So it’s true: Feminists have started ruining video games with all their feminism. At least according to some dude called pullupjumper on MGTOWforums who recently wrote a post warning his fellow red pill dudebros about a little game called The Last of Us, which is not only filled with zombies but, get this, girls.
For anyone who plays video games as one of their hobbies, The Last of Us is a pretty fun game…. but…. The feminist messages were close to ruining a game I waited a year for… The game’s setting is in a zombie apocalyptic world and the basic story (no spoilers) is that this guy has to take a 14 year old girl across the country during the zombie apocalypse. Almost as soon as the story started, I knew pretty much every female character in the game (except for the main protagonists daughter) would be portrayed as a”bad ass” character. The message was clear, women are as strong as men… Even when they are only 14.
Also, there were some adult ladies in positions of authority!
During the game , the two main characters meet different survivor groups. Every group leader was a woman. The only group leader who was a man, was a bad guy. The main protagonist even said yes ma’am, no ma’am to these women.
CAN YOU IMAGINE.
Now before you all go, but isn’t this sort of complaining a little hypocritical, given that all these video game dudes got mad when that chick Anita Sarkeesian who isn’t even a real gamer because of boobies made those videos she totally stole all that money for because IT’S ONLY A GAME, LADY JEEZ DON’T RUIN EVERYTHING WITH YOUR STUPID GENDER ANALYSIS.
Well, no, it’s not totally hypocritical because, get this, the girls in The Last of Us are portrayed as being unnaturally strong and capable.
What was pretty funny though is that the 14 year old girl is able to fire a rifle THAT IS BIGGER THAN HER and fire it accurately.
This is a clear affront to the extreme naturalism and realism of a game about a ZOMBIE APOCALYPSE.
And clearly never before in video game history has any male character been portrayed as unnaturally strong or capable.
Oh but it gets worse:
On the other hand, (not funny) another boy who was about the 14 year old girls age, was portrayed as weak, could not fight, could not shoot a gun and was just made to seem very weak. The Fems cant even leave their “girl power” out of the games.
A male character who is helpless and in need of rescue?
OH NO!
SAVE ME PRINCESS PEACH!
Happily, pullupjumper has an idea for a way to confront this creeping feminism:
Maybe, if any of you are interested, a couple of us can get together and start making our own games after these games become unbearable. What do you guys think?
Grimlock is right there with him:
I’m currently going to school for media arts and animation and am considering starting a small indy animation/film studio with a couple of guys from class. I also happen to be getting pretty good at 3d modeling … and even though i want to start with animation and film video games are my end game.
I don’t think I’d ever put an obvious message into a game, since I find pushing your belief onto others through mediums like videogames more than a little cunty, but will my games be misogynist? You better fucking believe it. Misogyny The likes of which will make duke nukem blush. I won’t need to tell you guys when I break into the industry, you’ll know it from the sheer uproar it’ll cause.
Misogyny … in video games? Now there’s a novel idea!
—
Oh, by the way, for new and/or extremely literal readers, I would like to point out that this post contains
In Sweden it’s historically been very rare to neuter/spay dogs (although it’s slowly getting more common). And yet you never see a homeless dog here, and there are far fewer shelters taking care of unwanted dogs than in, say, the USA. The biggest shelter in Stockholm rehome about 150 dogs a year.
Homeless cats on the other hand are a dime a dozen and the shelters are struggling desperately to cope, despite constant s/n campaigns.
Bottom line is, you can’t really compare cats and dogs, because dogs are kept under control in a way that cats aren’t. You can have a country full of unaltered dogs with no ill effects – cats, on the other hand, reproduce like crazy unless you n/s them…
I’m tired of the zombie genre of movies and books. I think the whole thing has run its course. Please, writers, if you want to show a dystopian, post apocalyptic world, come up with a new idea to set it up.
Oh, me too. Of all horror movies, I think The Blob is the scariest, both the 50’s version and the one from the 80’s. You can shoot a zombie, but your firearms are useless against the blob. It just keeps growing so you can’t run away from it either. If it weren’t for Steve McQueen and those fire extinguishers, it would eventually consume the entire planet.
I can not watch anything that shows children being hurt. If a child is threatened or scared in a horror movie, I stop watching. Thankfully, most writers won’t show animals, children, babies, or elderly people as victims, because it’s too upsetting for viewers.
I agree, they need to spend less time fantasizing about being a bad ass, and more time thinking of daily living. Okay, so they have a plan with how to deal with invasions or threats like that, but no plan with how to dispose of their waste. They need to figure out how to make cesspits, or else cholera would be their biggest threat.
Dvarghundspossen,
Tumblr is weird about those things. Just look at all the Eric Harris fan girls.
Eric Harris was one of the columbine shooters. He was diagnosed as a psychopath after he died. He was obsessed with Nazis and was… Well a psychopath. He wasn’t bullied really that much, he actually bragged about bullying “fags” in his diary. He was actually well loved by his teachers and friends. It is really obvious his motive for the shooting wasn’t bullying, but rather wanting to kill hundreds* of people, yet his fans still want to pretend he was some bullied kid that was manipulated into killing by Dylan Klebold(ironically, Dylan’s motive was revenge for bullying/depression, and he was often manipulated by Eric).
*They planned to kill everyone with bombs, but the bombs thankfully didn’t go off since they were so bad at building them.
Re: vampires vs. zombies, I remember once reading something to the effect that vampires typically represent how the poor view the rich and zombies represent how the rich view the poor or the commoners. It makes sense to me–vampires themselves are usually depicted as wealthy/aristocratic, they stay sequestered in their lairs most of the time and are rarely seen, they sometimes kill outright but more often make slaves of ordinary people and gradually sap the life out of them. Zombies, on the other hand, are everywhere, are practically indistinguishable from one another, are unremarkable in ability but will nonetheless overwhelm you and destroy your individuality if you don’t destroy or contain them first. Even the appearance of the two monsters contains class cues–vampires dress well and zombies wear the rags of whatever they were in when they were turned.
And so it’s rather telling that in modern American media, vampires are increasingly becoming good guys while zombies remain as horrific as ever.
@Augzilliary. ugh. That’s way worse than swooning over an imaginary killer.
@Karalora, that rings a bell, I think I might have read the same thing somewhere.
I have this big coffee table book about zombies, with long texts about zombies in pop culture as well as research on the zombie myth. There was this anthropologist (don’t remember the name right now since it was some time I read the book) who argued that in Haiti, people would be turned into “zombies” by giving a special poison that would make them seemingly dead, and when they’d wake up, they’d be easily controlled and easily suggestible and could be used as workers. I’m sure you’ve heard about that, it’s a really common explanation of where the zombie myth comes from. But apparently, lots of other anthropologists have since doubted the story of the first anthropologist for a variety of reasons. The most common theory nowadays is that “zombie” workers in Haiti were either just beaten and maltreated into apathy and submission, or possibly in some cases mentally disabled people who were taken advantage of. That’s IMO more disturbing than the first story featuring mysterious poisons…
In the topic of zombies everywhere, is anyone reading the manga “I am a hero”? It’s one of the best works of fiction about zombies I have read, with a very original (in my opinion) take on their nature and behaviour. The development of the main character is realistic, the women characters are well written, and the artwork is beautiful!
They can come over to my house and I will beat their asses.
It’s funny that we’re having this conversation now, since I just finished re-reading Carpe Jugulum. I’d forgotten the scene where Agnes wakes up with poppy seeds in her bra because the villagers thought she might be about to turn into a vampire.
I loved the way he resolved things with the villagers being fine with the old Count who didn’t pretend not to be a monster but pissed off with the “modern” vampires who tried to create a bloodsucker farming system.
Regarding vampires, I’ve actually got another story series kicking around about non-rich vampires frantically trying to keep things going. Because I worked in health care, so I actually think about vampires with, “Huh, what would that do to their health insurance? Life insurance? Their job? What happens to their kids afterward?”
Because I got really sick of all the vampires being amoral, broody, ethereally beautiful and yet never lacking for money. What about the geezer vampires, the vampires with non-vampire children, the vampires with disabilities? (Don’t even get me started about how Louisiana is the big vampire haven and yet all of them are somehow miraculously WHITE.)
Besides, I worked with old folks in my last job. They had difficulty figuring out a FAX machine, and they were less than a century old. Imagine some poor old bastard who’s lived CENTURIES. They’d still be angry about Latin being dead!
LBT —
1) yes, more of that series too please
2) you need to read some basic Vampire the Masquerade rules. Shit like the inability to see your kids, outliving them, resources (is an actual spend XP on it thing), and wtf do you mean Latin is dead! To the point they imply you can tell how old a vampire is by how the dress, the language they use, what sort of tech (if any) they use.
…and things like “one arm” are listed in the Flaws section (it isn’t perfect…though that does give you points to spend elsewhere and really only means you can’t work two handed weapons)
RE: Argenti
God willing, the writeathon prompters and commishes shall provide!
I plan to keep Larry with his kids, because OMG too sad, but man, can you imagine the psychological horror of knowing that you will never grow older? That your children will seemingly age past you and then die? It’s an awful thing!
If there were vampire animals, that would be super adorable. Birds would have a hard time surviving though, since they have no teeth to suck blood.
Auggziliary — doesn’t stop bottom feeders! (Seriously, plec, with his rasping bits that feel like a cow licking you, managed to literally evicerate a loach. Birds could manage.)
RE: Argenti
D: I didn’t realize plecs were aggressive! Jeez.
They aren’t!!
It was the weirdest thing ever. I took a head count at breakfast, before I left for work, everyday. All loaches showed up. I come home 9~ hours later and there are guts strewn about my tank and plec is acting like he’s eating the best thing ever. I have no fucking clue what the FUCK went down!
RE: Argenti
Weird! We had one of those algae-suckers in our tank, back as kids, and we had a pretty aggressive tank, but it was the most placid thing ever. Most of the other fish didn’t mess with it either–and eating each other was a common malady of our fishes. (We got some from the shop, but others were netted out of the local creek. They were TOUGH beasties.)
Now I’m having images of penguins pecking at zookeepers trying to get blood.
Now I’m having images of penguins pecking at zookeepers trying to get blood.
Hmm, maybe they already are vampires. They’re certainly well-dressed, chilly and pompous-looking. Can’t you just imagine one waddling sulkily through a window to watch you sleep with it’s beady little eyes? So romantic. All the whore penguins in spanx are in love. 😀
In the US I think you can compare cats and dogs when it comes to spay/neuter, because there are large areas of the country where dogs are pretty much just left to their own devices. We do have a huge dog overpopulation problem in the country as a whole, though it does vary by region (in my state, we even have issues with packs of strays and coyote/dog hybrids attacking joggers, I’m not joking…but then, my state often resembles a developing nation).
It’s a cultural thing, though. In lots of the US, it’s considered normal to let your dog roam off your property if you live in “the country”…which very often means semi-rural subdivisions, or at least farms that are small enough that a dog who wants to breed can easily wander over to the neighbor’s. So basically, we don’t often control our dogs the way we should.
Granted, dogs have more limited fertility than cats so you don’t see quite the same population explosion, but it still can and has become a significant problem in some parts of the US.
For the record, I have no problems with intact dogs and have owned them myself. My GSD would actually be intact except he developed major dog aggression problems and neutering him was the best way to deal with that in our situation (and worked a charm, let me tell you). And I have no problem with cultures where it’s normal to leave your dog intact and manage them responsibly (like Sweden). I do generally advocate for spay/neuter in general in the US, but that’s simply because we apparently have a hard time controlling our dogs and keeping them from breeding.
@Dvärghundspossen In both Being Human versions I always preferred the werewolves to the vampires, hands down… esp Michael Socha… unf
The werewolf characters were just always way more sympathetic.
But yeah, as for tumblr fandom of mass murderers who happen to be “cute…” ugh. I can’t even….
Regarding vampires, F. Paul Wilson wrote a vampire novel “Midnight Mass”. The monsters are old school vampires, who have enough intelligence left to be dangerous but no apparent humanity. Nasty things, to be sure. Some of them are out and out revenants – mindless killing and eating machines. The plot has some squicky moments, but it’s a nice romp in an escapist way. There’s also “The Strain” by Guillermo del Toro, which has a gruesome King Vampire villain.
I played Vampire the Masquerade some years ago. My character had been raised Seventh Day Adventist, and was horrified to learn that he’d have to start drinking blood. He protested “But I’ve been a vegetarian my whole life!” and another new vampire told him “if it makes you feel any better, you’re not alive any more.”
Which seems an odd thing to say, doesn’t it – they’re walking, talking, thinking, they need sustenance. Sounds like they’re alive to me. 🙂
@AK: Well, if dogs are gonna roam around off your property, they’d certainly need to be s/n, just like cats. 🙂
@Kitten: Yeah, I think so too. The whole “undead” thing is weird when applied to creatures that actually have a mind (although I can understand why you’d call someone “undead” rather than living when the body keeps moving but the mind is gone).
@Jessay: Yeah, the werewolves were totally more sympathetic. Plus, being a werewolf was a real curse. You’re just like anybody except that vampires wanna bully you for 27 days, and on the 28:th day you turn into a murderous monster who can’t think.
I think the idea of dragging a dead chicken around the woods so your werewolf self will have a track to follow was pretty funny, too. Dogs who are gonna be used to find wild animals injured from traffic accidents are taught to track by a human dragging a chopped-off leg of a deer or moose through the woods while also splashing some blood around. Many people do this for a hobby, even if their dog is never gonna be used at traffic accidents. Even dogs who aren’t that interested in tracking mere humans, often are very fond of following tracks that smell of blood and dead animals. I wonder if the creators of the show have ever done this with dogs, and that’s where they came up with the idea…
“Undead” makes enough sense as a term if someone’s meant to have died and risen as a vampire, but it still doesn’t mean they’re not alive (yeah I know, contradictory) for me. They’re postponing physical death indefinitely and they don’t generally age, so it’s a very different sort of life, but I wouldn’t call it not being alive, not when the mind/personality are intact. That’s one thing I wondered about with vampire legends and the early fiction: was it meant to be the soul of the person animating the vampire, or an evil spirit or some sort of demon? Makes the whole thing quite different in terms of the “poor damned soul” meme.
My favourite series is Fred Saberhagen’s take on Dracula. The Dracula Tape is like a long snark at some of Stoker’s stranger bits, especially when Saberhagen/Dracula gets stuck into Van Helsing.
Les Daniels’ Don Sebastian series is good (I’ve read three, I think) but a bit depressing.
I think the original idea behind blood-drinking is that, as the Bible says, the soul rests in the blood. When you die, your soul leaves your body, meaning it can’t move about any more nor think or feel. By constantly supplying the body with more blood, you’re constantly pouring more “soul-stuff” into it, giving it the ability to move about and perhaps, to a certain extent, think and feel as well. But it’s a sort of ersatz life… not quite as living for real.
That’s how I understand the old vampire myths and the idea of blood drinking. (But someone who knows more than me about folklore, feel free to correct me.)