Problem Machine

BUT WE ARE STILL DEFINITELY AN ACCEPTING MOVEMENT ABOUT DIVERSITY AND NOT TRANSPHOBIC IN THE LEAST Y'ALL. 'Truegendering'. Is this actually a thing? Like, how generalized is the support for this super obvious and overt bigotry?

And most people misuse, or I guess at this point redefine, the word moot anyway. It originally meant a point of contention, but is now used to mean that it's irrelevant whether it's true or not, a meaning almost contradictory to its original use. Yes I learned that from QI. Wanna fight about it?

I can answer questions about Flash/AIR/Haxe if anyone's planning on using those. I also might be up for doing 2d art or music for a game if anyone wants some of that.

Well that's a rather loaded analogy at this point in time. So to speak.

Also there's the question of whether they could get away with feeding us quite so much shit if the people who voted about it could taste the difference.

The template for Souls is something they've been playing with for a long time. Evergrace basically bombed, but was a launch title for the PS2 that had similar gameplay and its own weird, lonely atmosphere, though far less dark. I actually liked it a lot when it came out. I mean, it's actually weird regarding From's output as a whole and seeing how connected everything is -- the stamina system in Dark Souls is almost identical to the energy system in Armored Core, despite them being vastly different games, and there's also a through-line of rewarding in-depth statistical tweaking

Finished a new piece God, It's So Blinding

Hm, interesting, what you guys are saying about it feeling horror-ish and mid-destruction actually reminds me a lot of my impressions of the DLC in Dark Souls. Everything felt very actively going to shit, rotting away by the moment, in contrast to the feeling of long-lost hope that permeates the main section of Dark Souls.

Yeah, but in many cases that's manufactured -- I mean, if you tell people enough times that something is sexy, they'll believe you, and to a certain extent this is something that happens naturally with every culture where it creates standards of attractiveness that may or may not align with how the actual people living within that culture feel. I'm not really claiming that people don't find that stuff sexy, rather that they aren't defensive about it because they find it sexy(whether they do or don't) but because it's a cultural signifier that they've become comfortable with. I think the people that do find sexualization really sexy engage with it in much the same way people with, say, a fetish for latex boots do: As an object, feel and sight and taste, rather than as a person, history and character and ambition. Objectification. I wrote some stuff related to this, objectification in games, a couple of weeks ago, and I think it turned out pretty alright.

I guess if I had a point it's that sexualization is kind of a red herring, or at least isn't quite what it appears to be. The kind of 'sexualization' that shapes a lot of game characters isn't really sexually attractive so much as culturally coded to be sexually stimulating. It's sex-as-brand, as far away from actual human attraction and interaction as the pringle from the potato. Because of this, sexual dissatisfaction with the cultural product can actually be a catalyst for feminist understanding, and sexual interest can actually drive understanding instead of leading someone to defend the sexy video game womens status quo. Thus, in many cases at least, I think defense of the sexy video-game lady boils down a lot more directly to a cultural investment than to the actual sexual interests of the person defending them. I'm not sure if I'm saying something completely obvious or completely out-there at this point, so yeah.

It's a weird thing to admit, but in a lot of ways one of the big things that pushed me into feminism is how completely dead and uninteresting I found and find that constructed 'sexy' ideal, how inhuman and dishonest and alienating. I honestly just think, like, diversity and empowerment are hotter. Of course I just went right around and turned all that energy into a bunch of depraved fetishes, but the nice thing about those is that they're so clearly separate from reality that it makes it a lot easier to keep them from distorting my perception of real women as like actual human being people. I'm not sure where I was going with this. Never mind.

Apparently Randi Harper got swatted today. I gather the only reason they didn't come in weapons-ready is because she filed a report about possible swatting beforehand. Scary shit.

Sounds like it's coming out for all those platforms but the changes were all a joke.

wat

Errant Signal weighs in: As much as I like the game I think most of his points are spot on. I take a bit of issue with the suggestion that Hotline Miami's plotlines are more inherently contradictory than HM2's -- I've found it to be the opposite, with the first game mostly tying up pretty neatly once you understand that the pre-Trauma levels are all unreliably narrated flashbacks, while the second has several completely contradictory threads -- but I think his point about the openness and looseness of the plot being echoed in the openness and looseness of the levels is pretty solid.

I think the observation that Hotline Miami is very much the product of a particular point in time is a good and interesting one and would have been interested in more detail in that regard: As things stand I didn't get a particularly strong understanding of what the elements were that supposedly led to its success. I disagree with a couple of things in there, particularly that HLM chastises the player for enjoying violence and, simultaneously, that the violence is ever suggested to be justified except in a purely causal sense. It also seems to me to presume a broader consensus as to the merits and demerits of Hotline Miami 2 than I have personally observed, but I could be off base there. Good piece and illustration. Also re: Fight Club I found this video of Dan Olsen aka FoldableHuman to be a pretty interesting analysis

Wow, Dark Souls always reminded me of Ico but I hadn't realized the inspiration was that direct.

I don't have much first-hand experience, but I gather using a compressor is important for recording voice for that very reason.

Yeah I agree with pretty much all that. The thing is, a lot of people seem to have interpreted the right to free speech as meaning that somehow speech is harmless, in a sticks and stones kind of way, when it's quite the opposite. Like, the right to free speech and the right to bear arms are a lot more similar than I think most people give them credit for: Premised on the idea, not that these rights can't be abused, because they absolutely will be, but that if its put in the governments hands to determine who gets those rights and who doesn't then the people themselves have lost control over the system and will inevitably become oppressed. Speech isn't free because it's harmless, speech is free because it's powerful, and a powerful responsibility, and we're supposed to be mindful enough of that responsibility to keep from hurting others as best as we are able, even as we are expected to be with weapons. This isn't to get into a whole pro-gun spiel or anything because that's not really what I believe in, just to point out that free speech is as powerful and dangerous as a loaded weapon and protected for similar reasons.

I mean I kind of think that everyone's transphobic, everyone's racist, everyone's sexist, etc, because we're all the product of a racist, sexist, transphobic culture. It's a question of degree and of how much work we put into trying to improve that aspect of ourselves.

Everyone has some measure of this shit in them, but what counts is how you handle it when you fuck up, and he never handles it well, because he doesn't believe he can fuck up. He's actively contributing to the narrative of the deceptive trans woman, a narrative which has a pretty tall body count associated with it, and he isn't apologizing because he doesn't fucking apologize. Ever,

"If he was misled into sleeping with a man it is entirely possible that you could actually claim this man was a rape victim, for instance"(~4:30) So, less strongly stated than I may have implied. of course, this is after repeatedly referring to the transwoman he had sex with as a man, so, uh. Moreover, he's pulling the whole 'developer freedom' schtick in regard to some flavor text that was put in by a kickstarter backer, so he's kind of fundamentally barking up the wrong tree here, as well as being a massive cockbag in the process.

I think the main highlight of his in this case truly exceptional dumbassery was saying something along the lines of "if a trans woman doesn't disclose that she's actually a man and has sex with a guy then that's rape". Paraphrased, but basically that.

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