That's the way it goes in the city of Compton, boy

I didn't want to do this but ONTD_Feminism was the first thing I saw today and, you know, one click later and I'm in crazyville again.
So I guess let's do part two.

According to a study conducted at the University of Westminster, stronger men make awful boyfriends. The study surveyed 327 straight British men, more than a third of whom were single, and discovered that the more muscular the participant, the more likely he was to have sexist beliefs and hostility toward women. Yikes! 

...
Because a study of 327 people is statistically significant, what?

The correlation between brawny men and sexist beliefs is rooted in traditional gender roles. "We think men who hold oppressive beliefs about women and gender equality are also more likely to endorse traditional stereotypes of masculinity, which includes the muscular physique," the study authors wrote. 

So if you work out you're an asshole...
I can't even begin to explain why this is nonsensical.
All right here's my new study: if you're a woman and you're skinny you're more likely to be a total bitch because clearly you hold your physical appearance over your mind.
Except, you know, that skinny chick who was really smart BUT NEVER MIND I ASKED LIKE 5 ENTIRE WOMEN SO IT'S A STUDY OKAY.

The researchers also claimed that in societies where patriarchal structures are being challenged, men may attempt to prove their masculinity by bettering their bodies.

How can you even begin to quantify sexism?
Is it a meter in an RPG? Can I grind my sexism skill?

Basically, men who are around women in power tend to feel threatened and display this through gaining muscle. 

... What?
Is the University of Westminster a fucking candy shop with a copy of the Times?
How is this a study?
How did they derive this conclusion?
How are these things correlated?
Is it exponential?
Like, if you're really muscular are you really sexist?

 Although the study was not conducted internationally and the number of men surveyed was rather low, on face, it does seem to hold true.

YOU JUST ADMITTED THIS STUDY ISN'T STATISTICALLY SIGNIFICANT AND--
God.
I talked to one woman yesterday.
She was a total cunt.
Therefore all women are cunts.
DO YOU SEE WHY THIS IS BULLSHIT?

Consider the cast of Jersey Shore, for example. Though we can't deny their fabulous physiques, they're not exactly the kind of guys you want to bring home to mom (no, not even you, Vinny). So before you dismiss the next scrawny guy who approaches you, consider that science thinks he'd make a better boyfriend. 

Consider the pseudoscience that he'd make a better boyfriend.
And yet if I parade my theory that brown girls make superior girlfriends suddenly I'm racist and judging people based on superficial details.
Not at all like muscular men are assholes.
Also did the analogy for this study seriously include Jersey Shore?
I don't--
Is this real?
What did the comments have to say?

lol, I have met many a skinny/scrawny dude who has been sexist as hell, so this article is kind of pointless. Just think of nerd/geek culture and the sexist bullshit within it, for example. Those dudes don't necessarily work out, and yet they still say/think misogynistic things. 

I mean she's a fucking idiot but that's a completely valid point. Scrawny guys can be sexist, too, so what--
what?

If you're sourcing Jersey Shore... I feel like you're rendering your argument invalid, article. 

I mean I hate to side with Livejournal on this but really I think we've found some common ground here.
That's how bad this article is. I'm throwing my lot in with Livejournal.

eh all men are sexist to varying degrees so science isn't really telling me anything new there. it's always just been a degree between NeoLiberal covert douchery and the more traditional Aggressive Dude douchery.

Unlike women who are just the paragons of sunshine and equality.
Never mind, I'm taking my lot back.

Stop trying to "prove" what makes men sexist (with "science", hahahahaha... no) and just work on educating them. -_-

Don't worry. I wasted countless hours and dollars on that nonsense.

Sounds like a Nice Guy trying a new approach to convince us to go out with him, now with (feeble) statistics. Blech. 

See you've just admitted there's no reason to not be an asshole.
Fucking white women, I tell you.
If anyone out here is reading this let this be your warning.
If you insist on dating one of these soul stealing sea witches then I have done what I can.
I DON'T WANT TO DATE A SEXIST ASSHOLE BUT EWWW NICE GUYS xP
Nope.

Recently, I had an abortion, which I documented with a hidden mobile phone camera and then shared the images on the internet. I chronicled and published my experience on thisismyabortion.com to show what a safe abortion looks like,

Class?
What's that again?

Wow. Major props to this person for their courage. This is a wonderful project. 

Yeah.
Wonderful.

"What makes some of us uncomfortable with bisexual women? It is because we think they're either lesbians having straight sex or straight women testing out their fantasies on us before returning to men?

They're just trying to be unique snowflakes.

In today's post-modern, queer-focused world, bisexuality is being promoted to lesbians as the latest fashionable trend. This has resulted in lesbian politics, namely feminism, being passed over for sexual hedonism, where the only thing that matters is sexual pleasure and desire. Similarly, bisexuality is sold to heterosexual women as some type of recreational activity far from their "natural home" of straight sex. It is seen as "temporary lesbianism."

I suddenly remembered I don't care.
I remember one girl tried to impress me by claiming to be bisexual.
"Really? Ever had sex with a woman?"
"Well, no."
"Kissed a woman?"
"Well, no"
"So you just like them sometimes, right?'
"Well I think I could be if I found the right girl"
All right. I get it.
Liar.

Camille Paglia, the most famous "anti-lesbian lesbian," has written reams about how she worships the penis and cannot understand those of us who do not. In fact Paglia, like many lesbian tourists who sleep with women on the weekend and go back to hubby on Monday morning, thinks lesbian sex needs to be "spiced up" by the odd "het" shag:

Datingwhitewomen.txt

I’ve been thinking of a way to explain to straight white men how life works for them, without invoking the dreaded word “privilege,” to which they react like vampires being fed a garlic tart at high noon. 

Yeah, explain to me how my life works because I'm too stupid to understand it.
Cunt.

So, the challenge: how to get across the ideas bound up in the word “privilege,” in a way that your average straight white man will get, without freaking out about it?

Being a white guy who likes women, here’s how I would do it:

IS THIS COLTON?
COLTON FROM UNCG?
DON'T MAKE ME ACT A MOTHERFUCKING FOOL, COLTON.

Dudes. Imagine life here in the US — or indeed, pretty much anywhere in the Western world — is a massive role playing game, like World of Warcraft except appallingly mundane, where most quests involve the acquisition of money, cell phones and donuts, although not always at the same time. 

An MMO that's appallingly mundane--
so World of Warcraft.

Let’s call it The Real World. You have installed The Real World on your computer and are about to start playing, but first you go to the settings tab to bind your keys, fiddle with your defaults, and choose the difficulty setting for the game. Got it?

MMOs don't have difficulty settings.
Didn't I already read this analogy?

And maybe at this point you say, hey, I like a challenge, I want to change my difficulty setting! Well, here’s the thing: In The Real World, you don’t unlock any rewards or receive any benefit for playing on higher difficulty settings. The game is just harder, and potentially a lot less fun. 

So every Call of Duty ever?
BOOOOM.

I've actually tried explaining the concept of privilege to my boyfriend (straight white male), and he reacted more or less the same way to the word "privilege" that the author described. He couldn't wrap his head around the idea that being privileged doesn't make you an awful person so much that it means that you have SERIOUSLY massive advantages over those who aren't privileged.

Are you still whining at me?
Go do something with your time, girlfriend.

First comment on his post is a guy disagreeing and then bawwing about how everyone expects him to ~do something~ about stuff that isn't even his fault. *headdesks* It's maddening how blind people are, and how intent they are on clinging to the idea that Reasons x, y & z mean that this doesn't apply to them. 

The analogy is stupid because MMOs don't have difficulty levels.
If one class is overpowered it gets nerfed.
So you know how like white men are now the least employed group in the US?
Sort of exactly like that.
OH MY GOD I LIVE IN AN MMO
I AM AN MMO CHARACTER
WHO PLAYS MMOS
AND WHAT IF MY MMO CHARACTER PLAYS MMOS?

Please don't use ableist terminology like "blind" in place of "wilfully ignorant". 

Jesus Christ.

Hopefully the response to this is "shut the fuck up".

Oh, I'm sorry - thanks for pointing that out, I wasn't thinking when I wrote it. 

Oh.
Well.

I will be angry because I am crazy.

I will be angry because I am not crazy.

????
That's it I'M OUT LIKE SHOUT

GET READY

Let me preface this.
There's this thing called Jump Start and it's basically a website devoted to begging. People beg for money to do something, like make a video game, then people give them money and the product turns out shit because people have already paid for the product.
Some woman named Anita (something or other) raised 150,000 dollars to "raise awareness of sexism in video games". Quite why this takes six figures is anyone's guess and why she's choosing to raise awareness in a niche audience instead of tackling a larger aspect of the issue is a mystery as well.
At this point the denizens of the internet are basically calling her a thief because she just robbed people of 150,000 dollars which is a good enough point but if people are dumb enough to give her money in the first place to make Youtube videos then fuck them.
And now people are butthurt-- especially ontd_feminism.
THEY DON'T UNDERSTAND WHY GAMERS ARE UPSET THIS BULLSHIT FINDS ITS WAY INTO VIDEO GAMES.
Gee probably because they get enough of this bullshit in their daily lives. They don't need to be reminded it.
ontd_feminism is awesome in its own way but I found a blog through it instead.

Let me preface this: I'm straight. I'm not vanilla, and I'm probably not entirely heteronormative, but for all intents and purposes, there has never been a question of the legality around my being able to marry whom I wish.

k.
Even straight people online have to be special snowflakes by prefacing it by saying "BUT I'M NOT VANILLA, GUYS" whatever that means.

I feel so ridiculously full of love and happiness for all the strangers who had their love legally legitimized last night by this decision. I really wish I could be there. It isn't my fight, and this decision doesn't change my legal rights in any way. Even if I was gay, I'm Canadian, so it _really_ doesn't affect me. That I feel so profoundly moved by this is strange.

It really is. You need a hobby.

Some have pointed out that Canadian politics isn't something to be proud of these days and so who cares. But I refuse to be apathetic about it. Apathy solves nothing. It only serves to let assholes get away with treating people like shit. Apathy is a luxury only the privileged can afford. Even if this doesn't affect me on the surface of things, it does affect me. At the risk of getting into slippery-slope arguments, if one group of us takes a hit without any response, then who's next? Women, children, First Nations, the poor, the elderly?

Shut up, Jesus Christ.
Also your eternal crusading solves absolutely nothing either and meanwhile my apathy has gotten all sorts of other shit done.

So today, even though I'm a straight white woman who's allowed to marry who she wants, who can move with relative freedom in this country, who can vote, own property, pay taxes, buy birth control and have an abortion if she wishes, I'm celebrating for those who won the right to marry the person they love. I don't care if this makes me naive or an optimist--even if it does, I'll own that proudly. I never want to become a person who doesn't care. And I will fight side by side with strangers to defend their right to live and be happy.

Together, we're stronger. Happy Pride.

Oh brother.
Don't come into my store today, incidentally. It's going to be rough and I can't hold your hand through the organic section.
I really should have paid more attention to this blog because it ends here.
That is, after I skipped four or five entries about knitting.
KNIT A BEAR FOR STARVING AIDS PATIENTS IN AFRICA.
DOES IT HELP?
NO BUT AT LEAST WHITE WOMEN CAN FEEL LIKE THEY DID SOMETHING!
That is 90% of all charities in the West. "At least white women can feel like they did something."
I'm sure there's some dubious argument about providing comfort to people who have nothing and I guess I'll allow it but I hardly doubt a knitted bear is going to be much comfort when you're dying in the jungle of the fucking Motaba Virus.
Anyway let's wander incoherently through ontd_feminism.

*~*I'm not like other girls*~*

Says one poster.
That's not an exact quote because she messed up her HTML tags and I had to fix them or I'd never be able to post this due to HTML errors (Blogger is especially fussy) so I cleaned it up.
Anyway:
"I'm not like other girls"
- most girls

There are some people who don’t want to have kids. Then there are some people who really don’t want to have kids. As we learned in a recent Double X series of essays exploring this choice, some men and women never heed (or even feel) the tick of the biological clock. But others are more proactive. Monica Trombley is in the latter camp. As described in her piece, Trombley decided at the age of 26 that permanent sterilization by tubal ligation—a procedure colloquially called “getting your tubes tied”—was the right choice for her.

And she's mad no doctor would do it because holy fuck the insurance.
I'm sure all the doctors came up with some bullshit "but you might want kids!" excuse but the real reason is because every time a doctor performs surgery now it's basically a gamble against himself where if he wins he gains your welfare money and if he loses he loses everything he owns.
Or to put it another way: winning isn't winning big but losing means losing huge.

But as Trombley quickly learned, many gynecologists disagreed. After consulting a number of doctors who tried to dissuade her for what she describes as “paternalistic” reasons, Trombley finally became so exasperated that she actually considered inventing dangerous and unavoidable family members in order to convince a doctor that she could not live in an environment fit for children. (In the end, she found a specialist who required less cajoling.) 

Or you could buy condoms which are basically free.

“Why should an adult woman be forced to lie to her doctor about why she wants to be sterilized?” she asked.

Trombley’s article inspired many, many readers to write in with similar tales of medical odysseys. Often, these women complained of being referred from physician to physician, only to receive a version of, “You’ll change your mind” or, “You’ll regret this later in life.” While some were ultimately successful in their tube-tying quest, others simply gave up, settling for a partner’s vasectomy or contraception. 

"I couldn't get my tubes tied so I need you to get a vasectomy."
That's a compelling argument. How about I dump you and find a girl who knows what birth control is?

When I first wrote about the sexist abuse of women online, collating the experiences of nearly a dozen writers, the response was largely positive. Many hadn't been aware there was a problem; they were shocked. Others had assumed that they were the only ones whose every word on the web was greeted with a torrent of abusive, threatening comments.

Recent exchange in my FFXIV LS:
"hey guys I'm a girl"
"shut up no one cares"
I've never been prouder.
In fact, that's largely the reaction women get online.
Who cares what you are in real life because in game you're a shitty white mage so please heal.
HEEEEEY-OH.
It was especially inappropriate that time because HOLY FUCK WE ARE IN THE MIDDLE OF A SIEGE SITUATION I NEED YOU TO SHUT UP ABOUT YOUR TAMPONS AND DEAL WITH THE 10 FOOT TALL LIZARD MEN.

 But a few reactions stood out, among them that of Brendan O'Neill, the Telegraph blogs section's resident contrarian. He wrote that feminist campaigners pointing this out was a "hilarious echo of the 19th-century notion that women need protecting from vulgar and foul speech". We were, he said, "a tiny number of peculiarly sensitive female bloggers" trying to close down freedom of speech.

That's kind of a good point.
You wouldn't believe the insults I hear on a daily basis from my own friends in online games.
It's part of playing an online game.

That's because they're guys and don't hear the remarks you'll hear if you're a woman and have the audacity to speak. I do play with people online, but a) my name is the same as here, so my gender is ambiguous and b) where I do play online, I tend to have a male on my ID card and play as one, so nobody really talks to me. The fact that I feel safer for those reasons is a pretty huge sign that maaaaybe, just maybe, it's not just guys "trolling" us poor, insensitive feminists. 

Says one commenter.
I usually make female characters and I can't say I've ever run into a problem with sexism.
I mean by this logic if playing a male character shields you from sexism playing a female character should open me up to all sorts of horrific harangues and threatens of rape but it hasn't.
In fact it has opened me to the exact same threats and taunts as playing a male character.
In fact threats of violence were visited on me yesterday because I tried hamlet defense for, what, the third time and got the item everyone has been fucking grinding away at hamlet defense for literally weeks.
Did I let that bother me?
Fuck no because I'm +10 HQ find chance now, baby.

Pfffft, that Lego video is my favorite video and I don't think it's just a "fuss over nothing." Gendered toys just rub me the wrong way and I'm glad I didn't have to really grow up with them (probably because it was a money-saver to buy toys that both me and my brother could play with). 

GENDERED TOYS OH NOOOOOOOOOO.
 If I were a girl I'd be pissed about toys too, though.
Have you seen the girls section at a toy store?
Oh what do you want, a static pony statue with 0 points of articulation or a fucking Gundam with 800000 points of articulation?
SOMEONE GOT RIPPED OFF.

I know it probably doesn't change much or make the trolls go away, and I didn't get to donate any money to her, but after seeing all this I was compelled to write to her on her contact form. 

I'd just like to point out we're making a fuss over trolls.
On the internet.
Not real life trolls that eat people and regenerate health and have to be set on fire to properly kill but people online who say mean things.
Know what you can do if meanie heads online get to be too much for you?
Stand up and walk the fuck away.

The fact that there is even this much uproar over a woman proposing a game that brings awareness to all the harmful tropes women characters are subjected to in gaming (and subsequently all other forms of media as well) and some guy even went as far as to create a game that encourages violence against a REAL person speaks volumes about the degree of misogyny that exists in the world and further emphasises why it's important to address these issues. 

 HARMFUL TROPES.
But it's okay because Edie Hart is an empowered womyn.
Oh yeah some of these feminists spell "woman" as "womyn" because it takes the man out of woman.
Because--
I have no fucking idea but anyway that's a real thing.

What the creator of the beat-up Anita game doesn't realise is that his game not just "fictional violence" done for "fun." Violence in any form is first of all NEVER funny and has real harmful consequences even when not directed at a real person. 

Sorry Edie, guess you're a violent psychopath then.
THERE ARE HARMFUL
CONSEQUENCES
IN REAL LIFE
TO KILLING IXALI.
Remember that time you killed that den of cultists?
Holy shit girlfriend. Those were people, not lizard men.
THAT GUY WAS MISGUIDED. YOU DIDN'T NEED TO LIGHT HIM ON FIRE AND CAVE HIS HEAD IN WITH A ROD.
I guess that makes me an awful person too because I'm the one guiding her to do all these horrific things.
I've dominated and manipulated a poor womyn POC (person of color!) into acts of murder.
I am basically Hitler is what I'm trying to say.

Games such as these have the harmful effect of both normalising and desensitising people to the fact that real violence does happen to real people and repetition even further encourages real violence to happen to real people (i.e., "she was asking for it").

Well to be fair they are trying to steer a giant satellite death laser into the planet.
Imagine if our own moon was pulled into our orbit.
The moon is in our orbit.
Never mind.
IMAGINE IF SOMEONE CRASHED THE MOON INTO THE PLANET FUCK YOU.

 Reiterating what Frogg said, encouraging violence against people who speak up against issues that negatively affect them is a bigger threat to free speech than someone who calls out the prevalence of hate speech on the internet. 

Yeah.
What about all that shit with Ala Mihgo anyway?
Those are irl refugees basically.
Even though they're fictional people in a video game--
from a city that doesn't exist on a continent that doesn't exist on a planet that isn't real--
Wait, what was the problem again?
Here's a post about someone who said tranny on Youtube and everyone is upset--
here's a post about some politician's wife--
Something about that new Tomb Raider game--
The part I find offensive about this is it's 2012 and people still think Tomb Raider is relevant.

How's this for timing? The day after the hoo-hah over Anita Sarkeesian's project to expose stereotyped women in computer games, and the makers of the new Lara Croft game are ready to assure you that she's not just a walking jiggle any more. Oh no, she is a sympathetic lady who will engage you emotionally.



How are they going to do this? By having her beaten and subjected to an attempted rape.

Didn't that already happen in Final Fantasy VII?
Wasn't that like 15 fucking years ago?
If you want the controversy points, Eidos, you need to--
hey wait, isn't Eidos owned by Square now?
What the fuck, Square? You didn't get any controversy points for this shit 15 years ago. What happened?
Oh right, women started playing video games.
But women love Final Fantasy-- I thought--
No wait, they love any Final Fantasy after the icky sci fi one. My mistake.
Also not including XII.
Or XI.
Basically they like the fan communities of Final Fantasy and not the actual games.

 Lara Croft and rape stories: breaking down the bitch
Why is rape seen as a reasonable way to "strengthen" female characters?

A few weeks ago, a viral blog served up a refreshingly compassionate interpretation of privilege for the Portal generation. If life were a video game, the writer John Scalzi explained, "straight white male" would be "the lowest difficulty setting there is".

So a poor white guy living in a trailer has it objectively easier than a wealthy black kid.
K.

"This means that the default behaviours for almost all the non-player characters in the game are easier on you than they would be otherwise," wrote Scalzi. "The default barriers for completions of quests are lower. Your leveling-up thresholds come more quickly. You automatically gain entry to some parts of the map that others have to work for. The game is easier to play, automatically, and when you need help, by default it’s easier to get."

My leveling up threshold comes easier--
meaning what?
It scales better?
XPs are easier to gain?
Isn't this implicitly stating white people are better?

Keep that in mind, because we’ll be coming back to it. For now, let’s talk about the shit storm broiling over the pre-release material for the next Tomb Raider game, in which the protagonist, Lara Croft, is retconned as a survivor of sexual and physical assault. This experience apparently made her the hypersexualised, mindlessly violent killing machine – sorry, "strong woman" – we know today. 

As opposed to all the men in shooting games who aren't mindlessly violent killing machines.
Does this article have a point to make?

This is a story, like so many epics, about being, and about becoming. What’s made pay dirt so far for the small horde of pop-gender-crit writers commenting on the topic is the question: why does Lara Croft, like so many female heroes, need to be re-imagined an assault survivor in order to be a strong character?

Rape is usually a difficult thing to overcome?
I dunno.
All right fine she's a mindless blow up doll like before.
Eidos apparently isn't winning either way.
NOW DEUS EX: HUMAN REVOLUTION, ON THE OTHER HAND, IS A STORY OF TRIUMPH.
Also stars a mostly male cast.
By some sheer coincidence I'm sure.

frankly, the fact that Nerd Culture exists as a concept at all is what's wrong with it.  

How so?
Oh, someone vaguely intelligent even asks why as well and she responds.
A REAL DIALOGUE.

because a culture based around what people consume is fucked to hell, and makes it incredibly hard to critique it without a bunch of angry neckbeards in fedoras and N7 t-shirts sending you thousands upon thousands of death and rape threats.

Except--
nerd culture isn't really about what you consume, you know.
You have a very shallow grasp of the subject.
I mean ultimately we can break any subculture down to what the people buy.
That's what marketing is?
Never mind.

I clarified above. But to further elaborate, I feel like the concept of Nerd Culture has been this thing that allows people who otherwise have a lot of privilege in their lives (usually straight white dudes) to take their possible past alienation and make Nerd Culture something immune to critique, and calling them out makes you WORSE than a sexist.

it happens in all areas of my life to a certain extent? but never to the amount of hatred and bile I've seen amongst gamers, for example. 

You're telling a primarily hateful group of people to be less hateful then arbitrarily assuming it's because you're a woman and not because you're a whiny cunt.
Really?

I think the point the article was trying to make was how unrealistic the intended portrayal of sexual assault is. With that and mind, I'd just say that I wouldn't trust the gaming industry to make a game that dealt with the subject matter in a realistic or respectful (to the victims) way. 

AM I THE ONLY PERSON
WHO PLAYS THESE GAMES
TO HAVE FUN?
Oh new Tomb Raider game?
Oh Lara Craft was raped in it?
That's a tragedy. How's the gameplay?
Not to be too callous here but frankly what happens to the vagina of a virtual and fictional woman is really not something I'll be losing sleep over. How does it play?
Are the controls still awful?

Additionally, I'm not sure I'd see what the point of a game like that would be -- and would probably be wary of the person who wanted to...play it... 

Oh well I'm guessing it might be in the title somewhere.
Maybe about a chick who raids tombs?
I have no idea.
What's the point of playing a game?
I dunno. Fun?
No can't be that-- must be about the empowerment of marginalized groups. Fun?
What's fun?
I had fun once and it was awful.

Going to be honest: I love Lara and Tomb Raider. I have since I was 11. Lara has always been a hero to me--a strong, confident, smart person who goes for what she wants without apology and who happens to be the same gender as I am. Growing up, I wasn't exacted surrounded by strong female role models (none, if you want the truth), so having Lara in my life was important to my development, especially as a feminist. 

 Oh that's comforting. A woman who runs into other countries' sacred places and steals everything not nailed down and kills tons of people is a positive role model for a burgeoning feminist.

BTW: on the subject of "protecting" Lara....Eidos (now Square, I believe?) has tossed around that term concerning how male gamers feel about playing TR since the games first came out, and I've always hated it because Lara doesn't need anyone to protect her. Besides, I never feel like I'm protecting her (as that quote claims gamers do)--I always feel like I'm adventuring alongside her.

... Do people really feel like they're protecting a woman in a game?

Unless that's the mission, or something, I never felt like the women I was controlling in a game needed me specifically. Most of them shoot force lighting out of their hands. I think they have this situation under control.

 Anyway I gotta go now.

WORK AND SHIT YO

KEEPING THE WORKING MAN DOWN

Trigger warning

Trigger warning: man the fuck up
"Trigger warning" is a new way of warning pussies on the internet that they're about to be offended so they better stop reading.
TRIGGER WARNING SEXISM OH NO--
This entry may be really boring because it's mostly fanfiction about Morrowind but already my piss is boiling because Morrowind is one of my fucking favorite games of all time so I'm ready for some shit.
I found this on ONTD_Political (of course) where some people are angry over sexism in video games or something--
I don't care, but what I do care about is Morrowind.

Fandom: Elder Scrolls: Morrowind
Size: ~2,400
Characters: Saje Eldros

NOT THE SAJE ELDROS!
you made him the fuck up.

Shishi

“There is another Telvanni in trouble. I need you to stop the Redoran attack on Shishi.” Aryon tells Saje over lunch.

“Shishi, Serjo?” From the name Shishi must be another Velothi dome the Telvanni have taken interest in, as part of their illegal expansion. Illegal by Imperial law, that is. The Empire does not want the Great Houses expanding and fortifying unchecked and there are provisions in the Armistice Treaty to maintain a balance of power among the Great Houses to prevent outright war in Vvardenfell.

But Imperial law was notoriously weak in Morrowind, especially in Vvardenfell, so the armistice was basically a marriage of convenience and all the Great Houses regularly expanded their authority both overtly and covertly and the Imperial authority was relatively powerless to stop it.
... Anyone who played the game would have been aware of this.
It's why the Telvanni (the group you're writing about, no less) regularly thumbed their nose at the Empire.
Like when the Empire outlawed necromancy to placate the Tribunal government and the Telvanni literally told them to go suck a cock?
WHY WOULD YOU WRITE ABOUT THE GROUP NOTORIOUSLY INDEPENDENT AND ANTI-AUTHORITARIAN IN YOUR SUBTLE POLITICAL FANFICTION?

To the Telvanni it is their right in self interest. The Velothi towers are artifacts of Dunmer ancestors and the land belong to the Dunmer.

The Telvanni were notoriously xenophobic and isolationist, yes, but their politics were also incredibly internecine and you could declare yourself Hortator by killing the other members of the council so I don't really think the phrase "Telvanni self interest" applies because--
fuck it.

A cool black nose sniffs at the table from the chair next to Saje. Small sleek Mephala, a black cat who is cunning and clever.

oh that's brilliant.
Naming your character after a god in the same universe you're setting your shitty fanfiction.
MEPHALA THE WEBSPINNER. WONDER IF SHE'LL BE CUNNING AND PLOTTING--

In-game I would make Sarasvati romanciable but here she will play a definite role. In my storyline she is the mother of my Dovhaakin character in Skyrim, Sage Aryon.  

... Morrowind takes place like 200 years before Skyrim. The notion of anyone being the mother of anyone in that kind of time frame is ridiculous.
Notice the mention of Dragon lore.

Dragons wouldn't really be creatures mentioned in Morrowind because they're native to Skyrim. It'd be like expecting to see a mention of Zeus in Aztec mythology.

Sarasvati wakes up with Emelin’s knee in her back. She rolls out of the bed, dragging the sheets with her. Emelin mutters in her sleep; the Bosmer is a heavy sleeper. Emelin rolls over to sleep more, unmindful of her nude body being exposed to the chill air of early morning in mushroom pods whose interiors never see sunlight.

“Wake up, sunshine!” Sarasvati calls, throwing a pillow at Emelin. “You’re late for patrol!

Yes, this is exactly how I imagine people in Vvardenfell would talk. With all the mysticism and prophecy and dreamlike atmosphere and shit.
This is exactly what I imagine it to be like. 

The pillow bounces off Emelin and she clutches it to her blonde head, mumbling. “Don’ wanna.”

“All right, just stay. I’m not covering for you, though,” Sarasvati as she searches for a serviceable robe in the mess on the floor to cover her nude body. Sarasvati is Dunmer, a young woman, long black hair kept loose or in intricate knotting, depending on how lazy she felt, her eyes a clear red, almost ruby.

All dark elves have red eyes. You don't need to tell people that because ALL OF THEM HAVE RED EYES.

 It’s said she is beautiful, but it’s also said that she should be a skilled spell caster.

Implying spellcasters are usually ugly?
Has there been a solitary line of dialogue in either of these fanfiction that hasn't been exposition?

Sarasvati is adept with illusion magics, and that is it, beyond the rudimentary spells that any with the ability to cast spells should have.

The useless school of magic. Great.

She finds a robe which might be hers- it’s hard to tell with the mess of wine bottles and skooma pipes and dishes from the party of the night before. The party which Emelin is sleeping off. She throws the robe aside for the moment, though. She kicks a spot clear on the floor and she begins her morning toning exercises, long legs and lean body. There are scars; she has been in harsh lands in her travels.

She’s come back, at least for a while, which is why they had the party. She’s been gone so long she is surprised the other women of Tel Mora recognize her. Of course they are mer like her, most of them are, and long lived as mer are.

Except only high elves are known for their lifespans (I'm pretty sure)--
And even if the other mer folk are known for their lifespans the Orcs are part of the mer line in The Elder Scrolls and they're definitely not long lived at all so your entire statement is bullshit.
THIS IS OBJECTIVELY AWFUL AND I'M GETTING ANGRY.

“You belong to House Telvanni, do you not? Where do your true loyalties lie? House Telvanni opposes our every effort at modernizing the way magic is practiced here in Vvardenfell!” Trebonius Artorius shakes a plump finger in Saje’s face.

Wouldn't a Telvanni agent know why he hates the mage guild? Would he really need that explained to him?

“You mean ‘modernization’ such as the virtual hydraulic despotism of magic?” Saje, in a low controlled voice.

...
What the fuck does that even mean?
Hydraulic despotism?
Virtual hydraulic despotism--
nope, you're an idiot.

His voice carries in the silence following Trebonius Artorius’ outburst.

“You… are a traitor!” Artorius exclaims, blinking at Saje’s choice of words.

“I was not aware that joining a Great House in the land of my ancestors is treason, and it is not against Imperial law to recognize their interest, as well as the interest of all Great Houses of Vvardenfell in this matter. The Great Houses are not outlaw or enemy institutions,” Saje, calm.

“It ought to be against the articles of the Mages Guild Charter to join the Telvanni!” Artorius, outraged.

I always got the impression the Telvanni hated the mage guild more than the mages hated the Telvanni but whatever.

“We of the Mages Guild have stewarded the practice of magics throughout the centuries under the auspices of our noble Emperors. We have standardized the practice and ensured the quality of its teachings and spellcraft. We have brought education as part of the civilizing effect across the Empire. We have presented superior forms of magic practice to civilizations that have lacked for the most modern and sophisticated teachings. We must regulate these practices directly, else the native practitioners will devolve into isolated pockets of rabid and primitive dabblers of necromancy and sorcery who cannot even live in proper houses- ahem- I digress.

Yet the Telvanni routinely produced sorcerers who had powers far in excess of what the mage guild produced and they admitted this themselves and in fact this was a large part of the animosity between the two.

We also provide opportunities for the gifted and promising. Anyone with the aptitude can join the Mages Guild as the Mystic Galerion has ensured in the centuries before in his brave defiance of the Psijics.

EXPOSITION.
DETAILS ALL PARTIES WOULD BE DOUBTLESSLY AWARE OF.

“It is said that Dark Elves, like myself, who are born and raised to Imperial ways don’t know what it is like to be Dunmer born and bred. Isn’t this… a detriment on my part?” Saje. He dislikes being called an outlander, he dislikes the thought that he isn’t part of the homeland of his ancestors due to an accident of birth. He wishes he had been born in Vvardenfell itself. 

But the capital of Morrowind isn't even on Vvardenfell, and I hardly think a native dark elf would--
fuck it.
I just love how nothing is actually done in this story. It's all explained.
Even interactions with Saint Jiub are presented as THIS IS THE GUY WHO GOT RID OF ALL CLIFFRACERS IN VVARDENFELL like goddamn I get it. I'm familiar with the plot to this game, all right.
Also I don't think you should have taken that whole Saint Jiub thing seriously. It was only added later after people starting complaining about how annoying the enemy was so Bethesda added that little detail as an Easter egg. It's not supposed to be this major world altering plot point.
Then Vvardenfell fell into the ocean so fuck everything.
I mean that's kinda bullshit, right?
Thanks, Bethesda.
All that shit you did in Morrowind?
Every detail?
Completely irrelevant because it all falls into the ocean anyway.
So I guess that makes this entry doubly pointless.
Goodbye.