Mod Post: Off-Topic Tuesday

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In the comments to these weekly posts (and only these posts), it's your chance to go as off topic as you like.

Talk about non-comics stuff, thread derail, and just generally chat among yourselves.

The intent of these posts is to chat and have some fun and, sure, vent a little as required. Reasoned debate is fine, as always, but if you have to ask if something is going over the line, think carefully before posting please.

Normal board rules about conduct and behaviour still apply, of course.

It's been suggested that, if discussing spoilers for recent media events, it might be advisable to consider using the rot13 method to prevent other members seeing spoilers in passing.

The world situation is the world situation. If you're following the news, you know it as much as I do, if you're not, then there are better sources than me. But please, no doomscrolling, for your own sake.

Last minute change of plans means I need to run like heck to catch a train, so I'll leave this bare bones for today!

Comments

[numeronone]

After getting to the bit where you can start to recruit Orcs, I must now conclude that Middle Earth: Shadow of War is basically a hyperviolent Animal Crossing.

[deh_tommy]

So, anyone kill you yet? Or at the very least have you faced any stubborn reoccurring orcs?

[numeronone]

I've died SO many times, friend, because Talion is just the dullest possible protagonist and I really only care about keeping him alive for the sake of convenience to moving the game forward.

Up to Act 2, the most recurring orc I'd gotten was Urga, who after getting bisected at the waist came back patched together with metal strips and renamed "Urga the Machine". Following Act 2, honestly one of the biggest challenges of the game is winnowing down an interesting orc's health to the extent that he's recruitable and then recruiting him before your other recruited orcs can kill him.

Though I will say: I wish creativity allowed for them to add some female orcs to the mix. I wouldn't even be asking much from them, design-wise! If I ran into the occasional orc who looked like any of the others but used she/her pronouns I'd be perfectly happy!

[tripodeca113]

Well they released the trailer for the live action Lilo and Stich movie. Unsurprisingly it looks bad.
(hey I correctly guessed they'd give Jumba and Plikley human forms)

Well it looks like they'll be a panel on animated Star Wars shows next month. oh boy they'll announce another Clone Wars follow-up! Or Resistance season three!

I tried to get the Symbionic Titan DVD via inter-library loan (since there's seemingly one library in the world with a copy) but apparently they can't find it.

Twilight Zone season four:

The New Exhibit: Wax statues are creepy. The only thing creepier are wax statues of famous serial killers!

Interestingly this episode's twist allows us to interpret it in two different ways:
1). The wax statues came to life and murdered his wife, brother-in law and former boss, granting his dream to be famous....as an infamous serial killer!
(the fact he kept the statues around and only really cared that his boss got killed means he still not a good person in this situations)
2. He was the killer and was blaming the statues! He was a bitter angry man lashing out at the world! (This is what Jack the Ripper says happened but I wouldn't trust him....)

The ending is odd because after the statues end up in a museum in Brussels, we see they chose to add a wax statute of the guy who sold the collection to them and who murdered three people.
Is that all you need to do to become a famous serial killer? Where' the mystery? The-actually no lets stop here.

Of Late I Think of Cliffordville: So the corrupt millionaire who made a deal with the Devil for the thrill of going back in time and rebuilding his fortune from the ground up, only to fail due to 1) his blind nostalgia for the past, 2) being an exploitative manipulator rather than the true innovator he presents himself as and 3). being stupid (like spending all his money on buying oil-rich land cheaply when the drills needed to actually reach the oil won't be invented for another 20 years).

That all makes sense. But they add a double twist that he only asked to LOOK young so he's actually still physically an old man. But he already failed by the time he realizes that. He says it in a voice over in a montage of everyone mocking him.
It's a holdover from the original short story were he died of a heart attack a week after arriving in the past, but it seems unnecessary now.

I get "Haha he used to run the company but now he's the lowly janitor" but now the janitor is evil and rich. Well okay he does seem slightly less of a jerk, but is it really comeuppance if the number of evil rich people remains the same?

The Incredible World of Horace Ford: The title character is odd in this. So on one hand he's a manchild who goes on long rambling anecdotes about his childhood, but he's also married and had a job for 15 years. It feels like it should be one or the other.
(Maybe he's usually more grounded than this, but his upcoming birthday made him nostalgic?)

This probably would have worked better as a 20 minute episode since we have to go through the same flashback three times. Granted they do use this time to show the supporting cast reactions and flesh some other things out.

On Thursday We Leave for Home: In the distant year of 2021......
Good job with the captain. He feels like someone who's spent 30 years keeping the other survivors together and giving them hope, but that he's become used to being their unquestioned leader. It's probably the Space Madness.

You know at the end the leader of the rescue party, rather than saying "We leave at 0800 hours be there or be square" should have gotten his guys to jump the captain, take him on board their spaceship and tie him up. Sure it'll look bad on the report, but leaving the mentally ill man behind alone on a godforsaken rock is probably worse.

The Bard: Season four ends the only way it could in an unfunny comedy about a hack writer resurrecting Shakespeare to write a TV pilot for him.
okay some of the lines are kind of amusing like the editor telling him to go back to being a streetcar operator, and complaining about his stupid suggestion to extend a half hour show to a full hour (oh that Rod)

Shakespeare's clearly wasn't bringing his A game since his script seems like an awkward mishmash of his/Francis Bacon/the Earl of Oxford/Queen Elizabeth I/Christopher Marlowe's more famous plays.

[deh_tommy]

I hate myself for a myriad of reasons, but right now one of them is because I think Lilo & Stitch… actually looks pretty good and I’m looking forward to it coming out.

Is he rich? I thought he bankrupted himself due to his poor oversight?

[tripodeca113]

I meant the guy who was the janitor in the original timeline. The main character and him have switched places in the new present.

[lego_joker]

I used to think Cliffordsville was a pretty weak story because of how blatantly the rules of the time travel changed on a dime for maximum screwage, but in this political environment... Hell with it, kick him in every spot you can, Miss Devlin!

[skjam]

Had inspection of my apartment. Evidently passed as my lease was renewed. Rent went up about the same amount as my paycheck.

I could probably keep working after 65, I need the money and I'm good at the job but I am feeling exhausted every day after my shift, and it's feeling so hard to stay motivated. Also customer service is emotionally draining. 25 years of it now!

Going to an anime convention at the end of the month for the first time since 2012.

Marvel Puzzlequest is doing a "Defenders" event which is mostly the TV Defenders. Current chase character is Hobgoblin.

Over at my blog, I look at one of Edgar Rice Burroughs' less well-known books. Some yikes stuff. https://www.skjam.com/2025/03/15/book-review-the-moon-maid/

[zachbeacon]

"Rent went up about the same amount as my paycheck"

I feel that. My rent is going to skyrocket in a few months and I haven't had a full time job in a year.

Oh well, not like the prices of everything else is also going up across the board.

[cainofdreaming]

My rent already went up, and my housing benefits went down. I'm in the lucky bracket who only lost around 30 euros on that math lesson. There are people in this country who are down ten times that.

[scorntx]

In government, they're doing all the usual talk about cutting down on bureaucracy.
Joke's on them. They'll find out as every other government before them that actually, if anything, they need more bureaucracy.

And they're still going on about cutting disability benefits. Not sure I'd be more outraged or less if I could find any clarification on what they've actually said, if anything.

Really quite furious at the GP right now. After calmly explaining a recurring pain issue that's been going on for seven years now, just got the brush off and a thing to take which has nothing to do with the problem. And I can't even take it.
(Shouldn't need to bring representation just to see a GP...)


Daredevil Born Again episode 3.
Even knowing that (or something like it) was going to happen, that was rough.
Felt the strong need to hug the cat after that.


Apparently the X-Men anniversary one-shots do not feature back-up stories by Ewing.
It's just the first one. The rest have back-up stories by people who are not Ewing.

Bought one of the X-Force Epic Collections, mainly just for the New Warriors crossover (New Warriors Epic Collection ever, Marvel?)
Shame it was about the Upstarts.

[iamrman]

My favourite part of that X-Force/New Warriors crossover is Fenris getting defeated offscreen.

[scorntx]

That was pretty good.

[iamrman]

I started reading the Detroit era of the Justice League. I'm not going to say too much because I am going to make a post about it later today.

I was planning on revisiting the Kyle Rayner Green Lantern series, but ended up changing my mind. I haven't made fun of Hal Jordan in a while, so I decided to check out the Steve Englehart issues. I may even give New Guardians a go as well. I have only ever read one issue of that series. You all know the one. The best one.

Also, in case you missed it, I did a post on Strange Tales #97 because people are always confused when I mention Spider-Man's secret mermaid cousin.

[bradygirl_12]

Does his cousin know Lori Lemaris? 🧜‍♀️ ☺️

[heartsways]

j/w if anyone has any requests for posts like old minis or graphic novels they'd like to see. nothing current really interesting to me atm. thanks.

[deh_tommy]

What do you have, if you don’t mind me asking?

[heartsways]

mainly old marvel/dc stuff like spider-man/batman on my kindle but i can find stuff i don't have

[shakalooloo]

'The Electric State' on Netflix is very strange. Its aesthetic is a dry, blown-out dystopian world, yet the story it tells is the classic story of a girl and her robot taking down a bad businessman, like something straight out of the eighties. It's too grimy to appeal to children, but too immature to be for adults.

'Adolescence', also on Netflix, was quite different. Definitely grim, and thus not for everyone, but so very well made, with one-er scenes to put Daredevil to shame, and exceptional child acting.

It was very jarring to see stars from Adolescence show up in A Thousand Blows with VERY different characters, but I guess that just proves they're good at their jobs!

[leahandillyana]

A new anti-LGBTQ+ law banning Pride events and allowing authorities to use facial recognition software to identify those attending the festivities was passed in Hungary on Tuesday, leading to a large demonstration on the streets of Budapest: https://edition.cnn.com/2025/03/18/europe/orban-anti-lgbtq-bill-passed-budapest-pride-intl-latam/index.html

[sisterofbloomerjunior]

I had actually read about it.

I just wish I had something better to say than “damn it.”

[ladymidath]

I haven't seen Daredevil Born Again, I have not had the time. I noticed the reviews are a little mixed on it.
I have been reading a couple of books my daughter bought me for Christmas and they are pretty good. I am currently reading Death Of A Blue Movie Star By Jeffery Deaver.
Apart from that I not had a lot of time for my geeky stuff.