Amentep

This. The BG2 romances worked because they didn't end once you did the deed, they continued and had a lasting effect on your relationship with that person. Sex shouldn't be the goal of the relationship, it should just be a side effect. Eh, I can't see much difference between bg2+tob and ME2/ME3, for instance, in this department. The problem with BG2+TOB is (IMO) it started off on the wrong foot; the romanceable characters (except, maybe Jaheria) are cyphers if you don't romance them. The player shouldn't have to romance the companion to have an interesting companion, IMO. The romance should be a specific (arguably) special relationship tree that acts parallel to the normal friendship/rivalry relationship with the companion. This does mean it'd HAVE to be more work to do, and IMO that's okay because contextually romance doesn't make sense in every scenario, every plot, with every character or in every game.

Do I think that girls are treated differently than boys at the macro-societal level? Yes. We have studies that indicate subtle factors in education (some even mentioned in the BanBossy material) can lead girls away from achievement in areas of math and science.1 Do I think there is value in discouraging bossy behavior in children? Yes. There's a real tendency in modern thought to feel that negative reinforcement is valueless and I'm not convinced it is. Bossy behavior should be discouraged - boy or girl. Note I disagree with the precept of the BanBossy campaign that the same action in a boy called "leadership" is called "bossy" in a girl. "Bossy" is a very specific set of negative behaviors and if people are using the word incorrectly it is not the fault of the word (again, treating the symptom - missuse of a word - rather than treating the reason why people might be misusing that word or even attempting to spread understanding about the word, its meaning and how that relates to negative behaviors we don't want to encourage and to positive behaviors we very much want to encourage). Studies over the years have shown that as boys and girls develop, girls develop verbal ability much quicker than boys. This will lead to a tendency for girls to interact with their social world through words more so than boys (which is why boys will demonstrate more physical aggression while girls will demonstrate more relational aggression, typically). This is, probably, the reason why there is a perception of girls being labeled as "bossy" more than boys (as boys will be trying to assert their will over their peers through their physicality, not having the verbal acuity to attempt imposing their will through verbal methods).2 Ideally, though, I think we'd want to discourage both forms of aggression and channel those efforts towards something constructive. Having said that, plenty of boys will be bossy during their development (just likely hitting it at a later stage of development) and if we feel that this attitude/action set is to be discouraged than we need to be able to "call it out", otherwise we'll either be transferring the bossy label to another word (as the negative traits would still need to be distinguished) or encouraging the behavior to continue (if we drop any concept of the "bossy" traits being negative for fear of discouraging "leadership"). Which gets back to the campaign; if the campaign is really about encouraging girls to be leaders and/or to not be discouraged from pursuing being positively assertive I'd argue they'd be better off campaigning positively than negatively (and while I'm sure they think they're being a positive campaign, I see any campaign that stacks itself against3 something to be inherently negative). If the goal of the campaign is to establish that women have fine leadership skills that can be nurtured and grown - which I think it is - I think they're going about it entirely the wrong way. Because what people are going to take away from the campaign isn't going to be the positive message they're trying to deliver but the negative one they are delivering (even if it is unintentionally, as I think it is). ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1There's also a devaluing of education as important - somehow - in high school that leads boys away from education which is why our college populations in many schools are overwhelmingly female - outside of the STEM majors. Sometime in the 1980s women overtook men in higher education. The question we in higher education face is "how do we encourage men to pursue college degrees" and "how do we encourage women to consider STEM majors as viable options for them". Anecdotally, I can't tell you the number of times that I've talked to a young woman who has shifted away from a medical/pharmacological/dental major to "nursing" either because of factors OTHER than the challenge of the coursework. And similarly men who place no value on education, soon to drop out because making money now if more important than making more money years from now. 2Note though that while I agree that boys and girls learn differently and learn at different rates, I do reject the notion that men or women taken as enormous groups (as opposed to individual vs individual) can't compete equally in education - unless there are some other cognitive factors at play (like dyscalculia). Experience teaches us otherwise. The problem in the educational system is that, honestly, it tends to be "one size fits all" which IMO is a terrible way to operate if your goal is to identify individual talent, skill and/or proclivity. 3Unfortunately society has embraced the idea that if you're not against something you are for nothing. So its not surprising that the "net meme" summation of the campaign is negative - #BanBossy

Lionheart starts as an interesting solo RPG and then ends up a bad Diablo clone. And I say this as someone who likes Diablo and a lot of its clones. But I think one of the biggest things about it is, following the development at the time it was being made it really felt like it was going to be THE game to beat. The setting is one that I really liked and wanted to see how they explored it, and then I got it and Barcelona was boffo...until it wasn't. There were some good story elements, but I found the combat (which the game pretty much is outside of Barcelona) to be tedious. All that said, I do sometimes think I might try to replay it someday soon...

If they can just fix that neck thing going on (see Morrigan in DA:O) so that I'm not creeped out when it comes to nappy* time, I'll be okay. I'm not sure the only way to make romance work would be to make it integral to the plot (although that would make them have to make it work). I do think that if romances are to be a less perfunctory portion of the game, then developers need to get away from a few things, like resolving them in a single story or requiring that all of them end in some form of consummation (or, for that matter, that all of them succeed unless the player rejects the romance). Part of why they're - as they exist now - problematic is because they exist as a player ego stroke where the NPC in question stops being a character and becomes an object puzzle that the solution results in a horizontal mambo cut scene and some sort of bonus somewhere (quest items, relationship bonus, etc). *nap·py1 ˈnapē/ noun Brit. noun: nappy; plural noun: nappies 1. a baby's diaper.

I bought mine off the back of a truck, no questions asked.

Now I have visions of die-hard RPG fans dusting their shipping labels to see if they can identify which developer's fingerprints are on it...

I'm sure someone will be offended by the words "unicorn"* and "rainbow" and you'll be left with nothing in your land but like minded people. *True story: I actually typed "Unicron" and the thread was in danger of being derailed by the Transformers.

Valeska the Actress There was no role she could not play. So natural in talent, so powerful in conviction. So good in fact was she, that we are not entirely sure she's deceased.

Actually when I was being bossy as a kid - ordering people to do things and being petulant if they didn't do as I said - my mom called me bossy. Not a leader, not assertive. She called me what I was being and if I persisted I was punished. Maybe things have changed radically since I was 6 or 7, but I don't think *that* much. As to not being about banning the word - "BAN BOSSY" is on every page, so...

Given that The Bling Ring is based (however loosely) on the real Bling Ring thefts, and given that - from what I've read - they burglarized Rachel Bilson's home multiple times in April/May of 2009 it sounds like the quoted bit above is actually close to what actually happened.

Once again its not about the word but what the word symbolizes around this campaign. The campaign is about the word. Oh they have other stuff too, don't get me wrong (some of it a bit of a headscratcher to me), but they wouldn't target the word if it wasn't about the word. But as you say, the word is a symbol (and not really a symbol of what they say - a bossy person is a bossy person and has never to my mind indicated gender) and the problem isn't the word or really what it means and in that sense I think they're terribly misguided in their approach. Like many social movements they attack the symptoms in the hope that they'll damage the root cause when they should be attacking the root cause which will render the symptoms meaningless. IMO.

Oooo, just remembered Secret of Evermore and Final Fantasy: Mystic Quest

The word isn't the problem.

The only SHE I saw was the 80s B-movie with Sandahl Bergman. Decent movie altogether considering the budget. There's several versions filmed of the story, including an 1899 adaption directed by Méliès, a 1911 one with Marguerite Snow, this 1935 one, a 1965 with Ursula Andress and a 2001 version with Ophélie Winter. The Sandal Bergman film (from 1982) ... I'm not sure if it is an adaption of the book. Never seen it but the descriptions sound more like early 80s post-apocalyptic fantasy fare.

Here lies Mr. and Mrs. Findangle It was love at first sight Love still in last light His golden codpiece matched her golden booplate and the world was made right.

She did the news locally here for awhile. At one point she was the biggest draw for that station.

In that case, I'll just tell you that the coda of Underworld 3: Rise of the Lycans is predicated on Rhona and Kate looking similar (it ends up being "why" Vampire Lord Viktor spares Beckinsdale's Selene when he kills her family - she looks like Mitra's Sonja who is Viktor's now-deceased daughter)

Since Bruce started it with his romance suggestion... Bruce the Lover A problem he'd hoped remained hidden came to the light of day quite unbidden; forbidden was the marrying of women three when found out he made his last decree - "Romance isn't dead, its resting"

SHE (1935) - Merian Cooper's follow-up to King Kong was an adaption of H. Rider Haggard's novel She: A History of Adventure but with elements from other entries in the series. Transplants the action to the artic; no giant stop-motion creations like Kong, but some nice Art Deco sets. Story is about what you'd expect with an adaption of She. Interesting to see the missing scene (cut from the film for its 1949 re-release, a high quality copy of the scene is lost so not restored for this version). Also of interest is Ray Harryhausen having painstakingly colored the film based on the original plan to shoot it in color that was lost. While not replacing the original film, its interesting to see the late Harryhausen's attempt at matching the color of 1935 on film.

I bet you could wake him with a few rounds of "Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn"...

I'm not sure if this thread has become comedy gold or horribly scaring.

I still have my Kirk, Scotty and Klingon. And I should have my bridge play set (assuming it hasn't fallen apart in my attic). That said I think I've lost some of the accessories (those darn tricorders!)

Both of those songs are pretty catchy...

http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2014/feb/13/hidden-sheet-music-hieronymus-bosch-triptych-recorded

Not sure if this should be here or in the weird news thread: http://www.dailydot.com/lol/babymetal-metal-japanese-pop/