Blarghagh

Yeah, I've got a heatpad on it and I've been doing a couple of rotations and flexes every couple of minutes. It's starting to get better.

Not a clue, woke up with it so I probably made a wrong move in my sleep or slept in a wrong position.

Sprained my shoulder and can barely move my neck and arm without pain shooting from my neck through my back. Makes everything very annoying. At the same time, my cat seems to have developed glaucoma. If the meds the vet prescribed don't do anything then he'll have to remove the eye. Now this cat has been my girlfriends' cat since childhood (he's pretty old) and is what she focused her affection on growing up in an abuse household leading her to be extremely overattached to it... this is going to suck.

Over four hours. Little warning, it's got a couple of things that may make you do a double-take. Shots where Tauriel is in the background where she shouldn't be anymore, Smaug crashing out of the Mountain without having been covered in gold, yet somehow being covered in gold. It's the best they could do but some of it is a little bit awkward, still overall a much better movie.

Yeah, I thought most of those were ridiculous hearsay nonsense and conjecture before they started falsely accusing me of being an SJW shill who was ordered by MCA and Sawyer (who as far as I know don't even know or care that this thread exists) to close this thread because they drank the kool-aid. Imagine how low my view of them is now.

And all I can think is "let's not go to 8-chan, it is a silly place". Then again, I'm not all that well-liked there judging by the responses I've seen when we timed out this thread.

Anybody who has played DOTA 2 will think this song is funny.

I feel the need to point out that Gamergate didn't occur until the day after the term was first coined by Adam Baldwin. The Zoe Post or alternatively Quinngate was solely a linked matter and would not have materially changed Gamergate no matter what it was actually about. Gamegate is, in the end, about the nature of journalism and whether collaborative mass posts J-list style to push an ideological message are at all acceptable. The analysis of both Twitter posts and Google Analytics bears out that the community significantly concerned with Gamergate is much, much different from the community that was significantly concerned with the Zoe Post. Of course, none of that changes the fact that Zoe Quinn is an utterly amoral person who lies, cheats while in a monogamous relationship, mentally abuses her partners, and is willing to selfishly capitalize on the loss of a treasured figure to pimp her game which whitewashes and ultimately trivializes the very disorder it is supposedly about. I'm not sure what the purpose of your post is, ravenshrike? You seem to be saying "Zoe isn't as important to GamerGate as the thread intro makes her out to be" (which, to be fair, is entirely true, I don't give one flying hoot about Zoe) but then you proceed with "let's talk about Zoe and how terrible she is". Either way, I much prefer to talk about actual review practices.

Typical, someone has to play the race card even though it doesn't apply. It's not funny because it doesn't sound like English, it's funny because it doesn't sound HUMAN! It's not the dialect, it's the ridiculous slowdown and filter COMBINED with the dialect. I don't know whether I should shoot first!

Just saw this and it made me laugh.

Didn't GG disown Sargon of Akkad? Or was that someone else? I don't pay attention to the e-celeb drama anymore. Sargon of Akkad is nothing more than someone who tried to use GG to forward his own agenda and failed.

Always worth a chuckle when self-proclaimed anti-feminists are like "she's oppressing the real feminists!". If they are the real feminists, shouldn't anti-feminists hate them more? There is so much projection going on in these posts that I feel like I'm in a multiplex cinema. 10/10, would get trolled again.

Captain America is also a title, while Thor is his name.

I think Link's design is pretty androgynous to begin with so it's not much of a stretch, but that notwithstanding that series has a bunch of underused female characters with serious potential. Why not use those characters instead? Why is it that nobody is advocating giving female characters real roles, rather taking existing roles and gender flipping them? Is it so hard to make a female character? Can a new character only achieve popularity through manhood only to be flipped afterwards? That doesn't seem like a fix for anything. At best, it's pandering. At worst, it's the gender variant of putting a character in blackface.

Outselling the final Thor issues in 2012. What a surprise, the first couple parts of a highly publicized genderbender reboot is outselling the last parts of a long in the tooth, ancient comic book series that was on the way out. There are obviously no meaningful conclusions to take from that because they're not remotely comparable.

Why would it be offensive otherwise, though?

Yeah, I think it's more that I never really sat down and realized just how much these people are offered. And for clarity, I wasn't saying I would be surprised to hear games journalists getting flights and hotels paid, I merely named the TF2 guys because that was completely Blizzard's initiative with TF2 celebrities; they're not reviewers or anything, they're celebrities for a market they wish to overtake. I'd just not realized how easy it would be for these gaming companies to offer these people thousands of dollars for positive coverage. If we assume video games journalism is a minimum wage kind of job (pretty sure it is, or close to it), then ONE accepted bribe can be a huge addition to your annual income. Just puts things into perspective as to how this happened and why some of them are willing to fight tooth and nail. I'd like to point out that YouTube and Twitch celebrities are not analogous to gaming journalists in any way, shape or form. Currently, even midlevel YouTube channels (say, the Worth-a-Buy review channel) are worth more in terms of exposure and sales than positive reviews are across the board. You're unlikely to see journalists get bribes that high since they are, simply put, not worth as much money. What makes you say that? Nowadays sure, absolutely. I think there's enough controversy surrounding games journalism that no game developer would think to bribe them over a youtube celebrity. Fast forward about a year ago though, do you think the same? I don't really have one opinion or another here since I don't exactly know what kind of readership sites like IGN and Kotaku would pull in, but a company interested in advertising would definitely look into that and find it out. If Vinny averages 200,000 to 500,000 views on a video and receives an $8,000 bribe, then presumably any games journalism website that could pull in 200,000 reads for an article could get the same, no? Not neccesarily disagreeing with you, just wondering what your train of thought it. Part of this is me making sense of what led to all of this, so the past leading up to GamerGate, though yeah I think anyone would agree with you now that no one in their right mind is gonna bribe a games journalist for good press now. Gaming websites don't actually get all that much traffic, mostly comparable with mid-level YouTubers at this point. GamerGate doesn't even come into it. More in-depth would be, even if gaming websites got more traffic, they rarely lead to increased sales numbers whereas a high profile YouTuber playing your game most likely will. The game review scale has been broken for a long time and a 7-8 rating won't sway any minds because in practice a 7 or an 8 translates to mediocre - these days only a 10 will give a game increased attention whereas a 7 or lower might actually lose you sales. And let's be realistic here, the vast majority of people pretty much only look at the number. Review text gets skimmed at most. YouTubers aren't reviewing a game. They're there to be entertaining, and they're having (or looking like they're having) fun. 200,000 views on a review who see that a gaming website has a thrown another 10 at a game or a 200,000 people seeing a dude have a great time playing that game. What's going to sway more minds? Obviously, you have your outliers. TotalBiscuit does game "first impressions" that essentially work as reviews do, but the guy worked for a long time to get consumer trust and he's somewhat of an exception, most YouTubers are more about playing the game and having fun and entertaining their audience and that is a powerful force. Essentially, a review is perceived as a form of publicity while a YouTubers playing it is perceived as word of mouth. This comes with its own set of ethical problems, obviously, but thankfully a lot of YouTubers have blown the whistle on brand deals and the like.

Yeah, I think it's more that I never really sat down and realized just how much these people are offered. And for clarity, I wasn't saying I would be surprised to hear games journalists getting flights and hotels paid, I merely named the TF2 guys because that was completely Blizzard's initiative with TF2 celebrities; they're not reviewers or anything, they're celebrities for a market they wish to overtake. I'd just not realized how easy it would be for these gaming companies to offer these people thousands of dollars for positive coverage. If we assume video games journalism is a minimum wage kind of job (pretty sure it is, or close to it), then ONE accepted bribe can be a huge addition to your annual income. Just puts things into perspective as to how this happened and why some of them are willing to fight tooth and nail. I'd like to point out that YouTube and Twitch celebrities are not analogous to gaming journalists in any way, shape or form. Currently, even midlevel YouTube channels (say, the Worth-a-Buy review channel) are worth more in terms of exposure and sales than positive reviews are across the board. You're unlikely to see journalists get bribes that high since they are, simply put, not worth as much money. EDIT: Look at her and laugh. There you have an imbecille with an opinion of a fool talking about things she cannot comprehend. I read this link and I'm interested in what isn't understood by the journalist Nintendo's idea of confident and diverse female characters are pink bizarre looking " mutants " But what concerns me even more is that clip from Bayonetta, I haven't played the game but please tell me she doesn't open her legs like that when she is generating some kind of ability...please tell that video clip is not accurate So what is the basic issue with that article...I am missing the problem? Bruce, you might not realize this, but the clip is real.....SHE IS NOT. Okay but I would still like clarification on Bayonette before I make my point, during the game that animation you see is that real? Is that how the female character behaves? And if so what is she doing? Is it some kind of absorbing of abilities or does that happen when she defeats an enemy That animation is cut short and taken severely out of context. When completed, it's a visual metaphor for giving birth and the inherent power of being able to create life. I've mentioned before that Bayonetta is, at its very core, a story of female empowerment and this constant marring of it by American puritans is ridiculous. As for the "pink blobs", those are not Nintendo's strong, female characters at all. They're at best throwaway skins. Nintendo has plenty of strong female characters and is decades ahead of western game developers. The freaking Mario franchise has a gender dysphoric character for crying out loud, making them a hundred times more progressive by default than a significant portion of the feminist community (who are notorious for being homo and transphobic regarding gay men and transgendered women). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feminist_views_on_transgenderism_and_transsexualism#Feminist_exclusion_of_transgender_and_transsexual_people You know, when I first joined this board I once expressed that I didn't think women breastfeeding in public was appropriate. I was wrong, obviously, and members here (specifically metadigital, wherever he may be) ripped me a new one, and rightly so. Yet things like your consternation about this scene (because even if it wasn't a metaphor for birth, it still wouldn't be offensive) make me think that kind of unhealthy view of the female body, as something that must be covered up to avoid any form of titillation, that muslim Burka view of the female form, is making a huge comeback and oddly enough it's coming from the movement whose biggest victories include not being forced to cover up.

I removed that rather graphic scene, if it's going to get that borderline you should leave it as a link with an NSFW warning.

Of course I'm not suggesting that, lets try to have this debate in a reasonable way I am saying the objection is to female characters portrayed in a demeaning or " rapey " ( is there such a word ) manner Ask yourself a simple question when there is a possibly controversial picture, substitute the female character with a male and see how you would feel about that picture...so a picture of spider-women on her knees....weeping and submissive ...with the Green Goblin standing over her laughing...this basically being the epitome of male dominance over women and then imagine how you would feel if spiderman was in that role? Not that you would generally see something like that but you get my point Here's what the difference is: The baggage you bring with it. People considered this cover "rapey" because they're obsessed with rape and need mental help. End of story. The facts are, of the high tier DC heroes males are much more likely to get raped than the women. Batman was raped twice. Nightwing was raped multiple times. John Constantine was raped. So was Green Arrow AND Green Lantern. The only female superhero that comes close to that tier that has had this is Starfire. Even outside that tier, men have had it worse. In League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, the Invisible Man was raped to death. This is a pure mental double standard by people who bring their own baggage. The irony here is that DC's treatment of women here is unequel in the opposite direction, bordering on positive discrimination. Source: http://dc.wikia.com/wiki/Rape

'So there can't even be a hint of a male harming a woman, but sexual harassment of a male superhero is played off as a joke and nobody cares. EDIT: Here, take your own conclusions about DC comics: http://dc.wikia.com/wiki/Rape

So essentially the variant cover was a tribute to an older story that led to a disabled superhero character (Batgirl became Oracle) and was essentially a triumph for diversity, and that's inappropriate because the current audience is ridiculously idiotic? I'm not seeing it either. It's the least sexual thing I've ever seen. I consider the people who do see sexual undertones in it to be the problem - they're the ones who need mental help.

Relevant information - the hashtag that was used to spearhead the movement to have the cover changed, obviously #CHANGETHECOVER, is actually recycled from an earlier attempt by feminist movements to get not DC but Marvel to change a "sexist" variant cover. It didn't work then, it seems to have worked now. Maddox made a great video takedown on that particular issue which can be viewed at . Language warning. Looks like KaineParker beat me to the punch with some of that information. Eh? Eh?

Now that's disingenuous. This isn't even related to GG. Anyway, I wasn't aware of this issue until I read about it here, and within ten seconds of googling it I saw another two instances of that behaviour.

Closed on OP's request.