The Land of Nine Lives - Also, a Challenge To You

We were a little bored. So She wanted to make a game for me to take to The Club (properly, The Historic Haven). She wanted me to give it to them. She called it Warhammer 3, but after I wrote all the rules down it seemed more like a sneaky game of tag, which is fine. I transcribed it all with an orange colored pencil.

But then she started dictating the characters, where it got to be WEIRD and FUN and O MAI

Fish people, Hunters, The Scientist, A Giant Beer Bottle Castle With a Mustache with Little Beer Bottle People. There is a hypnotizist monster with an accordion, but in the drawing it comes across as an alligator-like thing. It lives in a cave and it has red eyes so you know JUST KNOW that it's evil. I'm not making any of this up - it's from her. I embellished my end with some Bubble People (untrustworthy!) and a Robot (crazy!) and trolls, of course.

I can see the influence of Stardew Valley (She's smitten with it) and also Pokemon and some other things. We got a whole set of the main Sailor Scouts and the two cats after I purchased her like 20 little vinyl chibis ... please not that sailor Pluto and Uranus don't count because we haven't made it that far (come to think of it we haven't yet met Sailor Jupiter or Venus in the series, yet!)

How do you play this game? Interestingly, kids do this sort of stuff all the time. I did it. You probably did it, too. You don't need rules, but what we did was we got my lap-board for drawing on, and we taped together ("on the inseams") four sheets of blank white copy paper. Then we made a list of the people we thought should be in it. and then we marked off for each of them a little territory, and some (like the Tiger Girl) live with the others (The Tiger Girl lives with the Princess, King, and Queen). Then you doodle whatever you want in there, and you let your kid doodle too, or direct your doodling, or however they want. Then you put little tags on stuff.

I'm off to get a big pad of paper.

Here's the challenge: I want you to do this, too. I want you to make a setting with a kid. Your kid, a relative, whatever. Make a settting for a RPG game, and share it. Let the kid do most of the thinking. You just help. If you're a kid, you get bonus points.

Schadenfreude

A buddy of mine, wise and nameless, wrote me yesterday. He said he was surprised that (what with all the Mandy Morbid hubbub going down these past few hours) I didn't hit him up with a text. A text full of schadenfreude. I told him I was well past caring, but that I had indeed checked a certain person's twitter feed and he was mostly posting about... gummi bears. I guess when you're in the headlights, a good thing to do is to not give accusations firm footing by acknowledging them.

A couple of years ago, I was really frothing at the mouth about a certain Villainous Celebrity, how this cat was wrecking the scene, how his influence was down to style and not much substance and how he brought a fog of conflict with him wherever he went. My personal conflicts with This Dude were somewhat on the low end of import, but he called for my... what? Like shunning? Or something? on Google Plus. Now that the Old Madam is gone

I often went off the deep end and did myself a great deal of harm, in terms of footing and credentials, by really letting it fly on this guy and his defenders. In a way that I term SCORCHED EARTH style, if someone is trying to invalidate your experience of abuse, or your recognition of abuse, and people are telling you "WELL HE WAS ALWAYS NICE TO ME" and trying to change your mind about it, there's no longer any need to resort to logic and reason. Logic and Reason is what people will use to justify their abuse, what people use to make that itch, the cognitive dissonance, the image they have of an abuser and the truth that they feel down in there, they Logic and Reason to quiet that little voice in there, the one that says something is Not Adding Up.

You know what, fuck Logic and Reason. And Fuck You for defending that guy. I guess it takes a #metoo moment to set the course of justice straight or whatever.

I hope you get what's coming to you, Mr. Villainous Celebrity Artiste. All the motherfuckers clamboring out of the woodwork saying SORRY I SHOULDA SEEN IT

Well, you shoulda listened is what.