Content Warnings: mental health, disability, bipolar disorder, schizoaffective / psychotic symptoms, suicidality, hearing voices, dissociative disorders, electroconvulsive therapy, partial psychiatric intake programs, COVID, PTSD / CPTSD, loss of resources, loss of function, grief
I try to consider the ways my life could have gone differently sometimes, but there is one way that things did go that may have gone worse. It’s been altered again very recently, and I don’t know how to cope. I feel afraid of what is to come, and with all I’ve lost, I don’t know who I am anymore, even if I am not angry at where I am.
After several years of struggling with my most notable head injury, new diagnoses, mental illness, multiple harmful relationships, and losing or having to sacrifice the use of my degree, my careers, and the ability to do many things I once enjoyed, I found myself at the onset of a mixed bipolar 1 episode with schizoaffective symptoms yet again. I was struggling with the impact of PTSD on my life and function. Also trying to answer yet-unresolved questions about the impact of COVID on my body that has led to constant physical discomfort and symptoms that left me justified in being paranoid about my wellbeing.
I participated in a partial inpatient program that helped with my mental health, but the mixed episode was stubborn. I was barely sleeping, borderline suicidal on a daily basis, and not unsure whether this would be the last run for me. I’d learned coping mechanisms and addressed my trauma more deeply. Unfortunately, when you’ve done a lot of therapy and also tried and failed a lot of medication, options become limited to stop a train like a mixed episode. I’ve had episodes lasting multiple years that were almost life ruining, and I couldn’t bear the thought of going through that again.
This is bleak, to a degree, and will discuss: the COVID-19 pandemic, mental & physical illness & disability, politics, nihilism, financial details and sales, and community-related trauma (perpetrators of harm, business ethics). However, I want to be transparent about my motivations for leaving the capitalistic, financially relevant industry of games and my step back from the community around it.
This is bleak, to a degree, and will discuss: the COVID-19 pandemic, mental & physical illness & disability, politics, nihilism, financial details and sales, and community-related trauma (perpetrators of harm, business ethics). However, I want to be transparent about my motivations for leaving the capitalistic, financially relevant industry of games and my step back from the community around it.
by Beau Jágr Sheldon, 2021
The State of It All
The world, contrary to some song lyrics, is not a vampire. It is a wasteland we have made ourselves. The world is not sucking blood from us, we have instead reaped as much as we like and never sown anything not dripping with toxic waste or colonial intention. The “we” here is obviously largely white, largely capitalist, and disturbingly fascist even if we struggle to fight against it.
The past US presidential term, this US presidential term, & the pandemic have shown me, a disabled, queer, trans, nonbinary, neurodivergent, mentally ill person, that most people do not care if I live or die. They do not care if I struggle or stress. They don’t care if I have healthcare, a safe home, a functioning set of lungs, or food to eat. Not just me, but anyone who is marginalized, and especially Black people, people of color, and indigenous people.
As someone who grew up conservative, I had grown to know that people who were different were treated badly and weren’t respected. What really shocked me in the past several years is that even protecting the whole of humanity doesn’t matter to so many people, even protecting themselves doesn’t matter, so long as the status quo is maintained, money is made for those with the most of it, and white supremacy maintains its stranglehold. Conspiracies, lies, and harm that I had seen in many small ways was clearly on a much larger scale – alongside the rising anti-trans sentiment, constant violence against Black people by police & civilians, anti-Indigenous action including violence and neglect, the handling of immigration & refugees, anti-vaccination movements, pushes against fair labor practices within organizations, and rampant sexual harassment and assault are just the endless nightmare of the world we live in. Oh, also our oceans have literally been on fire, along with endless acres of land.
I’ve talked before about my personal state – mental health struggles, physical disability, having to basically give up my career plans after spending tens of thousands of dollars on school, being repeatedly affected by the actions of perpetrators of harm, & unfair pay. I have fucked up myself – between my health making it hard to fulfill project promises at times, my struggles to communicate & my loss of function during illness resulting in offense or misunderstanding, plus inability to cope with technological issues & cognitive struggles resulting in miscommunication or missed opportunities. No matter how much I want to be doing well, even with therapy, attempts to apologize or account for my errors, medication & treatment, I can’t exist in the world like I want to, because of who and how I am, and because of how the world really is.
by Beau Jágr Sheldon, 2021.
You might ask, what the fuck does this have to do with games?
Let me be clear, it has fucking everything to do with games.
Game design is a creative space for me, and when I am feeling like shit, and constantly living in fear, exhaustion, pain, and shame, I can’t do creative stuff like I want to. It’s so hard to survive in this world, especially when I know that to be successful, not only do I have to navigate all of the predatory behavior & bad business ethics that are just painfully rampant in games, but I also have to put on a façade that hides everything I’m struggling with, try to avoid offending or annoying any of the people with actual power and influence in the industry, AND figure out how to magic up energy to be constantly promoting, constantly looking for more work, while constantly trying to improve all of my skills (and develop new ones, which is super challenging for me now).
And like, yes, every fucking game designer or artist or freelancer lives this shit. The challenges for some of them are far greater than me, for others it’s not as much. It’s very exhausting and stressful and the financial & success disparity between the larger companies (many of which engage in practices or business decisions I disagree with & do harm to the industry and gamers in general) and small creators is a slap in the face, especially when I see a lot of smaller creators who end up either needing to or feeling like they need to just suck it up and suck up to try to get a single fucking scrap of that success. It’s not fair to them and it’s unnecessarily beneficial to those up top.
Everyone in this industry also gets the constant threat of harassment, constant battles of social media & internet debate and discourse, and that ever so exciting commentary about how indie games are so overpriced while people drool over luxury sets of hardcover books filled with shoddy photomanips or prejudice laced narratives, sometimes both, maybe with some extra “this can’t be shipped until after the cardboard shortage” components. When so many designers I know are literally just trying to afford a fucking meal, it is vile to watch, and I have lost the capacity to fight it actively and to watch my colleagues suffer deeply while I’m also struggling.
I have had some boons in the past year – my spouse has a slightly better job, I found a way to exchange some work to help afford massively helpful medical treatment, & I have avoided direct COVID impact (I lost my grandmother, and my dad got COVID, but we’ve been lucky). We’ve still had a lot of health & wellbeing issues (for all three in my polycule), repeated issues with our ancient house, and everything feels constantly delicate – like even the slightest thing that goes wrong will destroy everything, because there is no support, there is no infrastructure, and I can’t even keep up with design work or work a regular job to help contribute. It’s exhausting and terrifying.
by Beau Jágr Sheldon, 2021.
The Plan
Next year, my goal is to not work towards capitalism. While I will continue my work at the resin shop I help at, & I have some small admin type tasks I do, any creative work I do will not be targeted towards sales or income.
I am extremely aware that this is a privileged choice, but I also am aware that even with all of my disabilities & mental illnesses, I can’t get on disability, and I also can’t fucking work reliably. I’d still like to try to build skills, continue my recovery (recoveries, really), and do creative work, even if I can’t contribute to society or my household in any meaningful way. I’d like to find even a scrap of joy in daily life, or in my activities. Trying to market my work, which is necessary to make sales, or market myself, which is necessary to get hired, feels hopeless, exhausting, and hasn’t succeeded much so far.
The things I hope I get to work on?
I still want to do game design, I have some projects that I’ve been slowly working on but too exhausted to engage with deeply. Carheart Nosferatu, some Script Change stuff, I dunno. We’ll see, but it’s on the list.
I am doing some more hands-on work, like drawing, painting, and making miniature diorama type stuff, as well as working in the shop. I’m hoping to get better at them! I built a fairy house that I’m planning to gift to friends, but want to make more! Plus I miss sculpting a lot.
I want to work more actively on my photography, doing more boudoir shoots for the kind of people who don’t normally get that kind of opportunity but absolutely deserve it, plus more nature photography, and maybe trying some video work. I even have some ideas for some Leading with Class video work, which would be amazing to get back to.
All of this with hopefully less time being absorbed in stressful online conversations, less paranoia & anxiety about who to trust or whether I’m fully understanding complex conversations or whether I’m failing to communicate effectively (and my career depending on it), and hopefully a lot more time to spend with my partners.
A Reflection on Financials
I wanted to just have a bit here to give context to what I’ve actually been earning in games, because that is very relevant to the weighing of scales I’ve done leading to the decision to step back. I’m going to share some data in text, plus some in screenshots in slideshows that I hope will actually work.
The first thing is my sales on DriveThruRPG. I didn’t download this year’s data in part because it’s, uh, kind of painful to look at, but from our tax downloads last year, I calculated that all of my games resulted in me receiving a $40.09 payout for 2020 (around $300 in sales went to The Trevor Project directly for sales of Of the Woods, over 30 copies), with 3 sales of Turn/Towns Like Ours and one of Let Me Take a Selfie. I will likely be putting up my upcoming Turn supplement on DTRPG (with work from Fabby Garza and Jan Martin, among all the results of the Kickstarter rewards like new towns & archetypes), intended to be a charitable project donating to an Indigenous charity, and DTRPG is so far the only place I know that can donate directly instead of me having to juggle it. That’s the biggest value for me.
For all of my sales at Indie Press Revolution to date, I have had a total of $1173 in sales (that’s gross, I think). That was around 60 copies of Turn, and one copy of Behind the Masc. I am very grateful to be able to distribute through them, and for all of the promotion IPR has done on my behalf, so I’ll still be keeping my print copies & bigger project PDFs there.
Finally, my itch.io sales, which are… a mixed bag. Script Change does pretty well, but that’s most of it, and I’ll let the screenshots here do some of the work. I’ve included screenshots of my payouts, each game or product I’ve released with its dashboard showing the graphs for the longest period of time I could of views/downloads/etc., and all the bundles I participated in (all but the BBC Bundle, the Queer Games Bundle, the Epimas bundles, the One-Shot Megabundle, and the Disabled Designers bundles are charity bundles I did not receive funds from), plus sales, payments, etc. over the past year..
All of Beau’s payouts for itch.io.
Totals for all products on Beau’s itch.io.
2021 Monthly gross revenue.
2021 payments.
Downloads and views for Beau’s itch.io.
All of the bundles Beau has been in.
Dashboard stats for Beep.
Dashboard stats for Behind the Masc.
Dashboard stats for Behrend Bernhard, Esq.
Dashboard stats for Your being dumped by your catgirl girlfriend
Dashboard graphs for Dice4Dad.
Dashboard graphs for Ears are Burning.
Dashboard graphs for Gonna Make You Nut.
Dashboard stats for The Handshake.
Dashboard stats for In Other Lives.
The Let Me Take a Selfie dashboard stats.
The I love you and I adore you dashboard stats.
The Man and The Stag dashboard stats.
The Millennial Tragedy is Basically a Comedy dashboard stats.
The I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream dashboard stats.
The Script Change RPG Toolbox dashboard stats.
The Secret Lover dashboard stats.
The thatlittleitch dashboard stats.
The Towns Like Ours dashboard stats.
The Tribute dashboard stats.
The Turn dashboard stats.
The Vore Your Dungeon dashboard stats.
The What’s In A Ring? dashboard stats.
Could it have been better? Yes, if I’d worked harder and marketed better and made better products. Could I have worked harder? Actually, no. Could I have marketed better? Also a no. Could I have made better products? I dunno by whose fucking standards to measure that, but I don’t think so. I poured tons of hours and lots of my own money, plus hiring other people, into many of these products and I was proud of a lot of them until I got the dead air and lack of sales and lack of engagement that people give. Script Change has absolutely done well, but I definitely struggled to maintain my rights to my work & recognition for it in the process. It is immensely valuable to me, but it is the only thing people will ever remember I did, if people don’t wipe my name from it when I stop constantly monitoring and engaging.
The reality is that the games industry takes more work than is reasonable for most people to do, even with the support of partners or fellow creators. You’re supposed to be a designer, a writer, an editor, a graphic designer, a layout artist, a marketing specialist, an accountant, a hiring manager, an illustrator, a social media expert, a public speaker, and also have an impeccable reputation with no mistakes and the blessing of every white asshole who calls themself a legacy, and my whiteness was enough to prop me up for a while, and I know it still benefits me. But it’s not enough to override my other marginalizations when it comes to who is the favorite, who gets the job, when there’s oodles of other white people without those marginalizations (or with ones people think are prettier or who can mask better), and I’m tired of it. I’m tired of competition. I barely even play competitive board games, like fuck do I want to run the rat race IRL.
by Beau Jágr Sheldon, 2021
What Happens Now?
I am always grateful for every sale, for every five star, for every compliment, for every share, for every single bit of praise and positivity that’s been sent my way. Truly! But I take the bad stuff far harder than I internalize the good, and that’s just trauma and reality kicking my ass. I hope to release more creative work of many kinds, and I will try my hardest to still support other creators & speak up for what I believe is right. I just need to not tie a dollar sign to that as a necessity.
I will happily accept donations (ko-fi.com/thoughty is the main space for that, plus members get access to my Discord, which I would like to see grow) & I always love gifts (my birthday is in February and I celebrate both all holidays and none), plus I will be keeping my stuff up on DTRPG, IPR, and itchio. I don’t expect support, but I appreciate and value it. I am also hoping that eventually I can be healthy enough mentally and physically to start doing business again, but I don’t know what form that will be in.
The Turn supplement will be up when I can get everything compiled and edited and maybe figure out how to make some art happen. Script Change will hopefully be getting an audio version and some minor updates next year! I want to work on Carheart Nosferatu, and maybe some cool setting stuff with some art from the Assembludo (teamed with Thomas) projects, AND I want to especially support John in his release of Roar of Alliance and help it succeed, because it’s utterly amazing. (Seriously, go get it now! It’s in beta but as it grows, so will the value.)
I will still be available for Script Change consultations to help with integrating Script Change into people’s games, for online conventions (no face to face until COVID is done, & only as a paid guest for f2f when that happens) to do panels & workshops on safety & leadership, and so on. I want to work more with The Bodhana Group as well, as they’re doing awesome stuff! I’m also working on a book chapter about calibration/safety tools for a German publication, which I am hoping will go over well.
I’ll try to post here when I make stuff (photoshoots, art, and probably Leading with Class stuff if I can get it going) and release any games content I make online (I’ll put it on IPR or DriveThruRPG if I can, but I mainly upload to thoughty.itch.io because it’s easier – though the Turn supplement will go to DTRPG only for now). I also plan to put up collections of photos on itch that can be used for game covers, interiors, etc. with credit! I have thousands so I might as well!
I know this post is HUGE but I wanted to cover a lot and give a full explanation for what’s happening with Thoughty, with my work, with my reasons for disengaging, and so on. I also wanted to give some transparency on the financial side of things to give context to what happens with the impact of mental & physical health issues, trauma, and stress on the ability to keep up in an industry like games. I don’t want to be done with games, but if I don’t step back, I genuinely don’t know if I can make it through the next few years, and goddamn it, I would really like to make it to 40.
If you choose to stick around, follow what I do next, I will be so happy to have you here. I hope you’ll be happy to have me as I am now, and hopefully as I continue to heal and grow and find my place. In the meantime, I hope that the world is kinder, more caring, and more willing to do the work to help you flourish, even if you are struggling just as much as me or more.
My world has changed a lot over the pandemic, and starting next year I’ll be changing my work & this site to be a combined approach under the Thoughty brand, but in more of a hobbyist mode with more emphasis on my personal art. The archives of Thoughty will remain, and I hope to still post about a variety of content, but this is just a notification that yes, times are changing. You’ll see photography, maybe writing, games content (hopefully), and maybe more!
I am working on a few things! I have some Turn content to release sometime in the nearish future, I’m doing some small games work, some more official games education work, and I continue to try to boost creators however I can. I am even brewing up some hopeful Leading with Class content for next year – fingers crossed!
You can support my ko-fi.com/Thoughty account to help my work continue, as this continues to be my only means of earning personal income & reinvesting in my work & the community (I still have a Discord accessible through Ko-Fi too!). I accept monthly and occasional donations!
Thank you, as always, for your continued support of my endeavors! I’ll update more as I can. I’ll be posting a new photoshoot tonight! It marks a turning point, so I hope you’re excited, too!
“I have often felt like I’m screaming into nothingness when I have tried to talk about the constant abuses in the community, the toxic business practices, the cultural flaws. Worst of all has been when I know someone has done harm, but I’m not the one who can give light to it.”
I posted this to my private Twitter tonight, but I feel like it does deserve a space here for those of you who support Thoughty and want to understand why there’s been some lapse in posts. The good part is, now that I’ve written this out, I feel reinvigorated with my desire to continue writing here and doing the work Thoughty is intended to do. The complicated part is, I need space from the way the hobby and industry become your life if you’re not careful, and from the troublesome aspects of the community and industry. I’m still going to write for Thoughty, design games, and do safety/content work. I just want to do it on my own terms from now on, and I hope that you will continue to support that.
As always, you can find me on Twitter @ThoughtyGames and use the contact form on the site if there’s something specific you’re interested in me featuring. If you want to support my continued journey as a creator and here at Thoughty, I am now only on ko-fi.com/thoughty for funding and you can find my games on IndiePressRevolution, DriveThruRPG, and especially briebeau.itch.io. By the by, my name is officially changed to Beau Jágr Sheldon!
If this post resonates with you, know that you have my support in seeking your own path and finding joy, and that I hope your fire never burns out.
Content warning for discussion of perpetrators of harm.
by Beau Jágr Sheldon, 2021.
So, late night thoughts. I think I want to quit the Games Industry. I still like making games, & I do want to do something with Thoughty (but I’m not sure what that is since I’m struggling to write for it & can’t seem to acquire writers). I want to do safety/content work. But.
While I have no other means of making income, and this is the biggest issue with wanting to leave, the industry itself and the communities that surround it are filled with missing stairs for me. They are filled with memories of trauma, failure, and rejection. Unendingly.
I want to make games with my partners, and support them. I want to make games & would like to make money on them, but even now that’s not super successful for me. I want to continue reviewing games & talking about game theory on Thoughty. I don’t want to keep feeling like this.
I have been accused of a lot of things that I can’t find the truth in over my time in the community. I’ve also made plenty of mistakes which I’ve tried to own up to. However, I’ve also watched a lot of people do harmful things and just…walk it off. Become more successful.
I have often felt like I’m screaming into nothingness when I have tried to talk about the constant abuses in the community, the toxic business practices, the cultural flaws. Worst of all has been when I know someone has done harm, but I’m not the one who can give light to it.
by Beau Jágr Sheldon, 2021.
I have seen harm, I have experienced harm, and I have supported people who were harmed, & the problem is, I don’t have piles of screenshots or emails or witnesses to back up the wrongs I’m aware of, & I also struggle because I don’t want the response the community gives, either.
I don’t want “well, there’s no receipts” or “the victim(s) aren’t ‘credible'” or “this harm isn’t bad enough” or “there’s no way a marginalized person could cause harm like that.” I ALSO don’t want “we should ostracize this person” or “this person deserves to starve/suffer.”
What I want is “hey, person who is accused of perpetrating harm, acknowledge that you have taken actions that harmed people, apologize for those actions, & make efforts to change without erasing all evidence of your wrongdoing so that people can engage with you with awareness.”
I want that alongside “there is no such thing as a bad victim, a victim is not responsible for substantiating their harm to the point that the substantiation causes trauma, and all harm is valid to be addressed and respected, & we will not erase this harm.” Can you imagine?
by Beau Jágr Sheldon, 2021.
But what we have is hidden abuse from people of all backgrounds that is regularly excused, dismissed, or forgiven by the people who weren’t the victims. We have people rising to success on the work of others, then turning on those who did that work. Perpetrators of harm thrive.
It literally doesn’t matter what prompted my feelings about this today because I think about this EVERY DAY with all of the people who have continued to get away with harmful acts who I don’t hate, but I do want to take accountability & I do want to change & I do want witnessed.
People in hobby & professional games are so willing to turn their eyes from genuine harm for the sake of their fictional experience & for the sake of promoting the people they have convinced themselves cannot do harm. We have seen this again & again and it burns us to the core.
But I am not a phoenix. I cannot rise again and again. I have a limit. I struggle to care for myself because every waking day in the community is riddled with news of more people perpetrating harm in so many different ways that I feel sick imagining a convention again.
by Beau Jágr Sheldon, 2021.
Who will welcome me? Who will shun me? Who will go silent when I join a table, or antagonize me if I speak my mind on a panel? Who will ask questions about people who hurt me? Who will undermine my experience? Who will hurt my friends & colleagues? Who will get away with it?
On top of all of that, who that I thought I could trust will I see spending their energy to justify those acts against me or against others? Who will validate harmful, alienating, unjust acts in the community, and break my heart? So many have done these things, I lost track.
What happens is I internalize it, I see it as just to validate harm against me. I see it as right to say that I must be the problem. I see it as valid to claim that things I do not do with ill intent are meant as cruel and harmful things. And worse!
I end up feeling like maybe the way things work is just. That it’s better to let talented, toxic people succeed rather than acknowledge their flaws and give them impetus to change. That we should let people who are accused of harmful acts continue because they’re creative & fun.
It wounds me. It is like a skipping record player, repeating the same keening clip of agony: this is how it has always been, this is how it will always be; the players may change, but the game never will. And I have lost the game, more than once over, for my trust & mistakes.
by Beau Jágr Sheldon, 2021.
I don’t want to keep knowing all the things I know and not being able to do anything about it when someone gets away with harmful acts. I don’t want to keep starting to form bonds with people only to have them ripped or withering away. It is too cruel. It is wrong to me.
I know you can’t market products or content without being a part of the community & aligning yourself somehow. I know you can’t succeed as any kind of creator without either privilege, networking, or both. I still want to create. I just can’t sacrifice myself or others to do it.
I guess the tl;dr is that you will see creative work from me going forward in my spaces and my control, but that I am making a choice to put myself first, & that means the community and industry will have to change before it gets any more of me than that. I doubt I’ll be missed.
If you have read this far, thank you. I hope that you are still with me. In any case, please take forward this simple message: there is no limit to how much good you can do in the world, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t strive every goddamn day to reach it– and that includes the good you do for yourself.
I want to talk about so many things in the realm of Wolfenstein and how it portrays masculine characters, but I want to talk first about the characters themselves. We’ve addressed how Wolfenstein: The New Order talks about masculinity through the main character William “B.J.” Blazkowicz, and how it functions in genre. Now I want to address some of the other characters that are in the game and how they are presented (I may not address all your faves, sorry).
This is part of a series on masculinity and the game Wolfenstein: A New Order. The series focuses exclusively on Wolfenstein: A New Order and the characters within it, though it does reference the backstories of characters that may not be revealed until later games in that series. Much of the specific details here were sourced in the Wolfenstein Wiki.
SPOILERS for Wolfenstein: The New Order and elements of Wolfenstein: The New Colossus.
I want to talk about so many things in the realm of Wolfenstein and how it portrays masculine characters, but I want to talk first about the characters themselves. We’ve addressed how Wolfenstein: The New Order talks about masculinity through the main character William “B.J.” Blazkowicz, and how it functions in genre. Now I want to address some of the other characters that are in the game and how they are presented (I may not address all your faves, sorry). I also played the Wyatt timeline, one of the most vital decisions in the game, so I won’t address Fergus or his timeline much (playing thru again hasn’t been possible with my cognitive issues). I’ll likely address characters like Caroline, Frau Engel, and Anya in a separate article, because that’s a very different matter.
Note: I may not discuss Sigrun, Frau Engel’s daughter, from The New Colossus in detail due to how her experiences are related to my own trauma, and since she is from a later game. We’ll see!
First up, we’ll address the Resistance. Note that I don’t think that these characters are without flaws, but I want to appreciate their good characteristics.
Max Hass from Wolfenstein: The New Order. Image from user joumur on Steam.
I want to talk about Max Hass with a desperation. Max is a pacifist, and was born with a brain injury and abandoned as a child. I love Max for a lot of reasons, but I will note that he experiences the stereotype of many mentally disabled folks in that he is physically minimally vulnerable, very strong, and speaks simplistically – only saying his name. This portrayal is obviously from a challenging perspective and can be harmful. However, the character is well-loved, heroic, shown to be mostly capable except for his own traumatic responses, and while he is shown to be childlike, he is distinctly masculine in his presentation.
Max is flawed in his presentation in regards to ability, though he is definitely fitting a trope. But he’s portrayed as a masculine character in a youthful way, which is something we rarely see in war games. Childlike natures are often presented as juvenile, rather than something understandable that people respect and support, like when B.J. helps recover Max’s lost toys as part of an achievement and story thread. Max Hass is an example of a character that could have been done better, but to me his inclusion was valuable – it’s okay to be disabled, to perhaps be childlike, regardless of the reasons behind those things. You can still be loved, still be a boy at heart. These are things we often strip from disabled masculine people, so it mattered to me.
Next to Max, we don’t go so far to find Klaus Kreutz, who is the one who recovered Max from behind a dumpster after losing his own disabled child to the Nazis eugenics. He was originally a Nazi soldier, and after losing his son and his wife in a tragic encounter, grew to deeply hate the Nazis and their ideology. He turned against the Nazis and became a member of the Resistance, and while he encountered initial conflict with B.J., they eventually become colleagues that respect each other. This encounter is shown in The New Order, and is important because in many instances, we frame Nazis or fascists as not real men or even men who change sides as not real men because they’re disloyal or because Real Men don’t do violence, and this is a flawed and messed up concept. In the game, they don’t portray the situation as such, instead focusing on the Nazi atrocities and whether Klaus might harbor any Nazi beliefs.
Klaus is shown as caring, and loving towards Max. He is without a doubt portrayed as a masculine character with a past of violence, but now he instead cares for Max as if he was his own child, and doesn’t question giving his life for the resistance. He embodies heroic qualities and paternal qualities we associate with adoptive fathers. Doing this to someone who left Nazi service and showing that people can change is a vital element of the storytelling in The New Order.
Wyatt from Wolfenstein: The New Order. Image from user Joey Stick on Steam.
The flip of the coin is Probst Wyatt II, a dedicated and initially idealistic soldier who served alongside B.J. and in one timeline of the game, he is the character saved from the terrifying Deathshead, a villain who tortures the characters quite horrifically. Wyatt experiences post-traumatic stress disorder from the war and depression after the suicide of his mother. He is one of the few genuine portrayals of mental illness in a masculine character I’ve seen in AAA games where the illness is recognized and respected. Wyatt is given space to struggle through his illnesses and not forced to participate in further war, and granted space within the Resistance compound to recover and rest.
I cannot describe how much Wyatt’s story impacted me. I am so very used to seeing symptoms of mental illness hidden in games, washed over or described as supernatural or unreal. They’re often shamed, or dismissed as unmanly or unmasculine and masculine people who struggle with mental illness are emasculated and lose their agency. They’re shamed if they take space to deal with or struggle with their trauma. How many moments ask you to “Man Up”? Doesn’t Wolfenstein itself use a frankly shitty difficulty level imagery with B.J. in baby clothes if you choose the easier difficulty? (Don’t think I’ve forgotten it, I think about it every day.) Wyatt’s struggle is vital and important, and the way the rest of the characters treat it is even more important for any type of character, but definitely a masculine one.
Note: From what I know, Wyatt copes with addiction in an attempt to help his illness in The New Colossus, but does recover after some challenges. I think this is also an important story, and hope to play through it someday.
J, one of my favorite characters, is one of the few Black characters featured in The New Order (aside from Bombate, who I adore) and is the survivor of a hate crime by United States white supremacists. He is a guitarist and initially, as mentioned in the previous article, finds conflict with B.J. because he tells B.J. that in the U.S., white people (and implicitly, I think, the military) were the Nazis. J is so important to the story that it disappoints me not all players might fully engage with his story and his scenes, since they aren’t mandatory, but he opens B.J.’s mind literally and figuratively by playing music and giving B.J. drugs that cause him to hallucinate, but also reflect on his thoughts about Black Americans and about the role of white U.S. citizens in the oppression of Black people. It’s a beautiful scene.
J from Wolfenstein: The New Order. Image from user eg0rikTM on Steam.
J himself is portrayed in many ways like Jimi Hendrix, who he appears to be based on – natural hair, colorful clothing styled like 60s and 70s funk fashion (as much as can be managed in the war). He does not fit the white concept of masculinity, and that’s important. He could be seen by some to be flamboyant, but instead he is presented as expressing himself. He could have been presented as hyper masculine and robust in a racist stereotype, but instead he is thin, scarred, but still resilient. I could say a lot more about J, but I would want to hear more from Black players on his masculine portrayal, and on that of Bombate.
Bombate is a Resistance fighter and I know that in The New Colossus he is portrayed somewhat as a womanizer, cheating on one character with another. However, in The New Order, he’s steadfast and tells stories of his experiences at the hands of the Nazis. Bombate traveled north from his home in Southwest Africa (Namibia) to face the Nazis head on, and after two years was put into a forced labor camp. He has been through immense trauma, but it never once is designed in The New Order for you to feel any disrespect for him for the way he processes that trauma or to see him as anything other than heroic.
He is framed as masculine, and is not dismissed as a threat to the Nazis. Bombate is an immediate powerful ally for the player as B.J., respected and trusted. It is refreshing to see a character presented so simply as someone just and who did the right thing, even if they suffered, and not have the whole story be how they are now weak because of their trauma (but not presenting them as unrealistically powerful, either). Especially for masculine characters, I feel like this is underrepresented.
This video on Whiteness and Judaism in Wolfenstein does a much better job than I could discussing the subject.
The final Resistance character I want to address is Set Roth. Set is one of the only Jewish characters we interact with, aside from B.J., and the highest profile masculine Jewish character whose identity is relevant. While there are absolutely concerns about the portrayal of Judaism in Wolfenstein, I was happy to see a Jewish character at all since past games kind of blurred over that beyond the main character (whose identity wasn’t really addressed). As far as masculinity goes, Set is presented as an elderly man, but still virile, still brilliant, and would by many be stereotyped as a wise old man (never failing to lose that vibe of men-are-smarter-than-women). However, he works alongside Caroline as an equal, and never once places value on masculinity of himself or others over that of the mission or the women in the game.
Set is unusual in that his gender and presentation is not so overt and this may be a case of how we tend to de-gender or minimalize the genders or presentation of people who aren’t the standard issue white person, but it also may be related to the fact that he is older and we desexualize and de-gender the elderly in a similar way we do some young children. However, as I have limited exposure to masculine Jewish culture, I could also be witnessing my own bias in action – and this is something I would love to hear more Jewish perspectives on. I am far from an expert, I’m just sharing what I experience and witness.
And now, a note on the other side of the conflict. We won’t dwell long on them, for obvious reasons. Note that none of my allowances for the possibilities of characters having trauma or reasons for their actions means that I excuse their actions or that I think anything they do is okay. Just for clarity! There are absolutely more masculine characters in the Nazi side, but I don’t want to give too much attention to them – they are mostly hypermasculine, toxic, and cruel characters.
We’re not sharing pictures of Nazis here. Take a breath, let’s get through this together. Image from user joumur on Steam.
Hans “Bubi” Winkleis the 15+ years junior companion of Frau Engel. His presentation is harder to address, because at first you might think that he was effeminate as a way to mock the unmanliness of Nazis or frame them as subservient to women, making women the enemy. But this… did not play out for me in the end. Hans (I refer to him by his name, not what he’s called by Engel) is absolutely a villain. He is absolutely a masculine character, but frankly he’s not the kind of masculine United States citizens are used to. German masculinity, from what I’ve witnessed being there and knowing a number of Germans, is not the same as U.S. masculinity. Hans is still within the range of masculinity in his dress, many of his mannerisms, and even his toxic masculinity of killing for the woman he loves. Engel is his “everything,” and for that, he wells with cruelty and indulges her atrocious acts.
It is important not to forget the masculine characters who are not what we stereotype as masculine. It’s important to address toxicity and the cultural context of the characters we see in media, regardless of whether it sounds good. The relationship between Frau Engel and Hans is toxic, especially when you factor in her abusive nature to her own family, and Frau Engel’s own favoring of time-typical masculine behaviors and dress, and masculine people over feminine people in her life. You note in the game that Hans plays up his ditzy boytoy attitude when around Engel, but becomes more brutal and masculine when apart from her. Hans stays in his position of power by following her rule, which is his failing as a human as much as it is clearly a method of survival. He is the passionately loyal lover and companion – willing to do anything to maintain his status, especially since his past life as an unsuccessful prison guard would never be worth going back to in comparison.
Wilhelm Strasse, a.k.a. Deathshead, the initial villain of the game, is a polar opposite of Hans. He’s immensely powerful, and while he does fall in the end thanks to B.J., he’s held up as the epitome of Nazi brilliance and cruelty. However, it becomes very obvious throughout play that his eugenics and white supremacy (and male supremacy, if his cadre is any indication) is flawed. The dog brains he puts in robots still maintain habits of regular dogs, his creations suffer in pain, and his pride is what leads to his fall.
He is absolutely portrayed as a masculine character in the same way that other Nazi generals and authorities have been portrayed in propaganda, like the doctors who performed atrocities. Their maleness, their masculine nature, is supposed to be what makes them so brilliant, so dispassionate and willing to be cruel and cold in the pursuit of science. It is a vile concept, but it is clear in the game that the Resistance and those opposing the obviously villainous Nazis don’t buy it. He is a villain in part because of this perverted toxic ideal of pristine and perfect masculinity. Instead, the characters embrace the imperfect masculinity of characters like Max, J, and B.J.
That’s part two of this detailed series on how masculinity is designed in Wolfenstein: The New Order. Design includes how characters are written, how they interact, and how they are presented, beyond the mechanics or rules in the game. I hope to explore more of this topic in future installations of this series, and I appreciate your time as I pick apart my feelings on the game. Please consider supporting me occasionally or monthly on ko-fi.com/thoughty as I do more posts like this!
Content warning: alcohol abuse, binge drinking, discussion of risk of violation of consent and assault, underage drinking, social pressure, childhood trauma, anxiety, PTSD, coping, domestic abuse, suicide mention, self harm mention
I have been drinking since I was twelve years old. Alcohol, that is – water and I go way back. I grew up in a drinking heavy culture with easy access to alcohol and the understanding that booze makes you fun, in spite of my own traumatic experiences as a child showing me that drunk adults were not fun. Nonetheless, I jammed to that song and by the time I was legal to drink, I was seasoned, and it tipped over rapidly into a binge drinking habit that nearly ruined my life.
Content warning: alcohol abuse, binge drinking, discussion of risk of violation of consent and assault, underage drinking, social pressure, childhood trauma, anxiety, PTSD, coping, domestic abuse, suicide mention, self harm mention
I have been drinking since I was twelve years old. Alcohol, that is – water and I go way back. I grew up in a drinking heavy culture with easy access to alcohol and the understanding that booze makes you fun, in spite of my own traumatic experiences as a child showing me that drunk adults were not fun. Nonetheless, I jammed to that song and by the time I was legal to drink, I was seasoned, and it tipped over rapidly into a binge drinking habit that nearly ruined my life.
I have not been drunk since December of 2015. Let’s talk about it.
Why Was I Drinking?
Let’s do this.
Over five years of moderation – what I chose instead of abstinence sobriety, knowing my own reaction to abstinence and how often I would still be exposed to alcohol living in Pittsburgh, working in games. And games are part of how it got so bad. Corporate had a huge part in it too, but conventions were the tipping point.
To be clear, I still drink alcohol. But I went from, at worst, a full bottle of liquor a binge (binging over 8 drinks a night, multiple nights a week) to now at most, two small glasses of Manischewitz or mixed drink every couple weeks or so. Sometimes, I’ve gone whole months without even tasting alcohol beyond Listerine. But for me, sobriety is about not being drunk, not abstinence. Learning to control my intake, my exposure, and learning to not get drunk.
Surprisingly, with that came the significant limitation of what I drink – mostly it’s for special occasions or to try something special. To me, with a family history of alcoholism, during this pandemic, this has been a massive achievement. I am proud of how far I’ve come.
Let me get to the root of things.
I got there because of three very specific things:
Coping with trauma surrounding alcohol by becoming one of the drunk people, including PTSD and anxiety
Environments seeping with alcohol and drunkenness in my social and professional life, including people buying excessive alcohol for me
People telling me that I, a person with low self esteem, was “more fun” and “better to be around” when drunk
…all of these things combined made me into a monster of a drinker. One corporate networking event, I was given so many free drinks that I enthusiastically drank to hide my anxiety that I passed out in a Subway bathroom, broke my phone, missed work, and had to call my spouse to rescue me while I couldn’t find my car keys. My first Gen Con, I willingly drank an extreme amount of alcohol the first night, aided by many of my peers and people far older than me purchasing me multiple drinks and encouraging me, even when I was obviously drunk.
The drinking made the people around me include me more, talk to me more, say nice things to me – and it dulled my deep, untreated anxiety and PTSD from being around drunk & drinking people – plus everyone else was drinking, and seemed to be drinking a lot at these events, and so many people were drunk or had behaviors that triggered my PTSD about drunk people that I thought I wasn’t the only one. After that night at Gen Con, I woke up without a hangover after getting mad sick all night, and everyone else was wrecked. I thought it was normal. I thought it was okay, and that most people were like this, just like they were in corporate, where I’d watched coworkers and bosses drag in hungover for years. It was not normal, nor was it okay.
What Changed?
I considered any degree of self harm, or hoping that someone would finally end me.
After an abusive relationship where my partner encouraged me to drink because I was “more fun” and “not annoying,” where they abused me less when I was drinking, I got to the point where my last Dreamation, 2015, took me over the edge. I was manic, in the midst of a traumatic episode post-abusive-breakup, and I don’t remember most of it. I am sure there are still people I should apologize to, but it took me two years to apologize to one of the people I hurt the most out of shame and self-isolation. I was destroyed after that weekend.
After that, I stopped drinking at all within a week. I tried to cut it out completely for a while, and then at the end of the year I was at a work event and got so trashed I had to be escorted home, got in a verbal fight with a coworker, and broke some items at home (not to mention the bruising from being sloppy). A coworker had said something triggering during the event and I just cruised down the hole, and after that, I realized abstinence and exposure needed some recalibration. My goal became to moderate, minimize, but also avoid environments where drinking was common, plus I made the goal don’t get drunk not don’t drink, and it helped.
I have had the edges of tipsy a few times, but I have even dumped out drinks to risk going further. I started promoting safer drinking spaces and sober spaces, like with the Soda Pop Social, at cons that I attended. I realized that my abusive relationship would have been shorter, my experience with assault may not have happened, and my childhood trauma may not have existed without drunkenness. I pursued therapy doggedly and I stopped attending a lot of events that bred the environment that triggered my bad behaviors, and stopped hanging out with people who did the same.
What Does This Have to Do With Games?
We have to be more than together. We need to be committed to safety.
I’m talking about this in a gaming space because dear lordy, is it relevant.
Gaming spaces are flooded with alcohol, references to alcohol, and alcohol abuse, plus predators who take advantage of that. We have seen in the past years many people plied with alcohol, harmed, and then shamed for participating in a toxic and drenched culture of legacy game people, people with power and authority and charisma, and people who have been chosen as darlings of the industry using alcohol to do business, take advantage of people, and abuse the power that they have.
Drinking in moderation can be safe and fun, but when you apply power dynamics and people thinking it’s okay to do business (or pleasure) to an environment full of alcohol, surrounded by and surrounding alcohol, it is toxic and dangerous. The fact that the only drinks we really mention in games like D&D are alcohol is no coincidence to our alcohol focused culture. There was even a “get drunk and get interviewed to spill beans about the industry” interview series that was wildly popular on Kickstarter, and I spent months of anxiety disgusted and upset about it. Few people seemed to care, because hey, drinking’s just fun! Right?
The Fear
It is so important to me that things don’t worsen, and instead get better.
And now, we are in the pandemic. We are isolated. We are all broke. When the tide turns, if it does, and we return to events like game days, conventions, private house cons, I feel like the risk will be amplified. Predators will be in full force, and we’ll all want to celebrate, and to celebrate is to drink, according to a lot of cultural baggage we have. We also have a huge influx of people who are designing and gaming who have never been to these events, who may not know how to be safe, or who may be vulnerable to people and structures of power.
I want to see us avoid the pitfalls that will happen. So, the people who may be at risk mostly have been told what to do: be careful, don’t trust strangers, don’t drink at conventions or events, etc. I want to talk to people who don’t think they’re at risk of predation, addiction, or moreso, promoting dangerous behaviors.
Don’t offer people alcohol first. Offer soda, juice, food, etc., and only have alcohol as the next option if they opt towards it.
Eat meals or snacks with booze. This makes people less likely to get smashed.
Go to other areas of the event than the bar or go to restaurants without alcohol.
Check in with people if they have been drinking and ensure they are safe to go home/to their rooms without risks, including by finding them someone they feel safe with to escort them if they don’t feel safe with you (if they hesitate, etc.).
Bring things other than booze to hotel rooms, or if you do bring something special, limit sharing to one small drink for each person, and don’t serve intoxicated people.
Don’t serve drinks to or buy drinks for people who are intoxicated visibly.
Avoid using phrases like “I need a drink” or “you look like you need a drink” or referencing partying/drinking to relax or have fun.
For people running conventions, you have some responsibilities.
Don’t centralize events near or around the bar, and host actively dry events.
Consider offering drink tickets for of-age attendees limiting drinks to 2 alcoholic beverages, pre-purchased through the con and processed through the hotel or event location.
Do room checks for room parties to ensure people are being safe, including shutting down parties that are too heavy.
Discourage bar socializing by making spaces elsewhere to socialize that have access to water, soda, juice, snacks, etc. (helpful: avoid harsh lighting in these areas if possible, but don’t make them dark – think welcoming).
Don’t have alcohol themed events.
Have food available in some fashion, whether it’s providing local menus, snack bars, food related events, or helping to arrange food outings for smaller cons.
Don’t recommend bars or host major events at bars for cons, game days, or house cons.
Encourage events that would normally include alcohol like dances but instead bar alcohol or intoxication from the event.
Encourage vetted buddy systems, roommate check-ins, checking less-used areas, and checking with people going to their rooms that they’re with someone safe or that they have a safe escort.
Encourage digital check-ins on Discords, Slacks, or other private spaces when guests reach their rooms for the night or reach different at-risk events.
Vet staff and special guests rigorously for safety. Post staff & special guest lists in advance of events and allow people to give feedback, if possible.
Have a safety coordinator for your event!
This all sounds like a lot of work, but welcome to the modern era of conventions: where we try to give a shit.
For those of you who struggle with alcohol or addiction, I am always here to be your dry buddy. In fact, when I attend cons or events in the future, I am hoping to connect with other people attending who will be dry buddies – people who attend events with you and jointly agree to skip the alcoholic drinks and leave if things get rowdy, and escort each other safely away from events.
We can never guarantee someone is safe alone, or fully safe with any other person, but we can make an effort to vet people before events by getting some references before allowing them to have any access to vulnerable people. I will always try to keep you safe, but I am not perfect. We have to work together, be honest, and stick to what we promise together as a community.
Yes.
I want to see a safer community someday, but I fear the pandemic will increase our risk including when it passes. Be safe and be thoughtful. If you feel you are at risk for alcohol abuse, avoid at-risk spaces if possible, and check in regularly with a buddy regardless of where you are. Find help now, and know that your way of getting help doesn’t have to be the same as everyone else’s, so long as it works for you. We can get through this, all of us who struggle.
I spent a lot of time thinking about the middle name I wanted after I decided to depart from my birth name fully when it came to my legal name, and it got me thinking about Wolfenstein: The New Order…Real people should not be punished with the weight of anyone’s ideals as their expectation…
Buckle in folks, it’s a long one, and the start of a series! This one is personal AND professional, pursuing an understanding of some complex theory and experiences. I am excited for it, so please join me in that excitement!
Content Warnings for this and the following posts, adding new ones as necessary and bolding the relevant ones for today: gender identity, gender dysphoria, disability, mental illness, Nazis, childhood trauma, physical trauma, death, war,violence,hate crimes (mentioned), racism (mentioned), anti-Semitism, domestic abuse (spousal & parent/child), animal harm (mention), legal struggles for trans persons, social isolation.
2016 feels like a lifetime ago, with a lot learned and lost in the process. I found some light in B.J. Blazkowicz. Where is yours?
For the longest time, I thought I’d keep my birth name nickname as part of my legal name. While my full legal name has forever been a bane to me, I have seen myself for a long time as The Brie. But that’s it, right? The Brie. It’s a title, not a name that suits me, or that represents who I am. It represents some of what I create, but I am not Brie. I’m Beau.
Brie Beau Sheldon. Still The Brie, still Brie Beau in creation, but not Brie.
I spent a lot of time thinking about the middle name I wanted after I decided to depart from my birth name fully when it came to my legal name, and it got me thinking about Wolfenstein: The New Order. How the designers at Machine Games remade William “B.J.” Joseph Blazkowicz had a huge impact on me, and I had one more element: I wanted my initials to be B.J.
I came out in 2016 while I was playing The New Order off and on. I loved the game passionately, and it was mostly because of B.J. (For the purposes of this post and those related to it, we’ll stick with The New Order. The New Colossus has a lot more to dig into, and I’m not ready for it – and I don’t have a new body on the way, either.)
B.J. started out in games as a one-dimensional angry Nazi killing white guy. He finishes The New Order as a poetic Jewish man in love with the woman who helped him recover from a severe injury and gave his life for his belief that everyone deserves to be free who lets other people be free. That’s quite a turnaround.
I was struggling, I suppose, for people who represented what I saw in masculinity. While I am nonbinary, I don’t struggle as much with expressing and representing that part of my identity because of its flexibility. Masculinity is more of a challenge, but is just as important. In real life, I have quite a few men and nonbinary masc people that I respect massively and appreciate for their masculinity. But, I learned a long time ago not to base my ideals on real people – real people should not be punished with the weight of anyone’s ideals as their expectation, and that’s what happens. So I was hunting.
I was also hurting. I felt so left out of the community, I had entered two new jobs where I felt alienated and afraid, I had started a Master’s program where I was weird and strange to everyone I met, and I was still struggling with my mental and physical health, as well as various life stuff. I needed someone to restore my faith in me, in what I believed, even if it was fictional – to me, that it could be conceived by others was enough.
As I played the game, I realized slowly that B.J. was the masculinity I see. He is a flawed man, but he is also a man who has been harmed (in some ways, he reflects his original creator (domestic abuse & chronic illness warning)- strange after all these years!). No one is perfect, and he does not subscribe to the idea that the decisions need to be made by or controlled by cis straight white men. His leaders are women and disabled women. He defers to his wife Anya after they escape from his hospice and get married, her leading the way in the bedroom and also being his guiding light in the field. Caroline, a brilliant leader and amputee with a prosthetic, is his most trusted colleague and the person who is in charge of his life.
In his interactions with J, the Black guitarist who survived a U.S. Nazi attack, he works to overcome the ingrained racism he was raised with. He works side by side with disabled veterans and civilians, people of all ages and backgrounds, and even reformed Nazis. While yes, B.J. may initiate a first interaction with someone who violates his worldview in a shitty way, he apologizes, he backs down, he defers to the marginalized, and he tries to change.
B.J. and J meet with a harsh conflict, but bond when B.J. accepts J’s offer to open his mind and his perspective changes. I recommend not watching past the three minute mark, as things get dark but loud for J at the hands of the villains. Video sourced throughSnackPackedd’s YouTube.
And yes, I will be frank – B.J.’s poetic waxing in my noise-cancelling earbuds wooed me to a degree, and I do think he’s a huge hunk of himbo. But when I cried at the end of The New Order, it was not just because the story itself ended. It’s because my time with B.J. had ended, this space of time where a man who does great violence because violence is called for and because he is the right one to do it awkwardly looks like a puppy when his wife kisses him, and overcomes some extreme suffering at the hands of many different people.
He does harm to himself to rip away the marks of Nazism, and takes acid with J to see a new reality, and makes the hard decisions, and dies and lives and breathes freedom and hope. B.J. feels ultra-masculine because he does violence and he speaks harshly, but in reality he is soft and he hurts and fears but keeps going as that ultra-masculine presentation because he is the right one to do it.
To me, we represent the best masculinity not so differently from femininity, aside from weird invisible things I can’t explain. It’s the kind of guy who if you ask him, he will beat down every bully that’s ever threatened you, no matter how big or endless, but he would be so much happier to lay back on green grass while a dog or his kids bound around him and wait for his lover to say “Please do” before he does. That’s B.J. We got that from Blazko, the person who looked like an angry Lego® Man was his avatar.
I want to examine this in more detail as time passes, with a series of posts, talking about gender, game design, and much more. I will be clear: I do not think B.J. is a perfect person in any incarnation. I don’t think The New Order is perfect, either. But I think there’s a lot of richness there, and I think it’s important to break things down when they latch onto my heart. I hope you’ll join me as I dig deep and try to share ideas for tabletop and video game design both by looking at what The New Order, and B.J., do right and wrong.
I did find a middle name, by the way. It’s Jágr, which is a Czech name in honor of my commitment to Thomas, who blushes sometimes when I say sweet things to him, and pronounced like Jaeger, because it’s the Czech version of Jaeger and Jaeger means hunter. I think it’s undeniable that just like B.J., I am a hunter and always have been – of love, of hope, of joy, of answers, of freedom, and of those who seek to take freedom away.
I’ve pressed submit on the request to have my name change prepared by a legal professional 15 minutes ago. It’s going to be expensive ($160 for legal help, $160 for the courts, ~$200+ for putting my name in the papers for protest), but I can’t wait to be realized as myself.
B.J. was 32 at the beginning of the first story told in games. I turn 33 in two months. It’s time for a change, and some growth. I have so much hunting to do.
Hey, friends, supporters, consumers, and colleagues. this one is a little important.
I hope the best came for you in major holidays for each culture and religion or lack thereof that came before this post, and the same wishes for you in the festivities (or lack thereof!) to come. Please stay safe in the continuance of COVID-19 and the many dangers all marginalized people face, and seek joy in every moment – even if it’s fleeting, it heals more than all the rest.
That being said, this is me. Beau Sheldon.
Me. 2020.
Content warnings for discussion of mental illness, physical disability, financial insecurity, gender identity, gender dysphoria, mention of hallucinations, mention of schizoaffective disorder, mentions of political and social issues in the United States, and details of creative dysfunction.
Thoughty remains! So does Script Change. I still hope to do some interviews, as mentioned, very periodically. I want to talk more about design, and about leadership in games. I want to talk about the things I personally enjoy in games, break them down, see if I can make them make sense. I hope when the worldsuck eases I’ll release more games, though I doubt anything I do solo will be as big and fancy as Turn. I’ll be separately supporting my partners with their projects. Oh yeah, and I’ll still be accepting guest blogs here when I can build up a larger fund for paying creators!
Times do change.
My first interviews were before Thoughty – on my previous and now defunct site that I ported here with Systir Productions & 616, and on Gaming as Women with attendees of a Gamerati game day and then Judy Bauerof all people. I kicked off Thoughty and Five or So Questions in 2014 as a continuation of the original blog, but only the interviews really stuck around.
Me in 2013 at Gen Con with F. Wes Schneider, Paizo’s then Editor-in-Chief, who I had interviewed for GAW.
I have done over three hundred interviews on Thoughty, about 250 of those being Five or So Question interviews. I have only had a few interviews fully fail to be completed due to scheduling, and one pulled by the creator. I’ve interviewed people about not just tabletop but also card, board, and video games, plus lonely solo games, huge collections of tabletop and live action games, their artwork, their design process, their Kickstarters, and more. I have had an exceptional opportunity to pick the brains of the most brilliant designers in tabletop games, from legacy designers like Ron Edwards to genius women designers like Dr. Jessica Hammer and Meguey Baker to groundbreaking modern designers like Jay Dragon and Rae Nedjadi. Many of these people I have grown to consider friends and colleagues, and I’m so grateful for the amazing things I’ve learned from them and shared with you.
I have been supported by my Patreon supporters primarily for these interviews, enough funds to pay for my website and a bill every so often, some busy months enough to help me pay medical expenses. I am incredibly grateful for my supporters, for everyone who has shared an interview, recommended a creator to reach out to, or praised my interviews, regardless of whether they supported me financially!
You may ask, if this is so great, why does the title say you’re ending interviews? What does this mean for Thoughty? Why has the site been so slow recently, anyway? Well, that’s what I’m gonna try to answer here. This is… a bit long. I’m still me, you know.
I apologize if this is the first some of you may be hearing of my current health status, but the quarantine has made communicating really difficult. Please watch this video and feel free to reach out, but do not feel any obligation to give platitudes. Things have been rough but I’m doing my best! <3
