Anastasia Steele is a much talked about character. She is the lead female protagonist of the popular 50 Shades of Grey, and people absolutely love calling her a Mary Sue.
You might not like her, or understand what Christian Grey sees in her, or feels that something in 50 Shades of Grey wasn’t really what you wanted it to be. You might find it hard to empathize or sympathize with her, or that her story is hard to believe. But none of that makes Anastasia Steele a Mary Sue.
Video games often struggle with same sex relationships. They seem to feel that the only way to have same sex relationships is to make them a big, showy event, or to not have them at all.
There are a variety of other video games that have come out recently that feature characters that are fluid in their sexuality and allow the player to ‘project’ a sexuality onto the character. They don’t tell you that you have to play a straight male or a lesbian female – you are whoever you want to be. Sure, not all games can have this level of customization, and many opt to not even have romance or sexuality be touched on at all, but when romance and sex is an option, I enjoy it not being heteronormative.
I’m a strong supporter of men playing female characters and female playing male characters. What better way to empathize with the opposite sex than to put yourself in the figurative mind and body of one?
However, I often notice that men, for some reason, have trouble with bra sizes. And weights. And statures of women. So I wanted to help out a bit in that regard!
I recently finished The Girl Next Door by Jack Ketchum and, while I don’t do book reviews, I do want to discuss some of the themes and ideas presented in the story.
It’s inspired by the true story of Sylvia Likens, a girl who was tortured and eventually murdered by her adoptive parent who enlisted the help of her other children and neighbourhood kids to abuse the girl.
-Trigger Warnings-
Buffy is 15-16 years old when Angel sees her and falls in love with her. He looks to be about 20 or 21, but in reality, he’s over 200 years old.
According to other media, we should be really creeped out. In Pretty Persuasion, we’re supposed to be disgusted by the two 30-something men talking about the two 15 year old girls, after all. We think they’re too old for them, that a sexual relationship with them would have extreme power imbalances. It would be, above that, disgusting, and the fact that they can’t relate to women their own age would be used against them.
As a young adult, I think most of us who have seriously played video games boggle at the idea that they aren’t art. It’s something we take for granted – an obvious truth. However, there are still people who are debating that something so thought-provoking could be art.
I want to boil down the different forms of media that video games contain – and explain how they take it further.
Lost Girl is a show I wish I had known about a year ago. Smart, interesting, and with a very talented cast, it’s an urban fantasy with humans and ‘fey’, which come in different varieties. Most are based in fairytales, legends and urban myths. The main cast includes a succubus, a human, a siren, and a werewolf. Other types of fey have included witch doctors, naga, etc.
Welcome to another blog roundup! A lot of interesting food for thought here. I don’t fully agree with everything linked below, but all links got me thinking, which is the most important thing.
A quick reminder that I guest blogged at Eden Connor’s blog: Women Desire Taboos in Their Erotica
Figured I’d post a few of the interesting blogs I’ve read this week! Have you read anything interesting recently?
Is There Something Unsexy About Playing Video Games?
My Self-Publishing Roller Coaster. And Porn. And Wow, I Need to Lose Weight.
Writing and Publishing Indie Porn: Tips from the Trenches
ON THE DEATH OF WHITNEY HOUSTON: Why I Won’t Ever Shut Up About My Drug Use
Vancouver billionaire gets slapped on the wrist after confining a sex worker
That Time I Worked at a Sex Club
Don’t Panic (But Keep Your Towel Handy)
World Building Wednesdays: The Coin of the Realm- Resource Gathering
If You Write It, They Will Come
Space for Rent: Video Games as Art
Book Promotion Roundup – Useful Articles for New Authors
How to be a Fan of Problematic Things
Like it or not: Breaking or Bending Consent in Erotic Fiction
These are articles rather than blogs, but still very interesting.
My white privilege post got me thinking about racism, perception, and arguments some people have used when analyzing fiction, especially in regards to there being a right and wrong way to portray a group. My focus, of course, is on fantasy and science fiction, because of the ways that racism will differ in a world where ‘race’ as we know it doesn’t exist, since race in our world is a cultural concept rather than a physical one. In most fantasy and sci-fi, other races have physical, cultural and mental differences that we simply don’t have on Earth.
