Denver 5 Proof of Concept, pt 01

A few months ago, I and a friend kicked around an aborted comics project featuring superhuman jerks being jerks on a truly superhuman level. Character descriptions are here and the pilot plots are posted below.

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001

*Doctor Bob, standing at a podium, obviously speaking to an unpictured group.*

Doctor Bob (DB): "All metas trained by U.N.I.T.Y. may be called upon at any time to serve a front-line role in an emergency."

---

*Shows Cyberparanoid(CP) performing CPR on a dummy. DB's voice continues, but he is not present.*

DB: "Basic first aid should be administered unhesitatingly and expertly. U.N.I.T.Y. certification means saving lives, and doing so responsibly."

---

*Shows The Spider moving ambulances over a simple map of a city with fires on various buildings. OR CP with parts of a miniature city in front of him, a 'scoreboard' is behind him with a countdown timer and words similar to "Crisis Response Scenario 03." Regardless of the exact image, DB is again only narrating and not present.*

DB: "Whether it's because of your meta abilities or perceived affiliation with U.N.I.T.Y., others will often defer to you in a crisis."

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*Back to Bob, who's looking offscreen.* "Your goal is to be ready for any—excuse me I have to go."

Mortal Kombat Is Not a Tournament, from CollegeHumor

CollegeHumor's Favorite Funny Videos

It's the Magic: White is the Strongest

White is the strongest color in Magic not because it can deny like blue, remove like black, or swing in like red, but because when it does any of those things, it doesn't do such things with the facetiousness of a wizard copying a spell they learned, summoning a force, or clawing at an enemy, but with the absolute rules of reality-slamming down on an opponent to remind them that they no longer exist. White purifies the battlefield of your opponent's with absolute righteousness. That's why it's Magic's strongest color.

No creatures. Wrath of God is more than just letting opponents overplay their hands while keeping resources in reserve; it's the ability to destroy every creature that exists before Mirrodin. There simply aren't creature problems when a player lays out the wrath of the almighty. In the old days of Magic, Wrath was absolute because white is absolute.

Today, white has armies of tokens and other small, low-quality creatures, but thankfully it retains the ability to obliterate everything on the board. A win with clumsy, otherwise useless creatures climbing over the corpses of enemies with better assets may not be a proud victory, but it is a victory. 

They're Not Called Freepubliberals

It started as a poorly-focused Libertarian project built around promoting the work of a single individual, but became something much worse. Naming any of the players involved would be unprofessional, but for the sake of simplicity, I call the entire fiasco "The Freepublican Job."

My initial perspective of Libertarians was based on a simple concept of the political spectrum. If Republicans favored government intervention on social issues and eschewed it for economic issues and Democrats wanted government out of the social sphere and in the economic sphere, then Libertarians wanted the government out of both. On the surface, it seems like a party with a platform of responsible government spending, except without the ultra-Christian minority adding tourettes-like bylines.

As someone who watches the political landscape, I was aware of Ron Paul's repeated run for the presidency as a Libertarian in Republican's clothing. I'd known that Republican support for Libertarians was strong, but had always assumed that those on the left had as much to gain from it as the right. After all, Ron Paul opposed foreign wars, wanted to draw down the military, favored a less authoritarian approach to our relationships with other countries, and loudly decried the post-9/11 erosion of civil liberties.

Apropos of Nothing

Working with the Freepublicans

You might have noticed that I've been absent lately. Regretfully, it left an inconsistent drunkard with aspirations of counteracting centuries of female objectification by objectifying as many men as possible in charge of things around here. The upside is that I got a few extra dollars on the side working on a project of some importance. It started as a poorly-focused Libertarian project built around promoting the work of a single individual, but became something much worse. Naming any of the players involved would be unprofessional, but for the sake of simplicity, I call the entire fiasco "The Freepublican Job."

The story behind that name is funny; there's this nice country club and I'm having lunch with our benefactor, his right-hand lady, two middle management types, and another applicant. Despite the other applicant and myself not knowing much about economics or China (two subjects Libertarians like talking about), when the time came for our benefactor to point out our short comings, I--a uselessly handsome aryanish-looking man--watched as this smaller, Hispanic woman bore up under a lot of criticism we both should have shared (or been equally spared). 

Denver 5: Character Designs

A while back, a friend and I did some preliminary work for a gag-a-day comic based on a stable of characters we and some other friends came up with. I recently found some of that work and thought I'd share it. This week's offerings are basic character design notes on the central characters.

Tyler "Hellfire" Foss: Late teens/early twenties. Medium length brown hair. White. Male. No facial hair, jewelry, or glasses. No unusual appearance based on his metahuman abilities...yet. Tyler's usual style of dress includes blue jeans, a white t-shirt, and his dead friend's leather jacket (Ken).

Cyberparanoid: Your call. Though I believe the original character description I received included a trench coat. He's a typical twenty-something white nerd who isn't attractive, but isn't quite unattractive. 

It's the Magic: Dervishes

Yeah, yeah. I've played Gatecrash and it's pretty cool, but both of my Orzhov decks are awful, so fuck it; today I'm talking about custom card creation. Specifically a concept that I'm deeply in love with:

The idea with Twin-Knife Dervish (TKD) is that it can split up the damage dealt by a group of blocking creatures by giving them first strike. Then, it can simply shrug off that damage if the total isn't enough to kill it. Essentially, it uses first strike and double strike to fight two different battles, like a master swordsman cutting through waves of enemies.

Bloggers vs Neutrons

I've been working on a piece that's a general introduction to nuclear physics. I remember most of what I learned in Power School and they're very simple topics, but I'm still having problems.

Me: "'Protons are positively charged and neutrons are neutrally charged and they stick together in the nucleus of an atom because of the nuclear force.' Bravo. Good job, me. Simple concept that I assume most people know, but good job. You're a writer. Now, let's read it back while imagining I'm a newb to nuclear physics."

*Reads*

Newb Me: "So...you can have, say, helium atoms without neutrons?"
Me: "No, not really. Sort of. There are alpha particles--which have neutrons, but--"
Newb Me:  "So if neutrons and protons only interact because of the nuclear force, then a hydrogen nucleus with only one proton could be as large as a uranium neutron with 92 protons and 143 neutrons?"
Me: "What?"
Newb Me: "You just keep adding neutrons."
Me: "No...because...no."
Newb Me: "Why would you need protons at all? Can you just have an element zero on the periodic table that's just an infinitely large glob of neutrons?"
Me: "Shut your whore mouth while I internet."

Why There Should Have Been a Black Dwarf

There should have been a black dwarf in The Hobbit.

This came to me when I noticed the dwarves' noses. Not that it was the first thing about them I noticed; that was their rude assholishness. Their ridiculous noses were the second thing to jump out at me. "Why the fuck did Tolkien make them like that?" I wondered. Certainly, some of them would have a strange nose or hair-beard-braids: that's fair, but jesus-fuck! At least six of them have obvious prosthetics that place me in the theater, wondering why dwarves are the holders of The Seven Rings and the keepers of Middle Earth's greatest diversity of nasal genetic material.

Minecraft Language Settings

 

Via twidling.tumblr. (link plays music)

As per a negotiated settlement with NO ONE AT ALL, regular blogs resume Wednesday.