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Home » The Gay Geek (May 13, 2008)

The Gay Geek (May 13, 2008)

Lyle Masakiby
Lyle Masaki

May 14, 2008

From the "Things Gamers Hate" department.
Two highly anticipated games almost lost a chunk of their audience before they even came out. Earlier this week, gamers learned that Spore and the PC version of the lesbian-inclusive Mass Effect would come with a form of copy protection that would “phone home” every ten days to verify that your copy is one you paid for (or something like that). This would certainly add an extra layer of inconvenience to these games, particularly if you’re the type who likes to limit the number of applications allowed to access the Internet (or if experience tells you not to trust an Electronic Arts game to use resources carefully).

Reaction among gamers was swift, with words like “draconian” being thrown about. Thankfully, Electronic Arts responded to the furor quickly, changing the copy protection requirements for both Spore and Mass Effect so that they verify only at installation and when online features are being used.

I’m one of those people who doesn’t like applications accessing the Internet on their own, so the heightened copy protection had me debating how badly I wanted Spore (and at a time when my partner is trying to get me addicted to the copy protection-free Galatic Civilizations 2.) I’m curious how you feel about such systems – would something like this stop you, even with a game as highly-anticipated as Spore or highly-praised as Mass Effect? Is there a point when copy protection software become unacceptable for you?

Now that's the magic word to get my attention.
I've become pretty numb to the big events at Marvel and DC of late, but the "Legion of three worlds" promos for DC's upcoming Final Crisis got my attention by making use of longtime gay fave team The Legion of Superheroes:

I'm really curious who that Time Trapper is in the background: is it the classic version, the time-trapped Cosmic Boy version or the mysterious female Time Trapper from the end of Zero Hour? And if the first reboot Legion is back, is there any chance we'll finally get to see Lyle Norg outed in continuity?

That's it for now ... be sure to check back next week for more Gay Geek!

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Submitted by
Dennis Ayers
on Wed, 2008-05-14 22:03.
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Francesca's picture

Old School HoYay!

Submitted by
Francesca (45 points) (13 posts)
on Thu, 2008-05-15 00:07.

You're definitely right about Smallville's Clark and Lex, especially the first few seasons. But there are other fine examples of homoerotic subtext.

For example, there were Jack O'Neill/Daniel Jackson of SG-1, Fraser/Kowalski of Due South (rumour has it that Kowalski was created to spark maximum sexual tension) or the HoYay! super couple Jim Ellison and Blair Sandburg of The Sentinel.

Their relationship was so close (they lived together, touched all the time...merged their spirit animals) that even the actors liked to play along; there are wonderful Jim/Blair kisses in the show bloopers. Fanvid creators still swoon when they think about them and almost 10 years after the last episode aired, the fandom is one of the most active slash fandoms.... yes, I'm biased.

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Trevorfrost's picture

Fraser/Kowalski

Submitted by
Trevorfrost (285 points) (62 posts)
on Thu, 2008-05-15 06:06.

Yeah I was wondering if anybody would mention the other old school HoYay!... Especially Fraser/Kowalski.. Ahh my boys.. They were the couple that got me really active in the online slash community. Though I would say the Due South slash community is pretty split among the Vecchio and Kowalski lovers (With Turnbull mixed in for flavor.) I personally like Fraser/Kowalski best though.


Due South was just released on DVD in America in an all 3 seasons in one boxed set on may 6th. You can get it on Amazon for $39.99..

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jprtoronto's picture

Love this addition

Submitted by
jprtoronto (25 points) (5 posts)
on Thu, 2008-05-15 01:19.
Glad this will be a weekly addition to afterelton and thanks for the link to Christopher Butcher's column with Viz -- a very good read.
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Soup's picture

Ah, I think you made a typo.

Submitted by
Soup (49 points) (9 posts)
on Thu, 2008-05-15 02:24.
Ah, I think you made a typo. Shoujo manga is aimed at girls. Shounen manga is the type that's aimed at boys.

I've never heard the term fujiyoshi before, but I've heard of "yaoi fangirls" and "slashers"... which do sound like the same thing. Kinda. But hmm, that's quite interesting.
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Lyle Masaki's picture

Thanks, got it fixed...

Submitted by
Lyle Masaki (3516 points) (4428 posts)
on Thu, 2008-05-15 04:46.
Whenever the topic is Viz my brain gets confused enough trying to keep up if I'm supposed to use a 'u' in spelling shoujo/shounen or not (since Viz spells it differently on their imprints and magazines).
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Megh's picture

It's the same "shou"

Submitted by
Megh (579 points) (115 posts)
on Thu, 2008-05-15 06:17.

If it helps, the 'shou' part is the same character in both words, basically meaning 'small.' Japanese is weird with the transliteration; Tokyo should be Toukyou, but that would confuse most Westerners too much. If you forget the 'u,' few people will actually care.

I liked Tenjou Tenge. All right, I didn't follow the manga very long, and the anime managed to tighten up and end the story much more concisely. But the artwork in the manga was gorgeous, in a largely gravity-defying breasts way.

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Mister 2's picture

Fujiyoshi sounds like a more

Submitted by
Mister 2 (749 points) (148 posts)
on Fri, 2008-05-16 00:16.
Fujiyoshi sounds like a more specific subset of slash fandom focused on boys action manga/anime like Bleach, Naruto, Digimon, Death Note, etc. with some crossover with the likes of Harry Potter, Avatar and Invader Zim. 
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Francesca's picture

Difference between "yahoi fangirls" and "slashers"

Submitted by
Francesca (45 points) (13 posts)
on Fri, 2008-05-16 03:19.

Soup wrote: "I've heard of "yaoi fangirls" and "slashers"... which do sound like the same thing. Kinda."

Well, they sort of are. Kinda. But there are some differences and some people involved in fandom take the distinction very seriously. (People involved in fandom tend to take everything very seriously...)

Ok, "yaoi fangirls" first. Some time ago, Lyle wrote a great article http://www.afterelton.com/Print/2008/1/yaoi?page=0%2C1 about manga with gay content aimed at a female audience...

Boy/Boy manga are divided in shonen-ai (boy love), which focus on the romantic aspects of a relationship, and yaoi (weird translation I couldn't remember), which tend to be more... graphic. Yaoi fangirls are simply fans of gay anime porn. In the past years, more and more girls spread from the anime/manga fandom into Harry Potter or Bandom, basically everything that attracts 15-year olds. They took the term of yaoi in some of non-anime communities and use it as a synonym for slash, because they are young and don't know any better.


Slashers are mostly involved in non-canon pairings. (Canon is the reality of the book, show, movie. For example, Jack/Ianto are a canon pairing, but Harry Potter/Draco Malfoy aren't. The popularity of Torchwood slash fiction is exploding, btw.) Not all slash is about sex (although a lot of it is), it comes in all ratings and shapes.

 

In conclusion:

yaoi = gay + anime + porn

slash = gay pairing in fanfiction/fanvid/fanart

 

Hope I could help those who wonder what Brian Juergens means with "Insert Hotprechaun/Noah slash fic here" in his ATWT recaps...

 

If any of you guys find a mistake or have something to add, please correct me, ok?

 

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Zan's picture

Not specifically related to the content of this week's TGG...

Submitted by
Zan (30 points) (5 posts)
on Thu, 2008-05-15 15:02.
...just wondering why you don't have a Prism Comics profile yet, Lyle? There's an "industry" section that encompasses editorial, publishing and journalism, which you're definitely eligible for. (BTW, I'm linking all your columns from the Prism site... hope we're sending you some traffic!)
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Cosmic Lad's picture

Long live the Legion!

Submitted by
Cosmic Lad (671 points) (126 posts)
on Fri, 2008-05-16 21:09.

Oh my goodness - I'm practically salivating waiting for Legion of 3 worlds...I just hope it's good. And now, I really, really hope that the climate is fine enough for some Legionnaires to just be out. They've insinuated things many times over the years, but they've usually been very cautious, but I really hope they just take the leap. And, while I'm a fan of each of the three versions, the Postboot was just really my favorite. I'm even thinking of going back and rereading them all I'm so excited we'll be seeing them again. (I hope they don't all get decimated like what keeps happening to the Titans in every crossover!)

Additionally, I'm still mplanning on getting Spore, and probably would have even with the extra security, but I'll be glad if it doesn't have it!

Lastly, that Air Gear picture - that's a hot little pic! I may have to check out/ research this series, see if it's something I'd like. Thanks for bringing it to my attention!

Thanks for another great Gay Geek column Lyle! Keep'm coming! 8)

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