[quote="Jomei"][quote="Marekenshin"]One aspect of that is discussing people's opinions on how far pessimism/optimism is useful, how repeatedly being vocally positive/negative about a thing is usful, etc. I can't speak for h2o, but I haven't been trying to throw assumed intent on any individuals with my language here, [b]just discussing opinions about opinions.[/b][/quote]

We could get far more deeply into this, but this, right here, is what I think is derailing things. Unless someone's objectively over a line of civility, shifting the discussion to this meta-discourse philosophy is the problem. In this thread, it's particularly pernicious because no one has even said anything particularly negative--mere hesitation, simple failure to 110% gung-ho wham bang boom endorse anything and everything without reservation, consideration, or evaluation is being insinuated to be too negative.[/quote]

It takes two (or more) to have a discussion. People expressing long-version opinions that are IN CONTEXT, after someone asked for clarification by saying they didn't understand the opinion in its short form, is not tone policing, nor is it derailing. These things "derail" in two directions around this pivot, and it goes both ways. The derail is from assumptions of bad intentions from the "other" side of the discussion and not letting something slide after things start slipping out of the realm of useful discussion.

As far as I see it, there's a weird paradox here where somehow it's NOT derailing when a person pushes past useful conversation in a pillows subforum thread by demanding people discuss their opinions in a way that was satisfactory to the individual in question, to the point that multiple members started telling the individual in question off (not just me); but it IS derailing when I and another member mention opinions about something in passing (again, h2o was a little snipy and that doesn't help, of course) and the conversation avoids any silly demands or having multiple members jumping out and saying "yes, this was too far."

To me, I think that the derail happens when people have hit the point where they need to just agree to disagree, but one or more participant is committed to having the "battle of opinions" to the death. I'm not trying to force my opinion on anyone here - I stated something in passing, I was asked for clarification, I gave it, and then GR still has a grudge. I'm pretty certain that without his post, this wouldn't have derailed half as far as it did - you and I would have exchanged a few words about the nuance of this topic in the context of remakes and sequels, and continued discussing FLCL. So how is this "derail" a problem caused meta-discussion, when all discussion is just different layers of meta-discussion, and not more a problem of weird pre-existing tensions and people making assumptions about intent?

Mare, I love you man (GR, too), but I really can't follow what you're talking about. It feels like the above post is referencing all kinds of drama I'm not privy to, and in the absence of quotes specifying what you're talking about, I can't decipher and respond. The only thing I can glean is that you recognize that the source of the original derailing is the little remarks policing negative opinions (petty [yeah, you explained this, and I let it go, but more followed], bitter, h2o's post), so I suggest stopping those instead of sweeping them under the rug ("mentioning opinions about something in passing" is a really slippery way of avoiding what those comments are and what they do) and placing the blame on those who respond.

Regardless, I'm going to continue to say whatever I want, negative or positive, about any piece of art no matter who likes it or who is butt-blasted. [url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I71cY9Ysy5U]Bambis go home.[/url] All you're waifus a shit.

[img]https://45.media.tumblr.com/a6495be7579e6c3dd8b7d893fbab29f7/tumblr_mpjfkuw8A11qcuyndo1_500.gif[/img]

[quote="Marekenshin"]I'm pretty certain that without his post, this wouldn't have derailed half as far as it did - you and I would have exchanged a few words about the nuance of this topic in the context of remakes and sequels, and continued discussing FLCL.[/quote]

Dude, I jumped in to this topic part way down page 2. You and Jomei were already getting into it. Even without my posts, this thread has many long back-and-forths between you and Jomei not seeing eye to eye on this issue. If you have a problem with long tangents, that's not on me.

Anyway, the rest of your post is a vague mush that doesn't being much new to the table here. I think one thing that you're getting tripped up on is that my first posts responding to your "anti-negativity smarm" weren't *about* you. I'm discussing your contributions to the forum/its culture. I was talking about the experience of being a fan, and how my idea of that has clashed with what you deem to be acceptable behaviour on this forum.

It's not *about* you. I'm not here to aggravate a grudge. If it was h2o who kept up the smarm, I'd be addressing him.

Yeah, sorry Jolmes. Trying to strike a balance between delineating the difference between this conversation and the silly drama without getting too detailed and in depth about said silly drama, so it's a bad mix of vague and specific.

I'm not acknowledging where a derail happened, I'm acknowledging that things CAN be derailed in that direction. My stance is that the point of derail is also (amusingly) somewhat subjective, but is more about the conversation losing usefulness than dancing over into related meta-topics briefly. Like I said, I think this side conversation between you and I would be a relatively simple exchange without worries related to previous drama over how opinions are expressed.

The funny thing is, this derail isn't even the same topic as that drama, yet the existence of that drama has caused confusion. That was "how opinions are expressed," this is "even if we think this sucks, are there silver linings overall?"

The derail itself seems to be from comments (and the reactions to them which dragged the previous drama into things) that amount to, "if this sucks, some people will inevitably complain about it so much that people who enjoy it get annoyed, as happens with all questionable sequels, which is maybe a bad thing, because them silver linings."

============================

A more appropriate condensation I thought of: this thread is about the FLCL sequel and by extension sequels and their metadiscussion as well. Jolmes expressed fear that what I and h2o were doing is tone policing, I contended that the main intent was to discuss the value of sequels of a larger scale. Some other, pre-existing drama then confused and derailed this discussion.

============================

My use of petty was not aimed at anyone, as I clarified, and it's sad that GR and related meta-drama seems to be getting in the way of the topic and meta-topics at hand. I think it should be clear that while I am perhaps annoyingly consistent on looking at everything through the lens of "subjectivity is king and try to be good to each other as a result," I'm trying to engage in different topics here and not drag up the drama GR can't let go of and brought back into play explicitly here. It was confused but working towards clarification before that point.

I mean, heck, last time I mentioned in passing to a kid that "being a weeb is fine if you're not hurting anyone, it's just a problem when you go around imposing your stuff on people that's a problem" and that turned into a whole huge metanalysis by GR, again. I get longwinded when stuff gets complicated and I feel the interest and investment, but without the GR and past drama confusion here, things don't get so far out of bounds.

More mush.

My vote is that Mare use his mod power to delete this mistake of a thread, and we create a new one once we have screenshots to work with, or a definitive plan for the pillows' involvement.

If that failed to clarify but you still want to get what I'm trying to say, I guess send me a pm or message me elsewhere, my intent is seriously to just wrap up confusion about the tone policing (or rather, lack thereof) here and get back to discussing sequels and such.

[quote="Marekenshin"]my intent is seriously to just wrap up confusion about the tone policing (or rather, lack thereof) [/quote]

Literally full circle.

[img]http://i.imgur.com/FVAPL1i.png[/img]

I know. That's why the extent to which we've been running away from the topic has been confusing. Look at my posts - while I am consistently wordy in addressing fuller context as need for clarification arises, I also keep trying to acknowledge that we're straying into side topics and that my main point was about the relative value of sequels whether they are good or bad.

It makes a lot of sense to come full circle when it's confusion from tangential WORRIES about tone policing (and the consequent responses trying to point out thay this whole conversation is similar in scope to some degree, but is trying to not be a tone policing discussion) that keep pulling us from the topic at hand, so of course we're going to circle back to trying to get off of that and back to the real topics and metatopics if our aim is to un-derail things.

You can argue that you think the sequels could have value even if they're bad, but do it without snotty little invectives like petty, bitter, party-pooper, or, in h2o's ambiguous case (I'll give him the benefit of the doubt and entertain that he didn't mean it the way it sounded) "smug asshole" who shits on others' happiness.

I can't seem to get you to concede that those remarks are the pernicious little wrenches in these discussions without you retreating behind twenty layers of subjectivity or blaming me for responding. These aren't worries about tone-policing. They're objections to specific examples of just that happening right in front of you and even coming from your posts. I believe you don't intend them that way and that they stem from this inscrutable personal philosophy you have about art, but look at the outcome. You know I bear you no grudges at all, man. You're one of my best friends, really one of the only people I truly talk and share things with, so consider that maybe, if GR and I are both pointing this out to you in this case, it could actually be happening.

If we stop with the sly digs at people with critical opinions, I'm more than happy to drop this insane digression and post more about cartoons with cute girls and robots and shit.

JK, public discussion it is lol.

You recognize that I don't intend them that way, but still consider them "sly digs?" This is the assumption of intent derailing, now. It's not hiding behind anything to be confused when someone takes generalizations personally even after clarification of intent.

There's a history here, and you are unfortunately assuming a bit much about my intent, which, as I said, contributes to the derailing, due to the nature of conversation requiring participants. My second post on page two made the mistake of dipping close to the tangent of "how opinions are expressed" by trying to clarify that I think there's a difference between expressing concern over the possibility of pushing past the point of useful conversation and anti-negativity smarming. Due to the history and context of this forum, that was clearly a mistake, but I've literally spent most of my posts since then trying to steer back away from getting too close to that area.

I'm not tone policing, I'm not making sly digs, and I'm once again just really sad that the general tension lingering around past arguments end up making it so hard to discuss any nuance that runs parallel to those past arguments in any way.

Ask for clarification of intent, let people know what you don't appreciate, and we all grow and move forward. I acknowledged that poor wording was used, but you are yet to truly acknowledge my intent due to this lingering confusion, although you seem halfway there.

I am not at all trying to argue about tone policing with this post, this is just further attempt at clarification of my personal intent combined with speculation about part of how this all keeps getting so twisted off track.

Man..I still cry when I think about the ending to Diebuster. It was so good.

while Im on the topic, yeah Diebuster was unnecesary but it was done really well in my opinion. Plus it was a sequal that kinda came out of [i]nowhere[/i] almost a decade later.

You know what I WOULD like to see with this reboot buisness? something kinda like gunbuster/diebuster. Since fooly cooly had only a couple of loose ends, and really not much to add on to..
Why not a 6 episode prequel that deals with Atomsk, Haruko and Amaro? or even something set way in the future where, i dunno, Naota and Ninamora are the new team Amaro and only minimal involvement?

Gainax stories (while I.G. ones are usually mysteries) are always about maturing in some way, making that trasition to adulthood, and for the *[i]most par[/i]t* all of the main cast did just that already, so using the old characters doing the same pattern of growth seems kind of unlikely.

[quote="h2orowe"]Are they even confirmed getting the pillows yet or just hoping to because if not, maybe it'd be a good chance to showcase the music of another Japanese rock group.
[/quote]
THIS THIS THIS

This may seem blasphemous to fellow hardcore pillows fans, but I was having this EXACT discussion earlier.
Back when FLCL came out, the pillows wernt exactly selling out Budokan tickets. They had..what... Patricia? as an opening theme and like two other fairly decent radio hits, right? They are [i]subjectively[/i] doing way better (financially) then they were back in the 90's, and to licence them for a whole anime now that are much more famous might not be as easy as everyone assumes.
In the event that this becomes a failed pipe dream, I would not entirely be opposed to having a brand new band supporting each season, [b]assuming of course[/b] these bands are both still mostly indie, and also incredibly good and could really use some good public exposure. They might not be the pillows, but who knows, in a few years their discography could be on your playlists.

Ok Mare, whatever man. We're never sorting this out at this rate, so just please watch the wording.

[quote="psykodrak"]Man..I still cry when I think about the ending to Diebuster. It was so good.[/quote]

It's that way for me about the original Gunbuster. That final episode is super emotional for me.

Lovely Gainax era stuff
[img]http://40.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_maamudiC5z1qzj9bdo1_500.jpg[/img]

Honestly, I guess I'd be happy to have something on par with Diebuster, especially if, like Diebuster, it's removed enough from the original that it does its own thing without trying to rewrite/expand anything about the original cast.

@Jolmes: yeah man, point taken about the wording. I wasn't considering the possibility of that coming across as sideways trash-talking there initially. I'm trying to slowly work at improving how I express myself to avoid such misunderstandings more often.

[quote="psykodrak"]Why not a 6 episode prequel that deals with Atomsk, Haruko and Amaro? or even something set way in the future where, i dunno, Naota and Ninamora are the new team Amaro and only minimal involvement?

Usng the old characters doing the same pattern of growth seems kind of unlikely.[/quote]

I'm with you on this - one of my favorite shows lately has been Doctor Who, and they get away with endles reboots by constantly swapping in a new set of characters with the same *general* themes and formulas.

I think it doesn't make sense from a storytelling standpoint, as you and others have pointed out, to go with Takkun and co. again. The way I see it, you generally either do a spiritual successor with new leads, you reboot to new themes/new world with the same cast, or you just tack on extra chapters, basically.

I like either of the first two options a lot, I think what we all seem to not want here is that third one.

This thread feels like having a conversation with a chatbot caught in a neverending cycle of permutations of the words "drama", "subjectivity", "intent", "derail", "nuance", "clarification", "meta-", and "assumptions". I'm sort of numbed by it. That, and I almost feel like I get worse at comprehending English the more I read.

*

I'd be cool with Gainax finding another band to support this instead. Anyone have recommendations?

Final GR-related reply, because it's fun to see him go from indignant to lolwhatever and back to indignant again all the time: yeah, complicated discussion with nuance can get hard when your reading comprehension skills and ability to move past your own assumptions are both depressingly crippled. Let's just toss out more backhanded insults while pretending we take the high road, eh, buddy? Stay classy, never change; I don't know that you're capable of it.

* I would imagine that the people involved who wanted the pillows on board initially are interested in them again because they feel/felt the pillows' sound goes/went well with what they want to convey. Are there other bands out there in the Japanese rock scene with the particular quirks that make the pillows the pillows?

This is all assuming they want a similar feel to the sequels, of course. Which then circles back to questions about which songs would be used and such. It's possible and perhaps would be more interesting for them to go with a different feeling and a different band. Will be interesting to see how this all plays out.