#Zombies Run Season 8 Spoilers

[notforconsumption]

good evening may I introduce...... my worst wife

[artist-issues]

Tom! What! No!

Also Shona you complete psychopath, WHEN will we get over the "likeable-friends-betray-Abel" trope?

[drowsystarlight]

So you’re telling me Abel has a Moonshine and Strip Poker Friday night, that Sam was nowhere to be found after that same night because he was “busy doing patrols for the Phantom of Abel” which was debunked btw, even if everyone in Abel KNOWS to search the comms shack first try if they needed Sam Yao the Radio Operator???

And that this is the same night Runner Five—who is literally born ready according to Sara—woke up from so underprepared that they wore their shirt inside out in a rush to go out on this mission??? This is literally the first time Runner Five showed some type of flaw and it’s their shirt being inside out which only means they took it off the night prior . And picked it up again bc it’s most likely the closest (probably on the floor) . Bc OTHERWISE any person would just search the drawers for something else

“Oh but neeks this can just be pure coincidence!!! Your shippy brain is reading too much into it!!” Okay maybe but listen . LISTEN . It COULD be just a coincidence and i COULD just be full on delusional but you know what validates this theory??? Yeah??? Here you go:

Sam noticeably gets more protective of Runner Five in the next few episodes—hell, in this same one, he kinda scolds Jamie and Isabel for going on a mission to “indulge their obsessive love for a Kid’s TV show and risking Runner Five’s life”; even if he eventually adds on Jamie’s life, the pause made me think it was some sort of a follow-up or afterthought

Then in the next mission, Sam goes out of his way to reassure Five before they do their part with the gate opening thing by being the distraction. Sam always does this and he notably looks out for Five all the time but the way this one was said is so??? Tender??? Like??? I don’t fucking know something about it is DIFFERENT it JUST IS

Anyway tl;dr: That man was doing perimeter patrols on something else and it’s not Abel Township I can tell you that much

[lola-andheruniverse]

Hey. Just wanted to say I absolutely love your recs. I was wondering, if by any chance, you had any recs of fics where Daryl comforts Carol. Specifically, if possible, I’m looking for a fic where he comforts her because of her claustrophobia but honestly, I’ll take any fic where Daryl comforts Carol that I can. TIA 😊

Hi, @roryelijah02! Thank you for your kind words and for sending me on a really fun fanfiction hunt. I hope you enjoy this "small" handful of recs (I totally overdid it, let's be honest 😄). Any inputs of mine are in bold. Caryl on, dear! Daryl comforting Carol because of her claustrophobia: 1. Claustrophobia by Sophiacharlotte [ FF.net ] Summary: caryl season 6 PWP (porn without plot). Daryl and Carol get stuck in a trunk while running from the herd. Rated: M Word count: 2.154 Published: October 28, 2015 (one-shot)

2. Hers to Love; His to Protect by CharlotteAshmore [ 9Lives | AO3 | FF.net ] Summary: It had become a festering ache beneath the surface of his skin, this need he had to protect her, to save her … because he was certain he was the only one who could in a world gone to hell. Rated: E Word count: 337.828 (70 chapters, little claustrophobia crisis in chapter 07) Published: June 25, 2018 (complete)

3. The Woodsong Fog by Lighteneverything [ 9Lives | AO3 ] Summary: On his third day of searching, Daryl finds Sophia. But when one element of the timeline changes, others must too. S2 and on ZA AU. Rated: E Word count: 212.192 (46 chapters of ?, major claustrophobia crisis in chapter 25) Published: January 26, 2024 (WIP) Daryl comforting Carol when Sophia was missing:

4. Sleepless by @rubinegoslay [ 9Lives ] Summary: Carol can't sleep and finds an unlikely source of comfort. Set in the early days of season two. Rated: G Word count: 883 Published: February 12, 2015 (one-shot) Daryl comforting Carol because of nightmares:

5. Insomnia by eyeslikewildflowers [ 9Lives | FF.net ] Summary: After finding Sophia in the barn, Carol is plagued by terrible nightmares. Daryl comforts her.  Rated: E Word count: 8171 (02 chapters) Published: December 19, 2016 (complete)

6. Tidal Nightmares by Perennials [ 9Lives ] Summary: Spoilers for season 9/10. Carol's nightmares eb and flow, like the tides of the ocean. In the wake of her son's death, the currents pull her further out into a dark abyss where she feels unable to escape. She seeks comfort in none other than her best friend. Rated: G Word count: 1.250 Published: March 29, 2020 (one-shot)

7. If it matters at all by @charlibubble [ 9Lives ] Summary: When he hears her crying, it triggers something inside of him that he can't fight. Comfort isn't romantic though. It is safe to hold her in his arms, in her bed, in the dead of night. That's what friends do. Friends. Partners. Lovers. Does it even matter anymore? Rated: E Word count: 7.655 Published: February 09, 2022 Daryl comforting Carol because of self-harm:

8. What Lies Beneath by @my-mt-heart [ 9Lives ] Summary: Imagine if Carol's downtime right before the Hilltop battle played out a little differently. She doesn't speak to Lydia. She doesn't sleep with Ezekiel. After her ex-husband escorts her through those gates and she makes eye contact with Daryl, she marches straight into the Barrington House, staying there until day turns to night. Alpha's horde, as she learned on her way up to one of the vacant bedrooms, is fast approaching, but unlike everybody else, she's not looking for comfort before facing possible death again. She just wants to hurt.  Rated: M Word count: 1.272 Published: December 21, 2020 (one-shot) Daryl comforting Carol after the end of the Whisperers War:

9. Two Lives by @tigereyes45 [ AO3 ] Summary: After the Whisperers War Carol finds herself alone on a hill. She watches the zombies struggling to make it up and feels nothing, until someone finds her. He always finds her in these moments. Rated: T Word count: 1.065 Published: December 27, 2019 (one-shot)

[singerlover9]

I thought I’d fully introduce myself to the fandom by posting my Runner 5! She pretty much looks like me, and this is post Season 8 Runner 5 so she is just… so tired. But other than that she does generally have an upbeat attitude, is Ashkenazi Jewish, (so is great friends with Paula) and is dating Sam Yao (I’m in love with him what can I say). I’m caught up with all the seasons and most of the New Adventures so you don’t have to worry about any spoilers.

Feel free to ask me any questions about Zombies Run!!!!

(Drawn by my best friend who doesn’t have a Tumblr account)

[s-d23]

How I fell in love

with The Walking Dead, Bethyl and Team Delusional. No one asked. Lol but I wanted to share! Back in 2014 I had heard of TWD but had never seen an episode, had no idea of the plot or who the characters were, all I assumed that it was a "scary" TV show and that was it. So in July I was flipping through the channels and ran across the dead, white and blue marathon. I was working but yea I could do my job and watch TV with no interruptions from my then 1 yo. The very first episode I laid my eyes on was Still. Can you believe that? The first random episode I found was my now favorite Still!! I had no idea of any background stories, I didn't even know their names at the time. All I seen was 2 young people running around an apocalypse with zombies who had major chemistry. It felt like a normal date night in the country. Finding an old abandoned house in the woods, drinking moonshine, someone getting too drunk and wanting to fight or argue, sitting on the porch and the crickets in the back ground. Sounds like a normal night in the south especially for a young couple. Hell, the first time my husband told me he loved me was when he was drunk on homemade moonshine and I live in NC but that's a different story. I kept watching these two characters and thinking they are going to at least make out! Really thinking they were going to go back into that cabin and (insert smut) however we all know they didn't. They did burn it down which again is a typical thing to do in the south burn something or have a big bon fire. I never once felt that there was some crazy age difference. I had no idea of their ages. After watching that episode I watched the next few and quickly realized that TWD was not all about scary zombies. I was in love and obsessed. I went and bought every season which was 4 at the time. By October I was completely caught up and so excited to find out what happened to beth and wanted the Bethyl reunion! I had not shipped a tv couple so hard since Spike and Buffy in high school!! Then Coda happened and I was so effected. I felt like I was actually mouring someone real not just a fictional character on a TV show. I cried myself to sleep. Now mind you at the time I was a 20 something year old women with a family and for days I was actually overcome with grief! Then it hit me. The whole thing did not feel right. The way she was shot and the angle of the gun. The way the music played at the end. I began to search on the internet because in my mind I really thought this has to be a fake out death and maybe someone else thought so or there was a spoiler of some sort to prove she was alive. That's when I found tumblr. I didn't know what that was before either. I found team delusional. Some of the people I followed are gone now but what everyone was saying and fact there were missing scenes that they filmed all made sense to me. I continued to watch the TWD until around season 7 or 8 then I lost interest. I never stopped following TD to see what they had to say, hoping eventually TWD would bring beth back. I never stopped reading all the bethyl ff. I did start back the main show to finish the last 2 seasons. Then of course the DD spin off. I notice the parallels on the DD show because the earlier seasons are my favorite and I have rewatched so many times. The parallels i see are of the end of season 4 and the beginning of season 5. All of the big beth episodes. I do believe that we are closer now than we have been to seeing her again! I think currently the writers want the GA to believe that Daryls happy ending will be with either Isabelle or Carol, however I think they are writing the story to seem like that, so it will be an even bigger surprise when Beth returns. ❤️

[video-game-kids-tournament]

MEET YOUR CONTESTANTS!

TWDG spoilers under the cut! Along with a TW for murder and child endangerment!

Name: Clementine

Age: “8-9 (season 1) - 11 (season 2) - 13 (season 3) - 16 (season 4)”

Gender + Pronouns + Sexuality: “female - she/her - bisexual”

Video Game: The Walking Dead - A Telltale Game Series

Backstory: “When Clementine was 8, she was staying home with a babysitter, while her parents traveled to another town. Then the zombie apocalypse happened. The babysitter was turned, and she hid in her treehouse to stay safe. Then Lee, a former teacher convicted for murder, found her while running away from zombies. He ended up taking care of Clem while trying to survive, and promised her they would look for her parents. He would soon become a father figure for her, having to make tough choices to protect her. ===== HUGE SPOILERS FOR SEASONS 1-2 BELOW ===== Clem had her innocence sacrificed in order to survive in the zombie apocalypse (the kind where the zombies are far from the worst thing around). She had to see Lee kill zombies and sometimes other survivors to keep both of them safe. A young boy who was part of their survivor group was bitten and had to be shot by his father (or Lee, depending on player's choices). She was captured by a guy who lost his own family and wanted revenge on Lee while trying to impose himself as a better caregiver for Clem. She eventually found both her parents - already walking corpses. And after Lee was bitten she had to leave him behind to turn into a zombie. Or shoot him herself, if he asks her to (depending on player's choices). Later, at 11, she was traveling with another group of survivors, as they looked for a safe place. She had to gain their trust, prove herself, and stitch a very bad dog bite wound on her arm *on her own* because the others wouldn't believe she wasn't going to turn into a zombie. Disinfectant, needle and everything. And she was attacked by a zombie while doing it. And she still found the energy to yell at the others when they accused her of stealing the medical supplies ("I'm still. not. bitten!"). She had to be the sole emotional support for a guy who lost his entire family, and was subject to frequent bursts of anger. While she was by far the youngest of the group, she was frequently one of the only mature one as the others would dispute authority between themselves. At one point, she can (depending on player's choices) dive into a frozen lake without a second thought to save one of the survivors, resulting in the others pulling her out of the freezing water and getting her blankets and a fire to prevent severe hypothermia. Clem eventually took care of the newborn baby of a member of the group who died shortly after giving birth. Depending on player choices, she can do so with one member of the group, or, disgusted with the lies and petty quarrels of the adults, take care of the baby all on her own. That was a summary of seasons 1 & 2. I could go on with season 3 & 4 (there is SO MUCH) but that's enough text here and her wiki biography would mostly speak for itself.”

• “A smart girl, abandoned by her parents (though not intentionally) in the zombie apocalypse. Lee Everett, the protagonist of the first series, takes the poor child under his wing. Keeping her safe and teaching her what to value and how to survive are a big part of the moral core of the first series; she becomes the protagonist of the later Telltale Walking Dead games. Honestly she rules and is the best part of the games so I really don't want to spoil much about it.”

• "She survived a few days alone in the zombie apocalypse, then was taken care of by the protagonist, Lee. During Season One, she was mostly focused on finding her parents (who were out of town when the apocalypse started) and contributing to the group of survivors she was in.”

• ���Parents were out of the house when the zombie apocalypse happened. Rescued by dude, sad and terrible hijinks occur.”

Why should they win the tournament?: “Clem is one of the toughest and most tragic video game character. Ever. After being protected by Lee/the player, she loses her innocence too quickly, but struggles to protect the rest of her humanity. When all the adults lose their minds, she is the one beacon of hope and reason. She can be kind, and tough as nails. At 11 she can work through the pain and stitch her arm on her own. Eventually, she herself become a parental figure, and in turn has to teach the hard lessons she learned (which is even harder than learning them in the first place!). With infinite love to give, and infinite pain to anyone who would hurt her or the ones she protects, she is like a diamond in the rough, forged by immense pressure and never breaking.”

• “she's a survivor and I love her”

• “She's awesome, but in the first game she's especially kind-hearted and you just want to protect her from everything. Clem acts as the protagonist's moral compass throughout the first season, and everything you teach her is reflected throughout the story. In the sequel games you see her become her own person and eventually learn to survive on her own, even raising a kid in the Final Season - her character development is one of my favourites in fiction.”

• “Their ability to think and act under pressure from their zombie ridden experiences would help them survive in a tournament-like setting.”

[pretentious-art-love]

Film Reviews #7 - Madoka Magica the Movie Part III: The Story of the Rebellion

Spoilers for both movie and show will follow ahead!

This film, and the TV show itself, have a lot of flaws, like holy crap there are so many flaws that I just feel lazy when I think about listing them all.

Anyway, let's list them all, first and foremost, the pacing is incredibly convoluted, like bloody hell the first time you watch this you will have eyebrow pain from frowning so much and you will be mentally exhausted of all the things you have to keep to track of to puzzle the story together in a overarching arc that feels as long as listing all the digits of Pi, and most digits of Pi serve no purpose whatsoever! The thing is that, this movie would have worked a lot more as a full TV season for the show, things are so heavily compressed and the pacing might start slowly but then goes super fast and then builds up an important scene and then moves to another part of the plot! The TV show does have this same issue as well, since while it builds up nicely around the beginning, some things are cut short and that makes some scenes feel underdeveloped, like the whole arc with Sayaka and the pain of feeling like a lich, or a zombie, we got to see her pain and her reluctantcy to talk to the boy she likes, but we didn't get to see or feel what bad things she felt would happen in a relationship in the state she was in, I have dealt with dysphoria myself, so I understand her predicament to an extent, but I know a lot of people will think she is just dumb, the friendship of Homura and Madoka could have been expanded more to make us feel the importance of Madoka in Homura's life, and at the end she just comes as a very obsessed lesbian, I can go on and on, but again, I am getting a little lazy, the first season could have even been 24 episodes long, this movie, 12 episodes long, but with its movie running time it has at the very most 8 episodes worth of runtime, and that hurts the storytelling a lot.

Because of that, there are scenes with a lot, and I mean a lot of exposition, with Kyubey being the equivalent of the exposition pug from the Men in Black series here, while in the show he still had a bigger role in the story despite also delivering a lot of exposition. That makes the whole story feel clunky, convoluted, and nonsensical, we don't get shown what it is happening, we get told about it more than what it is healthy for a story. There are some characters, like Bebe, that are introduced in a very quick way and then work as a normal part of the rooster without us getting to know her backstory, I only know it myself because a friend told me about it from something she read about a gacha game that expanded her arc. All this, all these issues, and more, that it's hard to call it a good movie, let alone a good show because of that, and the thing with animation and art like this is that knowing how to use your screen-time properly is really really difficult, and no matter the path you pick (either some scenes of quick exposition or basically not explaining it at all just to leave it to additional material) will end up leaving at least some people unhappy.

So, what about the goods? Is there anything good in this movie at all? Yes, there is, starting with the eye candy that is Shaft's visual direction, with that heavy French New Wave influence and featured not just here but also in the Madoka show and the Monogatari series, for the whole 100 episodes of it, its an absolute joy, the surreal atmosphere with complex backgrounds, overbearing lighting, characters that talk in such a idiosyncratic way that feels unique to them, and the cutout animation that mixes with the more traditional characters to create this scary but beautiful aura with the unnatural creatures and happening of this world, for eye candy like this alone I would rate this movie 4 stars, and out of all the discourse people seem to bring from this movie, it is at least the general consensus that the visuals of it are great!

But! That's not the thing, haha, you see, because the reason I like this movie so much… the reason I like this movie so much it's because of its writing! Yes, that is right! Yes, I know, you might be saying the obvious, how I, with all the issues I see about this movie and the TV show, saying that the best thing about Rebellion being the writing is bogus, so now, just stay still, and listen. You see, the Madoka TV show was fine… it was fine, it was a fun show, you know, a normal deconstruction of the super hero genre, even if you aren't into magical girls, as long as you know what a super hero is, and are familiar with the trope of the normal person protagonist thingy being chosen to save the world, you will enjoy the show, the TV show has some twists and turns that make you wonder who the real villain is or what it is going to happen next, but there are things that you can easily predict from the first episode alone, and as the story goes along, these predictions get confirmed to you, and the end of the show does not really come as a surprise when you reach it, you say, ahh, yeah, that makes sense, that was nice.

Madoka the TV show takes the whole idea of the Magical Girl/Super Hero and shows us a story where the only way to save the world is sacrificing yourself, even at the cost of your humanity, and plays with the idea that maybe the best option for you is to not become a super hero, a magical girl, because the cost for that power and that responsibility can be too great to bare. The show ends in a bittersweet note, and plays with the idea of Godhood and the ideal time loop after a sacrifice has been made, that idea is very fun on its own, there are interesting rules within the show that allow Madoka to propose a cohesive idea of God without becoming a power trip story, like the idea that God is in every place and every time in the universe, but can't directly interact with us because its fighting to keep the balance of the world as we know it, making it no more than a mere observer that cannot alter our life on its own will despite being omnipresent.

The idea is good, and I like it a lot, even when there are shows that have used this idea to make things a lot more interesting things with them, like it is the case of Serial Experiments Lain where its ending is not only an exploration of godhood but it also plants questions about our identity on itself, and about who we are now in the digital era, which makes more the message a lot more personal to the audience. So, the show itself is fine, yeah, the ending had been done already before and after, the plot is a bit convoluted and characters arcs cut short, but overall its a fun ride with its own self contained ending, not life changing or anything but really good for the fans of this kind of media.

Anyway, the show become super popular and a movie sequel was approved, so what are we gonna do now? The show had already used the concept of alternative timelines for its main plot, so if you are going to make a sequel or alternative version, using them to spicy things up or continue along with the characters its a no go, its a really big task to continue things from the point the TV show ended, and the struggle does show, some people call the movie unnecessary, and I can see why would they think that. The movie does have also some well known tropes like the ideal/dystopian timeline that starts the new arc of the franchise that has been shown in anime like… well, I don't think I can say it without making it a spoiler, but if you want to know, ask me, it's a fun trope to write, and a confusing one to watch. In that part, it is nothing new, and the pacing is a lot more convoluted than the TV show, not just reducing character arcs and growth to mere one liners but also making the whole succession of events a mind boggling mess to watch the first time.

But around the end, around the end, it happens, it just happens. Homura's arc in the show was good enough, she acts as the quiet, traumatized hero, the martyr that is under the scenes and tries to save people despite looking as a cold hearted foe in the outside, she was someone with extreme methods that could involve even killing Sayaka or letting Mami die as long it meant to save Madoka, there are great moments she has like in the episode 10 where she and Madoka are about to become witches, and Homura says that as long they are together, she doesn't care if she destroys the entire world with her, and that she would destroy and unleash her despair on the whole earth as long she gets to be with Madoka, which I found quite passionate, the way she remembers her after everything has passed, and how get to see her more and more as the protagonist in the show as it goes on.

The thing that… her character as it is its fine, it is just fine, like… she is a good character, but maybe not the most memorable character ever? I mean considering that the trope of the martyr hero that is silently suffering but is helping the hero from the shadows its a very well known trope, it doesn't come as a twist, it is something that you can even see from episode 1, and a lot of people did, myself included, when the flashback scenes come, you say, yeah yeah, I see it now, but there is not really a twist, not the twist the show wanted you to experience, it was heavily implied and when you see it come, you watch it mostly because you want to know the how, not the why, of her character. So yes, the character its fine, it is a good character, but it doesn't change things too much, it just serves as a another spring in the perfectly tied together clockwork that is the show, it has a nice conclusion, all answers are given to you, when you look at it, it does feel as what you would expect, it is a fine good clock, aside the pacing, you could say the TV show its a good clock, maybe too good in fact, too tidy and perfect for its own good, it is a story that ends as how it should have, with protagonists that end with the character growth that they should have… Madoka does the sacrifice of losing her humanity to save all magical girls, and Homura is finally able to express her pain directly to the person that she loves, and is finally able to break the time loop she is in, living now in an universe where magical girls don't become witches, and continues as a silent hero that fights from the shadows, with her sad backstory, and her resolve to go on, it's all really nice, a really tidy and clean ending for a show…

But, if you allow me to be a bit pedantic… I think that's boring, super and incredibly ultra mega boring, it is boring, boring boring, super boring, expected, already shown, already made, predictable! It is boring! BO-RI-NG! It is too by the numbers! And yes, sure, Madoka started as a deconstruction of the Magical Girl genre, and it might have been seen as something that subverted the source material it was inspired from, but that is only if you came to it blind, all blind, expecting something cute and fun, so in other terms, it relied in nothing more than a marketing gimmick, and when your movie relies in a marketing gimmick, once that gimmick is gone, half of its appeal its over, just like with The Blair Witch Project, sure it was supposed to be a real found tape, but of course you can't keep your actors locked in a basement, so the immersion is absolutely broken out of the gate with that. I did my best, and I watched Madoka as blind as possible, not knowing anything about the plot, anything, I didn't google it, checked it or did anything or research about it, but even then, when people mention Madoka on the internet, they say, oh Madoka… haha, Madoka is not what it pretends to be! Mwhahaha! If Madoka comes up as a random conversation topic in your discord server, that is the bare minimum you are going to hear. I can say that in this day and age, it is incredibly obvious from the get go that you come to Madoka looking forward to it pull a fast one on you, and with me having watched stuff like Magical Girl Site around 2017 or so and being used to a whole fanfare of violent magical girl shows, I arrived to Madoka and I kept asking myself, where is all the blood? Where is the angst? The edgyness? Sure, a character just died in episode 3, the cutouts are artsy and fancy, but to be honest with you, I'm not feeling subverted right now! I am waiting to see the most shocking and grotesque thing to exist! Where is it?! And then, I have to adjust my expectations, the plot it is very interesting with the material it works on, people say Kyubey did nothing wrong, and that is a discussion you can argue with very solid points, but if you are familiar with the the time loop genre or time travel stories, you will see that Homura is a good girl from episode 1, from episode 1.

I kept eating my nails waiting for Madoka to become a magical girl in every episode, just to start to realize around episode 5 and 6 that it most likely wouldn't happen in the whole anime, and if it did, it would probably be only at the very end, because the story is about avoiding letting Madoka become a magical girl. When you realize what kind of story it is, you can see the whole picture of it before it ends, it is just so tidy and clean to the point it is almost antiseptic and symmetrical, just uncannily geometrical, it just feels artificial, and fiction is that, artificial, but the magic trick is about to make it feel like its not. Sure, you are going through a very elaborate and carefully made build up, but even when I am in that slowly but surely ascending roller-coaster, I could be ripping my eyes out because I just want the roller-coaster to start to descend! I am seeing the whole landscape from up here already! Just shake me right now! Scare me away! Even when the show ends with a character turning into godhood and rewriting the entire world and history as they knew it you can't do anything else than say… yeah, that was a good ending, all arcs were written… all characters were there… and the conflict was resolved as it should have, it was all done, in a tidy neat little bow, overall, it is one of the TV shows of all time.

Listen, I know that there is only 7 basic plots for all fiction, I get it, and it is not easy to making something properly satisfying when you have to handle several characters, fantasy worlds with rules on their own, the feelings you want to convey and handle the life of all people that live temporarily in your head, but I just want to dream! Is that so wrong? Is it wrong of me to wish for a character that makes me feel absolute and complete rage even when do not actually exist? To want to feel inspired by a conclusion a character reaches that is actually taboo for the place they and I live in and that makes the audience raise an eyebrow because it defies the status quo? To have a Chekhov's gun unfired the whole play? I just want to feel that the world I am watching to feel real! To have the gun there just because it happened to be that there was a gun there! Not because it was left by the karmic threads of destiny for the heroes to pick! That is what I want, it will make people angry, it will make people confused, but that doesn't matter, because at the end of the day, that's what I really want, I want to feel things! Not to account for all the mathematical equations the screenwriter is trying to balance on a narrative!

So, in this movie, we see something further beyond than that perfect, tidy ending of the show, we see that Homura, despite Madoka's promise of being always everywhere and every time, is still afflicted by her inability to interact with her, to see her or talk to her, to see that Madoka cannot see interact with her friends, her family, and that for most purposes, she is as good as dead to the world. Because all of this, she ends up, due to Kyubey's meddling and others, creating a fake reality where she and her friends are all fighting as a group of friends, always together, and living a happy life following their own duty as magical girls, the life they always dreamed. After a lot of suspicion and her good detective skills, she realizes that the city they live in is no more than a mirage, and that the friends she has been fighting with have been trapped due to her own grief. Even Madoka, who used to be an omnipresent being, had turned into her previous, human form, and it is interacting with the world just like she used to. After all this, Homura, yet one more time, decides to follow her path of a martyr, and tries to sacrifice herself now that she has gotten her wish to talk to Madoka yet one more time, she doesn't want to keep her friends in a glass prison where everything is fake, where they fight threats that do not really exist, where Madoka is not doing her duty saving other magical girls, and she cries because she knows that even after the sacrifice Madoka made, she is still unable to move on, and it is heartbreaking.

Just before she finally jails herself in an eternal prison where not even Madoka to save her, ready to experience eternal pain, her friends come to save her, Mami and Kyoko, who after realizing they have been trapped they decide to help, and even Bebe and Sayaka, who had died in a way or another in the past, are in a way, alive, helping Madoka, and are working together to save her. It is all a nice display of the power of friendship, and a nice ending, so nice, so wholesome and cute that almost makes me puke, hehe, even Sayaka says that they are kinda like Madoka's secretaries and are moving through the cosmic plane in a carriage, isn't that nice? Since they are all working together, why not start giving presents to the kids every 24th of December as well? Why not make it a tradition? Call it, I don't know… Christmas or something! Even when had experienced those characters death's, it's fine! They will just go back to the main dusty cloud of the whole universe hivemind, where they will continue to do good deeds like the super heroes we are in our own life! Haha! Haha! How nice! Isn't it?

Don't make me laugh.

Anime has touched a lot of times the idea of instrumentality, right? The idea of being part of a whole, huge massive being, Evangelion, Kaiba, Code Geass, and Ghost in the Shell have mentioned the idea either as a main plot device or mentioning it as something they want to avoid, right? Because the unknown is scary, that's the basis of cosmic horror, the basis of losing our own individuality, our self, and become something that might not even be truly alive to our own eyes. So when Madoka takes Homura's hand and promises to take her with her, to that afterlife, so they can be together forever, I can feel the fear, I can feel the wish, the need to avoid that to happen, because even if there is a promise for her to be together forever, Homura has already experienced the pain of being unable to interact with Madoka in the human world, the pain of knowing Madoka wouldn't be able to interact with other people, her friends, what does even mean to be a god if you can't put your own will of your own in the entire universe? If you can't experience what it is to have your own senses? To be a fragile and mortal being? After Homura remembers all the pain she went through to keep Madoka alive in every loop, and the pain she experienced even when she somehow achieved with Madoka entering into a new plane of existence, she decides that that's not what she was to have, and an awesome thing happens.

She takes Madoka and breaks her apart, stealing her power, and yet once again, jailing her in a reality she has herself made, just as she said herself, a new demon is born. The story, in a way, ends the same as it just started, but with the big difference that Homura has turned from protagonist, to antagonist, from secretive hero to anti hero, and the people who trusted in her, the audience as well, felt heartbroken, felt disappointment, and condemned the movie because of it. But the thing is that, even when the pacing is convoluted and filled with a lot of exposition and shortcuts, the story on itself it is not! It is not, I can feel the character's pain and their whole psychological progression, I can deeply relate to them in a way that feels so real that I can almost touch it, the trying to help behind the shadows, the failing and succumbing to despair, the accepting the bittersweet solution and gray reality of things, and the pain that comes from realizing that you can't really accept that bittersweet reality and you just break over again! Like, to put a very personal and specific example, I am trans, right? Trust me, this is relevant. So, I start realizing I want to be a girl, and I say, yeah, this is a phase, this is not right, and then I try to push it inside, and I try to be more manly, and I try to become more outgoing and talk with girls the way it is expected from me, and I fail, and I fail, and I am awkward, or I do things I don't understand and that do not work because I just don't like acting as a man, but I keep trying, and I end up having a lot of faux passes and sour memories of all my high school life because of it, and then I just start to understand that I am no more than awkward boy and that I am fated to be an awkward weird boy all my life and that's just how things are, that girls can do certain things, and I can do certain things as well but not what girls can't, and that dream girl that always inhabits my mind its just someone nobody else can really see, just like Homura accepting that Madoka wouldn't never turn into a tangible person in her own world.

But, I can't accept it! It is unbearable, it is really really unbearable, and not really a fair compromise at all, even if I am not trying to date anybody, even when I am trying to be on my own, be with myself, I just can't accept being a man, because it makes me miserable, seeing myself in the mirror, it makes me sick, my voice, I hate it, the relationships I have with other people, they are noting more than a mask, nothing more than a facade in a shell I am carrying and in a body I can't even use to express myself well! So what do I do? I do what I should not do, I do something that could be considered a crime, against what our religion told my family! What everyone thinks is right, what even my own biology gave me and what should be the right path to take, instead of forgetting about all those desires that I should not have, I take the bite, and I start a physical transition, even if it means losing the friends I had, even if it means probably losing my parents! Even if it means becoming a stranger to the people that knew me and making cry to the people that took care and grew up with me all my life! Because that is my desire, because that is what makes me happy! Oh and because screw you, that's why. Wouldn't destroying the God that reigned over your life and do whatever you want completely outside of the plan he had with you the most liberating thing you could ever do? Wouldn't that be the ultimate expression of your own free will? See? This is what is so good about Homura's character this arc, not because being becoming trans is akin to becoming a villain or any nonsense like that, but because to have what you truly want, you sometimes you will have to take decisions that will make others unhappy, because sometimes you just can't play the good girl all the time!

After this, Homura turns from the tidy and fated secret martyr hero of her perfect and tidy story and turns into something a lot more real, she turns into someone you can't really agree with because turns to be heavily flawed in her morals, but that you still deeply relate with, and that emotion she felt around the end of the movie, I felt it deeply and intensely, and you feel it too, because we have seen not only her breaking point, but also the whole arc and descent into madness. Despite all sorts of bad villains we have had in super hero fiction lately, villains that end up evil because of an accident or just because the protagonist didn't pay attention to them for long enough (looking at you Iron Man 3), Rebellion, despite being a super hero film, it takes its time to make its own protagonist, a real and true villain. In anime we have had villains with enough sympathetic qualities, like with 千と千尋の神隠し [Spirited Away] where we can see the need for control and order that help us see her in a more humane light, but they still have a certain, really clear defect like greed that give enough reasons for the audience to not side with her, in films like A Clockwork Orange we have seen villains so vile and disgusting that you would never want to side with them, but have some compassion for after they lose a bit of their humanity, and in recent films like Joker, we have had villains where you feel so close to them that you can't help but say, it is me! I am a villain, if I was in that person's shoes, I would turn into a villain all along, I would be the one to hurt you, because this is what my pain has turned me into! Because I simply can't hold it together any longer! It is me! Me! Me! Its that kind of villains that makes you really tremble, that make you really scared, villains like Joaquin's Joker, like Homura, because you are scared not of anything fantastical, or a fictional concept, someone with a powerful gun or over aching politics that are outside of your own reach, you are afraid of your own self, and the horror that creeps within…

I have seen people even argue that Homura did nothing wrong, but even when you agree, like me, that she did something truly wrong, just because she was in love, you just can't help but feel for sympathetic for her, not even because we have been love, or we also have had a crush, but because we all have experienced grief in a way or another, and we are afraid of the unknown. There is something that I really like about cosmic horror and the fear of the unknown and I think turning humans themselves the mere sources of that fear of the unknown that you can use to evolve the genre in something new. With the ending, the whole movie and the franchise altogether breaks into that neat tidiness and clockwork precision of character arcs and destroys a character that people liked making it into something really different, but you want to know why this is great? Because it all felt real, because unlike all the rest of the shows answers and questions, that moment alone felt like a break into the perfectly synced chain of events that lead Homura's life. This is why, even with all the qualms I have with the movie, with the show itself, with the things I don't like and the things I can laugh at, this is why, this movie deserves my absolute and guaranteed five stars, making it the top of 10 movies I have ever seen, because what I felt with it, I felt it so vividly and so intensely that for a moment I felt I could see a real person in its plot, rather than a mere sets of puppets pulled by a writer's strings.

I remember a comment about Nosferatu, eine Symphonie des Grauens [Nosferatu: A Symphony of Horror] where a person said that in their class the people who watched it kept laughing the whole way through the movie, making fun of the techniques, the plot and the tropes of the time, even after when the movie finished and they all left, but there was one moment, one single moment around the end where Nosferatu dies and turns to ashes, everyone stayed silent, surprised, and for that moment alone, they felt the surprise and shock of the character's death, without saying anything, only feeling what was really happening, and they commenter said, that is cinema, and that's right, that is cinema! Even when I did not understand Броненосец «Потёмкин» [Battleship Potemkin] the scene of the stair kept me fascinated and horrified the time I watched it, and with this movie, I got shaken to my very core at the end, do you understand what I am trying to say? Sometimes we will interact and understand movies and fictional media as much as we do real people, partially, only in bits, but if we do, that moment we connect with each other will become something truly special.

Even when there are unanswered questions at the end, even when there are characters that could have gotten more screen time, even where the pacing could have been a lot slowed down, even when things could have been shown instead of told, even when the character design is too chibi-like for me to call it actually interesting, even when its just a goofy magical girls movie with all those idiosyncrasies that this Japanese sub genre of super hero fiction for kids has that seem silly to me, even with all that, I think this movie is truly great, not just because of its artistic direction and animation eye candy, but also because its with its conclusion that the movie achieved something that felt real and unique. Stories about exploring godhood are incredibly fun because they are stories where you can get really creative with the stakes of the plot and it's conflict. In the movie, that whole concept in the movie morphs in an amazing idea, filled with lots of possibilities, from the silly little comedies like Bruce Almighty where Godhood comes as something that might not work for you because the balance in the world is too big for you to keep in control on, or action films like The Matrix Revolutions where your mere existence as a God is part of the chain of events that keeps the world fated to die, will you keep your power at the cost of everything else? Or would you sacrifice yourself? On games we also have theories like the ones of the Elder Scrolls franchise where it is implied that the universe is simply a dream of The Godhead, so keeping him asleep becomes part of the thin thread that keeps your existence, and the laws of your world can become more flexible since everything your characters know is purely oneiric on essence, and that is just an incredible help for your world-building when you are a writer!

This movie plants the idea of a demon trying to keep God asleep because they are in love with them and for real though, that is probably one of the funniest ideas to come out from fiction in 2013, there are other anime like the Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya that play with the concept of Godhood and the task of having to keep a God asleep but this whole series turns that concept with an antagonistic lenses, which makes it a lot more fun, since the biggest catastrophe is not something you want to avoid, but something that you live in every day, in the story. I know, I am afraid and excited for the upcoming sequel, because just as I can feel a great connection with an artist, or a person, that something can always change after we all move to the next stage of our lives, just as a franchise moves to a (probably final) sequel, and a new arc, still though, I know that was done here will always mean something to me, it is not a simple retcon, it is not unnecessary, it felt warranted, it felt genuine, and it made me feel truly intense things.

And that is, my whole review.

10/10

[leofrith]

Rules: list eight shows for your followers to get to know you better.

Tagged by @aeide 💞✨ I've had this sitting in my drafts for almost a month and completely forgot to finish it 😭

Not all of these are shows that I would ever actually recommend to people, but are rather shows that I either vividly remember regardless of quality and/or because the experience of having watched them is intimately tied with the memories of certain times of my life. Okay.

Seinfeld - was a staple in my house growing up, and it's the piece of media that my family and I most often pull quotes from.

Cybersix - I have vivid memories of begging my parents to let me stay up to the late late time of 8:30 in the summer time to watch this baby on Teletoon. Also the gender fluid cyborg was probably one of the first hints that I might be a little bit gay.

Harper's Island - I know for a fact that this show that absolutely nobody knows about or has heard of was NOT as good as I remember it. But to describe it briefly, this was a little murder mystery about a serial killer running rampant on a resort island during a destination wedding. I was at summer camp when the last episode aired and my parents sent me a copy of it because I was tearing out my hair over who the killer was. Do NOT look up spoilers for this on the off chance that you decide to watch it, because trying to piece the thing together was half the fun!!

In the Flesh - I miss my gay zombie show!!!! 🔪

Star Wars: The Clone Wars - after finally watching all the Star Wars movies in 2015-16, I reluctantly started watching this because my friend recommended it and I needed more. Then I got really into it and I remember running back and forth between my room and his in the first year uni dorm and screaming at each other about it. And I no longer speak to that friend but that was a fun time, and it introduced me to my girl Ahsoka :)

The Americans - another one I binge watched in uni. Beloved under appreciated historical drama. Everyone Go Watch The Americans Right now. 🔫

The Mandalorian - everything about this show has been terrible as of late, to say the least. But the first season is still very close to my heart and I have met some of my dearest friends through this show so it can't be all bad!! <3 2019 Mando era I adore you I miss you.

Derry Girls - beloved comfort show with soooo many Cranberries needle drops.

I'm not tagging anyone this time because I feel like I'm tagging people in these things a LOT recently but anyone who wants to do this can feel free!!

[wanderingandfound]

Spoilers for the Week 8, Run 3 of the Couch to 5k and the first 5 episodes of season 1 of Zombies, Run!. My heart absolutely broke and the run wasn't even halfway over.

Becca is Ed's wife and Molly's mom.

Didn't Ed say that he normally isn't gone overnight? *goes to check* Yeah, he did. And Becca said that he was gone multiple days. Suggesting that Becca got bitten as she was distractint the zoms from us, from Runner Five.

[runbookzombie]

I went out for a 3.05km run yesterday at lunch time. It was too windy for me and I couldn’t decide whether the jacket should stay on or off. But at least I ran and didn’t slack.

Listened to Zombies Run Season 3 Mission 8 - Believe.

Spoilers after the picture:

The cult members made no sense, but I guess that’s what cults are usually like. We also met a person named Moonchild who makes and trades special “substances.” Louise asking for smack from her made me chuckle.

I really don’t know what to make of this mission. We haven’t received any new information about comansys or anything else. Maybe we’ll find something in the next episode.

[artist-issues]

New year, new Season, and I just gotta say--

REALLY, ZR writers, out the GATE you're gonna just kill Ellie like that

[curiousobsession101]

SPOILERS FOR ZOMBIES, RUN! SEASON 3 MISSION 8

Zombies, Run! has forever twisted my mind about this because this is a trope thrown in rarely but repeatedly. So I have to say Neil Gaiman because there's an artifact you get from a mission (not the one I put a spoiler warning for but that's the one that introduces this group) that's a newsletter from the zombie worshiping cult about how they were going to put on a sci-fi/fantasy convention and they managed to get zombified Neil Gaiman and were going to have him as a guest of honor. (If they were any other group in Zombies, Run! I'd say they would presumably restrain him so he doesn't eat his fans but these are the people who fully believed zombies wouldn't eat them if they sounded like zombies themselves so...)

Important Question

In the zombie apocalypse which celebrity would be funniest to have turned into a zombie who retained all their mannerisms as they try to eat you?

[crownleys]

I'm almost done replaying season 7 and I can't wait to run into my best worst girl again

[abeltownshipslittlebitch]

Peter, during his time on radio Abel: Tonight I’m going to be rating different hair products I’ve tried.

Peter, grabbing a bottle of hairspray: Now I’m going to say right off the bat this did not taste very good.

Five, on Mor Island, listening in: I’m sorry did he say TaSTe?!?

@dorkylittleweirdo

[wubbelwubbwubb]