MountingSuspicion

Ooh. Nice. I never mess with ally betrayals because I honestly don't think I have the chops for it. Very hard to do, so I totally get how you wanted to give them a proper send off. I'm sure the players enjoyed their swift revenge though!

Does the process of getting to the BBEG not involve unraveling their plans? Like, shouldn't the party to a certain extent know their goal(s) before deciding to go after them? And then particulars are divulged as they uncover the threads tying the BBEG to all his henchpeople as they defeat them. And then they understand the steps of the BBEG plan as they track down the items needed to stop them? I'm sure there are some minor things not 100% spelled out, but what did you really want your party to know that they didn't already?

I was responding to this part of the other comment:

The child actors would have already been paid, boycotting the show isn't going to negatively affect that.

People should be paid for the work they have done. We as a consumers are just not obligated to support their projects. Those things can both be true. They are children and do not need careers at the moment, and they are certainly not owed careers in entertainment. It is fine to boycott them, and I'm sharing my opinion that it should be part of the larger strategy of boycotting JKR. If you disagree that's fine, but my statement that they deserve compensation for their labor doesn't contradict my larger point.

For the most part I agree, but I still think it's important to make sure the individuals participating in this project also know that they are viewed negatively due to their association with her. It should be seen as a career ender and studios should know that actual talent will be unwilling to work on these projects going forward. People who manage young talent should know that these kinds of projects will get their clients blacklisted and should not be accepted. One of the kids is already in something else, and I'd suggest not watching that either. I'm not saying that this is the only thing that should be done, but I'm assuming people in this sub are likely already doing the other things you've outlined, but might not think to boycott the things the kids are in going forward. I don't want the kids not to get paid. I want the people who manage them to see that the payday was not worth never having a successful project after that. JKR can self fund HP reboots for the rest of her life, but if we make hiring the people that participated untenable then it won't matter. They will have to decide between HP or having a viable career after.

It is talking about the kink community as though it's equivalent to or entirely contained within the queer community. Plenty of kinky people don't identify as queer. The "kink community needs safe, sex positive, queer inclusive spaces" is not as flashy as a title. The lgbt community is regularly lambasted by the idea they are all consumed by kink/their sexuality is predatory and forced upon the public, so the framing of the title seems to lean into that claiming that spaces for "public sex" are needed, where most people in society wouldn't think of sex in a sex club or bathhouse when they hear "public sex." These are private clubs where people generally have to actively consent to this and know what to expect. It'd be like saying "the queer community needs space to have sex with people that aren't their partners" and then the article is about how dating apps should let queer people also list that they are poly, not about how the queer community needs to accept cheating. I think these spaces are great and add to the queer experience and community as a whole, but are not necessary for a portion of the queer community, while also being necessary for a portion of the non-queer community. The framing is sensationalist in my opinion and in a way that can easily be taken out of context to reinforce negative stereotypes. I'm not playing into respectability politics, I'm just saying there are more accurate titles for the article that don't bring up imagery of sex in the middle of a park to the average American, but those titles don't garner as much engagement, so the editor/publisher chose one more capable of inciting hate than the one that's more accurate/informative.

The title is so obviously sensationalized it detracts from any actual message

Thank you for sharing! I hope everyone is able to find a partner as loving and supportive as yourself.

I hope you don't mind me asking a different question here, but feel free to not respond. It's nice of you to take some time to help OP and I don't want to discourage that by asking a follow up you may not want to respond to, but if you're willing, do you mind sharing if your view of your personal sexuality changed? If you were previously only attracted to women, do you now consider yourself bi or pan or something else, or is it just an attraction for your husband? If it's an only him thing does he feel some way about that?

Really depends on your definition, but by most online consensus and generally by most definitions I've seen, a DM can indeed metagame. If you personally don't feel that way, that's fine, but a DM is considered a role player in my experience so the following definition holds: The act of a roleplayer making use of knowledge that they have learned out of character (and which their character does not know) while they are in character

If I have a random shopkeep tail the rogue of the party through the shop, even if their character does not give off rogue vibes, I'm being metagamey. I know they're going to try something so I use that to change the behavior of the shopkeeper. To me and to most other people according to a quick search, that's metagamey. You can feel differently, but I believe that puts you in the minority.

Yea, like I said, every table is different. I'm sure some people would love that and think it's great. Others might not. Diversity in the space is really good for the hobby in my experience.

Totally understandable take. Definitely have had townspeople giving differing accounts of the beast they encountered in the woods so players aren't sure if it's a vampire or a ghost or werebeast etc so they're on their toes and keeping an eye out for anything (this is an oversimplification but you get the point).

I would never ask a player if they are averting their eyes unless I had reason to believe they would (like I said above maybe they were already warned). If they touch a poisoned object I'm not asking if their hand is gloved or if they're using a cloth. If they are doing something out of the ordinary I expect them to say as much unless it's already established that their character always wears gloves or something.

Setting the tone is important and also a good time to give them some information on the monster. If it can shoot spikes I might refer to the spikes as like the quills of a porcupine or something to try to telegraph that if it's bright enough and their skills are high enough to normally make that connection. If they misconstrue tone setting for actual information I generally do not correct them unless I think their PC would know better in which case I will sometimes outright correct them or have them roll for additional clarification. It's hard to know what their PC would actually be able to gather if they were a real person, so I try not to penalize them for what may at some point just be my failure to describe what they see as a DM.

Different play/DM styles are good though. Lets everyone find a table that's right for them.

Honestly, as a queer person, I don't know if I'd be excited for a queer tour. There's enough queer oppression day to day. I don't know if I'd be excited to hear about it on vacation too. I'm a firm believer in everything being political, but I think it's ok and probably good to take a vacation from the news every once in a while. I don't tour slave plantations when I go to Disney despite knowing FL was a slave state (I don't go to Disney or FL anymore). I feel like it's ok just to want to be for a bit.

Good on you for going though. Glad to hear it was fun!