Posts made by Coin

Spoilers.

@cupcake said in Good TV:

@coin Season 2 gave us Bajie though, and some pretty great Widow backstory. I could have lived without the "meanwhile, in the underground bunker" stuff.

Well, I mean, yeah. It got a little soap-y, but it was still good.

Season 3 seems to have tightened its plot. It still has some stuff that's cringey--I honestly could do without MK's current motivations, it is something they should really have dealt with in Season 2--but in general, I think the show's got a tighter script.

@cupcake said in Good TV:

I was kind of worried about how Into the Badlands would work after progressing past the initial antagonist, but I'm pretty pleased to say the show is as engaging as ever. The new "bad guys" are great, particularly because you find yourself questioning whether they are the bad guys, and don't it seem like the good guys are the bad guys sometimes? Which makes the show even richer and more exciting.

The production and choreography are off the charts, and the casting is absolutely exquisite in terms of equality of gender, race, and orientation. No less than three different women are included in the primary ensemble, ranging in age from teenage to mid-40's and all of them are formidable in combat.

Season 1's LGBTQ inclusion was pretty subtle; a general nod to the notion that no one cares who you "wick", and then moving into season 2, we see a character many people believed would wind up as a male hero's prize discover her love for another woman and have that love (not the discovery of having feelings for another woman, just her love) further develop her as a character.

Anyway, I needn't have worried. If you haven't seen it, the first two seasons are on Netflix and are an excellent investment of your time.

Into the Badlands is great. I have the latest episode waiting for me at home.

Season two got a little... soap-y. Season 3 is better.

Spotify. Unless its podcasts, in which case I just use the podcast app.

although not all of Writing Excuses is on the podcast app, unfortunately and much to my grumbling chagrin.

The problem with "not judging a book by its cover" has always been that judging the book is what the cover is fucking for, lol.

@arkandel said in Infinity War [SPOILERS]:

@coin Also do you see Thanos being the kind of guy who looks back at his actions and goes "oh, yeah, I guess I was in the wrong there"?

He seems the type to double down. He's be that guy for sure.

But also to the earlier point, I'm happy they didn't go for the Death angle since it'd also kinda cheapen his motivation. The guy killed his fucking daughter (oh and half the universe), so he might as well have done it because he thought it was the right thing instead of just trying to impress a girl.

Exactly, to both your points.

@theonceler said in Infinity War [SPOILERS]:

It may not follow real world logic, but Thanos has already seen results that back up his logic.

He doesn't reduce Titan by half. It's a wasteland.

He reduces Gamora's world by half. It's a paradise.

Further consideration to your comment also brings up:

Maybe killing half the world doesn't solve the issue long-term, but it does give the population a chance to rectify it.

Not doing it turned Titan into a wasteland--doing it made Gamora's world a paradise and gave it a chance to remain that way.

Still completely batshit insane, but.

@theonceler said in Infinity War [SPOILERS]:

It may not follow real world logic, but Thanos has already seen results that back up his logic.

He doesn't reduce Titan by half. It's a wasteland.

He reduces Gamora's world by half. It's a paradise.

To be fair, @SG's logic takes into account generations, which clearly haven't passed, since Gamora isn't even middle-aged now. But from a radical, genocidal extremist's point of view? Yeah, absolutely.

Also, I mean--personally, for a movie I've been waiting ten years to see, I prefer the grounded motivation of "absolute nutjob thinks he's saving the universe by murdering half its population" than the rather silly, "nutjob is in love with abstract concept of Death and so kills half the universe".

@sg said in Infinity War [SPOILERS]:

@coin He did that to relatively few planets, though. All the planets out there where people just disappeared will be having baby booms for the next twenty years.

Not necessarily.

I suspect a lot of populations will just die out.

But I mean, he can let everyone know that they should control their birthrates with as much ease as he annihilated half their population. Space/Mind/soul, everyone knows they need to watch it.

Or maybe he didn't think of it because, again, super prideful and not really actually merciful.

Also, maybe he just figured if things got out of hand again he'd just, you know...

@sg said in Infinity War [SPOILERS]:

@coin said in Infinity War [SPOILERS]:

if they hadn't gone with the (much better, imo) motivations for Thanos that they did.

I have to disagree with his motivations in the movie being better. I was watching the movie and was like, huh? In two or three generations, things will be back to where they were, why not use the IG to affect fertility rates or just like, you know, make more food?

.

Also, uhm.

If there was a super-powerful, axe-crazy, armies-commanding, mass murdering nutjob who came to your planet, committed mass genocide and literally reduced your population to half, and then said, "and don't let it happen again", I suspect that the people of that world would take birth control and population rates much more seriously for much longer than two or three generations, just out of sheer terror of it happening again.

Never mind if that same guy suddenly had the omnipotence to do it with a snap of his fingers.

Not saying he did the right thing, but I meaaaaaaaaaaan it might have been effective, if not moral or ethical.

@sg said in Infinity War [SPOILERS]:

@arkandel I guess my issue is that the comics already had a solid motivation, Thanos was nuts and in love with an abstract concept. They really didn't need to change that for the movie.

See my post above. They really, really did. It doesn't work for the broader, "layman" audience the movies have compared to the comic books.

@sg said in Infinity War [SPOILERS]:

@coin said in Infinity War [SPOILERS]:

if they hadn't gone with the (much better, imo) motivations for Thanos that they did.

I have to disagree with his motivations in the movie being better. I was watching the movie and was like, huh? In two or three generations, things will be back to where they were, why not use the IG to affect fertility rates or just like, you know, make more food?

.

Because Thanos motivation isn't actually altruistic, it's prideful. He wants to prove he was right, and that not listening to him on Titan was wrong.

There's no actual benevolence or mercy to what he's doing, it's all egotism.

In any case, it's a better motivation for a movie aimed at a much larger audience (than the comic books) because it's not so (pardon my redundance) "comic book-y". It's more grounded and less abstract and gimmicky. "Oh, I'm in love with death, let me kill truillions and trillions of people for Her". Ennnhhhh. Comic book readers are used to and like the hammy shit on occasion, but these are major blockbuster films aimed at several orders of magnitude above, in audience numbers. A more grounded motivation is much better.

@arkandel said in Infinity War [SPOILERS]:

This is from a post I made elsewhere but it might make for a fun shitpost here.

So let's assume things had gone different in the movies leading up to Infinity War. Let's say the villains had reconciled with the heroes, maybe because Thanos' attack started early and they wanted to avoid becoming culled along with everyone else.

Could they have turned the tide?

• Asgard. Would Hela have been enough if she hadn't annihilated Asgard's defenses, standing with her brothers against Thanos (who we could then assume had multiple Infinity Gems but not all of them) ? What if Odin was around as well, would it have been enough?

Alright, fine, and Malekith as well.

• Earth could have had multiple additional villainous defenders. Aldrich Killian, Hydra's Helicarriers, The Ancient One, Killmonger and Iron Monger, even the Abomination could have lent a hand.

• Could Ego have taken Thanos out? Would he have been enough? What if Ronan stood with him along with the Guardians of the Galaxy?

• Honorary mentions but irrelevant in this context are bad guys who wouldn't care to stand against Thanos. Ultron would want him to snap twice! And Dormammu... well, he's probably even worse.

I'm also leaving out X-Men villains since they haven't joined the MCU officially yet. If you want though feel free to toss in names like Apocalypse or Magneto to the fold.

What do you think?

I think the biggest question is the first one: would hela and Odin have made a difference? Possibly. On the other hand, a lot of people were assuming Hela was going to take Death's plac e in the whole Thanos Loves Death bit (probably not with love, but definitely with influencing his decision, etc) if they hadn't gone with the (much better, imo) motivations for Thanos that they did.

I am not sure Hela wouldn't have sided with Thanos. She's the goddess of Death. In a nod to the comics, she might actually have become more powerful after such a massive fucking killcount.

Odin was old, and probably woudn't have been able to do much, especially if, like, Heimdall and Thor got smacked around like they did--and Malekith without the Aether was pretty much papier-mache.

Ego might have been a heavy hitter (not Ronan, he'd be scrap faster than Heimdall was--Thanos had him as a lackey and wasn't concerned with Ronan's posturing even when he didn't have any of the Stones). But again, as with Ultron (which you mention rightly would probably want Thanos to snap twice), Ego's entire schtick was kind of "wipe everything out, start brand new" so he might have just been like "yeah, sure, go for it, it'll be easier for me later" Assuming that he didn't get scrapped too in the fingersnap. But if he's the last Celestial (no confirmation) with the other being Peter, it's a 50/50?

Everyone else (Killmonger, Killian, Iron Monger, Hydra Helicarriers, etc., etc.) would just have been part of the Battle of Wakanda which, frankly, would have made absolutely no difference. Notice that the heroes win that battle. The speed with which they win the battle makes absolutely no difference. It's not until Thanos arrives that they lose, quickly and definitively.

Now, if the Tony-Spidey-Guardians team had had some more help... then maybe. I suppose maybe this is where Ronan might have made a difference--but narratively it would have been futile anyway.

@theonceler said in Infinity War [SPOILERS]:

Ebony Maw was the only one with any real personality (but he oozed personality) so I was surprised at his out of the box death. The others I didn't much care about, though unlike Corvus Glaive and Cull Obsidian at least Proxima Midnight had a good line.

If anything I was annoyed that twice in the movie Proxima Midnight was sectioned off for a chick fight. Guys, it's okay for the girls and guys to fight. No one's going to get upset.

Yeah, this bugged me, too.

It also kind of bugged me that we didn't get to see Gamora and Nebula interact with what I can only assume they view as fellow adopted siblings.

Gamora and Nebula treat each other as sisters but I am super interested in what the dynamic might be between them and the other four. I suspect Maw would be the hypercondescending Oldest Brother, while Proxima Midnight might have once been the Example Set By Oldest Sister whom both Neb and Gam probably surpassed at some point (I get the feeling that properly armed they could take her). Corvus and Cull had such absolute lack of personality that I can't infer shit, as you said. And yet they got the least unceremonious deaths of them all.

Also, look up James Gunn's recent tweet on what Groot's last words were. Certainly changed my most affecting death from Spidey to Groot.

Oh, sonuvab--

God damn it.

Ugh. My fucking gut just got punched again.

@arkandel said in Spoilers:

@coin Well sure, but for example if I mention Hulk smashing Loki in Avengers 1 no one can reasonably complain.

So the question is basically "what is reasonable in this context?".

In general, I think six months becomes spoiler-free because if you haven't seen something six months after it came out (especially for movies, maybe not so much for tv shows or books) then how important was it really for you? But that's admittedly subjective.

I'd say anything within six months for movies, a year for TV/literature, should be in spoiler tags or its own thread (preferably the latter if the discussion is specifically about that thing).

Also, if anyone mentions they haven't seen/read a thing, don't immediately spoil it with a casual mention or toss up a spoilery meme and be like "well, it's past the time limit!" That's just asshole behavior.

Man, if you are looking at this and you haven't seen Infinity War, it's your own damn fault.

Let's open this up with: which death rocked you the most?

I know a lot of them will be reversed, but for me, the one that most got me that I somehow doubt will be reversed is Loki.

I mean that shit was cold and established the hell out of what the movie was gonna be like.

Gamora's was powerful, too.

Also, did anyone else feel like the Black Order got cleaned way too casually? Like, I understand time constraints, etc., but Proxima Midnight and Ebony Maw especially got basically punted rather unceremoniously.

If you're gonna talk about something that is culturally significant in media and you might spoil someone, make a thread for it.

@arkandel said in Interest check: pure OC superhero game:

@lithium said in Interest check: pure OC superhero game:

Easiest way to deal with leadership is just to have a command structure baked in. This person is team lead, so long as they are available. Then this person is second in command, unless they're not available, so on and so forth.

Even that has been known to break down because the problem typically isn't IC, it's OOC.

So I'm off for a week and since you're playing the second in command you make some decisions while I'm off. Once I'm back I see them, get threatened by it, and pitch a fit about it.

I'm honestly not sure which is worse in organizations: when the IC and OOC leaders are the same, or when the IC leader is one person but the person in charge OOC is another. I can't remember either option not giving me a huge headache for one reason or another, though I suspect the former is just more consistent and less contentious.

This is absolutely random, but one of the things I really liked about Aberrant (and maybe other systems, honestly, superhero systems aren't my forte) was that the speedster Quantum Powers and Mega-Dexterity operated independently, and there was a definite difference between super travel speed (get from A to B quickly) and super movement speed (everything you do that isn't going from one place to another, including punching, kicking, etc).

Aside from prophetic/temporal manipulation powers, super-speed is often the hardest to figure out in games because of how ridiculous it can get.

Honestly, for speedsters there should probably be three types of super-speed: travel, movement, and combat, and they should each influence each other, probably, but they should be accounted for separately for system purposes.

@auspice said in Name Change:

@magee101 said in Name Change:

My question is, would the forum change all his posts to the new name or would it be like a snake shedding its skin?

Since it's the same account, it should change all of the posts.

But probably not the @named bits in other people's posts, so anyone who @ed Apu would still show as having @ed Apu.