Linky Roundup! (aka Feminace is Exhausted and Too Much Has Happened)

Hello.

How was your 4th, Americans?  Nice?  Good.

I was at CONvergence. It was fun, but also very, very exhausting for me with the whole fibro plus GAD thing.  But I did remember my self-care, so I got through it.

All while dressed in a very eye catching outfit.

…told y’all I loved me some Dragon Age: Inquisition.

Anyway, that happened and then the week of mental and physical recovery happened and now I’m here.  Still tired in the brain, but holy shit stuff happened and I can’t let it all pass without some commentary, so I’m dragging the Linky Roundup tag out of storage just for you.

** First of all: The ever awesome Iris Vander Pluym has awarded Seriously?!? a Very Inspiring Blogger Award, and I am very pleased as punch.  Thank you, Iris!  If you haven’t given Perry Street Place a gander, you simply must. And if you haven’t also given any of the other blogs on the list a gander, see previous sentence.

** I apparently missed an amazing Twitter clapback, or should I call this a clapBLACK.  There’s this hashtag that got some notice, #whitegirlsdoitbetter.  It in the vein of those “Post to make a black girl mad” BS nonsense that has white women try super hard with their attempt to copy our dance moves, gratuitous booty shots and picture of adorable interracial children.  Personally, the first two make me giggle (I’m not into body shaming, but if you’re trying to prove that your ass is better than your average black girl, HAVE SOME ASS. Otherwise, stick with what you know you’ve got and do you, okay?), and the last makes me roll my eyes.  Congrats, you have bedded a black man and have born his children.  I’m supposed to be ‘mad’ why?

So, this hashtag. I have no idea when it appeared on Black Twitter’s radar, but it did and the reactions were priceless. Blavity has the highlights.  Lesson, don’t come for us if we didn’t send for you.

** Speaking of people on Twitter who I think are amazing and should be followed by everyone, actress/comedian/general hoopy frood who knows where her towel is Pia Glenn delighted her YouTube subscribers by bringing back her trifling cousin Yvonne to explain why Black Twitter is pissed by people who pull from them without compensation.

“What’s going on with Black Twitter? The rent, bitch!”

Seriously, watch it.

** Bringing the mood down, another day, another reminder of how Black Lives Don’t Matter.  Add “exercising your own damn horses” to the list of shit we can’t do without getting some shit and then death from cops  Rest in Power, Jonathan Sanders.

** Bringing the mood up a bit, Obama’s ‘screw you’ to the Hobby Lobby decision is glorious. Fuck your ‘closely-held religious beliefs”.

** Homophobic and just plain foolish county clerks are reacting to gay marriage being a thing everywhere in this country by refusing to do their jobs.  Again, fuck your “closely-held religious beliefs”.

** In “shit I can’t believe I have to say to people news”: Ladies, a man in a kilt is not an invitation. Keep your fucking hands to yourselves, for fuck’s sake.

…and to round things off, Rest Well, Satoru Iwata-san, president of Nintendo. The gamer community will miss you terribly.

Please understand.

Now For Something Fun (For Me)

(Content Warning: So. Much. Dragon Age Geeking.  You’ve been warned)

(Also, this is mostly a ramble.  I needed this and you will deal.)

It’s been a rough week?  Month?  Forever?  I dunno.

But I needed a pick me up, so I went peeking through my tags and closing most of them (I’m a tag hoarder, I’ll admit), and I found this gem that I wanted to post sooner, but then racists were racist and people died and all I wanted to do was hide in my room for the next forever.

So I’m a little behind the ball, but who cares? I love having the opportunity to made fun of sad gamerbros being bros, so enough wind up, here’s the pitch.

Someone sent this to Bioware.  Some actual human sent this:

Aww, poor boo-boo.  Damn shame BioWare lost it’s Most Loyal Fan. I’m sure they’re crying into all the money Dragon Age: Inquisition made.

Full disclosure: I LOVE THIS GAME.  Is it perfect? Nah.  I could talk about where they fucked up and how they fucked up for days.  Because I’m an adult who can love something and criticize it at the same time, something a lot of gamerbros seem incapable of comprehending.

One problem I do NOT have with this game is that my squishy bits aren’t being satisfied enough.

But this, man.  Come on.  Why not just send a picture of your sad, sad boner and spare so many words?  I can’t even reread this shit without imagining this poor fellow just whirling his fists around, whining, “Why aren’t there pretty people and sexy times for meeeeee!”

I mean, damn, it’s not like you got that much detail in the brothel scenes in the two previous games.  And if you don’t find Cassandra attractive, I feel sorry for you.

Ms. “Looks Like A Man” according to this sad, sad person. WTF?

Dude, again, come on. Are women who can kick your ass that scary?  More’s the pity, her romance is one of the sweetest ones in the game.  I don’t normally roll straight romances for Dragon Age (barring Alistair because fuck you, I’ma be a queen), but I made an exception for this badass.

And Josephine is ugly?  What? Her?

Even Josie is skeptical.

What, is it the moles? Dark skin? Accent?  She seems smart?

Don’t get me wrong.  Everyone’s got tastes, and these two ladies aren’t to everyone’s.  I get it.  I wish this fool would get it to, because boy oh boy does he try to make his tastes seem universal.  I’m pretty sure Orleasian women get to wear their hair however the fuck they want.  As for Vivienne’s close shave and the ‘concept of women”, go fuck yourself. The ‘concept of women” is what we decide it is, not you.  Just admit that long hair is your thing and stop trying to make it anything more than that.

Madam Vivienne is amused by the thought that your opinion matters

And in case you though he wasn’t serious, after Tauriq Moosa (whose Twitter you should be following if you like games and diversity and diversity in games) posted this pic on his Twitter, the actual writer fessed up.  It’s been ages since this post, so I had to do a little digging, but here’s Tauriq’s post. Around that time, Dude responded and gave his example of a woman in a video that he approved of:

Perfection!

Ciri, from The Witcher 3.  Okay.  She’s pretty, I’ll give him that.  A badass, for sure.  Scarred even.  But let’s see the differences between Ciri and our DA:I ladies, shall well?

She’s pale with very light hair.

Cassandra has short dark hair, scars and a supposed “man jaw” (though I don’t see much a difference between hers and Ciri’s)

Josephine has long dark hair, is dark skinned and apparently “ugly”

Vivienne’s hair is very, very, very, very short.

…right. I think I get the picture.

So from a very causal glance, it looks like this fellow should just stick to playing The Witcher 3 if Ciri is fapworthy for him. Hell, it even lacks all of that icky feminism and LGBT agenda stuff that apparently makes it impossible to play DA:I.

Now that I’m done mocking his very narrow tastes in women, let’s go to this supposed agenda.  Oooh, we have exclusively gay characters you can smooch.  Oooh, there’s a transgendered character you get to talk to (a transgendered man, actually, so where the fuck he got the “lecture” about dress wearing from who the fuck knows).  OMG women are in important roles and shit.  The fact that this was enough to scare this person away makes this game even more enjoyable for me.  Truly.  It’s pure spite, I know.  But as a minority who loves games, it’s spite I believe is well earned.  BioWare has a history of making gamerbros whine and sad in the pants, from Zevran’s very existence, to Anders coming onto them, to Kaiden’s a smooching option for girls and boys in the last ME game, which is what I LOVE about them.

And they keep making games.  And money.  So me thinks this dude and the “lot” of people he knows who agree with him really won’t be missed with their “gay-ass feminist” agenda (I’d find the fact that he managed to use ‘gay’ to mean both ‘homosexual’ and whatever the hell gay’ass was supposed to mean hilarious, if it wasn’t so sad).

Farewell, BioWare’s Most Loyal Fan.

What the poor dear is missing.
Aww.

Weep On, Gamerbros

So, there’s this game called Rust.  And it starts off dropping the player into a wilderness naked.  It’s a survival-type game, so you have to make, find, or craft what you need to survive (including clothes) in the game for as long as possible.  There’s also the chance that another player can kill you, if the game itself doesn’t.

The game is on Early Access on Steam, so it’s a work in progress.  Until recently, every character was a white guy.  You know, like the vast majority of games with a static character in them. No problems there.

Then, suddenly, Rust changed things.  See, the character can be of a different race.  And not any sort of fantasy race, I mean human variations.  So, yep, you could start up your game and surprise! be a black guy. And there’s no changing it.

And the white gamerbros freaked the fuck out.

It was ironic and glorious. Suddenly, it mattered what the race of your character was.  Suddenly, representation mattered as whiner after whiner after whiner whined about living in the game world as a black man and what it means.  Like being called ‘nigger’ or being targeted because of the color of your skin, because of course, gamerbros are the worst, even to each other.

Suddenly consumer choice mattered.  Suddenly the lack of choice (which every other gamer who isn’t white or male just apparently had to “suck it up”) mattered.  Suddenly, they got to feel the same way a lot of us lady gamers and gamers of color get to feel.

And boy or boy did they not like it.  The pity is that they don’t quite seem to get it.  The lack of empathy is astounding.  Hell, Extra Credits, known for having a pretty soft hand when it comes to the goal of making games better, has addressed the issue, seeing it as a good thing, and I agree.

Yes, you may have to play as a black character, and with all that entails.  Does that make you uncomfortable?  Good.  Live in that discomfort.  Experience it.  This is your privilege being shoved into your face.  Think about the lady gamers who would like to play as a woman (though given that the character starts off naked and anatomically correct, there are legit concerns with that, given again, how shitty gamerbros are.  I say do it anyway.) in their first person survival games.  Think about the people who aren’t you that are forced, by agreeing to pay for and play the game, to play someone who does not represent them over and over again.

Or keep crying.  Keep whining. Keep being painfully unaware that the same words you use to attempt to silence us when we ask for diversity in gaming apply to you right now.  Hell, my cup needs filling anyways.

No Love, Me: Geekery Edition

Dragon Age fandom:

Do better. Please.

You’re making me sad to be associated with you.

No Love,
Me

Shrunken Tits = CENSORSHIP!!!

So, the newest installment of Mortal Kombat, that old standby for hilariously over the top finishing moves, is getting another design change.  And boy oh boy has it got the gamerbros in a tiz.  Are they leaving out a beloved character (well, actually yes.  Sorry, Jade fans)? Removing the “Fatalities” and replacing them with handshakes?

Nope.

They’re giving their female character more realistic body proportions. Oh the horror.  Oh the shock.

“I can still make Kitana slice and dice her opponents into mincemeat, but not with smaller tits and a believable waistline! Oh noes!”

The comments are headbangingly hilarious, they won’t buy this game, the feminists have won this one, and of course, bringing up targeted and celebrated feminist critic Anita Sarkessian like she had anything to do with this:

“Damn you, evil avatar of everything that is wrong with gaming, the BeHooped One, who calls herself Anita. She and her horde of screetching SJWs have razed our precious games, sucking the sheer delight out of them. Oh woe is us! Woe, I say!”

That is my own exaggeration, but it’s not that far from the truth.  Once you start comparing her to Rush Limbaugh, I can’t even take your shit seriously.  Whine about the “double standard” of body images while blithely ignoring that it’s all a male power fantasy? Go get someone else to change your pissy diaper, because I don’t have time for that shit.

What really gives me the risk of a concussion from headdesking is the claims of censorship.  You can see it in the comments, over and over again, claims of censorship of this highly popular game that is going to be widely released in April.

Censorship.

I’d pull up the definition of censorship, but if you can read these words, you can look it up yourself.  A company deciding on their own to listen to certain criticisms and take them seriously enough to make a change that is purely cosmetic?  Was there a campaign I missed?  A threatened boycott?  An actual boycott, planned by feminists to make NetherRealms miserable?  Did the government step in?

I don’t think so, but to hear these bros whine, you’d think NR was given marching orders straight from Feminazi Central on threat of total annihilation or something. I hate to break it to the dudes, but no. And saying anything that sounds like that is an insult to the business sense of gaming companies.  I know, I know, having to share your toys with the likes of me and other gamers who want to play while actively being not straight, cis, male or even white makes you all feel like you’re losing something, but you’re going to have to deal. And companies are realizing this and changing on their own.  And no matter how many tantrums you throw, or words you twist until they have no meaning at all, we’re only going forward.

And don’t worry, MKX is going to sell like hotcakes no matter what the pissbabies say, so I say good on NetherRealm.  Keep up the bloodspatter.

…You’re not Anti-Heroes

So, while the gamerbros are doing a bang up job of proving just how awful they can get (for serious guys, we have Joss Whedon and Will Wheaton on our side, you have the guy who played the guy more famous for a knitted hat.*), I had a thought.

If the guys who aren’t going along with this, guys who stand up against harassment and abuse of women in gaming, are snidely called “White Knights”, what does that make the gamerBros?

And it came to me…they’re wanna-be anti-heroes.

You know the anti-heros, gritty, tough guys who don’t give a shit about silly things like morals or property damage, but are going to save the day.  The Duke Nukems, the Kratos’, the Renegade Commander Shepards, the Agent 47s, the “I-can-go-on-but-here’s-the-TV-Tropes-link”.  (Hell, if I wanted to take an example from TV, the Jayne Cobbs) You’ll note that some of those heroes I listed are some of the same heroes that are noted in some of the games Anita Sarkessian’s Tropes Vs. Woman series.  They can lie, cheat, steal, kill, treat everyone around them disrespect, and get away with it because they are the heroes. The games are designed with that in mind.  As long as the world gets saved, who gives a shit if you took time out of your mission to kick a puppy or two, sell off some slaves, desecrate a holy site,  unnecessarily kill a dozen NPCs, was a massive tool to even your allies, right?

Now don’t get me wrong, I’ve played the asshole too.  I love RPGs with morality choices.  I’ve played the xenophobic jerkass  Shepard, the ruthless Warden, the complete shitty Hawke.  Hell, I remember have such a low reputation in Baldur’s Gate 2 that after saving the day, the elves were like “Thank you, now leave.” It’s an interesting way to play.

But in this current ‘fight’, video games are in apparent danger. People are talking about them in a critical way! What if designers listen to them and ruin gaming forever! What if evil feminist armies raid houses and put everyone who stared a second too long at Miranda’s ass against the wall for execution?  Time to fight! No holds barred! Everything is permitted! Nothing is true!

The problem, of course, if that this isn’t a video game. The anti-hero exists only in fiction. Most of these boys are either too chickenshit to do anything remotely like their on-screen avatars, or they actually understand that this is reality and taking cues from those guys will get you fucking arrested, so they do what they believe is the next best thing.  Harass, intimidate, abuse.  It doesn’t matter how low they go, as long as Our Games are safe from terrible awful OPINIONS!

Which is both sad and hilarious.  Sorry, boys, you’re not the anti-hero here.  You’re not even the hordes of cannon fodder.

If anything, you’re monkeys, shrieking and throwing poop at anyone who dares look hard at your cage for longer than a few seconds.

This isn’t a fucking war to be fought.  As I said in my previous post, either games are art, and subject to criticism, or they’re toys.  Either way, shrieking and throwing poop isn’t going to phase the rest of us who want our chosen favorite hobby to mature.  Like or hate the criticism, but literally showing your ass isn’t making you the bad ass rebel you think you are.

(here’s a hint, rebels want to CHANGE the status quo)

 

 

*And for ruining a certain recruitment mission for Mass Effect 2 for me.  Jerk.

Fucking Pick One

Man, for all of the claims that ladyfolks are the emotional and irrational gender, nothing hits the heights of hysteria like a pissed off dudebro.

The sad part is, of course, pissing off a dudebro could end badly for a lady.

I mean, we could get brutally assaulted for breaking up with them (Trigger Warning for the link, it leads to her medical fund and has a photo of the damage)

We could get the Internet Hate Machine to ran down fury because a salty-ass ex was feeling vengeful.

We could even be driven out of our homes for fear of being physically hurt.

And those are just the most RECENT stories of men acting like the house is burning down at the slightest hint of life’s disappointments.  War Machine, I’d say there’s more fish in the sea, but you’re too damned off your nut that I wouldn’t wish my worst enemy on you.  Dude who is not longer dating Zoe Quinn, thanks for making it clear why no one should ever date you again.  And the horde of whiny gamers trying to intimidate Anita Sarkessian into not talking about your precious video games, grow the hell up.  These women have done waaay less harm to you than you have done to them, and for what?  Daring to no longer be your possession?  Breaking your heart?  Pointing out that *gasp* your favorite form of media has a sexism problem (and by the way, guys, you’re doing a more bang up job in proving that than Anita ever could if she was pumping out an episode a week)?

There is absolutely nothing they have done to deserve even a little bit of the abuse they have to put up with.  And it’s sexist. Case in point, where’s the hate conga line for the reviewers Zoe supposedly fucked for positive reviews?  Doesn’t it take two to tango? Aren’t they just as corrupt and awful as you think she is? Shouldn’t they be suffering in the exact same way?

…yeah, I thought so.

Either women are weak little things to be put in our places or our genitals are so powerful that they can stir even the toughest man into a frenzy. Fucking pick one and stick with it.

Either women are breathing sex dolls there solely for your enjoyment on a screen or actual people with actual opinions who just might disagree with you from time to time.  Fucking pick one.

Either video games are a valid form of art and storytelling (which can be critiqued like every other art form), or they’re toys for the immature who want more bloodshed and jiggling titties.  Fucking pick one.

Because you can’t have this shit both ways.

A “Real” Gamer

(I did a thing on Facebook, and I thought it funny enough to share with all of you.  Aren’t you lucky?)

 

Hello, my name is Feminace and I play video games on Causal mode.

“Why?”
“Because I want to.”
“But you’re not playing the games right.”
“Did you pay for my copy?”
“um..no.”
“Then have this box of fucks. Note that it is empty.”
“Don’t you want to be challenged?”
“Dude, I’m a fat black disabled woman. Real life is challenging ENOUGH. Let me lay back, cast spells, kiss elves (or “shoot rifles, kiss Marines“) and be happy, okay?”

“BUT YOU’RE NOT A REAL GAMER!”

“YES I AM AND YOU CAN’T STOP ME FROM SAYING SO!”

As much as I’m glad the “girls are real gamers” conversation is happening, I’d rather we not start dissing those who say, don’t play certain games, or attend certain competitions, or can dedicate so much time for the hobby, or who dare treat it like a hobby as “not real”.

I’m happy as hell that there are ladies out there who kick ass on Call of Duty or Halo or Left 4 Dead, who put up with the sexist ragegamers, and/or who have had a controller in their hands since before Coleco, I just feel that we shouldn’t even HAVE to justify ourselves to anyone.

“But, but Femi, what about those fake gamer girls who call themselves gamers because they only play BubbleBashCandyCrack saga on Facebook? We have to protect our precious image!”

First of all, ARE there people who only play social media games who call themselves ‘gamers’?  Because to my knowledge, that’s a big ol stinky red herring.  And if they did, so the fuck what? Does it take any enjoyment of your games from you?  Doesn’t it worry you that when non-gamers hear ‘gamers’, they imagine anything more than a anti-social basement dwelling dude with cheesy Doritos stained fingers screaming abuse into a headset between sips of Mountain Dew while he plays Call of Duty 60 hours a week?  Because, between you and me, I’d rather include others in our little umbrella; the ladies, the parents, the kids, and yes, the casual player. Expand the definition a little.  Change our image. It won’t hurt you, I swear.

Besides, what can you possibly do about it?  You can’t march into someone’s house and dump their consoles and games because you don’t APPROVE.  You can’t wipe their Steam or Origin account (okay, some with the right skills could, but seriously why?).  You can huff and puff until the cows come home and log onto Xbox One, and at the end of the day, you really aren’t doing anything but a disservice to the rest of us.  Some of us want to change the face of gaming to include more people, and guess what?  You’re losing.

My definition of “gamer” is simple. Do you play games? Do you enjoy playing games? Do you have a favorite? Congrats, you’re a gamer.  I don’t have time in my day to play gatekeeper, and I wonder how those who do have the time to actually enjoy the hobby they are so protective of.  Trust me, for all the tanty throwing you’re doing, the rest of us are doing the calculations, AND:

From the ever delightful The Oatmeal
http://theoatmeal.com/blog/number_of_fucks