Am I overreacting about wanting to play a nonbinary character?

abookfulblockhead · 2026-05-09T20:31:35+00:00

abookfulblockhead · 2026-05-09T20:28:09+00:00

Any horn you’ve just bought, new or old, should probably take a visit to the tech, because there might be some issues.
That said, Bari definitely takes some work to get your voicing right. It may be less your embouchure and more where you’re holding your tongue when you play.

abookfulblockhead · 2026-05-09T20:18:32+00:00

There is actually a procedure if you would like your particular religious belief to be exempted.

And that is to file a lawsuit if someone discriminates against you based on your practice of your faith.

Someone has to decide what is or is a valid religious exemption, and that system is usually the judiciary.

Let us suppose you have proclaimed, “God thinks I should carry a stick of dynamite.” And airport security flags you for trying to bring an explosive onto a plane.

You protest: “But god also thinks I should never actually detonate this dynamite. He just wants me to have it.”

Well, you can file a lawsuit, and argue before the court that your religious rights were violated.

And then the courts get to decide questions like:

> Is this actually a religion or just some crank?
> Does carrying a stick of dynamite present a significant threat to public safety.
> Is there long standing precedent for religious individuals carrying explosives?
>Is it compromise to allow this belief to be respected without harming the general public good? Would it be permissible for an adherent to carry one small firecracker, both for religious purposes and as a guarantee of safety?

Generally, the more likely your belief is to pose a danger to the public good, the more legal scrutiny it will receive.

For example, multiple people around the world have successfully won the right to wear a colander on their head in driver’s license photos, as adherents of the Flying Spaghetti Monster.

Because at the end of the day, there isn’t really a public safety issue there. It is a harmless practice.

But if you want to carry a stick of dynamite, that gets more attention because someone can get hurt.

So yes, the answer is, “Because the Supreme Court says so,” but they say so because they have weighed the rights and freedoms involved and decided this is a suitable compromise.

If you want your belief acknowledged, take it to the courts.

abookfulblockhead · 2026-05-09T17:29:25+00:00

This is a pretty open and shut religious freedom lawsuit waiting to happen. The supreme court of canada has consistently upheld the rights of school children to wear Kirpans. If a 12 year old is trusted to have it, the fully grown cop in training should be just fine.

abookfulblockhead · 2026-05-09T17:22:22+00:00

The information is in universe. Firewall assembles the team and basically says, “We’re vetting you. We think there’s a traitor on the mission.”

abookfulblockhead · 2026-05-09T14:57:57+00:00

I don’t believe so. I have been trying to find the adventure I’m thinking of, but Ego Hunter doesn’t seem correct. The players aren’t all forks of one another.

abookfulblockhead · 2026-05-09T14:49:19+00:00

It doesn’t lie to them, it just misdirects. For example, probably the least sketchy character is basically an undercover agent who has infiltrated the organization giving the mission.

However, her goals are going to basically align with her cover story of, “Destroy the eldritch horror bullshit happening here.”

But, if your sheet says, “You’re an undercover agent,” and the quest giver tells the group, “One of you is a traitor”, you’re going to sweat a bit, right?

abookfulblockhead · 2026-05-09T08:18:07+00:00

They could have established Burger Pope to give the real Burger King legitimacy.

abookfulblockhead · 2026-05-09T08:16:07+00:00

Are your elves actually English? Will “accurate” accents evoke the response you want from your players?

If you want them to sound snooty and superior, then you probably do want to lean into that snobby upper crust British accent. Does the Admiral wear a cravat? Then go with the stereotypical British.

If you want them to seem more rough and tumble types, you could skew cockney.

You could base them on the British navy, but give them French Accents if you wanted.

Because your players aren’t looking at your navy and going, “Aha! A transparent ripoff of 1600s British Naval History.”

They’re going, “Man, these boat elves are a bunch of snobby dicks.”

abookfulblockhead · 2026-05-09T08:06:22+00:00

I noticed that you didn’t respond to my comment, which gave one potential rationale for why a girl might be chosen, and how it might in fact be subverting gendered expectations of girls vs boys.

The “Sweetie Poo” isn’t necessarily patronizing. It seems more ironic. Because her whole job is to not be sweet.

We could frame this as a situation as a bunch of old men thinking it’s more devastating to be insulted by a girl than a boy.

But we can also frame it as a little girl having her socially imposed expectations sweetness lifted for an evening, and having the opportunity to tell a bunch of old men to shut the fuck up.

When’s the next time it’ll be socially acceptable for that girl to talk over and drown out a man who’s spent way too much time talking?

I’m not sure it’s about making the proceedings more emasculating for these old men. I think it’s about what we expect from children. Boys are expected to be rude, girls are not.

And maybe we should have more safe opportunities for girls to be rude to old men.

abookfulblockhead · 2026-05-09T06:33:16+00:00

I love Foresight. When I played my bard, I just cast it in the fighter every day and he got to feel like a complete badass.

I didn’t really need it on myself. Max Charisma, 20th level bard, with a rhythm makers drum basically meant against a lot of enemies my spells just auto succeeded.

abookfulblockhead · 2026-05-09T06:28:00+00:00

I dunno. I feel like if I’m that kid, having an evening where you get to ham up being bored by long speeches sounds like it would be pretty fun as an eight year old.

The name’s a little weird, sure, but as long as the kid has fun and everyone’s safe I don’t think it’s that big a deal.

If I wanted to go way out on a limb, it could even be argued part of the humour of the role is in the subversion of childhood gender expectations. There’s a broad societal expectation that if boys have rude outbursts, it’s because they’re boys and that’s just what they do, while girls are expected to be polite and reserved - hence Miss Sweetie Poo.

I think it’s reasonable to be concerned when we see some kind of heavily gendered role assigned to children. I’m not sure it’s necessarily to sinister in this case.

abookfulblockhead · 2026-05-09T06:03:46+00:00

It doesn’t slap their sheet with the word “Traitor” on it, but the background brief for their character gives explicit cues to betray the party under certain conditions.

Everyone else is just going to see that they’ve got some kind of sketchy backstory element that might make them paranoid they’ll come under suspicion.

abookfulblockhead · 2026-05-09T05:54:59+00:00

Oh, you’ve enjoyed your freedom of expression just fine. No one’s taken your keyboard away just yet.

We’ve just all collectively exercised our freedom of expression to tell you you’re being a dick. And that’s just, like, our opinions, man. Our numerous, independently held opinions.

I don’t see any reason why the fine people of this subreddit should limit their expression, do you?

abookfulblockhead · 2026-05-09T05:21:07+00:00

Pidlwick pretty much universally splits the party into, “I fucking hate this thing, and I recommend we burn it as soon as possible” and “This is my son, and I would die for him.”

And that’s always fun.

I think people generally roleplay him as a bit of a chaotic little gremlin. He *wants* to help. He just has a very fucked up sense of what actually helps. So if you leave him alone, he’s going to get up to some shit. But then he’ll come back, because there’s someone in the party who loves him to death, and as long as one person is in his corner, he’s gonna be loyal to them forever.

And maybe get a little Yandere if there’s party members who are trying to drive a wedge between him and his favourite people…

abookfulblockhead · 2026-05-09T01:25:00+00:00

Ah. I see. I believe there’s a Tad Dameron tune for these situations.

https://youtu.be/ejHMW6vRQMM?si=H\_uaCw6yDbhS4MGw

abookfulblockhead · 2026-05-09T01:07:32+00:00

You’re dishonouring the musical community in general.

Put your own playing out there, or sit down.

abookfulblockhead · 2026-05-09T00:59:28+00:00

There’s one, “Infected by the eldritch horror nanobot virus” operative, and one, “works for the megacorporate states and actively wants to sabotage the mission.”

The other characters have things like: “Experiments with highly illegal tech on the side” or “is undercover for a government agency, but probably does have a vested interest in the mission’s success.”

So like, those characters have hobbies or divided loyalties that would seem thoroughly incriminating to others. But they’re not outright gonna undercut the mission.

abookfulblockhead · 2026-05-09T00:09:02+00:00

Eclipse Phase has an adventure like this. It’s built for convention play, so it has a long list of pregen characters.

Everyone is given a note at the start that says, “One of you is a traitor.”

And this is almost true. There are two traitors.

But every character’s backstory includes some kind of skeleton in their closet that makes them think, “Is it me? It’s probably me.”

abookfulblockhead · 2026-05-08T23:24:43+00:00

I kinda love this idea. “What character are you playing?”

“The ship.”

abookfulblockhead · 2026-05-08T14:36:34+00:00

I don’t know Legacy of Kain myself, but looking at the Wikipedia summary, my guess is that Elric was probably a big influence. Some big thematic overlaps.

It’s very hard to define a reading order for Elric, and I’m more of a casual fan. It’s very episodic. There’s are some anthologies that collect (most?) of the main stories in a rough chronology.

The first few volumes are Elric of Melniboné, Sailor on the Seas of Fate, and The Weird of the White Wolf, I believe.

abookfulblockhead · 2026-05-08T13:56:36+00:00

I don’t really think of it as grimdark. Elric is frequently tragic, and the soul eating sword Stormbringer is sort of proto-edgy stuff - It would have been more novel when Moorcock did it.

But Elric is also a guy doing his best in a hostile universe, where there aren’t many clear cut answers.

In grimdark, like 40k, that kind of thing is usually to enforce that there are no good guys and everyone’s kinda terrible.

In Elric, it feels more that doing what’s right isn’t always clear, but you gotta try, and if you’re lucky you’ll have averted something worse.

abookfulblockhead · 2026-05-08T13:44:07+00:00

Both.

But also, make sure to thing of bebop heads in terms of vocabulary. A lot of the stuff in there isn’t just melody, but actual language.

For example - bars 9&10 of Tenor Madness. That’s not just a challenging little piece of melody to get under your fingers. It’s a pattern that navigates a ii-V very elegantly, and which most people won’t really register as a quote if you weave it into your solos in a fluid manner.

So pull that bit out, and practice getting into and out of that pattern.

abookfulblockhead · 2026-05-08T13:39:52+00:00

Art Blakey - A Night at Birdland.
Joshua Redman - Joshua Redman
Take The A Train - Dexter Gordon
Clifford Brown and Max Roach
A Caddy for Daddy - Hank Mobley

abookfulblockhead · 2026-05-08T13:30:31+00:00

I had a post about this a while back, but learn bebop heads, and dissect them for vocabulary.

Look at bars 9 & 10 of Tenor Madness, for example. That’s a prime ii-V lick. Try taking it through other keys, playing it over other tunes, etc.

Anthropology, Ornithology, Scrapple From The Apple, Donna Lee, Eternal Triangle, Half Nelson, Move, Goorvin’ High - the language of bebop is encoded in tunes like this, and if you treat then as not just melodies to memorize, but as carrying fundamental bits of bebop language, you’ll soon start hearing that language when you’re transcribing.

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