hexmix | Entries tagged with fandom

way too tired and in too much pain currently to be engaging with this on tumblr so i'm tackling it here.

re: this post and Heisenberg's purported Nazi paraphernalia

the main thing to note here if this person really wanted to push for this argument is that Sturm is lifted directly from the film Frankenstein's Army where he's a Nazi creation. and by lifted i mean that literally, Capcom just straight up plagiarized the film.

they do that a lot, actually. in fact Heisenberg's entire design is stolen from the short film Rakka.

there's also the big obvious Nazi connections the real life Karl Heisenberg had. like genuinely you can draw these connections without pretending to be fucking sherlock holmes (lol).

now, i haven't looked into the tank and weaponry you see around his factory, but i HAVE looked into the plane turbine that's attached to Sturm and it's an American sea plane, so like 100% not going to put any stock into even the barest scrap of anything from the environment being attributable to character building (in a RE game? hah!), but i saw other ppl replying to this person saying that there's a mixture of German and American weaponry in and around the factory, and i'm willing to take them at their word considering that Capcom's design philosophy when it comes to the RE games is "does this spark joy? does it rock? is it capital C Cool?"

like friend, it's really not that deep. if they wanted Heisenberg to be a Nazi he would OVERTLY be a Nazi. i think what's more likely is that they're picking up influences from things that do lean heavily in that direction (once again: Sturm) and just dumping them wholesale into the game bc that's just how the RE devs make these games. typically tho it's just B movie action schlock.

i'm about to get real mean now and definitely lose the Nice Award for this week tho so let's put the rest behind a cut.

( i'd blame the meanness on the pain but lbr i do have Hater Tendencies )

anyway, all this to say that i think the fixation OP has on the flashlight is based in some sort of paranoia & that if they really wanted to prove Heisenberg was a Nazi they honestly could have done a much better job. this shit is like when my students would try to cheat but they'd be REALLY BAD at it so i just ended up more insulted than anything.

Current Mood: annoyed
Current Music: Yes Ma'am - Dead Don't Sleep

been thinking about CoD/MW2 again recently bc of the whole deal with Spec Ops: The Line being delisted. have actually been wanting to stream Spec Ops for about a year now, since whenever the MW2 fandom started getting big and i was constantly inundated with people gleefully doing recruiters' jobs for them.

it's been a constant grappling between my very staunch belief in "let people enjoy things" with my disgust at people just uncritically engaging with War Crimes Simulator. i am very aware of the fact that much of the fandom doesn't actually know shit about CoD except that dudebros like it. hell, i know there are people in the fandom who didn't even know what the characters they were shipping were from. it seems like a pretty textbook case of the most shallow kind of "time to ship two hot [white] dudes standing near each other." which again, very much still Let People Enjoy Things about this kind of stuff.

it's just that the dudes in question are from the game where you shoot people going over the US-Mexico border wall, so like. why'd you settle down in that fandom, is the thing i keep thinking any time i see a post about soap/ghost (which is impossible to mute/block btw, bc of how the fucking character names are just regular ass words.) apparently MW2 does make some attempt at criticism of America/private military companies, but it's part of a series that has also worked with Blackwater during the writing/development process, repeatedly misrepresented history in order to push a pro-military/pro-America narrative that's effectively just propaganda (see: blaming Russia for war crimes perpetrated by America in CoD: Cold War).

also, one of my favorite CoD factoids: devs not only consulted with war criminal Oliver North, they got him to voice himself in Black Ops II.

oh wait, how about nerfing fucking WHITE PHOSPHORUS to just an inconvenient poison gas cloud in the MW multiplayer, which is doubly funny due to the series' repeated claims about "realism."

it's stuff like this that makes it impossible for me NOT to think about CoD when Spec Ops comes up. the previous article makes the exact same connection. like you can't not, tbh. ppl joke about the white phosphorus scene in Spec Ops launching a thousand video essays but like...you can't understate the impact that scene had. it's also why both V and myself were so initially suspicious about the game being quietly delisted NOW, when the use of white phosphorus against civilians is actively being ignored or hand-waved by the media as well as the fucking US government.

like it turns out it's a music licensing issue, but goddamn what horrid fucking timing. (especially considering the game was apparently being brought up in the comments to the WaPo article about Israel's use of white phosphorus. real win for genocide-supporters that the game that makes it a point to portray the use of white phosphorus as an atrocity is no longer accessible to people.)

anyway, i'm not even done dragging CoD yet. still got more shit!

one of the things i've been looking into recently is the practice of devs paying arms manufacturers for the right to put their guns in games. that's right, any game that uses the actual name of a gun (Colt or Kalashnikov for example) in turn has to pay those gun manufacturers for the right to do so. real neat stuff.

there's a work around that article gets into: using military designations for weapons are fine, but once you tack the brand name on there, that's a no-no. unfortunately for many devs (including CoD's devs, which we know are so concerned with realism! that's why they just had to consult with Oliver North) including the fucking gun brand names are a "necessity" if you value realism. there's even a fucking gun licensing cop based out of France that reports any game that depicts guns that haven't been licensed properly (see Eurogamer article). like just the neatest. love, absolutely love learning things like this, wow!

that article, originally written in 2012 following the Sandy Hook shooting and NRA vice president LaPierre's statement that the real reason for gun violence is violent video games, ultimately centers an argument that slants more towards agreement with LaPierre than not, which i do have issues with (tho there's admittedly a noted shift at the end towards "the issue is the culture of violence in America"), but it's such an interesting read about the practice of gun licensing in video games. the statements by Barrett's Ralph Vaughn in particular are pretty eye-opening. it's clear from him that the logic for having these kinds of licenses and pro-gun propaganda in games (he makes it EXCEEDINGLY clear that arms manufacturers only approve the use of their weapons when the in-game representation is in-line with their company's image, so things like "only the good guys use these guns," etc) is that arms manufacturers believe that this will increase the sales of their guns, and as this article also points out, this has certainly been the case for the FAMAS assault rifle, which is used by the French army.

but good ol' Ralph gives us such gems as: "We've worked with companies to send our sniper rifles into video games. Which ones? Our license agreement prohibits us from mentioning a company by name. [However] you are welcome to check out the Call of Duty series."

i'm still not done yet, tho! was anyone aware of the proposed $7 million marketing campaign agreement between CoD and the US Army in 2021? Army was literally going to pay Activision-Blizzard to promo it in the hopes of upping recruitment. one of the proposed plans was to include Army ads in the mobile version of CoD that players could earn in-game currency for watching. i think that bit might be my favorite, tbh. though there's so much there: Army-sponsored esports tournaments (the US military is pretty open about using esports for recruitment btw, like just check which website hosts that article), paying CoD streamers for promos, etc etc.

ultimately the deal fell through in December 2022 due to the controversy surrounding Activision-Blizzard and sexual harassment/assault. i found it darkly funny that the reason the Army cancelled the deal was due to it's own issues with sexual assault allegations; it literally had to dump Activision-Blizzard due to fears of increased bad PR. we sure do live in a society.

anyway, i find it curious that this deal was cancelled in December 2022, several months after MW2's October 2022 release. i also find it interesting that the Army determined to continue funding CoD streamers so long as their money would in no way go back to Activision-Blizzard. (note: love the little conservative dig about TikTok and China in that article. fucker couldn't help himself.) i've had convos with V where he's brought up "why in the world did so many people unfamiliar with the series get into this game?" and i really don't have an answer but i sure am eyeing this timing, especially bc i've always thought that the fandom must have sprung from people watching streamers play the game.

anyway, all this isn't to say that "CoD/MW2 bad bc video games cause violence" (though it is hilarious that there's a huge section of the fandom that are antis. you know, the champions of "fiction equals reality". the exact type of people to link unironically to "video games cause violence" articles and have "CoD fan" in their bio). that's not actually the issue for me. the propaganda and ties to arms manufacturers are.

i mean also the Oliver North shit is pretty damning. imagine wanting anything to do with a game series that got an actual real war criminal to be in their game and voice himself. jimmy was joking about the next iteration just going mask off and putting Pinochet in it and i'm just like. unfortunate that i can see it happening.

but like. i get liking trash. i write fic for RE and DBH. i understand. but why the trash that's also military propaganda. why the trash that quite literally funds the military industrial complex. why the trash that not only whitewashes US war crimes but attributes them to another country. just absolutely wild fucking behavior.

i do sincerely believe most ppl in the fandom don't know these things. hell, i didn't know a lot of these things until i got inspired by the delisting of Spec Ops. i actually believe most people in the fandom haven't even played the game, so them knowing anything i've gone into here is uh, not fucking likely.

that still doesn't detract from the fact that participation in a fandom for a game like this is effectively just doing free marketing for the Army, which (see the Vice article above) is particularly interested in recruiting from Gen Z, black and latino folk, and women in general. also i mean. buy the game and directly pay arms manufacturers. hope people are at least pirating this shit.

anyway, i am actually done now. going to keep trying (and likely failing) to remember Let People Enjoy Things, just REALLY wish people knew more about the things they were enjoying.

V and i are also planning on streaming Spec Ops soon, both because of the delisting fiasco as well as the importance of showcasing a decidedly anti-war game at this point in time.

bonus content:

>> please check out this Forbes article written by a guy butthurt about people saying mean things about MW2, who goes on to claim that having the people you're shooting at speaking spanish is a diversity win. no i am absolutely not kidding, he literally says that. he also misunderstands a joke in the Polygon review about "NPC Cletus" and claims the author of the article "got details wrong" bc the character "isn't actually named" Cletus. just real incredible stuff here.

>> something i didn't get into with MW2 was the blatant Qasem Soleimani stand-in they put in the game, though this article does so. you apparently get to play as the missile that kills him. feeling another big Neat about that.

>> another article on CoD devs consulting with US military advisors and the pentagon + their dedication to "realism" when it comes to weapons and why they shifted to a focus on PMCs

>> if you wanted to know more about CoD Cold War for whatever reason, this article gets into it a bit more. plus there's some more fun series factoids scattered throughout!

Current Mood: amused

gonna be vaguing here a bit bc i was talking with a friend about a particular fic again and it's got me thinking about etiquette regarding tagging fic. won't be linking to the fic but it's not going to be particularly hard to find bc the author pissed me off enough that i used public bookmarks for evil for the first time, but anyway, some background:

( putting this shit behind a cut )

anyway, all of this leads me back to the etiquette of tagging fics, which i think is pretty well standard at this point, but something that i can personally relate to is not wanting to tag certain things out of fear of spoiling the fic. i do genuinely get that. there are several fics that, if i ever finish them, i will be including warnings that i am intentionally not tagging potentially triggering/upsetting content in order to avoid spoilers. that feels like a fair compromise between providing some sort of warning without spoiling a specific aspect of the fic.

and that was also why i assumed this person did not tag for any of the things that people would normally tag for with an ending like that--not just the """ambiguousness""", but the actual content of the ending should have been warned for imo. they clearly wanted the ending to come as a surprise twist (and BOY IS IT; i've never seen an author so allergic to foreshadowing. subscribes to the GoT tv series school of writing i guess??). even tho i personally thought that the ending fails spectacularly (including zero foreshadowing will do that), i still just figured that THAT was why things weren't tagged: bc the author was worried about ruining the """"twist.""""

here is where i should clarify that the rest of the tags seemed comprehensive. there was even one for something merely being IMPLIED, yet no warnings for the actual on-screen shit that happens in the fic, or for what's IMPLIED by the ending, which is just as potentially triggering btw!!!! no tags for anything anyone in the comments requested, including things that did not relate to the ending but occurred earlier in the fic, sometimes multiple times. instead the author repeated the assertion that "no one expects happy endings in fics" or condescended to people sharing their negative experiences in coming across a trigger that had been untagged.

which is where i began to suspect that it wasn't at all about avoiding spoiling the ending to their fic, but about intentionally hurting people.

and i'm not really interested in talking about that; it seems pretty clear cut to me. i think that person is a fucking asshole and i've bookmarked their fic as a reminder not to engage with any of their shit again.

what i'm more interested in is something they brought up in their response to me: "read at your own risk."

the thing is, i don't think this is really a common mindset in modern fandom. not in a "i am unable to take responsibility for my own actions" way like you see with fanpol types, but in that the kind of unspoken etiquette regarding tagging fic is that MOST FIC will be tagged accordingly, so that, if there are certain things you're trying to avoid, you can actually do a risk assessment before engaging with the fic.

what does telling someone "read at your own risk" accomplish after the fact except make you look like an asshole? if the majority of people commenting on your fic were blindsided by the fact that it didn't have a happy ending i don't think you can keep leaning on "people know the majority of fic doesn't have happy endings" or "people know that only fic tagged 'happy ending' will have a happy ending." bc...no?????? that isn't the case????? 'happy ending' as a tag only occurs when the rest of the tags make the fic SEEM like it WON'T have a happy ending, or as part of a "angst with a happy ending" tag. the default state of fic tagging isn't that happy endings will be tagged and otherwise every fic will have a Bad End. it is in fact the opposite.

like right? i started feeling insane the more replies i read by this person, ngl.

anyway, i think that "read at your own risk" applies for going into something that has a dead dove tag and then getting mad at the author for writing exactly what they said they were going to write. if an author tags for a bunch of content warnings, but then leaves out SOME PRETTY MAJOR ONES ON PURPOSE, i don't think that's a "read at your own risk" situation. i think that's a "you mislead people into thinking that you had properly warned them in order to facilitate your poorly written gotcha" situation.

being ancient, i lived through the time period of fandom where nothing was tagged and shit really was just "read at your own risk" bc the whole damn internet was like that. but that isn't what fandom is like now, and pretending that it is is, uh, pretty telling i think.

and if you include a tag that is "implied [triggering content]" i think that is sending a clear message to your readers that you have tagged everything that may need to be tagged. i think that that sends the message that you as an author have taken into consideration that your fic may contain triggering content and that you have duly tagged for it. that, in tagging something that's merely "implied," you have been quite exhaustive in your tagging! i think it's natural for your readers to then think that they know exactly what they're getting into when they're reading. which is exactly what i think this person was banking on.

i don't think i'm off base here tho, regarding the idea of how "read at your own risk" fits into modern fandom. i feel like there are certain assumptions people will make about a fic when they see it's tagged a certain way. hell, i think that most people would expect an author to tag for a Bad End. like i feel like that's such a given that i'm still perplexed by "only fic tagged 'happy ending' will have happy endings." like if i'm wrong pls lmk, but i have NEVER seen that as common practice in ANY fandom.

anyway, tagging fic obvs isn't mandatory, is a courtesy/unspoken etiquette, etc etc. a lot of this i think is also rubbing me the wrong way bc of how i personally look at tagging my own fics.

(comparatively) recent example would be with all i need is some sunshine, which i spent a probably silly amount of time worrying about how to tag bc there's one thing that, in researching, i fucking managed to majorly upset myself. it's a bit of a unique situation bc the actual occurrence in the fic is covered by one of the "canon-typical" tags i've been using throughout the series, but in trying to do research for it i uh. forgot about what was most likely to come up doing a search for something like that and, well. it just fucking sucked.

it also reminded me that there is a more specific tag that i could use for the thing, but doing so would spoil a later plot point, so i absolutely don't want to use the more specific tag, but i do also worry about people who may need/want that specific tag. been talking with lightmode about it and am leaning towards not including the more specific tag, largely bc i'm probably making a bigger deal about this than i need to [see also: that one time i included a warning in a different fic and someone got mad at me for including a warning.]

idk it's just genuinely something i think about a lot, so this whole experience was like extra wild for me. no conclusions beyond that tho lmao. "most readers know only to expect a happy ending when a fic is tagged 'happy ending'" just absolute incredible stuff there.