![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Mar. 1st, 2011 10:10 amWriting for PurimGifts has been going pretty well, though not I think as well as last year. I suspect that like last year I will probably throw out half of my drafts and start fresh before I'm done. The nice thing about an exchange with a 300 word minimum is that it's easy to throw bad ideas away.
D&D has been going well in one of my games. Dorfin Maltby, battlemage in hiding, has revealed parts of his backstory to his party. The stakes keep ratcheting, the adventures keep being fun, and there have been numerous moments when the interpersonal dynamics are so complicated and interesting that the DM can just sit back and act as a referee, rather than throwing challenges at us. I'm really glad I'm part of this party, and after a chat on the drive home after yesterday's game, I'm genuinely sad that one of the players told me that she's planning to retire her character in a level or two in order to try out something new. I'm excited to see her new character, but in the past six months or so I've developed real affection for her present halfling rogue.
The other game has been... weird. This is the one we converted from 4th Ed. to Pathfinder because with only two regular players, 4E wasn't really working for us. It's also been dogged by a lot of missed sessions- DM being sick, me going to the opera, my grandmother's funeral, etc... So the rhythm has perhaps been a little off, as we adjust to new rules, figure out how to handle missing players, try to remember sessions from weeks earlier, etc... But when we have gotten together, the story's been strange. This is the game where my dwarven bard/cleric is a radical monotheist who resents the deities of the rest of his party. This is the game where our party has always consisted of a mixture of non-human species, making our way through a world whose unchallenged basic assumption is that it's majority human in most places. Racial tensions have played a large part in a number of adventures, driven by the players more than the DM in most cases. And with the DM having ceded more of his worldbuilding authority to us recently, that focus has if anything increased.
We're in a city now that segregates its nonhumans in the "Foreigngate" section of town. This is... um... a powderkeg. One which in the last session we half-accidentally detonated, resulting in dwarf vs. gnome violence arising over a mixture of cultural differences, economic resentments, and an unfortunate degree of proximity. On a scale so large we were completely unable to contain it.
So yeah, that's been unusual and challenging. On the one hand, I'm pleased that I've managed to agitate enough to make consciousness of these problems with D&D bubble to the surface. I'm glad that my emphasis on how dwarves represent Jewish stereotypes, on the problematic nature of the human-majority fantasy world, on making racial identity mean something in this world, has affected the way other players run their characters and how the DM understands the world he's created. I'm... uncomfortable, though, with the way it's served to amplify the racism rather than work towards reconciliation. It's good that we're stirring shit up, I suppose.
Things I've been reading include:
Kraken by China Mieville, at my little brother's prodding. It's good. It's surprisingly good. Even when it sucks, you can avoid the suckage because the story pushes you past it quickly. I don't know at all why this story worked, but it did. Guys, I think China Mieville is back.
Five Equations That Changed the World by Michael Guillen- Anyone who like me wants to write scientist RPF is advised to read it. It's quite good at distilling the emotional center of these scientific narratives. Anyone who's interested in science history might find it enjoyable as well, but there are better books for that. Guillen's particularly interested, though, in how religious belief influenced individual scientists, and I like him for that.
The Edge of Physics by Anil Ananthaswamy is a truly fantastic travelogue by a science writer jumping from exotic astronomy outpost to exotic astronomy outpost, from the Atacama to the Transvaal, from the South Pole to Lake Baikal. If you want to have an idea of what it's like performing scientific research in the 21st century, read this book.
Swords and Deviltry by Fritz Leiber. Yes, Alai, I'm finally reading Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser. I'm sure you're thrilled. Have just begun "Ill-Met in Lankhmar". I must say that the first two stories were not really my flavor, but they were pre-team-up, so I'm willing to let the charms of the duo win me over. The thing which makes me antsy is that magic has been presented in such a vague way. I prefer systematic magic, like Lord D'Arcy or Mistborn or even Wheel of Time, to Magipoor or Lord of the Rings and their magic-does-what-the-story-demands-of-it approach.
Pale Fire by Vladimir Nabokov. All I can say is that right now, option number 1 for this year's NaNoWriMo is a new commentary to "Pale Fire".
Things I have watched lately
I'm up to date on GRSigmaSigmaK, which is thankfully in its final season. Rusty/Ashleigh just seems like a desperate final season move on the part of the writers, though they've done a good job of slow-playing it, recognizing that it's unintuitive and needs time to persuade the viewers. Rebecca deserves a healthy relationship before the show ends, and I'm hopeful that ending it with Evan will lead to that. But Evan's character has been drawn as well this season as ever. I love what they do with him. He's a total bastard and they don't try to make him a sympathetic bastard, but they make him seem like his nastiness is reasonable. You can understand why Calvin still looks up to him. You can understand why Casey and Rebecca would date him even though it couldn't ever last. He's an asshole, but often he's an asshole you can live with.
I'm thrilled that the show decided to turn Beaver from a punchline into a character this season. He deserves it.
My major disappointment with GRSigmaSigmaK is actually that the Omega Chi's revenge prank on the Kappa Taus was mean and stupid instead of clever. Picking on Dale? Dear lord. For the most part, GRSigmaSigmaK's depiction of the fraternity system is positive. These people are college kids, and they can be severely irresponsible, yes, but they do believe in friendship and loyalty and supporting each other. But every so often we see them act in a way that could have only happened because of the flaws in the Greek system itself, and Omega Chi tends to be where it originates. Loathsome people.
I watched Inception finally, too. I suppose I enjoyed it? There was much that I didn't enjoy, and there's much in Abigail Nussbaum's negative review that resonated with me. This was, as Nussbaum said, not a very good heist movie. And the characters are not at all well fleshed out. Arthur in particular seemed vague to me. And while the antigravity fight scene is beautiful, it's unclear to me why they didn't dream bigger. This is a much more engaging movie if the dreamscapes are more compelling. Still, it's better thought out than nearly every SF movie they release, and Leonardo DiCaprio does a lot with a role that really doesn't give him all that much to work with.
Still, I'm almost certainly going to end up writing IOAWNAT/Inception crossover fic. The combination is just irresistible to me, the mixture of metafictions.
D&D has been going well in one of my games. Dorfin Maltby, battlemage in hiding, has revealed parts of his backstory to his party. The stakes keep ratcheting, the adventures keep being fun, and there have been numerous moments when the interpersonal dynamics are so complicated and interesting that the DM can just sit back and act as a referee, rather than throwing challenges at us. I'm really glad I'm part of this party, and after a chat on the drive home after yesterday's game, I'm genuinely sad that one of the players told me that she's planning to retire her character in a level or two in order to try out something new. I'm excited to see her new character, but in the past six months or so I've developed real affection for her present halfling rogue.
The other game has been... weird. This is the one we converted from 4th Ed. to Pathfinder because with only two regular players, 4E wasn't really working for us. It's also been dogged by a lot of missed sessions- DM being sick, me going to the opera, my grandmother's funeral, etc... So the rhythm has perhaps been a little off, as we adjust to new rules, figure out how to handle missing players, try to remember sessions from weeks earlier, etc... But when we have gotten together, the story's been strange. This is the game where my dwarven bard/cleric is a radical monotheist who resents the deities of the rest of his party. This is the game where our party has always consisted of a mixture of non-human species, making our way through a world whose unchallenged basic assumption is that it's majority human in most places. Racial tensions have played a large part in a number of adventures, driven by the players more than the DM in most cases. And with the DM having ceded more of his worldbuilding authority to us recently, that focus has if anything increased.
We're in a city now that segregates its nonhumans in the "Foreigngate" section of town. This is... um... a powderkeg. One which in the last session we half-accidentally detonated, resulting in dwarf vs. gnome violence arising over a mixture of cultural differences, economic resentments, and an unfortunate degree of proximity. On a scale so large we were completely unable to contain it.
So yeah, that's been unusual and challenging. On the one hand, I'm pleased that I've managed to agitate enough to make consciousness of these problems with D&D bubble to the surface. I'm glad that my emphasis on how dwarves represent Jewish stereotypes, on the problematic nature of the human-majority fantasy world, on making racial identity mean something in this world, has affected the way other players run their characters and how the DM understands the world he's created. I'm... uncomfortable, though, with the way it's served to amplify the racism rather than work towards reconciliation. It's good that we're stirring shit up, I suppose.
Things I've been reading include:
Kraken by China Mieville, at my little brother's prodding. It's good. It's surprisingly good. Even when it sucks, you can avoid the suckage because the story pushes you past it quickly. I don't know at all why this story worked, but it did. Guys, I think China Mieville is back.
Five Equations That Changed the World by Michael Guillen- Anyone who like me wants to write scientist RPF is advised to read it. It's quite good at distilling the emotional center of these scientific narratives. Anyone who's interested in science history might find it enjoyable as well, but there are better books for that. Guillen's particularly interested, though, in how religious belief influenced individual scientists, and I like him for that.
The Edge of Physics by Anil Ananthaswamy is a truly fantastic travelogue by a science writer jumping from exotic astronomy outpost to exotic astronomy outpost, from the Atacama to the Transvaal, from the South Pole to Lake Baikal. If you want to have an idea of what it's like performing scientific research in the 21st century, read this book.
Swords and Deviltry by Fritz Leiber. Yes, Alai, I'm finally reading Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser. I'm sure you're thrilled. Have just begun "Ill-Met in Lankhmar". I must say that the first two stories were not really my flavor, but they were pre-team-up, so I'm willing to let the charms of the duo win me over. The thing which makes me antsy is that magic has been presented in such a vague way. I prefer systematic magic, like Lord D'Arcy or Mistborn or even Wheel of Time, to Magipoor or Lord of the Rings and their magic-does-what-the-story-demands-of-it approach.
Pale Fire by Vladimir Nabokov. All I can say is that right now, option number 1 for this year's NaNoWriMo is a new commentary to "Pale Fire".
Things I have watched lately
I'm up to date on GRSigmaSigmaK, which is thankfully in its final season. Rusty/Ashleigh just seems like a desperate final season move on the part of the writers, though they've done a good job of slow-playing it, recognizing that it's unintuitive and needs time to persuade the viewers. Rebecca deserves a healthy relationship before the show ends, and I'm hopeful that ending it with Evan will lead to that. But Evan's character has been drawn as well this season as ever. I love what they do with him. He's a total bastard and they don't try to make him a sympathetic bastard, but they make him seem like his nastiness is reasonable. You can understand why Calvin still looks up to him. You can understand why Casey and Rebecca would date him even though it couldn't ever last. He's an asshole, but often he's an asshole you can live with.
I'm thrilled that the show decided to turn Beaver from a punchline into a character this season. He deserves it.
My major disappointment with GRSigmaSigmaK is actually that the Omega Chi's revenge prank on the Kappa Taus was mean and stupid instead of clever. Picking on Dale? Dear lord. For the most part, GRSigmaSigmaK's depiction of the fraternity system is positive. These people are college kids, and they can be severely irresponsible, yes, but they do believe in friendship and loyalty and supporting each other. But every so often we see them act in a way that could have only happened because of the flaws in the Greek system itself, and Omega Chi tends to be where it originates. Loathsome people.
I watched Inception finally, too. I suppose I enjoyed it? There was much that I didn't enjoy, and there's much in Abigail Nussbaum's negative review that resonated with me. This was, as Nussbaum said, not a very good heist movie. And the characters are not at all well fleshed out. Arthur in particular seemed vague to me. And while the antigravity fight scene is beautiful, it's unclear to me why they didn't dream bigger. This is a much more engaging movie if the dreamscapes are more compelling. Still, it's better thought out than nearly every SF movie they release, and Leonardo DiCaprio does a lot with a role that really doesn't give him all that much to work with.
Still, I'm almost certainly going to end up writing IOAWNAT/Inception crossover fic. The combination is just irresistible to me, the mixture of metafictions.