G l i t c h y G o b l i n !

Give her room, guys. This week, The Fangirl’s back, gloves on, and she’s got some jaws to break. As always, her cacophony of, uh, ‘colorful’ insight is presented unedited and definitely NSFW.

I’m taking a request from the Goblin this week. He asked that I rant about fangirl stereotypes, but honestly, I’ve been having a hard time narrowing “the fangirl” into a stereotype. I feel “the fangirl” is still in the process of being defined, because we have come to the forefront as a people during a time when fandom is so varied. Star Wars, Twilight, Star Trek, Batman, and several different kinds of anime all popular right now, and they are all going to attract very different types of women. We also finally have strong nerd-girl role models in the spotlight, like Tina Fey, Olivia Munn, and Kristen Bell, standing right up there and holding their own with the fanboys. So since I couldn’t stuff us into one box, I decided to see what other people were saying about fangirls.

Almost immediately, I came across this pouty, uninformed column, entitled “Girly Stereotypes: The Fangirl” by a Ms. Bridget Orr on the blog, DollyMix. I can only assume the comments section for the story are closed because of the slew of fangirls reporting in to tell her to go fuck herself and suggesting the Twilight –themed “Vamp” dildo to do it with. Ms. Orr is under the impression that being a fangirl means that you only like a movie or series because you cream your panties when your favorite guy star walks on screen. Frankly, she thinks all of you posers should be ashamed of yourselves for only liking something on such superficial terms, because it makes her and the rest of the “normal” female fans look bad. I’m gonna let you people read this for yourselves before I verbally kick this self-hating fangirl in the twat:

From the mouth of Ms. Orr and DollyMix: “The main differences between normal fans and squeeing fangirls are ambiguous to say the least. If it helps, the easiest way to distinguish between normal fans and squeeing fangirls is being a fan (FOTL: Being a fan? You mother fucker.). They are presumably much younger than normal fans (FOTL: Huh?). They are presumably girlier than normal fans. They’re not as obsessive as normal fans (FOTL: Where the FUCK is this coming from?). They like bands, films or television series for more superficial reasons than normal fans. Putting it this way, they are not normal fans like you and me.”

I don’t know where she is getting this from. She doesn’t cite anything except Urban Dictionary.com, The Oxford English Dictionary, and her own experiences of being teased for being a fan and a girl, which tells me it’s not fangirls that are the problem, it’s her douche-y fucking friends. I can only assume the younger and girlier assumptions are coming from the images of screaming teenage girls at the Twilight premieres. Not as obsessive though? Now you are just pissing me off. Why don’t you actually hang out with some fangirls? You might actually like us, and realize that we are not all terminally horny, manllow-humping, 8^th-graders.

That being said, I gotta stand up for the Twilight chicks right now. People may think that women go to see Twilight because of the pretty boys in it, and I’m sure a lot of girls do, but not all of them. The Twilight fangirls that I know personally, know every-fucking-thing about those books and are just as freaked out by the manllows as everybody else. The dudes may have been a segway into fandom for them, but it is not why they stayed. They stayed because they loved the series, just like the rest of us love Star Wars, Star Trek, Bleach, whatever. They fucking know their shit, and they earned their fangirl title, and I respect their obsession, despite the manllows.

Also, I feel I need to address my former Obi-Wan obsession. I admit, Ewan McGregor’s Obi-Wan lured me into Star Wars, but it was seeing the Trilogy that hooked me. There is so much to love in Star Wars. It’s a vast galaxy. There is Yoda, the Skywalkers, Boba Fett, Darth-Fucking-Vader. If you are in it just for one character, I’m sorry, you are not a fangirl. I wouldn’t even call you a fan. Certainly a fan of that actor, but not a fan of a series.

I’m sorry, Ms. Orr, but if you are so fucking knowledgeable about your obsession of choice, you are a fangirl. Believe me, I hate calling you that too, because I don’t want to share the title with someone who is too scared of being socially ostracized to take it for herself. I find your narrow-minded definition and lack of research insulting.

Take it from a fangirl who knows. You’re one of us. You just need the courage to own it.

Ok, due to rave reviews and my promise to those that love the segment, FOTL will again be presented unedited and NSFW. That warning aside, here’s the most graphic FOTL I’ve ever read, and if I know my audience, it’s right up you alley.

I Can’t Un-See This: The Twilight Manllows

This concerns me not just as a girl, but as a nerd. First of all, this thing is homemade. Some chick was so obsessed with snuggling up to/humping in the dark with the Twilight dudes that she fucking made it happen. That takes passion and skill, people, and a whole lot of fucking crazy. I never made myself a stuffed Franken-Kenobi, and it wasn’t just because I am a perfectionist and would never be satisfied with a nightmare-inducing, lumpy-looking, man-pillow hybrid. It was because I know that when you start making real-life substitutes for your favorite fictional characters, maybe you need to back off your geek obsession a little. No one wants to be that nerd, the nerd who no one else wants to be. You know, like the ones that write Robocop/Pokémon porn and makes Edward and Jacob manllows. She’s just one lonely night away from slapping one of those sparkly, Twilight-inspired “Vamp” dildos on her manllow, and then she’s basically got one of those RealDoll sex-bots that lonely, pathetic male nerds have been shelling out thousands of dollars for recently.

Secondly, yes, there is a Twilight-inspired dildo. You read that right. Check the link, read the comments, they’re very funny. The product description encourages the user to put it in the freezer to give it that authentic, vampire feel. What are you gonna tell the ER doctors when he’s asking you how you got frostbite on your snatch? “I just wanted to know what it was like to fuck a sexy, bloodthirsty corpse. Don’t judge me.”

And yes, the dildo sparkles.

I really don’t know what else to say. As a woman, I can’t relate to this chick at all. I guess I should say these chicks, because the manllows are sold out. As a geek, I’m simply scared, because this is the weirdest fucking thing I have ever seen. This was a line I never wanted to cross in my late-night nerd fantasies, and the Twilight fans have done it twice now.

So, Twilight-ers, please give us some feedback. Make me understand this, because now every time I see a teenage girl reading a worn-out copy of Breaking Dawn, I’m gonna start to hyperventilate and look for the nearest exit. I think a manllow is just one step away from murdering Robert Pattison and dancing around in his skin to “Goodbye Horses.”

I watch a lot of anime, and sometimes, I see a phrase that makes my head tilt, like ‘you’re still 100 years too early to challenge me.’ I get the phrase, saying someone would have to train for ten decades to match your skill, sure, cool. But it’s pretty specific, and tons of people use it. I have to wonder where it came from.

To top it off, it got me thinking about English phrases that must make very little sense to foreigners. If you saw something on TV and a man puts a gun to his foe’s head and says ‘It’s curtains for you, pal.’ Then we get it. Boom, Headshot! Lols and teabagging from the winning player, probably accompanied by a ‘your mom’ joke over the headset.

But, to foreigners translating that episode of CSI, they must be scratching their heads. Granted, plenty of people will still get it (and its connotations with the end of a performance on stage), but others must sit and wonder why the cloth coverings for windows equate to murder, especially if they have different words in their language for window curtains and stage curtains.

I just can’t stop imagining a Japanese High  Schooler who just finished torrenting CSI Miami. A lady in a textile mill got murdered, falling into the drape press. The main guy simply says “Looks like it’s curtains…” glasses go on here, “for her.”

YEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!

And the poor Japanese kid is sitting there, blinking, wondering why those happy window coverings mean a crying former husband at the funeral and a criminal investigation.

FOTL will be here tomorrow, as will the Glitch of the Week. Until then, -GG.

Alright y’all. I love me some Sonic the Hedgehog, but the good folks over at CNET and destructoid have reported that Sonic 4 will be done, not by Sonic Team, but by Dimps.

Now, admittedly, Dimps made good sonic games, like Sonic Rush and Sonic Advance… but I had really hoped Sonic Team had simply shaped up. Well, it’s way better than another fail game, at least, but part of my nerd heart still doesn’t want to give up on Sonic Team, despite all their failings.

Oh well, either way, at least we have more proof that Sonic 4 will be a good game, and not another boil on my soul like so many Sonic Team games.

Here’s the links, and there’s a snazzy screen shot of the developer info  on Destructoid: CNET Destructoid

I stumbled upon this today, and had to share it. With new episodes of Glee still more than a month away, I feel myself weakening.

Thankfully, we’re nearly two months into this glee-less terror, and it’ll be over soon. Until then, here’s a new song sung by our favorite misfits.

Sup Gobbies? Goblin here, introducing Fangirl on the Loose, number two. It’s a doozy, too, so buckle up. As always, it’s unedited and NSFW. Enjoy!

I don’t know if you guys have been following The Clone Wars on Cartoon Network, but last week’s episode kinda hit me in my little black fangirl heart. Last week, our good Master Kenobi said that he would have left the Order for Duchess Satine of Mandalore, if she had just asked him to all those unspecified years ago. What the fuck? I would have lost some Republic credits on that bet.

I spent years trying to figure out how to reasonably maneuver my fanfiction character into Obi-Wan’s Jedi knickers, when evidently all I had to do was make my character hide behind a few rocks. To think I wasted so much paper on sassy dialogue, trying to become an equal in combat, and drunken seductions, when all I had to do was quit trying so hard and create a classic damsel in distress, rescue-my-girly-ass, kinda situation.

Sure, Satine has her merits. I like that she’s smart, funny, and a master of biting sarcasm. A lot of other fangirls like her, too. But because of her pacifist beliefs, she’s made herself a willing (willing, damn it!) damsel in distress, and I just can’t fucking left that go.

Two weeks ago, when I watched the first episode in this story arc, “The Mandalore Plot,” something just bothered me about it. I just couldn’t figure it out. Something was out of place. That’s when it hit me. She was the first chick in the entire series to ever hide behind a mother-fucking rock while her boyfriend played hero and rescued them both.

What the fuck? I didn’t even know damsels in distress existed in Star Wars. Sure, Padme and Leia have both been in situations where they needed a little help from their friends (I’m thinking particularly of Leia in the Death Star’s holding cell), but as soon as they could get their hands on a blaster, they were going to defend themselves against more than just droids if they had too.

Also, The Clone Wars writers basically refitted the Anakin-Padme romance to an Obi-Wan storyline. Are Jedi only in to royal pussy? Does blue-collar pussy not taste as sweet? Does it taste like unpaid bills, a 12-pack of ramen noodle, and despair? Why couldn’t Filoni and the team have reached a little further in coming up with a new female character? We have so few of them guys, I’m just asking you to go outside of the box a little.

So far I’ve really enjoyed The Clone Wars. As you guys can probably tell, I’m a girl who loves explosions and ass-kicking, and they have definitely delivered on that this season. But I can’t sit and watch these episodes and not notice this anymore, this I-love-you-because-you-let-me-be-the-man-and-protect-you-while-you-cowered-with-fear thing. I thought we were past that people. And she’s from Mandalore! She was supposed to be the duchess of ass-kicking! She was supposed to bring Hell to your fucking door if you were foolish enough to challenge her! That was a real mind-fuck, guys. Totally surprised me with the Mandalorians being pacifists thing.

Sigh. I’m going to go listen to “Fett’s Vette” and fume. As always, for questions, comments, or rants, leave a comment or e-mail me at fangirlontheloose@gmail.com.

Yep, you read correctly. Johnny Yong Bosch is going to be in the next Saw film, obviously titled Saw VII, but possibly also calld Saw 3-freakin’-D.

Bosch, whom I’ve met at anime cons for the signing of everything Trigun I own as well as a Power Rangers VHS and to (admittedly creepily) ask him to record my voice mail message, has been in quite a few of this nerd’s favorite things. He was my favorite Ninja Ranger because I loved the Frog Zord, and because White Ranger was never as cool as Green Ranger. Sorry Tommy. Good luck in Mixed Martial Arts! He’s kicking serious tail, btw. Not to divert, but here’s the vid, which I saw on nerd news blog Topless Robot.

Holy crap, Jason, way to earn Tommy’s whopping four Ranger helmets, plus that shiny doctorate he got in the later seasons.

Back on topic, Bosch is also the voice of Vash the Stampede, from Trigun, as well as dozens of other anime, but Trigun is my favorite.

He’s also been in TONS of games and a few movies. His IMDB is worth a look.

It’s there that I saw, thanks to my good buddy Niko, that he is going to be in the next Saw movie.

Holy crap, I think the heroes of my childhood are clashing with the villains of my adulthood.

Jigsaw is going to kill my favorite voice actor, and second favorite power ranger… in 3D.

I think I need to pray. -GG

Hey! I’m back for another review, and this time it’s Borderlands.  Borderlands is an FPSRPG, otherwise known as a firstpersonshooterrolepersongame… or something.  Woah.  How did they not think of this sooner?  Anyways, the gist is that a wasteland planet called Pandora is rumored to have treasure buried by aliens somewhere in a place called “The Vault”.  You play one of four bounty hunters (four classes) that travel to the planet to find out where it is, what it is, and all sorts of other things.

Here are the pros and cons:

Pros:

The co-op is… amazing. Grab a buddy or significant other and play this baby for 60+ hours.  It doesn’t even matter if they don’t care about the story or why you’re even doing the quests.  They won’t mind because shooting people and driving around is so fun.  After you beat the game, New Game+ begins and the enemies still level up with you.  It even renames the baddies and gives some of them differents skins.  You can create as many different characters as your harddrive can handle and play with your partner in any combination of them you see fit.  There are even Call of Duty 4-style challenges that give bonus EXP, like “I fired every bullet ever” is to fire 10,000 bullets over the course of the game.

I need guns.  Lots of guns. There are over 100,000 different guns in this game.  No, my ‘0′ key did not get stuck.  Mostly they all look different, with different looking stats, attachments, colors, elemental additions, and more.  A lot of people say the guns are all the same, but they really aren’t.  In addition to guns are shield mods, grenade mods, class mods, and elemental mods, most of which are different from each other in stats and appearance.

It’s Cel-shaded. I actually like the art style this game has going on.  It adds to the goofy, redneck humor that the whole game conveys.  I really think it wouldn’t have been as fun if it was realistic looking.

Once Again, Easy Achievements. Again, I’m a little, naughty, achievement whore and this game satifies me more than… OK I’ll stop.  Pretty much every achievement is easy.  You have to beat the game almost twice to get to level 50 (the only one I haven’t got yet, I’m 49) and then get 15 kills with all 4 class’s action skill, but that’s about it.

The sequel will be better. Perhaps the best thing (besides the co-op) about this game is that with all they leave out (explained in the “cons” section), the sequel will have those things.  If they still have an awesome co-op and tons of guns, then that game will ROCK.  It is rumored that they didn’t plan on it selling well and never planned on it having a sequel.  They have now said that it would be a “no-brainer” to have one.

Cons:

All NPCs are zombies. Except for the CL4P-TP, all NPCs just stand there like rocks.  There is absolutely no life to them and they are annoyingly boring.  They just barely nod to you (sometimes), and their mouths don’t move when they talk.  By the way, the first DLC pack actually has zombies.

Bare-as-bones Story. At the beginning a “Guardian Angel” (some Japanese chick) is somehow talking to you and telling you to obey her and all sorts of stuff.  She somehow knows about the Vault.  That and the game description at the top is the story you’ll get at the beginning.  And almost nothing else at all until the end.  There are a few audio clips, but that’s pretty much it.  “Hey, this bad guy has a piece of the Vault Key, 3 or 4 of which you’ll need eventually by the end… go fight him for it” is NOT story.  95% of the quests you will do have nothing to do with that story, and the other 4.8% are the quests previously mentioned.  Again, this will most likely be improved in the sequel.  And no, not everything is explained at the end.  I still don’t know why some things happened.

Enemy Variety. There are about 5 different species of creatures, and bandits.  That guy on the front of the game who’s blowing his brains out?  You’ll shoot him in the head personally about 100 times, and specifically that model of bandit.  The New Game+ does really alleviate this problem somewhat, but some are still the same anyway.

Once You Go Co-op, You Can’t Go Back. After the tremendous fun I had in the cooperative campaign, the single player game is like the most boring thing ever.  Without much story, it just seems tedious to play it by myself.

Needs Moar Humorz. The moments the game actually tells jokes, it is hilarious.  These times are few and far between, unfortunately.  The screens it shows when you encounter the boss are the best comedic moments in the game.

For now, this has been Vegieza, Interplanetary Ninja Assassin.

Thanks Vegieza. Top notch. As a quick point, the FPSRPG has in fact been done before, like what I found with a quick google search:

Bioshock, Deus Ex, Fallout3, Hellgate: London, Mass Effect, Neocron, PlanetSide, Stalker, System Shock, Vampire: The Masquerade-Bloodlines

Granted, some of them merely sport RPG elements (and some of them ARE mostly THIRD person shooters, not first) and aren’t TRUE role-playing games, yelling ‘level up’ every ten minutes, but Bioshock DID have you collect Experience points of sorts and level up your abilities.

That being said, Borderlands sounds awesome, and it seems to take the FPS RPG Hybrid to the next level, exemplifying both in a tight, high-quality, fun package, whereas most of the others can’t claim even two of those properties. We’ll see Vegieza next week to put your head in a Vice  once again.