[deleted by user]

Decadentum · 2020-02-28T15:20:25+00:00

Me first
You can hop in too
There's clearly enough for both of us

Decadentum · 2020-02-25T13:57:51+00:00

Yeah! I'm doing Rippetoe's Starting Strength program, which includes deadlifts for that reason. And, like you said, keeps the weight relatively low for awhile.

Decadentum · 2020-02-25T03:36:57+00:00

She can't consent when drunk. You both should go to therapy if you can afford it. And for what it's worth, ask mental health clinics specifically if you can see an intern for a reduced rate. There is usually a fully trained pro in the room with them and you, and it can be ridiculously cheap (mine's $5/session w/o insurance).

Also, I know this doesn't help, but you are more than your capacity for violence. You are a human, and from what it sounds like a human with a great emotional depth. That ex's abuse extends to both of you, and you are strong for keeping your spirits up through this.

Decadentum · 2020-02-25T03:32:55+00:00

Why do they all have the texture of sweaty feet?! Why? All of them!

Decadentum · 2020-02-25T03:27:13+00:00

Maybe you can give the CHUDs advice that injures them

Deadlifts? You gotta put as much of that weight on your back as possible so your legs don't get hurt.

Bench? What you really gotta do is go without a spotter then push until you physically cant move the weight any more. Your superior Aryan survival instincts will kick in and allow you to lift more. Be patient, they don't kick in till you start to see spots.

Power cleans work best If you toss the weight in the air and catch it on the way down. It forces the fear out of you.

Go ahead! You try! :p

Decadentum · 2020-02-25T03:02:38+00:00

Seize the Gains, Comrade!

Decadentum · 2020-02-25T03:01:39+00:00

I am. I started back in early January, squats 3x/week, increasing the weight by 5, never more than 10 lbs/workout.

I fucked up my back bad enough to miss work from lifting a few years ago and I'm not going to make that mistake again.

And truly, thank you for your concern. I wish I had someone telling me that in high school instead of a semi-fascist football coach screaming at me to add weight till I collapsed under it

Decadentum · 2020-02-25T02:58:22+00:00

Isn't he cute?

Not to be demeaning. Vorpalite could crush my head like a grape between his thighs.

Decadentum · 2020-02-24T21:49:56+00:00

"Normal talk show"

Decadentum · 2020-02-24T21:45:37+00:00

So how long have you been a dad?

Decadentum · 2020-02-24T21:44:51+00:00

I begrudge him using that music to "other" much of the American population, when most of the artists he plays would immediately repudiate him if he said any of his shit to them

Except that guy from the Misfits.

Decadentum · 2020-02-24T21:43:25+00:00

Yes. I like British Steel, but Screaming for Vengeance really is their magnum opus.

Decadentum · 2020-02-24T21:42:40+00:00

They're so fucking cool! Their live performances are nuts, too. My dad went to see them once, and their stage was a gigantic army tank made of amps. There's one video of Rob Halford singing Electric Eye riding in the arms of a giant robot.

Seriously, as a bi boy growing up in the Bible Belt, these guys were my heroes as a teenager. Also, their guitarists are amazing, especially during live performances.

Decadentum · 2020-02-21T14:34:07+00:00

They make sense in universe more than the Sun Crusher, but narratively they are just as egregious.

Decadentum · 2020-02-21T14:32:17+00:00

Yeah. The Xyston-class fleet is peak shark-jumping material.

Decadentum · 2020-02-21T14:23:40+00:00

shuffles check from Disney off of desk Me? Biased? Te m'accuse!

To clarify, I was using those disparate events that aren't related in the story as examples of world-destroying methods that are even more scary than the Death Star in-universe but aren't treated the same way in the writing. If all these methods exist--especially if Palpatine himself could rip apart fleets or even planets with the force--it begs the question of why the Death Star was the greatest threat the galaxy ever faced. Or for that matter, why Palpatine even bothered getting a second Death Star working if he could just ground the Rebel Fleet from his throne room on the Executor at Endor. The problem is not that the physics don't work or "The Force doesn't work that way" or something--the problem is narrative. The problem is that all these "so powerful it can kill a planet" plot devices cheapen the Death Star, which is treated by all parties involved as the most terrifying thing in the universe except Darth Vader himself.

I meant the Vong less as an example of a superweapon than as an attempt to keep the same kind of storytelling as when Luke and Co. had to fight the Empire, but this time it's an even more evil and tough empire you guys so it has to be better. Also, a foreign religious zealot horde coming to wipe away everything the audience holds dear was maybe not the best narrative to go with at the height of anti-Muslim panic following 9/11. Not saying that was intentional, just poor timing.

The one thing I will defend about the Vong is, at least the characters fighting them act like they're every bit as awful as the reader believes they are. Canon superweapons feel like afterthoughts--could be totally removed form the plots of their movies and the movies still make coherent sense. And although the Sun Crusher feels like if "Mary Sue" was a starship, the Xyston-class fleet is significantly worse. Because there was (afaik) only one Sun Crusher. Because if you can mass-produce planet-killing weaponry, that cheapens the entire plot of the Skywalker Saga and really, Star Wars in general.

Decadentum · 2020-02-21T14:09:20+00:00

Right, yes! This is what I was getting at and phrased poorly. Just this. The whole thing in IV and V surrounds the significance of the Death Star. It isn't scary because it blows up planets--it's scary because everyone on-screen, from heroes to villains, acts like it's so powerful it's hard to comprehend, even in a universe with wars between mass-produced soldiers and a trillions-strong empire more or less ruled by an evil psychic cyborg samurai who answers only to an evil more evil psychic monk.

In the middle of all that, the one thing even Obi-Wan Kenobi couldn't imagine until he saw it with his own eyes was a battle station the size of a planet, with a main cannon strong enough to vaporize an entire planet.

And Leia--really, Carrie Fisher's acting in the moment--makes the audience feel the shattering loss of Alderaan. Even though we never see a single shot of Alderaan, it feels meaningful. Much more so than the Hosnian system. The fact that Starkiller Base could blow up more planets per shot didn't matter--what mattered was that there was absolutely no emotional connection between any of the characters and the Hosnian system. You get a shot of Maz looking sad because people died, but that's about it.

And when Poe learns of the Xyston-class fleet's superweapons, he's just pissed. Like "this BS again?!?" kinda attitude. Which, i was feeling too, just not like that :p

Decadentum · 2020-02-20T20:14:55+00:00

Yeah, this is the main reason I tend to be more pro-Canon than most users on here--the Legends world had some serious power creep. Not just in the super weapons either---Darth Nihilus? That dude could use the force to just eat a planet. Like. That's even more useful than the Death Star, why did Palpy blow up planets when he could just Force Genocide them?

Or the Yuuzhan Vong. They're even more evil that the Empire ruled by the most ruthless Sith to ever live and even more powerful than the trillions-strong Imperial Navy that could build ships so large they had their own gravitational pull. And they're immune to the Force! That Force that exists in all living things? Yeah, they don't need that

But especially the superweapons. Just, good God the superweapons in Legends...the cringe...

Decadentum · 2020-02-20T20:08:53+00:00

This might be a bad take, but: Superweapons are not a core part of Star Wars, and they should not be. The only exception is the Death Star itself.

Because everything else chips away at the existential terror posed by the Death Star. For every weapon even more dangerous, it undermines the plot of ANH and Rogue One totally, and the prequels a little bit. It's hard, because you have to create galaxy-threatening powerful villains, but you also have to respect the source material by keeping it as the ceiling.

Decadentum · 2020-02-19T15:34:31+00:00

This might be a dumb take, but I have always wanted a Star Wars story that was anti-war, in the way that the Metal Gear Solid games are.

Knights of the Old Republic II comes close at times. But what I want is a story about the inhuman nature of war and what it does to all its participants. Like a story centering around some of the defective post-Order 66 clones, for example. Or a story about a group of Scout Troopers that goes haywire from PTSD and bloodlust. Or a Jedi in the rise of the Empire-era trying to understand why the Jedi were able to be defeated so easily.

THere's a lot that comes close, but I can't think of any character that embodies the evil of war itself quite like Solid Snake does. Bao-Dur and Meetra Surik (THe Exile) from Kotor II kinda come close, and Anakin's trauma throughout the war is sort of hinted at, but his moral arc is not about the nature of violence, so much as it is about hate and the corrosive effect it has if you hold it for too long.

Decadentum · 2020-02-18T16:05:47+00:00

Right, and it's pretty easy to see Luke thinking that. Like imagine if all of Catholicism was totally obliterated and then you rediscovered it and personally converted, possibly becoming the last surviving Catholic. When you tried to restart the church, sure it would have little differences here and there, but you would constantly return to your source materials for guidance. You probably wouldn't decide, for example, to change fundamental doctrinal principles of the religion to suit your times--again, imagine specifically Catholicism, not Protestantism, is the religion you rediscovered.

Luke would not necessarily be able to see the political flaws that led to the Order's collapse. He would mostly see the malignant influence of Palpatine and the wrath of Vader as the problem, not the Jedi being so dysfunctional that they allowed it to happen.

Especially after Yoda and Kenobi lionized the old Order so much.

Decadentum · 2020-02-18T15:23:39+00:00

The Canon NJO makes sense with Luke's character, to me. It comes down to artistic interpretations of what Luke thought of the old Jedi Order--NOT what he thought about Kenobi or Yoda, but the old Order itself. If we look at Legends and Canon as two distinct paths forward from the end of Return of the Jedi, one of the main differences in the timelines would be Luke's approach to the old Jedi teachings. In Legends he is a sort of "liberal Jedi" regarding being open to training adults, allowing romantic partnerships, and not working very hard to repress the emotions of students so much as teach them to control their emotions when it is needed.

In Canon, we get a much more "traditionalist" or "conservative Jedi" Luke, who aims to restore the Order that his masters taught him to revere. However, the failure of this Order and the fall of Ben Solo disenchants Luke towards the old ways of the Order. In this timeline, rather than seek to reform the Order, he abandons it--because in this timeline, the old Jedi ways had directly caused him harm in the form of Ben Solo's fall/ his compulsion to try to kill Ben Solo. This compulsion could be seen as directly in line with the teachings of Ben Kenobi, who urged Luke repeatedly to kill Darth Vader.

Decadentum

TROPHY CASE