I've been between two minds quite a bit about Anne MCcaffrey for some time. On one hand a lot of her books have some really stellar ladies in them, often in positions of leadership or who assert their capabilities and equality with the men around them constantly.
But on the other hand you have shit like that.
I just don't really understand it, I suppose. It's been years since I read any of her works, however, so maybe I just don't remember some other crappy stuff in them.
In the past few years, our local pregnancy counseling (Aka right to life) organization, placed bus stop ads telling parents/teen girls not to get the HPV shot, because "It's not 100% effective, has side effects, and that Cervical Cancer isn't just caused by HPV" With the added unspoken threat of "If your daughter does get the shot, she'll have sex 24/7"
So, when they meant "Right to Life", they really should add that they only referred to unborn babies.
As morbid as it sounds, when the plaza they were located in burnt to the ground, I was secretly glad, although I mourned the excellent bakery that burnt down as well....most delicious pizza buns, at bulk prices.
UK poverty line differs a lot to US because we have a minimum wage standard across the country, which if it was in the US would make the minimum wage be around $17/18k dollars for you guys. As in, I converted £12k to dollars, BUT that is before tax. When it was £11k a year for me a few years ago (before the min wage rise a year ago) for me tax took me down to £10k a year which is $14k dollars which is nearer to the US poverty line. So today I guess you'd be on £11k after tax which is take home of $16k a year.
But then it gets all complex because we don't have to pay for insurance for health and so on and so on.
As I recall there was some big interest news story a year or two ago about how the UK had a really high poverty rate as compared to most other similarly economically developed countries... until it was revealed that the UK just sets a lower (or, in this case, higher) bar for poverty than most other countries. I'm not sure if that's still accurate now, though.
As for poverty in the US... the minimum wage needs to be raised, a lot. Also, personally, I'd be pretty okay with communist-style appropriation and redistribution of wealth if that's what it takes to get everyone to a healthy, stable living arrangement. Cause like... I grew up seeing people in what were little more than wooden shacks, with no electricity, running water, or interior heating. One member of a family might have to try and work to support five other people. A job they might have to walk miles to. All poverty is fucked up, but the kind that happens in the country is what I'm familiar with.
In 91 percent of the centers visited, this script included telling our investigator that having an abortion was linked to an increased risk of breast cancer, infertility, miscarriage, and/or the made-up "post-abortion depression" that results in suicide.
Not to be confused the extremely rare post-partum depression.
/s
Anne McCaffrey had some very problematic ideas about sex in general. In particular, she believed that one experience with homosexual sex, consenting or not, can "turn" a person gay. Also, a *lot* of the sex in the Dragonriders books is either uncomfortably rapey or straight-up rape, and the woman/victim is usually shown as being positively affected by the rape (in a "s/he really just needed to get laid" sense). One of the last Dragonriders books makes an attempt to address the non-consensual aspect of dragon-induced sex, but instead of approaching it thoughtfully, there's a scene that's basically this:
The setup to this is that there's a woman dragonrider who's been living on her own. She hates when her (female) dragon rises to mate, because she's never wanted to have sex with the guys she ends up sleeping with as a result, so she's been staying away from everyone in order to avoid that. A male dragonrider finds her by happenstance, and stays with her for awhile while his dragon recuperates from a wing injury. The woman's dragon, having been denied her mating cycle for way too long, goes into heat from having a male around.
Guy: Your dragon is rising to mate, and mine's the only other dragon around, and I know you don't want to have sex, but there's nothing either of us can do about it, so you need to try to enjoy it.
Gal: Shit. Ok, I'll try.
[their dragons mate and they have sex]
Gal: That was amazing! I will now fall completely and utterly in love with you!
The Pern books have some bad stuff sprinkled here and there, but Anne McCaffrey's bad ideas aren't even worthy to wash the feet of the nastier shitty fantasy tropes, much less to bask in the infernal visage of the god-emperor of shitlords, Terry Goodkind.
The Pern books have some bad stuff sprinkled here and there, but Anne McCaffrey's bad ideas aren't even worthy to wash the feet of the nastier shitty fantasy tropes, much less to bask in the infernal visage of the god-emperor of shitlords, Terry Goodkind.
I try not to judge people on their tastes. I know how I feel when people judge me on some of the things I like that aren't really fully socially acceptable for a guy in his 30s, like cartoons and comics. Another person liking or disliking something doesn't really say much about them as a person, so why should I judge them for it?
But I feel no guilt in judging people who enjoy Terry Goodkind and anything related to what he writes.
Shadowhope on
Civics is not a consumer product that you can ignore because you don’t like the options presented.
The Pern books have some bad stuff sprinkled here and there, but Anne McCaffrey's bad ideas aren't even worthy to wash the feet of the nastier shitty fantasy tropes, much less to bask in the infernal visage of the god-emperor of shitlords, Terry Goodkind.
Heh, true. I didn't read Sword of Truth until I was 23, on the recommendation of two of my friends (one is an idiot, and the other said he read the books when he was young and remembered them as being better than they are). It is one of two books I have ever tossed into the recycling bin because I couldn't in good conscience donate my copy to anyone.
The sex stuff sticks out to me in McCaffrey's books, but to be fair, she also has a lot of female characters who kick ass and take names in male-dominated professions.
Edit: I think part of the reason I remember the Dragonriders series that way is that I was raised with religious conservative values pertaining to sex; so as a kid I desperately wanted to imagine myself as a dragonrider, and the flightsex thing was a fly in my ointment.
Terry Goodkind was the first author whose books I read with bewilderment because they were so bad, so like, how could they be published and popular?
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???
I have never read anything by Terry Goodkind, but always assumed it was good writing because his books are the type that are always prominently displayed in the fantasy section of the bookstore. So I guess it's marketing, plus maybe the fact that the fantasy genre doesn't really get good authors that often?
"If you divide the whole world into just enemies and friends, you'll end up destroying everything" --Nausicaa of the Valley of Wind
never assume that quality has anything to do with what's marketed to folk
there's plenty of amazing minority writers who don't get talked about
focusing on their work means reading perspectives different than the "norm" (AKA white cishet as hell)
and understanding how much of a crime it is that excellent authors are buried by our culture's regular horseshit
I just wanted to address this really quickly while we're still kind of talking about books-
Quality isn't what I'm concerned about. It's the attitudes of some of the people promoting the pledge (again, nobody here,) that are concerning me. I feel weird about the articles written about the pledge the same way I felt weird when I learned about "Outsider Art." It doesn't mean the work is bad. I'm just not a fan of the way some people (generally the people writing articles promoting this pledge) are talking about it or approaching the work.
And I admittedly did a bad job explaining that the first time around. When I said "pity" I didn't mean like the work/writing was poor quality, but people were saying they liked it because the author/creator isn't a white straight cis male. It's more like the work is great- super high quality, but instead of recognizing that, people are acting like the main reason it's good is because the author/creator isn't a white straight cis male. They're ignoring the actual merits of the work and instead focusing on the novelty of consuming media from a "different" type of author, which actually devalues that author's accomplishments and is all kinds of gross.
Plus, you know, it'd be nice if disabled people could be represented too.
Also I hate how a lot of fantasy authors and readers like to justify sexism and misogyny in their books with the good ole :
'But females weren't warriors back then! Sexual assault is just a realistic thing that happened! Men are just physically stronger anyways, females can't swing a heavy sword or axe! Why can't you handle tough gritty hard fantasy like we can, why do you feel entitled to special treatment because you are female. Men were just in power, females were chattel and that's just life. I like realism in my magic and dragon books about a chosen one (young guy). What do you mean your preferred escapism doesn't feature feeeemales as lesser than men? Silly female must be PMSing.'
Okay let's put our collective feminist brains together and come up with things we want in our own sci-fi and fantasy stories
Female protagonists
The abolition of damsels
Helpless boy damsels might be okay though.
Boys on leashes are definitely okay though.
A nice baby step would be inclusion of relevant female characters that serve as more than just love interests, damsels, or some other motivation for the male protagonist. We're getting a decent amount of "kickass chicks" included but then you break their character down and it's clear they have no connection to the overall arc of the story.
More female villains that aren't seductresses would be nice too. Like a ruthless woman Bond villain would be cool.
Okay let's put our collective feminist brains together and come up with things we want in our own sci-fi and fantasy stories
Female protagonists
The abolition of damsels
Helpless boy damsels might be okay though.
Boys on leashes are definitely okay though.
A nice baby step would be inclusion of relevant female characters that serve as more than just love interests, damsels, or some other motivation for the male protagonist. We're getting a decent amount of "kickass chicks" included but then you break their character down and it's clear they have no connection to the overall arc of the story.
More female villains that aren't seductresses would be nice too. Like a ruthless woman Bond villain would be cool.
Provided she isn't created by or looks like she was created by Steven Moffat I'm all for it.
Posts
But on the other hand you have shit like that.
I just don't really understand it, I suppose. It's been years since I read any of her works, however, so maybe I just don't remember some other crappy stuff in them.
Your IUD is a baby.
The Light Pole Baby Daddy Theory is comedy gold.
So, when they meant "Right to Life", they really should add that they only referred to unborn babies.
As morbid as it sounds, when the plaza they were located in burnt to the ground, I was secretly glad, although I mourned the excellent bakery that burnt down as well....most delicious pizza buns, at bulk prices.
WoW
Dear Satan.....
As for poverty in the US... the minimum wage needs to be raised, a lot. Also, personally, I'd be pretty okay with communist-style appropriation and redistribution of wealth if that's what it takes to get everyone to a healthy, stable living arrangement. Cause like... I grew up seeing people in what were little more than wooden shacks, with no electricity, running water, or interior heating. One member of a family might have to try and work to support five other people. A job they might have to walk miles to. All poverty is fucked up, but the kind that happens in the country is what I'm familiar with.
/s
Gendered products are silly
Then again, the Extreme ones aren't specifically labelled for boys, I guess.
Guy: Your dragon is rising to mate, and mine's the only other dragon around, and I know you don't want to have sex, but there's nothing either of us can do about it, so you need to try to enjoy it.
Gal: Shit. Ok, I'll try.
[their dragons mate and they have sex]
Gal: That was amazing! I will now fall completely and utterly in love with you!
It's that whole 'women are dainty' thing where everything is smaller and therefore more ladylike. Which is total bullshit, of course.
Gotta treat your hearing canals with love, care, and plushy-soft respect. They deserve no less.
Ladies
I try not to judge people on their tastes. I know how I feel when people judge me on some of the things I like that aren't really fully socially acceptable for a guy in his 30s, like cartoons and comics. Another person liking or disliking something doesn't really say much about them as a person, so why should I judge them for it?
But I feel no guilt in judging people who enjoy Terry Goodkind and anything related to what he writes.
Heh, true. I didn't read Sword of Truth until I was 23, on the recommendation of two of my friends (one is an idiot, and the other said he read the books when he was young and remembered them as being better than they are). It is one of two books I have ever tossed into the recycling bin because I couldn't in good conscience donate my copy to anyone.
The sex stuff sticks out to me in McCaffrey's books, but to be fair, she also has a lot of female characters who kick ass and take names in male-dominated professions.
Edit: I think part of the reason I remember the Dragonriders series that way is that I was raised with religious conservative values pertaining to sex; so as a kid I desperately wanted to imagine myself as a dragonrider, and the flightsex thing was a fly in my ointment.
Whoever wrote this audio log in AC4 should be given a medal.
?
???
I have never read anything by Terry Goodkind, but always assumed it was good writing because his books are the type that are always prominently displayed in the fantasy section of the bookstore. So I guess it's marketing, plus maybe the fact that the fantasy genre doesn't really get good authors that often?
You know what women-kicking-ass books are awesome as fuck though? Everything Tamora Pierce has ever written.
I just wanted to address this really quickly while we're still kind of talking about books-
Quality isn't what I'm concerned about. It's the attitudes of some of the people promoting the pledge (again, nobody here,) that are concerning me. I feel weird about the articles written about the pledge the same way I felt weird when I learned about "Outsider Art." It doesn't mean the work is bad. I'm just not a fan of the way some people (generally the people writing articles promoting this pledge) are talking about it or approaching the work.
And I admittedly did a bad job explaining that the first time around. When I said "pity" I didn't mean like the work/writing was poor quality, but people were saying they liked it because the author/creator isn't a white straight cis male. It's more like the work is great- super high quality, but instead of recognizing that, people are acting like the main reason it's good is because the author/creator isn't a white straight cis male. They're ignoring the actual merits of the work and instead focusing on the novelty of consuming media from a "different" type of author, which actually devalues that author's accomplishments and is all kinds of gross.
Plus, you know, it'd be nice if disabled people could be represented too.
Female protagonists
The abolition of damsels
Helpless boy damsels might be okay though.
Boys on leashes are definitely okay though.
'But females weren't warriors back then! Sexual assault is just a realistic thing that happened! Men are just physically stronger anyways, females can't swing a heavy sword or axe! Why can't you handle tough gritty hard fantasy like we can, why do you feel entitled to special treatment because you are female. Men were just in power, females were chattel and that's just life. I like realism in my magic and dragon books about a chosen one (young guy). What do you mean your preferred escapism doesn't feature feeeemales as lesser than men? Silly female must be PMSing.'
Oh hey what's this, for everything but the boys on leashes, Tamora Pierce has you covered.
So Drakengard 3, basically.
A nice baby step would be inclusion of relevant female characters that serve as more than just love interests, damsels, or some other motivation for the male protagonist. We're getting a decent amount of "kickass chicks" included but then you break their character down and it's clear they have no connection to the overall arc of the story.
More female villains that aren't seductresses would be nice too. Like a ruthless woman Bond villain would be cool.
Everytime Raynor tries to save Kerrigan, things go horribly wrong, and things only go right when Kerrigan saves herself/is saving Raynor
Beautiful heroes are fine
Just you know not when they exist to the exclusion of all other types of people
http://www.audioentropy.com/
Steam: Chagrin LoL: Bonhomie