Malazan Empire: Fantastic feminist critique of video game tropes - Malazan Empire

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Fantastic feminist critique of video game tropes

#401 User is offline   Illuyankas 

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Posted 11 March 2015 - 09:51 PM

 dietl, on 11 March 2015 - 08:54 PM, said:

This is a (long) five-part series of articles that criticizes feminist frequency and its tactics. I don't really know enough about the issue to comment either way, but it might interest some of you.

http://metaleater.co...eo-games-part-1


I got to the part which I will paraphrase as, "I'm going to flip out at how she said 'listen to women' and didn't explicitly mention men in the same sentence, which rather than correctly interpret it as 'women get under-represented and sidelined, so let's make sure we pay more attention to them' I will instead choose to read as 'ignore men, only women count, IGNORE MEN! IGNORE MEN!' which is patently not the case but would demolish my perhaps-the-truth-is-in-the-centre cred if I didn't make a fuss" and stopped reading.

e: included post I responded to from last page

This post has been edited by Illuyankas: 11 March 2015 - 09:52 PM

Hello, soldiers, look at your mage, now back to me, now back at your mage, now back to me. Sadly, he isn’t me, but if he stopped being an unascended mortal and switched to Sole Spice, he could smell like he’s me. Look down, back up, where are you? You’re in a warren with the High Mage your cadre mage could smell like. What’s in your hand, back at me. I have it, it’s an acorn with two gates to that realm you love. Look again, the acorn is now otataral. Anything is possible when your mage smells like Sole Spice and not a Bole brother. I’m on a quorl.
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#402 User is offline   worry 

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Posted 11 March 2015 - 10:13 PM

Yah, it was just International Women's Day a couple days back, and I was reading about how that is the day mentions of "International Men's Day" spikes, largely in the form of rhetorical "Why isn't there an International Men's Day?!?!" whining, because of course any mention of women's issues is inherently an attack on the male ego. Just like Black History Month is swarmed with mentions of the much-needed "White History Month". And of course what these people don't realize is that there already is an International Men's Day, and these people just never bothered to look.

Anyway, here's Anita talking about the harassment in pretty direct terms (nsfw language) at a recent women's event:


And here's a decent article by Natalie Walschots on the ripple effects/fallout of GG:
http://this.org/maga.../10/finish-him/

Needless to say, the publishing of this article has resulted in her being swamped with the usual swarming, harassment, and worse (including ridiculous discussions on how to have her jailed for "defamation").
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#403 User is offline   Gnaw 

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Posted 15 March 2015 - 04:56 AM

SXSW: Female gamers tell their stories in ‘GTFO,’ which tackles industry sexism

http://herocomplex.l...?track=lat-pick
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#404 User is offline   worry 

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Posted 15 March 2015 - 07:00 AM

I love the use of the term "underbelly" there, it's exactly the right connotation. The only thing I feel bad about is that those kinds of movies take a few years to make, so the people in it -- as much as this issue has actually been festering there for years -- still couldn't have been prepared for the piranhas in GG that they'll now be subjected to.
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#405 User is offline   Gnaw 

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Posted 15 March 2015 - 07:15 AM

 worry, on 15 March 2015 - 07:00 AM, said:

prepared for the piranhas in GG that they'll now be subjected to.


Meh. I didn't think about that.
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#406 User is offline   worry 

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Posted 19 March 2015 - 03:33 AM

Tantrums over people who don't want to hear tantrums:
http://www.zenofdesi...ssment-victims/


Also, a little humor from Marvel:
Posted Image
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#407 User is offline   Maark Abbott 

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Posted 19 March 2015 - 08:34 AM

Things I learned from that picture: Loki has an axe.

I thought he was only armed with his biting sarcasm.
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#408 User is offline   LinearPhilosopher 

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Posted 20 March 2015 - 01:33 PM

oh boy have I a lot of reading to catch up upon...

Food for thought: thoughts on female streamers
https://www.youtube....nel=SkyWilliams

conversation with female streamer
http://www.twitch.tv...9221?t=1h09m44s


National Pest article on... male domestic abuse?
http://news.national...exual-violence/

"Penny Krowitz, executive director of Act to End Violence Against Women. “If we had enough men coming forward saying, ‘I need shelter from this abusive woman’ or ‘I need shelter from this situation,’ do you not think that we would have provided those services to men?”

if this isn't a giant can of worms i don't know what is

This post has been edited by BalrogLord: 20 March 2015 - 10:33 PM

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#409 User is offline   Primateus 

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Posted 20 March 2015 - 10:56 PM

If that dude, Sky, is so fine and okay with women who show some cleavage and what not, why the fuck is he complaining about it?
Screw you all, and have a nice day!

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#410 User is offline   worry 

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Posted 20 March 2015 - 11:36 PM

Cannot trust a person who casually, consistently refers to human women as "females". Noun form is perhaps worse than adjective, but either way that's a thin line between very disgusting and slightly less but still very disgusting.
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#411 User is offline   Primateus 

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Posted 21 March 2015 - 12:22 AM

 worry, on 20 March 2015 - 11:36 PM, said:

Cannot trust a person who casually, consistently refers to human women as "females". Noun form is perhaps worse than adjective, but either way that's a thin line between very disgusting and slightly less but still very disgusting.


That's not something I think I'd really notice, but thinking about it, I believe you're right. It does seem a bit condescending...
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#412 User is offline   Aptorian 

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Posted 21 March 2015 - 09:44 AM

 Primateus, on 20 March 2015 - 10:56 PM, said:

If that dude, Sky, is so fine and okay with women who show some cleavage and what not, why the fuck is he complaining about it?


... Did you actually watch the video?
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#413 User is offline   Primateus 

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Posted 21 March 2015 - 11:49 AM

Yes, yes I did.

And pretty much all I heard was the ol' "I'm not a racist, but..."

This post has been edited by Primateus: 21 March 2015 - 11:50 AM

Screw you all, and have a nice day!

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#414 User is offline   LinearPhilosopher 

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Posted 21 March 2015 - 12:09 PM

 Primateus, on 20 March 2015 - 10:56 PM, said:

If that dude, Sky, is so fine and okay with women who show some cleavage and what not, why the fuck is he complaining about it?


This gets touched upon a bit more in his conversation with a female streamer (didn't catch her name) but the premise of his gripes are that when it's been done on stream, in a stream that;s not about the gameplay, it becomes exploitative. It's the whole "let's take advantage of all these horny teenagers by showing ample cleaveage, frequent pornography references etc....". It's also a question of, this kinda sets the tone for what ppl expect of female streamers. "titsorgtfo" being a common word thrown around

I'm against the exploitation of individuals, however, (and this is something that was touched upon the conversation) that the focus is being misdirected. As long as there are horny teenagers people are going to want to take advantage of them. So i think his video should be more focused on those making these derogatory comments. (granted a video catered towards these people would likeley fall under deaf ears).

It's been somewhat of a recent trending thing on reddit (esex even wrote an article about it, they're e-sports equivalent to the onion) so i figured i'd share)
http://esportsexpres...le-bug-threat/.
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#415 User is offline   TheRetiredBridgeburner 

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Posted 06 April 2015 - 05:07 PM

Has anyone been following the saga with a limerick being removed from Pillars of Eternity due to concern raised by the transgender community about the content?

It's brought the GamerGate lot out again, naturally.
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#416 User is offline   Grief 

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Posted 06 April 2015 - 06:50 PM

I've been aware of it slightly, but not in much depth, so some of this might be incorrect.

The Original limerick:

Here lies Firedorn, a hero in his bed
He once was alive, but now he's dead
The last woman he bedded, turned out a man
And crying in shame, off a cliff he ran

Which has now be replaced by:

Here lies Firedorn, a bard, a poet
He was also a card, but most didn't know it
A poem he wrote in jest was misread
They asked for blood, so now he's just dead

Which is apparently a replacement written by the person who wrote the original.

Here is a thread on Obsidian's forum discussing it. Here are a couple of samples:

Quote

So the SJW nazis who hate women, minorities, men, and everything else get their way again. These evil punks are about power, control, and slavery.

How long til we see 'outrage' about husband murder, referring to women as 'fire whores', rape, racism, and a whole bunch of other nasty stuff?

DOES. NOT. MAKE. SENSE.

These people have no morals.

They aren't about equality. I AM ABOUT EQUALITY. Why is Obsidian anti equality?


Quote

Take a peek at her response, now she feels powerful that she made Obsidian change something, it was never about trans people, it was ever about outrage, it is about making a company backpedal to their desires. Do not pity them.


I also must say it's pretty funny how much anger there is about a "vocal, oversensitive, offended minority" when I probably wouldn't have even heard about this if not for those vocal complaints about that minority... Tom Hatfield's tweet on that front is rather amusing too:

"Total Biscuit literally recorded a 12 minute rant because a woman with 660 followers didn't like a joke"

The rant also starts by kindly informing the listener that TB has never heard of transmisogny, which is a useful warning going into it.

Reddit thread discussing it. Lots of comments about "outrage culture" and outrage about "censorship".

Quote


It's pretty clear that the limerick was making fun of some idiot for running off a cliff. I mean, his gravestone certainly wasn't honoring him.

Let's assume that the guy was a transphobe, and that's why he died. Obsidian has now set the precedent that you can no longer make fun of transphobes for being retarded, lest some offendatron misinterpret it and throw a hissy fit. Best to not say anything about transphobes at all, right?

Good job, Obsidian! Nice to know there are some things we just shouldn't make fun of.


The above post has +59 upvotes.

My initial reaction upon reading the original limerick wasn't that the joke is at the expense of transphobes, and I don't think that it's "pretty clear" that the limerick is doing anything very different from the sadly run of the mill "HAHAHA, stereotype" type of "just a joke" that a lot of people seem happy to vigorously defend when its aimed at certain minorities. The stigma doesn't seem there yet in the way that it is for 50's humour regarding race for example. The same people (speaking acecdotally) seem happy to point out that there is an apparently obvious difference, but to me it just seems a question of social context. It's like they aren't totally aware that blatant racism in the past wasn't seen exactly how it is seen now. Obviously the racism of the past is different from current forms of discrimination, because everyone knows it was unnaceptable, but current forms of discrimination aren't so socially stigmatised as past forms of discrimination now are, so they must be different...Ugh. I'm finding it difficult to eloquently summarise what I mean.

The new limerick essentially seems to be "It's just a joke guys, what an overreaction, it's political correctness gone mad"... The removal of a limerick is apparently "asking for blood". The blame is put on people who have misinterpretted the limerick. Personally, I'd be looking at the "poet" who writes something that gets his point across so poorly that its so easily "misread". Of course, personally, I'd also remove the limerick on account of it maintaining its rhyme scheme by resorting to such an awfully contrived phrase as "crying in shame, off a cliff he ran"... Know that Yoda wrote limericks, I did not.

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Grief, FFS will you do something with your sig, it's bloody awful


worry said:

Grief is right (until we abolish capitalism).
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#417 User is offline   Maark Abbott 

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Posted 06 April 2015 - 07:08 PM

Hah! Oh, I do so love it when a developer takes a stab at bellyachers, which is what the revision is. It's a very sly middle finger that most any of these puerile gamergate fools won't see, even though it's jammed into their eye sockets.
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#418 User is offline   TheRetiredBridgeburner 

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Posted 06 April 2015 - 07:14 PM

Mostly it just infuriates me that yet again the focus is on those unaffected and how "disappointed" they are that the developers "caved".

The hell do they have to complain about? Is their mountain of privilege getting shaky all of a sudden? The almost complete lack of compassion for those who were affected is disappointing but hardly surprising.

Although, the main lady who was highlighting a lot to do with the limericks on Twitter was also posting "#killallmen"" and "Wanna hear a joke? #mensrights" throughout the day, so wasn't particularly palatable herself.
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#419 User is offline   Maark Abbott 

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Posted 06 April 2015 - 07:25 PM

The developers caved by changing it to a great big 'fuck you!' and they didn't even notice. These people who are bitching at the developers irk me, if only for that they are wasting oxygen that the rest of us could put to better use.

Better perhaps to laugh at their wanton idiocy than to despair at their comments towards the developers.
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#420 User is offline   amphibian 

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Posted 06 April 2015 - 07:37 PM

I think the best humor punches upwards, rather than downwards.

The original limerick gets real close to outright blaming sex with a trans person for being the impetus for social shame and a suicide. That's not punching up. That's punching downwards upon trans people, upon those who have sex, and upon those who struggle with depression. It's not outright evil, but it's not well executed or funny either. So... it should go.

The revised limerick is not evidence of understanding why the original limerick was bad.

I think this is shoddy handling of the situation by Obsidian, as the writer should have been checked by an editor or higher up before being allowed to post either of the two limericks.
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