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Month: March 2024

wizard needs food badly

Posted on by pamela

It’s not that I’m becoming a multiplayer gamer, so much as that I’m a gamer who is increasingly tired of the inside of her own head and finding it harder to escape it. Games are more of a distraction than a movie or book, but not quite stimulating enough to grab my attention away from my personal river of existential horror. Metagaming is a surprisingly good solution! It’s fun to plan out goals, to talk about how I want gaming to make me feel in a given game session, to set new additional challenges and imagine the ways a game might be used to modulate a mood or provide some fun.

I’ve said three things recently and then realized each was entirely true: I don’t really want to be the main character in a game, I just want to let the game (or the other characters or ideally other people I’m playing with) control the decision-making, and I really need constant dopamine (or serotonin!) hits from playing. That means I can’t remove the challenge from the game for myself (but I should minimize the frustration) because if there’s nothing to complete, there’s no reward, and I want my rewards frequently or I’m gonna get bored. And I should find company that is willing to create mini-goals for us or is really on board with the idea that I’m just gonna tag along carrying stuff because the idea of exerting my will on the universe is generally distasteful and exhausting at the best of times but just impossible now. I’ll pick if I have to, but mostly I just want to follow around like a puppy, thanks!

tiny sprouting plant just getting started

I really do (and I’ll keep saying it until people get interested enough to indulge me, a team of three is ideal) want to finish out Lord of the Rings Online because thinking about it, this hit all three. You’re important and helping a lot of people, but you’re not the savior of Middle Earth, just one person doing their best among many, it’s perfection. You’re on a general story arc and although you can stop and dive into any area you like and you’ll find days of entertainment anywhere that catches your fancy, you can also just let it guide you around. And it’s absolutely the best for rewards and incremental accomplishment, ever… you’re collecting cute clothes, you can craft dyes, you can decorate your house, you can hunt for particular pets, you can cook and feed all the other players, you can dig into lots of really interesting side stories, you can relive historical events, you can run around grinding the in-game currency by finishing deep dives into the various historically-important locations or learning a lot about particular groups of people, it’s basically like a constant comfortable drip of enjoying yourself, and even if you don’t want to do any of that at all, it can still be fun to just wander over to a particularly pretty spot and fish, or just watch the sunset. (This is a game that should have come out today, and it should have been VR!)

I used to play a whole lot of single-player RPGs because it gave me an excuse to get away from people and it made me feel like I had some sort of control over events during times when I had none. Now, I basically want the opposite of those things. No wonder I keep picking up a controller, playing for ten minutes and then wandering off! I’m a different person now, and what I want more than anything else is to feel like things are stable and consistent and manageable and comfortable. That’s not exactly a “stop the bad guy from destroying the world” game. But it’s not really a cozy game, either. Nothing bad can happen in some of those worlds. You’re not going to go hungry in Stardew Valley, or anger someone so badly that they’ll never speak to you again. You’re not going to cry over the cute little puzzle game because it moved you emotionally. Something in between is nice. A situation to resolve or come to terms with. Strength from those around you. Good things that without tending WILL go bad. A struggle that means something.

You can get a lot out of a game. But you do occasionally need to switch it up.

the creative power of “fuck it”

Posted on by pamela

I’m one of those people who makes usable things only when my mind is flipped on and tuned to a very specific channel. Often for good reasons, like breathless laughter or an uncharacteristic bout of evil glee, but just as often because something is gnawing on me. It’s never “hmm I think I’ll have a cup of tea and work on my values study.” That would be nice, but it’s just not how I work. That’s just practice. For a finished piece I care about and will go through the effort to try to make perfectly, a switch needs to flip.

The absolute best switch to flip, and I will recommend this to anyone, is when you think about an idea and you’re not sure, and maybe you’re feeling a little muddled, or you are overthinking it, and suddenly you just feel this welling up in your chest and you say “fuck it.”

Two women in the desert ready to smash small TVs with sledgehammers

That’s the cue. You’ve only got a minute or two. Swap out whatever crummy supplies you have been toying with and pull in the good stuff. Get yourself ready to record audio, or flip on the lights, or break out the camera, or grab the palette knife because whatever your next move is, it needs to be archival quality. You’re going to want to save it. It might not be something you can market and sell. It might not be something you can even finish. But it’s time to preserve whatever you’re about to do so that you can hit that state over and over again, getting faster and freer with your inspiration and smoothing your own way.

This is why you learn your craft, build your skill, study your technique. This is why you stock your materials. This is why when you realize you really like the texture or look of something or a turn of phrase you came up with some day, you should make sure it’s accessible again, that you understand it, that you’re ready to shape it. Because instead of an eventual product, you’re about to make something wild and wonderful, and the benefit of professional experience is how quickly and clearly you’re going to translate that passing momentary desire to make EXACTLY what you’re imagining into an actual finished piece. When you know how to plot out a novel of a particular length and can just start writing into a familiar structure, and when you know exactly the bottle of glimmering blue ink you want to feature, and when you have a comfortable place to work and can clear your schedule and just CREATE something, you’re ready for this moment.

Because the secret, unspoken whole phrase is actually “fuck it, today I’m going to make what *I* want.” There’s no more powerful form of inspiration than the chance to just will something into existence one day which would otherwise never be.

please stop applauding people for lack of effort

Posted on by pamela

I’ve been thinking a lot recently about how many aspects of life serve as an immense strain and burden on some people but not others (like, at all) and how fucking unfair it is that this isn’t more widely understood and accepted.

The opposite of struggle isn’t perfect willpower. It’s simply lack of a struggle in the first place.

But somehow we assume that it’s the people who succeed handily and without major effort who are deserving of praise? Why??!?

People with ADHD can have immense difficulty overcoming inertia and distraction to Just Go Do The Thing(tm), facing not a simple disinterest in doing the task, but a full-on crisis state where it’s all they can think about. People who struggle with weight can have their mind tuned to a constant food-and-weight-noise channel at all times, occasionally punctuated by the judgmental comments of others, treated like they’ve made poor choices rather than face medical issues or busted metabolisms. People with anxiety might struggle so badly with phone calls or social situations or facing particular fears or circumstances to the point where their safety, their happiness, their survival comes into question.

Man who has been thrown by a kicking horse, surrounded by dust from its hooves

Stop giving people credit for things which come easily, who fucking cares??? Oh good job you’re always at the gym! Well, except for most people the gym is actually fun and fulfilling, and that’s why people make time for it. I’m not going to be impressed that you’re following what your calendar says. I’ll be impressed and supportive of the person who really struggles to go, or is going to physical therapy appointments, or rehabilitating an injury, and ISN’T enjoying the process. You don’t need my encouragement to do things you love, and most of us love at least a few physical pursuits. Oh, and you don’t have any complaints about your weight or any symptoms of an eating disorder, and your weight only fluctuates by maybe 10-15 pounds ever? Well, uh, good for you? It’s just, you’ve got 3 million+ years of instinct and internal structures designed to eat a varied diet to stay near a built-in set point. Toddlers can feed themselves, too. It’s when those instincts get overridden or signals confused or the body starts sending mixed messages or loses track of that set point that the difficulty level absolutely skyrockets, and people living on hardcore mode should always have our support. Oh, you simply don’t mind speaking in public or visiting new places? You practiced a bit and now you’re able to just do the things? Cool?? What do you want me to say? Good job not being ill? Excellent lack of childhood trauma?

Now, the people who find good systems for themselves, or who don’t give up, or who learn to love things about themselves EVEN THOUGH they have grown and lived in this weird world where we give credit where none is actually due. Where people who seem happy are happy not because they don’t have reason to worry, but because they simply are wired not to do so? Where people get blamed for their own illnesses as though they’re in control of them? The people who just keep moving, make it work, or don’t want to struggle every minute and just live their lives as best they can? THOSE people kick ass. You’re fucking rock stars. You deserve all the good things. You deserve that ease once in awhile, too.

Stop comparing yourself to the people coasting. Fuck them. If we have to walk uphill, we’ll do it together.

time warp laundromat

Posted on by pamela

All but the newest laundromats seem to have a funny timeless quality to them. Tile that is inevitably broken and aged, but broken and aged juuuuust enough that it could be ten years old or fifty. Washers designed for strange commercial applications with designs that haven’t changed appreciably in years. Lighting that hurts your eyes no matter where it comes from or which bulbs they use. A laundromat is just there to scream “come on inside and feed me quarters, you unwashed wretch!”

We have an especially confusing one, clearly placed over the nexus of multiple temporal events. Several of the machines are old enough that they ARE recognizable as long-discontinued styles of machines, made by long-defunct companies, 80% with signs claiming them to be out of order.

Sepia-toned photograph of a bank of older washers, photo by Sonny Sixteen.

The plants are dead, and have been dead for years. Remarkably well-preserved! But dead. Stickers proudly proclaiming chamber of commerce membership decorate the sliding doors, somehow stuck in place since 1995, continuously open nearly that full time, with an occasionally staffed counter (so it seems, though we’d never seen any proof of it) and a single employee who would come and silently sweep at a bit after midnight before locking himself into a back room, face oddly unmemorable.

It seems an end of an era, then, to have recently visited and discovered that the flow of time had somehow suddenly been jostled… artwork of unknown vintage replaced by a local public health poster, a fresh clock on the wall and a brand new sign: Open 6am-Midnight. Doors automatically lock at 11:50pm.

As if now to eagerly reclaim all the time it leaked out into the wrong spaces over the years, our own little twilight zone. Now, suddenly, for one night, a proper laundromat. Or maybe this is the true laundromat, the version it was always meant to be, just for a moment, caught at the right time when the timelines synced up perfectly. Maybe next time we visit, it will have come once again unmoored from our timeline, anachronism creeping back in. The artefacts indicating displacement still lined the walls depending on where you looked. The 1970s vintage soap dispenser looking bright and cheerful as always, prices unchanged, still one of the rare sources for a refreshing can of Slice, virtually impossible to find in the outside world. I expect next time we’ll wander in to find Ms Pacman restored, the lighting near the entrance broken once more, a pile of 90s magazines to flip through and enjoy.

There’s a price to time loops and portals, of course, and thermodynamics takes its toll: now a full 90% of the machines are inoperable.

when did blogs stop being fun?

Posted on by pamela

I last used wordpress many moons ago, and remember it as a violently different creative experience, with a haphazard interface and a wide variety of themes that felt as unique and expressive as the people who used them.

Somehow in the intervening years, the “market” seems to have shifted into something I barely recognize. Where there once were brightly-colored, highly customizable themes meant for music fans, teenagers, parents, book lovers and people with all sorts of senses of personal style, there are now pages and pages of commerce-optimized themes and integrations… it’s clear a battle was fought (and lost) for the soul of the weblog as primarily a fun way for humans just to write and play.

Tiny fabric gnome figurine with a red knitted hat in the snow, skiing. Image by Susanne Jutzeler.

Honestly it was really off-putting. It used to be fun to scroll through the assorted blog themes and plugin lists for different software. They were filled with goodies… shoutboxes, games to play, fun ways to find and collect sites from friends or on topics you enjoy, custom radio station plugins, quizlets, anything you wanted, tied up nicely in a bow.

Now even the interface feels like I’m meant to be plugging my most recent item for sale, well, you can’t have it! I’m not selling! 😛 make your own! If I try to sell you something I make, it’s going to be from the most virulently glittery, least streamlined site I can concoct. It’ll be like tripping over a pile of clothes thrown in the corner. It’ll be neon lights and plastic lawn flamingos and a hideous background that kinda works but makes you pull a face every time you see it because you’ve gotten so used to seeing “light theme” and “dark theme” that you completely forgot your monitor can do pumpkin orange and lime green and mouse cursor trails that drip stars all over the page. That is my pledge to you: I won’t try to sell you anything I make without making you regret it.

… wait crap that’s not how I meant to word that. Also this is meant to be a personal blog! Stop getting off-topic!

(edit: I’ve introduced the stars. You’re welcome!)