Mod Post: Off-Topic Tuesday

[icon_uk]

In the comments to these weekly posts (and only these posts), it's your chance to go as off topic as you like. Talk about non-comics stuff, thread derail, and just generally chat amongst yourselves.

It's exactly 100 years ago since the Suffragist (wouldn't break the law) and Sufragette (WOULD and DID break the law) won their campaign to allow women in the UK the vote. Whislt a groundbreaking step of enormous magnitude, it should be noted that it was given only to women over 30 who satisfied a property ownership qualification, and the same act gave the vote to ALL men aged over 21, so parity was still some way off.

In Moscow, over a months worth of snow has fallen in two days, making it the worst snowfall for 100 years, and given we're talking Moscow here, that's serious.

POTUS 45 (would referring to him as "The orange shitgibbon" be overly insulting?) has, amongst other things, referred to the Democractic Senators who stayed silent during his State of the Union speech as "Treasonous" and "Un-American" (I won't even mention his instantly debunked claim that it had the highest ratings ever) but also slammed the UK's National health Service, which prompted a rare moment of unity in the UK, and even our notoriously inept Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt (Currently a popular term in rhyming slang) was able to hit back a nice little zinger that someone leading a country where 28million have no Health coverage is really in no position to talk)

I'm given to understand that the Philadelphia Eagles achieved something impressive by winning the Superbowl. Jolly good show lads... I guess.

Justin Timberlake's performance at the Superbowl seems to have gone down less well than if Katy Perry's Left Shark had been given a solo spot.

RIP John Mahoney, distinguished British-born stage actor, but best known for his magnificent performance as Marty Crane in 11 seasons of "Frasier", who has died aged 77. (Ironically, of the cast of Frasier, he was the only one who really WAS an opera lover.)

Elon Musk is attempting to launch the most powerful rocket ever as proof of concept of his Falcon Heavy. payload will include a Tesla car which will be put into solar orbit.

The UK government is still mired in Brexit incoherence, with little matters like lack of clarity on borders, immigration and membership (or not) of the EU Customs Union being fudged all over the place, and an ex Business Minister advising the Prime Minister to get rid of the "35 hard ideological Brexiteers" from her party (As that includes Boris Johnson (Windswept buffoon) and Jacob Rees-Mogg (A Dickensian caricature of an out of touch Tory if ever there was one) it's not hard to see her point there)

Apropos of very little, a species of stick insect which is usually exclusively female and reproduces by parthenogenesis, has produced a male mutant.

A teaser trailer for Solo: A Star Wars Story has been released. Make of it what you will.

In other Star Wars events, Natalie Portman appeared on Saturday Night live and gave an... unusual, but spirtied, defence of the Prequels.

Comments

[skjam]

Still in training for my job.

Our Toastmasters club moved from the old(er) YMCA to the new YMCA for our meeting last night. A few bumps, but I think our guests enjoyed themselves.

Over at my blog, I review a crossover fanfic manga for fans of 1970s superhero cartoons. http://www.skjam.com/2018/02/04/manga-review-infini-t-force-01/

[icon_uk]

The anime of Infin-T Force is interesting, though I think I needed to have seen more of the original series' to "get it" properly (Gathachaman is the only one I am aware of at anything other than a cursory level)

[janegray]

Psst, Icon! Take a look at the code, there was an error in the page ^^

Anyway!

Speaking of suffragettes, everybody should take a look at this:

http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-34425615

Growing up, I was always told that Sufragettes marched for equal rights, that people at the time thought they were crazy (I've seen posters from the time that claimed that if women got the right to vote, animals would be next), that sometimes during a march somebody would throw eggs, and that sometimes the police arrested them. And that was that. Nobody ever mentioned to me that they got the shit beaten out of them by police, that cops outright kidnapped them, that there were violent riots that resulted in dead people, and that the average person at the time was under the impression that Sufragettes were terrorists.

I'm very familiar with the concept of whitewashing and romanticising history (aka "the good old timesssssssss~" myth, which is a very convenient tool to shut down social progress by going "oppressed groups in the past got equal rights just by asking nicely, so if you are anything less than a perfect angel it's your fault!"), yet it had never occurred to me that it had been applied so thoroughly to the Sufragette movement. I most certainly never suspected the "riots with dead people" part.

[icon_uk]

Cheers, now fixed! :)

[deh_tommy]

To be fair, almost every group or community (particularly activists) have their fair share of extremists that take things too far and sour public opinion. While most certainly not every suffragette was a terrorist, there were a significant and loud few who did commit criminal acts (like arson and assault).

[janegray]

I finished watching this anime, Recovery Of An MMO Junkie.

http://78.media.tumblr.com/8cf97a3b68b461f6f97c512a0db4e180/tumblr_inline_p3kt56eOaz1r4pd3o_500.jpg

The protagonist is a 30-year-old woman who suffers a nervous breakdown at work due by massive overwork and stressful environment (note: employees literally DIE of overwork in Japan), and ends up quitting her job. Lonely and depressed, she decides to become a NEET (basically a hikikomori who spends most of their time on the internet).

She starts playing an MMORPG and chooses a hot young man as her avatar. She makes friends with a bunch of other gamers, and becomes very, very close with a player who has a cute girl as their avatar. She only ever leaves her house to buy food, but one day she gets in an accident with a young businessman…

It’s basically You’ve Got Mail: The Anime. Only it’s about videogames, and the characters are much more likeable.

I liked it :)

[arilou_skiff]

Unfortunately the director of the anime (not the creator of the manga) has been revealed to be an actual, honest-to-god full-blown nazi. It's not as if it shows up in the anime, but it does leave a sour taste in what is otherwise a great series :(

[informationgeek]

Is it just me or does anyone else find dark parodies or series that do dark takes on light hearted material to have some sort of commentary on the subject to be pretty bad?

I dunno, but it feels like when people do this, they're not really saying anything and are just trying to be as mean-spirited, edgy, dark, and immature as possible. Its not clever. I just get that from reading Irredeemable.

[icon_uk]

I confess I will happily live the rest of my life without another "dark and twisted" take on Wonderland or Oz...

Is there anything particular you're thinking of?

[janegray]

It's definitely not just you.

There is the occasional exception, as in anything. For example, I thought the Alice: Madness Returns videogame was pretty good (ok, the gameplay was bad imo, but the story and characterization and aesthetics were good).

But 98% of the time, a "dark take" of lighthearted material boils down to "what if this nice thing that makes people happy were a slap to the face instead!"

[zachbeacon]

Depends. I mean I still think the grimm Madoka Magica is a good show but still get more enjoyment out of the generally upbeat Star vs the Forces of Evil.

(Meanwhile Sailor Moon itself tends to be most entertaining when it's so bad it's good)

Irredeemable is kind of a mess though I do remember liking the spinoff about the reformed villian. By contrast, I was super excited when I discovered Majestic during a DC/Wildstorm crossover.

Overall I think I blame Alan Moore and Frank Miller. People look at their 80s work and think a story has to be dark to be mature*. It's especially annoying when people steal from Watchmen because they tend to miss the point of the story.

*Which is just not true. Astro City is probably the most mature thing DC publishes these days.

[leoboiko]

I think I was amused at the first or second dark take I've ever read, like, 20 years ago. By the third one any amusement value was gone, and it just felt tired and unoriginal and less fresh than the original material. By the 948925104124th one, I can't tolerate even their color scheme anymore.

[laughing_tree]

Like anything else it can be handled badly, but here's an alternate perspective. I can't remember who said it but there's an interesting quote about how there's a segment of British comic fans for whom their first exposure to superhero comics was works like Dark Knight Returns and Marshall Law. For them, stuff like that isn't a subversion of light-hearted material. It's simply how superhero comics are.

Which is to say, I think it's a mistake to assume these kinds of stories are necessarily attempts to be subversive or shocking or what have you, so that if the work isn't achieving that, it's failed. I mean, is a gangster movie trying to be subversive when it depicts bloody murder and horrible human beings? Or is it simply trying to be a gangster movie? I think some of these stories are written this way for the same reason other writers write light-hearted, upbeat works. I think some of these stories are simply about having fun -- just a different kind of fun: the fun of ultraviolence and gallows humor and jerks being jerks.

[locuatico]

Because most of them boils down to "Things like hope and justice and that sort of thing aren't real". but to quote Hogfather "you need to believe in things that aren't true. How else can they become?"

There is also the fact that we as a society have grown to see "tragedy" as some form of higher art than... say... an idealistic story about goodness and compassion............ In case you cannot tell, I do think there is a reason why Logan got a nomination but not WW and it is different than the obvious one...

[dr_archeville]

So I do some work as a substitute teacher at a local charter school, grades 6-12. I was last called in mid-November, for two days, and had not been called back since. On February 1st I called the school, to make sure none of my paperwork had gotten last, that they knew I was still available. They said they still had me on their roster, but I needed to come in to speak with the Administrator. So I did.
The last time I was there, in mid-November, there was a note left by the teacher indicating that a certain student that would be in 6th period was not to be allowed to go to the bathroom or water fountain, and if they needed to see the nurse I was to call the nurse and have her come to the classroom. When 6th period rolled around, I saw the student, they had hair of a bright primary color -- the only unusual hair color I'd seen in the school -- but otherwise seemed to be a standard middle school student. They stood or sat right next to me. About 10 minutes later, a school official came in and escorted the student out, along with their books and "the scissors," and a few minutes after that a few students were called to the main office, then they would return 10-15 minutes later. When I left for the day, I asked the office manager at the desk where I signed out for the day what was going on, she told me "it was settled" and I needne't worry about it. The next day I was subbing for the same teacher, and throughout the day I heard several students gossip about the odd-haired student, how they'd been expelled and sent to juvie. When 6th period rolled around, I asked if anyone could tell me what had happened.
From what I've been able to piece together, the day before I came in, the primary color-haired student -- who is trans -- was being bullied (misgendered & deadnamed) by another student. They thwacked the bully with a composition notebook, then walked away. Bully grabbed at them, but they were holding scissors at the time, and so when bully grabbed for them, bully ended up with a sliced hand. The day I was there was investigation & determination of punishment. (Bullied student was expelled for a week.)
So now, two and a half months later, I'm in the Administrator's office, wondering why I've been summoned. It turns out, I had been suspended as well -- they thought the actual incident with the bullying & the scissors occurred on the day I was subbing, and they had suspended me pending an investigation into how aware I was of the situation and if I had acted appropriately.
Except no one had told me I was suspended.
So I cleared them up on the timeline of events, and they apologized, but they're still restricting me to subbing for high school students, not middle school. Also, they've still not told me why I was never notified that I'd been temporarily suspended/was being investigated.

In other news...

I'm currently watching Altered Carbon. It's good, and makes me want to re-read my Eclipse Phase books (and actually read the ones I've yet to get around to reading).

Speaking of, Gizmodo Asks had a recent article on the possibility of mind uploading. Most of the experts addressed seemed positive at the possible existence of such tech, except one from NC's Duke University.

Speaking of NC, Raleigh/the Triangle area may be out of the running for Amazon's HQ 2 because of HB 2, the "bathroom bill" that was only kinda-sorta repealed last year.

In lighter news, Mike Hughes, the limo driver and "self-taught rocket scientist" who planned to launch himself into orbit in a homemade steam-powered rocket ship on February 3rd in order to prove that the Earth is flat, canceled his launch due to technical difficulties.

[icon_uk]

Well, that's all kinds of messed up, not least it being the bullied kid who got suspended, but the NOT telling you you were suspended, and limiting your opportunities because of something you were not involved with is utterly bizarre.

[zachbeacon]

No Donny, "treasonous" is the word used to describe some of the stuff your sons and son-in-law have been up to. But I'm sure you had nothing to do with that. I'm sure there's a perfectly innocent reason your lawyers don't want you talking to the FBI.

I didn't watch the Superbowl. I used to be one of those people that watch it for the commercials but one year I was traumatized by "Monkey Puppy Baby". I am still happy with the outcome as I dislike the Patriots on principle.

Maybe I just consume too much pop culture but I still believe the Elon Musk is secretly a Bond villain. The rockets aren't exactly helping his case.

[icon_uk]

Or the flamethrowers....

Oh Holy Zarquon's Singing Fish! I just idly googled "PuppyMonkeyBaby" and any lingering faith I might have had in humanity just died an excruciating death. What it must be like with the sound turned up I never wish to know.

[scorntx]

Only a week until Black Panther comes out over 'ere.
*diabolical laughter*
... slightly annoyed that me excitement is also tinted with speculation about whether the film will lead in directly to Infinity War, or if it's just the stinger, or if the Soul Gem shows up or... I just wanna enjoy the movie on its own terms, dammit!

And I finished a two week work placement last Friday.
Bit of a mixed bag, all told.
The work itself was harmless enough - shifting large amounts of loo roll or crisps (and on one mad occasion, booze).
But... very, very poorly managed.
The second day there I spent half an hour buggering about because the person I was supposed to be working with / supervised by didn't show up.
At the end of both weeks there was supposed to be some sort of review session seeing how I was doing and whether I was enjoying shifting crisps. Not only did this not happen, the person I was presumably supposed to be talking to never showed up to say "err, you were supposed to be doing a thing and didn't show up". (Except once, on the second-to-last day, and then only to not bother showing up the day after. Which, funnily enough, was the very day someone made an irritated phone call explaining how everything was poorly managed. Hmm...)
More than once I was asked "do you know X? Go talk to them" and had to point out that no, I don't know who X is because not only was I not told, induction consisted entirely of being led to a guy and told to get to work shifting crisps.
Not to mention the supposed buddy system consisted of the person I was working with being, with the best will in the world, not very bright.
And also, on the second week, seeming to find any reason to either not get me to do anything, or just shift me off onto someone else.
Not exactly honouring the buddy system. (Could be worse. There was another gal there on the first week, and she was usually just sort of wandering around the store aimlessly.)

Not to mention the mix-up with the Honourable Department of Work and Pensions, who despite being told a week before I started that I was doing a work placement, were all "you didn't show up for an appointment. Work placement? This is the first we're hearing about this!"

Oy...

[bruinsfan]

My one concern with the Black Panther trailers is that Eric Killmonger isn't impressing me as anything original or interesting as the villain. Is it too late to replace his part in the movie with more scenes of Angela Bassett wearing fabulous outfits? Because I'd be down for paying admission to watch just a few hours of that.

[commodus]

I am so excited for the Space X launch today! Along with this project, NASA's own Space Launch System and the Mars One project, I have a good feeling that the next few years might be quite exciting. I'd hold off on predicting that we'll establish the first colony on Mars any time soon, but I think at the very least we'll make some important progress to that end.

[starwolf_oakley]

Jessica Chastain trended on Twitter for two reasons this weekend.

1. Her role in Xavier Dolan’s "The Death and Life of John F. Donavan" is being cut out. Apparently the movie is already 4 hours along (!) and her role was an evil, modern-day Hedda Hopper.

2. Tweeting about Uma Thurman getting injured while filming Quentin Tarantino's Kill Bill, She tweeted: "When violence against women is used as a plot device to make the characters stronger then we have a problem. It is not empowering to be beaten and raped, yet so many films make it their 'pheonix' moment for women. We don't need abuse in order to be powerful. We already are."

I'm not quite sure what Chastain means here. Does she mean "Women in Refrigerators" only for the women and not a male character? Is it that violence in movies is bad, or violence shouldn't be used as "cinematic shorthand"? We can gripe about violence in the movies, but we don't want to go back to the Hay's Code.

The reason for the "roaring rampage of revenge" in Kill Bill was that Beatrix was furious over the deaths of Tommy Plympton
and the rest of the wedding party. At least that was why she was angry at the rest of the DiVAS.

The full story about Thurman crashing a car Tarantino made her drive is a bit confusing. Tarantino may have been criminally reckless, but Lawrence Bender, E. Bennett Walsh, and Harvey Weinstein somehow covered it up for 15 years.

[squarepole]

Eh, not going to try and answer what specifically Chastain was getting at, but I can relate to her frustration.

There are so many possible stories to tell about women being powerful protagonists* that don't involve sexual or physical violence. That the "women becomes powerful after being so fully dominated and abused" trope is apparently the only tale we as a culture tell about adult women...well, it's real shitty. A little variety would be nice, if nothing else.

*since most current mainstream stories are action based, I'm largely sticking with physical strength (or being a dominating force) as the main criteria for "powerful" here.

Also, the Hay's Code is awful and I'm anti anything like it happening again. But hey, it did have one nifty side effect! Movie makers had to put a lot more effort into writing a good script with clever dialogue.

If that’s your kind of thing, then more power to you, but...

[deh_tommy]

What’s with the weird influx of incest and/or sexualising minors in media (particularly anime and manga) recently?

Re: If that’s your kind of thing, then more power to you, but...

[icon_uk]

What do you mean recently? It's been going on for as long as there's been media.

And I would definitely NOT say it's a "more power to you" situation.

[thezmage]

Every time I see advertisements for that Peter Rabbit movie, I wonder who in the production it was that was hurt by Beatrix Potter. I can’t imagine anything other than pure, personal spite motivating such a blatant misunderstanding of the original book.

[lego_joker]

Hollywood gonna Hollywood, man. Not even Dr. Seuss's stuff is safe...

[dewinged]

Got my tax return money in today, bought a board game to treat myself.

Also, next season of Voltron on Netflix-US is March 2nd.

[thezmage]

Which game?

[thezmage]

Watching the preview for the upcoming animated suicide squad movie, and Floyd Lawton looks so much like Tony Stark that it’s distracting.

Missing the point extra hard.

[sisterofbloomerjunior]

http://abcnews.go.com/US/dodge-super-bowl-ad-martin-luther-king-jrs/story?id=52844326 "A Super Bowl ad for Dodge Ram trucks using one of Martin Luther King Jr.'s last sermons drew a backlash on social media and a rebuke from some of the civil rights leader's loved ones while winning support from others. The one-minute ad watched by more than 100 million viewers featured King's famous "The Drum Major Instinct" sermon he gave at Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, Georgia, just two months before he was assassinated. "

http://kingencyclopedia.stanford.edu/encyclopedia/documentsentry/doc_the_drum_major_instinct/

From Dr. King Jr's Drum Major speech: "You know, economists tell us that your automobile should not cost more than half of your annual income. So if you make an income of five thousand dollars, your car shouldn't cost more than about twenty-five hundred. That's just good economics. And if it's a family of two, and both members of the family make ten thousand dollars, they would have to make out with one car. That would be good economics, although it's often inconvenient. But so often, haven't you seen people making five thousand dollars a year and driving a car that costs six thousand? And they wonder why their ends never meet. [laughter] That's a fact.

[junipepper]

“https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/feb/06/new-zealand-female-only-stick-insect-produces-rogue-male-in-uk”

Shortly afterward, the first-ever act of Acanothxyla on Acanothxyla sexual harassment was reported.