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.

Also, a statue of former slave and noted abolitionist Frederick Douglass has been removed from it's plinth and tossed in a ditch, in New York State

It was the 4th of July weekend, so at various points, the incumbent President though it a fine idea to hold a rally at Mount Rushmore, decry the "radical Left" for wanting to take down statues of Confederate Generals and noted slavers, and issue an executive order to create a new "Garden of National Heroes", which would feature lifelike (Specifically "not abstract or modernist") statues of a some noted, and controversial figures; George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Davy Crockett, Billy Graham, Ronald Reagan, Douglas MacArthur, George Patton, Harriet Tubman, Martin Luther King Jr., Christopher Columbus, Junipero Serra and the Marquis de Lafayette.. So THAT won't be controversial at all....

In the UK, our own "stable genius" Boris Johnson made some comments about the COVID 19 crisis in care homes which passed the blame for the problems there to the people running them, and not the Government which made the rules they were following. Classy move there!

The lockdown in the UK was relaxed at the weekend, with the likes of pubs and barbers being able to open up from Saturday. I haven't availed myself of either as of yet (not that the former is ever on my list of places to go of an evening). At least one UK city though, had it's lockdown reinstated last week. We'll see if that has to happen elsewhere in the weeks ahead.

China's security clamp down on Hong Kong has led to diplomatic tensions around the world, particularly with the UK, which has specifically protested that their actions being a breach of the agreements made when Hong Kong was handed back to the China in the late 90's. China's response has been, basically, if unsurprisingly, "Butt out, and don't make us notce you enough to penalise you".

I'm not even going to mention Brexit negotiations breaking down again as thay's basically the norm by this point.

Russia's referendum means that Putin might remain in power until, notionally, 2036, and has already triggered a fresh round of concerns and likely sanctions.

Legendary composer Ennio Morricone, who scored over 400 movies in his logn career, including many classics ("The Good The Bad and the Ugly" being one of his best known), has passed away at the age of 91

Unadulterated good news was a little tricky to spot, so we can perhaps be thankful that researchers have discovered a formula which will mean AI's won't be able to select unethical paths. If we can work out how to apply it to anyone who wants a leadership role, the world might be a better place... or on the slippery slope to a Matrix-like future... you decide.

And apparently a pop up bar is opening in London based on, of all things, Disney's The Little Mermaid!

Oh, and apparently Terry Pratchett's last unpublished early stories will be published in September

Comments

[tripodeca113]

I’ve been hearing a stupid rumour about Star Wars. Apparently Disney will undo the Sequel films using force magic (or something) and do um,…well they don’t really explain what their next step is. Now this is dumb, what Disney is going to do is ignore the Sequel era, and instead focus on releasing TV shows and video games set or based on the original films. That rumour doesn’t sound like what a sensible company would do, but then again, a sensible company wouldn’t have made Rise of Skywalker to begin with.

Started playing Yakuza Dead Souls again. The franchise has not made the smoothest transition to third person shooter but it’s alright. Also been playing Grand Theft Auto IV, unfortunately the two copies I have don’t work very well. One doesn’t work and the other has a habit of crashing OR having all audio stop.

Man The Witcher 3 is so good it almost makes me want to pre-order Cyberpunk 2077.

On Sunday Ubisoft will be giving away free copies of Watch Dogs 2…BUT you’ll need UPlay to get it. A big hurdle I know.

[icon_uk]

The version I'd heard was that they'd use the time travel concept introduced in "Rebels" as a means to explain that the sequel trilogy were a "What if...?" rather than the definitive timeline.

I don't believe it for a moment, Disney would never allow such a thing to happen, unless a "What if..?" like series (like the old Infinties comics which covered things like "What if the Death Star hadn't been destroyed?", "What if Luke had died on Hoth?" etc..) is what they're after.

[owlbrigade1]

Anything that gets rid of TLJ is fine by me. I loathed that film. I really did. TFA was awesome, I hope they keep that. Everything that followed was just horrible though. They could have saved RoS if they revealed that Poe had been done away with for a mutineer. Heck, TLJ could have been not so bad if instead of Leia charging in from her sick bed and stunning Mutinous Swab, Poe Dameron, she simply just blasted him. That would have been far more dangerously subeversive than the emo-Luke rubbish or whatever the heck the Canto Sidequest was supposed to be all about. Or had a flash forward to broom boy at the end as the next evil Sith lord.

RoS had to start from a place of being effectivly the second movie as well as the third in order to try and join TFA together with what happened afterwards. That meant it was too long, and at the same time too short, as well as having to do too much and too little at the same time too. TLJ could have been a "Star Wars Story" anthology film focusing on the Canto sidequest only, instead of a main sequence movie and it would have worked a lot better.

[mazway_75]

Oh, that's just some fan playing on what he wants to happen.

It's like the million idiots who actually signed a petition under the serious belief HBO is going to spend $150 million reshooting Game of Thrones finale season just to make them happy.

It's pushed by the "Snyder Cut", now everyone thinks their pet projects can happen if they just ask for it enough.

[leahandillyana]

Poland is extremely violent recently. Many queer people and people assumed to be queer were attacked, some with a killing intention, like a teen girl pushed under the train. People are openly saying stuff that would have been unimaginable year ago, like there being a need to reopen the death camps to burn the queers. Anti-queer propaganda is reaching extreme levels, on legal ground supported by Ordo Iuris organisation that sues anyone opposing it. The recently re-elected far right president talks a lot about protecting families, but his first movement after being re-elected was to give amnesty to a child abuser.

[donnblake]

Has he been re-elected? I'm having a little bit of trouble finding clear, concise English lagnuage coverage of the Polish elections- isn't there a run-off of some sort on the twelfth?

I ask because I'm in the process of composing a letter to my senators (which I'll confess I'm not sure will do much good- the US's history of successfully intervening on human rights grounds being what it is), and I'd like to get my facts laid out correctly.

[deh_tommy]

Seriously, what do people have against LGBT+ folk? Is simply existing that abhorrent a crime?

[trooper924]

Trump's statue garden will most likely go the same way as that Veterans Day military parade he tried to do: the whole project will hit some kind of roadblock and stall out. Trump will whine on Twitter and blame the Democrats for not letting him do it. Then he'll get bored with the idea and forget all about it.

[mazway_75]

One of the wilder ones is Scalia and notable how I've seen various conservative places complaining "anyone who knows Scalia knows he'd have hated having a statue of himself anywhere."

[velacron]

Yeah, the projected opening date is 2026, so that's unlikely to happen at all

[dewinged]

Apparently, they're bringing back Clone High, which I am super happy about. The original series was hysterical.

Looks like MTV is also bringing back Beavis and Butt-Head. As someone who hated that show, I am also happy because that is going to backfire in a spectacular fashion.

Stargirl got renewed, but they're just sticking with the CW as opposed to DC Universe.

[silverhammerman]

I've been hearing good things about Stargirl and I really hope that its move to the CW doesn't have too many negative effects on it. The expected budget cuts and probable switch to filming in Vancouver have me a little worried that it'll lose a lot of its distinctiveness once its lined up next to the CW's glut of DC shows.

[iamrman]

I am running out of new comics to read, so I am revisiting comics I havs read before. I have most Avengers issues from the Avengers/Defenders War to the end of Roger Stern's run. I know most of those issues are good (the Roger Stern issues in particular), so I am happy to read them again.

As for DC, I will be revisiting George Perez's Wonder Woman and Mark Waid's Flash. I really enjoyed Mister Miracle and the New Gods by Jack Kirby when I read them for the first tine a while ago, so I look forward to reading them again. I might give the Demon another go as well.

Regarding the new comics that I am reading, I am still enjoying the Sandman and Jonah Hex.

With Marvel, the new (to me) comics I am reading are Gerry Conway's Amazing Spider-Man, Fantastic Four by Lee and Kirby, Steve Gerber's Defenders, Steve Englehart's Doctor Strange, Iron Man by Stan Lee and Don Heck, and Mark Waid's Captain America, among other things.

[zachbeacon]

I don't think I'm in any danger of running out of new (to me) comics. Lately I've been reading Gotham Academy.

Have you read Steve Gerber's Man Thing and Howard the Duck?

[skjam]

I was taken off "written warning" status at work, which is a relief.

Over at my blog, I review the recently ended "My Next Life as a Villainess" anime: http://www.skjam.com/2020/07/04/anime-review-my-next-life-as-a-villainess-all-routes-lead-to-doom/

And as I slowly rewatch my old Jackie Chan films, it seems like Jackie Chan as a director doesn't seem to like the female characters much.

eta: Going over my old reviews, I note that I've used the phrase "bold narrative choice" exactly twice.

[janegray]

Guys, if you are a gamer, I’d like to recommend a little thing.

Play Hatoful Boyfriend.

Yes, it’s that game where you date pigeons.

Currently on sale on Steam for like 3 bucks.

Imagine Akira, Silent Hill, Hannibal and Final Fantasy mixed together in a cutesy dating sims.

It’s ridiculous, it’s funny, it’s entertaining, and it has the most WHAT.THE.FUCK. whiplash I’ve ever seen. HIGHLY recommended!

[mesmiranda]

...Okay, you know what, I have seen this recommendation, and I'm just going to ask it:

How does the pigeon-romancing... work? Like... what happens? What are the mechanics here? I am intrigued and yet so confused!

[janegray]

So lately there has been more rounds of Ariel bashing. The usual bullshit about how she is selfish and gave up her body for a man and blah blah blah.

I hate Ariel bashing so much.

Partly for canon hoe reason. Aka it bothers me when people claim things that were never in the story (Ariel sings an entire aria about how desperately she wants to be human BEFORE she meets Eric, so no, she DIDN'T do it "for a boy she didn't know." If Triton hadn't forced his way into her safe space and violently destroyed her treasures that she spent years risking her life to collect, making it crystal clear that her lifelong passion for anthropology had no place in his home, she wouldn't have left).

Partly for feminist reasons. It really irritates me that people hate so much on a girl for doing something that male characters do all the damn time and nobody has a problem with that.

Male characters go on dangerous quests to find a girl they just met and nobody bats an eye.

Aladdin "wasted" precious genie wishes and risked his life (if discovered, he'd be executed) for a girl he just met, and I've never seen anybody call him stupid for that.

[donnblake]

I think the film deserves a certain amount of credit there- having set aside the metaphysical aspects of the story (in Hans Christian Andersen's original, for those not familiar the Little Mermaid wants to become human in large part because she wants to obtain a mortal soul) they very well could have left it as simply being infatuation with the Prince, rather than going out of their way to establish an already existing fascination with/pining for human life.

[donnblake]

Icon_uk- I enjoy a good Morricone score as much as the next guy, but I'm not sure I follow how they're supposed to keep AIs on the straight and narrow.

[icon_uk]

Bugger, will have a check on that, thanks.

[owlbrigade1]

In Scotland, where we've mostly got Corona under control [yes we've had our fair share of homegrown idiots, I know], we're now bracing ourselves for an influx of visitors from the southern plague pit. This is worrying because English tourists do not have the best reputation as being good guests at the best of times, and with Boris and Brexit getting them all riled up, things are going to be very fraught with the possibility of a second wave.

Or in the case of some places, like the region I live in, the first wave. We've had virtually no corona cases, but with the tourists about to flock in in disregard of social distancing and ignoring mask requirements, we could be about to be hit very badly indeed. Is staying home and being quiet really so hard?

[zachbeacon]

So apparently Stargirl season 2 is leaving the DCU app for CW/HBO Max

https://bleedingcool.com/tv/stargirl-season-2-taking-flight-as-cw-exclusive-leaving-dc-universe/

*cue panic about DCU's future...again*

I get why DC would start to pull their stuff away from Netflix but its baffling that you can't watch Batwoman on the app dedicated to DC content.

Oh well, I still have a new season of Doom Patrol to start and Harley Quinn season three seems pretty likely. Anyone know when/if we're getting new Young Justice?

[owlbrigade1]

Halle Berry has apologized for saying she was preparing to play a transman in an upcoming project. She now says it is important that trans actors get to tell their own stories instead of cis people taking the role. This is good, I hope more people in the entertainment industry start recognising the importance of doing right by transpeople.
https://thegrapevine.theroot.com/halle-berry-apologizes-for-considering-playing-transgen-1844290618

[cygnia]

For any transfolx who are looking for something heartwarming...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xG1T0URuTWw

[icon_uk]

I'm not trans, but I know adorably cute when I see it!

[mazway_75]

So my local library finally reopening and grabbed Swamp Thing and Titans season 2 on DVD.

Man, DC Universe blew it with Swamp Thing. Great cast, perfect tone, getting so many great characters, nailing "The Anatomy Lesson" and they never gave it even a chance to find an audience.

BTW, with Stargirl now renewed for CW only, buzz is DC Streaming is going to die out. Given Doom Patrol on HBO Max, it sounds like it just never worked and can't say miss it totally as a good idea but flawed execution.

[thezmage]

I don’t even know if I’d say it never worked, I think it just got its feet cut out from under it by the parent company deciding to launch a more general streaming service less than two years later.

It’s still a good deal for the comics though

[velacron]

Have we really gotten to the point now where it's necessary to defend Trump himself? Does this need to be? Pleeeease don't make me do this.

But no, at no point during his Mount Rushmore speech did Trump "decry the "radical Left" for wanting to take down statues of Confederate Generals" - what he did, however, was decry the "radical Left" for attempts to vandalize or take down the statues of George Washington and Thomas Jefferson and present himself as the opposition to "far-left fascism", a "left-wing cultural revolution is designed to overthrow the American Revolution". So, there's that.

It's somewhat scary to speculate why instead of seizing on that, a shockingly large number of media outlets tries to gaslight their viewers by claiming Trump's speech centered around the Confederacy instead. Maybe I'm overly pessimistic here, but I fear this ever-growing tendency of increasingly polarized media to put out whatever they think you the consumer should think about what happened instead of what (f)actually happened and not even differentiate between the two is only gonna get worse from this point as everybody involved just points out that the other guys are also doing it and nobody seemes to care anymore



You can find a transcript of the whole speech here
https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/remarks-president-trump-south-dakotas-2020-mount-rushmore-fireworks-celebration-keystone-south-dakota/
or if you prefer video, watch it on Youtube
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mXD4zPY4Ai0

[bravest_spinja]

The BBC article itself doesn't mention the Confederacy, but "figures associated with racism and slavery", which is a fair call on many Founding Fathers. The op said"slavers" in addition to the Confederates, which I guess you could say is a clerical error (And to be honest, ones we should be careful about) but it should be said they are far from mutually exclusive, and you know, dog whistles etc. etc.

[werehawk]

What is with the damn trend to not cover your nose with the face mask? There were only two of 5 lines in the supermarket where the cashier had their nose covered. Plus at least a couple of stockers didn't. What the hell??

[icon_uk]

It does seem to render it rather pointless.

[dr_archeville]

The Governor of my state (North Carolina) has still not announced his plan for how our schools will operate in the 2020/2021 year. Some counties have announced their tentative plans, and today Person County -- where I live & work (as a substitute teacher) -- announced their plan.

Person County’s plan is to return at 50% capacity, which means that some students will be learning from home while some will be on a school campus on a rotating basis.

They’ll divide the students into two groups. Group 1 would attend school on campus Monday and Tuesday and be in remote learning on Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday. Group 2 students would be in remote learning on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday and attend school on campus on Thursday and Friday.

Wearing masks will be required for students (Grades K -12) on all school buses. In addition, students in Grades 6-12 will be required to have masks on while on school campuses (unless medical restrictions prevent one from being able to do so). All visitors and staff will be required to wear masks at all times. On Wednesday, all school campuses will be closed for deep cleaning to prepare for the next Cohort of students attending Thursday and Friday. Likewise, campuses will be following cleaning procedures during the day and after school while students are in attendance.

They are also providing the option of a Person County Schools Virtual Academy, for parents/guardians who do not feel comfortable sending their child into the school and would have them in remote learning Monday-Friday.

All of this is subject to change depending on what Gov. Cooper announces in regards to public schools.

I believe Person County Schools are still working out some bus issues. Pre-Pandemic, buses would carry up to 70 students at a time. But with social distancing rules, each bus would only be allowed to carry about 11 students. There’s also the issue of making sure students can access remote learning -- even with the school loaning laptops to all students, not every student has internet access at home.

[deh_tommy]

In all honestly I actually rather like the idea of a garden or park for these statues to go, where one can walk in and learn all about the figures and how they contributed to the making of America today, warts and all. I sincerely doubt his motive is out of genuine desire to preserve history or anything like that, though, but still.

I’m not too keen on the news of actors stepping down from their animated roles because they don’t match their character’s race. On the one hand, there are plenty of non-white actors in the industry that unfairly get passed over or overlooked, and they definitely deserve better. But I think this will harm them more than that will actually help. Part of the beauty of voice acting is that anyone can be anything, and I think the idea that only people of a certain race or ethnicity can only play said race or ethnicity is a massive disservice to both them and their acting skills, regardless of background.

[zachbeacon]

Personally I'm of the opinion that the statues would be more at home in a museum than a town square.

But it's still weird that we build monuments to traitors.

And it's hard to buy into the "heritage / history" argument when most of them didn't go up until the 1960s. I'm sure that was totally innocent and not a reaction to the civil rights movement at all.

Also, I'm pretty sure this is fake but this photo is hilarious. ..

https://mobile.twitter.com/nocturnmusings/status/1276883607739666437