Stuff and things

by the greatest trashfire of a clown | Christina | 30 | bi | she/her | Pro - LGBTQIA+

[filmphotofranz]

[kaban-bang]

[zybilna]

One thing that makes me kinda sad is seeing people who feel like TTRPGs just aren't for them because they bounced off of some element that is clearly just a symptom of them trying out D&D5e. Like people who have had a hard time with learning the rules would probably do well with any system where the rule formatting and play culture around learning them aren't a mess. One friend of mine didn't like waiting a long time for turns to come up in combat, not even knowing that many games don't even use a turn-based structure.

A lot of D&D5e defenders on here like to claim that asking someone to learn a new system is "gatekeeping" somehow, but I'd argue that acting like one game is emblematic of the entire medium to the exclusion of people who don't click with that one game is way more meaningfully a form of gatekeeping, even if it's fully unintentional.

I strongly believe that not all RPGs are gonna appeal to everyone, but there is an RPG out there for everyone, and I just hope that people who haven't clicked with the most common option to be introduced to can find something that works for them.

[nonenosome2]

"Hey. I've never played a computer game before. Can you recommend one too me?"

"You should try DOTA."

"I didn't really like that. I heard about first-person shooters and those seem fun. Can you recommend one?"

"Have you tried DOTA? Just ignore parts of the game and it's basically what you want."

"I didn't like that. Can you recommend a good puzzle game?"

"Have you tried DOTA? Just ignore parts of the game and it's basically what you want."

"Damn. I guess I don't like computer games."

[throwitonthepilethesecond]

This pic is ancient and still relevant

[cookingwithroxy]

Every time there's another Hasbro scandal I have to restate this thing and it's painful.

[inkskinned]

Every day I handle more money than I will ever make. Every day.

At the start of my employment, my boss showed me videos of people stealing, and we both had a chuckle about it. How silly they were! There was a camera overhead, and it’s not to watch the shoppers. See, we can’t actually stop shoplifters. They get away with it maybe nine out of ten times. But we, who are watched and tallied and witnessed? We are always caught.

At first it was hard to hold one hundred dollars bills. An amount I had never seen before. An amount that didn’t exist in my household. It’s normal now. Here is something that is not for me.

“What the hell, I’ll take another,” says the man, pondering our 200 dollar watches. What the hell. Total comes to 580 and not even a flinch in his face. I have been working for 11 hours today and made only 110 dollars. It will go to my rent. Today I work for free, it feels. When I get my check, I will have 35 dollars left for food and saving.

The six hundreds he hands me go into the cash register. For a moment, I imagine having money. Then I put it away, counting out his change.

I know for a fact we sell our products for double what they are worth. That I could be making commission. That they could hand me those 580 dollars and change my life and not even mark the difference in their checkbooks. He’s not the only sale they make today, but I am the reason they made it. He’s not the only one spending 600 dollars, but if I hadn’t spent two hours with him telling me about his life, he wouldn’t have spent any. I go home. I don’t own a watch.

I have watched and rewatched a video on how to make salmon four ways. My shopping list is always the same. Pasta. Rice. Tuna. If I can afford butter it was a good week. I dream of the world I will never walk in, where I can throw the best fish fillet in the cart with a shrug. I hold hundreds in my hand and look up at the camera. I put them under the cash drawer.

I go to work. I scrap together my savings. I eat my bowl of rice slowly. My manager takes a paid week off from work just for his birthday. He owns a yacht. 

I’m not worth the cost of a watch.

[inkskinned]

i wrote this while i was working at orlando’s walt disney world parks.

i was part of their college program. i moved to the state for it. they legally owned the building i was living in and still charged me rent. i ostensibly was being charged to work for them. it was a 2 bedroom apartment and they placed 6 adult women in it in forced triples.

as many as one in ten disney employees have experienced homelessness while working for the company. despite huge efforts to unionize, strike, or otherwise demand fair treatment; disney has refused to increase employee quality of life.

disney admits publicly that a good portion of their success is because the employees (“cast members”) are dedicated, passionate, and selfless. this is never reflected in pay. even “face” characters (ie those that are princesses etc) make barely above a minimum wage.

at the time that i worked there, i made $8.50 an hour. at one point i was asked to create a human shield around a bag because a bomb dog had alerted to it. for eight fucking dollars an hour.

i now work a very cushy office job. i have bought the salmon and cooked it all four ways.

i go to the store. i am nice to the person behind the counter. she looks up at the camera while she counts out my change. there is nothing fundamentally different about her and i.

we are both worth more than the watch, anyway.

[blxnc]

there’s this term i coined in my friendgroup i call “the charizard effect” and it can apply to anything and everything, but it was born from me explaining my feelings about the pokemon charizard. the term is basically about how overexposure to something be it by corporate shilling or fandom prominence drives me away from really enjoying something bc i’m exposed to it so much against my will i become tired of it. it came to me bc i was ranting about how tpci does not, and cannot stop reinventing charizard, and how it is popular and obtusely included in almost every region, merch, etc in every way possible and it’s highly commodified.

i dont dislike the pokemon charizard, in fact i really like its X form, but i am exposed to so much charizard in my pokemon consumption that i cant be bothered to care for it in any more than in passing. this applies to a bunch of other stuff i’d otherwise be ok with, but i always just call this aversion phenomena “the charizard effect”

[blxnc]

making this term has done numbers for me being able to concisely express how i feel abt something. like. its not charizard’s fault i feel this way, im sure i’d feel normal abt it if it was stripped of all this over commodification, but i cannot. hence the name

[thedreadvampy]

Everywhere I go I'm reminded how much the desire to punish homelessness and migration and other Undesirablenesses make society markedly worse for everyone

like why is the park locked after 5pm so I can't go and sit under a tree after work? to punish rough sleepers for the terrible crime of being homeless and alive

why do I have to buy a drink, beg for a code and fuck around with an awkward keypad for 5 minutes in order to take a piss? because fuck homeless people

why do I need to provide proof of address and photo ID to do everything? because we had to create a really hostile environment for migrants

why can't you sit anywhere? well because god forbid people sleep when they're pushed out of shelter. can't risk that.

every day governments, councils and businesses make your life worse as a side effect of making vulnerable people's lives WAY worse. if you're ok with that you're a fucking idiot and if you're in favour of it you're a vindictive cunt cause again literally the ONLY payoff for your life getting worse is other people's lives getting worser.

[tinybed]

[comealongphil]

dawn dimmadome? wife of doug dimmadome, owner of the dimmsdale dimmadome?

[punkrorschach]

actually she took the dimmadome in the dimmadivorce

[darkandstormyranger]

finally some relatable content on ig

[hometoursandotherstuff]

[sometiktoksarevalid]

[aruviwrote]

People, my wonderful transfem friend is taking students for her class. Do your thing and help her find students. The relative value of a dollar and a rupee means that just ten international students can help her make rent.

[taliabhattwrites]

Hey folks, Swarnim's an old friend and a talented engineer. As Aruvi said, a dollar goes a longer way in India, and India's current regime is exceedingly unkind to trans women trying to find gainful employment, or even just live their lives. Please help a trans woman from the third world support herself!

[capnsoapy]

always remember that chell is canonically* a transgender woman

[capnsoapy]

Transition timeline; 99999 days on Aperture Science homebrew œstradiol

[capnsoapy]

POV you used the phrase "transition timeline" on [tumblr] post about 20-year-old video game models

[catboybiologist]

After some years of HRT I've been left with this deep, low simmering rage. Because what do you mean it was always this easy to be happy

[catboybiologist]

I take a shot once a week, and even if that was too much, I could do it as pills, and so many of my problems just evaporated overnight.

And not one person thought to bring it up.

When I was talking about how horrifying puberty felt. When I was cutting myself. When I was in inpatient care. When I attempted suicide. When I talked for YEARS in therapy about how dissociated and trapped I felt in my body. When I felt like I never truly fixed something that was deeply wrong about me that started at puberty.

Not one person said it was a possibility. No one thought "hey, maybe this kid should go to someone trained to identify dysphoria". No one mentioned that trans people weren't some weird other group of people. It didn't have to be pressure. It didn't have to be "forcing" me. Just mentioning that trans people exist and it could be me. That it was possible and it was easy. No pushing, just laying the option out there.

HRT is treated like this last ditch option. This horrific, mutilating thing that I GUESS we can give to you if you have NO OTHER options. Because did you know it's permanent? Did you know you'll be on it for the rest of your life? Did you know the health risks? Did you know it'll make you infertile? Did you know that it's deviant? Did you know that it's an alternative lifestyle for other people?

No one said it was okay to WANT it to be permanent. Or noted that most people are reliant on the medical system in one way or the other anyways (and it's not even necessary for HRT). Or that the health risks are the normal parts of having that hormone, even in cis people of your gender. Or said it was okay to not want kids, or mention that you can just freeze gametes. Or acknowledged that the "deviant" people are just people, living their lives, that have been violently pushed out of "normal" society.

I grew up in an area that Republicans mock for being a kind of "woke central". And even then it's just. Not treated as an easy option. It was never on the table if you don't specifically already know you're going through gender stuff, and no one will help you get to that point. At which point, it's still treated like the last ditch option. Did you know you can be a feminine man? Did you know you can slap a "she/her" in your twitter bio and be done with it? Did you know that you're oh-so-valid without it? Did you know that you shouldn't take HRT? Maybe don't take HRT? Don't take HRT? Don't take HRT? Don't ta-

When you've been in it a while, HRT is the easiest, most casual thing in the world. Just pop a shot on a Saturday as part of your "everything shower" routine and you're done.

Anyways. Support trans kids always and forever.

[catboybiologist]

And if anyone comes swinging in here with "but Sierra you don't have to take HRT to be trans this is toxic" I'm going to fucking scream, because that is the status quo. "Just do this without doing this" has become a "give them an inch" refrain when making ourselves "acceptable" to the cis. Of COURSE you don't need to take HRT. I'm only reminded of it a dozen times a day.

[amazonclimber]

The maddening thing is that recognizing I’m trans wasn’t the thing that finally helped me. It’s the fucking estrogen. I went from feeling like an empty husk to an actual living person before my tits started coming in. I’d sooner give up my antidepressants, because they’re not as important to my mental health.

[timeflow]

trans pride flag color picked from trans pride flag

[casuallyodd]

[coyoteguuurl]

"autogynephilia" is fucking hilarious to me bc like. i promise u i get more hot and heavy seeing myself looking sexy in a tight little dress than any trans woman does doing her estrogen shot and getting ready for work. every night i watch myself in my bedroom mirror as im getting undressed and into my pjs and stare at my tits and bounce my ass for my own perverted amusement.

[love-and-mercy]

me (and like a million other tgirls): I can't believe I think I look good today... wow... sexualizing myself.... im such an evil ugly moid... I dont deserve to be a woman...

Every other cis woman from time to time: dammmmnnnnnn Im fucking hotttttt

[coyoteguuurl]

like. the basis for "autogynephilia" is just the idea that there is something wrong with a woman (in the case of agp, specifically a trans woman) who loves herself and loves her own beauty without a man having to be involved.

its just "why do women look beautiful if they dont want men to catcall/grope them??" but adapted in a form which is specifically designed to harm trans women.

[czw]

[headspace-hotel]

It slaps though

[wizard-council-bureaucrat]

By the gods! They’ve videoed us! Everyone scatter!!

[forgottenbones]