Earl Grey In A Paper Cup: Brandon On The Road

Hello!

This wasn't meant to be a full cup—Brandon is still being seen in the wild, barconning with brilliant creators and having loose-leaf thoughts about process behind tables in small rooms. This was initially just a wonderful opportunity to briefly chat about how Gen Con's been so far, remind folks of what is planned at my second stop (Seattle Worldcon!!), as well as share some cool things that have dropped since I've been gone! But in the middle of working on it, a thought emerged, so I guess we're steeping this one longer.

As I'm still traveling (and being reminded that hotel food and Uber rides are actually dastardly expensive), this is a reminder that this newsletter is entirely free, but your support of all of my content, including some cool stuff mentioned here, helps me continue to work and live, so feel free to make a donation via Ko-Fi if you are able:

But without further ado, here's your cup!

A Workshop In Being Likable

The past few days—and the next few days as well—have inspired in me a kind of dichotomy. Being in a heavily creative, heavily networked space is obviously fraught. It's puzzling at best trying to navigate the myriad emergent conflicts of an industry that likes to fall into the 'community trap' (i.e. thinking that we do this work primarily because we are all friends, but we are not all friends, we're all work colleagues who barely know each other like that, and overstepping that boundary or underestimating the work issues inherent to industry leads to beef often). Dichotomy is easy here, in fact: being 'nice' versus being 'kind', being honest versus being gentle, assimilation versus confrontation.

But I want to, hopefully, eschew those splits altogether for something that emerges as much more helpful to me: being personable.

I'm sure I'll say some manner of this over and over in this newsletter, but one of the obvious joys I am excited to experience this month is obviously chatting with folks about cool stuff. Whether it's the wonderful gaming and writing conversations I've already had at the Gen Con Writers' Symposium, the other wonderful writing conversations to come at Worldcon, or simply the idle joy of spite-watching Megalopolis with a non-industry friend before I leave to board a plane (which also happened), just being able to share space with cool people and gab is the reason I like these events. They're often the most or only socialisation I ever get, even, but I value them highly (or perhaps because) they're also frequently rich in thoughtfulness, deliberately inspiring and educational, and incredibly funny.

I also don't really want anything to come out of them but the conversations themselves. To be sure, I like work (and money) like the next writer, and I am always grateful for introductions that turn into creative opportunities, but if this year's Writers' Symposium has revealed anything, I also enjoy, or enjoy far more deeply, when I can chat with a genuinely thoughtful person about something so fine and sharp that it is above the work, or beyond what I can merely make: talking about the culture of the work, or how to make the space better, or about things besides my pencil and my laptop and the things they can construct.

Put simply: bredren like to chat, allyuh. But more so: even in industry spaces where simply the way we talk about making healthy connections can sometimes feel like collecting future rare Pokémon rather than actually bonding with real humans, it matters far more to me to have close interactions with people, even and especially about anything but the work, so we can both be sure that we care about the same things and are actually interesting both about and beyond the work—that we have more to talk about than the parts of the creative space that can often be intense, depressing, or tiring.

While chatting with a creator post-con, the conversation went to likability not merely as a tactic to get networking done, but an actual work skill. We were chatting about some of the best interactions we'd had all con, and my friend contrasted them with some of the thornier conversations they'd had or heard of—stories of creators who let their jaded nature about the hustle drag them down, or held grudges so tight they refused to open their arms to possible reconciliation, or had been in the trenches of this tense industry for so long that they'd rather share war stories (or gloat about their own accomplishments for way too long) than simply get to know the person on the other side of the table. These and more, so many shades of people that, frankly, most folks can't stand.

Now, I want to be patient here—you are not in control of how people feel about you, and sometimes even the kindest and most reasonable personalities can be read by others as shrewd, disconnected, or un-fun; hell, even the cheery folks can get put aside—but you are also in control of some small manner of how you want people to see you, and an easy way to do so is to simply not be weird.

Don't enter with hostility, don't pick weird fights when taking responsibility for your part (or leaving the damn mess be) can do, don't make everything about you, give people their flowers when they deserve it without thinking about how it can come back to you, find an entrance to a conversation that is not about how you can get paid, be genuinely intrigued by people and things that are bigger than business, and find things to enjoy that can be easily shared. Even and especially when you do care about the work—when you want to do good and contribute positively to the space—you have to be first concerned with anything other than what you can get. More than merely being nice or kind, you have to be willing to be invested—not in what can come out of something, but in the thing in itself.

I don't even mention these because I'm always good at them, but I want to be the kind of person people remember because I'm chill and maybe smart every hundredth word I say, and then maybe that manifests into a work opportunity, but more often it manifests into people thinking I'm chill and maybe smart. Whenever possible, don't merely avoid seeming like the kind of person trying to climb the opportunity ladder by walking over other people—try to make it a habit of caring about people deeply enough that stepping over them is not a thought you'd even have.

Later, while enjoying a local concert in the hometown of my friend Gregory A. Wilson, he was talking to me about how wonderfully tight-knit his neighbourhood can be: how the park we're sitting in is the property of the church on the other side of the street whose pastor opened it to them for free and is greeting everyone the entire evening, how the schools are barely five blocks out from the house, how the bookstore is an institution in the area because the nearest B&N doesn't cater to the creative tastes of the locals, how almost every time this local concert series does a fifty-fifty raffle the winner donates the winnings back to the church. About how the locals feel so close to this place that protest action for the people who live and work in it, like its teachers, come easy to them.

Because when you really care about something, about someone, thinking about their best interests will always come easy.

Working to be the kind of people in our industries that care not only because this is where we live and work and the consequences are real for us, but because they're real for other people who also matter as much as we do, only makes it easier to do the work anyway. Because they'd do it for you too, which means... you're all just doing it.

Gen(erating) Con(versation)

My latest Rascal column came out while I was dragging my body up a length of wheelchair ramp at the Luis Muñoz Marín International Airport in Puerto Rico.

The last few weeks have been full of very intense discourse and public action regarding Collective Shout's regressive movement to remove taboo erotic interactive media first from Steam and now from Itch. (Rascal's own Chase Carter has a very detailed piece about the Itch debacle here.) Since then, folks have been publicly leading petitions to the major payment processors to rescind their policy against adult content, leading calling campaigns to the processors themselves about the issue, and even discussing potential alternatives to public payment processor options such as the Conjured Ink collective catalogue project. Since then, Itch has also responded about the tense legal situation they're in and their priority of making sure they can continue fulfilling payments as much as possible instead of closing the entire space, which has been cold comfort for the creators whose work has been de-listed. At the same time, while payment processor Mastercard has insisted that they have not been making any restrictions of their own about the content involved, Steam owner Valve has released a statement as of August 1st clarifying that Mastercard made their decision among their own banking partners and related card network fellows regarding this policy without reaching out to Valve first; according to Valve, when they countered by reiterating their own policy toward adult work that is perfectly within legal parameters, Mastercard cited a policy of their own against any sale that would bring "risk to the Mastercard brand"—further bolstering the frightening argument that these services have remarkable power over what people are allowed to buy and own with their own money, and who is allowed to get paid for work that doesn't harm or disparage anyone.

In the midst of that conversation, I decided to write a column about it for Rascal. Or rather, at minutes before midnight mere nights before I have to board a flight, a column came pouring out of me like I was struck by the Holy Spirit—a piece about faggot games, about what erotic games teach us not only mechanically about how to have more curious and challenging consent policies at the table, but also narratively about how we imagine our own bodies and our own relationships to others'. The realm of the faggot game scene is undeniably unlocking something confrontational and revelatory in these taboo designs, and I even take a detour to ask what that same kind of vulnerability can do in games about Black bodies in turn.

And then I was on my way to Gen Con.

I love Gen Con because it fulfills my personal desires to talk deeply about the work I do as an enthusiast rather than a creator. Doing the Writers' Symposium while surrounded by gamers and tabletop brands in the convention center next door, connected by a single skybridge umbilical cord, is the convention equivalent of having a scoop of rum and raisin ice cream on top a scoop of chocolate ice cream. I look forward to having deep conversations about fiction and game design not like they're separate—not like one part of me is sequestered to an attached hotel—but like they're all stirring in the same glass. So it's been incredibly renewing to have people want to talk more about this piece in particular.

Beyond the refreshing note that people are rebelling against this obvious removal of complicated queer art, I'm excited that the faggot games space can be a catalyst for such deep creative discourse, in myself and others. I feel like all weekend I've been peeling back additional layers of how the core tenets of this movement reveal that marginalised art can refuse assimilation, not merely by being weird and grotesque, but by asking the kinds of morbid questions about their marginalisation that the system insists is gauche and overly confrontational. If the civil-rights drama is to Blackness as the gay-bashing drama is to queerness—the low-hanging fruit of misery porn about simply not being fully assimilated—then the other extreme isn't simply placating narratives about how Blackness and queerness does assimilate, but overtly hostile stories about the consequences of racism and homophobia. Seeing people ask challenging questions and pose intriguing answers about those parts of my piece has not only revealed how thoughtful my peers are, but has inspired very curious ideas of my own I cannot wait to dig into.

This part is what it's all about for me—triggering intriguing conversation. A piece of writing or design being the diving board for entering something much deeper, more vulnerable. As we continue making, consuming, and unraveling complicated art, being able to find spaces to dig more deeply into it is not only a refreshing conversation space for me, but the place where artists get to keep discovering the boundaries that can be pushed, and discuss the actual revelatory future that is waiting on the other side.

Here's hoping some version of this feeling continues. Even if I always have to go traveling to get it.

Lend My Friend Your Energy

Among the other things that came out in the past week is a new episode of Righteous Kicks over at The Skiffy and Fanty Show! In this one (which we recorded in 2023 and only just got around to posting—but it's still good, I promise!), Iori and I chat with science fiction writer and editor Jennifer Brozek about the movie Shin Kamen Rider. We have a lot of feelings about Hideaki Anno's strong feelings about cults, about how to show hyperspeed in tokusatsu, and more!

I mention this not only because we haven't put out a Righteous Kicks ep in ages and because Shin Kamen Rider is a very good if very peculiar movie and because I love talking about Kamen Rider with people, but because between when we recorded this podcast and now, a very cool thing happened:

Jennifer Brozek was nominated for a Hugo Award in the Best Editor (Short Form) category!

I am obviously biased, because Jennifer is a very good friend who has also edited my work very recently, but she is also a damn fine editor who works very hard in this genre (too damn hard, if you ask me), and she absolutely deserves a rocket.

So please join me in supporting Jennifer Brozek—in person if you're attending Worldcon next week, or in spirit if you're not—because nothing would be cooler than if my friend gets a Hugo.

A reminder that this newsletter, as well as the rest of my writing and game design work, thrives with your support. My Patreon is where you can find snippets of new TTRPG projects, exclusive writing drafts, and more:

Today's Tunes

Hannya | Jimoto no uta (Local Song)

So in one of my last newsletters I mentioned the Netflix series Mogura, which I was very unsure about but was thoroughly enjoying because 'Japanese rap musical cop drama' is so up my alley I ended up binging it just before traveling. Suffice it to say that some things are still very peculiar about it, but without spoiling, it does turn itself around into being the anti-establishment, pro-keeping-it-real story you'd expect of a show that is treating rap with genuine respect (which makes the idea that it is a true story even more peculiar, but them's the breaks).

But in the interim, Hannya (who plays the longsuffering detective lead Izanagi Shokichi in Mogura), dropped a new album, Last Answer. I am still working my way through this one, but one of its first singles is already one of my favourite songs of the year since it dropped in January.

You know how I feel about Japanese hip-hop as a result of that last newsletter, so I will not repeat myself. So here's a jam from Hannya. That's all.

The Leaves

So that’s all for today!

I'm still on the road—after a brief detour to the East Coast to decompress and hang out with friends, it's back in the air to Seattle for Worldcon! In case you missed it, I posted some of the stuff I'll be up to during Worldcon, so I look forward to having poetry feelings with you all!

All the stuff I wanted to mention I've made recently is above this line, so all you need to do is read/listen to some stuff! But I'm still on the road, so your support goes a long way to helping me cover incidentals before arriving to Worldcon! I'd love it if you especially supported me this week via a Ko-Fi donation or a Ko-Fi purchase of my latest game The God of Spite and Violence, or sending a donation via PayPal. You can also support me in the long-term by joining me over on Patreon or buying one of my other TTRPGs on Itch!

Until next time, I hope you enjoyed the tea!