Gormongous

I just downloaded this! It looks really good and is totally up next after I finish slogging through Black Lagoon (which has aged terribly in the past half-decade).

I think they've said in one of the RockPaperShotgun interviews that the three "factions" based around ideology are intended to create natural power blocs that help the AI determine friends and enemies. I am skeptical, as with everything, but at least it's better than how religion is intended to work, but does not, in Civilization V.

I agree about being on the side of history and all that, but I am not interested in a "victory" for feminism, civil rights, and LGBTQ rights that is predicated on the suppression of legitimate thoughts and emotions among the oppressed. Sure, let's take the high road if we can, but if at times, under the hailstorm of hate and abuse that waits for us there, we need to step down from it for a little while and vent a little spleen, I think that's okay. It's natural, all of us being human, to be angry or sad or whatever. It doesn't compromise our ideology, much as the slavering trolls of the internet, in their love affair with the idea of "hypocrisy," are dying for us to believe that it does. I was actually going to post earlier from the same thing, courtesy of the article I linked in the Ferguson thread: Actually, I think that vocal opposition, including criticism and even mockery, of misogyny is just the kind of "nonviolent tension" that King had in mind.

The thing about Martin Luther King, Jr. is that the violence won, in a way. He was killed, his movement was hijacked, and his dream was derailed. So yeah, I fully believe that reasoned discourse, built around non-violent principles, is an essential component of being a kind, good, and progressive person, but I also do not want to deny people their anger. We shouldn't have to be saints to have things change for the better. If there is rhetoric claiming that the moment any member of an oppressed group succumbs to their urge to retaliate against the violence of their oppressors, then they have proven themselves to be less than worthy of not being oppressed, then that rhetoric is in the service of keeping those people down. Demanding that people be superhuman in order to weather attacks on their very humanity really just isn't the way forward, in my considered opinion. I also resent the notion that responding with the smallest bit of mockery to a torrent of abuse and harassment somehow puts us all on the same level. There is just no way that you can draw a moral equivalency between occasionally joking about the apparent hygiene of misogynist assholes and persistently posting graphic descriptions of female mutilation to an anonymous twitter account.

Every so often, I get reminded that I should probably read The Toast more diligently. This is one of those times. Seriously, I was wondering whether or not this would be worth posting here, because of the title if nothing else, but the final two paragraphs, especially the explication of the parable, are so powerful and so real that I can't help it.

It's very new for me, too, so I've been having a lot of A Beautiful Mind moments lately where I realize that the way I'm engaging with a girl friend at a bar is marking her as within my space and control, for instance. There's only so much you can do, but it's still good to try to apply it here, to understand the processes at work behind harassment. But also to get mad rather than even sometimes, too.

Welcome to my breakup with /tg/ a couple of years back. They taught me a lot about tabletop and board games, but they're part of something that seeks to destroy everything that I find good in the world, so fare thee well.

I'm reminded of this comic about street harassment when reading comments like the one to which you're responding. Like it says, the patriarchy means that women in public spaces are seen as needing to be controlled by men, prompting the latter to make sexual or violent comments to assert their control. If a woman is with a man, for whatever reason, then control is already seen to have been asserted, so women who appear in public with men do not receive the same level or kind of harassment, which sadly makes it harder for men to believe that harassment is really happening. By virtue of her videos, which are popular because they're good in some important ways, Sarkeesian is a woman very much in a public space, which leads her detractors to try to assert control just as if she was walking alone on the street. Within their schema, she very much "revels in it," because it's a given that a woman appearing alone in public wants and needs to be controlled. The fact that she isn't, and moreover the fact that her videos explore some of the very mechanisms used to control women, is what makes the attacks on her, those attempts to control, reach such hysterical levels. In a way, the internet gives men a unique window into what it's been like for centuries to be a woman walking around or having a conversation without a man present. And now I feel filthy for typing that out.

I don't know if you're referring to the debacle going on elsewhere, but if you are, I feel you. I've tried several times to write on here about how I need a vacation from the internet and even from this forum, which is full of the nicest and most reasonable people there are. I'm just so damn tired of feeling like... I was going to type out an analogy of how this situation feels to me, but I got a headache just trying and really who cares? I just need to be somewhere else besides a world where people can see one side asking for thoughtful consideration and another side screaming graphic death threats and decide that a middle ground is needed. Fuck your middle ground, it's covered in blood and shit.

I'm sorry, I tried it with "totalitarianism," but it didn't have the same ring to it. If the rejoinder to my comment is, "Hah! I didn't mean censorship, I meant totalitarian oppression in general!" then I really don't have the energy to care. Also, I felt pathetic even just echoing his 1984 reference about a forum admin on the internet.

Apparently, it is now censorship to believe that a person should have a name attached to the comment they make. As Sean might say, "censorship" is now dead to language.

I think the useful distinction is that movie buffs don't aggressively assert themselves as a the only kind of people who really enjoy movies. Movie buffs don't harass mom and pop showing up at the theater for being casuals. There's an ugly and pernicious tribalism to "gamers" that is mostly unique among other collective labels of media appreciation. Most "gamers" I've met seem to assume that they're the only people really playing games and therefore that their voice is the only one that belongs in a conversation about them.

There's been some hot discussion going on in: https://www.idlethumbs.net/forums/topic/8806-civ-5-brave-new-world/

I love the way you put this and I agree completely. My main worry right now is that I'm not used to walking the line between "I want to be a better friend for you no matter what" and "I'm playing along as your friend to pressure you into a relationship," the latter of which I've done in the past and regret deeply. It seems like it might be very hard for me to be there for her and not fall into old behaviors like that. But this is an opportunity for self-growth, with a person I firmly believe deserves more and stronger friends and supporters in the department, so I'm going to do my best!

I love that my reputation (or rather, my inability to disentangle my personal life from my professional life) on this forum means that someone makes the exact post I'd make before I'm even awake to make it. You even brought up religion in fantasy! This is the fight I have with someone pretty much every other week. For some reason, the people who argue that rape is an important way to flavor a setting as "medieval" are usually the ones who argue either that religion isn't important for that same flavor or that everyone was secretly an atheist in 1066. I don't think it represents an idealized past for most of them, but I do think it's relevant that they find violence against women more immersive and thematic than belief in God. Basically, what Bjorn said: Even with my professional training, I am always very careful to use "authentic" rather than "accurate" in most situations. The former says that something feels right based on current knowledge, the latter that something actually was that way, which is a crock of shit. There are so many ways for games (and movies and TV) to be authentic to a time and place without violence against women, but the fact that that violence is epidemic in our culture right now means that it gets used all the time by developers without much conscious thought about whether it should be used.

But did you email him, Twig?

I guess...? I tend to call those people out for being unkempt and rude, not for failing to wear a suit though. It behooves me to go at least one step deeper. And honestly, I'm really just more surprised to hear people look down on anime avatars while on a video games forum, considering that both are mediums typically judged as stupid and childish.

Never give up the anime avatar! Seriously though, I'm always a little irked when people focus on the fedoras or the avatars or the neckbeards as the defining feature of this particular subgroup, as opposed to their rampant and overweening misogyny. I know it's really just because we get tired of saying the word "misogyny" over and over, but I also kinda like staying on message.

With the focus of Europa Universalis IV on multiplayer, the age-old issue of grand strategy is coming to the fore again. In your personal opinion, is it better for those games to focus on balancing scenarios so that plausible historical outcomes are the norm or on balancing scenarios so that any nation can achieve supremacy under player control? Paradox seems to have opted for a half-measure, making the great powers almost unassailably stable and everyone else a tough row to hoe. Recasting the "fun vs. realism" argument as something actually resolvable, what are your feelings? And hey, maybe a bonus question for Troy? After the Samnite wars, do you think there was a point where the Romans could easily have been prevented permanently from achieving dominance over the Mediterranean, barring some catastrophic accident? Bonus points if you have something interesting to say about Pyrrhus of Epirus.

Talking with her, I'm pretty sure it just means she doesn't want to date me for fear of failure, which I understand but think is unfounded. I took her at face value that she wants to hang out more, but as friends, and yet apparently that's also causing her some worry, so... yeah. Like I said, tedious. Actually, I told her almost those exact things when she explained her situation. I thought we ended our date clear that I'm excited just to know her better, because I think she's really cool, and that I don't see romance as a necessary component of our interactions, but then she totally shut down an attempt yesterday to make some vague plans for next week and confided in a friend that she's still scared of leading me on and hurting me, so I'm mostly just frustrated now. I want to tell her that I understand, that I've had a bunch of hangups for years and know what it's like to be attracted to someone but not be able to see it through. I'm a very private person, so none of my friends here know this, but I've dated a lot of people and I've had this exact situation from both sides. I'm not scared of being hurt and I'm not offended by being friends instead. But there's no way to tell her those things right out without coming on way too strong, I think. Or maybe that's me being overly private again. I'm not really looking for advice, because I'm just going to reiterate to her my interest in being whatever she needs me to be. I'm just irked at the unnecessary drama in this situation. I feel like we're both too mature and smart for that.

I had my date a week ago. We just spent hours talking about everything and it was really pleasant for that, but.. Well, it turns out she likes me and has always liked me, but doesn't want to be in a relationship with anyone, but wants to spend time with me and get to know me better, but is afraid of leading me on, but... Ugh, you get the idea. This is literally the most tedious outcome possible for the situation and I'm already exhausted from dealing with it. I've heard through the grad student grapevine that she hopes to meet with me again soon, to set boundaries and whatever else. Honestly, I don't care about being hurt or whatever, I'm a big boy and can handle it. I just hope she can figure out what she wants. Girl probs!

Season two isn't bad, it's just overwhelmingly simplistic and petty in how it draws many of its characters. I was and am surprised at how mature Aang appears as an Avatar-in-training compared to Korra, who never stops being a hot mess even when she's on top.

You realize that the inciting event for the so-called scrutiny of Quinn was an extremely long series of 4chan posts by an ex-boyfriend about her supposedly scandalous sex life, which involved "seducing" multiple male journalists for unspecified but nefarious purposes? Gradually, people have brought up what could potentially be considered legitimate issues against Quinn, but they are contained entirely within the preexisting rhetorical framework of an evil woman using her vagina to poison games journalism. Surely those people are aware that their comments will be associated with the current harassment and abuse? I don't know, TYFC could have made their complaints months ago, but they chose to do so now, exploiting the rage against Quinn in the less progressive areas of the internet for presumably selfish purposes. If it was really just poor timing that had them decide six months after the fact to make accusations, right when Quinn is going through hell because an angry ex whipped up an internet mob, then they have my most sincere condolences, but somehow I doubt that's the case. Here's the thing. If you don't want to be associated with the bottom-feeders struggling to assassinate Quinn's character, just... I don't know, wait another month, then make your own post explaining the events in a reasonable manner? Surely, if Quinn's crimes have kept all this time, they can wait a few weeks more until she isn't the ongoing victim of a public terror campaign. EDIT: And yeah, what tegan said. What harms the feminist cause is the failure to oppose misogynist terror tactics wherever they occur, not the failure to foster a perfectly open dialogue at all times. First, put out the burning house, then decide whether it was in danger of spreading.

The movie did contribute. A great deal of it is Fish bagging on his former partner, having nothing nice to say about him and dwelling on how he's trying to sabotage Fez at length. The partner's viewpoint is never shared, and at the end it says that he had asked not to participate in the movie. A little while after, he complained through a friend that in fact he had not been asked to participate in the movie. Honestly, it's more the filmmakers' fault for what they claim was an honest misprint in the credits, but many people thought that Fish had pushed or even conspired with Swirsky and Pajotto to peddle a one-sided story of Fez's development that erased the contributions of a person Fish clearly hates now.

Those people have picked an extraordinarily bad time to air their supposedly legitimate complaints against Quinn, is what I have to say. Bringing them up now, when Quinn is receiving threats on her life, cannot be interpreted as anything but an interest in pouring fuel on the fire, now that Quinn has been made a victim. Also, I'm sure you're not painting moral equivalency between, on the one hand, allegations of someone's private sex life and a couple dozen critical tweets they made of an single event and, on the other hand, systematic and extreme abuse of an individual by a large group of anonymous people both on the internet and in real life over the course of several weeks. One of these things is what we've been discussing, and the other has been brought up repeatedly even though its connection to the first one is superficial and tenuous. Personally, I am tired of the small misdemeanors we all commit in our daily lives being brought up "incidentally" or "for context" when the internet decides to try and ruin the life of another woman. How is anything Quinn does or has done relevant to the issue of her harassment? If it is not relevant, why bring it up in this thread, except to appear more "fair-minded" on the issue of whether we should brutalize women who've made the dangerous choice of becoming public figures? Disliking someone is a personal matter, but opposing our culture of violence and intimidation against women is anything but.