domain:themotte.org
vorpa-glavo
11m ago
Who on earth liked the Force witches or whatever the hell these things are supposed to be? (Just a hint here, if you're doing a sacred mystic ritual, try not to have it look like an am-dram society pretending to have epileptic seizures).
Didn't watch the Acolyte, but it is sad to see them botch the Force witches so bad. I like the concept of there being non-Jed/Sith force traditions out there, and I think with the right approach they could absolutely make them feel distinct and interesting. Too bad Disney doesn't know how to do that.
MadMonzer
Pedo! Pedo! Pedo! Out! Out! Out!
21m ago
They would have to do something really extreme, like declaring all the Disney content non-canon
If they flip to the Legends canon and make a Yuuzhan Vong trilogy I would return to the franchise.
Jiro
30m ago
I think if you're pro Trump doing this you also need to consider you're implicitly pro Kamala doing this, do you think that sounds good?
My rules > your rules, fairly > your rules, unfairly.
"My rules" would be no government control of companies. "Your rules, fairly" would be that all political sides get to have the government control companies. "Your rules, unfairly" means that only the left gets to do it.
The answer to this is the same as the answer to a lot of similar things: The left broke the norms so much that the only choices are to do so equally or to do so only for the left. And doing it equally is better. The option of not doing it at all would be the best, but the left has foreclosed that option.
DuplexFields
Ask me how the FairTax proposal works. All four Political Compass quadrants should love it.
34m ago
This book should not resonate with 15 year olds, not this much. Which means that these girls are still getting sexist signals from somewhere, and, follow the trail, those signals came from the 40 year old women who like the story, i.e. "feminists." This is what I mean when I say the system no longer needs men to maintain the status quo: it has feminists doing the job for it. - TLP
In this, Dave Sim was prescient when he authored and drew Cerebus the Aardvark. Initially a Conan the Barbarian satire, it became one of the greatest long-form anti-feminist screeds in Western literature. The political and religious totalitarian sect known as the Cirinists do their best to demolish the patriarchy, but in the end, become a monstrous variation unrestrained by chivalry.
GBRK
39m ago
The thing is, regardless of whether the government buys specifically stocks, the government will allocate capital anyways. Currently that goes toward treasuries and direct subsidies. The government buying stocks instead is pretty much a direct improvement.
thejdizzler
46m ago
Drove my roommate to the airport and will be picking him up tonight. Wrote a training plan for a friend for the Baltimore marathon.
thejdizzler
49m ago
So what are you reading? I just finished The Children of Men by P.D. James, review below.
Didn't realize that the author of this was THE P.D. James, of thriller writing fame. I guess there is something about British authors who abbreviate there first and middle names and pulling surprisingly deep science fiction commentary that has stood the test of time (thinking of you E.M. Forster).
The Children of Men is a book about a world with ultra-low fertility, in other words, an extreme version of a world that we already live in. I had a friend's birthday party at the park a couple weeks ago (I'm getting close to 30 unfortunately), and I noticed that out of the 20 or so couples there, only one had a child. And I think this is becoming increasingly true over the whole entire world. Many of the downstream aspects of this fact also seem to be shared between James' novel and reality: the prevalence of pet parents, the lack of interest in the future of society (but a fixation on the past), and an obsession with health and safety at all costs.
Beyond the social commentary, the actual plot of the novel is a little lackluster. It centers on an Oxford Professor of History, Theo, who happens to be the cousin of the dictator of England. Theo lives a pretty unremarkable and utterly selfish life (even before the "Omega" where most men suddenly become infertile), until he becomes involved with a rebel group that wants to enact some minor changes in the governmental system, but more importantly, is sheltering a woman who happens to be pregnant. Theo's time with this group changes his inner and outer lives almost completely: it's amazing what hope for the future does to an individual, although I was left wondering at the end how much would really change in England after the birth of this child.
Having children is no basis for a moral system in of itself (this was Chesterton's critique of H.G. Wells), but it sure as hell makes constructing a society a hell of a lot easier. Unfortunately I think our world is headed to a future more similar to what James envisioned in the 1990s. People simply aren't having children: I'm guilty of this too: it's not like I'm close to being married even. And that, I think, means that this society isn't very long for this world.
crushedoranges
Can Marx explain the used panties market?
58m ago
Unsounded is great. Alderode is a ethnat police state with strict castes, Cresce is a child-sacrificing horror communist monarchy, and Sharteshane is the worst of Dickesian Victorian capitalist apathy.
How can you care for anyone, in such a soul crushing world?
Without spoiling anything, I think Cope answers that question quite well.
C. S. Lewis doesn't count; that was back when everyone was Christian, or at least Jewish. Even Jerry Pournelle was towards the tail-end of that era. A science fiction author being Christian doesn't really become remarkable until after the New Atheism of the 2000's.
crushedoranges
Can Marx explain the used panties market?
1hr ago
The best depiction of the heroine's journey is, unironically, the schlocky Princess Diary movie, which plays it so straight that it is practically canonical. A awkward but virtuous heroine discovers her inner beauty and refinement and prevails over circumstances to end up with a good man. She overcomes her own insecurities and the judgements of others to become a princess in heart as well as in fact.
And this is an internal journey, for the most part: complementary to the masculine hero. If you watch media that women genuinely like to consume (like magical girl anime and Disney princess movies) the fighting and bluster is largely secondary to the dramatic arcs of feminine self-realization.
The perversion happens when you combine the superficial aspects of the masculine journey with the contemplating-one-navel nature of the feminine one. If you're a supercompetent girlboss you have no virtues to realize in the feminine sense or to learn in the masculine sense. Stagnancy. The only arc that is possible is 'the world doesn't recognize how awesome I am, and so it must suffer'. This narcissistic plot is utterly repugnant and is rejected by all but the most hidebound ideologues.
Skulldrinker
1hr ago
I'm more trying to make a point that stories about women/by women have been written that can be enjoyed by humans of whatever gender, this isn't utterly uncharted territory where artists have to build everything from scratch.
erwgv3g34
1hr ago
Mormon cosmology might have something to do with it.
MadMonzer
Pedo! Pedo! Pedo! Out! Out! Out!
1hr ago
I also loved those books. (Alan Garner was my favourite contemporary fantasy writer growing up in England, but Cooper was a close second). The Dark is Rising is written by a woman, but it isn't a "girl" story - Will, Bran and Merriman are all standard male heroic archetypes played straight.
MadMonzer
Pedo! Pedo! Pedo! Out! Out! Out!
1hr ago
Hunger Games was a hit with a mostly female audience - I think it counts as a "girl" story. I also think it counts as a refreshing new take on the obnoxious romance/girlboss tropeset - see this three part vivisection by the Last Psychiatrist, which I fully endorse on this point.
MadMonzer
Pedo! Pedo! Pedo! Out! Out! Out!
1hr ago
Ursula le Guin was a woke feminist, but she wrote stories that didn't feature romances or girlbosses (partly because she did her best work before the girlboss trope crystallised). I'm not sure whether you count her as writing "girl" stories.
The_Nybbler
If you win the rat race you're still a rat. But you're also still a winner.
1hr ago
Are we pretending government employees are hyper competent now?
Trump obviously thinks HE is.
SubstantialFrivolity
I'm not even supposed to be here today
2hr ago
Painting rooms in fun colors seems like something the kids would enjoy a lot. Though you might want to be careful about making it very clear that them being able to put their mark on the wall is not an every day thing, lol.
Dean
Flairless
2hr ago
Japan has its own demonstrations of the trope. Not as often as the leading main character, since those tend towards being crouching moron-hidden badass tropes. The Irresponsible Captain Tylor is about the only one I can loosely remember that played the 'could actually be incompetent' card... mostly straight?
Still, the 'incompetent but presumed hypercomptent' is a bit more common in supporting cast characters. One of the most famous examples is Hercule Satan from Dragonball Z. An actual legitimate world-class martial arts champion... who is hopeless in the context of the super-human saiyan power scaling. (And yet, is also the only person to survive fighting both of the end-game DBZ arc villains.)
Tanista
2hr ago
The original Mary Sue was a a parody of Star Trek female self-inserts, interestingly enough. Apparently so many people were sending in this sort of work to a Star Trek fan magazine they wrote Mary Sue to parody the phenomenon.
She wrote a vampire romance story where the main characters waited until marriage. In fact the entire story seems to be built on top of resisting the temptation to sleep together before then; Edward's bloodlust an obvious metaphor for actual lust.
The entire vampire baby plotline (where the choice is between aborting a fetus eating the main character from the inside out or...to let that happen and let her give birth and likely die) is basically an extended pro-life parable. It might be the most successful version ever really.
Characters explicitly refuse to call it a fetus and demand their opponents use the b word.
hydroacetylene
3hr ago
Star Trek invented fan fiction. This is, uh, not a male hobby.
FCfromSSC
Nuclear levels of sour
3hr ago
Many elements in the stories do tick the GIRLPOWERR box. (Nearly every female character in the series is excellent superstrong martial arts fighter, justified by magitech).
...And yet, they don't actually crowd out the male characters, who are likewise super-strong martial arts fighters, again justified by magitech, unless they're just magitech wizards or some other variety of superbeing. Klaus Wolfenbach in particular is portrayed from the outset as more or less omnicompetent, universally feared and respected, and a massive threat to the main characters and their plans, escapable only due to the unwieldy nature of his empire. Othar, Gil, the Jaegers generally, all are portrayed as prime hero material, and frequently enjoy genuine spotlight time.
I'd argue it's the advantage of true belief; in the world of Girl Genius, men and women are equal, in every way that counts; muscle and bone mass and psychological proclivities are eclipsed utterly by the power of the Spark.
hydroacetylene
3hr ago
I can't think of parents who have a consistent hard ban on disney, unless it's a generic no screens policy. But I also can't think of parents who allow the new stuff from them. Granted, filter bubble effects- but my filter bubble is probably at least as biased towards including parents vs genpop as it is to being conservative vs genpop.
IGI-111
God was a dream of good government.
3hr ago
Well then you'll get the same outcome as French Dirigisme: a very nice infrastructure and industrial base slowly rotting under the weight of uncertainty as all your competitors catch up and loot it until it can no longer support its own weight.
Having finished Reverend Insanity for the second time, I'm left with the same void in my soul.
Of course, the easiest solution was to seek out something by the same author, Gu Zhen Ren. He wrote two other novels since RI was banned, Infinite Bloodcore (points for the name, negative points for being left unfinished) and Mysteries of the Immortal Puppet Master.
I opted for the latter, initially, I felt lukewarm on it, but I know that in Xianxia, you don't judge books by their covers, or their first 50 chapters. Yup, sure enough, it became very clear that it's a Gu Zhen Ren novel after all. The protagonist is... callous, if not as ruthless as Fang Yuan. Maybe his little nephew. There are plots within plots, excellent attention to detail, and heart wrenching stories about seemingly insignificant characters. It has the majority of my attention, even if the edges are sanded down a tad bit to reduce the risk of another ban. GZR himself stated that it's a more "mass-market" novel, with a more standard Cultivation setting. It's still pretty solid so far.
Others on my reading shelf:
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