gdp's Comments

The Toast : Link Roundup!

Wed, 29 Jun 2016 17:45:55 +0000

If you don't mind there being tons of misery (not of the Bury Your Gay types, just general grimdarkery), I recommend Kameron Hurley. Her sci-fi with bug magic trilogy starts with God's War, and takes place on a clearly Islamic-founded planet, with a presumably Middle Eastern bisexual lady as the lead. Nyx is definitely an anti-hero, and lots of terrible shit happens, but it's a fun book if that's your speed. The Mirror Empire starts her fantasy trilogy, which is a complicated book (seriously, she doesn't hold your hand, but it's so worth it). All of the characters are human, but she sets up societies with different gender structures (the initial society has 4 genders, and seem to be mostly unrelated to physical sex, another is a matriarchy, and a third has man/woman/neither as an explicit gender setup), there are all sorts of queer characters, most of whom are explicitly described as non-white (PoC is a bit harder to define in secondary-world fantasy, but they have brown or darker skin). But it's also really, really dark. Lots of death and desperation. For straight-up romance, I really enjoyed Sword of the Guardian by Merry Shannon. The main premise is that a princess is saved by an assassination attempt by an acrobat. Her father discovers that the acrobat is actually a woman travelling as a man, and assigns her to be the princess's bodyguard, but the princess is unaware that "he" is actually a woman. Feelings, misunderstandings, and romance ensues.

The Toast : Cocktail Hour: Open Thread

Fri, 24 Jun 2016 21:51:11 +0000

Yes! Buy all the waistcoats! Buy all the ties! When I finally got a custom suit for a friend's wedding, I got so excited I bought like 8 different bowties to go with. And then realized I should *probably* not have a 2:1 tie:dress shirt ratio. It really doesn't answer the "Am I trans or just butch?" question, but it's nice to have clothes that feel both Adult and Like Oneself.

The Toast : Cocktail Hour: Open Thread

Fri, 24 Jun 2016 21:44:20 +0000

Oh man, I just checked out their vine channel, and it's amazing!

The Toast : Cocktail Hour: Open Thread

Fri, 24 Jun 2016 20:14:56 +0000

Heh... I've been working on that for *years*, and have mostly come to the following conclusions for me: 1) I intellectually agree that women can and should do whatever the hell they want and are still equally womanly 2) Internalized misogyny is A Thing, and in hindsight a lot of my knee-jerk hatred of "girly" stuff as a kid/teen is directly due to that. I think I've managed to figure out where the boundaries of those are in myself and if not exorcise them, can identify and reject it on consideration. 3) Despite believing in points 1 and 2, there's still *something* unhappy about being read as female, that has been actively happy on the like 3 occasions I've been read as male, and deliberately presenting masculinely makes me happy. So I'm starting to identify as transmasculine, which feels good in a way that's hard to explain but seems right. I'm still figuring out what that means, though. (relatedly, wearing makeup and feminine formal clothes has always felt like a costume, but that would probably be true if I felt completely female but butch. I think.) 4) I would probably have gotten to 3 significantly sooner if I actually experienced physical dysphoria, and a lot of the fuzziness is because I don't really have an issue with my nominally-female body, aside from it making it really hard to buy menswear that fits well and making it really unlikely I'll consistently read as not-female anytime soon. So, uh... it's hard, and I think "fuck gender roles" vs. "fuck gender" really comes down to a sense of self determination that's not always sharply defined. And I do think it *can be* context dependent. I'd probably feel more strongly transmasculine if I lived somewhere/when that had more stringent boundaries on gender expression, and less so in a hypothetically genderless society.

The Toast : Cocktail Hour: Open Thread

Fri, 24 Jun 2016 18:16:28 +0000

Pretty much all of Ursula Vernon (or T. Kingfisher, under which she publishes a lot of these). She's written a lot of fairy tale retellings that give the lost princess/stablegirl her agency back, and a deep dose of practicality. I hightly recommmend either Toad Words, her short story collection, or The Raven and the Reindeer, a snow queen retelling with lots of awesome old ladies and also lesbians.

The Toast : Cocktail Hour: Open Thread

Fri, 24 Jun 2016 17:31:11 +0000

Maybe it was Adams, the tone of those asides is so similar between the two that it's easy to confuse them. And I definitely discovered Pratchett and Adams at the same time, so I wouldn't be surprised if I got it mixed up.

The Toast : Cocktail Hour: Open Thread

Fri, 24 Jun 2016 16:50:47 +0000

I'll cop to one of my own: In a Pratchett novel (I think either Pyramids or Small Gods), there's an aside about a philosopher who declares black is white, and white is black, and "got run over at the next zebra crossing". As an American, I had no idea that Brits referred to crosswalks as zebra crossings, so for many, many years I assumed he meant the philosopher got trampled by a literal herd of zebras. Which made perfect sense in a Pratchett book, anyway.

The Toast : Cocktail Hour: Open Thread

Fri, 24 Jun 2016 16:09:02 +0000

I feel like this kickstarter might be relevant to the Toast's interests. (And I'm not at all motivated to spread the word because of wanting a discounted Saint Harridan suit, no...) The founder of Saint Harridan is trying to set up a gender-celebratory online clothing store. I've been a huge fan of Saint Harridan's stuff, and I really do want this to succeed. If nothing else, you should click through to check out the *fabulous* model for the Liquid top. https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/marygoing/ha...

The Toast : Link Roundup!

Tue, 21 Jun 2016 16:54:16 +0000

If comics are a thing, I'd also recommend Princeless and possibly it's spinoff, Raven: The Pirate Princess. Princeless only introduces queer characters in volume 3 (with Raven), and volume... 5, I think? has adorable lesbian dwarves (based off tumblr posts. I'm a bit behind.) It's definitely aimed for 10ish year olds, and it's super fun. The basic plot is that a princess is stuck in a tower by her father, and decides to go save herself and her sisters. Raven is the main character in the spinoff. It's aimed for more 14+, so might require some vetting, but Raven is the daughter of a pirate king whose brothers have taken over the family, so she puts together a crew of badass lady pirates to take it back. There's at least 3 queer women in the cast, and I'm pretty sure more.

The Toast : Link Roundup!

Mon, 20 Jun 2016 18:52:20 +0000

I'll just leave this here. <img src="http://i.imgur.com/3UT4Q.gif">

The Toast : Cocktail Hour: Open Thread

Fri, 17 Jun 2016 18:54:04 +0000

I'm reading Empire Ascending, the second book in Kameron Hurley's fantasy trilogy. It's really good! And the second book goes way deeper into the awesome gender stuff in the world (the characters are human, but their societies all treat gender differently) and seems to be a faster read, now that I've got a handle on the setup. It's also pretty dark, but less in a "I'm being gritty to be *mature*" sort of way like GRRM, more of a "let's see how these people deal with only having terrible options at all points".

The Toast : Link Roundup!

Thu, 16 Jun 2016 19:26:28 +0000

If you're somewhere sufficiently affluent and with essentially no public transit, it's pretty common. I think about 80% of my friends (myself included) either were given a car or got their parent's car while the parent bought a new car for themselves. I did go to a private school, so my numbers are probably skewed, but I know it was reasonably common at the public school as well. I know my parents considered it worthwhile to not have to drive me everywhere or do without a car constantly, since they both worked.

The Toast : Two Linguists Explain Pseudo Old English in The Wake

Tue, 14 Jun 2016 20:24:30 +0000

Ooh, John McWhorter's got a new book coming out? I'll have to keep an eye out for it! (I may or may not have gotten really excited while listening to the first Lexicon Valley episode that he's hosting, and had to explain to my boyfriend "Yay, it's one of my favorite linguists! ... Yes, I have favorite linguists!") Also, I really need to read Hild. It already sounded amazing, but I didn't know about the language choices.

The Toast : Link Roundup and Open Thread

Mon, 13 Jun 2016 18:50:31 +0000

Ah, yeah, I thought it might be a case of "no one's done this before, let's figure it out". In that case, I might also direct her to youtube/podcast videos of people playing 5e (I don't know any specific ones, but it's probably not too hard to find some, and probably at least a couple of them are all- or majority- female, which would probably be a good thing.) That's a good way to get a sense of DnD specifically, and also an example of how GMing can work. Watching a couple different groups might also help her get a sense of what style of GMing appeals to her. I know having examples of how to handle things helped me a lot, although mine were coming from people who'd GMed my games. If she's down for it, maybe you could offer to run a one-shot for her and a couple of friends before the club starts up? That way you can sort of show her some basics and answer any questions face-to-face without the appropriateness question. Good luck! I always kind of wanted to try tabletop gaming in high school, but didn't have any resources for it, so I'm happy you're there to help her out!

The Toast : Link Roundup and Open Thread

Mon, 13 Jun 2016 18:05:16 +0000

I don't have that much specific links, but both the Apocalypse World and Numenera/Cypher System rulebooks have large sections on how to GM well, beyond just "how to use the rules" and written at a level that would make sense to a 16 year old. I'm pretty sure Geek and Sundry has a good amount of GMing advice. At a quick look, here's an article that seems like it could be helpful http://geekandsundry.com/unlock-your-storytelling... And the general roleplaying article section: http://geekandsundry.com/tag/rpg/ You might need to comb through for specific advice stuff, since it's mixed in with reviews and their campaign-related info. If possible, I'd maybe steer her towards being a player for a bit before GMing, if she's never done tabletop gaming before, since the player side is significantly less overwhelming. I didn't really feel comfortable GMing until I'd been on the player side for a couple of years, but if there's not enough people to GM, it's not terrible to jump in feet first.

The Toast : Friday Open Thread!

Fri, 27 May 2016 22:29:12 +0000

SF bookstores are so my jam. SEconding Fantastic Comics, they're great. And they have a super cool women's comic club that I keep missing because of weekend plans. If comics are your thing, Comix Experience is in the city proper, and have monthy trivia and also Ladies' nights, which I tend to hit more regularly. If you're into sci-fi, fantasy, or mystery, Borderlands Books in the mission is my favorite bookstore. They do a ton of author signings and events, and are super friendly. There's also a cafe, which can be a nice place to hang out during the day. For outdoor stuff, aside from Land's End, Golden Gate park is always fun to wander around, and there's a ton of different areas in there (I recommend going to the bison paddock!). The Presidio in the north of the city is also huge and has several different museums to check out, and I think gets a fair number of seasonal exhibits. I also recommend going to the Embarcadero and wandering along the bay. It's pretty touristy, but on a nice day there's almost always great people watching and lots of free street entertainment.

The Toast : Friday Open Thread!

Fri, 27 May 2016 22:17:24 +0000

It's really gym dependent. I did it for about 6 months at a super laid-back gym (I'm pretty sure that all but one of the dude trainers got into it so they could keep up with their surfing). You really want to do the beginner's classes, and nth-ing that you should be certain they show you good form. I started avoiding classes by one of the trainers who wasn't bad, as such, but was way less involved in checking on everyone's form during the classes. The other trainers were really good about it, though, and I learned a lot. From my personal experience, the female trainers were generally better about checking form, and were significantly better at being encouraging you to push yourself without going to the point of overworking yourself. So a women-owned gym will probably be good for starting out at.

The Toast : Open Thread In Lieu Of Link Roundup

Wed, 25 May 2016 16:58:09 +0000

My favorite Discworld book is Thief of Time. That said, The Shepherd's Crown might beat it. Shepherd's Crown is the only book to date that has made me actually cry, as opposed to just tear up a little. That scene! (If you've read it, you know which one!) And then again, with the afterword. My favorite characters are so, so many. Susan and Granny and Tiffany, obviously. But also Vimes, and Sybill, and Angua. Probably my favorite in aggregate are the Watch, with the Witches close behind. My absolute favorite Pratchett book, though, isn't one of the Discworld books, it's Nation. I actually feel like Nation and The Shepherd's Crown are wonderful and tragic bookends of each other, in a lot of ways, since they both feel significantly more personal than the rest of his work.

The Toast : Open Thread In Lieu Of Link Roundup

Tue, 24 May 2016 18:22:37 +0000

Oh, I just remembered re: Ursula Vernon- Those books are actually published under T. Kingfisher, because she also publishes books for young kids under her real name, and apparently started the penname after an 8-year-old's mother was going to buy a very-much-not-for-8-year-olds book because of the same author.

The Toast : Open Thread In Lieu Of Link Roundup

Tue, 24 May 2016 16:57:47 +0000

They're really good! I also recommend The Mirror Empire, but with the note that it's way more complex worldbuilding, and I really needed to be in a "super-meaty, detailed fantasy epic" headspace for it. I actually restarted it after getting a third of the way through, and it went way better when I had some familiarity with the world. I still need to read the second one, which I've put off for much the same reason.