Episode 742 - ex-special forces!
Jun 2, 2025
It seems like every single “badass” in TV, Movies, books and comics is “ex-special forces” or something like it these days. It's become a meaningless cliche. Writers use it as a shortcut to show a person is super tough and competent, able to handle ANY situation and also have a dark past. We chat about how silly it is to overdo the cliche and why “being ex-special-forces” doesn't really make a person better at being a “bad-ass” than anyone else.
Topics and Show Notes
More likely it means they're probably a more burnt out, have far more injuries, PTSD, and more personal demons than the average person. Special forces soldiers tend to get deployed more than others and they train more and harder. Many are killed in training or acquire bad injuries from it and PTSD, let alone from active service. Aside from that rather than being taciturn with a thousand yard stare and a grumpy personality and a gravely voice, all special forces people I've met have been entirely normal people, indistinguishable from anyone else.
Rambo from the first movie is one of my fave examples, he's an unstoppable killing machine but at least the story tries to explore his PTSD and the terrible way his country abandoned him when it had no more use for him. What are your fave ex-special forces people in fiction?
This week it's another best-off Gunwallace and so we're replaying a track from Quackcast 209: Joe Pop! This was a great little theme that Gunwallace wrote funny lines for in the style of the characters from the comic strip, Joe Pop. Banes and I act them out! I'm on bass.
Topics and shownotes
Links
Featured comic:
Everything Will Be Fine at Dawn - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/news/2025/may/27/featured-comic-everything-will-be-fine-at-dawn/
Featured music:
Joe Pop - http://www.theduckwebcomics.com/Joe_Pop/ - by Dave63, rated E.
Special thanks to:
Gunwallace - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/Gunwallace/
Tantz Aerine - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/Tantz_Aerine/
Ozoneocean - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/ozoneocean
Kawaiidaigakusei - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/kawaiidaigakusei
Banes - https://www.theduckwebcomics.com/user/Banes/
VIDEO exclusive!
Become a subscriber on the $5 level and up to see our weekly Patreon video and get our advertising perks!
- https://www.patreon.com/DrunkDuck
Even at $1 you get your name with a link on the front page and a mention in the weekend newsposts!
Join us on Discord - https://discordapp.com/invite/7NpJ8GS
Episode 741 - Hooks
May 26, 2025
Sometimes you get hooked into things, you become a fan and you wonder how you got there. A while ago you were laughing at those dorky, obsessed fans over there and now suddenly you're one of them! That's what we're talking about in this cast, the things that hook you in and our own stories about what we were unexpectedly hooked into.
Episode 740 - DD Radio play 4 planning!
May 19, 2025
Do you like acting? Do you like being part of collabs or community projects? Do you like radio plays? If you answered yes to any of that the DD radio play is for you! Way back in 2011 we did our very first Drunk Duck Radio Play and NOW we're reviving the idea! We have a brand new DD Radio Play and we need YOU to be a part of it!
Episode 739 - Deferring to Experts
May 12, 2025
When you're working on a project with other people, a comic collaboration for example, it's usually best to decide on different roles for everyone according to what they're best at (writer, artist, layout design, pencils, inks, colour, backgrounds lettering etc), and let them handle it. You don't micromanage and make decisions for them. Basically they're the “experts” on those things now so you wait and see what they do.
Episode 738 - Ensemble casts
May 4, 2025
Ensemble casts is the topic for today! But what do we mean by that? The way I'm defining it for THIS Quackcast is that you have a group of main characters where any of them can function in a chief protagonist role for part of the story, they're all on the same side and they can work together in smaller groups or in one big group. This is a common structure for modern sitcoms and a lot other things like The Avengers, Star Trek the Next Generation, or Lord of the Rings for example. They're not just a group, but a group made up of “main characters”.
Episode 737 - Why take over the world?
Apr 28, 2025
People in stories, especially bad guys in stories usually want to take over the world, but why? What's really to gain? Even in reality it's a complex question. That's what we're talking about here.
Episode 736 - Resurrection
Apr 21, 2025
Happy Easter! Well that was Sunday, but happy Easter anyway. In honour of that yearly and ancient ritual holiday that has its roots in the rebirth of spring in the northern hemisphere our Quackcast is on the theme of resurrection! The idea that people can come back to life in realty is pure fantasy but it is an essential part of all different kinds of fiction.
Episode 735 - Anime
Apr 14, 2025
Welcome to another DD Quackcast! We were going to discuss Ad Hoc rationalisations and also “what happens AFTER you take over the world” but both topics were waaaay too trumpish and we didn't feel like getting negative and ranty about that fellow's foolishness so we thought we'd talk anime instead! But what is anime? At its simplest it's just cartoons like any other but they happen to be from Japan. There's more to it though, most anime has a articular look to it: reasonably realistically drawn worlds and reasonably realistic figures but they all tend to have slightly oversized heads, huge expressive eyes, tiny noses and mouths, and very stylised hair and reactions. That's not always the case but it's pretty typical. But these days “anime” is also made in Korea, China, France, the USA and more, it's become a style rather than a country of origin thing.
