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felassan · 3 years

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Gamers For Groceries 2 event

A Twitch stream event from a few days ago. It can currently be re-watched here (it was fun & interesting, so I do recommend to check it out direct). This post contains some notes on things of particular interest & relevant timestamps, in case this is useful to anyone (for example bc of accessibility reasons).

First up is the All About Animating panel, a series of mini-interviews with game devs (animators) asking what they do, how they got there, and advice for anyone interested in getting into the industry. Some or all of the devs that were interviewed are currently working on DA4. They talked a bit about their day-to-day work and a lot about the craft of game dev animation in general. This segment runs from timestamp ~38 mins 40 secs to 1:07:50. Some notes:

[sounded like DA4] Right now the creature team are working on different creatures in a way which involves going through a lot of mocap data

At BioWare they have a pretty big technical animation team, to support their animators, so each tech animator has a different specialty. Tech anim involves animation support, character art support, and rigging the characters so that the animators can pose them

[not sure if re: DA4 work specifically, another project or a general comment on the craft] One of the featured animators’ area of specialty at the moment is faces and hair (building the control structure for face animations). First they had to decide how the face rig and its control structure would work. This involves a lot of performance capture of live actors for things like cinematics and gameplay animation, therefore the rigs for bodies and faces have to be able to accurately capture the full range of expressions and emotions that the actor is portraying. Right now the stage that this dev is working on most is setting up the heads that they’re getting through the pipeline from character art e.g. making adjustments based on feedback from the cinematics team. “Polish - just trying to get realism”

Hair tech has come quite a long way in the last few years [in the industry]

[not sure if re: DA4 work specifically, another project or a general comment on the craft] Hair is very complex to get right. “In the past most games have used card-based hair, which is basically like sheets of polygons with a texture on it that looks like hair, through layers of transparency. But real hair is strand-based, digital strands, so we’re starting to look into that kind of tech - try to get more realistic, more beautiful hair, but there’s always a performance cost to hair. Layers of transparent things are always an expense, they need to balance like, it looks good and moves well, but it doesn’t make your computer or console chug. [...] I guess we’re in the prototype stage but we’ve almost got a set pipeline. It’s always fun to experiment”

In Mass Effect 2 or 3, Miranda’s hair was as expensive as a whole character (!)

[on balancing hair costs/performance, general] It depends on things like character importance and how many characters are on-screen at the time. When you’re in gameplay fighting a bunch of monsters you’re not going to be giving full beautiful hair to all the characters and the monsters, as it will cost too much. (Having a helmet on is a convenient way to get rid of hair.) But if it’s a cinematic scene, with 2 characters talking to each other in a dramatic context, there’s a better budget for nice hair allocated

Some of the hair in Anthem was quite expensive in cinematics. They kept getting bugs from QA saying (for example) that a character’s hair was tripling the performance cost in the scene, so it would go back to character art so they could take away some of the hair cards. “Tough balance, quality versus cost”

“I wish all the characters could have beautiful strand hair”

For p-cap, a lot of the time they don’t want to be too prescriptive in terms of the direction that they’re giving the actors, as the actors know what they’re doing and have a lot of experience, so they give them vague instructions that they then riff off of

[sounded like DA4] They recently did a mocap shoot

[sounded like DA4] There’s a bit more productivity happening now in the pandemic situation; now that the animators are not all going to the capture lab in Vancouver in person for shoots, if it’s not their turn to direct a shot they can instead be working on something else on their computers (multi-tasking). ((Lead DA4 Producer Scylla Costa recently gave a talk at a games festival on the challenges of DA production during the pandemic. In part of this talk he talked about various benefits and drawbacks to the remote-working situation. He also talked about and showed some behind-the-scenes stuff for p-cap and mocap. Notes, images and link here))

[sounded like DA4] Special mocap suits were sent out that they can use with a laptop to go anywhere and shoot motion capture. It’s not as high fidelity as what comes out of the capture lab, but it’s really good for prototyping stuff. Before the pandemic they did some of this (going to a park and shooting some running around)

[sounded like DA4] In one of the shoots they had some actors who were really well-trained in dancing. They were trying to get them to do some combat stuff. This was a bit challenging in the pandemic situation as there’s only so much they can demonstrate/portray as an example to the actors from a distance on camera. “It’s hard to describe what a ‘dodge to attack’ is through the camera to somebody who has no idea what combat looks like in video games”

[not sure if re: DA4 work specifically, another project or a general comment on the craft] The pandemic has really affected performance capture for the face side of things badly, as in order to record, the actor gets dots painted on their face in specific locations by a makeup artist. They can’t do that right now because of social distancing/restrictions, so they haven’t been recording faces at the moment

The more detailed a face, the more joints it has, the more the cost to performance is

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There was also the Writers’ Block panel, featuring DA writers Mary Kirby, Sheryl Chee and Patrick Weekes, and DA editor Karin Weekes. The timestamps for this segment are ~2:37:50 - 3:26:20. Some notes:

PW has never been weirder than when they were writing Cole on DAI

PW thinks that they accidentally wrote part of “Timber” by Kesha into Solas at one point and they were like “Well, okay, I have to stop listening to Kesha”

For Sheryl, after a while Blackwall’s VA always nailed doing his lines. She loved the quality of his voice and so after a while would always hear his voice while she was writing. This really worked out

^ Mary had this with Merrill. As soon as they cast Eve Myles she listened to several hours of her in Torchwood, and then just wrote to the way that she spoke as much as possible

^ PW had this with GDL as Solas and FPJ as Bull. As soon as they heard FPJ’s delivery, they were like “Oh, okay, I have to write some lines differently, because Bull is smarter than I realized”. With GDL they were like “Okay, he’s going to put poetry into anything I say, in the best way possible”. In early drafts of Solas lines there were parts where they [PW] wondered “Is this too melodramatic? Is this too tragically-angstful?” and then they would hear GDL and be like “Oh! [It’s fine] Game on!”

For localization, German words are often quite long so they often have to make sure that everything fits on the GUI

They think scenes like the romance scenes sound prettier in the Italian versions

Behind the curtain in creating the in-world languages: PW: “There are some awesome websites that have every elven word, like ‘Here are the translations and verb tenses and conjugations’ [etc], [...] and usually Mary and I get very sad slightly looking at those pages going like ‘Does that mean that we have to stick to that?’ [...] The rule is, if I’ve looked at the Wiki and the words, and I go ‘Here’s the correct grammatical way to do it’, and if that turns out to be too long or too many disconnected syllables and it just looks bad or sounds bad, then we shorten it to something simpler, because the key is we want to give the flavor of a foreign language, but we don’t have the world-building budget and capacity to make something that is going to be dictionary-real [in a way that] someone could go through and translate all the background things written on the old temple walls”. Part of the reason for this is the consideration for VAs, who already have to act while bearing lots of things in mind, like the cues in the script for each line

Mary: “For building a language, the first things that I started with for qunlat, elven and dwarven, was what words do we need to use the most? Greetings, farewells, words for friend and enemy, basic things that will come up easily in conversation. After that it’s ‘How difficult is this for other writers to use?’ Can they just pick it off the Wiki? Do they need just one word? Do they need to write whole sentences, and how does that work? Qunlat has almost no grammar to it because asking anyone to learn how to use Qunari grammar and conjugate verbs in a pretend language is impossible, and then once you’ve done that a human being has to be able to read it, while not knowing what any of it means”

PW: “One thing that I was really impressed with with Mary in particular doing, Mary was one of the big lore people across the entire DA series; I can look at a word and go like, ‘That has two A’s in a row, that’s definitely a Qunari word. That word is kind of long and maybe has some apostrophes and has a couple of flowy vowel sounds, that’s probably elven’, I think that’s what’s important. You want players to be able to look at a word, players want to feel smart, [like] ‘Oh I don’t know what that means but I totally know that’s a word from the Qunari people!’”. Mary: “Every language has its own set of phonemes, the sounds that they make, and the sort of word structure and spelling so that it gives a flavor to that language. Hopefully that is always chosen to be pronounceable, because again, very important that the words can be said by human beings :D”

Sheryl: “One of the fun things to do is to make up swear words in the fake languages [...] Recently Brianne wanted a word, I don’t know if she managed to find one”

The origin of bosh’tet in ME: it’s just saying “bastard” and slurring it

PW: “I feel like there are times when past writers kind of leave traps for future writers, where past writers will go ‘Okay, I’m going to write this detailed phrase in a codex entry but don’t worry, it doesn’t matter if it can never be said aloud, because it’ll never have to be voiced!’ and then, next game, guess what guys! Look what you have to make someone [a VA] say! And you’re like [facepalm], c’mon!”

Karin: “Now, four games in, we have pages and pages of all these examples, and I wanna say this, well that’s how we said something before, well that’s ridiculous, I don’t wanna say that, but now we’ve said it and it’s out there, so it’s like, how do we, y’know, how do we evolve, and sometimes we just go ‘Screw it! Languages are living languages! We’ll just say it like this now!’”

PW's favorite is the sarcastic Mythal’enaste, “Because it’s the sarcastic Mythal's blessing that basically means you’re getting screwed over somehow. I love it because Mythal nasty! Whoever wrote that clearly never thought that someone would have to say this out loud”

Sheryl wrote Bull’s joke icicles line. She also wrote Isabela’s big boats line - Jennifer took it out but then DG was like “No it has to come back”

They have a pun test, they get a few of them and have to allot them wisely so as not to oversaturate on the puns. “Is this good/bad enough to be one of the times that we pull the trigger? We did have one of those recently, I obviously can’t talk about it, but it was pronounced Okay to go ahead”

The ‘baby-est’ writer is Brianne, who’s been there 8 years

It makes PW sad that the players never get to see the writers’ temp-text [placeholder text when portions are a WIP]. “People have the best temp-text". Mary: “The number of conversations that I’ve temped in like ‘WELL. I hope nothing BAD happens HERE’”

Q. If you could bring in anybody from outside of gamedev, who would you like to work with and do a writer’s session with? PW: “I will say romance novelist Nora Roberts, she is really smart and also she knows how to write inside a genre, and do wonders within it. Her structure is so good. If you pick up one of her books, you know here’s when this is gonna happen, here’s when they’re gonna meet, here’s when this first moment will happen. We’re all experienced and I feel pretty good about that but I really like all of the things she does that way, and also I am a sucker for romance so I would love to bring a romance novelist in and just have them look at our scenes and go ‘Okay here, no, they should pull the tie so that the article of clothing comes open, we need a sense of how warm the skin is here’ - something like that. I’d wanna see what they could do with that”

“Luke writes the best worst lines”

“I’m always impressed with Mary getting away with lines. There are lines that I look at like, wow, you buried that one. [...] The only players who get that line, I feel like they earned it if they went that far into it. [...] And then Varric or Merrill says a ridiculous line in a one-time throwaway”

Karin: “The group dynamic, you’ll see conversations or snippets of a lunch chat or a thing we’ve been joking about and you’ll see it get pulled in, and how all of you [the writers] are able to take a normal kind of thing - as normal as we get as a group anyway - and then turn it into a moment, and use it to further the plot or use it to further a character. It’s just the cleverest thing and it happens in so many different ways. [...] The little snippet of life, then how you crafted it into this very cool thing”

Quartermaster Threnn was written by PW in half a day. “When I was writing Threnn, ‘Okay, this is a good-hearted [person], I was doing a little bit of Steel Magnolias, southern, no-nonsense, but like, blue collar Steel Magnolias’. This is someone accustomed to the ways of the world so she’s going to call a spade a spade. If you come up to her and you’re an elf she doesn’t recognize you and says ‘Buckets are over there’ because she thinks you’re there to clean, [but] ‘Anyone calls you a knife-ear you come to me I’ll take care of it’. It’s problematic but she’s trying - the good-hearted person rooted for the wrong group on every occasion. She was a proud Loghain supporter, she gets really exited if he comes to Skyhold. That was a fun character for me to write because I had a viewpoint in my mind. I remember someone was like ‘Threnn is really important to me’. And you have to honor that, cause you’re like ‘Cool, it means so much to me that this connected with some part of you’”

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Also of interest was the Mass Affection panel, in which BioWare devs looked back in over a decade of history to remaster a classic. It featured devs who worked on MELE. The timestamps for this segment are ~3:36:09 - 4:24:37. Some notes:

When the pandemic hit the MELE team were in a relatively awkward spot. They were really entering into what they consider full production and were on-boarding a bunch of teams, as well as training and on-boarding third-party external partner specialized teams worldwide. When the pandemic hit, BioWare and EA were super on top of it. They were tracking it weeks beforehand, getting everyone their computers ready, and getting everything encrypted. When the middle of March 2020 hit they were home rightaway. EA were nothing but supportive throughout the entire thing. They got money every quarter for stuff. It functionally ‘hit’ at 4-6 different times for them as the pandemic occurred in different places throughout the world at different times depending on each country’s response plan (and their external partners were in different countries). “So it was one of those things where it was just like, every day we’d come in like can we still work with this company anymore? Do we need to find someone else? Do we need to pull people in off the other projects at BioWare to fill gaps here and there?”

There was a bug on Virmire at the part when you’re coming into the STG camp. If the Mako had its new boosters on and you came hurtling in really fast, it cut to the cutscene, but the Mako hit a jump and when Ash was like “What do we do now?” the Mako ended up literally flying around in the background sideways and then crashing into the camp

Another bug: when they were re-tuning the guns, the physics force on some of the guns with Hammerhead rounds was so high that when you were fighting some of the Thorian Creepers, you could ragdoll them so hard that you could basically embed them in the roof. They’d be moving so fast that they’d penetrate all the walls with their legs dangling out. It was so easy to do and you could do it to everybody. You could launch a geth halfway across an Uncharted World

Another bug: with Shepard’s casual appearance in ME3, if you didn’t have it set up perfectly correctly it would default to Grunt for some reason. You’d be walking around as Grunt, going on dates as Grunt, and your face would be all scrunched up because it was all mapped to human bones still, so it was just, like, Nightmare Fuel of Grunt

Another bug: in ME2 on Illium when trying to recruit Samara, the Asari enemies just would not stop screaming - regardless of whether they were hit or not, it was endless screaming. Later one of the devs got an audio file of the scream, endless and looped, and now one of the devs has it on their phone and uses it for their morning alarm tone

“Shepard would come up to characters and they’d just be screaming”

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There was also the Programming Variables panel, talking about what hurdles game programmers face. Some [or all?] of the devs that were part of this panel are currently working on DA4. They talked a bit about their day-to-day work and about the craft of game dev programming in general. The timestamps for this segment are ~ 4:24:46 - 5:06:02.

[source]

[insights/notes from Gamers For Groceries 1]

[☕ found this post or blog interesting or useful? my ko-fi is here if you feel inclined. thank you 🙏]

#dragon age 4 #the dread wolf rises #da4 #dragon age #bioware #video games #long post #longpost #in case this is of interest to anyone #mass effect #anthem #covid mention #cole #spirit boy #solas #lul

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tslasvegas · 3 years

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Episode 13: “What a depressing trip to Las Vegas” - Jaiden

I just have one thing to say.

HAPPY THANKSGIVING! It worked! I didn't expect Joey to vote with us. I feel bad about that, but hey, we couldn't see him being sincere. If he told us who the others were voting for, then maybe we would have changed votes. Jaiden was open to it already. Kailyn is probably the one who voted with John for Liv. Maybe she thought he would play and idol or maybe jury management. Anyway, she should have told us.

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Joey got voted out. Which was not supposed to happen this round. Pat and Jeff are just so naive and easily to manipulate. I’m sure they could be convinced to self vote without any real effort. I don’t even want to bother working with them moving forward because of it. But I might have to. I can’t let grudges get in the way of getting to the end game. Honestly at this point I’d be happy going to F3 with Liv and Kailyn. Xavier is too nice. Jaiden is too... out there? Love him, but I don’t want to sit next to him at the end. And Pat and Jeff i just don’t think they deserve to make it that far

I still can’t believe tribal tonight was real. It’s been like six hours and I’m still in shock that Joey finally went home. Like... what??? I’ve been dealing with that dude for three weeks and I’ve held his little secret in until it finally came of use to me, and... now I’m in the final seven. The game has NOT been won yet and while I feel like cheering and celebrating, I need to maintain my focus and center myself as the game is nowhere close to being over yet. We’ve still got at least four tribals to go, but after tonight I might be able to say that I’m exactly halfway through the merge (assuming it’s a final three... dear god please be a final three). Top eight was a really hard mountain to climb and once I lost immunity I felt a little out of touch with what was gonna happen next. I really felt like my time was going to come, and I’m so thankful that it wasn’t. Tbh Kailyn might’ve gone home today had Jeff not told me about a Palazzo chat still being alive and well. I don’t know how I’m gonna turn this bad situation around again but I need to convince Keegan and Livingston to work with me, Kailyn, and Xavier. It is critical now that Jeff or Pat go home because one of them is going to win. Before Joey left, he told me that there is a rumor that Jeff or Pat have an idol nullifier. While a nullifier won’t affect me right now, it’s not something that I want to see in the game going forward period and I want to use that little piece of information to my benefit and finally get rid of Pat. I’ve been saying for SO LONG that we need to get rid of Pat and now the time is ticking down. He has to go as soon as possible, fuck whatever Jeff says. Tbh I want to fly into the final six with no votes cast against me, still. I wonder if I can get Jeff and Pat to target like Keegan or Livingston and I really just need Xavier or Kaitlyn to bring up Pat’s name first before Jeff.. I doubt they have the smarts to recognize the danger that they pose, but we will see... Keegan is DEFINITELY pissed off at me now too. I made the mistake of telling him that I was “a little annoyed” about how tribal went, which was such a dumb thing to say bc tribal went exactly how I wanted it to. I’m playing off the fact that Kailyn must’ve known abt Joey voting for Livingston because her name was on the chopping block too so that’s why it went 4-2-2 rather than 5-2-1 like it was supposed to. I don’t want anybody to know that I was playing for Joey’s advantage which I’m sure people think I have right now lmfao... Anyways really I need to just make Keegan NOT hate me because he’s still part of my plan long term (I think)... he’s really smart tho and I’m not counting him out to win the whole thing but he hasn’t really done much of anything whereas people like Jeff and Pat and Xavier have kinda done a lot... If Keegan isn’t prepared to be fully loyal to me til the end then there’s nothing I can say to him except adios. All I really need right now is an immunity run til the end. I hope that the next challenge is something that doesn’t require a lot of skill because I am INCREDIBLY anxious just thinking about a competition, live. I need final seven immunity because then I’m guaranteed top five... the furthest I’ve ever been in Tumblr Survivor by a mile. I’ll break so many of my own personal records with that one single immunity win. In fact, if I make it to final five, that will be the best I’ve literally ever done in a Skype survivor org. I haven’t done that good since April and it’s just really affirming to me that this was the right decision for me to come back to Tumblr. Aside from winning challenges and making more moves, I also have gotta start fixing my bad relationships. Like I mentioned earlier, Keegan seems REALLY pissed off at me for how things went down with him being left out of the vote again. I can only apologize so many times before I am simply unforgivable. Maybe say sorry less and work to do better??? Idfk. But if Jeff or Pat can just say Keegan’s name, I’ll do what I can to prove to him that I’m loyal to HIM and not them. I hope that the Palazzos are falling to pieces now and realize that the only way to the end is to stick by us and nobody else. Jeff was also pretty mad at me for pushing his buttons a lot today. But honestly he was feeding me utter bullshit. I don’t buy that he was my savior and guardian Angel today, protecting me from having my name come up. I should honestly tell Livingston that Jeff sold him out to me not too long after Livingston said my name in their little chat. That would be hilarious. Kailyn and I are pretty close, but it could be better. I think I tend to revert all game-conversations with Xavier, so I don’t consider Kailyn my main ally unfortunately. If I want to go to the final three with her and Xavier, I need to really work on building that GAME relationship up because as a person I think we vibe well but it’s gonna come down to a couple factors and if she *has* to be sacrificed for me to get further, I can’t do anything but let it happen unfortunately.. As I just said, Xavier is kind of my main strategic ally right now which is super weird to say. He has definitely stepped it up A LOT in the strategic department and I have a lot of respect for him just as a person and I want to try and pick his brain a little bit more. The only thing with Xavier is that he seems to be playing really “safe” right now - I think had the opportunity presented itself to vote for Jeff with Joey, Xavier wouldn’t have gone for it and would’ve wanted to stick strong with voting Livingston instead. Which I totally get, but this game right now kinda requires we make bolder decisions than just what kinda didn’t work last time, you know? Okay now for Pat - god our relationship is just so weird. I have virtually not ties to Pat except the one alliance with Jeff and I feel like Jeff wants to control Pat rather than let Pat be his own player. It’s weird. I wonder if Pat would be down to vote out Jeff but fuck it’s gonna be hard to pull that off. I don’t want to hold off on Pat BECAUSE if I can’t get him out next, I will need him at final six and hopefully final five to serve as a sacrificial lamb or something. I’m wondering now if maybe Livingston needs to go because people are gonna always view Pat as a huge threat to win, even though he might not necessarily do so if he gets there. Livingston... yeah I really don’t like Livingston lmfao. I think it’s because of his super close connection to Rachael but it might also be because he is like, cool and nerdy and a bit of a try hard “around camp” so to speak. What REALLY gets on my nerves about Livingston is that he possesses zero of the charisma to convince me that he sucks at this game but enough social finesse to make me think that he’s actually gonna win if he gets to the end. He’s like, that cool dork everybody was friends with in high school. Even though parts of his game have been lackluster as fuck, he’s still a massive threat to win and I might just need to kick him off to the jury as soon as possible. :) And finally... me! I’m gonna try hard to be unbiased and self-aware but it’s so difficult to do that bc I genuinely don’t know how ppl are perceiving me this time.. I THINK it’s mostly positive but tonight was definitely one of my most negative episodes bc of how stressful I was being before tribal. Just ask Jeff. I think I’m definitely succeeding in getting votes to go my way and I have had a LOT of things go right for me since the merge. From Stephanie leaving right when I needed her to, to the double removal, to the super idol coming out and getting rid of Joey... It’s been so good so far. BUT I’m not being subtle about it. Subtlety is not a strength of mine that’s for sure.. I think I succeeded in being “subtle” about the Steph thing bc I was not making it overly obvious I wanted her out but otherwise I’ve been very clearly controlling other decisions and how certain votes went. Leaving two people I don’t trust in the game (Pat/Jeff) is tough but at least I worked with them on something, right? Joey was telling me so much that he was gonna lose to me and I think he was right. Now Jeff is saying that he’s probably going to lose if we’re in the end, but he doesn’t want to vote me out. Do I trust that? Not really... But fuck, I don’t even know anymore!!! I think if the game was over right now, I’m going to be grilled to DEATH for being fake as hell to Joey. I think that’s gonna come back to bite me so I need to start talking POSITIVELY about Joey to EVERYBODY. Read him for game, not for personal reasons. And maybe I’ll even talk his game up going forward just so that the person who goes into jury at least relays that I made a “good move” voting for Joey to leave (even tho I didn’t vote for Joey hehe). I wonder if people think I’m just playing tjem as pawns and not as real people.. bc these are definitely real people we are playing with here and I recognize that, but honestly in my mind nobody here wants this as badly as me. If that makes me the villain, I’m fine being the villain. But I’m not a human being that will ever play this game with a passion to play humanely. I want to win so badly. I’m going crazy in my own head, the wheels turning in hyperspeed. I’ve never been hungrier for something like I am for this win... I can hold out another year in this environment if I have to. I can and I will 🤠

Darn third world slow internet connection! Anyway, it made others look like challenge threats more than me, so hopefully that gets me through more rounds if they think other people can win more :)

That was a very stressful and very tense immunity challenge. Jeff was the clear front runner for the first five rounds, being the first person to advance in all of them. He’s a quick typer which made me very worried I wouldn’t be able to pull off a win. However, the last round was “Name That Song” and with the help of Siri, I snagged the immunity necklace! Final 6 here I come! This round presents me with an interesting dilemma. Since I have immunity I can be a little more ballsy. So I could throw Jeff or Pat under the bus, try to sway Jaiden, Kailyn and Xavier to vote one of them out. Or I can stick with the OG Palazzo group that is saying (for the fifth time I might add) that they want to stick together. That hasn’t worked out at all yet this merge and we’ve voted 4 people out. Pat and Jeff seem pretty interested in targeting Xavier for being a social threat which I don’t disagree with. But Jaiden is a very strong player. This is one of those rounds where I’m insanely grateful to have immunity because there’s also a bunch of advantages out there. I know Livingston has a regular idol now. But there’s vote steals and extra votes and idol nullifiers out there somewhere and that’s so nerve-wracking. Also, Jaiden mentioned to me that this is the last round for a lot of those advantages and I just don’t think I buy that. Final 7 is a weird place for that. Regardless, I’m fully expecting this to be a wild and crazy tribal tomorrow. Can’t wait to see what happens because I get to sit there looking pretty with my new bling. Xoxo Gossip Girl

I am terrified of tribal today and I have a bunch of different ideas in my head but I just want to survive. Kind of where I am at is I feel like I am getting 7th no matter what because I have never tasted top 6 in an ORG. I could play an idol here at 7, waste it, and then just get fucked at 6. One thing I thought about was "finding" the idol part of the way through tomorrow and then letting OG Palazzo know to build trust. The only issue with this is that the idol nullifier is in play. It could still be on the board. It was on the board when I got my auction advantage. But if it isn't, and Pat and Jeff turn on me, I could be fucked idol or no idol if the nullifier is played. I suppose that Pat and Jeff have both never voted me as far as I can tell, unless I have miscalculated one of the vote counts for the past 2 tribals. Maybe it'd be safer to hold onto the idol quietly and just hope I don't leave with it in my pocket. This is so stressful because if I leave with it in my pocket, I look like an idiot that had the luck to get two advantages but couldn't traverse the game much past that.

Okay so, Jeff is my closest ally at this point. Voting out Joey was our move and I am very happy we did. I don’t express the anger that I’m feeling and I think that helps keep my relationships good with people. I think I’m good with Livingston and Keegan and also Jaiden and Kailyn. I was Xavier out this round but I feel like something is going to happen. No one knows I have an idol which is amazing and I hope I don’t have to use it til final 5 and I have immunity and can play it on someone else for the fun of it. I can’t believe I made final 7 and am actually kicking up playing the game by voting correctly on Joey. I think so far I have 2 of the 4 votes at final tribal council, Andrew and Steph. I think I have a road there, I just hope I make the right decision because I’m still in I a weird phase of the game and anything can happen.

This tribal feels very weird. Jaiden is insisting he hasn’t heard anything at all about the vote. Which I find very strange considering he’s basically been running things most of this merge. Why would suddenly no one tell him anything? Especially Kailyn and Xavier. Seems like those three are fairly open with each other. I could not be more happy to have immunity this round. No matter what happens, I am safe and have not a thing to worry about. I really really hope that Pat and Jeff are being honest and actually voting for Xavier like they say they are. If they’re flipping and voting for Livingston.... I don’t even want to imagine that. But I’m getting some sketchy vibes. Fingers crossed it’s just me being paranoid, though any time I say that something unexpected happens.

Ok I'm calling it, I'm going home tonight ! Literally nobody is telling me anything and it's really quite pathetic to see Keegan, who says we're super cool and good friends and will be friends once this is all over, win immunity and then not make a single attempt to pick me up and flip me to his side. Unless he's so confident that the Palazzo four will stick loyal to the very end... which they probably will, but Jeff is gonna beat all of them in the end and I think they see me as a big threat or something LOL I guess it's good gameplay for them but I hate it either way. I don't really have a lot to say bc now I just feel dumb. I wish I had an idol, but of course, I do not. Anyways, I'm going to have to stick with the fact that people are voting for Xavier tonight and hope my name doesn't come up at all. I'm going to lie and tell Xavier that I'm certain its me or Kailyn tonight and hope he holds an idol if he has it... or plays it on me heh. We'll see though... What a depressing trip to Las Vegas if it ends like this.

The last Confessional :(

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vamprefaggot · 6 years

Text

how to calm down/feel better/kinda be less stressed??

heblo it is i freidnly eighbourhood dad w/ a list of tricks that help my anxious/paranoid ass calm down!! these might not work for all peeps but some of them could ya never know

starting off w/ small quick shit u can do

make something!! grab a pen n draw a dragon or a leaf or somethin on like a sticky note 10/10 v nice i do this when i’m working on something like writing or knitting and i need to do Something Else even for a sec(imma go into a bit more detail later as well in the bigger stuff section)

get a drink!! water is good hot chocolate is good(i personally make mine w/ heavy whipping cream and Stevens hot chocolate mix if u mix the cream and the mix while the water’s boiling then its hela frothy) warm milk with vanilla syrup is v relaxing and underrated i lov but you need to keep hydrated!!

food!! this is weirdly difficult for me bc i dont like to eat (food is just kind of an eh for me theres nothing i dislike but nothing i particularly lov) but just try to get a snack of maybe some crackers or a spoon of peanut butter or any other kind of nut butter if you’d like or just somethin to nibble on!! channel ur inner mouse

read some smutty fanfic!! idk why this helps me but when i was dealing w/ one of my rlly close friends not being able to talk to me anymore i binge read smut until i didn’t think abt her anymore so?? its just a distraction ig!! if u dont like smut then read fluff

and now on to some of the bigger things u can do that require more moving

blankets!! weighted blankets(or if u dont have weighted blankets just a shitload of them) actually have been proven to help lift ur mood n help u sleep(cool right) so just heap those bad boys on and it also helps bc then the spooky demon under ur bed cant get u

idk why this helps me when i’m having a freaky night but having something pressed to my back like the wall or a mound of blankets makes me feel a lot more secure so?? try that if u want!! idk it helps me

make something 2.0: Big™️ Stuff™️ so something that helps me if im kinda stressed is to make somethign with my hands(usually i dont draw bc it doesn’t require as much movement but u absolutely can if u want) hence the reason i knit!! its p easy and u can pick it up fast(my fav knitting needles arent actually knitting needles they’re a dowel i broke in half then sharpened n sanded) and use?? p much anything like two pencils if u want to knit w/ that same goes for crochet and i like to watch speedpaints by Kasey Golden (@kaseythegolden) cause her voice is rlly soothing same goes for theodd1sout who does rlly funny and interactive video or Simply Nailogical whos like?? fantastic i lov(this bit got long woops)

walk around!! walk around ur room walk around the block walk to the store(and buy food/hot chocolate) walk to the park walk the dog walk your neighbours dog sOmEtHiNg its just good to exercise and it usually helps get rid of excess tension and helps u sleep better

u can also do jumping jacks if u’d like

yOGA and yes i sounds like neurotypical sara but its nice to just do some of the easy ass poses like downward dog(that tutorials rlly complicated for some reason just stand like the pic), sphinx pose, hells even corpse pose which is just layin on your back v relaxing Good

mAsTuRbAtE i know it sounds weird but it actually relieves stress so?? thats cool(is also completely healthy which is an awesome thing as apposed to other less healthy things)

shower!! this can be hard for some people if u have dysphoria but its warm n loud n the water has interesting texture on your back/side/chest

also sitting down in the shower is rlly calming idk why

some other notes before i go: yes you might not be able to do some of these and yes they may not all work for you but maybe theres something on this list you haven’t seen before so?? worth a shot my dude

i hope this is at least slightly helpful n that you all feel better soon!!

#lo rambles #holy shit it posted #merry christmas??#ilyall

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bigbrothereclipse · 4 years

Photo

EPISODE 1 - “I’M KINDA MAD I DIDN’T GET HOH, BUT I’LL GET IT NEXT TIME FOR SURE.” - ASHLYN

HOH - ELIJAH

POV - FROSBY

EVICTED - ASHLYN / 13-2

FROSBY - https://youtu.be/3J7_Nd8O57M

SARAH G - https://youtu.be/m-nPTenfhdM

JULS - https://youtu.be/U2RI53y6qgI

ELIJAH - https://youtu.be/IeEiggUn3f4

BROOKE

Night 1 is done and I just want to express my thoughts on my fellow housemates.

Ashlyn- I’ve reached out to her and got two words back and now no response so I’m not quite sure what to think of her. I’m not sure if it’s just me or if she’s gonna be the ‘Chloe’ of the season, which is not a bad thing, just a bit more difficult.

Bob- We go wayyyy back. I’ve played with him in like January and completely got fooled by him. I’m definitely going to be cautious of him but also try to align myself with him. On top of all that, I got best rivalry with his brother, Joe last season.

Cheatham- I’ve had a good conversation with him and would love to align with him.

Elijah- We’ve bonded a lot by being in the latest timezone (in America at least) and he’s even mentioned meeting in person since he’s only like a 6 hour drive from me. I can see Elijah becoming my ride or die and I definitely do feel like I could trust him.

Frosby- OMG FROSBY IS BACK TOO! We tried to work together last season, but it failed when we both found ourselves on the block on Drew’s HoH. Frosby was quick to use screenshots against me, so I will definitely be cautious knowing that about him.

Gabe- Gabe was the first one to ask me about my daughter. I definitely see him becoming an ally and a friend outside this game. He was asking me questions about Saphire’s father, therefore probably knows the most about me on a personal level.

Gigi- I’ve talked to her a little bit. I know I’m not supposed to judge people by their photos but she looks like someone who wouldn’t even hurt a fly. I feel like she will surprise me as I am not painting her as big of a threat as I probably should.

Indigo- I talked to them a little bit as well. We bonded over being lazy and loving to sing, but I don’t really see any potential in the long run.

Jacob- He seems nice. I’ve talked to him a little bit, but definitely need to talk to him more to get a full read.

Jordyn- I’ve reached out to her and have yet to get a response.

Juls- I played with Juls once before but that season didn’t go well for me. I would love to get to know her more.

Mackenzie- Okay, I know this is the same Mackenzie that took over my HoH in another game and I’m still a little unhappy about that. (I hold grudges, what can I say). Anyways, she thinks I forgave her but I will stab her in the back the first chance I get.

Nick- I haven’t talked to Nick enough to get an opinion on him, but my gut is telling me he could potentially be a backstabber.

Rodney- We talked about BB22 a little bit and bonded over that, not enough of a bond to make me want to work with him though.

Roxy- I’ve talked to Roxy a bit but don’t see them as an ally.

Sarah G- Omg where do I even start with Sarah G? Okay well she harassed and threatened me in the black hole last season (as a punishment). I still get PTSD from pings. I told her I don’t hate her, and that is true but I will NOT work with her unless my life depends on it. I will make it my goal to get her out ASAP.

Wren- I’ve talked to Wren a little bit and she seems like such a sweetheart. Definitely someone I might be willing to work with.

Right now, my thoughts are to form a 6 person alliance with 3 solars (Frosby, Bob, and Elijah) and 3 lunars (Gabe, Cheatham, and myself). Frosby and I agreed to meet up again after assessing the cast and we’ll go from there. With this twist in place, I think having 3 from each group would be a good idea.

ASHLYN

Elijah and I haven’t had much of a conversation, im going to continue trying to stay under the radar and let Elijah make enemies of his own. I won’t attempt to ally with him, for fear of being seen as a suck up- I’ll just try to be kind to him and pose not as much of a threat. My bet is he will nominate the other two highest scores, either that or someone he particularly dislikes. I’m kinda mad I didn’t get HoH, but I’ll get it next time for sure.

GIGI

So the HOH came down to Gabe and Elijah. Before it was announced, I was lowkey praying for Elijah to win over Gabe just because I have connected more to Elijah than I have with Gabe. He and I talked a little bit last night but I feel like that wouldn’t have been enough if he were to win. I’m hoping I’m good with Elijah because he seems really chill and he’s definitely someone I’d want to work with moving forward. I’m kinda hoping he nominates people from the other side because I do believe that team has more threats (just based off of first impressions).

As far as who I’ve been connecting with, I have basically talked to everyone on the cast with the exception of a few, but I’d say I’m more connected to Rodney and Roxy. Rodney and I have a little secret that no one else needs to know 😏 and that’s that we know each other! I met Rodney through a game we’re currently playing (OBB) and he’s been my number 1 ally in that game since week 1. We’ve become so close that we were talking about wanting to play another game together. He’s the one that actually sent me the app to this game so if it weren’t for Rodney I would not be here rn. He is 100% my number one ally in this game. And I want to make it far with him. But with this twist, it makes me so scared because we are on the same team and whoever wins hoh has the possibility of having to nominate from their own team. I hope he and I can survive and make it very far in this game together. Anyways I’m pretty sure like half of this cast knows each other and have some sort of pre deals going on anyways so I don’t feel bad. 🤪 I just don’t want to openly make it seem like we know each other so we don’t become targets, so RODNEY WHO??? Haha jk. They better not come for him or come for me bc it’s gonna go downnn😈. (Lmao)

With Roxy, it’s so easy to carry a conversation with and I feel like me and her are similar in a lot of ways so we kinda have gravitated towards each other.

I’m hoping to make more connections obviously as the game progresses.

The twist:

The twist is pretty cute ngl but it can fuck up my game 😫😫 which I don’t like. The fact that my own teammate can nominate me just doesn’t sit right with my spirit. I’m hoping I can avoid the block but we will see. 🥰 I’m so curious to know who Elijah is gonna nominate. Gonna try to find out where his head is at.

Anyways that’s all for now, sorry for writing so much <3

WREN

so.. i’m not very close to eli.. but we talked abt trees!! idk how promising that is. i’m trying to hang low, but i might’ve screwed up. what if people target me because they think i’m just a waste of space? i have to win the next comp that comes around.. or i need to get some “special power”.. either way, i have to get out of the shadows if i want people to see me as a game player.

BOB

I don't really mind Elijah winning, but at the same time, I haven't connected to him all that much so far so maybe I'm at risk. Who really knows? However, I have made my immediate connections with Frosby and Brooke that give me allies on both sides of the house immediately. Frosby is wary of Brooke, but that's dumb to worry about this early---everyone will want to stay safe. I get on super well with Rodney as well, loveeee talking BB with him so much. I'm trying to mend fences with Mackenzie, just don't have the energy for it lol. As far as the twist is concerned, I like the idea of it and I feel like it's not an overarching twist that will take away from gameplay so I see it like this: normal weeks as an option is great, but every other week it probably benefits me more to work with the other side. If you are going on the block by your own side, then you need the other side's votes. If you are going up at their hands, then you need to have good bonds with them. If they are getting nominated by either side, who friggin cares because it won't be me! I guess there are some benefits to maintaining relationships on my own side, but strategically, you cover more bases by cozying up to them.

WREN

so eli wants to make me a pawn against jordyn.. and that slightly worries me. she’s extremely inactive, so maybe i wouldn’t be kicked off. but everyone knows pawns go home a TON. i don’t know how i feel about it.. but if it wins me an one on one alliance.. it’s worth it. especially such a strong player. this can backfire or help me a ton.

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