It's a bit late, but just wanted to say that we're so excited for everyone's WIPs!!! If you're ever sharing snippets for WIP Wednesday and the like, feel free to tag us and we'd love to share what you're working on!!

just a reminder to COMPLETELY boycott Eurovision this year; Azerbaijan and Israel, despite committing genocide, are STILL allowed to compete & have NOT been banned. by refusing to ban both countries, Eurovision is profiting off of the genocide of Palestinians and Armenians.

do not listen to the artists. do not pirate or stream the artists' music, and this applies to ALL the artists who are competing and performing this year. do not listen to the songs on ANY platform, do not give them ANY attention.

write to your broadcasters and tell them you REFUSE to watch the channels until they recognise the Armenian and Palestinian genocides & that you find it disgusting how they are allowing Eurovision despite Azerbaijan and Israel's entries.

do NOT give eurovision OR the competing artists ANYTHING but silence.

boycott ALL of eurovision.

I think a lot of folks in indie RPG spaces misunderstand what's going on when people who've only ever played Dungeons & Dragons claim that indie RPGs are categorically "too complicated". Yes, it's sometimes the case that they're making the unjustified assumption that all games are as complicated as Dungeons & Dragons and shying away from the possibility of having to brave a steep learning cure a second time, but that's not the whole picture.

A big part of it is that there's a substantial chunk of the D&D fandom – not a majority by any means, but certainly a very significant minority – who are into D&D because they like its vibes or they enjoy its default setting or whatever, but they have no interest in actually playing the kind of game that D&D is... so they don't.

Oh, they'll show up at your table, and if you're very lucky they might even provide their own character sheet (though whether it adheres to the character creation guidelines is anyone's guess!), but their actual engagement with the process of play consists of dicking around until the GM tells them to roll some dice, then reporting what number they rolled and letting the GM figure out what that means.

Basically, they're putting the GM in the position of acting as their personal assistant, onto whom they can offload any parts of the process of play that they're not interested in – and for some players, that's essentially everything except the physical act of rolling the dice, made possible by the fact most of D&D's mechanics are either GM-facing or amenable to being treated as such.*

Now, let's take this player and present them with a game whose design is informed by a culture of play where mechanics are strongly player facing, often to the extent that the GM doesn't need to familiarise themselves with the players' character sheets and never rolls any dice, and... well, you can see where the wires get crossed, right?

And the worst part is that it's not these players' fault – not really. Heck, it's not even a problem with D&D as a system. The problem is D&D's marketing-decreed position as a universal entry-level game means that neither the text nor the culture of play are ever allowed to admit that it might be a bad fit for any player, so total disengagement from the processes of play has to be framed as a personal preference and not a sign of basic incompatibility between the kind of game a player wants to be playing and the kind of game they're actually playing.

(Of course, from the GM's perspective, having even one player who expects you to do all the work represents a huge increase to the GM's workload, let alone a whole group full of them – but we can't admit that, either, so we're left with a culture of play whose received wisdom holds that it's just normal for GMs to be constantly riding the ragged edge of creative burnout. Fun!)

* Which, to be clear, is not a flaw in itself; a rules-heavy game ideally needs a mechanism for introducing its processes of play gradually.

[ID: three photos of the same leopard coat Appaloosa horse, which is white with roan red spots, lying in the snow. It's legs are buried in the snow, and it lays partially on its side with its head resting upright on the snow too. It looks to the side, then at the viewer. End ID.]

Character: is a white man. That’s it.

Fandom: how dare you dislike this femme-coded female-coded gay-coded disabled-coded mentally ill-coded icon

[image description: tags reading #some of the people in the notes being like “me with so and so” #…besties do not #fandom criticism #text end ID]

This is a post about the racist tendency to focus on white men and project marginalised traits onto them rather than engage with the characters that actually have those traits. If someone is tagging this #me then they should think hard about there’s a pattern of their prioritisation of white male characters.

if god didnt want me to be bisexual why did he create these three

[ID: a photo of Jim, Archie, and Oluwande from OFMD standing together and all looking in one direction. The scene it's taken from is in season 2 episode 7, when they are in the market at the Republic of Pirates. End ID.]

the jerk store called. and they said. sorry wrong number. i love you

going on testosterone doesn't make you a man if you don't want to be one. going on estrogen doesn't make you a woman if you don't want to be one. "hormones = gender" isn't any better when it's being said to nonbinary+genderqueer people who chose their hormones. if your attempts to defend binary trans people lead you to fuck over abinary trans people your attempts suck ass

also in this vein, if you cannot go on hormones, that doesn’t preclude you from being your gender either. some people can’t be on hormones for various reasons, if that is you, that doesn’t mean you must forever think of yourself within the binary and whatever your birth hormones may have delineated you medically.

redesign for lesbian visibility week 🩷🧸🫶

click for quality (my shop) (instagram) (tip me) (shirts)

[image ID: a black and white poster surrounded by a black outline. Large text on the left reads “you could learn a lot from a lesbian.” On the right are several different intricately shaded drawings, including a hammer, a tall black boot, a heart-shaped lollipop, several connected carabiners, two cherries with their stems tied in a heart-shaped knot, an open metal lighter, a keychain, an apple neatly sliced in half, a bouquet of flowers, a heart-shaped lock and key, and a butterfly wing. All these items are surrounded by a variety of little drawn stars. end ID.]

Do you ever forget that you have a gender to most people….. meaning that random people at the grocery store see me as a woman and not just a little internet guy

Our Lady of the Damp and Rain

[ID: A photograph of a toad with its legs splayed out over an embossed relief in the corner of a memorial plaque, in such a way that it seems to be sprouting wings.

A traditional illustration of a toad sprouting golden wings in the style of an illuminated manuscript. Above the toad is a pointed sky, reminiscent of a chapel, consisting of raindrops, and around the toad is a grassy field populated with mushrooms. Surrounding the head of the toad is an ornate, artistic rendition of a halo, and golden ornamentation surrounds the scene and borders the illustration. Below the illustration, text reads: “Our Lady of the Damp and Rain”. End ID]

Working at the sex shop really did rewire my brain. There was basically no topic that was too taboo to talk about, and what little propriety I’d had evaporated. I’d be out walking and chatting with friends about erotica I’d had to read that day only to be shushed and realize people were staring at me.

It always struck me as a little bit silly but I learned to curb myself for others comfort levels. Mostly.

But I have one distinct memory of decorating holiday cookies with my parents and my grandmother. My mom had worked in a sex shop back in her day, and I never hid my line of work from my family, so I was telling a work story.

I was conscious that my dad was slightly more sensitive, so I was using pretty broad descriptions, but I happened to mention silicone lube and my nana asked, “What’s that?”

I went into full sales mode. Focused on the little reindeer cookie I was decorating I started info dumping, “Oh, it’s pretty great. Water based lubricants get absorbed through vaginal mucous membranes, but silicone is too dense and our body can’t absorb it the same way. So once you apply some silicone you never have to worry about chafing, and a little goes a long way. It’s especially popular with older women, because they start producing less natural lubricant and absorb water based lubes so quickly.”

There was a silent beat after this statement.

I looked up.

My mom and grandmother were looking at me with rapt attention, and I belatedly realized I was addressing two older women who probably would welcome extra lubrication.

And then there was my dad, blushing so pink with embarrassment that I thought he was about to faint.

“I can talk about something else,” I offered in apology to my dad.

“Like hell! He can go in the other room, tell me more!” My nana declared. My dad scampered off to busy himself in another room while I answered their questions and talked about brands and pricing.

I slipped them each a small bottle of silicone lube for the holidays.

Sun Dreams   -   Poul Anker Bech , 1973.

Danish, 1942–2009

Oil on canvas,

[image: painting of a wood floor with a bright sun spot from an unseen window. The sunspot is partially on the wall, next to a white hot water radiator. There are shadows of what appears to be branches and leaves within the sun spot.

Tudors ladies in love

Image description: art showing two women in tudor fashion facing in different directions but one hand reaching out and just barely touching. A banner underrneath reads "Amor omnibus idem" latin for love is the same for all.

One woman is standing with her back to the viewer, she pulls a curtain apart and looks at something. The other woman is facing toward the viewer but looking back to the other women out of the corner of her eyes, she is blushing, she holds a crumpled up piece of paper with writing on it in her other hand. end Image description

I’m not sure who needs to hear this but it’s normal and okay to be DISABLED by your DISABILITY.

Sometimes it is going to stop you from doing things, and that’s okay. Sometimes it’s going to get in your way or make you struggle or cause problems in your life. But that’s okay, that’s why it’s called a disability.

You don’t need to fight yourself or “not let it hold you back” because a lot of times it will, but that’s the point.