Nachimir

+1 to Armchair. I raised this here once and got a load of "Hey chill out they're just rape jokes". This is really long, but if you've ever: 1. Felt shy about talking to women. 2. Made a rape joke with your buddies. I'd really like you to read it. ------ Casual attitudes toward rape and homophobia are easily the most repugnant parts of gamer culture, and also the most telling. I endorse Idle Thumbs and have been here since 2005, because it's always been one of the few gaming communities where such things aren't a big part and rarely even feel like so much as an undercurrent (and yes, the mailbox joke was originally about IGN and the awful attitudes they've fostered. If it has ever been "Haha, rape" to you, you have a serious fucking problem). I'm convinced that transgressive humour is really important. Racism has never been a part of that for me, for reasons I hope are obvious. They should be just as obvious when it comes to rape. I've laughed at, and told rape jokes in the past, but I learned that they're wrong. Not because there's an outside chance they'll offend a victim of rape, but because as a guy, I've never, ever had to be afraid of rape. Unless I find myself in prison or a particularly fucked up war, I probably never will have to worry about it. I've had flings and been in relationships with women who found rape jokes funny. There was even one who had massive rape fantasies, and after spending a long time persuading me that it was okay and she'd really enjoy it if I indulged her, you better fucking believe I made sure she was actually the one in control. My doubts not withstanding, I think that's the prerogative of these women, in the same way it's okay for black guys to throw certain slurs around, but not me. That is not an okay thing for me to do. I learned rape jokes are wrong because I got to know a lot of women, as friends or partners. Because I made a real fucking effort to step out beyond my default sphere of hanging out with the guys, to actually associate with and get to know people of a different type. Suddenly, a lot of my insecurities related to women and sex evaporated, and I stopped finding rape jokes so funny. Funny, that. Kingz has linked The Invisible Backpack here before, and as a white English guy it's not so much an invisible backpack as an invisible throne made out of fucking skulls. As guys, and particularly white guys, you would not fucking believe just how enshrined our rights, desires, genetics and entire nature are compared to other groups. Yet still, when I'm confronted with a new rape joke and it's a well crafted one, it's difficult not to chuckle. This is not because I lack awareness of how wrong that is, but because as well as the awareness that it's wrong to rape people, I also still have some insecurities related to relationships and sex. Transgressive jokes let us push at the boundaries imposed on us, and sometimes those boundaries are unhealthy and self-defeating internal ones we've developed, but as a member of the most culturally privileged class on this entire planet, most of the rules imposed on me are simply there to pen in the very worst potential parts of my nature. They're rules that stop me from horrifically victimising others, rather than, say, ones that keep me confined to poverty, engender widespread cultural mistrust of me, or commoditise me for others. So you know what? Those rules are mostly okay. I don't really need to push at them, and for me to do so would potentially be bad for everyone. If you prefer profanity to papers, here's Louis CK. Mentally substitute male for white: TG4f9zR5yzY Our collective response to privilege, as young white guys? To moan about our sexual insecurities and occasionally dip into then vent unconscious hostility toward women. To never become capable of accepting rejection, and think that peer pressure and manipulation would be acceptable tools. In turn, to devise bullshit games like ladder theory and pick up artist tricks, which progress toward the kind of shockingly deluded and openly proffered misogyny that Yufster linked in the narcissistic PUAs thread. These things are not an acceptable status quo or anything to aspire to. They're enshrined pathology and we need to fucking destroy it. I learned that rape jokes are wrong because just a few years ago I was sat in an office at a previous job, the other producer and the MD had just finished a big project, and a respected female academic had heavily criticised it on her blog. Discussing it, they attempted to engage with her arguments for about a minute before simply degenerating into hurt feelings and jokes about raping her. I didn't say what I thought of them, and we all made cups of tea then got on with the rest of the day as if nothing was wrong. They're wrong because, as someone said here before, we live in a world where women are afraid of being raped by men, and men are afraid of being humiliated by women turning them down. I'm not just talking about this thread, but pretty much every forum and community I've been on since 1997. In every single one, guys talk about not being able to talk to girls and how it's the biggest problem in their life. I'm not saying it isn't a problem, but it's trivial compared to the problems people from other groups have, and here's how you solve it: Recognise that the social skills you need to talk to women and become romantically involved with them are exactly the same social skills you need for talking to anyone else, for any reason. Becoming involved with women is not a specific thing you have to practice or train in. You just have to be social, and it helps if you're not an awful person. Fucking do something with your life. If you think your biggest problem is not having lots of sex or even not feeling frisky enough, go do something interesting that is completely unrelated to your dick. Confronting existential ennui will sort out so much else you wouldn't believe. Understand that people are not machines. When you want something from someone and they do not want to give it to you, that does not make them a puzzle to be solved or manipulated. Understand that, no matter how much you want it to be or how much you and your partner(s) agree it will be, sex will rarely actually be simple. Step out beyond the guys you hang out with, beyond the self reinforcing web of myopic sexual insecurities that infests guy only social groups like cancer, and get to know lots of women regardless of how attractive you might find them. Actually get to know them, and, by sheer passive just being around a lot of women for quite a while, come to understand just how they feel about that creepy guy that won't stop texting them even though they told them to, or all the shithead men that heckle them when they go jogging. Gain some shred of insight into how it all looks from the other side. Being a good person does not mean becoming a doormat. It is fully compatible with being a confident and assertive person. These are healthy and good things, and they deserve a chance for people to cultivate them without having to swallow rape culture with it. PUA stuff and selfish manipulation of others can actually work, but they make you a terrible human being. They reinforce groups as "other", which in turn nourishes sociopathic and narcissistic traits. The same kind of traits that just sent our economies and politics down the tubes while almost entirely preserving their management structures. Yet it's seen as acceptable for all of us to reinforce such traits in our culture, every day. Maybe Rodi was being ironic (edit: typed this before Rodi had explained himself, and totally understand the joke he was trying to make), but if you come to its defence with "Hey free speech dude" or some bullshit about "mens rights" or "lighten up" or "as a modern day victim of misandry…" I will laugh really fucking hard in your face. You are *so* far inside a bubble of privilege you can't even discern it, and you reinforce it with every word. I love gallows humour, but it always has context. Between me and a girlfriend who happens to like that stuff and makes that known, it could be (and has been) okay, but even then I won't form an emotional response as simplistic and context free as "HUR HUR rape jokes funny". Between a bunch of guys on a public gaming forum? Definitely not the place.

This is a thing that causes me to marvel at how beautiful it is, then not buy it and wistfully look at videos from time to time, wishing I had that much spare time. God that's one of the nicest maps I've seen in a game. All those geographic layers!

:0 I completely missed that. I very much hope the climax of the game involves sinking a battleship and the arch villain… saying something about it.

I think I got this from this very thread, but it merits repeating:

Congrats on finding a non-dick boss, Miffy You might get a visit from the Police. Photograph everything he sent you, just in case.

I think the flaw is that it's procedurally generated, whereas horror should generally be quite deliberately paced. The designer himself said it was just a little experiment in teaching himself Unity though.

Yeah, how am I going to fire a crowd penetrating laser down the sides of a parade, or run over a crowd of people I just persuadertronned? Those are the reasons Syndicate was so good when I was twelve.

I got down 35 flights of stairs before eventually getting bored… not that my heart wasn't pounding though. Very nicely done, though I found the documents a bit scarier than the game. I also found myself trying to remember which landings incidents had happened on, and was jittery enough that I couldn't. I saw/heard: and I thought "Fuck this if I also meant to go down fewer levels, but it has an annoying/admirable Mincecraft-like aspect of making you want to go down just one more flight. Edit: I just found a video of an ending. God that gives me the willies!

I just read all of those pages and downloaded it. I might have to resort to happy music to get through this.

He could, but if you send it by recorded delivery, you'd have proof that it went to the address he provided and someone signed for it.

MoonCube.

via Ste Curran and Ed Key on Twitter: nWF0bBKhe6o

Dani Filth voice: KAWAAAIIIIIII. -- In other news: HELLO BIG BOY* e7B81YTaOYQ *Took me two views to notice that.

It's a beautiful film, and I'm glad they managed to adapt a 70's novel without adding any over the top action. Most of it is beautifully understated, especially the scene .

This Marek Dance? Ho2Q0LE-gNc

I hereby eat my words! I've only had one friend who worked in a Starbucks, and she wasn't happy with it, but I think she's not happy about a lot of things.

Souvaris played their last ever gig last night. It was glorious.

I'm glad you found a way to get away from that prick. Don't let Starbucks wear you down though; it may be your way out now and a way to stay afloat for a year or so, but you are better than that job

Spectacularly screwed up post on the Steam Forums:

(It freaks me out a little that YouTube was new in 2005). San Francisco is a great city, and a lot of it is walkable. I've spend a total of about three weeks there, and loved it even when the weather was bad. Best tips: Japantown is a quiet place to stay Arizmendi's, near the corner of 9th and Irving, does the best pastries.

Yes! Until he got closer, I thought they'd just processed then inverted a daytime shot. Amazing work. Edit: Original version here, with slightly H-er Ds: http://www.nowness.com/day/2012/2/16/1893/jacob-sutton-s-l-e-d-surfer

A lot of them are based in the region. I sometimes see members of the cast having meetings in the building EM Media are based in, and friends have seen them out clubbing too. Fun fact: The (alleged) reason This is England has a scene set at the seaside is that filming a bit in Grimsby meant they could get some extra production money from Screen Yorkshire, as well as the load EM Media put in. I used to live at the bottom of the neighbourhood most of the film was made in; the subways have been filled in now, and some of the houses have been demolished.

Fight scenes just aren't the same after you've studied any kind of martial art. Systema makes me boggle at how impractical most choreographed stuff is. Movie fighting is kind of like human shaped robots and talking computers: Their primary function is to convey (and prolong) drama. Edit: Even established martial arts can evolve to the point of becoming theatrical parodies with no real application. Here's a very sad pair of videos. This guy is apparently some kind of grand master. I didn't have to look at him work for more than a few seconds to see he and his followers are in a fantasy world: mdUxPLIJVgI Here's the same guy getting his ass kicked by a student of Brazillian Jiu Jitsu: 7jf3Gc2a0_8 The problem for films is that if they were to feature realistic fights, either between master swordsmen or some dudes brawling in the street, either way it's going to be over very quickly. In the latter case, it would also not be particularly balletic or aesthetically pleasing at all. Fights are ugly and quick.

With socks on.