Let’s starts with what the designers did right consistently, which is the character’s “acting” skills. The Unreal engine is used to animate the world, and I have never before seen 3D models in a game with such expressive and “alive” eyes. Often video game makers botch this and don’t add any secondary motion to eyes during cut scenes, resulting in staring “dead eyes.” Also, a lot of the times a voice actor is aiming for an angry voice, yet the character’s expression doesn’t fit. Or worse, the game makers don’t bother with any expression and just make a sloppy 3D puppet show. This is not so with Enslaved. The expressions are so realistic, and this combined with their eyes makes for an acting experience on par with a Hollywood film.

But there’s more to the eyes than just realistic movement. Take Monkey’s red war makeup for instance, which makes a strong contrast to his blue eyes. This is an intentional artistic effort to draw the viewer’s attention the character’s eyes, and it makes one even more aware of their depth and realistic appearance. Trip’s green eyes are just as lovingly rendered and during certain scene, I found myself dawn into her eyes as effectively as Monkey was in the game. So yes, fantastic art skills went into making these eyes, and as a lover of expressive eyes, this game was totally pushing all my happy buttons.

Something else I liked about this game was having mechs for enemies. This is because it frees me from a complex moral quandary. When I’m fighting people in games, I always wonder if the game might give me other options to just sneak around instead of using the kill ‘em all approach. In Enslaved, you do have that choice available. You can fight all the mechs, or you can sneak around most of the clusters while they’re still inactive. But either way, there’s no guilt for blowing up a robot that’s express purpose for existing is exterminating me.

Now on to the plot, the meaty, sweet, deep plot that rarely had to resort to clichés to keep the tension and pacing. On a slave ship, a prisoner, Monkey, sees another prisoner, Trip, escape her pod and hack the ship, resulting in the ship beginning a crash course. Monkey gets out of his prison cell, and the first level is his attempt to chase Trip to the escape pods. This plays out like a blockbuster film, and when Monkey accidentally destroys one on the ship’s engines, the look on his face is perfect for the moment. It’s one half of the classic Urkel “Did I do that?” look and one half, “Now what, stupid?” Brilliant.

Monkey is forced to ride outside Trips escape pod and makes a hard landing on a well placed old mattress. When he comes to, Trip has fitted him with a command headband, drafting him to get her safely back to her village. A great deal of the early game is Trip and Monkey crossing New York to get to the crash site and recover Monkey’s motorcycle. After that, the story picks up a third character, Pigsy, and now I need to pause for a moment of culture.

You see, Monkey, Pigsy and Trip are actually Songoku, Pigsy and Sandy from the classic epic Journey to the West. “Aaaah,” you say, “so the name of this game is a hint at what the inspiration was.” Yes, exactly, and the visual clues are all there if the naming convention of the men didn’t make it obvious enough. Monkey has a sash acting as his tail, but in all other respects, he’s a proper Songoku. He has an extending power staff, a monkey like way of moving and a number of martial arts moves at his disposal. Oh, and he rides a “cloud” although this only works in certain segments of the game. (More on those later, both bad and good.) But if his appearance and affectations aren’t good enough, Pigsy has some cyber additions that help drive home the pig theme, in more ways than one. He’s a proper male pig, which here is used to some comedic effect well enough that I was laughing at his attempts at machismo.

Trip is kind of like Bulma from Dragonball, in my opinion. Being the tech head of the team, she hacks computers and throws switches that might be out of Monkey’s reach. Early on in the game, she hacks a “dragonfly” droid, and she feeds this camera-linked information to Monkey through his head band. This also explains the HUD in a way that doesn’t feel silly, and the dragonfly’s flyovers provide a logical way to look ahead at a level that fits in nicely with the rest of the sci-fi elements of the story. The game interface and story elements are fused so nicely that there’s only a few times when a misinterpreted jump sends Monkey flying back at the platform he’d just left, resulting in me being kicked out of the “flow” of the story. (And also possibly sending him into harm’s way if that handhold was crumbly, or worse, already gone.) Later levels also involve more classic platforming tropes like dodging gears and jetting exhaust flames. In between the platforms are combat sequences, but as I said, many droid are initially inactive, giving you the chance to sneak around them rather than slog through a battle.

Nevertheless, there are times when you will have to fight, and the combat system is pretty simple to understand. I don’t care for trying to shoot using a game pad, but then I’m still weak when it comes to FPS games on the Xbox game pad. This is why I preferred beating mechs to pieces over blasting them to bits. Still, I found that many sequences were set up as shooting set pieces, and once I got into the right rhythm, the gunfights were as much fun as the martial arts flurries.

After returning to Trip’s village and finding the place ransacked, Trip swears to kill whoever is responsible for the mechs and their constant assault. She then commands Monkey to come with her. But by then, Monkey isn’t hanging around because of the headband. He and Trip grow closer together over the course of the journey, so much so that at one point when he is offered freedom, Monkey chooses to say with Trip. This is not some attempt at a fast wishy-washy romance, but rather the slow development of a relationship based on interdependence. Over time, both characters come to care for each other, and while this is not love, the story gives the impression it could be, someday, if only the world will give love a chance to blossom. I really, really liked this aspect of the story, and could probably spend a few pages gushing if I didn’t rein myself in.

A lot of games have tried to make me feel something for the main characters, but this was one of the few that successfully instilled in me a deep concern for the characters and for the story. Where does this story end? Will Monkey forgive Trip for using him as a slave to get revenge? Who is behind the mech attacks, and why are they enslaving the surviving humans? These are all questions I NEEDED to know, but I wouldn’t have felt so keen to know more if the main characters weren’t so interesting. It’s a combination of great writing, voice acting, and facial animation.

As an example, Pigsy’s reaction to seeing Trip all grown up is pure elation, and yet his face crumples only seconds later when he learns that his best friend has died. His chubby face projects these emotions so clearly that I got choked up over his reaction. No other game has managed to make me feel this much over the death of a bit character who I never meet. That’s writing talent so good, I have to give props, but it wouldn’t be nearly as effective without some talented animators backing the writing up. So this is a quality team effort.

And, since I’ve pointed out how Trip isn’t opposed to using the tools of her oppressors to make Monkey her slave, it should be obvious that these characters are not instantly likable. Monkey comes across as a dick only interested in surviving and caring for himself. And Trip comes across as an aloof technocrat with no idea of how terrible the world around her has become. But as the chapters wear on, both characters reveal inner layers of conflict. It’s really fantastic to see the relationship develop between Monkey and Trip, especially when the writers did so without resorting to too many cliché tropes.

Pigsy too is a flawed character, but his flaws are played up a bit for clownish effect, and it does come off as a bit clichéd at times. Also, near the end of the game, he pulls a dick move that’s so awful, I can’t understand how Monkey or Trip shrug it off the way they do. He still redeems himself later, but I did feel it strained belief in what was otherwise a near flawless plot.

(Side note: I also wanted to give kudos to the writers for finding a way to slip a classic scene from Romeo and Juliet into the game. It was just another nice touch in a game full of little artistic flairs.)

I do have some complaints about the cloud and how it was used in a lousy way TWICE in the game, but before that, I want to heap praise on the places where the cloud was fun. The first time the cloud is made available, you’re given a wide open space with lots of ramps to experiment with. Think of the cloud like riding a short hoverboard. Pass over an energy source, and it will cause the cloud to accelerate for a short burst. While this is loads of fun in a wide open space, the game makers quickly restrict this to a form of movement while facing bigger mechs in tightly confined fighting areas. At these points, I found it almost enraging to try and use the cloud when it required shutting down the cloud to use my staff.

Then the other use of the cloud IS enraging. In two chase scene set pieces, Trip suddenly loses her brains and must be rescued from a giant mech. Monkey chases after on the cloud while Trip screams at him to hurry. I failed the first chase about forty or so times before finally getting a single chance to catch up. But the second time around, I hated the circumstances of the chase just as much as I hated the chase itself. Thus, everything that occurs after that second chase, I saw by watching a walkthrough on YouTube. Later on, I plan to go back and play the game on easy to see if this slows down the chase scenes to the point where I can complete the game. But on normal difficulty, I’m incapable of doing with the game-makers want. These sequences gave me sore hands and a mean temper flare-up, and little else.

And I have to say, I find it REALLY annoying how Trip, a woman who had the presence of mind to bring down a fucking mech slaver ship by herself, suddenly becomes so panicky and helpless in these two scenes that she forgets the EMP device she’s wearing. It was repeatedly seen that even while being attacked by mechs, Trip had the presence of mind to activate her EMP and shut down the mechs long enough for Monkey to arrive and lay a beat down on the incapacitated droids. Yet, both these scenes take away Trip’s brains to give Monkey another reason to use the cloud in a clumsy race. It also reduces Trip to the princess who needs saving, and in a story that mostly avoids this trope, having it show up like this is glaringly annoying.

I know the developers were trying to aim for a sense of urgency, but this sudden shift for Trip was out of line for her character. Plus, me having to do those scenes over and over tainted my enjoyment of the cut scenes that came right after. I was still too busy fuming to pay attention. In short, the game itself kicked me out of the story by working to be too hard relative to the other sections. Everything else had a flow to it, so that even if I might die once or twice, once I’ve seen where my mistake was, I could just keep going through the rest and still feel like I was into the story. But those chase scenes kicked me out so hard that even later, I was still going, “Man, I hated those levels!”

I won’t spoil the ending, but there’s some shades of The Matrix mixed in with Journey to the West and Mad Max. Also, there’s giant robots. Which is awesome. I liked how the story ends, and I feel it brings a sense of closure while at the same time implying that there’s a lot more in store for Trip and Monkey in this desolate world. Trip’s final question in the game is a great closing line, and it’s even better because Monkey doesn’t have an answer ready.

So let’s add this up: great voice acting, great story, great dialogue, great animation and character design, and great game play only occasionally marred by a challenge being made insanely painful to complete. Based on these factors, I’m going to give Enslaved: Odyssey to the West 4 stars and recommend it to gamers looking for a meaty plot to go along with great graphics and solid combat and platforming set pieces. I really wish more game companies cared this much about their stories and character development, and like I said, this will probably spoil me by setting a new watermark in terms of game quality. If it hadn’t been for those chase scene woes, I’d be ready to give this game five stars and offer free sex to the writer and the modelers…okay, to everyone involved in the game, except whoever acted as the model for Pigsy.

First, let me say that the French know how to throw a con. The convention center was nicer, being fully heated and in nicer condition than Fiera Roma. There were more vendor, more demo tables, and more presence by video game companies. It was a smaller con than Lucca, but it was organized well for heavy traffic, and there was rarely a long line to sample games of any sort.

I bought a new puzzle ball called Perplexus Epic, a strategy game from Africa, Awele, and a few used Xbox games, Red Dead Redemption, Prototype, and Resident Evil 5. I would have bought more, but I pretty much blew my budget on day one. Oh, did I mention that I bought a jacket and a new pair of gloves? Yeeeeah, way over budget.

The food was fantastic, although obviously being Cannes, it was expensive. Still, I couldn’t complain about anything aside from sore muscles. The people were friendly and extremely forgiving of my goofy behavior. The hostess for our meals both nights seemed to love us. Can’t imagine why. But the food, so incredible. My only regret is, I don’t have two stomachs.

But of course, I’m paying for two days of walking, even if it was walking on level terrain in pleasant weather. Today my legs and hips are screaming at me, and I’m suffering a massive headache due to sore neck muscles. I think two cons in the same month is my limit. The other nice thing about this con was, no one was waking me up and telling me to rush. On the second day, even taking things at a casual pace, we still had to wait outside for an hour. Which woulda sucked if it was cold, but it got so warm that I took off my coat and scarf. Then I unpacked a book and read until it was time to go inside.

I’m tired, but I’m still really hyped about games of all kinds, and I find I’m so keyed up on how great that con was, and how much I want the next Ludica Roma to be more like that con, or more like Lucca. I’m so fired up on this, I’m going to do the unthinkable and approach hubby’s boss to discuss better organization and more pushes to invite game makers instead of just the platform makers and used game vendors. Ludica Roma was fun, but it was badly organized and didn’t used the space it had very efficiently. Cartoomics and Ludica Milano aren’t much better. There’s no attempt at grouping vendors together for better traffic control, and there’s no obvious signs up indicating what is where. This was not the case in Lucca, nor in Cannes, and it shows how much more involved the organizers were in thinking about foot traffic and congestion.

This is not to say I don’t like Ludica or Cartoomics. I love them, but I can see from other cons how ours are suffering from inattention. I would love for Cartoomics to be as big as Cannes’ efforts, but from what hubby tells me, the Italian commune offices actively HATE setting up cons, so they do everything they can to discourage organizers. I’m told this is the case in Lucca too, and this attitude drives me nuts.

Anywho, that’s the latest update. Didn’t want you to think I’d dropped off the planet. I just went to France, is all.

Sadly, I can’t use Kickstarter, being outside the US. But I could use IndieGoGo if I could just think of a project that I could find 100 or so backers on. But I’m not really thinking about using these services so much as I’m interested in seeing how other authors are able to use these services for presale orders and promotion. With MeiLin’s story, she originally started the project as a web serial, so some of her backers are past readers who are donating to help polish the story and make it even better for new readers. That they get a book out of the deal is just gravy, because they’ve already read the story, and they already know how good it is.

But these backers also promoted the Kickstarter project and brought in new readers, and then there’s backers like me who haven’t read the series online yet, but who knew about it and we were waiting for the ebook. So for me, I figure I’ll send in some funds, and now I get a download link to the book with a discount code for 100% off. Now, in truth, I paid $10, and the book is $4.95, so I paid more for it than I had to. But it’s a good project, and I’m happy to support a fellow indie artist, even if it means paying more than the sticker price on her book. We can even call the other fiver a tip.

In the future, I see crowd funding working as a model for lots of writers, where they put out the rough draft on a site or blog and then go promote it to their online friends in an effort to build an initial readership. Once the series is completed and ready for polishing, the project is moved to one of the crowd-funded platforms, where the author appeals to their regular reader to both donate and promote the project to find new readers and backers.

A lot of readers my cringe at this and ask, “Why would I want to read the typo-heavy rough draft?” I dunno, because some people may be interested in seeing the creative process of writers? Because checking out a serial this way gives readers a chance to say what did and didn’t work for them before the book is finalized and considered canon? No, the best reason is, it encourages development of a fan base as the story is being written. If a project is good, even as a rough draft, it’s going to pull down a small core group of fans who will love it, warts and all. But those same fans will also get a chance to point out the warts to the writer and say, “But maybe that could be fixed?”

Once the writer has taken their counsel under consideration and played around with the story a bit, the resulting polished ebook is likely to be more appealing to a larger audience. And once again, those early readers become key in helping the launch of the title, because they can help with the promotion work.

One of the problems with just dropping an ebook on the market is that there’s no pre-promotion phase. Using a web-serial for the rough draft means that while the book is being made, the writer is always promoting and looking for readers. If the story is good, then in theory, by the time the story ends, there should be enough readers to fund editing, cover art, proofing and layout, and a proper promotion budget. From there, the crowd funding stage becomes more about finding new backers and new way to get the title in front of people who haven’t seen it before.

This would also make the case that writers who skip the WebLit route and just write an ebook should also consider putting together a crowd-funding project, but not for the pre-sales cash. Rather, it’s that two month pre-hype phase that allows you to keep putting the project name out in front of your people for a good reason, one that hopefully won’t annoy them. The project keeps bringing your book up until your fellow tweeters and Facebook friends can’t forget about it, and they know the release date and are watching for it.

I admit, this is a major component lacking from my own writing plans, the pre-release hype phase, and so I’m watching other crowd funded projects to see if these platforms might help future releases. In 2013, when I have something to sell that won’t piss you off, I mean.

So, I made my attempt at a short promotion phase, which I’ll continue on Twitter for one more day. But currently, the results are…predictable. There were two sales, and three preview downloads. And being honest, I think one of those downloaded samples was me, when I was proofing the first few chapters. But given the topic of the book, I expected this, and like I said, no hissy fits. I’ve had quite a few RTs from a wide variety of followers, I think mainly because I’ve been posting a tweet every hour, or every two hours. So I’m getting more people when they’re online to see the tweet and run with it. So the promotion signal boost is there, and I want to take a moment here to express gratitude to any of those followers who also read the blog. What I’m saying is, the problem isn’t with the signal strength, but with the book.

Sadly, I wish I could say, “Better luck next time,” but I totally queue-screwed myself. I held back a lot of titles over the years because I was still working on writing problems in each book, like not enough visual details in establishing scenes or character description, or because the plots still felt inconsistent or lacking, and I just hadn’t stumbled across the best way to fix them. My queue filled up with other newer work, but since these titles were missing that little something extra, I couldn’t go back to them. I let them stew while I worked on projects that I felt more comfortable polishing after a few months of thought here and there.

The fact that every book I was holding back also had controversial material probably factored into my decision, because I suppose I wanted to follow the general market advice of establishing myself with other safer titles first. Plus, I always work faster on stories that I feel have a stronger chance of being liked by more people. I’m usually wrong on this, though.

Part of what makes this frustrating is that, being queer, there’s so much fiction that creates a straight white “everyman,” denying the idea that people from less likeable perspectives can still have a compelling story. So I wasn’t trying to make stories to say, “Hey, these are good guys too!” I was writing these kinds of stories to say, “Hey, these people may make you uncomfortable to be around, but it doesn’t mean they can’t have compelling stories.” The mainstream erases and invalidates every other identity, and the only thing left is this projected false morality that has nothing to do with reality. It’s not a reflection of our culture, so as art, it’s pretty fucking banal.

So I put it in my head to do things that wouldn’t fly with mainstream books, and my whole point is making a counter-culture protest. My message all along was: “You may not want to think about these people, but they do have stories to tell.” So yeah, I’m writing about the straight sexual predators and pedophiles right along with the trans, bis, lesbians, and gays. But the joke’s on me, because the market is perfectly happy reading for happy escapism, and my desire to see stories outside that mainstream spectrum is not shared by as many people as I had thought.

I think the flaw in my plan with pushing safer titles first is, nothing I wrote after The Campaign Trail has enjoyed continual growth of the fan base. What I mean is, the kind of readers I interested with that safe series had no intention of crossing over to read my more challenging works. For example, there’s no regular sales for the Zombie Era books, even though they got just as many good reviews as The Campaign Trilogy, and a few web sites were even kind enough to interview me and do other guest promotions. Bubkes, because the books are bout a gay nerd. Both stopped selling a few months after their releases. I kind of hoped releasing Confessions of a Zombie Lover would lead to more sales of the first book, but no, that plan was a bust too. And, should I write the last two books in the series, I’ll lose the gay readers because the second half deals with the gay nerd’s adopted straight zombie daughter.

And okay, the series had gay characters and gay sex, but those were titles with less controversial themes, and they at least sold a decent chunk before the niche dried up. The books in the queue are in the same awkward themes. Even the second City California book is about Terry, a superhero character with a child-like appearance engaging in all kinds of adult behavior. I swear to you people, I wrote these books years apart from each other. In between, I wrote about all kinds of other people and topics. I’m not just a one dimensional freak fixating on one topic. But the editing queue of 2012, made up of titles spread out through years, looks like I’ve gone on a kick for little kids. (y_y) Right, like I need more help with my popularity.

An answer isn’t so simple like “just write something new.” You may have forgotten, but every pitch the muse has made recently goes someplace I don’t want to go. I’m struggling to complete some projects, and she’s making rumbles about new story ideas. But while not about minors, I don’t like any of her new ideas because the stories are so bleak and mean-spirited. I can’t just drop what I’m writing to make a new book and stick it between these controversial release either. Any book I wrote now would need two months to “cool” before I could start a second revision and address flaws. At a minimum, it would take me eight months to get a book written and polished. Or I can just finish these books that are nearing completion and accept that all of 2012 is gonna suck for my new releases.

But hey, it’s not all bad. I have older titles still making sales, and maybe in 2013, I’ll release something more easily digestible in the casual market.

Now on sale at Smashwords:

When eight-year-old Penny Sterling becomes the child bride of Nicholas Rumpelstilts, she expects the worst. Instead, she’s free to go to school, to have friends, even to see the mother who gave her to Nicholas before her birth–and her new husband never lays a hand on her. But however pleasant the cage, she’s still a prisoner.

As Penny grows, she learns why Nicholas may want her: she’s a witch. She must hide her abilities or risk the world’s fear and hatred. Penny always thought Nicholas was the monster, but when a real monster leaves her scarred emotionally and physically he is the one who offers safety and comfort in a world where she’s likely to find neither.

When Nicholas disappears in dangerous circumstances, Penny faces a hard choice: take her freedom, or search for a captor she’s come to love.

A dark fantasy exploring themes of child marriage and Stockholm syndrome, “Penny for Your Debts” contains graphic violence and sexual situations, and should not be read by anyone under the age of eighteen.

—

I spent some time pondering how I would handle the release of this book, because I’m not wanting to do a lot of promotion for any release. But this title is flagged in Smashwords as containing adult material, as as such does not show up in a search or with casual browsing. It is not possible to stumble over the book, so unless I want to ensure that no one knows it exists, I need to at least put up links to the book. I’m also going to engage in a minor Twitter campaign, making a few regular tweets for this per day to put out a low-level awareness of the title. I most likely won’t be following reviews good or bad, so we’ll call this my “toss and cover head” approach to marketing.

Penny for Your Debts is $3.99 at Smashwords. I’m not yet sure if I will upload it to Amazon or not, and I think it depends on the initial month of reactions through Smashwords.

Right, so the release is done, and now the flop sweating can ensue.

It should be obvious that, being a pothead, I have a bias here. Let my people go! yanno? But it seems to me that if cops were told to stop violating peoples’ rights with stop-and-frisk procedures, those cops should start paying fines for every arrest they attempt to make that violates the mandates handed down to them by their superiors. Why? Because what they’re doing is insubordination, and by choosing to enforce their own rules over the letter of the law, the police are now in violation of the same laws.

I’m not one to suggest throwing them all out, because I do see a social need for police and their services. But, if those dirty pigs want to break the law, stiff their fuckin’ paycheck, man. If they do it again, suspend them for a few days and fine them. That’s a double whammy on their checks for breaking the law. And if they still can’t be bothered to stop fluffing wimpy casual drug charges to fill their bust quotas, fire them and take away all their money. Like a wise man once said, “Fuckin’ with your cash supply is the only thing you kids seem to understand!” (Bonus points if you know where that’s from.)

And can I be real for a second? Like, we’ve done a million medical studies on marijuana and found it medicinally useful, non-toxic, non-addicting, and non-harmful to the lungs even with extended use. Long term use does not result in poor health, and it acts as an effective treatment to many illnesses, mine included. There is no valid reason to restrict it, and by making it a cash crop that legal farmers could grow, it would be a tax boom from a new revenue source, something I believe the US economy could use right about now.

So even if you aren’t a pothead, I want you to think long and hard about why we need a “war” on a drug that isn’t harmful, and might be economically beneficial to everyone, even people who don’t smoke. Sound good? So, whoever wins this next election, let’s talk to them about making more greenbacks by letting farmers grown some stinky mean green.

But let’s talk about the GOP debates and the so-called “dog-whistle” language being used to bait racists. First, look at this Bloomberg post and read through some of the claims made by white GOP politicians about blacks, which is all done in an effort to win the votes of racist white southerners. (And northerners who pretend that their forms of racism are really rational social ideals, not the same thing as the backwards bible preaching those goober hicks in the south believe.) Knowing that these people are appealing to the racist vote, I thought it might also be relevant to post this article, which lists black victims who have been lynched in the US after the civil war.

I do this because these white voters are the descendents of people who thought murdering blacks asking for equality made them righteous. Now they don’t want to talk about those old days, but they do mutter how “the south will rise again.” They still believe in white supremacy, and they still would love to string a few more blacks up, maybe even revive slavery. Let us not coddle language and allow a racist to hide behind “dog whistles.” When Newt Gingrich says that black kids should be janitors, that’s not a fucking dog-whistle call anyway. That’s blatant fucking racism.

BUT, it’s not deemed racism by the white majority so long as the white media outlets continue to call it “masked sentiments.” There’s nothing masked about this, any more than Ronnie Reagan was wearing a mask when he coined the term welfare queens. It’s a way to continually demonize blacks as the real reason America sucks. Not evil bankers. Not politicians who promise one thing and deliver environmental disasters, war, and fear mongering. Not rich white men who own everything and drive political wedges in the population using their media conglomerates. NO! The real problem is poor people with weak political influence and few resources to combat the prevailing media message that “all’s well.”

The bigger problem is, the left is enabling this racism because they keep pointing to Obama being in office as proof of their racial “mission accomplished.” And much like the GOP president they criticized for living in a bubble, white people on the left do not want to admit that electing Obama actually served to make race valid to racists all over again. That’s why Newt is up there using old boy speeches to garner the racist votes. Because enough whites are afraid that blacks really are taking over that this tactic has seemed viable to him.

So what if the vast majority of the government is still white? The dude in the white house is black, and that means “they’re taking over.” So the racists are galvanized now, and along comes this asshole saying exactly what they want to hear. The white media outlets may cluck their tongues at this tactic, but the fact they don’t acknowledge is, that language goes a long way toward creating a platform for Newt. And if that’s working as a tactic, even in a few states, then no, the white left has not accomplished any mission toward racial equality. Racism is still alive and well, even with Obama in office. We all need to own that fact, even white voters on the left who genuinely aren’t racist.

The other problem is GOP voters who always fall back on the defense that they are not really racist even if they voted for the white guy using racist language to court the south. No, these GOP voters are “fiscally conservative,” and cannot vote Democrat because they will “just spend it on social programs.” (Which is traditionally also used as a dog-whistle for “black people funds,” incidentally.) So even though there hasn’t been a GOP president who didn’t incur huge debts and inflation, the voters still keep claiming that they’re really voting for the sake of their wallets. Fiscal conservatism of this sort is willful ignorance at best, and polite buzzwords to cover racism at worst.

The first step we have to take in stopping racism is to stop making apologies for racist language and calling it something else like “dog whistling.” This is bating the racists, and we need our media to point this out instead of downplaying the tactic as being “edgy.” There is nothing edgy about clinging to values that should have been dead two centuries ago.

That white conservatives don’t condemn Newt for his antics goes to show how racist many of them are, and I really don’t care how many black friends they claim to have. Their politics have always shown their true colors, and that’s why I don’t cotton to the claim that Newt isn’t really racist, that he’s just using a bait to get a certain kind of voter. If he wasn’t racist, he would find this tactic to be repulsive. But he fucking wallows in racism like a pig in shit. He smiles and laughs as he says these things. No, this is not just a white man trying to win the votes of the south. This is a full on racist, and the whole election would have been better served if someone in the media early on had called him on this and dogged him about it until he dropped out or admitted that he was soliciting hate groups.

We need to stop letting racists off the hook with platitudes that they don’t really mean what they say. And we cannot walk away and pretend this isn’t happening, because that will lead to more back sliding, not to any form of social progress. Stay in this fight, and be prepared to call someone out when they try the same things that Gingrich is. And for the love of God, will someone call out Newt before we get to the primaries? Can we possibly send BET to put a mic in Newt’s grill and tell him, “Cracker, you’re a motherfucking racist, so how are you going to get the black vote now that you’ve positioned yourself as a fan of the white man only?”

No? Well then I guess we should get used to the rise of more “dog-whistling” in future elections.

Trans people are abused by the police routinely, and trans POC are even more likely to be profiled and harassed, even if they have never committed any crimes. It’s good enough to be black and trans to be arrested. Once they’re arrested, they may be harassed, tortured, or sexually assaulted, usually without any hope of finding justice. In fact, I’d like to quote the NGLTF’s detail on black respondents to help you understand how bad this is:

The National Transgender Discrimination Survey [NTDS] measured transgender people’s experiences of discrimination. The survey results showed that transgender people faced bias that affects all areas of life. However, one of the most important findings was that the combination of anti-transgender with structural and individual racism meant that transgender people of color experience particularly devastating levels of discrimination. Therefore, this document, Injustice at Every Turn: A Look at Black Respondents in the National Transgender Discrimination Survey, produced in collaboration with the National Black Justice Coalition and the National Center for Transgender Equality, is the first of a series of factsheets designed to specifically shine a light on the experiences of transgender people of color.

So, it’s still possible in this day to be discriminated against for being trans, or for being black, but combine those, and you’ve got hell on all sides, even racism from your white trans and gay allies. So you run to your black family and former friends to complain about racism, and they tell you “We don’t care what you think cause you’re a queer.” Nice, huh?

But I’ve pretty much blown myself out on rants, and there’s nothing in this survey that I haven’t already bitched about last year. If you weren’t paying attention and you’d like to see an itemized list of how bad things are for the trans community, go look at the abstract, and if you’re really brave, go for the full reports. When you combine this story with the other stories I have to show today, you begin to notice, however, the main problem isn’t that our enemies got stronger. It’s that our straight white allies on the left stopped fighting. They didn’t change over to new fights. They just stopped caring about civil rights. The closest many can come to caring is thinking really hard about how unfair life is for others. But they feel no need to get up and join protest rallies, or to write letters to elected bigots. They feel no need to join the fight again, even as the news delivers daily updates that the other side is making gains in all forms of prejudice and discrimination. At best, they say, “This is terrible. Somebody should do something.”

No, not somebody. You should do something. You know that to win this fight, you have to actually be willing to fight. You can’t sit down and talk it out with prejudiced people. You fucking argue with them every day, every step of the way, or else they’ll take your silence as your acceptance of their views as right.

And when I tell a lot of you people this, you get mad at me for “rocking the boat.” That wasn’t me rocking it. That was someone being violently raped. I shout, “look at that rape!” and you shout back, “shut up, I’d rather stay ignorant and happy!”

So let us review: I am the activist telling you that you have to stay mad and stay committed to fight for full equality, or you’re not an ally, and you’re the couch potato complaining that ally should mean “I tolerate your existence” and nothing more. It shouldn’t be hard to see that you’re the one here who needs to make improvements. But hey, isn’t it just easier to get pissed and shoot the messenger for pointing out, again, “You’re not doing so great in the humanitarian department”?

Now, when I tell people my story, they sprinkle fluff over my bitterness by telling me I’m brave. I’m not brave. I was just abused for so long that I can no longer be afraid of threats of pain, or of shunning. Society’s weapons hold no power over my but that isn’t bravery. It’s familiarity with the wounds left by social weapons.

People try to tell me that if it hadn’t been for those bullies, I wouldn’t be the person I am today. That too is fluff, because it ignores that if I wasn’t bullied, I might have been sane and healthy enough to adopt kids in my mid-twenties. Instead, I lived a life of misery until I was 28, and now, I live with many, many regrets for all the things the bullies stole from me. I can never have kids, and my emotional scars will never heal because there is nothing to act as a salve. Even looking to the future in hope that the next generation will have it better leaves my scars raw and as risk of rupturing open if I pick at them too long.

But despite all the harm it causes to victims like me, people don’t seek to stop bullying. They seek to placate the victims. People have said for as long as I can recall that if we ignore bullying, it will go away. You were lying then, and you’re lying now. But this is a lie that keeps going around, and no one is ever allowed to talk about alternatives. It’s almost like you like seeing queer kids tortured, because straight kids are encouraged to look for targets to vent their privileged aggressions on. When queer kids complain that something should be done, the schools officials find ways to…silence the queers and force them to keep suffering abuse day in and day out. It’s federally mandated torture in a years-long gauntlet, and there is no escape. But if you make it out the other side…the discrimination still continues, but in shorter bursts. It gets better? The hell it does, Dan. The hell it does.

Don’t be happy for me that I survived years of abuse. Don’t be proud of me that I stood up to bullying in my late twenties. Be mad that I was pushed out of high school. Be mad that the bullies still rule the hallways, and that the teachers who swear to protect all kids instead only watch out for the kids they morally approve of. Be mad that bullying is still not seen as a problem, even after it spreads out to include racism, sexism, and sexual assaults. After all, it’s not like these bullies aren’t our next generation of politician and middle managers, and there’s absolutely no reason whatsoever to rein in their entitled control freak urges, is there?

I’ll leave you to think on that.

I realized that the best thing to do would be to present a shorter post for some of these stories and let the other blogs handle the job of filling in the big blanks I’ll leave behind. I’m pointing out the issues, and from there it’s up to you how much more information you need on these stories.

But before I get to that, I want to talk about causes and allies, because these are two vastly different things. I’m bringing this up because you may notice a story is missing from the list of recent blog posts, that being the case of Komen for the Cure’s removal of funding from Planned Parenthood. People who follow me on Twitter know that I was retweeting the story itself, but they may have also noticed how I didn’t retweet links for donating to Planned Parenthood.

Why? Because Planned Parenthood has a long history of being anti-trans. As such, I could never consider them an ally. I can recognize that they do useful things for other women, and I can point out the hypocrisy of Komen claiming to be “pro-life” despite stripping funding for breast cancer exams, which has nothing to do with abortion at all. But I do not wish to support an organization known for turning my people away. Planned Parenthood is guilty of gender discrimination, and that is why I will not donate to them, nor ask people to send them funds.

If, after reading my tweets about Komen, you decide to send money to Planned Parenthood, then it will not be hard for you to find a way to donate without me offering a link. And for the record, I don’t expect you to not donate just because I don’t. But I will make my reasons for not donating known. You can choose for yourself what you do with this information.

I think what Planned Parenthood does with medical services for women is great, but they are also practicing discrimination against my allies, and I cannot play an apologist and say “they’ve done some good things too” when the organization’s policies continue to cause harm to the trans community.

I can still make you aware of their cause, but I can’t call them an ally. This is the moral tightrope I have to walk with many causes, because while I can recognize injustice within another group, I cannot claim that group as my allies when they have histories of being anti-trans, or anti-feminist. (And don’t even get me started on how hard modern feminism is on trans women.) When I bring up causes, it’s not the right time to mention “But these people are still anti-trans.” So I don’t. It’s more important to me to get exposure for these problems, even if they don’t have anything to do with me or my allies. They have causes that need attention, and if I call myself a humane activist, I cannot be selectively deaf to other causes just because they aren’t allies. But I also can’t turn a blind eye to the harm they do to others, even as they claim to be doing humanitarian work. These groups do practice selective deafness, and that pisses me off. But I won’t return the favor. An eye for an eye makes the world go blind, yanno.

I can only hope that one day, other people will try adopting similar policies, so that instead of activists only talking about their core group’s interests, they also spread out their awareness of other groups with similar plights. We don’t have to all be allies, but if enough activists started breaking down these barriers between us, we might end up making more progress collectively than we would by shouting into our online echo chambers.

Food for thought, anyway. Now, on with the flood.