Meet the Modders

The next phase of getting back to academia full time has started. Linguistic anthropology, tribal & ethnic religions, studying mythology through contemporary films, formal analysis of cinema ...

Means I'm only checking the forum a few times a week (at most) instead of a few times a day. And work on the various scenario projects continues but is more background theoretical than practical. After sitting at the computer to write a (minimum of) 4 papers a week, taking exams on-line and posting on the class forums don't feel up to spending more time doing the mapping, graphics work or sorting through units, etc. "Relaxing" these days means watching analyzing the same movie several times with the pause & rewind buttons under thumb. Enjoyable as it, is how many times can you watch "Jumper" in a week without needing to do nothing more complicated than stare out the window while listening to some Bebop? OTOH, at least deconstructing "Jennifer's Body" is a break from Course In General Linguistics.

I've returned from Korea. A few days rest and then endless days of headaches and eye strain will follow.

(edit) :/ (for the better, in reality).

Hm, just to note that it seems it was a (huge) false alarm on my part. The small math study i occupied myself with these days was not really important to math. It was important in relation to inner symmetries, of course, but that is to be used in fiction and not mathematics

Sorry for any strange impression caused... Returning to my favorite literature (ok, and partly civIII graphics too) now.

Been here for a decade now

(joined, as is seen, at 2003, during another October).

Asked (just now) to go for a crucial book-related job interview these days. It may work out (this not for the book deal, btw, it is about a salary-work on a bookstore chain here) It seems my 19 printed short stories in magazines got them a bit interested, and i hope they will accept me as their most loyal and not at all mischievous clerk.

Well, this Monday (in little over a day from now) it will be the first time that one of my stories will be actually read to a radio audience

The programme is run by another author.

I am happy for this.

(currently at 24 printed stories).

Book deal closing in (well, at least i was asked to meet the publisher next week).

This is a thread where you can participate in the election of my avatar. Very groovy. Behave.

Hey guys, it's been a while since I've been here. Unfortunately, I haven't got much done (graphics wise) on the Final Fantasy mod (the gameplay side is pretty much finished and balanced.. just hunting down game-breaking bugs at this point).

Part of that reason is something that I'm going to share here that I've only recently discovered.

Namely, I've come to the realization that I'm gender-nonconforming. While I still identify as male, I'm basically the inversion of a "tomboy": I like dressing up fancy, pink sparkly things and other typically "feminine" things. For years, I was wondering if I was possibly transgender, even though I've never really felt any gender dysphoria, mainly because I wasn't aware until recently that there even WAS a third category, which includes those who are gender-nonconforming, gender-fluid (as in they as a mix of both genders most of the time), agender/androgynous (those who don't identify as either gender) and bi-gender (those whose gender identity cycles back and forth between male and female over time).

Of course, those who were involved with the development of the Playground Mod and the integration of my faction into it shouldn't be too surprised by this revelation: My faction DOES have the "Female Nature" starting tech alone out of all the male-led factions, and for a good reason.

One thing that always bothered me is how girls are mostly encouraged to push the boundaries of traditional gender roles, i.e. a girl who cuts her hair short, wears pants and likes sports is often praised and encouraged, while any boy who takes even the smallest step outside the rigid, macho role defined for men is bullied, harassed and intimidated for it.

That is why I changed my gender settings to "Unspecified", because not only do I now realize I don't quite fit in the traditional gender binary, but I'm tired of hiding who I am, and hopefully I can make a positive difference for others who are in a similar situation to me, but too afraid to express themselves because of bullying or abuse.

I know this is a rather heavy subject for this thread, but I felt it needed saying.

" I wasn't aware until recently that there even WAS a third category ..." As you go on to point out, there are a lot more than three.

" I like dressing up fancy, pink sparkly things and other typically "feminine" things." Typically feminine only from a particular sociotemporal point of view. During the late 17th c. in England you'd be thought unmasculine if you did not dress "fancy" and like pink sparkly things. One could go on to mention wimps like Arjuna amongst others.

Be yourself. The opinion of anyone who can't tell the difference between Quentin Crisp and Eddie Izzard isn't worth worrying about.

Which puts this photo in an interesting context. And changes my annotation a bit. My panel at the colloquium included presentations on the sexual politics of portrayals of soldadera in post-Revolutionary Mexico, Moroccan heavy metal (including portrayals of women, with photos and sound clip of a group with a female lead singer), social justice warriors in social media (her main slide had a cute lapdog & words in the colors of a pastel rainbow) & me talking about how playing around as birds and trees in worlds we mod/create will change global society. I'm the only one wearing pink and my hair, while not the longest, was definitely in the top three. Given the reaction to my remarks on the otaku stereotype and the PEW survey reporting the positive correlation between college-age women's play of WoW and their satisfactory sex lives I doubt anyone was confused about where I fit in the gender spectrum.

^Great pic. I barely recognised you without the beard


*

Meeting one of the publishers tomorrow morning. Not sure what exactly she will say. I suppose it is 'likely' something good will come out of it.

Blue Monkey said:

" I wasn't aware until recently that there even WAS a third category ..." As you go on to point out, there are a lot more than three.

Click to expand...

Yes, I know... Well as of about 4 months or so ago I know. Based on all the things I've been learning (some of it with the help of one of my navy buddies who came out as s transwoman a few years ago) that while the Kinsey Scale that was developed fairly recently to depict the sexual orientation spectrum (with 0 being exclusively heterosexual and 6 being exclusively homosexual and X being asexual), what's needed is more along the lines of a Venn Diagram. A 3-dimensional Venn Diagram that possibly uses Klein Bottles, and even then there are probably going to be some variations left out.

" I like dressing up fancy, pink sparkly things and other typically "feminine" things." Typically feminine only from a particular sociotemporal point of view. During the late 17th c. in England you'd be thought unmasculine if you did not dress "fancy" and like pink sparkly things. One could go on to mention wimps like Arjuna amongst others.

Click to expand...

Yes I know! Pink wasn't a "Girl" color until about the 1930's or 40's... I love pointing that out anytime anyone gives me any crap for liking LEGO Friends or Disney Princess sets (I like pretty much all the other lines as well, but still).

Be yourself. The opinion of anyone who can't tell the difference between Quentin Crisp and Eddie Izzard isn't worth worrying about.

Click to expand...

Thanks for the support.

As for your statement about video games becoming a force for positive change, one of the things I didn't mention in my earlier post, but did in my Facebook announcement, is that one of the things that kept me from sinking into suicidal depression when I was in middle and high school (despite having to repress my "girly" nature almost all the time or get beat up in class) was video games that allowed you to choose a female character to play, starting with Super Mario Bros 2: I was like, "I can play as the Princess?! SWEET!" and I could sympathize with Birdo (the description in the original manual indicated that she was MTF transgender, which Nintendo has gone on since to officially support). That's one of the reasons why in RPGs and Fighting games with character customization, I always create a character that is essentially a gender-flipped version of myself. It basically gave me a "safe" place where I could let my girly side run free without anyone giving me any crap about it (not to mention that the female characters usually have more and more interesting outfits available).

This realization (among others) is also why my political affiliation has firmly shifted to the Libertarian end of the spectrum. I've come to realize that the less the government interferes in the everyday lives of their citizens, the better...

Just for the record, (1) I sincerely congratulate you on your self-realization and courage and (2) you're still very much the Hikaro-CFC-Comrade you've always been.

- Nonetheless, probably my favorite lines of poetry, from T.S. Eliot's "Little Gidding:"

We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.


Welcome Home,

Oz

Thanks for the support, Oz. Now the abundance of super-girly units I created for Civ III kinda makes more sense.

BTW, I just noticed your siganture: What happened to the General?!

Hikaro Takayama said:

Thanks for the support, Oz. Now the abundance of super-girly units I created for Civ III kinda makes more sense.

BTW, I just noticed your siganture: What happened to the General?!

Click to expand...

1. Anytime

2. Sorrow He passed from lung cancer at too young an age.

You still look like a Hikaro Takayama to me.
Find that which fits you best… and don't take the forum's gender profile settings too seriously, a lot of us are already anticipating April Fools' (especially in the OT, that wretched scum of hive and villainy). In fact, it's optional, so it doesn't matter if you just leave it blank.

Good for you, Hikaro! And thank you for the post. It could be helpful for others too.

The meeting with the publisher went very well. A very refined person (uni professor, docpapers here and in France). A very pleasant meeting. Happy that it happened

Even if they won't produce the book (they will look into the economic part of things now) i surely made a very positive step today.