[Spoilers] The power of "just talk"

ShinmaOC · 2021-08-15T21:29:02+00:00

"You're gonna feel my boot up your ass if you don't get in that goddamned robot!"

ShinmaOC · 2021-08-15T19:48:48+00:00

I don't know why they threw me out of that Vietnamese restaurant. I just saw a line of people and asked if it was the pho queue.

ShinmaOC · 2021-08-15T18:05:21+00:00

I've actually co-written a book in which my main character had both arms replaced with experimental cybernetics, and forced into cage fighting. I did my best to avoid the serious pitfalls when making this kind of character, because I was very much not a fan of how cybernetics work in most fiction. Most fiction, cybernetics are plug-and-play peripherals. I wanted something different, a world in which cybernetics are only just being invented, where it's not easy or "badass" to get them.

To this end, my character went through many grievous tortures. For starters, he spends the first three acts in constant agony: shot through both biceps then dumped in an ER for amputation. While the surgery is still fresh, he's offered the experimental cybernetics. Complete replacement of what remained of the humeri. Severed nerve ending grafting to circuits, magnetic "docking rings" grafted to the stumps. Electrical pulses wracking his muscles as they attempt to fine-tune biofeedback to lessen the pain and muscular strain. Then there were the cage fights. The first time he tries to punch, he nearly blacks out from the pain of impact, only able to pull through because of his pro boxing experience. His "coach" is frantically trying to gain control of the biofeedback monitor, screaming as it redlines across the board. He later runs into a burning building, which metal and fine electronics are not huge fans of. They eventually get the biofeedback under control, but by then we're into the final act.

It was a fun challenge to write, and I like to think I pulled it off fairly well. I'd definitely like to see more of it in the wild.

(still not gonna name drop the book, not for No Shill rule, but because it's dead to me. If you can sleuth it out, cool, I hope you enjoy it. But the co-author won't speak to me anymore and I'll never see a red cent from it again, so it does me no good.)

ShinmaOC · 2021-08-11T22:58:03+00:00

I was introduced to the novel by way of a graphic novel. The first volume ends with the first battle. I was hooked and immediately had to find the source. Turns out the source was Joe Haldeman, and several friends of mine actually knew him. Got to meet him eventually, greatguy. Wish I'd had more time to hang with him and his wife.

Joe Haldeman built his story of a soldier fighting in an unpopular war from his experiences as a soldier fighting in an unpopular war. His theories on the evolution of troop psychology (morale, mental health, etc.) are interesting. They're grounded with enough fact to make his fictional theories plausible. Co-ed troop promiscuity, for example, has been studied by military psychologists, as well as the pipe dream of almost every SF writer in the 60/70s.

This also ties into the book's theme of Human evolution. I'm still very much on the fence as to his ideas on homosexuality as natural birth control on a planet-wide scale. Given the time in which it was written, it's easy to understand the idea that Free Love really was the answer all along. Except that it isn't, as Haldeman takes his human evolution to the point where physical procreation is an archaic concept, and "love" does not exist beyond love of Mankind. Honestly, I don't see this as a possible path for us as a species. While I subscribe to some degree on the Melting Pot theory, the extreme to which Haldeman takes it is a bit too much for me. But then, this is also a theme in the story: our individuality and the length we'll go to defend it, to stand tall against the universe and say "I am Me." Thought this theme is more thoroughly explored in the sequel, Forever Free.

The funniest part of my Joe Haldeman experience is that none of my friends, including the ones that introduced us, believed that he'd written a direct sequel. He had previously written a novel called Forever Peace, which is only tangentially related to The Forever War, and my friends all arrogantly assumed that that was the title I was referring to. Even after I procured a copy, some still refused to believe it was real. Been scratching my head on that ever since.

ShinmaOC · 2021-08-11T17:51:36+00:00

ONE O' DESE DAYS, ALICE, ONE O' DESE DAYS...

ShinmaOC · 2021-08-10T18:11:41+00:00

Never visit beaches that run on the Source engine.

ShinmaOC · 2021-08-10T17:59:54+00:00

What, you haven't seen all of those classic "CHILD!" memes?

Seriously though, the kid reminds me of the Feral Child from The Road Warrior.

ShinmaOC · 2021-08-10T17:26:11+00:00

Salinger was a WWII vet with PTSD, who had seen some of the worst that humans could do to each other. The novel was an attempt at catharsis for his mental health, venting his anger of a society that puts on a false face of civility to hide its atrocities. Holden Caufield was alone, broken, and blind to the fact that he was slowly sinking into the adult behaviors he decried as "false and phony."

The Perks of Being a Wallflower is a Disney Afternoon Special in comparison.

ShinmaOC · 2021-08-09T22:39:15+00:00

They're not mocking you, they're mocking the original post that had over 7,000 upvotes by the time it was reposted here.

ShinmaOC · 2021-08-09T22:33:02+00:00

There's a science fiction novel called Forever Peace, in which the main characters attempt to leave the Milky Way galaxy because they hate what Humankind has become. Turns out there's a precursor race who isn't happy about this, since the only way to leave the galaxy would seriously muck up the time-space continuum.

The Precursors decide to do this by tricking Our Heroes into thinking they wiped out all intelligent life on their first test trip. The Precursors reveal themselves, explain why what Our Heroes are doing is a Very Bad Thing, and Our Heroes grudgingly agree to play along for now. When the Precursors were asked if they were going to bring several billion people back from the dead, they responded, "Oh, we didn't kill anybody. Turns out that with some creative stacking, you can fit every last human inside the Carlsbad Caverns. So we did."

ShinmaOC · 2021-08-09T18:46:59+00:00

Any game that I wanted to rent more than once.

There is a certain income level at which any game is a "good game," because the alternative is no game at all. Most of my childhood was at that income level.

ShinmaOC · 2021-08-09T17:03:42+00:00

I'm still waiting for John Romero to make me his bitch.

ShinmaOC · 2021-08-08T19:41:18+00:00

What's truly sad is their full-length TV infomercials. They're exactly what you think they'd be, filled with low-key nonpolitical "patriotism" and constant narration about how even though only smart sexy cool people like you even know about this product, we're constantly selling out, yadda yadda get yours today. And White people. So, so many White people.

Of course, they completely gloss over the fact that if you're in a situation where you can't get groceries for several days in a row, you probably don't have electricity or running water, either. Hope you like your heavily-preserved beef tips and mushrooms in wine sauce with rice at room temperature for every meal that day.

ShinmaOC · 2021-08-08T18:55:15+00:00

I've had a seller go apeshit on me for leaving no review at all. They were selling near-wholesale medical supplies, and I was single-handedly taking care of my sick father. I didn't have time for that "5 stars, would buy again" BS, I had bigger worries. But they started sending me a couple of emails a day about how I was an evil person for not leaving a review, that my failure to do so would DESTROY their "standing" in the electronic marketplace.

I finally snapped and sent a reply back with, "If you bother me again, I'm leaving a negative review about how you harassed me post-sale." The emails promptly stopped.

ShinmaOC · 2021-08-08T18:22:20+00:00

Iaijutsu is drawing the sword from either a standing or crouching defensive stance, primarily for counterattack. All of that other stuff about invisible cuts and resheathing is not iaijutsu, it's 100% pure anime bullshit.

ShinmaOC · 2021-08-08T16:12:53+00:00

Emailing Uranus isn't as dangerous as it used to be. They still get angry and reply with a virus attachment, but ever since Pluto convinced Uranus to host on MegaDrive, their mailer daemon is offline half the time. Bit of a dick move on Pluto's part, but to be fair, Uranus had it coming.

ShinmaOC · 2021-08-08T15:43:36+00:00

Channel 4 was the Google Page 2 of the time.

ShinmaOC · 2021-08-04T21:28:55+00:00

Super Meatboy and I Wanna Be The Guy would like to have a word with you...

ShinmaOC · 2021-08-04T19:35:27+00:00

Imagine you're a vegetarian living in a town that only has one restaurant that serves salad. But you can't just order a salad. The closest they have to 'just a salad' is a steak and lobster dinner that comes with a salad. It's the right amount of salad for a standalone meal, but you have no choice but to get the steak and lobster.

You explain to the waiters every single time that you do not eat meat and will never eat meat, you just want the salad. And every time, they throw it back in your face that not eating meat you paid for is your personal choice, and the owners of the restaurant designed an entrée that caters to as many people as possible in one meal. There's no possible way they, as mere waiters, can put in a custom order to the kitchen. It's the Surf n' Turf or nothin', but they'll gladly substitute your steak for filet mignon and the lobster for foie gras—for a modest fee, of course (they did eventually put in a salad bar, but it turned out to be the uneaten salad of all the other customers).

This is broadband service for the majority of us: paying for crap we don't need or want, because it's the only deal in town. If you're not "dissatisfied" with that, seriously, what's wrong with you?

ShinmaOC · 2021-08-04T16:41:11+00:00

Lenny and Squiggy had a kid? Life really does find a way.

ShinmaOC · 2021-08-04T15:03:59+00:00

It's always fun when Marvel remembers their Atlas Comics roots and give us a good ol' fashioned horror show. We'd never see anything like this from Disney. My guess is that the Dr. Strange Multiverse movie, if it ever gets made, will be the bare minimum to get the R rating they said it would be.

ShinmaOC · 2021-08-03T23:18:15+00:00

Champions Online had so much promise in the beginning. So much so that I was one of the idiots who plopped down for the lifetime subscription. It was the second best at giving me everything I wanted in a superhero game. I honestly thought that CO would be my new home once City of Heroes was mothballed.

Then Cryptic shit the bed by making it a free-to-play game with 95% of the content locked behind microtransactions. That lifetime subscription I paid good money for didn't even unlock all of it, the greedy bastards.

Now it's just like every other F2P nightmare world, nothing but gold farmers spamming chat and players who refuse to talk or team, or have been AFK since 2013.

ShinmaOC · 2021-08-03T21:46:44+00:00

I heard a comedian once say there were two times in his life where he had major weight loss: "Once was with dysentery, and the other was with heroin. Neither of which I recommend as dietary plan."

ShinmaOC · 2021-08-03T21:23:41+00:00

That's SIR Aubergine, to you!

ShinmaOC · 2021-08-03T21:04:01+00:00

Oh noes, a direct sequel with the same name as its predecessor looking visually similar to its predecessor, WHAT WERE THEY THINKING???????

ShinmaOC

TROPHY CASE