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. Normal board rules about conduct and behaviour still apply, of course.

I confess I am getting tired of having to Moderate these posts as much as I've had to. The Mod Team agreed when these started that we would allow more leeway than standard posts, considering the wider range of topics being discussed, but this has been being pushed to the limits.

The intent of these posts was to chat and have some fun, 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.

So, with that in mind.

Yesterday was the sixtieth anniversary of Yuri Gagarin becoming the first human being to travel into space. There have been around 570 people who have been into space since then (on Earth constructed vehicles, we're not counting alien abductions here) and there are three currently up in the ISS right now.

England started to come out of it's latest lockdown, with non-essential shops, hairdressers and gyms opening up again. I suspect the barbers and hairdressers will be able to start a mattress-stuffing sideline with the amount of hair they'll be lopping off this week alone.

In other British news, Prince Phillip, the Duke of Edinburgh and Prince Consort of the Queen, has died aged 99. The British media, especially the BBC and ITV, has received criticism from the public for the extent of their blanket coverage of this, doubtless sad for the family, but hardly surprising, event. Though it's likely they would have been criticised from other portions of the public for NOT showing due deference if they hadn't, so it was very much a lose/lose scenario for them I suspect.

Perhaps more significantly for many, we lost Dame Shirley Williams, a genuinely groundbreaking UK politician who was amongst the first female Cabinet members.

DuckTales spin off podcast, "This Duckburg Life" has started on Youtube

Miraculous Ladybug Season 4, has started in mainland Europe. with regular bad guy "Papillion" ("Hawk Moth" in English) fusing the powers of the Butterfly and Peacock Miraculous to get an upgrade to "Papilombre" ("Shadow Moth" in English) and things getting generally even MORE complicated by the looks of it.

Also, We have ourr first look at the new live action Powerpuff Girls series. It's described as involving "three disillusioned twentysomethings who resent having lost their childhood to crime-fighting. Will the grown-up Blossom, Bubbles and Buttercup agree to reunite now that the world needs them more than ever?"... Uh-huh, because that approach has worked so well with other properties.

"Ramadan Mubarak" to those who are celebrating Ramadan.

Comments

[deh_tommy]

Wait, what? New Miraculous? WHAT

WHY WON’T NETFLIX UPDATE IN MY COUNTRY, I’M LIKE A FULL SEASON BEHIND AND THE SUBBERS I USED TO FOLLOW GOT BUSY WITH REAL LIFE

...this is probably a really loaded question, but how does one know for sure if they’re trans?

[icon_uk]

I don't feel qualified to answer that personally, but this might be a help, from a webcomic creator who came out as trans last year

https://www.reallifecomics.com/comic.php?comic=june-29-2020

The original tweet referenced in the strup is here

https://twitter.com/transsalamander/status/947522372315369472?lang=en

[stubbleupdate]

This Public Service Broadcasting film gives a nice introduction to Yuri Gagarin

[tinygaylaura]

New Miraculous Ladybug and new Ducktales content?

This is good news for the week to be starting on!

[janegray]

I gotta confess, the explosion of glee over Phillip's death is making me really uncomfortable.

Look, I'm ALL for celebrating the departure of human-shaped monsters who spent their wretched existence making the world a much worse place. Creatures like Thatcher and Limbaugh, who cheerfully caused untold amounts of death and suffering for generations. "Don't speak ill of the dead" does not apply to those who brought millions of people nothing but pain. When Berlusconi finally bites it I'll be popping bottles.

...Phillip, though? As far as I can tell, he was pretty much a figurehead who mostly kept to himself. The English committed many atrocities while he was alive, but as far as I can tell he wasn't actually responsible for it in that he never actually held any real power or influence. He was just... kinda there. Cardboard cutout-like.

I dunno. I'm not saying he was a good guy. But I keep seeing my dash full of post after post after post of people yelling foaming vitriolic hatred for the guy with such an enthusiasm you'd think Satan died, and I'm like... Jesus guys, chill.

I've heard some people say they hate him for the way the Royal family treated Meghan, but like, guy was 99. If I had to pick a culprit for the cruel treatment of Meghan, I probably wouldn't pick the guy who spent the past few years cosplaying Weekend At Bernie's.

[icon_uk]

I agree completely.

Like anyone, Phillip had good and bad points: His comments on race were offensive at the time (and he was rightly called out for them), never mind "not aged well", but he also started the Duke of Edinburgh Award Scheme which has done a deal of good for young people over the decades. He made the Royal Family engage more with modern media and was, according to more than one source, someone who understood what it was like to marry into the Royal Family (He was apparently loathed by many of the Court at the time precisely because he was foreign and was seen as someone who was not worthy of marrying Elizabeth) to the extent he was reportedly on good terms with Diana even after the divorce, So him being somehow responsible for Meghan's problems seem dubious at best.

[stubbleupdate]

I'm neither dancing on his grave, nor lighting candles for him.

However, he was a man who was very comfortable with being racist in public and able to avoid consequences because a) his wife is the queen and b) That's just what he's like.

[owlbrigade1]

He was well aware that his role was to be the modern version of the court jester, and he certainly played up that role. Yes, he really overstepped the mark on occasions and was pulled up, but he didn't actively do anything truly awful. He certainly did not deserve the allegations of being a Nazi that were levelled at him by the likes of Churchill and Al Fayed. He may easily have been the most anti-fascist member of the whole circus.

[tripodeca113]

It seems something ....strange has happened in Attack on Titan. Perhaps I shouldn't have bought some of it on DVD for a dollar.

I finished RWBY volume six. It had some interesting backstory stuff, and much improved pacing from previous instalments. In Volume 4, not enough seemed to happen, but in Volume 5 too much seemed to happen (though both had plot lines which had less going on than others). Now that all the characters are together, I guess that won't be a problem again.

I've stopped following two people on the internet. One changed the name of their blog, which provided a good opportunity to break away from them, considering some of the things they've said. The other supported some, (what I feel to be) inaccurate statements about Archive of Our Own. Oh well.

We watched some of the current Scooby Doo show. I don't think it's very good. Urkel was in it, but I'm not really very familiar with him, and it was very strange. It also had surprisingly strong references to Nazi gold.

[tinygaylaura]

That is pretty dark for a Scooby Doo plot

[thezmage]

I agree that Scooby Doo and Guess Who is a bit disappointing. Sometimes it is really on point (The first episode, the Morgan Freeman episode) but not often enough. Not after Mystery Inc and Be Cool set two extreme examples of how good it could be. The Urkel one particularly rankled me, and I don't feel it did Urkel justice

[zachbeacon]

After nearly 14 years, several ports, a Kingdom Hearts cameo, and – as of last week – an anime adaption, one of my favorite video games (The World Ends With You) is finally getting a sequel this summer.


I just finished rewatching the first two seasons of Ducktales in anticipation of season three on Disney+

I know it already aired and I’m not asking for spoilers but I have some thoughts.

The primary arcs of the first season are Dewey and Webby’s search for Della and the Webby/Lena stuff. Large chunks of season two revolve around Louie’s schemes. I hope the final season is Huey-centric because he’s the least developed of the triplets. As someone who grew up on the original series, its nice that the boys now get to have distinct personalities …and that Webby is more than “the girl”.

Its fun seeing how well planned the series is the second time around. You can see the exact moment Fenton’s mom figured out he’s Gizmoduck (upon their first meeting) by the expression on her face but she doesn’t say anything until the Moonvasion.

I’m really looking forward to more Donald/Della interactions. Hopefully. The show seems to neglect Donald a lot but I know he gets a love interest in the last season so I hope he gets more focus generally.

Speaking of neglected characters … Launchpad. I enjoyed the running gag where he was having adventures offscreen early on but they barely did even that when Della came back and he became redundant. I assume he’ll be mostly hanging with DW in the final season. I hope something comes of the hinted LP/Penny ship.

Whatever happened to that Darkwing spinoff they were talking about anyway? Is that still a thing?

[janegray]

Congrats, I'm really happy for you, it's always a joy when a thought-to-be-dead series comes back :D

[iamrman]

I have just read Titans Hunt, the mini-series that led up to the Rebirth Titans series. I am quite looking forward to reading the first volume of the series proper for obvious reasons.

I have tries to get in to the New Teen Titans several times, but always found it a struggle. I can't fault the art (I love me some George Perez art), but the writing always seemed mediocre at best. It didn't help that the writing was downright creepy at times, Deathstroke's relationship with Terra or Donna hooking up with a much older man that just happens to look like writer Marv Wolfman.

That being said, Jericho is a precious boy and must be protected at all costs.

Somebody else who is precious and must be protected is Nadia Van Dyne. I went back amd started to read her 2017 series. I read her 2018 series in real time and hugely enjoyed it, so I went back and read her previous series as a trade.

One of my favourite parts of wither series is during Nadia's birthday party, where Viv Vision introduces her to various other heroes who she may or may not be related to. Not even Viv can explain Billy and Tommy's convoluted history.

[zachbeacon]

Titans Hunt was so great. The series that followed it was pretty disappointing though despite having the same writer. The first arc made a huge deal of Wally's return and then he was barely around after that. The team introduced in Titans Hunt was dissolved by issue 22.

I get you on the Wolfman era. I don't think its that difficult to get into and I can see why it made the franchise what it is today but it certainly shows its age both in actual storytelling and subject matter. Also I think it suffers from the same problem as a lot of beloved long runs; the stuff people like was early on and people forget the later stories.

Honestly my "in" to the Titans was the Devin Grayson run (and the original Young Justice) and I bailed about half way into the Geoff Johns run so I wasn't around that long. I came back for Rebirth but - like I said - the characters I was there for only stuck around for about two years.

[leahandillyana]

I only ever have unfun things to say.
To show support to her party colleague who has tortured his dog to death, a burgmeister has tortured her dog. From what I'm aware, the animal survived crippled, and the woman is taken into court.
High judge of Poland doxxed a ten year old girl for being trans. Her supportive school is under harrassment of both individuals and the comission of education for recognising her gender identity. The children's ombundsman is talking about a need to take the girl from her parents for "abuse". So much for conservatives and their family values.
I have been attacked by a group of young teens. Nothing really happened, but this random act of symbolic violence gave me foul mood.
My whole family has covid. We are being quarantained. I'm fine. I don't have much to say, maybe a tiny bit of advice I don't usually see - common symptoms of the infection (headache, dry eyes, contistipation) are actually side effects of dehydration due to fever, and you can relieve these symptoms a great deal by drinking a lot.
We are snowed in. It pisses me off. I hate every snowflake currently falling from the sky.
People talk too much about Attack on Titan (series jumped the shark long ago) and The Promised Neverland (treating the second season as if it was the Avatar movie and not a pragmatic adaptation of very meandering storyline), and not enough about the fact that REBUILT OF EVANGELION 4 PREMIERED. IT IS HERE. IT IS REAL. THE STORY TWENTY YEARS IN MAKING IS FINALLY COMPLETE. The series is a cultural milestone, and yet nobody seems to be talking about it even though THE MOVIE IS LEGALLY AVIABLE IN ENGLISH.

[deh_tommy]

As always, I’m sorry and I wish you the best in life.

Eh, I think the hate for Attack on Titan is a bit overblown and I don’t know enough about The Promised Neverland to comment, but WHAT!?! I didn’t even see a trailer for the thing, nobody talked about that! I didn’t my even know they were making Eva 4.0!

[malurette]

I'm back to work after a six-week sick leave and to boost my morale I bought myself a rubber unicorn that was sold as "squeaky"--but when you squeeze it it does not squeak, it quacks. I feel both slightly cheated and weirdly amused.
(Quack! Quack!)

[icon_uk]

You know what they say, if it canters like a unicorn and quacks like a unicorn...

[mister_terrific]

I've kind of taken an arms-length approach to Ladybug; while I'm more than willing to stand back and wait for the creator to tell the story in full, I haven't been very impressed (especially with the specials). I'd be lying if I didn't admit that some of the more toxic parts of the fandom have been a turn-off.

I have my own suspicions as to where the storyline is going, and for that reason I'm half-watching developments. But I'm still not interested in the English dub; the voices annoy the daylights out of me. I'll take the French with English subtitles, thank you very much.

Now if you want to watch something really fun, I heartily endorse The Owl House, currently available on Amazon Prime and Disney+. So far only one season, but there's a lot there to speculate on. There are some similarities with Gravity Falls, which is understandable considering Dana Terrace and Alex Hirsh are dating. But you know something? It's kind of fun joining a fandom at the BEGINNING of a run, instead of at the tail end (like I've done repeatedly)!

[thezmage]

While not as queer as Owl House, Amphibia is also a really fun show that feels similar to Gravity Falls

EDIT: The season 2 episode "Wax Museum" is particularly fun for Gravity Falls fans

[lissa_quon]

Okay that new Powerpuff Girls sounds...awful really. I just - can't even with that premise. If I wanted to watch jaded burned out 20 somethings - I'd watch something else. Not PPG.

Not much going on here - I'm getting my first vaccine shot today - which is the only real highlight around here. Burn out and depression are getting me down these days. Not sure when I'll be a real functioning person again.

[deh_tommy]

Heck, unless something happened in the years beyond what we saw, the Girls didn’t really lose anything – sure, sometimes they lamented on how they couldn’t be “normal”, but they had a loving dad who tried his best to give them a good childhood, no shortage of positive role models, a healthy enough support structure, really this just sounds like a weird rehash of that one episode the city got too complacent. At least they’ve got Ms. Bellum.

[thezmage]

I'm pretty sure I've already posted this here before, but as much as I don't have much faith in the Powerpuff Girls series I do hope it becomes a success solely so that the CW starts milking the Cartoon Network catalogue for series ideas the way they did for DC. Dexter seems like the obvious next step.

Since you mentioned lockdowns and hair, I've been trying to decide what to do with my now long (for a guy), curly hair post lockdown. I like it but I really don't know if I have the patience to keep it looking good. This is complicated by the fact that I just got my second shot and I'm champing at the bit to get back into the office and stop feeling like I should work late nights and weekends.

[deh_tommy]

I for one can’t wait for the return of live-action Ben 10.

[scorntx]

Spent most of the day helping to clean out the grandparents' house.
Not as emotionally awful as was expected, but still...

Saw an awful lot of falcons around as well. Like, four of them at once at one point.
Pretty rad, given usually the only birds in our neck of the woods are pigeons.

...
So. That Falcon and Winter Soldier.
SPOILERS
...
I've said it before, but Battlestar was the main character in some of the earliest comics I ever read, so I have a particular fondness for him.
With that in mind, what happened in the last episode has me PISSED.
And not just because a character I like has been fridged, but also because in a series highlighting the shitty end of the stick African-Americans get just in general, a black man is killed so a white guy can feel bad.
(Rather than just John Walker going off the deep end because he's an overzealous ass or simply the wrong person for the job of Cap. Oh no, in this day and age, gotta kill the black guy.)

Ayo being able to disable Bucky's arm at least makes sense. Not so outraged about that. It's a jerk move, maybe, but it is one that makes sense for all the characters involved.
Would you give a formerly brainwashed murder machine an unbreakable arm without some sort of way to disable it, just in case?
(Also, totes suspecting there's going to be a Big Reveal about who the Power Broker is... hoping I'm wrong on that score.)


Was kind of annoying on Friday night that Phillip's death pre-empted so much.
Not even Radio 4 Extra was safe from the scourge of BBC's endless coverage.
(So instead of the comedy programs, there was... Radio 4's scheduled programs. No idea what was on Radio 4, but I'm guessing it was Radio 2's schedule...
Sacha Dawan is not an acceptable substitute for Goodness Gracious Me. Especially when he's not actually doing a comedy program.)

[owlbrigade1]

I liked that we got to see why Steve Rogers and T'Challa were both such exceptional individuals by seeing their successors in action. Both Ayo and Walker are very much cut from the same cloth as each other. The first thing both of them did when they met was get into a territorial pissing match in which neither actually had jurisdiction beyond their own ego. And so they fought, and were jerks, and while they were busy trying to prove they were each the biggest jerk in the room, Zemo-the guy they were both there to secure-dipped on out leaving them with nothing but anger and ill feeling behind. Steve and T'Challa would have done better.

[lordultimus]

"Also, We have ourr first look at the new live action Powerpuff Girls series."

Mmm, not sure I like that they turned Buttercup the Angry One black.

[deh_tommy]

Bonus points if Buttercup turns out to be gay, because of course the butch/tomboyish girl would be gay (and also because this is The CW and lesbians are HAWT).

Why *is* she the only black Powerpuff Girl, anyway? Professor Utonium’s black in this show, so why aren’t the other two?

[juniper6]

My parents celebrated their 60th wedding anniversary last week. My mother is terminally ill and had been told she was unlikely to live long enough to hit this milestone, so we’re all very pleased. And we all managed to get vaccinated in time, so we were able to spend a bit of time with them on the day (masks on, of course).

[zachbeacon]

Glad to hear it. My parents haven't been together quite that long but one of them has managed to outlive a fatal diagnosis.

[mistersandman]

Hey, Icon, I just wanted to thank you for all the work you put in here at scans_daily and elsewhere to make the internet a better place! I've been lurking on this community since the livejournal days and you've been such a pillar of my s_d experience. Thank you for everything that you do!

[icon_uk]

Well... gosh... [blush]... Thank you!

:)

[skjam]

Still waiting for a vaccine appointment I can actually get to on the bus within my time constraints.

Over at my blog, I look at the story that made me a comic book fan in the first place! http://www.skjam.com/2021/04/13/comic-book-review-showcase-presents-justice-league-of-america-volume-2/

[leahandillyana]

Are graves in America supposed to be forever? Like, I am used to graves here being reopened after 70 years to accomodate a new body, with the few remaining bones cremated and scattered, but it's apparently a scandalous thing in America?

[donnblake]

That's the general assumption- backed, in many places, by state law. Personally, I suppose I can see the point of preserving the body long enough for the funeral (eh, personally, but funerals are for the living and plenty of people seem to get something out of an open casket) but after that you can throw whatever bits of me science and medicine don't want to the gators or, I don't know, find a Goth poet who wants a skull to drink out of.