Every now and again I'm reminded of how fundamentally different ttrpg liveplays are as a storytelling medium from literally any other and it drives me a little bit bonkers. So much comes down to chance; you can plan and strategize and have some absolutely wild modifiers, but if you roll a nat 1 you still roll a nat 1. It doesn’t matter how important a character is to the narrative and how many plans the players have for them, they can still die at any time and be inevitably lost because the dice told you, sorry, resurrection didn’t work this time. And then we build the narrative around that, an echoing hole that can never be mended, because we have no other choice but to move one.
You never know if a risky choice will be rewarded or punished. You can go into what looks like an easy fight and lose bitterly due to bad luck, or into what should be an impossible one and still win. You will never be reassured by the knowledge that it’s a prewritten, planned out story where some things are bound to happen for maximum narrative impact.
But neither will moments feel cheapened by the knowledge that it was always bound to happen. A character comes back to life in a movie and, well, you know it’s because the narrative needed them and they were never truly at risk; they come back in the game and you know just how easily the dice could have landed on a different number and it wouldn’t have mattered how needed they were.
It can, if we allow it, remind us that purpose and meaning in real life has nothing to do with inevitability or fate; it’s all about what we make it, the choices that arise out of chance, the consequences that come from choice. We create our own narrative out of inherent meaninglessness and chaos and it is beautiful.
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love the idea of billy being able to approach anyone at school and it just being accepted. him not necessarily being apart of the popular crowd but anytime he chooses to grace them with his presence, they're all over him, offering him a seat and the latest hottest gossip. him talking to some nerd in class, asking for a pen becos he doesn't believe in bringing his own school supplies, and said nerd internally rolling their eyes but still handing over a pen. him talking to the drama kids, asking where they got that sick as fuck leather jacket for their musical, getting confused and lowkey alarmed looks but still an answer.
love the idea of there being only a select few people that can approach him and have him actually respond and acknowledge them, everyone else not even getting a glance.
eddie being one of them.
eddie and billy seeming to become eddie and billy overnight, like one day they were strangers and the next they were basically inseparable.
eddie walking up behind billy in the hallway and swinging an arm over his shoulder, fucking with his hair, before dumping half the shit he was carrying in billy’s basically unused satchel. billy giving him a what the fuck look but still holding it open for him, and eddie rolling his eyes and saying it was fucking empty anyway, billy shoving his satchel onto eddie's shoulder cos he’s not carrying around eddie's shit for him all day.
eddie being able to lean against billy's car, jump in the passenger seat without an invitation or even a comment, cos billy does the same thing to eddie's van just as often.
they have one class together, and their teacher’s given up on separating them, cos eddie’s just gonna talk to billy from across the room anyway, and billy’s gonna throw notes back to him, ripping up the piece of paper he borrowed from the guy beside him and throwing them at eddie's hair.
they have fun in detention together.
heathers another one.
they’re coworkers, yeah, but heather was probably the first person that billy ever truly gave a shit about in this shithole of a town. heathers been a cheerleader since becoming a cheerleader was an option, but somehow, like billy these days, always seems to just do her own thing.
she can sit on billy’s lap at lunch if they both bother with the cafeteria and the most billy will do is wrap an arm around her waist and move around 'til their more comfortable.
she can go through his shit to find his car keys to make a quick run to his car at lunch to find some spare hairbands and bobby-pins cos her’s broke and billy’s got spare shit everywhere in his car ever since he basically started being everyone’s personal chauffeur.
she can drag his notes across and copy everything he's written cos she was too busy texting chrissy under the table to pay attention and the most billy will do is ask what the plans were for that night. his notes half the time are basically illegible but billy's more or less somehow got mostly straight A's so heather'll take it.
sometimes she wears his jacket. rips him off about the lip stain. billy tells her to do a better one since she gives so much of a fuck.
chrissy joins billy’s inner-circle slowly, then instantly.
billy knows of her, has probably even spoke to her, but it’s not until they meet in eddie's trailer and all smoke up together - eddie and billy fucking around on eddie's guitars, heather with her feet swung over the back of the couch, chrissy sitting tense on the single armchair before slowly loosening up - that billy feels like he actually meets her.
suddenly, she’s pulling away from jason, from the other basketball players, from all her cheer friends, and slowly she’s hanging out with heather under the bleachers, she’s meeting up with eddie in the woods, and she’s waiting around the camaro at the end of the day to catch a ride home.
suddenly billy’s waiting around after basketball/cheer practice until chrissy’s ready to leave, cos jason's been talking a lot of shit lately, and billy doesn’t really think he’s got it in him to do something reckless, but he’s also not stupid enough to underestimate a guy like jason carver.
chrissy getting nervous when she sees jason loitering around but then she sees billy waiting just behind him, and she’s feeling brave suddenly, so she practically dances her way over to billy, grabs his hand before leaning into his side, and billy’s leaning right back and dropping her hand so he can wrap his arm around her shoulder, and she leaves without looking back. billy flips jason the bird over his shoulder.
max, obviously, when she starts going to the same high school. they’ve spent the previous summer working so much shit out, and it doesn’t mean they’re not still at each others throats over the stupidest shit, but it does mean that when billy bitches about having to wait around after her stupid nerd clubs, he does it without that much heat, and when max bitches about having to deal with the fact that every single person and teacher in this damn school has an opinion on her just becos she’s billy hargrove’s little sister, she sometimes sounds kind of proud to have that label. most of the time, she’s just annoyed.
max sometimes shoves her shit in billy’s locker, becos her locker’s full of dustin’s science shit, and sometimes when she’s carrying her board around at the end of the day, billy’ll come up behind her and smack it out of her grasp before skating down the hallway. she always feels vindicated when billy gets caught though, cos she never does.
shaking billy down for lunch money, cos susan seems to think max actually likes tunafish sandwiches, when she rly truly fucking hates them. billy usually telling her to fucking scram, but occasionally giving in and passing her some change.
max sometimes tracking him down at the start of her lunch period and holding a hand out for his car keys, a pissed off look on his face, and billy takes one look behind he to see her lil gang looking all shifty, and billy - having been on the receiving end of her attitude fucking constantly in the past - just sighing before handing his keys over. more often than not, trailing behind her, even when she tells him to fuck off, just throwing a shit eating grin her way with an aww, so little maxine can have a pity party for one? fuck no. what'd the fuckers do this time?
lucas, becos he’s max’s boyfriend, and also becos he’s on the team, and he seems to be sneaking over every other weekend, and things may still be rocky between them, but since billy make his apology, they’ve been getting better. they’re not exactly besties, but sometimes they play a one on one game after practice ends and no one’s in a rush to get home, and most times lucas will win becos he’s honestly just better than billy at basketball, and each time billy will ask for best out of three, then best out of five, cos he fucking sucks at losing.
when jason and some of the other basketball dickheads start trying to drag lucas in, pulling their fake shit only to split whenever it’s convenient, billy just watches on before rolling his eyes and pulling lucas’ gear closer to his in the locker room and gives him the worlds shittest pep talk. jason carver ain’t shit, trust me. fuck that guy.
carol! and tommy! except billy’s a dick and he thinks it’s funny to fuck with tommy, so when carol comes up to him and catches him up to date with the latest wild happenings from the party he couldn’t be fucked to attend the night before, crashing at eddie’s with the others instead, and tommy tries to go in for a simple bro-handshake, billy gives him a blank stare and holds his hand out limply, not participating, watches the look on tommy’s face go from excited to confused, before finally grabbing him by the hand and pulling him close, hand on his shoulder, ‘i’m fucking with you’, then doing the stupid bro-shake thing. tommy laughing it off but turning to carol with wide eyes, every fucking time, like ‘shit, are we cool? are we friends?’ and carol just patting him on the shoulder before tucking herself into his side, all ‘yeah, babe, you're good.’
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Okay, so related to my ask about the only picture truly left of Sirius being the one of him laughing as he’s arrested, I have also decided that Narcissa sends him a copy of his and Bella’s arrest photos. At some point, Sirius gets an untraceable package and it consists solely of the photos of him and Bellatrix laughing as they get arrested (he can see the other 3 in the background but Bellatrix dominates her photo, just like she always has) and a note saying “I thought these photos were particularly fitting. For obvious reasons I couldn’t send them to you or Bella earlier, but I’m sure you’ll get the joke. Don’t die.” There’s no signature but Sirius recognizes Narcissa’s handwriting and he does indeed get the joke (it’s not particularly funny, but it’s “no matter how hard you try, you’ll never not be a Black. Nobody will ever see anything but our family when they look at you; you can never outrun the Black blood in your veins”). It’s also a tad cruel, as Sirius is very aware of how similar he and Bellatrix look in that picture and he’s just as aware that Narcissa would’ve been as well and wanted to make him think of it too, but the Blacks’ form of communication is about 20% jabs that everyone else would consider too cruel to ever be forgiven but they say those comments as conversation over breakfast so he’s not too upset. Sirius sends back an old newspaper scrap with the owl, making sure there’s no way to identify where he got it or track him with it, and scrawls “Thanks. You used to be a lot funnier” on it. He knows Narcissa will know this means he’s alive, he got the joke, and he’s not truly mad at her. I like to think that Sirius takes the photos with him to Grimmauld and the Order is rather confused about why he’s chosen to keep photos of him and his lunatic cousin laughing as they get arrested. I also choose to think Narcissa made a copy of the photos and she gives them to Bella when she gets out, and all three of them are aware just why Narcissa kept them and what her message is with them. For crack purposes, all the other Death Eaters have to see the photos and words cannot describe how unsettling it is to see Sirius Black and Bellatrix Lestrange laughing madly as they’re surrounded by over a dozen Aurors; for all that they’re on opposing sides, they look near-identical in the pictures. Narcissa and Bella are the only ones who don’t find the pictures creepy (other Death Eaters have brought it up to Lucius who shrugs helplessly and rolls his eyes because he’s lost this argument 3 times and he won’t try for a fourth time so they’re on their own)
that this also lends credence to the androgyny of sirius’ appearance pleases me on a level i cannot articulate.
also the last point lmaooo i love how detailed ur stuff is bc i can imagine it happening perfectly. the look of resignation on lucius’ face, the alarm on everyone else’s, the mix of cruelty-humor that the blacks are known for (and that make them too abrasive for everyone else)
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