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Jonaya Kemper

@violetriotgames.bsky.social

2.4K followers 200 following 540 posts

Assistant Teaching Professor of Playable and Participatory Media in Creative Technologies and Performance, Play & Design:Games @ UCSC. Award winning Game Designer/Artist. Afrofuturist. Opinions are my own. jonayakemper.com

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Jonaya Kemper @violetriotgames.bsky.social · Dec 3

I'm Jonaya, and introductions are not my jam, but you know what is? This weird list of attributes:

-award winning game designer
-chaotic academic
-Interdisciplinary Artist.
-pioneered the theory of emancipatory bleed
-exceptional writer of theater and all game types
-Play is my business

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Jonaya Kemper @violetriotgames.bsky.social · 17h

<3 It's a subject I was very excited for, but now that I'm here my empathy outweighs it. I think instead of going academic I'm just going to take the findings and do an essay with tips on how to manage bleed and then suggest both therapeutic and social behaviors to manage what I'm seeing.

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Jonaya Kemper @violetriotgames.bsky.social · 17h

You likely could!

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Jonaya Kemper @violetriotgames.bsky.social · 17h

Maybe I found all the evidence that points to a new theory of bleed, but perhaps what I have found is so sad that I feel badly for wanting to rip the band-aid off. I don't know, maybe right now people need the band-aid more than I need to tell them it's a wound. I think they already know.

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Jonaya Kemper @violetriotgames.bsky.social · 17h

Sometimes you reach the end of a research thread and instead of wanting to publish your findings you just look at the pile of people's trauma and escapism and say, "Maybe it's enough to know I'm correct. Maybe I don't want to spend three months coding this into a usable database for a paper."

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Jonaya Kemper @violetriotgames.bsky.social · 1d

I am irrationally excited about this.

Jonaya Kemper @violetriotgames.bsky.social · 1d

I can't believe I get to go to the Anne Rice Vampire Ball, and it's a *RESEARCH TRIP*.

a man in a suit and tie is laughing while holding a woman 's hand

Alt: Louis, Lestat, and Claudia hold hands while laughing.

media.tenor.com

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Reposted by Jonaya Kemper

shing yin khor @shing.bsky.social · 3d

what is this, a set for ants?

a goofy person hovers over a tiny set they built, it has green walls, a lot of fake plants and tiny furniture.

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Jonaya Kemper @violetriotgames.bsky.social · 3d

It is in fact like a jungle sometimes.

Jonaya Kemper @violetriotgames.bsky.social · 3d

I'm really trying to avoid writing an article on internalized racism and misogynoir in play spaces but I keep getting closer and closer to the edge.

Rap Hiphop GIF

Alt: GIF of Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five's the Message.

media.tenor.com

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Reposted by Jonaya Kemper

Congresswoman Pramila Jayapal @jayapal.house.gov · 4d

Last night, I received notification of the 19th death of a detained person in ICE custody since Trump took office.

ICE is detaining people, mostly in private, for-profit prisons that put profit over health. And now they have furloughed the safety inspectors. This is unacceptable.

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Jonaya Kemper @violetriotgames.bsky.social · 3d

*cry because it's being used in my larp suite about death, the afterlife, and what we as humanity owe each other. It's made to purposefully invoke emancipatory bleed and I'm STOKED.

Jonaya Kemper @violetriotgames.bsky.social · 3d

When I get my pair of MiMu gloves I'm going to make everyone regret* they gave a larp academic money.

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Reposted by Jonaya Kemper

The Golden Cobra Challenge @goldencobra.bsky.social · 5d

ssssssssss

Gamess are due THISS coming Monday, the 13th.

Let'ss ssee your larp ideasss cook!!

www.goldencobra.org

Golden Cobra Challenge

www.goldencobra.org

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Jonaya Kemper @violetriotgames.bsky.social · 4d

We denigrate play and make believe as frivolous and unserious so our language uses these terms to make facism seem unserious. How about we just call them for what they are...liars.

Evan Torner @guyintheblackhat.bsky.social · 5d

"Cosplaying" and "larping" are real activities done by real people, and using these terms as slang for "pretending to be someone you're not, for political purposes" does indeed alienate those of us who take part in these activities.

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Jonaya Kemper @violetriotgames.bsky.social · 5d

Yesterday I presented to our senior seminar students and realized that I've written and published poetry, plays, ttrpgs, videogames, boardgames, card games, larps, academic articles, news articles, novels, novelas, blogs, and film scripts. The only thing I haven't tried is comics. And I wanna.

Jonaya Kemper @violetriotgames.bsky.social · 6d

Do you find yourself at the intersection of performance, games, and design? Do you want to work with world class artists in research, pedagogy, and games? Then maybe apply to work with me at UCSC! We're hiring a Assistant Professor of Interactive Art, Performance & Games

recruit.ucsc.edu/JPF01998

Assistant Professor of Interactive Art, Performance & Games (Initial Review Date 11/14/25)

University of California, Santa Cruz is hiring. Apply now!

recruit.ucsc.edu

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Jonaya Kemper @violetriotgames.bsky.social · 7d

Thanks for this insight. I went to one of their haunts last year and had a similar experience. The historical space felt underutilized and narratively thin. I was deeply surprised how much of the copy of the event (1920's Masquerade Ball) and the actual event didn't match.

Jonaya Kemper @violetriotgames.bsky.social · 7d

EXACTLY. It didn't need any projections and the tech was glitchy and got in the way. They could have spent more money on people and had a deeply terrifying experience.

Jonaya Kemper @violetriotgames.bsky.social · 7d

Ironically Disney's Haunted Mansion was based in part on The Winchester House and the Haunt felt like a walkable downgrade of The Haunted Mansion Ride. My favorite part of the entire experience was The House. It definitely made me want to visit it during the regular season.

Jonaya Kemper @violetriotgames.bsky.social · 7d

The Winchester Mystery House Haunt had some cool things, like neat animatronics and like 20 scare actors doing their damned best. But now imagine they promise you a ball and speakeasies and you get no ball and overpriced bars. As someone who designs immersive experiences...this made me disgruntled.

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Jonaya Kemper @violetriotgames.bsky.social · 7d

It was so bad I didn't even take a picture.

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Jonaya Kemper @violetriotgames.bsky.social · 7d

One of the haunt's biggest stumbling blocks wasn't the switchback stairs, but the lack of enough scare actors. The ones they had were working their asses off with very little, and then to see the big third act be glitchy AI? It really made my whole party unimpressed. They could have paid two actors.

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Jonaya Kemper @violetriotgames.bsky.social · 7d

They used AI projections at the Winchester Mystery House Haunt. If I was a ghost there, I'd ask to be exorcised.

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Jonaya Kemper @violetriotgames.bsky.social · 8d

Wait let me phrase it better, The Fun Tax described is a marginalized person just being able to exist in the space but being made aware that by existing they will be discriminated against in game. The Fun Tax increases in "type 2" fun. nordiclarp.org/2020/06/08/l...

Larp and Prejudice: Expressing, Erasing, Exploring, and the Fun Tax – Nordic Larp

Designers of larps with a real-world setting face questions about how to deal with prejudice. This article looks at three possible approaches.

nordiclarp.org

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Jonaya Kemper @violetriotgames.bsky.social · 8d

Like, Type 2 fun applied to larps can quickly be Type 3 fun for the marginalized person at the larp. Mo Holkar called this the Fun Tax.

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