(Part 2) Top products from r/TheAdventureZone

There's a book series I read, the Rivers of London series by Ben Aaranovich and the lead character, DC Grant, is a black copper. (Also, slightly a wizard).

And there's a thing that happens in them, which is that often when Grant meets someone he'll say if they're white or not. So I'll be reading merrily along and run into a line like

> She was a white, middle-aged woman who looked like she was already losing her patience

And for a while that was really jarring.

I'd literally stop reading to think "Why the fuck would you bother to mention that she's white?"

...And after a while, I realised that Grant mentions that she's white because he's a black guy. It makes sense he'd notice that sort of thing, when I personally wouldn't bother to describe a white woman as white - I tend to see people as white by default to the extent I'd forgotten that DC Grant was a black character with a different worldview to mine. That was a pretty valuable discovery for me, if I'm honest, because at least now I know I'm prone to think like that.

And I suspect that something similar might be happening when people listen to the descriptions of inclusive characters in TAZ.

It's very easy (assuming that you're more or less straight, white and cisgendered) to kind of forget that some people aren't the same as you. Not in a malicious way (or at least not necessarily in a malicious way), but if you happen to inhabit the same cultural space as most portrayals of "what people are like", being reminded that a character is outside those parameters can feel jarring.

It's a good jarring, if you ask me - it makes as much sense to say "But why is Merle a dwarf though?" as it is to complain that so-and-so isn't cisgendered, but people are conditioned to expect dwarves in the context of a fantasy narrative, and they're not (so) conditioned to expect LGBTQ or ethnic variations to be represented in a fantasy narrative or in the media generally.

Honestly the way the McElroys do it, as an aspect of a character rather than the central focus, is probably the best way to fix that lack of representation. I don't think people find it jarring out of malice, just because they're not used to it - but having that representation is how people get used to it. And for those demographics that are traditionally underrepresented, getting to that point is huge.

Your podcast sounds fun! I love watching (listening?) to newbies playing for the first time!

“Of Dice and Men” is the name of a book about the history of D&D. It’s a pretty great read and runs through a brief history of gaming in general before getting into the story of war gaming in the 60s and how Gygax met Arneson. I highly recommend it!

https://www.amazon.com/dp/145164051X/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_FmybBbFXMM83Z

That's one reason why it's important to have more than just one character any given race--you have less issues of stereotyping if you commit to a world with multiple black characters, for example, because then any given character type doesn't fall back on the worst stereotypes. (Thankfully, in terms of the NPCs, Carey already has a very diverse cast.)

For example, if you made Magnus black instead of Merle, you fall into the trap of the "fighters are black, because black dudes are tough and not smart." So now you've just swapped one black stereotype for another.

(aside: I don't really think of Merle as being a stoner or a druggie. I'm not sure where you're getting that from? He has an affinity for plants but not really drug related plants? o.O?)

I think someone else mentioned the Taako example but yeah, if you made him Hispanic, definitely I would expect more commitment to his being hispanic than "because Tacos." Like, that's the thing about swapping someone's ethnicity--I feel like you have to actually do research and fucking care and not just be lazy about it, which is what palette swapping is. Ultimately, I feel like palette swapping functions as a kind of colorblind racism in a way--"everyone's experiences can just be leveled and applied in the same way." You're just doing it in a fictionalized space instead of being "colorblind" in the real world.

of course, if you were really worried about someone's culture reflecting a stereotype by reflecting their real world cultures in some way (and to be clear, I don't mean stereotypes, I mean actually researching real world cultures, not just slapping stereotypes on characters' personalities), you could also make fantasy races have made-up ethnic and cultural characters and assign them racial features that have nothing to do with what we consider "relevant" racial features. The Goblin Emperor is a great example of this--Goblins and Elves have racial characteristics and distinct cultures, but those racial characteristics and cultures have nothing to do with actual real life cultures and racial characteristics. (They aren't all white-skinned, though, either, and the main character has dark skin and curly hair, so it's also not whitewashing. It breaks outside of our concepts of culture and avoids making everyone white.)

Or you can "take a third option" and use real human racial characteristics but layered on completely made up fantasy cultures. So for example, maybe black people in your world have a set of made-up cultural characteristics that you've created. That's also not stereotyping, but it's committing to the idea that people of different backgrounds have different cultures.

I just think it's lazy to take a completely westernized fantasy world and just palette swap it. That isn't really cultural representation either, it's taking a very americanized/western view of racialization and what "cures" it and slapping it onto your (still completely normatively western european) fantasy world. People in your imaginary world might not even have the concept of race. Maybe that's a reason to palette swap, but it's a reason you have to grapple with in your fictional world, not just layer on your concepts of what a progressive society look like. (And there are other ways where your fantasy world might be totally backwards from others, but in a different way that you're used to thinking about--like the hyena people in Digger, for example.)

I know it's a little weird to respond to a comment this old, but I highly highly recommend this book. It's written for kids but I found it to be very meaningful myself when I read it to my kids.

Thanks guys! If you like the shirt, here is the listing on Amazon . It only comes in a t-shirt so you'll need to pull out the sleeve seams. And if you're a particularly small mothman like I am, you'll need to take it in at the sides.
Keep Kepler strange!

I think a drink called Pringles Potion or Hair of the Dog Potion (as seen in episode 10) would be great. It would need to be something that'll get you... real fucked up. They describe it as having gel balls similar to Orbitz soda, which I think was discontinued in the 90s for being gross. If you really want to go the extra mile maybe you could get some of those flavored popping/bursting boba balls (example). I've never tried including those in anything alcoholic before. Would probably take a lot of experimenting to get right (if it can be got right at all) but it's the only thing I can think of that would have a similar visual effect. If you can't get that to work, just make something that'll get you... reeeaal fucked up.

It also could be fun to recreate Redcheek Cider (aka AppleSauce). I vaguely remember it being described as sweet and strong. Should be simple to make a version just from tweaking a regular apple cider.

Oh I have both a cat and have had a kouse and I gotta tell you the bunny is 100 times worse I guarantee lol. The mouse wasn't too bad especially since we have him dried papayas he went crazy for em. Dropped a link below incase: )



Kaytee Fiesta Healthy Toppings Papaya Bits For All Pet Birds, 2.5-Oz Bag https://www.amazon.com/dp/B002UIZ12W/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_i_z0WpDb7SJC8JW

Also, the game Ticket to Ride is extremely fun. It's not directly TAZ related, but their is a train adventure in the podcast & there are a few people on the box that might remind them of podcast characters

You are viewing whiteness as an innate, essentialist trait. What's being talked about here is whiteness as a social construction and how it functions. I recommend checking out The Wages of Whiteness or much of the work of James Baldwin if you're interested in exploring this idea at all. But ultimately whether you personally participated in genocide, for instance, is utterly beside the point.

I use a Speedball oblique holder, and my nib for this was a Hunt 22. Nothing terribly fancy. :)

The Sudden Appearance of Hope

Here's the newer version...

https://www.amazon.com/Extreme-Teen-Bible-James-Version/dp/071800163X/ref=dp_ob_image_bk

Mr. Whiffle! https://www.amazon.com/Adventures-Princess-Mr-Whiffle-Beneath/dp/0983613125

Cut the cover off that and put it on this for added authenticity.

As long as they don't die like Pres. Garfield did, because that was fucking tragic. (This book kinda messed me up: https://www.amazon.com/Destiny-Republic-Madness-Medicine-President/dp/0767929713 - tl;dr: he got shot just late enough that doctors tried to do something, but just early enough that they made everything worse.)