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The_Nybbler
If you win the rat race you're still a rat. But you're also still a winner.
28m 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
37m 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
1hr 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
1hr 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
1hr ago
Star Trek invented fan fiction. This is, uh, not a male hobby.
FCfromSSC
Nuclear levels of sour
1hr 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
1hr 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.
1hr 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.
hydroacetylene
1hr ago
Mormons also actively check up on adherence to minimum religious practice. The Catholic church does this only on an ad hoc basis.
Bartender_Venator
1hr ago
Not terribly often, but sometimes. Just helped a friend move last weekend (though I did get some old books and a sweet radio that I will likely never use any more than he did). I've probably done bigger good deeds than this one but it sticks with me: I was staying at my aunt's place in a third-world country where she rents out flats. Some elderly regulars were visiting, and the man was in very poor health, clearly not going to be around to come back next year. One day I'm walking out of the vestibule as he's walking in, and he suddenly starts to collapse, I'm in arms reach to dart in and prop him up. He's a big, portly guy but I'm strong enough to hold him up, my brother gets in on the other side and we slowly walk him over to a stair where we can sit him down safely. At that age, in that poor health, and with the issues of the local hospitals, a bad fall would likely either have killed him or meant the end of his mobile life. There's also something particularly satisfying about being able to help somebody just by being there and being physically strong/quick, primal male stuff.
hydroacetylene
1hr ago
Mormons also have people checking up on their religious adherence.
hydroacetylene
1hr ago
Obviously the dividends are going to get plowed into social security if intel ever makes a profit.
hydroacetylene
2hr ago
The first thing with any question about how you insure your vehicle is is the vehicle paid off, and if not what are the rules in place on how it is insured from the owner of the loan.
The_Nybbler
If you win the rat race you're still a rat. But you're also still a winner.
2hr ago
Because in 4-8 years the blue tribe might start doing it too, and this is a silly road to go down.
Trump doing this doesn't make the Dems more likely to do it. They've already thought of ways to do this on their own (e.g. the government held over 60% of GM as part of Obama's plan in the aftermath of the GFC) anyway. The danger is more that if it appears to succeed (i.e. Intel both does well in the short term and builds more advanced fabs in the US) that a future Republican administration will do more of the same. If, as I think is more likely, it fails (because Intel sucks and this amounts to a further bailout) and future Republicans decide to do more of it anyway, that's mostly on them.
Mantergeistmann
2hr ago
Joan Aiken's Dido Twite books might fit this, as might Patricia Wrede's Mairelon the Magician series.
People don't always realize, art in GG changes noticeably during its run.
Some context. In comic book industry it is(/was) quite common that the artist is responsible for "art" (pencil line-drawings), but black ink is done by the inker, and other colors are added by the colorist. Last two are/were viewed assistant role. In The Dark Knight Returns, drawing is credited to Frank Miller (who most people have heard of), inks are by Klaus Janson and colors by Lynn Varley who are less known. I think the division of labor was product of the 20th century color print technology, all the tasks were bit different skillsets. There always has been 'auteurs' who wanted control over all aspects of product, and with digital indie publishing it has became more common, but division of tasks was industry standard practice for pumping out comics product quickly.
How is this relevant to Girl Genius? Phil Foglio started his illustrator career in the old industry (born in 1950s, genuine member of boomer generation), I guess that is how he is used to work. Today the colorist is Cheyenne Wright. Additionally, Mr Foglio's style for GG today has quite faint line art, and he embraces a comic book style with bubble heads and round eyes (which is not perhaps most artistic, but it is his style and enables him to draw one page in day). Most of the work that makes it look semi-realistic is with color, shadows and textures. Consequently color and ink has huge impact on the visuals, in the way it doesn't for more 'flat' art like Garfield. First volume available on the web has muted colors, which were a later addition to original black-white publication (you can see it was originally BW, there is so much black ink). Then subsequently they brought in a colorist, who did very colorful, shiny neon lighted color-work. (in-story explanation that it represents main character's inner world expanding as her superpowers "break through". I think when people complain about GG art, it is this period, unless they can't stand Foglio's rubbery faces at all). After couple of volumes the colorist changed, to Mr Wright and I think it is better.
About the story aspect, I believe the Foglio's are true believers in sex-positive feminism. (Look up XXXenophile). 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). I agree it doesn't fail the way some other more pushy products fail. First reason is the romance, about that later. Secondly, they are boomers, perhaps it helps them stay somewhat grounded. Their takes are often informed by their feminist takes, but they are still also interested in telling compelling stories and interesting characters, not stories about characters who are feminist ideal stereotypes and nothing else.
First it is important, the main protagonists' romantic subplot is not really subplot, the romance plot(s) very much are main drivers of all story archs. Most of sidekicks have their romantic subplots, too. It just that "for boys", the main action on screen is mystery-action-adventure, not the romantic elements. Very shonen anime, frankly. Romance is often background cause of the situations that come to be. The reason why it works, it is pracically always a cishet romance, so it must involve male characters. And they do write male characters competent, interesting, different personalities, with varying amount of masculine traits, with pursuits and challenges that have story weight of their own, not only about their interest in heroine but then interact with her.
sun_the_second
could survive a COD lobby and a gay furry discord server
2hr ago
fmac
Ask me about bike lanes
2hr ago
different incentives than making the best product or most money
I think they absolutely have these incentives and are just out of touch idiots like most of the """elite""" class in the West at this point in history.
Corvos
2hr ago
Gargantia of the Verdurous Planet. Though admittedly he doesn’t try very hard.
fmac
Ask me about bike lanes
2hr ago
The idea seems to be to make money
Why not buy units in private equity funds then? Much better returns than Intel lmao
Furthermore, if that is the goal, why do we think government bureaucrats and elected officials are better capital allocators than Wall St et. al? Are we pretending government employees are hyper competent now?
I almost never do good deeds. This is my chief complaint about welfare statism. Virtue has been abdicated to the state- you can’t really be charitable because everyone is looked after. You can’t really be brave because everything is safe. Social atomization (arguably also a consequence of statism) makes it hard even to help someone move a couch because they don’t want to “bother you.” This makes practicing active virtues really had and makes real friendship really hard, because there is so little need for you to help anyone; friendship has been reduced to hanging out.
When life was harder, we needed each other a lot more. That doing one good deed makes us think of “accolades” is a sign of how weird the current situation is. I once got a call in the middle of the night to bring gas to a guy who had run out and I was SO happy. That was like 7 years ago. Ask people for more! Give them the chance to be virtuous!
FistfullOfCrows
2hr ago
I like my anime by ex-hentai artists, desperately trying and failing not to cross the eros line. (Hellsing/Freezing)
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.
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