#i think people should use them for in pvp

[drinkinggblood]

this is mainly a joke dont take it super seriously

[medicinemane]

The world is set on prescriptivism and... it doesn't jive with me

[conarcoin]

when you think abt it the reason basically everyone in the mcyt community seems to know each other can be directly traced back to the fact that like half of them come from the smaller and more insulated pvp community of the 2010s. like of fucking course cellbit and bbh met in a hunger games match in like 2012. of course tapl house builder gang and cscoop smplive used to be in the same uhc group. should have been a red flag when i learned fucking mindcrack people created uhc honestly

[apompkwrites]

The lil's are cute and all, and words can not describe how "literally me" all of them are. But can you imagine how fucking funny would it be if they were actually older than their siblings? They probably were kicked out of their home or maybe something happened to them while the housewares were kids, which caused them to not see each other for years.

So imagine how they feel after seeing their big sibling, who was probably a teen at the time all grown up to the point were they're almost a completely different person lol

~~(A few scenarios)

Vil: So...how are things on your end?

Schoenheit!Reader: Well, my daughter has-

Vil: YOUR WHAT?! YOU HAVE A DAUGTHER?!

====

Ashengrotto!Reader, talking to the leech, brothers: Ah, I remember when Azul was a Lil kid...he was so chubby compared to me people thought he was a baby when they saw us walking together!

Azul, holding back tears: Shut up...for the love of the seven, please shut up

====

Leona: You should have been the ruler, y'know? Falena is a horrible one compared to you

Kingscholar!Reader: Just because I was a good ruler when we played with our toys, that doesn't mean I'd be a good ruler for our nation, Leona

Leona: Still...

====

Idia: That was a little cringe of me, my bad. I guess Ortho and I were just... happy to see you again after so many years. I didn't mean to make you feel like you were in some type of pvp arena or something. I really don't want you to ragequit on us again, I'm sure if we give our parents a cooldown, they totally unban you from the family, and it'll all be cool again. We'll be playing Co-op's like we used to and everything, even though you'd be a on a smurf account I'm sure you're still the GOAT

Shroud!Reader: ...what? What are you talking about?

Awww, anon!! The lils have a special place in my heart, hehe. I relate to quite a few of them too, nod nod ^^

Considering the idea of older black sheep, I think there would definitely be a few who, after being kicked out, would either be demonized by their parents or simply ignored entirely, leading to the main cast having to either a) rely on their memories or b) take their parents' word at face value.

Specifically, Leona comes to mind because, you know, royalty :]

Anyway, I'm DYING at the idea that older!Shroud listens to Idia talk and is literally just like, "...what?"

[psiroller]

My Boy (We Don't See Each Other Much)

a third fic request from unkat has reached me for some gamer au shenanigans. cool, i thought, nice low stakes goofin off fun time au. lets put some military industrial complex in there

cw: institutionalized homophobia, vague references to USAmerican military operations in the 2000's, gamer lingo

The raid was a resounding success by their guild's lax standards. Chilchuck managed to pull a rare light armor piece he'd been looking for, finally catching him up to the modern game; he was surprised by how much damage the standard grinding mobs were doing to him now, even if his defense was always going to be lower than the tanks and fighters he partied with. Laios landed the biggest critical hit he'd ever seen; the broadsword Chilchuck nabbed for him off the Auction House was working well for him. He was clearly still riding the high, humming the victory fanfare under his breath as he took inventory and milled about with Senshi, comparing the ingredients they’d collected, trading amongst themselves. It was late, though, close to Senshi’s prep hours. Marcille was fighting against the cozy lethargy that followed a glass of wine and swiftly losing. Falin had already logged out to take a shower and head to bed, stopping by Laios’ door for a hug goodnight.

Laios went right back to the desktop after he shut the door. He pulled his headset back on and heard the familiar sound of Chilchuck’s raspy inhale and then a long, satisfied exhale.

“Chilchuck!” Laios said, too eagerly. “You’re still up?”

“No, I’m fast asleep,” Chilchuck drawled. Laios snorted and threw a rock at Chilchuck’s head. It passed through harmlessly; neither of them wanted the hassle of dedicated PVP. Maybe Laios wasn’t as keen on roleplaying as Marcille and Falin were, but the roleplaying server had been a lot kinder to him than the standard ones he usually played on.

“You were right about the sword,” Laios tittered. “I really have to start doing the math instead of just looking at bigger numbers—uh, focusing on how sharp the blade is, I mean.”

Chilchuck coughed through a laugh, leaning away from the mic so that it didn’t blow Laios’ eardrums out. “I think some of the guides are a little out of date,” Chilchuck said, relaxed enough to drop character. Marcille was still nearby, though the AFK symbol appeared under her name; the elf she played nodded off, ears drooping.  “Critical chance used to be calculated with this really convoluted system that also included timers, so there were only so many crits you could get in the span of a few minutes,” he went on. “They updated it recently so that you roll for a critical every hit.”

“Oh, thank God,” Laios said. “On a timer? How long did raids use to take?”

“Oh, upwards of four hours.” Chilchuck said casually. Laios sputtered. “I know, I know. I guess people had more free time back then… though with how people run multiple raids a night now, I guess it’s down to how committed you are.”

“So critical hit percentage is the thing I should focus on, then.”

“For your build, yeah.”

“Why does everyone recommend focusing on damage per second?”

“It’s a recent change, I think it got pushed out just before you signed up. They’ve tweaked it a lot, so people tend to get confused on how it works now, as it gets buffed and nerfed. Attack and attack speed used to be connected to the same value, so there are other ways you can focus on dealing damage instead of just right clicking the dragon and watching one of twelve timers tick down.” Chilchuck smiled and took another drag. “I think they’re trying to freshen things up a little. I like the changes.”

“Really? Everyone in the forums talks about how much they hate it.”

“If they’re old enough to be using the forums, they’re old enough to hate their favorite thing changing,” Chilchuck laughed.

“But not you,” said Laios. There was a warmth there that Chilchuck didn’t see a reason for.

“Eh.” Chilchuck’s ears burned under his headset. “Maybe a little bit. They don’t make shooters like they used to.” There was a pause. “Oh, right, you don’t like those.”

“Just the super hoo-rah military ones,” Laios breathed. “I can do Team Fortress 2. That one’s pretty fun.”

“Oh! I play that with—a friend, sometimes,” Chilchuck stammered. “Do you… I’m still kind of wired. I got a day off tomorrow. Do you—”

“Yeah!” His mic clipped. “Yeah. Sounds good.”

“Wait, you don’t have a test tomorrow or anything, do you?”

“… No.”

“I don’t like that hesitation.”

Laios huffed and puffed and logged out of Dungeon Divers with little warning, but usernames were exchanged and soon Laios’ avatar (a dragon, what else) popped up in Chilchuck’s scant friend list, nestled between Dan and May.

“I didn’t think you’d be cool enough to play TF2,” Laios teased.

“Cool people play TF2? I thought it was all screaming toddlers.”

“There are a few of those, yeah,” Laios admitted.

“I played the original game. It was a lot different. I don’t really keep up with it these days, but…”

“No worries,” Laios chirped. “I’ll take care of you.”

Chilchuck felt something zip down his spine. “I’m not that bad.”

They played three matches with the usual late night crowd, and it was a miracle if Chilchuck could stay alive for longer than a minute or two, let alone get a kill. Laios, on the other hand, clawed up every scoreboard and sat at the top. He started with Sniper; Chilchuck followed him while waiting for his respawn timer to run out, flicking between first and third person views. He watched as opponents’ heads would pop like grapes the moment they touched Laios’ reticle, faster than Chilchuck’s eyes could tell his brain to move his fingers.

“Okay, maybe I’m pretty bad,” Chilchuck admitted. “Compared to you.”

Laios missed a shot and sputtered. “I’m concentrating…!” A Spy knifed him, and Chilchuck could hear Laios whack his mouse against the table in frustration. Chilchuck laughed.

“Relax, that’s your first one this round,” he teased. “Your reflexes are crazy. Maybe I’m getting too old for twitchy games like this.”

“The mechanics have changed a lot and all the tryhards are on,” Laios conceded, breathing out the annoyance. “I’ll switch to Heavy. Wanna be my Medic? I can keep more of an eye on you.”

Chilchuck sniffed at his demotion to pocket healer, but then at least he’d be getting assist kills. “Alright, fine.”

Many assist kills were had, and all was well. It was fun to watch Laios’ brain work, bobbing and weaving and jumping around. He played like May did, hyperfocused on the movement mechanics; Chuck’s wrists weren’t any good for that anymore, so he usually hung back to support anyway.

“So why TF2 and not Call of Duty?” Chilchuck asked between matches, lighting another cigarette in search of the now-elusive nicotine buzz. “Seems like you’re really good. You could probably go pro if you wanted.”

Chuck heard a rustling against the mic. Sounded like Laios fiddling with the thing, maybe rubbing his face. He heard a scratch of stubble.

“Eh. I just—don’t like the military aesthetic very much, or something,” Laios mumbled. “I, uh. I served, and it’s a little…”

Chilchuck coughed. “You served? As in, served in the army?”

“Yeah.” There was a chuckle from the other line. “What? Is it that surprising?”

“Well, you just never…” Chuck scratched at the nape of his neck. “You never said anything that made me think… I don’t know what I thought. You didn’t seem like the type.”

“That’s because I’m not,” Laios snorted. “I was a good shot, but not a good soldier, if that makes any sense?”

Chuck wet his dry lips and leaned back in his chair. He didn’t lock into the next game, and the queue dumped them out. Laios didn’t reset it.

“So you objected? Conscientious objection? Is that what it’s called?”

“That’s what it’s called, but uh… it takes a while to get that done if you enlisted voluntarily. You have to plead your case for it. I thought about it, but I didn’t get the chance.”

Chilchuck swallowed dryly, then tapped some ash out into the ceramic tray Patty made for him many Father’s Days ago. “So you were kicked out?”

“Discharged, yeah,” Laios sighed. His chair creaked as he leaned back, too. “Other than honorable.”

Chuck winced. “What did you do?”

There was that rustling again. “I, um. If you don’t ask, I don’t have to tell you.”

“Oh, uh. Sorry, I”—Chilchuck’s eyes went wide—"ohhh.”

“Yeah.”

“Seriously? They booted you over a thing like that?”

Laios laughed weakly. “It’s in the regulations.”

“Still? When there’s, like, five wars going on?”

“Yep. I got a little pamphlet about it and everything. It’s rarer these days, and most people now get let off with an honorable, but…” Laios sighed. “My case was a whole thing. I didn’t fit in great with the rest of my platoon to begin with, and I maybe… I maybe misread some signals. You get bored out there, you know. Lonely. Got a little too close to my bunky…” Laios cleared his throat. “He let me down easy, but I guess he said something to somebody. I don’t think he’d go straight to the brass, he told me he wouldn’t, but someone must have overheard and that counts as credible evidence, so…”

Laios popped his lips with a click of his tongue. Chilchuck was frozen, ashes falling from the end of his cigarette into the crevices of his already dirty keyboard. The cigarette had almost burned down to the filter; money burning up in unsmoked nicotine. “I was probably going to leave anyway,” Laios said, to fill the silence. “I didn’t like being out there. If anything it kept me from being stupid and going AWOL. But if you talk to the VA—or my dad, heh—I  might as well have.”

Laios wheezed. Chilchuck blinked some smoke out of his eyes and stubbed out his cigarette.

“Hang on, you were on active duty and they’re hassling you at the VA over healthcare?”

“Oh yeah. Anything less than a general discharge is going to get you some hassle. I’m still on general health insurance, lowest tier. I’m not on TRICARE.”

Chilchuck pinched the pressure point between his eyebrows. “There’s gotta be a way to appeal that.”

“There might be. But I’ve spent about 40 hours of my life on the phone with them since I got back, and I’m not keen on spending anymore.” Laios made a blech sort of noise, disgusted, a little childish. “I hate phone calls. Besides, they gave me some money for college, so it wasn’t a complete wash.”

“Small miracles,” Chilchuck mumbled.

“Yup,” Laios breathed. He drummed his fingers on his desk, loud enough to reach the mic. Then there were a couple rhythmic bongo slaps against the table, nervous. “Ready for another game?”

Chuck looked at his watch. It was 4:32 AM.

“Sure. Night’s still young,” he said, for lack of anything comforting to say. “Play Heavy again.”

“Okay,” Laios said, and there was a smile in his voice. So that was something.

[am-i-the-asshole-official]

AITA for not telling my friend I don't want to play DND with her?

I (17M) am a player in a Dungeons and Dragons campaign (NOTE: it is not actually DND, I am just saying it for simplicity's sake. If anything sounds off, that's why. Either way, it's TTRPG, and both games have the same system, although they aren't anywhere near similar to DND gameplay-wise. It's very roleplay focused.) with a few of my friends (all 17-20F: Viola, Korrina, Valerie, and Olympia). Viola is our DM, and I have so much fun every time we play, with no intents on quitting because of this.

Olympia just like... fucking sucks though, to be honest? Like, I just hate playing with this chick. She's always asking for extra bonuses on rolls because she's just such a good player (no one else does it, Viola allows it though), she actively started PVP with me, she physically disabled my character in said PVP and I had to do chaos control (I did not want to have my character be disabled, if I did I would have a disabled character, but I failed a roll against her in this fight so I had to have my character go on a side-quest to fix it: I would be more fine with it if it was Viola, but another player? Really?), and she's just not really funny when she talks about the campaign outside of the sessions (I know, it's a little personal). She gets really upset when we mention this one thing we all like to the point of taking inspiration from it for characters and NPCs because she doesn't get it but she refuses to try the thing so we just have to not talk about it with her, and overall she just... isn't enjoyable to be around.

I know I'm gonna have people in the comments say "just tell her that you don't like her now! You sound awful, you should quit," etc etc, but hear me out. I am a player. Since the DM is Viola, and Olympia and Viola are having fun, I don't feel like I should say anything. It's the DM's story, and as a mere character in the story I can't have any say in the format, especially since I was the one that invited Olympia to the group (I made a casual offer to my whole friend group over a school group chat and both Olympia and Korrina responded, so I had to include both of them), and we've been playing this campaign since August.

One of our players had to cancel on us a week ago as of writing this, and so I decided to run a oneshot based off of a campaign I've been wanting to do (first time DMer, I wanted to try it out). The players were Viola, Korrina, and Olympia, and it was actually really fun! I wanted to wait for Viola's campaign to end before I actually started playing my campaign, but that wasn't going to happen in a while, so I had decided to run it then.

I don't want Olympia anywhere near my actual campaign, though. I'm planning on letting my friend (Drasna, 18F) join, as well as anyone else who shows interest, along with Viola, Korrina, and Valerie. But as you may know, Olympia is insufferable to me, and as DM I feel like I have the right to deny her from playing with me.

She still played in the oneshot though, and was... very excited for it. I am aware I am the only one with beef here. Olympia keeps on PMing me about her character, asking about the world, and she's really interested in the world and the format of it. Her character's nice even if a little similar to one of the main plot NPCs I have, but as I've mentioned, I really want to cut her out when the campaign gets rolling. The only reason I couldn't for the oneshot is because we are actively in the middle of a campaign and everyone would think I'm being weird and things would be tense for the rest of the campaign. I can't just tell Olympia to her face "hey, I hate playing with you actually. Go home, fuck off."

I feel like I treated Olympia fairly when we played (she didn't do anything drastic, at least), but I don't know how my negative feelings on her are going to impact the campaign. I don't want to have an inbalance in the characters and how they're treated.

AITA for leading her on to make sure things don't get awkward during Viola's campaign, even though I have no intent of changing my mind on not having her as a player?

What are these acronyms?

[aquaquadrant]

Hello! I've been told to ask you this =D

What do you think about Jimmy as a minecraft player, what is he?

It's for a project =3

ooh a project, how fun :0

i should preface this by saying i’m not the BEST person to give this opinion, cuz despite how much i write jimmy, i uh… don’t actually watch his pov? i haven’t seen any of empires (except the hermit’s crossover in s2), i don’t watch his streams, and i don’t watch the one-off vids he posts on his channel. most of my knowledge of jimmy comes from his appearances in other pov’s life series episodes and how ppl portray him in fandom.

howEVER, that said, i’m curious how my interpretation would line up with other ppl’s. i view minecraft players as generally fitting into a few broad categories- tho there can def be overlap between them or a jack-of-all-trades situation. and this prob applies more to people who actually play minecraft professionally (ie. ‘play video games for a living’) than the casual player (such as myself hagshdha).

builders: have a creative eye and practiced skill in building to the point where they can, generally speaking, throw down a decent build on the fly (things that require a lot of planning/detail work often drafted in creative mode first). have good understanding of achieving a certain shape and color with their block placements. may or may not include terraforming ability. generally drawn to the game’s building aspect and spend a lot of time/care making things look good.

redstoners: have an adequate amount of base knowledge for how most redstone components work and interact with each other, tho they may occasionally still use tutorials or take inspiration from others (can only reinvent the wheel so many times). usually capable of making simple redstone machines/contraptions on the fly. generally drawn to the game by the possibility of farms and automation. some take it to extreme game-breaking lengths (doc).

competitors: have highly-trained skill in areas such as PVP, parkour, and/or any other multiplayer server type minigame. think hypixel and MCC. this isn’t to say they don’t have their own solo worlds for building or other projects, or don’t participate in smps, but their main draw to the game initially was competitive multiplayer and it features heavily on their channels. to me, speed-runners/challenge-seekers are a subcategory of this.

explorer: this type doesn’t actually show up often in popular mcyt bc it’s a largely solitary- and in some ppl’s opinion, boring- experience. but these are the players that spend hours in their solo worlds just traveling around, mining out massive caves, or doing any other kind of repetitive grindy work as a manner of relaxation. some ppl really enjoy this aspect of minecraft and it’s a major draw for them. special mention for kurtjmac, a mcyter who’s spent 13 years and counting just walking to the farlands in an old version of the game (tho he does other things on his channel as well).

and now for what category i think jimmy fits best in (which again, doesn’t mean he can’t build or do other things). i don’t have a good name for it rn so i’m just gonna call it ‘the sillies’ (affectionate).

sillies: above all else, they’re here to have fun. most, if not all, of their content is on multiplayer worlds (both public servers and private smps), and on these worlds they are extremely social, making a concentrated effort to interact with others even if not legitimately roleplaying. high amounts of pranks and hijinks abound, as well as ‘committing to the bit.’ lots of videos feature them doing some kind of funny little challenge, game, or mod with their friends. again, that doesn’t mean they can’t engage w the other aspects of the game or be skilled in those categories, but generally, it’s not their main objective and not how they spend most of their time.

that’s what i’ve got! obviously u could split all of these into many subcategories, and your average player is gonna be fairly well-balanced. but for our pro cubitos, i think this is a nice way to categorizing things (and it at least makes sense in my mind).

[xxswagcorexx]

ok maybe this is just me but like, i Feel like people. underhighlight how a Lot of pvpers are just really really good strategists

(more rambling about this under the cut) but like. speaking from someone who's familiar with lifesteal and ivorycello's content, someone like clown isn't just someone who's 1) very skilled at the game, but he's also very good at picking up exactly what he lacks in and how to make up his skills effectively And efficiently

an example would be how clown grinded for 64 god apples because he knew how much the lifesteal server has improved at pvp in general (fun fact on his testrun ep he talks about how everyone has massively improved) (and on top of that him touching grass and not practicing /lh) but, since he knows he cannot rely on pure skill alone (and can't train that much in time) he makes up for those disadvantages by grinding materials to ensure he'll be able to get by, even if it's just barely (he also! observes other people's moves too! ex: during a s3 fight vi and some other people were chasing him down and were supply chaining until they finally wore clown down enough to kill him--and clown was a really good sport about it! and started talking to them about the supply chain strategy and complimented how it worked so well!!! he's good at analyzing stuff, with the whole thing about being able to reconize the other lifestealers have gotten so good that they'd probably kick his ass back in s2 now! the fact hes able to anaylize his own and others pvp is...really cool i think)

and ivory falls under this category as well, you can most clearly see it on her doly 1v1 video, but she's able to figure out exactly what aspects doly uses to his advantage (even to figuring out his ping and how they affect his pcrits) and from that she's able to figure out how to turn those exact methods on top of their heads and build up her own strategies to directly combat what doly was, probably, doing subconsciously. holy hell that's such a cool concept??? like ivory herself admits in her own video that she is a relatively new pvper and the fact she was able to synthesize that much information into a strategy that beat out someone who has so much more experince than her? that's so fucking badass

maybe this is just me not looking in the right places but. i Really do think people like clown's and ivory's skills as strategists should be highlighted more. like, i feel like it humanzies them a lot more. makes them feel like people that just so happen to be very skilled instead of undefeatable figureheads who are powerful beyond comprehension. even though that's their reputation, they're still just people at the end of the day and i think that's an interesting dichotomy to explore <3

[bonefall]

Ask Etiquette

HELLO sorry for the intimidating post lmao, I just need something to toss up on the masterpost because I feel bad deleting asks and then people will never really have an idea of why I never answered them

I get a ton of asks (usually anywhere from 10 - 20 a day!) and I'm not able to get to them all! I try to answer as many as possible but I'm still just one guy. So with that in mind, there are some sorts of asks I will simply not answer, and some 'requests' I have for people who send them in;

Please keep your asks short PLEASE try not to send me essays if you want a response; I still love reading them! But if you send me walls of text/analysis you are asking me to write a lot in response, which I'd rather spend on actually writing or designing cats. (On that note if you send a bunch of questions at once, the likelihood I respond goes down.)

Do not send me personal questions Listen... I'm a stranger on the internet. I'm overjoyed to see when my art connects with people and helps you realize things! But don't ask me sensitive questions like how to move out of your abusive parents' house!! PLEASE learn internet safety and get less comfortable with volunteering that kind of information to people you don't know!

Do not ask me personal questions you do not need to know what i study or where i work. get less comfortable asking these sorts of questions to queer people on the internet, especially when they talk openly about having previously been abused or stalked. (not that a person should even need to be as open about that as i am)

If I don't have a good response I won't answer Especially for suggestions I don't vibe with. I try to only say "No" if I have a particularly interesting "No" to talk about, if that makes sense! If I had to write a full explanation for every veto or idea I don't vibe with, this blog would be 90% what isn't in BB.

No AUs within the AU. "What if Hawkfrost survived his impalement? What if Firestar never joined? What if Tigerstar was never born?" Listen, buddy, you're creating an exponential distraction for possible ways the story could have gone and I'm not looking to write several essays for the literal hundreds of alternative ways Clan history could have been written. It takes you 5 words to ask "What if X never died" but it takes me paragraphs to answer. (This isn't about suggestions btw, I very specifically mean ppl asking hypotheticals for fun.)

Don't be rude. I feel like this should go without saying but please mind the parasocial gap. Especially if you're on anon, I don't know you, your backstory, or your cadence.

No "Fight Baiting" You're free to ask me to speak about fandom trends, or for my opinions on general ideas, character discussions, and popular arguments! But it crosses a line if you're linking someone's posts with their uncropped usernames, sharing unsolicited google docs, youtube videos, etc, with the intention of getting me to attack a third party. We can talk about ideas without making it a PVP battle.

And, lastly, CLANMEW ASKS!!

I make a hard effort to get to everyone!! Those are published on Clanmew Day (WHICH IS NOW JUST GOING TO BE THE 30TH OF EVERY MONTH SO THAT IT'S LESS CONFUSING) but PLEASE understand I get a ton of them.

As I write this I have more than 26 tabs open of unanswered Clanmew asks, a lot more in my inbox, and 9 already in the queue. So that you understand the sheer volume of asks I have there.

If I didn't get to you that month, chances are that I'll get to you on the next, but please understand why I ask for folks to not re-send asks

So here's Clanmew-specific requests;

PLEASE just try a translation on your own first! Don't just send me raw lists of OCs to translate, give it a go first using the Lexicon, just so I can see you tried. I will happily and gladly make more specific words for you when I see you try!

When you send OCs you've translated, ask me for a new word at the end if you didn't already in your list. Just in case I can't think of a witty comment or a word suggestion, you will help me a lot

Please try to format with lists like this one Folks will send me double or triple-indented lists and it will take up my entire screen when they've only sent like, 5 names. Remember that posts you send to me go on people's dashes, be considerate please You can open a list like this by starting a new paragraph, typing -, and then an immediate space. Hold Shift + Enter to indent without adding another bullet.

If you could put "Clanmew" somewhere in your ask, like even if you open up with "Clanmew: Here is my question blah blah," it would help immensely I physically can't get to every ask I receive on Clanmew Day, so if you have "Clanmew" in your ask somewhere, it makes it a lot easier for me to find it when I can finally answer! I really wish Tumblr had ways to sort asks, but currently, I've just gotta make due with Cntrl + F.

[bumblebeerror]

I’ll admit my views of Dream are a lot more negative than positive.

I don’t love that he made MCC so competitive, but I get why he did. Speedrunner. Good at pvp. Etc. I still felt it was whiny and not in the spirit of a competition that aims to let the creators have fun (in that the intake form has things like “do you prefer sillies or sweaty” and each team has about an equal amount of both) but like. It wasn’t just him for that. I think MCC is much more fun without him and a few other very competitive people, and getting to see more range in creators is more enjoyable.

I think he’s a bit overhyped; but I’m not gonna cite Wilbur creating the manhunt idea or Minecraft but, it’s mostly just. I dunno, reflexes aren’t everything in this game. And someone being a builder or redstoner doesn’t mean they can’t win pvp, and I feel like he was very… derogatory, toward those types of players. The Grian twitlonger comes to mind.

I think he dropped the ball severely on his own server, and it impacted the lifetime of that story. I think rushing everyone to finish their stories and refusing to communicate is dick behavior, and I especially think that ignoring how the women and non-binaries on his server were treated by fans when a statement from him would have gone a long way is a bit of a dick move. I understand that ADHD can make you bad at communicating, but even support or information in private would have helped, or even an admission that he didn’t know.

I personally think the situation with QSMP, something Quackity was publicly working on for ages, and Dream’s spur of the moment half baked idea for something similar, was and is dumb. I think Tommy’s criticism of it was both funny and justified. Quackity wasn’t secretive about this server. Everyone knew it was coming for a while, and the only true surprise was Quackity having the language mod developed to release during the second week of the server. I think Dream’s meltdown about lack of communication is a little ridiculous all things considered. I do wish Quackity had been more able to curb his own audience away from harassment and stalking, and that Dream would take literally any responsibility for the way his own fans act as well. It’s not impossible to curb your community - if Techno could do it despite us all being notoriously feral (I.e. encouraging his community not to hate on squidkid or reminding us that roleplay is roleplay) then it’s not impossible to make a statement and calm the masses some. Dream’s relationship with his fans is very parasocial and I know he fosters that a lot. I feel it should come with some sense of responsibility. Just like Fit deserved to be called out for what he said about the one mod’s mobs, I think these criticisms are fair. (and watching the clip of Fit being told about the implications, I do think “it was a refrence” was meant to be an apology - it’s sorta just how he talks, but I get if people still dislike it. He has gotten more mindful about it moving forward and now won’t repeat a meme/joke unless he knows it’s not hateful, so he has changed behavior.)

I find him to be generally up his own ass, in other words. Which is whatever - it’s not a sin. I don’t like his stans and they are regularly a more intense type of toxic, but I also think most stans of any creator are insufferable. I mostly just dislike that Dream seems to encourage their behaviour much more. He’s young, and so is his audience.

I think his work with Technodad has been overall helpful especially when it comes to donations to the sarcoma foundation. I understand those who feel uncomfortable about it, and I hope you won’t lash out against Technodad for it. Mans has barely learned Reddit, let him be.

I don’t know what to say about the allegations. On one hand, it’s an awful thing to do and I feel for the victims, especially with having to deal with the stans harassing them for bringing evidence to light. I think the victims deserved far better treatment. I think Dream’s reputation would have been far more favorable if he had at least addressed the situation respectfully, and either owned up to the clear evidence or provided evidence of his own. On the other, I get that again, he’s young and people make mistakes. This does not mean I think his victims shouldn’t have come forward or that what he did was okay - only that I don’t think I was smart enough at 20 to handle sudden and intense fame either. In this case (unless I’ve missed it) it doesn’t seem like his messages actually went anywhere, which is a slight relief. I would feel better about it if he had handled it more seriously, because I’m unsure if he’s really learned anything from that situation besides that he can get away with about anything if he ignores it. As is, it feels unfinished on his end and I wish he would own up.

All that being said, I don’t claim to know much about the guy.

I’ve watched maybe two manhunts and seen a scattered few videos with him involved. I don’t enjoy his style much, it just feels kinda fake to me, idk.

Im not sure what my point really was, I mostly just wanted my thoughts in order.

[slightly-gay-pogohammer]

Permission to ask for some D&D advice? Mostly regarding as a DM?

you never know what your players will do. you maybe come up with 30 possible options, they'll pick the 34th. you'll have to be ready to improvise as much as they do

you're a player too, and you're allowed to have fun. this is very important

some railroading is okay, just don't make it obvious and don't force it on them everytime. if you want a plotpoint to happen at All Costs but your players dont go where it's supposed to happen, move it to another location

your players are the main characters. all of them. not your npcs, not only one of them, ALL of the players. always remember that

if you're not doing a oneshot, i highly recommend trying to implement your player characters' backstory in it

the manual is a guide rather than a rulebook to follow at all costs. change things, even at the moment

focus on preparing plot points, rather than a story. know that in one session they'll have to go to point A to B with a battle in between rather than hoping they'll have to go through point A,B,C, [etc] to Z

you're allowed to cheat actually. if a battle is too easy, add some HP to your monsters; if one is going too badly, consider lowering them; add new attacks and stats to your enemies, and change the level of difficulty accordingly

encourage quick and creative thinking, and tell off disturbers. getting distracted or speaking out of order a few times can happen, but if someone is actively out of their way to disturb the session tell 'em off, and do it OUT OF CHARACTER.

you're allowed to say no. you should, actually. i know reddit horror stories makes you think that making the team, or just one problem player, pay the consequences of their actions is funny and epic, but it's just a waste of time for everyone learn to put your foot down as soon as possible. i'm not saying "tell them to not go through a door you didn't prepare" or "tell them they can't use a specific attack you find overpowered", i mean something like "tell your player who wants to randomly go on a murder spree that you're not okay with that"

about that, if you describe something, your players Will want to investigate. don't tell them there's a room full of doors if you want them to go through just one of them, they ARE going to try and open them all even if you try to tell them it's impossible; don't try to give names to all the people in the tavern, just tell them there's a crowd but out of all of them there are just a few that might be interesting to interact with

for the love of god keep notes write down your names add what kind of items you made them find trust me remembering names is hell i can't tell you how tiring it is to remember VOICES

do a session zero. ask them about their boundaries, what they DON'T want in a session and what they'd like to see, if they're okay with PVP or permanent damage, what kind of mood they'd like for the plot, if they need help with their sheet. i think this is one of the most important hints i can give

good luck <3

[thefirstknife]

Sorry to dump this rant in your inbox but the community’s attitude this entire season has legit got me tilted to the point I ignore pretty much the entire community outside of tumblr and a few irl friends. A lot of it has been frustrations I’ve had since Lightfall dropped wrt acting like the story was dogshit bc it didn’t give all the answers.

I legit got so fed up with Byf’s whole “oh all this season of the deep lore should have been in Lightfall” stuff bc like. My guy. You were one of the biggest complainers about the seasons having zero lore or story relevance. Fucking pick one or the other. Either seasons are all filled bullshit or you’re gonna get cliffhangered and expected to have some damn patience for storylines to get picked back up over time in the seasons after the main campaign of an expansion is done.

Especially bc like. IMO anyone expecting anything not a cliffhanger from the end of Lightfall when we KNEW The Final Shape was coming after it was just setting themselves up for disappointment, you need big tension and shit like that before the final act and this way getting dripfed answers in the lead up feels less like we’re dicking around doing nothing useful for the entire year as we wait for TFS to drop. It legit felt like being a KH fan back when KH3 dropped who had payed attention and played all the games and knew wasn’t the end of the series, just the conclusion of an arc and anyone mad about the stuff left unfinished was being unreasonable when it was made pretty explicitly clear it would either be answered in the future bc this wasn’t the ending or had been answered ages ago and people just hadn’t bothered to pay attention to it. Lightfall was never going to have all the answers bc it wasn’t the ending, and Bungie has proven they’ll circle back around and answer questions and pick up story beats if you’d just have a little patience! I’ll agree it wasn’t done perfectly and could do with more focus on the Veil and less on Strand but come ON my guy!

Combine that with the general toxicity of non-story focused Destiny YouTubers, especially PvP only typesc about Destiny and the way their fans have behaved and I’m full on not watching Destiny content creators anymore. Genuinely never seen content creators who need to touch grass and maybe just. Take a break. I’m not saying Lightfall was perfect or that Bungie hasn’t fucked up but I’m honestly just. Extremely fucking tired of how the community outside of tumblr has reacted to everything. And I’m especially sick of crybaby crucibros being obnoxious. Much as I don’t actually think it’d be at all good for the game there’s a part of me that thinks the idea of them splitting PvP stuff and PvE stuff into separate Destiny games in the future might have some merit to it purely so those of us who just want to explore and enjoy the story in peace can never bother with them again

Go off, honestly. So true. I've felt the same and I've pretty much not watched any Destiny youtube content in months. I started a few of them, but then stopped because of how utterly annoying and just plain wrong they were. The Lightfall situation is such a shitshow, not because of Bungie or the expansion itself, but because I genuinely believe that Destiny is above the reading level of most gamers.

Obviously, I still have some issues with how some stuff was handled, just as you do. Literally nobody is saying that everything in Lightfall was perfect. And I extend that to all expansions btw. Every expansion had faults. None of them are perfect. I think Lightfall's mysterious storytelling could've been a little bit clearer. And make no mistake, Lightfall WAS clear that nobody knows about the Veil, it just wasn't as clear as it could've been. Nothing would've really changed about the mystery if this was made more obvious earlier on in the campaign.

But dear lord, the bullshit around it is so tiring. I get it. I was confused at first too. I even posted here that I found certain things not as good and that they made me a little annoyed! And like that's fine! Your first impressions are your first impressions. But please move on. Are you seriously deciding everything based on first impressions? Do you never look into things and see if maybe there were things you missed or were wrong about? Like, it's okay to be confused at first and then realise later that you missed things. That's how learning works.

And yeah, the whole "everything should've been in Lightfall's campaign right away" is not only annoying because of the stuff you said, it's also annoying because it ignores that there's too much content to fit inside of a single campaign and also that this content has a theme. The campaign is a self-contained story with a theme and a plot (and the plot is NOT "learn what the Veil is." The plot of Lightfall is "stop Calus and the Witness from destroying Neomuna" which has concluded perfectly well in the campaign). Post-campaign stuff, the Witness cutscene and the Veil Logs are all things that don't fit thematically with the high action 80s movie story about protecting a city from destruction. These things were deliberately spread out through the year to give us multiple stories to follow while we wait for TFS. It's a live service game. You're here for the whole year. And it's fine if that's not the storytelling type you like. It's fine! That doesn't mean the story is objectively bad.

But yeah, agreed with what you said. It helps to vent! There's definitely people out there who are in the same situation and who just want to enjoy the game as usual and not having to deal with crybabies who make the whole experience absolutely miserable and make it impossible to engage with anything. Luckily, there's also always people who are still engaging with the game normally. We like the game and we like engaging with the game. And when I stop liking it, I'll just stop engaging with it. I wish other people could do the same.

[passerkirbius]

Rusty Quill Saga - 24 Hour Follow Up

Hi everyone! I appreciate all the new follows! Might actually get me posting more about stuff!

So, it's been about a day since I posted my response to the Rusty Quill article, and reading some of the tag comments I wanted to respond to a couple, again in the interests of helping those who aren't within the audio fiction community get a little context that you might not otherwise have had.

But I also wanted to put my cards on the table - why should you listen to me? Hi! My name is Lee Davis-Thalbourne, I'm Australian, and I'm one half of the Fiction Podcast Production team Passer Vulpes Productions. We're the creators of a number of fiction podcasts, including Love and Luck and Supernatural Sexuality with Dr. Seabrooke. I also have a reasonable resume of small VA roles with a lot of different podcast production teams, I have a history of theorycrafting around podcast production, and I'm currently engaged in some part-time independent research around fiction podcast production that, if people are interested, I might actually get around to finishing one day. Myself and my partner Erin were the founders of AusFicPodMakers, which was/is an informal group supporting audio fiction producers in Australia, and as part of that support, I currently curate a list of Australian Fiction Podcasts (which I encourage you to take a look at!). In terms of affiliations, PVP is not associated with any podcasting network (though a few have knocked on our door), and I'm not currently producing audio fiction right now - I have no projects on the boil, so to speak.

So, I think I can say, with some evidence, that I'm a part of the audio fiction production scene, that I care about audio fiction in general, that I might have some thoughts worth listening to about it, and that I'm a mostly disinterested party regarding this - I have no particular stake in Rusty Quill's fortunes one way or the other.

Tag Responses

Okay, so I wanted to quickly respond to a few of the tag comments that have popped up in response to yesterday's post, mainly because I feel like it's worth expanding on some of them:

#i also feel bad because i was always kinda wary on tma2#now it feels even more like a cash grab

Look - as a podcast producer, I can respect a cash grab. If you can grab that cash, I'm a strong believer in doing so, because making audio fiction without cash is kinda sucky. It's like any other big endeavour - when you get nothing out of it, it eats away at you. That's part of the reason why PVP isn't producing at the moment - We tried to scale up to multiple productions and it damn near killed us. We weren't really getting the income we needed to do more than just barely break even - we, as producers, weren't making a dime off of our podcasts, even with Patreon and crowdfunding. Rusty Quill is actually an extreme outlier regarding their ability to get cash from their audiences. How extreme? Well, before the TMA2 kickstarter, the most successful Audio Fiction crowdfunding campaign was Unseen, from the producers of Wolf 359, one of the seminal audio fiction shows of the modern audio fiction renaissance, and it hit a little over US$40,000. Which, just to note, was significantly higher than any other audio fiction crowdfund project before it - very few audio fiction crowdfund campaigns get more than around US$5,000-10,000.

So, sure, it's a cash grab. It might still be good anyway though! Don't disregard it just because they're making financially-dominated decisions.

#Adding onto this while the evidence isn't conclusive (because as many people have said it is conjecture and opinions and stuff)#and also the author's credibility is...in question

So, first things first, Newt Schottelkotte is an extremely credible journalist in the Audio Fiction space - they've broken a number of big stories, and written a lot in support of the audio fiction production scene. Wil Williams, who helped edit the piece, is also a highly respected critic and journalist within the space, while Tal Minear is a very prolific audio fiction producer of good repute. Personally, I have absolutely no concerns about their integrity or credibility - they've all done incredible work.

But it is worth noting that Audio fiction is kinda odd, in that journalists, critics and producers all pretty much come from the same group of people. The honest fact is that Audio Fiction, as a beat, has pretty much no prestige, there are (currently) no publications that are dedicated to audio fiction coverage, and the whole sector is mostly considered an afterthought to the real podcast industry. So, the few people who do create audio fiction meta-content, even if they begin as separated from the industry, don't stay separated for long - they will start making contacts with producers, they may start finding people offering cameo roles in shows, and eventually, they'll consider moving into podcast production. If your requirement for a "credible" voice within audio fiction journalism is one that has absolutely no connections with any actual production, I'm sorry but that ain't happening - the scene is too small, and people move between production and commentary so often, that "true independence" isn't a thing.

With that said, these journalists do a lot to make their affiliations visible up front, which is the other way to manage conflicts of interest within the scene - by declaring them. I'd be a lot more suspicious of a journalist that doesn't put their affiliations up front, honestly.

The Rusty Quill Response

So, I wrote yesterday that I wasn't expecting a response from Rusty Quill for a good three days - they are a group, it takes time to coordinate a response, I figured I could relax for a bit. However, Rusty Quill has already produced a response, and that alone says something - it says that a single person has dictated this response. Considering the record speed, I also doubt that it has been looked over by anyone else. Knowing these things, I find it very likely that this is Alex Newall's response specifically, speaking for Rusty Quill, rather than one that that the leadership at Rusty Quill has worked on together.

I'm not going to go through the whole thing point by point - I don't have the time, and this post is already too long for most Tumblrites to consider going through it. But on a more general level, I find it interesting that the response contains not a single link, not a single pointer towards contrary evidence. Almost certainly this is due to the timeframe - were I in RQ's position, I would be going through our paperwork to find some boilerplate contracts to provide some counter-evidence to the article, or providing some financial details to show where the money is going, but finding, redacting, and publishing these things takes time. RQ has done none of this, and this isn't necessarily a point against them, but it does mean that Rusty Quill hasn't done much more than shout "Am not!" into the audience.

To talk about one specific point, I also find it interesting that, having been attacked on the subject of crew pay rates, they talk about how their cast have very good pay rates. This might be true, I don't have the resources to fact check that, and I hope it is - actors do deserve pay. But it is worth noting that actors are on a production for very little of the time - it's the editors, sound designers, musicians, transcribers, etc who put the most time on to a production. In general, you'd expect that the crew would be getting more money than the cast, because the crew is going to be putting in more time (although, fair's fair, the vast majority of audio fiction out there doesn't do this, because the only "crew" is the producer, who is usually financing the production out of their own pocket).

Questions?

So, I figure that if I'm putting myself out there, I might as well offer the opportunity for people to pick my brain. Have a question about Audio fiction production? Want to hear my explicit comments about something someone has said? My asks are open, I'll do my best to come back and answer any asks that come my way.

[xenodile]

@stasisarbiter This is definitely worth a full ask, because it's a bit of a mixed response. Nikke does a lot of things really good, and a lot of things really bad.

So. The gameplay IS fun. Like really fun. The PVE gameplay is like Time Crisis shooting, you have your team of up to 5 characters where you're directly controlling one at a time while the others are on auto target and tap/click to shoot, and automatically take cover and reload when not shooting. Enemies flash red before they attack and put markers on characters that are being targeted by particularly powerful attacks. Characters have different styles of guns, Assault Rifles, Machine Guns, SMGs, Shotguns, Rocket Launchers, and Sniper Rifles, that all handle differently, and some characters have uniquely functioning versions of those 6 archetypes. You can also order all characters to take cover and stop shooting until you give the order to attack again, and switch between which character you're controlling while doing so.

You also generate meter whenever your characters hit something, and when the meter fills you can use their Burst Skills. You can use up to 3 Burst Skills in sequence, as each character's skill is Phase 1, 2, or 3, and building a team involves getting characters whose skills compliment and chain together. When you do a full chain of 3 skills, you activate a Full Burst for 10 seconds, during which time you directly control all of your characters at once.

When your characters are strong enough, any stage becomes a cakewalk, but when you're playing at a power deficit is when things get really interesting, because the amount of precise manual control you have over each of your characters means you can overcome very high stat differences by prioritizing targets, using the right skills, and taking cover efficiently.

The boss fights are also really, really cool. Bosses have multiple parts that can be individually targeted and broken to alter their behavior and deal extra damage, they have special attacks where you have to do precision target shooting to interrupt them, and long multi phase fights. It's really fun stuff.

But as I said, Nikke does some really bad stuff too. For one, it has PVP, and there is no justice in a gacha based PVP game. PVP is an auto battler where certain teams are just invincible without an equally specific counter pick, all of which are locked behind SSR gacha rates, so that blows.

Leveling and upgrading characters is weird because there's a system that makes it so you only have to level up 5 characters and then every other character you have will be automatically synced to those 5, which is really nice. But that system has a hard cap that is not high enough to get through every part of the main story, and is only unlocked if you get FIVE SSR characters to max limit break, so depending on luck and spending habits, could be a very significant wall to progression for a lot of people.

Dailies are easy to complete and only take like 30 minutes tops, and there's no stamina or AP system so you can play as much as you want, but all experience and money games are time based. You CAN'T grind for experience or money or upgrade materials, you get them at a fixed rate per day. So it respects your time per day, but it WILL take months of playing to upgrade your characters, and even that is locked behind whether you get lucky on the gacha.

So like, the gameplay IS fun, but your ability to actually access that fun is locked behind really scummy monetization. It's a weird case where I've really been liking Nikke and having a ton of fun with it, but I would not ever recommend it to someone because the ability to make meaningful progress is luck based. It's why I started doing my story write ups because I think there's legitimately good stuff in Nikke that people should see and be able to enjoy without getting roped into its bad gacha shit.

Short answer, yes it's fun but it's not worth getting into, so enjoy it vicariously.

[earlgraytay]

I have a way to use deathnote in a way that is good (but not morally pure) I will write the name of Elon Musk or any billionaire or dictator and just make them donate as much of their money they can to as many different charities they can find before killing themselves. Is killing people bad sure, but is it more bad than helping millions of people I don't think so

...Ah, dear, only on Tumblr do you get a philosophy PVP request in the middle of the workday.

We're coming at this from different priors. I think death is always bad. People should not die-- unless it is something they have actively consented to, and even then it horrifies and saddens me-- because the death of a person is the end of an entire galaxy of possibilities.

Anyone who's still alive can change and become better. Some people suck, yeah. Some people refuse to change. Some people have brain problems that make it very difficult to change. But anyone, no matter how evil and no matter how fucked up, can change and become a better person.

Death takes that away. Death collapses all those possibilities into a fixed point. Were, forever and ever. No are. No will be.

I think the death of the worst person you can think of is a horrible tragedy. Because they could have stopped hurting people, and could have started making things better, at any point. And they didn't ever take that chance.

... I cannot agree that the benefit you could give to people by using the Death Note on billionaires outweighs that tragedy. (Unless you made the deaths "dies peacefully in bed surrounded by loved ones at an old age, after spending their lives using their vast fortunes to make people's lives better", and even then the Death Note doesn't let you guarantee that. If you try to make someone live longer than they're supposed to, they die of a heart attack immediately.)

I've talked about why I don't think doing this would work to change the world- you can find it if you look at the reblogs of this post- but just from an ethical standpoint? I don't think it's worth it. It honestly makes me kind of ill that anyone does.

[ridiasfangirlings]

Sarumi AU where Saruhiko is a pro gamer who plays online games all day in his computer and only drinks coffee for his dinner. One time Saruhiko ended up inside his computer in the game he was playing (he was playing some fighting game) That's where he saw and met Misaki

Yup, that’s how you get isekaied all right. Imagine Fushimi who almost never leaves his house and makes money as a pro gamer, he enters random tournaments and never shows his face because even that is a pain. He only does single player PvP too, every so often other gamers will reach out to him and try to get him to join a team for a pro league and Fushimi just deletes their emails. He doesn’t see any point in interacting with the rest of the world, as far as he’s concerned it’s just a pain to deal with other people and he would rather be alone living off coffee and Caloriemate. One day he receives a mysterious game in the mail which claims to be a free trial that was sent out to multiple gamers. Normally Fushimi would be suspicious of such a thing but he’s been feeling unwell lately and he figures playing a new game will give him something else to focus on, and anyway he’s received advance game copies before. He starts the game up and it’s a fighting game, Fushimi finds the character selection screen a little underwhelming. Like look at this one fighter, some short redhead with a bat even though it’s a fantasy setting, how stupid. 

He starts playing but begins to feel dizzy, he puts his controller down and goes to get an aspirin but ends up passing out. He wakes up to someone shaking him, Fushimi grumbles ‘annoying’ and puts out a hand to wave them away, accidentally smacking the person in the face. The guy who was trying to wake him up squawks indignantly and Fushimi opens his eyes, sitting up and asking why someone else is in his apartment. The guy beside him is like uh what are you talking about and Fushimi realizes he’s outside, in some kind of stadium. Next to him is a short redhead with a bat and imagine Fushimi just giving this flat look like ‘really’ because he’s played his fair share of isekai games and this has to be a stupid dream. The guy introduces himself as Yata and Fushimi grumbles ‘I know’ before he can stop himself, Yata’s all flattered because to think he’s just started in ‘the Games’ and he already has a fan. Fushimi’s like I’m not your fan Misaki and Yata’s like wait how did you know my first name I don’t tell that to anyone. Fushimi mutters ‘the character selection screen,’ Yata has no idea what he’s talking about but Fushimi doesn’t look well so Yata figures he should take Fushimi to the med tent to check on him.

As he’s being looked over Fushimi realizes that he really did get isekaied, and even worse he’s wearing a wristband that proclaims him as a contestant in these battle games. Fushimi decides he’ll have to survive this to escape the game and figures that Yata seems stupid and gullible so Fushimi will just use him to learn all about the games and how to beat them. Yata doesn’t know what’s up with this weird skinny guy who somehow joined the games but he’s always happy to help and explains how the whole thing is like a big gladiator-style fighting ring and whoever wins gets a big prize. Imagine Yata thinks Fushimi should probably drop out because he seems pretty weak but then in his first fight Fushimi wins by using knives and strategy and now Yata thinks that this Saruhiko guy is amazing. Fushimi is determined to just use Yata to win his way up the ranks but when Misaki says ‘amazing’ it makes his heart skip a beat and as they spend more time together he realizes something horrible: he actually likes Misaki, and he doesn’t want to go back to the world where Misaki doesn’t exist. But at the same time he doesn’t know what will happen if he loses here either, and part of him is aware that as Yata keeps winning too they might have to eventually face each other.