Tales of the Parodyverse >> View Post
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Visionary
In Reply To
CrazySugarFreakBoy!

Member Since: Sun Jan 04, 2004
Posts: 1,235
Subj: It makes crossword puzzles much less confusing too.
Posted: Thu Nov 29, 2007 at 08:10:39 am EST
Reply Subj: It still helps to have the blacks filled in, though ...
Posted: Thu Nov 29, 2007 at 06:06:41 am EST (Viewed 503 times)


> Yeah, sometimes, a story really does just need to be "all about the guys," for various valid creative reasons, but again, there are a lot of instances when I think it simply happens because the storytellers see "male" as the default gender setting for most of their characters.

Certainly. And even when the cast is predominantly women, they often seem to talk about either guys or whichever one of them is sick and dying. Go figure.

Sadly, aside from movies like "Chicago", most of the ones in my collection that have conversations that fit the bill happen because one of the females is still young enough not to be involved in a romantic relationship. After a certain point, movie girls seem to have to grow up and stop adventuring, or start associating with men more exclusively as they do so.


> I'll freely admit that Dream is frequently the subject of those conversations, but what I try to do is have my female characters discuss how the current plots affect more than just him. And since I've been able to expand my own corner of the Parodyverse into its own mini-universe of sorts (I always wanted the city of Seattle, and the state of Washington by extension, to have as much of a sense of being an independent place as Gotham does in the mini-universe of Batman titles), it's usually easier than you'd think to turn any discussion of the plot into a conversation that covers more than just Dream.

You do manage to discuss the larger social issues quite often in your stories, with some very clever applications to your settings such as the reservation.

>
> > Probably for the best. Costumes require constant laundering, where as everyday clothes allow for laundry day to be once a week or less.
>
> Bettie versus Sydney is an interesting contrast in respective methods of practicing feminism; Sydney feels it's more empowering for women to be able to play superhero right alongside the boys, whereas Bettie feels more empowered by not having to wear anything more elaborate, encumbering or revealing than modern-day casual clothing.

Does she see a difference between modern day casual clothing and revealing superhero outfits? I'd think one would be almost as shocking as the other when you're not used to the "norm".


> I'm thinking of a line in one of shrike's stories, when Epitome told Miiri that her children would succeed because "they're Americans," and she smiled and said, "I suppose they're that, as well." And since another one of the reasons why Bettie would choose to become an American citizen is because her newly adoptive "family" is American, I thought perhaps that this might be a motivating factor for Miiri as well, especially since (as far as I know, unfortunately) there's no method of officially becoming "a citizen of Earth," as opposed to a citizen of one of its countries, even in the Parodyverse.

Possibly... I just think that if you're not brought up to consider it important, you wouldn't be overly motivated to declare your allegiance to any government. Much like non-sports people who move to a heavily divided sports community just shake their heads when asked which team do they support.

From what we've seen, Caphans probably puts their emphasis on the House they belong to and then the world as a whole. If your house is famous enough, geographical division likely don't matter at all.

Additionally, many of the important people in Miiri's life don't have American citizenship and seem to do just fine: Hallie, Fleabot, Quoth, the Shoggoth, Ebony, etc. While Magweed has it, I'm not too sure about Griffin... there's no existing evidence that he was born in the US.