Poll of the Day > GeekHouse of Horror LXXII

(+) Yeah! (+)

Zeus posted...

Depends on your conception of Peter. He doesn't fit the vintage comics, but it's not terribly different from more recent stuff. Honestly, the performance reminded a little of the Spectacular Spider-Man cartoon (which is by far the best Spidey cartoon series thus far)

Spectacular Spider-Man is indeed the best cartoon. But Garfield's Peter was not like that at all lol

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I have enjoyed reading about Clark Kent's sex life this morning. My wife looked up who Clark could bang successful other than Wonder Woman and Kara. She came up with Mira if they were under water, and I laughed because my wife is awesome for even coming up with that, and because it's a very real question.

We should come up with a list.

"The Super-Bang List"

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Here's a list, but about half of them are unsurprisingly either lesser known kryptonians or alternate universe proxies.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.cbr.com/kyptonights-15-people-who-got-busy-with-superman/amp/

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The Wave Master posted...

I have enjoyed reading about Clark Kent's sex life this morning. My wife looked up who Clark could bang successful other than Wonder Woman and Kara. She came up with Mira if they were under water, and I laughed because my wife is awesome for even coming up with that, and because it's a very real question.

We should come up with a list.

"The Super-Bang List"

He can successfully bang anybody, but it's just a matter that some people he has to be more careful with than others. That said, Superman has *multiple* ways of negating his power so it's not like it's always going to be a concern. For him, "Did you use protection?" might mean turning on a red sunlamp (or, in Smaillville, wearing a little blue kryptonite). Of course, a magic condom would also work.

As for who could naturally take the strain, pretty much any with super durability would probably be fine.

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The Wave Master posted...

I have enjoyed reading about Clark Kent's sex life this morning. My wife looked up who Clark could bang successful other than Wonder Woman and Kara.

If you find the subject interesting, you should track down "Man of Steel, Woman of Kleenex". You could probably find it online somewhere.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Man_of_Steel,_Woman_of_Kleenex
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ParanoidObsessive posted...

If you find the subject interesting, you should track down "Man of Steel, Woman of Kleenex". You could probably find it online somewhere.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Man_of_Steel,_Woman_of_Kleenex

Why was I not the least bit surprised to see that this was Larry Niven's doing?

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Funko has a Fantasia anniversary Pop! collection coming out and I'm not sure how I feel about the new Chernabog

https://i.imgur.com/idUW1Dz.jpg

The first one they did had a wonky, but kinda fun look. This one captures the style a lot better, but it somehow just feels boring. I think part of my apathy might also come from the fact that his teeth looked painted on rather than sculpted.

I love the character and the original Pop! Chernabog might have been the first Pop! I bought, but I'm just not feeling that at all even with being October right now.


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The Monster Hunter movie looks even worse than the Resident Evil movies lol

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Is Brandon Sanderson a big deal in his own right or is he really just famous for finishing the Wheel of Time series after Robert Jordan died? I ask because I've heard his name come up like he's somewhat notable, but I've never heard of most of his work -- which I guess isn't entirely unusual because of how the big the genre is -- and apparently none of his stuff has been adapted.


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The Wheel of Time series has not been adapted, either, barring the old PC game and at least comic book, IIRC.

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I suppose that that makes it a weaker claim to fame for Sanderson? idk, at least I'd heard of the Wheel of Time series, I hadn't really heard of Sanderson's own work until I heard him talked about (and long after I'd heard about him finishing that series). And yet sometimes I've been hearing him mentioned alongside household names.

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Metalsonic66 posted...

The Monster Hunter movie looks even worse than the Resident Evil movies lol

I didn't even watch the damn trailer this weekend. I saw it online and laughed, and pretended I had better things to do... I didn't.

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I_Abibde posted...

The Wheel of Time series has not been adapted, either, barring the old PC game and at least comic book, IIRC.

I wonder why not. I really need to start reading again.
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The Wave Master posted...

I didn't even watch the damn trailer this weekend. I saw it online and laughed, and pretended I had better things to do... I didn't.

If someone sent you this image out of context and said "they're making a movie based on my favorite game!"

How many guesses would it take?

Also he's closing the wrong eye LOL

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Metalsonic66 posted...

If someone sent you this image out of context and said "they're making a movie based on my favorite game!"

How many guesses would it take?

Also he's closing the wrong eye LOL

Grand Theft Auto Vice City?
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I was tempted to catch up on NF's Carmen Sandiego series -- which NF itself was highlighting -- then I saw the "Representation Matters Collection" on the bottom and I was, eh, fuck this, I'll watch something else.

Then I scrolled down and saw Man with a Plan, a more recent Matt LeBlanc comedy series and I was seriously tempted because he was great on Episodes... but then I noticed it's 4 seasons long and I don't feel like making that big of a commitment on non-horror series during October (since it's a network comedy, therefore longer seasons as well).

Then I saw Penny Dreadful, which I've been meaning to watch, it is a horror, it's 3 seasons (s1 is 8 episodes, each close to an hour), but... idk, it doesn't thrill me.

Finally I saw Dracula (2020), a show/miniseries consisting of three 90 minute episodes and... well, it's not *terribly* exciting but I figured that would do; or at least, that's what I thought until I saw October Faction and figured I'd just watch that instead.

Honestly, I sometimes probably spend more time picking what to watch than I do watching anything.

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I heard the Carmen Sandiego series was good but I haven't watched it yet. The art looks pretty slick though.

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Any Dresden Files fans in the topic? I've got about an hour left of the latest book and it's been one hell of a ride so far.

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...and then two hours after my long selection process, I finally start to watch October Faction and almost right off the bat it has a "we don't like her kind here" moment and hilariously-badly-inserted moments to suggest that the town is super racist to give the characters a chance to virtue-signal. Not a very promising start.

Metalsonic66 posted...

I heard the Carmen Sandiego series was good but I haven't watched it yet.

The first season was okay. The story takes a very different direction from some (if not all) of the other incarnations, but part of that was wanting to make Carmen the main character and *not* have her be a criminal (so instead she heists criminals to return belongings). It's just not as fun that way. Plus they dialed back her age a ton.

Truth be told, I've forgotten half the shit that happened in season 1 (although I remember the key plot points about her background and the organization she's fighting), so... I guess take that as you will.

Metalsonic66 posted...

The art looks pretty slick though.

I'm honestly not sure whether I like or dislike the style. It's a very different look in some senses, although it's also contemporary since a lot of more recent cartoons have kinda gone with something similar.

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...and after starting October Faction -- which hasn't been great (very juvenile comic book-y shit; the kind that you quickly realize was probably based on a comic) -- I learned that it got canceled in its first season back in March >_>

I had only looked it up at all since, for some reason, I thought there might have been a movie with that name as well and had wondered if they were connected.

There's a lot of poorly-written crappy high school drama, as well as other poorly-written crappy drama. And then there's a supernatural angle. And some other stuff. Honestly, if the acting and characters were better, and if they could focus on one fucking area, it might be a pretty great show. However, it's a giant ball of plot threads since *everybody* has multiple things going on.

Just got to the part where Geoff realizes he was talking to a ghost earlier.

At any rate, it's going to be a nuisance if it ends on a cliffhanger or leaves a lot of the season's plot threads unresolved... which it almost certainly will. Unfortunately, I'm not sure that the comic is popular enough that I can just find spoilers for everything else (since it doesn't have its own wiki from what I can see?), although I'll have to dig around for them after I finish it.

...also I just realized I've only finished 3 episodes so far. So much yet so little happens in this show, it really throws me off.

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Zeus posted...

a lot of more recent cartoons have kinda gone with something similar.

I guess I not as up to date with cartoons as I thought. I haven't seen many with that kinda outline-less minimalist style

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WhiskeyDisk posted...

Why was I not the least bit surprised to see that this was Larry Niven's doing?

Because you're familiar with Larry Niven?



Zeus posted...

Is Brandon Sanderson a big deal in his own right or is he really just famous for finishing the Wheel of Time series after Robert Jordan died?

He was a big deal beforehand - it's how he got the job finishing WoT in the first place. His big series were the Mistborn books and the Stormlight Archive.

He appeals to a certain type of fan. His main claim to fame is that he tends to overthink magic in his novels until they're more like hard sci-fi set in a magical universe than they are actual fantasy.

Personally, the only books he's ever done I've found worth reading were the WoT books, but that's less because he's a terrible writer and more that he's catering to a demo I'm absolutely not a part of. Plus, he fails my traditional test for fantasy novels and ticks off most of my red flag warning signs for fantasy - whenever I picked up one of his books and read the back cover blurb, there'd be about 47 made-up proper nouns in the first three paragraphs, and almost no indication of what the actual story is. In my experience, that tends to be a strong indicator of a bad fantasy writers - it means the author got too caught up in their world-building and painting the scenery, and forgot to actually write a worthwhile story.

To his credit, he doesn't seem to fall into the other major red flag category that tends to indicate bad fantasy writers - namely, this one:

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/PunctuationShaker
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The bunny (Oreo Mcflurry) bit my wife in the nose last night. Should I be worried about the bunny developing a taste for human blood or flesh, or should I be excited because my wife will develop bunny relates super powers?

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The Wave Master posted...

Should I be worried about the bunny developing a taste for human blood or flesh?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bunnicula



The Wave Master posted...

or should I be excited because my wife will develop bunny relates super powers?

That only works if the bunny was radioactive at the time. Had it been sleeping near the microwave?

I'd be more worried about her developing myxomatosis, honestly.
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ParanoidObsessive posted...

To his credit, he doesn't seem to fall into the other major red flag category that tends to indicate bad fantasy writers - namely, this one:

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/PunctuationShaker

I always figured authors did that to make life hard for fanficcers, since FFN has a tendency to destroy punctuation, accent marks, scene breaks, etc.

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I_Abibde posted...

I always figured authors did that to make life hard for fanficcers, since FFN has a tendency to destroy punctuation, accent marks, scene breaks, etc.

Nah. Like most negative cliches in modern fantasy, this is basically Tolkien's fault.

Essentially, he wrote his books more as an excuse to use the dozen or so fictional languages he made up as his lifelong hobby. And because he WAS a linguist (and was basing his accents and umlauts and apostrophes and cedilla and so on on the ways they're used in actual languages, to indicate specific phonemes and sounds that aren't naturally part of English), when Tolkien had names like Nmenor and Enw and Khazad-Dm, there was a reason for those marks.

And then thousands of imitators followed Tolkien, mimicking the style of his books without really understanding why he did the things he did. For a while it became almost standard that every fantasy novel had to have little poem/song fragments in them (because Tolkien did it), and you had to sprinkle in all sorts of made-up words for people, places and things (because Tolkien did it), and the more odd accenting you included the more "fantasy" it would feel (because Tolkien did it).

That's kind of died off a bit in recent years (mostly because it was SO imitated for so long, and everyone got sick and tired of it), but hack writers still fall back on it from time-to-time.

Ironically, one of the major indicators of hack writers these days is that they're clearly trying to ape Game of Thrones/Song of Ice and Fire - again, without necessarily understanding what made it popular in the first place. So you always get titles like "A [noun] of [noun]", and the story seems to just be trying to be as bleak and dark and cynical as possible without really having a narrative purpose for the negativity, or balancing things out in other ways.

Hack writers almost always mimic whatever was popular because they don't really understand how to be popular themselves using their own voice. They don't actually have a story to tell, but damn it, they're going to tell it anyway.
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I'll give October Faction credit for one thing: It wrapped up *most* of the early plot threads I could remember.... while doing nothing to explain some later contrivances (especially all of that shit between the monster faction and Alice). And it had enough of an ending for the season to work as a stand-alone, even if it set up a few things for a second season that will never come and Fred was in limbo... which I kinda suspect he could have been brought back in some form during s2.

And the show worked in a *lot* of SJW stuff, some of which I kinda suspect was just because they weren't doing anything with some of the characters (such as the #MeToo subplot, which barely factors into the story -- doubly so since even the suspension was meaningless, considering Geoff *also* just takes some time off). It's also silly because they keep bringing up how racist the town is (because it's super-majority white) despite the fact that the current mayor is either Pakistani or Indian and, even back in the *70s*, they had a black sheriff which, at the time (ie, following the Jim Crow era), would have been remarkably progressive. And while they whine about how bigoted the town is, it's simultaneously incredibly welcoming towards LGBT where the *only* character who says anything bad about homosexuals turns out to be in the closet himself... although you kinda suspect he was going to pair with Geoff from the beginning (well, as soon as you realize that Viv is going to be largely neglected).

ParanoidObsessive posted...

you had to sprinkle in all sorts of made-up words for people, places and things

All words are made-up >_>

ParanoidObsessive posted...

Hack writers almost always mimic whatever was popular because they don't really understand how to be popular themselves using their own voice. They don't actually have a story to tell, but damn it, they're going to tell it anyway.

idk, I kinda think there are certain overarching trends that benefit certain kinds of writers so a lot of success is independent of talent or even authenticity. And imitation isn't necessarily an attempt at a cash grab, considering that not-quite-fanfic writers can fall in love with certain elements of a work and try to copy them as a not-quite-homage.

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ParanoidObsessive posted...

Essentially, he wrote his books more as an excuse to use the dozen or so fictional languages he made up as his lifelong hobby.

Well, I'm a linguist (... and a hack), and I can confirm that, but my comment above was a bit tongue-in-cheek (... because I hate FFN and what it does to formatting).

For a while it became almost standard that every fantasy novel had to have little poem/song fragments in them (because Tolkien did it).

Wheel of Time is a good example of this, though I noticed that the songs more or less disappeared after the first book.

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Zeus posted...

All words are made-up >_>

You know what I meant, Captain Contrarian. -_-

The only writer who should be inventing hundreds of words at a time is Shakespeare, and even he didn't do it in a single story/series.



I_Abibde posted...

Wheel of Time is a good example of this, though I noticed that the songs more or less disappeared after the first book.

Eye of the World is the most blatantly "I'm aping Tolkien" book in that series. Jordan even admitted he was doing that consciously and deliberately in that book.

The later books start to shift into their own style as they go (so much so that I tend to say that the franchise really doesn't find its own voice until Book 3 - which is a shame because it starts getting bogged down by endless filler somewhere around Book 7).

The Sword of Shannara series sort of fits into the same mold. They sort of start out blatantly aping Tolkien, and then sort of turn into their own thing over time (so much so that I liked the second quadrilogy more than the first trilogy - though unfortunately, that's another series that feels like it got lost in its own bloat).

Ironically, Tolkien also influenced a LOT of fantasy that wasn't just aping him, in that a lot of writers (especially in the 70s) went out of their way to be as unlike Tolkien as possible, because they thought all the imitators were homogenizing the fantasy genre as a whole. So trying to avoid his cliches created entirely new styles of fantasy (some of which eventually became their own cliches for future writers).
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Dark Tower was basically King trying to turn the Man with No Name trilogy into a Tolkien-esque epic quest

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Metalsonic66 posted...

Dark Tower was basically King trying to turn the Man with No Name trilogy into a Tolkien-esque epic quest

It jumped the shark when he brought in Harry Potter and Doctor Doom, though.
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It jumped the shark way earlier than that when Clint Eldwood used magic doors to time-travel and hijack brains

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Metalsonic66 posted...

It jumped the shark way earlier than that when Clint Eldwood used magic doors to time-travel and hijack brains

Wasn't that the 2nd book? I only read the first 3 and half of 4 before I lost it.
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There are rumors of the mini fridge (Xbox Series X) severely over heating. Only industry insiders, journalist, celebrities, and Twitch or YouTube influencers have the console, but it's such an interesting rumor that maybe it's possible.

People mocked how huge the PS5 is, but it's not overheating. I'm sure both consoles will get a mid generation upgrade and redesign so these issues will be resolved in a few years if they're true.

It's just ironic that a mini fridge is over heating.

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It's as if Microsoft has learned nothing from previous versions of its own hardware, despite it basically being a stripped down PC to begin with.

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The Wave Master posted...

There are rumors of the mini fridge (Xbox Series X) severely over heating. Only industry insiders, journalist, celebrities, and Twitch or YouTube influencers have the console, but it's such an interesting rumor that maybe it's possible.

People mocked how huge the PS5 is, but it's not overheating. I'm sure both consoles will get a mid generation upgrade and redesign so these issues will be resolved in a few years if they're true.

It's just ironic that a mini fridge is over heating.

The 360 kinda had the same issue, but they blamed a third-party device on it. I don't consider the news terribly surprising. In general, it's why I don't buy anything at launch... although it meant losing out on the good ps3s.

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Revelation34 posted...

Wasn't that the 2nd book? I only read the first 3 and half of 4 before I lost it.

It was Drawing of the Three

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Oh yeah, after hemming and hawing over the 3D Mario Collection, I instead wound up buying NMH: Desperate Struggle (on clearance for $15) and Rune Factory 4 Special Edition (which was $40, but I'm not sure I could get that cheaper new... I guess I could have waited to see if I could find cheaper used). I just have to make sure I actually play RF4 before RF5 comes out because otherwise it'll feel like a waste. And at least part of that was motivated by the fact I didn't want to pay for shipping on NMH although I had also wanted to play a RF game for a while.

That and apparently Best Buy had SNK Heroines on the Switch clearanced for $15. I picked up off ebay the other month -- still shrinkwrapped now -- although apparently I didn't do much worse, since it looks like I may have paid like a buck more.

Bearing in mind I hadn't planned on getting the other stuff, it just happens during my weird deliberation process. However, paying $60 for a collection comprised of 3 games I still own -- where one of them I don't care about at all -- just wasn't sitting right with me. If it's available cheaper during Black Friday/CM, I'll buy it then. If not, I'll wait for a solo release of SM64 (and hope that the next version will include the DS port as an alternate mode)

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ParanoidObsessive posted...

Ironically, Tolkien also influenced a LOT of fantasy that wasn't just aping him, in that a lot of writers (especially in the 70s) went out of their way to be as unlike Tolkien as possible, because they thought all the imitators were homogenizing the fantasy genre as a whole. So trying to avoid his cliches created entirely new styles of fantasy (some of which eventually became their own cliches for future writers).

And then Star Wars happened.

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https://youtu.be/JuMiq7eg91M

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Metalsonic66 posted...

https://youtu.be/JuMiq7eg91M

Never heard of it but after reading about him I need to read the comics one day.
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never bothered asking before, but any EDC nerds here?

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The hurricane dodged us again, and will destroy Louisiana again. Not sure what crossroads deal some Mississippi resident has made with the weather this year, but thank you, I guess.

Onee of my stalkers gifted me 500 bucks last night, and I used the money to buy the boss lady a new laptop. Her old one is on it's last legs, and now she has an early Christmas gift coming in a few weeks. (Stupid pandemic has killed the speed of her getting the computer.)

It's not a fancy gaming laptop, but it's got a SSD and a nice graphics card. Overall, it's a great value, and as long as my stalker doesn't find out where I live then I'm good.

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https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=JuMiq7eg91M

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Metalsonic66 posted...

https://youtu.be/JuMiq7eg91M

Kinda hyped, although I'm not terribly familiar with the comic. JK Simmons voicing the Omni-Man is awesome, though.

...oh, oddly enough, apparently I was already familiar with Atom Eve.

And reading through the wiki now. This comic looks pretty solid.

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Zeus_LLC posted...

Kinda hyped, although I'm not terribly familiar with the comic. JK Simmons voicing the Omni-Man is awesome, though.

...oh, oddly enough, apparently I was already familiar with Atom Eve.

And reading through the wiki now. This comic looks pretty solid.

On that note is he going to play J Jonah Jameson in the future Spiderman films?
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Revelation34 posted...

On that note is he going to play J Jonah Jameson in the future Spiderman films?

Given that they apparently used him in the MCU Spider-Man films, probably. I certainly hope so, since was amazing as JJJ.

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The Wave Master posted...

The hurricane dodged us again, and will destroy Louisiana again. Not sure what crossroads deal some Mississippi resident has made with the weather this year, but thank you, I guess.

Don't get too comfortable, it probably means you'll get quad-fucked next year.
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Random fantasy setting thought - contribute or not, as you will:

Most fantasy settings (especially in RPGs) tend to enforce "fantasy gun control", in that gunpowder simply does not work (or doesn't exist at all) - mainly out of a desire to keep the setting locked in medieval stasis (and the existence of guns tends to change too much). The general assumption seems to be that it becomes harder to justify a world with wizards and monsters and lone dramatic heroes when every peasant can theoretically own a gun. Guns are very much the great equalizer in many ways.

In my experience, most settings that remove gunpowder tend to remove ALL forms of "combustive force" - so a world without gunpowder also likely doesn't have petroleum-fueled engines or steam-driven locomotion. Again, it's likely to separate the medieval fantasy flavor from a more "modern" feel, in that it doesn't feel quite right to have King Arthur and his knights riding around on motorcycles (though some settings are built entirely around just that sort of deliberate juxtaposition).

But a thought occurred to me earlier - while many medieval fantasy settings tend to ban both gunpowder and combustives in general, is there any setting that disallows gunpowder (or all chemically-propelled projectile weapons in general), but DOES allow for other forms of chemical combustion (ie, gas engines and cars/trains/etc)? In a pure science view this would probably be impossible (once you can trigger and harness reliable chemical combustion it feels like it would be an inevitable step forward to building it into weapons), but I'm talking fantasy and magic more than actual natural laws.

Steampunk's about the only genre I can think of where combustion engines of one sort or another are encouraged and gunpowder is downplayed - and in that case, it's usually just so they can have improbable Telsa-powered rayguns or even more improbable steam-based weaponry. And most of the time, gunpowder is still present, either solely in canons or fully in era-appropriate guns. Whereas what I'm trying to think of are settings where things like gasoline and steam power are viable, but gunpowder (or guns in general) isn't.

I'm kind of coming up blank, but I figure I might be forgetting something.

Also, I can't get the image out of my head of a steampunk-style setting where someone is literally wearing a massive boiler on their back and using it to fuel a steam-powered railgun. Which is kind of neat in its own sort of way.
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What about MoMo from the BoF games? She's usually packing a bazooka in a world otherwise devoid of guns, and there's steam engines and whatnot.

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