# General Inspiration Thread
**URL:** https://forum.menagerie.team/t/general-inspiration-thread/240
**Category:** Roll20
**Created:** [September 1, 2017, 5:33am UTC](https://forum.menagerie.team/t/general-inspiration-thread/240 "2017-09-01T05:33:42Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 10
### Author:  [@system](https://forum.menagerie.team/u/system)
#### Post date: [April 5, 2018, 2:20pm UTC](https://forum.menagerie.team/t/general-inspiration-thread/240/181 "2018-04-05T14:20:16Z")
Very happy [the Roll20 forum is back up](http://blog.roll20.net/post/172598583425/update-on-downtime-resolved). Being unable to view, then respond to current threads or add more, I felt like a junkie who couldn’t get to his next fix. 🙂
author: \*\*\* Dave H.
url: [https://app.roll20.net/forum/permalink/6251538](https://app.roll20.net/forum/permalink/6251538)
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### Author:  [@system](https://forum.menagerie.team/u/system)
#### Post date: [April 5, 2018, 10:26pm UTC](https://forum.menagerie.team/t/general-inspiration-thread/240/182 "2018-04-05T22:26:54Z")
I’m happy about it too, though I’ll admit I was so busy yesterday I only had time to think “hey it’s been kinda quiet” and stress I hadn’t got back to Leo yet.
Today hasn’t been better (you know you’re busy when your fitbit switches over to recording your office activity as exercise), but it’s getting there.
author: Doyce T.
url: [https://app.roll20.net/forum/permalink/6253274](https://app.roll20.net/forum/permalink/6253274)
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### Author:  [@system](https://forum.menagerie.team/u/system)
#### Post date: [April 7, 2018, 5:52pm UTC](https://forum.menagerie.team/t/general-inspiration-thread/240/183 "2018-04-07T17:52:30Z")
author: \*\*\* Dave H.
url: [https://app.roll20.net/forum/permalink/6259558](https://app.roll20.net/forum/permalink/6259558)
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### Author:  [@system](https://forum.menagerie.team/u/system)
#### Post date: [April 10, 2018, 7:04am UTC](https://forum.menagerie.team/t/general-inspiration-thread/240/184 "2018-04-10T07:04:33Z")
What do teen superheroes look like? Well, we have actors who’ve been cast as heroes, and they went to high school, so…
[https://www.cbr.com/15-fun-and-embarrassing-high-s…](https://www.cbr.com/15-fun-and-embarrassing-high-school-pictures-of-dceu-actors/)
author: Bill G.
url: [https://app.roll20.net/forum/permalink/6268659](https://app.roll20.net/forum/permalink/6268659)
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### Author:  [@system](https://forum.menagerie.team/u/system)
#### Post date: [April 12, 2018, 4:29am UTC](https://forum.menagerie.team/t/general-inspiration-thread/240/185 "2018-04-12T04:29:13Z")
So apparently Netflix has made a new [Lost in Space](https://www.netflix.com/title/80104198) series and it’s coming out Friday (side note - the trailer doesn’t look bad). Wondering how Dave’s going to react to that news.
author: Mike
url: [https://app.roll20.net/forum/permalink/6275017](https://app.roll20.net/forum/permalink/6275017)
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### Author:  [@system](https://forum.menagerie.team/u/system)
#### Post date: [April 12, 2018, 4:41am UTC](https://forum.menagerie.team/t/general-inspiration-thread/240/186 "2018-04-12T04:41:48Z")
Dave is guardedly enthused, and has been since the project was announced:
[http://hill-kleerup.org/blog/2015/11/21/the-return…](http://hill-kleerup.org/blog/2015/11/21/the-return-of-lost-in-space.html)
[http://hill-kleerup.org/blog/2016/06/29/the-return…](http://hill-kleerup.org/blog/2016/06/29/the-return-of-lost-in-space-2.html)
[http://hill-kleerup.org/blog/2018/03/06/danger-wil…](http://hill-kleerup.org/blog/2018/03/06/danger-will-robinson.html)
Both the Robot and Dr. Smith featurettes I’ve seen have my approval.
Though, to be sure, I _really_ don’t need another new, interesting series dropping right now …
author: \*\*\* Dave H.
url: [https://app.roll20.net/forum/permalink/6275043](https://app.roll20.net/forum/permalink/6275043)
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### Author:  [@system](https://forum.menagerie.team/u/system)
#### Post date: [April 13, 2018, 2:29am UTC](https://forum.menagerie.team/t/general-inspiration-thread/240/187 "2018-04-13T02:29:40Z")
Speaking of [headcanon](https://app.roll20.net/forum/permalink/6278578/) … [there’s **this**](http://gehayi.tumblr.com/post/124248314496/feminist-ophelia-boneycircus).
(James gets the blame for passing this one on to me.)
author: \*\*\* Dave H.
url: [https://app.roll20.net/forum/permalink/6279645](https://app.roll20.net/forum/permalink/6279645)
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### Author:  [@system](https://forum.menagerie.team/u/system)
#### Post date: [April 19, 2018, 3:31am UTC](https://forum.menagerie.team/t/general-inspiration-thread/240/188 "2018-04-19T03:31:25Z")
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ewc1hixzYPY&featur…](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ewc1hixzYPY&feature=youtu.be)
If you enjoy hip-hop and comic books, and I haven’t posted this before, here’s Madvillain (including MF DOOM). The guy is basically a “supervillain rapper”, strongly affected by his own real-life tragedies - more here. [http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Music/MFDoom](http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Music/MFDoom)
author: Bill G.
url: [https://app.roll20.net/forum/permalink/6300785](https://app.roll20.net/forum/permalink/6300785)
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### Author:  [@system](https://forum.menagerie.team/u/system)
#### Post date: [April 25, 2018, 5:29pm UTC](https://forum.menagerie.team/t/general-inspiration-thread/240/189 "2018-04-25T17:29:09Z")
Some second-generation super geniuses decide they want to make the world a better place through revolutionary ideas and concepts.
Some decide they want to make a better place by making kick-ass amusement parks. [That second group doesn’t always turn out well](https://twitter.com/_youhadonejob1/status/988856514155831296).
(_Honestly I have no idea what the context of that photo is, but this seems like a normal Wednesday morning news report in Halcyon City. Not even front page. Buried on page seven next to the announcements section in its own column called “Hyper Tech Mishaps.”_)
author: Mike
url: [https://app.roll20.net/forum/permalink/6321792](https://app.roll20.net/forum/permalink/6321792)
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### Author:  [@system](https://forum.menagerie.team/u/system)
#### Post date: [April 25, 2018, 5:54pm UTC](https://forum.menagerie.team/t/general-inspiration-thread/240/190 "2018-04-25T17:54:13Z")
author: Bill G.
url: [https://app.roll20.net/forum/permalink/6321865](https://app.roll20.net/forum/permalink/6321865)
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### Author:  [@system](https://forum.menagerie.team/u/system)
#### Post date: [April 26, 2018, 12:44am UTC](https://forum.menagerie.team/t/general-inspiration-thread/240/191 "2018-04-26T00:44:26Z")
[https://displacersquirrel.com/2018/04/25/taking-in…](https://displacersquirrel.com/2018/04/25/taking-inspiration-from-avengers-and-the-mcu/)
“Taking Inspiration from Avengers and the MCU”
A lot of this is stuff I try to do for my forum side-stories: treat everyone as the protagonist of their own story, for example. If I can’t find the sympathy in a character (viewpoint or otherwise), I’ll at least try to find the humanity.
author: Bill G.
url: [https://app.roll20.net/forum/permalink/6323730](https://app.roll20.net/forum/permalink/6323730)
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### Author:  [@system](https://forum.menagerie.team/u/system)
#### Post date: [April 26, 2018, 4:03am UTC](https://forum.menagerie.team/t/general-inspiration-thread/240/192 "2018-04-26T04:03:23Z")
Fine article.
author: \*\*\* Dave H.
url: [https://app.roll20.net/forum/permalink/6324295](https://app.roll20.net/forum/permalink/6324295)
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### Author:  [@system](https://forum.menagerie.team/u/system)
#### Post date: [April 27, 2018, 9:03pm UTC](https://forum.menagerie.team/t/general-inspiration-thread/240/193 "2018-04-27T21:03:32Z")
They grow up so fast: [https://digg.com/video/daily-selfie-time-lapse](https://digg.com/video/daily-selfie-time-lapse)
Girl’s selfies in a time lapse from age 14 to 22.
Aside from just “here’s some more background on a game about teen heroes”, it’s relevant to characters like Aria and Summer over the long term. In [Presentation](https://app.roll20.net/forum/post/6320380/masks-36-dot-1-presentation-cutscene), we had Aria going to church and maybe going out to talk to potential investors. But she still looks 17, and a year of time won’t change that on its own.
Does Aria always want to look 17? Certainly not. Adults wouldn’t take her seriously even if she had 10 years more life experience, and being taken seriously is vital to her function as Leo’s business partner, along with any business or political ambitions she has. She has no native DNA, so any maturation of her look depends on her preference. I found what I think is a great “older Pneuma” look [here](https://app.roll20.net/forum/permalink/6252803/), but there’s other options, like [this](https://i.pinimg.com/564x/c8/38/d1/c838d106a4725d1c9307b5248b053e1e.jpg) or [this](https://i.pinimg.com/564x/f9/95/12/f995124c349a763c6a69003bdf6a2cd3.jpg).
Summer is under less outside pressure to change, but under more internal pressure - she wants to be taken seriously, feel respected, and so on. She might look like a “younger sister” more and more, subconsciously (or consciously) sculpting her shell to represent her real relationship with Aria. Or she might keep pace, wanting to be seen as an equal.
If more Newman-type androids emerge, they’ll face a similar situation. Their traditions might develop to deal with this - such as expanding the role of the birthday, with the android receiving a new bigger shell as a gift. If holographic shells are more in fashion, an algorithm could be written that models a human body’s growth from child to adult in a steady progression, giving a steady growth similar to a biological person.
author: Bill G.
url: [https://app.roll20.net/forum/permalink/6329333](https://app.roll20.net/forum/permalink/6329333)
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### Author:  [@system](https://forum.menagerie.team/u/system)
#### Post date: [April 28, 2018, 12:15am UTC](https://forum.menagerie.team/t/general-inspiration-thread/240/194 "2018-04-28T00:15:35Z")
Aging is a weird thing all around.
Alycia is (by fiat) 17, as Jason was. But 18 is going to come up some time this year (to the extent that we’re kindasorta mirroring real time passage, not endlessly stretchable comic book time [which works much better in comics with adult characters because, as an adult, really things just kind of blur from year to year, other than birthdays, while kids have this “I am in the Xth grade” counter turning over year after year]). That instantly changes a bunch of responsibilities and rights. And if this really is the 2nd semester of the senior year (looks across the room at his own senior), there’s a major life event coming up.
At the same time, similar to what’s noted above, Alycia is only 17 (or even 18). She’s not going to be taken seriously, as a super-hero let alone as much anything else (and, as she’s recounted, it was even worse when Dad was sending her out at 14-15 to run operations with mature mercs and mooks and assorted sociopaths). Indeed, for her, there’s probably been reinforcement of “I need to come across as either a disturbingly stone-cold killer, or else a crazy young psychopath, or else the Smartest Person in the Room (-so-maybe-listen-to-me).”
Aria and Summer both have a chance to actually change that in their lives, though not without cost both financial and personal cost. Unlike others, they have the opportunity (and so responsibility) to choose what age they see themselves as. They’ll also potentially face – if they are closeted – the “immortals who must keep up a masquerade” trope, way down the line.
I like your thoughts on traditions. One question I have is why those traditions would hew to human standards. To fit in, perhaps, but I suspect over time there would be more radical changes enabled by the choices they have.
author: \*\*\* Dave H.
url: [https://app.roll20.net/forum/permalink/6329928](https://app.roll20.net/forum/permalink/6329928)
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### Author:  [@system](https://forum.menagerie.team/u/system)
#### Post date: [April 28, 2018, 8:36am UTC](https://forum.menagerie.team/t/general-inspiration-thread/240/195 "2018-04-28T08:36:55Z")
[https://www.nbcnews.com/news/asian-america/drawing…](https://www.nbcnews.com/news/asian-america/drawing-family-stories-creators-craft-new-generation-asian-american-superheroes-n866636)
Drawing on family stories, creators craft new generation of Asian-American superheroes
Comic giants Marvel and DC as well as smaller publishers have introduced a wider range of diverse characters in recent years.
author: Bill G.
url: [https://app.roll20.net/forum/permalink/6331017](https://app.roll20.net/forum/permalink/6331017)
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### Author:  [@system](https://forum.menagerie.team/u/system)
#### Post date: [April 28, 2018, 8:39am UTC](https://forum.menagerie.team/t/general-inspiration-thread/240/196 "2018-04-28T08:39:45Z")
> _[\*\*\* Dave H.](https://app.roll20.net/users/418114) said:_
>
> I like your thoughts on traditions. One question I have is why those traditions would hew to human standards. To fit in, perhaps, but I suspect over time there would be more radical changes enabled by the choices they have.
I did some thinking about this, but I kept coming back to the easiest and most logical reason: the characters will tend to stick close to human convention because they still think of themselves as human. More in the other thread.
author: Bill G.
url: [https://app.roll20.net/forum/permalink/6331020](https://app.roll20.net/forum/permalink/6331020)
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### Author:  [@system](https://forum.menagerie.team/u/system)
#### Post date: [April 28, 2018, 5:37pm UTC](https://forum.menagerie.team/t/general-inspiration-thread/240/197 "2018-04-28T17:37:43Z")
> _[Bill G.](https://app.roll20.net/users/118980) said:_
>
> > I did some thinking about this, but I kept coming back to the easiest and most logical reason: the characters will tend to stick close to human convention because they still think of themselves as human. More in the other thread.
[Which thread I’m avoiding until I finish my analogous scene.]
What you say makes perfect sense – though humans adapt to opportunity and resources for change (family traditions changing over the years as people come and go, geographies alter, favorite foods evolve). One could even argue that if the Newmans, over time, stuck too rigidly to meat-people norms, it would indicate less humanity, not more, an inability or programmatic unwillingness to change.
Still, analogies would be there.
“We’ve got to serve the turkey _AFTER_ the onion rings! Nana always loved it that way. Without that, it’s just not Thankgiving!”
“But this makes so much more sense for when folk are arriving, Nana has been dead five years, and I have a great onion ring churro recipe that I’m sure everyone will love!”
vs.
“We acquire new bodies of a size and feature set along the curve related to human development. That’s how the Gen2 Newmans established the norms, and without it we’re no longer human.”
“I’m ready to be 6 feet tall even if I’ll stand out at pre-school, Gen2 Summer adopted a smaller size to go on the Alpha Centauri probe more resource-efficiently, and these days humans body-mod and genetweak all the time, so who will notice?”
Which then starts segueing in my brain toward Charlie Stross’ _Saturn’s Children_, so I’ll stop there.
author: \*\*\* Dave H.
url: [Community Forums: General Inspiration Thread | Roll20: Online virtual tabletop](https://app.roll20.net/forum/permalink/6331837)
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### Author:  [@system](https://forum.menagerie.team/u/system)
#### Post date: [April 28, 2018, 6:25pm UTC](https://forum.menagerie.team/t/general-inspiration-thread/240/198 "2018-04-28T18:25:13Z")
> _[Bill G.](https://app.roll20.net/users/118980) said:_
>
> [https://www.nbcnews.com/news/asian-america/drawing…](https://www.nbcnews.com/news/asian-america/drawing-family-stories-creators-craft-new-generation-asian-american-superheroes-n866636)
>
> Drawing on family stories, creators craft new generation of Asian-American superheroes
> Comic giants Marvel and DC as well as smaller publishers have introduced a wider range of diverse characters in recent years.
And done so, in many ways (unlike the past) that felt more organic and, while intentional, not as forced (“We need a black person on the Avengers!”). Not all the attempts have been successful, but I, for one, have been able to accept (or decline) the individual characters without getting all shouty about how comics are “ruining” “my” heritage.
author: \*\*\* Dave H.
url: [Community Forums: General Inspiration Thread | Roll20: Online virtual tabletop](https://app.roll20.net/forum/permalink/6331975)
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### Author:  [@system](https://forum.menagerie.team/u/system)
#### Post date: [April 28, 2018, 6:37pm UTC](https://forum.menagerie.team/t/general-inspiration-thread/240/199 "2018-04-28T18:37:45Z")
> _[\*\*\* Dave H.](https://app.roll20.net/users/418114) said:_
>
> What you say makes perfect sense – though humans adapt to opportunity and resources for change (family traditions changing over the years as people come and go, geographies alter, favorite foods evolve). One could even argue that if the Newmans, over time, stuck too rigidly to meat-people norms, it would indicate less humanity, not more, an inability or programmatic unwillingness to change.
Well, there’s two things going on there.
They’ll kind of hang out in the human-convention space not necessarily/not just to “fit in” with humanity, but because humans think a certain way, and they’ll think human because they are. Earth cultures have all kinds of ideas about what a marriage looks like and how a wedding ought to be conducted and so forth, but a lot of them have figured out that “marriage” is a thing.
They’ll want to fit in with the rest of humanity, though. If you send a six-foot child to kindergarten, that kid is going to attract notice. If you’re in a zero gravity space colony and all the kids grow tall, on the other hand, tall android kids work better. They might also regard shells the way we wear clothes, and “dress” for school very differently than they “dress” at home, or out with friends. At that point, recognition might become a problem - so it might become true that (for example) the face ought to stay the same, or that they all adopt some kind of symbol for themselves.
author: Bill G.
url: [Community Forums: General Inspiration Thread | Roll20: Online virtual tabletop](https://app.roll20.net/forum/permalink/6332007)
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### Author:  [@system](https://forum.menagerie.team/u/system)
#### Post date: [April 30, 2018, 3:57am UTC](https://forum.menagerie.team/t/general-inspiration-thread/240/200 "2018-04-30T03:57:00Z")
**Without Spoilers** , I can say that _Avengers: Infinity War_ demonstrates the power of the slow build, the telling of individual tales before bringing people together for a joint effort, the establish of relationships before diving into a big conflict where those relationships are used, abused, and gutted.
It’s by no means perfect (I think the original _Avenger_ is a better film, for example, and there are a lot of little individual decisions I can nitpick), but a lot of what it does it does by splendidly building on past successes to get the most out of the massive stakes=raising – and by not being afraid to have _everyone_ Take a Powerful Blow (or three).
author: \*\*\* Dave H.
url: [https://app.roll20.net/forum/permalink/6337477](https://app.roll20.net/forum/permalink/6337477)
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