#It was used exclusively in the UK pretty sure

[insurguitor]

Google. Google you realize how concerning this looks without context, right???

Right????

[self-loving-vampire]

I think the idea that TERFs don't actually hate men based on the idea that they are generally dishonest kind of misses the specific form their lies and general ideology take, even if it's also obviously true they're willing to trade all other possible values in favor of more transphobia and have a particular hostility for trans people going far beyond anything they may feel towards men. These are not mutually-exclusive ideas.

TERFs are profoundly gender essentialist and have very conservative views of sexuality. Their lies on this are more in the form of denial (denial that they are essentialist, denial that they are transphobic) rather than just switching out who their actual target is. It's not simply that they use "men" as a code for "trans women" but that they classify trans women as a particularly depraved type of man.

A lot of their behavior does not make sense if you persuade yourself that TERFs do secretly view trans women as women and are only pretending to hold any hostility towards men.

For one, because of the above-mentioned essentialism TERFs have convinced themselves that women are fundamentally benevolent and safe. I have seen TERFs outright say women cannot be rapists and rely on archaic UK laws for support on this. They think the genders are "predator" and "prey" (which is a binary Serano has written about before as actually being disturbingly common in mainstream society) and assign practically magical properties to penises.

I'm pretty sure that if essentialist transphobes actually saw trans women as women then their #1 stereotype for trans women would not be that of a violent and depraved sexual predator. In fact, when they encounter news articles of cis women committing those sorts of crimes they immediately jump to the conclusion that the criminal is actually a trans woman and start the transvestigaton.

But you don't have to just trust me. You can just check what they say to each other (rather than just what they present to outsiders) in their own reddit clone. They have an entire tag that is just a curated selection of news stories (mainly from stuff like the Daily Mail) that they use to mutually radicalize each other by maintaining constant fear and anger. Many of these stories don't even involve trans people (though unsurprisingly they do go out of their way to feature them disproportionately).

Many of them are standard carceral stuff about how society is too lenient on rapists and how porn is genocide.

(Not even hyperbole.)

So yeah, I do think radfems sincerely hate men and that denying this requires a lot of reaching and conspiratorial thinking. They just hate trans women even more and are willing to make political alliances with even abusive religious conservatives if it will help them attack trans people.

[brf-rumortrackinganon]

I completely agree that Page Six is a Sux mouthpiece and the "sources" (royal or otherwise) are always MM and her Hotmail account. My question is, are there really BP staff who monitor this proxy conversation in the press? I can see how it works in the UK press because that would be easy to track, but is BP really keeping up with Sux paid PR in Page Six and People and any other random gossip rags they are using to "communicate" through the press? If so, how do you think that works? An intern and a Google Alert?

I don’t know about BP staffers, but William absolutely has people in Kensington Palace that monitor this. I’m sure BP does too.

I don’t remember which royal biographies I read it in, but all the communications teams will keep an eye on the news/internet to brief their principals about what’s being said or how things are being received. Scobie definitely mentioned it in Endgame and I’m pretty sure it was also a plotline in The Crown, but I remember reading it from a far more legit source than those two as well.

There have also been royal reporters that will update palace staffers on news/media coverage or their private sources as well, probably in quid pro quo arrangement - “you keep us informed, we’ll consider you for the next exclusive”-like deals.

But yes, it’s probably something like a Google Alert (a verrry fine-tuned and tailored google alert because just sorting through everything that mentions Harry or Meghan is a 24/7 job) that someone checks regularly and then briefs up the hierarchy.

[canonmisogynyvictimstournament]

PROPAGANDA

ARCEE (TRANSFORMERS) (CW: Transphobia)

1.) Transformers has had a troubled history with female transformers as a whole. They didn't really even exist until Season 2. And while they've all gotten the short end of the stick until recently, Arcee, who kinda ended up The Main Girl (sorry Elita) has gotten the brunt of this mistreatment. Mostly talking G1 here.

Toys kept getting cancelled over and over even though she's a main, important character of Season 3. She didn't get a decent widely available toy that actually resembled her G1 version (first one was a Botcon exclusive Blackarachnia redeco which I disqualify because convention-exclusive spider is not what I was looking for, and Binaltech is just kinda a pink and white robot who looks nothing like her, just with her name slapped on) until 2014. I wish I could use bold here, because there's no such thing as uppercase numbers. Before that, you just kinda had to look at the toys from other canons and squint because Hasbro doesn't think the pink girl toy will sell well.

And misogyny present in the fiction? A lot can be summed up in a couple words, namely, "Furman, why?" While most people go with his excuses of not believing in Cybertronian gender, it really comes across as him seeing men as the default, neutral state of being, and women as something that must be explained. Poorly. Explained very poorly. Not to explain things in Tv Tropes terms, but I have to, it reeks of the 'Men Are Generic, Women Are Special' https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/MenAreGenericWomenAreSpecial trope.

Let's get us started with Prime's Rib. Oh my goodness, Prime's Rib. So, Furman doesn't believe in Cybertronian gender (and male is seen as default), and this has reflected in his writing. He's going along perfectly fine writing his dudes in the US run of the Marvel comics, Arcee entirely ignored… but what's this? The connected UK comic has her. He can't just ignore her. So, well. He needs an explanation. Explaining a plot hole isn't bad. It's how he did it. Arcee was created in response to a feminist mob who was mad Cybertronians were all guys. I don't think I need to explain this one.

I'm too tired to explain her treatment in IDW now. Something something unnatural attempt to introduce gender into a genderless species, something something, really weird uncomfortable treatment, it's a long story and I'm not an IDW expert, read the TFWiki page for Spotlight: Arcee.

I'm sure there's more in other media, but I've blathered on way too long and I'm starting to get frustrated and tired and AGH FURMAN WHY. He's gotten better, too, definitely not judging his present self over comics that are from many years ago, but asdfghjkl

Ok fine, one more thing. This isn't G1 but Michael Bay stated in interviews that he gleefully killed her movieverse version off specifically because he didn't like her. It's not NECESSARILY misogyny motivated. I wouldn't deem it misogyny coming from a different director with a different film series. Transformers writers have had personal beef with random characters which they wished to unceremoniously kill off before--Animated Beachcomber comes to mind, even if the writers never got the chance. But it's also Michael Bay's Transformers we're talking about here. Can you blame me for thinking that?

Arcee has gotten better treatment in recent years. Furman's clumsy attempts to explain Arcee's gender in tbe IDW run were slowly retconned into some pretty decent trans rep by other authors, she's really just come into her own as a character. But it was a long and rocky road to get there, and I believe we all need to acknowledge that.

2.) Was initially introduced in the 80's transformers movie only after being strong armed by Ron Friedman, being the first female presenting robot to be seen in the show. bright pink, cause, ya know, female. has the most romantic involvement of any transformer ever across all transformations media, cause, ya know, female, and god forbid she be her own person when hasbro can stick to her to Some Guy. she was made trans in the 2005 continuity and was immediately made berserk as a result. marvel made her a freak science experiment to shame feminists. why does the robot have curves when no one else does istg

i love her too much to stand by idly while she's treated this way

3.) hasbro keeps trying to convince people that her and elita-one (another pink fem character) are actually the same. "who cares same lore different names. what do you mean they're different characters?" and constantly flips their lore, designs, and names around with every single FUCKING continuity ie transformers rise of the beasts where they use arcee's design but call her elita-one SMASHES MY HEAD INTO THE WALL bro there's a whole group of autobots called the "female transformers". i don't. there's so little female representation in this series that hasbro decided the best way to fix it would be… segregation, ig. arcee is apart of it obviously. elita-one leads it. reminds me that i should (and maybe sick a couple friends on this poll) make a submission for elita because JESUS CHRIST hasbro fucked her up also apparently in some continuities arcee is trans. upon getting bottom surgery it fucking. idk how turns her berserk?? it's so weird. mind controlled/sleeper agent in like half of the fucking continuities for some reason. in every single one of these continuities she either gets with Springer or Hot Rod and ends up betraying them. every single time why does the robot have boobs

NAOMI MISORA (DEATH NOTE)

1.) I know everyone is gonna submit Misa but honestly she had it worse.

She gets introduced as this competent lady who's gonna help find Kira but then she just, decides to show some teenager her real ID as a show of trust and whoops that's Kira.

Also part of her introduction was her fiance going "You don't need to worry about this tracking down the killer nonsense, you're gonna be my wife, you should just be worried about raising kids in the future :)" or some shit. And it's barely addressed, because she just fucking dies.

2.) She was the only woman in the series to show any level of competence. She figured out more about how the death note works from some small context clues than L did in considerably less time. She was apparently so competent that the author decided to kill her off despite initially planning to make her a main character, fearing she would distract from the L and Light rivalry.

3.) the victim of “writer doesn’t understand women and also hates them” disease. Like, seriously, the author of Death Note could only imagine a female FBI agent as the fiancée of another, more senior FBI agent. The main character Light kills her fiancé Raye Penber (in honestly a really tightly written and cool episode) and so she tries to figure out who killed her husband. Unlike Raye who only figured out that Light was Kira as he was dying because Light basically told him, Naomi figures it out a lot sooner so oops guess she’s gotta die because she’s too good at her job.

[0zzysaurus]

do u have any advice for writing g1 wreck-gar dialogue i have a potentially wreckrod ish thing i wanna write but i find myself drawing such a blank when it comes to his TV talk

I have some advice for this!!

Firstly, consider how much TV-Talk you want to actually give him. Depending on his iteration, the degree to which he actually uses it can be quite different. You can get away with doing none, and you can get away with doing a fuck ton. Some official writers have written his dialogue exclusively in pop-culture references in the past, and others have omitted the language entirely.

In G1 and the G1 Comics including the movie, he uses almost entirely film/television references to speak as well as old-school advertising slogans and small print read-offs. If you really need some inspiration, you can definitely find compilations of classic ad reels on YouTube from the eighties. I would suggest going for mostly UK centric media references because that’s what he leaned toward in the film and the show, but he also said US pop-culture references as well so don’t feel like you have to restrict yourself. He’d put on all sorts of accents to do American phrases so if you wanna throw that in, feel free. He also liked to make music references as well, so any song that was popular in that era has its lyrics up for use. This carries over to Dreamwave, Collect and Save, and all other G1 centric media.

In IDW2005, his references are all over the place, nursery rhymes, music, television, even fourth-wall breaking “meanwhile” reads that aren’t explained by the comic as anything beyond his inane rambling. He was more prone to actually making pretty intelligible sentences in IDW2005 with a bit of an odd cadence, but in general he comes off as at least a little bit more ‘put together’, haha.

Don’t feel like you have to restrict yourself on the time period of the references either — in fact, I think the newer the reference, the worse it ages in terms of readability. Older, more obscure texts come off as far more charming. My excuse for locking his TV-Talk in and around the seventies and eighties is the delay in transmission signal across space — in short, it takes a long time for the signal to get there, hence he’s still working his way along older media despite newer media existing. Or you can ignore all that and give him whatever phrases you like from any era of television.

I’m not actually sure that TFA Wreck-Gar says any TV-Talk. He mostly spouts bizarre phrases disconnected from pop-culture or parrots the words of others. Sometimes he’ll come out with a shockingly coherent comment that contrasts against his absurdity. He will often introduce himself in a tic-like manner whenever anyone describes him as something — i.e. if someone were to approach him and say “Wow, you’re tall.” He would likely reply, “I am Wreck-Gar. I’m tall!” before actually engaging in a conversation.

G1 Wreck-Gar on the other hand actually has several instances of referring to himself in the third-person. Now this isn’t all the time, but occasionally he does do this, — e.g. “Wreck-Gar will put you in good hands” or “Could this be the end of little Wreck-Gar? Oh No!” (<- such a stupid fucking quote btw, poor thang…) Do NOT feel like you have to do that all the time, Wreck-Gar is very capable of saying “I” in his day-to-day sentences.

I would say restrict yourself on not copying too many of his lines from pre-existing media, since it can get a little stale repeating the same phrases over and over, BUT if there’s a good line that you really like and it works in the moment, just use it.

Also, don’t worry about it sounding stupid. Do I even need to say why you shouldn’t worry if it sounds stupid? No, didn’t think so <3

[copperbadge]

I happened to be near soldier field and saw their sign. Why are fanny packs prohibited? 😲

[ID: A sign posted in the park on the way to Soldier Field stadium; it's not clearly readable but the rules for what is not allowed in Soldier Field are lengthy. There is a big international "no" sign over a gun at the top of the list, and at the bottom it mentions Soldier Field is a non-smoking facility.]

Soldier Field's bag policy is pretty fucking insane. They send you like three emails about it before the event, because they want to make really sure you get it, and they also have lockers at the stadium in case you weren't paying attention.

The tl;dr is that the only bags you can carry into the stadium are a 12" clear plastic tote, a gallon ziplock, or a clutch purse less than 5x7" (no shoulder or waist strap). The clutch can be opaque, but any other bag has to be clear and none of them can "attach" to your person by means of a strap. This isn't exclusive to any specific event, it's standard stadium policy, so it applies to both sporting and entertainment events like concerts.

Aside from a handful of games at Wrigley several years ago, I haven't been in a pro stadium in more than a decade. I've only been attending ballgames at minor league stadiums, where they might search your bag or they might just wave you through. I'm pretty sure some of the games I've attended in Texas allowed open carry. Even Wrigley just searched whatever bag you were carrying. So this policy might be standard at football stadiums more than baseball, but it's also fucked up. Presumably it both ensures that you don't bring outside consumables into the park, so that they get that sweet concessions cash, and that you don't bring a weapon or anything that could be used as a weapon.

I bought a bottle of water and a box of popcorn at the park and it ran me $13, and let me tell you that kind of price gouging could definitely inspire violence.

Potentially the issue is real; Chicago has a problem with gun violence, the US in general has a problem with mass shooters, and soccer is by far the most shouty and passionate sport I've ever been involved in. Still, if you're already putting us through metal detectors (and they are) I think you can ease back and maybe let a bastard have a messenger bag.

(Just so I don't get a dozen comments about this: yes, UK, we know what a fanny means there, it means butt in the US, a fanny pack is a bag that sits on your butt.)

[hasdrubal-gisco]

day 2 eval - i'll keep this short, most of everything was covered in day 1 but one thing that stands out is how a lot of the tourism-dependent economy has disappeared (would be nice to have a baseline to compare to but it was my first visit). zero souvenir shops, zero thai foot massage places, no "real authentic 100% ukrainian restaurant not overpriced" restaurants full of brits. no heineken. center proper was full of people who were clearly just hanging out, in a location that is reserved for foreigners anywhere else, and locals are pushed out a couple blocks.

a lot of ongoing construction taking place already, mixed use developments branded with almost exclusively UK-based funds - i know the country was portioned and countries were bidding on contracts for the rebuild, could be UK has dibs on lviv. a lot of glass, i find, for a place nominally in an active war zone. decent number of boys and men walking around in uniforms, skinny 18yo boys looking like they're visiting home for the weekend from training, older guys just walking back and forth. can't recall if it was in the full post or just in snaps, but a lot of crippled soldiers, though seemingly 0 homeless or begging. saw no women/girls walking around uniformed in the city, but coming in by train, the MPs who checked the train were all women. saw(or rather, heard) a single pair of guys speaking russian to each other, otherwise only ukrainian ever. did have some trouble getting gallery tickets due to language barrier, i can understand ukrainian pretty well, got a lot of practice at the start of the war through work, and that paid dividends, and i was replying with some kinda medžuslovjansky-ish thing. turns out there's only one synagogue in the city which is crazy considering it was like 35% jewish prior to ww2. they don't even have a chabad. im not sure if the visual style of the ukrainian greek catholic (real) churches is modern or not (churches seem to be one of the few things restored over the last 30 years), but truly truly gorgeous buildings and decor.

day 3 eval - had to change from my original itinerary, took a 1pm outbound bus across the border to przemyśl, planning to see the city before connecting to my train back home at 10pm (+1 timezone over). crossing the ukrainian part of the border ended up getting detained for like an hour (for sure bcs of us passport), and asked what the purpose of my visit was and where i was staying and they even asked for contact info for the airbnb owner and called her on the phone to confirm i stayed in her apartment. didn't let me pee. eventually let go and i happily returned to sitting in the bus not moving for another 6 hours. overall took like 9h to make the 90km trip, just barely arrived in time for train for next leg of trip. would have for sure killed myself without public wifi provided by spacex's starlink. thank you 16 year old żabka employee for heating up my falafel wrap i owe you my life.

would not recommend, but those with vim will not be dissuaded

[thedreadvampy]

this is my new gripe forget talking about "die" vs "unalive" if I have to see one more person talking about "sexual assault" or "SA" when they specifically and exclusively mean "rape" I'm gonna fucking lose it.

apart from anything else idk about other legislatures but while in general/casual use I do personally think rape is a subcategory of sexual assault, in both Scottish and English law I'm pretty sure that rape and sexual assault are two distinct things. attempted rape falls under sexual assault but rape is its own crime?

and I'm not wanting to lean on that tbh because the legal definition of rape is Bad Actually - extremely heterocisnormative (UK law is particularly bad on this bc rape legally can only happen with a penis, any other penetration is Assault By Penetration), extremely restrictive, and, due to being a discrete legal construct, draws extremely arbitrary boundaries between which things which in my experience are pretty much on the same level are and are not rape.

and I also don't. think that legal constructs of sexual assault from within a carceral system are the most useful even if they were broader and more reflective of the human experiences of rape and sexual assault.

hooooooowever. they don't need to be separate things for my point to stand. let's ignore the law (because it is. deeply flawed.) and just talk about what sexual assault entails.

Sexual assault includes (depending on your definition):

Unwanted sexual touching (with hands or objects)

Unwanted kissing

Attempted rape

Cumming, pissing or spitting on someone sexually without consent

Violating someone's bodily autonomy for sexual purposes (eg secretly feeding them things, looking up their skirt)

Groping/feeling up without consent

If we're going to get technical, generally speaking in a legal/professional context, sexual assault means specifically unwanted sexual touching. however I don't think it's unreasonable in an online context to bundle in other forms of sexual violence including:

Masturbating in front of someone

Trying to coerce/threaten/trick someone into any sexual act (whether with yourself, with another person or by themselves)

Flashing someone or sending sexual images without consent

Pressuring people into sexual conversations/situations

Watching/recording people in sexual situations without consent

Creating or obtaining nudes of someone without consent

and loads of other stuff that's traumatic and miserable as well - I don't want to get too granular

rape is an aspect of sexual violence, but not all sexual assault or sexual violence is rape.

rape includes:

someone having sex with you against your will or without you being able to give full consent

that's it that's specifically what it is

the only flex in this definition is what you count as sex and how you define the bounds of consent for the purposes of the conversation

but like

do you see the problem?

do you see how. wherever we place rape in relation to sexual assault. attempted rape is also a form of sexual assault.

do you see how it's important that "rape" isn't synonymous with a term that also includes "attempted rape"?

in some - many! - circumstances it's useful to group together all these experiences of sexual violence. the edges are not clearcut and they all deserve to be understood as significant and traumatic.

but if we're taking about rape we're taking about rape. We're talking about a specific thing and it requires specific language. If we unilaterally consider rape and sexual assault to be 1:1 synonyms, there's absolutely no room to acknowledge the difference between "attempted rape" and "rape" (other than by removing anything that isn't a full on successful rape from the definition of sexual assault, in which case we're just removing the language to talk about that type of traumatic experience)

they're not the same thing and the use of SA as a euphemistic way to talk about specifically rape is convincing a lot of people that they are the same thing. and that does immediate measurable harm to our ability to actually talk about our experiences.

[anonymoushouseplantfan]

The mail online, whilst the online version of the daily Mail, is the biggest online newspaper in the world - in terms of daily views. It’s number one and has been since 2014/2015.

Quick google search says over 50% of its daily views come from outside the UK - noting the large audiences (and different home pages) they have in India, Australia and The USA.

So I wouldn’t say they’re targeting the British tabloids through the Mail - who themselves have become a little too reliant on social media to find stories, especially about the royals. For example, everything Kate has done in the last week, especially anything that has wound up as a gif/TikTok video has also been an article on the Mail online.

I would however say that they have a habit of “targeting” British papers depending on what they’re trying to accomplish.

For example The Sun newspaper, who up until 2018, were the most purchased daily newspaper and still sell around 1 million copies daily in the UK. Since leaving, H&M have either leaked or granted exclusive access to the sun on the following stories;

Megixt - they blame the family for the leak. Dan Wotton who broke the story claims it came from the Sussexes.

Invictus - pretty sure they allowed the sun to have photo access at the last games in the Netherlands.

Lilibets 1st birthday photos.

The Sun’s royal reporter Matt Wilkinson was getting all the Sussex info for a while; then they switched to Jack Royston at Newsweek (which tbh here in the Uk, I’m not sure how many Brits actually read Newsweek?). Jack flipped around the Netflix docuseries/book.

Since QE2’s death/funeral they’ve been buddying up with the telegraph - but more reputable here in the UK - started with the whole “Harry not allowed to wear uniform/sad that his epaulets were left off during the grandchildren vigil” and continues to this day.

So there is targeting the British press, but like everything with these two, which journalist/reporter/paper will change with whatever they’re trying to project/accomplish.

Good points. However, I don’t think they are really “targeting” the UK papers. I think the UK papers are the only ones that are willing to print their leaks for free right now. If they want US coverage, they have to pay for it and they don’t have the money right now.

That’s why their pap pics are now on TMZ. What with their lawsuits and loss of status even the Mail isn’t paying for her pics.

[misfitmagpie]

Let’s talk about The Magnus Protocol logo

Or what we can see of it from the Kickstarter exclusive t-shirt design anyway. Do note, I am going to dig up everything and anything I can think of, whether it may be relevant or not. I also want to note that I am not an expert on the things I am about to reference, I have a dabbling interest in many things, and enjoy looking stuff up. Now let’s take a closer look.

I have isolated the new logo from the old Magnus Institute logo, and put it against a black background for better viewing.

The Latin text on the lower banner "Non vacillabimus", google translate gives "We will not falter" as a result. Though I've seen different interpretations/translations floating around. So I'm sure someone more versed in Latin than I am can say more on the nuances here.

The laurel wreath, which are pretty straight forward. Associated with victory, honour, peace, and achievement. Common on coats of arms and crests. Laurel was associated with the god Apollo, and seen as a cleansing and protecting plant, it was the Romans who later adopted it as a symbol of triumph.

The triangle in the centre with the smaller triangles within reminds me of an inverted Sierpiński triangle, a fractal with ever smaller triangle iterations within.

The rule of this fractal is the repeated forming of triangles by taking the middle of each side and connecting them. However in the logo the triangles are not fully formed, and instead more shaped like arrows or diamonds.

In the centre of the triangle there seems to be a circle with shapes around it: triangles with crosses underneath.

They look like the alchemical symbol for sulphur/brimstone. In alchemy sulphur is seen as an active male element, something that brings about change. It is seen as having hot and dry properties, like the element fire, and is also associated with the sun.

On the left there appears to be a claw and fur, likely depicting a lion. This parallels the royal coat of arms of the UK.

On the right there is a split hoof and fur, likely of a classic depiction of a unicorn. This parallels the royal coat of arms of the UK.

The letters on top only have the A fully visible. However after inspecting it, it seems to be written in a typeface similar to Castellar Std Roman. Based on the shape of the letters of such a typeface, and the letter snippets we can see, we can guess that the half visible letter on the left is either an O or a Q, and the one on the right is either a R or a B (note how the middle arm curves slightly down, suggesting a bowl of a B or a tail of an R). Further between the half visible letter on the left, and the letter A there is enough space for another letter. So you have O/Q • _ • A • R/B.

On the top left corner of the centre there is a curved line that does not match the two exterior circles, so there's another round shape in there.

In the central circle we can make out the bottoms of two more shapes. While I can't immediately think of what the left one might be.

The right one gives us more to work with.

It could be another alchemical symbol, potentially of mercury (the counterpart and opposite of sulphur according to alchemical ideas), sulphur, or the symbol for Venus. Or less likely but potentially a compound symbol. Another possibility is a cross crosslet, or a Cross of Lorraine. Though given the amount of space from the centre of the circle, I'm not so sure about the cross crosslet. It’s worth nothing that it has pointed diamond ends, like the passion cross (meant to refer to Christ’s suffering on the cross as the points represent nails), which in heraldry is called Cross Aiguisé (French for “sharpened”) or Pointed Cross, or Cross Urdée (from ‘urde’, heraldic term for “having points”). Not sure what it could mean for The Magnus Protocol though.

There’s also 10 circles on each side of the triangle, resulting in 30 in total. Though not sure how this is relevant.

Not entirely sure about this triangle with the circles...

If anyone has any idea about what this might reference, I am definitely open to reading it, because I have spent hours searching and haven’t come up with anything that matches halfway decently. There’s also those weird little 3 dark lines on the right side intersecting with the other line. Not entirely sure what that is but it feels a little out of place as the centre of this image is pretty clear and sharp compared to the outer edges.

And lastly these little things appear 5 times on a side of the triangle, so if the pattern repeats itself, it should come to a total of 15. I don’t have much to say here. They remind me a little of carved pateras you can find on antique furniture or architecture. It looks a little like a pointed quatrefoil (4 leaf structure/shape). Could be a clue, could just be decorative.

What does this all mean put together? No idea honestly. But I wanted to share the things I have noticed so far.

[randomvarious]

Today's compilation:

Plastic Surgery 2 2001 Drum n Bass / Liquid Funk

There are so many different strains of drum n bass that are out there, folks, but one specific type that ended up proving pretty dang popular in the UK is one with the groovy name of liquid funk. This is the kind that, more or less, removes an absolute necessity for the drums and bass to be the focal points of the songs, and allows them to serve as more of a steady and foundational backdrop for whatever melodic, harmonic, or ambient fuss is made to surround them. But while this proved a surefire way to expand dnb's reach to people who hadn't originally been fans of the music in the first place, some true heads also naturally bristled at it too, because it seemed that the genre that they had loved was having its sharper edges sanded off a bit.

Beloved dnb DJ and producer Fabio was a pioneer of the liquid funk style, though, and so was Hospital Records, a label that was founded by the duo of London Elektricity, which is now a solo act. And back in '01, when LE were still making music together, Hospital dropped a fantastic liquid double-disc called Plastic Surgery 2, which featured a bunch of exclusives from the label on the first disc, and then a full DJ mix from London Elektricity themselves on the second, with that latter one incorporating a bunch of the tracks from the former.

But another key aspect of this era was the use of the 2-step break, which is typically defined by a snare hit on every second and fourth beat, and ended up giving the music a bouncier feel. Almost every song on here utilizes one.

So, if you like the liquid 2-step stuff, or are just interested in hearing it, this comp is a total can't-miss. Everything on here is dope and should have your head happily bobbing up and down in no time, but one that really stands out among the rest is High Contrast's "Suddenly," a powerful jam with glorious splashes of orchestral strings and a layer of swift hand-drum taps. And for an example of how liquid funk could effectively serve a broader audience, there's London Elektricity's own "Round the Corner," which features Liane Carroll providing soulful verses alongside and between LE's grinding hoover grooves.

But not all of this comp seems to have had its wagon hitched to the 2-step trend, either. Oxford duo Total Science deliver a deep and adventurous stunner in "Let It Go," which is a track that's sure to keep the real heads satisfied, as it does an excellent job of combining drum breaks, and is nowhere near as stable as the rest of the tunes in this crop.

So, drum n bass sure has spawned a whole lot of different branches since it started to emerge from jungle in the mid-90s, but liquid funk was one of its most popular during the early-to-mid-aughts. And this double-disc, from one of the labels that was on the style's forefront before it ended up reaching its zenith, is fantastic.

Highlights:

CD1:

London Elektricity - "Wishing Well (Danny Byrd Remix)" London Elektricity - "Superstructure (John B Remix)" High Contrast - "Suddenly" Yukihiro Fukutomi - "I Am (London Elektricity Remix)" London Elektricity - "Round the Corner (Origin Unknown Remix)" DJ Kalm + Citizen - "Venus" Total Science - "Let It Go" Carlito + Addiction - "The Ride" Liane Carroll - "The Trap (Calibre Remix)"

CD2:

London Elektricity - "Continuous Mix"

[thecrankiestofgremlins]

Aight imma go on a rant about employment law because that's what I'm studying and planning to put my career into. I should note this is UK law, however *some* of this shit is pretty universal. Also, obvious disclaimer, this isn't legal advice.

1. EMPLOYMENT LAW IS WRITTEN IN FAVOUR OF EMPLOYERS. THIS CAN MAKE THEM ARROGANT. UK employment law gives them a huge amount of leeway and is largely written in their favour, and they STILL regularly manage to go over the line to the point of absolute absurdity, to the point of accidentally creating beautifully complete evidence trails for employees to use in tribunal. Why do they do this? Because UK employment law is entirely enforced by individual employees and between the costs of a lawyer and the implied threat that if you take your employer to tribunal you'll never work in your field again (not universally true BTW), they assume they will never be taken to task for it. Employees are generally reluctant to take their employers to tribunal because of the above. What this means though, is if an employee *does* take them to tribunal, the evidence trail is usually extensive AS LONG AS the employee has taken steps to preserve it.

2. SAVE YOUR EMAILS. Any email sent to you by an employer regarding your employment in any way belongs to you. Send that shit to your personal email address, whether or not you think it's sketchy. For every employer. Keep your paper trail. You don't know when you might need it. This goes extra for things like performance reviews/flexible working/reasonable adjustment requests/etc.

3. NOT EVERYTHING IN YOUR CONTRACT IS ENFORCEABLE BY THE EMPLOYER. Employers *love* to stick exclusion clauses in or try to say that handbooks don't form part of your employment contract. They also like to do things like try to classify you as a self employed contractor when really, if you apply the relevant law, you are an employee and have the rights of an employee. Just because your contract says a thing doesn't mean it is the be all and end all. Think of it this way: if you only did what your employer required in writing in the contract, would they be pissed? If so, your contract is probably shit.

4. READ THE DAMN CONTRACT. Make sure you know the ins and outs of your job description, what's expected of you, your pay, overtime policy, where you're expected to work, etc. Just because you might not be able to negotiate it doesn't mean you shouldn't know what it says. This also goes for any employment handbooks. Know what the limits are, know what your hours are, know what your benefits are. Chances are good the employer will ask you to go above and beyond them, or try to pretend you don't have a contractual right to something when you absolutely do. Also, you *can* negotiate on more than you think. For example: employers are not allowed to make deductions from your pay beyond PAYE and National Insurance, UNLESS they have been contractually agreed beforehand. Check to see if they're trying to add a bunch of extra permitted deductions and *challenge* that shit if you feel able to. (My favourite is requiring supposed independent contractors to pay for a uniform. Highly unlikely that you're actually an independent contractor at that point plus fuck you if you want to control what I wear pay for it your damn self).

5. DO NOT OPT OUT OF NATIONAL WORKING TIME REGULATIONS. This is a pretty standard extra inclusion in most people's employment contracts in the UK. It shows up as an extra page of the contract with a separate signing line because they're not allowed to include that requirement as a contractual obligation (in most cases: the big exception is emergency workers) National Working Time Regs limit the amount of hours an employer can require from an adult (over 18) employee to 48 hrs on average, that average being taken over a period of 17 weeks. However, employees can opt out of this, hence the extra piece of paper. The employer cannot dock your salary/terminate your employment/treat you in any negative way if you do not sign this piece of paper. They include it with the contract so that people *assume* they have to sign it. If you're employed and have already signed it, you can opt back in by notifying your employer in writing. Generally this will mean a 3 month period before the regs apply to you again. But *do it*.

6. IF YOUR HOURS ARE VARIABLE, KEEP TRACK OF THEM INDEPENDENTLY. If you don't have a 9-5 contract, this applies to you. This is to make sure that if there's a dispute, you have a record that *you* made of those hours. Ya know, in case the employer decides to conveniently forget about them. I watched OXFORD UNIVERSITY try this shit in a tribunal and they got absolutely wasted because a) it was so obvious (they'd deleted hours spent on marking) and b) the employees had kept an independent record.

7. IF YOUR EMPLOYER DOES SOMETHING SHITTY, YOU HAVE 3 MONTHS FROM THE DATE OF THAT SHITTY THING TO SUE THEM FOR IT. It's one of the shortest time limits in UK law (remember when I said the law is written in employers' favour?), and that time is *only* paused when you involve ACAS (I'll explain ACAS in a sec) and the timer starts again once ACAS issues their certificate. It does NOT stop if you're trying to resolve the issue through internal grievance processes, and attempting to resolve the issue internally is not an acceptable argument if you're trying to extend that time (which you can, under specific circumstances, but try not to rely on that bc it's iffy at best) (yes you can also argue that there have been continuing acts but at that point you need to talk to a lawyer because there are specific rules around that too). There are. So many cases. That I've come across personally. That would be an absolute slam dunk EXCEPT they're out of time.

8. IF YOU WANT TO SUE YOUR EMPLOYER YOU HAVE TO GO THROUGH ACAS FIRST. Employment law is the only area of law where you are legally required to try to do mediation first. How much you engage with the mediation is up to you, however the more you do, the better it looks. Mediation does not mean you have to agree with the employer! It just means you get to ask them the questions you want to ask them in official channels. That said, if they roll over and give you what you want during these negotiations, you kind of have to take it: English law says that civil courts can only give you money as a remedy. As much as you might want to have your day in court, civil courts are legally only for getting money out of people, not primarily for the public administration of justice. Yes I hate this too. If you don't take it, the court won't like it and there is a potential that the court *could* award your employer their costs. ACAS can also give you help explaining how the process works etc. Make sure you contact them and start the process ASAP as soon as you decide the thing is worth suing over.

9. READ THE EQUALITY ACT 2010. There are 9 protected characteristics under UK law: age, disability, gender reassignment, marriage/civil partnership, pregnancy and maternity, race, religion or belief, sex, and sexual orientation. Broadly speaking, your employer cannot treat you negatively because of any of these characteristics. There are qualifications and limits to how far this goes, obviously, but broadly speaking, this is the case. I'll do another post later going into some of this in more detail because the topic is huge but taking a look at the sections that may apply to you is a good start.

10. NOT BEING ABLE TO AFFORD A LAWYER OUTRIGHT DOESN'T NECESSARILY MEAN YOURE OUT OF OPTIONS. First, you *can* represent yourself. It's not an option I'd suggest before you've exhausted all your other options but it is possible. The issue is that you probably don't speak legalese or have access to legal databases, but there is still research you can do on Google. Don't trust everything you read though. Law firm websites are a good place to start, as they tend to write decent articles on the basics of a given issue and they can point you towards some case law. You can also call Citizens Advice for a jumping off point. If you're representing yourself though, the only things you can really reference in court are a) legislation, b) case law, and c) practitioners texts. Remember, case law explains how legislation actually works: it doesn't apply to every situation you might think is covered by it.

Second, most solicitors firms offer free 15-30 minute consultations, where you go in, give them the basics of the situation, and they give you some advice and can signpost you to somewhere you can get more information. This can be really, really helpful and I'd suggest it even if you're planning on repping yourself.

Third, a lot of firms also offer something called a no-win-no-fee agreement, which is about what it says on the tin: if you don't win, you don't pay. Each firm will have different stipulations regarding these, so you should ask what these are. The problem though, is if the firm doesn't think you have a winnable case, they are unlikely take it on that basis (because that means they don't get paid and that's a lot of work not to get paid for). If you do win, they generally take a piece of your winnings as payment (so sometimes they won't do it because you're not claiming enough). It's not a guarantee, but IMHO it's a good option if you have a good case.

Last, there are the pro bono organisations. A lot of places will have a regional pro bono law clinic. These may or may not be able to take your case all the way to tribunal, but if not they should be able to refer you to an org that can. London and its immediate surrounding area has the Free Representation Unit, for example (your case has to be referred to them by another org, usually one of the clinics) but if they can take up your case, they can take it all the way to tribunal and even appeals. Since Legal Aid isn't a thing in employment law (except for discrimination), a lot of these organisations have an absolutely fucking massive caseload though, so there isn't a guarantee that they'll be able to take your case.

I'm sure I'll think of more to add to this later, but this is just the bare bones basic shit that *everyone* should know. A lot of cases don't get brought because people don't know that they a) have rights, b) they don't hold onto documents, c) they don't start the claim in time, or d) all of the above. Given that employment law is only enforceable by the individual, the only way to get employers to play by the rules more often is if people start enforcing it. It's a shit way to do it, but it's what we've got at the moment.

If people find this useful and would like this to be a regular thing, lmk.

[brf-rumortrackinganon]

What do you make of the UK gov betting for the Invitus Games? I agree with your take about H&M ties to russia/china. I dont think H&M are working for them, but they could be useful tools to play with and disrupt the peace and trust of the brits for the BRF. Therefore I dont understand why the UK would want to bring IG there. Surely there are other ways to promote the army and the veterans than to bring H around.

I think it's Charles throwing a bone to Harry to help him out while simultaneously telling everyone to keep him out of it.

The way things are going - both financially and PR-wise - Invictus Games is a disaster. The financial reports show that the charity is losing money hand over fist and Harry (and Meghan) are doing nothing to help them earn or fundraise more money. From the PR, it's pretty clear that the Sussexes buy press coverage to focus specifically and exclusively on them because only their work is written about. If you want to learn about the actual competitors, you really have to dig for that information.

So there is actually zero reason for why the UK should bring Invictus Games back. Especially since Germany is trialling a national version that has nothing to do with the Sussexes. If Germany's national games goes well, many of the other countries are going to follow suit and do their own thing with their own national versions or throw more support behind their Special Olympics teams or just send their people to the US Warrior Games (which they've done before in the past).

Which means that logically, the only reason for the UK government to step up and host a lose-lose opportunity is if there was higher pressure from the UK military...whose commander-in-chief is father of the Invictus Games' "founder" and "patron."

It's top-tier nepo-babying.

[welcome-to-latveria]

cursive isn’t an (exclusively) american thing. you may know it as “script” or “joined writing” but schools in the UK definitely used to teach it!

That's what confuses me bcos I'm pretty sure every school in the UK is teaching joined up writing that's just how writing is done usually? But then everyone talks about cursive like it's a lost art and it makes me think they're talking about something more akin to calligraphy than normal writing

[nickmaghighlights]

NMH Side Issues - Rugrats Comic Adventures

Welcome back to Nick Mag Highlights! And by extension: Welcome back to Nick Mag Highlights Side Issues, the series on this blog where I check out other magazines or comic books that are notably not Nickelodeon Magazine, but still scratch a similar itch. Today we’re taking a look at the very first issue of Rugrats Comic Adventures, based on the iconic Nickelodeon show.

But first, let’s run down the history checklist. This series ran for about three years, from 1997 to 2000, spanning a total of thirty issues housed in three ten-issue volumes. That would put the release of this first issue around the time of the fourth season of the show. In that case, sorry to any Dil fans, as you won’t be seeing him in this issue.

The history and creation of this series is a bit interesting, and although the information available to me disposal is a little scarce, this is my best understanding: you see, Rugrats Comic Adventures was released in America, but it seems like most if not all of its actual content was sourced from an official Rugrats comic book released exclusively for the UK in 1996 (a year earlier than Rugrats Comic Adventures’ release). Said comic was simply titled Rugrats and published by Marvel Comics (yes, that Marvel Comics).

The cover page of issue #1 of Rugrats, published in the UK by Marvel Comics. Credit to Boys Adventure Comics on Blogspot for the image and the information!

As you’ll soon see, the first story in this issue I’m talking about today is the same as the one visible on this cover of UK Rugrats (do all UK comics print the first page on the front cover?) And according to the aforementioned Blogspot source, there were allegedly thirty issues released of this UK comic, which conveniently lines up with the thirty issues released of Rugrats Comic Adventures. A conspiracy? Maybe… 

The only problem is I don’t have a scan of any of the Rugrats UK comics at my disposal, so I can’t confirm if the contents between the issues of the UK and US series are the same, unfortunately. So hey, if we’re lucky, there may be content in store for us that was made specifically for Comic Adventures that those British-types just wish they could have gotten. Maybe.

But I digress. As some of you may know, this wouldn’t be the last time Rugrats would enter the world of comics. In 1998 a daily newspaper strip based on the show was launched, lasting until 2003 and outliving Comic Adventures by three years. The show’s sequel series All Grown Up also had multiple comic outings made specially for Nickelodeon Magazine, and in 2017, Boom! Studios began publishing a new Rugrats comic series which totaled to eight issues and three longer special issues. But how did these characters fare in their first foray into comic stardom? Let’s check it out!

Oh, and before we dive in, I’d like to make one thing clear: I am not a Rugrats superfan. I’ve seen my fair share of episodes of course (with how constantly Nickelodeon played it, how could I not?) But I'm just saying I may not catch specific references if there are any, or like if a comic here reuses a plot from an episode of the show, for instance. Though if anyone reading does catch a cool detail I miss, I'd love to hear about it! 

You can read the full issue here.

So it looks like it’s five comics on the agenda today, along with two extra pages all about Chuckie and Angelica. That’s not a bad deal! It’s more material than I bargained for, that’s for sure.

I’m pretty optimistic going into this one. I mean, check out that art! It looks just like the show. And while I can't find any credits in the book, Think some employees of Klasky Csupo had a hand in the material here?

So the story goes, Angelica sort of gets left in charge of the babies, thanks to Tommy's mom. And naturally Angelica's quick to abuse her miniscule ounce of power and starts running the backyard like a military academy. A fine premise, and a pretty low-stakes story befitting a quick comic (well, lower than the stakes a show about babies can usually have, anyway).

There are two details that kind of throw me off though, namely being: the dialogue and… Angelica, I guess?

Dialogue-wise, everybody's pretty talkative here and that's okay. Angelica's on point, barking orders in her usual bratty way. But all the babies are rather verbose today, aren't they? I think one of the most memorable details of Rugrats personally is the characters' loose grip on language. Pretty much every line from one of the babies in the show has at least one grammatical error or made-up word, and it's charming! Here though, all the dialogue is written in perfect English, and once you notice it, you can’t forget it.

You'd think Tommy's newfound eloquence would have Chuckie trust his plan a bit more.

Now, onto Angelica. Simply put: they made her look insane in this comic! I mean just take a look at the two pages I posted prior and see what I mean. Orrrr… I suppose you could look a this collage I made for the same result:

Yes, these are all from the same comic. Even Tommy’s scared.

This may be my lack of Rugrats knowledge shining through again but I really don’t remember her being portrayed with a huge bulbous overbite like that. Or with that many teeth. Don’t get me wrong though, I can totally get behind some funny off-model art that I bet the artist had fun drawing. That’s what they refer to in the industry as a “win-win”.

But yeah, overall a pretty solid first story, which is either elevated or dishonored by taking certain artistic liberties. Depends on who you ask. I’m on Team Elevated.

Next up is a bio on Chuckie. I didn’t think there was much to share regarding the personal intricacies of a literal two-year-old, and apparently the writers here agreed, seeing as how they had to resort to doxxing the poor kid just to fill their fact quota for this page. 446 “Braintree” Lane? Weird name, but I guess it’s pretty befitting considering Chuckie’s hair looks like his brain sprouted out of his head. 

Another cool thing of note here is that all the Chuckie facts listed here are actually references to episodes of the show. As a kid it was always an awesome feeling whenever I understood a reference. It simultaneously made me feel smart and seemingly validated my choice to engage in a piece of media. Thumbs ups all around! Thanks, Chuckie.

Second comic of the evening, and actually I found myself really enjoying this one! The gripes I had from the previous comic have been ironed out, and the setting of the story is pretty interesting and leads to a lot of fun and creative moments. The short and long of it is Tommy and the other babies accidentally end up riding on the baggage carousel of an airport and getting mixed up with all of the machinery. Naturally, instead of getting smushed and ripped apart by the gears and mechanisms like boring real babies would, the gang ends up having the time of their lives, all the while believing they’re actually at a carnival.

Fun it is, indeed! As I said, my issues with the last comic have been effectively taken care of. All the characters are speaking as they should, dropping some funny misspellings for words like “skelitom” for skeleton and “loudsneaker” for loudspeaker. The art here is way less unhinged as well, probably because there’s no Angelica in it. There’s still some funky shots though, like long-arm Tommy here:

A fine addition to the issue in my opinion, and it even comes with cameos from Tommy’s maternal grandparents, Boris and Minka. Boris doesn’t speak a word, but he is sporting his original design that features small dot-eyes, which is a detail that would be dropped later on in the series.

I guess my only question is: why are Chuckie, Phil and Lil here? The obvious answer is because they’re main characters, but they’re not Stu and Didi’s kids, and none of their parents are to be found. I guess the Pickles got stuck babysitting on top of having to pick up the grandparents from the airport. Poor saps.

Oh god, Angelica’s back. At least she’s seemingly sorted out her inflated lip issue from the first story. No, I won't let it go.

Today’s adventure follows the babies as they’re getting their first ever professional photos done. Angelica is there too. These premises have been fine so far, lots of episodes of Rugrats feature the characters tackling normal everyday places they’ve never seen before and don’t understand. A large aspect about the show I also remember however is the extensive imagination sequences. Y’know, where Tommy and the gang imagine the situation they’re in as being way more fantastical than it really is, and their setting and outfits change accordingly? That was always my favorite part of the show and it’s a little weird to see that concept not having made any appearance thus far. I know not every episode had those though, and maybe those imagination sequences were more common in later seasons of the show? I’m not sure. Regardless, that doesn’t degrade the quality of the material, of course. It’s just a thought that came to mind as I was reading. 

Like the others I found this comic to be a pretty good time, although the story’s a little all over the place. The art’s nice as well. I actually found some of the art of the characters here to look somewhat cute, surprisingly. That’s not exactly the kind of term I’d usually use to describe the show’s visuals. Not sure what the artist here did differently specifically, but I did notice that Phil and Lil’s gross crooked baby teeth don’t make an appearance, so that probably helps their easiness on the eyes.

One highlight of this comic is this small moment of divine intervention where Angelica gets attacked by a bird that comes in through an open window. She didn’t really do anything bad this time to deserve it but, eh.

And of course, the gang manages to pull themselves together to finally get that one perfect picture. I appreciate they saved two pages to make this ending shot so big. It’s a really nice way to end things. Another quality story done! Honestly at this point, the issue’s fitted out a pretty positive track record. I’ll be surprised if we see any stinkers in the second half.

Oh and before we move on, I just want to bring up this small interaction from the beginning of the comic. It might be just me, but this moment just strikes me as odd. I probably won’t be able to explain this properly, but just hear me out: It’s a little weird to see Tommy and Chuckie acknowledge they’re not really talking, right? Like, yeah it’s always been established in the show that the babies are not actually speaking real language ‘cause the parents never hear them, but it’s not something you ever see them bring up and reference. Acknowledging that their form of communication is basically fake… Also the fact that they comprehend what speech is and are aware that what they’re doing isn’t that? I dunno, I might just be overthinking this. It’s too meta!

And up next, it’s what I think miiiiiiight be my favorite comic of the issue? Not entirely sure, it’s a toss up between either this one or the airport one. 

The story is as follows: The Pickles are having their whole house repainted. As usual, the kids just can’t bear to keep their noses out whatever is currently going on in their immediate area. So, Tommy enlists the help of the gang to use all the excess paint cans to repaint his entire room with an extravagant picture.

Like the airport comic this one has lots of dialogue between the four kids, and everyone gets their fair share of good lines. Chuckie does kind of come across as a little more whiny than usual here if only for the fact he never actually helps at all, outside of helping Phil and Lil save Tommy from smashing his head on the floor with a blanket.

”We- We’ve been… Greened!” might be my favorite line of the whole issue.

And as one could expect, the group made up of 0-to-2-year olds don’t exactly succeed in professionally painting the entire room. However, they instead manage to mess up in just the perfect way to still achieve the result they wanted. Being serious, this is genuinely a pretty wholesome ending and Tommy’s parents also being happy with the result is equally humorous and sweet. 

Yeah, now that I think about it, I’m pretty sure this is my favorite story of the issue. Tons of great lines and gags, a sweet ending, and a major appearance of my favorite character from the show, Grandpa Lou. A good show all around!

Well, after my high praise of the previous post, I guess that means this last comic has something to live up to. And yeah, under that lens, this comic isn’t going to be usurping my #1 favorite spot. Viewed on its own, however, and… eh, still doesn’t really do anything for me.

This one has Tommy accidentally getting stuck on top of his dad’s new custom stunt kite as it gets blown away by a gust of wind, flying him through town. Already that plot is kinda off, to me at least. I know it’s a show about talking babies and everything but the show never really got that cartoonish in its logic, at least to my recollection. Tommy must have to be basically hollow on the inside for the kite to get that kind of air with him sitting on top of it.

On the positive side of things: the art is really good! Each panel sports its own unique camera angle which gives the comic some nice visual variety. The coloring and details on all the backgrounds, likewise, are lovely to look at. Overall this presentation makes for a very extravagant ending for the comic, at least in the art department. And to top it all off, it's even got the return of long arm Tommy:

But again, in regards to the story… Even if you’re willing to accept the weird logic of it all, the actual plot isn’t super entertaining. Tommy flies around a bit, some people see him and are surprised, while Angelica’s down below using Stu’s radio trying to order Tommy to land. It’s just a bit lacking in substance compared to the other stories we’ve looked at. If you’re going to do a story like this, you might as well go all in. Like, have all the babies on the kite and pretend they’re a flight crew. Y'know, some real Snoopy-type stuff.

And of course, Tommy makes it back down to the ground just in time before his Dad can notice a thing (although it’s not like he really had control of the kite anyway, I think?)

But that’s about all I’ve got to say on this one. Not the great ending one would have hoped for, but it looks nice at least. Come to think of it, Stu could make a killing off that kite considering the amount of weight it can hold. If only he knew…

And last but… not least? It’s a guide from Angelica on how to play house. I was kind of hoping for another character bio like what Chuckie had, since then we’d at least be able to learn her weaknesses and have a chance of vanquishing her evil once and for all. But alas, this is cool too, and it has a mention of her friend Susie, who had been a character in the show for a couple years now by this point but didn’t manage to make an actual physical appearance in the issue.

Bit of an odd way to end the issue, being honest, but eh, it’s a little funny.

And before we wrap it up I’d like to bring up the little legal disclaimer here on the final page, confirming that all these comics were indeed sourced from the origins Marvel-published UK Rugrats issues.

Well, that was fun, wasn’t it? I was a little skeptical going into it, but I think this turned out to be a pretty good choice for another installment of Side Issues. It had a history lesson opportunity, some great art, and a lot to talk about. Everything you could want, at least if you write blog posts about old Nickelodeon-related publications in your spare time, anyway. 

And hey, there’s more to this series than what I’ve shown you today, too. Did you know the last issue featured a crossover between Rugrats and Rocket Power, another one of Klasky Csupo’s shows?

That’s pretty cool! And also a little odd ‘cause I thought Rocket Power took place in Hawaii. This also means the only Nickelodeon-owned Klasky Csupo show that Rugrats didn’t cross over with is As Told by Ginger, and to be fair I’m not sure how you could’ve made that work, so I’ll let it pass.

But yeah, if I check out this comic series again, I think I’ll take a look at this issue. Well, actually if I do check out this series again it’ll have to be this issue, since it’s the only other issue on the Internet Archive I could find. That’s a bummer! Hopefully people’ll find and scan more copies sooner rather than later. The internet will only be around for so long, after all.

This would be where I end things, but while I was working on this post, Nickelodeon announced a new Rugrats game of all things.

It’s a bit of a shock, but I think what’s more shocking is that it looks pretty good! The NES graphics mode does, anyway. The HD drawn graphics you can optionally switch to leave something to be desired. It seems fun! I’ll be keeping an eye on this one.  And apparently Nickelodeon’s got a couple more retro-styled games in the works, so I’m excited to see where this goes.

That about does it for this episode of Nick Mag Highlights! I’ll see you all next time, where I’ll most certainly be checking out another issue of the actual magazine this blog is named after. Probably. See you later, and have a good one!

[ofstormsandfire]

I saw your post about the askbox, and as a fellow archaeology student I've been wondering for a while how your degree is going and if it's similar at all to how mine is taught in the UK

it's been Going that's for sure! (also hell yeah archaeology)

for one thing, the spelling I'm supposed to use is archeology, but that just looks wrong okay, most of my professors prefer archaeology too, I have been informed that apparently spelling it that way while applying to things over here will just get you automatically rejected which is dumb as hell but good to know I guess?

also over here archaeology is one of four subfields of anthropology, they all tend to be taught together, I can't get a specific degree in archaeology but the other stuff is cool and ties in so I'm fine with it lol

anyway. I've had two very fun classes this semester: one about sexuality and gender across cultures (which I affectionately refer to as "the sex class" pretty much exclusively to make people double take) and one about paleopathology, which is a bit of a subfield of archaeology focused on the effects of diseases and other traumas on the human (usually human) skeleton.

I'm having to write papers for both classes. one is a study of asexuality on a college campus (and I feel like I should get bonus points for not just interviewing all my friends, 6 of the 10 required interviews were with people I had never spoken to before in my life) and the other is going to be an analysis on parry fractures, which are a specific kind of fracture that tends to happen on people's non-dominant forearms when they're blocking attacks. tends to be an indication of a past society that was at least somewhat violent?

(honestly my biggest stressor this semester has not been anything to do with archaeology though. it's been the spanish literature class I girlbossed too close to the sun with. pro tip, y'all: don't take a literature class for a language you barely speak. I'm surviving but barely and at this point it's a matter of pride to prove I can in fact do this. you know how it is.)

thanks for the ask clara :>