Harley

I didn’t mind this!! I even liked the assumption. It was fun, kinda charming. I’m a lesbian and it was nice to have conversations around the jobsite with cis guys about dating girls etc etc

Occasionally people would “find out” I was a woman, and the reaction was always apologetic? Which was a shame. I always emphasized that it was ok for people to stick with their initial impression of me. I don’t feel misgendered by she or him because gender is a social construct and at times when people refer to me with masculine pronouns, it’s because I’m occupying a social role associated with that. Which I enjoy. I like being the nice, helpful young man that people can rely on when I'm working security. I don't like being the odd one out in a group, and being perceived as the only woman in a space does exactly that.

Gender is entirely a social role to me, and so when asked my pronouns are she/him. I still identify as cis, and in an ideal world (FOR ME PERSONALLY), everyone would just stick with their gut reaction and not feel bad about or second-guess their initial perception of my binary gender. This is the experience I have in distinctly non-queer spaces and it's good! Just a "hey, don't worry. i can be a bloke lol" if it ever even comes up (it usually doesn't) and that's it.

Progressive spaces are built for the "average" queer person, and I think that's generally a good thing. I don't mind listing my pronouns when I enter a space even if I would much rather let people assume; because doing so normalizes and protects infinitely more vulnerable people than me. The problem arises when I give people a binary choice and they go AH! you are NONBINARY! when I have just made it abundantly clear the opposite is true.

Please stop telling me about fringe circumstances or arguing about semantics. My experiences are not universal; your experiences are also not universal.

IF YOU IGNORE THE PART WHERE I SAY I ACCEPT THEY/THEM AS A USEFUL DEFAULT I WILL KILL YOU WITH A GUN

Typography Tuesday

The Overbrook Press was founded in 1934 by American financier turned fine-press publisher Frank Altschul (1887-1981), with Margaret B. Evans (1903-1986) as the designer, compositor, and printer. The press continued operations until 1969. One of the first publications printed at the press was this little keepsake specimen book for friends, The Types, Borders, Rules, & Devices of the Press, printed in Stamford, Connecticut in an edition of 150 copies in 1934.

Our copy, another donation from the estate of our late friend Dennis Bayuzick, bears a signed presentation from Margaret B. Evans to the noted typographer and book designer Abe Lerner (1929-2002) and his wife Kit Currie (d. 2014) in 1980.

View more posts on books form the Overbrook Press.

Lasers have a lot of uses! Measuring things, heating things, cutting things, entertaining cats, particle physics. Lasers are pretty cool. Very versatile, very useful, potential to be very powerful.

Someone shows up one day and says "I have developed a never before seen technology! I call it a Death Star."

And it's a 3.4mW laser. Well no, we haven't seen this exact size of laser much since that's not really standard, but that's a bit of a misnomer, and I wouldn't call it new -

"HOLY SHIT GUYS! This Death Star is so entertaining! My cat loves it and it has such a nice color!" The Death Star becomes a viral novelty, and is mildly entertaining, as laser pointers often are.

Somehow, seemingly overnight, this leads to mania. "Lets stick lasers in EVERYTHING! The public loves them!"

More companies make 3.4mW lasers to jump on the bandwagon. Everyone that makes anything vaguely mechanical starts sticking lasers into their designs.

Everyone is calling them Death Stars. Any time there is a "Death Star innovation", it is just that they made a bigger laser.

Ford's next truck comes out and it has "Death Star integrated headlights", where they have just stuck giant lasers in place of their previously functional headlights.

An electric toothbrush is now "Powered by Death Stars" and shoots a laser at the tooth its cleaning. You think that maybe this could have actual applications as a sanitizing device if you're being generous, but when you actually look at the product, its laser has no purpose but to point at the tooth and drain the battery.

Mechanical products across the board get noticeably worse as everyone starts stuffing lasers in places where lasers have no right to be.

The lamp business gets in on it. "Here's a Death Star powered lamp!" These guys haven't even tried to stick a laser in their damn lamps. They've just started calling their light bulbs Death Stars and hoped you bought it before you could tell the difference. You at least appreciate that they haven't ruined their lamp about it.

Death Stars are lauded as the solution to all the world's problems. If it's not working, you should stick a laser in it! That'll fix it, everyone says. Once in a blue moon, it's even true! Weather prediction is really good now. But most things are garbage. Like "Death Star powered washing machines". What the fuck does that even mean?

Meanwhile, since all functioning mechanisms are being replaced with lasers, problems start showing up. All mirrors now cost $1000+ dollars, because the whole supply is being used up to make more lasers. The earth heats up, because everyone's blasting lasers at everything. People keep going blind, on account of all the lasers.

You, in fact, study optical mechanics. You know what a laser is, and how it works, and that it was invented many years before any of this nonsense actually started. People keep asking you about Death Stars, since surely you must know so much about them.

You explain that this is not really what lasers are for, except you have to call them Death Stars now, and that they're causing a lot of harm, so you don't like them much.

"Oh, but they're still such new tech!" they reply. "They'll figure out how to make Death Stars that don't burn your eyes out soon, and then it won't be an issue anymore!"

Somewhere, deep and buried, you remember lasers being used in particle accelerators, or in telescopes, or in laser cutters, or funny cat videos. They are, in fact, still interesting. Still cool.

But by this point they have replaced roads with "Death Star Powered Pathways", which are just laser pointers propped up on tooth picks pointing vaguely through the forests.

And you think you are going mad.

And they are still just FUCKING LASERS.

Ive been trying to get my life together for some time now, and that started with my transition. Ive been needing help living with disabilities and burned out, and now dropping out of uni. Getting employed is pretty much impossible and I've been surviving off savings and these donation posts. Food and bills and my own hrt depend on thse until I manage to get my life together, which is very hard when your life hangs on generous donations every month.

I'll be most thankful with anything you can help with, please. And share this post around so more people can see it. I'm asking for an amount that could sustain me for many months ahead, and I'll be trying to get up on my own.

Paypal

Ko-fi

💛💜🖤 Our airtime in life is so shamefully brief, why limit yourself to a single channel? 🧡💛💙

In a game of Catan, you nominally take the role of settlers competing for limited land & resources on an "undiscovered" landmass. The game simulates trade, the construction of infrastructure, and the tense relationships between factions. But Catan does not care if you invent a history & mythology for the landmass. Catan will not change if you give names to each of your factions, and to your roads and towns. The premise - that of each player representing a group of settlers - exists only to justify the gameplay loop of auctions & token-placing. In other words, the fiction of Catan is caused by its mechanics. You could reskin the whole thing and nothing about the play experience would change.

In a game of The Quiet Year, you take the role of a community of people who have survived some calamity, attempting to survive and thrive in the year before another ill-defined event will once again shake its foundations. The game tells you to care about resources, infrastructure, and the relationships between members of the community. The Quiet Year, explicitly and mechanically, cares a lot about the name, history, and mythology of this community. The game's material mechanisms - those being the drawing of cards, turning of dice, and additions to the communal map - exist only as controlled interruptions to keep the real meat of the game - that being a conversation - on track. You could meaningfully play a game of The Quiet Year without cards, dice, or a map. In other words, the fiction of The Quiet Year is the primary subject of the game, and its mechanics exist only to further inspire the creation of that fiction.

2. Defining Verbs

Watch this video of Brennan Lee Mulligan playing Coup.

Notice that? Notice how he's not allowed to bribe his way out of a bad situation? Why is that?

Part of it is because of The Flow of Causality; he can't to it because the game cares more about its mechanical rules than the logic of the fiction it presents. The rules of the game universe bend to fit the rules of the cards & tokens.

But it's also because The Verbs of Coup are defined positively. To misquote Ian Danskin: In [board games], you can't do anything except that which is expressly allowed by the rules.

Now watch this video of Brennan Lee Mulligan playing D&D.

Notice how he just... sent that guy away in a cloud of bubbles? How he gave Pete a peppermint tooth? How he invented that fucked up Santa cocoon?

You notice how there are no rules, anywhere in any D&D book, that give him permission to do any of that? Of course not, right? He's the GM! He can do whatever he likes!

That's precisely the point. The rules don't give him permission to do any of that stuff. But we know he can, because the rules of D&D are defined negatively. To again misquote Danskin: [in RPGs], you can do anything that isn't expressly disallowed by the rules.

The rules of RPGs exist not to give & withhold permission, but to arbitrate - Brennan can invent as many kinds of Santa cocoons as he wants - but he has to give them stat blocks. He has to use them within the limits of the action economy.

This attitude applies to the other side of the screen, too. Your character can do whatever they like, so long as they do so within the agreed-upon limits of the game's rules, its fiction, and the social boundaries of the other real people at the table with you.

3. TL;DR

In a board game, you engage in an interesting gameplay loop which is painted in the aesthetic of a particular fictional scenario, and the verbs defined by that gameplay loop & its goals hold primacy over the fiction. Verbs are defined positively, meaning that unless the game's mechanics give you explicit permission to do something, that thing is assumed to be disallowed.

A reminder that this tumblr is not a safe place for any kind of bigotry.

You'll never be "too gay",