Thinking about "who is the real villain in Frankenstein?" discourse and the trouble I think is that I don't think Mary Shelley was all that interested in who is the baddie.
Storyteller about storytellers. 18th century to today & beyond. Associate Prof of English Words: Polygon (RIP), LARB, etc Next book: HOW STORIES ARE PLAYED (#TTRPG Actual Play & digital storytelling performance) ecfriedman.com (free) patreon.com/ecfriedman
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Thinking about "who is the real villain in Frankenstein?" discourse and the trouble I think is that I don't think Mary Shelley was all that interested in who is the baddie.
The other thing (largely from my experience of radical coops) is "who is your point of contact with the press?". In particular, the answer should not be "anyone can send out press releases without oversight".
Even as a one person shop, I’ve been documenting processes because I’ve seen what happens when you wait.
Ironically this circles back to the somewhat-muted takeaway from the Rascal piece: when you’re a small creator/collective, every collaborator is both an investment & themselves taking on some risk. You’re the little guy to every company whose services you need. So much built on trust & reputation.
The ones that survive/thrive have/gain that invisible apparatus (editors, production-side labor, legally-enforceable contracts). But such things aren’t always immediately legible to new entrants who don’t come in from the legacy version of whatever the related industry is.
I think about how collectives form — esp folks w/ prestige/influence (read: audiences) but without $ upfront. Vital roles go unfilled in part because they’re invisible & hard to “sell,” & partly because they’re often the transferable skills that can switch industries & eat with less risk.
This. Taking audiences seriously, & celebrating that knowledge comes from *multiple* experts, not constantly the same 1 (even on matters they're not on top of just b/c they talk well). In Our Time models how we gain from exchanging ideas, not to win a debate but to understand. Long may it continue.
Something I didn't get to say yesterday: We heard over and over during the event about "human-centered" approaches to "AI". But if refusal is not on the table (at every level: individual students and teachers right up through UNESCO) then we have in fact centered the technology, not the people.
Relatedly: why I ask “who is your lawyer?” when a new journalism/media collective announces itself:
Just received an invoice for the legal fees on our latest Disco Elysium documentary...
Many amazing games included in this bundle, for a cause that sorely needs it - what relief we hope to provide through this must go in concert with calls and actions toward justice; peace is not enough, peace does not stand up to the shame of what’s been done. The arc of history needs hands to bend.
How do we convince publishers to stop doing this? Bibliographies and footnotes matter. They should be printed. Websites decay faster all the time. Especially in an era of huge mergers like the one that created Penguin Random House, where calls for efficiency see pages culled at every chance.
Adapting a new fully faithful Frankenstein that begins with Margaret Walton receiving a 120 page long letter from her estranged brother and being like “what the ever-living fuck?!?”
I heard all the chuds are worried cause steve gave jay that one ancient dai-katana forged in the heart of primordial earth and she's gonna use it to cut the munchkins average play time down to a palatable 3 and a half Hours
We as reviewers and journalists in tabletop need to stop framing everything as existing ONLY in relation to Dungeons & Dragons
And also (deeply context-specific): who is your lawyer?
Different ways to answer, different ways it matters depending on what you’re doing, not one “right” structure but I think about these a lot. Especially the last one, which is the one least likely to be answered (but I hope the answer is “not one person”)
As a reader, at this point my questions for worker-owned media collectives are variations on: Who has editing experience? What’s the editorial workflow? What’s the roadmap for onboarding folks with primary/sole job of editing? Who has the keys? (As in, accounts in their name, passwords, etc)
I have welcomed 3 of the 7 in-person fall visitors in the last 48 hours — @jdragsky.bsky.social @guyintheblackhat.bsky.social @emnk.bsky.social — & played 8 hours of Seven Part Pact in the span of 11. I just went to the gym & even carb-loaded to the gills it was… a lot. Will be a potato for a bit.
And these illuminated manuscript pages blew my mind. I was in total awe—the reference points for these are so specific, the narratives are delightful, and the level of detail is astonishing. These are *arguably* my favorite pieces in the whole book.
YAY
When I have more brainpower and fewer campus guests I’ll have more coherent thoughts. I want to emphasize publicly I don’t think my thoughts rise to a critique of the piece as a whole.
The core of this piece is improtant and newsworthy, explaining for the first time publicly some questions folks have had about the future & current status of some beloved & popular games. I would note that there’s some elements of the reporting that I think don’t serve that vital core.
Long read: For around one year, indie publisher Plus One Exp operated as a business unit within a shipping and warehousing company called Brandfox. They worked with Possum Creek Games, Stockholm Kartell, among others. It was disastrous for almost everyone involved. www.rascal.news/plus-one-exp...
*evil wizards
Parents, teachers, students should be outraged that their right to an excellent education is being exchanged for this slop.
Hi did you move your newsletter away from substack? drop it in the replies so people can find you and subscribe! I am big on rewarding good choices
So turns out I’m the voice of Jane Austen (or her narrators at least) at a National Trust exhibition now
Were you 20 or older during the height of the Satanic Panic? I'm researching that period for a game *and* novel, and I'd like to interview you about your firsthand experiences if you'd like to share them! (1/2)
the big 4 sewing pattern brands are being sold off for parts. if you want patterns, get them *now*. (if you're secretly a zillionaire who likes sewing patterns, call the liquidator immediately with your chequebook) craftindustryalliance.org/parent-compa...
Woohoo!!!!
this is one i'd heavily advise listening to in a cozy place with no distractions. it's big. it's final. it's tomorrow: www.patreon.com/planetarcana
Holy shit
All this week, I'll be posting lesson plans and materials from my History of RPGs class, where I ran micro versions of historically significant TTRPGs like AD&D and Apocalypse World! Every day I'll post a new game I ran in my class. Stay tuned!
The deadline for submitting proposals for #BSECS2026 is only two weeks away. Get scribbling! #skystorians #18thC 🗃️ This year's theme is 'Big and Small', 7-9 January, Pembroke College, Oxford. www.bsecs.org.uk/conferences/...
I wanted to organize a labor/union screening series at my previous job for...reasons. Never happened, but I made this list for it
!!!!
I very carefully ask Austen nerds about their feelings about Heyer, because she is often cited as an author who “knew” the Regency period. At *best* she shoved early 20C screwball comedies into year-and-season-perfect outfits out of La Belle Assemblée. At worst… good god. Just… no.
Also Heyer’s super pro-racist interpretation of the era has become a feedback loop wherein Regency costume events often have a significant amount of overt Christian nationalist racism and misogyny going on because Heyer’s books have caused those spaces to seem safe for that.
I'm thrilled that Michael Barnes (@indelibleaustin.bsky.social) quoted me in this fascinating review of a new book (sort of) about the Galveston Movement. www.statesman.com/news/history...
To be clear, I’m responding originally to Gena’s post about work that *deviates* from the sound practice of very focusing on very specific case studies. My original point (pre-caffeine) was to point to the methodological challenge of trying to say something confidently about audience writ large.
Ecfriedman.com has the peer reviewed stuff, authory.com/EmilyFriedman keeps automated track of most of the public-facing stuff. And aub.ie/critrolebib is a crowdsourced bibliography of AP related scholarship.
One week ago, thousands of New Yorkers tried something new. They heard about it last minute. They didn’t know where it would take them or who they would meet. It was free, earnest, even educational. It was the #ZcavengerHunt and it was a thing of beauty.
(This brought to you by Dudes Telling Me About Games They Haven’t Played & Actual Plays They’ve Never Seen)
Also true on the analog side. Also true among Actual Plays. I don’t want [XYZ] to have pervasive market dominance. But I also like [XYZ] to an extent, as do many folks I teach/play with/etc. Oh, & if you MUST note how your Thing is different from [XYZ] I sure hope you know [XYZ] inside & out.
YUP.
I had friends who drove across country from Philly & stopped in Houston. They thought they’d reach New Mexico the next day. We explained they’d die if they tried. (Slight exaggeration, but there’s a whole lot of desert without cities for hours in West TX)
Tired: invite me to a cis male drag show Fired: invite me to RuPaul's Drag Race watch party at a gay bar Wired: invite me to a trans- or queer-produced drag or burlesque show Inspired: ask me to invite you to a trans/queer board game night
“In the late 1960s, Dr. Rossiter was working on her Ph.D. at Yale, when a comment from one of her male professors puzzled her. Who, she had asked, were the women in science? There were none, he said. Another professor mumbled something about Marie Curie being the exception.”🙃
(This is related in many ways to the way Mercator/mapping also fucks with your sense of how far north/south latitudinally countries are — which really does a number on your expectations around light, especially in high summer or deep winter)
New Zealand is bigger than you think.
The drive from Plymouth to Wick in the Highlands of Scotland is shorter by miles than the drive I took from my childhood home to my PhD program in Missouri, or the drive from Houston to Atlanta. A comparable mileage north from San Diego is still in CA. (Did I sort of know all that? Sure. But still)
I’ve lived in both and it still boggles me a little that London to Edinburgh is a shorter drive (by miles) than Houston to Oklahoma City or Atlanta to Cincinnati.
Huge name in our field and yet, this was her experience😔
Perspective.
Sometimes we’re unsatisfied with a thing we made because when it only existed in our head, we saw all the things it could have been and when it’s done we know all the things that it isn’t, but we can’t see the way it expands into a million new things when someone else unpacks it in their head. 🖊️🦑
It’s really a question that is rooted in different game systems, play styles, other training you bring to the table, as well as the nature of how the AP is recorded. And it isn’t a steady state necessarily — folks can be aware in some moments & not in others.
I think why I shy away from many invocations of “community” because too many don’t seem to have people in them.
I read my timeline & think about how frustrating people are, how inconvenient, how inevitably irritating. We are tedious, untidy, difficult. We change in unexpected ways, we need, we get sick. We get in the way. Something (it has many names) draws us all together even so.
I’m finishing a book defining and describing Actual Play and what we can say about how it’s produced, why folks participate, why folks watch/listen. Because of my work in/around TTRPGs I know folks who made what we’d call APs before that term had migrated to apply to recorded play for audiences.
Too many different sites/spheres — many audience members are largely offline, & online each platform (Tumblr, Twitter, Reddit, etc) has its own culture. Plus, a ton of fans have retreated to different private Discords, some of which specifically ban anyone with ties to cast/crew.
I think there are tables that are able to get into flow states where they aren’t hyper-aware of an audience beyond the folks they’re playing with. One could argue (& folks have) that it’s required, but it’s tied to perception. (What folks think they know about what’s “raw” or not is… often wrong!)
That’s a different issue — Beth didn’t know what AP was but she damn well knew she was on a comedy podcast from day one. And many APs are made along those lines of “ignorant of AP as a form or even TTRPGs more generally but very aware that there’s opportunities in D&D content”
Sometimes I toy with the idea of trying to craft a standardized survey that AP creators & their teams could then distribute variants of to their respective fan bases, but the fever passes.
Reason number eleventy-billion I don’t do the fan studies side of my current field (or my “home” field for that matter) is that it’s so freaking hard to figure out representative samples, and I don’t envy those who try to do it.
In terms of streaming, I think you’re right. Which is why it’s striking to think about the more “ready for television distribution” projects that had more cash behind them around that time.
It’s pretty early though not the earliest — and definitely aware that it is AP, & commercial in some meaningful sense (it was hosted by The Escapist & had mainstream media coverage)
I don’t think you can record your play & upload or stream it now & be totally unaware of AP as a phenomenon. You might align yourself in contrast/opposition to some other APs. I would push back against what I suspect you mean about “thirst” — there’s still many, many reasons people make AP.
As you know (this is one of those “comments directed more generally”) it’s all of those are factors (aside from Twitch being “new” — that’s sort of complicated to claim, though definitely a major shift in its focus) but CR wasn’t the assumed bet on the AP runaway success of the 2015 G&S projects.
Very early YouTube and/or podcast recordings of RPG play whose creators don’t associate those recordings with AP, for whatever reason.
I am currently fascinated by “Actual Play that didn’t realize it was Actual Play” — a rare or extinct form now, possibly.
Javi is selling a lot of cool stuff in his garage sale tomorrow, LA people, DM him for all the info! He’s worked on so many cool projects and has so much great pop culture swag!! 👀
all American schools should ban phone use during class hours, but we CAN compromise by bringing back Internet-connected computer labs where the nerd kids can retreat to look at fanfic during lunch
This is very cool @friede.bsky.social - for all who put it to use, would love to see what you did, how it went with your students! I was so pleased with responses from mine after we folded, cut and assembled them together and then read and discussed…
For the last few months, I've been selling tabletop games at general - not geek or gaming - markets through Cardboard Monster. Here's what I've learned about selling games to people who don't think they like games:
Some reflections on replicas, the internet's untethering of information from reproductions of works of art, and a lovely email I received from a stranger one year ago. sonjadrimmer.com/blog-1/2025/8/30/will-the-real-hildegard-von-bingen-please-stand-up-its-replicas-all-the-way-down
Possible causes of your problems. It’s a diagram that (sadly) still seems relevant in 2025, so reposting a year and a bit on.
Quoted (with citation) in my own syllabi this term:
Double that ratio.
your FIRST RenFaire? HOW?
Also, anxiously hoping I get approved for a teacher discount (it's never clear whether professors qualify) so I can channel my aspirational @parisnoire.bsky.social energy on some new Fancy Oxfords.
See also: roleplaying games.
Charis is such a great spot. Y'all go!
My students are reading some of my work (optionally) this coming week, and it's gonna be interesting to see what they do...
I have been paid and had all my summer reimbursements land, so of course there are multiple crowdfunds in my inbox clamoring for attention.
I will say college towns also punch above weight class in "know a guy" energy.
Lost her virginity on her mother’s grave, kept her husband’s calcified heart on her. Goths wish they could.
That line was LONG
My favorite part is that I was reminded of its existence by my friend who is (comparatively) offline but posted on FB!
BOOOOO (though I was there at 7.45 out of paranoia!)
(Oh and pork bao just for me, because of course a farmer’s niece in central Alabama is selling blueberries and three kinds of bao)
My 1st guests overlap with the end of summer city market. So I have gone overboard: Filipino bread rolls Houston style kolaches Chilton county peaches, & localish blueberries. Local cream top yogurt in plain & “golden“ Pastries & GF cookies from my beloved former students’ bakery Opelika honey
I see and I hear and I speak no evil; I carry no malice within my breast; yet quite without wishing a man to the Devil one may be permitted to hope for the best. -“An Ethical Grook” by Piet Hein
Very happy to read about these young, principled, and interesting librarians working in various places in Philadelphia 📚 www.phillymag.com/news/2025/08...
Hey Firefox users.
LET'S FUCKING GOOOOOOOO 🔥
If you’ve liked any tabletop game in the last fifteen years, Meg and the Bakers are somehow part of that. They’ve done so much for this hobby and community. Apocalypse World flows in the veins of modern gaming. You want to own this game.
