#(is the obvious contender for this) but also:

[tainbocuailnge]

thinking about the terrible victoria arc and how it could be less terrible. taking chapter 14 as premise & reverse engineering how to better get to that emotional payoff (namely the babel squad finally getting closure for theresa's death and babel's downfall & the fate of the sarkaz being severed) without throwing the base concepts of the other chapters out completely i think for starters the entirety of chapter 9 should just be an event instead. so much of the dublinn plotline was in an event already (what the firelight casts) and ever since ch9 most of "the dublinn plotline" has just been eblana ominously hovering in the distance, its just bloating things with no meaningful contributions. that does mean taking horn and bagpipe out too, much as I like them, but I think they can shine better when they're not competing with so many other white women for empty screentime anyway.

then you want the victoria arc proper to have you meet the self salvation corps asap after sneaking into the city and the core tension is going to be between siege and her gang as face of the nobility even if they individually might not agree with that label, the self salvation corps as representative of the common people of londinium who may hate the nobles but still have their own unsustainable british nationalism to work through, and rhodes island as altruistic outsiders whose reasons for getting involved don't actually have to do with victoria itself. clovisia was obviously supposed to be an amiya expy before she got forgotten almost immediately after her debut, but keeping the focus on these three groups would ideally also get some use out of that.

I said in a post i made after i read ch11 that it really isn't hard to see what siege's gang and the steam knight are supposed to represent, the symbol of victoria's honor and glory was betrayed by the greed of its nobles and its rightful heir is running a street gang, if you want to save victoria you have to decide what kind of "victoria" is worth saving to you. so in the victoria arc that doesn't suck these three parties are gonna have to actually talk about and contend with their inevitably clashing images and visions of victoria, and steam knight is gonna have to be a mandatory boss.

I also feel like manfred was fought too early for how much backstory weight he has to the babel gang and how long he sticks around after that. as if in ch10 they straight up didn't know yet that victoria arc was gonna end in being about babel, which might genuinely have been the case. so in the better victoria arc im making up in my head his bossfight is gonna get pushed back a few chapters.

like i'm thinking first victoria chapter you fight steam knight, it starts with meeting the self salvation corps and has you quickly throw everything on that gamble of getting siege the sword because both the glasgow gang and the corps buy enough into the idea of a past glorious victoria that can be brought back to try that only to have to face the decrepit husk of that glorious past in order to get it. siege can be passive in this one still, because her doing basically nothing is going to last only one chapter here instead of two and a half and it's going to serve a point.

so now you have the sword but both the gang and the corps are quite shaken about how they obtained it, and in the second chapter tensions between the three factions begin to rise when the obvious ideological disagreements about where to go next become impossible to postpone. you fight damazti here because the cluster is gonna be an awesome plot device for pushing mutual distrust and paranoia. honestly I don't even remember what the deal with damazti cluster was or what it was supposed to contribute so in the better victoria arc they do something about that too probably. and siege is forced to form actual opinions and say them out loud, and they're going to differ from what the rest of the glasgow gang is saying.

then by the third chapter you're able to sort out that internal conflict enough to finally muster the forces to fight manfred, this is probably where you get siege actually forming the exemplars and stuff, showing leadership and ideals and all that. i think allerdale can eat shit and so can the npc members of siege's gang so I'm cutting them out, we're putting all the focus on forcing these royal fake street punks from siege's posse and plain londinium factory workers from the self salvation corps to find common ideological ground. i like delphine though delphine can stay. there was a scene in one of these chapters with siege and amiya talking about their responsibility as figureheads that i liked (because it almost did something with siege) that i think would fit here, and it's an obvious chance to do something with clovisia too. like this is a good point to talk about more abstract ideas of leadership and turning people into figureheads and the way people will turn to a single person to save them, to start making it a bit more about theresa too. so here you get rhodes trying not to drag their feet because it's the part where it starts actually getting personal for them, materially because several members have a history with manfred but conceptually because there's an incoming shift of focus

defeating manfred marks rhodes island having to admit that they're very much in it for theresa and the sarkaz and their own personal history rather than just altruism towards "victoria", vague as that concept has become these past few chapters, so you get a somewhat more natural shift into the sanguinarch and the feranmut skeleton and finally theresa because we can sensibly compare the ideal and reality of the glorious war-torn homeland between victoria and kazdel, and the more abstract throughline of where the border between honoring the past and being dragged down by it lies. logistically the manfred fight would probably be in order to get out of the city and investigate the vampire shit so he'd serve as a kind of border between this being about victoria/londinium and this being about something beyond that in that way too.

and ch13 and 14 is when things finally started picking up so I don't think they actually need all that much tweaking beyond making it consistent with the things changed in the stuff before it. and probably cutting out some more characters. because the worst part really is that the focus was just all over the fucking place so just keeping the cast more manageable would do a lot. i think that teacher woman was interesting enough to be allowed to stay and that guy who killed himself in front of the sanguinarch was fun he can stay too. but i feel like the nightingale plotline might have to go.

[sprnklersplashes]

I finished hell bent by leigh bardugo last night and I did enjoy it and while I don't want to compare it too much to six of crows I did appreciate the continuation of the idea that being a quote-unquote good person is privilege that not everyone is afforded and a lot of the people who pride themselves on being "good people" have simply never been in the position where they had to be anything else

[gristlegrinder]

started typing another long post about icebrood saga but i’m gonna save that bad boy in my drafts because i have to go on a road trip in a couple of hours

but i will get this off my chest: i go feral over the implications that ryland was absolutely void-corrupted by the end of it from his connection with jormag

[forbiddenwestern]

Honestly y'all I can't imagine Aloy dating/liking anyone other than a girl, like, her interactions are on average way richer and way more engaged with lady NPCs (not to say that there aren't rich and engaging interactions with guy characters, there are, but Aloy herself seems way less interested/invested in those than the ones she has with girls)

[canonkiller]

sometimes I feel like the things that impacted my art style are obvious and then I think about it and some of them probably Really Aren't

[red-dyed-sarumane]

song post except i havent been checking tags or the ranking so its not new songs just what we're appreciating tonight

kochira adachiku kitasenju ekimae kansokujo (this is the observatory in front of adachi-ku's kitasenju station) - jyokyo (adachi rei)

shiawasekai - null (teto sv)

sensitive ghost - sena wataru (miku)

ookami (great god) - daibakuhashin (rime)

[wormsdyke]

3am pacing around the room in a heated debate with myself over which movie should fill the 4th slot on my letterboxd profile

[alvin-draper]

Okay we're all in agreement that if none of the og lot die in Stranger things 5 it's gonna suck, right? They have to. For Impact. That said, who's death do yall think would work best, narratively? Just going S1 crew here bc as much as Max or Robin dying would be sad they've already faked out on Max and Robin's just not connected enough yk? Any anyway

[arolesbianism]

Man oni can't do this to me I'm supposed to be preparing for artfight but all I can think abt is Them™ from the second I wake up to the moment I go to bed how am I supposed to prepare in these circumstances 😔

[unjest]

actually you know what. who give a shit

gonna change my first name to Becquerel instead of having that be my middle name because I might be cringe but I am free

and then since that frees up the middle name the new top contenders are Fenrir, Roseae, Eliot, Balthazar, Roche, Alfred, Phlebas, and Tindalos

[opisasodomite]

I’ve started trying to prioritize buying produce that’s only in season; last week the store had a little sign saying their gala apples were a new crop and man, those were the best apples I’ve had in years lmao

[skitskatdacat63]

top 5 sebson moments 😌😌😌

Hehehe you get me 🤭 BUT THIS IS SO HARD THERE'S SO MANY, WHY ARE YOU MAKING ME CHOOOSEEEE

1. Literally any shared podium champagne pics, they are insane. Example(one of many):

2. Abu Dhabi 2009 press conference (x) (actually any shared press conference from this season, because Seb is very bratty)

3. Their 2011 Autosport award speeches (x)(x)

4. This clip of them from Australia 2011 (x)

5. Post-Qualifying Australia 2009 pics:

Honorable mentions: Monaco and Italy 2011

[jankillbride]

finally reading through orv with the intent to finish and the venn diagram i will make once i am done... insane.

[crehador]

somehow we are already only three weeks away from the end of some fall 2023 shows, so here's me more or less finalizing my list for winter 2024!

(undead unluck, sousou no frieren, dog signal, ragna crimson, and shangri-la frontier will be rolling over from this season for a total of 19 shows)

most excited for warumono-san for obvious reasons (asnm) but also of course really looking forward to dunmesh and cherry magic

high card, mashle, and synnoir are the sequels/continuation this season... they're all just fine enough for me to keep following, nothing outstanding. i'm surprised i don't like high card more, just didn't vibe super hard with the first season i guess

sengoku youko is an interesting-looking one to me, haven't read the source material but the manga scores look really good! what's especially interesting is the episode count is currently listed at 37, and i haven't seen a series that runs for three straight cours in ages

i'm just... worried...... because biscuit hammer (same mangaka) also had very high manga scores and got really just the most godawful anime adaptation you could imagine. it was BONKERS bad. i'm talking the manga has an 81% average score and the anime has 49% i do not know how you fuck up that badly

anyway... godspeed and good luck sengoku youko

we've had some fantastic shoujo lately (watakon) and i'm hoping next season's yubisaki to renren will keep that going

most everything else is either a cast add or a "this looks potentially funny" add, except bucchigiri?! which is a staff add for me (same creator as sk8 apparently)

i just wish bucchigiri were coming out like at least a season or two later, or had a different studio. mappa let your fucking staff go home jesus christ

AHEM anyway looks like a promising start to next year!

[littleblueberryartist]

Me beating the same face syndrome allegations maybe