Enderlord's Random Banter #230 (Friendly warning: Might teleport. Don't get wet.)

[tyckspoon]

Live action Neon Genesis Evangelion

WARNING: MASSIVE spoilers if you haven't watched the Neon Genesis Evangelion TV series.

Watched, will confirm this is an accurate representation of Evangelion.

[The Fury]

I guess this is more of a confession than it is asking for help. Just in the interest of letting people know why I'll probably be weird and a little slow in the head for a while. I've been growing apart from my IRL friends for a while, which is fine. Things like this happen.

A few days ago, a friend of mine had a severe mental health crisis. I'll spare y'all the details, but it's one of those situations where I'd like to help, but my help is unwanted. If my friend actually needs help, there are other people that can and will do it. It's not been easy to accept that the most helpful thing I can do is back off. In fact parts of my brain have gone through emergency shutdown because of it.

Take this as a disclaimer, I suppose. That I'm probably going to be a lot dumber than usual.

[BisectedBrioche]

Live action Neon Genesis Evangelion

WARNING: MASSIVE spoilers if you haven't watched the Neon Genesis Evangelion TV series.

That was incredible! o.o

[Rater202]

I read a few years ago that a lot of restaurants got into the habit of skimping on or even completely omitting salt from their recipes after noticing a trend of customers salting their food at the table without even tasting it first.

I don't know how true that is, but I did start making a conscious effort to avoid adding salt or pepper to my lemon rice soup until after I'd eaten a spoonful whenever my family went to a restaurant that had it.

[Insane Jeenyus]

*walks in dripping sea water*

Sorry I am late to the chattery, but I was teleported to the gulf of Mexico.

So, when it comes to meatloaf there are two main camps: Serve it with gravy, or apply a ketchup-based glaze to it.

I mostly prefer to serve it with gravy, but for the last couple of days, I've been wondering if my homemade barbecue sauce could be adapted into a glaze and if that would work.

My family has experimented with cooking meatballs in (storebought)barbecue sauce and that goes well, so in theory it would turn out, but sometimes things you think would go well together don't.

Well, an alternative to Ketchup based sauce could be a tomato, basil and garlic sauce. . . bur BBQ sauce would work great!!

**snip** I got the Dresden Files novel Peace Talks back in July but I only just got around to reading it.

I got my copy back then too, but read it immediately.

[Rater202]

I got my copy back then too, but read it immediately.

I put it off to read Initial Sparks, since I was participating in Fury's book club thread at the time and then just didn't get around to reading the Dresden novel.

I do not regret that choice. Peace Talks is a good book but it's very obvious that it's only half of a story and most of the emotions it sparked in me were to ignite my general feeling reading the series as a whole that someone needs to smack the Holy Hell out of half of the Senior Council and take them to task for their arrogance and general asshattery.

[Anonymouswizard]

It's Christmas eve!

I should really get to bed.

[LaZodiac]

I put it off to read Initial Sparks, since I was participating in Fury's book club thread at the time and then just didn't get around to reading the Dresden novel.

I do not regret that choice. Peace Talks is a good book but it's very obvious that it's only half of a story and most of the emotions it sparked in me were to ignite my general feeling reading the series as a whole that someone needs to smack the Holy Hell out of half of the Senior Council and take them to task for their arrogance and general asshattery.

I know I shouldn't but I can't help but see this post and go "Heh, move over Dresden Codak, it's time for a new hottness!"

Definitely not true in most regards, but still funny to imagine

[Rater202]

I know I shouldn't but I can't help but see this post and go "Heh, move over Dresden Codak, it's time for a new hottness!"

Definitely not true in most regards, but still funny to imagine

1: Dresden Files. Completely different thing.

One is a series of novels about a Private investigator who openly advertises his services as "Wizard for Hire" and who is in fact a wizard... And periodically gets crank calls from people who are incredulous that he's actually a wizard named "Harry." (Even he jokes about it now.)

His adventures have included recruiting an army of fairies by bribing them with pizza, Santa Claus(who is also Odin) coming to his birthday party, he and an honest to God Holy Knight being arrested for breaking into a maternity ward(a ghost was smothering babies,) and committing complete and total genocide of one of four main species of Vampire becuase they ****ed with his daughter. (Note, he didn't know the daughter existed until his ex-girlfriend showed up and told him that their child had been kidnapped by vampires.)

Dresden Codak is a dadaist Webcomic focused on philosophy and transhumanism.

The Dresden Files are named in reference to the main character, Harry Blackstone Copperfield Dresden, who was in turn, named after Harry Houdini, Harry Blackstone sr., David Copperfield, and The city of Dresden.

This is because Hary is a Wizard, who is the son of a stage magician, and becuase Harry is best at Fire Elemental Evocation and tends to leave destruction in his wake.

Dresden Codak is named in reference to the Dresden Codex.

Completely different.

2: You've got the potential. I said it in Fury's thread, but reading the last chapters of Initial Sparks gave me a feeling of anticipation I hadn't felt since I was a teenager trying to read an entire Harry Potter book in one sitting.

[enderlord99]

Until very recently, I thought shillings were still being minted.

It turns out the UK switched to a decimal currency-system in the early 1970s.

[Peelee]

I think I still have a few Austrian shillings around somewhere.

[Anonymouswizard]

Until very recently, I thought shillings were still being minted.

It turns out the UK switched to a decimal currency-system in the early 1970s.

Lies and slander I assure you

[Fyraltari]

I think I still have a few Austrian shillings around somewhere.

Wanna trade for some gold Louis?

[Rater202]

I think it's been established that I'm a huge Marvel comics guy. This frames the following.

Back in 2018, Donny Cates introduced the concept of "Symbiote Dragons," which are to say, dragons made of the same substance as Symbiotes that, when defeated, have bits and pieces of themselves come off and infect people in order to steal their power and control their behavior. Symbiotes proper seem to be derived from this phenomena, though symbiote dragons and their derivatives are more powerful than proper symbiotes--a normal symbiote will die if it falls into a bonfire. A symbiote dragon or derivative symbiote can shrug off napalm and thermobaric missiles.

Symbiote dragons are capable of FTL interstellar flight, using offshoots of itself as a conduit for necromancy, and controlling or influencing the behavior or other symbiotes--even ones not directly connected to it. One symbiote dragon was shown being able to breathe both fire and a strange blue plasma that was described as being burning hot and freezing cold at the same time.

The only things shown to be able to meaningfully harm an intact symbiote dragon have been large concentrations of electricity(which temporarily incapacitate it) and cosmic energy, and enough heat to kill most things—"Locked in a blast furnace turned up to at least 10,000 Fahrenheit (5,600 Celsius) for several minutes" and "had a miniature star created ex nihilo in your chest cavity by a reality warper" hot.

The majority of symbiote dragons merged into a living planet after they were freed from the control of their creator god and decided "screw this guy" and kicked his ass. Essentially serving as a Cage for him after beating him into a coma, but recently he woke up and took control of them again, and at least two(Grendel and Big Mother) of them were present on Earth at the time

This week, it was established that the whole freaking dragon can bond to someone the way a lesser symbiote would, not just an offshoot or remnant

I am sharing this becuase... That's the next best thing to being a dragon, isn't it?

All I can think about since reading that is being bonded with one and then manifesting the full dragon body around myself and then just being the dragon.

[factotum]

It turns out the UK switched to a decimal currency-system in the early 1970s.

We still actually used the old shillings for quite a while--I was born in 1970 and I still remember using the old shilling pieces. They had a value of 5p rather than the original 12p, of course.

[Peelee]

Wanna trade for some gold Louis?

Hmmmmmmmmmm...........

I do like gold...

[LaZodiac]

1: Dresden Files. Completely different thing.

Dresden Codak is named in reference to the Dresden Codex.

Completely different.

2: You've got the potential. I said it in Fury's thread, but reading the last chapters of Initial Sparks gave me a feeling of anticipation I hadn't felt since I was a teenager trying to read an entire Harry Potter book in one sitting.

Blegh, my bad. That's why I shouldn't post when tired XP

D'aw, shucks.

I think it's been established that I'm a huge Marvel comics guy. This frames the following.

Back in 2018, Donny Cates introduced the concept of "Symbiote Dragons," which are to say, dragons made of the same substance as Symbiotes that, when defeated, have bits and pieces of themselves come off and infect people in order to steal their power and control their behavior. Symbiotes proper seem to be derived from this phenomena, though symbiote dragons and their derivatives are more powerful than proper symbiotes--a normal symbiote will die if it falls into a bonfire. A symbiote dragon or derivative symbiote can shrug off napalm and thermobaric missiles.

Symbiote dragons are capable of FTL interstellar flight, using offshoots of itself as a conduit for necromancy, and controlling or influencing the behavior or other symbiotes--even ones not directly connected to it. One symbiote dragon was shown being able to breathe both fire and a strange blue plasma that was described as being burning hot and freezing cold at the same time.

The only things shown to be able to meaningfully harm an intact symbiote dragon have been large concentrations of electricity(which temporarily incapacitate it) and cosmic energy, and enough heat to kill most things—"Locked in a blast furnace turned up to at least 10,000 Fahrenheit (5,600 Celsius) for several minutes" and "had a miniature star created ex nihilo in your chest cavity by a reality warper" hot.

The majority of symbiote dragons merged into a living planet after they were freed from the control of their creator god and decided "screw this guy" and kicked his ass. Essentially serving as a Cage for him after beating him into a coma, but recently he woke up and took control of them again, and at least two(Grendel and Big Mother) of them were present on Earth at the time

This week, it was established that the whole freaking dragon can bond to someone the way a lesser symbiote would, not just an offshoot or remnant

I am sharing this becuase... That's the next best thing to being a dragon, isn't it?

All I can think about since reading that is being bonded with one and then manifesting the full dragon body around myself and then just being the dragon.

I'll be honest, as cool as Venom and friends are, the entire Symbiote spin off always sounds super weird to me? I LIKE what you're presenting here, don't get me wrong, and I really like how the Venom movie gave us the implication that Venom is just kind of a weirdo loser on his planet like Eddie is, but it definitely feels like "we made something pretty neat and then we accidentally created extreme Deep Lore about it"

Also it reminds me of Blue Beetle a whole bunch.

[Rater202]

I'll be honest, as cool as Venom and friends are, the entire Symbiote spin off always sounds super weird to me? I LIKE what you're presenting here, don't get me wrong, and I really like how the Venom movie gave us the implication that Venom is just kind of a weirdo loser on his planet like Eddie is, but it definitely feels like "we made something pretty neat and then we accidentally created extreme Deep Lore about it"

Also it reminds me of Blue Beetle a whole bunch.

Nah, that's basically how it works.

Originally, the plan was to just give Spider-Man a new costume with a design similar to the one worn by the Second Spider-Woman, and while they were at it make it cool--"ooh, it can disguise itself as other things and produce web fluid on its own and makes him slightly stronger."

But then the cool costume didn't sell well--people liked the Black Suit design but felt that the upgrade was a bit much...

So they made the costume a symbiotic alien, did a storyline of it possessing Peter to keep fighting crime when he was asleep(resulting in him sleeping for most of a day and waking up exhausted) and then he went to the Fantastic Four to figure out what's up and then they're like "hey, the costume is alive and it's trying to permanently bond to your body" and he was all like "nope, nope, nope."

And then it got to be the lead up for a major milestone--300 issues of Amazing Spider-Man and the wheels got turning: Whatever happened with the symbiote?

So they have it bond with someone who has a not entirely rational grudge with Spider-Man--and, for bnus points, they tie it in with another Spider-Man storyline, the murder spree of Sin-Eater: Journalist Eddie Brock thought he had the break of a lifetime when he was approached by a man, Emil Gregg, who claimed to be the serial killer Sin-Eater who wanted to confess his crimes.

A few days later, Spider-Man captures the Sin-Eater and unmasks him, revealing a man named Stan Carter: Stan and Emil lived in neighboring apartments, both were mentally ill, and Emil heard Stan mumbling through the walls at night.

Eddie then loses his job over the mixup, which, to be fair, wasn't exactly fair.

(Irony: It was later revealed that Emil and Stan were both independently committing murders as The Sin-Eater and Emil's mental illness led him to take credit for Stan's murders, while Stan was falsely credited with Emil's crimes--and Emil was the original, Stan started as a copy cat.)

Venom was originally only planned to be in a few stories and then be killed off, with the symbiote later periodically emerging to bond with members of Peter's rogues gallery, but he exploded in popularity leading to stories that added more depth to Eddie and the symbiote as a character, which in turn led to 1: Eddie being shifted from an out and out the villain to more of an anti-hero and 2: The creation of the unambiguously evil Carnage to take Venom's place as a villain.

And then ever since people have just been adding more and more to the backstory--no ****ting you, Donny Cates has flat out admitted that a good chunk of what he's been doing since he took over as Venom's main writer is stories and ideas he had as a kid reading Venom comics.

The super interesting thing is that there have been surprisingly few out and out retcons. Most additions to the Venom lore add to and expand on what was previously established rather than changing it.

[Anonymouswizard]

And people sometimes wonder why I dislike mainstream US comics and unending series. I read the entire explanation and I'm still confused.

Also, why isn't Peter Parker in his 70s now? Never made that much sense to me. At least Logan has a reason to have not aged.

(Yeah, this is arguably incompatible with me being a massive Whovian, but I feel like the Doctor is allowed to change a lot more than your average Marvel character even without regeneration, and the BBC's status on what's canonical is 'it all is, but we can contradict previous events whenever we like')

[Rater202]

Also, why isn't Peter Parker in his 70s now?

A pair of Cosmic Beings named Now and Then(the children of Eternity, the Abstract Concept of Time and the anthropomorphic embodiment of reality) maintain the library at the House of Ideas in Omnipotence city, where all of the highest level deities and cosmic beings in the Multiverse live(Excepting the One Above All who resides at the exact top of the Universe and the One Below All who resides in The Below Place.)

Now and Then, more than anything, love stories about Heroes.

And the library automatically updates with the stories of people as they happen.

Now and then use their powers overtime to extend the lifespans and vitality of Heroes and the people around them in order to get more stories.

This is also, for example, why you sometimes get examples of a hero seeming to be is more than one place at once.

Now and Then also compress people's perception of time so that people don't freak out--though it's not perfect, Reed Richards, for example, has noticed that he and his friends and family either aren't aging at the right rate or aren't aging at all and that his perception of time doesn't match actual events. He concluded that there's a cosmic being that wants a lot of heroes around in their primes and left it at that.

(Notably, Reed and Sue gave up on trying to figure out how Old their son Franklin--who was born in 1968 but is only recently old enough to drive--is supposed to be and just don't talk about it.)

Also, not everyone's perception is compressed to the same level, not everyone's aging is as slowed as everyone else's--the aforementioned Franklin was born before most of his babysitters--and not every hero is affected by it.

Doctor Strange, for example, is explicitly experiencing all of this in real time and has not had his perception of time altered, becuase one of the perks of being Sorcerer supreme is that you don't age and can't die of natural causes as long as you officially hold the position so there's no need to compress him in comparison to other people.

[Anonymouswizard]

My problem is that this doesn't make as intuitive sense as, say, 'long lived alien with a time machine'. It reads as a very thrown together explanation so they don't have to have characters age.

Maybe it's because I never had the chance to get into US comics as a kid, but was introduced to Doctor Who. But I maintain that, from my point of view at least, the latter show makes massive changes that DC or Marvel never will.

[Rater202]

My problem is that this doesn't make as intuitive sense as, say, 'long lived alien with a time machine'. It reads as a very thrown together explanation so they don't have to have characters age.

Maybe it's because I never had the chance to get into US comics as a kid, but was introduced to Doctor Who. But I maintain that, from my point of view at least, the latter show makes massive changes that DC or Marvel never will.

Tell me, do you ask why Bart Simpson has been ten-years-old for thirty-three years?

American Comic books don't really need to give a reason, but often do anyway.

[Fyraltari]

A pair of Cosmic Beings named Now and Then(the children of Eternity, the Abstract Concept of Time and the anthropomorphic embodiment of reality) maintain the library at the House of Ideas in Omnipotence city, where all of the highest level deities and cosmic beings in the Multiverse live(Excepting the One Above All who resides at the exact top of the Universe and the One Below All who resides in The Below Place.)

Now and Then, more than anything, love stories about Heroes.

And the library automatically updates with the stories of people as they happen.

Now and then use their powers overtime to extend the lifespans and vitality of Heroes and the people around them in order to get more stories.

This is also, for example, why you sometimes get examples of a hero seeming to be is more than one place at once.

Now and Then also compress people's perception of time so that people don't freak out--though it's not perfect, Reed Richards, for example, has noticed that he and his friends and family either aren't aging at the right rate or aren't aging at all and that his perception of time doesn't match actual events. He concluded that there's a cosmic being that wants a lot of heroes around in their primes and left it at that.

(Notably, Reed and Sue gave up on trying to figure out how Old their son Franklin--who was born in 1968 but is only recently old enough to drive--is supposed to be and just don't talk about it.)

Also, not everyone's perception is compressed to the same level, not everyone's aging is as slowed as everyone else's--the aforementioned Franklin was born before most of his babysitters--and not every hero is affected by it.

Doctor Strange, for example, is explicitly experiencing all of this in real time and has not had his perception of time altered, becuase one of the perks of being Sorcerer supreme is that you don't age and can't die of natural causes as long as you officially hold the position so there's no need to compress him in comparison to other people.

I genuinely can't tell wether you're making that up.

[Anonymouswizard]

Tell me, do you ask why Bart Simpson has been ten-years-old for thirty-three years?

American Comic books don't really need to give a reason, but often do anyway.

Question 3, after 'is it still running' and 'why is it still running'.

[Rater202]

I genuinely can't tell wether you're making that up.

Now.

Then.

Before Now and Then were revealed to be behind the Sliding Scale timeline, I assumed that it had something to do with Franklin Richards--Marvel comics stories proceeded in real-time until 1989, just a little after Franklin was born, and Franklin's is nigh-omnipotent reality warper whose abilities have been coming and going since birth.

[Bartmanhomer]

And people sometimes wonder why I dislike mainstream US comics and unending series. I read the entire explanation and I'm still confused.

Also, why isn't Peter Parker in his 70s now? Never made that much sense to me. At least Logan has a reason to have not aged.

(Yeah, this is arguably incompatible with me being a massive Whovian, but I feel like the Doctor is allowed to change a lot more than your average Marvel character even without regeneration, and the BBC's status on what's canonical is 'it all is, but we can contradict previous events whenever we like')

I don't know. I've been wondering the same thing.

[Anonymouswizard]

I don't know. I've been wondering the same thing.

Short answer: over reliance on status quo is god. Well that and a tendency for backlash when changes stray too far from the well known concepts. There's a longer answer, but it boils down to 'there are some things comic writers are afraid of changing, characters' ages are one of them'.

I once tried to sketch out a M&M setting that was 'DC, if time had passed'. I can't remember all the details, but Superman was the grandson of the original, the current Green Lantern was a random person, and the Batman mantle hadn't been passed on but Robin had been (never decided on Nightwing). Some successors had surpassed their originals, some lived in their shadows, and only a handful of the OG were even alive. I think if I ever revisit it I'll focus it in on being a future of the Golden Age heroes.

[Peelee]

Short answer: over reliance on status quo is god. Well that and a tendency for backlash when changes stray too far from the well known concepts. There's a longer answer, but it boils down to 'there are some things comic writers are afraid of changing, characters' ages are one of them'.

I once tried to sketch out a M&M setting that was 'DC, if time had passed'. I can't remember all the details, but Superman was the grandson of the original, the current Green Lantern was a random person, and the Batman mantle hadn't been passed on but Robin had been (never decided on Nightwing). Some successors had surpassed their originals, some lived in their shadows, and only a handful of the OG were even alive. I think if I ever revisit it I'll focus it in on being a future of the Golden Age heroes.

You wanted to go with "DC if time had passed" and didn't incorporate Batman Beyond?

Spoiler

Show

[Bartmanhomer]

Short answer: over reliance on status quo is god. Well that and a tendency for backlash when changes stray too far from the well known concepts. There's a longer answer, but it boils down to 'there are some things comic writers are afraid of changing, characters' ages are one of them'.

I once tried to sketch out a M&M setting that was 'DC, if time had passed'. I can't remember all the details, but Superman was the grandson of the original, the current Green Lantern was a random person, and the Batman mantle hadn't been passed on but Robin had been (never decided on Nightwing). Some successors had surpassed their originals, some lived in their shadows, and only a handful of the OG were even alive. I think if I ever revisit it I'll focus it in on being a future of the Golden Age heroes.

Usually, Cartoon and Comic Books Characters don't age unless if the writers decide if they want to age.

[Rater202]

You wanted to go with "DC if time had passed" and didn't incorporate Batman Beyond?

Spoiler

Show

Yeah, that's a mistake.

You don't ignore the thing that permanently solidified Mark Hamil as the platonic ideal Joker.