Sprechen Sie Goose Fair?

I'm one of those stupid, mildly crazy people, who are always attracted by flashy lights and overpriced fair rides, despite the well-known fact that shit like that always ends in disappointment. And it was the Goose Fair last weekend, Claire had a bit of extra cash, so we went.

Loud music, flashy lights and public urination. Whee!

Claire doesn't go on most rides and two minutes on the ferris wheel cost six Quid per person, which drastically lowered the event's entertainment value. It was still great fun, what with all the curious merchandise everywhere.

"One Sahara, please!"

And of course absofuckinglutely everywhere that handed out shitty prizes for throwing balls at cans, shooting balloons, catching rubber duckies and god knows what else was covered in fucking Minions. Because hurray for slapping googly eyes on a Twinkie and marketing the everloving fuck out of it. They're lame, boring, cowardly inoffensive and designed to appeal only to children and the dumbest of fucks.

Hilarious, apparently.

Naturally, original, licensed merchandise for this crap would be far too expensive and most kids are probably too stupid to notice the difference, anyway, so most of the Minions toys you could win there were hilariously fake. Some of them had faces, which vaguely resembled those of Minions (they're yellow and have an eye or two, it's not that hard), but their lower half was the pointy end of a banana for some inexplicable reason. That stuff went really well with the kiddie rides and merry-go-rounds, most of which ripped off Cars. I would have expected more Frozen this year, but spray-painting all your shit with imagery, which vaguely resembles popular franchises takes time and effort.

The most annoying part was the music, though. Not necessarily the questionable selection of tunes or how every single ride cranked their shit up to unbearable levels. But witnessing the music at Goose Fair is like listening to some 13 year old laptop DJ skipping through his playlist. They literally played about three seconds of every song, then skipped right to the next one. Over and over. I'm guessing you don't have to pay for a tune if you only play a tiny fragment of it to the public or something? It was all highly confusing. The one thing that was at least partially genuine was this:

Home.

The guy selling sausage and pulled pork there looked too friendly to be an Englishman selling overpriced crap at Goose Fair. Don't get me wrong, you usually get great, friendly service when shopping in the UK. It's all darling this and love that and phony smiles and everyone's happy when they're being watched. But not at Goose Fair. No hello, no thank you, no service with a smile. They openly hate you, hate their lives, their jobs and the fact that they're gonna be stuck there for hours and hours, standing around near a hot, stinky frying pan whilst serving greasy shit to people. Their faces show what every employee at Tesco or Farm Foods looks like on the inside. But German panhouse guy actually looked me in the eyes and when I heard him say things like "Bahget" and "Zenk you", I knew he was genuine German. I think that was the first time I actually got to speak a few words of German in this country in half a decade.

When I came back there a couple hours later and tried to order in German with the lady who was now serving there, she had no idea wtf I was talking about, because of course she didn't speak a fucking word of German. It's all lies and shit hasn't been so awkward since I had a job at Daewoo and was asked to book a hotel room for our branch manager named Dong Suk. True story.

People in Europe and the US are paranoid right now. They're afraid of brainwashed zealots, dangerous fanatics, who want to force their beliefs upon everyone they know, indoctrinate everyone around them and tolerate nobody who doesn't adapt to their way of life. And you know what? I think they're right to be paranoid. It's time to fight back. I think we need to put and end to this and shut them the fuck up. It's okay to believe in whatever you want, live your life any way you want, for as long as you don't hurt or disrespect anyone. But don't force that shit upon me. Fuck off, vegans!

And don't wave that tofu sausage at me like that.

I've built something fun on Everquest 2:

It's a reptile tank. He's got a plant, a hollow log, a basking spot, rat and water bowl. It's open right now so the lizard can play with his shoe.

For the better or worse, EQ2 is the most feminine MMO I've ever played. There's no way in hell I'd ever consider installing it, had I not found the game for a fiver in the bargain bin mere weeks after its release some 11 years ago. I mean, look at this shit:

Everquest 2 has a lot of mature content, it's full of zombies and corpses and blood and gore and there's a new horror-themed expansion on the horizon, but it's also full to the brim with girly stuff like pixies and frog people and princesses and pink unicorns and flowers and rainbows and magical mushroom forests and shit. You can ignore most of that nonsense and just be a badass, if you so desire.

Claws, pirate hat, red, spiky plate mail with skulls on it, demon wings, a pet were-rat. Yes, that's my pony in the background...

EQ2 allowed you to play an undead shadow knight from day one, letting you wreck your enemies with fear, disease and curse, sapping away their very life force. It's full of dark fantasy elements, but unlike most other MMOs it's not a total "no girls club". Okay, let me clarify that one. I know other MMOs feature female characters and everything, but would you kindly look at these armored ladies in the game Tera?

Granted, not all online games are so extreme, but would you look at some female characters from the Blizzard universe?

I'm not offended by any of this and I'm okay with a sexy art direction for female characters, but imagine the Lich King in one of these outfits. I think it's relatively safe to assume that most of the character designers are male, the target audience is largely male, while I'm not entirely sure whether or not male gamers are still such a massive majority in today's online games.

Here is what heavy armor looks like on a female character in Everquest 2:

No thong, no tank top, no cleavage.

Here's another example I really like. Behold the Argonian race of Elder Scrolls Online, a fun bunch of lizard people, who, according to the ingame lore, hatch from eggs:

Lizard tits are the best!

And this is what the female Iksar, the lizardfolk of EQ2, look like:

No tetays.

Flat butt.

And while we're at it, let's compare trolls, shall we? Here's a female troll from World of Warcraft:

She's a sex-beast and I want to do things to her.

Aaaand Everquest 2:

Pass!

The point I'm trying to make is how somehow, over the years, game designers have tweaked their female character models and ultimately cranked up the fuckability-slider to maximum and just broke it off while it was there.
Of course it's still entirely possible to make a female character look sexy on EQ2 if you so desire. The difference is that it isn't forced on you there. If you put on a heavy suit of plate armor on a female character, then she'll be covered in fucking metal and said armor won't magically transform into a pair of shiny nipple pasties. If you choose to play a reptilian character, she won't come with a massive pair of tits, because of course not!

I'm not saying one is better or worse than the other. But EQ2 has a female executive producer and female devs among their (ever-shrinking) crew of developers working on the game and you can't deny the game has a certain feminine touch to it. From the pixies and rainbows and unicorns to functional armor on female characters and pot-bellied ogre ladies, female trolls with saggy tits or bearded female dwarves.

Look, I won't lie. I don't need unicorns in my games. But they don't hurt EQ2, either. And strong, "ugly" female characters aren't so bad, either. The only thing I remember about Jaina Proudmoore is how she somehow manages to show off her navel and cleavage, despite the fact that she's always wearing a robe. I remember that Sylvanas has a perfect body and she got fucked (metaphorically!) by the Lich King. Yeeeah, I know. Everquest's Firiona Vie looks a bit slutty, as well. But she's also one of the biggest and most important heroes in Everquest lore. Major cities like Qeynos, Neriak and Gorowyn are lead by female characters. The women of Norrath don't serve as slutty poster girls, who put some flesh on screenshots to appeal to a male audience. Granted, this may also be one of the reasons why hardly anyone cares about, let alone plays this game. But for all its flaws and shortcomings, EQ2 is pretty progressive when it comes to gender equality. Which really isn't a subject I spend a massive amount of time pondering about, but this was still a fun observation to make.

-Cat