Moments when a piece of entertainment completely lost you.

saithorthepyro · Post by **saithorthepyro** » Tue Jul 03, 2018 4:35 am

Do we know that it was King who did this? Because DC editorial has a lot standing hatred of marriage that they have used against the writers of the books before. They killed a planned marriage in the Batwoman comics a few years back that caused the entire creative team to quit. It would to surprise me if it was the same people behind this. Frankly it also sucks, I was looking forward to that when I picked up the series again.

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Tue Jul 03, 2018 6:23 am

I think Something Positive answered this better than I could.

That was in the context of Spider Man, but the same basic issue applies. An older character isn't any less old just because they are alone.

-Username17

K · Post by K » Wed Jul 04, 2018 1:48 am

erik wrote:Why was it even a mistake? It seemed like a pretty good trade, some crappy ships for a super capital ship.

Oh, and this.

I think that having The Last Jedi on Netflix is really dangerous. I keep finding fuck-ups in the narrative.

For example, after Ghost-Yoda's whole fucking speech on how the Jedi teachings in the books kinda suck and that Luke should abandon them, and then he uses lightning to set the books on fire to highlight the point, we get to see at one of the end scenes shows that the books are in a drawer that might be Rey's room. Or not.

Why do that? Is the movie really just a mishmash of different versions of the script and the editor just put in stuff that looked cool?

Count Arioch the 28th · Wed Jul 04, 2018 2:27 am

I agree. I watched it again and realized as pretty as the movie was I kind of hate it and every character in it, except for that one old First Order captain on the dreadnought who seemed to be aware he was in a shitty movie.

Surgo · Post by **Surgo** » Wed Jul 04, 2018 5:25 am

erik wrote:Why was it even a mistake? It seemed like a pretty good trade, some crappy ships for a super capital ship.

Oh, and this.

It was a crappy trade because they can pull another super capital ship out of their reserves (and they do), but the rebellion doesn't have that sort of reserves. So their suicidal attack was entirely pointless and didn't actually gain them anything.

If you're gonna make a trade, you should at least take a strategic objective. If you aren't doing that, there's no point in making a trade in the first place.

Omegonthesane · Post by **Omegonthesane** » Wed Jul 04, 2018 5:54 am

Surgo wrote:
erik wrote:Why was it even a mistake? It seemed like a pretty good trade, some crappy ships for a super capital ship.

Oh, and this.
It was a crappy trade because they can pull another super capital ship out of their reserves (and they do), but the rebellion doesn't have that sort of reserves. So their suicidal attack was entirely pointless and didn't actually gain them anything.

If you're gonna make a trade, you should at least take a strategic objective. If you aren't doing that, there's no point in making a trade in the first place.

Again that doesn't quite line up due to the exact circumstances. Poe attacked a dreadnought thing that appeared to be able to fire a fleet destroying weapon within a short time frame, there physically wasn't a second one of those in Hux' current fleet even if it was easily replaceable after the battle and it was seconds away from destroying the whole Not-Rebel fleet when it went.

Which appears to be bad plotting on their part since the sheer urgency of this otherwise bad strategic trade off is never acknowledged.

Chamomile · Post by **Chamomile** » Wed Jul 04, 2018 6:41 am

The problem with trying to make a plot point out of material exchange is that the source of the First Order's fleet is completely unknown. We don't know and can't know how valuable that super-capital ship was to them because we have no idea where they're getting their ships, how hard they are to replace, or how many they have in reserve. A full tour of First Order production facilities would obviously have wrecked the pace (not to mention drawn attention to how stupid it is that the First Order has a fleet at all, given that The Force Awakens apparently took place just a day or two before), but a shot of the main First Order fleet showing just how many ships they have would've worked fine, taken thirty seconds, and seeing a bunch of star destroyers fly around while the bad guy music plays would've been quintessentially Star Wars anyway.

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Wed Jul 04, 2018 7:05 am

Discussions about the relative value or lack thereof of any military resources to the First Order just underlines how bad the Sequel main plot actually is. The people actually making these movies have no idea where the First Order comes from, what their military objectives are, what resources they have available, or what would cause them to win or lose the war. Heck, they haven't even decided who they are fighting or why.

What's worse is that Abrams and Johnson both said explicitly that working out how any of this happened (and thus what "this" even is) is a job for future authors to retcon. They didn't do the plotting for what the initial state of the galaxy is, and won't ever do it. Any and all events are ass pulls. There is no broader story or broader world. If something enters stage left, it literally did not exist before that. Not even in the minds of the authors.

You could destroy a New Order capital ship, or a New Order star killer base, or whatever, and that would have no impact at all on the New Order's ability to threaten planets or fight space battles. Because the New Order doesn't have a reserve of ships, it appears in scenes with ass pulled stuff that is unrelated to past events.

-Username17

saithorthepyro · Post by **saithorthepyro** » Wed Jul 04, 2018 3:43 pm

Count Arioch the 28th wrote:I agree. I watched it again and realized as pretty as the movie was I kind of hate it and every character in it, except for that one old First Order captain on the dreadnought who seemed to be aware he was in a shitty movie.

Pretty much. Watching him complain about his own side's incompetence was probably the best part of the movie. And yeah, Last Jedi gets worse every time I see it, as the plot holes just seem to get bigger, and most of the new characters aren't that interesting.

As for the First Order fleet question, I can't wait to see what they pull out now that the movies have destroyed a planet base they constructed and now some kind of super star destroyer that dwarfs the executor. Maybe they'll just claim it's all bought from those arm dealers the movie seemed fixated on.

Wiseman · Post by **Wiseman** » Thu Jul 05, 2018 2:29 am

FrankTrollman wrote:Discussions about the relative value or lack thereof of any military resources to the First Order just underlines how bad the Sequel main plot actually is. The people actually making these movies have no idea where the First Order comes from, what their military objectives are, what resources they have available, or what would cause them to win or lose the war. Heck, they haven't even decided who they are fighting or why.

What's worse is that Abrams and Johnson both said explicitly that working out how any of this happened (and thus what "this" even is) is a job for future authors to retcon. They didn't do the plotting for what the initial state of the galaxy is, and won't ever do it. Any and all events are ass pulls. There is no broader story or broader world. If something enters stage left, it literally did not exist before that. Not even in the minds of the authors.

You could destroy a New Order capital ship, or a New Order star killer base, or whatever, and that would have no impact at all on the New Order's ability to threaten planets or fight space battles. Because the New Order doesn't have a reserve of ships, it appears in scenes with ass pulled stuff that is unrelated to past events.

-Username17

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XAVeyXwy3BE

This video's a pretty interesting take on the subject.

K · Post by K » Thu Jul 05, 2018 3:31 am

Wiseman wrote:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XAVeyXwy3BE

This video's a pretty interesting take on the subject.

That was interesting. Thanks.

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Fri Jul 06, 2018 6:51 am

Wiseman wrote:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XAVeyXwy3BE

This video's a pretty interesting take on the subject.

That is pretty interesting. I think she thought about it a lot more than the people who made the Sequels did. Part of the issue is that while Lucas obviously thought deeply and hard about fascism, I don't think Abrams or Johnson did. The Prequels are bad movies, but it isn't because Lucas doesn't have a lot to say about the rise of fascism, it's because the basic building blocks of storytelling kind of fall apart. Indeed, in retrospect having liberal democracy fall to fascism on the back of a pointless trade dispute is significantly more plausible than we gave it credit for at the time.

The First Order, on the other hand, has no identifiable ideology and doesn't seem to have anything to say on the subject because the makers of the Sequels just genuinely don't have anything to say on the subject. They are using fascist imagery because they are making cargo cult Star Wars movies and the fascist imagery comes with the package.

-Username17

nockermensch · Post by **nockermensch** » Fri Jul 06, 2018 3:32 pm

FrankTrollman wrote:There is no broader story or broader world. If something enters stage left, it literally did not exist before that. Not even in the minds of the authors.

Star Wars - Bear World Edition

Prak · Post by **Prak** » Sat Jul 07, 2018 2:00 am

I'm contemplating a "Monsters going to school" RPG again because of Monster Prom, and started looking through stuff here that might be at least valuable teaching material when making this sort of RPG.

Which led me to look up Bliss Stage.

Bliss Stage summary on its own site wrote:Bliss Stage is a role-playing game about teenage pilots fighting back against alien invaders with giant robots made of weaponized love. It’s about love and war and the future of humanity. It has a lot of sex parts in it.

(emphasis mine)

How the fuck do you write that paragraph, and not immediately think "maybe I should... iunno, dial things back, or obfuscate the actual sex in-game, a bit"

(note, Monster Prom ostensibly takes place in a high school, but the youngest character is 19. It's more like a community college that inexplicably has a prom)

maglag · Post by **maglag** » Sat Jul 07, 2018 4:00 am

Wiseman wrote:
FrankTrollman wrote:Discussions about the relative value or lack thereof of any military resources to the First Order just underlines how bad the Sequel main plot actually is. The people actually making these movies have no idea where the First Order comes from, what their military objectives are, what resources they have available, or what would cause them to win or lose the war. Heck, they haven't even decided who they are fighting or why.

What's worse is that Abrams and Johnson both said explicitly that working out how any of this happened (and thus what "this" even is) is a job for future authors to retcon. They didn't do the plotting for what the initial state of the galaxy is, and won't ever do it. Any and all events are ass pulls. There is no broader story or broader world. If something enters stage left, it literally did not exist before that. Not even in the minds of the authors.

You could destroy a New Order capital ship, or a New Order star killer base, or whatever, and that would have no impact at all on the New Order's ability to threaten planets or fight space battles. Because the New Order doesn't have a reserve of ships, it appears in scenes with ass pulled stuff that is unrelated to past events.

-Username17
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XAVeyXwy3BE

This video's a pretty interesting take on the subject.

Nice view, thanks!

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Sat Jul 07, 2018 6:12 am

Prak wrote:How the fuck do you write that paragraph, and not immediately think "maybe I should... iunno, dial things back, or obfuscate the actual sex in-game, a bit"

Anime doujin is in a weird place. Indeed, adult fan fiction is always in a weird place because fictional characters do not age the same way that real people do. People have one age: it's whatever the year is now minus the year they were born. That's fucking it. That's how time works for flesh and blood creatures.

But fictional characters don't work like that. They don't have a proper birthday and they don't have a new birthday every year. Tarzan isn't a crumbling mummy because he was 18 years old in a 2012 story. If someone makes a Tarzan book or movie today, he's going to be a muscular young adult again. But when it comes to fanfiction, characters also had a point of intersection with the fan author. That's really important, because it means that characters like Alice or Dorothy aren't just perpetually children - they also people who were children when various adult fan fiction authors met them as children. Alice is seven and a half years old, and will be every time you read Alice Through The Looking Glass, but importantly she's "the same age" as anyone who read the book when they were seven.

That means that when it comes to pornographic Evangelion or Sailor Moon fanfics and doujins, it's not necessarily pedophilia. I became aware of Evangelion and sailor Moon while I was in high school, so when Ayanami Rei and Usagi Tsukino were introduced to me as 14 year old girls that was my peer group. On the other hand, I saw Soul Eater when I was in my late 20s, so Maka Albarn has never been "my age" even though she is presented as the same age as Ayanami Rei. If I made an Evangelion doujin, that would not be pedophilia, but if I made a Soul Eater doujin, that would be pedophilia.

Given the mine field that is making sex stories about teenage mech pilots, I can't imagine wanting to play a collaborative storytelling game about it. Like, writing sex stories about the same character can be normal sexual fantasies or gross perving on children by two different people of the same age, since the determining factor is the time at which they first interacted with the character. If you didn't get around to watching Evangelion until you were 25, then masturbating to Asuka is gross and you should stop.

There is certainly a place for people making sex stories about teenage characters. But the morality of it is complicated and it seems almost impossible to navigate those treacherous waters in the context of an RPG.

-Username17

Prak · Post by **Prak** » Sat Jul 07, 2018 7:27 am

That is perhaps one of the weirder arguments I've read on this site, but... I mean, I don't necessarily disagree with it. It's the sort of thing that is kind of... the way the mind innately works, but it's just weird to hear/read it articulated.

But... also, it feels like doujin, or fanfic, which are generally personal works by a fan that will only ever really be consumed by other fans with similar relationships to the characters (and the weird pedos who first Asuka or whoever when they were 35 and go read smutty fanfic about her are not, generally, people you have to actually interact with) are one thing, and then writing an RPG, which you then go on to actually sell and make a... known name in indie RPGs, is another.

It's super weird. Because, yeah, let's take Raven from Teen Titans. The way my mind works, it's not super weird to me to be into her, because I was a similar age to the character when I first encountered her (caveat, comic books, retcons, various iterations, etc). But say one of my friends came over and said "Hey, you want to play a game about 14 year old super heroes who sleep around with each other and save the world!?" I'd have to ask "...really? How about, like, 18? Why do they have to be teens? What the fuck?"

Iunno. It's super weird. Honestly, any RPG about characters sleeping with one another is weird to me. Bliss Stage, Apocalypse World... ok, those are the only two I'm actually aware of. Even when I think about running a specifically smutty D&D game for other queer people I know online, in my mind, it involves mostly explicit discussion of the PCs fucking NPCs and relatively little discussion of the PCs fucking each other. About the only version of that I can really comprehend is a polycule that involves enough people that they are their own gaming group (which I could be into, but I have enough trouble finding one person who's into me, let alone four...)

maglag · Post by **maglag** » Sat Jul 07, 2018 9:22 am

FrankTrollman wrote:
Prak wrote:How the fuck do you write that paragraph, and not immediately think "maybe I should... iunno, dial things back, or obfuscate the actual sex in-game, a bit"
Anime doujin is in a weird place. Indeed, adult fan fiction is always in a weird place because fictional characters do not age the same way that real people do. People have one age: it's whatever the year is now minus the year they were born. That's fucking it. That's how time works for flesh and blood creatures.

But fictional characters don't work like that. They don't have a proper birthday and they don't have a new birthday every year. Tarzan isn't a crumbling mummy because he was 18 years old in a 2012 story. If someone makes a Tarzan book or movie today, he's going to be a muscular young adult again. But when it comes to fanfiction, characters also had a point of intersection with the fan author. That's really important, because it means that characters like Alice or Dorothy aren't just perpetually children - they also people who were children when various adult fan fiction authors met them as children. Alice is seven and a half years old, and will be every time you read Alice Through The Looking Glass, but importantly she's "the same age" as anyone who read the book when they were seven.

That means that when it comes to pornographic Evangelion or Sailor Moon fanfics and doujins, it's not necessarily pedophilia. I became aware of Evangelion and sailor Moon while I was in high school, so when Ayanami Rei and Usagi Tsukino were introduced to me as 14 year old girls that was my peer group. On the other hand, I saw Soul Eater when I was in my late 20s, so Maka Albarn has never been "my age" even though she is presented as the same age as Ayanami Rei. If I made an Evangelion doujin, that would not be pedophilia, but if I made a Soul Eater doujin, that would be pedophilia.

Given the mine field that is making sex stories about teenage mech pilots, I can't imagine wanting to play a collaborative storytelling game about it. Like, writing sex stories about the same character can be normal sexual fantasies or gross perving on children by two different people of the same age, since the determining factor is the time at which they first interacted with the character. If you didn't get around to watching Evangelion until you were 25, then masturbating to Asuka is gross and you should stop.

What about "older version of the popular character" hentai/adult fanfiction?

In particular when they also make the character taller and with bigger breasts/hips so they don't even look like a teen anymore. Heck, it's basically one of the most popular doujin concepts, "let's draw the character with bigger tits and extra thick".

Now granted in some of those the character's supposed to be the same age which would be wrong, but in others it's supposed to be the character a bunch of years later and having actually grown up, so where does it fall?

Omegonthesane · Post by **Omegonthesane** » Sat Jul 07, 2018 12:47 pm

I couldn't have been older than 11 when I first encountered (the bastardised dub version of) Sakura Kinomoto. I'm pretty sure I'd sill be a gross pedo if I so much as had impure thoughts about her despite her having at one point been "my age".

Basically it's potentially really weird and creepy to be wanking to the same things at 28 that you were at 14.

As for maglag's point about age-up fanfiction, that's still weird since you're still seeing a child and thinking "I wish someone with their defining qualities was fuckable". It's a step removed not a million miles.

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Sat Jul 07, 2018 9:18 pm

maglag wrote:What about "older version of the popular character" hentai/adult fanfiction?

That is actually two different fantasies. The gross one is the one where you're looking at little girls and imagining what they'd be like in the sack once they become legal. That's shit like when Trump tells teenage girls that they'll be dating him in ten years - it's gross as fuck.

The not gross one is the one where people reminisce about people they used to know and imagine fucking them in the present. That's completely normal. The "I wonder what Nicole is up to now, she's probably wicked hot." And that fantasy is completely normal.

The thing about a fictional character is that both interactions are possible. If you watch Sailor Moon while you're in high school and later on jack off thinking about Sailor Mars grown up, that's reasonable. If you watch Sailor Moon as an adult and jerk it while imagining what you could do to Sailor Mars once she's legal, that's fucked up.

Essentially the bad touch thing is the thing where you look at little girls and imagine exploiting them sexually in the future. The non-bad touch version is where you have whistful nostalgia about romantic affairs you coulda/shoulda had when you were younger. And when someone is making porn manga, it isn't always obvious which one they are doing. And probably some section of the readership is doing a little of both.

But I just don't see how you get five players at a table to play RPGs without having that end up with you hearing way too much about someone's pederasty fantasies. Seems fucking horrible.

-Username17

Mistborn · Post by **Mistborn** » Sat Jul 07, 2018 11:11 pm

I think anime and associated works are particularly problematic for this sort of thing. Because characters drawn in anime style tend to read as older or younger than what ever age the character is supposed to be, even before you get into charters whose appearance is supposed to not match their age.

hyzmarca · Post by **hyzmarca** » Sat Jul 07, 2018 11:46 pm

Prak wrote:That is perhaps one of the weirder arguments I've read on this site, but... I mean, I don't necessarily disagree with it. It's the sort of thing that is kind of... the way the mind innately works, but it's just weird to hear/read it articulated.

But... also, it feels like doujin, or fanfic, which are generally personal works by a fan that will only ever really be consumed by other fans with similar relationships to the characters (and the weird pedos who first Asuka or whoever when they were 35 and go read smutty fanfic about her are not, generally, people you have to actually interact with) are one thing, and then writing an RPG, which you then go on to actually sell and make a... known name in indie RPGs, is another.

It's super weird. Because, yeah, let's take Raven from Teen Titans. The way my mind works, it's not super weird to me to be into her, because I was a similar age to the character when I first encountered her (caveat, comic books, retcons, various iterations, etc). But say one of my friends came over and said "Hey, you want to play a game about 14 year old super heroes who sleep around with each other and save the world!?" I'd have to ask "...really? How about, like, 18? Why do they have to be teens? What the fuck?"

Iunno. It's super weird. Honestly, any RPG about characters sleeping with one another is weird to me. Bliss Stage, Apocalypse World... ok, those are the only two I'm actually aware of. Even when I think about running a specifically smutty D&D game for other queer people I know online, in my mind, it involves mostly explicit discussion of the PCs fucking NPCs and relatively little discussion of the PCs fucking each other. About the only version of that I can really comprehend is a polycule that involves enough people that they are their own gaming group (which I could be into, but I have enough trouble finding one person who's into me, let alone four...)

Character age issues don't bother me so much, because a character I'm playing isn't me and the other people at the table also aren't playing themselves, hoptfully. I have an easy time getting into my character's head, so if I'm playing a 14 year old then I'm probably also thinking like a 14 year old to some extent, at least in my in character decision making.

And, since, the other players presumably aren't 14 (since I'm playing a game that includes sex with them and it would be a deal breaker if they were) the fact that I'm RPing a romantic scene with them doesn't cross any age lines.

The actual issue is how comfortable I would be with the group. Which is probably not enough for detailed RPing.

Anyway, it's been a while since I actually read Bliss Stage, but if I remember correctly sex is probably the worst way to level up your relationship,

Prak · Post by **Prak** » Sun Jul 08, 2018 4:56 am

I mean, DDLG fetishes ideally don't involve any actual pedophilia, either, but they still squick me the fuck out.

Jefepato · Post by **Jefepato** » Sun Jul 08, 2018 5:52 am

hyzmarca wrote:Anyway, it's been a while since I actually read Bliss Stage, but if I remember correctly sex is probably the worst way to level up your relationship,

I don't see any downsides to using sex in the rules. A given pair of characters need to have sex to get to the highest level of relationship, unless they're related by blood. (Blood relatives get +1 intimacy to their relationship, so they don't need to commit incest to max it out. The book specifically points out that there's no reward for incest...unless your family member is adopted, I guess.)

I would actually like to see a game in which the PCs' powers are derived from relationships in some way, but preferably in a less creepy form than Bliss Stage.

Eikre · Post by **Eikre** » Sun Jul 08, 2018 9:53 pm

K wrote:
erik wrote:Why was it even a mistake? It seemed like a pretty good trade, some crappy ships for a super capital ship.

Oh, and this.
I think that having The Last Jedi on Netflix is really dangerous. I keep finding fuck-ups in the narrative.

For example, after Ghost-Yoda's whole fucking speech on how the Jedi teachings in the books kinda suck and that Luke should abandon them, and then he uses lightning to set the books on fire to highlight the point, we get to see at one of the end scenes shows that the books are in a drawer that might be Rey's room. Or not.

Why do that? Is the movie really just a mishmash of different versions of the script and the editor just put in stuff that looked cool?

Maybe the cutting makes my take on it less feasible, but I took it as a simple revelation that Rey just outright stole that shit before leaving. She knew she wasn't getting any more meaningful education out of the asshole Jedi has-been and didn't care about burning the bridge with him to get her hands on some primary source documents.

Yoda may have been deliberately covering for Rey by bilking Luke with some zen bullshit about about material detachment, knowing full well he wasn't actually destroying anything of material value. Nice.

Omegonthesane wrote:Basically it's potentially really weird and creepy to be wanking to the same things at 28 that you were at 14.

lol, fuck off, I'm gonna jerk it to memories of my first hand-job until the day I fucking die. I earned the cash in my spank-bank and I'm going to spend the interest without an iota of guilt.