Mod Post: Off-Topic Tuesday
Feb. 11th, 2025 09:19 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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scans_dailyIn 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.
The intent of these posts is to chat and have some fun and, sure, vent a little as required. Reasoned debate is fine, as always, but if you have to ask if something is going over the line, think carefully before posting please.
Normal board rules about conduct and behaviour still apply, of course.
It's been suggested that, if discussing spoilers for recent media events, it might be advisable to consider using the rot13 method to prevent other members seeing spoilers in passing.
The world situation is the world situation. If you're following the news, you know it as much as I do, if you're not, then there are better sources than me. But please, no doomscrolling, for your own sake.
No capybara's this week, but a rare tapir has been born at Point Defiance Zoo.
The Superbowl happened, but I leave discussions and conversations about it to those who follow such things, though I will say that the half time show was quite something!
We note the passing of former DC Editor KC Carlson, who helped steer the Zero Hour event, and the subsequent relaunch of the Legion or Super-Heroes titles, which remain favourites of mine, among many, many others
Megacon confirmed the released of four Transformers toys from the "Hearts of Steel" comic miniseries of MANY years ago. Basically, 19th century steampunk alt modes for Optimus Prime, Bumblebee, Megatron and Starscream.
Talk about non-comics stuff, thread derail, and just generally chat among yourselves.
The intent of these posts is to chat and have some fun and, sure, vent a little as required. Reasoned debate is fine, as always, but if you have to ask if something is going over the line, think carefully before posting please.
Normal board rules about conduct and behaviour still apply, of course.
It's been suggested that, if discussing spoilers for recent media events, it might be advisable to consider using the rot13 method to prevent other members seeing spoilers in passing.
The world situation is the world situation. If you're following the news, you know it as much as I do, if you're not, then there are better sources than me. But please, no doomscrolling, for your own sake.
No capybara's this week, but a rare tapir has been born at Point Defiance Zoo.
The Superbowl happened, but I leave discussions and conversations about it to those who follow such things, though I will say that the half time show was quite something!
We note the passing of former DC Editor KC Carlson, who helped steer the Zero Hour event, and the subsequent relaunch of the Legion or Super-Heroes titles, which remain favourites of mine, among many, many others
Megacon confirmed the released of four Transformers toys from the "Hearts of Steel" comic miniseries of MANY years ago. Basically, 19th century steampunk alt modes for Optimus Prime, Bumblebee, Megatron and Starscream.
no subject
Date: 2025-02-11 11:17 am (UTC)I’ve caught up to the most recent episodes of Orb, The Apothecary Diaries and From Bureaucrat To Villainess. All three series make me insanely happy. I like most villainess stories, the very premise is particularly appealing to me, and the Bureaucrat series has a charming sense of humour and sweet, wholesome characters. It gives me warm and fuzzy feelings. Apothecary is simply gorgeous, with the best designs, animation and music of all series currently airing. I love learning tons of trivia from Maomao and follow her on deducing mysteries, medical and criminal alike. In general, I love stories about people who use their vast knowledge of various fields to solve crimes as amateour detectives, the further from a police officer the character type is the more enjoyable the story for me.
Orb, however, became my favourite anime, a title long held by Revolutionary Girl Utena. While not as gorgeously animated as The Apothecary Diaries, Orb is a truly deep philosophical series, focusing on the themes of freedom, truth, and the meaning of life. In metaphorical sense, I have seen my own struggles with the protagonists’ struggles. Obviously it’s an alternate history, so I don’t expect a realistic recreation of early modern Poland, but the creators really put a lot of effort into depicting a world that resembles Poland, from names’ pronunciation to that one species of pine that grows everywhere here and has shape and coloration distinct from Japanese pines. I also love that the most recent set of protagonists features a Polska Roma lead and two Polish Germans, ethnic groups that have zero media presence anywhere, even in Polish media. I literally gasped when the Roma settlement first appeared in the anime! I consider it to be by far the best anime of 2024 and most likely the best anime of 2025. I highly recommend it for its mature themes, but I need to caution that it’s very, very depressing.
Timothy spends his time sleeping. He moves around as little as possible, unless he sees food. Eating is his meaning of life. I’m happy he has an apetite. I hope that the surgery removed all of the cancer and he will continue on living a carefree and comfy life for a very long time. Sebastian grew very fat. He looks like a dumpling on short legs now. Mattie on other hand lost a lot of weight, but he still seeems to be slightly overweight. Nuts loves to be pet and cuddles and I love to touch him, he is so soft. Duckie still doesn’t trust me. Hector doesn’t care. Eleven kanagroos from a local zoo (different from the zoo I mentioned last week) died suddenly of a lung disease, making me very sad.
I was following a discussion on fantasy criticisms coming from within fandom, and Limyaael’s Fantasy Rants were mentioned. I checked up archived backup of her blog and as I started reading, I discovered she also wrote an extremely long Harry Potter fanfic with an elaborate premise, Arc of Sacrifices (in short, it’s a story where Harry had a twin whom everybody considers to be the wizarding messiah and since early childhood Harry was groomed by his surviving parents to be his protector, leading to a drastically different person while his twin assumes the role of canon!Harry). I have very mixed feelings about this story. On one hand, it’s the earliest long form fanfic that I encountered that Does Not Suck – in fact, it’s pretty well written and even in the early arcs I find it superior to the canon. On the other hand, it’s strongly biased in favour of the Slytherin characters, which I find uncomfortable, especially since a lot of canonical racism was kept. Paradoxically, in the series Harry managed to reform the wizarding world to a much greater extend than in the canon, with scientific discoveries discrediting the anti-muggleborn racism, werewolves getting equal rights, and house elf slavery being abolished, among other things. It’s also gay, and surprisingly doesn’t have much of the sexism and homophobia present in gay fiction from that era. And that’s in a story that thinks that Aristocrats Are Awesome, Actually! Plus the regular mixed feelings of reading a story derived from work of an extremely problematic author. Eh.
I started a German course. I am in a beginner’s group, but not starting from zero. Yay! I am capable of introducing myself and briefly describing a photo of a street.
My local gardening center started to sell plants for spring planting. Several varieties of mint caught my attention. I have seeds of Moroccan mint, and the shop sells grown plants of sugar mint, apple mint, strawberry mint, and lemon mint. It was difficult for me to say for sure in the shop, because various strong scents were mixed together, but do those plants really smell like fruits or candy? Would it be worth having several varieties of mint or is one kind of mint enough? I have a feeling that if I brought home all those mints in a few years my garden would consist of mostly mint. I checked the woody plants I planted last year, and most of them seem to have survived the winter (I am only unsure of the goji and one kiwi). The haskaps seem to be in particularly good health, which is a relief as I was worried if I planted them correctly. I’ll wait for the herbaceous plants to arrive. So far I have two primaveras starteed blooming, but one had its flowers destroyed by the frost.
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Date: 2025-02-11 11:36 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2025-02-11 02:58 pm (UTC)I pointed this out and sent screen shots to them, and the reply was "OMG we need to contact the IT department on this!" (which, given I'm a retired IT guy, had me making dark comments about "doesn't anyone test their code anymore?"). They gave up and sent me a paper form to fill out, and that's done and returned.
I've been making heavy use of Comixology Unlimited, having picked up Dini's "Zatanna" series and "The Long Halloween". Kind of nice catching up on things. And one of these days I'll sit down and watch the Doctor Who Christmas special and everything else I've been holding off on viewing!
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Date: 2025-02-11 04:41 pm (UTC)It'd been acting up the last week or so anyway, but this time it was one of those cases where even the medication does jack, so his skin was bright red, and the poor thing was leaving blood everywhere he sat.
It's died down now, but he's still pretty pink all over. But he's not so unwell he can't eat (or, as it turns out, steal food in the vet waiting room. The recuperative power of theft!)
... so, how was your Monday?
Brave New World's out this week.
Explaining to family members the general plot always gets a bit funny when what sounds like a serious political thriller takes a curveball into "and then Harrison Ford turns into a Red Hulk".
("Why's he red?" "Oh, that's a whole thing...")
It'd be real annoying if some news website decided not only to spoil an apparent major twist in the film (unrelated to the cast) but also to do so in the frikken headline of their article.
Didn't look away in time...
Worrying news around EA and Bioware, since the former took one look at the sales for Veilguard and are apparently considering making Mass Effect 5 a live service game.
Just... why? Why?!
In addition to all the Hearts of Steel stuff, there was also an announcement of a two pack with Ironfist and... Carnivac?!
I honestly never thought the day would come.
Carnivac! Eeeeee!
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Date: 2025-02-11 10:42 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2025-02-11 05:58 pm (UTC)Yay for me!
(maybe next I could try and round out my Hellboy collection)
Well I watched the seven hour retrospective on the Dragon Age games. Thankfully the video was by someone actually competent who knows how to analyse things.
You know I expected Veilguard to have horrible scars from all it's years in development hell, but some of these creative choices are just confusing:
It's a direct follow-up to Inquisition but sidelines that plot to do it's own thing ( I suppose it's only fair since Inquisition did the same with II's ending....)
Why is their a pop-up saying "Character X will remember this" explaining the obvious implication of each dialogue choice?
Oh it's set in the previously unseen Tevinter (in the games anyway) but the nice part that isn't a slaver state ruled by waring factions of wizards.
All the originations we work with have had all their rough edges sanded-off so their all moral upstanding and good. (Yes even the assassins who buy child slaves, make them fight to the death and indoctrinate the survivors).
The companions don't really have political ideologies or views, and they all sort of get along.
If you get all the secret items there's an extra part in the epilogue where a mysterious organisation talks about how they were secretly manipulating the previous villains and how everything is going according to plan.
I really don't like Isabela's new outfit.
So Star Wars Rebels rewatch.
Tarkin showed up and was about how talking the Lothal rebels are more principled than other groups. That makes sense. But then he said that their unwilling to use violence, which is laughable since they've killed a lot of people throughout the show (later in this very episode Sabine will shoot some stormtroopers).
He also says that chase they were in earlier didn't have any casualties, even though one guy rode his bike into a wall and there was a big explosion. Maybe he meant civilian casualties?
Well looks like The Sandman show's been cancelled. Season two will be the end.
I don't know if they'll reshoot it so it has a proper ending, or they'll just kick it out the door.
I'm not going to watch it so I guess it doesn't really matter.
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Date: 2025-02-11 06:20 pm (UTC)People noticed they were filming scenes from the end of the Sandman series prior to the news about Gaiman. Apparently it was barely renewed as it was so they decided to end the story ahead of time by just focusing on the Morpheus stuff.
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Date: 2025-02-11 09:27 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2025-02-12 05:27 pm (UTC)And I swear to gosh, whenever mass retcons or subverting expectations by destroying or upending a major element occurs, the excuse/cope is always the same, whether from the writers or the changes’ defenders — that being the idea of “Now they’re free from the shackles of the past, they can go anywhere!”, even when they could have been done just fine before and those “shackles” and trappings are what drew people to the thing in the first place.
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Date: 2025-02-12 09:37 pm (UTC)Isabella's hat is silly. I might have an opinion on the rest of her outfit if I wasn't distracted by the hat.
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Date: 2025-02-11 06:11 pm (UTC)I was on the floor last night with waves of nausea, unable to hold down medication, fluctuating between chills and fever spikes.
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Date: 2025-02-16 06:14 am (UTC)I have been reading some manga and I am determined to catch up on my comics, I have fallen so far behind.
I have been watching Invincible and enjoying it more and more.