iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Curt @curtthompson.bsky.social · 14/12/2024

Cliche and likely not helpful but ... create for the love of it and don't worry if things have to wait a while for the creative well to fill up again. The 'hustle' mentality is the enemy of enjoying the things we love to do.

Curt @curtthompson.bsky.social · 13/12/2024

I have sympathy for women who read BL/MM as a 'safe' escape lit. I don't understand how it works for them, but it is obvious the need is there. But damn, I hate it when they get mad at us saying, 'This doesn't reflect the queer male experience of anyone I know.' It's like we are imaginary people.

Curt @curtthompson.bsky.social · 13/12/2024

She was such a good writer. And a hell of an ally, from what I've heard/read.

Curt @curtthompson.bsky.social · 13/12/2024

It's getting weirdly difficult to discuss gay male-themed media without offending straight women, I've noticed. It's long been a sensitive topic with some of them. Example: Goodreads and Reddit groups for gay novels don't allow one to discuss whether a given woman author can write gay men well.

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Curt @curtthompson.bsky.social · 11/12/2024

Our small town fantasy ttrpg’s high school prologue has rapidly become a John Hughes movie, with our characters focused on revenge on the tennis team and getting my nerdy slayer pc a boyfriend.

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Curt @curtthompson.bsky.social · 05/12/2024

I absolutely adore America Chavez's costume in the Ultimates. I am a sucker for a jacket and tights combo. That look works for everybody from Mr. Terrific to Dazzler. Also, enjoying the mythic tone of the book.

Pictured is America Chavez in a red, white and blue costume with a short jacket and Star motif.

Curt @curtthompson.bsky.social · 03/12/2024

Modern fantasy. Kind of urban fantasy but small town/rural based. Savage Worlds for the system, using the horror book for most stuff, but we toned things down by introducing 'heritages' that are the human descendants of various 'monster' types. A little WoD, a little Supernatural, a lot of fun.

Curt @curtthompson.bsky.social · 02/12/2024

It looks like our group's new game is going to start off with a prologue of several sessions set in our character's high school days. The idea is to get us seriously invested into the 'small town' feel, good and bad, and bond the PCs and NPCs with common experiences. This is going to be fun!

Photo is the iconic Breakfast Club shot of the rebel, the jock, the proto-goth, the princess and the nerd all lined up, looking dubiously at the camera.

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Curt @curtthompson.bsky.social · 30/11/2024

After much negotiation, the all-queer gaming group I'm a part of has decided what our next campaign is going to be: Small town modern fantasy set in rural California. We're also switching systems from a Storyteller kludge to Savage Worlds. I feel like I am the fringiest of fringe gamers now. :D

Art by Hey Judas on Pixabay.

Shown is a small town street at night with a distant full moon behind ominous clouds. A single house has lights on with a lone figure standing on the porch looking towards a car with no headlights on that is moving down the silent road.

Curt @curtthompson.bsky.social · 26/11/2024

I love this. The DLC to Fights in Tight Spaces adds a fem-presenting agent to go with the masc one and the butch/non-conforming agent. I LOVE this. Everybody should get a chance to kick some action movie ass.

A black and white image of three versions of Agent 11. One that is male presenting, one who is gender non-conforming and one who is fem.

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Curt @curtthompson.bsky.social · 23/11/2024

There are times I love being a nerd. I was having a conversation with a friend about an old DC series called The Warlord and used Elizabethan politics to explain something. He got it. I laughed, he laughed, Walsingham laughed. (And took notes.) (Also, in retrospect, that series was queer AF.)

The Warlord issue 51 cover, with the titular character wearing a snow leopard loincloth, a gemmed harness, pauldron and bracers and not much else.

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Curt @curtthompson.bsky.social · 21/11/2024

The plucky little common folks who see a problem and step up. Usually halflings. Anti-chosen ones who make my heart grow three sizes at the table.

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Curt @curtthompson.bsky.social · 21/11/2024

I like making settings. The current one is 'pulp New York pulled into a pocket void and not bigoted.' Not as a 'side hustle' or home campaign. I do it because it makes me happy. Making for joy of making. I respect/admire professional authors. But creating for fun is fundamentally human for me.

A panoramic view of Manhattan's 1930s skyline as seen from a great height. It is night and foggy with tones of blue, gray, black and white forming a chiaroscuro tone painting of a photo. Lovely but also noir-ish.

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Curt @curtthompson.bsky.social · 20/11/2024

I read the WoT series back when doorstops were trendy. I could never figure out why the only queer people in the whole world were bisexual women. And why he was both obsessed with seemed to portray them (and all the women in his books really) as malicious children. Oh wait, we know why.

Curt @curtthompson.bsky.social · 19/11/2024

Playing a lot of Fights in Tight Spaces this week, which is a delightful action movie-themed deck building computer game. The strategy is deep and addictive. This exchange cracked me up: "I never thought I'd have to say this but Berlin has a ninja problem." "Don't we all?" Perfect action dialog.

A stylized cartoon rendering of male and female secret agents with the game name beside them.

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Curt @curtthompson.bsky.social · 19/11/2024

Ah, a nice relaxing weekend, with just me, books, a fun video game and various beverages. I am renewed and ready to face the world! Let me just log ... oh. Oh dear. Are there grants you can sign up for at any reputable hermitage? (No garden follies, please.)

Curt @curtthompson.bsky.social · 15/11/2024

I find myself reading and playing a lot of solar punk themed things lately. I think we need to coin a phrase for ‘the world ended but stuff mostly worked out’. I am calling that ‘Most Apocalyptic’. The element of hope for better day amongst the ruins of the old world is key.

Curt @curtthompson.bsky.social · 15/11/2024

I am a technical writer by trade and I am 100% onboard with this sentiment. TTRPGs are often just poorly executed in terms of information organization. One step further: given that YouTube is free to publish, why do so few publishers embrace multimedia support of their games?

Curt @curtthompson.bsky.social · 15/11/2024

I am getting why Outgunned is talked about so highly. It is remarkably good at being what it is. The game reminds me very favorably of the Feng Shiu and Wushu RPGs. And the little adjustments for various genres of action movie are perfect. Also, as a layout/writing/art snob? Chef's kiss.

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Curt @curtthompson.bsky.social · 13/11/2024

Let me tell you about my favorite badass moment in urban fantasy: Faith Hunter's Jane Yellow rock series: when Jane tangos with a kinda bad guy. And the two of them ramp up the dance to superhuman levels. Sexy. Cool. Smart. NEW. It got the point across without violence. What's yours?

Curt @curtthompson.bsky.social · 24/08/2023

Does anyone know of any cool 'Occult Detective' style RPGs floating around? Games that model Lord Darcy and John Thunstone, for example. I suspect that with the right group, the semi-cozy parlor mystery of manners and monsters would be a very fun thing to play.

Curt @curtthompson.bsky.social · 20/08/2023

I hate that we're back to this. I hate that another generation of queer kids is going to grow up with the fear of being murdered for even appearing to support queer and/or trans people. But they'll find strength in defiance and community, like we did. Fuck the toxic fantasy of mainstreaming.

Curt @curtthompson.bsky.social · 20/08/2023

The unholy amalgam of Cook's WoD and Ars Magica actually works in play. It is NOT friendly to improvised spells, but for rotes/scholarly spells that one must research (aka build via points), it works. And the fussy complexity goes thematically with our 'invisible college' campaign. I am amused.

Curt @curtthompson.bsky.social · 20/08/2023

I feel both horrified and faintly ripped off. I mean, there isn't even a laser drone? When the AIs started killing us off, I expected at least to rate a flying laser bot!

Curt @curtthompson.bsky.social · 18/08/2023

Now I want a question mark shaped headstone and a pressure sensitive plate on my grave that triggers a recording of me saying, "Greetings, Adventurer! It sure is dark down here! Would you mind picking me up five candles?" or one of a couple of dozen other side quests. :D

Curt @curtthompson.bsky.social · 18/08/2023

I just saw a web comic with the phrase: 'Side quests are my love language' and I have emotions. First - I've been seen. (Which is a mixed blessing. I was going for the stealth bonus.) Second - How very dare you! Third - I want a t-shirt with that line.

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These characters who are retroactively your 'favorites' (and we both know you're full of crap) are queer because they occupy the middle ground between 'disposable' and 'move books' and because it's the 21st century and some people actually want some queerness in their tights. ...Phrasing.

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And Jon Kent ... well, ya'll just assumed he was straight, because straight people always assume straight is the default. But that doesn't stop you from whining that he went from a kid character (that you weren't reading) to a teen character (that you're still not reading) who turns out to be bi.

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So that's why Tim Drake is bisexual. And that's why Bobby Drake is gay. Hell, it's kinda why Kate Kane is a lesbian. She's a rehab of Kathy Kane. A character nobody remembered or cared about until she was revamped as a queer woman. Those characters were around but not doing much. Fair game.

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So, Asgard Forfend, if a writer wants to tell a story with queer characters, they are likely going to have to retrofit a character that does have a following, albeit a minor one. I can't even imagine how those editorial sessions must go, but the formula seems to be 'mildly popular but not too much'.

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And let's not even talk about how straight comics fans scream, 'We love the queers, just don't get the queer on the existing characters! Make new ones!' Except, see above. You don't buy those books. You claim you will, but you don't. I've run a comics shop, I have plenty of hard data on this one.

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But you don't love the queer version of that character and, in fact, go out of your way to shit on said character and any creative team that dares to work on that character's book. It isn't ever that a particular writer has a great story for said character. They are always 'pushing an agenda'.

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Because you assholes won't buy books with queer leads for the most part. You like the character, but not since they made him or her 'woke' or 'political'. You love the idea of a character, sometimes a character who hasn't existed in non-queer form since you were in diapers, if not before.

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This may be offensive to straight comics nerds. I know everybody reading this is the exception. 'Why Does Bobby/Tim/Jon Have To Be Gay?' or 'Why Are You People Making Superhero Comics Political?!' - A thread. Let's start off with the sentient gorilla in the room. (In lieu of an elephant.)

I Liv, I Die, Oliviagain Hill @machineiv.bsky.social · 08/08/2023

Reposted by Curt

My newest design. I call this one "Ronald Reagan's Legacy." You can buy prints, shirts, buttons, stickers, et cetera. You should. I'm trying to do more "for me" art and I could use the encouragement.

Series of four images. Artwork of Ronald Reagan with Xs over his eyes. In the background is an inverted American flag, with "this film is dedicated to the brave mujahideen fighters of Afghanistan" on the red bars of the flag. The four images are a sticker, a button, a print, and two t-shirts.

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You're a terrible enabler. That's one of things I love about you. :D

But do I *want* this? That's the question. :D

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I have been at held at gunpoint, got stuck halfway up a cliff and caught in a Wyoming blizzard on foot. But I have never known fear like facing playing my GMs new homebrew magic system that combines Monte Cook's WoD and Ars Magica. Thoughts and prayers, people. Thoughts and prayers. And vodka.

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The wonder and terror of living with a small child is not that strange things happen. It's that you'll never know HOW it happened. In thirty years, you will occasionally ask yourself, 'But how the hell did he DO that?!' but right now, the important question is 'Oh god, did he eat those tiny screws?'

How people treat children and animals tells you who they really are, in my experience.

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Finding your people makes TTRPGs much better. Some people are nervous about being exclusionary but for those who are routinely 'othered' by society, the trust and acceptance from a group of people who share your life experiences is a game-changer. It should be something we embrace as a community.

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But this was a quantum change in my mental state. That group was what I'd needed for decades. My enthusiasm, my creativity, my JOY for gaming wasn't just rekindled, it exploded, like a glitter-filled supernova and redefined my gaming universe. I love gaming as much now as I did when I was 13.

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The freedom of having players and characters treat being queer as the default was amazing. The closest analogy I can think of is 'coming out' the way straight people think that works. Coming out is a lifetime thing. You'll do it over and over again, forever with every new friend and job or whatever.

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Then one day, MUSHing friends (yes, I am that old), invited me to their Discord. They remembered my RP favorably and our OOC chats about TTRPGs. They asked me to join their new group. And the heavens opened up. It was amazing. The game setting and character creation had queerness as the default.

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Around the time of the start of the pandemic, I was largely done with gaming. I wasn't getting to tell or experience stories that truly excited me. The princess (who I wasn't even that into) was always in another castle. I spent way more time talking about the hobby than practicing it.

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My personal and gaming lives rarely intersected at the table and when they did I could tell my straight gaming friends were often uncomfortable. I learned that lesson early, in describing a male character a little too lovingly and it held true over decades. Being 'open-minded' is easier in theory.

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I started gaming at 13. D&D, Superhero games and Traveller let me fly away with my friends, away from a world of toxic masculinity, violence, alcoholism and abuse. It was like reading but even better, because I was MAKING the story. It was a life-changing escape that I desperately needed.

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Something I don't see a lot of TTRPG folks talking about: Community is everything. Pre-pandemic, I was done with gaming. I had no joy or passion for the experience. I bought games, talked about them, but never played them. Then I joined an all-queer gaming group and fell in love again.