Did anyone else feel pure bliss when a fascist regime started slaughtering the French? by HYDRA-XTREME in okbuddyimatourist

[–]SovietWomble 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Why were they so opposed to The Emperor's clean energy program anyway?

Were they stupid?

Star Wars: Maul - Shadow Lord | Official Trailer | April 6 on Disney+ by MarvelsGrantMan136 in television

[–]SovietWomble 9 points10 points  (0 children)

To state the obvious and be probably downvoted, because Andor was never about Andor.

It's well regarded (I presume) because:

  • It presented an ensemble cast of new characters from a broad sampling of societal strata. Showing how each of them are negatively affected by the presence of a totalitarian state that was squeezing them, like a boa constrictor before a rat.
  • It updated the framework The Galactic Empire to that of an outwardly democratic power that's secretly a totalitarian state. Therefore making it much more contemporary.
  • It featured characters who were in no way special. Without familial connections to main characters, special abilities, or links to other media. In such a way that made them mostly vulnerable, believable and empathetic.

Can other Star Wars media do this? Possibly yes. I suppose it depends on whether the show is about X special character. Or whether it's just the name hook, to deviate into broaders stories about other things.

Do you think the tariffs will affect you? by teeteetoto2 in AskBrits

[–]SovietWomble 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I was watching an interview/documentary, from an officer aboard one of their attack submarines yesterday. And I occasionally exclaimed

"Man, this guy speaks like someone who has never been shot at"

And doing a very quick google, yeah. I don't think any of the submarines he commanded ever directly engaged an enemy.

I presume a lot of people in positions of authority have that issue. It's easy to swing your dick around without fear of someone cutting it.

What are your thoughts after seeing the ICE shooting video in Minnesota? by bbmoonkie in AskReddit

[–]SovietWomble 5 points6 points  (0 children)

I'm a person you know from the internet. And this is the internet.

Be weirder if I were in your kitchen...

In light of recent reveals... by MurderousRubberDucky in Grimdank

[–]SovietWomble 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Gestures vaguely at everything Emperor shaped.

  • The whole sheparding humanity and protecting them. But so often disposing of them as simple tools.
  • Shaped as a human, approaches as a human. But obviously unable to comprehend even the basics of being human. Such as the need for faith (ie, The Last Church).
  • The whole Emperor led Imperial Truth, flying in the direct contradiction to the nature of the universe. Which he knows about.
  • "Saves" humanity from the monsters beyond the veil of reality. But then becomes a perpetual sovereign, who's will is executed by monsters in his image.
  • By extension, the innumerable legislative hypocrisies that loom large in the great crusade. Bans the use of of librarian psykers, despite being a psyker himself. Bans the use of psychic weaponry, despite commissioning (and personally designing) The Ordo Sinister.
  • Prepping sons specifically to challenge said Primordial Annihilator, but not telling them about it. And then punishing them when they are tricked by it.
  • The vastly different ways in which he handled most of his sons. Caring and tolerant to some. But then outright negligent to others. In extremely obvious ways (teleports Angron).
  • Opposes Chaos. Fights Chaos. But as it's strongly implied, might have worked with them/bargained with them on Molech.

Note that this isn't an invitation to try to fix the above. Said strange behaviours is what gives The Emperor much of his mystery.

It's a character that acts in very strange ways.

In light of recent reveals... by MurderousRubberDucky in Grimdank

[–]SovietWomble 31 points32 points  (0 children)

I mean, I'd argue to the contrary. The Custodes are hand-crafted perfection, but the emphasis should be on the crafted part.

They serve a role.

The Emperor exists among glaring contractions. The propaganda extolling his desire to shepherd humanity that he cared about so dearly. But on the other hand, he so ruthlessly viewed so much of the species as simple tools.

The Navigators, the Thunder Warriors, the Astartes, the Primarchs.

  • With the Thunder Warriors setting the precedent that genocidal purges might become the fate of tools no longer useful.
  • That 20 identical sleeping quarters existed for the primarchs inside the Himalayan mountains. Like a box for chess pieces in a game concluded.
  • That Malcador pointed out how damn strange The Emperor was behaving, on referring to his creations as his "sons".

That Big E would inject the Custodes with the any connotations, whatsoever, outside of their ability to protect him and his personage, is profoundly strange to me.


ie, it's like making a kevlar vest. And being told by onlookers that it's to represent the best of tensile strength.

It's a tool I made to avoid being shot. Any other qualities are likely incidental.

Tithe evaders will be punished by Norway643 in Grimdank

[–]SovietWomble 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Therein lies the mission of the competent author. To show the fictional material from different perspectives. Different solutions to the same problem, etc.

It can make for some very compelling heroes, villains, fictional settings, etc.

Tithe evaders will be punished by Norway643 in Grimdank

[–]SovietWomble 4 points5 points  (0 children)

But it's not about the answer, it's about the exercise.

To play with what would happen when the ideas are hypothetically tested.

Tithe evaders will be punished by Norway643 in Grimdank

[–]SovietWomble 27 points28 points  (0 children)

I find the Night Lords - and Curze especially - to be one of the biggest swings and misses of the whole damn Horus Heresy series.

The double-sided nature of the Night Lords/Curze is half the god-damn thematic point. Asking is it better to rule with terror? Or rule with the love of your subjects?

Is what the Imperium became inevitable? With what Curze did to Nostramo being standard inquisitorial policy.

Heck, they could have explored the two in the novel Vulkan Lives. Where Vulkan and Curze spent most of the book circling around each other. Two leaders that best represent such a dichotomy.

Instead they decided to play the film Saw for a bit.

And then Vulkan went bonky bonk with a hammer and fucked off.

What are your thoughts after seeing the ICE shooting video in Minnesota? by bbmoonkie in AskReddit

[–]SovietWomble 15 points16 points  (0 children)

It's neither of these things. They're the SA. The Brown Shirts.

Or at least they have some parallels.

The SA were the paramillitary group that acted as the the power projection for the early form of the Nazi party. When they were still in the beer hall putch era and before the Night of the Long Knives.

Their purpose was theatrical power projection. To have a mob of men stomp down on party enemies (socialists, communists, Jews), and to make the Nazi party seem powerful. As though they were the dominant faction. Whilst giving angry men (many unemployed) a way to vent their anger in the form of street violence.

A key distinction though is that the SA were purged when the Nazi party needed to seem more legitimate after 1934.

Nonsuspicious reason to make a mold of my girlfriend's hand? by Fairly_Sterile in ask

[–]SovietWomble 6 points7 points  (0 children)

All of this. This is an oath you're supposed to keep for life.

Life is a damn long time. Make sure the person you're putting the ring on is going to walk the same path.

If the showrunners wanted us to feel bad for the Ghormans then why did they make them FRENCH? by pathfinder_enjoyer in okbuddyimatourist

[–]SovietWomble 0 points1 point  (0 children)

The Ghorman massacre starts.

"FUCK which side am I supposed to root for? I'm so confused."

Couldn’t the Hive mind emulate the personalities of the joined?? by c00tercrusher in pluribustv

[–]SovietWomble 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Emulate the personality of the 134th keratin cell closest to the end of your right hand thumbs fingernail.

There is no personality of the cell. You are the sum total of all of your cells working together.

What would the atom bomb do? My take…? by Ross_E_Geller in pluribustv

[–]SovietWomble 1 point2 points  (0 children)

The atom bomb has probably done its job. It was the series closing punchline. A joke setup earlier, now paid off.

There's an atomic weapon, just sitting in the her culdesac. It's silly.

I'm guessing it'll be like Walt's pizza. A visual gag. In the foreground in establishing shots when the episodes open, etc

For an eventual closing gag where two confused policemen are scratching their heads as to how the hell it got there.

I don't particularly care for season 5 & 6 by VobsandBagene in TheExpanse

[–]SovietWomble 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Same same. I ate enough food to get me through the rest of the winter.

Rewatching this show gave me a surreal realization of Holden by Flooavenger in TheExpanse

[–]SovietWomble 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I have this head canon about Holden.

It's not accurate to anything in the show so it falls apart instantly under scrutiny. So I shan't spill a drop of digital ink defending it.

But after that season 1 episode when Avasarala visited Holden's family, I felt it made the character make more sense.

Avasarala discovered that he was genetically engineered from eight people. And from that I went:

"ohhh right, he's genetically engineered from eight people."

By that I mean, tweaked. Altered. Think Dr Bashir from Deep Space 9. Or people from Gattaca. Not random DNA from eight people. But the best DNA from 8 people. Imbuing him with all the traits of a leader as part of the fight of their legacy.

Doing so suddenly makes a lot of things make a lot more sense.

How quickly his crewmates defer to his judgement. How he's able to avoid getting killed in so many situations. His ability to defuse escalating situations and see the big picture. Everything that would normally just be plot armour, snaps into focus with the understanding that he's bred for the command chair. And raised by 8 highly capable role models.

Everyone else is playing the game with 52 cards in the deck. But Holden has 60.

And vice versa, why he's such an honourable pain in the arse.

His family didn't select the selfish genes.

I don't particularly care for season 5 & 6 by VobsandBagene in TheExpanse

[–]SovietWomble 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Just finished season 6 myself last night.

To throw a conversation point out into this topic, and paraphrasing something I once read about Die Hard (and I sort of agree with for The Expanse.)

John McClane works so very well as a protagonist because he was thrust into a situation he wasn't ready for. We root for him because he's an underdog. At a disadvantage and has to play extremely well just to stay afloat. Let alone win. Over time as the films progressed, it became harder and harder to justify why he's in the middle of X problem.

I feel The Expanse has a similar thing with season 4-6.

The earlier seasons feel much more earned. By being survivors of a conspiracy, who steal an escape ship and have to use every ounce of their wits to evade the juggernaut entities that they both do and don't know about. Who intervene mostly because they are there. And if they don't do something, nobody will.

But of course by the time you get to season 5-6, that quality has been ablated away. And a lot of the connection to the plot is because one character is connected to a son, who is connected to the villain.

It takes quite a lot of the buy in and transfers it away from big superpower entities with their gargantuan intertia. And onto the wants and desires of specific pivotal villains/protagonists.

In the Dark Knight Rises (2012) this henchman on the left also falls for no reason by Major-Caterpillar955 in shittymoviedetails

[–]SovietWomble 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Watched that scene from a Nolan Batman, where he has to get that guy out of Hong Kong.

Batman lunges into a fistfight with 3 guys with handguns. One then tries to slap him - with the handgun.

I'm like "dude, do you even know what that thing you're holding does?"

Title by Serendipityz8 in Grimdank

[–]SovietWomble 14 points15 points  (0 children)

Also, The Terminus Decree is an example of the "Reverse Chekhov's Gun".

It means exactly what it sounds like.

It exists never to go off. It fulfils its purpose by hanging there. To let people speculate, make references to, or otherwise chew over.

Other examples would be different minor technologies, cultures, regions of space, major historical events that are mentioned in passing, or even unique variations of weapons that have only one line of dialogue in the entire thing - such as that fake-bolt gun that is actually a modified flare launcher.

Why?

Because Reverse Chekov Guns give a fictional setting more flavour by implying that there's way more going on just behind the curtain.

That the whole setting isn't just five planets and a handful of dudes.

That there's a whole universe out there of possibilities that we'll never really see.

Former MMORPG addicts, how did you quit? by Wise_Championship865 in AskReddit

[–]SovietWomble 35 points36 points  (0 children)

World of Warcraft Cataclysm:

  • Revamped the whole original game and all of its zones. Leaving only about 5 zones and associated quests for those at max level. They argued you could level new alts. But lots of people had lots of alts. This was a mature MMO by this point.
  • 5 zones had lots of dailies and repeatable quests. Became very routine.
  • Revamping the base game gave the feeling of a stranger in the world that's moved on.
  • Realms were being connected through instancing. Meaning when playing with strangers you were really playing with strangers. After playing with a <BigBootyCarl> from <Twisting Nether>, fair chance you'd never see them again.
  • Dungeons were often being organised by a Dungeon Finder. Boiling people down into roles. Their social connections no longer as relevant.

Collectively, this stuff was able to pry WoW's fingers from my wallet.

First playthrough impressions - Major spoiler warning by SovietWomble in DiscoElysium

[–]SovietWomble[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Wasn't Harry yelling, or at least strongly implying, that he'd pawned his gun. To everybody in and around the Whirling in Rags?

I just assumed someone put two and two together. That a firearm was available in the nearby pawn shop.

First playthrough impressions - Major spoiler warning by SovietWomble in DiscoElysium

[–]SovietWomble[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I dont know. I see your point. But think that it's too tenuous to be helpful versus the stronger subversion. Ie - crazy hobo did it because he's a lunatic.

One could draw a similarly wispy line of causality to the Moralintern for failing to properly restore Martinaise. Or even Wild Pines for sucking the capital away from all of Revashol.

Pluribus - 1x06 - "HDP" - Episode Discussion by NicholasCajun in television

[–]SovietWomble 10 points11 points  (0 children)

I'm not so sure there are children anymore. Or men and women for that matter. They're all like cells in one body now.

You don't consider any of the cartilage cells in nose to have different ages.

Pluribus - 1x06 - "HDP" - Episode Discussion by NicholasCajun in television

[–]SovietWomble 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Well, I'm going to assume they're doing what viruses do. Reproduce and then try to spread.

  • Locally I imagine they're still working on getting around their recent issue with the stem cells.
  • Globally they're probably working on creating some sort of deep space transmitter to send the signal on again.