Steel Accord

You can still ask, it is Christmas. That time when people try to spring for something meaningful to the other person. Even if it's normally something they wouldn't do for (understandable) practical reasons.

In terms of a physical item, weird to say but I think I’d like a pair of nunchaku. I find myself pantomiming the moves for them all the time despite never having held any. Just item number two on my list of Kung Fu weapons after my staff.

Many places, I'm naturally an idealist and optimistic . . . I think, family have called me a cynic in the past so maybe I don't quite have a good read on my own thoughts as conveyed by my actions. To name one source of hope though, I find a lot of hope in history. As much as I try not to judge people and the modern world, as it would go against the very thing I'm about to say is wrong with it (how paradoxical) there is an ill I find very common among those I take the most serious issue with. That being an unawareness or inability to empathize with history, even as recent as a decade prior to one's birth. The most egregious example of this was also the genesis of my ire with this phenomenon. In high school one of my peers asked, with total unknowing seriousness "did they have sex back then?" No joke. That didn't just end with him though, the same idea followed me. All the time I hear and read people complaining and despairing about the state of the world, how bad it is, how things are going to end soon. Acting as if those very same complaints have not been made by people just like them for literally thousands of years yet we're still here trucking along. Actually doing better than our ancestors. When, if you do know history, you can compare it to your present. In which case the present ALWAYS comes up better than the past! The Dark Ages, the Black Death, the Antebellum South, the Reign of Terror, the crimes of Qin Shi Huang, Caligula, and others. To which the obvious (and many times repeated to me) criticism is to point to any headline and say how bad things are now. My point being that things aren't any worse than they've ever been and that the problems we predict likely won't be the problems our descendants face because history almost never plays out like how people living in it think it's going to go. Just to use one example, the Soviet Union. Prior and during the Cold War, even if the conflict didn't escalate to the end of the world, the only time where I agree it was a serious possibility, people were certain that they'd be staring down the barrel of a constant Soviet threat. Then it totally collapsed. Cold War won and the looser lost so badly they fractured into successor states. Likewise in the 80's there was a huge boom of Japanaphobia because of their rising economy and co-opting of Western businesses. Thinking was that Japan would boom and economically bankrupt the rest of the world. Seems pretty silly now in hindsight doesn't it? By the way, this is all coming from a millennial. 90's kid. I was alive for none of what I'm describing so I'm not being swayed by nostalgia or having personally survived trying times. That's the thing with history and where I find hope though. If you read into it as living, understanding that these were events that people just like you lived through, you begin to live not just outside of yourself, but even the scale of your own lifetime. That people came before you and will come after you. Any problems that you or even others have now are thrown into sharp relief, it becomes easier to discern what's a true problem and what are the same problems that people have always had. Soapbox prophets, doomsayers, experts, scholars, people have been predicting the end of the world since it began and they've always been wrong. The only time I took such a prediction seriously is when it confessed that we won't know when the world will end. "Heaven and earth will pass away, but My words will not pass away. But of that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but the Father alone. For the coming of the Son of Man will be just like the days of Noah." ~Matthew 24:35-37 That's where I find hope. Faith validated by the evidence of history. It's impossible to know what will come in my own life or beyond it. What's wrong with the world and what's right with it have both always been there and will continue to be there. While humanity as a whole has been on a steady incline since united Egypt, China, and Rome. Why do I believe that pattern will persist when others haven't? Easier to believe a trend with setbacks still on going on for thousands of years.

Been really diving into Jedi: Fallen Order. God it’s been too long since I’ve got to really escape into that fantasy of being a Jedi. What’s more is, even though you don’t have as much choice in terms of Jedi or Sith or even what gender and species you play, I think that’s to the game’s strength. Maybe it’s just me. I’ve grown so sick of the anti-organizational, gray-Jedi, moral equivalency bullshit of the community. Cal is a Jedi, no bones about it, who trusts in the Force and resists the Dark Side, and he wants to restore the Jedi Order. I don’t need as much choice in this game because he’s already doing everything I would want to do. Beyond that, the lightsaber combat is just everything I’ve always wanted out of a SW game. Balancing the right amount of challenge that it’s not too easy but making you feel powerful by overcoming the numbers and harder bosses.

Is that game why you’d want to own those specific weapons?

In a reaction to my old post, definitely a conservative. Small government, free market, patriotic, personally of faith, there’s nothing new under the sun, etc.

I’d go even more old school with a single action revolver. “Six bullets, more than enough to kill anything that moves.” Well certainly you can talk about the subject all you want right? And please see that thread if you’re feeling that lost.

It’s considered a rare collectors item. Used by a number of forces outside the U.S. and U.K. spheres, including both Germans and Russians. It has the rep of a bad guy weapon. Like a sidearm version of the AK family. It was also the basis for Han Solo’s blaster, again, the weapon’s normal association with bad guys further emphasizing his anti-hero status.

Winchester or Henry lever-action rifle. What can I say? I’m old school.

Not really a gun. And launching a nuclear weapon is actually a complicated multi step process.

Happy Birthday and God bless.

Hey guys. This isn’t a theological topic or what have you but I could use some advice if you have a moment. I’m 28 years old. My plan is to join the Navy. Military life has always been something I’ve desired, to an extent I feel I need it. I am not lazy. Lazy is not doing what others ask of you because you don’t feel like it. I always do as I’m asked by my parents and bosses. No complaints. No what I am, is slothful. One of the deadly sins. Way back when the show began, I watched Brony analysis videos like Sabersparks. (There’s a blast from the past for us veterans.) I was inspired, I thought I could do something like that and have a creative avenue for the rest of my life. Died with barely a sentence into the script. Later thought I could maybe do some film reviews. Defending movies popularly considered bad Didn’t even get as far as the script. Admiring people like the Brony analysts and other persona driven media commenters like Moviebob or Todd in the Shadows, I thought I could throw my hat in the ring by reviewing my own niche genre of movies. . . . I bought a microphone. . . . Twice. All the while draining my loving parents of money and myself of time. I look back on my years in college and after and I can’t help but see so many opportunities when I could have just enlisted as I wanted to do (and obviously needed) but didn’t. Had I done so at 18, 19, even 21, who would I be now? What would I have done and where would I have been? Could I even have been married at this point or at least in a meaningful relationship? I’m going into the military this year, God willing. My biggest obstacle thus far being my own gluttony keeping me from taking the necessary weight off. Even if I get in though . . . is it too late? Have I damaged myself? Stunted my emotional maturity in some fundamental manner? Does it even matter what I do from now on if it was wrong for me to waste so much time, money, and potential? Thank you.

Well the idea is that he’s a martial artist, as the name would imply. The idea being that he does the physical fighting (the spear) but understands the philosophy behind it as well (the scroll).

Any particular reason you didn’t just chop them into kibble and bits? They don’t seem as tough compared to Ahui’s cat crew. Then again, guile isn’t among my particular strengths. So that’s probably just me talking.

Weird question, have you ever encountered any Diamond Dogs? Haven’t read any of them in your books but I’m sure you don’t chronicle everything.

Quick question Daring, why pass your adventures off as fiction? Why not claim they’re true accounts (which they are) but still keep the disguise going? A.K. Yearling could still be Daring Do’s biographer instead of her creator.

Might have to give it a try aside from my own style. Other question, and this is for you about Ahuizotal not for him. Since he is so much bigger and stronger than you, not to mention the hand tail, why does he insist on the death traps when he could easily overpower you? (No offense.) Especially when you’ve proven time and again you’re smart enough to get out of any situation he puts you in?

Krav Pega? Badass! Suppose that makes sense the descendants of Commander Hurricane would have that style. Do they teach it in Cloudsdale or did you have to look for a teacher With a long beard and mustache mediating on a mountaintop?

Dear Daring Do, I’ve seen that you’re no stranger to a good scrap. Do you have any formal martial arts training?