Bittersweet Candy Bowl Forums

LackLuster, on 22 April 2013 - 09:19 PM, said:

The case-breaking issue with your argument is that you are assigning a bit too much objective logic to the minds of the North Koreans. Regardless of whether or not they could fire a missile accurately, you are drawing the relatively impetuous conclusion that they would perceive Guam as an unworthy target for an attack. For a rather small country with a rather large ego complex, attacking something that is small enough to eliminate with one rocket and worth enough to get America's attention without necessarily initiating an immediate war would have a high probability of seeming like a viable option.

Looking back through history, this is a pattern that has been followed before. Take Japan, for example; they could have easily used the bombers they sent to Pearl Harbor to hit somewhere that was actually on America's primary land mass, but they chose not to. Why? Because it made more of an impact. If you take one hundred square miles, and destroy three of them, the impact is noticed, but it can be overlooked without too much difficulty. If you take five square miles, and destroy three of them, the impact is extensive and severe. Despite the logic inherent in aiming for something like the US Capital or a major city in any country, the psychological devastation that would be incurred at rendering an entire island uninhabitable would not only shock the masses, but leave a permanent mark on the planet which current levels of science simply cannot erase - for a country which puts high values on its apocryphal importance, that would certainly be the most ego-stroking option if they only had one missile to launch.

As it has already been mentioned, North Korea's odds of winning what would invariably spin into World War Three are minimal at best; regardless of their self-pride and arrogance, to assume they are unaware of this would be relatively presumptuous. Due to that knowledge, if they want to create a fight which they can win, they will go for as many small and remote targets as possible before igniting a full-fledged war. To once again turn to the metaphorical pages of history, let us go back to World War Two, on the European front. Germany could have attempted to launch an air invasion directly into the United States, or France, or England, or any number of higher-profile targets; instead, they went after the countries that people were less aware of, and had already conquered several before the war had even begun. Not only did Germany's targets not illicit aggressive intentions from the other major countries, it effectively scared the rest of the world into the appeasement plans which allowed the 'Nazi war machine' to press on unchecked for as long as it did. To argue that history fails to repeat itself is not an argument won often; with the current situation between Korea and the world, Guam and any other small or less-known targets offer Korea the same degree of opportunity which Hitler's first targets offered - remote locations which will instill fear into the world should they be harmed, but not necessarily enough fear to commence a war before attempting appeasement.

Case and point: Guam's importance as a military target of North Korea is gravely valid. While North Korea's chances of actually getting their missile to hit the island are minimal at best, the reality of the possibility that they would attempt to do so is, regrettably, very plausible. I personally do not believe that a North Korean missile will succeed to the degree which they would desire it to; that being said, even a near-miss could cause extensive ramifications for the world at large, especially if it occurred near a location such as Guam.

Also I really need to stop writing tl;dr essay posts at odd hours of the morning

I cannot help but notice that Lucy's hair looks an awful lot like Jess's in panel 3... Foreshadowing, perhaps? Either way, I believe we can all agree that by this time next week the play will have spiraled into emotional turmoil and that whatever does end up happening will invariably outdo Sue's script by miles in the realism and drama departments. Either that, or Lucy will become further depressed by the intimations she believes Mike is giving her that he actually is not, internalize it during the play, and promptly call Augustus Jess Paulo back to her dressing room after her scene to distract her from the entire ordeal.

On a relatively related subject, one must sincerely empathize with whomever has to go and clean up all the rocks scattered about and piled up on the opposite end of the stage from the fan. With how many rocks are being blown around, the act of cleaning it all up could take several days at minimum...

Every band ever can go home now, the zenith of my terrible tastes in music has been achieved.

The singer from Disturbed doing duos with the singers from Avenged Sevenfold and System of a Down is either a sign of the apocalypse, or a sign that humanity is still capable of doing really good and amazing things like this entire album.

Posting this here since creating a different topic for it seemed relatively inadvisable; just saw a BCB ad which I am assuming is new, and thought it to be worth posting.

Whatever site would match David and Sue as 64% likely to be friends requires some extensive recoding.

Foolishprototype001, on 27 March 2013 - 09:15 AM, said:

Potentially, but most often not; usually the town was conspicuously unscathed upon the hero's return, unless the writers/developers had utilized an attack on the town as a metaphorical launching pad for a sequel game. Take Mario as a stereotypical example; even when he would travel to the furthest end of the kingdom, he would find that the end directly opposite of him from whence he came - and from whence the princess's castle was located, presumably along with most of the kingdom's residency and civilization in general - was bright and polished when he came back from Bowser's half of the realm. Of course it would be virtually obliterated in the near future, but Mario would be there to witness it, and thus be incited to begin yet another prolonged quest. As I recall, there are one or two exceptions to this structure, specifically in the "Superstar Saga" RPG-like series; considering that series's plot took pride in being a bit darker and straying from conventional tropes, though, its relevance to the general trend of Mario games - and more importantly, late 1990s-early 2000s games in general - is relatively debatable. That being said, I obviously cannot claim to know of every game's storyline in that era; there may very well be several notable cases I am not aware of which exhibit the situation that you had depicted.

Back to the comic, though, I am a bit curious as to what sort of evil power leaves green spots/smears on its victims. I cannot help but find them to look relatively comparable to grass stains, although naturally the actual cause will prove to be something far less innocuous.