Unhelpful

Monday, March 27, 2000 - 6:07 PM

I was reading a site called Women of Asheron’s Call. Figuring this was going to be really good, or really bad, I decided to poke around a bit.

My first reaction was “this site has some interesting information and content”.

The second reaction was “am I a Woman of Asheron’s Call?”.

I started playing female characters in Ultima Online about halfway through my association with that game. I don’t play digi-sluts, dominatrixes, or helpless maidens waiting for a hero. I play characters that happen to be female. My experience is that I am more likely to be treated as a human being than competition needing to be crushed. More importantly, it’s interesting to play a fantasy game and be what you cannot be. If there was a role-playing game that allowed you to simulate working eight hours a day in an office job, or that allowed you to pretend you were posting long-winded rants on the internet, or one in which you did things like changing the cat box, doing laundry, and paying bills, it wouldn’t appeal to me - these are things I can do. “I don’t need to play it, I live it! Experience the adventure of my life! Delusion Online, the first offering of MyIPO.com!”

This being a fantasy game, I think we’re supposed to have a vivid enough imagination that we’re willing to live up to the hackneyed cliché that “nobody on the internet knows you’re a talking frog unless you tell them”. Taking that as a given, I can play a well-adjusted female in a game, and be a well-adjusted man outside of it. I don’t play to flirt or to start meaningful love relationships with anyone. For that matter, I don’t play games to talk about real life. I can do that at my leisure outside the game, be it on the net or off it.

So to get back to the point: I am a Woman of Asheron’s Call, and I am a man. If you can’t deal with that, that’s your problem. Hopefully when I send them my entry for their Fashion Parade, they’ll be open-minded enough to agree. [Page is Netscape unfriendly, works in Internet Explorer]

Sadly, the invented domain MyIPO.com actually exists. At least it’s not an e-venture where you sell yourself for stock.

“Delusion stock falls 5 and 3/8ths after low first quarter health issues.” [dead link]