RemusShepherd

I'm not a big fan of steampunk. But this:

Does it bother anyone else that the Doctor just began the genocide of the Silence?

With that, and the gunfight at the end of the episode, this felt more like an episode of Torchwood than Doctor Who. The Doctor I know didn't kill things, and didn't let his companions go nuts with firearms, and tried everything he could to avoid genocide. This entire two-parter just felt wrong to me.

I have grown so accustomed to my CoX keyboard layout that I try to emulate it in any other game I play.

I never use the keyboard for turning, ever. Mouselook is my friend. So I use WASD, but A and D are for left and right strafing.

The Q and E buttons I have bound for targeting -- Q is target previous, E is target next. This lets me quickly cycle through a horde of enemies to find the one I need to get. I've also bound shift+Q as "target previous friendly" and shift+E as "target next friendly", which lets me select teammates quickly, although my empaths and buffing defenders have additional keypad layouts to select team members by number.

To complete the left-hand layout, I use Z and C for toggle powers (up to three toggles per key; shift+ the key turns those toggles off). X is left unbound for flyers, so I can use it as the default 'fly down' key. For non-flyers X becomes a third toggle button.

CoX deserves a lot of credit for having one of the most customizable input schemes ever. It's spoiled me for a lot of other games.

I don't see Gaga as a modern-day Madonna. Madonna used sex appeal to sell her songs, while Gaga is androgynous and more concerned with looking different than looking sexy.

The person whose career Gaga is emulating is Elton John. She has the ambiguous sexuality, the outrageous costumes, and the mostly-mindless pop songs backed by a surprisingly high level of musical talent. And judging by last year's Grammy performance, I think Elton is honored to have someone else continuing his tradition of the flamboyant pop star.

I just have to geek about this.

I work at a local sci-fi convention. This year I was staffing the registration desk, which happened to be next to Children's Programming. The head of Children's Programming placed a box full of comic books on my table with a sign attached saying 'For Kids Only'.

Most of the time I spent at Registration I was reading those comic books and trying to pick my jaw up off the floor.

At the end of the con I talked with the head of Children's Programming. Apparently she has a bunch of old comics in her basement that she gives away to kids who might enjoy them. Nobody took one at this con; I swear that I did not ask, but she offered the comics in the box to me.

These are early 1970's Incredible Hulk and Hulk/Sub-Mariner comics, all written by Stan Lee, Roy Thomas, and one by Harlan Ellison. They are drawn by Trimbe, Romita, and two of them by Jack Freakin' Kirby.

They're in terrible shape. The pages are falling out of the spine, they covered in dirt and folds. So they're not worth anything. But OMFG I feel like someone just dropped golden tablets in my lap.

My instinct is to cover them in plastic and protect them like the children I never had. But that would be against the spirit in which they were given. She wanted them to be read and enjoyed and I intend to do that. I may scan them in so that I never lose them. That will probably destroy what's left of their spines.

I just...I had to geek about this. OMG.

I liked this episode pretty well. But it was so dark, and had way too many handheld cam shots. It seemed more like an episode of Torchwood than Dr. Who.

Lately life has been stressful for me, and when I need to relax I've been watching episodes of that little show that everyone watches but no one talks about -- My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic. It's taken me a while, but I've figured out why I like the show so much, and it's not just the great characters, strong plotlines and terrific art direction.

It's the story of a superhero team.

I should have realized this before. It's a team of individuals each of whom has special abilities, and they all wear a visible insignia -- the cutie mark -- that symbolizes them and their powers. This is basic superhero storytelling.

The latest episode made it clear. They revealed the secret origins of all the main cast -- as in, how they received their cutie marks -- and the plotline is just like a silver age comic. When she pushed the limit of her natural ability to fly, Rainbow Dash created a sonic rainboom. This magical event touched the lives of the other five ponies and activated their powers. It was the White Event of the MLP universe.

Most importantly it flipped Twilight Sparkle from a shy youth who wasn't very good at magic into a chaotic, dangerous force. (And when she triggered and her eyes went all glowy, who wasn't thinking 'Super Saiyan'?) Princess Celestia immediately shut down the growing catastrophe, just as Professor Xavier shut down the adolescent Jean Grey. Unicorns can only do magic related to their cutie mark, but Twilight's cutie mark gives her magic itself as her special talent. Next to Celestia and her sister Luna, Twilight Sparkle is probably the third most powerful pony in all of Equestria.

(The rest of the main cast is up there in power level also. We have one pony that's super strong and durable, one superspeedster, one with control over all animals and...well, and Pinkie Pie, who is best described as the Scarlet Witch on ecstasy. Only Rarity gets the short stick in the power department; the ability to detect precious gems isn't really a combat skill.)

The rest of the show makes perfect sense in this light. In the pilot, when Celestia realized that a threat was looming that might take her out of commission, she arranged for Twilight to meet the other ponies whose powers were triggered at the same time as hers. (This is not speculation -- Celestia says as much at the end of the episode.) In so doing, the ruler of Equestria assembled a team that she hoped would be able to wield the Elements of Harmony, just as Celestia did 1000 years before. After the team formed, she calls on them whenever something threatens all of Equestria, such as the dragon in 'Dragonshy'. One of the team, or all of them assembled, should have the ability to handle any threat. (And they all try. As Dash says, "We tried persuasion, charm, and...whatever it is that Pinkie does.")

The main cast of My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic are the equine equivalent of the Avengers.

But what makes it so tasty is all the stuff that isn't presented, the story between the lines. Why does Celestia need to hide her special forces A-Team in a backwater town? What happened to Celestia's old team, the five other ponies that shared the Elements of Harmony with her 1000 years ago? When she played Prof. X to Twilight, did she put a block on the young filly's powers just as Prof. X did with Jean Grey? Did Celestia sense the Sonic Rainboom? (How could she not -- she controls the sun, which puts her a wee bit over Professor X in the power scale.) Was she monitoring all of the rainboom-enabled ponies, so that she knew exactly where to send Twilight to complete the team? Why did she wait until the threat was imminent? Does she not trust Twilight? And where is Luna -- she's been pardoned but has never to my knowledge been seen again.

What game is Celestia playing? And why is Equestria under assault at this moment in time?

Okay, I'm over-analyzing a children's show. But MLP:FiM is such a good show, and it shares so many epic storytelling tropes with the Superhero genre that I think we could learn a lot from analyzing it.

Plus, Pinkie Pie could totally take Batman. Discuss.

I want to see a three-tiered Universe of Heroes, in much the same way as the game Spore has multiple levels of play that connect with each other.

The basic game of CoH fits in the middle, in the 'World Class Hero' category. Heroes in this game fight opponents who threaten the world or large portions of it.

Below that is the 'Street Hero' game. These are the low-powered super beings, the guys who can punch well without superstrength or have just enough telekinesis to unlock a door. In comic book terms this is the home of Daredevil, Black Canary, Rorshach, Red Robin, and Kick-***. This game is more of a GTA-style RPG, as you uncover crime syndicates and directly help the people in Paragon city.

Above all the rest is the 'Cosmic Hero' game. Longbow has a space station that you call home, but your hero roams all over the galaxy fighting threats to the Earth and the Universe. There's a race of outcast Rularuu who have conquered large quadrants of the galaxy and are headed our way. The fading Kheldian empire, mortally damaged by internal fighting and still squabbling at each other, is stretching out its tentacles in search of more planets full of potential hosts. And from a distant nebula comes a horde of robotic pirates that sail under a banner of steampunk gears and call themselves the Nemesis Armada. This game would be like the Star Trek MMO, with tactical space fights (but with flying squadrons of heroes and ships together), and teams of cosmic-powered superheroes who have come together to face ultimate threats. This is a game where players command hero teams like the Legion of Superheroes, the Heralds of Galacticus and the Green Lantern Corps.

What's important is that, like Spore, the characters in each of these games could intermix. World-Class heroes can go undercover to help the city as a Street Hero. Cosmic Heroes who want to help as a World-Class hero on Earth have to wear power dampers to keep themselves from damaging the planet. Street-level heroes can gain power enough to enter the World-Class game, and both Street and World-Class heroes might be instilled with awesome power and launch themselves into the Cosmic struggle.

That's my vision for how to expand this game.

I have a lot of visions. Few of them ever come true.