The Brony metaphor? That if you are a magic corporate pony “magic corporate pony/unicorn” who hates bronies, life is hard?
Reminds me of that old Groucho Marx joke – “I don’t care to belong to any club that will have me as a member.” 🙂
The poor little pony!
I know how it looks, Hugin, but this storyline has much more to do with a certain co-author’s girly artistic predilections that significantly predate the whole “Friendship is Magic” thing. I was reading Tinkerbell books well before any of that jazz came along. The fact that there’s a unicorn in this scene is an honest coincidence.
Brony attention whores are still rarer and less hair-trigger than brony haters.
“Lifestylers” of any stripe are annoying, but the “antis” are the ones with a crusade.
Lifestyler: noun, def.: someone afflicted with an obsessive-compulsive fixation that dominates all their conversations to the annoyance of their friends and acquaintances.
Seriously… this is ALL so 60s Disney treacly sweet it makes me want to barf Skittles, but if there’s one thing it AIN’T would be PC, which MLP totes is, even when it’s ragging on the whole PC thang subtextually.
mnem
Speaking as another mythical creature of the time before time I’ll tell you; someone leaves a maiden fair lying around under a tree near my cave, it ain’t my head I’m gonna put in her lap…
Brony metaphor? I thought unicorns were pretty phallic with the whole horn thing and loving virgins. Though, with that in mind, probably why Nick gets along with him so well, besides the troll’n tude and mad gaming skillz.
Aw, I hope not. I hope Nick comes to the realization that you don’t have to be “Manly” and all, and doesn’t try to go to such lengths and accepts himself as a male Jewish transgenic (Would that fall under the trans* umbrella? Would that even fall under the queer umbrella?) helicopter with a feminine-bodied drone.
I wonder if this experience will cause him to identify further with the drone — maybe even considering it part of his body as opposed to something he drives. (I think that’s how he considers it now. I should probably reread the stuff he wrote on his blog.)
I’m betting on the “guilty pleasure” ending, where he says something like “NEVER AGAIN!” only to then do something princessy when he thinks nobody is looking.
In-universe, obviously. In our world it’d be a farcical assertion, but our world doesn’t give people the option of transforming into sapient helicopters.
As a transperson (by which I mean MtF, not ???tHuman), I have repeatedly disagreed with you. Sometimes I didn’t bother answering because I didn’t have anything to add but dissent, sometimes I didn’t answer because the “talking for everyone, not just yourself” thing you sometimes seem to do from my perspective made me too irritated to make a peaceful comment. I am now responding. While I very much do not see Nick as male-to-female transgender (he’s still very much masculine-gendered even though his, as he put it, “backup body” is designed to imitate the female form), I DO see him as human-to-helicopter trans-species, and I think almost* everything about is was very well-handled by the authors as one of the best allegories I’ve seen.
*It’s unclear how far the homunculus program went before it crashed, so I don’t know if the “it feels right” thing was a result of his nature or his incomplete reprogramming. I would guess the former since it hasn’t since been brought up and he mentioned enjoying hours upon hours of flight sims before he knew his brain had been removed, but I’d still like to get a clear answer from Jeff (in the narrative or as a commentary/comment) before settling it in my mind.
If you think Nick only drives the osprey, then you don’t understand Nick’s character. In fact, if you think what Nick drives is just a helicopter, then you don’t understand Nick’s character.
How “manly” has Nick ever seen himself? Dude self-identifies as a helicopter and didn’t have any problem with operating a female body until people started forcing Wimsey’s stereotyped and trite definition of femininity on it.
Oh, once my life was tame and lame,
Playing an e-lec-tron-ic game …
But that all changed, before I knew,
I was an Osprey V-22!
And now it seems I’ve got to try
To learn to be a girly guy …
The Whimsy creatures all are screwed,
If I can’t be a Princess dude!
[REFRAIN:]
For I am a Princess dude!
And I’ll take a break from being rude
To be a Princess dude!
Yes, I am a Princess dude! [full team joins in]
He is! What up for the Princess dude!
And the unicorn is being rude
To dis the Princess dude!
Shut up!
You’re rockin’ the Princess dude!
You’re rockin’ the Prin-cess, dude!
I find my mind I can install
Inside this walking Barbie doll,
The birds and beasts are treating me
As if I’m cartoon royalty!
With teammates making sure I’ve got
The skills that can advance the plot,
I’ll lose the slacker attitude
And learn to be a Princess dude! [repeat REFRAIN]
And Nick has plenty of watts. 2 times 4,470 kilowatts.
Anyway, ships and airplanes are ‘she’, what are helicopters?
And if helicopters are male, is an osprey a hermaphrodite?
I’m pretty sure that vehicles in general are “she”, although the tradition is strongest with ships. I don’t think I’ve ever heard of a vehicle ever being called “he”, it seems to be “she” or “it”.
Of course, real men did and do wear Scottish kilts, Greek soldier dress uniforms, oriental robes, traditional coronation robes of all nations, priestly garments, Old Testament and New Testament Biblically-prescribed men’s clothing, Polynesian sarongs, etc.
However, those are not “dresses.” A dress, in modern, western culture denotes a female garment. I’m sure there were specific female garments in each of those other cultures you mention that “real men” did not wear and would have been ostracized if found wearing them.
What I want to know is how have we not seen Tip having to kick some redneck or Jersey douchebag’s ass yet? The SK universe is a lot more tolerant than the one I live in, that’s for sure.
Well, any dudebro aiming to teach Tip a lesson would 1) have to get past the ladies who flock to him and 2) end up in a world of hurt from the badass ex-army dude.
It’s easy to forget that Tip, does, in fact, know how to kick ass.
Ooh, it has the word “dress” in it! That means it’s a dress! Except of course that’s bullshit, dress uniforms are not dresses. I really hope you’re just being obstinate and aren’t really that stupid.
Except that they weren’t. Traditional unicorns were xenophobically violent to everything (and also goats, not horses). They became associated with (specifically female) virgins because they, being “obviously defensless”, were the last thing around them that they bothered to gore to death.
The Brony metaphor might be a BIT heavyhanded here, guys. Maybe dial it back.
The Brony metaphor? That if you are a magic corporate pony “magic corporate pony/unicorn” who hates bronies, life is hard?
Reminds me of that old Groucho Marx joke – “I don’t care to belong to any club that will have me as a member.” 🙂
The poor little pony!
I know how it looks, Hugin, but this storyline has much more to do with a certain co-author’s girly artistic predilections that significantly predate the whole “Friendship is Magic” thing. I was reading Tinkerbell books well before any of that jazz came along. The fact that there’s a unicorn in this scene is an honest coincidence.
Plus, Narbonic had a My Little Pony joke before Friendship Is Magic came out, so we know Shaenon was at least aware of the older versions.
As someone who usually doesn’t like the more… vocal bronies, this thing didn’t even set off my brony alarm.
You’re seeing stuff that isn’t there.
Unless Hugin is talking about Nick, because Nick would totally be a brony if he wasn’t trying to maintain his 1337M45T3R persona
Brony attention whores are still rarer and less hair-trigger than brony haters.
“Lifestylers” of any stripe are annoying, but the “antis” are the ones with a crusade.
Lifestyler: noun, def.: someone afflicted with an obsessive-compulsive fixation that dominates all their conversations to the annoyance of their friends and acquaintances.
Welcome to the Herd, Hugin. :p
Seriously… this is ALL so 60s Disney treacly sweet it makes me want to barf Skittles, but if there’s one thing it AIN’T would be PC, which MLP totes is, even when it’s ragging on the whole PC thang subtextually.
mnem
Speaking as another mythical creature of the time before time I’ll tell you; someone leaves a maiden fair lying around under a tree near my cave, it ain’t my head I’m gonna put in her lap…
Mythical? I’ve always believed in you mnementh.
Brony metaphor? I thought unicorns were pretty phallic with the whole horn thing and loving virgins. Though, with that in mind, probably why Nick gets along with him so well, besides the troll’n tude and mad gaming skillz.
I’m suddenly seeing Nick having to do Manly Things when this is all over in order to regain his, umm, feelings of Manliness.
Aw, I hope not. I hope Nick comes to the realization that you don’t have to be “Manly” and all, and doesn’t try to go to such lengths and accepts himself as a male Jewish transgenic (Would that fall under the trans* umbrella? Would that even fall under the queer umbrella?) helicopter with a feminine-bodied drone.
I wonder if this experience will cause him to identify further with the drone — maybe even considering it part of his body as opposed to something he drives. (I think that’s how he considers it now. I should probably reread the stuff he wrote on his blog.)
I’m betting on the “guilty pleasure” ending, where he says something like “NEVER AGAIN!” only to then do something princessy when he thinks nobody is looking.
no. No it would not fall under the trans * umbrella. People honestly try to assert it, and it only ends up making it worse for trans people 😛
In-universe, obviously. In our world it’d be a farcical assertion, but our world doesn’t give people the option of transforming into sapient helicopters.
That you know of.
As a transperson (by which I mean MtF, not ???tHuman), I have repeatedly disagreed with you. Sometimes I didn’t bother answering because I didn’t have anything to add but dissent, sometimes I didn’t answer because the “talking for everyone, not just yourself” thing you sometimes seem to do from my perspective made me too irritated to make a peaceful comment. I am now responding. While I very much do not see Nick as male-to-female transgender (he’s still very much masculine-gendered even though his, as he put it, “backup body” is designed to imitate the female form), I DO see him as human-to-helicopter trans-species, and I think almost* everything about is was very well-handled by the authors as one of the best allegories I’ve seen.
*It’s unclear how far the homunculus program went before it crashed, so I don’t know if the “it feels right” thing was a result of his nature or his incomplete reprogramming. I would guess the former since it hasn’t since been brought up and he mentioned enjoying hours upon hours of flight sims before he knew his brain had been removed, but I’d still like to get a clear answer from Jeff (in the narrative or as a commentary/comment) before settling it in my mind.
If you think Nick only drives the osprey, then you don’t understand Nick’s character. In fact, if you think what Nick drives is just a helicopter, then you don’t understand Nick’s character.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/V-22_Osprey
Moor was referring to the drone – not the Osprey – as something that Nick only drives (at the moment).
How “manly” has Nick ever seen himself? Dude self-identifies as a helicopter and didn’t have any problem with operating a female body until people started forcing Wimsey’s stereotyped and trite definition of femininity on it.
Just noticed my spelling error there; should be “Whimsey” as in “whimsical”, not “Wimsey” as in “Lord Peter”.
Time for a Nick rampage! Dude’s gonna go blow some SKIP up!
Kick his little furry ass, Nick!
Hey. Hey.
Major General or shut up, little mister sparklecorn.
That genderless unicorn needs a phallic symbol because it’s the only phallus-like thing it has.
Well, sexless unicorn, anyway. Baron Mistycorn seems to have masculine gender pouring from its nonexistent wazoo.
(TUNE: “I Am A Pirate King”, Gilbert & Sullivan)
Oh, once my life was tame and lame,
Playing an e-lec-tron-ic game …
But that all changed, before I knew,
I was an Osprey V-22!
And now it seems I’ve got to try
To learn to be a girly guy …
The Whimsy creatures all are screwed,
If I can’t be a Princess dude!
[REFRAIN:]
For I am a Princess dude!
And I’ll take a break from being rude
To be a Princess dude!
Yes, I am a Princess dude!
[full team joins in]
He is! What up for the Princess dude!
And the unicorn is being rude
To dis the Princess dude!
Shut up!
You’re rockin’ the Princess dude!
You’re rockin’ the Prin-cess, dude!
I find my mind I can install
Inside this walking Barbie doll,
The birds and beasts are treating me
As if I’m cartoon royalty!
With teammates making sure I’ve got
The skills that can advance the plot,
I’ll lose the slacker attitude
And learn to be a Princess dude!
[repeat REFRAIN]
Bravo! Bravoissimo! And for the record, unicorns are just perv in Kawai clothing.
Brilliant! Your G&S parodies are brilliant – especially those from Pirates 🙂
misogyny lessons, anyway.
Well, what do you expect from someone who drinks Ellman’s Beer? 🙂
Oh, hey look. The drone can blush.
Poor Nick….
Okay, I like him when he was just hardcore. But now he’s straight up misogynistic? Fuck that stupid Unicorn, vaginas are power.
Watts are power. Vaginas are organs.
Muscles, actually. Orifices too. Not organs.
And muscles are power.
And Nick has plenty of watts. 2 times 4,470 kilowatts.
Anyway, ships and airplanes are ‘she’, what are helicopters?
And if helicopters are male, is an osprey a hermaphrodite?
I’m pretty sure that vehicles in general are “she”, although the tradition is strongest with ships. I don’t think I’ve ever heard of a vehicle ever being called “he”, it seems to be “she” or “it”.
Real men don’t want to wear dresses. But they aren’t AFRAID of anything, INCLUDING wearing a dress if that’s what it takes.
Of course, real men did and do wear Scottish kilts, Greek soldier dress uniforms, oriental robes, traditional coronation robes of all nations, priestly garments, Old Testament and New Testament Biblically-prescribed men’s clothing, Polynesian sarongs, etc.
However, those are not “dresses.” A dress, in modern, western culture denotes a female garment. I’m sure there were specific female garments in each of those other cultures you mention that “real men” did not wear and would have been ostracized if found wearing them.
What I want to know is how have we not seen Tip having to kick some redneck or Jersey douchebag’s ass yet? The SK universe is a lot more tolerant than the one I live in, that’s for sure.
Well, any dudebro aiming to teach Tip a lesson would 1) have to get past the ladies who flock to him and 2) end up in a world of hurt from the badass ex-army dude.
It’s easy to forget that Tip, does, in fact, know how to kick ass.
Male Military: full _dress_ uniform.
Also look at 15th century European houppelandes, genuinely unisex.
Ooh, it has the word “dress” in it! That means it’s a dress! Except of course that’s bullshit, dress uniforms are not dresses. I really hope you’re just being obstinate and aren’t really that stupid.
He’s right. Unicorns would only lay their heads down on the laps of virgins after all.
And fall asleep after getting their horn stroked by her (and the writers failed to specify *which* horn).
Its less “the horn is a phallic symbol” and more “the entire unicorn legend is one long sexual metaphor”.
Except that they weren’t. Traditional unicorns were xenophobically violent to everything (and also goats, not horses). They became associated with (specifically female) virgins because they, being “obviously defensless”, were the last thing around them that they bothered to gore to death.