TSR The Full & Glorious History of NuTSR

Longspeak said:

So... "diverse folk getting along = bad?" That's their message?

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My takeaway is more "All change is bad, why can't things stay the way we remember them being?" no matter how flawed those memories may be or how badly the status quo of the past served many people. But that's just me, your interpretation is valid as well, if somewhat narrower.

Umbran said:

Well, what else are they reactionary about? Fluffernutters?

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That's probably a rhetorical question, but I'll answer regardless.

Assuming you mean the peanut butter and marshmallow fluff sandwiches, I'd actually be quite surprised to discover the reactionary right had anything but praise for fluffernutters. That community likes to maintain at least a pretense of patriotism, and some research shows that not only was the original published recipe the product of Paul Rever's great-great-great-granddaughter Emma Curtis, she chose to call them the Liberty Sandwich, providing a bit of a patriotic sales boost during WW1. Nothing there a conservative wouldn't like.

Years later, a company called Durkee-Mower Inc. got into the marshmallow fluff business, which has apparently been quite profitable for many people over the last century. In the 1930s they sponsored a radio program called the Flufferettes, which featured music and comedy numbers and ran immediately before the Jack Benny Show. I've actually heard the tail end of a couple of Flufferettes episodes on home recordings thanks to that juxtaposition. The last episode featured the "Yummy Book" of recipes, including repeating the Curtis' sandwich recipe with the name filed off. Still wasn't a fluffernutter, though. That came almost 30 years later in 1960, when Durkee-Mower's ad agency came up with the name, and it's stuck ever since.

It appears in 2006 there was a legislative scuffle in the state senate of Massachusetts (where Curtis lived) about restricting the number of times per month schools could serve fluffernutters, with State Representative Kathi-Ann Reinstein swering to fight to the death to oppose the proposed bill. She was, unsurprisingly, the representative of the district where Marshmallow Fluff is manufactured. Sadly, I can't report the outcome because I'm too lazy to do more research, but I'm certainly going to use Reinstein's name for every NPC politician with a mildly absurd pork-barrel cause they're fighting for from now on.

If you were asking about the adult travel group of the same name or some other bizarre thing that's co-opted the name of a rather unhealthy snack sandwich just to get an Urban Dictionary listing, I'm afraid you're on your own.

Wofano Wotanto said:

That's probably a rhetorical question, but I'll answer regardless.

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Well, yes, the point was more, "Why are you calling them 'reactionaries' if you don't expect them to be regressive in major senses?" but if you wanna do an essay on Fluff, you do you.

Umbran said:

Well, yes, the point was more, "Why are you calling them 'reactionaries' if you don't expect them to be regressive in major senses?" but if you wanna do an essay on Fluff, you do you.

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Maybe they would object to fluffernutters, now that I think about it. It's a much newer word than Curtis' original name and we know how they feel about new words, plus it robs them of the opportunity to order a Liberty Sandwich with a side of Freedom Fries.

Wofano Wotanto said:

Have to admit I hadn't really noticed the "cosplayer hate" thing before, but that's a sub-community I don't pay much attention to unless something really boils over into the comments of the more sane OSR blogs I follow. I don't care to speculate where it came from, but I doubt it's anything as innocent as just losing some event space at cons to cosplay contests.

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This has been going on for a while, in a number of fandoms. Basically, cosplaying is a "new" way to enjoy/explore D&D (as an example, there are so many others), and this attracted people who weren't the usual "basement nerds" crowd. These people (the nerds) saw themselves as social outcasts, and saw these new people as the "normies" intruding onto their space. Add to that some sexism, gatekeeping etc and it gets complicated. There is also tremendous resentment among some against what they perceive as cosplayers using their beauty as a way to gain social capital. "Lookism" is a real problem in our society, but there are so many other issues intertwined with this that it creates a rather toxic brew...

Ancalagon said:

This has been going on for a while, in a number of fandoms. Basically, cosplaying is a "new" way to enjoy/explore D&D (as an example, there are so many others), and this attracted people who weren't the usual "basement nerds" crowd. These people (the nerds) saw themselves as social outcasts, and saw these new people as the "normies" intruding onto their space. Add to that some sexism, gatekeeping etc and it gets complicated. There is also tremendous resentment among some against what they perceive as cosplayers using their beauty as a way to gain social capital. "Lookism" is a real problem in our society, but there are so many other issues intertwined with this that it creates a rather toxic brew...

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It has been, but that doesn't make the weaponization of "cosplaying as not real fans" any less vexing. How many of those trolls put on cloaks, hats, homemade armor, or made swords/weapons as part of their fandom? I'd wager that a substantial number of them did from time to time. There were certainly plenty of ads for costumery in Dragon Magazine back in the day as well as options at any regional Renaissance Faire.

How many were impressed with Clyde Caldwell's use of sexy cosplaying models in his art? I'm sure plenty were and didn't raise a fuss about cosplay then.

And that really just makes this your basic garden variety sexism/gatekeeping directed at someone doing what they were at a more advanced level and because they aren't part of the in-group of pasty-faced, poorly muscle toned, sausage festers.

billd91 said:

It has been, but that doesn't make the weaponization of "cosplaying as not real fans" any less vexing.

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Agreed. Depressing how it's spread across so many fan communities, although admittedly their interests often overlap a lot.

Cosplay (by any name) is hardly a new concept, that's for sure. There were people in costume at the first Worldcon back in 1939, for cripes' sake. Not many, nothing like the numbers you see at cons these days, but they were there.

Faolyn said:

How on earth does "orcs aren't fundamentally evil" mean "no more races"?

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Were I being charitable, I might think that they meant to type "no more evil races." But really, with the amount of generalization and overreaction we see from the far-right, jumping to "there are no more races" is entirely likely.

Wofano Wotanto said:

The fictional character in question is a slaver, con artist and murderer. Consider the possibility that the name belonged to someone LaNasa wanted to dishonor and, in a rare show of common sense, has been slightly altered to dodge any possible defamation claim.

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Definitely possible, though, the question still remains, who?

Wofano Wotanto said:

That's probably a rhetorical question, but I'll answer regardless.
[...] fluffernutters [...]

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If these folks began to hate on fluffernutter, I'd suspect that instance of their Hat Of All Things New would derive from the use of "fluffernutter" as a codeword on Critical Role. CR often seems to be a bête noire for some people that loudly dislike modern D&D and RPGs.

Wofano Wotanto said:

Agreed. Depressing how it's spread across so many fan communities, although admittedly their interests often overlap a lot.

Cosplay (by any name) is hardly a new concept, that's for sure. There were people in costume at the first Worldcon back in 1939, for cripes' sake. Not many, nothing like the numbers you see at cons these days, but they were there.

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And the image of players dressed as their characters and the DM in a robe all stem from the early days of the game as well.

We've had a good laugh over fluffernutters but the reality is they really will dig in culture-war style over the most weird or benign of things.