Americans and their crazy social taboos

I keep meaning to write about Everything That Is Clearly Wrong With This Strange Country, but not doing. I could say I don't know where to begin, but a lot of it dispirits as well as confuses me, and then I have to think of the things America does right instead of getting on the internets and typetty typetty type. (I'm only blogging now because I have some immigration paperwork due. Srsly). Things America does right include icecream, butterflies, the cost of videogames, children (though I am sure that every nation on earth has better children than the UK), mainstream gay clubs, shoes, icecream and icecream. But some things here are terrible to contemplate. I am never going to an American mainstream straight club ever again. (And I really want to write about that here, but damn, it'd be hard). I get a lump in my throat every time I remember that most Americans do not know the taste of bread. (I am going to make them some next weekend. Disaster awaits).

And sometimes I just trip over stuff that I know isn't their fault really. My belief that they urbanised wrong is clearly biased and unfair. They have a whole vocabulary for being polite, and I am not fluent in it. And their social taboos are in places I never expect them. (If I knew what my social taboos were, I couldn't possibly tell you).


I am c/ping from my own Deadjournal here:


Look. We (that is, a large and assorted group of relations) were off foraging for lunch and I ended up in a car that also contained M (driving) and two smaller people - his stepbrother (aged 16) and his half-nephew (aged 11). I was asking the elder of these about his tatts and piercings, pretending I took his replies (and him) very seriously, like you do when people are 16. Nod, smile, He then starts talking about his atheism. Nod, smile, a few supportive comments, 'it's good that you've thought about this for yourself', nod. It seems to me that the two boys have had this discussion before, and the younger is not happy with it. We reached our destination right then, and M's sister is already there, and the 11-year-old is fretting and going over to her.

So I get chastised by M and his sister for not being a responsible adult and somehow putting a stop to that conversation. I have always thought that afflicting the comfortable was part of my remit (at least when I am not being a giant wuss), but no, I am supposed to be shutting the closet door and leaning hard against it. Of course it wasn't that they disapproved - they were concerned about what their elder half-sister would say if her little boy told her of this shocking thing, that a teenage relative talked about atheism and an adult openly encouraged this. Never mind that he surely already knows his step-uncle is an atheist; responsible adults are not supposed to facilitate that kind of conversation. Never mind that neither M nor his sister are Christians themselves.

What.

This kind of thing leads to me feeling anxious.


I've tried discussing it with both of them and they seem to be making mental leaps that I am not capable of at all. (I have an unhelpful belief that one closet is much the same as any other; just a place between two high walls). M says I have it all wrong and I'm just thinking of the elder kid but his thoughts are of the younger; myself, I don't see any reason for an 11-year-old to be shielded from the fact that not all of his family are devout Catholics. Worse, I don't see why anyone would want their child to assume that no one doubted his religion. What am I not seeing?

Christmas IV [more videogame blogging] & some Christians

So in a new MMO, Age of Conan, female characters are up to 35% less effective than male ones, and this is not mentioned anywhere in the character development process. Why?

Short answer: the game designers did not intend this, it's not like they're misogynists or anything like that - they just decided that there would be attack animations and you could only select a new attack once an animation had finished. Then they allowed the misogynist animators to get obsessed with lengthy boobie shots, thus making the female characters exist to be looked at while the male characters got on with shredding things. For some mysterious reason that we couldn't possibly guess at, the designers did not seek to fix the problem until gamers started complaining.

Long answer:

Let me begin with saying “yes, we here at Funcom agree with you; this is an unacceptable bug”. We never intended for any character to be stronger/weaker than another based on its gender, and we have been working on making the necessary adjustments to correct this issue for quite some time already.

Now, in our game, we have two primary sources of damage; ‘normal’ damage, commonly referred to as “white damage”, and ‘combo’ damage. Making the white damage equal for both Male and Female characters is, in this context, a fairly simple task and something we’ve already done and which should already have been patched out to Live.

For future reference, when I say that it was a fairly simple task to fix it, we’re still talking about modifying, either through actually having an animator work on the animation resource itself or by having a BCC designer adjust the speed-scaling of said animation resource, of more than 150 unique animations. In addition, these animations are fairly “simple”; by which I mean that they are your ordinary attacks and don’t contain any flourishes, sequential blows or other “complicated” stuff.

However, if we move onto ‘combo’ damage, which is what is causing the notable part of this issue, there are suddenly several factors that come into play when determining the final damage. I won’t be wasting too much time in this update to go into detail about every factor, but to quickly list a few they would be stat/modifier/multiplier (which in turn depends on class, level and weapon equipped), length of animation and, although irrelevant to this exact issue any longer, amount of steps in a combo sequence.

The main reason for the discrepancy in damage output that you’re seeing is that the length of an animation isn’t equal for both Male and Female characters in many cases. This is what we’re currently fixing, but there’s roughly 800 to 1000 animations in total that are involved here, and that they are significantly more “complex” than the ‘white damage’ animations mentioned above this naturally takes a lot more time.

Short version of long answer: boobies. FFS.

h/t Dee.


One thought I didn't add to my last gaming post - I'm playing a female PC in the NWN2 xpac, and (because of plotty plot things) this causes the Red Woman, and later Safiya, to allude to Delicious Genderqueer Subtext With Lesbian Overtones. (Um, I guess you can only fathom this bit of my rant if you've played the game, sry).

My first thought: there is no way, from the moment they'd thought up the game's background, that Akachi was going to be anything other than male, or the Red Woman anything other than female. It's only the female PC, if you have one, who is framed as perhaps being genderqueer. I cannot believe that a game plot would ever make a nod to a story's queer subtext if you chose to take a male PC, while not possessing this subtext if you choose a female PC. I think the same root sexism - the fear of women - explains why Akachi (male) in the xpac is framed as having far more to do with you than Gith (female) in the base game is.

(That's when they even refer to Gith as being female, which is about twice ever in all three of the videogames I've played that allude to her. Gith is an icon, and her various legacies have remained among the brightest plotspots in the AD&D canon since her invention in 1981; none of the 3ed manuals mention that she is female, and I had no idea myself til I played NWN2 earlier this year. Floored me, that.)


What both these things reveal is something I've known for a long time; videogames are far more conservative than reality. They're also far more conservative than any other form of storytelling. I wonder if conservatism is perhaps proportionate to the cost of entry into a medium; games are huge projects with slim profit margins at best, and each one has the power to destroy a studio. That means that, you know, the basic variety and tolerance you find out in the real world has to be nixed.


Now, Christians! Anglican ones. Who have decided that yes there will be women bishops, and no they won't be mollycoddling anyone who thinks this is a bad idea. For, mm, a reason I can't possibly fathom, not all Christians are happy about this. Libellum, LJ, qwp:

What I'm currently furious about is a quote further down the article from the Bishop of Fulham, the Right Reverend John Broadhurst, saying that the decision will cause a schism in the church because "I think a lot of us have made it quite clear if there isn't proper provision for us to live in dignity, inevitably we're driven out. It's not a case of walking away."

So allowing women equality makes it impossible for men to "live in dignity"? This is the problem. This. Right here.

For shame, Right Reverend John Broadhurst, you possessive, petty, overprivileged misogynist waste of space. As I understand it, Christ taught that all you need to live in dignity is humility and love. People like you make me glad I left the Anglican communion. A decision, by the way, which I am happy to accept personal responsibility for, unlike your craven whinging about being "driven out" as if you had no will or voice of your own. You have more status and power than most people in this country. You have no damn idea what it's like to not be able to live in dignity. Being driven out, not living in dignity - that's what happens to refugees. What you're having is a tantrum, and I'm disappointed in the BBC for bothering to print it.

And that's not all! Combatqueer brings more:

I know, I know, it seems impossible, but somehow the Vatican has become upset over something that isn't any of its business. [...]

As my Congregationalist grandma once told me, a church fight is like a divorce between five hundred people. Ugly.

Combatqueer is also wondering why the Vatican's opinion is newsworthy. Go read!

Christmas The Third

[For your recollection, the first two NWN/gender posts are at Always Christmas And and Still Always Christmas.]

It was doing so well up til then.

I've been loving the hell out of the NWN2 xpac. Like Hordes Of The Underdark was to the original Neverwinter Nights, I think it's the project the writers were working on while the tech team wrote the script for the base game. Somehow this one ended up with everything the base game lacked - good writing, genuine plot that twists when you prod it (virtually all quests have multiple endings, and these often affect later events), voice actors that you don't want to see taken out and shot, and some vestiges of originality, albeit within the cliché-eating-cliché that is Forgotten Realms.

And there's far more female visibility. I guess this is a product of the better writing, rather than a cause. The story happens to be set in one of Faerun's canonical matriarchies; aside from that, there's a lot more women around to talk to and get help and advice from. There are even, saints preserve us, women who organise with other women for purposes all their own.

In other words, it was doing pretty well up until we got to what Okku said to Kazimika Vadoi. Kazimika is one of the aforementioned matriarchs, though not their leader, and she didn't like us, for quite sensible reasons. This is what Okku [who is a beary spirit of bears and bearness] did to bring her into line:

I remember the prayers of the dockside girl, before she donned her mask. I remember how she begged the spirits to make her pretty, so that the sailors might whistle at her...might even pay for her company...

This is where I stop playing the game and and start throwing things at the wall behind my desk. Hello, it's the sex work trope again, and this time it's being explicitly used to disempower a previously significant female character, and to shame her, and to silence her objections towards you, no matter that it has nothing the fuck to do with those objections. Congrats, Kazimika, you're up there with Molly Millions and Catwoman in the hall of Awesomely Powerful Female SF Characters Whose History Of Sex Work Is Used Against Them By The Author Who Made That History Up In The First Place.

This is why male SF writers need to stop writing about sex work, unless, you know, they've done it themselves. Because male writers are going to keep building women up then using their own fantasies about sex work to knock them down again. In their hands, the trope is invariably hammer-shaped, and women look like nails.

[I just made an FMT tag, so's not to lose track. For fairness, see the two longest threads on this I've seen elsewhere, in which many people disagree with me; the recent FSF one and the older Alas one.]

few things: urbanisation, politics linkies, and Metal Gear.

Allison at Economic Woman is writing about this neato site called Walkscore. You give it your address, it checks its maps and it gives your local area points for how much cool stuff there is within walking distance. Both of the last two areas of the UK I lived in score in the 60s. My Georgia neighbourhood rates a 15, which is not the worst I've put up with; the Pennine hole I used to inhabit gets a 9, and some of that is new since I was there.

Lessons: a) the more the merrier, b) it's interesting what they can't see - pavements and lack thereof, steep hills, snakes, the presence of other people, and c) that site totally needs to have sex with mapmyrun.com and make internet babies.

Allison quotes someone citing Friedman on how sprawl, while always harmful to everyone, is particularly hard on women because they're more likely to get trapped at home. She could've gone to the SCUM Manifesto, which she didn't, but I did. We must forgive Solanas her typos and her 60s social map and her blessed batshit:

Isolation, Suburbs, and Prevention of Community: Our society is not a community, but merely a collection of isolated family units. Desperately insecure, fearing his woman will leave him if she is exposed to other men or to anything remotely resembling life, the male seeks to isolate her from other men and from what little civilization there is, so he moves her out to the suburbs, a collection of self-absorbed couples and their kids. Isolation enables him to try to maintain his pretense of being an individual nu becoming a 'rugged individualist', a loner, equating non-cooperation and solitariness with individuality.

There is yet another reason for the male to isolate himself: every man is an island. Trapped inside himself, emotionally isolated, unable to relate, the male has a horror of civilization, people, cities, situations requiring an ability to understand and relate to people. So like a scared rabbit, he scurries off, dragging Daddy's little asshole with him to the wilderness, suburbs, or, in the case of the hippy -- he's way out, Man! -- all the way out to the cow pasture where he can fuck and breed undisturbed and mess around with his beads and flute.

Suburbia is something Americans seem to think is universal, and non-Americans seem unable to even imagine. I was. The car is the biggest difference; American urbanisation assumes that the basic unit of humanity is the car, and European urbanisation assumes that people walk on two feet, and like to resort to cars as little as possible. I don't yet know how to drive a car. Anxious.


I often don't like Cath Elliot's CiF posts. But this one is awesome. It's about some wank I almost missed hearing about - an MP who used her Commons expenses allowance to pay for her children's nanny.

If Tory chairperson Caroline Spelman's defenders are to be believed, it's perfectly reasonable to use taxpayers' money to pay for a nanny. "Of course she should have been allowed to do it," they cried when it was revealed last weekend that she'd paid for her nanny out of the public purse: "She was a busy woman with an important job." Well in that case, what about the rest of us? If an MP can have a state-funded nanny, when can I expect to find Mary Poppins standing on my doorstep, carpet bag in hand?

[...]

Note how there's been no mention of her husband's role in any of this, and no questions asked about how much involvement he had in the children's early years. The assumption being made on all sides is that male MPs have wives to look after the kids so they don't need childcare allowances, whereas women MPs are stuck with husbands, so of course they should get extra help. And yet David Cameron has small children, as does Gordon Brown, so why haven't the same voices been calling out for a childcare allowance to help these men juggle work and family life? Who's been looking after their children when they've been going about their important business?

Brad Hicks has done some good stuff lately, especially this about the Clinton campaign debt:

What could possibly justify asking guys like me who make less than $20,000 per year, living on fixed income in a Section 8 housing complex, to donate money so that a multi-millionairess doesn't have to get by on "only" her last five million dollars? Please, somebody, for the love of all that's holy and good, explain this to me?

Consensus from comments there; rich folks should not suffer for their miscalculations and errors of judgement, because they are rich folks, but poor folks deserve to land on their asses every time they misstep.


You've probably seen this already, but: MichelleObamaWatch. Lately the feed of fluff-news pieces about Ms O seems more positive than not, but when there is shit you can read it there first. And often it is shit beyond belief.


Tycho on game reviewing in general, and MGS4 (OMG) in particular:

Even if you could measure games with numbers, a point I do not concede, there's no universal Goddamned basis for comparison - there is no "unit" of measurement. We measure things so we can compare them to other things. The trouble is that everyone is performing a kind of mental arithmetic, cramming their own internal symbologies into this or that frame and stripping out wisdom in the process. Editorial voice is a fallacy. They're all conversions of interpretations of moments. And we lose crucial data at every step.

Tycho usually has impeccable taste, but he is not fond of Metal Gear. My feeling is that Metal Gear is one of those fandoms that can only be enjoyed if you take liberties with it, and grant it liberties in return. It's flawed, it jumps the shark towards the end of each game, it disappears up its own ass every so often, it is cryptic, and it occasionally warrants a cringe. It is also brain-eatingly brilliant and so packed with inspirations that it's spawned an equally diverse pack of rabid fans, of which I am one. But I grant liberties to canon, when a good canon needs it, and not everyone likes to do that, you know?


Five other current things about Metal Gear:

a) My favourite webcomic, the mighty MGS fanwerk Last Days Of Foxhound, just wound up after 500 strips. Much hilarity - and uncanny insights - for any MG fan. [Also spoilers for MGS1, MGS3 and Portable Ops].

Its most famous page is from four years ago: One Mantis, One Vote, in which Psycho Mantis took a step out of the comic to give a big queer political shoutout. (I saw that on scans_daily sometime afterwards, and fell in love from there. Although that page is offcanon unless you assume MGS1 took place in November or December - I thought it was the spring of 2004). My favourite page is Ocelost, the snapshot from inside Revolver Ocelot's mind. Hostage Negotiation is win for anyone who's played MGS, and double triple badass win for anyone who's played MGS3.

b) Some assclown has decided to make a bloody film out of this franchise.

c) ...and the folk on IMDB have pegged David Hayter as the scriptwriter. I am not at all sure that this is true, only that if it is not true, the foundations of the world will splinter and sink.

d) Either way, the film idea has a significant capacity for epic fail.

e) and I'll probably not get to play MGS4 til Christmas anyway. Stupid console wars.

My Pokemons, Let Me Show You Them.

I have no idea who made this animation. Props to them, anyways!

Truth & consequences in the stories we tell.

[Or, a meandering collection of links to stuff about stories, sandboxes, and power.]


Quick, what's the one thing everyone knows about Grand Theft Auto? Keep hold of the answer - we'll be back for it in a moment.


I was never sure how to order this post, or what exactly to include in it. So it's been festering in Dashboard for weeks now. Partly it was sparked off by reading criticisms of Iron Man, which blurred between entirely valid digs at the film's racism and sexism, and a less definable discomfort with the entire genre it's part of. See WOCPhD's brilliant post, where she seems to have lost sight of the fact that she's reviewing an adaptation of a 1963 pulp comic book.

That's pulp, where what is right and just comes way second to what's considered entertaining. That's 1963, the past, where a lot of our current media franchises come from - whether it's those comic book adaptations, or Narnia, or James Bond. Not that the newer franchises are a lot better, but (as I said when it came up on Punkass) characters like Pepper make way more sense in that context. The whole wonderboy-hero, powerful enough to do everything we wish to do, except for those boring things his ever-capable sidekick(s) do(es), makes more sense in that vein of pulp than in the current one. This hero-character is always at the top of the world. Why do we identify with him, when he's got nothing in common with reality at all?

Because we want to. Because we're wishing for his absolute power, and we are vividly interested in what the consequences that power might bring. We play sandbox games for similar reasons - a wish for the absolute ability to choose - and that raises discomforts of its own.

(It's always 'he'. Unless the red one is writing it, it's always 'he'.)


There is something Aishwarya said in the Iron Man thread at Daisy's place; "I really, really wish I could just watch movies where things blow up (because movies where things blow up are excellent) without being constantly alienated by this sort of thing. :("

That alienation is one of the major sources of the criticism of Iron Man; that when we leave ourselves behind and go to places where we have infinite power, and can blow up whatever we like, we're almost always asked to identify with white, heterosexual upper-class men. We want to be Bruce Wayne or James Bond. We wish for their momentum, possessions, power, and their challenges. Why do they all have to look the same?


An aside; Cleolinda is talking about a whole other sort of wishing, in a post about a book series that's aimed at teenage girls. I liked this:

Wish fulfillment: I really cannot stress how important this element is, because I think it's also the reason that Harry Potter grabbed the cultural imagination. You're not a neglected orphan sleeping in a cupboard! You're a wizard! You're the bestest wizard of all and you're also great at sports and you had rich, wizardly parents who loved you so much they died for you (but you've still got their money) and also, we brought you birthday cake! And then you, through Harry, are plunged into this fantastically detailed wizard world. I mean, shit, I'm sold. And I think most things that really grab people are going to tap that "I want to be that person and live in that world" vein. I want to be Elizabeth Swann, I want to be Lyra Belacqua, I want to be the Pevensie kids.

She's talking about the same instinct that makes us love those boys who can do anything they want...and yet everything she says about this sort of wish fulfilment turns me off. I don't much like any of the books and films she's referring to. Some of these are in a middle ground - but I seem to be banging my head against the fact that the wishes I like are usually aimed at (we might even say assumed at) a male audience, and Cleolinda is talking about teenage girls, and women who remember being a teenage girl.


A while ago, Trinity wrote about our discomfort with power and excess in an unrelated context - kink!:

Think about standard criticisms of the rich and opulent. Whether they're criticisms of the nobility, of the bourgeoisie, or other criticisms of the rich and powerful. The idea that these people are decadent, that they wallow in excess, drown themselves in pleasure.

That kind of excess is actually a big turn on for me. The idea of going further and doing more, overflowing with energy, desire, and intensity. It's something I began to have a very hard time with when I got into feminist circles that were also socialist or influenced by socialism.

Because the central idea of that kind of political movement is that some people have too much and some people don't have enough. If that's the material situation of people in the world, and I seek to be committed to some kind of distributive justice that least makes the first step to equalizing some of that, how can I get into bed and touch myself while imagining, sometimes literally, that I'm lord over other people?

While not primarily sexual, wish fulfilment stories seem to hit a similar wall in the liberal press; you can't be fantasising about that, that's too much, too violent, too greedy, too unfair. So onto Cate's GTA article at Shameless:

But the object of the game is still to shoot people and win gang wars, right? I find it hard to fathom why so many intelligent people insist on defending this game, whose major appeal I once heard summarized as, “you can sleep with a prostitute and then shoot her so you don’t have to pay.”

Creative, indeed.

What, is Shameless not so shameless after all? :O Certainly Cate is saying that a virtual world's functionality should contain hard-coded moral limits, rather than simple moral consequences. It is not enough that nothing real can be harmed or lost in the space, or that your virtual self suffers virtual consequences for performing proscribed actions; instead she asks that a line be drawn, and certain evils be rendered impossible. (Something like this exists in Sims 2 - you can't kill a baby or a toddler, can only have sex with adults and elders, and character's genital areas are obscured by pixels. These restrictions have been ripped up by a legion of fanmodders, which demonstrates how practical that approach is, though when choosing nominal imaginary limits, practicality is hardly the point. Worth remembering that it was modders who caused GTA3's Hot Coffee debacle. Ultimately neither lawmakers nor creators can censor the use of game software - it's the users who determine how it is played).

Our species of cyborgs has been wrestling with this problem, of defining our virtual limits, since A Rape In Cyberspace or before.

Dibbell's story touched on one point that has been gaining ground recently; should virtual crimes be subject to real-world consequences? The answer he watched arise from LambdaMOO was a no - those who commit virtual crimes should face justice within the intimacy of the wronged community. Then as now, the internet usually gives its wrongdoers a sentence of exile.

Regina Lynn, writing about a more recent virtual rape, also thinks not. Meanwhile, DailyBits has a list of unexpected real-world spillovers from virtual events; MMO addict deaths and in-game funerals, virtual thefts and real arrests, and a story about a Gunbound player from Brazil that I can barely get my head around.


Last week I read a Cif Arts piece in defence of James Bond that talked about how uncomfortably realistic violence is part of the thrill, when it comes to boy-heroes...and added a few words about consumption and luxury:

Thanks to the cartoon violence of the films it's also easy to forget just how effective the sadism in the novels can be. Fleming's books are creepy and chilling and this graphic cruelty, combined with painstakingly accurate descriptions of high-living, fine eating and the pleasures of quality consumer goods must make Bond a direct ancestor to characters like Patrick Bateman and the unnamed protagonist of Fight Club as much as the promiscuous father of so many lesser pulp-thriller spies. It certainly merits him a place in the canon.

So violence is an intrinsic part of this wishing-ground. Graphic violence, ultimate consumption, extreme adventures - and as the article hints, unlimited access to sex. Sometimes the hero is simply a tireless playboy, but many of these stories include legions of imaginary sex workers.

To my shame, it was only a week ago - and thanks to Chris - that I read the mighty OH JOHN RINGO NO review, which charts an odyssey of violent and misogynistic wish fulfilment. From Hradzka's description, every woman in the series is a sex worker, or described as a potential sex worker; within the fantasy space, all women are perceived as being available for sexual purchase.

Hradzka also mentions a whole aspect to this wish fulfilment thing that I'd never much thought of before:

Once you get past GHOST's initial spleen-venting, the PALADIN OF SHADOWS series falls into a much-maligned, much-loved genre which, for lack of a better name, I call "Man Builds Stuff and Gets Lots of Pussy." This is, quite frankly, what got me reading the series: I am not much for stories of a guy just killing terrorists and getting laid a lot; but let him start building a small kingdom while killing terrorists and getting laid a lot, and I am there. I confess that have a soft spot for these kinds of stories. I suspect that *lots* of men do: even if we don't build things ourselves, we like to *read about* guys building things: castles, weapons, companies, societies. It's really very soothing; it combines the pleasures of fiction with a those of a do-it-yourself manual. The same impulses may explain why a lot of male writers aren't content to have their hero just carrying, say, a 1911 as his sidearm; they have to tell you what make, model, whether it's got an internal or external extractor, what aftermarket parts he's tuned it up with, and who he bought them from, until you know all about his Kimber's Ed Brown slide stop and Wolff springs.

(Curiously, the sex-related parts do not require details of every thrust; if the chapter fades to black with the hero hopping into bed with two nubile wenches, honor is satisfied. John Ringo, alas, often carries honor considerably farther.)

I'd never put a name to that before, but building stuff is definitely a genre I like. I enjoyed this aspect of both Iron Man and Batman Begins...not to mention Metal Gear Solid: Portable Ops, a game in which you have to procure yourself an entire army. (I can think of only one Woman Builds Stuff story - A Town Like Alice by Nevil Shute. While I enjoyed the Woman Builds Stuff part of the book, it seemed rushed and unconvincing compared to the rest of it).


On CiF, Charlie Brooker unwraps the problem, and finds a new one wrapped inside:

The one thing everyone knows about Grand Theft Auto is that you can kill prostitutes in it. That's because it's a "sandbox" game in which you can kill anyone you like. Or you can not kill them. Or you can simply drive around slowly, obeying the traffic lights. If you break the law and the in-game police spot you, they'll hunt you down and nab you. Murdering innocent people is neither a) encouraged, b) free of consequence, or c) any more realistic than a Tex Avery cartoon.

...in other words, the problem is not that you can kill prostitutes, but that prostitutes are a singled-out class of people, neatly prepackaged as a unit by our culture in spite of their great diversity of circumstances, and the killing of this class of people IRL is common and so easy to get away with because of this - so when a game also presents sex workers as a class of people, and just happens to let you kill whoever you like, guess who people get most excited about shooting.


I should add; Brooker's point c) is under dispute. The Slate game review...which is entitled 'It's Not Just About Killing Hookers Any More'...says it's simply not true:

There's a difference this time: The violence is no longer cartoonish. Shoot an innocent bystander, and you see his face contort in agony. He'll clutch at the wound and begin to stagger away, desperately seeking safety. After just scratching the surface of the game—I played for part of a day; it could take 60 hours to complete the whole thing—I felt unnerved. What makes Grand Theft Auto IV so compelling is that, unlike so many video games, it made me reflect on all of the disturbing things I had done.

...and David Wong, in Seven Commandments All Videogames Should Obey (a followup to another wonderful article, A Gamer's Manifesto), devotes an entire page to saying it shouldn't be true:

If we shoot a zombie in the arm, we want his arm to blow off. If we shoot him in the knee, we want him to limp. And if we shoot him in the head, we want his head to explode. We want our bullets to create wounds.

[...]

Sword-fighting games like Oblivion are worse. You can slash the bad guy in the face with your blade and it does nothing. The enemy looks perfectly normal until he finally falls over dead, as if he had a heart attack from the excitement. Why give us a sword if we can't decapitate people? Don't tell us the system can't handle it, we were blowing off zombie limbs in House of the Dead a decade ago.

It's not about our blood thirst (well, not just about that), it's about making us feel like we're accomplishing something as we work our way through hordes of cookie-cutter bad guys. Oh, hey, you know what else we hate?

Filling the game with hordes of cookie-cutter bad guys.

This is another one of those problems that are exacerbated by new-gen graphics. Now that we can do photo-realistic faces, it's suddenly very weird that we're killing hundreds of identical clones.

How hard would it be to randomize facial features and skin tones? That's what we want, to feel like we're killing hundreds of different people. Not a bunch of clones or twins. We want to know, deep down, that there are hundreds of grieving mothers out there, lamenting the terror of our dreaded blade.

And I agree with him, I agree with Slate - we need the effects of our actions to look realistic, and the media queasies have repeatedly demonstrated the reason for this.


The first time I read an article about violence in videogames was almost ten years ago. It was in a library newspaper - probably the Times - and it mentioned several games, but was illustrated with one of Nomura's promotional images for Final Fantasy VII; a game that uses violence, questions it, and at one point devolves into an argument between Cait and Barrett about whether any of the violent things they've been doing are remotely justified.

That was the moment I first realised that I was never going to read anything of value about videogames in a printed newspaper, ever. Why shut up and go away when you can challenge and explore instead?

This is why my least favourite scene in Iron Man was the one that steamrolled over #6 of David Wong's Ultimate War Sim demand list:

Speaking of innocents, I want a war sim where native townsfolk stand shoulder-to-shoulder on every inch of the map and not a single bomb can be dropped without blowing 200 of them into chunks. Forget about the abandoned building wallpaper in games like the Red Alert series. I want to have to choose between sending marines door-to-door to be killed in the streets or leveling the block from afar, Nuns and all. I want to have to choose between 40 dead troops or 400 dead children, and be damned to hell by chubby pundits from the safety of their studios regardless of which way I go.

See, Wong is a gamer kid with a good grip on reality. There exist other gamer kids who think reality is like Iron Man, where magical white people who waltz into other people's countries have the magical power to distinguish between nice, innocent brown people and evil brown people (there are no other kinds, just innocent or evil), remove the latter with pinpoint precision, and go home after a day well saved. These other gamer kids are called the US government.

It's the people who don't want their imaginary violence to be realistic that I worry about. The people who want the details glossed over, who want to make out that it's not as bad as it really is, who want to conceal the fact that it's the least powerful who always suffer first and most.


One last link: Catherine Bennett on GTA. Oh dear god, you must read this:

With a violent and nasty movie, or corrupting literature, the thing is simple. You merely have to buy a ticket for, say, No Country for Old Men, or There Will be Blood, and watch it, with a keen eye for anything that might be violent or nasty. With books, you simply open, then read a copy of The Catcher in the Rye or, to go back a bit, Lady Chatterley's Lover or a bit further, one of those 18th-century courtship novels whose potential to enervate young virgins was discernible, apparently, within just a few minutes of scholarly inspection.

How different for the mature student of Grand Theft Auto IV, who discovers that acquisition of the game, an Xbox 360 and a working television will not be nearly enough to expose the sickening extent of its moral bankruptcy. For that, you need time, skill, dedication and, I suspect, youth. In fact, it would probably be cheaper, and easier, for any averagely underqualified adult who craves the excitement of casual violence in a context of social indifference to make your way to somewhere like Borough Market and snarl: 'Out of the way, bitch' at every double buggy.

[...]

In fact, if a new book on gaming, Grand Theft Childhood: The Surprising Truth about Violent Video Games, is to be believed, there may exist hardly anyone in sound mind who might not, from time to stressful time, benefit from an hour or two of moderately violent gaming. The authors, two Harvard psychiatrists, Lawrence Kutner and Cheryl K Olson, were told by many young players that they played violent games to 'relax' or to 'get my anger out'. Should we not, as a matter of urgency, implore Gordon Brown to escape into GTA IV over the bank holiday? Or would the experience make an already vulnerable and solitary Prime Minister more likely to aim his car, à la Niko, at cyclists such as David Cameron?

the devil in the details

From Churches unhappy over father figures: sadly the Beeb doesn't say exactly who or what they're quoting - I would have liked to know the name of this person, to better say that they're a moran.

But the Church of England has reserved its greatest ire for the decision of MPs to allow single women and lesbian couples to seek IVF treatment without having to consider the need for a father for their children.

Its verdict is stark.

"This vote sends a signal that fathers don't matter," it said.

[...]

The Church of England focuses on how children end up without a father.

"There is a huge difference between a child who finds themselves in a single-parent family through bereavement or breakdown of parental relationship, and those who find themselves in this situation by design, for which this bill allows."

So:

-single parents=single mothers. No exceptions.
-no father at time of gestation=single parent. No exceptions.
-this law says 'fathers don't matter' but saying 'parent' when you specifically mean 'mother' is not a sign that you believe fathers don't matter. (If fathers mattered to you, 'mother' and 'parent' would not be synonyms).

Well fucking done.

*cheers new law*

my feet in a strange land

Taken an hour ago, right after the tornado siren had quieted down. I still can't believe the size of the hailstones around here. (If that skirt looks crappy it's because I made it myself).

I was reading in the sunshine earlier, and left my coffee cup out. It caught about an inch and a half of rainwater. I think my evening plans are off now :/

I have a big post about films and videogames cooking, but it is still a mess. It may yet emerge. Til then, enjoy the weather.

i'm blogging this!!

teraninse says:
I mean, if your own wedding can't be a highly individualistic, idiosyncratic affair, I don't want to know what can be.
teraninse says:
that's not to say...break out the furries for bridesmaids....but..

So, um, yes. The things that were said by, and to, Kyraninse/Seraninse/Teraninse (with occasional comments from Chris, who I gather was in the same room as her at the time), related in bits and in the wrong order because I can, and edited for brevity & to protect the guilty.

teraninse says:
and when are you getting married?
(and I'd do it again) says:
oh, we got married on February 29th.
teraninse says:
......*boggle-eyed*
teraninse says:
that's...a good anniversary, IMO
(and I'd do it again) says:
*shrugs* it took all of thirty seconds. we picked the 29th because we hate the world.
teraninse says:
*snicker*
teraninse says:
I'm horrified that I didn't know though. @@
(and I'd do it again) says:
no one knows except a few people on my deadjournal list, and a few members of his family, and the two friends who came along with.
teraninse says:
chris: I think that's pretty shabby, for her not to tell me, even for someone who doesn't think marriage counts for much.

This is entirely true, especially in Chris's case. As with many young things (but worse, because I'm such a flybynight floozy), the people I've met have come along in blocks associated with different locations & different educational institutions & different internets fads; Chris has been my friend for roughly 6 years, an extraordinary length of time - outside of my siblings and the blue and purple people, there might be no one I've known longer.

(and I'd do it again) says:
honestly, I didn't put it around much because I'm not proud of it in the least.
teraninse says:
because it was a purely political/practical move?
(and I'd do it again) says:
it's playing a system I hate in a blatantly unfair way.
teraninse says:
...I'm all about manipulating an unfair system to suit me, but then I'm horrible like that.
(and I'd do it again) says:
*nodnods* yeah, I wasn't THAT wary of doing it, but I feel queasy about bragging about it. My siblings knew I was marrying, but I didn't actually tell them about it afterwards - I hope my father doesn't know at all.

There was some talk about the age problem - how young marriages are so not okay in the UK, but pretty normal in the US. (Average age at first marriage in UK: 29 F / 31 M. US: 26 F / 27.5 M. I am twenty-freaking-three). Hint: I am not from the US, so this is generally not okay with me.

teraninse says:
*pokes gently with a poker* it's not bragging just to let people know you got married
(and I'd do it again) says:
but what WOULD I be telling them, if I told them I got married?
teraninse says:
btw, I thought you might want to know, M and I are getting married?
teraninse says:
*spreads hands in shrug*
teraninse says:
Chris was still thinking that you were "going" to.
teraninse says:
I mean, you could have it come out casually over dinner conversation sometime ten years down the road, but.
(and I'd do it again) says:
no, I mean, what would I be conveying to them? that I support Georgia's hetero-only, perk-ridden marriage system?
teraninse says:
oh
(and I'd do it again) says:
that I am into the whole 'marriage' thing with the nice long history of women being property and stuff?
teraninse says:
I'm the chinese immigrant here, no stealing my lines.
(and I'd do it again) says:
that my sex life is now sanctioned by Jesus?
teraninse says:
...you would be conveying that you're getting married to M, who I'm assuming you adore?
(and I'd do it again) says:
yes, I do, but I keep the adoring fairly private...I'm just like that.
teraninse says:
...sometimes, a cigar is just a cigar.
teraninse says:
even if it has a bit of marijuana in it, it's still a cigar

And now it all gets political, as if it wasn't already:

teraninse says:
I dunno, that's like saying, I'm never willing to go through an affirming ceremony with the man I love -- just because he happens to be male (which isn't PC) and because I get some perks out of it.
teraninse says:
which -- to be honest, smacks of silly to me, on some level. I wouldn't marry chris even for the perks unless I loved him, and so what if it's easier for us just because we happen to be sanctioned by the government? that's...like wanting to chop of your limbs in sympathy of the beggar down the streeet. *bad analogy*
(and I'd do it again) says:
no, it's not because he's male that I have an issue with it, it's because I supposedly could not do this if he wasn't.
(and I'd do it again) says:
if something's restricted to heteros it can't fit with my relationships/my life because I am not hetero and never will be.
teraninse says:
yes...and no
(and I'd do it again) says:
there's no sort of relationship I could have with a man that I couldn't also have with a woman, I'm pretty sure of that
teraninse says:
yessss....
teraninse says:
but I'm assuming you don't want to have the same kind of relationship you have with M with another woman.
(and I'd do it again) says:
not any woman I know currently, no, but that doesn't mean I never will and certainly doesn't mean I never would.
(and I'd do it again) says:
so it's not about sympathy for the beggar down the street, it's about sympathy for MYSELF.

Slightly related; Belle has a shiny new post on the subject of passing, which is more or less what this is about. And I feel upset just copypasting all this, right now.

(and I'd do it again) says:
oh, i didn't even mention how annoying the actual marriage bit was; the judge sprang fucking Jesus on me.
(and I'd do it again) says:
I swear that's not even legal
teraninse says:
this is why you don't want to be in the SOUTH!
teraninse says:
amirite???
(and I'd do it again) says:
it would've helped if the ceremony itself hadn't been so yuckmaking. I'm convinced it didn't HAVE to be - he MUST've had a secular script in a drawer somewhere, surely - but about two lines in I nearly interrupted him to say 'waitwaitiwait who said anything about JESUS?' I should have, really. :/
teraninse says:
hahaha.
teraninse says:
that's...icky indeed.
(and I'd do it again) says:
i didn't want to make a scene. i was having such a nice morning up until then.

The South part seems relevant; now, I'm a n00b here, and I'm also a pretty obnoxious and socially inept human being, but the area seems to have a higher density of totally annoying men than anywhere else I've ever been. The Bookworm tells me that this is part of why her mother had the family move up to New Jersey when she herself was but a small bookworm.

From my Deadjournal at the time: Btw, I totally got married last Friday - yes, on leap day. This is only worth mentioning because the judge was a jackass. (Nakki and M say he wasn't, that he was just a 'traditional southern guy'). He ignored me the whole time and never used my name - M had a name, but I was 'the bride'. He asked (empty-handed) M for the certificate, then gave the fresh copy to M once he'd got it ready, even though I'd given it to him in the first place and I was standing there with a GIANT PURPLE HANDBAG. He even sprang fucking Jesus on me. Bitchface could've asked if we liked Jesus - I didn't feel like I could stop him at that point... (Yes, we must be the only people in _______ County who don't like Jesus, but, dude, that first amendment thing?) *le sigh* I'm not an atheist - if I was, I imagine I'd've been rather madder about it than I am. I believe in god, just not your poxy god who likes his prayers and amens laid on inch thick with a trowel, at my bloody thirty-second no-fee leap-day courthouse wedding. That was just rude, offensive and just maybe illegal. This is not holy matrimony - see, if it was holy, you wouldn't be fussed about whether I was doing it with a boy or with a girl.

There is negative problems - ie, all the above - and then there are positive problems, like this one:

(and I'd do it again) says:
and that's another problem - I don't know any married people and barely ever have done. My parents had a pretty miserable marriage for the first 11 years of my life; M's father's now living in Alabama with his 5th wife, and M's brother and aunt are divorced too...
teraninse says:
*nodnods*
(and I'd do it again) says:
i don't really know my extended family at all - just my uncle and aunt in Preston, who are very Christian and...generally not people who inspire me. So all I see is the big-media-weddings on TV, which are just cringeworthy
teraninse says:
...uck
teraninse says:
yes.
teraninse says:
I think...I'll blog about this at some point.
(and I'd do it again) says:
clearly there should be a WEDDING DRESS with 'I'm blogging this' stitched on the veil........
teraninse says:
CLEARLY!
teraninse says:
there's some slogging through icky-making weddings of both the pagan variety and the x'tian variety. haha
teraninse says:
and...oh darn...but...chinese wedding dress or european? @@
teraninse says:
ack! cultural identity strikes again!
(and I'd do it again) says:
oh, I went to an icky Pagan handfasting once. felt like a big dressing-up game, the couple split up three weeks later
(and I'd do it again) says:
OOOH, what a question!
(and I'd do it again) says:
(I do know another pagan couple who married - in Edinburgh, so I missed it - but a few months later, the wife ran off with my ex-boyfriend...)
teraninse says:
...*sigh*
teraninse says:
...
(and I'd do it again) says:
(the happy couple had been together ten years before that. *sigh*)
teraninse says:
just..no comment.
(and I'd do it again) says:
mm.
(and I'd do it again) says:
so, yeah, there's NO ONE i can look at and say 'I want what they have!'
teraninse says:
nothing wrong in creating your own
teraninse says:
I mean, what's fanfic, after all?
(and I'd do it again) says:
indeed not, but feels like I'm starting with nothing

The elephant in the room, do you see it? No? Good. It shall not be spoken of, for all I am leaning on one of its exploding pink feet. But I will say this of it; I came here - here being everywhere it's taken me - to get away from gender. I hate gender, remember? It's repugnant. Like most of us (of either designation), I could make a long list of all the times I was told UR DOIN IT RONG when I was a girl-child, but that would just make me feel shittier. I cannot tell you how glad I was to find out that there was a way to do this whole love crap without it being about gender roles. (This is still a huge part of why I love slash so fucking much - because I am a big old sop, but I despise gender. It's also why I find lesbian romance a zillion times easier than the hetero variant, and why I've basically wound up wanting to strangle all-but-one of the guys I've ever had a thing for, but I persevere. Being queer gives me a way to do straight).

Whether I feel this way because I'm queer or because I'm me is something the jury is still out on. But I am reminded of a Slate article I read two years ago;

Of course, some opponents of same-sex marriage are just anti-gay. But to dismiss all opposition to gay marriage as pure bigotry is to miss an important point. The key to evaluating the real stakes here is to think of gay rights in terms of two major categories: gay marriage and everything else. [...] And polls show consistently growing support nationwide for gay rights other than marriage. Gallup found that 90 percent of Americans support equal employment opportunities regardless of sexual orientation. And 79 percent support the idea of homosexuals serving in the armed forces, a profound change in public opinion since the 1990s, when President Clinton thought it politically prudent to abandon his push for nondiscrimination in favor of "Don't Ask, Don't Tell."

But somehow same-sex marriage is a different story.

[...]

Many people get married because they want the established sex roles the institution provides: a blushing, beautiful, white veil and miles-of-lace bride set off against her dashing, handsome, chivalrous groom. Same-sex marriage seems to undermine these very sex-specific statuses, leaving everyone a sex-neutral "applicant." Sure, we could say same-sex marriages involve two brides or two grooms, but something really is lost in this translation: At that point the terms do not describe distinctively gendered roles but are merely gendered descriptions of the same role.

...Dear god, does that last paragraph make me feel ill. I can barely believe that there's anyone alive who wants that, let alone a whole bunch of people who equate it with what your genitals looked like when you were born.

So Kyraninse gets on to the rewriting of affirmation (which is something she posted about yesterday too - and ooh, look, a Punkass post on the topic):

teraninse says:
and as a friend, I wanted to know because I wanted to add my congratulations for affirmation and blessings to the pot, regardless of what the federal system has to say about it. not that congrats and blessings have to be specifically time-tied, but...
teraninse says:
well, sometimes it is. superstition and tradition and all that.
(and I'd do it again) says:
can i ask what the congrats would be FOR, though? it's not like the relationship's changed at all because of it
teraninse says:
I'm working within my paradigm, in which if I ever married chris, I'd essentially be formally announcing to the world that I'm taking this man to be mine and I vow to honor, cherish, protect, and succor until death do us part. [In her blog post she amended this to 'until life do us part']
teraninse says:
and this would be an affirmation that would resonate, for me, within the spiritual realm also, since I believe in intent, spirit, and magic.
(and I'd do it again) says:
*nodnods* I grok that.
teraninse says:
and so...if I weren't willing to say those things, I wouldn't want to get married, even for practical purposes. I'm assuming that you also meant those things when you said them.
teraninse says:
which, to my belief, is, regardless of society and law, a very powerful thing.
(and I'd do it again) says:
yes, but I would've meant them with or without the marriage part. that's just what the relationship is like.
teraninse says:
*nod* marriage is a nice convenient excuse to have a affirmation ceremony, in my eyes. maybe this is just me, but for me it's not binding unless it's been ceremonialized.
teraninse says:
partially because of the paradigms of intent and magic that I work with.
teraninse says:
so -- in my eyes, if I congratulated you on your marriage, I'd be happy for you that this affirmation happened and was now binding, so to speak.
teraninse says:
which is NOT to say, you should advertise your marriage when you don't want to, just to make people happy.
(and I'd do it again) says:
I think I get you now - I guess my main problem is that the affirmation ceremony is coupled (hurr) to a raft of legal benefits that fucks over a huge number of people *of whom I am one*
teraninse says:
that makes sense.
teraninse says:
lots of it.
(and I'd do it again) says:
but I believe in intent, and this relationship is one of the reasons I do.
teraninse says:
but -- I don't see a reason to be ashamed of your marriage per se just because it is supported by a corrupt system.
teraninse says:
or not the marriage itself, but the ceremony of it.
teraninse says:
btw, none of this was supposed to be "chastise chastise, bad, bad thene" -- I just wanted to hash out the why and wherefores.
(and I'd do it again) says:
nah, I get that and thanks, I kinda think I needed to get it out with someone...
teraninse says:
*nod*
teraninse says:
Do you feel like the marriage ceremony is just ...well, not empty ritual -- but can have, can do without, as the chinese would say?
(and I'd do it again) says:
I don't know, because I don't know of one that would be appropriate for me, so I feel like I'm comparing 'can do without' with...nothing. Dunno what 'can have' would be like.
teraninse says:
I've talked about wedding ceremonies at great length with my friends -- one of whom's mother and father got married on a hill top somewhere with witnesses and that was all.
teraninse says:
I also attended a wedding this past summer where ...they exchanged vows they wrote themselves and that was it.
teraninse says:
If you like, and only if you do, I'd be happy to talk with you about what you might like for a possible affirmation ceremony if you feel like the yuck-making should just be ignored on the metaphysical level.
teraninse says:
and ONLY if you feel it's something you want.

Do I? I don't even know. I have too much pride to be any good with bindings, or gods for that matter. I am happy with what I have flung myself into; but I am at my most happy when not putting words to it, when just being here, words and symbols bedamned. Feck. Must hit 'publish post' now.

no furry bridesmaids here.

This is one of the many great things Kyraninse said to me over the other day. I am putting it here while I am busy organising some of the others into a post of blogginess. (Meanwhile, go read her introspective post on race issues fatigue).

There's a story about buddhism. Once, there was an old woman who gave a meal to a monk. Before the monk left, at the old lady's request, he told her a mantra that would lead to enlightenment. Unfortunately, as the old woman was going rather deaf, she mis-heard it. Not having a rosary, the old woman would drop a bean from one pot to another as she recited this mantra --

One day, a monk was passing by a hovel when he saw a strange golden aura coming forth and he knocked on the door. He was very surprised to see naught but an old woman, and he hastened to ask her how she had achieved her spiritual growth.

She said, a monk told me to recite "blargh". The monk was surprised and told her, but you've been saying it wrong this entire time! The old woman was, naturally, somewhat upset, and wanted to learn the correct version. The monk told her the correct version, and then, quite pleased with himself, set off again. By chance, as he was walking away, he saw that the golden glow had disappeared.

He realized that he, in fact, was the person in wrong and hurried back to tell the old woman that he was terribly sorry, but she was right and he was, in fact, wrong. She had been taught another version that was also correct, and it didn't occur to him until he had thought about it some more. The old woman thanked him for coming back to tell her this and sent him on his way again,.

and only the monk knew how close it had been, and of his relief when he saw the golden glow gradually turn brighter as he walked away again.

SO -- it's intent that matters.

people can tell you you're wrong till they're blue in the face, but that doesn't make them right. not even if it's that irritating niggling voice at the bottom of your brain.