must they have a purpose. cant they just exist as their beautiful selves

everyone reblogging this and adding "their purpose is to be detritivores and eat leaf litter"- you dont understand a thing. the noble roly poly rejects such teleology

you have misunderstood the worst of all.

Eschew the idea of purpose outside the constructed world. No plant, animal, stone, or river has a purpose.

Purpose is not embedded into the living or the dead, and placing it upon them as a yoke to pull your understanding will leave your fields of knowledge forever unplowed.

To The Substitute Art Teacher - Jordan Bolton

Memories of Grandpa Hank

I'm eating a bag of mormon gorp that tastes like gasoline while watching the rain run down the mountain. The taste doesn't even bother me anymore - all homemade gorp tastes like this. It's just a natural consequence of everyone keeping their prepper shit in their garages. 

My dad's out in the clearing, wandering around with his GPS. He's got some pieces of wire out on top of it to try and make the effective antennae bigger, but it just makes it look like he's dowsing. Another mormon tradition. I ask him if he's close to find water yet, and he looks up at me, little rivers flowing off him, and says yeah - he can feel it. 

I was taught how to communicate by my papa

His style of conversation, by the way very much followed the philosophy of "if an observation is stated, then we may compare plausible explanations for each other's consideration, and in doing so, we will come to a deeper understanding of how the other person thinks and feels about similar topics, and what process they use to form opinions on the world at large"

And while I very much enjoy learning about other people this way, there HAVE been some downsides

Primarily, the fact that about two months or so into meeting a cool and interesting new person with so many fascinating thoughs and opinions that I enjoy learning about, a solid 85% of them seem to suddenly snap out of nowhere and ask me to "stop always needing to be right about everything and argue all the time"

And it's like

Oh

My bad

Like

Person who I enjoy listening to: (opinion)

Me: Oh, what and interesting thought! They are inviting me to engage with them in the human art of "conversation", which is a social activity in which two or more individuals form bonds by listening and asking question on a topic of shared interests

Me: This is a clear bid for connection that demonstrates vulneurability, respect, and a desire to become friends and bre heard. How wonderful! I am amenable to this request.

Me: I should demonstrate my affection and enthusiasm by accepting their invitation to listen to their feelings

Me: (comment)

New friend: (reply, elaboration)

Me: Wow, they obviously care about this topic. Have they heard of this related thing? I wonder how it plays in to their beliefs (reference, opinion)

New friend: (Passionate response)

Me: Wow, they're so educated and enthusiastic on this topic and its complexities, but I've noticed a paradox in their reasoning- Are they aware of this? And if so, how do they reconcile it? Maybe we can develop new opinions and perspectives together! What a great experience! (Question)

New friend: (lengthy, well-thought-out conclusion)

Me: I'm learning so much about this person. I can't wait to hear what else they have to say

(---Three weeks down the road, in the middle of an unrelated discussion---)

New cool friend: (suddenly dropping the topic) Jesus Christ, why does everything have to be a fucking fight with you? It's like you always have to have the last word, it's exhausting, why can't you just say "okay" and leave it at that? Were you an only child or something? I have to just bite my tongue and avoid speaking sometimes cause once I make a comment you have to say something back and it just goes on and on forever. You don't have to prove you know everything, God, it never fucking ends

Me:

Me: I have misunderstood a few things

My Doctor Emailed Me Back

This is the story of how the NHS asked me to be the face of their "new system" for trans health, and why I told them to shove it.

Exclusively on TransWrites:

Here's a quote:

There are many different reasons to play ttrpgs, and sometimes creative catharsis is one of them.

Certainly it's a reason's Bluebeard's Bride is one of my favorite games, or why it's fun for me to play emotionally vulnerable characters in Bite Marks and Apocalypse Keys.

A couple of months ago I started playing DIE with some close friends, and a couple of new players I haven't had a chance to play with much. But it's a group that's played with each other often, and DIE has a really emotionally rich and complex premise we were excited for: "In DIE, you play a group of authentically flawed and desperate real-world people (Personas) who are sucked into a cursed roleplaying game and take on the form of heroes, villains and power players (Paragons)."

So I made a conscious decision to create a transmasc character and delve consciously and deeply into the act of catharsis. I have played trans characters before, (arguably ttrpgs are one of the ways I explored if I was trans but that's another story), but this was the first time I wanted to pull at the threads of my own confusion and sadness, trauma and regret. To work through my grief.

In real life, it's difficult to put into words the grief I am going through with my parents. It's a complex issue, but one of them is that my parents have always seen as me as their daughter, and all three of us cannot imagine me being anything else to them. My father has always pointedly interacted with my brother as a son, and has always faltered when I failed to act like the daughter.

It's hard to grieve because there are thousands of subtle nuances—their love for me, borne from endless sacrifice and hope, also places chains on me. To break those chains is to break them, to keep those chains on is to break me. I have broken myself over the decades, again and again, and there is never a shape that will please us three.

So for DIE I created a more intense caricature of fatherly trauma. Almost cartoonish in his abuse, with no room for nuance. Somehow in describing the black and white nature of this fictional father, and how it shaped my character, it's easier for me to see the shades of grey that my real father is. It's easier to find the shadows of me there too.

I realized today that in DIE, this traumatizing figure also contains the fear I had. Conditioned to be a woman, where my very existence can trigger violence from men. There are many reasons it took me so long to know I was trans, but one of those reasons was that I could not imagine taking on the shape of an oppressor.

It didn't matter that I knew many men who were gentle, loving, and kind. It didn't matter that what men are does not have to be defined by the patriarchy. Men were dangerous until I knew better. Men could betray my trust and become dangerous once they got to know me. Why would I want to take on the shape of something dangerous and harmful?

Today I explored a part of that. As an Emotion Knight my character draws upon the emotion of loathing—what better way to draw upon an aspect of gender dysphoria? To become strong, to fight, I had to give in just enough to my father's voice, its whispers from the war hammer in my hand. I had to take on his cruelty, the loathing I had for him and myself. I described the danger of falling into unthinking violence, to protect what matters to me. I was standing on the precipice, knowing I was a breath away from going too far.

All of this made it easier to see my real father, standing at the end of a corridor I will never reach. It feels like if I walk towards him, the corridor will stretch on and on, made of all the doors of all the daughters I could have been for him. One of them, any of them, would be better than what I am now.

That moment of catharsis felt breathless. I could feel myself falling towards the doors. Then I looked at the other players, and I could see all of them feeling for my character. Feeling for his pain, for his hope. Watching him stumble towards the edge. I could feel their hearts surrounding mine.

I don't remember what I said to Sherri, in character. I know I wanted her to pull my character back into this fictional moment. I know I wanted Sherri to pull me back into this reality, with her. Away from the corridor. It was enough that I saw the corridor for what it is, that I knew all its doors. That I knew they could never be opened.

This dance of catharsis feels safe. It's hard to describe how it's still fun, and wonderful, to connect to my friends' characters. To check-in and feel out if we were still having fun, trusting in the play, trusting in each other.

The game session ended hours ago, and we'll play again next week. But the corridor is still with me, and I feel it stretching behind me. I feel all its doors. When I close my eyes, I see my father's back, walking away from me.

Maybe next week I'll try walking down that corridor. Maybe I'll call out to my father, knowing he won't turn around. Maybe I'll leave it behind. Maybe I won't do anything for now, because grief takes time. I don't know.

I just know that I'm very grateful to be here, to be loved, to play. I'm grateful for the stories we tell together, and how it can help us retell our own stories about ourselves.

This story of grief is hard, but I'm grateful. It means I chose to survive, to live, to be me.

It hurts to choose myself over my parents love for me, but I'm glad I'm doing it. I'm choosing all the people who love me, who see me when I cannot yet clearly see myself.

Wedding Waltz commission :-)

Special thanks to @squimp who helped me SO much with designing Garak’s outfit!!!

Wait theyre married now lol im reblogging this

Thank you @spagettysylph 👍 great addition

There's a phenomenon in left-wing circles where initially reasonable statements and concepts get repeated ad nauseum until they not only lose their meaning but transform into deeply bigoted ideas.

The idea "there is no single white culture," is true because white is a concept created to describe the powerful position in Western societies. There are many different cultures, who's members are often white. But this idea became "white people have no culture" which is just not true, deeply dehumanizing, and harmful, especially to people who look white but experience marginalization because of their culture.

Another example might be cultural appropriation, which perhaps should be understood as a misrepresentation or exploitation of the cultural practices of another, especially where the person exploiting does so for personal gain, without acknowledgment. But now, people have basically transformed this into "when somebody does something from a culture they weren't raised in" or "when a particular race or ethnicity behaves in a way that's different from how they normally do" which promotes racial and cultural stereotypes and attempts to control the behaviors of people based on their race, ethnicity, and culture.

Adding to this, the sentiment that white people "have no culture" is based in the idea that culture is a deviation from whiteness. "Cultural" food, "cultural" dress, etc., is all shorthand for "things done by people who aren't white". To say that white people have no culture is to further other non-white people, making them the deviation from the "norm".

White people do have culture. Rich white people, poor white people, white people from Canada and the U.S. and Great Britain all have cultures that are different from one another. Claiming that they don't is a tool in the furthering of white supremacy and we (leftists) gotta knock it the fuck off.

— Moderators Delete Reddit Thread as Doctors Torch Dead UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson

Twenty years ago, February 15th, 2004, I got married for the first time.

It was twenty years earlier than I ever expected to.

To celebrate/comemorate the date, I'm sitting down to write out everything I remember as I remember it. No checking all the pictures I took or all the times I've written about this before. I'm not going to turn to my husband (of twenty years, how the f'ing hell) to remember a detail for me.

This is not a 100% accurate recounting of that first wild weekend in San Francisco. But it -is- a 100% accurate recounting of how I remember it today, twenty years after the fact.

Join me below, if you would.

you want to read this

You don't understand, you should never know, how easy you are to need.

Um... @beaujagr

Turn? Wildborn?

200 Word RPGs 2024

Each November, some people try to write a novel. Others would prefer to do as little writing as possible. For those who wish to challenge their ability to not write, we offer this alternative: producing a complete, playable roleplaying game in two hundred words or fewer.

This is the submission thread for the 2024 event, running from November 1st, 2024 through November 30th, 2024. Submission guidelines can be found in this blog's pinned post, here.

When All You Have is a Gun Everything Looks [Verb]able

Requires several players and a GM

Players:

Before the GM tells you what the plot/tone/setting/etc of the game is going to be, make the most Rule of Cool DeviantArt-OC-ass character you can think of and give them a revolver with six chambers. They should be named something like Saint Vermillion Dragongod or some dope shit like that.

Load this revolver with six actions, things like “kill someone” or “schmooze” or “teleport behind ‘em.” Besides moving around, talking, and breathing, these are the ONLY actions you can take, and you can only take them in the order they fill the chambers. When you’ve taken all six actions, you can reload your actions in any order you’d like, but you CANNOT change the actions themselves.

Do not coordinate your action choices with other players.

GM:

Once everyone has made their characters, throw them into a heist or a dungeon crawl or whatever you think will be funny. Their specific actions always succeed, but they can do literally nothing but those things in that order. If no one can do anything, you all lose and a big snake eats the sun or something. Rinse and repeat.

Good fucking luck.

I think this might actually be the funniest party-game heist caper RPG I've seen since Honey Heist. Bravo.

So, something I learnt the other day. So, you know how dinosaurs supposedly can't see you if you stand still? Well that myth is based on real-life lizards/etc and how eyes in general work. So, once my dad starts infodumping, here comes some other cool information. We, humans, can in fact, also not see something unless it's moving. We fixed this by having our eyes constantly shake. And then our brain compensates for us, so we don't have to have shaky vision.

What if aliens don't have this? Like. What if they find out when one of us was looking at something in the distance, and they walk around this thing that's in front of them, and the alien is confused so they bob their head and oh, there's a thing there, but how did the human know that, and then we explain and they're like, horrified.

Humans are apex predators. They can hunt in packs. They can hunt in pairs. They can hunt on their own. They're persistance predators, which is unheard of. They get stronger when they're mad or scared. They have this thing called 'body language' which acts like a type of hivemind, even if they'll claim it isn't. And. They can see you. When you're not moving. They can still see you. If you ever find yourself in a fight against a human, for whatever reason? Run. Run as fast as you can. And hope, pray if you have a religion, that they won't follow.

ok thats a really neat concept but what do you mean our eyes are always shaking

If you hold your hand at arms length and look at your thumbnail, thats approximately the size of area your eye can actually focus on. Everything else is a composite image generated by your brain.

Your eyes constantly dart around a little bit to fill in the composite.

the scary part? when your eyes move, you go blind. Your visual system has to cover up the periodic blindness but it does it "backwards" from how you'd expect: instead of "lagging" vision, it shows you what you see after the blindness, but makes it seem like you saw it the whole time.

You can see this by looking at a clock with a ticking second hand. The first time you move your eyes to it, the tick you see will seem to take longer than usual. That's because your visual system lied about how long you saw that tick, because you were blind for part of the time you thought you were seeing it. (fun fact: we don't see the same thing with moving objects, but only because our vision system "fakes the footage" of them moving while we were blind, because it understands consistent motion)

The human vision system is a marvelous clusterfuck of hacks.

Human vision is so weird!

The bit about only focusing on an area about the size of the thumbnail at arm's length? Only partially true. That's the approximate area of vision of our fovea, the central part of the retina where most of your cone cells are located. It has the densest and most detailed vision, and the vast majority of your color sensitive vision is centered there.

But! The rest of the retina has most of your rod cells, which don't really factor into color vision but are much more sensitive to light than our cone cells (though they are much less densely packed than the fovea, and therefore less good at discerning detail).

One of the side effects of this for stargazing is that many faint objects that can be seen by the naked eye will disappear from your view if you try to look directly at them! The color sensitive cones clustered in your fovea aren't sensitive enough to detect their faint light, but the rods in your near peripheral vision just can.

This also means that most human color perception disappears at night!

The supposed efficiency and effectiveness of fascism was always propaganda: in reality, fascist regimes were deeply inefficient, hobbled by interpersonal rivalry, had institutions weakened or totally subverted by the personalist nature of leadership, and were deeply corrupt and lawless.

So it really, really bugs me how so much speculative fiction and even casual discourse since has taken WW2 era propaganda about fascism at face value, and depicted authoritarianism generally and fascism in particular as an intrinsic tradeoff between the chaos and disorder of liberty and the order of repression. Fascism is not orderly! That was always a lie. There is a reason right-wing authoritarian regimes have mid performance at best and at worst collapse due to infighting and military defeat—they suck at running states!

Democracy is the ideology of order and stability. Democracy provides for stable succession and can sustain rule of law in ways personalist rule cannot. Democracy can create avenues of accountability to reduce corruption that authoritarian (or even one-party rule) could never contemplate. “Democracy is chaos” is a lie invented by fascists to try to discredit liberal principles, and the apparent “chaos” of interwar democracies was often caused by the fascists themselves because they did not believe in liberalism.

I think of this most often in the context of video games about politics where it is assumed that authoritarian governance gives you efficiency bonuses at some cost to happiness or freedom—but I think these mechanics are backward. Fascism and authoritarianism are good for the narrow ruling clique at the top, the people they personally enrich, but they make for brittle and weak states, and they often fuck over even the narrow ethnic group or core citizenry whose will they are supposed to be channeling. Starting World War II was very bad for almost all Germans and Italians!

By contrast political scientists debate if a consolidated liberal democracy has ever deconsolidated, and the biggest challenges to democratic systems of government have tended to come when those systems are illiberal (as before the American Civil War), or being sabotaged by most participants (as Weimar Germany, where neither the left nor the right were really interested in democracy).