Apple Cider

It's so funny because the host of the video segment literally looks like she could be on the show. But then I remember, no, that's how EVERYONE looked back then.

In some ways, video games can really be escapism for everyone, but a lot of people TRY to use video games as escapism and end up being painfully aware of things we'd like to not think about in the real world, sadly. Dan seems, again, nice, but incredibly able to not think about "the hard stuff" which in and of itself is dismaying.

I don't remember which thread it got linked in, Social Justice maybe, but Maddy Myers (who is extremely qualified) specifically talked about her experiences of applying and not getting hired to GB and what kind of nonsense fallout happened, so if you want to make a case about the hiring, you have at least one example of someone who I think absolutely could compete with Dan on a requirements level. The issue though is that if you create an environment that "suits" more affable gamer dudes to fill in a slot, then that's what is going to seem like a natural choice to you, regardless of that naturalness being constructed.

I was agreeing with Bjorn's rant. If for some reason we absolutely can't take sex workers as they stand in GTA (which, I think they should, but wacky me hates this garbage in video games to begin with) then maybe having a sex worker demolish the PC for being shitty to her would be logically consistent - the problem as it stands is that it ISN'T right now, and we need to look at WHY that is. Game systems are just as much of a political message as narrative, etc.

It's on the nose though. Sex workers, who are often women, suffer many abuses in real life in and video games because they are considered a far lower class of women than any other types of NPCs, and this is often true in real life, especially if you get into sex work out of neccessity versus choice, though all sex workers have a high risk for these things. I had a similar experience to Maddy where a male friend of mine showed me the game specifically to giggle about how you can beat up a sex worker and take your money back. It was a really upsetting thing, the more I think back to it, especially since shortly thereafter, a very high profile case came up in my local area where a man was found guilty of having 6 dead sex workers stuffed into the walls of his house, with potentially another half dozen he kidnapped and abused and then killed. And guess what, no one caught on to this guy for a really long time because they were all women that "no one would miss" and it only came to light because of "the smell." I am of the mindset that if GTA loses some of its personality because you get to kill sex workers with no logical in-universe retaliation or even just removing it altogether, then maybe that's not the kind of personality we should be espousing anyways. I am absolutely not someone who cares enough about video games to know we need to preserve that kind of shit these days.

Resolutions for 2015: Try to be more positive???? Keep a diary (and a secret diary) Play more video games Draw more (but I already started that this year and it's been going great) Learn how to do more complicated audio stuff for podcasting Blow up my work in a big way Enjoy healthcare for the first time in 10 years

I am glad people are open to the type of warnings that I am pretty used to in my circle of things, spoilers become somewhat meaningless when it comes to perhaps preserving one's sanity. Like, I'm not talking about being upset or squicked, I'm talking about being so emotionally derailed that you can't finish what you're watching, I got to that point a couple of times even WITH a heads up. But I suspect it's because of my own personal experiences and in that way On the brighter side, the movie really does fill in some gaps that people might be left scratching their head about after the series, especially with how muddy S2 is plot-wise.

I don't think you have to pay dues to write about any experience and I daresay some of the best reports of gamergate harassment were from outside sources, but I do take issue with talking about it as if it was /communal/ by someone who isn't really a part of the community of women who have been addressing this stuff regularly and giving no credit to their work. It feels opportunistic, and yes, this is something that is a huge problem in mainstream media press. The bottom line is I've long not liked Laurie Penny's practises nor her way of going about things in her work and this is just one more thing that crossed heavily into the area I confront the most (though I also do a fair bit in more feminist activist circles and I didn't like her work there either.)

I have a lot of those days, for sure. But yeah, "fuck XYZ" can sometimes be what you want to say when it's hard to go into a 4000 word deconstruction of why it sucks. Masculinity isn't bad, per se, as I outlined about femininity. It's what we are TOLD it SHOULD be and WILL BE that is horrible and poking at that and radically demolishing it is ultimately what gives me the strength to go on. Because as they stand right now, it's fucking horrible and we deserve better. Edit: Also Maddy Myers is a fucking goddess and I love her writing and I wish she got paid enough to do it for a living.

Yeah, I basically outpaced you guys really fast after the end of Season 1 and then had to Amazon Prime the FWWM DVD so I could watch it, since it is literally on NO streaming services, afaik. (I have Hulu, AP Video, Netflix, etc)

SuperBiasedMan: I think it should be pointed out in general for first time watchers that have NOT seen the Fire Walk With Me movie and have significant issues with triggering content, that maybe you should read a synopsis first, even if it spoils you. I absolutely spoiled myself on some of the movie plot points and still wasn't really emotionally prepared for how dark it is.

Oh wow, hahah, thank you. I have no idea how that would even work. I'm way too acerbic and feminist.

The art is great, but I have to ask one thing - is the right to left orientation an affectation meant to mimic manga translations without actually being so?

I honestly am glad Cara does pieces for Giant Bomb, especially with Patrick Klepek leaving. Not only is it income for Cara but it also might shine some weird light into GB's typical audience. I still feel like GB caters to the most common denominator of gaming, which is like 21-30 year old white dudes? I think Dan Rykert is a nice dude but it makes me wonder how much of his popularity is because men can be charming and mediocre as a schtick. I just feel like only he, of all people, could get away with being lauded for being goofy and ignorant. I am trying not to sound really ascerbic but there's so many people doing such great work and maybe Giant Bomb is not good enough to deserve them, but Dan Rykert can be a teenager in his 30s and people fall over themselves to talk about how cute and special it is.

My hope is that there's more parents around now that might have some more insight into these things. Maybe. That's so optimistic of me. I wish becoming a parent required you to love your kid no matter what, but sadly, we know that's not true.

Yeah, it's generally dismaying. What really bugged me was being called a bitch in a cutscene by a throwaway traitor character, or the insinuating or rape/coersion in another cut scene. So even with the progressive touches, it largely does not feel super welcoming to me as a woman, even if I can be a queer catlady (literally).

It's known as Diary II in some versions because of the European cut of the diary

Okay, I am glad someone is talking about this because I just brought it up in the episode 11 thread.

A mixture of responses to the episode and StealThisCorn's post, filled in largely by also watching Fire Walk With Me for the first time: I really liked Albert's speech because I think it gave you this sympathetic undertone to a largely insufferable asshole character. He's not a violent shithead, he just is incredibly acerbic and even condescending but I think it is his way of maybe showing Truman that while he is a jerk, he's above being angry and taking it out on people. He's just incredibly fastidious and demands a lot of people, potentially because he demands a lot of himself. I've always really liked Albert for that reason. As far as the Audrey Horne/One Eyed Jack/Blackie thing mentioned on the episode: I definitely got the implication that maybe the Hornes had done this thing to Blackie in the past, even if she is maybe the same age as them? It feels like OEJ is a concoction that the Hornes came up with a long time ago and has largely been a gross side-business for all sorts of reasons, but factoring in BTW, if anyone would want to PM me re: FWWM, I have a lot of questions and I need to talk to someone who understands the series as a whole better than I do to answer some questions about it, I cannot wait until the podcast catches up to it.

This is why I generally don't engage with Laurie Penny's work. She's done some shitty things in the past but overall, her writing is not really radical or really going in the direction of cultural deconstruction that I wish to see in things I support. She also jumped into the Gamergate fray too with this whole "we" nonsense despite her generally stepping over all the women who have been in gaming culture writing about harassment issues for a really long time. I have no interest in raising up nerd culture when it's largely an extension of patriarchal values and consumerism sorta smushed together. Intellect being lauded as a top priority is also gross on a lot of levels - it's definitely what feeds into this "objectivity/rationality" garbage that a lot of nerdlords use to devalue people's emotional outpourings.

Yeah, everyone suggests Guild Wars 2 to me every time I bring up my issues with WoW or FFXIV and honestly, the game was just kinda boring to me, which sucks, because I'd like to support progressive MMOs. Honestly though, I'd like everything to be better versus just playing only one. (Wildstar was wildly fun and did a really great job on story stuff but then it just sort of petered out for me, time-wise)

It's pretty much because late stage capitalism has a decent stranglehold on the conversation, but the phenomenon going on with poor people is the "veil of opulence" specifically: http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/08/12/the-veil-of-opulence/?partner=rss&emc=rss I had no idea about this phenomenon until it turned up in, ironically, an article about gamergate: http://www.nickcapozzoli.com/blog/2014/11/21/wwwgc#.VKKbsF4AAA

I just started playing FFXIV and I've actually had less issues with other people versus the game itself - some of the writing, despite having great representation of women characters, has a ton of really casual rape references, misogyny and anti-sex worker nonsense. It is making me really upset in this way, MMORPGs seem to be this wasteland when it comes to attempting to catch up with the baby steps of progressive behavior the rest of gaming is beginning to talk about.