The Good News Thread: I'm So Excited! And I Just Can't Hide It!

[TwiLyghtSansSparkles she/her]

4 hours ago, Darkness Ascendant said:

@TwiLyghtSansSparkles Rotten luck with men? Nah, more like convinced that she's something to be locked away and hidden. That she's a danger to the world and brings nothing but a possibility of harm, that the world is better off without her etc

Not stereotypical. I would delve more, but not bothered.

I was speaking more of Anna than of Elsa there; while it's true she had really only had bad luck with one man, it was her heart that was frozen. And, when it comes to the ice queen trope in general, it's usually that the woman has had her heart broken one too many times, which is also more what I was referring to. 

[Darkness Ascendant he/him]

9 minutes ago, TwiLyghtSansSparkles said:

I was speaking more of Anna than of Elsa there; while it's true she had really only had bad luck with one man, it was her heart that was frozen. And, when it comes to the ice queen trope in general, it's usually that the woman has had her heart broken one too many times, which is also more what I was referring to. 

um alright then *shrugs

(The sentencing threw me off)

[ShadowLord_Lith he/him]

13 hours ago, Djarskublar said:

Another major issue I have with Frozen is that Anna thawed out. She should have stayed as a block of ice, or if she was reconstituted, she should have been dead. That was kind of the central plot element for a good portion of the movie, and it was supposed to dangerous, yet even after the curse reached its conclusion she was able to be saved anyway. Also, the sword broke on her frozen body without so much as scratching her... I'm not gonna buy that one either. Especially considering that it was her arm he hit, if I remember correctly. Now, you could say it was magic ice, and impervious to the sword, but... other ice Elsa created got chopped up just fine, take the behemoth for an example. 

Maybe I can explain this a little? I recently helped someone explain how rapid and extreme changes in temperature can cause severe damage to an objects structural integrity, we see something similar here.

 

If you notice, the blade began to frost over as it neared Anna's arm; given the cold environment around it didn't cause frost, likely due to its being sheathed, this implies extreme amounts of sudden cold. Such a shift in the temperature of the blade wasn't evenly spread either. It spread from one end to the other, one side experiencing much more drastic cold than the other. I doubt that the cold would've had much time to spread into the blade either. Because cold causes objects to shrink, usually unnoticeable when it comes to metal and other solids, we have a situation where several parts of the blade, mostly if not exclusively the outermost parts, shrinking at different rates. 

 

This alone would cuase cracks in the blade and allow it to shatter on things that it, ordinarily, would've cut through with ease. 

 

Now for why anna didn't shatter. 

 

We know that love affects magic in strange ways within the Disney universe. It can restore life as seen in Snow White (though that has a scientific explanation), it can bring one back from the brink of death as seen in tangled, it can physically transform you from one thing into another as seen in the little mermaid and the princess and the frog, in Maleficent and Beauty and the Beast we see that it can remove or destroy curses, and in Atlantis and Hercules it can even remove godhood (or cause one to reject godhood. Still confused on which they were implying there, though I know what they wanted us to believe.). 

 

With this in mind, add in the fact that Anna is the first example of a human freezing due to a magically frozen heart we've ever seen. In this case, I would assume that such a being would have ice that is much more difficult to break than normal ice. Add in the act of true love she had just committed, the fact that it's a Disney film, the damage the blade would have take from the sudden cold, and the strange effects that true love has on magic, and its starting to look like there's a case that explains why she was undamaged. 

What do you think?

Edited April 28, 2017 by ShadowLord_Lith

[Steeldancer he/him]

I feel like it's a Disney movie. And therefore everyone was ok in the end. 

[Claincy he/him]

On a warmer note:

D&D went very well tonight. I had all 7 of my current players present. They were going into a big battle to save a massive sentient tree called the Grandfather Tree. They had managed to get a powerful ally to come help and the tree that would also be helping them a little. All that adds together to make for a very challenging encounter to balance and can easily drag horribly with that many participants. But it ended up being one of the best battles we've had in the campaign  There were particularly cool moments for multiple of the characters which really helped.

I also had some new miniatures that I knew would arrive soon, including a treant figure. I was really hoping they would arrive in time for tonight because one of the things that was likely to happen was an opportunity for the party druid to be temporarily turned into a treant by the Grandfather Tree and having the mini would make the moment so much cooler. The mini arrived just in time. So when I was describing it I was able to describe the transformation and plonk this huge mini on the table as they turned into it. The player loved it.  

(Not the best image but it'll do.)

Anyway, seeing players get invested in a session and hearing how much they enjoyed it is really rewarding as a GM.

Edited April 28, 2017 by Claincy

[Darkness Ascendant he/him]

That sounds pretty storming awesome @Claincy Wish people played DnD 'round my parts.

[Silverblade5 he/him]

On April 19, 2017 at 8:46 PM, Silverblade5 said:

And Columbine continues to be best in state when it comes to giving blood!

Turns out, we also set a new state record 

[Tristan]

I AM NOW A LIGHTEYES

[The Honor Spren she/her]

5 hours ago, Claincy said:

On a warmer note:

Was that a pun. 

[Claincy he/him]

@The Honor Spren More just a rubbish segue, I was pretty tired

@Darkness Ascendant You could try seeing if there are any game stores in your area that run Adventurer's League, or just campaigns that are running at the stores. I've heard repeatedly that that can be a good way to find groups though I admit I haven't tried myself. I reckon it's a safe bet that there are plenty of people in your area who would enjoy DnD, the trick is finding them and getting a game going. Particularly as many who would enjoy it might not have thought about it.

[Tristan]

I drew something tonight for the first time in about ten years! I posted it in the police sketch game... as a self portrait. Guess I can't go committing crimes now. Lol

[Djarskublar he/him]

Ahhh, but @TwiLyghtSansSparkles, all of those other Disney example you gave didn't have people that were already dead. Snow white was just in a coma, and all the others were either gravely injured, or not injured at all. That's a big difference from being frozen solid. Petrifaction I can see being cured. That is well established, but being frozen is, well, less so. And as for @ShadowLord_Lith, the sword should still have exerted a pretty good impulse on her arm... If I whack you with a cracked sword and it breaks on your spine, you still won't be feeling good. I maintain that while that scene had solid emotional impact, it totally threw me out of suspension of disbelief. I can't see it as anything other than a plot contrivance. It was lazy writing to get the kind of ending they wanted. I mean... Anna's arm wasn't even bruised afterwards. Come on! You've got to be kidding me! It's not a matter of whether the sword should have broken, it's that her arm should have had something happen to it too. I was fine with the sword break, and your explanation for it is sound. The sword more exploded than shattered, honestly, and I'm not sure how I feel about that. On the other hand, jumping in front of a bullet/sword/arrow is an established trope, and if you don't actually injure the character, then what was the point? She could have jumped in front of him, only to have him pull up short in surprise and I would have been fine with it.

Think about it in Cosmere terms, all the other instances you mention didn't have characters already dead. The closest they came was comatose or unconscious due to blood loss. That is still totally healable. Being Transformed into ice is death (or smoke, or quartz, or fire >.> looking at you, muggers). Plain and simple. Their connection to life was cut right then and there. Anna's soul should have popped out of her body and been like, 'well that sucks... I was about to thaw myself.' She didn't have a brain any more, just a bunch of ice that may have been in an interesting structure. She couldn't think about how much she loved her sister any more. She was dead, for Pete's sake!

I also don't think that citing it being a Disney movie is a good excuse. Disney has already killed a lot of stormtroopers, after all. They don't get to revive because they love themselves/their sister. I wish Disney would grow a pair and actually kill characters that clearly should be dead. Children's stories used to do that all the time, but we decided kids are a bunch of pansies for some reason, so now seeing real world problems like death might 'damage' them... ugh whatever. That argument is a bit too meta to be solid evidence, or well, parts of it. Honestly, Disney has made good movies. As a movie, Frozen was decent. As a story, it was decent, but nothing to write home about, other than the twist ending (only by Disney standards). As for characters, they were generally very solid characters (see what I did there :P). They just didn't mix well. Anna running around with Mr. Adoptive Troll was, well cringey. I was literally clenching my gut and making stupid faces almost every time they talked to each other. They were just so... on the nose, cheesy, and/or predictable every single time. Also, what on earth was Elsa going to eat in that ice castle?... "I'm gonna live here now!" "Okay, what'll you eat?" "Umm... I'll be home for dinner." "Suuuurrreee." Yeah... the cold never bothered her, but her stomach definitely will. Unless she finds the abominable snowman to give her snowcones (what? They're lemon!). Spinning around in circles shooting ice magic everywhere takes calories, you know. Even if she used her magic to create a living snowsuit that moved her body at her will, her brain would still need energy. She buried all the arable land in ice, which is why everyone was looking for her. Food was not going to be easy to come by on top of a mountain.

Also, my take on Elsa's mental state was somewhat different. I saw it as her having something about herself she wanted to hide, and once it was found out, she decided that letting it all out was fine now. She may have depression/anxiety due to having to conceal her true nature, but that wasn't the main issue to me. I've been in that boat, and once your secret is out, you just say, 'well, screw it, may as well have fun with this.'

And, as a semi-serious joke, did anyone else expect Anna to say, "you look different," when she saw Elsa in the ice palace, only to have her respond, "I feel different." That would have been an incredible reference.

@Claincy what edition? I've only ever played AD&D. Which I completely and utterly broke, by the way. (I built a character that natively had -9 AC and could consistently do ~195 damage/round assuming he hits every attack, and could do ~650/round if he used lvls/day powers. This in first edition, where everyone is swinging swords for 3d6+12 at best and the highest hp things in the game have at best 350 hp. Just at the cost of being unable to use lots of magic. I was at the point where I could fight minor gods toe to toe and laughed at pairs of ancient dragons. Kensai/monk is op, basically.) In other news, what other tabletop RPGs do you like? I like Star Wars: Edge of the Empire. It's less rule driven and much faster paced, so it keeps your attention better. I really need to get a new gaming group going, or actually bother driving out to the one at my uni...

[Claincy he/him]

@Djarskublar Probably the last comment I'll make on the Frozen discussion for now but I really don't see turned to stone as a less deadly/more curable condition than turned to ice. Turned to stone and turned to ice would both realistically be completely fatal. They seem fairly equivalent to me actually. *shrugs*

Anyway, I'm currently playing 5th edition and I heartily recommend the system. It isn't perfect of course but it is very good. Aside from that I mostly play the Mistborn Adventure Game but I also play or have played: Fragged Empire, Mutant Year 0, Shadowrun, D&D 4e or 3e (not actually sure which it was), World of Darkness, Prime Directive, teensy bit of Gurps, a couple of smaller rpgs and a system or 2 I designed myself  I haven't tried Edge of the Empire (yet) sadly.

[TwiLyghtSansSparkles she/her]

@Djarskublar Okay, I'm going to ask this and then let this line of conversation drop: 

Why do you feel it would have enhanced a family movie to have a nervous, frightened young woman with no desire to hurt anyone have to live with the horror of having murdered her own sister? Why do you think Disney should have put that in a movie marketed to children? 

[Erandeni he/him]

My new suit and new laptop just arrived, I am too excited, I don't know what open first.

[Tristan]

Good news: I got to go to Comic Con today. Bad news: I missed an opportunity to cosplay as Vin, with my short dark hair. Ah well, next year... 

[Darkness Ascendant he/him]

6 hours ago, Tristan said:

Good news: I got to go to Comic Con today. Bad news: I missed an opportunity to cosplay as Vin, with my short dark hair. Ah well, next year... 

oooh lucky but unlucky at the same time.

I so storming wish I could go to conventions >>

[A Budgie she/her]

7 hours ago, Tristan said:

Good news: I got to go to Comic Con today. Bad news: I missed an opportunity to cosplay as Vin, with my short dark hair. Ah well, next year... 

I've never been to a convention before, so that's still pretty cool.

[Delightful]

 

On 28 April 2017 at 4:22 AM, Claincy said:

@Djarskublar While I don't agree with some of what you said I do agree that a sequel is highly unnecessary. Rationally it would almost certainly take years for Elsa to recover and I highly doubt she'd ever fully recover. You don't have one sudden realisation and all the psychological issues go away, it's not how it works. I'd be up for a movie that actually took that theme and kept it as a major part of the movie but I'm not sure how likely Disney is to do that. The success of Frozen might give the writer a little more leeway to do that but I'm concerned at best. With that said, I'm happy to withhold further speculation on that until it comes out. The last time I felt that an animated movie I cared about was getting a sequel it really didn't need the sequel ended up being really really good and surpassing the original in my opinion. (How to Train Your Dragon 2)

Huh. I didn't particularly like HTTYD 2. 

On 28 April 2017 at 4:39 AM, Oversleep said:

♬ Sometimes the only pay-off for having any faith ♬
♬ Is when it's tested again and again every day ♬

It's fifth day I'm listening to this song. Good thing Spotify doesn't show how many times I listened to it...

I thought it was "for having anything". Faith makes so much more sense. 

[soyperson]

Well, I had the best weekend. 

Spoiler

As soon as we left the parking garage (which was right next to the auditorium) we got into the Ryman parking lot and there was Griffin, the drummer (brother of the lead singer/guitarist Taylor), making polite conversation with some older folks. My dad told me to go say hi, which resulted in me getting a pre-show photo with the drummer, which was awesome. 

We had an extra ticket to the show, as my sister didn't go. She had exams yesterday, so a drive to and from Nashville (about 6 hours either way) was a bit out of her way. Anyways, we were standing in front of the auditorium, about to go in, when this British man came up and asked us if we knew much about the band. I gave him the basic run down, and, long story short, we sold him the extra ticket. His name is Ken. Very nice man, works at Cardiff Uni. One time, Doctor Who filmed in his office 

The show itself was phenomenal, you guys. I was standing, and dancing, and singing to every line. It was the most fun. Thirteen rows back, and I was having the best time. I even got a hat that says "Let's Party", which is a reference to a line from a song. They did a few songs that really just broke me down into tears. It was all so wonderful.

In the second-to-last song, Taylor and Griffin's dad got onstage and sang "When Something Is Wrong With My Baby" by Sam & Dave. It was wonderful. And the last song, "All Your Favorite Bands", was by far one of my favorites. During the last chorus, they stopped playing and Taylor turned around the mic so the audience could sing. The song is wonderful, by the way. The chorus goes "I hope that life without a chaperone is what you thought it'd be / I hope your brother's El Camino runs forever / I hope the world sees the same person that you've always been to me / and may all your favorite bands stay together." (Interesting story, actually: after the concert I heard Taylor say that he wrote that for a friend who was graduating high school and didn't want to go to college, just wanted to live her life 'without a chaperone', as it were. It's sort of a "good-bye" song.) So yeah. 

Afterwards, we waited outside near their bus for a good half an hour until they finally came outside. Well, most of them. Griffin came out first, I got him to sign some stuff (including a setlist I swiped from the stage after the first set ). He went on to the bus, and Taylor came out and hung around, I got photos and signatures and stuff, and then Lee the keyboardist came out. Now, slight disclaimer: Lee just joined the band a year or so ago, so I never was able to form a strong opinion of him before now. My verdict: he is a fantastic person and player. We got photos, and signatures, and talked for a bit, and then he moved on to sign other people's stuff. Flash forward to a few minutes later: my mom is standing by the bus with Taylor, just conversing about general stuff. (Taylor, by the way, is just the nicest guy. You can walk up to him and strike up a conversation and he'll just totally invest himself in it.  Just a great guy.) She, apparently, brought up the fact that I have diabetes, and he said, "Oh! You should go talk to Lee!"

As it turns out, Lee has had Type 1 Diabetes since age 16. (He's 31 now.) 

We started talking, and 45 minutes passed. Everything he said, I found myself relating to so heavily. It was so weird, and unlikely, and just... great. 

By around 1:30, I ended up friends with two of my favorite musicians on the face of the earth. And I got Lee's number and email. 

It was... magical, you guys.  I can't really describe it as otherwise. 

If you get the chance to see Dawes live, you should. It's a truly special experience.

 

Edited April 30, 2017 by bleeder

[Tristan]

@Darkness Ascendant @A Budgie They have a local Comic Con in the city I live in, so I just go to that one. It's not as big as San Diego, but it was still good  

[Claincy he/him]

@Delightfully Smoak That's fair *shrug*. I don't really have the energy to get into a discussion about why I thought it was that good right now. Sorry  All else aside I do really like the soundtrack to that film.

 

[Steeldancer he/him]

I got an 100 on my level 6 Nyssma solo!!! Top level solo, and I'm hoping to go to either nationals or All state choir 

[Oversleep]

Got sick... but the con was awesome

The only thing I haven't managed to go to (the queue was too long and the room got full just few people before me :< ) was Worldbuilding so that's sad but it was pretty awesome all in all.

My second con and first big con. I am making a mistcloak next year.

Oh, and I met Peter Watts. He's really, really awesome.

Edited April 30, 2017 by Oversleep

[Sunbird she/her]

@bleeder That sounds AMAZING!! I'm glad you had such a fantastic time!