#Pariah

[oldwindowsicons]

Pariah (2005)

#pariah #games #fps #64x64

[need-grows-teeth]

#web weaving #fleabag #franz kafka #pariah #eeaao #everything everywhere all at once #stephanie hsu #hope

[zedecksiew]

How To Play The Revolution

So: I do not like the idea of TTRPGs making formal mechanics designed to incentivise ethical play.

But, to be honest, I do not like the idea of any single game pushing any particular formal mechanics about ethical play at all.

So here I am, trying to think through the reasons why, and proposing a solution. (Sort of. A procedure, really.)

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Assumptions:

1.

Some genres of game resist ethical play. A grand strategy game dehumanises people into census data. The fun of a shooter is violence. This is truest in videogames, but applies to tabletop games also.

Games can question their own ethics, to an extent. Terra Nil is an anti-city-builder. But it is a management game at heart, so may elide critiques of "efficiency = virtue".

Not all games should try to design for ethical play. I believe games that incentivise "bad" behaviour have a lot to teach us about those behaviours, if you approach them with eyes open.

2.

The systems that currently govern our real lives are terrible: oligarchy, profit motive; patriarchy, nation-states, ethno-centrisms. They fuel our problems: class and sectarian strife, destruction of climate and people, spiritual desertification.

They are so total that the aspiration to ethical behaviour is subsumed by their logics. See: social enterprise; corpos and occupying forces flying rainbow flags; etc.

Nowadays, when I hear "ethical", I don't hear "we remember to be decent". I hear "we must work to be better". Good ethics is radical transformation.

3.

If a videogame shooter crosses a line for you, your only real response is to stop playing. This is true for other mechanically-bounded games, like CCGs or boardgames.

In TTRPGs, players have the innate capability to act as their own referees. (even in GM-ed games adjudications are / should be by consensus.) If you don't like certain aspects of a game, you could avoid it---but also you could change it.

Only in TTRPGs can you ditch basic rules of the game and keep playing.

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So:

D&D's rules are an engine for accumulation: more levels, more power, more stuff, more numbers going up.

If you build a subsystem in D&D for egalitarian action, but have to quantify it in ways legible to the game's other mechanical parts---what does that mean? Is your radical aspiration feeding into / providing cover for the game's underlying logics of accumulation?

At the very least it feels unsatisfactory---"non-representative of what critique / revolution entails as a rupture," to quote Marcia, in conversations we've been having around this subject, over on Discord.

How do we imagine and represent rupture, to the extent that the word "revolution" evokes?

My proposal: we rupture the game.

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How To Play The Revolution

Over the course of play, your player-characters have decided to begin a revolution:

An armed struggle against an invader; overturning a feudal hierarchy; a community-wide decision to abandon the silver standard.

So:

Toss out your rule book and sheets.

And then:

Keep playing.

You already know who your characters are: how they prefer to act; what they are capable of; how well they might do at certain tasks; what their context is. You and your group are quite capable of improv-ing what happens next.

Of course, this might be unsatisfactory; you are here to play a TTRPG, after all. Structures are fun. Therefore:

Decide what the rules of your game will be, going forward.

Which rules you want to keep. Which you want to discard. Jury-rig different bits from different games. Shoe-horn a tarot deck into a map-making game---play that. Be as comprehensive or as freeform as you like. Patchwork and house-rule the mechanics of your new reality.

The god designer will not lead you to the revolution. You broke the tyranny of their design. You will lead yourself. You, as a group, together. The revolution is DIY.

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Notes:

This is mostly a thought experiment into a personal obsession. I am genuinely tempted to write a ruleset just so I can stick the above bit into it as a codified procedure.

I am tickled to imagine how the way this works may mirror the ways revolutions have played out in history.

A group might already have alternative ruleset in mind, that they want to replace the old ruleset with wholesale. A vanguard for their preferred system.

Things could happen piecemeal, progressively. Abandon fiat currency and a game's equipment price list. Adopt pacifism and replace the combat system with an alternative resolution mechanic. As contradictions pile up, do you continue, or revert?

Discover that the shift is too uncomfortable, too unpredictable, and default back to more familiar rules. The old order reacting, reasserting itself.

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I keep returning to this damn idea, of players crossing thresholds between rulesets through the course of play. The Revolution is a rupture of ethical reality like Faerie or the Zone is a rupture in geography.

But writing all this down is primarily spurred by this post from Sofinho talking about his game PARIAH and the idea that "switching games/systems mid-session" is an opportunity to explore different lives and ethics:

Granted this is not an original conceit (I'm not claiming to have done anything not already explored by Plato or Zhuangzi) but I think it's a fun possibility to present to your players: dropping into a parallel nightmare realm where their characters can lead different lives and chase different goals.

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Jay Dragon tells me she is already exploring this idea in a new game, Seven Part Pact:

"the game mechanics are downright oppressive but also present the capacity to sunder them utterly, so the only way to behave ethically is to reject the rules of the game and build something new."

VINDICATION! If other designers are also thinking along these lines this means the idea isn't dumb and I'm not alone!

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( Images:

https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/developer-diary/victoria-3-dev-diary-23-fronts-and-generals.1497106/

https://www.thestranger.com/race/2017/04/05/25059127/if-you-give-a-cop-a-pepsi

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WarGames

https://nobonzo.com/

https://pangroksulap.com/about/ )

#theory #ttrpgs #politics #revolutions #proposals #pariah

[kingboba]

#wlw #wlw love #wlw films #wlw movies #Portrait of a Lady on Fire #Thelma #Pariah #The Handmaiden #Fingersmith #San Junipero #Rafiki #Carol #But I'm a Cheerleader

[invisible-pink-toast]

butches appreciation!!

bonus: not canonically butch... but not not butch

#if someone's not in here feel free to add! always need more butch characters #butch #butches #aloto #a league of their own #pariah #saving face #bound #alison bechdel #arcane #steven universe #she ra #l word generation q #911 #orange is the new black #oitnb #yellowjackets #my post #lesbian

[cinematicmasterpiece]

pariah (2011)

#pariah #film #movie #cinema #art #edit #screencaps #photography #cinematography #2010s #indie #female director #directed by women #queer #lgbt #lesbian #black cinema #dee rees #adepero oduye #queue

[bengiyo]

If you had to pick one film that was your favorite from each unit of your Queer Cinema Syllabus, which ones would they be and why?

The Queer Cinema Syllabus grew out of a conversation that @shortpplfedup and I were having about what queer works I would show to a prospective BL fan, which eventually led to the creation of @the-conversation-pod. Captain Hands here has decided to run the gauntlet and has reached Unit 2.

Unit 1: Coming of Age Post-Moonlight

It's definitely Pariah (2011). This movie and Moonlight (2016) are having a complex conversation about Blackness and Queerness that feels so resonant to me. It's so rare that we see lesbians of any sort treated with this much complexity and sympathy in a contemporary setting. The complex web of lesbian interactions here isn't matched that often, and the only other movie that comes to mind it The Watermelon Woman (1996).

Unit 2: Race, Disability, and Class

Probably The Way He Looks (2014) because it's an easy layup to introduce folks to the genre. The intersection between Leo's blindness and his queerness gives the newer person multiple things to think about and forces them to consider how queer people are more than just their queerness. I also feel warmly about this film because it was a project we followed all the way from short film to movie, and I love that we were able to get the entire cast back.

Unit 3: Faith and Religion

You haven't gotten here, but this is where things start to get especially heavy. I think for this section I'm going with The Wise Kids (2011) because I really like the way Stephen Cone approaches the struggle with faith queer and non-queer people have in evangelical spaces. There's an honesty that I really admire. This is not an easy film, but it's lingered with me for over a decade.

Unit 4: Heartbreak Alley

This is the section of straight losses. I don't know that I ever want to watch it again, but I would probably select Bent (1997) as my favorite because the idea that we could still love even in the greatest of horrors spoke to me. I also think the performances in this adaptation are phenomenal.

Unit 5: Lesbians

I think we just passed Lesbian Visibility Day, so happy birthday, lesbians! This is actually a difficult selection because there are so many great films in this section. I think, today, I'm giving it to The Handmaiden (2016), but I almost chose Bound (1996).

Unit 6: Gems

I don't even need to look to know Big Eden (2000) is in this section. This section whips ass all around, but Big Eden is my favorite because there's just so much love all over this movie, and every new fact I learn about the BTS of it makes me love it more. Arye Gross and Eric Shweig did not have to go as hard as they did in this movie. The director left that choice to them a veteran actors and they did that 23 years ago. Nothing but admiration and respect. This is one of my most beloved films.

Unit 7: Asian Film Warm-up

This is a difficult selection because I think it depends on my mood, but for now, I'll go with The Stranger by the Shore (2020). This is a very Japanese take on second-chance romance. I like the way Japan approaches the quiet internalized homophobia that grips us. Some of the same things in Minato's Laundromat can be found here. It's also gorgeous and approaches sex in a frank way that I really loved.

Unit 8: Yaoi

Once again I don't even need to look to know that it's Yuri!!! On Ice (2016). This show is so goddamn gay. I know people feel like it was censored because of the kiss, but these two proposed to each other. It's what sports anime wishes it could be with the open queerness on display from so many characters. It's beautiful and so much fun.

Unit 9: Boys Love

I will not be selecting a favorite BL, but I will say that I really love The Boy Foretold by the Stars (2020) and it's a movie. I loved that we had a femme lead for once and that they explored what faith meant for femmes. It's a film that took the romantic lead's gay awakening very seriously and explored what being together might look like in a sequel called Love Beneath the Stars.

I'm looking forward to you completing the syllabus!

#answered #lgbt film #pariah #the way he looks #the boy foretold by the stars #the wise kids #bent #yuri!!! on ice #the stranger by the shore #big eden #the handmaiden #queer cinema syllabus

[eretzyisrael]

by Dennis Prager

Schumer knows Hamas "seeks to eradicate the Jewish people." Few non-Jews have a clue how much the Holocaust has affected Jews -- including those born after the Holocaust and those Jews who lost no relatives in the greatest genocide in modern history. Most Jews suffer from a form of collective PTSD. 

It could not be otherwise. The most culturally advanced country in the world, the most militarily powerful country in Europe, sought to murder every Jew in Europe -- including babies and the elderly. And it nearly succeeded: Two of every three European Jews were murdered. Equally significantly, "the nations" watched. So, just for the record, the Jews in Europe during World War II were also a pariah among the nations. With a few noble exceptions, the world was divided between nations that helped exterminate the Jews and nations that refused to do anything for them -- neither allowing into their countries the few who managed to escape the Nazis nor bombing any of the death camps or even just the railway tracks leading into those camps.

For 3,000 years, the fate of the Jews has nearly always been to be a pariah among the nations. This was foretold in the Hebrew Bible itself, which cites Balaam, a pagan "prophet," as saying that Israel is "a nation that shall dwell alone, not be reckoned among the nations" (Numbers 23:9). When Jews are defenseless, they are a pariah. And when Jews defend themselves, they are, according to Mr. Schumer and the elites of the world, also a pariah.

Had Mr. Schumer told the truth, he would have said this: Israel's being a pariah among the world's nations tells us much more about the world's nations than about Israel. Just as it did a mere two generations ago.

#charles schumer #chuck schumer #israel #jews #pariah #dennis prager

[splooosh]

“Worlds Will Die”

George Perez - Mike DeCarlo

#Lord Volt #Lady Quark #Princess #Fern #Pariah #Earth 6 #George Perez #Mike DeCarlo #crisis on infinite earths

[madcat-world]

Pariah (1 of 2) - Lorenzo Mastroianni

#Pariah #Lorenzo Mastroianni #Warhammer 40K #Alizebeth Bequin #Dan Abnett #characters #cover art #Dark fantasy #sci fi #digital art

[mtg-cards-hourly]

Pariah

"It is *not* sad," Radiant chided the lesser angel. "It is right. Every society must have its outcasts."

Artist: Jon J Muth TCG Player Link Scryfall Link EDHREC Link

#mtg #magic the gathering #tcg #$4.88 #jon j muth #pariah #conspiracy: take the crown #enchantment #aura

[inkary]

Man i can't believe i forgot to upload a piccie to tunglr, my favorite platform

here's Blanche dedicated reference sheet fr the skeleton birthday in february (they're 3 y.o. now)

#my art #blanche #warhammer 40k #necrons #pariah

[fleurdelouve]

She's so pretty 🥺

#adepero oduye #sarah wilson #pariah #five days at memorial #mcu actors #marvel actors #apple tv #tfatws #captain america #the falcon and the winter soldier #falcon and the winter soldier #black actors #black actresses #black women #black woman #mcu sarah wilson #mcu shows #marvel shows #marvel tv shows

[nastronde]

witch of the wood

#nudity #cw nudity #pariah #my shit #i cant remember what tag i use for nudity help. anyways consider this the start of me spamming you all with oc art then

[alex-leweird]

Kiya, a necron pariah oc.

#warhammer 40000 #warhammer 40k #necron #pariah #blank #necrons #wh40k

[relicariums]

Pariah (2011)

"Heartbreak opens onto the sunrise for even breaking is opening and I am broken, I am open. Broken into the new life without pushing in, open to the possibilities within, pushing out. See the love shine in through my cracks. See the light shine out through me. I am broken, I am open, I am broken open. See the love light shining through me, shining through my cracks, through the gaps. My spirit takes journey, my spirit takes flight, could not have risen otherwise and I am not running, I am choosing. Running is not a choice from the breaking. Breaking is freeing, broken is freedom. I am not broken, I am free."

#pariah #dee rees #film diary