Journal of Other Forum Analysis

[Vertigo]

Seeing the pitiful adults on Reeee crying because they lost the 'war' over Stellar Blade is highly amusing. The OT title was their last chance to wield some power over proceedings but even that got snatched from them.

Imagine a game that will probably burn bright for a month before everyone moves onto the new shiny thing causing this much angst among these weasels. 

I think its pretty obvious attractive women scare these weirdos, even moreso digital ones. They only like 'sexy' anthropomorphic animals and little girls they can push their creepy 'lesbian' fantasies on

They got their way with Cyberpunk and Hogwarts very happy they got told to sit down and shut the fuck up on this one.

I think even the rank and file Reeee members are sick of them now.     

I see they've been shitting up the OT for hours today anyone else would have been threadbanned or put in the sin bin for a week or two

[Straight Edge]

Hmm I wonder where Gamefly gets their copies from...

[benji]

Naiad

That's a good strategy to just rent it and give Gamefly the money rather than direct sales to the creepy devs by buying the game outright.

And the rental cut to the creepy devs of course.

[remy]

lol @ gene park calling out kyuji and messy
https://www.resetera.com/threads/stellar-blade-review-thread.852417/page-19

[Propagandhim]

I am so tired y'all.  Y'all, I'm exhausted with this.  I can barely get through the day.  I am enervated.  Im debilitated.  Enfeebled.  It's getting hard to just summon enough energy to put the shampoo on my head when I take a shower.  And I still have 3 days left to return this fucking game to GameFly.

[Uncle]

[Ethan]

Indiana state police putting a fucking *sniper* on an IU rooftop is the craziest shit I have seen today. JFC

been seeing this pic all over bsky today

It's a good thing we don't live in an authoritarian police state or that would be a bad look!

https://www.resetera.com/threads/protests-at-columbia-university-continue-as-groups-on-both-sides-of-the-aisle-call-for-action-to-be-taken-university-shifts-to-hybrid-classes.851787/page-5

Could be real but ain't that weird how there's semingly only one blurry picture being shared around by obscure social media accounts? Not a single protester bothered documenting the fascist actions of the authoritarian police state?

[killamajig]

https://www.resetera.com/threads/nsfw-help-navigating-situationship-relationship.854265/

DestinyArrives

Hi Era!

Over the past few months, I've ended up what I think is a situationship that I haven't been sure how to navigate. You all helped me through a prior relationship thread and I figured to post about my current situation. I've been seeing a girl since back in December and things were going great. We both share similar interests/have great dates, she's been so helpful through the passing of my cat, and has qualities that I thought I wanted. Well, up until recently.

I've had a few incidents that came up as red flags:

We've been talking since we met and still feels like we've been in a standstill to become official. She told me she wanted to get to know, which is fair, and have had dates 1-3 times a week since December. I asked her the other night if she wanted to become official and she still said no. She even told me a story about how she's talked about me to her family and best friend - with her friend, who's apparently mad at the girl I'm talking to because she hasn't made herself official with me (saying I'm extremely nice, has the qualities she's looking for, etc.).

She snapped at me recently a few times, unexpectedly. The big one was regarding her phone. We were laying in her bed late at night, talking and I noticed she stopped talking/got intense with her phone. I looked at her screen (she has looked at my phone before, so I thought that kind of trust was established, but I might have been mistaken) and saw she was in some argument with someone (I think it was a guy); my first instinct was asking if everything was okay with her. She looked at me and screamed that I'm never allowed to look at her phone. It made me feel super uncomfortable and I mentioned that she's looked at mine but I'd totally respect that/didn't intend to cause trouble, but she was pretty intense about it.

She also snapped at me going to a baseball game that I purchased - we pulled into a handicap parking lot lane by accident and I started looking behind me (I was passenger in car) wondering if we could back up while she started talking to the attendant. I only said it once and she turned to scream my name in an angry voice. That caused an awkward silence.

She also has said weird things to me during romance - NSFW warning ahead. During sex, a couple times during the act, she yelled at me that I'm doing something wrong/yelling no, I'd back off immediately and then she'd get mad that I softened up. I've told her how important consent is to me and I felt uncomfortable/lost the urge because she wanted things to be done differently/said no. It turns into a weird thing of her getting a bit aggressive to me even though I'm respecting when she yells at me. This also happens with kissing - we tongue kissed the other night, she started saying no no NO aggressive and said you need to tongue kiss like this, which made me feel so uncomfortable. She's also made weird comments such as after sex telling me I have big teeth, but more a telling me than joking tone.

She's been aggressive in public a couple of times. When we pulled up to a McDonald's drive thru for instance and asked for breakfast at 10 am, they said they weren't making anymore unfortunately. My mind was thinking, okay that sucks but we'll find something else. She instead starts berating the person at drive thru and kept saying why they won't make breakfast/called them lazy. Again…some aggressiveness.

I've noticed she's made a lot of statements about men that has been starting to come off a bit sexist due to the tone/generalization.

She's 95% of the time usually extremely nice to me and expresses tons of interest for me. She tells me all the time that she misses me and she sends me text all day (good morning, checking how I'm doing during the day, goodnight ones, etc). I won't lie, my feelings are different recently. I originally thought the passing of my cat was dragging me down a bit, but I think her aggressiveness/causing uncomfortable situations is mentally affecting me. I talked to my father about it (not gonna lie, I only have one long term relationship experience to go by) and he says she's sounds like she's being controlling.

I'm not sure what to do. If she didn't act aggressively towards me, I feel like I'd want a full relationship, but I'm just not sure as of the past couple of weeks. And her not moving us into a full relationship is making me wonder if I should roll the dice on finding someone else because I feel kind of strung along. Just feel really confused and could use some advice from anyone here. We're going on a weekend vacation in a couple of weeks, so I'm hoping that will be the final deciding point of how I'm feeling (this is still new so I'm trying to process it), especially if she's negative again.

[HaughtyFrank]

https://www.resetera.com/threads/why-women-criticise-sexualised-character-designs-ot3-make-her-look-more-corpulent-more-stuffed-where-the-eyes-cant-escape.275780/page-375?post=122142249#post-122142249

I'm renting Stellar Blade via Gamefly, so I should have plenty to say sometime next week. I can't imagine anything in the game worse than what's already come out after the embargo, but I'm ready to be further disappointed in SIE.

Why even bother if you apparently hate this game so much. Or is this gonna be another Kyuuji situation? "Oh I can't excuse the rampant sexism in this game" but at the same time I'm jerking off to the demo every day hence my 40 hours with a fucking demo.

These motherfucking hypocrites

Unbelievable, jesus christ

[Taco Bell Tower]

lol @ gene park calling out kyuji and messy
https://www.resetera.com/threads/stellar-blade-review-thread.852417/page-19

They linked a Ree page that has the tweet deleted

Messy

It would just have been nice if we got to hear from your perspective on what you thought about the male gaze criticism and after playing the game, how it shaked out. I'm sure you can understand why the female developers who alleged the cases of harassment, the deleting of their work, and getting fired would delete their tweets. It just becomes a second wave of harassment when bringing this up in the public.

There are also quotes from Hyung Tae Kim that speak to the contradictions in the developer's intentions with the game. He was influenced by the political context of taxi drivers in South Korea potentially losing their jobs to AI in the future (which is brought up in their developer diary video), but then when it comes to the politics of depicting women and objectification, he just considers it a fun action game even though the Korean men in the game aren't sexualised or objectified (whereas they can and are in real life just like the first part of your review alludes to with Korean beauty standards).

"I know that in the West, game characters have to be realistic in many ways and that there are numerous issues involved, such as there are numerous issues involved such as gender, race, diversity etc.

But Stellar Blade is only an entertainment and cultural work. I hope people will look at it as just another fun action game that has been released."
https://www.resetera.com/threads/stellar-blade-previews-demo-thread-staff-post-threadmarked.831270/page-59?post=121317633#post-121317633
Stellar Blade - Previews & Demo Thread [Staff Post Threadmarked] Sony


"When it comes to the design, we put special attention on the back of the character because the player is always facing the back of the character when they're playing. That's what they see the most of, so we thought this was pretty important."

https://www.gamesradar.com/stellar-blade-dev-also-known-for-butt-jiggling-game-nikke-says-he-put-special-attention-into-the-female-leads-back-because-thats-what-players-see-most-of-the-time/

I had hoped if you were interviewing the developer, then as a critic you could have brought up the criticisms and examine their own statements from a critical lens.

[Chumbawumbafan69]

https://www.resetera.com/threads/why-women-criticise-sexualised-character-designs-ot3-make-her-look-more-corpulent-more-stuffed-where-the-eyes-cant-escape.275780/page-372?post=122113998#post-122113998

The ridiculous nerd fervor centered around Stellar Blade is really wearing me down. I've had an extremely rough month (work bullshit mostly), and watching people all around the internet, including games journalists who should know better, dance around and celebrate the success of that game is burning my candle down to the absolute bottom of the metaphor that I'm too tired to complete.

Just awful. I thought the industry was learning and growing, but apparently all you have to do is pretend a genre isn't being served (seriously, how many melee action games have come out in the past year? like at least a dozen, if not more) and stick a Sony logo on the box and people will line up to gleefully excuse anything, even lining up hand in hand with fucking GamerGate to do so.

I'm so fucking exhausted, folks.

What a damn drama queen. If one game is enough to completely reverse all social/political gains you feel your side gained over the years, then those supposed "gains" wasn't much to being with. Look how weak and fragile they feel their positions are that they feel the mere existence of Stellar Blade is enough to upend everything for them.

If you let reactions to a video game get you upset you're either 8 years old or literally the biggest loser in the world.

[HaughtyFrank]

Here's a link to the Resetera topic when it happened.

Thank you and splash wave! Yeah i mean, at the Washington Post, i literally can't make an interview talking about accusations that just happen on twitter that also just get deleted. my editors wouldn't entertain it.

https://www.resetera.com/threads/stellar-blade-review-thread.852417/post-122143977

[Polident]

Indiana state police putting a fucking *sniper* on an IU rooftop is the craziest shit I have seen today. JFC

been seeing this pic all over bsky today

It's a good thing we don't live in an authoritarian police state or that would be a bad look!

https://www.resetera.com/threads/protests-at-columbia-university-continue-as-groups-on-both-sides-of-the-aisle-call-for-action-to-be-taken-university-shifts-to-hybrid-classes.851787/page-5

Could be real but ain't that weird how there's semingly only one blurry picture being shared around by obscure social media accounts? Not a single protester bothered documenting the fascist actions of the authoritarian police state?

The assumption here is the sniper, if real, will open fire on the crowd. Realistically, he’s there for their protection. When you’re a group of dumbasses yelling death to America and kill all Jews, claiming they’re slogans not literal. Guess what? Some people might take them literally and start something.

During the embarrassing 2020 chaz thing, a couple people were shot and killed. Expectations it might happen again aren’t unwarranted.

[Boredfrom]

It would just have been nice if we got to hear from your perspective on what you thought about the male gaze criticism and after playing the game, how it shaked out. I'm sure you can understand why the female developers who alleged the cases of harassment, the deleting of their work, and getting fired would delete their tweets. It just becomes a second wave of harassment when bringing this up in the public.

He just told you his editor wouldn’t accept that shit without backing. The only sources were tweets that got, bravely, deleted. 


I dunno why the fuck Gene Park is bothering when it sounds like RE just want the confirmation of being allowed to shit on the game from the only Korean they know and interact.

[TylenolJones]

User banned (2 months): Downplaying concerns of racism, prior for dismissing racism

Hard-R is a slang primarily used in the US, it seems completely plausible that this was unintentional and the intent was much different seeing as the developer is situated in Asia where the slang isn't being used. I'm from Europe and speak English at a quite high level, I have only ever heard this term when the LTT debacle happened and wouldn't have caught this either.

This game has plenty of issues, but this ain't it and there's a bunch of US-defaultism going around with how people jump to conclusions on the intent of this. The developer said it's unintentional and is being removed, unless someone from the development team comes forward to say this was done as a racist remark then there really isn't much to say here as it's a plausible mishap due to an Asian artist somewhere not knowing US centric slang.

Now the sexism on the other hand, that deserves to be talked about as it's a lot more blatant.

Holy shit, they got two months for that  

https://www.resetera.com/threads/ign-stellar-blade-has-unintentional-racist-in-game-graffiti-will-be-patched-out.852468/page-3?post=122075748#post-122075748

[Boredfrom]

It's a good thing we don't live in an authoritarian police state or that would be a bad look!

Good thing you don’t live in another country where you actually risk your life by protesting.

[benji]

Indiana state police putting a fucking *sniper* on an IU rooftop is the craziest shit I have seen today. JFC

It's a good thing we don't live in an authoritarian police state or that would be a bad look!

https://www.resetera.com/threads/protests-at-columbia-university-continue-as-groups-on-both-sides-of-the-aisle-call-for-action-to-be-taken-university-shifts-to-hybrid-classes.851787/page-5

I don't really think it's an authoritarian police state for police to use proper tactical methods. In fact, I wish they would far more often! Police are regularly doing things that would get you court martialed in the military.

[HaughtyFrank]

It's really not much different from any big stadium having a snipers nest but whatever helps them larp more

[Potato]

lol @ gene park calling out kyuji and messy
https://www.resetera.com/threads/stellar-blade-review-thread.852417/page-19

Morrigan, avowed anti-muslim, defending messofanidiot further down that page is glorious too.

I find men trying to control the discussion on women's issues fundamentally exhausting and would much rather read women writing on the same subject. Probably a me problem.

Are you a woman yourself? I'm one, and I find nothing wrong with what Messo wrote. In fact, I don't appreciate you trying to shut him up at all. Especially considering there's a good number of women on this very site who have repeatedly and exhaustedly spoken up about the male gaze before.

Also, it's not Messo's fault that almost every reviewer of this game has been male... It's pretty shitty to paint him as a "man trying to control the conversation" when you aren't even aiming this same kind of rhetoric at other men who disagree with him, too.

Please morrigan, tell us what you think of messofarelationship owning a woman?

[nachobro]

its really hilarious and insane how resettis read every post as a jab or attack even when it is obviously not. almost like that's all they are used to posting themselves.

[Boredfrom]

Especially considering there's a good number of women on this very site who have repeatedly and exhaustedly spoken up about the male gaze before.

Three bio women and a lot of trans women that that are otherwise perverts and fetishists. You are defending a man that bought a wife.

[Propagandhim]

Korean developers intentionally scrawling a vague anti-black message on the virtual wall of their game to express their hatred for people of color and anyone suggesting there might be a more reasonable explanation gets banned?  Another one on the "No Conspiracy Theories....sometimes" BDumbs scorecard.

[kaleidoscopium]

Something I've been trying to better articulate about Stellar Blade is that Eve, unlike Bayonetta, is seemingly completely unaware that her costumes are so sexualised, so the leering camera angles just add an additional layer of unwanted perversion. Like the camera is controlled by a sex pest.

https://www.resetera.com/threads/why-women-criticise-sexualised-character-designs-ot3-make-her-look-more-corpulent-more-stuffed-where-the-eyes-cant-escape.275780/page-375?post=122151882#post-122151882

These people know these are games, right?

[BIONIC]

lol @ gene park calling out kyuji and messy
https://www.resetera.com/threads/stellar-blade-review-thread.852417/page-19

They linked a Ree page that has the tweet deleted

Messy

It would just have been nice if we got to hear from your perspective on what you thought about the male gaze criticism and after playing the game, how it shaked out. I'm sure you can understand why the female developers who alleged the cases of harassment, the deleting of their work, and getting fired would delete their tweets. It just becomes a second wave of harassment when bringing this up in the public.

There are also quotes from Hyung Tae Kim that speak to the contradictions in the developer's intentions with the game. He was influenced by the political context of taxi drivers in South Korea potentially losing their jobs to AI in the future (which is brought up in their developer diary video), but then when it comes to the politics of depicting women and objectification, he just considers it a fun action game even though the Korean men in the game aren't sexualised or objectified (whereas they can and are in real life just like the first part of your review alludes to with Korean beauty standards).

"I know that in the West, game characters have to be realistic in many ways and that there are numerous issues involved, such as there are numerous issues involved such as gender, race, diversity etc.

But Stellar Blade is only an entertainment and cultural work. I hope people will look at it as just another fun action game that has been released."
https://www.resetera.com/threads/stellar-blade-previews-demo-thread-staff-post-threadmarked.831270/page-59?post=121317633#post-121317633
Stellar Blade - Previews & Demo Thread [Staff Post Threadmarked] Sony


"When it comes to the design, we put special attention on the back of the character because the player is always facing the back of the character when they're playing. That's what they see the most of, so we thought this was pretty important."

https://www.gamesradar.com/stellar-blade-dev-also-known-for-butt-jiggling-game-nikke-says-he-put-special-attention-into-the-female-leads-back-because-thats-what-players-see-most-of-the-time/

I had hoped if you were interviewing the developer, then as a critic you could have brought up the criticisms and examine their own statements from a critical lens.

It’s a miracle of nature. Messy is somehow the only male to ever exist that has a “wife” and two biological children, yet somehow still remain a virgin.

[Gameboy Nostalgia]

I think white Europeans know a little more about Korea and the problems over there.

[BIONIC]

https://www.resetera.com/threads/why-women-criticise-sexualised-character-designs-ot3-make-her-look-more-corpulent-more-stuffed-where-the-eyes-cant-escape.275780/page-376?post=122152269#post-122152269

So this is somewhat based on something I saw a day or two ago, but it's also just a culmination of things that I feel the need to rant about. The thing specifically that grinded my gears recently was that I saw someone (on a different site) post a bunch of videos of women enthusiastically talking about the Stellar Blade demo, and using them as examples of "see? Women love this game, all the game journos talking about how sexist it is are clueless".

And it's just... infuriating. Especially so because I'm the kind of person to gush over things like Vanillaware games and other games that have sexualised character designs. I know for a fact I've been propped up as a woman having the "right opinion" before, like the time I was gifted gold on Reddit (by a man, they made sure to tell me that in their grossly "flattering" DM they sent me) several years ago for having a mild disagreement with another woman about characters in a game, to give one example of a few I remember. After things like this happening a few times throughout the years, I've since been somewhat cautious of how I word things, as there's nothing more frustrating than being used as a shield by these chuds just because I'm generally not too fazed by sexualised character designs - doesn't mean I absolutely adore them either (heavily depends on context), but just because I have a relatively high threshold for these kinda things, it doesn't somehow invalidate other women's criticisms or concerns.

And I have plenty of my own criticisms for depictions and designs of female characters in games, but I feel like I've been so desensitised to this shit over the years, that I find myself only particularly vocal when it's especially egregious, out of place/atmosphere destroying, embarrassing or otherwise just blatantly misogynistic. I'm very grateful to everyone that can muster the energy to call out this shit whenever they see it, and voicing my own criticisms is something I never would have even entertained the thought of doing on the internet 10+ years ago, since it was often just inviting ridicule, gaslighting or worse for those that dared.

I think the whole thing with women enjoying the game being used as shields by chuds is one of the things that's being bugging me the most about Stellar Blade. It's a game I was initially a little interested in, and I likely still would be if I didn't find the demo so meh. But seeing people bringing up how their wives/gfs have no issue with the game as some kinda "gotcha", or pointing to women on YouTube singing the game's praises and I'm just like... Is this really how far some guys are willing to go to wilfully ignore any and all concerns of misogyny whenever it's mildly inconvenient for them? And to play it off like they actually care about what women think when they only care about what the "right" women think, or what women have the opinions that most align with their own or are least threatening to them... It's not even a mildly convincing smokescreen.

[Gameboy Nostalgia]

https://www.resetera.com/threads/poland-defense-minister-says-they-are-ready-to-deport-ukranian-war-refugees-so-they-can-be-forcibly-conscripted.853467/page-6?post=122153418#post-122153418

Neither side can win so instead of sending men to there death I would rather the two sides talk to end this war.

Guy is about to get dog piled. 

[benji]

I feel like if this game is just remembered for its apparently good combat, that could take the wind out of chuds' sails who believe sexiness and "anti-wokeness" is what will make this game successful.

That said, I think that if men are gonna write about this game at all, then yes, they should address the male gaze aspect, and I applaud those who did, like Dmax3901, despite harassment from chuds. More women voices would be better obviously but if they aren't around then men could and should speak up.

Not so fast, he gave a 5/10 to Forspoken.

[Boredfrom]

https://www.resetera.com/threads/poland-defense-minister-says-they-are-ready-to-deport-ukranian-war-refugees-so-they-can-be-forcibly-conscripted.853467/page-6?post=122153418#post-122153418

Neither side can win so instead of sending men to there death I would rather the two sides talk to end this war.

Guy is about to get dog piled. 

Is a Tankie.

[benji]

https://www.resetera.com/threads/why-women-criticise-sexualised-character-designs-ot3-make-her-look-more-corpulent-more-stuffed-where-the-eyes-cant-escape.275780/page-376?post=122152269#post-122152269

So this is somewhat based on something I saw a day or two ago, but it's also just a culmination of things that I feel the need to rant about. The thing specifically that grinded my gears recently was that I saw someone (on a different site) post a bunch of videos of women enthusiastically talking about the Stellar Blade demo, and using them as examples of "see? Women love this game, all the game journos talking about how sexist it is are clueless".

And it's just... infuriating. Especially so because I'm the kind of person to gush over things like Vanillaware games and other games that have sexualised character designs. I know for a fact I've been propped up as a woman having the "right opinion" before, like the time I was gifted gold on Reddit (by a man, they made sure to tell me that in their grossly "flattering" DM they sent me) several years ago for having a mild disagreement with another woman about characters in a game, to give one example of a few I remember. After things like this happening a few times throughout the years, I've since been somewhat cautious of how I word things, as there's nothing more frustrating than being used as a shield by these chuds just because I'm generally not too fazed by sexualised character designs - doesn't mean I absolutely adore them either (heavily depends on context), but just because I have a relatively high threshold for these kinda things, it doesn't somehow invalidate other women's criticisms or concerns.

And I have plenty of my own criticisms for depictions and designs of female characters in games, but I feel like I've been so desensitised to this shit over the years, that I find myself only particularly vocal when it's especially egregious, out of place/atmosphere destroying, embarrassing or otherwise just blatantly misogynistic. I'm very grateful to everyone that can muster the energy to call out this shit whenever they see it, and voicing my own criticisms is something I never would have even entertained the thought of doing on the internet 10+ years ago, since it was often just inviting ridicule, gaslighting or worse for those that dared.

I think the whole thing with women enjoying the game being used as shields by chuds is one of the things that's being bugging me the most about Stellar Blade. It's a game I was initially a little interested in, and I likely still would be if I didn't find the demo so meh. But seeing people bringing up how their wives/gfs have no issue with the game as some kinda "gotcha", or pointing to women on YouTube singing the game's praises and I'm just like... Is this really how far some guys are willing to go to wilfully ignore any and all concerns of misogyny whenever it's mildly inconvenient for them? And to play it off like they actually care about what women think when they only care about what the "right" women think, or what women have the opinions that most align with their own or are least threatening to them... It's not even a mildly convincing smokescreen.

So.... don't listen to women?