some kind of justifications for myself in this space.
these thoughts will not be in a reasonable order.
i feel like the last couple of months have just ... contained so much. i feel like i shed a serpent skin and became a new, older, truer, more natural version of myself, like a rotting onion with the good in the middle still, like i'm pared down smaller than ever and yet more valuable to myself than ever. it's funny what just making things can do for a person's health. and getting feedback on those things.
influences. how do i talk about influences in this space without getting too intimate with people i just met who live across the world? how do i show appreciation for what has been given to me without making pronouncements on the nature of the people or their work or their situations?
i do know, i've gone afield to find the people whose values match mine and i think this is the end of how long it takes. god i'd be ready to rest my head now.
around us is the worst of humanity possible very much in action. i have gotten to a place where i can just barely have enough to survive. what i can do for the world is not in material means. what i can do is stop being ashamed and discouraged to do the same damn things i've been doing since i was a tiny child, creative things that killed me to suppress, and let them come out to be useful in some way to others. that's my surplus resource and my magic.
our government has always been killing children. it seems like so much in the capitalist world is set up so that children either succeed at becoming something less than themselves or die slowly. and this, this doesn't even give them a chance to try. it is adults' job to protect children. all adults. all children. this is a continuation of the anti-indigenous genocide carried out in missions and residential schools. the same genocidal society that brought me into existence, took me from half my ancestral culture and gave me unearned benefits because of my light skin, while still making sure i knew i was shit in their eyes. yeah i'm fucking angry.
and my anger isn't worth shit to anyone unless it can help.
you know what can help? with no money, no proximity, no physical ability, words and thoughts are fucking important. experiences, stories, perspectives. discussions that bring out new perspectives. what can help is anything that de-normalizes and roots out the culture of capitalist colonial heteropatriarchy.
the cool thing about games is that games are rituals. games teach and rituals are the things humans use to sort their shit out. running a game is creating a sacred space. the experiences of that space are heightened, able to alter the mind at a deeper level than an ordinary exchange. this is good to change minds who are open to change, and even more powerful to create safe spaces for people who are often unsafe. these don't have to be spaces where the content is safe, but they are spaces where consent is required and where difficult things are safe to explore in the company of like-minded others, within a ritual structure.
i've been a lot drawn toward making non-combat games that are either made to be played with children or in which the hero is a child. i've always felt alienated by children, until i realized that was on account of my upbringing, and that they, now more than ever, deserve whatever i can give to them. i will never choose to bear a child. i'm awkward around them. i get along mainly with the ones who are weird and lonely like i was, and i'm scared to death of what adults can do without realizing to a child like that. so i want to make games that care for them, that give people who care for them well a ritual framework. i'd like to eventually run games for children with their parents, sneaking in ways to help them relate to each other more healthily than capitalism requires. i don't know what i have to say about all this really, except that ... i don't know. people should think about this too. i hope they are. more than anything that's true, children deserve safety, and adults who were never safe as children deserve safety now. and sometimes safety can feel dangerous. and i would say that's something games can help with.
i have a lot of thoughts, and i sure as hell don't experience them linearly so i won't be trying to write them that way.