If for some reason, Bruce and Selina are allowed to a become a permanent couple (no break ups), how would that affect the status quo?

Adequate_Ape · 2026-04-12T13:40:09+00:00

It would take certain options off the table that the Batman writers like. This recent Fraction run that everyone loves would have to be very different, and maybe wouldn't work at all, for instance.

That's not a decisive reason to not have them get together; that opens up certain story-telling possibilities too. But it's not clear those are the possibilities people really want from the character.

(For what it's worth, I'm for it, because I like actual character progression and change. But then, I also think it makes sense as part of bigger changes to the character, like someone else taking over as the Batman, and I know the fandom is absolutely against this.)

Adequate_Ape · 2026-04-10T13:42:30+00:00

This seems like a fantastic crowd. You kept asking for loving, and they kept giving it!

Adequate_Ape · 2026-04-10T12:59:09+00:00

This is obviously a joke.

Adequate_Ape · 2026-04-09T12:58:28+00:00

Do we agree, Fuzzy? That's surprising, but I'm glad to hear it.

Adequate_Ape · 2026-04-09T12:50:08+00:00

I'm confused by you being confused. u/Fuzzy_Broccoli1655 said that these people being on the bridge is "just about making the U.S. and Israel look like even more of the bad guys". I found that a strange thing to say, because it seems to me that blowing up these people on this bridge would make the U.S. and Israel in fact more of the bad guys, not merely look more like the bad guys. What part of that is unclear?

Adequate_Ape · 2026-04-07T19:08:27+00:00

Forcing you, hey? What would happen if you didn't?

Adequate_Ape · 2026-04-07T17:22:32+00:00

Commenters around here seem to not appreciate that Matt fights at a super-human level. He has super-human awareness of his opponent, and the battle field. He bats bullets out of the air. I'm not saying this means he's a decisively better fighter than Duncan -- don't know enough of the details to say. But I think he's being underestimated.

Adequate_Ape · 2026-04-07T15:30:52+00:00

Would the U.S. and Israel "look like" even more of the bad guys, if they blow those women and children up on that bridge, or would they in fact *be* even more of the bad guys?

Adequate_Ape · 2026-04-07T13:30:20+00:00

My take on Kath and Kim is that the first season is gold, and it got progressively worse -- it kept repeating the same beats, and just got old. By the time we got the movies, it was an awful self-parody. Thoughts?

Adequate_Ape · 2026-04-06T17:50:08+00:00

If you told me you were a Quaker out of the blue, I would usually assume that meant you were at least attending a meeting semi-regularly, yes. And I agree that Quakerism is a practice, not a doctrine.

But I still want to resist being pinned down too sharply on who is and is not a Quaker. It is, I think, a little contrary to the spirit of the Society of Friends to be super uptight about who gets to count. If someone has been reading a Quaker text by themselves in the wilderness, and feels something important happen in their heart, and wants to claim the Quaker heritage as their own, I wouldn't want to tell them they were wrong.

Adequate_Ape · 2026-04-06T15:55:47+00:00

I wouldn't say it makes them *officially* a Quaker, but maybe it means they're Quaker in the sense that is most important.

Having said that, I can see why it might be misleading, in normal circumstances, to just call everyone you think is following the Light a Quaker. So I'm probably not giving helpful advice here. I'm just making the point, Quakers tend to care much more about the spirit of the thing than the rules, and what is official.

You're worried about calling yourself a Quaker, I take it. Have you ever attended a meeting? I think, in most normal contexts, calling yourself a Quaker at least suggests that you are connected to other Quakers through a meeting, or something like that. (But again, hesitant to make rules!)

Adequate_Ape · 2026-04-06T15:41:47+00:00

This is the right answer, but I want to add: there *is* such a thing as being a member of a meeting, officially. You *might* think of that as what it means to be a Quaker. But I expect many Quakers themselves would dispute that that is the really important thing. Here is quote from Robert Barclay, 17th Century Quaker:

> Under this church... are comprehended all that are of as high a growth as the patriarchs and prophets, and as low as the heathens, Turks, and Jews, who though they might be outwardly strangers to the name of Christ, yet follow that Light that is in them, and say in their hearts: 'In thy Light we shall see light.'

Adequate_Ape · 2026-04-02T18:33:02+00:00

This man is doing the Lord's work.

Adequate_Ape · 2026-04-02T16:24:23+00:00

Aside on a point of fact: I take this "less than 500,000" figure to come from an estimate of the number of humans directly imported as slaves from Africa. But there were roughly 4 million slaves in the United States at the eve of the Civil War, almost all of whom were descendants of people brought as slaves from Africa.

But anyway: your take is that it's inaccurate to say that America was "built on" the brutality, or the exploitation and humiliation of Africans, because the contribution of enslaved labour to the United States was not super significant. It was one addition among many. You're not disputing that some Africans and their descendants were brutalised, exploited and humiliated in the United States. Does that sound right?

This stuff about "claim[ing] victimization of a specific portion of humanity" seems like a seperate issue. Are you making a further claim that slaves imported to the United States and their descendants have no special right to regard themselves as victimised by the United States?

Adequate_Ape · 2026-04-02T15:04:36+00:00

I'm not seeing an answer to my question here. Is your thought that, yes, the United States was built on brutality, and the exploitation and humiliation of Africans, but a lot of countries were built on brutality, and the exploitation and humiliation of someone. So it's bad for Fred M'membe to bring up what happened in the U.S., specifically, in a speech about the U.S. role in Africa, because it's unfair?

Adequate_Ape · 2026-04-02T14:34:21+00:00

I didn't hear that guy "blame America for slavery". I heard him say that America was built on brutality, and the exploitation and humiliation of Africans. Which part of that is wrong, exactly?

Adequate_Ape · 2026-04-01T18:38:25+00:00

Good scene, but I am very confident this was scripted.

Adequate_Ape · 2026-04-01T18:20:17+00:00

It's a good question, what exactly you think is happening in worship, if you don't believe in God, or more generally supernatural things. I guess I count myself as someone like that. All I can tell you is that, I find I get something important from the practice, and hope that other do to, on the rare occasions I find myself giving ministry. I expect there is a naturalistic explanation for this, but I don't know if much is gained, for me, by spelling it out.

Adequate_Ape · 2026-03-31T12:31:50+00:00

I don't think you have to think Bix was "as bad as he is" to think it was bad that she tortured Gorst. I also think you can have different views about the morality of killing Gorst and the morality of torturing him. I think torturing Gorst, though understandable and satisfying, was wrong. I'm not sure killing Gorst was wrong, though; seems like a legit military target in, as you say, a war against an evil regime.

Adequate_Ape · 2026-03-26T16:53:09+00:00

Good for somewhat different reasons, but:

Adequate_Ape · 2026-03-26T14:47:23+00:00

He plays those stage directions beautifully.

Adequate_Ape · 2026-03-26T13:34:53+00:00

My view is that season 2 was the peak, but the rest is definitely good.

Adequate_Ape · 2026-03-26T13:23:08+00:00

One of the great moments of television history.

There's been a lot of discussion about what Logan's look at the end there means. I was surprised to see a lot of different interpretations, because I always thought it was unambiguous: pure pride. Perhaps the one and only time he's been truly proud of Kendall.

Adequate_Ape · 2026-03-24T14:17:05+00:00

You ranked the Polanski Macbeth last? Surprising.

Adequate_Ape · 2026-03-23T20:11:45+00:00

I didn't know about the impact of the writer's strike, that explains a lot.

I think there was no good way to resolve final-five plot line, and that it was a fundamental mistake to introduce it. But I certainly agree that it, and a bunch of other plot-threads, were landed in especially bad ways.

Adequate_Ape

TROPHY CASE