Paper Moon

Some of these links are old, some of them are new. I hope that all of them are interesting for you.

Uktena is a historically accurate (well, with the addition of a few supernatural elements) free PC roleplaying game created by Toye Heape and based on native cultures that lived in Tennessee about six hundred years ago. It needs some funding help to get off the ground. As to why this game is awesome and important, here's what Heape has to say:

When the game is finished I want to make it available as a free digital download. I have plans for future games that I'd like to create and possibly sell, but it's important to me that as many people as possible have access to Uktena. Here's why: When many people hear the words Native American they think of teepees, war bonnets, and other icons associated with the great horse riding, buffalo hunting cultures of the American plains, but you won't be seeing those things in this game. Uktena is about a different Native culture and a different period in American history, neither of which is very well known to most people. I believe Uktena has the potential to help change that by immersing players in that prehistoric world and letting them participate in that civilization while having a fun gaming experience.

[...]In recent years road projects, housing developments, shopping centers, and even libraries and museums, along with illegal looting, have impacted or destroyed major Native American archaeological sites in the Nashville area. It may seem inconceivable that America's heritage could be wiped out like this, but I believe a major reason is because most people aren't aware of it. This was one of my main motivations for creating Uktena. I think a video game can have a powerful impact on the imagination in a way that other media can't, and once the player has "experienced" the history he or she will be more likely to object to what little is left of it being crushed under the treads of a bulldozer. [...] At the same time I want you to know that, like most people, my main objective when playing a game is to have fun, and I'll do my best, with your invaluable assistance, to make Uktena a fun and exciting game.

Recently there's been a lot of discussion on Tumblr and Dreamwidth about fan-funded indie games that are intended to be inclusive of people and cultures not normally represented in your typical mainstream RPGs. Unfortunately a lot of that discussion is fueled by a Certain Project doing nearly everything wrong. Well, here's an example of a game that is really, truly doing it right. And even though the Kickstarter deadline for this project has passed, there are still ways that you might be able to help it get the funding that it needs.

Meanwhile, elsewhere on the internet! A whole lot of dimwitted male movie critics have been trying to gain Feminism Points by critiquing how Black Widow is portrayed in The Avengers. The overwhelming problem with most of these reviews, however, is not that there isn't anything bad to be said about Black Widow's portrayal or Joss Whedon's often strangely limited flavor of feminism - because there most certainly IS an awful lot worthy of critique there - but that movie critics are, for some inexplicable reason, complaining about Black Widow being useless in the film. Uh, what? Fortunately, Ian Grey has an excellent takedown of that argument. Bonus points for actually calling out the offending movie critics by name.

Speaking of Doing It Right: Dan Norton is the amazing character designer for the new Thundercats series and he's posting all of his character and mech design work on Deviantart. Well worth a gander even if you're not into Thundercats. Also, some time ago Norton's gallery hosted a hilarious flamewar during which Norton beautifully smacked down a sexist fanboy who showed up to complain about Pumyra's new design being "too manly" and not having big enough breasts. Sadly, however, those comments seem to have been deleted now.

More potpourri links:

Paul Tobin hilariously describes stupid depictions of gender in fiction.

Swan Tower writes about writing fight scenes.

How to Illustrate Weelchairs. Also useful information for anybody who wants to write about or film characters who use wheelchairs.

Push Girls is a show that documents the lives of four women who use wheelchairs.

This is the best Avengers/Disney mashup. The BEST.

I really wish that Marvel would take advantage of their Avengers-related momentum right now to produce a Young Avengers cartoon.

Think about it: It would be a perfect way to keep milking the franchise while everyone is waiting impatiently for the next film. The most successful superhero cartoon shows are almost always* the ones that focus on a team of teenagers, i.e. X-Men: Evolution, Teen Titans, and Young Justice, to name a few. And the Young Avengers comics have all of the elements that attract the devoted fanbases of those other teen superhero shows have, namely: Misunderstood/ostracized teenagers, lots of action, lots of angst, family drama, romantic drama, team bonding, team rivalries, unlikely friendships, the us-against-the-world-that-fears-and-hates-us formula that makes the X-Men perpetual favorites, and the young-upstarts-proving-themselves-to-older-mentors formula that fandom squees over in Young Justice.

To be fair, I've seen this idea bandied around before, and the most common response is usually along the lines of "but the Young Avengers characters have origins that are too convoluted and too deeply embedded in Marvel canon for a mainstream kids' show!" To which I can only say, really?! The Young Avengers characters have origins more convoluted than most of the cast of Young Justice?! Really?!

And also it's not like any of those convoluted origins can't be easily simplified or changed altogether for the sake of a TV adaptation, anyway. Come on people. IMHO, the only Young Avengers character whose backstory really shouldn't be messed with is Patriot, for what I hope are obvious reasons. I think that Patriot's origin story is incredibly powerful and incredibly important in the Marvel canon. But aside from Patriot, well, I wouldn't really weep if any of the other characters had changed or simplified backstories. Depending on how the origin stories are changed, some of them might even end up better off for it.

But anywhoo I just think it would be really cool if someday we got a Young Avengers cartoon. The characters are already popular with the comic-reading fandom, the recent success of Young Justice has shown that there's a huge fandom out there hungry for teen superhero shows, and with The Avengers kicking ass at the box office right now it just seems like perfect timing.


*Asterisk: The 90's-era Batman and X-Men cartoons are the biggest exceptions to this rule. But even in the case of the X-Men show I'd say it was still mostly about a group of angsty outcasts who certainly acted like teenagers a lot of the time, even if they were supposed to be older.