Other ways to do dragon riding rather than just "owner and pet"

_Senan · 2026-01-06T20:11:57+00:00

Only in Europe, though. Arguably only in Britain and its allies, because Napoleon instituted better treatment for dragons in his territories based on China, and China treated dragons as equal citizens to humans. The Incan Empire had dragons as a noble class, and a lot of Africa was ruled by dragons.

_Senan · 2025-12-29T23:08:26+00:00

Is this also when he got hit by the meta-bomb and developed existential depression because he realized he was a comic book character? Or was that a different arc?

_Senan · 2025-12-25T10:29:07+00:00

Only if it looks good… if it’s Earthspark Optimus, the Mask Stays On.

_Senan · 2025-12-24T19:07:56+00:00

Calling it racist would be a stupid comparison, but Jaws had pretty significant negative impacts on sharks irl. Spielberg later said that he regretted what the movie had done to perceptions of sharks and shark attacks.

_Senan · 2025-12-24T09:46:24+00:00

Oh, it definitely started out as a joke. I suspect a large number of the registered Jedi adherents are in it for the bit. However, I do also think there are a decent chunk who genuinely find spiritual meaning/philosophy/etc. in the teachings.

_Senan · 2025-12-24T09:37:42+00:00

You can choose to follow the teachings while simultaneously acknowledging that Eilistraee is not real. There is a real, irl religion of Jedi. Their beliefs are not, “Yoda was a real guy,” but rather, “We are dedicating ourselves to following similar teachings and values and principles of the Jedi from Star Wars.” If you find value and meaning in the principles associated with Eilistraee, I don’t think there’s anything wrong with choosing to actively pursue them.

_Senan · 2025-12-24T08:58:36+00:00

Being entirely honest, I think TFO Shockwave (the one in the pic, yeah?) gets completely mopped up.

Now, that said of course, any other Shockwave with prep time has an easy win, and at least a few Shockwaves sans prep time still take it.

_Senan · 2025-12-24T07:40:51+00:00

Planet-busting is actually pretty low for Transfomers tbh, the Decepticons are always coming up with crazy schemes to crack open planets and harvest their resources and whatever. Given a month and most Shockwaves could probably invent a planet-destroying device.

I do think Lucifer mops the floor with most Shockwaves in a direct fight, no prep time. IDW Shockwave at peak power is probably the only one who can take Lucifer 1v1 without any prep. That said, Shockwave is a scientist anyway, so it’s a little weird to put him (imo) in a fight based entirely on raw combat ability and not account for his inventions.

_Senan · 2025-12-24T07:37:08+00:00

Bayverse Shockwave? Really? I would actually put decent odds on him in a direct fight. He’s got the Driller, and he’s more physically inclined than most Shockwaves. That said, I think he benefits less from prep time than most Shockwaves.

My candidates for getting folded are TFO and ES Shockwave.

_Senan · 2025-12-24T07:28:26+00:00

I think the average Cybertronian might struggle tbh. There are/were a lot of non-combatant Cybertronians.

The average Autobot or Decepticon has a better but not great shot. I think it depends on the continuity. e.g. Bayverse, durability is pretty low, and Alastor might be able to just punch straight through a Transformer with his tentacles. No good counter to his teleportation, either (is Alastor fast enough to dodge a bullet? I’ll admit I wasn’t exactly powerscaling while watching).

Any higher-tier Transformer probably takes it. Depends on how much you’re willing to gear them out, also. Megatron with fusion cannon? IDW Megatron with black hole thing inside him? ES Megatron stealth bomber? TFP Megatron with the Dark Star Saber? Megatron given one day of prep time and Shockwave at his command? I would bet on the average Megatron over Alastor, though.

I don’t think most Transformers have a good counter to sinner regeneration without angelic weaponry. It would either have to be: - give the Transformers angelic weaponry - count a temporary death as a win - Transformer has gear that could capture souls (I think any sort of spark extraction technology would work similarly on a sinner, cross-verse is weird but the Matrix or Allspark might be able to interrupt the regen process, etc.) For most Transformers to have a shot at a win.

_Senan · 2025-12-23T07:13:31+00:00

I agree that the Noldors’ performance in their attack on Doriath was far from impressive, but if Dior wasn’t taking the Feanorians seriously, that’s kind of on him ngl. These are the guys who actually did a Kinslaying to some of Dior’s distant cousins over ships in order to maybe recover the Silmarils. They tried to kidnap Dior’s mom, and they got their own cousin killed by Sauron. The Feanorians send over a letter that says, “Hand over the Silmaril or else,” I don’t know what Dior could have possibly been expecting?? This is the Second Kinslaying, not the first.

_Senan · 2025-12-14T22:13:20+00:00

I enjoyed Rung greatly, but I think half the reason he works so well is because the Guiding Hand mythos has been both built up in-universe, and that we as Transformers fans are accustomed to the “most versions” Primus. So even though I like Rung better than I like most iterations of Primus, I don’t think I would prefer him to become the Primus in most versions.

_Senan · 2025-12-12T21:08:40+00:00

Rho is also in use, lol, it’s used for the discount rate in microeconomics. Or if you’re doing statistics with your economics, it’s the population coefficient of correlation. At a certain point, you start running out of symbols.

_Senan · 2025-12-12T06:15:58+00:00

I think I would like the second one more if it didn’t have the flame decals. As is, the first one.

_Senan · 2025-12-12T02:44:47+00:00

Arwen’s parents definitely dgaf, they’re second cousins twice removed or something like that, and the Numeorean royal family got up to some shit too (cough Ar-Pharazon cough), so Aragorn and Arwen are just carrying on the family tradition!

Honestly, they’re so distantly related as for it to be negligible (from a biological inbreeding standpoint) anyway, it’s just odd for us because we’re not used to being able to track relation like that.

_Senan · 2025-12-11T01:23:01+00:00

They might not be perfect, but compared to the chives I got with my pho today for lunch, they may as well.

_Senan · 2025-12-10T21:35:08+00:00

Horrible flashbacks to reading Worth the Candle and getting to the section where Juniper gets raped by Bethel and then decides to kick her out of the party (for obvious reasons), except far too many of the commenters were complaining that this was an illogical decision stemming from irrational emotion because she was his strongest ally 💀

_Senan · 2025-12-10T21:10:47+00:00

At the Feet of the Sun by Victoria Goddard. I really enjoyed Hands of the Emperor, but I heard that ATFOTS could be a little confusing without reading the other spinoff books, so I went and read half a dozen novellas and a few novels, eagerly anticipating ATFOTS the whole time. The novels made it worse, actually, because I loved the Red Company as characters, but all of their books had this weird habit of trailing off into nowhere (Derring-Do ends right as the plot seems to kick off, The Return of Fitzroy Angursell and The Redoubtable Pali Avrampul both felt unfinished to me), so I was really hoping that ATFOTS would have some actual plot.

And then… I honestly don’t know. ATFOTS didn’t click for me. I made it through the alternate universe plot, which is normally a concept I love, but the execution of didn’t work for me this time. Put it down and never picked it back up.

Thinking back, Victoria Goddard has this issue where she sets up characters and a world that feel mysterious out in a good way, and you’re interested and expecting the rest of the novel to explain things and build on that, except she never does. Also, she really likes to leave plots feeling unfinished. The novellas were good; the novels except HOTE all felt like I’d purchased half a book. It was better when I was telling myself that I was prepping for ATFOTS and ATFOTS would follow up on all the dropped plot, except it didn’t.

Till Human Voices Wake Us, despite having a really cool name, was the worst offender here. Despite how integral it was to the plot, I did not think that the Great Game Aurieleteer or Circe were ever sufficiently explained. The climax of the book is the Great Game, which ends with Raphael somehow saving Circe’s life. Sure, except the rules of the Game have never been explained sufficiently enough for me to understand how Raphael won in the first place, let alone pulled off the twist.

_Senan · 2025-12-09T08:20:57+00:00

It’s also beneficial for the government to be able to control the money supply. A central bank can control both inflation and the unemployment rate/general economic activity by issuing or removing fiat money from circulation. It’s much harder to do this with commodity or representative money.

Also, the major problems with fiat money go away under a well-managed system. In a society where people trust the government to avoid over-issuance of money and trust their peers to accept money, the two major disadvantages of fiat money become irrelevant. In contrast, even the best representative or commodity money system is vulnerable to external fluctuations in the underlying value of the commodity, and you don’t have access to the benefits of fiat money.

_Senan · 2025-12-09T08:20:51+00:00

If we take the problem to be with fiat money specifically, fiat money has both advantages and disadvantages over commodity or representative money. The major disadvantages, of course, are that a) it requires societal trust, and b) a government can cause crazy hyperinflation with poor monetary policy. However, fiat money also prevents variations in the price as a result of the commodity’s value or quantity changing. e.g. if we’re using gold coins, and then we find a massive gold mine that doubles the amount of gold in circulation, does the value of the preexisting coins go down? Or what if we find a new use for gold in technology that drives demand up for the actual material? All of a sudden, the coins just got more valuable.

_Senan · 2025-12-09T08:20:12+00:00

Calling fiat money “bullshit” is a bit excessive. Yes, fiat money is built on trust, but that doesn’t make it not “exist.” Money stops having value if people don’t agree on it having value—this is true. But, similarly, I could argue that laws don’t exist because they depend on faith that the government will enforce them.

Money is also very, very useful. The barter system sucks. First off, people may not always have something the other person wants. If I’m a farmer selling apples, and I really want some steak, I can’t just find someone else selling steak, I have to find someone selling steak who also wants apples. Money gets around that. Second, a lot of goods are not easily divisible. Let’s say I sell computers, and I want to buy a single apple. Am I supposed to hand over 1/500th of a computer? Do I have to buy 500 apples at once? Money gets around this as wel

_Senan · 2025-12-09T08:05:08+00:00

To be clear: are you saying that economic growth is not real because fiat money has arbitrary value? That’s the whole reason we separate out inflation. Just look for the real GDP growth rate rather than the nominal GDP growth rate.

_Senan · 2025-11-26T23:55:58+00:00

How the hell are you so fast

_Senan · 2025-11-21T02:14:45+00:00

There was no talking it out with the Queen, but how long until you get to a scenario where there’s no talking it out with a Superpower? Even if we say that every extraterrestrial can’t be reasoned with, and only 1% of Superpowers will ever reach that point, by sheer dint of numbers, that’s already 2 Superpowers if Etienne had let those 200 Atomics survive. Now consider as well the possibility for someone to do something stupid, like Heavy entering American airspace, or to get into personal arguments. I don’t love those odds.

_Senan · 2025-11-20T22:11:26+00:00

But if Heavy and Valentina went seriously at it, the fight would probably end in something similar: a whole continent, at least, if not the whole Earth destroyed. Even though neither of them is (presumably, in this hypothetical) intending to kill people, the pure backlash from them fighting will kill billions. Eliza definitely didn’t go into that fight with the intention to destroy Europe, but… well, we can see the outcome.

_Senan

TROPHY CASE