Sombrero

⟣ The Golden Tree Hotel ⟢

Whoops, sorry. Weekend was busier than I'd planned. Your responses will be coming shortly.

B!tchfest: a healthy release for our non-roleplay annoyances.

<Snipped quote by Vilageidiotx>

Yes, Japanese imperialism has certainly been avenged by tainting our entertainment industry with anime. I mean really, what is the appeal of anime? The emotions are exaggerated to the point of deadening my sympathy and empathy. The children's anime is all a similar plotline and the rest is either oversexualized or bland obsession with violence. (Note that some exceptions may be out there. )

@Mardox

Completely ignoring the fact that the Japanese were the imperialists for centuries, and especially the few years before all these nukes and things.

I feel like Cowboy Bebop defies your generalizations here. I mean, there's violence, but it's fun violence, they don't spend 10 minutes growing extra arms and screaming or doing one attack and then explaining in great detail how many organs have started internally bleeding, when two guys meet up and duke it out, there are no power levels, just two dudes duking it out. They also don't hype it up for half the episode or pretend it's necessary to advance the plot, it just happens spontaneously, as struggles often do, whenever there's something on the line. Sure, there's fanservice, but it isn't rampant or shoved it your face. You kind of have to choose to take notice, as the narrative just completely ignores that kind of thing. ("Yeah, she's wearing an unrealistically tiny dress, but who cares!? There's something going on with Spike's history!... Still, though, tiny dress, in case you're bored later or some shit. I can't go thinking too highly of you, now can I?") And their emotions can be exagerrated sometimes, but that's usually during filler.

The appeal of anime is the appeal of the good anime. I'm sure in Japan there are people who think all Western Cartoons are all guns and explosions, emotionless and devoid of intelligent commentary, oversexualized and bland, and the kids' cartoons are basically the same thing but they're about superheroes. Yet there are nice animated things on this side of the pond too. Except hopefully they don't have... Whatever they would call weeaboos in English.

B!tchfest: a healthy release for our non-roleplay annoyances.

Hey, Japan wasn't racist! It hated everyone else equally!

⟣ The Golden Tree Hotel ⟢

@AeonSpiral

"Planeswalkin's something that just comes natural when you fall in the right hole, love." *Crunch!* *Crack!* *Spikt!* His cutters chewed off the maid's head, and he smacked it away like a golf ball, spattering small pieces into the sand next to him.

"There's worlds an' worlds an' worlds, an you're in all of 'em at once. But also not. There's holes though. There's holes in your world that go to all different kinds of places... Places like this, where yer heart took ya. I'm you, Love. You're me, too. But also not, on both counts..."

He prodded the maid's glass breasts with his clippers. "Heheh."

⟣ The Golden Tree Hotel ⟢

@AeonSpiral

"Yer planeswalkin'. Lovely day for it, too." The man says, moving on to the fingers of a toppled glass maid when he felt that the vines were pruned enough. He seems rather keen on facing away from her, still.

"You get to head to all kindsa nice places." *Crunch!* "Exactly wherever yer heart takes ya!" *Cring-gling!*

"Hotel's just a vehicle, though innit?" *Crakt!* "Don't think any of the employees know that, though. Seems only the guest rooms work." *Crunkle!* "The rooms know who y'are though. Known since before ye got 'ere. So do the worlds under 'em... So do I."

Keeping his hooded head low, he turns around, fixing his clippers on the under-chin bump of a glass trachea...

I feel pretty!

@Eviledd1984

The Clerk again shrugged, "I wasn't there for most of his time here. He was just... Wierd. Gawky, had this way of looking right through you sometimes. He seemed really intent on convincing us not to build the hotel, but he never told us why."

⟣ The Golden Tree Hotel ⟢

@AeonSpiral

The featureless glass clerk says nothing, sand gently drops from one of the chandeliers. The place seems devoid of life, save for a man in the corner facing away from her, clipping solid, vine-shaped sand aggregates that seem to be growing out of the walls. The whistled tune of "I feel pretty" echoes off the otherwise solemn, silent, spacious walls of the lobby.

"It's much warmer outside, love! The sun is perfect for the skin. Got a nice tan, me!"

⟣ The Golden Tree Hotel ⟢

@Eviledd1984

The clerk shrugs, "He didn't stay in a room, he just... Hung around, during construction."

⟣ The Golden Tree Hotel ⟢

@AeonSpiral

She rests easily... Or rather, as easily as possible. The sounds of whistling and gardening fade into the background.

I feel charming! *Snip!* Oh so charming! *Snip!* It's alarming, how charming I feel! *Snip!*

Dreams come slowly, but they are fast, blurred, nonsensical. Something cold touches her shoulder. Right next to her, A familiar head frozen in the spherical, faceless orb on top of a glass body. The glass is clouded by slight redness. He seems to be missing an eye, various other holes have been added in. Perhaps as an artistic measure?

The whistling stops abruptly.

"Are you feeling quite alright up there, love?" Says a voice remarkably similar to Eric Idle's. "You should come down! It's lovely weather out here!"

B!tchfest: a healthy release for our non-roleplay annoyances.

Okay. The following may be a touchy subject. But... here we go. Recent events have brought this to the forefront of my attention.

Putting this in a hider because, well, touchy subject(s). Don't feel obligated to read this.

Hider

One thing that personally bugs me and has been bugging me a lot lately actually has to do with internet culture. Namely: the hyper-liberal side of the web which isn't actually liberal at all.

Let me be clear: I'm pretty sure folks would classify me as liberal and as a socialist. I feel like civil rights hasn't won yet, that more work has to be done to bring real societal equality in my country (the U.S.A.), and that life in the information age provides us with an unparalleled ability to create movements on the fly. For this specific purpose, this is a good thing... BUT...

There are all sorts of people on the web who take things in a direction that boggles me. For instance, I think it's perfectly fair to ask that people be "fat positive," or at least that people learn to not cajole people for their body differences (though kids are naturally going to not listen; kids are awful). But there's a difference between positivism and, say, expecting someone to be attracted to a body shape they're not attracted to. Besides the health risks extreme body weights on either side of the spectrum involve, there's no reason a person ought to be forced to claim attraction to all people of all sizes. It's not discrimination: it's a personal choice about who is going to be your life partner.

People who change their sexual identity on a weekly basis are another culprit here. If you start by claiming to be bi, then asexual, then gray asexual, then pansexual all within the course of a few months, chances are I won't take you very seriously. Chances are a lot of people won't take you very seriously. And if you're expecting people around you to know the particulars of these changes in your identity as you go change them... Well, it can get annoying.

And the reason all of this upsets me is we have real issues concerning these above topics and more. Dude, minorities are getting shot by police still in situations where they haven't done anything criminal. That hasn't stopped. The Supreme Court allows gay marriage now, but that could potentially be repealed, and it certainly isn't the end of the fight for gay rights. And women ARE being sexually taken advantage of in ways that people don't recognize is... well, illegal, like getting a woman drunk and then having sex with her while she can't make decisions with a clear head. But spreading fake statistics about this, or claiming that sitting next to a woman on the bus and accidentally touching them with your leg is rape only distracts the world at large from actual cases of trauma and abuse.

That's the crux of the issue: internet culture has a habit of blowing up little things and calling them big issues, and it's angering people who aren't on the side of change and distracting them from the reality of horrible things happening around us. And there are real issues concerning things like fat positivity. Television and Hollywood have always painted this terrible depiction of women that demands they be pretty and skinny and photoshopped and sexy. That is a dangerous depiction that has warped our perception of beauty in America. That's what we should be attacking in a quest for change, not individuals' sexual preferences for one body weight or another.

@Shorticus

Did you just precede a complaint about SJWs with a trigger warning?...

⟣ The Golden Tree Hotel ⟢

@AeonSpiral

The door opens, with some difficulty, seemingly pushing aside a large sand-drift that had propped itself up against the door. The hotel looks very different, half-flooded with sand, the air dense with a playstation-era yellow fog effect, and everything seemingly frozen in time... featureless Glass mannequins stand mid-motion amid the sand drifts. Pushed by the door, the bellboy shatters on the floor.

The gardener's whistling persists.

I feel pretty! *snip!* Oh so pretty! *snip!*

@DJAtomika

The clock's ticking seemed to slow as her mind raced. It grew louder, more drawn out. There was an incessant beeping noise coming from outside the room's door.

@Eviledd1984

"I'm afraid I don't know much more than what I told the girl..." the Clerk says, "He was a young-looking drifter, 20 at most, who carried a notebook with him. He protested against us through every step of construction, and threatened one of the guys in charge with a shovel, but I think he's been arrested now."