#and the second one is one from some magical girl anime from the 90s (I think it’s called wedding peaches? idk) but it was clearly vintage

[trashcreatyre]

I lovveee thrifting in other cities, especially cities that don’t have any big corporate thrift stores (goodwill) that don’t have anything actually good anymore and way over price for stuff

Like I found two discontinued dolls yesterday. Wild shit

[skipppppy]

CARMEN SANDIEGO CHARACTERS + MOVIES

Boo I felt like making headcanons again bc I spend more time wondering what these assholes do in their free time than I do on my job

CARMEN

Didn’t have access to movies growing up so Player, Zack, and Ivy have been catching her up on the most popular ones

HORRIBLE to watch with. Doesn’t really understand “suspension of disbelief” as a concept and will ask stupid questions the whole time. Player almost ended their friendship because she nitpicked Lord of the Rings for being “unrealistic”

Enjoys low stakes 2000s girl chick flicks like mean girls and legally blonde. She has enough stress in her life man she just wants to relax

HATES heist movies because of how innacurate they are. Team Red has taken to watching them JUST to hear her pick them apart

PLAYER

Sci-fi/fantasy junkie. Anything and everything that has aliens/magic and shitty practical effects from the 80’s/90’s he is all over

Has never said a single kind thing about the Star Wars franchise in his life. They are his favourite movies of all time

ADORES Edgar Wright and has slowly been converting Team Red to his movies. Zack loved Baby Driver. Ivy loved Shaun of the Dead. Shadowsan loved Hot Fuzz. He considers Scott Pilgrim the pinnacle of Canadian cinema

Cannot STAND the amount of remakes happening in Hollywood recently

ZACK

Canon enjoyer of blockbuster action movies. Everyone dreads the nights when he gets to choose a film bc his taste is so generic

Does not know what the Snyder cut is. Thank god

His only redeeming quality is a love of early dreamworks. Will not stop quoting Madnagascar

Has seen every Marvel movie and thinks all of them are good. Player has BEGGED him to watch better movies but he won’t. He’s the type to rag on Scorsese for being “boring”

Has seen Kevin Feige’s extended filmography. Does not know who that man is

IVY

Horror fanatic

Banned from choosing movies for film night after convincing them to watch her “favourite lesbian romcom” with her. That lesbian romcom was Saw

Ellen Ripley was not only her personal hero but also her gay awakening. The Xenomorph queen was her second gay awakening

Also loves period dramas. Enjoys the tiddies and knows she would look SO good in those fancy waistcoats the men wear

Watches old slashers with Carmen and laugh whenever someone dies in a stupid way

SHADOWSAN

Faculty considered movies “low brow” entertainment so he hasn’t seen a movie made before the year 2000

Loves a good mob flick. Got into Scorsese specifically because Zack hated him. Goodfellas is his favourite

Everyone assumes he enjoys samurai movies but he actually HATES them. Hideo would ramble about historical inaccuracies the whole way through and he’s still bored just thinking about it

Used to love Yakuza films back in the day but they were soured for him after actually living as one

Loved Knives Out, found Daniel Craig VERY attractive, and has since fallen down the James Bond rabbit hole

CHASE

The most pretentious film hack you’ve ever met in your life. He is taking you to a back alley screening of some arthouse eastern european gay porn on a first date and it will be the most profound thing you’ve ever seen in your life

Detective noir movies and cheesy black and white romances are his favourites. He likes falling asleep to them

He and Player both appreciate animation as a form of cinema, but while Player is referring to like. the Mario movie, Chase is talking about some 3 minute Russian stopmotion surrealist piece from 1951. He attends Annecy every year and has been banned from the Oscars due to threats of violence

He likes Poirot tho. Transmasc king

JULIA

If she has a few hours to herself she’d rather watch a documentary than go to a movie theatre, but she loves historical dramas

Enjoys biopics but thinks it’s stupid to make them for people who are alive

Likes watching movies for the sake of trash talking them, so she is the only person who can tolerate sitting through one with Carmen

LOVES Wes Anderson though. Chase got her into his stuff and the symmetry scratches an itch in her brain. But don’t tell him that

Also enjoys period dramas for the tiddies

CHIEF

Shitty cop movie enjoyer. The kind of person who insists that Die Hard is her favourite christmas movie

LOVES heist movies because of how inaccurate they are. Will mentally nitpick whatever secret service is going after them and be like “ACME wouldn’t do that lol”

She’s semi aware that she’s the antoagonist in Carmen’s own heist narrative so she’s started having fun with it

Closet lover of b-tier comedy movies. Like the ones with Adam Sandler and Kevin Hart on the cover

Does not enjoy watching movies socially. That is quality time for her and her cat. She does not have to shush Commander

[tigergirltail]

Seeing a fair number of posts lately from transfems wishing they had known a trans person who would have told them when they were younger that they're trans, and it's been bothering me. First of all because it puts the onus of responsibility on this mysterious, cool, older, wiser transwoman to break the egg out of their shell, which I thought we agreed was a toxic ideal back when we called them Manic Pixie Dream Girls.

Second, and more importantly, because in the ideal scenario, in which the egg is very definitely a closeted transgirl, and the more open transwoman is genuinely just trying to help the egg find her true self, being forceful about it can set that discovery back years, even decades.

Source: It literally happened to me.

In my late teens, I played an MMORPG called City of Heroes, and my best friend in that game would later reveal to me that she is a transwoman. As I aged into my mid twenties, we got to meeting up IRL and going to anime conventions together, and she'd inevitably broach the topic of me trying more feminine presentation. Not even telling me she saw signs, just subtly trying to steer me in the right direction. She was particularly enthusiastic about seeing me in a skirt.

Every single time it happened, I'd get mad and shut down.

There's a psychological phenomenon in which, when someone holds a set of deeply held beliefs, and those beliefs are challenged by verifiable evidence, the cognitive dissonance causes the person to double down, and hold to those beliefs even harder. That's why right-wingers are Like That, but it applies just as much to all of us. I'll get back to this concept in a bit.

When I was around 15, an anime aired in Canada called Cardcaptor Sakura, or Cardcaptors as it was localized. Something about the exact stage of development I was, and seeing Sakura getting to set aside her mundane responsibilities to dress up in cute costumes and go out on magical adventures, it called to my closeted little girl heart. I have a vivid memory of staring in the mirror, holding my hair to look like Sakura's and imagining myself as her. As a girl. I have many more memories of looking at feminine characters and thinking "gods I wish I could look/dress like that", but Sakura was the first.

I kept it fully to myself, because I had grown up in the late 80s and 90s - before the word 'transgender' was commonly known, before media depicted us as anything but objects of mockery or horror. It was a deeply ingrained and societally reinforced belief that Boys Are Boys and Girls Are Girls, and never the two shall cross.

So when my best online friend tried to convince me to be more feminine, that cognitive dissonance would kick in and I'd shut down. Even though she was objectively correct that I was a closeted transgirl, it was her word against the word of my entire upbringing and societal viewpoint.

What actually helped, what actually put a dent in my egg, was the fact that she simply existed as a transwoman, she was visible and proud. That existence challenged my preconcieved notions in a way that could not be resisted.

From there, it was a matter of time and continued exposure.

Another friend who explained to me what 'cisgender' meant, and who eventually started leaning into transmasc presentation. A romantic partner who came out as genderqueer and helped me understand the concept of 'nonbinary'. Transgender content creators who posted about their experiences online - special shoutout to demilypyro and assumptionprime, two of the most influential voices for me while I was figuring this out, but far from the only ones.

The shields of my egg were down. It was primed for hatching.

On April 22, 2022, I was looking up some fanart of Hex Maniac from Pokemon X/Y, who I had cosplayed at a convention three years before, and thinking of how good it felt to wear that dress. How good it felt to look like her. How good it felt… to be a girl.

-CRACK-

…Later that day, I went to my old City of Heroes friend, practically begging her for help. How do I know if HRT is what I want? How do I know if I should transition? How do I know if I'm really a girl?

She knew. She always knew. She tried to tell me, but I wasn't ready to listen. Not yet.

The point of all of this is that one transperson telling an egg they're trans is not a solution to the problem. The problem is that society has tried very hard to make us the outliers, to make us the weirdos, but society is losing that war. If you want to help the eggs of the world, be visible, be proud, and treat being trans as something normal and beautiful. Don't tell them unless they ask, just… be there.

Eggs hatch when they're ready, and not a moment sooner.

Thank you for coming to my TED talk.

Oh, and by the way… She got her wish in the end. I wear skirts now.

[docholligay]

Given that I've already been deep in the shit for an hour over what amounts to what, fifteen seconds of the episode? I realize I'm going to have to make some choices and sacrifices here with what I do.

ANYWAY, so I don't know how much time I want to spend on "the witches' labyrinths are cool' but honestly, the witches labyrinths are so well done. The change in animation gives us such a palpable sense of how the world is WRONG here, and that the rules we understand to be true do not scan in this alternative world where these battles happen, little pockets hidden here and there. I absolutely love it, I'm so angry that I didn't think of it.

I love it so much, and I consider such an amazing way of yanking you immediately into the wrongness of the situation, that in a perfect world that we all deserve where I got to make the HBO original series version of Sailor Moon, I would love to have the show largely be live action, but then when they have to fight something, it goes into an animated style, with a similar narrative justification. But every time it happens the animation style is different. (The final would of course have them fighting in, finally, the animation style of the 90s anime)

So this is the first the girls are going to learn of the consequences of being a magical girl, which can be far worse than Mami's death. I know they call it a witch here, and I have no issue with that, but in CONCEPT it is almost like a vengeful ghost. Something full of anger and malice but with little concept of the humanity it used to wield.

I don't know that I realistically believe the show is actually going for what I take from the whole structure of the magical girl to witch pipeline, but honestly I have precious little interest in what an author intends when I'm picking something apart. I think there's something to be said for the way that despair--and we know the moment of turning is affected by despair--can turn you into a monster. In our anger and in our sorrow, we can become something that does a far greater harm. And I think, based on my years and years of working with different organizations and political groups, that few people can hurt like a broken idealist. That's reflected here, in the idea that these young girls who are full of hope and fervor, the stronger they are, the worse they will eventually come. In that way, the show posits that either you die an idealist or live to become a monster. Certainly not a new idea, but not one I have otherwise seen reflected in magical girl anime.

I know a lot of people don't like that, and I think it's fine--Madoka may not be for you. But I personally love seeing this inevitability played out on a stage whether I agree with the real-world equivalent of it or not (and I'm not sure that I do, and I certainly do not as an inescapable truth. Only death is an inescapable truth)

[sneakygoldie]

Current Fandoms and Stuff I like! (will update often)

(Most favorite ones are Sailor Moon and Ojamajo Doremi, but the rest are a fight for second place! >:3)

Ed Edd N Eddy

South Park

Digital Circus

Murder Drones

BFDI/BFDIA/BFB/TPOT (most recent fandom)

Leo (2023 movie yeah 💀)

Regular show

Sailor Moon

Ojamajo Doremi

Precure

The Amazing World of Gumball

MHA

Cute High Earth Defense Club

Catscratch

Bluey

Marvel stuff (hehe)

Dragon Ball

Demon Slayer

Spooky Month

One Piece

Naruto

PPGZ and PPG

Canimals

Jewelpet

Pripara

Cardcaptor Sakura

Tokyo Mew Mew

Housebroken

Princess Tutu

All of Aphmau’s series! :>

Percy Jackson

Warrior Cats

Aristocats

Oliver and Company

Proud Family

Peanuts

Adventure Time

Lucky Star

Talking Tom and Friends

FHFIF

The Owl House

Gravity Falls

Whatever Happened to Robot Jones

Steven Universe

101 Dalmatians the Series

1O1 Dalmatian Street

Animal Jam (Play Wild and OG)

Roblox

Genshin Impact

Canimals

The Amazing Digital Circus

Bitlife

Sims 4

Dungeons & Dragons

The Simpsons

12. oz Mouse

(still fairly new to some of these, so yeahhhh)

Now time to explain the rules in this blog and some stuff about me!

-fav animal is seals bc they so silly, also one my most fav youtubers, leamon puppy has her main as a seal, think that’s where I first started loving seals so much but idk XDDD

-I absolutely love vintage vids, just something so interesting about them to me! I love animes from the 90s-2010s most, but my most FAVORITE anime genre is magical girls!

-My first magical series was probably Glitter Force (SMILE PRECURE DUB YALL), but then Sailor Moon caught my eye and it is one my favs to this day! I finished Tokyo Mew Mew first though!

-Fav character is Pop Harukaze! She doesn’t get much of a role in Ojamajo Doremi as a Ojamajo, but something about her personality or something.. I am just living for it!

-Some other favs.. and yes I have a long list bc my autistic brain can’t choose favorites when they are so unique.. are Tsubomi/Cure Blossom, Komugi/Cure Wonderful, Ice Cube (BFDI+), Bubble (BFDI+), Ruby (BFDIA+), Gelatin (BFDIA+), Flower (BFDI+), Two (BFB), Firey (BFDI+), X (BFB), Teardrop (BFDI+), Four (BFB), Bloo (FHFIF), Mac (FHFIF), Aiko (Ojamajo Doremi), Onpu (Ojamajo Doremi), Chibi Chibi/Sailor Chibi Chibi, Saki/Cure Bloom, Minako/Sailor Venus, Erika/Cure Marine, Nagisa/Cure Black, Bu-Ling/Mew Pudding, Yayoi/Cure Peace, Love/Cure Peach, Hana-chan (Ojamajo Doremi), Pollun/Porun (Precure), Jewlulu (Pripara), Tweek (you know what), Oz (Canimals), Muffin (Bluey), Zane (Mystreet/Aphmau), Garroth (Mystreet/Aphmau), Kim (Mystreet/Aphmau), Ian (Mystreet/Aphmau) and Noi (MID/Aphmau)!

-Fav color is lavender and pastel yellow

-Im scatterbrained at times, but can try remembering anything you say! Im clumsy and shy! <3

-“Do you have games on your phone” YES BUT LEAVE THEM IF ITS MY PHONE OR IPAD XDDD, especially my dear Animal Jam >:3

-I don’t really prefer to talk on email or text.. just tell me something on here or a social media platform like Youtube or Deviantart! I still use Gold the Ostrich as the user!

-Fav thing to say is “HOR HOR HOR HOR HOR” all i freaking know about fnaf is the movie with unnecessary add on lore 💀

-I don’t mind cussing, it’s just not a full on “lifestyle” for me

Now some rules! <3

-Everyone is allowed on my blog, it is mostly a tickle/random blog, but it’s quite decent so far!

-If you dislike this blog, please don’t say unnecessary stuff in your blogs, posts in any other media, etc if so. Just try ignoring this blog if possible.

-I can do commissions, especially of the following fandoms, but pls don’t get too upset if I don’t know a certain fandom, sometimes I forget to add a fandom to here.

- I am a minor, 13 in fact! So no sussy requests pleaseeee!! any other tickle requests are okay, even from fandoms I dont know, or your ocs! pls dont be mad if I don’t want to do your request! I will do anything that is sfw and accept lgbtq+ characters aswell!

-Might update this later, but this is good for now! Also this might stay as my only blog due to having no other ideas for blogs at the moment

[olderthannetfic]

Oh man, magical girl fandoms are a dumpster fire for antis. I was shocked at how many are in Sailor Moon. You know, the anime where a 14 year old's true love is a dude in college. Yes they are closer in age in the manga but many of these are anime fans. A lot of UsaMamo fans will go after anyone who ships Seiya X Usagi because he's supposedly a stalker who doesn't respect her boundaries, a fact that is WAY over blown and exaggerated in the fandom. Keep in mind these same people stan a ship between a 14 year old girl and a dude in college. Now I don't care if they ship it just let me ship my non canon ship in peace and don't write an essay on how my ship is problematic. (Yes even the Diamond/Usagi ship, I am fully aware that the stalkery rapey prince is in fact a bad dude, that's not stopping me from writing my kink fic).

And there is so much wank in the fandom. It feels like you can't do a damn thing without upsetting someone. You like one thing about the DiC American dub? You just have nostalgia goggles on and think it was way better than it was. Uh no I just like it in a so bad its good sort of way and for all the 90s cheese. That and what's wrong with nostalgia goggles for a cartoon? Some fans go as far as calling anyone who uses any of the Americans disrespectful to the creator. Even for like a very minor character.

There are also manga purists who will come at you for preferring anything in the anime.

The other annoying thing. In the manga, Naoko drew a picture of the four Sailor Soldiers paired up romantically with each of the four main bad guy minions. In their past lives they were good guys that were brainwashed to work for evil or something like that. In the Crystal anime (that follows the manga more closely than the 90s anime) they even confirm the romantic relationships between them. (It lasts for like five seconds because the guys are quickly killed off because they all do die in the anime and manga). So people want to ship the Sailor Soldiers with their respective Dark Kingdom general.

So why does the fandom have an issue with this? Well in the 90s anime, there were no such relationships hinted. Instead two of the Dark Kingdom generals were in a gay relationship. (The 90s anime turned one into a woman to censor it.) Instead of just seeing the manga and anime taking place in separate universes, people will call you homophobic for shipping Sailors/Generals. They will say that you are erasing two gay characters even though the creator of the original manga never intended for them to be in a relationship with each other. Of course, the word heteronormative gets thrown around to try to discourage people from shipping them.

I guess at the very least, Haruka/Michiru is still a very beloved ship and my experience with them in the fandom has been very pleasant. But since Sailor Moon is an older fandom I was hoping it would be very ship and let ship. This unfortunately does seem to be common in magical girl anime fandoms. So much purity culture!

--

[bramblesthatcat]

i know im not a steven universe blog but youtube knows i used to be a mentally ill middle schooler so i got recommended a bunch of SU songs and now i've binged the show again + movie + future and idk here r some of my SU opinions/hc bc fuck it why not.

opinions/thoughts

i totally think the Diamonds were redeemed way too quickly, and rewatching season 5 made me realize how god awful the pacing of that season was. they really needed a season 6 or like, split 5 in half idfk

obviously theres a difference between redemption and forgiveness, but I really wish that SU:F focused on that more bc it would've been a great internal conflict for steven but we only get like an 11 minute episode based on it (and yeah u could say that steven having mommy issues in Future is basically that but imo mommy issues r different than diamond issues)

pearl has the patience of a saint bc if my magical girl literal goddess of a gf/situationship left me for the 90's equivalent of a soundcloud rapper id never stop raging (yes this is partially a copypasta of that one tweet but they hit the nail on the head fr)

rewatching the series i love pearl so much i really see my younger self in her, especially w/ how autistic coded she is in regards to her feelings/emotions

i love seeing the different classic manga/anime artist styles reflected in each of the diamonds, like pinks design is so sailor moon vibes

steven shouldve flipped his shit before Future like, at least 6 times

headcannons/silly lil ideas

i like to think after SU:F and he's had time to heal, steven tries to connect with the diamonds and not run from/suppress that part of his family, like he's not gonna be 100% w/ them but he tries to at least accept it

steven also connects with greg's side of the family! idk I like to imagine he spends a lot of holidays with them to catch up on all the ones he missed

steven spends his summers in beach city and every other part of the year he dedicates to travel (idk he never seemed the type to settle down anywhere for long, and i fw the wandering nomad type)

steven grows his hair out as he gets older, like young-greg length (long haired men > literally any other hairstyle), despite the length it stays curly

once steven begins to accept/cope w/ being part diamond, he lets his hair go pink (either by dyeing it or magic, take ur pick) with the mentality of "im reclaiming this color from my mommy issues, also i look cool af" (this hc is mainly based off of how I like steven's pink hair in Future. style was first, lore was second lol)

post-Future steven is 1000% more willing to throw hands and lose his shit but in like a coping way bc he knows if he keeps it pent up it'll be 10x worse

steven definitely starts one of those van life style tiktok accounts and has a bunch of cats as his van pets

[themattress]

The Infinity Saga (No, not THAT one)

It really do be like:

I love the Infinity arc of the manga, and even moreso its Crystal adaptation. In some ways it's darker and more intense than the preceding Black Moon arc, but in other ways it's the most shining case of hope and idealism in the series. Whereas in the Black Moon arc the darkness of the setting and within the characters was a major focus, this one is about the light within the darkness. It's shown through the conflict between the Inner Senshi and the Outer Senshi, the Inner Senshi's trip through the Infinity Labyrinth, Hotaru's relationship with Chibusa and the dichotomy between her, Sailor Saturn and Mistress 9, and of course the resolution to the final battle. The expanded lore around things such as the Three Talismans and the Holy Grail is great, I love all the merging of science and magic, and while Pharaoh 90 is a pretty boring Big Bad, the rest of the Death Busters are standouts who are almost on par with the Black Moon Clan in terms of villainous excellence. It's some of Naoko Takeuchi's best work.

The 90s anime's Infinity arc is a different beast altogether. I first must say that I feel it started on the wrong foot and should have had a much different framing for the anime formula than it did: one which had Infinity Academy as a location from the start, had the Witches 5 as rotating episodic villains selected for missions by Kaolinite and equipped with Daimons by Professor Tomoe, and more gradually paced out Hotaru and her story. But judging it on its own merits rather than what I wanted it to be, it's good....for 22 out of 38 episodes; the ones Sukehiro Tomita was head writer for. Once Yoji Enokido took over, things went south quickly, with Hotaru and all connected to her, a resurrected Kaolinite, the other Witches 5, Infinity Academy, Mistress 9, Pharaoh 90, and Sailor Pluto's belated time freeze-induced death crammed in and rushed without the breathing room to leave the impression that they should.

Among the arc's biggest draws, its depiction of Sailor Uranus and Sailor Neptune that put a far greater emphasis on their personalities and romance with each other, abruptly turned into one of its biggest flaws once Sailor Pluto rather nonsensically comes in to join them. Whereas before they had been morally gray and antagonistic but still likable and nobly motivated like in the manga, they suddenly turn into nigh sociopathic jerks who dislike the Inner Senshi and refuse to work with them because they hate their idealism and arrogantly consider themselves and their cynical edgelord methods of saving the world to be superior, turning what was a great story with a great message and resolution into a fight against a group of strawman Magical Girl genre haters. Until Stars, this was the anime at its worst.

....But I can't hate this series even with its bad second half, because God damn it, it has Professor Tomoe! The best Goddamn villain the anime ever had, who actually only got better in said second half! He's a radically different interpretation of the character from the source material, arguably going opposed to what said character's original purpose was. But not only did the series at least run with this opposing take from the beginning rather than adapt him faithfully only to swerve at the last minute, that take is just that good at being as funny, hammy and morally nuanced in addition to being creepy, competent and maniacal. Just...look at this guy! He steals every scene he's in and single-handedly picks up the slack of the other anime Death Busters. So if not for him alone, the anime's Infinity arc is recommended.

[obscureobsidiandraws]

IDEAS FOR A HYPOTHETICAL BOY MEETS WORLD REBOOT

So, recently I’ve been thinking a lot about how I’d have done a Boy Meets World reboot if given the opportunity and enough creative control and freedom.

First, let’s start with the things that would be still kept from the original without getting into too much spoilers:

- Cory and Shawn’s bromance. Duh, it’s the main reason why a big majority of people keep coming back to BMW. It wouldn’t be BMW without it.

- Topanga being a girl that Cory initially thinks it’s weird, but eventually starts to like her, and finally becomes his girlfriend.

- Shawn coming from a less economically stable and more dysfunctional family that lives in a trailer park, and whose parents like to “go away from time to time”, to put it mildly AND kindly. Because of this, he has tons of issues and thinks he won’t get anywhere in life.

- Chet, Shawn's father, being unhappily married to a woman named Virna, whom Shawn believes is his mother, but who actually isn’t, something that Shawn doesn’t find out until much later, with Shawn’s biological mother being a sex worker he has never met.

- Eric being Cory’s older brother, who initially seems like a vain, self-centered teenager, more concerned with being popular and chasing skirts than his grades or his little brother. Don’t worry, he’ll get better after character development.

- Mr. Feeny being both Cory’s teacher and his next door neighbor, initially seeming like an old-fashioned fun-hating teacher who thinks of the Matthews brothers as nothing more than just two of the many troubled students that will come and go. Ofc like with Eric character development would do its magic again, with each character’s arc mirroring the other.

- Also Feeny being able to find love after he realizes it’s never too late to find a significant other, when he initially believed he was too old to do so.

- And don’t worry, ofc Eric would do the Feeny call. Like with Cory and Shawn's bromance, It wouldn’t be Boy Meets World if it wasn’t there.

- Mr. Turner as the younger, seemingly cooler teacher who would take care of Shawn after Chet basically abandons him, and becomes a substitute parental figure for him.

- Shawn having a long lost older half-brother named Jack, who comes from a wealthier background and becomes Eric’s roommate and friend when they start to go to college.

- Angela as a girl whose lost purse is found by Shawn, who while looking for its owner tries to deduce their personality based on what’s inside of it, which causes him to start to fantasize about meeting this girl whose name he doesn’t know and falling in love with her. And then once he finally meets her in person, starting his first serious relationship with her.

- Angela’s father being a sergeant, and her mother having walked out on them when Angela was younger, which caused her a lot of issues too.

Now let’s go with the things that would make it different from the original, starting with the stylistic and aesthetic choices:

- Instead of taking place in the second half of the 90s like the original show, it would take place from the mid-2000s to early 2010s, which was the time when most people who were born when the original Boy Meets World aired for the first time went from middle school to college, just like Cory & friends during the series.

- It would be animated instead of live-action. Why? Because I want to. Joking aside, I think animation would allow the show to introduce some elements in a much more natural way.

- It won’t have a laugh track like the original did, unless it’s an episode or gag that pays homage or parodies sitcoms from a previous decade. This one is kind of a given, because laugh tracks have gone out of school in recent years, but I still felt it would be necessary to mention it jic.

- And here comes the element that won’t be the biggest departure from the original, but probably the most puzzling one. It would have musical numbers. As in characters dancing and singing. At the beginning it won’t be a lot, as a reflection of Cory’s and Shawn’s attitude towards the idea of singing, but as they start to become more and more comfortable, there would be more. Some would be diegetic, others won’t.

And now to the plot and characters-related differences with the original. Buckle up people, because it will be a lot.

- First a significant change in Cory’s family dynamic. Instead of the show starting with Cory living in the typical nuclear family, it would start with Cory living in the suburbs with his mother Amy, a widow who works a white collar job, and Eric. Then Amy would start to date an employee in the store where she usually buys groceries, who would be Alan, who’d be only slightly younger than Amy and a widower with two kids too: a son with the same age as Cory’s who’s also Cory’s classmate, and a younger daughter who would be Morgan (but I’m seriously thinking about renaming her Megan). Amy and Alan would eventually get married, with a lot of the comedy and the drama from the first seasons coming from Cory trying to adapt to the new situation.

(Amy’s previous husband and Eric and Cory’s biological father would be dead, just like Alan’s previous wife)

- One in regards to Cory’s physical appearance: He would still have curly hair, but he would be a redhead with his nose and cheeks full of freckles.

- Instead of the show starting when Cory and his friends are in their last year of elementary school, the show would start the last summer before Cory’s first year of junior high, and follow him up until college like the original show (yk, if it doesn’t get canned by then). Also Feeny won’t be able to magically be their teacher from preschool to college. Instead he would be their History Teacher in high school, and in later seasons, eventually the principal of the high school Cory and his friends attend. And he would retire after Cory’s classroom graduates.

- There would be a long character arc about Cory trying to find his passion and eventually finding his passion in the most unexpected places. Initially he would try to join the school basketball team In high school Cory would initially try to join the basketball team, partially because he likes the sport, partially because his father was a star player in high school. (Sidenote: there would also be a recurring gag of Eric being a god awful basketball player) He’s initially rejected because he’s too short, but after he grows up and finally hits puberty, becoming as tall as Shawn, he would still be considered a mediocre player at best, and eventually Cory would have to accept the fact he’s not that good. Meanwhile, he would also join the school newspaper and the audiovisuals club because of a growing interest in journalism, until he realizes he wants to become a professional journalist.

- Talking about the audiovisuals club, extracurricular activities would play a much bigger role. While Cory joins the audiovisuals club Shawn is forced to join the theater club. There would be a little conflict because both clubs have so few members that, because of budgetary restrictions, they’re threatened to be shut down. To save both, Cory and Shawn come up with the idea of combining them, that way making one club with enough members. Also thanks to being in those clubs  they start to befriend classmates they initially thought of as nerds and weirdos.

- Topanga would be raised by a single mother instead of a married couple, never knowing who her father is. Although she initially seems okay with it, then when she’s older she tries to find out which one of her mother’s three ex-boyfriends is her father. This is partially to pay homage to the fact that in the original BMW Topanga’s father was played by three different actors at different points of the show, and partially to make a bunch of break the fourth wall jokes about ripping off Mamma Mia’s premise. And don’t worry, Nebula won’t be retconned out of existence this time.

- Jack’s backstory would be changed a little. When his mother finally left Chet, instead of taking her son with her, Jack would actually be left behind in the trailer park with Chet and his newborn half-brother (Shawn’s birth would actually be the last straw that finally made Jack’s mother decide to leave for good). So Jack would spend a good part of his childhood in the trailer park taking care of Shawn, until he became old enough to successfully run away to live with his mother, being Shawn now the one left behind.

- And behold my Jeric shippers, because Jack and Eric would be both canonically bisexual AND end up together. Besides Jack Eric would also have another main male love interest, who’d be Mitchell Davis (yes, that Mitchell Davis), who would’ve known Eric since they were kids but who now goes to another school, the same as Jack’s. He would also live in the same trailer park as Shawn does.

- Lauren won’t be the girl Cory cheated on Topanga with, but instead the first girl he dates after Topanga leaves for the first time. Because despite liking Lauren, Cory concludes he’s dating her to forget Topanga, in other words, for the wrong reasons, so he breaks up with her. Besides, Lauren would go to the same school as Jack and Mitchell (everything’s connected).

- A seemingly very trivial detail: As a trademark favorite food Cory would love pizza so much that the place where he hangs out with his friends after school wouldn’t be Chubbie’s (although it would still exist in this universe, but it would more of a general place where John Adams High students hang out instead of just Cory’s group of friends), but instead a pizza place. Also this last one is a little bit anecdotal, but Cory wouldn’t mind pineapple pizza while Shawn would hate it by principle.

(this is getting quite lengthy, so I’d do a part II. There’s still a lot of ideas I have that I want to share with the BMW fandom)

Edit: Part II is already out. Go check it out

[jenreadsstuff]

Soul Music thoughts

I was a little bit anxious about re-reading this one, because Soul Music was my first Discworld book, way way back when I was 14, and I think people's entry into Discworld shapes the way they view the series and setting a considerable amount. Discworld was, for me, first and foremost a comedy series that paralleled our world for humorous effect, and the philosophy stuff came later.

I was also disappointed to realise that the book that brought me into this wonderful world had some pretty obnoxious, albeit brief, racist stereotypes in the scenes involving the takeaway restaurant that Susan visits. It was tough to read through those moments, even though I know that English language pop culture was still full of those stereotypes for comedy in the '90s, laughing at accents and using minorities as punchlines.

On the flip side, this fandom seems to have overlooked Gloria as the series' first trans dwarf. She's most definitely she, attending an all girls school and described as wearing ribbons in her beard. Gloria walked so that Cherry Littlebottom could run.

On a re-read, some of the music jokes feel a bit clunky - this is where the Cosgrove Hall animated adaptation absolutely surpasses the source material, capturing the parody element with incredibly well crafted songs that are so evocative of the styles they're imitating while still being wonderful songs in their own right. That moment in the Cavern when they play one chord and immediately you know it's a Beatles parody is just *chef's kiss*. Do watch the animated series if you can.

There were plenty of other musical references that I didn't get on my first, or even second or third, read, but which finally hit many years later - I've already posted the felonious monk gag, but finishing the story with a Kirsty MacColl reference was beautiful (there's a guy works down the chip shop, swears he's elvish). The only musical reference I still didn't get this time around was 'Surreptitious Fabric' - can anyone clue me in on this one?

Other fun moments from this one:

* Glod redecorating hotel rooms

* Ponder Stibbons and the students of the High Energy Magic building

* "We're on a mission from Glod"

[sparkiekong]

Halloween Movie Review (2023)

Did this last year and maybe the year before, but I can't find it... I watch scary movies all month and give you a brief overview. It's become a tradition for me... Some are craptastical...some are not so bad, but here's what I got so far.

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The Appendage (2023) Hulu

3/10 – (-7 cause I didn't like it.) Bit cheesy in the way of monsters, it’s like 80s movie magic. The premise was about negative self talk being a bad thing and making a monster from it via chimera dna. Interesting premise, but poorly implemented. No pet death, no kid death. Bit of blood and guts.

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No One Will Save You (2023) Hulu 5/10 – (+4 for interesting film process, +4 for actress and -3 cause I had to read up the producer’s explanation of the ending. Suspenseful, not scary… Interesting because there was all of two words spoken in the entirety of the movie. Not like A Quiet Place, because it wasn’t sound based, but it was very emotive. The actress did a good job emoting but the story premise sort of fell flat. Not her fault though, she did good with what she was given.)

No pet death, no kid death - Interesting and weird premise about suffering and conversion from an invasion force learning human culture.

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Mirrors (2008) Max – HB0 7/10 – (-3 cause it's older) Kiefer Sutherland – Mystery movie about mirrors. It was a pretty good. No kid death, no pet death, but the kids were potentially going to be harmed. Interesting movie about mirrors and a demonic influence...not sure how this one got past me in 2008.

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The Pyramid (2021) Max - HBO

3/10 – (+3 for the Anubis and Set) awful script, decent set, budget blown on a cool Anubis looking monster. Acting was not good... don't watch it.

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Prey (2020) Hulu

3/10 (+4 pts for the accuracy of First Nation Comanche Peoples and -1 for being a crappy movie about toxic masculinity)

• The only thing I liked about the movie is that it gave some backstory on Predators. Would have liked a movie about that more than anti-toxic masc-crapfest.

• Canine death (Not the dog, but a wolf) - Animal Death • Lots of gore • The First Nation Comanche portrayal historically accurate. • Dumb toxic guy trope… historically accurate I suppose in this context. Besides jerk trappers... First Nation Males gang up on a female who kicks their chief’s ass… Said toxic males don’t listen because she’s a girl… historically accurate I suppose in this context. • Bunch of toxic males picking on lesser animals to prove their badassery… historically accurate I suppose in this context. • Having personal problems why Predator(s) keeps coming to a place where they get their booties kicked in most situations because they themselves are so toxic they don’t see females as a threat… sick of seeing this trope. Plenty of males find females intimidating these days.

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Talk to Me - (2023) VUDU 8/10 Genuinely spooky! (-2 for the brutality... that was crazy unnecessary)

• Brilliant piece - Kids find a embalmed hand of a psychic medium and then use it to get a high off of getting possessed for 90 second. • Brutal piece – Sort of a Shock and Awe piece in the brutality. • Teenager dies - Kid Mutilation (sorry it’s a spoiler…) It’s sort of necessary for the story, but maybe not so necessary to see it. He lives… • No canine death - Animal death (by car)

---- Hell Baby (2013) Hulu – Defined as a Horror Comedy

6/10 - (-4 for the mentions of gentrification of a black neighborhood) Supposed to be a funny campy trip about a couple due to have babies and buy a house to remodel. • No canine death (one avian) • Little bit of devil baby violence

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I See You (2019) Netflix 7/10 - (-3 for Helen Hunt's face... she's scariest thing in this. Sorry Ms. Hunt... you shouldn't fight aging.) Overall it's not a bad movie...

Home invasion and kidnapping - teens get shot, no animal death

The weird thing about that one was there were people living in the walls. Called it Phrogging. Where you sneak into someone's place and crash there for a few days without anyone knowing you're there but there was a twist at the end, so it spun back around to being somewhat decent.

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Incarnate (2016) Netflix 7/10 (-3 for trope of no one listening to easy instructions.) Had some Constantine vibes, standard demon hunter type trope. Why do scary movie characters never listen?

• Demonic possession movie • No canine death - Kid sorta beat up a little because he was possessed • Stupid people not listening to instructions.

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The Nun 2 (2023) Vudu

7/10 - (-3 for weird tie in to explain why Irene was important.) Not bad. Good tie ins to the Warrens universe... actually would have liked it if the two movies had been one movie instead.

• Finished the story from the first one so if you haven’t watched the first, watch that one first. This one will make more sense. • No canine death. • Bullies – Typical school mean girls • No child death

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The Ritual (2017) Netflix

2/10 - I despise this trope. Getting lost in the woods and then deciding to keep doing the exact opposite of what you should be doing if you're lost.

• Group of British fellows go on walk about through spooky forest and get lost • Like Blair Witch, but with a creepy monster and a cult • No canine dead, but dead animals here and there. • Monster was cool. Reminded me of Wintekowa from Conrad's Stevenson's Paranormal P.I. game.

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The Boogeyman (2023) Hulu 7/10 - (-3 for lack of genuine unique spook... everything was telegraphed I could see it happening before it happened.) Stephen King story... overall not bad, bit dark themed with a family recovering from a parents death • Kids get harmed but no dead • No canine death or animal death • LOTs of fire… • So so… not incredibly scary, but good chiller/thriller

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The Hole in the Ground (2023) Max – HB0 5/10 - (-5 kinda boring to start... got better at the end so... very slow burn)

A story about changelings

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Friday the 13th Part 1 Uncut + 2-4 Vudu

7/10 - (-3 for age) I can't say anything bad about these. Yeah, they're old and that means the the movie magic isn't great, but it's just .... CARNAGE ... and for the time these were top of the line scary. I bundled these together because they're all basically the same.

• Cult classic had to watch some of it on Friday the 13th that happens in October… that’s like a rule or something • Standard slasher horror film • Nudity, savage deaths, some trope-y stuff but if you've never seen them, you should watch them at least once if you like horror movies.

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The Immediate F troop....

The Lure (2015) – HBO Max – sadly no dubbed version – Kong doesn’t like to read while being scared. It’s a shame because I wanted to see mermaids as monsters.

Hellhole (2022) Netflix – Polish with no English dub.

The Empty Man (more like Empty Movie) 20 minutes of distant / semi-serious gazes while their friend stares into oblivion to get to the title… yeah… no.

Oracle (2023) HBO Max -So bad that I didn’t finish it.

Skinamarink (2022) Hulu – What? Ok… so this is too Indy for me. House with kids trapped inside??  dad missing, no way out?? Had old video tape / found footage vibes. Coulda been cool, but 14 minutes in, it’s just basically looking at a dark room with maybe 10 words so far. NEXT!

I would love love LOVE to watch the scary movies outside of the US, but it's a FLAW of mine... I can't read and be scared at the same time. So I could read the text, but then I miss the spooks... or I could watch the spooks and miss the text. So I have to fail them... I need dub versions or I can't pull them out of the F troop... sorry.

I cannot stress enough how amazingly wonderful this website is for getting you past triggers that you do not wish to see. There's ALOT of triggers covered here. So you can check a movie before you buy now.

[secretgamergirl]

All the seriously queer stuff in the back half of Sailor Moon

In case it wasn't obvious when I released a little mini-RPG a few months ago where you basically play as the villains, I've been gradually making my way through the entire run of Sailor Moon for the past year or so. Specifically I'm watching the 2014 Viz dub that covers all 200 episodes, trying to be as faithful as they can with it. It's been a really interesting experience, since I absolutely watched the old DiC dub back in the day, saw a fansub of one of the movies around the same time, and heard plenty of things about the missing seasons (particularly the infamous "cousins" thing from the Cloverway dub) over the years, and now I have all the context. And the context gets really shockingly overtly queer, turns out!

So first, let's just all get on the same page with the English language localizations of Sailor Moon over the years. Back in the 90s, Sailor Moon aired… well everywhere, with the English language version being a dub from DiC, which I will go to my grave defending as probably the best dub of anything I can think of. Fantastic casting all around, changes to the soundtrack that were actually for the better (keeping all the melodies but recording new versions that… aren't optimized to sound show-perfect when recreated by the cheapest sound generators one can shove in a toy, plus some original songs shoved into a few episodes). They did make some edits/cuts, but pretty minor ones, especially compared to the complete reworkings most anime of the era went through when coming to American TV, and I'm still not used to Luna not being prissy and British here.

That dub only lasted up through the second season. Past that, there was a dub of seasons 3 and 4 from Cloverway, which had some really questionable performances, and is where the infamous "they're cousins" bit came in. This also aired on TV in some places, but didn't have nearly the same omnipresent distribution as the DiC seasons (… and now I'm feeling old as I ponder whether to explain how local TV affiliates did their own thing back in the broadcast days). Then in the early 2000s there was a DVD release from Pioneer with cut/uncut versions of everything, apparently, which may or may not have recycled those dubs. I don't really have the energy to track that down, specifically. Anyway all the rights expired, gathered dust forever, then Viz picked it up and did this new faithful localization, and it took me about a decade to spot it on a streaming service.

So we've got 5 seasons, 200 episodes total, and a hell of a lot of formulaic structuring here. Every season (or half a season) we've got some main villain with an evil plan we may or may not get any details on, and some small number of underlings who then take their 5-10 episode long turns pursuing their goal in a way that inevitably generates monsters of the week, and meanwhile every season we have another conflict on the good guy side where someone is trying to locate some special person and ignoring the 50 or so obvious signs which main cast member it is while the audience gets frustrated. Oh and each individual episode has the same rigid structure of everyone getting caught up in some wacky teen trend, then there's a monster, they transform and fight a bit to no real end, then Sailor Moon gets around to using a finisher because that's literally the only thing actually capable of ending a fight. Honestly it's less "formulaic TV writing" and more like some sort of daily meditation. No way in hell I'd be able to sit through all of it if I had to look at the screen the whole time. This is background viewing while I work. Oh and I'm assuming everyone has at least enough passing familiarity to understand that if I say the name of a planet I'm talking about a teenage girl who's the reincarnation of some sorta magical girl/sentai squad member.

Season 1 has pretty gay vibes in places, but MOSTLY there's plausible deniability for all of it. We spend about half the season just establishing the characters of Moon Mercury and Mars, then quickly bringing in Jupiter and playing it up like a big shocking reveal for Venus. There's also a bunch of relationship drama between Moon, Tuxedo Mask, and the guy who runs the local arcade that she has a crush on and spends a while thinking is actually Tuxedo Mask instead of his actual identity of uh… a college-aged guy we're saying is the destined love interest of this 14-year old girl he's frankly pretty abusive towards. So, a lot of straight nonsense there. Meanwhile the evil queen's got these 4 generals, two of them are plainly dating, and no matter how you slice it, that's pretty overtly queer, but there's a valid argument to have over how we actually should slice it.

I was aware at the time that the DiC dub just ran with Zoicite here being a woman, making this a straight relationship, and I kinda figured they did a bit of tweaking and editing to hide that this was actually one of those bishonen types who were popular at the time who happened to be gay. Honestly though, watching it through a modern lens, it is REALLY hard to not just see a woman here, even when we're throwing he/him pronouns around. Like, if I'm handling a new dub, I'm just going to say Zoicite is a trans girl, who I'm at least headcanoning as being out for years, on HRT, and at that point where she can put on a suit designed for a man and nah that's a woman wearing a suit. Kinda just wraps around and makes me appreciate the old dub's handling more than the new one.

Season 2 (or R) doesn't really give us anything to work with, if I'm honest. There's probably some gals-being-pals energy amongst the main cast here and there. That's kind of always low-key present, especially with Jupiter, who has the whole big tough girl who wears long skirts thing sorta gay energy, and I want to say she ends up going to a dance with Mercury somewhere early on because one of them can't find a date otherwise.

But, we've got this filler arc with two dark elves in a tree who just kinda both hit on everyone of the opposite gender while the main cast sits in a holding pattern, then we get a proper villain squad not really getting enough spotlight time to have much of anything going on, and this whole weird thing where Moon and Mask's annoying toddler comes back from the future to… brainwash Moon's parents into thinking she's their daughter, and then she gets turned into an evil adult, and there's this whole bit about her having some sort of grim reaper/time guardian as a nanny (this is Pluto, the outer planets really have different things going on)… but again, mostly straight/cis flavored nonsense.

Then suddenly here comes season 3 (or S, pronounced "Super" which makes things real confusing), from a director who would later go on to create Utena, and in addition to just being the single best season of the series for a number of other reasons, everyone is canonically into girls now! It's shockingly overt about establishing that too, and reiterating the point several times.

It all gets started with Uranus and Neptune showing up. We kind of have this three faction conflict this season, where there's a proper main villain and squad of monster making minions, but then there's also this overtly queer power couple whose goal is basically to check out the "pure hearts" monsters of the week keep ripping out of people because they need to check them for these three macguffins they need to… reform the holy grail of all things to give to their leader they're too oblivious to know is actually Moon.

More importantly though, aside from making it abundantly clear that these two are banging every night, they have this very open relationship where Neptune is more than cool with Uranus hooking up with any given girl she's inclined to, and/or grabbing gals for threeways. And like, this isn't me taking a broad interpretation of things, it's weird how directly they just come out and say this. The other thing we have going on is that Uranus is just, like, the butchest of the butch.

Literally everyone just assumes she's a guy when they first meet, and quite a few people go into serious denial when corrected on the matter. And she kinda tends to react to all the misgendering with the sort of bemused nonchalance that makes it pretty easy to read her as actually being nonbinary. I swear there's an episode where she clarifies she's not a guy with that particular sort of emphasis suggesting that doesn't necessarily narrow things down to just "girl," too. And apparently Crystal actually DOES bite the bullet and flat out state she's nonbinary (or at least "both male and female"). That's cool, but there is no way in hell I'm going to sit through Crystal.

Anyway, point is, everybody wants to hook up with Uranus. Everyone. There's a whole episode where the power couple straight up takes Jupiter out on a date, the rest start gossiping about her being out on a date with two girls, everyone starts off shocked, then someone clarifies who it's with and everyone's like "oh, well yeah then I'd take them up on that too," with a little extra push back from Mars before she gets called out as trying to stay in the closet when she's clearly got a stash of photos of hot girls in suits.

This of course really makes me wonder about that Cloverleaf dub and why they went with that whole "cousins" thing to avoid addressing the overt queerness here, instead of taking the same approach DiC did of just making Uranus a guy. This would technically introduce the problem of having a guy in a miniskirt for fight scenes, but, eh, that'd be easier to edit around than you'd think. Uranus generally enters a fight scene pre-transformed firing an attack off from offscreen, arguing with the core cast a little, and leaving. Attacks are stock animation you can drop in anywhere, so that much is easy enough to chop out or replace with Neptune's attack. I don't know how one would even begin to cut around all the overt gay stuff though.

Nothing especially queer going on with the evil side of things. The villains are kind of amazing but too career oriented for relationships. I guess just for the sake of giving full context for the seasons most people haven't seen and fill in the obvious hole in the roster I can mention the eventual deal that the little goth girl Chibi-Usa spends the season hanging out with turns out to be the main villain's daughter, Sailor Saturn, and kind of the antichrist? Like I said, the outer planets aren't just cast expansions, they really have their own stuff going on. She also dies and reincarnates, doing so the long way where she sits the next season out being just a baby, which once again begs the question of whether when everyone dies at the end of the first season they just kinda magically come back to life with missing memories just as a temporary thing for a filler arc to play with or they really dd all reincarnate and have new families a decade and change later. Weird that that never got firmly pinned down.

Anyway though season 4 (AKA Super S, which is pronounced "Supers" and now you see why I prefer just numbers)… sucks and you should skip it. No sense of stakes, no real character work, non-threatening villain, shockingly dull monster designs, no outer planets, an ending that just drags on for what feels like forever and has no payoff. The only things it has in its favor are the inherent absurdity that people are wondering if Chibi-Usa is like full-on dating Pegasus (yes, the horse) and Fish's Eye.

So we have two different miniboss squads this season, the latter of which is a quartet of permanent-child acrobats working for the impressively titled if boring in practice Dead Moon Circus, preceded by three animals-turned-into-humans-by-a-witch with a weird What-you-originally-were's Eye naming scheme. Two of them are just dull slutty guys, but Fish's Eye is plainly and overtly a trans woman, and gets something of an arc about being willing to give up her own humanity for the greater good. It's a shame she's stuck in the practically unwatchable season, but at least she's on the REALLY short list of major villains who gets to have a happy ending. Usually even when someone has a nice redemption arc with the power of love and friendship they still get bumped off by another villain.

Different localizations have done different things with her. Some go "crossdressing gay guy" some just say she's a woman and leave her transness out of it. The 2014 localizaton is pretty unambiguous about though, so, that's really nice. Casting could be better, but still.

Then finally we come to season 5 (Sailor Stars), which I think is even more queer than season 3 was, which is really saying something, and was also directed by someone who would go on to helm another girly show with a serious case of The Genders, Ouran High School Host Club. Structurally it's a bit weird, because the first few episodes are just straight up taking a mulligan on the terrible finale of season 4, this time with the outers in (Saturn hyper-ages back to her standard 10 or whatever and gets a bunch of inexplicable knowledge and memories which is cool but never really paid off), the main villain doing something, and as a shocking rarity for the series, this whole mini-arc where characters are broken into pairs of one inner one outer and get to bounce off each other in a way the series frustratingly usually never does.

More importantly though, at least for this post's purposes, basically the first scene of the season is Uranus and Neptune having a flirty exchange ending with something along the lines of "let's save the pillow talk for when we're actually in bed together later tonight," which sort of sets the tone for just how blatantly these two are talking about their extremely active sex life in no uncertain terms, out in public. Some of the other characters are a bit weirded out by their complete lack of filter, but hey whatever.

The real proper start of the season though has our core cast finally starting high school, once again reminding us that everyone is at LEAST 4 years younger than everything about their designs, interests, and handling of responsibilities would indicate. This also reminds us how deeply creepy the Moon/Tuxedo Mask relationship is, but fortunately he hops a plain to America and is straight up out this season, and as an added bonus Chibi-Moon finally goes back to the future. Before you get too excited she IS shortly replaced with an even younger, barely verbal new mystery gremlin called Chibi-Chibi whose existence nobody can account for, but at least she's actually cute and not akin to the baby from Dinosaurs. More importantly though, as the girls enter high school they end up in a class with the titular Sailor Stars, AKA The Three Lights, AKA Fighter Maker and Healer, a popular boy band who are also a new mysterious set of Sailors with what I assume are intentionally quite confusing gender shenanigans in play.

Normally, they are hot lanky boys, boastful about their masculinity to the point of it bordering on misogyny, but also super super femme, with earings, hair down to their ankles, and very noticeably female VAs in both Japanese and English. Then when there's a fight they're very plainly hot lanky girls in bikinis and one of them has an attack shouting "Star Gentle Uterus!" before hitting a monster with a glob of liquid to a disgusted reaction. And their transformation sequences (and bikinis, and some shirtless scenes) make it absolutely crystal clear that yeah there is some magical reconfiguring of their bodies when making the switch. The show pointedly avoids elaborating on what the deal is past that in terms of which they form they started with/feel more comfortable in/why they switch it up/etc. which would normally frustrate me as one of those Schroedinger's Queer Rep situations, but I very much get the impression that we're going for intentional confusion and ambiguity in service to a general message that if you're into someone you shouldn't have hangups about their gender or what it says about your own sexuality and just kind of accept your feelings and them as a person and I am pretty OK with that.

The cast is too. Mercury Mars Jupiter Venus and for good measure Luna all kinda spent the entire season fixating on how to hook up with any/all of The Three Lights, meanwhile at basically any moment there isn't a fight scene or some plot exposition happening, Fighter is VERY ACTIVELY pursuing Moon in a sexual fashion, with pretty overtly stated tension before damn near every commercial break over whether this is going to be the scene where Sailor Moon gets absolutely railed by this maybe-genderfluid pop star from another world. And I have to just say as a brief aside that while we obviously never go there, I kinda wish we did? Tuxedo Mask is WAY too old to be dating someone Moon's age, even if we do the thing where we just add 4 to everyone's stated age. Plus he kinda treats her like absolute garbage for the whole show, and even when they're in a more wholesome mode the whole thing feels toxic and messed up. Meanwhile Fighter here is literally the same age, clearly into her, and beyond the one character flaw, an actual decent person. Though again, really damn forward. Still beats the hell out of the guy in college dating a middle schooler, and kinda flirting with his own prepubescent future-daughter.

There's also this huge confrontational thing between Fighter and Uranus, where it's slightly unclear if Uranus is being protective of Moon, violently jealous because Neptune is totally and surprisingly overtly open to hooking up with anyone from this boy band too, or just kinda trying to defend her position as the hot androgynous badass who swept into town with the intent of hooking up with every girl in the zip code eventually. Meanwhile Fighter thinks Uranus is a kind of toxic macho dude and really questions the whole "she's not a guy" thing, which is, you know, interesting. Pluto never really weighs in on this because… Pluto kinda lives outside of time and space and has maybe 8 minutes of real screen time in the entirety of the show.

Past that, we've got a bunch of other gay stuff too! We're back to cranking the general queer energy of the core cast up past the point of plausible deniability with regards to each other and a random girl trying to pass along a love letter with some confusion as to who it's for. It also bears mention that when the full deal of the new characters and their gender flipping comes to light, Jupiter makes an active point of making it clear that she is still 100% down and like, hey, I already knew you were the least conflicted of the bunch about how bi you all are, but I appreciate the active refutation of transphobia is still cool. We've got an honestly adorable pair of villains where one is frankly such a bimbo she's completely incapable of doing the evil general thing on her own or preparing her own food, and her hyper-competent girlfriend helping her out while also having to come up with cover stories because they're supposed to be pitted against each other. They'd definitely get a nice happy ending in one of the even numbered seasons, especially once it's made clear that they're very much being coerced into the evil stuff/taking things down from the inside, but… yeah this season ends up going super dark.

I don't want to totally get into how absolutely pitch dark the big 8-part series finale gets and spoil the hell out of it since if it wasn't clear, the odd numbered seasons are all really good stuff you should watch on your own, plus this one has a bunch of genuine twists, but I have to get into some of it in my mission of explaining how gay it all is. Consider yourself warned.

As happens kind of a lot in Sailor Moon finales, the bulk of the season 1 cast gets killed off once the main villain steps in to start getting her hands dirty, but here it's early enough on in the arc for Moon to really process it and give it the weight that maybe it'll actually stick this time. In particular of course she's worked up about Tuxedo Mask turning out to have died off camera at the start of the season (the impression to that point being that he's too distracted with a trip to America to check his messages or maybe just straight up ghosted her), but then almost as broken up over losing Mars, because yeah, those two in particular actually end up with a surprising amount of low key romantic tension between them by the end of things.

Then once it's time to get the outer planets off the table, all four of them end up in a no-win situation against the villain, who does that villain thing of of offering them a choice of just being killed and having their souls ripped out to be made into new stars (this is kind of her whole thing, see), OR if anyone's up for it, they can switch sides, still get their souls ripped out to be made into stars, but given funky magic bracelets that allow them to stay alive, just, you know, corrupted by evil and acting as her new villain squad. It's actually established right before the last one gets vaporized that all her original henchgals are in fact the Sailors of other planets she forced into the same deal just before the last one gets vaporized for failure, making it that much tragic in retrospect that the cute competence-disparity couple didn't make it.

Anyway, Uranus and Neptune actually take the deal. Like, zero hesitation. Part of it is eventually explained as Uranus having enough faith that she's too into her girlfriend to be fully corrupted and might get a chance to sucker punch the villain with her own soul extractors (which she IS it just doesn't work), and failing that Moon'll probably swing some kinda deus machina (which is an admittedly safe bet, honestly). But another part of it really is just "yeah screw it, if I still get to be with my girlfriend I'll take being evil over being dead" and they really do go through with it and promptly murder their oldest friend and a very young girl. Don't let anyone tell you Sailor Moon is one of those power of love and friendship always triumphs sorta shows. I don't know that the power of love and friendship even ties the scoreboard if we tally things up over the whole series. Oh and the final final final showdown has a nude Sailor Moon with angel wings just trying to hug it out with the main villain, which I guess could also maybe be read as a bit queer.

So yeah. Sailor Moon. When you don't have a puritanical edit, it's queer as hell. Everyone's bi or non-binary-and-sapphic. Several different flavors of trans rep. Goes out on a note of not getting hung up on gender. All of this in a roughly 30 year old series now, aimed at young impressionable girls. … actually for that matter it's also a show aimed at girls with really powerfully horny monster girl designs all over the place. Possibly relevant.

Oh yeah, and maybe consider throwing me some money via Patreon? I can't actually cover next month's rent as things stand.

[magicalgirlagency]

You know of Crayon Shin-chan too?!? No way, I thought I was the only one who knew of it!!

Indeed I do! It's one of my core memories! I've watched three english dubs of it, too. There was even a reference to it back in 90's!Sailor Moon, back when it was at its peak. It's quite popular in Japan, and is still on-going even after the author's passing, much like Doraemon.

Though I really wouldn't recommend it to lots of people, since it's a product of its time and plenty of its jokes and gags have aged like milk, not to mention how some of its topics aren't exactly kid-friendly; but it's something that I certainly hold dearly in my heart.

I also remember that they have an in-Universe Magical Girl anime entitled Fushigi Majokko Mari-chan, which it was about a clumsy young witch travelling to the Mortal Realm as a second chance to prove her worth after failing in her magic exams (as well as accidentally transforming her little brother into an otter). The fact that this isn't a real anime is an absolute travesty in my honest opinion.

The artstyle is quite unusual and quirky, which it's a fresh breath of air in animanga in general and I love it when they get experimental and don't adhere to conventionally captivating artstyles; not to mention the animation that occasionally fucks hard in its specials and movies/OVAs, specially when Masaaki Yuasa is at work (you may know them from The Tatami Galaxy, Ping Pong: The Animation, Devilman: Crybaby and that Adventure Time episode Food Chain, just to name a few).

Oh, and one of my many dreams is to at least try those Chocobi cookies, which are Shin-chan's favorite snack. Yes, they exist in real life:

They're up there with Naruto's Ichiraku Ramen to me.

[hotmonkeelove]

My Top Ten Anime OTPs

(plus a bonus OT3!)

Orochimaru x Anko - Naruto

My one ship to rule them all! As far as I'm concerned, they have reconciled and are now an official couple in the Boruto timeline.

Juri x Shiori x Ruka - Revolutionary Girl Utena

They live as a tender, loving, polyamorous triad, rent free inside my head. It has been decided. I have spoken!

Saionji x Wakaba - Revolutionary Girl Utena

Saionji is Wakaba's true prince. She loved him despite his flaws. Why wouldn't she give him another chance after the Revolution, when he's matured into a kinder, calmer person? What, should she end up with that nice guy, Tatsuya, who also hurt her and for whom she feels no passion?

Mitsuki x Chocho - Boruto: Naruto Next Generations

They're the only reason I watched Boruto! Give me more MitsuCho!

Zabuza x Haku - Naruto

I think Haku was always secretly in love with Zabuza, whereas Zabuza forced himself not to care about anything apart from fighting and his own ambition. Even reanimated, he didn't want Haku to know he cared about him. So tragic! I want to see them reincarnated into better circumstances, where they can be together, in peace. That's why I like to imagine Iwabe and Denki are their present incarnations.

L x Misa - Death Note

This one's weird. I used to hate L's guts, yet I found him hot in a messed up/ prison fantasy sort of way. Then a few months back, I read some L x Misa fics and started to prefer him to Light. Maybe it's just AU versions of L? I still think he was pretty much as bad as Light, but at least, like Misa, he had a tragic background that drove him. Light was just an ego-maniac. And of course, I've always adored Misa!

Sebastian x Mey-Rin - Kuroshitsuji / Black Butler

My most recent otp. I had some knowledge of the series and thought Sebastian was hot. But oh, when I sat down to watch the first episode, it was nearly instantaneous! The klutzy, nervous, redheaded maid who pines for him... I want these two to get together! I need it!

Zagato x Princess Emeraude - Magic Kinght Rayearth

My second anime otp ever, from back in the 90s. Along with ZabuHaku, this one still makes me cry. It's so, so sad! And Zagato is still one of the sexiest characters in anime!

Gaara x Matsuri - Naruto

I don't know why this ship gets so much hate. (I've gathered a lot of it is from fangirls with Sue-ish OCs. Being someone who resembles and identifies strongly with Gaara, I feel no personal attraction to him. Maybe I think Matsuri is cute and sweet?) I thought they were so adorable together in the Four Celestials filler arc and have shipped them since.

Neji x Tenten - Naruto

I'm still jaded by Neji's death. So much lost potential! And it's cruel that Tenten did get to be like Tsunade, but in the worst way; they both lost their men to a war while fighting beside them.

Sailor Uranus x Sailor Neptune - Pretty Soldier Sailor Moon

My very first anime ship! Haruka and Michiru are still the yardstick by which all OTPs should be measured.

[mahounomanga]

Chikyuu Bouei Shoujo Iko-chan

One of the interesting side effects of defining this blog's scope in the way that I have is that, for better or for worse, only focusing on magical girl manga that don't have anime adaptations automatically filters out almost every multimedia franchise. Sure we've talked about a couple manga adaptations of big live action productions, but there's a difference between that and a series that spreads itself across a handful of mediums simultaneously. Most magical girl multimedia projects from Japan will throw an anime of some form into the mix. Which is to say most, but not all. Today we'll be taking a look at a series which, throughout the late 80s and early 90s, released manga, a video game, a live action series, and more, but has no anime.

Chikyuu Bouei Shoujo Iko-chan (Terrestrial Defense Girl Iko) started as a live action direct-to-video series in 1987. The protagonist is Iko Kawai, a middle schooler who one day helps a member of the intergalactic police she sees lying unconscious on the pavement, and as a reward she is gifted a high tech headset called the Super Incom. The Super Incom allows her to use ESP to do what she believes is right, giving her abilities including but not limited to instant outfit changes, teleportation, leaping tall buildings in a single bound, shrinking, and communicating with beasts. In using her newfound powers, she catches the attention of an Earth defense squad known as the Light Terrestrial Defense Team, LTDT for short. They recruit Iko as a new member, and now armed with her Super Incom and gadgets from the LTDT, it is her duty to protect Earth from extraterrestrial threats.

The first entry in the series, an approximately 47 minute movie, was released on February 28, 1987. The monster designs were done by Toru Narita, who had done special effects work for Godzilla, and co-created Ultraman; so his involvement helped draw attention to the project. The series even has an Ultraman parody character in the form of Miracleman, who can grow to enormous size, but passes out when he does so.

A second movie was released on July 14, 1988, at the start of which Iko bequeaths her Super Incom to a new girl, coincidentally named Iko Sugekawa, who also goes on to work for the LTDT. While the original Iko was played by Akiko Isozaki, a relatively obscure child actress, the new Iko was played by Mia Masuda, a popular idol who was just getting her start around this time. This meant many Iko-chan fans were also Mia Masuda fans, and vice versa. Even now many people seem to know of the series predominantly through her involvement. This movie gives Iko a new (and more iconic) outfit, plus a spectacularly intelligent and accomplished rival named Runna Hakuba. Mia Masuda would stay on as Iko for the third movie, released on June 22, 1990, but each subsequent production would cast a different actress in the role. As for the series director, Minoru Kawasaki is known for producing tokusatsu parodies on the cheap, with Terrestrial Defense Girl Iko being one such example.

Due to the success of the original movie trilogy, a video game based on the series was released for the PC98 engine on December 4, 1992. Titled Chikyuu Bouei Shoujo Iko-chan ~UFO Daisakusen~ (Terrestrial Defense Girl Iko ~The Great UFO Strategy~, this is a turn-based battle game with visual novel elements, in which the LTDT face off against various aliens. Unfortunately, the game didn't sell well. It's speculated that the gameplay style didn't capture the appeal of the title's tokusatsu origins. The in-game art is very pretty though, for whatever that's worth.

Iko would continue starring in live action sequels and spinoffs after that, and a number of companion books were released for the series as well, but the release most relevant to this blog is the Iko-Chan manga.

Running in monthly Comic Comp from the May 1988 issue to the May 1991 issue, this manga was created by Yoshito Asari, with writing input from Minoru Kawasaki, the original director. Asari is best known for his involvement in the production of the original Evangelion anime, for which he was an assistant character designer, and he penned a 4koma spinoff titled Evangelion Yonkoma Zenshuu. However, he is an accomplished mangaka in his own right, creating works such as Wahhaman, Manga Science, and Space Family Carlvinson, the lattermost of which would get an OVA adaptation in 1988.

Over the course of its' run, the Iko-chan manga would amass a total of 32 chapters. The first tankobon volume, containing chapters 1 through 18, was published by Kadokawa on September 13, 1990, but the remainder of the series would not be compiled until a new edition of both volumes was released by Hakusensha under their Jets Comics label on December 25, 1999. A digital rerelease, also by Hakusensha, was made available on December 26, 2014.

This manga makes some changes to the original plot, particularly in Iko's backstory. In this version, Iko already works for the LTDT part-time at the start of the series, and she gets the Super Incom after helping Miracleman while he's drunk. It's less momentous, but I actually prefer it given how poorly the original Iko's buddying up to cops has aged. The way the Super Incom works is slightly different too: it activates when she says please, enunciating each syllable (o-ne-ga-i). This makes whatever she thinks will help happen, but if she attempts to use this power for selfish reasons, the device will malfunction.

Unfortunately, I wasn't able to read very much of the manga, and the language barrier made it difficult to get into any version of this series. Huge shout-out to the surprisingly detailed Japanese Wikipedia page, which was a tremendous help in researching for this overview. They also have quite a bit of information on later installments in this series I glossed over. There is a lot more I could get into, but I wanted to mainly focus on the meat of the franchise, and this post is long enough as is.

I really hope fan translations of the series become available one day, because Terrestrial Defense Girl Iko seems like a lot of fun, and I would definitely recommend it to fans of older tokusatsu. There are elements of it I don't vibe with, but still, it has an interesting premise, some decently entertaining humor, a super catchy theme song, and a killer aesthetic.

[sminny-wew]

Assorted Sonic OCs from the past few months, largely inspired by the IDW comics (descriptions and context under the cut)

1-5: Design for a(n ex?) girlfriend of Surge's from her pre-Starline days, based on Surge's concept art. She’s a rat and her name is Riot Roadkill; she dressed more like a gyaru in the past (short skirt, loose socks) but nowadays wears the one-piece with the mesh (and sometimes with the jacket), also taken from Surge concept art. Final design has light orange fur and teal eyes to complement Surge the way Amy's pink fur and green eyes are designed to complement Sonic’s blue and green; hair is based on yanki (Japanese delinquent) fashion. "Ash Wrath" (name taken from the Ashura glitch Surge is based on) used to lead a biker gang before Starline got to her, and Riot was her second-in-command. Riot (who fights with a bat also taken from Surge art) was forced to step up after the boss vanished, and wasn’t expecting the stranger who wandered onto gang turf to be her...

6: Three nice Zeti (I’ve been calling them the Gentle Three) based on a theory I had about mainstream Zeti society and a potential counterculture; Ziro likes protecting animals and has a tiny dragon companion, Zen is a healer who talks like a hippie grandma, and Zaffiti likes to create things instead of destroying them

7: Since the pirates are all said to be gone in IDW, I made a new villain/rival for Blaze to fight. Bedlam is a caracal queen from 100 years ago who became a vengeful ghost of blue fire after the Sol Emeralds disowned her for refusing to change her cruel, selfish, and greedy ways; based on Blaze's concept art.

8-9: Made some friends for Silver from his own time. Based their collective color schemes on the CMYK palette to mimic Team Sonic being primary colors. Copper the Axolotl is ridiculously bubbly for someone who lives in a perpetual apocalypse, and lives semi-underwater or something which is why she dresses all beachy. Gold the Mink is a friendly rival to Silver, cocky and laidback to contrast with Silver's dorky seriousness, but he’s still a nice guy. Design is based on Silver’s concept art; Idk yet if Gold would be an AI or what but if you know your Sonic comic history you can take a wild guess who inspired him lol.

10: These two, tentatively named Smoke and Mirror, are henchwomen to a greater evil and part of an idea I had for a magical girl-inspired Amy Rose solo game. They’re based on Amy's friends Patty and Monica from the early-90s Sonic manga; Smoke is black and white while Mirror is supposed to be dark purple. Smoke is a Canadian marble fox whose magic manifests as smoke/vapor/etc. Mirror is a garden dormouse who specializes in mirror magic (deflecting, copying, etc.). They both like to playfully tease Amy in a way that surprisingly never goes too far. They claim to serve their master faithfully as their master’s familiars, but not even they know entirely how they got to be that way...