xenologer: (Ravenna)
I have feelings, and sometimes those are not actually sensible things to be sharing. I share my feelings when they provide someone useful data as to how to treat me well, either by affirming what's good or clarifying what is not an effective way to coexist with me. As a result I don't really vent at people unless I have some other independent reason to be doing so. If I am venting to you about something you have done, it's because I have concluded that a more detailed map of my emotional terrain would be useful for you.

Most of the time that isn't necessary. A simple explanation ought to be enough! People should just believe me when I articulate the "when you do X it makes me feel Y because I tell myself Z, so I need you to not X," sort of thing. They shouldn't need to see the wounds and have the blood flung in their face.

The known bug of this particular system is that if I can think of a reason not to divulge, I am prone to using it as an excuse, as a way to bolster my resolve to avoid sharing simply because I do not like sharing. The harm of this is limited because an actual tactical reason to share can override that. The harm is still there, though, even if it is mostly just the further ossification of my insides rather than any kind of outward damage to my social network or the people in it.

Still, I do have a journal. I do have a space which is ostensibly designed for me to talk about my internal life, and the only people who read it are the people who have decided for their own reasons that they want to keep an up to date map of my terrain.

So here's what's eating at me.

Read more... )
xenologer: (do not even)
TW: Game of Thrones is 40% good and 60% racist hilaribad

We've had convos in my journal before about racist Eurocentric fantasy and so I obviously knew what I was getting into with Game of Thrones but oh my god

nobody warned me about the "thank you" thing

"I do not know how to say thank you in Dothraki." "There is no word for thank you in Dothraki."

I mean aside from her clearly beginning the process of civilizing the hypersexual violent darkie savage with her magic white poontang of compassion and reason... can we just spend a minute and sit with THE DOTHRAKI DO NOT HAVE A WORD FOR THANK YOU

they do not have that



I like the female characters, and knew I would. It's just pretty clear that they're only for white people. ALSO I get the feeling that with all George RR Martin's ingenuity with tormenting his characters, the only misery he can think of for women is sexual violence just over and over and over. I keep wanting to get myself to a place of willful enjoyment, but all I can think about are the following two things:

1. It's pretty sad that fantasy boards that are blatant rip-offs of this setting and plot constitute progress in the land of Misogynist Whitelandia roleplaying. How fuckin' sad.

2. the dothraki do not have a word for thank you

Thank goodness for the Lannisters. I don't think I could deal with this without their smarmy behinds. No word for thank you. What the shit. halp
xenologer: (cocky Kamina)
Tumblr brought me a thing. I am not bitchy enough to actually use this as a signature on RPG-Directory, but I thought about it and smiled.



As far as roleplaying settings are concerned, The Mysterious Orient is populated entirely by samurai and ninja. All women are courtesan-assassins and all men are blushing stammering uke.

There might be an option for player characters from the Generic Dark People Country, but nobody will play one because it might require learning to tell POC apart well enough to select a PB.

You might see an Arab character now and again, but they will all be played by Italians.
xenologer: (ooh!)
PSA: Your Default Narrative Settings Are Not Apolitical

Which leads me back to the issue of prejudice: specifically, to the claim that including such characters in SFF stories, by dint of contradicting the model of straight, white, male homogeneity laid down by Tolkien and taken as gospel ever since, is an inherently political – and therefore suspect – act. To which I say: what on Earth makes you think that the classic SWM default is apolitical? If it can reasonably argued that a character’s gender, race and sexual orientation have political implications, then why should that verdict only apply to characters who differ from both yourself and your expectations? Isn’t the assertion that straight white men are narratively neutral itself a political statement, one which seeks to marginalise as exceptional or abnormal the experiences of every other possible type of person on the planet despite the fact that straight white men are themselves a global minority? And even if a particular character was deliberately written to make a political point, why should that threaten you? Why should it matter that people with different beliefs and backgrounds are using fiction to write inspirational wish-fulfillment characters for themselves, but from whose struggle and empowerment you feel personally estranged? That’s not bad writing, and as we’ve established by now, it’s certainly not bad history – and particularly not when you remember (as so many people seem to forget) that fictional cultures are under no obligation whatsoever to conform to historical mores. It just means that someone has managed to write a successful story that doesn’t consider you to be its primary audience – and if the prospect of not being wholly, overwhelmingly catered to is something you find disturbing, threatening, wrong? Then yeah: I’m going to call you a bigot, and I probably won’t be wrong.


I want to enter into a committed long-term relationship with this article.

This is one reason I have a hard time finding fantasy settings that I really click with. Too many writers, worldbuilders, and roleplayers either A: don't want "politics" (read: minorities) in their pretendy funtime games, or B: really think that the only people who've ever led narratively interesting lives were straight white cisgender people, and that for the sake of realism they can have wizards and fairies but cannot have more than a couple token POC in their setting.

I console myself by reminding myself that if that's the level of thought they put into their writing and worldbuilding, they're probably pretty mediocre at both. Odds are I'm not missing much.

It's also worth adding that Tolkien didn't want to create the enormously racially-screwy and gender-backward narrative that he did with Lord of the Rings. When it was pointed out to him (by which I mean, sometime around when the Nazis wrote to him and said, "Dude we love you!"), he went, "Oh no, look what I did," and decided to use his future writings to undermine that a great deal and do better. Sadly, he died before he got to finish that, but the Silmarillion helps and he evidently had more improvement plans in his notes.

So I am kinda both saying I want worldbuilders to be less like Tolkien in how they worldbuild, and more like Tolkien in how they respond to criticism about their worldbuilding. Not all stories have to be about magical straight white people. Frankly, there are only so many stories to be told in identically-"medieval" whitewashed patriarchal fantasy settings.
xenologer: (happy!)
I am not currently playing with the vast majority of you, therefore I come bearing mutants and magic and MAD SCIENCE!

Metro City is here for excellently tongue-in-cheek superhero shenanigans for all your modern kitchen-sink supernatural roleplaying needs. We care about having comedy with our drama and diversity among our characters. I know that for me, a lot of boards can get so bogged down in being gritty and dark that the impact is lost because there's no dynamic contrast. If there's a little comedy (or a lot) thrown in, those dramatic notes stand out a lot more and it's easier to appreciate them, in my opinion. I know that I've learned a lot about comedic writing from being on this board.

Part of the comedy around Metro City is that we like to lampshade comic tropes. We actually factor in "trope coverage" to some plot decisions, because if we're going to be a superhero setting well naturally we'll eventually need to have twins who both have complimentary powers (check) and a teen hero team (teen swarm check) and a villain/hero romance (check) and Obligatory Clone Plot and Obligatory Alien Plot (check) and Obligatory Power Loss Plot (we have not done all of these yet but we keep them in mind as options because we respect our heritage).

We're writing in a comic book style setting, which means occasionally that we have to poke fun at our roots a little, just to make it clear that we know when they deserve it. We also try to improve on our roots by having characters of all races, genders, orientations, and ages, which is not something the big comic publishers have historically been terribly great at.

Now here is the Obligatory Ad Posting.



Daring, virtuous heroes.

Despicable, vile villains.

Dark, unknowable renegades.

Which one are YOU?

Three hundred years ago, Metro City was built around an ancient meteor impact site that emitted a strange radiation signature. Only within the last few decades was it discovered that this energy was tied to the emergence of superpowers in the world. Nowadays, heroes, villains, and renegades battle it out for control of the city's fate.

Metro City is eager for new storytellers. Come on down and see what we're about!

Details about the game are found here. Contact an admin here.
xenologer: (everybody's aunt)
I am having a hard time finding RP boards that are up to my standards, and not because I am such a fantastic writer that threading with my inferiors feels too much like slumming. I am having a hard time with a lot of the bigotry and bullshit in people's settings and character assortments. It feels weird, too, because I sort of feel like as a nice white (mostly-straight cis)lady it's not really... for me to complain about, I guess? But... uh... what in the fuck. Someone's got to complain about it, and the more someones who are commenting on it, the better. I guess.

It still feels weird. I'm not sure that it should be a great contribution to a conversation to just regurgitate what I've heard and read and learned from LGBT people and POC, but at the same time I suppose more privileged people should be getting up in arms about this shit, so even if it feels weird, I am probably doing a good thing. I hope.

This started as a post in a thread about bigotry in online RP and I thought I would reproduce it here just so that I could complain to more people. A lot of the things I am complaining about don't even directly deal with demographics I'm a part of, which should tell you how bad they can get. For the most part none of these are issues I deal with personally except that living in a world where they are commonplace sort of sucks for everyone. I can't even imagine what it'd be like to be, say, an LGBT woman of color trying to find a place to roleplay online that wasn't full of bullshit. So I am griping about it.

Congrats. You get my complaining. Aren't you so grateful. I will cut this in case you don't want to read it, because there is a lot of it.

Read more... )
xenologer: (YAY)
I am so happy right now. One of my characters has become the Mary Sue of another character within the same setting. It's beautiful.

Okay, for context. Metro City now has a character who is a high school student writing Real Person Fic about the city's superheroes. It's just the worst slashfic ever, with the pairings optimized OOC to provide maximum horror and trauma to the characters themselves when they inevitably find this, and my character is the one that this girl has decided is going to be her self-insert Mary Sue, so she is pairing her with the hero she has a teen obsessioncrush on.

Hence: My character is the Mary Sue of another character within the setting.

BWARRRRRRM

Also, holy shit does it feel fantastic to not have to be the admin of everything for once. I am trying to learn that I do not have to mastermind everything in order for social situations to work or community building to happen. People can talk to each other without me acting as a coach and interpreter, no matter what they seem to think. I am enjoying my vacation from fixing everything for everybody, and y'know what? They're not relying on me for it any more! How splendid!

Anyway, writing is yay. I am thrilled to be writing with so many people who have things to teach me about comedic writing. I end up sort of being a big fish in a small pond, and while it's nice to be appreciated... I stagnate when I'm the popular kid. With the last board I was writing on, people sort of fell all over me and were amazed that I can write dialogue worth half a damn. Guys, I'm coherent, but I'm not a hero. It's nice to not be expected to be one, because I'm not at the top of the heap anymore.

Thank goodness.
xenologer: (unlikely weapon)
Yanked from [personal profile] sunreon .

Pick a character I write, and I will give you the top five ideas/concepts/other I keep in mind while writing that character that I believe are essential to depicting them accurately.
xenologer: (everybody's aunt)
I've been on a lot of RP forums, and I'm sort of tired of something in particular that I want to rant about for a quick minute. Generally I actually like being staff because it gives me an excuse to really contribute to getting the posting pace moving quickly and doing the fun community building stuff. Ordinarily this is super rewarding and I love it, but obviously with any project there are going to be people who slow the project down while bitching that it isn't moving fast enough to suit them.

I dislike this. )
xenologer: (human monsters)
I have a board that I enjoy a great deal, and wanted to plug it here just in case there are any play-by-post people around. I will preface this by saying that shifter boards are not normally for me, after being repeatedly smacked in the face with the White Wolf-style hammer that says, "NOBODY IS INTERESTING OR WORTH PLAYING UNLESS THEY ARE INFECTED BY A MAGICAL SPACE VIRUS THAT CAUSES THEM TO BECOME A MANATEE AT HIGH TIDE," and that's just dumb. So. Understand that when I recommend this place, I am not recommending that.

If you want to find me or my characters on this board, I'm known as Cobalt over there (which, if you know me, you probably would have spotted anyway). Feel free to hit me up with questions here if you've got them, or use the CBox on the board itself.


POST-APOCALYPSE.
WITH WEREWOLVES.
JOIN.

...Yeah.

Werewolves, and shape-shifters in general? They've been around. A long time. Since the beginning. Sometimes they had their time of power in the world. Nowadays, they mostly don't.

Four years ago, a disease ravaged the world. Who would have thought that the werewolves, of all people, would be immune to a variation of rabies. Now most people are just trying to stay alive.

A community-run game, with open opportunities for creating your own packs, areas and aspects of the game. Friendly, dedicated admins and active members, and a wiki for expanding upon any details you feel like!
details about the game and joining can be found here
info about the admins can be found here




Anyway, thanks, I'm done now!
xenologer: (angel/11)
Brian, after a long silence, blurts out, "...We should kill some merfolk and make suits out of their skin."
xenologer: (do not even)
IM convo from earlier:


(01:48:07 AM) John: So, what will you do with all your free time?
(01:48:14 AM) John: Bask for a while?
(01:48:14 AM) Me: Fight the man.
(01:48:16 AM) Me: See a doctor.
(01:48:19 AM) Me: RP.
(01:48:26 AM) Me: That's my list.
(01:49:00 AM) John: Good list. I dig it.

Shadowrun

Sep. 19th, 2010 05:16 am
xenologer: (transhuman)
There are evidently no SR RP forums other than Dumpshock. This is crazy! Why is this the case!?

Anybody know of one that I've just... not managed to find? I can't start another board for this; I have my Star Wars board that needs to be put first. I'm just a little surprised that there seems to be nothing out there.
xenologer: (Default)
The Gratitude Project was begun several years ago by a LiveJournal user called estaratshirai . The rules are simple. Every day between Lammas (August 1st) and Mabon (the Autumnal Equinox) one must find something to be grateful for in life. No repeats - one can be grateful to people more than once, but it has to be for different reasons.

Wednesday:

I'm grateful for the people who share my hobbies, and keep me from getting bored or lonely while Brian takes a vacation in California and I take an involuntary vacation from work due to health problems. Having people to connect with and have fun with without being out and doing harm to myself... it's good, and has been particularly useful this week.

Thursday:

I'm grateful to Stephen Batchelor, for writing honestly about dharma practice which doesn't include--and doesn't need to include--specious claims that fly in the face of established knowledge about our world. The fact that dharma practice can be taken and used as Siddhartha Gautama intended without accepting the assumptions of Hinduism which colored those lessons... it's given me a lot of room to grow, and it took a long time for anybody to really come out and say that this was okay.

Friday:

I'm grateful to Gmail for having a good spam blocker. I laugh at your Hotmail! Ha!
xenologer: (Default)
I Am A: Neutral Good Human Wizard (3rd Level)


Ability Scores:
Strength-13
Dexterity-12
Constitution-12
Intelligence-15
Wisdom-16
Charisma-15

Cut for the rest. )
xenologer: (Default)
I Am A: Neutral Good Human Wizard (3rd Level)


Ability Scores:
Strength-13
Dexterity-12
Constitution-12
Intelligence-15
Wisdom-16
Charisma-15

Cut for the rest. )
xenologer: (Default)
I Am A: Neutral Good Human Wizard (3rd Level)


Ability Scores:
Strength-13
Dexterity-12
Constitution-12
Intelligence-15
Wisdom-16
Charisma-15

Cut for the rest. )
xenologer: (bye bye)
[livejournal.com profile] poshspice is right.

Haters gonna hate. *waves off*
xenologer: (vagina)
So... I know that on a lot of roleplaying boards, the way to have an edgy backstory for a tough female character is to say she's been raped. There inevitably will be at least a couple of characters like this (and should be, frankly, because it isn't uncommon).

What pisses me off is that on some boards, this is apparently the only way to create a tough female character or a fragile female character or... really, anybody with tits. Evidently the only kind of woman anybody can think of to RP is... well... a rape victim.

Cut for triggers and probably length and just general fucking venting. )
xenologer: (vagina)
So... I know that on a lot of roleplaying boards, the way to have an edgy backstory for a tough female character is to say she's been raped. There inevitably will be at least a couple of characters like this (and should be, frankly, because it isn't uncommon).

What pisses me off is that on some boards, this is apparently the only way to create a tough female character or a fragile female character or... really, anybody with tits. Evidently the only kind of woman anybody can think of to RP is... well... a rape victim.

Cut for triggers and probably length and just general fucking venting. )

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