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src/diary/entries/210701

@@ -6,11 +6,10 @@ july 1, 2021<br>
 <h3>friday, june 4 </h3>
 <ul>
 <li>I ordered some rayon rib knit for a mock turtleneck, but customer service emailed me saying that it's out of stock. They had tons in stock when I ordered, and there's still 70 yards left today...How is 70 out of stock? ;-; </li>
-<li>I want the setting for Blessfrey to be like the United States but not quite. I was using something along the lines of Harry Turtledove's Southern Victory series. The Confederate States is definitely an interesting place to study, but I was just using it as an obvious example of an alternative history setting. Really thinking about it, though, the failed U.S. state that interests me the most is Nickajack. The interior of the Confederacy was speckled with pro-Union enclaves trapped within pro-Sucession states. If a particular secession movement succeeded, north Alabama and parts of Tennessee and Georgia would have become the pro-Union state of Nickajack. The idea of Nickajack has captured my imagination since I was a kid, since it comes up in local politics and rants from grownups every once in a while. The disconnect between north and south Alabama persists to this day. Huntsville is a modern booming Southern city, outpacing the other big Alabama cities Birmingham, Montogomery, and Mobile, but the state refuses to recognize Huntsville as a bigger district. Huntsville also pays a lot of tax money into Alabama, but spending disproportionately favors southern Alabama. Not only that, but there's a distinct cultural disconnect, with northern Alabama's history of technology, connection to Nazi Germany, and general higher levels of education, income, racial diversity, and Democrat voters compared to the largely agricultural south. I'm not even sure how accurate this stuff is, though, since this is my summary of years of angry grownup hearsay, I didn't intentionally follow local politics until high school, and I've never lived long enough in southern Alabama to gain a sense of any significant cultural or political differences. At least my husband went to school in southern Alabama, but I don't have access to much more than his experiences. The idea of resolving the general north-south tension through secession is wacky to me. Alabama's political history has a lot of absurd events and figures, too. The Confederate States are interesting and all, but I think Nickajack is a lot more personal and unusual for use as a story setting. </li>
-<li>When I went online to learn more about Nickajack, the amount of sources was shockingly small compared to how often I've heard it discussed. About the best I could do is find books about it that are luckily available at my local library. I guess I should have checked the library first, since the only times Nickajack's come up in my reading have been while reading local historical journals and newspapers in the library's archives. Makes sense, since I only hear about other secession struggles directly from people who used to live in states with similar tension. (Superior vs. Michigan is one I learned through a Michigan-born classmate in 5th grade.) </li>
-<li>Even if I'm not setting my game immediately into the Confederate States, Nickajack is definitely strongly tied to the Civil War and Confederate States. A modern Confederate setting is just extremely controversial these days, even if it would have probably freed its slaves hundreds of years ago and legally recognized the equality of its citizens regardless of race. (It's not like even the general population of a Civil War-era Confederate setting really supported slavery either, but whatever.) The reality of the Confederacy or my representation of it doesn't really matter, though, since it's been reduced to a conversial symbol, representing either (by the left) racism, slavery, and radical right politics or (by the right) the rejection of the expanding government and progressive policies invading the private lives of citizens. No matter what I do with it, it's going to immediately mean virulent angry things to people. The setting of Nickajack really interests me, especially way more than a vanilla rural South, so I'll probably do it anyway because it's unique, but it's probably going to be controversial if anyone ends up playing my game at all. </li>
-<li>To make it worse, slavery actually is a relatively major theme of my setting, but it's more similar to modern day slavery. We still use slavery in labor to lower the prices of consumer goods, but instead of keeping slavery domestic and regulated, we have exported it. Slavery today's just as bad if not worse than the experience of Southern slavery, but it's out of sight, out of mind. That idea is kind of represented in Blessfrey's setting's exploitation of the hollow earth to support its unsustainable local economy (because the controversial hollow earth theory's in my setting, too, lol). </li>
-<li>Whatever. I checked out some cool library books about local history, though. It'll be fun to intentionally study it instead of generally learn it through osmosis. </li>
+<li>I want the setting for Blessfrey to be like the United States but not quite. I was using Harry Turtledove's Southern Victory series as a starting point. The Confederate States is definitely an interesting place to study, but I was just using it as an obvious example of an alternative history setting. Really thinking about it, though, the failed U.S. state that interests me the most is Nickajack. The interior of the Confederacy was speckled with pro-Union enclaves trapped within pro-Sucession states. If a particular secession movement succeeded, north Alabama and parts of Tennessee and Georgia would have become the pro-Union state of Nickajack. The idea of Nickajack has captured my imagination since I was a kid, since it comes up in local politics and rants from grownups every once in a while. The disconnect between north and south Alabama persists to this day. Huntsville is a modern booming Southern city, outpacing the other big Alabama cities of Birmingham, Montogomery, and Mobile, but the state refuses to recognize Huntsville as a bigger district. Huntsville also pays a lot of tax money into Alabama, but spending disproportionately favors southern Alabama. Not only that, but there's a distinct cultural disconnect, with northern Alabama's history of space technology, connection to Nazi Germany, and general higher levels of education, income, racial diversity, and Democrat voters compared to the largely agricultural and Republic south. I'm not even sure how accurate this stuff is, though, since this is my summary of years of angry grownup hearsay, I didn't intentionally follow local politics until high school, and I've never lived long enough in southern Alabama to gain a sense of any significant cultural or political differences. At least my husband went to school in southern Alabama, but I don't have access to much more than his largely unfavorable experiences in a small town. Regardless, considering a successful state of Nickajack as a setting seems really fun and probably interestingly obscure for people living elsewhere. </li>
+<li>When I went online to learn more about Nickajack, the amount of sources was shockingly small compared to how often I've heard it discussed. About the best I could do is find books about it that are luckily available at my local library. I guess I should have checked the library first, since the only times Nickajack's come up in my reading have been in local historical journals and newspapers in the library's archives. Makes sense, since I only hear about other secession struggles directly from people who used to live in states with similar tension. (Superior vs. Michigan is one I learned through a Michigan-born classmate in 5th grade. Is everyone exposed to these rants, or do I attract separationist radicals?) </li>
+<li>Civil War era secessionist states are open wounds in American politics these days. The reality of the Confederacy or my representation of it doesn't really matter, though, since it's been reduced to a conversial symbol. It either represents (to the left) racism, slavery, and radical right politics or (to the right) the rejection of the expanding government and progressive policies invading the private lives of citizens. If anyone cares at all, it could mean virulently angry things to people in the current year. Nickajack is personal to me and very unique as a setting, though, so I'll use it. </li>
+<li>Anyway, I checked out some cool library books about local history. It'll be fun to intentionally study it instead of generally learn it through osmosis. </li>
 </ul>
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 <h3>sunday, june 6 </h3>
@@ -60,15 +59,14 @@ july 1, 2021<br>
 </ul>
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 <h3>thursday, june 10 </h3>
+<ul>
+<li>I got groceries at Target, so I had to peek into the Gamestop next door. What happened? Even the Nintendo game section is tiny now, and 70% of the store is dedicated to Star Wars and anime clothes and toys. It's been trending this way for years, but at least they had a wall of Nintendo games before. They only had a few used games and controllers, and I didn't see any consoles at all. It might as well be Hot Topic now, minus the band merch. </li>
+<li>Did some blogging </li>
+</ul>
 <video width="480" height="360" controls>
     <source src="/static/img/webm/WhereAllThe Videogames_WillSmith.webm">
 Your browser does not support the video tag to play the Will Smith "where all the video games?" WebM.
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-<ul>
-<li>I got groceries at Target, so I had to peak into the Gamestop next-door. What happened? Even the Nintendo game section is tiny now, and 70% of the store is dedicated to Star Wars and anime clothes and toys. It's been trending this way for years, but at least they had a wall of Nintendo games before. They only had a few used games and controllers, and I didn't see any consoles at all. It might as well be Hot Topic now, minus the band merch. </li>
-<li>Target had lots of corpo pride displays scattered through the store, but Gamestop didn't have any at all lol. </li>
-<li>Did some blogging </li>
-</ul>
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 <h3>saturday, june 12 </h3>
 <ul>
@@ -97,13 +95,13 @@ Your browser does not support the video tag to play the Will Smith "where all th
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 <h3>saturday, june 26 </h3>
 <ul>
-<li>Officially started househunting and put my first offer on a house down today. It's a wild market, but it's also getting more expensive to rent than own. Househunting is unexpectedly time-consuming with all the tours and negotiations. My parents never moved houses, so this is a completely new process to me. </li>
-<li>Apparently, people are flooding over from California and buying houses that they've only seen pictures of, waiving inspections, offering 50k over the asking price, and paying in cash. A realtor friend said some realtors are even buying cruises for the sells as part of the deal. </li>
+<li>Officially started househunting and put our first offer on a house down today. It's a highly competitive market, but interest rates are below 3%. Mostly, my husband is sick of apartment rent for a decent apartment costing more than a mortgage payment. Househunting is unexpectedly time-consuming with all the tours and negotiations. My parents never moved houses, so this is a completely new process to me. </li>
+<li>Apparently, people are flooding over from California and buying houses that they've only seen pictures of, waiving inspections, offering 50k over the asking price, and paying in cash. A realtor friend said some realtors are even buying cruises for the sellers as part of the deal. </li>
 </ul>
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 <h3>sunday, june 27 </h3>
 <ul>
 <li>Player follows Slime Rally during attack loop </li>
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-Last Updated July 10, 2021 <br>
+Last Updated October 17, 2021 <br>
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