As mentioned in part 1: Diversity, I'm currently rewatching Gotham on Netflix, and just writing up a whatever thoughts I have about the show. I find this show to be really good and really bad in a lot of places, both in storytelling in general and as a comic adaptation.

Warning, there will be spoilers for the first three seasons (what I've seen up to).

What I'm calling a makeover trope

I'm basically defining any transformation, usually from undesirable/imperfect to desirable/perfect in the eyes of someone (usually a love interest). How this trope plays out is generally very gender specific, so I'm breaking it up into men and women. This trope is definitely not limited to what I'm going to cover.

Women and the power of makeup
When this trope is applied to a woman, there's generally shopping, hair and make-up involved. Examples includes:

• creepy kidnapping, bathing and redress of a woman before presenting her to usually a man
• common whip off her glasses and let down her hair
• evil or sad all-black with heavy eyeliner
• crazy/mad extra sexy make-up and clothes
• girl-power shopping/spa day

Men and the power of pushups
When this trope is applied to a man, there's generally a training montage. Examples include:

• hitting the gym
• arming themselves with new weapons
• new sharp tailored clothes
• spiking up their hair, or shaving
• turning evil after a betrayal

Why I hate them

I admit, it's a bit unfair to say I hate them, since this trope is pretty central to a lot of stories and will go unnoticed if done well. Character growth (in either direction) move stories. However, they stick out so much when tossed in poorly or for no reason, and I really do hate them then. Generally when I see them:

• they are often shallow, such as just changing their hair (sure you can argue the symbolism of this, but it's cliche it's likely to be a reach to do so)
• they change an individual character, but doesn't add to their relationships in a meaningful matter
• (for women) they come with a sense of "taming", usually including a "breaking" phase, and usually by a man who just knows better

How they can be good

The makeover trope can be a very powerful character development tool. It can be driven by the plot or drive the plot. For me a good makeover trope will likely include:

• internal desires to change, such as acknowledging a personal fault and wanting to improve
• natural transformations, such as growing up or learning from experience
• improves (or breaks down) existing relationships by comparing or contrasting our character with their close ones. This can work great to emphasis who they were to who they are or who they want to be

Finally getting to Gotham

Gotham, as a prequel to Batman, are origin stories, which by definition are transformation stories. We're watching the city of Gotham being transformed, Bruce Wayne becoming Batman, Oswald becoming the Penguin, and so on.

In no particular order, here are some makeovers that stood out to me:

Ivy Pepper (Hotness makeover)
She's a tiny stupid kid with frizzy hair, who magically grows ten years and becomes super hot. So now you have childlike innocents meet boobs. But she's Poison Ivy, and she grew like a weed...get it?

Safe to say, I did not like this change.

Leslie Thompkins (Evil makeover)
She's hurting after her husband is killed, and decides to use a drug to "free" herself. Though I didn't like this plot, I actually have no issues with this transformation, except for two things:

• Why the booby black clothes and eyeliner? This is just a pet peeve of mine. I just want to see a woman turn evil and not become some sexy fetish.
• No follow through. There are no consequences to this transformation. Jim, being the hero, will force her to take the antidote, and that's that. As cliche as it would be, I would prefer Jim somehow talk her into taking it, instead of just forcing it on her. Now it's just a weird take on the damsel in distress trope.

I should also add, I actually don't like how characters need an excuse to do bad things. I think it would have been better if she just decided to screw Jim over, instead of this whole roundabout way of doing so, but still basically saying she loves him. Guess this saves the writers a redemption line.

Barbara Kean (Madness makeover)
Barbara is kidnapped and tortured by the Orge who believes she's his soulmate. Though this has makeover tropes I really dislike, specifically the "breaking/taming" and the "I see you for who you are and I will set you free" that comes with a huge dose of patriarchy, I actually thought this was pretty well done and revealed to the audience. I just wished they had more follow through regarding Barbara herself after this, instead of the shift to simply crazy, but still obsessed with Jim.

Isabella (Dead girlfriend makeover)
After learning that Ed (the Riddler) accidentally murdered his old girlfriend, who she looks exactly alike, Isabella decides to dress up as his dead girlfriend to prove "he won't hurt her". Little bit of a reverse of the the common trope, as she puts on glasses and ties her hair in a pony tail for this one. She's a disposable refrigerator girl, so my expectations were pretty low here. Still annoying to watch though.

Oswald Cobblepot (Evil/power-up makeover)
This character actually probably transforms the most through the series. There are lots of cliche bits, including sharp new clothes, but his transformations are generally a result of his own work and are fun.

Selina Kyle (Dress-up makeover)
The writers generally handle this character really well, so I'm not sure why they decided to toss in a random "guy sends over boxes and bags of shoes and clothes so you can dress up". She does dress up for the charity event, but easily goes back to herself. So, this was cliche, but has no consequences, ...so meh?

Bruce Wayne (Toughness/reality makeover)
The entire series basically has Bruce's slow transformation to Batman in the subplot. His interactions with Selina gives him the reality checks he's looking for, while contrasting his believes, specifically with Batman's infamous "no killing" rule. His makeover is deliberate, strongly internally motivated and permanent. His growth is believable.

Final thoughts

So this turned out way longer than I intended, and I actually didn't include nearly as much detail as I was going to.

Thoughts? How does Gotham compare to other shows or stories?

Hey all! I got a switch early this year and I've been loving it so far. I've been browsing the store and there seems to be a ton of cool little indie titles. Any recommendations for some really fun ones?

I love strategy games and RPGs. I would also love any recommendations for games that my GF and I could play together as well.

Wondering what’s your favorite self-help book, with the most practical, down-to-earth advice that maybe changed your life.
I’ll go first: I really liked Mindfullness in Plain English, removed all the myths around meditation and broke it down to very digestible concepts allowing me to practice the same on a daily basis.

Looking forward to hear yours!

I've been feeling SO HAPPY this Monday, so I'm hoping y'all will be able to ease my light existential dread. That dread is based on cultural conflicts in the US and elsewhere, where people seem to want to have things their way or the highway and no resolution is in sight.

"Culture war" is a term that assumes at least two sides fighting out their differences in an effectively zero-sum atmosphere; one side wins, one side loses. It would apply tons of different questions, a couple which we've discussed here in ~talk already. I see a "Culture War" as any conflict of opinion focused on cultural values, rights, mores, etc., in which the participants feel there must be a clear winner and a clear loser to the conflict. Abortion, discrimination/affirmative action (of any kind to any group), and gun control/rights are the three big culture-war issues that I think currently divide Americans.

Escalating an issue to culture war status means that issue will likely not be resolved for decades. While other issues ebb and flow, the culture war issues persist largely unchanged. I think the main reason for the doggedness of these issues is there is no possible way to deescalate them. The participants want too badly to be right to hear many reasons for seeing things differently, and almost any act to persuade has "complete capitulation" in mind as the primary goal of the rhetorician. The result is that no one hears or respects the people who disagree with them.

I have very little reason to be optimistic about any of these issues being resolved in my lifetime. Too many people use these cultural issues to identify themselves. Too many people use these issues to identify "others," or people who don't belong in their group. The room for open discussion on any of these issues is nil unless the discussion is held at the horns by a determined and skilled moderator.

My challenge to you, if you choose to accept it: find me a realistic path toward deescalating a culture war once it has begun. Historical examples would be much appreciated, if possible.

Edit: Someone told me privately that I went too academic, so I've adjusted the wording to be easier on the mind. Mondays all around, y'all.

A buddy and I were having a discussion the other day about the benefits of a platform like Twitter. He’s a guy who uses no social media. The only true benefit I could find is that Twitter allows for almost instant access to news and information. Other than that, it’s a cesspool.

Do the benefits of social media outweigh the very obvious negatives? I’m starting to wonder these days. I think social media has worked to polarize us far more than we would have been had it not existed.

Hey all,

I'm Catalan (expat) and many of my friends in the USA or other countries in Europe tend to ask me a lot about the Catalan situation: independence, Puigdemont's extradition, political prisoners, police brutality, etc. I figured maybe some users here will be interested too?

I consider myself equidistant to both the independentist nationalist, and the centralist nationalist movements (I'm more anti-borders than pro-borders, and I don't recognize the authority of any state), so I figure many of my responses will annoy everybody in Spain equally :-) . That said I would appreciate it if we all keep the discussion civil and as soon as I see flame wars I will stop answering questions.

To my fellow Spaniards/Catalans. Feel free to chime in, contradict me with facts and opinions (I will probably not argue with you, I'm actually eager to learn more about other points of view in this matter), answer questions that I haven't answered for lack of knowledge, etc. Hell even if you are not from Spain but you know about it feel free to give me your two cents.

Hope we get interesting discussions and we all learn from this!

Hi,

I want to make a personal website, as basic as possible (I don't even want SEO or stuff like that).

This is totally a personal project, I don't want to generate revenue from it or anything like that (at least for now), I just want an old school website to link it to possible employers and contacts. I have about 12 years of coding experience but mostly low-level (DSP, ASM, C, C++) and scientific code (Python, R, Julia). So I'm not scared of doing it from scratch (even though it will be much uglier in the beginning than pre-generated websites) or using some basic lightweight libraries.

Until now I have been using github pages but I want to put some projects that require server side work, so I'll probably have to host somewhere else. I really like tildes' technical goals, but I don't know if the stack it uses is overkill for a personal website (I know I will need some database for some of the projects though).

My questions are:

• Is Pyramid a good choice or is it more appropriate for huge multiuser platforms? I do need some level of interaction between users (some of my more artsy projects are related to NLP) as well as interaction between user-server (some projects include simulations with parameters etc.).
• How does hosting/DNS work? How much should I expect to spend per year? I know there exist hosting services and also places like Heroku, I don't really know the difference between them or what should I be looking for.
• How much should I worry about security? In other words, what is the threat level? I don't plan to have confidential info in the website, or information about the users (other than a hash value). But should I be worried about other kind of threats?
• Is making a website as basic as possible and then keep on improving it as time goes a sound plan for a long-term personal project? With this I mean, will it be fun or will it be 100% frustrating and I should just go to (whatever hosting service that has premade web applications) and make my website there even though it will be bloated with scripts and stuff?
• Is there something I'm not asking that I should be asking? As I said I know how to code but it feels like web development is a completely different beast sometimes.
• Is there any compelling reason for me to use google analytics, SEO, all that stuff that big websites use? I have never understood the point for it in, for example, github pages.

Thanks for your help! Feel free to correct me on any stupid thing I may have said, I definitely speak from ignorance.

Edit: My biggest issue with this kind of format for conversations is that I cannot thank everybody at the same time, and responding to everyone with a thanks is definitely not contributing anything to the conversation. So I'll put it in an edit. Thanks for all your help! I'll probably be coming for more advice soon...

Hello everyone,

I plan on going back to college in the Spring while working full time. I think taking two online courses or a 1-1 split of online / in-person courses per semester would be more than manageable while working full time but my particular job is so slow (office environment) and I'm allowed to study during downtime that I'm considering taking at least three courses per semester. What do you guys think is a non-overwhelming amount of classes to take while working full time and have any of you been in this position as well?

My list would probably be:

• Better Call Saul
• Black Mirror
• Black Sails
• Fargo

Edit: Everything else that comes to mind: Rick and Morty, How It's Made, Trailer Park Boys, Breaking Bad, Parcs and Recreation, The Office, Berserk, Cosmos (Original), Planet Earth, Blue Planet.

Not sure if anyone will remember by now, but a few months ago I made a philosophical discussion thread in ~talk since a group like ~humanities didn't exist yet. I was super excited by all of the great discussion that I was able to join in, and now that we have ~humanities (thanks @Deimos!), I'm wondering how people would feel about some threads for more general discussion of various questions as opposed to the mostly link-based discussion that's gone on here so far.

Would anyone else be interested in that sort of thing? I'd be more than happy to start a few threads up over the next few days if people are interested.

TRS80 gaming is a group for casuals. Back in the day I could play TF2, CSGO and PlanetSide 2 for 4-6 hrs a night (yes I've done the all-nighters, and done an all-nighter with Civilization too). But as I've grown older, I've been more busy with work.

So I, with some friends, wanted to create a gaming group that's basically for casuals.

The games we play are:

• Destiny 2 (we have a clan)
• Guild Wars 2 (we have a guild)
• WarFrame (no guild yet)

Mobile games we're playing:

• Idle Heroes (we have a guild)
• Brawl Stars (no guild right now)
• Clash Royale (no guild right now)

Some of us stream on Twitch (twitch.tv/condenasty80) and I can auto-host channels.

It'd be cool to get other casual players on Tildes on the Discord chat to coordinate some games for Destiny 2, Guild Wars and Warframe (and to group up on mobile games too!)

Reply if you're interested!

edit: forgot to mention, we have a blog, twitter and facebook page so if you want to write a game review or just make comment about recent game news, I'm open to scheduling/publishing posts

alright so much to my dismay, no, not currently day drunk (though a mimosa does not sound half bad right now!)

so in place of my standard late-night drunk poetry, have some mid-morning-havent-slept-in-36-hours-poetry.

cheers

bishop

remember wanting what i got now
didn't think it'd be a let down
guess back then i wasnt thinking sound
deadly quiet with you not around

got me so down im
making lots of pillows
taking heavy shots and smoking
off a lot of rillos
now my mind is gone, am i okay
i cannot think so
falling down from heaven hitting
every branch like plinko

like you're yoko ono and
i'm every single beatle.
warring with myself and every
general's in fetal
got my world all fucked but
i lay here with no libido
sorry if i fucked it up, i
swear i did not mean to

but at least i saw a palm tree
caught a little of the ocean breeze
heavy sand where you buried me
for the forest couldn't hear the screams.

got me so down im
making lots of pillows
taking heavy shots and smoking
off a lot of rillos
think my mind is gone, am i okay
i cannot think so
falling down from heaven hitting
every branch like plinko

no quiero recordar nada
que ella ha dicho
Como el tiempo cuando
ella me ha prometido
que nosotros siempre
quedaríamos amigos
He querido solo estar
perfecto contigo.

loved our movie, but you said
you didn't want a sequel
got my head up in the clouds
now i cannot see through
if you were perfection,
how can i trust other people
to take my hand and guide me
past all of the shit we been through

(beat.)

got me so down im
making lots of pillows
taking heavy shots and smoking
off a lot of rillos
think my mind is gone, am i okay
i cannot think so
falling down from heaven hitting
every branch like plinko

Welcome to week four! This week we focus on another user-voted record: Weather Systems by Anathema.

Puling @deciduous' original pitch :

Weather Systems is an interesting album to me because it is both immediately catchy, but also very dense. It was specifically created to be an emotional experience that required engagement by the listener and bot does it deliver on that front. Each song flows well into the next and has a different a unique emotional resonance. "Lightning Song" is intense in a way few other songs are and "The Beginning and the End" is one of my favorite tracks ever for its fantastic piano riff that carries throughout the song. If you're at all into post or prog rock, this album is perfect for you.

Here's the place to discuss your thoughts on the record, your history with it or the band, and basically talk about whatever you want to that goes along with Weather Systems. Remember that this is intended to be a slow moving thing, feel free to take your time and listen / comment at any point in the week!

If you'd like to stream or buy the album, it can be found on most platforms here.

Week six it is! This week we focus on another user-voted record: Postcards by Meadowlark.

Pulling @Gyrfalcon's original nomination:

I'm going to suggest Postcards by Meadowlark again. I'm not great at describing why music is good, so I will just leave the music video of the title track.

Here's the place to discuss your thoughts on the record, your history with it or the band, and basically talk about whatever you want to that goes along with Postcards. Remember that this is intended to be a slow moving thing, feel free to take your time and listen / comment at any point in the week!

If you'd like to stream or buy the album, it can be found on most platforms here.

Here's the tweet the release date info came from: https://twitter.com/wykrhm/status/1024704897218883584

And an article from March that had some of the first actual gameplay info: https://www.pcgamer.com/artifact-guide/

At first I didn't want to post this idea, because its pretty big change, but I think I'll post my idea here, thanks to @kiyoshigawa. Here is my comment that pretty much sums up my idea.

My idea is, that when people read something, and they agree/disagree with it, they want to express their agreement/disagreement (this is covered in this thread). When you want to express disagreement, you have to, because it's no downvote here, comment to disagree with some opinon. But when you want express agreement, and you don't want to comment (or simple 'I agree' wouldn't add anything to the debate), you just hit the upvote button. And that's problem, as the Vote button should serve as "quality content here" indicator, not "popular content" indicator. We've seen it on Reddit, where the effect is even larger because of the downvote button.

So my idea is - Add agree/disagree buttons. These buttons doesn't have to do something - I even think, that it'll be better if they didn't do anything. But they'll help users express themselves, so when someone agrees with me, but doesn't want to simply say "I agree", he can hit the 'I agree' button - and he won't hit the vote button. This way, popularity won't affect the "quality" score of the post.

Edit: As @Kat, @Kijafa, and others said, maybe add only agree button - not the disagree one. I think they might be right, disagree button might have negative effect, as now users have to express disagreement via comments.

Edit 2: Thank you all for discussion. You made me change my mind about disagree buttons, you are right - it'd be used as downvote and would probably suppress discussion. However, I'm still curios about the "I agree" button and if it would decrease of usage Vote button to express agreement.