Argobot

I have nothing to apologize for.

You're not lion!

Twitter.

I thought Sean's advice was really wonderful and I hope whoever wrote that letter (or anyone, really) takes what he said to heart. Learning that you're under absolutely no obligation to tough it out with people who can't even offer you a baseline of respect is such a hard but valuable lesson to learn as you get older. Fortunately, that usually comes with the knowledge that there are lots of people in the world who can be your friend without needing you to tell them how to.

If that's true then why wouldn't you lead with it in your initial marketing? If you're considerate enough to include a non-white character as your protagonist, then I hope you'd also be considerate enough to look at that promotional art and gauge what most reactions will be. Unless they wanted to go for that first shock and outrage so they could later pull out this protagonist and say to their detractors: "See, we're not racist! You are!"

A few things: Changing the race of that character to something other than white doesn't excuse anything. There is a whole history of racial subjugation by non-whites in that region and this cover is still toothless evoking that to little point or value. This flows into a larger point of how childish it is to portray your villain in this way. There's no nuance or depth; the bad guy is presented as more of a cartoon character than a real person. Sadly, actual human malice is much more mundane and complicated than what this box art is showing. I would love it if a game wanted to explore that complexity honestly, but I'm fairly sure that Far Cry 4 will not. If they want a cartoon villain, fine, but there's no need to be pointlessly offense and then pretend your game is going to be about something deep.

I go back and forth on Edith. For a book that does such a good job of showing how painfully mundane existence can be, Edith often felt like an unrealistically cartoonish character. It doesn't help that the student Stoner has an affair with is such an ideal opposite of Edith, almost like Edith was purposefully written to diminish the questionable morality of Stoner's actions. The book ends with the relationship between Edith and Stoner in a much better place than it had been for the entirety of their marriage, which is why I can't bring myself to fully condemn this character. I'm never sure if I'm being too lenient or too harsh on how women are represented in fiction, and my inability to form a concrete opinion on Edith is just another example of that.

Owned.

I'm almost 100% confident that there's no actual reason for banning *********. ********* p1neapple

Yes, The Toast is consistently one of my favorite websites to visit. Mallory is truly wonderful. One of my favorite bits that she has ever written: http://the-toast.net/2013/11/15/empowered-female-heroine/ "She strolled up to the bar and planted a firm-yet-sexy pump-encased foot down on the rail. The bartender looked at her and started pulling out little frilly umbrellas and Malibu and speared slices of ********* to make some kind of girl drink, but she held up her hand. “A whiskey,” she said, her voice low in her throat. “Neat.” Behind her the pool table exploded. Every man in the bar immediately grew a beard. The jukebox made a record-scratching sound, even though it was an mp3-playing jukebox." Edit: I forgot that ********* is banned on this forum.

I saw the documentary Jodorowsky's Dune this past weekend. I've always been mildly fascinated by this film because of its connection to Alien (Dan O'Bannon and HR Giger both worked on Dune together and then went one to make Alien), but before seeing the doc, I knew very little about the history of this movie. Alejandro Jodorowsky and the team of artists and producers he had assembled to make the movie, really want you to believe that had this Dune been made, not only would it have been bigger than Star Wars, it would have fundamentally changed the direction of sci-fi movies. It's such a bold, unprovable claim, but Jodorowsky is so magnetic even at 84 that you almost believe he could have pulled it off. Then you think about what a movie with Mick Jagger, Orson Welles, and Salvador Dali as your cast would look like and the whole illusion starts to crumble. The doc was fairly even handed in its portrayal of this nonexistent movie; it never felt to me that the movie wanted you to feel sad or angry that this film was never made. Sure, everyone who worked on Dune is cast in a mostly sympathetic, sometimes overly reverent light, but the doc doesn't shy away from showing how far Jodorowsky's obsession has taken him. Possibly one of my favorite scenes in the whole film is when It's a moment where Jodorowsky's charisma turns sinister and I'm so glad that the filmmakers included it in the final cut. I'm not sure how much longer this movie will be in theaters, so see it soon if you can. The whole experience has led me to start reading Dune for the first time, which so far has been really enjoyable.

Refresher: http://the-toast.net/2013/08/23/texts-from-jake-barnes/

For contrast, you should watch the Spy Who Came in from the Cold film with Richard Burton. It's somehow even bleaker than the book, but still magnificent. I've only read TTSS and Spy, both of which I really enjoyed. The methodical spy work, absent all the James Bond style trappings, was definitely not what I was expecting when I first started reading. It's a joy to see a more honest depiction of this kind of story. Spy especially does not shy away from showing how odious both sides of the Cold War are, even Smiley does not come off as noble, whereas TTSS (more so in the movie) is a bit more forgiving towards the British spies. Right now I'm reading A Most Wanted Man, which is a much later le Carre novel. The Cold Was is over, so the focus is entirely on intelligence post 9/11. The book is definitely not as interesting as his earlier work, but it still has the same attention to bureaucracy that I love. It also does a good job of criticizing modern anti-terrorism policies, like extraordinary rendition, while still making you sympathize with these intelligence officers who are constantly competing with each other for information. I'm mostly just reading this book in anticipation of the movie that is coming out in a few months, but I think it's worthwhile if just to see how le Carre has changed as an author over several decades.

It's been over a year since I read Bring Up the Bodies, but I did not have the same experience reading that book as what you're describing. Specifically the character reversals; there is a fairly sizable gap between the first and second book so the characters are certainly different, but not to an extreme that felt dishonest to what the first book establishes. Do you have any specific examples for what you're referring to? Also, I'm not entirely sure that these books are the type to delve into fan pandering, but maybe that's just how I approach the material and see Mantel's ultimate goal with the trilogy.

I completely did not read that episode as showing a negative relationship between Ken and Joan. He trusts her enough to step in for him with another client, and his "stay out of my office" comment scanned more as a light chastisement that was masking a deeper gratefulness for Joan fixing a messy problem. But I agree, Ken needs to write more short stories. The fact that every other man who Joan interacts with in that episode makes a point to directly reference her beauty, while Ken just treats her like an equal, really makes it hard for me to see him as acting rude. It also reminds me that Joan is by far one of the more interesting characters: Here is an obviously intelligent woman is only noticed for her physical attributes. She's managed to play within the system and use that perception to quietly advance herself, in contrast to Peggy who has never been bound by social norms or Betty who blindly follows the rules with consistently tragic consequences. Tracing Joan's arc from the beginning has been one of the more rewarding parts of this show for me. It also shows how little society has changed from this era because I can't ever read an article about Christina Hendricks without seeing the author comment on her body as if it's the only thing about her that matters.

The women this season are at the forefront more than they've been in seasons past, at least in my mind. Don, Roger, Pete et. al feel like an afterthought in comparison to what is going on with Peggy and Joan. The return of Betty (Betty!!) and Dawn's increased significance as a character really reinforce the feeling of this season being about the women's ascendence. I'm really enjoying this season, but then again, I've never felt disappointed in any of the Mad Men seasons.

Goldfish

I recently finished reading The Marriage Plot by Jeffrey Eugenides. There was a lot of talk when that book first came out, specifically about how the Leonard and Mitchell characters were seen as stand-ins for DFW and Eugenides. That reaction, plus a lot of very vocal negative reactions from female reviewers, kept me from reading this book until now. I cannot say for sure whether I liked this book or not, but I am very glad I read it. There's a lot about being a young, confused 20something that Eugenides gets painfully correct, but there's almost an equal number of things that made me cringe. For instance, I really dislike how male authors feel the need to constantly remind the reader of the female protagonist's preternatural beauty. It's clunky and immediately makes me suspect of what else I can expect from the book. I would call this one of the more ambitiously flawed novels that I've read in the past few years, and that alone has made reading it feel worthwhile. Even though it didn't entirely win me over in the end, I still feel that Eugenides captured that bizarre limbo of post-adolescence, pre-adulthood. This book is also one of the few fictional stories where the ending's significance actually felt earned and significant, instead of feeling like an afterthought. This is a book that I personally wrestled with while reading, which is probably the best possible experience that you could ask for from fiction.

I'm depressingly unsurprised that the director has this viewpoint. I'm sure it has a lot to do with the retrograd way women's relationship to sex is viewed, but it's disgustingly common for people to not have any problem with the "it was unconsensual until I got her to admit she really wanted it deep down" line of thinking.

I have been meaning to read this but just haven't gotten around to it. After winning the Man Booker this book kind of fell under the radar I keep forgetting to pick up a copy.

I'll be so happy when "hipster" disappears from modern discourse. Its meaning has become so diffuse at this point that it says almost nothing about the person being described (but in my opinion, it says a lot about the person who uses the word).

But the Space Needle! Pike Place! Piroshki, Piroshki. Golden Gardens beach. I love San Francisco, but Seattle has some good stuff going for it.

Haha. I'll give it a go if you'd like. Haven't had to use Russian in 3 years, but at the very least I can ask one of my professors for help.

The fact that this seems so inevitable and obvious is kind of the point though. Reno's relationship with Sandro is so transparently doomed to the reader, but Reno's inability to see what is really going on is what the book is about-- being young and having no clue what you're doing.

Sorry, I thought I included this in my earlier post. In the specific Internet peer group that I am in, Game of Thrones and other acclaimed TV shows feel like these unstoppable juggernauts that everyone is watching and referencing. It's really easy for me to forget that in reality, only a very small portion of the overall American TV audience watches those shows, because not everyone can afford HBO (or they're not in the right peer group where they can borrow a friend's HBOGO password).