My blood is off digesting, so my brain is acting weird

I'm sorry I can't join with my fellows in bemoaning Valentine's Day, but I really like it. All my hard-earned macho cred is going to be blown out of the water, but I like hearts, and I like the colors red, white, and pink together.

Think of them as blood, bone, and worms (or flesh, most of the insides of a person are pink)! That's macho. Ok.

( Anyway... )

Oh, right, I remember what I was meaning to post! Today's been a particularly amusing Valentine's Day since all day long I've had one of Jonathan Coulton's songs stuck in my head, thanks to a copy of his CD aiyume gave me awhile back that I've only recently gotten to listening to:

You know it isn’t easy living here on Skullcrusher Mountain
Maybe you could cut me just a little slack
Would it kill you to be civil?
I’ve been patient, I’ve been gracious
And this mountain is covered with wolves
Hear them howling, my hungry children
Maybe you should stay and have another drink and think about me and you

and particularly the first part of the chorus,

I’m so empty
But I’m way too smart for you
Even my henchmen think I’m crazy
I’m not surprised that you agree

Aw, yeah. Anyway, best wishes for all my homies lurking in secret lairs tonight.

Mirror Room larp discussion

A couple Fridays back I played in a Parlor Larp, "The Mirror Room," a sort of larp-in-a-box put out by Shifting Forest and run by badgerbag. What we knew going in was: dark/grim game, you're trapped in a room full of mirrors. jhkimrpg wrote up a good thing about it here, and he has a link to some pictures of the action, but there are none of me, so I'm affecting a careless linklessness. ;) You might, of course, want to look at the pictures since badgerbag did a great job setting atmosphere by covering all the walls with tin foil.

( I played the antagonist. Spoilers here for a larp you might want to play someday )

Anyway, the character was well-set-up to be entertaining, because her other major goal was to never be bored. So I could join in on anything the other characters did, and then cause dissent and factioning whenever I felt like it. Mess with them, let up and be reasonable for a bit... As I skated along the edge of getting them all against me at once, it was trivial to fall into the patterns of an abuser. It amuses me to think of how the character of the know-it-all kid began to think maybe I wasn't entirely crazy, even after I smacked him but good.

It was odd and yet interesting to come up with in-character justifications for why it was right and good that I had floored the know-it-all kid with a backhanded slap. I settled on "children have moral agency, and are accountable for their actions." Which on one hand, I actually believe... The kids who tormented you on the playground, did they not know they were doing wrong? Nonsense. The method of the accounting was where my character went over the line into evil, but I was able through bluster, in the confusion, to fail to grasp that point. Wasn't able to keep the character undamaged enough to continue her reign of terror, though. ;)

( squicking the whole group with SEX! thanks to badgerbag. )

( morality based on the people who came to the larp, more spoilers )

In general, interesting. Larps seem to be mostly for those who can have fun just hanging around as a character, or who can create a plot with their character; but this one ended up with a not-bad story to watch, too.