Random Stuff X: Something Weird

[Mestiv]

3 hours ago, Darkness_ said:

wow this place is ded

Discord is the new go-to place for casual interactions I think. 

[Oversleep]

11 hours ago, Bleeder said:

*lurking*

You're alive!

[Jedal]

11 hours ago, Mestiv said:

Discord is the new go-to place for casual interactions I think. 

in my opinion discord is a place for smaller communities... i will always find forums better for big groups

[PrinceDusty]

On 4/2/2018 at 8:47 PM, Jedal said:

in my opinion discord is a place for smaller communities... i will always find forums better for big groups

Discord definitely has a much more constant stream of interaction, even if it's not always as... intelligent

[soyperson]

On 4/2/2018 at 6:59 PM, Oversleep said:

You're alive!

It would appear so!

[Draginon]

Shout Factory had a march madness sale this past weekend. Decided to take advantage by getting the final Power Rangers set I don't own yet, grab MST3K The Movie to see if I like the show before buying the volume sets, Digimon Adventure tri. Loss since I've liked the previous three so far, Body of Evidence since the plot sounded interesting, Gravity Falls for obvious reasons (never got the chance to actually see it on tv by the time I actually heard about it) and MST3K The Singles Collection just in case I do like the movie.

[Zelly]

16 hours ago, Draginon said:

Shout Factory had a march madness sale this past weekend. Decided to take advantage by getting the final Power Rangers set I don't own yet, grab MST3K The Movie to see if I like the show before buying the volume sets, Digimon Adventure tri. Loss since I've liked the previous three so far, Body of Evidence since the plot sounded interesting, Gravity Falls for obvious reasons (never got the chance to actually see it on tv by the time I actually heard about it) and MST3K The Singles Collection just in case I do like the movie.

Never heard of Shout Factory.  Looked it up.  Now I'm watching Reboot all over again. :3

[Draginon]

On 4/5/2018 at 1:45 PM, Zellyia said:

Never heard of Shout Factory.  Looked it up.  Now I'm watching Reboot all over again. :3

It's amazing what licenses they've been able to get from Power Rangers to Super Sentai (something that was deemed impossible in years past) to getting something from Disney (since Disney is usually a pain to get a license from apparently)

[Draginon]

Ate my very first Voodoo Doughnuts. It was grape flavored and it was delicious!

[Orlion Blight]

20 hours ago, Draginon said:

It's amazing what licenses they've been able to get from Power Rangers to Super Sentai (something that was deemed impossible in years past) to getting something from Disney (since Disney is usually a pain to get a license from apparently)

Didn't they get the license to release Gravity Falls? That, in particular, is a big deal! 

[Draginon]

2 hours ago, TheOrlionThatComesBefore said:

Didn't they get the license to release Gravity Falls? That, in particular, is a big deal! 

That's the one I was referring to when I mentioned Disney. For Disney to give away the home video license of anything they own to anyone else is practically unheard of so I was shocked when I saw Gravity Falls on their website. I'm kind of hoping this means other unreleased Disney shows get released like So Weird and Gargoyles (Disney's released season 1 and half of 2 with the second half being a Disney Movie Club exclusive but not the rest to the public).

[Orlion Blight]

[Draginon]

State testing started today and yesterday one of the higher ups who thinks he knows best, he's one of those who takes stuff without consulting anyone else about it first, and decided that hall and bathroom monitors couldn't bring a book to read during the lull times. I had forgotten to grab my watch, went back to the house (I'm less than a mile away) and decided 'screw this' and brought Words of Radiance anyway. I got about 5 chapters in, though because I kept having to hide it in the desk just in case I probably would've gotten farther.

It was definitely one of those stupid rules that deserved to be broken.

[The Sovereign]

Me giving advice:

[Draginon]

The Great American Read by PBS announced their 2018 list and Brandon kind of made the list. Wheel of Time made the list but none of his own books did while stories like Fifty Shades and Twilight made it. What slontze wrote this list???

In other news I was helping my mom drop some boxes off at UPS and saw a store named, get this, Ati Physical Therapy. Guess Ruin is a doctor in Texas

[Orlion Blight]

16 minutes ago, Draginon said:

The Great American Read by PBS announced their 2018 list and Brandon kind of made the list. Wheel of Time made the list but none of his own books did while stories like Fifty Shades and Twilight made it. What slontze wrote this list???

The inclusion of Ready, Player One is probably what frustrates me the most about this list. 

Edited April 20, 2018 by TheOrlionThatComesBefore

[Draginon]

18 hours ago, TheOrlionThatComesBefore said:

The inclusion of Ready, Player One is probably what frustrates me the most about this list. 

Haven't read it myself but I'm not all that interested to read it, especially after watching TheDom's review of the book since the main character isn't the type of hero I like to read about.

Also took their 'quiz' and out of the 100 I got 18. I included ones I own but haven't yet read, like ASOIAF, but since some are series my count is actually higher, like WOT should count as 15 but because they do it as a series it's just 1. I even included a couple that I want to read in that number as well, like Rebecca, so I kind of fudged my numbers 

[Orlion Blight]

11 hours ago, Draginon said:

Haven't read it myself but I'm not all that interested to read it, especially after watching TheDom's review of the book since the main character isn't the type of hero I like to read about.

Same here. There is a certain amount of authorial indulging and wish fulfillment that even I can't stand. 

11 hours ago, Draginon said:

Also took their 'quiz' and out of the 100 I got 18. I included ones I own but haven't yet read, like ASOIAF, but since some are series my count is actually higher, like WOT should count as 15 but because they do it as a series it's just 1. I even included a couple that I want to read in that number as well, like Rebecca, so I kind of fudged my numbers 

34. I fudged it a little as well, included aSoIaF because I read three of the five,  WoT because I read ten of them and The Pillars of the Earth because I did not suffer through over half of that derivitive garbage to not include it. 

[Draginon]

14 hours ago, TheOrlionThatComesBefore said:

34. I fudged it a little as well, included aSoIaF because I read three of the five,  WoT because I read ten of them and The Pillars of the Earth because I did not suffer through over half of that derivitive garbage to not include it. 

Wonder if they have anyone who's read all 100+ (counting series as 1 book is stupid) books? One book I wished I hadn't read on that list was To Kill a Mockingbird. Had to read it for school a few years back and hated it. At least Pride & Prejudice wasn't on that list since I only read the first 2 or 3 chapters because it was that dull for me.

One series I'm surprised didn't make the list was Little House by Laura Ingalls Wilder, I'd take that over Twilight and Fifty Shades of Abuse any day.

[Sunbird]

All right, which one of you has this bumper sticker of the Steel Alphabet for tin on your car and was at the Orem Wal-Mart Saturday afternoon??

[Elenion]

9 hours ago, Sunbird said:

All right, which one of you has this bumper sticker of the Steel Alphabet for tin on your car and was at the Orem Wal-Mart Saturday afternoon??

Only in Utah!

(No, it wasn't me. But I do have a FANGORN license plate.)

[Kobold King]

Little bit of a ramble today because this is in my head. The random stuff threads are still for anything that pops into your head, right?

Often times in a fandom shipping is conducted. Two characters wind up paired together by segments of the fandom, and various pieces of art and fanfiction arise depicting them in a romantic relationship. Anyone who's been in a fandom understands that this happens.

But increasingly I've seen an anti-shipping attitude on the Internet, or at least, a very particular argument against it. The argument goes that shipping is a bad pursuit because it turns a wholesome platonic friendship and "forces it" to become romantic. The argument goes that it is part of a general devaluation of platonic relationships in our society; an idea that romantic relationships are the most valuable and that platonic relationships are not appreciated.

I see where this argument is coming from, and I agree with it. A platonic relationship is an extremely valuable thing, and often times our society and our media don't fully accentuate that like it should be. When shippers conclude that two characters should be together solely because they act in a way that platonic friends should, it can show an inherent lack of understanding of what value a platonic relationship can hold without ever becoming romantic.

But here's the uncomfortable trend I've seen that makes me uncomfortable with this argument: the fact that I almost exclusively see it applied to homosexual pairings.

In almost any Hollywood movie, if there is a male character and there is a female character, the movie will pair them together at the end. This is especially true of a television series with these characters as part of a main cast. At this point there's almost an expectation that this will happen. The man and the woman belong together. Eventually, romance will come up.

If we are going to open a conversation on the devaluation of platonic relationships in our society, I believe it should start here. Why can't the male and female characters be strong friends but not lovers? It's starting to happen more and more in movies, but often as a way of establishing that the woman is "strong and independent" and don't need no man. It's more of a feminist ideology than one that wants to explore the value of platonic love. Hollywood is a major trailblazer for popular culture. Hollywood should be a major focus on any discussion of tropes, harmful or otherwise.

And yet so many of these people who are oh so devoted to platonic love don't seem to mind when Hollywood does it. They make these arguments of theirs solely when a fanfiction decides to pair a man and a man or a woman and a woman. They may even deny it being a problem in movies with male and female protagonists, or turn a blind eye when a fanfiction explores a heterosexual pairing that isn't featured in canon.

Now, that is not to say that everyone who has ever made this argument is doing so out of homophobia. Far from it. I've made this argument before; I've seen a number of very rational people on this very forum say this very thing. But I believe that the rationality of this argument has attracted people to it who harbor some inherent discomfort with the idea of homosexuality, and rather than being honest with themselves about the reasons seeing these things make them uncomfortable, they latch onto a rational-sounding argument for why it's a bad thing and why their distaste for it is entirely justified.

I think at the end of the day, it bears merit for all of us to take a look at the opinions we hold, no matter how trivial, and think long and hard about why we feel this way. Are we in pursuit of rationality, or are we seeking to justify our prejudice? Do we want to see a better and brighter world or just one that suits us personally a little better? Is it shipping we dislike, or the fact that other people might interpret a character that we relate to as a gay man or a lesbian?

And really, at the end of the day, don't tell other fans what's right or wrong for them to do. If they're not actively hurting anyone, leave them be to play with their ships.

 

 

This message was sponsored by the Anonymous Twilight Sparkle / Starlight Glimmer Shippers of America.

[Voidus]

@Kobold King the one that always gets me is that if a woman is friends with one man and then starts trying to have a romantic relationship with someone else it will almost inevitably turn into a love triangle. Sometimes friends are just friends.
Also, HI KOBOLD! Long time no see.

[Kobold King]

Just now, Voidus said:

@Kobold King the one that always gets me is that if a woman is friends with one man and then starts trying to have a romantic relationship with someone else it will almost inevitably turn into a love triangle. Sometimes friends are just friends.
Also, HI KOBOLD! Long time no see.

 

Good to see you! How have you been?

Sorry I haven't been around too often. I've been writing fanfic. I have almost twenty thousand words written!

...in an obscure fandom with maybe four or five potential readers. Whatever though, I make myself happy with it.

[Voidus]

Oh you know, lurking in Alleys, making cookies. The usual.
I've actually only just come back from a pretty long period of minimal activity too, work started getting a bit hectic and without the Reckoners RP I didn't have as big of a daily time commitment to 17S.
Can I ask which fandom? I'm kindof curious now.