Geek Rant Topic 14: The Gamer Chick

When All Else Fails, you call Mousa the 14, that one ranting geek.

When people are misinterpreting feminism they misinterpret hard. Just a quick thing I wanted go over. Especially in webcomics, there is the idea that your typically sausage-fest cast you need to have a female character. Besides the usual cliches, you have the hyper component woman who is better than the guys at their particular interest and tend to be some sort of "Strong Female Character". Riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight.




Thank you K-Bo.

Now where was ..... Ah yes:

Hey, webcomic makers,-no, ya know what? Writers in general: YOU'RE DOING IT WRONG!

The name of the game is Equality!

I get what you're trying to do, the whole "Don't make women look bad" by making them look good so you don't look like misogynist chauvinist pigs. You're doin' it wrong.

Positive discrimination is still discrimination, creating a whole other "Us" versus "Them" thing we don't need. You can make your girl who can "Ass-pwn some newbs in Gears of Duty" or whatever but do it in reasonable amounts. Not the flat bitch that can kick butts up down and sideways from New Amsterdam to Constantinople, but perhaps, I dunno, a person, a character, maybe with a personality trait or two doesn't involve being a wish fulfillment love interest, the Minesotta Fats, the wish fulfillment sex object, or the heartless witch that portrays what you think feminism is actually like (misandry or lesbianism optional of course).

Here's a formula: Guys and gals all win and lose just exactly the same, no one is better or worse based on any gender divide, but based on the character's history or skill from their backstory. You know, make them people.

You're not good writers? Then why do your dudes seem to have one half of a dimension more than your gals? Here, use this and this and this, or this, or you know what? Just all of this. I can wait, go on, take a read, find stuff on women, girls, webcomics, learn what you're doing wrong and get back to me and give me your excuse.

Are Men and Women different? Yessiree! Does this mean you have to skimp out on their character because you don't know their perspective? Hell no! You practically invent your own perspective in your story, you can make women just as varied and unique as your dudes are without making them overly competent or under competent. Average never hurt anybody. Sure there will be the idiots in the outer fringes of Feminism for you DARING to give a woman flaws, but you know what? Screw dat! Make characters. I would say it's not that hard, but it actually is. It's not hard for me but for most people who aren't insane and eccentric and out of their minds obsessive like me; try, learn, read a book perhaps, because you most certainly don't get your female characters that are both strong and flawed from video games. Except maybe Chrono Trigger. Or Tales of Symphonia...

Ya know what? Just go pick up a non-Square Enix Japanese RPG and get back to me. I think the country that has more issues with feminism than we do might be on to something.

Try! Try, I say! TRY WITH ALL YOUR MIGHT! I KNOW YOU CAN!

-Good Bye, Good Luck, and Imagination Is Your Greatest Power

Mousa the 14

Random Musing: The Japanese Scare Me a Little

So I listen to nothing but NPR on the radio and was listening to a reporter talk about a shelter in Nihon after all this earthquake+tsunami+Potential Nuclear Fallout deal (Dear God I feel sorry for these people, I mean a natural disaster triple threat? We may as well have hurled another one of our nukes over these and gotten the exact same effect!).

As I was reading The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya I heard something that can only be described as either efficient and reasonable or damn right creepy:

So the reporter was talking about how the people in the shelter were. The shelter was quiet, the people were patient and uncomplaining, and when someone came with food there was no riot and no mad rush. And without instruction, they simply lined up in single file to retreive the food.

This sounds beautiful and shows people being reasonable in times of adversity and seems like the approach to a perfect world. But it was also flipping creepy! I mean it seems a little... not human. I mean seems more like evidence that the people of Nihon are or trying to be a race of robots that scheme to destroy us all with the power of cute. I mean, last I checked humans are less inclined to such behavior to due selfishness and other associated self-preservation measures. I wonder if it's simply the highly conformist society the Japanese are. Would make sense. Still needs to be added to my list of things about Nihon that creep me out along with their thing for Lolis.

Note: I am neither weeaboo nor one of those Nihon haters. I like and dislike different things.

P.S. Think any of our favorite Manga writers have been negatively affected? I mean I assumed so and I guess when you read media from a small archipelago nation that just had major disasters, you have to wonder if your favorite authors are doing okay. You just have to look at the casualty numbers and wonder "Will I ever see the conclusion of One Piece?" That sounds utterly insensitive, but I doubt the first thing on people's minds when they think "Natural disaster in Nihon" is "Oh noes! Tha poor writer! His house! Her family! etc, etc, yadda, yadda". I'm probably wrong and probably write, just noting that we're all only human.

Random Musing: The Last Airbender Movie Update

I saw The Last Airbender a few months back, and my friend was wondering if I should update my previous entry based on it.

I didn't need to, everything I said in my blog was only confirmed by watching the movie, I just d a few things to add:

1. General Zhao's actor was hammy hilarious! Hooray unintentional humor!
2. The Movie was boring and it was difficult to stay awake for even with Rifftrax.
3. The Last battle scene was pretty good, but I hated the use of slo-mo. It should've moved faster.
4. Characterization? What Characterization? The actors were so wooden I could use them as kindling.
   

Geek Rant Topic 13: Which Superhero Hasn't Died?

When All Else Fails, you call Mousa the 14, that one ranting geek.

The other day I was talking with some geeky associates of my at the community college and I was notified that Johnny Storm, The Human Torch, was dead and Spider-man had replaced him in the Fantastic four (Which makes sense since Spidey is the perfect funny guy to replace Johnny and the two are good friends). But we also know this: The Human torch would be back. It was a fact of life, we said it like it was a bad joke, because it was. It was also noted that Nightcrawler of the X-men had died recently and was one of the few mainline X-men who hadn't died in their history, until recently.

It was then we got to talking and we realized: Who hasn't died in superhero comics? We we came up with a fairly small list so we decided we would venture onto the net and contact the message boards we closely associate with and find the answers. On our own we found that Spider-man hasn't died Tim Drake as Robin/Red Robin hadn't died and neither had Dick Grayson as Nightwing/Robin, The Invisible Woman, The Alan Scott Green Lantern, Jay Garrick Flash, and Luke Cage. This was just off the top of our heads with no research, and that's a minuscule list. I mean, when you think about it, it's a really interesting questions because comic books are practically known for killing people and for them to not be dead for very long. I mean when Superman was supposedly killed some time ago by the creature designed to kill him known as Doomsday, that was a big deal. Same when Batman got his back broken by Bane in the 90's, and Batman was killed not too long ago (But it turns out he was somehow sent time traveling. Yeah, comic books are weird.).

Obviously they wouldn't be dead for long. The big thing with the comic book industry is that they're not interested in making stories or characters, they make their money off of making long running legacies, which I sort of brought up in my previous entry, Modern Mythos. Which means even if they kills these characters, they won't be dead for long, they're too beloved for that and they have to stay to make the fans happy. The deaths were originally designed to "shake things up" but now they're just quaint to comic fans now. which means they don't serve as much purpose as they used to because we all know the guys will be coming back.

So it's just interesting to know who hasn't died because a lot of deaths has occurred. I mean it's almost like dying gives you superhero street cred or something. We set up some parameters for our quest though:

1. A big name or close to big name superhero, which I guess is hard to define, but let me put it to you this way, "Who is more important/well known? Iron Fist or Captain Mar Vell?" If you answered Iron Fist, you're own the right track. If you said Captain Mar Vell, you're a bigger geek than I am.
   
2. Someone who has had a minimum of 10 years of continuity behind them.
3. They had to have been dead or presumed dead for more than one issue. Enough to have had an impact on their universe.
4. It's a DC or a Marvel hero, obviously.
5. It's in the main universe. None of this "What-if" or "Elseworlds" nonsense.
   

Happy Hunting.

-Good Bye, Good Luck, and Imagination Is Your Greatest Power

Mousa the 14

Geek Rant Topic 12: Modern Mythos

When All Else Fails, you call Mousa the 14, that one ranting geek.

Once upon a time there were these deities worshiped by ancient civilizations. These people told many stories of the exploits of these deities. However, these stories were all primarily from word of mouth, there was no single comprehensive and linear and consistent story of any of these gods, only what was told and what little was written down. These deities by modern day became primarily abstract concept with vague yet specific jobs and exploits and rulings that can be interpreted and spun around in a myriad of ways by many different writers in the present day.

We called this ancient incomprehensible library of vague references mythology. These deities and heroes such as Gilgamesh or Zeus were mere concept that could be twisted and turned into whatever we wanted within certain pre-established guidelines. The idea was there and we could make up the details ourselves, it was all based on the person telling the story.

I want to you to think long and hard about this. Does this sound familiar to anybody, anybody at all? Anything in the modern day that works on this exact system of vague pre-established concept that many people write about and with each different writing, different interpretations re made and different details are added based on personal preference. Perhaps this is too vague. After all, mythology of old had specific groups, we had the Grecko-Roman Gods, The Norse Mythology, Agyptian gods, and far many more I don't even know the names of. I'll keep this simple, this modern day version I'm referring two has only two self contained groups.

Now I'm going to stop treating you like an idiot and tell you this modern day mytholgoy is superhero comics and the two specific mythologies are Marvel and DC.

Despite the obession with "Continuity", American comic books are a mess. and probably have the least amount of continutiy that make sense. Especially DC. These things have gone on for decades wit hcharacters that age in reverse dog years and basically they're environments where characters and stories are allowed to exist. These comic histories are incomprehensible and with all the crossovers, one shots, and and tie ins, not even counting the alternate universes, I doubt even the most devoted geek can keep track of their favorite superhero and if they can, they need to go outside and start smelling the frikkin' rosies becuase their dedication most likely took up 75% of their existences and I wish I was joking but that's how extensive these things are.

I saw the comic book industry needs to quit it and geeks need to quit it. You know why? Becuase the DC and Marvel comic universes are now nothing but big flipping mythologies, worlds where anything can happen and anyone can do whatever based on the mythology behind them. At this point no continuity matters and I doubt we can ever go back to the days of everything being separate individual characters and stories that may have a a conclusion, the connected universes will never end so let's just go all out, write whatever we want, we already disregard continuity ad consistency anyway, let's just run with this. We just remove the concept of "canon" and have everything be right depending on the writer. It's easier on the fans that way.

Isn't that awesome? We invented a mythology without having it being centuries of lost archives behind us!

Wanna hear more about how this whole continuity and comic books are a mess? Movie Bob has got a few vids that helped inspired this: Continuum, Continanity, and Nerd Gods, mind you the man uses stronger language than I do.

-Good Bye, Good Luck, and Imagination Is Your Greatest Power

Mousa the 14

Random Musing: Nothing to Hide

I went to take an exam to see if I qualified for some classes at the local community college and I saw the oddest thing:

Dark skinned Asian guy, who knows, maybe he was Inuit, not the point, anyhow, he was wearing an interesting amalgam of items I can only call "Convention Casual".

He was wearing a Jack Skellington hat, you know, one of those semi-common winter hats, an Ushanka, methinks? That sort of hat with Jack Skellington print. He wore checkerboard patterned fingerless gloves, those kinds of gloves you wear because incompleteness is hardcore. And He wore black pants that I associate greatly with my eccentric positive metalhead friend who tended to wear black pants with too many pockets. This guy wore similar stuff only surprisingly less pockets and blue highlights on it. The icing on the cake of this odd piece of leg wear was the two chains that were cross along the front of his pants. Yeah, he isn't exactly running anywhere, or striding for that matter.

But here's the kicker, right there tied to the back belt hook on his pants was a big blue fizzy tail! No, I was not looking at his butt, you couldn't miss it. It was a tail!

That tail has been in my mind... Like I get this feeling that certain apparel is starting to become less of an issue, and by less of an issue I mean, coming out f the woodwork and suddenly being okay to wear in casual everyday settings.

I mean, sure it starts with cute animal hats, eventually with ears on said hats or hoots, but when does it stop or keep going on? How does it keep going on? Will hats bring along with it fashionable goggles? fingerless gloves? chains? tails? Jack Skellington? Is the geek and furry apparel slowly crawling out of the convention dealer room and Hot Topic? I mean those two places I mentioned are like the kingdoms of the Rummage Sale Reject style of clothing, but how much of it is... seeping into regular everyday things?

How many of us are forgetting to remove our Digi Charat Bells from our necks? When was the last time you took that SOS Brigade arm band off? How are you looking into those goggles today?

Is this a bad thing? Yes and no. I just find this a little odd perhaps intriguing, maybe even sinister.

Random Musing: Muslim Batman

I don't know all the particulars behind it but long story short: There's a Muslim Batman.

I mean, let's get this out of the way, Isn't this costume frikkin' AWESOME!?

It's almost a shame he's the French Batman.

Yeah, the French Batman. It's a shame, I mean the French don't particularly like Muslims, I mean they're trying to ban burqas and all that. Which means in real life, The French aren't going to like this choice. Frankly, this shouldn't be a big deal. The type of Batman chosen is not indicative of the entire nation, it's indicative of that character's history and skills and personality, with French having very little to do with it. I mean if that were the case, C. America should be a Native American, you know, just to keep things pure.


You know, I should be more bothered by the fact that Bats is trying to go global but it makes perfect sense to me that he's trying to make his image international, becuase lord knows he can't strike fear into the hearts of every crook world-wide. It takes an army to do that, an Army of Batmen. But this could probably cause in-universe controversy about him exerting too much world power I imagine. I don't know, I love superheroes but don't really pay attention to them so much. I'll explain my view in my upcoming "Mythos" Geek Rant.