Sidenote.

I don't blame anyone who wants to keep discussions of rape off their gaming blog. It's a serious subject, and one that's off-topic even when it involves people who are involved in gaming.

I especially don't blame anyone who says things like "This is a matter best left up to the courts." or "If there is any merit to the charges the police will obviously step in." for keeping discussions about rape off their gaming blogs.

Because people who say things like this frankly aren't educated enough on the subject to be leading a discussion about it.

Monday

News For Today

I don't have anything to say about the events of this past weekend at this time, or hopefully ever. I would have been happy to have said my piece in the first place and then never had to say another word about it again, though I would have been happier if there hadn't been anything to say.

Jack and I would like to get on with our lives, and I think we'd both like to see her get on with hers. That might be difficult for her with the accusation out there, especially if she doesn't quite believe that Jack isn't planning on pressing charges and that I'm not going to hound her to the ends of the internet and back and that we're not just out to ruin everything she does, and I'm sorry for that, but all I can say is: imagine how he feels.

I'm not proposing a deal here, because a deal implies that my actions were designed to get something from someone, and a deal also implies that the other party can be trusted to uphold it, and finally because I will ultimately uphold and support Jack in his decisions, but I can say that if she's worried about what we'll do next the best thing she can do is leave us alone. We didn't set out to cancel her game, and we couldn't have made her do so in any case. This was about warning people, and making it a little harder for her to use the mask of feminism to get people to trust her.

I say this to the people who are now watching my blog because they think we set out to ruin her game: before she decided to tweet about how "Feminism isn't a gimmick, it's my life.", Jack was actually retweeting her Kickstarter link for her. Seem strange under the circumstances I've described? Well, we had spent the better part of the past year telling her (well, I told Jack and Jack told her, I don't think she ever thought much of my opinion) she should be pulling her game ideas together and securing crowdfunding. You can't spend that much time trying to see the best in someone and wishing them well and then stop doing that all of a sudden.

And to the same people... especially if they're just tuning in: if you think Jack taking exception to her adoption of a feminist stance in public makes us the same as the trolls on RPG.net who were just pissed off on general pigheaded principle at a feminist or woman-centric game daring to exist, read back on my blog a bit.

Well, look at that, I did have something to say. To everybody who wasn't following the events from last Friday onward and who is mystified by all that... well, the post is there. But I'd much rather be moving forward than backward.

Moving on.

The news for today is... news. Letter.

I already realized a while back that my situation and my life change too fast for a monthly newsletter to make sense. But since then, I still haven't really managed to get one out. And the reason for that is that I'm still trying to put out something that I started writing back in May. Even by a week later, I wasn't really in the same place or headspace as when I started that.

So while some of the story excerpts are going to be the same, I'm scrapping the body of the newsletter and starting it again. It will go out this week. Those people who paid for a year's worth of newsletters? A year you shall have, starting from the day it goes out. It shall hopefully include a good deal's more than twelve of them. Keeping up the newsletter seems like a good way for me to avoid the vicious cycle of withdrawal and avoidance that I fall into when things like this (that's a pretty broad "like this", in this case) happens.

It's a shame that I've fallen behind on this because I came out of WisCon so excited about the newsletter. One of my awesome repeat co-panelists, Monica Valentinelli, is a bit of a marketing wonk, and her analysis was that newsletters are actually where it's at right now.

State of the Me:

It's complicated.

Dreams From Last Night:

...implying I've slept long enough to dream in the past 48 hours?

Plans For Today:

Right now I'm making sure that everyone who's paid for an annual subscription or added a sponsorship is actually on the newsletter mailing list, so those of you who've been waiting patiently to see some sign that you didn't send your money off into the dark should be getting confirmation emails by-and-by.

Then I'm going to take a survey of my life and figure out: what the hell do I even put in a newsletter right now? Well, looking forward is better than backward.

And I'm going to work on the Tales of MU chapter for Tuesday, at least on a "headspace" level, possibly actually writing more of it.

La la, how the life goes on.