Rants and Raves
Things sitting around in tabs so I could link to them, but I've been too tired, but I realllly need to get my tabs back into sanity because Firefox has a memory leak and I want to restart it! These are all across the spectrum!
No More Mr. Nice Guy: an essay about Nice Guys. The kind who are always complaining about how Jerks get their girls. It makes me even more grateful for the plethora of GENUINELY nice (not fake-nice) guys I know. (I know a lot of nice girls, too.) Anyhow I always love a good rant and this is a doozy. (For balance, she wrote a good rant about typical problems from bi girls later.)
It *IS* That Serious: Notes on a Fibro Attack: Pretty much a day in my life. Not every day, and a fairly bad day, but a pretty common sort of day. Weirdly similar except that I would not describe the pain as "incredible pain," partially because I can often think about other stuff while I'm having a flareup (even if I'm too tired or outright unconscious to DO anything), though the pain is definitely distracting. I don't know if my fibro hurts less or if I'm just unwilling to describe something as "incredibly" painful if I'm experiencing it so often, though it may not have been within my daily tolerances before. It certainly hurts less than migraine headaches or crushing injury. But the "stuffed with copper dish scrubbing sponges"... yeah... hmm... but in my hands and feet more often, not my head. Anyhow I make those kinds of insane choices all the time: "Walk the dog or take a bath." And I've had people tell me I just wasn't trying hard enough, though less often now, thankfully, and less of the "if you just think positively it'll go away." Mmm, tried that, thanks. Don't need to feel guilty for not thinking positively enough.
Interviewing Leather: Been slowly working my way through this series by Eric Burns; I read a random post from the middle of it a while ago and liked it. Anyhow it's about a superhero who turned supervillain being interviewed by a journalist who normally interviews rock musicians, and it's just fun. Adult, funny, gritty. I wish I could keep up but my ability to read webstuff is so limited right now.
Affirmative Consent: Sexual consent; this isn't about consent-based RP. Though amusingly I also want an enthusiastic "yes" there, too, especially if I'm playing around concepts that may be problem spots. (Things that might permanently change someone else's character, for instance, or that they might identify with strongly in ways that can upset the player, or... lots of other things.) Anyhow, an interesting line: "Someone who feels they cannot say no CANNOT meaningfully consent."
What a Story Game is to Me: Okay, this one IS about RPGs. I have been deeply grooving on Rob's theory posts, and I like that because I mostly go "huh?" when people talk about Story games, and he and immlass with her Aerobic Narrativism post are people I can get when the Forge sends me whimpering back to my whatever I am echelon. Immersive simulationist by default, I guess, though I can be prodded into other modes, and my truest words to live by are dirque's "What would be funniest?" I wish I had the brain cells to comment meaningfully on this post because I think it's a good post and I will probably forget by the time I can.
Dark Tower Roadmap: Because I need more insane things to obsess over. I kind of want to read them all again, though, and get the reissues (there are reissues, right, edited to make them neater?) of the Dark Tower series, and glut myself. Yeah, there are problems with King's writing, but man I also love it. I still reread It every now and then and shiver. And he writes very, very, fine short stories and I wish he'd write more of them.
No More Mr. Nice Guy: an essay about Nice Guys. The kind who are always complaining about how Jerks get their girls. It makes me even more grateful for the plethora of GENUINELY nice (not fake-nice) guys I know. (I know a lot of nice girls, too.) Anyhow I always love a good rant and this is a doozy. (For balance, she wrote a good rant about typical problems from bi girls later.)
It *IS* That Serious: Notes on a Fibro Attack: Pretty much a day in my life. Not every day, and a fairly bad day, but a pretty common sort of day. Weirdly similar except that I would not describe the pain as "incredible pain," partially because I can often think about other stuff while I'm having a flareup (even if I'm too tired or outright unconscious to DO anything), though the pain is definitely distracting. I don't know if my fibro hurts less or if I'm just unwilling to describe something as "incredibly" painful if I'm experiencing it so often, though it may not have been within my daily tolerances before. It certainly hurts less than migraine headaches or crushing injury. But the "stuffed with copper dish scrubbing sponges"... yeah... hmm... but in my hands and feet more often, not my head. Anyhow I make those kinds of insane choices all the time: "Walk the dog or take a bath." And I've had people tell me I just wasn't trying hard enough, though less often now, thankfully, and less of the "if you just think positively it'll go away." Mmm, tried that, thanks. Don't need to feel guilty for not thinking positively enough.
Interviewing Leather: Been slowly working my way through this series by Eric Burns; I read a random post from the middle of it a while ago and liked it. Anyhow it's about a superhero who turned supervillain being interviewed by a journalist who normally interviews rock musicians, and it's just fun. Adult, funny, gritty. I wish I could keep up but my ability to read webstuff is so limited right now.
Affirmative Consent: Sexual consent; this isn't about consent-based RP. Though amusingly I also want an enthusiastic "yes" there, too, especially if I'm playing around concepts that may be problem spots. (Things that might permanently change someone else's character, for instance, or that they might identify with strongly in ways that can upset the player, or... lots of other things.) Anyhow, an interesting line: "Someone who feels they cannot say no CANNOT meaningfully consent."
What a Story Game is to Me: Okay, this one IS about RPGs. I have been deeply grooving on Rob's theory posts, and I like that because I mostly go "huh?" when people talk about Story games, and he and immlass with her Aerobic Narrativism post are people I can get when the Forge sends me whimpering back to my whatever I am echelon. Immersive simulationist by default, I guess, though I can be prodded into other modes, and my truest words to live by are dirque's "What would be funniest?" I wish I had the brain cells to comment meaningfully on this post because I think it's a good post and I will probably forget by the time I can.
Dark Tower Roadmap: Because I need more insane things to obsess over. I kind of want to read them all again, though, and get the reissues (there are reissues, right, edited to make them neater?) of the Dark Tower series, and glut myself. Yeah, there are problems with King's writing, but man I also love it. I still reread It every now and then and shiver. And he writes very, very, fine short stories and I wish he'd write more of them.