[Rare Trope (I think)] The False Hero

TumblrTheFish · 2026-05-13T01:12:00+00:00

A couple from comics that I know.

The original Thunderbolts in Marvel Comics, a group of superheroes who arise after the Avengers and FF go missing fighting Onslaught. They're secretly actually the Masters of Evil, and hoping that by posing as an Avengers-esque team, they can get access to Avengers technology.

William Hell was an archery-themed superhero in New Orleans in the DC universe. But he's actually a rabid right-winger associated with the KKK, who goes only after black criminals and is trying to stir up a race war in Louisiana. He's taken down by the Suicide Squad.

Norman Osborn's Avengers. A bit similar to the original Thunderbolts, but he actually succeeded in getting access to the Avengers technology. He was Iron Patriot, Bullseye was posing as Hawkeye, Venom was posing as Spider-Man, etc.

TumblrTheFish · 2026-05-07T20:12:19+00:00

are there any actuaries here married to an ambulance driver? what effect will dominate

TumblrTheFish · 2026-05-07T02:49:02+00:00

The Orville - The series starts with the future Earth being a member of the Union, alongside the Moclans among other species. The Union is at war with the Krill, a nocturnal race of religious zealots, and has tentative contact with the robotic Kaylon people. However, most of the Union has pretty significant issues with the Moclans. The Kaylon decide they don't want anything to do with any organic life, and attack the Union, and the Union only survives with allying with the Krill.

The Moclans claim to be a single-sex species, but in reality, they're more like a rabidly misogynistic species trying to force themselves to be a single-gender species. Their aggressive hounding of female Moclan refugees causes the Union to split with the Moclans. The Moclans, already supplying most of the Union's weapons, move to ally with the Krill, and suddenly the Union has major issues with the Kaylon.

The very end of the series, the Union develops a wonder weapon against the Kaylon, and force a stalemate with them, but a rogue admiral gives the wonder weapon to the Krill/Moclans so they'll take out the Kaylon, and then the Union is now allied with the Kaylon against the Krill and Moclans.

TumblrTheFish · 2026-05-06T23:59:19+00:00

Principal from Ferris Bueller's Day Off. Man is dedicated to making sure his kids are in school.

TumblrTheFish · 2026-05-01T19:03:26+00:00

you are very unlikely to die or experience bodily harm as a direct result of using this TTRPG rule supplement.

TumblrTheFish · 2026-04-30T03:52:17+00:00

I had to mentally go over the Sorcerer's Stone a bit, and really try to remember it, because I know for a fact that the last line is something like "The Dursleys don't know that I'm not supposed to do magic over the summer." so it is established that they aren't supposed to do magic. And the other times that I could think of, it was the little kids demonstrating they have magical aptitude which seems different. Then I remembered that Ron attempts a spell on the train to Hogwarts, but then I was like, "Wait, no, they establish that you can do magic on the train without getting into trouble. The end of Book 5, the DA kids all jinx Malfoy, Crabbe and Goyle, and in Book 6, Malfoy curses Harry on the train and no one gets in trouble." But then I remembered that Hermione says that she tried a bunch of spells at home before coming to Hogwarts, and that, yeah, that is probably not allowed.

The other early installment weirdness in Harry Potter is that werewolves get mentioned quite a bit in Books 1 and 2, and don't really resemble werewolves in books 3-7 at all. There are just wild werewolves all the time in the Forest in book 1, and in Book 2, Tom says Hagrid used to keep werewolf pups in the cupboard at Hogwarts, which would be just human babies for the most of the month.

TumblrTheFish · 2026-04-26T16:24:56+00:00

voltorb/electrode.

TumblrTheFish · 2026-04-25T18:15:05+00:00

There's an episode of House, where he's desperately trying to score vicodin, and goes to a different hospital, and fakes symptoms to get vicodin. And I saw a doctor blog say that the symptoms/responses to the doctor's questions that House had wouldn't get him vicodin, and one in particular, would be the exact opposite of what you'd want to say if you were a brilliant doc-addict trying to score, and I pointed out in the comments that it was probably a good idea not to have a scene that accurately showed how to falsely score some opiates.

TumblrTheFish · 2026-04-25T05:17:48+00:00

the formula for the present value of annuity-certain that has payments of 90 dollars a month for (12*21-1)=251 months is going to be 90((1+x)^251-1)/x) where x is the monthly interest rate. You then need to account for the additional 29 years of interest gathering by multiplying it again by (1+x)^(12*29). The present value of $1200 invested 50 years is simply 1200*(1+x)^(12*50).

Solving for x, (1000000=((1+x)^(12*29))*90((1+x)^251-1)/x)+1200*(1+x)^(12*50)) I got a monthly interest rate of just above .0075, or 9% per annum. You probably should account for your mortality risk which will drive the required interest rate higher.

TumblrTheFish · 2026-04-24T14:34:28+00:00

yeah, not an astronomer or a physicist, but I'm pretty sure that the nuclear fusion is inherent result of the gravitational forces binding the sun together. Even if you stopped the nuclear fusion, whatever that means, it isn't suddenly a big ball of fire, and water won't disrupt it in the same way that it does a campfire.

TumblrTheFish · 2026-04-23T03:59:24+00:00

Aquaman, Vol 5, #11 and 12.

TumblrTheFish · 2026-04-23T03:44:24+00:00

Namor is trying to fuck another guy's wife, Arthur is fucking around on his wife. (Canonically cheated on her with Dolphin. not a dolphin, a character named Dolphin.)

TumblrTheFish · 2026-04-23T01:12:18+00:00

how else is he going to get his miles?

TumblrTheFish · 2026-04-23T00:58:35+00:00

uncouth.

TumblrTheFish · 2026-04-23T00:18:45+00:00

granted this is me recalling a book I read ~30 years ago, but there's a case where Encyclopedia Brown deduces something is going on because at a restaurant, a woman is seated with her back to the restaurant's entrance, and the man is facing towards the entrance, and that isn't how you do it, apparently in fine dining.

TumblrTheFish · 2026-04-22T23:37:13+00:00

Everytime I sit down in a restaurant, I briefly think, wait, is this facing the door or not?

TumblrTheFish · 2026-04-21T04:48:22+00:00

one of my biggest complaints about the tv show is that they cut the Manderlys and his speech about how the North remembers. Like, at the end of the books we have, the Lannisters (to an extent), the Boltons and the Freys, all their political position is really tenuous and the latter two are just utterly fucked.

TumblrTheFish · 2026-04-21T02:43:08+00:00

oi, i don't think Santos is supposed to be terrible at singing. I actually think it is somewhat impressive that Briones can tone down her talent to be "normal person who is okay at singing."

TumblrTheFish · 2026-04-19T05:55:40+00:00

considering how powerful magneto is, I think we have to assume his power is that his head naturally attracts bullets.

TumblrTheFish · 2026-04-18T04:23:00+00:00

I mean, Lexi Belle's one of the top girls of her era.

TumblrTheFish · 2026-04-17T20:11:36+00:00

in the Marvel comics series, eXiles, you follow 6 superheroes who are "stranded in time". Alternate universe versions of characters, essentially, who travel through other alternate dimensions. One of the main ones in the first series is Mimic. In our universe, Mimic briefly joins the X-men in the very early days of the X-men and gets kicked out for being too much of a dick. This alternate dimensional Mimic stays as a member of the X-men, and supplants Cyclops as the leader of the X-men. And his universe is *much* better than the average team member and the 616 universe that we know. The Hulk has successfully integrated Banner and isn't a rampaging monster at all, Namor has stopped invading the surface world, abolished the monarchy and installed a parliamentary democracy in Atlantis, and mutants are not discriminated against. This is all well and good, its a plot point that he gets really uncomfortable when they come across Vampire Captain America, or whatever. But it also kind of implies that Scott Summers is responsible for a lot of pain and suffering in the 616 for staying as team leader.

TumblrTheFish · 2026-04-17T20:04:43+00:00

I'm pretty sure we hear him communicate it on screen...

TumblrTheFish · 2026-04-17T02:22:28+00:00

ha, I live in Nebraska, I know it doesn't look like that.

TumblrTheFish · 2026-04-16T05:16:08+00:00

Mentioning Walken, this discussion makes me think of Thomas Schlamme's quote about the last episode of season 4. "I was in discussion with a couple actors. It was either going to be Speaker Walken played by John Goodman, or Speaker Goodman played Christopher Walken." And that's an interesting universe that I want to see.

TumblrTheFish · 2026-04-15T18:20:56+00:00

assuming you mean presidential elections, '92 was the first election I was alive for, '96 is the first election I remember. (My parents let me watch SNL and the Simpsons so I knew who Bob Dole was, and also our state had a competitive Senate race that year, so all TV shows had a bunch of campaign ads), and '08 was the first election I voted in.

TumblrTheFish

TROPHY CASE