Lit MACLUNKY -- The Lit Forum Maclunky Thread, v3

There's a lot of, well, sexism and racism* in 40k. Like, to go from "oh yeah, the bad guy is Margaret Thatcher" to "those dirty aliens stabbed us in the back, thus campaigns of mass genocide are justified" is . . . something.

*for a long time the only black people in 40k were literally just white dudes in blackface.

 

Mind you, that's a problem of the fact the Imperium ISN'T SUPPOSED TO BE THE GOOD GUYS. It started as a 80s parody of the future about the fact it's a bunch of Catholic Space Nazis vs. equally monstrous aliens.

The problems is that fans started rooting for humanity despite the fact they worship a dead god who was Evil IncarnateTM while alive. Dan Abnett's Imperium is as far removed from the original as well....uh, pretty much non-Nazis from Nazis.

Judge Dredd had the same problem happen to him.

 

Oh, yeah, I know that. Most fans don't.

 

I like to think they do....same for STAR WARS.

I have been known to be disappointed.

 

So for over 2 and a half years I've been diligently playing Simpsons: Tapped Out on my android phone, mostly it's great for time killing. But I haven't touched it in about a week because I got Knights of the Old Republic on android phone. 2nd time I've played it but that was on PC over a decade ago and it was glitchy as all hell on my system (had to put the rez all the way down and still had some crashes, one crash after the Revan reveal was so bad I couldn't continue in the game so had to use a cheat to jump to another planet)

But the android port is a thing of beauty, no problems whatsoever, high rez as can be. Best 6 dollars and 50 cents I ever spent. (also it's really responsive as an android app, wherever you close it it opens up again. No online save feature, though, which can be troubling if you lose your device or it gets damaged. The only stumble is adding feats is ... really difficult considering how small the screen is. but doable.) Also last time I played it, the EU canon ending was light side but now I'm totally going for dark side. But even then, there's a few things I can't bring myself to do, a few innocents with bounties on them I let go. But I did betray the Hidden Beks so that was definitely dark side.

Trying to figure out how to get rid of the 1st rancor is still a pain after all these years, not that it's a bad puzzle to put the scent in the pile of bones with a grenade but just the mechanics of it is a tad awkward and had to google how to do it.

 

I just used a ****load of mines, I believe.

 

It took me years to figure that out, I used to fight it straight up.

 

I had it worn down to a nub but lost all my grenades and only had Mission left (had her sneak by the Rancor) and he wasn't losing any more health/she kept missing. The scent is outside the room with a severed arm so I knew it had something to do with it but the whole place in pile of bones bit is a tad counter intuitive. It totally works, though!

 

I'm very much enjoying Far Cry 5.

This is a hilarious game if you're a rural American.

Mind you, the ending sucks but the game is a lot of fun until the end.

 

This thread has given me the impression that everyone has it.

 

True but GW have been working to be more inclusive

Was not that (for ones since GW love their puns and references) just something that was just a coincidence

 

Ha! No, not a chance.

 

So I just read what may be my least favorite comic book . . . ever, actually.

It's Peter David's Supergirl run. Matrix/Linda is living in Leesburg, and Linda's dad is a cop. The dad's best friend is another cop who took a couple bullets for him, named Lenny. Flash to Fawcett City - Mary (Marvel) Bromsfeld is having a fight with her parents and runs away, and by the laws of narrative chance ends up in Leesburg. Mary runs into Linda and a friend of her's in their civvie ids, and they decide to take Mary - who, remember, is like 10 - to the mall. So far, so good.

At the mall, Mary is looking at some jewelry when the aforementioned Lenny comes up and accuses her of shoplifting. Mary, being a decent human being, of course was not doing so, but Lenny takes her outside to his squad car, and, uh, offers to make it disappear in exchange for some favors, if you get my drift. Mary Bromsfeld is, again, like 10 years old. She freaks, runs out of sight, and transforms into Mary Marvel, and promptly comes back and kicks Lenny's ass.

Now, Supergirl, in the mall, hears the commotion and comes back, and fights Mary. The fighting goes on for a while, with Supergirl refusing to believe Mary's story. "Lenny saved Linda's dad, he couldn't be a bad guy," that sorta thing. But she convinces her to turn back to normal, and Supergirl takes them both to the police station. There, all the cops side with Lenny, Mary's parents are called, and she's taken home while everyone tells Lenny that of course it couldn't be true, Mary was just misunderstanding him or trying to get away with stealing, etc. etc. This includes Supergirl.

So yeah, the time someone tried to rape Mary Marvel and got off scot free with Supergirl's help. I am not happy. At all.

 

I believe Mary Marvel is a teenager by that point in DC Comics. - Utterly irrelevant point.

Doubly unfortunate because I consider that one of the best runs of comics ever in terms of higher religious themes mixing with pop culture.

 

I get what David was trying to do. I just don't think he should have tried to do it.

 

I don't have it!

And even though it's free, I still won't. YOU CAN'T MAKE ME JOIN YOUR PARADOX CULT YOU CAN'T.

 

God that's Fed up. I know this will spark a whole thing but, why is it that writers so often use rape as an easy way to have drama for female characters? even when it's done with an attempt at being mature and socially relevant it still feels like it's an easy out writers in comic use. Does this ever get brought up again for Mary? Like this is a massively scaring thing for Mary and the idea that David added that to her character likely without any plan in place for someone to dive into that from Mary's POV; is just messed up. It's like Babs in Killing Joke, she is the victim of sexual assault in a story about other characters with no real plan for dealing with it for her character.

When we do this for the sake of saying "this is an issue that exists" and then leave the victim there; we are just doing harm. That character is then just a victim for the sake of a PSA rather than actually dealing with it. That's why it took hard work by Dixon and Gail to pull of Bab's paralysis and trauma. If people wanna see this done right from the get go, read Grell's Green Arrow. Black Canary is brutalized in that and moving forward Grell always thinks about the affects of her being tortured. She starts helping other victims of assault, she does not just become a victim so Grell can say "this is bad" before flying away, while Ollie's reaction is important and it is his book; Dinah's trauma is about HER first and foremost. She is the focus of that plot, he feelings matter more than Ollie's when it comes to the assault, and it is never, ever, EVER about just making a message, she is treated as a real person not tool to be used for the writer's brownie points/

Honestly while I like Peter David, in hindsight his politics are more than a little.......flawed. Romanians anyone?

As someone who loves Mary Marvel, just hearing about this story makes me angry. David seems to have habit of using characters to get on his soapbox about things he has not personally dealt with, and while it is fine to discuss things you have not been through, don't use people of other genders or races as a mouthpiece for your specific POV. Like there is a Steel issue in that run in which David uses Linda and a character who is part black in order to make his point on dealing with hate speak. It comes off like him trying to use minorities to give his view, when he himself has no right to speak for the black community on that issue. There is a difference between being an ally to a movement, and co-opting it

 

Roma, not Romanians, but yes, I agree.

 

Just realized that. Man am I tired. I have been taking 20th century history and reading about the Romani. Now more than ever I should have caught that. My teacher would be angry at me

 

Just saw A Quiet Place. Really great, but of course the required viewing atmosphere is not a theater full of a few hundred people, especially when five of them are tweens convinced they are on the set of the MST3K revival.

That being said, definitely go see it.

 

ok I did, but like, what are all these menus and buttons and stuff for? This game is very confusing; when do I get my laser gun so I can shoot aliens?

(no, seriously, it's hard to tell what everything is for and what things mean/do)