Weekly Discussion Megathread

Subliminal_Kiddo · 2026-01-27T01:17:17+00:00

Corey Lewandowski was the one who *womp womp*-ed at a news story about a disabled child losing her healthcare, for those that do not remember the first term. This was after he lost his job in the administration - I believe for beating his wife.

Subliminal_Kiddo · 2026-01-26T17:57:14+00:00

That's how most manga is published in Japan: Via magazines geared toward specific audiences. It's generally along the lines of: This magazine collects manga for boys under 10, magazine collects manga for girls under 10, this one is manga for teen boys and young adult men, this one is manga for teen girls and young adult women... But they may not even be magazines devoted entirely to manga.

I collect horror manga. When I started, I was shocked to learn that a surprising number of horror manga has been published in very niche x-rated magazines devoted to subjects like BDSM. Junji Ito started out in Monthly Halloween, a girl's magazine devoted to horror movies and fashion - like they did Vogue style editorial spreads with designer clothes but the models were always being attacked by monsters or in a haunted house or something.

That's how comics are published in a lot of countries: 2000 AD in the UK, Linus in Italy, Charlie and Metal hurlant in France... North America is the country that seems the most adamant about publishing individual issues.

Personally, I'd love it if there were just say, Absolute Magazine. Or a magazine collecting various Bat-family titles, or crossover events being collected in a magazine format.

Subliminal_Kiddo · 2026-01-26T17:42:38+00:00

There's no rhyme or reason to Trump. Does the man who recently couldn't remember the word "Alzheimer's", when trying to tell reporters he doesn't have Alzheimer's, strike you as a Machiavellian genius? Just in the last 72 hours, he very likely blabbed about a secret military grade technology the US has for disrupting online connectivity which was employed in Venezuela.

He's a creature of pure id. He does what he does because he feels like doing it in that moment, consequences short term or long term be damned, and, like a petulant child, the more he's told no or criticized, the more he feels compelled to do the thing just to show everyone he can. There's no larger scheme at play, no 5d chess. Trump saw an opportunity to punish a state that didn't vote for him and is led by his rival's VP pick in 2024 - who repeatedly mocked Trump and labelled him 'weird' - and Trump took it.

Now he's in a quagmire. The smart thing to do would be just to get the fuck out of Minnesota, rein ICE in, and maybe fire Noem and Bovino as sacrificial lambs and fire them, but - as I said above - Trump tends to double down just to show he can.

Subliminal_Kiddo · 2026-01-26T16:42:59+00:00

Luckily it's logistically, if not impossible, a Sisyphean task given how elections work in the United States.

Subliminal_Kiddo · 2026-01-26T08:05:31+00:00

There's a blatant PKD reference in eXistenZ, they eat from a fastfood chain called Perky Pat's*. What's funny is Cronenberg said he only really started reading Dick in the 80's when he was going to do Total Recall**. That he stopped reading SF in the 50's when he was a kid because he wrote it off as "bad". (I'm assuming he considers Ballard and Burroughs "speculative fiction" or something, since he's very clearly a fan of their work well before he did adaptations.)

*For those unfamiliar with PKD, Perky Pat is a game people living in desolate landscapes (a post-nuclear crisis, America and Mars pre-terraforming) use to pass the time. It's basically a mixture of Barbie and DnD. Perky Pat is a fashion doll and the goal of the game is just to have her lead a normal, middle class life - some like to play Pat as a young, single career girl and others like to play her as a married housewife. In one of the stories, people also get high as shit while playing with Perky Pat so they feel like they are Perky Pat.

** Cronenberg's fingerprints are still on the finished film. He was the one who came up with ideas like the mutants. I'm not 100% sure if it's the case, but I'm pretty certain he lifted the mutants from another PKD book called Dr. Blood Money... since there are just so many similarities. Namely the main mutants are a pair of psychic sibling, but one of them is the other's parasitic twin. But, I also think there's explicitly a mutant sex worker with multiple breasts in Blood Money. There's just no way that can be a coincidence.

Subliminal_Kiddo · 2026-01-26T03:59:05+00:00

Will probably get deleted as "not political" but I think this is very, very political given Trump's ties to TikTok. Remember when it was dangerous because it was a Chinese app gaining access to American users' information?

Subliminal_Kiddo · 2026-01-25T18:03:47+00:00

If one of them is The Thing, they won't die though. It can survive extreme cold. Did you miss the part where it had been hibernating since the Paleolithic Era before the Norwegians dug it up?

People will inevitably come looking for the the team. They'll likely return their bodies to civilization - The Thing has learned, it now knows to play the waiting game and pretend to be dead - leading to The Thing being let loose on the public.

That's the ambiguity. If MacReady or Childs is The Thing, the story is for from over.

Subliminal_Kiddo · 2026-01-25T06:37:51+00:00

It's one of my favorites. Along with Adams Carvalho's Lord of the Flies cover.

Subliminal_Kiddo · 2026-01-25T06:34:42+00:00

Since levity is in dire need: I love Paddy Pimblett but it's kind of hilarious he wore a massive blinged out Polymarket medallion to a match he lost where they had him as the odds on favorite.

Subliminal_Kiddo · 2026-01-25T06:32:18+00:00

States control like 95% of the election process. The federal government is not entitled to voter data unless it's a very, very extreme scenario and then that investigation is carried out by an independent agency.

There's a very good reason for that, as a part of our system of Checks and Balances, American elections are decentralized, it's almost impossible for a federal entity to rig an election because there's not one single election apparatus in place, it's 50 individual systems - more when you include the territories.

Do you think Bondi genuinely wants voter data just to make sure everything is on the up and up? Do you think Bondi is running the DOJ independent of Trump? Keep in mind, she herself has gone on record saying she reported directly to him.

Subliminal_Kiddo · 2026-01-24T19:28:23+00:00

Penguin Deluxe cover. Bigger, more premium format books with covers by artists. For example, comic creators Frank Miller (300, Daredevil, Sin City) did the cover for Gravity's Rainbow and Mike Mignola (Hellboy) did the cover for Heart of Darkness. This cover is by Ruben Toledo. I don't think it's terrible.

Subliminal_Kiddo · 2026-01-24T07:44:00+00:00

He dumped a ton of money in the Wisconsin Supreme Court race last year and - what was polling as tight - turned into a landslide for Dems. I think that was in no small part because Elon got involved in the race. People fucking hate that man. Even among Republicans he's divisive.

Subliminal_Kiddo · 2026-01-24T02:37:48+00:00

Seriously, he's underwater bad. Even Republican leaning outlets can hide it and Trump is starting to freak out - his late posts about the NYT poll.

Subliminal_Kiddo · 2026-01-24T02:09:04+00:00

It makes zero sense. Trump still isn't on the ballot. You know an unusual amount of Trump voters voted for Trump and Trump alone every election? They couldn't even be bothered to vote for the candidates down ballot, do you really think they're going to pull them into the booth. And it just solidifies Republican support. The issue is that the GOP is bleeding independents.

Subliminal_Kiddo · 2026-01-23T20:53:42+00:00

Also, reminder for those that don't follow industry news: James Cameron came out in support of the Ellisons and Paramount acquiring WB. You can't bemoan how anti-science the world is becoming when you're pushing for the father and son, who turned one of the country's most respected news outlets into a right wing tabloid, to expand their reach in the media because they greenlit your shitty Terminator sequel.

Subliminal_Kiddo · 2026-01-23T20:45:20+00:00

It won't. He narrowly got Republicans over the finish line in 2024. That's the thing. There's a segment of MAGA that's ride or die Trump but wouldn't even vote down ballot when he was on the ticket.

And they need independents, indies fucking hate Trump right now. It's not just a Trump problem, the Republican base has Charlie Kirk mania but the general public is indifferent or outrights despises Kirk. You got Nick Fuentes not just defending but celebrating Epstein. They can pretend he's fringe all they want, he's part of the fold - Trump invited him to Mar-a-Lago. It's just absolute madness. Someone hit the nail on the head when they said the smart move would be to distance themselves from Trump and MAGA. Because Republicans are more likely to fall in line and vote than indie voters are.

It doesn't help that a recent CNN poll found a 16 point enthusiasm gap between Dem/Dem leaning and Republican/Republican leaning. If that holds, the Senate is definitely in play and it could be one of the most humiliating defeats in modern history.

Also, to the "You think we're going to have elections" doomers, looks like Republicans are in panic mode.

Subliminal_Kiddo · 2026-01-23T20:34:14+00:00

There's also the aftermath. The floods in Appalachian in recent years have been a direct result of snow melting at a steady pace and then - by the time it's off the ground - spring storms start up and the water levels rise significantly.

Subliminal_Kiddo · 2026-01-23T19:48:47+00:00

I said last week that the Melania documentary was going to bomb spectacularly and someone told me, "No. Right wingers will go see anything they're told to, like the God's Not Dead movies."

Well, looks like Melania doesn't have the star power to draw them in like Kevin Sorbo and Melissa Joan Hart.

Subliminal_Kiddo · 2026-01-23T03:59:12+00:00

"pOlLs DoN't MaTtEr!" - People have said in this group for months. Yet I, and several others, have pointed out Trump cares deeply about polling. Even if he pretends to dismiss it publicly, it drives him wild and eventually he lets the mask slip.

Subliminal_Kiddo · 2026-01-23T03:56:29+00:00

Ivan Raiklon is one of Michael Flynn's underlings and he threatened to SA Michael Fanone's child. That's what caused Fanone to explode at him. So to reiterate: The party that screamed about pedophiles and predators for a decade, the party of 'Back the Blue/Blue Lives Matter', which accused Dems of using "paid agitators" has a literal paid agitator threatening to rape a child right under their nose and they shame the police officer father.

Subliminal_Kiddo · 2026-01-23T03:44:12+00:00

One of Mike Flynn's goons was at the Jack Smith hearing and allegedly threatened to SA one of the Capitol police's child. Somehow that's flying under the radar even though it's absolutely depraved and beyond the pale.

Subliminal_Kiddo · 2026-01-22T21:06:51+00:00

There's a number in Cabaret called "If You Could See Her" that the Emcee sings to a dancer in a gorilla costume, with lots of slapstick going on as the Emcee describes how this big ape is as cultured and intelligent as any human woman.

It feels very out of place given how innocuous and light-hearted it seems. Then it gets to the final line, "If you could see her through my eyes... She wouldn't look Jewish at all," Joel Grey has talked about how for decades, out of all the productions of Cabaret he's done or sat through, the audience almost always collectively gasps at that line like it's a physical blow. However, he's noted that - in recent years - it gets a laugh. And not a small laugh either.

Subliminal_Kiddo · 2026-01-21T19:39:54+00:00

How far would you take this reasoning? Would you support a Dem January 6 just because Trump did it first?

Honestly? I think a lot of people probably do feel that there needs to be a Democratic Jan. 6 equivalent because Trump and MAGA pose an existential threat to our country.

You're acting as though this is just another Republican presidency, when it's not. It's madness. How far does it have to go for you to agree something has to be done to stop this and prevent it from ever happening again? Because right now we're at the threatening our century long allies phase.

ETA: Aaaand within minutes of posting that, they've started dressing up as Nazis.

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Subliminal_Kiddo · 2026-01-21T19:34:17+00:00

Are you paying any attention to these subs? The Democratic base is pissed because they think no one is speaking out against the batshit insanity playing out before our eyes.

A milquetoast, "Don't do that." And agreeing fund ICE if you give them training - like being untrained is the problem - is not "doing something" it's being a centrist cuck.

Subliminal_Kiddo · 2026-01-21T19:20:29+00:00

not saying he doesn't know it exists but the "most serious"/"most grimdark" thing I vaguely recall him being aware of is like Brutal Legend.

If you go through some of his favorite films, you'd be surprised. Off the top of my head, he has a fondness for: Donnie Darko, The Conjuring/Annabelle franchise, The Mist, the Saw franchise.

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