In Translation (also, baking)

So, Nightwatch on the Hinterlands got picked up for Turkish foreign rights, and lo, this arrived in my mailbox this week. 

I love the cover art. It's kind of strange/cool to see your story in words you can't read, except for the proper names. While this isn't my first foreign rights sale, it is the first time I've gotten a copy. Pretty cool.

I would love to have more to report, but it is February. It's not even an especially dark month here (it should be raining. It isn't. That will change at the end of the week.), but it's a drag on the spirit. Nothing major, just many littles coming together to make a much. 

Thank the gods for steady D&D games and the friends that make them possible. 

And because I am (not so) low-key D&D obsessed, I took yesterday, Presidents' Day, to spend mostly in the kitchen, making D&D associated recipies. I've made Lord Eshteross's Maple Ginger Cookies with Turmeric (from Exquisite Exandria: The Official Cookbook of Critical Role) before, and they turned out splendidly this time as well. I don't actually own that cookbook yet, mind, so I can't speak to the rest. 

I do own Heroes' Feast, the official D&D cookbook (Shan, who is not Icelandic in any way, practices the Icelandic tradition of giving books as gifts on Christmas Eve. She figures cookbook and gaming is just doubling up on the awesome, and she is not wrong.) I did a test run of the vedbread (the D&D name in the book, and I have no idea what its real name might be).  It's a sort of savory not-at-all-cinnamon roll, where the dough is instead rolled around a combination of mushrooms, shallots, and cheese, and the dough itself has a fair bit of cheese worked into it as well. Tasty. A little more substantial  than "bread that accompanies soup" and more like "light lunch." They seem like a thing that may come with me to events where someone says "bring something savory, not a main dish, not a salad."  

And because I spent the day making dishes for my long-suffering husband to wash up, I feel better about the multiverse today. Also, I have tasty things to eat for lunches and snacks. 

And February is almost over.

NIGHTWATCH-related links, plus jack o' lanterns

 Y'all, it is already in the 90s here this AM, in mid-November, which is not old-normal but may be new-normal and anyway, it's hot, which does not segue naturally into hey here are some interviews I did about NIGHTWATCH ON THE HINTERLANDS, but we post with the segues we have, not the segues we want. 

An Interview with Nerd Daily

An Interview with Paul Semel

I have turned in the NIGHTWATCH sequel (heretofore referred to as WINDSCAR) to my long-suffering agent, who will probably tell me it needs an ending because it kinda just stops, and...well, that is fair. But it just stops at 115K, so there can't be too much more. I hope. 

And I hope even more that November remembers it's the month of rain and chill, or at least grey skies. If this nonsense continues, I'm gonna start looking for sandworms.

And because I missed Halloween (well, I didn't miss it, but I missed posting), here are the Eason Collective jack o'lanterns of 2021. I am not sure why it took us so long to go full D&D, but I, for one, am not turning back. The beholder is Nous's creation. He does one seriously artistic thing every year, and it is his jack o'lantern. I favor simple shapes, but I am a sucker for dragons, so... dragon. Red, of course. 

the trials of one's teens

Tinycat will be 13 in February. Since her check-up in June, she's lost almost a pound. That makes her Extra-Tinycat, now, at a mere 6.8 lbs. She's eating (as well as ever, which is to say not enough, but she's also a scarf-and-barfer, so we'd rather less that stays down than more that comes back up). She loves her treats. She's sassy and takes no nonsense from either of the boys. Coat quality is good. Eyes are bright. She's just...shrinking. 

Tinycat has no time for you

Obviously there is something not right, though we have no idea what. We took her in this weekend, because in the last two weeks she'd developed these big red bumps on her chin that seemed to be oozing. At first I thought Kaiju-kitten had popped her in one of their spats, but the proliferating bumps suggested something else. She's had autoimmune problems in the past, and coupled with her weight loss, we expected something dire. 

The vet took one look and said "cat acne" and proceeded to pop them all. She's home with a shaved, scrubbed chin and an antibiotic shot. The cat bowls are all stainless steel, so it's not a plastic allergy. (Well. Maybe. She licks plastic--the laundry basket is not safe--but she's done that her whole life.) The vet didn't seem as concerned about figuring out why kitty-zits as he did in why so skinny, so he drew blood and urine and we await results this week. Last time her bloodwork was done--6 months ago--everything was fine. Maybe that's changed. If not, we may be looking at an ultrasound. Something isn't right in there. Pix was voracious when her thyroid went whack, and she got super gaunt, but Tinycat's not showing the hyperactivity that goes with a hyperthyroid. Could be kidneys, if those numbers have tanked, but they were good 6 months ago. So we don't know. In the meantime, the tiny tyrant has been granted her fondest wish: baby food mixed with her real food. 

But in other teen news... we started playing D&D in the HS this week. We're using the Stranger Things starter-set, so all the characters are premade, magic-using (jhfc WoC. So much fucking magic), 3rd level. Also all good alignments. The kids did some customizing (we have a pet cougar named Tim now), names, genders, sexes, bonds and ideals and flaws, oh my. The idea had been to let them play their characters while taking turns DMing for the group. But attendance in high school is spotty, and I was not at all confident that a designated DM would be in class on their day. Hell, I still have kids who have not chosen a character, much less worked out their spell books. 

So I improvised. 

I grouped them by class and I DMed for them collectively. All the players of a particular class had to agree on an action and a spokesperson, and though there were a couple bumps with the stronger personalities dominating, it went... well. Surprisingly. I did bad accents and funny voices and kept the story moving (it's a pregen adventure that I've test-run before, but it's also pretty skeletally supported). They got to see real-time what happens when a DM has no notes in front of her to cover a player request ("We want to go to the infirmary to interrogate the wounded!" You...okay. Right.)  They cheered when I made the captain of the guard a non-binary human with obvious half-orc heritage named Bryce. The Wizards(tm) rolled at the end of the conversation to kiss this half-orc as a thank you for their help (player made sure to get consent first) and busted out a natural 20. "Bryce is into you," I said, while praying none of the administration came into the room. "With that roll, you can... you know. Whatever."

...which kicked off a flurry of speculation about what Bryce looked like, gods defend poor Bryce. All I said was "Bryce is cut. They're a guard captain and of muscular build." 

I fear for the fanfics I may've inspired.  

Next week: collective combat, while the students absent this week get up to speed on their spells. I have promised everyone they can play their characters individually when the groups write their own adventures to run for other groups, so that DMing duty is spread among all the group members. I look forward to the moment that I can intone, Gauntlet -style, "Cleric is about to die!" even if I'm the only one to get the joke. 

hello, 2020

these reprobates, napping after chaos

I woke up with a headache (sinus and weather, not excess aquavit, though, you know... that could've contributed) and cleaned up cat poop before I even got coffee this morning, so, you know... it's either an omen for the upcoming year or, like, another normal damn day.

I'm going with the latter.

School starts next week, both uni and the high school. I'm pretty psyched about both. The uni comp class has a new theme this year--food, of all things, after years of Beowulf and Sir Gawain and the Green Knight and Aristotle. The idea was...I want them to write, but I want them to feel like they have something to say. Food does that. Everyone (with one exception last quarter) has some emotional connection/story with a particular food or foods. Most of my students are international, and suffering language culture shock along with oh god, you want me to eat what? There's a lot of loving detail to be mined about grandma's jiaozu or stinky tofu or pie.

I feel guilty that the subject's not harder but... eh. I got some Pythagoras in there, translated by Ovid, and I'm still making them read closely and analyze texts. It's just a little easier for them. And I've gotten some of the best writing I've ever seen, so... I think it's fine. It's also a lot less work on my end. When I taught the hardcore texts, I had fabulous peer tutors attached to my classes. Like TAs, kinda, with dedicated office hours specifically for my class and assignments. Mine were exceptional. Both went on to grad school, one to be an actual teacher (and some school somewhere will be goddamned lucky to get her), and without them, there are not enough hours in the week to teach the hard texts, do all the commenting, and...write.

Because I am given to understand that writing is a job, too, and needs time, even if it sits third in my priorities. It shouldn't, but it has to most of the time. Students, y'all. Also the paychecks that actually pay the bills.

The high school class this semester (they're on semester; uni's on quarter. PITA) is basically D&D, which I have been playing and DMing since, oh, never you mind. AD&D and THAC0 and saving throw tables. That long. It's been a bit of a challenge to learn 5e well enough that I think I can teach it. I expect some of the students will already know how to play. Others will be brand new. It's going to be... totally uncharted territory, for me, teaching actual skills to these kids, instead of trying to expose them to all these different texts they won't get in their normal English classes. But this is going to be the last year, I think, I can teach there. Best I go out with the class I am most nervous and excited to teach.

Because... the writing. It does need more than third place. I have plans. I have ideas. I have so many stories I want to write, and no time to do it. I have one manuscript coming back from my editor Soon I Hope(tm), to be published in October, and another due to that same editor in June (currently with my agent, who said I'd leveled up with this book, which means I didn't underwrite it this time).

But after those...

I have an idea. I'm taking notes on it now. Will I outline? Eh. Maybe. Broadly. But for now I'm in the thinking phase--characters are starting to surface, conflicts, personalities. Themes. I would very much like this one to be a standalone, but we shall see. I need to write it first.

But today, actual New Years... I am going to play Borderlands 3 with Nous and drink imperial stout and eat tamales and probably more pepparkakor because my god that recipe makes a ton of them. Tomorrow is soon enough to work.

Happy New Year.

Summer ends. I grimly face my wyrd.

So.

Murdercat found the sun

The summer of time measured in "X Days Since Last Time I Went Among People" (X=2, but this was a social week) is drawing to a close. The HS starts tomorrow. The uni classes hold off another month, but really, if I am back in front of any classroom, summer's over. I'm having those little surges of panic, like I'm forgetting something, or I've squandered my time.

I translate this feeling to myself as "did not write most of a novel this summer." I'll probably be doing that next year, assuming the apocalypse spares us. I have ideas. They will possibly require research. So I counsel myself to patience.

I did write other things. Two syllabi, two websites for those classes, and I have been listening to Critical Role S2 in prep for the third syllabus (HS S2020) because seeing a rules-oriented D&D 5e game is actually research. I even, gasp, playtested a module. Unheard of in this group of home-brew plots and epics, but it worked out. I am still wrangling with how in five hells I am going to teach a thing I have been doing for 30 years (mostly in AD&D 2e, house-ruled to our eyes) to teenagers who may, or may not, have played before. Or run a game. Or faced the rules. But that's a challenge for which I have a couple months left to prepare.


I also wrote several things for the release of How Rory Thorne Destroyed the Multiverse, which is coming out in October and of which I am so damned proud I can't even. There will be a lot more about that coming up.

I've also spun a lot of wool. This batch is made of unrelated bundles of fiber in complementary colors, mixed together and spun at random. There's camel in there, various sheep wools, who knows. It's becoming a rug as we speak.

I have knit several socks in prep for the holidays. The godson is getting 4, none of which will match, at his request. They are also glittery yarn, also at his request. He is almost 5.

 I have rediscovered longsword training, and am pleased that I haven't forgotten my drills and that I've gotten so much stronger since I first learned them twenty-odd years ago. It is also a sadness, because the friend who was my first teacher died from a massive, surprise heart attack a few years ago, just north of 40, and that knowledge still shocks me whenever I recall it.

I have failed to convince my husband that we need another kitten. As Murdercat, almost 4, tries to coerce Tinycat, almost 12, to play with him, resulting in chunks of hair everywhere and a lot of feline yelling, I feel like the argument just sort of makes itself, but... the husband remains unmoved.

fantasy

I've been playing tabletop RPGs since I was 17, and except for a brief period when we were in different states, I've played with the Rat the whole time. She was my first GM, and we played AD&D 2nd ed, and my first character was a fighter. And although I have played mages and priests and rogues and multi-classed and scads of other games besides AD&D...the straight up fighter is still my favorite.

See, my fantasy-self isn't the mage, with crazy powers and All the Brains. Or the priest, for that matter. I am the  priest/mage/magic-user in real life. Those are my stats.

No, see, my fantasy is the tank. The physically powerful and capable and don't fuck with me character. Deals damage. Takes damage. Deals a little more. The monsters come at the tank first, but that's okay! Because the tank's gonna kick their butts.

It's totally a power fantasy, but it's the power fantasy of control. To be safe. To keep others safe.

Being a woman in gaming is a lot like a old-school dungeon crawl. You never know where the monsters are, but you know they're there and you're gonna see combat. It's just a matter of when. You even know who they are.

So this:  "Tabletop Gaming has a White Male Terrorism Problem" wasn't a surprise to me.

The Rat and I didn't do the gaming convention scene--in part because the one time we did go, to visit Nous and his then GF, we were Not Impressed with the crowd. (Nous  says he spent a lot of time at cons talking to "awkward" guys, trying to keep them away from the women at the gaming table.*) The other thing that prevented us from walking into that shitstorm was that we were, and are, wickedly introverted. The very idea of all those new people was exhausting and (for me) daunting as hell. Who the hell wants to play under those conditions? It's not fun! Let's go home and world-build.

The non/verbal shit, though.

The RPG club in college wouldn't even talk to us. I mean, we walked in to the first day meeting, the room of guys looked at us, the president wouldn't actually speak to us... it was amazing. Striking in its hostility. Like, put a sign on the door that says no gurlz and you'd have it.

There were two game stores in town. The one in the mall had a small RPG section and we went there most often for dice; the counter-help was blandly friendly. The guys lurking around the game section could be a little creeper-y. I learned not to make eye contact. Most of them wanted the Rat's attention (she was the more ideal physical type), but they'd make due with the short blonde sidekick. They'd get way too close and talk up in-game exploits like their characters were them. It was... awkward. And awful. I would have to physically leave to get the hell away from them.

The indie game store had a much bigger selection of books (and Magic cards), so we went there for those. Depending who was behind the counter... we could be ignored, or stink-eyed, or tolerated with barely-there courtesy. We didn't get as many no shit, there my 12th level necromancer half-elf was stories (I didn't); but the Rat got a lot more looks. I remember more than a couple oblique comments, too, about my unfuckability.**

Nothing to me. Certainly nothing to her. But we were meant to hear, and to understand where we fit. We certainly weren't gamers.

Which is not to say that it's all men who do this because duh. Lots of my gamer friends are, have been, men. White men, even. Not terrorists, but... well. Not exactly paladins, either.

So this: "For Good Men To See Nothing" didn't surprise me either. In fact, it rang even more true. Because I saw this a lot more. I saw my friends stfu rather than confront assholes, both in the game stores and not.

I once had a fight with an ex-boyfriend (and member of our gaming group) in which he tore apart the furniture while two other male friends (and members of our gaming group) sat in the back room, listening and doing nothing at all.

"We'd've come out if we heard anything, you know," one said later.

Any what? Screaming from me, instead of from him? Pain and fear instead of insensate rage? How exactly did they know the thumping was the chair's dismemberment and not me hitting the wall?  --I asked these questions.

"He wouldn't've hurt you," said the other, while not making eye contact. "He was upset."

This, this right here, is how men who don't act allow men who are trouble to get away with shit. This was all forgiven, by the way. When I expressed discomfort with being around this guy, well. You know. That was my problem. He apologized. He was sorry. I had to just, you know, let it go.

Right.***

So one official black belt and years of eclectic aikido and kendo and blade-training all around the edges ... I'd still run away from a physical fight if I could (because I'm not stupid) but I feel a little (little) safer in gaming environments where I'm getting the creeper-vibe.

Because I still do. Local-ish game store here, middle-aged dude wanted to talk to me, follow me around, gain my approval ("No shit, there my chaotic evil mage was, and..."). Other dude asked Nous how he could help him while pretending I wasn't actually the one picking through the bookshelf.  These were not teenagers. These were our contemporaries. And, as with most men, bigger than me. Heavier. Stronger. ****

So yeah, I still play tanks in D&D whatever-the-hell-edition we're on. Because, at least in my fantasy, I want to be the person in the room that no one will even think of fucking with.

The monsters are still out there.

---------
*He says awkward. I say poorly skilled predator.

**The Rat claims to remember none of this. She also can ignore people more completely than anyone I know, including my cats. I think it's her superpower.

***They weren't bad guys. But damn, did I learn a lesson.

****Thank all my various gods for online suppliers and the friendly comic book store across the street that has dice and understands why I need to try out every. Single. 20-sider to get the right one. 

making faces

I have avoided linking my photo to my name for as long as I've been on the internet. In the early days, that was a conceit, because the web was the 'Net from Gibson and we were all (in my corner of reality) half role-playing netrunners anyway. Then it became a matter of paranoia. Self-protection. I shot my electronic mouth off a lot more Back Then, was more willing to engage with asshats on the internet. But I sure didn't want them finding out who I was. Then avatars appeared (oh, livejournal) and one's picture was as much of a communication as one's words, and why the hell would I want to use my own face? When I shifted into Facebook, and for classroom websites, I made cartoon icons of myself, reckoning my students could see the real me every class, but the cartoon communicated something different--the viking-hero version for the Beowulf class, for instance--became a part of the teacher persona.

Now...I have this novel coming out, see, and there's author photos Out There attached to the name, and for the love of all that is good I am on Twitter (somewhere, a pig flies), so it seemed like it was time to make real faces. (Really, at the heart of it, is that I cut my hair and the style no longer matches the cartoon viking-me. I am that...whatever the word is. Particular? Obsessive? You pick.) So I broke out the camera on the laptop and sucked it up and took photos. There were filters! They were fun. And kind to fairly shitty lighting (leave my chair to take a better selfie? No way). And, vanity! Kind to the rest of everything, too. You don't stand in front of a classroom of 19 year olds if you're self-conscious or crippled by give-a-shit, but still, photos on the internet.

I updated my Facebook with one of the first crop (which lived very briefly here and on Twitter, too). And almost immediately, I got a couple of comments about how "very serious" I looked. And I thought wait now. What? The ONLY comment you can make about me is...I am not smiling? Why even comment at all about my expression? Like (or do not like; there is no ambivalence) and go on with your day. Why do I need to be face-policed?

When Nous posts some new version of himself, let me assure you that he is not smiling. He is the Anti-Smile. He is deliberately scowly. Does anyone ever comment on his expression? No. They comment on his hat, or his photo composition, or just say 'nice' or some version thereof. I did not expect nice, because the photos were crap (Nous is a good photographer. I am not. The end.)  Grant: I had no hat. I did have masks and paintings in the background because those are on the wall behind this chair, though I did not expect them to get comments, either. I thought I might get a where the hell did your hair go? or two, from the people who had seen it long, but that was about it.

But no. Where was my smile? Why was I not performing friendly for everyone?

Well, because.

We tell little girls to smile because it makes them pretty, which in turn sends the I am friendly/nonthreatening/approachable signal. I have made the fatal error of smiling at strangers before, only to get sucked into unwanted conversations or get followed around stores or hit on or harangued or whatever. So I learned, you know, not to do that.

Because I'm not that friendly, swear to the gods. I'm a cranky introvert who has no fucks to give about whether you think I'd be prettier if I smiled or whether my refusal to do so means I am a dyke and/or hate men. In my classroom, my office hours, my professional and personal interactions--I can and do smile, because I am happy to be there.

And that, ultimately, was the reason I took down the unsmiling me and replaced her with the sideways smirking me (and also because the light in my office was more conducive to photography).  I do want to be here (though I am still a little ambivalent about Twitter; but I'm ambivalent about Facebook, too). But damn, I kinda miss the days of icons and avatars.

tired

I had coffee yesterday with a brilliant young friend of mine. We met when she was a student in one of my writing classes--the argument and research class, the one I almost never teach because I find it difficult to teach political subjects without getting exhausted. Outrage with no outlet is bad for the soul. Anyway, K. and I were talking about her life, and she was describing one of her friends to me, a guy who had a 'friend with privileges,' and how that relationship had gone south because, essentially, the girl wouldn't put out one day when she was tired.

"Oh my god," K says. "I just. You know."

I raised both eyebrows. "What did you say?"

She winced. "I turned away from him. Disengaged. But I didn't say anything. Sometimes I just get so...so...tired, you know? Of having to educate all the time, speak up, all of that. It's exhausting."

Yes, yes I do know.

My hat is off to the people who do this day in, day out. The feminist bloggers. The female gamers. The women who engage, again and again, with the well-meaning men and the assholes and the "nice guys" and the self-righteous (and often defensive) beneficiaries of privilege. I just made the mistake of commenting on a Facebook post and caught a faceful of but my misogynist game isn't REALLY misogynist from some fanboys, complete with such clever responses as 'absurd' and 'what he said' and assorted ad hominems. All I did was link Scalzi's "Lowest Difficulty Setting" essay to 'em as an example of why a world-build in a patriarchal, inherently misogynistic single POV was not as complicated as, say, what Bioware attempts, and Bioware deserves some credit for that, even if the gameplay/hero/whatever the hell has some issues, in part because there are choices in making that hero--gender, race, class-- because, well, it does. It's more work. When my students try something challenging and don't succeed as neatly as the student who took the easy way out, you think that doesn't factor in?

Because this is the internet, the discussion has shifted position and turned somewhat personal. I have now engaged exactly four times, and that is exactly four times more than I should have. I am tired. I think we'd all do better with face to face and some beer for discussions like this. The anonymity is a bitch.

On the other hand, my friend K, with her friend...sometimes you're just tired, even if the person's sitting right there with you. Maybe the only solution is beer, or yoga, or Borderlands 2.

Maybe I'll just keep writing what I write, and let those characters--who are not allowed to be tired, because I say so--keep fighting the good fight. I'll be over here, with my stout and my Xbox.

crushing creativity

I am a little tired...nay, a lot tired...of the manufactured angst over the whole Tomb Raider reboot. In a nutshell: an interview at Kotaku revealed how the audience would "want to protect" the new Lara, because men the players cannot possibly want to BE a woman action hero, and! as a bonus! the game was throwing in an attempted gang rape as backstory to humanize young Lara.

Chuck Wendig does a very nice take-and-breakdown of the whole business so I don't have to. Let me only say that if you require a gang rape and trauma to make your characters seem human to you, I think you should seek therapy.

I got involved in a protracted angst-fest on Facebook with a young man who insisted that nothing should ever be off limits to artists, nothing, not even RAPE as a backstory! Sob! And while I agree, in principle, with that idea--I do think that a male-written game exploiting rape as backstory for a female hero, when we never ever ever have male heroes raped as part of their backstory, suggests that rape's awesomeness as a storyline is limited to women. There's an appalling prevalence of rape in games (both video and tabletop) and geekdom already.  An examination of why that is might possibly reveal some attitudes that should be changed if we really want women to play--

But it's all about the aaaaaaart, said the Voice of Male Privilege. We should not censor artists by making topics taboo. It's not that there's sexism, it's just that no one ever writes rape scenarios for men.

But why might that be---? Oh, never mind. I am infinitely patient with students. I am not at all patient with idiots. I live with one deaf cat, so I know the futility of shouting at those who will not hear.

But here's the thing: no one said anything about censorship. No one said "you cannot write this thing, not ever!" It's not censorship if part of your target audience objects to what you're doing and throws a fit or writes mean blog posts or whatever. Offending people in the name of "Art" seems to be the new aesthetic, but the artists are not allowed to be offended in return. Art does not exempt you from criticism. Criticism is not censorship. But it is also not  political correctness if, because of protests or public opinion or audience outrage, a storyline or topic is declared off limits. That is the market at work, mes amis. If the audience does not want it, the producers will not produce it. Sometimes bad press is just bad.

But let's come back to Tomb Raider. 

Lemme quote from this article:

Why don't people project themselves onto Lara? Because "people" means males. Nobody (well, almost nobody) wants to be Lara Croft, not even women, because Lara is very much the subject of Male Gaze in her games, and who wants to open themselves up to that sort of scrutiny? Getting a bit deeper, while many women do want to be attractive to males, which is part of why women's magazines often take a Male Gaze perspective as well, they don't want to be only that. They don't want to be stared at all the time, by everyone. Lara is at no point "just a person."

Yep. And that's part of the problem. Which is why it's okay to subject her to sexual violence as part of an emotional hook for the (male) audience, and why no male heroes get the same treatment.

Look. Being asked to listen and consider the privilege underlying your artistic choices is not censorship. And it's not PC. It's a check on privilege, yes, and it might make things more difficult, since you might have to think about a) what you are doing and b) how it might affect an audience. But that's rhetoric. That's marketing. That's making a product for consumption. If you don't care how women feel, carry on! But if you do, then shut the fuck up and listen. Because what we're hearing right now, from you, is "why won't the bitches play the games we make for them?" 

role-playing

I played my first RPG my senior year of high school. The Rat invited me to play a pre-made character in a Star Trek RPG...Janissa Grenadine, gods help me that I remember it. Had a blast, although I annoyed the GM (who had a thing for the Rat, apparently not grasping that he was not her type on a chromosomal level). Then she started an AD&D campaign, and we were off, and we've been gaming together ever since. That's 20-plus years now. Some marriages don't last that long.

Speaking of: I met both husbands (no, not at the same time) in Vampire: The Masquerade LARPs.

I've done the SCA thing (and will do it again at some point, maybe), and the Ren Faire thing. Not gaming, exactly, but still role-playing, and with the added fun of costumes. We still dress up for Faire, even though we don't work there anymore. It's fun.

So yeah. I love role-playing. I love role-players. I understand us. Even the stereotyped socially inept-so-immersed-in-fantasy-they-can-hardly-function gamers--which I never have been, mind you. I get them. The neopagans and the deviants and the people in black and leather skulking around coffee shops, which I have been all at once before; and I'm still two and three, to some extent (or as much as one can be in a town of only Starbucks).

But I do not, at all, understand role-playing real religion, in either belief or praxis. I mean, my religion sometimes informs and shapes my fiction, or my RPGs, or whatever--but my RPGs and my fiction do not inform my praxis. No. No. No.

There's a lot of theatre in the neopagan ritual scene. Lot of high church elements. You know. Props. Wands and staffs and cups and athames and robes and special jewelry. I grew up Catholic. I get all the costuming and the theatre that goes into (semi)public ritual.  I get the "make sacred space argument," and I recognize the underlying purposes behind the pageantry. And since a lot of the neopagans I've met overlap with the RPG, SCA, and Ren Faire crowds, it doesn't surprise me that there's bleed over, and a sense of drama wrapped up in worship. Nothing wrong with it, to a point. Except....

Except. Okay, I'm a revivalist. Hard polytheist. I understand the irritation Asatruers have with Wiccatru, and Theodish aggravation with Asatru, and all the vice versas. Spats over dogma, ideas about hierachies and the proper way to show honor, okay, bring it. We can wave primary sources at each other and quote experts all damn day. If you want approach Them in Wiccan Circles, go right ahead. Just don't be surprised when the recons go batshit on you for it. But this isn't just Wiccatru vs. The Recons, because I see the recons and revivalists doing it, too. Costumes. Garb. Special tools. And I get all that, from the ritualized standpoint--when one performs for an audience, symbols are useful. But I do not understand why one needs a hammer.

I realize this is a very Catholic/Protestant sort of thing, and the irony is killing me; because for a transcendent and omnipotent god, I think the trappings and ritual are vital. But not for the Gods I know. They're... family. Kin. The old uncle who deserves your respect, who comes to dinner, who will help you out if you need it but expects you to be an adult, not a little grabby kid. The sort of uncle who would not be impressed by your fancy dishes or your linen table cloth, but who appreciates good beer or vodka. No nonsense. No bullshit. No pretense. My faith (and it's not, really... it's a certainty, deep as bone) hinges on that kind of...what is the word? Not honesty. Not genuineness. Not simplicity, either. In any case, I approach Them as family, which is to say--of all the beings in the universe, why would you need to perform for Them? They know me. To play at dress-up and theatre seems to me childish, like the little kid who dresses as her favorite character and insists everyone calls her by that name. I acknowledge that some folks out there are genuine, even as they perform; but I distrust the performance and by extension, the performer.