Penny Arcade continued

So Penny Arcade forged on, selling their dickwolves shirts (altho they were ugly as fuck and I'm imagining they didn't do that well) and ignoring anyone who didn't like it.

When Melissa McEwan posted her concerns about the comic, she adressed Mike and Jerry as adults who ran a successful business. These guys should care about their readers, but nobody wanted to treat them like monsters. Mike then arrived and started posting links to jokes they'd told about paedophilia and beastiality (needless to say no trigger warnings!).

A games producer and feminist who writes the awesome blog kirbybits, Courtney Stanton, objected to Penny Arcade's behaviour on this issue and created a 'dickwolves survivor shirt', while donating the profits to chairty. She later announced she would not speak at PAX, despite having been asked, because she was uncomfortable with Penny Arcade's lack of apology. Penny Arcade responded by removing the shirt from their store, but with no small amount of grumbling and refusals to apologise.

Stanton was later involved in some of the awful stuff going on on twitter, where she was asked to prove she was a rape survivor, accused of lying to sell shirts. Mike stated he did not approve of this behaviour and told some twitter hastags to shut the fuck up. He then posted happily about how he would wear his beloved t-shirt to PAX.

And so on carries twitter. Mike responded with sarcasm to most questions, making fun of the term 'rape culture'. Stanton was told 'no one would want to rape [her] ugly ass'.

And that's the truth of the matter. Rape culture is funny, rape doesn't exist and if it does it's because it's a compliment. Like we should be proud if we are raped because it means we're hot.

UNREAL Zelda cosplay

Check out these costumes!

Penny Arcade Recap

If you like gaming, you probably like Penny Arcade. I was the first person to give Penny Arcade the benefit of the doubt. I know that the writers of Penny Arcade do good stuff, like setting up a children's charity. Their webcomic is funny and interesting, which is the reason it is pretty much the only webcomic online that the writers can make a living off.

If you're a big Penny Arcade fan, you probably heard about the controversy surrounding the 'dickwolves' strip, but here's a quick recap:

Penny Arcade posted a strip which seemed to be based on a rape joke. It didn't really resemble the endless and casual rape jokes posted online and yelled by gamers over microphones everyday, but it was a joke partly about rape. There was a backlash surrounding this joke, prompted in a big way by this post on Shakespearessister. The internet went crazy (as it does).

Top 5 Videogame Ladies

Here are some awesome examples of how to characterise women right, in no particular order. There won't be TOO much surprising in here, mostly because there are but a handful of true strong female characters around in videogames currently, and people talk about these characters a lot. Still, here are my winners!:

Blogging Feminism

First of all, I'm going to point out some of my favourite online posts/articles about feminism. A great feminism primer to answer a lot of basic questions, and two brilliant critiques of modern feminism. To clarify now, I align myself with the feminist movement, but there are many parts of feminism I think are wrong and need to be changed. I only speak for msyself, and not a political movement. Hopefully if you use the 101 you can get answers for questions individuals might not have time to educate you about :)

Feminism 101

- This is a great list of articles about feminism and how we can use it to improve society today. Shakespearessister is one of my favourite blogs, and probably one of the most famous feminist blogs around. These articles all point out why I believe feminism is not just important, but essential for every facet of our culture (including games!)

Dear Second and Third Wave Feminists With Publicly Recognisable Names

- A great example is why we must refuse to be defined solely by 'feminism' or judged on a term or label alone. Public self-identified feminists are damning this term in people's minds for good reason. We need to make it clear we do not what to be affiliated with these feminists.

Dirty Girls and Bad Feminists

- Another wonderful article about problems in feminism and how to approach them.


I shouldn't really need to point this out, but if there is any sexist/racist/homophobic/transphobic/ableist/classist shit posted here I'll delete it. No one has legal 'freedom of speech' here, because I can delete which comments I like in my space. That being said, I won't delete anything constructive or negative just because I don't agree with it personally.