Blog

Trains, Planes and Automobiles – My Upcoming Convention Schedule

by Shoshana, posted in Convention Report, Geek Culture

Hey again, folks! It’s your exhausted, still jet lagged a week later friend, recovering from what can only be convention plague a week after coming back from Norway. I will shortly have up my recap of the amazing time I had at Knutepunkt 2013 in Norway and at the Different Games conference at NYU Poly this weekend, but first I have exciting news. My convention schedule for this upcoming con season has blossomed into a lot of travel and I’m excited to talk about some places where I’ll be attending, running events, and sitting on panels. Heck, between this and attending Dystopia Rising games in New Jersey, Massechussets and soon potentially in Pennsylvania, I doubt I’ll have a free weekend until the end of the year.

Regardless, here’s the schedule, and it’s robust to say the least!

Camp Nerdly – Ever want to go Nerd camping? Go out to summer camp with tabletop RPGs and more dice than you can shake a marshmallow on a stick at? Well, that’s Camp Nerdly folks. Outside of Washington DC the weekend of May 17th-19th, I’ll be attending just for the heck of playing some fun RPGs with some great people (my present to myself for surviving a tough semester). I’ll admit to coming into this event blind, but anything that looks like nerd camp sounds like fun!

KristaCon – If you’re not familiar, KristaCon is a tabletop extravaganza held by Krista White and Brennan Taylor (of Galileo Games fame). Organized originally as an intense weekend of tabletop at their home, it has now blossomed into a tradition of two days of intense RPG madness that’s expanding to be held in New York City weekend of May 24th-26th. I attending a KristaCon where I got to play two days of intense Marvel Heroic RPG as my favorite character, Jean Grey, and wouldn’t miss this one for the world.

DexCon – All right, no more fun and games… well, that sounds wrong when talking about a convention. But what I mean is, no more just going to a convention to have fun! I’ll be rolling into one of my favorite conventions, DexCon 2013 in Morristown New Jersey with my Phoenix Outlaw crew to run two amazing LARPs. The first is a brand new signature event based on the Battlestar Galactica universe called ‘Straight On ‘Til Morning: Tales of the Rising Star’ with Last Second Productions, headed by my old friend Michael Maleki. The second event we’ll be running is my favorite, the Dresden Files LARP. This will be the chronicle closer for our last four games and it’s entitled “Final Frost.” There might be some other Phoenix Outlaw surprises going on that weekend, so stay tuned…

GenCon– This is the big road trip, folks! I will be strapping into a vehicle for a nice long road trip out to Indianapolis, Indiana to play like a rockstar at GenCon 2013. Along with celebrating the good work done by folks in the industry, I’m waiting to hear back about possibly doing a couple of panels there, including one on representation of religion and religious ideas in game culture and another on mental health in game culture. More information will be coming up about these as they appear. Mostly I’m excited about the epic road trip that always precedes GenCon. This year I’ll be doing it with John Adamus, a writer and an editor trapped in a car for ten hours of driving. This should be fun!

PaxPrime– PaxEast a while back saw me, Iris Explosion, Stella Chu, Anja Keister and Susana Polo of the Mary Sue light up the stage with ‘You Game Like A Girl’ (which can now be seen in its entirety on YouTube sans the horrid trolling). It was such an intense experience but apparently a successful one, because we’re doing it again! This time we’re heading to Seattle for PaxPrime and I’m expecting it to be a heck of a trip. I’ve never been to Seattle so I’m looking forward to seeing the city, as well as kicking back at the convention to take in the atmosphere. Now I just have to figure out funding for this one too and we’re set.

WyrdCon – This is a huge one for me and team Phoenix Outlaw, folks. John Adamus and I will be flying out to Los Angeles for WyrdCon 2013 where we have bid to run a session of the Dresden Files LARP. I’m excited to be taking the Dresden LARP across the country for a whirl and look forward to seeing folks like Aaron Vanick of Seekers Unlimited, who I had the pleasure of meeting at InterCon this year in Massachusetts.

GeekGirlCon – It’s my pleasure to say that I’ve been invited to come out and participate in GeekGirlCon 2013. I’ve been a huge fan of this convention since I first heard of it and the great work they’re doing in creating a space for women to talk about women in geek culture. When they reached out to me after PaxEast, I was ecstatic and I’m working hard to gather up funding for a second trip to Seattle this year to make being at this convention a reality. Who knows what kind of women in game design shenanigans I can contribute? Stay tuned as to whether this will be happening!

Metatopia – You know that I wouldn’t miss this one for the world. For those that aren’t familiar with Metatopia, it’s a game designers convention held by the folks who do DexCon and Dreamation in Morristown NJ. I feel like every time I attend Metatopia, amazing things happen and I learn so much. I expect this year to be no exception! That’s way out in November, but generally Metatopia puts a cap on the convention season for me in the most positive way and I always look forward to it. I’m looking forward to potentially bidding the women in game design panel once more, and even a discussion on game scholarship and it’s relations to indie game design. This is another ‘stay tuned’.

But wouldn’t you know, that might not be the close of the con season for me. A document recently made the rounds by Klaus Raasted, a professional larper and designer from the Nordic LARP scene. It seems he wants to run a pro larp convention in November too, maybe the week after Metatopia. Heh, can we say another trip across the pond? Let’s see what happens, but I’d be down.

This schedule also doesn’t take into account conferences like Practice at NYU and other academic events. I’m also trying to put together the funds to attempt to get to Vancouver the first week in June for the Feminists in Games conference to present a paper on the evolution of the Tomb Raider franchise and theories on women’s discourse in game design. But wouldn’t you know, the West Coast is far away and I just need to learn to spontaneously teleport.

In all seriousness, I feel really blessed and happy that folks want me and mine to come out and do awesome events at their conferences and conventions. Being a part of the nerd community has been such a central part of my life for the last ten years or so, and being able to contribute to events has been fantastic. I’m looking forward to more such events (including a special one I’ll be announcing in it’s own post soon) in 2014 as well.

You Game Like A (Fat) Girl – Trolling and Haters Gonna Hate

by Shoshana, posted in Geek Culture, Geek Social Fallacies, Speaking Out

It took me a little while to write this. Why you ask? Because the topic tends to get my blood pressure up. So here goes.

PaxEast was by and large one of the best convention experiences of my life. I got a chance to get up in front of an audience of people and talk about one of my favorite topics of all time: gaming. I got a chance to look women in the eye and say “this is an industry for you and by you” and be supportive of others. I got a chance to talk about representation of women in games and voice my opinions.

It was also my opportunity to get trolled. Very hard.

The forms of trolling came as follows:

First, during the actual panel, we were being live streamed on Twitch.tv. The stream has a chat room associated with it that was live even before our panel’s cameras went hot. As we sat on stage, discussing what we would be saying, text messages began to fly to my phone. “Don’t open the chat!” they warned. “Don’t look at it.” Another told me that everything that is wrong about women’s treatment in geek culture was being spewed into that chat room. To this day, people have warned me not to look at that chat log. Why? Because we got nailed by every bit of filth spewing out of the internet. I’m going to spare everyone the trash because that’s what it was – trash. But there is one thing I’m going to comment on. And that’s how I got smacked around for my weight. So I’ll let folks who haven’t met me in on a little secret?

I’m fat. Heavy. Obese. Whatever you want to call it. I am a nearly six foot tall large woman.

Apparently that point, obvious to anyone with eyes and cognitive function, turned off the hearing receptors in some folks’ heads the minute I started talking at the panel. And suddenly the trolls thought it was amusing to find how many ways they could call me fat. Because engaging with the actual material of a discourse was too difficult perhaps? Who knows. Anyway, I got this told to me second hand because I was too busy, you know, being on a panel to pay attention. Later, I was told to shake it off.

Then someone passed me a YouTube video commenting on the panel. It’s from a woman who decided to spend thirty-four minutes bashing the hell out of our panel for everything from the content to the audio quality (which by the way is not something we have control over?). Now I don’t mind a spirited debate about panel format or content – several blogs commented on the content of our arguments and I’m cool with that. But it was the introduction she gave to each of us that made me sit up and take notice. See, this YouTube responder decided to make little sketches of us and, as opposed to using the internet to look up our names (printed in the PaxEast schedule on their website, given at the end of the panel on a slide or clearly said aloud at the beginning of the panel), decided to give us little nicknames instead. Here’s mine:

Screen Shot 2013-04-12 at 6.02.20 PM

Big. Yup, couldn’t even come up with a better one than a three letter word. No complicated grammar here. Just BIG.

What does one say to that?

Well, let’s start here with this:

YES. Congratulations. You have eyes. So, can we move on now?

The internet is known as a place where you need to have thick skin. The level to which people will put their hands on a keyboard and spew the most horrific, rude, ridiculous shit in the world amazes me. What also amazes me is the way people seem to believe that the instant a person who is fat goes out in front of a camera, or up on a stage, automatically the discourse is about their weight. As if there’s no way to restrain from spewing out the obvious as a way to shut them down. Like being fat invalidates who they are.

Hate to tell you, cats and kittens, being fat isn’t who I am. Nor is it what I stand for. It’s a part of my life and it’s my body. It’s a part of what I struggle with every day. But it’s not ALL of me. And it certainly doesn’t invalidate my work, my words, or my existence. And it certainly can’t be used as a way to shut me up or shut me down. Why? Because it doesn’t make me less of a person.

Say and feel what you will about obesity, but being fat does not mean I have an obligation to disappear. That’s the baggage of people pointing fingers and calling FAT the way someone would have called LEPER in a medieval town. That’s their insecurity, their easy way of spewing their angst at a target. Because hey, trolling is just something we accept, and how dare that fat person try to stand up and be something besides a fat person? How dare they have the confidence to be anything except embarrassed or ashamed of who they are? How dare they be a professional or a creative type or anything else besides miserable? How dare they be a person?

Well, hate to say it folks: I’m a person. I’m a fast talking, game designing, story writing, ass kicking female fat person. I write games and fiction, go to grad school, blog, love puppies, have friends and relationships and on weekends I go out and lead battles in which I kick the crap out of LARP zombies. I get up on stage and I speak my mind about the state of women in the game industry, female representation in games, live action games and their place in game discourse, and geek culture. And just because I’m fat does not mean I’ll sit back in a corner and hate myself because you want me to. Ain’t gonna happen. Just because you call me fat won’t ever make me stop. Because until you can bring up your discourse to something that includes disputing my points with an organized argument that can be respected above a fourth grade level? You got nothing on me or anyone else who has the courage to stand up and be counted as a creator, an innovator, a speaker, and a force for change. And that counts for calling someone any other pointless insult that you come up with, be it physical, racial, religious, gender based or sexual orientation bashing. You and your purposeless crap have no place in an actual conversation and until you realize that and step up your game to actual discussion levels? You’re just the sad representation of the worst the internet and this world has to offer.

Haters gonna hate. But they’re going to have to step up their hate to reach me. Or at least step to me with more than the word BIG.

Cuz really. There are thesauruses people.

In the weeks since PaxEast I debated whether or not to write about the trolling that occurred. I questioned whether or not the negative feedback I received deserved even an ounce of my recognition. After all, this is the internet and we are taught on a regular basis not to feed the trolls, not to read the comments, not to care about their responses. We’re taught to ignore, ignore, and keep on keeping on. This time, I won’t keep my mouth shut. Why do you ask? Because last night a friend of mine went on a YouTube interview and got trolled about his weight too. And I realized that this is just going to keep going on until people kick back and say “Hey, jerks? I get that you want a forum for your angst against the universe. But take it somewhere else. I’m busy with being a professional. Go be something besides a professional asshat.”

And since PaxEast, I’ve been busy being a professional – writing a book, organizing the company I run, planning large scale LARPs, interning, doing grad school classes, working on a video game, preparing for an awesome trip to Norway to Knutepunkt, talking about whether or not I want to do a PhD and spending time with loved ones. And that’s what I’ll keep on doing, despite the trolls. But I won’t be silent about them again. I won’t sit back and say ‘trolls will just be trolls’. Or ‘you just have to put up with them’. I’m forced to interact with them. But I don’t have to condone garbage behavior. And neither do you.

My First PaxEast and “You Game Like A Girl”

by Shoshana, posted in Convention Report, Game Design, Geek Culture, Speaking Out, Uncategorized

This past weekend, the Boston area hosted thousands of gamers rolling into their fair convention center for PaxEast, a major east coast gaming convention. Triple A companies to Indies in video games and tabletop brought their best to show to consumers and panels were held on every subject imaginable. This might have been enough to bring a gamer like me to the Boston area for the con, but I was lucky enough to be involved in one of the panels this year. And let me tell you, it was a heck of a time.

First let me start with saying that as a convention, I found PaxEast to be really enjoyable. The Expo Hall is chock full of video games to try from every company imaginable. I particularly enjoyed discovering a few new independent video games that I am looking forward to, like Red Barrel’s terrifying Outlast and Compulsion Games’ Contrast, both of which I wrote up for Tor.com this week. I also got the chance to get a look at Transistor from the creators of Bastion and I’m going to love putting my hands on it. The Indie Megabooth section was a chance to straight nerd out on great independent companies that are doing stellar work that, I dare say, is competitive with the quality coming out of the Triple A’s.

That, however, wasn’t even the best PART about the convention. PaxEast fostered an open gaming section where you could turn in your ID and take out whatever board game you wanted to try out. This section was open from 10AM until nearly two in the morning, letting gamers just get together with their friends for a good time. I had the privilege of spending most of that time with Rob Donoghue and Fred Hicks from Evil Hat productions, and we got to try a few amazing games that I never would have checked out otherwise (Cockroach Poker, anyone?) I could wax on about the convention, but let’s talk about the major event for me that weekend: the panel.

photoI was privileged enough to be invited by Anja Keister of the D20 Burlesque troupe to come in and speak as a game designer on a panel called “You Game Like A Girl: Tales of Trolls and White Knights.” The idea of the panel was to tackle the fraught issue of women in the gaming and geek community, spanning from the treatment of cosplayers to the representation of women in video games. We had a one hour slot on Sunday morning and the panel featured Susanna Polo from the Mary Sue, Stella Chu (professional cosplayer and burlesque dancer), Iris Explosion (burlesque dancer and sex educator), Anja Keister (founder of D20 Burlesque) and myself. For those who missed the panel you can find it on Twitch.tv here (hint: our panel starts at 3:05:00 – that’s hour three folks!) and check us out talking about the issues facing the female community.

From my perspective it was a surreal day. I got to the theater to see a line of people in the room next door. I asked what they were waiting for, and the Enforcer at the door said: “That’s the line for your theater. It’s already out the door.” I was positively floored. We got into Naga theater and set ourselves up on the stage and they let our audience in. And this? This was our audience.

The audience at "You Game Like A Girl"
The audience at “You Game Like A Girl”

I cannot explain how honored I felt to be in the presence of EIGHT HUNDRED of my fellow gamers who came to hear us talk about the topic of women in gaming. It was an incredible experience as people came up to the microphone and asked us questions or lit up Twitter on #Paxlikeagirl to express their support. A tradition was started too when Iris Explosion got so mad at misogyny issues that she launched a plastic cup off the stage, inspiring others who came up to the microphone to throw cups too. Soon we had the ‘we hate this!’ cup launching going on, which was hilarious and light fun.

The panel went off beautifully with only a modicum of trolling (which I’ll address in another post coming up soon), and the experience was overall super powerful and empowering. After the panel people came up to us to share stories and ask questions. I personally got to meet some women who are going into game design and who had questions about how to engage with problematic team situations or content. I’ve never quite been so humbled to have women ask if I’d be willing to mentor them going forward.

photo copyPeople brought up their badges and had us autograph them and asked us to autograph cups that had been thrown! It was a strangely surreal experience for me in general and we stuck around to talk to people as long as we could before we ran off to head back to New York.

From a game designers perspective, the kind of things  we spoke about were just the tip of the iceberg of issues I wanted to talk about. But you only have one hour sometimes! I was really glad to be able to bring up the way men have been spoken to in the ‘fake geek girl’ debate, about people raising children to be the next generation of gamer girls, and about pushing back in unhealthy/uncomfortable situations for women in game teams. There was only so much time and so much we each could have spoken about from our particular specialties, but I think it was a great start. And it will be just a start, because there’s plenty of other opportunities for conversation.

Meanwhile, back at home, there’s more game design though to be done. So I’m back into writing and doing work. PaxEast, was a pleasure, hope to see you next year.

Tap Into Your Inner Wolf (Or Whatever You Roleplay)

by Shoshana, posted in Random Aside, Uncategorized

I’m going to talk today about my hat. And stick with me folks, I’m going somewhere with this.

People have asked me why I wear the same black hat all the time. My fedora has a story. And I’m going to share it today. Stick with me, promise. It has a point.

For anyone who reads my work on here or is familiar with me in general? You know I’m an avid role-player. I’ve been gaming since I was in high school. I role-played Marvel Super Heroes online for ten years with the same community before I played D&D in college and then switched primarily to LARPing in White Wolf games in the NYU area. After that I picked up games like Dresden Files RPG and other FATE stuff as well as branching out into other RPG’s and haven’t looked back. I think I can conservatively say that one time in high school I was playing over forty characters. Sure, they were pretty crappy (I was a high school girl who learned everything from TV, books and comics – I was way way embarrassing) but they were creations of the inside of my head.

Some of them survived until today. Some have survived because they express great character ideas that I want to develop into things elsewhere perhaps (in writing for example). Some just survive in different incarnations because I enjoy playing them in different games. They give me a place to explore parts of my personality, to have a different persona to explore new environments and to stretch out parts of myself that I don’t get to touch very often. What I realized over the years is that those characters I’ve been playing have given me a voice into aspects of myself that I sometimes need to dig deep to find.

I’ll give you an example. There’s an old character of mine that I’ve reincarnated a bunch of times. And I swear this is going to become a ‘Let Me Tell You About My Character’ post – I ain’t that girl. But this character is every impulse-control problem, rough as hell, follow your heart and maybe not your head part of me. But what she also is is fearless. And when the anxiety creeps up on me and I’m having trouble finding my way out? I reach in and ask myself one question: WWTD (What Would Taj Do?). And then I filter out the murderous parts and find the fearless answer.

And y’know what? I get a big ol’ toothy grin and get to work.

In tough times it’s been a great boon to be able to reach into myself and say “I played a kickass female with no fear at all in the face of adversity” when faced with the fear of the every day life. As a technique, therapists are known to use roleplaying to allow a person a safe space to explore parts of themselves. I just had the mechanism to do that as a gift in my hobby and when I need it, I can unpack the tools I’ve learned from roleplaying to help me through the most difficult places.

Me playing Elizabeth Redstone Hall, Psionic Pureblood, in Dystopia Rising October 2011 - 24 hours before permanent character death.
Me playing Elizabeth Redstone Hall, Psionic Pureblood, in Dystopia Rising October 2011 – 24 hours before permanent character death.

And that’s where my hat comes in. I bought my hat as part of my costume for a character in the Dystopia Rising universe. My character was a rich little girl who ran away to start her life when I was just starting over with a new group of friends in the DR community. Her hat was bought when she just started feeling more… sure of herself in life. I wore it for one game and felt like a rock star in character that game. I came home then after the weekend to my weekly grind of retail work and it’s stress. I faced down going to work in the post-high of a great LARP weekend to face the regular world and it’s worries and I felt uninspired. How can you live in the skin of someone in the post-apocalypse for a weekend and then not find the daily grind a little duller, a little more grey?

On impulse, on my way out the door, I put on my hat that I wore as Elizabeth in game and wore it to work. And throughout the day, I found myself squaring my shoulders and realizing ‘if I could face down the physical challenges of the fake zombie apocalypse, then I could face this difficulty or anything else’. I found myself reminded of how lucky I was about my regular life with it’s conveniences and lack of murderous zombies. But more than that, I remembered that I have the power in me to channel the power I found in Elizabeth into my everyday.

That was two years back. I never stopped wearing the hat, even after the character permanently died in October of 2011. I’ve replaced the hat three times for destroying it repeatedly – and woe is me when the Hard Rock Cafe discontinues the damn thing. But I’ve found the power on days – like today – when I face fears of a great future that my hat has become almost a talisman for the ways in which I never imagined I could be stronger than I am.

Why am I sharing this? Just to say this really:

In your darkest places, may you find a talisman to show you the way to the strongest parts of yourself. No matter what it is.

Follow Up To Wind Tunnel Talking, And Much Thanks

by Shoshana, posted in Uncategorized

A week or so ago I put up a post about the ongoing battle to seek treatment with my bipolar symptoms. Well, today is kind of a follow-up post to that. First, I want to say it’s been a privilege to have had such amazing, positive feedback from people about that post. On Twitter, here on WordPress and on Facebook – as well as in person – people reached out to share their own stories with me about what they’re going through, either in small part or in detail. A few people even thanked me for saying what I said! I can’t help but be humbled by that kind of response. The nigh on terror I felt about posting up that much personal information and the vulnerability it required of me was rewarded brilliantly by people both professionally and personally so far, and I want to thank everyone who read and reached out. It’s been a bolster in a rough week.

And it has been a rough one. The last week has proven that my ups and downs don’t seem to be done fluctuating lately. I’ve been on the receiving end of some crazy mood swings lately, going all the way to manic and then back down again into depression. Mostly I’ve been skating upwards on mania that has had me nervous for the last week. But thanks to checking in with friends and keeping an eye on myself, I’m in a much less shaky place than I was before.

It also helps that I reached out to the medical facilities at NYU and spoke to some wonderful people. As of today, I’m officially attempting medication for my condition for the first time in years. The doctor I spoke to was wonderful, caring, and considerate of my concerns about side effects from medication. My concerns stemmed from the last time I tried medication, I was unable to concentrate on work while on the pills. I wasn’t overly emotional but I wasn’t exactly doing well either because I found I couldn’t write. I couldn’t reach the place where my creative inspiration came from. So it became a question of doing my work, the work that fulfilled me, or being ‘even’. We’ll see now what happens but it became clear that a change was necessary.

And I will say that, so far, it hasn’t impacted my relationships very badly. I had one instance of someone being unable to deal with my manic energy that felt rebuffing, but I realized I can also be overwhelming when I’m that way. It isn’t that person’s fault, I realized, and moved past it. With the changes I’m making, I hope I won’t always be that way.

I came across a song recently that reminded me of my life recently. It might be about alcohol use but the terminology Pink uses in her song ‘Sober’ is very similar to the ways I have felt while on a manic jag. Check it out:

From now, I’m looking for something a little more even than this. While still being able to feel emotions and work on my writing and be the person I want to be. I’m still groping in the dark to find the way to that place. But therapy once a week and medication and consultations with a reasonable doctor and good friends – all these things can bring me where I need to be. So I suppose I just want to add: thank you for reading this and sticking around. Let’s see what awesomeness I can create while getting my head on straight.

Get ‘Lost’: The Lost Anthology for Charity!

by Shoshana, posted in Writing Update, Writings

TheLostCover

 

“There are love stories in the underground. I’ll tell you one if you want.” – from ‘The Case of George the Curious’

With those words, we kick off my very first short story publication in the upcoming anthology called The Lost from Galileo Games. Set in the haunting world of Jeff Himmelman‘s indie RPG Kingdom of Nothing, The Lost is a set of stories about those adrift in the underground places of the world, set apart from mankind and forgotten. With the stunning cover designed by Jeff Himmelman himself, the anthology will benefit City Harvest, a charity doing good work to feed the transient and homeless population in New York. Others contributing to this great collection include my good friend CJ Malarsky, Peter Woodworth, Meg Jayanth, K.H. Vaughn, Stephen D. Rogers, Sarah Newton and more, all edited by the fantastic JR Blackwell and brought to you by Brennan Taylor.

The anthology is being funded over at IndieGoGo with all the details. You can check out the book trailer here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UGRVKoqKZkY

It has been a wonderful experience contributing to this collection. Way back in the day, I was a beta tester on Kingdom of Nothing when Jeff Himmelman was first developing the game and had the pleasure of watching the concept world and mechanics evolve into the touching and evocative game that KoN is today. More than anything, I was always impressed by the deference and respect Jeff designed KoN to convey to the plight of the homeless population. Never was there a question that the game would capitalize on the ‘drama’ of the story of a person who has lost much. The anthology continues that tradition of respect by giving back to those who need help the most.

It was with that respect in mind that I also wrote my story, ‘The Case of George the Curious’. I wanted to focus heavily on what it would be like to lose one’s self in the underground, having lost nearly everything to the Nothing that consumes the characters of this bleak world. Yet in the dark, there would be one last thing I didn’t want to see surrendered – and that was the chance at a love story. I will admit, I barely ever write love stories and this was a big challenge for me. I hope that people reading it will like it.

So come out to the IndieGoGo site and pledge some cash. You get an awesome anthology and for other pledges, you get some great games too from Galileo. So go ahead, and whatever you pledge, you’re contributing to a worthy cause. And if you get the chance, play Kingdom of Nothing. It’s a hell of a game.

Hope You Don’t Mind, Got A Little Misogyny On You There…

by Shoshana, posted in Geek Culture, Random Aside, Speaking Out

Note: I want to start this post by saying that this is by no means the only article out there, or the only opinion, about the culture of misogyny in the gaming/geek world. This is one post in hundreds of thousands, shouted from the rooftops and put out into the internet world for all to see. There are good people out there doing good work to counteract these horrible actions that have othered women in places across the internet and across the planet. And the talk about misogyny isn’t just one to be done within the gaming or geek world. But that’s the subculture in which I party, so that’s where I do my talking. With all that in mind, read on.

This past week I had a phone call from a friend, John, who talked to me about misogyny in the geek world. He sounded startled about stories he’d heard, things that had happened, issues that had come up in the geek and game design community. He sounded surprised that stories that might be considered sensational were true and happened to people he knew. I was, sadly, not surprised. I was weary when I said, “No John. That’s true. That happened to someone I know. It’s not an urban legend. That happened to a girl I know.” The worst one I didn’t mention was, “That kind of thing happened to me.”

See, John had a stellar last Sunday in which he got confronted with some craziness in the gaming world that happens to womenfolk. And he blogged extremely eloquently about it here. And then he asked me to boost the signal. So I am. And on top of that, I’m not just boosting. I’m adding my piece too.

The gaming world for a long time had a culture of silence. Nay, I’ll say, the geek world. Lots of different fandoms and geek corners of the globe had a cone of weirdness up when it came to talking about the way women were sometimes being treated. About boundaries that were being crossed from the ‘hey, people might be socially awkward’ into the downright criminal. You’d bring up the issue of something that happened to you, or to a friend, and you’d get a shrug and a ‘what can you do?’ Why? Because gamers and geeks and their ‘subculture’ are seen as laden with folks who don’t know boundaries, who have social issues, and the community is seen as a place where these are just a part of life. What comes with that is a place where people can be themselves in a welcoming atmosphere. What also comes with that is those that push the limits of social awkwardness into impropriety and downright disturbing activity.

And for a long time, it was a ‘what can you do?’ response. Because I believe people were afraid that if the community started policing its own for bad behavior, then the beautiful utopia where geeks could come together away from persecution or whatever it is that we’re supposed to be fleeing would dissolve. I hate to say this, folks, but this issue was tackled by a critical list called the Five Geek Social Fallacies that I love to look back on. And what are these fallacies that geeks often fall back on, in short?

  1. Ostracizers are Evil
  2. Friends Accept Me As I Am
  3. Friendship Before All
  4. Friendship Is Transitive
  5. Friends Do Everything Together

We’re going to focus on the first two as the dangerous ones in terms of bad behavior. Fandom theory (which I’m studying this semester, so bear with me) came in a few waves and the first age of fandom basically thought of “Fandom as Utopia”, where outcasts came together to gather and create utopias that their lives could not be like. This theory of fan culture creation and subculture creation was disproven after they were big in the 60’s and 70’s (think Star Trek era) because these societies created ARE NOT UTOPIAS. People within subcultures are still mean, or petty, or aggressive. They still break rules. They still harass. And this is where those fallacies come in and where the culture of silence, I believe, held reign for so long. And still kind of does. Because a lot of folks come to subcultures, and to gaming and geekdom, because of wanting to feel included, then they feel uncomfortable by the notion of ostracizing anyone. They believe that friends ought to accept them for whoever they are, however they are, unreservedly.

In a perfect world, that would be fine. In a world where people still harass, manipulate, bully, demean and molest? Nope. Utopia does not exist. Sad to say it, folks but true.

So when people threw up their hands in the past and said ‘what can you do?’ when stories would come up about girls harassed at conventions, about women who had to walk the ‘casting couch’ to get work as a game designer, or who put up with sexual harassment at work just for the sake of working on a  project, or were gas-lighted by menfolk they worked with when they spoke up, it wasn’t a case of ‘what can you do’? It’s a case of what aren’t you doing.

The last few years have given me hope. The internet has exploded with posts by brave wonderful people, both men and women, who are standing up and shouting that ‘we can do something’. That the geek fallacies are FALSE and that people who break the rules about treatment of the opposite gender, who sexually harass and use the geek community to do it will be called out and will be prosecuted. I use that term: prosecuted, not persecuted. This isn’t about persecuting and making witch hunts but prosecuting actual criminal behavior, or enforcing guidelines against socially unacceptable behavior in public and communal atmospheres. And it does not just have to do with women, as has often been pointed out to me: there is plenty of bad behavior from women, enacted upon men in the community, that goes unspoken about and ignored. But there are people speaking out.

There are also people standing up. When they see bad behavior being done, they are working to correct where they can. If a company chooses not to employ women and the issue comes up, as it has, about the lack of women in the gaming industry (such as during the conversation of #1reasonwhy), companies who stand for equality have stood to offer more work for women. They make known their beliefs through their actions to correct the situation by bringing what equilibrium they can, and to them I always say thank you. And there are those who stand up to act to create new spaces, such as the Different Games conference that is being organized, to give people who have been marginalized a place to represent. There are those who act in small ways, by offering support and care to those who have been on the receiving end of bad treatment. These are the folks you probably never see. They deserve credit. They stand up.

John’s post this week was full of outrage, and mine would be too – if I wasn’t so intimately familiar with the problem. I’m a woman, I’m a geek, I’ve been at this for years. So long I think that sometimes I run out of rage and instead fall into cynicism. But I’ve had opportunities instead lately to take that cynicism and turn it into action and turn it into a voice for support. And I’m going to keep doing that because that’s the way we combat fallacy, and combat those who believe they can hide their horrid and even criminal behavior behind a community I love.

To them I say, sorry, buddy or lady. It’s no longer ‘what can you do?’ or ‘well, y’know, it’s just that…’ It’s now ‘this is our community too, and you’ve got no place to hide from eyes that are attached to people empowered to act, and speak, and enact change. Your sandbox was never just yours. It’s all of ours. And we don’t want it to be a place of harassment and inequality and shame.

And hate to say it, but the new way’s here to stay.

Shouting Into Wind Tunnels (Or, Disclosures)

by Shoshana, posted in Random Aside

What is the hardest thing to do, in your opinion? Think about it for a second. Be really really serious. What do you find hardest?

Now imagine doing it in public for people.

That’s about what I’m going to try to do here. So you’ll forgive me if it comes off a little odd.

I’m going to talk about being sick. And not just physically ill sometimes. I’m going to cover my eyes (I can type with my eyes closed) and talk about having a mental illness. For those not interested or for those for whom a discussion like this is uncomfortable, go forth good sir or madam elsewhere. I’m going to talk about this for a reason, so… there ya go.

I’ve lived with bipolar disorder since I was diagnosed when I was sixteen years old. I’m guessing that I had this for a very long time before that but I couldn’t tell you. How do you know whether you were wacky back in your early teens because you were a hormonal git or because your brain chemistry was doing the Macarena? Who knows and who cares. The point is, when I was sixteen, a doctor told me that all the weirdness going on with my moods, some of the weird things that I did that people told me were just ‘bad’ or ‘weird’ was because there was a part of my brain chemistry that got put in sideways. Then he gave me a bunch of medication and didn’t really explain a hell of a lot more. It took me years to fully get what bipolar disorder was, that I was technically diagnosed with bipolar type II (which is a ‘lesser’ type for an uncomplicated explanation), and that I was one of the unlucky ladies out there who responds BADLY to lots of medications one would put you on for bipolar disorder. I did a merry dance for years on medicine which led me to some amazingly funny, horrible, scary and weird reactions.

But what it really lead me to in the end was trying to live without medication. And I’ve done that since I was about twenty two. That’s eight years now I’ve been without medicine at all, except for a brief period two years ago where for three months I roller-coastered all over with my friends looking on in worry. At least those who knew what was going on. The others just thought I was having a ‘hard time’.

See I’m one of those people who grew up in a place where you don’t talk about mental issues. Where people said you were just ‘bad’ or ‘acting out’, where you were told to just ‘get up and get over it’ or ‘try harder’ if you were depressed. And if I was manic, well, I was just really happy or had to much sugar or should just ‘calm down’. And if I acted out under a manic episode, well, I was bad. See where this goes, huh? Does not lead to good things. It leads to a lot of shame, denial, and coping on my part. It leads to a lifelong interest in keeping my symptoms so tightly under control that no one would know what was going on, even the closest people in my life. So years of repression and bottled up tension later, I’m pretty type A and have built a hell of a network of coping mechanisms. To quote a doctor I saw today, “you handle all this rather remarkably.” That was meant as a compliment, I think, and I took it that way. I’ve worked hard to keep myself in check for years because otherwise… well, what do you do? Go nuts? Do the wacky things that my brain sometimes wants me to do or say? I’ve worked hard to build my life as stable as I can and I fight hard every day to keep it that way.

I’ve done that mostly quietly. I haven’t spoken about things. Remember that culture of quiet? That’s where I come from. But I realized lately that what that has accomplished is making me isolated when I’m having trouble. And professionally, that can be deadly.

I’m a freelance writer and a graduate student. I’m a game designer. I’m a blogger. I’m a speaker at conventions. I’m busy.

I’m also bipolar. And have anxiety attacks. And I do it mostly where people can’t see.

Sometimes that means that I have to step aside and not be around people. Or sometimes that means that my deadlines slide around a little bit because I spent a few days digging myself out of a low that had me locked in place. Sometimes that means I’m so manic that I accept projects that I maybe shouldn’t on deadlines I maybe shouldn’t.

It’s the last one that made me finally sit up and take notice that I needed to seek out help. Why? Because I’m a professional. I want my reputation to be one of good work, timeliness and reliability. I don’t want to be ‘that person who blew that deadline because she took on too much work’. I respect the opportunities given to me too much to let that happen. And in my life I’m trying to balance a lot. Maybe, some would say, too much. I don’t know. I’m hoping that isn’t the case.

I know that there is a lot I want to do. And I take on a lot because my tabletop and LARP writing is equally as important to me as my work at the NYU Game Center. I would not put aside any opportunity to write because it’s what lights me up every day. And so far, I’ve managed to meet deadlines and produce good work through a judicious use of caffeine, time management and sheer goddamn stubbornness.

This week I met my limit, I believe. And fell over the side.

This is the part that’s hard to write. I had a manic episode as school. It was what I like to call a ‘Red Line’ episode, where my blood pressure was going so high I could hear my blood racing in my ears. My heart was pounding and I couldn’t stop talking. To the people around me, I’m sure they couldn’t tell anything. I asked a friend who was working with me afterward whether they could tell, and he said that he couldn’t. “You’re very good at hiding” he said. And I am. That doesn’t mean I wasn’t scared to pieces. Afterwards, I knew a crash was coming and it was going to be huge. I thankfully reached out to a friend, who talked to me for two hours while I shook and cried and tried to stop my brain from going to dark places.

Two days later, I walked into the NYU health center and requested referrals for therapy and a medical consultation. It’s time I recognize limits and start to make more boundaries for myself. It’s time that I realize that if I want to be a good writer, a good team player, even a good organizer and speaker and leader, it’s by recognizing limits and boundaries. It’s time I recognize how my illness is not something to be fought with or overcome but as something to be worked with and understood better. For years I’ve been fighting my brain – now it’s time that me and my brain strike an accord to work together. And that starts with this, with talking, with admitting.

I was afraid to write this post because I was afraid people would stop working with me on projects. They wouldn’t want a writer who is bipolar for fear that I’ll flake. I was afraid to admit what’s going on because I was afraid people would call it a plea for attention, or an excuse for behavior. It’s neither of these. In fact, I’m writing this with the full notion that it’s long and people’s attention spans are short (if you’re still with me, thanks for sticking around!) If nobody reads this, that’s okay too. But I’m here, talking into the wind tunnel that is the internet and hoping that somewhere, this hits a distant shore that understands: I’m a writer just trying to create some great things while living inside a tornado that is my brain. Sometimes that tornado tries to lift me up. Sometimes, it slams me into the ground face first.

But being me, I’m gonna get right back up and go back to writing some crazy shit. Maybe about vampires, or ancient fae civilizations. Or robots on Roman spaceships (seriously, that’s a thing I’m doing).

And I’m going to do that now with help. With a doctor who I can talk to. Maybe even with medicine, provided it doesn’t mess me up. With coping mechanisms that work and hopefully support that I can reach out to.

And what does that mean for my work? Absolutely nothing in my eyes. I’m going to be careful about how much I take on and try to gage a little more fairly how much time I have. I’m going to be fair to myself and try to enjoy my life instead of running at a crazy pace because my manic little brain says ‘hey you can do everything and anything ever and always, yay!’ But I’m still going to be the writer who wants to write awesome things for great companies, and even wants to get her own off the ground. I’m going to be the girl who is slamming through five classes in NYU this semester while trying to convince folk that LARP is awesome.

I’m still me. But this is honest me. And maybe even a little scared me. Shouting into the wind tunnel that is the internet, hoping not to get smacked in the face by it.

So here’s to wind tunnels. Thanks for listening.

Convention Schedule and Putting Out The Call

by Shoshana, posted in Convention Report, Game Design

On the heels of my last post about being super busy comes news of some awesomeness soon to come. I’ve been graced with the chance to attend several conventions in the next six months to either run games or contribute on panels. And good news, some of that involves needing some help from awesome game designers and LARPers and women in the game world — hey, I might mean you! So check it out:

Dreamation 2013 –

That’s right folks! The Double Exposure convention season for 2013 has begun and Dreamation 2013 is only a few weeks away. I will be hosting my third Dresden Files LARP at the con entitled “Dog Days”. It’s a sequel of the previous two games and will focus on the aftermath of the craziness from last time. Queen Mab mad at you? Rogue Denarians afoot? New York’s supernatural community has to come together, and the wereforms in town are trying to do just that. Too bad someone’s got other plans of course…

On top of that, I’ll also be hosting two panels at the convention. And this is the part where I’d love to hear from folks!

The first panel will be a LARP Roundtable, where we bring together LARP staffers and organizers from around the area to talk about the challenges and rewards of running their games. Whether you do theater style games or boffer, long term campaigns or experimental, nordic or American, you’ve got a seat at the table. Let’s come together and share techniques and learn from each other. If folks are interested, please hit me up on Twitter or my email – I can’t guarantee everyone will be a speaker, but I’d love to hear from you.

The second panel is on a topic near and dear to my heart – Women in Gaming. I’ve spoken with the wonderful Avonelle Wing of the Double Exposure staff and we’d love this to follow up the panels at both DexCon last year and at Metatopia in continuing to unpack the issues of women in gaming and in game design. So if you’re a game designer interested in sitting on the panel with me to talk about the state of women in the gaming world, let’s talk! As above, can’t guarantee everyone can be a speaker but get in touch so we can start a dialogue about it.

Intercon 2013-

Following on the heels of that will be Intercon 2013 up in Boston. I’m super excited to be attending my first Intercon in years, and my first of the Boston conventions. I’m pleased to say I’ll be attending the Pre-Convention on Thursday to be a guest on several panels, including Sexuality in LARP, Gender and LARP, How to Run a Game Briefing/Wrap and What Boffer LARP can Teach Intercon. There are some amazing folks from all corners of the LARP world coming to the con to run games, but the panel track is just as interesting so come by Thursday and Friday to hear some smart folk speak. Oh yeah, and I’ll be there too!

IndieCade East-

This is a brand new convention for me too! I’ll be joining my NYU Game Center brethren to explore the game design landscape of the New York area in IndieCade east. Moreover, I’m going to be on Team NYU in the Iron Game Design Challenge where the NYU Game Center is taking on Parsons! Lead by our glorious leader, Eric Zimmerman, I am sure we will go on to victory!

Pax East-

That’s right folks, another East Con and this time it’s Pax! This one is another first for me as I’m attending PaxEast as a panelist! I will be sitting a panel on the dreaded Fake Geek Girls dilemma alongside such awesome women as Anja Keister, Stella Chu and Iris Explosion of D20 Burlesque. It’s my pleasure to be in such illustrious company and I’m looking forward to the discussions we’re going to have.

And coming soon: GenCon 2013!

That’s right, the plans are already in the works for attending GenCon 2013. I’ll be wending my way out to GenCon and hope to work alongside the always fantastic John Stavropolis to run some games for Games on Demand. I also have plans to do full play tests of my game Wanderlust there, as well as at…

DexCon 2013!

Looking forward to this summer, I’m already planning my next Dresden LARP which will be the finale of the cycle of games and bring the chronicle to a close. I’ll also be bringing more play tests of Wanderlust along, hoping to culminate in having the game ready for Metatopia in November.

So that’s my schedule. I’m already exhausted just thinking about it. Plus I’ve got plans for New York Comic Con and San Diego Comic Con in there, and maybe running something at Recess in NYC. So this year is going to be a lot of running around. But why not? When you’ve got a chance to go great places and game, why not take it? As updates happen, I’ll give more of them. In the meantime, I gotta remember to pack my dice and get ready for a LONG season.

Gah, all of the words! (A New Semester Update)

by Shoshana, posted in Game Design, Writings

So recently I learned an important thing about myself: I am the kind of person who likes to talk but hates to write about herself. Check out how infrequently I post here and you’ll see exactly how much I hate it. I keep writing posts that say ‘soon I will update you on all the good things’ which… I don’t do. Why? Because I’m out doing the good things and don’t like talking about it. But a friend suggested that being more front-facing about my process of work wouldn’t be bad, so here goes.

I’m back in the saddle after winter break in between my first and second semesters of grad school and the NYU Game Center looks exactly the same as when I left it. In between I spent holidays with friends, went to San Diego with family, came home to run an overarch weekend at Dystopia Rising (and there will be another post to cover that experience, I promise!) and then went on to Orlando. Day one back reminded me that no matter how much vacation you have, once you’re back in the saddle it’s like you never went away.

My classes for this semester stand as one in human-computer interface, one in collective narrative, an upper-level game design and an upper level studio class and (wait for it), a class on Fandoms. I know! I get to study why people become fans and how they go about fanning (is that a thing that doesn’t involve, y’know, actual things to blow air on your face with?) and the culture of fandoms as they are. I’m fascinated by everything I’m taking classes in, and excited as heck to dive right in.

Speaking of things I’m diving into, this is going to also be the year of ALL OF THE THINGS. I’ve got a writing update post in me for things I’m working on plus coverage on the conventions that I’ll be attending. Because I, good readers, will be going to a bunch of conventions this season and doing a LOT of talking about how awesome games are and especially how awesome women in games are.

So here’s to the new year, and I leave you with a quote that I tossed up on Twitter a little while ago. I woke up from a nap and had a killer idea to make this novel concept I had even better. Except, of course, I’m in middle of a few other projects. So instead of putting it away, I wrote it down. The quote I came up with is: “A good writer doesn’t turn down a good idea, but instead says, ‘you wait your turn’.”

Happy February folks! It’s going to be a busy one.