The release date for the first episode of CalazCon has been announced: Monday August 5th, 2024.
Early Bird patrons get to see the first episode TODAY!
See you all in August!
https://www.patreon.com/posts/calazcon-release-106849288?utm_medium=clipboard_copy&utm_source=copyLink&utm_campaign=postshare_creator&utm_content=join_link

You know, I'm sure that by someone's metrics I qualify as a detransitioner which is sort of weird to think about.

I have zero regrets, but like, I have definitely gone from being very insecure about myself, to experimenting with gender, and subsequently coming out the other side massively more secure in my masculinity and what that means to me - and I'm positive some (cis, incurious) people would see that from the outside and think "Oh he changed his mind".

Actually I'm sure the people that might think that are exclusively from the pool of people who when I came out, instantly assumed I was exclusively transfemme despite me being very upfront about being Enby. Looking at you, certain family members.

this is good illumination on why I think we'd be better off eliminating the term "detransition" entirely. it frames harmless experimentation as a mistake. it's indelibly associated in the public mind with a body "permanently scarred" by "the wrong" hormones — simultaneously reinforcing stigmas around trans bodies, and usurping sympathy for them onto (assumed-)cis ones.

I'd love to see a real push to change the language to retransition, because it's really exactly that and the implications of "did it more than once!" are far better for everyone than "shouldn't have in the first place."

Heck yeah! I have been pushing for 'retransition' in my circles pretty heavily for a while now because if I view transition as a line segment rather than a ray, a thing which has a starting point but no ending point, I invalidate myself just as thoroughly as that trans chat on telegram that ostracized me as soon as I got surgery because I was 'done' and not worth their time, or just as thoroughly as those who have tilted their heads and said, "You got voice training — hell, your instrument for you bachelor's degree was voice — why do you let yourself sound like that?"

As soon as I view transition as a line segment with an end point, I throw out the moment I started learning how to love my body. I throw out the moment I found a way to own the masculinity that has been a part of me for as long as I have known what masculinity is. I throw out friends whose transition looks different from mine because, in the end, it is not a ray, some straight line continuing forever, but a ceaseless path made of a thousand curves.

The only linear thing we experience is time, and even that is up in the air.

I also retransitioned from transmasc to butch/androgynous lesbian and I'm always a bit afraid to bring it up. I still very much do not consider myself to be cis and i will bite if someone she/hers me without pre-approval, but I do feel much more balanced and rounded as a person nowadays than when i was desperately clinging to masc-passing and rejecting everything feminine. It's such a different feeling

I'm not on tiktok or instagram or any of that, so I've been more or less sheltered from the whole censoring language so as not to piss off the algorithm thing. I knew it was happening, intellectually, but I wasn't really seeing it so it was out of sight, out of mind.

Now I'm starting to see it in just basic text conversations for some reason? Discord messages, group texts, and the like. I'm gonna be honest, it bothers me. Partially because it's a bit infantilizing (I'm a man in his 30's for god's sake, I don't need you to censor the word "sex" or "porn" or "killed" or whatever else). But mostly because it's eerily puritanical. I grew up in a very strict, fundamentalist environment that loved censoring language. I once remember having to go to a Bible class in which the teacher, a local pastor, put the word "Sux" on the board as if it were the height of profanity and then proceeded to lecture about how the words we say form us as a person. And sure, pissing off the algorithm isn't equivalent to pissing off a god who will damn you to an eternal hell, but I fear the real world result will end up being much the same.

In my religious youth, we rendered ourselves incapable of having mature, adult conversations about important, universal topics because we simply did not have the words. The words were sinful, using the words was bad, it generated "evil" thoughts. At most you might be able to whisper the words in dark corners with more understanding people, and they would nod sagely for knowing the word existed and what connotation it contained, but the conversation would basically end at that point. There was no discussion about adult topics, no expression via adult language, just a continuing cycle of self-repression.

And listen, I don't think words are power or we speak reality into existence or anything like that, but I do think that the way we think about and formulate language ties inextricably into our psyche. If we're repressing common terms for the sake of the algorithm, how are we any less repressive than the fundamentalists? If we're willing to modify even our language, is there a mold we won't sculpt ourselves to fit should it be demanded of us?

This makes sense and is solid advice BUT

What if your game is only gonna be about 1-2 hrs long?

Is this gonna bankrupt me with refunds?

• "just make the game longer"

no thanks, I've already been on this for a 18mo and hacking away at it for another 18 mo will burn me out and kill the game

• "Just release the game for free"

I'd rather not devalue myself if that's alright. I could really do with the money for a laptop that can actually be used for gamedev purposes, but that's secondary.

• if you're not going to listen to the two most obvious suggestions why even bother asking?
  Well one is asking one person to do the work of a team of multiple people, while holding a full time job, and the other is asking this person to work for free, so I'm not sure these are really solutions imo!

anyway fr I'd love to hear experiences or suggestions from other devs particular with releasing 'short' games on steam. Is it worthwhile, do you get stung by refunds, etc.

please and thankyew