Prospero's Super Happy Fun Time Bloggy Thread

[Prospero101]

Ladies and gentlemen are you ready to HUUUUUUUUUUUMBLE yourself before God! Please welcome, His Holiness the Pope!

Wait.

No, sorry, it's just me. Welcome to my semi-public tricorder! Read, don't read, reply, don't reply, I don't care. I just want a place to spew where I feel safe doing it, and the LRR forums are the safest place online for me.

So Ubisoft stirred up a lot of ire online during E3 this week by saying that they didn't include female assassins in Assassin(')s (seriously, is there a fucking apostrophe or not) Creed: Unity because it was too much work. Despite the fact that the MOST FAMOUS ASSASSIN OF THE FRENCH REVOLUTION WAS A TRULY BADASS WOMAN.

If I were a diplomat, I'd call it "misplaced conceit," but I'm not, so I'll call it "frothing, bug-eyed self-delusion." E3 has always been a depressing week for me as a gamer, and I usually tend to retreat from social media entirely apart from the occasional satirical jab on Twitter, befitting to my customary yelling into the void of the universe. But whenever the games industry gets me down, I can look to comics and smile.

"Comics, Prospero?" You say, scratching that pulsating tumorous itch that formed on your left shoulder after the last Watch and Play. "You mean the medium with all those victimized, powerless women in spandex bikinis waiting to be rescued by big, strong men? How is that any comfort in the face of Ubisoft?"

First of all, please shut up. I hate it when people interrupt me. Second of all, ye of little faith, you're just not looking hard enough. While the Big Two (which is to say, Marvel and DC) sometimes have that problem (but not in all cases, as you'll see in a moment), the indie comics scene has been charging along with a blatant disregard for your labels, man (boy am I abusing the hell out of the parenthetical in this paragraph).

EXHIBIT A: RED SONJA

Now, I will admit that Red Sonja as a character has a bit of a...checkered past. Originally developed in the seventies as a female counterpart to Conan: The Barbarian, she was the archetypal beautiful female barbarian. Brutally raped by marauding bandits because she couldn't lift her brother's sword (yuuup, but bear with me), Sonja is given supernatural fighting skills by the goddess Scathach in answer to her cry for revenge (because what lady could fight on her own, amirite).

HAVING SHED FAT, the new Red Sonja is much, much different. Revamped in 2010 by the ever-fantastic Gail Simone for Dynamite Comics, the new Sonja is badass, confident, and in control. In her new origin story, she is captured as a slave and forced to perform gladiatorial combat each and every day, killing just to stay alive. Eventually only her and her dearest friend Annisia remain, to be forced to kill each other the next morning. But the keep they are held in is liberated just in time, freeing the two. They go their separate ways, and Sonja hones her skills on her own (no divine gifts this time) so that she is never a victim again. The new Red Sonja is a total badass, who does what she wants, dresses how she wants, acts like she wants. She is totally in control of herself, and that, I think, is the definition of feminism.

EXHIBIT B: MS. MARVEL

Ms. Marvel is a super-old character that I can't get into without going completely cross-eyed. Suffice to say she was originally a pretty blonde named Carol Danvers and she was basically Superman in some seriously wedgie-inducing tights. Okay? Okay.

The new Ms. Marvel, relaunched earlier this year with newcomer G. Willow Wilson at the helm, is Kamalah Khan, a young Muslim girl living in Jersey City. Kamala is short, dark-skinned, meek, nerdy, and pretty much the opposite of what Carol Danvers represented. Accidentally exposed to the Terrigen Mists (a radioactive gas used by the secret race known as the Inhumans to bestow certain powers on its royal family and get around their genetic deterioration and OH GOD THERE IT GOES AGAIN), Kamalah gains shapeshifting powers, the ability to grow, shrink and even change her appearance. Kamalah adopts the Ms. Marvel identity (Carol Danvers is now Captain Marvel for reasons that I can't get into without providing ten years' worth of context) and wrestles with the ideas of not only being inherently different as a Muslim child of Pakistani immigrants, but having to deal with superpowers as well. It's funny and smart and amazing and READ IT, DAMN YOU.

I could go on. There's Fatale, Velvet, American Vampire, most of the work of Ed Brubaker...but we've reached Massive Fuckoff Wall of Text already, so I'll let you go. For now, when you get frustrated at the state of feminism and diversity in games, take a breather and find a good comic. And remember, in the case of atomic emergency, don't forget to tune to 640 or 1240 on your standard radio receiver!

[Volafortis]

If anyone ever wants to read strong female characters in a comic series, read Niel Gaiman's The Sandman series.

In fact, just read The Sandman anyway. It's fantastic, and doesn't need any qualification attached to it. It's easily my favorite work in the medium, ever.

[Prospero101]

It's my general idea that anyone who's read comics has red the Sandman. It's the masterwork of the medium. I'm more trying to point people in more obscure directions.

[Valkyrie-Lemons]

Pffft. The reason that women aren't in video games is the exact reason women shouldn't vote.

They're too irrational, I don't want to lose the level simply because my female character is to 'emotional' and can't concentrate on the task at hand. If I'm bad at the game, it's definitely due to the fact my character is a women, and nothing to do with me.

Ubisoft are right. They do take too much time to code into a game, creating layer upon layer of useless irrationalism when you could spend that time refining other aspects of the game. Who wants well defined characters, with stupid 'emotions', when you can have a better represented AK-47 that fire more realistically?

Who needs women role models anyway? It's not like almost half of all gamers are women.

[My pseudonym is Ix]

I'd point out the existence of Strong Female Protagonist (the unashamedly awesome webcomic) if I weren't sure everyone clued up on this topic has read it.

I'll still point it out anyway though

Oh and btw Prospero- nice idea for a thread. If I manage to get back into blogging over the summer, I might start linking them here. Random nerdy conversation tangents defines most of my bloggy material.

[Prospero101]

NO, THIS IS MY THREAD, IX! ONLY I GET TO PLAY WITH IT!

No, I'm kidding. Sounds fun. I'll be using this thread to ramble about anything I'm interested in, so if you write up a post that's relevant to the conversation, feel free to link it.

[ocelotteranian]

Not quite a superhero, but I feel compelled to recommend the Princeless series, here. It's about a bad ass princess called Adrienne who decides to break out of her tower, team up with her dragon, and go about rescuing her sisters from their own towers. The whole series is brimming with cutting examinations of gender roles, dynamic and self-possessed women of all personalities, and a vigorous exploration of the racism in most fantasy settings (did I mention our protagonist is Black?). Oh yeah——and it's GUT-BUSTINGLY funny.

The vital stats:
Princeless by Jeremy Whitley
Published by Action Lab
First trade paperback is called Save Yourself

[Hepheastus]

So on the subject of strong female characters in gaming, I was going back through my game collection one afternoon when board and I found a gem of a character that I had overlooked on my first play through. I found a genuinely likable, sympathetic, realistic, strong female character in the most unlikely of places... In Warhammer 40,000 Space Marine (Yes I am that cool, Guard and Necrons FTW)
There is a character called Lieutenant (pronounced LEFT-tenant gorram it) Mira. Mira is the most senior surviving officer left on a planet overrun by Orks. All the Imperial forces, the uncounted millions of soldier have been reduced to barely more than a few thousand. Every General and Colonel and senior officer is dead and the only person left who can lead is a Lieutenant, someone who was trained to lead no more than 50 men. Not only have the remnants lasted months cut off and alone but they are still putting up a fight. The Space Marine party members on learning this mention how remarkable it is for anyone to achieve this. Now that's my point. What Mira has done is not remarkable because she's a woman, It's just remarkable full-stop.
I don't try to defend the majority of the Video Games industry, not when good games like Remember Me almost can't get published because they have a female protagonist, or that it was a fight just to get women represented in FPS Games, but occasionally through intention of accident there are some really good characters.

I don't know much about Comics but I wanted to contribute

[My pseudonym is Ix]

So yeah, you know I said I might start blogging again?

I done and did: http://ixtheessayist.wordpress.com/

Nothing to do with comic books as yet, but hey. It's pretty threadbare atm, but if anyone wants to shoot down my writing style or give me any pointers, I'd be happy to listen.

[Prospero101]

Alright, Ubisoft. I didn't want to keep beating on this drum. But now you've gone and made me blow the dust off the mallets again.

So the Ubisoft "no female assassins because lazy" controversy was probably the single most interesting part of E3 this year, aside from that bit where David Cage bites the head off an effigy of Jim Sterling in front of a tech demo for Heavy Rain Remastered, and...

...what? Oh, I dreamed that?

Okay, so E3 was boring as shit. At any rate, the Ubisoft thing generated the most buzz out of anything from E3. With good reason, because it is, to quote our glorious Cammunist Leader, "rampaging horseshit."

But do you smell that? That's right, just when you thought the excrement dried up, the poor sickly horse trots through the house again, leaving a fresh trail. For those of you who may not know, Jessica Nigri is a professional cosplayer, enthusiastic nerd, and all-around sexy lady. Apparently she's doing some official shoot with Ubisoft for Assassin's Creed Unity.

Oh, I get it, Ubisoft. You can't make female models because it's too much work, but you're more than happy to USE female models to promote the game. That's super classy.