[LinearPhilosopher]

there are side videos on her channel but part 2 is no where in sight. I bumped into part 1 eons ago as well. She doesn't seem to be that productive.

[Macros]

She must be too busy out spending all that kickstarter money on shoes, handbags and chocolate

[amphibian]

Weren't the previous allegations of such funds misuse proven to be falsified? As in people taking photos from fashion bloggers and saying that Sarkeesian was buying that stuff?

[King Lear]

I think Maccy is trying to make a joke

[Macros]

I dunno amph, womenfolk they just can't resist those jimmy choos


maybe she's busy scheming how to trick some poor man into getting her pregnant so she can steal all his money and corrupt the child.

[Morgoth]

So, in attempt to keep this thread from being closed/moved to the inn. Or, I guess this being more likely, simply forgotten.

There's a new game coming out called Dragon's Crown. Now, this game to me exemplifies a lot of the things that are wrong with the gaming industry. Sadly, I'm posting this from work and so cannot link from the games web page nor post images. Sufficient to say the very idea of playing the game using the sorceror class makes me incredibly uncomfortable. Not to mention how embarassed I would have been had Sarah seen me play something like that.

[Macros]

website, looks hella shit

[MTS]

Good Lord. I had never heard of this game before, but I don't know how anybody could find any of those female character models appealing or even merely sensible.

The Amazon:
 02_1.png (631.27K)
Number of downloads: 0

The Sorceress:
 06_1.png (601.2K)
Number of downloads: 0

[Silencer]

Incidentally: Linky!

So...yeah.

The thing that kinda weirds me out is that this is, based on that website link Macros posted, in some way associated with Atlus. I.e. Shin Megami Tensei, Persona, etc. Which are pretty tasteful in their depiction of both genders, from what I've seen of those franchises, even without giving them leeway for being Japanese. I guess they're branching out/publishing only or something. But still...

[Illuyankas]

Oh man, that reminds me pretty heavily of the up and coming MMO Scarlet Blade!

Don't google that at work.

[Morgoth]

Silencer, on 27 April 2013 - 12:08 AM, said:

Incidentally: Linky!

So...yeah.

The thing that kinda weirds me out is that this is, based on that website link Macros posted, in some way associated with Atlus. I.e. Shin Megami Tensei, Persona, etc. Which are pretty tasteful in their depiction of both genders, from what I've seen of those franchises, even without giving them leeway for being Japanese. I guess they're branching out/publishing only or something. But still...

Looking at the penny-arcade front page, it would seem Tycho is another who painfully mistakes criticism for censorship. I seem to remember him being fairly insightful in what I've read of his, but that post was pretty daft.

[Shinrei]

@Illy, I googled it (not at work.) I had to laugh, because amidst the legs and boobs, the 8th picture on Google images was Picard's facepalm. Classic.

[LinearPhilosopher]

that amazon looks disgusting.... Something is wrong when we've gotten to the point where attempting to draw attractive qualities has turned into producing something disturbing.

[Silencer]

And let's not even get started on the ludicrousness of the fact that she is wearing no armour...except for boots up to the knee. Is that the only part of her she's worried about getting hit? Wtf? That one kinda comes secondary to the...uhm...broken posture, and typical "sex appeal" cliches they've thrown in there. I mean seriously now...

[LinearPhilosopher]

oh come silencer, we all know the strenght of an armour isn't determined by the coverage. It's by the magic number it has.

[Silencer]

BalrogLord, on 28 April 2013 - 12:56 AM, said:

oh come silencer, we all know the strenght of an armour isn't determined by the coverage. It's by the magic number it has.

A perennial sticking point in game design for me, I'm afraid.

I'm down with magic armour, but if it's not explicitly stated to be such the defence it provides should be only of the areas it covers and in proportion to its materials and design. XD

However, I'm willing to handwave that to a certain point, of course...but THAT, is not armour. It's decoration.

[Adjutant Stormy~]

This is the thread that pulled me out of my post-count-hoarding elitism.

A mentality of gender roles is both so pervasively normative and simultaneously hypocritical as to boggle the mind. Even amongst the 'liberal' groups.

On the matter of Bronies.

But there are interesting pushes back against it, especially in gaming: Gamers Against Bigotry, now they might look like apologists, or traitors to the cause or whatever, because they espouse a slightly more moderate sentiment.

Social change and agitation isn't always a battle, sometimes it's a marketing campaign. But that's not to say we need to hamstring the artists, legislating racial equality did not preclude people from including people of different races in their works - especially in period pieces. And I see so much vapid pseudofeminist backlash on feudalism (via the videogames that are supposed to be set in it). Which leads me, and I'd hope most sane people to ask: "LET IT BE, FOR CHRIST'S SAKE".

I took a semester class on "Videogames as Art" and 90% of our discussion was whether or not it was OK to allow bigotry and/or misogyny to even exist in the game for the purpose of the plot. But, thankfully, we got things like Bioshock Infinite released this year. Which, in a rather fascinating instance of popularity trumpiing paranoia, acquired a really bare-minimum amount of flak for portraying an absurdly racist society.

If misogyny is important to the artistic vision of the videogame, let it be.

[Illuyankas]

Interesting read on that brony article, since Betsy in the comments is a star:

Quote

What bothers me about bronies and the way the entire movement has gone is the underlying assumption that you hear from their more vocal sections: that because they are interested in this concept, it should be shaped to better please them.

These are the people who get annoyed that the MLP dolls have brushable hair, instead of rigid plastic hair that looks more like the characters in the show, or the people who vocally complain that certain episodes of the show are obviously made more to please 6-year-old girls than adult men.

For all of our lives, women have been presented with two choices: stay in the spaces that are "made for girls" and give us the things we are told to want, or go into spaces that are "made for boys" and deal with the ways in which we are unwelcome there. Now, there is this thing which is AWESOME, and was made for girls, and has all the made for girls things, and we are being told that BECAUSE it is so awesome, it should not remain primarily for girls.

It has "graduated" from a girl thing to a "human" thing, which is to say, a boy thing. Why can't our things be awesome on our terms? Why does the fact that you like this thing mean that you have to change it to be more comfortable for you?

Quote

@12: What I was responding to, in the article, was this line: "you get a near Godwin’s-level response whenever these guys are mentioned. Which means we have two topics to discuss here: First, what they’re actually doing and represent, and secondly, why they enrage people so effortlessly."

My comment above was explaining why the reaction is so often brutally negative, in my experience. It's not because I think these men are acting like something less than men, or other than men. It's that I think they are acting exactly like men have been taught to act, by elevating their affection for something above women's affection for the same thing, and arguing that it has been or should be transformed by the fact that men like it, too.

I am sure bronies aren't all like that, but the vocal ones, who keep the name in front of me all the time, do tend to be. And that has affected my reactions whenever this conversation comes up.

As is EllenMCM:

Quote

"Consider first the fact that women have been people for about a hot minute. “Feminism” was not a word our grandparents had ever heard: The Pill was invented in our mothers’ lifetimes. Sit with that a second."

I ws going to put the kids to bed and write a lesson plan tonight. But then I read this.

I don't know what your grandparents were doing, but mine had certainly heard the word feminism. They heard it, read and wrote about it, negotiated over it, and considered its role in their lives. Olympe de Gouges was executed for being a feminist during the French Revolution, shortly before Mary Wollstonecraft wrote A Vindication of the Rights of Women in 1798. I have the letters in which my grandfather agreed to accept my grandmother's views on feminism and birth control as his own (he described the pre-requisite reading he had done) and asked her to agree to use his financial spreadsheets. We are not in the first generation of feminists, or of children raised by feminists. My grandmother got the right to vote in her lifetime, because of the work of feminists who had worked on suffrage, and on other issues including (but in no way limited to) abolition, property rights, control of wages, the 8-hour work day, access to education, temperance, age of consent laws, access to anesthesia in childbirth, and dress reform for a very long time.

Why is it important to me to point all that out? Because women have NOT been people for about a hot second. Women have been people since women have existed, and their personhood has been acknowledged by many people for significantly longer than my lifetime, or the lifetime of my grandparents.

How does that apply to the conversation about Bronies?
I don't begrudge Bronies their existance, or their joy in My Little Pony. I enjoy a good episode of MLP as much as the next human being. It's a fun show.

I do begrudge Bronies their claim to represent a manifestation of feminism in fandom. It's fabulous that Bronies acknowledge that something intended for an audience of 4-8 year-old girls is quality entertainment and deserves respect as an artistic endeavor. But the only new thing here is the respect for a show about ponies intended for little girls. Feminism in fandom means creating safe and welcoming spaces for girls and women AS FANS, not just as subjects of fandom.

It's great that Bronies have found each other in the real world and online, and created spaces where they can share their enthusiasm about ponies. However, the presence of a lot of men in fandom does not represent change of any kind. I hope you have fun talking about Pinkie Pie, but I would appreciate it if Bronies stopped patting themselves on the back for being feminist. Men have long been able to make their interests public, especially the interests they share with other men. Women's interests have long been ridiculed and forced into the private sphere. When you create an online space where my 11-year-old daughter can safely share a picture of herself in her Twilight Sparkle t-shirt, then you can call yourself a feminist.

These are pretty much why I, even I, don't really care about fans of My Little Pony - watch it, it's fine, I don't mind and you shouldn't mind if I do - but bronies? Bronies can go get fucked. It's a toxic movement when you get backlash against parents asking for less explicit murderporn to be created without warnings for eight year olds to look at.

Also that GAB site looks pretty good? Getting more exposure out and being reasonable about it is quite excellent, I don't see the issue here? Also context and normalisation are the issue with things like sexism and racism in video games not their existence, point out where Bioshock Infinite portrayed its society as a good thing etc.

[Adjutant Stormy~]

If you're mad about some part of bronies, see here.

Feminism is about a neutrality in gender, ultimately. And I think it's important to stop selecting the gender-related issues we feel comfortable fighting, and fight the rest.

[Illuyankas]

That image sure suggests many notable methods to accomplish its goals. It's almost like it's a trite picture that solves nothing!

And again, what here makes you think the people involved aren't already fighting whatever else you think they need to fight? If you guys listen to nothing else I ever say in this forum, you can work towards position A AND position B simultaneously! It's not a zero sum, either/or situation.