Misogyny rhymes with Therapy

So, I'll start this off by stating: I am not a feminist.

Why? Because in doing so, I'm illustrating a problem in society; I can't claim to be a feminist, and still have my words taken seriously.  As it stands, I prefer "Equalitist" to feminist, because I support the advancement of all people, like prosperity rockets. 

So, everyone talks about misogyny, which is a word I had to look up how to spell, because that's how little I use it.  Misogyny is basically when a man (or woman, I've met a few of those in my time here) is racist against women.  They may like them, as we like all kinds of things, but they hide a deep rooted anger against them.

I've gone into such things before, how letting little boys get hurt can lead to men with scars, but we forget that sometimes the anger comes from somewhere else, and is just focused here by a third party.  Misogyny is bad, and it's pretty easy to find out if you're misogynistic, or have been jaded by misogynistic views.

Seriously, it's not hard to get jaded, it can happen to anyone.  Women get jaded by the same views about themselves.  Can you imagine that?  You can't?  Because you're just a guy, and guys can't understand feelings?

What do Poe, Keats, Yeats and Oscar Wilde have in common?  All are poets, really good at expressing their feelings, and they're men.  Hell, Orpheus is considered the greatest poet in mythological history, and yeah; guy.

Vikings, Scotts, and Picts... all big on poetry and feelings.  Vikings considered crying manly, deal with it gym coaches of the world.

I know women, who slut shame victims of rape.  Can you even imagine what it must be like to laugh at a woman for being raped? To blame her?  A girl in a miniskirt being raped was "asking for it, really..." but your wife in the same outfit being raped is the start of a Liam Neason revenge movie.

How can a man (talking about a specific person I know), express undying rage at men who sexually harass women, blame a girl for naked pictures of her being spread by a jilted lover?  Or a thief? 

Because it's not that hard to be convinced of this, because misogynists are good at it.  They use the exact same tactic as Neo-Nazi recruiters.  They find those who are angry, feel powerless, and generally are looking for something to stand against. To these people, they don't just say "it's the wimins", because they're not stupid.  They just drop little hints, and everytime something goes wrong, they point the finger at the nearest person without a penis.  Because people with those don't make bad choices. They give people a torch, and tell them to stand with all those happy people over there having a scowling contest.We're all looking for some injustice to stand up against, and here we are, being handed a person who we can hate together, as a family.

Ever listen to a bunch of internet misogynists rant?  Do they sound angry?  Not usually.  Mostly, they sound happy, as if they can finally do what they always wanted: prove themselves right yell really loudly.  People will listen to them now!  That's all most want, a little attention now and then.

Never base your enrollment into a way of thinking, or a side of an argument, by the charismatic leader.  Base whether you side with a group of people, by the people in the group.  Read the comments on an article explaining why a woman who's ex-boyfriend distributed nude pictures of her he took, and deliberately set out to destroy her life.  Even when you think they've drifted away, keep reading.

Find the masses, when they start calling for her suicide, or call her family to threaten her life.  Listen to their anger that seems impossibly directed at a single person they likely didn't know existed until they happened to click on the same link as you.

You may find that you've been standing behind a group of people with torches, about to lynch someone because "meh, it's Friday."

A little too much swagger in ones' step.

It's been a week since Harpers, and my ankle finally functions like an ankle again, and not a cybernetic limb set on "pain".  So, all the pictures have been put up, and I've finally sifted through the lists of people who I couldn't name on the street trying to friend me.  Ok.  Time for the educational post.

"Your Mouth Writing a Check Your Ass Can't Cash."

That's right, today we're talking about Bravado. 

Bravado is the act of your mouth writing the proverbial check, to which thine ass will be standing in line with at the bank of violence later.  Bravado, bragging, swagger, and such, are not manifestations of someone being egotistical.  They're simply someone giving the world a show.  For fighters, this has a more definitive line, because there's repercussions after.

Usually, before a battle, tourney, or just straight up match, many of us fighters will do a bit of trash talk to the "Enemy" (friends we kill).  I'm no exception, I frequently ask if it's acceptable to remove the heads of my enemy to present as a gift to the barony.  I'm fun like that.  A few lines of dialogue before a fight add a sense of humor to it, which, when you're pretend killing someone, is very much needed.  So feel free to boldly make a claim to your opponents future widow, or threaten to use their skull as a decorative flower vase.

Just remember, no one has any sympathy for you when you die then.

If you go into a fight having made a grand claim to pose your future dead enemy spread eagle so he won't fit in a casket, and then find yourself on your back, while the audience votes on "Egyptian or Greek" for your death pose; you have no one to blame but yourself.  There is nothing we humans love more than seeing someone who stood up on the grandstand, fall flat on their face.

Which is why educational videos on Youtube get seven hits, and videos of skateboarders falling down hit in the billions.

The problem with bravado, is that some go too far with it.  A bit before a fight is good, a bit of "I was goddamn amazing" after being goddamn amazing is alright.  Just don't be that guy who spends the previous week making grand claims as to your fighting prowess, and then fight six matches that end in unclear draws, and one time everyone just said "fuck it" and walked away.

Because the guy who made the quip about "using your eyes as mothballs" gets the benefit of doubt when there's a question as to "who hit who?", but the guy who spent the previous night explaining how he had more skill than half the army combined.

I tell people that "I've been doing martial arts and sword work for about twenty years now", though rarely as a bragging tool. I like to use it to stop people who're either; trying to explain a basic concept like "force" to me (I've heard every plausible definition), who are trying to critique me, yet spend most of their time trying to soften the blow to the point where it's Nerf ("your elbow is a bit out of sorts for that parry" "Thanks!), or I tell people that to explain why things are difficult, because I've been doing this for around two decades, and things still sometimes don't go my way.  "Remember, twenty years might seem like a long time, but most of these styles were developed over centuries, and refined through more centuries... you'd need a much longer lifespan to truly master anything in this day and age."

SO, when one steps into a duel/fight/battle, after having spent the previous week explaining that they are the greatest, they get no wiggle room.  I've had friends make those grand claims, and then be confused when no one cared that something did not go their way.  So, I've made a helpful motto to remember:

"When one fighter fights dirty, both fighters get dirt on them.  If one of them was talking trash, they're now dirty, and smell like trash."

When you walk away from the fight, do you want to be remembered as the fighter who fought clean, fun, and everyone wants a piece of now? Or the one who everyone is pretty certain is going to contest every hit against them?

Empty Booth on Career Day

Having an honest moment with myself tonight.  Shannon and I had a strange conversation, one that I'm certain she didn't expect, but in it came a statement that if I can hold onto, will keep me from the depths.

What do I want to do with my life?

It's a question that plagues mankind, we're here for at best, almost a century, yet many of us have no idea what we are going to do for it.  For the first part of it, we want to be big, we want to grow and learn and play.  For the lucky ones, that never ends.

In truth, only a few ever stop.

Sure, we all like to believe we're unique in our childlike wonder of the world, that we are the only ones who still wonder about magic.  It's just not true.  Grown adults wouldn't care about fireworks if we lost childhood wonder.  Big bright colors in the sky.  Books about sex and adventure.  Fandoms that span nations.

The average adult still believes in magic, and that's good.  Because children are fucking stupid.

Children believe in magic, and stop asking, they're content to just accept "it happened" as a reasonable explanation.  Adults want to know how you knew that was my damn card, asshole.

That, is wonder.  Wonder isn't "MAGIC WAS REAL GUYS!"  Wonder is... well, wondering.

Unfortunately, somewhere between childhood and death, someone demands of us that we decide what we want to do with our lives. As if we know until we've tried everything.  It's like asking someone what food was the best they'll ever eat.  They can't answer that if they ever plan on eating again.

But, I digress, fantastically so.  What do I want to do with my life?  It's simple really;

I want to hit things with swords, and write books.

There we go, just point me to that Career Day booth and I'll be on my way.  That may seem sarcastic, but it's honestly not.  I just want to hit things with swords; I want to fight enemies and run screaming into people.  It's what I find fun.  I don't find football fun, or playing card games.  I like hitting things with swords.

I don't like playing farming games, or most shooting games.  I like hitting things with swords in games.  Throwing magic is cool... but... I've got this perfectly good sword here....

I also want to write books about things.  Sometimes even books that don't involve hitting things with swords.  It happens, honestly.  I like sitting down and dreaming up stories, and I write them down because if I don't, my mind gets very loud and I start talking to myself out loud about things.

That's not a joke, talking to myself while pacing the house for two hours happens to me on the not-so-rare occasion.

So, you know what I do?  I hit things with swords, which on occasion leads to me teaching people how to also hit things with swords.  So that I can fulfill my selfish desire to hit more people with swords.  The more people I train, the more people there are to hit with my sword.  Win for me.

I also write my stories, and publish them when I'm able (you can read them, here.  I don't put that much effort into publishing... I should, but publishing I've found was not what I wanted to do.  I wanted to write them, and read them to myself.  Publishing is just something I do when I find I like the story enough to share.  Like a really good pizza; you just want to give a friend a slice.

So, this is my life's plan: to hit things with swords and write books.  I'll probably work jobs, I don't particularly care which as long as they don't interfere with my sword hitting or book writing.  It's my life's goal and it's what I'm getting ever closer to be doing more of.

My dream, is to one day not require a job, because of a combination of sword fighting and book writing.  Seriously, that would be the dream.

So I'm going to do that.  I know people say "you can never catch your dreams, because dreams are unattainable," but I once dreamed as a child that I lost my teddy bear.  He was dead and all I could say was "no one lives forever".  I know, I was a dark child.  My brother was in that dream as was his friend.

Months later, my house was damaged in a construction accident, and my teddy bear was destroyed and I never saw him, or the shoebox bed with the Batman pillow and blanket I made him, ever again.  When my brother told me that my bear was gone I told him "no one lives forever."

So, yeah, that dream happened, guess this one can too.

Armoring Journal: Building Better Base

So, today's adventure into the wild world of making things to keep fighters from death; building a better leg.

My current armor projects are interesting ones:

Building a breast plate for a woman with breasts to spare.

Building a new heavy list/fencing gorget for myself.

Taking the cake: Building a custom left leg for the wife, who requires specialized care to protect the IT band.

So, this is the hardest part, because it's on the side.  My first plan was to create a cuisse that is one piece.  No crease, no strapping except for comfort straps.  I'd need to take multiple measurements of her legs, make a left leg that is bent around to a circle and rivet it into permanent placement.

Downside: very hard to put on single pieces, and the IT band is only slightly more protected.

Plan II: refit current model to have a long single piece protecting the band, minor change to the bottom to allow it to bend without hitting that exact band.  That muscle does need room to flex, otherwise she'll end up losing use of the leg.  Or blood clot problems, which could result in loss of the leg itself.  This plan feels better than the single set.

Strapping: I plan to strap the wing of the knee joint to deflect away from the band, while defusing the blow as quickly and efficently as possible.  Possible padding behind the wing itself.

Padding: This is a big part, I'm going to have to rhino that leg.  I know it might be difficult for her to call blows to it, but that's a training issue.  I might make the leg larger than normal, then use a three layer padding system to it.  First is rigid material (plate), followed by a foam material, then a second foam layer of different hardness.

I'm debating on either hard then soft, for better diffusion, or soft then hard, for better oblation.  Possibly even using strips of hard cell, that stand on either side of the IT band, then a layer of soft.  What that might do, is direct pressure from blows to either side of the band, even if hit on it.  Could add strips of soft in the empty spaces to keep a solid flow to the impact.

Knee Joint:  This presents a special challenge, since I will need to make a knee that significant weight can be dropped onto it, I have a few suspension knee pads, I'm going to have her test which ones feel good for her, then I'll either copy it or incorporate that exact one.  Knee will also be strapped to take more blows than normal, since she's a lefty.

Shin: I myself prefer light shinguards, but since this leg will be an open door for her opponents, I'm going to put a standard shinguard below the knee.


... and this is just the left leg.

Practically a Martial Art

One does not spend more than a day among martial artists before the word "practicality" is thrown out like a padded MMA gauntlet.  Growing up in America, there is always a group of people in every situation who doubt everything ever.  My theory was that it was social "little man" syndrome; a feeling that since they knew less, they were less, so anything they didn't know was not worth knowing in the first place.

We all know their arguments: "but what if I had a gun?"  "yeah, but what if they just did ." "none of that will save you if the guy has like... giant arms".  

By this time, we're all preeety much just bored with them.  Denying the effectiveness of martial arts in the days of MMA is like claiming that dogs can't look up.  We've tested that theory daily.

But, this hang-up on "practicality" in martial arts circles is basically the same thing, but directed at other arts.  It's like being a martial arts racist.  I've yet to know of a style where someone who did a different style, did not question the practicality of something.

"Wing Chun doesn't hit hard."
"Muay thai let's you get hit."
"Karate is the Dane Cook of martial arts."

Granted, there is a degree of questioning one should do in every martial art as to "will this actually work?  I mean, I'm pretty sure it will, but I've yet to master the required Hadoken..."  Also, I've been at "demonstrations" where the proposed art did literally nothing.

I'm looking at you "guy who told me he could knock me out from across the room"...

I hear a lot from MMA fighters that their spor- I mean "art"... no, I meant sport, is "practical".  Frequently in regards to "conditioning", "technique" and "realism".  Which, is hilarious to me, to say the least.  Remember kids, MMA is a fantasy sport, where no one pulls knives, friends don't come in, and you never ate too much before a fight.

On the scale of "realism", MMA falls about equal with the SCA combats.  At the end of the day, if you took an MMA fighter and threw him to a gang of thugs, he'd last longer than a non-mma fighter.  Same can be said for any SCA fighter tossed to a group of sword-swinging knights.

Though I will state right now, that proportionately, the SCA fighter would out last their non-fighter, much longer than the MMA fighter would out last their non-fighter.  Because it's hard to run away crying in armor.

Now, is MMA a martial art?  No, it is a martial sport.  It's the equivalent of Mortal Kombat in real life.  A group of colorfully dressed people with strangely diverse martial arts, fight each other for a bit, but no one actually dies*.

*Because they're still available next time you select characters.

Is SCA a martial art?  No, it's live action MMO PvP.  We have goals, group dynamics, different classes (weapon sets), roles (commanders, scouts...), Moderators, and of course, respawns.

Both systems actually require a detailed knowledge of martial arts, I don't know a single fencer/heavy/MMA fighter who doesn't know at least six horrifying ways to murder someone that could never, ever be used in the SCA/MMA.

Are they practical?  Less than actually slitting throats.  Is it a martial art?  Not really.  What is it?  Martial Activity/Sport... and fun.


Side notes:  Things that happen at both types of combat events:
-Theme music
-Drinking/eating
-Hot girls in revealing clothing.
-Gratuitous man-hugging.
-Old guys debating theory while young guys beat each other senseless.
-Tattoos.
-Everyone is scared of the woman fighters.
-Barefoot adults.
-Armchair generals.
-Support teams.
-Folding chairs.
-Muscle-bound-non-combat men feeling immediately inadequate.
-Sweet after parties.
-People selling over priced clothing.
-Broken, bleeding fighters drinking beer and talking about "things".

Disbelief and Wirework

A subject frequently brought up on both sides of the like/don't like argument for books and movies, is the "suspension of disbelief".  It's commonly used as a "this: therefore I win" part of an argument.  It's supposed to be "telling" what someone will suspend with their disbelief.

Spoiler: It's not.

Suspension of disbelief is "how far can a story go, before it pushes away its' audience".  Not how wacky it is, or how realistic it seems.  The "it's a movie" statement is lazy debating, one has to keep in mind that the whole point of a story is to explain something in a manner that is easy to relate to.

We don't question the Iron Man suit's ability to stop inertia from explosions, not "because... you know... he science'd it", but because we can all agree that in this moment; the armor just works. We're ignoring that minor detail for the sake of understanding the story.

The Jaegers can run and jump without falling apart, because of that thing they never ever mention in the movie. We're fine with that.

We're also fine with idiots dying in horror movies, because they're idiots.  Even the "smart" character will become a drooling moron whenever the killer needs to magic their way into a house.  Even though we'd all love a scene in the teen slasher flick, when the crazy killer (who's really the boyfriend) goes to a college party to kill someone, and runs into a marine on leave.

"I have a knife!"
"And a future filled with expensive medical bills..."

What kills this suspension, effectively cutting the wires, is when things happen that defy the basic reaction laws of humanity.  Not when characters make mistakes, but when we're expected to just "go along" with something that no one in the audience could ever truly "go along" with.  It's where movies that try to strong arm political agenda into movies usually fail.

Examples: Transformers, and The Purge.

In our first example, we come across a movie in many people watching it stopped numerous times and went "are you kidding me?  Am I the only non-moron here?"  Not when giant robots punched eachother, we accepted "alien stuff" as the explanation for that, along with "sure Megan Fox would date... him...".  What kills it is "... is he really going to go to college, the face of the human vs. Decepticon war, without his awesome car/best friend/body guard?  That's like Michael Knight telling Kitt "Nah, stay home, I'm going to solve this case with my Hyundai."  That, and the government strong arming giant robots with no allegiance into exile.

"Hi, Autobots?  It's , heard the US kicked you out... man, we have some great garages here... like, a bunch.  Just saying if you lived here... you'd each get your own hanger."

In our second (and far worse) the Purge breaks a rule that even fantasy and surreal genres are held to: human actions.  We accept that elves are perfect beings, because we're not, and they're not us.  Humans in fantasy are always "strong, dependable, capable of great evil or great good, work hard despite their short lives", it reads like a DnD fortune cookie.  The vast, vast majority of the action and thriller genres literally depend on one human trait that we all tend to share: we love ourselves some revenge.

We're revenge junkies.  How many movies, books, shows, entire series are devoted to revenge.  Even our most popular super hero team of the decade The Avengers, name quite literally means those who take that revenge we love so much.  Why?  Because revenge is the one time, the one time, when a good, mild mannered man is able to put down his glasses and beat some ass.  We love it.  We want to be the heroic Gristle Mc Thornbody, beating down thugs because they killed his second best friend ever.  It's sexy and fun.

The Purge breaks this, by saying that should a night be "anything goes" the streets wouldn't be filled with men with guns, bats, swords, knives, superhero costumes... just looking for evil to smite.  The actual purge would have lasted one time, before everyone realized that "most criminals are just not dumb enough to walk out into the world on the night where they can be brutally murdered for sport by angry mobs."

... that would have been a better movie, a bunch of low income drug dealers, gang members, and petty thieves, trying to hide from roving bands of people who believe they're heroes.

There's your political statement.

A God Complex

If there's one thing every craftsman born wants, from carpenters to serial killers, it's someone to understand their work.

"Because God." is literally the worst answer ever.

Me, being the charismatic bastard I am, I believe in a God.  I won't say the God, because that's assuming that out of the infinite universe I picked the right answer on a multiple choice quiz with an infinite amount of answers.  It's beyond arrogant to believe the "my God is the god, and yours is wrong".

I believe in Gods and Science, for one specific reason: God does have laws over humanity, being infallible, we literally cannot break these laws.  I call these laws "physics".

It makes perfect sense to me, that God would use physics to make things.  Like a computer programmer, using a code to make something work.

God: "I need a planet... let me just physics some of these gasses together around this star, bake at a few trillion degrees for a few trillions years... and bam, planet.  Now to physics me up some life forms on it.  There we go, now let's see if I can teach them not to be assholes before they blow themselves up."

Being a god sounds a lot like being a parent, or a teacher.  Which are really very similar things come to think of it.  God makes sense as a teacher, as someone who revels in our little scientific triumphs.  Can you imagine the happy face (if you know, God has one) God made when humans held up the first book?  Finally able to write down all the stuff God handed to them so they couldn't screw it up lat-... who am I kidding?  I'm sure a god, who gave humans free will, would see that coming.

Yes, "free will", one of the few things that existed before the split up of Christianity.  Where God actually put forth "I have these commandments, you can choose to obey them or not, it's up to you."  Where God let's us know that all the suffering in the world is a direct result of our own actions or inaction.  Boring atheists rely on that "why would suffering exist with a god around? huh?", fearful of the moment someone says to them "ummm.. because some people use their free will to be shits."

Saying "well, that's just how the world is" as a response, is just like saying "because God."  Neither take responsibility for it.

Now, how do I look at Science and God and say "that totally makes sense!"?  Because Gravity and I teach martial arts.  Most people I know, have no idea about how to fight.  I've seen it all, every dumb idea by someone who has no idea what happens in a fight.  When I show them something, I get that same dumbfounded look of "are you a wizard?"  No, it's simple mechanics, ignore the pointy hat.

If I had someone push me, and then I used a complex technique to send them to the floor, they won't understand it.  It's beyond them.  Much like Gravity, and why ice is slippery.  We have no idea.  It's not saying we never will, just that the understanding of how that works is beyond our... well... understanding.

If we don't understand things, but someone out there far more advanced than we does, that makes them more advanced.  Our endeavor to understand how they did it, makes us understand them better.

Understanding is knowing, and isn't "knowing God" what all Christians are supposed to want?  I love Science for that reason, it's constantly asking the right question.  Not "ha! I've disproved something!" it's asking "how does this work?"  That's real science.  Real science is looking at Gravity, at the tiniest particles effected by it and asking "how does this work?"  Because when we know, we'll understand how the universe was created better.  Which means we'll know more about that which created it.

Because the universe contains craftsmanship, and if there is a craftsmanship, then there is a craftsman.  They love it when people go "Hey! This is how you did this!"  Learning that the world is billions of years old was like finding out that it didn't "take God time", but that "God took time" on it.

Science is how we understand God, how we understand what all this stuff around us is.  One cannot just sit back and say "well, God space magicked everything into existence, that's how."  Because that's lazy.  That's like one of my students telling me "you just used wizardry to knock me down, that's how." followed by going about their lives, never caring to know how I did it.  Even though I did it to show them how, so that they themselves might one day do it.

We have all manner of Sciencey goodness because we Scienced it, because a bunch of people asked "how does that work?" and didn't accept "because God said so" as the reason.  You could "read his book", but even if you found the ones that weren't re-written by ghost writers, you're still not understanding.  You can learn about me by reading Tale of the Iron Rose but you'll learn more about me, by figuring out how I wrote it.

How did I know how to do those fights?  About survival?  About the personal issues and struggles the characters had?  How did I, a man, know how hard it is to be a young girl?  The book won't tell you that, you have to find out by researching me.

That's just Science.