More Mail

[Yeager942]

Shore-Leave steals every scene he's in.

 

[RTR]

It might be a little late for this, but here goes:
Bob,
do you speak some japanese? If so, how much?

 

[rancher of monsters]

Silly Bob, everyone knows the best Venture Bros. character is Knife Bear.

 

[AMVP]

Silly Bob, everyone knows the best Venture Bros. character is Knife Bear.

How neat that the clip for your pick (which is quite valid) would include the ACTUAL best V.B. character: BRICKFROG!

I really should give Friendship is Magic a look, but I'm still catching up on Adventure Time, and I just started Doctor Who on Netflix (not to mention my family's rewatching of Fraiser), so it will probably be a while.

Also, I actually own all 16 volumes of Cerebus. I can totally relate with being put off by Dave Sim's views on politics (gender and otherwise), which is a real shame considering his talent otherwise for plotting and character development throughout roughly the first 2/3rds of the series (High Society being the early yet undeniable peak).

 

[Helmholtz Watson]

Who is David Sim?

 

[WhiteTigerShiro]

As much as I hate to pummel a dead horse, Hepler was an atrocious writer. I honestly feel that the razorfist vlog describes this best, and he doesn't even make a fat joke:

Um... yes he does. He doesn't make a direct fat joke, but the simple fact that he gives such nods to them is telling (such as two cases where he basically says "insert fat joke here"). Not to mention that he's part of the ignorant masses who doesn't even know what she wrote. He spends the whole time ranting and raving about Mass Effect's story, and... guess what? I'm gonna let you in on a little secret: *Whispering* She never worked on Mass Effect.

Oh also? He completely misses the point on top of that all. Maybe she's a bad writer, maybe she's a phenomenal writer: that still doesn't excuse the backlash she received. Hell, the simple fact that her "bad writing" ONLY got publicity based on the fact that she isn't a gamer is just PROOF that people don't know what the hell they're talking about. All they saw was "not a gamer" and it doesn't matter if she painted the Mona Lisa, they'd be ranting and raving that she should never have held a brush in the first place.

 

[WindKnight]

As much as I hate to pummel a dead horse, Hepler was an atrocious writer. I honestly feel that the razorfist vlog describes this best, and he doesn't even make a fat joke:

Um... yes he does. He doesn't make a direct fat joke, but the simple fact that he gives such nods to them is telling (such as two cases where he basically says "insert fat joke here").

Plus the title directly refers to the name given to her in the first reddit post, which was a direct attack on her weight.

 

[Something Amyss]

uh... when did she say SHE SPOKE FOR ALL WOMEN? she said 'as a mother'...

uh... when did i say SHE SAID SHE SPOKE FOR ALL WOMEN?

Note the language used. It's important.

So it's alright if she speaks for all mothers (and implicitly "game-shames" mothers who play)?

Evidently.

So you are saying that it was OK to send her death threats because she said that? Actually, I'm not even asking that. That is what you are saying, but I just want to give you the benefit of the doubt and assume you aren't very good at expressing yourself.

No, and I'm not even sure how you got there from here.

Except that isn't at all what she said.

If you're a woman, especially a mother, with dinner to prepare, kids' homework to help with, and a lot of other demands on your time, you don't need a game to be 100 hours long to hold your interest

It goes on, but she's not saying "I'm a woman and I don't want to do this," she speaks to the demands on a woman's time. She does say "especially as a mother," but we're talking continued indications that women operate in a certain faculty. She speaks broadly and generally, and even a qualifier of "especially a mother" hardly serves to stop that. At best, she's speaking generally and broadly about a smaller group, but oddly enough, mothers are still a wonderfully diverse and complex group of people.

Pretty much ALL of this comment is predicated on the above.

Sorry.

Bob doesn't even cover all of what she said specifically related to gaming, let alone this.

 

[Eric the Orange]

I am not overly surprised that Bobs inner nintendo fanboy came out in this.

Does it ever go away?

 

[WindKnight]

uh... when did she say SHE SPOKE FOR ALL WOMEN? she said 'as a mother'...

uh... when did i say SHE SAID SHE SPOKE FOR ALL WOMEN?

Note the language used. It's important.

So it's alright if she speaks for all mothers (and implicitly "game-shames" mothers who play)?

Evidently.

So you are saying that it was OK to send her death threats because she said that? Actually, I'm not even asking that. That is what you are saying, but I just want to give you the benefit of the doubt and assume you aren't very good at expressing yourself.

No, and I'm not even sure how you got there from here.

Except that isn't at all what she said.

If you're a woman, especially a mother, with dinner to prepare, kids' homework to help with, and a lot of other demands on your time, you don't need a game to be 100 hours long to hold your interest

It goes on, but she's not saying "I'm a woman and I don't want to do this," she speaks to the demands on a woman's time. She does say "especially as a mother," but we're talking continued indications that women operate in a certain faculty. She speaks broadly and generally, and even a qualifier of "especially a mother" hardly serves to stop that. At best, she's speaking generally and broadly about a smaller group, but oddly enough, mothers are still a wonderfully diverse and complex group of people.

Pretty much ALL of this comment is predicated on the above.

Sorry.

Bob doesn't even cover all of what she said specifically related to gaming, let alone this.

she is using her OWN PERSONAL EXPERIENCE to ilustrate HER OPINION.

What about the rest of what she said? Helper more or less indicated that teh wimminz don't have time to play games because they're too busy making teh baybayz n gettin da sammiches.

your very line seems to imply by stating her opinion based on her experiences, she's somehow saying it for all women, or by stating it as a mother craddoke decides she's talking for all mothers, or trying to shame gaming moms who don't share her opinion or inclinations.

you are both putting words in her mouth, then acting like she was in the wrong for saying things SHE DID NOT SAY.

 

[deathbydeath]

As much as I hate to pummel a dead horse, Hepler was an atrocious writer. I honestly feel that the razorfist vlog describes this best, and he doesn't even make a fat joke:

Um... yes he does. He doesn't make a direct fat joke, but the simple fact that he gives such nods to them is telling (such as two cases where he basically says "insert fat joke here").

Plus the title directly refers to the name given to her in the first reddit post, which was a direct attack on her weight.

He was mainly referring to the backlash against her on reddit and /v/, hence the reference in the title.

 

[deathbydeath]

As much as I hate to pummel a dead horse, Hepler was an atrocious writer. I honestly feel that the razorfist vlog describes this best, and he doesn't even make a fat joke:

Um... yes he does. He doesn't make a direct fat joke, but the simple fact that he gives such nods to them is telling (such as two cases where he basically says "insert fat joke here"). Not to mention that he's part of the ignorant masses who doesn't even know what she wrote. He spends the whole time ranting and raving about Mass Effect's story, and... guess what? I'm gonna let you in on a little secret: *Whispering* She never worked on Mass Effect.

Oh also? He completely misses the point on top of that all. Maybe she's a bad writer, maybe she's a phenomenal writer: that still doesn't excuse the backlash she received. Hell, the simple fact that her "bad writing" ONLY got publicity based on the fact that she isn't a gamer is just PROOF that people don't know what the hell they're talking about. All they saw was "not a gamer" and it doesn't matter if she painted the Mona Lisa, they'd be ranting and raving that she should never have held a brush in the first place.

He said that the attacks on her "self-evident obesity and roseanne barr good looks" were "inexcusably childish". And for the most part he was decrying the direction of Bioware franchises as a whole, even stating "I understand that the series' general creative direction is not her fault."
And for the record, he said he was about to make a fat joke, but then stopped because he didn't want to be comparable to the reddit/4chan threads that he himself is denouncing

 

[Bara_no_Hime]

Except that isn't at all what she said.

If you're a woman, especially a mother, with dinner to prepare, kids' homework to help with, and a lot of other demands on your time, you don't need a game to be 100 hours long to hold your interest

It goes on, but she's not saying "I'm a woman and I don't want to do this," she speaks to the demands on a woman's time. She does say "especially as a mother," but we're talking continued indications that women operate in a certain faculty. She speaks broadly and generally, and even a qualifier of "especially a mother" hardly serves to stop that. At best, she's speaking generally and broadly about a smaller group, but oddly enough, mothers are still a wonderfully diverse and complex group of people.

Pretty much ALL of this comment is predicated on the above.

Um, I'm really confused because the text from her that you quoted supports my comment, not yours. She said "if you are a woman in this hypothetical situation" - and it's just that, a hypothetical situation. It happens to be her situation.

No where does she say that this is the proper place for a woman - she merely says that if you are in this situation, then you might prefer the same options as she does.

If a man was in the same hypothetical situation, he might like those options as well.

If she was saying that women should be in this situation, then she'd be wrong. But she is saying that many women (often more than men) are in this situation. That just means she understands the real world isn't the world we want it to be just yet.

Edit: Oh, and I can tell it's a hypothetical because of her sentence structure. Let's break down the sentence, shall we?

"If you're a woman, especially a mother, with dinner to prepare, kids' homework to help with, and a lot of other demands on your time," - this is a dependent clause. See that "if" at the beginning - that's how you tell. This is a "if/then" sentence. If the statement before the noun is true, then the statement after may be true.

"you don't need a game to be 100 hours long to hold your interest" - and there's the actual sentence. In the above situation, this may be true. You can tell the sentence begins here because this is where the main noun is. There are some prepositional phrases there at the end ("to be 100 hours long" and "to hold your interest" respectively) that add additional information.

Ain't grammar wonderful?

 

[WhiteTigerShiro]

He said that the attacks on her "self-evident obesity and roseanne barr good looks" were "inexcusably childish". And for the most part he was decrying the direction of Bioware franchises as a whole, even stating "I understand that the series' general creative direction is not her fault."

He then goes-on to accuse her of being responsible for Liara and Ashley having "wildly inconsistent characterization from game to game or even scene to fucking scene". If he wants to accuse her of being a poor writer, then fine, he's certainly entitled to his opinion if he doesn't like her work. If he's going to present evidence though, he should at least do enough homework to know what she did and did not write for them, or at least know what games to attack. It'd be like if I wanted to accuse J.K. Rowling of being a terrible writer, then going on a big rant about inconsistent plot points and terrible characterization in Twilight.

And for the record, he said he was about to make a fat joke, but then stopped because he didn't want to be comparable to the reddit/4chan threads that he himself is denouncing

And in the process made himself look no better regardless. I'm sorry, but pausing mid-rant to point-out the opportunity for a fat joke isn't much better than having made the joke in the first place.

All that his rant proves is that he doesn't like Mass Effect's writing, and that he's a band wagoner. And yeah okay, I do agree with his point that people should be attacking her writing and not her weight (since I doubt that obesity is "what's killing the gaming industry", as the original image claimed she was doing). So the video proves three things at least. What it doesn't do, however, is say anything about her writing.

 

[RJ Dalton]

Remember how I said I didn't know what to ask about - largely, it turns out, because I had entirely the wrong idea about what sort of questions you were going to be answering?
Well, now that the mailbag episode is over, I thought of a question.
What was your reaction to hearing that Michael Bay is remaking Ninja Turtles and turning them into aliens?

I ask, not so much because I don't know what your reaction is, but because I love listening to you rip Michael Bay a second ass hole.

 

[ms_sunlight]

Classy, people. Turning yet another thread into a venue for misogynistic attacks on Jennifer Hepler. Try not to do that, please.

 

[lowkey_jotunn]

The only place I really see death as taboo is on TV shows, and that goes for pretty much ALL shows that don't revolve around death/crime. I didn't regularly see characters getting shot in the face on Cheers or Friends, or current shows like Big Bang or How I Met Your Mother. If death comes up in any of those, it's usually a Wham! Episode.

I think the crux of the issue stems from the current crop of death-related TV shows. CSI, NCIS, JAG, Law and Order, Criminal Minds, House, Bones, Dexter, Scrubs and all their runty spin-offs have given us a glut of shows that basically require someone to die or be viciously assaulted. These are all labeled "adult shows" and so everything seems outta whack.


Movies, on the other hand, have death running through kid and adult movies alike. Pop quiz, name a Disney movie in which someone doesn't die. Or how about their Pixar brethren. Toy Story is ostensibly a kids series, and #3 dealt HEAVILY in the issues of death and acceptance. And don't even get me started on the opening montage of Up.

Classy, people. Turning yet another thread into a venue for misogynistic attacks on Jennifer Hepler. Try not to do that, please.

Exactly. As pointed out in the earlier youtube link, if you're going to deride the poor woman, do so based on her terrible writing skills... not her looks or the fact that she sports a pair of X chromosomes.

I'd also agree with Bob in one key aspect. A person doesn't need to be a video game nerd to write (or otherwise work on) video games. HOWEVER, a working knowledge of good games, and a casual desire to play is very very helpful. It'd be like a vegan working at a Steak and Chop restaurant. I'm sure they could do it if they really tried, but you'd probably get a better result from someone with love for what they're crafting.

Also, if you're going to be a video game writer, you probably should be a good writer. I dunno, I think it would help.

.

BTW Bob, the proper phrase is "Money, dear boy," regardless of the gender of the person to whom you are speaking. If you say it like that, everyone reads it with a snarky accent (usually Brit) and it's instantly funnier. Accents are like that.

Also, another reason bad good actors might end up in bad movies could be terrible editing. Go watch your own Green Lantern review to learn about this concept. Or 2012 to see how it can be done right. Either of those movies could have swung to the opposite side of the good/bad scale quite easily, due in no part to the work of the actors.