Posts by _LS_

  • Fallout 4

    I rarely buy games right when they come out. I can only think of a handful of times I've ever done it, really. But for sure, there's a certain emotional rush to be among the first to experience the game. It's a feeling of community that you just can't get if you wait for the game to be on sale in a year.

  • Unpopular Opinions about Movies, series, etc

    The Resident Evil movies are fucking fun and I love every god damned minute of them.

    Fuck the Disney corporation.

    The Princess and the Frog is pretty underrated as a Disney movie.

    Indianna Jones and The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull is bad, but not as bad as people make it out to be. It has some charm. Certainly it's better than the Star Wars prequels.

    I've never liked Babe.

    Will Smith is a fun actor. Not a good actor.

    If you ever get excited about a remake, or a revisitation, there's a decent chance we won't get along.

  • The wiimote

    When we first saw it, reactions were mixed. Some thought it would be awful, some hoped that it might turn out to be just as great as Nitty said it would be.

    After almost a decade, what do we think? Was it a good move?

    For my own part, I think motion control was a huge disappointment. It's bearable in games where you bet to use the nunchuck, but it's only bearable. Not good. For me, the wiimote offers no benefit over a standard controller, and a lot of drawbacks. Finding out a game requires the wiimote is often enough to prevent me from trying it.

  • The controller: It's time to be real

    All of us here have a little of that old fankid spark in us, I know it. None of us want to admit Nintendo can do wrong. At least not old Nintendo. But we gotta face the truth:

    The N64 controller sucks.

    That doesn't mean you can't like using it. It doesn't mean the controller lacks any good qualities whatsoever. But come on...three hand positions? That's ridiculous.

  • Let's Talk About Fanart

    Quote from Lexatom

    @LinkSkywalker classifies himself as a feminist, perhaps he would have a more in-depth discussion about this.

    Well, I don't actually identify myself as a feminist. I've referred to myself as a supporter of feminism, because as a movement and as a cause I believe that it is overall a source of positive change in the world. But I prefer never to actually classify myself by isms, ists, movements, and philosophies. It can be a useful shorthand in some situations, but generally it suffers from being painfully inexact language. If you tell 100 people that you're a communist, they'll think you mean 101 different things.

    Glancing over this tumblr post you linked, @Aphelion , yeah, I don't much like it either. This is everything I hate about discourse on the Internet. The shrill attitude, the demonizing of the other, the trivializing and mocking of dissenting opinions. As is so often the case, this isn't an attempt at discussion or communication, it's an attempt at entertainment. This post is targeted at people who already agree with the author, so they can shout "YEAH! FUCK EVERYBODY WHO DISAGREES WITH US!" It's filled with intentionally inciting comments and phrasing, designed to get your passion up. If you agree, it makes you feel righteously angry at everyone who disagrees. If you disagree, it hurts your feelings. Makes you want to hit back, to send some flaming messages in reply. Messages that can be mocked and laughed at in turn. The bingo card is a particularly telling sign. One of those old internet tricks people use to dismiss arguments they don't want to deal with. If they can identify your argument before you make it, then they can pretend that you're pathetic and predictable without actually addressing your argument. Being smug has always been a poor substitute for being clever.

    That said, the main problem I see with this whole post is a matter of presentation, tone, and assumed authority. If you strip away all of the insults and the pettiness, there is an argument worth considering underneath. I'm not saying it's an argument I agree with, but it's an argument worth considering. I think it works best if you break it down into two basic questions:

    1. Can an act which is benign and even laudable when performed by a marginalized group become oppressive when performed by a dominant group?
    2. Can art be morally wrong.

    The first question is a fairly obvious "yes," I think. Consider an extreme example: It's 1850 in the American south. Slavery is going strong. A white guy calls a black guy a nigger. We can all agree that this was an act of oppression, yes? Now, same setting, but it's a black guy calling a white guy a cracker.* That's not oppression, that's rebellion! It's heroism! Stand up to that evil, slave-owning white guy, Mr. black guy! You go!

    *Nevermind the fact that the term "cracker" had not yet gained its modern meaning, and was actually a racist term white folks used to refer to other white folks from Czechoslovakia.

    Obviously that's a little different from drawing Ursula thin. But we can see how apparently identical actions (drawing Ariel fat / drawing Ursula thin) can take on a different moral weight depending on the social context. Whether or not the social context we currently live in justifies the Tumblr-person's argument is a whole separate discussion that I don't really want to delve into here. Long story short, my opinion is that while overweight people are a socially oppressed group in America, that oppression is honestly pretty mild. It's not right that fat people are treated the way they (we) are, but that doesn't make thin drawings of fat characters the equivalent of putting on a minstrel show.

    The question becomes even more complex when you move away from fat people and start talking about groups that still suffer truly serious forms of oppression in our society. People of color, LGBTQ individuals, etc.

    The second question is one of the most difficult I've ever wrestled with. Whether a work of art can be morally wrong by any metric is a question I've struggled with intensely over the last few months. A guy I know kinda blew my mind apart on the issue, and I haven't been able to put the pieces back together in a way that makes sense to me. I think, maybe, the problem is that we oversimplify the issue. We act as though you can look at one aspect of a piece of art, and pass moral judgement over everything connected with the art. When in fact, a single given work of art is merely the centerpiece of a complex network of choices. A network complex enough that you have to be kind of an arrogant dickweed to think you have the authority to pass moral judgement over it.

    Here are some of the conclusions I've come to on the subject.

    • Every piece of art, regardless of its merit, has a right to exist. Mein Kampf has a place in our society.
    • The moral standing of the artist does not affect the morality of the art. A painting of a flower is not evil simply because Hitler painted it. Purchasing the flower painting may be evil, if the money goes to support Hitler in any way. But the painting itself should not be censored or destroyed because of this.
    • An honest attempt at interpreting a piece of art is never a morally wrong thing to do. If you see a picture of thin Ursula and you believe it's an expression of hatred towards fat people, you're not a bad person for expressing that belief.
    • Enjoying a piece of art is never morally wrong, no matter how morally reprehensible the art is. If Mein Kampf is your favorite book, you're probably a bad person. But you're not a bad person because you enjoy Mein Kampf. You're a bad person because you hate Jews.
    • Honestly expressing what is inside of you through art is not wrong. If you hate fat people and you make a piece of art expressing your hatred of fat people, then the act of creating that art is not a morally wrong act. Hating fat people is a morally wrong thing to do. Sharing your art in an attempt to convince others to hate fat people is a morally wrong thing to do. Sharing your art in an attempt to hurt fat people is a morally wrong thing to do. But making the art has no moral weight.


    I think Tumblr lady's argument is ridiculous. But she's not wrong for expressing her interpretation. Honestly, it's kind of a good interpretation. If I saw a picture of thin Ursula my interpretation would probably be: "Oh. They like the character, they just don't like that she's an uggo fattie. Because they don't like fat people. I probably would not get along with this artist."

    I think the most anger-inducing thing about her post is an attitude which I think is best exemplified by this line:

    "So yeah, all in all I’m not afraid to tell people how they an and can’t interpret and draw a character in fan works"

    Nobody likes to be told what to do. They especially don't like to be told what to do by a teenie-bopper on the internet who has decided that they're the spearhead of some vaguely defined social change. Fortunately, no matter how strong her language is. No matter how many times she says that people "can't" make things she disagrees with, they can. She can get angry about it, but she can't actually stop it. In my experience, people like this are a very, very, very, very vocal minority. Not a lot of people actually think this way, and those who do think this way usually grow out of it.

    Being passionate about social justice should never be an excuse to treat people like shit and feel good about yourself for doing it.

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