Posted on in 2021, Current Writing, Essays

Identity

So, it’s been a while.

I’ve had this piece in my head for the better part of a year. Every time I attempt to write it, I oscillate between having nothing to say and having too many thoughts.

The short version of this story is that for a long time I thought I was a male. Recently however, I’ve started to view my identity in a different light. I am non-binary. That’s the short version. The long version is the answer to the question: what does that mean? What does it mean for the people I know? What does it mean for me personally? What does it mean for society? That last one sound way more pompous than it actually is. So, let’s dive in.

The easiest part of this is what non-binary means is when interacting with folks. Generally, it means I now use they/them pronouns in place of he/him pronouns. It means I feel more comfortable with the name Zach than the name Zachary. It means I might experiment with presentation and wardrobe. At the end of the day, I’m fundamentally the same person though.

This realisation wouldn’t have been possible without all the folks who expressed their identity before me. There were a lot of fears I had about embracing this identity that were assuaged by folks I saw who were openly non-binary. For the longest time, I thought the fact that I had facial hair meant that I couldn’t be non-binary. I had conflated androgyny with non-binary identity. I thought that if I were truly non-binary that masculinity would be emotionally painful to perform. All these doubts about not being queer enough lingered large in my mind.

That was what lingered in my brain. Most folks most days will call me ‘sir’ or ‘gentleman’ if they don’t know me. This is because we still live in a society that is largely binary. As I came to terms with my identity, I realised that while I did not need androgyny for my non-binary identity to be respected; I could use androgyny as much as possible to avoid being put into one camp or the other in everyday life.

When I realised who I was, we were firmly into our most extended lockdowns. I told myself that I would use 2020 as a year in chrysalis. A year where I would start as a caterpillar and emerge as a butterfly to continue the metaphor. My plan was to be utterly transformed the next time folks saw me in a social context. Emerging from the lockdown still dressed in my same clothes felt like I had failed. However, there was solace in the fact that very few people had successfully reformed themselves in quarantine. It was a harrowing time and we need not hold ourselves to arbitrary standards considering the year we all had.

So, I’ve talked about what being non-binary means for me and what it means for folks who don’t know me. What about what it means for folks who don’t me? That large collection of folks we call society. Currently, in places like the US, there is state legislation being crafted against trans and gender non-confirming folks. In the UK, much of their media apparatus runs countless stories against trans and gender non-conforming folks. That’s a terrifying world to emerge into. While there hasn’t been an Australian-based national campaign against trans and gender non-confirming folks yet, there is nothing to stop this hatemongering spreading amongst the same institutions as the UK and US. The rights of trans and gender non-confirming folks are conditional. So, not great. However, I take some solace in knowing that most folks see these barbarous attacks against the trans community for what they are. There is more acceptance every day and hopefully my new identity is part of that process.

Posted on in 2019, Current Writing

Hiatus

Hey all, I’ve been working on this website weekly for two and a bit years. Recently I’ve been considering ways in which this whole project can evolve. As part of this, I’m taking a sabbatical for some time to work out what comes next. Patreons won’t be charged while I am on this hiatus. Let me know what direction you would like to see the website and this project go in future.

Posted on in 2019, Current Writing, Essays, Gaming

Evil Incorporated

So recently I’ve been playing Sunset Overdrive, a game I have been itching to play since the early days of the Xbox One. Well, it finally made its way to PC and I finally had a bit of money to spend on it. The core concept of the game is that the launch of a new energy drink has caused people who drink it to turn into mutants who run amok through the city. FizzCo, the company who sells the energy drink, puts the city on lockdown and hides the drink’s failure from the rest of the world. FizzCo also sends robots into the city to clean up the evidence, i.e. any survivors. That’s a lot of power for a corporation to hold over an entire city. So I started thinking about evil corporations in games, especially when these games are made under publishers who do some dirty things in the name of making more money.

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Posted on in 2019, Current Writing, Essays, Fantasy, Gaming

What’s With All These Bandits?

Bandits are a staple of fantasy. Skyrim, Kingdoms of Amalur, Fable, Dungeons and Dragons. All these games feature bandits in some capacity. If we look beyond the fantasy genre, Red Dead Redemption and Sunset Overdrive also feature bandits. Bandits tend to low-level enemies. They wear cobbled together armour and usually carry basic weapons. Every now and then, you might encounter one who has a magic item. Usually, more powerful bandits are chiefs or captains. Most bandits are aggressive on sight. However, do we ever really stop to consider the bandit? Why are they there? What are they doing?

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Posted on in 2019, Current Writing, Essays, Fantasy, Gaming, Internet

The Matt Mercer Comparison

Depending on how you came to this piece, you may or may not be familiar with Critical Role. So, I’ll explain all this briefly. Dungeons and Dragons, let’s start there. Tabletop roleplaying game. Started in the 70s, big in the 80s, satanic panic, and so on. In 2013, Wizards of the Coast who own D&D released the 5th Edition of the game. Generally, editions are like sequels in games. They iterate in their own way with specific goals in mind. People still enjoy the previous entries and may prefer them. Based on comments by the design team of this edition it seems the purpose of this version of the game was to be welcoming enough for new players and robust enough for veterans. So, how does this relate to Critical Role?

Critical Role is a weekly live stream on Twitch where, as Matt Mercer explains, “a bunch of us nerdy-ass voice actors sit around and play Dungeons and Dragons”. The show started in 2015 and has been running ever since. Critical is perhaps the most popular live play of Dungeons and Dragons. Between the accessibility of 5th edition and the eminently watchable nature of Critical Role, many new people have been exposed to Dungeons and Dragons through this show and other shows like it, including me. Now, as part of this, some online discourse has held Matt Mercer up as the DM standard that people are compared to. So, let’s look at this comparison.

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Posted on in 2019, Current Writing, Essays, Film

Tainted Love

We need to change the way we depict love in media. Some disclaimers. I’m mostly talking about hetero love. I’m no expert on queer representation except to say that we could do with some more of it. Today I wanted to talk about the way we depict hetero romances. Stop me if you’ve heard this one before. Guy pines over a girl, guy continues to pine for an unhealthy amount of time, he asks the woman out, end of story. Maybe the story is complicated by a boyfriend who just isn’t right for her. Maybe the girl hates the guy because a miscommunication caused the guy to say the wrong thing. There are some even worse examples. Examples were the guy follows the girl until romance happens, as seen in two separate episodes of Doctor Who penned by Stephen Moffat (Blink and the Christmas Special based on CS Lewis’ most famous book because god forbid you write your own goddamn story, Stephen). Apparently I still have some issues to work out with Stephen Moffat’s time on Doctor Who. I just have to remind myself. He’s gone now. He can’t hurt me. Anyway, another dodgy expansion of this horror show is where the girl repeatedly rejects the guy until he wears her down. Chances are if you’re on the same wavelength as me right now you can think of some examples. You might even get a sense of what’s wrong with telling this narrative repeatedly. Well, it’s time for another round of Zach had to unlearn some problematic shit and continues to regret his life choices.

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Posted on in 2019, Current Writing, Essays, Internet

H. Bomberguy

So, a couple of weeks ago this thing happened. The stream was this spontaneous outpouring of support for a community and a charity that was targeted by a cadre of journalists, concerned parents, and one culturally irrelevant comedy writer. To sum up, YouTuber H. Bomberguy streamed the game Donkey Kong 64 to completion while raising money for Mermaids, a UK-based charity which offers support systems to trans kids. What followed was a 54-hour stream which included appearances from folks like Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez, John Romero, Grant Kirkhope and other notable folks from around the internet. Beyond being just this great weekend in support of those who need it, the stream also gave me hope. Full disclosure, I’m a cis straight white dude. I won the privilege game so I don’t want to make it all about me. There have been some excellent Twitter threads about the stream and what it meant to the charity it was for and the community it supported. (@CaseyExplosion on Twitter is a good source for these, as she was a moderator for the stream and shared some good stuff post-stream). When I say it gave me hope, I’ve never hidden my politics particularly well. As time goes by, I tend to be pulled further to the left. Anyway, the stream was 100 times the success that H. Bomberguy anticipated as success. The stream was a group of people coming together to support a cause over an old video game. A spontaneous outcry of positivity and love in the face of those who would have us go back in terms of rights. It gave me hope that we fight the darkness as the climate apocalypse approaches. What I did want to talk about was the fellow behind the stream. H. Bomberguy.

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Posted on in 2019, Current Writing, Essays, Film, Music

Can Pop Culture Eulogise the Dead?

So I’ve been thinking about the film Bohemian Rhapsody recently. It’s a film that I have complicated feelings over. My review might read: a film of good acting and subpar to decent filmmaking. It also reminded me how fond I am of the music of Queen, which was surely part of the impetus behind the film’s creation. There’s also the worrying stink of Bryan Singer and all the sexual assault allegations against him. All that aside, there was an interesting thought that occurred to me. The film seems to be pushing and pulling between two instincts. Is this a biopic of Freddie Mercury or Queen? The two might seem to be synonymous in some ways. The story of Queen is the story of Freddie Mercury, right? The film follows Freddie as the protagonist. From his quiet family life to his meteoric rise, to his attempts to break away from Queen, to their reunion for Live Aid. However, the film from a thematic standpoint is about the band as a family with Freddie as the wayward rock star son. It has been pointed out that the other members of Queen get to be the level-headed paternalistic members of the band while Mercury plays to the standard rock star tropes. Also, noteworthy is that the still-living members of Queen got some significant power over the film by virtue of licencing all their songs and being creative voices in the room. This no doubt led to the push and pull of the film’s narrative vs themes. With this in mind, can pop culture ever truly eulogise the dead?

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Posted on in 2019, Current Writing, Essays, Film, Internet

Wreck-It Ralph 2: Art and Consumerism

Over the Christmas period, I went to go see Wreck-It Ralph 2 known as Ralph Breaks the Internet. Generally, I enjoyed the first film. The message about being constrained by society’s expectations of you is an interesting one and all the pieces fit together cohesively. The central theme of the second film is pretty solid too and one that spoke to me. It is, in essence, a story about not being possessive of your friends as they pursue their dreams. All in all, the film is pretty harmless. However, the representation of the Internet kept throwing me for a loop. Before the film, I generally expected the cringy adoption of internet culture by the film in a skin that would feel as hollow as the Emoji movie. While I watched the movie, I got a sense that there could be a darker, more caustic movie behind the movie. However, the fact that this was a big budget Disney affair meant that they had to play it safe. So, let’s take a look at the Internet. Before heading into this piece, obviously spoilers ahead.

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Posted on in 2019, Current Writing, Essays, Film, Internet, Literary, Music

Re-examining the Women Society Destroys

We, as a society, tend to give women the short end of the stick. Right now, you might be thinking ‘duh’ or crying misandry right now. If you’re in that second group, I can’t help you with this piece. Sometime last year I was listening to the Slow Burn podcast about the Clinton-Lewinsky scandal. I had complicated thoughts about the whole thing. As someone who grew up in the 90s, I was distantly aware of the scandals. Bill Clinton mainly figured into my worldview via re-aired episodes of the Simpsons. Episodes were he appeared as a cool saxophone-playing guy, was replaced by an alien in their attempts to take over the Earth, and uh, flirted with Marge Simpson. Generally, as I learned more, there were a few conclusions I came to. What Clinton did was wrong, regardless of whether the relationship was consensual or not. The power imbalance between the middle-aged President and his twenty-year-old White House intern was always going to be fraught. Might we view Clinton in a different light in the wake of the #MeToo movement? Absolutely. However, at the time, it was clearly a partisan hack job. Those condemning the President weren’t about moral standards. You know why I think that? One of Clinton’s detractors was a fellow named Brett Kavanagh and we know what his track record with sexual assault is. There was only one person in the whole scandal who I thought was pretty blameless in all this. Monica Lewinsky herself.

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