#March review

[krislindbo]

2024 Comic Project

March Review | Weeks 9-12

Another month gone by, which means I'm officially one-quarter of the way through the project!

Over the past couple months, I've been joining up with a group of artists once a week while working on my comic, using the time to keep me motivated and on-track. Over all, I've received two very frequent questions:

Who are my main comic influences?

What is the story about?

Honestly, I don't have a set answer for either one! I understand where the latter question comes from; I kind of thought I'd have a better idea of that by this point. But I remind myself, the whole concept of the project is to not know. While I've decided to make it one continuous story, I do think of each week as it's own separate comic (even when the narrative and characters has been so consistent like they have been for March). I do worry I've built up so much exposition that I don't know how to pay off. But I must go back to my original point - trust the process, and just make what comes to me.

The first question was more surprising, mostly that I couldn't think of anything to tell people when they asked! The truth is, I'm inspired by much more than just comics. Lately I've been watching a bit of Moonminvalley, because I find Tove Jansson so inspiring, and her characters feel so sincere in a way I've rarely found in other media. I always fall back to Over the Garden Wall as well, both for it's gorgeous animation, and the way you can get a bit more out of it with each re-watch.

I don't think this comic will measure up in any way to those pieces of media, nor do I think it needs to. But with that question, I accidentally found a great way to help ground such a nebulous and undefined concept, by trying to see how my influences do shine through in the writing and drawing.

Whelp. That's all for this month! I'll return once again on Monday with another page. Catch you then!

[ultimateaclrecovery]

March review!

The big theme of the month was Luna, trying her and then buying her and proceeding to buy all of the purple gear for her

I hung out with the boy a lot and we made and had a lot of colored food. He brought over ube ice cream, I forced upon him my green st paddy’s day cinnamon rolls, and then he brought over ube jam so we could make purple cookies which I then covered in purple sparkle glitter spray because obviously.

Got my hair cut and colored and continued to try and work on my ~wavy hair journey~

I also had a bit of role transition at work and now I’m back working half time on my favorite space craft and getting to help plan a cool observation on it which has been really lovely. The other half of work has not been going as well, I don’t understand that spacecraft as well so the work is harder so I avoid it and then I don’t do as well on it and am generally behind on everything and then still never learn it. But such it goes.

I also started birth control (nuva ring) which is going well minus the fact that I’ve developed some sort of skin rash, eczema thing. Although I’m not entirely sure it’s related, but it came up at the same time and hormone changes can cause skin issues soooo. I also think it partly might just be from irritation from sleeping with boy and being more sweaty and night and the like cuddling friction. I bought some medicated lotion that seems to be helping so hopefully that clears up. Mostly I need to stop to scraping it but I am so bad at that.

Scheduled a gutter cleaning and got some estimates for dry wall repair done but no actual work. Still need to get wc and furnace people. And also deal with my whole yard. It’s a disaster right now. And finish my taxes.

Went to a bunch of masters tryouts and other frisbee things to. Been trying to keep up with weight lifting and running but it’s been hard as I’ve been spending more time riding and playing frisbee.

Slowly but sure working through my 23 goals for 2023 list. Succeeded in buying a horse, gave one birthday card, read three more books, bought plastic drain pipe extenders to complete my buy 11 things off of my to buy list, knocked the go on at least 12 dates this year way out of the park, made progress on photo and data management. Over all a successful month!

Here’s hoping things to continue to go well in April and maybe we can be done with the snow and the cold finally!

[bookreviewcoffee]

Women, they have minds, and they have souls, as well as just hearts. And they've got ambition, and they've got talent, as well as just beauty. I'm so sick of people saying that love is just all a woman is fit for. I'm so sick of it.

[Almost crying] 

 But I'm so lonely...

Jo March little women

[wifelinkmtg]

TUMBLR POST EDITOR WON'T LET ME TITLE THIS POST ANYMORE SO I GUESS THIS IS THE TITLE NOW. WEBBED SITE INNIT

So let's say you grew up in the nineties and that The Lion King was an important movie to you. Let's say that the character of Scar - snarling, ambitious, condescending, effeminate Scar - stirred feelings in you which you had no words for as a child. And then let's say, many years later, you're talking about it with a college friend, and you say something like, "oh man, I think Scar was some sort of gay awakening for me," and she fixes you with this level stare and says, "Scar was a fascist. What's the matter with you?"

The immediate feeling is not unlike missing a step: hang on, what's happening, what did I miss? You knew there were goose-stepping hyenas in "Be Prepared," but you didn't think it mattered that much. He's the bad guy, after all, and the movie's just pointing it out. Your friend says it's more than that: the visuals of the song are directly referencing the Nuremberg rallies. They're practically an homage to Riefenstahl. This was your sexual awakening? Is this why you're so into peaked caps and leather, then? Subliminal nazi kink, perhaps?

And then one of your other friends cuts in. "Hold up," he says, "let's think about what Scar actually did in the movie. He organized a group of racialized outcasts and led them against a predatory monarchy. Why are you so keen to defend their hereditary rule? Scar's the good guy here." The conversation immediately descends into a verbal slap fight about who the real bad guy is, whether Scar's regime was actually responsible for the ecological devastation of the Pride Lands, whether the hyenas actually count as "racialized" because James Earl Jones voiced Mufasa after all. Your Catholic friend starts saying some strange and frankly concerning shit about Natural Law. Someone brings The Lion King 2 into it. You leave the conversation feeling a little bit lost and a little bit anxious. What were we even talking about?

INTRODUCING: THE DITCH

There is a way of reading texts which I'm afraid is pervasive, which has as its most classical expression the smug obsession with trivia and minutiae you find in a certain vein of comic book fan. "Who was the first Green Lantern? What was his weakness? Do you even know the Green Lantern Oath?" It eschews the subjective in favor of definitively knowable fact. You can't argue with this guy that, say, Alan Scott shouldn't really count as the first Green Lantern because his whole deal is so radically different from the Hal Jordan/John Stewart/Guy Gardner Corps-era Lanterns, because this guy will simply say "but he's called Green Lantern. Says so right on the cover. Checkmate." This approach to reading a text is fundamentally 1) emotionally detached (there's a reason the joke goes, oh you like X band? name three of their songs - and not, which of their songs means the most to you? which of them came into your life at exactly the right moment to tell you exactly what you needed to hear just then?) and 2) defensive. It's a stance that is designed not to lose arguments. It says so right on the cover. Checkmate.

And then you get the guys who are like "well obviously Bruce Wayne could do far more as a billionaire to solve societal problems by using his tremendous wealth to address systemic issues instead of dressing up as a bat and punching mental patients in the head," and these guys have half a point but they're basically in the same ditch butting heads with the "well, actually" guys, and can we not simply extricate ourselves from the ditch entirely?

So, okay, let's return to our initial example. Scar is portrayed using Nazi iconography - the goose-stepping, the monumentality, the Nuremberg Lichtdom. He is also flamboyant and effete. He unifies and leads a group of downtrodden exiles to overthrow an absolute monarch. He's also a self-serving despot on whose rule Heaven Itself turns its back. You can't reconcile these things from within the ditch - or if you can, the attempt is likely to be ad-hoc supposition and duct tape.

Instead, let's ask ourselves what perspective The Lion King is coming from. What does it say is true about the world? What are its precepts, its axioms?

There is a natural hierarchical order to the world. This is just and righteous and the way of things, and attempts to overthrow this order will be punished severely by the world itself.

Fascism is what happens when evil men attempt to usurp this natural order with the aid of a group or groups of people who refuse to accept their place in the order.

There exists an alternative to defending and adhering to one's place in the natural order - it consists only of selfish spineless apathy.

Manliness is an essential quality of a just ruler. Unmanliness renders a person unfit for rule, and often resentful and dangerous as well.

And isn't that interesting, laid out like that? It renders the entire argument about the movie irrelevant (except for whatever your Catholic friend was on about, since his understanding of the world seems to line up with the above precepts weirdly well.) It's meaningless to argue about whether Scar was a secret hero or a fascist, when the movie doesn't understand fascism and has a damn-near alien view of what good and evil are.

There's always gonna be someone who, having read this far, wants to reply, "so, what? The Lion King is a bad movie and the people who made it were homophobes and also American monarchists, somehow? And anyone who likes it is also some sort of gay-bashing crypto-authoritarian?" To which I have to reply, man, c'mon, get out of the ditch. You're no good to anyone in there. Take my hand. I'm going to pull on three. One... two...

SO PHYREXIA [PAUSE FOR APPLAUSE, GROANS]

We're talking about everyone's favorite ichor-drooling surgery monsters again because there was a bit in my ~*~seminal~*~ essay Transformation, Horror, Eros, Phyrexia which seemed to give a number of readers quite a bit of trouble: namely, the idea that while Phyrexia is textually fascist, their aesthetic is incompatible with real-world fascism, and further, that this aesthetic incompatibility in some way outweighs the ways in which they act like a fascist nation in terms of how we think of them. I'll take responsibility here: I don't think that point is at all clear or well-argued in that essay. What I was trying to articulate was that the text of Magic: the Gathering very much wants Phyrexia to be supremely evil and dangerous fascists, because that makes for effective antagonists, but in the process of constructing that, it's accidentally encoded a whole bunch of fascinating presuppositions that end up working at cross-purposes with its apparent aim. That's... not that much clearer, is it? Hmm. Why don't I just show you what I mean?

Atraxa, Grand Unifier (art by Marta Nael)

In "Beneath Eyes Unblinking," one of the March of the Machine stories by K. Arsenault Rivera, there's a fascinating and I think revealing passage in which Atraxa (big-deal Phyrexianized angel and Elesh Norn's lieutenant) has a run-in with an art museum in New Capenna. The first thing I want to talk about is that, in this passage, Atraxa has no understanding of the concept of "beauty". A great deal of space in such a rushed storyline is devoted to her trying to puzzle out what beauty means and interrogating the minds of her recently-compleated Capennan aesthetes to try and understand it. In the end, she is unable to conceive of beauty except as "wrongness," as anathema.

So my first question is, why doesn't Atraxa have any idea of beauty? This is nonsense, right? We could point to a previous story, "A Garden of Flesh," by Lora Gray, in which Elesh Norn explicitly thinks in terms of beauty, but that's a little bit ditchbound, isn't it? The better argument is to simply look at Phyrexian bodies, at the Phyrexian landscape, all of which looks the way it does on purpose, all of which has been shaped in accordance with the very real aesthetic preferences of Phyrexians. How you could look at the Fair Basilica and not understand that Phyrexians most definitely have an idea of beauty, even if you personally disagree with it, is baffling. This is a lot like the canonical assertion that Phyrexians lack souls, which is both contradicted elsewhere in canon and essentially meaningless, given Magic's unwillingness or inability to articulate what a soul is in its setting, and as with this, it seems the goal is simply to dehumanize Phyrexians, to render them alien, even at the cost of incoherence or internal contradiction.

Atraxa's progress through the museum is fascinating. It evokes the 1937 Nazi exhibit on "degenerate art" in Munich, but not at all cleanly. The first exhibit, which is of representational art, she angrily destroys for being too individualistic (a point of dissonance with the European fascist movements of the 20th century, which formed in direct antagonism to communism.) The second exhibit, filled with abstract paintings and sculptures, she destroys even more angrily for having no conceivable use (this is much more in line with the Nazi idea of "degenerate art", so well done there.) The third exhibit is filled with war trophies and reconstructions from a failed Phyrexian invasion of Capenna many years prior, which she is angriest of all with (and fair enough, I suppose.) But then, after she's done completely trashing the place, she spots a number of angel statues on the cathedral across the plaza, and she goes apeshit. In a fugue of white-hot rage, she pulverizes the angel heads, and here is where I have to ask my second question:

Why angels? If you are trying to invoke fascist attitudes toward art, big statues of angels are precisely the wrong thing for your fascist analogues to hate. Fascists love monumental, heroic representations of superhuman perfection. It's practically their whole aesthetic deal. I understand that we're foreshadowing the imminent defeat of Phyrexia at the hands of legions of angels and a multiversal proliferation of angel juice, but that just leads to the exact same question: why angels? To the best of my knowledge, the Phyrexian weakness to New Capennan angel juice is something invented for this storyline. They have, after all, been happily compleating angels since 1997. We could talk about the in-universe justification for why Halo specifically is so potent, but I don't remember what that justification is, and also don't care. Let's not jump back in the ditch, please. The point is, someone decided that this time, Phyrexia would be defeated by an angelic host, and what does that mean? What is the text trying to say? What are its precepts and axioms?

Let me ask you a question: how many physically disabled angels are there in Magic: the Gathering? How about transsexual angels? How many angels are there, on all of the cards that have ever been printed for Magic: the Gathering, that are even just a bit ugly? Do you get it yet? Or do you need me to spell it out for you?

SPELLING IT OUT FOR YOU

There is a kind of body which is bad. It is bad because it has been significantly altered from its natural state, and it is bad because it is repellent to our aesthetic sensibilities.

The bad kind of body is contagious. It spreads through contact. Sometimes people we love are infected, and then they become the bad kind of body too.

There is a kind of body which is good. It is good because it is pleasing to our aesthetic sensibilities, and it is good because it is unaltered from its (super)natural state.

A happy ending is when all the good bodies destroy or drive into hiding all of the bad bodies. A happy ending is when the bad bodies of the people we love are forcibly returned to being the good kind of body.

Do you get it now?

ENDNOTES

It's worth noting that the ditch is very similar to the white American Evangelical hermeneutics of "the Bible says it. I believe it. That settles it," the defensive chapter-and-verse-or-it-didn't-happen approach to reading a text, what Fred Clark of slacktivist calls "concordance-ism". I don't think that's accidental. We stand underneath centuries of people reading the Bible very poorly - how could that not affect how we read things today? We are participants in history whether we like it or not.

I sincerely hope I haven't come across as condescending in this essay. Close reading is legitimately difficult! They teach college courses on this stuff! And while it is frustrating to have my close readings interrogated by people who... aren't doing that, like. I do get it. I find myself back in the ditch all the time. This stuff is hard. It is also, sorry, crucial if you intend to say something about a text that's worth saying.

I also hope I've communicated clearly here. Magic story is sufficiently incoherent that trying to develop a thesis about it often feels like trying to nail jello to the wall. If anyone has questions, please ask them! And thank you for reading. Next time, we'll probably do the new Eldraine set.

[gravygranola]

something happened to me in march and I am yet to recover from it

[reunitedinterlude]

lofi phantasy: the album

track 5: golden pig

[world-of-wales]

─ •✧ CATHERINE'S YEAR IN REVIEW : 𝐌𝐀𝐑𝐂𝐇 ✧• ─

𝟒 𝐌𝐀𝐑𝐂𝐇 : Catherine was photographed accompanied by her mother, Carole by paparazzi. 𝟖 𝐌𝐀𝐑𝐂𝐇 : Kensington Palace marked International Women's Day via social media. 𝟏𝟎 𝐌𝐀𝐑𝐂𝐇 : Kensington Palace released a photograph of Catherine with her three children to mark Mother's Day. It was accompanied by a personal message from Catherine thanking people for their wishes. 𝟏𝟏 𝐌𝐀𝐑𝐂𝐇 : Catherine released another statement on social media talking about editing the Mother's Day photo before releasing it. In the afternoon, she was photographed in a car with William on the way to a private medical appointment in London. 𝟏𝟔 𝐌𝐀𝐑𝐂𝐇 : William and Catherine were seen visiting a farm shop in Windsor. 𝟏𝟕 𝐌𝐀𝐑𝐂𝐇 : Catherine put £2000 behind the Regimental bar at Aldershot for the 1st Battalion Welsh Guards's St. Patrick's Day celebrations. 𝟏𝟖 𝐌𝐀𝐑𝐂𝐇 : Catherine was spotted in Lambrook while attending her children's sports sessions. The Sun published the video of the private visit to the farm shop. 𝟐𝟏 𝐌𝐀𝐑𝐂𝐇 : Catherine had a private lunch with King Charles at Windsor. Additionally, Kensington Palace released a message of support for Alarm Distress Baby Scale (ADBB) study being conducted by the Royal Centre for Early Childhood. 𝟐𝟐 𝐌𝐀𝐑𝐂𝐇 : Catherine released a video statement confirming her cancer diagnosis & her chemotherapy treatment. 𝟐𝟑 𝐌𝐀𝐑𝐂𝐇 : William, Catherine and their children were spotted boarding a helicopter from Adelaide Cottage to Norfolk for Easter Break. 𝟐𝟒 𝐌𝐀𝐑𝐂𝐇 : Kensington Palace released a statement on behalf of the Prince and Princess of Wales expressing their gratitude over well wishes from across the world following the news of Catherine's diagnosis.

[cocogum]

Let’s TALK about episodes 11-12-13

(‼️SPOILERS FOR SEASON 4‼️)

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@onyichii I know I told you once that this was initially going to have more than two parts to explain what happened between these three episodes but I decided to scratch that idea out and instead put them all into one post.

Before I begin, I would like to address something crucial.

Thank you, Ankama for everything that you’ve done for Wakfu. And thank you for this final season as well. It’s clear that despite the many rough challenges you’ve had to face and overcome over the years, I’m really happy that Wakfu has fully made its course. You’ve outdone yourself for this season just for us and it shows.

A lot of us have been here since our childhoods so we really love you for creating such a series that we’ve managed to fall in love with or else we wouldn’t be here talking about it.

This season was absolutely beautiful and what a way to end it all.

Unless Season 5 makes its appearance lol. (later did I know that we recently got the news of a season 5)

Now let’s begin.

WE FINALLY GET TO SEE OUR ORIGINAL RAT RUEL 💖💖💖

My god he looks angry as hell I literally never saw him like this, imagine seeing this in the corner of your eye, and he’s right there staring at you hiding in the shadows like-

Help???

But anyway yeah he’s completely broke.

My guy at least got one kama thanks to Junior 😭😭

OH SHIT YUGO’S HERE!!!! RUEL TURN AROUND ‼️‼️‼️‼️‼️

First thing Ruel does is cry about his money to Yugo. Bro isn’t even asking why tf he grew. That wasn’t even his first question. Scratch that, that wasn’t even something that came up in his head.

That’s how you know he deserves the Rat King crown.

THAT SHOULD BE ME ‼️‼️‼️ THAT SHOULD BE ME SQUEEZING HIM WITH SNOT COMING OUT OF MY NOSTRILS, NOT HIM ‼️‼️‼️

Love how even though Dally and Eva told each other not to worry about Flopin, these two still looked like shit, even after hugging it out. So they’re still gonna keep Flopin’s room the way it is, right? They’re not gonna give it to Pin, right? Cuz their house is kinda big for five people (make that six with Goultard) so I feel like they’ll keep Flopin’s room the way it is and make a brand new room for Pin. I can imagine Poo helping them use a spare room to turn it into a bedroom for Pin (Poo will do it out of the sheer goodness of his heart ofc and definitely not because Elely was gonna beat him to a pulp lol)

YUGO’S HERE OMG EVERYBODY STFU ‼️‼️ (and Ruel too)

You have no idea how happy I was to see Dally not welcoming Yugo back and immediately trying to punch him. It makes sense for him to confuse Yugo for Oropo, especially after all the things he and his family went through because of him.

And here’s where we get a YUGO VS DALLY FIGHT SCENE ARE YOU KIDDING ME-

Never in my life did I think I would ever witness seeing these two fight against each other. Even if they had been play fighting, I would have never seen it coming.

But GOOD. At least we get to see more of Yugo’s ass Yugo moving around and getting to test his strength out.

Elely and Goultard even went in and tried to jump the guy but bro wasn’t even trying 😭😭 he literally threw Elely like a ragdoll like THAT’S YOUR FRIEND’S CHILD WHAT ARE YOU DOING-

(yeet the child)

That’s practically his niece by the way and he just threw her like she was nothing lol

Anyways, Eva breaks the fight and NXKAKSLDKKSKSLDL the way she gently touched Yugo’s face! She’s so shocked by how he looks now! To think that she used to be his older sister figure, and now he’s taller than her and the others 😭💖

It's funny and cute that Eva used to be the tallest in the group lol

It also took all these years for Dally to understand why Yugo is his best friend...

So the others finally get to know what’s been happening for nine episodes now and the iops in the family are absolutely down for it 💀

Yugo literally described the end of the world and these three dumbasses can't wait for it.

After that, the boys go back to the Sadida Kingdom and THIS. THIS IS THE REUNION.

I just love how Amalia’s first instinct is hugging Eva just look at the girls smiling together like this 💖💖💖

I missed them so much together 💕💕 even Pin is happy to see Amalia omg she’s absolutely killing it as an aunt 😭💕💕

And then….

Here comes Yugo.

I swear his and Adamaï’s reunion was the most bro-like thing I have ever seen from any of the seasons, comics, and manga chapters. Dude just comes out from another world that had creatures immune to anything in the krosmoz and tortured his body for who knows how long, and the first thing his bro does is give him a bro slap.

Freaking killed me.

And THEN

THEN CAME AMALIA’S REACTION OMAGJSKWLSLXLLSMMSKDLD THEIR EYES MET LOOK AT THEM-

But the Eliatrope Goddess just had to cut off their reunion 😒 urgh I swear this woman cares too much for her kids. Like to an unhealthy amount. Look at her hiding him away from Amalia and the others, she was clearly trying to separate him from anyone who wasn’t related to her. The only reason why Joris wasn’t being pushed away was because he was way too close. I’ve already explained so much about this one scene alone in this post so if you’re interested go take look at it.

The Eliatrope goddess was so lucky Yugo didn’t see her call Amalia “crazy” though…cuz man, I know she was panicking but gurl you’re insulting your daughter-in-law calm down-

Armand and Aurora get here and see this reunion and my god Armand actually had a point though.

Like the guy isn’t happy to see the eliatropes, he clarifies to them that this whole situation with the necromes was because of them. Yugo doesn’t even try to retort because Armand is completely in the right to be angry at him and his people.

And shocker, the Eliatrope Goddess decided to ditch them all and takes the kids.

Even though Yugo told her they couldn’t leave because they’d just keep running away forever, she didn’t listen and would rather even leave HIM and Adamaï behind, TWO of her literal FIRST CHILDREN FROM THE KROSMOZ.

I understand that she had been severely traumatized by the necromes, but something tells me she used to always flee at the first sign of danger when it came to anything at all. Her bad habit of fleeing must’ve been as far back as when she used to be part of the other gods. When she used to be with them, she was even willing to break an important rule between her equals, which was “to not have your own planet for your followers.” After they learned she had betrayed them, they all tried fighting her off but she didn’t dare fight back. Either it was because she’s a pacifier or because she prefers fleeing. With the many cases we’ve seen of her fleeing, I’ll have to say the latter since it might as well just be a habit. I can also support this claim by pointing out that she can fight but chooses to flee instead: when she was in the meeting between the rulers, she clearly showed that she had the strength to fight back when she was being challenged by one of Bonta’s queens.

The war started…

Not gonna lie, the Eliatrope goddess' shield was pretty useful since the group needed to buy some time for Yugo, Joris, and Goultard to get Nora back. I like how they knew they had no choice but to buy some time because fighting a necrome is like trying to kill water: that shit is impossible.

Although one thing I will never forget from that war, was Dally and Armand talking to each other.

This was a true full circle. The minute they met, they did not get along and were on completely opposite sides. Even during these years, they somewhat got along but never made any real improvement. But when they reach a war where they could potentially die, that's when they now see that they truly have no qualms at all anymore.

Like...thinking about how they used to fight over Evangelyne now sounds childish and so old to remember.

If you were to tell me years ago that they somewhat now get along and Armand was actually happy to see Dally, I would've thought you wrote a fanfic about it.

Nonetheless, it was nice seeing Armand get a taste of what it felt like to be on an adventure. He missed his chances to join Amalia and her friends, so being in a war fighting alongside them seemed like a good compensation to have instead. It's like putting all the dangers and adrenaline into one big ball and seeing what happens.

Armand enters the legend.

He might have been the king that had the shortest reign in Sadida history but after what he just pulled off, he’ll stay the best in record. This man beat a dragon made by the gods from another world and defeated it before dying while standing up. Name me another mortal in the krosmoz who has ever pulled off this kind of shit. That's right, zero. Not even Dally did that and that guy died like three times. Someone get Armand a real proper wife who he can have fun with, the man needs it after the awesome shit he just pulled off.

It baffles me however that when a sadida dies, they turn into sprouts so they can be planted and turned into trees in time.

It’s kind of bittersweet knowing that their deaths somewhat turn into a sort of reincarnation. Sadida is the only god who well…doesn’t look like he’s visually made of skin and bones. He’s a plant and created his own form of photosynthesis to make his Sadida dolls. His subjects, who can be compared to roots, are linked to one tree, not to mention that they could all die in the blink of an eye if anything happened to it as how I explained here. It’s almost like the sprout, from Armand’s death, could be considered the sadidas’ inner cores, sort of like their real selves (?), and they are exposed and revealed when they die. The only instance where we did not see this happen was when Nox managed to dry up the Tree of Life which made the sadidas turn into trees on the spot instead of being planted in peace.

Being a sadida just keeps being more depressing and traumatizing. The sadidas are lucky they love being like this or else they’d all turn into Qilby 💀

When Nora and Efrim leave Toross in his world, we see him go back to his throne while glitching from time to time. At first, nothing about this scene seemed to have been out of the ordinary until @MachineBandage on Twitter let everyone know that if we paused at the right moment when he was walking back to his throne, we could see shots of him sitting on the stairs looking defeated and miserable.

And now, yumalia fans, we have the moment we’ve all been waiting for!!

THEIR MARRIAGE 💖💖💖💖💖

Not gonna lie, at first, when I saw Amalia carrying those flowers with Yugo, I thought they were both walking to pay respects to Armand’s tree grave but then THIS HAPPENED‼️‼️

I HAD A STROKE, I THOUGHT I WAS SEEING SHIT BUT THEY’RE LEGIT ABOUT TO GET MARRIED ‼️‼️‼️❤️‍🔥❤️‍🔥❤️‍🔥❤️‍🔥❤️‍🔥❤️‍🔥

I was so happy for them. It’s been years since I’ve been rooting for these two.

Ever since 2012, I had a hunch about them because they wouldn’t stop hugging so tightly as it’s been making me go insane. All these years, I was so hopeful and yet worried that I wouldn’t see this happening!!

But not anymore because they finally got together 💖💖

I literally watched my kids grow up, I’m so proud. I shed a tear when I first saw this.

But after watching it over and over again, that’s when I shut off my fangirling (it was getting in the way of visual details lol) to properly inspect what the hell I just saw.

Wouldn’t Yugo and Amalia’s marriage technically be considered a very uncommon thing to happen? Three reasons would suggest this.

The first is how unconventional their marriage ended up looking regardless if its main objective was supposed to look like a political or romantic wedding. You can find that whole explanation in this post I made when the finale came out. The second is that Amalia married someone who isn’t a Twelvian. The third, the most crucial one, is that two RULERS of different races married and, due to that, have unified their people together.

I like how @onyichii noticed that during Yumalia’s ending scene, Yugo was actually the one who was about to kiss Amalia first but she ended up being quicker than him and pressed their lips together first.

He was about to close his eyes and lean in.

If you really pay close attention to Yugo in this scene, you’ll see it. That was such a nice detail to notice and I’m so glad @onyichii brought it up.

These kinds of details are why I love Ankama’s way of sprinkling them. They’re always the kind that would make you blink and miss it until you run the scene again more slowly.

Can you imagine what the people must’ve been thinking when Yugo dropped Amalia in one of his portals?

Dude legit dipped with his wife without warning anybody, not even Amalia knew he was going to plan that.

I can just imagine the people being confused as all hell and then awkwardly waiting for them to come back or wondering IF they’ll even come back.

Renate and Canar are going to spread so much tea in the kingdom, these two are gonna think Yugo took Amalia away for some ‘private time’ cuz he couldn’t wait any longer JZKSSKSKXKXKSKSKKDKKDODKF

I wanna join Renate and Canar’s little group so badly, they sound like a lot of fun lol

LOOK AT AMALIA’S ADORABLE FACE‼️‼️

Yugo is absolutely smitten 💕💕

And let’s not forget our boy Flopin who attended the wedding!

Because yes, despite not physically being there, we saw him with his grandpa on an open field. He had his eyes closed, the same way how Madagaskan was able to look out for Eva and Cleophee all these years. And look!! Flopin smiled!! He approves of the wedding!! Like Adamaï, he is also a yumalia shipper!

It’s confirmed. The shot of him smiling as the wedding scene keeps going can only mean two things: Flopin is learning fast as he can now watch over his family, and HE SMILED AT THE SIGHT OF YUMALIA WHICH MEANS HE LIKES IT!

I wonder if Cleophee is aware that she has a father though. We’ve only seen Evangelyne’s reaction when she learned of this fact but what about Cleophee? She must’ve wondered where Flopin went since he was missing while the Percedal family was attending the wedding. Maybe we’ll get to see her receiving the news in Season 5 or The Great Wave’s other volumes.

Despite this beautiful ending, however, there are still many things we have yet to know or dig deeper about: 1) The other rulers still have this strong mindset that the eliatropes are bad news. In a way, they indirectly caused a lot of destruction, so a lot of them will not like the fact that Yugo remains here, let alone married a twelvian, making his stay official.

2) Yugo still needs to get the rest of his people, the eliatrope kids who are still with his mother.

3) We have no idea where the Eliatrope goddess is at right now. She could be anywhere in the krosmoz, but I hope she eventually learns that her son saved the world.

4) WILL YUGO AND AMALIA THINK ABOUT HAVING KIDS!?! Because of Amalia’s position as queen, and being the last living member of the royal family, she is required to bear children to keep the family name going. So like…are we going to see their kids someday? How many are they going to have? I NEED TO KNOW SO I CAN FANGIRL MORE-

5) There will be more yumalia moments so more cute cuddles and convos lol

6) Yugo and Amalia's marriage will be a loving relationship and an alliance one. Yugo is king of the eliatropes, while Amalia is queen of the sadidas. Despite being together, they are rulers of their distinct people, but they both will help the other without hesitation.

7) The only other ruler I can think of who might be willing to side with Yugo and Amalia is that Lance Dur guy. He's cool. I like him.

8) Ush still wants to fight Yugo. Again. Let’s not forget what he told Yugo before he let the Eliatrope goddess bring him back to Bonta.

9) Brakmar supposedly got half destroyed?? Will we ever get any news from them in Season 5 or in the manga? I bet Astra is feeling ecstatic right now lol

10) Sufokia and Pandawa SHOULD FINALLY PAY THEIR DEBTS TO THE SADIDAS ALREADY

11) Frigost….what happened to it?? Yeah, I didn’t see anyone talk about this. Harebourg has been implied to have died back in Oropo’s pocket dimension and yet we see him in Waven and had joined one of the four clans. So is Frigost okay? What is going on over there?

That’s all that came to mind.

But now that we have recently heard the news that Season 5 was coming, I was so thrilled to know that this wasn’t truly going to be the ending for the anime and Tot persevered to get more!! Despite what we’ve been told about Season 4 being the finale, I’m so glad AND GRATEFUL that Tot didn’t stop there ☺️💕💕

Who knows, maybe we’ll have some of our answers in Season 5 since Tot did say that we’d have about 26 episodes which is a lot to put lore in. I'm still not sure if we truly will have 26 episodes like he said back in his tweet because it might have been just a tease (a cruel one at that) but I’m still hopeful that we’ll have more than 13 since Ankama now has partners!

SO YEAH WE GOT A LOT OF SHIT TO UNPACK IN SEASON 5 AND THE MANGA.

But the upcoming season and the manga will obviously not reveal everything, let’s be aware of that. Tot likes to sprinkle lots of lore in the games too so we’ll have to look out for those.

[justanotherfangirl-07]

Hello.. I am Ahmed from Gaza. I have launched a support campaign to evacuate my family from Gaza to Egypt and rebuild what was destroyed during the war, in addition to supporting the costs of life in Egypt. Donate even $20, and if you can't, you can share my story. Help us deliver our campaign. Unfortunately, our accounts are constantly being deleted💔. If you donate to me, let me know in messages.

https://gofund.me/81e9b167

vetted by @90-ghost

I'll do what I can. DM me and I'll try to get you into contact with people who can help lots

Gofundme:

https://gofund.me/9d48061d

[lunarharp]

figured i'd do this again..bit early i guess..

[threecheersforinking]

I am sooo sick of hearing people online say "I like anime but I hate how the female characters always suck and there's boobs everywhere :("

Fun fact, did you know? That not all anime has terrible female characters who are oversexualized? Because I'm starting to realize that there are people who genuinely don't know that. It is not all anime. I promise.

Here's a list of anime that do not oversexualize women*:

A Silent Voice

Anohana

Barakamon

Baccano!

Chihayafuru

Shouwa Genroku Rakugo Shinjuu

Hyouka

Josee, the Tiger, and the Fish

Kimi ni Todoke

March Comes in like a Lion

Mob Psycho 100

Monster

Monthly Girls' Nozaki-kun

Mushishi

Nichijou

Odd Taxi

Orange

Pluto

Run with the Wind

Vinland Saga

Your Lie in April

And while we're at it, how about some shows with particularly good/complex female characters (in my opinion)?

Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood

Toradora

Puella Magi Madoka Magica

Revolutionary Girl Utena

The Promised Neverland

To Your Eternity

Wonder Egg Priority

*(Disclaimer that I haven't seen some of these in a while, if I somehow missed something egregious, let me know and I'll remove it from this list)

This is definitely not an exhaustive list, this is simply shows I know and like. I am certain there are more and I would love if people would add on to this list. I am just frustrated by seeing tons of comment sections where people lament that there aren't anime where girls don't have their boobs out all the time. There are! They exist! Please watch them! Thank you.

[dedicated-to-all]

Someone is doing the Lord's work

[autumnblooms]

It might be a bit early for these but fuck it

This time a year ago I made a resolution to draw more, with the goal of being able to fill out a Year in Rewind art card, and I did it! I am so proud of myself for sticking with it and even though some days it doesn’t feel like it, I’ve improved in my skills greatly and had so much art I actually had to narrow it down! I absolutely have this fandom and all the amazing creatives in it to thank for that 🖤 You all have inspired me so much and given me the drive to keep creating.

Here’s to 2024 and another year of art making with and for you lovely people 🖤

[sunshineandlyrics]

Dev talking about the obstacles he faced making his movie Monkey Man.

[savage-rhi]

[beatrizonfilm]

FILM RECOMMENDATION FOR THE GIRL BLOGGERS

thw sweet east (2023) Directed by Sean Price Williams

A picaresque journey through the cities and woods of the Eastern seaboard of the U.S undertaken by Lillian, a high school senior from South Carolina.

this film feels like lana del rey sun, sofia coppola rising, otessa moshfegh moon

MY LETTERBOXD: TRIZONFILM <3