Costume sale! For a good cause!

My friend teleidoplex has won herself a place in Clarion West, which is totally awesome.

But Clarion, regardless of direction, is kind of expensive — and that is not so awesome.

But! You can be awesome and help!

In addition to being a writer of much talent, teleidoplex is a veteran costumer. (In fact, she’s one of the people that infected me with the costuming bug when I started LARPing.) And she’s created an eBay store to sell off some of her hoard of outfits, wigs, shoes, and more, with proceeds going toward paying her way to Clarion. Some of the stuff is very costume-y; other stuff is perfectly legitimate street clothing. I heartily encourage you all (at least, all of you with a use for women’s clothing) to browse through it and see if there’s anything you might be interested in.

And if you don’t want stuff, but do want to help her out, there’s a donation button on her website, where you can chip in directly.

Malevolence

(The following post talks about The Avengers on its way to the actual point, but does not give spoilers.)

Interestingly, one of the moments that has stayed with me the most strongly from The Avengers is the speech Loki flings at Black Widow.

He has other Villain Speeches in the movie, of course. But this one stands out for its sheer, unbridled malevolence. He doesn’t say those things out of megalomania or fraternal resentment or any other such understandable motivation; he says them because, quite simply, he wants to hurt her.

I’ve said before that I tend to write antagonists more often than villains. That is, I write characters who think they’re doing the right (or at least the necessary) thing, who happen to be wrong about that. There are exceptions, of course; Nadrett doesn’t give a damn what’s right, only what he can get away with. But I have a harder time writing that sort of thing.

Which means — of course — that I want to study how it’s done. So this is a Recommend Stuff to Me kind of post: what books/movies/TV shows/etc have those moments of pure malevolence, where the character is just trying to hurt somebody? Off the top of my head, there’s Dunnett’s Lymond Chronicles (“Stop sidling, my swan. I am going to hurt you, but I am not going to kill you, just yet. You are going to provide me with a deal of merriment still.”), some of Angelus’ moments in Buffy, and pretty much everything the main villains do in Tokyo Babylon and X, but I’m having trouble thinking of more. (Actually, that’s a lie. I can think of plenty of sadistic villains. It’s just that most of them are sadistic in a shallow, uninteresting way, and I want ones that really manage to get the knife between the ribs.)

Where have you seen this done well?

Edited to add: Please to be avoiding spoilers as much as possible. This discussion will necessarily involve a degree of revelation, but if you can use phrases like “the main villain” instead of the name (where the villain is not obvious from the start), etc, that would be much appreciated.

The Avengers

I’m not usually much of a shipper (in the fanfic sense) . . . but I want ALL THE HAWKEYE/BLACK WIDOW FIC NOW.

Ahem. Apart from me loving those two and wanting them to get their own movie, I thought The Avengers was quite excellent. Once I have it on DVD, I may well sit down and try to pick apart just how the writers managed to balance their script. Superhero movies have foundered before on the “too many heroes/villains” problem, but this one did a remarkable job of giving each character a meaningful role, without letting the pacing bog down in side tangents. It’s helped, of course, by the fact that they’re operating off a whole slew of individual movies — but that doesn’t account for all of it, because you can do that and still have a terrible team-up (just look to comic books for proof). This one handled things very deftly, I thought, and I’d love to dig into how.

And now, I crash. Because I survived my first kobudo seminar today (though I’m not sure my feet did), and have earned my rest. ๐Ÿ™‚

because ordering from Japan is expensive

I don’t suppose anybody has any clever tips for how to find kimono and obi (and I do mean kimono, not yukata) for non-obscene prices? I’m looking either for stores in the Bay Area or for websites, but between the exchange rate and shipping costs, ordering from Japan tends to make prices obscene pretty quickly — I’d prefer something more, er, local.

This query has been brought to you by eBay’s utter failure to contain what I want, and Rakuten’s tendency to make my eyes bleed with machine-translated Japanese.

Help Us/LJ Support Planned Parenthood

Originally posted by at Help Us/LJ Support Planned Parenthood

Originally posted by at Help Us/LJ Support Planned Parenthood

Originally posted by at Help Us/LJ Support Planned Parenthood

Originally posted by at Help Us/LJ Support Planned Parenthood

Originally posted by at Ode to Planned Parenthood…

Originally posted by at Ode to Planned Parenthood…

Originally posted by at Help Us Support Planned Parenthood

Join us in standing up for reproductive health and education. Planned Parenthood, the organization that delivers reproductive health care, sex education and information to millions of people worldwide, has come under fire in the U.S. lately, with many politicians on both state and federal level seeking to end funding (and in a few cases succeeding).

During the month of May, you can send a specially designed Planned Parenthood vgift to your friends to help support this cause. (And if you need someone to send it to, is always happy to receive gifts!) There are three variations ($1, $5 and $10) for you to choose from, but they'd all look good on your profile when your friends know that you stand by something so important.

                    

Thank you all for your help in our support for Planned Parenthood. This promotion ends June 1, 2012; LiveJournal is not affiliated with Parent Parenthood. For more information about Planned Parenthood, please visit: http://www.plannedparenthood.org/

-The LiveJournal Team

(If you'd like to help spread the word that we're raising funds for Planned Parenthood, you can crosspost this entry in your own journal or community by using the repost button below!)

~~~

SF in SF!

If you’re going to be in the San Francisco Bay Area on May 19th, come join me at SF in SF! I’ll be reading with Ysabeau Wilce and Erin Hoffman at 7 p.m. (the doors open at 6).

. . . no idea what I’ll be reading; I need to find out how much time I’ll have, and ponder options. But I promise to pick something cool. ๐Ÿ™‚

Books read, April 2012

The trend of reading fiction by women instead of men continues. Partly this is because half of the titles I finished this month were YA (and three-quarters of those were by Suzanne Collins), but still. I had this odd feeling of, I dunno, backwards activism or something when I sat down with Saladin’s book — like I was virtuously promoting diversity in my reading by picking up something by a man. <g>

(more…)

The Wheel of Time Roleplaying Game

[This is part of a series analyzing Robert Jordan’s Wheel of Time novels. Previous installments can be found under the tag. Comments on old posts are welcome.]

To fill the time between now and the final spate of WOT analysis (which is currently scheduled to begin in September, but that’s assuming the January pub date for A Memory of Light stays put), I bring you: the Wheel of Time Roleplaying Game!

(Core book only. I did not pick up Prophecies of the Dragon, the sole expansion published before they dropped the line, though I have read a summary of it. The material in it is considered non-canonical anyway.)

Ground info first: this is a d20 game, published in 2001 (between Winter’s Heart and Crossroads of Twilight) meaning it dates back to the brief heyday of third edition D&D — third edition, not 3.5. Since WOTRPG has its own world-specific set of classes, the revisions made to the class system between editions don’t much matter, but the skill system is the old mess, lacking not only the simplifications introduced by Pathfinder, but even the improvements of 3.5. (“Intuit Direction” is a skill!)

Before I dig into the grotty details of the system, though, I should talk about the presentation of the book itself. As is usually the case with merchandising of this sort, it doesn’t appear to be entirely certain whether it’s trying to market itself to fans of the books — who already know the world, and are itching to imagine themselves as the Dragon Reborn or whatever — or to lure in outsiders who might then become enamored of the world and go pick up the series. Frankly, I’m always dubious of the latter approach: did anybody really say “oh look, another generic-looking d20 epic fantasy supplement!” and rush to play it? Everybody I know who bought or played it (which isn’t very many people) was already a fan — the sort of people for whom the “fast-track character creation” makes sense, because they already know what an “Aes Sedai Accepted” or “Runaway from the Stedding” is, or for whom it’s interesting to see Rand et al. get statted. And yet, there are little one-page potted descriptions of the Aiel and so on, and a worldbuilding section that explains all the countries of Randland, rehashing information fans already know.

Those are the same people for whom the art is going to be infuriating. Instead of the familiar map, we get a less sophisticated redraw — I guess they weren’t able to license the rights to the old one? — featuring place names like “Tamen Head.” Um, yeah. And the character images . . . well, let me just show you the Wise One apprentice:

Don’t you love her dark skirt, white blouse, and dark shawl? Or how about the Cairhienin noblewoman, with her striped skirt?

I know this is probably stock art purchased on a budget, but sheesh.

Actually, the art is a good lead-in to my main point, which is that d20 is an abysmal system for running a WOT game. It is, in fact, the stock art of the gaming world: cheap and easy to get, but bearing at best a vague resemblance to what it’s supposed to describe.

First: general mechanics neepery.

If a picture is worth a thousand words . . . .

. . . then we’re nearing a novel’s worth of argument here.

A while back, jimhines posted shots of himself posing like women on the covers of books. ocelott followed up with a compare-and-contrast of men’s poses vs. women’s, again with attempted reproduction.

Well, now Jim has done the other side of the equation, posing like some male cover models (from romance as well as fantasy). As he points out, not only are the poses less uncomfortable, their mode of objectification conveys power rather than sexualization. And those are really, really not the same thing.

And, for an encore, there’s Emily Asher-Perrin’s article on Tor.com, “Hey, Everyone โ€” Stop Taking This Picture! (No, I Mean It.)” And, um, yeah. Quit it with the butt shots already.

If you can look at those things and still not think there’s a problematic pattern . . . oof. I think the kindest interpretation I can put on that is “willful stupidity.”

The DWJ Project: index post

Since it’s annoying to have to page back through archives in search of something, here’s an index post for all of my entries in the Diana Wynne Jones Project, alphabetized by title.

Open Book Thread: With Fate Conspire

While rooting around in my archives looking for something else, I discovered I never put up an open book thread for With Fate Conspire!

So consider this an invitation to make any comments or ask any questions you might have about that book. (Needless to say, this will result in spoilers. Read the thread at your own risk.) I, er, can’t promise I’ll be able to answer everything with perfect clarity; at this point my head is full of Isabella instead of the Onyx Court, so I may be a tad fuzzy on some of the details. But I’ll do my best!

And if you have a question about a previous novel, the other open book threads are still open. Though I don’t have one for the doppelganger series, now that I think about it. Well, if you have a question about one of those, let me know; I can make a new thread if there’s need.

Note: As an experiment, I have closed this thread until the beginning of 2013, in an attempt to convince spammers to stop spamming it. If you have a question, feel free to ask it elsewhere, or come back in January.

Happy International Pixel-Stained Technopeasant Day!

I’ve had friends in town for the past several days, and sightseeing with them almost made me forget what today was. Thankfully, several posts on my friends-list reminded me: it’s International Pixel-Stained Technopeasant Day!

I’ve been celebrating this holiday since it started in 2007. (You can see the relevant posts, including some history, under the tag.) A little earlier this year, a reader informed me that the changes over at Abyss & Apex meant my story “Letter Found in a Chest Belonging to the Marquis de Montseraille Following the Death of That Worthy Individual” was no longer available for free in the archive; I have therefore chosen that as this year’s contribution. And if you want more, you can always browse the free fiction on my site!

And now, I go collapse. Who knew sightseeing was so tiring?

ANHoD Giveaway: the winner!

My high-tech not-quite-randomization system (which excludes certain people, like those who are already getting an advance look at the book via other means, or my mother) has picked a winner for the first ARC: Janet, from Goodreads!

I am still chewing on title thoughts, so feel free to go on suggesting things. In related news, Jim Hines’ fundraiser for rape crisis centers has raised more than $2500, which means another ARC of ANHoD and a copy of With Fate Conspire have both been added to the pool of prizes. If you chip in over there, you’ll have a chance at both of them, and also a host of other awesome things. (I should also note that donations to RAINN will be matched, so you get double money for your dollar, there.)

And now I shall ponder what to do with the remaining copies . . . .

ANHOD giveaway, Urban Tarot, and Jim Hines’ fundraiser

My thanks to everyone who sent me a title suggestion for the second book of Isabella’s memoirs! I received comments here, on Twitter, on Goodreads, by e-mail . . . the whole gamut. Give me a little while to sort through them, and then I’ll announce a winner.

Speaking of winners, Jim Hines’ fundraiser for rape crisis centers is less than $200 away from hitting the benchmark that tosses a signed copy of With Fate Conspire and a signed ARC of A Natural History of Dragons into the prize pot. There are new rewards, too, at levels up to $4000, and some of them are very shiny.

And finally, we’re in the last days of the Urban Tarot Project. $375 dollars more there will mean embroidered bags for everyone receiving the deck! And there are still signed copies of With Fate Conspire available there, too, so if you want one of those (along with all the other parts of the reward package), you have 71 hours left in which to get it.

Excelsior!

CQD. This is Titanic. CQD. This is Titanic.

Like sovay (from whom I got this), I had no intention of blogging about the sinking of the Titanic. But then she posted this.

This is the conversation that rattled across the North Atlantic the night the Titanic sank. You can hear the moment Jack Phillips stopped transmitting a personal message from a passenger, cutting off abruptly only to begin broadcasting again: “CQD. This is Titanic. CQD. This is Titanic.” The old distress call — SOS had only just been instituted, and wasn’t added to the message until later that night — followed by the announcement of the collision. And then the replies from other ships, fragments of information being passed back and forth, questions and offers of help until the chatter gets too thick and Phillips just sends, “Stop talking. Stop talking. Jamming.” And everybody shuts up until he starts again.

All of it so level, so lacking in inflection. Because this is the record of the wireless messages, run through voice synthesizers to translate that conversation into a form the layperson can understand. But you know what’s behind the words, and that makes it all the more devastating.

Then static creeps in, as Titanic’s signal weakens. And then silence.

Seeing the tragedy from that angle . . . it’s like a punch to the gut. Especially when you think that if the captain of the Californian hadn’t decided the ice was too thick to proceed, if he hadn’t ordered his ship’s boilers shut down for the night, if the wireless operator had stayed up a mere half hour later before going to bed, then the Californian would have heard the distress call, and would have come to help.

(Or, y’know, if there had been a firm code for the use of ship’s rockets, so the guys on the Californian who saw them fired off from the Titanic would have known for sure it was a distress signal. Or if the captain of the Titanic had paid attention to the Californian‘s warnings in the FIRST PLACE, and hadn’t gone charging full speed into an iceberg. If, if, if. There are so many ways the Titanic, or at least its people, could have been saved, but none of them happened.)

The link goes to an article, but if you click through to here you should be able to listen to the broadcast directly. Be warned, though: after the Titanic sends its last message, there’s a stretch of silence . . . and then a bloody advertisement starts up, before the program returns. And to add insult to injury, the ad I got — don’t know if it changes — was for a performance of Shakespeare’s All’s Well That Ends Well. In Gujarati!

Yeeeeeeeeeeah. Not only is that probably the worst Shakespearean play title you could choose to interrupt the story with, the Gujarati singing is especially out of place.

But go read the article, and listen to the broadcast if you have the time. It’s worth it.

Fundraising for rape crisis center

The ever-awesome Jim Hines running a fundraiser this month for rape crisis centers. For every benchmark hit, he’ll be giving away one of a whole slew of books, which you can see at that link. And if the fundraising gets up to $2500 (which I devoutly hope it will!), then I’ll be tossing in two things to sweeten the pot: a signed copy of With Fate Conspire, and a signed ARC of A Natural History of Dragons.

(This is separate from the title-suggestion giveaway for the first ARC. Two chances to win!)

Head on over to his post for details, including how to donate. It’s an excellent cause, and I hope it raises enough money that he has to find more prizes to give away!

The Togashi Dynasty, Part Two: Before the Clan War

Okay, so you have the alternate history for the founding of Rokugan that I laid out in my previous post. Where do you go from there?

Another sidebar in Imperial Histories mentions that Hantei didn’t have to step down and let his son Genji become the Emperor. What if he’d gone on ruling forever, as an immortal kami? Well, that’s more or less what happened with Togashi in canon: every Dragon Clan Champion until the Second Day of Thunder was in fact the founding kami, under a series of aliases. So you could easily have the same thing here, not even bothering with the cover story. Emperor Togashi just goes on ruling.

Since a) he’s canonically very reclusive, because of the way his gift of foresight works, and b) we’re aiming for mystic weirdness here, I figure he withdraws more and more from Rokugani society as the years go by. People almost never see him; ise zumi or other members of the two Imperial families (the Mirumoto and the Agasha) carry out his orders, or relay them to everybody else.

Until the dawn of what is, in canon, the Gozoku era: the late fourth century.

(I’ll take a moment here to acknowledge that really, if you go changing something as major as the Emperor of Rokugan — and therefore the entire shape of Rokugani society — you should logically end up with a highly divergent AU, not the same historical events reworked. But that would mean really re-inventing the L5R wheel, and besides, I think it’s fun to keep filtering canon through this lens.)

So how do you get the Gozoku conspiracy when the Emperor is an immortal kami with foresight?

Short answer: because Togashi foresaw it, and let it happen. Man, it’s hard to deal with a powerfully precognitive character, and not have them come across as a total dick.

The Togashi Dynasty, Part One: Founding

I’ve said before that the setting for Legend of the Five Rings is really well-developed, such that you can have all sorts of fun messing with it. The most recent book for the fourth edition supports this in interesting ways; in addition to giving all kinds of historical info, it has sidebars scattered throughout, suggesting AU scenarios that might have resulted if events had gone differently.

One of those concerns the founding of the Empire. Canonically — for those who don’t know — nine kami, the children of Lady Sun and Lord Moon, fell to earth (and one of them fell through the earth into Hell, where he became corrupted). The remaining eight gathered mortal followers and held a tournament amongst themselves to decide who would rule this realm. Hantei won, and the other seven founded the Great Clans, and that was how Rokugan got started.

The sidebar in Imperial Histories asks, what if a different kami had won?

It gives a few sentences for each of the other kami, reminding you of their personalities, and outlining the general flavor that would have resulted if Doji or Hida or whoever had set the tone for all of Rokugan. The one that caught my eye the most was this:

If Togashi had been destined to defeat Hantei, he would have built an Empire far different from anything imagined by his siblings — a place of mystery and enigma, where religious contemplation and individual enlightenment were the highest goods. A GM who wishes to make Rokugan closer to the sort of mystical martial arts setting depicted in many Asian films might find a Togashi Dynasty suitable to the task.

Granted, I am playing a Dragon PC (a member of the Clan that kami founded in canonical history), and a Togashi monk to boot. But I think those lines would look shiny to me even if I weren’t, because I’m a fan of movies like The Bride With White Hair (which is the first example that leapt to mind). And so my brain immediately started playing with this notion. How could you redesign L5R for a timeline in which Togashi won?

I’m splitting this into at least two parts because the more I think about it, the more interesting notions come to mind. Everyone, and L5R geeks in particular, are invited to hop in with comments and suggestions. For this first part, I’ll start with the founding of the Empire and the Great Clans.

Trying to minimize the amount of stuff you have to design from scratch, with mixed success.