TKO Creations

Apparently, March 13th in Amazon’s terms refers to Greenwich Mean Time, which means the book is live on Amazon and Barnes and Noble.

Sure.  Why not?

It’s not often that you get a second chance to make a first impression.

Which is fortunate, because my first impression probably wasn’t all that impressive.

The Tower of Kartage was something of a rush job, on my part… desperate to get something out there. As a result, it wasn’t the most technically sound piece I have ever done, and was lacking many of the little things I wanted to do that I didn’t do in my hurry. But now, at least starting with the Kindle and Nook versions, the second edition of the Tower is live.

In terms of the story, nothing’s really changed. But the errant typos and weird formatting should be fixed. The print version now should have more uniform margins and page numbers. Little things, to be sure, but the little things add up.

I am sorry for those who felt the first edition was not properly done. You’re right. And I have to do better in the future.

Some writing related news to convey…

The first draft of Dire Water is now completed, in the sense that what has been done will fill a $10 light novel price point quite admirably.  I like how it’s fleshed out quite well.

However, Sunay’s tale was not the slightest bit content to fit in a single $10 light novel price point, and so I felt the most prudent path was to split it in two to maintain the smaller light reading set by The Tower of Kartage.

Still not entirely certain what I’ll title the second part of Sunay’s story, but needless to say, once again, a world of my development has expanded far beyond my initial intent.

You’d think I’d expect that sort of thing by now.

I’m going to start off with a story that I haven’t told very often, not so much out of shame or guilt but that I hadn’t ever particularly thought of it as relevant to whatever topic I addressed.  But now, for this topic, it is.

When I was a freshman in high school (no, I’m not going to tell anyone how long ago that was), I became a target of some of the upperclassmen student assistants to the phys ed teacher (he was an older man and needed the assistance with larger and bulkier equipment).  They decided I was “stuffing” my shorts for reasons I’m not terribly certain of (at least that was the cited reason I was told), and that I needed to be “checked.”

I was rather fortunate that my PE class was at the end of the day, because I didn’t have to go through the rest of my classes after the student assistants and three classmates who joined into the plan overpowered me in the hall leading to the locker room, ripped my shorts down, tore off my underwear, pushed me around, then left me with my shredded underwear rubbed in my face.

At the time, I wasn’t sure what to make of it (I was not the most sexually mature child even by the time I reached college, much less a high school freshman).  I was embarrassed to have to get on the bus and walk the quarter-mile home effectively commando with my underwear tucked in my bag.  I was surprised when my parents were irate when I told them what happened (especially from my father, who had always struck me as aloof at best when it came to bullying).  I was confused when the school principal and superintendent wanted to resolve the matter quietly.

The shame only set in when my peers started to quietly show sympathy and scorn for the kid “who got raped.”  This was high school, after all.  There was no such thing as quiet gossip in high school.  I wasn’t sure what had happened (I certainly didn’t agree I had been raped), but whatever it was, it clearly was bad, and that was something that no doubt contributed to the anti-social withdrawing and the faux-comedian shell I formed for many years afterward.

Nowadays, I know what it was, that I had been sexually assaulted, though comparatively tame to what normally happens.  It’s another part of the reason why I tend not to speak about it, as it really would come across as false equivalence to someone who suffered the full nine yards, I’m sure.  But the point really isn’t about the degree of assault, but the response to it from the “society” of the high school I attended.

“Silence is sometimes an argument of Consent.” (Thomas Hobbes – Leviathan, ii. xxvi. 138.)

When the general thrust of people hear the term “rape culture” and the claim that we all perpetuate it, the above line is what I think about.  Because to me, it represents one of the biggest cultural fallacies in Western society, something that stems from cowardice (Thomas Hobbes not wanting to speak out against the crown, but at the same time not support royal decrees), rather than any moral grounding.

It’s a problem because silence is not consent, and I would argue never is.  Anybody who has been a victim of sexual assault, abuse, or rape can tell you that.  Silence is a statement of fear.  Whether it is a coward of a philosopher afraid of punishment, a rape victim not wanting to report his/her assault, or a society not wanting to face uncomfortable truths until they have to… it is fear that is talking, not implied consent.

It’s also the biggest issue I have with the term “rape culture”, because I’m not sure it’s a particularly accurate term (at least on the surface, the academic definition is a much more robust term with a litany of descriptions that utilize much of what I’m about to say here).  When our society is forced to face the truth of sexual crimes, we come down hard on those responsible.  When there is absolutely no way to handwave it away, we destroy a rapist’s life, we destroy their reputation, we force them onto federal lists that they can never get removed from, make them announce their crimes to everyone in their neighborhood when they move in.

Even being a beloved celebrity (normally a near bulletproof shield for any number of misgivings), doesn’t necessarily save someone when sexual crimes are concerned.  Bill Cosby may have some high profile support, but outside of those talking heads, this once “wholesome” character is in a state best described as “eviscerated.”

I don’t think our culture supports and encourages rape even implicitly.  I think it’s more insidious than that.  We encourage ignorance.  The rape jokes that are meant as humor, the subtle pressure (for both men and women) to be silent when they are assaulted, I don’t think it’s so much to protect rapists as much as it is to protect people from having to confront the issue.

Deep down, we know it’s pervasive.  Deep down, we know anyone could have molested a child, ravished a friend or a spouse, taken advantage of an incapacitated peer… and we really don’t want to find out who.  We don’t want to think that Father Geniality sodomized his altar boy.  We don’t want to believe that anything other than playful exuberance occurred in Neverland Ranch.  We don’t want to confront the Super Bowl winning Quarterback about forcing himself onto women in a restroom.  We don’t want to even think that the voice of Fat Albert used his power and influence to take advantage of starstruck young ladies… but when we have to, by God will there be hell to pay.

Now, to those who have been victimized, it’s of little difference, just like how I was not at all impressed by my high school’s administrators insistently keeping the events and punishment for my assault quiet.  But at this point in my life, I do not believe that the school was trying to protect the students who attacked me.  I think they were trying to protect themselves and the school district from having a very disquieting dialogue; of having to face the truth that sexual assault isn’t a “small problem” or an “inner-city problem”, or even just a “woman’s problem”, but can happen anywhere and to anyone.

Instead of a “Rape Culture”, I’d argue it’s more a “Fear Culture.”  I also think that’s why people outside of feminist thought get so very defensive when the term is raised, because we as a society don’t support or protect rapists… at least not directly.  “I don’t support rapists!” they will shout, and I honestly think they believe that.  What they do support, however, is the silence that allows the crimes to continue and go unpunished.  They’re afraid of what they will find when they pull back the curtain, and that is a more subtle defense, because it’s something that can be more easily denied by individuals… because it’s a denial they earnestly mean with all their heart.

How do we fight that?  I don’t know.  I wish I did.  But much like Thomas Hobbes… it’s hard to take a stand, even if it’s something as simple as standing up for the victim of assault.  I’d also love to claim it’s getting better, but I’m not even sure I can say that much.

At least this new age of online socializing has given people who have been victimized a network of others and supporters that never existed before, at least not so readily.  Maybe the baby steps forward have to be enough.

The goal for me for NaNoWriMo wasn’t to finish Dire Water in a month (that would have taken a lot more time than I had available to me).  My goal was more to set a pace and be able to keep to it every day, even if I “didn’t feel like it” or “was too busy that day” or any other number of excuses I (and other writers) like to make to justify not getting the work done.

And I am happy to say I did that nigh perfectly, hitting the 50k word goal right on November 30th, never once slipping on the daily pace by even a single word.

I’m rather pleased with myself, which perhaps is a little silly since this is what I’m supposed to do.  But minor victories are still victories, right?

That’s what I’m going to tell myself, at least.

… Well, at least the halfway point of 50k.  The full manuscript of Dire Water will most likely be closer to twice that, but for the sake of National Novel Writing Month, I am halfway there.

You can follow my progress at this link here if you wish.  I will say at 25k written… the story itself isn’t bad at all, though like most first drafts, it’s a really rough thing to read though (and why I haven’t slapped down any excerpt for it).  I’ve got a good pace going, and hopefully I’ll be able to keep it through the rest of the month.

I’m gonna tell you a story (that I’m copying from a discussion I had on Facebook).

Back around the turn of the century I was a contributor for a site called the Detroit Sports Rag. It was specifically built to be a watchdog group for the Detroit sports media. Now this was a city in which the media was (and is) pretty much blatantly in bed with the teams they were supposed to cover.

I mean, they didn’t even try to hide it. The Ford Family hosted media events specifically for supportive journalists. Beat reporters that asked uncomfortable questions would find their press credentials revoked by the very papers they wrote for.

When Rob Parker had a book deal go south, then General Manager of the Detroit Pistons, Joe Dumars, straight cut the dude a check to cover the failed book launch. The ramifications of that? Absolutely nothing. Parker continued to write for the Pistons beat for years.

This was an industry where Mitch Albom could write and have published by the Detroit Free Press about a Michigan State Final Four appearance that he couldn’t have attended, since at the time he sent it into press, that event HADN’T EVEN HAPPENED YET. His punishment? A two week supension… oh, did I mention Albom at that point was writing articles about once a month?

Michael Rosenberg had a personal relationship with former U-M coach Lloyd Carr, to the point where he openly declared in public that he was going to get then coach Rich Rodriguez fired. When a potential rules infraction was uncovered, did Rosenberg recuse himself from the obvious conflict of interest? Nope. In fact, he gleefully took the investigation, intentionally misrepresented facts, trumped up the charges, and tried to get the man he wanted fired fired. His punishment? Absolutely nothing. He works at Sports Illustrated now.

The site I contributed to? It’s now a one person blog that even he admits caters to nothing but a small group of people.

That’s the sort of problem with “ethics” in journalism, and there’s really not a debate to be had. We (as a society) KNOW what the problem is. We just don’t care, and certainly don’t care nearly enough to foot the bill that would help keep journalists free of the influence of the people they’re reporting on.

~~~

So when people who fly the #GamerGate hashtag wonder why everyone outside of gaming kinda rolls their eyes and dismisses their concerns, this is pretty much why.  This isn’t unexplored ground here, and it’s a debate that has been had in far more important fields as well.  It’s a debate that society has pretty much settled itself on, and that answer has been, “Sure… unbiased reporting would be cool and all, but if we have to support it… eh… we’ll take the yellow journalism.”

Hell, I would argue in some fields (especially in politics), we kinda… like it.  Biased reporting is rewarded.  The pundits (not the reporters) are the ones that make the big money.  Op-ed is what makes the front page, not the fact-checking.  We chase the clickbait, not the accurate correction.  We want to get worked up and in a froth, and the best way to do that is to stomp our feet angrily at something we know is “wrong.”

If we want ethical journalism, there needs to fundamental changes in the very fabric of our society (and possibly even ol’ human nature itself).  I don’t see that happening any time soon.

Little bit of background; I didn’t get much chance to play the first game at the time of its release, just a handful of hours with a friends XBox 360.  And my first impressions were rather… poor, to put it mildly.  It really struck me in that limited exposure to be your typical male sex fantasy romp, the main character spending extended periods half-naked (or barely covered by flowing hair) didn’t help matters.

So, imagine my surprise to be talking about the game’s sequel with friends and hearing the claim that Bayonetta is actually a very positive feminist character.  With the circumstance of owning a Wii U and the inclusion of both games in one package, I decided to give it a second chance, and play through both games in their entirety.

Are the Bayonetta games actually very strong feminist models below the surface?  The conclusion I’ve reached is, yes… ish.

Now, bear in mind, no two models of feminism are the same, so there is a lot of “Your Mileage May Vary” when it comes to assessing any given work.  On top of that, within the Bayonetta games, there are really two levels to analyze, which muddies the water even further.

Firstly, let’s talk about Bayonetta herself.

One big problem that I tend to have with “strong” female characters is that writers tend to mistake “strong” with “masculine”; creating a character that is basically a man with larger breasts.  And while its true that there are certainly women that fit that personality type, it tends to be the default way that writers tend to go when they want to create a female character that is more than window-dressing.  “Femshep” of the Mass Effect series suffers from this issue.  While it’s certainly true that she’s a soldier by trade and that profession tends to lead to a certain mentality, when you play both the male and female versions of the character the illusion really gets torn apart and you discover that “Femshep” is literally “Broshep” with a female rig and textures.

(And yes I used the word “literally” as it is defined, not ironically or in bad grammar.)

Bayonetta, on the other hand, embraces her femininity.  She openly likes “girly” things, and makes no apologies for it.  She gleefully parades in lavish dresses, accessories, and happily shops for “heels.”  She openly admits cockroaches are terrifying.  But her feminine traits are not a weakness.  They’re a personal choice.  She takes all the feminine stereotypes, owns it, and turns it on its head.  If you have a problem with it, she will kick your ass and make you call her “Mummy.”  No one in the setting disrespects her womanhood and gets away unscathed.  She flirts openly and intimidates with her openness towards her own sexuality.  She commands respect and gets it, while being completely and unabashedly “girly.”

There is a lot of girl power in the character, and it is definitely something good to see.  That the feminine does not have to equal weak is a message that needs to be delivered more often, and a lesson that a good many writers could do to learn.

But now we get to the surface, the image that is thrust into the public eye, where everyone’s first impressions lie… and that’s where it gets dicey.

While it’s true that much of the time that she’s half naked, it’s usually in the middle of combat, and the player’s eyes (even the horny male) is focused on much more visually demanding things, and while even many of the cutscenes where she’s effectively nude with just curtains of swirling hair are usually very short and largely tame, there are more than one instance where she is laying on her back with her legs spread open and nothing but a thin wisp of her hair covering her erogenous zones while she winks playfully that are absolutely for no reason but to titillate the stereotypical horny male gamer.  And while it is true that there are elements of feminism that say embracing sexuality in such a fashion can be empowering, it’s a very flimsy rationale for those few pretty blatantly over-the-top scenes.  Perhaps it’s one of those “Your Mileage May Vary” moments, but if so, it doesn’t get very good miles to the gallon for me in this particular case.

The game itself is amazing (especially Bayonetta 2, which is my favorite of the year so far), and Bayonetta herself is certainly a huge step forward from the usual portrayal of strong female characters in video games (and even in most media for that matter).  If you can look past those astonishingly small number of instances of blatant pandering, there is certainly a lot of merit to the argument that the titular character is indeed a very powerful and inspiring female character model.

But if you can’t look past them, I can’t say I terribly fault you.  It is kinda unfortunate that such a very good character is packaged in with some (admittedly few) depressing moments of pathetically shallow eye-candy.

I kinda touched on this during my pair of #GamerGate posts… but that really was just a surface thing.

Today, I think I’m going to delve a little bit deeper (and probably upset some people in the process), but eh, whatever.

The real reason I don’t consider myself a “gamer” is because… well… gamers really strike me as very angry people.  It doesn’t even matter if the issue is important (in the sense that issues in video games can be important) or trivial.  Go anywhere on this wide web, and all you see is rage.  Either they are up in arms over which console is the best, or about the best graphics card, or this game is exclusive to this platform, or something was changed in a patch, [x] game is getting a sequel while [y] isn’t… go to any official website for any developer, 4chan, 8chan, IRC… anywhere… and just take in the sheer amount of vitriol, rage, and venom from every corner of the gaming world.

It’s a concept that is pretty much entirely foreign to me; getting so emotionally torqued over something so… benign.  If I don’t like a game, I just don’t play it.  If I don’t like a console (and to be honest, if not for gifts from family, I wouldn’t have had a game console since the Playstation… the first one), I don’t buy it.  If I don’t like what a company is doing, I don’t support them.  It seems like the perfectly rational response to something so very insignificant.

It looks increasingly to me that to be a “gamer” requires a level of fanaticism that I simply don’t care to have for something so small.

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t intend this as a judgment.  People do plenty of things that make no sense to me, but that’s why we’re are different.  I’m sure there’s been no amount of people who look at me and wonder why I’m still writing in a world where writing is slightly less valued than a panhandler on the exit ramp of a freeway.  I ask that question of myself honestly.  But that’s the reason folks.  The anger seems silly.  The bitterness and rage that boils gamer blood on a daily basis is a stress that I simply don’t want, and actively avoid.

There’s something oddly fitting about a entertainment convention going on over Halloween weekend.  It might be the only time cosplayers don’t feel out of place out in public.

At least on Friday, anyway.

I won’t be in costume, if for no reason that they tend to horribly uncomfortable and I’ll be spending hours manning a booth and hopefully selling books.  Sorry if that disappoints anyone.