We’re pleased and proud to announce the debut of our new podcast/vidcast/streaming show/video magazine. Depending on how many spoons I have during the weekend, you should expect either this show or a vidcast version of “Geekly Speaking About” to show up here on the blog every Thursday morning, following a live stream on our Twitch channel called geekingoutabout. You can watch it here and then click the link to read the show notes.
0:01 – VidCast Begins
2:38 – Introducing the New Format
12:18 – This Week on MoonGuard
20:50 – Restarting the Boss Fight
23:43 – A Musical Interlude
27:56 – WoW Women
35:24 – A Great Blizzard of 2018
I hope you enjoyed watching this as much as I enjoyed making it and I hope to see you live this coming Sunday morning on April 22.
Too Early for Streaming is a video-cast (aka vidcast) where no topics are too sacred to be discussed in depth. Trisha Lynn is a presenter and a woman who is strong and good-looking and an average gamer.
Finding the time to listen to hour-long episodes of podcasts which are eligible for the 2016 Hugo Awards wasn’t easy for me, but that’s what today’s article is about. The eligibility requirements state that the podcast must be a “non-professional” production—that is, no other company paid the podcaster(s) to make it—and at least one episode has to have been produced during the calendar year in question.
As such, then, I decided to pick one episode from a currently eligible podcast whose description interested me the most and I’ll be basing my recommendations on just the one episode. Unlike the “three episode rule” which I’m borrowing from former GOA contributor Kara Dennison, I think that I’d be able to tell what’s going to be on my nomination and/or platform lists before March 31 from just one episode.
Once again, in no particular order, here are my impressions of podcasts which are currently eligible for the 2016 Hugo Award for Best Fancast:
First Impression: This episode was a mixed bag for me, mostly because of the expectations which were raised due to a titling error. For an episode whose title claimed that it would talk about the state of the sci-fi genre, there was only a somewhat cursory examination of it. The episode began with a lively discussion between Black Girl Nerd website creator and podcast host Broadnax and contributor Lauren Warren, whose think piece for the website about how to fix Project Greenlight after Matt Damon’s “white mansplaining” gaffe to African-American producer Effie Brown caused a bit of a sensation. I appreciate how Broadnax and Warren talked about how the piece was written and that it went beyond hollering what was wrong about the gaffe but moved past and talked about how to fix the problem, something with which I’m very familiar. I loved the lengthy interplay between these two colleagues whose discussion ranged far and wide across the pop culture and media landscape, which was why I was surprised with Broadnax’s more laid-back approach to her interview with “Out of Time” webseries creator Steve Kasan. I appreciate that she allowed him the space to talk about how he felt about diversity in genre media, but to go from such a light-hearted and engaging conversation between equals to a more stilted and less conversational interview was jarring to me. It also doesn’t help that it doesn’t sound like Broadnax even watched an episode of the series at all. Why didn’t she ask more about the thought behind the diversity of the characters? Or how Kasan and co-creator Rodney V. Smith’s take on time-travel in sci-fi works and how it’s different than other people’s take? Those are the kinds of questions I would have asked myself as an occasional podcaster, and I’m disappointed that they weren’t asked. The final segment on NekoCon was another bit of a letdown for me because while her conversations with attendees were interesting for getting a perspective on diversity at anime conventions from the average fan, she never had her interviewee’s give their names or handles. And that’s a big no-no from a journalism perspective because as Sir Terry Pratchett commented in The Truth, getting the names of the people you interview helps you “sell” your work more.
Is this a Hugo Award-worthy work?: No, but I’m sure this would win several other awards in general geekery and lifestyle podcasts categories.
First Impression: Instantly my back was up despite the excellently-produced original theme song because as the description states and as they say in the intro, this podcast is dedicated to talking about bad books. And even though I’ve read other Spider Robinson books and I don’t recall if I’ve read this specific one, I don’t think that Robinson is the kind of person you’d call a “bad” author. This meant that I was instantly inclined to think that this podcast was not for someone like me. And yet, I was completely surprised how fair they were with the material. Friedman and Collision gleefully point out the problems with tone and the problems with misogynistic and/or sexist attitudes towards women; listening to them talk about it in a completely fair and open way made me think about how I might be perceiving the book and its author through rose and nostalgia-tinted glasses. Another thing that I appreciated about this podcast was how both Friedman and Collision were unafraid to state that they thought a part of the book was bad, but then they thought a bit longer about it and changed their mind. The last 15 minutes of the podcast is dedicated to answering listener email, which shows that this show has definitely reached a critical-growth stage to where they actually have long-time listeners and fans. After finishing up this episode, my instant reaction was to wonder if they would ever read Lady Slings the Booze, just so I could see what they think of the characters in that Spider Robinson book.
Is this a Hugo Award-worthy work?: Yes, despite the fact that they denigrated the pun wars in the book.
First Impression: Unlike the co-hosts in this episode, I’ll put my disclaimer before the review: One of the contributors to this podcast is Mike R. Underwood, and he and I were on “The Smurfette Principle in Marketing” panel at CONvergence 2015; since then, we’ve followed and ReTweeted each other a lot. I deliberately chose to listen to this particular episode because I know that my reading shelf is very sparse when it comes to works by Asian and Asian-American authors. One of the things I immediately liked about this episode was how much it was like a casual, free-flowing conversation. Each of the guests were engaged on their own, but also allowed to chime in and comment on what the other guests were saying. Also, like the best in talk radio, there were several times where I wanted to join in the conversation as well; I credit this to co-hosts Duke and Rios’ skills as interviewers who except for two awkward bits (one with Yu and one with Chu) were able to manage this five-way conversation with ease. Based solely on her appearance in this episode, I got the impression that Yu’s author persona is gruff and prickly; both Duke and Rios were able to work with it and get her to open up when they asked her what her reaction was to getting the call that she was nominated for a short story Nebula in 2012. From a hindsight perspective, it was also very fun to hear Chu talk about his experiences as a beta-translator for Ken Liu, whose translation work for The Three Body Problem helped that book win a Hugo in 2015.
Is this a Hugo Award-worthy work?: Yes, despite the low fidelity of their recording. But if more people subscribe to their Patreon, I’m sure they could fix that.
As I’ve mentioned before, I became a sci-fi fan when I was in college. However, even though I was interested in writing sci-fi (and the one short story I’ve had published had been written during this time) I didn’t really get into the world of being a sci-fi writer until I learned who author John Scalzi was, thanks to Wil Wheaton. His writing about what it’s like to be a sci-fi author drew me into wanting to learn more about the fandom and the genre, to the point of where I now actively follow several prominent authors on Twitter and know the names of several more.
(I also “stuck my oar in” like almost everyone else did during the whole SFWA Bulletin #200 thing and was issued a DMCA takedown request as a result, but that’s almost ancient history now.)
When word first broke on how a vocal and reactionary segment of the sci-fi/fantasy fandom managed to rally its supporters over the years into jamming works they liked into the nominations list for the Hugo Awards, culminating in a near-total overrun in 2015, I was amused at how it began, appalled and how it progressed, and ultimately impressed at what they managed to pull off.
Which makes me think that if a group of terrible people can push forwards works they think epitomize the best in science fiction and fantasy, why can’t someone like me who is not completely terrible do the same thing?
Here then are the planks of the first-ever “Geeking Out About…” platform for the 2016 Hugo Awards season:
1. All works which are being promoted must be created by people who believe that genre fiction should contain diverse characters and perspectives.
2. All fictional works which are being promoted must contain at least two characters whose gender, sexual, physical, and/or racial identity is substantially different from the creator’s and also:
a) Has their own agency within the plot.
b) Has a scene with another character who is also of their same gender, sexual, physical, and/or racial identity where they don’t speak about the main protagonist but do advance the plot.
c) If there is a love interest for either or both of the characters, it is not the same character as the main protagonist.
d) If the characters die, the deaths are meaningful.
3. All non-fictional works which are being promoted must contain references to and/or significant discussion about diversity in genre fiction, and also:
a) If a web article written by one person or solo podcast or web series, must contain links to other articles or references to other work where the gender, sexual, physical, and/or racial identity of those creators/authors is substantially different from the solo creator’s.
b) If a multiple-creator podcast, article, or web series, one of the authors/creators or a guest speaker must be a person whose gender, sexual, physical, and/or racial identity is substantially different from the other creators.
4. All visual works which are being promoted which depict humanoid beings must contain imagery which does not demean individuals who are not of the same gender, sexual, physical, and/or racial identity of the creator.
As you can see, the “Geeking Out About…” platform is all about inclusivity, diversity, and reaching outside of a creator’s comfort zone to encompass new points of view into their own work. It’s all about promoting works where the creator has made a conscious effort to reach out not just to an audience who is just like them but can transcend their own cultural/physical identity and reach an audience which are not like them in substantial ways. I hope it goes without saying that all of the works I’ll be promoting must be things which I think are “good,” but that’s more of a subjective standard than an objective standard, so I didn’t include it as a plank.
Now that I have the terms of my platform all set, I’m definitely more eager to continue reading and experiencing more Hugo Award-eligible science fiction work as well as naming the first entry on my recommended list. Also, if you know of a work which you think I should consider, please drop a note in the comments and I’ll be sure to take a look at it.
As with almost everything genre-related in my life, the reason I became interested this year in reading as many Hugo Award-eligible works as I can before March 28 this year is all thanks to my former college professor Dr. Atara Stein (may you rest in peace).
As a young undergrad at Cal State Fullerton, I had taken her Science Fiction literature class because I’d become interested in learning how other people have written science fiction in the hopes that I would be able to write my own. One of the first things she told us on the first day was that because even the science fiction genre encompassed a wide breadth of topics and themes, we would be focusing on what to her embodied what science fiction was as its very heart: What does it mean to be an intelligent “human”?
Through the clarifying lens of the “artificial intelligence” theme, a partial list of everything I read that school year is as follows: Neuromancer, Frankenstein, “I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream,” Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, and He, She and It. We also watched the director’s cut versions of Blade Runner and Terminator 2 as well as the Star Trek: The Next Generation episode “The Measure of a Man” (because she was also a secret Trek fanfic writer on the side).
It’s because of her college course that my philosophy about what makes “good” science fiction has to flow from satisfying at least two of these three criteria:
Does the work examine what it means to be “human” in some extensive way?
Is a very important part of how the plot and/or setting works tied to the use of technology created by sentient beings?
It is very improbable that the events in the setting of the book will happen during my lifetime?
This is a rubric which I’ve been following both consciously and sub-consciously my entire life, and it’s the rubric by which I plan to read and critique as many science fiction comics, short stories, novellas, and novels as are eligible for the 2016 Hugo Awards as I can before the nomination deadline of March 31.
Each time I read another report, I thought to myself, “Well, that’s truly horrifying, but I don’t think things like that have happened in my anime fandom.”
That is, until now.
Two days ago, I woke up to see mentions of a Facebook post where someone whose name wasn’t immediately familiar to me accused someone else I knew of rape. The post from Amber Marie Frazier read in part:
I was raped last year at Anime Boston by Tom Wayland. I trusted him, as a friend, colleague, and a guest [whose] needs I was charged with taking care of. That is why you have not seen me around, and when you have I have been so different. That is why I am not doing anime shows or anything that involved crowds.
Frazier continued:
I wanted to tell all of you for two reasons. First, because you all know and love me, and you are not fools, and have noticed there is something wrong. I need your love and support if I am ever going to be anything like the woman you knew before. Secondly, so you can TELL EVERYONE. If you don’t tell everyone, he can do it again to someone else who trusts him. I have reason to believe that I am not the first, but I will be the last if I have anything to do about it.
According to Frazier, Anime Boston was made aware of her accusation and they’re not allowed to publicly comment. She also confirmed that they removed him from their list of invited guests. Interestingly, she also stated that she would share the information which she had told to Anime Boston and the police, but cautioned people against wanting to know that amount of detail. The last statement was the most interesting of all:
Don’t worry about slander or libel, I checked with my lawyer, and it is only that if it is not true.
My first reaction was, “Oh my God.”
My second reaction was, “Well… under certain circumstances, I think I can see how that could happen.”
See that picture up there? The girl in the purple cheongsam wielding the double-bladed lightsaber? That’s me as Darth Shampoo—an irreverent take on a character from the Ranma 1/2 franchise—the first cosplay costume I would ever do. That picture was taken during the second Anime Expo I ever attended back in 2000; since then, while I’ve worn outlandish outfits to conventions, I’ve only cosplayed one other time at an anime or other genre convention.
However, I’ve always appreciated the art and artistry of people who do choose to go to conventions and dress up as their favorite characters for an entire weekend. In the several years since I started going to genre conventions, I’ve watched the fandom cosplay community grow and change in part due to the Internet and rise of dedicated forums and social media as well as the change in conventions themselves.
Nowadays, instead of waking up and hoping to see your picture in the galleries of the now defunct A Fan’s View website run by Kevin Lillard, a cosplayer attending a convention can hope that their picture made it into cosplay galleries of national media outlets like Business Insider, websites for internationally funded cable channels like BBC America, or even your local Fox affiliate station such as this one in Salt Lake City, Utah.
Announced this year in April as “Cosworld” and purporting to be a documentary about cosplayers and the costuming world, what premiered instead on August 27 on the SyFy network was instead something more similar to the TLC show “Toddlers and Tiaras” than SyFy’s own competition reality series “Face Off.” Eight women (Holly Conrad, Chloe Dykstra, Yaya Han, Riki LeCotey, Monika Lee, Jessica Merizan, Victoria Schmidt, Becky Young) and one man (Jesse Lagers) were cast to appear in the show. The format of each episode followed this rough formula:
Cosplayer decides to attend a convention and plans a costume.
Cosplayer goes shopping for materials for the costume and plans its design.
Cosplayer has various difficulties with making the costume (with or without help from friends and/or significant others).
Cosplayer goes to convention with or without a finished costume along with a voiceover “announcing” their arrival; attendees gush over the costume and take many pictures.
If costume isn’t finished, cosplayer attempts to finish costume: Will they succeed?
Cosplayer enters masquerade contest.
Masquerade contest is over: Who will win the cash prize?
Interspersed with taped interview segments and tons of B-roll from Anime Expo 2013—seriously, anyone who’s been to the Los Angeles Convention Center knows what it looks like!—viewers could watch all the drama that comes with the cosplaying world take place at five genre conventions across the U.S. ranging from Wizard World Portland in Oregon on the West Coast all the way to MegaCon in Orlando, Florida in the East.
When episodes started to air, there was a great uproar from the cosplay community and other geek-adjacent media venues. Amid the outcry that the show wasn’t really representative of the experiences of the majority of the people who cosplay and parts of it were staged and/or manipulated by the producers, there was also the charge that the show just wasn’t that good.
Anime Fusion 2013
October 18-20, 2013
Bloomington, Minnesota
Ever since I moved to Minneapolis in Minnesota, I have slowly been exploring the geek spaces around me by going to geekish concerts and movie showings. I even have a local gaming store which is three or four blocks away from me where I play in a weekly role playing game campaign and where I’ve begun playing more Magic: the Gathering.
However, when it came to conventions, I just didn’t have the time or the money to attend any this summer, including gaming convention Con of the North in the late winter, Anime Detour in the spring, science fiction convention CONvergence in the summer, or any number of larger group gatherings that take place in and around the Twin Cities.
All of that changed when I noticed from a Facebook post that voice actor (and friend) Taliesen Jaffe was going to be attending Anime Fusion in the nearby suburb of Bloomington, home to the Mall of America. The convention was taking place the weekend after my wedding celebration, so I thought it was a perfect time to get myself back out there and to attend my first anime convention since 2008.
The first thing I’ll say about Anime Fusion is that it was very easy to find walk-in registration information on its website and that for a Saturday pass, the price was very reasonable. Their harassment policy was also easy to find on their FAQs and Policies page, as was the hotel location information and full convention schedule. When you’re deciding to attend a local convention at the last minute, it’s important that all of this information is easy to find because you could just as easily stay home if you can’t find the information you need.
Because I know the area around the Mall of America well, I decided to arrive around 1:00 pm because I wanted to pick up some fast-food to have for lunch on the way down. The problem is that there aren’t any fast food places around that aren’t inside the mall and I also know that hotel concessions are often pretty costly. Later, I would inwardly congratulate myself on my decision when I encountered two attendees who were pouring through a phone book, looking for a nearby restaurant which delivered to the hotel because they’d traveled to the convention by bus and didn’t want to pay for the hotel concessions.
When I entered the hotel lobby, there was an ample amount of signage directing me to the walk-up registration desk. The actual registration didn’t take very long because there were few walk-ins, but waiting for a receipt for my cash transaction took a bit longer as the person assisting me didn’t know how to generate a receipt and the person who did was helping someone else find their pre-registration information in their database. However, once that person became free, generating the receipt was as easy as a few taps on the iPhone with credit card reader dedicated to the task and within minutes, the receipt was in my Inbox.
While I was waiting, I asked some basic questions and learned that Anime Fusion was in its second year and were anticipating that this year, they’d have about 1,000 attendees over the 850 they had last year. I also noticed that for a smaller convention, there were more people in cosplay than I expected, mostly from shows or fandoms that I’m not a part of like Homestuck and “My Little Pony.”
Due to the hotel, the layout of the convention was also something I’ve never encountered before. All of the meeting rooms were located on the second floor, which can be typical. What isn’t typical is that there are also guest rooms on the second floor along long hallways that connected the board gaming, con hospitality suite, and convention operations room to the CCG area and circling back around to the Main Programming and panel rooms and the Dealers Room and Artist Alley in a sort of triangular formation.
Merchandise on display from local guests Studio O.N.Y.
And speaking of the Dealers Room and Artist Alley, the two were combined into one room with one half dedicated to the Dealers and the other half to the Artists. I thought this was a great way of creating a bigger commercial space without slighting either the Dealers or the Artists with placement concerns. There was also a great selection of vendors on both sides and I didn’t feel as if there was too much of one kind of merchandise or too little of another.
While buying some random Magic cards, I had a great conversation with two vendors from Source Comics and Games who let me know about other good conventions in my new convention metro area, which apparently extends west to east from South Dakota to Wisconsin, south as far as Iowa and part of Illinois, and even north to conventions in Winnipeg, Manitoba. They reported that business was pretty good for them with this convention and they were likely to return for the next one.
A badass Rumpelstiltskin from “Once Upon a Time.”
In the Artist Alley, I found that there were more male than female artists, a fact that gratifies my little feminist heart. Many of them had buttons and other crafts for display along with their portfolios; several were even working on commissions at their tables. One of the best moments was when one of the artists squealed over seeing someone in cosplay. The outfit looked familiar to me, and I ended up squealing as well when I learned that she was cosplaying as Rumpelstiltskin from “Once Upon a Time.” As this is a show that I’ve recently gotten into, we had a great time talking about the series and its characters.
As I walked along the Alley, I picked up several business cards from local artists with whom I’d like to work, craft artisans whose work I’d like commission, and other stores whose merchandise was gorgeous but out of my price range for the day. I was very impressed with the friendliness and professionalism of everyone I met and they all treated me well, even if it didn’t look like I was interested in their wares.
Once I’d finished touring the room, I wandered along the hallway with the panel rooms, noting the location of the two panels featuring Jaffe later that day and their relative locations. Unfortunately, none of the panels going on at the time appealed to me, so I walked along the hallway until I found the con hospitality suite. The idea of a con hospitality suite is somewhat new to me because even if they had them, I don’t recall seeing one at the California or East Coast conventions I attended or for which I volunteered.
At the con suite, they were dishing out white rice and offering instant oatmeal and in the room next door, they’d set up tables and seasonings for the rice. The room had several occupants and conversations were lively. Opposite the hospitality suite was the convention operations room, and just as I glanced through the open doors, I noticed Jaffe standing there with Josh Grelle, another voice actor guest.
I went over to briefly say hello and to let Jaffe know that I’d be seeing him during his panels later that day. At the same time, I overheard that Jaffe and Grelle were going to be off-site for a bit as the hotel’s kitchen had closed for the time being and neither had eaten lunch due to being at an autograph session which had started at noon. Speaking as a former guest relations coordinator, I don’t know if that was an error on the hotel’s part for not anticipating the demand for concessions or the convention’s for not knowing that the hotel regularly closes their kitchen for service at that time on weekends and having a contingency plan in place other than taking them off-site for a meal.
Jaffe also would later tell me that the programming department had made much use of his time while he was at the convention and that every day he was rather busy. Both of us also remarked that it was an excellent idea for there to be a 30 minute space before and after each panel taking place in the same room, to allow for speakers who want to go “over” an hour’s worth of time and/or for a panelist to use the facilities between two panels in different rooms.
Since there was over an hour left before the Voice Actor Q & A panel started, I wound my way along the hallways to the board gaming room where I found a group deep into a session of Arkham Horror. I was pleased to be asked to join them, but as I really only had an hour or so of time before the panel started, I knew that I couldn’t play with the group and expect to finish the game. As I looked over the selection, another attendee named William expressed interest in playing a game; we eventually settled on Munchkin using a very large amount of cards from various standard sets, two official level die, and the official Run Away die.
It took a while for us to get going, but since I decided to become a Halfling early in the game, I was able to sell Treasures for levels and get to 9 rather quickly. William took a little longer to get to level 9, and for a while it was touch and go as to who would win. I even forgot that I couldn’t sell Treasures or use auto-level cards and claimed an early victory, but William quickly disabused me of that notion. Instead, I attempted to fight a monster that was Level 18, but using his Transference Potion, he stole the monster from me, easily defeated it, and won the game. I love it when Munchkin games come down to the wire like that.
Who wouldn’t want to attend a panel featuring this handsome guy?
By this time, it was about time for me to make my way back to Main Programming for the panel. One thing I noticed when I got there was that some chairs had placards on them noting that they were reserved for specific attendees. I can only imagine that this was a VIP-level perk for sponsors-attendees and I have to say that it’s a very clever idea that could work for other conventions of this size up to the 5,000-attendee conventions. I found a seat in the second row and settled in to wait. At one point, two of the other guests came in with two beautiful Akita dogs for their panel about the breed and their history in Japan; unfortunately, they’d gotten the room wrong and had to leave, taking the beautiful dogs with them.
Finally, all of the panelists arrived and the panel began with Grelle, Jaffe, and Petrea Burchard introducing themselves. It took me a while to recognize Burchard as the voice of Ryoko from the Tenchi Muyo franchise; when I realized who she was, I could then totally hear Ryoko in her voice.
Since I’ve been attending anime cons and voice actor panels in particular since 2000, I idly sent out this message on Twitter:
Sitting in the audience of my 1st anime con panel since 2008. Shame I didn’t write up the drinking game.
— Trisha Lynn (@trishalynn) October 19, 2013
If I had made up that drinking game, I believe I would have been pretty well-toasted by the middle of the panel because many people asked the same questions that I’ve been hearing at voice actor panels for over a decade. In a way, though, it’s nice to know that there’s still a love and an interest in voice over acting in anime even if subtitled anime is available through legitimate means less than a month after the show is aired in Japan.
Highlights of the panel for me was hearing Josh Grelle’s impression of Vic Mignogna which he had to perform for his role as Kenichi in Kenichi: The Mightiest Disciple and that Petrea Burchard once worked with Harlan Ellison and Robin Williams while recording a story called “Repent, Harlequin!’ Said the Ticktockman” for an NPR serial. Her description of Ellison as an “interesting” man may have been the best example of Minnesota Nice I’ve ever heard by a non-Minnesotan.
After the usual flurry of post-panel autographs, photos, and schedule-checking, Jaffe and I chatted as we walked to his panel room, stopping once to use the bathroom. And since there weren’t many people in the room at the time, we continued to chat about life and business, right up until it was time for his panel to start. It was called “How the $&(@ Did I Get Here?”, and the format was inspired by our mutual friend and frequent anime con guest Jan Scott Frazier.
Just before the panel started, Jaffe showed me a sheaf of 20 typewritten pages and four or five handwritten pages of notes for the panel. What followed was a long but interesting ramble through Jaffe’s youth as a child actor, his years in Japan as a cultural liaison for the CEO of an import/export firm, and how he got into voice acting. Along the way, I learned many new things about my friend that didn’t come up with I interviewed him back in 2002 for Sequential Tart. He even was sidetracked into talking about the Western Expansion into Japan in the 1800s as well as telling the story of Admiral Perry’s “Black Fleet” and cautioned the audience to do some actual book research into the tale rather than relying on Wikipedia for more information.
When the panel was over, Jaffe and the other guests had to part for dinner, and we agreed to meet at the hotel bar when they were done. I left the convention to pick up my husband for dinner, and when we were done, we waited at the hotel bar for Jaffe to arrive.
What followed was a great conversation with an old friend as the three of us talked for a long time about the sad state of feminism in the comic book industry, his involvement in the “Heroes of Cosplay” reality series on the Syfy network, and potential projects that both of us had in the works. Alas, we had to get going so we parted at the bar, and that ended my Anime Fusion attendance for the weekend.
Looking back, if I were someone attending an anime or other genre convention for the first time, I couldn’t recommend a better experience than going to a convention of this size in this kind of area. It was large enough to attract a good variety of vendors and guests, yet small enough to make you feel as if you could reasonably see and do everything you wanted to do on any given day.
For a long-time con goer, though, I don’t know if there’s enough within Anime Fusion yet to make it an addition to a regular yearly convention schedule. The discussion panels that were scheduled for Saturday didn’t seem to pop out at me, and Saturday is traditionally the best programming day of a three-day convention.
You may say that it’s not fair to judge a entire convention by a single day, but I think that if a convention really wants to put its best foot forward, the second day is when they really need to shine. Anime Fusion has the potential to be a really great small or medium-sized con—but they’re not there just yet.
That was absolutely beautiful, and actually changed my mind about the Dickwolf shirts.
Internet confession: I was the one who yelled “bring them back”. I didn’t do it because I hate feminists. I didn’t do it because I hate women. I did it because I felt like those shirts were a justified “fuck you” to a section of humans that were rallying, unnecessarily, against a good joke. I didn’t know how wrong I was until right now.
Thanks for helping me straighten that out in my head.
My reaction when I feel backed into corner is to be an asshole. It’s essentially how I defend myself. It’s been that way since was in elementary school. I’m 36 now. Maybe it’s finally time to try and let some of that shit go.
—Mike Krahulik, explaining how he reacts to criticism on Twitter.
When I first heard that Penny Arcade creator and artist Mike Krahulik had stated at the recent PAX Prime during a Q & A panel led by president Robert Khoo that it was a “mistake” for them to pull the “Team Dickwolves” T-shirts from their store, I was shocked, but not surprised.
If you haven’t seen the remarks in context yet, press play on the video below, fast-forwarding to about 22:09 minutes in:
Khoo has just asked founders/creators Krahulik and co-founder/writer Jerry Holkins if there were any mistakes that they think that Khoo has made as their business manager. Here’s a transcript of Krahulik’s prompt, out-of-the gate reply:
Mike Krahulik: You know that I don’t hold grudges. I can be incredibly mad, and then fine the next minute as long as I get it out. And I feel like we got this out, so I’m not mad about it anymore. But I think that pulling the Dickwolves merchandise was a mistake.
[Loud applause, with some hoots and hollers] Robert Khoo: Clearly had I known the following steps that would follow after that move, I would have never brought it up to you. Of course I wouldn’t have because I did not know— I don’t want to say, “Alright, well… because of this, this happened, and people said this, I said this, you said that….” Clearly it would have been better to just be like to not say anything, and that’s sort of our policy on all these types of things now. Krahulik: Now, yeah. Khoo: Whereas it’s just better not to engage, and in fact pulling it was a way of engaging.
[Mike expresses agreement] Random Audience Member: Bring it back! Khoo: No, that’s a terrible idea.
In all the interviews I’ve seen of Robert Khoo, all the “Khoo & A” footage I’ve seen, I don’t think I’ve ever seen him this incoherent when it comes to an explanation for a business decision; Khoo clarified later to Kotaku what he meant:
It wasn’t meant to be a comment supporting rape or sexual assault, but rather one about censorship and the shirt-pulling pouring gasoline on a sensitive discussion. I know we did a poor job of elaborating on that on stage, and as the guy moving the discussion along at the Q&A, I’m really sorry for that.
With that bit of clarification, if one was being generous, they could argue that Krahulik meant that continuing to keep the Dickwolf Debacle current in the public eye by removing the merchandise so publicly was an ignominious capper to a poorly handled reaction. However, what is and has been infuriating to so many people is that what they wanted to hear Krahulik—or anyone at Penny Arcade, really—say was that making the merchandise to begin with was the mistake, as was their somewhat condescending response to the critics of the original comic.
Having seen the entire interview, too, I found something else that’s rather fascinating. Starting from the Dickwolves Debacle and proceeding from there, it appears as if there may have been an evolution in the thought processes going on within Mike Krahulik.
Witness this exchange near the very beginning of the interview:
Khoo: I want to know about money. Money and success. We’ve done pretty well for ourselves, and know that for instance that Jerry loves to save a lot of money…
[Mike laughs] Khoo: And I know that Michael loves to spend it.
[More laughter, from audience and Mike] Krahulik: [nervous laughter] Okay… Khoo: Like I said, these are questions that only I could really ask you guys. Krahulik: Yeah, if someone else asked me that, I would tell them to fuck off.
In this context, it’s clear that Krahulik knows that some of his habits could be seen as socially inappropriate. Towards the end of the interview, he even addresses his habit of trolling people and the trouble that has come out as a result:
Krahulik: The only thing I guess I can see going forward that could cause conflict between us [as business partners] is probably the stuff that has done it before, which is me not being able to keep my mouth shut. I’m trying very hard to be better about that. And the most recent incident has most definitely taught me some lessons… Holkins: [Interrupting] About my mouth… Krahulik: [Overlapping] About my mouth… Holkins: How big it is— Krahulik: How it should be opened or closed, when and where it’s okay to say the things that I think. When I do things or say things that hurt not just me but 14 other people who rely on Penny Arcade for their livelihood because I say something dumb to make somebody mad, that I can see possibly happening again. I hope it doesn’t, but I know who I am.
At the same time, it doesn’t seem like Krahulik wants to take any further responsibility towards making any changes in himself for the positive, as seen in this response to a question about his status as a role model for young cartoonists:
Krahulik: Penny Arcade has gotten so big that we could never be what everybody wants us to be.
While I agree with the sentiment that we as an audience could never expect Penny Arcade or its creators to be perfectly representative or reflective of our own voices and views, at the same time, it’s disingenuous for them to refuse to acknowledge that the same behavior that helped them become a success is beginning to be a detriment.
When it comes to “fixing” this problem of theirs, it seems to me that in addition choosing not to engage hyperbolic critics via Twitter or any other social media when people have reactions to things he says or does, in addition to continuing to try and learn more about why people are enraged by things he says or does, in addition to the medications he’s taking for his anxiety and compulsions, Krahulik might be able to adjust or attune his instincts towards instant rage and/or inappropriate remarks through talk therapy. He might be able to better understand why he becomes instantly defensive, and how to better communicate his hurt emotions so that rather than fostering resentment, he is able to create a space of mutual understanding.
This is something that’s helped me out a lot; I hope it would be able to help him, too. If not for himself, then I think that he really needs to address this before his sons grow up to be the same kind of young men that he used to be by modeling his own behavior.
Alternately, they could do what was hinted at (in jest) near the beginning of the panel, helpfully re-created by myself:
So let me start by saying I like the Dickwolves strip. I think it’s a strong comic and I still think the joke is funny. Would we make that strip today? Knowing what we know now and seeing how it hurt people, no. We wouldn’t. But at the time, it seemed pretty benign. With that said I absolutely regret everything we did after that comic. I regret the follow up strip, I regret making the merchandise, I regret pulling the merchandise and I regret being such an asshole on twitter to people who were upset. [emphasis mine]
and
Everything we did after that initial comic strip was a mistake and I regret all of it.
Even though it’s been a long time since I went to an anime convention, I remember how exciting and how much fun they are to attend. I also remember how much drama can surround an anime convention, especially when it comes to cosplayers and the people who like to take pictures of them. The topic of today’s podcast surrounds the dealer’s room at the recently concluded AnimeNEXT convention in Somerset, New Jersey, and one dealer in particular who decided that the next innovation in images on body pillows should be actual human cosplayers. Read along with us using the links below, and then listen to the podcast to untangle the legal issues involved.
Here’s the article which prompted it all, written by Linwood Knight. As a side note, one thing that I think Knight should have disclosed in this article is that he, too, used to be a staff member at AnimeNEXT. I also believe it was irresponsible of OH! Entertainment to use the AnimeNEXT logo to illustrate its article.
In short, this kind of incident could have been easily avoided by all 93 of the cosplayers if they’d just read the agreement carefully, questioned its provisions, and/or refused to sign. That’s why the “Contractual Obligations” episode of “Strip Search” has been the most important one, and the one that all creative fans need to watch.
Here’s hoping everyone involved has learned a valuable lesson.
One of my favorite blogs to dip into from time to time is Smart Bitches, Trashy Books. Originated by writers Candy Tan and Sarah Wendell, the blog seeks to showcase what’s good, fun, informative, sexy, and surprisingly intelligent about the romance novel industry through their irreverent and occasionally deep book reviews.
Growing up, I loved romance novels. In my parents’ bedroom, half of a shelf was dedicated to Danielle Steel books. These were “forbidden” books so naturally as a teen, I devoured all of them. Once I graduated from college, reading romance novels became something my mom, my sister, and I could talk about—just as long as we didn’t talk too long about the sex scenes, that is.
About a year ago, I decided that I wanted to get back into reading some romance and especially finding a new author to follow as I’d phased out of my Danielle Steele, Fern Michaels, Catherine Coulter, LaVyrle Spencer, Maeve Binchy, Jennifer Crusie phase of reading. And before you ask, even Nora Roberts’ romance novels had been wearing a bit thin. Thankfully, Candy and Sarah have a section on their website devoted to their “best” blog entries, which is how I learned about Loretta Chase. Armed with a new name, some Amazon.com credit, and a visit to the bookstore, I was ready to read.
Two books enter… who will win?
Since it was the top recommendation, I dived into Lord of Scoundrels first. What struck me at first was how important the prologue was to understanding the entire novel and most importantly, creating a wave of sympathy for male lead Sebastian Ballister, the Marquess of Dain, the Earl of Blackmoor—and also an emotionally-abused young boy who grew up to be a rake.
With the prologue establishing a strong motive for Lord Dain’s behavior, Chase fast-forwards a bit in time to switch to the other half of this romantic duo, Miss Jessica Trent. The daughter of a gentleman, her character is firmly established as being a bit eccentric for the Regency era in that she would prefer to become a shopkeeper (an antiques dealer, really) rather than accept any of the numerous marriage proposals she’s been tendered due to the women in her family having a reputation for being fertile. In fact, if there are any problems I have with this book is that Jessica seems too good to be true.
Take this early passage for example, which is a description of Jessica by her brother’s butler:
[Jessica Trent] had inherited her widowed grandmother’s alluring looks: the silken hair nearly blue-black in color, almond-shaped silver-grey eyes, alabaster complexion, and graceful figure—all of which…had proved immune to the ravages of time.
More important…Miss Jessica had inherited her late father’s brains, physical agility, and courage. She could ride, fence, and shoot with the best of them. Actually, when it came to pistols, she was the best of the whole family, and that was saying something. During two brief marriages, her grandmother had borne four sons by her first husband…and two by her second…and daughters and sons alike had bred males in abundance. Yet not a one of those fine fellows could outshoot Miss Jessica.
If a character is too perfect (that is, heading into Mary Sue-ville), I find it hard to like them. When I read a romance novel, I want to believe wholeheartedly that the romance will work out, that the heroine will be able to triumph over her adversaries. In short, I like underdogs in romance; with this setup I found myself gravitating more towards Dain than to Jessica. And in fact, I wonder if that’s what Chase wanted her readers to do: to see the male lead as the “damsel in distress” and the female lead as the perfect lover who will come along and “fix” all of his problems. With that interpretation, Scoundrels becomes a somewhat post-modern romance novel, endearing me to it even more.
When Dain has his big moment of epiphany, it comes naturally because of everything you’ve seen him endure before—especially the slow change of his character from anti-hero to hero due to The Power of Lurrrve™. That he undergoes this change without losing everything that still makes him appealing is also a testament to how well Chase has created him.
Contrariwise, I couldn’t find anything redeeming about either lead character in Your Scandalous Ways. The reason why I purchased it was because I’ve always had a soft spot for hookers with a heart of gold. Upon learning that the lead female was a cortigiana onesta in almost post-Napoleonic Venice in the same vein as Veronica Franco, I had the book in my hand and my credit card in the cashier’s faster than you could say, “Boo.” Unfortunately, I was disappointed to meet Mrs. Francesca Bonnard who was less “classy courtesan” and more “flighty ethical slut.” Not that I have anything against ethical sluts, but dammit, I was expecting a story about an intelligent courtesan!
Francesca’s adversarial lover is Mr. James Cordier, a world-weary spy for the British who has been charged with retrieving important documents from Mrs. Bonnard’s possession. He wants nothing more but to get the mission done and end his spying career in favor of an average life in England; of course, he falls head-over-heels for Francesca for reasons that are never really clearly defined. Despite a rather inventive way of beginning Francesca’s introductory chapter (“Penises. Everywhere.”) I couldn’t find anything interesting enough about her personality or background story to intrigue me. It was worse with James, because just like Jessica Trent, he seemed too perfect.
It’s not just the characters that bother me about Ways either. The central conflict is the cat-and-mouse game between James and Francesca, but the latter isn’t smart enough to realize that James has an ulterior motive in getting to know her until about halfway through the book. When it came time for the final confrontation between Francesca and James on one side and a murderous traitor and his/her lackey, the climax and resolution was brief and predictable that I almost felt as if I’d wished I hadn’t gone to the bother of trying to finish the book.
So, the winner of this battle is Lord of Scoundrels, and if there’s anything that this experience taught me, it’s to make sure I read chapter excerpts before I go trying to read another Loretta Chase book again.
When he threw open the comments on a blog entry about the show to people who had questions about his first guest appearance, the following exchange took place:
Q: I think TBBT has really made geek chic in some respects, which I’m all for! Do you think the show’s had an impact making geeks more mainstream and funny?
Wheaton: I think it’s part of the general uncloseting of geeks, if that makes sense.
It’s no secret that I originally thought BBT was making fun of us, and I couldn’t get into it. It wasn’t until late in the first season that I gave it a real chance and ended up seeing that it was laughing *with* us and not *at* us. I love that the show embraces its geekiness, refuses to dumb down its humor, and manages to find a balance between mainstream and nerd humor. That’s a lot harder than it seems, and is sort of like playing Comedy Operation. If you touch the sides, the audience’s red nose lights up and instead of laughing, there’s a loud buzzing noise. It isn’t pretty.
Based on those words alone, I put “The Big Bang Theory” on my list of shows that were kind to geeks and science; however, some opinion pieces I saw earlier this year had me questioning his words.
The first one I saw was from Kris Naudus, a writer with whom I worked when I was at Wizard Entertainment. She’s currently a content manager for gdgt, but in her free time, she maintains a blog at LiveJournal where she posts her musings on pop and geek culture. She’s not a fan of TBBT, but because so many of her friends and family enjoy it and keep recommending it to her, she thought she’d give it another chance.
I usually insist that I don’t like this show because it’s not really nerdy; it’s just making fun of nerds, and that offends me. But this episode didn’t offend me as a geek or nerd. It offended me as a woman, and as a decent human being. Sheldon’s behavior was disgusting and the fact that the episode plays it for laughs and lets him get off scot-free, means that in a way, they condone it. We’re supposed to accept it because “that’s just the way Sheldon is.” It’s absolutely awful that part of the show’s premise is “these guys can’t talk to women,” but then they’re all given girlfriends before they’ve actually learned that lesson. Or really, Sheldon hasn’t learned that lesson, because he doesn’t need to, because he has Amy and Amy doesn’t care because of the way she is. Which is a shame, because I like Miyam [sic] Bialik and how Amy isn’t a stereotypical girl character. Unfortunately, it also makes her an enabler.
Shortly after I watched the episode, I also came across a TEDx talk by Jorge Cham, the cartoonist behind Piled Higher and Deeper, aka PHD Comics, aka The Webcomic that Grad Students Get and Most Everyone Else Might Not Get.
His talk was about something he’s calling “The Science Gap,” that leap in perception between what academics, nerds, and geeks see regarding the world of science and what the rest of the “normal” or mainstream world sees. The relevant part of the talk starts at 4 minutes and 46 seconds into the talk; you can watch the whole thing below:
Let’s take a closer look at one of Cham’s comments again:
TBBT is a major TV network show that’s [also] supposed to be about scientists and researchers, and the show has a lot of fans—and I don’t want to offend them, especially on the Internet—but this show does… all the smart people in this show have [these] glasses, they dress really weird, they’re socially inept, and all the pretty [and] cool people, they’re blonde, they’re dumb, they’re outgoing, etcetera. And so, I don’t have anything personal against the show, but I do sort of worry about what these stereotypes, what impact they have on society in general.
Long-time readers know that I’m definitely the kind of person who will put her money where her mouth is, and rather than just take someone’s word for granted regarding claims that a piece of entertainment is misogynistic or unrepresentative of a particular sub-culture, I’m going to check it out for myself. So, I hopped on over to the CBS website where “Egg Salad” had been streaming and I watched the entire episode.
Because Naudus was so thorough in her review, a lot of the twists and turns of the story were spoiled for me and so I don’t feel as if I can be as completely objective as a person watching the episode during its first run or without the benefit of the fan-wiki and a review by a trusted source would be. During my viewing of the show, I paid close attention to the scenes where Sheldon was interacting with his assistant Alex, because for the last four years I’ve been an assistant to various people in many different industries and know first-hand what it’s like to work for someone who has a very strong sense of self like the Sheldon character does.
The scenes where Alex felt uncomfortable and insulted as her boss started describing her as being full of hormones and/or having her emotions controlled by them like a lesser human being was equally as uncomfortable to me because I could see how I would react in exactly that sort of situation, having seen it in the workplace. I’ve also done human resources work during my career and I know how unnerving it is to have someone show so much disrespect towards you and your position without realizing that they’re doing so, as in the scene where Sheldon told the African-American woman from human resources that she was “a slave” to her body chemistry. And knowing that the other three scientist characters were equally as guilty of inappropriate remarks and behavior in the workplace regarding their female co-workers didn’t make things better because it showed that even Leonard as the most “normal” of the four was a terrible co-worker and colleague.
With those three things in mind and having seen how similar Naudus’ conclusion about the episode (“Sheldon hasn’t learned [his] lesson, because he doesn’t need to, because he has Amy and Amy doesn’t care…”) was to my conclusion about Observe and Report (“Even at the end of the film, [Ronnie] is still posturing, still arrogant, still a dick, but this time he’s got everyone else around him affirming and agreeing that he should continue to be this way….”), I came to my first realization about “The Big Bang Theory”: Because of the nature of episodic sitcoms on the major non-cable networks in the U.S., it is in the best interests for the writers of TBBT to keep Sheldon and the other main characters as being portrayed as stereotypes of geeks rather than showing positive growth and change for as long as possible; ergo, this show is not very kind to geeks at all.
On the other side of the coin is Cham’s claim that this show isn’t kind to science through its portrayal of young, intellectual researchers in academia. One could be cynical and say that the only reason Cham is saying this is because he is the executive producer of a feature film based on his comics as well as an ongoing web documentary series which portrays realresearchers talking about realscience and he just wants the additional views on YouTube, but I don’t think that’s it.
I think that through Cham’s experience having done a series of lectures all across the U.S. and abroad starting in 2005 and the work he’s done since then on his feature film and web series, he’s personally seen and spoken to thousands of young intellectuals in academia who are more socially adjusted, more stylish, and have more interesting lives and compelling stories about those lives both inside and outside of their field of research than the four main characters on TBBT. From physics grad Ameliz who wants to be a professional actress to architecture grad Matt who built and lives in his thesis, from the research teams at CERN who are working with the Large Hadron Collider to the unnamed woman who went from being a cancer researcher to a cancer patient, Cham more than anyone understands who exactly the average young scientist is and why he or she are nothing like the characters on TBBT.
“But TBBT is fictional!” I hear you say. “It’s not meant to be realistic! You should just chill!” Believe me, I hear and understand that viewpoint, but I think that the continued portrayal of scientists as being socially inadequate and only unattractive compared to the average person has a chance to harm real scientists. For example, on the PhD Comics YouTube channel, Cham aired a multi-part look at how fandom interacts with the real world, and what neurobiologist grad student and host Crystal Dilworth has to say about her reaction to the stereotypes in TBBT is interesting:
Dilworth: It’s interesting, your take on TBBT because for me I look at that show as propagating some, in my mind, negative stereotypes about scientists.
Lincoln Geraghty, professor of popular media studies at the University of Portsmouth, England: Well, indeed.
Dilworth: Especially for me as a woman, believing that in order to be a woman in science, you have to be both ugly, socially unequipped, and narrowly focused. Which, I’m a woman in science pursuing a PhD and I don’t find…
Prof. Geraghty: What’s your field?
Dilworth: Molecular neuroscience.
Prof. Geraghty: Oh, blimey.
Dilworth: So, Amy Farah Fowler is supposed to be me, and I don’t feel like I’m being accurately represented.
My immediate response, which I posted in the YouTube comments to the video, are that I understand what Dilworth is saying because as a scientist who happens to be a woman, it could be hard for her to be taken as seriously as an Amy Farah Fowler-type would be because Dilworth—in my opinion—is more conventionally attractive than the character is. By perpetuating the stereotype that Fowler is what all or most female neurobiologists look like, it harms her personally.
But even more damaging is the notion that “scientists” are a completely and totally different type of person than the average person can hope to become. We all know that through hard work, exercise, the right diet, and maybe the right fitness applications on your cell phone, a person can go from very unfit to reasonably fit in as few as nine weeks. But what about increasing one’s knowledge? Shouldn’t we encourage more interest in the sciences by encouraging people of all kinds to be interested in it?
In this same episode of TBBT, Penny, the audience viewpoint character and Leonard’s girlfriend, got jealous when she learned that Alex had attempted to ask Leonard out on a date. Alex, who is reasonably attractive, also happens to be a doctoral candidate in physics (which is why she’s Sheldon’s assistant). After pondering whether or not she should take community college classes in science, Penny decided that it all seemed too “boring” for her, and chose to start wearing “geeky” glasses instead as a way to keep Leonard’s interest in her fresh. Thus, creating a “fake geek girl” for Leonard to have sex with that evening.
But wouldn’t it be cool and provide a more interesting character arc to have Penny learn what the sciences are like, for her to find a science or a skill that she does like and for which she has a real aptitude? Wouldn’t in encourage interest in the STEM fields to watch how someone’s interest in the sciences can be piqued? And couldn’t it be equally as engaging and as funny as trotting out old stereotypes about geeks?
Until someone give me a production budget, a writing staff, and some actors, unfortunately, we’re never going to know that answer for sure. However, this doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t wish and ask for more from our entertainment.
When it comes to reading webcomics, I have a set list of nine “dailies” I read and a few that I read which update less frequently. And while I’ve definitely settled on these few, that doesn’t mean that I haven’t read other webcomics or aren’t familiar with their work. Also, my love of comics and comics strips isn’t exactly a casual one; hell, my high school Extended Essay was about the role of women in comic books from the 1940s to the 1990s.
So when I saw a friend’s Facebook update decrying how Sinfest has become a den of “ludicrous feminist mediocrity,” I had to check out today’s strip:
Click to embiggen! (c) Tatusya Ishida
I flipped through the previous two or three weeks of strips to see if there was any context for the strip, any lead-up, and I noticed that there were a few new characters I’d not seen before as well as a few large colored wordless strips which seemed to be part of a larger story. No “feminist mediocrity,” but perhaps some exaggerated examples of extreme feminist thought and behavior. And then I learned that Ishida has been drawing strips like those for over a year and a half, with very little explanation as to why, leading my friend to make that comment.
Another recent strip which got me thinking about feminism and webcomics was this April 24, 2013 strip for Penny Arcade:
Click to embiggen, though do you really need to do that? (c) 2013 Mike Krahulik & Jerry Holkins
Without context, it seemed to me that the comic was pointing out that emphasizing sexual characteristics is ludicrous for characters in video games and that there’s a double-standard when it comes to what is an acceptable amount of sexualization. Through the dialogue, it’s emphasizing that the female sorceress is more attractive to the Gabriel character to play because her secondary sexual characteristics are emphasized in proportion to her body whereas the male barbarian’s secondary sexual characteristics—and quite possibly his primary as well; I have no idea if that sling is containing nothing but an enormous scrotum or if it’s an enormous scrotum and penis—are not. Finally on the first read-through, the comic pointed out to me that there’s an inequality in what video game character designers find attractive versus who their audience will be, because I know that both women and men read Penny Arcade.
I gave my approval to the strip when I saw it first-thing that morning, and noted that I would have to return to the site later on in the day to get the context and a bit of commentary. As I wrote on Twitter, what I had hoped to read from writer Jerry Holkins was that they were starting to understand why some female gamers have a tough time being a part of the fandom and that they “gained some levels” in Feminist Theory.
Oh boy, I cannot wait to see the blog entry that will go along with this comic penny-arcade.com/comic/2013/04/… // Feminism, level up!
Clearly, that was too much to hope for from the crew who mishandled the “dickwolves” saga, as seen by the news post that went out later that day. After first stating that the art being used to illustrate even the title image for Dragon’s Crown is so ornate as to render it incomprehensible, and that it just seems to be part of what developer Vanillaware does on a regular basis, Holkins goes on to write:
The only characters here who aren’t fucking mutants are the Elf and the Wizard, who are there to calibrate the player; everybody else is some fun-house exponent of strength or beauty stretched into some haunted sigil. Iconic isn’t even the word—they don’t evoke icons, they are icons. They’re humans as primal symbols.
It’s very weird to pull up a story about a game with frankly visionary art and hear why it shouldn’t exist, or to hear what I supposedly fantasize about, or what kind of power I supposedly revere, and any attempt to defend oneself from these psychotic projections or to assert that creators may create is evidence of a dark seed sprouting in the heart. It’s an incredible state of affairs. They’re not censors, though—oh, no no. You’ll understand it eventually; what you need to do is censor yourself. [emphasis mine]
I understand that the more extreme reactions (“Oh, you must be a sexist chauvinistic pig in order to like this sort of thing!”) and the initial assertion by Kotaku writer Jason Schreier were more than a little bit knee-jerk; thus, Holkins’ implying that those kinds of people are “psychotic” is perfectly valid.
However, Schreier’s follow-up posted just the day before—and probably before Holkins started writing his post—was dead-on and I was disappointed that a chunk of Mike Krahulik’s responses on Twitter were centered around whether or not it was right to “censor” artist George Kamitani’s work instead. That in itself is a fascinating discussion, but not the main crux of this issue.
Passing off half of the six available player character designs as “fun-house” or “primal” symbols and calling it “frankly visionary” doesn’t address the fact that it’s done in a way which could turn off some of its potential audience. In fact, I’d argue that even while Kamitani is trying to change how the modern person envisions fantasy characters, he falls into the trap of contorting his “non-mutant” Elf character into the same spine-breaking action shot for which so many others have been lambasted.
Instead of being a part of promoting equality to their audiences, Ishida has chosen to confuse his and Krahulik and Holkins have chosen to ignore or to troll the vocal members of theirs. And while I don’t claim to even know what Ishida’s thinking, I know from previous news posts and an interview in their own reality series that Krahulik and Holkins have been grateful for the chance to educate and illuminate their audience about things that are important to them.
Thanks to a confluence of events, I finally finished playing the original Mass Effect as both a male and female Commander Shepard in July… which means it’s podcast time! After a bit of juggling and some technical difficulties, I sat down to check in with co-editor Jill Pullara, and writers Jonathan Cherlin and Lowell Greenblatt on how their summer has been going, to do a review of an indie game called Resonance, and to answer a very important question which we asked previously: Does the gender of your Commander Shepard really have an influence on how you play the game? Show notes after the jump.
My modus operandi regarding gigantic geek blockbuster movies is to maybe see a trailer or two and then completely attempt to avoid any sneak peeks, exclusives, or interviews. This is a technique that has mostly served me well ever since I was pleasantly overjoyed by the awesome that was the 2000 X-Men movie. So, it came as a complete surprise to me that indeed, a lot of the scenes in both Iron Man and Iron Man 2 were improvised. As for Don Cheadle being uncomfortable with it, you couldn’t tell from the interview he gave to MTV News (third video down). Then again, he’s an actor; he could have just been polite for the cameras.
Just in case you missed it, Lowell’s review of The Amazing Spider-Man can be found here.
For those of you who might not remember, Sliding Doors was a movie which came out in 1998 starring Gwyneth Paltrow where a single event in her life (whether or not she catches a train in London) has two different effects on the rest of her life. Both of these universes are shown on the screen happening at the same time. In contrast, the Buffy episode in question is called “Normal Again.”
As for “Awake,” you can indeed catch all 13 episodes on Hulu. Originally broadcast on NBC, the star of the show is Jason Isaacs (aka Lucius Malfoy of the Harry Potter films and the voice of Admiral Zhao from “Avatar: The Last Airbender.”) Sadly, the show was doomed with declining ratings after a promising start, despite its being nominated for a “Best Writing in a Drama Series” for the pilot episode.
If you’re a parent, (especially a Dad) this game can be pretty difficult to play at times. In fact I’m curious if people who don’t have kids will end up getting as much out of it. I don’t know if it’s an 89.85%, or a 9.7 out of 10. What I do know is that after a late night playing it, I sneak into my son’s room and hug him before I go to bed.
Of course, your own mileage—especially your own relationship with your father and/or your kids—may vary.
As the rest of this segment referencing “The Commander Shepard Challenge” contains some spoilers for the entire Mass Effect video game series, I humbly leave this video as a reminder of common spoiler etiquette:
Note: This means that under these terms of etiquette, it’s okay to spoil the story behind the first two installments but not the third. However, since I’m still playing ME2, I humbly ask that you not spoil that one for me.
Shortly after we recorded this podcast, the idea of allowing a female character choice in modern first-person shooter games was discussed on The Escapist in a brilliant video called “Let’s End the FPS Sausage-fest” by Jim Sterling. I am so very, very glad that more people are continuing to have this discussion; here’s hoping we can come to a good and sane consensus.
Anita Sarkeesian of Feminist Frequency is the intrepid lady whose Kickstarter campaign to raise money to do a video series deconstructing tropes about women in the video game culture resulted in her being unfairly attacked by some of the same gamers she wished to reach with her series. I remember being very disgusted when I first read about this—and sad because I was too poor to contribute to her campaign—and just skimming through the comments on the news posts on other sites about the story makes me livid all over again.
Possibly a humble-brag, but in the Facebook comments to the Jimquisition video linked above, I did continue to have this discussion; I will also say that it’s not an easy conversation for me to have because of how strongly I feel about it. But I must forge on.
We try not to spoil any of the puzzles in Resonance, but just to warn you, there is definitely a spoiler for one or two things.
Resonance (Actually, a 4.5)
Created by Vince Twelve
Designed by Vince Twelve
Published by Wadjet Eye Games
Starring Edward Bauer, Sarah Elmaleh, Logan Cunningham and Daryl Lathon
Rating: Appropriate for teens and older
From l to r: Ray, Anna, Ed, and Detective Bennet must race against time to save the world... and you can help!
Official Blurb:When a brilliant particle physicist dies unexpectedly, the race is on to secure his terrible new technology before it falls into the wrong hands. The lives of four playable characters become entangled as they fight against the clock to find the dead scientist’s secret vault. The suspicions they harbor, the memories they guard, the connections they share—all will converge as these four ordinary people work together to prevent a potentially cataclysmic disaster.
Pros: Great storytelling and narrative, plot twists, characterization, musical score, level of challenge to player, art design Cons: Puzzles can be unintuitive, differences in opinion on voice acting
Jonathan: Resonance has wonderful art design, music, and mostly solid game design. The game design is spotty in some places, in the sense that either you’re right on the dot of what you’re supposed to be doing, or you have no clue at all. It would have helped if there was something in place that told you that you were close. My favorite parts of the game, the survival-horror geek I am, were playing through Anna’s dreams. Truly disturbing game design, imagery, and sound design. Absolute brilliance, especially considering this is a low-budget game. Overall Resonance does what the title suggests…it resonates with you.
Jill: Resonance is a fantastic throwback to the great adventure games of gaming’s past, with beautiful art deign and retro graphics that are executed so perfectly you’d think it was made in the early ‘90s—which, in this case, is a good thing! Of course, with that comes the aches and pains that every good adventure game: the puzzles can be hard to solve, and hard to find, the solution often being the one thing you didn’t try, or the one person you didn’t think to click on. Some may call it unintuitive, but I call it old school. But the hard (and admittedly sometimes oblique) puzzles are worth it for the narrative presented, with compelling characters you come to care about, and a twist that you may not see coming. The most interesting aspect of the game, for me, is being able to switch between four different player characters, each with their own distinct voice. It would be remiss of me to not mention the music and sound design—beyond just adequate, the sound design and music do exactly what they’re supposed to do: draw you in, understand tone, and heighten the emotion of a scene. I hadn’t been as terrified of my character dying since Clock Tower’s Scissor Man was chasing me through a mansion as I desperately looked for a place to hide. Any fan of old school adventure games will enjoy this game, though gamers unfamiliar with the genre will have some issues with the interface and puzzle-solving. While it’s no King’s Quest VI or Day of the Tentacle, Resonance certainly belongs alongside I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream.
I know it’s been a while since I’ve written in this blog, and quite a lot has happened since the last time I was able to work on it. A few more responsibilities were added to my day job and while having the increased responsibility is awesome because it means my new employers trust me, it also means that I don’t have a lot of time to geek out over anything.
Saturdays are one of my days to relax, recuperate, and psych myself up for the work week to come. After wiping my FemShep original Mass Effect character in order to start a DudeShep run for the Commander Shepherd challenge, I got to Feros after surveying all the surveyable planets (and leveling up again) and decided that I’d take a break and perhaps pick it up tomorrow.
To recap, the year was 2001 and the first of the Peter Jackson Lord of the Rings trilogy movies came out. Many Tolkein fans were pleased and elated with how good the movies were, and several new fans started becoming interested in the mythos thanks to the movies. These new fans were different from other Ringers fans who came before them in that they had access to the Internet and LiveJournals which which to connect to other fans and share their love of the work, and PayPal to send money to those fans in different parts of the world who professed that they were down on hard times.
Through a series of convoluted events, it came out that a person who called herself Victoria Bitter started to believe some very strange things about herself and felt that she was actually a man—not just any man, but actor Elijah Wood’s cousin. Billing herself now as the male Jordan Wood, he hooked up with another LotR fan in Oregon and in the guise of doing good, ended up defrauding a lot of people out of money and incurring the wrath of three actors from New Zealand and the state of Oregon.
You can read more about the entire saga here; if you do a Google search, it’s one of the most interesting rabbit holes you’ll find yourself falling into. The most tragic part is that Amy Player/Victoria Bitter/Jordan Wood/new identity Andrew Blake’s manipulative ways allegedly resulted in a May 2011 double-murder/suicide in which Blake escaped with only a shot to the foot. But that’s what I learned later while doing the research for this post.
When I first clicked through to Abbey Stone’s blog where she writes as KumquatWriter from a comment she left in Dr. Nerdlove’s blog, I found this very interestingseries of posts about how she became an atheist. And it was while reading Part Four that I started to think, “Now, why does this sound familiar to me?” By Part Five, the whole thing comes out and it’s the comments to that blog post that I want to highlight.
Jeanine Renne, the author of When a Fan Hits the Shit and the most prominent of the muckrakers who uncovered the details behind the Bit of Earth charity scam, is the sixth person to comment on Stone’s entry and it’s evident that even a decade later, she was still angry about what happened:
I agree completely that Amy is a master manipulator. Little Sam also described the cultish atmosphere “Jordan” created just like you did. But nowhere in this blog, Abbey, do I see any acknowledgement of the things YOU did, to contribute to this situation. Do you accept any responsibility for the lies you told? Do you even admit to them? Because you delivered some whoppers, Abbey.
You attacked your former friends, sometimes at their place of work, calling them vicious names and telling them in no uncertain terms to go to hell. Maybe you were only doing it because “Jordan” brainwashed you… but YOU did it. Have you accepted any responsibility for hurting those people? Do you even admit to it? Because I’ve talked to at least 3 of them, and they were all shocked and deeply hurt.
About a half an hour later, Stone responded directly to Renne:
Yes. I lied. A whole lot. And of COURSE I’m willing to take responsibility for it; that’s what recovery fucking means. I own my stupid choices. I’ve apologized to people I am genuinely sorry for hurting,and many of them have forgiven me, and we’ve moved forward with our friendships.
I’m not replying to your entire comment tonight, because I am busy celebrating my son’s birthday, and I’ll be damned if I’m going back to the worst time in my life just because today is the day you happened to read my blog. Especially when you fucking called him my “spawn” on your own journal. I’ll give your “hot seat” a post of its very own in the next couple of days, when I have the time
I’m giving this much of a reply so you know I read it and am not hiding. Not anymore, not from you. You aren’t my dirty little secret, given that I talk VERY openly about what I did and went through, INCLUDING my guilt.
Oh, and just FYI. I’m the one who tipped you off to Andrew Blake. I knew you’d be the best revenge, and you were.
Renne loved that last line in Stone’s reply because to her it was a wonderful ironic twist. I love it because it shows that Stone truly repentant about what she did. Rather than turn a blind eye when she noticed that other people were possibly going to fall victim to Blake’s manipulations, Stone took steps towards making sure that other people knew about it and could either stop it or help get Blake’s potential victims.
A day later, both Stone and Renne reached a sort of detente, but Stone goes one step further after writing a partially apologetic post to detail exactly what happened the day she stopped believing in Jordan Wood’s lies; after that, Renne was able to finally let her anger at Stone go.
And that’s how you resolve a fight on the Internet: You apologize sincerely, prove that you’re repentant, and move on.
Finding the time to listen to hour-long episodes of podcasts which are eligible for the 2016 Hugo Awards wasn’t easy for me, but that’s what today’s article is about. The eligibility requirements state that the podcast must be a “non-professional” production—that is, no other company paid the podcaster(s) to make it—and at least one episode has to have been produced during the calendar year in question.
Black Girl Nerds
I Don’t Even Own a Television
The Skiffy and Fanty Show
Anime Fusion 2013
(Actually, a 4.5)
