Geek Girls Rule #44 – Gamestorm 2008

Mr. Geek Girl What Rules and I went to Gamestorm in Vancouver, WA this weekend.  And boy, did I need that.  With all the illness and the to do with NorwesCon, I just needed a chance to relax somewhere with no expectations on my person.

We drove down in a series of snowstorms Friday evening, and just hung out with one of our AmberConNW buddies, Pol.  Just being chill.

Saturday we got up and went to play Prime Time Adventures with Pol, his wife Karrin and some other folks.  We came up with the series Funkula, about a nine-piece Funk Band that killed vampires.  Basically in this world, evil was defeated with the power of Funk, and defeating evil powered Funk in a self-perpetuating cycle.   It was a blast.  Essentially, in that world The Red Hot Chili Peppers used to be vampire killers, and then right after Blood Sugar Sex Magick they were turned into vampires.  Hey, our world, we make it up.

The rest of Saturday I didn’t really do much until a 10pm Horror Rules game.  Horror Rules is a game where you play horror movie trope characters.  This particular game was a total meatgrinder, where we all just went in knowing we were going to die.  When it was down to one of my characters and one other guy, we were given 30 seconds to convince the other, dead, characters that we were the one who should live.  My impassioned plea for them to save themselves from my narcissistic, criminal ass for all eternity came to nought when my competition said that he was obsessed with jigsaw puzzles with ducks on them, and would talk about them forever.  Bastard.  I did get a lovely pair of monster eye deely-boppers out of the deal.

This morning I and several of my female friends attended the “Lady Gamer Tea” which was lovely.  We met several really awesome girl gamers from the Portland area.  (Hi, guys!)  Then we attended a panel called “Why does gaming mostly appeal to guys?”  The title of which we took exception to.  Fortunately all of the panelists felt this way as well.  However, if I have to hear one more guy talk about how girls play with Barbies until they’re ready for something more, I am going to kick him in the shins.  We kind of took over, explaining that girls had been more or less excluded from gaming for years.  Nearly every woman there had a story about not being able to game when she first wanted to because she had been told that girls didn’t game or couldn’t game.

After the panels, four of us girls ran up to Powell’s for some book shopping, and then came back for some zombie gaming run by my Boy.  We only lost one character.  Woot!

All in all Gamestorm was a brilliant experience.  I, and all the other women I talked to, felt really welcomed there.  The gaming was brilliant.   People were really super nice.  It just a lot of fun!  I highly recommend this convention to any girl gamers, experienced or newbies.

The Geek Girl What Rules’ Greatest Hits – #7 Chuck Austen’s Head on a Stick

(One of the original Media Gauntlet columns)

Okay, it’s no secret. I am a huge fangirl for Nightcrawler. I have been since, oh, 1990 and no, I’m not going to tell you how old I was at the time. I collect Nightcrawler statues, busts and action figures. I have the Marvel Tarot set (Major Arcana only) that was printed in Italy, because Nightcrawler is the Hanged Man. I have pins, t-shirts, posters. I am a huge mark for Nightcrawler.

So can any of you tell me why, when I read the culmination of a storyline featuring Nightcrawler, by Chuck Austen, I shrieked in disgust and rage and threw the comic across the store? (I paid for it, being a friend’s store and all.)

Class? Bueller? Anyone?

For starters, I’d like to know who Chuck Austen had to blow to get a gig at Marvel, because I’m reasonably sure my oral sex skills FAR surpass his. Okay, maybe not, because no one’s ever hired me to shit all over 20+ years of established canon. Wow, three years and I’m still this pissed off.

Ah, yes, Austen and his “vision” of the X-Men as agents of divine and diabolic machinations. Keep your stinky religion out of my comic books, Chuck.

Okay, okay, back to the point. Believe it or not, I have one, and not that Austen just plain sucks, everyone already knows that. No, the point is that one of the CONSTANT themes of the X-Men through the years is that, while they have these powers and may well be the next step in evolution, they never forget their humanity, never forget that they’re human first. Its all part of Xavier’s dream. Nightcrawler in particular looks like a demon but he’s not, and his humanity, as much as his spirituality, are fundamental to the character’s raison d’être. And kind of the point of the whole comic, that regardless of how people look or act, they’re still people.

But this is not good enough for Austen. In his zealousness to be “outré” he decides that Nightcrawler becoming a priest was all a front for an anti-mutant organization, The Church of Humanity*, because THEY KNEW HIS DAD WAS THE DEVIL! ZOMG!! WTFBBQ!!! Ok, not THE Devil, but a demon. Yeah. Bite me, Austen.

Need I go on (and on) about how this totally refutes the years of canon AND the whole point of the bloody character? And yes, I’m aware of the “But Azazel’s just a demonic looking mutant” who happens to live forever, gets banished to a realm of fire and brimstone, and just happens to have hung out with a group of guys whose name is a mangled, bastardization of the biblical term Nephilim. And yes, I get it, its Austen’s incredibly clumsy, awkward, adolescent attempt to “stick it to the Man” by deriding the Christian religion, “Why yes, your church is built on mutants, there is no God. Mwaa haa haaaaa!” I can just see him twirling a false Snidely Whiplash mustache in demented glee. Gag.

Ahhhh!!!! This is why at the top of my wish list for every Yule and Birthday you’ll find the item: “Chuck Austen’s head on a stick.”

It’s also one of the few times I’ve been grateful for the Marvel Multi-verse.

*We won’t get into Catholic versus Protestant views of the Rapture and why that whole plot was incredibly stupid, Nightcrawler’s parentage aside.

 

Edited to add:  As much as I love Nightcrawler, even I can’t bring myself to pay $300 for the new Nightcrawler bust.  Not without an animatronic mouth and super cunnilingus action.

Geek Girls Rule 43.5 – LGBT Sci Fi/Fantasy & Comics Fandom and Gamers

For those of you who don’t know, for the last couple of years I have done the Alternate Lifestyles programming at NorwesCon, a Seattle-area SF/F convention. What this means is that I get to do the programming for Polyamory, BDSM, Sexuality, Goth, Fanfic and a whole lot of other things that don’t really fit anywhere else. This includes the LGBT programming (Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender/sexual).

Now, SF/F conventions on the whole are pretty comfortable and safe places to be Out, that is, to be openly Gay/Queer. I can hold hands with my girlfriend, for example, and mostly not have to worry about anyone reacting negatively. I have Trans friends who can dress as whichever Gender they are more comfortable as, and be safe. However, as someone pointed out in one of the LGBT Panels I ran this year, the Convention, while safe, is still a largely Hetero-normative space filled with Straight guys and Straight or Bi- girls. My first instinct was to blow this off and be all protective of the Con-space. But after thinking about it for awhile, I saw that the gentleman in question was right, and thankfully he gave me the opportunity to apologize to him.

Because when I really thought about it, he was right. Most of the Con programming, apart from the very few panels on the Alt. Lifestyles track, when they do deal with Gender or Sexuality, deal only with the Binary model of male and female, usually Heterosexual. And then someone brought up the issue of Queer Gamers, and honest to Gods, apart from myself and some of the girls in the Girl Game, I couldn’t think of any Queer Gamers. Now whether this is due to an antipathy toward the LGBT from Gaming culture, or due to an antipathy toward Gaming on the part of Queer culture, I don’t know.

Partially, I blame this on a lack of Queer characters in the SF/F media. I mean, let’s face it, for mainstream media Inara’s Bisexuality on Firefly (if you blinked you might have missed it) and Capt. Jack Harkness on Dr. Who and Torchwood are about it for Out Queer characters. In comics you have Batwoman and her former partner, Northstar in Marvel, and… there’s a few more, but no names are immediately leaping to mind. (Granted after I write this I’m going to get about a bazillion replies giving me more Queer characters I’ve missed. Which is awesome!) While there are more to choose from in SF/F literature, they are still vastly under-represented, and WELL written Queer characters are even more rare.

Gaming itself has a relatively bad reputation for Homophobic behavior, if not actual Homophobia. Now, now, don’t get all defensive on me. It pains me to say this as much, if not more than it pains you to read it. I love Gaming, but there are some behaviors I could decidedly live without.

In the next panel, I asked everyone what they wanted to see, and they overwhelmingly said that they wanted more LGBT panels (held during daylight hours), they wanted a Gay Social or Mixer of some sort. I, however, have decided that maybe we need to have a teeny bit more of a presence than that. I’m looking to start up an LGBT Fandom group to just be present, offer support to anyone coming out or thinking of coming out, organize things like the Queer Mixer, etc…

But I’d like to hear from you guys, Queer or Straight, what do you think? Do you feel that Cons are a safe place? Would you like to see more LGBT programming, or at the very least, an attempt to make sure that all Gender possibilities are covered in panels on Gender and SF/F? Are you a Queer Gamer? How do you feel about that? Are you Out to your gaming buddies? Do you think my assessment of perception of Gamers is fair or true? Do you think that having a more visible or Out presence at Cons (SF/F and Gaming) will help? Would you like to join my treehouse gang, either as Queer or as an Ally? Do you think I’m just being ridiculous and all us Queers need to get over ourselves?

I want to hear your opinions, people.

The Geek Girl What Rules’ Greatest Hits – #6 Comic Fangirl Angst

Okay, I’ve started this column three or four times, and I could not figure out why I kept blocking on it. Then I figured out a couple reasons.

A.  I was trying to hard to sound polished and not my usual ranty self.

B.  I was afraid of sounding too shrill and alienating boys. Then, after a long talk with my own personal Boy, I decided, screw it. 

Now, bear in mind that I’m bi. I like girls. I like looking at girls, at all kinds of girls just like I like looking at boys. I’ve done porn, I’ve written porn, I’ve photographed for a pornographic calendar. I collect pin-up art of men and women. I dig on the nude and nearly nude female form easily as much as any boy out there. 

That said, WHAT THE FUCKING HELL IS WRONG WITH THE PEOPLE COMING UP WITH, WRITING AND DRAWING FEMALE SUPERHEROES?

Knowing, as you now do, that I like girls you might ask, “What is she on about?” Well, let me tell you. Their proportions are totally wrong, most of them run around half naked in combat situations, they wear spike heels to fight crime, and do not even get me started on the moralistic bullshit “punishment” of female characters who own their own sexuality. I can’t cover everything here, but I’ll try to touch on most of it.

Footwear: Have any of these folks tried to walk in four inch stiletto heels, let alone perform some crotch-baring judo kicks? I have. The walking, not so much with the judo kicks. It’s difficlut enough fighting gravity in those things, let alone crime. When I wore them a lot, and I did, I would generally have a couple of very strong, very nice guys carry me somewhere I could sit and pose for a few hours. I might dance a little bit in them, and then they’d come off in favor of shoes that weren’t actively trying to kill me. Platforms and coffin heels, while more stable and comfortable, still not a particularly strong base for a fighting stance.

Costumes: Ok, I understand the “necessity” for skintight costumes on heroes of both genders. They’re aerodynamic, hard to grab onto in a fight, blah blah blah… But an awful lot of the female costumes go beyond the pale. As much as I can totally see that Emma Frost’s costume fits with her personality (owns her own sexuality, uses every advantage), is one of her X-powers telekinetically keeping that thing on her tits? And there are some superheroines with costumes that do not fit with their personalities, take Dagger of Cloak & Dagger for instance. There is nothing in her personality to indicate that she would be the type of woman to wear a costume with a neckline that plunges to her pubic hair. Not to mention the combat liabilities of such an outfit. And why aren’t the guys wearing similarly skimpy outfits? Nightcrawler’s a ladies’ man type, and fully aware of how much of a hottie he is, why isn’t he wearing something chest-baring and ass-enhancilng? Not to mention that one of Marvel’s most popular female heroes is Kitty Pryde, who is consistently modest and fully clothed. If Kitty can be popular with clothes on, why can’t Storm?

Battle Lingerie: Even when women in comics are depicted wearing armor (Witchblade, the Magdalene) it isn’t armor, its steel lingerie, battle bras and bullet-proof bikinis. Their armor bares midriffs, upper chests, most of the breasts, the asscheeks and thighs. Yeah, no major arteries or organs there. Come on, guys, seriously, pull your brains out of the little head and do some real armor design here.

Proportions: Apparently a facet of the X-gene is HUGE breasts and teeny little waists. Some of these girls make Barbie look like a cow. Really, guys, I know its fantasy, but Rogue in the Leifield days would have been crippled by the weight of her own breasts long before she could have absorbed Ms. Marvel’s powers. At some point I’m going to do an interview with a couple of friends of mine who have H or double-H cup breasts to give you an idea of what its really like carting around a couple of watermelons on your chest like that.  (For those of you who are breast-deprived, bra sizes start out at AA, A, B, C, D, DD, DDD, E, EE, F, FF, G, GG, H, and on up). 

Now, I’m waiting for the cries of, “But, but, they’re SUPERHEROES, they WORK OUT.” Yeah, but they look like that when first discovered before the working out starts. And male superheroes get to have different body types. Colussus, Wolverine, Cyclops, Nightcrawler, Puck from Alpha Flight, all have different body types, and that’s okay for them, but the women are all thin and willowy with GIGANTIC BOOBS and legs up to their necks. And, while I like girls that look like that, I also like girls who look like me and my girlfriends, all different sizes and shapes.  

Granted, being a reader of mostly Marvel and indie comics, I don’t have it as bad as the female DC fans. Good grief, it seems like the majority of feminist critiques on sexism in comic books that I read are railing against DC.  Sites like Girl-Wonder.org, while they don’t let Marvel or the indies off the hook entirely, seem directed mostly at the outrageous sexism in the DC universe. The fact that the majority of the female heroes who die in DC are killed not because they themselves are a threat, but because it will hurt a male character. The fact that most of the DC heroines who are hurt or killed are jumped and not given the opportunity to defend themselves, tortured, or raped. Female characters have things done TO them. Male characters are motivated by the suffering of those close to them, usually someone female, to DO things themselves.

Girl-Wonder.org and Friends of Lulu are working to dispel the sexism that is so predominant in the comic industry, both in the comics themselves and in the Boy’s Club that is writing and drawing mainstream comics. It’s because of reading them that made me want to sound as polished and together as these sharp ladies, but, then again, as I was raised to believe, Feminism needs all the voices and my rough, raunchy voice is just as valid as the coolly polished. Not to mention you have got to read the gal who writes “Girls Read Comics! (And they’re pissed)”.  She swears as much as I do.

 

Geek Girls Rule! #43 – A Time Before Law…

Playing Vincent Baker’s “In a Wicked Age” brought something to mind, that kind of drives me a little bonkers. Now, I want to start by saying that this is in no way a statement about the game or Mr. Baker. The game is really, really fun. I really enjoy the game, but there’s something in the way the world of the game is explained that makes my hackles raise, and it isn’t the fault of the game itself. It is, indeed, a part of the background of many, many fantasy games, novels, short stories, comics and films. It’s the assumption, whether IRL or in fiction, that there was this time without law where people were just completely wicked and horrible. That without laws handed down by some all-knowing Sky Father, we would just fuck, kill and thieve our way into oblivion.

It is an overly simplistic fantasy trope that really needs to just freaking go. It belies an arrogance in modern, usually Western, culture (or insert religion of your choice)  that without ( fill in the blank) we’re just simple-minded savages with no concept of (fill in the blank here). It’s also a concept that’s been used to justify the subjugation of innumerable peoples through the ages.  And, if we ever get off this mudball and start colonizing space, I’m sure it will be used again.  In fact, H. Beam Piper’s Fuzzy novels (Little Fuzzy, Fuzzy Sapiens, etc…) explore this concept beautifully.

In the Fuzzy novels, the intergalactic standard for a sapient race (not to be trifled with) is “Do they talk and have fire?”  Because language is a precursor to law and society.  When the Fuzzies are discovered, cute little critters who look like tallish marmosets, the only audible noise they make is a high-pitched squeak, which sounds nothing like speech to the humans who discover them, nor do they make fire.  So people start colonizing their world, and so begins a conflict.  Then a malfunctioning hearing aid allows the main character Jack Holloway to hear their ultrasonic speech, and then there’s a big to do about getting them declared sentient and an evil corporation, etc…  Which is sort of off-topic.

So, back to the idea of a time without law.  One reason that this sets me off so, is that it is real similar to the whole anti-Atheist idea that morality is dictated/created by religion and that if you don’t have a religion, then clearly you are an amoral beast.  Quite frankly, I am far more afraid of someone whose good behavior is motivated solely by their desire to please or avoid the anger of their Sky Father, than by someone who is a good person because they know for themselves that it is the right and good thing to do.  I mean, really what the Anti-Atheist people are saying is that “Without the threat of eternal damnation and the anger of the Sky Father, I would do horrible shit.  Ergo, I believe that since you don’t believe in the Sky Father you MUST be doing horrible shit.”

Quite frankly, these people scare the daylights out of me.  I much prefer folks who are actually good or who have fully internalized the idea of goodness as it’s own reward, as opposed to people who are being good solely to fend off an external threat.

And that’s why that trope bugs me so much.  “See, we were all amoral grubby beasts who stole, killed, raped and beat everything in sight until the Sky Father came down and told us what’s what.”

Seriously, it makes my skin crawl.

I’m not a fan of Evolutionary Psychology by any stretch, especially since the majority of its proponents seem to be obsessed with keeping me barefoot and pregnant, but you have to think, just maybe being a decent human being evolved or was a trait selected for because it makes it so much easier to build a society if you’re not killing, raping, stealing from and beating everyone around you.*  Granted, as a rule historically this sort of thing only extended to people who looked like you, but that’s an entirely other kettle of fish, and I only have an hour to write this.

So, please, if you’re writing a game, book, comic, etc… give the “It was a TIME BEFORE LAW…” trope a rest, ok?  For those of us with even a basic knowledge of history (ancient or otherwise) and human nature (a lot of those folks trying to please the Sky Father do some really fucked up shit to other people), it’s annoying.  I almost didn’t play In A Wicked Age because of it.  I’m glad I can usually shrug off stuff like that, and went ahead and played it, because it is a super, super fun game.   But if the plot of a book, comic, movie, whatever, doesn’t grab me, and this trope figures largely in it, it’s the kiss of death.

*Yes, as someone who has taken loads of Women’s Studies classes and who is a lifelong Feminist, I know.  Women in all societies are raped, most frequently by those who look like them (know them, are related to them).  However, I will also state something that I shocked an entire class into silence with:  “Why does everyone act like no woman anywhere orgasmed prior to 1974 when Roe -v- Wade happened?”  Seriously, not all men were raping, horrible brutes through time.  Some of them (I might even argue a majority) were probably decent guys who treated their wives, daughters, etc… very well.

Not Arthur C. Clarke too!

Well, he lived to a grand old age. 90 years old is nothing to sneeze at. I think I was ten the first time I saw 2001: A Space Odyssey. It was my Dad’s favorite movie at the time, so we rented it quite a few times. HAL’s voice still creeps me out. It is so emblematically Kubrik as well. So clean.

I read the book at 12, and the sequel, which I didn’t like quite as much. But he really gave my 12 year old brain a lot of heavy concepts to chew on. I also really enjoyed “Arthur C. Clarke’s Mysterious World,” as I’m a big fan of paranormal research, be it ghosts, cryptozoology or UFOs.

There really isn’t a lot here to say, that probably isn’t being said a million times over all over the place.  Raise a glass on high to one of the greats.

Geek Girls Rule! #42 – My Thoughts on Gary Gygax (1938 – 2008)

When I read the news on the Story Games forums, I actually started to cry.

“Wait,” I hear you say, “you don’t even LIKE D&D.”

Well, I don’t really, not the system anyway, but to all the Geeks born since Mr. Gygax and Mr. Arneson created it, D&D really means more than just that one system. Over on the Story Games board, there are a few people (very few) who think that everyone is giving Mr. Gygax and D&D too much credit. I completely disagree. I really do credit them with inventing my favorite hobby. There hadn’t been anything like D&D out there.

The beauty of D&D is not D&D itself, it is what D&D spawned.  It spawned years of imitators, that actually can only be called imitators in the broadest possible sense.  There are a raft of games out there that hardly bear even the faintest of faint similarities to D&D, but D&D spawned them by creating the niche.

I also feel that D&D spawned the fantasy wargaming market as well, by introducing the fantasy miniatures with which you were supposed to play the game.  Yes, historical wargaming had existed for aeons, however there are a few really forbidding things about historical gaming.  One is the price.  Historical minis frequently cost as much, if not more, than fantasy ones.  The second is that it requires you to intimately research a particular time period, and establish a knowledge base to rival any college military history professor, and if you think the fights on gaming forums about what’s correct for various armies get venomous, try checking out some of the historical wargamer forum discussions on how many buttons on a Prussian military officer’s jacket.  Oh Lord, they could give RPG.net lessons in flaming.  For those not inclined to read military history books obsessively for fun, this can be off-putting.  However, with fantasy wargaming, you get to read fiction to learn about the worlds where the battles will take place, and you can do things like the Hello Kitty Sisters of Battle Regiment someone created for Warhammer 40K.

There is no Hello Kitty in historical wargaming.

The thing is, Gary Gygax’s influence is far greater than the one game he created, and I thank him for that.  Like I said, there is currently only one D&D game I will even consider, and that’s because I’m being bribed with the Spelljammer setting.  I don’t like D&D.  I find it inelegant, certain editions of of it needlessly complex, and I will never, ever be able to wrap my head around armor making you harder to hit.

As to the charges of Gygax’s misogyny… Maybe yes, maybe no.  But right now that doesn’t matter.  Wagner was an anti-semitic asshole, but I still think “Ride of the Valkyries” is one of the most stirring pieces of music ever written.  Maybe Gygax didn’t think girls should play D&D, it didn’t stop us, did it?  And a thread where people are mourning a loss is NOT the place to start sniping about it.  Really. Way to marginalize everyone’s feelings.  Have some fucking decorum.  Good Lord, even RPG.net and the Forge waited a week before people started ripping him apart.

RIP Gary Gygax.

Gary Gygax, one of the creators of Dungeons & Dragons passed away this morning, March 4, 2008.  There will be a longer column about him and  his influence later this week.

Right now I’m just going to sit at my desk and be a little weepy.