The most recent 20 comments posted to Making Light by Heresiarch:

abi @ 307: "I gather he was advised not to pull that kind of trick again. And he hasn't; he's much more devious than that now."

That's not quite Black Hat Guy territory, but it's getting there. I suppose Black Hat Guy is like a mathematical limit--you can approach it, but you never quite get there in real life.

*surveys the bloodstrewn scene* "Looks like the romance in this relationship . . . is dead."

YEEEEEEAAAAAAHHHHHH!

So one vote right here for a Doctor Who spoiler thread. That was a very strange piece of work.

Elliot Mason @ 58 "Am I the only one who liked to carve a heart in it while taking out the first sandwich's-worth of pb?"

I used to play a quick game of Tic Tac Toe against myself in it. Now I buy Adam's, for which the first step is mix, mix, mix, and doesn't have the solidity lent by partially hydrogenated vegetable oil.

albatross @ 918: "In that situation, I'd see both sides of the issue[1], but I'd also respect the hypothetical church for refusing to compromise on a matter of principle."

I think that making sure people have enough to eat and shelter from the elements is a more fundamental value than the question of who is allowed to marry whom. Even if it was a marriage equality advocacy group, whose sole purpose was to push for gay marriage, I would be dismayed if they showed a willingness to sacrifice the sick and the needy in pursuit of that goal. That the institution in question is one that holds charity as a major part of its mission, and is sacrificing the poor for the sake of denying others' rights is simply icing on the cake.

I'd guess that the Archdiocese agrees that charity is more important than gays getting married, which just makes their brinksmanship all the more appalling.

(I'm not entirely convinced that sticking to your principles is a good thing no matter what those principles might be. In my book, a really inconsistent, half-hearted racist is WAY better than one who actually goes out and acts on their supremacist beliefs at all times. I don't think that standing by one's principles is like wit or energy, a virtue that can be admired apart from the purpose to which it is put. It seems to me that principles are the purpose to which virtues are put, and there is nothing admirable about believing wholeheartedly and purely that women are whores and need to be put in their place.)

Crossing fingers, sending positive thoughts. Best wishes for all y'all.

Marilee @ 906: "the thing is, the Catholic Charities are getting almost $12M to do that work."

Yeah, it's not even that the church is providing free services. I'm sure there's some non-profit who's willing to take $12 mil to help the poor and doesn't mind teh ghey.

I wonder how this is playing within the rank and file. I can imagine priests who've dedicated their lives to helping the needy and the sick becoming rather irate at the idea that they'll have to stop their Christian service just on the off chance that some gay person, somewhere, is benefitting.

Catholic Archdiocese in DC threatens to withdraw charity services if same-sex marriage law is passed.

I have two thoughts on this. First, if you feel your duty to deny the legitimacy of same sex relationships outweighs your duty to help the poor and care for the sick, you might have let your priorities get a bit out of whack. Second, if the Catholic church wants to get out of the charity business, then that's fine by me. There's nothing inherently religious about running a soup kitchen--I'm sure the district of DC can figure out how to run their own shelters.

Joel Polowin @ 156: "Am I correct in thinking that a "fire-engine", in that context, would have been a device for generating fires?"

I don't think so--I think they are fire engines in the modern usage brought because of the afore-mentioned fear of fire.

Oh wow. Babbage's Ballet sounds SO NEAT. Unforunately, it seems it didn't quite happen--the theatre owner backed out for fear of fire.

The danger from fire remained the main obstacle to staging the ballet. Lumley had been greatly impressed by the brilliancy of the colours and the effect of the Rainbow Dance, but prudently hesitated to make a decision that, in his opinion, might involove the destruction of his theatre. Babbage tried to reassure him, and, to show that he apprehended no such danger himself, even offered to be present in the house at every performance, but to this Lumley pointed out that if the theatre were burnt, his customers would be burnt with it, which, Babbage allowed, 'was certainly a valid objection for though he could have insured the building, he could not have insured his audience.'

Thena @ 619: I think that's the one! Thanks!

Terry Karney @ 651: "I have no problem with, "vanilla" slash, but the list, as given; and the explantion (implicit) that all those things are, "kink" was croggling."

Everything is kink. Even vanilla. Failure to understand that is the source of much conflict.

Nancy Lebovitz @ 116: "I don't think that's all there is to liking historical fiction, or to liking history for that matter."

I think we're talking about different things. The drive and desire to pursue something is not the same as the skills necessary to do it. I think you're right that the things people get out of sf and historical fic are very different--nonetheless, I think the skills necessary to read the two genres have similar foundations.

Random open thread question about open threads: There was a discussion about the pros and cons of various oatmeals on an open thread a while back, but I can't find it. Does anyone remember when/where that was?

Craig R. @ 590: "Nahh. He's just a wanker"

Same difference perhaps, but he definitely prefers his pop idols serious and tortured. Observe:

Long before the age of cute, when cool was king, NBC talk-show host Steve Allen poked a hole in Elvis Presley’s then dangerous public image by having him sing “Hound Dog†directly to a basset hound. Now bands are happy to give themselves the cute treatment: an emo-ish pop group out of Buffalo, named Cute Is What We Aim For, recently put out a video for a song called “Doctor†that stars a pug puppy. The old pose of coolness is no longer so cool: the better move is to appear unthreatening. Veteran alternative-rock band Weezer, keeping up with changing times, has recently endorsed a cute product, the Snuggie, the blanket that you wear, of which more than four million have been sold.

Maybe the move toward cuteness has come about partly because the idea of “edge†has gotten old. We used to romanticize tortured souls like Dylan Thomas, Jim Morrison, Jimi Hendrix, and Janis Joplin, but their equivalents from recent years—Kurt Cobain, Elliott Smith, Heath Ledger, David Foster Wallace—have elicited expressions of pity more than anything else.

Sigh.

It's so terrible how people nowadays feel sorry for stars who die from drug overdoses, rather than wanting to follow in their footsteps!

David Harmon @ 577: "Vanity Fair just posted a lengthy article by one Jim Windolf, bemoaning the Cuteness Trend as "self-infantilizing" and generally regressive."

What a strange, insane mix of grumpy grandpa-ism and adulation of self-annihilation.

"For generations, kids couldn’t wait until they reached adulthood so they could smoke, drink, eat four-course meals, make money, drive cars, have sex, and, if they were the type to join the military, legally kill other human beings. Now we would rather log on and tune out, preferably in the womb-like comfort of a Snuggie, which is the perfect thing to wear as we gaze at photos of kittens while gnawing on delicious cupcakes."

O GOD THE HUMANITY! People these days prefer to indulge their gentler selves instead of seeking their own annihilation in drugs and alcohol or, even better, seeking to annihilate others! WHAT MONSTROSITY HAVE WE BECOME!?!?1

A sample of the trends he's decrying:

"There are the annoying standby words used by adult bloggers in otherwise serious posts, such as “awwww†and “yay.†There is also the word “cutegasm,†which an Urban Dictionary user has defined as “the reaction one feels when being exposed to something overly cute. this may be an emotional, physical or even sexual response.†Here’s the example: “When Holly saw the baby trying to dance, she had a cutegasm.†What is the antonym for “cutegasm� Because that’s what I’m having right now."

Because his visceral emotional responses are the RIGHT ones! Duh!

"Similarly, social hugging among teenagers has become so widespread that, as The New York Times reported earlier this year, some principals have banned it from high-school hallways."

Jeez, don't these kids understand that the PROPER way to interact with their peers is through charlie horses and swirlies? But of course, it all comes down to attention-whoring:

'“The old idea that you want your privacy is bleeding away into this new idea that you are desperate to be known,†he says. “And if you are desperate to be known, you need a strategy for being known, and a very good strategy is the old evolutionary one of being so cute that you need to be cared for."'

Because the only reason to present a vulnerable face to the world is to TRICK it into taking care of you. There's no way a human being's apparent need for care and comfort could be genuine!

The problem, for him, is clear. He subscribes to an ideology of cool sourced in Thanatos, idolizing destruction in both its internal and external manifestations. The correct face to present to the world is tough, confrontational, manly. You get what you want by taking it, godammit, not by asking for it. He's disgusted by the idea that someone might derive satisfaction and happiness from anything as soft and vulnerable as a cute thing, much less identify with it. And yet here cute is, taking over the tough, no nonsense world he's living in. What could be more horrifying to find that your obsession with power is actually losing to an obsession with vulnerability?

KeithS @ 572: "Perfect for reading about a quick fling."

I think the reason there are so few trebuchet/dragon slash fics is that hardly anyone has the stones to write about it.

Ficcers really need to fire themselves up.

Faren Miller @ 559: "Damn shame he was an avid Muslim."

According to this article, he had listed "no religious preference" in his personnel records, so it seems there's at least some room for doubt on that point. (I'm rather wary of reports that people heard him shouting "Allahu Akbar" during the shooting--it seems like exactly the sort of thing people would remember about a Muslim-looking shooter whether it actually happened or not.) Time will tell, hopefully. I think it's good that he survived: a trial might help clear the air.

albatross @ 67: "This is a premise that the whole singularity idea breaks--if you really think that the things running the planet in 2050 will be fundamentally different from humans, and the world will be unrecognizably different, then you can't write stories in that world."

Another example is of someone trying to deal with this problem is Accelerando. The action stays focused on the recognizably human characters even when they've been reduced to a tiny fraction of the jungle humanity has become.

Mark Walsh @ 75: "It explores changes that will come whether we want them or not, and dares us to react to them."

I think that's exactly what sf is about--exploring the relationships between our technology, our society, and our psychology. They all condition each other, and I think a large chunk of sf is exploring how the other two change when the first changes. (In this model, fantasy is about exploring what happens to all three when nature itself is altered.)

Wesley @ 79: "Now I'm wondering if all that time I've spent reading science fiction, with its utterly alternate cultures, is the reason I can get into Dickens, and other nineteenth-century novelists, so easily."

I think that's exactly why.

Allan Beatty @ 85: "Ob-XKCD."

Ob-Dresden Codak.

Jacque @ 512: "So am I wrong about Hitch? Did I not look carefully enough?"

I really liked Hitch for the same reasons you did, right up until the final scene. The female lead is running off and Hitch chases her around abasing himself for the grand sin of..what? Being mistaken for a pickup artist? The female lead is totally wrong about him and what he does, and then he has to apologize for it? The message I take from that is "Guys! It doesn't matter if she's wrong/crazy! Apologize anyway!" This implies that women are all just irrational, and that the only way for men to have a relationship with them is to patronize them like you would a pouty child. It's hard to decide who's getting the worse end of that deal.

Mentally I edit out the last five minutes, and just assume that Hitch and Sara went their separate ways. It makes for a much more satisfying ending: you still get Albert and Allegra being adorably dorky without the ARGH of the Hitch/Sara relationship.

As it seems a certain other thread will not re-open, I'd just like to say to Liza:

No, thank you--in those situations it's hard not to feel like I'm the one taking the crazy pills, and hearing that I'm not the only person with that reaction is a huge, huge relief. So thanks.

Comment statistics for Heresiarch on the Making Light blog

Total: 1404 comments. View all these comments on a single page. (May take quite a while to load.)