Re: [rant] Entertainment Rants

[eselle28]

When did so many romance novel heroines get so mean? I mean, Bella Swan was a limp, whiny dishrag of a person, but it's at least plausible that a 15-year-old with neglectful parents in a new town might be moody and withdrawn, and she tended to ignore her casual female friends more than be cruel to them. The new crop are in their 20s, when hating absolutely everything seems more like a character flaw than a phase. It also seems like a lot of them have gotten a lot more obvious about which point on the love triangle is going to end up alone, and there's a lot more of the making him out to be perfect while also making it clear he's still nowhere near up to the heroine's standards. They've definitely gotten harsher about heroines' relationships with their best friends - now they don't just ignore them, but slut shame them and think horrible things about them with very little presented to justify venom. I mean, I get that a lot of people might have Mean Girl fantasies about being the one who can lord over everyone the way others might have lorded over you, but a whole book about that fantasy results in a nasty, negative narrator who it's really hard to cheer for.

Been reading 50 Shades have ya? ;-)

If not, dear Lord, this is actually a trend?

That's one of the ones I was thinking, but there are two others that come to mind. The most recent is the one Jenny Trout is recapping these days. So, yeah, I think it is a trend.

[reboundstudent]

That's one of the ones I was thinking, but there are two others that come to mind. The most recent is the one Jenny Trout is recapping these days. So, yeah, I think it is a trend.

Is that the One Direction one? Or a different series? (I have apparently missed all of her recent reviews, I only see her "musing" blog entries.)

[eselle28]

That's one of the ones I was thinking, but there are two others that come to mind. The most recent is the one Jenny Trout is recapping these days. So, yeah, I think it is a trend.

Is that the One Direction one? Or a different series? (I have apparently missed all of her recent reviews, I only see her "musing" blog entries.)

Different one. This is your standard girl-meets-alien fare, which would be a lot more tolerable if it didn't come with the heroine-who-hates-everything. I don't know how that got to be a thing.

[Izmuth]

That's one of the ones I was thinking, but there are two others that come to mind. The most recent is the one Jenny Trout is recapping these days. So, yeah, I think it is a trend.

50 shades of grey is a twilight fan fiction with the names of the characters changed to be able to sell it as an original work, so I'm not surprised that the heroine shares "I hate everything" with Bella

The other two have no excuse

[fakely mctest]

Basically everything about the current Jian Ghomeshi situation. Reading his FB post from Sunday, especially in light of the actual allegations in the newspaper article, gave me a full body shudder. It's rape apologia 101. It makes me especially angry that the fact that he's Not a Good Dude was pretty much an open secret in certain Toronto media circles for AGES.

On the bright side, I'm actually extremely glad to not have a FB account myself because I don't really want to know who amongst my family and friends would be defending this guy who swears that it was just a little 50 Shades action when the actual story from multiple women is that he would hit them in the face with a closed fist, didn't employ safewords, and would choke them to the brink of unconsciousness sometimes.

[nonA]

Re: Ghomeshi, this is one of the places I'm glad that real life is run by people with cooler heads than the internet. The major harassers behind Gamergate are being inspected by law enforcement. The dude who treated boundaries as optional lost his job and future employers/partners will be clued in to what he's like. It's slow, but bad behavior does catch up with people in the end.

---

In lighter news, finally got around to binging the current season of S.H.I.E.L.D. Simmons's lines about where her loyalties lay felt like a wasted opportunity. She'd have sounded more badass and serious scientist if she'd said "my loyalty is to science, I'm on your team so long as you let me keep doing what I'm good at."

[celette482]

SHIELD is a kickass show in my head. On screen? I'm more entertained by AVclub's commentariat MST3K-call out renaming of Agent Ward.

[Enail]

SHIELD is a kickass show in my head. On screen? I'm more entertained by AVclub's commentariat MST3K-call out renaming of Agent Ward.

He's always going to be Agent GoodHair to me, even though his hair is now messy and beardy.

[celette482]

He's always going to be Agent GoodHair to me, even though his hair is now messy and beardy.

These names reveal plot points of last season?:

[nearly_takuan]

It's interesting to me that a lot of viewers have latched on to the dog thing as a sign that Ward is going to make some kind of face turn.

I consider him a permanent heel solely on the basis of him threatening rape at one point. No matter what happens next, I won't forgive him.

Coulson's latest recitation of his sins is the rest of my argument.

[celette482]

Oh *I* want him to stay evil. I want people to work hard for his redemption and for him to spit in their faces.

I just don't think it'll go that way.

[nearly_takuan]

I want him to work hard for his own redemption and then get dusted by Simmons wielding a magic stake imbued by the Diviner.

http://kotaku.com/assassins-creed-unitywill-be-going-to-world-war-ii-1652836136

Really mixed feelings about this one. Previous game directors have said World War II would be a boring setting for AC, and I mostly agree. The fact that many people involved in World War II are alive today also makes this idea potentially problematic. One of the things I like about the AC series is that it uses the idea of "Assassins" and "Templar" as secret cabals fighting a secret war throughout history to cast characters in interesting ways—the Assassins tend to be "good" and the Templar tend to be "bad", but there are always a few characters on each side who muddy the waters a little, and third-party factions that show up to change up the standard dynamic.

I just don't think that kind of grey-and-grey morality will work for a game set in World War II, where even if there isn't necessarily a "good guys", it's pretty obvious who the "bad guys" are. Or it should be. I'll be even more uncomfortable if it isn't!

On the hopeful side, maybe World War II France means we'll get to see some Japanese-American characters?

Aaaand the main character is gonna have some kind of sexual tension thing going on with his adopted sister. Ugh.

[The Wisp]

I want him to work hard for his own redemption and then get dusted by Simmons wielding a magic stake imbued by the Diviner.

http://kotaku.com/assassins-creed-unitywill-be-going-to-world-war-ii-1652836136

Really mixed feelings about this one. Previous game directors have said World War II would be a boring setting for AC, and I mostly agree. The fact that many people involved in World War II are alive today also makes this idea potentially problematic. One of the things I like about the AC series is that it uses the idea of "Assassins" and "Templar" as secret cabals fighting a secret war throughout history to cast characters in interesting ways—the Assassins tend to be "good" and the Templar tend to be "bad", but there are always a few characters on each side who muddy the waters a little, and third-party factions that show up to change up the standard dynamic.

I just don't think that kind of grey-and-grey morality will work for a game set in World War II, where even if there isn't necessarily a "good guys", it's pretty obvious who the "bad guys" are. Or it should be. I'll be even more uncomfortable if it isn't!

I agree with you on this. I'm still waiting for a Roman empire Assassin's Creed. It's the perfect place! Large cities; dramatic, cutthroat politics; the historical record is detailed enough that we know about the major events and structure of the society, but there are also enough gaps, vagueness of the sources, and questionable sources that you have a lot of freedom for story-telling. There are also many interesting time periods to choose from.

ETA: I actually think WWI would be a much better modern setting for the series than WWII. No real good or bad guy, the whole way that war started leaves room for Templar meddling, Wilson's "war to end all wars" sounds like something a Templar would say, etc.

[nearly_takuan]

Yes, exactly—I could see Wilson cast as Templar, and I like Woodrow Wilson. Whereas I wouldn't really have a problem with wanting my character to go assassinate a Templar Philippe Petain.

I'm hoping they don't go with "Nazis = Templar" because that kind of takes attention away from the Nazi regime's actual wrongdoings in the game continuity.

I dunno, I just feel like there's a major but hard to describe difference between throwing boxes of tea off of a merchant vessel to thwart Templar schemes and sabotaging Nazi schemes and liberating war camps for the same purpose.

I guess I'll have to hold judgment until I read about what the full game ends up doing with this, though.

[Conreezy]

ETA: I actually think WWI would be a much better modern setting for the series than WWII. No real good or bad guy, the whole way that war started leaves room for Templar meddling, Wilson's "war to end all wars" sounds like something a Templar would say, etc.

I was going to say the very same thing. Assassinating the Archduke Ferdinand to start the whole thing would be fun.

[reboot]

Not that it is on the agenda, but man I would love Assassins Creed in the Ottoman-Venetian or Ottoman-Genoan wars. The Reconquista might also be interesting

[Conreezy]

Yes, exactly—I could see Wilson cast as Templar, and I like Woodrow Wilson. Whereas I wouldn't really have a problem with wanting my character to go assassinate a Templar Philippe Petain.

Wilson was a pretty hardcore racist. The French were much more appreciative of the black American soldiers who fought in France. That would be an interesting plot for a 21st century gamer.

Anyway, a new rant: I hate the song "Bang Bang."

[eselle28]

[quote="Conreezy"]

Anyway, a new rant: I hate the song "Bang Bang."

Same.

[waxingjaney]

Not that it is on the agenda, but man I would love Assassins Creed in the Ottoman-Venetian or Ottoman-Genoan wars. The Reconquista might also be interesting

You can have lots of fun in the Mediterranean. Austrians, Ottomans, Venetians, Saracens, Romans, Athenians, Phoenicians, Sea Peoples, etc.

[WJMorris3]

Literally, I can't believe a song like this exists in this day and age.

[nearly_takuan]

When the screenwriters want to make something happen, be it giving a young man lightning speed or putting two people together, they have a way of figuring that out. Usually this involves invoking irritating entitlement tropes that reinforce sexist social norms.

(Yup, I'm still hate-watching The Flash.)

[The Wisp]

The call-in daytime talk radio my mother listens to milks problematic gender stereotypes so much, it's so infuriating.

[nearly_takuan]

Not sure if Simmons was dropping an anvil on a disagreeable political point that's been coming up a lot lately...or if she's just jealous over Fitz.

[nearly_takuan]

Animations are bound to bones, which can be subtly stretched and tweaked without breaking the animation scripts. Most of a female avatar's sex characteristics would be in the mesh and skin textures, anyway, which you change once and then you're done.

Assassin's Creed has never exactly been a model of cultural sensitivity, but they like to pretend to be historically accurate sometimes, so I'm still a little disappointed with how the WW2 sequences played out.

[eselle28]

Oh, World of Warcraft. You've been at this for over a decade now. I think you might have predicted that both lots of people would log on at the same time and that a single entry point to a new zone might get a tad crowded.

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