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Wednesday, August 6th, 2008
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12:16 pm - Computer WOE
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Back from vacation to find that my computer will not turn on. It's plugged in and everything, and the various sockets work, as does the power cord, but...no turning on. Not a giant tragedy, since it's old and I have a nifty work laptop, but I'd like to get a few files off it before it dies completely.
Can anyone in the Camberville area recommend a decent computer repair place, and do any of you know how much getting something like that repaired would cost?
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(5 comments | comment on this)
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| Friday, August 1st, 2008
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8:30 am - Plus, "Sisterhood of the Travelling Pants" actually sounds interesting over there...
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As you may or may not have guessed, I'm back from England. Which was awesome.
Getting over there was less awesome. For one thing: plane flight. For another thing: broken entertainment system. For a third thing: I don't know what combination of mutant super-strong lungs and horrifically negligent parenting produces a child who can shriek for the full six hours of an overnight flight, but there were at least three of the little sonic supersoldiers on our plane. I seriously pondered going over and "offering" the parents access to my tranquilizers, or having a word with the stewardess: "A large vodka for the squalling hellbeast in Aisle 3, please?" I got a few hours' sleep; Adam got none.
So at 5 AM, mostly sleepless and, on my part, stoned--q.v. tranquilizers--I stumble into customs and make the mistake of volunteering information--that I'm here to meet my boyfriend's family--instead of just mumbling "vacation." Cue twenty minutes of questions: where did I meet said boyfriend ("online dating" went over *well*, since the next question was whether I'd met him in person before), what he did, what I did, how much I made per year (followed by "that isn't very much, is it?") and so on. Stoned Izzy is Dumb Izzy.
They did, however, let me through instead of detaining me wherever they send suspicious American girls with better-paid British boyfriends. I met Adam's parents and sister, who seemed to like me--yay!--and then went off to London. Adam had to get his visa renewed; since we deemed it better that I not be anywhere nearby when the authorities were deciding whether to let him into the U.S. for another couple years, I waited in Hyde Park.
For, as it turned out, three hours. I had a book and everything, and it was very pretty, but...three hours. And, due to the lack of sleep and having taken the sort of tranquilizers that fuck with your short-term memory, I started to wonder, by the end, whether Adam actually existed or what, and, if he didn't exist, why I was in England, and then had to remind myself that I wasn't actually a character in a modernist play. Very, very weird. Should write a letter to my Congressman and complain.
But the rest of the trip was great. Despite all reason, Adam's family continued, at least apparently, to like me; they very nicely volunteered to take us around and do a whole bunch of touristy things, so I got to see one of the big houses, and Hampton Court Palace, and go down the Thames on one of Adam's parents' friends' boats, and eat at a whole lot of good restaurants. The whole "English food" thing is, at least for someone who likes a lot of meat in her diet, absolutely untrue; if I spent more time over there, my ass would be the size of a smallish barn. (They have fondants. Like, entire candies *made of fondant* oh my God.)
With Adam, minus family, I also went on a tour of Cambridge ("This is King's College.* And this is a really good pub...oh, and so's that one over there." "I'm beginning to sense a theme here.") including punting. Well, Adam punted; I tried and failed, because managing a ginormous steel pole when you're 5'2 isn't really possible, except in the stripper sense. So I lounged around like a thirties-movie vamp, and got a giant sunburn, which I probably deserved.
Cambridge, it is worth noting, has a bunch of vacationing students offering to give people tours by punt for money. These are mostly young men and...um...the job either requires or builds a certain degree of firm muscularity. And it was a very hot day. I noticed this, and then I did some calculations involving the fact that it takes three years to get a degree at Cambridge and the length of time I'd been out of college...
...and in conclusion, I am going to Hell.
On the other hand, single young women reading this: if you're in England at any point in the near future, I recommend Cambridge. HIGHLY.
The river is also populated by about a thousand ducks, who are very cute and who gave us massively disapproving looks when we went past them. But very cute massively disapproving looks. Aw, ducks. (Swans and geese seem to be pretty nasty, though.)
We also went up to Yorkshire (to a town called Church Fenton, which is one of the better names I've heard) to see Adam's cousins--Adam has few enough cousins that he can actually give a damn about them, the lucky guy, also his, at least the ones I've met, are pretty damn cool--and their six-month-old twins. Kids were cute, as far as the age group goes, though I only really find 'em appealing once they have more hair and less drool. I did get to see sheep up close (they're kinda cute, and have wobbly ears) and the Oldest Guard Dog Ever, on one of the nearby farms.
So it was highly cool, and I've left a bunch of stuff out in the interest of LJ actually posting this, and I've gotten home safely. Adam's in Singapore giving a paper on humanized mice; I'm in Maine until Sunday, watching all the movies I'm embarrassed to watch in front of him, plus trashy TV, plus overhearing Dad's political shows from time to time.
More as it develops.
*I'm pretty sure that's one of the ones Henry VIII founded. My trip involved a lot of Henry VIII, for some reason, and left me with the impression that he wandered around beheading wives and founding colleges, switching to one whenever he got bored with the other. This is probably erroneous.
current mood:  content
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(18 comments | comment on this)
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| Friday, July 4th, 2008
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11:10 pm - And...
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| Tuesday, July 1st, 2008
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12:01 pm - Controversial Post!
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I had some time to kill in South Station recently. The bookstore had the 4E rules. So I opened the PHB, and I flipped through...
...and they look *good*. Seriously. I like the world; I like the "epic destiny" thing, where it seems like every character is working toward Something Big and you have a sort of idea where he or she is going; I like the definition of roles (having spent more than a couple games as the third person to have the same shtick, and thus one of at least two people feeling bored and useless); I definitely like the new simplicity of it.
Okay, I still think WotC is a bunch of Lifetime-watching wussypants for the half-orc thing (And also--you're eliminating half-orcs because of backstory problems, but you're making fucking TIEFLINGS a standard race? Did someone put Cognitive Dissonance Pills in the water out there?) and I didn't have time to look at the math-y bits. But it looks neat, it looks good, and if it takes at least twenty-five percent of the boring number-crunching bits out of combat, I'll be happy.
A couple criticisms I've heard, first the sensible and then the ridamndiculous.
1) The rules focus too much on combat.
Yeah. This is semi-reasonable, sort of. Except that a couple years of playing boffer LARPs makes me go "So what?"
Seriously. If you want to know how a roleplaying situation goes...play it out? You can, you know. It's within the rules. And if you really need to determine what happens via dice and numbers, well, you still have a Charisma score.
Honestly, I'm kind of happy with anything that cuts down on Cat Piss Men taking thirty-seven self-reinforcing social stats, and then attempting to play Mr. Charming when they don't have the skills for it. When there's no mathsturbation you can do that compensates for your total unshowered sleazebagness in RL...well, that makes me all warm and tingly inside.
2) "It's based on MMORPGs! OH NOES!"
Okay. Here's the thing, and I don't want to sound like I'm overreacting or anything, but...
...D&D's previous editions were based ON MINIATURES WARGAMES, FUCKTARDS.
Yeah, you can make an argument that 2 and 3E had evolved away from that, and that's a reasonable argument, even if I don't entirely believe you. But there's something just laughable about getting your panties in a twist because this edition is closer to another popular form of non-RPG-gaming, only this one has less math and more players who actually shower or have (female) tits. OH THE HORROR.
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(18 comments | comment on this)
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| Monday, June 30th, 2008
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11:05 am - Big Read, with Commentary
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Wedding: awesome! Will write more about that later, when my brain is working better. For the moment, here's a meme.
1) Look at the list and bold those you have read.
2) Italicize those you intend to read.
3) Underline the books you LOVE.
3.5) Strikethrough those that you tried to read, but couldn't finish out of boredom or frustration.
4) Reprint this list in your own LJ so we can try and track down these people who've read 6 and force books upon them ;-)
Also, the numbering gets weird, because I took out "The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe" insofar as "Chronicles of Narnia" is on the damn list already.
( List! )
Mostly kids' books. I'm really okay with this: a staggering amount of adult literature is amazingly depressing, and I have no desire to subject myself to that, thanks.
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(1 comment | comment on this)
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| Saturday, June 21st, 2008
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3:03 pm - Sports Night
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First of all, let me note that I'm writing this in the middle of a break between doing laundry and ironing. On a Saturday. Fuck me, when did I become June Cleaver?
And then I've been watching Sports Night, partly because I've never seen it and partly from the desire to ease the Dude gently into the world of Sorkin in twenty-minute doses. (Which has worked; we've Netflixed West Wing S1.) For the most part, it's awesome. I can see where there's sort of a learning curve before TWW, and I can see where the intellectual comedy mixed with Serious Business is coming from, and it's awesome.
On the other hand...Dan, in the Rebecca arc, bugs the hell out of me.
So Rebecca's this chick who Dan asks out in a series of hilarious mishaps. She turns him down. And there's an entire episode where he keeps bugging her about it, sending other people to bug her about it, and so forth, which...here, have this big bag of NO, Dan, and, by proxy, Aaron Sorkin. Jesus Christ, it's the twenty-first century, I thought we'd learned.
Since we...haven't, apparently...let me break it down for ya: if a guy asks me out, that's cool. I may say no, but as long as he's been polite about it, I'm not going to think less of him.
If a guy asks me out, and I say no, and he asks me out again, he's gonna get one of two things:
1) An alphabetical list of reasons why I won't go out with him, omitting nothing. Including "greasy hair" under "G" and "that sound you make when you eat potato chips" under T. I omit nothing; I spare no particle of ego.
2) If I'm feeling particularly wussy, a series of dodges and increasingly heavy hints. And then a description of the incidents posted all over the Internet. If I'm feeling particularly spunky, I'll use real names.
No means no. But it doesn't *just* mean "no," it also means "back the fuck off, dude." Don't ask again; don't flirt; don't hang around the person waiting for their attitude to change. 'Cause it'll change, all right: it'll go from "Nice guy, pity I don't feel it," to "You, sir, are a COLOSSAL DOUCHE."
So there's that.
Annnd of course Rebecca does neither of these things, she ends up dating him for a time*, and then Dan starts bugging her to watch a baseball game with him. Despite her lack of interest in baseball.
Gah gah GAH. If there's one thing I hate in people--whether I'm fucking them or not--it's the "try it, you'll like it" Mom-style eat-your-brussels-sprouts nagging. If I say I don't want to watch a baseball game, or that I couldn't give a damn about the various ways in which D&D surpasses GURPs stat-wise,** or whatever, ACCEPT THAT. Jesus Christ.
*Though she does prove to be the sort of fucked-up unwunderkind who goes back to her asshat husband at the end, so I'm not sure whether Sorkin was going for "women who fall for this sort of thing have Issues, and you're better off without 'em." That would make me feel better about him.
**Because seriously, y'all? Stat discussions bore the pants off me, and not in a good way. RPGs are great, I can talk about character and story and world until the proverbial cows come home, but you have five minutes to say something about classes or skill lists or races and the various little mathsturbational tricks you can do with them, and get it said, and move on, or I will go and get a book or drown myself. Lord.
current mood:  amused
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(6 comments | comment on this)
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| Saturday, June 7th, 2008
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10:37 pm - Yes. This.
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From Hathor Legacy.
I particularly like the first point. As I pointed out in a comment elsewhere, "But I meant it to be flattering!" or "But I didn't mean to be offensive!" cuts no ice with me when the implication is "...and you should have known that." ("Sorry, I meant X and fucked up the phrasing," is different and valid, because it contains an apology and an acceptance of responsibility.)
If you feel like saying that sort of thing, take a look around you. Do you see people with shiny white blue-eyed horsies? Do you see a giant-ass space station? Teenagers with bulging foreheads and crazy eyes? No? Then:
1) You don't live in Crazy Fantasy World.
2) Nobody has psychic powers.
3) We therefore have no way of maaaagically reaching into your soul and figuring out what you really truly meant.
4) We are, accordingly, going to--follow along at home, Sparky, 'cause this bit's important--GO BY WHAT YOU SAY AND DO.
No shit, huh?
If you don't want to get flack for poorly stated opinions, learn to state them better. If you mean something as a compliment but the recipient doesn't take it as one, apologize and KNOCK THAT SHIT OFF. Now. No, now. No, it doesn't matter what you mean, because SEE FUCKING ABOVE. If you made an honest mistake, apologize and learn from it. It ain't that hard, cupcake.
Jesus. Lern 2 play, n00bs.
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(3 comments | comment on this)
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| Thursday, June 5th, 2008
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1:31 pm - More Breath of Fire Hijinks
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* My party is up to three people: little winged girl, fox-faced ranger/offensive sorcerer that I'm disturbingly sure there's a lot of furry porn about somewhere, and my hero. When Little Winged Girl had her solo quest, the number of random encounters decreased a lot. Maybe it's 'cause she can fly; maybe it's just because the landscape does, in fact, hate plucky blue-haired guys.
*LWG uses a rapier, which is a cool change from the typical Wussy White Mage Chick Staff. (All of y'all who LARP with me may shut up now.) On the "fuck you, Squaresoft" hand, her armor type is...dresses: NiceDress, SilkGn, etc. And her shields are bracelets. Fuck you, Squaresoft.
*I can turn into three types of dragons now! Frost, fire, and lightning. They sortakinda correspond to the D&D chromatic dragons, but then, the first two types are pretty obvious. Anyhow, I can turn into a dragon. It kicks a fair amount of ass.
*A large amount of the plot until recently centered around gaining control of a giant stone robot, using it to break the giant rock the Dark Dragons had used to dam a river (by saying "Robot, destroy that rock!" because it's a giant voice-activated stone robot), having the Evil General Guy take over the robot ("while everyone's away at the wedding"--dude, if you need a village wedding to provide a distraction, your evil powers are really suckful), having the robot destroy the village and then stop, despite the general ranting at it (because it's a giant voice-activated stone robot with a conscience), regaining control of the robot, and then having the robot throw itself into a volcano in a scene not at all ripped off from T2.
This is awesome.
*In the Richest Town Ever (where the streets are literally paved with gold) I did my typical go-into-the-house-and-open-all-the-chests thing, only for one owner to freak out and have me arrested. Cool touch, but does throw the general acceptance of the kleptomaniac hero into a new light, since people apparently do notice and care. Sort of the JRPG equivalent of the "Hands of Time" musical number in Grease 2.
*Random encounters are currently pigs that summon lightning bolts. Why not?
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(25 comments | comment on this)
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| Wednesday, June 4th, 2008
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10:56 am - Serious Izzy is Not That Serious
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Yeah, I was going to post something rambly and philosophical about privacy, and when your actions in/toward fandom should affect you RL, and also that having your first-grade class vote to kick out one of its members is the act of a total and complete douche, Wendy Portillo . And I hope that story follows you around for the rest of your life, such that your name becomes a synonym for "horrible teacher" right alongside Mary Kay LeTorneau.
But it's cold and rainy and I don't feel like being all that serious.
So instead, I will rant about Winds of Fate .
Yes, I've been on a Lackey-reading kick lately (I'm trying to get back in shape, which means no *actual* non-brain candy for the next month or so, so...shut up) and, frankly, the Mage Winds stuff is pretty cool, insofar as it doesn't involve anyone's self-esteem. Plus, I like Elspeth. She's awesome. (There's a bit toward the end where Obligatory Love Interest Guy is mentioning her flaws, and "...impatient with those who were governed by emotion rather than logic," comes up, and I always go "Dude, that's NOT A FUCKING FLAW." Hee.)
Howthefuckever, Skif annoys me. And now that I'm an adult and have taken enough English classes/participated in enough arguments online, the way his Obsessive Crushy Dude behavior is treated sort of annoys me too. Lackey doesn't sanction it, exaaaactly--Elspeth is pretty impatient with it, and she doesn't, thank God, end up falling for him like she would if this was written by someone who sucked more--but he does seem to get a bit of a pass. Elspeth's frank and angry but entirely verbal "you've been puppydogging at me for weeks, FUCK OFF" speech gets a "oh, that's cruel" from her Companion, which...Gwena's generally kind of a twat*, frankly, so whatever, except that Elspeth herself then thinks she *was* cruel.
Which, no. If a guy in whom I was clearly uninterested persisted in following me around and getting in my way, he'd be going home with a pair of black eyes and a letter that essentially said "Send me a *competent* bodyguard this time, plzkthx." And if he'd actually started trying to touch me? He'd have an extremely swollen pair of balls into the bargain. I like puppies when they're dogs. I have no patience with 'em when they're supposed to be men.
But Elspeth thinks she's cruel, and Skif gets all snitty "she's not even really human" Denied Nice Guy at the end. And he doesn't even get smacked down for it--instead, he gets to fuck the hot (if unintentionally also annoying, DIE IN A FIRE, NYARA) catgirl. Meh. Not that I want him to die or anything, but it would be nice if he caught some flack for being a dipshit.
*Seriously, there are entire chapters where Skif is all "MOON OVERPROTECT LURV" and Gwena's all "SMUG SMUG POOR SKIF SMUG SMUG" and I frankly questioned how Elspeth didn't just kebab the pair of them on Need. Heraldric morals aside, that takes some pretty impressive self-control.
current mood:  bitchy
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(19 comments | comment on this)
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| Tuesday, June 3rd, 2008
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10:06 am
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| Thursday, May 29th, 2008
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12:44 pm - Non-Serious Post
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Because I'm going to have a serious, slightly horrifying one later. Nothing to do with my personal life: this is current events and philosophy and all that stuff I generally try to avoid thinking about. But first, The Funny.
Using the wonders of SnesX and ROMS and stuff, I've acquired a copy of Breath of Fire for my computer. It seems like the perfect game for those "hurry up and wait" moments when I don't have anything else to do at work, or am on a train, or whatever, and I have vague memories of liking it as a kid. You got to turn into a dragon: that was cool. It's still kinda cool, even with the knowledge of Otherkin and "therians" and similar Oh Henry-style nutbars that taints my enjoyment of such things. (q.v. original Changeling.)
Not that I've gotten to turn into a dragon yet. I've just completed the second dungeon, so I'm still hitting things with my little sword.
The story is this: despite having a name that you'd think would inspire a peaceful life of puppy-cuddling and mass lollipop distribution, Zog, the leader of the Dark Dragon family, has decided to bwahaha take over the world. So far, he seems to be doing fine with a bunch of beefy dudes (and the earthquake machine I just shut off) but there's some metaplot involving a Goddess of Desire who was sealed away because she kept the various Dragon families fighting with each other. (Seems a remarkably practical solution; I'm surprised the Greeks didn't think of it.) So Zog and his merry men will probably try and free her, there'll be general havoc-wreaking, et cetera.
All that stands between Zog and aforementioned havoc-wreaking is "Ryu," your default spunky blue-haired hero, and his BronzSD, which I'm sure will get upgraded soon. One of the nifty parts of BoF is that it has a reason for the Standard FRPG Starting Equipment Suckage: village was just destroyed by Dark Dragons, we don't exactly stock Excalibur.
Both the problem with BoF, and the reason it works well as a play-at-work game, are the standard Japanese RPG flaw: turn-based combat and random enounters. HATE. I can vaaaaguely see the point of these things--turn-based combat actually works okay during boss fights, where it means something, and random encounters give you a nifty way to try out new spells and attacks without the fear that you'll be ineffective and die. (Plus gold, XP, yadda, yadda, but I can't help but think there are other ways to deal with that.) So I can put up with a few of them.
I said A FEW. The other JRPGs I've played through--Shadow Hearts I and II, FFII, and Parasite Eve--spread the random encounters out to a nice "enh, every few minutes," level. In BoF, I can't move three pixels without getting ambushed by a slime, or a purple wild boar, or a floating eyeball, or some damn thing; nature hates spunky blue-haired boys (as, some would argue, WELL IT MIGHT). Here's a tip, Square: if you have to include an "auto-combat" function, you're doing something about the combats WRONG. Also, the "see the worldmap" button does not appear in this game, which makes trying to get anywhere a confusing, monster-filled slog.
On the other hand, the game's pretty and not wicked hard, the music's nifty, and it's not like turn-based combat is all that more pain-in-the-ass mindless than running into the letter 'k' over and over again in Moria. Plus, I hear you get to turn into a dragon.
current mood: amused
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(8 comments | comment on this)
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| Tuesday, May 27th, 2008
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4:18 pm - Endgame Rides
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Soooo...rides? For me? And a possible dude?
I'm in Somerville, but can get pretty much anywhere on the Red Line, and can be there whenever.
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(comment on this)
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| Monday, May 19th, 2008
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2:40 pm - On Weddings
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11:05 am - Aralis Rides?
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Hey, guys!
Can anyone out there give me and Dude a ride to Aralis this Friday? We're in Cambridge, but can be elsewhere on the Red Line if need be.
Thanks!
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(3 comments | comment on this)
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| Thursday, May 8th, 2008
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10:57 am - A Bit of Self-Pity
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| Tuesday, May 6th, 2008
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11:12 am - Blerg?
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Reading the Book of Vile Darkness, because, hey, what the hell? Some good stuff there, some of it (...cancer mages? Dude) in a very squicky way. And that's cool.
However, I really could live without the whole "Evil Traits of Evil" including sadism and masochism. I'm not particularly deep into the scene--and I find that many people who are carry the "we're dark misunderstood martyrs" act waaay too fucking far*--I'm not offended by much, but putting them in there with necrophilia, bestiality, and freaking *cannibalism* is really not okay. I can sortakinda see sadism, if it was phrased like "some people get sexual pleasure from hurting others, and a maladjusted few of those take it way too far and don't bother with things like consent" but...no.
Shove it, Monte Cook.
On a more comedic note, I still can't get my head around "Lichloved" as a feat. Yes, it's what it sounds like. Yes, ew. And "Apocalypse from the Sky" is a deeply amusing spell name.
ETA: Also amusing? "Gutwrench." The target's intestines burst from their body (I presume Temple-of-Doom style) and fly toward the caster. Who absorbs them. Yeaaah.
*Not that this is anything new to me, what with being a pagan and a gamer and hanging around with goths. Y'all, if you flagrantly ignore social standards of behavior or generally act like an attention whore, people are going to think you're a weirdo. This != ZOMG PERSECUTION. No, you cannot wear a slave collar to work. Or a robe, Whiny Guy From Customers_Suck. Fuck off.
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(26 comments | comment on this)
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| Monday, April 28th, 2008
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8:51 am - Rides?
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Hey, all!
I'm in need of a ride to Endgame this weekend. I live in Somerville, would want to do end-game food things, and may be accompanied by one or two burly men. Can chip in for gas etc.
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(1 comment | comment on this)
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| Wednesday, April 23rd, 2008
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4:42 pm - Also
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My attitude toward the whole OSB project was not improved by the first guy who posted an objection on Ferrett's LJ. Because, first of all, he was a dude, and second, his objection was basically:
"I feel that other people doing this diminishes the intimacy of touching someone's breasts. I don't kiss or touch many people [fine] and I like to feel like I'm getting a reward when I do."
Which has all kinds of ick-tastic female purity/virgin-as-prize connotations. Plus, basically, you're wanting other people to stop doing something they like because it makes you feel less special?
How very precious. Die in a fire.
Other people have totally valid objections. This dude? Does not. See also the bit about dying in a fire.
Edited to clarify: the poster wasn't just stating that he wouldn't do this, but rather that it was a bad idea for everyone because, y'know, it made him less of a Conquering Hero or whatever.
current mood: annoyed
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12:41 pm - Philosophical Ramblng
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Note: When not specifically directed at anyone, the below are...not specifically directed at anyone. Some have been prompted by recent discussion, in a sort of "Huh, I made this statement that could use some elaboration only not over there" sense, but they were sort of swirling around in my head to begin with.
1: On Peace, Love, and Understanding--and Why They Suck.
Just kidding. Sort of.
I'm all for getting along as well as we can. Letting people do their own thing? Great. (I may snicker and make catty remarks to friends if your thing is, say, wearing pink Lycra in public, but you don't have to listen and it's not going to kill you.) And if people really want to change or learn or whatever, I'm all for helping them.
But until they do, I don't think it's my job. In fact, I think that trying to get them to change, or continuing to reach out to someone who's clearly unwilling to do the heavy lifting, is a waste of time and effort. Like the man says, you got to know when to walk away. And I, in all honesty, don't think that most people change much once they're adults.
A little? Sure. But when we're talking about sixteen-year-olds, or eighteen-year-olds, there's a good chance that Toxic Drama Queen will calm down, that Cat Piss Man will learn some social skills, that The Ditz will get organized, and so forth. Once we're talking mid-twenties or so? Not so much. Adults are, for good or ill, pretty set in their ways--and, when we're talking negative traits, most of them are old enough to know better. There comes a point where you either have to accept that I forget my keys all the time and swear like a sailor, or you have to...not, and that's sad, but it's life.
Furthermore, I think too much willingness to put up with people, to try and understand them, and so forth, can actively be a bad thing. It rewards negative behavior, which I think is wrong in some sort of cosmic sense; it gives people the impression that *they* don't need to do anything, because others will make accommodations. And an excess of understanding frequently leads to nothing but you compromising what you most want, or think is right, or whatever.
Sometimes compromise is fine--I don't always have to hold out for eighties movies, or grand narrative arcs, or whatever; I can watch the Exorcist or play straight D&D, and it won't be the end of the world. (Though everyone has their own place to stand, and I think being too willing to compromise has definitely hurt some of the games I've run.) But I think that understanding, like love, is one of those qualities that the world sees as unswervingly positive when maybe it shouldn't--which is why my default is to argue against it.
2: So There's This Thing About Breasts...
Which, really, doesn't merit a whole lot of explaining. Dude suggests a system wherein women, at cons, wear buttons saying "ask if you can touch my breasts," for reasons which are partly noble--if in a sort of feel-good sixties way that makes my personal teeth hurt--and partly that, y'know, he's a dude and he wants to touch breasts. Internet explodes.
This is being debated elsewhere, in general, and I'm really not interested in debating the whole thing here. (It's nothing I'd ever do, because...con guys. ECH.) However, it raised the whole issue of peer pressure and hostile environments, and that *is* something where I seem to disagree with a lot of people.
See, the thing is, I wear skimpy clothing. I have sex; I have a lot of sex; I talk pretty freely about having a lot of sex. I observe some basic proprieties here: if a given friend says "Hey, Izzy, I have no interest in your sex life, shut up," I totally will, and I don't wear minidresses to my grandparents'. Buuut...if I was at a drunken party, we were all talking about sex, or groping each other, or whatever, and someone complained, I'd think *that person* should shut up or leave--it's a drunken party, you know what you're getting into, suck it up. Likewise, if I'm dressed to suit public decency and someone on the street comes up and complains about my lack of midriff-coverage, that person's going to get a two-word response.
And if I could, I would totally wear the skimpiest clothing ever around people who complain about other women "dressing like sluts," because...fuck you, chickie.
And furthermore, if someone doesn't want to have sex, or wear miniskirts, or whatever? That's his or her decision--but that cuts both ways. If you see me wearing a miniskirt and want one yourself, but you don't think it's "right" to dress that way? That's between you and your therapist, sweetie. If I'm making out with someone and it makes you feel bad about your True Love Waits thing? Not. My. Problem. Own your feelings, because I'm not doing it for you.
Now, I'm not sure how the whole Open Source Boob thing is different, but I can see a couple ways that it is--it's physical contact, it's at a setting where you're not prepared for it, and anything that encourages poorly-socialized geeks to ask whether they can touch women is bad, though not as bad as aforementioned geeks touching *without* asking. (EW.) But I think we need to be careful about saying "this behavior is bad because of peer pressure."
current mood:  thoughtful
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| Tuesday, April 22nd, 2008
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11:37 am - Aralis!
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Yeah, I slept for eighteen hours yesterday. (And then proceeded to get food poisoning. Man. Who knew that salad could go bad?)
I really enjoyed session, though I was a little more tense than I'd have liked: this is the first time I brought someone I was dating into a LARP, and the whole "Oh, God, I hope you like this, and don't embarrass me" thing was definitely on my mind about seventy-five percent of the time. (Thank God I knew he could roleplay beforehand--and thank God he *can* roleplay, because...man, finding out that I was actually in love with one of those "Lightning Bolt!" video dudes would have been Problematic. And possibly, nay, probably a deal-breaker.) Fortunately, he seems to have become thoroughly addicted, and nobody emailed me to say "wow, your boyfriend's a chode," so...yay!
Friday night rocked. I mean, other than the drive to the campsite (shut up, asscrack-of-nowhere-Massachusetts, and get some decent road signs while you're at it) and the subsequent discovery that 4H actually stands for Heinous Heaps of Horrible Hatred, in the form of giant fuck-off branches. We seem to have been cursed by the vengeful and omnipotent Campsite Gods or something. Oh well.
The game was excellent. I loved starting out in the Imperial Girls' School and the conversations I had there; I had a great time with ![[info]](http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) hilariarex's undead hunter ("Tell Tasni I'm going to kill a vampire. I'll be back, I promise!"); and Ross's death was the squalidest thing I've ever seen in ever. And man, that was awesome. Plus, he came back the next morning, so, yay!
Saturday? Also fun. Many, many thanks to egowumpus for asking me to lead a service for Sol, and to all who participated: it really made me feel like I had a role in the greater world, and I really like religion plot/discussion/spuh. I am not terribly good at improv, I fear, so I'll have to plan a service for the future.
Goblin plot ruled! So did going to look for the alchemist's master, even if we did get totally rolled. And the 19...stuff...is fascinating, if somewhat creepy.
As far as Saturday night goes...I enjoyed most of it (the disorganization started to get to me after a while, and that was the worst possible wall to fight over, but that's about it), and I sort of liked the enforced conversation in Room O'Squalor. I wish we'd brought blankets or something, and much love to Shawn for the hoodie distribution, but that's about it.
I feel a little lame about my own performance this session, system-wise--between sleep dep and worry over the dude, I forgot I had some things, forgot I *didn't* have other things, and was generally a giant fucking ditz. Bleah. Sorry about that, y'all.
Generally? Rockzor. And I look forward to next session. So does Dude, for the record.
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