Can we resume normal internet please.

Recently, I've been delving into Reddit, and woah shit is it sometimes a mess.

I was "discussing" A Serbian Film with someone on a the main horror reddit, and its "artistic qualities".

Let me lay some scenes out for you in order of descending misanthropic misery (and I mean, really, don't bother reading about them if you don't like reading about unpleasant things, just trust that they're very bad and wrong):

Spoiler

A woman gives birth to baby, and a man receives the bloody baby and fucks it, to the look of the excited mother's wonderment. I realise I did say "descending misery", and while this scene alone sounds like the most extreme and pointlessly awful thing you could think of, it's borderline comical in that the scene more or less falls flat on its face trying to make it sincere (read: I don't think this film was supposed to be anything but a joke in the first instance, and an extremely unsavoury one at that).

Spoiler

So a woman gets all her teeth pulled out while tied up, and has a dick forced down her throat, and then suffocates in agonising miserable pain while choking on this guy's dick and her own blood.

Spoiler

A drugged horny guy is fucking a unconscious drugged girl. While he's fucking her he's told she was of those people who is pretty much a Serbian chav/hillbilly/whatever in order to spur on his misogynist rape fucking. Suffice to say, he carries on fucking after he graphically decapitates her with a machete.

I mean there's many other miserably bad points, but they are all the shittiest, "OMG why would I want to watch this," points. And I've said to friends, "Please don't watch this film," and then they at least went onto watch the, err, "highlights". I'm really not joking, just don't watch it, and I know it's human nature to be contrarian at times, but really you would be better off not watching the scenes I've mentioned above.

So anyway and my disclaimer aside, the director claimed that these scenes were "representative of the plight of Serbian people [or some other such bollocks I'm paraphrasing from]". I mean, 9/10 directors from any country could take that country's make a nasty exploitative rape film and claim it as art, but does that mean they should? Does that mean that two totally exploitative death-rapes should be committed to film, rather than a nuanced approach that does that message a much better service?

No it does not (I got to the not so rhetorical question before you), and I'll add the extra qualification that the film never really does in any way hammer home the, "this is the Serbian plight," metaphor - it just seems like a nasty mess. In the last scene, where a family kills themselves because of the horrors they've seen (a great metaphor for a country's plight), a moment later thugs round up their corpses to be later-fucked which scuppers that potential meaning - that's the kind of film it is.

I would say overwhelming the evidence is this is a shock director having no integrity, yet I quote, I'm an "idiot freshman stuck in feminist critique" and I'm the one "taking away thoughts of pleasure from the film" despite describing it as "dangerous to watch for someone who's impressionable, as with how graphic it is I think there's a fairly thin line between watching stuff like this and watching a real rape. But hey, let's hope it's only discerning artists who get the deep felt rich metaphors behind the film watching it and not some teenagers who heard it was extreme and thought it would be a fun watch, right? It's a thoroughly misanthropic film."

Despite all my salacious boobs=female empowerment (which I would say was rather regrettably articulated, the point I was trying to get across was liberal media shouldn't feel bad about sexualising men or women, maybe I did arrive at that point somewhere - I forget) that made Yuki leave I guess, apparently somewhere the internet I'm the voice of feminist critique.

I guess I should add to this I was called a snake, a liar and pretending I was a godsend on only-online pokemon forums (I mean maybe the last bit is true, I have been known to be a bit of a godsend) for a playstyle and pokemon sets I popularised and piloted in recent pokemon generations, which despite very clear links to my work (and I would say mathematical workings, which this boils down to) because there was a gang on fifteen of them all claiming I was a fraud and liking each others' posts to lend them credence (this got to sour grapes territory quite quickly). I mean, if someone called me a snake in public right now, there would be some violence involved - it boggles my mind that people go as far to be so drastically rude on the internet.

So what is the problem with the internet, and what is the problem with me on the internet? I guess I'm apparently a lying feminist who gets off on rape? Do I just give that vibe? I bet you all have a no-Jojobobo's club above the Drawing Room, where there's some awful Jojobobo sockpuppet that prevents my plural membership.

The hot summer northern hemisphere is always when these forums get sleepy, so I'm quite happy to wait for responses to this awfully wayward thread. I will wait months, I tell you!

 

Well I hope you've learnt your lesson. This is what happens when you stray from the sheltered confines of TA.

 

The outside internet is a scary place, I should have known better.

I'm still undecided whether when I make deranged drunken rambling threads like this one whether they're good for this place or ever so slowly killing it.

 

I wouldn't worry about it. I think we've already run off all the weak-minded fools. Eventually this place will succumb to entropy, but not today, and not because of you.

 

Occasional drunken shitposting it is then!

 

Guess again bitch

 

Don't lump yourself in with the riffraff wayne, I wouldn't call you a weak-minded fool. A fool sometimes, sure, but not a weak-minded one.

 

I don't think you drove Yuki off mate, she probably stopped coming here because no one worshipped her or shared her fuck life and do drugs mantra. Remember I drove off a certain red headed lesbian who prided herself on her talent at writing fanfic of gay alchemists doing it by beating her in some role play battle royal writing contest thing using the most ridiculous and opposite character I could think of. Also I may or may not have had her character gang raped by black dudes to "finish her off".

Rape fantasies are ok to have if you are into that, as long as it remains just a fantasy or a scenario you and the missus/mister play in the bedroom. Never take that shit on the streets. Rape isn't really about the sex anyway, it is about having the power over someone.

Over the last couple of months I have frequented Reddit and I've learned that TA is one of the few places I wouldn't get downvoted for making an obvious joke or at the very least tell it like it is.

 

I guess I just thought the timing was a little convenient (me posting what could be seen as anti-feminist when I'd argue it was liberal, her bemoaning it and then going into radio silence). I guess she wasn't active so much at the time while I've been here anyway so I never really knew anything about her, maybe as you say she was more or less looking for an excuse to leave.

I don't think anyone is close to forgetting that Zanza.

Don't worry I don't have rape fantasies, they would get in the way of my foot fetish (toes in my bum).

This place does seem overall less precious than most of the internet, which is definitely a good thing.

In terms of making inappropriate jokes, ironically the guy who practically called me a rapist insisted it was a joke because he put "lol" at the end and said he was confused as to why I took offence. I guess I'll have to try that sometime, telling people, "You're a rapist, ha!"

His arguments were wank anyway, he compared it to 12 Years a Slave and said you wouldn't take slavery out of 12 Years a Slave because it is objectionable. I argued that the difference between 12 Years a Slave is that it is literal rather than allegedly metaphorical, so the lessons to be learnt are readily apparent, whereas you would only really know specifically what A Serbian Film is about if you look it up. I also mentioned that a metaphor whose meaning is entirely inscrutable isn't a good metaphor in the first place (such as a woman being mouth raped and choked to death by a dick which is in the film, which I mentioned felt very contrived for what the director says is an "honest" articulation of rage), and so he is a poor artist and director for not getting his points across in a way that allows for dissemination of his message.

Lastly I mentioned if the director did really care for getting out a message on Serbia he would have just made a literal/historical film in the vein of 12 Years a Slave, which would have presented what he was allegedly looking to say much more clearly than making a whole film filled through of gross content that is supposed to be metaphorical, and that ultimately seems to point to the director being more vested in making an extreme shock exploitation film rather than making something that talks about the plight of the Serbian people.

He didn't get back to me on nearly all of these issues, so I'd to think he thought I had a point. If there's one thing this place did teach me, it's how to stick at an argument until the opponent backs down due to attrition.

 

Any qualities this place processes are directly attributable to one thing: the size of the community here is quite small. The more people you get, the more of a uncontrollable beast anything becomes. This can be good or bad, but it's how I see things anyway. The agenda and the tone are set by the people who are here contributing.

It shouldn't be too surprising that forums for fans of a cRPG game that came out in 16 years ago (forever ago in internet years) aren't exactly a social hotspot.

 

Great. A director who thinks that if you explain hard enough that it is just bunch of metaphors, the movie is okay and artistic and all. He is full of it.

And yet people still want to be a part of it and become a member. I think they're drawn to it.

 

I guess I'll take what I can get.

Huh, it never occurred to me to wonder whether or not there was an Arcanum subreddit. But of course there is.

 

I've still never seen it, but I have been curious about it for quite some time. I think what put me off was the real killing of animals, I'm not really at all precious about animal welfare and don't killing of animals for a variety of reasons (sport, food, science, etc.) but abusing or killing animals to make your film more edgy and to press the censors buttons just doesn't seem right (even though I've heard the locals at least ate a few of them). I'd like to say I've boycotted it for life, but sooner or later my curiosity will likely overcome my damnable principles.

You just wait, fully 3D Arcanum 2 will land and it'll be bigger than Fallout or TES, and then this place will be packed to the rafters with millennials who think forums and now, "cool, retro and spicy" (people talk about memes being spicy on Reddit, so I presume it's one of those hilarious new phrases, like dank was about a year ago). Then I guess we'll all have to hide in the Subforum That Shall Not Be Named while we watch this place crumble into a cesspit of mediocrity and awfulness, while still donating to pay the licensing fees and keep the dream alive that one day it'll become more irrelevant and so classy, erudite and sophisticated again (while also remaining the pre-eminent site to see images of Tubgirl, naturally).

 

On an unrelated note, I just started playing Pillars of Eternity for the first time. Never got around to it 'til now. So far I give it a solid "OK". Just got to the part where The House of Lords gets a mention.

 

I didn't get very far in that game. Unlocked the castle and was underwhelmed. What was the reference?

 

I just got to unlocking the castle seconds ago.

I came across the reference to us earlier. When some of us put our money together to donate, we had the chance to write a message that could be displayed in-game. ytzk wrote a short poem that I can't remember, and we used that.

Something something House of Lords
Whose minds and tongues as keen as vorpal swords
Something something rule over land and sea
Had they but learned to beware the Tree.

Something like that

 

Oh I think I remember that. I didn't pay much attention to the HoL backing thing, I just gave money and let everyone else fight over the rewards.