#i think someone already posted this pc
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seventh-district · 1 year ago
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so was anyone gonna tell me that Neil Newbon is the VA for Astarion or was i gonna have to find that out myself when he suddenly started uploading his playthrough of the game on YT
#Seven.txt#viddy game stuff#bg3#astarion#like??? as soon as i saw it i was like OH OF COURSE IT’S YOU!!!#like. i only have a surface level of knowledge abt Astarion from passively consuming other’s posts abt being obsessed w/ him online#but i can tell that if i ever actually took the time i’d probably be rlly into the character#okay so Full Transparency- this post and the prior few tags have been siting in my drafts for the past 12 days#and i know Neil has been uploading his playthrough since even further back but i am late to everything okay it's how i am#and anyways in that time i have watched hours upon hours of Astarion scene compilation videos on YT#and i can now confirm- yes i am Really into the character lmao. like. Severely into the character#like. i'm-making-a-playlist-for-him-and-its-already-got-50-songs-on-it level of Into Him. it's over for me boys there's no turning back#i'm fixated. there's no saving me#like i have never dungeoned a dragon ever before in my entire life but this fucking man.#this man is making me wanna drop $60 and 150gb of my PC's storage space on a game i have no idea how to play#i think it could make for a fun recording experience. but idk if i'll actually do it. i'll sit on the idea for a while first#but Astarion's existence and the sickass character creation is calling my name. i think... it could be a fun time#not like i literally even have the time to dump into a massive game like that but i waaaant to. i kinda want to#anyways Seven found a new traumatized little blorbo to fawn over everybody watch out. a reblog storm may cometh#they couldn't have cast someone better for Astarion i stg#Seven stop falling in love with the characters Neil Newbon voices/acts as challenge FAILED#lmao now i'm thinking about putting BG3 Astarion and RE8 Heisenberg in a room together. could u fucking imagine#talk about taking the whole vampires vs werewolves thing to another level#Astarion isn't a True vampire and Heisenberg isn't even a fucking werewolf and that makes it so much funnier to me#just two old fucked up somewhat non-human guys. i'm genuinely trying to picture them interacting. how would it go#anyways i have been awake for 30 hours with only a 1hr nap in the middle. and i have just eaten a sinful amount of spaghetti#and am currently riding the high of finally having posted ch4 of ES. with no big responsibilities tomorrow. and so u know what time it is#time to be insane on tumblr until i pass out
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oc-ology · 3 months ago
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How to OC post without being an artist (or spending money)!
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As much as I yelled about OC-posting, some people said that they struggled to know what exactly they should be posting. Obviously the answer is whatever you feel like but if you’re already aimless, that answer isn’t very helpful. Additionally, not everyone knows how to draw (which I think is an obvious method of OC-posting) so I wanted to give some ideas for what people could post for their OC! This will be split up into different sections.
Creating visual representations of your OC
Disclaimer: I will not suggest nor support the usage of generative AI. OCs are about creating something yourself, not allowing a computer to do it for you.
Outside of commissioning someone else for art, it can be disappointing and frustrating to not have any visual representation for your character. An easy way to get a representation of your character is to use Picrew, Meiker and other similar sites. There’s a large number of art styles, types of fashion, species, that can all be used to make your OC and that amount only grows by the day. Many of these websites can be accessed on PC and mobile and take very little processing power.
However, this can be limiting at times since you might not find exactly what you’re looking for, especially if your OC has a unique combination of features. For something with more customisation, you can use video games with character creation to make a version of your character. I personally would recommend games like The Sims or Skyrim as both have very active modding communities. This way, if a certain type of clothing or facial feature isn’t present in the base game then you can often find someone who has created a mod that adds it in instead. This does require you to have access to a computer that can run not only the game but the mods as well.
Another option would be using a program like Vroid Studio to make your character from a base model. This has both a mobile and PC version, although I will primarily be speaking from a PC perspective. The mobile app, while able to create a character from scratch, is a lot more limited than the PC version. The great thing about Vroid is that there’s a lot of user-made content that you can often get for free through websites like Booth, as well as many tutorials for beginners to follow along with. Again, this requires a computer that is able to run it. I would recommend against using Vroid on a laptop as it will likely be too intensive for it.
My final suggestion for character visuals is to take a character from anime or cartoons and simply edit them. This was actually how I first got into making original characters! You can recolour their hair or outfits with an editing program (with some free examples being FireAlpaca, Krita or GIMP) and even edit different images together to create something more unique. Please only do this with characters from existing media and avoid using fanart for this.
Other OC visuals
Other than just what your OC looks like, there are other ways to visually put together your OC. Moodboards are the most obvious example of this, but you can also edit other things such as putting together outfits for them or finding pictures of items they would keep in their bag.
If you have multiple OCs, you can create fake text conversations between them using a number of websites. These can be as silly or as serious as you like!
Finally, you can always build them a pinterest board. I am a massive pinterest enjoyer and not only can you use pins that others have posted to pinterest, you can add your own from off the site. 
Writing
Beyond writing out your characters’ story, there are numerous other things you can write. Keeping in line with what you’ve already written, you can re-write scenes from alternative perspectives. These can add context to what is seen in the main story, as well as flesh out background or side characters and their relationship to your other OCs.
Another fun thing to write is non-canon scenes. Write a beach episode! Write about a character getting sick and someone else having to take care of them! There are countless ways to draw your OCs interacting with their world or other characters that wouldn’t necessarily ever fit into the “main” story.
Next is genre changes. If you had to categorise the genre of your OCs’ current story, what would it be? Now image what if the genre was something completely different? Romance to mystery… Slice of life to horror… Part of the challenge is figuring out what story beats remain the same and what gets changed, including character dynamics! And of course… Alternate Universes. There are too many types of AUs to list but some of my favourites are superpowers, mafia, zombies, time loops and time-travel-fix-its. These are similar to genre-changes but often include a number of AU specific tropes. If you’re struggling to figure out the staples of a certain AU or what kind of AUs exist, there’s a really good page about alternate universes on Fanlore.org!
Other ideas
These are ideas that didn’t quite fit into the other categories.
First is music playlists! There are two types of these. The first is a playlist of songs that describe a character and their story while the second is a playlist of songs that the character would listen to. Some people like to combine the two as well! There are no rules to this, simply have fun listening to music and picking out songs that remind you of your OCs.
Second is incorrect quotes. I remember these used to be beloved by fandom and now they can be beloved by you and your OCs! The concept of incorrect quotes is that well-known and funny quotes from pop culture (such as memes or movies) get written out and your characters are assigned a line of dialogue. While there’s a website that’ll generate these incorrect quotes for you, I personally find more fun in coming across quotes organically while scrolling social media and realising that they fit my OCs almost perfectly.
Finally, ask games. These typically take the form of lists of questions or prompts with emojis or numbers next to them. People can send in the relevant emoji or number and you then answer the corresponding prompt. There used to be a kind of “ask game etiquette” where if you reblogged an ask game from someone, you sent an ask from the list to them as well. This way, it allows the game to continue circulating and you can spread the joy of OC-posting with others! It can also lead you to making friends within the community.
And that’s it for my post! If you have other suggestions for kinds of OC-posting then I would love to see them!
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foone · 8 months ago
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AAA games? Pfft. Indie games? Double pfft.
I only play games from the alternate history where Hillary Clinton was elected in 2008 and banned all video games. You can only imagine how weird their underground gaming scene is. People like to call unlicensed games "bootlegs" but they've got actual bootlegged games! I've played games about helping your grandmother in hospice care realize she's a lesbian by reading Sappho to her, at 2am in a speakeasy in Baltimore. The cops raided it the next night, hundreds of Gamers were arrested. They posted pictures all over Friendster of the Baltimore PD destroying the arcades with axes.
I nearly got busted once because I was imaging old disks from a 386 and someone tipped off the gaming cops that there was a copy of Commander Keen in there. I had to prove that I didn't know it, I was imaging the disks blind and then indexing them later, and I would of course turn over any contraband to the proper authorities.
I was already on a watch list because I'd been known to have some gamedev-related activities pre-ban. They can't arrest me for making games back in 2007 when it was still legal, but they do want to keep an eye on me since I have the skills to break the law.
Anyway that universe's bootlegs are mainly PC games. Can't really have console games if there hasn't been a console release since the Wii/PS3/360 era. At one point Nintendo threatened to release the Wii SDK so game devs in the US could make unlicensed games, but that didn't happen as there were quickly no functional Wiis left in the US, except for very rare holdouts that never move. PC games are easy to distribute samizdat and hide on a USB stick or CD-R labeled "nickelback".
Japan's games industry is still going, so the later Nintendo and Sony consoles still exist, but Microsoft got out of the business of course. They sold the franchise to Sega who were hoping to release the 360 successor (the Xbox One in our universe) as the Sega Phoenix but it never materialized, either through their own financial incompetence or because of pressure from the US. There's a lot of international treaties that the US has pushed "and this aid only goes through if you ban games" clauses into. That would have been an official UN resolution if the USSR hadn't vetoed it. For once, thank God for the security council, eh?
I mainly get my gaming news through Japanese gaming sites (through a set of VPNs, since they're blocked at the border firewall), and some tor onion site run by a weird guy in Minnesota who is obsessed with documenting all the underground US games.
There's a lot being worked on, but it's always a tricky trade off. Too much attention and the police might be able to track down the creators, and it's basically impossible to fund underground games, as the VISA/PayPal etc funds get seized immediately. There's a whole task force for that.
Anyway one of the weirdest differences between our two time lines is that they've gone back and edited out gaming from a bunch of movies. Those that they can, of course. War games was just banned because they couldn't remove the tic tac toe ending. The Net just removed the scene at the beginning where she's playing Wolfenstein 3D, by recording some new screen footage and a new voice over. She's fixing a spreadsheet in the new edition.
(Yes, I've seen The Net from this alternate timeline. On Laserdisc, of course. I'm just that kind of person!)
They even edited Star Wars. You know that scene where R2-D2 is playing holochess with Chewie? They edited it to be a board game instead of holograms, because that made it too "video gamey".
Technically it's not illegal to show gaming in a movie, but it needs to be an 18+ film and you have to show the deleterious effects of gaming and/or the gamesters coming to a bad end.
This has affected films less than you'd think, to be honest. They were never great about showing video games even before they banned them.
Anyway, go have fun playing your AAA games with hundred-million-dollar budgets. I only play indie games made by people under a constant threat of arrest for their art.
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ancnymcnzjy · 2 months ago
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Dating or Not Dating?
Pairing: Lee Heeseung x f. reader
Genre: Fake dating, best friends to lovers, fluff, subtle angst, romance
Warning: Explicit language, smut
Synopsis: You don’t answer your friend’s call because you’re hanging out with Lee Heeseung, your guy best friend, whom you haven’t seen since you were nine.
Too occupied with the video game you're playing and since your guy best friend is using your phone anyway, you ask him to text your friend for you.
He sends a message saying, "She can’t talk right now. What’s up?" which makes her freak out and ask lots of questions.
Your lack of response leads her to interrogate your other friends—now they think you're dating someone.
Taking advantage of your friends’ confusion, you wonder: What’s the worst that could happen if you randomly soft-launch your guy best friend to get a reaction out of them?
Word Count: 2,545
⋆。𖦹°⭒˚。⋆ ˚ ༘ ೀ⋆ ˚ °❀⋆.ೃ࿔*:・✩₊˚.⋆☾⋆⁺₊✧ ⋆౨ৎ˚⟡˖ ࣪ ⋆⭒˚��
You suddenly became the topic of discussion among your friends in the days following you posted a picture of Heeseung on your Instagram story.
They didn’t necessarily believe that you suddenly had a boyfriend, since you’re always open with them about what's going on in your life.
It also seemed unlikely that you would start dating someone without first telling your friends how much you like them.
However, your friends bought it, using your recent absence due to illness as an excuse and a canvas for their imagination.
You kept quiet, hiding your amusement as they speculated and came up with absurd conclusions for your recent absence.
They also started examining the picture you posted, trying to figure out who it was.
Suddenly, you were glad Heeseung turned away just as you took the picture. Although his side profile was visible, your friends wouldn’t have a clue who he was since you became friends with them a year after he already moved away.
As school ended, your friends began leaving the campus.
They asked if you'd like to come to the mall, but you declined, saying you had somewhere else to be.
On any normal occasion, you’d head straight to your car.
Today, however, you stayed at the entrance of your university, leaving your friends puzzled.
Soon, it dawns upon them that you’re getting picked up.
You wave goodbye to them as you head over to Heeseung’s car that’s just pulling up.
You couldn’t help but laugh at their shocked expressions as you get in Heeseung’s car.
Wanting to get more reactions out of them, you give Heeseung a peck on the cheek before buckling yourself in.
As Heeseung drives off, you glance back at your friends, who are now exchanging looks and trying to make sense of what they’d just witnessed.
•••
Back at your place, you and Heeseung spend the rest of the day hanging out in your bedroom.
While Heeseung plays video games on your PC, you're contemplating how this whole fake dating idea will play out.
"Hee, do you think our idea will work?" you ask, beginning to doubt your spontaneous plan of soft-launching him on your socials before revealing to your friends who your boyfriend is.
"I don't see why not. Your friends already believe you have a boyfriend—especially now that they saw a glimpse of us together earlier in my car.
The worst-case scenario is we stop, and you tell them the truth, saying it was a joke all along."
With truth in his words, you remain quiet, choosing to silently ponder the outcome of this whole thing.
Not liking your state of overthinking, you distract yourself by watching him get his third kill in his game.
Your eyes wander to his wide eyes, twinkling with concentration. His bottom lip is tucked beneath his teeth, and his hands skillfully click the keys on your keyboard.
The way the computer screen illuminates his figure stirs something in you.
On any other occasion, his matching pajama pants with you and the random shirt he's wearing would have you laughing and teasing him about how silly he looks. But the way they perfectly fit his body has you hitching your breath and swallowing your nervousness.
As if sensing your stare, Heeseung looks at you when his game ends.
He removes the headphones from his head and makes his way to you.
Before you can move to make space for him on your bed, he quickly shifts and hovers above you, holding himself just above your lying figure with his arms.
Him playfully trapping you beneath his arms is common, yet the way he cages you in this time feels different.
You look up at Heeseung, who stares down at you with adoration.
"What's wrong, Hee?" you ask, curiosity etched into your furrowed brows.
He's quiet as he observes every delicate detail on your face.
You stare up at him as his eyes trail from your eyes and down to your lips.
You let out a surprise gasp when he suddenly kisses you, and let out more similar noises when you feel him press his body against yours.
You feel the bulge in his pants become more prominent, and you subconsciously start moving your hips to meet his light thrusts against your core.
While your hand is tangled up in his hair, his own hand is against your cheek keeping it steady so he can slide his tongue into your mouth.
As you let him explore your mouth, a little voice in your head reminds you that friends don't kiss. Friends don’t shove their tongue down each other’s throats, and friends especially don’t have their hands exploring one another’s body as if their life depended on it.
So ever since you and Heeseung agreed to fake date, have you been able to call one another just friends?
Heeseung pulls away from the kiss first.
His eyes mirror your lustful gaze as his eyes trail down to your chest. 
At the sight of your erect nipples poking through your shirt, his eyes darken and a smug smile is plastered across his lips.
He makes direct eye contact with you while lowering his head down to kiss each of your breasts, savouring the soft feeling he’s met with. 
He eyes the hem of your shirt and bunches it up in his hand. 
“Sit up for me quickly, angel,” Heeseung asks you while kissing your cheek. 
You do as he says, lifting your arms up as well to let him take your shirt off.
Not liking how you’re the only one exposed, you ask him to take his own shirt off as well. 
Catching Heeseung by surprise, you latch your legs around his waist and flip the both of you around so he's laying down and you’re straddling him from the top.
You peck his lips before showering his neck and collar bone with feather light kisses. 
Your hand gets busy exploring every inch of his exposed skin. 
When you reach his chest and abdomen, you drag your fringes across them teasingly. 
Heeseung shudders at your touch, instantly gripping your wrists in warning of the game you’re playing. 
Growing up together, you’ve come to learn all his sensitive spots. When you were younger, you exploited that knowledge to tickle him when he wasn’t expecting it; now, you use it to get the reactions you so badly want from him.
You smile teasingly at him while your fingers move lower until they reach the band of his sweatpants.
Slowly, you pull it down along with his boxers, making his hardened dick spring out onto his stomach.
With your fingertip, you trace the prominent veins along his length and swipe over his red, sensitive tip that’s already spilling precum. 
You smile to yourself, knowing you're the cause of his uneven breathing and trembling body—both the result of anticipation.
While kissing up his body once more, you notice the silver necklace dangling around his neck. 
You pull on the angel charm that’s attached to bring his lips to yours. At the same time, you wrap your fingers around his length. 
He’s already wet from precum, but he’s not as slick as you want him to be. 
You pull your lips away from Heeseung, a string of saliva following you as you hover your face above his. 
“Sit up and spit on your dick for me, baby.” You ask Heeseung sweetly while stopping your strokes along his length.
He does what you ask, though biting his lip and leaning his head back in amusement immediately afterward, since it's not quite registering in his brain that you, his best friend, could ever say such words.
You’ve been shy since you were young—you spoke shyly, too. But now that you're both older, it’s clear that some things have changed.
Heeseung watches how his precum and spit smear all over his length as you move your hand up and down. 
He lets out a subtle groan when you lower your head, kissing his tip teasingly before licking down his length to reach the base of his dick. 
You take him in your mouth, bobbing your head slowly while using your hand to jerk off the rest of his length that couldn’t fit in your mouth. 
He fits your mouth perfectly. Each thrust has his dick hitting the back of your throat, where Heeseung praises you with compliments that have you moaning around his dick as a result of making him feel good.
You look up to see his chest heaving desperately. Wanting to make him feel even better, you go to pick up your pace when Heeseung suddenly stops you. 
“Come up here, pretty,” he says out of breath. 
He watches as you release him from your mouth, then holds out his hand to help you move up to his lap. 
You lift yourself up so Heeseung can remove your shorts and underwear. 
You place one hand on his shoulder for stability, and the other around his length to line it up with your entrance. 
You glide his tip along your pussy, grinding your hips simultaneously to cover his dick in your arousal. 
Slowly you slip his tip inside and move yourself down until his dick is halfway in. His thickness and length has you stopping abruptly to get used to his size. 
While you tilt your head back in pleasure, Heeseung’s breath hitches as he gets accustomed to your tightness. 
You bring your other hand to his shoulder just as Heeseung squeezes your plush thighs to stop him himself from cuming too quickly. 
Once you’ve lowered yourself completely on his length, Heeseung’s hand moves up to feel the prominent bulge on your stomach. 
He looks into your eyes and asks smugly, “Am I too big for you, angel?” 
You nod, closing your eyes and biting your lip to contain the lustful moans daring to spill from your lips. 
He laughs softly at your reaction before kissing down your neck to the swell of your breasts.
His tongue circles around one of your nipples while his hand fumbles with the other. 
Heeseung picks up on your approaching release, moving his hand from your breast to your clit.
You let out a surprised moan at the same time that your thighs jerk from his sudden movements. 
“I’m close, baby,” you tell Heeseung. 
Your eyes roll back when you feel him thrust his hips up to meet your bounces. 
“Me too, angel,” Heeseung replies before kissing you on the lips. 
He grips your hips tightly, keeping you steady as he thrusts faster to reach your desired orgasms.
His grip on your thighs leave red pleasurable marks that have you biting your lip and digging your nails into his skin. 
At the sounds of your headboard banging against the wall and your skin slapping together, you’re brought over the edge simultaneously.
You let out an obscene moan as Heeseung fills your pussy to the hilt with his cum. 
After bouncing on his dick one last time, you lie your body against his.
You and Heeseung lie in silence, both catching your breath and coming down from your high.
Heeseung gently massages the skin he marked while also pressing soft kisses on your shoulder and neck.
“Wait here for a second," Heeseung whispers softly in your ear, lifting you off him and onto the bed so he can stand.
He walks over to your ensuite bathroom and turns on the faucet in your bathtub. You watch as he waits for the tub to fill up with water before adding your favourite bath products.
Heeseung walks over to you and lifts you into his arms. He carries you to the bathroom and gently places you in the bathtub. Afterward, he climbs in with you.
You sit still, allowing him to smother soap all over you–letting his original plan of cleaning you both up work for a bit. 
Once he feels your ass grinding against him and your hand slowly trailing down to his length, all of his previous plans vanish as he responds to your smutty motions just beneath the water’s surface. 
•••
You wake up the next morning on top of Heeseung’s sleeping figure.
Your arms are loosely wrapped around his shoulders, his hands gripping your waist, and your legs are intertwined with his.
Looking up slightly to see Heeseung’s face, you can’t help but trace the outlines of his features.
You drag your finger from his soft, wavy black hair to the outline of his ear, then down his jaw and chin. Your eyes shift to his lips, and you can’t help but touch them softly, too.
Heeseung stirs awake from your movements, and his eyes slowly flutter open.
He tenses, his brows furrowing for a second, wondering who is touching him. He only relaxes when he sees that it’s you. 
“Morning, pretty,” Heeseung says, his voice raspy. He smiles at you before grasping your hand and pulling it from his face to place it on the pillow beside him.
With the same hand, he gently holds your face and gives you a soft kiss on your lips.
You return it, but with urgency, propping yourself to sit upright afterward. 
“What's wrong?” Heeseung asks, concern filling his voice at your sudden change in mood.
Your back straightens, and your eyes wander around the room—a nervous habit you have that Heeseung knows all too well about.
He brings his hand to your exposed leg, running his thumb back and forth on your thigh encouragingly.
“About last night...that was a mistake. Friends don’t have sex—hell, best friends don’t either! We also can't blame it on the fact that we're dating because our relationship is fake.” You explain to him.
Silence meets you, and you keep your head down, staring at his hand, too nervous to look up at him.
While your mind races with the worst possible outcomes, Heeseung interrupts your train of thought by holding your chin and making you face him.
“Look at me, angel.”
Your eyes flicker to his, meeting his solemn stare.
"You're right, we took things a bit too far considering this is just a fake relationship.
But what if I don’t want it to be fake? I enjoyed our intimate moment, and surely, so did you." Your flushed cheeks give him an answer, making him smile fondly at you.
With his voice soft and his face much closer to yours, he admits,
"I’ve spent so long hiding the fact that I like you. You gave me the opportunity to be your boyfriend these past couple of weeks—even if it’s been fake—and I took it!
I cherished you, took you on dates, gave you gifts, and showed you off to my friends and family just like a real boyfriend would." He pauses, his eyes searching yours for a reaction.
"I want to call it quits on our little game. I no longer want to be your boyfriend just for the sake of our fake dating agreement, but rather your boyfriend in an actual relationship, so I can officially call you mine."
"So what do you say? Are you in?" Heeseung asks, staring intently at you.
When he sees a smile slowly grow on your lips, he lets out a smile of his own.
"I’m in."
⋆。𖦹°⭒˚。⋆ ˚ ༘ ೀ⋆ ˚ °❀⋆.ೃ࿔*:・✩₊˚.⋆☾⋆⁺₊✧ ⋆౨ৎ˚⟡˖ ࣪ ⋆⭒˚。
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amnestria-the-elf · 6 months ago
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So we're all just supposed to be fucking grateful that Larian gave us "new Wyll content" (evil ending for a man who is canonically incorruptible, what the fuck) and simultaneously broke him again (giving low approval greetings to a romanced PC, what the fuck).
I... I just... the simultaneous feelings of rage and utter hopelessness are overwhelming.
Listen, if you've read any of my posts you know I have a pretty clear "Don't yuck anyone's yum" policy. If you think an evil Wyll ending is interesting, fine. But here's why it falls flat for me.
First, like I said above, Wyll is canonically incorruptible. It's literally the entire basis of his character. He is a man who was coerced into making an infernal contract to save a city and had to pay a horrible price for doing so, then spent seven fucking years alone in the wilderness doing his damned best to protect the people of the Sword Coast, while all along telling his horrible, abusive patron to just fuck off already.
Now, could you argue that during the events of the game, Wyll develops a taste for evil? Sure. There are plenty of opportunities for his villain origin story to unfold. But they never do. His moral compass never wavers. Turned into a devil? He feels shame, because it's an outward sign that he was doing things for Mizora that were morally wrong, and he didn't see it before. His approval rating for the PC shoots through the roof if you save Karlach, a sure indicator of his true moral compass. His father kidnapped? Fuck that noise, we're gonna save him. Rescue Zariel's "asset"? Ugh, fine, but don't get distracted from the real reason we're here. His father gets tadpoled? Oh hells no, we're gonna take down these assholes and save the godsdamned world. His father accuses him of being an agent of a devil and is super pissy about it? "Everything I did, I did for the people of the Sword Coast."
For fuck's sake, he will leave the party if the PC gets too evil, even knowing it means he'll probably turn into a mindflayer immediately. Even if he's romancing the PC. Unwavering moral compass. So giving him an evil ending without also going back and changing everything about his character just feels like lazy writing to me.
Which brings me to the second reason all of this rubs the wrong way. Wyll deserves so much more content. More romanced greetings, more reactions to other characters' choices, a final boss battle that is actually about him, a default ending that actually makes fucking sense (I have another post cooking about the Avernus ending, so I will leave it for now.)
And please, spare me your "But Wyll was rewritten after early access" bullshit. That's Larian's problem. They chose to listen to feedback and do a late-stage rewrite. They then chose to implement it poorly and never fucking fix it. Other characters, who already have far more content than Wyll, have had even more added over the course of the seven released patches. Wyll, on the other hand, has been sitting around completely ignored until now when we get this evil ending.
Many have rightfully pointed out the inherent racism steeped in all of this. I want Larian to be better. But as Maya Angelou said, "When someone shows you who they are, believe them." I already didn't have much hope about Patch 7 for Wyll, but this... honestly, this is worse than him just being ignored again.
The thing that kills me the most is that this is just going to be more fodder for the fandom to completely mischaracterize Wyll, for those who already haven't bothered to think critically about his character at all to just be like, oh, cool, Wyll is evil now. Nope. You've completely missed the point.
I'm just... so tired. I've worked very hard to put this little bubble of Wyll enthusiasts around me (hi friends I love you all!) so that I can hold on to some shred of sanity in this fandom. The world needs heroes of color. Just let Wyll be the hero in peace.
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koko-loco-urlocalbbgirl · 5 months ago
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Comments/Q&A on Degrees of Lewdity version 0.5.2.8
Hi! I decided to take some screenshots of the questions that caught my attention and share them here, but since it breaks the picture limit I put the text only. I might add more were I check the comment section again but you can add screenshots in the replies if I don't <3
1) What emojis does Lis like to use?
2) If PC doesn't want to take a bath, what will Lis(+Wren and Bailey) do and what will they say?
Vrelnir
1) Robin just uses hearts and happy faces. Whitney uses a lot of whatever fashionably represents genitals.
2) Robin and Kylar would be okay with it. Alex and Whitney would make fun of them. Eden would carry them to the spring and drop them in. Avery Would get angry. Bailey wouldn't care. Wren would find it odd.
Thank you very much, I was already thinking that it wasn't going to come out yet. I doubt it's possible, but will you ever add a way to "kidnap" NPCs like they do to us? I know it probably goes against what you want to do so take it as a question.
Vrelnir
You're welcome. A way to kidnap NPCs isn't planned, but I'll consider it when I get around vigilantism.
1. Would Eden use the cage punishment on the pc in front of their children?
2. How would the High love Lis handle their child with the PC inheriting PC's attractiveness. Let's say their child is being pursued by someone just like them? IE. Eden's kid being pursued by someone who wants to lock them away and is very violent both sexually and physically, Robin's kid being with someone who is extremely codependent to their kid's detriment, Whitney's kid being pursued by a bully who treats them like a sexual object to be passed around, Avery's kid being pursued by Someone much older than them who is very abusive, and Kylar's kid having a creepy obsessive stalker who can be very dangerous.
2a. What about Alex, Corrupted Sydney, Black Wolf, and Great Hawk?
2b. Would this cause the Lis to reflect on how they treated the PC?
3. Though there is no death in DOL what would (High Love) Eden, Avery, Whitney, or Kylar do if they caused the PC to die from physical trauma?
3a How would Bailey react?
4. Are there plans to make Alex darker to be more in line with the other Lis?
Vrelnir
1. Aye.
2. Eden wouldn't connect the dots, and would see the aggressor as very different from themselves. Whitney wouldn't either, but would be more receptive were it pointed out, and would feel terrible. Robin would get on well with them. Avery would intervene. Kylar would commit a crime.
2a. Alex would see themselves in them, and feel embarrassed. Corrupted Sydney is likely to encounter this very issue, and might be okay with it, though cautious. The black wolf would want to fight them. The great hawk would think them a good match.
2b. Aye, except Eden.
3. Eden would retreat deeper into the forest, where not even Bailey could find them. Avery would Continue as normal, for a time at least. Whitney wouldn't recover. Kylar would burn half the town, then vanish.
3a. With anger.
4. No hard plans, though that was the original intention.
I don't know if this has been noted before but, I think it was in one of the confessionary events, someone mentions the Christian faith. So far | thought the world of DoL had its own faith going on, so | found it weird to see a mention of that. Is it a mistake in the writing or?
Vrelnir
I think Winter mentions Christianity in connection with one of the antiques, but I don't recall explicit mention outside that. l'd need to take a look. Christianity does exist in the world of DoL.
1. What's Niki's favorite dish?
2. Does Niki has a favorite animal or pet? And if they do - how would they react to a PC with that animal's transformation?
3. When Niki mentions being glad about PCs safety during the photoshoot event post-underground farm it got me curious; were they thinking about PCs safety during that time before they found out PC managed to leave?
4. Are there any other future plans for Niki? Nothing too big or revealing but maybe tiny hints?
5. Any fun fact - or maybe not so fun fact about our photographer?
6. Does Niki get along with anyone at all from town? Not work wise but as friends?
7. Not a Niki related question! (Surprisingly) Did you eat well today? I hope so!
* Lilian Dimveil
I'm sorry, not Vrelnir, but I could answer 4! and 5? >W<
4. Vrelnir said, there's lewdity planned for Niki.
5. I don't know if you've seen it.but | remember Vrelnir saying that Niki isn't particularly romantic - is that a funny thing?
Vrelnir
It's no problem! I hope you enjoy the new scenes. You're not being a bother!
1. Chicken Tikka Masala.
2. They don't have a pet, but they like swans.
3. Aye, occasionaly.
4. Aye. There's more to come for their photo studio. There's also lewdity planned like Lilian Dimveil says.
5. They're not native to the town. Thanks for the response Lilian Dimveil.
6. Not in particular.
7. I ate well yesterday thank you! I had a pasty and Some veg for tea.
1. Who from the Lls would cry on their wedding with the PC? 1.2 The other Lls who won't cry, how would they feel?
2. I always imagine Whitney with my PC when | listen "Umbrella" from Rihanna, so if the PC declares that song to them, what would Whitney think/feel? (that one song that is like "Ella, ella, eh, eh, eh, under my umbrella, ella, ella, eh, eh, eh' such an amazing love song!)
3. If a PC who has a long beautiful hair and loves it, gets attacked by some delinquents from school (not Whitney's friends) and cut the PC's hair into a neck length, and Whitney comes just in the moment when this happens, besides from attacking them back, what would they do/say at the crying and depressed PC? (anime cliché, sorry)
3.1 Just for some revenge, how would Whitney attack those delinquents? Imao
4. At the raining day at the park, when Whitney meets the PC again after the PC went missing, why did they leave after the hug? I tought they would like to spend more time since they missed them
5. When the PC is missing on town, how are Whitney's days? 6. When Whitney finds out the PC is missing, how did they take it?
7. How many times did Whitney cried on those days?
8. Did they became more violent at that time or just silent and don't giving a fuck about anything?
9. After meeting the PC again at the hug moment on the park, when Whitney is leaving what would they do if the PC takes their arm and ask to stay with them a little longer?
10. Realistically, what would Whitney change on their way to treat the PC after they came back?
Vrelnir
1. Robin and Kylar.
1.2. Like they could cry.
2. Whitney would call the PC a slut, but they wouldn't be unhappy.
3. They'd say the PC looks just as slutty with short hair, as an attempt to reassure them.
3.1. It's hard to say. It would depend on their whim.
4. They don't like how emotionally vulnerable they feel.
5. Anxious.
6. Badly.
7. Never.
8. The become more surly, and quick to commit violence.
9. They'd shake the PC off.
10. They might not change anything.
1. You've said before that the orphans are both at awe and disbelief at PC taking Robin's debt, but what do they think about PC after completing the Loft, adding the pond and greenhouse in the back, and buying everyone Christmas presents on top of shouldering Robin's debt? Do the other orphans ever get jealous that we don't shoulder their debt too? 2. Out of all the Ll's, who texts PC the most to just chat? Is there a scale of who texts the most to the least?
Vrelnir
No problem!
1. Not jealous, though this might be explored in the future
2. Whitney would text the most, and Eden would barely text at all.
1. If Wren, Remy and Zephyr are in the same car, who will be the driver and what will Zephyr do in the car?
2. What's the impression of "villains" on Harper, a young and terrible person?
3. We know Zephyr likes Wren quite a lot. What's his opinion of Wren? Does he love Wren as a younger brother?
4. Are Charlie and Jordan classmates? I remember you said that Jordan once learned to dance from Charlie. What was Charlie's first impression of Jordan?
5. Is Niki in her twenties, too? Are he and Wren classmates, too?
6. Is there any personality difference between Jordan in high school and Jordan now?
7. If the PC went to the cabin to play cards with Wren, and Wren happened not to be there, what would other colleagues say to the PC? What will colleagues say to Wren when he comes back?
8. Will Harper fall into a coma because of the pressure of work? Or does he have a good plan for his working hours?
9. To what extent did the temple people overprotect Jordan?
Vrelnir
1. Zephyr would insist on driving, though they don't have a license.
2. The ones who know who they really are feel somewhat frightened.
3. They like Wren, but don't view them as a sibling.
4. Aye. Charlie liked Jordan, but was too shy to approach them for a while.
5. Aye, and aye.
6. Their personality has become more extreme.
7. If they were familiar with the PC, they'd let them know where Wren was. Otherwise, they might assault the PC.
8. Their plan is to take more stimulants.
9. Considerably.
1. Can you add a tiara/headpiece to go with the belly dancer and ball gowns?
2. Could you add a Little Red Riding Hood costume outfit with a handheld basket?
3. Maybe when you get to a certain level in the housekeeping skill, you could repair/make your own clothing?
Thank you for reading this, and I hope you consider incorporating these suggestions in the future!
Vrelnir
I'm glad you like it!
1. A tiara/headpiece for the belly dancer and ball gowns would be very appropriate.
2. This sounds cute.
3. This would fit.
If it's a coincidence that Pc looks very like Kylar's parents, does Kylar have some sort of paternal or maternal predisposition that makes Kylar close to PC?
Vrelnir
Nope.
1) Can you name a single redeeming quality for each villain (+Avery)?
2) Is Avery capable of genuine, romantic love towards the PC or would they still see them as an object even at max affection?
3) If in a scenario where the PC has escaped Eden and he's desperate to get them back, and asks Bailey where they are, but they've already sent the PC to a place like the UF/UB as punishment, would he be honest about it or lie? 4) Why does Kylar want kids so badly?
4a) Did they already want kids before meeting the PC?
5) Is Kylar deranged enough to take the PC being raped as them being cheated on at high/max jealousy?
*Lilian Dimveil
Hey, sorry it's not Vrelnir. but I think I can answer a little bit. Avery is actually one of the villains! Although they are LI, they are also villain.
2) In those past Q&A's of Vrelnir (some of which were Q&A's that he and other players privately messaged in Subscribestar) - it's very unlikely that Avery would be able to generate the kind of genuine, romantic love that you're talking about. Or, if they do have love for the PCs, it's almost impossible to detect.
Vrelnir
No problem! I'm keeping well thank you. I hope you are too.
1) They're all industrious! Briar has a good sense of style. Harper is smart. Remy has good taste. Eden is self-sufficient. Bailey is consistent.
2) Thanks for the response Lilian Dimveil.
3) They'd be honest, but maybe not blunt.
4) They want to be less lonely.
4a) Aye, but not with such intensity.
5) Aye.
Seducing Bailey felt so "taboo" that it was very hot. I don't like the removal of that mechanic... hope it's going to be re-introduced with even more depth in the future.
Vrelnir
I'm glad you liked the scene, and I hope you'll like what Bailey has in store for the future.
Hi! I have some questions:
1. In a scenario where PC was middle aged and their and Eden's kid was 18 like canon PC...If Eden's kid had a sexual/romantic relationship with Kylar, Whitney, Great Hawk, Gwylan, Mason or Doren, how would they react? In a scale from "tolerating" to "| hate you so much" where would the npc be according to Eden's View sexual/romantic companion for their kid?
2. Could you list who is the horniest and less horny out with the current love interests?
3. Were PC to go one day to town to never return until almost two decades later, what would Eden (at High Love) do? Would he keep looking for them or lose all hope and think they're dead? Would he try to get a new companion? How Would it be their reaction when PC returned to them, discovering it wasn't intentional their disappearance? (Either by being kidnapped or loss of memory that prevent them to remember where they lived and who was their beloved)
3.B. Similar to the previous ask, what would it be Eden's reaction to losing their kid, only to find them years later and discover they were living as an orphan at the orphanage? (In the hypothetical scenario where Bailey was unaware that baby was Eden's and the kid had 0 memories of their family) Would they blame or get mad at Bailey? Would they try to make their kid live with them in the cabin or would they accept if their kid preferred to keep living there?
4. Charles/Charlene will be a character capable of being found by PC in the future or are they dead/disappeared forever? Will we know more about presumed spouse/person Morgan's whos Charles/Charlene other parent?
5. Do you think Robin and Kylar could have common interests (such as animes or games they both like)? In case they do could you provide the genre they're both interested in?
6. Whitney is an only child? Do they live with both parents or do they have only one?
7. Was Avery born in a rich family or did he became a rich man?
8. How old do you imagine Morgan and Avery? In their 30s or above?
*Lilian Dimveil
Hi! I'm sorry, not Vrelnir, but I think | could help answer a few questions.
4. It may be explored in the future. And Morgan's content is being tweaked.
7. Rich family. Their family is old money.
8. 40s.
Vrelnir
1. Eden wouldn't allow their child to go to town.
2. It's hard to say! Eden might be the horniest, and Robin the least.
3. Eden would keep looking for them, and wouldn't find another companion. If the PC returned in the future, they wouldn't let the PC escape again. Especially if they'd been abducted.
3B. They wouldn't be angry with Bailey, but they would insist their child move to the forest.
4. It might be explored in the future, like Lilian Dimveil says.
5. They both enjoy games, though usually different ones. There might be some overlap at the edges of their interests.
6. It might be explored in the future.
7. 8. Thanks for the response Lilian Dimveil.
No problem. You're not bothering me. I hope you have a nice day as well!
+ I can't find the screenshot I made with the questions but here's Vrelnir answers (pretty self-explanatory what the questions are):
1. Bailey isn't planned to become a love interest, but they should have their stats in the cheat menu, ideally.
2. There's a plantperson love interest planned for the future, like Lilian Dimveil says.
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yourtypicalhuman09 · 1 month ago
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The post about MC healing gave me some ideas. Feel free to do what you want with them.
1. MC relationship with that friend can be like Ukurun and Momo from Dandandan. It doesn't need to be romantic but I'm talking about how they interact and the way their bond is.
2. What if MC is not a biological child of Bruce like most neglected stories. It will be interesting to see them tell Bruce "we don't even share that one last name", the fact that he is not there father in any way, not even by blood.
3. The the father of friend of reader dies and the bat family sees how it destroyed them. At the funeral the reader gives a speech about how they lost their father as well in this day and talks about all the times that man was there for them and it makes Bruce realize how he was never there for them. It also makes the bat siblings see how the friend's family the reader's family in all the ways they never were.
4. Reader know psychology and make it harder for the family to manipulate them.
5. Reader learning hacking and programming and make it hard to hack their PC. It would be interesting if the Batfam found out that MC and their friends are a studio of game development that made games that they fell in love whit. Stories that touched the deepest sides of their hearts (in both heart warming and disturbing ways maybe?)
Thank you for your time. Have a great day 👋
omg anon you have no idea how happy this ask makes me im so happy that my first ask is such a good one!🥹🫶
1.actually i just started watching Dandandan but i looked up their relationship so i could understand the dynamic more and omg its so cute I’ll definitely consider it!
2.its such a good idea but i already have the relationship and past of reader’s mom and bruce planned out and i think for characters like damian he wouldn’t be very interested with reader unless reader showed rival potential or was blood related especially since one on the options for the poll ill post soon is for a soft reader. The idea is very unique and good i do hope someone will use it someday.
3.This is actually genius and I’ll probably actually use this idea if you dont mind it just goes exactly with what i have planned for this fic!
4.funny enough im actually making this fic because im studying psychology and i find it super interesting so i wouldnt be too surprised if reader does know a thing or two about psychology and it would be super funny to see reader totally deflect the batfam’s attempts at manipulation.
5.this is a possible and probably a cannon headcannon since reader spent most of their life learning all kinds of things to impress the batfam and I wouldnt be surprised if reader did learn hacking and coding to impress tim after learning about the batfam’s vigilantism.
thank you for this amazing ask anon you have a wonderful day as well and thank you for taking the time to put in your input🥹❤️
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karrakincavalrycollege · 30 days ago
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How to implement new NPCs into Lancer's Shadow of the Wolf Module!
Vague, very minor spoilers ahead.
One of Shadow of the Wolf’s standout features is its colorful cast of premade NPCs, but of course there’s always that GM temptation of “but what if I add more of them…”, and I’m here to help with that! Because of Shadow of the Wolf’s structured tools for NPC interaction (which I have found very helpful), you’ll want to assemble a few elements before just dropping someone into the game. Now keep in mind that this entire post comes with the disclaimer of "Don't overuse this", there's already a big cast of NPCs to interact with in a relatively short module, so you shouldn't add a ton more in without really thinking about why they're good additions.
For the sake of having an example, I’ll be going through and creating a SotW style bio for the intern character I created for this blog, Lady Terese LaFleur of the House of Order.
Basic Bio
The first thing you’ll want to set up is a bio, which is a pretty common thing to do regardless of the type of game you run. In short, this should go over baseline information about an NPC, provide an example quote to set the tone for their dialogue, establish the character’s general appearance, vibe and basic personality early on, then go a bit into their history and connections. It generally should do it all in a relatively small space. For Terese, I’ll set up something like this.
Lady Terese LaFleur, Third Heir of House LaFleur She Her House of Order “Please stop damaging that statue! I’m pretty sure it’s against the rules…  … No I can’t make you stop if you don’t want to…”  Lady Terese LaFleur is a young woman with a neatly maintained, but relatively plain appearance. Whether wearing her school uniform or traditional House of Order administrative clothing, Terese seems to be trying to fade into the background at all times.  Being the third in line to a fairly wealthy family with connections to Archchancellor Zoeva, Terese has been able to secure a position as the Karrakin Cavalry College’s social media intern. While she is technically a pilot, she has very little focus on her piloting courses and prefers to spend time focusing on her Noble Studies courses.  It may not be the grandest of aspirations, but she clings to the position due to finding the options of joining The Second Suns, entering the Xenoglossary or getting a real job terrifying. Her nervousness about keeping a clean career track has also made her highly susceptible to intimidation and threats from other students.
Approval Clock
Up next, you’ll want to establish an approval clock! These are a fun narrative tool that Shadow of the Wolf uses to track each NPC’s relationship with the PCs, and whether you choose to track individual clocks for each NPC’s connection to each PC, or have a general “Party approval” clock for each NPC, you’ll generally want to determine where they start off. Someone more unfriendly like a mean teacher or cunning rival might start at a 2 or 3, while someone more friendly or outgoing might start at a 6 or so. For Terese, I’m gonna start this off at 5! She’s pretty neutral on the party and her approval can drop or raise pretty quickly early on depending on how they act.
Approval Rewards
Once you’ve sorted out the approval clock, you’ll want to pick a reward for the party to get from this NPC when that approval clock is maxed out! This can take a lot of forms like exotic gear, bonus reserves or even entire new mechs!
Because Terese is something of a bureaucrat in training, I’m gonna say that her reward is one use of the “Access” reserve per mission, essentially allowing the party to leverage their connection with her to get keycards, passwords and permissions that they otherwise wouldn’t have.
That covers all the basics that you need, but there are two other fun things that can be added in as well!
Combat Stats
There's always the fun opportunity to drop an NPC into combat as a bonus opponent, or allow the party to call upon them as an ally. When designing an NPC statblock, you should be mindful when creating something that the player characters may be able to secure as an ally in a future combat, so make sure they don't have anything too broken to function on a player-controlled side. They should generally be a Commander, Elite or Veteran in most cases, though when functioning as an ally, abilities that grant extra turns like Ready and Waiting should be removed when they act on the party’s behalf.
Because Terese has been pranked to deal with having a fucked-up HORUS technology mech, I’m going to be making her a Necromancer-class NPC from Enhanced Combat, then applying the Horror template from Dustgrave and the base-rules Commander template then giving her the traits Death’s Grasp, Abhorrent Redundancies, and Abominable. She hates this mech a lot.
Reference Image
Finally, I think its good to provide a reference image of the NPC you’re adding! Whether you use a picrew, draw something or commission something, it’s just nice to have a visual reference when interacting with these characters. I personally used this picrew to make a nice little example with Terese.
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wakasaswifee · 6 days ago
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GG, NO REᶻ 𝘇 𐰁
(good game, no rematch)
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Synopsis: Sershiro Nagi, one of japan's top streamers; who dominates the gaming world with his effortless skills. When an underground content creator challenges him to a 1v1 after he dismisses casual players, their fans go wild. The match ends with an unexpected twist, and what starts as an online rivalry turns into a chaotic, relationship.
pairing: Seishiro nagi x F!reader | Smau & writing
content warning: I try to be funny (more cringe than funny), dry humour, crack, angst (if you squint), ooc character, nagi is sassy?, spicy but not smut (eventually), streamers - most of them, swearing, rude jokes
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ʚɞ good game
Nagi clicked a button on his keyboard, starting up his stream. The first 20 minutes were just him talking and answering questions until someone finally asked the big question.
—Reply to Y/N Gamez’s video—
Not even a second later, all the messages in the chat were about it.
—Yeah! What were the tweets about?—
—You can’t just take that disrespect!—
—1v1 her!—
Nagi sighed, running a hand through his hair. He had already watched the clip and responded on Twitter—just not on stream.
"Alright, so what's happening is, two hours from now, the other streamer, Y/N, I think her name is—she’s going to come on, and we’ll 1v1 each other in COD. It'll be a private game."
Messages flooded the chat once again.
"Don’t worry, guys, I’m not stressed. We all know who’s gonna win."
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You joined Nagi’s stream after he sent you an invite.
Nagi was talking about the game rules and chatting with his viewers.
You, on the other hand—your hands were trembling. Not because you were nervous, but because, for one, over a million people would be watching, and if you messed up, it’d be the same as a public execution.
—C’mon, lock TF in.—
You laughed when you saw Shidou’s message.
. ݁₊ ⊹ . ݁˖ . ݁
The game was intense. It was best out of three. You won the first round, giving you a confidence boost, but that came crashing down when Nagi won the second like it was nothing, saying the first one was just a warm-up.
God, his cockiness pissed you off.
The third game was tense and probably the longest. Both of you had gone completely silent—only the clicks of your controllers and keyboards could be heard.
The game ended with you victorious.
You let out the deepest breath, realizing you hadn’t been breathing properly for the past 20 minutes.
“GG.”
Nagi was silent for a moment before letting out a quiet, "gg."
"Rematch?" he asked.
"Nah, not now."
You fell back in your chair, wiping your palms on the sides of your biker shorts. It felt like you had just run a marathon. The win was sweet, but bringing someone down a notch or two was even sweeter.
You pushed your hair back as Nagi cleared his throat, announcing to his chat that you had won. What was really annoying was that he didn’t sound mad. Not one bit.
You thanked him for having you, said your goodbyes, and logged off your PC. Pulling out your phone to see messages from ryu
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You tossed your phone onto the wireless charger and plopped onto your bed. Darkness covered your vision, and you were out cold.
. ݁₊ ⊹ . ݁˖ . ݁
Groaning, you woke up to the sound of your phone buzzing. Grabbing it off the nightstand, you saw over 100+ notifications—some from Sae, some from shidou and.. twitter??
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series masterlist: ʚɞ
A/n: this came out later than expected but hopefully it formatted correctly and doesn't fuck me over after I post it. I giggled while making this ><
Next: 03
TAGLIST: @syarc0re @sunnydays25 @x3nafix @lilwx @tired-child00 (open)
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allywthsr · 1 year ago
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CHARITY STREAM | (l.norris)
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summary: you and Lando stream 24h for charity! Lots of gaming and chatting
wordcount: 1.8k words
pairing: landonorris x fem!reader
warnings: none!
notes: tumblr wouldn’t let me post anything?? It’s late again!🥲
advent calendar
Lando and you started a new tradition this year.
This year you wanted to do a little charity stream during the holidays, where people could donate, and in the end, the money would go into different organizations. Shelters for homeless people, women’s shelters, and on your request, some animal shelters as well.
You two also donated twenty thousand pounds to kick things off, and you hoped people would give some of their money to a good cause, no matter how much money someone donates, every penny counts and is helping someone to survive. Especially during Christmas and the winter, it was harder for people that do not have a stable home to survive, eat, shower, or even go to the toilet. That was something, they didn’t always have access to, and that is why you and Lando decided to do this charity stream.
The stream is twenty-four hours long, a full day of streaming, mostly it will be Lando in front of the camera because the people want to see him, but you would join him. It’s going to start with some cookie baking, and then you go straight to the PC to play games, Fortnite, CoD, the Truck simulator, and the Santa simulator were already planned, just as a lot of talking to the chats and every hour you would explain and introduce one more shelter, you donate to.
And that’s where you were sitting right now, in front of the computer, next to Lando and the ring light behind his PC was providing you with light. Lando clicked on the start button, and the stream loaded, the first few hello’s and comments started rolling in.
”Hey guys, Y/N and I decided to do something new this year. Today we’re raising money for charity, not everyone is privileged enough to have a roof over their head, so we want to donate money to different organizations. Y/N and I are gonna stream for twenty-four hours, we’re playing different games, but first, we start with some cookie baking, I‘m going to switch you to the kitchen cam, and then we‘re going to cut out cookies.“
You prepared the cookie dough two hours ago and it sat in the fridge, waiting for you two to roll it out. Lando switched to the kitchen cam, and you two appeared behind the kitchen island, on the island there were many cookie cutters, flour, baking paper, and multiple rolling pins scattered. You opened the fridge and took the cookie dough on the counter, taking a piece of it and rolling it out with a rolling pin.
Lando started to press different cookie cutters into the dough.
”Chat, what do you think about my Santa?“
After a few seconds, comments came in complementing him, ��It’s not that hard baby, you used a cookie cutter.“
”She‘s always negative, chat, I don’t know why she’s even here.“
Obviously, he was joking, squeezing your hips shortly after he said that. The next half hour was spent cutting out the dough into small shapes with the cookie cutters and taking out baked cookies from the oven.
”Alright chat, we‘ll go over to the PC and play some games, maybe later we will go back to the kitchen and decorate them.“
You two sat at the PC and looked at the chat, reading some comments, donations were already coming in and Lando was thanking every single one of them. The count was already at two thousand of just viewer donations, some crazy people are out there and it astonished you. Now Lando sat in his gaming chair, while you sat in your chair and with your MacBook in front of you, Fortnite open and ready to play. You two were playing in duos and when the first game started, you two were freaking out. Lando wasn’t a pro, just like you aren’t, you were dying before you even picked up a gun and Lando wasn’t any better, stream snipers were making your life hard and you tried to play it for two hours but after not getting a win, it was time to stop playing that frustrating game.
You switched to just talking to the chat, by now twenty thousand people were watching, and they had a lot of questions. It wasn’t like you were in a new relationship with Lando, most of his fans only knew him with you on his side, you‘ve been with him since he started his Formula One career, but you retold your whole getting-to-know-each-other story. Ditching questions that had anything to do with marriage or kids, you both wanted to focus on life and your careers and touch that topic later in life, a lot of people didn’t get that, and had to spam the comments. So you decided to play the next game, the Santa simulator.
Lando started off with collecting presents for different children, having to decide if they get something good or just a piece of coal. Lucas was not focusing on school but more on his hobby, no Lando had to decide what he would get, because of Lando’s own school history, Lucas got a big new bike like he wished. Marie was always a good girl, cleaning up behind herself, a good student, and always on her best behavior. Because Lando thought she needed to be more rebellious, she got some coal, but a new pair of slippers too, so she wouldn’t feel to... sad. Next, he had to take care of the reindeers, brushing their fur and feeding them before putting them in front of the sleigh, the last thing that needed to be done was to deliver the presents. Lando had to fly through the sky and ditch multiple obstacles, landing safely on houses without getting noticed by anyone. The sliding down the chimney and laying the presents underneath the tree was the hardest part, he had to do it as quietly as possible, so he wouldn’t wake up any of the kids. In the end, most of the kids weren’t happy with their presents and he wasn’t quiet enough, the mission was failed, but you two had fun.
Six hours in and eighteen more to go, next Lando wanted to play CoD, you had an important phone call, so you couldn’t join or watch him, but after two hours of discussing things with your and Lando’s management, Lando was still playing it.
”This is the last round, baby“, he said as you sat down next to him on your chair. You pulled out your phone to check some reactions to the stream, so far people were loving it. When the clock hit the next full hour, it was time to announce the next sponsor, this hour you talked about the Red Cross, what they did, and how people could help outside of the stream.
While chatting about that, Lando got touchy and placed his hand on your cross-legged thigh, caressing it gently. Immediately comments about that came in and people were swooning over Lando’s need of physical attention.
”Chat, what should we play?“
Comments were saying Fortnite or the truck simulator, so you two chose the truck simulator, Lando and you hadn’t played that game since lockdown ended and you even got a little excited. You linked your MacBook with Lando’s game and now you could play together, fulfilling quests and pushing each other off the street. The room was filled with laughter and screams, as the others always pushed the truck off or doing everything they weren’t supposed to do, like hitting different cars or turning the wrong way.
After Lando shut off the game, it was hour ten and you two got hungry, in between the games you‘d already prepared some snacks, but you needed an actual dinner, so quickly you boiled some pasta and made a quick sauce. You brought it to Lando and you two made an unplanned asmr session, most of the people loved how you weirdly slowly chewed your pasta and when Lando smushed around the sauce, you couldn’t contain your laughter in between bites.
Lando had a Lego piece he wanted to build for quite some time, but he never did, so he got the package out and poured out all the bags. What you thought would take an hour, turned out to take four hours, Lando got confused at some steps and had to redo them, as you were focused on a different step. But you never thought it would take you so long, stretching your knuckles and fingers after you finished.
After talking to the chat, you reminded Lando of the cookies that were still untouched in the kitchen and he quickly switched to the kitchen cam, where he sat and waited for you to prepare the chocolates and sprinkles. Lando wasn’t the most patient man, so mostly the cookies got dipped in the chocolate and maybe some sprinkles were put on the chocolate. But most of them were eaten before they could be decorated anyway.
Next, you did the gingerbread house challenge, if you were in the kitchen anyway.
With only six hours to go, and the struggle to stay awake, you drank multiple beverages with caffeine. You played another round of Fortnite, joined by Max F. and you even won one round, mostly because you got carried by someone, but the end result mattered.
Going in the last three hours, a lot of chatting and watching YouTube videos was done, compilations of Y/N and Lando being cute or the latest unboxed. In the end you raised over forty thousand pounds, saying goodbye to the chat when the twenty four hour mark was crossed. Lando ended the stream and you let out a big sigh, finally you didn’t have thousand of eyes on you anymore, with a stretch, you linked Lando’s and your hand together and pulled him to the bed, ready for a big nap.
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mcelroyfamilystaff · 11 months ago
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It's MaxFunDrive! If you're already a MaxFun Member, all of this year's Bonus Content should be in your feed already - this year's TAZ BoCo is a one shot of Plato's Rave, with all three boys GMing while Clint is the only PC, and it is ART. The MBMBaM BoCo is a recording of the boys trying to figure out how to run that game, and it's so, so fun - honestly you could listen to either one first and I think it would work well, but imo listening to them plot how they think things will go first is a very fun way to go about it.
Sawbones has another Kid's Q&A this year, with Charlie guest-hosting along Syd and answering questions from young listeners, Shmanners has an episode and video all about emojis, and Wonderful! has a one-off return to Rose Buddies! If you're not a member yet and you wanna listen to all this great stuff, head on over to MaximumFun.org/Join and sign up at $5 or more a month! You'll get access to not just this year's Bonus Content, but all of the Bonus Content from every show, from every year we've done the Drive. There's a TAZ episode DM'ed by Matt Mercer, the Charlieverse episodes, the Prankee Doodle Dandy episode of MBMBaM, truly an abundance of s-tier goofs await!
Also we have so much other stuff planned for the Drive! We're gonna be streaming more or less daily on YouTube, starting with Griffin doing a Fuser DJ stream today at 10am ET, and then Justin and Sydnee streaming watching a buckwild Netflix movie, I Believe in Santa, around 1pm ET.
On top of all of that, we've set our own bonus goals for the Drive, starting with this: At 3,000 new & upgrading members, Fungalore will hear your wishes LIVE. What does that mean? That's such a good question. Only one way to find out! If you wanna see the rest of our goals, you can check 'em out here. If you want to stay up to date on everything we have going on this week, turn on notifications for our Instagram story, that's where we'll be posting all the time-sensitive stuff.
Last but not least, thank you. Truly, from the bottom of all of our hearts. Whether you can afford to join or not, y'all's support is the reason we all get to do this for a living, and it genuinely is a joy to get to spend our days making these goofy things in hopes of bringing a little levity to someone's day. Means the absolute fuckin' world to us. We hope you have an absolute blast during this Drive, you deserve it.
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utilitycaster · 1 year ago
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Talking as players outside the game is an incredibly important part of having good PC/PC D&D relationships, and obviously the characters involved in the relationship talking to each other in meaningful ways is crucial, but I think the importance of talking in-game in depth to other people is really underrated, in that it not only tells the other player what your character is feeling without having to reveal it in-game to them, but also serves to engage other characters in the story and deepen those platonic bonds to the point where they might even serve as confidants or wingmen. To give a bunch of examples and what they achieved:
Vax telling Gilmore he didn't want to string him along made it clear out of game that his feelings towards Keyleth were his priority, even though it happened where the other characters were not able to hear.
Similarly, Vex giving her blessing eventually after her initial resistance signaled to Liam that this would not be a major break between the twins.
Vax asking Vex what she intended to do about her feelings for Percy served not only as an opportunity for her to voice them to someone; it also serves as a big green light for Taliesin as Percy to kiss Vex later that episode (which he had already from Vex's resurrection ritual, but it underscores it).
Pike talking about Scanlan with Keyleth and Vex allows her to make it clear that she does ultimately like a lot of things about him despite sometimes being annoyed, and her talking to him through her earring while Scanlan is very much not there but Sam is at the table also serves as this kind of green light.
Jester asking Veth about kissing in relationship to Fjord lets Travis know where Jester is at and invests Veth in-game in the relationship.
Caleb asking Jester if she's "sweet on [Fjord]" lets her openly reassess her feelings after an intense arc and also indicates in-game that Caleb has noticed.
Beau waiting to hear the sound of thunder signals to Ashley (who was not at the table but who was presumably staying updated on events) that Beau has feelings for Yasha; it also allows those playing Yasha (often Matt for pure RP and Travis in combat) to return that flirting, since the baseline was already established.
Possibly the most obvious example, but Beau and Fjord's conversation on Rumblecusp not only clarifies to the whole table where everyone is (opening the door, for example, for the scenes in the beer garden a few episodes later of Caleb having Fjord and Jester dance together and Caduceus encouraging Yasha to pursue Beau) but very much serves as a green light to Ashley and Laura respectively. This is then mirrored by them talking after Beau has asked Yasha on a date and Fjord and Jester have kissed, and everyone involved can "debrief" with their partners not present in-game.
As mentioned, this is mostly about PC/PC relationships because PC/NPC is an inherently different dynamic mechanically though still should be a conversation, but Veth describing Yeza and Jester asking Caleb about his feelings about Essek both give Matt clues for playing these NPCs and how things might be received.
FRIDA mentioning their crush on FCG to Deanna means it's not a complete surprise to Sam, since it is a very sudden relationship, and lets him prepare and decide how FCG would feel in the moment, and also establishes how Deanna will feel about it.
Similarly in the C3 Uthodurn arc, Fearne going to Chetney about Deanna is an incredibly good move from Ashley (to the point that talking about this is what led me to write this whole post). It lets Travis play out where Chetney is. It lets Aabria therefore hear not only where Chetney is, but also know that Fearne is potentially interested. It establishes a ton of the dynamics for a relationship that out of game everyone knows will not have a full campaign to play out since one of the characters involved is a guest. And finally, it signals to Christian as FRIDA what the situation is in case Deanna confides in them.
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plusydney · 13 days ago
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part 1 of random love interests headcanons because i need to get these worms out of my brain ASAP!!! i did sydney, kylar, and whitney
(mostly sfw for now, all gender neutral)
sydney
ive already well established that even if it isn’t obvious at surface level, sydney is a mixture of many deep rooted issues and though they arent aware of it they are suffering from those issues. one of those issues being overlooked and undiagnosed ocd.
for their sake, they need everything in front of them to always be organized and tidy (whether its the library registry counter or their desk at home or school). if its not neat, they wouldn’t be upset, they’d be more than happy to clean it up again! it also why theyre always helping out the initiates clean the bunks and the garden. they love cleaning up, love the sense of accomplishment it brings, love the feeling of being in control of something.
this is also the same reason why their so studious and even a little obsessive over their grades in school. they dont notice it, but its all about control over things they cant control. they love the sense of accomplishment of having good grades brings for themself, and they love the praise it brings from sirris and jordan.
speaking of praise ehehe theres no they wouldnt have a praise kink. im pretty sure sydney has the biggest praise kink in all of doltown and thats saying something ! the praise from their family and teachers is great and all, but what really gets them going is praise from pc. its so easy to give them a mind numbing orgasm just say the bare minimum praise and they’ll melt instantaneously.
this is canon im sure, but the reason why sydney doesn’t get molested or harassed in the temple is because their parent was a high ranking member and because theyre under jordans wing. so for the degenerate members that live/ work know that sydney is entirely off limits. sydney isn’t stupid so they have to aware of what goes on in the temple to some degree — they just do a very good job of ignoring it hence the line “seemingly trying to ignore something awful”. even corrupt syndey does this so i imagine that their faith must mean alot more to them that meets the eye.
sydney is unintentionally really fashionable, but not because they have an interest in fashion or even know whats considered fashionable, but because sirris has good taste. when they go out they get compliments from strangers about it and it makes them flustered.
cries when they have sex
kylar
harbors alot of resentment towards the temple and its members (exculding sydney and pc if theyre involved). they know that they had something to do with his parents, and knows that theyre being avoided by temple members. kylar hates them so much but doesnt care enough about themself to do anything drastic towards them.
kylar has completely given up on trying to improve their situation in any way. they gave up a long time ago. i like to think in the beginning, after the initial shock and dread mostly wore off, they did try to find something, any clue that would lead to a semi acceptable answer but they quickly gave up and abandoned all hope.
i said it in another post this is why they latch onto pc so intensely, they literally have nothing else going for them anymore.
even in their least jealous state, kylar has become so warped by being shunned by everyone and loneliness that they dont have the self awareness to realize what their doing is wrong. theyre so manic with finally being able to feel alive again and finally having someone else that they theres no room for any reluctance or hesitancy. their not letting pc leave them alone again, not ever.
despite their small stature kylar is very athletically capable. not in tests of strength but in stamina, they cant beat whitney in a fight but they could totally run faster than them.
probably canon again but kylar excels at science because not only is it their favorite subject but because their parents had really sciency careers and encouraged them alot as a child.
even though kylar is a pervert creep theyre still really capable sexually? what i mean by this is that even though kylar seems like the kind of person who got all of their sexual knowledge from porn and anime doujinshi’s they still know how to make their partner finish. thats because they didnt get it from porn, they learned it from medical science. dont ask me how i can just feel it
doesnt cry when they have sex, but wails when they cum
whitney
some fanon interpretations of whitney are either “whitney is a tsundere” and “whitney is just an asshole” and my interpretation is strictly both. whitney is both a massive tsundere, and a massive asshole.
chainsmoker, though its more apparent when theyre alone. if they decided to walk alone though the town they’d finish an entire pack and not notice/ care
almost never seen smiling when theyre alone either. they either always look aloof or pissed off when no ones around.
is totally capable of getting easily embarrassed, just when theyre alone. say something like , kissing their hand or saying something that caught them off guard. in private they would just call you a stupid slut while stuttering, with their friends they’d either laugh it off or beat the shit out of you
despite the fact that she was wearing a chastity belt and didnt touch whitney at all, my pc still managed to make them cum nearly every encounter they had with whitney. this lead me to headcanon whitney as a total quickshot. like embarrassingly fast. they’ve learned to mostly conceal it in public but even if they didnt no one would dare to bring it up in from of them
i havent got the scene yet so im not sure if this is canon or not, but i think at high love whitney would allow you to sleep with one of their plushies for the night, as long as you give it back to them in the morning
not that i ever thought they were stupid or anything, but whitney is really smart. they fail at academics on purpose because getting high grades means you have lower status
whitney doesn’t cry during sex or when they cum (unless theyre getting nonconned 🩷) but they would find it really hot if pc cries during sex. dacryphilia for this one. when its noncon its annoying, but still hot. when its consensual they probably get mored even turned on and try to make them cry harder
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awsugar · 3 months ago
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speaking of questions that exercise very mcr specific muscles in your brain. i was perusing mychem tumblr the other day and came across a masterpost about the SS/mayo blog frerard lore (i’m aware frerard is not PC these days thanks obama). i’ve been a dedicated fan for over a decade now and my brain is an mcr lore bank but i had literally never heard of this. do you know about it and if you do what are your thoughts
omg yea. ss/mayo is crazy. and unfortunately a lot of it has been lost to time and its not even saved on wayback. theres some stuff thats convincing, theres some stuff thats not.
so like lets preface this by saying that the ft willz myspace? confirmed to be frank. and obviously the stuff posted on skeleton crew, those screenshots of ft willz works that look like theyre on burnt paper? yea so those are confirmed and those are real fully frank no questions.
i personally am a skeptic of other accounts that claim to be ft willz. like the tumblr? i do not think thats frank. and i think that came at a time when people had already really speculated or figured out that ft willz WAS frank. so like i think the tumblr is honestly just someone who was pretending to be frank and managed to sort of emulate his style but yea i don't think it's him. i think the reason some of the stuff hits so hard in a frerard sense is because that was intentional by the person writing it. you know.
anyway ss and mayo. there were two blogs on blogspot started in 2007 i believe that fans thought were frank and gerard. well it started with mayo (its-mayonaise.blogspot.com). that blog is still up and so are a lot of the posts but i think a lot of them have been deleted as well, and not saved anywhere on wayback. im sure theyre on someones hard drive out there but i haven't seen them. then a blog appeared called iamthemodernprometheus.blogspot.com. some of those posts are still up but most are gone. that was ss/sss/shitsubou shita/frank (allegedly). ss started interacting in the comments on mayo's blog. and i think i may have read some mayo blog posts back in the day but i haven't been able to find them to answer this one. i just remember when i joined the fandom most people thought it was gerard.
now here's a couple things of evidence. THIS is a blogspot comment thread where people who have saved some of ss' blog posts put them in the comments. and yes obviously it could be an elaborate hoax by two fans who were invested in frerard. but like these things were being posted as it HAPPENED. you know? idk i wasnt there in 2007. but 2007 was when the fanfic took off and we really informed a lot of our perception of what happened with frerard on things like ft willz/stuff that happened on stage/and a lot of these posts really fit into the timeline. i would recommend reading that because its kind of hard to believe its like. a teenager pretending to be frank. it really just SOUNDS like frank. and he's really writing blog posts. basically to gerard lol. it gives the impression that they were on tour together (projekt rev) and doing the Thing but like there was def tension going on behind the scenes and we already know that thats true. frank didn't like eliza and thought gerard was moving too fast, the imnotokay.net post came from someone in mcr's camp that ppl thought was frank (or maybe brian) and then tbh its happening again?? just months later? it makes complete sense that if frank thought gerard was moving too fast with eliza that he DEFINITELY thought he was moving too fast with lynz getting MARRIED to her backstage just a couple months? after breaking off his engagement with eliza. anyway just read the comments. its very easy to believe its frank.
and then the other peice of evidece i found in this reddit thread: x comment in particular by u/ReallyKapu. they say that they have always gone by Kapunua online and that they met frank at a lm show, gave him a hat with the inscription 'sss' inside and later on he thanked them for it on the blog.
sure enough:
Tumblr media
from what i've read it seems like the blog was actually a community. there were people who followed it and made friends in the comment section. and it does seem implausible but it looks to me like frank saved all of his gifts from tour and then made this post specifically thanking people for them. the person who claims this is them also says that they don't think mayo is actually gerard but that frank thought it was.
and i've seen stuff saying that if it wasn't gerard it was probably someone close to the band because they had like information that was posted on the blog that wouldn't come readily available (or make sense) until the show the next day.
anyway, i wasn't there for this. i was on the forums and twitter and tumblr for a LOT of mcr history but this was a little before my time and i think if i had been there OR if the blogs had actually been preserved in some way that i might be able to form a better opinion. i think theres a lot of evidence for frank, not sure about gerard. but i won't claim that it's true either bc we really don't know and this one i don't think we ever will!
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milkemie · 6 months ago
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Hi Kemie!
I have a question, I'm thinking about investing in PC and I was curious what PC setup do you use. I was scrolling through your Tumblr for past 10minutes but I can't find any post about it so I just wanted to ask, sorry if you published something about it already but I really can't find anything.
I love the quality of your content and your content too of course. Your sims are beautiful and have heartwarming vibe to them. Keep going and don't listen to haters. You're my favorite sims content creator out there <3.
Sorry for my bad English, it's not my first language :(.
hii! ♡ what a coincidence! someone asked me what my pc's specs are but i answered right as you sent this question! you couldn't have seen it yet so just in case, i'm going to list everything i use to make content so that everything can be listed in one post:
PC SPECS:
RAM: 16GB
Storage: 500GB
CPU: AMD Ryzen 5 5500
Graphics Card: NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4060
Cooling: Watercooling Azza Galeforce 120mm ARGB here is the link of the pc i actually got, though it has changed a little bit, the pc now has a AMD Ryzen 5 5600 CPU while mine was AMD Ryzen 5 5500
KEYBOARD & MOUSE:
i use a logitech mk470 keyboard & mouse, i like them because they don't make as much noise as my previous keyboard and mouse, i found it annoying how i could hear myself clicking and typing in my youtube videos
MONITOR:
KOORUI Gaming Monitor 27Inch, PC Monitor 165Hz, FHD (1920×1080) (HDMI, DisplayPort) here is the link (this is very optional but i needed a second monitor to be able to keep track of OBS as i film my videos, but instead of buying a second monitor i decided to just use my iPad Air 5, which i also use to make cc!)
MIC:
Razer Seiren Mini
thank you for supporting me ♡
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maximumzombiecreator · 6 months ago
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Heya, you made a post recently about players getting the wrong expectations from AP podcasts for their own performance and experiences in D&D. The way you described it was almost exactly like something I recently saw at the table, complete with the getting into their own head and thrown off from unexpected interactions and then frustrated. Do you have any advice on how to deprogram, so to say, someone from this mind set and help them enjoy their time with the game more? Apologies if this is something you already wrote about and I just missed it
I ended up writing like 1500 words on this so let me put it under the cut.
So, there are a couple different approaches to this that I think work. The first, if they're willing to play a different RPG, is to play something with a different "play posture." That is, rather than playing a game where the players have a single PC over whom they have agency and nothing else, play a game that is more collaborative or where a player is expected to control multiple characters. For instance, I like introducing players like this to Blades in the Dark, where I'll have every player make two characters in the crew to begin with, and the core mechanic of flashbacks encourages players to take a greater amount of narrative control. I find this pushes them far enough outside their expectations that they're forced to take it on its own merits, and this helps them develop a more at-the-table style of play. Then when they take that back to more trad-style games, they can use the skills they developed and find a greater comfort level.
That said, playing another, stranger game after getting frustrated at their first game is a lot to ask of someone, so it's not at all something I'd take for granted.
In terms of helping at the table, the first thing is to recognize when it's happening. I tend to ask new players to my table what TTRPG experience they have, and one very big reason is that if someone is coming mainly from actual plays, I know to watch out for this.
What I try to do when this happens is pull back the abstraction level and talk about what's happening in a "discussing the characters" way. In particular, what I am most looking to avoid is making the player feel embarassed. That can make them defensive and blame others, or it can make them spiral and want to quit, it's a terrible feeling. So, for some specific examples of things I'll notice and ways to respond:
If the player is freezing - I'll pause the active roleplay, briefly summarize the current situation, and ask how their character is feeling. "So, Alice sort of came into this conversation expecting to bond with Bob, and got a lot of, I think, unexpected hostility back. What's Alice feeling in that moment?" By describing the situation, I am helping to clarify to all players what the current scene looks like. Maybe Bob's player doesn't realize that he's responding to a friendly overture by being a huge dick. Alice's player might be freezing because she came into this with a scene idea that isn't happening, but by making clear what the current scene is and asking her feelings, I'm giving her a chance to make a character choice even if she doesn't instinctively know how to turn that into a productive scene. Even if she decides Alice is feeling like "I want out of this conversation" I can then frame that as creating a tension between these two characters going forward. My goal is, basically, to frame this as a successful scene, just not the one Alice's player planned. To be clear that she didn't fail at making a roleplay scene, she succeeded, it just wasn't the scene she expected.
If the player is getting frustrated - I'll usually try to tweak their out of character frustration into in character frustration. Pulling back to discuss the scene again, I'll say something like, "So, Charlie is really stonewalling Alice here, not giving her any information, and it seems like Alice is getting frustrated by that. What does that look like, what does she do?" Again, describing the situation sets a ground level clarification for all players, but it also lets Alice's player save face. She's not getting frustrated, her character is, and that's good drama! It also gives me the chance to cut the scene short if it's not going to be productive. I can turn to Charlie's player and say, "So, seeing Alice react that way, does Charlie respond any differently, or is he gonna keep stonewalling her?" And if the answer is the latter, I can tie a neat little bow on the scene and move on. Once again, I'll frame this as a successful scene, as establishing a future drama.
If the player is shutting down - I'll look to give them an outlet for their desire to play their character, but ideally one that they don't expect. Come to them proactively with a roleplay scene that they can respond to. If I'm playing with players I know well, I'll usually have one or two I know can be prompted to be an accomplice in this. In a moment of downtime, I'll ask Alice's player what Alice is doing, and then prompt the other player. "Dan, you notice Alice getting pretty deep into her cups, she seems troubled, what do you do?" I may need to nudge Alice's player a few times in this scene, if she's really shutting down, but I find for these players asking the one-two combo of "What are they feeling?" and "What does that look like?" gives enough to keep things moving. If I don't have an accomplice I can trust in the party, I'll try to do the same with an NPC. In this case, I do feel I need to keep things shorter, but it's vital to keep the player from detaching entirely because things aren't going how they'd like. If I'm doing it with an NPC, I'll try to create a specific unusual context to give the player something to respond to. It won't be an NPC coming to them to ask, "hey buddy how ya feelin'?" it'll be the barkeep asking for a hand moving some huge kegs, or a travelling scholar asking for directions, and sharing some philosophical musings, or whatever. I'm looking to pitch them a softball, but one they haven't already formed an opinion on. I'm trying to get them used to roleplay as listening and responding.
If the player is doing alright, but demotivated by things not going how they want - I'll try to catch this at the end of the session with a bit of retrospective. I'll call out a scene they were in that didn't go how they wanted, praise some specific aspect of what each character did in the scene, and ask how they felt about it, and what they think their characters will do going forward. "That scene where Alice went to try and talk to Eve about the heist plans, I love how Alice is watching the other characters and picking up on their skills. Eve's response was kind of unhinged but in a really interesting way, I feel like it comes through that she's a bit unstable. How were each of your characters feeling about that interaction? Do you think they'll approach each other differently after that?" I want to place attention and importance on scenes that might feel like treading water, and to make them into narrative fodder that the player is going to reflect on, rather than dismissing as being bad or wrong.
All these also apply if it's a scene with an NPC they're having issues with, except that I am usually more malleable to adjust my reactions if I feel it's appropriate, or to clarify where the NPC is coming from if I think the NPC's reaction shouldn't change. Overall, I'm really trying to coax my Alice into a place of understanding that scenes that don't go they way she wants are still great, honestly even better, because the chaos and variety of play, the unexpected responses, are what make TTRPG storytelling good. I want her to feel like she didn't play wrong because things didn't go like she wanted, and neither did the other players, and to teach her to respond and react to the unexpected.
All of this, of course, comes with the caveat that this is what works if the player is otherwise fine, but a bit actual play-brained. A fairly frequent comorbidity, however, is the player with main character syndrome, whose frustration comes in part from everything not warping around them and the other players not being wowed by their cool, badass character. When this happens, I have less success deprogramming people (and honestly, less energy to commit to managing their play experience), but it's still possible. The biggest thing I'd add, in this case, is that I will really try to frame my prompts in such a way as to encourage Main Character Alice to appreciate the other characters more. Rather than just asking her how Alice is feeling, I'll specifically ask about how Alice is perceiving and responding to the other characters, and make her spotlight more dependent on reacting to other PCs. This can go badly, if she reacts to other PCs by belittling them or otherwise sucking, but once that happens it becomes a "talk about it out of play" issue entirely and I don't think there's any point addressing in game.
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