dium

Phaedrus' Street Crew
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Everything posted by dium

  1. Unnecessary Comical Picture Thread

    "Super mature". As in, very elderly?
  2. "Ethics and Journalistic Integrity"

    Yes, this is my understanding. It's not a specific monarchy that they like, but the idea of monarchy (and aristocracy even more so). My understanding of neoreactionaries is that they don't so much think they can avoid the problems of older monarchies, but that they refuse to see that problems ever existed with the system at all. They openly value monoculture and social/economic inequity, and they romanticize war like you wouldn't imagine possible. They're a fascinating group of wannabe cartoon villains, but completely sincere.
  3. Star Wars VII - Open spoilers

    My initial opinions of the Star Wars prequels were all (at least somewhat) positive, but that had a lot to do with being a child. I was 9 years old when I saw Phantom Menace, and I loved it. I was 12 for Attack of the Clones, and I remember enjoying that too. Revenge of the Sith came out when I was 15, and by then I had revised my opinions of the first two prequels as being pretty lame... but then I thought RotS was "measurably better". The only reason I'm now comfortable saying that the prequels are bad movies that I don't like (besides the fact that everyone else says it too), is that we bought all of them on DVD when they came out. So I had the "luxury" of revisiting these movies after developing some degree of adult cognizance and critical taste.
  4. "Ethics and Journalistic Integrity"

    A good read, but also one that led me down an unfortunate rabbit hole of neoreactionary writing. I know a lot about how modern-day American monarchists think now. Very sure I didn't need this, but it's my own fault.
  5. Star Wars VII - Open spoilers

    YES. "Do or do not, there is no try" is such bullshit, even in context.
  6. Star Wars VII - Open spoilers

    I hate trailers and I hate how these teaser trailers actually look pretty good. No, my emotions don't make any sense right now.
  7. Cartoons!

    I guess I need to be smarter or more informed to see these inconsistencies, since I didn't. Like I said, they seemed simplistic for sure, but I was personally OK with simplistic.
  8. Cartoons!

    Yeah, bummer. I did enjoy Korra, and the things you see as problems or as bad simply don't register as problems or as bad to me. Like, I get that the characters and factions in the show have simplified political ideologies that don't match up well with real world ones. But I don't really feel this as a problem? It's never unclear to me what Zaheer or Kuvira wants, or why. It's not important to me that they have well developed and informed political leanings, but that they have consistent and understandable motivations. I do agree with two points: that the show's potential was seriously limited by the shortened season length, and that Korra's character is a frustrating one for something like 75% of the series. I liked Korra well enough in the first season, got fed up with her very quickly in the second, but grew to like her again in the fourth. But then, I didn't find her trauma to be embarrassing like you did.
  9. anime

    Yeah, I watched the clip, and it looks like an at-least-decent ("decent") magical girl thing. But man. Strange naming decisions were made. But admittedly, I know zero French, so maybe if I did I'd find it less strange.
  10. I've also found this to be the case. It's really strange, actually, how TNG seems so well regarded as a whole, but then the consensus also seems to be that only ~50% of it isn't embarrassing.
  11. anime

    extremely dubious of anything anime related that includes the letters "loli"
  12. This list is so valuable! I feel like there's a lot of people (on this forum and in general) who have a very similar disposition toward anime as I do, who see a list like this and immediately start planning view-and-discuss parties. To clarify, my very specific disposition towards anime is: I know that it's a diverse medium with a deep history of artistic expression, but said diversity and artistry is expertly hidden by embarrassing schlock and not at all apparent without a guide.
  13. "Ethics and Journalistic Integrity"

    Yeah, that's more to the point. That kind of trolling — where the goal of the troll is straightforwardly to provoke an emotional reaction — still exists, and "don't feed the troll" is still decent advice for that comparatively mild situation.
  14. Thanks for this! This is really good.
  15. Passing reference to marijuana use in this kind of context is so refreshing. Even now, as it's legalized in more and more places stateside, I rarely encounter discussion or admission of pot use in anything that isn't explicitly about pot. Like stoner comedies, or whatever. I didn't consider it would make anyone uncomfortable, though, so I guess that's why people don't do it.
  16. Cities: Skylines

    I'm finding the game to be disproportionately challenging for a game that so many people say is "too easy". I'm guessing this has a lot to do with it being the latest entry in a "one game genre**" that I haven't really played since the early 2000s. Also there's no disasters. But I dunno, do people actually miss and want disasters? I never remember liking disasters. (** as Chris put it in the podcast)
  17. "Ethics and Journalistic Integrity"

    Storify is really weird and I don't know what I think about it. People like A Man In Black essentially write for Storify more than for Twitter, if you get what I'm saying. And the result is a weirdly paced medium-length article where you get to see how many Twitter people liked each individual sentence.
  18. Cities: Skylines

    Tokro/Seoul style of city is probably doable. Tokyo/Seoul scale of city may be difficult.
  19. anime

    ...or on the internet, or on FX. But yeah, I think you're right, they mostly are. The ones that I've watched and enjoyed seem to have adults in mind as a secondary audience, but never at the expense of their primary viewership of kids. Which is just the worst when they inevitably have a romance plot or subplot.
  20. anime

    I feel you with the adolescent romance, I can't stand that stuff either. I have the same problem with a lot of anime, and also with the western cartoons I watch (although to be fair, the western cartoons I watch are much more overtly for children, so I don't have much grounds for complaint).
  21. Movie/TV recommendations

    Oh that's cool I wasn't being defensive, I was just clarifying my opinion. Your turn.
  22. Movie/TV recommendations

    Right, I should back up a little bit and disclaim that I don't think anyone who didn't like Season 4 "just didn't get it", but rather, I'm explaining why I did like it. For me, the experiment was entertaining.
  23. Movie/TV recommendations

    I concur with what everyone's been saying about Arrested Development S4, it TOTALLY felt like a different show. I liked the season a lot, actually, and was bummed out when the popular consensus decided it was bad. But I've thought about it, and I have to admit, it absolutely did not re-capture what was special about the first three seasons, and that's a major failure. I guess for me, I figured going in that it would be impossible to produce a season that felt the same as the ones produced a decade earlier. Also, I was very receptive to formal experimentation; I (and Hurwitz, presumably) was very excited to see what kind of long form storytelling the released-all-at-once Netflix TV model could facilitate. The result was this complicated non-linear thing that takes a while to really gel, feels plotting rather than spontaneous, with the idea that it gradually comes together like a puzzle. I dug it! I think it was a mostly-successful experiment! But if people wanted a successful season of Arrested Development and not an indulgent experiment, I get that. Many of the strengths of the first three seasons were entirely absent.
  24. Life

    I've already said a bit about Pratchett in the Discworld thread, but I didn't notice that there was a conversation happening here about it. I'll just say it again, he was very important to who I am now. I've been thinking about it all day. I never heard of Choosing To Die and think I must look it up, for some catharsis.
  25. Movie/TV recommendations

    Oh! Ha. Well, I liked that too, but it was longer ago so I have less to say about it. And now I look like the guy who likes shitty TV everyone else was disappointed in.