Category: Interview

I’m Tarren (they/them), and I’m an agender singer/songwriter and voice actor who’s been an avid gamer in various ways for more years than I can remember. I am working on developing my Soundcloud page which at this point has the “pocket songs” I’ve written so far. You can find the games I’ve played in here, and for info on things coming up that I can’t talk about yet, follow me on Twitter as @LandrasGembar. 

Tarren, what were your first experiences playing D&D like?  What has kept you interested in the game?

My experience with D&D goes back far before I ever played the game. I grew up in a D&D-playing household, and on occasion would sit listening to my brothers and their friends playing at the dining room table. I was intrigued, but I was also way younger than anyone in the group, and accessible materials for D&D didn’t exist. That was in the 80’s.

Fast forward to the early 2000s, when an intrepid blind GM got his hands on the *ONE* Braille copy of the original D&D rulebook and some way he could read his dice rolls and started a game on one of the various audio chat services that existed way before Discord or Zoom were even envisioned. I was hooked in…until that group ended up disbanding for whatever reason. I’d be without a D&D outlet until the late ’00s, when a job teaching assistive technology landed me right across the street from Bosco’s, a gaming store that turned out to be running D&D encounters. In those days, ebook versions of the rules were just starting to be a thing, and I would use magnification, as taxing as it was, to read the tables and get the information I needed to build my character.

I knew, once I had that character built, I had the chance to be more than I ever could be normally. I could face down any foe, I could conquer any obstacle, and it didn’t matter that in reality pretty much any physical stat was a dump stat for me. And I’ve kept on playing for those reasons, along with the excitement of visiting fascinating places not possible in reality.

As a queer person, have roleplaying games helped you explore or express your queer identity?

Definitely! D&D was a safe space where I could leave my assigned gender at the door. The fact that most of the characters I played were men aided my decision to transition from female to male, opening the door for me to eventually embrace my genderlessness.

You have participated in charity events for Everyone Games, an organization that promotes accessibility in nerdy spaces.  What do you think are the biggest obstacles that disabled people experience in traditionally nerdy spaces?

As to the biggest obstacle we face, I think there’s a bit of an assumption out there that a disabled person coming to a nerdy space probably has all their accomodations figured out, that their tools/adaptations/etc. will take care of everything, or the opposite end, trying to compensate for disabilities without conferring with the person in question. It’s a good idea, even if you think you know what a person might or might not need, to check in with them on what accommodations might or might not be needed.

What are some examples of issues that disabled people find themselves working around that other people take for granted?

I’ve read, over the years, of people in wheelchairs having trouble in public gaming events because things were spaced too close together. An average person may well be able to slip into narrower spaces, but a person using a wheelchair or other mobility aid might not be able to. Another thing we sometimes struggle with is not knowing when our energy might suddenly deplete, and we have to discard plans at the last second.

What is one thing that you wish sighted players would do when playing with partially sighted or blind gamers?

If you’re going to use an image, map, or other visual aid, describe it. This will keep us on the same page as the rest of the table. For those who do audio podcasting, if your podcast listeners would be left out, so would we. In chat spaces, if you share a GIF or meme, please add a description so that those who can’t see it well, if at all, know what people are talking about. Also know that not all text can be read by screen readers, and when it can, it’s sometimes skewed because of OCR flukes and/or typographical quirks. So if you’re sharing text, please share it outside of images where screen readers can find it accurately.

Do you have any examples of people or organizations that are doing accessibility well in nerdy circles?  What are they doing right?

Knights of the Braille is one of the hosting organizations of the Everyone Games event mentioned above, and they are actively working to promote accessible gaming opportunities and adapting gaming materials as needed. Possum Creek Games, creators of Wanderhome have done an amazing job making sure that their PDF is easy to read and has excellent descriptions for the various illustrations throughout the book.

Do you have any recommendations of queer nerdy content that you would like people to know about?

Multiclass Theater is an amazing actual play podcast with a stellar GM and a talented cast of characters. Diana and her crew weave a gripping tale of magical adventure and companionship, with a good measure of humor in the mix. And along the way they nerd out about everything from Tolkien to music, oh yeah and lots of science. They can be found at @mctpod on Twitter.

Tracy Barnett is an awesome author and game designer who developed the Iron Eda setting and has their games over at itch.io/theothertracy.

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Shannon Campbell (they/them) is a writer, editor, and game developer from Vancouver, BC.

Website

You have been editor for two books of D&D 5e supplemental material, Faerie Fire and Witch + Craft. When did you begin playing D&D?  Do you play or GM (or both)? What do you love most about the game?

I was a big fan of Neverwinter Nights 1 & 2 when I was a kid, but I didn’t play my first table game until 4th edition, when I played a halfling chicken farmer-turned-rogue. I’m a very, very lazy GM with a very, very short attention span, so I love improvising one-shots but tend to get too much executive dysfunction to GM a longer campaign. So just by a metric of hours spent, I’m definitely a player first and a GM second.

What gaps (in the system / in the D&D culture) are you trying to fill when you create supplemental material?

I think it’s hard to say any of Astrolago’s projects start with trying to fulfill a need–first and foremost, the impetus for each project is what we would find fun to work on. I tend to get my inspiration from a mood or setting–with Witch+Craft, for example, I was watching Kiki’s Delivery Service and wondering, “Could we play this as a campaign if we wanted to? What would be missing?” and from that an entire crafting system sprung up. The adventure I wrote for that book attempts to tap into that, too: it’s slower-paced, with recurring familiar faces, and it’s possible to play through the entire adventure (which should take several sessions IRL) without engaging in combat even once, if that’s your jam (though obviously there’s no shame, and plenty of opportunities for roughhousing, if it is). All the designers involved have full-time jobs (most of us in video games) and while I always have the bottom line bookmarked for budget considerations, mostly we just make what we want to make and don’t even worry about whether anyone will actually want the content. Fortunately, that’s worked out pretty well so far! 

How do you choose contributors for something like Faerie Fire?

Because of the way the books are made, I like to have as much of the written content done as possible before we bring artists in, but the first step once a theme has been decided is to generate a long list of artists whose style and sensibilities match the aesthetic we’re going for, and then I invite the book’s design team to pick their favourites. When available, I also make note of any self-identifiers the artist might use–queer, BIPOC, disabled, neurodivergent, etc–because I find that the best book gets made when the artists are all coming from different perspectives. The artists get a lot of free rein on what they draw (we often provide loose guidelines and try to make sure that we don’t get too much doubling-up if multiple artists have the same idea for a subject) and the best part of getting the art back is seeing something I never expected to get in the book. 

You also contributed to the magazine Rolled & Told. Can you tell us a little about the project? Do you think the magazine format offers a unique platform for roleplaying material?

Rolled & Told was such a great magazine. As far as I know it’s currently on hiatus–I wrote an adventure for one issue that never got out into the world–but I really hope it comes back. There was a lot of love and enthusiasm in its pages that I think made it really accessible to a wide range of players. It managed to straddle that line of being both inviting enough to welcome in new players, but with enough depth to give even seasoned GMs something new to play with. 

Are there any other projects you are working on or have worked on that you would like to plug?

If you’d asked me this question in early 2020 I would’ve had a list of books that we planned to publish over the next year, but the pandemic has really derailed a lot of creative steam. There are currently three books that are still in pre-production, but until I know my designers are feeling good and ready to tackle something without pushing themselves too hard, we’re effectively also on hiatus. But I will say hearing more and more people get into our books, and share their experiences with the content, the easier it is to get excited about what we’ll do next–spoons allowing, of course. But I suppose, unrelated to D&D, the video game I’ve been writing for the past few years finally came out during the summer! It’s called Griftlands AND, if you think you see queer subtext in it, I can confirm that yes, you do. My personal ships are Sal/Oolo and Sal/Kalandra, Smith/Moreef, and Rook/his lost leg.

As a queer person, have roleplaying games helped you explore or express your queer identity?

YES. It was a combination of D&D (and VR, actually) that helped me realize I was nonbinary. Roleplay is a perfect opportunity for you to stretch out your skin and flex different aspects of your personality you didn’t necessarily realize were there. My heart honestly breaks when I consider players who might be having these quiet realizations about themselves at an unsafe or bigoted table. Not to get too hokey, but we forget that so much of the function of play of any kind–no matter our age, no matter the game–is about trying on different hats and seeing what clicks. Kids look for slots they can fit themselves into, but we all keep changing and developing as we get older, and tabletop RPGs are just another avenue through which we can get that benefit. Sometimes I’ll meet someone who says they could “never play X” as that would exceed the limits of their imagination–where “X” is a different body type or a different gender or sexuality than their own–but they’ll be playing an Aasimar paladin as if they weren’t IRL a pretty normal human. I think you’ll very, very much surprise yourself with what you can play, and what you learn about yourself when you do. 

Other than D&D or comics, what nerdy interests are you most excited about right now?

I’ve actually gone back to school part-time recently! I have a master’s degree in writing so I’m no stranger to academia, but during the pandemic I started learning about carbon sequestering agriculture, and that was a real emotional balm for me. So I decided to reward myself with a bachelor’s degree in sustainable agriculture, and I remembered that school… is very fun. It’s like a video game except instead of stalking the vaguely historical illuminati pope, you’re doing homework, and instead of achievements, you get grades. And that is extremely satisfying to my reward-motivated brain. Oh also I spent the past four months hyperfixating on Ace Attorney, Good Omens, and Hades so come at me with your 120k-word slowburn friends-to-lovers fanfic recs. 

Do you have any recommendations of queer nerdy content that you would like people to know about?

Because my brain is moving at a snail’s pace lately, I feel like the stuff I absorbed at the start of 2020 is still the stuff that’s at the front of my mind, so these might be old recs but I stand by them: This is How you Lose the Time War by Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone is a gorgeous, hilarious, magical queer romance and The Vanished Birds by Simon Jimenez was the best sci-fi I read all of last year, and is also a queer love story at its heart. 

Cheryl Stone (she/her) is one of the hosts of Spice Invaders and is generally into science fiction and how we navigate nostalgia.

Facebook | Twitter | Instagram

Listen to the podcast here.

Cheryl, you co-host the podcast Spice Invaders. What can you tell us about the show?

Spice Invaders is an obsessive history of the Spice Girls told by the people who were impacted by it. We’re discovering things we didn’t know as kids, some of which is really great as well as some serious drawbacks. We just released episode 6 [at time of interview], and in it we talk about sponsorships, merch deals, and how girl power got mixed up with capitalism.

We plan to cover Spice Girls history until 2000. Our last episode is planned for December 6th, although we will do some reflection episodes after that point.

Who was your favorite Spice Girl as a kid and has your choice changed now that you’re an adult?

I definitely wanted to be Geri growing up – she looked like she was having so much fun! I think as we’ve made this podcast, Mel B. stands out to me as someone who did a lot for the group and went unsung for it. I’ve grown into a bit of a Victoria, like in having a very clean front to the world and keeping the funny, wry side of myself hidden. I’ve also been really inspired by Mel C. and learning about the mental health issues she overcame. And Emma benefits from a deeper perspective…looking back, she was 18 and living with her mom when she started with the band. She was so young! Really though, it’s deepened my love for all of them as a whole as I’ve discovered some of the really big challenges they were going through.

As a queer woman, do you feel like you bring a unique perspective to the podcast?

Yeah, it comes up in a couple different ways. Looking at the particular historical moment, Mel B. was openly bisexual, but it was very hidden from fans. This fact is not in any official books until her biography years later. Looking back, it’s sad to realize there was a bisexual hero right in front of us, but young girls didn’t get to know that.

I think the writing and rewriting of girl power also benefits from a queer perspective. The Spice Girls were an introduction to the feminine as inherently performative. They had five distinct feminine looks that you could literally put on as a Halloween costume. I came out later in life, but I had always indirectly chased performative feminine acts (Lady Gaga was huge for me after the Spice Girls). There were times when, looking back, I realize I was performing gender and obsessing over performing gender in ways that should have made me realize there was something deeper going on!

I have to admit – I didn’t grow up a fan of the Spice Girls. How do you think your podcast can appeal to people like me who are coming in late?

One of the members of our team is not a super-fan, and she offers great insight to our conversations by asking, “What does that mean?” and filling in gaps for people who might not have the ready knowledge that a long time fan has.

Even if you’re not a fan of the Spice Girls, our podcast is a great snap shot of the mid-90s and of a group that changed the game in a lot of ways. If you think celebrity culture is fascinating, you have to study the Spice Girls. It’s fun!

Will Spice Invaders do a livewatch of Spice World?

If there’s enough listener interest, we will!

[Editor’s note: Rachel really wants this to happen, so help make her dreams come true by requesting a Spice World live watch!]

Is there anything else about you’d like us to know about your podcast?

I think it’s important to engage with things from our childhood and teen years that we loved then, and evaluate what we’ve learned from them. We should take a moment and evaluate the values that created these things, because they usually become our own values subconsciously. I hope our podcast helps people do that.

Do you have any recommendations of queer nerdy content?

• This Ends at Prom is a podcast about the hosts watching teen girl movies. What makes it unique is that one of the hosts is a diehard fan and the other comes to the movies fresh and with a trans perspective, having missed a lot of the movies at the time because they were raised as a teen boy.
• Fierce Femmes and the Notorious Liars by Kai Cheng Thom is a book about a group of young trans people who come together to defend their community as imaginary magical realism superheroes.
• The Murderbot series is obviously so good.
• Emily Carroll’s webcomics are spooky and amazing. I particularly love the 50-page “When I Arrived at the Castle.”
• Sarah Gailey’s work is always great, especially Upright Women Wanted and their American Hippo duology.
• I love Fonda Lee’s The Green Bone saga. It’s The Godfather in the Game of Thrones universe with magic and technology and gangs and the mob.

Other than pop culture podcasts and books, what nerdy interests are you most excited about right now?

I’m very excited for the return of Doctor Who. In particular, I love anything with Missy! I just want to watch her wreak havoc across the galaxy.

I’m Alina Pete (they/them). I’m nehiyaw (Cree), from Little Pine First Nations in Saskatchewan, though I currently live on unceded Kwantlen land in Surrey, BC. You can check out my portfolio at alina-pete.com, my webcomic at weregeek.com, my Instagram at @alinapete_art, and my twitter is @alinapete.

Alina, you currently play an orc with fabulous pink hair in the Twitch stream Trash Heroes. When did you begin playing D&D and what is it about the game that keeps you playing?

I started playing D&D twice, actually. Once, when I was a teenager, I tried playing with a group of guys in their mom’s basement and it was AWFUL. Every stereotype you can think of about male gamers picking on a femme-gamer who was new to the hobby… It turned me off of trying tabletop gaming again for years, though I continued with my first roleplaying method – MUSHes and forum-based RP sites. These were “safe”, since they had the advantage of being something I could do in my own home, and were largely femme-centric spaces.

It wasn’t until university that I got the nerve to try tabletop gaming again. I saw posters up for a campus club called “The Gamer’s Club”, and they had a meeting that night. I went, and was invited to try a LARP that weekend. I tried it and LOVED it, and it was only after I’d been LARPing for several months that I tried out a tabletop game – Shadowrun, not D&D! It was several more years of TTRPGs and LARPing before I gave D&D another try. Now, I run my own 5e campaign and play in two regular stream games – Trash Heroes (twitch.tv/weregeekcomics), which you’ve mentioned, and Something Wicked (twitch.tv/something5e). So I came around on it eventually!

As a queer person, have roleplaying games helped you explore or express your queer identity?

OMG have they ever!! I’m bi/pan, and though I’ve played a few straight characters over the years, they were mostly guys. I also started experimenting with genderqueer characters even before I was really aware what my vague feelings of gender dysphoria meant. In my teens, I played a lot of male characters (mostly because, as I’ve mentioned, I was in a lot of femme-centric RP spaces and they needed more guys…), but maleness never really “fit”. I also played several genderfluid or non-binary LARP characters. One was a Beast in a Changeling: The Lost game who changed personality, gender, and species every season – for example, she was a deer in the spring, a genderfluid bird in the summer, and a male wolf in the winter. There was also Valentine, another Changeling character who was non-binary before they were abducted by the Red Queen of Wonderland and magicked so that whatever they wore would turn into dresses and other feminine clothing items. 

Looking back, that maybe should have clued me into the fact that I wasn’t exactly cis… 

Although changes have been made, D&D hasn’t always had the best track record of being an inclusive space for non-cishet players. How do you think safe spaces can be created, both individually and systemically?

I think that making safe spaces at the table shouldn’t just be encouraged during TTRPGs – it’s a must. You need to feel safe with everyone at the table, because some of the things that you explore through your characters are really personal or intimate. The only way to have that kind of comfort at the table is to discuss it from day one, before you even start making your characters, and to acknowledge the responsibility you each have to be kind and considerate to one another.

The book Your Best Game Ever has a great section on responsibility – of players to each other, of players to the DM, and the DMs responsibility to everyone at the table. It’s really great, and a much healthier place than the adversarial relationship between players and DMs that is often the norm in old-school D&D. Safety tools like the ok-check-in system and others that have been developed for LARPs are also great tools to bring to your gaming table!

On a systemic basis, change needs to come from gamers being LOUD and refusing to stand for games that aren’t inclusive. Gamers sharing their stories of bad experiences with one another means that a) you know you’re not alone if you’ve had a bad experience with gaming and that it can get better and b) so that there’s more awareness in the industry of how some things that may seem innocuous, like gendered rules/language, can exclude players. We also need to push for more diversity on writing teams, not just as consultants!

You created the online comic Weregeek for over 14 years. What did you learn about yourself as an artist through that project?

Phew, what DIDN’T I learn during that time? I was a wee baby, fresh out of animation school, when I started Weregeek. I started the comic mostly as a way to force me to keep practicing my art until I got an animation job, but it quickly turned into so much more than art practice. I learned about how to structure a joke, how to do backgrounds, how to write interesting dialogue and characters… I really don’t think I’d be the artist OR writer I am today without Weregeek.

The fifth edition of Cautionary Fables and Fairytales called The Woman in the Woods and Other North American Stories has raised over $300,000 on Kickstarter. You worked as an editor for this graphic novel anthology of North American fables. How do you think your Cree identity affects your artwork and/or projects?

I think it’d be impossible for it to NOT influence my projects! Even in Weregeek, the character Abbie has a lot of my worldview – she’s mixed race and from a background similar to mine, and allowed me to show how being from a marginalized group in gaming can give you a radically different viewpoint from the folks you share a table with.

Recently, though, I’ve been doing stories where I’ve been asked to explore my identity in a really thoughtful and deliberate way. For the anthology Moonshot, Vol.2, I was asked to tell a traditional Cree story set in modern times. In this story, I chose to take a story from the Qu’Appelle Valley, where I spent summers growing up, about how voices from the lake sometimes call out to people to try and lure them beneath the dark waters. I then reinterpreted it through the lens of the MMIWG crisis. In this story, a man who has left the reserve to work in the oil and gas fields comes back home when his girlfriend goes missing, only to hear her calling out to him from the lake. Should he listen? Should he not? I think that comics can make really heavy topics like this a little more approachable and yet more REAL for people who don’t necessarily know how to engage with numbers and statistics in a newspaper article. 

Other than D&D or comics, what nerdy interests are you most excited about right now?

God, SO many things… I think the biggest one though is costuming. I’m really interested in costumes, and there’s such amazing stuff coming from the cosplay and furry communities right now. LED-everything, monster masks airbrushed so they look frighteningly real, 3d printed masks with moving parts or glowing eyes all run via Raspberry PI, stilts, giant wings that actually move! I really love that kind of merging of art and technology, and I’ve definitely been known to leap out from behind my booth at a convention to go and talk to a cosplayer about how they made a particular piece or what kind of paint/finish they used!

Do you have any recommendations of queer nerdy content that you would like people to know about?

SO much. It might be easiest to break it into categories.

• Animation: She-Ra is the obvious answer and I still HIGHLY recommend it, but I’ve got to shout out Kipo and the Age of Wonderbeasts for a) being a really fun show and b) having the first and cutest meet-cute between two guys I’ve seen on a non-anime animated series.
• Sci fi: Becky Chamber’s Wayfarers series is a must-read, but I especially love the first book. No spoilers, but Sissix is the best. (Dr. Chef is ALSO the best. And Kizzy. And all of them really.)
• Fantasy: Anything by Aliette de Bodard, but especially In The Vanisher’s Palace, which is a queer retelling of Beauty and the Beast in a really amazing setting grounded in Vietnamese folklore.
• Webcomic: There’s a really cute comic on Webtoons called Blades of Furry. The only way I can describe it is if you mashed up Beastars and Yuri on Ice. I love it!

Are you an Adventure Queer?
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I’m Rachel (she/they), an ace and genderqueer book nerd. I’m a librarian by education, working for a library software company. In my free time, I read and talk about books, including co-hosting a Tolkien podcast (@toreadtolkien), and I watch lots of sports. You can find me on Twitter over at @sir_rachel!

How long have you been playing D&D?  What has your experience in the TTRPG world been like?

I’m a bit of a latecomer to D&D. It’s something I’ve always known I’d enjoy, but it wasn’t until four years ago that I started playing regularly with a group of friends.

The group members have shifted slightly, but I’m now in my fourth campaign with the same DM. That’s been a lot of fun, since the more we play together, the more both DM and player are able to develop a rapport that makes for a better adventure. We also all love frustrating our DM by continually refusing to actually get on with the plot.

You identify as ace and gender-wobbly. Have roleplaying games helped you explore or express your queer identity? 

D&D has been a fun way to “play” with gender. My relationship with gender has always been tentative at best, especially in terms of outward presentation. I’m still not certain whether I identify as nonbinary or agender, or just some variety of genderqueer. How I feel about gender is continually evolving, so I love getting to pick up different genders and put them on for a while in a fictional world. Of the four main campaigns I’ve played to date, two of my characters have been female and two have been male. Each of these characters has let me showcase a bit of a different side of me, both in terms of gender and in terms of personality. I can’t always change how people perceive me in reality, but I can definitely spend a few hours being a burly dwarf or a half-orc with a personality that is basically just Geralt of Rivia. Or I can go the other direction, playing a human noble, presenting extremely feminine for a while. Each character fits a bit differently, but they all contain a piece of me.

We’ve also made sure the campaigns are a safe space, and there’s no pressure or emphasis placed on sexual or romantic relationships. It’s entirely up to the players, and in general our campaigns have had very little to that effect (we’re usually too busy shopping, refusing to get on with the plot, or taking way too long to solve puzzles). So often we can be bombarded with sexual content in the media, and it’s nice to have a space where I don’t have to focus on my asexuality.

You are one of the co-hosts of So You Want to Read Tolkien.  Lord of the Rings is my most enduring fandom, so I was really excited to jump into your podcast.  Did this project shape your opinions of LotR in any way? Did you learn anything as a result of digging into the books with your co-hosts?    

Yes! I got into Lord of the Rings when I was young, reading the books right before the movies came out. Lord of the Rings has been a huge part of my life for, well, a very long time, but I hadn’t fully reread the books until we started the podcast.

This was a hugely different reading experience for a number of reasons. The first is that we started out reading The Silmarillion, which I had never read before. While bits of it can be a slog, I’m so glad to have read it. There’s so much cool lore, and so many interesting stories tucked in there! It also then becomes fun getting to play “spot the reference” when reading the other books.

The other fascinating part was how different the experience was reading at a slow pace, only one or two chapters a week. Most of us know that Tolkien’s pacing is a bit (ahem) adventurous, and he loves talking about geography way too much. This can be hard to appreciate when reading the books at a faster pace, and it’s easy to skim through those sections. Getting to slow down and focus on those sections was wonderful, because there are some very beautiful passages that I’d otherwise not have appreciated.

Do you have any queer thoughts or headcanons about Lord of the Rings?

Legolas and Gimli were definitely the first couple I ever shipped, before I even realized that’s what I was doing. That said, my co-host Caitlin on So You Want to Read Tolkien brought Aragorn/Frodo to my attention. While it’s still not my preferred ship, I have to admit, there are some pretty great lines toward that effect.

Also, we already knew this, but jeez does Tolkien not know how to write women.

Rachel, you have also been participating in Project Shakespeare.  I see pictures of your group on Twitter, but I don’t actually know much about it!  Can you tell me a little about the project, and in particular, whether costuming yourself as various characters has helped you explore your gender?

Project Shakespeare is the wonderful brainchild of Abby and Rachel. At the start of lockdown, Abby had the idea to do a readthrough of Shakespeare on Zoom. Each Saturday night, a group of us would meet and read a play. We did almost all of his plays (twice!), which of course means some masterpieces and some… uh… weird ones.

I’ve always loved wearing costumes, so of course I showed up to my first play (The Tempest, where I played Sebastian) with a drawn-on villain mustache. Most of us are either women or non-binary, so naturally we had to play characters of all genders. From a theatrical perspective, this was fun because it meant getting to play roles that we wouldn’t normally ever be cast on stage (or would only be cast in an intentionally gender-diverse production). While I appreciate gender-diverse productions, there was something special about getting to play male characters as male.

I got to draw on beards and wear suits and ties; I bought my first binder. I played villains and ghosts; I died a lot of times and used a lot of stage blood. I got to play some of Shaksepeare’s most iconic leading men: Prince Hal/Henry V, Julius Caesar, Richard II, Coriolanus. I felt my most powerful playing some of these roles and getting to inhabit their masculinity (well, we could have an argument about Richard II here, but that’d take several thousand words).

But at the same time, I also played some of my favorite female roles. It had long been a dream of mine to play Lady Macbeth and one of the witches, and I got to check both of those off the bucket list. I pushed myself out of my comfort zone and played one of Shakespeare’s most overtly feminine characters, Ophelia. I wore my prettiest dress and wore a flower in my hair. After spending so much time embodying Shakespeare’s male characters, it was a reminder that “Oh, this is me too.”

More than anything, getting to explore gender by way of so many characters helped me embrace being outside of the binary, both in my head and how I present myself.

What nerdy interests are you most excited about right now?

I’ve gotten into playing video games over the past several years, and let me just say how wonderful it is to have so many opportunities to choose the PC’s gender, and how many games let you romance queer ships. I’m working my way through Assassin’s Creed: Odyssey right now, and the only character choice I’ve made for my Kassandra is that she’s a huge lesbian. Also gotta give a shoutout to Zagreus and Thanatos in Hades!

Do you have any recommendations of queer nerdy content that you would like people to know about?

• She Who Became the Sun by Shelley Parker-Chan: queer historical fantasy I absolutely loved.
• Books by E.K. Johnston: I love all of E.K. Johnston’s books, but I especially want to mention her newest, Aetherbound, which is Arthurian in space, as well as The Afterward, which is a direct response to classic male fantasy. Lady knights!!!
• I also want to shout out all the queer sportswriters out there, but especially Meg Linehan of The Athletic, who does incredible and necessary reporting on women’s soccer

Thank you, Rachel!

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