With Great Power Comes..Great Prep Time?

Luke Cage Has Been Casted!

Luke Cage, one of four Marvel characters appearing on Netflix, is being played by Mike Colter.

From Marvel:

“Mike embodies the strength, edge and depth of Luke Cage,” said Executive Producer/Showrunner Melissa Rosenberg. “We're excited to have him bring this iconic Marvel character to life."

Mike is currently in the Halo:Nightfall series. He will star opposite of Krysten Ritter in the upcoming "Jessica Jones" series.

Super Throwdown 2 (Just doing two fights this time)

Here we are with the 2nd Super Throwdown. The rules are still the same as before ( which can be found in the first throwdown post) so let's get this started.

So Let's Talk About Korra's Finale

This past Friday marked the end of a series loved by many, I'm of course talking about Avatar: The Legend of Korra. I know I haven't talked much about Avatar here but I have seen all the episodes and have loved this series since Aang and co took off to stop the Fire Nation and just really need to get a few things off my chest here so I'll slap a big ol SPOILER WARNING if you have not seen the last episode yet.

25 Benefits of Gaming While Male: My Take

It seems like we cannot go a day without some sort of controversy within the gaming industry; GTA V has been pulled from Targets in Australia and there are petitions to get it outright banned, the media & anti gamergate proponents continue to run with the narrative of gamergate being about misogyny, and now we have this "25 invisible benefits of gaming while male". I was going to dissect each point separately but that's been done to death by many other people, especially on YouTube, so I've decided to tackle the video on a macro level...let's get to it.

The video starts off presenting an opinion as "concrete" facts and the problems begin almost immediately when that is said, almost none of the examples provided can be used as anything other than anecdotal data which hardly counts as concrete. Not only that, there is a gross conflation between the general ills of society and that on the gaming community which it appears the creator of the video were aware of because they- intentionally it seems- have framed all forms of harassment as gender based with women being the sole victim. In this way they can say that women are harassed for their gender but that is intellectually dishonest because it makes it seem as if that is the only form of harassment that exists. Do women get attacks online when they game? Sure they do. Do they get it specifically because they are women? It's possible but that's not something you can say, again the video says its concrete facts, with 100% certainty. When people game online they are largely anonymous, save for a gamertag, and as such will act like total jerks because there is no immediate danger presented to them; they can call you the n word, f*g, bitch, whore, whatever they want and there is nothing you can really do except for block and ignore. I have been called the n word multiple times and have not only my masculinity questioned ( did your balls drop yet?) but have had a hurl of insults thrown my way simply for winning..I'm serious I got a message on xbox live calling me an n word jew after I won a match of TDM. This isn't to say that I have it worse than women or anything of the sort, merely stating that harassment is pretty much a guarantee not because of the gaming community but because of the anonymous nature of gaming online and human behavior, people act like jerks online and will say anything offensive just to get a rise out of you. Other points made in the video about not being harassed at cons and not having to be asked if you're buying a game for yourself isn't even related to the video itself because they have nothing to do with gaming ( as in not a "benefit" given to you while playing games) so I don't know how they made the cut.

The video attempts to paint these issues as gendered ones in order to help women in gaming but I feel as if it has done the exact opposite. Why not have women address these issues in the video? I know that in the end John McIntosh states that the checklist will get taken more seriously because a straight male said it ( which is absurd because saying false statements regardless of gender will result in a negative response) but wouldn't it have done more good to have women saying it? It feels more like another push to further the "misogynistic hate culture of gaming" rather than address any real issue. Instead of making another video depicting women as helpless, fragile creatures ( whether it is implied or actually shown) why not have a "25 reasons women kick ass in gaming" or "25 women in gaming who could kick your ass" or even " 25 benefits of gaming with women?" I almost never see the people who claim the gaming culture is anti women actually make a video that uplifts women. It's really sad that this video not only fails to make a  compelling argument on it's premise but it also fails to address the entire issue of harassment online and just pays it lip service by saying the trite old "it's up to us to stop this" catchphrase without actually giving ways on how to combat it. Yes it's great that you are aware of these benefits but how do you not benefit? Do you ask to be harassed? Do you want people to attack you based on your gender? How do you go about evening it out?

It just really bothers me that the video says it has concrete proof of the benefits yet each and everyone can, and has been, refuted with the simplest of logic. Why try to make this a gendered issue? Like men don't get harassed/attacked during online gaming? Just ugh to all of this. Well that was longer than expected, please feel free to comment

EDIT:Youtuber QueenyMartha just uploaded a video that serves as a brilliant counter to the original 25 benefits video:http://youtu.be/6d6nRUBKdB4

TTBN Gaming: Destiny The Dark Below

A new addition from the DLC is the inclusion of sword drops from certain Knights

Today is the release of the first expansion for Bungie's Destiny called " The Dark Below" and with that comes new maps for multiplayer, a level increase ( 32 is the max now), some new weapons & gear and of course new raids and strikes. I've yet to complete all of these things ( as again the content just dropped today) but from what I've experienced, Destiny is finally starting to feel a bit more complete. I mean obviously since it's adding story content the game seems meatier but this combined with the update previous to the dlc is starting to make me not regret buying this game. Hopefully I'll be able to complete some raids and strikes soon but I did complete the main " story mission" and it was fairly brief but that has to do with how they are releasing content I guess? Still only 3 missions is kind of a let down. Anyways here's footage of my playthrough of "The Dark Below"

* I am starting from the 2nd mission because my first playthrough disconnected*

EDIT: I mistakenly said the swords were part of the DLC but I was informed they were released 2 weeks prior to the DLC

The Suicide Squad Has Been Announced