Tag: Blaugust

[Life] Blaugust – and AI

This post might be a bit of a rambling mess, I’m trying to string a bunch of thoughts together and it’s hard for me to make sense of it all in my mind as it is,

I don’t know all of the ins and outs about the drama that’s going on re: Blaugust and AI. I’ve stayed out of it and away from it because it (the discord) always started to come across as a club where people were judged for their methods – and as much as I AM against AI (and don’t let this post fool you, I am not a fan of it in any way) I am even less of a fan of telling people what to do with their personal space on the internet – especially when it comes to a made up event that is supposed to be inspirational and motivational and boost people up, not tear them down.

I’m not OK with judging people for their use of AI in their own spaces. I do not think they need to be disqualified for a fictional event where no money or ‘prize’ is on the line except our own personal back pats. If someone writes something interesting it will get read, and if it’s not interesting, it won’t. If you want to take a personal stance against reading or not reading articles that are written by AI then I think that is absolutely viable and I fully respect that – but I do not think we need to focus on the negative and judge people. Maybe after making 5 AI written posts they give it a try and decide they love it, and then they continue writing themselves. Wouldn’t that be great? That will never happen if we just say “NO AI!” right at the gates. The community has already spoken and excluded those people.

What I’d like to see is people taking those perceived negatives and turning them into positives. Being supportive, educating, and being friendly to one another. Why am I against AI? Well that’s simple, I’m an artist and I think people deserve to be fairly compensated. I’m a fan of living on this planet, and I want the environment to prosper. These are my own personal views and morals and it would not be fair of me to judge others by those same views. Do I wish people did the right thing? Of course, absolutely – but at the end of the day, I am in charge of *me* doing the right thing, and that is it. So yes, I can be against the use of AI, and also against the idea of ‘banning’ people from participating if they use AI. We are not better or worse than one another. Blaugust is not a creative writing project. That might be one facet, it might be what it is for you – but it has been about inspiration, motivation, and community, more than anything else. I think it would be better to just leave it open to anyone who wants to participate, in whatever method they choose to participate, and then if YOU want to read their stuff, do it, and if you do not – then don’t. We need to pay more care and attention to what we are personally doing and less care and attention to what random Joe is doing. If anything, hold accountable the huge rich companies passing the buck around – and not your fellow down in the trenches, because that is not where the blame lays.

[Life] Rest in Peace, Mark

This post hurts, but if Mark taught me anything, it’s that we write through our pain. We talk about it. We share it with others, and through that, we form our community.

I had known Mark (AKA, Belghast) for … too many years and yet also just not enough. A really long time. Before I even had my own blog. He used to be in my EverQuest II guild – and I even wrote a post about him, accusing him of cheating at the game. We always had a really rocky weird friendship. I remember those days. I didn’t have kids, I was immature. I didn’t know about neurodivergence, I just knew that I had a hard time making and keeping friends. I always felt pretty alone, and I felt like I was constantly saying or doing the wrong things.

Mark helped me embrace that. No matter how many weird arguments or disagreements we had, I still counted him among ‘friends’. We would go silent for a bit, then pick up when we were playing a mutual game.

That mutual game this round was supposed to be EverQuest Legends. We had discussed getting a guild started so we could get some group activities going. Unfortunately that will not happen in quite the same capacity.

He died the same day as his wife, one year later. I choose to believe that it was some sort of sign from the universe that they’re together again. He spoke so fondly of her. In a time when I see so much sadness, struggle, and hurt – I choose to see this as some sort of fucked up silver lining. I have to, so I can move forward from this.

Everything is so raw and rough right now. I’m angry that the universe takes really good people while leaving behind … well.

It is what it is.

Blaugust Day 1: Introduction

No idea what Blaugust is? Go read about it first (TL;DR I post every day for the month of August, and I’ve been doing it as part of a community for years now).

I don’t really post a lot of real life things here on my blog, keeping it to my hobbies (art, gaming, fiber arts like knitting and spinning, cross stitch) but every so often something creeps up and I talk about it. There’s no real explicit reason for this secrecy except that I’ve got young kids, and my husband is a first responder, so privacy is something we very much value. I figured for my first Blaugust post, I’d do a little bit of an introduction for anyone following along.

I’m a mid 40’s mom of two young kids, and like I said my partner is a first responder who tends to work very long hours. In between homeschooling and tending to the kids (who have complex needs) I like to play video games, read, knit, and things along those lines. When I was younger (not even much younger, but let’s say pre-children) I was not a very nice person. I have a temper – and I’d like to think that it is since having kids that I’ve morphed into my final form, who I am pretty happy with, overall.

I love animals (sometimes more than people) and I try to make an effort to let others know I’m thinking of them or that they’re important. I tend to retain weird information about people but rarely let others into my private circle. I have lived all over the world. My father was air force, and we were posted to Germany when I was 7. I have lived (and driven) from one end of Canada to the other. While most people I speak to have lived in only a small handful of provinces, some even living in their home province for their entire life – I love that I’ve moved so much. I have a very well rounded idea of what I like as far as a ‘home’ goes, and what I don’t like. That idea has grown and evolved over the years, especially after we had kids.

Because my partner is a first responder I find it difficult to keep tabs on some people. My hours of availability are sporadic, which carries over into my gaming. I’m not a night owl, and tend to game EU hours despite living in Canada. I do try, but I’m not very good at reaching out. The first responder side of things can be stressful. My partner has seen and dealt with situations that no one should ever be exposed to. He has saved more lives and helped more people than most will ever know. He has given so much of himself over to this job. I am incredibly proud of him, despite not saying it nearly as frequently as I should. Again, privacy issues. The stories I have could fill numerous books.

I feel awkward when I’m talking to people. I overexplain situations and give far too much information (like I’m doing here, in this post). I have maybe two close friends I speak to on a daily basis, and everyone else I’d categorize as acquaintances. I think I am probably not worth the time. Did I mention imposter syndrome? Well, stick that up there too.

As far as gaming goes, I prefer the meta game to the actual game. In World of Warcraft (my main game of choice) that means gold making. I have been playing since it released, in some form or another. I take breaks here and there, but I always return. I love collecting things, and old world content – but I also love the QoL changes that have happened over the years, and thus any form of ‘classic’ is just not for me.

I also love RimWorld, and Wurm Online, my two other most played games. Wurm is very niche, but has a dedicated and passionate player base. I’ve been playing that as long as Warcraft. RimWorld is single player, and I love it whether it’s modded or not. That game just speaks to my soul.

I’m a very prolific reader, preferring most evenings to curl up with a book instead of any games at all. I’ve recently started diving into audiobooks in the morning while I post my auction house stuff in WoW. I don’t think it will ever surpass reading for me, but it’s a neat way to explore books.

I think that’s about it for now, this post is already far longer than I intended it to be (yep, I ramble). I hope everyone enjoys their own participation of Blaugust, no matter how many or how few posts you manage to eek out. Let’s have a great one! As always, happy gaming, no matter where you find yourself.

Blaugust – but not really

It’s that time of year where normally I would sign up for Blaugust and make a post for every day during the month of August – but this year, I didn’t sign up. I’m not interested in the added pressure of trying to make a post, or the temporary social aspect. I get that this is very much a ‘me’ thing, but I’ve been writing my blog for 18 years now, and if I’m not inspired to write then I just don’t write.

That being said, for those who are interested I think it’s a fantastic event, and a good time to get started. If you enjoy reading blogs it’s also a good time to find some new ones, and if the action on Mastodon is any indication, there’s a lot of participants this year. There’s an active discord for those who are into that, too.

The end of Blaugust

Today marks the last day of August, and thus the last day of Blaugust – and it might not be apparent that I’ve even been doing Blaugust since I don’t follow the provided layout but I want to say a few things about that.

First, the event in essence is to get people blogging – and it absolutely succeeds in doing this. A wonderful community has formed because of it, and this year marked the greatest participation numbers ever seen. I think that’s wonderful. I started off wanting to be more involved in the community but quickly realized that real life had other plans, and that I cannot be in all of the places, as much as I would like to.

That’s OK.

I started the month wanting to write every day, to loosely at least, follow the suggested topics, and provide insightful commentary that people would enjoy. This also did not happen.

That’s OK.

How and when you choose to blog is completely up to you. The subject matter, again, up to you. I cannot stress enough that you should try to first and foremost WRITE FOR YOURSELF. If an audience forms because of it, that’s wonderful, but if you try to write expecting an audience and one never forms, it can cause more harm than good. I’ve added some wonderful RSS feeds to feedly this round, and I did my best, and I’m satisfied with that. I did manage to create a post for each day, even if it wasn’t posted on that exact day (I tend to backtrack when I have spare spoons, and push out a bunch of posts all at once). I hope everyone had a great time, maybe made some new friends, and realized that blogging doesn’t HAVE to be a dead medium. There’s still some of us around, just writing.

As always, happy gaming, no matter where you find yourself!