tberton

That quote from Whedon is exactly why I hate that every discussion of politics in North America is wedded to this two sides, liberalism/conservatism, right/left, red/blue paradigm. It's stupidly simplistic and reductionist and makes any real conversation impossible. Political opinions are not an either/or, nor are they neatly arranged on a single line! An argument whose premise is based on that idea, outside of very specific circumstances (like some conversations around elections and polls) is invalid from the get-go.

In terms of horror movies, Black Christmas (the original, which I believe is called Silent Night, Deadly Night in the States) would be an interesting one to watch, since it's one of the original slasher flicks and thus has a lot going on in how it treats its female characters.

Both are probably worth watching for these purposes, although I think the sexuality stuff is a lot more prominent in the first one.

I was actually going to do it that way, but wanted to follow the established format. This gets a lot more complicated when you add Otogi into the mix too.

King's Field (King's Field (Demon's Souls predecessor (Dark Souls predecessor (Dark Souls II predecessor (Bloodborne predecessor)))) successor)

Certainly it doesn't require that assumption, but there's enough there that when somebody says "Samus' suit was made by the Chozo," it's pretty easy to say "oh, that makes sense" rather than "that's ridiculous!".

That Wizard Jam song needs to be on the Itch.io page or in the jam forum or something and made into the official Wizard Jam Theme Song.

Pretty much every ability in Super Metroid is gained from a Chozo statue. That's a pretty strong indication that Samus' suit is Chozo technology.

The only thing that disappoints me about this page is that it doesn't come at the end of a volume and I really feel like it should.

Today's entry is the best post-chapter page Gunnerkrigg's ever had, methinks.

Fun like the time that Coyote tricked Ysengrin into terrorizing Annie and then ate the memory of it? Or the time that one of Annie's classmates got sucked into a nether world of unspeakable horror and was driven crazy because of it? I agree that the chapter's uncomfortable, but that's the point and it's entirely in keeping with the story's tone. I'm confident that Tom will take it in an interesting direction and I can't wait to see what it is.

Alien Frontiers is one of my favourite games ever. It's also near the top of my list of "game components that I want to eat because they look like candy."

Fair enough. I guess my impression might have been increased because the game was discussed on the podcast when it was revealed, so your surprise weirded me out. But I guess you weren't on that episode. That might address the question Jake asked earlier re: rotating hosts. It's not a big problem right now, but something to remain aware of would be going over the same ground because people weren't present for previous conversations.

I was really confused at Sean's bafflement about Splatoon. It seemed strangely put-on, which happens a lot on other podcasts, but is rare for Idle Thumbs. Maybe "a mulitplayer shooter about squid girls who travel through ink that they shoot" just doesn't seem as out of character for Nintendo in my eyes as it does for others. There's no way you can put Mario, Zelda, Metroid, Star Fox, F-Zero, Pokemon, Pikmin and Smash Bros. next to each other and come out with any coherent underlying theme for Nintendo's work, so why should Splatoon seem out of place?

Fair enough. I guess I just like it because it's such a tenuous connection.

Yeah, I think the fact that they're teenagers muddling through a difficult situation is more important than the telepathy to her argument.

Yeah, X-Men titles are kind of ridiculous. There's like 5 ongoing X-books right now. So many that one is just called X-Men and has to be referred to as "adjectiveless X-Men."

That episode is called "When Flanders Failed"? I never knew that. What a subtle, brilliant pun that doesn't loop back to the episode at all. Weird.

This is a really good piece on the whole Iceman is gay thing. Before you click the link, know that the article's on Playboy and I understand that that is particularly weird for this conversation. But also know that the author, Rachel Edidin, is quite smart and thoughtful and has a great deal of first-hand experience in both queer issues and the X-men and probably about as much overlap of the two as any living human. So it's worthwhile to read if you're interested in the topic.

Yeah, you had to slot a mask in the N64 version. Inventory management in Majora's Mask on N64 was atrocious. There were so many things you'd have to switch between: the masks, the Ocarina, the camera, the Bunny Hood, the Lens of Truth, various quest items, not to mention your actual weapons and such. The 3DS version is vastly improved in this regard.

Yeah, I'm kind of sad that it's over now, because reading over it, I think that thread may have subtly influenced my decision to go to grad school. I think if we were to have that conversation again, I'd be able to contribute a lot more productively.

Sorry, maybe I should have been clearer. I'm not trying to say that CK2 is better than Civ because it focuses more on people. I'm saying that I think a big part of why 4X games kind of feel stale design-wise and ahistorical when they use historical themes is that things are far too stable. CK2 is just the first example I had at had of a game that introduces instability. A 4X game wouldn't necessarily need to introduce instability the same way that CK2 does, but I would like to see somebody try something. Also, thanks for linking that thread Gormongous. There seems to be some really good discussion in there that I'm excited to dive into. EDIT: And apparently I participated in that thread and completely forgot about it. HA!

This would actually be pretty useful for me, considering that my own grad research is somewhat in this area. I'll add Critical Play by Mary Flanagan to the reading list.

I've got little patience for nitpicking about political ideologies in real life, so forgive for having less for doing the same in a cartoon. Anarchy, as I understand it, is about the illegitimacy of coercion, yes, but it's about the coercive power of states in particular. Zaheer can want to kill the Earth Queen and teach the Avatar at the same time and still be an anarchist, as long as you keep in mind that the Earth Queen represents a institutionalized power structure, while the Avatar is just one person. As to your comments about granting liberty and islands of order, I don't understand what you're getting at. First, I don't think the idea of liberty being "granted" is inherent in any discussion of the concept, so pinning that on Zaheer seems strange unless he says something specifically to that effect in the show that I'm forgetting. Anyway, why does it matter if Zaheer fits snugly into an anarchist or libertarian box? He never claims to be either, as I recall. Anarchy and libertarianism are both political ideologies that are specific to a certain historical context. It seems natural to me that the world of the Avatar, which has a vastly different political reality than our own, would have different ideologies. It's kind of silly to try to map them one-to-one to ideologies from our own world.

Really? I thought it moved at a pretty good clip. Kingpin is great too, one of the best implementations of that character I've seen. The fight scene at the end of episode 2 is awesome.