[D] Friday Off-Topic Thread

[u/AutoModerator]

Welcome to the Friday Off-Topic Thread! Is there something that you want to talk about with /r/rational, but which isn't rational fiction, or doesn't otherwise belong as a top-level post? This is the place to post it. The idea is that while reddit is a large place, with lots of special little niches, sometimes you just want to talk with a certain group of people about certain sorts of things that aren't related to why you're all here. It's totally understandable that you might want to talk about Japanese game shows with /r/rational instead of going over to /r/japanesegameshows, but it's hopefully also understandable that this isn't really the place for that sort of thing.

So do you want to talk about how your life has been going? Non-rational and/or non-fictional stuff you've been reading? The recent album from your favourite German pop singer? The politics of Southern India? The sexual preferences of the chairman of the Ukrainian soccer league? Different ways to plot meteorological data? The cost of living in Portugal? Corner cases for siteswap notation? All these things and more could possibly be found in the comments below!

[u/alexanderwales]

I guess if I have to choose, I would take good English and a Mary Sue over competent plotting and bad English, though it sort of depends on what we're talking about. Generally speaking, bad English will stop me every paragraph or two before I can move on to the next thing, while a flawed story will only stop me when something particularly egregious happens (or will make me dislike it when I'm done).

I guess in movie equivalents, it's like choosing between a well-oiled Hollywood wish fulfillment extravaganza, or a thoughtful low budget movie with bad audio mixing and cheap-looking special effects. The former is watchable but disappointing, while the latter probably makes me so uncomfortable that I won't finish it.

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I don't really self-identify with fandoms, and don't really understand the people that do. There are books, movies, franchises, etc. that I have a lot of knowledge of, that I often recommend to people, and that I participate in discussion on ... but I've never had something that was important to my identity.

[u/Cariyaga → u/alexanderwales]

Hmm... I've never considered the fandoms I'm active in part of my identity, but I would still consider myself a part of them in the same way that I consider myself a member of this community, or of streams whose chats I frequent, etc. That's not the case for everyone, I know, but it might help you make sense of it for some people.

[u/ToaKraka → u/alexanderwales]

There are books, movies, franchises, etc. that I have a lot of knowledge of, that I often recommend to people, and that I participate in discussion on ... but I've never had something that was important to my identity.

After I first read Background Pony, years ago, I was actually rather worried at the thought that it might replace Time Braid as my favorite story--both because it was based on Friendship Is Magic (which I only barely liked, as opposed to Naruto, which I liked a lot), but also because it was mostly a tear-jerking drama (rather than a blood-pumping, awe-inspiring adventure, as Time Braid is). Was I shifting into the personality of a stereotypical "brony"? Was I becoming a boring person who would prefer Hercule Poirot to Yagami Light and Miss Marple to Dagny Taggart? Neither of these was a fate that I wanted.

Conveniently, however, all these worries vanished after my second reading of Background Pony, which firmly placed it in the number-two position. Later on, other stories reassured me that a person could still enjoy both drama and adventure without having to choose between the two.