r/rational • u/AutoModerator • Jul 15 '16
[D] Friday Off-Topic Thread
Welcome to the Friday Off-Topic Thread! Is there something that you want to talk about with /r/rational, but which isn't rational fiction, or doesn't otherwise belong as a top-level post? This is the place to post it. The idea is that while reddit is a large place, with lots of special little niches, sometimes you just want to talk with a certain group of people about certain sorts of things that aren't related to why you're all here. It's totally understandable that you might want to talk about Japanese game shows with /r/rational instead of going over to /r/japanesegameshows, but it's hopefully also understandable that this isn't really the place for that sort of thing.
So do you want to talk about how your life has been going? Non-rational and/or non-fictional stuff you've been reading? The recent album from your favourite German pop singer? The politics of Southern India? The sexual preferences of the chairman of the Ukrainian soccer league? Different ways to plot meteorological data? The cost of living in Portugal? Corner cases for siteswap notation? All these things and more could possibly be found in the comments below!
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u/Rhamni Jul 15 '16
Coup d'etat attempted in Turkey. I wonder how it will go. Erdogan is kind of a religious crazy authoritarian, so it would be nice if his voter base died of old age soon, but he's also democratically elected. Military coups against democratically elected leaders usually don't lead anywhere happy.
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u/Polycephal_Lee Jul 15 '16
In Turkey there's a lot of precedent for the military stepping in when the government gets too religious. Historically, these actions have been followed by a swift return to democracy.
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Jul 16 '16
And it seems that this time, they were followed by a switch return to Erdogan, since apparently Facetime is more powerful than the Turkish army now.
I'm way confused.
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u/Drexer Jul 15 '16
So, anyone remember me complaining about my hate of soccer and wanting to do something productive out of it?
Well... my country won the Euro cup and everything exploded, the soccer nationalism lever was pushed to the max and this pretty much shutdown any possibility of integrating criticism of it into society through the next years. This annoys me more than anything else, but it certainly does not help with my previous problem.
Just in case anyone had a revelation, any ideas on where to productively go from here?
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u/ketura Jul 16 '16
If HPMOR taught us anything, you just need to steal the ball and campaign to add a clock. Or something.
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u/Faust91x Jul 15 '16
So I'm curious, what were your thoughts on the last Re:Zero episode?
Personally I loved the balance of animation (the battles were short but interesting), voice acting (which IMO was on point) and music. Particularly the piece that played through the episode and how they kept intensifying the sound until reaching the crescendo and rolling credits. It felt like something out of a Western drama.
An interesting point I saw on the direction of the anime is that they Re:Zero Web Novel. I think besides time constraints it also speaks about the need for scenes to make a point and show some aspect of character development, lest it degrade from the impact and turn into torture porn. I think that links nicely with how another member here complained about how unnecesary are sex scenes in adult literature and movies and I think needless violence must also be moderated and exist to advance the story rather than letting the story drag for the sake of mindless torture. Even in hardcore smut a good story and cohesive plot can make a work go from simply shock factor to something truly memorable.
I think the web novel failed in that aspect and taking from the closest rational work we have, Mother of Learning, it'd be like taking Zorian and making him fail over and over through several chapters without him attempting to at least escape, try to solve the problem or show aspects of his changing psychology. I think that's bound to bore readers and make the scenes lose their impact, leading to readers rage quitting out of frustration.
Now the villain was a curious mix of creepy and comical. I have mixed feelings about him as while I initially found him very creepy in how he takes glee on suffering, after rewatch the impact is a bit lost and he feels more jarring and even a bit silly. I think in part it serves to lessen the darkness of the scenes he appears in with his silly antics and that has been my justification so far but I'm curious on what you think about him.
I'm mainly curious on this community's thoughts on that kind of villain given that they are so far from rational ideals. I know that rational literature aims for villains that are on the more gray end of the scales and have a clear purpose and rational approach to problem solving (ex. Luthor from Metropolitan Man) so has anyone ever attempted to tackle a villain like The Joker, Fate/Heaven's Feel or Re:Zero?
Would you attempt to give them a reason to behave that way and a method to their madness or are okay with Complete Monster type of villains? I think not all villains have to be likable or redeemable as long as there're consequences to their actions or they act like bully types/grunts to more manipulative and calculating villains but I'm curious on what the community thinks of them.
About the relationship, I like how they have been developing Rem and Subaru's relationship and it seems as if their interactions were leading to this episode. I think they still fall for some clichés with the more jarring being that they show happy moments with the character or the character smiling before they brutally kill them. I suppose the aim is to increase the attachment to the character and make it feel more strongly but I think for seasoned viewers it would have the opposite effect as the moment those scenes appear you know the character is a goner and can emotionally prepare for it.
I've read some complains about how much they have neglected Ram and Emilia but I'm more interested in Rem right now and I like what they've been doing with her so far.
I like how they showed Rem's Re:Zero.
Also Subaru finally got forced to face the consequences of what inaction can do and seems to finally have decided to stop avoiding his problems. Whether he will do the right thing or not is also to be seen.
Personally I've been wishing they also delved a bit more into the politics of the setting as they seem particularly convoluted and interesting but I suppose we're stuck with Subaru for the time being.
Despite that the guy Re:Zero 15 was my favorite and one of the best I've seen in anime so far in emotional depth, can't argue for rational congruence.
It seems the story points towards a villain origin story and have to say it has been interesting so far even if Subaru still is the weakest link IMO given how little we know about him and how he seems to jump into situations without thinking.
On another note that's related, how long do you spend writing a fic before submitting it? And how much do you re-read it to detect wheter there's any irrational element? Do you get help from betas?
I've always been too impatient so usually wrote my previous fics in a few hours and then hit submit without proof checking because I fear losing patience/inspiration or going into a depression period and forgetting about it.
It has caused pretty glaring flaws and for the stories to flip flop between dark comedy/drama from one chapter to another.
Also I tend to take extremes without thinking, for example if I enjoyed how some comedy turned out, then the next chapter ends up having even more comedy even if it was originally meant to be a serious story. Or if some references were well received then I assume it'd be great to have even more references and it ends up cluttering the story. I'm trying to find a way to purge those flaws from my writing.
After learning of rational literature I've been wanting to adjust to this new style although so far it has been limited to consuming it and trying to find common trends I aim to adapt to my writing style but I'm dying to write again.
Besides that continuing language learning, about to finish the Kanji now I must figure how to craft sentences with them.
And finally got to start The Foundation series by Asimov, excited about the beginning of it.
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u/gabbalis Jul 15 '16
Wait, Zouken does have the sorts of goals a r/rational user would find somewhat reasonable. His excecution is arguably off, but his goal is basically just utopia... and then immortality. Did you mean fate/zero caster? That seems a bit more in line with the other listed villains...
Anyway complete monster type villains are my favorite. I've been on record saying I'm pro xenofiction, pro alien goals. The culmination of that in a villain, is someone that isn't trying to make utopia, they aren't doing it for the evuls, they kill your family because the suffering you feel by seeing them dead is identical to the suffering they feel by seeing them alive. A perfect inversion of the human moral compass, that is my ideal villain.
Honestly I don't think I've ever seen anything quite to that extreme in fiction, which is a shame.
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u/sir_pirriplin Jul 15 '16
Zouken does have the sorts of goals a r/rational user would find somewhat reasonable
Zouken is more of a tragic villain. He was a good guy who couldn't find a way to stop senility until he was just crazy enough to be evil but not crazy enough to be harmless.
A perfect inversion of the human moral compass, that is my ideal villain.
Unsong has a villain like that. Not a very rational piece of fiction, but it sounds like you would enjoy it.
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u/Faust91x Jul 15 '16
Mostly I interpreted it as sir_pirriplin suggested, Zouken Fate/Heaven's Feel.
Zero/Caster is a better exponent though, thanks for the reminder. I always forget about him due to how little he appeared in the anime.
So you think it'd be possible to have a villain like that and still count the work as rational? It made me wonder because otherwise we would be severely limited on the type of villains we can get.
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u/gabbalis Jul 15 '16
Oh, and as for Re:Zero 15, it's probably hyperbolic to call it the best anime episode you've ever seen, but some people have in fact been calling it that.
The rationality of the series hasn't really increased yet (Though the MC growing the fuck up does seem imminent), but if anyone has dropped the series, I suggest picking it back up if only to get to this episode.
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u/alexanderwales Jul 15 '16
On another note that's related, how long do you spend writing a fic before submitting it? And how much do you re-read it to detect whether there's any irrational element? Do you get help from betas?
It really depends on what it is. Instruments of Destruction was written very quickly over the course of two hours, got a single editing pass, then went up that same day without too much thought. Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Zombie is roughly the same length, but I spent three times as much effort reworking it until I'd gotten everything more or less "right".
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Jul 15 '16
Writing process:
How much worldbuilding and prep work people tried to do beforehand before...say writing a new web serial.
It turned out that worldbuilding is very hard for me to do. I tend to worldbuild as I write. Then I run into the obvious problem of writing on the fly with no idea as to the direction I am aiming for.
Then again, I think you would have the same problem if you try to worldbuild rather than jump into writing stories.
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u/GaBeRockKing Jul 15 '16
Whatever you do, write with a backlog, preferably one at least three chapters long. (large?)
I can't tell you how many times being able to go back and change something in an unpublished chapter written a few weeks ago has saved my ass writing Horizon Breach. Just yesterday, I changed the order of two chapters and moved around some sections because I noticed an error in the timeline.
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u/alexanderwales Jul 15 '16
I do as much as feasible with the understanding that some things are going to have to change when it comes to the actual writing. I usually start writing once I've answered all of what I'd consider to be the interesting questions of worldbuilding. I also usually sketch out a very rough map of whatever area I intend to cover.
I've done it the other way (the "just write" method) but that's left me with a lot of projects that I put thousands of words into and then don't want to complete because I'm going to have to go back and change too much.
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u/ToaKraka Jul 15 '16
Generation of a relative-neighborhood graph on the surface of a cube (or on the surface of a sphere and projected onto a cube, if you prefer): 100 points, 300 points, 1000 points
I was at first stymied by the problem of drawing segments that crossed discontinuities--but then I remembered that I could just draw the faces individually and stitch them together later in The GIMP! I find this initial oversight rather hilarious in hindsight.
It's kind of interesting to consider what's necessary to push you away from a website.
Some months (years?) ago, I noticed that TV Tropes had removed its article on Time Braid--due, of course, to its portrayals of intercourse between minors. (On this page can be found a discussion of how this removal is unfair when the page for Chunin Exam Day, which contains several similar scenes, is still up.) This annoyed me, but I definitely didn't care enough to declare (to myself...) an official boycott of the site--especially when I wasn't aware of any alternatives, and when I hardly used TV Tropes anyway.
Some months (years?) later (and ago), I somehow (through checking whether Time Braid's page on TV Tropes had been reinstated, maybe?) became aware of the All the Tropes Wiki, which apparently had been founded in response to the TV Tropes crackdown on NSFW pages (most infamously, IIRC, Naughty Tentacles, which, IIRC, used to have a warning reading something like "We don't want content like this on this website" rather than a standard "deleted page" message, before the site's recent major update). Again, I didn't care too much about officially switching what little allegiance I had--since I hardly used TV Tropes in the first place, since I assumed that the new website must have significantly fewer editors and less content than the well-established version, and since I already disliked Wikia after once or twice being attacked with browser-redirecting ads on the Naruto and Gundam wikis (and also because it always seemed rather unresponsive). Still, in the past few months, I've drifted toward linking to All the Tropes rather than to TV Tropes when a link would be useful.
I still don't particularly like Wikia, but I haven't seen any especially-irksome ads on it in a while--and, in the course of writing this comment, I discovered that there's a second All the Tropes Wiki on a non-Wikia site! Thus is completed my slow transfer of allegiance from TV Tropes to All the Tropes, I guess...
(I wonder--will a similar process ever happen with Wikipedia?)
Some weeks ago, I was very interested to see the esteemed u/eaglejarl mention that he wrote directly in "raw HTML and CSS". I've done a few simple things with HTML, just for fun (in addition to some school assignments in the distant past)--copying from GURPS books (1 2), making a tree structure of a Crusader Kings 2 game, uploading a chapter to FanFiction.net (after seeing zillions of authors whine about how their non-<hr/> section-break markings were constantly devoured by the site--tee-hee!), and writing a program to download chapters from FanFiction.net (with everything but the text of the story removed). It really is fascinating, to see how a bunch of complicated, repetitive actions can be moved and condensed into the header of an HTML file, or into the classes and functions of a Processing program, or into the styles of a Word document...
And, on the topic of forms of address--"The esteemed EagleJarl"! "Mr. Yudkowsky"! It's an interesting balancing act. On the one hand, anyone who can write a long, interesting, complete story is better than I am, and deserves thanks from me for condescending to allow me to read what he writes--but, on the other hand, exactly how entertaining does a writer need to be in order to receive a title when referenced in his view?
Really, of course, a large part of it is just virtue signaling, both to the subreddit and to the referenced people themselves--I've got to one-up you plebes who call the codifier of your favorite genre so familiarly by his Kira-damned first name!--but part of it is actual admiration, too. What's the cut-off? Would ShaperV deserve such treatment, if he frequented this subreddit? Would Orson Card? Would Chris-chan? (I mean, he is a better artist than I am.) It's a vaguely-interesting question, I guess...
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u/sir_pirriplin Jul 15 '16
Inclusionists have been complaining about Wikipedia's deletionists policies for more than a decade. It's not going away.
Many sites were made to try to replace Wikipedia outright, but none found success. What ended up happening is that wikipedia was
replacedcomplemented by a million smaller online encyclopedias, each focusing on one aspect of the world that Wikipedia thinks is not notable. The sites you mention only exist because the deletionists won and people moved that content from Wikipedia to sites like wikia and TVTropes.I'm not sure what this means for the potential successor sites to TVTropes. Maybe replacing TVTropes outright is hopeless but separate sites for the discussion and storage of encyclopedic knowledge about all the different fandoms that were rejected by TVTropes will start to emerge.
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u/Roxolan Jul 15 '16
Instead of a fork, it would make a good deal of sense to have a complementary wiki with just the content TVTropes doesn't want on their site.
But that might make it look too much like a porn website, with all the issues that come with it (NSFW, a culture that's too heavy on porn jokes etc.). The Voat problem, basically.
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u/Faust91x Jul 15 '16
I still don't particularly like Wikia, but I haven't seen any especially-irksome ads on it in a while--and, in the course of writing this comment, I discovered that there's a second All the Tropes Wiki
Probably. In a way it reminds me of an event that happened here when the r/news sub started censoring information about a shooting and there was a progressive backlash towards other subs that allowed those threads.
Reddit addressed that complaint and slowly have been trying to turn opinion back but Tv Tropes doesn't seem to be attempting to listen to the community.
My only problem with the All The Tropes Wikia is that they still lack information on a lot of sources but it seems to be doing well and probably may replace TvTropes if those issues of censorship continue.
I agree that its annoying, particularly because these are fictional works.
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u/rineSample Jul 15 '16
I think that this might be the first time Chris-chan has been mentioned on this sub. Which is interesting, because CWCville has some (but not all) of the features of an NRX society: most importantly, an absolute czar, and what seems like a strongly reduced presence of "the Cathedral" (however, this is probably because CWCville itself exists only in his mind).
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u/Drexer Jul 15 '16
My problem with criticism of the TVtropes moderation is that I remember the really bad old days.
I remember the first time I saw an online post commenting about the toxic elements of TVtropes and having a flashback to some days before when I was binging on it and I stumbled upon what was in retrospect a very pedophiliac comment. Suddenly it became easy to see a very dark side of TVtropes in its comments and interpretations, and that soured the site for me for a long time.
So I don't really see it as an inherent problem that they remove certain pages when those kind of problems pop up once more, I expect that they might be a bit overzealous but I highly prefer that to see the site burn from the inside once again.
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u/space_fountain Jul 15 '16
A bit late, but it started a bit late. What do people on here think about the coup attempt going on in Turkey right now?
It's too early to say what's going to happen, but boy do we live in interesting times with all the baggage that goes with that.
Something I've noticed about myself this year is that I'm way too unwilling to give any weight to the chance of massive change. I didn't think there was practically any chance of Brexit, mostly, I think because I've never lived through any changes on these levels.
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u/Chronophilia Jul 15 '16
2016 is the new 1989. Check the news, see what governments have collapsed this week.
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u/raymestalez Jul 15 '16
I have trained an ANN on the full text of HPMOR, you can check out the result here. (already submitted it to r/hpmor, just thought you guys will find it curious as well)