I have figured out how to more-or-less efficiently kill lynels

[conuly]

(And not just by standing in a high spot and spamming them with bomb arrows.)

Go me!

Also, Thunderblight is an awesome name. If I ever become a supervillain I'll call myself Thunderblight, and if Nintendo sends me a cease and desist letter I'll laugh and laugh because - I'll be a supervillain! What do I care about copyright laws?

***

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Inside the Secret Sting Operations to Expose Celebrity Psychics (“First off, someone will have to be a scientist to do a scientific experiment, not someone who used to be a photographer at Sears.” Wow, that's so not how it works, buddy, and being a scammer who preys on the grieving makes you the scum of the earth, so you don't have the grounds to criticize almost anybody else.)

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I Know Climate Change Exacerbates Inequality. I See It Happening in My Hometown.

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Comments

[dewline]

It occurs to me that HYDRA exists in the real worlds, but doesn't call itself that because they respect intellectual property law...and also because they fear the Wrath of Disney's Lawyers...

[conuly]

Good insight.

[flamingsword]

I saw what you did there.

[rebeccmeister]

Okay, curiosity's going to get the best of me. Lynel tricks?

[conuly]

Stasis the hell out of them, run behind them, smack them several times, see if you can mount them. When they start to breathe fire or charge you, stasis again. If you can't, try to get under them.

[rebeccmeister]

BRILLIANT!

scrottie kept trying to get me to ride one but I couldn't quite make it happen. Will have to give that a try. Stasis FTW!

I also found that if you have good enough armor, blocking certain kinds of attacks works really well.

[conuly]

I am *terrible* at blocking anything. I just wear my defense armor and take my defense potion and hope for the best.

Note: You can't mount while he's stasised, you have to wait until the stasis wears off. If you've bashed him enough he'll sort of crouch down and that's when you can mount him and smack him around some more.

[greghousesgf]

James Randi is one of my total idols and I'm happy to read any article exposing fakey psychics.

[conuly]

Seriously. It's one thing if they sincerely think they ARE psychic - they're still wrong* but at least they're not setting out to deceive people, even if that's the same result. Even cold reading at least requires a little bit of skill on their parts. But this is just... how can they live with themselves?

* I put "psychic abilities are real" and "the dead can speak to us" at approximately the same probability as "there is a non-zero number of personal deities who care about what humans do" and somewhat a lower probability than "there is some sort of intelligent first mover who may or may not care about the universe and the people therein".

[adafrog]

Great.

[elenbarathi.livejournal.com]

Thunderblight would be an awesome super-villain name for someone whose super-powers involved thunder and/or blighting, but there's no telling in advance what powers you would get. If you had, say, invisibility and telepathy, or irresistible seductiveness, or super-speed, everyone would always be asking you "So, why are you called Thunderblight then?" till you just had to kill them all.

Maniacal laughter is specifically advised against in the Evil Overlord List (http://eviloverlord.com/lists/overlord.html). Anyway, the reason super-villains (and super-heroes, for that matter) have secret identities in the first place is so nobody's attorneys can send them letters.

[conuly]

I wouldn't be an Evil Overlord, though, I'd be a supervillain. Totally different, and there's just no point if you can't engage in a hearty laugh now and again.

If you had, say, invisibility and telepathy, or irresistible seductiveness, or super-speed, everyone would always be asking you "So, why are you called Thunderblight then?" till you just had to kill them all.

Meh, comes with the job.

Anyway, the reason super-villains (and super-heroes, for that matter) have secret identities in the first place is so nobody's attorneys can send them letters.

Process servers don't need your real name, they just need to leave you a note. Which I will crumple up and toss on the ground! Because as a supervillain, I scoff at littering laws! Ahahahaha!

[elenbarathi.livejournal.com]

Well, these are all valid points. Still, super-villains generally either are Evil Overlords, or they have Evil Overlords, because those who try to go it alone in the super-crime world are easy meat for both super-heroes and other super-villains. Even batshit-crazy anarchists like the Joker have minions, however temporary. He's an excellent example of a really shite Evil Overlord, and see what it got him.

In order for process-servers to leave you a note, they have to have somewhere to leave it. This is why, in addition to a secret identity, one needs a secret hideout. Batman never gets sued for all the damage he causes because nobody knows where the Batcave is; otherwise Wayne Enterprises would be bankrupt, and Bruce Wayne would be in Arkham.

Scoff at the human littering laws if you will, but disrespecting the environment earns one the unfriendship of the Gentry, who tend to wait for the opportune moment before putting a heavy thumb on the scales of luck. Disbelieving in them doesn't help; they love to fuck with those who don't believe. This may explain why many super-villains are both raving mad, and stunningly misfortunate. I suggest you put your discarded mail in the recycle bin, and scoff at the parking laws instead.

[conuly]

Process servers don't need your place of residence, they just need to identify where you're likely to be. I could be the sort of supervillain that hides in my room all day, but that doesn't go along with a cool name like Thunderblight, so all they have to do is show up to wherever I'm wreaking havoc and throw paperwork in my general direction. SERVED.

Can I make paper airplanes out of my unwanted legal documents instead?

[elenbarathi.livejournal.com]

"Can I make paper airplanes out of my unwanted legal documents instead?"

Maybe? I mean, who knows, right? The Gentry are both easily offended and easily amused, so it's kind of the luck o' the draw.

I used to write haikus, make them into paper airplanes, and sail them off roofs. When the World Trade Center was new-built, a family friend took me to lunch there for my birthday, and afterward I sailed my very first haiku plane off the observation deck at the top. It went up and up and up till it vanished in the summer haze. Probably it's still up there somewhere. No idea what the Gentry thought of it, but they're said to be fond of poetry. Legal documents, maybe not so much.

I don't see what good the process-servers think can come of throwing paperwork in the general direction of someone with a mask, a fake name, and no known address. I mean, how could one even prove that one had served them, or that they were even the right person? "What?!? Nobody SERVED me anything, buddy; I never saw you in my life, I never saw any papers, and I never heard of this 'Thunderblight' or did any of this crazy stuff, either."

[conuly]

Listen, the legal eagles of the world are weird, okay? Who knows how they think?

[elenbarathi.livejournal.com]

All humans are weird, but having been a nanny for the children of five different attorneys (two moms, three dads), and worked with several others, I would say they're no weirder than the general run of people, and tend to think more logically.

[conuly]

There's something bizarre about logical thought in humans.

[elenbarathi.livejournal.com]

I saw a meme not long ago: "If the sleep of reason begets monsters, what does the sleep of unreason beget?"

[conuly]

Apple trees.

[elenbarathi.livejournal.com]

Logic is a little bird....

[conuly]

Also, common law name changes are not "fake". Nor are stage names. I'm not sure which one better applies here.

[elenbarathi.livejournal.com]

Wouldn't be either of them. With a common-law name change, you don't keep the old name and continue using it for all your non-secret-identity-related purposes. A stage name is legally considered property, like a character one created; I'm pretty sure actors and actresses still have to sign contracts with their legal names, and it seems likely they'd have to be served under them too.

Anyway, a secret identity is a criminal alias, used for criminal purposes, i.e. evasion of identification by both law enforcement and lawyers. What 'identification' means is putting a name to a face, and the face to a physical body that has to eat and sleep somewhere. If all you've got is "calls himself Batman, wears a bat costume, said to live in a bat-cave", you've got nothing to go on.