Post here when you’re feeling out of the loop

Why does Samus from Metroid wear boots with heels now?

In Other M she has like five inch wedge boots on her zero suit. It's so idiotic. I think they also made her 10 inches shorter.

I'm sure this has been said elsewhere but the whiplash from character who's completely covered* to one who was surely 100% designed by horny dudes to give Nintendo an answer to Lara Croft was surely the dumbest example of a modern company trying to create/redesign a Strong Female Character**.

*I'm sure there are gamers who feel her redesign actually liberates her in the same way they're sure than destroying Islam will "liberate" women from wearing burkas. They would have felt betrayed by the ending of the original game if they'd been old enough to play it and experience it for themselves.

**Actually having a female video game character of note who wasn't defined by how well she fit into a skintight suit? Amazing how they pivoted away from this as fast as they could once graphics improved to the point where you could create boner-inducing images that wouldn't require players to fill in the blanks with their imagination***.

***There's no limit to the asterisked annotations I can add to this post. We could be here all day, no reason to stop now but I want to go out and buy some plants.

undo wrote:horny dudes

I don't mean to use this as a slur, apologies to everyone here.

She's always been kinda complicated. Her appearance through most of the time has been undeniably feminine but powerful and not sexual, but almost every game in the series rewards exceptional play by presenting her in less and less clothing at the end of the game, and in the very first you could put in a password to play with her "Just in [her] bailey". Putting her in zero suit form in Smash was logical and fun (it's kind of hilarious she's more powerful in that form than in her varia but), but it also made all of this a little more, I dunno, text rather than subtext, if that makes sense.

Still breathlessly awaiting a follow up to Fusion, Other M, and/or Prime 3 though.

Duff... wrote:"Just in [her] bailey"

There are many false theories regarding the password. For example, Justin Bailey was originally thought to be one of the creators of the game, but no such name appears in the game credits. It was also often said that the Justin Bailey code was a reference to an English or Australian term for a bathing suit. Bathing suits were, according to this rumor, referred to as "bailies," so "Justin Bailey" would more accurately be rendered as "Just In [a] Bailey", which is what Samus appears to wear when the code is used. However, Samus' outfit with this code is a leotard, not a bathing suit, and "bailey" is not actually slang for "bathing suit" anywhere in the world.

Ha.

The second I heard that I was hoping it wasn't true. I have to go yell at someone tomorrow.

what does "we live in a society" mean?

Or why do people say it?

I've read the explanation and it turned my mind to mush

When I think about the phrase "we live in a society" it's usually the way one would use it as justification for the expectation that people abide by some sort of minimum basic rules of civility. I don't remember the exact quote or context, but wasn't there a Jim Belushi interview where he was discussing some capital D douchebag and telling that person, "dude, that's not how society works?" Not the same, but it's where my mind went anyway.

Is it too late for me to get into Chapo Trap House?

People keep making jokes about stuff being made of cake on twitter and I'm at a loss.

Duff... wrote:People keep making jokes about stuff being made of cake on twitter and I'm at a loss.

Are they saying

"It's made of cake!"

"Always has been."

Because I got to the bottom of that last night and it wasn't worth the effort at all.

undo wrote:Is it too late for me to get into Chapo Trap House?

No I listen to this podcast and enjoy it mostly. The last few have been very good but they can have episodes where they think they’re being funny but are not at all.

If you’re looking for a leftist pod I’d recommend TrueAnon. I’ve found that one to be consistently much better than Chapo and co-host Liz is awesome. Brace can be funny but ventures into Chapo territory a bit too often and I just want him to shut up.

Can someone give me an explanation of the Chapo Trap House schtick? I’m even further behind undo on this one! Is it about rap music?

One thing I really loved was Shocktober, Chapo host Felix's six part series on radio shock jocks. Episodes about Opie & Anthony, Tom Leykis, Bubba the Love Sponge, Mancow and Howard Stern. Will upload them all here if there's any interest.

undo wrote:

Duff... wrote:People keep making jokes about stuff being made of cake on twitter and I'm at a loss.

Are they saying

"It's made of cake!"

"Always has been."

Something to that effect, yes.

undo wrote:Because I got to the bottom of that last night and it wasn't worth the effort at all.

I kind of assumed this would be the case.

I think the cake thing comes from the hyper-realism cake thing (meme?) on social media. Like, there'll be a vid of a La Croix can that is definitely a La Croix can and then a knife comes into the picture and turns out it's actually - once sliced - a cake that looked A LOT like a La Croix can. You can't trust anything not to be cake, is the idea. I know this because one of my 5yo's quiet time treats is watching "cake videos" on my wife's phone.

As for Chapo, I wouldn't call it a schtick. It has nothing to do with rap music. They're a group of (mostly) white dudes who hold some very strong, non-mainstream political beliefs. Mostly socialist. They're left leaning without being liberal or democrats - in fact, they're very much opposed to both of those tags, and most of my disagreement with them has to do with their cavalier treatment of identity politics - and I find them to be really well-educated, super clever - especially Felix - and hilarious. Sometimes, they're not funny, but that's usually because I don't understand what they're talking about.

That's pretty unsatisfying, yeah.

undo wrote:Is it too late for me to get into Chapo Trap House?

i listened for a couple weeks but then i stopped driving to work which meant i was never listening to a podcast ever again

however i would've probably kept listening had that not had happened.

I thought Axios was supposed to be some startup media company that was set up to push right wing conspiracy theories and to smear Democratic and/or left-leaning figures?

But no, it turns out they're... something else?

Am I confusing them with some other company that starts with an A and has a blue/black logo?

OANN?

Nope

Who is better? Venus or Serena?

And how much better is she?