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Every dumbass vampire movie: "I have to change my identity and move every ten years, I can't ever let anybody get close to me lest they learn my terrible secret" Actual immortals:    
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Apr 14, 2022 14:54
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It's way easier to be an immortal before identity documentation. Used to be you could just travel to some other village, now you've got to get fresh falsified documents every couple of decades. What a hassle! The Man From Earth is a good movie btw
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Apr 14, 2022 15:05
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Grendels Dad posted:Perfect memory in immortals annoys me. In Highlander, the flashbacks are explicitly McLoad remembering stuff from 60, 100, 400 etc. years ago. I can barely remember last week, I would quite like to see a movie play with how unreliable memory must be for someone who has centuries worth of poo poo to sort out. Yeah, that is kind of irrational considering that MacLeod is only remembering extremely significant events in his life that all involve the people who are most important to him: his worst enemy, his cousin, his mentor, his first wife, his closest immortal friend and his adopted daughter. And for the rest of his life, he has his room of mementos.
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Apr 14, 2022 15:09
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Queen of the Damned isn't the best film in that it's realistic in that if an actual centuries old vampire climbed out if their gloomy tomb and had a press conference where they said "hi I'm an actual real vampire" most of the world's reaction would be "wow that's cool.". And if you're immortal but not a literal blood drinking undead monster why would most people care?
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Apr 14, 2022 15:17
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FreudianSlippers posted:Queen of the Damned isn't the best film in that it's realistic in that if an actual centuries old vampire climbed out if their gloomy tomb and had a press conference where they said "hi I'm an actual real vampire" most of the world's reaction would be "wow that's cool.". Hell, if you were a literal blood drinking monster most people wouldn't care. Half of America would probably vote for you.
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Apr 14, 2022 15:38
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FreudianSlippers posted:And if you're immortal but not a literal blood drinking undead monster why would most people care?
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Apr 14, 2022 15:39
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FreudianSlippers posted:And if you're immortal but not a literal blood drinking undead monster why would most people care? Most normal people probably wouldn't care. Its the Peter Thiel level ghouls that want to vivisect the secrets of eternal life out of you that you'd want to avoid.
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Apr 14, 2022 15:40
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Grendels Dad posted:Perfect memory in immortals annoys me. In Highlander, the flashbacks are explicitly McLoad remembering stuff from 60, 100, 400 etc. years ago. I can barely remember last week, I would quite like to see a movie play with how unreliable memory must be for someone who has centuries worth of poo poo to sort out. There's a solo role-playing game called Thousand-Year-Old Vampire where forgetting things due to being immortal is a core mechanic, that's the only thing I think even references that sort of reality.
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Apr 14, 2022 15:46
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800peepee51doodoo posted:Most normal people probably wouldn't care. Its the Peter Thiel level ghouls that want to vivisect the secrets of eternal life out of you that you'd want to avoid. And chances are you can string them along with promises you'll totally share your gift with them, just join my blood drinking cult if you can make time between your other blood drinking cults.
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Apr 14, 2022 15:56
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Someone mentioned The Man From Earth above, and while I actually think it's not a particularly good movie it's about an early human that ended up somehow never aging past what would look like about 40 today. People keep asking him to remember details from things that happened a few thousand years ago and he's like "can you remember exactly what you said last week?"
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Apr 14, 2022 16:04
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There's a pretty good book series by Gene Doucette that's based on an immortal, first one unsurprisingly is called The Immortal. It's a pretty great series, but the last book kinda stumbled a bit. He spends a rather large amount of time drunk and can't remember everything that's ever happened to him. He doesn't even know his own age because he has been around longer than numbers.
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Apr 14, 2022 16:10
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The comic Powers had two eternal enemies - one a hero and the other a villain. Only, the hero could only remember his life back 70 years or so, while the villain could remember it all, tens of thousands of years. So, every century of so, the bad guy would come round and try to kill the hero and everyone he loved. And every time the hero would have no loving clue who he was, which drove the bad guy insane with rage. Then the hero would beat the bad guy so badly he'd take a century or so to heal up and the cycle continued anew.
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Apr 14, 2022 16:11
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Morpheus posted:There's a solo role-playing game called Thousand-Year-Old Vampire where forgetting things due to being immortal is a core mechanic, that's the only thing I think even references that sort of reality. I'm sure I've read some books where the memory limits of immortals was a plot device, or at least discussed. I have a vague memory of a sequence where a character talks about how the brain just cant store more than a regular human lifespans worth of memories, so previously human immortals have a periodic breakdown/reset where they basically move most of what we would think of as long term memories into super-long term mental storage, compartmentalising it in a way where they dont really remember it unless they make a special effort to concentrate and unpack the mental box that contains the memories of the tudor era or whatever. Now I have no idea what the hell books that is from, I read a lot of very bad genre fiction in my teens and it all sort of blurs together.
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Apr 14, 2022 16:14
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The one bit I caught of Queen of the Damned was an irrationally irritating movie moment. Lestat or Louis was showing off his superhuman vampire fiddling prowess to an appreciative young woman by a bonfire, and then she freaks the gently caress out and has to be killed because his eyes glowed for less than a second. Also they made a VWOOM sound that was audible over the fiddling.
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Apr 14, 2022 16:21
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That Italian Guy posted:You mean "why would the rich and powerful of the world try to dissect you forever to figure out why you are the way you are" wouldn't be a problem? Being an immortal guinea pig would suck. Unless you became immortal like yesterday, seems like you should have amassed the resources at this point to fend of someone like Peter Thiel if only because you remember when the gold standard started and you've amassed even more wealth and power than him.
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Apr 14, 2022 18:57
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christmas boots posted:Unless you became immortal like yesterday, seems like you should have amassed the resources at this point to fend of someone like Peter Thiel if only because you remember when the gold standard started and you've amassed even more wealth and power than him. Given how little wealth I've aquired in the last 40 years, at this rate if you gave me another 200 years I'm not sure I'd have the resources to fend off peter rabbit never mind peter theil.
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Apr 14, 2022 20:05
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Grendels Dad posted:Perfect memory in immortals annoys me. In Highlander, the flashbacks are explicitly McLoad remembering stuff from 60, 100, 400 etc. years ago. I can barely remember last week, I would quite like to see a movie play with how unreliable memory must be for someone who has centuries worth of poo poo to sort out. There's a Dr. Who episode when someone becomes immortal and she has to write down stuff in diaries keep her memories.
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Apr 14, 2022 20:10
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SiKboy posted:Given how little wealth I've aquired in the last 40 years, at this rate if you gave me another 200 years I'm not sure I'd have the resources to fend off peter rabbit never mind peter theil. Admittedly I'm making some assumptions here, and if you became immortal today I don't know that you could be as successful as compared to becoming immortal 200 years ago. Also I guess it depends on what kind of immortality. Is just old age that can't kill you or is it the full suite?
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Apr 14, 2022 20:13
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I think it's be hilarious to just have them find their old poo poo in a museum somewhere. "GODDAMN IT I SPENT 200 YEARS TRYING TO FIND THAT NECKLACE, THE gently caress WAS IT DOING IN A WELL?" Or just something completely normal like "oh, gently caress, I'm pretty sure that's my broom... Was I in Sumeria then?" Or even better, finding out someone wrote graffiti on some wall in Rome in ancient times like "Balthazar has a tiny dick!" and not finding it until modern day where it's all over the place in journals and poo poo. You've been wondering why the other immortals insisted you go to that museum for the last 50 or so years, and boom. Owned from beyond the grave.
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Apr 14, 2022 20:16
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If I was Highlander Immortal I would simply invest in a iron gorget and be functionally unstoppable.
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Apr 14, 2022 20:30
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FreudianSlippers posted:If I was Highlander Immortal I would simply invest in a iron gorget and be functionally unstoppable. "Three thousand years I have borne this burden. I tire and wish to lay it down." - you, trying to eat a colorado omelette at Denny's with a giant fuckoff gorget on
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Apr 14, 2022 20:36
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Stupid_Sexy_Flander posted:I think it's be hilarious to just have them find their old poo poo in a museum somewhere. I would simply sell someone sub-par copper.
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Apr 14, 2022 20:40
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SiKboy posted:I mean, almost all of that is true for us non-immortals too, I still get bored. Yeah but that's cos you're poor, if you had the rest of time you could probably fix that eventually and then you'd be able to spend ages learning and making stuff. FreudianSlippers posted:If I was Highlander Immortal I would simply invest in a iron gorget and be functionally unstoppable. Highlander already did it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jguR1JDuvMc No I don't know why the lightning dissolves it so has it for that one fight and never uses it again, you would think if that happened he would have spares. OwlFancier has a new favorite as of 20:45 on Apr 14, 2022 |
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Apr 14, 2022 20:40
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Dr Christmas posted:The one bit I caught of Queen of the Damned was an irrationally irritating movie moment. Lestat or Louis was showing off his superhuman vampire fiddling prowess to an appreciative young woman by a bonfire, and then she freaks the gently caress out and has to be killed because his eyes glowed for less than a second. Also they made a VWOOM sound that was audible over the fiddling. You just reminded me of this movie after some 15 years of never having thought it about again, but yeah, I now remember also being irrationally irritated by it. Like I get that the point of the scene was "check out these wacky superhuman abilities vampires have - oh, whoops, despite it looking cool, it totally freaks out the mundanes, woe, woe! for the unceasing torture of this eternally isolated existence, blah blah 90s goth angst, etc.", but I mean, come on. They're vampires. Not Matrix wizards who can magically brain-download Itzhak Perlman's skillset. Even if your superhuman reflexes grant you all the fine motor control in the universe, playing an instrument is an immensely complex process that you can't just do if you don't know how to perform that process. Like the Hulk's powers give him super strength, now he can huck a UPS van into low-earth orbit. Fine. He was not thereby also somehow magically granted the ability to intuitively understand and manipulate corporate shipping logistics. (I realize even as I type this that there is a distinct chance some comic book reader will turn up to be like "actually the Hulk did exactly that in issue whatever the gently caress", and then post the scans to prove it.) This lack of realism inherent in nonsensical power fantasies is really lowering the tone!
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Apr 14, 2022 23:02
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OwlFancier posted:Highlander already did it: No it didn't, because that movie doesn't exist.
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Apr 14, 2022 23:44
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Jedit posted:No it didn't, because that movie doesn't exist. Exactly. There's the first one, the show, Endgame, and the one in the works with Henry Cavill. Man, I fuckin love Highlander.
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Apr 15, 2022 00:48
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What about the Highlander cartoon? Now I'm trying to remember how they dealt with the whole decapitation thing.
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Apr 15, 2022 01:24
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I think you either style the guy's sword or broke it.
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Apr 15, 2022 02:38
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SiKboy posted:Given how little wealth I've aquired in the last 40 years, at this rate if you gave me another 200 years I'm not sure I'd have the resources to fend off peter rabbit never mind peter theil. With vampires, I think it also matters that they spend their lives killing and probably robbing people. Or using their powers to seduce and rob people. And then kill them. Also, if I could turn into mist, I'd totally be waltzing into banks and stuffing my pockets with cash.
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Apr 15, 2022 04:37
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One detail I always found interesting from the original Dracula is Van Helsing saying in chapter 23 that the Count isn't actually all that intelligent, referring to him as having a "child-brain." With other immortals, there are mnemonic techniques they could use if there were something they needed to remember centuries later. Ramirez probably had a whole metropolis of memory palaces.
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Apr 15, 2022 05:53
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Keromaru5 posted:With other immortals, there are mnemonic techniques they could use if there were something they needed to remember centuries later. Ramirez probably had a whole metropolis of memory palaces. He was probably keeping his Spanish (and Egyptian) accents in one of those.
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Apr 15, 2022 07:50
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Uh yeah, how could I make money off of Epstein Musk and Murdoch when I demonstrably have the power to grant them eternal life?
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Apr 15, 2022 08:30
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Seems like there is actually quite a lot of media dealing with unreliable memory in immortals, thanks to everyone pointing those out to me.Megillah Gorilla posted:Also, if I could turn into mist, I'd totally be waltzing into banks and stuffing my pockets with cash. Would the money also turn into mist, though.
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Apr 15, 2022 09:26
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A real mist opportunity there.
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Apr 15, 2022 10:48
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10 Beers posted:Exactly. There's the first one, the show, Endgame, and the one in the works with Henry Cavill. You are permitted to recognise the existence of Highlander 3 purely for the scene where Mario van Peebles tries to eat a condom.
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Apr 15, 2022 13:13
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Grendels Dad posted:Would the money also turn into mist, though. Maybe it's Terminator rules - it has to be covered by flesh. So vampire lifestyles are determined by how much cash they can shove up their arse.
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Apr 15, 2022 13:25
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pairofdimes posted:What about the Highlander cartoon? Now I'm trying to remember how they dealt with the whole decapitation thing. Can't remember the bad guys fate, but Macleod would run into good immortals that would just do this "I pass on my power" ritual which involved holding their hands when a bunch of lightning flashed or something. They wouldn't die immediately, just become mortal from that point on. Like there was an Immortal who was protecting a nuclear silo and was horribly disfigured and suffering radiation poisoning so being able to be mortal again was this relief from all the agony he was going through for centuries.
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Apr 15, 2022 13:39
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Panfilo posted:Can't remember the bad guys fate, but Macleod would run into good immortals that would just do this "I pass on my power" ritual which involved holding their hands when a bunch of lightning flashed or something. They wouldn't die immediately, just become mortal from that point on. Like there was an Immortal who was protecting a nuclear silo and was horribly disfigured and suffering radiation poisoning so being able to be mortal again was this relief from all the agony he was going through for centuries. Being immortal but still being vulnerable to genetic damage from radiation is a special kind of worst case scenario I had never thought about before. Like, on a long enough timeline every immortal eventually becomes a giant cancerous mass of tumors that can't die. loving cool
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Apr 15, 2022 15:51
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SiKboy posted:I'm sure I've read some books where the memory limits of immortals was a plot device, or at least discussed. I have a vague memory of a sequence where a character talks about how the brain just cant store more than a regular human lifespans worth of memories, so previously human immortals have a periodic breakdown/reset where they basically move most of what we would think of as long term memories into super-long term mental storage, compartmentalising it in a way where they dont really remember it unless they make a special effort to concentrate and unpack the mental box that contains the memories of the tudor era or whatever. The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August kind of deals with this, only they are different kind of immortals, basically living their lives over and over again. Most of them forget how many lifetimes they have lived after a while, but a very rare few remember every single thing with perfect clarity. And some of them get so sick of remembering all the poo poo they did that they erase their memories and start the cycle over again.
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Apr 15, 2022 15:55
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youknowthatoneguy posted:The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August kind of deals with this, only they are different kind of immortals, basically living their lives over and over again. Most of them forget how many lifetimes they have lived after a while, but a very rare few remember every single thing with perfect clarity. And some of them get so sick of remembering all the poo poo they did that they erase their memories and start the cycle over again. The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August is loving fantastic and you all should read it.
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