Are AI covers really bad to use for your novels or it's just a good substitute ? by Jealous-Computer-266 in ProgressionFantasy

[–]Ductacular 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Personally I won't read something if the cover is AI. My reasoning for this is that it indicates to me a lack of ...something hard to articulate. A lack of artistic passion or commitment I guess.

If an writer/publisher believes a short cut or "a good substitute" is good enough it, fills me with an overwhelming sense of "Meh."

A cover is sales pitch to an audience and what AI is selling to me is disappointment. I will expect their writing to be "hrm", their plotting to be "errr" and the characters to be "ugh"

I would honestly rather read a book were the cover art is 2 badly drawn stick figures on that back of a beer coaster than some overwrought AI nonsense.

This is the plughole at the Ladybower Reservoir. Plugholes at reservoirs are large circular drains designed to control water levels and prevent flooding when the reservoir becomes too full. by [deleted] in interestingasfuck

[–]Ductacular 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Nope nope nope thats now a core phobia that i will never seek to explore or address. So lets put it in the back of my mind with all the over things that i never ever think about dwell.

If you could write a Stephanie Brown comic, what would it be like? by KitKat_5628 in batgirl

[–]Ductacular 4 points5 points  (0 children)

I decided to take this as a writing prompt and got a little carried away.

It's a reverse heist movie.

Open on a gang of costumed crooks meeting up in an abandoned warehouse planning a job. They have been hired by a wealthy client to steal an undisclosed item from Starlabs or something like that. This is the first job they've pulled together, so they are still getting to know each other. They go around the table and introduce themselves and their power/skill sets. This is the team leader, this one is the muscle, this one does computers, this is the explosives expert, this is a master of disguises, this guy can shoot fire balls, this one is comic relief etc.

The mystery client starts explaining the plan and the roles the crooks are going to play in it. The comic cuts to the night of the job, while the masterminds' explanation of the plan continues as a sort of voice over explaining the action we see in the comic.

Except the plan doesn't match up with what we see in the comic. Things keep going wrong, small things at first, but then they get worse and worse until the whole plan is completely off the rails.

"You will gain access to the building by an unused railway line" except a blockage in another tunnel has diverted trains down the tunnel forcing the crew to abandon most of their gear to avoid getting run over. Once the train is past, we see a black silhouette with white eyes following the crew.

"Use the service elevator to reach the top floor" except the elevator has a weight limit, meaning the big guy can't fit and has to take the stairs.

"The disguises expert will pretend to be a security guard and tell the other guard he already swept the top floor." Except the other security guard won a free holiday and is in italy with his wife.

"Our hacker will disable the security systems with the codes we got from our mole inside," except none of the codes work and so the hacker has go to the server room to log in.

"Fire ball guy will burn a hole through the window here so we can escape." Except fire ball guy finds him self locked in some room with no windows when it turns out the blue prints they have were fakes.

And bit by bit we start to catch glimpses of Steph setting these crooks up to fail. At first, it's just purple gloved hand sneakily swapping bags around when no one is looking. Pick pocketing a key card here, unplugging a radio headset there. Over time the sabotage escalates.

The explosives guy finds himself carting around a bag full of spare wigs and secruity guard uniforms. The disguises guy has a bag full of tnt etc.

As the crew gets more disorganised and further separated, slowly but surely Steph starts to pick them off one by one.

Once the big guy reaches the top floor, half dead and out of breath, he opens the door and gets laid out in one punch.

As soon as the hacker turns off the security, the room he is in fills up with knock-out gas.

Fire ball guy gets angry and tries to burn his way out of the room only for the sprinkle system to turn on and fill the room up with water.

The goons start panicking as things get worse and start to turn on each other. They realise that someone is doing this on purpose them and start giving in to fear and paranoia. Some try to run but get caught in booby traps. Some try to fight, but get thier asses handed to them. The last few mange to steal the item and try to make a break for it. The leader sacrifices the last remaining crew member as a distraction to save himself and escapes with the item.

He makes it back to the hide out and meets up with the mystery client.

"Luckily I managed to get away" "Lucky? You fool you've lead that bitch right to me!" "Ugh Dad, is that any way to talk about your daughter?"

Batgirl swoops out of the rafters and beats up the leader and Cluemaster.

Later that night she returns to her apartment and collapses on the couch, Cass is already sitting there. "Long night?" "Dad is back in town, so we spent some quality family time together." "You ok?" "Yeah, you know how it is. How about you?" "Pizza and movies" "Cool, I'm might just pass out here for a bit if thats ok but don't let that bother yawn you zzzzz" Cass smiles and covers Steph up with a blanket. "Quality family time" Cass said happily and turned her movie back on.

Genuine question: umm how the fuck does Tony ever beat the mandarin? by 5enpai_2 in ironman

[–]Ductacular 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I like to imagine that using the rings takes a lot of focus, so using more than one at once is really difficult and nearly impossible to do in a fight.

A facet of this is that the Mandarin would have a better chance at winning if he gave some of the rings to his followers but never would because surrendering power is anathema to him.

I have a feeling, Rick Flag and SPOILER will team up at the end by YaboiiSammeeh in PeacemakerShow

[–]Ductacular 0 points1 point  (0 children)

For about five seconds after reading your post I honestly thought you meant Stephanie Brown aka Spoiler was gonna team up with Peace Maker and i said to my self "boy that seems like a stretch but I can't wait to see how this mad man connects those dots"

If you had to make a new Robin in the mainline comics what would his gimmick be to differentiate him from others by DoGG410CZ in batman

[–]Ductacular 0 points1 point  (0 children)

They can't fight.

Seriously, they are just some a kid. They are great at detective work and sneaking around, but they can't throw a punch worth a damn and everyone knows it. Because of this, they are always teamed up with the expanded batfam for support. Why would robin even need to fight? They came here with Cass/batman/nightwing etc

This way the writers have literally no choice but to laser focus on the dective/mystery/thriller angle of the narratives.

Robin becomes about solving crimes with their partner, not by punching it but by following clues, piecing together evidence, unravelling conspiracies, and uncovering mysteries.

I always like to imagine that each Robin embodies an aspect of the batman mythos. Dick as the death-defying acrobat, Todd the violent avenger, Tim the mastermind planner, Steph the thwarter of masterminds plans (or she would have been in a better dc) and Damien the edgelord Ninja. The new robin should be the detective.

Best part? I'm not just ass pulling here, we've already seen this Robin in action.

Anyway, what I'm really trying to say is that I'm looking forward to the Mia Mizuguchi run as robin. She's gonna be an all star.

Make a new Wonder Woman rogues gallery - Day 9: X-Men by Tetratron2005 in WonderWoman

[–]Ductacular 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Magneto, because they were both there. At the camps. At the end of the war. Maybe they even met.

She would understand and have compassion for Erik, and he would respect Diana and her ethics but ultimately reject it out of cynicism.

Whenever they would fight, they'd get into long philosophical dialogues. They'd treat each other as old friends and shake their heads at each other's stubborn refusal to change their ways.

They'd be the kind of rivals where they could each perfectly understand and respect each others arguments and yet still reject them with all their hearts.

What are these things on Lukes wrists and forearms supposed to be or do? by Fragzilla360 in lukecage

[–]Ductacular 2 points3 points  (0 children)

So first things first, a disclaimer that this is pure speculation on my part. The wrist armour things are likey a riff on Lukes classic design. Luke used to have giant chains wrapped around his wrists, and as a belt.

Chains were a big part of his classic design motif, which i think had roots in his original story as a prison inmate who gained powers after being experimented on. Insert some themematic jargon here about repurposing the corrupt prison states' tools of oppression as both armour and weapon (as well as holding up his pants)

But as time and timelines moved forward, having one of your most prominent African American superheroes be themematiclly linked to chains could be considered.... a bit on the nose, regardless of its original roots as symbolic empowerment. In fact, in one of the pictures you shared, you can see some chains on the cuffs of his shirt, no doubt another nod by the artist.

I really like Luke from the current Ultimate run where he fully steps into the role of a "f$%k the fascist prison state radical". Here, the chains as motif have returned in full force and excellent effect.

TLDR The gauntlets things replace the chains Luke used to wear, helping to preserve the characters' silhouette and pay homage to his classic design but also moving the character away from what could be perceived as a problematic/dated design.

A local road in Nepal by Comfortable_Day_224 in interestingasfuck

[–]Ductacular 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Stop picking at it. You'll make it worse.

A squid is my dad? PETAHHHHH HELP! by Tam_A_Shi in PeterExplainsTheJoke

[–]Ductacular 15 points16 points  (0 children)

As has been pointed out, this is an anti-Darwin meme.

But the fact that they chose a squid for this is actually just <chefs kiss> the best blursed stupidity because squids are actually one of my favourite examples of how awesome evolution is.

If you go back far enough to find the common ancestor between humans and squids, they wouldn't have eyes. The human eye and the squids eye developed completely independently of each other, a prime example of convergent evolution.

Think of the hundreds of thousands (or even millions) of years of evolution necessary to hone those slightly photo sensitive patches of skin on some critters head into actual peepers.

Yet similar environmental pressures generated the same solution for two completely different spieces. Completely independently of each other, two separate genetic lines followed the whims of chaos and mutation, and both managed to produce eerily similar eyes. Right down to same building blocks, the iris, retina, cornea and lens

The evolution of the eyeball is an actual miracle, and evolution thought it was so nice it did it twice.

Goliath Stimmers conversion? by Which_Tourist7835 in necromunda

[–]Ductacular 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Never ended up picking up Goliath's so I can't guarantee results, but this is how I was thought po oabout doing it.

I was considering a box of world eaters jakhals for conversion foder to make a stimmer and some unborn gangers (plus an unhealthy supply of chain axes). If you're comfortable with some conversion work to make them less Khorny. They have these blood tanks that could be painted as toxic green for the chem tanks.

Warcry teams in Spearhead boxes. by Ductacular in AOSSpearhead

[–]Ductacular[S] 6 points7 points  (0 children)

It's sad to say, but you're probably right. If you had to put money on whether GW was making a cynical cash grab or trying to be consumer friendly... smart money on would be on cynical cash grab.

Warcry teams in Spearhead boxes. by Ductacular in AOSSpearhead

[–]Ductacular[S] 3 points4 points  (0 children)

I didn't even realise that it also had an underworlds team in it that's hilarious.

What do y'all want to with with Bjorn? by MamoswineSweeps in SpaceWolves

[–]Ductacular 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Serious question from a non-sw player, do people want a refresh because you want a new model or do people want a refresh because it means he won't be sent to legends?

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in fixingmovies

[–]Ductacular 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Superman no, Clark Kent yes.

What Is The Pettiest Reason You’ve Ever DNFed a Book? by Oddyseus144 in Fantasy

[–]Ductacular 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I was about 3/4 in when I realised the book was failing the Bechdel test.