Today’s example is: Phylactery

In d&d:

In real life

That’s right. they named the evil artifact that the evil undead spellcaster hides their soul in after a Jewish ceremonial object.

when you come across that you should at the table paralyzed wondering

Do my fellow players know this is anti-Semitic?

If they don’t know and I bring it up will they be mad at me for ruining the fun?

If they do know and I bring it up will revealing myself as Jewish be dangerous?

Attention goyim: Jews don’t use the word phylactery. That’s stupid and greek. They’re called Teffilin.

(Image sources: https://projects.mcah.columbia.edu/treasuresofheaven/)

Also op’s insistence that “before d&d Phylactery only had one definition” is just an outright falsehood.  A phylactery is a fancier word for a reliquary, which is an ornate sealed container that holds a fragment of the mortal remains of a Catholic saint, usually a bone.

Gee, what magic item could that have inspired in D&D? Hm?

SYAC - NSFW Context.

A lot of people who view my feminist leanings as an “act” always point to the fact that I used to draw fetish art a decade ago as some sort of hypocrisy. But the fact of the matter is that just because I don’t draw fetish art anymore and identify as a feminist now doesn’t mean I have some sort of vendetta against it. The problem that arises when feminists clash with comic/game/geek content is because the “context” for the “sexy artwork” either doesn’t exist or is so flimsy it might as well not exist. There is nothing wrong with NSFW artwork, providing the context makes sense (and that includes the WHERE and HOW it’s being published).

Sidenote: I CANNOT recommend “Sunstone” enough to y’all. It’s amazing and you should check it out! Here’s the link to it on AMAZON.

We’re also more than familiar with the accusation that we are just fun-hating killjoys who hate sexy women and want them always non-sexual and covered head to toe (extra fallacy points if something islamophobic is added to the last part). That’s why it’s a square on the rhetoric bingo: 

TL; DR: CONTEXT IS EVERYTHING! 

~Ozzie 

Cliff Bleszinski recently got roasted for an Instagram post where he framed putting diversity into LawBreakers as a factor in its collapse, specifically because it did not get the praise that Overwatch did:

Ever since the studio closed I’ve been wracking my brain what I could have done differently. Pivot HARD when the juggernaut of Overwatch was announced. Been less nice with my design ideas and more of a dictator with them.

One big epiphany I had was that I pushed my own personal political beliefs in a world that was increasingly divided.

Instead of the story being “this game looks neat” it became “this is the game with the ‘woke bro’ trying to push his hackey politics on us with gender neutral bathrooms.” Instead of “these characters seem fun” it was “this is the studio with the CEO who refuses to make his female characters sexier.” Instead of “who am I going to choose” it became “white dude shoehorns diversity in his game and then smells his own smug farts in interviews” instead of just letting the product … speak for itself.

It’s okay to be political when your company or studio is established for great product FIRST. But we were unproven and I regret doing it. (This will be quite the doozy of a chapter in the upcoming memoir.)

Chris Franklin (aka Errant Signal) has a different theory:

Now obviously there were the usual suspects chanting “Get Woke Go Broke” when the game closed, but largely (in places that are not boiling cesspits) it didn’t get a lot of discussion either way because of a wide variety of other, more pressing factors like gameplay, bugs, sever issues, graphical similarity to Overwatch, etc.

But the first thing that springs to mind is “I should have made the female characters sexier” because the conventional wisdom is somehow (despite society’s ongoing oppression of sex workers) female characters looking less than porny is a risky political statement.

This of course, ignores the vast deluge of games that leaned hard into sex sells then immediately crashed and burned spectacularly.

It really shouldn’t be controversial to give female characters the same design considerations that male characters get.

(And also like, I can assure you - there is a demand for very, very sexy men)

SYAC - NSFW Context.

A lot of people who view my feminist leanings as an “act” always point to the fact that I used to draw fetish art a decade ago as some sort of hypocrisy. But the fact of the matter is that just because I don’t draw fetish art anymore and identify as a feminist now doesn’t mean I have some sort of vendetta against it. The problem that arises when feminists clash with comic/game/geek content is because the “context” for the “sexy artwork” either doesn’t exist or is so flimsy it might as well not exist. There is nothing wrong with NSFW artwork, providing the context makes sense (and that includes the WHERE and HOW it’s being published).

Sidenote: I CANNOT recommend “Sunstone” enough to y’all. It’s amazing and you should check it out! Here’s the link to it on AMAZON.

We’re also more than familiar with the accusation that we are just fun-hating killjoys who hate sexy women and want them always non-sexual and covered head to toe (extra fallacy points if something islamophobic is added to the last part). That’s why it’s a square on the rhetoric bingo: 

TL; DR: CONTEXT IS EVERYTHING! 

~Ozzie 

Cliff Bleszinski recently got roasted for an Instagram post where he framed putting diversity into LawBreakers as a factor in its collapse, specifically because it did not get the praise that Overwatch did:

Ever since the studio closed I’ve been wracking my brain what I could have done differently. Pivot HARD when the juggernaut of Overwatch was announced. Been less nice with my design ideas and more of a dictator with them.

One big epiphany I had was that I pushed my own personal political beliefs in a world that was increasingly divided.

Instead of the story being “this game looks neat” it became “this is the game with the ‘woke bro’ trying to push his hackey politics on us with gender neutral bathrooms.” Instead of “these characters seem fun” it was “this is the studio with the CEO who refuses to make his female characters sexier.” Instead of “who am I going to choose” it became “white dude shoehorns diversity in his game and then smells his own smug farts in interviews” instead of just letting the product … speak for itself.

It’s okay to be political when your company or studio is established for great product FIRST. But we were unproven and I regret doing it. (This will be quite the doozy of a chapter in the upcoming memoir.)

Chris Franklin (aka Errant Signal) has a different theory:

Now obviously there were the usual suspects chanting “Get Woke Go Broke” when the game closed, but largely (in places that are not boiling cesspits) it didn’t get a lot of discussion either way because of a wide variety of other, more pressing factors like gameplay, bugs, sever issues, graphical similarity to Overwatch, etc.

But the first thing that springs to mind is “I should have made the female characters sexier” because the conventional wisdom is somehow (despite society’s ongoing oppression of sex workers) female characters looking less than porny is a risky political statement.

This of course, ignores the vast deluge of games that leaned hard into sex sells then immediately crashed and burned spectacularly.

It really shouldn’t be controversial to give female characters the same design considerations that male characters get.

(And also like, I can assure you - there is a demand for very, very sexy men)

Biden plans to expand Disability, increasing the amount you receive as well as granting ACTUAL MARRIAGE EQUALITY FOR DISABLED PEOPLE

I had to call off my engagement so that I can apply for Disability, but if Trump wins it won't even matter because Disability won't exist this time next year.

The idea that there is no difference between Trump and Biden is co-morbid with apathy for your disabled comrades. If Trump wins, I will probably lose access to my medications and be forced to work so my family can survive. The problem is that literally any job can and will kill me. I don't expect to make it halfway through 2023 if Trump wins the election. And that's just me. How many thousands or tens of thousands or more are in my situation? How many hundreds of thousands are WORSE OFF than I am?

Okay, the cake artist here is named Stevie, and she is one of the few I have no respect for. She is an Artiste  and italics can’t quite portray the disdain dripping from my mouth when I say that.

To give you a rough example of why i feel that way, let’s go back to her first time on Challenge. The contest was rice krispy treat (*couch* I mean cereal treat) bridges. What Stevie did was have a wooden frame tilted at an angle with strings for the bridge cables, which she wrapped in seaweed. Notice something I didn’t include in that description? Yeah, no cereal treats in the cereal treat contest. In fact, nothing really edible at all. In a food challenge. Plus if I remember correctly the thing fell and broke.  So yeah, she came in last place and actually complained how the win was stolen form her because the judges were too blind for her artistic vision. Yeah. One of those.

So let’s break down this train wreck, shall we?

For starters, it wasn’t terrible on purpose, her initial plan was to show up Kerry Vincent and make her have to acknowledge her superior skill. But things started going wrong almost immediately. take the Strawberry Spikes. Stevie realized her cake wasn’t going to be as tall as the rules required (apparently she read them this time) so she used those to make up the height. The weird crinkly edging, for I don’t remember what reason she plated the outside of the cake in Sugar sheets. I think it was to make it look smooth but it didn’t work out. Especially when she kinda snapped half way through and just started tossing chocolate syrup, honey, and whatever else she could on.

And then the best part. Stevie decided the cake needed candles. And by candles, I mean little ramikins filled with alcohol. Which she lit on fire. Fun fact about sugar sheets - they are highly flammable. So yeah, Stevie set her cake on fire during the judging.

I honestly think it looks better post fire extinguisher.

On the flip side, let’s talk about Jason Ellis, aka the guy who won.

He’d also taken heavy criticism in the past from Kerry. And he built his whole cake around showing her how much he’d listened and improved. He started his planning process not with ‘Birthday cake’ but ‘what do I know about Kerry and what she values in cake’. And made this

Clean, elegant, and precise.