it's about privilege, stupid

So, while searching around last night for spoilers--er, cheats...er, hints! yes! hints! on who's romance-able in DA2*, I came across this post, which led me still further... to something both hysterical (in the screaming without reason sense) and horrifying. 

Straight White Male Gamers neglected

In essence: poster complains that DA2 neglects its primary demographic, the Straight White Male, because! wait for it! four out of the five romance-ready characters in DA2 go both ways! AND! Indignity! The men will HIT ON YOU if you're a male PC. The game is unreasonably bisexual.

Also, the female love interest options are evil or sluts.

That's not why the link is worth reading, though. The answer to the poster by one of the game's writers--also a straight white male--is one of the reasons I will buy and play Bioware's games.

He writes:

The "rights" of anyone with regards to a game are murky at best, but anyone who takes that stance must apply it equally to both the minority as well as the majority. The majority has no inherent "right" to get more options than anyone else. [...]

And if there is any doubt why such an opinion might be met with hostility, it has to do with privilege. You can write it off as "political correctness" if you wish, but the truth is that privilege always lies with the majority. They're so used to being catered to that they see the lack of catering as an imbalance. They don't see anything wrong with having things set up to suit them, what's everyone's fuss all about? That's the way it should be, any everyone else should be used to not getting what they want.

Yes. Exactly.


*my favorite being untouchable, apparently. Le sigh.

the (viking) battle bonnet

Someone, I don't even remember who, showed me the Dwarven Battle Bonnet last year. I showed it to Nous. He said--omg! that's so cool! I want one. Of course, for him, it would be a viking battle bonnet.

And because I was at loose mental ends (shut up. That is so different than usual!) I decided I would learn to knit just to make him one. Bought the pattern. Bought the yarn. Got busy learning the skills.

Several scarves, hats, two meditation shawls, and one pair of yoga socks later: triumph.

I am ridiculously pleased with myself.

Nous is just ridiculously pleased.

last update before DA2

Writer's group went well. I still feel like the new kid, but at least like the new kid who knows her shit, and I made people laugh once (and not at me!) so it was good. A little freaked when someone asked me, so! tell me about yourself and yes, the first thing out of my mouth was, um, I write genre. Fantasy. SF. Horror. And she said, I write mysteries. To which I said, genre! and hopefully that didn't sound half as dumb as I am afraid it did. Anyway.

P's novel sounds fucking awesome.

And P. has two Australian shepherds. I forget sometimes, living with cats, how much I (also) love dogs.

discovery

I have a writing group meeting on Saturday. This is my first meat-world writing group ever. I've had Zero as my e-reading group for... ever. Eight years? Something like. (Although she has fallen down on the job in the last year and has two novels backed up. I am starting to feel unloved.) Nous reads, too, but only sporadically, what with the diss. And the Rat reads all my manuscripts with her unsentimental brutality and makes my words better every time. But real, live in-flesh people to read and gulp, give feedback on the spot? That's new. All of these people are new, too, except one, and she is my friend/coworker, and I've only read short bits of her writing. They all know each other. And this group used to be Elizabeth George's group. A couple of them are Seriously Published, some are unpublished, and some, like me, are sporadically published. So. The plan, for this first meeting, is to bring something we can read in 10-15 minutes, something current that we're working on.

I feel a little sick.

I don't know how out-loud-readable my work actually is. The Rat says--not very. Sometimes I do things with grammar that would make my English teachers cry. (Yes, they let me teach composition. Scary.) I write a lot of the time for rhythm and flow--how the words sound in my head as I write them, cadence, the number and balance of stresses and beats in a phrase. I also intercut lines with other lines and cross-cut thoughts. There's an element of performance to reading out loud that scares the hell out of me. I am no actor. But then I teach, don't I, and that's a good 75% performance. More than.

Writing is a matter of talent, skill, sure, but it's also about taste. And I write genre. Friend P. assures me that others here write genre, too, and one even writes SF, and P. herself reads and loves spec-fic, so I will fit right in. I hate, by the by, the habit that makes me say that--I write genre--as if I am confessing a sin, as if I should be ashamed. But I am also used to the nose-wrinkling from the MFA types when they hear genre, as if literary fiction isn't a genre of its very own.

But let's be honest. What scares me is that a bunch of people who do not know me will think that I suck. Which I don't, I know that--I am a good writer. Other strangers spared the experience of meeting me face to face have purchased my work and put it in their publications. I know I do not suck, and yet--I am reduced to being 10 again, moving into a new school, and trying to figure out how I am going to fit into a bunch of people who've known each other for years.

Sweet ancestors, this isn't even about the words on the page, this is about being the new kid. Now I just need to decide what to wear read.

the song of lice and liar

I am trying very hard not to be negative and pessimistic about the whole GRRM Game of Thrones HBO thing. The cast looks amazing. The sets look amazing. HBO, of all possible networks, won't shy away from the sex and violence in the source material (they might even exaggerate it, who knows?) The British accents are even legitimate, for a good chunk of the actors. I'm just not feeling the love. Possibly because I am contrary, and every time I turn around I am seeing links and posts and squees and frenetic jumping about, and that sort of enthusiasm just makes me wanna go the other way and be all negative. Maybe it's because when I read the Game of Thrones, my copy had a glitch, and there were 75 pages missing (and 75 duplicated and inserted in their place), and I read around them and didn't have any trouble following the plot. Haven't bothered to replace the copy, either. Eh. I don't know. I am happy to see epic fantasy making a public debut again, and in some form that isn't bloody Arthuriana. Begone, negativity. Go on. Beat it.

I am still more excited about Dragon Age 2.