A contemplation of Harley Quinn

I just wanted to put down a few words on the character of Harley Quinn.  Now, I'm not expert on her by any means.  I know her from the animated series, the Arkham video games and that's pretty much it.  I did read through the wiki page on her which filled in some of the gaps.

Right, so now that you know how little I know I want to postulate the following assertion: given Harley's relationship with the Joker sustains, she will kill him.

Apparently, having just learned this today, the "symptoms" of Harley's feelings towards the Joker can be summed up as Hybristophilia. I'm not going to consider the possibility that HQ and J are capable of love for each other.  Right, so it's more about what makes them cum and not their ability to be in the same room and not need the other to do something specific.

Now, I assume you know something about the Joker and that you feel the same about him as I do.  As someone who is barely human, he cannot need Harley to fulfill a specific need.  She is a convenient focus of abuse.  A willing focus too, which is a good joke.  Now, I assume that HQ&J have never had sex with each other because she is not either maimed or dead.  I cannot believe that Joker would be able to sport a boner long enough to achieve orgasm without severe violence.  Sure, he could exact said violence on another (unwilling) participant but he would not want to share that experience with anyone else.  Sharing a pleasurable experience requires consideration for someone else, which the Joker is incapable of.

Harley, on the other hand, at first, requires the Joker to achieve orgasm.  She has a primal need that requires the participation of a narcissistic psychopath to achieve.  She begins, as generally stated, as an intern at Arkham Asylum, which I may rant on about later.  She "falls in love with" Joker while working with him there and eventually helps him escape.  I can imagine her sitting with him just moistening at the waves of menace.  During the time actively participating in the Joker's crimes she is eventually able to produce the excitement for herself that she required Joker to produce.  Masturbation becomes not only possible but satisfying.  Then comes Poison Ivy.  Now, if it's violence that does it for Harley, then she doesn't need a penis involved.

So, she is able to control her own pleasure and she can receive it from someone who doesn't need to abuse her.  Great, the Joker is no longer needed, so she can leave him behind to lead a more self-actualized life.  One problem, no one leaves the Joker.  So she has two options: she stays with Joker until his abuse kills her, which it will because it must, or she kills him so she can be free.

[rant] Why the fuck would there be interns at Arkham.  It houses the most dangerous people in Gotham, and probably the world.  The least regarded, Zsas for example, has killed dozens and dozens of people.  For fun.  So, what?  They bring in some grad student to... interview... the Joker?  A grad student, who, let's be honest, would fail even the most rudimentary psyche eval.  It makes me feel that her time with Joker was being observed by a third party to just see what the fuck would happen.  I mean, no other explanation would make any sense.[/rant]

New Priorities (some links NSFW)

Things have been piling up for some time and things that were once really important to me have fallen by the way side.  I've been meaning to re-prioritize, but distractions just keep popping up.  Therefore, I'm going to reorganize my life a bit and focus.

I'm going to finish the shorter games first.  Ones I know won't take more than about 10 hours to get through such as: Tomb Raider, Dead Space, and Bayonetta.  From there will be the somewhat longer games: Bastion, Red Dead Redemption and Darksiders.  Then I'll try to focus on the longer and more meandering games like Skyrim, Borderlands 2 and Dead Island.  These are certainly not the breadth of the pile of gaming that stands before me, but I think if I'm able to keep distractions, such as family, friends, and work to a minimum I can reach most of my goals before the end of the year.  I also expect Tomb Raider to be my last purchase for a while and I'll be going hands off PC gaming for some time.  Although I have been having fun with DC Universe Online.

I will also be playing most of these titles on Easy if available.  For the stand out ones, I can always head back and play them on higher difficulties.

To that note, I started Tomb Raider yesterday and have been overly impressed by it.  Mechanically, there's little we haven't seen represented in other titles.  At it's core it's an action title.  The strengths so far come in the presentation of those tropes.  Lara's interactions with the island feel organic and more believable than just about anything else in the genre.  Plus you don't want her to die because the deaths are brutal and so realistic that you feel them in your gut.  Luckily I'm playing on easy so the death are few and far between, otherwise I'd be a quivering mass of regret and despair.

Additionally, this is not something I want to be playing with my daughter in the room.

I plan to post weekly how the quest is going, but only if it doesn't interfere with the procession of said quest.

On other gaming news, my Monday night group is reaching the end of the published main quest for Descent (2nd Ed) and the Lair of the Wyrm expansion has been ordered and shipped.  I've been playing the Overlord and been having a grand time of it.  I may try to be a player in the second season of it, however.

In preparation for one of our members returning from the north of Africa in the next several months I sent out the following email:

"I've got two ideas I want to bounce off of you guys prior to our return to D&D in the next several months:

1. Magic Item histories:  it's easy to take magic items in D&D for granted and I think it would add quite a bit to the experience by having background information of the amazing items your characters are sporting.  Frodo didn't have a +1 short sword of Orc detection, he had Sting, an ancient elvish blade.  Where did it come from?  How was it made?  Was it enchanted by a wizard or were its properties earned by battle and heroic deeds?  Who has owned it and how did your character come by it?

Everyone's got time to work in such things in the next few months (when are you hoping to make it back to the table, David?) and I've got an idea of how to reward you for taking the extra time:

2.  Hero points: or Awesomeness points, maybe.  Points that are awarded for homeworkey stuff or doing something heroic, awesome or clever in game.  These can be spent once per encounter to take another action, add an after roll bonus to something.  Something like that.

Let me know what you think and toss out some ideas if you have them."

I'll let you know how it plays out once the D&D starts back up.

Friday night's game has been getting thick and almost drowning at times, but the DM's attention to detail has been impressive and I look forward each week to making as much of his planning worthless.

The XP value of friends...

I've been sitting on that entry title for literally two weeks (and I've been sitting on this blog for months). I was thinking the other day how all of my good friendships (except with my wife and brother in law and one or two rarities) have been gained and strengthened through gaming.

I game socially with people at least once a week, usually several times and if I'm lucky, every day. I played Liar's Dice with the Monday Night crowd and it was amazing fun.

A question I find myself asking is this: what the hell do non gamers do? I guess any interest can be a basis for social interaction but gaming, especially board gaming, requires it. People who knit can talk about knitting I guess, and you can knit near someone else but unless you're quilting together (yes I know sewing and quilting and knitting are all different things) you're not really interacting with the other person in a direct way.

Gaming lays bare personality. I may have different political or religious views than the folks I game with but I know that they are decent, fair, and dedicated people. I wouldn't game with them otherwise and if I'm not gaming with you, we're not close. Games have become a lithmus test of an individuals quality.

Does this make it hard to make friends with people who don't see every gathering as an excuse to break out a board game? Sometimes, but I am multifacted and connect with people fairly easily. I tend to breach the 'game question' with anyone I get close to and attempt to be an ambassador of my hobby.

Breaking out the games has become much more structured since becoming a father of course. But I game twice a week in person if possible and try to get an hour or more in of City of Heroes each evening.

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Looks like you've got critters...

I'd like to talk a little about crawlspaces tonight. You know crawlspaces: that place under most houses that most people ignore while it slowly turns into a pit of dispair. If a man's home is his castle, then the crawlspace is the dungeon. Not the dungeon where you put prisoners and such. I mean dungeons in the Dragons & kind of sense. You know, where weird molds and jellies grow. And undead.

That being said: I really don't mind going in them. Mostly for the strangeness of them. It's dark and kind of secret. It's hard to predict what you're going to find or see when you climb into one. AND it's cool in the summer and warm in the winter.

The first steps into a larger world...

So I've been playing City of Heroes again for the past month or so. Just a little bit here and there, maybe 6 hours a week or so. I hadn't planned to get back into it until Going Rogue comes out in July, but Dave had mentioned wanted to get back into it and that itch suddenly needed to be scratched. So I immediately dumped my Star Trek Online account (much to my relief) and got it reinstalling.

Now, my City of Heroes account was started in October of 2004. The only other game I've habitually gone back to in that kind of time frame is Diablo 2. In that time CoH has improved and changed so much that looking back I can't imagine actually playing the older iterations of it. The thing that keeps bringing me back isn't necessarily the game-play, which is passable and often fun, but not great.

It's the character creation system. I can't think of any other game that has such a robust character creation system. There are a few omissions in it (like Brutish Female Models, think Giganta) but in general I've been able to create any character I can think of in a satisfactory fashion.

The downside is that there are very few people who are playing CoH right now. I only know one person who plays at the moment and the servers seem to be generally empty. I'm hoping that when Going Rogue releases it'll pull in old and new players and beef up the player base. I really hope that some day they'll be able to consolidate down their servers so increase the number of players per server.

Also, Lord of the Rings Online is going Free to Play this fall, which I'm really excited about.

Daughter, I hope you love Role-Playing Games

Someday, when you're older, I'm thinking ten or twelve, but maybe as young as eight depending on how mature I think you are, I'm going to sit down with you and help you create a Dungeons and Dragons character. It'll be about ten years from now, so we'll probably be using the brand new 5th edition system, but I'm thinking... Elf Fighter. Maybe a mage. Definitely Elf though.

So we'll create a character, talking about who she is, where she's from. What her dreams and aspirations are. I can already see that dreamy far away look in your eye as you describe her parents (king and queen of a far away land, of course) that your teachers have described to me. You put it on as you stare dreamily out of the classroom window when you should be learning about... whatever you should be learning about in the fourth grade. I don't remember exactly because I was too busy staring dreamily out the window when I should have been paying attention.

Then I'll give you the brand new dice I bought you in your favorite colors. Maybe purple, like your mother, or deep red with white numbers. Will you make sure that all your dice match? Will you prefer pips or digits on your d6s? I prefer that all my dice conform to "Ugly, old, and mismatched". Maybe you will too.

You'll know all the jargon, of course. d4s, d6s, d20s, etc. To Hit, Damage, and what kind of bonuses are power, feat, armor, or the almighty untyped. You've been the unofficial table mascot since you barely had hair. I'm afraid that you'll someday view all men against the benchmark that your father and his gamer friends have set. A benchmark that shows how focused, charismatic, successful and crushingly boring non-gamer men are.

So we'll begin and I'll describe the court of your parents. Maybe your Elf Fighter/Mage (that is, one or the other as multi-classing is a coward's game) feels out of place in the airy intrigue of the Great Game, or maybe you'll be bold and daring and give her an excellent CHA and begin to play your parent's enemies against each other. Maybe your mother will play with us. I can see her as the cautious and resolute Human Paladin envoy. I can see it now: She is to guide and protect you as you deliver a peace accord to the human lands, but the Goblin Emperor cannot afford peace between the Elf and Human kingdoms and has vowed to stop you.

It will be epic.

And maybe as you get older you won't have time for your Dad's adventure games, and that's ok. I'll send a copy of the Core Three (PHB, DMG, and MM) with you when you head off to college and there will always be a spot for you at the table, which I have moved to your room, which is now my room, while you're away at college.

I hope you love Role-Playing Games because I do and I love you.

I'm a little airplane nyow...

I remember a time when the songs that got stuck in my head weren't intended for toddlers and preschoolers. I can't say that I don't mind it. Sesame Street is my new Buddha.