As a fellow short, I too appreciate this kind sentiment from the tallfolks.

Yeah, I kind of died a little when I realized that these being 4th ed means they're still almost 20 years old...

My magnum opus, roughly to the tune of Waltzing Matilda:

"Wrex has a stinky butt, stinky butt, stinky butt! Wrex has a stinky butt! Stinky butt-butt!"

Or maybe "Alibi" for the catchy matrix app version. :>

"Partners in Crime"

In Alpha Complex, citizens are judged not by the color of their skin but by the color of their clearances. 🌈

Yep! They're a metavariant of orks.

Sure, I assume most people will miss it. But if even one person reads a story about, for example, organ harvesting or secret human experiments or something, and it makes them reflect on the importance of bodily autonomy in a new way, I think that's important.

It's also an interesting and important challenge, to see if I can take something very personal and make the topic resonate with readers from a very different background.

Sure, sometimes I weave stuff into metaphor. I'm actually SUPER privileged to not fear censorship on the level many creatives do. (Not that I haven't had content edited out before.)

Often it's just because it's more interesting artistically not being restricted by the limits of literal reality.

I do think there's value in both realistic, complex depictions and escapist fashie-bashing power fantasies, especially for audiences who are themselves oppressed.

I just hope that I'm providing enough tools for people to safely explore those facets and tell the stories they need to tell right now.

Evil can wear the faces of concerned, "well-intentioned" neighbors and your own worst lizard-brain impulses. But sometimes it wears stupid pointy hoods.

When I fill that toy box, I do try to include exaggeration, comedy, and absurdity, as well as subtlety and nuance, realism and metaphor.

Because sometimes evil is mundane, insidious in how pervasive it is and the cruelty it inflicts. It can also be galling in its stupidity and incompetence.