Secret Snow Club

You remember me, right? I wrote that review of Lancer that everyone liked? And a few other reviews?

Oh, oh, oh, a lot of people had opinions on that TTRPG iceberg that I think will outlive anything I ever write or put my soul into right?

Well, did you know that I have a blog? It's my patreon. Wow, wowie, wowza. So cool.

Now, here's the kicker, you (don't) have to give me money (insert evangelion meme). You can just read, like, all the shit I do and review over there. I'll be moving all of my substack posts there until I empty that b out.

BUT, if you do give me money, then you can also get my games for free. So, if you like my writing at all, you might find one or two of my games (SONGBIRDS) kinda cool.

I think it'd be cool if you joined me over there as a free member and just let me ramble to you sometimes. *Some* posts will end up on tumblr because I like it here a little more than everywhere else, but it's exhausting keeping just one thing updated, so...

See you there!

I do these little fiction explorations over on my blog, just to follow an idea until i run out of time. This one's called "Losing Fingers to Digital Flowers."

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The pocket dorm hummed with electric lust. Three posters plastered across the unopened door revealed the tummy of a girl, elongated along a table, incision points for scapel, and three sets of ungloved hands peeling back the flesh for probing. The caption said, "let it inside you." Small brand logo in the corner. Same as the box half-folded on the floor. Best described as a mock-brain, simplified into three, over-geometricized shapes. Aluminum tubes, rolled to remove the hiding spots, filled the kitchen basin, dashed and tossed into polystyrene cups and bowls, never washed. Once a week, Thesa would go down to the loading bay, where Liza slept, say the magic words and force herself into orgasm by her hand, simply because Liza, despite the lack of home, had a mind crafted by three parents that kept their ship tidy to an anti-social degree. After waking from the post-sex sleep, Liza would clean the pocket dorm automatically and without thought. Only once did Liza ask to move in.

Thesa curled on her PVC mat, new headset flattening her thick curls. Her fingers white around her shins, eyes spinning counterclockwise under closed eyelids. Sweaty stink around her joints and creased neck. Breathing through her slack jaw and down her dry throat. The only light came from the back of the headset, near the clawed power switch. It blinked irregularly.

***

"Do you know how exhausting it is to swing a bat?" Massimo flexed her muscles, bent at the knees, and swung her torso at the hips. "Slam! Bam. Bang. You get about three swings before you feel it, and that's if you're me and not a fucking girl. And when you're connecting with meat? Like, a body? Shit is hard. It's tough. You don't even know."

Massimo was right. Thesa didn't know. She was a fucking girl. A pilot. The wires that told her lactic acid to suck around her muscles were redirected long ago. She didn't get tired. She got horny.

"You ever have those dreams where you can't run?" Massimo swung again, this time imagining herself hitting something towards the ugliest asteroid in the sky. It had a dent in it, like her father's smile.

"No," Thesa said.

"Then you're not even human." Massimo smirked, dimples deep and tan.

"Not legally," Thesa said. Massimo stopped mid-swallow and coughed it up. Somewhere between a chortle and exasperation.

"Not yet." She never entered the room, just appeared. Massimo turned and straightened her posture. Exactly twenty-four hours ago, Thesa was ambushed at her dorm by two men who pinned her down, paralyzed her, and taped her eyes open. They worked for the Handler, Miss Kevin, who came into the room and offered Thesa a job opportunity. Now the headset and all this.

Miss Kevin was low to the floor, wide, and her boots clanked as she descended from her perch. Cigarette fire lit her face. Smelled like Liza's yellow teeth. Her eyes were tight and green and winged with eyeliner, moving smooth down Massimo's tight chest.

"Depending on how this goes," she said, standing hands on hips in front of the two. "More human than you."

"Please," Massimo scoffed. She swaggered herself into a comfortable stance, refusing to look down at the Handler. "I know what this is."

"Explain then."

"The helmet. The secrecy. It's the whole handler shtick. We are your chosen assistants or whatever. I've heard all the stories. But why's she here? She my first pilot?"

"Thesa," Kevin said. The sound of her own name snapped her into rigid form, hands at her side. "Is my pilot. She is being given the opportunity, same as you."

"Mind games," Massimo said.

"You haven't graduated yet. Your scores are mediocre." Miss Kevin turned away. Meandered a few steps. "Your father is an old friend and begged me to give you some kind of handout, kid. Thesa, on the other hand, is the pilot who got us control of the Lyssander Foundation. She's been exceptional for us, and even if she's never seen my face, she hasn't broken her attention since the moment she stepped in here."

A small bulge arose in Thesa's throat with the rising of the Handler's voice. A sick and terrible pleasure at the sound. Fear, idiot, her mind pleads. Fear is what you should be feeling. What happened to me? Why am I like this? What did you do to me?

"She gets a point," said Miss Kevin.

"There's points?"

"Yes," she said, dropping her cigarette and crushing it under heel. "And you lose one for every question you've asked. If you can even remember you asked them."

Massimo shook her head and bowed at the neck. Her bare feet stood upon her grandfather's dock. The leather of his hands tight on her thigh. He whispers. She closes her eyes tight. Opens. The room in focus. It's bare and white and plain and cold.

"I didn't hear that," Miss Kevin said.

Magnolia is the first big expansion/adventure for Songbirds. It finds the Songbirds in the servitude of Love's manor, where her extended family demand ultimate loyalty.

It's itchfunding right now so go check it out <3

Magnolia finds the Songbirds under the geas of Love's court, attending to each of the family's needs. Trimming the living garden, making the children laugh, and freeing uncle's ex lover from the Agony Parade.

It's the first big expansion/adventure for Songbirds and it's in early access right now!

Link: snowttrpg.itch.io/magnolia

Hello Tumber dot com,

Songbirds is an adventure game inspired by OSR and Storygame traditions that focuses on body horror and haunted shit. You are the canary (adventurer) in the coal mine (dungeon). You go where others won't trying to help spirits find rest, since the god of death is slacking. To play, all you'll need is a d20 and d10, the book has the rest.

These are the systems that have inspired Songbirds understanding of adventure games:

Into the Odd

Apocalypse World

Public Access

Disco Elysium

CY_BORG

Fear & Hunger

Shin Megami Tensei

Blades in the Dark

Red Giant

The setting of Songbirds is a mix of the fantasy in Dune and the science fiction in Tower Dungeon. It has guns, airships, trains, and all different varieties of magics. These are the sci-fi and fantasy worlds that inspired Songbirds.

Dune

Tower Dungeon

Dragon Ball

Breath of the Wild

Hyper Light Drifter

Chainsaw Man

X-Files

Metal Gear Solid

Silent Hill

Go get it over on itch. Like, it's a really great game. Promise. I'm also working on a BIG expansion that will be doing an early-access, itch-funding thing VERY SOON! Featuring 10 new gift/curses and a massive hex crawl through the dream world of Twilight.

This is an unfinished animal.

To be autistically humbled is to be made into a clown because of your lack of comprehension or failure to assimilate. It happens when your lived reality hits the brick wall of social circumstance going at least 75mph. 

I watch these gamers on my computer because at least one of them is trans and she is playing the game I like. During these games there is banter. Or trolling. And trolling is something I understand but do not comprehend and can’t decipher. I understand that trolling is funny because you’re saying something that makes someone mad or something untrue to provoke a response. Like, whatever definition you wanna give it, it exists and, yeah, it’s funny. But I can’t decipher it. If someone says something to me, I take it at face value. If they say something mean, I think they are being mean to me. To operate contrary to this leads to me second guessing everything and that’s exhausting. Yes, I can choose to do it sometimes, like, if I’m hanging with certain people and want to just not take them seriously, but that’s the process my brain undergoes--takes a person and makes them unserious. It removes the possibility of sincerity from them and in that way distances them. 

A large part of allistic social situations is maintaining a wide berth. Danger close. I don’t really care if there’s a deeper reason to this, y’know, Evangelion is all about this and people can psychoanalyze culture all they want, the reality is that it’s annoying. Plain and simple. I find navigating it annoying because it’s an active process, and I’m made less sincere because of it. My love turned to sarcasm.

I know non-autistic people find us autistic folks quite annoying and, well, I’m here to return the sentiment. I find you annoying, and you are work to be around. It’s a two-way street, pal. 

I work in tabletop roleplaying games full time as a designer, both mechanic and graphic. I run an online store where I sell my books, digital and physical. There are people who think any mention of humanity is a bridge too far and those who think selling your work in any capacity is inhumane, and everyone in between.

Crowdfunding is how I make my living. 

There are a lot of unspoken rules when it comes to crowdfunding and there are companies, indie or not, who use Kickstarter and such even though they do not need to. And this is excused as a business decision. Humanity is just a marketing ploy. The human soul is worth about $1000 extra dollars per pledge.

These companies break the trust of crowdfunding to earn a bottom line on the backs of pretending to be indie. Because they provide jobs. Because they need to make money or people die. The bar gets raised and sinks the ships in the harbor. But you can just hop on their boat, if they’re hiring.

I used to argue for the side of the small creator. Of the artist. "If you don’t mind living in poverty, then you can make a modest living as an artist." I do not believe this is the case anymore. I was wrong. I’m sorry, please stab from me a pound of flesh.

The goal of a company (indie or not) isn’t to live modestly, it’s to create bastions of land above the rising tide that force you to come to them as bodies slide into the water. 

The goal of living modestly is a stupid business decision.

Giving everyone the chance at making a mediocre living is bad for your bottom line.

The goal in this small indie scene is to get out of it and raise the ladder behind you.

Allow me the space to be autistic, but something being a good business decision is not a worthy excuse. You are still a human even if you own an LLC. You have a responsibility as a human being. You are not excused of your duties simply because you can make a little more money than last year. Maybe you only sleep at night because there are bigger monsters out there, but that doesn’t remove your teeth.

Predetermined responsibility. As long as you can say “I gotta put food on the table,” then it can’t be your fault. Regardless of the damage done to others. The victims can’t be mad because you are a victim too. The system created you and thus deserves responsibility. Capitalism-as-excuse. But understanding doesn’t remove your teeth. Your vicious nature.

Sympathy for the devil wasn’t meant to absolve. In the most recent season of the Fallout television show, a business exec is shown to be a victim for helping drop the bombs that changed the world, because she did it for her daughter. To me this is the end result of culture, where absolution is guaranteed. Perspective flattens into shades of grey and forgets harm is real and has a source. 

You are not responsible for your actions. So don’t worry, you can survive by any means necessary. Ethics are bad for business and the bottom line is all that matters.

I am not saying anything new or fascinating.

To me, that is the true reality of being autistically humbled. Y'see, I used to believe that if I could put words to what was happening to me, in front of me, around me--if I could put words to it, then others would see! They would see and understand. The injustice! The inhumanity! That the difference between autistic and allistics was a manner of perspective. But no. That is not true.

Recently, an article was posted by a company who met their kickstarter goal and yet cancelled the project, stating all the reasons that have made crowdfunding a tool of business and not actually a tool for creators to get their projects made. This is a known quantity. Everyone is aware. Everyone knows.

Understanding was never the issue.

I am autistic. I have a developmental disorder. I do not understand the nature of social interactions. I have reverse-engineered them in order to understand, but still I do not grasp. Understanding was never the issue.

I simply am disabled. I will always be disabled. No matter how much I understand. It will still confuse and boggle me. Always.

I am not saying anything new or fascinating.

When I am around allistic people, understanding is not what separates us. My lack of development does. My inability to see the thin (or thick?) layer that blankets all social interactions. I am the one who is, no, not wrong, but messing up. I am the one who does not understand.

I do not understand that there is no amount of words I can write that will change anything.

I do not understand that everyone is actually in on these social things, business and so on. I do not understand that everyone already "gets it." That agreeing or disagreeing doesn't matter.

To be autistically humbled is to realize that, actually, you are not special. You do not know more. You are not absolved of your involvement in culture or society simply because you "see through it." Because you don't see through it. You see it. Actively. You must! In order to assimilate at all. You must be made aware of it and be consistently aware of it or you run the risk of being a "freak" or, even worse, "annoying."

This is the reality of the autistic person. To be forced to understand verbally what other people grasp on what feels like a spiritual level, allowing them to move through the fluid of life with much less friction, and then to believe you can help others understand. But, really? You just need help. A little more than they do. Maybe a lot more.

I am not saying anything new or fascinating.

To point out any of this stuff is actually seen as annoying. Which, tbh, I didn't really get until yesterday. I thought talking about the issues of the industry, or the struggles of communication were a way to help people understand something that kept getting obscured. But it's only obscured to me. Or perhaps, even more humbling, it's not actually that big of a deal.