celestialgloaming

[celestialgloaming]

in my head the star wars equivalent of tswift is some human woman named tay’lor spiff or something and her stans are losing their minds over theories that she’s secretly a jedi singing about the horrors of war, even though she’s from a neutral system that hasn’t seen so much as a moral panic in 50 years

[celestialgloaming]

spin this wheel of all the pokemon. you now have to fight this pokemon. just you and it, bare-knuckle

[celestialgloaming]

One of the bigger reasons I think "trad RPGs versus storygames" is a false dichotomy is that this sort of categorisation – whether external or self-applied – tells you nothing in particular about how much a game actually cares about narrative-as-such.

The trick is that games in the former category which care about the game's story are usually coming at it from the angle that interpreting the outputs of the game's rules is what produces its story, while the latter often think of the game's story as this pre-existing thing, toward which the rules' primary obligation is to refrain from interfering (hence all those awkward disclaimers about how "story comes first").

The upshot of this difference in opinion regarding where a game's story comes from is that many self-labelled trad RPGs end up thinking deeply about what player-facing behavioural incentives their rules expose, and if the players respond to these incentives, what narrative this produces, while many self-labelled storygames have never moved beyond 1990s "roleplaying XP" style incentive frameworks which attempt to bypass the game's own mechanical procedures of play and directly bribe players into playing the game "correctly".

This is not, of course, to say that there aren't self-identified storygames which think deeply about the narrative structures implied by their rules' player-facing incentives, or that there aren't self-identified trad RPGs which try to simply bludgeon players into the "correct" narrative with extrinsic rewards and punishments, but which of those labels has been applied reveals nothing at all about which of these approaches a given game actually adopts.

[celestialgloaming]

New Jersey feels like the aspirational End State of the American Settler Colony.

Suburbs as far as the eye can see with a few urban centers primarily designed to sustain the suburbs

Hellish carscape

Has some kind of "regional gimmick" (bonus: which is built on some stupid archaic law) (i.e. "Jersey girls don't pump their own gas")

Has assimilated a number of Ethnic White Peoples into the upper echelons of Expanded Whiteness (Ashkenazi Jews, Italian Catholics, etc) in service of making them Suburban Wealth

Has an academic institution of Prestige which is known for being full of the most reactionary prissy assholes you've ever seen (Princeton)

Inundated with Democrats who drive Subaru Foresters

Subpoint of the above: Constantly eating itself alive over culture war bullshit

BORN TO DIE WORLD IS A FUCK 4,000,000 DEAD STRIP MALLS

Generally considered by many to be a "mid" state

Disproportionately and unsustainably wealthy by way of having drained the surrounding areas of their lifeblood like a leech or a vampire

I know I've already said this but it's such a suburban hellscape. It's like if Olive Garden was a country.

There's a reason David Chase considered New Jersey the ideal representative place to locate his critique of Whiteness and Imperial Decay.

New Jersey-ites have invented chauvinisms you've never even heard of

[celestialgloaming]

its (serve your) maid day

[celestialgloaming]

Brisket Gunpla goes crazy

[celestialgloaming]

bridget meets her gfs parents

[celestialgloaming]

Tbh the thing about celebrities complaining that people think they should be more political or whatever is that it isn't even technically wrong to point out sometimes, esp when said celebrity HAS spoken out and gotten backlash for it. People really want to have it both ways, where Chappel needs to shut up and also say more. When she said in that interview that she doesn't know how people can expect her to work, sleep, eat, and be politically aware at all times it's wild to take that and be like "well x group are ALWAYS politically active" when a) not true lol and b) celebrities reallly should not be seen as activists. In this case, that is just the truth. And to ignore the sheer scale of pushback and harassment Chappel received for getting as minimally political as she did just feels really weird too. Like what are we doing and who does lumping Chappel in with general bad faith white feminism/performative allyship actually serve? She said what she said and the fact that she's just an average bitch only normalizes her views. You really don't need to be an activist to care about Palestine and trans people. I literally don't even fuck with her music but Im just tired of seeing this vibes based ratio

you said it allllll man like i find it so painfully lame and distinctly Liberal to demand that any celebrity also be an activist for anything they’ve expressed support for. to be honest i don’t think chappell roan or any other popular celeb would even be good at activism because they aren’t activists. they’re popstars. there’s plenty of activists that get ignored while everyone’s like “chappell roan only made a few statements on palestine and stopped after getting viciously attacked for it and being told she should stick to singing instead of politics. what a fake bitch” it’s like going to cvs for groceries and being mad they don’t have everything you want. go follow activists if that’s what you’re into and stop giving a fuck abt celebs if you don’t care about celebs. so lameeeee man

[celestialgloaming]

u look like a giant buff woman idk what u mean "dont pass" lol.

So I wanted to respond to this one, not to evaluate my features as “passing/not passing” but to talk a bit on racialization and transness as a larger Black trans woman. I am going to be speaking on the experience of cis women in addition to trans women.

Yes, I’m 6’2” and 260lbs. There are plenty of cis women my height/weight or larger/taller! It is not inherently a trait of solely trans women to be large. But this also means that I don’t always pass, because a lot of cis women who look like me don’t pass all the time either no matter what they do.

In this outfit running errands, I got hit on a bunch, gendered appropriately a bunch, and honestly felt the most femme I have in a while. Meanwhile, I still had a man start screaming at me on a metro train because he could see up my dress while I was sitting and “I DONT WANT TO SEE THIS MAN’S UNDERWEAR!”

Often, assumption of masculinity for largeness, for height, is something that gets inflicted on tall cis women as well, moreso if they’re an athlete or otherwise buff or “unfeminine”. Many end up with a complex about it that affects their comfort presenting anything less than high femme even as cis women by adulthood, because it’s implied they have to “make up” for their height/frame by being more feminine.

So despite this not being something limited solely to trans women, it does get significantly amplified on trans women when we have other features or traits that may affect it, such as voice, visible stubble, etc.

On top of that, Black women are often racialized as “more masculine” bc of systemic societal antiblackness. While it can happen to anyone that visibly reads as a Black woman, it gets notably worse the darker your skin is and the larger you are. I’m very lightskinned, so while I still experience it, it’s also not nearly as bad as it would be for someone much darker than me with my build.

So for larger Black trans women, we get a double whammy of “passing” tribulations, as we get the misogynistic assumption of “the larger you are, the more masculine you are” and the misogynoiric assumption that as a Black woman, we are inherently more masculine.

Both of these factors are completely out of our control as larger Black trans women. They aren’t something that can be changed by anything we do to try and “pass” because they are baseline societal bigotries currently - fuck, Megan Thee Stallion is quite literally one of the most beautiful cis women on earth while also being larger and she’s still CONSTANTLY accused of being a man/masculine online even in some of her most “feminine” presentations.

So when I say that I “often don’t pass” I’m not commenting on my features, what I think “outs me as AMAB”, etc. im commenting on the baseline societal transmisogynoir that states that someone who looks like me, transfemme or not, often does not pass.

Many people will still gender me appropriately from the jump, hit on me, catcall me, otherwise treat me like a woman - but just as often I will be categorically excluded from even possibly passing for people who have engraved these social bigotries to heart, and recognizing that doesn’t affect whether I’m “valid”, whether I’m attractive (bc I’m a fucking Goddess and stunning), etc. but affects my SAFETY and the likely of experiencing transmisogynistic or transmisogynoiristic harm or violence.

Passing is not about whether you are attractive or not, it’s about safety.

[celestialgloaming]

Some thoughts from my twitter

[celestialgloaming]

good day to you! i am currently conducting a study on how misinformation spreads on the internet. part of it involves seeing if we can spread a rumor about a random Tumblr user that they are a nurse who gives patients high doses of LSD for fun. my friend, who uses Tumblr much more than i do, strongly recommended you as the target for this study. however, after a few back and forth emails with the uni's ethics board, the board insisted i ask all participants if they will be ok with the idea. so is this fine by you? i totally understand if the answer is no, it wouldnt mess with the study at all. my friend has a whole list of Tumblr users he thinks would make equally good subjects.

this is the best website on the internet.

[celestialgloaming]

[celestialgloaming]

I get it. I really do. You don't have a creative bone in your body. You don't have the talent or dedication to be creative yourself. You can't create art. So you have incentive to lie to yourself and act like passing off art theft as creativity is all fine and good.

But maybe take a break and come back to this conversation after you've created anything for yourself. See how "anti-copyright" you are then.

📯 *WOMP WOMP*

[celestialgloaming]

feel very "idk I think sometimes it depends" about the whole backstory and backstory integration homework thing. I agree that it's deeply unhealthy that it's become the assumed style of play for a lot of 5e players, but with the right expectations I think the backstory integration focused playstyle can be some of the best you can have.

The biggest thing imo is that players shouldn't be expected to write backstory as prose. The expectation that something that's between you and the DM needs to read well is silly. The second thing is addressing the "what if you leave" problem which is that you probably shouldn't make backstory problems that both overwhelm the direction of the game and aren't interesting to the players as a group.

Anyway idk. I think there's a lot of merit to this type of game and I don't think it should be written off, even if it shouldn't be the default especially for dungeonfantasy games. I do think doing this kind of stuff at least partially collaboratively at the table does have a lot of merit, in that it can tie characters together more and start them engaged in eachothers stories instead of having to wait for it to come naturally. I think Gubat Banwa's complications system is the best example of this I've seen.

But despite that I still think "homework" can be one of the most fun parts of ttrpgs and I don't like completely discouraging it as a playstyle, some people do have the time for that shit and I think people should be trusted to figure out if that's the kind of game they want or not.

I agree that there is some nuance to this, but I also feel that a homework heavy playstyle relies on so many factors aligning and is so heavily normalized that most people assume it's basically the only way to do things that feel it's necessary to assert that "hey you don't need to do this."

Like, even though it is going to be heavily subjective because some players will enjoy that sort of playstyle it shouldn't be the expectation, and that is the culture of play we are up against sadly. The expectation that gameplay should revolve around what essentially amounts to partially prewritten (in collaboration between player and facilitator) storylines is so ingrained into modern play culture that the very idea of "hey so instead of having prewritten character arcs the character's arc should be what happens in play" and "hey instead of establishing NPC relationships ahead of time what if we let the characters establish NPC relationships through play" are basically tantamount to the ravings of mad prophets to many modern players.

Also, it's classic "show, don't tell." What a character does now in the moment is always going to be more interesting than what a player authored into the character's background ahead of time, even if the GM and the player had like the best possible plan for how they're going to make that relevant in the game and it's going to be so epic when it happens if the game isn't canceled before that.

So, like, yes, there is some nuance, but I think we also need to be honest in recognizing that due to practical realities the homework heavy playstyle is actually going to be worse for more groups then the alternative and the fact that they won't consider an alternative is something that should be addressed! The homework heavy playstyle can produce good play, but a playstyle that minimizes player homework can result in good play with much less friction.

[celestialgloaming]

People have started posting stuff from the leaks on here so if you don't want to see them, don't go into the Guilty Gear tag

On a similar note, if you're posting leaks and you aren't even courteous enough to tag them as leaks, welcome to my giant blocklist.

[celestialgloaming]

I love posts that try to frame a particular kink or sex act as weird and gross by comparing it to something the author clearly doesn't realise is also a fairly common kink or sex act. I just saw one that was like "handjobs are stupid, it's literally just assisted jerking off – do you want me to hold your dick for you while you pee, too?", and I guarantee you there's somebody reading that post right now who's like "well".

[celestialgloaming]

I think one of the funniest responses I see to Silk & Dagger by @anim-ttrpgs is stuff akin to "is this just someone's fetish?" Like yeah. Ed Greenwood's, and some other people at TSR probably. Seriously though, how do you know about drow as a concept without being aware of the whole "evil femdom society" bit they have going on?