DataNinja's Scintillating Digital Random Banter #231

[Rater202]

Y'all Matilda had psionic powers because she wasn't being challenged in school. You don't WANT psychic powers, it means you're so ****ing bored your brain is literally leaking out into the world.

... jokes aside I'd love to have psionic abilities, and have definitely pretended/tried to develop them.

Honestly, I prefer the movie where the psychic powers were just a thing she just kind of got.

It takes away from the Dahl-esque whimsy but it doesn't break my brain.

[Peelee]

Imean, it depends on what media source you're taking the psychic powers from. They run the gamut from being a massive amount if control naturally to barely any strength at all and only achieved under significant strain or duress. There's no "this is the only way psychic power works".

[Lord Raziere]

Imean, it depends on what media source you're taking the psychic powers from. They run the gamut from being a massive amount if control naturally to barely any strength at all and only achieved under significant strain or duress. There's no "this is the only way psychic power works".

Well yes but if your going to imagine you having and wielding something like awesome superpowers, your generally not going to wonder how much it sucks unless your writing a deconstruction or "Page" character to use Homestuck terminology. Generally your going to make them work awesomely, because there is no rule against them doing so.

[Peelee]

Well yes but if your going to imagine you having and wielding something like awesome superpowers, your generally not going to wonder how much it sucks unless your writing a deconstruction or "Page" character to use Homestuck terminology. Generally your going to make them work awesomely, because there is no rule against them doing so.

Even then, professor X and Jean Grey have very different abilities.

[Bartmanhomer]

I'm the most powerful psychic in the world. I can mind-crushing everyone with my psychic abilities.

[Rater202]

Even then, professor X and Jean Grey have very different abilities.

Not really: They're both telepaths, Epmpath's, and telekinesis with their teleathy being their primary power.

Jean as a "True" Omega Level mutant (Xavier is considered an Omega Level telepath in-universe but doesn't actually meet the strict qualifications and ins't considered one officially) will, if she keeps up her practice, eventually dwarf Xaiver in telepathy and Xaiver's telekinesis is limited to manip[ualting specially designed controls on his plane and is too weak to do anything else, but otherwise their powers are identical.

(Xaiver's lack of usable telekinesis has something to do with a car accident)

Technically, both of their telepathic abilities are based in part on telekinetically manipulating the other person's brain: Notably, Xaiver was able to use his telepathy to fix minor brain damage that Rogue had as part of her therapy to help her control her powers.

(As a rule of thumb, if a mutant can' control their powers it's either a psychological issue that can be fixed with psychotherapy or the result of brain damage. In Rogue's case, a little of both. This is of course, excluding people like Wolverine, whose powers are passive enhancements to natural abilities or permanent anatomical alterations. Those powers aren't meant to turn off in the first place.)

If you want an example of psychics with different powers, you'd want Proteus. Proteus's psionic powers, rather than manifesting as telepathy or psychokinesis, are just "the world in my immediate vicinity changes based on my thoughts and feelings."

...Unfortunately, he's a psychic ghost who needs to possess people to live, his powers burn out people's bodies, and having an incompatible body or a body that's too burned out has a severely detrimental effect on his sanity. Currently, he's been set up with a steady supply of braindead clones of Xavier and seems to be stable, but we'll see how long that lasts.

[Peelee]

if she keeps up her practice

So would you count her as psychic or more like the Force/magic, since she needs practice and consistent concerted effort to grow and maintain her abilities?

[Cazero]

I had a funny dream.
A Troll Deathknight from WoW was using an angelic heavy gun from Darksiders to clear a bunch of WH40k chaos dreadnoughts and spawn an elite he blown up in like 3 seconds, then the camera angle changed to see the troll do a "meh" shoulder pose.
The whole thing was a looping gif meme about overlevelling, and all i could think about is how freakin' HD the night lighting was.

[Bartmanhomer]

I had a funny dream.
A Troll Deathknight from WoW was using an angelic heavy gun from Darksiders to clear a bunch of WH40k chaos dreadnoughts and spawn an elite he blown up in like 3 seconds, then the camera angle changed to see the troll do a "meh" shoulder pose.
The whole thing was a looping gif meme about overlevelling, and all i could think about is how freakin' HD the night lighting was.

I had a dream that I beat a male orc barbarian at an arm wrestle the other night.

[tyckspoon]

So would you count her as psychic or more like the Force/magic, since she needs practice and consistent concerted effort to grow and maintain her abilities?

With the categorization you laid out earlier.. I'd probably class it as 'psychic'? Most mutants would be - the 'growth' of their powers is usually related to them getting over a personal hangup that was preventing them from using the full extent of their ability, or just realizing that their mutant talent always had more applications than they think. It gets kinda fuzzy with the broader powers tho, since it tends to take significant practice and development for the characters to find out what their real limits are, especially when somebody has the very nature of their power recast to something that has much wider applications. (Like how Iceman turned 'I make ice' into 'I control the fundamental energy level of stuff, which happened to first manifest as turning things cold.' Or possibly he's an Avatar of Elemental Ice these days, don't @ me I have only a very top-level familiarity with the character.)

[Peelee]

With the categorization you laid out earlier..

I don't believe I laid out any categorization.

[Anonymouswizard]

Y'all Matilda had psionic powers because she wasn't being challenged in school. You don't WANT psychic powers, it means you're so ****ing bored your brain is literally leaking out into the world.

... jokes aside I'd love to have psionic abilities, and have definitely pretended/tried to develop them.

Yes, I have read the book. I'd also like to point out that her powers coming from boredom is only a hypothesis, albeit the most likely one considering she loses them sheet being bumped up a few years. Never liked how the film changed that, especially since it changed the setting to one where being moved ahead is more common.


...sometimes I still make have gestures at automatic doors do I can pretend I opened then with my Jedi powers.

[factotum]

Imean, it depends on what media source you're taking the psychic powers from. They run the gamut from being a massive amount if control naturally to barely any strength at all and only achieved under significant strain or duress. There's no "this is the only way psychic power works".

The extreme end of that is the "Many-Coloured Land" series of books from Julian May, where the "metapsychics" of the setting are mages in all but name--they can fly, shapeshift into other creatures, walk through walls, and so on. The most powerful of them was capable of levitating 900 knights in full armour riding horses *and* 26 aircraft, all at the same time.

[Rater202]

So would you count her as psychic or more like the Force/magic, since she needs practice and consistent concerted effort to grow and maintain her abilities?

I think you misunderstood what I meant.

Obviously, a psychic need to practice their powers. Most people would.

But no matter how much Jean Grey practices her powers, she's never going to be able to shoot lightning out of her fingertips.

Furthermore, while her telepathy will keep growing more powerful if she keeps using it, her empathy and telepathy are limited and eventually, she's gonna run into a wall she just can't break through with them.

(And, as a reminder: The Phoenix Force is a separate being from Jean, its powers are counted separately.)

A wizard or a force user doesn't have those limitations: They can just... learn some other spell, power, or trick. That's usually how it works.

A D&D style sorcerer or warlock is a bit more limited, they can't theoretically learn infinite powers given enough time, but they still have options: A psychic starts out with a handful of tricks and very rarely gets more. Instead, they just get better at what they start with.

[Lacco]

...sometimes I still make have gestures at automatic doors do I can pretend I opened then with my Jedi powers.

You should have seen the look on my daughter's face when I did that first time in front of her .

[Rogar Demonblud]

And now I'm remembering the car commercial where Dad's using the remote to open the door on the mini-van while his son in the Vader mask gestures.

[Rater202]

So, who here remembers the time that Iron Man tried to force Thor to relocate Asgard(which had been plopped down on Land that Thor legally owned but was legally United States Soil) and to register under the Super Human Registration Act and Thor responded by strangling Tony(through the armor) and stating that he was taking the land for Asgard and that if anyone showed up to demand that he move Asgard or harass Asgardians about registering that he would kill them and if necessary conjure a massive and implicitly very destructive storm becuase he's a God and is sick and tired of dealing with the petty squabbles of mortals.

And got away scot-free for doing so.

Some comic book fans think it is okay for Thor to do that in regards to the registration act but it's not okay for the mutants to say "okay, we're sick and tired of being the victims of hate crimes and government-sanctioned genocides, so this cool island we found is now its own country. If you recognize our sovereignty and promise to stop murdering us we'll give you some special medicines that will drastically improve your quality of life."

This frustrates me to no end.

[Jasdoif]

So, who here remembers the time that Iron Man tried to force Thor to relocate Asgard(which had been plopped down on Land that Thor legally owned but was legally United States Soil) and to register under the Super Human Registration Act and Thor responded by strangling Tony(through the armor) and stating that he was taking the land for Asgard and that if anyone showed up to demand that he move Asgard or harass Asgardians about registering that he would kill them and if necessary conjure a massive and implicitly very destructive storm becuase he's a God and is sick and tired of dealing with the petty squabbles of mortals.

And got away scot-free for doing so.

Some comic book fans think it is okay for Thor to do that in regards to the registration act but it's not okay for the mutants to say "okay, we're sick and tired of being the victims of hate crimes and government-sanctioned genocides, so this cool island we found is now its own country. If you recognize our sovereignty and promise to stop murdering us we'll give you some special medicines that will drastically improve your quality of life."

This frustrates me to no end.

If I recall correctly, Thor (like most any deity) represents power well above the traditional, and mutants represent a class of people actively disparaged by traditional power....So yes, frustratingly realistic.

[Anonymouswizard]

I have so many questions.

You can relocate Asgard?

Does that mean Atlantis teleported to another planet instead of exploding?

Why did it take so long to get into bronze age RPGs?

Can I put the Molnjr (spelling?) Enhancement on, say, a supercomputer?

What should I have for dinner?

[Rater202]

If I recall correctly, Thor (like most any deity) represents power well above the traditional, and mutants represent a class of people actively disparaged by traditional power....So yes, frustratingly realistic.

People like to say that the mutant metaphor doesn't work because mutants potentially are dangerous.

I point out that they're ignoring that mutants don't exist in a vacuum—there's very little meaningful difference between Iceman and the Human Torch. The time Iceman was brainwashed into causing as ice age gets cited as a reason to fear mutants but nobody gives a damn that the Human Torch regularly risks setting the atmosphere on fire.

People cite examples of other superhumans being treated badly and say that the double standard I'm pointing out doesn't exist. I point out that that hatred is universally on an individual basis—J. Jonah Jameson gives Spider-Man crap but openly admires Silk—those people aren't constantly hated, and with maybe the exception of the Hulk no one received hatred on the same level as mutants.

And this gets ignored and the conversation goes in circles and I can never get anyone to give me a straight answer about why it's okay when Thor does it but not okay when mutants do it or for anyone to acknowledge that a double standard exists that doesn't involve a bunch of deflection and nitpicking and denial.

[Tvtyrant]

People like to say that the mutant metaphor doesn't work because mutants potentially are dangerous.

I point out that they're ignoring that mutants don't exist in a vacuum—there's very little meaningful difference between Iceman and the Human Torch. The time Iceman was brainwashed into causing as ice age gets cited as a reason to fear mutants but nobody gives a damn that the Human Torch regularly risks setting the atmosphere on fire.

People cite examples of other superhumans being treated badly and say that the double standard I'm pointing out doesn't exist. I point out that that hatred is universally on an individual basis—J. Jonah Jameson gives Spider-Man crap but openly admires Silk—those people aren't constantly hated, and with maybe the exception of the Hulk no one received hatred on the same level as mutants.

And this gets ignored and the conversation goes in circles and I can never get anyone to give me a straight answer about why it's okay when Thor does it but not okay when mutants do it or for anyone to acknowledge that a double standard exists that doesn't involve a bunch of deflection and nitpicking and denial.

No one denies a double standard exists? The whole point of the Mutants is how unfair society is, and how they get treated badly for doing the same things others are praised for.

[Rater202]

No one denies a double standard exists? The whole point of the Mutants is how unfair society is, and how they get treated badly for doing the same things others are praised for.

There are fans who do. They insist that it makes perfect sense to hate and fear mutants because they're potentially dangerous and therefore that mutants are a bad metaphor for groups that face discrimination and alienation.

These people consistently ignore that nobody else gets that kind of hate despite those reasons applying equally to all superhumans.

I point out that they're ignoring a massive double standard and cite instances that logically would have people up in arms against other supers if every superhuman was held to the same standards, and I get accused of white-washing mutants(what?) deflecting from the point, and "what-aboutism."

It's frustrating.

[Jasdoif]

And this gets ignored and the conversation goes in circles and I can never get anyone to give me a straight answer about why it's okay when Thor does it but not okay when mutants do it or for anyone to acknowledge that a double standard exists that doesn't involve a bunch of deflection and nitpicking and denial.

Sadly that's often how it goes: People with double standards, or who aren't willing to engage in introspection to consider if they have double standards, are so concerned with the appearance of having double standards that they'll go to lengths to shift attention away from the subject.

[Peelee]

I don't think the issue of "sometimes some people have double standards" is restricted to comic book fans.

[Rater202]

I don't think the issue of "sometimes some people have double standards" is restricted to comic book fans.

Yeah. Why is it crossdressing if a man wears a skirt but women can wear men's work jeans and nobody bats an eye?

The only way a man can get away with a skirt is if he's a Scottish national fresh off the boat and it's a proper tartan kilt.

Regular pants are uncomfortable and I get criticized for wearing sweatpants or pajamas in public, I have no options.

But seriously, it's like "here are people who deal with every conceivable form of discrimination and alienation. And in this storyline, they're fed up with the constant discrimination, hate crimes, and government-sponsored genocides and are going to be proactive about it."
"But they're just proving the people who try to kill them right!"

Every time. Every god damn time.

And it upsets and frustrates me.

[Rogar Demonblud]

It sounds like they're the very people the mutant-as-oppressed-minority theme are warning against, the ones who are not only comfortable with oppression but happy about it. There's also the small detail that Thor is a blond-haired blue-eyed white guy.

You probably can't engage successfully with those people, so it might be best to admit that before engaging.

[Rater202]

It sounds like they're the very people the mutant-as-oppressed-minority theme are warning against, the ones who are not only comfortable with oppression but happy about it. There's also the small detail that Thor is a blond-haired blue-eyed white guy.

You probably can't engage successfully with those people, so it might be best to admit that before engaging.

I don't think it's that for a lot of the ones I've seen, I think it's just a bunch of people who are irrationally attached to the idea that mutants are a bad stand-in for minorites

[Anonymouswizard]

Bill Nighy is the best Samwise Gamgee ever recorded. This is clearly objective fact. Or my personal opinion. Still, that Fall of Gil-Galad recordimng is amazing and is why I know those three verses.

[Rater202]

Sometimes I imagine shedding my skin like a snake and when I recover my bones don't hurt anymore and I have superpowers.

[Peelee]

Just discovered Kim's Convenience. Loving it, especially since I really resonate with a lot of the jokes because of my wife and MIL.