Bjorn

This whole ridiculous thing seems to be an argument in favor of some portion of gamers being woefully lacking in appreciating art or narrative that diverges from traditional power fantasies, plus a culture that's been encouraged to look for conspiracy theories for years now (both in the real world and in the narrative of the media they are consuming). From what I've seen, there is zero evidence of this being a work of strict non-fiction outside of the imaginations of some people. FFS.

I hadn't replied to this, in part because my thoughts on the media (particularly certain iconic traditional media) are long enough to fill a book. But I thought it was a question worth answering. In short, I have more or less lost trust in a majority of news institutions (there are still individuals I have trust in, even within some of those institutions). And part of that lack of trust is inside knowledge (from having been a journalist and knowing journalists who've worked all over this country) of multiple publications, TV shows and websites of how voices are selected. I'll be honest, I have a lot more knowledge about the Times than I do the New Yorker, so the fairness of lumping them together may be questionable. But this popped up today, Neil deGrasse Tyson's rejection of the offer to write a Times op-ed on Affirmative Action, and speaks at least some to the reasons I've lost respect for a place like the Times. This month has also seen the remembrance of Times editor Jeff Schmalz, who was basically single handedly responsible for changing the Times (and by extension, many other publications) coverage of AIDS/HIV. That didn't happen until Schmalz got HIV and was forced to out himself to his bosses because of deteriorating medical conditions. The Times didn't particularly care about AIDS until one of their own had it. I think that continues to be true of places like the Times to this day. (I recognize some personal hypocrisy here that I've admitted to caring about certain issues because of personal connections, but I'm also not in charge of one of the most important news sources in the world). I also have some personal animosity towards some of the national coastal news sources, whose coverage of "fly over country" usually ranges from silly to insulting, and rarely is accurate and impressive. And thus also contributes to their the lack of trust in their coverage. Election season usually increases this animosity. Even within somewhere like The Times, I'm sure there are many examples of decent representation. But at the end of the day, I view virtually all traditional news outlets as being businesses whose best interest lies in maintaining the status quo. And that means that there ends up being a bias in voice selection over time, and thus my trust is eroded in them.

The Rez vibrator is one of my favorite oddities in the history of gaming, and this piece about it (mildly NSFW) remains one of my favorite pieces of delightful video game writing. I super duper want to see this body suit in action, that's also delightful and amazing.

No, that's awesome, post away. I've always enjoyed your long takes on games. Those are not the lizards I was talking about. There are small lizards, with a crystal/gem in their back, who run away from you if you get close, and they'll either burrow into the ground or suicide off a cliff. You've generally got just a few seconds to kill one once it spots you, or you do damage to it. They always drop some upgrade material. If you're online, then you don't need to worry about World Tendency. Online, Tendency is controlled by the actions of all players (so it generally hangs around neutral, though with a low enough player base I suppose it might have more variance in it). Tendency ranges from Pure White to Pure Black. Certain things only happen at each extreme, but it generally takes some offline manipulation to achieve that. But then, to do that, you're giving up the online experience. That's one of the reasons I'm really critical of it. it's obtuse, encourages offline play to really experience it and is nearly impossible to figure out without a guide.

Really, as long as you've got that stats for a decent weapon (and most of them are capable at least), you should get through fine. And there are a lot of people who are fans of the Quality build. As far as magic goes, my first playthrough was pure magic, and later playthroughs avoided it entirely. I enjoy the non-magic playthroughs more, I think the magic system, while useful, ultimately ends up separating you from many of the things that make the game mechanically interesting. So keep on trucking! 3-1, the tower, remains one of my favorite (and most terrifying) video game environments of all time. It's sparsely populated, but what's there is mysterious, terrifying and capable of killing you so easily. If you've avoided guides or FAQs, I very, very, very much suggest at least reading a guide about weapon upgrading. I'm going to guess that at this point you've noticed the little crystal lizards that appear occaisionally? They are the most consistent way to get upgrade materials in the game. If so, know that you only get one shot at each one, BUT that each one will respawn once per boss killed in their world (so theoretically you get...4 or 5 spawns of each lizard once you've gone all the way down a path, depending on the world). So even if you don't want to track them down with a guide, remember where you see them, so you can come back and take another shot at them after you've killed your next boss. Are you playing online or offline? World Tendency is fucking weird and convoluted, and by far the one aspect of Demon's Souls that I'm super critical of. Unfortunately, reading about it, how it works, and how to manipulate it is very likely to result in possibly spoiling some interesting things. But without reading about it, it's a near certainty that you will miss out on several interesting (though not strictly necessary) things. With both the lizards and Tendency, I'd say if you think you're enamored enough that you might make another playthrough, you could hold off on reading about them for that. But if you're pretty sure this is going to be a one and done game, it's worth reading about them (and eventually worth reading about Tendencies no matter what, because of what a strange, little unique (and bad) idea it was).

I wonder if that sense of culturallessness (sure, of course that's a word) plays into how some Americans see other cultures. That's not me judging, just a genuine curiosity. I don't perceive any kind of American culture, not really. I'm always going to be a Kansan, and a farm kid. Those are identities, but I don't know if they cross over to true cultures.

There are no secrets left in Dark Souls. But damn do I love how he talks about game design.

Honest Hearts is ultimately what made me flame out on my New Vegas playthrough, it just felt dreadfully boring compared to the regular world. I looked at a FAQ to see how quickly I could just mainline it, but ultimately just decided to call it quits (I was already feeling that a bit before getting to HH, but that just finished it off).

Are you ready for a phone sex line from a galaxy far, far away...

I really enjoyed the conversation about sad games. I, probably too frequently, seek out melancholy media. It's a drive that the lady does not understand, at all. On spoilers in games, I think what I worry about the most is actually missing a sense of wonder or surprise, often mechanical in nature, not necessarily story driven. One of my favorite examples of this is from Deadly Premonition.

I thought your post was really thoughtful and fit in well with the discussion Blambo.

Justin McElroy has a big post up summarizing the state of the people trying to crack the secret behind Frog Fractions 2.

I listened to the first episode, then decided to wait for the first season to finish so I could mainline it all at once. Now I'll do that! This may not be for everyone's taste, but a couple of friends of mine were recently interviewed on the People of Kink podcast, a show that interviews people in the kink scene (obviously NSFW). The episode they were on is here. It was a skype interview, and their side is not the best audio quality, but it does seem to improve as the episode goes on.

America's Man Caves are under assault, white men have systematically have every other historical safe space stripped away from them one by one. Soon, a man won't even be able to tell rape jokes in the safety of his own home. How is a man supposed to live if he isn't allowed to have one room in his house that's solely dedicated to keeping him from having to think about things that might make him uncomfortable.

I've been thinking about writing up a piece about the history of safe spaces where white men could avoid being triggered (men's clubs, golf courses, video games, organizations like the masons, etc.). But surely somebody on the Internet has chased down that line of thought before.

That's why I posted more of my friends story than I normally would have, feeling like I needed to defend myself from the perception that I was engaged in these conversations for some ulterior motives. So I know that feeling. It saddens me that myself and others lecture, rather than discuss, and that that keeps people out. And I have no doubt that that's how it feels/looks/is with at least some of these topics. I think a lot of it is that this is text based. If me and you, or Argo, or Chris, or Ninety were to be in person talking about this, it would be easier to both discuss and disagree, if for nothing other than a changed and less formal (not written) format. I suspect that a lot of it is that I've lost my taste for debate online. Sometimes I have something I want to share, or have something I want to say, but between previous forums and facebook, I know how much time and energy a back and forth can take. At any rate, I respect everyone here, even if they've disagreed with me or I've become angry or frustrated over something.

I'm not really sure how much I particularly want to continue participation in this thread, but I at least want to share one of the reasons for my own frustrations with how this conversation has gone. The reason I care about this stuff is not because I'm some elevated human who arrived at a natural ephiphany about the nature of justice and fairness in the world, or because I'm engaged in some complex White Guilt dance, or because I'm trying to extend my progressive empathy penis. It's because people I love shared their lives with me and opened me up to their experiences. Which is, ultimately, a pretty selfish/myopic reason to care. It's why conservatives hate gay people until they discover they have a gay kid. But it's the truth of how I got here, so no reason to deny it.* The person I originally saw the collards article from I've mentioned a few times in this thread. He's a former co-worker who became a dear friend. His parents (and aunts/uncles/cousins) were migrant farm workers. He was put to work in the fields in late elementary/early junior high age, because the whole family had to work to make sure they could all eat. He was forced child labor. Many, many, many meals we have all eaten have child labor at some point in their chain**. Not like in a foreign factory thousands of miles away, but here, in the US. To this day, my friend talks about how certain fresh vegetables, things he knows are healthy, give him anxiety, both from his own history and his fear that there's another kid like him picking that tomato. This even applies to traditional Mexican food. He's talked about how Mexican restaurants, particularly those white owned, are likely contributing to an ongoing oppression right now, not as a theoretical historical oppression, but as a current, in the field right now oppression***. And then that oppression in the field becomes profit from capitalizing on the image of his culture in the restaurant or the grocery store, as his people are producing the food product from beginning to end (including in the kitchens), but rarely the ones to profit from their own cultural heritage. When he talks about the intersection of race, class and food in this country, I listen. And quite frankly, I give him a lot more attention than any writer for the New York Times or the New Yorker. when I see white people wringing their hands about whether or not we can authentically judge whether someone is producing a cultural product, it makes me angry. Because in making that statement, a judgement is being made. A judgement that says no judgement can be made is still a judgement, because I see it as an acceptance of the status quo, or an unwillingness to question the status quo (I don't know if that's fair or not, but that's how I hear that message). And ultimately I think it's a judgement that ignores the voices of someone like my friend, in deference to white voices that write articles in publications with New York in the title. It's not that my friend is necessarily 100 percent right in his views, he's human with a subjective experience, he almost certainly isn't completely right or accurate in his views or even his memory (none of us are). But his voice has power and worth. And I think this society, and this thread, is much less likely to listen to him than it is to listen to white voices. * ** *** Final thought/footnote

Actually, I'm going to bow out of this conversation. I thought I was sharing something amusing that could be enjoyed and the thread would move on, but for whatever reason this spun way out of control. Edited original post.

Ninety-three's comparison to gamergate identity, Argo's post (that she has since retracted, and I was really trying to give her the benefit of the doubt that there was a misunderstanding/miscommunication going on), plus the general tenor of some other posts (which may be influenced strictly by the fact that we're on a text based forum) got my hackles up about how this was being discussed. On food culture in general, it's difficult to impossible to fully trace and understand (barring making it one's work for awhile) the change that cheap and easy access to refrigeration, spices, knowledge and preservatives shaped all cultures' foods over the last 50 through 200 years. But that doesn't change the fact that many cultures, in that 200 year span even, have had a significant part of their cultural identity shaped by their food. The fact that it doesn't necessarily trace back a thousand years doesn't, to me, lesson the cultural importance of certain foods. And therein also lies the thing I earlier pointed out about the deep hole of point/counterpoint in food examples. I see two ends of a scale here. On one end is the idea that food is wholly owned by the culture that birthed it, on the other is the idea that food is unowned by anyone. I don't believe either is accurate. Cultures aren't homogeneous, and it's ridiculous to say any one culture wholly owns any one food. That said, I don't think you can fairly disassociate certain foods from certain cultures without causing some harm, either through the minimization of that culture, through destroying affordable access to certain foods because of their rising popularity (as jenna has brought up), or through changing the concept of a food so thoroughly that the original is functionally lost. FWIW, one of my favorite bbq joints is actually run by a guy with a history of French cuisine, and it's a mixture of traditional Kansas City bbq, with French fine dining and a Cajun/French Louisianan flair. Traditional (particularly Southern) bbq is actually also heavily tied into parts of Black American history, and the migration of freed slaves throughout the country is one of the big things that propagated the spread of what we now call bbq. There's been some interesting attempts to capture the history and importance of black cooking in what is often viewed (around here, at any rate) as a middle aged white guy obsession. Bbq is an example of where cultural legacy has almost been wholly lost (or erased, if someone prefers that word), which I think makes our history all the poorer for it.

1) I shared that because I thought it was hilarious, as I could hear my friend giving a rant exactly like that and it made me smile. 2) Of course there's not some magical property to blackness that makes them good at making collard greens. That's ridiculous. No one here has stated that (I argued that it's a learned skill that people from some cultures are likely to be better at certain foods than others because they grew up around the skill set needed, not that there's some inherent property to those people). The article doesn't state that. The article is someone venting some frustration. 3) Why does a person of color getting angry and venting bother people? Because that's kind of what this whole exchange seems like. A black woman wanted to vent, and that's not okay somehow? Because it's about food and white people? I really had no expectations of this spawning any kind of exchange like this when I posted it. I'm super perplexed. She's not like condemning all white people, or calling for a boycott of the restaurant, or anything. She passed along a humorous anecdote about shitty collard greens she ate. I'm glad she shared her experience, and in a way that made me and the lady smile. I'm glad my Mexican friends on Facebook shared their frustrations with the intersection of white people and tacos in Kansas City (and you can go visit the Bombcast thread to witness my love of tacos and how much I enjoy making them even though I'm not from any culture they came from, but I'm sure as fuck never opening up a taco restaurant). Obviously, for some people of color, the intersection of culture, food and white America is something that bothers them. I don't think their concerns or anger are without merit, even if it is a complex and nuanced subject for which a hundred different examples and counter examples exist to show the positives and negatives of the way that food trends and recipes move around the world.

It's not about ownership, it's about identify. Food is one of those cultural touchstones that's so hard wired into a lot of people that we don't even think about it. Food is a thing you do every single day. And for some groups, there are foods that are very, very deeply woven into the fabric, even the mythos, of their culture. And so yeah, people can get irritated when someone else goes tromping all over their tapestry and doing it wrong. I'll see just how weird I can make that metaphor.

That's....super duper not the point. I'll be honest, having eaten traditionally prepared Mexican, Central American, Caribbean, Indian, Southern, and Filipino foods (those are the foods I can think of where I've either had it there, or prepared by a first generation immigrant), I've yet to find a white American cook or chef who can capture the essence of what those foods are compared to when they are prepared by someone native to the culture. Not to say it can't be done, but it ain't common in my experience. And there's a reason for that, taste palate development is learned. Someone who grew up with the tastes and smells of their culture will have a different knowledge base they are working from to duplicate that eating experience. Barring significant work, most non-native cooks won't be able to replicate that exactly. That's what the lady in that piece is describing. It's not significantly different than say learning a language. Many people are multi-lingual, but barring a decade or more of experience within a culture, that doesn't mean they have the same mastery or nuance that a native speaker would. A friend of Mexican and Puerto Rican descent linked to that article, and there was a discussion below it about the nuance of tacos that white restaurants just do not fucking understand. Edited to add: We see this in other things as well when it comes to taste. There's a difference between cane soda and corn syrup soda. One isn't objectively better than the other, but what you grew up drinking likely defines which you prefer. Real maple syrup isn't like maple flavored corn syrup, and I know a bunch of people who prefer the corn syrup because it's what the few up having. What you grew up eating often defines both your palate and your the flavor profile of what you will cook, even if you're not wholly aware of it.

To really understand that piece, it probably helps a ton to have some familiarity with Southern cooking, and black southern cooking particularly. One of the lady's best friends is very much an old school black familial matriarch type, and when the lady and I got together she put me through a forced education in proper appreciation of southern food. There was a bunch of stuff I said I didn't care for, like pecan pie or collard greens, and she made it a point to prove the only reason I didn't like them was cause I hadn't had them made right before. And she was right!

Oh, the lady and I read that together last night and loved it. It sounded just like how a friend of ours would have reacted to that situation.

Syn, it's nothing I've been through, but I agree with Mike, all the people I know who got divorced eventually ended up in a much better and happier place, even if it took awhile to get there. Feel free to PM me here or on Slack if you need to talk about anything.