#i also read the twitlonger and i do not think that is was enough

[oceanofsoup]

Ya know its pretty fucked that no matter the outcome of this whole situation, it's going to fuck over anyone associated with him/dsmp. Whether they're close friends or not there's gonna be people that find issue with cc's for ever interacting with him. They don't deserve that shit, and I really hope they just don't say anything and let him properly address everything.

[ghosthouses27]

I think what people are getting at more than anything is that if Quackity had responded to Dream and shown that they were still on good terms/friends, then people on both sides of the fandom would have backed down. I don't think there was the implication that Quackity was responsible for the doxxing though, it just happened that there was a communication breakdown between the 2 of them and then because it wasn't resolved quick enough for the internet's liking it just got taken way too far by a bunch of freaks.

Fair enough that it was confusing though, it was an essay and a half and twitter is not made for easy reading 💀

i don't personally think that anyone has an obligation to text someone back, but i do think Quackity should have addressed the usmp in some way, probably with a neutral statement about not sending like death threats and stuff

also god, i wish that man had just written a twitlonger, those tweets are pretty hard to read

[calamitydaze]

...what uh...what happened in january? /gq

-@robs-sideblobs (new to the fandom as of like, june)

(actual explanation under the cut 😭)

okay disclaimer: this happened ages ago and it’s unique in the sense that it pretty much never breached containment, so it wasn’t documented and everyone who was there kinda agreed not to talk about it anymore. so this is all just based on what i can remember, i don’t have receipts or anything (but i don’t mind you asking at all! i hate when people gatekeep stuff i wasn’t there for so i’m happy to explain, just wanna be clear why people are so hush hush about it)

so in november 2021 this guy popped up on twitter called manatreed who was an up-and-coming faceless streamer (he’d been posting sporadically since june, but people only started noticing then). and this was the era where dream team christmas was still a possibility, so people started putting the pieces together: faceless white guy in florida, has dream’s exact pair of arthritis gloves, wears the same clothing brand sapnap does, claims to be a streamer but never promoted a twitch, followed by/has dms with dream and sapnap and interactions with a lot of big ccs + ANNOUNCED TO BE JOINING THE DSMP despite having No content whatsoever, “manatreed” is an almost exact anagram of “dream team”, irl name is ollie and his first tweet was on the day sapnap posted a video of him doing an ollie (YES some of these are reaches but they’re all things people were saying) and most damning of all, dream hadn’t said “it’s not me /srs” even though he normally hates people impersonating him. what if....... this was dream?

and then manatreed says he’ll do his first stream when he hits 300k on twitter, and two months go by, and in january he hits 300k on twitter and goes live on the dsmp. and it’s... not dream. it’s just a guy. who isn’t dream. OKAY. he and dream explain (i think-- i don’t remember this part super clearly) that they were old friends who reconnected when mana wanted to start content creation, and dream agreed to give him a boost. which, okay. still fucking wild but it’s less weird if he isn’t Just Some Guy. and i was a twitter stan at the time (lurking on dtblr), but people on my tl really warmed up to him. i was pretty indifferent, but he seemed sweet enough, so sure, whatever. he ended the stream an hour or two later and we assumed he’d be continuing with content creation

and this is the part i’m gonna have to be really vague about unfortunately because a lot of it hinges on doxxed info which i don’t want to spread at all. but very very shortly after that first stream (could’ve been the day after? i’m not sure) a thread came out alleging that manatreed’s real identity was someone with a history of abusing women including an active battery charge, and dream had let mana live in his house and given him an online platform knowing this. again, without going into the info (the fandom, at least on twt, was worryingly willing to hold hands with doxxers and cyberstalkers to get to the bottom of this), the only thing i can really say about my opinion is that given dream’s history as a victim of domestic violence i found it unlikely that he would knowingly harbor and promote an abuser, and that it would be incredibly uncharacteristically stupid if he did know. i also know that the thread coming out was part of a planned takedown by kiwifarms + leaktwt, who have a history of faking things (regardless of whether or not it was true, that’s part of the context of a lot of dream’s controversies in this era). dream’s initial response was.... not good (when people refer to “the gullible tweet” this is what they mean-- he said we were being gullible for believing the accusations and sapnap immediately went live as damage control) but he later wrote a twitlonger which you can read here. recently manatreed’s twitch bio was changed to say that he will not ever be coming back to content creation, and... that was that.

as someone who’s been here since november 2020 i can say january was the worst incident to ever happen-- the fandom recovered, but it’s never really been the same. i think although it ended in a way that was satisfying enough to let most of us continue supporting him, it shook the foundation and the situation happening now is reminding people a lot of that, which might be why the reaction has been so extreme. so yeah! that was january

[zinkleberg]

retrospective & starting over

This is a bit odd to say the least but it’s been 8 months since I posted that original “Cyberpunk Fandom Rant” Twitlonger, if anyone’s memory is good enough for that lol. If not, that’s fine, and tbh I want people to forget about it. Keep reading for more ranting lol. The link to the original post is here.

Given the time that’s passed and how much my life has changed, I’ve sat around and thought about last year in detail. This is mostly for myself, so bear with me (or don’t, nobody has to read this), I don’t necessarily disagree with what I wrote back then but I also feel like I would’ve gone about it differently had I written it now. Many of the individuals I was aiming at in that vaguepost I don’t personally have a strong opinion about anymore. Ofc life happens, things move on and so do people, but as time went on I realized that no amount of posting and complaining was going to fix anything so I’m confident I wasted my energy back then and any other time I complained about fandom drama online; preaching to the choir basically. For what it’s worth, I didn’t really know what I actually hoped to accomplish with those posts. I was mostly just disheartened to know how things were going and felt obligated to do something about it, however I didn’t really take an afternoon to think about it. Do I believe some of it needed to be said? Yeah, sure, and I still believe there’s issues with this fandom and all fandoms like it but I’m basically at this point in my life where I can’t be asked to care that much about it anymore. I don’t believe any of the people I had in mind while writing that post are intentionally bad people, just people who made mistakes, same as me. I said time and time again back then that drama didn’t matter to me but it definitely did, I had nothing better to do, and now that I do have something worthwhile to do I see how silly it was to actively engage and spark issues where there were none had I just let the problems sort themselves out. If there are people who still agree with what I or Silvay said back then that’s fine, you’re entitled to your opinions. If you ended up hating us for those things that’s also fine, I can live with that. I think, now, I’m simply doing what I believe is right and correcting past mistakes where I feel I was steered one way or another by other influences aside from my own better judgment.  At the end of the day, if anyone wants to talk I’d be more than willing, if not that’s also fine, I do still believe communication is the key to success but how you choose to communicate (or not) is up to you. 

[txbbo]

I've been debating making this because this is definitely not what my blog is known for and I was worried that people wouldn't want to see it, but with the amount of shit im seeing on twitter it's compelled me to make this because I'm so frustrated.

I feel like I could make 100 posts about 'Cancel Culture' and it wouldn't be enough, so I'm just going to focus on what caused me to write this tonight - the Tommy situation. *Warning for a VERY long post below*

To be clear, Tommy has been in 'hot water' on twitter for the past couple weeks, roughly starting with the KSI collaboration where he made a joke about dream stans.

Last week, when the SBI 'exposing account' got made and twitter hyped it up, someone made a Tommy account and made a thread of things he needed to be '''educated''' on: https://twitter.com/idktommyinnit/status/1379158964148002821?s=20

I'll let you read it for yourself (and come to your own conclusion) but to me.... half of this stuff does not require a twitter thread? Breaking it down accusation by accusation:

1) 'The Mexican accent' - the clips show he is clearly only doing it when copying big Q (who famously exaggerates his own accent) and there is zero malicious intent (Big Q is also IN the 3 clips mentioned in the thread, and obviously didn't tell Tommy it was offensive). There's debates in the comments from people who think it is offensive and people who don't, so I'm not trying to pick a side. To avoid accidentally offending anyone, maybe it is best for him to stop, but the way twitter acts as if he was purposefully doing this to offend people is just not true.

2- 'Making a slave joke' - Even saying that feels wrong, because it suggests Tommy is doing something awful. Instead, they are referring to the 'bit' that Tommy, Techno, Tubbo and Ant were involved in, when Tommy and Techno took Tubbo and Ant as their slave. People are taking this vod and using it to accuse Tommy of being insensitive to Black people, but I think people are just assuming the worst. Slavery existed long before the transatlantic slave trade and still exists today. This is a role-play server - Tommy 'forced' Ant to work for him and used the word slave, which to me is exactly what was happening? People 'murder' others on the SMP, people 'kidnap' on the SMP, people are 'terrorists' on the SMP, and all happen without issue. To add, Ant is a WHITE man. Tommy taking a WHITE man as a slave is not something uber problematic.

3- 'His reply to Techno's 'murder is bad' tweet'. - I get people saying that Techno's initial tweet was insensitive, but saying Tommy's agreement to this from almost over a year ago is something notable and worth addressing is just super nitpicky and is clearly only in there to pad out the thread. It also makes me wonder what other CC's interacted with it and if THEY should be cancelled too (according to twitter).

4 - 'The saying slurs' tweet / jokes about 'whats the worst word you know' - This one I can kinda see how people might not like it. However, it's clearly a 'poke' at his friends, making them seem like bad people. To me, its in the same vein as 'Tubbo is a Tory' or when Tubbo shoots back that 'Tommy is a Nigel Farage fan'. They're obviously not, but its making fun of your friends by saying they are, and mockingly making them out out to be bad people.

5- 'Covid jokes' - People are taking jokes he made about him 'having covid' and saying he shouldn't joke about this, even going as far to linking it to asian hate crimes. I don't even know how to explain that that this is just? not a 'cancellable offence'? I'm sorry but if I hear anyone in my family coughing I make a little joke that 'they better not have covid' and I know other people do. I have someone in my family who is extremely vulnerable to Covid and if they caught it, would quite literally die, but I can understand that jokes like these are harmless. The whole internet had a running joke that we were in a 'panoramic' or 'Panera' or 'insert any word that sounds like pandemic.

This thread got a lot of attention and anything he tweeted afterwards was spammed with the link and there were so many people upset that he hadn't addressed it. I saw so many people say how 'upset' and 'disappointed' they were in him.

Going on to today, this happened: https://twitter.com/khasiid/status/1380611890104139776?s=20

I get it, it looks bad. But for context (which the tweet doesn't give), the reply was only up for less than a minute. It was obvious to me, even BEFORE Tommy addressed it in his stream (clip here: https://twitter.com/cowrpse/status/1380640046202593283?s=20 ) that it was a mistake. In the clip, he clearly acknowledges his mistake and seems embarrassed. To me, this situation should just be laid to rest because a mistake does not need this much attention, but twitter disagrees.

In case it wasn't obvious by now, the tide is turning against Tommy and people are less willing to ignore genuine mistakes and assume the worst.

Today, during his birthday stream people were clearly already waiting for him to mess up. Around half way through, he started saying 'finna' out of context and Tubbo joined in. This led to tons of tweets telling him he was misusing AAVE, and while there were plenty of people willing to be patient and educate, there were also people seeing this as an example of him being a 'bad person' and someone who should be 'without a platform'. I think people forget that not everyone has the same internet upbringing as they do. In general, I think its noted that the misuse of AAVE is something that has just recently been brought to attention. I learned about it through tiktok and stan twitter, and I don't think it's unimaginable that a British 17 year old boy (who is not active on either) has never heard of 'African American Vernacular English'.

Just for a fuller picture, today has also brought about another 'criticism' that I just had to address.

1) 'Tommy made a KKK joke' - Like the 'slavery' point, saying this is extremely misleading. It makes people think the worst. Here's the clip: https://twitter.com/ghostburz/status/1380673589612011522?s=20

Here, Tommy and Tubbo are both joking about Tubbo's 'bit' of naming his alt streams 'aaaaaaaaaa', 'bbbbbbb', 'cccccc', etc and how it would've been bad if it was 'kkkkkkkk' (for obvious reasons). That is literally it. It is a less than 20 second clip. Acknowledging that people woulda thought about the 'KKK' is not him 'not understanding Black issues', its a throwaway joke about the obvious.

Lastly, someone on twitter has made a tommyinnit (address asap) doc - https://docs.google.com/document/d/1tZEZtBzikS-EYYkssfFtwVOoFqOwCK0zhStLe6H1wCc/edit

I've basically already covered everything in this document, but I wanted to mention how extremely 'guilt trippy' the whole thing is. I struggled to come up with the perfect word for the situation, and I am open to hearing other peoples opinion, but as I have mentioned none of these things Tommy has been accused of were done with malicious intent, and some I believe don't even need addressed at all.

'slavery is a source of astronomical trauma for black people, and isn’t something to be taken lightly if you’re to look into the horrors of the slave trade."

and "Oftentimes they are the last words we hear before we die and it really is not Tommy’s place to joke about words that affect us so negatively."

Are extremely emotional words for a 17-year-old boy to hear on his birthday, for stuff that I believe has been taken out of context and blown out of proportion.

I really feel bad for him, because such a large proportion of twitter (which ofc is the loudest side of the fanbase) is angry at him and is demanding (as the document says) ''either a stream or twitter thread/twitlonger to addressing this' and 'a long and serious apology instead of a short statement pre-stream'.

We all know how twitter works, and unless his apology is perfect (which to me means apologising for stuff that he should't have to, as explained in the thread), twitter will continue with this weird hyper focus on everything he does, and it's not going to end well.

Twitter's mentality of 'putting everything this person has done that could ever be considered problematic' into one neat little thread is so unhelpful and counter intuitive. I got overwhelmed reading some of the stuff people were saying about him, I can't imagine how he feels.

I feel like I have more to say but at risk of writing an essay longer than my actual work I have to do, I'm going to end here.

[enderwalking]

my take on this: i knew dream was in a tough spot in responding to all this, because to explicitly confirm or deny that mana is the guy would be to expose not just mana's identity and personal info, but also that of dream himself, his family, and the victim. so in that regard, i think deplatforming mana is the best thing he could have done, and i'm glad he did so.

aside from that, well. obviously my instinct is to be biased in dream's favor. i think any self-identifying dream stan would say that we have stood behind him in the trenches of a lot of misinformation and false accusations thrown his way because we know that he has repeatedly proven that he is a decent person who wants to use his platform for good.

i still, in my heart of hearts, believe this to be the case. but i won't lie, the way he publicly handled this situation has left a bad taste in my mouth, and it has tarnished the respect i had for dream in a major way. the blatant pandering with the damage control streams speaks to me like a kick in the teeth, a flippant response to a massively serious situation. at best, dream was being an absolute idiot who couldn't read the room; at worst, he thinks that WE'RE idiots, and that he could toss us a couple bones and make the whole thing go away.

personally, the response in dream's twitlonger is enough to at least make me feel...at least okay? about continuing in this fandom, and about engaging on some level with dream's content. i believe him when he says that he would never knowingly support an abuser, and i do genuinely still think that he is a decent, if sometimes misguided, person.

however, if dream does not make some kind of statement regarding specifically the attempted damage control, i am never going to be able to have the same kind of respect for him that i've had in the past, because that would mean that he does not have any of the respect for his community that i thought he did.

[yukidragon]

When chapter 1 first came out Toby made a twitlonger to answer some questions people may have and here's what he said about the connection between Undertale and Deltarune.

"What you're seeing here is not the world of UNDERTALE. UNDERTALE's world and ending are the same as however you left them. If everyone was happy in your ending, the people in the UNDERTALE world will still be happy. So, please don't worry about those characters, and that world. It will remain untouched".

He also said, "To rephrase that, DELTARUNE's world is a different one. With different characters, that have lived different lives. A whole new story will happen... I don't know what you call this kind of game. It's just a game you can play after you complete UNDERTALE, if you want to. That's all".

This means that the Genocide ending of Undertale has no relation to Deltarune, especially considering the fact that not everyone has done/wants to do a Genocide run. So it wouldn't make sense for Chara to be involved at all since they only wanted to erase the world and move on the next (presumably another game) because of the events that took place during the Genocide route.

Obviously Kris is their own person struggling against the control of the player, that being even more evident in the Snowgrave route and certain reactions they have towards actions the player makes throught the main game. But to shifting the blame onto a character from another game is pretty redundant and misses the point of Deltarune's theme of choices not mattering that being your choices and Kris's choices.

I know that you don't like Chara and have a lot of issues with them and I'm not going to go into a rant on whether or not they're "evil" but cmon. Trying to make them out as "The big bad" in Deltarune is pretty unnecessary.

Hang on, who said I don’t like Chara?

I’m pretty sure I’ve said repeatedly that I’m a Chara fan? I mean, why else would I get so deep into character analysis of them and co-work on an ask blog centered around her?

You can enjoy a fictional character but still think they did bad things and theorize that they had ill-intentions. Those two things are not mutually exclusive.

Anyway, onto the part about Deltarune... I’m aware of Toby’s statement. I’m also aware that Toby has established that this is a multiverse by creating Deltarune in the first place. How I interpreted his statement, and Deltarune’s existence in general, was that everyone’s personal interpretation of their own playthrough and the story they made with Frisk and the others is canon. There are worlds where players chose genocide, pacifist, neutral, or even abandoning the run in perpetuity.

Personally, I think that’s fantastic. It means people are free to read into the game, its events, and its characters in the way that most resonates with them and that’s absolutely valid.

I think it’s absolutely true that the player has a part to play in Deltarune, similarly to how they play a part in Undertale. The control the player has over Kris is definitely a plot point.

However, there are also blatant references to Chara in Kris’ story. From Kris’ appearance, their brandishing a knife, glowing red eyes, their love of chocolate, and even having possession of a red soul... These are things that are revealed in Undertale. There’s no way these references are unintentional given the references to other characters and plotlines from Undertale.

Does this mean Chara is the final boss? No. I don’t even think that’ll be the case. My personal opinion is that Chara is tied to Kris in some way. Whether that means Kris is Chara (or an amalgamation of Chara and Frisk), Chara is influencing Kris, or there’s some other connection, we don’t know yet. There’s only two chapters of the story so far, nowhere near enough to tell us the ending to the story.

From what I’ve interpreted of Chara’s actions in Undertale, as well as events in a genocide run, it leads me to a theory that Deltarune is the world moved on from a genocide run. A genocide run. Not to say that every single Undertale world has a genocide run, but it’s possible that after one game - one world - finished on genocide, that specific Chara moved onto the next world and that world is Deltarune.

Am I married to this theory? Oh heavens no. There’s not enough of the story for this to be anything more than speculation at this point. There’s plenty of other theories floating around online and inside my noggin. I just find this one to be the most appealing to me. I fully expect it to be proven wrong and find that Toby intended to take things into a different direction.

I just like this theory because, well, I am a Chara fan. I’m interested in seeing their story continue and learning more about them. I might be decently confident in my personal interpretation about them from Undertale, but I’m hardly an expert. I’m just a rainbow cat putting a puzzle together that’s missing at least half the pieces and guessing what the picture actually is.

If you don’t agree with that theory, that’s absolutely fine. Your interpretation of what’s going on sounds valid to me.

[theshoulderoforion]

After a year and 6 months of torture and frighteningly similar circumstances, Progressive finally paid the paltry 50,000 under insured policy holder of the woman who ran over my 93 y.o. father. He was in perfect health. So before you buy Progressive think again. They only protect themselves and have the attorneys to do so.

I’m glad I didn’t need the money to bury him.

Here’s somebody’s story with Progressive. AUG 18, 2012

Progressive Settles After Terrible Insurance Tale Goes Viral

Progressive has settled with the family of a policyholder that claimed the insurance company defended her killer, but the deal came about only after the truly awful story made its way around the Internet.

Matt Fisher, the policyholder’s brother, blogged about his family’s ordeal this week in a Tumblr post titled, “My Sister Paid Progressive Insurance to Defend Her Killer in Court.” In the blog post, Matt detailed how his sister Katie was killed in 2010 when a driver ran a red light and struck her car while she was crossing in an intersection. The other driver was underinsured, meaning it was up to Katie’s insurance company — Progressive — to pay the balance of the value of the policy she had taken out to protect herself against uninsured or underinsured drivers.

But, according to Matt Fisher, Progressive didn’t want to do that.

Matt Fisher:

At which point we learned the first surprising thing about Progressive: Carrying Progressive insurance and getting into an accident does not entitle you to the value of your insurance policy. It just pisses off Progressive’s lawyers. Here I address you, Prospective Progressive Insurance Customer: someday when you have your accident, I promise that there will be enough wiggle room for Progressive’s bottomless stack of in-house attorneys to make a court case out of it and to hammer at that court case until you or your surviving loved ones run out of money.

Read more

And because the Fishers lived in Maryland, they couldn’t sue the insurance company to get the money. So, they were forced to sue the driver. And because Progressive evidently did not want to have to pay Katie’s family, the company’s legal team shockingly and outrageously helped the man who had killed her.

Yes, even though the company claimed that the man’s insurer, Nationwide, represented him, a report showed that Progressive’s legal team helped his defense.

The Daily Mail:

Court documents clearly show that Progressive filed as an ‘interested party’ and was ‘allowed to intervene as a party defendant’ and ‘granted all rights to participate in this proceeding as if it were an original party to this case.’

Which means they not only assisted the defense, but acted as if they were the defense.

Read more

Talk about a nightmare insurance story. The family had to endure a trial that should not have even happened. Although Katie’s estate was eventually awarded $760,000 by a Baltimore jury, the verdict came against the driver, not Progressive, and the Fishers were unlikely to see most of that money. Three days after Matt Fisher’s post, the company reached a deal with the family. The amount of the settlement was not disclosed, but the family’s attorney said it was for “tens of thousands of dollars more” than the $75,000 claim balance the family had originally been seeking.

What makes the story even worse is the way Progressive’s social media team handled the whole situation — a series of robo-tweets in response to Matt Fisher’s post that said, “This is a tragic case, and our sympathies go out to Mr. Fisher and his family for the pain they’ve had to endure. We fully investigated this claim and relevant background, and feel we properly handled the claim within our contractual obligations. Again, this is a tragic situation, and we’re sorry for everything Mr. Fisher and his family have gone through.” We know they were automated, by the way, because the same tweet was tweeted at different Twitter users more than a dozen times.

The tweets from Progressive’s Twitter account have since been removed, and clicking on the TwitLonger links that accompanied the tweets show that the user account has been banned. Also, the picture of Flo (above), whom you are most likely familiar with if you’ve ever seen a Progressive commercial, has also been taken down.

After Matt Fisher’s story went viral, Progressive gave a pretty lame explanation of the situation. In a post on its website, the company said, “A trial was necessary so that a jury could review all of the evidence and come to a decision. In those circumstances, under Maryland law, the insurance company providing the Underinsured Motorist coverage is considered a defendant. As a defendant in this case, Progressive participated in the trial procedures on our own behalf while Nationwide represented the other driver.”

Note that by claiming it participated on its own behalf, Progressive basically admitted that it was protecting itself — not its policyholder. Bet you won’t see Flo touting that fact in a Progressive ad anytime soon.

— Posted by Tracy Bloom

[kastle09]

The Art of Commentary Storytelling (Part 2 of 2)

Storytelling the Arc, Series, Game

And we are back in more commentary theory, talking about the Arc, the Series, The Game.

Let me first define each of theses

The Arc: A players story in the competition, including previous tournament results, how they have done so far in the bracket/tournament. This is the most pre prepared content a caster can do.

The Series: The story of the set played between two players/teams. This is describing how players have adjusted and evolved in the moment. If a player is faltering or exceeding more then usual. If a player has had a mental adjustment and getting himself back in a series or is completely shutting down. This is the story that usually gets told in between games.

The Game: The story of a round, a play, a moment. This is the most difficult, because it happens the most quickly and is an automated response.  The key to this one is giving yourself outs In an anticipation of what may happen next.

The Arc

One of the reasons I wanted to write about this topic is I think when most people think “stories” they only think of it in terms of the Arc. Its certainly the easiest to conceptualise.

During Gfinity pre production meetings all the talent would come together as a group and try and think how we wanted to push the matchups that week. If one team had been on a bad streak recently, if a team was trying a new lineup, if a team was pushing for a spot for finals etc. We wanted to know, from the hosts, to the analytics, to the commentators how we were going to, collectively,  present what was so interesting about this week of matches. Especially if you are a neutral fan, it can let you choose a team/player you didn't know previously and root for them making it collectively more enjoyable and makes you more invested when you could be indifferent before.

Something I learned from Redeye, is the story can be something grown from statistics for example; A good team who haven't been able to beat this opposition in the head to head for 6 months.

But Storylines can also be incredible personal stories, and in fact some of the great stories in esports come from this.

Although not nice to consider but a person who has just experienced a loss in their family, someone who has been under great stress to perform recently, or someone who has an incredible important connection with the game for example.

These make the audience understand that these are very real human beings and can help in not trivialising the players solely down to just how well they frag, or how far they get in the bracket. Something extrinsic to the game that makes the players feel really relatable.  

The Series

How the series itself gets shaped is a little bit more spontaneous, but is still related to the Arc. Storytelling in the series is about finding similarities and differences to how you would usually expect them to play. In other words, try to think of the Arc as the baseline of your expectations of a player, while the Series is how far they stray from that baseline, whether that be far below or way above.

The example I often think about is 2017 EVO Grand Final between Punk and Tokido.

From the point of view of the Storytelling of the Arc, a few of the points James and Sajam spoke about:

Punk having an incredible run in the lead up to EVO, and being the favourite to win as an American.

Tokido has great history in Evo competitions but has never been able to close on main game with 2013 EVO being the closest he has gotten

Punk is equated with raw skill, fantastic reactions, excellent mechanics

Tokido is equated with time and experience, technical ability with Akuma, incredible mental fortitude and self control

And from there they can contrast it. James talking about how he has never seen Punk run into so many normals and buffers or the surprise from Sajam at Tokido doing a taunt combo to finish. They are very statement pieces from these players and the duo want to highlight what makes this different to every other time they have played. 

I especially like the way James frames the traits we associate with Punk like whiff punishing and uses it to both describe how well Tokido is playing and how unusual it is for Punk to be outplayed in this area.

The second is the way they adjust their vocabulary to emphasis especially after the reset. Sajam talking about Punk being unable to handle the pressure:

“its looking miserable for Punk”

“its so out of control, out of Punk's hands. He's gotta stop the bleeding”

“he Is marching all over him”

These are very emotive sentences, if you are a fan of Punk, the word choice from Sajam lets you inside and feels the same as he feels.

It became perfectly encapsulated when James said “Its all slipping away from him”.

That line is a perfect example of encapsulating what we feel as the audience. Its not boiled down to Punk playing off his game, its talking about someone who got so close and has seen the prize just out of his reach.

The Game

Telling the stories of the rounds, the moment by moment action is probably one of the hardest things to do, even though its what you are doing most of the time. Is it even possible to do it? 

Whenever I've had trouble thinking of how I'm going to call action I think about how Sadokist called the Snax 1v4 Pistol clutch.

As Well as the Clip to follow a long at home

Lets go back to the pacing curve we talked about in part 1, and to keep it really simple we are just going to use each frag as the story beat.

The important thing to note is how Sadokist will adjust his pace and tone to suit the tension of the spot. Remember that the situation for Snax is so unlikely. For HenryG and Sadokist you are probably ready to think and talk about Navi winning the pistol round, build into the next 3 rounds and think about building momentum to get back into the map.

And Sadokist tone still suggest that at first, it isn’t overblown or ramping up yet.

Seized: “Does find one, lets not leave him out of this”

Allows a line to set himself up but what I find most interesting in this period is just after the first kill and before Snax is about to enter site, you will hear Sadokist reset by first pausing and then starting back down at a lower tone: “already got 1 kill on the USP (Pause) … low hp as well ...”.

This allows him to do two things. The first is he gets a breath in to begin a long piece of action and the second is it lets him manage and control crowd expectations.

If say Snax gets clipped in a trade kill, he hasnt said anything outlandish and can smoothly transition with Henry into the next round.

s1mple: “as he dances BACK and FORTH between the box oh ...”

guadian: “what a SHOT ON s1mple! Oh Guardian Bye Bye”

Next two happen very quickly and mid sentence as well

Its clear that he is building naturally with excitement. But also what I think is interesting beside the increase in tone and pacing is the sentences themselves need to be shorter. Its to catchup to the action at first but I think it also acts perfectly in big moments like this.

The more intense and hyper the action gets the less you need to say because its going to speak for itself. Sadokist first describing Snax baiting into 1v1s and using the Box cover is great for the setup but as each beat happens, the less you need to say. Does it mean anything to explain anything hyper analytical in that spot? Definitely not and that's also why Henry doesn't feel the need to say anything during the whole 40secs apart from a bleak “oh no”

flamie: “WHAT IN GODS NAME IS THAT FROM SNAX, UNBELIEVEABLE!”

Oh I get chills every time I listen to that line. The play gets better and better the more I watch it.

At this point as both a commentator and an audience member you are at a peak level of your excitement. We are at the climax point but like I said in part 1, you need to be able to bring the audience back down. Not all the way, mind you because its another beat in the story of the series, but just enough to not overwhelm the crowd and allow the chance for other moments to stand out, or to let this one stand out as an important moment in the set. Contrast remember.

Sadokist's line is the equivalent of the follow through your bat swing. It's the turning point to release all that tension that we built up and readying to lead you to the next bit of action.

Its a masterclass by Snax, but I think it also shows why Sadokist is one of the best play by play commentators in the world.

___________________________________________________

If you have read the twitlonger I posted along with this article you will know that this topic has something I’ve been long thinking about and wanted to write about but have had some reservations in how to present it and if I had a right too. To be able to explain to people just one aspect of something I really enjoy is a real pleasure and if you are a commentator or not, I hope you enjoyed seeing a different kind of perspective.

It may be a while before I release another article. with online tafe about to start back so I will have something to do in quarantine. Until next time!

[bedlamgames]

Q&A #93

Next update is very close to being done, so time to get back on the answering questions horse. Plan is to also do these as twitlongers for those that no longer want to deal with tumblr. 

Anonymous said: The good news is that for explicit content posted in the past, tumblr seems to be willing to let it stay (if my reading of their announcement is correct) -- you may be able to keep this blog as an archive, but wherever you choose to move I'd gladly follow. (I'm already pledged for a dollar on Patreon so that shouldn't be a problem.)

Actually, belay my last message, creating your own website might not be a bad idea. I know that SilverBardGames has their own website and that's like my other indie game developer (with explicit content) that I follow. Word of mouth might still work to spread the good word.

That’s the plan. I do definitely need to sort out a website though sometime. If this experience has shown me anything it’s that relying on a single resource is a baaaad idea. 

justanothorguy1 said: Where are you going to post you new download links for you games?

Will still post them here, the patreon, TFGames, and the Collective. Will also post them going forward on the twitter. 

rafaelivri said: 1. Somehow my slaver that I recruit started with cum lust+++. Is this even intentional (that they can have it from the very beginning)? 2. Any way to get rid of it? 

Worked out what was causing that and it should be fixed in the update. 

Anonymous said: I'm not sure if this a bug but recently I've been getting a lot of slaves and slavers whose descriptions say that they're barely taller than a goblin.

Maybe a weird run of RNG? Not heard that from anyone else yet so one to keep an eye on I think. 

Anonymous said: was wondering if theres a walkthough for no haven somewhere? i played a bunch of it and interested to figure out what i missed

There is a wiki which you can find a link to on the No Haven page here. Not something under my control though so no idea if there’s a walkthrough out there. 

Anonymous said: watch as your posts get flagged anyway tho *shrug*

Been over a month and no flagged posts so worked out how to handle that apparently :D

Anonymous said: I don't think your link in the latest blogpost is supposed to lead to some tony mo and his videogame loveletters on patreon.

Oops missed a character in the copy/paste. Thanks for the spot. 

Anonymous said: i had a idea for a no heaven maybe some content where your bed warmer slave takes control of you in bed if there dominate and your secretly submissive. and if the there a dominator or hypono they start taking more control of your over time secretly controlling you and camp form behind close door.

That’s been on the books for awhile where certain slaves will be very dangerous to have as a bedwarmer. For a start those mantras coming in the next update just might end up being used on you in future updates. 

joyfullyunadulteratedruins said: Is the Hypnopics thread gone? That's the only way I can download No Haven now, and the download link here is still on version 0.821

Looks to be still there to me?

Anonymous said: [no haven 0.832] imgur a/d4SJMAC is it intentional that a fel person doesn't want to get corrupted?

[no haven 0.832] imgur /a/J0ooMqC the love being desecrated drone until entirely embedded sounds to me like the check doesn't have to be done anymore, but I keep having to do it.

Yeah for some reason they may not always think that you have their best interests at heart :)

That other one is a temporary bodge of their thoughts to overwhelm their resistance. In future though there will be more permanent alterations possible like with slaves in the next update. 

Anonymous said: Could we, in the future, have a fourth-wall option to discard a slave or slaver? No reward given, just a simple deletion. It's happened to me a few times where assignments that involve specific slaves - such as the lamia in Dance the Night Away or the drow males in the Deep Mtns quest - bug out at the turn in and leave behind a slave you cannot get rid of. Also been numerous times where I've gotten an abysmal roll on a slaver and had to wait for a guaranteed disaster quest to get rid of them.

Previous anon here who was asking for the fourth-wall purge. Yes, I am aware that there's a quest to remove unwanted slavers. However, since you can't reliably force it to pop, its usefulness is inconsistent at best. Also, it gives a payout and only works on slavers - the purge I'm asking for would be more universal and give nothing. Just a convenient deletion to improve gameplay. The accompanying picture could be a screaming stickman being sucked into a black hole.

I’d prefer to fix bugs rather than do workarounds if possible. Been down that path before and it only complicate things badly. 

The reason why there’s no outright dismiss a slaver is that from the beginning on of the challenges I wanted was some of your own slavers so just booting them would lose a lot of fun possibilities. 

Saying that I do want to do more with morale/reputation so that slavers have a chance to get fed up enough that you can drive them away. I’m also planning a new assignment which will be a risk free depending on choices way to dump unwanted slaves without need for chancing the Whore Makers.  

Anonymous said: Hi! Thank you for for that great game! Some questions about the future: 1) Will we have any mechanics with C:Devices and C:Enchantment in the near future? 2) Any plans to expand the list of slave trainings with anal/vaginal tranings or something else?

Thank you!

Maybe not near, near future, but certainly sooner rather than later as both I want to have as encampment roles. Next update also has some of the groundwork for enchanting. 

Yes absolutely more training is coming including bimbo training in the next update. 

nh-maikochan said: Bug report: Had a slaver level up and had the option for the aspect "Friends in High Places", however, when I clicked on -View Choices-, it instead gave me the entry for "A Friend in Every Port", however the text for that made reference to Scouting the Deep Mountains instead of the Dreadsea Coast. "Aspect: A Friend in Every Port - Requires Friendly and two Scout the Deep Mountains Success or Crits, awards an additional two assignments on Scout the Deep Mountains Success or Crit results."

So just had an interesting bug. I took a slave to auction, my camp leader going along on the assignment, got a critical result, and while the assignment said that the slave was sold, she ended up coming back with me. Some factors that may have had an effect: Had gotten word that bimbo slaves were in demand, and the slave was indeed a bimbo and my leader has Inquisitor, which activated giving me an assignment.

First one I’ve sorted for the update. 

Other was that slave bimboborn? Cause I think that might be causing issues with selling. 

Anonymous said: Hi! What do you think about oppotunity not only gain new perks when slaver lvl up, but to remove existing ones, such as Unruly or Reserved for example? Thank you!

My current plan is to use hypnotic to tackle those unwanted mental traits. Certainly not a bad idea though. 

Decided that it wouldn’t be a bad idea to pull in questions from other sources to give as much info as possible out in one place at one time. So going forward I’m also going to be including some of the questions asked elsewhere along with including the answers I made. 

From TFGames: I'm a little confused as to biomancy and hypnotism and changing other characters. The odds seem to really not like being "in the field" but I can't figure out where else to be? Also, I can't seem to figure out what hypnotic triggers actually do when you put them on a slaver. Is there a way to alter someone's personality via hypnotism or domination? In terms of customization and exporting... is it just the char-gen where you can export a character? Is there a way to say, see a slave get captured, manipulate or change them via training and influence, turn them into a slaver and then export that character and see what happens on their career? Alternatively, is there a way to change the names of the slaves you capture and slavers you recruit? For say, immersion purposes >.> Or generate and specify your own "number two" ?

Hypnotic triggers on slavers currently are used for respect checks which are when a slaver doesn't want to do something like go whore themselves out, where a slutty outfit, or be corrupted and you need to persuade them. Using the triggers is a lot more effective than some of the other options. In the next update triggers will also be used on slaves to help with their training and unlock new bonuses. In future those slave mantras will be able to be used on anyone including yourself, and I'm also planning extra usage to deal with annoying traits like reserved and unhinged. Currently it's just the main character. I'd like to do more, but given I also want to move away from rags I'm not planning to do anything with it for now. There is an option to nickname under help and options. I don't think it's ideal though in the current implementation and it needs another look sometime.

From TFGames: Is there any get mind controlled content besides the "dreams" ascociated with Lacey's toy?

Being possessed is the main one which is a rare outcome from corruption which then has a bunch of follow up text at end of day, during respect checks, and leadership challenges. The Quick as You Like mini-adventure if you go on it assignment has MC content, especially if you 'win' the race. There's the hidden cults when you go into town where you can lose control. There also might be some assignments that have a bit of MC action if you go on them. If you're submissive there's also mind control content in the story line assignment to unlock the hidden area and slave auctions.

From the Patreon: A suggestion to add more interplay with your slavers in NH - in the "Talk" menu add a topic called "ask for rumours" where you can ask your slavers if they have any leads/tips. Depending on certain factors they could offer you a tip-off for a mission (type & quality determined by slavers type and your relation with them), to be added to your list, in exchange for gold/supplies/days off/sexual favours. Could also lead into leadership challenges if you rely too much on a slaver. Slavers could also have an x% chance of approaching you for a chat each day and ask you for things and you could choose what to charge them (no charge leads to a relation increase, refusing outright leads to a decrease). Would be a way of getting slavers to wear things/do things that they otherwise wouldn't and vice-versa. Looking forward to the update.

That's a really neat idea. Added it to my to do list.

[raybro21]

DELTA RUNE SPOILERS INCOMING

If you havent played it, you are doing yourself a disservice. The game is currently free, so download it, play it, and come back if you want to learn more about it.

Seriously, go. now

i mean it

are they gone?

Ok then

So, Delta Rune.

what can I say about Delta Rune other than I love it? As someone who spoils everything for hinself, including Undertale (sadly), this game dropping out of nowhere was the perfect opportunity to experience what it would've been like to play Undertale for the first time for myself. However, after playing it for the first time and beating it the second, Toby Fox clearly wanted to do something different and it shows. This is not a sequel for Undertale despite what everyone and their memes may tell you. Its a standalone game with both familiar characters as well as new ones. It has its own identity, a reworked combat system, fantastic music, fluffy boys and mean girls, and lots of charm. A great step in a new direction for Toby Fox i may say.

However, as this game is "Technically" a demo, that leaves everyone with a lot of questions after playing this game, including me. When we start playing, we have a custom character creator that seems to go nowhere, and we're constantly reminded that our choices won't matter in the end. After reading Toby Fox's post on Twitlonger, story wise i understand the reason. Delta Rune is going to be a much bigger game and as a result it will take too much time to implement a diverse set of choices for the story. However, The character creator seems too much of a sore thumb to be a simple gag. We're told of a knight that visited the Card Kingdom and convinced the King of Spades to be a tyrant, and we're never told about the knight apart from those instances nor do we see him. I propose that we MADE the knight and when the full game is released we will see our creation and hear ourselves referenced. Who knows, maybe that character creator and our contact we meet qt the very start of the game will be integral to the story.

Secondly, the main character Kris. People may not have noticed until the very end, but theres clearly a lot going on regarding him. For one, i doubt that they are Frisk. They're names and how they're spelled might be a red herring as if anyone familiar with undertales story, Chara (and 6 other humans) came WAY before Frisk arrived in the underground. Who's to say that the same thing applies in Delta Rune? Not only that, Asriel is alive and is attending college. that wouldn't have been possible in different circumstances. I think that Kris IS Chara, and the ending is pointing this out and we're going to see that more in the full game. Not only this, it seems that Asriel and Kris' relationship might be strained, with Asriels side of the bed being much more decorated with trophies while Kris is severely lacking. Theres also the game console having both a good controller and a crummy knockoff. Something tells me that its not going to be a happy reunion when Asriel comes back from college.

Theres loads more i would love to discuss; whether the Dark Kingdom being real or not, the mystery behind Ralsei being a boss monster like the Dreemur family (and that his name is an anagram for Asriel), The story behind Humans and Monsters living together in harmony despite you being the only human in town, and loads more. as much as I want to, theres not enough puzzle pieces that we can fit together as Toby Fox is the most secretive person there is and that the game is not finished. I would kill to have an extra piece to the puzzle, but we all have to wait until the game is complete in 7 years.

Toby, if you ever find this post, I and everyone else LOVE the passion you put into your work. I hope that you are able to get this game to fit the vision you have for it, and I hope that you and your new team work out like a well oiled machine.

'Nuff said.