Avalyn Ramsay Games

She/her - Queer - TTRPG designer - http://austin-ramsay.itch.io - Actual play GM on You Don't Meet In An Inn and Beam Saber: The Cenotaph, and was showrunner for CalazCon: A Mega Game Actual Play

[avalynramsaygames]

Hello!

I'm Avalyn Ramsay (she/her), a TTRPG designer and podcaster. I'm best known for the Forged in the Dark game Beam Saber, but have also made several other games.

I was the primary GM and community manager for the actual play podcast You Don't Meet In An Inn (which concluded in early 2022), and have guested on several other podcasts including Game Closet, Great Gundam Project, and Party of One.

I'm also currently developing the mega game actual play show, CalazCon!, which features 31 participants across 6 play groups all telling the story of one front in a war of conquest interrupted by a nomadic media convention.

Follow me if you're interested in TTRPG design, mechs, and actual play shows!

Where to find me on the Internet

With Twitter potentially burning down I have expanded my social media presence. Some of these are old, some of these are new, all of them are me. I'll be continuing to discuss TTRPG design in these places and here.

Link Tree: https://linktr.ee/avalynramsay

Itch: https://austin-ramsay.itch.io/

Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/AvalynRamsay

Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@notaninn

Twitch: https://www.twitch.tv/you_dont_meet_in_an_inn

Blue Sky: https://bsky.app/profile/avalynramsaygames.bsky.social

Mastodon: https://dice.camp/web/@AustinRamsayGames

Twitter: https://twitter.com/Notaninn

And of course you can find the Avalyn Ramsay Games discord at https://discord.gg/WuC8r5W

[thebristolboard]

“The Militarization of the Police Department – Deadly Farce,” an original painting by Richard Williams from “The 20 Dumbest People, Events, and Things of 2014″ in Mad magazine #531, published by DC Comics, February 2015.

[spaceraptor]

Here’s the original, for comparison. And here’s a bit more about the artist and why he created the piece above for MAD Magazine.

[pennamerequired]

Richard Williams on Norman Rockwell:

“For most people, he was the painter of ‘America,’” he added. “But even he said his vision was what he wanted ‘America’ to be. It was a mythical ‘America,’ a place where all people were decent, honest and full of good will. His work was full of gentle humor that made you feel a little better; even if you knew it wasn’t really true… you just wished it was. My parody of Rockwell’s painting simply says, ‘That myth is dead.’”

[1-420-666-6969]

I think it’s relevant to add that even Norman Rockwell chose to leave his cushy job at the Saturday Evening Post because he wanted to make artwork that was more radical. The Post had rules that wouldn’t allow him to do artwork depicting black people as anything other than servants. The job paid really well and that was a huge reason he continued on. But he wanted change that and so he moved to Look magazine.

A lot of people know about the very first piece he did when he left the post which was the The Problem We All Live With which depicts Ruby Bridges walking to school under federal protection.

But I don’t think enough people know about Murder in Mississippi which depicts three real civil rights activists who were murdered by the Ku Klux Klan and sherriffs. The magazine ran the sketch instead of the finished piece because they felt it had a more striking statement to accompany the article. Norman Rockwell would finish that version after publication which is here

Rockwell’s legacy is sanitized because he decided to maintain his job at the Post for so long despite his frustrations with not being able to express himself. The civil rights movement was just his final straw to change what he could with the little time he had left. Look magazine received a lot of hate for Rockwell painting these as well.

Another favorite piece of mine is The Right to Know which depicts an integrated populace questioning their government. In 1968, the year of Vietnam and the year the Fair Housing Act only just got signed in months prior:

But I think it’s important to include the caption Rockwell originally wrote for the piece as well. I think it represents how a 74 year old Rockwell felt about the America he believed in and the people in it:

We are the governed, but we govern too. Assume our love of country, for it is only the simplest of self-love. Worry little about our strength, for we have our history to show for it. And because we are strong, there are others who have hope. But watch us more closely from now on, for those of us who stand here mean to watch those we put in the seats of power. And listen to us, you who lead, for we are listening harder for the truth that you have not always offered us. Your voice must be ours, and ours speaks of cities that are not safe, and of wars we do not want, of poor in a land of plenty, and of a world that will not take the shape our arms would give it. We are not fierce, and the truth will not frighten us. Trust us, for we have given you our trust. We are the governed, remember, but we govern too.

[specialagentartemis]

Regarding Norman Rockwell, I also want to shout out “New Kids in the Neighborhood (Moving Day)” in 1967:

Also for LOOK magazine, but leaning on his themes of youth and suburban life. Expressing both hope for the curiosity and open-mindedness of children, and the bitter recognition of the suspicion of adults towards racial integration (see the face peeking out of the window in background). It’s notable that this is what he wanted America to be, too. He hoped for a better future.

I think that MAD Magazine artwork is really good and really poignant, and it’s also interesting to put it in conversation with Norman Rockwell’s own political evolution in his art as well.

[artbyblastweave]

Now one thing I find really stylistically interesting about Batman Beyond, is that a lot of the mechanisms by which the supervillians do their thing come part-and-parcel with the cyberpunk setting, rather than being an aberration resulting purely from the superheroic genre elements. This is the future of a quote-unquote "present-day" DCU, meaning that they've superficially addressed the question of why all the cutting-edge supertech used in the cape scene never seems to see mass adoption by the civilian sector- forty years later, it has. This means that It's never hard to grok where any given villain is getting the resources necessary to execute their gimmick; these people are flashy by our standards, but they live in a world where everyone has access to flying cars and antigravity drones. Half these people are doing the cyberpunk equivalent of going killdozer with repurposed industrial equipment, or kludging together something with off-the-shelf stuff from radio shack, or mounting a machine gun on a technical truck, and literally in the middle of typing this sentence I started the episode where there's mass-market off-the-shelf animal gene-splicing that would have been a whole-ass individualized origin story in the time of Batman: The Animated Series. Even one-off mutants like Inque and Blight are well-understood within the context of the setting, to the extent of Inque being able to make a knockoff of herself on the go.

This is dystopic. Beyond the genre-typical surface-level megacorp domination of society it's dystopic. On the meta-level it's the same dynamic as Superman: The Animated Series, where the reason there's a sudden uptick in weird costumed crime concurrent with the protagonist's debut is purely Doylistic- the hero needs punching bags. But within the logic of the setting, there's nothing special about Willy Watt's decision to go full Carrie using a hijacked construction robot besides the fact that he had somewhat easier access to the thing than the average school-shooter. Spellbinder being able to put together functional illusion-and-mind-control tech on a high-school counselor's salary- when his entire complaint is that he isn't being paid enough- implies that the main barrier to anyone else pulling the same brainwashing stunt is that nobody else thought to. Shriek's sound suit might be more a more roundabout demolition tool than dynamite, but it's still powerful enough to bring down buildings and he created it as a fly-by-night contractor. The consumer tech base is evolved to the point that regardless of when Batman shows up, shit like this should literally never not be happening- they're past an inflection point. I remember Syndrome from The Incredibles having some kind of line about this

[lakemojave]

Corporations precisely on june 1st:

[fishing-lesbian-princess]

I love ttrpgs

[artbyblastweave]

Now one thing I find really stylistically interesting about Batman Beyond, is that a lot of the mechanisms by which the supervillians do their thing come part-and-parcel with the cyberpunk setting, rather than being an aberration resulting purely from the superheroic genre elements. This is the future of a quote-unquote "present-day" DCU, meaning that they've superficially addressed the question of why all the cutting-edge supertech used in the cape scene never seems to see mass adoption by the civilian sector- forty years later, it has. This means that It's never hard to grok where any given villain is getting the resources necessary to execute their gimmick; these people are flashy by our standards, but they live in a world where everyone has access to flying cars and antigravity drones. Half these people are doing the cyberpunk equivalent of going killdozer with repurposed industrial equipment, or kludging together something with off-the-shelf stuff from radio shack, or mounting a machine gun on a technical truck, and literally in the middle of typing this sentence I started the episode where there's mass-market off-the-shelf animal gene-splicing that would have been a whole-ass individualized origin story in the time of Batman: The Animated Series. Even one-off mutants like Inque and Blight are well-understood within the context of the setting, to the extent of Inque being able to make a knockoff of herself on the go.

This is dystopic. Beyond the genre-typical surface-level megacorp domination of society it's dystopic. On the meta-level it's the same dynamic as Superman: The Animated Series, where the reason there's a sudden uptick in weird costumed crime concurrent with the protagonist's debut is purely Doylistic- the hero needs punching bags. But within the logic of the setting, there's nothing special about Willy Watt's decision to go full Carrie using a hijacked construction robot besides the fact that he had somewhat easier access to the thing than the average school-shooter. Spellbinder being able to put together functional illusion-and-mind-control tech on a high-school counselor's salary- when his entire complaint is that he isn't being paid enough- implies that the main barrier to anyone else pulling the same brainwashing stunt is that nobody else thought to. Shriek's sound suit might be more a more roundabout demolition tool than dynamite, but it's still powerful enough to bring down buildings and he created it as a fly-by-night contractor. The consumer tech base is evolved to the point that regardless of when Batman shows up, shit like this should literally never not be happening- they're past an inflection point. I remember Syndrome from The Incredibles having some kind of line about this

[manuciruja]

awww the like button turns into a rainbow when you press it! that's so cute...hey staff what's with all the trans women you keep nuking?

[manuciruja]

i think we should be ridiculing them more for this. you don't get to try and go all "queer website" when your staff likes to go on nuking sprees targeting the trans fem users

[smadsel]

would be remiss not to mention that the rainbow notably straight up just removed the trans flag colors from it. like they’re gone. it’s the progress flag minus the trans flag colors.

[smadsel]

that’s not the whole flag, now is it

[manuciruja]

hey staff what the fuck

[villainessbian]

hey staff don't you think you're being too on-the-nose

[shrodingers-catgirl]

HEY STAFF DONT YOU THINK YOU'RE BEING TOO ON-THE-NOSE

[pileofknives]

[harpyhormones]

[caats]

[bethanythebogwitch]

We should follow the Ruri Rocks model and have more science communication done via buxom anime lesbians

[singedbutanol]

Yuri made me human, part 2

Sequel to the "Yuri made me human" interview with Iori Miyazawa, this event titled "The last summer and yuri of the Heisei era" was held...

[notsofrangible]

the world has been horrifying recently but i have personally witnessed something that brought me joy

Every year, California’s largest sheep and fiber festival, Lambtown, takes place in Dixon, CA. On the second day of Lambtown, teams of eight compete in a “sheep to shawl” competition, where the teams must start the day with un-spun wool and end the day with a 72” woven shawl. Teams may “warp” a loom ahead of time (where you thread the loom with its foundation of parallel threads), but on the day of competition they must spin their wool into yarn and weave it into a complete shawl.

This year competition was stiff, and very very close, and the winning team finished their shawl with two and a half minutes to spare.

I frequently hear about “needing to keep “politics” out of fiber arts, but art is inherently political.

These were beautiful, masterfully spun, woven, and finished shawls and that in itself is worthy of note.

But watching this team of eight would fight for hours, and pour their love for their community into their art was deeply moving and I am still reveling in the opportunity to have seen this win.

There are few things to rejoice in today, but they do exist. The horrors may persist, but so do we.

[avalynramsaygames]

I'm so glad that I'm finally out at work and can wear stuff like this every day.

[avalynramsaygames]

Two more outfits from my first week out at work. I liked the blue top a lot at first but I realized throughout the day that it didn't fit as well as I thought. The white top I didn't like at first, but its cute style grew on me, especially once I put my hair in a ponytail.

[avalynramsaygames]

Two work outfits from last week. The weather is a bit nicer so I can start wearing earrings other than my barbells again!

[avalynramsaygames]

Two work outfits from this week. I didn't feel great in the red top but I've been assured that it looks good and I've just got brain worms.

[avalynramsaygames]

Last week's outfits. The white dress wasn't for work (it was for grocery shopping) but the rest are! I'm so glad that the warmer weather is here!

[markovchaingang]

edgy assassin protagonist coming back to the fantasy slums they grew up in (orphaned, of course) only to find out it's been gentrified. what used to be a shady bar just called "the pit", full of assassins haggling for the price of hits and fences pawning stolen trinkets, is now a bandit-themed fancy restaurant called "the cloak and dagger" where they sell overpriced burgers with little knives running through them to keep all the ingredients in place

[avalynramsaygames]

Spent my afternoon and evening brush priming these #Battletech minis black and then drybrushing most of them grey. They're Legion of Vega once I add some red panels and the details.

The pink one is for my Ace Darwin and the turquoise is for a Merc force plus I wanted to test out my new paint marker.

[avalynramsaygames]

I forgot just how big the Atlas is compared to other mechs, and thus takes longer to paint. It took longer than the Ostscout and Whitworth combined.

This Legion of Vega paint scheme is SO much faster than my Lyrans 😭

[avalynramsaygames]

More pink for Ace Darwin, a purple arm & leg for the Wolfhound, and a Lance's worth of red panelling for the Legion of Vega.

[avalynramsaygames]

Short Battletech painting session today. Just did the red on these two.

[agbpaints]

[avalynramsaygames]

I've won two tournaments with lists that included a Hatchetman (mostly because I wanted a lance full of melee mechs), and its primary use is to be bait. When you position it, you put it in a place where the rest of your lance can target whoever is going after the Hatchetman. It's slow and has weak armor so opponents will generally target it first, but its also very cheap so if it dies, then you haven't lost much of value.

[agbpaints]

"The hatchetman is competitively viable if its role is to eat shit and let everyone else jump the culprit"

Incredible

[qcharlie]

i think we should talk about degendering more as a very real form of transphobia. you should not be calling a trans woman "they" when she's explained her pronouns to you. you should not be calling her a "person" instead of a woman. she's not too gnc, she's not too androgynous, you're not "confused" about her identity, you're degendering her. I fear we've gotten to a point we've forgotten the very basics of this movement is "trans women are women" and "trans men are men", and not just "trans people are someone who's pronouns you have to memorize so you don't offend them." you see her as a man in a dress and it pisses me off

[agbpaints]

[avalynramsaygames]

I've won two tournaments with lists that included a Hatchetman (mostly because I wanted a lance full of melee mechs), and its primary use is to be bait. When you position it, you put it in a place where the rest of your lance can target whoever is going after the Hatchetman. It's slow and has weak armor so opponents will generally target it first, but its also very cheap so if it dies, then you haven't lost much of value.