You Can't Cure Stupid...

[miko2]

So with the upcoming Science Pack, City of Heroes is introducing something that people have wanted for a while: the ability to have costume slots that vary in height, or even model type. There are three model types in the game: female, normal male, and huge male. So your character can now be a Bruce Banner normal guy who grows into a Hulk type guy... or shrinks to an Ant type guy. Or you could be a Ranma clone who switches genders, or maybe it's something like the movie Ladyhawke, where two different humans can not exist at the same moment in time, or maybe share a body like Jekyl & Hiide, or you could use each costume slot for a different version of a golden age superhero (example: Ultrasuede Man, Ultrasuede Boy, Ultrasuede Woman, Ultrasuede Girl, and Ultrasuede Dog) or... you get the idea. Lots of possibilities.

Of course, it's the gender switching that grabs a lot of people's attention. One particularly misinformed person started a thread on the boards (which will no doubt be deleted when a moderator finally sees it) making the argument that this option should never be in the game. His argument is as follows:

1. Switching from a male to female toon is obviously crossdressing (it isn't)
2. Crossdressing is obviously immoral (it isn't)
3. Crossdressing should not be allowed because the game has a Teen rating, and children should never be exposed to something so sexually explicit (which... well, where do we even begin?)

It would be nice to say that this person was only confused and that people were able to explain to him the inherent stupidity of his position, but unfortunately the argument's gone on since last night and he's repeatedly displayed his vast stupidity. He "doesn't agree" with cartoons like Bugs Bunny where the character dresses in drag either, but fails to see how this would invalidate argument #3. He fails to see how Mulan has anything to do with the discussion, and asks people to privide any real example of a Disney film with crossdressing in it. He "doesn't have a problem" with changing genders per se -- if you were allowed to switch the gender of all five of your costume slots at once from male to female, that wouldn't bother him, because then you'd be 100% female and it wouldn't be crossdressing when you changed from one costume to another. The fact that children sometimes crossdress or that a male college student might wear a dress during hazing is immaterial, because it's only when adults deliberately look like the opposite sex that it becomes sexually explicit and immoral. The idea that clubs geared towards crossdressers 13+ might exist only proves his point that crossdressing is inappropriate for teens.

The argument that the TEEN rating only applies to what the game designer puts into the game, and nowhere do they label this ability crossdressing (or transgendered, or transsexual) is also lost on him. The argument that (as one person put it) This game has BDSM villains, outright murder, torture, sadism, biological warfare on a city-wide scale, incest, scantily clad women, an entire map full of bondage-clad gimp-boys, and THIS is where you claim you're suddenly "standing up for morals and values?" is also lost on him. I could go on, but essentially everything is lost on him, because he knows he's right and he's standing up for his morals and beliefs, and people that argue against him are being insensitive or sexist.

He also can't see the inherent irony in his forum signature, which is: " Why do they call it common sense, when its so uncommon?"

Needless to say, it's been a very entertaining thread so far. ^_^

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On a related note, I joined a team two nights ago, and Teammate B says to Teammate C: "Wow, congrats on nabbing such a fantastic name!" Teammate C responds: "Yeah, I was surprised it was even available."

The name? "Revalations". (Complete with a bio referencing the four horsemen of the Apocalypse, in case you were confused about what the name meant).

I was very tempted to add, "It might have been more difficult if you spelled it correctly," but my inherent Superhero Miss Manners warned me that this would be bad manners and just lead to hurt feelings. But it was difficult not to say anything. ^_~

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From another thread on "the coolest hero name you have", here are some pretty good ones:

Sphere Factor (force field defender -- force field creates bubbles around people)
Hurticulture (plant based villain)
Violet Tendencies (another plant based villain)
Awesome Blossom (plant based, pretty sure ^_^)
Kungfucius (martial artist)
Mister Superpants
Mountainheart
Archimedes' Lever
Tempus Fugitive
Yvette Horizon
Pam Demonium
Twisted Scissors
KowaiKawaii (Japanese -- "scary cute")