General Inspiration Thread

So whenever anyone brings up the molecular lathe, I always think about it working similar to  this game  ( Opus Magnum , which is a personal favorite).  Setup an assembly line, feed in a lot of simple carbon (or essential salts, due to this game being alchemy-based) and let it work for a while and you come back to all sorts of interesting things (sadly not always what you wanted, due to mistakes you made along the way).

Looks like  Secrets of AEGIS is finally out for people who didn't back the Kickstarter.  Quite a nice read.  The Agents of AEGIS playset sounds particularly interesting.

Recently read the digital version of Tom King's Vision limited series, and was so wowed that I purchased the hardcover just so I could have it and/or loan it out to others. Gripping, understated-yet-Shakespearean-epic psychodrama about the Vision building a normal family, living in a normal suburban house, and trying to have a normal life ... and how it all spirals into madness, murder, and pathos. Very cool story, and while it's absolutely not  anything that meshes with the Newmans, if Alycia read comics, she'd be even more wide-eyed over this (even though, ultimately, it's parable of any  human striving for normalcy). Good stuff.

A very good series Dave, especially considering it was twice used in two different breakdown videos from Strip Panel Naked:  one for their excellent panel blocking and composition , and  another in their series on different grid panel layout breakdowns (this one for the 9 panel grid) .  Both very good watches if you are interested in the art and mechanics of comic making.

Mike said: A very good series Dave, especially considering it was twice used in two different breakdown videos from Strip Panel Naked:  one for their excellent panel blocking and composition , and  another in their series on different grid panel layout breakdowns (this one for the 9 panel grid) .  Both very good watches if you are interested in the art and mechanics of comic making. Not surprised -- the art was clean, understated, and terribly impactful.

<a href="https://imgur.com/gallery/E18gpr7" rel="nofollow">https://imgur.com/gallery/E18gpr7</a> - the kid who draws monsters. This covers a lot of character types I love.

Bill G. said: <a href="https://imgur.com/gallery/E18gpr7" rel="nofollow">https://imgur.com/gallery/E18gpr7</a> - the kid who draws monsters. This covers a lot of character types I love. That 404ed. (Though it's a great 404 page.)

It was comic panels of this character:&nbsp;<a href="http://marvel.wikia.com/wiki/Kei_Kawade_(Earth-616)" rel="nofollow">http://marvel.wikia.com/wiki/Kei_Kawade_(Earth-616)</a>

Ah! Kid Kaiju. Fun.&nbsp;

So Aaron Diaz&nbsp; ( creator of Dresden Codak [If you don't already read it I recommend it, though with plenty of asterisks*.]) posted a breakdown of main character&nbsp; Kimiko Ross' cybernetic enhancements and as soon as I read nanofiber tendons, my first thought was "hmm, probably not too dissimilar from the Newman girls, save for the digital/analog bridge." * It's good.&nbsp; It delves into deep concepts that I'm not sure anyone follows with 100% accuracy (at least not without having to do some research).&nbsp; There's the loosest of continuity which can drive you crazy (which is why I recommend the one-shots over the serialized stories).&nbsp; And the author is an epic perfectionist which helps makes his work come out at a glacial pace (and I wouldn't know anything about that).&nbsp; But when it's&nbsp; on point , it's&nbsp; on point .

One of these days I'll take vacation enough to read the whole series with all the attention it deserves, and maybe then I'll grok half of it. :) I've been very thorough about basing almost all the Newman tech on what's at least possible, and assuming Leo's power includes "overcome engineering challenges in a given scientific field" (the sole exception is their power supply). Dresden Codak has done its freakin' homework way more than I have, and I've leeched off its ideas from time to time. And other times, we both drink from the same well. A real-life example from 2012:&nbsp; <a href="https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2012/11/wax-filled" rel="nofollow">https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2012/11/wax-filled</a>... Even from that far back, that's pretty good. The current human dead-lift record is about 457 kg. 85 times that is about 40 tons, which is the stated figure for Aria and Summer to lift. Kimiko's quoted at 8 tons in the second link, which makes sense if you build a multi-purpose limb. Leo didn't: his girls are solid muscle and armor, no implant tools or other fanciness. The built-in levitation system drops that a bit, but not much. Similarly, the carbon allotropes I've described really can carry that much strain, and more. Running speed is interesting, because longer legs contribute a lot more than sheer power of muscular contraction. If you can do it, it's better to move in a series of jumps or forward leaps - watch a&nbsp; cheetah in slow motion for example. Summer can't run like a cheetah, but we have Aria&nbsp; jumping grasshopper-style to move quickly, and she could probably hit 100 km/h or better in doing so. And of course, "technology is shaped by philosophy and vice versa, it's all connected" has been my entire god damn character.

After that post, this article immediately hit my feed:&nbsp; <a href="https://arstechnica.com/science/2018/05/forget-car" rel="nofollow">https://arstechnica.com/science/2018/05/forget-car</a>... The stuff is "25 times the strength of Kevlar". I f'in love science.

Bill G. said: After that post, this article immediately hit my feed:&nbsp; <a href="https://arstechnica.com/science/2018/05/forget-car" rel="nofollow">https://arstechnica.com/science/2018/05/forget-car</a>... The stuff is "25 times the strength of Kevlar". I f'in love science. I'm a regular Ars reader, so I'd read it earlier in the day.&nbsp; How telling is that it immediately made me think of this game before all the cool engineering applications? :P I expect it will be very cool once they figure out how to make the strands longer that centimeter scale.&nbsp; A long, flexible, strong material with some of the best thermal conductivity in material science and (presumably) good electrical conductivity?&nbsp; Yeah, some interesting stuff is going to get made of that. * I say presumably because of what I suspect, given my passing knowledge of material science.&nbsp; I imagine it's a lot closer in conductivity to graphene than a diamond.&nbsp; Someone correct me if I'm wrong.

Something Maury needs <a href="http://latining.tumblr.com/post/173968397223/teratomarty-sizvideos-a-man-has-built-ogo-a/amp" rel="nofollow">http://latining.tumblr.com/post/173968397223/teratomarty-sizvideos-a-man-has-built-ogo-a/amp</a>

Doyce T. said: Something Maury needs <a href="http://latining.tumblr.com/post/173968397223/teratomarty-sizvideos-a-man-has-built-ogo-a/amp" rel="nofollow">http://latining.tumblr.com/post/173968397223/teratomarty-sizvideos-a-man-has-built-ogo-a/amp</a> Very cool. I suspect the nature of various disabilities that require a wheelchair make different types and models more practical. But the idea of movement through core exercise is pretty darned nifty.

[Whelmed : the Young Justice files] Discussion : Marie-Claire Gould : Mythology and Superheroes <a href="http://podplayer.net/#/?id=50154770" rel="nofollow">http://podplayer.net/#/?id=50154770</a> Has a strong DC tilt since this is a young justice podcast, but the analysis of mythology, superhero acts, and the Teen experience is really good, especially from the guest speaker.

Doyce T. said: Has a strong DC tilt since this is a young justice podcast, but the analysis of mythology, superhero acts, and the Teen experience is really good, especially from the guest speaker. Doyce thanks for the link.&nbsp; This really hit me in my mythology fanboy-isms when they started to talk about Jason and Argonauts as my favorite podcast ( Myths & Legends ) made the same comparison (calling it an Avengers-style team-up).&nbsp; When I finally get to watching Young Justice I'll have to keep an eye out for all the allusions to Greece legends that they mentioned (not surprised that there would be, creator Greg Weisman also headed up Gargoyles &nbsp;back in the 90's and if you knew your Shakespeare you were in for a lot of nods, allusions, and misdirections).

The JL8 High School edition (zoom in, lots of detail):&nbsp;<a href="https://i.imgur.com/qQ99ilw.jpg" rel="nofollow">https://i.imgur.com/qQ99ilw.jpg</a>

Since we talk Voltron every now an then in this game, I figured I'd share this&nbsp; post of actual production art from season one of Voltron: Legendary Defender .&nbsp; Always interesting to see impressive work starting somewhere.

Mike said: Since we talk Voltron every now an then in this game, I figured I'd share this&nbsp; post of actual production art from season one of Voltron: Legendary Defender .&nbsp; Always interesting to see impressive work starting somewhere. Very cool. Also cool to see the S.6 drop date (15 June). :-D

So was watching some breakdown videos about Thor Ragnarok (as you do) and they brought up that the music for&nbsp; the trailer was a song by a group called&nbsp; Magic Sword (specifically,&nbsp; In the Face of Evil ).&nbsp; Did some further digging and, while they appear to only have one album,&nbsp; that album sounds like the soundtrack to some amazing space fantasy epic that we were never given.&nbsp; Certainly worth a listen if this is your sort of thing (I would compare it favorably to&nbsp; Daft Punk's Tron Legacy soundtrack).

Definitely has that&nbsp; New Retro Wave thing going on. I checked and they in fact have a review of the Thor Ragnarok soundtrack&nbsp; here . Similar acts would include Dynatron and pretty much anything else on&nbsp; this YouTube channel. Edit: the genre in general is called Synthwave. There's a ton of other interesting stuff happening in neighboring spaces, like Electro swing (a friend of mine literally asked me "hey, I want some music like from the Star Wars cantina" and I could point him to an entire genre).

Thanks for the links Bill! I remember enjoying the music quite a bit throughout Thor Ragnarok.&nbsp; Reading that review and realizing that&nbsp; Mark&nbsp;Mothersbaugh was the one who put the soundtrack together made that make a lot of sense.

In other news,&nbsp; self-healing circuits are a thing now.&nbsp; Seems like something up the Newman alley.

Mike said: In other news,&nbsp; self-healing circuits are a thing now.&nbsp; Seems like something up the Newman alley. There's a ton of interesting stuff in that field. The carbon nanotubes that the robots use will "heal" naturally, for example, as an integral chemical property rather than any explicit nanotech. You can't really stop it without some kind of exotic comic-book physics. I can't find where it was reported (and hence where I saw it), but&nbsp; this paper describes a related idea - how do you make a power distribution system stand up to stress, and self-heal if possible? Running an ionic solution across graphene layers produces an electrical current. The robots have a circulatory system of ionic "blood", and as long as it's pumping, they don't worry about cut or bent wires. Conduction is through a fluid medium rather than a wire (which can bend or break), so it's much harder for them to lose power. Leo's taking absolutely no chances that mechanical failure will kill his friends.

Found this online actually sung by members of the Voltron cast.&nbsp;<a href="https://youtu.be/zoeGe82AFm0" rel="nofollow">https://youtu.be/zoeGe82AFm0</a>

So this article is far from perfect (it's got some factual errors, not to mention a few too many shakes of polemic stirred in), but it raises at least a few interesting questions that had knock-on applicability to this campaign:&nbsp; Why Must Robot Women Fall in Love to Be Human? (Applicability at least as a contra-factual discussion item. I personally don't think Summer shows a particular imperative to romantic entanglement, somewhat to Jason's conflicted frustration. And even though Aria and Leo are in relationship, to Alycia's distaste, with reverberations of Leo / Pneuma's original creation tale, Aria's humanity doesn't seem dependent on her love affair with Leo. But they are both noteworthy in that way, as well in how their "humanity" story feel different from Otto's.

Subverting that trope into the ground is the reason for Pneuma's existence, yeah. It's been really important for me to give her things to do outside "be in a relationship". Even if they weren't in love, for example, she'd be acting as his business partner, looking after her sister, having stern talks with Alycia, etc. I've got a scene that needs Leo, Aria, and Summer back together that'll talk more about this too.

I guess I can go one further: I'd like to think that the test of Pneuma's personhood was that she could grow past "being in love with a human male".

I'm a big believer, personally, in the transformative power of love, and its critical role in growth as &nbsp;a human. But I agree that being a human/person is more than just romantic love, and for many people growing past just that being the focus of their existence is a sign of truly growing up.&nbsp; (Indeed, I could wax eloquent, and preach to the choir in some instances, about the dangers of the monomaniacal blindness of young romance/sexuality that becomes a barrier to growth as a person, and how, when growth does inevitably occur, those relationships are difficult to sustain.) The Pneuma / Numina / Aria / Summer tale is very refreshing in going beyond those happily-ever-after mythology (even while it has richer happily-ever-after aspirations).&nbsp; (Alycia judges the Newmans unfairly, not just in their origin, but in how they are far exceeding what she sees them as being, including in these particulars.)

James H. said: Found this online actually sung by members of the Voltron cast.&nbsp; <a href="https://youtu.be/zoeGe82AFm0" rel="nofollow">https://youtu.be/zoeGe82AFm0</a> I should have said this before... Thank you!

I'm not saying this is Alycia. Or Jason. Just ... putting it out there, because we've gotten so multiversal ... ( Source )

I have no idea if Dave has seen this, but if not, I think this is Alycia Chin: The Movie.&nbsp;<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HwLY3aiT26U&feature=youtu.be" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HwLY3aiT26U&feature=youtu.be</a>

HA!

Hmmm, someone on the G+ community is making a very&nbsp; Charlotte-centric playbook .&nbsp; A couple of the moves could use some work ( Chivalry Isn't Dead , while flavorful and has a trigger I'd expect for this kind of character, mechanically is very odd and doesn't really benefit you) but I think it is going in an interesting direction.

ZOE Official Trailer (2018):&nbsp; <a href="https://youtube.com/watch?v=iqQu4p-0S80" rel="nofollow">https://youtube.com/watch?v=iqQu4p-0S80</a> Lea Seydoux, Ewan McGregor, Rashida Jones, synthetic lifeforms built to love. Hmm....

Don't know if anyone follows the Humble Bundles or not, but this week they've got a lot of DC Comics audiobooks by GraphicAudio . Can't speak to the quality of these (I'm downloading a couple now and prepping for work tomorrow) but I know I've gotten a couple of books from GraphicAudio before and the quality and production values were very well done.

After seeing this , I'm kind of looking forward to the Menagerie all tiredly wandering into a Waffle House or something post-battle sometime in the future.&nbsp; Sure I remember the pizza party, but it doesn't have that same "Ugh, why am I not dead?&nbsp; At least the food's good." feeling.

I'm totally down for a grateful-to-be-alive binge at the local greasy spoon or equivalent.

I'll throw this out here since Bill linked to it at the end of the session, probably after everyone had dropped off. Source

Another thing Bill (I think it was) posted mid-game, in case folk didn't have the chance to look at it then. This one's for Harry. Outracing a nuclear blast (cued to the right moment). Very nice.

Anatomy of a Metahuman: presented as an in universe look at DC characters.&nbsp;<a href="https://io9.gizmodo.com/this-book-about-the-anatomy-of-dc-heroes-and-villains-l-1827391228/" rel="nofollow">https://io9.gizmodo.com/this-book-about-the-anatomy-of-dc-heroes-and-villains-l-1827391228/</a>

Speed Dating for Ghosts&nbsp;<a href="https://www.theverge.com/2018/7/8/17536194/speed-dating-for-ghosts-romance-steam-itch-io-short-play" rel="nofollow">https://www.theverge.com/2018/7/8/17536194/speed-dating-for-ghosts-romance-steam-itch-io-short-play</a>

Bill G. said: Speed Dating for Ghosts&nbsp; <a href="https://www.theverge.com/2018/7/8/17536194/speed-dating-for-ghosts-romance-steam-itch-io-short-play" rel="nofollow">https://www.theverge.com/2018/7/8/17536194/speed-dating-for-ghosts-romance-steam-itch-io-short-play</a> I am sure &nbsp;that Miss Charlotte would never settle for anything less than a properly paced courtship.

Ghosts in this world can interact to an extent with humans, and with physical things, but they are also intangible, can go anywhere, don’t need to eat or sleep, and don’t get sick or old. Their needs are very different from a living person’s. In terms of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, they basically don’t have physiological or safety needs, and so what drives them is more often about emotional or psychological. The speed dating, and the dates that follow, aren’t so much about romance and love: the focus is on being supportive and present for someone as they work through something. Not that this couldn’t eventually lead to a romantic relationship, but things don’t continue on that far in the game. Some of this paragraph applies to Newmans as well, so it's not of interest just to Charlotte. :) And some of it might apply to some of her friends . I'd like to think that ghosts can be more than just fuel for her wound-closing activities, and I was looking forward to seeing more details like this emerge in play. Hopefully we'll see that in game again.

Real life Honey Lemon/Nono Rodriguez.&nbsp;<a href="https://imgur.com/gallery/b8LoEAE" rel="nofollow">https://imgur.com/gallery/b8LoEAE</a>

Bill G. said: And some of it might apply to some of her friends . I'd like to think that ghosts can be more than just fuel for her wound-closing activities, and I was looking forward to seeing more details like this emerge in play. Hopefully we'll see that in game again. Agreed!

I doubt I'd actually go see this in theaters, but the RogerEbert.com review of " Eighth Grade " makes it sound like it'd be useful viewing for anyone creating a younger character in Masks, and who didn't already have kids or recent memories of their own for reference material.

<a href="http://damedaffodil.tumblr.com/post/118748481551/updates-monday-and-fridays-gmt-10" rel="nofollow">http://damedaffodil.tumblr.com/post/118748481551/updates-monday-and-fridays-gmt-10</a> A slice of life story about a girl who runs into danger with open arms and a smile.&nbsp; Updates every Monday. There's some old-school magical-girl-esque shenanigans going on, maaaaybe? But mostly here's a super-cheerful and optimistic girl doing good however she can, so I'm enjoying it for that.