Mod Post: Off-Topic Tuesday

[icon_uk]

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 EU hosted a summit where over 40 countries and global organisations promised a starting figure of over $8 billion to the development of a covid-19 vaccine.

Much of the world is starting to experiment with opening up again in a new sort-of-post-Covid19 world, with places like Germany and Spain relaxing, gradually, some of the lockdown protocols, with strong limitations and provisos.

In New Zealand, consistent reminder that competent politicians exist Jacinda Ardern has suggested that the country may not have open borders for a long time to come.

In the UK, a phone app is being developed for contact tracingM and notification of people you may have been in contact with who develop Covid19, though in true current UK style, it's going against every other countries developed app by not using the personalised data storage method (Where your information never leaves your phone), but a centralised database, which is raising some concerns about the storage and disposal (or not) of this data.

The US government is planning on borrowing around 3 TRILLION dollars in the next quarter to pay for pandemic support initiatives. That's 3,000,000,000,000 (Which I only mention because I've never had a reason to type an actual number that big in a real world context!)

The US is also starting to open up in places, though the wisdom of this is being called into question by... well, pretty much everyone else on the planet, and a goodly number of the local population of course.

The Clone Wars seventh and final season came to an end with a frankly spectacular arc which saw Ahsoka Tano facing off against Darth Maul in the sort of iconic fight scene that, truth be told, the sequel trilogy was mostly completely lacking, at least on an emotional level), and giving us a chance to see the impact of General Order 66 from the point of view of Ahsoka, as well as the actual Clone Troopers who we have got to know and care about over the years of this series. THIS is how you do it!

The long overdue, repeatedly delayed, New Mutants movie was briefly appearing as forthcoming video on demand from Amazon, though without a release date, but it has now disappeared again. This DOES seem to suggest it might go straight to digital with no cinema release.

Also a new image of a new baddies form the movie have been released in the shape of the Smiley-Men.

And I've clearly been watching waaaay too much anime, or at least listening to too many anime soundtracks when a random video from something called Argonavis (A games based anime from what I can see) popped up and I thought "Gosh that sounds like Unison Square Garden" (who did "Orion o Nazoru", the belter of an OP for Tiger and Bunny) only to discover it's not, but it was written and arranged by two of the members.

In terms of podcasts, alongside old favourites like "Jay and Miles X-Plain the X-Men" (pretty much what it says on the tin and currently looking at Age of Apocalypse), "The NoSleep Podcast" (Horror fiction) and "The Arkham Sessions" (An actual qualified clinical psychologist, Dr Andrea Letamendi, examined, firstly "Batman the Animated Series" and is now looking at the "Doom Patrol" TV series for their depictions of mental conditions), I've just started Mockery Manor, a horror/mystery/drama set at a gloriously awful (and thankfully fictional) British theme park in the late 1980's.

So today's extra curricular activity for the community: What podcasts are you currently listening to that you'd recommend to others?

Comments

[tripodeca113]

Holy shit Midnight Sun is actually getting released. What is this 2008?


Oh look a Walking Dead bundle. All of the comics for $30. Pretty good value I guess, but I’m not sure I care enough about the series to buy it (vs the library copies). I realize I’ve been pretty thriftless and wasteful with my spending lately.

I finally got to watch Inside No 9 season 5. I was underwhelmed by it really. Had some strong episodes but two quite underwhelming ones.

The Clone Wars is over now. It’s taken twelve years, but it’s finished now. Huh. And it had the decency to end on a high note.

Another birthday coming up. Soon my youthful days shall be over…..

Any good shows been announced lately? I think I need something to focus on.

[owlbrigade1]

I finally got around to watching The Rise of Skywalker. And I quite enjoyed it, once it calmed down a bit in the second half it managed to be a decent finale and bring out the feelings I had for Star Wars. The first half was a bit of a mess, and JJ's usual penchant for lens flare and an inability know how space works along with his need for a ticking clock all on display, but once he got passed the need to deal with the set up and cram an entire other movie into it to deal with the state of things from the unholy mess that was the previous main movie it was pretty good.

I wish Taika Waititi the very best in his role as new trilogy showrunner too. If anyone can be the man who saves Star Wars while still bringing the feels, it is him.

I enjoyed the finale of The Clone Wars as far as it went, but I really feel it needed one more episode to properly set up for Ahsoka and Rex's appearances in Rebels. I felt a little left hanging there. I can only assume there is books/comics material that will fill that gap. Still, it was a good goodbye to the character, which is good because I sure as hell ain't gonna watch The Madalorian with Rosario Dawson playing the character.

[deh_tommy]

There was a book about Ahsoka pre-Rebels called (appropriately enough) Star Wars: Ahsoka. Rex is involved too, I think. That’s a decent read.

I hope Phasma comes back Boba Fett style, partly because I really liked her books, partly because I didn’t like how dirty she was done in The Last Jedi and mostly because I want to see all the increasingly fabulous and spectacular ways they can try and kill her off with each subsequent death.

[owlbrigade1]

Star Wars has always wasted female villain characters, I wanted to see more of Maketh Tua from the Rebels show too. She got summarily blowed up too. I get the feeling that somewhere, deep within the bowels of Disney that someone has glommed onto the idea of sudden deaths being somehow subversive or dramatic but is unable to process nuance in them.

For the Ashoka book, and I hate that I have to ask this but this also is the world we live in, is it written normally or is it first person-present tense?

[spider_man6]

It's written in third-person from Ahsoka or whoever the chapter focuses on's perspective. There are flashbacks to other characters at points in the books but they're also third person.

I think it's a great read. Nothing extraordinary, but after seeing clone wars' finale, it felt more buffed up.

[jenni411]

I was very disappointed that Phasma didn't come back from the apparent-dead a second time in Rise of Skywalker.

[lordultimus]

George W. Bush called for unity between the two parties in the face of the Coronavirus pandemic. Trump insulted him for it.

[owlbrigade1]

Jesus, how bad do you have to be to make Dubya look sane and sensible?

[janegray]

Sadly, there has been A LOOOOOT of whitewashing of Bush this past decade.

Guy knowingly lied about WMD to frame an innocent country and justify an invasion that killed over a million civilians and dragged the entire world into a war that is still having devastating effects 20 years later, butchered civil liberties with a rusty chainsaw, took a vacation for three days while an entire city was drowning, caused a massive recession while simultaneously pulling tax cuts for the rich, blocked funding for healthcare providers that even tangentially allowed abortions even in areas where there were no other healthcare providers for days of travel, vowed to amend the constitution to make gay marriage illegal, screwed over critical response to the increasingly dramatic climate change, and generally made a mockery of the office.

But lookie at the kitty pictures!!! Awww silly grandpa! Look at him hanging out with Ellen DeGeneres because "politics don't matter in friendship"!

[junipepper]

All true, but compared to Trump, he still looks good.

[icon_uk]

No, I am quite prepared to say that both have, in their individual ways, been wretchedly awful to the point that "looks good" seems to be an inappropriate term to use.

[junipepper]

Everything’s relative.

[leahandillyana]

PBS podcasts in general are great popular science podcasts, but my favourite of the line is PBS Eons, deaoling with paleofauna, with glorious illustrations.
This site uses your computer's power to create a supercomputer working on covid treatment: foldingathome.org
I have to admit, I have trouble dealing with current situation, the rapidly disintegrating Polish democracy rather than the epidemics, and turned to impulse buying as a coping method, which obviously is not good when you are piss poor.

[icon_uk]

I've been... tolerable with impulse purchases so far, but only, I suspect because my PC is making noises like a TARDIS on takeoff, and is on probaby it's last transistor, so is in the process of being replaced, and I have to acknowledge the dent that makes in my finances.

Thanks for the folding at home, I'm linked to BOINC but I'm not sure the old PC has much processing power to spare at the moment.

[cygnia]

I've been enjoying Wine & Crime, podcast-wise.

Game-wise, finished "Oxenfree" last night. "Gris" is next up on my queue.

[stubbleupdate]

Gris was in my basket for a while, but I didn't bother with it for some reason.

OXenfree was creepy and fun. I might replay it in a few months time.

[janegray]

So, after hearing a huge fuss about the movie Red Shoes and the Seven Dwarfs, about a fat Snow White, I got morbidly curious and decided to check it out.

And... it's actually pretty good? The story is 100% supportive of the fat girl. The way people are infinitely nicer to her when she is thin is explicitly noted to be shameful, and the moral is not "she should be thin" but rather "she is awesome the way she is, and those douchebags need to get their heads out of their asses." Marketing had made it seem like an offensive pile of crap, but in reality it's a subversion of fat shaming.

I wanted to support it, but the damn thing is not legally available anywhere. No Netflix, Hulu, Crunchyroll, even YouTube does not have it for rent. The Wikipedia "article" is like one line where they say that the marketing was offensive, and it's quite possibly the only piece of media ever made that does not have a TVTropes page. It's the like movie has been utterly and completely buried as a result of the outrage over the crappy marketing.

I feel so bad for the people who worked on the movie. You work your ass off for years to make a pretty wholesome story, and some idiot in marketing drops napalm on it.

[locuatico]

Yeah. basically the marketing department did such a garbage job at it, that I have to wonder what the thought process was. Like, they honestly thought the movie was like that? or were they purposefully mismarketing the movie? did they thought the controversy would help the movie stand out? or did they want the movie to bomb?

[janegray]

My guess is that they are so drenched in sexism, it didn't even occur to them that it was an offensive message.

It reminds me of a comic I saw once, where the author meant to express his frustration that people always go for mainstream superhero comics and ignore indie stories. So he drew a fangirl scornfully walking past the booth of an indie comic, and excitedly going for a generic superhero stuff.

A valid sentiment.

Except that the indie comic had a pair of giant half-naked disembodied boobs on the cover.

This person went through the entire process of thinking up, writing, drawing and uploading the comic, and not once did he stop and think that it very much looked like the fangirl was rejecting the oversexualization of female characters, and that the "poor downtrodden indie author" was actually being creepy.

After the backlash, he wrote a post where he basically said that he just wanted to put something un-superhero-like on the cover of the indie book and the first thing that popped into his mind was half-naked breasts, and he went for it without a second thought.

So I'm pretty sure the people behind the marketing simply assumed that of course the fat girl was ugly, duh, so the draw of the movie would be the novelty of an ugly princess.

[locuatico]

I remember that comic. It was so bad that I originally thought the punchline was "sexist asshole doesn't understand why women does not like his work"

I also recall a post on Tumblr that said that kind of people, more often than not, fail to be seen simply due to do not understand the importance of (or simply are not good at) marketing in general.

[lilacsigil]

Considering the trailers for the Melissa McCarthy movie "Spy", I would think that they immediately thought "Oh, fat female character, the joke is that she's ugly and incompetent, this will be an easy campaign!"

[llordllama]

At the instigation of Mrs Llama, we started an (in universe) chronological re-watch of the Star Wars movies at the weekend. The jury is still out on whether we declare The Mandalorian filmetic enough to include in this (having only finished S1 last night). Was shocked to discover I rather enjoyed TPM more this time, having not re-watched in its entirety in years - maybe the more recent movies (Rogue One aside) lowered my expectations. AOTC to come this Saturday for us.

Meanwhile in lockdown r/l I've started to build a solar defence screen over my conservatory room (ala Skylab's 'golden parasol') which can be best described as 'far more effort than I anticipated'. Still, it keeps me off the streets...

[deh_tommy]

I’ve decided to get into BlazBlue proper. After reading through the glossary, I hope I’m finally ready to start the story.

Should I get into Fairy Tail? Manga, anime or otherwise? I’ve heard that’s pretty mediocre, but I love those fancomics Rboz does and I’ve yet to experience something Aya Hirano was involved in that I didn’t like.

[mister_terrific]

In a display of how badly I've lost my common sense, I called up the entire Evangelion: the Shinji Ikari Raising Project on Comixology Unlimited and...actually kinda enjoyed it. While it clearly ran out of steam near the end, it was kind of nice seeing these characters in a situation that wasn't doom, gloom and poit there goes the universe.

Then I speed-reviewed "End of Evangelion" after 10-15 years and yup...just as depressing and insane as I remembered. Sheesh.

[alicemacher]

I liked that manga too, although having either Shinji or Gendo fall face-first onto a girl's or woman's sensitive parts every other page got a bit wearying, even for a harem manga. That said, I do love takes on Evangelion in which Asuka and Rei overcome their differences and become friends ("more than friends" is good too, but not necessary -__^ ).

As for End of Evangelion, yes it's bleak but God do I love it. Thanks to a bigger budget and lessened scheduling issues compared to the series, the animation is of much better quality. The soundtrack is gorgeous. And I'm among those who feel the movie's conclusion isn't 100% doom-and-gloom nihilism. It's far from a conventionally "happy" ending, yes, but things are left open both for humankind in general and for Shinji/Asuka in particular. It's also closer to how Anno would've ended the original series had time and budget constraints beyond his control not resulted in a "whoops, let's just do two episodes of psychoanalysis, mostly using stills as opposed to animation" ending. (I don't dislike that ending, mind, but it leaves so much unresolved, not explaining how Instrumentality happened, nor why Gendo is suddenly being something approaching a real dad to Shinji, nor... lots of things.)

[stubbleupdate]

I've been shifted onto Microsoft Teams for teaching from home and it...isn't terrible?

[skjam]

Working from home getting tense as recent audits have been poor.

A change in the way my time off is accumulated means that I am now overflowing and have to take two days off this week to have space for more.

Over at my blog, I review the new anime hotness, Beastars. http://www.skjam.com/2020/05/05/anime-review-beastars/

[kamino_neko]

The long overdue, repeatedly delayed, New Mutants movie was briefly appearing as forthcoming video on demand from Amazon, though without a release date, but it has now disappeared again. This DOES seem to suggest it might go straight to digital with no cinema release.

Which, at one point, would have been a bad thing. But now it looks like it may be the wave of the future.

[silverhammerman]

Yeah, it really does seem like a no-lose scenario for Disney. Best case, this comes out to a content-starved audience of superhero movie fans and does well, avoiding the stigma normally associated with a direct-to-video release. Worst case, no one likes it, but it's not part of the MCU and Disney didn't have to pay theatres a cut, so they don't lose anything.

[icon_uk]

Disney aren't releasing New Mutants, it's not their movie.

[thezmage]

It is now, they bought it when they bought Fox

[icon_uk]

Ah, I lost track... I thought Disney technically owned it, but weren't distributing it as a Disney movie, hence the yo-yoing of whether it is actually a part of the MCU in any way.

[owlbrigade1]

There were reports that part of the terms of the deal were that all Fox movies in production had to have a cinematic release post buy out though, so I don't know how that will work in terms of going straight to D+ or Hulu. If they've managed to renegotiate that deal or not.

[scorntx]

Turns out the new Assassin's Creed game will, as was speculated for months beforehand, be about... Vikings.
How very original.
... not terribly enthused, even with the hype machine (also, the trailer seems to be going for the bad guys being Sneering Englishmen, so that's no helping).
It just sounds like yet more of the same, y'know?


Last week was the fifteenth anniversary of "Dalek".
Time flies...

Watched The Phantom Menace again the other day.
Apart from anything else, it highlights just how lacking the music is in the Sequel Trilogy.
'cuz the music in the prequels is just brilliant.

Since the weather's been relatively nice, did a spot of gardening.
Turns out the reason part of the lawn wasn't growing at all was because right underneath the grass was a huge layer of cement.

[thezmage]

Uggh, just read spoilers for Apokalips War and I am not happy

I’d be more inclined to believe that the New Mutants release date on Amazon was when the movie would have been available had theaters remained open

Alright, Podcasts. I’ll be putting an asterisk in front of the podcasts I liked enough to spend money on, though they’re all perfectly good if you just listen to the free episodes

First up, if David Ault is involved, it’s always a good listen. *Nosleep (horror stories akin to those posted in the nosleep subreddit), the Byron Chronicles (an immortal being fights monsters worse than he is), the White Vault (isolationist horror in a arctic landscape), and Shadows at the Door (M.R. James style ghost stories)

RPG actual play podcasts:

*Shuffle Quest: a bunch of comedians and improvisers start with a crew of D&D adventurers and take them to various pop culture worlds and play by the (usually officially licensed) RPG system of that world. And those systems usually suck. Arcs include Men In Black world (where one character botches a roll to search the internet and ends up believing Rush Limbaugh’s conspiracy theories), DBZ world (where they have to roll way too many dice to accomplish the smallest tasks), and Sonic (as interpreted by deviantart) world (playing a one page rpg from a “design an rpg in 24 hours” contest that has separate numbers for jumping and hang time)

*Tales of Nowhere: similar to Shuffle Quest but different. They all start from different RPG systems (Stars Without Number, Mutants and Masterminds, Deadlands, and Shadowrun) and the worlds they go to are famous/semifamous RPG worlds first. Their D&D arc is okay, but their Call of Cthulhu and Tales from the Loop arcs are where it starts to get really good

*Dungeons and Daddies (Not (okay, rarely) a BDSM podcast): a bunch of professional humor writers (the DM wrote the Big Trouble in China: Old Man Jack comic) play as dads from our world who get pulled into the Forgotten Realms and have to rescue their sons

The Crit Show: a Monster of the Week podcast where the characters are based on the players’ real lives. To start.

Bike Brigade: a wrapped up Kids on Bikes podcast that was a lot of fun

The Film Reroll: a crew of actors and improvisers use the GURPS system to play through movies as role playing game sessions, typically going way off the rails. In Aladdin, for example, Jasmine gets the rules changed so she can rule without getting married and never falls in love with Aladdin. Jafar, on the other hand, does.

Horror:
*The Wrong Station: sometimes absurdist, always scary. “There’s nothing for you in that blasted cove. There’s no adventure, no discovery. No treasure or glory. Even if it’s death you seek, there’s no guarantee of that, either. Only something eternal and unknown. And far, far worse”

Unwell: a woman moves back in with her mother in a small town she was glad to have escaped from. Weirdness and ghosts abound.

Old Gods of Appalachia: in the American south, the miners have dug too deep and woken up something they shouldn’t have

Radioland: a young man has an accident while traveling and finds himself in a small town with a secret.

Return Home: semi-comedic Twin Peaks style story about a man who returns home to New Jersey and finds himself roped into hunting monsters

Light House: just started but by the same people as Return Home and much less humor.

The Magnus Archives: I’m not really sure how to describe this podcast, but I love it.

Talking podcasts:
*The Worst Bestsellers: two women, one a youth-services librarian and the other a former librarian talk about books, usually bad ones. Episodes typically include the Rock Paper Snikt challenge where they decide if the book would be better with The Rock or Wolverine added to it

*Myths and Legends/Fictional: summary of myths and legends (and famous books for Fictional) from around the world.

Good One: interviews with comedians about their joke writing process

Ask Me Another: NPR comedic game show of word games and trivia. If you wanted to hear the speech from Braveheart give way to George Michael’s Freedom, this is the show for you.

Comedy:
*Greater Boston: Surreal comedy centering around an attempt for the subway of Boston to start its own city. Narrators, robots, ghosts, and discussions about the plural of hippopotamus abound

Monster Hunters: 70’s set stories about two guys hunting monsters. Now get the hell out of my office!

Barjory Buffet, Cruise Detective: a self-absorbed woman solves crimes on cruise ships

Eglantine Whitechapel, supernatural detective: the titular character solves crimes involving the supernatural. Humor includes the revelation that when a cult refers to “she to whom we owe a debt that we can never repay” they mean their landlord

*Wooden Overcoats: a small village in Britain has two competing funeral homes. Classic Britcom stuff

*Victoriosity: a police detective and a fledgling reporter investigate crimes in Even Greater London, an expansive city state ruled by a steampunk Queen Victoria (with her husband’s consciousness in there as well)

Hector Vs the Future: a six episode mini-britcom about two competing museums: the obsoleteum and the uptodateum.

EOS 10: Scrubs in Space, basically.

Oz-9: dark comedy in the vein of Red Dwarf. Incompetent crew tries to survive aboard a spaceship that doesn’t really seem to want them to survive

Marscorp: business comedy aboard a mars colony.

Scifi:
Immunities: Body snatching aliens have invaded earth, but some people are immune to it. Sympathetic characters and monsters on both sides.

God Complex: anime-inspired tale about deities and demigods in a post-apocalyptic wasteland. Jesus gets killed off early

Limetown: public radio based take about the search for the people who lived in a company town that mysteriously disappeared. Has a tv series based on it

Our Fair City: in the post-Apocalyptic future the city of Hartford has been effectively taken over by the Hartford Life insurance company. Also Doctor Herbert West is there

Neon Nights: the Arcane Files of Jack Tracer: a supernatural/scifi noir story

I listen to a lot of podcasts

[icon_uk]

Some nice sounding one's there I'd never heard of.

Yes, David Ault is usually a sign of something work listening too. I thought The Byron Chronicles wandered a but, but there was usually a weird Doctor Who reference or two to keep me going (The Iron Dead being a bit on the nose, but well done)

And yes, Wooden Overcoats is wonderfully odd, and very, very British.

[thezmage]

David Ault is a great twitter follow, too. In addition to getting news on his projects and the one time he recorded anything you asked him to he also recommends podcasts he likes and posts math puzzles

[mastermahan]

I applaud you on the comprehensive list! I've listened to some, heard of some, but there's a lot there I'd like to look into.

Magnus Archives: Seconded. Bite-sized horror stories with a slowly evolving metaplot. Main narrator Johnathan Sims has a perfect radio voice.

Myths and Legends Podcast: Seconded.

Heads Will Roll: Only on Audible, last I checked, but an excellent fantasy comedy. Kate McKinnon is the Cersei-esque evil queen of a magic kingdom and her real-life sister is her ditzy raven minion.

Wolf 359: An utterly brilliant scifi/horror/comedy about the small crew of a crappy space station eight light years from Earth. I can't talk much about it without spoiling anything, but I really recommend it.

372 Pages We'll Never Get Back: Mystery Science Theater 3000 for books (kinda). Michael J. Nelson of MST3K and Rifftrax and Rifftrax writer Conor Lastowka read through and discuss terrible books, starting with Ready Player One. They've also done the sequel to Willow Chris Claremont wrote in the '90s.

[thezmage]

I’d intended to include Wolf 359 as well. It really good, plus it’s done now so you can listen to the whole thing

Listening to the latest episode of 372 pages as I type.

[mastermahan]

I'm very far behind 372 pages. I've been audiobooking my way through this years Hugo Award nominees, but I'll return to podcasts sooner or later.

Thank you for the list - I'm saving it.

Forgot to add:

LeVar Burton Reads: It's LeVar Burton reading short stories from an amazing collection of authors. They're mostly scifi, but not always.

[zachbeacon]

Taking this week and next off work and it is not off to a great start.

Laptop died last Tuesday. I suspect this time it's gone beyond my ability to repair it.

Also have been sick since last Tuesday. Starting to feel better but still barely eating and sleeping too much.

[featheredserpent]

If you appreciate Anime soundtracks, you'll like this one:
A Special Performance of Cowboy Bebop's "The Real Folk Blues" feat. Yoko Kanno, Steve Blum, and More
https://youtu.be/8GwE0wwMmKE

[thezmage]

Nail biter is coming back

[leahandillyana]

I really need help here - when somebody accidentally triggered you, saying something extreme, something that absolutely needed a trigger warning and shouldn't be just said in the open and you lashed out at him, what should you do? I said "sorry, but it was really triggering". Was that enough? That person said he's sad.

[icon_uk]

Okay, first off, NOT a trained.licensed or therapist, so take these as suggestions only.

Some variables to begin with;

How close are you to this person?

How well do they know you?

What sort of emotional maturity do they have? Would they take the criticism well?

How safe is it for you to raise the topic with them?

Some of these are not nice things to think about, but may influence your decision about how to broach the subject and the setting you have it in.

If you have concerns for your safety but feel you need to raise the matter, make sure there are other people aroud, a public space if possible.

I would suggest sitting down with him and explaining that what he said was a sensitive topic with you and you don't want him to raise it again, or if he has to, to give you fair, and discreet, warning so you can withdraw from the conversation. How they repsond will hopefully tell you a lot about their feelings on the matter. If they agree, then fine. If not, then at least you've tried to do this the polite way, and you may wish to reconsider the future nature of your relationship with them.