Mod Post: Off-Topic Tuesday

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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 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.

Comments

[leahandillyana]

I have felt slightly better recently. I decided to clear my backlog of stories to read, anime to watch, and things to write. I have wanted to write an essay about the villainess genre, and like how it ended up being. I want to write an essay on 2024 anime I’ve watched in a free time. I have a lot to share, but not enough mental energy to write it all out the way I want to, not yet. I desperately worry for my friend Mahomet, his family and neighbours, as I cannot say for sure that Trump’s MORONIC AND INHUMANE plan for Gaza won’t be implemented.
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.