how lorde slipped up in royals, or: i finally figured out why i stopped listening to this song despite it not bothering me that much initially

I know I'm late to the game (on a formal post, anyway), but while I was in the shower this morning I had a revelation.

So, as some of you already know, Lorde's uber-popular song Royals hit some sour notes back when it started to get really big, for reasons of, "us black folks are getting really tired of white folks telling us that rap culture is materialistic without understanding why it's that way". I've always agreed with this stance, but I used to argue that, compared to some other forays into this area, Royals was the tamest one I'd seen, mostly because of the song's very laid back, almost apathetic, attitude. Despite this, I still stopped listening to the song, because something about it bothered me. I was never able to quite put my finger on it, until today.

I do stand by what I'd said about the song's mood - there's nothing even a little bit aggressive about this song - but there is something a bit insidious lurking beneath it's chill surface. At a glance, the parts of the song that make you cry foul are the things she lists off as what "everybody's like" - particularly the Maybach, Cristal, diamonds on your 'timepiece', and the gold teeth (and possibly the grey goose). She could have chosen anything, and pretty much did for literally everything else (tigers on a gold leash?), but instead she chose to include these hip-hop indicators - products that frequently appear in rap music by black artists. The real problem, and the thing that turns this song racist, is the line "we're not caught up in your love affair".

Um,

See, here's the thing: without that line, the song could easily be (and was meant to be, i'm sure) one about how Lorde and her friends don't care to be rich, don't want to be rich, and have fun even though they aren't rich, even with the hip-hop indicators. However, the combination of those and the aforementioned line changes everything - suddenly, she's talking down to these people - not just shallow rich people or even 'fame whores', but also black rappers, group of people made up mostly of people who were dirt poor before they got enough money to even begin to think about any of those things. The idea of 'rap materialism' is one that tends to forget that small fact. Are there rappers that are materialistic? Yeah, definitely, but do they need Lorde, or any other white person, to tell them that? No.

And it's not like there's really anyway we could look around this, because the stuff she chose to call out is pretty specific. Go listen to a Jay Z bragging song, preferably from the mid-2000s. Or a 50 Cent song from around the same period. She very nearly called these guys out by name. Do I think that Lorde knew what she was implicating when she wrote this? Probably not; most white people don't get they don't have a place criticizing aspects of black culture. Hell, a lot of non-black people don't understand that rap is a part of black culture and not just a music genre. But that doesn't mean we can excuse this from Lorde, or anyone else.

And this song could have been saved. Had Lorde kept on with whatever motivated her to mention tigers on a gold leash and listed other outlandish, nearly cartoonish rich people antics, the line about  not getting 'caught up in your love affair' could have worked. What should have been a fun, harmless song gets relegated to a trash bin full of condescending lectures toward the wrong people, all because of ten words and a single line. It's a shame that such a talented storyteller has this blemish on her record because she's yet another white person who doesn't know what white privilege is (and even worse because only a few of us see it this way).

LEGO Pirates of the Caribbean - a review

So, guess who's fresh off of yet another LEGO game?

LEGO Pirates of the Caribbean was released in 2011 (ten days before the release of  the fourth film, On Stranger Tides) for all platforms. Differences between the handheld games and the console and PC versions are per usual. The copy I'm reviewing is for the 360, though I own the PC version as well (my computer doesn't run it well, hence why i bought it for console).

Unlike Batman 2 and Marvel Superheroes, LEGO PotC doesn't have an original plot; instead, the game utilizes the plots of the movies. The game is split up into four parts, each based on one of the four films, and every one of those parts has five levels (called chapters in-game) to play through, covering the major events of each movie. Due to the nature of the films (especially the fourth one), this game has the feeling of having four separate plots rather than one continuous story that spans all of its levels, despite the fact that the first three movies all link together.

I want to get out my complaints, since I have relatively few of them. The number one is, of course, the lack of female characters. This game has 16 girls out of 79 playable characters overall, which lands it right between Batman 2 and Marvel Superheroes in terms of ratios. However, this game has a one particularly infuriating difference than the last two. Like LEGO Harry Potter, and I assume some other games, characters with different costumes are considered as separate playable characters in the game. Due to that, the number of individual playable girls drops down to 9. Nine. Elizabeth, by herself, makes up over a third of the playable female characters due to costume changes. What fresh hell is this? And I understand that a lot of it has to do with the fact that there are a distinct lack of women in the film series this game is based on (unlike the last two, which just cherry picked small amounts out of literally hundreds of characters), but then I direct my question to them: where are the girls??? This is especially mind boggling because they even included side characters like Giselle and Scarlett, and bit parts like Lian and Park, the twins that appeared in the beginning of At World's End. Adding Tamara, the blonde mermaid from On Stranger Tides (and a character I kind of wanted to play) wouldn't even hep much. It's downright ridiculous how under represented we are in media, honestly.

Beyond that one, terribly huge stain on the game (and the film series), everything else is pretty perfect. Coming back to this after spending weeks playing the lovely but maddening Batman 2 made me remember what it was like to play a LEGO game and feel relaxed. No really; I played this game one day to calm me down after I'd gotten all stressed out about something I was writing at the time. The game is absolutely beautiful and does the films justice. They also had one of my favorite things about LEGO games based on movies: the original scores, which really helped set the mood. They even mixed up some of tracks in a  way that enhanced the experience - for example, using Jack Sparrow's theme, which didn't come along until the second film (I know!) in the Smuggler's Den level from the first part of the game. The ambient noise in this game is stellar as well* (stand inside of  the miniature version of Tia Dalma's shack in the hub with the music turned off. It's wonderful, and surprisingly creepy). Speaking of the hub, since this game is pre-Batman 2, the hub isn't open world, but that doesn't take away from the game at all. Though small, it's surprisingly engaging. Also, this game's bonus level is a miniaturized version of the game's boss levels formulated to mimic the original ride, complete with A Pirate's Life For Me playing in the background. It's absolutely adorable.

I totally recommend this game, especially if you're a fan of the LEGO game and especially especially if you love the films. It's a definite must play for me.

* Playing LEGO games with the sound off is something I started doing during my last replay of LEGO Marvel Superheroes, just because I wanted to know what the city sounded like. I recommend doing it if you're the kind of person who doesn't mind quiet; it can actually be quite soothing.

LEGO Batman 2: DC Superheroes - a review

So i finished yet another LEGO video game. okay, i'm 99% done another LEGO video game (I only have one more level and one last character to get before I finish). So let's talk about that.

LEGO Batman 2: DC Superheroes came out in 2012 for all platforms. As per usual, the version for handheld systems most likely is different from the console and computer versions. I have the versions for 360 and the Wii, but the former is the one i'm currently playing. This game has the distinction of being the first LEGO game to have full voice acting and an open world hub.

The story goes as follows. Lex Luthor is in town for an award ceremony for Man of the Year, the other nominee of which is Bruce Wayne. Bruce wins, but the Joker crashes the ceremony and starts wreaking havoc along with the Riddler, Harley Quinn, and Two-Face. Batman takes care of everything and all of the villains are thrown into Arkham Asylum, but later they're broken out by Lex. He's made a device that can break black objects (these are special and normally indestructible in-universe) and he offers to let the Joker use it to destroy Batman's stuff if he helps him in his presidential campaign. Chaos ensues and Batman is forced (though he had plenty of time to ask) to team up with Superman, and later the rest of the Justice League, for help.

Okay so this game... it's not bad. I don't think it's bad at all, really, but there was something about it that grated on my nerves sometimes. I think that part of it is that it was the first open world, so it has a lot of mechanics that are similar to something like LEGO Marvel Superheroes, but they aren't nearly as streamlined. It is very clearly a step between something like that and earlier games like Harry Potter and Pirates of the Caribbean. As a result it comes off as being more difficult than either of those games. Personally, the game also dragged at times; I literally did not know when this thing was supposed to end, even though it has fifteen levels like Marvel Superheroes. I feel like I would have enjoyed this game a lot more if I had played it before I'd played Marvel Superheroes honestly, because whenever i ran into one of these things I had that in the back of my mind.

That being said, this game also lacks female characters. In the main game the only playable girl is Wonder Woman, and she doesn't even show up until the penultimate level, along with the rest of the Justice League barring Supes. Vicki Vale is featured in the bumpers between the levels doing news reports (which were funny and cute), and Catwoman and Poison Ivy show up as enemies early in the game that you don't even really fight. Harley does get a boss battle at the least. Out of the 50 playable characters there are only 11 girls, The number bumps up to 17 out of 60 if you include DLC only characters. That's sad, even if you consider the fact that the ratio of girls to boys is larger than something with more characters like Marvel Superheroes. There are a ton of great women in DC comics, so where are they all? This keeps happening and it's not cool.

A few final dislikes: the fact that you can't unlock Supergirl until you've beaten the game completely is horse hockey. The flying vehicles are hard to drive, which is something that bothers me about most of these. There are only 3 playable PoC in this game and they are all men and two of them are villains (dlc gives you three more, with two of them being women, thankfully).

Okay, so good things now. This game is GORGEOUS. It pulls most of its inspiration from Tim Burton's Batman films, and that was a good move. I enjoyed exploring the hub (also EVERYTHING IS HUGE it does become offputting sometimes but I'm okay with it). It also uses Danny Elfman's score, which really helped the mood along. I'm actually a fan of how interchangeable some of the characters are (for example, Superman and General Zod and Supergirl all have the same movesets). It allows you to change up who you do in free play without sacrificing important stuff you need, which was something I wanted once I decided to only play as villains at one point. At the same time I like how a lot of characters had a unique thing that others couldn't do (at least not without help). The John Williams Superman theme plays when Superman flies and that's super cute. Also Harley Quinn is the cutest character, period.

Overall I still recommend that you play this, despite my many problems with it. I did end up having more fun than not.

(i rarely do this, but if you're wondering, my next LEGO review is most likely going to be PotC. Harry otter will come along some time too, but it won't be for a while.)

LEGO Marvel Superheroes - A review

Remember when I used to do reviews on this blog? Of things that had nothing to do with Zack Snyder or David Goyer or Superman? Yeah, i'm having a hard time too. But it's summer, I don't have a job yet, and I need to do things besides watching whole television series (serieses?) and playing video games. So let's review a video game, then.

LEGO Marvel Superheroes is the second to last lego game to have come out (based on a licensed property, at least (including the LEGO movie video game), maybe period). Since it came out last October, it's available on pretty much every platform you can think of that's out right now. My copy is for the Xbox 360, though I'm sure all of the console versions and the PC version are the same, pretty much.

The Silver Surfer shows up on earth, and is subsequently found by SHIELD as he's flying around. They send in Iron Man to get him, thinking he might be a threat, but then both of them are shot out of the sky by a helicopter. The Silver Surfer's board breaks into a bunch of lego bricks that fall all over the place, and he disappears. Cut to Doctor Doom talking about some evil plans he has with a mysterious person over the computer (though if you know your marvel you'll figure out who it is pretty quickly). He has a bunch of the bricks from the Surfer's board and is gonna use them for... something. But he needs more of them, and this leads into the first level, in which Sandman and The Abomination hold the entirety of Grand Central Station hostage so they can get their hands on one of the bricks (which Nick Fury later coins 'cosmic bricks'). Iron Man and The Hulk go in to take care of it. The game pretty much goes on from there, as bricks are moved, stolen, and recovered, more heroes and villains get involved, and more of the sinister plan is unveiled. 

So, good things first. In my very, very, personal opinion, this game is GREAT. I got it for Christmas and am currently in my second playthrough. I found the story to be interesting and engaging. There are a nice few twists thrown in there to keep things from getting too predictable (though you might see them coming from a little ways away if you're paying attention). There isn't any filler, due to the fact that all of the side missions are only accessible after you've beaten the main game, and that's really nice; all 15 of the main game levels are relevant to the story somehow. I thought they did a pretty good job handling the fairly large amount of characters they had, at least in terms of playing; the game doesn't do a lot of character building because it relies on you to have to have some knowledge of what these characters are already like based on their film and comic appearances. Since this is a licensed game, that's all fine and well. I also enjoyed the portrayal of the characters, and I like how self aware the game is, even without Deadpool breaking the fourth wall. And I love the open world of Manhattan and all of the landmarks, from the Marvel Universes and real life. 

Also, when you go to Liberty Island in free play mode, the Statue of Liberty winks at you. How cute is that???

The thing I like the most about this game, though, is how easy it is to navigate the levels. Not as in playing the game, but as in replaying the levels. They give you two separate ways to access the game levels (You can choose icons off of the world map, or you can go to the control station on the SHIELD helicarrier) which is really nice. This is a big step up from something like LEGO Harry Potter Years 1-4, where I had a time trying to figure out how to go back and replay the main game to get 100%. It's not as straightforward as the version in LEGO Pirates of the Caribbean, but I'm fine with that.

Now for the complaints. With the  exception of the first, most of these are probably nitpicks, because i like this game a lot and can't find any glaring problems with it. The most common complaint I've seen on the internet about this game is "<insert character here> isn't in the game", which is totally valid in one direction and kind of not in the other. If you aren't familiar with the LEGO video games, once the game is complete and you're in free play, there are usually a number of other characters you can unlock and play with (some you gain during the main game, but you can't play as them until it's over). In this game there are something like 116 extra characters you can unlock, if I'm remembering correctly, and I'm not so sure that includes the people you play during the main game, and it definitely doesn't include the additional characters you can get from the DLCs. When it comes to this side of things, I totally get why people would be upset when certain characters aren't included in that huge number. I know there's a limit to how many characters can be in the game, but when people like Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver are left out, the decision as to who can and can't be in it is pretty suspect. 

Of course there is the other side, which is when people complain that a certain character is playable in the main game. The most common one I've seen is people asking why Deadpool isn't playable. And, like... i get this -- there's something really cool about seeing you're favorite characters be a part of the game-game -- but at the same time it's just not feasible. As it is, this game has an ensemble cast of characters that it has to spread out over these 15 levels, and each of them has to be useful in some way, shape, or form. There's also the fact that when it comes to who's in the main game, they want to use the most popular characters, the ones that people who don't know too much about marvel will still recognize -- i.e. the ones with popular, half decent movies (the Avengers, the Fantastic Four, and the X-Men). There isn't a single character in the main game that hasn't been featured in a decent marvel movie in the last ten years. I keep emphasizing that the movies included were somewhat good, because I am well aware that Deadpool was in X-Men Origins: Wolverine, but that movie wasn't good -- that's why Gambit and the Blob aren't in the main game either. That's something that's pretty important to remember when going into this. It's a marketing thing, above all, and to get the widest audience it's best to use the most well known and easily recognizable characters at the moment.

My other complaints are small, like the fact once you beat all of the side missions there isn't much left to do in the free play world unless you leave all of the vehicles and characters until the very end. By the time you're done you've pretty much sucked the map dry of all of the gold bricks, and even if you do leave all of the characters until the end, there's nothing to do with them. The timeline that this takes place in is really unclear: it's like two-thirds the mainstream marvel universe and one-third the marvel cinematic universe, with portions of the new Spider-Man franchise thrown in for good measure, but still completely disregards certain things. Like, apparently, in this universe the Avengers happened, like the 2012 movie, but for some reason Loki is locked up in the Raft instead of on Asgard, which is how that movie ended. Again, I realize that this is a marketing thing and they want to reference the super successful MCU (which is why there's a whole level that references Iron Man 3), but like... you'd think they'd keep at least some of that stuff in line, or at least explain it. Why is the Red Skull alive? Why is Coulson alive and walking around the Avengers? Though, in their defense, I didn't think about this at all during the game, so I guess that's all that matters. OH, and there is a severe lack of female characters, both in the main game and as unlockables, even with the DLC. I can count on one hand the number of girls you can play as in story mode (It's Jean Grey, Black Widow, Storm, and the Invisible Woman. That's it.). That's actually a bigger complaint, because there are buttloads of cool girls in the comics, but there aren't enough of them in this game. Also, why is Carol Danvers Ms. Marvel and not Captain Marvel? What's up with that?

Overall, though, I really do like this game, despite any problems I've pointed out. If you're a fan of the LEGO video game and you haven't played this yet, you really should.

-whispers- i rarely do plugs for my own stuff here (that's what my personal is for) but i'm writing a fan fic based loosely on this game, and i posted the first chapter here. again, it's loosely based; they aren't even legos, but hey.

oh lordy

so, guess who watched an hour and a half of man of steel on sunday after game of thrones?

I was gonna say that I'd been avoiding it for a while, but that would be a lie. I never really wanted to see it. but it was on on the hbo west coast channel (it had come on before in actuality) so I decided to see it for myself.

the kicker, here, is that I actually enjoyed it? like I didn't love it and I definitely didn't hate it. the experience was fun. I laughed at the incompetent things as much as I did at things I genuinely enjoyed or were supposed be funny. I was still mad about pa kent's insistence on reminding clark that he was an miracle while simultaneously keeping him from actually being one. the part where lois says that "here it's an s" still made me mad. but I did enjoy it. women! like 5 female characters showed up, and it passed the bechdel test! there were actual good and cool things in there. and let me tell you, even with all of its pitfalls it was way better than reading the book.

like, I'm glad it turned out to be mediocre instead of outright horrible for me, and I'm glad that I actually got to see it so I can form better opinions on it. I'm still not gonna a buy the dvd though.

okay, so you might have noticed that I deleted my posts about racial representation in speculative fiction. I did it because they were pretty wrong. I explain why in this post: http://witabif.tumblr.com/post/82287350679/i-made-a-lot-of-posts-about-how-talking-about-race

just to keep you updated and informed

i'll be real, i don't have anything to tell you today, except that i'm writing a superman fic for the new au i made up a few weeks ago, and i was able to get all of the krypton stuff into one chapter. how about that, greg cox?

if you want to read that thing, you can find it here. trigger warnings are on the post.