Things I Like Thursday

Okay so I’ve been away sorry…

Things I like this week. ‘

New musicians that I love with heartbreaking but catchy songs, I have two even Gotye and Kimbra who yo can hear in the same awesome song:

I love the chorus :

But you didn’t have to cut me off
Make out like it never happened
And that we were nothing
And I don’t even need your love
But you treat me like a stranger
And that feels so rough
No you didn’t have to stoop so low
Have your friends collect your records
And then change your number
I guess that I don’t need that though
Now you’re just somebody that I used to know

Birthday Parties with themes, I’m having mine this weekend with a comic book character theme, and the weekend after that my friend is having a failed superheroes birthday party…

Making Costumes… I’ve in the past month mad a costume for Ellen for Chimera and one for my birthday party and one for the LARP “But Nobody Loses an Eye” in which we are all 5 year olds at a birthday party! I have a few gowns….

Dresden File Books…. I’m just starting them and surprisingly LOVE them… I mean the fantasy part I knew I’d love but the gumshoe part I wasn’t sure of.  Bonus is I get James Marsters to read them to me via Audible.com

Have I mentioned my unnatural *LOVE* of audible.com? I’m starting to wonder how I read things… like with my eyes and stuff….

CONfusion (RPG Con)

This past Saturday I ventured out (despite recovering from a nasty cold and it being semi dreary) to Wellington proper to attend my first CONfusion. What is CONfusion? It’s a one day gaming convention held at Turnbull House.  It consisted of three rounds each roughly 3 hours long.  Each session had 4 games you could play in.  So I look at the options for the first session and I see three things I haven’t played and then there is The Silver Kiss of the Magical Twilight of the Full Moon, which I have played both tabletop AND Larp before. I’m predictable as much as I like to do new things I’ll default with something I know I’ll have fun playing, that meant Silver Kiss.

I was the human love interest to Bryn’s Vampire, Thomas, ZOMG WAS HE CREEPY. My character was popular but geeky, she was really into kung fu. She also had a boyfriend and thus I was expecting angsty drama, which one do I choose, etc. Nope Thomas broke his neck within 20 minutes of meeting him. He then proceeded to stalk, kidnap, and force me to either spend eternity with him or die. My character liked living so she was turned, as was her bff. Then we all went to New York where I became an awesome kung fu teacher.

Next round was all about Fiasco. I’ve heard so many good things about Fiasco like SERIOUSLY good. So I signed up for that, but my deciding wasn’t done yet, With Fiasco comes many play sets do I play the Cthulhu set or Regina’s Wedding? I decided to go with Regina’s Wedding, and I’m so glad I did. I played with Jenni, Thomas, Paul and Mike. In Fiasco you don’t really have a GM as more a facilitator who plays just as equally. My main char was “Televisions Margaret Wakefeild” who we determined had a Bridezillas type of show. Jenni was Regina, who though she was marrying the heir to Baroness Something or Another, but was in fact a con-man. The photographer was my crazy ex, who ever since I deserted him at the altar has been Hell bent of destroying ALL OF THE weddings. Turned out good for most people including Margaret Wakefeild who ended up with  her own wedding CHANNEL.

The final round I played Shadowrun. I didn’t know much about this system, I think I would have preferred to have play Fiasco another time. I find while I like classic skill based games that use dice rolls to determine passes or fails, for day games I prefer more free form indie games I think.  I ended up having fun in this game and it went rather fast, mostly cause there were only two players. It took awhile to get used to the system it uses. The game is odd in that it is Science Fiction and Fantasy combined, so you have both magic and advanced tech. The goal of the game was to stop this Terrorist which we did. Dunno if I will play it again but it’s a possibility….

Over-all I played in two new to me systems, and had lots of fun… When’s the next one?

Things I Like Thursday

To start off things I don’t like: Accidently deleting two posts from existence by forgetting to check how recent my database backup was when upgrading my database.

—-real post begins here—-
My new blog theme thanks Sam of Rooster Tails for the cool graphics. I’m probably not done yet… I’ll still be doing a few tweaks here and there.  Also there are a few bits of content that I really need to add to the pages…

Web comics… I mean they are comics and I read them on the internet… for free!!

My top 5 are(in no particular order):

  • PVP Player vs. Player is as very nerdy comic mostly aimed at gamers.
  • XKCD how do you explain this comic to those who don’t know about it… All I can say is when me and my husband talk about it we never seem to get the letter right we have called it XFCE XKFC and XKFD among many other things….
  • Rooster Tails an awesome New Zealand trans/queer comic written by a talented trans comic artist
  • The Knit Princess really funny knitting comic, probably only funny to knitters and maybe those close to knitters.
  • Oglaf NSFW enchanted sperm, naughty stories, and irreverent humour
  • and as a bonus Khaos Komix more Trans/Queer comics, this one tells several stories from lots of viewpoints, not so much funny like Rooster Tails, and more heartbreaking in bits.

 

Audible.com how I love thee… I love to read I read probably about 20 hours a week maybe more, which has always meant that my reading competes with my other hobbies(which I seem to have a lot of) meaning that I can either read or knit, read or embroider, read or cook dinner(okay not so much a hobby). You get the picture… About a two and a half years ago, after hearing on every single one of Brenda Dayne‘s podcasts about audible, I decided to give it a go and get a free audio book… Well I never had an audio device it worked with so I cancelled it.  Fast Forward 6 months I got an android phone , and guess what it had an audible app which meant I could download the books directly to my phone. Now I use audible constantly… I still read actual books but my reading time has increased massively cause I can read and do other things like knitting and cooking.

cover image of Syren by Angie Sage

Related: The Septimus Heap books… I’m halfway through book 5 and I absolutely love this series… They are like Harry Potter but yet not at all like Harry Potter. They are well written engaging and amazing to read.

Honourable Mentions:

Getting a postcard from Jenni… I love mail that’s not bills.

Larping (of course)

The Guild (they are back yay!!!)

I’ve never been called a Slut.

Below is a speech I gave at the Wellington Slut Walk on June 25th 2011.

I’m Brooklynne Kennedy, a rape survivor and a transwoman.

It’s interesting when talking with friends about this event; we got talking about being called a slut. How we felt about it, and when was the last time. They were all surprised that I had never been called a slut.

I have never been called a slut, not because I am the perfect picture of virtue and purity. No, I have never been called a slut be cause as a transwoman, our bodies have been so sexualized that they no longer belong to humans. Unlike cis-gendered women, many people have only encountered, that they know of, a transwoman via, disgusting and degrading “she-male” porn.

Obviously all transwoman are porn stars; we want nothing but sex all the time. We think of nothing but cock, cock, cock. This attitude gets confirmed at least twice a week, when some guy comes up to me and touches me or exposes himself to me. When some guy doesn’t understand that “I am married” means “I don’t want to fuck you!” I guess the wedding ring is invisible.

Transwomen are no longer human beings, with feelings and emotions, but instead a fancy sex toy. We are little more than a blow up doll to be used then tossed aside. This attitude is far more damaging to the transgendered community than the hatred and transphobia.

This attitude encourages transphobia and violence against transwomen. After all you can’t rape a “sex toy” Beating up a “sex toy” surely isn’t illegal. In many places when a transwoman is raped there is nowhere for her to go. The police will often laugh at her or arrest her for prostitution. That is if they weren’t the rapists themselves.

In my own case I was raped by police, arrested for prostitution, and thrown into a man’s cell where I was raped again. How I wish my case was unique. How I wish my case was rare. It wasn’t tho.

I am here to say this has got to STOP!

I am here to say I am in charge of MY body, I am in charge of MY sexuality!

Trans women are NOT sex toys!

I did not transition for your benefit, and pleasure!

I did not transition for YOU!

Things I Like Thursday

Okay I really meant to post in this blog before now… but anyway here we are a week later.

Things I like:

Slut Walk: The march was awesome, getting up and speaking in front of such a large amount of amazing people was terrifying but worth it. Seeing everyone cry as I read my speech was heart breaking, and heart warming all at once. I feel bad that I had to leave so soon afterward. It’s also great to hear that so many people appreciated my speech… ( I have since this posted  my speech up here)

The Reason I had to hop off so soon after slut walk was so I could get ready for the Midea High School Prom LARP being held by The VUW Roleplaying and Games Club which was a blast! I completed all of my character goals and got into my secret society! YUS!!!!!!! It was a lot of fun. and I got to wear one of my Victorian gowns! (it was a Victorian masquerade themed prom).

And THEN the next day I had my Dragonlance table top game! so a very VERY geeky weekend.

This week has from then been filled with Game of Thrones, I’m almost done… I rather like Cersei, but also rather adore Daenerys…

While watching GoT I have been busily sketching costume ideas for my Teonn character…  which is useful, I love designing for medievalesque fantasy, you can pick and choose the best from everything really…  I love a lot of what Cersei wears, and this am drawing a lot of inspiration from her.

Knitting wise I’m working on the Dino Hat for a friend of mine!