Part 3 of 3 of the trip to Elbow Falls. These are all by my dad...

Part 3 of 3 of the trip to Elbow Falls. These are all by my dad but there are a couple pics OF me. ;)

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Part 2 of 3 of Elbow Falls. The pics of the falls are by my dad,...

Part 2 of 3 of Elbow Falls. The pics of the falls are by my dad, the rock/branches and shot of the river infront of the mountain are mine. My dad was using a much nicer camera than mine, the colors his camera gets are gorgeous.

Imported from Tumblr: http://rayegunn.tumblr.com/post/28103801150

Went to Elbow Falls today with my grandma and parents. While I...

Went to Elbow Falls today with my grandma and parents. While I couldn’t spend a lot of time taking my photos, I think I got some decent ones. Part 1 of 3 (with the third being some that my dad took, which are probably nicer than mine :p)

Imported from Tumblr: http://rayegunn.tumblr.com/post/28103418612

My yard is a bird paradise, apparently. These are some (crappy)...

My yard is a bird paradise, apparently. These are some (crappy) pictures of baby bluejays that are nesting in the back yard, I’d seen the parents doing their thing for a while, but I only just saw the babies today, when I went out to water the plants. I didn’t think I’d see them so didn’t have a good camera, may try for some better pics with a nicer camera now that I know they’re out of the nest and all. There’s 4 of the little guys. d’aww, lookit their stubby little tails. :p but there is also magpies nesting in the side yard, and robins and crows nesting in the front. It probably helps that there are about a bazillion trees and, well, let’s say we keep the yard ‘natural’ :p

Imported from Tumblr: http://rayegunn.tumblr.com/post/26865740751

Ramble/rant: The Importance of Context in Fiction

So, a few days ago, I stumbled across this link about a woman who was being relentlessly harassed about her Kickstarter campaign to create a series of videos about sexism in video games, and was (naturally, I should hope) appalled. That’s not what this post is about, though. (but seriously, she didn’t deserve that, and it just illustrates that there is a problem with sexism in gaming) After finding that, I browsed some of her Youtube videos, just to make sure her views were reasonable, and for the most part they are, though I didn’t watch ALL of them. But there was one video that triggered a pet peeve of mine, and though a relatively minor thing, it’s been eating at my brain and I need to get this all out. The video in question is reasonable enough for the most part, talking about the mystical pregnancy trope you see in a lot of fiction. But it loses it when she says that writers should stop using this trope ENTIRELY because women really are losing control of their reproductive organs in real life, with the abortion and birth control debates, and all. Wait, what? Look, the problem here isn’t the trope, it’s the CONTEXT. Just because it CAN be used poorly and/or to promote a bad message doesn’t mean it always will be. One of the wonderful things about speculative fiction is it’s ability to take real-world issues and frame them in a different way in order to offer a new perspective. Isn’t it entirely possible that’s exactly what at least some of the writers using this trope are doing? I can’t think of many examples where a sudden mystical/alien pregnancy was met with anything but fear, unless they are going for a Jesus parallel. If handled in the right way, it can help illustrate how frightening it would be for a woman to lose control of her reproductive organs. Yes, it has been used in other ways, but that doesn’t mean we put an end to the trope as a whole.

It reminded me of another thing that bugged me. When they were making the Avatar: The Last Airbender movie, and the news about the whitewashing of the cast broke, I was upset, and began following the site Racebending. On the Avatar subject, I fully supported them; it was wrong to not cast Asian and Inuit actors in those roles. However, they then moved on to critiquing practices in some other movies and such, and they would simply go too far, completely forgetting about the context. In particular, there were times when they would criticize the inclusion of a racist character. Not racist practices behind the scenes, a fictional character who was racist. Wait, what? Again, context matters here. A racist character does not automatically make the film/book/whatever racist, though it can. On two ends of the scale, In Birth of a Nation, the KKK were portrayed as heroes, and while it was to an extent the product of it’s times, and is an extremely important movie in terms of film techniques, it portraying a bunch or racists as heroes was, even at the time, morally questionable, to put it mildly. Using a racist character in that way? bad. But then look at Schindler’s List, which is full of Nazis, and Schinlder himself is a Nazi. But those characters are used as villains, and fighting against their racist views being the central themes of the movie, and Schindler renounced the Nazi’s racist practices. Use of racist characters there? good. A bigoted character can be used in a work of fiction (though the two examples are at least somewhat based on history) to paint the character as a villain, or be used to show that character learning that their initial views were wrong. It’s only problematic when that character is shown in a positive light. The movies Racebending was upset about were NOT portraying these characters positively, even if they were technically protagonists, it was made clear that these characters were behaving inappropriately, which makes their inclusion OK in my book.

And finally, rape. On CBR a while ago, I got into a debate with some posters who wanted all depictions of rape to be banned from from comics. I was on the pro-rape side of the argument. Which sounds horrible, I know, but here’s the thing; While rape has sometimes been used in fiction in a way that’s demeaning to the victim, (and by extension to victims of rape in general) or used for shock value or (the worst) as a type of porn, it can be used positively. It can be used to show the victim dealing with what happened to them, seeking help, and (with time) rising above what happened to them. A story like that can be HELPFUL to rape victims, by showing them they are not alone, it’s not their fault, that seeking help is a good thing, and that they can move on with their lives. Context. But if we ban all depictions of rape, that story can’t be told.

Basically, I don’t like painting a subject in broad strokes as good or bad in fiction. any subject can be handled in a positive or negative way, and each use of a trope must be judged individually.

ok. I’m done now.

Imported from Tumblr: http://rayegunn.tumblr.com/post/25753772136

skyrimconfessions: I’ll never understand how weapons magically...

skyrimconfessions:

I’ll never understand how weapons magically stick to your back.

http://skyrimconfesssions.tumblr.com

I see someone has some Witcher 2 mods, cus those have scabbards (though lacking the straps that held them on in TW2), are Witcher swords, and Skyrim’s one handed swords are worn at the hip. :p Also, pretty sure that’s Philippa Eilheart’s hair. But, it’s not as if I don’t have a ton of Witcher 2 mods, my conjuror is running around in Iorveth’s armor right now. If Bethesda and CD Projekt Red ever teamed up on a game, it would be incredibly awesome.

anyway… I always pretended it was magnets.

Imported from Tumblr: http://rayegunn.tumblr.com/post/24535161134

A dream I had...

Last night, I had a vivid dream that I had been decapitated… and lived to tell the tale. It was like Miracle Mike, the headless chicken. Just walking around, sans head. I don’t recall exactly how it happened, except that it involved an airport, somehow. The dream was mostly what happened afterwards. Somehow, despite missing a head, I was still able to talk, hear and eat, because I went out to lunch at the mall food court with some people. Though aware I was completely blind, one of my biggest fears, I had apparently adapted remarkably well, having walked from my house to the mall unaided. I was mainly concerned with being a freak, and kept trying to cover the space where my head used to be with my arms to prevent people from staring. I vividly recall the sensation of feeling my neck stump with my hands and arms, and it was intensely creepy. Any mental side effects to losing my head were restricted to me having to search for words that would normally come easily to me, otherwise I seemed ok. While eating lunch, people tried to reassure me it was ok that I had been recently decapitated, since I was still alive. I mean, I suppose they had a point, I guess it’s better than being dead, but still.

Imported from Tumblr: http://rayegunn.tumblr.com/post/24534522788

So, more Oblivion. Above is just landscapes I took because they...

So, more Oblivion. Above is just landscapes I took because they were pretty.

I’ve been plugging away at quests. And I am really bad about remembering to take screenshots, so some of these have no screenshot. Among the notable ones, I’ve freed the ghosts on the Hill of Suicides, which is an unmarked quest, but now that I’ve done it I can raise the dead (humans only), I’ve freed the ghosts at Vitharn, pushed a suicidal man to his death (the first time I did that quest I was pretty conflicted, but not this time :p), Got Ahjazda her survival stuff, got Sickly Bernice her cure, and, somewhere along the line, I killed a dude that was bothering shopkeepers. In the past I’ve talked him into leaving, but my personality/speechcraft stats on this character are pathetic, and couldn’t get the option. And am I going to be an assassin or aren’t I? So I murdered him, and that becomes relevant later. I also killed off the ‘Manic’ side of Split, (a town that had all it’s residents split into manic and demented selves, both sides wanted the other eliminated. But that didn’t seem to register as murder for some reason) I also completed that quest where you have to get ingredients and creatures for that researcher, Mirili, to study. I totally cheated with the last creature, though. She wanted a Scalon. ok, fine, I went down to the shore near the town and found one, set my dog to ‘passive’ so he wouldn’t attack, but… he still did! shit. And I hadn’t saved recently. And I REALLY didn’t want to have to lure one in from further away, attacking me the whole time, since my Illusion skill was too low for her to sell me the charm spell… so…. I began dragging the corpse back to Mirili, and when I got there, I used the console to resurrect it. Yes, totally a cheat, I mean, I could have resurrected him where he died, but pfft. Finished the quest and completed her zoo, and got like a measly 200 gold as a reward. yay. :p

As for the main quest, I’m close to finishing it, but now am waffling on whether I WANT to finish it. I sided with the Mazken in the battle for Cylarne, and lit the Great Torch for Dementia. This will make no sense to people who haven’t played the Shivering Isles, but it will take too long to explain. If you’re confused, this ought to get you up to speed. I became the Duke of Dementia, (and got a spiffy new helmet) battled the Forces of Order in the Fringe, along with some fellow Mazken dudes, and I gathered all the ingredients and selected the bodyparts to rebuild the Gatekeeper. whew. But now i’m here, wondering if i should continue or just book it to Cyrodiil. See, when you complete the Shivering Isles questline, you are basically a god. When Sheogorath appears in Skyrim, Bethesda pretty much confirmed that who is appearing is the player character from Oblivion, adopting the disguise of the old Sheogorath, so it’s not even like it’s a temporary thing. Lord of Madness or no, why would i become a god, then go back to Cyrodiil and join the thieves guild? Shivering Isles is really intended to be the capstone on your adventures in Oblivion. Also, at this point int he quest, I have to go defend the Dark Seducers eternal rivals, the Golden Saints, from an attack by the forces of Order. As a Mazekn, would I want to do that? hm….

So, I took a little trip to Bravil to test the waters. I took a room in a local inn, and discovered that my murderous ways in the Shivering Isles had reached the Dark Brotherhood, and I got an invitation from the Thieves Guild as well, so that’s taken care of. Truly, they have excellent informants. :p It’s not like i had stolen anything much, mostly just alchemical ingredients, since I did not have access to a fence, so… anyway, did the Dark Brotherhood’s initial quest, killing a guy at the Inn of Ill Omen, and thanks to having experience psychic guards in the past, I had a mod installed that prevented this from happening. Headed back to the Shivering Isles after that, and will think about if I want to continue that quest, or pack up my stuff and head to Cyrodiil, leaving the Shivering Isles to fend for itself.

Imported from Tumblr: http://rayegunn.tumblr.com/post/24465484138

The Elder Scrolls V Skyrim: Dawnguard - Official Trailer (by...

The Elder Scrolls V Skyrim: Dawnguard - Official Trailer (by BethesdaSoftworks)

Hell yes! This pretty much confirms for me that I will save my thief/assassin Skyrim playthrough until i have Dawnguard, though; seems well suited to a darker type of character. But that’s ok ‘cus I am having fun with my Mazken thief character in Oblivion, and I haven’t even made it out of the Shivering Isles yet, so i have lots of time left with him.

Imported from Tumblr: http://rayegunn.tumblr.com/post/24131810199

So, went to my Cafepress account to check up on things in...

So, went to my Cafepress account to check up on things in regards to my shop, and was presented with 3 fails on Cafepress’ part in rapid succession. First, I typed ‘cafepress.com’ into the address bar, it detected I was in Canada, so redirects me to… cafepress.co.uk. had to change to cafepress.ca manually. If you’re going to redirect people to the appropriate domain for their country, at least get it right. geez. then, I checked my earnings.

Since your most recent check (which was mailed on April 15, 2012 for $26.99 and covered all sales through February 2012), you’ve earned $31.87 through your account. Certain deductions, such as order returns and Premium Shop fees may apply when calculating Available CafeCash. Please see your Sales Report for further details. Of that amount, $50.9 has already cleared the mandatory 30 day return period, and will appear in your next check (unless you spend it as CafeCash!).

um. ok then… I’ve cleared more than I’ve earned, apparently :p But as long as the totals come out right, whatever. The big fail was the picture above. Cafepress added a bunch of new products, so I went to go add them, and was presented with the above, much to my horror. Blank products which USED to have images on them. Tons of them, more than can be shown with one screenshot, it will take hours to fix the damage. I have no idea how long it’s been like that. >.<</p>

I have a Zazzle shop too, and would like to be able to use that as my primary shop, but Cafepress simply has a more active marketplace, so I sell more there, and I keep it around. :-/ Zazzle sells so little i actually kinda gave up on it and not everything is added and I have yet to finish making custom icons for the sections (mostly because I can’t decide how to organize it because Zazzle’s organization scheme is really strange).

Imported from Tumblr: http://rayegunn.tumblr.com/post/23768766817