Man, it took eight hours to flat-color this page. Not because it was an especially difficult page to flat-color, but we found a youtube upload of the PAX "You Game Like a Girl: A Tale of Trolls and White-Knights" and oh my god it was so dumb that Leslie and I had to pause every two minutes and discuss how fucking stupid whatever it is we just heard was.

Like, seriously, I don't even know what we're complaining about anymore. Even in this panel, especially in this panel, they couldn't name a single derogatory example towards women beyond a few questionable scenes in the latest Tomb Raider game (which I agreed with, those scenes were so out of place. The whole damn reboot itself was unnecessary but I won't get into that). Instead, despite it being a panel on women in games like the name suggested, taking place at a gaming convention, they only brought up SEVERAL examples of sexism in COMICS. So, I mean, why didn't they just make the panel about sexism in comics? That would actually make sense and still be relevant. Why harp on video games because Mario still rescues a Princess when Greg Land can trace girls taking a dick, slap a superhero costume on them and call it a career? 

The problem with this panel as well as Tropes vs Women in Video Games is that they are still brining up plot devices and character designs from video games from games that are at least a decade old. I'm not sure if they've noticed, but the industry has taken significant strides in character designs and gender portrayals over the last several years. They constantly bring up shit like chainmail bikinis and stuff, but like, when's the last time you've seen any of those in a game? The Golden Axe reboot on 360, which bombed terribly?

Like, look, I know it's not perfect. I know gamers themselves are pretty shitty when it comes to interacting with girls, but that's not the industry's fault. That's terrible people in general. The games themselves are making it a point to be just as inclusive to women as they are to men, and it's pretty shitty to ignore all of that just because of some bad examples from the Super Nintendo era.

Edit: After some enlightening comments and a really amazing email detailing a list of very recent, terrible things that have gone on in this industry over the last two years, I realize that I was being just a a tad ignorant in my post. If you felt like I came off in my post saying "It's getting better guys, JEEZ, just shut up already", that was totally not my intention at all! I truly believe that the majority of the industry is taking strides to make things better for everyone, and I just don't want that to get washed away by the ones that make things worse. I'm not saying you shouldn't complain about these things, fuck no! I'm actually proud of our community because in situations like the Dead Island tit statue, we're able to come down on them like hellfire and stop things before it goes on for too long. I just think that the PAX Panel we mentioned was totally the wrong way to do it. It came off as unfocused and pointless because they instead focused more on the problems of cape comics instead of the problems of video games.  And because I was so frustrated at how pointless it seemed, I forgot about shit that's super terrible and important. Shit like Mojang security ignoring a girl being sexually harassed at their presentation. Shit like everything posted in this blog. Sexism is still a serious topic of discussion in this industry, and I just got a little upset because not only did the panel not bring up any of those issues, but it also ignored those that try their best to be inclusive. 

Thank you guys for sticking with us and I'll try not to sound too much like a shitlord in the future