I Feel Old And I'm Only 22

I remember a Astro City comic that also dealt with regular people having access to super tech stuff but being Astro City it explicitly addressed how this stuff wouldn’t get out and would stay in the hands of Superheroes and Supervillians

Now one thing I find really stylistically interesting about Batman Beyond, is that a lot of the mechanisms by which the supervillians do their thing come part-and-parcel with the cyberpunk setting, rather than being an aberration resulting purely from the superheroic genre elements. This is the future of a quote-unquote "present-day" DCU, meaning that they've superficially addressed the question of why all the cutting-edge supertech used in the cape scene never seems to see mass adoption by the civilian sector- forty years later, it has. This means that It's never hard to grok where any given villain is getting the resources necessary to execute their gimmick; these people are flashy by our standards, but they live in a world where everyone has access to flying cars and antigravity drones. Half these people are doing the cyberpunk equivalent of going killdozer with repurposed industrial equipment, or kludging together something with off-the-shelf stuff from radio shack, or mounting a machine gun on a technical truck, and literally in the middle of typing this sentence I started the episode where there's mass-market off-the-shelf animal gene-splicing that would have been a whole-ass individualized origin story in the time of Batman: The Animated Series. Even one-off mutants like Inque and Blight are well-understood within the context of the setting, to the extent of Inque being able to make a knockoff of herself on the go.

This is dystopic. Beyond the genre-typical surface-level megacorp domination of society it's dystopic. On the meta-level it's the same dynamic as Superman: The Animated Series, where the reason there's a sudden uptick in weird costumed crime concurrent with the protagonist's debut is purely Doylistic- the hero needs punching bags. But within the logic of the setting, there's nothing special about Willy Watt's decision to go full Carrie using a hijacked construction robot besides the fact that he had somewhat easier access to the thing than the average school-shooter. Spellbinder being able to put together functional illusion-and-mind-control tech on a high-school counselor's salary- when his entire complaint is that he isn't being paid enough- implies that the main barrier to anyone else pulling the same brainwashing stunt is that nobody else thought to. Shriek's sound suit might be more a more roundabout demolition tool than dynamite, but it's still powerful enough to bring down buildings and he created it as a fly-by-night contractor. The consumer tech base is evolved to the point that regardless of when Batman shows up, shit like this should literally never not be happening- they're past an inflection point. I remember Syndrome from The Incredibles having some kind of line about this

This is just the plot of Pale

“You need to find God,” says the man at the door. “No I’m good, thank you,” you say, starting to close the door. “Please!” says the man urgently. “God is missing, please find him!”

Anomalous Item #4742: A set of 173 VHS tapes with blank labels.

When a tape label is filled out (there are provided fields for title, director, and year) and then placed into any functioning VCR, the film listed will play, regardless of if it existed before the tape was played.

This was first believed to be an effect limited to the tapes, ie, the tapes were somehow generating the movie themselves through some method similar to AI art generation, but after initial tests were performed the paratime division discovered the effect is actually antichronological: when played, the tapes don't simply create the movie named, they alter the past so that the movie mentioned was created.

Thus, after a tape is labeled and played, it can be found on streaming services and in DVD rental stores. The directors, if still alive, will recall making the film, and actors who were active at the time the film was "made" will have anecdotes about events that happened in the film.

This can have ripple effects as well; during the 9th test, the film Big Trouble in Little China, 1986, directed by John Carpenter, was created. Besides the immediate effects of creating a new film that hadn't existed, an indirect effect was that the film Alien 2, 1985, John Carpenter, ceased to exist. Instead, the sequel to the 1979 film Alien (directed by Ridley Scott) was titled Aliens and directed by James Cameron. It's believed that by adding a new movie to the timeline of John Carpenter's direction, he no longer had time to direct one of the works he had directed in the original timeline, as he would have been busy directing the newly-added film, and directing roles therefore passed to another director.

Use of the tapes can also implicitly affect the lifespan of directors. In test #17, Researcher J. Calhoun attempted to generate a film that couldn't possibly exist: a prequel to a film made by a director who had died decades beforehand.

According to paratime research, the writing of "Star Wars: Episode 1, 1999, George Lucas" on the tape and the subsequent viewing undid the 1981 death of Mr. Lucas, causing Star Wars: Episode 6: Revenge of the Jedi to come out in 1983 instead of 1985, be titled "Return of the Jedi" instead, and it would be directed by George Lucas instead of Steven Spielberg.

This obviously had additional effects as it didn't merely extend the lifespan of George Lucas by an additional 18 years: at time of writing in 2022, he is still alive at the age of 78. It's therefore believed that the object doesn't unnaturally extend the lifespan of the director, it instead reshapes the flow of time so that any events that would stop them from filming the listed movie do not happen.

After discovery of their history altering nature, the remaining anomalous objects have been locked in secure storage at site #22. No further testing is authorized, and emergency use requires level #6 authorization, which will only be granted in the face of imminent disaster requiring paratime remedies.

Article update[2022-11-20]: an incident occurred where it was discovered that former researcher K. Synnol had acquired one of the tapes (see investigation document 2483 for details) and was attempting to use it for history modification, without approval. The paratime division detected the impending history alteration and an assault team was dispatched. Synnol was apprehended before they could complete the use of the tape, however the label WAS filled out but the tape remained unwatched. What effects, if any, the partial use of the anomalous artifact would have on the timeline is unknown, but in previous testing the film only came into being when the labeled tape was placed into a VCR and watched.

See photo attachment #2, below, for artifact 1B, recovered after the Synnol event.

Okay so in house of Ashes I think that basically the “vampires” are actually intelligent and formed a civilization but then the parasite came and that’s the reason they’re so violent. That also explains why they were able to build a spaceship/city but didn’t invent guns because the parasite can’t use them so they didn’t. Also explains why they are so physically adept since the parasite made them that way.

I don’t know if this is a common theory but I haven’t seen anyone else say anything and I wanted it out there

Edit: check the comments

Just finished The Power Fantasy #7 and it’s a really good look on both Eliza and the Second Summer of Love, and I’m so glad they didn’t just have the Summer be a cop out “the queen was just evil and everyone was too dumb to notice”

i think the world doesn’t know what it really means to live in a theocratic dictatorship. Let me tell you about our experiences living in the islamic regime of iran.

1. Your parents were born to muslim parents so they’re automatically muslim. You’re automatically a muslim too. You didn’t choose your religion and you can’t opt out of it or you will be executed.

2. The compulsory hijab law makes you a criminal if you choose not to wear hijab even tho you didn’t choose to be a muslim and you don’t consider yourself a muslim but the regime has forced you into that role whether you like it or not. And when you ‘break that law’, they can do with you as they please.

3. little girls as young as 7 yrs old are forced to wear hijab at school even tho the islam itself says the age is 9. and all the schools are gender segregated so imagine how they force you to get used to hijab even when you’re just surrounded by other girls. And all day long at school they tell you horrible stories about what will happen to you in hell if someone sees even a strand of your hair.

4. the regime modifies all the textbooks, story books, cartoons and movies to represent the ideal woman with full on hijab. The iranian media is ordered to photoshop every photo of a woman that may be showing a little skin. And if they’re iranian, no hair is supposed to be seen or that will be photoshopped away. Women are mostly excluded from billboards and tv commercials.

5. imagine going to work or meeting up with a friend when suddenly the morality police kidnap you in broad daylight and force you into a van to take you to a station where they will treat you like a criminal and if you don’t agree to get humiliated and do as they say, they will put you in prison. And in case of Mahsa Amini and so many more before her, they will beat you to death. My sister was barely 18 when she got kidnapped and they didn’t let her call home and she’d been so fucking scared and we had no idea where she was. Imagine all the psychological trauma.

6. If you’re in a car and not wearing hijab they will fine you and seize your car. So when u get into a taxi the driver will ask you to keep your hijab on otherwise they’ll get fined. And if you refuse they’ll ask you to get off the car.

7. And its not just about hijab. In Ramadan, they get even more vicious. If they catch you eating or even drinking water on the street they will give you lashes as punishment and even imprison you for breaking the law. If you work in a state-owned company it’s even worse. They will close the cafeteria and take away the water dispensers. All restaurants are banned from delivering food before iftar. It’s a fucking mess. Everyone has to pretend they’re fasting or they’ll be severely punished.

So if you see Islam has become for many iranians a symbol of oppression and torture and discrimination, that’s why. The regime uses islam as a weapon to silence and punish anyone who opposes them. You can love islam all you want from the safety of your home in a free country and talk about how kind and benevolent the religion is, but in iran, it’s a whole different story.

Our economy is fucked. All govt officials are corrupt as fuck. Most websites are banned in iran. Even tumblr is banned. The world has cut the iranian ppl from many services. We don’t have intl credit cards like visa card. Amazon doesn’t do delivery to iran. We cant get netflix, spotify or even a gamepass subscription. we don’t get any Apple services here. iran isn’t listed as a country you could choose when signing up for a lot of services. and when we decide to leave iran and escape this hellhole, every country out there will make it sooo much harder for us to get a visa just bc we had the misfortune to be born in iran at the wrong time.

This is the story of iran for the past 44 years. Held hostage by a corrupt regime that uses religion to suppress and torture the people and being abandoned by the rest of the world bc our lives don’t matter.

Please be our voice. Once they shut down the internet completely and silence our voice, they will start slaughtering us to stifle the protests just like they did in 2019. Please help us. We want this fucking regime gone.

holy fuck universal gaslight god is terrifying but the fact the press secretary is so scary is so good, and the best part he might not even realize it

like i’m 50/50 does he know what he’s doing or is Shrews whole area actually just way more fucked up than inner Glottage and those threats don’t really exist in Glottage

i love in fantasy when its like “king galamir the mighty golden eagle and his most trusted advisor who would never betray him, gruelworm bloodeye the treacherous”

lancer ass coding

concept: guy who leaves a lot of comments in their code which should be good but the problem is they're all written like this

Yeah I feel Alexandria would probably win if only because she actually knows how to fight and has the whole Thinker thing going on

I enjoy The Boys but one major problem I have with it is that it’s so hard to compare strengths to other settings, like we never see Homelander challenged so we have no clue how’d he fair against others which I get is maybe sorta the point with it being like him as a medium fish on a small pond but it’s still annoying