#I only know microsoft word

[dravidious]

Typing Tips That I Stumbled Upon Randomly:

The Ctrl key lets you jump between words really quickly. If you hold Ctrl and press the left or right arrow keys, instead of moving your cursor 1 character you'll move it a whole word; if you want to edit that word that's 3 words back, you can just hold Ctrl and left-left-left, and you're there.

Even more useful in my opinion, if you hold Ctrl and press Backspace you'll delete the entire word you're on. That's just really nifty because a lot of the time when you're deleting you want to delete the whole word, so this is much faster.

Also, idk how well-known this is but holding Shift and moving your cursor will make you highlight any characters you move over. That's useful on its own, but combining that with Ctrl lets you quickly highlight whole words or sentences, so you can easily copy+paste them. You can also hold Shift to edit any selections you made with your mouse or something.

Also it took me too long to realize that the Home and End keys are actually really nice sometimes. Home takes you to the start of the line you're on, and End takes you to the end. Hold Shift while doing that and you can highlight the whole line. Very nice for programming. Also holding Ctrl and pressing Home or End takes you to the top or bottom of the page, but I barely use that.

A similarly useful key that I also overlooked is the Delete key. It's like the Backspace key, but it deletes the character in front of your cursor instead of behind it. Just like with Backspace Ctrl+Delete lets you delete a whole word in front of your cursor.

Also Ctrl+A lets you highlight the whole page.

Also even when you're not typing and instead just browsing a web page or something, you still technically have a cursor; if you click a piece of text, then hold Shift and press the arrow keys, you'll start highlighting text.

Practice Exercise: Click on the t in this word, then hold Shift and press left and right on the arrow keys! Now try holding Ctrl+Shift while you press the arrow keys! Hold Shift and press Home or End! Hold Shift and use your mouse to left-click on different spots in the paragraph and see how your selection changes!

[rikamae]

I hate modern game walkthroughs what happened to the beautifully crafted .txt documents with clear and precise instructions

[clare-with-no-i]

Not sure if I understand tumblr correctly but if you were the one wanting to see a moment of romance, it should be available on korean netflix via vpn

aha! yes that was me lol! thank you so much for this! unforch I am absolutely useless with technology and don't understand vpns at all but good to know that the film exists somewhere on the world wide web

[leatherbookmark]

it has to be fucking said. if you have to plan a cover for a book that was japanese/chinese in origin, and you clearly see that the art has space for the title... but written in the chinese/japanese way, vertically... and you think “well, that’s not really a problem, we can write the title in english vertically too”

this is the devil talking. don’t do it.

[tunemyart]

today in microsoft word trying to protect y’all from me, I was prompted to correct “friends with benefits” to “friend with benefits”

[meluiloth]

Since the whole thing with NaNoWriMo has gone down, I've noticed that one of their former sponsors, Ellipsus, has cut contact with NaNoWriMo because they do not support their stance on AI; I didn't know what Ellipsus was, but upon further research I've found that they are a writing platform that works a lot like Google Docs and Microsoft Word, only with a heavier leaning on the story-writing aspect and connecting with other writers - and they also completely denounce any use of AI, both in the writing process itself and in the use of their platform. I really appreciate that.

Since this is the case (and since I've noticed Google has begun implementing more AI into their software), I've decided to give Ellipsus a try to see if it's a good alternative to Google Docs (my main writing platform). It's completely free and so far, I've found it simple to use (although it is pretty minimal in its features), and I really like the look of it.

I figured I'd spread the word about this platform in case any of you writers would want to give it a try, and if you do, let me know how you like it!

[greencheekconure27]

3 hours into attempting to open one (1) file on One Drive.

Whoever invented that piece of crap deserves to burn in the lowest circle of hell. With extra anxiety on the side.

Not once did it not give me trouble when I needed something on there.

[pleasantboatpress]

so, you wanted to start bookbinding?

so @princetofbone mentioned on my post for "factory settings" about wanting to know more about the binding style that i used for it. so i thought i might make a post about it.

i was as terrible as i always am for taking in progress shots, but i can link you to the resources i used in order to make my book. i would also like to point out that "factory settings" is my 120th bind, and i have been doing bookbinding as a hobby for just over 3 years now. unfortunately this means some of the methods that i used for that bind aren't particularly beginner friendly, just in terms of the tools and methods i have used, but i would love to point you in the right direction when it comes to resources. i dont say this to sound pretentious which i fear i might come across, just so that youre fully informed. getting into this hobby is fun and rewarding, but it can definitely be intimidating.

with that caveat, heres a list of links and resources that i have used for bookbinding in general, with additional links to methods i used specifically in regards to this bind.

ASH's how to make a book document. it gives you a great introduction into typesetting fics (where you format the text of fics to look like a traditionally published books) and then turning them into a case-bound book (the style i used for "factory settings"). it is comprehensive, and explains how to use microsoft word to do your bidding. it was invaluable to me when i was just starting out! currently i use affinity publisher to typeset/format my fics for printing, but i only bought and learned how to use that after i had been binding books for a year and a half. i made some beautiful typesets with word, and some of my close friends use it still and design stuff that i never would be able to in my wildest dreams (basically anything by @no-name-publishing)

DAS Bookbinding's Square Back Bradel Binding. a great style to do your first bind in! this method requires, when making the case, to attach the cover board and the spine board to a connecting piece of paper, which makes it so much easier to match the size of the case to the size of the text block (your printed out and sewn fic). using this method is what allowed me to get much more accurately fitting cases, and made me much more confident with the construction of the books i was making. a well-made book is something that is so wonderful to hold in your hands!

DAS Bookbinding's Rounded and Backed Cased Book. This is the specific method that i used to create my bind for "factory settings"! even before i could back my books, i found that watching DAS's videos in particular helped me see how books were traditionally made, and i was able to see different tips and tricks about how to make nicer books.

Book Edge Trimming Without... i trim the edges of my text block using my finishing press and a chisel i have sharpened using a whetstone and leather strop with buffing compound on it. i follow the method for trimming shown in this video!

Made Endpapers. i follow this method for my endpapers, as i used handmade lokta endpapers, and they can be quite thin, but they look beautiful! i used "tipped on" endpapers (where you have your endpaper and then put a thin strip of glue on the edge and attach it to your text block) i used for a very long time before this, but these feel like they are much more stable, as they are sewn with your text block.

Edge Sprinkling. this is the method that i used for decorating the edges of my text block. but the principle is basically clamping your text block tight and then sprinkling the edges. i do not believe you need to trim the edges in order to do sprinkles on the edges, and that's what makes it accessible! i personally just use really cheap acrylic paint that i water down and then flick it onto the edges with my thumb and a paint brush.

Double-Core Endbands. i sew my own endbands, which i followed this tutorial for. that being said, it's kind of confusing, and this video is a bit easier to follow, but it is a slightly different type of endband.

Case decoration. i used my silhouette cameo 4 to cut out my design for "factory settings" in htv (heat transfer vinyl). i also used my cameo 4 to cut out the oval of marbled paper on the front, as i honestly didn't want to try my hand at cutting an oval lol. i also glued some 300 gsm card with an oval cut out of the centre of it onto the cover before covering it with bookcloth, to get a kind of recess on the cover. i then glued the oval of marbled paper onto the top of the recessed area once it was covered with bookcloth, so that it was protected. the images i used were sourced from a mix of rawpixel, canva and pixabay. a more accessible way to get into cover decoration is by painting on a design for your cover as described in @a-gay-old-time's tutorial just here. or even doing paper labels, which look classy imo.

physical materials. sourcing these will depend on your country. i am located in australia, and have compiled a list with some other aussie bookbinders of places to buy from. here is a great post describing beginning materials for getting started binding.

@renegadepublishing. this tumblr is great! its what got me started bookbinding, and being in the discord has been inspiring, motivating, and honestly just one of the best online experiences i have ever had. it is full of resources, and most people in there are amateur bookbinders, with a couple of professionals thrown in. the discord is 18+, and anyone can join!

i'm sorry this post got so long, but i hope that this has a lot of information for you if you would like to get started bookbinding. its one of the best hobbies ive ever had, and i genuinely believe i will have it for the rest of my life.

[xenosagaepisodeone]

I complain about waning tech literacy every single day but it's become absolutely grating how grown adults my age and older, who hypothetically should have had some experience with a PC at some point from childhood to adolescence, come to me begging to do something for them. There were two separate instances this week where people in their mid 30s at the oldest complained about our computers not working, only to find that it wasn't even turned on. dozens of people who functionally ask me to log into their emails or amazon accounts or how get to a website or even follow a series of prompts because they have no idea what to do on a computer...and again, these are not old people. I know people use google docs moreso than microsoft word these days but....you cant tell me that learning how to use word in the absence of docs is some impossible feat! so many of the design elements are the same! Just fiddle with it! Google that shit! You can tell me "oh well modern consumer tech discourages people from trying new things 🥺" but you cant tell me that the average household doesnt at least have one laptop. One of my supervisors gently reminded me that I can teach people to do things over just doing it for them, but based on the starting point we're working with for a lot of folks I don't think I can cover all of the necessary bases in any less than 30 minutes. And I've got actual work to do.

[uc1wa]

Xi it's my birthdayyyyyy, wondering what you think the boys might do for their partner's birthday?? DC boys or JJK boys, your pick my love (nsfw or not, dealer's choice I'm just honored to be here) 💖 no matter what your writing is scrumptious 😈 I hope you're having a good weekend!!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY HONEY <3!!!! i hope you had the best weekend ever mwahhhh

BATBOYS & YOUR BIRTHDAY

dick grayson

dick would go all out for your birthday to the point that it’s embarrassing. he’s telling everyone in his family, all of his friends, everybody that your day is coming up. of course the titans help him throw a party for you! they’re going to stores to get decorations, hanging them around your apartment with the spare key dick has. dick’s making all of your favorite food & apps, creating a lil menu for it all that’s messily made via microsoft word. even making a specialty cocktail for you & your friends to have (a drink that will def get you fucked up but tastes like your favorite juice).

he’s kissing you when you walk in the door with an arm slung over your shoulder, making a plate for you, doing everything that you’d need from him for the night.

and once everybody’s leaving, wally deciding on sleeping on your couch, dick’s locking your bedroom door and gently stripping you of your clothes. he’s done so much for you, but do you really think he’s not going to give you a finale?

the finale? rounds and rounds of head that dick’s perfected in his time dating you. long and slow stripes up your entrance to start, making you finish at the slower pace a time or two before he’s quickening his movements.

he lays down, grabbing underneath your thighs so that you can fuck yourself against his face without a thought in your head. when you dare to look down, dick’s got a big smile across his lips as he licks up every juice you offer to him. "happy birthday, baby," he says against your swollen entrance, completely pussy drunk.

jason todd

a month before your birthday hits, before the thought of another year being added to your date, jason’s making a reservation at a restaurant you’ve been telling him you’ve wanted to go. the restaurant that you’ve seen tiktoks of, have read the menu and looked at chef specials, the restaurant that was highly exclusive and had a rooftop that the man rented out in its entirety for you.

he’s asking you to close your eyes on the way there, not putting a blindfold on because he knows that you did your makeup all pretty and would hate for it to get smudged. when you arrive, the sun is an hour away from setting and he’s leading you to the space with only a table and two chairs.

the courses are endless and the wine to pair, delicious. he has your favorite dessert come out last, ‘happy birthday’ written in chocolate on the plate with a single candle made for you to blow out.

once the private and loving fesitivities finish taking place at the restaurant, he’s driving you back to your shared place. his hand never leaving your thigh as he gives you a sweet kiss at every red light he stops at.

"you didn’t have to do all that, but i appreciate it, y’know," you say against his soft lips that turn to continue driving. "everything’s for you, always will be."

jason continues showing you that his statement is true for the rest of the night. every kiss to your soft skin proves that his lips are only for you to feel. every finger that spreads your legs apart wider and wider, only for you. and every long and deep stroke that hits that special spot deep inside you, is only for you! everything is for you, to jason.

[river-taxbird]

Have YOU got an old Windows PC Microsoft has told you can't run Windows 11? It's time to give it a new life!

How to install Windows 11 on unsupported PC Hardware using Rufus. You can also disable some other Windows 11 bullshit like data harvesting and needing a Microsoft account.

It has been in the news a lot lately that Windows 11 isn't allowed to be installed on PCs without certain requirements, including the TPM 2.0, a chip that was only included in PCs made in 2018 or later. This means that once Windows 10 stops receiving security updates, those PCs will not be able to (officially) run a safe, updated version of Windows anymore. This has led to an estimated 240 million PCs bound for the landfill. Thanks Microsoft! I get you don't want to be seen as the insecure one, but creating this much waste can't be the solution.

(I know nerds, Linux is a thing. I love you but we are not having that conversation. If you want to use Linux on an old PC you are already doing it and you don't need to tell me about it. People need Windows for all sorts of reasons that Linux won't cut.)

So lately I have been helping some under privileged teens get set up with PCs. Their school was giving away their old lab computers, and these kids would usually have no chance to afford even a basic computer. They had their hard drives pulled so I have been setting them up with SSDs, but the question was, what to do about the operating system? So I looked into it and I found out there IS actually a way to bypass Microsoft's system requirement and put Windows 11 on PCs as old as 2010.

You will need: Rufus: An open source ISO burning tool.

A Windows 11 ISO: Available from Microsoft.

A USB Flash Drive, at least 16GB.

A working PC to make the ISO, and a PC from 2018 or older you want to install Windows 11 on.

Here is the guide I used, but I will put it in my own words as well.

Download your Windows 11 ISO, and plug in your USB drive. It will be erased, so don't have anything valuable on it. Run Rufus, select your USB drive in the Device window, and select your Windows 11 ISO with the Select button. (There is supposed to be a feature in Rufus to download your ISO but I couldn't get it to work.?

Choose standard windows installation, and follow the screenshot for your settings. Once you are done that, press Start, and then the magic happens. Another window pops up allowing you to remove the system requirements, the need for a microsoft account, and turn off data collecting. Just click the options you want, and press ok to write your iso to a drive.

From there you just need to use the USB drive to install windows. I won't go into details here, but here are some resources if you don't know how to do it.

Boot your PC from a USB Drive

Install Windows 11 from USB Drive

If you had a licensed copy of Windows 10, Windows 11 will already be licensed. If you don't, then perhaps you can use some kind of... Activation Scripts for Microsoft software, that will allow you to activate them. Of course I cannot link such tools here. So there you go, now you can save a PC made from before 2018 from the landfill, and maybe give it to a deserving teen in the process. The more we can extend the lives of technology and keep it out of the trash, the better.

Additional note: This removes the requirement for having 4GB Minimum of RAM, but I think that requirement should honestly be higher. Windows 11 will be unusable slow on any system with below 8GB of RAM. 8GB is the minimum I think you should have before trying this but it still really not enough for modern use outside of light web and office work. I wouldn't recommend trying this on anything with 4GB or less. I am honestly shocked they are still selling brand new Windows 11 PCs with 4GB of ram. If you're not sure how much RAM you have, you can find out in the performance tab of Task Manager in Windows, if you click the More Details icon on the bottom right. If you don't have enough, RAM for old systems is super cheap and widely available so it would definitely be worth upgrading if you have a ram starved machine you'd like to give a new life.

[ms-demeanor]

Hello! First, I wanted to say thank you for your post about updating software and such. I really appreciated your perspective as someone with ADHD. The way you described your experiences with software frustration was IDENTICAL to my experience, so your post made a lot of sense to me.

Second, (and I hope my question isn't bothering you lol) would you mind explaining why it's important to update/adopt the new software? Like, why isn't there an option that doesn't involve constantly adopting new things? I understand why they'd need to fix stuff like functional bugs/make it compatible with new tech, but is it really necessary to change the user side of things as well?

Sorry if those are stupid questions or they're A Lot for a tumblr rando to ask, I'd just really like to understand because I think it would make it easier to get myself to adopt new stuff if I understand why it's necessary, and the other folks I know that know about computers don't really seem to understand the experience.

Thank you so much again for sharing your wisdom!!

A huge part of it is changing technologies and changing norms; I brought up Windows 8 in that other post and Win8 is a *great* example of user experience changing to match hardware, just in a situation that was an enormous mismatch with the market.

Win8's much-beloathed tiles came about because Microsoft seemed to be anticipating a massive pivot to tablet PCs in nearly all applications. The welcome screen was designed to be friendly to people who were using handheld touchscreens who could tap through various options, and it was meant to require more scrolling and less use of a keyboard.

But most people who the operating system went out to *didn't* have touchscreen tablets or laptops, they had a desktop computer with a mouse and a keyboard.

When that was released, it was Microsoft attempting to keep up with (or anticipate) market trends - they wanted something that was like "the iPad for Microsoft" so Windows 8 was meant to go with Microsoft Surface tablets.

We spent the first month of Win8's launch making it look like Windows 7 for our customers.

You can see the same thing with the centered taskbar on Windows 11; that's very clearly supposed to mimic the dock on apple computers (only you can't pin it anywhere but the bottom of the screen, which sucks).

Some of the visual changes are just trends and various companies trying to keep up with one another.

With software like Adobe I think it's probably based on customer data. The tool layout and the menu dropdowns are likely based on what people are actually looking for, and change based on what other tools people are using. That's likely true for most programs you use - the menu bar at the top of the screen in Word is populated with the options that people use the most; if a function you used to click on all the time is now buried, there's a possibility that people use it less these days for any number of reasons. (I'm currently being driven mildly insane by Teams moving the "attach file" button under a "more" menu instead of as an icon next to the "send message" button, and what this tells me is either that more users are putting emojis in their messages than attachments, or microsoft WANTS people to put more emojis than messages in their attachments).

But focusing on the operating system, since that's the big one:

The thing about OSs is that you interact with them so frequently that any little change seems massive and you get REALLY frustrated when you have to deal with that, but version-to-version most OSs don't change all that much visually and they also don't get released all that frequently. I've been working with windows machines for twelve years and in that time the only OSs that Microsoft has released were 8, 10, and 11. That's only about one OS every four years, which just is not that many. There was a big visual change in the interface between 7 and 8 (and 8 and 8.1, which is more of a 'panicked backing away' than a full release), but otherwise, realistically, Windows 11 still looks a lot like XP.

The second one is a screenshot of my actual computer. The only change I've made to the display is to pin the taskbar to the left side instead of keeping it centered and to fuck around a bit with the colors in the display customization. I haven't added any plugins or tools to get it to look different.

This is actually a pretty good demonstration of things changing based on user behavior too - XP didn't come with a search field in the task bar or the start menu, but later versions of Windows OSs did, because users had gotten used to searching things more in their phones and browsers, so then they learned to search things on their computers.

There are definitely nefarious reasons that software manufacturers change their interfaces. Microsoft has included ads in home versions of their OS and pushed searches through the Microsoft store since Windows 10, as one example. That's shitty and I think it's worthwhile to find the time to shut that down (and to kill various assistants and background tools and stop a lot of stuff that runs at startup).

But if you didn't have any changes, you wouldn't have any changes. I think it's handy to have a search field in the taskbar. I find "settings" (which is newer than control panel) easier to navigate than "control panel." Some of the stuff that got added over time is *good* from a user perspective - you can see that there's a little stopwatch pinned at the bottom of my screen; that's a tool I use daily that wasn't included in previous versions of the OS. I'm glad it got added, even if I'm kind of bummed that my Windows OS doesn't come with Spider Solitaire anymore.

One thing that's helpful to think about when considering software is that nobody *wants* to make clunky, unusable software. People want their software to run well, with few problems, and they want users to like it so that they don't call corporate and kick up a fuss.

When you see these kinds of changes to the user experience, it often reflects something that *you* may not want, but that is desirable to a *LOT* of other people. The primary example I can think of here is trackpad scrolling direction; at some point it became common for trackpads to scroll in the opposite direction that they used to; now the default direction is the one that feels wrong to me, because I grew up scrolling with a mouse, not a screen. People who grew up scrolling on a screen seem to feel that the new direction is a lot more intuitive, so it's the default. Thankfully, that's a setting that's easy to change, so it's a change that I make every time I come across it, but the change was made for a sensible reason, even if that reason was opaque to me at the time I stumbled across it and continues to irritate me to this day.

I don't know. I don't want to defend Windows all that much here because I fucking hate Microsoft and definitely prefer using Linux when I'm not at work or using programs that I don't have on Linux. But the thing is that you'll see changes with Linux releases as well.

I wouldn't mind finding a tool that made my desktop look 100% like Windows 95, that would be fun. But we'd probably all be really frustrated if there hadn't been any interface improvements changes since MS-DOS (and people have DEFINITELY been complaining about UX changes at least since then).

Like, I talk about this in terms of backward compatibility sometimes. A lot of people are frustrated that their old computers can't run new software well, and that new computers use so many resources. But the flipside of that is that pretty much nobody wants mobile internet to work the way that it did in 2004 or computers to act the way they did in 1984.

Like. People don't think about it much these days but the "windows" of the Windows Operating system represented a massive change to how people interacted with their computers that plenty of people hated and found unintuitive.

(also take some time to think about the little changes that have happened that you've appreciated or maybe didn't even notice. I used to hate the squiggly line under misspelled words but now I see the utility. Predictive text seems like new technology to me but it's really handy for a lot of people. Right clicking is a UX innovation. Sometimes you have to take the centered task bar in exchange for the built-in timer deck; sometimes you have to lose color-coded files in exchange for a right click.)

[aldryrththerainbowheart]

Sitting In His Lap

Note: I'm back at writing for multiple fandoms. I was left unattended without a wifi, only microsoft word and my thoughts. This is the result. Stay tuned for more!

Rainbow kisses

You squirmed in his lap but to no awail. The sin of greed had you caged in his strong arms and shown no indication of letting you go. Just minutes ago, you were running around boars hat, serving customers, when Ban called you over to his spot behind the bar. Before you had chance to react, he hooked his arm around your waist and pulled you close. Now, you tried to free yourself from the captivity of his strong grip while he had time of his life watching your fruitless struggle.

„And why would I do that, huh?“ he pressed his chin on your shoulder with dumb grin, „can’t have you running away from me again.“

You growled in frustration and smacked your hand over his face, trying to push him away while trying to ignore how the proximity of his face to yours made your heart stutter.

„Hm? What’s this?“ Ban hasn’t shown the slightest reaction to you practically smacking him and instead nibbled on your fingers that were now conviniently in his reach. The sensation of his tongue sliding over your fingers forced a squeak from your throat „You’re trying to turn me on?“

Before he had a chance of engulfing your index finger in his mouth, you ripped it away.

„I’m trying to push you away!“ You barked as you started squirming even more, flailing your arms and kicking your legs in hope of annoying him enough that he’ll let you drop on the floor.

Instead, he grabbed your wrists and pulled you closer his chest, his face nuzzling against the side of your head. You were forced to feel the warmth and hard planec of his chest. At that moment your remembered that he’s only wearing an apron with nothing underneath. Damn it.

„If I were you, I’d be more careful sweetheart.“ He whispered into your ear, making a shiver run down your spine. „With you squirmin‘ on my lap like this, I don’t know how long I can hold on.“

That made you froze completely. You reclaimed completely unmoving in his lap for a second or two before he barked out a laughter. You gave him stink eye as you watched him cackling. Of course he was making fun of you. He just lived to annoy you, didn’t he?

„Very funny.“ You grumbled, your attempts at breaking free momentarily forgotten. „Are you done making fun of me for today?“

He stopped laughing, seizing you with suprisingly sober expression. „It’s true though.“ He leaned closer as if telling you a secret. „I like having you close. The fact that your ass feels nice is your fault.“ Once again he hides his face in the crook of your neck, „Do you have any idea what you’re doin to me?“

You found it difficult to swallow. He emphasized point by grinding up against you with squeeze to your hip. You let out a keen of his name as you felt his hardness pressing up against you.

„Say my name again.“ He whispered to you, voice coarse and grovelly with desire. The hands that held your wrists gripped your thighs as his teeth scraped the side of your throat.

„Ban…“

„BAN! The customers are waiting!!“

You both jumped as Meliodas’s voice broke the heated mood between you. You scrambled away from him with tremble as his fingers ran down your leg one last time. He stalked out of the kitchen with annoyed grumble while you took another minute to get yourself together before you’d walk out and everyone saw the mess he made of you.

[adrunkskeletonsduck]

Heyy!! Can I request something cute and romantic with Aonung x fem! metkayina reader. Maybe some romantic confession and laying in hut and just being in each other arms

3:24ᴘᴍ

➜ Pairing: Aonung x fem!metikayina!reader

➜ Warnings: fluff, none

➜ Word Count: 0.9k

➜ Notes: I would have gotten this out sooner but microsoft word literally stopped working for like 2-3 days and i went through probably one of the most traumatic experiences of my life and was super out of it for a few days. My writing drive has also been run into the ground lmao.

Anyway hope y'all enjoy!!

Aᴠᴀᴛᴀʀ Mᴀsᴛᴇʀʟɪsᴛ

“He really did a number on you,” you mumbled with a shake of your head and Aonung scowled at your comment, making your lips curl in amusement. You found what the Sully boys had done to him almost humorous given the fact he had been picking on them non-stop since they arrived. You weren't sure why he’d been so mean to them, but you figured he’d have to warm up to them eventually since they seemed to be staying.   

“I didn’t come here to have it shoved in my face,” he snipped back dryly, moving to sit against the wall and stretching his body out in the empty hut. You snorted as you turned, looking through the basket of medical supplies you had and beginning to patch him up.   

“I don’t know what you expected skxawng, you’ve been nothing short of awful to those kids since they got here.” He simply huffed wordlessly, letting you work on him in a silence. You tried to work quickly, disinfecting the small cut on his cheek bone and slathering his bruise with a paste to help with the pain.   

“What do you think of them?” Aonung blurted the question once you’d finished, breaking the silence. You hummed thoughtfully at his question, putting away the supply's and pushing the basket by the entrance of the hut so you wouldn’t forget it on your way out.   

“Well, I haven't really had a chance to talk to any of them yet, but they seem like a nice bunch of kids,” you answered after a moment.  

“But you're not interested in any of them, right?” he asked, and his question made you furrow your eyebrows in confusion. You were unsure of why but it almost sounded like he was worried you had taken an interest in them. His cheeks flushed a light pink and he attempted to clarify what he meant, "I mean – like – you don’t think either of them are attractive-”   

You laughed, cutting him off and making his face hot with embarrassment as a deep blush made its way up his neck to the tips of his ears. He was aware of how he sounded, but as ridiculous as the question was, it had been eating at him since they’d arrived.   

“Aonung what are you talking about?” your voice was teasing, full of amusement as you spoke.   

He refused to look at you as he answered, “Well Tsireya has a crush on Lo’ak, so I was just wondering if you also might have been into one of them, because-” he began to ramble, very obviously flustered. You suppressed a giggle behind a smile, you couldn’t remember the last time he had gotten so worked up like this, let alone over you. You thought it was quite cute.   

Placing a hand on his cheek you attempted to bring him back to the real world, “Aonung,” you said softly, and the sound of his name coming from your lips had him swallowing whatever words that sat on the tip of his tongue, and his breath hitching in his throat.  

“Yeah,” he whispered back, and your smile only widened.   

“Why would I ever look at them, when I could look at you.” The words themselves sounded like they should have been a question, but they came out as more of a statement. They had Aonungs heart racing and eyes widening. Were you saying what he thought you were saying? You had to be, he thought, what else could you have meant? This was most definitely not the way he had imagine a confession between the two of you going, for starters he had always imagined he’d confess first.  

Hesitantly he leaned closer to you until he was just a hair's breadth away from you. The proximity had you swallowing harshly, your eyes dropping to his lips and making your cheeks warm. Your heart was pounding out of your chest as he closed the gap, and you were sure he could hear it as you slipped your eyes shut and let yourself be immersed by the feeling of him.   

He was tentive at first, his lips just barley brushing against yours, allowing you time to pull away. Instead, you leaned in, pressing your lips firmly against his and making him smile into the kiss at your reciprocation. One kiss after another your lips molded against each other perfectly in a short flurry of passion that left you breathless. The both of you drew out the kisses as long as you could, until the simple need to breathe burned your lungs and you both had to pull away.  

It was your turn to be flustered as you avoided his eyes now, fixing your gaze onto the floor firmly and ignoring the deepening blush that was blooming across your cheeks and kissing the tips of your ears. It made him smirk, a sense of pride that he could pull such a reaction from you bubbling in his chest.   

He reached out, threading his fingers with yours wordlessly and pulling you into his chest. You yelped as you were pulled on top of him, muscles tensing at the sudden, involuntary movement, but quickly relaxing as he wrapped his arms around you. You shifted, tucking your head into the crook of his neck and getting comfortable. The two of you could talk about what all this meant for the both of you later, for now you would simply enjoy holding each other. 

[utilitycaster]

Do you think part of the D20 journalistic bias comes from D20 being edited? It gives the appearance of much more effortless play and lets them control the pacing in a way unedited play like CR simply can't do. They get to (potentially) hide a lot of stuff people would jump on as flaws while CR has no choice but to let it all play out. I greatly prefer CR's approach, despite it biting them in the ass a bit through no fault of their own.

Answering these both together to group cause and my opinions, and I do want to note this is specifically about journalism/press coverage, not their respective fandoms even though there's obviously some overlap.

I think there's a couple things, but I do want to note this was actually prompted by Daggerheart, not Critical Role. The response from several prominent voices in the Actual Play journalism community, whom I will not name here but whom I do not respect intellectually, really was, within hours of the open beta (which as far as I know they didn't have early access to - more on that later) "um it could be better, I don't like xyz and also it's sooooooo important to have criticism" and again, it is important to have criticism, but also you act like D20 has never had a mediocre moment and that Kollok is brilliant, so.

This...got away from me a bit. I'd say I'm sorry but actually I adore writing thousands of words about actual play and it will happen again but I'm putting the detailed answer below a cut. The short answer is I think a lot of Actual Play journalists actually sort of fell into their jobs through being vaguely involved in nerd spaces and aren't actually equipped to talk intelligently about TTRPGs and actual play as a medium that should, at its best, be a perfect fusion of narrative and mechanics. So instead they're distracted by flashy edits and bright lights and cool noises and some abstract concept of "novelty" and write only about that. Also Critical Role is the 700 lb gorilla in the AP space (though not, actually, the TTRPG space) and doesn't give them early access and that's meaaaaaan. Indeed, for all I think a lot of their coverage of D20 and Worlds Beyond Number is obsessively fawning, I also think it's extremely surface level, frequently factually wrong, and fails to get at what's truly excellent about those shows either.

I think, honestly, the biggest one is that I don't actually think a lot of Actual Play journalists watch series in full. I was looking for Polygon coverage of Fantasy High Junior Year and they have one glowing article but it's more about Fantasy High as setting and institution and D20 "changing the game" (also more on this later) to the point of outright contradicting the pull quotes they used from interviewing Brennan Lee Mulligan (also more on this later). So I started looking through their coverage and actually, quite a number of their write-ups are based on only one episode, or half a season. Clearly, they haven't read the full open beta (nor have I, but I think their complaints about the character build process belie a profound misunderstanding of what TTRPGs are, also more on this later). So editing is certainly part of it because it's really easy to see cool special effects and sound design within one episode and shit out a hacky article about it, whereas actually getting to the substance - character relationships, cohesive narrative, storytelling - requires work that I do not think they're doing. And on the one hand I do kind of get it, because yeah, if journalism is your livelihood then you perhaps do not have the time to watch 4 hours of D&D a week for 2-3 years if you're only going to get one article every six months out of it. But I don't think the answer is "focus intently on Microsoft Powerpoint-esque scene transition tricks while ignoring that nothing occurring at the table is actually fun to watch." For more on this, see this post.

The second, which is very relevant to Daggerheart but also is actually a big gap in D20 and WBN coverage in my opinion, and which I put in the tags, is that I actually don't think a lot of journalists have a solid understanding of TTRPGs nor of most genres. And I think Critical Role has a particularly good understanding of both these things, actually, if one skewed towards collaborative storytelling that is not rules-light. I think one really big example is that one person within the space is mad at the Daggerheart questions for the character archetypes because what if your character doesn't fit these. I think this is dumb as shit. I actually think that a common criticism of D&D - that you can't play ABSOLUTELY ANYTHING - is not valid, or rather, it's a valid opinion to hold but if you want to play a character who doesn't fit into the available archetypes perhaps you need to find another game. We all inherently understand that Blades in the Dark characters will be members of a criminal organization in a relatively low-magic setting, correct? That you can't show up to BitD and play a lawful good wizard prince because that's not the story being told? Or like, how in Honey Heist, you are a bear and you are trying to get honey, and you cannot play a human child investigating the old abandoned house at the edge of town, but there's a cool game called Kids on Bikes that will let you do that? Great! Why is this suddenly so hard to understand in the realm of heroic fantasy, that you will fit into specific archetypes? Why do people's brains, if they have them to begin with, vanish suddenly? I know I just did a big old rant that included this within it but genuinely I think a lot of people are deeply ignorant of heroic fantasy, or don't like it, and either is fine, but then they get mad at the heroic fantasy game for having heroic fantasy archetypes when the answer is "maybe this will never make you happy because it's not for you." (Frankly, I think this is also why they love D20, because it doesn't really do straight-up heroic fantasy, and that's fine, but they do keep acting like doing a Game of Thrones pastiche is equivalent to the invention of the wheel.) Like...I remember in the Midst Q&A that Xen said they tend to not like playing typical D&D classes, but their solution was to, you know, create Midst instead of sitting around going "actually, because D&D doesn't support cyberpunk narrative and the character archetypes within very well it is an utter failure." (I could go on forever about how actually TTRPGs are not a showcase for your already extant OCs to prance around but that's a totally separate post).

Mechanics and story are inherently intertwined, is what I'm trying to get at (sorry I'm really tired and have a lot to do but I'm passionate about this answer, it will be rambly, she says like 3 pages in) and I really don't think most actual play journalists get this. At all. And I do think that CR, and Daggerheart, and the people working for it, and especially Spenser Starke, Rowan Hall, Matt Mercer, and Travis Willingham, get this more than almost anyone else in the field. I also think Brennan Lee Mulligan and Aabria Iyengar get this, and the thing is, for all the praise showered upon them, much of which I think is deserved and most of what I think is undeserved is not because they are lacking but because the person writing about them is an idiot crediting them for things they (Brennan and Aabria) would never claim to have invented, their mechanical prowess is rarely if ever written about well. Fantasy High Junior Year's downtime mechanics actually fill in a famous gap in D&D, namely, downtime, and provide an excellent marriage of story and mechanics in my opinion, and I haven't really seen any discussion, because that would require watching the part of the TTRPG show where they play the TTRPG, and knowing the vague word on the street about D&D criticism that isn't just "*nods sagely* capitalism is the BBEG."

And finally: related a bit to the edit but Critical Role used to not be able to provide any early access to press, because it was literally a live show, and I suspect they never broke the habit, and I think that is for the best. As discussed a lot of D20 coverage actually feels like they watched the press screener and then never returned to the show. And I do not know the politics about them, but given that several of these publications (notably Polygon, but some others) have been shitting on Critical Role for several years, and just generally given the way CR's leadership vs. how D20's leadership respond to fandom pressure, I suspect Critical Role does not give these journalists a ton of early or increased, if any. Honestly, why should you, if you're getting interviewed in Variety? And I think the journalists are mad, because they think they're special and should get treated as such.

I do want to wrap something up, and I want to thank @captainofthetidesbreath for talking a little about this in game design/ttrpgs and giving me the idea, but in story, you should be challenging your audience, expanding their horizons, and being new and interesting. In the actual playing of TTRPGs, especially a new one, it is vital to be inclusive and easy to understand and patient and provide points of reference. I really feel like many Actual Play journalists and some TTRPG ones as well have this equation flipped and are looking for challenging concepts that most people will never be able to get a group to be willing to play, and bells and whistles in production, but leave story as an afterthought. Critical Role designs games to actually be played and to be used specifically to tell good stories, and puts story before production, and I think that undercuts those journalists' whole deal.

[hxjikonn]

Hello! Congrats on 143 followers! You deserve it!

Could I request Malleus, Kalim, Vil, Ace, and Jamil with an s/o telling them they're the best thing to have ever blessed her eyes?

A/N: ’M GONNA CRY I LOVE THIS SM 😭♥︎ I have a 3-4 characters limit though so I had to take out Vil and Jamil as I didn’t have time 😔 maybe I’ll add a pt.2 in the future with the two in it! I hope you like it!

Got me Lovestruck

☆Staring☆: Ace Trappola, Malleus Draconia, and Kalim Al Asim

Synopsis: Their reaction to Fem!Reader suddenly saying they’re ‘the best things to ever bless her eyes’

Warnings: Tooth rooting fluff, I don’t proofread my shit so prolly grammatical errors, missing words, etc. I’m sorry💀💀💀

Ace Trappola

You two were doing your usual trouble causing habits, only to be caught by one of the teachers and get sent to detention. “I cant believe we have to write a 500 word essay about why we shouldn’t balance stuff on top of sleeping people’s heads….” Ace groaned quite heavily slamming his head down his desk.

“Like, it’s not OUR fault they fell asleep where we are! That should be an unspoken rule! ‘never fall asleep around Ace or Y/n’ right???” He turned to look at you with a frown as his head still laid there, you giggle at your boyfriend’s frustration and reached over to play with his hair in attempt to calm him down from his tantrum.

After awhile he stopped ranting and just doodle on the paper near where his face rested on his desk, pouting but enjoying the feeling of your hands running through his hair. You found yourself chuckling at the boy’s expression, you always found it endearing how he made you laugh at any given situation…it was one of the reasons why you fell for him…

“Ace you’re one of the best things to ever bless my eyes y’know that?” You blurted out, a soft smile plastered on your face as you looked at him. Needless to say he stopped whatever nonsense he was doing and looked right back at you. Eyes widened and shocked from the sudden confession you’ve made.

Cue Microsoft shut down sound

Wouldn’t know how to react, like his heart is pounding and wants to kiss you right then and there but also a nervous wreck

All his ‘rizz’ that he’d usually brag about would be flushed down the drain, and he has now downgraded into a flustered speechless boy.

When you notice he was acting like a deer caught in headlights, you leaned in and pecked his forehead to bring him back to reality.

He wanted to melt, that’s what he felt like. He pulled you closer to him by the waist and just buried himself in your embrace.

You’d tease him but let him do that until his brain starts running again and is able to produce words.

Once he’s up and running again he’d gather enough courage to leave soft kisses on your collarbone as he’s still too red to kiss your face.

“I fucking love you, I cant- I don’t even- Ughhhh see??? this is what you do to me?? Oh my gosh…”

Malleus Draconia

You two were out on your nightly walks again and he’s going on a tangent about gargoyles while holding on to your hand, you listened and probably know what he’s talking about already due to countless times he’s mention this subject to you whenever it sparks up in your conversations.

Still you listened to him fondly, showing interest to his likings aswell, occasionally you’d ask him questions, and he’d elaborate. You loved how enthusiastic he was when he talks about the things that he likes, the hobbies he does, or anything at all if your being honest.

The horned fae’s voice was like that song you’ll never get tired of, suddenly a question from him cuts you off your train of thought “aren’t they the greatest creatures to bless this earth my dear?” He asks you. “I beg to differ” you protested, he was shocked as you always agreed with him on this, “oh? well then please do” he offers, awaiting for your argument. He was always up for a friendly debate.

You smiled up at him, “They’re not the greatest thing to ever bless MY eyes…because that would be you, my prince” and lifted up his hands to plant a small kiss on his knuckles. “And my opinion wont be swayed so don’t even try tsunotaro” you grinned at him. Suddenly though…your lover stopped walking.

He hears church bells ringing lol

He’d passionately but gently give you a kiss, you’d have to be the one who pulls away frist because this man isn’t stopping 🥹

He was already asking DEMANDING you marry him and ‘no’ isn’t an option. Already has your whole life with him planned in his head.

You’d giggle at his sudden statement and he explains to you that he wasn’t joking. You’d assure him that you knew he wasn’t but ‘not now’

He frowns, but understands and doesn’t push you any further (for now at least) He couldn’t leave you that night, so he stayed over and slept beside you. Coddling you with affection

Would be thinking about what you said to him everyday and smiling, he’d set the whole world on fire if you wanted him to, no questions asked.

After that day he’d keep asking ‘when’ you were going to marry him. And would be stuck to you like glue.

“Malleus…this isn’t your class” “I understand sir Trein but I simply cannot leave my wife…” “WIFE?!?!” “EXCUSE ME??!” “Mal go to your class”

Kalim Al Asim

You two were just hanging out in Scarabia, he was simply laying on your chest, content as he watched vidoes on his phone. These were the days where it was peaceful, the only sounds that were heard were birds chirping and occasionally small talk from the two of you.

Kalim was busying himself with the content his phone provided, making little noises like gasps or laughs from time to time. You just watched him, as his expression changes, finding yourself laughing aswell because you thought he was cute.

He’d look up at you from his phone and ask what you found amusing but you’d tell him that it was nothing and he’d just go back to doing what he was doing. This went on for awhile until he puts down his phone and looks up at you with a pout, “What?? You’ve been laughing since earlier, is there something on my face?…” he whines, climbing up the cushion to meet your eyes and lays down beside you.

You nod, so he starts wiping his face with his hands you only respond with a laugh again, slowly you took his hands off his face and replaces them with yours, “What? What’s on my face?“ he asks, “The best thing to ever bless my eyes” you answered and gave him a kiss. You swore you saw his pupils dilate.

Would cry 💀💀💀 no seriously he’d start tearing up.

You notice this and ask what was wrong, finding it a bit funny that your boyfriend just starts crying for no reason.

He’d burry his face in your chest sobbing, hands wrapped tightly on your waist, mumbling little I love you’s

You laugh at him for this as you thought it was adorable, you peppered him with kisses to make him stop crying.

When you ask him again he’d just say that he loves you so much that’s why he started crying. And once again burry himself in your warmth.

Would rub hearts on your back and leave kisses on your neck sometimes. When you end up falling asleep first he’d watch you sleep and tell you how much you mean to him.

Would always remind you that he loves you everyday from then on. Like ALL THE TIME, you have to tell him to stop sometimes ‘cuz it comes at the most RANDOM of hours.

“Y/n….?” “Hm???” “I love you okay? Very much…” “love it’s 3 in the morning” “I know, I just wanted to tell you that, go back to sleep now, I love you” “Hm…I love you too..” “I love you more-“ “Kalim…”