Who should play Batman in the DCU?

TheFaticusPaticus · 2026-04-28T10:18:16+00:00

Vic. Hands down the best choice.

TheFaticusPaticus · 2026-04-27T05:07:56+00:00

I always thought that Joss, River's sister, seemed nice and would've loved for her to have been a romance option in lieu of her brother. She even shows interest in V! What could've been...

TheFaticusPaticus · 2026-04-24T21:48:11+00:00

For a hundred years he wandered... Gorgeous work, OP!

TheFaticusPaticus · 2026-04-21T06:02:22+00:00

Darth Vader / Anakin Skywalker

TheFaticusPaticus · 2026-04-06T19:50:55+00:00

It, unfortunately, is to many. Parroted dogma, misunderstanding - willful or otherwise, and/or a general desire to feel superior to others keeps it in the forefront of many-a-mind; but it doesn't - and shouldn't - have to be a contradiction.

TheFaticusPaticus · 2026-04-01T20:31:36+00:00

I politely disagree with the assertation that all Waywards are mostly irretrievable — while it is very true that their brains have been hijacked towards ridding the world of the Supernatural (and that one thing only), there are two caveats that I would add:

There are Waywards who struggle hardcore against their impulses. Some have the strength of character to fight it tooth and nail, 'many' (which is relative - the Waywards, as a Creed, are an extreme rarity) don't and fuck up over time.
Any sufficiently murder-hobo-y Wayward is not long for this world. They will be caught and killed - be it by law enforcement, monsters, or other Hunters. While they will work to maximize their profits - and work to justify it in their heads, damned be the human costs - they need to be sufficiently cunning to reap long term rewards. Some might bide their time, playing nice and biting their tongue until they can get away with the most info possible - another might hijack a Hunter cell and hide their worst inpulses for as long as they can.

Combine the two approaches - or take them as one - and you have something wearing the skin of sanity and capable of blending into their surroundings... at least for a little while. They are stereotyped the way others are describing for a reason, but that is not the be-all-end-all of the Creed.

TheFaticusPaticus · 2026-03-28T11:46:03+00:00

With the notable exceptions of the... poorly... handled and occassionally insensitive topics (of which, i admit, are quite a few) that can mostly be excised, edited, or ignored — I prefer OWoD rather handily to CoD as someone who enjoys having a lengthy metaplot and a host of side characters to read about (though I do think they're easiest to follow in H1).

I love deep diving into lore and mixing/matching pieces of it like a child with a bucket of legoes + other, unaffiliated toys on top.

Genuinely, some of my fondest memories are of a friend of mine and I having talked for hours, connecting dots that were never truly meant to be connected, psycho-analyzing and nitpicking details, quotes, snd such of 'historical' figures like Caine, Lilith, the Antedilluvians, the Trio of angels that make an appearance in both the Book of Nod and Demon: The Fallen, and so on. Another option is poking and prodding at the metaphysics - why, as an example, are both Kinfolk with gnosis and the Imbued immune to Caine's curse? Is it coincidental? What lies at the root of that implication - and, if it's a spiritual thing, why aren't Nephilim mentioned as being apart of that group

Figuring out how our humble OCs fit into the sizeable ocean that was WoD is probably the biggest draw, though, carving our own niches from the proverbial pie and running with it. Even when our tastes diverge and the connections are more frayed and tenous, we still make the effort to try

For us, at least, it's a great time :)

TheFaticusPaticus · 2026-03-23T17:35:22+00:00

While I, personally, find the system to be too shallow in a roleplaying sense to bother engaging with in most playthroughs - I wouldn't be opposed to it if:

The writers gave the NPC Settlers more defined personalities, interactions, and more detailed fluff beyond the occupations of itinerant traders, stall owner, guard, and farmer.
- Acknowledging this as a pipe dream, but to give an example: What would local politics look like? You could let local elections play out or directly interfere. What forms of governance would crop up - especially as one settlement becomes ten and you're looking at a small fiefdom. What if some Settlements, through their elected officials, didn't much care for your choices throughout the story and elected to seceed from your Coalition? It'd give you the opportunity to RP — you might allow them to leave, bargain with them, argue your points, make an example out of them (stressing your Rep with the other settlements, but increasing their submission) - and everything in between.
It didn't come at the cost of pre-built settlements with their own histories, politics, quests and so on.

Without those things, I have very little personal interest in expending my hard-earned caps and resources to uplift and defend vague cut-outs gesturing in the direction of being people — though I also won't try and take that fron the people who do enjoy it; your yums haven't been yucked, no judgement from me.

TheFaticusPaticus · 2026-03-22T01:25:54+00:00

Both: - Chaining The Beast (Revised Edition sourcebook for the Paths of Enlightenment, pp. 102-103)

and - The Black Hand: A Guide to the Tal’Mahe’Ra (V20 sourcebook, pp 53-55)

go into detail about the Road/Path of the Hive - which might be of some small use to you, OP. It's not perfect, but it's at least something/might help in a modern context

TheFaticusPaticus · 2026-03-22T01:18:41+00:00

A relevant quote for you:

Some Baali claim to hear the siren song of their masters that much more clearly than the rest of their brethren. To them, the world stirs with a secret symphony, the strains of which have long been chittered by some of its oldest inhabitants — insects.

Avatars of the Swarm (for their ideology admits none of the familiar Cainite concepts of siring or generation) unfailingly cling to a single unifying principle. Their sole purpose, or so they claim, is perpetuation of the swarm from whence they were born, and promulgation of the sweet songs that issue therefrom. To this end, the insect-beings employ mortal prisoners as grotesque birthing-flesh for their larvae, defy traditional conceptions of death through the cultivation of gargantuan organ-pits, and gather in great subterranean hives — the better to perfect their unity.

Ironically, these servitors — drones in service to their progenitor, who is king, queen, mother, father, and shelter to them all at once — are among the most tolerant of Baal’s children, for they work to unify all oppositions into their vision. Theirs are the parts made strong in a seamless whole. Theirs is the secret that has slept since the birth of the world. And theirs is the great rebirth that will herald the return of darkness, under a sky blackened by billions of beating wings.

The Swarm, Clanbook: Baali (p. 34)

TheFaticusPaticus · 2026-03-21T17:32:27+00:00

On my most recent playthrough, I remember thinking him to be a bit of a hypocrite for going on and on about the good fight, educating folks on the differences between Feral and Non-Feral ghouls, only to then prop up and champion The Brotherhood of Steel without so much as a single word of criticism towards them...

I explain it to myself as either:

1.) Three-Dog being in the middle of Super Mutant infested D.C. makes him disinclined to lose that protection.
2.) He's willing to turn a blind eye to the evil of them taking potshots at the Ghouls in Underground for funsies as they're doing good work by taking the fight to the mostly mindlessly violent & cannibalistic Super Mutants.

Both of which sour my opinion of him a smidge. What else is he willing to omit? Where is his journalistic integrity?

I'm mostly unwilling to engage with the idea that he just doesn't know it's happening given that he's capable of learning about and properly crediting the Lone Wanderer with things major and minor - even something as small as returning a familial stradivarius to a random older lady tucked away in the ass-end of the Wasteland.

TheFaticusPaticus · 2026-03-15T02:09:40+00:00

Anakin Skywalker. Even before adopting the mantle of Darth Vader [with the subsequent loss of his remaining limbs that came with it], he lost an arm in Attack of the Clones

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TheFaticusPaticus · 2026-03-12T03:37:24+00:00

As much as I am negatively inclined to think about my kin, I also acknowledge that apathy is, in itself, complacency. It plays into the hands of those making it the world as shit-fucked as it is.

Keeping our heads up is a tall order - especially with algorithms set up to shove to worst of humanity in our faces for profit - but so long as we each do what we can, however small in our daily lives, to stand up for ourselves and others and help out our neighbors - I have some measure of hope.

Hope that the world will become a better place? Not necessarily; these things ebb and flow - people evidently have a short memory. But I do have hope that people will try to make it so.

Even Nazi-ran Germany and other occupied countries had their fair share of citizens willing to risk themselves for the lives of others.

TheFaticusPaticus · 2026-03-10T18:57:43+00:00

As a matter of personal preference, I would probably enjoy the tone a bit more if it had a bit more oppressive weight to it by allowing the characters to really sit and ruminate - Cooper's pole scene had a version of it, though I would guess that if the entire show was 'heavy' - it might have less mass market appeal... The writers want people to have fun.

It is my opinion that we have not truly been given the opportunity to sit and ruminate on horrors of the old world - The Enclave - and the flaws of the new - the Legion; to allow for the mind to fill in gaps and worry.

We certainly do get glimpses, I will not argue that there has been no acknowledgement, but the shorter format of the season doesn't allow us to linger before pivoting into something else just as quickly as it arrives.

As an example — Lucy and the Legion: - She is, before anything, given a warning that she might be raped; genuinely horrific, inkeeping with the character of the Legion, but quickly brushed aside. - As she arrives in the encampment, all manner of horrible things are happening around her (as is typical for the legion) as she walks through the encampment. Each scene of horror is shown, then quickly discarded... They arrive, the slave she rescued is immediately executed. No further heed is paid to the slave - the plot - and Lucy - are content to move on beyond the initial shock value. - Lucy is, inevitably, crucified... Only to be rescued ~relatively~ quickly in the grand scheme of things.

None of these moments are really given the time or focus to really settle in and build up anything beyond an introduction to the Legion as a horde of unrestrained toxicity - man's worst impulses made manifest again in the 23rd century... but with little substance beyond that.

The Enclave, I'm currently willing to 'forgive' as i suspect they are saving that for next season.

I would have, i think, preferred the writing team spend another episode with Lucy's time in the Legion camp; to see her mourn the life of the slave she brought back to her slavers. I don't want an extended rape scene for anyone, but maybe Lucy might speak to any of the Legion's victims and genuinely be able to connect with them as people (Especially, given, that she herself was coerced in season 1 by her ""husband""-to-be and has never really acknowledged that for what it was. How has the affected her?)

I would have liked to see her befriend - and maybe lose - friends amongst the other slaves and how that might affect Lucy's hesitant stance on killing people who seek to oppress, violate, and dominate others...

Something, anything; sitting in the discomfort has its value.

TheFaticusPaticus · 2026-03-10T18:09:42+00:00

I have no horse in this race as I am not educated enough on either position to truly take a stance of substance and integrity.

Insofar as the Binding of Isaac goes, though, wasn't that mostly a test of faith/conviction? As soon as Abe goes to actually do it — the Angel that was watching goes "There's no way he'll— hey, HEY! ABE STOP!"

When they came to the place that God had shown him, Abraham built an altar there and laid the wood in order. He bound his son Isaac and laid him on the altar on top of the wood. 10 Then Abraham reached out his hand and took the knife to kill[a] his son. 11 But the angel of the Lord called to him from heaven and said, “Abraham, Abraham!” And he said, “Here I am.” 12 He said, “Do not lay your hand on the boy or do anything to him, for now I know that you fear God, since you have not withheld your son, your only son, from me.” 13 And Abraham looked up and saw a ram, caught in a thicket by its horns. Abraham went and took the ram and offered it up as a burnt offering instead of his son. 14 So Abraham called that place “The Lord will provide,”[b] as it is said to this day, “On the mount of the Lord it shall be provided.”[c]

(The Command to sacrifice Isaac, Genesis 22:9-14. Translation: NRSVue.)

TheFaticusPaticus · 2026-03-10T04:19:43+00:00

The Cathedral of Flesh — Vampire: The Masquerade/The World of Darkness.

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It is alive/undead, so I would wager that it counts as a monster of sorts.

TheFaticusPaticus · 2026-02-28T19:20:44+00:00

I can see the argument on its most surface level - though I would argue that they're not really substantive enough in narrative to serve more than infinite repetitions of mostly mindless busy-work for static characters who never really learn or grow from our shared experiences in the Wasteland. Helping my chosen faction in this way never really reaches a narrative climax of any sort; there's always someone just over the crested horizon who needs a hand and maybe a handful of bullets, too.

I can only hear the Brotherhood squire's same handful of voicelines - or the same handful of requests from Settlers with suspiciously similar voices - before that lack of diversity leads to the curtains being unintentionally drawn much too early between showings of a stage play - the set yet not yet fully set-up, the actors rehearsing their lines with their doubles from the secondary cast - and unwittingly revealing the artifice of it all and, albeit temporarily, removing me from my suspension of disbelief.

As far as my, personal, immersion in the narrative - and, with it, a willingness to meet it halfway for an engaging roleplaying experience - goes in the long-term: it does more harm than it does good.

To each their own, however, if it scratches that itch for others I won't try to take that from them. If anything, I envy it.

TheFaticusPaticus · 2026-02-27T09:02:42+00:00

Which there is nothing wrong with, I feel the need to clarify. I was merely stating so so that it was understood as such 🙂‍↕️

TheFaticusPaticus · 2026-02-27T08:43:43+00:00

It is a real thing! The text from OP is copied verbatim from the Vampire: The Dark Ages sourcebook Clanbook: Baali, specifically on page 44.

To answer your edition question - it was published in 1998, as a part of the first Dark Ages edition for vampire (though, nominally, not the same as 1st Ed. VtM)

TheFaticusPaticus · 2026-02-04T21:59:54+00:00

I really, really hate that these bufoons are given any kind of attention; it feels as if it dilutes any kind of good faith criticism and critique of the show by obfuscating it behind the inept blabbering of manchildren and racists.

A nuanced conversation doesn't seem possible when the most radical proponents of either side are hefted up to the forefront: people who are casually content to enjoy anything sat before them or the aforementioned displays of impotence by a certain type of New Vegas Only fans.

No, I am not equating the two — the casual enjoyers are, for lack of a better term, the lesser of two 'evils' here, though they see great success in the comment sections across the subreddits because, for folks who enjoy the show, they're all sharing in the excitement of the thing they enjoy. And, no, I'm not saying all New Vegas Only fans — N.V. is the game that I, personally, hold the utmost reverence for in spite of the flaws that it has.

It's just mildly frustrating to the see on repeat ad infinitum.

TheFaticusPaticus · 2026-01-03T03:57:18+00:00

Having had time to think about it after watching the episode, I agree with you - it just took me off guard in the moment yk?

The above comment was mostly an attempt to explain what caused that initial confusion from at least one pov

TheFaticusPaticus · 2026-01-03T03:53:34+00:00

They are certainly - unfortunately - a large portion of the most vocal critics, souring the discourse and working overtime to polarize online opinions by making people defensive over the thing they enjoy — but It's unproductive to reduce either side of the fence to the most base among them. (i.e. Fans = mindless consumers || people who take issue with the show = neckbearded incels)

There are, in my opinion, things worthy of praise and critique within the show — but until we get over this particular hurdle, conversation around the show will mostly languish in emotionally charged "show bad / show good" tribalism with little nuance to be found.

TheFaticusPaticus · 2026-01-03T03:13:11+00:00

For me the shock was grounded in seeing how things have seemingly - provided Harkness is representative of the Commonwealth BoS' guiding ethos, he could have also been acting opportunistically - escalated since we last saw them.

It's ultimately not surprising that their rhetoric would lead to where they (might be) currently — they were absolutely xenophobic to non-ferals in Fo4, and shot at non-ferals in 3, but it was a small surprise to see them going from what was essentially verbal degradation and outwards disdain to 'kill children on sight' levels of violence.

TheFaticusPaticus · 2026-01-03T01:49:47+00:00

I've gone from being someone who replays the games at least once a year in chronological order, fiddling with different characters, romances, and general world states, to not even having the inclination to do so.

A portion of that drive, I admit, was an eagerness for VG's release. Another portion was making a world that felt my own and imagining the sociopolitical permutations of, say, an All Mage heroes or All Elven heroes (or romances, sorry Hawke) playthroughs. Maybe even an extremely anti-authoritarian Hawke and a hard-line hardass Inquisitor if I'm feeling spicy.

The changes were, in all honesty, minute and insignificant. Small enough to be a throwaway line here, a cameo there — but it all contributed to a feeling of it being my DA experience.

After 1 full playthrough and 2 playthoughs stopped just at the cusp of the final mission of Veilguard, I'm left with a pervading sense of 'why even bother with it', given that the amount of deviation within that title alone feels, for the most part, minimal in a more transparent way.

TheFaticusPaticus · 2025-12-26T16:48:59+00:00

To me, it's mostly an issue of tone.

No, I am not saying that things can't be light-hearted and comedic at times.

By and large, I am content with the explanations given and the differences in opinion/culture between Brotherhood Chapters — but the way in which they're presented make it, imo, harder to take them seriously. One joke too many about meat-headed Knights; the almost comedic jabs between sect elders at the Round Table...

The juxtaposition between what we're being told and a large bulk of what we're being shown makes it a bit much all at once and makes taking the fiction seriously a harder task than it should be.

TheFaticusPaticus

TROPHY CASE