Downtown Khazan: Ice Cold Utopia

[Beadle]

Did you self-censor the word "*******phed"?

Not sure how to parse that.

I'm glad you're excited though, you're obviously a much bigger fan of MHA than me (I'm like barely invested the show) and I'm glad it's playing well to someone who likes it.

Nah, it’s an idiosyncrasy of the site that the word very much like *******m only with less gram and more graph gets censored.

Nobody’s quite sure why.

Edit: Ooh, the gram version gets censored too. That’s new information. So clearly the site thinks t-e-l-e-g-r-a is a swear word or euphemism.

[Dark Soul # 7]

Nah, it’s an idiosyncrasy of the site that the word very much like *******m only with less gram and more graph gets censored.

Nobody’s quite sure why.

Edit: Ooh, the gram version gets censored too. That’s new information. So clearly the site thinks t-e-l-e-g-r-a is a swear word or euphemism.

Yup, that's exactly what happened.

Just gonna test that out actually.

*******

EDIT: Yup, it works. How odd.

[Sharpandpointies]

Did you self-censor the word "*******phed"?

Not sure how to parse that.

I'm glad you're excited though, you're obviously a much bigger fan of MHA than me (I'm like barely invested the show) and I'm glad it's playing well to someone who likes it.

For some reason the forum has decided to censor the word "*******ph".

Edit: Dammit, why didn't I see that coming? Okay, the word is t-e-l-e-g-r-a-p-h.

Anyways, hit that a few times in martial art discussion threads.

I got mine scheduled today as well. Next Wednesday. Limited Resistance, here I come!

Huzzah! Good stuff!

[Sharpandpointies]

Ninja'ed, I see. ^_^ Teach me to leave the response open and go off to do something before posting.

[Nik Hasta]

Well, that's interesting.

I wonder if it does English seaside town Scunthorpe as well? But that one is a bit more obvious for an overactive censor system.

Edit: It does not. How strange.

[Sharpandpointies]

Gosu.

Well, as unsatisfactory conclusions go, it wasn't the worst. Wasn't great, though. I'm interested in seeing if this will all just be epilogue, now.

Will still give the series high marks; did great until...well, last arc, for me.

[Nik Hasta]

Gosu.

Well, as unsatisfactory conclusions go, it wasn't the worst. Wasn't great, though. I'm interested in seeing if this will all just be epilogue, now.

Will still give the series high marks; did great until...well, last arc, for me.

Last arc was still... fun. I think I'd go that far.

Like... right up until spoilers:

the actual supporting cast got bodied by Hebi in favour of Ryong having to handle it and then Yong-bi of all people finally taking him out

end of spoilers the final arc was really good. Lots of fun secondary character moments, the battles with the mini-boss squad was fun, Soh Jinhong being perpetually pissed off at everything is always great fun to read. The central conceit of Ryong spoilers:

not being able to trust his memories any more

end of spoilers was well executed and, as noted earlier in this thread, I was hoping for like a heel-turn or something which would have been really interesting.

All that great stuff, lots of potential too.

Then... spoilers:

all the Dan/Okcheonbi stuff

end of spoilers and spoilers:

Yong-bi and Goo Hwi ostensibly usurping the position of the primary cast to act as secondary leads.

end of spoilers It wasn't /bad/ in of itself. I mean, I like spoilers:

Goo Hwi and Yong-bi

end of spoilers and seeing them being older and wiser and all that and still kicking ass was fun.

But!

This was not their story. Like at all. There was no real reason for them to be here when all the pieces were there for a satisfying conclusion that felt more connected to the rest of the plot. So... not bad... but extremely disappointing considering everything that had come before.

[Jcogginsa]

Not a big fan of how they're doing this in a lot of ways.



My issue with the Cass part is that they've been burying Cass for a looooong time. And this? Just another case of it. Didio is gone, but the Cass-dislike remains at DC, and even in places where she SHOULD be (if anyone should be getting this 'Martial arts tournament' arc, it's Cass, it makes little sense in a world where they have Cass and Shiva to have them out of that), she isn't.

Shiva? Well, Damian would need to beat her, right? To cement his place as 'best of the best' (this is kind of where DC is going with Damian)? And I'm thinking that even die-hard fans would just look at Damian beating Shiva in a straight-up, martial arts fight, and say 'No.' So she's out.

But heck, let's look at how this was handled in the past, how it COULD be handled WITH Shiva in a 'realistic' fashion.

A long time ago, DC had a run where Connor Hawke got hunted by a clan of dudes that went under the name of 'Brotherhood of the Monkey Fist' (with ranks, like Bronze Monkey, Silver Monkey, a very high ranker being Bamboo Monkey). The idea, see, was to cement Connor as a serious contender in the DC fighters. Anyway, this Brotherhood is also hunting basically everyone who is a martial artist (scenes show The Question, Katana, Black Canary, and other people getting attacked).

It's basically like a tournament, only not (kind of force people to fight).

Anyway, a mysterious woman shows up, wearing a paper monkey mask (almost in mockery of them), and the Monkey cult basically defers to her even if she's not one of them. She tells them to get out of her way or she'll kill them all, and (massively uncharacteristically), they just accept this. Mostly. A group of high-rankers - the Obsidian Monkeys - disagree with her, and she murders them.

It's Shiva, of course.

Anyway, Bamboo Monkey beats all hell out of Robin and Nightwing, then Connor rips him a new one. Connor now cemented in place as being well-above those two.

Shiva ends up facing Nightwing and Connor together, and disdainfully one-shots Nightwing while simultaneously blocking all of Connor's arrows. Then they fight. Shiva is basically treating it as a training session, realizing Connor hasn't reached his full potential (she wants to kill him at his full potential. She pushes him and pushes him until he's fighting at his best. It's a real fight now.

[Shiva] You've bloodied me. You may have even broken a bone or two. I cannot remember the last time that happened.

Then she beats Connor down and readies herself to kill him.

Robin - who did CPR on Shiva once and saved her life - jumps in at this point and calls due his favor. Shiva, sadly, does not recognize that she owes him squat, but decides that his courage is worth note (and has always had a soft spot for Robin, like all of her students). So she lets Connor off the hook.

So what do we have?

Effectively a tournament to show how good Connor is. Named people show up and struggle against the Monkeys. Connor does brilliantly against them. End of the line, Connor fights the best - Shiva. He does well enough that it's notable, but Shiva wins. Connor gets saved by someone else stepping in and calling in a debt. All of which does solidify Connor as one of the best of the best, as he was capable of going toe to toe with Shiva and actually hurting her in a fight.

The hero doesn't need to WIN to show their stuff.

To play Devil's advocate here, you're kind of judging this before it comes out. For all you know This will end with Damian losing to Connor but putting in an impressive showing

[Sharpandpointies]

Last arc was still... fun. I think I'd go that far.

Like... right up until spoilers:

the actual supporting cast got bodied by Hebi in favour of Ryong having to handle it and then Yong-bi of all people finally taking him out

end of spoilers the final arc was really good. Lots of fun secondary character moments, the battles with the mini-boss squad was fun, Soh Jinhong being perpetually pissed off at everything is always great fun to read. The central conceit of Ryong spoilers:

not being able to trust his memories any more

end of spoilers was well executed and, as noted earlier in this thread, I was hoping for like a heel-turn or something which would have been really interesting.

All that great stuff, lots of potential too.

Then... spoilers:

all the Dan/Okcheonbi stuff

end of spoilers and spoilers:

Yong-bi and Goo Hwi ostensibly usurping the position of the primary cast to act as secondary leads.

end of spoilers It wasn't /bad/ in of itself. I mean, I like spoilers:

Goo Hwi and Yong-bi

end of spoilers and seeing them being older and wiser and all that and still kicking ass was fun.

But!

This was not their story. Like at all. There was no real reason for them to be here when all the pieces were there for a satisfying conclusion that felt more connected to the rest of the plot. So... not bad... but extremely disappointing considering everything that had come before.

You went into greater detail than me, and essentially summed it up. There were parts of the final arc I enjoyed. There were parts I just...bleah.

Basically, for me it was spoilers:

the Dan business, and how fights turned into hugely long power-up/regen-fests where the interesting secondary characters were, in the end, useless. That wasn't great. And yeah, while I really liked seeing Yong-Bi and (moreso!) Goo Hwi doing stuff and showing their skills, it - as you say - wasn't THEIR story.

end of spoilers

I guess 'good by the standards of the industry, pretty bad by the standards of the bar the manhwa itself had set by its earlier arcs' does indeed cover it.

[bruceleegreyhulk]

[Sharpandpointies]

I have a co-worker who...I don't know WHERE he gets his information, but he was in here (office) today regurgitating the idea that the Covid virus was created in a lab...why? Because it's too dangerous to be natural.

*strangling motions with hands*

[Beadle]

I have a co-worker who...I don't know WHERE he gets his information, but he was in here (office) today regurgitating the idea that the Covid virus was created in a lab...why? Because it's too dangerous to be natural.

*strangling motions with hands*

Hey, in this country, Piers Corbyn, the brother of the former Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn, is going to run for London Mayor, and he’s a confirmed anti-vaxxer who spent a lot of last year spreading the story that COVID was being spread by 5G masts.

So, y’know... your one co-worker? Could be worse. o_0

[Tami]

I have a co-worker who...I don't know WHERE he gets his information, but he was in here (office) today regurgitating the idea that the Covid virus was created in a lab...why? Because it's too dangerous to be natural.

*strangling motions with hands*

The head of the CDC under Trump, Robert Redfield, admitted that he believes the virus was made in a lab in China. This is the guy who ran the CDC, normally considered a leading scientific organization worldwide.

[Beadle]

The head of the CDC under Trump, Robert Redfield, admitted that he believes the virus was made in a lab in China. This is the guy who ran the CDC, normally considered a leading scientific organization worldwide.

I mean technically it COULD have been created in a lab. Bio-weapons are an actual thing.

I suspect Sharp’s bigger complaint is the reasoning behind his co-worker’s belief. That it was too dangerous to be natural.

Because of course nature didn’t bring us cancer, Ebola, malaria or AIDS.

[Sharpandpointies]

Hey, in this country, Piers Corbyn, the brother of the former Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn, is going to run for London Mayor, and he’s a confirmed anti-vaxxer who spent a lot of last year spreading the story that COVID was being spread by 5G masts.

So, y’know... your one co-worker? Could be worse. o_0

Truth. It could be worse in society. *sighs*

It's just...on an irritation level (not in a 'danger to society' level) that this guy is in my face with this crap, and I'm stuck hearing about it until I blow my top. At work. <-- this is not good.

I mean, this guy is the kind where he starts with 'well, it's really dangerous. And that's not normal. So maybe it started in a lab.'

And then you say 'X# researchers have looked into the gene - here, I'll google it for you - and show that it doesn't show signs of laboratory manipulation at all. And that kind of thing, they can see. And they've traced it back to this species (with one skip, presumably to a yet unknown species) of bat. See? It's all right here, cross-referenced and shown in this google search in peer-reviewed stuff.'

*small pause*

'Yeah, but it's really dangerous. And that's not normal. So maybe it started in a lab.'

*strangling motions*

...also, what is it with Brits named Piers?