domain:vinayprasadmdmph.substack.com
HereAndGone
16hr ago
Yeah, unfortunately it's the bingo card approach to writing characters (do they tick off all the right boxes?) and then any kind of development or interesting use goes by the wayside, because any criticism can then be safely dismissed as review bombing by the haters who are white straight cis male racist homophobe etc. etc. etc.
HereAndGone
16hr ago
She also, uncritically, enjoys the second trilogy, which I can't excuse on any level except the second film, which I will defend as decent.
Liam Neeson as Qui-Gon Jinn, Ewan McGregor as Obi-Wan Kenobi. Oh, yes. Worth suffering through Jar-Jar Binks and horrible little Anakin for. And Natalie Portman's costumes in the first movie are gorgeous. Hayden Christensen? Eh, Anakin is a whiny spoiled brat so that's tough to pull off, but the Master-Padawan relationships (and the betrayal involved) make it work.
Dean
Flairless
16hr ago
You try to do the same thing with women? You create a woman that women want to be, and men don't want her
Male audiences might not want modern Hollywood female lead character because Hollywood writers often insinuate the woman of the show doesn't them in her life.
I firmly believe there is a good number of strong female characters that western/American male audiences have been fans of. Even in the action-centric genres, Ahsoka from the the Star Wars Clone Wars tv show, Katara from Avatar, and Vi from Arcane, Gwen Stacey from the newer Spiderman are all examples of very well received female characters. These aren't solely male fantasy waifu audiences either, and had strong female fandom components as well. They run a gauntlet from girly-feminine to tomboy, unabashedly straight to gay, supporting characters to show leads, and so on.
But they all also have very clearly dear personal relationships with men in their life- and not even necessarily romance fantasy waifu stuff either. Ahsoka is the apprentice for (secretly married) Anakin Skywalker, and it's a mentor-mentee relationship with no sort of romantic tension between them. Katara was the center of one of the larger (fan-insisted) love triangles of its time on television, but she's also a sister who simultaneously gives sass and cares for her brother and is almost defined by her consistently demonstrates compassion for strangers female and male alike. Vi is punk-butch aesthetic and unambiguous lesbian, but one of her closest relationships- and deepest regrets- is regarding her surrogate father-figure Vander, and her regret at getting him and her adopted brothers killed. Gwen may be in a tragic/doomed romance trope with Spiderman-Morales, but the emotional crescendo of character conflict/character arc in the second movie is her reconciliation with her father.
None of these characters are defined by their romantic relationship with the main man of their narrative. However, they also all have close and personal relationships with the men in their lives, the sort of thing that they worry/anger/fear over and would fight for. They wouldn't fight beside / for the men in their life merely because 'it is the right thing to do,' but because it's personal and they care and if someone threatened to take the men they cared about away from them, it would be visceral.
By contrast, what sort of personal male relationship does Brie Larson's Captain Marvel treasure enough to fight for? In the Star Wars sequel trilogy, what is Rey's emotional connection with Finn, her co-lead and the series larger self-projection male role? In Rings of Power, who is Galadriel's male emotional connection... besides the awkward love interest of the Dark Lord himself?
These aren't characters who show any particular desire / want / interest with an emotional relationship, romantic or otherewise, with the men in the setting who might serve as an audience proxy. Captain Marvel is stoic and most personal relationship is an abusive one she destroys the moment she girlbosses harder. Rey is... hard to place, since she's somewhere between oblivious / stuck in a fated romance / the trilogy was a thematic mess. Galadriel's indifference towards her own subordinates spawned sociopathic comparisons in her first episodes.
But note that all three of these characters have romantic love interests! It's forced / non-central / etc., but the nominal titulation is there if that was all that it took to get male investment. Captain Marvel got ship-teased with War Machine. Rey and Kylo Ren are having sexy abb scenes in the second movie. Galadriel and Sauron are the bad boy trash.
But I doubt much of the male audience could see themselves having a warm or interesting conversation over dinner, let alone something more. Polite discussion at best, maybe, if not barely restrained impatience / apathy. Oh, sure, they'd Do the Right Thing and save you if you were in danger, but only with the same emotional intensity as stranger #XYZ.
Compare that to a character who might not be a lover, but who might love you as a brother, or a mentor, or a friend... how many Strong Female Characters would extend even that?
HereAndGone
16hr ago
Like, you really go through life keenly aware that most men you interact with are at least some level of interested in you? Just because? As the default?
Mate, in the last Culture War thread we had someone on here commenting about that immigrant case saying that sure, it's totes normal for an adult man to want to bang a 15 year old girl (because men are wired to be attracted to youth and fertility). Women do learn early that simply having boobs and a pulse gets you male attention in the "I'd hit that" sense. Not that they're interested in you as a person, that's where the fantasy wish-fulfilment comes in.
The_Nybbler
If you win the rat race you're still a rat. But you're also still a winner.
16hr ago
What's this, Snow Crash fan fiction?
Skulldrinker
16hr ago
To be fair kids don't really play with toys at all anymore, they do the Roblox on their Kindles and watch 20something Influencers
GBRK
16hr ago
I'm surprised and pleased by how philosophically coherent this move is. If the government is going to give out industrial subsidies, why not get something in return? We all know the big corporations will dodge any tax we throw at them, but trying to get around paying dividends risks pissing off their own power base.
That being said, I'm very bearish on the chances of this particular administration doing anything productive and socially useful with additional industrial control. Probably it just goes toward enriching the Trump empire with corruption.
Lewyn
I am at the center of everything that happens to me
17hr ago
I just read the first chapter of Most Evil Trainer and it was promising. Should I have been looking on SB for fics this whole time?
Skulldrinker
17hr ago
Only sometimes?
SubstantialFrivolity
I'm not even supposed to be here today
17hr ago
My personal vote is FMA: B, the dub is pretty great...
I strongly disagree with this. The dub for FMA:B is terrible, full of actors who are completely failing to act. It's one of the worst dubs I've ever heard. The Japanese audio isn't particularly remarkable, but at least it isn't "actors flatly reading lines with no character" like the English is.
I already have 30th percentile income and wealth. Making an extra 10k or 20k a year would be nice, but I could earn that for less effort by focusing on interview prep and certifications for my profession. That's why my utility curve is logitic in this case. If I get published at all, I get an initial surge of utility just from the status effects. Then there's a long doldrums of, "I'm happier the more money I make, but this doesn't seriously change my life." Then there's the jackpot of, "getting famous enough to do nothing but write." I've already taken most of the low-hanging fruit for improving my live within the confines of my current circumstances; setting a new utility basepoint would require dramatic changes in capabilities beyond what I already have.
Lewyn
I am at the center of everything that happens to me
17hr ago
That’s promising then. The Mewtwo POV chapter was such a cool way of doing the concept of AI in the box that I can probably cut the author some slack. It was just when Bill came to lecture you about AI safety that I lost it. Is there anything else in a similar vein you’d recommend?
kky
17hr ago
I think the core problem is that nobody really likes the Girlboss, here defined as a synonym of Mary Sue rather than anything else, but a rather large group of people feel obligated on political grounds to include her in stories. It’s sort of like a certain genre of Christian allegorical protagonist, who is always good and opposes the many faces of evil, which of course are all atheism, and receives infinite blessings which are immediately apparent for their good behavior. There’s nothing particularly interesting or appealing about this character, and indeed the most narratively compelling part of Christianity (going back to the life of Christ) is the struggle with oneself and inevitable temporal consequences of choosing what is right over what is advantageous. But, from what it appears, the key motive of the storytellers is to encourage virtue and avoid vice as a sort of line item thing. Check them off: never take the Lord’s name in vain, tithe or donate appropriately, wear the right amount of coverage… and so on. So they think it’s necessary to make the stories very simple and to keep them laser-focused on the right things, because it’s unconscionable to even come close to permitting the bad things.
So instead of a story, you get something like a spiritual safety manual. “John always wears his hard hat. But Bob didn’t, and got seriously hurt.” Great - safety manuals are supposed to be blunt and no-nonsense. You don’t want to encourage deep intellectual exploration of the morals of lock-out-tag-out. You just want the fuckers to do it. But these aren’t stories, in the end. Stories are meant to entertain, and at their highest purpose to encourage a kind of internal and emotional development which I think is the true nature of virtue, over and above the box-ticking. That means seeing otherwise good and impressive people make mistakes, human mistakes, and wrestle with the imperfect clay of humanity as they are and not how one wishes they would be. It means that Christ must curse the fig tree and spend a lot of time talking to prostitutes, and in the end, bear his cross.
This is roughly what is wrong with the Girlboss. There’s a lot of instruction on Dismantling the Patriarchy, as a series of required checkboxes, but nothing really interesting to the character. So the people who write her feel obliged to, but never really feel interested in her. If the numbers are correct, they prefer romantasy. And this gap between ill-considered moralism and pure hedonism would be filled by works of real virtue, except that all the air’s been sucked out and there’s nothing left but a void.
Goes without saying that none of this really helps girls learn how to grow into women with power over their own lives and communities, which I thought was the point but apparently wasn’t.
sun_the_second
could survive a COD lobby and a gay furry discord server
17hr ago
Meng Hao walked into the McDonald's. The cultivator taking his order gave a derisive snort, but Meng Hao did not really care, because he had repressed his aura down to the Single Patty Realm, and a fool would not be able to tell his true level of burger eating.
"Give me... a Happy Meal!"
The cultivator's face flickered before he finally regained his composure and laughed. "You couldn't afford a Happy Meal. Get lost! Don't you see that there are Double Quarter Pounder Realm eaters waiting behind you?"
Meng Hao slapped his bag of holding and threw 80 billion spirit McDonald's coupons onto the counter, causing an earthquake which demolished half of the restaurant. Everyone dropped their jaws. None could see how this was possible!
naughtynn
17hr ago
The Mandalorian was heavily inspired by classic spaghetti westerns—especially the "lone gunslinger" type of story. The Mandalorian worked because they are fundamentally masculine stories. The appeal of the lone gunslinger story for some men lies in themes of rugged individualism, courage, moral ambiguity, and the romance of the untamed frontier. These characters often embody a desire to protect the innocent, confront evil, and possess a self-sufficient, solitary strength that resonates with a desire for independence and a simpler, more honorable way of life.
Mantergeistmann
17hr ago
Who on earth liked the Force witches
My wife's disabled, non-binary friend who sums up every character in any show they like by starting with their attributes re:gender, sexuality, race, ability status, etc.
Said friend sadly is a parody of themselves at some times.
BreakerofHorsesandMen
Sweet Sejenus
17hr ago
Little House on the Prairie springs to mind.
For fantasy, I enjoyed The Song of the Lioness series by Tamora Pierce when I was 11-12ish. It’s basically just your standard medieval setting hero’s journey story with a girl, mostly avoids giving her waif fu, and as I recall eventually makes her a mage to give her a leg up on competing with the full grown adult male knights at the end of the series.
She also wrote the Wild Magic series following a teenage girl who was some kind of special wizard, which had 4 books. I recall the first two being pretty entertaining for an adolescent male, and the last two descending into kind of stereotypical “Who will I choose, poor plain I, the powerful demon or the powerful wizard?” sort of modern female romantasy.
The first series she wrote in the 80s, and the second in the 90s, so there might have been a bit of a canary in the coal mine there as far as which direction publishing was heading.
HereAndGone
17hr ago
Robert Downey Junior retires, and they replace Iron Man with a sassy black lady.
Even worse, a character who is the worst stereotypes about "urban youth". If you were trying to write eat hot chip and lie deliberately you couldn't have done it better.
Riri Williams originates nothing of her own, she works on Tony Stark's original tech to 'refine' it, she steals (literally) the Iron Man suit, gets rightfully expelled for being a massive pain in the backside, goes around then with a chip on her entitled shoulders about how this is unfair and it's only Because I Is Black. Falls in with a gang of weirdoes and criminals, knows they are criminals, happily goes along with crime and violence for money, blackmails a guy who is trying to avoid going down the same path his villain father did, frames him for her crimes so he ends up in prison, and then ends up literally selling her soul to the actual Devil, all of this knowingly and with full consent because she thinks she is Just That Special. (Disparu had great fun reviewing the series).
Played Slay the Princess recently (still exploring the remaining threads). So well written, I'd wholeheartedly recommend it to pretty much anyone.
Enjoyed Cataclismo, a sort of a survival city builder with block-by-block fortification placement and a proper campaign to play through. Spanish studio, competent attempt at unique aesthetics and worldbuilding (at best distinguished and fablelike, at worst a little sterile), ok-ish campaign narrative. Fortification building satisfying, but gets tedious if you overbuild at every opportunity - difficulty is bit low and spiky, in retrospect better to build more than one layer of simple walls rather than elaborate, optimal walls & towers.
Playing Synergy currently, another city builder, set in a hostile, post-collapse world (a failed colony world? did not pay attention): people live in small numbers, climate is harsh, water is toxic, but since it's made by the eco-faithful, it's all a good thing actually, just the world where harmony with and respect for nature is finally non-negotiable. I'm being unfair, it's not preachy at all, serious about its aesthetics, very pretty and detailed. Plays well - both building placement, and plant management (near all resources come from foraging, flora changes the soil/humidity/temperature, not all plants like each other etc). Resource carriers are a bit buggy (trips happening for minimal amount of resources, building input inventory sizes mismatched to crafting speed), but it only means you should build densely. Recommended.
A_Wee_Hearts_Toll
17hr ago
Why do you worship jackpots?
Build more edge rather than risk more size. Don’t kill yourself chasing the jackpot. Log wealth is what matters. Maximize the 50th percentile outcome. Make your own luck. Avoid drawdowns.
Amadan
Enjoying my short-lived victory
17hr ago
She was always consciously feminist (or at least very leftist). I am not aware of her repudiating her earlier work, but I agree that her early stuff was better.
TitaniumButterfly
17hr ago
LeGuin started strong but then became consciously feminist and repudiated her earlier work.
I recall her describing how embarrassed she felt in retrospect at making Ged a man, as though a male hero should be the default.
also helped code AO3 and still writes fanfiction under a pen-name. Plus her fairy-tale retellings and scholomance series were very solid reads, if undeniably girl-coded.
She's like the spiders georg of female-author-male-appeal. Legit built different.
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