To Shanna Malcolm (re: muppet tits)

I saw the news that you're going to be in a D&D show--congratulations! I hear there will be muppets.

I'm also scared for you because you're about to be extremely harassed a lot by assholes online. These are assholes I know. The reason is because you wanted your D&D muppet to have big tits:

So, first: I'm sorry. I tried for a long time to point out these folks were a problem, it didn't work. These folks aren't random 4chan trash--Orion Black is a former WOTC freelancer with one of the largest twitter followings because, in addition to participating in all the usual clout-building-via-harassment-exercises, they got hired by- and then yelled extensively at-, official D&D, Hans Cumming was a big deal in organizing RPG awards and has actual pull in the industry, etc. These people are actually taken seriously. 

Since I have extensive experience with running a D&D-themed show with women who wanted their characters to have big tits and then being attacked by them about it, here's what to expect:

1. You will be harassed. This goes without saying: you're a woman of color on the internet and you've made a choice about tits that a very nerdy group of mostly-men don't like. However, this harassment might be different than what you've experienced before...

2.  You will be erased. Michael Phillips up there is a good example--your decision about what to do with your character has been reduced to a "half-assed attempt to justify" something your Evil Corporate Overlords want to do. This is because it is morally inconvenient for this white nerd to acknowledge that marginalized people they allegedly want to defend don't care about all their dumb nerd shit.

3. Your friends and allies will be harassed. You'll notice some of them up there do acknowledge you exist. Some of the harassers will be self-aware enough to do that, which means they will default to simply pretending you don't exist and attacking the first not-obviously-marginalized people connected to you and pretending your muppets' tits was there idea. The puppeteer, the DM, but probably mostly the people at D&D.

Ah, it's starting already:

4. Your muppets tits will be considered an important datapoint. Since all indie RPG people are pathologically worried about what the Coca-Cola of the ttrpg industry is up to, your muppet's tits will be used to raise the stakes in any conversation about representation. Your muppet boobs will be used as evidence in arguments about D&D being bad that you will never see. 

5. Lots of these harassers' friends will be fine with your muppet's tits, but they'll stay quiet. Basically tabletop RPG people have to pretend that women don't have varied and nuanced ideas about how they want to be represented because sacred crackpot Ash Kreider says boob armor is bad and other people in the indie scene can't be seen to public disagree with them. The internet dynamics where the people with the most reasonable take participate least in the discussion unfortunately apply here as well. You will have customers, fans and supporters. They will not help you.

6. These raised stakes will result in a conversation, from which you will be excluded: This is the saddest, stupidest, and most self-defeating part. Your decisions will be fought over, but no-one will talk to you.

Since there is:

A) Tremendous subcultural pressure on respected RPG commentators to agree that boobs are bad or else be quiet and lose work, and

B) Tremendous subcultural pressure not to admit they're disagreeing with the black woman whose choice they are attacking, and

C) You're dealing with online nerds who conflicting needs to always complain and always avoid confrontation with whoever they're complaining about even when it's not someone from a marginalized group they want to speak for and over...

...there will be a raging discussion of the meaning of your muppet's tits and you will be ignored during it. The idea that you are a person who might have had reasons for your decision or might even have already thought about its socio-cultural implications and come to your own conclusions before they did will be ignored. The nerds casually assume they are smarter than you--so much smarter that it does not even occur to them to consult you when complaining about your decision.

The idea that you are even a human who can be consulted when discussing your decision will be quietly swept under the rug so that the idea that you should be consulted as part of any discussion about your decision isn't even on the table.

Despite the mob's insistence that "debate" is an icky masculine-coded strategy for discussing issues, the idea of employing some alternate soft-coded strategy like inviting you in to have a conversation about their ideas will not so much be dismissed as literally never considered. Repeat: It does not occur to them to treat you as a person.

Seriously--why would this white genius not simply talk to you if they had a problem with your decision?

Hopefully none of this will matter. With luck, your show will be popular enough that these nerds will see the fight they're picking isn't worth it and will just ignore you altogether and this can be treated as the unbelievably terrible internet trash that it is. If not, it will suck and you will continue to be discussed and ignored unless you eventually stop working on the show and start saying things the scoldy mob already agrees with.

Although you probably will never see this, I am genuinely sorry we haven't been able to fix this problem for creators down the line. I tried, but not hard enough. I hope your show does well.

-Z