tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-130650402024-03-05T08:20:42.738-08:00Coagulatedid i dream you dreamed about meErik Bearhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18151425997101617833noreply@blogger.comBlogger194125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13065040.post-91910405295029713142009-10-08T16:52:00.000-07:002009-10-08T17:07:16.788-07:00a sort of complete list of all named counters in magic<span style="font-family: verdana;">Charge counters<br />Depletion counters<br />Growth counters<br />Storage counters<br />Age counters<br />Time counters<br />Fade counters<br />Quest counters<br />Luck counters<br />Doom counters<br />Fate counters<br />Hourglass counters<br />Arrow counters<br />Arrowhead counters<br />Javelin counters<br /></span><span style="font-family: verdana;">Pin counters</span><br /><span style="font-family: verdana;">Net counters<br />Trap counters<br />Shield counters<br />Elixir counters<br />Cube counters<br />Feather counters<br />Gold counters<br /></span><span style="font-family: verdana;">Treasure counters</span><br /><span style="font-family: verdana;">Rust counters<br />Soot counters<br />Petal counters<br />Shoe counters<br />Shell counters<br />Hatchling counters<br />Spore counters<br />Polyp counters<br />Fungus counters<br />Pressure counters<br />Fuse counters<br />Magnet counters<br />Winch counters<br />Matrix counters<br />Chip counters<br />Tide counters<br />Flood counters<br />Ice counters<br />Mire counters<br />Mine counters<br />Mining counters<br />Blaze counters<br />Wind counters<br />Paralyzation counters<br />Infection counters<br />Plague counters<br />Carrion counters<br />Third-Degree-Burn counters<br />Hunger counters<br />Healing counters<br />Divinity counters<br />Ki counters<br />Glyph counters<br />Bribery counters<br />Credit counters<br />Bounty counters<br />Wage counters<br />Aim counters<br />Study counters<br />Training counters<br />Devotion counters<br />Page counters<br />Shred counters<br />Sleight counters<br />Verse counters<br />Music counters<br />Sleep counters<br />Dream counters<br /></span><span style="font-family: verdana;">Pain counters<br />Blood counters<br />Scream counters<br />Death counters<br /></span>Erik Bearhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18151425997101617833noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13065040.post-58607437734020121712009-08-08T16:44:00.000-07:002009-08-08T16:49:16.535-07:00Colony<span style="font-family:verdana;">(a story I submitted to <a href="http://www.brainharvestmag.com/">Brain Harvest</a> that didn't make the cut)</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;">“When I’m mother,” Suzanne said, “I’m not going to love you.”</p></span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;">“You have to love me,” I said. “You have to love all of us.”</p></span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;">“I’m not going to love you, because you’re a brat and you think you can always have it your way because you’re the youngest.” Suzanne made a face at me. “I’m going to choose the man with the handsomest picture in the seed library to make your next sister, and she’s going to be beautiful, and I’m going to spoil her, and I’m going to love her more than all of you.”</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;"> I made a face back at her. “You won’t say that when you’re mother. You’ll be gone and you’ll just be mother instead.”</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;">“Nuh-uh. I won’t be gone. I’m stronger than that. That’s why I got chosen to be mother.”</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;">“No you aren’t! You’re still just a big crybaby! When mother fell off the tractor you wouldn’t even help carry her body into the coffin! You just hid under your bunk and cried!”</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;"> She didn’t say anything else and neither did I. We walked in silence, the purple earth crunching beneath our feet as we walked past the crop domes out to mother’s coffin. Everyone was gathered around the coffin waiting for us, Leslie, Mariella, Janis, Cassie, Heather, Samantha, and everybody else all standing around looking at Suzanne with angry impatience.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;">Suzanne stuck her tongue out at me a final time as Alice helped her climb into the empty coffin and Penelope put the crown upon her head as she lay back. She closed her eyes as its invisible wires whined into her skull. I stood there and held her hand, waiting for her eyes to open and for mother to love us again.</span>Erik Bearhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18151425997101617833noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13065040.post-59345399484122137962009-06-18T22:06:00.001-07:002009-06-18T22:30:03.601-07:00i've had this idea floating in my head for a while<span style="font-family: verdana;">It all started with a conversation about whether the orcs in Lord of the Rings are racist against black people. She said yes, I disagreed. They're Germans, obviously. And then I went on to explain that orcs have now become much less "mindless killing machines" in most fantasy games, but then I realized that they've turned into "<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noble_savage">noble savages</a>" instead. That's still racist; it idealizes them as simple-minded purists who kill not because they're inherently bloodthirsty but because violence is some kind of pure act. Which is a theme that runs through a lot of fantasy - violence and barbarism is the noble primal state of man.<br /><br />Whether motivated by noble missions or personal greed, fantasy gaming characters inevitably kill everything they come across that has treasure, isn't human enough to feel sympathy for, and is declared "evil and subhuman." Then they loot the bodies, go back to the human town (or elvish or dwarven, who are human enough to qualify as long as they don't worship the wrong gods), and they sell all the magic swords and precious gems they got off the singed and dismembered bodies of all the kobolds or goblins or lizardmen they slew. Then maybe the king gives them a reward if they killed enough non-humans.<br /><br />So Dungeons and Dragons is inherently racist. Adventuring parties commit minor acts of genocide and then profit off them. There's an old parody RPG system from back in the '90s, <a href="http://www.costik.com/Violence%20RPG1.pdf">Violence</a>, which was basically a translation of D&D campaign styles into the modern world: the characters walk into somebody's home, kill everyone who lives there, and take their stuff. That doesn't take the scenario far enough, though. My thought was, what if the adventuring party <span style="font-style: italic;">were</span> incredible racists who profited off slaughtering hundreds of "inferior and evil" races?<br /><br />I summed the idea up in my head as "post-colonialist D&D." The setting is basically the colonization of America, except in a medieval fantasy setting. At some point all these humans came to the New World to establish their feudal kingdoms, but those pesky native orcs and hobgoblins and gnolls and everything got in the way, so they decided they were evil and sub-human, spread a bunch of propaganda about how they worship chaos gods and make human sacrifices, and then hired a bunch of mercenary adventurers to kill them all. And those guys are the player characters. Racism (against orcs, anyway) would be mandatory, in fact, you'd have to make Wisdom checks in order to think of the native races as anything other than monsters that need to be killed or driven off. Instead of superior technology being the driving force behind human/European dominance of the natives, it'd be superior magic.<br /><br />Oh, and there was also some stuff about elves as the Roman Empire, drow as the Byzantines, dwarves as Islam, and Quaker hobbits, but that's kind of a whole other bit.<br /></span>Erik Bearhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18151425997101617833noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13065040.post-59330275993770538552009-05-05T22:11:00.001-07:002009-05-05T22:13:12.545-07:00paradoxically<span style="font-family: verdana;">I have a job at NCsoft, rewriting quests for their localization of <a href="http://www.aiononline.com/us/">a Korean MMORPG</a>. Yet at the office, I have no desk, no computer, and no game account.<br /></span>Erik Bearhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18151425997101617833noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13065040.post-46313587026905410362009-04-11T20:48:00.000-07:002009-04-11T21:01:10.059-07:00buffer<span style="font-family: verdana;">To clear older, more depressing things out more quickly, here's some things I've been doing recently:<br /><br />-Playing a free trial of Warhammer Online in an attempt to visit with Amber, virtually. Did you know Orcs are sexless and grow from spores? IT'S TRUE! It's pretty good, but I don't have the money to buy it currently SOOOO<br /><br />-Continuing to apply for jobs on a regular basis, continuing to not get job interviews because nobody really wants me.<br /><br />-Writing a comic book with my friend Sarah, who will be doing the art because she is a much better artist than me. It is about a guy who discovers the secret fantasy world of the early morning and gets sucked in, kind of a suburban version of urban fantasy, if you consider Wallingford to be a suburb. I finished the script for chapter one last weekend, and gave it to Sarah on Monday, so she's currently working on layouts (last I talked to her, anyway).<br /><br />-Putting together a bunch of photographs for a Starbucks in Kirkland where my friend from art school, Ashley, is now in charge of the art wall. They are all night shots and collectively they almost killed all my printer's color ink, also I'm not currently sure how best to mount/frame them but perhaps the giant piece of black foam core I bought today will give me some ideas.<br /><br />-My dad's going to be writing the next trilogy of Halo novels, so I'm going to be his story consultant since he's never played Halo and, in fact, hates first-person shooters. This means I know HALO UNIVERSE SECRETS that I am sworn never to reveal.<br /><br />-Playing Ninja Gaiden II, which is alternately fun and frustrating, just like its predecessors. Highlights include a boss which explodes when you beat it, killing you unless you figure out that you need to block; ninja dogs with katanas in their mouths that throw shuriken at you somehow; zombies with one chainsaw arm and one grenade launcher arm; a sequence where you fight more ninjas than the Xbox can actually handle without slowing the framerate down; and a giant-ass scythe.<br /></span>Erik Bearhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18151425997101617833noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13065040.post-57823566199259971752009-03-21T15:45:00.000-07:002009-03-21T16:06:06.179-07:00the jessica saga part ii<span style="font-family: verdana;"><span style="font-family: verdana;">Which actually happened about a month ago, but I kept putting off writing about it.<br /><br />I found out through Facebook that <a href="http://civilprotection.blogspot.com/2008/02/jessica-saga.html">Jessica</a> had broken up with her boyfriend. So I was really, really happy, because I'd been hoping that would happen ever since I found out she had one. I wanted to ask her out, of course, but I thought maybe I should wait a little bit, that maybe she wasn't looking to get into something again right away. But I got nervous, because, what if some other guy had the same idea and asked her out first? So I decided to wait a week, and then get together and talk with her. All week, I was nervous, on the edge of either being the happiest I've ever been in my life, or being massively disappointed and heartbroken.<br /><br />But that next weekend, all she had time to get together for was bubble tea with her and her friends. Talking to her about this in front of them would be awkward, obviously, so I thought instead I might write her a note telling her how I felt. Given how we met, it seemed appropriate. When we actually got together, though, there was some new guy there, who I'd never seen before. <span style="font-style: italic;">Shit</span>, I thought. Still, maybe they weren't an item yet? Maybe I was just being paranoid? Then they held hands.<br /><br />It broke my heart, and it hurt for kind of a long time.<br /><br />Still, we're friends.<br /></span></span>Erik Bearhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18151425997101617833noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13065040.post-8396740713981459242009-02-20T23:27:00.000-08:002009-02-20T23:29:10.819-08:00fuck it<span style="font-family: verdana;">I decided to just put all my photos up on <a href="http://corrugate.blogspot.com">Corrugate</a>, since every time I want to add new photos I always skip over the old ones because I don't like them as much, but I feel bad that nobody else will ever get to see them. On a related note, I also deleted a shit-ton of old photos that I think suck now. Theoretically I should be updating it with photos every time I offload them from my camera. We'll see how that works.<br /></span>Erik Bearhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18151425997101617833noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13065040.post-11547160591143573572009-02-12T22:43:00.000-08:002009-02-12T22:44:51.054-08:00the first post of the new year<span style="font-family: verdana;">I should just update things more often without excuses. More photos <a href="http://corrugate.blogspot.com">are up</a> too.<br /></span>Erik Bearhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18151425997101617833noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13065040.post-53055102559463047602008-12-30T01:25:00.000-08:002008-12-30T01:26:16.035-08:00yeah well i guess no more five rings this year<span style="font-family: verdana;">I don't think I'd be able to schedule any Five Rings in before everybody leaves again, and this story is looking like it's going to have to be a four-parter anyway.<br /></span>Erik Bearhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18151425997101617833noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13065040.post-28634325653130987272008-12-22T16:30:00.000-08:002008-12-22T16:32:37.297-08:00ragnarok diary chapter three<span style="font-family: verdana;">The sun returned and the city is slowly approaching normal life again, ending the perpetual twilight blizzard inhabited only by huddled, ghost-like figures. Briefly the tips of the ice-covered trees glistened in the sunlight, like they were made of crystal.<br /></span>Erik Bearhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18151425997101617833noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13065040.post-28909582172056490642008-12-20T22:23:00.000-08:002008-12-20T22:26:31.414-08:00ragnarok diary chapter two<span style="font-family: verdana;">I tried to go to this birthday get-together for some people I know from art classes, over in the U-District, but when I showed up an hour late there was nobody there I knew, so I assume nobody else made it. I couldn't find a bus to take me back, so I decided to walk up Capitol Hill to get back home, about an hour's walk in the snow. My hair iced over, and now I understand why arctic expeditions go insane - it's not the cold, it's not the loneliness, it's not the silence - it's the endless walk through the endless fields of white.<br /></span>Erik Bearhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18151425997101617833noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13065040.post-5165876158197605192008-12-20T16:25:00.001-08:002008-12-20T16:26:59.467-08:00ragnarok diary chapter one<span style="font-family: verdana;">Fimbulvinter is upon us, the Great Winter that precedes Ragnarok, the Last Battle and the end of the world. Already the city is quiet, abandoned, everyone huddles inside for shelter and warmth. I could not see the sunset behind the haze of gently falling snow, but it is getting dark now. It is only going to get worse, they say.<br /></span>Erik Bearhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18151425997101617833noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13065040.post-70276504819375765712008-12-14T20:32:00.000-08:002008-12-14T20:33:23.179-08:00i bet you all forgot about that<span style="font-family: verdana;">I'm still working on Legend of the Five Rings, now that I have immense amounts of free time. Even though you've probably forgotten everything that was going on, it's still going to be awesome, assuming I can get it done in time and find some place to run it, because my apartment is really not good for that.<br /></span>Erik Bearhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18151425997101617833noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13065040.post-39077680182359897252008-12-05T01:42:00.001-08:002008-12-05T01:42:23.309-08:00bhgs: conclusion<span style="font-family: verdana;">Well now I don't know if she has a girlfriend or she's just not interested in dating or what, but I'm giving up. Well actually I gave up like a week ago.</span>Erik Bearhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18151425997101617833noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13065040.post-89308141552572175802008-11-29T19:29:00.000-08:002008-11-29T19:39:04.231-08:00i found the woman i want to marry<span style="font-family: verdana;">and apparently she is <a href="http://www.catherinechalmers.com/home.cfm">Catherine Chalmers</a>. I pretty much fell in love with her from listening to <a href="http://thislife.org/Radio_Episode.aspx?sched=645">this episode</a> of This American Life, where she talks about photographing animals eating each other. But it's a forbidden love, never meant to be.<br /></span>Erik Bearhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18151425997101617833noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13065040.post-74507123791679258952008-11-19T20:32:00.001-08:002008-11-19T20:34:08.056-08:00hmmm projects<span style="font-family: verdana;">I decided to make a set of 365 photos of sunsets, but when I actually went through my collection and pulled out the photos that would work, I only had 50 from about three years' worth of photography. I guess I'd better step it up.<br /></span>Erik Bearhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18151425997101617833noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13065040.post-6231862526633702752008-11-14T15:47:00.000-08:002008-11-14T15:49:23.060-08:00part three: plot twist<span style="font-family: verdana;">I looked her up on Facebook and it says she's in a relationship, but she also says "don't always believe in what you read on the internet versus what you know from talking to someone ... just saying."<br /><br />TO BE CONTINUED...?<br /></span>Erik Bearhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18151425997101617833noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13065040.post-82030983066352667302008-11-14T13:57:00.000-08:002008-11-14T14:05:02.840-08:00blue-haired girl, part two<span style="font-family: verdana;">Her name, by the way, is Christina. We had coffee, while we played chess, and I barely won. She managed to out-nerd me, arguably, because she's a big fan of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Young_Justice">Young Justice</a> and tries to collect their comics. I don't know if that's a dealbreaker or not, but my ideal girl, assuming that she was a big fan of an obscure DC superhero team, would probably be a fan of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suicide_Squad_%28comics%29">Suicide Squad</a>, or the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doom_Patrol">Doom Patrol</a>, or maybe the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crime_Syndicate">Crime Syndicate of Amerika</a>. But Young Justice? I don't know. At least she's a big fan of Psychonauts. Apparently a big enough fan to <a href="http://www.doublefine.com/news.php/site/comments/we_have_a_winner1/">end up on their website</a>. She mentioned that and I was all, "oh hey that was your pumpkin? huh." Oh and she's cute, but I knew that already.<br /><br />I'm pretty sure that you could consider it a date, although any date that ends up with you both searching through back issues at the comic book store might not technically be a date.<br /></span>Erik Bearhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18151425997101617833noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13065040.post-41527855891961351692008-11-11T17:37:00.000-08:002008-11-11T17:42:51.562-08:00the blue-haired girl saga part one<span style="font-family: verdana;">Well I have a crush on this girl with blue hair in the art building who has class across from me so I see her in the hallways sometimes, and one time I took the opportunity to talk with her briefly (about a drawing she was working on), and then we said 'hi' to each other when we passed by for a while, so yesterday i actually managed to ask her out for coffee, which will take place Friday.<br /><br />Basically I'm really impatient for it to be Thursday afternoon now.<br /></span>Erik Bearhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18151425997101617833noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13065040.post-69708257991763233902008-10-26T00:20:00.001-07:002008-10-26T00:21:14.639-07:00damn twitter been stealing all my internet updates<span style="font-family: verdana;">I discovered that <a href="http://www.lowbright.com">Derek Kirk Kim</a>'s brother, Brent Kim, <a href="http://www.lowbright.com/orangetango/orangetango.htm">also makes comics</a>. It's like Bizarro Derek Kirk Kim.<br /></span>Erik Bearhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18151425997101617833noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13065040.post-51828861620252749342008-10-14T18:21:00.000-07:002008-10-14T18:22:10.315-07:00i got<span style="font-family: verdana;">a <a href="http://twitter.com/Correspondence">twitter</a><br /></span>Erik Bearhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18151425997101617833noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13065040.post-9834268973393544592008-10-07T18:51:00.000-07:002008-10-07T18:53:54.378-07:00the internet's opening page<span style="font-family: verdana;">The <a href="http://www.openingpage.com/">Opening Page</a> is sort of like <a href="http://www.timecube.com">Timecube</a>, but slightly less crazy. It still hasn't managed to unseat Timecube as my favorite webpage of all time, but if you scroll down all the way, there's 1920s nudity, so, bonus.<br /></span>Erik Bearhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18151425997101617833noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13065040.post-21472446154414046102008-10-04T12:00:00.000-07:002008-10-04T12:04:01.138-07:00r.i.p.<span style="font-family: verdana;">????-2008</span><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEga-cU7vItwbJhHetOoRMoxVs6uRftJl-_CdOojyr1cPWa_zUW9XT7BbxZ7AFj2ibJh_OCwOrBnzDf5w1Hg7UxxL15Qf4jKzOkpxLO6djzSyeUERcW5if_Yj474fKkNddfkEOYb/s1600-h/Kachiko.JPG"><img style="cursor: pointer;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEga-cU7vItwbJhHetOoRMoxVs6uRftJl-_CdOojyr1cPWa_zUW9XT7BbxZ7AFj2ibJh_OCwOrBnzDf5w1Hg7UxxL15Qf4jKzOkpxLO6djzSyeUERcW5if_Yj474fKkNddfkEOYb/s320/Kachiko.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5253376038721657394" border="0" /></a><br /><span style="font-family:verdana;"><br />Basically evil and selfish, but soft.<br /></span>Erik Bearhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18151425997101617833noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13065040.post-91176932678892671132008-09-25T21:15:00.000-07:002008-09-25T21:16:51.647-07:00updates!<span style="font-family: verdana;">I moved to Capitol Hill!<br /><br />Internet is restored!<br /><br />I got let go from my job because the manager felt that I "wasn't working out," even though she'd never mentioned any concerns about my performance before!<br /></span>Erik Bearhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18151425997101617833noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-13065040.post-13570841167726056962008-09-18T15:49:00.000-07:002008-09-18T15:50:51.651-07:00fuck telecom<span style="font-family: verdana;">I would have got Internet yesterday, but my cell phone dropped the call from the Comcast guy telling me he was at the front door, so he left, and there was no way to get him back, and now I can't get another appointment until the 25th.<br /></span>Erik Bearhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/18151425997101617833noreply@blogger.com1