[This is Why I Love Geekery]

  So some dude name Joe Peacock posted a rant complaining about too many cute girls 'faking being geeks' nowadays. I won't bother to even address how many ways his article is crap, since Joe Scalzi did it for me, but the part of Joe's rebuttal that really stood out to me and truly sums up why I have so much affection for geek culture despite it's warts was this:

"Many people believe geekdom is defined by a love of a thing, but I think — and my experience of geekdom bears on this thinking — that the true sign of a geek is a delight in sharing a thing. It’s the major difference between a geek and a hipster, you know: When a hipster sees someone else grooving on the thing they love, their reaction is to say 'Oh, crap, now the wrong people like the thing I love.' When a geek sees someone else grooving on the thing they love, their reaction is to say 'ZOMG YOU LOVE WHAT I LOVE COME WITH ME AND LET US LOVE IT TOGETHER.''

Any jerk can love a thing. It’s the sharing that makes geekdom awesome."

 THAT is exactly why I embrace the 'geek' label, and will wear that term proudly til the day I die. The exuberant love of sharing our passions with each other without fear of being judged for 'caring too much' or 'taking it too seriously' is such a great and fun part of geek culture, and why I believe that all our geek communities can only get better by accepting more different types of people in them. I echo what Joe says at the end of his essay:

"Anyone can be a geek. Any way they want to. That means you too. Whoever you are."

Related Reading:
How Geek Gatekeeping is Bad for Business
Confessions of a 'Fake Geek Girl'
Geek Masculinity & The Myth of the Fake Geek Girl
The 7 Most Ridiculous Things About Calling Out 'Fake Geek Girls'

[The New Lara Croft]

Border House has posted thoughts about the new Lara Croft design, and how the character has changed since her original creation.

All I have to say is, WOW, she looks amazing!

[Vintage Newsweek Fail]

A fun article from Newsweek magazine in 1995, scoffing at the idea that the internet could be anything more than a passing fad:

How about electronic publishing? Try reading a book on disc. At best, it's an unpleasant chore: the myopic glow of a clunky computer replaces the friendly pages of a book. And you can't tote that laptop to the beach. Yet Nicholas Negroponte, director of the MIT Media Lab, predicts that we'll soon buy books and newspapers straight over the Internet. Uh, sure.

But seriously, the advance of technology in this generation was so rapid, no wonder even the 'experts' were blindsided. We've come a long way in 30 years!

[How George Lucas Turned the Jedi Into Villains]

  I will admit that my opinion of the Star Wars prequels is, like most folks', pretty low. Actually, I find the entire morality of the Jedi and the Republic kind of reprehensible, actually. I had my first realization of this after reading this article in defense of the Empire, several years ago. I do not think the Empire was 'good', per se, but I could totally understand the feelings that went behind it's creation. The Republic was, by even the admission of the protagonists in the prequels, completely useless and corrupt. Yet even so, the Jedi defended it and attacked those who wished to secede because of it's corruption. That George Lucas made the Jedi into status-quo defenders of a broken system willing to use an army of brainwashed slaves to crush opposition, basically turned Jedi into bad guys. Way to go, George!

  The addition of 'midichlorians' lessened Jedi even more... they went from being enlightened figures to simply a caste of 'superior blooded' elitists. Making their powers genetic instead of spiritual/philosophical really cheapened the concept of Jedi, and that just compounded the overall ethical failings of the entire Republic system as outlined in the prequels. For some examples of Jedi hypocrisy (and the overall plot failure) of the prequels, this 7-part series on Youtube is fairly entertaining (even if the author has a bizarre fixation on violence against women as being hilarious). Also, can someone please explain the logic of having a 'ruling class' of people that is founded on their genetic superiority over others that then PROHIBITS THE PROCREATION of those people. If being born with a certain amount of midichlorians in your blood is what makes you able to use the Force, why on earth are powerful Jedi not encouraged to produce offspring with each other? I can see prohibiting relationships with non-Jedi, but to outlaw romantic relationships (and sex) all together? That makes no sense.

  It appears that Lucas, lacking the collaborative checks and balances that were present in the original trilogy, basically rewrote and over-edited his prequels into incoherency. However, the threads of an older, more rational storyline can still be seen through the murk of a watered-down, shallow final product. The original decline of Anakin was supposedly written to show him sincerely buying into the concept of a totalitarian Sith Empire being superior to the decadent, corrupt Republic and their self-righteous Jedi police force (plus, it appealed to his obsession with control). But then Lucas decided to make him do it out of 'misguided love' for Padme and edited the story to shoehorn that angle in. Of course, the prequels already suffer from so many non-sequiturs and unresolved plot points (like who ordered the clone army) that these changes just added to the overall mess.

  To me, it's obvious that Anakin never truly loved Padme. He wanted her, the way he wanted everything else in his life (and felt he was owed it). He only loved power and dominance, and that fact is best illustrated when he force-chokes her into unconsciousness just for disagreeing with him at the end of Revenge of the Sith. He was never supposed to be a misguided, empathetic character. At his core, he was always an arrogant sociopath, and Lucas' ham-handed attempts to try and make him more 'sympathetic' only further muddled the story. I guess he realized that his prequel depictions of Anakin were not actually showing any 'goodness deep inside' for Luke to later call out from Darth Vader, and tried to repair his mistake after the fact.

  Of course, all these topics are old hat and have been argued to death by Star Wars geeks everywhere, but I felt a random need to post something interesting this month. =P

[This is the Deal With Twilight...]

I posted a random one-off question a long time ago asking why the heck these mediocre books are so popular. And I think Cleolinda has hit the nail on the head:

"I started thinking about romance myself, and I think I've figured it out: the key component of romance is tenderness. Because something can be totally sexyhot without tenderness; it's tenderness that creates the "romantic" atmosphere, the one that a lot of guys tend to turn their noses up at--because tenderness requires you to be vulnerable, to open yourself up and say, I want you, I need you, I am incredibly blessed to even be touching you right now. (Maybe that's where the honesty comes in after all.)

So if you buy your girlfriend a dozen roses at the supermarket and toss them at her on Valentine's Day all, "LOOK, here you are, now SHUT UP until next year," you are doing it so very, very wrong, and she probably feels it. It's not about hearts and flowers and chocolates and money spent, and in fact all that ephemera is a convenient way to dodge actual tenderness, because you can feel like you've done something without putting any real feeling into it. And Twilight? Is all about the freakin' tenderness. It's larded with tenderness; feeling drips off the pages and oozes from the film stock and romantics eat it up and then turn around and line up for more. I mean, that slow dance at the end of the first movie, he is crying while they're eyesexing, for God's sake. That's like--the emotional equivalent of--I don't even have an adequate pornographic metaphor for that."

So yeah, the books are failures on a literary level... but it's not the story that the fans love so obsessively. It goes a lot deeper than that. Which actually makes me disappointed that a story that celebrates so many dysfunctional and dangerous relationship aspects has managed to hit this nerve that so many women have.

[Penny Arcade Debates PUA]

A discussion between Tycho and Gabe from Penny Arcade on whether or not PUA is misogynist manipulation is being discussed over at Pandagon. Tycho is being remarkably perceptive about this issue, given that a TON of guys in the gaming community have misogynist tendencies that they revel in pretty regularly:

"I’m fairly certain the purpose of this course is to make you a better predator of women. Check out their offers of “in-field training,” as though you were going to hunt antelopes from a jeep in the Goddamned Savannah."

Gabe's response? This jaw-dropper:

"I think you’re being overly dramatic. Girls have been using their “feminine wiles” to manipulate men since the beginning of time. Do you really think the mind games girls play on guys are any better or worse than this stuff. The only difference is that this sort of thing comes naturally to women. Guys are in a tight spot because in very real terms, we have nothing they want."

Wow. There are no words for how seriously screwed up Gabe's beliefs about human relationships (and female sexuality) are, if he seriously thinks that. I thought it was supposed to be us FEMINISTS that believed all men were worthless slobs? However, once again, it's shown that it's actually the PUA/anti-feminists who perpetuate the myth that men have so little to offer as individuals that they have to bribe, trick, and force women into wanting to have anything to do with them.

What a horrible way think of yourself. Of course, I quickly stop feeling sorry for guys like him when they then start blaming all womankind for their own personal self-esteem issues. Seriously, if Nice Guys(tm) would just get over their entitlement complexes and see women as individual people instead of hive-minded ambulatory vaginas, they'd become a lot more attractive to the opposite sex. Just sayin'.

ETA: The second part of the Pandagon discussion, dissecting one of the pro-PUA letters that Gabe recieved in response to the debate, is here.

[Marvelfail]

So, Marvel has decided to appeal to the 'female side' of their fanbase by releasing a selection of 'juicy' and 'shiny' lip glosses!

"With a branded line of make-up from Marvel, girls will be able to feel as if they are going from ordinary to extraordinary just like the super hero characters in the stories."

Orly?

Anyway, Shakesville points out that on the website, there are tons of costumes available for guys to be their favorite comic character. But... not any for girls. I wonder why?

"There is a very good reason there are no costumes mentioned here for girls. Can anyone guess what it is? It starts with an I...regular series here on Shakesville...that's right, it's Impossibly Beautiful for the loss!

See, with the costumes of men superheroes, we see muscle pads, inflatable bodies, and (this is crucial) covered bodies. Had a look at any of the costumes on any women capes lately? How do you make costumes drawn to make the heroes look like silicon-stuffed strippers fit actual women? Well, of course, you don't, because (back to the male gaze here), who'd want to look at some fat woman in a costume meant for a stripper, am I right?

Not to mention, what kind of seriously advanced structural engineering would you need to make a real woman look anything like the titanic-breasted figures put forward as "women" in Marvel's books? Not to mention, what kind of sick fucking company would make their hypersexualized women's costumes available for girls?"

Yerp. But of course, the only reason women complain about the design of women superheroes is because we're uptight harpies, amirite? It couldn't possibly be because it actually makes being a female comic fan a lot more uncomfortable than it has to be. Just look up the common complaints woman comic cosplayers make every damn year about getting harassed at comic cons for dressing as their favorite superhero... I'm assuming because they're TOTES asking for it by dressing like a sexdoll character, right? Nevermind that 'sexdoll costume' is the ONLY OPTION THEY GET. Seriously, if the tables were reversed you'd have geek guys up in arms about it all the time. Because it sucks when your favorite superhero is constantly splayed out like a softcore prop.

[The Making of Final Fantasy VII]

A cool interview with FF7 director Yoshinori Kitase is up at Edge. Lots of cool insights in it about the development of the first 3D FF. =)

"This was undoubtedly the game that changed everything. We felt a wind of change inside the company during the development process. There was this incredible feeling I’ll never forget: we were making a new thing… making history. Imagine.”

[Culture and Fantasy]

The vast majority of fantasy is Eurocentric, almost universally told through the lens of European culture and mythos, with 'other' cultures used only as 'exotic flavor' or appropriated as foils for the main characters, not as fully fleshed voices of their own. How does this fact affect young fantasy readers from other cultures, and their ability to write their own fantasy stories from their own mythologies? Deepa D. describes her own experiences trying to create a fantasy novels from her own Indian perspective, and how difficult it is for people who try to break out of the Western-dominated fantasy formula:

When I was around thirteen years old, I tried to write a fantasy novel. It was going to be an epic adventure with a cross-dressing princess on the run, a snarky hero, and dragons. I got stuck when I had to figure out what they would do after they left the city. Logically, there would be a tavern.

But there were no taverns in India. Write what you know is a rule that didn’t really need to be told to me; after having spent my entire life reading books in English about people named Peter and Sally, I wanted to write about the place I lived in, even if I didn’t have a whole bookcase of Indian fantasy world-building to steal from. And I couldn’t get past the lack of taverns. Even now, I have spent a number of years trying to figure out how cross-dressing disguise would work in a pre-Islamic India where the women went bare-breasted. When I considered including a dragon at the end of a story, I had to map out their route to the Himalayas, because dragons can be a part of a Tibetan Buddhist tradition—they do not figure in Hindu mythology.

There are far more eloquent writers who have pointed out how difficult it is to growing up reading books (and watching movies) about a culture alien to you, and how pernicious the influences thereof can be. I am lucky in that Indian culture is more widely represented in Western media than other colonised regions—when I talk about Bollywood in the yuletide chat room, there are people who have an idea about what I might be referring to, bastardised ideas of ‘pundit’ and ‘caste system’ and ‘karma’ and ‘reincarnation’ are present in the English vocabulary. Yet still, my ability to connect fannishly with people from different parts of the world is mediated through the coloniser’s language and representation. Enid Blyton, with her hideous caricatures of African tribal boys helping the intrepid British children is read from Johannesburg to Jaipur—Iktomi stories are not.

These imbalances of power are what frustrate me in several discussions regarding issues of representation and diversity in writing that I’ve seen recently.

The rest of the thought-provoking essay is here.

I think the true potential of Fantasy as a genre is rather stunted by the fact that Tolkein's worldbuilding conventions are used almost universally, while there is no similar work for non-European mythologies to use as a foundation. This results in the genre being dominated by only one style of culture, which tends to treat and view anything from outside as 'alien' or 'other', rather than those views ever being used as stories in and of themselves.

[What's the Deal With Twilight?]

  My personal feelings about this series' popularity are summed up in this comic and in the hilarious book reviews by Cleolinda.

  I mean, vampire romances are legion. There are lots of far better written stories out there with characters that are not TSTL (too stupid to live) abusive, shallow, and mary sue-ish. Yet, just like with Eragon, magazines went ga-ga over it (calling it the next Harry Potter? Seriously?!) and it's fans squee over it's mediocrity with frightening intensity.

  Is it just because its fans have never read a good paranormal romance, or are that many people's idea of 'romance' really that screwed up? If Edward wasn't a vampire, would the reactions even be so intense? Because if you remove all the paranormal trappings (and rainbow glitter) the relationships in these books are just plain dysfunctional, and only get worse as the series goes on.

  In an environment where there are so many better paranormal romantic books out there as alternatives, why is Twilight singled out at the one most worthy of all this praise? I just can't understand it.

Extra: A fun podcast about fandom in general, Twilight, relationships, feminism, and a slew of other things. =)

[Mother 3 Fan Translation!]

As a big fan of the quirky SNES game Mother 2 (EarthBound in the States), I was hugely excited at the announcement of a sequel being made on the GBA. I was equally let down when, even after a fan letter campaign, Nintendo chose not to release it in english.

But never fear! The great folks at Starmen.net have finally finished their fan-translation of the game! If you loved the original EarthBound, you'll want to check this out. =)

[Not My Rant, But a Good One]

A great three-part rant on the history and social relevance of Sci-Fi: "A Galaxy Far Far Away My Ass!"

A must-watch for SciFi geeks everywhere. =)

[Not Gaming, But Still Geek-related]

This story just blew my mind, I can't help but snark about it:

Now a fixture at Department of Homeland Security science and technology conferences, SIGMA is a loosely affiliated group of science fiction writers who are offering pro bono advice to anyone in government who want their thoughts on how to protect the nation.

The group has the ear of Department of Homeland Security Undersecretary Jay Cohen, head of the science and technology directorate, who has said he likes their unconventional thinking. Members of the group recently offered a rambling, sometimes strident string of ideas at a panel discussion promoting the group at the DHS science and technology conference.

Among the group’s approximately 24 members is Larry Niven, the bestselling and award-winning author of such books as “Ringworld” and “Lucifer’s Hammer,” which he co-wrote with SIGMA member Jerry Pournelle.

Niven said a good way to help hospitals stem financial losses is to spread rumors in Spanish within the Latino community that emergency rooms are killing patients in order to harvest their organs for transplants.

“The problem [of hospitals going broke] is hugely exaggerated by illegal aliens who aren’t going to pay for anything anyway,” Niven said.

“Do you know how politically incorrect you are?” Pournelle asked.

“I know it may not be possible to use this solution, but it does work,” Niven replied.

Words fail. I always knew Niven was a bit of an ass but I'm still baffled at his 'logic' (and really, the entire SIGMA concept itself -- I mean, wtf thought that was a good idea?).

[Final Fantasy VII - Voices of the Lifestream]

I'm a big fan of video game music, and this huge FF7 anniversary remix project is just amazing! Check it out; if you're a fan of Final Fantasy music, you're gonna love this. =)

[I'm Colorblind; I See Everyone as White]

This essay on race in Legend of Earthsea is really amazing. Being white myself, I never ever thought about any of those things or how they might affect someone else. It's a real eye-opener.

It also makes the mini-series and anime of the books, where everyone is cast as white, really kind of embarassing.