NZXT PODCAST - #159 - Pride Month! (Ft. Lauren)

Episode Date: June 2, 2023

On this week's episode of the NZXT Podcast... We have our Sr. Graphic Designer, Lauren, talking about her month-long pride stream for the Trevor Project! Also... would you rather fight a chicken everytime you got into a car or an orangutan that wields a sword once a year? Donate here: twitch.tv/inkandlyre Tune in live every Friday at 10AM PT on twitch.tv/nzxt

Hello, everyone. Welcome to episode 159 of the NCC podcast, the official podcast at the N60 community. This podcast recorded live every Friday at 10 a.m. Pacific Standard Time on the official NCC Twitch. It is available to stream on demand on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify, and SoundCloud. My name is Mike. As always, is Ivan. How are you doing, Ivan? Doing great, Mike. Happy Pride Month. Very excited to have a special guest today to talk about. Pride and some other stuff.

But before we get into that, I do want to quickly mention that we do have a special Pride giveaway going on today. So you saw on social media, I posted a picture of this cool NZT limited edition Pride hat featuring our beloved mascot

Cucci here. And everyone that wins a prize today on the giveaway is going to get a hat. So we're giving away white NXT hoodie, white NZXT ZXT shirt and a

lanyard and sticker pack. And if you win that, you get the Pride hat. So good luck. And if you stick around to the very end of the show, Mike is going to give you a secret word that will give you a bunch of bonus entries into the giveaway. And most of the time, the

winners are the ones that type in that secret word. So stick around. Yeah, without any further ado, I want to introduce Lauren from the design team. How are you doing, Lauren? I'm doing great. It is so exciting to be here. You sound thrilled, Lauren.

I am very high energy. For those of you, for Ivan, who definitely knows, I've actually done like town halls and stuff. So I am always very high energy. Your presentations are definitely like not boring at all. I can I can listen to you, talk through anything to be honest. But yeah, so I know who you are. Mike knows you are. But those who are watching or listening that don't know who you are, please let everyone know who you are and what you do at NCXT. Yeah, definitely. So I am a senior graphic designer in the Campaign's Lane here at NST, and that basically

means I've had my hand in designing the new product launches and releases that you guys have seen on social media, and on NST's website, just kind of among the spots that you might have seen them. And then I work with a team of people who design those campaign launches. Very, very important job. And especially for Mike and I, because, you know, without you, we would probably have nothing to post on social media. So thank you so much. Well, I guess we could post our cringy means.

But those are the best, though. Those are the best. People would probably get sick of them pretty quick if that's all we did. So you make all our products look amazing. So kudos to you. Thank you. And shout out to Helen. Shout out to Helen.

She is my partner in crime for that. Ducky. Ducky, if you're listening, shout out. So before working at NSDXT, what did you do? I worked at a variety of different design agencies. I worked at like Red Sage Communications and little old Decatur, Alabama. I worked at another one in Huntsville. And one of the things about agency work is you design not just for one client, but a ton of clients.

So I've worked with like government contractors. I know I'm about to bore you. This is the boring part of who I am, I think, is I worked with like downtown redevelopment authorities. I worked with restaurants and just a very wide variety of clientele because agencies do kind of branch out into all of those different specs of work. Wow. And I've done a lot of freelance to you.

I think probably the coolest thing I did freelance was there was a company that created a printer that printed 360 on like wine bottles. And so I designed little mock-ups for wine bottles and I got to watch it print. And it was just the super fast cylinder that would print around this wine bottle. And it would go along the curve, curvature of the neck. So that was probably one of the coolest things I did when I was doing freelance. That's not pretty cool. Yeah.

Well, I think Mike and I can confidently say we have never worked with a government agency, right, Mike? No comment. I was about to say, are your facial muscles switching over there? No. Mike's an undercover cop. That was actually one of my dreams when I was young. This to be like an FBI agent, CIA agent. but then I now make memes on the internet.

You could pass for like one of those like 21 Jump Street High School like undercover cops that I can see you in that. That would be pretty cool as a fun fact. But as another kind of transition to like fun facts. So Lord, what was kind of like one of the coolest things that you worked on at NZXT? Oh, the coolest thing. I think most recently the new Cracken and the Cracken Elite campaign because these products, I mean, you could customize your pompeg screen

to whatever you want. And it was a lot of fun to think about the kinds of images and visuals that people might use on those screens or even what I would use personally. So I had a lot of fun kind of pouring through all the different visuals for that. I remember one of the ones was like a slice of an orange because that's something that I would definitely put in mine. But I also loved how the campaign turned out. Again, Helen, shout out to Helen. The video that came out with that campaign launch was just just chef's kiss, chef's kiss. I thought you one of the coolest ones I've seen so far.

It was like the latest one, but it just, I loved that one. And I had so much fun with that one. Yeah, we got a lot of a lot of positive compliments, social media for the video, so GGs. Thank you. And then on the opposite of that, what was like the most difficult or hardest project you actually worked on? The hardest project? I actually can't talk about that, but I'll talk about the second hardest project. So I would say the hardest project I've worked out outside of the top secret project is the H5.

We actually had a completely different concept for that in the beginning. And then, of course, by the end, just completely polar opposite different. I actually remember one of the concept proofs I had put together. There's a little 3D model of like a forklift, like forklifts driving up the front cover panel. And the front panel was kind of angled down like a ramp. And they were carrying little computer parts. So just vastly different from the concept that we launched with. And I feel like that was probably the hardest project I worked on because that particular launch had such a tremendous journey of like where the concept started to what actually launched.

But I will say I loved where we landed. For me, as a designer, I think one of the biggest challenges sometimes is keeping it simple. And, you know, it's kind of easy to get caught up in a web of too many details that you lose focus on, like, what the main focus is supposed to be. But it was a lot of fun. And exploration part of concept development is also so much fun. Yeah, sometimes the hardest things are also, you know, some of the most rewarding. So I'm glad that you, at the end, you know, you thought it was fun and exciting, so that's cool. Well, I guess, you know, we're here because it's Pride Month.

So what are you doing to celebrate Pride this year, Lauren? Yes. So I am streaming on my own personal stream. It's called Ink and Liar. We actually don't stream just by myself. I stream with an amazing group of individuals of friends across the United States. I have friends in Seattle. I don't know if they're in chat, but shout out to my Seattle posse,

and I have friends in Las Vegas where I actually grew up. And of course, I have friends even all the way across the pond in England. Shout out to CJ and Tessa. So we all stream together as friends, and we are streaming this month to raise money for the Trevor Project. So I, and I personally will be streaming every single day to help raise money for the Trevor Project. That's awesome. Very great organization that we've supported in the past. And I'm very curious, like, what gave you the idea to stream every day for the Trevor Project?

For me, personally, I actually came out this year to my family and my friends, of course. And I wanted, it really meant a lot to me to stream every single day this year because not every family or group of friends are very accepting. And it's really important for me and for everyone out there to know that everyone is loved and they're beautiful just the way that they are. And the Trevor Project helps individuals like that who may be struggling. And that personally meant a lot to me. But not only that, I stream and I have lots of friends who are also in the LGBTQ community.

And even if I wasn't, it's important to me to support those I care about the most. And so that's another reason why. So for those that don't know, can you give a little explanation what the treasured project actually is? Yeah. So their mission is to end suicide among young people. in the LGBTQ community. And with so many people coming out this month and those who struggle even now,

whether that be with your family or with local policies and legislature, I feel like the Trevor Project is there for those individuals. And they have a variety of programs within the Trevor Project. Anyone who, like they have a 24-7 call line, chat line on PC, where you can just reach out,

to them for anyone who might be having harmful thoughts. They also have what's called the Trevor space, which is an affirming online community for LGBTQ between ages 13 and 24. We have over 400,000 members across the globe, and it's a community that allows you to explore your identity, get advice, find that support you need, and make friends in a kind of moderated community that is intentionally designed for the LGBTQ community. That's what I love about. about the Trevor Project is that they're so focused on the youth, you know. And I think you're absolutely right. Like I think kids don't get a lot of support that they need.

And me who, you know, I have two little girls and I'm very grateful that organizations like the Trevor Project exists because I would hate for them to feel like they don't have the support they need if they need it. And, you know, it's great that there's like a website you can go to and look up all these. resources and get the support you need and realize that you know you're not alone that you're you're okay everything's going to be fine and there's these resources to to help guide you and things like that so I'm very very happy that you chose Trevor project yeah and I mean they did a survey in 23 and that fewer than 40% of LGBTQ young people found their home to be affirming and that's that's terrible. And to have that support and to feel like you're not alone, I think is very important. Yeah. And we kind of talked about this before we went live, but we were talking about that stat you gave

and it made me think about my daughters. And it's like, it's really sad to me that, you know, there's kids out there who come out to their family and their family just rejects them. You know, they don't accept them. And that's why I think, like, like it's very important that an organization like the Trevor Project exists because a lot of kids don't have that support, you know. You know, I'd like to think that I'm very supportive, but I also know like, you know, maybe I say something that is not the right thing for my kids. And they need someone that knows a little bit more about something that I don't know about it. And I would hope that they're comfortable enough to go to the Trevor Project or whatever organization. that they need to get the help they need.

So, yeah, let's help you raise some money for Trevor Project this year. Yeah, definitely. And speaking of which, how much money are you planning on trying to raise for Trevor Project? We are aiming for $3,000. We have, in the past, for other charities, hit $2,000. And so we're aiming big, we're aiming high. So we're hoping to hit that number.

So $3,000 for the Trevor Project. 3,000. I think, I feel like you're going to do it this year. I believe in you. Yeah, easily. You mentioned your previous goals were 2000, so I'm assuming that means you've raised money for charity before? Yes, usually on our stream, we do like a Christmas charity live stream every year. And we've raised, we also have raised money for tabletop gamers. which is another nonprofit that helps LGBTQ in the tabletop RPG space. And I don't know if anyone's played tabletop RPG games.

I won't get too far into my D&D session. But playing D&D in a group of individuals at a table is a very bonding experience. And God, it's so hard. It's so hard to explain, but it's almost like therapeutic in some ways. And so a lot of what they do is they donate, they create community groups and they donate books, like tabletop RPG books as well. So we've donated to them. And then, oh gosh, I'm trying to remember the first Christmas charity live stream.

We've done a couple, so I'm trying to remember who all we raise money for. but we also I'm sure if any of my Seattle buddies are in chat they'll probably shout it out but yeah we've done we do like a charity live stream one shot around Christmas where

we it's just a complete fun Christmasy shenanagan induced tabletop RPG stream that's awesome yeah every every time people tell me that they play D&D or any other tabletop game I'm always super jealous

because I have so much fun when I do those and I don't do them very often at all so you know I maybe we should do that one of these days Mike just put some D&D on here I'm actually yeah I'm actually a big dandy person actually I'm a show on stream I have a a beholder thing that my friend gave me before I left for actually live in Seattle as well but uh uh I gave me a beholder uh figurine before I left so I've been a huge D&D fan you know I've been watching critical role for a while D-D-D-D-2, Dimension 20, stuff like that. Everyone, I'm going to throw it out there.

It sounds weird, but honestly, it is probably one of the most fun things you ever do. It's basically just like, you're basically just playing like an RPG, but you get to actually do everything yourself. The best way I can describe it is literally just collaborative storytelling. And anyone who's gotten into a campaign, even if they haven't finished it, you always have a fun story about, oh my gosh, this one time we ran into this building, we blew up an entire, we blew up an entire abandoned orphanage, but then we told them we were robbing a bit,

like just like the craziest stories like that just are full of laughter and fun and friendship. And then we realized the orphanage wasn't really abandoned. So we went back to try to save the children. Save the puppies and the children. Yeah, PMW actually says something, right, is that I feel like trainers things open up D&D to a whole new generation. I agree. A lot of younger people.

now know what dn d and we actually have a dn dmovey now that actually did well i haven't seen it yet but uh haven't either i haven't either apparently it's really good so and it actually embodies like what a real dn dn session is which is like just people just screwing around and make you funny things um and yeah seriously try it out everyone there's lots of and like lorence said there are options online so if you can't go in person there are online options or check out your local game store sometimes they have like play things like you can just go in for like you know an hour or two and someone will be your uh your dm or game game master it's really fun definitely a lot more mainstream than when i was a kid because i was recently in walmart and they had like a bunch of d and

stuff i was like i don't remember that stuff when i was a kid it was like it was almost forbidden when i was in elementary school like it was seen as something that was very like satanic you know people thought you were worshipping the devil because you were playing D&D. Because you're a level two wizard casting fireball. Yeah. So I guess, like, for your streams this month, are you guys going to be doing D&D or just playing games? Like, what do you guys have planned for this month exactly? For me personally, I plan playing every day.

I plan to play just a variety of games. Right now I'm playing through the Oregon Trail. I saw that. The funny thing is I've named I've named all the individuals that I'm traveling with in this game I'm playing about my friends

like I've named them after my friends so like it's it's so funny to see like oh no Christians got dysentery or like recently another one of my friends that I named in the game she she like the wagon bumped and she accidentally shot herself in the chest or something.

It's just like the most random stuff. But yeah, so I'm playing the Oregon Trail. I plan to finish it. I think I'll probably finish it tomorrow. I'm at 90%. I'm hoping that we'll make it to Oregon City. And then after I play, after I finish Oregon Trail, I'm playing a variety of other games like Disney Dreamlight Valley,

grounded potion craft. I plan to play a lot of like kind of laid back. type games, even though grounded can get pretty intense if you're in a spider den. Just, yeah, just a variety of just laid back, fun, good feeling games. And that's what I'm going to do. I have, I do believe my friend Deanna and Danny, they have a separate stream. They like to play dating sims. So she's going to be, Deanna and Danny are going to be playing Romance,ylvania, which is basically

a, it's like a dating show for Dracula. And it's very comical where like if Dracula was in the Bachelor real life TV show, that's what it would be like. So it's just, it's very comical where like all the different people that drag gets to like give black roses to. It's like there's a mummy chick, there's like a siren

and just all these individuals that are based off of essentially like the Monster Mash that you've got like Frankenstein type characters but it's it's dating show it's a fun little silly dating show and I know they are going to be doing that I want to say this coming Tuesday but it will be coming to stream

and we'll be launching it on our social media of course too so that'll be that'll be hilarious well speaking of your social media and your stream and whatnot like where can people tune into all this stuff yeah so Twitch is TV slash ink and liar I-N-K

A-N-D-L-Y-R-E It's named thusly because my husband is the bard and that's where the Greek liar comes in and then I am the ink because I do a lot of art and together we are ink and liar Awesome

And then I'll personally be streaming every day 8.45 a.m. to 10 a.m. Eastern time and I know that's really early for everyone in the West Coast, but on Saturdays and Sundays I'll be streaming 8.30 p.m. to 9.30 p.m. That is really early. Yes, I know. Because there's a three-hour time difference.

I live in Florida, so there's a huge time difference. So I kind of want to go into, since you guys are streaming for a whole month, like how long have all of you had streaming experience before? Or is this kind of like, you're just like, we want to do this? Let's just kind of throw it. out there. Well, we've actually been streaming on our channel three years? I want to say three years. And what we typically stream are

our tabletop RPG games. So for me, for two and a half years, and we just finished a couple weeks ago, I was streaming a show called Fate's End. And I was the dungeon master. And it was a D&D game. And each each character had drawn a tarot card, and their portrait was created from the tarot card that they drew, and each character's fate was influenced by whatever card that they drew. So I had drawn artwork of each of my players as the tarot card that they drew,

and for two and a half years, and I know, for those of you played D&D, oh my gosh, you finished a campaign, we finished it. We nailed it. We finished an entire. campaign. Myth, legend, no more. You guys actually finished a physical game. We finished a two and a half year game. Yes.

How long was it? Two and a half year game. And we streamed the whole thing. Wow. You stream like every week? Like every, every Monday. Every Monday we streamed. Of course, like we would take, we would take off.

we would take off for like holidays and stuff. But gosh, and we, we have the entire, we have the entire Fates End show on YouTube so we can go back, like, anybody can go back and watch it. It was, gosh, what a roller coaster. It was an absolute roller coaster. We also, but we, yeah, we play Wizards of the Coast modules as well. Like, we just finished a spell, jammer campaign.

Each, each, like, different people in our friend group, DM, and different people. People are players, but the majority of what we like to stream, we usually stream tabletop RPGs. Legend. And we actually have a kids on brooms coming up in July. And I will be a player in that game. And then Danny, my dear friend, will be the DM. And you'll probably see Deanna too, because Deanna will be in that as well.

Nice. Wow, you guys have 101 episodes. We do. Yeah, 100, 110 episodes. And they're all roughly four hours long. If anybody, hey, if anybody watches Critical Role, that's normal. Yeah, it's normal, it's normal. That's normal.

Yeah. Like the first, the first season had like a hundred-something episode, 120 episodes, and each of them were two to three hours long. And then the second one was also the same thing. And third one's about to hit 100. So it's like, yeah, it's very common. What I usually did was I would, like, I would use it. When I used to drive to work before COVID hit, I would just listen to it on like 1.5 speed.

So that I'll listen to it. And then on my way up, when I moved from L.A. to Seattle, I would listen to it on 1.5 speed. And I listened to like seven episodes. I caught up really quickly. So my husband did. He watched the very first or he didn't watch the first one. He listened to the very first critical role campaign, the entirety.

And I think he actually listened to it at one and a half speed as well. He's like that too where he fast forwards and while he listens. That's cheating. It's cheating, right? Sure. I think it still counts, but yeah. Well, that's awesome. I hope people listening and watching can tune into your stream this month

and check you out. And I'm also very curious, like, you know, you do this all year long, right? But like, why is this month in particular so important for you to, you know, not just dream, but also, you know, raise awareness and raise money and things like that? Why is Pride Month so important to you? It's important to me. I think a lot of people, a lot of, a lot of, there are a lot of people who think that Pride Month is just about spouting who you're sexually attracted to or how you, how you necessarily identify, which is a part of it. But I think on a bigger level, pride is about not being afraid of the bullies. And there are a lot of bullies out there. And I think that. that piece of it, I think, shines the hardest.

Like for me, because I, like I said, I came out, no one should have to be afraid for simply being attracted to a specific gender or whether you're, like, pansexual or what have you. You shouldn't be afraid of somebody bullying you about that. I mean, like, we're not in grades, like, we're adults. We're not in grade school. And no one deserves that. I love is love.

Yeah, and it's, you're right, and it's very sad. Like, this happens every year. Like, every year that we've changed our logo to show support to pride, or every year we mention pride on social, like immediately we just get bombarded with people bullying, like you said, you know, saying really mean things. Like, why are you supporting this? Who cares about these people?

or these people have a mental illness and things like that. But when I see all those comments, it actually validates a lot of the reasons why I think we should support this issue, this cause, because we have a lot of people who work at NZXT who are part of the LGBTQIA plus community. We have a lot of people who give us money for our products who are part of the LGBTQIA plus community.

And it's like the only group that if we mention, people get really pissed off. You know, like, if you don't get mad if we mention any other group, right? Like, we've celebrated Hispanic Heritage Month, for example. Yeah. And I'm Mexican-American. And, like, people were not in the comments saying, like, well, why the hell are you supporting Mexicans and not, you know, blacks or whites or Asian or whatever? They're like, we've got none of that.

But the second we say, you know, we want to support cried, it's like we're bombarded with very hateful comments. And to me, that just shows like, okay, well, that just means people really need to open up their eyes and accept people for who they are. And, you know, one of the comments we get often is like, why are we making a political statement? And it's like, when I see that, the first thing that just comes to mind is like, how is accepting people for who they are political statement. It has nothing to do with politics. Like, politics is, you know, who you vote for. Politics is not accepting someone for who they are.

It's literally just, you know, be nice to people. It's not that complicated. And, you know, like, for us, NZXT, like, we've, we haven't supported Pride forever. Like, we started supporting Pride in 2020. And the reason is because we realize, like, wow, like we actually have a lot of people who use our products, who are part of the community, who work here, who we partner with, what you name it. Like, there's a lot of people that identify as one of these people in this group. And we should say something because there's the world is not accepting them. And, you know, even if it's just us accepting them, like, so be it. like we're gonna do it and i'm very glad that you know you're that you not only work at nzxte but you're also putting yourself out there and and helping raise awareness and hopefully you know little by

little eventually one day you know we'll post about pride and there won't be no bullies that'll be the dream people people are beautifully complicated everyone has a unique personality like i mean yeah i'm bisexual but you know what i also like to make sourdough bread I have a thing of mead on my counter right now that is just finished. I love to read a variety of different books. I have cats. I'm sure you've seen them walking around. Everyone is so uniquely, beautifully complicated.

And yeah, I think we've nailed that on that. I think we've nailed that on that. You all are wonderful and beautiful. Don't let the bullies get you down, man. Don't let me get you down. I know it's scary. Hey, I just told everyone on this stream, I'm bisexual, but you know what?

You're beautiful. You're wonderful. Don't let the bullies get you down. Good advice. Great advice. Fantastic advice. Speaking of advice, are there any, like, content creators or podcasts, books, influencers, companies, et cetera, et cetera, that you think, you know, are doing a good job

at raising awareness about these issues and supporting this cause? I think specifically, like I had mentioned earlier, Tabletop gamers, and that's spelled G-A-Y-M-E-R-S. They do a really good job. There are a lot of single content creators that do a really, really good job as well,

like Jenny D. She does a lot of cosplay, but she's also pretty big in the Dungeons and Drive. Dragons community as well. She does a fabulous job. Oh, I'm trying to not blank out here. I want to make sure I mention everyone. But I think, yeah, I think she does an amazing job. Obia, she does an amazing job as well. She's been, she's DM'd on critical role before.

She actually, yeah, she did like Tales of Exandria and everything. I feel like I'm at one of those like acceptance speeches where like you get an award and you have remember everyone to thank, you know? I'm like, I don't want to forget anyone. And then as soon as the stream ends, you're going to be like, damn, that I didn't thank this person. Dice cream sandwich, another great stream. Scabby Rooster.

Scabby Rooster is another great stream to follow. Honestly, the tabletop RPG community as a whole, Like, if you follow any tabletop RPG gaming handles or just the hashtag, I think is one of, if not, the most accepting communities to be a part of, just in general. They're like, are like Super Dylan, Super Dylan. Super Dylan. Oh, my gosh. S-U-P-E-R-D-I-L-L-I-N. Super Dylan. Amazing content creator. She does a lot of streams on Twitch as well. and yeah, just if you get nothing else, just the tabletop RPG community and whole is just such a wonderful welcoming community.

I've seen very little hateful comments coming from that community. Awesome. And, you know, speaking of community, I see a few people here in the chat, like Frank the Tank and who's saying that people need to focus on themselves not worry about others. I have friends that are gay, buying trans, and I love them all equally.

there is no need for aid or bullying. Grim gaming is saying, I love how inclusive this community is. I freaking love it. It is so amazing. And yeah, that's literally all we're trying to do here is just welcome everyone,

you know, no matter who you are, what you look like, who you love, doesn't matter. Everyone is welcome. And that is basically like the, the whole point of celebrating pride is that,

you know, nothing else. Not trying to shove any sort of agenda down people's throats or anything. like that is just literally trying to welcome people into a community that that is friendly essentially like just safe you know like where you're not to worry about getting picked on for for who you are so um you know that that's like a I don't know like you mentioned like a bunch of streamers and things like that but like it's it's so it's so important I guess to

to mention those names, you know, because not everyone, not everyone knows, yeah, not everyone feels that way, not everyone knows these people are and just, I feel like a lot of people need to do a lot of learning, I guess you can say, you know, like just go out there and get these, tune into these streams and even if you don't believe in what they're saying, just, just tune in, see what happens, you never know. you know before we get into my favorite part of the show which is mike asking you the stupidest questions possible i do want to ask you one final question about pride and this is like a personal question you know someone like me who is an ally what advice do you have for people like me so we can support the LGBTQIA plus community better how so what what can people who are

allies do to support the LGBTQ community better. Yeah. I think if you have any friends who are in that community, or if you know anybody, not everyone wears their emotions on their sleeve. So even though someone you know might be fine or look fine on the outside, I think it's really important to share. words of affirmation that those individuals are awesome and wonderful and special and amazing just who they are, which sounds cheesy, but in a world of a lot of negativity, I honestly,

truly 100% believe that hearing those things from people changes, changes days. It changes having a good, having a bad day to a good day. And so just words of affirmation, checking in on those people and being like, hey, what's up? Just wanted to, you know, or even like reminiscing about just great memories that you've had with those individuals and just reminding them, reminding them that they're loved for who they are. Maybe that's, maybe that's too simple. But I think that, you know, you don't have to overcomplicate it. It's just reminding them that they're loved. As simple as that

What is that? Just love each other, all. Yeah. Just say some, you know, every now and then, even to a stranger, like, just be like, you know what? You have a really nice smile. Yeah. Yeah. No, that's true.

I mean, you never know, like, how you can impact someone's life by doing something like that, you know? Like, a lot of times people, they just, they just need someone to be nice to them. And if you could be that person, you know, that's. it's a beautiful thing so very good advice thank you for sharing that pay it forward there have been a couple instances where i've bought like cookies for somebody in front of me in line or like you're you're in line at you know McDonald's just buy it by buy whatever their meal is and just surprise them or there's an old lady at the grocery store she's all by herself i remember buying a bouquet of flowers for my mom for mother's day and i gave her i gave her a flower just

bright in people's day you're awesome more people should be like Lauren hashtag be like Lauren y'all I appreciate but enough enough compliments it's time to get into the nitty gritty or the gauntlet

yes Mike's rapid fire question so Mike is going to ask you some very very great questions here and you have to answer them as fast as possible without thinking too much about them, okay? Are you ready? Okay, okay, okay. That's a lot of pressure, man.

Get ready, get ready. All right, first question. What is your favorite D&D class? Wizard. Wizard. Okay. Sparball? No. For the role play. For actually for the role play part, there's just so many unique role play things you can do. Like you can eventually conjure a giant tower and then I get to think about, oh, what does this tower look like? What is the interior design? Just like, you can have a lot of fun with it. Gotcha.

So speaking of deity, so can you give us the funniest or your favorite memory playing as a deity character? Oh, 100%. 100%. I've brought this up so many times. The very first campaign I ever played in, we were in a shop. It was me. And then my friend James, he was playing a war forage, like, essentially like a robot. And he decided he was going to.

walk behind the counter into like the backrooms and like the security system went off and started electrocuting him and so and so in order to avoid him going to jail I rush up with my character and I'm like how dare you try to avoid me we're from two different worlds and I just want to be together I don't care when anybody thinks you can't escape our love like just I just went into this over and like everyone's just like, what's going on? What's going on? Daniel, my husband, who's a DM, is just laughing his head off at the time. And I'm just like, please,

let's just run away together. Everyone's, like, just cracking up at the table. And, I mean, I rolled charisma or deception check, and obviously my DC was heinously low because my performance was fabulous, and he didn't go to jail. Hey, it worked out. Yeah, it worked out.

And then I guess on the other side of that, since you said you DMed a couple times, what was your favorite DM moment? Oh my gosh. The God, that is a hard question. I think my favorite DM moment was I play, we have a series of astrological deities in our world of Aurora in the games that we play. and one of them is called the swindle twins, and it sounds exactly what it's like. And the swindle twins in our game, in the game that I was DMing,

ended up being two very young, like five, six-year-old twins that were separated, and the party was bringing them together. And when they meet one of the twins, the little girl for the very first time, keep in mind these are deity, these are gods, they open the door on a ship, and there is literally just like,

as if they're walking into another dimension, And they open the door. There's like asteroid rocks floating all around them. And these children are aging rapidly. And she's just like, hello there. And she's got like little stuffed animals that are sentient that are speaking to the party. She goes, would you like to play tea party with me? And they sat down and she puts them all to sleep.

And they wake up in this like candy land board game like world. and they go through the, like she wants to play pretend with them because she's like, you know, five, six years old. They go through this absolutely bonkers acid trip of a journey through this Candyland board game world with all these sentient Alice in Wonderland-like characters. And like one of the things they had to do was make a statue laugh.

And the statue spoken rhyme and puns, that was one of the hardest things I did in that. But yeah, I know long-winded story, but... I can see how passionate you are about D&D, which I love about that. I'm very big with storytelling. Yeah, we have a lot of fun. And I think one of the fun things about DMing is, like, I'm able to... I'm really good at doing voices and putting myself into those NPCs

and kind of like separating myself from who I am and kind of channeling just these random individuals. And we have, my MPCs are pretty vibrant and silly. I like that. Myonic Wolf in chat actually says, like, Lauren's DM is showing off with all the voices. So I think we all kind of recognize. That's Jesse. That's Jesse.

I know who that is. Hey, Jesse. Yeah, because just ought to let everyone know that Wazkea D&D, you guys don't have to do the voices. Like, you don't have to do any crazy stuff. No. But it is really fun once you get into the mindset of role playing up. But I'm like, you know what?

I'm just going to do a funny accent. I had a cowboy that had a, like a French accent. It was the weirdest thing, but it was probably one of funniest things. Because, you know, I, like, it was very misplaced in our little cowboy fallout world. And it's honestly, sometimes the voices actually make it funny because, you know, you can make it less about you, but more about the character. So try it out, y'all. It's really fun.

And for the last DAD question. What was your favorite character you ever played as? Like, name, class, everything. Rip, man. My favorite character, as a player or as a DM? As a player. As a player?

Okay, 100%. My favorite character I ever played was Reveneer Thorn. She was a druid. And I played her. She was also an MPC in Fate's End as well. And she, I killed her I guess I didn't kill her off

the party ended up killing her off for noble cause I will say it was one of those kind of situations where you can either kill the boss and kill a small group of people or like kind of like one of those like oh god

like you can either kill the boss right then and there and end up killing a lot of people but the boss doesn't escape or let the boss go and only a couple people will die. Like one of those like moral conundrums, that's the word I was looking for, moral condundrums. They ended up killing one of these horrible creatures and it ended up, it did end up killing a lot of people in the city. But the boss was gone. It wasn't going to harm any more people. And Reveneer was one of those individuals. She was one of the individuals that died.

And man, it hurt me. I loved her so much. and there was so much story that went with her. She was in a previous game that I played privately, but she was my favorite. She was like the embodiment of chaotic good. Ooh, I like that. I like those that actually stick with their alignment.

I always was like chaotic neutral, so I was kind of like both, but. Hey, up neutral? Yeah. You were Deadpool? Yeah, pretty much. Pretty much. Most of my characters had to do that

because then I don't have to have like a conscious, I'm just going to do it. you know, very truce of thoughts. But rest in peace, rest and peace. I feel like chaotic neutral is one of the hardest ones to play, because you're just so all over the place. I mean, that's what kind of how I usually am in your life. I'm just like, oh, I was going to say,

it's not right, but that's how you are. So, honestly, it kind of makes sense for me. It's the easiest for me to kind of dive into and be in role play. Awesome, awesome. Let's see. Oh, what is your favorite game of all time? Of like, oh my gosh. All time. Why are you making me choose one?

Yes, we got to choose one. The orc and trail. Probably, probably Bioshock Infinite. Oh, infinite. Interesting. Okay. Oh, I mean, I have to choose one. I can't choose the whole Bioshock series. I had to choose one. It would probably be Bioshock Infinite. Okay. I like that. 100%.

The play, the game itself, it's beautiful. The abilities you get are a ton of fun and just the story. I remember the end, the ending of that game, I just, I sat staring at my computer for like five minutes straight. And I was like, what just happened? What did I, what, what, what did I just play? Those are honestly one of the most fun games. It sticks with, it stuck with me for a while. This is for Ivan, because Ivan loves this question.

Do you own your own Netflix account or do you share a password? Oh. Be honest. Be honest. Oh. Oh, oh, the question. I thought you were asking Ivan. I was like, no, no, no, no.

This is perfect. This is Ivan. Okay. No, I, I, it is my own account. Ah, okay. It is my own account. So you're safe. You're safe right now.

I'm safe. All right. Well, what's your password so I can use it? Turn to Dr. 899 for another account, Ivan? Yes. and get another account. Let's see. Oh, if life is a video game,

what cheat code would you want to use the most? What cheat code would I want to use the most? If life was a video game, probably infinite money. Infinite money glitch. That was the one I was doing. When you put, because I think that, the funny thing is I think that's the only cheat code I've ever used and it was with the Sims.

like I want all the money in the Sims give me so I can build as much as I want to do what like to build and to like create the ultimate like homestead yes that's a great answer actually that's a really good answer honestly that would be the most useful in the actual thing so like infinite lives like do you really need infinite lives and like in real life but infinite money well then you're said infinite money

let's start building our own theme park now, come on. Oh, like, roller coaster tycoon? Oh, gosh. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. In, yeah, yeah. In every game. Because if you have infinite lives, you can just do, like, the craziest things. Like, you know, you can, you know, stand in front of a train or something or, you know.

But bungee jump without actual bungee and just keep doing those random things over and over again. You kind of fun. You want to know what it's like to fly and live through it? Woo! Yes, Guy, I thought Paris. Yeah. Honestly, even if it would be a really scary thing for most people. Like, if it did, like, reset the day, that would be a little terrifying.

That would suck. Yes. That would suck if you had to start all over from the beginning. Yeah. When you're born, right? Oh, God. I take it back. I'll take infinite money.

You take it back? I was like, I still take infinite money. Still take it from the money. Give it money. It would be best. Okay. I have two would you rather questions that are probably one of the weirdest ones that I found so far. Would you rather get a paper cut between your fingers every time you turn a page or bite your tongue every time you eat food?

That's a hard one because I love to read. Oh. Between your favorites. And being a DM2, you have to flip through the handbook as well. Oh, no. That's all digital, man. Oh, yeah, the digital. Okay.

I can, I can, I can, I can cheat that. I think I would have to say, because I, I, I read so much, I think, every time you turn the page, right? Yeah, it's every time you turn the page. I'm gonna cheat it. I hate to say it, because I, I like to read with, like, real physical books. I'd go digital for the sole fact that I wouldn't have to get the paper cut between the fingers. Okay, if you go digital, then the paper cuts go between your toes. Oh, my, oh, my God, okay.

Oh, that's what it works, I think. And then bite my tongue, because I could not, I love reading so much. You're biting your tongue is the worst. I think biting tongue. I think you did it that recently, you know, hot dog, and, like, yeah, it was bad. As long as it's just once, but, like, your tongue hurts for a little while, you know. Yeah, I think it's, like, once, like, every time you, you, like, bite it's, you know, and it's just, like, lingering pain for, like, 10 minutes, you just got to deal with. but every time you eat food though

which is multiple times today any snacks but you don't yeah I would rather have that though than the paper because like that because like when you go to wash your hands every time you go to wash your hands hope it's going to burn your hands or like your toes

imagine every time you squeeze a lemon you would definitely have to wear gloves anytime you cut anything like anytime you cut hot peppers or cut anything you would have to wear gloves every time Yes, not fun. It'd be like Elsa and Frozen. Yes.

And then my other, would you rather question? This is the weird one that I've asked this before, but it's such an interesting question. Would you rather fight a chicken to death every time you get into a vehicle, or once a year you have to fight orangutan to death, and the regentate can use a sword? And you have to kill the chicken or kill the orangutan, right? Okay, that's, first of all, that's horrifying. Yeah. I thought this question. I was just okay, would you rather questions?

And I go, what is this question? And then I saw it again. And I'm like, I got to rewrite. I got to show this again. Heck, man, I wouldn't want to do it even if he didn't have. Have you seen how big orangutans? Yeah. And he has a sword, too, because you don't think it's kind of lanky arms.

They're kind of scary. Even, I don't think I'd want to do that even if he didn't have a sword. I would still find that terrifying. It'd have to be the chicken. And at least with the chicken, like, there's no waste because I'm going to be, All right, guys, we're going to have chicken tonight. Yeah. You know.

Carra-Cat says that. Chicken equals free food. This is our car-raised chicken, farm-fresh, or car-fresh. Car-Fresh. I'm pretty sure we're, like, one chromosome away from orangutan. So you're like, you're essentially, like, killing a human being. You're, you're like, kill a monkey. I'd be, like, really freaked out about that.

I think chicken is the correct answer here, Mike. It's the correct answer. Yeah. There is a right or wrong answer. At least you're, at least if you drive to work, you're a minimum two chickens a day. You have to fight. You know, you're going to get some pecks on your legs. It's going to be really annoying.

That's like two times a day. And that's like only if you go to work and back or something like that. Like if you want to go to grocery store, you want to go to gym, you got to, you're fighting, you know, for me back home when I, when I drove to work, I would be fighting like four to five, six chickens a day because, you know, I go to work, come back, go to lunch, come back. you know, go to gym, come back. You know, I'd be funny. I'd just be annoyed. But honestly, I think chicken is the way, way. Imagine if Lauren is reading a book and then gets paper cuts, so she has to go to the emergency room.

And then she has to, like, fire the chicken before she gets in her car with paper cuts. Oh, my God. I was thinking about that. What if you have to get into an ambulance? And, you know, chicken just somehow is, like, trying to, you know, peck at you. The firefighters are either. ambulance you were going to have to fight it for you yeah the ambulance the chicken would win crazy the am like everyone in the ambulance what is happening like it's

okay this is normal it's you just have feathers in between your your paper cut like just stuck on there I think I think I think you're right chicken is a way to go it's just really annoying but I think like I'm thinking of like like sustainability here like we could use the feathers to stuff home made pillows, I mean, right? True. Right? You can pretty much use anything on a chicken at that point.

Feathers, you have the actual chicken itself for food. You can use it for, like, you know, fishing. If you want to go use a bait, you could probably do anything. Exactly. Thank you, brother chicken for your service. Okay. Yeah, I see a lot of people to share also say the same thing. Like, you have, yeah.

You have the, uh, yeah, I see a lot of people say chickens. Oh, and when you fight the rating, you do not have access to weapons. You do not have access to weapons. Yes. You know what? You know what? You don't make it fun. You can get a sword too.

You get a sword too, say get sword-fighted orangutan. It's making more fun. I would still be so terrified. That is terrifying. Only because, like, like, they're, like, even with chimpanzees, there have been incidents where, like, they'll get aggressive or something. And, like, don't, like, mall someone. And they're, I mean, they're not that big. Can you imagine, like, a frigging orangutan getting aggressive?

Holy moly. With a sword? With a sword. Samurai, like, Seperoth. Okay, yeah, hold on. I gotta pull this up on the stream. This is the, this is the size of a orangutan versus like... Oh, wait, I have to, hold on. Like, this is the size of orangutan to a human.

Basically, you're finding a human. You all, if you've ever been to the zoo and you have seen those like, the silverback, silverback gorillas, and like, look how much, how comparable they are to the, oh my God, no, no, no. Like a huge, like, look at this picture right here. Like, this thing's huge. It's huge. Yeah, okay, yeah, never mind. Yeah, it's got to be chicken.

It's got to be the chicken. Because like these things are, I mean, look at the arms. If you look at this picture, the arms are literally the size of you. Yeah, no. You got to go, you got to go, you got to go, you got to chicken. It's terrifying. My chicken's going down. That chicken's going down.

The chicken, the great sacrifice of the chickens. All right, and that's it. That's it on the ratfire question. Well, done, Lauren, on the questions. Very good. Very well done. Thank you. All right. It was a lot of fun. Let's see. Okay, we're going to go into announcements.

But Lauren, do you have anything that you want to say before we go straight to announcements? Yeah, thank you, Ivan, and thank you, Mike, for having me on the show. This was a ton of fun. This is the first time I've been on the NXP podcast. I had a blast. I had a blast. So. You said you were nervous.

Now, do you feel nervous at all? No, no. I mean, I stream a lot. So, like, there's always, like, jitters before a stream. And it's always, it's always, uh, nerve-wracking if you go into a stream you've never been on or whatever. So, I mean, I always get nervous ahead of time, but usually by the time I started and I'm pretty, I'm pretty solid. Like, my nerves kind of calm down. well done yeah that's what happens every time we have someone guess they're like I'm so nervous

then they do it they're like oh I'm not nervous anymore like yeah yeah honestly being nervous around Ivan or me is like the opposite of what you should be because like we are we we make means for living so like you shouldn't be I love it we talk about chickens versus orangutan yeah exactly this is our job yeah but yeah thank you Lauren so much for for joining us and telling us all about your your fun-filled pride month activities. We, you know, encourage everyone to tune in this month and help you raise some money for a really good cause. You know, Trevor Project is doing a lot of good work that, like, a lot of kids, especially kids. I keep saying kids, adults too, but, you know, kids in particular, I think, they need a lot of support nowadays because the world, unfortunately,

is not very accepting and Trevor Project is there and I'm glad that you're raising money for them so thank you so much thank you and even if you don't donate to my stream although I would love if you did donate to my stream honestly if you donate anywhere with the on any streams that are donated to the Trevor Project or any any LGBTQ positive charities like all of that matters and it helps a lot so Support, support, support. And if you don't donate, just be nice. Exactly. Yeah, exactly.

Just be nice, y'all. That's the best donation you can give. That's the, that's, that's, that's, yes. All right, let's get to, let's get to a couple announcements. First, uh, for nxie, we actually have a special deal going on with our PCs. Uh, if you get a PC with a 40 series card, you can get Diablo floor, the Diablo floor, uh, with certain 40 series. cars until June 13th. The bundle comes with the game itself, which Diablo Flour is apparently amazing.

So get that. A light bearer mount. Comparison of Faith Mount Armor. Diablo 3. In Ineris Moiris Murlock Pet. Oh, World of Warcraft Amalgam rage mount, and a Diablo Immortal Umbur Wing darkness cosmetic set. Diablo is super, super, super fun.

So if you guys are going to upgrade your PC and you're going to get a new PC with it, might as well check out the DIA. Let's check out nccd.com to see the promo. It should be at the top. We actually just released our capsule mini and boom arm mini. Make the most of your desk while keeping up performance. I can actually show off mine right here. This is my mic.

This is the capsule mini and the mini boom arm. I actually really like the boomer mini because I have a screen right here. I would show like your screen right here. And the boo, like the regular boom arm that I had would block the screen. so the actual boomar mini actually like keeps it down so i can see the full screen so keep it take a look at ncccc.com or i think a switchpoint capsule in chat um and we have a bunch of new products in our lineups uh like lauren said she worked on the new crackens new crackens are amazing uh they do cases that are coming out fans that are coming out monitors we have thermal paste like we got everything so take a look at nccc.com

and sign up for a newsletter. Oh, someone chat, Frank Detang asked, well, Lauren, what, where did you get your mic arm? So glad you asked where I got my mic arm. So I got it. From a little place I like to call NZXT. Do that? Look at that bad boy.

Oh, Savannah White over here. Is it the regular boom arm or the mini? It is, it is the regular. You can tell us the regular because it is kind of in front of my mic and stuff, as Mike was saying. But it is also beautiful and wonderful. That's all my little Kikashi right here. Yeah, these days are, I'm actually very surprised.

Like the actual favorite part of it is because of the boom arm, which is actually kind of, I actually really like boom arms now. I used to have it on my desk and I would bump it all the time when I play games. Now I don't have that issue. So definitely take a look into getting a boom arm for your mics, y'all. It's really helpful. Oh yeah 100%. And then, like we said, thank you, by the way, thank you,

Lauren for joining us on a podcast to talk about your stream and everything. We have a bunch of her links. So I'll go ahead and throw it here. You can follow Lauren on Twitter here. You follow her on Instagram here. And obviously, I'm going to put the S-M-M-A-N-N-T-V-P-Pride or Twitch. com. slash ink and liar i nk a and d l yr and it's liar lear was the correct pronounceation it is it is

like a greek liar i'm so i'm so bougie and if you're uh not tuned in live the twitter and instagram links or handles are hues of hodges hues of hodges i like that i like that name a lot, hues of Hodges. I like that a lot. My last name is Hodges, so it's like the colors of me. For the hues of me. And for those that are listening live, you guys are,

we are doing a giveaway for, this is actually a very special one. We are giving away one, our regular hoodie, t-shirt, and sticker langer pack, but those will also get a pride, as I've been showing on stream right now. It is a pride cap. It is super cool. It has

rainbow and poochie on it uh so for those that are make sure to do to estimate your point giveaway and join the giveaway and for those that are sticking here all the way to the end we have a code that gives you 500 extra entries this is our way saying thank you for joining us live and supporting us supporting Lauren uh talking about her streams and everything like that um so for this code most of the time when we pull winners most of the time they are the entry winners because we want to show you all some love uh the code code that you guys want to type is RGB and LGBT

RGB Thank you Thank you, Ivan. RGB and LGBT because I actually had a really funny comment was, you know what? You know, we have

RGB in your PCs why not add a little RGB to our own profile, you know? Why don't we add a little RGB to ourselves? So go ahead and do RGB and LGBT into the thing. Is the word and yes, the word and is included. So that whole phrase,

R-G-A-N-D-L-G-B-T, type that whole phrase in no spaces. That should get you to code for the Ether. That is our thank you for joining us alive, y'all. And I think that is it. Anyone have any last minute? Lauren, do you have any

last minute things you want to say before you end of podcast? Um, I think this, I love you, Thank you, everyone. Again, I'm sorry. Thank you, everyone. Thank you everyone.

And happy Pride Month. Yes, happy Pride Month, y'all. All righty. So thank you guys for joining us and tune in live every Friday at 10 at Pacific Center time on the official SDT Twitch. Don't forget to listen to previous episodes on podcast, Google Podcast, Spotify, and SoundCloud. If you like what you hear, please leave us a pause review. If you liked what you hear, if you didn't.

But got any questions for us, send an email to podcast at nccc.com or tag at nccc on all social media platforms. Everyone, go to Lauren's stream, Inc and Liar, donate to the Trevor Project, watch her stream,

support her, and just say, you know, give a huge shout to her and thank you, Lauren, for joining us today. I really appreciate it. Of course, of course.

You don't get me true. All right, everyone. Have a good prime month. Stay safe. love each other be kind to each other have a good day everyone