Another day in the set

[silveradept]

Rained out again. Somehow, that seems to be the luck of the draw this season. Lots of rainouts.

Something many people knew... in my opinion, it only makes it ironic that he was cast for Sephiroth's voice. Lance Bass likes boys. And it's all over the newsspace. Probably a distracting thing to keep people away from bigger issues.

Altercation with Scientology adherent leads to "Warning" posters appearing. Very suspicious. If they are, indeed misdemeanors, then it's not something to be overly worried about, and certainly not worth the expense of flyers. Makes me wonder just who's trying to put on who.

The Journal of 9/11 Studies is on-line. Even through threats, apparently, some have decided to publish. Go have a look and see if it's conspiracy-theory nonsense or solid science.

A xombie pub crawl ends up in arrests for suspected WMDs. So the shuffling, and calling out "Braaaaains" somehow didn't work? Getting tough these days to do anything that's creative or outside-the-box without someone trying to arrest or censor you for it.

An era is finishing - namely, Monopoly is switching over to a plastic card system and abandoning the cash. This probably won't make Monopoly a better game to play, or any shorter, but what it will do is add more calculators, batteries, and other such to the game. More parts to break, and less math to be done in the head.

Additional stuff and trying-to-make-sense: Today, although the source material has since vanish't into the ether (well, not the original source, which I suspect still exists, but the source that brought it to my attention), I got to thinking about malicious usage of characters and the expanses to which some people may go to make attacks. It's sort of the "Calvin pissing on X" situation. Watterson would definitely not approve of anything like that, yet it's ubiquitous enough that I'm sure most people recognize the image I'm talking about. How much of an image like that is created in "good fun" or parody sorts of material and how much of it is malice, taking the beautiful art and spraying it with graffiti, to attack the person, and how much of it is pure fuckery, defacing it because it's there and people will get a rise out of it. It happened to someone who could pass as this generation's Watterson, taking a relatively recently formed avatar and placing it in a very NC-17 rated scene. It felt like an attack, although there were some dinks who said it was "just Internet, stop paying attention and it'll go away" and others who said "these people will do these things, deal with it." Insensitive remarks, both of them, and their utterers received a just and fitting reward for them. Someone else attempted to post the image in question. Said posts were removed. Admittedly, the person who was affected by all this didn't really want to have such things brought to their attention, but once done, it had an effect on them.

So does pr0nifying a charcter count as a parody/fair use thing? Is it always intentionally malicious (discarding the cases where the original author welcomes pr0nification) toward the creator, or is it more of the second sort that's just lashing out for attention? What to do about such things? Do we just chalk it up to Internet-Beta and try not to let it affect us? Or something else?

I guess what I don't really understand the most is why such an idea would come to someone's mind, and then, secondly, why it would be acted upon, and finally, posted for the world and the original author to see, likely with the "See what I did!" sort of pride.

Anyway, g'night. There will likely be something else to talk about tomorrow.

Comments

[woodburner.livejournal.com]

wait. Lance Bass was cast for SEPHIROTH?! WTFFFFFF?!!!!

[jokermage.livejournal.com]

An era is finishing - namely, Monopoly is switching over to a plastic card system and abandoning the cash. This probably won't make Monopoly a better game to play, or any shorter, but what it will do is add more calculators, batteries, and other such to the game. More parts to break, and less math to be done in the head.

You beat me to it!

[laundreu.livejournal.com]

With regards to pr0nification...

I'd call it fair use. If humor, often at the expense of the subject being parodied, is protected, I can't see why titillation shouldn't be, Silver. Most people drawing Disney porn or whatever aren't doing out of some 'FUCK DISNEY' idea, they're drawing it because for whatever reason they get a rise out of character X.

[brynnmyrddin.livejournal.com]

That was my first reaction. I don't know if it's just an oddity of that one photo, but he looks like Ellen DeGeneres there o_O.

[silveradept]

In the original game, where he didn't have to do much more that shout attack names and the various grunts of the game. In the second game, where there's more speech, it's not him.

[silveradept]

That part I agree with. I just wonder where the line is between humor, which is protected, and malice, which may or may not be, is.

[annaonthemoon.livejournal.com]

The mononopoly thing really annoys me, but the good news is they will be selling both versions, so perhaps I don't have to shake the dust off my dad's version from the 50's.

The Calvin peeing on X thing has alawys annoyed me. Calvin is supposed to be a cute, adorable, chilren's character and not an evil, malicious bastard. It was actually kind of funny - I was talking to a Penn Stater who happened to see my car now with the M block next to the PSU Alum sticker and suggested I get "that little boy peeing" to go with the M...they had no idea it was Calvin, and once I told them they were shocked that such an innocent character gets portrayted in that way.

I also recal a trip to DC when I was in 7th grade and a T-shirt we saw that had Calvin on the front and some kind of mean phrase on it, but Ican't recall what exactly it said.

It's kind of like the sexy-ifiyng of Tinkerbell or the nasty-fiying of Tweety Bird. I think it's highly innapropriate, and sends kids the wrong messages. Even Harry Potter "fan art" that's NC-17 annoys me, as well as a good portion of the fan fiction that's out there without restrictions on who is allowed to read it. At least places like the restricted section force you to create a log in that verifies your age (we won't get into how you can lie about that).

I don't think it's malicious in most cases. Innapropriate, yes, but malicious? Probably not. Most of the time I'm sure it's the second artist just not thinking that their image could be offensive and is more of a "look! i like your stuff! this si what i did!"

Oh, and Lance is gay? Haven't we known that since....1998 or so?

[annaonthemoon.livejournal.com]

but...it's DISNEY! What if a child stumbles on it? Heck, I've seen T-shirts for kids at least with the image of sexy!Tinkerbell, which really annoys me. How appropriate is it for a child to walk around wearing that kind of image?

[silveradept]

There's a lot of it that's like that. As I said to Laun above, though, where's the line between using a character for a new purpose, that may or may not be in line with the original casting, and using a character in a hurting, spiteful, or otherwise truly malicious way?

[annaonthemoon.livejournal.com]

The thing is, why would anyone draw a character they don't like? I would think you wouldn't draw something you liked in a hurting or malicious way, and really, why waste your time drawing someting you dislike?

One of the reasons I left the FMA community was largely because of the sudden surge of NC-17 related stories and drawings that I found to be incredibly innapropriate...heck, oneo f my freinds wrote ZOO FICTION about the characters...but if you asked any of them, they all thought they were doing something OK.

[annaonthemoon.livejournal.com]

I would have to say that's the kind of line that can't really be definied, unless you know the reason behind the "parody".

[silveradept]

If you think you'll get better admiration for an attack on someone you don't like, then people probably will do a lot of drawing of things they don't like. Witness the business of editorial cartoons.

[annaonthemoon.livejournal.com]

Hmmm. true, i didn't think of that. And that's certainitly in most cases meant to be malicious.

[sharpsight.livejournal.com]

N) ...Kingdom Hearts, I take it, not Final Fantasy?

[sharpsight.livejournal.com]

N) Since you can't tell someone's intentions, better just to allow all to say and share whatever they want, instead of near-arbitrarily clamping down on--censoring, basically--things which offend.

Once you expose a concept to others, it's not surprising that they'll then turn it to their own ends, bad or good. Trying to keep control of something even after you've let it loose, however, is very tricky indeed.

[sharpsight.livejournal.com]

N) It's not a matter of appropriateness. It's a matter of choice.

[sharpsight.livejournal.com]

N) 'I think it's highly innapropriate, and sends kids the wrong messages. Even Harry Potter "fan art" that's NC-17 annoys me, as well as a good portion of the fan fiction that's out there without restrictions on who is allowed to read it. At least places like the restricted section force you to create a log in that verifies your age (we won't get into how you can lie about that).'

If one person is willing to write a thing, and another person is willing to read that thing, how can interference in this process of supply and demand be justified?

*bristles at all hints at a central authority of some sort assuming itself superior to the individual judgement of the people whose lives it's restricting, for whichever flawed justification*

[silveradept]

Yes. Lance Bass was cast for Sephiroth in the original Kingdom Hearts.

[silveradept]

Especially on the Internet, where it's pretty easy to plagarize and not be called on it. Or to do your thing and not have it discovered by anyone. I'm not for censorship of some sort, but free speech is constrained by slander and libel laws. Is there, or should there be, some similar statue for images and depictions?

[sharpsight.livejournal.com]

N) *nods slightly*

[insert obligatory moral outrage here, for presumably-easy-to-deduce reasons]

[sharpsight.livejournal.com]

N) Ideally, both libel and slander would take care of themselves: let everybody say anything they want, let chaos reign, let us make only that order that we can bring about through our own determination/effort!

I want to interact with others as a peer, not as a subject to an overbearing authority that could be called on me--not just me, not just the data on this computer, but our physical life and possessions, our legal identity--to be free to simply interact, everything determined mentally, neither inherently higher than nor lower than any other.

To have someone else size control of one's free anarchy, and impose their own standards of decency on what those in this masterless international playground choose to do... the concept sticks in my throat. I still wouldn't take part in such matters, because I have my own personal standards of acceptability, but the feeling that someone else is breathing down my neck and forcing me not to do certain things, even things that I normally wouldn't do, is unbearable.

To put part of that another way, paraphrasing someone else: I may view certain things as beneath me, but that does not mean that I would wish others to be bound against their wills against doing them. Let them do so, and those who want what they make can enjoy it, and I in my smug superiority will gladly ridicule both parties. Chain them, force them to behave as you see fit, and it will provoke no pleasure, no congratulations, only rightful outrage on their behalf.

...actually, I never did paraphrase that quote, did I? 'I may not agree with what you do, but I will defend to the cutting of my Internet connection that you shouldn't be personally coerced from doing it'... it gets very complicated. Basically: let the Internet to the Internet, keep it a law-free zone, keep all entities on it inherently equal, and keep the rest of our existences out of it.

[insert more railing against any Internet-regulating Establishment here]

[silveradept]

You're late, by about two or three years.

[silveradept]

We take the drek with the good stuff when we do so. Internet's capable of great things that regulated, it won't be. Plus, the insanity of trying to regulate such should be fof-putting to most control organizations.

Incidentally, said quote is attributed to Voltaire, but he may not have actually uttered it.

[wanderingbhikkh.livejournal.com]

*opens his mouth to discuss the development of ENIAC, the basis of fraud and violence protection, public works and the reaction to Roosevelt's "social security" idea...but thinks better of it*

[sharpsight.livejournal.com]

N) Would it have made a difference then?

[sharpsight.livejournal.com]

N) *...still has dreams of anarchy...*

(*and self-responsibility, in at least one arena in the world...!*)

M) Idiot. If you have to get a central authority to allow your freedom, then it's no freedom at all. They can still step in at any time, and there's not a thing you can do about it.

[sharpsight.livejournal.com]

N) *nods*
The flailing, though, can be irritating.

Hmm. Whoever the originator, it's a respectable quote/[insert word here].

[silveradept]

Nope. Because there were a lot of fans who did not like it, nor Mandy Moore as Aerith. Happily, I think they've gone with the Advent Children actors/actresses for those two in the second game, and it's much better.

[sharpsight.livejournal.com]

N) *amusement* Probably a good thing--I wouldn't know. *isn't familiar with the person/people in question*

When you first spoke about the casting, I/we thought/suspected you were talking about Advent Children: my above irritation was actually to do with 'the [...] game', when applied to Sephiroth, being Kingdom Hearts rather than FF7 (usurpers...! defilers! graaagh! forgetting... to forget... hidoi...). Just a spate of peevishness, dakara, gomen.

M) N? You're breaking up...

N) My theory is that eventually the English words will be the rare ones, and then NO ONE WILL BE ABLE TO UNDERSTAND ME AT ALL! MWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!! ...yes, I'm not in the best state of mind right now. How did you guess?

M) *covers eyes* Gods help us if we've ever both--

B) *raises eyebrows*

M) --all deranged at once. All right, I admit that's slightly safer. Just... wait, why am I still typing?

[thewayne.livejournal.com]

That's why I have math a component in all of the games that I'm doing. Well, almost all. You're generally adding or subtracting, but it does help to keep your brain agile.

And the dumbing down of America continues!