Fack

Empowered white woman whining .

A month ago, zvi mentioned a MOOC - Massive Open Online Courses - called Gender Through Comic Books over at Canvas.net. I've been wanting to get more grounded in comics. I went to an engineering school 12-1 male/female ratio with next to no humanities - so no, no gender courses. I said what the heck?

Speaking of needing a grounding in comic books I got this new vidya gaym called Injustice: Gods Among Us.
Seemed like a cool fighting game with Batman so I figured what could possibly go wrong?
Oh it could go fucking wrong.
I have no idea who half these people are.
Like it has your typical mix, you know.
Batman, Superman, Wonderwoman, Aquaman, The Flash--
Characters even a non-comic nerd like me can identify.
But then it gets dicey.
Who in the motherfuck is Deathstroke?
Doomsday?
Then it gets really obscure.
Killer Frost?
Shazam (not to be confused with Shazzan of Hanna-Barbera obscurity)?

I've been having a good time overall. The gender stuff is good -- I've picked up a bunch of info from fandom over the years, but the class is allowing me the space to put some more thought about it. It's been really fun to read a variety of comic books. Part of the course material is to look at the change in gender perception over time. We read the earliest issues of Superman and compared them with the latest versions of the comics. Warning: The first volume of Wonder Woman not only had significant race!fail but it had fat shaming.

You'll be glad to know in Injustice Wonder Woman barely has a personality.
Batman enters every scene like fucking Dracula, too.
There's a cloud of bats and he just emerges from it.
It looks really cool but that kind of pushes the ninja moves a bit far.
Also I don't get Batman's move set.
I bought the game to beat people up as Batman and I'm better with Cat Woman.
Not sure what to make of any of this.
They gave Joker a shiv, too, so if Joker's creepy yellow grin wasn't bad enough he also shanks you.
It's kind of startling coming from the Adam West Batman's Joker.
Who was really more of a pedophile than anything.
Suddenly he's running up trying to stick a knife in your chest.

Did the Mayans mean civil solstice or astronomical solstice

NO ONE FUCKING KNOWS SHUT UP.
Man am I glad the Mayan shit blew over.

Anyway, I was digging around for the astronomical explanation for solstice, but I can't explain the celestial equator or ecliptic in ten words or less.

Basically the solstices and equinoxes mean that the earth is passing through specific part of it's orbit. Two lines are crossing at a point, a moment in time. So astronomically speaking the December Solstice 2012 happens at 11:12am UTC (GMT).

I wouldn't put too much stock in a barbarian culture's astrology.

It shifts a bit year to year and can happen sometime between the 20th and 22nd -- which is why that many civil and religious authorities over the year have declared it to be December 21.

Of course there are larger implications, (so speaks the pagan girl who has said it before)

She's pagan, guys.
lowercase p.
That means hillbilly, you know.
Capital Pagan means religion.
And an utterly meaningless word because it was first applied to people in the sticks of Rome and Greece who hadn't yet converted to Christianity and was later applied to Germanic barbarians and the like. Then as the Byzantine Empire expanded so did their persecution of "Pagans".
It's a meaningless nonsense word that can literally describe dozens of indigenous religious beliefs.
I was about to say I'm not claiming you as one of the true faith but if you're whinging about gender in comic books and the equinox I don't think you're of the truth faith anyhow.
Anyway this blog kind of descends into fanfiction posting.
I don't give a shit about fanfiction so AWAAAAAAAAAAY