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[Silverthrone]

On a similar subject (of changing trends, etc), this is another little annecdote for the pile.

There is a brand of liquid preservative (for home-made lemonade, jam, et cetera) in the Nordics called Atamon. It is a very old brand, and if your family ever did make home-made jam or lemonade, you will likely remember it. It is, as they say, a house-hold name.

The packaging, however, is odd. It depicts a (possibly) chinese chef, complete with hat and hair-pleat, caught giving a smiling, welcoming yell of some sort. It is unclear why, but he always has been on the package.

I should say was, however. It appears that the packaging has since changed. The chinese chef is gone, which one can understand quite well. On one hand, it is a bit of a shame, as it was a very recognisable brand, and while it was a great, big stereotype, it was not a demeaning one. He looked so happy, so eager, a clever and trustworthy friend in the kitchen, at hand to help with the boiling elderberry lemonade. On the other hand, it is a great, glaring sterotype, which is helplessly and unavoidably connected to others like it, that are not so warm-hearted and neutral. Further, when the package was designed, there were practically no far east asians in the region that it could offend. Now there is, and many of them might not appreciate that charicature cheering at them from the supermarket shelf, and it seems to me as more than fair to change the packaging in light of this. It seems polite, and the product is as good as ever.

_{This is NOT a sponsored post, and Silverthrone is NOT an official spokesman of Valdemar Tørsleff & Co, and he has not been paid off with a bath-tub's worth of sprinkles.}

[Egan_BW]

RIP rando music thread guy, we hardly knew ye.

[TD1]

I'd advise you not to start such debates here on Bay12 in general - they tend to result in Bannings.

On the other hand, I do enjoy a lively debate....

[scriver]

The Chinese dude was there because Atamon is a Chinese originated product, by the by.

[Silverthrone]

Terribly sorry. I intended it as an amusing book-end, rather than an invitation to debate. It seemed topical, interesting and rather fun.

I fear that I may simply have packaging on my mind. I spend far too much time with packages and brands, I fear. I see detergent, canned mushrooms, avocados and tooth-paste gently drift past my vision as I close my eyes.

The Chinese dude was there because Atamon is a Chinese originated product, by the by.

Oh, I see! My, my, I did not know that. Rather logical. I doubt the man on the package is him, but I rather wish it was the clever inventor himself. Of course, the babies pictured on the nappy-bundles were likely not involved in developing those, so my 'Inventor on Package'-scheme falls apart quite quickly under examination.

[IronTomato]

*ignites shitstorm struts away*

[Frumple]

What the hell book thing. "Their relationship was complicated." Their "relationship" mostly consisted of the leftover ghost of a hyper powered marital artist using ancient punch magic to force them to fuck for the ghost's amusement. And yes, that is pretty much an actually accurate summation. I guess you can use complicated to describe that but I'm not sure that's quite the right sentiment. It's more straightforward but... farcical or somethin'. Absurd. Made more so by rendering trying to hook up with a chick because a ghost made the two bang as complicated.

Book thing is... wu dong qian kun? Checking. Not sure what the title translation is or its meaning, far more sure I don't actually care what the cavalcade of machine gods experienced by the illustrious Dong is actually called. "The predictable golden thumbing of Dong-er" would be a better one, probably. "Dong fingers the world" becomes applicable somewhere in the first few hundred chapter things. Fairly sure it's less meaningful in the original language, but there's always a bit of puerile humor when a major character is actually named Dong.

In retrospect, that I'm still reading after 360 something chapters of Dong is some degree of wtf in itself. These things are weirdly readable but pretty shit writing. Apparently something about that does something for me. It's probably the occasional mountain getting thrown at people, I'unno.

[SHAD0Wdump]

I had a peanut butter & strawberry jam sandwich. And then dissatisfied with the idea of eating a boring american schoolyard staple, decided to put banana peppers on it, because you know... For science.

I actually liked it, but what really got me was my wife liked it, and she hates banana peppers. She said it was confusing, given her reaction when eating it, I could not dispute that.

[Reelya]

there were practically no far east asians in the region that it could offend. Now there is, and many of them might not appreciate that charicature cheering at them from the supermarket shelf, and it seems to me as more than fair to change the packaging in light of this. It seems polite, and the product is as good as ever.

I'm not so sure. Often it isn't the group itself who were the offended ones. For example, Kimonos aren't such a big industry in Japan anymore since the wealthy still wore kimonos longer than anyone else (note: some modern-setting animes which use kimono-wearing as a signifier of old-money families). Well now that's kind of dying out, since wealthy people are starting to prefer the more convenient "commoners" western clothing too now, so the kimono makers are worried. So they've started to promote kimonos as being an exotic Japanese thing overseas.

In the USA they had some Kimono Days, which was an initiative by Japanese Kimono makers. Well, one major one got shut down because of protests about cultural appropriation, that it was wrong for white people to try on a Kimono, that it was offensive. Of course, it wasn't Japanese Americans who were the offended ones, it was professional "being offended on behalf of others" mostly-white (but definitely no Japanese) people from the colleges.

Here there's an ironic fine line to tread, because "speaking up for those who cannot / do not" can easily become appropriation of that group's right to have their own voice heard. When the protestors "on behalf" of the Japanese are in fact contradicting what the Japanese have to say about it, that's identity appropriation, which is it's own type of white privilege racism. There's also a huge irony in the "white people should only wear white person clothes" point of view, if the actual goal is to break down racism.

[hector13]

Their "relationship" mostly consisted of the leftover ghost of a hyper powered marital artist using ancient punch magic to force them to fuck for the ghost's amusement.

unintended typo is funny.

[Frumple]

It's not as unintended as you might think. Lingering humpghost gained its millennium spanning fornicative punch magic via screwing his way to minor basically!godhood. Attained phenomenal cosmic power through decades/centuries of tantric rituals, heh. Is author's excuse to why making a pair of late teens/early twenties folks bang in the middle of a giant death trap mausoleum crawling with casually murderous adventuring punch wizards was amusing to said humpghost.

[Ehndras]

*starts Aurora 4x custom methane-breather species*
*Accidentally adds NPR in-system, shrugs and goes through the effort of designing them and letting them be - for !!SCIENCE!!*
*Aliens promptly insta-spawn clusterfuckme fleet-stack and head straight for my homeworld. WAT.*
*Alien command ship, judging by it having the highest speed, best sensors, and highest thermal output, leads from about 2mil km ahead of two packs of Xeno squadrons made up of various unknown ships with names like "Earthraper" and "Headmangler."*
*Bricks are promptly shat, and epic "Independence Day"-style AAR written and posted to Aurora 4x sub-reddit.*

After ticking down the seconds until they arrive to blow the Ach'remoc back to the hell from whence they came, fucking command ship promptly skirts the outer atmosphere and slingshots at a totally different angle, toward Jump Point Wormhole #3, which goes fuck-knows-where. Squad 1 realigns to follow command ship away from my homeworld, while the 2nd of 2 Xeno squadrons disengages and starts flying back to Xeno homeworld. For reference, with the current 4.1 year discrepancy in orbital periods, its roughly 850 million km away. In other words, about a week, week and a half out with their apparently shit-ass engines @ max observed speed of 1207 km/s. At closest approach, which will be sometime in the next 2-5 years, they'll be a paltry 350 million km away, and thus, right in range of my new Size-6 Ravager IPBMs. (Interplanetary ballistic missiles, because fuck you that's why)

NPR got me good, yo. I thought it was Armageddon and instead these ballbusters just waved and flew by.

[Silverthrone]

"We shall eat you for desserts. Cheerio!"

I have never encountered a alien species that were not immediately hostile. It might happen one day, but it will be too late. I will give no quarter for xenos, never more. I rather like your idea with the missile bombardment. I do not know if it will work, but perhaps you could set up a mass drive, and pummel them with stones, too.

[Sirus]

Nah, you can only target mass drivers at a world that has its own mass driver to receive the minerals. Bombardment only happens if the receiving mass driver gets moved away after transferring begins.

[TD1]

Dog update: Brought him into the vet again for another check up, and he's fine apart from a cracked pelvis, which will apparently get better with time. So he's fine!