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biracial bear for uncut posted:It's literally against current forum rules to get into any political arguments or specific "hot-button" discussion issues outside of specific threads in GBS, D&D and CSPAM (and some associated threads in The Minority Rapport). You know what breaks my heart? That we even need those rules in the first place... I mean, yeah, healthy debate, but I would have hoped some things were common sense But here we are
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May 28, 2020 15:24
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I don't think anybody thinks he is a villain out there in a hood burning crosses on people's lawns, racism is usually more insidious than that and he comes off like every "I can't be bigoted I'm so smart and logical " guy ever just from reading Dresden Files/Dresden connected social media and interviews, his social media posting on this issue reinforces the notion. I see no reason to give anybody uncritically carrying water for racist poo poo the benefit of the doubt nowadays; anyway it looks like from his FB posting earlier today he might be listening which is heartening so hopefully he can recognize how lovely he was there. Hub Cat fucked around with this message at 15:50 on May 28, 2020 |
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May 28, 2020 15:39
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Really feeling dumb now for all the times I defended Jim as being conservative-leaning but generally OK and just kind of clueless. Kind of makes me want to take a second look at some of the goofs he's done over the years in his book, like making that one neighborhood in Chicago a hellscape slum.
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May 28, 2020 16:03
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Welp guess Butcher is another artist to be thrown onto the 'can my privileged self enjoy the work while distancing myself from the author's awfulness' pile.
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May 28, 2020 16:51
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Of all the unsubstantiated claims out there on the Internets, the proposition that urban fantasy authors are artists might be the most outlandish Okay maybe Butcher when he's on form in Changes
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May 28, 2020 17:01
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Novels are absolutely art. Artists can be lovely people. These are not mutually exclusive
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May 28, 2020 17:02
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I very rarely get the sense that Butcher is actively trying to be on the wrong side of social issues. Instead, he strikes me as a child of privilege, even if he doesn't know it. He's got the privilege of being white and male with a profession that allows him to work at his own pace. He's from a strongly conservative area of the country, where he's benefited for his entire life from systemic issues that elevate him and oppress others. He's a child of that system. This all strikes home for me, because frankly, that's me, too. I am a child of that same system. All of his gaffes, such as writing that "I'm totally OK with The Gays" thing, mirror, almost exactly, the same sort of journey that I went through in my 20s and many of my peers are still going through. It's not easy to see the flaws in a system that benefit you, and when you do see them, it's easy to downplay them because you view them through the lens of your own, privileged experience. If Butcher were a better author, I'd think that his assorted authorial biases were calculated, that it was Harry Dresden being a goon, not Butcher himself. That's not the case; you can see it outside of his work. Butcher is right there, peering through that distorted lens of privilege. He clearly is aware of a variety of social issues, having seen them through the distortion. The question is if he's introspective enough, if he cares enough, to peer through the distorted lens of his own privilege to realize that he is part of the problem, if only by passively enabling the active harm caused by the system. I don't know if he'll ever gain the insight to truly be "woke" on his own. I honestly expect he'll continue to blindly stab at the issues, trying to land a point he feels is right but doesn't understand enough to make, unless someone with greater insight breaks through to him. For myself, I tend to want to encourage people like Butcher to be better. Even if he's failing, even if he clearly comes from a place of privilege, from a system that benefits him over others, from a system he barely seems to comprehend...despite all that, he's tried to do right. I want to have him try again, and again, until he gets it right. It's the hard path, as it's much easier to tear down someone who blunders about, stabbing wildly at barely-glimpsed ghosts they don't fully comprehend.
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May 28, 2020 17:16
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Teach your privileged children that in nearly every case in history, the status quo was wrong and in the way of progress. Then point out that this is still the case.
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May 28, 2020 17:23
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ConfusedUs, the problem I run into with that stance is that Jim Butcher is a grown man. That's not a likely age for people to re-examine their beliefs. Then I remember that Dresden Files is still the face of an entire subgenre and ughhh
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May 28, 2020 17:26
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I would like to move that N.K. Jemisin's The City We Became be made the new face of Urban Fantasy and we promote the poo poo out of it. Because it beats the poo poo out of every other book this thread had discussed so far, IMO.
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May 28, 2020 17:31
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biracial bear for uncut posted:I would like to move that N.K. Jemisin's The City We Became be made the new face of Urban Fantasy and we promote the poo poo out of it. Should I mentally prepare for sadness like with her Broken Earth trilogy or is it more of a fun read?
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May 28, 2020 17:44
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I mean, there is this really good review that doesn't spoil too much. https://www.npr.org/2020/03/25/820833531/new-york-comes-alive-literally-in-the-city-we-became
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May 28, 2020 17:47
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Xtanstic posted:Should I mentally prepare for sadness like with her Broken Earth trilogy or is it more of a fun read? It's book one of a trilogy, definite sad points but all in all a rollicking good time.
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May 28, 2020 19:13
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ConfusedUs posted:I very rarely get the sense that Butcher is actively trying to be on the wrong side of social issues. Instead, he strikes me as a child of privilege, even if he doesn't know it. He's got the privilege of being white and male with a profession that allows him to work at his own pace. He's from a strongly conservative area of the country, where he's benefited for his entire life from systemic issues that elevate him and oppress others. He's a child of that system. Where’s he from? I assumed he was Chicago-based, which is a fairly progressive, and very diversely cultured city.
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May 28, 2020 19:43
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The_Doctor posted:Where’s he from? I assumed he was Chicago-based, which is a fairly progressive, and very diversely cultured city. Based on what's in his books there is no way he's from Chicago.
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May 28, 2020 19:44
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The_Doctor posted:Where’s he from? I assumed he was Chicago-based, which is a fairly progressive, and very diversely cultured city. No, he wrote in Chicago because his creative writing teacher told him to pick a populated urban area and even in 2001 NYC and London were played out as hell. He's from Independence Missouri and still lives somewhere near there.
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May 28, 2020 19:45
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Welp. Guess I'm not bothering with the new Dresden books then. Jesus Christ.
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May 28, 2020 19:50
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Zore posted:No, he wrote in Chicago because his creative writing teacher told him to pick a populated urban area and even in 2001 NYC and London were played out as hell. And originally it was going to be St. Louis, but his friends told him that he was already ripping off Anita Blake left and right and he would catch all kinds of flak for that. So he basically just cut and pasted some neighborhood names and called it Chicago.
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May 28, 2020 20:02
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That explains a lot, then. I’ve only read Storm Front, and it was mostly fine from what I remember. I picked it up because Chicago is one of my favourite cities, and I do recall feeling that it was all very generic for such an iconic city.
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May 28, 2020 20:53
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The_Doctor posted:That explains a lot, then. I’ve only read Storm Front, and it was mostly fine from what I remember. I picked it up because Chicago is one of my favourite cities, and I do recall feeling that it was all very generic for such an iconic city. Later books have some really glaring errors if you know anything about Chicago. Harry has a running fight with a Troll in a massive parking lot outside Wrigley Field for instance.
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May 28, 2020 21:31
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Zore posted:Later books have some really glaring errors if you know anything about Chicago. Harry has a running fight with a Troll in a massive parking lot outside Wrigley Field for instance. Yes, Jim Butcher is a lazy, lazy writer. Which is why ConfusedUs hit it on the head when noting that you could forgive some things if the author were just writing about a socially awkward individual, but he's not, it's just a taller, wizard version of Jim Butcher because he can't do anything else. I'm not making an active decision about not reading more of his stuff, but I haven't pre-ordered Peace Talks, and I am completely uninterested in where the series is right now. I'll wait and read a synopsis/spoilers and see how this thread reacts.
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May 28, 2020 21:52
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I mean, it's pretty obvious that the thread will react poorly. The whole forum reacts poorly to almost anything that comes out. That's the nature of fandom these days. There's some outliers, like almost everyone in this thread loves the Rivers of London series but I can't see how this thread, which has spent 300+ talking about how much the author sucks, would all of a sudden be like "this book is great!"
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May 28, 2020 22:09
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Daric posted:I mean, it's pretty obvious that the thread will react poorly. The whole forum reacts poorly to almost anything that comes out. That's the nature of fandom these days. There's some outliers, like almost everyone in this thread loves the Rivers of London series but I can't see how this thread, which has spent 300+ talking about how much the author sucks, would all of a sudden be like "this book is great!" Not sure that's true. The series is well regarded, with noted pitfalls and acknowledgment that the author is not a great writer. I like the series, and wish he'd stayed away from "there's an over-arching story/conspiracy that links EVERYTHING" because that's both unnecessary and weak as hell. But, I still like books 3-Proven Guilty.
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May 28, 2020 22:15
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Daric posted:I mean, it's pretty obvious that the thread will react poorly. The whole forum reacts poorly to almost anything that comes out. That's the nature of fandom these days. There's some outliers, like almost everyone in this thread loves the Rivers of London series but I can't see how this thread, which has spent 300+ talking about how much the author sucks, would all of a sudden be like "this book is great!" Fandom is like that because media sucks these days. Most of the things being churned out are poo poo or soulless cash grabs, and sometimes you get Lucas-esque monstrosities where it turns out that they had all their good ideas in the first installment and every sequel is progressively worse. also lol that butcher is a covid truther
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May 28, 2020 22:58
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biracial bear for uncut posted:I would like to move that N.K. Jemisin's The City We Became be made the new face of Urban Fantasy and we promote the poo poo out of it. gently caress Jim Butcher, has anybody else read this book yet?
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May 28, 2020 23:06
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biracial bear for uncut posted:gently caress Jim Butcher, has anybody else read this book yet? yeah it was fine. Pretty cool plotting/setting especially the choice for the antagonist, extremely heavy-handed with its characters, the intensity of the grounded-ness in NYC was sometimes cool and sometimes distracting (as someone who doesn't know the city). I thought it was okay and I'll see what the thread's reactions are before buying part two
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May 28, 2020 23:17
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Daric posted:I mean, it's pretty obvious that the thread will react poorly. The whole forum reacts poorly to almost anything that comes out. That's the nature of fandom these days. There's some outliers, like almost everyone in this thread loves the Rivers of London series but I can't see how this thread, which has spent 300+ talking about how much the author sucks, would all of a sudden be like "this book is great!"
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May 29, 2020 01:22
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Up Circle posted:Fandom is like that because media sucks these days. Most of the things being churned out are poo poo or soulless cash grabs, and sometimes you get Lucas-esque monstrosities where it turns out that they had all their good ideas in the first installment and every sequel is progressively worse. Nah. Media these days is just fine. The people who make bitter rants about how everything sucks tend to think everything sucks because they refuse to interact with anything that it's a blockbuster movie or a well-known series. There are countless wonderful books being made, television is in an extremely strong place, there are excellent indie movies and video games, and in general there's plenty of reason to be positive about media. Likewise trying to pretend like older media didn't have tons of stupid or disposable poo poo ignores the fact that the majority of what we remember or pay attention to these days were the significant or noteworthy ones that stood the test of time or were considered worth preserving. It wasn't that 'old' stuff was inherently better.
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May 29, 2020 02:34
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Daric posted:I mean, it's pretty obvious that the thread will react poorly. The whole forum reacts poorly to almost anything that comes out. That's the nature of fandom these days. There's some outliers, like almost everyone in this thread loves the Rivers of London series but I can't see how this thread, which has spent 300+ talking about how much the author sucks, would all of a sudden be like "this book is great!" You sure about this, chief? Like, every time I talk about how much I don't like Dresden Files a large part of the thread defends the books. So it's got it's fair share of people who love the books. Chances are they'll be regarded extremely fondly by the thread. Even if Butcher is an idiot. EDIT: Note that this is no criticism of those people. You like what you like, and there's nothing wrong with liking something that I don't.
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May 30, 2020 04:53
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Zore posted:Later books have some really glaring errors if you know anything about Chicago. Harry has a running fight with a Troll in a massive parking lot outside Wrigley Field for instance. There are those who take the adage "write what you know" to heart and those who choose to be more... "creative." It's weird that I probably should've caught that due to GMing a campaign in Chicago (using Chicago-by-Night from Vampire: The Masquerade in the 90s) but nope, never spotted it. Screw it, it's a different world full of monsters, demons and vampires that even creepier than normal, in that very alternate universe, Wrigley Field has a big-rear end parking lot. As for the China thing from my limited understanding of it, you have a culture that places a high emphasis on avoiding/preventing shame coupled with an oppressive regime. That doesn't bode super-well for open/honest communication. I will say that the Chinese government is very different from the actual Chinese people and that criticizing that government is not the same as criticizing the people. Otherwise that means that those GOP BSers are actually right when they say stuff like "criticizing Trump means that you're a bigot toward Americans." And I really don't want those chodes to be considered correct. Especially about crap like that.
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May 30, 2020 16:10
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 I haven't really gone through the graphic novel adaptations much, mostly due to the varying quality, but I do like the way this one handles Murphy and Molly Makes me wonder if Netflix might ever pick DF up for an animated treatment
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May 31, 2020 02:04
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tentacles posted:
I hope not. Jim Butcher doesn't need a single cent more to go to his crazy conspiracy theory rear end.
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May 31, 2020 02:06
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ImpAtom posted:
I'd be fine with a Dresden animated series, especially if they got Paul Blackthorne to voice Dresden. I don't think COVID-19 was some Evil Yellow Peril Scheme, but I have zero trouble believing that the Chinese government botched the detection and response on multiple levels and engaged in denial and cover-ups to dodge blame and shield their own asses.
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Jun 1, 2020 15:52
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Everyone posted:I don't think COVID-19 was some Evil Yellow Peril Scheme, but I have zero trouble believing that the Chinese government botched the detection and response on multiple levels and engaged in denial and cover-ups to dodge blame and shield their own asses. I mean, that's literally exactly what the United States and most European countries also did, so....
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Jun 1, 2020 16:13
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Old Kentucky Shark posted:I mean, that's literally exactly what the United States and most European countries also did, so.... To add to this: I've been looking at Sweden's numbers. Right now, despite having tested 40,000 more people than Oklahoma has, they have nearly 6x more cases than Oklahoma, over ten times as many deaths, and ~14x as many active cases. And Bull Stitt isn't even a particularly effective governor. (There's no good reason for me to have picked Oklahoma, other than that I have it bookmarked on https://ncov2019.live/.)
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Jun 1, 2020 16:49
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Aerdan posted:To add to this: I've been looking at Sweden's numbers. Right now, despite having tested 40,000 more people than Oklahoma has, they have nearly 6x more cases than Oklahoma, over ten times as many deaths, and ~14x as many active cases. And Bull Stitt isn't even a particularly effective governor. Isn't Sweden one of the countries that literally didn't close anything and was trying to handle it via "herd immunity"? I.e. get everyone sick and let it run the course?
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Jun 1, 2020 21:24
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Old Kentucky Shark posted:I mean, that's literally exactly what the United States and most European countries also did, so.... But looking at the response in florida or georgia it seems likely you'd have had a similar response if the virus popped up there so  RosaParksOfDip posted:Isn't Sweden one of the countries that literally didn't close anything and was trying to handle it via "herd immunity"? I.e. get everyone sick and let it run the course?
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Jun 1, 2020 21:37
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The extra fun part of the plan is they did that without any evidence that you will be immune to covid after contracting it and hopefully not dying.
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Jun 1, 2020 22:07
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So I listened to that I Don't Even Own A Television podcast on the Dresden Files first book and man I was disappointed. It was like an hour and forty minutes long and the podcast spent roughly 20 minutes talking about the book and about an hour and twenty minutes rambling and rambling about completely unrelated things. If I hadn't read the book I wouldn't even have the slightest clue what happened in the books. I guess you can't really do a deep dive on a book with a single hour and 40 minute episode but there really wasn't a dive at all. It was a shame.
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Jun 2, 2020 03:14
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awesmoe posted:The difference (from a "global response" pov, rather than a local one) is that the communication from the first country to have an outbreak massively affects the ability of all other countries to respond. They also just handled it objectively really badly, initially - see eg here Am I wrong to hope that all this ends up in the next Lisbeth Salander book? The Girl Who Died of COVID (Because her government was made of morons) perhaps?
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Jun 2, 2020 03:50
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