Social Swamp's Social Thread 3 - And now, the end is near, and so I face the final curtain...

[Wario Bros.]

While waiting for CoroCoro to leak Pokémon Sun & Moon info, I tried to find a generation 1 Trading Card Gaming commercial online that I loved (containing "Pikapooch")

But failed.

But hurry up with dat CoroCoro.

 

[Champ Gold]

Pretty much that. Men have a hard time identifying with boobies. They're an intensely difficult subject to grasp, and sometimes, we must project boobies onto other people in order to possibly understand them more.

...

None of that is meant to be taken remotely seriously or make any sense if it wasn't obvious

Boobies are a wonderful thing that the world should be proud of instead of shame.

Why? Because everyone loves them and they should. Be proud of it not ashamed like the media wants you to think.

 

[ChikoLad]

I'm mostly just indifferent to breasts, being demi-sexual.

I generally am of the opinion that torso nudity and especially just showing a bit of skin should be considered appropriate in general. Not all of the time (like you shouldn't go to work without a shirt on) and obviously only for people of age. But I think there are too many arbitrary constraints on this stuff and torso nudity pushes ratings up higher than it should. Especially applies to animation, I don't get why it's such big deal there when none of it is a real human's body.

But it's acceptable when it's for male characters. That's always been rated G for some reason.

 

[wedl!!]

Quiet is actually one of the worst written characters I've ever seen. Like literally. Horrible concept, horrible execution. Kojima just isn't very good at writing women in general.

Lest we mention Quiet's boob rag.

 

[Swamp Sensei]

Quiet is actually one of the worst written characters I've ever seen. Like literally. Horrible concept, horrible execution. Kojima just isn't very good at writing women in general.

Lest we mention Quiet's boob rag.

I get that and agree...

But "man with boobs..."

I still don't get it.

 

[wedl!!]

I think your friend's just a dumbass.

At least that's the impression I get.

 

[Ura]

Yeah, about the Ballot being used for future Smash games. . .

I could have sworn I read something flat out stating that before I filled out my vote on the Ballot (I didn't think the character I actually wanted would have stood a chance, so you should be particularly happy to know who my vote went to. Well, assuming that it isn't one person per IP address, in which case while I was having technical difficulties someone else voted due to my tipping them off and my vote was completely wasted. . .), but I can't find anything on it anywhere. Maybe it was just something I heard someone say, but. . .

It was on the Japanese Ballot so methinks.

And no, I don't know who you voted for lol. Who did you vote for?

http://sourcegaming.info/2015/04/04/smash-ballot-translation-guide/

You guys read it there

Based Push

Funny how they asked for nicknames and stuff but they never actually displayed the votes in the Direct and stuff. You'd think they would do that but they ended up not doing it.

Here's just hoping the character I voted for was higher up on the Ballot. Funny thing is I voted for Roy immediately after the reveal of the Ballot though he would end up being pre-ballot 2 months later rendering my vote useless. Ended up voting for Isaac like a zillion times afterwards. The fact that Sakurai said that duplicate votes were taken out makes me a bit concerned lol.

 

[Champ Gold]

Funny thing, Quiet is the only character who has a decent relationship and character interaction with 'Big Boss' considering Kaz and Ocelot aren't built open with him in MGSV.

There just there mostly to give out the plot or other story stuff.

Quiet is the only person that gives Venom Snake any character considering he's pretty flat

 

[ChikoLad]

Best way I can describe Quiet is that she is blatant fan service that Kojima tried to pretend wasn't fan service with a contrived, non-sensical backstory.

And if that wasn't bad enough, she was blatant waifu bait in the same way Alyx Vance from Half-Life 2 was. Everything about her character was DESIGNED to make the player have a crush on the character, her entire purpose as a character in the narrative is to serve, gratify, and satisfy the player, and the main player character in-universe. This is done through a thinly veiled layer of "depth" that only someone who isn't mature enough to be playing an 18+ game would accept as legitimately profound.

With all due respect to Kojima, I really, really get the "creator's waifu" impression from this character. From the fan-service and how it tries to pretend it isn't fan-service, to the way she is written to make you fall in love in a literal sense, to the way she is modeled after her attractive, real life voice actress, who then also sings the character's theme song - this character is the epitome of pandering, to both the creator and a large portion of the gamer demographic (i.e single teenage guys).

 

[Swamp Sensei]

I think your friend's just a *******.

At least that's the impression I get.

Yeah, but one other person agreed and we had a small debate.

Something about gender norms and denying that trans people exist and...

I'm confused...

 

[wedl!!]

Yeah, but one other person agreed and we had a small debate.

Something about gender norms and denying that trans people exist and...

I'm confused...

ok so he's just an idiot

there, debate over

 

[Swamp Sensei]

ok so he's just an idiot

there, debate over

I phrased that wrong.

He didn't say that. He said that that gender norms are natural and to deny them would mean that we would have to deny that trans people exist.

Like The Boss has "masculine" qualities and not enough "feminine" ones to be considered a woman. So he states that she was written as a man that is just female as opposed to writing a woman.

Seems like a load of crap honestly. I'm not gonna go and call a woman a man just because they have traditionally masculine qualities.

 

[ChikoLad]

I phrased that wrong.

He didn't say that. He said that that gender norms are natural and to deny them would mean that we would have to deny that trans people exist.

Like The Boss has "masculine" qualities and not enough "feminine" ones to be considered a woman. So he states that she was written as a man that is just female as opposed to writing a woman.

Yeah he's still just being a goon then.

Again, I myself won't pretend I understand much about the transgender mentality and that the whole thing doesn't sometimes confuse me.

But I generally know to keep my mouth shut about the issue (something I had to learn, since I initially didn't see what I was saying as having anything wrong with it, as I wasn't trying to be offensive), at least, and not go randomly calling characters/people one or the other gender based on my own perception of their personality traits.

At the end of the day, people are whatever gender they say they are. Their sex is what they biologically are, and they legit have to get surgery to change that, but gender is something that can be decided on a whim (people who literally "change gender" on a whim frequently are known as "gender fluid", for example. That's the biggest extreme of a transgender person, to my knowledge, though).

 

[wedl!!]

ok so.....

she's a woman with masculine characteristics

"she doesn't abide to gender norms, therefore she's transgender" no, that's not how it works

this is a ridiculous oversimplification of the concept. i don't really know enough about the subject nor do I really care to ramble about it on a message board for a children's fighting game, but gender norms and gender don't really "exist", they're more "interpretive", if that makes sense

 

[Deleted member]

I phrased that wrong.

He didn't say that. He said that that gender norms are natural and to deny them would mean that we would have to deny that trans people exist.

Like The Boss has "masculine" qualities and not enough "feminine" ones to be considered a woman. So he states that she was written as a man that is just female as opposed to writing a woman.

Seems like a load of crap honestly. I'm not gonna go and call a woman a man just because they have traditionally masculine qualities.

Then how does he wants a good female character if he believes that they should all be based from archaic gender roles???

 

[Swamp Sensei]

"she doesn't abide to gender norms, therefore she's transgender"

He didn't claim she was transgender.

Just that she was written as a man.

Which is almost as bad honestly.

Then how does he wants a good female character if he believes that they should all be based from archaic gender roles???

Well you can have strong female characters that abide archaic gender roles.

But that's not the main point.

 

[Deleted member]

He didn't claim she was transgender.

Just that she was written as a man.

Which is almost as bad honestly.


Well you can have strong female characters that abide archaic gender roles.

But that's not the main point.

If we go by those "classic" ones, then no
And I'm pretty sure that's what he believes in

 

[Swamp Sensei]

If we go by those "classic" ones, then no
And I'm pretty sure that's what he believes in

"Classic?"

What do you mean?

 

[PsychoIncarnate]

One of Anita sarkeesians proposed videos was "men with boobs" so it must mean something in feminist speak

 

[Substitution]

He didn't claim she was transgender.

Just that she was written as a man.

Which is almost as bad honestly.

And see, that right there confuses me.
I mean, it's not like there aren't women who have what could be considered "masculine traits". It's no different than a man having "feminine traits". They're not any less of a man for having them.

There's really no right way or wrong way to be a man or a woman. It's called a personality. We all have it, we're all different, and that's okay.

"Classic?"

What do you mean?

Like the stay at home housewife, or the typical damsel in distress who needs Mr. Manly Man to save her.

 

[ChikoLad]

He didn't claim she was transgender.

Just that she was written as a man.

Which is almost as bad honestly.


Well you can have strong female characters that abide archaic gender roles.

But that's not the main point.

Suggesting she was "written as a man" would mean that she was a man throughout development, but was changed to a woman at the last possible moment (i.e just as they were hiring voice actors and such).

I don't think this is the case since it seems pretty clear that the relationship The Boss has with Naked Snake is a motherly one. Nothing official has been said to suggest The Boss was a man at some point in development either, as far as I know.

If you want a legitimate example of a female character that was written as a man but was changed to female at the last minute, there's Fang from FFXIII, who was originally gonna be Vanille's boyfriend. The developers have actually confirmed it, AND it shows in the writing (the fandom accepts them as a lesbian couple due to the fact they were intended to be a heterosexual couple originally, and the writing wasn't really changed to remove the romantic connotations).

 

[wedl!!]

feminist speak

This implies all active feminists are radicalized idiots like Anita which is really wrong??????????

 

[Swamp Sensei]

Like the stay at home housewife, or the typical damsel in distress who needs Mr. Manly Man to save her

Things is... You can still have strong, interesting and endearing characters who fall into those roles.

 

[PsychoIncarnate]

This implies all active feminists are radicalized idiots like Anita which is really wrong??????????

Just the loud ones I guess

 

[Z25]

Someone tried to claim that these were in the source code of the pokemon website:

Bs aside, this is a pretty nice lion fakemon. Looks like an Arcanine Fused with Houndoom, and Pyroar female.

Not bad.

 

[ChikoLad]

Someone tried to claim that these were in the source code of the pokemon website:

Bs aside, this is a pretty nice lion fakemon. Looks like an Arcanine Fused with Houndoom, and Pyroar female.

Not bad.

You know with all of these great fan made Pokémon out there, one has to wonder why Nintendo doesn't do a "Design a Pokémon" competition, like how the Robot Masters/Mavericks for a lot of Mega Man games were made by fans.

On the 20th Anniversary especially, it would seem like a fitting thing to do.

 

[Z25]

You know with all of these great fan made Pokémon out there, one has to wonder why Nintendo doesn't do a "Design a Pokémon" competition, like how the Robot Masters/Mavericks for a lot of Mega Man games were made by fans.

On the 20th Anniversary especially, it would seem like a fitting thing to do.

I've always thought this could be a cool contest. There's a lot of talented fake mon creators out there. It be pretty cool to see what would be chosen as a winner.

 

[Bananija]

For those who saw "Deadpool" in 3D, would you have liked if the 3D affect happened only when he was breaking the fourth wall?

You know with all of these great fan made Pokémon out there, one has to wonder why Nintendo doesn't do a "Design a Pokémon" competition, like how the Robot Masters/Mavericks for a lot of Mega Man games were made by fans.

On the 20th Anniversary especially, it would seem like a fitting thing to do.

That is a great idea. You should sell it to Nintendo or something.

 

[ChikoLad]

Well, I say Nintendo.

But thinking about it, this is probably more down to the Pokémon Company than anyone else.

In which case, it's obvious why they don't do it.

 

[SegaNintendoUbisoft]

For those who saw "Deadpool" in 3D, would you have liked if the 3D affect happened only when he was breaking the fourth wall?

That would be a nice little detail, but I'm not sure I'd pay extra money just for a couple scenes.

After watching a review, I'm kind of disappointed that there wasn't a scene were Deadpool hit someone with a boom mic.

 

[N3ON]

This ended up being longer than I thought, but I believe it's worth saying regardless.

The thing about most feminist talking points nowadays, at least in regards to video games, are things of fairly minimal consequence. Yes, there is still disparity between female and male characters in video games (of which more female developers in positions of power and influence would help rectify imo), and yes, it's always nice to have more quality female leads in games, but... just because female butts are less obscured than male butts or the damsel trope gets invoked in games doesn't mean dudes are going around sexually assaulting women over it. It doesn't mean guys are going to go around degrading women and being misogynists over it. It's almost tantamount to the arguments that all the violence in video games begets real life violence. And changing it, while well intentioned, isn't going to re-wire male brains. Guys are still going to like boobs and butts and want to see them, sex is still going to sell, and content creators are still going to pander to consumers in one way or another.

I'm not so much for changing the existence of what already is, if you want to have R. Mika slap her butt that's Capcom's prerogative, and if you don't want to support a game that has that kind of content that's your prerogative. All in all it's fairly innocuous content compared to some of the actual transgressions against women out there in the world. It's primarily men developing a game that primarily targets men. What I'm for is creating new games, new series and experiences which can counter-balance the more exaggerated, caricature-y ones like SF or SoulCalibur or MGS. And these games are starting to become more prevalent, which is great, even though I tend to prefer the more exaggerated ones. I don't believe having characters like Ivy or Quiet is truly harmful, what is harmful is the lack of actual, more realistic, less objectifying characters to co-exist and appeal to people who are less than thrilled with the aforementioned examples. But since that is changing, and more levelled characters are emerging, what I believe is most important now is to simply help cultivate that change.

People look so hard for things to be offended by when there are actual real problems in the world that they don't address. There are places in the world where real, actual female oppression and socially-acceptable misogyny takes place. There are places where the underlying tenants of the western feminism would be absolutely invaluable to abused and maltreated women. There are many bigger fish to fry out there, so complaining about minor acts of objectification is really just super misguided, even if well intentioned. It's like complaining that your outfit isn't perfectly coordinated and accessorized when there are people out there living in rags.

 

[Coricus]

It was on the Japanese Ballot so methinks.

And no, I don't know who you voted for lol. Who did you vote for?

Based Push

Funny how they asked for nicknames and stuff but they never actually displayed the votes in the Direct and stuff. You'd think they would do that but they ended up not doing it.

Here's just hoping the character I voted for was higher up on the Ballot. Funny thing is I voted for Roy immediately after the reveal of the Ballot though he would end up being pre-ballot 2 months later rendering my vote useless. Ended up voting for Isaac like a zillion times afterwards. The fact that Sakurai said that duplicate votes were taken out makes me a bit concerned lol.

Well I voted for Isaac.

Realized Ridley wasn't going to happen this time around and completely forgot DK characters were a thing while I voted.

Not that forgetting DK exists is necessarily a bad thing, as a lot of the complaints about their absence revolve around our "not having enough DK reps" and one early "tier list" that essentially boiled down to a popularity contest had the two DK characters we already have at dead last. In other words, maybe it would make a better impression to use what we already have for reasons other than tier *redacted*ing before asking for more.

I think the other person voted on mobile, so let's hope based 3G saved my vote from being counted as a duplicate. XD

 

[PushDustIn]

It was on the Japanese Ballot so methinks.

And no, I don't know who you voted for lol. Who did you vote for?

Based Push

Funny how they asked for nicknames and stuff but they never actually displayed the votes in the Direct and stuff. You'd think they would do that but they ended up not doing it.

Here's just hoping the character I voted for was higher up on the Ballot. Funny thing is I voted for Roy immediately after the reveal of the Ballot though he would end up being pre-ballot 2 months later rendering my vote useless. Ended up voting for Isaac like a zillion times afterwards. The fact that Sakurai said that duplicate votes were taken out makes me a bit concerned lol.

Yeah allowing nicknames to be displayed makes me wonder if it was going to follow the same format as the previous ballot responses where Sakurai actually responds to a number of them. In Smash 64 and Melee he responded to several thousand pages (4+ Google docs for just Smash 64. I tried combining them but it just crashes) but in Brawl he responded to a lot less (probably because he was busier and did it at the start of development).

 

[ChikoLad]

Just so it's clear, I generally don't complain about objectification of characters because of feminist reasons or anything like that, since I don't consider myself a feminist anyway.

Like in the case of Quiet, for example, I don't dislike her utilisation and objectification because I think it has a negative effect on society. I dislike it because I think it's trying too hard to present itself as something much more tactful than it really is.

If you want a female that dresses provacotively and what not, just make one. Don't try to be pretentious about it. The excuses they tried to use were just poorly written.

 

[Coricus]

Nevermind, nevermind. I misunderstood when this was brought up.

I have to go put away some glasses now or something.

 

[Ura]

Yeah allowing nicknames to be displayed makes me wonder if it was going to follow the same format as the previous ballot responses where Sakurai actually responds to a number of them. In Smash 64 and Melee he responded to several thousand pages (4+ Google docs for just Smash 64. I tried combining them but it just crashes) but in Brawl he responded to a lot less (probably because he was busier and did it at the start of development).

That's some dedication lol. I recall Sakurai was worked like a dog during the Melee development cycle. Makes me really wish Melee was released in 2002 instead of 2001. Poor guy.

I wish Sakurai would do an AMA (obviously with a translator) to speak to the Smash community and we can ask him a whole bunch of different things. Would be really hard to do I know but it would be nice

 

[Coricus]

You know what, I just feel immensely uncomfortable and insecure right now, so I'm deleting this too.

I've been taken out of my attempts at relaxation a few too many times today and I need to calm down somehow.

Does anyone have any suggestions for how to calm down?

 

[PushDustIn]

That's some dedication lol. I recall Sakurai was worked like a dog during the Melee development cycle. Makes me really wish Melee was released in 2002 instead of 2001. Poor guy.

I wish Sakurai would do an AMA (obviously with a translator) to speak to the Smash community and we can ask him a whole bunch of different things. Would be really hard to do I know but it would be nice

Would love to set that up someday. Here's hoping to Sakurai has noticed us (and doesn't want to sue me!) and approves.

In a semi related topic, Masked Man won a tour of Platinum Games! We are trying to see if I can tag along too. I would have to take a night bus to go just so I could afford it, but it'd be so worth it!

 

[A Distant Demon]

Does anyone have any suggestions for how to calm down?

Im no professional at the art of calming but. . .

1. Listen to this (not too loudly though)
2. clear your mind. Don't think of anything. If you can't do taht at least try not to focus on any one subject for too long unless it's a very happy one.
3. Do something simple and soothing with no chance of being annoying. A simple and easy videogame, reading, watching some silly youtube videos. Something you enjoy.


That should be enough

 

[CrusherMania1592]

You guys need to see this:

101 CHARACTERS FOR SMASH 5 CONFIRMED!



Can I go ahead and make an important announcement?







SPRING BREAK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!






You may now return to whatever you were just doing