Our Lifelong Vows are Battle Vows: The Return of LWL
HI EVERYONE. I have some things to say. Feel free to skip, but do indulge me if you have a moment.
So, as you have likely noticed, WE’RE BACK. You might not have fully noticed we were gone - frankly, I was not planning to go. But somehow, even as I managed to keep this blog going over four months of international travel, the sheer upheaval and stress of returning and trying to pick up the pieces of an abandoned life was too much for me to be able to keep it going.
But now the pieces are picked up. I have a home, I have a new job I love, my brainweasels are under control. And so I started thinking about getting this going again, and I got very thoughtful about it; if I was to relaunch, what would I be trying to achieve? What is this blog’s purpose, other than celebrating ladies in the hobby? What else could it achieve?
And then I was reminded of the fact that this photo existed, and that a friend of mine - the writer of LARPHacks, in fact - had written some excellent words about it.
(Photo from Odyssey by Martin Winchester.)
His words are fucking excellent and say a hundred things I would want to in a far more pithy and meaningful fashion than I ever could, so, here they are:
‘Okay, so, it's important to realise that social and political change is a marathon, not a sprint.
And we build on the shoulders of "unnumbered women dead", and nobody deserves whole credit for a success that only exists because of a permissive environment forged out of an age of struggle.
And that a single high profile success - especially a purely symbolic one - does not equal sustainable systemic change.
But when I created the Odyssey group that I was lucky - blessed - enough to LARP with twice this year, and looked for historical and mythic inspiration, I had an idea in my head. (Not an image; I don't think in pictures.) And I dared, very quietly, very privately, to dream that....
Perhaps our hobby had grown up enough in the 13 years since I started;
Perhaps the game, which had got so *many* things right about so many aspects of body positivity and gender and social justice and homosexuality and complexity and intersectionality (not perfect, never perfect, but better and better), was supportive enough;
Perhaps the people I found had the same dreams quietly burning loud enough in their blood;
....to permit that idea, unchallenged, growing and living and competing alongside all the other ideas, to have its head....
It was this idea.
THAT! THAT is my thirteen years of LARP feminism! THAT is what I was fucking targeting! THAT!
That is Berenike, Princess of Phrygia, Daughter of Chloris the Pale One. She is shielding her lover - LITERALLY SHIELDING HER LOVER, LOOK, I'M NOT FUCKING MAKING IT UP - Phoebe Andromeda, Amazonian warrior and niece of the Queen of Hyperborea, as they commit terrible violence upon their enemies.
Look at their fucking HAIR - look at their beautiful CLOTHES - look at the FLOWERS - look at how they are ASTONISHINGLY BADASS AND VIOLENT WITHOUT NEEDING TO PLAY INTO MASCULINE APPEARANCE TROPES TO DO IT - look at how QUEER they are - look at their FUCKING HAIR - LOOK AT THEM - JUST FUCKING LOOK AT THEM, defending each other, shoulder to shoulder against the WORLD--
We didn't write this in a STORY, we didn't think about it and decide it was a static image we were going to record over gin and bickering, it HAPPENED, in the field, in the WILD! It grew reckless and defiant out of the hedgerows because we gave it the soil it could grow from! WE did that! Every one of us!
THIS is what a group based on ancient myth can look like in 2016! THIS is what we can make from the Classical archetypes we love! Nobody has to question it! Nobody has to make bullshit gender assumptions! Nobody has to laugh up their sleeve at the homosexuality or the women in combat roles or the fucking FLOWERS IN HER HAIR, because NONE OF THOSE THINGS ARE LAUGHABLE!
I mean naww man like I don't LARP to make a political point and I do this for fun not social engineering and it's basically golf but with more swords and at the end of the day there's nothing wrong with having fun with your mates down the park, I love that, but look.
LOOK!
"At its north end, where the river guarded its flank, there stretched as evenly as a string of beads the unflawed shield-line of the Sacred Band of Thebes. Now in action the couples were forged into a single bar, each one’s shield overlapping the left-hand soldier. The elder of each pair, the erastes, kept the right, the spear side; the younger, the eromenos, the side of the shield. The right was the side of honour, for a corps or for a hoplite; though the youth might grow up the stronger, they would never ask their friend to cede it. All this was governed by ancient laws. Newly sworn lovers were here, intent upon their proving; and couples who had been in the corps ten years, solid mothers of families, love rendered down to comradeship; the Band was too famous to be renounced at a dream’s passing. Its lifelong vows were battle-vows."’
This photo, this writing, and his sheer unabashed joy at this gave me about a hundred feelings. And it reminded me of all the little things that have happened that have made me realise that this blog’s existence is not just a fun thing, a happy thing - it is a good thing, even an important thing.
It’s a friend of mine telling me the number of women they had coming up to their LARP stall at university keen to try the hobby, with at least one saying *they had seen this blog* and wanted to try it as a result.
It’s people sending me questions they don’t have anywhere else to ask, or asking me for help when someone’s being a creep.
It’s a mum bringing her kid to the time I did a talk about the blog at Nerd East.
It’s that for every female character who does get listened to, respected, and taken seriously, there are almost inevitably still more in that same game being dismissed and ignored.
It’s women around the world taking the tag ‘Ladies Who LARP’ and using it to post photos of their own, creating a community.
It’s people telling me how much it means to them that their photo has been featured on here, or just how exciting it is to see their friends on here.
It’s the fact that so many women still face bullshit sexism, even harassment, at games and events, and that whilst such good positive action is being taken, whilst game policies are created with zero tolerance on that kind of thing, whilst there are so many excellent women in game design teams who Will Not Put Up With This Shit - it is still out there. It is still pervasive. It still happens.
Maybe I’m blowing it out of proportion. Maybe this blog isn’t that big a deal. But given I started LWL as a little fun thing for me to do, never expecting it to become so well known, never expecting it to make me new friends and new connections, never expecting to be interviewed by freaking Broadly - it’s already wildly surpassed any hopes or expectations in that regard. So if it manages to cheer up even one more person, make one more woman feel less alone - then it’s worth keeping going.
So in short, I brought this blog back because of the battles that had been won, but also all the battles that were still left to fight.
LARP has come so far. This is worth celebrating.
But it still has so far to go. This is worth remembering.
Choosing to be aware of and try to combat the bullshit that’s out there is a long, long struggle, and it is often wearying. But knowing there are other excellent people out there fighting that same fight can keep you on your feet.
Our lifelong vows are battle vows. If you can’t wield a spear, hold a shield.
