Mod Post: Off-Topic Tuesday

[icon_uk]

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 amongst yourselves.

It's Halloween, but I suspect many would already be aware of that. and the themed Google Doodle is delightful.

Anyone have any interesting plans they'd care to share? Any local customs or traditions. Speaking personally I will never accept pumpkin jack'o'lanterns in the UK, when I was a lower case Icon_UK, we carved turnips and were proud of them dammit!

It's the 500th Anniversary of Martin Luther nailing his 95 Theses to the door of the church at Wittenburg castle so happy... Demimillenium to any Lutherans in our midst! (I have no idea if demimillenium is a word, but it probably should be)

Well, it's been a busy week on the politics front and no mistake (unless you count Brexit, which is more of a sloth-like trudge towards a clearly marked, but ignored, minefield)

The BBC accidentally (?) linked to a hardcore gay porn site when covering the latest Trump Twitterstorm. Ooops!

A court has suspended Trump's order to forbid transgender troops serving.

Paul Manafort was charged with 12 counts of money laundering, undisclosed foreign lobbying, lying to government investigators, and various and sundry other serious-sounding offences.but the potentially more impactful news was definitely George Papadoplous pleading guilty to lying to the FBI about his links with Russia and the timing thereof as regards his working for Trump.

This is how you be a good big brother.

The upsurge in people in high profile positions finding the confidence to speak up, report and pursue sexual harassment and assault, especially following the Harvey Weinstein case, is.. well, gratifying is not the right word, but it does give one hope that justice might prevail.

Kevin Spacey announced he was gay, though given that he did so whilst denying any memory of making drunken sexual advances towards a 14 year old Anthony Rapp, he was roundly castigated for what seemed to be self-serving, ill-advised deflection.

"Free!" The swimming anime franchise designed with an eye for the female gaze (and others who enjoy that sort of a view) has had a third season pretty much confirmed.

Stranger Things 2 has arrived on Netflix, please avoid spoilers as I'm only two episodes in (Having sorted out my Netflix account I'm switching between catching up on Star Trek: Discovery, Riverdale and Stranger Things at the moment... I have a variety of vices which it's helping scratch)

Comments

[janegray]

Going to see Thor: Ragnarok in 5 hours! Wheeeeeeeeeeee :DDD

Getting ready to again spend the first 15 minutes covering my hears and (quietly) chanting lalalalalalalalala so I can continue avoiding trailers for upcoming movies, because I've long ago accepted that the concept of not spoiling the audience is long lost, and they put all the best scenes and sometimes even the freaking ending in the damn trailers.

Speaking of movies. So last week I saw A Silent Voice. While I understand that A Silent Voice was all about forgiveness and understanding, I remain of the humble opinion that the movie would have been more enjoyable if the black-haired girl had been run over by a truck. While she probably couldn't have won the Worst Human Being Ever award due to not actually killing anybody, she really didn't let that keep her from reaching for it.

[scorntx]

IDW's First Strike ended last week.
Saw the bit at the very end coming (because, c'mon, that's the sort of "twist" you get in event comics).
The major reveal several pages beforehand, not so much.
... maybe because, when you're trying to do a dramatic reveal wherein one character turns out to be something entirely different, it helps when that character has actually had, oooh, a presence in the story up until then.
(Though props to the terrifying John Barber for doing the actual foreshadowing himself.)


Bought and downloaded the original Mass Effect the other day.
Mmm.
It's interesting, but... errmm...

Hoping to see Ragnarok the night, with family.
But I can already hear the moaning about the absence of Toothgnasher and Toothgrinder...

[owlbrigade1]

I never thought I'd say this about Transformers comics, but I really hope IDW does a "Crisis" Event just so they can hit the hard-reboot button on the mess they've created. I hate hate hate what they've done to the Transformers line in order to create the Bro-verse. I don't see a way of fixing it without smashing the whole thing and starting again. Hopefully though Rodimus flies the Lost Light safely through that event and keeps it going, because that is only TF-Comic I'm still enjoying right now. Well, enjoying apart from Getaway...oooh I hate that guy (but since I'm certain we're supposed to hate him, that is all good).

[scorntx]

So, because IDW put some other Hasbro characters in a Transformers comic, you think they should burn down over ten years of continuity.

And that doesn't seem at all like maybe a teeny bit of an overreaction?

[owlbrigade1]

Yes. I'll fetch the matches.

And No. Because being fan means never having to say that you are overreacting to changes. What would happen to fandom the world over if everyone had a healthy sense of perspective?

In seriousness, I really can't honestly say hand-on-heart that I have enjoyed anything related to the great smooshing together. I don't enjoy it, and I don't see how it can be teased apart now. Sometimes there are changes to a property, that make too big an impact on canon, that it does mean that you can't keep going like before. That the only thing to do is to burn it all down and start again. GI Joe, MASK and now this Visionaries thing is an example for IDW continuity. I don't see how it can be undone and not leave a lasting legacy. Rom and Action Man are, well I won't say enjoyable, but they are tolerable in small does. Undoing GI Joe et al needs massive application of the reset button. I don't want to see their part of continuity unburned.

[tripodeca113]

I got Mass effect as well. I was really glad to learn I could run in it, because the walking was so slow.

[deh_tommy]

I think you can only run during combat, though, since trying run outside of battle simply focuses the camera.

[nightauditguy]

I'm re-reading The Wheel of Time. I'm on book 8. Perrin and company have encountered the disguised Morgase. You would think they would recognize her since she looks like an older Elayne.

[zachbeacon]

Just want to remind everyone that Trump Jr admitted to treasonous activities and nothing was done about it.

[md84]

DAMMIT Spacey. The world was just taking baby steps in acknowledging that gay people aren't a threat to children.

Now you try to pull this shit?

Now I feel bad for enjoying The Usual Suspects.

[owlbrigade1]

I got a new phone, finally joined the smartphone revolution and bade farewell to the flip-phone revolution. Not entirely certain it was worth it, but my old flip-phone was having problems charging so it was clearly on borrowed time. That is my week, so far. Not looking forward to tomorrow though. I have a hospital appointment, I hate those. They keep finding new things wrong with me.

[janegray]

Best wishes for your hospital appointment, I hope everything goes well.

Oh, you are gonna love WhatsApp. It's seriously awesome! It was a freaking Godsend for me. Most of my friends either used to live here and then left the country, or are from other countries to begin with. Thanks to WhatsApp, we are able to do things like watching movies together, we start watching at the same time and exchange commentary while we watch. We can also exchange cute animal pictures (one of my friends works at a rescue, she always spoils us with the cutest animal pics, she even got a fawn once), and fun everyday stuff in general.

As soon as I finished watching Thor: Ragnarok, first thing I did was send a chat to my best friend who lives in America, and we fangirled about the movie together. It was almost like having her right next to me :D

[kamino_neko]

I really need to learn how to enjoy hating characters in fiction.

I'm playing Ace Attorney: Dual Destinies, right now, and although the second case is delightfully seasonal (it's called The Monstrous Turnabout, and involves (granted, fake) Yokai), and I love most of the characters (the client, his daughter, the witnesses - and the case has Apollo as the lead! And Trucy's there!) the fact that Simon Blackquill is only the second prosecutor in the entire franchise that I legitimately hate* is really slowing down my progress. I'd be playing right now, if not for needing a long break from him.

* The other was Godot, and I don't forsee Blackquill having a woobie backstory like G did to undo the hate. Not even Manfred von Karma earned my loathing as much as Blackquill is. I legitimately like Edgeworth and Klavier, Franziska takes a bit to warm to, but even at her worst is merely annoying, not loathsome, and it's fun knocking the blocks out from under the Payne brothers. But Blackquill induces the kind of seething hatred that seriously affects my mood. It doesn't help that his stupid bird is a contrived way to keep the player from using Polly's ability - I was looking forward to combining his and Athena's.

IN JUSTICE WE TRUST

[deh_tommy]

What do you dislike about Blackquill, might I ask? Not spoiling anything, but I do think he gets better (especially by/after the third case), though I don't think I have the same attitude you do regarding characters and antagonists (barring certain exceptions). At least he's balanced out by Fulbright.

Also, on an unrelated note, I really like the soundtrack of Dual Destinies, both the new pieces and the remixes of old tunes (Je suis l'Belle, Courtroom Revolutionnaire, Cap'n Orla's theme and With Pearly being some I regularly go back to listen to).

Also: I don't forsee Blackquill having a woobie backstory like G did to undo the hate.

Re: IN JUSTICE WE TRUST

[kamino_neko]

What do you dislike about Blackquill, might I ask?

Primarily the way he effortlessly manipulates the other characters, especially when he gets Athena, who really should have higher resistance. 1) That sort of insane hypercompetence bugs me enough when it's the protagonist who's pulling it...when it's the antagonist in a video game...ggggggg. 2) That he's doing it at all, when the deck is already stacked significantly in his favour (and before I/Polly havegotten a chance to turn things around) speaks to seriously bad sportsmanship. And there's just something about his smugness that rankles more than when the other prosecutors pull the same thing, though I can't put my finger on why. On the whole, he doesn't have the same 'I'm here for the justice, we just don't agree on the facts' feeling most of the other non-villain prosecutors do.

(I assume that gif means he does get a softening backstory. Which I look forward to, if so.)

But I do love Fulbright. He is a joy. (I still miss Gumshoe, but Bobby's a fine replacement.) I keep hoping at some point he'll do his catchphrase and then Polly's name will click. (Or someone will point it out.)

[malurette]

I was wondering how many fictional characters were canonically stated to be Protestant, any branch? I thought maybe Wikipedia or TvTropes would have a trivia page for that, but nope. Googling only turned up a couple of answers... I'm a bit disappointed, I thought that somewhere somehow some obsessive fans would have compiled a longer list.

[icon_uk]

Canonically is probably a bit much to ask for since most characters are deliberately non-specific about religion unless it's REALLY relevant to their character (Such as Nightcrawler being Catholic, Wolfsbane Presbyterian, or Ms Marvel being Muslim) and even less likely to have a specific denomination assigned to them because it's likely such things would

I can think of two resources

www.adherents.com/lit/comics/

www.comicbookreligion.com

But I have to cast a side eye at them both, since most of their decisions are based on fan speculation rather than canon (Such as Cypher being Mormon, for no particular reason beyond his Ultimate version being based on a real-life game show contestant who was Mormon and this aplying retroactively or somesuch)

[tripodeca113]

I recently found out Class,(the latest Docotr Who spinoff), won't be getting a second season. I can't say I'll miss it, but maybe it would have improved. Any else got any opinions on Class?

[spider_man6]

Really need to finish watching it, I stopped at episode 3. I think it's a wasted opportunity, as there are no other current spin offs currently. The show from what I've seen had a lot of potential, so cancellation is a shame.

[spider_man6]

Stranger Things 2 was freaking awesome! It was better than I expected to be, and I literally got up at 3 in the morning on the day it came out to watch it. The acting, the special effects, the story, the writing, and more did what worked in the first season and evolved on top of it. Highly recommend it to anyone who loved season 1 or is into netflix originals.

[deh_tommy]

Seriously, the Spongebob musical is so good I've been stuck listening to Bikini Bottom Day on a loop for the past two weeks please help me

[bruinsfan]

I went to a dinner theatre/seance event in a haunted hotel while dressed as the Devil on Halloween. It was blatantly hucksterish and hokey, but lots of fun.