https://astralnoizeuk.com/2022/01/31/curating-resistance-the-ultimate-list-of-anti-fascist-bands/

WINTER RAINS DOWN ON THE ASHES

MOTHER MAKES FUEL FOR THE BONES

MURDER RIPS GODS FROM THE MASSES

MURDER BRINGS

MURDER BRINGS

(okay, the soundtrack to Murder Drones goes really hard, AJ DiSpirito is a good musician, so sue me.)

At tables I’ve played and run in the past, ‘Outsiders’ (fiends, fey, celestials, etc.) embody the epitome of an ideal or motive taken to its logical extreme, for better or worse.

Take Zariel for example.

Yes. Simply put, yes, this was 1000% the right choice for WotC to make, and fuck them for not making it 30 years earlier.

Zero questions here, the only tables I stayed at long term were the ones where orcs and elves and humans had a precisely equal chance of being good or evil. The ones I left? The DMs and players who wanted an instant, easy ‘kill this’ marker were invariably super bigoted in the real world too.

I dunno, Klyden REALLY hated Bortus’ mustache for the brief time he had it.

Maybe. I’m not sure, I haven’t read those yet.

Quick rec for an amazingly good book I read recently. ‘Moonstorm’ by Yoon Ha Lee. It’s a futuristic sci-fantasy where young ‘Lancer pilots’ fight on behalf of a paternistic empire, in a setting where the gravity of colonized worlds and the very laws of physics are governed by the laws of society and the people that comprise them. This phenomenon is so prevalent that rebel factions live out in a segment of space called ‘the Moonstorm’, where anarchistic and communal values lead to an erratic and unpredictable (but undeniably beautiful and free) cosmos. In the Empire, authoritative dogma and rigid social hierarchy leads to ‘normal’ (to us) gravity and ‘predictable’ (to us) celestial body movements. Gravity is a very heavy-handed metaphor for unity and national identity in the story, and it’s brilliant in exploring the divide between an oppressive imperial autocracy and an anarchistic society with just the raw backdrop.

Also, techno-psychic sapient mechs and massive freaking gravity-powered railguns.

Yeah, actually true. Anybody who’s interested should watch NewNameNoah. He takes hidden cameras through Mormon temples and records their culty ceremonies.

I think we kinda deserve it right now. Want the insults to stop? Maybe we should take a note from other countries that have had dictators and do something about it. Fast.

You get those words the hell out of your mouth.

Depends on the place and the people around.

Pride? 0, easy.

Anti-Trump protest? On my side of the line, easy 2-3.

Need help at the grocery store? Eh. 4. If it ain’t that important, it ain’t that important.

Texas? Inside Austin, 7.

Outside of Austin? 10.

Big sea of red hats like it was a sea of red armbands in Berlin? Fuck that.

“They’re giving transgender surgeries to illegal immigrants in prison.”

*Medicaid

It was a spelling goof, it’s all good. Still reading you loud and clear.

I might just be a massive god damn nerd, but I would rather build my own with an old Pixel, a printer, and a Pi. If I can’t be up to my elbows in its guts, from board to code, then it isn’t mine.

Right? AI-generated pictures of Scarlett Johansen as a flight attendant praising Jesus, or an African kid making sculptures of Jesus out of trash. And all the comments just being ‘Amen’ spam. Bots on top of bots. It’s just fucking dystopian.

Not maintaining artificial connections with people who would reach out to me if they actually gave a damn about me has genuinely been liberating.

I like how Discord- and Slack-like socials are set up. It’s just more natural. Instead of a feed, it’s a forum. It feels more like a physical place, with couches for discussion, corners of the room where people take conversation, and a hall outside for privacy. And if you understood that metaphor, then you know how I feel.

And if I don’t like a server, I can just… leave. Never have to run into them again, but still have access to friends. No holes in the conversation where an obvious block or ignore leaves gaps.

This is true. While I appreciate Al Jazeera’s coverage of Gaza, at the end of the day, they’re a mouthpiece for an autocracy. And their primary media contrast is, well, other mouthpieces for other autocracies.

I hate watching the news. It’s terrorist empires and wannabe empires having pissing contests with each other.

Roleplaying games. Games that let me pick my body and my pronouns with all the sliders, with dialogue that doesn’t try to tell me who and what I am. Even if it’s a fantasy world, I can turn off the rest of the world for long enough to recuperate and feel like the human I am inside again. It gives me enough of a reprieve to tolerate the people who don’t tolerate me.

Having friends who know me and see ME does wonders for my dysphoria too.

It’s 50+ countries in a trenchcoat. Pan-Americanism, in the US context, is laughable at best and absolutely a shambling nightmare at worst. There’s several reasons why our government sucks. But the sheer size of this fucking empire is the top of the list.

Before the end of the century, it’s going to Balkanize hard.

Having to explain how you ended up in a death camp in El Salvador when you came to visit legally as a tourist.