K.L. Tremaine's Blog, page 2

Just don’t do it

artemisflight:

Key paragraph: “Today the title of ‘most stigmatized female vocal trait’ has passed from uptalk to the newer phenomenon of ‘vocal fry’ (in linguists’ terms, creaky voice). Similarly, ‘just’ has inherited the mantle of the tag question (as in, ‘it’s a beautiful day, isn’t it?’), a popular target for advice-writers when I surveyed their products in the 1990s. The critics’ pet peeves may change over time, but the criticism itself is a constant.”

In other words, women are targeted. Specifically. Because “vocal fry” is used to create a deeper, i.e. more masculine vocal tone. Let’s put to bed, forever, the idea that if women become more masculine, women will be more accepted. That’s BS because the real issue is sexism. Femininity is irrelevant to sexism – the relevant factor is that the person being dismissed and belittled isn’t a man.

Originally posted on language: a feminist guide:

This week everyone’s been talking about an article in the Economist explaining how men’s use of language undermines their authority. According to the author, a senior manager at Microsoft, men have a bad habit of punctuating everything they say with sentence adverbs like ‘actually’, ‘obviously’, ‘seriously’ and ‘frankly’. This verbal tic makes them sound like pompous bullshitters, so that people switch off and stop listening to what they’re saying. If they want to be successful, this is something men need to address.

OK, people haven’t been talking about that article—mainly because I made it up. No one writes articles telling men how they’re damaging their career prospects by using the wrong words. With women, on the other hand, it’s a regular occurrence. This post was inspired by a case in point: a piece published last month in Business Insider, in which a former Google executive named Ellen Petry Leanse…

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Rape scenes are usually lazy writing and directing

artemisflight:

I’m spending this week getting ready for CONvergence – in the mean time, this article caught my eye.

Rape scenes are lazy writing. They’re also misogynistic on the face of it – they’re using women’s pain to arouse anger in men who are the presumed audience.

Originally posted on Another angry woman:

Content warning: this post discusses rape, sexual violence and media misogyny

Rape scenes are horribly popular in the media, and seldom necessary. With a flicker of hope, I wonder if savvy viewers are finally kicking back against this tedious trope as an opening-night audience booed a completely gratuitous rape scene crowbarred into an opera.

The defences of the scene were the same old tired shit. The director of the Royal Opera House said:

“The production includes a scene which puts the spotlight on the brutal reality of women being abused during war time, and sexual violence being a tragic fact of war,”

while one of the cast said:

“Maybe it went a little longer than it should have, but it happened and I think it’s an element you can use to show just how horrible these people were that were occupying this town,”

while the director of the production…

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Fangirl’s Guide to Party Snacks at CONvergence

Here’s the other half to the food-and-drink post. I don’t guarantee that everything listed is here this year – I’ve tried my best to include only parties that are registered for 2015, but something MAY have slipped through.

The Fangirl’s Guide to Party Snacks: Just as CONvergence has some notable alcoholic beverages at its room parties, it also has some amazing snacks.

5: Taco Bar at Misfit Labs: Misfit Labs is named for the original organizers of CONvergence, the Minnesota Society For Interest in Science Fiction and Fantasy (which is now Geek Partnership Society). It has a lot of different food options over the course of the con, but the taco bar is my favorite.

4: Smores at Fandom Scouts: Yes, these are real Smores. And yes, they are tasty and full of marshmallow and milk chocolate and other things that are very, very bad for you. And remember the Fandom Scout Oath (Cabana 206, Friday & Saturday).

3: Real Food at the Consuite: Yes, I know Consuite isn’t a party. But the food is amazing and there is always SOMETHING there that’s edible and made from real ingredients. From pizza and soup to fried chicken, and the everpresent rice and peanut-butter-and-jelly bars, Consuite is open 24 hours a day from Thursday afternoon until Sunday afternoon. It’s possible to stay in the Doubletree and eat full meals for four days straight without stepping outside (it’s not the best idea, but certainly possible). CONvergence has the best stocked and most tightly run Consuite I’ve seen of any con I’ve been to. You know you’re at CONvergence when you’re drunk at 2 AM, making a peanut butter sandwich next to Commander Riker and Rainbow Dash (Consuite).

2: Mystery Snack at the Snack Food Glory Hole: What you will get is a complete mystery. But it will be good. Probably not good for you, but it will be good (Cabana 130 entryway).

1: Toast at DysToastia: I know. You’re thinking toast isn’t much of a party snack. That means you, my friend, have never, ever been to DysToastia (more commonly known as House of Toast). Pick your bread. Pick up to three toppings, from prosaic choices like cinnamon sugar or strawberry jelly to daring options like wasabi and Sriracha hot sauce, and let the experienced toast wizards do their thing! Your con is NOT complete until you’ve been to House of Toast (Cabana 130).

Jupiter Ascending: The Matrix Regendered

artemisflight:

This covers a lot about Jupiter Ascending. Especially regarding the difference in its reception vs. The Matrix.

Originally posted on shattersnipe: malcontent & rainbows:

By this point in the media/meta cycle, oceans of virtual ink have already been spilled on the comparative flaws and virtues of Jupiter Ascending, a film that is almost universally perceived as being both nonsensical and glorious. Now that I’ve finally seen it, however – because those of us with toddling offspring tend to be reliant on iTunes for our theatrical jollies, shut up – I’m moved to weigh in on the matter. Specifically: while I’ve seen a great deal said about the absolute comic insanity of JA’s wordlbuilding – bees that recognise royalty! flying space werewolves! floating sofas! – nowhere have I seen it pointed out that actually, Jupiter Ascending is basically an equally batshit redo of The Matrix.

I mean, look. Internets. I get that The Matrix was kind of seminal for all of us here who saw it in our tweens and teens and twenties, and it’s such…

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CONvergence: The Drinking Fangirl’s Guide to the Cabana Parties

I originally wrote this for a guide to CONvergence but this text didn’t fit with the the project as defined so it was the first thing to get edited out. I want to keep it around in SOME form, though so I’m posting it here.

People who know me, know that CONvergence is one of the few times in the year where I let myself drink more than a couple drinks in a night. Here are my top 5 favorite CONvergence drinks, with a couple of honorable mentions.

Honorable Mentions:

Sir Not Appearing in This Convention: The drinks at Perfectly Legitimate Spaceship. This speakeasy-styled room party is taking a year off for 2015.

Old Tilman beer at the Royal Manticoran Navy. Old Tilman is an Old Ale with pronounced notes of chocolate made by Elisa Randall in honor of the favorite alcoholic beverage of Captain Honor Harrington of David Weber’s Honorverse series. TRMN has three notable alcoholic beverages on display at the convention, all homemade product of local members: Old Tilman beer, Delacourt red wine, and the highly popular Missile Pod shot (Cabana 229)

5: Spotted Cow at Cow Asylum. I tend to think that Spotted Cow is actually a bit overrated – its mystique is helped along by its very limited distribution area – but I put it here because it’s very, very popular and this is one of the only times and places in the year that it can be had outside of its home state. (Cabana 104)

4: The Green Stuff, at USS Nokomis. It is… It is… It is green. It also doesn’t taste very alcoholic – but it is (Cabana 108/109).

3: Orange Science Experiment, at Skepchicks. Tastes like Tang, kicks like Bruce Lee (Cabana 227).

2: Icees, at the Mos Icee Cantina. Not alcoholic (that I’m aware of) but cold and refreshing! (Cabana 231)

1: Missile Pods, at the Royal Manticoran Navy. The missile pod, an invention of TRMN’s Bill Lochen, is a sweet slam shot with a cinnamon kick at the end. Not to be missed! Roll pods! (Cabana 229)

Aquarius Ascendant: The RPG

I am going to have beta copies of the first version of the Aquarius Ascendant RPG soon. I’ll have copies for MantiCon even if I need to print them out and put them in manila folders.

The first version is a 64-page RPG book that is designed to be played using the Fate RPG – it’s written primarily for Fate Accelerated but can be converted to Fate Core with very little additional effort. I emphasize that this is a beta edition – the artwork in it is placeholder only. I have plans to make this into a full standalone RPG using the Fate rules, but right now I’m testing and developing the gameability of the setting.

So what happens when an author breaks her leg?

Less writing than you’d think. No, that’s not the world’s worst joke with the world’s worst punch line, but actually the reality of what’s happened to me over the last week and a half. So anyway, as just about anyone who’s been paying even marginal amounts of attention knows, I play roller derby. And I love roller derby with a passion that most people reserve for purebred collies or cute videos of cats on the Internet. And a week ago Tuesday, I broke my left leg REALLY BADLY playing roller derby. I’ll put the X-rays behind a cut at the end for the squeamish.

From Tuesday through Monday (it’s a long story), I was in the hospital. Technically I was supposed to go to a transitional care facility on Friday, but there was an insurance snafu and an amount of money up-front was quoted which triggered a use of the phrase “No one’s got that kind of money just lying around!”

So mostly I’ve been lying around, doing my physical therapy exercises, and trying to re-engage selectively with my troublemaking self.

In two weeks I’ll be appearing at MantiCon, and I may have to modify some of my appearances. I’m looking forward to it, though, overall. And I need to get back to writing, I’ve got several unfinished short stories to put together.

Tibia broken in three places, fibula in one. Not seen: A piece of muscle that a tibia fragment settled over the top of, causing intense pain.

Repairs complete.

FATE System, Redux

An interesting effect of playing around with the FATE system is that the systematics are designed to keep things fairly competitive. A difference of four steps on the FATE die is pretty much an insurmountable challenge – If you’re even challenging something where you need to roll a +2 or better you’re already needing to buck odds in the neighborhood of 82% against. So this is a systematic argument to challenge strong NPCs against strong PCs, and for PCs to find a way to pit their strength against an NPC’s weakness, because the more lenience you can get yourself on the Fate Dice, the better off you are.

This leads me to my current subject of interest: Trying to balance a system that is as narrativist as FATE in a way that makes multiple scales feel functionally different while not adding critically large amounts of complexity to that system. My first attempt to balance multiple scales in FATE was fairly fine-grained, but led to a situation where it’s literally impossible for a ship on a smaller scale to prevail against a ship on a larger scale – a difference of one shift leads to an 82% reduction in the smaller ship’s ability to affect the larger one, and of two shifts a 98% reduction (the supplement I borrowed this idea from, The Aether Sea, has the same problem).

What I’m working on to replace it is a five-step system – it’s going to take some work to balance so playtesting is going to be needed.

Capital Ships (battleships and heavy cruisers): +3

Independent Warships (light cruisers and destroyers), Very Large Civilian Ships (superfreighters): +2

Patrol Warships (frigates and avisos), Large Civilian Ships (bulk freighters, starliners, superyachts), : +1

Small Ships (fighters and corvettes), Medium Civilian Ships (light freighters, intrasystem liners, yachts): +0

Light Civilian Ships (planetary liners, racers): -1

(I’m a little worried about that -1 category. It will probably disappear before this appears in print)

There was a post here previous to this, describing a verb...

There was a post here previous to this, describing a verbal foul up. It’s gone. What’s said is said; mistakes made are mistakes made.

Mea Culpa.

This goes out to my Sad Puppy Blackmailer:

Mea culpa. I used the word “butt-buddy” in a moment of frustration while being harangued by five different men in an online comment space for having the temerity to be a trans woman and a lesbian and a feminist and have an opinion about science fiction that is anything other than “Sci-fi should go back to the day when men were men and got to smooch the pretty girl at the end.” I am not perfect (in fact, my claim to be “good” can be filtered through many different lenses, though I like to think on the balance I’m a good person), and my temper can be successfully raised when I have several different people calling me a “liar” and a “hateful bigot” and trying to act like I don’t have the right to an opinion about what is and is not good science fiction.
 
Unlike GamerGaters, Sad Puppies and your other assorted kin, I believe that sunlight is the best disinfectant, and it’s horribly amusing that you’re accusing me of having altered my text when I didn’t, because it’s better to take responsibility for your mistakes than to try to pawn them off like they never happened, which is something that GamerGate and the Sad Puppies keep failing to learn. To the extent that it will hurt my reputation for having lost my temper to one of you, the fact that you followed it up by threatening to nuke my online presence AND attack me in my offline life with deceptively framed screenshots designed to portray me as a snarling homophobe is going to be far, far more damning to you than it is to me.

I’d rather take responsibility for my verbal miscues and losses of temper than spend my life cringing and avoiding conflict and letting people who have no moral qualm with threatening and bullying get their way. It’s abusers who pretend they never make a mistake.

And to the Gaters and Puppies and all those who think they can shut me up by threatening to screenshot me out of context and present me as a frothing danger to everyone in the world, I present this response, courtesy of Natasha Romanov and Alexander Pierce:

“Are you ready for the world to see you as you really are?”

“Are you?”