Random Stuff IX: Rogue Admins

[Edgedancer he/him]

This one is pretty good too:

 

But seriously, Lawful Good!? Have they ever seen Goku?

Well, I haven't seen the argument made and don't necessarily agree but lawful doesn't have to mean follows the law but could also mean personal rules like a strict training regiment or wanting a fair fight (like giving the enemy a senzu bean so they can fight at their full strenght). Monks (the martial arts D&D kind) are inherently lawful for example based on the discipline they need for mastering their training.

[The Sovereign]

Well, I haven't seen the argument made and don't necessarily agree but lawful doesn't have to mean follows the law but could also mean personal rules like a strict training regiment or wanting a fair fight (like giving the enemy a senzu bean so they can fight at their full strenght). Monks (the martial arts D&D kind) are inherently lawful for example based on the discipline they need for mastering their training.

 

Interestingly, my brief assessment was also going by the D&D alignment chart. I would argue Goku is Chaotic Good. While I agree that he has some tendencies of Lawfulness through personal code I would be much quicker to assign Gohan or Piccolo to that role. Goku has too much disregard for things like collateral damage for me to ever really consider him lawful. I'd argue that the Senzu bean thing is more of a want to be able to say that he beat someone at their best than a desire for it to be a fair fight.

[Edgedancer he/him]

Interestingly, my brief assessment was also going by the D&D alignment chart. I would argue Goku is Chaotic Good. While I agree that he has some tendencies of Lawfulness through personal code I would be much quicker to assign Gohan or Piccolo to that role. Goku has too much disregard for things like collateral damage for me to ever really consider him lawful. I'd argue that the Senzu bean thing is more of a want to be able to say that he beat someone at their best than a desire for it to be a fair fight.

Yeah, the D&D alignment system is all over the place, especially on the law-chaos axis. It's the kind of thing that happens if you give your sliding scale more than one criteria on the same axis. The Senzu bean example wasn't about giving his opponent a fair fight by the way, it was about letting Cell beat up his son. For reference he specifically calls it in the name of fair play.

[Quiver he/him]

I've said it before, Goku is an all around terrible parent.

When Vegeta is more involved in his kids life than you are? You officially such at parenting.

[ThirdGen]

It would just be totally awesome to have some Jewish superhero representation

 

I've long held the opinion that one character you're all likely fans of is "basically a Jewish superhero."

 

[Mistrunner]

On the topic of Cap being Hydra:

(Where's Slowswift? I have a feeling he'll have a good reaction to all this.)

...Anyway.

Going swimming on military bases is interesting because usually they're pretty quiet and nice but sometimes you'll get a platoon of soldiers in full tactical gear bobbing around the shallow end.

That's something you don't get to see at the YMCA.

Edited May 27, 2016 by Mistrunner

[TwiLyghtSansSparkles she/her]

On the topic of Cap being Hydra:

...Anyway.

Going swimming on military bases is interesting because usually they're pretty quiet and nice but sometimes you'll get a platoon of soldiers in full tactical gear bobbing around the shallow end.

That's something you don't get to see at the YMCA.

For some reason, I also picture them with rubber ducks.

[Sunbird she/her]

That would be me. How badly did we screw up on factual accuracy?

 

I just figured out why your voice sounds familiar. You have a similar manner of speech to a guy I knew at my high school in Virginia.

 

As for factual accuracy... I'm totally the wrong person to ask about this. I just got the basic run-down of the Korean War in my history classes, and your telling of it, as far as I could tell, was just uber-simplified and hammed up for humor.

 

Now. Be fair.

 

This reveal happened literally yesterday, and on the very last page of the comic as a SURPRISE REVEAL. The whole point of it is supposed to be a 'What the-' plot twist to make people want to come back next month and find out what the hell happened.

 

The odd's of 616!Steve Rogers having secretly been working for Hydra all along is roughly, I'd say, THERE ARE NO ODDS IT'S NOT HAPPENING.

 

...Of course, whether or not this story is a good idea is a whole other matter...

 

I'm with Quiver on this. Marvel is probably going to come out with the next issue (or a few issues in the future) and be like, "Gotcha! You didn't think we'd really do that, did you?" Kind of like when Alcatraz ends a chapter with the sentence "And then Grandpa Smedry exploded." Grandpa Smedry didn't really explode; Alcatraz just wanted you to turn the page so fast it rips.

[Silverblade5 he/him]

I just figured out why your voice sounds familiar. You have a similar manner of speech to a guy I knew at my high school in Virginia.

As for factual accuracy... I'm totally the wrong person to ask about this. I just got the basic run-down of the Korean War in my history classes, and your telling of it, as far as I could tell, was just uber-simplified and hammed up for

That's it in a nutshell

[Citadel16 he/him]

Edited May 27, 2016 by WarriorMark16

[Mestiv he/him]

I've just seen this on 9gag: http://9gag.com/gag/apvOydE and I have to ask: aren't  this kind of windows common on other continents?

[TwiLyghtSansSparkles she/her]

I've just seen this on 9gag: http://9gag.com/gag/apvOydE and I have to ask: aren't this kind of windows common on other continents?

I can't say I've ever seen that type of window before. Then again, I've lived primarily on the west coast, so they might be seen more often on the east coast, but I don't know.

[Oversleep]

I can't say I've ever seen that type of window before. Then again, I've lived primarily on the west coast, so they might be seen more often on the east coast, but I don't know.

So how do your windows work? I've always thought that windows are quite the same everywhere, but...

[TwiLyghtSansSparkles she/her]

So how do your windows work? I've always thought that windows are quite the same everywhere, but...

 

Most of the ones I've seen slide open, either up and down or side to side. 

 

Also, I realized something kind of depressing earlier. Spoilers for the latest Cap reveal, if there's someone who somehow hasn't heard about it yet (and trust me, when you hear it, you'll wish you could un-hear it.) 

 

Captain America and Harry Potter were two fandoms I adored. I still do; nostalgia and affection don't go away that easily. And honestly, they both have their flaws, but I love them in spite of that. It's not like convoluted continuity or an us-vs.-them mentality made it impossible for me to enjoy those series. 

 

But now, after Rowling's disastrous Magic in North America series, and the revelation that Cap was a Nazi working for Hydra all along….I don't know. I can ignore the former and dismiss the latter. I can refuse to see Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them. I can wait for the inevitable retcon and roll my eyes at comic book logic. I can enjoy the original Potter books and every Captain America movie made up to this point. But it doesn't change the facts. It doesn't take back Rowling's terminal research failures or the panel where Steve says "Hail Hydra." If Fantastic Beasts is going to be a terrible movie, my ignoring it won't remove it from continuity. Pretending that panel isn't canon won't change the fact that a lot of people thought Captain Hydra was a good idea. Those moments are a part of the fandom now, and nothing will change that. 

 

I loved both of those fandoms, and now the creator of one and the caretaker of another have drawn big, ugly stains across them, never doubting we'd love it all the more. It's not that I've suddenly realized those artists weren't perfect; they're human, and humans are bound to fail. I guess I just always hoped those failures would be smaller. Easier to ignore. 

 

Two of my favorite things have been damaged. And while fixing them isn't impossible, seeing the damage still makes me sad.

[Kaymyth she/her]

ConQuesT 47:  The Story So Far...

 

 

Thursday:

 

I got off work early to run up and check into my hotel room before running to pick my GoH (Julie) up from the airport.  I'm a liaison this year, which basically means that I am her assistant/minion/buddy/guide while she is at the convention.  I did all the stuff like booking her flights, making sure her art gets shipped, and making sure she is not lonely and has places to eat.  (She is pescatarian, so I had to do some research.)

 

Well, I don't know if any of y'all happened to see the weather radar over the Midwest last night, but that was some of the most impressively wide swaths of red I have ever seen.  We've had flash flood warnings all over the place, and the airport actually had to evacuate to the tornado shelters for a while because yes, there was an actual tornado in the area.  But, y'know, we're Midwesterners, so we just sorta shrug at the sirens and meander downstairs (possibly stopping at the window in the hopes of getting a peek at the funnel cloud).

 

Fortunately, Julie's connecting flight was delayed enough for other reasons that I missed being at the airport during the tornado warning.  But I still had to drive up there in some fun downpours and a little bit of light hail.  So that was exciting.  Then I got the airport, checked her flight on my phone, and noted that it was going to be landing soon.  Hooray!  Then the landing time rolled around, and no announcement of the flight arrival.  Hm.  So I wandered over to the board.  About the same time as I saw what was going on, I got text from her that confirmed it.

 

Julie had landed, all right.

 

In Oklahoma City.

 

See, her plane had circled a few times, trying to find a break in the storm to land, but couldn't.  And they were running out of fuel, so they needed to land somewhere.  They were first diverted to Tulsa, but then that airport was gridlocked with other flights that couldn't land places, so they moved on to Oklahoma City, where they landed just long enough to refuel and then hopped back up in the air again.

 

Julie finally landed at about a quarter to nine.  Between grabbing something to eat and getting the GPS to behave itself, we finally rolled into the convention hotel after 10PM, maybe somewhere closer to 10:30.  Fortunately, we get along quite well, and were able to joke around about the madness and generally goof off at each other.

 

Friday:

 

Today started off much better.  After breakfast, we headed down to the dealer room to get her art display set up.  And once we'd done that, seeing that the art show team was terribly behind and shorthanded, we pitched in to help get all the other displays up and running, too.  That took most of the afternoon.  We tooled around the dealer tables for a while afterwards, and I randomly ran into some old college friends whom I hadn't seen in about 15 years, so that was kind of cool.

 

I introduced Julie to Spin Pizza for dinner, we went to the opening ceremonies (where delightful shenanigans happened), and generally had a good time.  Spin actually screwed up our order and somehow got "chicken" when I'd said "garlic cloves" (don't ask me how).  They fixed it quickly, though, and we got food still faster than we'd expected.  And then they gave me the mistake pizza anyway, so I've got it stuffed into my hotel fridge.  I'm amazed that it fit.  Bonus pizza yay!

 

 

I am...tired.  And having a pretty good time, even if the weather did try to eat me.  Oh, but the hotel elevators scare me because they remind me of the elevators my dreams try to create that have way too many floors and just randomly lose walls and stuff and move way, way too fast.  The hotel has way too many floors (40) and the elevators run fast enough to make my ears pop.  While I am quite certain that the walls are not going to just disappear, it is rather disconcerting to think about how high I am when hurtling upwards at 15 feet per second.  So I try not to.  But it's hard.

[Sunbird she/her]

even if the weather did try to eat me.

 

Now I have this mental image of an anthropomorphized tornado chasing your car down the road going "OMNOMNOMNOM." XD

[Zathoth]

So if I just type something here it is obvious to everyone what I am thinking, right?

[Orlion Blight he/him]

So if I just type something here it is obvious to everyone what I am thinking, right?

Kittens gnawing on the bones of their enemies?

[Sunbird she/her]

So if I just type something here it is obvious to everyone what I am thinking, right?

 

This post reminded me of another source of funny.

 

So my mom just finished up her third year (of four) of pharmacy school and as an indirect result I have liked a Facebook page called "Excuse me! This is a PHARMACY not a fast food restaurant!" that posts true stories about pharmacists' and pharmacy employees' absurd experiences in retail pharmacy.

 

This picture of a prescription--which, you'll notice, doesn't actually say what medication to give the patient--came with the explanation, "Got this RX, too funny not to share. The doctor's office didn't think it was so funny. He said we should have known it was B-12." And the comments are even funnier than the actual prescription. Some of my favorites:

 

"Pharmacist's choice. Send whatever you have overstocked."

 

"I'm sorry, but I quit the Psychic Friends Network when Madame Cleo went down."

 

"We in pharmacy are psychotic not psychic."

 

"IT still hasn't fixed my crystal ball. Sorry."

[Delightful]

Exactly.

It ain't gonna happen. This is like...

Like, during the fifties. They would do a cover showing Superman doing something outrageous, like destroying Metropolis, or torturing his friends, with a caption like "Holy Krypton! The Man of Steel... the Terror of Steel?!?" And the idea was that readers would pick it up, and read to see why Superman had turned into such a di-

-ifferent person. And Always, it would turn out to be out of context, or he had reasons and what seemed like villainy was for a particular reason, like he was pretending to be a Super Tyrant to scare off would be alien invaders or something.

Cap being a Nazi ain't gonna happen.

I'm with Quiver on this. Marvel is probably going to come out with the next issue (or a few issues in the future) and be like, "Gotcha! You didn't think we'd really do that, did you?" Kind of like when Alcatraz ends a chapter with the sentence "And then Grandpa Smedry exploded." Grandpa Smedry didn't really explode; Alcatraz just wanted you to turn the page so fast it rips.

It doesn't matter, you don't get to use actual attempted genocide, the death of millions and destruction of entire communities and culture as a cheap gimmick page turner. It's essentially "haha Cap murdered innocents at point blank range and sent children up the chimneys with their entire communities and raped women and collected their hair to stuff mattresses haha everyone's gonna want to know how this happened!"

Bull rust, offensive and disgusting doesn't begin to cover it.

Edited May 28, 2016 by Delightful

[Young Bard he/him]

It doesn't matter, you don't get to use actual attempted genocide, the death of millions and destruction of entire communities and culture as a cheap gimmick page turner. It's crem dung, offensive and disgusting.

 

To be fair, I think that's taking it a bit far. While I think the cliffhanger is just a cheap attempt to draw in viewers to the comics, I don't think that Marvel is in anyway trying to mock or make light of the issue, or invalidate those that died.

Edited May 28, 2016 by The Young Bard

[Delightful]

Cliffhangers are cheap storytelling. Making the ultimate hero a literal Nazi for the sake of a cheap cliffhanger is inexcusable.

Regardless of intentions that is the reality. Because it was meant one way and not the other doesn't make it any less wrong.

Edited May 28, 2016 by Delightful

[Quiver he/him]

It doesn't matter, you don't get to use actual attempted genocide, the death of millions and destruction of entire communities and culture as a cheap gimmick page turner. It's essentially "haha Cap murdered innocents at point blank range and sent children up the chimneys with their entire communities and raped women and collected their hair to stuff mattresses haha everyone's gonna want to know how this happened!"

Bull rust, offensive and disgusting doesn't begin to cover it.

 

That... is a very fair point. One which is predicated on just how much one chooses to view Hydra as symbolic stand ins for Nazi's (at least one version of their origins in the comics has them as a splinter group of SHIELD instead)...

 

But Marvel has really, really tried marketing Hydra as their analogue for Nazi's via their cartoons and movies. As one guy on a forum put it, equating Hydra with Nazi's, then turning around and saying, "What? You thought Hydra were Nazi's? Nah man, they just crazy supervillains!" is pretty damnation disingenuous.  

 

I admit, I don't think of Hydra in terms of them being Nazi's; I think of them as generic super terrorists. But I am coming from a very, very different background in that regard.

Edited May 28, 2016 by Quiver

[Delightful]

Honestly, it's a bit of a tricky line, one that I think Marvel doesn't quite tread carefully enough.

The meme value of "hail hydra" on the surface can be funny - until it suddenly hits you that it's a stand in for heil Hitler.

And sure, in AoS they're Generic Villians in how they're treated, and for the most part that's totally fine. But Marvel has to really think hard before they pull something like this because Hydra can't be completely separated from nazism either.

[TwiLyghtSansSparkles she/her]

Honestly, it's a bit of a tricky line, one that I think Marvel doesn't quite tread carefully enough.

The meme value of "hail hydra" on the surface can be funny - until it suddenly hits you that it's a stand in for heil Hitler.

And sure, in AoS they're Generic Villians in how they're treated, and for the most part that's totally fine. But Marvel has to really think hard before they pull something like this because Hydra can't be completely separated from nazism either.

 

Right. They began as a sort of splinter group—the research division, as the first Captain America movie put it—surviving past the fall of Nazi Germany into the present day. So even if Hydra is no longer explicitly a Nazi group, the fact remains that they wouldn't exist without Nazism.