riikasgarbagepile

[riikasgarbagepile]

There’s something so beautiful to me about how when my partner transfers me money and I’m filling out the transfer form on my end, it still registers my routing number as being from the bank that was bought out like a decade ago not my current bank. That that legacy is still there, that history wasn’t erased. A silent protest against becoming what destroyed you.

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On this week’s episode of “are you sure they’re not together”, we’re going a bit more vague and a bit backwards in time

two sessions ago (the session before the last update) we went through our first proper dungeon to get to the boss fight and in that dungeon the party got separated. The newer party members together (one new player joined in the last few months to replace one who was kicked out and another changed characters cause they weren’t vibing with their old one) and hearth and silver together (obvi). While our barbarian was getting beaten by rocks and cauldrons of hot tar elsewhere, our team stumbled upon an amnesia crystal and hearth, my poor babygirl, got amnesia-d. the tonal whiplash of her with and without memories was jarring for everyone and over quickly as silver-bloom shattered the crystal as soon as she noticed. Very thankfully for hearth, silver was the only one to witness the stream of her life’s memories returning. HOWEVER fun thing amnesia crystals do, they let you ask a question about the memory holder’s life if you witness this and you will then see the memory related to the question to get the answer.

Now it took silver’s player a couple weeks to come up with their question so they asked it after session yesterday once we were finally alone with the dm and tell me why this guy went straight for the “Why does hearth think she’s a bad person? Silver defends her goodness and honor tooth and nail.”????

And i had to think back on the spot 70+ years in this woman’s life (she’s a drow, 102) to the first moment she noticed her mindset shift from the optimistic child who wanted to help people to a cynical and pessimistic depressed adult??

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This week on the dnd “are you sure they’re not actually together?” Show:

There was a big boss battle with a corrupt vampire mayor and his werewolf subordinate that culminated in hearth wearily asking if she did good enough for once before passing out from the exhaustion of having her dragon patron take over her body to kill the enemy she couldn’t on her own into the vampire’s blood pool as her best (and only) friend—in an action movie heroine running to the injured protagonist kind of way—desperately tries to reassure her she did enough while flooding her with all the healing magic she can muster and sacrificing her own battle capabilities to get hearth out of danger

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Still thinking about that time like five or six years ago I was having a super shitty day so my partner took me to cracker barrel so i could have breakfast for dinner (we have no ihop around here) and I had a complete breakdown because I couldn’t swap the side of hashbrowns (ew) with fruit (yum, i think they were out?) with the thing i wanted so i ordered something else and it was enough to push me over the edge so i had a full meltdown in this cracker barrel at like 6:30pm on a Wednesday and our waitress (bless her) went out of her way to find me some fruit to cheer me up and i just sobbed more and felt awful for making her feel bad and had to step outside while my partner paid but i usually paid for restaurants back then so they didn’t know much about tip math and when i found out how much they tipped her i made them bring me back so i could tip her more and i cried as i explained my awful day and handed her cash and she hugged me (she asked) and honestly? I felt so seen and heard and loved by that kind soul and i’m so thankful she was there for me that night

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Thinking about how much gayer I’d be if I’d actually gone to an all girls catholic school

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weird question, but does anyone else remember a short film that came out at least a decade ago on YouTube called Sincerely, Goodbye or something very similar? It was about suicide and the aftermath of those left behind. I don’t remember it very well now in detail, but I think I remember a scene or two being in a small chapel and most of the rest in kind of an industrial/construction zone type area. It was a very moving piece, I remember crying over it for a long time every time i watched it. I’d love to watch it again but I haven’t had any luck finding it.

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Literally everyone: you *sure* you’re not together?

Hearth, still taking Silver’s damage for her even after she went werewolf the first full moon after attuning to a cursed item and trying to attack them: yes. And if any of you actually hurts her before I can grab her and keep her safe regardless of if she hurts me in the process, I’m going to kill you

Literally everyone our dnd party meets/every new party member getting to know the party: so… are you two like… together?

my dense af pc who doesn’t get™️ romance or care™️ about people but gets upset when anyone tries to hurt, touch, insult, or get close to the tiny fairy living in her hair who showed up one day and never left and bought a ring for that lets her take their pain so they don’t get hurt that they conveniently wear on their left ring fingers: no, why would you think that?

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is art i draw am excited for everyone to play deltarune!!

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I think my biggest issue with the discourse around the rose removal is that even though it obviously wasn’t literal, maybe not even allegorical if you want to argue about that, a lot of the pushback is “they’re literal kids why are you sexualizing them?” when teenagers, especially high schoolers, are quite likely to explore sex and intimate romance, and they are capable of and can be perpetrators of SA. Just because their sentences would be lighter doesn’t make it less serious? The stories that come out about things that happen at big parties or prom or homecoming or after big games, while not necessarily as frequent as you might hear about in colleges, is still significant. The people that do SA someone and are found out and lose scholarships. The stories are out there. I know people it happened to. It can happen because of lack of proper sex education, proper lessons on consent, or just because people do bad things. But it happens. And while it’s not right, denying it can happen at all just because they’re kids doesn’t help anyone.

Idk i’ve just seen a lot of commenting on it and thought i’d get my two cents in.

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Literally everyone our dnd party meets/every new party member getting to know the party: so… are you two like… together?

my dense af pc who doesn’t get™️ romance or care™️ about people but gets upset when anyone tries to hurt, touch, insult, or get close to the tiny fairy living in her hair who showed up one day and never left and bought a ring for that lets her take their pain so they don’t get hurt that they conveniently wear on their left ring fingers: no, why would you think that?

[riikasgarbagepile]

We got it inside!

Guys I got a piano!

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Guys I got a piano!

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Another suggestion, if you really don’t want that monologue interrupted, whether so you don’t forget or lose the tone or because the villain wouldn’t give them time to respond, is to open that space at the end of the speech, but before the action.

whether going into combat or retreat, open that space for the pc this speech is mostly directed at to react.

Instead of ending with “The portal closes and they’re gone”, start that exit by saying “the portal begins to shrink”. Or “the air around them begins to shimmer” instead of “they teleport away”. Or “they draw their weapon, preparing to prove themself right/you wrong” instead of “time to fight, roll initiative”.

This way, the players know that you’ve said all you wanted to and if they have any parting words or actions before things escalate, whether they reach the target or not, they still have a chance to be a part of that moment.

Pro tip for dms!

Leave space for pcs to interject in your villain monologues!

Especially if this villain is not planning to stick around after they’re done! And ESPECIALLY if this villain is closely connected to someone’s backstory (or current story)!

this may seem simple and obvious, or you may not want to disrupt your long planned “Ah ha!” moment

but if you don’t leave a pause, or breath where a player can get a word in edgewise, and the villain just disappears leaving them unable to retort or react, you may miss some really cool character moments! And if you’re virtual not in person, there’s a 1-2 second delay between when you start/stop talking and when they hear it (and vice versa) so leave slightly longer pauses!

I promise, there’s space in the monologue for a character to respond or react without derailing the whole thing!

For example (and while this is a real example, I mean no offense to our dm, they’re doing a great job), in one of the campaigns I’m currently in, I play an oathbreaker paladin warlock who’s goal is to avenge her brother (why is she oathbreaker not vengeance paladin? Because she hates her goddess for allowing the brutal murder of one of her most devoted followers). She’s been searching for his killer for over 80 years and finally found clues that have led her and the party in the right direction while also dealing with problems in one of the other pcs home city (we’re committing regicide it’s fine).

now the dm and i have discussed some character things before, options and moments that could come about. So i’ve been preparing for her reaction to seeing this person face to face for the first time in 80+ years for quite a while, and the dm has hinted this moment was approaching, so I was doubly prepared. I knew how she would feel and what she would do.

So we break into the castle to stop the coronation of the new king, and find one of the followers of the cult we’ve been tracking as well. The battle is tough, but we would have won eventually. During the battle, reinforcements arrive. An undead creature we’ve fought once before, and a mysterious person who looks just like my pc, but before we can down the lookalike, leaving the monster be, a portal opens to take them back. And who is in that portal? The killer my pc has been searching for.

in that moment, I feel her. Her rage, fury, bloodlust. I prepared this feeling, but it was still stronger than I could have expected.

and the villain speaks. I won’t drag out the monologue here, it was good and i was busy writing it all down in my notes. But there was hardly a breathy enough pause for me to stop and say “she’s going to charge at them, sword first.”

now, i never expected to reach him. We’ve seen the portal trick before, just not them. I knew they would be gone before she could hit. But there was no break in the dialogue for me to convey that she would do this. I know most people will say “just interrupt them!” But think about it from the dm standpoint. You’ve been planning and plotting and prepping this for a long time. It doesn’t feel good to be stopped mid sentence (and that’s a fairly common problem with one member of our party doing so unfortunately). And because of that, the speech ended and the portal closed and that moment of characterization for my pc was lost.

Instead, most of that had to be shown after as best I could manage to convey the same sense of fury. It worked okay I think, but I think the visual of her charging sword first at a closing portal as her brother’s killer slips away would have been a tiny bit more poignant.

So I’m not saying you have to let players steamroll your monologue and derail it by having a whole branching conversation.

Just give them a few seconds to do something. It doesn’t have to reach, it doesn’t have to distract. It’s just good storytelling.

okay bye

[riikasgarbagepile]

Pro tip for dms!

Leave space for pcs to interject in your villain monologues!

Especially if this villain is not planning to stick around after they’re done! And ESPECIALLY if this villain is closely connected to someone’s backstory (or current story)!

this may seem simple and obvious, or you may not want to disrupt your long planned “Ah ha!” moment

but if you don’t leave a pause, or breath where a player can get a word in edgewise, and the villain just disappears leaving them unable to retort or react, you may miss some really cool character moments! And if you’re virtual not in person, there’s a 1-2 second delay between when you start/stop talking and when they hear it (and vice versa) so leave slightly longer pauses!

I promise, there’s space in the monologue for a character to respond or react without derailing the whole thing!

For example (and while this is a real example, I mean no offense to our dm, they’re doing a great job), in one of the campaigns I’m currently in, I play an oathbreaker paladin warlock who’s goal is to avenge her brother (why is she oathbreaker not vengeance paladin? Because she hates her goddess for allowing the brutal murder of one of her most devoted followers). She’s been searching for his killer for over 80 years and finally found clues that have led her and the party in the right direction while also dealing with problems in one of the other pcs home city (we’re committing regicide it’s fine).

now the dm and i have discussed some character things before, options and moments that could come about. So i’ve been preparing for her reaction to seeing this person face to face for the first time in 80+ years for quite a while, and the dm has hinted this moment was approaching, so I was doubly prepared. I knew how she would feel and what she would do.

So we break into the castle to stop the coronation of the new king, and find one of the followers of the cult we’ve been tracking as well. The battle is tough, but we would have won eventually. During the battle, reinforcements arrive. An undead creature we’ve fought once before, and a mysterious person who looks just like my pc, but before we can down the lookalike, leaving the monster be, a portal opens to take them back. And who is in that portal? The killer my pc has been searching for.

in that moment, I feel her. Her rage, fury, bloodlust. I prepared this feeling, but it was still stronger than I could have expected.

and the villain speaks. I won’t drag out the monologue here, it was good and i was busy writing it all down in my notes. But there was hardly a breathy enough pause for me to stop and say “she’s going to charge at them, sword first.”

now, i never expected to reach him. We’ve seen the portal trick before, just not them. I knew they would be gone before she could hit. But there was no break in the dialogue for me to convey that she would do this. I know most people will say “just interrupt them!” But think about it from the dm standpoint. You’ve been planning and plotting and prepping this for a long time. It doesn’t feel good to be stopped mid sentence (and that’s a fairly common problem with one member of our party doing so unfortunately). And because of that, the speech ended and the portal closed and that moment of characterization for my pc was lost.

Instead, most of that had to be shown after as best I could manage to convey the same sense of fury. It worked okay I think, but I think the visual of her charging sword first at a closing portal as her brother’s killer slips away would have been a tiny bit more poignant.

So I’m not saying you have to let players steamroll your monologue and derail it by having a whole branching conversation.

Just give them a few seconds to do something. It doesn’t have to reach, it doesn’t have to distract. It’s just good storytelling.

okay bye

[riikasgarbagepile]

They’re back at it again

help

Why is my decade and a half year old fanfiction getting story favorites all of a sudden?

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Y’all they’re going through my whole library i just got another one from the same person help

Why is my decade and a half year old fanfiction getting story favorites all of a sudden?

[riikasgarbagepile]

Me: i don’t struggle with autistic literal thinking… i can’t even think of an example

me, brushing my teeth: That’s song’s catchy and I’ve heard it a lot and i like it but it seems a bit upbeat for being about a guy who’s gonna destroy a tow- OH ITS ABOUT SEX