Comics Stuff

[Arkandel]

Yes BUT https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suspension_of_disbelief .

[Coin]

Yeah, because "alien who looks exactly like a human but gains god-like powers upon contact with our atmosphere and the yellow sun's rays" is super easy to swallow compared to "DNA-data encryption from the same alien species".

<.<

[Arkandel]

@Coin That's the point of suspending disbelief (I'm not sure if you're arguing for/against it).

For example many people complain about the implausibility of Lois Lane recognizing that Clark Kent, a guy she's working with, is Superman once he takes his glasses off but don't seem to have an issue about an alien invulnerable demigod flying around shooting beams out of his eyes.

Or we're fine with Independence Day's spaceships coming to enslave humanity but many people took issues with a virus made and running on a Mac could infect alien systems when it wouldn't even have been able to infect a PC.

[Silver]

@Coin I always wondered how come DC didn't go in for the idea that humans were an offshoot of the Kryptonians and that explains not only why they look the same, but why Kryptonians might have some interesting reactions with an Earth environment and how Jor-El knew to send his son here.

Then again comic books. So much is justified away by simply saying comic books.

[Coin]

Probably because Kryptonians aren't the only alien race that pretty much looks exactly like humans and that would open up a huge can of worms. I, myself, like the Star Trek explanation of 'precursors seeded worlds with what would later be humanoids, but environments changed them as time went on'.

When I ran a Marvel/DC MU, I wanted to make the Kree an off-shoot of Kryptonians who left the planet during its early space-exploration phase, and after a few hundred thousand years, have had some physiological changes (including skin color). They aren't as strong as pure kryptonians because their atmosphere/sun is much more like Earth's (or whatever), but they've kept similar naming conventions (Noh-Varr, Mar-Vell; Kal-El, Lor-Zod).

I had a whole thing written out, and I even had a great link-up for The Supreme Intelligence to be a bio-organic precursor to Brainiac.

(And now that I think about it, Kreeptonian. Ugh. It's so easy.)

[Ganymede]

Midi-chlorians.

[Coin]

@Ganymede said:

Midi-chlorians.

Fuck. You.

(I don't even mind midichlorians. >.>)

[HelloRaptor]

@Arkandel said:

Yes BUT https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suspension_of_disbelief .

If a person really, truly can't suspend their disbelief that an alien technology that stores important data in the genetic code of a living creature doesn't mean that they totally leave that data behind every time they get a splinter or otherwise deposit DNA somewhere, they're pretty hopeless.

Edit: Edited because words are hard.

[Silver]

@HelloRaptor It's interesting that you bring up suspension of disbelief. This touches on something I really think about a bit when it comes to stories, and it is that in my opinion anyway the suspension of disbelief is most easily done when the setting and characters are structured in a way so as to be plausible. Given that it is one of the storyteller's jobs to help the experiencer (a word I use just to cover movie-watchers, TV-watchers, book-readers, etc) suspend that disbelief, I think the more skillful a storyteller is at embracing the plausible the better.

Unless you're telling a story in the form of a fable, which might be something like Flatland or Jonathan Livingston Seagull, or similar. In which case go hog wild.

[HelloRaptor]

@Silver said:

@HelloRaptor It's interesting that you bring up suspension of disbelief.

Bzzt, that was @Arkandel, I was just replying.

[AmishRakeFight]

Has anyone read the following:

Trees
Low
Sex Criminals
American Vampire
Southern Bastards

Most of these are by Image, which puts out several others titles that I really love but I find myself on the fence about these titles and would appreciate feedback.

[Coin]

@Silver said:

@HelloRaptor It's interesting that you bring up suspension of disbelief. This touches on something I really think about a bit when it comes to stories, and it is that in my opinion anyway the suspension of disbelief is most easily done when the setting and characters are structured in a way so as to be plausible. Given that it is one of the storyteller's jobs to help the experiencer (a word I use just to cover movie-watchers, TV-watchers, book-readers, etc) suspend that disbelief, I think the more skillful a storyteller is at embracing the plausible the better.

Unless you're telling a story in the form of a fable, which might be something like Flatland or Jonathan Livingston Seagull, or similar. In which case go hog wild.

I think the word you're looking for is "audience". Heh.

Also, by and large--and this is likely covered in the wikipedia article, I just haven't bothered to read it--suspension of disbelief is less about "what is plausible in the minds of the audience" and more "what is plausible within the structure, theme, and dynamic of the world within which the story is happening". If you can accept a core premise, your suspension of disbelief towards that story will be guided by that premise and your acceptance of it.

A few examples:

Example #1: Superman is an alien who looks exactly like us but gains god-like powers due to how his body processes solar radiation from a young sun in its "yellow" phase, because his race is so old their sun has entered its "red" phase. Okay. I can accept that. Aliens with the technology to encrypt DNA within the blood of one of their own (especially if when presented to us, they are done so as a species that now exclusive relies on artificial genetic manipulation to procreate and have a caste-based system right out of fucking Brave New World) do not seem far-fetched within this world. I can suspend my disbelief for that, because I've suspended it for other things that are more ludicrous (the concept that this eponymous alien can fucking fly because "lulz, powers from the sun").

Example #2: A show whose cast of characters are a number of geniuses at a fictional scientific research institute, who join forces with an FBI agent to solve crimes that require their specific and particularly expensive forensic abilities. Okay, I can accept that things go a little faster for them--maybe this world is slightly more advanced (because they cite real world sources all the time so they can't be too far ahead) and they've got federal grants and money to operate their equipment. It would never fly in the real world, but it's not that big of a stretch. But then one of the psychopaths they hunt inscribes bones with certain patterns that when scanned into a computer as images proceed to fucking hack the computer and give it viruses. It's at this point that my brain goes, whoa, whoa, whoa, WHAT? And that is a break in suspension of disbelief, because for fucking five seasons, nothing that fucking ludicrous happened--and then they dropped it on a dime and it was fucking stupid.

Naturally, some people have different thresholds and their areas of interest might color what they can accept. Maybe @Misadventure just has an interest in genetics and flails because "it can't work that way!!!1111!1oneeleven" and that's fine for her, (but then she should probably be flailing at a flying man because solar radiation lulz). And some people care so very little about the physics of computer technology, that they ooed and ahed at Pilant hacking people via bone incriptions and then kept right on watching (and more power to them, even if they are dumb >.< god that was so fucking dumb).

Example #3: In the DC Animated Feature Justice League: Doom, Hal Jordan is actually speaking while flying at the speed of light to f--you know what, fuck it, at that point I was like "this is a shit movie, did the writers even? DID THEY EVEN?" And you can break suspension of disbelief in just about anything if you're enough of an asshole and your audience has half a fucking brain, seriously, what the fuck, writers? That was a shit movie.

Sources: Superman, Man of Steel, fucking Bones. Fuck Bones. And fuck Justice League: Doom.

[Arkandel]

@Coin My favorite link ever.

[Coin]

@Arkandel No youtube at work.

[HelloRaptor]

@Coin

Hal Jordan is actually speaking while flying at the speed of light to f--you know what, fuck it, at that point I was like "this is a shit movie, did the writers even? DID THEY EVEN?"

I'm pretty sure you deserve to be laughed at for having your suspension of disbelief broken by a power ring doing absolutely anything in DC. Power rings of all types routinely violate so many basic laws of physics and basic sense that doing so might as well be the description of their powers.

Here's a picture of Hal Jordan using his power ring to create a harness for Superman to pull the Earth around like a bus at a Strongman competition. So I guess the absolutely anything part applies to Superman as well. Pretty sure Batman doesn't have a gadget in his belt for that one. >_>

@Arkandel
That was hilarious. I laughed so hard when I saw that two people one keyboard thing on the show.

Generally speaking I'm tech savvy enough to get most of the shit they do wrong on shows like NCIS, CSI, Bones, etc, I just don't care because... so what? I know @Coin brought up the image-hacking thing in Bones (which is at least based on a real thing, and more wildly improbable than impossible), but that's a show where they actively have a fully functional holographic image tank, and then some. And had it a while ago. I don't watch the shows for their scientific acumen, so getting ruffled when it's less than accurate seems like a waste of time.

[Coin]

@HelloRaptor Yeah, well, this was particularly stupid and you should shut up, jerkfase. XD

[HelloRaptor]

@Coin said:

@HelloRaptor Yeah, well, this was particularly stupid and you should shut up, jerkfase. XD

A comic where a cat is a Red Lantern is clearly the head space to show discerning taste.

Not an alien cat. Not a cat hyper evolved by alien technology.

A stray cat. From earth. Who was being abused, and thus has enough rage to be a Red Lantern. Behold: Dex-Starr!

But that talking at light speed thing, yeah I can see how that's the deal breaker.

[Coin]

@HelloRaptor

Look.

1. It was something easily fixed by using any other measure of impressive speed. Speed of sound. Even half the speed of light. Whatever.
2. Shut up.

[tragedyjones]

Guys don't make me agree with @HelloRaptor guys. It hurts.

[Coin]

Here's the thing: I came to expect a certain degree of decent writing in those Animated Films. So whether the source material supports that sort of stupidity or not, my actual suspension of disbelief was genuine because my expectations within that particular interpretation of the medium were such.

Is it nitpicky? Sure. But at the moment, I flipped a desk because it was retarded even within context.

So you guys can go piss up a rope, jerkfases. ;____________;