(no subject)

[felis_ultharus]

Beltane

Happy Beltaine/Bealtaine/Beltane to those who celebrate it. I hope it's a good one for you all ^_^

Video Games

On a completely different note, I yanked this Salon.com article entitled Why can't gay dwarves get married in Middle-earth?" from jenjoou. Probably only of interest to people into gamer culture, which is about one-third of my friends-list.

Among other things, it's about the growing number of gay and bi male and women gamers playing video games, and how the people who write these things are responding.

I have to be reminded that gay and women gamers are a small demographic. All the passionate video gamers I hang out with these days are women, and I was *involved with* all but one of the guys I was hanging out with at the arcades, during my teenage years (and that one guy was the boyfriend of one of my closest male friends).

Video games have gotten a lot queerer since then -- I think Final Fantasy VII was a big turning point there. Any game where playing the passive role in sex with a guy not only restores your life and mana, but also gets you the lingerie you need to complete your drag outfit so you can seduce a mafioso, has to be among the queerest games ever made.

Even after all these years, I think Final fantasy VII still gives Shadowhearts and its man-festival a run for its money ^_^

Comments

Re: It's The Beards

[felis-ultharus.livejournal.com]

I don't think a female dwarf was ever mentioned in the original myths. Wikipedia has some interesting comments on Tolkien's and C.S. Lewis's versions of the dwarven reproduction ^_^

But true -- if there Dwarves same-sex marrying, how would anyone know?

Re: It's The Beards

[padparadscha.livejournal.com]

Have you read any Discworld novels? The dwarfs (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dwarfs_%28Discworld%29#Biology_and_psychology) there are an extension of the Tolkien concept of indistinguishability.

I found this doubly hilarious because once my roommate and I were watching Disney's Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs and we decided that Dopey was partially explicable if he was a girl. Dopey is, in fact, the other dwarfs' crazy sister.

... Well, WE found it amusing.

Re: It's The Beards

[felis-ultharus.livejournal.com]

I never read Discworld. I like the C.S. Lewis version of the dwarves better, because it seems more consistent with the old stories, which I like.

A little off-topic, but have you read "Snow, Apples, Glass" by Neil Gaiman. It's a wonderfully primal retelling of Snow White, where Snow White is a monstrous horror, and only the good queen recognizes her for what she is and tries to stop her.

Re: It's The Beards

[padparadscha.livejournal.com]

See, I'm the sort of person who prefers Sensible explanations, so I like the way people make folkloric beings cohesive. I have a whole novel in the works (probably permanently so) about how "hybrid" people like mermaids and centaurs came about. And I worked out a biology for merpeople. But I can understand how someone would prefer the Old Stories. I always like to know the originals, too.

The Snow White retelling sounds cool. I'll look into it.