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About the Creation of Magical Spells

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I’ve decided my content has been way too heavy lately, so I decided to talk about something I’ve thought about a lot, but is a far less serious topic than the ones I usually cover

You know, in a lot of fantasy books, spells are cast via incantations, and more often than not these incantations are either Latin, or faux-Latin. Have you ever thought about life in ancient Rome?

Imagine this scenario; it is winter in the Northern Empire, in the decline of Roman power. A centurion on scout duty, clad in his leather armor with a gleaming, frosted breastplate over it; he is wearing a cap under his cold helmet just to keep the metal from touching his skin. He is shivering, leaning on the wooden shaft of his spear, and he turns his head towards another of his legion, and comments through chattering teeth, “I-I-I c-c-c-ould g-g-go for some f-f-f-fire.”

The words barely intelligible, hardly understandable as true Latin, at the word “fffffire,” his spear shaft instantly bursts into flame. His hands are immediately burned badly, and he throws his spear away from his body, black char marks run down his no longer clean breastplate.

The Centurion drops to his knees and plunges his hands into the snow.

Weeks later, in horrible pain, the Centurion dies of the infection that set in his hands on that fateful day when he accidentally uttered the words that engulfed his spear in flame.

***

The concept for the below story is borrowed from the video game Lost Odyssey, but modified slightly to fit my own narrative. To complete the narrative, of course, this prison is in an ancient, Latin-speaking society.

The prison is pitch black, reserved only for the opponents of powerful men in government. These are people that the powers that be do not want dead; these people are here as part of an ancient tradition that serves two purposes; the first being to make political opponents suffer, the second being to make undesirable people disappear forever.

Internment in this prison is never applied merely for a term; once you enter the doors, you are here for life. No one imprisoned here has ever left, unless they have left as a corpse. Even leaving as a corpse is a rare privilege; the darkness is so deep, so perfect in its blackness, that the guards that are trained to work within these walls seldom know the number or health of the prisoners under their care — if “care” even could be called an appropriate word. They bring food and water, setting it by memory by a small flap in each cell door, neither knowing nor caring if the occupant is even capable of retrieving it.

The sounds of struggle walking down the hall usually reserved only for the guards, the desperate screams of a new prisoner, alert each prisoner that fresh blood has entered. It is the same for all new prisoners, the occupant deemed 1474 thinks to himself. He has been in this prison for a length of time, though even he could not tell you to within ten years how long that time was; he stopped counting the meals the guards brought him, the exercise itself a waste of time and effort. He had been in these cells for so long, he had even lost the ability to really know whether he was awake, sleeping, dreaming (for even his dreams were a black landscape, devoid of sound), or lost in his own mind. He had forgotten the faces of his friends, his family, even the woman he loved more than anything else in the world, his beautiful wife… His thoughts derailed. What was her name?

As he asked himself this question, it occurred to him that the sounds of struggle, the screaming had stopped. This one must have been resigned to his fate, they usually screamed for hours or days before they went quiet, resigned to the eternal night. Then he heard something, the jangling of keys, the opening of a cell door — but it wasn’t a door down the hall, it was his very own. Had they run out of cells? Were they putting a second prisoner in with him?

“Is there anyone here?” The voice was scared, not the confident call of a guard. “I don’t know how to get out, I need light!” At the utterance of the last word, light exploded through the cells. The new prisoner screamed, the old prisoner stared in shock. He had not seen even the slightest flicker of light prior to this brief flash. He has seen the face of the new prisoner, a young man with long, greasy hair, an almost manic look in his eyes. As soon as the flash had come, it was dark again.

The old prisoner tried to speak, but had been failed to use his voice for so long his words came out in nothing but a croak. “Come, help me get up, and I will show you the way out.”

He may not be able to see in the perfect darkness, but he had heard the steps of the guards so many times, the echoing of the halls so intricately mapped by his otherwise unoccupied mind, that guiding the new prisoner out seemed easy to him. They walked for a short time, the prison was not overly large, and arrived at a door that would not open. The old man heard the jangling of keys again, heard the signs of frustration as each key was tried on the door, a slow process due to the darkness. After a time that seemed simultaneously an instant and an eternity, he heard the tumblers in the lock move. He closed his eyes, he knew after that brief flash earlier that his eyes would be very sensitive to the light on the other side of the door.

He heard the squeak of hinges in dire need of maintenance, the squeak by which he had learned to expect a meal, heard the door scrape rocks as it swung wide. He did not see anything but blackness behind his eyelids, so he opened his eyes again. Still black, but they felt irritated, a burning.

“Such beautiful light!” his young rescuer exclaimed. The old man looked left and right in confusion. He couldn’t see it. And then he came to the cold conclusion, and felt a horrible emptiness in him.

That flash of light he saw in the prison, that brief flash of glorious light, was the last light he would ever see.

He was blind.

***

Let that be a lesson to you, kids! When speaking Latin, be careful what you say! Accidental spellcasting is a real problem!

Things Tend to Get a Little Weird Around Me

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I do not understand the odd betrayals that one tends to suffer at the hands of one’s own brain. Case in point, I was at a wedding this weekend. For those who know me, you know I don’t drink. For those who don’t know me, but read my blog anyway, you now know that I don’t drink.

So why did everyone there think I was the drunkest person at the whole party?

https://fbcdn-sphotos-a-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-xpa1/v/t1.0-9/10626670_10150522694944977_7656761237190265054_n.jpg?oh=bb6325a9486c33caafb3a3a99a8cf4a2&oe=54D0333B&__gda__=1422625325_16578c31230d0cd42f73b0f8640696d5

I am the one in purple, with the tie hanging off my head, and hanging silver tinsel dangling off of my tie.

Why did I do it? I don’t know. Hell, like my friends who DO drink sometimes tell me, I feel shame at some of the sillier things I did. That picture is an obvious example, and the video of me dancing that is slowly making its rounds right now. Mostly the video; I do not dance. To say I dance like a white person is insulting white people everywhere in the world. To say I look like an epileptic on the dance floor is insulting the sense of rhythm inherent in seizures.

In all honesty, I was just hopping around like a fool.

I wish there was a video of my dancing with an old friend of mine; he led the dance, and I am told it looked quite good. I know there are pictures and videos *out there*, cameras were going off the whole damn time we were on the dance floor, but as yet I’ve been tagged in none of them, and I am sure they were taken by people at that wedding I did not know. How unfortunate.

Long story short, we live and we learn, and when our brains betray us, we write excuses on the internet.

C’est la vie.

In any case, congratulations Corey and Tamara, on tying the knot! I hope you will find happiness. Justin ‘Bubz’ Vany, thanks for singing that wonderful first dance song! And for being generally awesome!

Paul, thanks for the dance, and Finny, thanks for being in the background of most of the photos of me, looking like Walter White closing in to take out a rival dealer.

I’d say thanks to the many phone-photographers who captured my drunkest moments, but I wasn’t drunk, and every moment was simultaneously my drunkest moment.

Video Games, the Media, and Perceived Sexism

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The article I am referencing:

http://www.theverge.com/gaming/2014/9/29/6862757/dota-2-the-1000-hour-review

I’ve posted rants before about the way that chauvinism and outright misogyny are part and parcel of online games, and one would think that focusing on the community of players would give the popular media plenty enough to do without focusing on game design itself. No, I am not going to just brush it under the carpet, here; game design often focuses on making female characters fit a mold that could really, truly, only be defined as sexist.

Recently, though, another person has stepped onto the internet and offended the wider group. People are up in arms about it, though even with a slightly level head, it is easy to see that there has been both some level of dishonesty and some level of disingenuousness. The catalyst, in this case, was a review of Dota 2 that for the most part was incredibly fair and informative. The issue taken by gamers was one line, almost offhanded, and not dwelled on by the writer himself; the line in question basically calls the game sexist. Further, for those who have played it, a screenshot of the Queen of Pain character was included as proof of this.

Now, the reviewer himself was being somewhat unfair; I would say that Luna and Legion Commander, at the least, are some of the most fair depictions of females in modern games. Add to that the fact that you are able to use custom costumes in the game and you have to understand that much of the sexism, as I mentioned in my first paragraph, is in the hands of the community more than in the hands of the game. In fact, going over most of the other characters, one finds that not only do females make up some of the most powerful and popular characters in all of Dota 2 (Anyone who tells me that a late game Drow Ranger is not in their top 5 most terrifying heroes list has not played against a late game Drow Ranger).

As I just mentioned, Drow Ranger is very formidable, and Mirana is an incredibly popular and versatile character. Legion Commander is fully armored, strength class, and is capable of going 1v1 against almost any hero in the game with only basic foresight. Luna is one of the highest damage characters in all of Dota, up there with Medusa, also a nonsexualized character, and Luna wears full armor. There isn’t even the slightest hint of cleavage.

The Templar Assassin, another formidable carry character (Carry being the term applied to a set of heroes that is expected to ‘carry’ you to victory) is nearly fully clothed, though there is some cleavage shown. She is no simpering girl, though, no character that the male characters are expected to roll over. She has powerful abilities that make her dangerous at every point in the game, from the first exchange of blows to the eventual destruction of the ancient.

Phantom Assassin, the highest single target damage carry in the entire game, is also fully clothed and armored, wearing a formidable breast plate, and carrying foreboding weaponry. She has the ability to completely change the tide of a losing game by destroying the opposing carries in 1 or 2 hits, no matter their HP. I can say with honesty, I have been in a winning position late game, feeling nigh indestructible, to be humbled by two swipes of the Phantom Assassin’s blade.

I could keep going, with heroes such as Spectre (Another carry whose ability to confuse the enemy is unmatched), Naga Siren (Her ability to control the flow of battle makes her valuable in any role), Windranger, Enchantress, Death Prophet, all powerful in their specific area. There are support females (characters whose primary purpose is not to carry you to victory, but to control the flow of the game, allowing their carries to do what they were designed to do), but they are not some passive girls, waiting for men to save them. Crystal Maiden (mentioned specifically in the offending article) has the highest damage ultimate ability in the game, and has nearly unmatched ability to control the movement of her opponents, stunning them and preventing them from fleeing. There is Lina, a character (descriptively) categorized as Nuker; everything about her is designed to do damage. Vengeful Spirit, whose primary abilities save her team from harm or initiate combat favorably for your team.

So what is the point of this rant on the females of Dota 2? Well, first, I wanted to point out that you can find flaw in anything. I can pick one character in a game (Queen of Pain, as per the article that set this off) and say that this represents everything. That is being unfair, and I think the article was being, at best, casually unfair to the developers of Dota.

The gamers, though, and their reaction, are being unfair to the reviewer. They are up in arms, some of them saying that the whole point of mentioning the sexist themes of some characters was the writer attempting “click-bait”, getting people to come read his review when they otherwise wouldn’t. That is unfair, and I think they could put down their pitchforks and torches, and say, with due respect “I think that sentence in your review was unfair. Why did you mention it?”

The thing is, for that sentence to be click-bait, it would need a bit more prominence than it has. I won’t lie, I heard about the article in question before I read it, and when I sat down to read it, I was prepared to read a diatribe about the evils of all men, the sexism of Dota 2 on full show, stripped naked for all to see. That is not what I got; what I read instead was almost a love letter to Dota, explaining patiently all that was good about it, but mentioning that it has its flaws. The line that has gamers up in arms is just that; a line. The inclusion of a picture of the Queen of Pain was likely editorial, and I would be comfortable giving the benefit of a doubt; the writer may not have intended its inclusion at all. In that way, it could be said to be click-bait.

The point is this; we all need to step back and avoid knee-jerk reactions. Many people in the comments thread of the article in question had not read it, and in protest would never read it (they won’t get my ad-revenue! All 1.5 cents of it! That’ll show ’em!!). I think if they read it and stepped back a hair, they could probably approach it with a more level head.

But like anything in the world, this issue is not purely black and white. The reviewer needn’t have included the line about sexism, but the gamers needn’t have raised their pitchforks and torches.

I think if you are looking for misogyny in game design, Dota 2 is about the last place to start looking; the female characters are for the most part fully and completely covered, and represent some of the most powerful mechanics in the game. But if you want to find a mob that will get up in arms about anything, the MOBA community is where you will look. In fact, the backlash from this article has acted like a magnifying chamber; I would never have heard of it, nor written about it, had I not come across a violent mob, and asked to what purpose were their pitchforks?

I am ok if you attack the community. I mean, it is a battle you can’t win, the community is far too large to paint with one brush. If you call them sexist, one thousand SJWs will come to the fore. If you look at them from outside, the noisy, virulent minority will be your experience.

But when a developer makes fully clothed women the most powerful characters in their game, maybe avoid calling the game sexist? There are better targets for that kind of thing. That’s all I’m really trying to say here.

You Can’t Win Politics

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So I was playing Democracy 3 last night (computer game that [this’ll blow your mind] simulates a democracy).

I was going whole hog on Socialism; 90% income tax, but all services provided for, from cradle to grave. My approval rating was over 80%, and I ended up getting more than quadruple the votes of the opposition government. My credit rating was AAA, I was the healthiest and best educated country in the whole world, unemployment was nonexistent, homelessness was nonexistent, crime was nonexistent, and I had slowly replaced all of my cabinet ministers with people who shared my political views…

And then I got assassinated by rich capitalists.

This is why we can’t have nice things.

This Was so Topical! (When I wrote it. In December.)

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(Original posting date: December 16, 2013). Sorry, still catching up with a backlog of things I have already written that deserve a home here.

So I mean.. Fox News is expected to be ‘special’, but this was a new low for me, it really was. In a discussion about Santa, they said “Santa is white, you just don’t argue with facts.” Given tradition, I can’t even fight with that, but St. Nick was from Turkey, so he wouldn’t really be white (Maybe close to white). Whatever, we move on.
The follow up was “Just like Jesus was white. You just don’t change history.”
Wait. What. (That what was a statement from me, not a question)
Jesus was born in the middle east. I mean… How self centered do you have to be to steal Jesus like that? Ugh. My soul hurts.
I am going to try scrubbing it clean after hearing that, and I will scrub until I bleed if I have to.

To quote John Stewart (Or was it Colbert? I can’t recall): “Nobody tell [them] that Jesus was a Jewish socialist born in the middle east. I think it would really bum [them] out.”

On a Local Restaurant

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So I went to CRAFT Beer Market Edmonton for lunch today, and I can say I wasn’t expecting much (Does the food even have to be good, if you have 100 kinds of beer? That was my first thought). I am happy to report that I was not just pleasantly surprised, but fully impressed. I ordered the Big Rock Beer Chicken, and I enjoyed it a great deal, but the chicken was not what truly impressed me (though I… will admit that it was an amazingly delicious chicken)… But the side of garlic mashed potatoes… They were divine.

The angels themselves are forbidden to eat of those potatoes, for they would sacrifice their divinity for just another bite.

I ate them, and the solution to all of the world’s problems, to war, strife, famine, plague, unhappiness, it was as clear to me as the sun on a bright July afternoon — but gone as soon as I swallowed. I took another bite, hoping to grasp it again, and instead I saw how humans could travel to and colonize other planets, and that, too, left when I swallowed. A third bite showed me my own future, a future of happiness, where I was content in all parts of my life, and I saw the path and chain of actions that would help me arrive at this future, but now it, too, is gone. A fourth bite taken, I saw the face of God, and he smiled at me, a glint in his eyes. He knew I had experienced the truest happiness a human can experience on this plane of existence, but I do not recall the feeling now as I write this.

To eat these potatoes was bittersweet torture, for each bite I took I knew another bite would come, but I knew that one bite had gone. When the potatoes themselves were gone, my world became a dimmer, darker place, and now I live only for the day when next I can eat them.

I preach the Gospel of Craft Beer Potatoes, now, and will write it down for future generations. My new role is that of the Prophet of the Potatoes, even though there is no Irish blood in my veins.

What I am really trying to say here is would anyone like to go to Craft sometime for dinner?

As Cats are Wont to do

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So last night, one of my cats did as cats do, and entered her litterbox. This is, obviously, not abnormal, so when I went to the basement to play some Dota, my body was not prepared.
Even knowing, nothing could have prepared me.

In all honesty, what I thought had happened was that the larger of my two dogs had to have pooped in a vent, and the air flow somehow directed this cloud of pure death directly into my nostrils. Even this theory paled in comparison to my initial instinct, believing that a herd of no less than 30 cattle had somehow come into my basement, pooped there, and then magically disappeared. The smell was so dense, entering the basement felt like passing through a physical barrier.

I am certain that my overall lifespan was shortened by the event.

I am certain my cat’s lifespan was shortened by the event.

I believe that the lifespan of my house, or rather, the integrity of its load bearing pillars, has been reduced.

I believe that, had my house collapsed, the resulting crater would have been declared uninhabitable by the CDC.

Yesterday morning, had you asked me if a smell could be fatal, I would have said no. Yesterday night, there was a dead spider by my cat’s box, and I know what killed it.

The fires of hell are fueled by that smell. The burning is only secondary torture, and the fires burn only because Satan himself could no longer survive that smell.

When I smelled it, I had a memory flashback to a previous life, and I peed on a rag and put it up to my nose — it had no effect.

Every skunk within 10km of my house decided to never spray again, for they could only be ashamed of themselves.

Cruel people have said that the tears of the dying are delicious, but my tears were saturated with that smell. Had anyone tasted them, they would join me in living death.

Laundry was in the washing machine, still wet. It burst into flames, spontaneously. I was not angry, for those clothes could never be worn again anyway.

It is said that we currently have a wasp problem in the Edmonton area. That would explain the tiny screams I heard, coming from the damned. I no longer fear the wasps, for the speedy have have fled, the slow dying off.

I am glad raspberry season has passed, for bees can no longer pollinate any plant life in my yard.

Nothing will ever grow again, but it is for the best. I did not think plants could become demons, but a new fear has been awakened in me.

It didn’t smell nice is what I am trying to say here.

Everyone Knows What You Did Last Night

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http://www.breitbart.com/Breitbart-London/2014/09/17/Exposed-the-secret-mailing-list-of-the-gaming-journalism-elite

Well now this is just getting silly. The email in question basically says “She is a person who has a right to privacy,” and the writer for Breibart basically claims that this is PROOF OF A MASSIVE CONSPIRACY TO COVER UP RELEVANT NEWS!

Well, there you have it, Zoe Quinn doesn’t deserve privacy because WE LIKE TO READ ALL THE LURID DETAILS OF HER SEX LIFE! (Capitals are mostly for emphasis on conspiracy). This whole thing reads like a tabloid paper. You know what? With evidence, there may be something worthwhile to read — but right now, it has mostly devolved into shit flinging. Sometimes, as below, it is professional shit flinging (or at least, professionally presented shit flinging, which is the equivalent of putting suits on the monkeys).

There is certainly something to be said for open collusion, but their evidence of a massive mailing list that controls all of gaming media consists of someone in an industry emailing someone else in the industry saying that “Hey, maybe we shouldn’t ruin this woman’s life.” And of course, as per this article (and the comments), THAT IS STEPPING OVER THE LINE! This should be illegal! HOW COULD HE SAY HE DOESN’T WANT TO RUIN HER LIFE? I WANT HER LIFE RUINED FOR MY AMUSEMENT!

Look, gaming journalism is incestuous; the only people who advertise with gaming journalists are the people who the journalists are writing about. That is a problem, and it came flying wildly to light during the Gamespot/Gerstman scandal years ago (but we got Giant Bomb out of that, so I’d say we won that round).

In any case, I do not think they are innocent… But all of the evidence I have seen of this massive conspiracy is Kyle Orland and Ben Kuchera saying, effectively, “Stop being such raging, AIDS infected cock-holes.”

If saying “Don’t ruin her life,” is completely out of bounds, why don’t want just skip the middle man and say people in the same industry aren’t allowed to talk to each other.

This isn’t me being some kind of SJW, I just think this whole thing is silly, and requires people to step back and look at it with a level head. The linked article (and there are many like it) are effectively turning gaming journalism into TMZ. Admittedly, people like tabloids, so this is making tons of people tons of money — but I do not want my gaming journalism to be a tabloid.

Do you think I am exaggerating? Taking this to an absurd length? If so, let me know if any of these statements trip your TMZ detector:

LOOK WHO ZOE QUINN IS SLEEPING WITH THIS WEEK!

Have you seen this email from Kyle Orland? IT WILL SHOCK YOU!

BEHIND THE SCENES AT KOTAKU! Do you know how your money is being spent?!

You know what? I don’t give a flying shit about who one indie developer is sleeping with. Shit, I don’t even care if there is some group of editors colluding about how to speak about a topic, if their “massive conspiracy” is “stop being cock-holes.”

Gaming journalism isn’t all that interesting as it is; it is trailers and release dates, reviews on the side. It barely qualifies as journalism, honestly. When they have something interesting to say, then I will care about corruption.