Venture

Since when? They were stacking just fine a few days ago.

I don't have time now to catch up with the rest of this, but as far as D&D 4E goes, remember this is coming from the same company that once produced the DB RPG Everway, which was (not kidding) actually marketed as "will appeal to women gamers because it doesn't require math".

No need for surprise, everyone does, eventually.

No, you have to get beaten to within an inch of your life first.

"...never win a battle till you pull the blazing sword out...."

Using the transfer tokens has the same implications as spending points -- those tokens are then not available for transfers, etc.

The only part of this I agree with is that no one is quoting Derrida or using language only a philosophy grad student would understand. It's definitely an exercise in deconstructionism, reading meanings into texts that aren't there. It is definitely an exercise in feminist theory; that's the basis of the complaint. Saying it isn't is completely ludicrous; subtract the gender distinction and the entire issue vanishes in a puff of logic.

Actually they have not; no one can agree on which deaths count as "fridging".

No it isn't. Anyone who doesn't toe the party line on WiR is instantly set upon as at the very least arguing in bad faith. Do you seriously expect a writer at Marvel or DC could say something dismissive about the portrayal of women in comics and keep his job?

Fortunately I don't have that problem, so let me break it down for you. The people who write superhero comics are writing them to suit the aesthetic preferences of the people who actually buy them, which would be adolescent males. Before the women around here start hurling their copies of The Feminine Mystique at me, yes, there are exceptions but not enough to really matter, thus why they're called "exceptions". Publishers have tried making superhero comics for women; they don't sell. Not enough women want them. Someone upstream mentioned that even Wonder Woman doesn't actually sell well enough to warrant publication. DC only keeps it in print because of their wacky licensing agreement with her creator's estate. (AFAIK: if they stop publishing WW for one year, the rights revert and while her book may not sell she's too ensconced in the DC mythos for them to lose the character.) If you change a superhero comic enough to make it palatable to women it won't be a superhero comic any more, just like if I changed those trashy romance novels my mother reads enough to make them something a man would consider reading they wouldn't be trashy romance novels any more. They'd look like they were written by Mickey Spillane.

This isn't something that can be changed from the inside. DC and Marvel don't set social policy, they just publish funny books. If Ms. Simone wants girls to read superhero comics she should stop writing them and become a teacher or politician or the like. In the meanwhile, feminist culture police and their oh-so-sensitive fellow travelers should get over themselves and move on.

* * *

The word has no non-philosophical meaning. It was coined by Derrida.

No. It is a reduction, or a reductionist analysis. Calling it deconstruction brings in all the (faux) philosophical baggage.

That would be when the wedding pack was announced, and I and others did realize this was where the game was heading and said so. It's nice knowing I was right the whole time...as usual.

The dog is too expensive. Most of what's on the market is too expensive. I just deleted and re-rolled (same AT, etc.) a level 32 character because it wasn't worth $10 to rename her. Yes, I have enough stipend points saved up to pay for a rename but that's the same as spending the money, as those points then wouldn't be available for something else.

Yeah. Just because medical marijuana is legal in California doesn't mean everyone should be using it....

Deconstructionism is reading a work in such a way as to "prove" it means something other than the author's intent; usually but not always the opposite of that intent. If you have to deconstruct a work to claim it's using a trope, you're wrong.

Actually it's a useless effort in mental masturbation. Chomsky was being polite. It's based on circular arguments and sophistry (in the pejorative sense). Fortunately, as I understand it, it's also pretty much out of vogue these days.

Actually I'm pretty sure that the decision to kill off Kirk's son came well after TWoK was made. The movies were largely written by different people, so I don't think we can say David was introduced to be killed.

...but gods only know how close that is to the architect's intent, assuming he has one.

4 stars for the effort, but this would benefit a lot if the symbolism was taken down a few notches.

Narcissism.

I would. Withholding important information is a tactic employed by hacks.

The point is that the trick only works because of the medium, which makes it cheap.

Jacques Derrida. Michel Focault.

Agreed -- but Alexis' death is still just a cheap shock tactic.

I haven't seen anyone claim that. Here or anywhere else.

Only if they don't understand tropes.

As for the OP, I never accepted the WIR thesis in the first place. I do think Alexis' death is exploitive, though, and was not very well-handled. The "negotiation" scenario is really not credible and even without the Liberty Belt she should have been able to at least try to fight back.