(un)twisting - TGZ Project

#''(un)twisting: transness in play'' An Explorable Personal Essay by (text-colour:magenta)[(link-repeat:"@time-to-occur")[(open-url:"https://kinkymind.games")]] ''CONTENT WARNINGS:'' childhood embarrassments, discussions of gender, sexuality, dysphoria, kink (impact play, mind control/hypnosis, pain play), sexual arousal, identity, brief discussions of transphobia and violence, some graphic language, other potentially NSFW or spicy content... ''NAVIGATIONAL NOTE:'' External links like the one above are magenta; links to passages you've already visited are red. ''SPECIAL THANKS TO:'' PB, Teddy, and greenheart -- your feedback and support helped me realize the version of this game that was closest to my vision for the concept --- ''Introduction'' I heard about the Trans Games Studies project over three years ago. At the time, I was asked to write a short editorial piece, which I titled "Hopes and Wishes for Trans Game Studies". The project has transformed a lot since then, and so, too, I think, have I. But, some things haven't changed at all. {(click: "changed at all")[(text-colour:#BA504B)[(text-style:"emboss")[ I am someone who has long positioned themselves as "transmasculine", "transgender", "genderqueer", "genderfluid" and "nonbinary". I obviously think that there is something particular about that language, the language of transness, that isn't covered just by the word "queer", though I also use that word for myself. Yet, as a scholar and creator, I have also positioned most of my work as "queer design" and "queer theory".]]]} (enchant: ?question's chars, via (t8n-delay:pos * 40) + (t8n-skip:80s) + (t8n:'instant'))|question>[ ###["The question in my heart is: What's particular about trans game studies?"]] {(click: "trans game studies")[(text-style:"fidget")[ ### What are the demarcations, if messy, between trans game studies and queer games studies? Is it really just a matter of positionality? I don't think so.]]} At the same time, these definitional exercises can trap us in loops. {(click: "trap us in loops")[(text-colour:#BA504B)[ //(Raise your hand if you have been through endless definitions of what a game is, or what art is, and if games are art, and...!//)]]} You should go into this knowing that I ultimately don't have an answer for you about what makes trans game studies trans, what's particular about it. But, trying and failing is pretty queer, right? Maybe pretty trans, too. My goal in this piece is to explore my personal identity constitution through queer and trans embodied practices and experiences as a form of play. This is me thinking through what is trans about my trans life, and what my transness gives me as a human, as a creator, as a thinker, without taking away from what my queerness gives me. It's messy. The boundaries are porous. Maybe this piece will help you form your own ideas about what's particular about transness as it relates to trans games. This personal essay is a work of memoir. Some version of these stories has happened to me, though some parts will be true in the sense that memoirs are true. Okay, [[let's ground ourselves in some light theory->01a]] before we move into the more personal part of this. (set: $beard to "") (set: $beardDisplay to "") (set: $earrings to "") (set: $earringsDisplay to "")

''Sara Ahmed points out that the root of the word "queer" is greek, and comes from the greek for “Cross, oblique, adverse”. She describes the twistiness of it and argues for the preservation of two senses of the word "queer": (1) "as a way of describing what is 'oblique' or 'off line'" and, (2) "to describe specific sexual practices". Ahmed notes that "specific sexualities [are] describable as queer in the first place [because] they're seen as odd, bent, twisted" (2006).''^^1^^ If queerness is about a twisting, oblique orientation to the world, then exploring transgender identity has been, in a very literal way for me, about //''untwisting''// my body-- pulling back my shoulders, expanding my chest no longer feeling a need to contort myself into a different shape{(click: "different shape")[ (binders did that for me, for a while, but I shed those, too)]} feeling free to take up space when I started testosterone, I gained half an inch in height{(click: "height")[ not because I grew, but because I walked taller]} the last film I saw before I had top surgery was //Knives Out// {(click: "Knives Out")[ god, I thought that was so fucking funny -- knives out before the surgical scalpel came out]} and I feel so much lighter now than the tissue that was carved away I unfurled [[but, uncovering my queerness transformed me, too->01c]] [[maybe that unfurling is what makes trans games trans->01c]] ^^1^^Ahmed, S. (2006). //Queer phenomenology: Orientations, objects, others. //Durham: Duke University Press.

(enchant: ?quote's chars, via (t8n-delay:pos * 60) + (t8n-skip:100s) + (t8n:'instant'))|quote>[(text-colour:#BA504B)["not gay as in happy, but queer as in fuck you"]]^^2^^ What it means to be queer shifts in relation to what is normative. Ontologically, linguistically, being queer means continuing to twist and be oblique, at odds, with the status quo. To bring difference to our way of moving through the world, in our ways of designing for the world. But, to be at odds with someone is also a nice, sanitized way of saying that you're in a disagreement with them and that it's getting a little heated. The word "queer", in its least sanitized sense(click: "least sanitized")[(text-style:"fidget")[ -- without the cisheteronormative status quo trying to absorb it, rehabilitate it and redeploy it in service to it --]] is a political orientation as well as a word to describe gender and sexuality. Queer rage and grief is bound up in that difference, in that orientation. We are at odds because of our difference, and because that difference is dangerous.{(click: "dangerous")[(text-style:"fidget")[ Dangerous to the status quo. And those defending the status quo are dangerous to us. For a while, some of us might have thought it was safe to let down our guard a little, but the pendulum swings back around again and we are once again so deeply in danger at a systemic level.]]} A On shifting definitions of queerness - YOU ARE HERE. B [[Moving from queer rage to other themes->03a]] C [[The messiness of distinctions between queer games and trans games->02b]] D [["trans" as in transformative->04]] ^^2^^//It's hard to trace the origins of this phrase, but it's been around since at least the 2000s and was used as the title of the introduction to the 2018 Game Studies special issue on Queerness and Games, which also has some more discussion about the phrase.//

Putting aside any idea that trans games and queer games need to be in opposition, that games cannot simply be queer and trans at the same time, the words "queer" and "trans" don't mean the same thing. (click:"mean the same thing")[ That means that queer games and trans games don't exactly mean the same thing either, even if a game can be both at the same time.] Why are these definitions so messy and complicated? Why can't we pin them down and be done with it? Well, because (cycling-link: "the word 'queer' has so many valences", "there's no one way to relate to your body, your desires, or your art through the lens of identity", "queerness at its core may not want to be understood neatly and that's a feature, not a bug", "nobody is an authority on these 'outsider' identities", "we can only describe, not define", "queerness, at its best, refuses to assimilate into the status quo", "'queer' and 'trans' communities have some common histories", "we allow ourselves indeterminacy", "just as intersectional identies cannot just be broken down and separated into their component parts, neither can the experential sources of elements found in queer and trans art"). But, let's keep trying a little longer to think through some of the qualities we're working with here. A [[On shifting definitions of queerness->02a]] B [[Moving from queer rage to other themes->03a]] C The messiness of distinctions between queer games and trans games - YOU ARE HERE. D [["trans" as in transformative->04]]

The body of queer games is far from one-note, but I would not characterize it as being full of rage. (click:"full of rage")[ A representative sample from the Queerness and Games Conference (QGCon) arcade (which mostly has North American game creators) shows queer people wrestling with forgiveness, or choosing softness, choosing love, rather than hardening themselves off, or imagining how the world might be different. They're not typically about rage or anger, and where they are, they are usually about what to do with those feelings in a productive way, in a way that can transform the world.] But, the canon of queer games, especially the early, "famous" games, is also full of transgender gamemakers. Think for a second. What is the most famous early queer game you can think of, the one that the cis hets have heard of? My brain says, "//(text-colour:magenta)[(link-repeat:"dys4ia")[(open-url:"https://w.itch.io/dys4ia")]]// by Anna Anthropy", a game about a white trans woman's transition that was once hosted on *Newgrounds* of all places, that garnered so much attention that at one point, the creator made the decision to take it down for a number of years. For a time, was on every game studies syllabus, during the "diversity penance week", with a bunch of other games by people who were weird, different, or basically not white cis men. It is also an early example of that most dreaded of guilt-assuaging balms, the *empathy game*. (click:"empathy game")[(text-style:"fidget")[Ugh. But I'm not here to talk to you about that.]] Many other early examples of the last (not latest) generation of queer games (I'm not forgetting about you, *Caper in the Castro*) were created by transgender people. (click: "transgender people")[(text-style:"fidget")[ So, are they queer games or are they trans games? What's the difference? Does it matter? Do I care? Do you? Both. The answer is obviously that they can be both. Still...]] A [[On shifting definitions of queerness->02a]] B Moving from queer rage to other themes - YOU ARE HERE. C [[The messiness of distinctions between queer games and trans games->02b]] D [["trans" as in transformative->04]]

That's as far as I think the theory can get us without talking about experiences, so enough of that. Because I have closest access to my own experiences as a queer, trans game designer, let's do some navel-gazing. Let me tell you about using the [[lens of play->06]] as a hammer, through which I view every experience and activity (or almost) that I do as a damn nail, and why it's so important to me, as a trans human and as a designer.

I told my therapist once that play is my main verb. My main mechanic. The lens through which I view my actions and practices. <img src="images/prism-lens.jpg" alt="" /></a> It can mean so many things. (click:"so many things")[For me, that includes, playing a role as in theatre or roleplay, playing a game, playing music, kink play, designing play for others. ]The lens of play is powerful. (click:"powerful")[ And, importantly for this work, I think that play, in allowing me to take on different roles, try new things, and reveal the systems at play/work around me, has had a profound impact on my identity constitution.] Here are some stories of how that's worked out for me, through the lens of my experience as a queer, trans game designer.^^*^^ TABLE OF CONTENTS [[01->T01]] Kink as Play [[02->T02]] Visual Identity Play and Identity Constitution [[03->T03]] Roleplay While Trans [[04->T04]] The Bathhouse [[05->T05]] Cruising in the Digital World When you've decided that you're finished with these, [[let's bring it back to how these experiences connect to trans games->E01]]. ^^*Full disclosure: to allow myself to write freely, let's just say, for the sake of it, that these are //''totally''// fictional stories with, uh, emotional truths. For the parts that are autobiographical, I may have changed some details for any number of reasons, including the fallible nature of human memory, the need to elide certain details for safety, or because I've decided that they're none of your business <3. I've also written in the second person to bring you closer in on the action.^^

''Kink As Play'' You come to public/group kink play in your late twenties. Your relationship to pain has been complex for a long time. You have an uncommonly high pain tolerance, for some kinds of pain, and the chronic pain and bodily damage to go with it. You've known you were kinky for much longer, and had a consistent play partner from the beginning of early adulthood. You still play with the same person now. (click:"you were kinky")[Your first kinks were mind control and hypnosis. You can still remember watching Queen Beryl from //Sailor Moon// brainwash Tuxedo Mask, making him switch swides.] (click:"Sailor Moon")[ You know, come to think of it, meeting Sailor Uranus/Haruka Tenoh might have been the first thought you had about being some flavour of trans, way back then. Memory is fickle. <img src="images/tuxedo-mask-haruka-tenoh.jpg" alt="" /></a>] But it's here, in public, where you learn how to control pain so that it can become pleasure. You learn that the key is in the ramp-up and in the contrast. You learn to beat someone's ass with open palm, fists, bamboo, wood, and leather. You learn to enjoy having your ass beaten, too. How strange it feels at first, to invite pain, to invite intensity, and to find yourself laughing and moaning with it. It's the inversion of social order and roleplay that strikes you as queerest. [[Tell me about the roleplay.->T01-01]] [[I want to read a different story.->06]]

''Visual Identity Play and Identity Constitution'' It took you until you were twenty-four years old and about to get married to learn how to put on makeup. Not costume makeup -- you got into that earlier. You liked doing zombie makeup in particular. But, you remember how for high school graduation photos, when the photographer's assistant realized that you weren't wearing any makeup at all, she slathered a pink gloss on your lips. How you hated how you looked! <img src="images/pink-gloss.jpg" alt="" /></a> Your mom framed that photo and hung it in the living room despite your protests. So, you took it down and hid it. Repeatedly. Finally, she put it up in her bedroom, where you still had to see it. You couldn't communicate what about it felt so wrong. It just didn't feel like //you//. [[You thought you hated makeup.->T02-01]] [[I want to read a different story.->06]]

''Roleplay While Trans'' This is a story about two things: tabletop roleplay and play-by-post roleplay. Or, really, it's two stories, but they start the same. <img src="images/keyboard-mouse.jpg" alt="" /></a> You started to pretend to be a boy on the internet when you were about fourteen years old. In fact, you started to pretend to be several boys. At first, the line between fiction and reality was very clear. You were playing in roleplay chatrooms and forums. Buuut... Someone lied to you. (click:"lied to you")[They lied about who they were, they invented dramatic, tragic things and asked for your emotional labour. And then, eventually, they came clean about who they were and that those things weren't really happening. They assumed, however, that you were playing close to home, that you were similar to your character (a boy, from a different country, a little older than you are) and being fourteen, you decided not to disillusion them. At first, it might have been a kind of petty response to having been lied to in the first place, but being someone else felt good.] (click:"being someone else")[ Being a teenage boy felt good. But, you didn't guess, then, that you actually were one, because you didn't want to be a //man//. Not really. If you could have snapped your fingers and become a cis boy, you wouldn't have. You still wouldn't, now.] (click:"a cis boy")[ But, of course, back then, you didn't know that there were options beyond the binary. And you'd only seen trans people -- mostly trans women -- portrayed as figures of (tragic) fun by cisgender actors.] [[You pretend to be a boy online for the next three years.->T03-01]] [[I want to read a different story.->06]]

''The Bathhouse'' You're queer, you do things out of order. That's why you started to run queer kink events, and have been for years, before you go to your first gay bathhouse. Maybe the thrill of it would have been different if nudity were still titillating to you in the way that it is to people who have never been around it. Okay, to be fair, there are reasons that you waited. (click:"reasons")[ Namely, you chopped your tits off right before the start of the COVID-19 pandemic and you've been cautious ever since. Saunas are humid places where it's easy to get a mask wet.] <img src="images/towel-steam.jpg" alt="" /></a> The only reason that you came to this one is because you were only risking yourself. You were in another city. You had already taken a plane to get there. But, you were there for a purpose, and though you were taking precautions and masking the entire time, you couldn't avoid crowds as much as you usually would. So: Bathhouse. (click:"Bathhouse")[ You knew ahead of time that you were limited in what you could do by the fact that you decided to go with a friend last-minute, meaning that your PrEP, which you take according to your doctor's recommendations on the "on-demand" schedule (a certain amount of pills before any possible encounter, a certain amount after for a couple of days), was back home, in another country. And, being that you were masked, you didn't know if people would be scared off. Basically, you went there because you crave novelty. You thought you'd actually make use of the hot tub to relax your body, exhausted from travel and a strange bed. You thought that you'd see what you could see, absorb the vibes, and leave, probably. Though, being poly, and having talked to your spouse before going, you weren't against playing with someone, within your boundaries.] This is your chance to roleplay your best, imperfect, bathhouse-going self and play with the conventions of this particular kind of cruising. [[The vibes were surprisingly vanilla.->T04-01]] [[I want to read a different story.->06]]

''Cruising in the Digital World'' It's true, at least for you, what they say, about the first little while on synthetic testosterone. Let's be frank. You were already a pretty horny person. Hormone replacement therapy dials you up to about a twelve out of ten. For the first time in your adult life, you are in a polyamorous relationship with an outsized libido and you decide that it's time to try out that app life. Grindr (click:"Grindr")[, Scruff,] (click:"Scruff")[Recon,] (click:"Recon")[Lex,] (click:"Lex")[OKCupid...](click:"OKCupid")[ Look, you decide to try for a full-spectrum experience]. The first thing that you find is that you are supremely grateful to be allowed to have a kind of "dabbler" status on these apps. (click:"dabbler")[You intend to treat people with respect and not waste their time, but if you absolutely had to find a long-term partner in this way, the landscape would probably be pretty upsetting.] The second thing that you discover is that Lex and OKCupid are the places to go if you're looking for more than just sex. The third thing that you figure out is that the attention, the dopamine hit, is compelling. Being desired is compelling. But, it's hard to distinguish between sincere acceptance, reluctant tolerance, and chaser bullshit. The datapoints that you have are too limited, and it's hard to find people who express themselves in text in a way that gives you confidence in them. <img src="images/parody-app.jpg" alt="" /></a> To be honest, there isn't much more to say about that except that being fetishized can really suck. But, there is something else to say about playfulness and the faces we present to the world. [[Let's talk about profiles.->T05-01]] [[I want to read a different story.->06]]

Kink play, public kink play especially, feels like a kind of sexy larp. Full of language around being "in a scene" and out of a scene, full of twin techniques to make taking emotional and physical risks safer. Safewords, traffic lights, hand signals, cutting and braking, tapping out, aftercare and debriefing... You walk into the Madame's dungeon.(click:"Madame's dungeon")[ //The place is a local institution. It's been around for decades, at this point. Each room is themed, most of them in the classic blacks and reds of stereotypical BDSM. Leather and wood. There's an overall modern gothic feel. There's even a gargoyle statue somewhere around here.//] You change into your costume. This helps you get into the right headspace, into your character for the evening. You wear a (cycling-link: "red, heavy cotton utility kilt", "pair dark grey rubber shorts", "leather boxing shorts", "lacy, elastic boxer briefs") with a (cycling-link: "black mesh crop top", "leather bar vest", "bulldog harness", "bare chest"), and (cycling-link: "black leather shoes", "running shoes", "socks", "bare feet"), and a (cycling-link: "black leather collar with black hardware and a d-ring", "black hood that attaches at your shoulders", "feathery epaulettes", "horn headband") to bring it all together. Then, you put on your flomask, because you are a COVID-cautious queer and this party asks everyone to take COVID precautions, damn it. You know, because you help organize this thing and you bring all the air purifiers and N-95s yourself. <img src="images/harness-and-flomask.jpg" alt="" /></a> [[Okay. I'm ready to head on-stage.->T01-02]] [[I want to read a different story.->06]]

You literally go on-stage. Surprise, babe! Not only do you organize the COVID precautions, which make it possible for many disabled and immunocompromised queer and trans folk to come enjoy themselves, you are also one of the facilitators for the consent and etiquette workshop. You can't escape play here either (and why would you want to?) (click:"escape play")[-- you play out scenarios for the attendees, and you ask them to do the same. You ask them to negotiate handshakes and discuss their theoretical limits with strangers. You help them laugh out their giggly, nervous tension. You teach them how to respect the space and each other.] [[This is a queer, trans space.->T01-03]]

Come find out for yourself sometime. If you're good, maybe I'll tell you more about it in another story. Anyway, I can only tell you what it's like for me. If it's just smut that you're looking for,(text-colour:magenta)[(link-repeat:"I can also provide that")[(open-url:"https://kinkymind.games")].] [[Okay, take me back to the other stories.->06]]

That might have been the first time that you remember experiencing dysphoria. Simultaneously, you got the most elaborate green organza silk prom dress and shocked all of your schoolmates when you showed up at prom with your now-husband. Your cousin, who worked at your high school, cried when she saw you in that dress. Yet, on some level, this felt like a performance. An enjoyable one. Thinking back now, it might also have been a way of orienting yourself toward what you thought were your partner's desires. And then, just before your engagement photoshoot, seven years later, you went to Sephora with someone who knew what they were doing for the first time. She acted as your makeup artist as a wedding present. With your agency returned to you, you found out that you liked makeup a lot, actually. (click:"agency returned")[ Femininity became a thing that you could perform for pleasure. You spent the next few years exploring it deeply: a-line dresses, sweetheart necklines, cap shoulders, gingham and poplin and cotton, long, beautiful curls, a classic kind of aesthetic -- almost postwar, all you were missing were the pearls. <img src="images/fancy-dress.jpg" alt="" /></a> ] [[Until...->T02-02]] [[I want to read a different story.->06]]

Until you tried on your first binder. (click:"your first binder")[ You weren't even at home. Home was a kind of uncertain thing, moving between a small city in the Northwest and what you thought of as home, even though it wasn't your address, in Montreal. You were at your in-laws' house, alone. You were living there, whenever you came to visit. The binder was grey, and you had ordered it with a nervous, unsettled glee that you understand better now. You thought it might make certain kinds of exercise more comfortable. You told yourself you were buying it so that you could cosplay male characters, a time-honoured tradition that you had only ever really dabbled in. You tried it on, and you felt shy. Not ashamed, but vulnerable. Like, you shouldn't like how it felt to see yourself that way as much as you did. But, you //loved// it.] [[You saw yourself in a whole other light.->T02-03]] [[I want to read a different story.->06]]

You don't remember being scared. You just remember worrying, a little bit, about what other people might think. Somehow, even then, you trusted your spouse's love. Your sister made you promise not to cut your hair short or dye it "weird" colours before her wedding. You were pissed, but you obliged her, just to avoid an argument. She got married. Your grandfather died. (click:"Your grandfather")[(Your grandfather, the man, the //person// that you most admired in the world, the person who taught you how to tell stories, how to plant a garden, how to love quietly and gently, how to transform the past into a living thing, how to be an artist for yourself and not for anyone else.)] You cut your hair shorter and shorter in stages. And, still you loved makeup. You loved the //drama// of it. You loved how you can accentuate certain features with contouring, how you can transform yourself with such intensity just based on where you position your eye shadow. Eventually, it became clear to everyone, but most especially to yourself, that you weren't a woman and never have been. Your childhood experiences came into sharp relief -- that sense of unbelonging, that feeling of being an outsider. [[As a child, you played football.->T02-04]] [[I want to read a different story.->06]]

As a child, you played football with boys. They saw you as a girl. Some didn't care; some resented you for it, tackled you harder, went after you to try and punish you for your audacity. You remember not knowing what the words "jerking off" meant. Some of the football boys were talking about it. Maybe you hadn't heard the expression because you went to a French school, but really, the thought that this was a thing that people did to themselves had never really occured to you. Thinking, from context, that it must mean fooling around, goofing off, you embarrassed yourself by saying that you had jerked off right in the classroom, right in front of the teacher. And that embarassment, that unease with the whole situation, was what it felt like to try to be a girl, to try and relate to the girls around you, just as much as it was what it felt like not to be a boy. Like, you didn't fully know either set of customs, and were doomed to transgress. [[As an adult, realizing you were trans was a relief.->T02-05]] [[I want to read a different story.->06]]

Realizing that you were trans freed you to be queer. It allowed you to make sense of your past attractions. It freed you to explore new patterns of behaviour and new choices that didn't have to follow old, uncomfortable schema. And, so far, you've chosen to do that in a way that is visually loud. You use clothes as a way of communicating outwardly about yourself, but also, as a way of communicating to yourself. (click:"communicating to yourself")[The power in that first binder, which you wore practically to pieces, was immeasurable and transformative. Trying it on was literally life-changing.] In playing with makeup and clothes without gender normative rules, you explore moods and thoughts. You armor yourself. You choose the face that you want to present to the world. You see what feels right, what works and what doesn't. That play is one way that you reconstruct and reconstitute yourself, building and rebuilding, altering and tearing down. Lately, you [[play a game->BG01]] where, for every millimeter of beard, you wear a half-inch of earring. So long as you don't have to wear headphones. [[Let's hear a different story.->06]]

It's "genderfuck night", meaning that, though you might have worried, on any other night, that your trans body might create some weird vibes with cis gay men, even in "enlightened" San Francisco, you can relax. It is early on in the night, too. Less crowded than it will probably become. Strategic, when you need to take the kinds of precautions that you do. Once you get inside, you feel (cycling-link: "disillusioned", "disappointed", "pitying", "smug", "saddened", "grossed out", "like you ought to have shower shoes", "alienated", "homesick"). Maybe you'd have felt differently if you didn't have years of kink experience under your belt. As it stands, there's the kind of seediness of a nightclub with the lights on, sort of. [[You wander.->T04-02]] [[I want to read a different story.->06]]

You wander. There's a DJ booth, a gym where mostly cis men are working out naked, a lounge area which seems to be playing regular cable television with a lot of food ads, a sauna which you won't use in your mask, what seems to be hundreds of lockers, bathrooms (including hardware with a douche attachment that you can get a nozzle for at a nearby vending machine), the private rooms, lined up in rows along the illusion of a maze of corridors, and, of course, the singular hot tub. It's big -- can probably fit sixteen people, twenty if they were feeling extra cozy. You chat with some folks. One of them, a trans woman, is a nurse. She chides you for not bringing PrEP with you, even though you explain you just won't be engaging in those particular activities that evening. She recommends that if you are high-risk for infection, you get the flu shot twice a year instead of just once. It's a nice conversation. <img src="images/prep-tablets.jpg" alt="" /></a> Your friend, the one you came with, comes to hang out with you for a while, though they don't have the same safety needs as you and they spend a fair bit of time in the sauna, too. You've agreed not to wait up for each other if one of you winds up with company. [[Then, he turns up, and thus began an almost Victorian dance.->T04-03]] [[I want to read a different story.->06]]

He's tall, a bit of an otter edging into cub territory based on the fur and his build. He makes eyes at you. He looks you up and down as you stretch out in the hot pool. If you were a Victorian lady, you'd be fanning yourself, allowing yourself to be seen. <img src="images/victorian-fan.jpg" alt="" /></a> Being fully masked, you don't even have your facial expression to flirt with, just your gaze. You decide to play the game, see where it leads. You're uncharacteristically coy. He places himself where he is sure that you can see him admiring you. When you move, he moves. His interest is silent but unsubtle. He might be waiting for you to make the first move and talk to him. But, this isn't your scene, and there's something in you that activates, a kind of pleasure in the power dynamic of making him be the one to approach, to speak his interest in you. This exchange of glances continues for a while. When the hot tub feels too hot, you sit up on the ledge, exposing more of your naked body to his glance. Then, you slip back in the water, pretend to relax, give him the chance to look you over without your direct gaze back. After a while, you return your own roving eyes to his body. [[All in the fullness of time, he finally works up the nerve to approach.->T04-04]] [[I want to read a different story.->06]]

He whispers in your ear that he has a private room, gives you the number, tells you that he thinks you're really hot, and that he'd like to have some fun with you, if you want that, too. He's going there now, and you can follow if you want. You nod to him, enjoying the opportunity to be just a little bit mysterious. As he leaves, the friend that you came here with approaches you to check in and ask how things are going. You're on the cusp of deciding if you're going to follow. You explain that you have an offer to consider. You consider it. You decide to give yourself as much of the full bathhouse experience as you can. [[You depart down the corridor.->T04-05]] [[I want to read a different story.->06]]

You find him waiting for you in the hall. You talk a little. Inviting you into his rented room, he's courteous and does his best to break the ice and help you feel comfortable. You'd heard so many things about bathhouse encounters, and this is comfortingly human. You explain your boundaries for the night and decide what you're going to do together. He's very vocal, very verbal. He tells you repeatedly how hot you are as you touch and play. It feels validating. But, you also realize two things about yourself: (click:"two things")[1. You're attracted to the novelty of the experience, not this person, even though they are very, very visually attractive and very kind. 2. With sudden clarity, you realize that you're probably demisexual. Things fall into place -- how little porn does for you, how much narrative and emotional stakes matter to you in smut, how your attraction has worked for a long while, even if you didn't recognize it.] (click:"probably demisexual")[Still, it's nice. You don't object to playing together and you give him what seems like a very good orgasm. He talks about being a dad and having a transmasc partner who is about to give birth. This is a kind of last hurrah before the new baby comes. You clean up. The conversation ends and you say goodbye. He tries to convince you to move to San Francisco.] You leave the bathhouse. You try to get a Lyft. There are so many beautiful queer people waiting outside. Your ride keeps cancelling, the driver keeps changing. And then you're on your way home -- well, where home is for the night -- and already shedding the role you had taken on for the evening. [[Okay, time for a different story.->06]]

Okay, so maybe online cruising and dating kind of sucks. Maybe it's alienating. But filling out dating profiles feels like a kind of play. It's all about the faces that you choose to present to the world -- literally, through photos, and through your words. This isn't about dishonesty. Nobody can be encapsulated in these profile answers entirely, and you always curate yourself, choose what parts to share. You shift. You, as a transgender person who has chosen to pursue bodily changes through certain surgeries and HRT, are quite literally shifting, through the months that you choose to be on these apps. (click: "quite literally shifting")[Within a couple of months, your pictures are out of date. Your muscles and body fat are shifting, you're getting hairier in some places, less hairy in others (OK, yes, you are sensitive about the hair on your head, a little. It's such a fun thing to dye different colours! Who would want to lose that?)] So, you present your shifting face and desires to the world. That feels good. It's not a uniquely trans form of play, but the speed of the shifts and the nature of the changes certainly do feel somewhat unique. [[Is creating dating profiles a trans game?->T05-02]] [[I want to read a different story.->06]]

''So, why did I ask you to read these stories?'' I have told you stories about my personal experience of the transformative capacities of play, about how play is interwoven into my trans life so deeply and meaningfully. I think that maybe I'm not alone in having play at the centre of my life. But, even if I am, it's this centre and the experiences that flow from it that I bring to my design. When I design, these are the sorts of things that are in my heart. I play deeply and seriously. I chase golden moments and new experiences that I would otherwise never have. I play vulnerably and take risks. I play often. If I (cycling-link: "bleed", "experience bleed", "cry", "need aftercare", "discover uncomfortable truths", "reconfigure my identity") in service of those transformative possibilities, the play is worth the risk. Sometimes, [[it's part of the point->E02]]. <img src="images/bleeding.jpg" alt="" /></a>

<img src="images/danish-rock-band.jpg" alt="" /></a> In fact, you pretend to be several boys. Dozens of boys. You pretend to be an entire polyamorous Danish rock band who are deeply in love with each other and who protect each other no matter what. You break a couple of hearts. To your shame, not all of it is roleplay. But then, you don't know about bleed yet and the world still thinks about the offline world as "IRL" and the realm of the internet as something else, as somehow less real. ''Take a deep breath. Forgive your teenage self.'' (click:"bleed")[ Such a visceral word, bleed. It sounds violent, like the person experiencing bleed must be wounded. But, it's also about edges and boundaries -- a sanitized term from printing. There comes a point, at the edge of the page, where things can only be sliced so finely. The cut might land on one edge or the other of the line you intend.] (click:"edges and boundaries")[ Bleed, a larp term, is all about the feelings from within your roleplay crossing the boundaries into your own feelings. In some ways, it seems inevitable that to engage as deeply as you can in emotional play, you have to reach for emotional truths within yourself that stick with you outside of play, at least for a while.] (click:"the line")[ As an adult, with consent and with safety mechanics in play, you now seek bleed. Maybe it's the kinkster in you. You crave the intensity of those feelings reflected from the fiction. Some larpers call them "golden moments". You'd agree.] [[Somehow, none of this cracks your egg.->T03-02]] [[I want to read a different story.->06]]

At the age of seventeen, you got your first serious boyfriend. You were someone's girlfriend, though you have an innate discomfort with the word. You had dated before (click:"before")[-- a Korean boy when you were twelve who wanted nothing more than to become a missionary and play videogames who broke up with you because his mom wanted him to marry a Korean girl, a brief but intense fling with a young man whose last name meant "Love" -- you spent all of your Confirmation money together on snacks and, yes, more videogames.] -- but this was different. Being seventeen, practically an adult, after all (ha), you felt ready to think about the longer term. With that relationship, at seventeen, your priorities shifted. (click:"first serious boyfriend")[ //(You are married to him now, by the way, that boyfriend from when you were seventeen, and have been for over a decade. You have stayed together all this time, through your transition, through opening up your relationship and becoming polyamorous, through your changing body and through the necessary challenging of his compulsory heteronormativity.)//] You had less time to spend online playing by post and chatting. You start another kind of roleplay for the first time: tabletop roleplaying games. Dungeons & Dragons at first, natch. [[You probably know what comes next. A classic trans egg move.->T03-03]] [[I want to read a different story.->06]]

Listen, I'm not suggesting that only trans people play TTRPG characters of other genders. That would be silly. Buuut, I am suggesting that the experience of playing characters of other genders can be transformative in a particular way for trans people. That it can awaken things, maybe. Here is a story about Hawk. (click:"Hawk")[Maybe two years before you really realize that you're nonbinary, you start playing Hawk. Hawk, in the finest theatrical tradition, is a woman and an actor who chooses to disguise herself as a man for safety on the road. Hawk comes from a matriarchal culture and has relatively little understanding of the misogyny of the world around him (she never drops her disguise, she's always a "him" to the other party members and those around her).] (click:" her")[ Over time, you stop thinking of Hawk as a woman at all. You start thinking about them as neither a man nor a woman. You'd say that Hawk's conceptual transition happened alongside your own, but you're pretty sure that Hawk preceded you.] (click:"neither a man nor a woman")[Eventually, your perceptive GM asks you directly, whether Hawk's gender identity has changed and whether he should use different pronouns for them. You notice a shyness and reluctance in yourself, but after some thought, you tell him, "yes."] <img src="images/dice-set.jpg" alt="" /></a> [[The journeys that Hawk goes on, the transitions that they experience, far outstrip a mere change in pronouns.->T03-04]] [[I want to read a different story.->06]]

//A Brief Moment of Elegy for Hawk// Hawk's rogueish ways and kindness to the "beggars and beds" of New Alarsicka earned them a copper tongue from Olidammara, enchanting their speech and letting a part of their chosen god into their body. Hawk acted in accordance with values that they and Olidammara shared, always. When Hawk died, Olidammara, that many-faced god, honoured them by making them one of his aspects, and it was in that aspect that Olidammara visited their old friends, long after their physical body had passed on. But first, Hawk became transhuman. In the tradition of a certain group of giant strangers, relatives can become powerful spiritual weapons. What was meant to be a curse, a weapon that thirsted for bloody revenge that would not leave their side, that had once been a human, through Hawk's empathy, became an ally. The spiritual weapon's hatred for humanity and the need for revenge was put to rest. And that ally's respect for Hawk was such that she brought Hawk into this cultural tradition. When Hawk died, their thigh bone became a weapon, carried by one of their allies, their spirit attached to it, until it was time for that friend to be put to rest, too. Hawk died bravely, in the last fight against a man who wanted to unmake the world. They failed at a crucial moment, and then they failed again. And it was okay, because their friends were there to continue the fight. [[This is Hawk's story, but transition transformed your relationship to other stories, too, especially your own.->T03-05]] [[I want to read a different story.->06]]

You wrote millions of words as a teenager. You chose to go into not one but two creative writing programs. In those programs, where genre fiction felt like a bit of a dirty word, even if nobody said so aloud, you found yourself reaching into yourself for stories. You wanted to write characters who were like you, but you felt disconnected from every female protagonist you tried to write, alienated and confused about why you couldn't connect emotionally to them. Your writing suffered for it. You were competent, but not brilliant. You knew there was something missing. (click:"missing")[ "No surprise for the writer, no surprise for the reader." That's one of those cute little sayings that they tell you in workshop. No joy, no emotional connection for the writer...well, how could you expect your readers to connect to the work if you couldn't?] After you finish your Master's thesis, you don't write fiction or memoir or narrative, not seriously, for at least two years. (click:"at least two years")[You wrung yourself out writing about someone who had your experiences but who you could not connect to, all because of the gendered associations and how "she" didn't feel like "you", and you didn't want her to. At first, you thought it was burnout, and maybe that was part of it, but it was something else, too. Something more fundamentally about you, and misgendering yourself, even in fiction.] It takes years and starting your transition to recapture the pleasure of writing. And, when you do, it starts with smut and erotic play-by-post roleplay. At first, and even now, your characters are often cis or cis-ish, through that is changing. Your sense of play, as it applies to the written word, returns. You find community. You build community. There is a sense of a healing rift between you and your craft. [[That's not the end of the story, but that's where we're at, in it.->06]]

In my design practice, I often talk about awkwardness, intimacy, and vulnerability. One of my goals as a designer is to encourage you to dig deep into your own chest and feel something you otherwise might never have. My responsibility to you is to help you mitigate the risks of doing so, with safety tools and frameworks that help guide you through that excavation. (click:"mitigate the risks")[I believe in doing this, as a designer, because I think that, if play is already so central to human life, and so important to transformative experiences, if play is as important to you as it is to me, then designing opportunities for you to experience humane ways of playing is a good, powerful thing.] Maybe, rather than thinking of "trans" and "games" as nouns, or "trans" as an adjective qualifying "games", we should think of "trans" and "play" instead, as verbs. As actions and experiences that are happening and in movement, rather than as static, settled things. Maybe that would tell us more about what is meaningful about the trans experience of creation and play. For me, I think it's evident that design is a form of play. (click:"design is a form of play")[So, I am a trans game designer. I know what I have seen other trans game designers do. I know what I do. Because I'm trans, the results of what I design can be called trans games.] To come back to the question that I framed at the start: ### What's particular about trans game studies?" ### What are the demarcations, if messy, between trans game studies and queer games studies? Is it really just a matter of positionality? I don't know, not for sure, what trans games are or what they might become. I don't know what's particular about them. And, because of the transformative possibilities of the experience of being transgender and of play itself, I think that not knowing for sure is a good, powerful thing, too. It leaves us space to explore this design space and discover what's there for us. I don't have the answer, but (cycling-link: "maybe you do?", "do you still want one?", "are these even the right questions to be asking?") <img src="images/xoxo-tic-tac-toe.jpg" alt="" /></a> [[Go back to the beginning.->start]] [[Go to the Suggested Reading/Listening list on the process of design by trans game designers->readings]]

<img src="images/cross-oblique.jpg" alt="" /></a> (enchant: ?quote's chars, via (t8n-delay:pos * 40) + (t8n-skip:80s) + (t8n:'instant'))|quote>[[ ### If we return to the root of the word "queer" (from the Greek for cross, oblique, adverse) we can see that the word itself "twists," with a twist that allows us to move between sexual and social registers, without flattening them or reducing them to a single line. Although this approach risks losing the specificity of queer as a commitment to a life of sexual deviation, it also sustains the significance of "deviation" in what makes queer lives queer. ]] ####-- Sara Ahmed, //Queer Phenomenology// (2006) Follow [[the twisty little passages->01b]].

I used the word ''"untwisting"'' in [[a previous passage->01b]]. I used metaphors of expansion, of unfolding and transformation. And, I think, for me, some of the most enlivening things about my experience as a transgender game creator are related to *transformation*. Transness is transformative.(click:"transformative")[ Some trans people choose to literally transform their bodies, sure, but to embrace the existence of transgender people is to reimagine frameworks that many of us are or were inculcated into from birth.] It is our ability to imagine a different world for ourselves, different paths that our lives might take, that makes trans people so conceptually dangerous to the status quo. That change is possible, even if it takes pain, even if it takes a long, long time, is a powerful idea. It's a powerful lens to design from, too. Transgender game designers are full of possibilities that might very well break the chains of normative society. Trans games tend to explore transformative possibilities through a wide variety of emotional valences -- hopeful, horrific, horny, and much, much more. Before we move on, you might want to read a little about: A [[On shifting definitions of queerness->02a]] B [[Moving from queer rage to other themes->03a]] C [[The messiness of distinctions between queer games and trans games->02b]] D "trans" as in transformative - YOU ARE HERE. [[If you already did, or you don't really want to, onwards!->05]]

The bodies here shift and transform joyfully, both during the course of the evening and between parties. People come to celebrate their healing bodies and spirits, whether they've had surgery or not, whether the transformation and healing is fast or slow. We have bodies that are at times hard, at times soft. Neither is a judgment, will receive judgment. We have bodies that are extended by toys and tools, instruments to play and imagine with, made to disrupt. We may even choose to take on monstrosity in our play, from fantasy strap-ons to demonic personas ready to fuck you up consensually. "Traditional sex" and penetration may not even enter into it at all. Who does what to whom and how is always open to renegotiation. Here is an alternative to the status quo, to the "dominant" cultural narratives of what sex can be, of what kink can be*, outside of the male gaze. In that cishet view, even the Domina, the Mistress, is encapsulated and reabsorbed for cishet male pleasure, her power a vehicule for his excitement. Not here. (click:"*")[^^---Pssst, you. Yeah, you. Not the //you// of this narrative, but you, the reader, the person I'm letting become me in these experiences...If you are feeling an impulse to respond "not all cishet kinksters", remember that this is about //dominant narratives//, not about who you are or what your personal beliefs are. Here's a cookie.---^^] [[What's it like to do a trans kink scene? To have trans sex?->T01-04]] [[I want to read a different story.->06]]

''(un)twisting a little theory...'' <img src="images/textbook-glasses.jpg" alt="" /></a> A [[On shifting definitions of queerness->02a]] B [[Moving from queer rage to other themes->03a]] C [[The messiness of distinctions between queer games and trans games->02b]] D [["trans" as in transformative->04]]

//Is creating dating profiles a trans game?// If they are, are they a death game, like //Battle Royale// or the //Squid Game//? [[Visual Identity Play and Identity Constitution->T02]] makes the case that how you present yourself to the world can be a form of play -- playing with makeup, playing with fashion, playing with facial hair, with the shapes and signs that make up our bodies and can be read by others in myriad ways. You could say that dating profiles are one more way of taking that work and showing it to the world in a playful way. But, the intent behind many people's dating profiles is, you know, to find a date. And that's where the stakes of this game rise much higher, particularly for trans people. Moving beyond posting a profile and showing your face to the dating app world, moving beyond chatting and into the decision to physically meet, there's always the chance that your date will do violence to you -- maybe even murder you. Once you've done all the risk mitigation tactics you can think of, (click:"think of")[(cycling-link: "spending time getting to know your date online", "meeting in public places", "arranging a check-in with a friend", "carrying defenses like pepper spray", "learning a martial art", "trading bodyguard skills for your baked goods and some old magazines", "asking your cat to be a chaperone", "hiring a double to date your potential lover for the first few dates", "becoming an ascetic instead of going on dates"),] with such high stakes, maybe treating making dating profiles as play is [[psychologically protective->T05-03]]. [[I want to read a different story.->06]]

It could be that treating the use of dating apps as a trans game follows the logic of [[The Bathhouse->T04]] and its rituals. Games have rules; games frame their consequences, games suspend typical approaches to completing tasks and replace them with ludic ones. Imagine that your dating app game goal is to get the "ball" in the "hole". Imagine, further, that, the majority of the people playing with you in this competitive-collaborative multiplayer game are triflers, cheats, and spoilsports.^^3^^ It sucks. It pushes you closer toward those behaviours yourself, because the need to withdraw emotionally to avoid hurt becomes more pronounced the more often you are hurt. You are hurt repeatedly. Investing energy into the apps becomes a tentative process. If you're just playing around, it's a lot easier to avoid frustration or boredom and enter into whatever version of the flow state is available within the challenges of dating. <img src="images/flow-channel.jpg" alt="" /></a> So that's what you do. It becomes an exercise where emotional connection is for naive rubes, where those who care are "cringe". And, at the end of the day, even if all you do is flirt with people and have sex, as a trans person, you still might get hurt. There is a game to be played within the act of creating dating app profiles and using them, it's just kind of a shitty one. It's alienating in the purest sense, pushing you away from sincere self-expression into cynicism and guardedness. Fuck that. [[Okay, time for a different story.->06]] ^^3^^From Chapter 4 of Suits, B. (1978). //The Grasshopper: Games, Life and Utopia.//Toronto: University of Toronto Press.

### READING/LISTENING LIST This suggested reading/listening list is focused on trans game creators who have written about their own design processes. There are loads of creators out there, writing on blogs, talking on podcasts, and giving talks at conferences! Here are just a few suggested things to read or listen to, to get you started. >>> Ryan Rose Aceae - (text-colour:magenta)[(link-repeat:"Kritiqal Care - Getting GENDER WRECKED with Ryan Rose Aceae")[(open-url:"https://kritiqal.com/articles/kritiqal-care-ep-47-ryan-rose-aceae")]] //-- this podcast talks about Ryan Rose Aceae's experience designing GENDERWRECKED with Heather Flowers.// >>> Mattie Brice: (text-colour:magenta)[(link-repeat:"Empathy Machine")[(open-url:"http://www.mattiebrice.com/empathy-machine/")]] //-- each of Mattie's design portfolio pieces is accompanied by some writing about the genesis of the project and the reason for creating it. Empathy Machine talks about some of the problems with empathy games that I refused to get into earlier in this piece.// >>> Jess Rowan Marcotte: Marcotte, Jess Rowan (2021). (text-colour:magenta)[(link-repeat:"Hybrid Knowing: Preserving Physically and Digitally Entangled Traces in Hybrid Game Design")[(open-url:"https://spectrum.library.concordia.ca/id/eprint/988094/")]]. PhD thesis, Concordia University. //-- Jess's dissertation is all about self-study of their own design process, following three projects to completion using autoethnography and other methods. For something shorter, try their Game Studies Special Issue paper (text-colour:magenta)[(link-repeat:"on queer controllers")[(open-url:"https://gamestudies.org/1803/articles/marcotte")]].// >>> Zoyander Street and D. Squinkifer (and collaborators) - (text-colour:magenta)[(link-repeat:"Intrapology Wiki")[(open-url:"https://wiki.intrapology.com/view/welcome-visitors/view/glossary/view/worlding")]]. //-- Intrapology has a lot to do with queerness and transness and designing narratives that explore metaphors for queer, trans, disabled, fat and more experiences.// >>> (text-colour:magenta)[(link-repeat:"QGCon Archive")[(open-url:"https://www.qgcon.org/archive")]]. // -- The Queerness and Games Conference has postmortems and design talks by many queer and trans game designers. // >>> Queerness and Video Games Special Issue - Game Studies - (text-colour:magenta)[(link-repeat:"Special Issue -- Queerness and Video Games")[(open-url:"https://gamestudies.org/1803")]] //-- This special issue of Game Studies from 2018 contains a lot of very interesting articles that together summarize a lot about the formation of Queer Game Studies as a field and brings together some brilliant researchers and creators.// [[Go back to the beginning.->start]]

## BEARD:EARRING, a tiny dressup gametoything about gender presentation You are growing a beard. You also wear earrings. You cisn't^^*^^. You do not wish to be perceived as cis. Yes, queerness, transness, is about what's in your heart, but you still have to deal with other people. To make sure that your outward appearance is as queer and trans as possible, you mess with the sartorial signs and signifiers of normative gender as often as possible -- clothing choices, makeup, accessories. But, today, all your laundry is dirty except your plainest clothes and you don't have time to put on makeup. There is **obviously** only one solution. You must choose the perfect ratio of beard to earring. ^^*You ain't cis.^^ (set: $beard to (array: "some light stubble", "a goatee", "a van dyke or similar styling", "a chin curtain", "a circle beard", "a short-cropped full beard", "a shaggy, unkempt full beard", "a long beard", "a braided viking beard", "the longest, most luxurious wizard beard")) (set: $earrings to (array: "flower stud earrings", "standard captive bead earrings", "dangling strawberry earrings", "medium hoop earrings with dangling fangs", "polymer clay popcorn earrings", "two-inch beaded fringe earrings", "chandelier earrings", "seed bead cat pixel art earrings", "asymmetrical length sword and shield earrings", "fabric tassel earrings", "five-inch beaded curtain earrings with a red handprint")) ### CURRENT LEWK SELECTIONS Let's try some styles. How about...[(display: "CyclingBeard")]<choiceBeard| and... [(display: "CyclingEarrings")]<choiceEarrings| ! [[Okay, go look in the mirror.|Mirror]] [[Go back to the stories.->06]]

### LOOKING IN THE MIRROR Okay, how does this look? Hmm... (set: $beardDisplay to $beard's 1st) (set: $earringsDisplay to $earrings's 1st) ''Beard: ''(print: $beard's 1st) {(if: $beardDisplay is "some light stubble")[<img src="images/stubble.jpg" alt="" /></a>] (else-if: $beardDisplay is "a goatee")[<img src="images/goatee.jpg" alt="" /></a>] (else-if: $beardDisplay is "a van dyke or similar styling")[<img src="images/vandyke.jpg" alt="" /></a>] (else-if: $beardDisplay is "a chin curtain")[<img src="images/chin-curtain.jpg" alt="" /></a>] (else-if: $beardDisplay is "a circle beard")[<img src="images/circle.jpg" alt="" /></a>] (else-if: $beardDisplay is "a short-cropped full beard")[<img src="images/full-beard.jpg" alt="" /></a>] (else-if: $beardDisplay is "a shaggy, unkempt full beard")[<img src="images/shaggy.jpg" alt="" /></a>] (else-if: $beardDisplay is "a long beard")[<img src="images/long-beard.jpg" alt="" /></a>] (else-if: $beardDisplay is "a braided viking beard")[<img src="images/braid-viking.jpg" alt="" /></a>] (else-if: $beardDisplay is "the longest, most luxurious wizard beard")[<img src="images/wizard.jpg" alt="" /></a>] (else:)[You haven't chosen a beard style yet.]} ''Earrings:'' (print: $earrings's 1st) {(if: $earringsDisplay is "flower stud earrings")[<img src="images/flower-stud.jpg" alt="" /></a>] (else-if: $earringsDisplay is "standard captive bead earrings")[<img src="images/captive-bead.jpg" alt="" /></a>] (else-if: $earringsDisplay is "dangling strawberry earrings")[<img src="images/dangling-strawbs.jpg" alt="" /></a>] (else-if: $earringsDisplay is "medium hoop earrings with dangling fangs")[<img src="images/fang-hoop.jpg" alt="" /></a>] (else-if: $earringsDisplay is "polymer clay popcorn earrings")[<img src="images/popcorn.jpg" alt="" /></a>] (else-if: $earringsDisplay is "two-inch beaded fringe earrings")[<img src="images/fringe-beads.jpg" alt="" /></a>] (else-if: $earringsDisplay is "chandelier earrings")[<img src="images/chandelier.jpg" alt="" /></a>] (else-if: $earringsDisplay is "seed bead cat pixel art earrings")[<img src="images/bead-cats.jpg" alt="" /></a>] (else-if: $earringsDisplay is "asymmetrical length sword and shield earrings")[<img src="images/sword-shield.jpg" alt="" /></a>] (else-if: $earringsDisplay is "fabric tassel earrings")[<img src="images/tassels.jpg" alt="" /></a>] (else-if: $earringsDisplay is "five-inch beaded curtain earrings with a red handprint")[<img src="images/handprint.jpg" alt="" /></a>] (else:)[You haven't chosen any earrings.]} (text-style:"italic","buoy")[(either: "Wow!", "Gadzooks,", "Sizzlin'!", "Oh, yes!", "Amazing!", "Excuse me, but") (either:"this look","your style", "that combo", "this energy", "your vibe", "this outfit", "this choice") is (either: "unfathomably", "incredibly", "amazingly", "phenomenally", "shockingly", "startlingly", "adorably", "incalculably", "awe-inspiringly", "electrically") (either: "GAY","queer","cute","hot", "you", "satisfying", "weird", "unstoppable","unmistakable", "unmissable", "era-defining", "wonderful", "adorkable", "cool")(either: "?!", "!", ".", "?", "!!!", "...", "!1!", "???")] [[Change up your look.->BG01]] [[Go back to the stories.->06]]

{ (link: (text: $beard's 1st) )[ (set: $beard to (rotated: -1, ...$beard)) (replace: ?choiceBeard)[(display: "CyclingBeard")] ] }

{ (link: (text: $earrings's 1st) )[ (set: $earrings to (rotated: -1, ...$earrings)) (replace: ?choiceEarrings)[(display: "CyclingEarrings")] ] }