Sterrestel

BOY HAVE I!! Jimothy is from my city, not too far away either! I hope to witness him some time. He makes me emotional

I think I hate tumblr.

The idea that "having fragile masculinity" is inherently a personality defect or moral failing is patriarchal. So much of this kind of bullshit is people taking fundamentally patriarchal ideas of manhood (for example, that men being vulnerable is a defect or moral failing) and defining it around slightly more feminist values.

Like, the only thing that is different from bog standard patriarchy here is the inclusion of "macho." But like, the idea that there are "fragile" men who fail to be "real men" with unshakeable firm masculinity, and they also secretly have small penises and are biologically less manly compared to "real men" whose real manhood can be located in their large penises... babe that's just toxic masculinity. The same "macho" shit you hate those men for, you yourself engage in, just a little to the left.

Because like.

A video game will often have cosmetics. Players like cosmetics. Players will spend money on cosmetics. And even in games where there's stats attached to outfit pieces, there's usually also glamours so that you don't have to be held hostage to a stat-optimized look.

However, a ttrpg that takes the time to list out outfit pieces will usually do so exclusively for statting purposes, and will not have a carve-out for glamours, and may well have a GM that is actively hostile to the idea. "Your AC is as Chain Mail, but you described your character as in a dress. I deduct one million participation points and a goblin eats your character sheet."

Also, ttrpg art tends to have a lot of cool costuming, but ttrpg text---even games with detailed lore sections---doesn't usually set aside time to talk about fashion. The art is left to do that lifting.

I think a big culprit for this state of affairs is that fashion is a deep field with a LOT of technical language, and making a fantasy version of a thing kind of requires knowing a lot about it.

So instead of diving deep into figuring out what kinds of garments a society might create, and in turn what kinds of cool looks players might be able to build with them, there's just a gesture towards the art. You can look like that.

As a result of all this, the point of dress up (being able to express yourself and feel something through choice of clothing) gets pushed into the margins. You can still do it, but the game isn't helping you. At best, it's not interfering.

"X field of art needs to have more Y topic" isn't a thing I think can ever be addressed quickly or comprehensively, but it *does* signal an opportunity going forward. So if you're a ttrpg designer and you're reading this, consider the place of dress up in your game.

What kinds of costumes can players wear? How does the costuming change how they are treated? How does the costuming echo or oppose how their characters feel?

And can you do more to support dress up?

Dress up, changing your name, scheming, risk, ghost stories, bragging, kissing, running, making a fort, and dolls.

Notably, kissing isn't about kissing. It's about doing things you're not sure are allowed, or that you're not sure you understand.

Changing your name is about having other people treat you as someone else, which is different from dolls which is about imbuing a neutral object with an identity.

Running is not just running, and is almost always combined with scheming.

Risk involves actual monetary or emotional risk, staking feelings, pride, or possessions on an outcome.

Making a fort does not require making a physical fort, but is better when it does.

it’s those meddling kids!

So this group of angels had descended to earth on a mission and ended up in a living situation with a bunch of humans. Like they were just roommates with angels. The angels were attempting to carry out inscrutable divine plans but were handicapped by the fact that the world was too much for them.

Every sensory experience was a massive overload to them. One tasted garlic and burst into tears. They could barely function let alone fulfill their purpose on the mortal plane. So one of the roommates came up with a sensory acclimation program for the angels.

Each angel was paired off with a human to attempt some experiences. The humans job was to help them through it. One angel was going to brave the movies. Buttered popcorn was an overwhelming cacophony of sensation. Another wanted to attempt a short walk on the beach. Like, their goals were very modest normal guy stuff.

There was just one problem. All of the human buddies. Desperately. Wanted to fuck their angel. They all wanted the angels to be down with sex acts so bad, they had the major angel hornies and there was no cure. One person successfully seduced their angel and all the other humans lost their shit trying to up their seduction game on these sheltered divine ding dongs who could barely handle the taste of popcorn.

Gothic fiction is a genre that combines both horror and romance, two of my most favorite things. I’m currently trying to write a novel with gothic energy, but I realized, I didn’t actually know what a gothic novel entailed outside of social commentary and dark aesthetic, and what separated it from plain horror. After doing some research, here are the common elements you’ll find in a gothic novel.

The main character behind as a nice, decent person, but must ultimately face the monster within them. Gothic characters tend to be representative of own desires to go buck wild feral and release a “darkness” within. A prime example of this is Henry Jekyll from Jekyll and Hyde.

Gothic literature is about transformation, an element that is not necessary when writing straight horror.

In Gothic literature, the past haunts the present. Whether that’s a dark act or memory for the protagonist, or an actual literal ghost, there is always some form of a past the MC would rather forget.

Romance in goth lit is tragic or bittersweet. Also, general romanticism levels are through the roof. Nearing melodrama.

The drama of despair drives goth lit; violence and blood drives horror.

Heightened, almost melodramatic emotions.

A gloomy, decaying, or abandoned setting with an atmosphere of mystery and suspense. An old decaying mansion or estate is a popular location in goth lit.

Often features a prophecy, legend, or omen.

Often features supernatural or otherwise unexplainable events.

YOU DO IT ON ONE OF THESE! OBVIOUSLY!!!

and that brown end? the hard bit? pencil sharpener. or sharpened with a blade. are you following me? now, attach six of those to a harpy.

My gut response to the description is that it feels bad. However, something I am willing to admit is that it's very evocative of the shape of the claws. Bananas are known for being particularly curvy, and I think an emphasis on the curve of a bird's talon can be a good extra flair as opposed to a plain "claws shot toward me."

The problem is that any added sense of vivid danger from emphasizing the curve of the claws is lost in the comparison. Bananas are notoriously not sharp, and are in fact very easily squished (even by accident).

The sentence tries to amend that failing in the imagery by specifying the bananas are "sharpened," but that's a) a confusing image because no one does that and b) undermines the sense of danger even more than if it were just "claws like bananas," because most would imagine the process of "sharpening" a banana to turn it to mush (as nicely demonstrated by @transastronautistic in zir addition).

(photos from their attempt at sharpening a banana (and no, the attempt on the frozen banana wasn't much better, even if it wasn't mush))

If we wanted to make a comparison that emphasized the curvature of the talons without diminishing the sense of danger, perhaps we could go for something like a sickle. It's sharp, strong, and has an even more distinct curve than a banana.

HOWEVER.

"Like sharpened bananas" isn't inherently an unusable description. Depending on the context and what the author is trying to achieve, it could very much work.

I'm assuming this is for the sequel to Apparently, Sir Cameron Needs to Die, which is a very funny book that often derives its humor from overly drawn out or absurd descriptions.

(All the chapter titles are like this, and it's not just funny, it also pays off in a cool way later in the book)

The oxymoronic nature of "sharpened bananas" lends itself well to this tone, along with how it characterizes the POV that is producing this out of place imagery. I don't know the context of this scene, but if it's a largely comedic one with little sense of danger, being narrated by a character who is either so food or sex obsessed that their descriptions are hijacked by bananas even in danger, then this descriptor works! It's descriptive of the claws and especially the POV character, with the added benefit of being a very memorable and funny line.

However, if this is supposed to be a scene where you want the reader to be genuinely concerned for the well being of the POV character, then I don't think it works. The contradictory imagery immediately takes the reader out of the scene, because they have to stop their reading flow to understand what the claws are even supposed to look like, and keeping up momentum is really important to pacing action scenes.