Fista

Originally Posted by Dark One

I liked it. I got my laughs out of it. Gwen was decent enough.

I do think this kid might make a better Peter Parker though. One of the things I disliked about Tobey was that he just looked...greasy...I guess is the best word for it, in the movies. Like if you touched him, you'd want to wipe your hand off. It bothered me. This kid felt like an actual geek that got powers rather than an almost-parody of a geek.

One thing that bothered me...the sewer bit. Not so much the action, but rather Petey in there with open cuts on him...in untreated New York City sewer water.

Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow

Because it's stealing from Jack to pay Jill, essentially. I don't disagree that characterising the existing Primal Phalanx is a good idea, but no good story should come at the expense of chucking another potentially good story down the drain. In fact, that's the greatest tragedy of Praetoria - it had the potential to be a REALLY cool new entire world with its whole host of storylines. But no. The glut for death, destruction and misery saw that entire world tossed in the bin, making me wonder why we even bothered with it in the first place. Why, really, do we bother with any of the Loyalist and Resistance actions if the end result is everyone dies and nothing matters? Win lose or draw, it all ends in unmitigated disaster with all of the storylines essentially cut short.

When I say a story is a waste of time, what I mean is that none of what happens in it matters and everything is eventually rendered null and void. It may seem cool on the first play-through, but knowing where things are going to go, it's very hard to find motivation to bother, aware as I am that my choices will eventually be rendered moot. It's why I'd like to see as many of the Praetorian Phalanx survive and continue to have additional stories, either as villains or as anti-heroes.

Originally Posted by VoodooGirl

Originally Posted by MisterMagpie

Noooo. I want to see it updated, like with a Chinatown-esque area for the Tsoo stuff, etc, but not destroyed! It could look so nice with a bit of work. And it's kind of cool when it's not a hideous death trap.

Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow

I exaggerated, and for this I apologise. All I meant to say was that I don't feel the need for a plot point to be set up and explored before it is used. It's fine if it comes up as a surprise, so long as it was foreshadowed well enough. Sorry if it seems like I descended into parody.



The Well of the Furies, as it exists today, is a new invention. It didn't exist back when the concept of the "incarnate" was being created. It's why Jack Emmert and Matt Miller were tossing around the idea of having Incarnates be an Epic AT. The Well as a sentient malevolent being that's the source of all power is a fairly new idea, so anything that "has always been tied to it" is a ret-con just by virtue of circumstance. That's not always a bad thing, mind you - tying it into Arthurian lore and the sword Excalibur? Not a bad idea. Tying it to the goddess Merulia? Not a bad idea. Tying it to Rularuu? Not a bad idea, either.

Tying it to EVERYTHING, however, very much is a bad idea, and that's my problem. The well as the alpha and the omega of the City of Heroes fictional universe is a fumble on the level of Midichlorians. It's a highly unnecessary plot device from a writing team that apparently had no interest in writing inclusive stories at the time and it frankly just ends up making stories worse by associating itself with them. Giving something a BAD explanation is vastly inferior to giving it no explanation at all, especially when you're trying to use the same one-size-fits-all explanation for everything and anything. The Origin of Powers storyline was terrible with its changes and mischaracterisation, but at least that was easy to ignore. This isn't.

Suddenly discovering that every great power within our fictional universe represents an Incarnate, either past or present, of the Well of the Furies is about the worst kind of ret-con there is, which is why I consider it to be a bad idea. It's no longer shocking or surprising. It's expected. Seeing ANYTHING in new content NOT related to the Well at least by association would be a surprise.

Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow

Like these, yes. Her breasts don't look as big in those pics as they did in-game, but the rest of the outfit is pretty much as I described it, minus one garter belt that's apparently a Carnival of Light thing... Or a Vanessa DeVore thing, alternately. It's funny how Desdemona looks more like a dominatrix than the ACTUAL Dominatrix, what with her shiny black leather needle stilettos (I guess magic gives you powerful ankles), the ridiculously constricting hot pants that leave NOTHING to the imagination and the cleavage-exposing strapless dress top. About the only thing the game does which isn't in any of her official artwork is it pushes her breasts up so they form that distinct fold line between them and her actual chest, and possibly makes them bigger. It's possible they just look bigger because of how they're shaded.

As I said, JUST Desdemona on her own is not a problem, especially since she kind of stood to contrast a lot of the female characters active at the time. Trouble is, it's not JUST Desdemona, it's Desdemona and essentially every female character to come since, Penny is only SLIGHTLY less gratuitous with her neck cover, but she still has a belly window, panties painted over her pants, pointed stilettos and her artwork shows her curving her spine and swaying her hips and twisting her ankles. It's not as gratuitous, but only just.

Originally Posted by Slaunyeh

You mean like this? Or maybe this? I'm tempted to put the NSFW warning on those.

Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow

Desdemona, as seen in Belladonna Vetrano's arc. I recall describing my first impressions of her to a friend of mine as "She's wearing a Carnival mask for some reason, she has one garter belt but no garters and her boyshorts are riding so high up her *** it's a wonder she can even walk." Subsequently, I was forced to interrupt my own sentence about something completely different to muse how it's even possible for that woman to walk in those heels at all, much less on soft soil and grass. "It's magic!" my friend responded, and it... Kind of made sense. To cut you off at the curb, I'm aware of Vanessa's fate, and Belladonna mentions it, which got us into thinking about Giovanna Scaldi, and whether there were now three people inside Desdemona's head. This prompted me to comment that if her head became too cramped, Vanessa and Giovanna could easily migrate into her breasts. "They're as big as hear head, after all." was I believe my exact phrasing. And indeed they are, with the artist feeling the need to draw fold lines where Desdemona's skimpy push-up corset had lifted her breasts up over her chest.

Originally Posted by T_Immortalus

Yeah, they're really pushing ratings boundaries on things lately. Just look at any game video from E3, or most TV.

I have to wonder how old this "son" is. Yes, it's not my place to comment and is better than violence(weird how backward the ratings are there), but some things are embarrassing to have your child watching and talking about with his friends when you could just as easily be watching it for the same "enticing or gratifying" reasons.

Originally Posted by Darth_Khasei

Don't be fooled or jaded by the past mistakes of Hollywood. This is in fact a TOP NOTCH sci-fi thriller that stands on it's own and runs strongly to the finish line.