Moving

I'm moving in about a month and have been really busy with getting stuff together for that, plus work. I probably won't get around to updating my NWN2 module until July.

Who is Kaycei?

First of all, Kaycei isn't my name. It's nothing close to my name. It's the online name I decided to use in college, to protect my identity from the scary World Wide Web. Now that I've been using it for so long, it's stuck with me.

I'm one of those people who walks around with her head in the clouds. I'm a day dreamer.

When I was a growing up, I loved to read. I would always have a book with me, reading by the headlights of the car behind me, reading by the light of the midnight sun as it passed through my window blinds during Alaskan summers. I sometimes used the flashlight under the bedsheets, but not that often. Batteries were in short supply in my household, plus I was never much of a complete rule breaker. It was too easy to get caught staying up past my bedtime with the flashlight.

I especially liked fantasy. C.S. Lewis and Madeleine L'Engle were two of my favorite authors. I enjoyed the animated movie for "The Hobbit" and "The Last Unicorn." I remember playing "Lord of the Rings" with a couple of my friends, pretending to be wizards and elves.

At this time, Dungeons and Dragons was growing in popularity, and was attracting the attention of the "Christian" community as being Satanic. I also remember not being allowed to watch "The Smurfs" for the same reason. (My parents deny this, so I may have just been a confused child.) Although I am a rule follower, I do have a slight rebel streak. This made fantasy even more appealing to me.

My uncle gave us a computer, along with some of his old computer games. He had a lot of fantasy games as well. One was Ultima 4, which I loved to play on our Apple 2e. It had different classes to play, a plot line, and spells. I spent hours playing that game.

During the summer, we traveled to my uncles and spent time there. He had a couple computers and even more, and better games at his house. I was in heaven. I played Dungeon Master and Elder Scrolls Arena.

I moved a few times and then I headed off to college. Well, while I was there, I ran into my "Lord of the Rings" friends again. It turned out they continued pretending to be wizards and elves, and were Role players. They invited me to join their role play group. After a few months I accepted. This expanded group of friends defined the rest of my college social experience.

We primarily played two types of campaigns, fantasy and superhero.

I didn't read comic books as a kid. My parents wanted me to read books with words, not pictures. But I still enjoyed my Saturday morning cartoons, especially "The X-men." I had a bit of a cartoon-crush on Wolverine. I couldn't understand what he saw in Jean Grey. So I imagined up a Catwoman type of character to be his mate. She was strong and sexy, my image of the perfect woman. (Laura Croft from Tomb Raider, played by Angelina Jolie fits this stereotype perfectly.)

Well, it was time for me to plan out my character for my first superhero campaign. I wanted to play my Catwoman type character. So we gave her statistics and planned her out. And she turned out pretty tough on paper. When a friend looked over her final character sheet, his response was "Hellloooo Kitty." We named her KC, for Kitty-Cat, and Kaycei was born.

Unfortunately I couldn't pull off the character properly, and it turned into a sick joke. The next few times we played a super hero campaign, I tried to play KC again, renaming her to Kaycei to make her a little bit different, but it never turned out right. See, I'm a bit of a tomboy too. And I just can't pull off sexy.

However, Kaycei stuck. So I use it when I want to be anonymous. And that is why I go by Kaycei.

"V for Vendetta"

This movie review was originally posted on Friday, April 07, 2006 on my blog at Myspace. It has been edited for grammar and clarity. (Slight spoiler alert.)


People should not be afraid of their governments. Governments should be afraid of their people.

After reading negative reviews about "V for Vendetta," reviews which primarily attacked the movie for its "pro-terrorist" stance, I realized I have a few things about the movie, and terrorism, that I want to say.

Terrorism is a loaded word. Saying you are pro-terrorist is like saying you are pro 9-11. But one thing people often forget, or fail to realize, is that one man's Terrorist is another man's Freedom Fighter.

The Boston Tea Part is one of the primary events that triggered our nation's Independence. An action that is by definition, a terrorist act. Our Founding Fathers were terrorists against their ruling nation, Great Britain.

But the history books are written by the winners and because of this, our nation's independence was a Revolution against tyranny, instead of a Civil War. Our Founding Father's were Heroes and Patriots, instead of Criminals, Traitors, and Terrorists.

V was not the protagonist in "V for Vendetta." He was the catalyst. From my point of view, there were two protagonists: Natalie Portman's Evey Hammond, and Stephen Rea's Chief Inspector Finch. And the antagonist was the dictatorship that ruled Great Britain.

Was the movie Pro-Terrorist?

I say no, but it was definitely Pro-Freedom Fighter. I don't recall a single innocent death during the terrorist acts performed by V. There were a few innocent people who died in the cross-fire, from the bullets shot by the government representatives. But V's acts of terror focused around the deaths of individuals involved in a government conspiracy, along with the demolition of two national symbols. And those symbols were destroyed late at night, instead of during the day, when people were there.

This movie explores themes dealing with Social Contract theory. Concepts that people sacrifice their freedoms for the peace and security governments offer them. But the movie asks the question: How far is too far?

I left the movie wiping tears off my face. It took about an hour before I could actually talk about the impact the movie made on me without getting choked up. It was the most powerful movie I've ever seen. (It was not a flawless movie, but it was incredibly moving.)

Seeing the masses approach the Parliament building, dressed in black cloaks and Guy Fawke's masks, without any weapons, had a profound effect on me. The power is in the people. And every government should fear that power.