Mar
30

The Stupid. It Burns.

Posted in blog, books, gaming, grumbles, ranty mcrantypants | 3 Comments
I don’t even know if this post is going to have much of point, so I think I’m just going to ramble on the things that have hit me up this week. First off is the article over at the Times about how adults shouldn’t read YA books. Because they don’t challenge us enough. It embarrasses the author of the piece to think that “grown-ups” would dare to lower themselves to kiddie stuff. Fair enough. Opinions are opinions and you know, everyone has one. Literary snobs pick on genre books.  Sci-Fi writers pick on romance writers. Romance writers pick on erotica writers.  Whatever. I can’t really find it in myself to get worked up about it anymore because the arguments are worthless. Are we really going to start slut-shaming ourselves into reading what is considered proper? Intelligent? Worth-while? Who decides this sort of thing, anyway? After all – today’s literary boobies were… Read more
Mar
19

Game Over

Posted in blog, dragon age, gaming | 1 Comment
Didn’t blog today, obviously. Suppose that’s what I’m doing now, though mostly only because I wanted to share this book cover. Which is full of delicious awesomesauce. Busy day notwithstanding. Though the gamer in me did get hit with a bit of a blow when Bioware announced there wouldn’t be any more DLC for Dragon Age 2. Not that most of us didn’t see the writing on the wall. I’m just a little bit disappointed because I’d been holding off on my last playthrough simply because I thought there might be something more coming. And I know the game had its flaws and issues. They all do. But most of the time, the average Bioware game does have a tendency to suck me in so I don’t want to do anything except play – and that’s relatively rare these days. In my early  20’s, I could and would play damn… Read more
Mar
12

Gaming Genetics

Posted in blog, gaming | 3 Comments
You know that scene in Jurassic Park where they find the dinosaur eggs in the middle of the jungle and Ian is all like “Life finds a way?” That’s about how I feel like, right now – only more with my kids and the computer. And it’s not that I’ve ever tried to lock my kids away from technology – I haven’t. They’ve got access to the TV and an XBOX, computers, smart phones, whatever. However, note that I said “access.”  They don’t actually own any of them. (My son does have a D/S, though we try to limit his playing to weekends only.) And the kids never expressed any real interest in messing with our PCs (they’ll watch me play Dragon Age or World of Warcraft forever, but until SW: TOR came out, my son was more interested in trying to find games dealing with Transformers than anything else.… Read more
Dec
13

Character Evolution: From RPG to Hipster Elf?

Posted in blog, characters, dragon age, gaming, talivar, wtf am I doing | 2 Comments
I get asked how I think of my characters a lot – particularly the weird ones. Phin. Brystion, etc. I mean, my world-building as a whole is filled with odd beasties and people. OtherFolk come in many flavors, and it’s a kitchen-sink world so pretty much anything and everything is fair game. Sometimes it’s easy – the characters just show up and I know exactly how they’re going to fit in. Sometimes I don’t have the foggiest clue. Sometimes they surprise me quite a bit. Part of that is being a panster. Half the time, I really don’t know everyone’s motivation until I get there. As far as characters go, I still have to admit that Ion plays everything so very, very close to his vest.  I thought I had him pegged up front…and discovered I’ve barely scratched the surface. He’s one of the hardest characters to write, for that reason.… Read more
Nov
4

It’s Friday!

Posted in blog, domains, Friday, gaming, sorta ranty | Leave a comment
…and quite honestly I’m up to my ears in stuff, so not sure what to talk about today. Actually, I’ve got a ranty mcrantypants blog that’s been brewing up in my head for weeks now about women in gaming (or how women are portrayed in gaming, etc.) but I’m not sure I really have the literary chops to say what I  want to say without it coming across as “Guh, sexism bad. Y U always show bewbs?” So I’ll sit on that for a little bit longer. Tell you what though – if I had the time/money I’d seriously look into starting up my own mini-gaming company. Thanks to running a mostly female gaming forum for eight years, I’ve got artists and writers and game modders galore. What I don’t have is honest-to-god programmers and 3D render whizzes. Gaming engine, yes. Original mesh creator? No.  But perhaps I’ll just put… Read more