Pride month is over.
Now there is only wrath.
This month’s Game Pile articles:
- A Normal Lost Phone, which I thought was a really great little game that used its interface to its fullest.
- The Androsynth from Star Control 2, a gang of outlaw space queers.
- Hellgrinders, a tabletop RPG that uses its negative space
- A bunch of Pride-themed games I just didn’t get around to making Game Piles about
And the month’s Story Pile articles:
- Speed Racer, a vibrant anime made with live action actors
- Supergirl, which is both queer and vast
- The Wire, with its surprising presence of queerness
- Revolutionary Girl Utena, a work of queer media that even now, deliberately makes interpretation a little bit difficult
Other articles that went up this month both considered specific examples of queering media forms, with Nurse Chapel, Lotsa Heart Elephant and Acid Storm making up a strange Now This Franchise Is Queer kind of weeklet. Under cover of Pride Month I talked about how awful it can feel as a bi dude to feel like you’re inherently disconnected from the culture that promises it includes you, honest. I got a friend to watch a Biblical Studies lecture to build on my theory that David and Jonathon were gay. I also shared my term The Unbeard for when a character makes their partner seem gayer. Finally, and if I have one useful thing I can sahre with you this Pride Month, it’d be Don’t Buy Corporate Pride Shit.
In conventional types of articles, I talked about a Hal and Alena deck, not that other kind of Hal and Alena deck, one with a more cohesive vision for how it won than that one. We talked about how to play D&D 4e with no shield, dodge rolls only. I also addressed one of those deeply upsetting and angering things from the Book of Exalted Deeds back in 3.5 D&D, which uh, posited that Sex Is Bad. I also talked a bit about Final Fantasy XIV lore, with the Au Ra. Oo la la, is that going to be a regular thing? I don’t know. We’ll find out.
I’ve been threatening to make this design since I had a tweet about it go wide:
What truly shocked me about it is how this ‘Friend of Blahaj‘ design has already been my most successful design this year and it went up for advertising yesterday.
There’s a funny story about it, too, which maybe one day I’ll share.
This month is ending on a real rough note. I’m writing this knowing I’m behind on two things I wanted to do, but because part of my life is caring for some people, that’s just going to be how it is. I haven’t been hit by much – my month has been mostly focused on quietly just getting what work I can get done done.
But there have been problems, problems other people around me are enduring, and all I can do is listen and try to help.
And it sucks.
I am tired and I am sad and I am hoping that things will be more okay tomorrow.