Today, on the train, some random guy punched me in the face, and my first thought afterwards was "I should blog this shit."
Man, I don't know.
Saturday, December 20, 2008
Thursday, December 11, 2008
Dr. Social
So, Fire Emblem: Shadow Dragon.I've been playing it for the past few days, and it is a Fire Emblem game. It's a remake in the most regressive possible sense: imagine the plot and gameplay of an NES game, now on your DS! The graphics are ugly, and the game has large holes where modern innovations have been excised for nostalgia's sake.
Worst part is, I see myself beating FE:SD in advance of better, more deserving games. Fire Emblem is such a lazy game. It's in perfect rhythm to play while watching TV or riding the train. Each turn takes a couple minutes, and any sense of urgency dies when I inevitably need to repeat a level.
Fuck. I feel really bad about playing this game now that I've put all of this effort into trashing it. I did the same thing with Fallout 3, playing it for ten more hours after I realized I hated it. Bad Game Stockholm Syndrome?
I really want to write a story, like, actual fiction. Gotta get to it, figure out where to start, maybe hide my DS from myself.
Worst part is, I see myself beating FE:SD in advance of better, more deserving games. Fire Emblem is such a lazy game. It's in perfect rhythm to play while watching TV or riding the train. Each turn takes a couple minutes, and any sense of urgency dies when I inevitably need to repeat a level.
Fuck. I feel really bad about playing this game now that I've put all of this effort into trashing it. I did the same thing with Fallout 3, playing it for ten more hours after I realized I hated it. Bad Game Stockholm Syndrome?
I really want to write a story, like, actual fiction. Gotta get to it, figure out where to start, maybe hide my DS from myself.
Wednesday, December 03, 2008
Create
This night finds me agitating in my computer chair, still fuming about my lack of motion or direction. I've decided to do one of those things, the daily affirmation deal. You repeat your goal over and over until it becomes a mantra, and then until it becomes a reality. Scott Adams wrote about the power of affirmations in one of his books, and I've always been intrigued by how they represent a midpoint between the power of suggestion and the mystical spell.
A few years ago, my highest ambition in life was to own a 1988-91 Honda Prelude, just like my idol, Max the Car Thief. I employed a simple affirmation, many times a day: "I will get a 3rd-gen Prelude." So here, I'm going to do the same thing, partially for the gains outlined above, and partly as a mission statement. There's really no one I'll bore with this shit, since I'm pretty sure no one reads this anyway.
I am going enroll in a 4-year college, and graduate.
I'm going to get a decent job that pays well.
And I'm going to own a 3rd-gen Prelude 2.0Si, with 4-wheel steering, that's in Good condition.
A few years ago, my highest ambition in life was to own a 1988-91 Honda Prelude, just like my idol, Max the Car Thief. I employed a simple affirmation, many times a day: "I will get a 3rd-gen Prelude." So here, I'm going to do the same thing, partially for the gains outlined above, and partly as a mission statement. There's really no one I'll bore with this shit, since I'm pretty sure no one reads this anyway.
I am going enroll in a 4-year college, and graduate.
I'm going to get a decent job that pays well.
And I'm going to own a 3rd-gen Prelude 2.0Si, with 4-wheel steering, that's in Good condition.
Friday, November 21, 2008
The Triforce of Disdain
After finally tracking down a rental copy yesterday, I'm ass-in-the-middle of Mirror's Edge. Now, my greatest challenge: I am going to write my impression of this game without using the word "frustrating."
I constantly face situations where I'm stuck in a room full of people (who shoot me) and need to detect the exit before they're done shooting me. The game directs the player, early in the first chapter, to always avoid enemies. This is good advice, because Faith (the protagonist) can take about two hits before she goes down. Whenever I try to use the limited combat arsenal against more than two enemies, I die. But when I'm stuck in an enclosed space, being continually perforated by stormtroopers, it's often simply more expedient to kill them all so I can have enough breathing room to complete my jumping puzzle.
The jumping, sliding, and climbing are the best part of the game, but they're muddied by control choices and unresponsive environmental objects. Common scene: I'm running across the skyline, getting up to an exhilarating speed. I take a gigantic leap from one rooftop to another, aiming to catch a drainpipe and shimmy my way down to street level ... but, even though it looks like I've hit the pipe dead center, my character doesn't grab it, and I get to experience the very pretty death sequence yet again. I try the jump six more times before I finally get it right, but I throw the controller down and storm off ten minutes later when the whole situation repeats itself. It's really frustrating.
I constantly face situations where I'm stuck in a room full of people (who shoot me) and need to detect the exit before they're done shooting me. The game directs the player, early in the first chapter, to always avoid enemies. This is good advice, because Faith (the protagonist) can take about two hits before she goes down. Whenever I try to use the limited combat arsenal against more than two enemies, I die. But when I'm stuck in an enclosed space, being continually perforated by stormtroopers, it's often simply more expedient to kill them all so I can have enough breathing room to complete my jumping puzzle.
The jumping, sliding, and climbing are the best part of the game, but they're muddied by control choices and unresponsive environmental objects. Common scene: I'm running across the skyline, getting up to an exhilarating speed. I take a gigantic leap from one rooftop to another, aiming to catch a drainpipe and shimmy my way down to street level ... but, even though it looks like I've hit the pipe dead center, my character doesn't grab it, and I get to experience the very pretty death sequence yet again. I try the jump six more times before I finally get it right, but I throw the controller down and storm off ten minutes later when the whole situation repeats itself. It's really frustrating.
Thursday, November 20, 2008
Whole Cloth
Sometimes I write just because I need to write. I see people in my extended peer group doing things that I'd love to, pursuing good jobs or schooling or relationships, and I get mad at myself. Anger turned inward can be a great motivator or it can wear you away. I feel very worn away. I don't know if it's serotonin, laziness, or a fierce desire to maintain homeostasis that keeps me from taking the minute steps necessary to improving my life. Left alone, I'd wait for a thousand tomorrows to come in hope that they'd bring me into a better situation and make me more of a person.
Well, I still need to write longer and more often. Then, expose that writing to more criticism than this little blog can draw.
Well, I still need to write longer and more often. Then, expose that writing to more criticism than this little blog can draw.
Monday, November 10, 2008
Cataclysmic Pink
Covert videogame T-Shirts are my new obsession. You can buy a Mario shirt at any department store nowadays; apparel that says "I like games" has become devalued in its ubiquity. It's partially the snob in me, snarling at the thought that my niche pastime has become socially acceptable to espouse. Esoteric nerd merchandise acts as a hanky code for the high-functioning geek: a way to subtly communicate your interests without being the guy at the party who talks about his WoW character like new, starry-eyed parents talk about their children.
The T-Shirt itself has become this weird language of fabric semaphore, primarily for young men. Pants, jackets, skirts, and other items of clothing imply the traits of the wearer. Socioeconomic class, sexuality, gender, or political attitudes can be inferred from an outfit. But the T-Shirt is a Rorschach test emblazoned upon the chest: like the bumper sticker, it reveals a person's hidden tendencies, prejudices, convictions, and quirks.
The T-Shirt itself has become this weird language of fabric semaphore, primarily for young men. Pants, jackets, skirts, and other items of clothing imply the traits of the wearer. Socioeconomic class, sexuality, gender, or political attitudes can be inferred from an outfit. But the T-Shirt is a Rorschach test emblazoned upon the chest: like the bumper sticker, it reveals a person's hidden tendencies, prejudices, convictions, and quirks.
Saturday, November 01, 2008
Saturday, October 25, 2008
A Million New Colors
My expectations have gotten the better of me lately.
The translation patch for Mother 3 dropped last week. Earthbound (a.k.a. Mother 2, its prequel) shaped my aesthetic sense in my formative teenage years, so I'd been thirsty for new content in the series. The translation project's feed was a constant presence in my newsreader, reminding me of Mother 3's absence.
All of that is moot now. Having played it, I hate this fucking game, which is incredibly surprising to me. I find the characters uninteresting, the plot poorly paced and overly melodramatic. After forcing myself to trudge through a few hours of the game, I just gave up in frustration, exhausted from trying so hard to like it. Earthbound did what it did so well by front-loading the game with humor, and then introducing drama slowly once the player was drawn in to the experience. Mother 3 starts with an overblown tragedy, centered around the death of a character who'd spoken about five lines before s/he kicked off. In Earthbound, a similar situation (Buzz-Buzz dying) is played for laughs, but in Mother 3, you're meant to find a hoary RPG cliche heart-wrenching.
When I talked to a friend (who'd never really liked Earthbound) about the experience of Mother 3, he brought up a good point: Earthbound, fire of my loins it may be, was essentially a boring little dungeon crawl game if you weren't charmed by its quirky setting and tone. Essentially, it was a bare-bones Dragon Quest. That's my problem with Mother 3: once my attention is drawn away from its polished veneer, I'm compelled to stare at its mediocre guts.
Next in Thwarted Expectations Week, I take a look at Castlevania: Order of Ecclesia.
The translation patch for Mother 3 dropped last week. Earthbound (a.k.a. Mother 2, its prequel) shaped my aesthetic sense in my formative teenage years, so I'd been thirsty for new content in the series. The translation project's feed was a constant presence in my newsreader, reminding me of Mother 3's absence.
All of that is moot now. Having played it, I hate this fucking game, which is incredibly surprising to me. I find the characters uninteresting, the plot poorly paced and overly melodramatic. After forcing myself to trudge through a few hours of the game, I just gave up in frustration, exhausted from trying so hard to like it. Earthbound did what it did so well by front-loading the game with humor, and then introducing drama slowly once the player was drawn in to the experience. Mother 3 starts with an overblown tragedy, centered around the death of a character who'd spoken about five lines before s/he kicked off. In Earthbound, a similar situation (Buzz-Buzz dying) is played for laughs, but in Mother 3, you're meant to find a hoary RPG cliche heart-wrenching.
When I talked to a friend (who'd never really liked Earthbound) about the experience of Mother 3, he brought up a good point: Earthbound, fire of my loins it may be, was essentially a boring little dungeon crawl game if you weren't charmed by its quirky setting and tone. Essentially, it was a bare-bones Dragon Quest. That's my problem with Mother 3: once my attention is drawn away from its polished veneer, I'm compelled to stare at its mediocre guts.
Next in Thwarted Expectations Week, I take a look at Castlevania: Order of Ecclesia.
Saturday, October 18, 2008
Loving Daisies
Lord. On a whim, I rented Star Wars: The Force Unleashed. It earned mostly poor reviews, which warded me off from buying it. Maybe that was for the best.
No, it was definitely for the best. Lucasarts was executing murderous cuts in its development staff while TFU was being made, and after playing it, I think I understand the exact chronology of this game's genesis:
Developer #1: ... and then you can electrify your lightsaber!
Developer #2: And throw it at a wookiee!
Developer #3: I gotta say, guys, sounds like this is gonna be pret-ty awesome. Let's get started on it right-
[Executive bursts through the door, smelling strongly of cough syrup, his mouth flanked by 6 inches of Fruit By The Foot and an unlit cigar.]
Executive: Due to changing market blah blah, Developer 1, Developer 2? You're so fired. Alright, Developer 3, time to bang this one out. Chop chop!
Developer 3: *whimper*
This is a game that was laid out by people who were in love with the concept they had fashioned, and put together by a very spent, very unhappy group, trying to take their last revenge on a monolithic employer by phoning it in. The final, muttered curse of the short-timer. A shame that it sold over a million copies in its first month (just counting the 360, PS3, and Wii versions.)
The whole thing feels like it was programmed in Java and then ported to BASIC. Targeting is a nightmare. The camera is sluggish and inattentive, except in boss battles, where you're forced into viewing the battle from a disorienting fixed perspective. There are instant-death pits littering stages. You will be knocked into them by enemy fire. You will misstep and fall to your death. You will use a lightsaber combo on an enemy that will carry you over the edge and into a loading screen, so you can repeat the cycle. I died constantly, for various reasons, and rarely did I feel that I had died because of my own failure. It's not often that I yell at a game, but it's even rarer that I plead with a game. "Why?" I asked, in my most imploring tone available.
There are loading screens everywhere. Between sections of a stage, the game loads. When you go to the pause menu, you get a good 5 second load. In between the submenus of said screen, you will load. After a while, the load screens morphed from a sneering annoyance to a graceful respite from the vile taste of that Unleashing the Force leaves.
I've only played the first stage and a bit of the second, so I'm unwilling to classify this as anything like a review. However, I will say without reservation that this game deserves scorn. I have no reason to continue playing it, other than the masochistic pursuit of Achievements.
My Judgement: Unfortunately Unpleasant
Now, look: I don't want to become Tim Rogers. I am going to try my best, in the future, not to conform to his standard of alternating between repetetively damning prose and overly embellished praise. This post resembles my review of Mercenaries 2 a bit too much, but horrible games inspire me to write more than passable ones do. I'll try to vary my tone here, hopefully with a long-delayed review of Tales of Vesperia.
No, it was definitely for the best. Lucasarts was executing murderous cuts in its development staff while TFU was being made, and after playing it, I think I understand the exact chronology of this game's genesis:
Developer #1: ... and then you can electrify your lightsaber!
Developer #2: And throw it at a wookiee!
Developer #3: I gotta say, guys, sounds like this is gonna be pret-ty awesome. Let's get started on it right-
[Executive bursts through the door, smelling strongly of cough syrup, his mouth flanked by 6 inches of Fruit By The Foot and an unlit cigar.]
Executive: Due to changing market blah blah, Developer 1, Developer 2? You're so fired. Alright, Developer 3, time to bang this one out. Chop chop!
Developer 3: *whimper*
This is a game that was laid out by people who were in love with the concept they had fashioned, and put together by a very spent, very unhappy group, trying to take their last revenge on a monolithic employer by phoning it in. The final, muttered curse of the short-timer. A shame that it sold over a million copies in its first month (just counting the 360, PS3, and Wii versions.)
The whole thing feels like it was programmed in Java and then ported to BASIC. Targeting is a nightmare. The camera is sluggish and inattentive, except in boss battles, where you're forced into viewing the battle from a disorienting fixed perspective. There are instant-death pits littering stages. You will be knocked into them by enemy fire. You will misstep and fall to your death. You will use a lightsaber combo on an enemy that will carry you over the edge and into a loading screen, so you can repeat the cycle. I died constantly, for various reasons, and rarely did I feel that I had died because of my own failure. It's not often that I yell at a game, but it's even rarer that I plead with a game. "Why?" I asked, in my most imploring tone available.
There are loading screens everywhere. Between sections of a stage, the game loads. When you go to the pause menu, you get a good 5 second load. In between the submenus of said screen, you will load. After a while, the load screens morphed from a sneering annoyance to a graceful respite from the vile taste of that Unleashing the Force leaves.
I've only played the first stage and a bit of the second, so I'm unwilling to classify this as anything like a review. However, I will say without reservation that this game deserves scorn. I have no reason to continue playing it, other than the masochistic pursuit of Achievements.
My Judgement: Unfortunately Unpleasant
Now, look: I don't want to become Tim Rogers. I am going to try my best, in the future, not to conform to his standard of alternating between repetetively damning prose and overly embellished praise. This post resembles my review of Mercenaries 2 a bit too much, but horrible games inspire me to write more than passable ones do. I'll try to vary my tone here, hopefully with a long-delayed review of Tales of Vesperia.
Sunday, October 12, 2008
I'm trying to write something right now, and I'm so stuck. It's fiction, and I feel I've lost what talent I had for spinning a world, or even modifying an existing one. I can't decide where to start. A character, a situation, an idea? Am I going into the whole thing with failure in mind if I'm writing just to write? I like this little blog because honesty requires so little inspiration.
I'm coming up on my one year anniversary with sobriety. It's weird. I want to celebrate, to commemorate it in some way, but at the same time I feel like it would invite disaster. It's not a thing to trumpet, but one to solemnly remember: the time when I was a little less human.
More than my attempt at modesty, I feel fake. I hit maybe one Anonymous meeting per season and I have no sponsor. I've done well enough so far, I guess, but I still eat a lot to compensate for the loss of my other vices. It's a better spot, but I'm definitely still in the woods.
The whole thing can be encapsulated by an encounter I had a couple hours ago. While riding my bike, I met up with one of my old buddies, a former and current user. I didn't give him my whole In Recovery spiel when he offered me a blunt, and I gave him my phone number. My rationalization is that I was in an awkward situation and wanted to get out of it quickly and with minimum fuss, but I fear leaving that back door open for myself. There are phone numbers from that period of my life that I want to forget, just so I won't be able to call them in a moment of weakness.
I'm posting this without editing, in an attempt to prevent redacting uncomfortable truths. I'll give it the ol' readability sweep in a couple days, I guess.
I'm coming up on my one year anniversary with sobriety. It's weird. I want to celebrate, to commemorate it in some way, but at the same time I feel like it would invite disaster. It's not a thing to trumpet, but one to solemnly remember: the time when I was a little less human.
More than my attempt at modesty, I feel fake. I hit maybe one Anonymous meeting per season and I have no sponsor. I've done well enough so far, I guess, but I still eat a lot to compensate for the loss of my other vices. It's a better spot, but I'm definitely still in the woods.
The whole thing can be encapsulated by an encounter I had a couple hours ago. While riding my bike, I met up with one of my old buddies, a former and current user. I didn't give him my whole In Recovery spiel when he offered me a blunt, and I gave him my phone number. My rationalization is that I was in an awkward situation and wanted to get out of it quickly and with minimum fuss, but I fear leaving that back door open for myself. There are phone numbers from that period of my life that I want to forget, just so I won't be able to call them in a moment of weakness.
I'm posting this without editing, in an attempt to prevent redacting uncomfortable truths. I'll give it the ol' readability sweep in a couple days, I guess.
Wednesday, October 01, 2008
You'll Never Be Alone Again
I re-met an old grammar school friend today. She recognized me, yelled my name, and I had a moment of minor panic. For five seconds, I had the distinct unease of being recognized without recognizing. I'm happy; I've been thinking about her on and off since we last met ~5 years back. She was my second crush, and the first who'd reciprocated some element of my feelings. She's with someone, and I can't say that I'm still into her, but I guess it stirred up some weird feelings. Otherwise I wouldn't be writing this right now.
I want to see her, but I'm crowded by a slowly inflating anxiety. I don't know what it is, but just the memory of her, sparing her presence, makes me feel uncomfortable. We've got a history I don't want to go into here, and I don't even know if that's it. I'm just tied up in knots over it and I don't have a damn person with which to talk about it. Internet Diary, today you are my best friend.
All of my friends (including this lady) have significant others, so now I'm actually feeling pressured to find one myself. Not out of loneliness or desire, but peer pressure and social lubrication. Three's a crowd and all that. It's kind of fucked up, because I don't yearn for physical intimacy anymore. What I need is a good friend, hopefully a best friend. I'm not sure if I'll try to work on that.
I want to see her, but I'm crowded by a slowly inflating anxiety. I don't know what it is, but just the memory of her, sparing her presence, makes me feel uncomfortable. We've got a history I don't want to go into here, and I don't even know if that's it. I'm just tied up in knots over it and I don't have a damn person with which to talk about it. Internet Diary, today you are my best friend.
All of my friends (including this lady) have significant others, so now I'm actually feeling pressured to find one myself. Not out of loneliness or desire, but peer pressure and social lubrication. Three's a crowd and all that. It's kind of fucked up, because I don't yearn for physical intimacy anymore. What I need is a good friend, hopefully a best friend. I'm not sure if I'll try to work on that.
Friday, September 26, 2008
Simple Pageant
The El took me down to Belmont and Clark, a border zone in which an uneasy truce exists between hipsters, the homeless, queer folks, and yuppies. I had to leave my house. A copy of Alicia E. Goranson's Supervillainz came in the mail from Amazon today, and I needed a good reading spot for it; therefore, a ride on the Red Line.
But that was also pretext. I spent today avoiding a prescheduled meeting with my cousin. He's living here in Chicago now, having fled the open-air prison that is Iowa. He borrowed a game from me and, while I'd like it back, I just don't want to see him. I'm convinced that we'd exhaust our subjects of conversation in 5 minutes, after which there would be the awkward 5 minutes of attempted small talk, followed by a third 5 minute period during which I'd muster up the courage to give a lame pretext for leaving. So I just stood him up.
I feel bad about that, but not bad enough to actually get in contact with him. I can't think of a good excuse, and I lack the appropriate gall to give him my actual reason. It's the same way I fall out of contact with most friends: we set up play-dates, I cancel and give a lame excuse, repeat until communication peters out. Surprisingly effective.
I don't know what to say. I have a long mental list of topics to write about, but I can only commit a single full thought to page before I'm spent.
But that was also pretext. I spent today avoiding a prescheduled meeting with my cousin. He's living here in Chicago now, having fled the open-air prison that is Iowa. He borrowed a game from me and, while I'd like it back, I just don't want to see him. I'm convinced that we'd exhaust our subjects of conversation in 5 minutes, after which there would be the awkward 5 minutes of attempted small talk, followed by a third 5 minute period during which I'd muster up the courage to give a lame pretext for leaving. So I just stood him up.
I feel bad about that, but not bad enough to actually get in contact with him. I can't think of a good excuse, and I lack the appropriate gall to give him my actual reason. It's the same way I fall out of contact with most friends: we set up play-dates, I cancel and give a lame excuse, repeat until communication peters out. Surprisingly effective.
I don't know what to say. I have a long mental list of topics to write about, but I can only commit a single full thought to page before I'm spent.
Thursday, September 25, 2008
Sterile Paradise
I've decided to hate my body.
Mostly as a pragmatic choice. I'm way fat. Not, like, "I feel so fat today." At 5'10", tipping the scales at 320 lbs., my ass is big enough to have its own LaGrange points. Where before I accepted my body, if grudgingly, I am now declaring total war. Really, mostly it's the trans thing: it's hard for those with a male phenotype to fit into most women's clothing, but once you get into the 4X territory, the sales clerk just hands you a tarp, some scissors, and a bit of velcro. I shop at Torrid when not thrifting, but they charge boutique prices for department store clothes.
Combine sartorial difficulties with the swarm of body issues that come with being a transwoman, and my odium strategy makes a certain kind of sense. While the object of my scorn is quite corporeal, the hatred part is a bit of an abstraction. I don't hate myself, I hate my body. Now, I have an enemy to work against, a narrative instead of a tally. I guess I'll see how it works.
Mostly as a pragmatic choice. I'm way fat. Not, like, "I feel so fat today." At 5'10", tipping the scales at 320 lbs., my ass is big enough to have its own LaGrange points. Where before I accepted my body, if grudgingly, I am now declaring total war. Really, mostly it's the trans thing: it's hard for those with a male phenotype to fit into most women's clothing, but once you get into the 4X territory, the sales clerk just hands you a tarp, some scissors, and a bit of velcro. I shop at Torrid when not thrifting, but they charge boutique prices for department store clothes.
Combine sartorial difficulties with the swarm of body issues that come with being a transwoman, and my odium strategy makes a certain kind of sense. While the object of my scorn is quite corporeal, the hatred part is a bit of an abstraction. I don't hate myself, I hate my body. Now, I have an enemy to work against, a narrative instead of a tally. I guess I'll see how it works.
Tuesday, September 23, 2008
The Power of Gold
I've been itching to hit Penny Arcade Expo next year. I went there in 2007, and it was a fine adventure; the sense of community made me feel warm and snuggly. Finding a space for people who share my identity is important enough for it to be a recurring theme here. The city of Seattle has a hold on me. It's beautiful, the weather's just right for this Chicago girl, and it reminds me of Canada. If I could find a Tim Horton's, I'd be forced to join the many homeless living on its clean, poorly-lit streets.
Serendipity, then, that I found out about the Gender Odyssey Conference, located in the same city, happening in the same convention center, occurring over the same 3 days. Splendor! What a coup, should I be able to fit both into a weekend. The perfect fit for the weird mish-mash of personal transgender diary and vague videogame rant that this has become.
Now, the trick is to secure the funds for transportation and lodging. Maybe I'll stay in a hostel this time!
Serendipity, then, that I found out about the Gender Odyssey Conference, located in the same city, happening in the same convention center, occurring over the same 3 days. Splendor! What a coup, should I be able to fit both into a weekend. The perfect fit for the weird mish-mash of personal transgender diary and vague videogame rant that this has become.
Now, the trick is to secure the funds for transportation and lodging. Maybe I'll stay in a hostel this time!
Monday, September 15, 2008
Tender Rondo
I was fast-forwarding through an interview with Peter Molyneux when I heard him say something that I had to chew for a while. I'm not going to go back and quote him (there's a reason I was skipping it,) but it was to the effect of "I don't want to give [the antagonist] any clear motivation because I want the player to wonder why he's doing [all this shit.]"
So, part of me wanted to rail against this viewpoint for being regressive. Most games in the late 80's/early 90's had an unexplained antagonist who only existed to give you a kickin' final boss to waste quarters/hours on. But then I thought about the game I'm playing right now (still Tales of Vesperia, wow is that game long.) The villain wants to wield ultimate power so he can bring happiness to the world, even if it means hurting countless people in the process. I don't give a damn about the conflict, because it is a Xerox of an archetype.
I think that a well-motivated, unique antagonist is an agreed-upon ideal. Which means I don't care if you disagree, for the sake of my point. I find myself asking, is it better to have a villain that is a blank slate, or an outline, made to quickly and unerringly be recognized? I feel like my writing is slanting towards Mr. Molyneux's bent, but I'm honestly not sure. Does it change depending on the type of game? Do people who play bullet hell shooters really care if their villains have a reason to exist? Does it matter more in RPGs or adventure games? Or is it simply a function of the player and her preferences?
So, part of me wanted to rail against this viewpoint for being regressive. Most games in the late 80's/early 90's had an unexplained antagonist who only existed to give you a kickin' final boss to waste quarters/hours on. But then I thought about the game I'm playing right now (still Tales of Vesperia, wow is that game long.) The villain wants to wield ultimate power so he can bring happiness to the world, even if it means hurting countless people in the process. I don't give a damn about the conflict, because it is a Xerox of an archetype.
I think that a well-motivated, unique antagonist is an agreed-upon ideal. Which means I don't care if you disagree, for the sake of my point. I find myself asking, is it better to have a villain that is a blank slate, or an outline, made to quickly and unerringly be recognized? I feel like my writing is slanting towards Mr. Molyneux's bent, but I'm honestly not sure. Does it change depending on the type of game? Do people who play bullet hell shooters really care if their villains have a reason to exist? Does it matter more in RPGs or adventure games? Or is it simply a function of the player and her preferences?
Friday, September 12, 2008
Discontinuity
I just walked a good five miles or so in the rain. I was out of sorts at the beginning, trying to get away. It always amazes me how inspired I feel by the landscape of Chicago's residential streets. The part of my brain that perceives beauty feels fully stimulated when I take a post-midnight walk through an unfamiliar area. I'll stare through a window and construct a life for the person who lives inside. I want to put that into words.
Anyway, I was in a funk. I'd seen a video of this girl, now doing porn. She's 19. Those earlier feelings of inadequacy, they were there a little bit, but what got to me and really got me down was seeing her vulnerability, tinged with that awkward optimism endemic to teenagers. I've seen all of these pictures of her just doing things, hanging out with her friends, and sort of being young, and now I see her doing porn.
To see what I perceived as innocence ruined in a very public way freaked me out. Which isn't fair, because I'm pro-porn and I'm judging the hell out of the whole affair: her, for throwing away her modesty, and the pornsmiths for taking advantage of her. Both of which are bullshit. If someone offered me decent money to do porn, I'd do it in a heartbeat, and it wouldn't be exploitation. Would it? I don't know. I don't think so, but I don't know.
I guess a lot of it is seeing the arc of a transperson from before transition, to after, to porn. It bums me out. I can't bear to look for a job as myself, and here's more validation that sex work is the most viable career for a tranny. This girl kind of formed the standard against which I measure myself, for better or worse, and the comparison depresses me for reasons I can't fully talk out. I want to make progress in my life, so if, god forbid, some guy or girl out there uses me as a yardstick, I'll point them in a positive direction.
I want to keep writing. I want to make money from writing, because I can't think of anything else I can do. I want people to read this, or whatever it becomes.
I'm going to start an experiment: if you read this sentence, go down to the bottom of the post, click my name, and send me an email. Tell me something, anything you want, about your world.
Anyway, I was in a funk. I'd seen a video of this girl, now doing porn. She's 19. Those earlier feelings of inadequacy, they were there a little bit, but what got to me and really got me down was seeing her vulnerability, tinged with that awkward optimism endemic to teenagers. I've seen all of these pictures of her just doing things, hanging out with her friends, and sort of being young, and now I see her doing porn.
To see what I perceived as innocence ruined in a very public way freaked me out. Which isn't fair, because I'm pro-porn and I'm judging the hell out of the whole affair: her, for throwing away her modesty, and the pornsmiths for taking advantage of her. Both of which are bullshit. If someone offered me decent money to do porn, I'd do it in a heartbeat, and it wouldn't be exploitation. Would it? I don't know. I don't think so, but I don't know.
I guess a lot of it is seeing the arc of a transperson from before transition, to after, to porn. It bums me out. I can't bear to look for a job as myself, and here's more validation that sex work is the most viable career for a tranny. This girl kind of formed the standard against which I measure myself, for better or worse, and the comparison depresses me for reasons I can't fully talk out. I want to make progress in my life, so if, god forbid, some guy or girl out there uses me as a yardstick, I'll point them in a positive direction.
I want to keep writing. I want to make money from writing, because I can't think of anything else I can do. I want people to read this, or whatever it becomes.
I'm going to start an experiment: if you read this sentence, go down to the bottom of the post, click my name, and send me an email. Tell me something, anything you want, about your world.
Saturday, September 06, 2008
Brick Road
I'm ass-end of an odd staycation right now. My basic aim was to sit and play video games the entire time, but I don't think I was able to really enjoy it. First, I spent a good chunk of it with Mercenaries 2, a game with toxic properties. But after it was out of my home (if not my conflicted psyche,) I still lacked the ability to fully enjoy the fruits of my sloth. The bit of Calvinist guilt I get from my father, compounded by the knowledge that I'm not really doing anything with my life, has slowed my roll.
I come back here to write because it feels like I'm accomplishing something, even if I know I'll never show this blog to anyone I know or make any money from it. My sister's the only person with any success in my immediate family, and she writes, so I'm at least somewhat doing this because I want to be like her. From the other side, I ... can't communicate as well face-to-face as I can through text. Even if I'm functionally writing to no one here, I can more accurately relay my feelings to the void. I'm spending a lot more time in IRC, as a result of this. I don't believe that real companionship develop between people over the internet, so I don't necessarily know what I use it for.
Sleep fails me. I'm going to go play more Tales of Vesperia. I want review more games, just to stretch those muscles, but I can't do this one. I have no distance whatsoever.
I come back here to write because it feels like I'm accomplishing something, even if I know I'll never show this blog to anyone I know or make any money from it. My sister's the only person with any success in my immediate family, and she writes, so I'm at least somewhat doing this because I want to be like her. From the other side, I ... can't communicate as well face-to-face as I can through text. Even if I'm functionally writing to no one here, I can more accurately relay my feelings to the void. I'm spending a lot more time in IRC, as a result of this. I don't believe that real companionship develop between people over the internet, so I don't necessarily know what I use it for.
Sleep fails me. I'm going to go play more Tales of Vesperia. I want review more games, just to stretch those muscles, but I can't do this one. I have no distance whatsoever.
Wednesday, September 03, 2008
Mercenaries 2: World in Flames is the sort of game that drives miserable people to do desperate things.
I rented it, played it for three days, then returned it, unfinished, before it was due. I did this because it ruined my self-esteem. In the realm of abusive relationships, Mercenaries 2 is the one where the other person professes his unending love, but doesn't want to be seen in public with you. This is a game that will sometimes reward you and more often subtly undermine your belief that you have a right to exist.
Beyond my hyperbole, it's a third-person shooter, like its progenitor (2005's Mercenaries: Playground of Destruction.) It's in a sandbox, much closer to Crackdown than the GTA series. You do missions for different factions, managing their moods toward you by doing jobs for them and not blowing their shit up. You get little side missions where you capture guys and blow up buildings, the latter being made way easier by to the fact that you can call in airstrikes and watch buildings and structures shatter with impressive graphical flourish.
Before I explain why this game resembles an uneven middle school romance, I've got to come clean about my baggage. I loved Mercenaries 1. Super loved it. My relationship to Mercenaries 2 is that of a widower with his second wife: I make her wear her predecessor's jewelry, style her hair the same, and generally spend the bulk of the marriage pining for a lost love. The viability of True Objectivity is part of an interesting discussion that I will do nothing to further here, because Mercenaries 2 has hurt me in a far too personal way.
The thing is, I was willing to give Mercs 2 a pass if it had just been a good-lookin' expansion pack for Mercs 1. But no. Mercs 2 is buggy and uneven. It's a rough-cut piece of lumber, unsanded and splintery, that your host expects you to sit on bare-assed. I played the 360 version, and had issues with:
Mercenaries 2 feels unoriginal, even for a sequel. Specifically, this game is Just Cause. Just Cause is a ... fuck it, Just Cause is this. And Mercenaries 2 wants to be Just Cause so bad. It has the same grapple gun, used to hitch a ride on enemy helicopters. They're both set in the same generic South American countryside, populated by citizens who speak poorly-accented English (Mercenaries is technically set in Venezuela, but the only difference I could find was that Just Cause had more water.) It even has the same first couple missions: bust this guy out of jail. Now drive this truck full of weapons somewhere while being pursued! Be careful, don't get hit too much, or your cargo will fly out and you'll get paid less!
I'm not ragging on Mercs 2 for being derivative, but for being derivative of Just Cause, a game that was not good. Not bad, just not good.
For some reason, you need to pre-buy your airstrikes in Mercs 2, whereas you could use them indefinitely (cash permitting) in Mercs 1. It's a solution to a problem that didn't exist, and can leave you in a situation without the airstrikes or item drops to solve the problem at hand. To add challenge when hijacking bigger vehicles (tanks, APCs, helicopters,) you're required to complete a little button pressing minigame every time you dismount the driver. Which would be okay, but the buttons are always the same for each vehicle type, making it more a matter of memorization than skill. In addition, it makes what used to be a seven second interlude in the mayhem now take upwards of twenty seconds.
I really want to go on. There are a lot of little things that irk me about this damn game, but it really doesn't deserve my vitriol. While it was limited, I did have fun playing Mercenaries 2. The core gameplay of blowing shit up remains enjoyable here, if muddled. Buy Mercenaries: Playground of Destruction. Y'know, the first one. It's a fantastic, well-crafted game, and you can get if for ~$12 used. Mercs 2 is a rental at best, and you may find yourself breaking up with it before the return date, just as I did.
My Judgement: Prodigal Son
I rented it, played it for three days, then returned it, unfinished, before it was due. I did this because it ruined my self-esteem. In the realm of abusive relationships, Mercenaries 2 is the one where the other person professes his unending love, but doesn't want to be seen in public with you. This is a game that will sometimes reward you and more often subtly undermine your belief that you have a right to exist.
Beyond my hyperbole, it's a third-person shooter, like its progenitor (2005's Mercenaries: Playground of Destruction.) It's in a sandbox, much closer to Crackdown than the GTA series. You do missions for different factions, managing their moods toward you by doing jobs for them and not blowing their shit up. You get little side missions where you capture guys and blow up buildings, the latter being made way easier by to the fact that you can call in airstrikes and watch buildings and structures shatter with impressive graphical flourish.
Before I explain why this game resembles an uneven middle school romance, I've got to come clean about my baggage. I loved Mercenaries 1. Super loved it. My relationship to Mercenaries 2 is that of a widower with his second wife: I make her wear her predecessor's jewelry, style her hair the same, and generally spend the bulk of the marriage pining for a lost love. The viability of True Objectivity is part of an interesting discussion that I will do nothing to further here, because Mercenaries 2 has hurt me in a far too personal way.
The thing is, I was willing to give Mercs 2 a pass if it had just been a good-lookin' expansion pack for Mercs 1. But no. Mercs 2 is buggy and uneven. It's a rough-cut piece of lumber, unsanded and splintery, that your host expects you to sit on bare-assed. I played the 360 version, and had issues with:
- Achievements being locked after I'd fulfilled their conditions
- Missions failing abruptly for unclear reasons
- Getting stuck in invincible bushes of death
- Having my support operative tell me, every five minutes, well beyond the point where a deaf 5-year-old would've gotten the hint, that I could go back to home base to find out what to do next
- The worst AI
Mercenaries 2 feels unoriginal, even for a sequel. Specifically, this game is Just Cause. Just Cause is a ... fuck it, Just Cause is this. And Mercenaries 2 wants to be Just Cause so bad. It has the same grapple gun, used to hitch a ride on enemy helicopters. They're both set in the same generic South American countryside, populated by citizens who speak poorly-accented English (Mercenaries is technically set in Venezuela, but the only difference I could find was that Just Cause had more water.) It even has the same first couple missions: bust this guy out of jail. Now drive this truck full of weapons somewhere while being pursued! Be careful, don't get hit too much, or your cargo will fly out and you'll get paid less!
I'm not ragging on Mercs 2 for being derivative, but for being derivative of Just Cause, a game that was not good. Not bad, just not good.
For some reason, you need to pre-buy your airstrikes in Mercs 2, whereas you could use them indefinitely (cash permitting) in Mercs 1. It's a solution to a problem that didn't exist, and can leave you in a situation without the airstrikes or item drops to solve the problem at hand. To add challenge when hijacking bigger vehicles (tanks, APCs, helicopters,) you're required to complete a little button pressing minigame every time you dismount the driver. Which would be okay, but the buttons are always the same for each vehicle type, making it more a matter of memorization than skill. In addition, it makes what used to be a seven second interlude in the mayhem now take upwards of twenty seconds.
I really want to go on. There are a lot of little things that irk me about this damn game, but it really doesn't deserve my vitriol. While it was limited, I did have fun playing Mercenaries 2. The core gameplay of blowing shit up remains enjoyable here, if muddled. Buy Mercenaries: Playground of Destruction. Y'know, the first one. It's a fantastic, well-crafted game, and you can get if for ~$12 used. Mercs 2 is a rental at best, and you may find yourself breaking up with it before the return date, just as I did.
My Judgement: Prodigal Son
Tuesday, July 22, 2008
Saturday, July 19, 2008
I write mainly to put names to the ineffable feelings I have. I'm an introverted person, and I always find myself at a loss for the words or phrases that describe how and why I feel separate. It's like I was born exactly on the border of five countries, and I'm trying to determine my citizenship. It kind of doesn't matter where I hail from, so long as I'm able to say "Oh, I'm from A," or "I was born in C." Part of me just doesn't want to be from somewhere. Some isolated part of myself says that, being born at the intersection of all five countries, I'm from nowhere.
So, as nationality affects association, I gravitate towards other people who seem to come from nowhere. And I lose interest in them when they expatriate somewhere concrete.
I don't know if I'm being oblique or just immature, so humor me here. You, mysterious reader, are my greatest friend. We've not met, and probably never will, but there's something insignificant that I enjoy immensely about our non-relationship. I am Erwin Schrödinger and you are or are not my cat.
So, as nationality affects association, I gravitate towards other people who seem to come from nowhere. And I lose interest in them when they expatriate somewhere concrete.
I don't know if I'm being oblique or just immature, so humor me here. You, mysterious reader, are my greatest friend. We've not met, and probably never will, but there's something insignificant that I enjoy immensely about our non-relationship. I am Erwin Schrödinger and you are or are not my cat.
Friday, May 23, 2008
I want a drug that supercharges my virtual proprioception so I can go to a national Street Fighter competition and demolish the competition, no skillz necessary. I guess it would be unfair, but I imagine a pluckier me doing this, with some sort of hard-luck story wherein I need the prize money to help my dying sister get her operation. Then, at the end, when I run out of the somatosensory cocktail, I realize the true Zen of all video games, the unified principle of victory, and Dragon Punch my opponent so hard s/he goes blind in one eye.
If a compound so potent in game-enhancing properties existed (setting aside caffeine,) I know I'd become addicted pretty quickly. The power to overwhelm, to trounce effortlessly is so alluring. I wonder when gaming tournaments will start testing for performance-enhancing drugs. My mental image of juiced gamers is disturbingly fascinating: their hair constantly dripping with sweat, eyes attached tightly to some point on the horizon, fingers reflexively fighting imagined hordes when not engaged with a controller, wrists clad in padded braces so they don't snap their bones with the sheer force of their playing.
If a compound so potent in game-enhancing properties existed (setting aside caffeine,) I know I'd become addicted pretty quickly. The power to overwhelm, to trounce effortlessly is so alluring. I wonder when gaming tournaments will start testing for performance-enhancing drugs. My mental image of juiced gamers is disturbingly fascinating: their hair constantly dripping with sweat, eyes attached tightly to some point on the horizon, fingers reflexively fighting imagined hordes when not engaged with a controller, wrists clad in padded braces so they don't snap their bones with the sheer force of their playing.
Friday, March 21, 2008
Murder Music
The forces that animate my body are so irritable during this slice of night, after all the network TV worth watching has gone off and everyone I can talk to is asleep. It's not that I can't sleep. I just can't stop. The little man in the engine room keeps shoveling the coal in. I just took 3mg of melatonin, near guaranteed to make even someone my size fall out. Its effects are apparent, but I can't keep myself from typing, reading, watching the odd advertisement for cheap auto loans and colon flushes. Some directive from my mesolimbic system, the deep well of desire, means I can't stop until I collapse.
My noisy computer puts out a whine that no doubt will contribute to hearing loss someday. The Faculty plays on the TV adjacent to my monitor. I'm spending an inordinate amount of energy scrying whether I'm more attracted to Josh Hartnett or Jordana Brewster. The exanimate separation that marks my lifelong tenancy in the twilight hours is powerful, and it bleeds into the rest of my days. On a day off, I can go from waking to sleeping without talking to another human. It feels right, but in that messed-up way that beating, ravaging, destroying someone feels right. It's justified by the same apparatus which reasons a journal as a working substitute for a shrink.
I want love, but I don't need romance. I want someone to play videogames with, to sit on the couch and burp with, to enjoy the dismal in-between moments that are building up, unused, in my timeline. The wonderful tactile motions of my body pressed against another keep flitting through my mind, the savory tang of lust ever on my taste buds. I don't know how to get to a point where I feel capable of dating someone else, leaving the question of my own desirability unanswered without being asked. I suppose I always held out for the day when I found someone broken in the same way that I am, and questions of gender, sex, and attraction would be thrown out the window, in favor of the knowledge that our identical fears of being alone would no longer have merit.
I'm not a good writer, but I wish I could speak as well as I do write. Caught in the moment, all of my well-prepared phrases and beats fail me, and I'm just so often stuck. I'm done tonight. There's nothing else to do.
My noisy computer puts out a whine that no doubt will contribute to hearing loss someday. The Faculty plays on the TV adjacent to my monitor. I'm spending an inordinate amount of energy scrying whether I'm more attracted to Josh Hartnett or Jordana Brewster. The exanimate separation that marks my lifelong tenancy in the twilight hours is powerful, and it bleeds into the rest of my days. On a day off, I can go from waking to sleeping without talking to another human. It feels right, but in that messed-up way that beating, ravaging, destroying someone feels right. It's justified by the same apparatus which reasons a journal as a working substitute for a shrink.
I want love, but I don't need romance. I want someone to play videogames with, to sit on the couch and burp with, to enjoy the dismal in-between moments that are building up, unused, in my timeline. The wonderful tactile motions of my body pressed against another keep flitting through my mind, the savory tang of lust ever on my taste buds. I don't know how to get to a point where I feel capable of dating someone else, leaving the question of my own desirability unanswered without being asked. I suppose I always held out for the day when I found someone broken in the same way that I am, and questions of gender, sex, and attraction would be thrown out the window, in favor of the knowledge that our identical fears of being alone would no longer have merit.
I'm not a good writer, but I wish I could speak as well as I do write. Caught in the moment, all of my well-prepared phrases and beats fail me, and I'm just so often stuck. I'm done tonight. There's nothing else to do.
Sunday, March 16, 2008
For the past two months, I've been attempting to broaden my vocabulary. Every time I see a word I don't know or fully comprehend, I look it up online. It's what I did when I was a kid, and its result then, as now, was that I learned a whole lot of new words. I finally know how to abseil and abjure. I grasp (fugaciously) the distinction between the noumenal and phenomenal. Yay, words.
To my surprise, my evolving ability to construct a lethally precise sentence has left me, as always, unable to express my real feelings. The emotions that form my words leave them without their spirit. I write with an increasingly studied structure, but to no benefit. This diary away from the rest of the world is where I can write in private, get over the ugly adolescence of style without ridicule. That doesn't work, does it? I don't know if I just need someone to tell me my writing is shit, or keep writing until I find a louder voice and then have someone tell me my writing is shit. Like, I want to be this cool artist person who writes and makes music and games and stuff on the side and somehow finds a way to pay the rent, too. But that's just a variation of the dream I had due to the exhaust leak in my '89 Accord, a triumphant don't-need-to-take-this-shit reverie that made missing first period soooo worth it.
I'm reading this kind of weird manga about a queer-les-trans love quadrilateral. It's very much a standard romantic serial, but there's something weird, off - even un-Japanese - about it. My heart understands it and resonates with it, and I want to write about the feeling I have while reading it. Forlorn recognition. I don't know. I'm crying now. Maybe that's enough.
To my surprise, my evolving ability to construct a lethally precise sentence has left me, as always, unable to express my real feelings. The emotions that form my words leave them without their spirit. I write with an increasingly studied structure, but to no benefit. This diary away from the rest of the world is where I can write in private, get over the ugly adolescence of style without ridicule. That doesn't work, does it? I don't know if I just need someone to tell me my writing is shit, or keep writing until I find a louder voice and then have someone tell me my writing is shit. Like, I want to be this cool artist person who writes and makes music and games and stuff on the side and somehow finds a way to pay the rent, too. But that's just a variation of the dream I had due to the exhaust leak in my '89 Accord, a triumphant don't-need-to-take-this-shit reverie that made missing first period soooo worth it.
I'm reading this kind of weird manga about a queer-les-trans love quadrilateral. It's very much a standard romantic serial, but there's something weird, off - even un-Japanese - about it. My heart understands it and resonates with it, and I want to write about the feeling I have while reading it. Forlorn recognition. I don't know. I'm crying now. Maybe that's enough.
Thursday, February 21, 2008
I found a dollar on the sidewalk as I was coming home today. Good times!
I have an idea for a soccer hooligan MMO called Redcards and Blackguards. I see a lot of possibilities, and none of them involve it becoming an online GTA clone.
I'm learning how to compose chiptunes and program so I can finally wring a game out of the mildewed bar rag that is my mind.
I'm crazy depressed.
I've gotten sick of starting all of my sentences with 'I' statements.
I should probably go to sleep.
I have an idea for a soccer hooligan MMO called Redcards and Blackguards. I see a lot of possibilities, and none of them involve it becoming an online GTA clone.
I'm learning how to compose chiptunes and program so I can finally wring a game out of the mildewed bar rag that is my mind.
I'm crazy depressed.
I've gotten sick of starting all of my sentences with 'I' statements.
I should probably go to sleep.
Tuesday, February 12, 2008
How do we order our identities?
The question came to me when I read this article, about experiences of racism changing for transpeople as they cross from one experience of gender to another. Louis Mitchell, a black transman, says in the article, “More than I’m a trans man, I’m a Black man ... Many of the things that I see in the world and many of the things that I respond to in the world have more to do with how I am treated as a Black man rather than how I am treated as a trans man."
It led me to question how I view my own set of identifiers, the cloud of adjectives that I feel qualified to apply to myself. In my view, before anything else, I'm an outsider. To everything. All of the things that I use to identify myself put outside of some type of norm. And most of those categories are not positively correlated. When I'm in a group of people, I can only seem to see whatever differences exist between myself and the plurality because without exception there are so many.
The thing is, I don't think it's the right viewpoint to take, but I can't particularly say it's wrong, either. There's this quest to find where you belong after you've found your identity. You just spent ten minutes rummaging in the couch for the piece of this beautiful, pastoral puzzle, and now you've got to figure where to stick it. I just don't trust where I stick it, I guess, because it never quite seems to fit perfectly. Maybe perfection's a bit of a booby prize when you could be finishing the puzzle, but I've dragged this metaphor to its death.
Even though it's an oppositional definition, I do find my space with other outsiders; people whose differences, though not the same as mine, place them in the flat part of the Bell curve. I always wanted to gather what I felt are my people somewhere. When I envision 'my people,' however, they're not nerds, they're not trannies, they're not mulattoes. At least, not particularly. They're just the people who don't belong anywhere else. It's kind of something I got from reading old X-Men comics (specifically X-Men 2099 if you're into that kind of thing) and has stayed with me, achingly distant, for years. It feels good, but I don't know if it's a good thing.
I don't know if I'm satisfied with this post, honestly, but I'm going to put it here anyway. The beauty of having a clandestine place to write: not to conceal the movements of my mind, but rather to do bad writing under the cover of night.
The question came to me when I read this article, about experiences of racism changing for transpeople as they cross from one experience of gender to another. Louis Mitchell, a black transman, says in the article, “More than I’m a trans man, I’m a Black man ... Many of the things that I see in the world and many of the things that I respond to in the world have more to do with how I am treated as a Black man rather than how I am treated as a trans man."
It led me to question how I view my own set of identifiers, the cloud of adjectives that I feel qualified to apply to myself. In my view, before anything else, I'm an outsider. To everything. All of the things that I use to identify myself put outside of some type of norm. And most of those categories are not positively correlated. When I'm in a group of people, I can only seem to see whatever differences exist between myself and the plurality because without exception there are so many.
The thing is, I don't think it's the right viewpoint to take, but I can't particularly say it's wrong, either. There's this quest to find where you belong after you've found your identity. You just spent ten minutes rummaging in the couch for the piece of this beautiful, pastoral puzzle, and now you've got to figure where to stick it. I just don't trust where I stick it, I guess, because it never quite seems to fit perfectly. Maybe perfection's a bit of a booby prize when you could be finishing the puzzle, but I've dragged this metaphor to its death.
Even though it's an oppositional definition, I do find my space with other outsiders; people whose differences, though not the same as mine, place them in the flat part of the Bell curve. I always wanted to gather what I felt are my people somewhere. When I envision 'my people,' however, they're not nerds, they're not trannies, they're not mulattoes. At least, not particularly. They're just the people who don't belong anywhere else. It's kind of something I got from reading old X-Men comics (specifically X-Men 2099 if you're into that kind of thing) and has stayed with me, achingly distant, for years. It feels good, but I don't know if it's a good thing.
I don't know if I'm satisfied with this post, honestly, but I'm going to put it here anyway. The beauty of having a clandestine place to write: not to conceal the movements of my mind, but rather to do bad writing under the cover of night.
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