#lavender tower

[lavendertowerarchives]

I've been playing MTG with my partner recently (like, two games, and they want to play more) (yes I've vigorously ascertained that they enjoy it and they aren't just humoring me, yes I'm insecure about that). Since they're new, I have to keep reminding myself that they don't have my eleven years of experience, notably the philosophy behind why certain strategies\archetypes\cards don't work like they should.

I have my tastes. I enjoy heavily interactive games where shit gets blown up all the time, I like scrappy games where no one has any agency, I like meticulous games where I have no cards in my hand and half my deck in play... This is all from years and years of losing game after game. I've become jaded to the prospect of losing, and unfortunately, just as numb to winning. I still use everything I have at my disposal to win (otherwise it'd be a disservice to everyone else at the table), but I'm much more interested in seeing how my opponents will try to stop me. I become the archenemy (AKA the other three players team up against me) not because I'm powerful, not because I'm threatening, and not because my opponents are stupid nor because I am smart. I become "the threat" simply because I'm just... Unapologetic about being a Problem.

As I've discovered by talking to my partner, they have their tastes, too. They enjoy stalemates, they like both sides taking small potshots at the other, they like long games of amassing resources... They have never experienced a three-hour slugfest where the game just never ends. Most importantly, they hate losing their creatures. They like their little guys. We've only ever played 1v1. They have no concept of "the archenemy" or "virtual card advantage" or even "not playing into a boardwipe." Those are just things they'll learn, be it this month or six years from now.

I will mention that they are a very very sore loser. Not in an unnanageable way, they're very self-aware regarding their disdain for losing. The joy of success, understanding, and progress was just yoinked away from them in one of the recent games, all because I forgot that they'd never seen a card that essentially says "kill all your creatures. Yes, all of them." I got into the mindset of "see a kill, take the shot, go to round 2" and missed an opportunity to let them keep having fun with their new deck (I foiled up a deck and gave it to them for their birthday).

Context aside, I don't understand how to give them the games they want. I don't mean that I'll roll over and let them win, I mean I want to balance their love for near-stalemates with the overabundance of tools a player has to end stalemates. So many cards say "Kill everything" and even more say "kill that thing," many say "prevent all damage," many more say "gain a bunch of life." I don't know how to solve this. In order for them to understand how to craft enjoyable games, they need to understand how their current games can be transformed into stalemates, cold wars, or battles of attrition. I've been playing for... Longer and still don't know how to do so without killing everything\something they own or winning in a way they can't "block."

There are easy ways to do this, of course. MTG is abundant in strategies which fuck over all players involved. I enjoy these strategies too much, and know that my partner will feel even more helpless when facing them. Stax is aggravating to decks without backup plans. Pox is aggravating to everyone. Pillow fort decks are just annoying and only make new(er) players feel even less empowered. MLD has to be done right, and I do not trust myself (nor anyone I know) to try.

I want to deny them progress, not agency. I want to make our games strategically difficult, not technically difficult. So, I pose a question to you, dear reader: how? Either in MTG terms or normal human language:

How does one manufacture a cold war without the threat of a nuke?

How does one die to a thousand paper cuts, but only two or three at a time?

How does one turn a volatile power-struggle into a stalemate without removing any weapons?

How can it be feasible, let alone optimal, for an army to beat another by firing only one bullet per day?

I want answers. I want help. I want to figure this out.

[avweckman]

Lavender Town Pokemon Tower

Tumblr made me shrink this, the full size is on my Deviantart x

Redbuble x

[glitch-keys-junk-drawer]

participating in inktober, here’s the link to the one I’m doing http://shelgon.tumblr.com/post/165422755619/pokemon-i-choose-you-its-that-time-of-year 

[lavendertowerarchives]

Sometimes it takes some bullshit

To make some bullshit

[lavendertowerarchives]

I've been hanging out with my partner and their roommate recently. We talk about random shit and play games together. I've had a blast, but that's a concern for a different post.

Their roommate, SZ, said something that irked me. We were on the topic of cosplay and were deciding what to do for next Sakura Con. She said "I'm not pretty enough to cosplay that character."

That's just bogus. I know she has self-esteem issues (I don't know if they're surface level or deeper or what) but not only was her argument bogus, the whole premise of the issue is bogus. "Not pretty enough to cosplay" is a poor excuse to not do cosplay. The usual rebuttals are terrible, no matter how much I believe them. They won't help. "Yes, you're pretty enough!" Now you've condemned everyone else potentially less pretty. "It doesn't matter how pretty you are!" To who? You? Get over yourself.

Why do people cosplay? To look like someone else, specifically to show themselves off. We take ourselves to conventions to show off to the public, to parties to show off to friends, or our rooms just to see ourselves. The spectacle is the focus. We do it to be complimented, to be recognized, to be seen. While it sounds a little counterintuitive, none of these are proportional to "prettiness," whether relative or absolute.

People are gonna see you if you cosplay. You're dressing up. You're deliberately standing out, and your own attractiveness doesn't change people's shock factor. That's not an issue, regardless of the people you're around.

The main difference between "just looking fancy/extravagant/different" is that you're dressing up as a certain character. There are features to emulate, clothes to match, props to hold... every aspect is another hint as to who you're pretending to be. Who you "really" are is irrelevant. I don't just mean that as in "anyone can cosplay," but the purpose of cosplay is to change explicit things about your appearance. The change is the focus. The transformation is the definition of your outfit.

To demonstrate, if you were cosplaying Hatsune Miku... and wearing a fedora, people will see Miku first and interpret the fedora separately. You just happened to have a fedora. Miku doesn't have a fedora. You do.

If you were cosplaying Monkey D. Luffy... and had a pair of huge tits, No one's going to say "No, that can't be Luffy, look at that rack." You're the one with the endowment. People are gonna see your cosplay, then they're gonna see you yourself. Those are two separate things, and you can't change that. Some aspects are going to bleed through, and that's not a failure. That's reality.

If you were cosplaying Rias Gremory... but you had a dick, no ass, and a flat chest, people will see Rias, and then they will see you. The people who saw Rias as "pretty" likely will not see you as "pretty." The people who saw you as Rias are still going to see Rias. If someone didn't know who Rias Gremory was, they weren't your audience anyway. You were recognized by those who could.

If you were cosplaying Kratos, the god of war... but your shoulders were smaller, your stomach was larger, your pecs were more flesh than muscle, and your nose was long and skinny, you're still dressed up as the fucking god of war. People would unfortunately probably agree that you are less pretty than Kratos, but the very fact that they're comparing you to him means you succeeded. You were recognized. It's understandable for you to care that people may think less of your physical appearance simply due to the noticeable differences between you and your target. People will do that anyways. This time, though, you have the same target of comparison as your viewers. It doesn't matter if we're cosplaying or not, we're always going to be compared to someone else by someone else.

I will note that my goal here is not to make you feel better about yourself; I don't have that power nor that skill, and don't trust myself to try. I'm trying to make you (dear reader) feel better about cosplaying.

Of course, all of this supposes "prettiness" is on your audience's mind at all. None of this reasoning accounts for the fact that many onlookers will be looking at you and not even notice or care how much they want to fuck you.

Recognition isn't predicated on prettiness. Compliments aren't either, though I have to limit my argument to the subset of "compliments towards your cosplay." Yeah, you're more likely to compliment someone you think is attractive. No shit. That will persist no matter the circumstances. I'm concentrated on the difference in perceived attractiveness between you and your outfit's fictional owner.

As I've reasoned above, the factor that people notice is the transformation itself. Step one of a compliment is that of recognition, and I've covered that already. Step two is to figure out whether/how both parties will benefit from the compliment. Step three is confidence-based and therefore out of the scope of this argument.

In any of the scenarios above, people would either compliment you on the quality of your outfit or the attractiveness of your own self. Looking like a character does not automatically make you more attractive (and for the few exceptions, the people who are now suddenly into you are complete outliers and therefore not worth pursuing). The two premises of this hypothetical compliment are independent from the difference in attractiveness. If they think you're hot, they're not seeing your cosplay in full. If they like your outfit, they're never going to be thinking "Well, I wish you were hotter." I know that's one hell of a blanket statement to lay down, but I think I've written all I can about the various assumptions people (myself and yourself included) have. There will be arguments I've missed. There will be scenarios I didn't think of. You can probably find some hole in my argument and poke the strawman underneath. I'm still going to tell you, personally, that if anyone (stranger or yourself) has some "ideal" version of your cosplay that differs in sexiness\hotness\prettiness\cuteness, they were gonna do that shit no matter what, and are therefore not worth catering to. I don't care how pretty you are. You're pretty enough to wear that outfit.

[lavendertowerarchives]

As I lose my latest hyperfixation on Fallout 4 (one of my favorite games ever, I've played over 60 hours in the past couple weeks, mostly condensed in the last couple days), I scramble to find something else to fill my life.

I can't cut, since my partner will most definitely see the slits everywhere. I can't play video games, I have no money to buy new ones and I have no drive to play the ones I have. I can't jerk off since (I think) the Sertraline is fucking over my libido.

I've started tagging the crosswalk buttons, as my new weird hobby. I've put up stickers with shitty art on them, with two lines of a poem I'm still writing on each. Maybe I'll attach pics. I don't know.

There's only three so far. I'm having fun making them, and every time I see them, I get a little pleasure knowing I can put myself out there while never revealing my face.

I wonder if I'll get caught. It takes a lot of privacy to put them up, since the stickers are about four inches in diameter. Additionally, the sharpie might not stick like I want it to, since it's rainy as hell in Seattle. I stress tested the sharpie in water, and the sticker still sticks, but it gets more fragile when wet. I'll do more testing sometime, but this five dollar roll of 200 stickers is all I've got right now.

[lavendertowerarchives]

When I say I "can't talk to people," I mean many things. It's a gross oversimplification of a very complicated set of circumstances, some of which are not always present. I'm trying to rid my vernacular of it, but it seems to be what people (those less inclined to understand) understand best.

It would take many things going wrong for me to actively try not to talk to a friend. The extenuating circumstances required for me to not enjoy listening to a friend talk would be not fully understood by me, myself. For people I don't know well or at all, general nervousness about performing for them can get in the way of initiating, but I would only attempt escape from the conversation if I felt they were only talking to me out of courtesy. Of course, I could be wrong in my assessment, but that's always the case. At least I made a judgement, no matter how flawed.

When I say I "can't talk to people," I mean I lack the mental faculties (space, speed, depth of knowledge, experience) to adequately respond to their recent comments with comments of my own which move the conversation forward in a non-trivial manner. That's a mouthful, even for me. I would love to be this verbose, but even this statement "requires" clarification. Everything I say "requires" clarification, including this. By putting "requires" in quotes, I intend to instill a sense of self-percieved falsehood in the word. Whenever I give a statement about myself, I feel "required" to add to it, since I feel that if the listener has not only an inadequate view of me as a person, but could have garnered a wholly incorrect view, too. I value the listener's opinion too much to be "okay" with them having an opinion of me that could be built off misinterpretations.

When I'm nervous about my ability to perform (entertain, be useful, etc) for someone, I slip back into an unfortunate pattern of treating the conversation as turn-based combat. Every word they say becomes ammunition for the next thing i say. I struggle heavily to rekindle or start conversations, since my inspiration is simply extinct. It isn't a skill I have. I don't know where to start, I don't know to just... Think of something to say to them. If I say something random, purely random, that wouldn't work, because all I think about is either things I want to do that I dont think they'd enjoy or just straight up pleasing them. Even if I picked something from our surroundings to comment on, I fear I'll be seen as desperate (which I most definitely am). If I told them the whole truth of me being nervous and not knowing what to talk about since I just want them to like talking to me so that they talk to me more in the future... I dont know, I just don't know if the other person wants me to be that vulnerable to them. They didn't ask for it, and they sure as hell haven't been vulnerable to me.

All of this discordant ranting, just to explain why I'm not trying to talk to people. The view from outside shows someone isolating himself. The view from inside shows too much deliberation to come to an actual conclusion. This isolation isn't on purpose. It's like learning how to walk while your legs change shape ever couple seconds.

[lavendertowerarchives]

TW sui

I've been in the UK for the past week, and it's been miserable.

This "vacation" with my family has taken every fucking ounce of my energy, every day. They are insufferable to be around for the most part, and I'm only here to see my brother graduate, something I don't even want to see. I don't need to be there. I don't want to be there. Other people want me to be there. To be here.

Every day I have to weigh whether or not I want to undertake the mental stress that comes with spending time with them all, or take the massive L of saying "I don't want to do anything today." Every outing, every task, every event has been annoying as hell to wind my way through. I should have pushed back harder against staying for two weeks. Everything I've done has been underwhelming.

I felt sick the moment I woke up after being jetlagged. This past week, I've had a constant runny/clogged nose, sore throat (even lost my voice for a day and a half), sore muscles after doin fuckall, pressure headaches... I've been pissed at my body's inability to protect itself. Come on, man.

My younger brother promised to do shit with me and it's all been ass. I made a DND character for his oneshot, he didn't even read my sheet once. I play Smash Bros with him, he picks characters he's not good with versus characters I love because he knows he'll lose so he doesn't even try (I'm not calling him a sore loser. That was verbatim. That's his exact reasoning). I try to teach him a game I made, he gets obstinate about the rules that he doesn't listen to. I ask him to get people together to playtest another game (a monopoly clone), and he shows no intention of doing that. Despite telling me for weeks prior that he has the right crew to play my games. I shouldn't have trusted him. I don't give a fuck that he's busy and stressed out about graduating and moving into a new house. This shit was his deal, and it has been for months.

And to top all this shit off, I can't even talk to my partner. My lovely partner. They're away on a vacation as well, with their former roommate, and they wont be seein her for another year or so (she's moving away). They're busy all day and tired all night and everything they say to me depresses me. They fear they're getting a crush on their roommate's younger brother despite knowing him for all of a couple days. What the fuck kind of revelation is that, man? They're not pursuing him, of course, but my jealousy knows no fucking bounds. I tell them I'm jealous of the love they have for others and their response is "you need more friends." What a depressing sentiment. Okay. I don't know why you'd want me to seek out affection elsewhere but okay. Fuck me, I guess.

I haven't responded since. It's been days. I don't know what to say since every time I contemplate this turn of events I just start planning my suicide when I get back home again. I know they won't be able to see me anytime soon even though we get back only one day apart. I don't fucking have anyone who's really willing to give me affection or refuel me in any way. I'm fucking done, man. I want out.

I need to go home. I don't think I have another week in me. Especially because I have to move to a-fucken-nother airbnb in a couple days.