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Post by Pacmanite on May 14, 2012 19:28:36 GMT -5
I read that article earlier, it was so interesting. It seems to imply that psychopaths are both born and made - that genetic differences and physical differences in people's brains are found in most psychopaths, but only a certain percentage of children born with those traits continue to be psychopaths as adults (or was it "become criminals"? I need to reread the article for that stat).
That surprised me, because I thought psychopaths were completely hopeless cases. It's exciting that they're trying to find ways of treating it in children. I don't know how long it'll be until they're actually effective at it (seems like the summer camp just taught some kids how to better misbehave), but if it's true that some people with psychopathic traits early in life become normal as they mature, then I think there is hope that some day there will be less cold-blooded violent criminals in the world because they got the treatment options they needed.
Psychopaths make for perhaps the most unrelenting, blood-chilling villains in fiction. But well, even though I fear them in fiction, I sometimes feel like because they're supposedly untreatable and it's utterly impossible for them to sympathise with people, I don't really think it would be fair to judge them for what they do, if that's all they can do. So I get frustrated with fictional psychopaths sometimes. I can't condemn them for what they are. If I want a villain to really disturb my senses, I want a villain about whom I can say, "that could have been me."
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Post by Pacmanite on May 13, 2012 17:12:55 GMT -5
I was thinking more on the lines of picking a simple colour/species combination, so the stall keeper looks like a rather unassuming innocent-bystander guy. Perhaps with a hat that resembles those hats that the hot dog Mynci and the ice cream Lutari wear. Although, out of the above examples, I would definitely pick the Health Food Quiggle.  He looks pretty naive and well-meaning, his design is simple and the colours are not clashy. |
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Post by Pacmanite on May 13, 2012 15:47:51 GMT -5
I'm fine with putting away the origin idea. It does seem like a bit of a long story to tell in a comic. (And I tend to make some terribly long comics too  ) Sounds good to destroy the fruit stand, one way or another. Hurray for getting some collateral damage on our hands. *rubs hands* |
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Post by Pacmanite on May 12, 2012 5:56:17 GMT -5
This has been informative. I wouldn't have guessed that bones were bad for dogs otherwise. And yeah, it does sound pretty tragic what happened to the family dog, especially given the amount of effort the family went through to get those bones to the dog - eating food they're not used to cooking, driving out all the way to the airport several times to visit and bring those bones... unfortunate dog. And it's comforting to know that it's illegal to transport young puppies into Australia. I suppose that could mean that the teacup puppies website was lying when it said that one of their puppies was sold to a girl in Australia (look under "Baby Snow White"). Or that the puppy was older than 16 weeks when she was sent over. Or that they tried to send her over illegally and managed not to get prosecuted for it, though if that were the case they probably wouldn't be so proud to declare it on their website. |
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Post by Pacmanite on May 11, 2012 18:47:37 GMT -5
I now officially LOATHE Australian airports. To treat animals like...luggage. Ugh. It would be the same thing as detaining someone's child in my eyes. While I definitely don't like what happened to the dog, I don't think the concept of keeping an animal in quarantine is the same as treating them like luggage. Sometimes humans get kept in the quarantine zone for a certain number of days, if the immigrations officers suspect that they may be carrying an epidemic disease (depending on where they came from, and if there's been an outbreak where they were at). The intent of animal quarantine is to limit the spread of pests and diseases into Australia, since new pests and diseases can pose a serious threat to Australian wildlife and agriculture. ... A friend of mine tried to take their family dog into Australia - it was a labrador and it had worked for the police - and border security detained it in customs for a week. The family kept visiting the dog and bringing it bones and things to eat and chew. And it died in customs. ... I'm going to have to ask for more detail on this one. Animals dying in customs is quite rare. Rare enough that I have to ask if the dog's name was Sydney. And bones and chews actually kill a lot of dogs, especially dogs that might be chewing on them differently than normal due to a change in surroundings. I'd want to hear the results of the postmortem (if a dog dies in Australian custody, it's the law for a postmortem to be done). I wish I could give you more details, actually, but I haven't spoken to this friend in about three years. We went to school together and she was in the year level below. Her family immigrated to Australia from Hong Kong, taking their police dog with them (the father was a police officer). They probably arrived in Melbourne airport, but I'm not a hundred percent sure. My friend would have been rather young at the time, but she remembered that the dinners for the whole week were steaks with T-bones in them because they wanted to give the bones to the dog. I can guess that the family hadn't been in the habit of eating T-bone steaks (it's not the sort of meal Chinese families would normally make), and if the steaks were all new to the family, the dog possibly wasn't used to eating bones either. But that's a theory. The only other detail I have is that the family didn't get to keep the dog's body afterwards, because it was a police dog, and for some reason the bodies of police dogs get donated to science. At least, that's what my friend told me. I can't remember if she said anything about postmortem results. (And I can't remember what the dog was called.) ... Australia is pretty notorious for having strict quarantine laws (and being isolated and far away from everywhere). Someone would be nuts to buy a new puppy from an overseas website like the teacup puppies site and have it sent all the way over. |
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Post by Pacmanite on May 11, 2012 14:37:01 GMT -5
Yeah, it should totally be the same fruit vendor! x'D Ooh, and another thing - Komori earlier said that the fruit stand idea could be used in combination with another theme too. That's now got me thinking, what if we did the Origin Story idea, making all the stories completely different (different setting, events, applied phlebtonium/deathrays etc.) except for that one detail where the guy's fruit stall gets destroyed? So if someone read them all, they'd get the impression that the grain of truth in all these fantastical stories is that some poor guy's fruit stand probably got wiped out. I guess a problem with doing the origin story is that they spend a lot less time in their hero-y outfits doing anything heroic-y. If we all like the fruitstand idea, should that be our theme for the year? :3 ... that's a fair point about the origin story. I do reckon the costumes and heroic antics are most of the fun of TSF. I'm in support of fruit stand. But if anyone has more ideas, I don't want to rush people into deciding the topic without having heard everyone out.  That said, I'd sorta like it if we chose a theme sooner rather than later since with my work/holiday schedule I probably won't be able to do much work on this in June so I need to get my comic done and dusted by the end of May. Also, YAY Fish is with us! That makes us a fearsome foursome ;D |
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Post by Pacmanite on May 11, 2012 14:23:50 GMT -5
it died in customs???!! what the heck?! did the people there not give it water or food?? cant they get sued for that? I'm not sure how the friend's labrador died, my friend seemed to be saying that they didn't feed it enough, but she would have been kind of young at the time and so I'm not sure if she had all the details. In any case, one would think that a healthy dog should be expected to survive for a week in good care, but something went wrong here. Lesson: Don't try to fly a dog into Australia. Least of all, a vulnerable and weak puppy. |
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Post by Pacmanite on May 10, 2012 10:11:53 GMT -5
Woot, Team Squad Force! =D
Ok, Komori and I were starting to talk about themes and this is what I said:
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I like the idea of having a common villain, except that if we do use the same villain, perhaps the readers might wonder if the comics are part of the same story arc and are meant to be read in a particular sequence, rather than as standalone comics. (Unless the introductory "Last time, on Team Squad Force" is enough to get a sense of them being unconnected events.) Although I guess we could intentionally make them sort of string together as a coherent sequence of events. But that would require more coordination I suppose.
Haha, TSF sure has a lot of villains under its belt. Maybe several of the pre-existing villains could try to plot together? Most of the baddies seem to be somewhat incompetent, lol.
I have a few more ideas that I wrote up and stored a long time ago, so I'll paste them here and see if any of them get us anywhere.
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Ticking Time Bomb – There’s some kind of explosive or incendiary device, with a countdown clock on it, and the heroes have to defuse it before it goes off. Imagine them frantically passing it from one to another like a hot potato, or getting one with a ridiculously long time limit and procrastinating on the defusing until it’s almost too late...
Disguise Dress-up – the heroes, or the villains, or anyone, dress as someone else to disguise their identity (with varying success). Heroes try to impersonate villains... villains fool heroes... masquerade parties are interrupted.
Fruit Stand – somewhere, somehow, a fruit stand must be destroyed.
Origin Story – each member has to explain in their own words how the awsomeness and might of Team Squad Force came to be. Expect to have some very Unreliable Narrators.
Grand Piano – somewhere, somehow, a grand piano must be dropped. (similar to Fruit Stand)
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Of the ideas above, I did tend to like the fruit stand one the best, as it's quite flexible and part of the fun would be to see how many different scenarios could involve a fruit stand getting destroyed. =D
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Post by Pacmanite on May 10, 2012 6:05:37 GMT -5
I was looking at the sold puppies list, and saw one of them was sent to Australia!  My goodness, that poor creature, they have extremely strict quarantine laws for all animals entering Australia. A friend of mine tried to take their family dog into Australia - it was a labrador and it had worked for the police - and border security detained it in customs for a week. The family kept visiting the dog and bringing it bones and things to eat and chew. And it died in customs. I just wonder about that teacup puppy. If it really was sold and sent to Australia, it's rather likely to have died in the airport. What a complete and utter waste of life, and so much money. Not to mention, if it was flown all the way from the US, that's the kind of trip that would take upwards of 24 hours. A premature puppy in a container on a long-haul flight... my goodness. It was probably a goner by the time it reached the continent. |
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Post by Pacmanite on May 4, 2012 10:55:31 GMT -5
a, Latina lingua. Ne quando mutes gratia mei.
Ah, Latin. Don't ever change for my sake. <3
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Post by Pacmanite on May 3, 2012 17:18:23 GMT -5
Hooray, a Justin is here! =D Recently, I bought myself a Latin bible. The Clementine Vulgate. It's huge, shiny, and super heavy. I didn't realise until I was in the store and saw it on the shelf, just how big it was. But I decided to buy it anyway. And I underestimated just how much I would love it ;D It's so very very fun to read scripture in Latin. <3 And it's not too difficult to follow either because the material is familiar and there's an English version printed in another column beside the Latin text. It came at a great time, too, because I just finally finished reading the whole bible in English. I wondered what I would do once I was done with that. And on the flip side, the Vulgate helps me practice my Latin if I read it regularly. I never really get much contact with Latin outside of my coursework, so it's great to have Latin scripture to read in my own time. Makes me wish I knew Greek too so I could read the NT in its original language and be all squee and geeky about it. ;D Some day... |
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Post by Pacmanite on May 2, 2012 10:47:06 GMT -5
Aw, I leave on June the 4th. Best wishes for your London meetup though!
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Post by Pacmanite on May 1, 2012 5:46:03 GMT -5
Happy birthday, Komori.  |
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Post by Pacmanite on Apr 24, 2012 4:01:17 GMT -5
I can see how giving some animals souls but not others can reflect a bias on the part of the one talking. It's what I try to avoid if I ever think about animals and souls - how we decide to value some animals more than others can tend to be as much about whether we like them or not. And I don't want to base my beliefs on my being sentimental about things.
But the way I see it, the soul isn't merited by intellect... you don't need to pass an intelligence test to have a soul. Some humans are severely mentally disabled, incapable of doing things in their head that the rest of humanity takes for granted, but that doesn't mean they don't have a soul. And young children often seem to act more on instinct than rationally. But no matter how much intelligence you lack as a person, you can still have your soul.
The trouble with using intelligence to determine whether an animal has a soul or not is that it would often end up excluding some humans from the deal, if we were to apply the principle with uniformity and without bias. And I take issue with that.
So my thoughts are this: absolutely all human beings have souls, and only God knows if animals have souls, since the presence of the soul can't be determined by external factors like intelligence.
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Post by Pacmanite on Apr 22, 2012 17:38:01 GMT -5
I guess you guys have a point about wanting to keep to serious discussion topics. For me, it's more a sign that I've been trying a little too hard to procrastinate on an essay I need to crank out. Wanting to distract myself. Sorry, I'll try to be more respectful of the discussion next time.
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He looks pretty naive and well-meaning, his design is simple and the colours are not clashy.
)
That said, I'd sorta like it if we chose a theme sooner rather than later since with my work/holiday schedule I probably won't be able to do much work on this in June so I need to get my comic done and dusted by the end of May.
My goodness, that poor creature, they have extremely strict quarantine laws for all animals entering Australia. A friend of mine tried to take their family dog into Australia - it was a labrador and it had worked for the police - and border security detained it in customs for a week. The family kept visiting the dog and bringing it bones and things to eat and chew. And it died in customs. I just wonder about that teacup puppy. If it really was sold and sent to Australia, it's rather likely to have died in the airport. What a complete and utter waste of life, and so much money.
