God damn you xanfor, I was just making bendersfan1221's page looks so amazing and you jumped in there first. A whole 30 minutes... wasted!

Oh well.

Coldy, SU27 vs Mig29; which one looks better? 

 

I could force myself to look at that.

Yes, I'll bet you could... gawd, I'm supposed to be a christian! What happened?    Next thing you know I'll be drawing homoerotic pictures of Bender and ... Chas, the mayor's aide! I always knew that one was a bit off the beaten path...

 

Originally posted by Archonix:
God damn you xanfor, I was just making bendersfan1221's page looks so amazing and you jumped in there first. A whole 30 minutes... wasted!

I didn't know!         

 

Originally posted by Frisco17:
 That is without a doubt one of the greatest thing I have ever seen. It ranks up there with that picture of "The Canon Cannon".

First, I'd like to thank Archonix for telling me how to get my wiki page up. Any suggestions or additions would be appreciated.

Secondly, thanks for reposting that cannon picture I didn't want to have to search for it.

And C, the Fulcrum smokes the Flanker any day of the week.
Caution! A MiG-29 vs Su-27 debate can be as nasty as a Leela vs Amy debate. You have been warned.

Xanfor made this post by accident, due to a freak occurrence involving a carrot, his lapel, and a jar of bicycle chain oil. You may rest assured that the lapel was not, in fact, stained by the oil, nor did any misfortune befall the produce. However, Xanfor may be walking with a limp for the next few days, and will most assuredly become violent at the slightest smell of Irish Benedict.

Nice collection, Coldy. Being the ship thread and everything, I'll limit myself to two thumbnails:


Damn they're so beautiful! These are machines that just *want* to fly! That's the Su-30MK, no canards, no TVC.


This bad boy is the Su-30MKI, with the front canards and 2-D TVC nozzles.

More pix.

Seeing them fly at airshows is an amazing experience. Then you get close to one and realize just how big they are, despite being so graceful. OK, I'll stop gushing. Back to the, uh, shipping thing.

What happened to the shipper discussion? Now your talking about airplanes? What next?

I should've put that on the table! The Planet Express 'Ship!

'Ship happens. Deal with it. 

Perhaps that one will actually be about 'ships. 

All ships are female, except in Russia apparently.

Mmm, it's all a rich tapestry. But common knowledge is that USAF aircraft have been progressively making use of more and more back-engineered alien technology in the past few decades as they've finally started to crack some of the hardware from the 1947 craft...
...Which, in real life, wasn't actually Bender's ass.

I wouldn't put it past the Russkies to have some 'not-currently-existing' technology under their belts as well. Their version of the advanced electronically-phased radar array is being kept a close secret, and I've heard murmurs of the development of a radically new approach to stealth, making use of a charged 'plasma screen' that could be fitted to almost any aircraft.
Booya. Those rickety old Bear-Hs won't be such a laughing stock if they suddenly become invisible.

I'm sure the F-35 is fine and dandy. We'd probably find it to be a very effective warplane if you bastards would ever get around to delivering the damn thing.    We've had to procure a flock of Super-Hornets as a stopgap measure due to the F-35's delay.

If I had my way, though, we'd all be flying MiG-21s. I love those old birds. 

...We should... probably stop with the aviation chat...

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Has anyone seen Farscape? Who else sees parallels between the Fry/Leela relationship and the Crichton/Aeryn relationship? The ups and downs of those two, and the ultimate pay-off, should surely be a positive template.

Wow; tough thread.

On to 'shipping matters (since I can't really offer any opinion on model-making, other than to say that coldangel's stuff looks really neat)...

Leela/Fry: I think BBS was a good thing for this pairing. Why? Because instead of basing her acceptance of Fry as a lover/mate over just a series of gestures (not that most of them didn't have real meaning), by the end of BBS Leela has now seen that Fry can be mature and still be playful (he can learn that you can't treat the object of your desires merely as an object, but still play games with wine glasses), and she also knows that the version of Fry that survives BBS has learned the lesson about respect as well. I mean, that was her big objection, right? Likes his boyishness, hates his childishness. (To paraphrase it.) Well, now she's seen proof positive that it can happen. Give it some time (and a fair wind from the writers), and you never know...     


Though yes, I would like to see Fry find someone else that was good for him, and see how that affects Leela; it seems to me, sometimes, that she's pursuing a strategy with Fry of keeping him close, but not too close, in order that when he does mature to her satisfaction, she's the only one that benefits. Which doesn't reflect that well on her, if true. Then again, that pre-supposes she has a plan, which she may not. Not a conscious one, anyhow. I'unno.     
Fry's ideas of what constitute a good 'other half' should play a part in them coming together as much as hers.

There's a part of Leela that values status, but it's nowhere as large as the part that values security; harsh life aside, her experiences in romance have not been all that kind (though they haven't entirely erased her optimism) - she's been hurt by enough men (especially over her not coming up to their standards) that she's determined to be in control with regards standards (or at least try to), though her credulousness occasionally undermines her. (I think she also has acceptance issues above and beyond romance, due to her isolation growing up. And part of it is an unwillingness to change.)

Put it another way; she's had a lot of guys treat her like crap, despite the fact that she kept (and keeps) putting herself out there, willing to believe that there is a guy that'll treat her properly. All those failures have taken their toll, though; she still believes in 'Mr. Right', but barring the odd slip she's learnt to be cautious. She sees things in Fry that attract her, but those failures (especially the mythic Sean, who is very similar to Fry) mean that she's unwilling to risk another heartache over faults she knows about beforehand. Her life can't be blamed for it all, but she's only had a circle of friends (and then family and friends) that accept her, and even love her, for what she is for a comparatively short time. Those walls are going to take longer than two or three years to come completely down. Plus, and I'm sure this has been said before, but until BBS, she's never seen Fry in a serious relationship; that, his seeming unwillingness to improve himself, and his adolescent attitude towards women (in terms of 'romance' in particular), and you might see why Leela thinks Fry isn't a risk worth taking - or not worth taking yet.

I'm not sure how clearly this is coming out; but I do think that Leela has high standards partially in retaliation to how other people have treated her in general, not just in the dating world. Someone here mentioned her having to get out of her shell in order to be with Fry, and I can't argue with that; she has to realise that that kind of change goes both ways, and that she has to pay attention to the other person's feelings as well.

Of course, I'm not a psycologist (I don't even play one on TV), but those are some of my thoughts after reading through this thread. She can be very harsh, but she isn't a total b*tch; but she does need to learn to lighten up.     


------------------
Fry: He was a good man, Leela.

Leela: Yeah...you were.

- Bender's Big Score

Bear-H? Rickety??? Hardly! Those big beasts are so damn loud though, that stealth might not do much for them   

As for the PE ship, would she consider a VF-1 Valkyrie?
 

Leela has now seen that Fry can be mature

I keep hearing this, but please explain how Leela sees Lars as someone who's mature five seconds after he walks in to a room and meets her for the first time? That's what makes Leela look more like a plot element in BBS than anything else.
 

she's unwilling to risk another heartache over faults she knows about beforehand.

Nicely put!
 

I only mention this because I rule. w00t

[Rich Little]That you did surely not[/Rich Little] 

Oh that one's easy. Lars is Fry without hair and a more ruggedly handsome face. Obviously she's secretly attracted to Fry but can't acknolwedge it because that would mean admitting she's been attracted to the guy she likes to dump on a lot, so when a virtual (or temporal) clone of him turns up in the form of Lars, she turns all that latent attraction onto him because, while he reminds her of Fry in his looks, he isn't Fry in reality... at least as far as she knows at the time.

And all of that goes on at the subconscious level. Minds are fun!

That makes perfect sense.


I'm so bored of my avatar.

 

[I'd say that if her ambiguous approach is, as you say, a mechanism for maintaining her hold on Fry until he's cooked to her liking, then I'd say that said mechanism is likely operating at a subconscious level.

Absolutely. She may occasionsally wonder (or not) why some of her interactions with Fry follow certain paths, but I doubt what's she's doing is a conscious thing. She's learnt to be cautious about dating, but I don't think she'd be that coldly calculating about it.   

 

Originally posted by THM:
Fry can be sweet, but has trouble with charming.

Not so. Leela quite clearly has stated that she loves his boyish charm.

I pretty much agree with everything THM said over the past day or so about Leela, Lars and Fry. I don't think either of them actually have a master plan for dealing with the other and that most of what they do is subconsiously motivated.

I don't agree with Leela being just a plot element because she fell for Lars so fast. In my opinion she's subconsiously in love with fry (ie: "The Sting" ) but won't acknowlege or admit it to herself. So she sees somebody who reminds her of Fry (alot) and is even somewhat better in her eyes, her subconsious is screaming "Go for it!"

The biggest thing that bugs me though is that BBS didn't really show how Leela feels about Lars being Fry. The only time it does is at the funeral where she seems close to Fry. Case in point:

Fry: "He was a good man, Leela."
Leela: "Yeah, you were."

Still, I've tried to prevent myself from forming to much of an idea until I have more infomation.One of the many phrases I live by is "There's nothing more dangerous than thinking you know something." Remember what happened last time we jumped to a conclusion.

 

Originally posted by km73:

Also, "mature" is beginning to be the most overused word in this thread.

I'm worried about that. DXC was talking to JustNibblin' a few weeks ago, and he told JN something to the effect of "Fry's not an idiot, he's just immature".

I dearly hope the difficulties within the 'Ship aren't simply reduced to this.

^^ THANK YOU! *applause* I couldn't have said it better myself. And yet, after all Fry's done for her, she decides on a whim that Lars is the one for her. Doesn't make sense.

Me: I demand an explanation! You owe me!
DXC: I owe you nothing!