Modeling Consent Culture

Over at Disrupting Dinner Parties, guest poster Rebecca Flin describes her first encounter with "consent culture". I'm not going to repost the whole thing here; but this is the sort of message that really deserves a signal boost, so this is my small contribution. Go read it.

So we know what “rape-culture” is at this point, right? Thank god we finally have a word for it! Like the emergence of the term, “sexual harassment” in the 1970s, the recent addition of the term “rape culture” to our everyday lexicon has given us a way to describe what used to be called “just the way it is” or “life”. Therefore, we are now able to see and discuss it. And I don’t know about you guys, but I see it everywhere: movies, the news, music, child-raising, the subway, you name it. Rape culture is our culture. But now that we see it, we can start changing it right?

So tell me, what can I do to move away from rape culture?

Seriously, go read it.

ARGH!

Still working on a story for the Nightbreed anthology. I really have no idea whatsoever if I can finish this before the deadline, and I cannot believe how much of an ordeal this has been. If I can wind it up today, I can probably still get some of my proofreaders to go over it before I send it off. Honestly, though, I'd hoped to have it done last week - or, for that matter, back at the beginning of the month - in order to allow a reasonable amount of time for that.

I'm not pleased by the prospect of sending off a hurried, last-minute bit of writing... but I'm even less pleased by the idea of not sending off anything at all.

Somewhere in here, I really need to reconsider my writing process.

In Which Firstborn Chooses a New Video Game

So our oldest son has learned how to tie his own shoes. As a result of this, of course, we no longer have to tie them for him. (He's seven. It hadn't been a problem, up until we bought him shoes that actually used laces; he's been operating on a velcro-based system for the last five years.)

As a secondary result of this, he has earned a prize. Now, I want to take a moment and emphasize that this was not my idea. No, this deal was set up by the Beautiful Woman. The deal was that if he could manage to successfully tie his own shoes three times in a row (and thus demonstrate basic aptitude at the activity), he could go the Movie Trading Company and pick out a new video game for himself. Well, yesterday he managed the feat - so yesterday his mother took him to the store and let him pick out a game.

The difficulty with this sort of arrangement is that once you've told the child that he can pick out any game he likes, he will expect to be allowed to purchase any game he likes. He chose (wisely) something that would work on the PS2, so that wasn't a problem. (Xbox would have been a problem; the Xbox is currently buried in the storage unit, to puzzle and delight future archaeologists, I suspect.) I had to pick up a second controller for the PS2 (because guess what else is currently boxed up in the storage unit), but that wasn't a problem; I'd been meaning to do that anyway, and it was pretty cheap.

However, I'm a little bit embarrassed to admit which game he actually chose. It's... well.. it's Mortal Kombat: SuperDeathBloodSport. I think. Something like that, anyway.

This is embarrassing for two reasons:

1. People might judge me for letting my seven-year-old purchase a game with that much spurting blood in it.

2. He pretty much pounded me into the ground in Versus mode last night.

Still, he earned it and he's happy with it, so I can't complain too much - even though I'm pretty sure I'm going to get pounded on again after dinner tonight. You know what they say: "Sticks and stone may break my bones, but pixelated violence will never hurt me."

Imperial Marches

We're doing some sort of training during lunch today, so here's the Imperial March:



Join us below the cut for more variations on the theme...

Sorcerous Hazing

Werdeth pushed the bathroom door opened and noted with relief that nobody was inside. What had been a faint twinge in his shoulderblade was now a burning pain, centered there but spreading through most of his chest and up across the back of his head. It wasn't natural; whatever it was, someone had done this to him.

Ignoring the pain by an act of will, he crossed to the rearmost stall and closed the door. Inside, he unbuttoned his shirt and pulled it off, then hung it on the back of the door. His flesh looked normal, but he thought he could feel a faint tingling when he held his fingers above the center of the pain. He needed to get this under control, before something bad happened.

It wasn't a physical problem, so it had to be sorcery. Miserable as it was, it probably wasn't an attempt on his life; something like that would have been either much faster, or much more subtle... unless his peculiar talent was reacting unexpectedly, of course. That meant one of the other students, either aggravated by his arrival, or just being cruel for the pleasure of it. It might even have been some sort of test; they might have expected him to catch it and counter it before it became debilitating. His talent didn't work that way, but the other students didn't know that.

His left hand folded into a fist, claws digging into his palm. That was bad; he wasn't supposed to have claws. That entire arm was covered in dark fur, now. He forced the change back, refusing to let the pain distract him. Then, cautiously, he started to shift, looking to become something that could handle the pain. His skin hardened into armor plates, grew clusters of spikes, began to drip something that sizzled when it hit the tile floor...

He forced it back, again. That wouldn't work. He only knew one mode well enough to assume it safely; anything else meant letting the beast find its own way. If the beast took control with this sort of goad, it might very well kill, or be killed, or both.

For a moment he just stood there, breathing hard, willing his body to obey. When he had control again, however tenuous, he straightened. This magic, this spell, this curse... whatever it was, it was in his body now; it was part of him. He twisted it, shaped it, tore it loose from his flesh. It sat on his forearm, glaring, claws digging at skin that grown hard as bone: a nasty little thing, misshapen, with tiny eyes in a head that was almost entirely teeth.

He met its eyes, still exerting control. "Back," he said quietly, and it flinched away. He made a casting gesture, and it leapt from his arm. He opened the stall in time to see it slither under the bathroom door and out into the hall. It was going back to whomever had created it, wherever they were. Probably in class, he decided, and reached for his shirt. It was time to head back to his own classroom, preferably before the little beast found its creator.

Clockwork Quartet: The Doctor's Wife

Still writing, and reloading my work computer. So, this morning, I offer you an inspiring musical tale of true love...

Still Writing, just... not here

Still working on the short story; allergies are trying to kill me. Work is... interesting, and distracting, and not quite the well-tuned machine that one might hope for.

Firstborn and I managed to play Borderlands 2 online with Uncle Nadrick, which thrilled him immensely. I was even more proud that when we ran out of time, he shut the game off without complaint, and sat down and did his homework. I think he's finally figured out that that's how to ensure that he gets more opportunities to play with his uncle - short term loss, long term gain.

Secondborn, meanwhile, was satisfied to watch Hot Wheels: Battle Force Five on the portable DVD player. So, two happy boys, two tired parents, but overall a very manageable night. Just... not a lot of writing.

My hope is to go to bed early tonight (like, right when the boys do) and wake up early. That might let me make some progress before the rest of the world crashes down on me again. We'll see.

Here is some completely random Kate Miller-Heidke, because I enjoy her music: