In an interview, Chris Evans talked about how Bucky is the friend of youth while Sam is the friend after you grow up. And that when you're kids, you become friends just because they're there. But when you grow up, you start choosing your friends because you know who you are now.

Here's my problem with this assessment (sorry Evans, gonna have to disagree with your take here), Bucky isn't just the friend from youth. Bucky is Steve's friend, whereas Sam is Captain America's friend. Allow me to demonstrate from a set of gifs on tumblr that encapsulates the point:


(source: zendaya @ tumblr)

What unfortunately the first gif doesn't capture is that right before, Steve straight up asks Bucky, "Are you ready to follow Captain America into the jaws of death?" And Bucky's response was "Hell no." Followed by the line in the gif about following Steve Rogers into the jaws of death instead.

And that is the core difference between Sam and Bucky. For Bucky, Steve will always be Steve Rogers first, before he becomes Captain America. Whereas for Sam, Steve will always be Captain America first, before he is Steve Rogers.

Why is this important?

Because Steve Rogers and Captain America are not the same. Now, some might argue that Steve is Captain America, but that's just plainly not true. Captain America is a legacy character, a mantle that can be picked up by anyone. But Steve Rogers will only ever be Steve Rogers.

Captain America is a symbol of hope. He is good and kind and inspirational. He is someone who is utterly giving, unfailingly fair, and never without a kind word.

Steve Rogers, on the other hand, is a stubborn little punk who doesn't know when to back down from a fight. He's someone who doesn't like bullies and has a stubborn streak a mile wide. He has flaws and selfish desires and is prone to fits of jealousy and possessiveness. He is prone to making bad decisions when his temper gets the better of him. He's also not quite grown out of being a little mouthy kid from Brooklyn with a chip on his shoulder.

So Bucky is the one that sees the kid from Brooklyn with a chip on his shoulder and a stubborness that borders on foolishness, where Sam sees a national icon of all that is good, just, and fair. Sam puts Steve on a pedestal, whereas Bucky sees Steve as a human being.

Now, I'm not saying Sam won't come around to seeing Steve for the person he is under all the spangles, but the point is, for Sam, his first impression is always going to be that of a 6ft2 250lb supersoldier that single handedly saved 400 POWs. That will always be the first thing he thinks of when thinking of Steve Rogers. But for Bucky? No matter how big, how super, how ridiculously powerful Steve gets, Steve is going to forever remain that 5ft4 90lb asthmatic who refused to back down from a fight.

And that kind of first impression is going to forever color how they interact with Steve. And I think for Steve, to have one person who could see past all the supersoldier and into the person is something that's very, very important. Sam is no doubt someone he will always be indebted to, but Bucky is fucking family. It's not just about being friends for a long time, it's about how much Bucky sees into Steve that no one else will know, not without the kind of life time experience that Bucky has built up with Steve. Sure, give it another 20 years and maybe Sam will get to know Steve as well as Bucky, but right now? In the current continuity? No one knows Steve like Bucky knows Steve. No one will have the immediate knowledge of Steve and his stubborn little brain the way Bucky will know.

In short, Bucky's perspective of Steve is unique, a lens that no one else can have, and that perspective is, for Steve, irreplaceable.

Was browsing tumblr when suddenly...

http://beansproutsong.tumblr.com/post/166247352445/shin-tenipuri-tezuka-birthday-event-vr-this-is

OMFG. Holy shit, Tenipuri is still going?!

What is there even left?! The series is fucking insane. Insane, I tell you! I mean, what is even happening anymore? Why is there still new things?! (Like, I get if it's just celebration of old stuff, hell, Sailor Moon had a new release of more manga-compliant anime for its anniversary. But, this is literally new story being put out. New crack canon from the anime staff and original mangaka.)

I can't keep up... No more. Just...it's too much.

So, I've been feeling a bit of burnout with GW2 (and general annoyance at MMO's arm-twisting, skinner boxing, reward-incentive based structure instead of actually bothering to give satisfying story and puzzle). So. I found myself playing Candy Box 2 (the sequel is more fun in my opinion, although the first one allows much more skipping of the wait). Candy Box is one of the incremental games, like the Cookie Clickers and Kittens Games, both of which I've raved about before. However, unlike these two incremental games that only has await and re-supply gameplay (albeit a very fun wait and resupply gameplay), Candy Box goes one step further than most of the usual incremental games.

However, what makes Candy Box stands out from the other incremental games, in my opinion, is that it harkens back to the days of text-based adventure games, with some Diku-MUD leveling involved. Once you figure out how to farm the lollipops and candies, amassing resources is a far, far more active process than the usual incremental game. And you have to do a series of very mind-bending, literal thinking-outside-the-box quests (like, I mean literally outside the box). You also have to go into dungeons (what the game calls quests) and figure out how you can clear the dungeon in the most efficient way. You can brew potions and make spells and use them to help you clear these dungeons. And once you've earned loot, you can spend that loot to get new equipment to go into harder dungeons.

After playing about 5 hours of Candy Box, I'm getting close to end-game. (Technically, you can just keep accruing ridiculous candy afterwards, but y'know, it kinda stops meaning something once you've beaten the game.) The gameplay really made me nostalgic for the days of reading super vague hints and scratching your head over trying to figure out what the fuck it is that the developers want you to input into the command line to get the text parser to move onto the next chain in the quest line. It also made me nostalgic for the days of where the best equipment came not from endlessly farming something to be purchased, or killing five billion different things, or where the difficulty is that really hard to kill boss, but rather from figuring out a riddle. Where difficulty is not how fast can you mash buttons and respond to the enemy, but rather on how well you can think and reason. Or even willing to think and reason.

I'm just saying that I can forgive shitty characterization if most of my word processing brain power is stuck trying to solve a riddle.

Anyway, point is, I got nostalgic for the really much slower paced gameplay of MUDs. I've had a hard time finding a MUD that I liked after ChaosMUD went down all those years ago, and when ChaosMUD came back briefly, I was very happy to jump back in. Yet, it died again, and I hadn't been able to figure out its new domain until now. So.

I guess what I'm trying to explain is that nostalgia is driving me to go back to playing ChaosMUD again. There's something very relaxing about reading text on a dark background and trying to figure out just what word you need to type. The other advantage ChaosMUD has over other MUDs is the newbie friendly and multi-friendly rules, which allows me to run around by myself, with my party of three, bashing and slashing and trying to figure out how to get through certain doors. ChaosMUD also has a much more relaxed, much more friendly equipment system, so I'm not constantly stressing over getting the next upgrade. Instead, I'm just drifting around, looking for new quests to complete so I can get better equipment, but not completely stress over it because the auto equipment drop system means I don't have to hunt down a specific monster to kill to keep my toons equipped. And sure, the experience grind is probably going to kill the questing fun at some point, but honestly? At low levels it's still pretty fun. Once the grind gets too heavy, I'll just quit.

Oh, and they've implemented a bonus XP for registration system, so already the grind feels much less painful. Anyway, I'm looking forward to the Jellyfish hunt around the 300s when I will finally be able to get my no-refill water bottle.

So, I was listening to WoodenPotatoes' HoT story review and...wow, I'm kind of pissed off.

Here's the thing, I agree with him on two accounts, but over all, for someone who claims to be "so into the lore", he seems to not know shit when it comes to storytelling. He's also such a typical gamer in every way that annoys me about gamers, which really shouldn't come as surprise, but nonetheless it just offends my sensibilities so fucking much that I want to be able to reach into the screen and punch him in the face. Yes, I'm so fucking angry at him that I wish him actual bodily harm.

Points that I agree with him on: Pacing in Heart of Thorns was shit. Faolain was a complete waste.

( Now for everything I disagree with. )

Anyway. I'm very angry. I usually watch WP videos to relax, but good fucking god, he pissed me off so fucking much with that video. Fuck you WP. Stick to summarizing, do less actual analysis, you don't have the head for it.

First, I was trying to do some achievement hunting in Draconis Mons (since I have to be in that stupid fucking thing for the Wayfairer's Henge collection BS anyway), when this little fucker dragged a Vet reef rider onto me and didn't have the fucking decency to kill the thing. I couldn't actually do anything, because I was holding an Oakheart (thus no attack skills) and needed it to reach the fireshard.

Of course it turns out this asshole had a mount that could jump, thus not needing to deal with Oakhearts anymore. Of course this asshole played a thief. I fucking swear, all people who main thieves are the most selfish, inconsiderate assholes I've seen. They're a plague in PvP, a fucking troll in WvW, and now in PvE they're selfish little fucks who inconveniences people without even bothering to help out. Little fuckers.

Second, now that I'm on the subject of mounts, my god, I hate them. Like, not because they're a bad addition, but because what their addition to core Tyria has done to the map wide events now. I mean, I was already seeing bits of it earlier on, but now it's getting super obvious. For example, I was playing in Silverwastes, just trying to do some defense events and earn some green bags to open on a lowbie for low level mats. Well, half the map has mounts now, so they keep springing between events, since they can due to their much superior movement speed, instead of helping any one point, thus scaling the events up, then leaving the rest of us, who have no mounts, to deal with the scaled up enemies. Gee, thanks, assholes. So, they get 4x the credit (because fast rotation between the 4 strongholds) and put in half the work. And when I call out for help in a stronghold that's about to be lost, does any of these fast springing runners come help?

Of course not. They're too busy letting the slowpokes actually do the defending while they go tag more events for credit.

Another example, back in Draconis Mons, where there's a trade off to using the Oakhearts to get to difficult to get places, because you have no access to weapons, and if you stop to fight, you have to go find another Oakheart. Thus making it important to run past certain monsters. However, with the advent of mounts, Oakhearts become obsolete, since you can just bunny hop your way past high walls. Why bother grabbing an Oakheart? It means these assholes don't care that I just carefully walked around all the mobs to preserve my Oakheart so that I can reach a difficult to get to cranny. No, they just drag all the mobs onto me, bunny hop to reach the thing they're grabbing, then leave the mobs for me to deal with. So I have to start my journey all over again. Thanks assholes.

And don't even get me started on trying to get to events in time. It's been pretty much impossible to reach the events before these people raptor dash their way and finish the event, which means I just wasted all my time running after it, not to mention the waypointing cost. Even in things like Teq and Jormag, the mounts basically allows those players to tag and get credit on all the separate events, while the rest of non-PoF accounts are stuck with sticking to one event. And it wouldn't even be bad if they didn't do the "tag, scale up, run" schtick. If they actually stayed to help finish, it would be one thing, but no, instead, they run in, get credit, then leave to tag another.

The only place that mounts don't see to be giving too much advantage is in the HoT maps (ironically), due to how much verticality there is, that exceed even that of bunny hop. And since Griffon's can't use updrafts, gliding is still the premier way to get around. But even then, it's hard to keep up with HP trains that just kind of leaves you in the dust. It's all very disappointing.

Basically, what I'm saying is, by allowing mounts to travel much, much faster than anyone can keep up on foot, and not giving the people in the core maps a way to keep up with these much faster travelers, it feels like my arm is being twisted to purchase PoF in order to keep up with the rest of the player base in the core maps. At least gliding never really affected how much faster you can tag events, thus directly affecting how much loot you can get for participating. With the release of mounts, it feels like if I want to participate in any of these group events, I will have to be content with the knowledge that I'm intentionally putting myself at a disadvantage.

But the thing that really pushes my buttons is that when someone brings up these legitimately bad feelings, the player response has always been "Oh, well, don't play the game then." But here's the thing, if people keep stop playing games because their concerns are brushed off as whining, then pretty soon, you're not going to have much of a player base and consequently, not that much of an MMO.

Yet, despite all of this, I know GW2 is not going to suffer financially for their shitty design decision, because gamers are too willing and too ready to excuse shitty decisions by throwing yet more money at the company. I mean, every time someone points out mounts aren't all that great, they get piled on by a bunch of people whose only defense is "if you don't like it, don't use it, no one is forcing you." Except for how if you don't use mounts, you are at the real threat of getting left behind.

Which...makes me want to just not bother playing.

So I was reading up a little on recent Path of Fire expansion release and finally caught up with the new Revenant legend. I mean, I already have zero interest in the new legend, because I'm not giving up my shield on rev (for RP reasons), but I figured I should know what I'm missing out on.

[Kalla Scorchrazor?][https://wiki.guildwars2.com/wiki/Kalla_Scorchrazor] Who the fuck is Kalla?

I mean, I know this point has been belabored to death on the forums already, but why pick such a little known character? Why? It's not like we don't already have a prominent bow wielding female character already, Eir Stegalkin. Remember her? The one you writers fridged for the sake of advancing a male character's story?

Just... I'm all for more female characters, really, especially when you think about how the Rev's base legends are all male, it makes sense to pick some more female legends and I'm glad they're doing it, but it feels so tacked on and thoughtless. No one likes a thoughtless "quota" of female characters. Just...ugh.

Another reason to dislike GW2's direction. Unfortunately, the rest of the gamers seems to be lapping this shit up.

Basically, rant about fandom. What is wrong?

I'd like to say recently, but really it's been going on for a few years now. I'm seeing more and more of the Character/Reader type of "fanfic". I don't understand this nonsense. Why are fans so eager to read a story with a nondescript self-insert character into whom they may...well, self-insert, just so they can read about how they are being wooed, fucked, or otherwise engaged with completely fictional characters? What is the appeal of this?

I mean, I understand that sometimes girls (because let's face it, these kind of fics are almost always requested and written by girls, I've yet to see a male - gay or straight - associated with this kind of behavior) want to dream about how they're with McDreamy-flavor-of-the-month. And that's perfectly normal, sure. But why is it suddenly okay to share those id fantasies on the internet? Why is it suddenly taken for granted that all the other girls have those very same id fantasies?

Some might say that the fanfics of yore are little more than self-indulgent fantasies, too, that the shitty Mary-Sue and self-insert fics are just as self indulgent. But at least there is an acknowledgement of self indulgence here. There is an unvoiced social contract that when you write fanfic, you are writing your fantasies, not bringing to life someone else's. And most importantly, they were considered bad writing.

But with these Character/Reader type fics, the writer is explicitly stating they are writing these fantasies for the reader. But that's ridiculous, because no reader needs their own fantasies written for them, it's already playing out in their heads all the time. Zero service has been rendered, at all. And yet...for some reason, fandom is eating this shit up and being completely unabashed about it.

Are we, the fandom, just at the point where shame is no longer in our vocabulary? Are we unable to understand that fandom is not a monolith, that everyone has different kinks/tastes and want different things from their what they read and that the fanfic writers do not have a universal understanding of fandom fantasies?

Are we really at a point where we throw concepts of quality out the window and are actually actively requesting shitty fic just because it strokes the readers' ego? WTF? What is happening?

Wait, what? I stepped into PvP after half a year and suddenly all the daily PvP achievements changed. No more winning as blank class, now it's participate in tournament, join ranked match, blah blah blah. Noooooooo. But I don't wanna!

Gimme back my easy PvP dailies so I can continue earning points towards the stupid reward tracks. ;_;

(At least there's still WvW reward tracks. It's slower, but...oh well, faster than the newly revamped PvP reward tracks.)

I just got my new HDMI cord from Newegg today and plugged my monitor into the HDMI output from the graphics card.

GW2 is noticeably sharper. Holy EFF. It looks good.

Now, realize, this is because I've been using the VGA signal all this time, because I didn't have a spare HDMI cable, which was costing around $15 last time I checked. But then I found a deal on Newegg that sold the a cord for $3, so I snapped it up and boy am I ever glad I did. Yay! Very well spent $3.

Everything is so sharp. So shiny!

So, until the add-on fixes itself, I guess I'll just have to use this jury rigged userChrome.css code for a temporary fix. *sadface*

Code:
@namespace url("http://www.mozilla.org/keymaster/gatekeeper/there.is.only.xul"); /* Bars on top and bottom transparent and borderless */ #nav-bar, #customToolbars, #TabsToolbar, #PersonalToolbar, #web-developer-toolbar, #browser-bottombox { background: transparent !important; border: none !important; box-shadow: none !important; -moz-appearance: -moz-win-glass !important; } #TabsToolbar:not(:-moz-lwtheme)::after { opacity: 0.1 !important; } /* Change color of active tab */ .tab-background, .tab-background-middle { background-color:transparent!important; } .tab-background .tab-background-middle[selected=true]{ background-image:url("chrome://browser/skin/customizableui/background-noise-toolbar.png"), url(chrome://browser/skin/tabbrowser/tab-active-middle.png); opacity: 0.3!important; background-size:auto 100%!important; } .tab-background-start[selected=true]::before{ background-color:transparent!important; opacity: 0.1!important; } .tab-background-end[selected=true]::before{ background-color:transparent!important; opacity: 0.1!important; } tab { text-shadow: 0px 0px 5px white, 0px 0px 5px white, 0px 0px 5px white !important; color:black !important; }

Edit to add:
Given that Firefox 57 is going to do away with all extensions, I'm getting pretty nervous what this means for my browsing ecosystem. I've already switched over to the Zotero standalone program and installed the Zotero-Firefox plugin instead of using the Firefox extension to make sure all of my research organization remains accessible. However, there doesn't seem to be a greasemonkey webextension anytime in the future (at least not one that I can find) and even less are the No-Script and uBlockOrigin's extensions, which makes me question what this all means. It also makes me wonder if I shouldn't start switching over the Opera at this point, since Firefox is going to be a completely new experience in 2 more iterations.

Point is, all this change is making me very uncomfortable. Ugh, I'm so old. ;_;

Edit2 to add:
Fuck it. I'm switching over to Opera as my main browser. >.<