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 among yourselves.

It's Super Tuesday in the USA, which means a lot of voting type thingies going in terms of picking a Democratic contender for the Presidential election later in the year. If you're in a position to vote, we'd always recommend you do, it's how democracies work after all!

Covid-19 (what we should be calling the Coronavirus apparently) is looming, or bubbling under, or whatever it is that viruses do. The best current advice seems to be to wash your hands regularly and ofen in hot water and soap, (and a hand sanitiser if available, though antibacterial ones aren't going to be very effective against a virus), which is never going to hurt. Stay safe people, but don't panic yet!

An overdue and belated RIP to Katherine Johnson, aged 101, the mathematician whose brilliant work for NASA was the subject of "Hidden Figures", the movie which finally gave her a fraction of the recognition she deserved.

Bob Iger has stood down as CEO of Disney.

Harvey Weinstien was found guilty of third degree rape and first degree sexual acts. (I'd feel more comfortable that this was the end of his career, if the case of Victor Salva didn't spring to mind (He served time in prison for child pornography and sexual abuse of the 12 year old star of one of his movies, and still went on to direct movies with predominently young casts)

At the Césars (the "French Oscars") last week, the announcement that Roman Polanski's movie "An Officer and a Spy" had won him the directors award led to a walkout by several attendees and scuffles in the streets outside. The multiple nominations that Polanskis'movie received led to a furious backlash and had led to the entire board running the Césars to resign en masse two weeks previously.

It's also Cyber-Security day, and the UK is choosing touse that to warn people of the vulnerability of remote webcams as used in baby monitors, household security cameras and the like. The advice seems eminently sensible.

Speaking of Cyber issues, the Doctor Who series finale was... well, that's going into a separate reply to this post rather than the main body. as it may be something people don't want spoiled.

The US Toy Fair was a couple of weeks ago, and some peronsal highlights include the announcement that Super7 are doing action figures of Jem and Pizzazz from the Jem cartoon, NECA are doing some nice looking figures from other 80's cartoon; Defenders of the Earth, the super team which included Flash Gordon, The Phantom, Mandrake and Lothar fighting Ming, and accompanied by their kids (who are not getting toys, in this wave at least), as well as Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventures (the cartoon not the movies) and Back to the Future (ditto). I'm guessing 80's nostalgia isn't dead yet (Though the upcoming new Bill and Ted movie might have played a part there I guess)

Casually tried the first episode of JoJo's Bizarre Adventure (the first two seasons just cropped up on Netflix UK). Between the disjointed seeming animation styles looking like cut scenes from a fighting game, and the painful sounding dub with so many cod-English accents declaiming things that it physically hurts, I don't think this is a show for me.  Ah well, c'est la vie!

Comments

[icon_uk]

Here be spoilers.....











So we've had the season finale of Doctor Who and it managed to upset a lot of people. (A far cry from last years perhaps overly safe EVERYTHING)

Essentially we find out that the Doctor is not quite a Time Lord, but the Time Lord's exists because of the Doctor.

She was originally a lost child (The Timeless Child) from another dimension/universe/time/who knows who was found by an early Gallifreyan scientist and explorer, who then used her as a genetic template for when she discovered the child could regenerate (which Gallifreyans could not, up to this point).

This also implies that the Doctor has infinite regenerations, or not, and had many lives before William Hartnell (Of which the Doctor/Ruth we met in Fugutive of the Judoon was one).

But, and this is the important part, none of the televised Doctor's since Hartnell have known this, it was all covered up by the Time Lords to give them a grander origin than "We're the end results of some highly dubious experimentation on a child".

Of course, the drawback here is that the only person to confirm that this story is linked to the Doctor is the Master, who is not exactly the most reliable source.

He saw it as confirmation that the Doctor had always been "special" and this drove him so mad that he wiped out Gallifrey. The Doctor on the other hand, realises that this doesn't make her any less The Doctor, if anything (and if she knew anything about it) it would make her MORE the Doctor.

There was also an ongoing plot about Cybermen, and the Master, leading to the world's campest looking Cybermen... but that seemed to be almost window dressing (Well, it looked like they were wearing curtains at any rate)

People have regarded this as either

A) Betrayal of the shows canon
B) A brilliant move
C) Confirmation that Lungbarrow is canon
D) A weirdly specific explanation for a particular scene in "The Brain of Morbius" in 1975 or so.
E) Ruination of childhood

I mean, I hold the opinion that Doctor Who doesn't have a canon. it has three plot points in a trenchcoat and the they take turns wearing the hat, so let's see where this goes.

As a nice example of how canon canon really is, here's a video explaining how the Doctor even being confirmed as an alien (rather than, possibly, a time travelling human from the future) wasn't a thing until the Pertwee era

[llordllama]

I rather liked the dapper outfits of the CyberLords, even if I've been eye rolling all season after Gallifrey got destroyed again. Why can't we ever have nice things...

As for the big revelation, kinda assumed the Doctor was the Timeless Child (opening up all sorts of questions about where s/he came from in the first place). Feels a bit 'Oh, missing Doctors...again' (after the War Doctor) and almost cheapens death and regeneration even further when there's no limit. Where's the danger if she can just pop up in infinite new bodies?

But I'm picking here, as I pretty much enjoyed this episode (and season, Orphan 55 aside) - and am looking forward to whatever romps come next!

I think my one bugbear though the reduction in the Doctor's agency throughout. I *love* the current version of the Master, but I swear this ep was mostly him, and the Doctor just reacting here and there at the fringes. Or maybe that was the whole point?

[cygnia]

Honestly?

I'm OK with this. I'm thinking the Division is the Celestial Intervention Agency.

[an_idol_mind]

I found the Doctor Who episode to be generally freeing. I think episodes that shake up continuity can add possibilities while also reinforcing a character's core, as long as they are done sparingly.

In this case, we have a whole lot of unexplored space that can be used going forward. At the same time, the episode somehow managed to explain some weird continuity glitches that have popped up for ages, such as the Morbius Doctors or the fact that the Doctor didn't have a Gallifreyan retinal pattern in the TV movie.

The highlight of the episode for me was the 30-second montage of past clips done to the theme tune. The scene was about the Doctor reasserting her identity despite the revelation that she wasn't who she was. It also felt a bit like a reaffirmation that the Timeless Child mystery didn't really change much--the montage included moments taken from the show's long history, and that's the character we know and love. The mystery added uncharted space around the Doctor, but the character is the same person we have come to know.

[lissa_quon]

THANK YOU - my bro in law - apparently was Not Pleased with this whole thing. Like - dropped me a line for the first time in weeks just to rant at me about it. I haven't been keeping up but I'm nonplussed. We had the War Doctor - the Dream Doctor- the 10.5 regen - a bad gen that didn't happen? or was going to have happened? - and *gestures* I'm just not sure this is the big canon betrayal.

So the Doctor is more Special than previously thought - and the doctor was already special this isn't like Rey Nobody. The Doctor was A Special - in some capacity - with a past vaguely hinted at. This hasn't changed. Also The Master is not always the best source of information.

Doctor Who canon is remarkably elastic - as long as we don't mention the looms in polite society. We have regens pop up and go away- timelines disappear, Gallifrey constantly flickering in and out of existence - and work around shit like McGann randomly exclaiming he's half human (on his mother's side.) The series will survive and balance out.

[scorntx]

The minute I saw where Who was going with the reveal, I was rolling my eyes.
But that aside... ehhh. Ehhhhhhhhhh.
Not spitting teeth about it, not going to say "waah, ruined my childhood". Not really feeling anything about it.
(Bit of fun trying to explain the twist to a family member, who'd watched last week's episode, and completely forgotten about the Irish subplot. And when it was so important and memorable, too.)

Rest of the episode aside, it was just sort of... I dunno.
Redshirt Girl aside, there didn't seem to be much sense of urgency to anything.
Which is a bit bizarre.
And the awful hand-wringing of going back to I MUST SACRIFICE MYSELF! ME AND ONLY ME!
Blech... thought we'd got past that crap with a new showrunner.

... did like the Judoon out of nowhere. That was funny.
Very Daviesian.


Apparently season 3 of Transformers Cyberverse is also the last season, which is a shame, because it was just getting good and bonkers.
The eleven minutes an episode limits it, and some of the ideas, but there was some good nonsense in there.

Toyfair had some interesting Transformers reveals, inbetween the almost obligatory 84-5 guys there's a new Sky Lynx, an allicon, a friggen Quintesson, and... oh yeah, a giant-ass Scorponok!
(Oooh, want that guy so baaaad... don't care that I don't have anywhere to put him.)


There's some Steven Universe out on DVD 'round these parts, but I'm uncertain whether to buy it because I don't know whether the episodes will be in the proper order, and I'm no buying it if I can't be sure.
(If I wanted to watch SU with the episodes mixed up, I'd just watch it on Netflix.)

[icon_uk]

It's certainly an odd twist to add, since it's referencing a part of the Doctor's past which has no meaning to the Doctor herself. How will/can that impact on things moving forward?

The Scorponok DOES look nice.

[leahandillyana]

Turkey is forcing all of its refugees to go to Greece. Not even allowing, forcing. Greece doesn't want any more refugees (the refugees already there are living in inhumane environment and the government doesn't really care) and far right militias are forming to force the refugees back to Turkey. Greek army came and killed at least one refugees. How dare they shoot towards unarmed people on pontons!
Did I say last week that Poland no longer has independant judicary system? So it doesn't. Current top judge publicly tore up a print of a law he didn't like. DId I say the new top judges were chose illegally? They were. Nobody cares.

[deh_tommy]

Why the heck isn’t the Poland situation being reported on anywhere (at least not that I can see)?

The current Greece-Turkey situation is horrible.

[stubbleupdate]

This is the best/worst thing about teaching international issues at school.

Best: lessons are relevant and developing in real time
Worst: I can't use the lesson I planned on Monday for Wednesday.

[tripodeca113]

Started playing The Witcher 2. I can see why 48% of players never finished the prologue.

I haven’t seen the latest Doctor Who episode yet, but I’m sure it resolved everything satisfyingly. When has Chibnall ever let us down? I also have no doubt that Yasmin was given a great deal of focus.
Also SOMETHING seems to have happened, some sort of retcon to something that seems to late to introduce now that the show is over 55 years old and the concepts it’s overturning are decades old. Also the new thing doesn’t seem that great either. But maybe it’s actually okay….yeah no I’m not going to pretend it won’t annoy me even if it’s a decent idea in its own right.

Oh yeah, the Artemis Fowl film is still happening, despite how we all feel about it. Along with the second Peter Rabbit film. Hopefully that ends with Hux snapping and slaughtering all the horrible creatures.
In the movie apparently Artemis likes to go surfing and isn't a criminal genius.

[deh_tommy]

Doctor Who was about what I expected. Chibnallisms were in full swing (exposition, answers just falling into the characters’ laps, reactive/inactive/slow on the uptake Doctor and unintentionally morally hypocritical/dubious Doctor, companions did next to nothing, very quick wrap up), but I didn’t really mind anything too much. The only thing I really disliked was the Timeless Child, for reasons I’m a bit too tired to get into at the moment.

[icon_uk]

I thought Yaz and Graham had a lot to do given the size of the cast, Ryan less so, but he got the battle scenes.

The others got the sneaking around in Cyber-gear (loved the shots through the eyeholes of the masks), the lovely heart to heart that Graham and Yaz had, and the terrific scene where Graham wonders if they should go through the Boundary after the Doctor, only for Yaz to have already marched halfway towards it and vanished into it

[deh_tommy]

The new coronavirus is spreading across the world at an unprecedented rate. Stay safe, everyone.

[lordultimus]

Tried out the Final Fantasy VII remake demo. Combat system was fun while still being easy enough for a noob like me to get a handle on (though I had it on Easy), and the writing and humor are on point, so I plan on buying it, though I'm on the fence as to whether to buy it for the PS4 or wait for the next gen.

[cyberghostface]

The Artemis Fowl trailer came out. Fans are pretty livid as it changes the protagonist who was a villain and a huge asshole in the first book to a more conventional YA hero.

https://youtu.be/fl2r3Fwxz_o

[tripodeca113]

He also surfs now.

[kjn]

Coronavirus: wash hands thoroughly with soap and water. Hand sanitiser can be a nice extra, but no substitute for soap.

[locuatico]

you did not even get to the REALLY bizarre part of Jojo part 1? aww.

[arilou_skiff]

Jojo's is an... acquired taste (I never really got into it) though I should note that the first... Season? Series? Chapter? Is fairly different from the later ones, in that it only gradually got to the insane levels of camp that it exists in now.

[crinos]

Not gonna lie, if you want to get into Jojo I'd skip straight to part 3. That's when the series really hits its stride, and it basically summarizes everything you need to know from the first two series going forward.

[chalicother]

Yeah, like Part 1 is not anywhere like any JoJo part. It's the oddest JoJo series and doesn't match the other tones. I have to agree with you that Part 3 matches the rest of the tone of the series.

[janegray]

I'm thinking of getting a weighed blanket. Has anybody here used one? Any recommendations?

[shadwing]

My roommate and a few friends have them and all agree that while they do help with sleep, they can get REALLY WARM and they overheat during the night. I don't know of any type that's better than any other.

If you can get one to test out do so since they can get pricey and if you get the wrong 'weight' you may have wasted money.

[kitewithfish]

Covid19 is an enveloped virus - it has an outer layer made of glycoproteins that help it penetrate cell membranes. Isopropyl alcohol in hand sanitizer can be help in destroying that outer layer, making the virus less able to penetrate cells. Soap and water is still the best option! But hand sanitizer with alcohol is still helpful and more versatile, so it's good to use if you are out and about and can't wash your hands as much as you'd like.

[stubbleupdate]

https://youtu.be/NxbxJthkUbs

If you're into ASMR, you should know that Atmosphere has just released a video with possibly the best production. I'm obsessed with the first 90 seconds of it.

[skjam]

I voted, though much of the fun of strategizing was gone.

Over at my blog, I review a manga for people who like edgy card game stories, but dislike magic.
http://www.skjam.com/2020/03/01/manga-review-gambling-apocalypse-kaiji-1/

[werehawk]

I think coronavirus is the big chance for the USA to pass online voting legislation. Who is going to go out to the polls if coronavirus is as prevalent as it is now in China or Italy.

If its safe enough for our money and grades and everything, why not voting.

[alicemacher]

Dear God, no. Never. Online voting is rife with bugs, as some of the recent primaries have shown. Plus, the potential for deliberate back-end manipulation of the vote is vast. And I'm not talking about a top-down party-wide conspiracy; I'm referring to individual programmers, sysaadmins, tech support folk and the like who could potentially tinker with the system so that their own preferred candidate or referendum yes/no option wins in their district.