Issue 2: Birdguests, Research, and Kitties
Heyyyy this past week was really bad, huh! What a time to be writing and sending the second issue of our newsletter. On the one hand, it feels like a silly thing to be doing right now, but on the other hand, we need silliness and to talk about, make, and celebrate art more than ever. Especially trans and queer art. So we’re gonna keep doing that!
And actually there was something we meant to talk about last time, but then totally forgot. At least our inexperience at sending newsletters isn’t obvious…
Anyway, why “Birdguest?” Easy! It’s what our writing website with all our credits and links to our work is called.
But why is it called that? Listen, you’re very demanding for a newsletter reader!
It’s because one day a FedEx guy came to our door and said he had a package for “Birdguest.” And that gave us no end of delight, because our last name is literally just a normal noun. Bridges! B R I D G E S. “Birdguest” is, like, a bird with a suitcase coming to visit for a while.
Ah well, think of us the next time you see the Golden Gate Birdguest.
NEW STUFF WE DID
Just a little while back, the second edition of the Star Trek Adventures tabletop roleplaying game was released! We’ve been writing content for the game for a while AND Tilly has run two STA games for over five years in a shared universe. Every once in a while we have huge crossover games with both crews and guest stars playing their characters from the shows (Denise Crosby as Sela! Nana Visitor as Colonel Kira! Tim Russ as (mirror!) Tuvok!).
We were such big fans of the game that we (okay it was Tilly) found the creators on social media, just to tell them how much we loved it. And it wasn’t too long after that they asked if we’d like to write for it, and here we are!
Our contributions to the second edition rulebook (in addition to suggestions on new features to add and tweaks to rules) were in-character sidebars talking about the inclusion and diversity of the Star Trek universe.
We wrote them for Adira (DISCO), Dax (DS9), The Doctor (VOY), Geordi (TNG), Tendi (LD), T’Pol (ENT), Uhura (TOS), Una (SNW), and Zero (PRO). Getting to write as those characters was an absolute thrill. C’mon, you know what huge Trekkies we are, this was a dream.
Here’s one of them!
WHAT WE’RE WORKING ON
Actually, you’re not gonna believe this… but it’s more stuff like the above for more Star Trek Adventures releases! Can’t tell you what the exact project is yet, but it’s given us a chance to get to look at the perspectives of even more of these characters we love, and how they felt given what they were going through. And that is never not fun!
TRANS TUESDAY UPDATE
Sooooo. Trans Tuesdays returned this week after the election, and the text version was actually released last Sunday because it was too important to wait (the podcast version released Tuesday, as usual).
What do you do when a majority of Americans who voted… vote for the gas station hot dog who wants to take your rights away?
Trans people are a vast minority, we cannot affect political change on our own. Now, more than ever, please always share and repost Trans Tuesdays. Talk about them with your cis friends and family who just don’t know anything about trans people. You can make a difference.
It’s bad, friends. But it’s not the end. And it’s not hopeless.
Maybe this’ll help.
The 2024 Election Results: Where Do We Go From Here?
RECOMMENDATIONS
What We Do in the Shadows is back for its final season of our sweet dark vampire babies. It’s regularly been one of the funniest and most clever comedies these past few years, and we’re going to miss it dearly. It’s so delightfully absurd and ridiculous, and is charming as all heck, and all of that is right up our alley.
In these very weird times, try the book The Persuaders by Anand Giridharadas. How do you organize people to rally for a common cause, even when you might disagree with them on many things? How do you communicate a message that resonates? How do you hold fast to your ideals and communicate them respectfully? It also delves into political messaging and advertisements and the analysis is very thoughtful and interesting.
THE DIRTBAG DISPATCH
Just as he was mostly over his eye infection, and was back to sunning his ball-less junk without a care in the world…
An interloper appeared!
This is Izzy (short for Isabel), and we don’t know how to tell you this, but…
We got a cat for our cat.
A while back our kitty Stella passed. We loved her dearly and had her a long time, and she was an entire sweetie. She was an adult when we got little baby Henry, and she had been a mom before and she just kind of adopted him (even while being entirely sick of his dirtbagginess a lot of the time, and like… we get it).
After she died he slowly grew more and more clingy, to the point where he’s got pretty acute separation anxiety now. When we went to San Diego Comic-Con this year, he all but lost his mind (what little of it he had) and he just could not handle it.
So he very much needs a companion that can be here, even when we’re not. And he’s very excited to meet her.
Izzy, however, is still really unsure of this big weird guy who keeps sniffing her (his nose doesn’t work so good). There’s been some hissing and growling, but they’re gradually getting closer to each other and even booped noses once. So it should just be a matter of time and letting her settle in.
She’s a little hooligette and bit Tilly’s toe through the blankets hard enough to make her yelp in the middle of the night! We thought she was docile and cuddly, turns out she was just a little spooked.
But now she feels safe and so she’s just a bit of a very opinionated terror.
She will eventually get a modifier before her name, ala “dirtbag,” but we have to get to know her a little better first.
She’s sassy as hell, though.
THE END
Hey, we’re done! Wooooooooooo!
Listen, one less thing on our to-do list is worth celebrating.
We’re very tired.
Please take care of yourselves. We’re gonna need each other to get through this. Reach out if you need an ear, we’re here.
All our love.
