June is Pride Month, meaning it’s a time to celebrate the LGBTQ community but also recognize how much more work there is to be done. Pride Month occurs in June because it’s when the pivotal Stonewall riots occurred at the Stonewall Inn in New York, paving the way for the LGBTQ rights movement. It’s important to highlight LGBTQ voices during this month and year-round so they’re always being heard.
In the spirit of Pride Month, Game Rant conducted a series of interviews with LGBTQ streamers on Twitch to bring awareness to their content and channels. It is also in an effort to uplift and highlight LGBTQ voices during this month of celebration. The next streamer to be highlighted is Breadwitchery, also known as Harley, a member of the LGBTQ community and Twitch streamer who specializes in story-driven games and TTRPGs.
Inspiration Behind Breadwitchery’s Brand
Harley has been streaming on Twitch for three years now, and originally got into it because of Overwatch. They’d always wanted to do YouTube but found that their perfectionist tendencies made creating for the platform a bit overwhelming. What appealed to her about Twitch was its live nature and how that aspect could stop perfectionism from kicking in.
Originally, Harley’s handle was a play on their name and a reference to the theater term “harlequin.” However, keeping a consistent handle with such a common reference proved to be a bit difficult. Harley iterated how important it is to have the same handle across all platforms, and when rebranding she realized she had the perfect name in Breadwitchery.
One time on stream when I was eating garlic bread and a viewer was hungry so they called me an 'evil bread witch.' And the term 'bread witch' and the meme of me being a 'bread witch' kind of stuck.
Breadwitchery is still unique and catchy, but it also fits Harley pretty well. They said religiously their views tend to lean toward witchy things, and they (still) like bread so it worked out well. As for the Breadwitchery brand, Harley said she really likes “lovecore,” pinks and reds and hearts, but finds that stream leans more toward the “witchy” aesthetic. So while Harley may gravitate more toward lovecore, the stream doesn’t have that same energy.
Breadwitchery’s Top Games To Stream Or Play Offline
Harley’s bio on Twitter states “BioWare enthusiast,” which is a good indicator of some of their favorite games. Their top BioWare game is actually Jade Empire, a game that was released in 2007 with no sequel and doesn’t really get talked about anymore. She loves Jade Empire because it’s not restricted by voice acting, so some of the dialogue options are wacky and fun. Harley also loves the Dragon Age series and has even been replaying Dragon Age: Origins on stream recently.
Offline, Harley has been playing a lot of Hades. They feel they’re “late” to the Hades train, but think the game deserves all the love and hype it got from the start. Harley also specifically loves games with lots of dialogue options and branching choices, like Tyranny, Pillars of Eternity, and Baldur’s Gate. She can typically be found playing RPG games both on and off stream.
Anything with choices because my community loves causing the most mayhem that we possibly can in a game. Anything my community can feel like they're involved as well with the gameplay, so there's choices or there's character creation or something like that, where I feel like my community and I are making the story together, I love playing those on stream.
Harley definitely has a particular vibe they try to capture on stream, so they curate the games they stream pretty carefully. While there’s not been a particular game she’s played more than once, she has come back to Monster Prom and Monster Camp a few times. As long as the games have choices and there’s mayhem to be caused, odds are they’ll stream it and get their community’s input.
How Breadwitchery Navigates Twitch and Social Media
Harley’s favorite part of being a Twitch streamer isn’t just her community, but the support and enthusiasm they show her. It’s not about having an audience, so much as it is having people around who automatically support and enjoy whatever she decides to do. According to Harley, their community is also incredibly funny and always liable to make them laugh.
As for haters, Harley has luckily been able to avoid a lot of the hate that other marginalized streamers face. She said that, for the most part, she gets low-effort trolls who try to make dumb jokes that she replies to with a “clever retort” before timing them out. Harley won’t instantly ban, but if the behavior continues then they’d make that call.
Everyone says, "Oh that's what they want," but I don't really care what they want in that moment. I care about what I can make entertaining for my community, and if I can point at someone who's trying to be hateful and make them a joke, I'm going to do that because I think that making a joke of something takes away its power a lot of the time.
Being a Twitch streamer can have some blips in the road as well. For Harley, she says that the “classic comparison monster” can be an issue for her, but she’s gotten better at quelling that negative voice in her head. It can also be difficult for her to find the motivation to stream, but she also wants to bring awareness to the fact that she got to Partner status without having a completely consistent stream schedule. They think that if they can do it, anyone can.
On a personal level, as a disabled woman I have pretty severe ADHD and more lately, anemia, which I cannot seem to get rid of, so I have pretty not great energy levels. So it is difficult to motivate myself and hype myself up to stream because I see myself as quite an energetic, talkative person but I can't always get that across on camera because there's an energy loss between you and the camera.
What Breadwitchery Does On Twitch
As mentioned before, viewers can find Harley playing a lot of RPGs and games that are story-driven or have lots of choices in them. They’re replaying Dragon Age: Origins, which they found when they were a teenager, but have also been playing NieR: Automata on stream. Beyond gaming though, Harley is actually a co-founder of Stories Told, a TTRPG collaboration channel. Harley really enjoyed delving into Dungeons and Dragons, but she and her friend Hannah found themselves wanting more.
To quell that desire, they started Stories Told to do TTRPGs more consistently. It doesn’t have to be mainstream Dungeons and Dragons, either, as there’s “lots of great indie work” that Harley hopes to explore. Harley enjoys both the character creation as well as playing off of other people and what they (literally) bring to the table. The current TTRPG hosted by Stories Told is called “Honey Heist” and actually features Harley.
Harley can be found on Twitch, TikTok, Instagram, YouTube, and Twitter at Breadwitchery. Those looking to have a fun time while helping create some in-game chaos can find themselves right at home in Harley’s streams. Or, if viewers are looking for some TTRPGs to watch, Harley often participates in those as well. While she may not always be on time, she still strives to make a fun and inclusive stream experience on Twitch.