NightlingBug

i think this more than anything is what miller wants. vast detention camps with all of the suffering and death that means.

If discord doesn’t back down from this shitty ai age confirmation thing then idk what i’m gonna do. I’m not sticking around for it even though i use discord more than any other “social media” platform by far. Can I play dnd over Telegram????

Most people experienced the fall of the Roman Empire as: “One day a bridge collapsed, and no one came to fix it.”

So to sum up: Government gives a guy billions to go to Mars, he blows up rockets for a while before canceling with nothing to show because he just learned that Mars is far away. Continues getting money for Moon City. Nasa funding remains at lemonade stand levels.

Ready to discard capitalism yet?

to some extent I'm accustomed to outlets falling prey to TTRPG Lone Auteur Theory and misattributing my work wholly to Jay or Brennan despite them both crediting me at every opportunity... but I suspect most of those pieces are a single freelancer's weekend project

It has certainly been baffling to see Rascal's owners tout that it took six writers six months to complete their Yazeba's article only to turn around and say they were unaware I was a contractor. I'm credited as the book's cocreator and PCG's website "About" page lists all three of their employees.

it drives you insane how much erosion of freedom is justified by concern for kids when the people who actually hurt them will never face consequences

If another outlet decides to pick up this story, I am available for comment.

Chase Taylor-Carter contacted me this morning to rectify Rascal's oversight. While I would have gladly given statements or an interview prior to the story's publication, the article that went to print left me uncertain that any information I gave would be taken in good faith, so I declined.

a couple of times decisions were defended because the journalists aren't experts and so couldn't possibly comment. dog if you're not an expert and don't understand this stuff why are you reporting on it. at least talk to someone who does understand and give their perspective!

It's hard to overstate the degree to which the general public is being lied to about trans people

when you're stoking outrage against a marginalized person, you have to invent a privilege that emotionally negates her oppression — wealthwashing trans women is a go-to tactic, unfortunately

I have fucked up good and proper many times in my life and in RPGdom, and there are folks with legitimate beef, but nobody has ever *mythologized* me as evil the way they do for the queer artists I know who've had commercial success, *especially* Jay.

It's always wild to watch.

"myself? I feel very safe" has become a vocal stim in my household

you legitimately could not get me to care a single bit about "falling birth rates" for a myriad of reasons but especially with the way this society treats women and trans people and children in particular sorry. child abuse is just the norm worldwide. let the birth rates fall tbh

I mean I say that like I don't know the answer: they've adopted the conservative caricature of trans women as "man in a dress" as a totemic symbol of queerness in general, without bothering to ask trans women what we think of caricatures made to mock us, specifically

I urge all of my friends and followers to read this. As a contributor to YBB, I didn't want to muddy the waters with my 2 cents (which is that I had a great, limited exp. with both PCG/SJG, count Jay as a trusted collaborator and friend, and would work with any combination of the 3 again).

• Cutthroat high-powered career matriarch
• Trophy husband in permanent existential crisis
• Rude disaffected daughter & her friend who is also inexplicably here
• Younger sibling named Quinn that they hate

we're sick with RSV, so we're watching white lotus, and I can't shake the feeling that the Mossbachers are based DIRECTLY on the Morgendorffers

As a former journalist, and as someone who has had mixed experiences with Rascal as a developer and artist, this article was absolutely infuriating to read and led to me not renewing my subscription. An unattributed pull quote before a paywall calling someone a fake queer is beyond ethical failure.

The information available ($24k for 10k words) makes YB&B 1st print THE BEST freelance writing payout I've ever heard of in TTRPGs. Even the base $3k for 10k words without bonus or royalties is higher than the top rate I've ever received and, in context of TTRPGs, a rate I'd call excellent.

a response to the @rascal.news article on yazeba's bed & breakfast, clarifying some misunderstandings and (hopefully) providing a clearer explanation of what happened
possumcreek.medium.com/a-response-t...

Substack also unapologetically monetizes anti-trans hate.

Well?

You gonna prove 'em wrong?

That doesn't mean anything legally. But I struggle to understand why anyone would want their names and work removed from an award-winning book that paid them astonishingly well. From my perspective, Jay and PCG extended us all more good will and grace in a crisis than any other publisher would have.

In ttrpg freelancing, $0.12-0.15 per word is a common "standard" rate, and $0.25/word is broadly considered a pretty good/ethical one.

The other contractors wrote (by generous estimate) about 10k words each, bringing their payouts so far to over $2.30/word, on a project plagued with hidden costs.

To be clear: I am also *grateful* to Steve Jackson Games for swooping in to save Possum Creek's back catalog of games and zines, which I think are a remarkable collection that it would be shameful to lose to limbo if Possum Creek had folded.

My cowriters, on the other hand, were ttrpg industry newcomers who I suspect did not understand that our initial contracts were eyebrow-raisingly generous compared to industry standards. As an intermediary, Jay worked to ensure SJG's terms were still more than fair.

I had a much more pleasant (but equally sobering) negotiation process with SJG. I understood that the terms PCG habitually offered its creators were true sweetheart deals, and that negotiating with an industry giant was going to be a great deal more pragmatic.

I wrote about three times as much of Yazeba's as the other contractors combined, and have another title through PCG that SJG renegotiated — so my stake and losses are actually significantly greater than anyone Rascal quoted.

Neither the other contractors nor Rascal ever reached out to me.