Digitally Incorrect My Little Corner of the Internets.

As I’ve stated quite a few times before, I’m not sure I consider myself a writer, an aspiring one perhaps, but not a real one.  My grammar is horrible, my vocabulary is fairly limited.  I have a lot of mannerisms and language quirks that I think come out in my writing.  Words that don’t actually exist make it into my writing a lot.  Technically, I probably make everyone cringe.  I had a discussion with a friend of mine that considers herself a linguist.  Now, the words of friends are never to be trusted, they’re always more kind or subtle than the situation calls for, but we got into an interesting discussion about the history and purpose of language.

To her the beauty of language isn’t academic language, but the use of language, communicating ideas.  I really like that thought, in a lot of ways that’s what I’ve always tried to do.  That all words originate as ‘made-up’ and academic language is just a standard and consensus about the language as a whole, used to rate works, and to form cohesion.  You can look at most important or major works of any time, even modern times and find where they’ve broken standard rules a dozen times.  Everybody has their own flavour, their own nuances, their own style.

As cheesy as that is, it’s very appropriate.  It’s not something I think about very often, not to say it’s changed my opinion on me as a writer, but it helps give me more hope.  They recently added  Finding Forrester to Netflix, and in it they bring it up as well, talking about using “And” and “But” at the start of a sentence.  I do better with static things, or things that are very clearly defined.  Science, math, games.  Things that are open to interpretation, or comma usage for example, are just out of my league.

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Remembering Our Roots.

I certainly feel sometimes that one thing a lot of gaming today fails to do is to go back and analyse what came before.  Figure out why things did poorly, or just to re-examine what made the early, simple games so compelling.  Why did early arcades explode so dramatically that Ronald Reagan felt he had to make a public speech about them?  Especially when graphics were crude, the reason was the compelling aspects of game-play still existed.  I’m certain some people do, and certainly Extra Credits does, but it’s not something I hear much about outside that.

It’s also interesting to just learn about the history of such a young medium, to see it through eyes that can really understand and grasp it.    I can read about the history of movies, but I can’t imagine what that transition was like.  I can try but I always feel like I utterly fail.  But I can read interesting facts about say Breakout, the first colour game for the Atari, was actually created by Steve Jobs.  And that a lot of the Atari’s hardware went into the Apple PC that he made shortly after.  That’s interesting, graspable.

Learning about the struggles of early developers in the titan fisted days of Atari and Nintendo, that’s interesting.  The emergence of story, from Invaders to Defender.  Gaming is the medium that cut it’s teeth while I was.   Perhaps that’s one reason I feel such a connection and passion for it, I’m not sure.  We grew up together, and we get smarter, better, every day.

I think anybody who’s put a serious amount of time into the Mass Effect series has a story.  A connection they’ve made with the game, perhaps they feel silly for it, I know I do, that I could get swept away enough by the characters to legitimately care for them, something very very few games have ever done to date with me.  I can identify for them, I can care about their fates, but in the end it’s easy for me to throw that away and just try things with them.

Not with Mass Effect, and not with Liara T’soni.

Mass Effect 2 Spoilers Incoming.  If you’re worried about them, please just stop reading the article here.

Anyway, with that warning out of the picture I feel feel to talk!  Muahahahah!  In Mass Effect 1, Liara was my lover, she was a little shy, but took interest in me.  My almost perfectly balanced renegade/paragon Shepard through just sheer luck, had gotten on her radar.  It’s hinted at that her interest is simply due to the Prothean mess in your head, but it involves into more as she sees your strength of character, your will.  Not your combat expertise, or your ability to command, but just who you are.  She also touches you in ways that haunt my deepest still, the mind, deep inside each other you not only share bodys, feelings, but thoughts, memories all blend into one.  Putting myself in that position, is beautiful, imagining it, letting myself get lost in it like a really good story, is an extremely good experience.

She was sweet, caring, optimistic and had faith in my character.  Something that on hard difficulty, I wasn’t too sure of myself.  It was special, as odd as that sounds, and I wanted to make sure I could do anything I could for her, reworking my squads to make sure she fit in, and making sure she got choice equipment, even over my Shepard.  When I realized I’d given her my C-sec guns, I realized how far into the story I’d fallen, and remedied that, but she still got the better armour, I still didn’t want her to die afterall.

I of course knew it was still a game, she wasn’t real, but the idea of her still evoked feelings in me, and I felt stupid and wrong for it.  The last time I had gotten so emotionally invested in a character was from a book called Feed by T.J. Anderson, but there was one key difference, -I- had a lot more say in what happened here.  She had touched part of me that’s hard to hit, and I was going to make sure that through the series I would protect her.

Then I picked up Mass Effect 2, the second I got the Normandy, I gasped at how Liara’s picture was in my cabin, and I kind of mini-vowed to get her first.  The illusive man had said she wasn’t trustworthy, but it was Liara, and I headed straight there, abandoning the mission I was supposed to be doing.

Imagine my surprise when the Liara I knew was threatening people with quotes from Benezia, she was cold, distant, and just seemed to want to use me to gather more information.  I felt hurt and betrayed, but mostly  I felt guilty, the game had made me dead for 2 years, and during that time, I wasn’t able to protect Liara, or her heart from the dangers and pains of the galaxy, I’d let her down, and it would take a lot of work to make it right.  This time my character had used her second chance to go full paragon, I had debated trying to balance but learned how too much of the game kicked back on that.   Too much required one or the other, and I was a little sad at that, but my Shepard growing into a more noble person had seemed appropriate.  I had seen what ‘getting the job done’ had done to Garrus as a character in ME1 at times making him inhospitably cold, I would later see how far that rabbit hole went when I ran into Garrus in Mass Effect 2.

So I did her information getting, and Liara broke from her shell for a moment, but vengeance, hate, and pain filled her heart, and I wasn’t strong enough to fix it.  Then Bioware released the Lair of the Shadow Broker DLC.

I bought it as soon as my limited funding would let me.  It’d give me more time with Liara, let me help her more, I had no idea what the DLC held in store for me other than helping her finish her mission, but I hoped it would let me make amends for well, dying.  It wasn’t my fault, but, it still hurt her, hurt who she was, and dragged her into a world that in my opinion, she didn’t belong in.  It was writing at it’s best, and I truly felt like I wanted this character to succeed and to be with my character.

I got a kiss, and broke through more of her armor, in the end after all the pain, she cried, I had been afraid she’d fallen for the person we were saving.  Both let me know that wasn’t true, she was taken, and I felt touched.  She gave me my old dog tags, and I promised jokingly blue children.  A bit of a moral clash for me since I don’t want children, but this was also Shepard, who was a far better person than I am, it was her story and her love, and dammit, she can have blue babies.

Liara takes up the Shadow Broker mantle, and I would occasionally visit there as I earned the Loyalty of my crew, hoping for new dialogue options that didn’t come.  I made sure to survive the suicide mission, and had to give a lot of credit to Bioware because I went back through and going full renegade I found I still couldn’t help but help Liara both in Mass Effect 1 and 2.  I didn’t want to.  She was still a video game character, but one I actually cared about as a character.

That connection, the fact I could so easily identify myself and my Shepard, and that the characters could get me to invest in them, is why replaying the Mass Effect series is a good source of inspiration for me.  It’s not perfect, but it’s good.   I still had to boycott ME3 on principle, but I think during  a steam sale I’ll pick it up, if only to finish this story I started, not the reapers, but I’ve heard Liara is part of your team in ME3 and you can continue the romance, that’s enough to hook me in.

My Shepard and my Liara will have a happily ever after darnit.  Even if it takes a while.

One of the games I feel has really influenced my love of the genre is, of course, the critically acclaimed Mass Effect series.  It’s more adult tones, extremely good (for a video game) writing and plots, and the sense of weight and importance in each decision.  It feels like you’re really affecting the character and her world.  That the relationships are well developed and real.  That the characters, even though many are aliens, are more human than most.  It’s the weight of the narrative and the player’s role in it that really define the strength of the Mass Effect series.  What I hope to do today is to kind of point out some of it’s strengths, and weaknesses, and we’ll follow up with the second Q&A which I’m dubbing “Romantic Questions.”

Mass Effect

Mass Effect’s character creation is pretty unique in that you’re making a static character that is not yourself, but in that it can be very unique and identifiable to you.  I’m not sure how many other games -have- done a similar character creation, one that does give you some pretty strong character customization, but the main thing is, you’re restricted on the name people will call you.  This has two major benefits for the dev team, one:  all recorded dialogue can actually call you by name, and two:  inconsistencies with things you’d want to do you can write off as not being part of -Shepard’s- character.  It’s a great way to let you express yourself, but when you can’t do it fully, there’s a perfectly logical excuse.  The dialogue can be more personal, and most of all, it becomes an odd hybrid of your story and someone else’s.  It’s ‘your Shepard’s’ story.

This also has an interesting affect on me when watching Let’s Plays of Mass Effect.  Before playing the game (as I tend to get games after their price has dropped and after pretty thoroughly researching their worth to me personally.)  I found it very interesting and fun to watch, after playing the game, they feel wrong.  That is not my Shepard.  It’s a stranger, who makes different choices, who is with different people, and what was she thinking with that hair?  In the end I can’t identify with other Shepard’s any more.

Mak-ohhh that’s bad.

Now for something bad, and we won’t beat around the bush, we’ll hop straight into one of the weakest parts of the game.  The Mako and it’s controls.  What were they thinking?  The weigh this vehicle handles is an atrocity.  The handling is awkward at best, the jumpjets are painful, the vehicle has a bad habit of glitching onto random objects.  It’s ability to climb sheer cliff faces seems to be decided by quantum mechanics heretofore unknown to man.  For the most part it’s standable but occasionally you have very ‘what?’ moments’  And the games use of invisible walls in certain areas to make sure the bouncy, awkward Mako can’t get past them is pretty deplorable.  Add in the awkward shooting if you’re a the wrong angle/on the wrong terrain and you get a headache waiting to happen.

The Cast.

Certainly one of the strengths of Mass Effect is it’s main cast.  Each are very developed, their responses are very human, sometimes confusing and irrational but not without reason.  Characters also have weaknesses and biases that show in their contributions to missions, to choices, to their input.  They also change and grow throughout the series.  Wrex’s change is pretty drastic, particularly if you manage to save him.

While those outside of the main story are a little under developed they at least usually have very realistic reactions/motivations.   The scene with the slave at the citadel and trying to talk her out of taking her own life rang a little to close to home, having done that a few times in the physical realm.  It still sends chills down my spine and that is certainly a testament to the writing and immersion in the game.

Paragade.

I’ve ranted on the moral system (Paragon and Renegade) in quite a few posts before so I won’t go too in depth with it here, but essentially I consider it one of the flaws of the games, giving stat weight to your moral compass, and assigning black and white morality points to decisions is very painful and awkward at best.  Having consequences for your action is a good thing, and they do, but making me choose whether I can get full points in charm because I want to go against the council bothers me.  Or whether I help the pregnant lady decide whether to go for gene therapy or natural birth having a morality weight to me makes my eyes cross.

Q&A 2:  Romance.

I’ve gotten a few questions on the topic of my ideas, feelings, and experiences with relationships, my romantic life, and while I’m not exactly sure why anybody would want to know that, I’m willing to explain at least some of it but privacy is privacy and I am not going to give names here.

What is your sexual orientation?
Glargarble, that is a tough question, mostly because my gender is a tough part of the equation.  To put it simply I really prefer girls.  I personally like to think of myself as Lesbian, or perhaps bi-sexual heavily leaning to Lesbian, but where I really fall on the gender scale is hard to place.  I find guys sexually attractive, and they occasionally enter fantasies, but I don’t know that I could ever be with one.  Especially with my history.

You’ve mentioned D/s and hypnosis before, explain woman!
I’m a hypnosis/mind control fetishist.  D/s stands for Dominant/submissive and is used to describe the sort of relationships I practice.  Using hypnotic conditioning and set rules one person takes charge fo the relationship the other one is of course the submissive.  I’ve been on both sides of the fence and would prefer to not say which side I am on currently.  In the end though I really like the dynamic and it makes decision making easy.  There is a lot of trust needed though, and every lifestyle has it’s ups and downs. This isn’t to be confused with BDSM though, I don’t really care for bondage, and pain makes me feel icky, even light pain.  Though in the dynamics of the relationship both are very similar.  Hopefully that clears things up a bit.

Have you ever been with a guy?
Sexually or romantically?  Either way I guess the answer is yes, though the former only non-consentually.  I’ve tried relationships with guys and really did -try-.  One guy I dated I really thought I could give myself to him, he really enjoyed superman, I still have a superman plushy from the relationship, and I still occasionally sleep with it even though the relationship did bust, it’s a good memory and I still consider them a good friend.

How does sex work with you being trans?
It’s complicated and awkward, and my mood and who I’m with affects the decisions, a lot.  Needless to say I’m just going to leave it at ‘it’s complicated.’

What kind of person do you like?
Generally they have to accept who and what I am, and usually anybody that can do that marks off most of the other check marks on my list.  They have to be open to the D/s relationship dynamic I need for a fulfilling relationship, and of course enjoy gaming or at least be very understanding of my passion for gaming.  Needless to say those people are rare diamonds in the rough that I try to cling to very tightly.

What’s so important about the D/s dynamic?
Well one I need it to really sexually enjoy the relationship, and I do think getting satisfied sexually is important in a relationship (particularly since I’m a diagnosed hypersexual.)  There’s also a deep meaning there, there’s a lot of trust and responsibility placed in both people, giving your freedom to another person is a beautiful and fragile gift that shows how deeply you care about the person, and it takes a very special person to earn that kind of trust and love.

What’s a hypersexual?
Think of it like a nymphomaniac, somebody who is addicted to sexual pleasure/release.  It’s not pleasant.  Though it sure sounds it.

I think that’s all I have time for now.  Remember if you have questions/comments/anything send a note to:

digitalincorrectness at live dot com
or contact me at my twitter at:   https://twitter.com/#!/IncorrectDigit
or facebook me at:  http://www.facebook.com/IncorrectDigit

See ya later gamers.

To those that know me, and even those that don’t really know me, you might have noticed my absence.  From the blog, from the youtubes, even from the messengers.  I’d fallen into a bit of a depression, and my muses had abandoned me.  I’d write something or make something and all I could think was it was garbage, primarily because to me, I was garbage.  It’s no secret I’ve got more than some self-esteem issues, and I usually chug forward under the banner that I’m unique.  But I let some people down, I was hurt by others, I kind of shut down, and all that emotion converted and melded to form anger at myself and pretty severe depression.

This isn’t me asking for sympathy, but definitely forgiveness.  Pouring my heart into posts and games is what I do, it’s probably one of my few strength since obviously my writing’s technical strength is….90 pound weakling at best.  When my heart is damaged and hurting my writing would reflect it, anything I make would reflect it.  I wear my heart on a sleeve.  At the same time it wasn’t fair of me to poof for so long without word, I was still here and obviously responding to any requests (We even have an episode of Press B coming out soon as soon as I can get the time and energy to edit it.)

Life at home has also been a little rough and distracting and that’s all I’ll say on that matter.  In the end though, I needed motivation and strength and I went to the place where I draw that best;  gaming and my friends.  I started with gaming because it never lets me down, I went as far as back as the coin operated machines, I played galaga and pac-man and black panther.  I played older games like Zork, adventure, up to the NES battletoads, blaster master, sonic 1-3, super mario world, and I finished with mass effect and sat through and played all of mass effect 1, I finished it tonight, just a little bit ago.  I played magic and tribes ascend and other games with friends.  I even did extra gamse of Words with Friends and Scramble with friends with my family.  (Wow that is a confusing statement.)

I’ve gotten my game on, and I’m still feeling down and shakey, but  I’m ready to stand up again.  Expect more posts throughout the week, perhaps even about some of these older titles, or Mass Effect.

So to sum it up, I’m sorry I disappeared, there are the reasons why, vague but accurate.   And I have gotten my game on, and now I’m back, unsteady, but here.

How do you all cope with depression and anger?

Be safe gamers, and remember to avoid the darkness, that’s where the grue lives afterall.  Respect the grue.

SINCE THIS POST ABOUT CERTAIN PEOPLES REACTIONS TO AVENGER’S MOVIE, AND IT ENOUGH TO MAKE HOLLY ANGRY, HOLLY DO ENTIRE POST IN HULK FORM.  THERE WILL BE VERY VERY MINOR SPOILERS IN THIS POST, BUT NO PLOT RUINING ONES.   MORE ACCURATELY, THERE WILL ONLY BE ONE, SKYSCRAPERS IN NEW YORK GET SMASHED.

DESTRUCTION OF PROPERTY IS ALMOST A REQUIREMENT IN SUPER HERO MOVIES, PARTICULARLY ANY THAT HAVE HULK IN THEM (HULK DO LOVE SMASH.)  THE SETTING OF THIS PARTICULAR MOVIE IS NEW YORK, AND WHAT HAPPENS IS ALMOST COMMON SENSE.  BUT NEAR END OF MOVIE, YOU SEE PEOPLE AROUND THE WRECKAGE OF THE CITY AND SOME ARE PUTTING UP SIGNS ABOUT LOST PEOPLE.  SOME PEOPLE CLAIM IT’S TOO CLOSE TO NEWS FOOTAGE OF THE TWIN TOWERS.   SOME SAY IT WAS A DISTASTEFUL EMOTIONAL PULL.  SOME SAY IT WAS JUST TOO SOON.

SOME MAKE HOLLY HULK VERY ANGRY.  HOLLY SEE NO DISHONOR OF MEMORY TO THAT DAY, HOLLY NOT EVEN REALLY SEE CONNECTION OTHER THAN BUILDINGS IN NEW YORK SMASHED, AND YES THEY SKYSCRAPERS, BECAUSE IT’S FRIGGIN’ NEW YORK.  BUT WHILE RESPONSE IMMEDIATELY MAKE HOLLY TRANSFORM AND WANT TO SMASH, HOLLY MUCH MORE CONTROLLED, PRACTICED HULK THESE DAYS, SO HOLLY WILLING TO OPEN DISCUSSION.

BEFORE HOLLY HULK DISCUSS, HOLLY HULK REDIG UP QUOTE THAT VERY APPROPRIATE.

“With the first link, the chain is forged. The first speech censored, the first thought forbidden, the first freedom denied, chains us all irrevocably.” – Star Trek TNG

HOLLY NERD OUT AGAIN, IT SIDE EFFECT OF HOLLY SMALL SQUISHY NON-HULK SIDE.  THE IDEA IS THAT ONCE YOU CENSOR, IT SETS A PRECEDENT THAT MAKES IT EASIER FOR FUTURE CENSORINGS TO HAPPEN, PERIOD.  THAT IS UNDENIABLE FACT.  HOLLY NOT BELIEVE IN SNOWBALL EFFECT, BUT HOLLY DO BELIEVE IN COURT POLICIES OF CITING PRECEDENTS AS THE MAIN SUPPORT OF THEIR ARGUMENT.  IF THIS GO THROUGH, IT NOT UNLIKELY TO MAKE ARGUMENT THAT ALL SKYSCRAPER DESTRUCTION SHOULD BE CENSORED AS IT’S ‘TOO CLOSE.’ OR ‘TOO SOON.’

HOLLY ALSO HAVE ISSUES WITH THOSE ARGUMENTS, THEY’RE PAINFULLY SUBJECTIVE AND FAR TOO DIFFICULT TO DEFINE.  WHAT IS TOO SOON?  HOLLY GUESS SOME PEOPLE HAVE NUMBERS OR IDEAS, 5 YEARS?  10 YEARS?  50 YEARS?  100 YEARS?  WHERE IS LINE DRAWN AND WHAT EVIDENCE COULD YOU USE TO SUPPORT IT?  PSYCHIATRISTS MIGHT COME UP WITH A MEDIAN NUMBER IT TAKES FOR PEOPLE TO GET OVER WORST OF TRAUMA, BUT THEN ARGUMENTS HAPPEN FOR PEOPLE NOT OVER IT.  HOLLY NOT EVEN WANT TO THINK ABOUT THE LEGAL WAR THAT SET TIME LIMIT FOR THESE THINGS.

HOLLY USED TO LOVE SAYING THAT IN AMERICA YOU HAVE THE FREEDOM TO TALK, AND THE FREEDOM TO WALK AWAY, BUT THE RIGHT TO ‘NOT BE OFFENDED’ DOESN’T EXIST.  PERSON SHOULD NOT HARASS YOU, OBVIOUSLY AS THAT IS ETHICALLY AND LEGALLY WRONG.   BUT AVENGERS DID NOT MAKE YOU SEE IT, AND DID NOT ASK YOU TO STAY THE SECOND YOU SAW, SURPRISE SURPRISE, THAT IN A SUPER HERO MOVIE, ESPECIALLY ONE WITH HULK, THAT BUILDINGS GO SMASH.

HOLLY THINK THE MAIN OTHER ARGUMENT IS THAT PEOPLE ARE UPSET BECAUSE IT’S A MORE HUMAN/REAL DEPICTION THAN THEY WERE PERHAPS EXPECTING FROM ‘COMIC BOOKS’ (THOUGH THEY ARE NOW OFFICIALLY LABELLED GRAPHIC NOVELS.)  AND YOU SHOULDN’T EXPECT THIS KIND OF THINGS FROM A ‘KIDS MOVIE.’

FIRST IT RATED PG-13, OKAY, PERHAPS -SOME- ARGUMENT THERE, THOUGH A TEENAGER SHOULD BE SEMI-ABLE TO DEAL WITH CONCEPTS LIKE LOSS, DEATH, AND SADNESS.  BUT MAIN DEMOGRAPHIC FOR THE GRAPHIC NOVELS ARE 20-40 YEAR OLD MALES.  HOLLY THINK THE ISSUE STEMS FROM SOMETHING HOLLY SEEN IN VIDEO GAMES MENTIONED HERE.  THE IDEA IS THAT IT’S GETTING JUDGED BASED ON PERCEPTIONS OF IT’S GENRE/MEDIUM INSTEAD OF IT’S OWN MERITS.

HOLLY WOULD BE VERY SAD AT THE OUTLAWING OF SKYSCRAPER SMASHING IN HOLLY ACTION MOVIES.    EITHER WAY, HOLLY FINAL VERDICT?   HOLLY SMASH!