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bakurapika · 2 years

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and now i’m copy/pasting my discord liveblogging below

i love how the yugioh manga goes like this:

yugioh: the fucked up horror anthology yugioh duelist: card games yugioh millennium world: the fucked up egypt part

so when i look up "yugioh manga" it sends me to the horror shit. which is exactly what i want. i love that they don't assume i want the card games. how many people have accidentally seen yami set a guy on fire because of this

man i forgot how straightforward this is

[Image description: Yami Yugi points to the viewer as Bakura glares. Yugi says “Too bad for you... Bakura! If you can cheat... I can too!” End description]

godddd this manga fucking slaps. this is the best shit i've ever read. i'm not even reading it, just skimming for reference pics, and i still have to stop and show you all. takahashi really said this rpg nerd is going to be my final big bad. he was so fucking horny for ttrpgs that he said, "hi entire fanbase who follows me for my card games. i'll show you some 'card games' but ACTUALLY the final battle in yugioh will be a tabletop roleplaying game in which the rpg characters are the ones playing card games. fuck you and long live dungeons and dragons"

[Image description: A page where Bakura takes out a case of gaming miniatures, thinking about how he has sealed stolen souls into them. End description]

fucking sobbing. bakura is the worst dm. he fundamentally misunderstands the point of rpgs and then bases his entire character around it. and then he does a tpk so like, okay, good job on being an evil guy who is bad at dming. AND THEN, my MAN who is AT LEAST 3000 YEARS OLD, arguably a fucking god of darkness, goes, "i recognize my limitations and will calculate the damage with a 1998 laptop" because yes this was published in 1998. bakura was on the cutting edge of dungeons and dragons tech. because HE NEEDED THE COMPUTER TO CHECK HIS MATH FOR ROCKS FALL EVERYONE DIES

[Image description: A page of Bakura discovering that all players still have one hit point. He says in his narrator-voice, “Well, it’s probably pointless, but... I’ll calculate each character’s status on the computer. There are so many variables in this game, it’s safest to let the computer crunch all the data. (typing noises) I’ll input the data on Zorc’s attack power, the die roll, the characters’ defense, hit points, damage... The end result will be the number of hit points each character has remaining! Well, no matter what, it’ll be less than zero... Hm... WHAT?!!” End description]

and yes OBVIOUSLY the computer was tampered with. but that doesn't jgdfnjfjndfg fucking matter. bakura is bound to the calculations of this fucking dnd computer

but you know what? if i lived through 3000 years of inflation and then spent that kind of money? yeah i'd do the same thing

my goddamn meow meow. best villain of all time. 😭 i love him. he is so fucking stupid

yami yugi, also 3000 years old, also fucking stupid: "this doesn't seem right but I don't know enough about computers to dispute it"

[Image description: Bakura shoves his laptop away from his left hand, apparently saying aloud, “If I do this... and place the computer where my left hand can’t reach, you’re powerless!! H-ha ha ha ha...” Yami Yugi watches in confusion, commenting about Bakura’s reaction when looking at the computer. End description.]

god you know what? fuck doing art. im just gonna read this arc and you all are going to listen

i've been thinking "this is a different translation than I grew up with" and considering the fact that "Satanist" is on this list. yeah. yeah

[Image description: Bakura displays a list of RPG classes, including Satanist. End description]

[Image description: A screencap displaying the large text “ZORK ZONE.” A screencap showing HP for various monsters, including Zork, which specifies “Needs to be placed in the Zork Zone.” End description]

places you in the Zork Zone

#long post #ygo liveblog #yugioh #zorc

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pepprs · 5 years

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college fucking sucks because i need to finish having my breakdown and then process everything and also text people back and get on top of my study abroad shit and figure out my major change crisis and also get some sleep but also i have homework due at 10am that i haven’t even started working on and i can’t get myself to do it and i can’t ask for an extension bc i already got an extension the first time bc it was rosh hashanah and school doesn’t close for jewish holidays and i thought i could get my homework done by 10am on thursday but i wasn’t expecting that counseling would make me have a breakdown and now i can’t fucking move and i have work at 10 and im probably gonna have to talk about all of this stuff bc my coworkers are concerned about me and we check in with each other a lot and im not gonna lie to them about it or anything but also im embarrassed and ashamed to talk about any of this bc if i was less of a fucking disaster i wouldnt have to rely on them as my sole source of genuine and effective emotional support and i don’t want to constantly need to lean on them but what fucking choice do i have when college fucking sucks!

#purrs #ask to tag #i. am so upset right now like what kind of life is this where i have to PAUSE a BREAKDOWN. i cant feel my way through because i have homewrk #i csnt process anything or get sleep or maintain relationships because i habe fucking homework and im already behind in it!!!!!!#i just want to DROP THE FUCK OUT!!!!!!!!!!!!! pull a mary oliver and wander around on a walk soemwhere and poem it that is ALL I WANT in my #fucking life and even work is getting exhausting an di LOVE work likr tjas whem you know its bad when even that is making me wigged out!!!!!#GODDDDDDDD i need tk get this done i cant not but im despondent. also i’ll delete this later im sorry i just. am incapable of being a human #being apparently so thats where im at psychologically and ok. actually lemme just fucking say it. my counselor is... a grad studdnt intern #and ive only had one session w her but im concerned that shes not equipped to help me but like im not gonna fuckin say anything abt it after #all the shit ive put her thru with scheduling and how long i had to wait and how cheap these sessions are. but like. idk idk idk im in hell!#i cant be helped! im beyond. the point of being helped like maybe im jumping the gun but thats the vibe i got and i know if anyone responds #to this @ all ppl will be like ‘u deserve so much better u need to soeak up and defend urself and like maybe get a new counselor wjo isnt a #grad student’ and like i appreciate that but i fuckin cant dude i will never let myself!!!!! thats why im in counseling in yhe first place!!#JDHSHDKSHDJ and thats just scratching the surface and like normally i can get myself to do hw but. i cant tonight i just want to go #absolutel tfucking balljstkc like i just want to start acreaming and kicking and crying and well i just think thats sexy of me!#long post #i wanna talk more abt this but its like. probably too personal to put on here and i dont have time anyways and im anxious abt dming ppl bc #im a fucking Train Wreck so. guess i will bottle it up and itll just fade away eventually but. im straight up not having a good time rn!!!!!

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whetstonefires · 4 years

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Im sorry, you had a character who had been raised in a place that hated magic users, been framed and lost faith in the government, became a fugitive whose ONLY FRIEND was a magic user..... And the dm did not lap that up on a plate???? You basically handed them a plot on a platter omg

On the one hand yes, and I was trying so hard, I was single-handedly carrying the ‘giving a shit about the story premise’ flag. She told me all about the setting (but not the plot) and what the party needed for balance ahead of time, and I built my girl to interface with all of that and then it...just didn’t work out at all.

On the other, she was trying hard too. She really didn’t know what she was doing, had never played under a competent DM who cared about story, and had gone into this with a ludicrously ambitious complex political machination plotline that collapsed the second we won our first encounter, and did not get kidnapped and coerced into working for the secret police as surprise agents the other factions didn’t know about.

And fell apart harder when she let the oracle be old friends with the head of the army, and suddenly we had ties to power in the opposite faction from the one she wanted us forced to serve, and even harder when (forced to make things up to replace the original plan) she had the place we went to hide besieged by an army of secret police trying to assassinate Army Boss Lady, her only developed PC who wasn’t a Super Annoying Dude, permanently exploding the ‘sneaky subtle machinations’ vibe.

But she just couldn’t let it go. She really wanted us to experience emotional conflict about what had shaped up into a really straightforward decision that I was the only member of the party who was emotionally invested in anyway.

Even when I tried to help I sometimes put extra strain on her, because I would get really into the worldbuilding and then for example be totally bewildered that the houses had roofs you could stand on, when we were four levels down in a city dug deep into a cliff face.

It had never occurred to her to look for plot in PC interactions, I think, and if it had I can see not attempting to lean into it, when dealing with a party composed mostly of asshole divas and characters specifically designed around not giving a shit. (We started out with two wizards who were different flavors of indifferent to the persecution except re: not getting caught.)

The sorceress princess didn’t care about anything currently in the story only her distant lost throne, and kept starting drama for lulz and ego, and the oracle just steadily escalated her attempts to get the desired power trip out of the game at the expense of everything else. Apparently she was DMing the DM violent revenge fantasies about an NPC who took her character down in an ambush that we’d been kind of manipulated into with misleading descriptions of the amount of cover available. Scary shit.

DM was overwhelmed. It happens. Although the more I describe the situations we got into the more I’m like ‘wow she really had problems with wanting us to wind up in specific positions so NPC dudes could monologue plot at us, huh.’

My roleplaying was specifically designed to interface with her stated plot, but it didn’t always yield the outcomes she wanted or relate directly to her opening story goals, so she often reacted to it as a distraction, which didn’t help.

That’s a learning curve thing, but I’m still annoyed with her for getting mad that my character wholeheartedly disliked her carefully crafted Morally Ambiguous Antagonist, who was super condescending and ran the secret police, and turned out to have been maintaining a constitutional crisis for fifty years so he could be the de facto ruler of the city-state and keep us locked in a state of infighting and witch-hunting so we didn’t have the energy to devote to serious border wars, as opposed to the low-key, defensive border wars I’d fought and my adored older sister had died in.

His sole good trait was being anti-war and my character was a very young, patriotic, dedicated member of the military elite! Why would she be conflicted? Because he’s an authority figure? Maybe then don’t give me alternate authorities who have better morals and more right to boss me and are telling me to do things that make sense for reasons they actually explain!

And she caught him in a lie in the very first thing he ever said to her, even before she knew who he was. Pulling off subsequent Bluff checks doesn’t obligate a PC to trust the NPC who they know lied to them for no apparent reason about something very basic, when they have every reason in the world to be paranoid?

But I got accused of godmoding. 😩 Because Dimsil didn’t trust this suspicious man to send us to go fight sewer zombies, after a week in a bunker hiding from her own government when she was supposed to be on sabbatical going home to meet her new nephew.

I was prepared to be the odd one out for being Lawful, but not fitting into the party because I was the only one who cared on an in-character level and I cared too much was hard.

...I’m always going to be salty about all the attempted railroading with that one NPC tbh. The dude had actually set up our framing on purpose, but he didn’t tell us this, so my girl was just really scornful that he thought he was the only one who could possibly be trusted to run the city when apparently he couldn’t even run his Inquisitors effectively enough to not have them running off trying to frame random citizens to meet quota. That’s not a sign of good management!

But yeah, tiefling wizard rogue dude with his thing for bombs and my paladin starting to be real friends in the middle of the bullshit storm could have developed into something really cool, I think, if the campaign hadn’t collapsed under the weight of entitlement and drama. As they do.

And in addition to the difficult party members, flexibility and being invested in the story on a character level rather than a major-themes or detailed-moment level are useful DM skills, which is something I knew but until this ask hadn’t isolated as a concept in quite this way. Thank you!

#ttrpg #i throw salt #oh no a rant whoops #characterization #dming #it's a very difficult skillset #especially when you have players pulling in different directions #hoc est meum #thank you #army general lady was SO BLATANTLY #a personification of her thing for competent older women too #you gotta have more than 3 npcs with personalities #and ideally that should not be #Stable Of Bastards + Fantasy Girlfriend #beabaseball #ask

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vonschweetz · 4 years

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I'm glad you finally said something about the jerk on your d&d group and I am happy to hear you thinking about starting your own group. I can see how much you love d&d from the way you talk about it so am so hoping you find a way to play with people who make the whole experience a good time unlike the jerk who made something that should be a fun time for you not so fun.

I’m glad I said something too. I was worried I fucked things up at first but then I found out my feelings were shared with the others. Like apparently my dm has brought up an option to do like 2 people games and others ones without the jerk and Iw as like I dont want to inconvenience them since it’s at my friend’s home and the guy is her brother in law but apparently shes been wanting to put a halt to the game nights for awhile now since she feels worse after game nights and the guys have been really making it not fun despite how hard me and her try to make this a team effort thing.

I’ve been wanting to try my hand at dming a game for awhile. I like writing stories and plots but sometimes I struggle verbally talking about them since I can get a bit overzealous and stumble over my words or get too hyper which kinda jumbles up me telling the story. But I also LOVED to act and role play on the spot when it comes to characters and i have this fun idea for a plot to just let loose with people not afraid to just go for it (so I know Im not gonna dm that game with my current group because I dont want them to ruin a story I really think can be fun for new players and players who want to have fun)

I’m not gonna hold onto any hope that things will change. I wanted to gracefully leave the group but from the sounds of it, they’d rather have me than the other guy but I told them I dont want to make things awkward since they are related but from the sound of it they are kinda tired of him (he no joke had a hissy fit and wasn’t around for a whole knew campaign because in the previous one the others turned on him and betrayed him and killed him because he was a raging asshole the whole campaign and everyone hated him and he left mid game night and pulled a hissy fit and we had a whole fun game without his ass and I didn’t die once!)

#orangechuckiet

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krakido · 6 years

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Dani Dani Dani Dani Dani!!!! Tell us abt ur bf!! & how u started dating if ur comfortable!! I don't follow so all I know about him, being named Bubble, is that he's probably the son of Bubble Buddy from spongebob

o-oh! i’m sure i can do that aha, i dont have a lot of spoons rn but i’ll try my best!! also he’s totally related to bubble buddy

i’l put it under a readmore cuz it’s probs gonna get long cuz im a mushy nerd and i need to ask bobbles too cuz my memory is HORRIFIC

so! i met him at the beginning of january when a mutual friend of ours accidentally invited me to a server they were all in and they just kinda let me chill in there so we were all just chattin n hangin’ out n stuff, not really talking one on one but still messing around with each other

we first started gettin friendly when someone brought up sealife and i infodumped for like 10 years and bob was rly interested so i just. spewed a shit load of facts at him and that was really when we started talking properly? we started dming each other when i sent him a daily duck twitter and it just sorta went from there! it was a lil awk at first but soon we were talking till morning about everything and anything, and we had other rooms in other servers where we’d have heart to hearts a lot and stuff

it kinda came apparent we’d both had shitty lives so we gave each other a lot of comfort ykno? on my end he was SO understanding because my previous relationships gave me a fear of men and their motives so... it did take me a while to warm up but he also made me feel so safe? i really can’t explain it he was just so soothing! so we started talking one on one more, playing games alone together and thats when the ‘platonic’ i love yous started droppin’ (ofc we didn't realise at the time they weren't platonic at all ahaha)

this went on for months and months and moooonths to the point we were practically a couple even if not officially, lots of talk about kissing each other and holding hands and all that but still under the guise of being 'platonic' :') i still thought i only liked girls at this point so there was also a lot of sexuality crises on my end (and lots of gushing about him to my best friend sorry pinkie ily)

anyway one day bob basically went 'dude im crushin like fuck' and i was like 'dude same but we should wait cuz i'm a mess' which he respected (and how was willing to work with me and my difficulties with mental illness and ptsd and aspergers etc etc was SO NICE like i'm still reeling over that i'm so!!! i love him cries)

so we were already planning to meet at mcm manchester and i said i wanted to wait until then before i decide what to do, that was in may i think? though we'd been very couply together even before that

anyway june 13th we had a huge heart to heart and we spilled our feelings and i just went 'i can't wait any longer we should be a pair' and of course he said yes so! that's like. the abridged version of it cuz my memory is horrific but he remembers more so feel free to ask him!!! (or if ur readin this bobbles feel free to add onto this cuz im a dumbo)

i've never met someone so understanding and lovely before though and i've never felt so... safe? he doesn't hold my outbursts against me and we both know if we do something the other one is hurt by we can talk it out, and we regularly talk about how to deal with possible problems in the future and i'll tell him what he can do when i have meltdowns or i'm triggered and other such things... plus he's just. aa!! so good like he said he'd read to me if i wanted cuz i have trouble reading stuff cuz of my dyslexia it's things like that!!! i just really love him a lot and when i met him in person last month i finally felt like i had a place to belong ykno?

he's my home and i adore him to pieces.... even tho we've technically only been together for just under 2 months we've basically been a couple for so much longer and that's why my feelings are so intense like ahh.. im gonna shut up now this is way too long but yeah!! that's the gist of it

@bobmcduck I LOVE U A LOT U BIG FUCKIN BEAN AAAA

#im gonna tag these as #mush post #so ppl can block my mushy ass posts if they so wish haha #i just love him a lot guys hhhhhhh #long post #shades dude #asks n shit

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adorkablephil · 7 years

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Fic: Listen (Chapter 2)

Title: Listen Rating: PG Word Count: 2.8K for this chapter Summary: Phil is a successful YouTuber, and Dan is a fan desperate for attention. Sounds like 2009, right? Except Phil is Deaf. Tags: AU, Deaf!Phil, Strangers to Friends to Lovers Author’s Note: All dates are obviously completely fictionalized, including Dan’s little subscriber count milestone. This is an AU, in case you hadn’t noticed. :) Extreme thanks to the Treehouse Mailing List for all their support and encouragement! Fic also available on AO3 here

[Masterlist of all “Listen” chapters on Tumblr]

Chapter 2: Talk to Me

danisnotonfire You said to DM you, so here I am. DMing you. This feels weird. Is it weird? I think maybe Im making it weird. 8 September 2009

AmazingPhil It’s not weird. Or if it is, that’s cool. I like weird. ;) 8 September 2009

danisnotonfire lol 8 September 2009

AmazingPhil I was interested in what you were saying about the FFVII soundtrack. Tell me more about why you like the music so much. 8 September 2009

danisnotonfire Have you lestined to it? 8 September 2009

AmazingPhil No 8 September 2009

danisnotonfire But you play the game, right? It ws in your video 8 September 2009

AmazingPhil It’s hard to explain, but I play it with the sound off. 8 September 2009

danisnotonfire ??? 8 September 2009

AmazingPhil But seriously, I’m interested. Tell me about the music. 8 September 2009

Dan’s passion for music inspired Phil to download the song “Interrupted by Fireworks” and play it loud enough that he could feel the tempo by laying his palms flat on the speakers.

After his roommates complained about the noise, he only did it again at times when they weren’t home.

AmazingPhil This is going to seem really weird, but I’ve felt awkward about bringing it up. 27 September 2009

danisnotonfire I am the king of awkward lol 27 September 2009

danisnotonfire Bring what up? 27 September 2009

AmazingPhil It’s just, we’ve been talking for weeks, and I haven’t said anything about it. 27 September 2009

danisnotonfire ??? 27 September 2009

AmazingPhil Okay, well, I’m Deaf. 27 September 2009

[a few minutes pass]

danisnotonfire You cant hear? 27 September 2009

AmazingPhil Yes, Dan, that’s what Deaf means. 27 September 2009

danisnotonfire Hey no need to be a jerk about it. I’m just surprised. 27 September 2009

danisnotonfire Why didn’t you ever say anything? 27 September 2009

AmazingPhil Well, I thought you would have figured it out from some of my videos and stuff I’ve tweeted, but then when you started talking about music, I just … 27 September 2009

[a few minutes pass]

danisnotonfire I am such an idiot. 27 September 2009

AmazingPhil No you’re not! That’s why I didn’t want to say anything! 27 September 2009

danisnotonfire why? 27 September 2009

AmazingPhil Because I liked talking to you, and I didn’t want you to be embarrassed or something. Or to maybe think I was a freak or something. 27 September 2009

[a few minutes pass]

danisnotonfire I dont think your a freak 27 September 2009

[a few minutes pass]

danisnotonfire the whole reason i started liking your videos was because you dont talk in them 27 September 2009

danisnotonfire is that weird? 27 September 2009

AmazingPhil Maybe we’re both a little weird. But I don’t mind if you don’t. :) 27 September 2009

danisnotonfire xD 27 September 2009

One of Phil’s old friends from school had gone all the way to America to attend Gallaudet University, since it was the most highly respected university for the Deaf in the world. She’d had to study ASL in advance, of course, since it was a completely different language than BSL, but she seemed to be really enjoying her studies there. Apparently the sense of Deaf community there was more than she’d even imagined in Manchester. She practically glowed when she talked about her feeling of belonging.

Phil was jealous.

He’d chosen York because of his interest in their graduate program in video postproduction, since he’d loved experimenting with film since childhood, but his isolation as an undergraduate made him wonder how well a Deaf student would be received in the graduate program. Would they even make any accommodation for him in studying what they might perceive as a definitively audio and visual medium?

He and Sharon occasionally Skyped when the time difference allowed, but she now sometimes slipped into ASL without noticing, and Phil found himself feeling like even his Deaf friends were slipping away.

AmazingPhil Maybe we could Skype sometime? I mean, I can’t talk, obviously, or hear you, but we could at least see each other in real life and not just Dailybooth pics. :] 2 October 2009

danisnotonfire How would we talk tho? 2 October 2009

AmazingPhil I don’t know. We could write on paper and hold it up or something? 2 October 2009

[a few minutes pass]

danisnotonfire ok 2 October 2009

AmazingPhil Now? 2 October 2009

danisnotonfire ok 2 October 2009

AmazingPhil YAY! 2 October 2009

AmazingPhil See you soon! 2 October 2009

Dan seemed cripplingly shy in their first Skype call. He avoided eye contact much of the time, which made communicating rather difficult, but he loosened up a bit by the end and even seemed to flirt a bit.

Phil tried really hard not to develop a crush.

He was not particularly successful.

They exchanged phone numbers and began texting constantly, not to mention the lengthy Skype calls. Dan talked about his own interest in making videos, but gloomily doubted his ability to create anything interesting or worthwhile. Phil urged him to give it a try.

15 October 2009

Phil: I think you should upload it. It’s really good. Really!

Dan: I don’t now. I’m afraid people will think its kind of weird.

Phil: Weird is kind of our thing, though, isn’t it? :p

Dan: I just dont want to look stupid or soemething. i mean it kind of sucks

Phil: Dan, it’s brilliant. I promise.

Phil: I have to ask, though. The subtitle thing. Did you do that because of me?

Dan: No. I dont know. Not really. i just liked it. I thought it looked cool.

Phil: It DOES look cool. I just didn’t want …

Dan: what?

Phil: I don’t know. I didn’t want you to be making videos for me like that just because I’m Deaf. I know that sounds stupid. Never mind.

Dan: No i now what you mean. That wasn’t why i did it. I told you i first liked your videos becuz you didnt talk in them. So I guess I liked that style, but mine is different. right?

Phil: Of course! Your style is completely different from mine! I love the old-time silent movie thing, with the title cards and everything. It’s really unique! That’s why I think it’s so brilliant!

Phil: That’s why you should definitely upload it.

Dan: really?

Phil: Absolutely!

[a few minutes pass]

Dan: ok

Dan: maybe tmorrow

When Dan uploaded his first video, Phil tweeted about it enthusiastically to encourage his own online friends and fans to check it out, and unsurprisingly people loved it.

Dan’s unique, silent film era style, complete with occasional sepia tones and use of fancy-font title cards to communicate all dialogue and narration, approached modern-day storytelling and vlogging from a completely fresh perspective. He told stories about his own life, but in a style no one had used before.

People were intrigued. Other YouTubers Phil had come to know over the years quickly began interacting with Dan on Twitter, and Dan gathered an enthusiastic audience almost right from the start.

And Dan’s looks certainly didn’t hurt. Phil tried to ignore any jealousy he felt about the amount of flirting he saw going on publicly over social media. He and Dan were friends. Maybe they flirted, but apparently Dan flirted with everyone. It didn’t mean anything.

23 October 2009

Phil: Are you going to the Halloween gathering in London next week?

Dan: no

Phil: Why not? You’re officially a YouTuber now! You should come!

Dan: I can’t

Phil: We could finally meet. That would be so cool!

Dan: I said I cant

Dan: Just drop it ok?

[a few minutes pass]

Phil: I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to push or anything.

Phil: I mean, of course if you don’t want to come, that’s fine.

Phil: I just thought it would be cool to meet you in person.

Phil: I mean, you’re one of my closest friends now and we’ve never even met!

[no response]

[after an hour, Phil logs off]

Phil took the train to London and attended the Halloween Gathering on his own, but felt Dan’s absence keenly the entire time. He brought a white board and a few different colored pens so he could communicate with people more easily, and found that YouTubers were less shy about such things than the average uni student seemed to be. They seemed to find the white board an intriguing novelty and eagerly interacted with him through it.

They didn’t treat him like a freak.

Or, at least, they treated him like their own kind of freak.

He’d discovered a different community. One that wasn’t perhaps as easily familiar and comfortable as the Deaf community he’d grown up in, but a community nonetheless.

He just wished Dan had gotten to experience it, too.

He kept in touch with another YouTuber he’d met at the London gathering, a guy named PJ who had been particularly unselfconscious about using pantomime, facial expression, and the occasional impromptu prop to communicate with Phil instead of relying exclusively on words written on the white board.

Their brains seemed to work in similarly creative ways, and they collaborated on a sort of abstract short film they’d sketched out together on a series of paper napkins during dinner at the gathering. Phil was pretty proud of the way the project turned out, and PJ seemed happy with it, too. They put it up on PJ’s channel, and it got quite a bit of enthusiastic viewer response.

Dan’s blatantly passive-aggressive jealousy about the whole thing was Phil’s first hint that his own more-than-platonic interest might be reciprocated, but he tried not to get his hopes up.

13 December 2009

Dan: I can’t believe I hit 10,000 subscribers!

Phil: Yeah, well, everybody loves danisnotonfire.

Dan: really? so that includes you? ;)

Phil: Nah. Not me.

Phil: I don’t love danisnotonfire.

Phil: I love Dan Howell.

[a minute passes]

Dan: I love Phil Lester, too.

Phil finished his graduate degree in York and returned to Manchester to find himself a flat on his own. He liked the independence but also enjoyed being closer to his family again, and some of his friends from school and college had returned to the area after uni as well.

Returning to some involvement with Deaf culture encouraged Phil to gradually shift the content of his videos, as he became more comfortable openly signing anecdotes about his life, influenced no doubt by Dan’s focus on his everyday life experiences in his own videos.

Viewer response was mixed. Some of Phil’s loyal audience rolled with the changes and seemed to enjoy the more personal glimpses into his life and personality, but others left ignorant, offensive comments about deafness and sign language. He lost some subscribers. Making his content more personal had made the cruel comments feel more personal, too. But when something online hurt his feelings, he just texted a real-life person he knew accepted him just as he was, and it helped.

Being able to sign with people again made his life richer and more fulfilling … and yet he found himself looking forward to his evening Skype calls more than any real-life interactions with his old friends. His family expressed concern that this obsession with a “stranger” on the Internet wasn’t healthy, but they just didn’t understand.

Phil had fallen harder than he ever had before, and with someone he’d never even met in person.

In a strange way, Phil felt simultaneously happier and lonelier than he’d ever been.

11 June 2011

Phil: Are you going to Summer in the City this year?

Dan: no

Phil: You have a lot of fans now. I’m sure they’d like to meet you!

Phil: And there are other people who would like to meet you, too! :p

[a few minutes pass]

Phil: Dan?

[several minutes pass]

Dan: I said no. Jesus phil just leave it the fuck alone!

Phil: Hey, I’m sorry! I’m not trying to pressure you!

Phil: I’m just starting to feel like this is kind of weird. Like I have a boyfriend I’ve never even met.

Dan: weird is what we do, right?

[a few minutes pass]

Phil: Yeah. Right.

Phil: I know.

Phil: I’d just really like to meet you.

[no response]

[after a really long time, Phil logs off]

Phil attended Summer in the City on his own again, painfully aware of how much closer he was to Dan when he visited London than when he was back home in Manchester. Painfully aware that Dan not only hadn’t wanted to attend the convention, but hadn’t even responded to Phil’s desire to meet.

He talked with other YouTubers, made plans for possible future collaborations, and hugged dozens of enthusiastic fans, took hundreds of smiling selfies. But the entire time, he couldn’t help but think that Dan was only 40 miles away, instead of the usual 200. Less than an hour by train.

So near, and yet not within reach. He felt it like a physical pain.

15 June 2011

Dan: remember when you first told me you were deaf?

Phil: Yeah?

Dan: and you were afraid i woud think you were a freak

Phil: Right, but you didn’t. Right?

Dan: of course not you idiot <3

Phil: So what’s going on?

Dan: theres soemthing i havent told you

Phil: You can tell me anything. I love you. You know that.

Dan: but its really weird

Phil: Weird is what we do. <3<3<3

[several minutes pass]

Dan: i dont talk

Phil: Like you’re shy? I wondered if that might be why you wouldn’t go to the gatherings and stuff.

Dan: no i dont talk

Phil: But you talk to me all the time. I’m confused.

Dan: i mean to people. out loud. irl i don’t talk. ever

Phil: Okay.

Dan: ok?

Phil: Yeah. Okay. I mean, I don’t talk either. Are you Deaf too? Is that why you don’t talk? Why didn’t you ever say anything?

[several minutes pass]

Dan: no i’m not deaf i just dont talk

Phil: It’s okay, Dan. I just want to understand. Why don’t you talk?

[no response]

[after a very, very long time, Phil logs off]

Phil didn’t know what to do with what Dan had told him, especially since Dan had sort of dropped a bomb and then just run off without explaining anything.

One thing was clear, though. Dan didn’t like being pushed. When he wanted to talk about this—no pun intended—he would.

Because if one other thing was clear, it was that Phil was willing to wait.

6 July 2011

Dan: You havent brought it up.

Phil: What?

Dan: You havent ever asked about the talking thing.

Phil: I did. You didn’t answer.

Dan: yeah but you havent asked again since

Phil: Did you want me to?

[several minutes pass]

Dan: I dont know. maybe

Phil: Okay. Why don’t you talk?

[several minutes pass]

Dan: I havent talked since I was 8.

Phil: Wow. That’s a long time.

[a few minutes pass]

Dan: yeah

[a few minutes pass]

Phil: Is that why you never wanted to meet?

Dan: yeah i didn’t want you to think I was a freak

Phil: Dan, weird is what we do. And I’m Deaf!

Dan: Well yeah but you dont do that on purpose.

Phil: You do it on purpose?

Dan: sort of i guess

Phil: So you could talk if you wanted to, but you don’t want to?

[several minutes pass]

Phil: Dan?

[several minutes pass]

Phil: Dan, I don’t think you’re a freak. Just talk to me.

Phil: Crap. You know what I mean.

[no response]

[hours later, Phil finally logs off]

Phil did some research into muteness that someone might call “on purpose,” just wanting to understand, and found himself wondering if what Dan experienced was maybe something called “selective mutism” or maybe a “conversion disorder.” As far as he could tell, neither one was truly something anyone did purposely, but, really, if Dan didn’t want to talk about it, Phil wouldn’t be able to understand much at all. He just wanted to educate himself a bit so that if Dan ever did want to talk about it, he’d be less likely to say something stupid and make Dan shut down even more.

12 February 2012

Dan: I have a question to ask you.

Phil: Okay.

Dan: but its making me really nervous

Phil: I love you, Dan. Whatever it is, it’ll be okay. I promise. <3

[several minutes pass]

Dan: do you think maybe i could come visit you in manchester?

Phil: Skype me right now this very minute because you have to see how big my smile is! <3<3<3<3<3

[Continue to Chapter 3]

#phanfiction #phanfic #phan #dan and phil #phan au #phanfic au #au phanfic #phan deaf au #myphanfic

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doing-that · 7 years

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oracle-of-secrets replied to your post “Can you expand on why nights is so bad? I'm not trying to be defensive...”

I guess I don't know a lot about what makes good DM'ing so like how would you contrast the taz nights style with the live taz shows? Since those both are only one-shot deals sort of with time limits

this should be fun!

this is actually a super great vehicle for comparison, im glad you brought up the one-shot live episodes because this is the perfect way to compare! i’m going to try to pull my specific examples from the the camp goodfriend episode since it involves a guest player. im comparing one of the best episodes ever made to the campaign with the literal worst one(nights 3) so this is gonna be a little harsh probably, but... gotta do what you gotta do

there will be spoilers for nights in this. also its long as fuck so enjoooyyyy

tldr; good dming is describing a situation and seeing what your characters can make of it, not telling your players what to do.

in camp goodfriend, griffin set the boys up by saying that they were at this camp for like a week, asked them how they’d spent their time there, and then told them they were going to this team building exercise that all of the players willingly went into. they could have said no if they wanted to, but where’s the fun in that? they went into the dungeon with brad from hr who was just there to help and have fun. while his integration in the challenges was a little awkward at points (*cough*whentheywerecritiquingeachother*cough*) he was helpful, nonintrusive, and is still beloved by many long after that episode came out! also notably, he knew as much about what was going on or less than the rest of the boys, he didn’t have critical information towards the plot. that was just the npcs (or i guess npc in this case)

griffin manages the gameplay gracefully with the way he describes every area the boys set foot into in every episode of taz, sometimes including more detail than seems at all necessary, but it helps you to visualize everything which makes gameplay easier, it makes it seem more real, and it gives the illusion of options. it’s like when griffin explains the directors office. he didn’t need to say what all was on her desk. he didnt need to mention the big portrait, but he did. and even though the things weren’t all important at the time (though they were later) he invited the players to investigate if they wanted to, or not investigate if they didn’t care. griffin leaves it open for anyone to do whatever they want at any time, as is hugely emphasized in the new ttazz.

in camp goodfriend, he took a lot of care in saying exactly how much of the place was paper mache and foam, he gave the exact mood of the environment they were in when insisting they couldn’t walk across the floor because it was “laaAAavaaa” (red carpet). when they shrunk his big wall down, he stayed true to what the boys were doing rather than to the story he wanted to tell and kept it small for the trust fall. When the boys finished each challenge, he told them what they saw next rather than what they were supposed to do next except for a few hints from the loudspeaker in-character and most of the time what the boys were supposed to do was obvious by that point, therefore making the redundancy funny(”anyways it’s time for trust falls!”). since the boys knew intimately everything they saw, they were able to make their own decisions on what to do, and they did it!

most most most importantly, everyone was roleplaying the entire time through the episode. griffin didn’t exist as an entity beyond describing the rooms and answering simple questions. griffin didn’t speak to the characters, but if necessary he would speak to them as art goodfriend in the game. all of the players made their decisions in-character and roleplayed their way out of everything. and they did it beautifully even when they were challenged to suddenly take on someone else’s character sheet! they all told a story together that was fun to listen to and sure sounded super fun to play!

onto nights. i will start by saying that travis’s biggest problem is absolutely giving the players freedom. back in episode 1 the first thing he did was give the characters an npc guide to tell them exactly what to do and then also put in a weird toy that ALSO told them what to do but 1/4 of the time it lied about it. neither of these npcs needed to exist and the story would have moved along fine, if not smoother without them. the dungeon they were in was not complicated, it was a few sets of doors that the players could have chosen from on their own. but they weren’t given those options, they were directly told what to do (and when what they were told to do was a lie, they were being told to do something literally impossible). the final boss was also only beaten because the npc guide had to remember a specific word, so the entire thing was out of the players’ control. there was another “puzzle” at the beginning of 3 that involved blowing up a specific box out of 50 in the room that contained no hints or anything to find it. thats not a puzzle.

i will say that overall, nights 2 vastly improved on all of these things, but still critically lacked description of the locations in favor of a (apparently poorly made) map travis gave to the boys that no one else could see, so there was no way to properly visualize the setting and make decisions based on that. episode 3 lacked all of this almost entirely as the players never really physically took themselves from place to place, but were rather instantly transported between 2 or 3 locations. i must admit i don’t remember episode well 3 because i literally couldnt pay attention to it.

onto the magistrate. this character was initially played by travis at the end of episode 2, not for very long but long enough to begin to establish a personality. the magistrate was also completely essential to the plot of episode 3, as he was the one being saved and who had important information to take everyone on their next mission. this is not a character that you give to someone who has no context for whats going on. because lin had no idea who this man was or of his motivations, travis had to tell everyone out of character that they needed to go to this exact place and do this exact thing and this is why. a lot of this could have been solved had travis pulled lin aside ahead of time and told him “this is your character, these are his motivations in detail, play the character and tell the others what they need to do and i’ll be here to help”, but he clearly didn’t. honestly i would say a VERY LARGE portion of the episode was spent justifying things out of character when they would have been more natural, enjoyable, and reasonable if it were all explained as the magistrate in character to the rest of the PCs. roleplaying. nights 3 had practically no roleplaying whatsoever on anyones part.

travis has had a problem in every episode of explaining things to the players out of character in too much depth, episode 3 just really brought that to light. the result of it is that the players aren’t allowed to make their own decisions and worse, they aren’t allowed to make decisions as their characters. all of the nights characters are incredibly strong personalities and i want to see more of them so badly, but they are given such incredibly little power to roleplay and make their own decisions so the episodes turn into less of a story and more of just an explanation of something that’s going on.

people are capable of making decisions on their own and can catch hints very easily, all it takes to create plot is a tiny tip or emphasis on something in a room, not an overt explanation. players want to move the story along and will do it on their own. it’s better for playing and listening.

#oracle-of-secrets #m.txt #replies #before anyone tries to get on me for ragging on travis like this i just would like to say #i love him for 1 #and for 2 im like. a genuine critic when it comes to this stuff? i spend a lot of time debating about storytelling techniques #especially related to storytelling in games both video and otherwise #and analyzing things like this is a good way to gain a better understanding of what makes a game good or bad #its very important to be aware of these things!#yes hes never dmed before i know and this is unfair judgement i know #but that honestly just makes this all the better to think and write about because it makes the distinct problems VERY clear #and it really emphasizes what kinds of things are successful!#taz nights

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