Hello. I am Goratrix bani Tremere of the Draconic Wizard Workshop. I'm a fictive, sourced from a canon-divergent Vampire: the Masquerade game. I write essays and do panels for various conventions in the alterhuman community. My and the rest of my system's writing can be found on our personal website, here, although I am the main contributor. I have a dragon archetrope and have written about that as well. I run the Fictionkind Dreamwidth (see below) and am generally happy to talk and answer questions. If you are a sourcemate or a double, I highly encourage you to reach out.
However, if you are here to argue with my existence or harass me for being "problematic," save your time and mine. I don't care and block very liberally. Show respect or don't show at all. If you discriminate against people (you are queerphobic, racist, anti-endogenic, etc.) the door is right there.
That being said, don't be driven off by my demeanor. I do appreciate questions and conversation.
I run the fictionkind dreamwidth. Come check it out if you're fictionfolk of any description--fictionkind, fictionhearted, a fictive, have a hearthome, whatever. See if you want to hang out. We let you post basically whatever and have prompts every so often if you want to answer them.
If you're looking for anyone else in the system, try over at @tanix-dragon. As this is a sideblog, I follow from there as well.
My blog's header art was done by @totallynotasubliminalcircle, which we commissioned her for. As a friend of ours, we trusted her to get my look right. She did not disappoint.
Do you like my work? Did one of my essays or panels help you? Please consider donating to my Ko-Fi. Thank you. :] If you are someone who likes how my voice sounds (particularly someone who, at Othercon, has said that they want me to read audiobooks or similar), you can pay me to read things out for you. Contact me and we can talk.
FAQ below the cut:
Q: Why is your url goratrix-betrayed?
A: I was feeling much more melodramatic when I made my blog and now everywhere links to and references it, so I'm not changing it now.
Q: What is Vampire: the Masquerade?
A: VTM is a tabletop role-playing game centered around being a vampire. It gets quite dark and political, and if that's your style, I highly recommend it. I suggest picking up the 20th Anniversary Edition (4th edition) rather than the current "V5" run, as it's more canonically coherent and the mechanics feel better, in my opinion. To each their own, however--V5 lovers, have fun.
Q: Why do you mention being "problematic?"
A: Because I'm not a good or nice person in source and I won't apologize for it.
Q: Why do you write "problematic" in quotation marks?
A: Because I think it's a stupid concept to apply to someone or their source, and I only refer to it to get my point across. In an ideal world, I wouldn't need to.
Q: Why do you reblog so many BPD posts?
A: I have BPD. My symptoms are significantly lesser now that I am in a system, but some things linger.
Q: I know VTM! Did you really do [bad thing]?
A: Probably.
Q: What about [stupid thing]?
A: Unfortunately.
Q: What's your opinion on [discourse of the hour]?
A: I am an 1100-year-old vampire with a blog.
Q: Why am I blocked?
A: You probably said something that annoyed me and I decided that I didn't want to talk to you. If you have an overly aggressive DNI (especially if I and my friends qualify), post constant moodboards with uncredited images in alterhuman tags, or say unhinged and rude shit to my friends, that might be why.
Q: What's the best way to get in contact with you?
A: If you have my Discord, use that. If not, I can be reliably reached both on tumblr and on Dreamwidth.
Q: Why are you so abrasive?
A: I'm an old bitch with a long history of having to defend myself. I'm fairly dry in humor, as well, and not terribly good at tone over text, so I usually come across as more severe than I intend.
Q: Can I ask you for advice?
A: Certainly, if it has to do with my areas of interest, particularly alterhuman identity. I do not give relationship advice (don't ask me why people have asked) because, as some of you know, I am the king of freaking the fuck out and turning evil upon getting divorced. I have BPD. Ask me for advice that doesn't involve quite so many emotional hang-ups, please.
Q: ...What's with the wizardposting tag?
A: Sometimes I get silly with it.
Q: I want to talk to you, but I'm kind of scared to--what can I do about that?
A: Reassure yourself that I am nothing special and reach out. I'm not going to bite your head off unless you're a bitch to me, guaranteed. I am literally just a creature.
Q: I made something because of one of your panels, do you want to see it?
A: YES. ABSOLUTELY AND COMPLETELY YES. Please tag me in it! I want to see it!
I want to see more polyamory pride this pride month i'm serious. Stop being weird about people with multiple partners polyamory is awesome and beautiful and queer
āThere are no āeldersā or leaders [of the otherkin community]. Just because someone has a website, has written a few essays, is an admin or a moderator, or has had more āexperienceā than you, it does not necessarily make them any more qualified than you to say something or any more worthy of respect. There is no arbiter of the truth here and there is no one who should be given special treatment.ā
-Excerpt from āAdvice for those new to Otherkin,ā an article written by Mikhāto in 2014
I think the worst thing about being an immortal must be when you make a joke referencing something that was common knowledge 200 years ago but which no one except a bare handful of academic historians today remembers.
Once again, if I have recently rejected your join request to the Fictionkind Dreamwidth, it's because you did not link to a social media account or send me a message about your fiction-based identity. I usually reach out--but sometimes I do not get a response or you haven't confirmed your email for your account, meaning I can't send you a PM at all.
Please send in a new join request after fulfilling one of these criteria. Thank you.
Hey, we just wanted to reach out and let you know that it's been really, REALLY helpful to have a more private, closely moderated space to talk about The Specific Fictional World we'd rather not broadcast our connection with. The fact that it's a community full of diverse people and opinions, but without the risks of just making a public post saying "I'm from [DATA EXPUNGED], an indie project whose creator is active on social media and might see this," is really special and we haven't been able to find that balance elsewhere. (And no, discord servers aren't as good, we're sure you know why.)
We know all those administrative tasks might feel overwhelming sometimes, and we all really appreciate your hard work. It's genuinely done us so much good, so thank you.
-Ren etc.
Thank you for saying this. Managing the Dreamwidth is an enormous task sometimes, but I'm very glad that it's beneficial for you. :] Discord servers have their place and are nice and all, but they bring a very different feeling to a community and as an old vampire who is frankly alarmed that news without magical intervention travels faster than letter nowadays, I like the slower pace, myself.
People get very nervous about the gentle gating on the Dreamwidth, but it is truly to keep the trolls and miscellaneous wanderers out. Some things are meant to be fully public, and some things you just want your community members to see without having to worry about Tumblr tags or searches pulling you up.
Looking forward to reading more of your entries there. :]
Broke: vampires are real, and they act just like in the stories
Woke: vampires are real, but the stories are inaccurate
Bespoke: vampires are real, the stories are inaccurate, and vampires made up those stories to keep humans ignorant
Baroque: vampires are real, and the stories are inaccurate, but vampires reacted to things like Dracula and Masquerade the same way the mafia reacted to The Godfather and now actively try to play out the tropes
Sometimes I wonder about the nonhumans who say they donāt want to be called a person. Imo āpersonā does not imply humanness except to anthropocentrics who canāt see things other than humans as having personhood. Iām a wolf and Iām also a person. My wolfness does not take away my personhood; my being a person doesnāt mean Iām not a wolf. It feels like a very anthropocentric worldview to see āpersonā and read āhuman.ā
And. I wouldnāt say this to someone actively telling me not to call them a person, but: if youāre not a person then you donāt have the agency to decide what you are or arenāt called. Right? Is personhood not our individual sovereignty? Personhood is our agency, our possession of rights, our consciousness. If you donāt have that then do you have the right to say you arenāt a person? To me saying āIām not a personā reads as saying āi am not the kind of thing that gets to decide what kind of thing it isā
Iām ALSO very curious about the demographics of nonhumans who say they arenāt people. How many are white, able bodied, and/or neurotypical? I feel like a good amount are probably at least one of those things and that probably is affecting their view of the word āpersonā and what it might be like to not be a person
Being Jewish, you would have to rend personhood from my cold, dead jaws. Being a nonhuman person is a core aspect of my alterhumanity and perception of Self as a whole.
To me it's like saying "wolves don't use computers." I mean, most don't but evidently some do. Most bison don't have personhood, but this one does, and that doesn't make me any less of a bison.
Is the lore cogent and comprehensible? No it is not.
But is it it's mechanical system balanced and easy to learn? Not even slightly.
Are it's writing choices free of problematic stereotypes and insensitive early 90s jank? Nope.
But the vibe? The vibe in fucking impeccable. 10/10, kick you in the teeth fantastic. Gothic modern horror drip utterly unmatched by all it's competitors and copy cats. Both defines the genre Gothic Punk and serves as it's only real example. If you want a story where the PCs are struggling against their own inner demons in a world that feels like it wants to strip away their humanity, you legit can not do better then World of Darkness.
