#the writing itself is terrible. the character and their dialogue is cringe inducing. i liked atlas. i liked lily’s relationship with her mom

[graciecatfamilyband]

Your response to that anon was fabulously well-reasoned, but I'd like to point out, just to help broaden the understanding, that heterosexual definitely does not have to equal heteronormative? Heteronormative means the portrayal of heterosexuality as the 'normal' kind of relationship, the default (and most importantly, *preferred*) kind, which is obviously problematic. Unless I misunderstood what you were saying; in which case, my apologies.

Sl-walker, my fellow Bail fan! Thanks for contributing to the dialogue in such a constructive way! 

You are certainly correct in your definition of heteronormativity, and noting the real differences between heteronormative and heterosexual.

My position on this, to be real with you, is kind of all mixed-up, and draws from sources that aren’t necessarily particularly academic. I think there’s a lot of room for disagreement on this. It’s only something that I’ve begun thinking about in this way recently, so I sure as s*** could be wrong on this one lol. 

For the sake of discussion, here’s where I was coming from:

Definitions are fluid, and at some point heteronormativity stopped being applied to society as a whole exclusively, a concept which affects individuals and their relationships and plays out on those individual levels (the relationships they choose to be in, how those relationships play out, and how society treats those relationships) that can be observed in people’s attitudes, expectations, and reactions towards relationships, and began to be applied to relationships themselves. (Tumblr? Did Tumblr do this? It sounds like something Tumblr would do.)

Maybe I should have said that heteronormativity shouldn’t be applied to relationships, full stop, but of course sometimes it can be useful for LGBT and asexual/ and/or aromantic people to use that lens to examine their own lives/journeys/understanding/relationships as well as for allo-cis-straight people who want to examine how they came to understand their sexuality/how it was treated and reinforced from an early age/how that might differ from other experiences. And I certainly see the appeal of reading something written in horribly 1950′s gender stereotypes and being like, “ugh, the heteronormativity oozing off this page is cringe-inducing.” 

I was trying (poorly? unnecessarily?) to combat this idea I’ve seen floating out there in some spaces that heterosexual relationships can be written to be “non-heteronormative”, as in, “Oooh, look at this  super non-heteronormative heteropairing” or “Sure, I write heterorelationships, but they’re not heteronormative.”

I think the way to write non-heteronormative relationships is to write LGBT relationships and/or characters.

If you’re going to write a hetero relationship (and Goddess knows many of us will/do, including yours truly), it is great to attend to issues of gender and to let both the individuals and their partnership be real, full and “breathing”, without constraining them with “traditional” gender roles and gender-based relationship hierarchies. I prefer to read such hetero relationships myself, I seek to do this in my own writing, and will always encourage this.

But is non-heteronormative the best word for this?

To me, to set out and say “I’m going to write non-heteronormative straight cismale and straight cisfemale” or even “How do I make sure my persona real-life heterosexual relationship isn’t heteronormative” (both of which I’ve seen) is missing the whole purpose of the concept of heteronormativity (and is therefore folly! Folly I say! LOL it seems like the right word, I apologize for the grandeur…).

Now, just because the relationship is heterosexual doesn’t mean the writing itself is heteronormative or story itself has to inherently “promote” heteronormativity, although I think PLOA was absolutely heteronormative.

And this gets all sorts of crazy- to the point of this position possibly falling apart- when you note the LGBT authors who are writing hetero pairings in one way or another. I’m uncomfortable waving a hand over such pairings and declaring “heteronormative”, when the work itself is so clearly non-heteronormative and/or is playing with assumptions about heterosexual relationships that is informed by a different lens and experience. But still, to me, it feels weird to say these pairings themselves are “non-heteronormative.” 

And again, I think it gets into really murky territory when one thinks one can combat heteronormativity with heterosexual dyadic pairings, because the majority of people doing this are not LGBT or gender studies people playing intelligently with the ideas of heteronormativity. In fanfiction and, I think, in “regular” fiction, even in, Goddess help us, nonfiction, “heteronormative” used in this way quickly turns into “what I, the writer, see as conventional.” And then “non-heteronormative” turns into “things some people might see as unconventional or deviant” - which is, to me, reinforcing the idea that LGBT identity and queerness are unconventional or deviant - which is, to me, a view that is heteronormative AF.

This turns into equating queerness with a) kink, and/or other behaviors that may OR MAY actually co-exist with queerness or may co-exist just as easily with straightness, that aren’t linked to that kind of sexual orientation at all and/or b) truly unhealthy behaviors such as abuse.

I promise, there is someone out there who thinks 50 Shades of Gray is non-heteronormative because there are sex acts outside the expected cultural norm for a heterosexual couple. Yet of course the whole thing is steeped in cultural gender expectations, terribly unhealthy relationship dynamics, and unhealthy/safe/poor representation of what BDSM is actually like in responsible BDSM communities. Yet this kind of 50 Shades dynamic is exactly the kind of thing I see in some pockets of the fanficton community when it comes to “non-heteronormativity” so I’m very wary. 

Eventually, this kind of “non-heteronormativity” also becomes an excuse for blotting out LGBT relationships- sure, this is a hetero pairing, but not a heteronormative one! Why can’t LGBT and aro/ace people be happy with that kind of representation?

Let’s call kink kinky, rather than non-heteronormative.

Let’s call subverting gender roles/expectations in heterosexual pairings just that, rather than non-heteronormative. And let’s be specific about what we mean with that, because usually characters subvert in some ways but not others.

And so on.

AND PLEASE, let us call unhealthy relationships and unhealthy behaviors, UNHEALTHY rather than “non-heteronormative”!!!!

It is certainly possible that this is NOT where the anon was coming from at all, that they saw the issue of heteronormativity in PLOA and in Leia’s “sexual awakening” as much as it was hinted at in the book as 100% entirely separate from the issue of what kind of man a straight-written Leia ended up with.

But still, to me, that anon ask (and I could be wrong) felt like it contained the idea that an “angsty” relationship (especially one where “angsty” means “teen/adult” or “promoter of democracy/fascist”) is almost like a substitute for an LGBT relationship or orientation.  That is troubling to me and what I sought to push back against with my use of the word heteronormativity/my statement that it shouldn’t be applied to hetero pairings. 

#heteronormativity #discourse #goddess help us #politeness reminder in effect until 9pm EST (year 3795) #sl-walker #Asks!

[askmerriauthor]

There’s quite a lot wrong with “Agents of Mayhem”, I’m afraid, and it feels like fundamental problems as opposed to a lack of polish.  Full disclaimer: I haven’t played any of the SR games, so there’s no comparison from me between the two games.  Also, I played approximately one hour of AoM before giving it the boot, though further research and watching videos of late gameplay - including endgame - confirms my first impression for me.

One huge issue with AoM is that it has really poor design.  Its style is great - it has sleek and flashy down pat, and the environment is quite nice.  But the issue is that it’s just a glossy coat of paint over a whole lot of nothing else.  All flash, no substance.  In the above screenshots you can see two samples of the overworld in AoM.  It looks nice when you just glance at it rushing past you as you move around freely, but in the second shot you can see how flat and devoid of life it is when you stand still for a moment.  There’s nothing really in the setting to interact with outside of the “shoot things until a thing happens” control points and mission objectives.  The wandering civilian NPCs don’t really even have reactionary AI - the writing tries to be tongue-in-cheek about it by saying that the civilians are so used to superpowered antics that it’s blase to them now, but it’s just a weak cover-up for “the programmers couldn’t be assed to make the civilians behave in more than one or two states.”

Speaking of design, we have the meat of game play in the shooting.  You only really interact with the world via gun which, hey, it is a shooter.  But check those screenshots up top for a breakdown of the game’s UI.  It’s an absolute mess.  Those red boxes show UI elements that either constantly exist in your view or pop up regularly.  The purple box shows the space your character model takes up based on level of zoom and proximity to the surroundings.  That little green box in the middle?  That’s the sweet spot where focus of play - that is to say, where you shoot - is located.

See how densely cluttered and constricted the UI is?  That’s not even bringing in the bright, flashy special effects from various enemies and environmental explosions, or the default-but-toggleable “Blair Witch cameraman caught in an earthquake” camera shake.  Pair all that with a handful of identical enemies encountered in a handful of identical environments and it all becomes a pain to deal with.  This is a ghastly user interface.

Despite the whole effort to be quirky and unique, AoM feels extremely mediocre and derivative.  The menu UI structure reminded me quite a bit of Borderlands 2, while the after-mission reward screen rang so hard on my mind as being boosted from Overwatch that I was just waiting to hear that soft “Play of the Game” catchphrase.

I can pass on a lot of poor design choices if the writing is good though.  But AoM doesn’t offer anything there either.  It’s flat, one-dimensional characters flouncing around in a flat, one-dimensional story.  I get that they’re trying to go for a referential 80s G.I. Joe cartoon vibe, but they really miss the mark.  The dialogue is so bad it’s legitimately cringe-inducing, the plot line is a complete one-note with a “dramatic twist” at the end that is... well, just the plot itself.  Evil badguy wants the MacGuffin to do evil things, and the twist at the end is that he is driven insane and... wants the MacGuffin to do evil things.  That’s it.  And the very end of the game itself is a faux-cliffhanger that’s a blatant set-up for a sequel even though there’s no drama or desire to have the end question answered.

What about our ensemble of quirky protagonists, I hear you ask?  Notice that I don’t refer to them as heroes, because they’re not.  I guess they’re supposed to be charming anti-heroes, but the protags are unlikable jerks by and large.  If they’re not terrible people, they’re just bland tropes with legs.  The characters spout off repetitive one-liners non-stop with teeth-grating pseudo-slang like “See you on the flippity-flop!”.  The primary protag we’re first introduced to is “Hollywood” - your standard Johnny Cage “smug movie personality turned even more smug soldier” character who happily promotes war crimes because his boss pays him to do so.  Another protag is “Fortune” - among her first lines of dialogue is her gleefully announcing how excited she is to murder the target the team is being sent to assassinate.  Then there’s “Hardtack”, who’s just the Demoman from Team Fortress 2 who’s a sailor instead of a cyclopian Scotsman.  How about some of the villains?  There’s “Doctor Babylon”, who’s your standard-issue mad genius who wants to rule the world.  “Hammersmith” is your stock “engineering super-genius who makes weapons because he can”.  How about “Steeltoe”?  He’s a cyborg with no respect for organic life who is addicted to replacing more and more of his human body with technology to improve himself.  That is literally a trope in and of itself and a character archetype we’ve seen done to death.  Or “Gaunt” - a douchey pop star who uses hypnotic music to control his legions of fans and oh for the love of pot pies we’ve seen this character a million times already!  There is just nothing likable or intriguing about these characters to me.  They’re cardboard bland at best, and flat-out repugnant at worst.

So... yeah.  That’s pretty much my run on the matter.  Unappealing characters, a script that would be bland by 80s G.I. Joe standards, overtly unsatisfying paint-by-numbers game play, and a UI structure that makes actually playing the game headache-inducing.  I’ve never refunded a game or left a review - positive or negative - on a game before Agents of Mayhem.  But this one struck me as so shoddy a product that I was actually annoyed at myself for purchasing it in the first place, which urged me to get a full refund and leave a negative review on the item via Steam’s review system.

I see a lot of people still leave good reviews for it and are having fun with the game.  To them I say: good on you.  I may harp on pieces of media for what I see as flaws, but I’ll never tell someone they’re wrong for enjoying something even if I don’t like it.  I highly encourage anyone who reads this to remember that this is all just my own impressions on the game.  If it’s something you like or feel like you’d have fun with, more power to you.  But in the meantime, I’m going to be putting my refund to better use elsewhere.

#agents of mayhem