Mod Post - Off Topic Tuesday
Apr. 2nd, 2019 11:26 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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scans_dailyAfter yesterday's calendar-related attempted coup by a certain board member, we now return to our REGULAR Off-Topic Tuesday, though I can't promise this will be any more coherent than that one was.
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.
To be honest, looking through the headlines, it was very hard to tell what was an April Fool from what's actually current affairs.
A community in Brittany has, after thirty plus years, found the cause of the Garfield telephones that have been regularly washing up on their beaches
Jim Carrey and Benito Mussolini's grand-daughter got into a Twitter tiff over Carrey posting a cartoon of Benito Mussolini's execution as a warning about what fascism leads to. There's a rather gruesome image on that site if you click on the link, so a warning for that.
An unusually large calving (a chunk of a glacier breaking off) was caught on camera in Iceland as was the reaction of the tourists who were passing, running from the giant wave that was thus created
Speaking of unspeakable force of nature. Brex.... (insert sound of Freddy Kreuger's gloved hand being drawn slowly down a blackboard, in an echo chamber, with the volume turned up to 11, for three solid days). Thank you for your attention.
POTUS 45 has apparently decided that Education Secretary Betsy DeVos' plans to cut $18m of funding from the Special Olympics might be a step too far, and has withdrawn them from his Budget plans, which probably aren't going to pass anyway. DeVos has said that she wanted the funding to be more "behind the scenes" whatever THAT means.
There's also some controversy brewing on the reversal of denials of security clearances by the Trump Adminsitration.
Meanwhile, in Ukraine, actual comedian Volodymyr Zelenksy who plays a fictional president in a popular TV series, has come out on top in the first round of elections to become the ACTUAL president.
In Turkey, President Erdogan, faced serious setbacks in his hold on power in this week's local elections, despite over 75% of the media being state controlled. His party lost control of Ankara (for the first time in 25 years), and looks set to lose Istanbul both key results
A man responsible for a hoax "swatting" call over a Call of Duty game, which resulted in police being called to an innocent man's house believing there was a hostage situation, and shooting the homeowner dead, has been jailed for 20 years.
As a fan of the classic series, and it's various revivals, I started to watch the new Twilight Zone with high hopes and... I'm already finding it a slog 30 minutes into the first hour-long story, about an aspiring stand-up comedian who finds there's a rather horrible cost to getting laughs. Alas, I just don't find the character remotely funny, or even plausible, as a comedian, which may be the point I suppose. I'm psyching myself up to watch the rest of it, because I had to bail halfway through due to "not-giving a damn" syndrome. Seriously hoping it improves, or I'm in a better mood, or both.
Mark Hamill has been announced as the new voice for "Chucky" in the "Child's Play" reboot, so that's another seminal monster he'll be playing.
When asked about the state of The New Mutants movie in light of the Disney deal, Maisie Williams replied "Who knows when the f**k that’s gonna come out", and confirmed that none of the oft-reported reshoots have taken place.
Oh, and also slightly ON topic, but if you've been reading the various "Age of X-Man" series, I strongly recommend you listen to last weeks "Jay and Miles X-Plain the X-Men" episode 240, a live recording from Emerald City Comic-Con which is a panel discussion with writers on three of the AoX-M miniseries'; Seanan McGuire, Vita Ayala and Leah Williams. It's a fascinating listen and addresses some important issues.
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.
To be honest, looking through the headlines, it was very hard to tell what was an April Fool from what's actually current affairs.
A community in Brittany has, after thirty plus years, found the cause of the Garfield telephones that have been regularly washing up on their beaches
Jim Carrey and Benito Mussolini's grand-daughter got into a Twitter tiff over Carrey posting a cartoon of Benito Mussolini's execution as a warning about what fascism leads to. There's a rather gruesome image on that site if you click on the link, so a warning for that.
An unusually large calving (a chunk of a glacier breaking off) was caught on camera in Iceland as was the reaction of the tourists who were passing, running from the giant wave that was thus created
Speaking of unspeakable force of nature. Brex.... (insert sound of Freddy Kreuger's gloved hand being drawn slowly down a blackboard, in an echo chamber, with the volume turned up to 11, for three solid days). Thank you for your attention.
POTUS 45 has apparently decided that Education Secretary Betsy DeVos' plans to cut $18m of funding from the Special Olympics might be a step too far, and has withdrawn them from his Budget plans, which probably aren't going to pass anyway. DeVos has said that she wanted the funding to be more "behind the scenes" whatever THAT means.
There's also some controversy brewing on the reversal of denials of security clearances by the Trump Adminsitration.
Meanwhile, in Ukraine, actual comedian Volodymyr Zelenksy who plays a fictional president in a popular TV series, has come out on top in the first round of elections to become the ACTUAL president.
In Turkey, President Erdogan, faced serious setbacks in his hold on power in this week's local elections, despite over 75% of the media being state controlled. His party lost control of Ankara (for the first time in 25 years), and looks set to lose Istanbul both key results
A man responsible for a hoax "swatting" call over a Call of Duty game, which resulted in police being called to an innocent man's house believing there was a hostage situation, and shooting the homeowner dead, has been jailed for 20 years.
As a fan of the classic series, and it's various revivals, I started to watch the new Twilight Zone with high hopes and... I'm already finding it a slog 30 minutes into the first hour-long story, about an aspiring stand-up comedian who finds there's a rather horrible cost to getting laughs. Alas, I just don't find the character remotely funny, or even plausible, as a comedian, which may be the point I suppose. I'm psyching myself up to watch the rest of it, because I had to bail halfway through due to "not-giving a damn" syndrome. Seriously hoping it improves, or I'm in a better mood, or both.
Mark Hamill has been announced as the new voice for "Chucky" in the "Child's Play" reboot, so that's another seminal monster he'll be playing.
When asked about the state of The New Mutants movie in light of the Disney deal, Maisie Williams replied "Who knows when the f**k that’s gonna come out", and confirmed that none of the oft-reported reshoots have taken place.
Oh, and also slightly ON topic, but if you've been reading the various "Age of X-Man" series, I strongly recommend you listen to last weeks "Jay and Miles X-Plain the X-Men" episode 240, a live recording from Emerald City Comic-Con which is a panel discussion with writers on three of the AoX-M miniseries'; Seanan McGuire, Vita Ayala and Leah Williams. It's a fascinating listen and addresses some important issues.
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Date: 2019-04-02 12:55 pm (UTC)In all seriousness, how's everyone doing today?
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Date: 2019-04-02 01:08 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2019-04-02 02:27 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2019-04-03 04:47 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2019-04-03 09:58 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2019-04-02 01:39 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2019-04-02 11:59 pm (UTC)Donny's brother had (has? not sure) a son who could not live on his own, and would need full time care. Donny's father decided that this was something he could do something about, so he set up a trust fund to pay for the kid's care.
When Donny found out about this (after dear old dad died) Donny decided HE needed that money, and got his lawyers to take over and drain the trust fund.
THEN he had his lawyers place a gag order on the whole thing, so no one would find out what a spectacular human being he is.
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Date: 2019-04-02 02:31 pm (UTC)1) There are still Mussolini's in the world. Mussolini has a granddaughter.
2) Mussolini's Granddaughter not only has the gall to be offended by Jim Carey's tweet, but she's also involved in Italian politics, and is also a fascist, and people let her do this?
I mean, the Italians weren't even that successful with Fascism. I mean the most it got them is that they got to be the Larry of the Axis powers. The fact there are still Mussolini out there and that one of them has the nerve to seeing a tweet of her granddad getting called out for being a piece of shit just blows my mind, and its double blown that she's actually involved in politics and is far right as well.
I mean, lady, your granddad was fucking Mussolini, the only reason that he isn't more reviled by history is because he was active at the time there was a far worse fascist dictator running around (and, oh yeah, they were both pals). I would say I'm sorry that someone painted a picture of your grandparents dying, but... I'm kind of not in this case. Fuck fascists and fuck you.
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Date: 2019-04-02 03:08 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2019-04-02 11:01 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2019-04-02 03:33 pm (UTC)The final episode was a bit short but I'm really glad they were able to finish Clementine's story (which really only happened because Kirkman and Skybound stepped in). IMO the saga was TWD at it's best.
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Date: 2019-04-02 04:08 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2019-04-02 04:47 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2019-04-02 04:55 pm (UTC)IDK if you recognized him (I didn't) but Eddie from 400 Days was one of the guys Clem encountered in the AJ flashback.
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Date: 2019-04-02 04:05 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2019-04-02 04:17 pm (UTC)Speaking of final seasons though, the last season of My Little Pony - Friendship is Magic starts in a week. While I haven't watch this show for a few years now, I did fall into the craze back in 2010 and regardless of your opinion of it I think we all owe both it and Adventure Time some of the better changes to children's programming from the last decade. While all things must end, I'll still be sad it's all over.
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Date: 2019-04-02 11:44 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2019-04-03 02:11 am (UTC)I don’t honestly know where the show is going anymore. I guess it might be building to some final conflict with Globgor, but I don’t know
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Date: 2019-04-02 04:19 pm (UTC)https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KCSNFZKbhZE
Nice drama and do like how they still keep so much under wraps.
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Date: 2019-04-02 04:51 pm (UTC)Somehow, learning about the size of elephant and mice sperm was not the most disturbing part of the evening.
Managed to get a job on Thursday.
For about... six hours?
(And I only wound up there because I was trying to learn how long the hours were...)
Have started rewatching the MCU movies for... no particular reason
*cough*
It's a little strange watching Iron Man from the lens of eleven years and twenty or so movies later, when this was the movie Marvel turned to because they didn't have X-Men, Spider-Man, or the Fantastic Four.
Even stranger thinking about what it's led to...
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Date: 2019-04-02 04:55 pm (UTC)He has a long history of being weird around women (well, people in general, really) in public so I was a little worried that there may be some #MeToo skeletons in his closet.
So far the accusations seem to boil down to things we already knew about him. Obviously he still shouldn't be making people uncomfortable but the level of outrage on both sides seems really disproportionate. People are acting like he's Trump or something.
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Date: 2019-04-02 05:04 pm (UTC)On completely unrelated and actually positive topic: BORDERLANDS 3.
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Date: 2019-04-03 09:28 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2019-04-02 05:45 pm (UTC)I've been driving for 15 years. I know how to park my damn car. The "helpful" person who gets behind me to direct me is just wasting my time, I could go 3x times faster if I didn't have to slow down to a tiny crawl to avoid running them over. But because they are trying to help and being nice and friendly, I can't tell them to scram. And politely telling them that, no, really, seriously, it's fine, I've parked like this a million times before, doesn't work because they take it as you not wanting to bother them by accepting their precious help -_-
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Date: 2019-04-04 10:40 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2019-04-04 11:36 am (UTC)Valkyria Chronicles *spoilers* and Sakura Wars
Date: 2019-04-02 08:27 pm (UTC)I am not sure how I feel about ambiguously Jewish cinamon role Isara dying the minute Rosie gets over hi bigotry like she existed only to teach that lesson. Plus it was so buy the numbers it made me laugh, and I am normally one to tear up.
Also just the whole deal of there being a Nordic race with special powers from their bloodline... Even if the game condems them. It seems to be a very questionable choice. Anyone play it?
It has me a bit nervous since the same team is doing Sakura Wars, and while the original games explicitly stood against Nationalism and attempts to revert to isolationism the new game is in the 40s, is plastered with flags, has a new writer, who I know very little about. (The guy behind 9/9/9).
Re: Valkyria Chronicles *spoilers* and Sakura Wars
Date: 2019-04-02 11:40 pm (UTC)I have a... complicated relationship with Valkyria chronicles because, while I REALLY like the battle system and i find the game mechanics unique in a number of ways (for example, I REALLY like the idea of leveling up your CLASSES rather than individual characters). the problem is that the way the game measures success is at odds with how the game is desgined to be played.
It looks like a Tactical RPG, but in reality is more like a puzzle game. it wants you to finish a map in the least amount of turns possible and while rank you accordingly.
you could play expertly, with your troops quickly taking down the enemies and using the game mechanics to your advantage... and still receive an "E" rank as your final score.
if, instead, you rush in with your scout to the enemy base and take it in own turn, you will get an "S" rank. and because of how the game is designed, you will also receive more XP with the latter than the former.
And I HATE that. I HATE that I can't replay story missions to try and get a better score (I have to do skirmishes instead) I HATE that the map gives me 9 units to play around with, but in actuality only 1 or 2 are actually important. I hate that i can't actually be creative with how I win the map.
also, protip. if you have the DLCs, there is an extra mission for scouts that is intended to be played in the late game, but is available at any time. it's hard to do and requires a lot of trial and error, but finishing it gives you A TON of XP and a rifle that is completely Broken in the early game.
On top of that, once you get the rifle, you can replay the mission over and over using said rifle, but it will be obscenely easier. which is a great way to grind and get yourself completely overpowered in the early game
Re: Valkyria Chronicles *spoilers* and Sakura Wars
Date: 2019-04-03 01:58 am (UTC)But as far as the general battle system goes... in a lot of ways it is like Sakura Wars 3, 4, and 5... except Sakura Wars has always been super easy, and I think adding the overwatch feature from Valkyria would solve that (also in Sakura Wars 3 and 4 at least, your action points were measured with displacement rather than distance and it was possible to cheese that out sometimes).
And yeah, I can tell that they meant well... but it's still off putting.
Re: Valkyria Chronicles *spoilers* and Sakura Wars
Date: 2019-04-03 02:48 am (UTC)Re: Valkyria Chronicles *spoilers* and Sakura Wars
Date: 2019-04-03 03:47 am (UTC)You don't get to pick what order your units go in, they're fixed, and the first two games were grid based. Like Valkyria if the main character dies it's game over and he has special commands he can issue on his turn (but they are limited to defending a specific unit, or min/maxing certain stats, across the board or changing the action point value of certain actions from 3 on ). 3 introduced a 3D environment with an action point meter as you traversed it, used attacks, shields, charged your super... whatever. In the first two units simply got two actions.
That's pretty much it. It's not exactly super close, but you can see how the ARMS system from 3 kind of evolved into Valkyria.
Re: Valkyria Chronicles *spoilers* and Sakura Wars
Date: 2019-04-14 07:14 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2019-04-02 08:53 pm (UTC)So that the first major information on Episode IX.
That Star Wars poster’s interesting and may potential confirm some leaks I happened to come across back in January. Hooray we’ll actually get to see a Knight of Ren, and learn what the hell they actually are.
From what I’ve read the poster is either, a marketing poster rather than the theatrical version, or a fanmade one, but it was made with as of yet unreleased promotional material.
Apparently, Andrew Lincoln regrets leaving The Walking Dead, because now its actually good again. Sorry man, I don’t blame for wanting to leave, but you chose the wrong time.
Dumbo down, only two more live action Disney films to go this year.
Wait there doing the new Twilight Zone is doing hour long episodes? Didn't that not work out well for the original in its fourth season, when they did that, because they episodes sort of meandered around.
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Date: 2019-04-02 09:10 pm (UTC)What, really?
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Date: 2019-04-02 09:26 pm (UTC)Here's part of the poster for reference.
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Date: 2019-04-02 10:38 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2019-04-03 01:17 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2019-04-03 06:54 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2019-04-03 09:37 am (UTC)I'm still hoping we find out that "The Knights of Ren" was the name of Ben Solo's old grunge band back in high school and "Kylo Ren" lterally translates to "The pouty one" and we're going to meet Jeza Ren "The cute one" and Mazgraus Ren "The sensitive one who writes the songs".
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Date: 2019-04-03 11:22 am (UTC)No pleasin' some people...
(Though judging by the last two movies, they'll probably get some merch giving them backstory, while being on-screen for about five minutes before they get sliced to pieces and forgotten.)
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Date: 2019-04-03 01:56 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2019-04-03 10:16 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2019-04-03 04:22 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2019-04-04 10:13 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2019-04-04 12:05 pm (UTC)No real motivation (though his sulky tantrum in TFA was approaching the hilarious), no apparent purpose beyond "being evil", and no charisma that I could sense. He's just... there, filling a villain-shaped hole in the script.
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Date: 2019-04-03 09:43 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2019-04-02 11:50 pm (UTC)The Dragon Prince has been renewed for season 3.
Looks like the new season of One Punch Man and the new Fruits Basket series start really soon.
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Date: 2019-04-03 01:57 am (UTC)Next episode we’re getting Danny the Street, described as genderqueer in the episode description, and what looks to me like an adaptation of a Young Animal Doom patrol storyline
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Date: 2019-04-03 02:21 am (UTC)Also, poor Vic.
And poor Cliff but that goes without saying. Robot Man is at his best when he's a sad sack who puts his foot in his mouth only to regret it. His comment to Jane was brutal and I thought his comments to Larry and Vic were hilarious in a cringeworthy way.
Meanwhile Larry actually seems to be growing as a person. ... though that's mostly because his "roommate" is forcing him to. Also it's interesting that he immediately sees through the deception in the flashback dream when everyone else's story was about them falling for a lie*.
*Rita's self-delusion, Vic's probably-fabricated past, Jane trusting the Chief, and Cliff's rat-induced hallucination.
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Date: 2019-04-03 09:33 am (UTC)I'm perhaps more surprised at Jane's default personality seeming to be Hammerhead, rather than Jane. It almost makes the conflicts TOO easy.
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Date: 2019-04-03 12:11 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2019-04-03 01:19 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2019-04-03 06:05 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2019-04-04 04:56 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2019-04-03 09:30 am (UTC)The soon-to-be Captain Whiskers arguing with Mr Nobody about being a creature of the fields, and so not really being into revenge, was hilarious.
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Date: 2019-04-03 12:26 am (UTC)Over at my blog, I review yet another volume of Vinland Saga (soon to have an anime!) http://www.skjam.com/2019/03/31/manga-review-vinland-saga-volume-ten/
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Date: 2019-04-03 02:32 am (UTC)*highfive*
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Date: 2019-04-03 03:25 am (UTC)My OCs got read on the Original Characters podcast, around the 1:45 mark.
I wasn’t sure if the inherent joke was funny to anyone but me, so I’m glad it was chosen.
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Date: 2019-04-03 06:59 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2019-04-03 07:04 am (UTC)The general census seems to be that this is either: a) a retail poster, rather then the theatrical poster or b) a fanmade poster, but made by someone who had access to as yet unreleased assets.
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Date: 2019-04-03 04:23 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2019-04-03 10:33 pm (UTC)