about the earl:
Hi! I’m earlgraytay. You can call me Malcolm, Mal, Earl, Gray– whatever. I’m a writer, a Twitch streamer, and a proud queer. He/him pronouns, please.
You can buy my queer fic on Amazon and Smashwords– want a hopeful queer retelling of Kafka’s Metamorphosis? How about a trans lady airship captain who hunts angels and fights restrictive Victorian gender roles, or a grumpy enby veterinarian who has to heal @historieofbeafts-style goat-unicorns?
You can follow my Twitch streams on twitch.tv/earlgraytay. This post will be updated as I figure out a good stream schedule, but RN I stream on Mondays and Fridays (though I’m not very consistent).
I write fanfic sometimes - I’m on AO3 as scribblingTiresias- but it’s mostly one-shots, with a few ambitious weird longfics that are never updated.
Thanks for reading! Hope to have more here soon.
Have you ever wanted to run a globetrotting adventure in D&D, but weren’t sure how to model exploration in game? You might want to look into the hexcrawl– one of D&D’s most elegant, and most overlooked, game mechanics.
I’ve started writing articles for TheGamer– if you like my writing, my thoughts on tabletop, or D&D as a whole, come check this out!
My autistic peeps, I have one bit of advice for you.
Be extremely selective about who you accept social rule feedback from.
Most autistic folks I know tie themselves up in knots, trying to figure out this social rule book that everybody else seems to have gotten, that they didn’t get. In fact a lot of the “rigidity” that I see other therapists complaining about can be put down to the natural effects of people trying really hard to find one goddamn rule that will stay put.
The thing is- most people walk around as if they have the one universal, unassailable, common-sense rule book for social interaction.
And they are utterly full of shit.
In the US in particular there is incredibly low consensus about how people should behave. Just go post on twitter about whether it is or is not rude to wear your shoes in someone’s house, or as a 70 year old and a 20 year old about phone etiquette. That’s before we get into other demographic differences. Don’t even get me started on “professionalism”.
Neurotypical people get that feedback to, but are, on average, way more able to flag it as either 1) a rule for working with that person/similar people 2) bullshit. NOT as a universal rule they should have already known, that they should feel bad about not already knowing.
The number of things that people actually universally agree on is really low.
So when people give you feedback that the social rule they expect you to follow is obvious, they are often being a total dick.
Ask questions, look for patterns in specific settings, and make sure you’ve worked on your values enough to have a reasonable ecosystem of guiding principles.
But remember that nobody has that rule book.
delicious-dream-before-the-storm:
The band, the music, the dance.
puts on sound 📣🎶🎵
Ok, I NEED you to understand just how insane even ATTEMPTING this was for them.
1. Playing an instrument is difficult. Doing so in sync with others even more so. Don’t think I’m stepping on any toes saying that.
2. Dancing is difficult. Doing so in sync with others even more so. Still not controversial.
3. YOU AVOID, AT ALL COSTS, MOVING YOUR BODY WHILE PLAYING A WIND INSTRUMENT. To make the correct, pleasant sounds, you need to be in the correct form. And that form involves your ENTIRE body, even your legs when sitting down.
4. “oh, but I’ve seen marching bands before and-” MARCHING BANDS HAVE ENTIRE SCIENTIFIC FIELDS DEDICATED TO FIGURING OUT HOW TO MARCH WITH MINIMUM BREAKING OF PROPER FORM. A marching band tries to be as smooth as possible while moving, so as not to jar their instrument, mouth, neck, arms, torso, or anything else.These ladies and gentlemen are BOUNCING and still playing properly, what the FU-!
5. AND ANOTHER THING! Wind instruments and dancing BOTH make demands on your breathing, so the fact that they are dancing (making you breath faster for extra oxygen) AND playing wind instruments (making you effectively hold your breath) AT THE SAME TIME is HUGE. Their lungs must be MASSIVE.
All of that also; the song is Sing, sing, sing (with a swing). If you wanna listen to some of THE SPICIEST big band ever recorded. Its a big hard song and this band does it expertly.
I will. I will say ONE thing. As a wind instrument player, and very drunk atm for unrelated reason.
Most of the point above are correct, save for the first.
Playing in syncs with other is actually easier (Imhe, ymmv) due to a stronger base beat/rhythm/placement to follow and the ability to drop out when you need a breath knowing that there is plenty of volume to cover you and and that when you pop back in, you’ll know where you are thanks to following the players around you (and which point you then provide th same opportunity to your band mates)
The other points of course stand as posited.
rating actual medieval names i have found as a medieval studies student but they get progressively more unhinged:
- William de Appeltrefeld: 8/10 bc appeltrefeld sounds like a nice place to live. who wouldnt want to live in a field full of apple trees? points deducted cause there are like fifty bajillion williams in england
- Luke de Luka, merchant of Luca: 6/10. ur parents really werent creative huh
- Hugh de Wlonkeslowe: 7/10. looks like a straight person trying to keyboard smash. *laughs in english place names*
- Roger Smert: 10/10 absolute banger of a name. does it make any sense? absolutely not! but you guys. i dont think you understand. smert!!
- John de la Bro: 7/10. when ur such a bro that its literally ur name and 800 years in the future its all people know of u
- Hugh Sad: 7/10. weve all been there buddy
- Gaylarde de la Mote: 10/10. slay. i bet this guys mote was the gayest mote youve ever seen
- Hugh de la Penne: 9/10. we stan a pasta man
- Richard de Astlegh: 10/10. verily, he shall ne'er give thee up, ne'er let thee down, nor shall he run with great haste and desert thee, he shall ne'er cause thee to weep, ne'er bid you farewell, ne'er shall he speak wicked falshoods in thine ear or cause thee harm
- Bindo Hug: 8/10. who is this man a hobbit???
- Eudo la Zusche: 6/10. deadass sounds like something youd see in a really bad fantasy novel
- William crisp: 7/10. w h a t.
- Asser son of Licoriz: 7/10 there is so much going on here i dont even know what to tell you
- Baldwin Panik: 10/10 cause this is a heckin mood
- Richard Cok, aka Dick Cok: 69/10. nice.
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Anonymous said: Wait wait you can't just drop that off and not elaborate. What do you mean is there a mafia presence in Wales?? Please spill, what things did you notice?? |
Okay so bearing in mind that I have ADHD and Chronic Terrible Observational Skills:
- I am in Cardiff
- For a concert I am attending solo
- Doors open at 5
- 4:15 ish I go ‘hmm I should eat something’
- Cardiff is - unsurprisingly, being tiny and yet home to FOUR concert venues - Very Busy
- Find McDonald’s
- McDonald’s is very full. I recall my last concert related McDick’s experience, and promptly bounce
- Directly across the street
- Is an Italian restaurant
- It looks closed but fuckit maybe I can beg for like. Bread or some shit
- Go over
- Am immediately pounced upon by the hitherto unnoticed chain-smoking woman hanging out by the door mostly hidden by a potted ficus(?)
- “I was wondering if you were open and if-” “yes yes we are open what would you like?” (strongish Italian accent)
- Inside restaurant is Deserted
- Explain that I’m sort of in a rush, am assured it’s fine
- Order chicken milanese which is generally a pasta dish with a breaded chicken component
- Am led to seat nearish the front and promptly provided with a pint of coke in a glass tankard
- Am then provided with a front row seat to an absolutely incomprehensible series of people entering and exiting (and in one case walking directly into) the door to what I can only presume is the kitchen
- Starting with the guy who had been sitting at a table chain-smoking over a pile of papers
- I counted at least three people exiting at least twice without actually entering in between
- Am finally brought food
- It is a breaded, butterflied chicken breast approximately the size of my face and a small pile of pasta approximately the size of my fist
- It is all delicious
- Chain-smoking papers man reappears, now wearing a chef’s apron labcoat thing
- Go up to pay, chain-smoking ficus lady is now having a very loud argument in a language I did not recognise but was not Italian Welsh English French russian Gaelic or Spanish
- She sees me, says, and I quote 'ah little girl lost, one moment’ and promptly hangs up
- I am 27 and only nominally female
- I am not remotely lost
- She charges me for the pint of coke but not the food
- I try to point out that she hasn’t charged me for the food
- 'do you want to pay for the food?’
- ’…. Not if I don’t have to?’
- 'good’
- I leave. The door is now full of half a dozen very tall very Italian men and one absolutely adorable cocker spaniel
- I ask if I can pet the dog (I have my priorities straight okay)
- I am allowed to pet the dog. The dog and I are now best friends
- The dog lead holder asks me in extremely accented but impeccably correct English if I had enjoyed the food
- 'yeah it was great!’
- Everyone laughs a bit
- I smile and pet the dog and realise I’m now late for the concert and hurry off
- I see a post on Tumblr about mob fronts and several connections are made in my brain all at once
Everyone I’ve mentioned this to has gone ‘was the food really good?’ as a like initial litmus test for front-likelihood so I’m glad to see we’re all on the same page here
More male characters who are interested in their mother’s legacy. As a trope there’s a lot of sons and daughters who follow in the father’s footsteps and there’s yes, girls who honor their mother, ect. But let’s have more dudes who are like. Stumbling on their mom’s secret fairy cottage or some shit. And they’re like aight gotta make the tea
in bujold’s vorkosigan saga, miles vorkosigan bombs out of the fancy lad planetside military academy because he’s too disabled to make the cut, so he sulks off to space and becomes captain naismith, leader of a mercenary fleet, using his mom’s name and nationality and legacy of having been a kickass expeditionary space captain. he starts out wanting to honor his dad’s side of the family but the more the series goes on the more he learns to respect his mother’s incredible accomplishments. it’s really fucking cool.