I’m playing The Beast on thatlittleitch! Day 5 is now posted!
These posts linking to thatlittleitch are not sponsored posts.
If you’d like to be interviewed for Thoughty, or have a project featured, email contactbriecs@gmail.com.
Tag: writing
The Beast, Day 4
I’m playing The Beast on thatlittleitch! Day 4 is now posted!
These posts linking to thatlittleitch are not sponsored posts.
If you’d like to be interviewed for Thoughty, or have a project featured, email contactbriecs@gmail.com.
The Beast, Day 3
I’m playing The Beast on thatlittleitch! Day 3 is now posted!
These posts linking to thatlittleitch are not sponsored posts.
If you’d like to be interviewed for Thoughty, or have a project featured, email contactbriecs@gmail.com.
The Beast, Day 2
I’m playing The Beast on thatlittleitch! Day 2 is now posted!
These posts linking to thatlittleitch are not sponsored posts.
If you’d like to be interviewed for Thoughty, or have a project featured, email contactbriecs@gmail.com.
The Beast, by Aleksandra Sontowska and Kamil Węgrzynowicz Playthrough
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| Such a fun thing to see in the mail! |
Starting tonight I’m going to be doing a (hopefully daily) feature playing the card game, The Beast, by Aleksandra Sontowska and Kamil Węgrzynowicz. The Beast is an unsettling erotic card game that tells a story about you (the player) and your Beast (who you have sex with).
The first day, you answer a brief questionnaire about your Beast, make a deck of 19 cards, then pull a card each day for days 2 through 20. You write your responses to the events on the card in a diary.
Traditionally, you burn your diary. However, in the spirit of thatlittleitch, my horror erotica blog, I’m going to be sharing my responses on that Tumblr, and then linking them here on Thoughty. I’ll share a picture of the card I pull, and my response. I have no idea what kind of content will come from this.
I played a beta version of The Beast a while ago, and I really enjoyed it, but it certainly touched in some strange places (in more than one interpretation). I am excited to play it again, and want to share the journey with you. Tonight I’m filling out the questionnaire, with the answers on thatlittleitch!
This post was supported by the community on patreon.com/briecs. Tell your friends!
If you’d like to be interviewed for Thoughty, or have a project featured, email contactbriecs@gmail.com.
Whose Stories We Tell
If you are making a thing about people who are not like you, you should talk to people who are like that.
I can’t count how many game ideas or fiction ideas I’ve dropped completely because I couldn’t do the research, didn’t have the time to interview, or couldn’t read accurate accounts. People’s stories matter so much. We should not fly off the cuff. We should not make assumptions based on media.
If you’re working on something about people other than you that those people could be emotionally affected by,* pause and
Consider whether you should do it at all.
If you’re still determined to do it, look for the people you are writing about or people similar to them. Ask them if they will share their experience. If they will not,
Consider whether you should continue.
If you’re still determined to do it, look for accurate and complete personal accounts. If you can’t find them, or they seem unreliable, or they are confirmed to be inaccurate,
Consider whether you should keep going.
If you’re still determined to do it, review the available media regarding those people or their experiences. If you can’t find them, or they seem unreliable, or they are confirmed to be inaccurate,
Stop.
That’s right. Stop. Take a break, return to it later. Think about why you want to tell these stories.
Ask yourself:
- Are you willing to tell stories without people’s permission?
- Are you willing to tell stories without accurate information?
- Are you willing to tell stories that could be inaccurate or misleading?
- Are you willing to tell stories that could damage reputations, risk people’s jobs, or their lives?
- Are you willing to tell stories that ignore people’s identities, stereotype them, or marginalize them?
- Are you willing to lie?
If you answer yes to those questions, I say to you: Look at your life. Look at your choices.
Walk away.
*Sex, wars, religion, gender, queerness, identities, trauma, politics, etc. – all of these are important. Imagine if someone wrote a story about something you consider personal and emotional, like about your life personally, and told it wrong, and maybe even lied or misrepresented you in a way that stereotyped you or made you seem dangerous, evil, or just simply wrong. If it’s a topic like that? Think about it.
Note: When you consult people, compensate them fairly for their time and experience.
This post was supported by the community on patreon.com/briecs.
I love you and I adore you: A letter writing game
Hello all!
I wrote a game that I’m hoping you’ll enjoy! It’s a queer love letter writing game inspired by the love letters of Eleanor Roosevelt and Lenora Hickok, and it’s very simple and hopefully easy. It’s fully story based, but has some rules on communication. This is a Version 1 document so please excuse any flaws for now.
I hope you like it! Feel free to play, and if you’d like to offer feedback, let me know.
This post was supported by the community on patreon.com/briecs.
Baby Bestiary – Behold, Products!
Hey all!
In a new feature, hopefully to continue, I want to draw attention to products I have enjoyed or products I think look cool, or even just products I’ve worked on and loved (regardless of my level of involvement). One of those projects is the Baby Bestiary, which is currently Kickstarting its Volume 2, and for which I am signed up to write for both the Kraken and the Satyr so I’m really hoping to see it kick. In the meantime, let me tell you a little about it!
The Bestiary is a lore book, not really a book full of rules and charts, but instead instructions on how to care for baby beasts, their history, and their habits. When I wrote for the first volume, I wrote for the Minotaur Calf and the Hippocampus Fry. For the Minotaur Calf, we learned of the importance of the constellations for the Minotaurs, and about their diets and the risks of being a beast with horns in a world that loves trophies. The Hippocampus Fry discussed mating habits of the grown Hippocampi, and the difference between Hippocampi from different climates. The new volume will include even more exciting creatures, like Gargoyles!
The project team is amazing, too. I’ve had the opportunity to work with them before, and again I’m impressed by the creativity of the writers on the new creatures. Not only will the new volume include the Satyr and Kraken that I’m working on (which I am incredibly excited about!), but it will include Ben Woerner’s (World of Dew) work on the Dragon Turtle, Gargoyle (seen above), Pertyon, and Enfield. There is also Elizabeth Chaipraditkul (WITCH) working on Lightning Lizards, Bugbears, and Orcs! The list of authors involved is incredible, and the art is fantastic.
Right now you can find the original Baby Bestiary, Volume 1 for sale on DriveThru RPG, and the Kickstarter for Baby Bestiary, Volume 2 (including a reprint of Volume 1) is still ongoing. Here’s to hoping that the product gets funded so I can write more about little critters for all of you to enjoy!
This post was supported by the community on patreon.com/briecs.
Five or So Questions with Kira Magrann on RESISTOR
I interviewed Kira Magrann about her upcoming zine, RESISTOR, which is being co-created with Elissa Leach. It sounds like a fantastic project, and you can check it out on Kickstarter now!
Tell me a little about RESISTOR. What excites you about it?
Elissa and I have been wanting to collaborate on a project for awhile, and we just weren’t sure what themes we wanted it to have. The second she said “let’s do something cyberwitchy” I jumped out of the chair I was sitting in and nearly spilled the bourbon I was drinking. YES. CYBERWITCHES.
The cool thing about this project is that it’s remixing a bunch of ideas, communities, and people in one place. That’s a very cyberpunk thing in and of itself. It’s featuring games, art, and fiction, in a zine format, which is very popular in current queer and social justice circles. We wanted a diverse set of creators so we’ve got trans, non-binary, women, and POC working on it. And we wanted it to have that gritty feel, like something you could find next to some fliers at a punk bar. I’m excited about the aesthetic, and the stories we’re telling!
Zines have a long history with social justice, queer culture, and a lot of divergent subcultures. What are you bringing that’s new to the format, and what inspirations did you have for the types of materials you brought together?
Elissa and I kinda wanted to remix a bunch of ideas, communities, and people in one place. It’s a super cyberpunk idea, taking the old “zine tech” of rough edges, collaboration, personal politics, and making it new. It’s featuring games, art, and fiction, in a zine format. We wanted a diverse set of creators so we’ve got trans, non-binary, women, and POC working on it. And we wanted it to have that gritty feel, like something you could find next to some fliers at a punk bar. So like, easy to pick up, engage with, and get sucked into our world with no prior knowledge of the themes or how to play these games.
What are a few of the challenges you’ve encountered creating a niche project like RESISTOR, and what good things surprised you?
I think the biggest challenges so far have just been logistics, really! This is my first Kickstarter, and Elissa’s second, so figuring out how all that works and how to coordinate with a partner on a project like this has just been a little trial and error. Mostly we just hung around with Elissa’s cats, listened to some records, and like, made headers and bios for the kickstarter page.
We’re both visual artists, so creating images and finding collaborators on that end wasn’t too hard. I’ve been really inspired while this kickstarter is running, it’s hitting the reward centers of my brain and motivating me to create new stuff! I think that sometimes its easy to see creating things and making Kickstarters as difficult, stressful obstacles, but I’ve really enjoyed organizing everything, and coming up with ideas that are cyber-witchy to write about. Working with these amazing people has been really maybe the best part. Banana Chan’s game is gorgeous, Elissa’s art is phenomenal, my game ritual has been super inspiring, it’s really easy to get into the setting and thinking of this zine and create a whole lot of things for it, because its basically everything that I love. Funny how that works out, making things I love is easy!
Cyberpunk and social justice are two things I absolutely love. Coming in from that angle, what are the two things that you would say to someone with my interests to get me to invest in the project?
I like to think of RESISTOR as a kind of tool to inspire people to think more about these ideas. Not really a manifesto, but something that someone can pick up and read and say, yea, I wanna go talk about this class issue, or this neat ritual way of thinking, or apply this to my every day life. We want it to be accessible to a bunch of different communities, so not just the queer, punk, music, comic communities where zines are popular now, but also gaming communities and fiction communities. My black heart would grow three sizes if women and trans and non-binary and POC people in comics started playing roleplaying games by picking up this zine. It’s also hella styish and woke af. Cyberpunk often is about awesome chrome cyborgs and fighting the corporations in this real rebellious uplifting way, and we kinda want it to be like that but, less guns and simple binaries, more witchy rituals and complex cultural nuances.
Finally, if I were a cyberpunk dystopia, and you were a witch, if you took out our hearts, what would they be in RESISTOR?
I mean, we’re already living in that dystopia. So basically, they’d be right where they are, but like, connected by deep black ghost tunes of all the other hearts around us trying to make this world a little better with our glitched-rituals, metallic hymnals resonating in tiny screens that sit next to us every day. Our hearts are all connected even outside of our bodies in machines where we make them vulnerable.
I don’t know about you, but those black ghost tunes are throbbing in my heart right now. RESISTOR sounds like an awesome product and I’d love to see it out and available. Check it out on Kickstarter and consider becoming a backer!
This post was supported by the community on patreon.com/briecs.
Content Warnings and Trigger Warnings: They Are Not What You Think
Content Warning: I’m going to talk about trigger warnings here, so if you don’t like hearing about that, click away now.
Hey humans!
I want to talk about what content and trigger warnings are, and why they are important. Let’s first establish what these things are:
Trigger Warnings:
Trigger warnings are related to psychological triggers, like those from abuse and trauma. Triggers are things like sights, scents, sounds, and sensations that can produce flashbacks, painful memories, or anxiety/panic reactions in people who have experienced abuse and/or trauma.
For example: I have been sexually assaulted. When I watch movies, play games, or read books that have sexual assault in them, I can become panicked, stressed, and uncomfortable. This feeling can last anywhere from a minute or so to days or weeks. Some people I know are triggered by scents like smoke, sounds like yelling, or sights like specific violence in media or even something like being on snowy roads in winter.
Triggers are not something of cowardice. They are a psychological reaction to traumatic experiences of someone’s past. No one can define the severity of someone else’s trauma. Even when it comes to professionals, they can’t read someone’s mind. When someone is triggered, they can have complex and extreme reactions, or just some stress and a desire to remove themselves from the situation.
Content Warnings:
Content warnings have some things in common with trigger warnings, but they are not the same. We see content warnings all the time – at the movies (Rated R for language, violence, and sex!), on TV (This presentation may contain material that could upset viewers – just like Law and Order), and on video games (Rated M for content). They are not new, and anyone who is surprised by them may have been living under a rock.
Content warnings are not in regards to people’s mental health or put together to avoid panic attacks or flashbacks. Content warnings are there so people can prepare, or decide what they should let their kids see. They are not censorship, and they are not any restriction on media. They are there to guide consumers to media they want, or away from media they don’t want.
Common Objections:
“Trigger warnings and content warnings are for cowards/babies/wusses/immature people!”
Nope! Trigger warnings are there to prevent people with past trauma from experiencing further trauma. Believe it or not, a lot of people suffer from trauma, and it is not something that you can just “tough it out” most of the time. Soldiers who return from war with PTSD (diagnosed or not) can have trouble because of triggers. People who were abused as children can have triggers. Not just soldiers have PTSD, and people of all ages have experienced trauma in their life. This is why trigger warnings are valuable. When you expose someone to a trigger, it has a psychological impact. In some ways, it is like an allergy. If someone were allergic to peanuts, would you tell them to eat peanuts anyway, because their allergy is just “all in their head”?
“Trigger warnings and content warnings are censorship!”
Nope! Slapping a rating or a simplified list of the content of media on the package doesn’t censor anything. The media is still produced, and available for consumption. It might be limited by age, but parents can buy for their kids, so that isn’t a significant issue. People who are triggered by the content might be upset that the product exists – and that’s okay! They can talk to other people about it and say, “hey, if you don’t like this stuff, don’t buy this thing!” and maybe other people won’t buy it. Maybe they still will. People can make choices!
“If people see trigger or content warnings that have stuff they don’t like in them, they won’t buy it or consume it!”
Not necessarily true! While everyone, regardless of their issues with triggers, might decide not to consume a product, there are plenty of people who still will. People can, and often will, still consume media that has objectionable material in it, and that has triggers for them. Seeing a trigger warning isn’t always “That’s not for me!” It might be “I can watch this when I am having a good day” or “Maybe I will save this until when I am not in a depression” or “If I get a friend to watch this with me, I’ll be great” or even “Maybe if someone tells me what part to skip, I can enjoy the rest of the thing!” Also, we are not in the business of forcing people to buy things. No one has to buy what you are selling. It’s not like creators walk beside people in the store just putting things in their cart and telling them that it’s something they should watch, even if they don’t like it. That’s like forcing people who like action movies to watch Oscar bait.
“People will abuse them to get out of work/school/responsibilities!”
Totally! And you know what? That’s okay. It’s okay because those people will be few. It’s okay because people use excuses to get out of work/school/responsibilities already. It’s okay because the people who use trigger warnings and content warnings for their own wellbeing and awareness will, a lot of the time, still take the classes or go to work or fulfill their responsibilities. People abusing systems is nothing new, and we shouldn’t put other people through difficult and often dangerous situations just because some people are jerks.
ETA: “You can’t possibly list all of the triggers, how am I supposed to know what they are?”
Well, for one, you can’t list all of them. That’s okay. You don’t have to list them all, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t list any. Part of the point of trigger warnings is demonstrating that you are aware of your audience and willing to listen to them. You can try to focus on the common ones: graphic violence, sexual assault and abuse, domestic/child abuse, and rape. From that, most people can get an idea of whether it’s their kind of media. Trigger and content warnings are not an all or nothing tool. You can talk to your audiences or potential audiences, you can check around in forums and on social media to see what your potential audiences might have issues with. Even if you don’t do that, you can still be considerate even with limited information.
Why are these things important?
A lot of reasons, actually! I have covered a lot of them already, but I’ll summarize.
- Many people have been affected by trauma in their lives, and it is important to provide support for them to feel safe and still able to enjoy their lives in any way we can.
- A lot of people prefer to consume different types of media for many different reasons. Some have kids, some like to compartmentalize their media, and some people just don’t enjoy all types of content.
- We should respect psychological issues just like we do physical issues. They are valid, and denying people the ability to avoid things that hurt them is, honestly, just rude.
- Everyone should have choices in their media! Everyone is different, and we shouldn’t force everyone to enjoy one thing just because the majority enjoys it, or because not liking it makes them seem judgmental.
How can this be applied?
In school, it’s simple. Put a note on your syllabus about what kind of content will be discussed in class, what materials you’ll be using, and how to contact instructors to either change classes, consider alternate materials or assignments, or help to figure out a good way to go through the classes without putting students in a position where they don’t feel safe in class.
In media, it’s pretty easy. Create what you want, but put a note on it. It can be simple: “This film includes rape, sexual assault, and sexualized violence.” It can also be more complex: “This game has mechanics that allow for PC mind control, which are not optional and central to the game’s premise.” Either of these options are great, and importantly, they are way better than nothing. If you are planning a convention game, you can put notes in your description, or let the players know when they arrive at the table, and offer them the opportunity to step out.
What about in games where we aren’t using a script? What if something happens in game that wasn’t planned?
This is more difficult! The cool thing is that it’s not impossible! One of the first things you can do is establish boundaries with your players so that if there is something completely off the table, you know in advance and can avoid that material. Another thing is that you can provide tools like Script Change and the X Card. These tools give you either the option to skip content altogether, or to back up and go through a scene again with new content, fade to black, or pause for a moment to evaluate players’ comfort with moving forward. It gives players more control of the content, as well as helping them to feel comfortable. It is awesome because sometimes it makes players even more likely to try adventurous content they may not have otherwise tried.
I want to emphasize: You can still create whatever you want to create. The key is to allow those who aren’t interested in your content to safely avoid it, and give those who want to enjoy your content an easy way to navigate. People have more fun doing the things that they enjoy, and when they are stuck doing things they don’t want to, it drags everyone down. Trigger warnings and content warnings help people find content that they can enjoy, and can encourage them to try new things.
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In the end, trigger warnings and content warnings are a great way to support other people in trying new things, expanding their boundaries, and exploring, without leaving them with no safety net, and without ignoring the importance of their mental and emotional health. Some people might not care about this at all, and that’s okay. However, I think that kind of attitude definitely shines a light on who is likely to consume their media, and whether they are the kind of person those who have experienced trauma are willing to trust. For me, there’s no question: I want everyone to have fun – not just the people who don’t care.
This post was supported by the community on patreon.com/briecs.