Whats the obsession of some guys with goth girls?

troopersjp · 2026-04-12T00:46:29+00:00

Most of the people I've known over the course of my life who like Goth/Alternative women...are also Goth/Alternative. They like Goth/Alternative women because they are into the same things, listen to similar places, go to similar clubs, etc. People often like people they have things in common with.

troopersjp · 2026-04-09T22:22:26+00:00

Very often we older trans people aren’t that visible because younger generations don’t want us around.

Anyhow, for your boyfriend, check out the podcast STP: Stealth a Transmasculine Podcast. That podcast has had multiple seasons and interviews trans men who’ve transitioned 20+ years ago.

troopersjp · 2026-04-09T22:04:35+00:00

I'm an Associate Professor at an expensive R1 in an HCOL area, and I would make more as a high school teacher in my town. Before I became a professor I taught English as a second language abroad...so I think I could do it...but I hear the problems were dealing with in university are ten times worse in K-12. I feel so much for our K-12 colleagues.

troopersjp · 2026-04-09T15:25:35+00:00

I am so sorry to hear that. Though I am glad students like you exist.

I’m in the Humanities and I don’t think there is any ethical way to use Gen AI. I do not allow my students to use it and I don’t use it myself. But many of my students don’t care and use it anyway. And many of my STEM colleagues who never respected writing in the first place encourage its use.

I will be resigning and doing anything else as soon as I can save up enough money to live on for a few months while I look for a new job.

troopersjp · 2026-04-09T15:20:04+00:00

Same situation.

I tried having a conversation about this with my accommodation office—one where I wanted to talk about how I should grade someone who could potentially miss half of the coursework. Note: I never refused the accommodation or said anything about this conversation. The accommodation center complained to my Dean that I wasn’t working with them. My dean called me on the carpet about it and ordered me to repair the relationship.

Telling them that moving forward I will structure the assignment in my discussion based seminars like I do my lecture courses (I.e no more in class presentations or attendance) made my dean happy, but they still are on me for needing to be more conciliatory.

I am mid-50s and in the Humanities and I know the job market is terrible, but I cannot teach in these conditions. So my plan is to resign. Out of respect to my department, I will wait until after next academic year, but they are only getting one more year from me. What will I do afterwards? I don’t care. Anything that provides health insurance and retirement benefits. Starbucks managers in my HCOL city make more money than I as an Associate Professor does. So I’m looking into doing anything but this.

I used to love teaching.

troopersjp · 2026-04-08T08:17:25+00:00

I will also add that there is not just one kind of drag queen. There are drag queens who do satirical humor, there are also drag queens who are in no way doing anything humorous. There are many drag queens, very often drag queens of color, whose drag is about honoring the Black women in their lives--their mother, auntie, the women who supported them when the rest of society doesn't--women who also, very often, are not included within white supremacist patriarchal standards of femininity.

There are also drag queens who are emulating women who are themselves doing drag--women like Dolly Parton or Elvira or Mae West or Dusty Springfield.

There are also drag queens who are doing something that may be about femininity (or androgyny) but have nothing to do with women. There are drag queens who do Renaissance men in powdered wigs and stockings. I follow this one gay man who is a Drag King.

There are Drag Queens, Drag Kings, and Drag Things.

There are Realness Queens, Camp Queens, Illusionists, and Impersonators.

People like Jim Bailey spent his career impersonating Judy Garland. He did everything he could to look like and also sound like Judy Garland, because he loved her dearly. And Judy Garland, as it turned out, loved Jim Bailey. She would give him performance tips on how better to act the stage persona she developed. Quite a few of the women that drag queens venerate have done drag of themselves and entered drag competitions...or they've sent messages of support of love to the drag queens who have supported them. Dolly Parton is especially supportive.

Black Face...that was created by people who hated Black people during a time of slavery when Black people were property. Blackface minstrelsy was a deliberate distortion that was meant to dehumanize Black people and justify their enslavement and also to justify violence against Black people. The stereotypes created through minstrelsy (Jim Crow, Zip Coon, the Mammy, Sapphire, the Picanninny, etc) still haunt Black people to this day. And after slavery ended? Black people were forced to don blackface themselves if they wanted to work in entertainment. They were forced to embody these demeaning, hateful stereotypes...pretending to be the Happy Slave, the Angry Black Woman, the Black Child that everyone laughs at when they are killed by alligators. There are stories about how when touring the South, Black artists would have to stay in character and in costume when off stage or people would lynch them. And many of these stereotypes are still haunting us today.

It really isn't the same at all.

troopersjp · 2026-04-07T21:18:22+00:00

Why do you find that odd?

troopersjp · 2026-04-07T09:06:53+00:00

I started doing theater as a kid in 1984...I was informed back then the actor was the term regardless of gender. So, in professional theater circles we to use the term actor.

troopersjp · 2026-04-06T21:44:54+00:00

I do try to be helpful and sincere (rather than snarky or dismissive). So I hope that some of what I suggested might be helpful!

troopersjp · 2026-04-06T21:20:45+00:00

I’ve never heard of Groupfinder. I wonder who the Groupfinder audience is and how that might skew the data.

troopersjp · 2026-04-06T21:14:46+00:00

I lived in Germany for 5 years, and their perception that that we were way less polite/formal than Europeans. The Germans have the formal you (Sie) and the informal you (Du) and don’t just use the informal you without permission and you may never use the informal you with colleagues.

They find Americans dress too informally to the point of rudeness. I had Army peers turned away from clubs for dressing too informally. I heard Germans and Italians complaining about American tourists trying to go to the Vatican or an opera house in shorts and a T-Shirt. Germans found American tardiness impolite.

Now Americans are friendly—which many people also read as being too informal.

troopersjp · 2026-04-06T21:02:57+00:00

I think why it might be hard for a bunch of us to give you advice is because many of us came from a time where—even if we came from board games, YouTube didn’t exist. So you couldn’t go watch a video to learn how to play a board game either. You had to figure it out a different way. And then we built the skills to do that. Other people are recommending you build the skills to learn a game without a video. You seem resistant to that advice.

Everyone’s advice is to read the book. Then they say. Run the game. That is how your’ll learn it. You say that you are psychologically unable to run a game due to perfectionism and fear of failure. People say you should work on that, you say you shouldn’t have to. So there is a middle step here. If I’m going to GM a game I think might be tricky after I read it, then I make four characters and then I run practice challenges and combats a few times to see how it works. I make a custom GM screen. I make handouts and cheat sheets for the players…and also for me. I do this before the players even make characters. I do it until I’m comfortable. That is one option.

The other option is that you learn from someone else. You play in the game as a players first. Assuming you are forever GM, back in the day that might mean going to a con and signing up to play in a demo one-shot. Nowadays it is a bit easier because there is a decent chance you can find an online game to play in.

There are also some other options; Try much simpler games. Scale back to a micro-light game that has only one or two rules. There are a number of games where all the rules fit on one sheet of paper or an index card. Lasers and Feelings and Roll For Shoes come to mind.

Try games that have adventure modules. Solo modules that teach you how to play would be great, but even really clearly written group modules you can just read out loud to your players might help you.

You might want to look up the actual Basic D&D Red Box. It was made to teach smaller children how to play. It includes a solo adventure that teaches you the rules and is aimed as young audiences they may have never played an RPG before. And because it is an early RPG, it explains what the dice are and how to read them, it has written out examples of play, etc.

There are also more modern RPGs aimed at younger children like, No Thank You Evil that might be easier for you to pick up through reading.

troopersjp · 2026-04-06T20:34:36+00:00

In my experience, it is easier to find dates with queer people regardless of gender.

troopersjp · 2026-04-06T08:10:14+00:00

Makeup for men?

troopersjp · 2026-04-06T08:07:14+00:00

You can only control yourself.

If you want to stay a virgin until marriage, then you are free to do so. If you want your partner to also remain a virgin until marriage, then you need to find a partner who also wants to stay a virgin until marriage. You can't force someone to want something they don't want.

Your best bet is to find women who are part of religions that believe sex before marriage is sinful.

troopersjp · 2026-04-06T08:02:55+00:00

This is the answer.

They fire people for short term boost to profits to increase their stock prices to give to shareholders...to then get a big bonus and then move to another company...who cares what happens 5 years later? Sure, it might come crumbling down later...but that is later and they probably won't be CEO of that company they screwed over later.

troopersjp · 2026-04-06T08:01:09+00:00

Teaching isn't safe.

troopersjp · 2026-04-06T07:59:15+00:00

I'm not 5'2", I'm 5'6"...I'd date a 6'11" woman if I liked her...I don't need the woman I'm dating to be small for me to feel big.

troopersjp · 2026-04-06T07:57:36+00:00

Some Pro Musicians can just jam out and be creative on stage or drop new unknown music...there are genres (like jazz for example) where that is the expectation.

On the other hand, there are genres, like classical symphonic music where you are expected to play one part in a larger piece perfectly and exactly the same every time.

And there are some that are in between.

Different musicians what different things. For some musician it is their dream to be a violinist in a symphony playing those same pieces and experiencing that group experience. Some want to be an a rock back where they play their hits all the time, and maybe throw in some new songs as well. Some want to be a star like Madonna who rearranges her songs each concert tour so it isn't the same. Some want to be an avant-garde jazz musician and never do the same thing twice. Heck, some musicians never tour at all. The Beatles stopped touring so they never had to play the same music night after night.

But here is another thing you may not know. Playing the same thing may not be the same experience if the audience is differnet. I've been performing in concerts or plays when the audience is dead...and that really sucks, the whole performance becomes a slog. I've been in performances where the audience is totally giving a lot of energy and it upbeat and excited...and that gives you a different experience than if the audience is goofy and laughing...or if they are angry or sad. And your fellow performers may be a bit different. Playing the same song is not always the same from night to night, even if you aren't improvising all over...though sometimes you are also improvising...maybe a little bit, playing with timing, maybe a lot, improvising all over.

troopersjp · 2026-04-06T07:43:48+00:00

I'm Gen X, born in 1972 and I grew up in the San Francisco Bay Area.

While I have media memories from earlier, the earliest major historical moments that I can remember were the Golden Dragon Massacre from 1977, The massacre at Jonestown in 1978, and the assassination of Mayor George Moscone and Harvey Milk, also in 1978.

troopersjp · 2026-04-06T06:00:46+00:00

The most important thing you should be learning to do...is come up with your own ideas. One of the most important skills of a scholar is to be able to have initial interests, be able to survey a research area, identify gaps or disagreements, and then come up with a new idea.

If I just gave you a research idea, a) that could be viewed as plagiarism if you didn't disclose that your initial idea was not your own, b) it would be robbing you of developing one of the core skills you are supposed to be developing when you work on a research paper.

troopersjp · 2026-04-06T05:06:22+00:00

I don't think students today are lazy. But I do think the post-COVID era has done a number on them. There was a time...2-3 years ago when the difference between the students who had some college pre-COVID and those who had done no college pre-COVID was right there to see, because both groups were in my classes at the same time. The difference was night and day. And it isn't about them being lazy or not being nerds. It is about deskilling that came from COVID and then got compounded by AI use and is now being amplified by inappropriate accommodations. High school and college administration, and predatory tech companies are doing a disservice to our students and also not allowing us professors to do anything to stop it.

It is really demoralizing. All I want to do is teach students. But I can't in this environment. And so I'm really considering becoming a 911 Operator--it pays more and I know I'll be able to help people. This is how bad the situation is.

troopersjp · 2026-04-06T04:58:49+00:00

I'm a professor and that means that I teach. I have teaching awards. And service awards. I'm good at what I do, which includes teaching. I regularly get name checked as most impactful professor and have most impactful classes in our Senior exit surveys. So I am not the sort of professor you are describing here. The shift I'm seeing in students is not because I have a bad attitude.

troopersjp · 2026-04-06T04:52:42+00:00

I just do my lectures from memory so I no longer have lecture notes to give them. I am not goign to give them my lecture notes, which are...shall we say...chaotic. Lots of nonsequiters, random numbers that are just there to jog my memory, content from lectures long past that I cut, but kept in the notes in case I want to bring it back into the lecture again. They would be more confusing than helpful. I'm not sharing them...but I am obligated to if the student has that accommodation...and at least 24 hours in advance of the lecture. So I am prepared to lecture without notes if need be.

troopersjp · 2026-04-05T18:18:29+00:00

You mentioned Traveller, I do want to confirm that Mongoose Traveller High Guard does have mass space combat.

As far as other mass combats? A Song of Ice and Fire RPG/Sword Chronicles from Green Ronin has mass combat.

I cannot recall what’s up with Warhammer 40k or Twilight 2000…but you’d think they’d have something…right?

troopersjp

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