Metal Monday

Youtube Obsession

As a young queer person raised in a region and time when being queer was not not safe, my queer role-models were few and far between and mostly in media. Unfortunately and paradoxically, I developed a healthy case of internalized homophobia for self-defense. This self-loathing led me to a lot of self-destructive behaviors¹ and most regrettably pushing away those queer role models I craved. There is a certain melancholy that overcomes me when I think of all the queer people I dismissed in my youth so I could stay hiding.

Christopher Lowell was interior decorator who I would see on TV growing up and my parents and I would laugh at his obvious flamboyancy. I, of course, secretly envied his ability to be out and openly non-masculine.

It’s still television gold. Interior Motives was so popular that SNL did a spoof thinking it would be easy punch-down-laugh-at-the-homo fodder for their shitty show. Surprising no one, it’s shitty. It says a lot that the parody is less entertaining and charismatic as the actual Lowell.

Watching

Too busy a week to write up anything special, but check out my Letterboxd to keep up with my opinionated quips!

Reading

Old Man’s War by John Scalzi is boomer self-insert fan-fiction about the Greatest Generation^TM . Like Starship Troopers but without Verhoeven’s wink-wink nudge-nudge “fascism is bad, actually” subtext.

I was initially drawn along by the opening mystery of the main plot but once that is resolved about 50% in, the remaining story revolves around a deus ex machina contrivance that literally reverts the main character’s growth.

I read a lot of Warhammer 40k books, which is basically Fascist Space-Catholics burn the galaxy, but at least the universe of 40K reflects it’s grim premise. Old Man’s War has zero interest in exploring the repercussions of a fully fascist society. Just ooh-rah, “it’s an ugly planet” nuke’m all.

I guess there are more books in the series but I won’t be reading them.

Playing

I said last week that Final Fantasy Tactics Advance was baby’s first tactics RPG, well BattleTech from Hairbrained Studios in 2018 is the least beginner friendly TRPG out there. There are so many systems and mechanics the player must keep in mind that even moving a character could lead to a catastrophic disaster.

And I wholeheartedly recommend it.

With some caveats; Play the campaign first. I know you might want to start right in on the mercenary mode and it’s level of freedom (I know I did) but you are not ready (I wasn’t). The campaign does a good job of slowly introducing the mechanics and the story is a cool, revenge/zero to hero tale.

Watch other people play BattleTech. I love watching Baradul and his modded campaigns. He’s informative and he isn’t the kind of youtuber that is yelling all the time.

Finally, after watching Baradul play with some rad mods you may think you should install some and start up a RougeTech campaign. Trust me, you -and your PC- are not ready. First off, BT unmodded is already taxing on my PC and when I pressed “end turn” on a modded version my PC would crash 25% of the time. Secondly, RougeTech adds even more mechanics and as mentioned before, play the campaign first. Lastly, BT does not uninstall cleanly. If you ever want to play a vanilla game of BT after installing mods your SOL unless you follow the intricate (and possibly PC destroying) directions in the link provided or use a separate uninstaller like Revo Uninstaller² .

My final caveat: The Sensor Lock ability is way more important and valuable than any of the text, lore or tutorials ever let on. Use Sensor Lock, love Sensor Lock.

Other Notables

** “As college campuses are gripped by anti-Israel, antisemitic protests, Reps. Josh Gottheimer and Mike Lawler are showing what bipartisan leadership looks like. They are standing up against these extremist bullies — on campuses and in Congress — and deserve our support. Would you show your support by making a donation of the maximum of $6,600 to Reps. Gottheimer and Lawler today?” Is there a pipe-bomb emoji?

** YouTube channel Secret Base delivers another banger doc (Pt 1 of 3) that is about the mother of all sports events: American Politics.

1  Most notably adolescent alcoholism

2  Revo is great generally, but it doesn’t always catch what BattleTech leaves behind.