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 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.

Germany's post Angela Merkel future looks set to be run by a coalition after a very narrow election result. but it will take months to agree so she's still in charg until it gets sorted.

In the UK a fuel crisis is ongoing, caused by a lack of lorry drivers/Brexit/crappy pay and conditions/media induced panic buying/ or all/none of the previous suggestions. Whatever the cause, it's a mess and the proposed solutions so far include trying to recruit EU drives on special visa's that will expire on Christmas Eve and having the Army on standby to ferry fuel around. Sigh....

Star Wars: Visions arrived and showed that if there is ONE thing that Japanese anime directors got out of Star Wars it's that lightsabres are the coolest thing ever. Which they're absolutely not wrong about, but did get a little... repetitive.

Personally, I preferred "The Twins" with it's "Let's have our not-Luke use a giant sparkly rainbow lightsabre to bisect a Star Destroyer whilst perched on the nose of an in flight X-Wing because HELL YEAH WE CAN!" and Tattoine Rhapsody which told a story mercifully lacking in Sith/Jedi conflicts, so not a Star Wars story, but a story IN the Star Wars universe, which is what I'd been hoping to see more of)

The BIG geek news was the BBC announcing that the new Doctor Who showrunner is Russell T Davies, who will come back, just in time for the series' 60th Anniversary in 2023. For those unaware, RTD is the person who relaunched the show in 2005 and stayed until the end of David Tennant's reign in 2010. He also oversaw the launch of both Torchwood and The Sarah Jane Adventures.

I am intrigued by this news, (aside from wondering what the hell the BBC offered him to come back because I imagine he could have asked for pretty much ANYTHING and he'd have got it) as I wasn't always a fan of his writing (A lot of people still have issues with how his tenure treated Martha and Donna), but can't deny the man came brimming over with wild and wonderful ideas, adding a soap opera element to the show which served it VERY well.

And yet the show has changed so much since 2010, we've had our first female Doctor and Master, and our first on-white Doctor and Master. But RTD has been 100% supportive of these moves and I wouldn't be surprised if he also casts a female Doctor, and possibly a non-white one too. So it'll be interesting to see what new directions he goes in this time.

There's a long time, and a series and some specials, before this is even an issue so I hope this doens't overshadow Jodie Whitaker's last season, because she has earned a final chance to shine (and yes, I do genuinely think she's been an excellent Doctor both on and off screen)

And, seemingly not to be outdone, JM Straczynski has confirmed that a Babylon 5 reboot for the CW is being planned and he will be in charge of it. It's a reboot he stresses because A) the world and his TV making skills have changed and grown and B) so many of the main cast of B5 are no longer with us (Given the CW's usual obsession with making everyone young and pretty, I wonder if he'll be allowed to cast it as old as he did (The Bab5 Ambassadors were plausible because these were people who were mostly middle aged and you could believe had earned their positions)

The new James Bond film finally opens this week after almost as many date changes as the New Mutants movie.

UK's Magic Circle has appointed it's youngest, and first female, President

I've just discovered "Zettai BL ni Naru Sekai vs Zettai BL ni Naritakunai Otoko" ("A World That Definitely Becomes BL VS A Man Who Definitely Doesn't Want to Be in BL") a live-action four-episode TV series based on the manga of the same (long) name, about (as the name suggests) a guy who suddenly realises his high school life is now a manga, and a Boys Love manga at that, which he is not terribly happy about, because he's straight. His dejectly noting that "The ratio of handsome boys on campus is oddly high, and the girls are almost ignorable" sets the mood nicely.

Doom Patrol started it's third season with a three episode drop last week. The first episode seems to be serving the purpose of the season 2 finale, which didn't get made due to Covid restrictions. I'm spacing my viewing these out so I can enjoy them at leisure, so I've only just seen episode, but it does tidy things up for the season proper to start.

Random question: What was your favourite subject at school. Not the one you were best at necessarily, but the one you enjoyed the most.

Comments

[tripodeca113]

Star Trek The Next Generation season three continues. Can they convince Patrick Stewart to stay?

The High Ground: Picard punches a terrorist.
It's actually more sophisticated than that, being about stuff. The characters talk about how terrorism is immoral, but maybe sometimes it's the only cause for change.
Anyway, only three more years until the Irish Reunification of 2024.

Dejua Q: Q flashes everyone on the bridge. Q's parents have kicked him out and now he has to stay with his buddies on the Enterprise.
Also, he wears an outfit with a very noticeable crotch bulge.

A Matter of Perspective: Not very good I'm afraid. They use the holodeck to demonstrate evidence for a murder investigation, but they had to program it to show these recreations. This proves nothing. Even if you directly put in the evidence, it could still be interpreted in multiple ways.

Yesterday's Enterprise: Tasha Yar gets another send-off. Sacrificing herself by going back in time and preventing twenty years of war, saving billions of lives. Thankfully there's no way the writers can undermine this ....

The Offspring: Poor Data. First Starfleet denies his sentience now they want to take his child away from him. The sad thing is I genuinely think that the Federation is still his best option as an android. And an admiral is totally responsible for his daughter's death. (It's odd how they keep specifying that he's not human, when the federations meant to be made up of many different species.)

Oddly despite Data allowing his child to choose a gender, it manages to be quite hostile to trans and non-binary people. Still apparently Whoopi Goldberg tried to get some subtle gay representation into the episode. I respect her more knowing that.

Sins of The Father: Picard gets in a knife fight with some Klingons.

Captains Holdiay: Picard's crew blackmail him into going on vacation to the Sex Planet. He has a miserable time with all these attractive women trying to hit on him while he's reading.
He also punches a Ferengii in the face via an obvious stunt double.

Hollow Pursuits: So, Barclay has trouble around other people and uses to holodeck to live out his fantasies of having friends. That's an understandable motivation. But we first see him using it to bully Geordie and Riker, which really taints him. Also, the version of Troi who tells him to "Cast off your inhibitions". Yeah.....

Sarek: Spock's dad shows up. This establishes the only family members he cares about are Spock, his dead wife and his current wife.

Ménage à Troi: It seems that the writers have realized that the Feregnii didn't work. So, they had them chill the fuck out and toned down the warrior aspect of them. It's mostly works but they decided to keep their creepy view on women. Why would you do that?
It's meant to be a comedy, so the scenes with Troi and her mother being kidnapped and stripped naked was off-putting.

Also, there's a subplot about Wesley leaving for Starfleet Academy. Sadly, he doesn't leave and the others spend too much time talking about how smart he is.

Transfiguration: We learn that O'Brien enjoys kayaking. This is the only interesting thing to happen.

The Best of Both Worlds Part 1: This was a good episode with pacing and tension. It's a shame that simply looking at the DVD cover for the next season will ruin the cliff-hanger. Oh well, it has other things going for it.

Finally, news on Bayonetta 3.....

Oh, look a My Little Pony CGI pilot movie...which is set after the previous TV show and the actions of the main characters have become distorted and lost to history. That's surprising.

Russel T. Davies is coming back. Huh. Now I have a litmus test for what constitutes a good Doctor Who writer. Are the Doctor and the Master homoerotic? And Davies has been the only showrunner to meet this criteria in recent years.

A 31st December release date has been given for Cobra Kai season four. After all these years our questions about Dyantox will finally be answered.

[icon_uk]

My takeaway from the MLP movie was that after years of playing the human sidekick to talking CGI animals, James Marsden's next career step is to be a talking CGI animal.

I'm still trying to work out if that's a step forwards, or backwards.

[donnblake]

My big Doctor Who hot take is that under Davies the dramatic engine was primarily driven by human (or, y'know, Gallifreyan) stakes (IE, what will it cost the Doctor personally to save the day) and under Moffat by cleverness (IE: "I, Moffat, am really quite clever, aren't you excited to see the clever reveal of how the pieces fit together?"). I wasn't ever really able to put my finger on the equivalent engine for the show under Chibnall, so I'm interested to see if my sense of Davies proves predictive for how the show plays out in his second stint.

I'm also interested to see if Cobra Kai manages to continue it's streak of being, really, better than it has any right to be.

[deepspaceartist]

Sarek: Spock's dad shows up. This establishes the only family members he cares about are Spock, his dead wife and his current wife.

I mean, Sybok rejected all Vulcan philosophy and fucked off into space to form a weird god cult that almost unleashed an ancient evil on the galaxy, and Michael had the disadvantage of not having been retconned into existence yet. So it's understandable that they didn't make the cut.

[dewinged]

Due to the hype around Batman Family Adventures, and the fact are for the app kept popping up on my radar, I downloaded Webtoon.

Though, having little to no interest in Batman, I found there was a lot more to explore. I found a few that I really like...and haven't told anyone else. I'm trying an experiment where I am a fandom of one. No entitled fans harassing the creators on Twitter, no one delving into the creators past trying to find something to bash them. No one obsessing over minor/one-off characters or Olympic-level mental gymnastics to excuse of justify their actions and so on. Mmm, guilt free media enjoyment.

So I'm keeping most of them to myself, but I am willing to talk about the new one: Archie Comics' Big Ethel Energy, which is interesting so far.

[zachbeacon]

Until the recent Bat-buz I thought Webtoon was a cartoon platform.

Apparently a fair number of newer Manga/Anime got started there.

I've read the Batman one and its cute but insubstantial. I guess some of the readers are worried DC is going to shut it down because they think its a fan comic.

I didn't realize the Ethel comic was out. I saw they were making one a few weeks back but couldn't find it. Its nice to finally have new Archie comics again.

Honestly I just enjoy that it hosts so much content (though I feel like discovery could be better). I only read a handful of webcomics these days but - when i was really into it - I had to have SO MANY sites marked as favorites. Heck, when I fell off of something it was more often than not either due to a terrible website or an inconsistent release schedule. This seems to fix both problems but I hope the creators get a decent share of the profit from ads, coins, and any other revenue.

Edit: Okay just caught up on Big Ethel Energy and was curious on your take. It wasn't what I expected. While there are exceptions, I expect an Archie comic to be about High School kids and this is about the trauma High School caused a 20-something.

"The gang" (minus Betty) don't come off great here and I can't help but think about that one Community episode where the flip the POV and we find out the series protagonists are everyone else's antagonists.

Also couldn't help but be annoyed with the reader comment warning people that the comic is NOT Riverdale tie-in. Mostly the annoyance is because that "so bad it's good... except when it's just bad" show is absolutely the cultural touch point for this comic's target audience.

[skjam]

I continue to mentor new hires at work. My department is having no trouble finding people who want to work, but I wonder about a certain other department that's clearly deep under water.

Over at my blog, I continue my Falloween viewing with Nicolas Cage drinking out of a human skull: http://www.skjam.com/2021/09/26/movie-review-drive-angry/

[leahandillyana]

Polish public services killed a teen refugee. I tried to avoid news for the sake of my own mental health, I am almost constantly suicidal anyways, but this news is impossible to hide from. The boy suffered from severe hypothermia, his family and friends left the relative safety of the forest to call a hospital from a nearby town, but the emergency operator told them they don’t help illegal immigrants and told their position to border guard, who caught them and drove them into Belarus without providing any help. The boy died. At this point, I think we can safely compare 2021 Poland to 1939 Germany, and as with 1939 Germany, nobody abroad cares. Paradoxically, the government conducts a cult of anticommunist partisans who hid in the very same forests after the end of WW2.
The boys are getting better. Thank you for your thoughts, prayers and good vibes. Unfortunately, between their treatment, the special diet they must be on from this point on, and me having to replace the screen in my phone, I am broke again. More than broke – unless I ask my parents for money again I’ll be in debt and still won’t be able to afford basic necessities. I hate it so much.
I started playing Magia Record game, previously knowing the story only from text translations and the anime version, and honestly it’s pretty disappointing. There’s a glaring interface problem none of my Chinese games have, plus the game is ridiculously bulky for what it offers – and many of these attractions like animated sprites are frankly unnecessary. Still, I’m hooked with the story and will return to it as soon as my phone is fixed. If you are interested in playing, ALWAYS choose Ultimate Madoka for support, every other magical girl sucks in comparison. I’m playing on Japanese server, but there’s also a Taiwanese server for Chinese players. As for the anime series, the last episode of second season was amazing, though it’s one hell of a cliffhanger to end a season on – or rather a TRIPLE cliffhanger.
Speaking of Madoka franchise, the art style, ugh, I really don’t like it. The main cast of the original series are middle schoolers drawn like kindergardeners – which is fine as a stylistic choice, even if not to my taste. In Magia Record, the characters of the main story have the same type of design, which is weird since they are of a wider age ranger with the oldest girls being 19 while looking half their age at most, PLUS their costumes show remarkably more skin. Again, it’s understandable in the context of the story, plus the costumes are really cool, but the design choices make me a bit uneasy. Enter the game and you will encounter playable characters not appearing in the storyline, and their designs are over the top sexualized to absurd extremes (many are teen Red Sonja wannabees) while still looking very, VERY young. And seeing them makes me uncomfortable.
I really enjoyed the learning aspect of school life. I loved every subject except for physical education and information technology, as I somehow never could *get* programming.

[stubbleupdate]

I read your reports every week and think how sad and shit it is.

Then I think "That'll be us in a few years time"

At least there is some change of heart when people realise that being homophobic becomes very expensive.

3 Polish regions vote to abolish "LGBT free zones" after EU threatens to pull €126m of funding from local government.

Star Wars Visions

[owlbrigade1]

Tattoine Rhapsody, I think, made the best use of the wide open sandbox that Lucasfilm offered the artists, it told a unique story in a way Star Wars has never really done. That said; I preferred the Ninth Jedi, I would watch the shit out of that if it went to series. It hit all my buttons for space opera-fantasy series preferences. I quite liked the Astroboy tribute and the Rabbit girl one too, but just as one shots.

The Visions I really disliked were the ones everybody seemed to rave over, the first one and the final one. The Duel and Akakiri, I get where they were riffing off and paying tribute to, but they just left me kinda cold.

I could, literally, not care less about DW news.

B5 reboot? After the mess all the other reboots of everything else have been recently, I will tune in if they do a Legends of Tomorrow crossover episode but that is about it it.

Edit: Favourite school subject? It was, for the longest time, history. Until Mister Wright drove all joy out of the subject for me in third year, by making it as unpleasant a class as possible and bullying me even worse than the PE teachers did. Also he included a spiel about about how eugenics was a good thing. I hated the subject afterwards. I sometimes wonder where I would be today if it wasn't for Wright. I did quite like my accountancy O-level course, even though I failed them, because Mister Hall made the dry subject seem fun. And Biology, full credit Mister Dunn who was another gentle and kind teacher, who was very patient with us struggling kids.

[iamrman]

I am presently re-reading Geoff Johns's Flash. The Wally West Flash, not when he was pushing Barry Allen as THE BEST THING EVER!!1!

One thing I like anout this era of the Flash that Johns is using villains that I actually care about, not yet another evil speedster trying to ape Reverse-Flash. That being said, the run isn't without needless eDgE. See anything to do with Murmur.

As for Marvel, I have just finished re-reading Roger Stern's run. I'm going to skip the terrible pre-Onslaught run and go on to the Busiek/Perez run. You know, when the Avengers actually got good again.

I am running out of Spider-Man things to read, so I might give the Clone Saga another go. If Iend up giving up for a third time, I will probably go back to the Lee/Romita run.

[zachbeacon]

Geoff Johns was a lot more enjoyable as a writer when DC would still occasionally say “no” to him.

Just throwing this out there; Jeff Parker is a really underrated Avengers writer who doesn’t get enough credit because most of his stories were in spin-offs and kids comics like Agents of Atlas, Age of the Sentry, and the Marvel Adventures line.

The thing about Spider-Man is that a lot of my favorite comics are hard to recommend because you can’t get them easily. Untold Tales of Spider-Man is fairly accessible digitally even if you don’t want to spring for an expensive omnibus but I think the only other Kurt Busiek comics that don’t require a back issue hunt* are the ones related to the Clone Saga. You pretty much HAVE to get an expensive Omnibus to read most of Stern but at least it looks like Hobgoblin Lives is still affordable. Every time they do a “Best of” collection for the newest movie villain it is guaranteed to include at least one DeMatteis story and I think Kraven’s Last Hunt must be nearing a dozen printings but Marvel still won’t give us decent collections of Marvel Team-Up or either of his Spectacular runs; at least it looks like the next Epic Collection will cover his Pre-Clone Saga Amazing work. The Paul Jenkins run was poorly collected when it was new and is mostly out of print now (though most of it exists digitally). At least the Zdarsky stuff still seems pretty accessible over multiple formats.

Also I have a particular fondness for the two year period between the end of the Clone Saga and the Gathering of the Five and I think Spider-Hunt, Identity Crisis, and Spider-Man by Todd Dezago & Mike Wieringo Vol. 1 are the only places any of it got reprinted.

*I think 2020 killed any chance of Marvel reprinting those Spectacular Spider issues starring Corona.

[cyberghostface]

Just wondering if anyone had any Halloween requests for October. I'm open to single issues/stories to miniseries to even longer series (up until a certain point, like 20-30 issues).

[deh_tommy]

I don’t like being so demanding or making people waste their precious time because of me, but I think Sandcastle would be cool to see here. That was the inspiration for M. Night Shyamalan’s Old.

[akodo_rokku]

Wait, when did the non-white Doctor and Master happen?

[cyberghostface]

They recently revealed the “first” Doctor was a black woman and the current iteration of the Master is Indian.

[zachbeacon]

So, I subscribed to Amazon Prime again because I knew I was going to need quite a few things and so far they’ve delivered everything I’ve ordered this month to the wrong address. They delivered one thing to my neighbor across the hall (not a huge deal) and I spent a half hour on the phone with customer service because I didn’t recognize the location that they photographed to confirm delivery of several items yesterday.

I’ve already gotten to where I only buy physical books from them as a last resort (because they arrive mangled half the time).

So, um, anyone have any short Prime Video recommendations? I don't want to feel like I paid 13 bucks to watch Tomorrow War and have some stuff delivered to the wrong place.

Have I mentioned I’m worried about Comixology being folded into the Amazon website?


Speaking of comics … I finished Superman Rebirth (Superman, Action Comics, Superwoman, and the first Super Sons series).

Super Sons is … fine. I’m in no rush to read the later series. Jon went from having no idea how to use his power to fairly competent in them way too quickly. I always thought there was a delicate balance needed to prevent Damian from being unlikable and I don’t think it achieved very often here. The Teen Titans crossover had some really good humanizing Damian moments though.

I think I said most of what I had to say about Superwoman a few weeks back. Giving Lex a sister to play off of is usually a solid choice even if CW’s Supergirl fumbles the ball a lot. My main takeaway was that they really overplayed the “now I’ve lost my powers forever” card. They did it to Lana about once an arc so I assume they expected to be cancelled at any moment.

Action was great early on when it was following up on the Lois and Clark mini but it kind of became a chore once it got to the Oz stuff; It problem didn’t help that I knew the spoiler going in. Also, weird to see Dan Jurgens still writing the Superman and Flash treating Booster Gold like he was still 80s Booster; Michael’s annoyance at being lectured by Barry is priceless.

Superman was clearly the flagship. Jon and Kathy are adorable and it’s a shame the Bendis rapid aging made most of Jon’s existing relationships with her, Damian, and other kids weird. Loved the historical vacation (though the bit with the missing soldier is actually kind of terrifying from his family’s POV). I think Bizarro is one of those things I like better in theory than in practice because too much “Bizarro Speak” brings my reading to a screeching halt just as much as Zatanna’s backwards spells. I love Robzarro so much though.

Lex had a presence in all of the books and it seemed like he was all over the map in terms of how sincere his redemption was.

[lordy_co]

So, um, anyone have any short Prime Video recommendations? I don't want to feel like I paid 13 bucks to watch Tomorrow War and have some stuff delivered to the wrong place.

Not sure if it's short but some people I know have enjoyed Canival Row , so it might be worth checking out.

[janegray]

Watched Rapunzel’s Tangled Adventure.

Overall, it was fine. But I would have liked it a hell of a lot more if it weren’t for the fact that Cassandra annoyed the everloving shit out of me.

“Oh noes, the girl who has always shown me nothing but sheer love and respect replaced me! And when I say ‘replaced me’ I mean ‘she took the goddamn bullet for me by being raised by a monstrous abuser in my place, while I got a strict but genuinely loving father’! I HATE HER! I’m going to listen to this obviously evil gremlin, and assault innocent people (including a kid) just to spite her (on her boyfriend’s very first birthday, no less, who by the way is yet another person whose childhood sucked while mine was pretty good)! That will teach her to get kidnapped and spend 18 years locked up like cattle in solitary confinement in my place! That bitch!”

I really don’t like Cass. Jesus what's with the recent trend of making the female best friend/love interest toxic as shit?

Varian went villain too, but he actually had legitimately good motives (on top of the fact that he was 14 instead of a grown-ass adult). The King chose to ignore obvious signs of the apocalypse and to shamelessly lie to his subjects for months because he was too chickenshit to do what his job required him to do, letting the situation get worse and worse until Varian’s village was destroyed and Varian’s loving dad was put in mortal danger. Then, when Rapunzel was forced by extreme circumstances to break her promise to Varian, nobody bothered to explain to the kid why exactly she had had to do that, making it appear as if they just ditched him in his time of need. For months afterwards nobody bothered to check on him, even though the last time they saw him he was crying desperately that his father was dying, and even though they had visited him plenty of times in the past when it was about stuff they needed. Also, when he went villain, the heroes fought him seriously, instead of spending half a season crying that they weren’t going to hurt him no matter how many lines he crossed. And in his very first appearance after his defeat, he took the offer of redemption, instead of digging his heels in.

[tinygaylaura]

:(

Awwwwww I like Cass

[tinygaylaura]

So excited for Bayonetta 3 coming out!

One of my favorite video game franchises so it'll be great to see a new installment.

Doom Patrol season three has been great so far. The show really does seem to get better and better with each season and the cast are every bit as wonderful and watchable as ever. And it's great to see Michelle Gomez joining the cast in all her batshit insane glory

[zachbeacon]

I'm just hoping Amazon still honors my discounted Metroid Prime 4 preoder when it finally comes out in five years.

Also you just reminded me of the bat-shit crazy Mario casting they announced in that Direct. I wish cancel culture were real.

[arilou_skiff]

Watched the Foundation series first two episodes out of morbid curiousity.

It was... Better than I expected? There was a lot of SF bullshit that was added seemingly for no reason, and some stuff that is concerning (Robot wars?) and of course it had attractive actors making out, but it managed to at least keep the central theme of the first story. Now to see how they handle the sweep of history bits.

(I am kinda worried they might ditch certain bits of the greater lore that informs things, but we will have to see)

One thing I do appreciate is that they do seem to genuinely try to keep the twists of the novels as twists. They seem to genuinely wnat to fool people who havent read the books.

[stubbleupdate]

I haven't read the books and enjoyed the first two episodes until the final five minutes, which just didn't make any sense.

IT;'s really hard to have a discussion about it without somebody who has read the books saying "Well, this needs to happen to get to this point in the book"

However. Lee Pace is playing Lee Pace turned up to 11

[tinygaylaura]

I found quite a haul of fun graphic novels recently

I am now the proud owner of X-Men: In the Shadow of Sauron, a collection of the Adam Warlock series, some classic Justice League content and the X-men/Avengers crossover "Bloodties" from back in the 90's

I also found a G1 Ultra Magnus but the price tag on him was insane and I had to leave him behind. My bank account just could not deal with that now

[iamrman]

The only one out of that lot I know is Bloodties. Unless you can be more specific about the Justice League content? Pre-Crisis? JLI?

[tinygaylaura]

Binge watched every Resident Evil movie last night with some of my friends with benefits. Being high as fuck made them much more enjoyable than they otherwise would be I suspect and by the end of it we were just making up our own movie plot and sometimes muting the films so we could do the voices of the characters as they spoke.

We collectively decided that Wesker is ust a Friend Zoned surf bro who wants Alice to realise he's a Nice Guy, Alice is fucking all her clones and Umbrella makes Bone Hurting Juice as its main product

Jack Black is going to be Bowser!

That news is so good it almost makes up for Chris Pratt being Mario, which feels like a hate crime

Supergirl has debuted Kelly Olsen as the Guardian and it was fantastic. One of the best episodes of the whole series and a great writing debut on the show for the actress who plays her too.

We're getting a new Kirby game! That's some welcome news. It looks lovely :)

On an unhappier note and in another example of why I fucking hate the sex negative bullshit the world is full of now, Disney has decided to redesign Jessica Rabbit to have her outfit be less "Sexy" which is a bit like McDonalds deciding the quarter pounder could really do with more ant poison in its sauce

It's one of the many reasons I hope to god that the MCU never uses any of the X-men characters because god knows what kind of sexless ugly smock they'd put Emma Frost or Mystique in to cater to the fragile feelings of every psychopathic radfem out there desperately looking for a reason to get offended and throw a tantrum

[iamrman]

Disney has redesigned Jessica Rabbit to make her less sexy? I mean, what's the point? Wasn't being sexy her whole deal?

[lordy_co]

In case anyone missed it, Netflix released a teaser for their adaptation of Sandman as well as the opening for their Cowboy Bebop adaptation. As someone whose favourite story ever is Sandman and who's loving Cowboy Bebop, I'm very hyped for both.

Also cautiously interested in RTD returning to Doctor Who. He did have a lot of good ideas but some of the soap-opera feel he brought into the series made it a bit harder for people I know to get into DW, so who knows?

My favourite subjects at school were History and Geography, tho I was a big nerd so I enjoyed pretty much all of them y.y

Talking about History, I'm deciding whether to buy Hearts of Iron IV or Europa Universalis 4 at the next Steam sale, so any suggestions are welcome.

I also bought Naruto Shipuuden Ultimate Ninja Storm 4 (gee, what a mouthful) and A Total War Saga: Troy this week, as a form of belated birthday gifts for myself y.y If anyone's interested in any of them I can talk more about it.

[zachbeacon]

I've somehow managed to avoid seeing any Sandman footage and I'm fine with continuing that streak until its done.

I'm really warry of the Cowboy Bebop adaptation. Live action versions of anime tend to suck especially when Netflix gets involved. On the other hand, its clearly a labor of love (I saw a set photo with the three old guys!) and Daniella Pineda's response to internet trolls was the most Faye thing ever.

[scorntx]

This week on Fascist Plague Island: The media tells everyone not to panic, and lo! They did panic.
Ugh.
Also there's the Labour Party Conference - which as always is sort of a mix between a brawl waiting to happen and a "yo mamma" contest.
So that's... yeah...

ANYWAY.
Tentatively excited for RTD coming back, if very, very confused, given showrunners don't usually return to shows once they're gone...
(also wondering if Jodie's last season is actually going to air in 2021 at all. The Beeb said it would, but... y'know, kind of running out of 2021 here.)
Just so long as Moffat stays away, I don't mind.
Suddenly tempting to rewatch that era. Hmm...

Watched "The Ninth Jedi".
Interesting stuff. Would watch more of that.
... but who designs a droid to drink tea?

Some Transformers reveals this week, including Puffer, who actually is a literal mash-up of Huffer and Pipes, because quantum (no, really. Quantum is to blame this time).
And... Road Ranger.
The Go-Bots are coming! The Go-Bots are coming!
(So how long before there's a Small Foot and Treds as well?)
And a new Jackpot? Neat.
(Well, you didn't think they were going to make a new Jazz mold and not repaint it into someone, did you?)

Bought the Epic Collection of Kirby's last issues on FF.
nnnnnot exactly going out on a high note, there.
(The Skrull Gangster Planet storyline is a really weird one, and it makes a person wonder what was going on behind the scenes there... but I'm guessing there must have been some serious yelling that day.)

The local had some of the DC minifigs for sale, which is... a little odd given that LEGO discontinued that a while back. But hey.
Managed to get meself a Bumblebee. (But, alas, no Cheetah or Wonder Woman...)
And meanwhile, in the Marvel hunt, managed to finally get a Monica and a Throg.
The hunt for T'Challa continues...

[iamrman]

The only thing I really remember about the end of the Lee and Kirby FF was the first appearance of Agatha Harkness. I have already made a joke about that though. I prefer their run on Thor any way.

[janegray]

Disappointed that the Italian story in Batman: The World is mediocre :/

Overall the collection is solid (I really loved two of the stories in particular, and I plan on posting them here if I can figure out a way to keep the flow of the story in 1/3 of the length). But, y'know, national pride. I was really hoping the Italian story in particular would be good. I wish they had hired Enrico Marini.

[lordy_co]

I happened to read the Brazilian one and it's surprisingly non-reactionary, considering it also reminded me of Year One, of all things, with its focus on Batman fighting corruption. I'm glad it turned out to be good, and shame on DC of rnot getting better creators for the Italian story!

[melplayspersonal]

My Magica De Spell 2017 cosplay is complete! My mom helped me out sowing the costume jewelry to the dress. I'll be wearing it at NYCC. If even just one person there recognizes it, I'll die happy.

Two new Pokemon trailers dropped for the upcoming games. I'm pretty "meh" on the Diamond/Pearl remakes (out of all the original gen, they were my least fav) but I might get it anyway out of boredom. On the flipside, I am SUPER STOKED about Pokemon Legends Arceus - the look, the feel, the lore, gimmie gimmie gimmie.

Speaking of video game news, I recently learned that the upcoming Rune Factory 5 release next year will have same-sex marriage, a first for that franchise. I was on the fence about getting it, but being a pretty girl able to marry pretty girls? I repeat - GIMMIE GIMMIE GIMMIE. Next year is going to be a great year of gaming for me, even if only for a little.

[tinygaylaura]

The cosplay is so adorable!

[thezmage]

https://www.cbr.com/archer-season-13-renewal/

Archer got renewed for another season. I figured that Jessica Walter's death would've rendered the series incapable of continuing, but apparently the showrunners think otherwise.

[tinygaylaura]

It's going to be hard to picture the show without her voicing Mallory Archer in all her awful glory