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Nov. 14th, 2016 12:20 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
the_rckI woke today with a migraine. It’s almost gone now because I took an Amerge about half an hour ago. My best guess is that it’s a reaction to being among people so much this weekend. I both find being with people energizing and find it horribly exhausting. I’m not an extreme extrovert, but I do have some mild extrovertish tendencies that mean I’m frustrated a lot of the time because I’m at home alone so very much. At the same time, being out and about pushes all my anxiety buttons because I perceive more potential for something— anything— to go unexpectedly wrong. More people equals more uncertainty and more feeling of not being remotely safe.
I should note that, if there is violence in my personal history, it’s not anything I remember. There was a boy in fifth and sixth grade (so around age eleven) who like grabbing girls’ breasts and wasn’t put off by the fact that all of us reacted with physical violence (the teachers either didn’t notice the grab and ensuing violence or chose not to inter unless it was completely impossible to ignore. The teacher reacted when one girl grabbed his shirt and dragged him across three desks, but the consequences weren’t particularly much for either child because it was 1978 and elementary school). I came very close to pushing him into a swamp on a field trip.
My father and mother had one huge fight, when I was five, in which one glass milk bottle was broken by being knocked over and my mother pulled the doorknob off the front door as she tried to leave. I had to be five because that was when we moved to that house and because my father had moved out by the time I finished kindergarten. But that fight stands out because it wasn’t normal. They were really terrible for each other, but they were also really careful not to let that upset me and my sister. And, as one of their mutual friends pointed out to me when I was in my twenties, they actually did have some good years together.
I was severely verbally harassed in the gym locker room at school in seventh and eighth grades. I suppose that might be a factor. I don’t feel like it is, though. It was a terrible time and was a major factor in my wanting Cordelia to be at her current school rather than at one of the big middle schools. The main pain that comes from thinking about that time, though, comes from not having any good idea how to keep it from happening to any other child.
At any rate, I’m pretty sure it’s biochemical which really, really sucks because none of the meds I’ve tried have done anything long term useful. I’m not exactly hyper-vigilant because one of my coping mechanisms is simply to disconnect so that I’m not quite actually there. Going out with Cordelia is harder because I won’t let myself do that when it’s her safety as opposed to mine.
I ended up with players for my Sentinels of the Multiverse game. All four were people who just wandered by and decided they were interested. There were two kids, siblings, who looked to be between ten and fourteen and who had played before and two men who had never played before. The players lost the first game even though they did everything right. The villain just happened to get the cards that made it impossible for them to beat him. We had forty five minutes left of the time slot, and the players wanted to try another game. I shouldn’t have let them, but I wanted the two new players to have a positive experience. Of course, during that second game, three of the players had to leave and were replaced by other people who just wandered by.
Scott took over running for me when I needed a bathroom break, and I never took my seat back. He was cranky by the time the game ended because he thought the players weren’t cooperating with each other but rather were trying to maneuver to be the one to take out the villain. I’m not sure he was right, but we were both tired, and we got out of the hotel at about 7:40 and had to figure out getting me food that I could eat before 8:00. Scott suggested pizza as something that would be ready by 8:00. I pointed out that that wasn’t actually soon enough for me to be able to eat.
We ended up picking up food at McDonald’s. Scott had taken Cordelia home earlier, so we called to ask what she wanted. She and I both had burgers. She had fries, too.
I wrote about 900 words after we got home, all on my Yuletide fic. I think I have to talk to someone who knows the canon, just to bounce ideas off of them. Scott knows the canon, but he’s not great at talking about such things. He’ll give me notes and comment after I’m done with the first draft, but that doesn’t help when I have fragments in my head and am trying to decide which ones fit and which ones don’t. Fortunately, I know some people who like this canon and the characters I’m writing.
Scott participated in a character generation demo for an rpg based on Sentinels of the Multiverse (one of the game creators was there). I attended the very beginning of that and the end, but my brain was dribbling out my ears due to exhaustion, and I’m terrible about crunching numbers for creating characters. I loathe it. We did a little bit of a play test after the character creation. I wasn’t pleased with it because, although I think the designers intended it to be flexible, I felt like there wasn’t very much I could actually get the character to do, including things that she really ought to be able to do.
The game designer said he wanted to write a game that would appeal to new players and new GMs. I’m not convinced this is good for that, but my reactions to various systems as a GM tend not to be at all near to the reactions that most experienced GMs have. I want the system to be as unobtrusive as possible once character creation is complete, and this system is very much not that. I might be able to play this system if I spent a session or two with a cooperative GM who understood the system and was willing to go slowly enough that I could figure things out. We only had about twenty minutes for this demo, and the GM wanted to show off combat.
I should note that, if there is violence in my personal history, it’s not anything I remember. There was a boy in fifth and sixth grade (so around age eleven) who like grabbing girls’ breasts and wasn’t put off by the fact that all of us reacted with physical violence (the teachers either didn’t notice the grab and ensuing violence or chose not to inter unless it was completely impossible to ignore. The teacher reacted when one girl grabbed his shirt and dragged him across three desks, but the consequences weren’t particularly much for either child because it was 1978 and elementary school). I came very close to pushing him into a swamp on a field trip.
My father and mother had one huge fight, when I was five, in which one glass milk bottle was broken by being knocked over and my mother pulled the doorknob off the front door as she tried to leave. I had to be five because that was when we moved to that house and because my father had moved out by the time I finished kindergarten. But that fight stands out because it wasn’t normal. They were really terrible for each other, but they were also really careful not to let that upset me and my sister. And, as one of their mutual friends pointed out to me when I was in my twenties, they actually did have some good years together.
I was severely verbally harassed in the gym locker room at school in seventh and eighth grades. I suppose that might be a factor. I don’t feel like it is, though. It was a terrible time and was a major factor in my wanting Cordelia to be at her current school rather than at one of the big middle schools. The main pain that comes from thinking about that time, though, comes from not having any good idea how to keep it from happening to any other child.
At any rate, I’m pretty sure it’s biochemical which really, really sucks because none of the meds I’ve tried have done anything long term useful. I’m not exactly hyper-vigilant because one of my coping mechanisms is simply to disconnect so that I’m not quite actually there. Going out with Cordelia is harder because I won’t let myself do that when it’s her safety as opposed to mine.
I ended up with players for my Sentinels of the Multiverse game. All four were people who just wandered by and decided they were interested. There were two kids, siblings, who looked to be between ten and fourteen and who had played before and two men who had never played before. The players lost the first game even though they did everything right. The villain just happened to get the cards that made it impossible for them to beat him. We had forty five minutes left of the time slot, and the players wanted to try another game. I shouldn’t have let them, but I wanted the two new players to have a positive experience. Of course, during that second game, three of the players had to leave and were replaced by other people who just wandered by.
Scott took over running for me when I needed a bathroom break, and I never took my seat back. He was cranky by the time the game ended because he thought the players weren’t cooperating with each other but rather were trying to maneuver to be the one to take out the villain. I’m not sure he was right, but we were both tired, and we got out of the hotel at about 7:40 and had to figure out getting me food that I could eat before 8:00. Scott suggested pizza as something that would be ready by 8:00. I pointed out that that wasn’t actually soon enough for me to be able to eat.
We ended up picking up food at McDonald’s. Scott had taken Cordelia home earlier, so we called to ask what she wanted. She and I both had burgers. She had fries, too.
I wrote about 900 words after we got home, all on my Yuletide fic. I think I have to talk to someone who knows the canon, just to bounce ideas off of them. Scott knows the canon, but he’s not great at talking about such things. He’ll give me notes and comment after I’m done with the first draft, but that doesn’t help when I have fragments in my head and am trying to decide which ones fit and which ones don’t. Fortunately, I know some people who like this canon and the characters I’m writing.
Scott participated in a character generation demo for an rpg based on Sentinels of the Multiverse (one of the game creators was there). I attended the very beginning of that and the end, but my brain was dribbling out my ears due to exhaustion, and I’m terrible about crunching numbers for creating characters. I loathe it. We did a little bit of a play test after the character creation. I wasn’t pleased with it because, although I think the designers intended it to be flexible, I felt like there wasn’t very much I could actually get the character to do, including things that she really ought to be able to do.
The game designer said he wanted to write a game that would appeal to new players and new GMs. I’m not convinced this is good for that, but my reactions to various systems as a GM tend not to be at all near to the reactions that most experienced GMs have. I want the system to be as unobtrusive as possible once character creation is complete, and this system is very much not that. I might be able to play this system if I spent a session or two with a cooperative GM who understood the system and was willing to go slowly enough that I could figure things out. We only had about twenty minutes for this demo, and the GM wanted to show off combat.
