bendingsignpost | Entries tagged with ben's life and shit

Having grown up as a Gifted Child ™, there was the constant pressure to be smart all the damn time. I still have a very vivid memory of my mom flipping out in panic and anxiety upon seeing that I’d gotten mixed up in my ABC’s Of the Ocean project whether the Atlantic or Pacific Ocean was bigger. It was a huge crisis… and this was just the fourth grade.

Now that I’m three times older, I’ve finally started playing D&D, having finally found a group of friends I’m comfortable to play with. I made my character for a pun, which involved her needing to be a full Orc, and y’know what? She’s dumb as rocks. She’s a charismatic bard of an idiot, and I love her. I love playing her, in part, because she’s stupid. She’s also a lesbian, because I always gotta gay, but as I have no idea how to flirt with women (and my dice apparently don’t either), she keeps striking out due to the stupid. She has the best damn awful ideas, and the look on my DM’s face is always priceless when she hears what the everloving fuck my bard is going to do.

“I fling myself out of the cart.“
“You what?“
“He’s coming at me with a sword, I’m tied up, I launch myself over the edge of the cart with my feet.“
“Okay, roll Athletics… You’re now upside-down hanging out of the cart. I think we’re gonna count that as prone.“

“All right, crew, it looks like we’re facing a werewolf,“ says our wizard.
“Does anyone have glue?“ my bard immediately asks, being in possession of a mace and seven silver coins.

“The werewolf turns and runs.“
“I throw the glitter [that I bought with the glue] at it.“
“Uh, why?“
“To make a sparkly trail we can use to track it.“

Some of these awful ideas have actually worked, which I guess makes them good ideas, but at no point am I ever afraid of offering a stupid plan. She’s supposed to be stupid, she has a -1 Intelligence modifier and is interested in only music, birds, and women who could beat her in arm wrestling. She’s allowed to mess up. Moreover, because she’s used to it, she even knows how to move on from it.

So yeah. I’m having a blast.

Current Mood: awake

In a very weird way, I increasing realize how much fandom has prepared me for working in childcare.

That is, I already know so many of the traps people fall into when they're 1) overexcited, 2) deeply invested, and 3) are stuck in groups not solely of their own choosing.

Something I had to repeat a lot today was "Is a game more important than a person?" Fortunately, the kids I was asking let out sullen no's, but a couple other kids started asking me theoretical questions. ("What if it's someone really, really, really, really bad?" "Is a game more important than a person?" "But what if they killed loads of people?" "If that person is less important than a game, then people are less important than a game. Are people less important than a game?" "...No.")

The other one has been what I'm deeming the Not Your Problem filter test:

Is it definitely a problem?
Why is it a problem?
What makes it your problem?

Funny enough, this is most often administered to the situation of "BUT THEY'RE PLAYING WITH IT WRONG."

Current Mood: tired
Current Location: home

The number of children who, upon hearing that I am unwed, have instructed me to literally grab a random woman off the street and marry her, is frankly disturbing.

As weird as it seems, I’ve got a seven year old student in MASSACHUSETTS who doesn’t know about same-sex marriage. Which is absurd whiplash from the five year old student who tried to claim me as his boyfriend (I told him you always have to ask to be someone’s boyfriend first, and since he hadn’t asked me, I couldn’t be his boyfriend, but I’m still glad we’re awesome friends).

Last week, she refused to let her friends play with two toy lions as a married couple even after I reminded her boys can marry boys. She still refused to play until I taught them that sometimes, girl lions can have manes (because sometimes, it’s not so obvious who’s a boy and who’s a girl, isn’t that interesting, kids). This morning, she asked why I wasn’t wearing my wedding ring. I answered that it’s because I’m not married “since I haven’t found a best friend I want to spend every single day forever with yet.”

She asked who I live with, then, which is a fair follow-up, and she asked after my roommates. I mentioned that they have girlfriends but are also not married. Child then immediately informed me I should marry my roommate’s girlfriend.

“You should never marry your friend’s girlfriend,“ I told her, because I’m hardly about to mention poly exceptions to a second-grader. “That’s very rude.“

“I’m a girl,“ she said.

“It would still be rude to marry your friend’s girlfriend,“ I said.

“I’m a girl,“ she said.

We then had a five minute long debate as to why she felt I could marry her stuffed animal (a dog) but not my car (who is, unbeknownst to her, a boy).

Howdy, my dudes, my lovelies. Made the new account over here today due to all the tumblr weirdness and the mass exodus. Not sure how active I'm going to be over here, but feel free to drop a comment and say hi, especially if your username is different here than it is on tumblr.

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Ben

Entries tagged with ben's life and shit

the freedom of stupidity

fandom as a teacher

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c'mon, tiny friend, update your world

Hello, new account; say hi, old friends!

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January 2019

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