happening was pretty satisfying x'D It even has Wakfu-infused trees, om nom nom.

A little frustrated with Necroworld (not the same Necroworld from the Transformers: Lost Light comics) because it's supposed to be a different planet in some other universe but it had dofus (dragon eggs) and races of the Twelve like Sadida, Sram and Sacrier. It was pretty confusing... Imo, it should have been something similar to The Upside Down (Stranger Things), or an alternate version of the world of Twelve rather than a completely separate place. But eh...

Why did nobody care about the state Inglorium was in, or that the Gods have disappeared? That bothered me so so so soooo much during the first two episodes; nobody non-Eliatrope or non-demigod cared that their God/Goddess was... well... gone. Aside from God Iop, where are they?? Hated the disinterest, hated the silence around it. Guess that's a mystery that will be unraveled in some other media.

Yugo grew tall and handsome and I'm not afraid to say it. Happy for him, though him suddenly growing so quickly was a bit silly. I figured there would be a time skip to justify his 'growth' that we saw in promotional images and teasers. Won't complain though, he deserved to finally be in a body that reflects his actual age, it took him long enough!

"Bootleg Alys" from the Dofus movie made a cameo in episode 11 which made me snerk. (I noticed a few more background characters from the movie that were re-used in episode 11.)

And that's all I have to say, at least here on Tumblr. It was quite a ride.

A big thanks Ankama and all the Kickbackers that made it possible; this show had its ups and downs over the past decade but it was enjoyable and loved. It still holds a special place in my heart and I will keep a tiny eye out for more Krozmos stuff in the future (like Welsh & Shedar, gimme!!).

[yousaydisco]

Idea (that I'm almost certainly never going to write):

so a Modern AU focused on all the kids as they play an MMORPG together. Some sort of pastiche on World of Warcraft only because that's what I played obsessively as a kid.

Cuno and Cunoesse are on together 90% of the time and they love to troll the message boards, harass newbies, probably partake in a lot of PVP and overall are just huge menaces. No interest in the lore, not really doing any quests, but they're having fun.

Annette also plays and she is VERY much into the lore. She has a relatively high-level warrior-type character, a strong woman, and when she plays she's hardcore in character. Full roleplayer. Her character is the type to slay the dragon and not accept a reward for it, because the safety of the village is its own reward, probably goes out of her way to not get rewarded for her good deeds so she can have a 'struggling for resources' angle to her character that adds a nice challenge to everything.

Remember when I said that Cuno has no interest in lore? HAH! I lied. He has a SECRET CHARACTER that Cunoesse doesn't know about and he only logs in after she thinks he's done playing for the night, and he doesn't so much as play this character but rather just. kind of. virtually stalks Annette's character. Being anonymous is supposed to make you less shy about things but not for him, since I think he's intimidated by how much of the game she knows really intimately and how seriously she takes it so he doesn't want to have an interaction that is Out Of Character and then would make her not like him. If he logs on to this character and she's not playing then he will grind for a bit just to wait but then ultimately leave, but if she is playing then he slyly is there in the background as she goes through her story + all the daily quests. Somehow this character is a higher level than the one he plays with Cunoesse.

Mikael might be too young to play the game, or maybe Trant just thinks he is, but is probably interested in it. If he does play then I think he's real big on the quests - accepting them all and doing them one after the other.

Andre is the guild master with Egg Head, Noid, and Acele and they're the type to spend all night tackling the difficult dungeons or going on raids. They are extremely high-level with the most insane loot, and I think Noid probably has been banned a few times for suspicions of cheating/accessing remote areas players aren't supposed to/messing with their money and items in a way to benefit the entire guild. Somehow Noid is always able to make a new character and quickly rise through the ranks again.

[blorbopolis]

hello! im sorry if you get asked this a lot, but I was curious how you got into doing art ttrpg? and what should an interested artist have in their portfolio? thank you 💖

hi! so i wrote out a big "how to" before re-reading your message and considering you maybe just... asked how it happened for *me*, not necessarily how someone else should do it LOL. so, how it happened for me: i've been actively courting freelance art work since ~2009, and fantasy ttrpg is a natural extension of my interests - my portfolio was already full of world of warcraft fanart by the time ttrpgs & D&D really started having their modern moment. TTRPG is a good low-to-mid level place to find leads, as well, because the barrier for entry is super low for creators, which means a lot MORE projects to go around. (If you want to make a board game, your artist has to know a LOT about packaging, printing, manufacturing, graphic design, etc. if you wrote a D&D module and just want to publish it on itch.io? your artist only needs to know how to send you a decent sized .jpg.) as far as portfolio goes, when i started getting consistent replies to my cold emails, my portfolio had mostly covers and half-pages (ie, narrative illustrations), portraits, and animals. If you want to be more well-rounded you could also include pieces focusing on environments, items, and creatures. Don't include anything unless it's GOOD though. (i am so serious about this - bad work in your portfolio makes the good stuff look like a fluke.) now. if you wanted a "how to" answer, here is 600 words lol. I'm gonna start with the base assumption that your work is already hirable so we can focus on just like, specialization + client acquisition tips. getting a folio up to snuff is a whole other can of beans short version goes like this:

this whole thing only works if you have the ability to honestly self-assess. new work & skills: you should have fresh stuff that's a snapshot of what you can do *right now.* this doesn't mean old work can't stay in your folio if it's still good, but a small, current folio that really hits is WAY better than a bloated old one with irrelevant studies or student work. new artistic peers: as you continue to evolve as a professional, you should have an idea of which other working artists your work is most similar to, in terms of skill/tone/specialties/other relevant skills (3D/graphic design/etc) in order to see how you stack up to your """competition""" for lack of a better word. Additionally those artistic peers have hangout zones (discords or FB groups, etc) where you can talk shop & pass around job leads. research peers' clients: research who those peers are contracting with. See if your work would be a fit for them; if so, find their contact info and put it on your list. Those clients are probably also promoting other similar projects or publishers on their feeds; twitter has a handy "you might also want to follow" list that has other similar accounts you can explore. You can also work backwards from the product to the creator (see any cool battle maps, CCGs, board games, etc? find out who made it and whether they're the ones doing the art hiring.) Additionally, those discords & fb groups I mentioned will have leads (of varying quality) shared around that you should be assessing as they come in. reach out to new batch of clients: cold email. be realistic about who's worth contacting, but don't self-disqualify. that part is a balance. art directors are people with problems to solve, and you need to be able to A. anticipate the problems they need solving, and B. confidently (and honestly) let them know exactly what you can do for them. Attach A FEW, SMALL, RELEVANT jpgs that they can easily download and keep for reference. do not send massive high res attachments, their inboxes are full enough as it is. If you're responding to a specific call, attach relevant pieces or curate a page on your portfolio site specifically for work that would fit the project. If reaching out to clients doesn't result in a lead - *or*, if it takes them 3 months to get back to you, you should spend that time doing your own stuff and bolstering your skills. eventually your portfolio will be good enough that it kicks down doors for you.

you'll notice i never included "be active on social media! post your new work! feed instagram's ad revenue by giving it more content!" in this strategy because it doesn't matter. i'm not professionally active on any social media. we were getting hired before twitter existed and we'll still get hired after it dies. just do make sure you have an online portfolio (your own website >> artstation >>> other free folio builders >>>>>>>>>>>> an instagram feed.) the more times you do this cycle the easier it gets; both because you'll just get good at every step of the process, and because more people will know you and have known you for *longer* so you seem like a safer bet. I'll be honest: it's a ton of rejection lmao. I would get a rejection in my inbox at least once a week - even more than that i'd just get radio silence. But eventually you'll get a yes, and if you're lucky that yes will result in high quality new work you're proud of and can put into your folio (taking you back to step 1 lol.)

the freelance life is (INSHALLAH!!!) behind me since i now have a full time job doing marketing/supporting art for video games. But my portfolio never would've gotten there if i didn't have the experience of going through the freelance meat grinder first. it really taught me how to be an actualized *creative* (who can stand up for her own expertise, think like a project manager, and take creative ownership of / responsibility for my assignments) and not just a hired hand. my team likes that. i think

[staringdownabarrel]

The Game hits differently as an adult than when it did when I was a kid.

Back when I was a kid, mobile games were still in their infancy. Like yeah, there was Snake and Bounce, but that was pretty much it. A mobile phone had the games it came preloaded with and while you could get new ones online, most people didn't. And while there was still that phenomenon of annoying little kids going up to random adults and asking if they had games on their phone, I feel like it wasn't as common.

For the most part, mobile gaming hadn't really gotten to the point where it was psychologically addicting the same way it is now. That kind of thing only really started up when I was in high school. Even then, I tended to write off the "oh, my mum's addicted to Candy Crush" stuff as just a meme-y thing rather than an actual phenomenon. It's really only been in the eleven-ish years since I finished high school, and mostly in the last five or six years, that I've really been aware of people getting super addicted to mobile games as a thing. (This isn't to say it wasn't happening at all before then; just to say I wasn't as aware of it before then. Keep in mind that I live under a rock.)

The other thing here is that back when I was a kid and watching The Game for the first time, it wasn't really as acceptable for people to just sit there on their mobile for hours on end. For a long time, the mobile phone was seen as a thing you had for emergencies only, and even then a lot of people wouldn't bother to take it with them when they left the house.

This did eventually change around 2009 or 2010, when even less well off people could get a mobile phone that wasn't just a Nokia brick that was really only good for texting and calling people. Once that happened, people started using them more. But before that? Nah, not really. The Boomer cartoons from the mid-2000s about Millennial teenagers always being buried in their phones were either making mountains out of molehills or based around the one kid they knew who was a bit more of a social butterfly.

So the first few times I saw The Game, I wrote it off as just being a product of its time. When I thought of video games at the time, I was mostly thinking of console games, not of Snake. I dismissed the idea that someone would get addicted to a video game as being something that didn't really happen that much outside of a few edge cases here and there where maybe a guy died at his keyboard after playing World of Warcraft for a week straight, and even then I thought it was mostly because they had no life outside of it.

Nowadays though, I think it was weirdly prophetic, and I'm not entirely sure the writers on that episode fully realised that at the time. People really are getting addicted to mobile games (and, to some degree, MMOs) much more than they used to, and that's largely by design. Those games really are designed to be addictive.

So while in 2007, I wrote The Game off as being a wonky fantasy written by a generation who were maybe a little bit out of touch, now I realise they were probably on to something. The idea that someone might design a game to be extremely addictive and try to weaponise it somehow doesn't seem as farfetched now as I thought it was back then.

More to the point, there really are people out there who'll do remarkably stupid things because of an online game. It doesn't have to be some propaganda campaign or anything like that; they'll just be mad that a certain part of the game isn't realistic enough. War Thunder in particular has a bit of a reputation for this--there's been multiple military personnel from multiple countries who've leaked design specifications for their country's tanks online because of the game. I wouldn't be too surprised if most spy agencies have people keeping an eye on message boards related to it just because of that.

I don't know if I necessarily think The Game is a good episode. Of the Wesley Crusher episodes made after he goes to the Academy, this is the only one that really falls into that "Wesley the wonder boy" trap a lot of season one episodes had where he'd be pivotal to saving the day. It's still a more interesting take on that concept because it's ultimately Data who does it rather than him, but that honestly could have been incidental more than anything.

What I do think, however, is that it's an interesting episode. It's the kind of episode that's definitely made me think as I've gotten older. My opinion of it now is that while it's not really the best episode, it is good science fiction because it was remarkably on point about the general direction society was going to go down and it inspires thought.

[professorscrublord]

Just a little WIP of the Lich King board game pieces I'm painting up for a friend, so far they're turning out really nice in greyscale! Once they've got some color on them I'll take some better glamour shots.

[painfullymeta]

Games and Gender

(Apparently I'm gonna occasionally be using the tumblr for the sort of thing I used to put in my political blog, back in the ancient days when I had a political blog.)

I am used to being the only presumed-woman in the game. (I wish I could remember Sunflower's acronym, something like people-socially-classed-as or something like that, but I can't. Or is that it? Maybe!)

It's actually not as true as it feels like; probably the majority of games I've been have had multiple women at the table. One of my current games (that started in the quarantimes) has one cis guy involved *at all*. (Also in that one when I proposed a trans character the GM made sure to have a Little Talk with me to be clear on whether I was doing so from an in-group or an out-group perspective.) Board game night was pretty gender equal (partly because sensible gamers marry other gamers, heh).

But my tabletop group that's been running on and off for... I'm not sure how long but it's over fifteen years because it settled *at* my house when I was pregnant? Men, and me. That high school game group where I started? Usually mostly boys, an adult man, and, again, me.

Raiding World of Warcraft? Either my housemate or I spoke up in Vent once, and a hush went over the chat, and someone said, in stunned, hushed tones, "There are _girls_ here."

Even back to childhood, there's the thing where my brother got the Nintendo, and I did not. (We did inherit an Atari from our cousins and that became my default console. Which is part of why when some crypto-gamergater tried to suggest to me that maybe there was a valid point and "girls" really don't play those sorts of games I went off on an enthusiastic ramble about Joust, which made him withdraw from the field, though he did not turn into an egg and/or fall in the lava.) My parents, I guess, didn't catch on that the thing I most wanted to do when over at certain friends' houses was 'play their computer games'. (They did give me basically the entire works of Infocom one year, though.)

I didn't particularly want games to be about gender. And I don't have any of the horror stories I hear about - the sexual harassment at the table, either of the player or of the character, for example. But it's not like the surrounding world gives a shit about what people want, in it, is there?

Because all sorts of things wind up being about it.

In my teens, I hit on the time-honored tradition of "work through some of your shit by building a tabletop roleplaying character around it", and I made a character in part around my desire to work through some feelings around my experiences of sexual violence. (As is often the case for this sort of thing, she'd been through worse than I had. As is also often the case for people in that situation, neither she nor I explained this bit of the backstory to anyone that I can recall.) And one of the other characters at the table, played by a boyfriend of the time, came on to her, and it went ... badly all around. And afterwards, he asked me, from his tone I guessed faintly offended, "Explain Hellcat."

I don't remember what I said. I do know that I was not at a point in my life where I could talk easily about having been assaulted. I do know that I was worried that if I brought up that this was part of her backstory, I would get asked uncomfortable questions like "Why would you include that in a character's story?" from someone who had had no reason to think about how that sort of thing is a part of many, many people's stories, and imaginary people are not actually an exception.

It was in her story because I was trying to work through what it meant that something similar was in mine.

(I note: this was literally years before a particular conversation with an assault survivor made me feel I had actual permission to be fucked up by my own event. I wasn't even there yet. I was just trying to process it. It was a game. I could explore ideas. In the long run, I could experiment with what it was like to figure out how to be loved after a traumatic event.)

I don't always build characters around particular experiences, though of course they all have a bit of me somewhere in them. But there are these niggling things like that conversation where I wind up just... aware. Not generally as blatantly as "Explain Hellcat." But.

And I mean, once the Warcraft guys got used to the idea of 'there are girls here' they weren't a problem. But they still had that moment of shock, of almost disbelief, that's one of the reasons I'd heard of people saying they never raided, or never spoke on the raid chat. At one point I was out on a male toon (I tended to roll up a male and female character for each species) and noticed that the conversation was about female gamers in the regional chat, and I felt like I was an infiltrator.

And of course I had a slowly increasing awareness of my own dysphoria, putting pieces together over time, and increasing irritation with the boundary-policing of gender and a whole bunch of other things that one might expect come out of having a hobby for a while (see also back in the ancient days when I had a political blog) of arguing with TERFs recreationally. Which is a whole different topic. But it comes around to a thing that's been annoying me for _years_, which is why I wrote [gestures upwards] all that right now.

There was a survey that came out after I started considering myself nonbinary. And it was asking for participants who were women in gaming hobbies. It was very, very clear on being trans-inclusive, by which I mean it said "this survey is open to anyone WHO IDENTIFIES AS A WOMAN".

Which I did not.

Did I have experiences that were likely relevant to "women in gaming hobbies"? Oh hell yeah. I've noted a few of 'em up above there.

Was I welcome to answer the survey? By the reading of the rules: nope. (Was I allistic enough to answer the survey despite it explicitly excluding me? Also nope.)

Which loops around to one of those transmasc experience things that I have also seen other people talking about: the need some people have to make the experience of gender clean-cut and clear in ways that it very much is not and cannot be.

I don't have the socially preferred "always known" narrative, and even if I had had it, there are places it wouldn't have fucking mattered. (Certainly not with an adolescence in an environment where I don't think I heard the word "lesbian", even, let alone got any information about the existence or possibility of trans people. Nobody was out at my school, about anything. And even if I'd known I'd have had no idea what to do with the knowledge.)

(And I *didn't know*. The puzzlepiece-shape of 'socially uncertain straight girl nerd' and the puzzlepiece-shape of 'autistic gay(?) transmasc/nonbinary nerd' are actually very similar puzzlepiece shapes and how the fuck am I supposed to tell the difference between "I don't understand this social thing" and "I don't understand this social thing (because it smacks of gender, specifically)" anyway? Certainly not at fourteen in the early 90s! I've been making "I was behind the door when they handed out the manual for that gendered expectation" cracks for TWENTY-FIVE YEARS. And I can date it that precisely because I started articulating any of this stuff when I was on usenet!)

Until I was, like, thirty, I was, as far as I *or anyone else* could perceive, an awkward straight girl/woman who could really have used learning words like "asexual" that didn't hit my social environment until notably later and who had a focused interest in queer-lens readings of Christian theology despite being neither queer nor Christian. That's the life experience I had. And there's eggy shit in there, sure, I noted some eggy shit *right in that sentence*. That doesn't change the nature of the internal experience and the external perception. Then it was a decade of increasing anxious exploration of gender and what I was, including an extended roleplay of a gay cis man (Kinsey 5, not 6, but) that grew out of some fanfic writing I was doing, which led to discovering that his skin was much more comfortable than mine to inhabit.

I still don't know what I am. I have anxiety about whether my transmasc nonbinary ass is male enough to be gay; whenever I'm doing an intake questionnaire or something that asks me about orientation I just sit and. Stare. For a bit. Because I don't feel entitled to claim 'gay', I haven't been there, my adolescence was not that, but I damn sure ain't straight either. (Anymore? I didn't have the internal experience of doubting it back when. The closest I got was noting an attraction to geek-as-gender masc people, as a geek-as-gender person; my wisecrack for years has been that I'm exclusively attracted to engineers and MIT students.) I appreciate it when these forms have an option for 'queer' because at least that doesn't ... require me to chop up my life until I can arrange the parts into something that has simple words and a simple, clear narrative that can elide my actual history.

And that's what people want, a lot of the time. If a trans man doesn't disavow his experience as a girl and a woman (whether or not he was aware of the disjoints there), he must not be "really" a man. If he tries to speak on his experiences with gendered nonsense or misogyny, he's speaking out of turn. He can either have credibility as himself *or* credibility as a person with a past, and because of that tension he can't _really_ have credibility as either, there's always that half-spoken "but—" that comes in.

If I speak as a woman about the gendered experiences I have had, I betray myself, and undermine any attempts to claim a space as not-a-woman.

If I speak as not-a-woman about those same experiences, then I am told I don't have standing. What I experienced wasn't _real_ whatever, because that only happens to women. (A lie, I will note, even when only said among the cis; I have met male rape victims, including at least one who was raped by a woman. I have met cis gay folks whose experiences with violence have absolutely had a context of feminization.)

The experiences still happened. I'm still here.

But no matter what I do, there's always an excuse to not hear me.

"This survey is open to anyone WHO IDENTIFIES AS A WOMAN."

(I am pretty sure they didn't mean to shut me and those like me out, but I am also pretty sure that to the extent they considered transmasc people existing at all, they assumed that we would be okay with playing at being women long enough to participate. Because the cultural assumption is that we're only playing at being men, after all, and womanhood is where we live, because there are consequences to it that are inescapable. No matter how much we want to gnaw it off like an animal stuck in a trap and carry on three-legged and free.)

Wherever my life goes from here, I don't know. Particularly not in the current moment. But I'm 100% sure that there will be people who are surprised by it, and they might even include people at my gaming tables.

But again back to that time-honored tradition of "work through some of your shit by building a tabletop roleplaying character around it"?

Both my tabletop characters at the moment are fairy-obsessed trans men; both of them have a history of asexuality that is partially linked to dysphoria (though Celyn is also just straight-up grey ace and genuinely baffled by his current feelings); both of them have a primary relationship with a man and are primarily oriented towards men. (Danny is both more gender-flexible and orientation-flexible, heh. Also species-flexible. And an exclusive monsterfucker....)

Anyone who's surprised by anything I do about this hasn't been paying attention. I kind of look forward to seeing what happens. Sometimes a guy's gotta be a gremlin.