The PPC Posting Board - Latest posts

As someone who doesn't read comics that much, I know about Batwoman (... obviously), and Bobby Drake over in Marvel. I also know about Apollo and the Midnighter, but they're old now. And DC's Bombshells series had a lot of this. And the Marvel Star Wars comics have the delightful Doctor Aphra... anyway. My point is that other than Kate and Bobby, those examples are all fairly niche, so probably aren't what you're thinking of. So what are you thinking of?

(Oh, and Wonder Woman. But that's never been explicitly canonised.)

hS

... I thought you were talking about a combined Robot Wars/Red Dwarf series. But this is almost as good. ;)

Now I'm gonna threadjack my own thread:

Putting 'TERF' into Google takes me to this wiki, which defines it as 'Trans-Exclusionary Radical Feminist'. It clarifies that as meaning 'feminism which excludes trans people'; it doesn't seem to say where the 'radical' part comes in, so I'm just gonna assume it means they have unfilled (but neutral) outer electron shells and leave it at that.

Then it says this:

Their position (which is not shared by this wiki) denies that trans people's self-affirmed genders and sexes are equally valid as cis people's self-affirmed genders and sexes. (Bold added by me.)

So, then. My understanding is that 'sex' is a biological term; it can either indicate the nature of your primary sexual characteristics, or your chromosomes (these often match). It's not strictly a binary affair, but it comes pretty close. Does transitioning sex therefore imply surgery? Or is a change in secondary sexual characteristics (which includes things like body hair, I think) considered a change of sex? (Or is this a 'depends who you talk to' question?)

Then we come to gender, which is... what? A collection of traits traditionally culturally associated with a sex, and restrictions/requirements connected to them? It's obvious that being female-gendered rather than male-gendered (or vice versa) is a big deal for many people (this is what we call 'understatement'), but I'm... not clear why? The way people have talked about it here, they don't seem to be focussed on how they're viewed/treated by others (ie, it doesn't seem to be a result of variations on 'I'm fed up of the anti-female slant of society and would rather escape it by identifying as male'), but then... what?

I guess the question I'm asking in this part is: what is the difference between the genders 'male' and 'female', other than that other people have different prejudices assigned to the two terms?

Where the above includes misunderstandings or misinterpretations, please correct them. :) That's how we learn.

hS

I don't think its anything specific about Gotham in particular, but it is a growing trend in comics at large.

We now have confirmed airdates for the new series of Robot Wars and Red Dwarf: the 22nd and 12th of October respectively. So that's fun!

Also, in rather substantially less fun news, Northern Irish YouTube content creator and former ChezApocalypse person Jill Bearup (who mentioned us in a long series about the history of fanfiction) was someone I respected considerably. I say was because she went full TERF recently, comparing - and I swear I'm not making this up - wanting to transition to wanting to eat chocolate cake for every meal. Now, when she brought us up in History Of Fanfiction Part 6: I Love You, Mary Sue, she said a lot of what we'd done over the years came off as "mean".

I'm not saying there's a correlation between bad feminism and Mary Sue defenders.

I'm just heavily implying it, because that's what I think.

Been trying to cobble together a Commander deck for a while, but other than that I'm not sure if I want to get into other formats.

Aaaaand we're back. I've actually paid attention to the news this week, so you get rather an excessive number of items -- yay? (As usual, the images are not important parts of the post - they're just here to add a bit of colour.)

Please remember that, when it comes to the state of the world, not everyone will agree with you. You're free to state, discuss, and defend your viewpoint (provided it does not violate the Constitution), but please don't use that fact to attack others.

Fandom News


(Link)

It's here! For the first time in over a decade, there is a new Star Trek series on TV. Star Trek: Discovery has launched. If you're anywhere other than the US, you can probably get it on Netflix; in the US, you're supposed to buy into CBS All Access, which sounds like a great way to waste money.

Kaitlyn and I watched the first two episodes, and will be watching the third. The first episode feels more Wars than Trek, but the second episode gets a bit more into the groove. It's no spoiler to say that the show taps into the long and honourable school of psychopathic Vulcans - the 'shoot first, never ask questions because logic dictates that it was the right thing to do' style exemplified by Voyager's Tuvok is alive and well here. Also there are Klingons (and long speeches in Klingon, which are unfortunately delivered... like... ShatNER is... speaKING... hey, I never said it was perfect).

The linked article does a good job of covering the controversy that's surrounded the series even before it launched.

Silly News


(Generation Z & Prince Harry)

Recently, BBC TV show Newsbeat had Ipsos Mori carry out a poll about Generation Z. That's the post-Millennial generation, apparently, or anyone born between 1994 and 2001; probably quite a lot of the Board, actually.

You can read the article or look at the survey yourself, but the most interesting fact to me was the question on sexual orientation. Generation Z reported only 66% 'only attracted to the opposite sex', while the older generations (Millennial/Y, X, and Baby Boom) came in at 71%, 85%, and 88%. Most of the difference seems to be down to a breaking of the binary 'straight/gay' definition: 26% of Generation Z reported that they were either equally attracted to both sexes (9%), or 'mostly' (rather than 'only') to the opposite (9%) or same (3%). By contrast, Generation X only has 6% on 'mostly the opposite sex', and only 2% 'equally'.

Given that we don't actually live in a world where people are either made of muscles or breasts, and which one it is determines everything about them, this seems like a good thing to me.

Meanwhile, over in Canada, a toddler decided that Prince Harry's popcorn looked delicious. So she stole it. Repeatedly.

Harry, who is currently fifth in line to the throne of the United Kingdom, took it very well. Because apparently being in the news for dressing up as a Nazi a few years back made him realise that yes, people are watching?

Serious News


(The Moon & Mars)

NASA has announced that they will be partnering with the Russian space agency Roscosmos to build a space station in lunar orbit, to be used as a staging ground for deep space missions. There doesn't seem to be a timeline yet, but hey! That's exciting.

Closer to home, but with a much longer timescale, Dubai/the UAE has announced their plan to build a simulated Mars city, to test out the science behind a completely contained city. This is part of their plan to build a 600,000-person city on Mars itself by 2117, which seems... ambitious. Still, running a full-scale trial in a desert is probably a good place to start.

Not News


(Link)

This week, I found out that Batwoman - Kate Kane - is gay. This will get one of two reactions:

1/ "Who's Batwoman?" To which the answer is, she's an actually pretty awesome character in the current range of Batman/Bat-family comics. I'm not 100% on the state of play in Gotham, but she's definitely playing a major role.

2/ "Well, obviously. That's an integral part of her character." Well, I can't speak to that, but a week ago I was very nearly in answer #1 myself. So hey! Cool stuff.

Interestingly, I seem to recall hearing that Harley Quinn and Poison Ivy have a bit of an on-again/off-again/villainous-again relationship going on, so... is there something about Gotham that attracts lesbians?

hS

So guess what fandom I'm doing?

Also, because I'm an especial jerk, below are two real badfic excerpts, one made up by me, and one passage from Stephen King's actual It novel. Make your guess!
-----
1. He stared at you for a moment, smile fading.

“What? I thought we were having fun?”

“You made me fall! My [butt] is wet now! I told you to be gentle if we did this.”

Pennywise frowned then, extending a hand to you which you accepted. He pulled you to your feet. He brushed your wild hair out of your face, cupping your cheeks with one gigantic hand.
-----
2. He felt as if someone had whopped all the breath out of him . . . and then he heard that sound again, that sound that was half pressure on the skin and eardrums, that keen homicidal whispering rush—Swiipppp! He rolled off the bench onto the gravel, thinking So this is what they mean by déja-vu, now you know, you'll never have to ask anybody again—

He hit on his shoulder and rolled, looking up at the Paul Bunyan statue—only it was no longer Paul Bunyan. The clown stood there instead, resplendent and evident, fantastic in plastic, twenty feet of Day-Glo colors, its painted face surmounting a cosmic comic ruff. Orange pompom buttons cast in plastic, each as big as a volleyball, ran down the front of the silvery suit. Instead of an axe it held a huge bunch of plastic balloons. Engraved on each were two legends: IT'S STILL ROCK AND ROLL TO ME and RICHIE TOZIER'S "ALL DEAD" ROCK SHOW.

He scrambled backward, using his heels and his palms. Gravel went down the back of his pants. He heard a seam tear loose in the underarm of his Rodeo Drive sportcoat. He rolled over, gained his feet, staggered, looked back. The clown looked down at him. Its eyes rolled wetly in their sockets.

"Did I give you a scare, m'man?" it rumbled.
-----
3. It had learned, early on, that adults were more difficult to feed on.

Mind, there were no limits on what It could do. Rather than limiting, being in a space with only three dimensions essentially gave It endless room for change: manipulation, transformation, even rewritng the minds and memories of Its prey.

So while It was certainly capapble of transforming into, say, the fear of looming bills or the threat of divorce, there was something so much more visceral about the more overt fears of children.

If nothing else, the forms of childrens' fears made it easier to retain teeth.
-----
4. But The Bat didn't get far as something grabbed him from behind and threw him back into the open spot where he crashed. Batman jumped and threw several batwings at a wide angle but his enemy was nowhere to be seen.

"I/we waited so long for you, Bat-Man...Man-Bat...I/we expected more from you. You used to be such a worthy opponent.", mocked The Joker from the dark.

"Pennywise! Joker! Show yourself!", Batman shouted as he tensed up, ready for the attack.

—doctorlit is his own Loser's Club

I guess it was a little *too* obvious.

...hmm. I know #2 is real, because you mentioned that fic already. So that leaves #1 and #3. #1 feels a bit a more Ix-y, but #3 feels a bit more deliberately bad.

I'll go for my instincts: #1.

1) "Yes, its true." I said looking away in embarrassment. "I am The Lost Olympian."

Annabeth gasped "But that's impossible! Selene disappeared over ten thousand years ago and your only sixteen! And Percy's sister!"

"I was reborn as Percy's sister" I said softly. "I needed to fulfil the Prophecy." I recited:

Daughter of Moon and Daughter of Night
Comes into the world a mortal to fight
With Sea and Wit she sails alone
Until one day she comes back home

"I didn't know about it until now" I said. "Please don't hate me."

Annabeth hugged me. "I could never hate you."

2) "There must be some mistake, my Lady would never have a child, let alone a son" snapped the girl who had been talking to Chiron.

"There is no mistake, Ms Nightshade, the symbol was Artemis claiming her child, I was informed earlier today that Percy was her son" corrected Chiron as he came over just in case she attacked him in some way.

3) My name is Penny Jackson,daughter of Poseidon. And I'm immortal.

Wanna know how? After the defeat of Kronos,the gods offered immortality to Percy,but he refused for Annabeth. Cute right? So they gave the immortality to me. It has upsides,and downsides.

The good thing is I won't die. But turns out,it's actually possible for immortals to die,and since I'm just a junior or whatever,my immortality isn't that strong. So,it's kinda like the Hunters of Artemis thing. If I don't get hurt,I'll be fine.

Correct.

It happened a bit ago, but what with the faffery and this and that and such. But, yes! I am officially out of school! When I recently joined a gym there was brief consideration of making me pay heaps for it, because I was technically not a student! What! What?!
But, yes, there it is.

Huzzah!

I think number one is the fake. The Sue description is too on-the-nose, and "hexing" seems too specific a verb for the average write to use.

The other two I can too easily picture as being legit.

—doctorlit, probably wrong though

Nesh and I did that for Oath of the Gatewatch.

I imagine you play other formats. What's your favorite? I like draft, but I'll play anything and everything. I'm also pretty big into the lore, if that is a thing that interests you.

-Phobos

Was playing 2-Headed-Giant (basically 2v2 games) with a friend. Some notable moments:
*Way too many jokes about getting Arcane Adaptation for all of our rares.
*We both ended up pulling Deadeye Tracker for our prerelease cards.
*I opened a Vraska and an Axis of Immortality. My friend didn't pull any mythics.
*We won our first game by dealing 10 points of damage with a tag-team Bishop of the Bloodstained and an Unfriendly Fire.
*We lost our next two games pretty badly. I blame lukewarm draws.
*We got a bye on our last game, so we ended up "playing" against another team that got a bye. We were all sleep-deprived at that point, so you can imagine how that went.
*Trying to figure out how to split the cards we opened. While we were tired. Fun times.

1) I didn't know what to think. Both Draco and Harry wanted me? But I was just an ordinary, plain girl with long, flowing black hair and silver eyes. Why was I so special that the hottest boys in school were about to start hexing each other over me?

2) "Are you going to believe me without Veritaserum?"

"We'll see. Start talking."

"Okay, well first off, I really am Harry Potter…but I'm not four years old. I'm actually seventeen. When I was one year old…"

3) I was so happy with my new job. My father wasn't as pleased as I, probably because he rather see me working at the Ministry of Magic than Hogwarts but I didn't care which one were more important. I only had space in my heart for one place and it was the school of magic. Also, Albus Dumbledore came to my house in London personally to offer the job. Who - in their right mind - would refuse such an invitation? Think I said yes with my mouth fulled of my mother's (delicious!) toasts with smoked salmon when the director asked me during brunch - he didn't seem to mind my behavior and noticed how grateful I was. Since the day he visit 'til the day I had to leave home the anxiety took over me completly. I was eating like a pig with pms, even chocolat started to taste like water after a while - and I couldn't hear that word anymore or I would vomite. When I had everything with me I was ready to go take the train. My father, one grumpy slytherin, kissed my forehead. My mother, a lovely gryffindor, hugged me until there was no more oxigen in my lungs.

Seriously, it looks familiar. Strange.

~Z

Also, hello again!

The third one honestly sounds familiar. What's it from?

~Z