May 2012
51 posts
Etymological/feminism/semantics debate with Kieron on Twitter:
Any debate that ends in gin is a good debate.Conclusion: we are both right (even thought we disagree mildly) and everyone is an idiot.
AND NOW, GIN.
On The Disir
HEAVY SPOILERS FOR JOURNEY INTO MYSTERY 638
I was asked on my Formspring “Was that always the real origin of your Disir, or something that evolved for EXILED?”. To which I responded….
When I created the Disir back in SIEGE: LOKI and NEW MUTANTS 11, I knew the origin I gave wasn’t the true one. I didn’t think I’d be ever writing them again - my run was meant to end after SIEGE, if you remember - but wanted to leave something interesting for people to tug on if they want.
When THE FINE PRINT happened and I got to go further into the Disir, I started building explicitly for the twist, as every retelling of the myth was slightly different - a pretty explicit hint that something serious was amiss. Though I don’t think I knew the exact nature of the truth at that point.
I can’t remember the exact time the real nature of the origin came to me. I think it was either late in THE FINE PRINT or during the development of JOURNEY INTO MYSTERY. It was explicitly being worked towards from the start of JIM - re-reading all that and you’ll see it coming. JIM 631 especially is worth a re-read.
I wasn’t ever sure that I’d get a chance to pull the trigger on the story, so when the crossover was suggested, it struck me as a good time to do it. The Disir debuted chronologically in NM, after all, and it provided a big, emotionally meaningful hook for the story.
How did the specific idea grew? It’s just the one which made sense. That ancient myths tend to be misogynist was built into the Disir’s conception. In terms of how they talked about the devouring, it’s about traditional male fears and demonisation of female sexuality and desire. The Disir’s dialogue was already talking about the cannibalism in loaded sexual terms from SIEGE: LOKI. So this was already the themes I knew I’d be dealing with in the origins, even before I realised the specifics.
“The good news: Twitter lets you block a person’s retweets while still following their original tweets. When you’re looking at someone’s Twitter page, click the gray menu-box in the upper-right corner with the silhouette icon, and select “Turn off Retweets”.”
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http://www.splatf.com/2012/05/retweeting/
This is the most useful thing I have learned all day.
(via tomewing)
Play
Episode 8
Warren Ellis
Friend of MoE, Matt Staggs interviews our Internet Jesus on The DisinfoCast.
Legendary comics author and novelist Warren Ellis joins Matt Staggs for a conversation about the future that was, artificial intelligence, the Singularity, aliens (ancient and otherwise), the legacy of Hunter S. Thompson, porn and even a little bit about comic books. Tune in.
I’m just being mean to NowWheresMyNut with my AGGRESSIVE LIKING.
“Secretly, what modern mainstream pop-hackery confirms is that there’s a fundamental sadness to the role of music writer, or at least there is if you let it take hold - you are employed to basically be a hanger-on, an eavesdropper, a spod, a geek, someone who won’t shut up about something the rest of the world just get on enjoying. To a certain extent this is all true but the people taking on the role these days seem massively cowed, almost apologetic about being critics, fatally and stupidly too dim to realise that EVERYONE who listens to music THINKS about it deeply, has a whole barrage of prejudices and assumptions they call their ‘taste’, even if they don’t necessarily write it all down all the time. Writers gotta realise - YOU ARE AN ARTIST TOO. Language is your medium, infinity is your potential, MATCH or even SURPASS the music you’re writing about, you’re just as good as those fkn musicians and writing about pop is a vital artform that actually contributes to the health, and the potential for surprise and intrigue, of a musical culture. You are not a fkn hanger-on (and spods and geeks and fans are important in any culture - remember fans are not disciples, fans can be betrayed) you are part of an argument, a battle.Pick up yr arms and yr pens and yr paper and yr brains and fkn fight. FIGHT FIGHT FIGHT FIGHT FIGHT.”
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Neil Kulkarni has a few thoughts on an NME list feature, and builds up to this.
If Kulkarni was a character in a superhero comic, he would be the Juggernaut, because when he gets the correct level of momentum he’s unfuckingstoppable.
Kapow At The Weekend
Who’s going?
(I’m doing a compare and contrast between twitter and tumblr folk).
Er… if reply isn’t working, fave the post or something if you’re going.
Play
“
“We’ve seen political party observers who are not precinct officials. They can ask to be observers. They want to challenge and confront and it’s a problem for our precinct officials.”
He said the reason for the confrontations varied, from calling up the board of elections to complain that there wasn’t a chair for them to sit on to pushing officials to get people to show ID at the polls.
“They have been clogging up the phone lines and getting mad at us,” said Sims. “People have to state their names and addresses and we check them. But they are challenging officials to make them show ID. They have an agenda, the ones that we’ve been getting trouble from.”
When asked whether the trouble was coming from the groups for or against Amendment 1, Sims said: “Put it this way: we had zero Democratic party observers.” He added: “I’ve probably said more than I should.”
” —I’m always sad and angry when a democratic vote makes a bad, prejudiced decision which is going to sit like a stain in the history books. But when one side is fucking with the system itself to achieve it? I seethe.
