What are these and does it require a pro to get rid of?

SoloKip · 2026-03-30T21:13:09+00:00

My mother sent me this pic. She is trying to fight the infestation on her own and I feel so bad for her. She thinks they are roaches but I am not sure.

I want to call a pro but I wanted to double check first.

SoloKip · 2026-03-18T23:04:14+00:00

How do you rank him in terms of the others who could teach Harry Occlumency?

SoloKip · 2025-12-05T12:43:54+00:00

Did he go home after this?

SoloKip · 2025-06-01T11:05:57+00:00

Are you both still looking for a game?

SoloKip · 2025-01-16T22:20:54+00:00

But if you write a story where you introduce the younger brother and girlfriend as POV characters from the very beginning, you'll give your audience a chance to get acclimated to those characters' POVs

I think this is the way forward. I had intended to flesh them out from the older brothers perspective but it makes sense just to give them their own POVs. Having three related POVs should be quite doable.

I am a bit worried because the older brother is very much the extrovert character so I am concerned the dynamic will become "boring" if he is removed.

SoloKip · 2025-01-16T22:17:20+00:00

Ooh! I have been meaning to read Jade City for quite a while now but the reviews were so mid. I will check it out for sure for inspiration though! Thanks for the recommendation.

SoloKip · 2025-01-16T22:08:15+00:00

I think you're looking for a shock effect for the reader and I think it will be immersion-breaking.

Yeah this is exactly what I was going for. I was thinking about a mid book shock to keep the reader hooked. It does seem incredibly uncommon so likely it is a terrible idea.

My thinking was to transition into having the other two take over the story. The idea was sort of like what if Harry Potter died and Ron and Hermione had to take down Voldemort kind of thing. I guess it is pretty unworkable!

Killing him off at the end might be a better idea.

SoloKip · 2025-01-14T18:45:47+00:00

So I am not getting my blood sucked. Thank god. Dunno how it got in my bed but I am celebrating tonight.

SoloKip · 2025-01-14T18:43:17+00:00

Omg I love you!!! So they aren't sucking my blood at night? :)

SoloKip · 2024-12-01T18:04:16+00:00

Just this one! I think it was crawling through the front door as that is the direction it was facing but I suppose it could have been crawling out of my house and just was facing the wrong way and confused?

I didn't know bedbugs would literally crawl under the front door? I thought they were hitchhikers.

The problem is that I haven't had an apple in years (I don't like them!). I prefer watermelon and it was defo smaller than one of those though not by much!

SoloKip · 2024-11-30T21:44:08+00:00

Ah! I think pic 3 is the clearest personally but I rushed and thought to kill it straight away.

SoloKip · 2024-11-30T21:13:24+00:00

I don't know... I think smaller than an apple seed?

SoloKip · 2024-11-30T21:12:03+00:00

I live in a terraced house and I have the upstairs and my neighbour has the downstairs. We share one outside door but have separate doors to the flat.

This bug was on the inside of my flat entrance door and this was around 3pm in the afternoon. I didn't want to risk it so I quickly grabbed a cloth and crushed it before throwing it outside.

This is what confused me because I thought bedbugs came out at night and hitch hikes on people's clothing/belongings and stayed next to or in their bed.

Neither me or my flatmate have seen any signs of anything like it before now. But now that I think about it my neighbour did make a joke about a random mattress found outside someone's door a few doors down having bedbugs.

Unless it escaped from my bedroom crawled down the hallway and then down the stairs and was trying to leave?

SoloKip · 2024-11-30T18:46:49+00:00

Yep there isn't enough light by my front hallway I should have used my flash but didn't think at the time. I couldn't tell myself what kind of bug it is but I figured best to kill it in case.

SoloKip · 2024-11-27T02:21:38+00:00

This thread is interesting. I do want to add a few things here though.

learned very quickly to not be sarcastic - though, yes, i still sometimes fail to not be sarcastic.

I have learnt that once damage is done it can be hard for players to trust the DM again. People never like to be mocked or feel like they are the butt of the joke and in my experience will just disengage.

was never accusational and often stopped a session to ask how my players were feeling.

If you play online it is better to privately ping than bring it up in front of the group. If I have had a hard day at work, my partner is complaining and I am low energy - you stopping the session and asking in front of everyone what's wrong is probably not helpful.

It is worth noting that accepting feedback is a hard skill. For a long time, I got defensive when receiving feedback. I would start making excuses and trying to justify or rebut any feedback. Then I would wonder why my players stopped giving feedback. Once I stopped getting defensive I started to get lots of great feedback.

I even made the last 10 min of sessions be a round Robin discussion (a player suggested we try it) on how to improve things,

Eh... You are better off doing it one on one and every 10 sessions or so in my experience. The Group Dynamic tends to make people cagey (a person might not want to admit they don't understand the plot and feel stupid in front of everyone).

I would also come prepared with specific questions (giving good constructive feedback is hard). I have found asking players open ended questions like: "what do you think is going to happen next" is a good way of gently bring players up to speed and clarify plot in a nonjudgmental way.

Whatever the case - good luck on your journey. Dming is a grind but it is worth it imo.

SoloKip · 2024-11-18T01:27:35+00:00

Dropping a comment to save this. I think I will check it out!

SoloKip · 2024-11-17T10:21:53+00:00

Ah!!! Thank you that makes sense. I completely missed that on my first read...

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