#can they make this the official op of S2 lol

[robotsandramblings]

me reading the "new" "canon" heights for the Bad Batch on starwars.com:

nooo thank you, don't like those, i'll stick to the wookiepedia + my headcanons version lol ✌️

i'll save my overall analysis & ramblings for under the readmore

(here's the og thread that brought it to my attention. make sure to read op's corrected version!)

(p.s. the height chart was done by me on heightcomparison.com, it's not an official star wars image -- but the data matches starwars.com)

first off, i will acknowledge that visually, in the show, their heights are always a tricky thing. i've been referencing a bajillion screenshots since i came upon this thread. their comparative heights change in like every screenshot, due to camera angles and/or where they're standing relative to each other. we never get to see all five (5) of them standing shoulder-to-shoulder, side-by-side, in a single straight line, with an eye-level camera shot*.

i'll also acknowledge that i've always just gone off of what wookiepedia says, because it's the closest to an 'official' source that we've ever had -- but it's still not the official source. Here's the wookiepedia version, btw:

and you know what? depending on what screenshot you look at, these can both seem right. sometimes, Tech looks as tall as Crosshair; other times, Tech looks close to Echo's height. (Tech is also rarely at full height -- he's usually got his head and shoulders bent down to read his datapad. i think he slouches too.) i also find Hunter's height varies a lot too, depending on the shot.

Personally, i will be following the wookiepedia version. i think the starwars.com numbers are way, way off. (Warning: here's where the ranting part begins lol)

Wrecker has never, ever been a full head taller than Tech, Echo, or Hunter. what the actual fuck lmaooo

and 7 inches taller than Crosshair?? i don't think so lads

they're tryin' to tell me Echo is shorter than reg height??? bullshit lol. and Tech too??? also bullshit lmao

i refuse to believe Tech is only 2cm taller than Hunter; Tech should be, at minimum, 2 inches taller than Hunter.

i feel Omega's height can vary in the show, like Tech or Hunter as i mentioned. sometimes she seems very small, sometimes she seems taller than i remember.

that all said, i think the height for Omega is correct... for Season 1**. but S2? and now in S3? she's definitely grown a bit.

so i guess if i had to come up with my own numbers, i'd go primarily with the wookiepedia data, with a few tweaks...

Omega**: at least 140cm / 4' 7''

Hunter: 180-181cm / 5' 11''

Echo: 185cm / 6' 1''

Tech: 190-193cm / 6' 3'' - 6' 4''

Crosshair: 193cm / 6' 4''

Wrecker: 198-200cm max / 6' 6''

(i will hold onto Short King Hunter with a death grip until i die. even though i'll admit he looks reg/Echo height in a lot of shots. but i just really love the idea that's he's juuuust under 6' !)

**My headcanon is that in S1, Omega was approximately 10 years old. (which would match with starwars.com data, since average height for a 10-yr-old = 127-137cm.) i'm assuming we're at least 2 years later by S3, so she should be 12, which should put her height at 140-162cm.

i think in the show, they're keeping her closer to 140cm, but i'm equally onboard with her being on the taller side, closer to 162cm. i like the idea that she will eventually grow to reg clone height of 6 feet, thus she'd be on the taller end of "average" child height.

*there is one singular screenshot i came across which might be the closest. however, it's only properly showing the OG four -- Echo is in the shot, but disproportionately in front of them. it's also from their pilot in Clone Wars S7, which arguably was just a beginning stage for them, and changes were made before their own show aired, including the animation style/models.

it would explain where many of us got our idea of Tech = Crosshair same height. but Hunter is also nearly as tall as them?? certainly not 180cm lmao. so idk. take that as you will.

[candy8448]

Watching oshi no ko s2

(Previous post)

Ep4

Whoa she traumatised him not cool 0.0

Is it just me or does the shadow thing look like aqua when he was a doctor in his past life? Im guessing that is deliberate. Probably because as a doctor it was his duty to keep ai safe

Anyways this episode was so good, aqua's emotions and panic were portrayed so well in such a haunting way :(

Ep5

WHOAKAY

Kana absolutely destroyed her D:

Bonding! :D

I love the animation in this episode! The colours! The way its so fluid and bouncy! The eyes! So good! I can also see a lot of kaguya sama vibes from aka akasaka whoch is so fun! Also while i was kinda meh about akane, im kinda starting to see more character traita from her that i like, i love how she is becoming more fleshed out.

Ep6

Not much to say about it other than than the MUSIC IS SO GOOD!! I loved it so much and it sounds sick playing loudly in my earphones, especially since its very different from the music in other episodes.

Im so glad that the website im watching from has the sub have background talking in a smaller font or else i would be so lost all the time =_= (also glad it translates everything important, and also in the colour of that text in the animation)

Melt went in a full on magical girl transformation 0.0

I liked the development tho, so cant wait for next episode

Ep7

Is... okay

I guess interesting to see the reasons behind the conflict between arima and akane but this episode wasn't that engaging. I cant wait for next episode though. I kind of really liked the focus on the other cast members tbh.

Ep8

Again it was fine ig but

Hehe

Ep9

WHOA this episode is good! Finally another episode that i like, i was worried since i was kind of bored with thw previous few!

Love the lil peep into when ai was still alive 😭

This is crazy how everything is depicted. (Seeing ai alive feels like one of those "A.I. vine continuations/au trend that my sister has been showing me on instagram, lol)

😭😭😭

(I wanna and probably will draw this)

Kana's pure look at aqua bridal carrying Akane XD

Also "im gonna go ho-" "im going with them" "im in" is hilarious XD

Well okay... 0.0

Im excited again :DDD

(Im kinda dissapointed by the ed. Its nice, and it sounds good, but it doesnt have the energy that makes the ending of each episode just pop. Mephisto made every ending of each episode just go so hard, and i feel like this season also kinda needs that feel, especially how the ed starts during the episode's last min. I get that ppl think it is "op is aqua pov" and "ed is ruby pov" and it does fit that theme, but it just doesmt go as hard as mephisto :/)

(Not me seeing the tumblr posts for this ep and the official art and just letting the most littlest squeals because there is family around but i physically cannot contain myself)

(Unrelated to this episode but i can feel how much the akane nation has grown with this season, this season writes he so well and makes her less unintresting like how she was to me at least in s1)(dont get me wrong, she was cool or whatever, she just failed to keep my intrest in her 0.0)

(Next post)

[show-us-kaidenshenandoah]

most of the time, when i make tiktok comments (or comments on youtube or insta or, i guess, social media in general) my brain has me just Fucking Forget that im not in a one-on-one conversation with OP and other people can read what i say. thankfully: this comment is now deleted after i foolishly left it up on tiktok for five months

i dont mind leaving i leaving it up here though because this is tumblr. it fits the vibe. i can mute the post if worst comes to worst, whatever. i think its funny that my friends were more worried about Chris than a literal cockroach lol im just glad the og tiktok comment didnt break containment before i deleted it from there lol but here? this whole site is "containment", itll be fiiiiinnne ...probaabblllyyyy

bc, yeah, luckily, this comment got only 2 likes. it was from a tiktok made by @/nerdymixedpan about: monster fuckery "hear me out"s? golden, great choices, will be allowed to speak even if no one agrees, no one is worried about Tat at all for any of their picks. human "hear me out"s? Tat's wife worries "you just like freaky lil white boys" as Tat is fussed over

but yeah!! Tat's sentiment reminded me of "my childhood (with some lifelong, but not all) 'hear me out's, but it gets worse as we go along" powerpoint i made and showed my friends for powerpoint night. and so i made an admittance in the above comment that, AS A KID (NOT NOW), i had crushes on Chris Mclean from "Total Drama Island" and the Headless Roach Man (is apparently his official wiki name) from "Growing Up Creepie"

and i think, for me, part of it is "monster fuckery? Kaiden-Shenandoah, youve been rarely NOT rigidly asexual your whole life. nobody is going to worry about you loving monster-romances and scream at 'but what about their genitalia?! you cannot possibly want to fucking bed that Lovecraftian horror!!' or some shit, bc you dont have any interest in that, so it's kinda like 'eh... our friends have had worse significant others we have had to tolerate'. at least we dont have to picture how the fuck sex would work" (bc apparently allosexuals, i guess, picture how the hell the sex could work when sizing up a loved one's partner? and they have the audacity to call ME their "favorite lil freaky weirdo". im as "freaky" as freshly cleaned Barnes & Noble, fam, idk what the fuck youre on) and all of that somehow nullifies all possible grotesqueness or horror of my monster picks. like "i kicked my feet and giggled as a lil kid over a nonspeaking, headless, giant cockroach", y'know?? nothing. they give me fucking nothing lmao rip

put an irl cockroach, head or no head (nonspeaking regardless) that is normal-cockroach-size, in front of my friends? there'd be so much screaming. but i get it, sure, the cockroach character in the ppt is 2D animated and will never be real. an actual cockroach is, y'know, obviously real. i get the dissonance there. i do. i get it. im befuddled... but i do get it, yes

and yet somehow the same logic does not impact my human "hear me out"s as my friends went "WTF KAIDEN-SHENANDOAH, YOU CANT GET WITH THIS MAN, HE'S THE DEVIL". like?? okay. but the headless extremely tall cockroach with no speaking-lines who lives in a sewer is fine?? both of these guys are 2D animated. neither are real. still. one of these png files got me a "lmao you cannot be serious... i mean, i GUESS, sure? carry on" and the other png file got me a "KAIDEN-SHENANDOAH, ABSOLUTELY NOT, NO, SHUT THE FUCK UP, YOURE DONE, NO, NOBODY'S HEARING YOU OUT, NO, NOPE, NO, SIT THE FUCK DOWN, LIKE HONESTLY, WTF". and, shockingly, it was the human man who got my friends kicking and screaming

granted, Chris absolutely is a stellar example of "if Satan was a mortal man" but also? s1 and s2 Chris was not so bad, he just did his job. he got unhinged as he stayed at that job. and im ngl im intrigued at the idea of how the fuck would this man function with something as benign yet allowing for obsession like a crush or being in love. but also? yeah, no, the straight-jacket and pillow-walled room i got put in for this one was warranted, yep, i get how i got here

[night-faye]

Glad you’re enjoying all this ^_^ don’t worry about straining your eyes, by the episode doesn’t mean every episode, you actually can’t miss the change ;) Between whatever the OP before episode 8 was and those at the end, it’s in the last frame. A couple more trivia for you :D Sorry I keep referencing Macky’s episodes LOL esp this one but S3 Ep 4 that screenshot where he dumps the Skeleton Key in the grass and walks off is reminiscent of the scene where Wukong first leaves his staff in the pilots and walks off. And between two storyboard artists, we’ve seen Red Son being drawn in gender nonconforming fashions, using all pronouns and I quote, “Red Son cannot be contained by one measly gender and will be taking all the genders.” The characters are also given their own Pokemon Team by the artists ;) and although they aren’t stated to have confirmed ages so the fans are able to see them however, they are stated outside of the show to be seen as certain ages. Pigsy is 43, Tang is 41, Mei is 23, and MK is at least 18 but fandom mostly places him at 21. MK has also been thought of as going by He/They pronouns and was shown with the transgender flag. Wukong in JTTW is one of four celestial primates who is described as “knows transformations, recognizes the seasons, discerns the advantages of earth, and is able to alter the course of planets and stars.” While Macaque is "a sensitive ear, discernment of fundamental principles, knowledge of past and future, and comprehension of all things." And his name comes from the saying "a secret is not safe between six ears" or "the dharma is not to be transmitted to the sixth ear" which has sneaky dialogue potential. I love playing around with it. Also, the characters are merged with other JTTW characters of similar names. That goes for the entire Brotherhood + Macky, who is merged with the Macaque King who is presented as female in the English translation. This is where the “Great Sage Informing Wind” title comes from for Macky in fics + the wind and shadow magic people sometimes tie together with him. Altho you don’t see his six ears in the show, we get a lot of references through the mech, how sound effects him, and his…unique ability to react as if having heard into the future. You’ll see in the special. But his model sheet does show him with six ears if you ever wanted to know. But fandom draws him with rainbow colorful ears based on another show that has these monkeys :D Lego’s Chinese TikTok (official one) refers to him as “handsome max charisma villain” + mandarin dub calls him “phantom lord” LOL. In a game, he’s very tsundere about admitting he has a monkey king poster in his room. In S4 we like to say he’s homeless. I’m still struggling to verify if it was a show producers tweet I read about him forgetting to pay rent and losing the dojo. Mei’s placeholder name was “mary sue” and it makes me cry, why they do my girl like that 😭 Time passes differently in the Celestial Realm, so a few hours or days on Earth can be weeks or years up there. Might've been why Wukong was rushing in S2 yet seems to have been gone for months :) Lmao, I gotta catch up to where you're at. I've been slowly writing these up since Pitiful Creatures. Ah, it seems you've seen how MK parallels Mei leaving in S3 here! Fun times for everyone ^_^

Glad you’re enjoying all this ^_^ don’t worry about straining your eyes, by the episode doesn’t mean every episode, you actually can’t miss the change ;) Between whatever the OP before episode 8 was and those at the end, it’s in the last frame.

Aye aye cap'n I'll keep my eyes peels. about to go into nine so should be fun! (I missed it on eight because I wasn't looking)

A couple more trivia for you :D Sorry I keep referencing Macky’s episodes LOL

Never apologize for referencing Macky episodes. I wanna go insane over this monkey

esp this one but S3 Ep 4 that screenshot where he dumps the Skeleton Key in the grass and walks off is reminiscent of the scene where Wukong first leaves his staff in the pilots and walks off.

👀

And between two storyboard artists, we’ve seen Red Son being drawn in gender nonconforming fashions, using all pronouns and I quote, “Red Son cannot be contained by one measly gender and will be taking all the genders.”

THAT IS SUCH A MOOD!!!! HOLY SHIT! Red Son I feel you so hard

The characters are also given their own Pokemon Team by the artists ;)

If Macky doesn't have my (second behind squirtle) fave Mimikyu I will riot

and although they aren’t stated to have confirmed ages so the fans are able to see them however, they are stated outside of the show to be seen as certain ages. Pigsy is 43, Tang is 41, Mei is 23, and MK is at least 18 but fandom mostly places him at 21.

Noted noted noted :)

MK has also been thought of as going by He/They pronouns and was shown with the transgender flag.

👀

Wukong in JTTW is one of four celestial primates who is described as “knows transformations, recognizes the seasons, discerns the advantages of earth, and is able to alter the course of planets and stars.” While Macaque is "a sensitive ear, discernment of fundamental principles, knowledge of past and future, and comprehension of all things." And his name comes from the saying "a secret is not safe between six ears" or "the dharma is not to be transmitted to the sixth ear" which has sneaky dialogue potential. I love playing around with it.

Yeee I knew this. hehehehe. I am going to have such fun with this hehehe

Also, the characters are merged with other JTTW characters of similar names. That goes for the entire Brotherhood + Macky, who is merged with the Macaque King who is presented as female in the English translation.

Oh fascinating!

This is where the “Great Sage Informing Wind” title comes from for Macky in fics + the wind and shadow magic people sometimes tie together with him. Altho you don’t see his six ears in the show, we get a lot of references through the mech, how sound effects him, and his…unique ability to react as if having heard into the future. You’ll see in the special. But his model sheet does show him with six ears if you ever wanted to know. But fandom draws him with rainbow colorful ears based on another show that has these monkeys :D Lego’s Chinese TikTok (official one) refers to him as “handsome max charisma villain” + mandarin dub calls him “phantom lord” LOL. In a game, he’s very tsundere about admitting he has a monkey king poster in his room.

>*Taking notes very quickly*<

In S4 we like to say he’s homeless. I’m still struggling to verify if it was a show producers tweet I read about him forgetting to pay rent and losing the dojo.

WHY DOES THIS KEEP HAPPENING TO ME? LMAO

Mei’s placeholder name was “mary sue” and it makes me cry, why they do my girl like that 😭

JUSTICE FOR MY GIRL

Time passes differently in the Celestial Realm, so a few hours or days on Earth can be weeks or years up there. Might've been why Wukong was rushing in S2 yet seems to have been gone for months :)

Time passes differently you say 👀 oh I could Do Things With That

Lmao, I gotta catch up to where you're at. I've been slowly writing these up since Pitiful Creatures. Ah, it seems you've seen how MK parallels Mei leaving in S3 here! Fun times for everyone ^_^

I'm in pain :)

[missskzbiased]

I'm not gonna lie and say that Colin is my favorite character and say that I NEED HIM TO DEVELOP, because I'm more interested in Penelope, yes. But I can't say it doesn't bother me. It's important for characters to get their development, and up until now, it doesn't seem Colin got much.

I saw a post the other day talking about how his plot for S2 was being empty/hollow. He talks about his travels but that's it. He does it in a way to avoid what is going through his mind, the op claimed. And I think it's a great insight, but I also think that this has much more to do with the actor's choice than the writers'.

Luke Newton does a good job trying to offer Colin something that he doesn't get officially (I'm not sure this is the word I want. Not an english speaker and struggling right now SUHAUHSAUHSAUHSA). At least, I think he defends his character in some ways. But anyway.

Something that bothers me in the romantic aspect, for example, is that every other main male character had something they struggled with and had to break a cycle. Simon had to break his cycle with his dad and accept he was being controlled in some ways, even when he departed. Anthony had to break his cycle with being so overwhelmed with his responsibilities and allowing himself to be and feel. And Colin struggles with what exactly?

I mean, we don't know any of his traumas. We don't know much about him except that he's trying to mature in some way but can't get there. He is impulsive and thinks he knows himself (Ex.: Believing he loved Marina when he didn't know her at all) but this isn't trauma. Of course, we don't need all the characters to be traumatized to be interesting, but Colin lacks something in the screen and this is reasoning. We get told about him, we get glimpses of some things, but we don't get much more.

They will probably settle for his stubbornness in seeing Penelope as just a friend/just Pen and this will be his conflict. Which I like, because it's simple, but nevertheless it's unfair for the character.

I'd like to see him coming around with the fact that he doesn't really know himself, that he thought he knew, that he came back believing he was now a new man, but slowly realizing that he doesn't know anything, and he didn't become anything different. I hope that by helping Penelope, and eventually getting to know her alter ego, he will realize that the truth is that he is still learning to become who he wants to be, and we get to see that somehow. We get to see him pursuing things. We get to see him expressing himself more. I want to see his insecurities, and I want to see him rebuilding himself.

But I really don't want to see him doing that the way he was in the book. Just really angry and jealous [Although I'm not much of a hater of this in the books, because I think it makes sense considering him as a character. People when lost can get like this. But because I want to enjoy their relationship, I hope he isn't just that like he was in the books]

P.S: If you happen to read this. Regarding a comment you made on a post of mine long ago, and I wasn't in the right state of mind to answer it then lol. First: I think you came across quite agressive, chill down if you answer this, I'm not looking for a fight, I swear lol

I understand what you mean as Colin needed to do things for his character. I also agree with it, despite saying in the post that I wished he stayed, I said it out of rambling UHSAUHSAUHSAUUHSA But I do think he should have paid her a visit or at least sent her a note lol. He could have Eloise delivering it. My point is that even if she wasn't sad canonically, this is something we know as viewers. If you know about a friend who lost their father, you'll worry about them. This is just natural. Even if you're not that close. It could be someone from your workplace you don't talk to that much. You would say 'I'm sorry for your loss' given the opportunity.

Anyway. In the show, he looks at her house not pitying her or anything. He looks kinda inspired or something? And I think it's really fucked up. He could have looked at least worried or pensive in a negative way not in wonder, you know? I'd like they to explore their letters exchange in this light, tbh. I think it'd make sense if he sent her something like "Sorry for not being able to lalala" and then they began to exchange letters and became more friendly over time. But that's just my head.

Well, my point is: I agree with what you said despite being more invested in Penelope as a whole and the romance, because I like it, and that's fine as well.

P.S.S.: I think I read a fic of yours on AO3. It was one that Penelope didn't know she was dating Colin, and he totally thought she did, and I loved it. Your style and their exchanges. That's it. Now I'm out.

can we finally just admit it? Can we FINALLY just admit it? i'm so tired of being gaslit in this fandom. can we just finally say we don't care about Colin's development? it's SO obvious and so clear and so incredibly mind boggling to me that people are STILL lying about it. Acting like Colin gets even a crumb of the same development other characters have been allowed. Why do they get to have individual struggles and goals and hopes and dreams and scenes and Colin never gets anything?

"He's coming into this season with a totally different swagger, feeling convinced that he knows exactly who he is"

How?

We have seen, and I am not exaggerating here, a grand total of 0 scenes with him traveling. We have 1 (read it, 1) flashback of him as a child in the background. We got 1 (one) conversation between him and Penelope about how he's looking for purpose.

And absolutely NO development.

I guess it's good he feels he knows who he is, because absolutely no one else does. Forget the other characters, Colin's been overlooked for years, but the AUDIENCE has no idea who he is. He's inconsistent. He has no well defined personal arc. He has had very few if ANY scenes where he has to grapple with anything particularly deep and we linger on it. I cannot BELIEVE they would say 'Marina's chapter is closed' when we didn't even see Colin process it. His entire engagement blew up publicly in his face, and what did we see of the aftermath for him? A 5 second, silent clip of him tearfully staring at the ceiling. I fucking hate it here.

These new synopsis snippets reveal what I've been expecting and what I've been saying for AGES: Colin is NOT a character in this fandom nor is he a character in the show. Colin is a plot device. Colin is whoever they want him to be in whatever scenario with Penelope fits the neatest. Colin doesn't need consistency or motives, Colin doesn't need bonds or relationships, Colin doesn't need emotional struggle or introspection. Who needs to see THAT?

No. PENELOPE is who is coming into her own power, and Colin is there to help her do it. We've treated this couple like they're holding a scorecard for YEARS and this is the outcome. Can't say I'm surprised, but I'm not gonna stop being upset about it.

Everything is always about Penelope. ALWAYS. When is Colin ever going to get time to exist for himself and as himself if he's not even going to get to do so in his own SEASON?

[coladaminx]

😎📣 you're doing amazing sweeties!

[zathechaosgod]

Favourite stream moments!

Streamed by Philza on Twitch on Friday 18th of December

Hardcore boi is back!

chillin today

(thank god)

goal today is getting the main ship complete (impromptu streams possible any day just to get it done rip)

last dream smp stream was probs the most rp since he joined

but it was an awesome stream!

hopefully the next vid on youtube will be a hardcore vid!

time to farm leaves (and i guess wood as well)

he’s been forgetting to watch this 5head video on his s2 death

so we’re watching it now!

this goes into so much detail wtf

the baby zombie wasn’t even op lmaoooo

go check out dayrisk! it’s honestly a really good vid!

back to talking about fundy’s loh

lmao he didn’t even watch most of it, he just got a message from austin, like “hey can you guest?”

kristin fed him the best question lmao

tricia chatted to him while fundy had his date with the other girl

and she was like “i hope i don’t get cancelled after this”

and he was going to tell fundy if he asked for advice but he didn’t

and well tricia hosted rip fundy

wil threatened tricia for doing that “to his son” lmao

that was the first time dadza spoke to austin

wilbur was messaging him during the whole thing lol

rip dadza he had to sneeze but didn’t and that’s the worst

we’re talking about the sneezing to look into the sun lmao

IMAGINE HIM LOSING S4 TO A SNEEZE

phil is being called a boomer by chat lmao

also dw about your drivers exam, sometimes your examinator is just mean ):

“oh, b l u e” about the blue dye a wandering trader had

wilbur’s tts is muted? but phil read it dw

LEEEROOYYYYYYYY JENNNNKINSSSS

“do i buy the blue? or do i kill.”

gapple gang catch up!

he did both lol

“bones. they heal”

ugh phil’s stream playlist is SO POG

phil is going to talk to a company he likes about releasing new merch pog?

FRIEND

HES GONNA USE THE BLUE TO MAKE A FRIEND

FRIEND!!!

he’s even getting the exact same spelling lol

first time nether advice: bring a cauldron and multiple buckets of water to put yourself out in the nether if youre on fire!

also barter with the piglins for fire protection pots

dadza stop procrastinating emptying the iron farm lol

friend is now officially replacing watersheep

“friend is eternal”

time to get back to the nethervoid and get started on the big ship!!

quick recap on the nether void so far around 1:10:00

FISHING TIME

he’s really gonna have to build this off camera just to get it done lmao

IN ENDLANTIS POG

shaders included!

the battle for endlantis

(def watch it if you haven’t yet)

FORTMITE CHAPTER 2

HIS REACTION WAS “PASS” TO THE QUESTION IF WE WERE GONNA CRY A LOT DURING THIS ARC

there will be a christmas stream during the afternoon on christmas day!!!

come hang if you want to have a good time and vibe (:

also dad is the wrong person to beg for spoilers lmao

S U F F E R

phil was all in for joining dream smp once wilbur suggested logging in behind him

also he’s enjoying it more as time goes on!

phil watched tubbo end his stream and then raid him

he thinks the level of angst people went through is hilarious lmao

also ghostbur is literally just wilbur doing stuff, none of ghostbur is planned lmaooo

sp it actually worked really well that ghostbur was singing my l’manberg when tubbo raided lol

also why is obama just,, canon in the dream smp

does that mean the us exists?

lmaoo the difference between his enderchests in hardcore and dream smp

also free ear check while we’re in the end anyway

YOUR NEW BOYFRIEND IS BOOMER FRIENDLY AND HAS BEEN APPROVED BY PHILS MUM

uh oh rip phil’s to do list

we’re gonna get a red sheep now

B E L T

WEIRDCHAMP GETTING BANNED FROM PHIL, BUT ALSO FROM TOMMY, TUBBO AND FUNDY

enemy!!

slowfalling poggggg

“TIME TO GO TO HELL”

even before the blow up phil had regulars who showed up like once a week to try stuff and they’d get banned every time

“me, two bots, and three of my friends”

if you’re not sure, even if it’s your only viewer, YEET THEM

you don’t want those types of people in your community

aww enemy really didn’t want to go to the nether lol

and he’s too thicc to fit through the bedrock

“WELCOME TO THE NETHERVOID F*CKFACE”

enemy is now the blaze empress’s pet!

stranger in the end??

oops dadza hasn’t emptied the gold farm in a while either lmao

his favourite animal is a sloth! bc they’re everything he was

they’re vibe creatures

phil isn’t like that tho lmao

man plans out his escape route before he even sits down

he’s working on it tho dw!

it probs comes from when he was 4/5 and went to the metro centre, which used to have a place called metro land, an indoor theme park, and there used to be these reaaaaly high stairs (for a four year old) and he used to be fearless like any kid that age, so he started running up the stairs at full speed, and his dad yelled at him not to or he’ll break his head open, and in that moment any bravery left tiny baby phil and he was terrified

and that’s how phil got traumatized lmao

hihi metro gnomes

oh the insta story of him and kristin shopping is from there!

finally getting started on the big ship!

he’s looking at reference pics of (pirate) ships now lol

some of them are jpegs from 1994 lmao

now he’s showing the pirate ship from the peter pan movie hook! (it’s the one where peter pan has grown up and stuff)

people are making fun of phil’s accent lmao

a ghast foot glichted through the wall ooh

SNOOP TIME

BLEND W LETS GOOO

lmao phil saw us freaking out about wilbur changing to his l’manberg skin

it was literally just for the thumbnail lmaoooo

we got baited so hard lololol

P UR G E. T H E W E A K

dad says it might have to end sometime

momza says never lmao

phil isn’t sure he wants to do the ship anymore, bc he’s afraid he’ll mess it up rip

start at the front?

did phil get his “baap” from techno or the other way around?

this ship might’ve been doomed from the start rip

lol apparently a penguin in japan fell in love with the anime-style mascot for penguins the zoo has

(it’s acutally adorable)

rip he died in 2017

“he died the way he lived, a complete weeb shut-in”

o7 they now have the cutout replaced with one which also includes the penguin (it’s so cute!!)

he might finish this offstream while banging his heads against a brick wall lmao

kristin sent some adorable fanart of the penguin oh no it’s too much

ship is starting to take shape now!

rip phils back, he spend too much time editing yesterday bc he wanted to get the rocket league vid out

the skeleton if the ship is really helping in just,,, visualising what it’s actually going to look like

time to start filling in the bottom!!

we’re sacrificing the spawn proofing for today, just so phil can see what he’s actually building better

lmaooo an enderman placed down his gravel on the floor

rip dadza and his milkshake craving

*spawns a ton of mobs* “just ignore the loud noises, chat, just don’t worry about it”

phil slouched down in his chair, and chat is pepegun’ing him now lmao

this is your reminder to fix your posture!

little blade got called out for calling themselves little techno, despite their actual name being little echnoblade

and now got called out for having infinite bits lmaoo

ian and ricky & co are our uncles now, it’s canon lmao

ricky is weird but harmless btw

pupza came by as a name for an eventual dog (bc momza wants a puppy), but you have to consider what you’re going to be shouting on a field when your dog is running away and phil is not going to be shouting that lmao

freestyling pog? we’re reaching the front of the ship in building the hull

and little blade is apparently going to sneak a venomous spider in for someone lmao

(little blade, if you ever read this, please know if consider you an absolute legend)

“phil if you hear anything, you don’t.”

whoooo it’s already looking really pog!!

:o sub only was turned on because chat spammed glatt lmao

he saw the spam of messages in the discord as well lol

reinstating: dream smp is just florida in smp format

ohhh he’s nailing the ship pogggg

phil isn’t telling us what the next project is yet, but he’s secretly been prepping for it :(

he’ll make sure to finish the nethervoid before the end of the year, and then he’ll start the new one in 2021!

time to raid fundy!! to send him love after his heart got ripped out again rip

[butterflydm]

2020 (what a weird year)

I did not get very much done this year at all. The business I work for got us all classified as essential workers which... tbh, I did not agree with as a categorization. It’s meant that hours per week stayed the same, but my anxiety levels at work skyrocketed. And most of the time, after getting home, I basically had enough energy to check some stuff online but I mostly needed to decompress by doing something familiar, which I’ve been doing by replaying FFX and FFX2, and my brain mostly hasn’t had room for anything new. Which is a shame for all the plans I had to watch tons of new media! I had a long list of things I wanted to check out and I haven’t really watched any of it.

I did get a chance to watch a few new things (as always, tbh, any recs of mine are basically ‘you will like this thing, if this is the kind of thing you like’):

The Old Guard: Really enjoyed this movie. It’s been out for a while now, but if you haven’t had a chance to watch it, it was a fun, easy watch that also made me think some interesting philosophical questions about life. A good time! It’s honestly the only movie I watched during the 2020 pandemic period, unless I get around to watching anything else in the next couple of days.

MXTX’s Scum Villain’s Self-Saving System: I love love this story. I’ve watched the donghua (looking forward to S2!) and read the translation by BC Novels, and the story just has so many things that make my heart go ‘yes!’: it’s funny, with a charming PoV character who both doesn’t take himself too seriously and also seriously misunderstands himself in a lot of ways -- very relatable. It’s dramatic AF, with romantic lead Luo Binghe at the heart of a lot of that drama. It’s clever and I love the way the premise is used for both humor and pathos.

Tone-wise, it reminds me of works like Galaxy Quest or Northanger Abbey. Honestly, that light tone helps in some of the later chapters, which have content that is actually very dark and very heartbreaking if taken seriously, but because of the momentum of the story and the tone of the narrative, I didn’t feel like I got lost or bogged down in the darkness.

And I love the relationship between Shen Qingqiu and Luo Binghe a whole heck of a lot. I think the way it’s structured is clever and sweet and sad and makes for an interesting story. There is an element of an unintentional romantic obsession that SQQ created by the way he flipped between kind and cruel (against his will, which is what makes it forgivable for the audience, imo, because SQQ wanted to always be kind, though not always for the most selfless of reasons) and how LBH had to try to mentally justify/rationalize how the same man could act in such completely opposing ways. And the narrative symmetry between how SQQ thinks of LBH as the center of the universe because he’s the OP Protagonist (!) but LBH thinks of SQQ as the one that everything revolves around and how that’s narratively true because, of course, in the story that we’re reading, SQQ is the protagonist and LBH is his love interest.

I also actually really appreciated the bad sex near the end of the novel -- sex-to-save-the-world is a trope that can easily get romanticized but here it’s (literally) painful and ugly instead, as all of LBH’s trauma pairs with the influence of Xin Mo on his mind. Even through the translation, it definitely feels like bad sex written well, rather than badly-written sex that is supposed to be good, if you know what I mean. Sex can be an important narrative tool in stories and I feel like MXTX uses it very effectively here.

I think I burnt through the entire translation in just a few days. I’ve been reading a lot of fanfic afterwards and I think my favorite so far is I Wish You Were My Husband by Feynite. It’s an AU but it keeps the same kind of vibe as the original story.

Bridgerton: Goodness, so enjoyable! Julia Quinn is not My Most Favorite of the various romance writers that I read but she was one of the first writers that really got me back into reading romance and it was delightful to see her world on screen. I don’t picture people when I’m reading novels; I have to have a visual first and then I can carry that into the reading, so it was nice to be able to assign faces to some of these characters that I’m already very fond of. Simon and Daphne had a nice amount of chemistry and I loved the Bridgerton family relationships.

I hope they get to cover all the romances in the series and continue to do some updating as well -- I generally liked the changes they made to Simon and Daphne’s romance (a few I wasn’t as into but could see why they’d done it -- mostly For The Drama). And I really loved what they did with Simon and Lady Danbury’s relationship. It took me some time to tell the three older Bridgerton brothers apart but that’s pretty much canon, lol. Anyway, I was invested enough in it all that I stayed up all night on Christmas eve to watch it all and I had no regrets afterward.

I started watching S2 of TharnType but then my work schedule changed and I was working on Fridays and (see above) I just didn’t have the energy to watch anything after work. I might wait and binge the rest of the series once it’s all out, now that it’s gone this long without me being caught up.

I do think I’ll take a break from Critical Role for a while, after it comes back. I’ve just come to an unfortunate place where the show literally cannot win with me re: the romances, as I’m annoyed when they happen but also, perversely, annoyed when they get ignored because my brain goes “they gutted beaujester for this limited amount of inferior romance? At least commit to giving an adequate amount of the romances that I dislike!”. And so it becomes a vicious circle. Good sign that it’s time to take a break. My unhappiness with one part of the show is overshadowing everything else and maybe some time away will change that. Or maybe I just need to pick it up again with campaign 3. I guess I’ll see how it goes. I also admit that I’d hate to pick up the show again only to have Lucien get killed off in a few episodes.

I want to try to watch some more shows in 2021, and maybe I’ll have time, if I’m freeing up several hours every Thursday.

I want to watch Heaven Official’s Blessing and I’ve had a translation of the novel on my phone for the entire year and I really do want to read it as well. I’d like to watch Xiao Zhan and Wang Yibo’s new shows (The Wolf & The Legend of Fei) as the gifsets I’ve seen have been interesting and enjoyable, and there are a bunch of shows that I’d gotten recommendations about after watching TharnType that I still want to check out too. Plus, I have the new Stormlight Archives book and I want to read that as well. So, there’s quite a list.

It’s still probably gonna be quite stressful at work for a while, at least until I’ve had a chance to get the vaccine, but at least I am going back to Thursdays & Fridays as my days off at the start of the year, so I’m looking forward to that. I’m also hoping to get back to my detailed rewatch of The Untamed, because that was so much fun but I did not have enough brain this year to do any more of it.

[courage-a-word-of-justice]

Misfit of Demon King Academy 1 | Healin’ Good PreCure 13 - 14 | Lapis Re:Lights 1 | God of High School 1 | Muhyo and Roji’s BSI s2 1

Misfit of Demon King Academy 1

This originally had the ecchi tag on its anime entry on AniList…or, at least, that’s how it was in my memory…but now that I see it doesn’t have that, it’s just another reincarnation isekai-type series. Let’s dig into it!

I…think this guy is meant to be portrayed as “hot” because he has the piercing eyes and he’s tall (against the girls in what will presumedly be his harem), but he kind of looks like your standard Potato-kun in a white outfit…so, uh…*shrugs*

Uh…is that guy meant to be Indian? You can’t get more obvious than the “Indu” family. Update: You see his brother later and Leorg has fairer skin, so maybe not.

LOL, “Flame of Darkness” makes someone nothing but a chuunibyou.

Uh…this is called The Misfit of Demon King Academy, y’know? Anos (Anoth?) is gonna get in, you bet your butts.

The owl is cute.

…guy, that 3 second rule thing was actually funny, but the more you think about the joke, the less funny it gets. Show: 1. Me: Infinity -1

Just from appearances, I wanna guess Misha is an ice or light magic user, or whatever equivalent the show has.

Is this what Assassin’s Pride could have been…?

How did the mother (Anoth’s) think her kid maturing that fast wasn’t weird?

Mushroom gratin? Is that an actual dish?...Yep, seems so. Sounds nice. I like mushrooms.

What’s up with young mothers in anime these days? Then again, the only other point of reference I have is Masamune-kun’s Revenge…

I thought it was the other Indu guy we saw earlier. This guy’s…not that bad-looking, though (LOL, my preferences ring out loud and clear…)…welp, spoke too soon. There he is. Update: Leorg kinda looks like Hakuto Kunai from Demon Lord, Retry!, come to think of it.

If Zepes died several times over the course of this episode…would one more death actually matter? (Not really, to be honest. Zepes is a scumbag.)

Come to think of it, this anime got postponed due to COVID, yeah? Was that why there was a sakuga spot earlier…?

Was that Sasha (Misha’s sister)? I found her name while checking if the anime was postponed.

I like the colour choices in this show, at least.

I don’t think this show has the best sense of comedic timing. Let your jokes breathe, dammit! That’s what comedic beats are for!

In a season with more offerings, I might get rid of this or pause it, but the season’s fairly sparse as it stands (darn virus!) so it stays.

Update: I didn’t notice, but an Anime News Network staff member wrote that Anoth’s surname is familiar…if you read Harry Potter.

Healin’ Good PreCure 13

Gotta start in the middle for this and work our way back. Note I did watch the 1st 2 eps without subs earlier this year when they were on the official PreCure YouTube, so I’m ahead of most people.

(From wandering the wiki and the news) I’ve seen nothing but pink/blue/yellow Cures these days, so I kind miss the more adventurous colours like green and orange…but then again, I never really liked green. It’s the colour of envy and…as petty as it sounds, I think I developed that bias because green is stereotypically the colour of rot, vomit (aside from anime’s rainbow vomit) and stinky things.

I didn’t notice this, but there’s a faint highlight on the Cures’ eyes (red for Grace, purple for Fontaine and blue for Sparkle).

It’s a drone! In PreCure! Yay! (It finally hit me exactly how much of a distant dream it’s been – from watching Suite and episodes of most of the other PreCure ‘til now – watching PreCure legally as a simulcast is! It’s crazy and it only took, what…5 years between Suite and this? 16 if you count from Futari wa to Healin’ Good.)

Is it that drone?

Hah? This is almost like the electricity-themed PreCure I came up with on the fan wiki. It’s not like I could sue Toei for it, though…they own that stuff, I only own what came out of my own imagination.

The subs say “Rate”, but “rate” has a meaning in English. No wonder the initial wiki translations say “Latte”, especially because the queen is “Teatine” to match.

Okay, so Mei is the sis and Yota is the brother. Got it.

Hey! What if there was a PreCure where the villains had devastated another world before? That would really raise the stakes.

“[T]hunders” (sic)? Thunder is the sound, lightning is the flash. Which one is it?

I see. As soon as they identified it as the Element of Lightning, I sort of guessed they could add it to their repertoire later, and I was right.

Its’s nice to see they put a woman in the moving company as well. Proves that girls can do anything they set their minds to, even what are supposedly “men’s jobs”.

I guess from the face I should’ve expected the element to talk, like the Fairy Tones from Suite, but I didn’t really figure that out until I saw it talk,

I feel like Hinata should’ve gone to see how Mei made her juice. That way, the two might be able to make similar-tasting juice…but that’s just an idea.

Healin’ Good PreCure 14

I feel like Byogens were responsible for Nodoka’s sickness, much like they are for Latte.

“Energy Source” seems to refer to a place where energy appears…I know that sounds a bit dumb if you don’t realise genki hakken means something like “appearance of energy (for a person)”, but…yeah, the PreCure series is like this. Unfortunately, that’s what you have to deal with.

I feel like this “teamwork overcomes all hardships” message is important in this time of COVID-19.

Guaiwaru = “condition is bad”, or ill health (guai ga warui).

Is that the element of air? I thought the PreCure would’ve used their element of lightning to fix the steamer, but hey, teamwork works too.

I’m a weeny bit peevy they translate minna to “girls”. It’s correct in context when it’s been translated that way, but minna means “everybody”.

I imagined Hinata saying “Watashi no smartphone ga!” instead of “Atarashii sumaho ga hoshii!”

Lapis Re:Lights 1

Eh…COVID-19 means I gotta sample things I’m not so crazy about.

Why is one of the first lines in this show “My behind hurts!”?

Bristol? Is this England?...Nope, it’s a place called “Mamkestell”.

I was thinking this girl…I think the reviews said her name was Tiara…was going to sing to the flower to make it perk up again, but nup, she whistled to it. That seems a bit irrelevant, to be honest. (I would prefer an all or nothing approach to a wish-washy approach like this…as in, if this is an idol show, then either go all in with the singing and dancing, or do something else that’ll catch my attention.)

Tiara’s face looks hella generic.

For some reason, I get this ominous feeling when the word “witch” is mentioned…must be the instinct from Madoka popping up again.

Lemme guess. Lynette is the bookworm?...*sigh* Just another method of showing a character is a bookworm without actually showing their reading a book, which I think is counterintuitive.

Get some protective gear, girls!

Rosetta keeps saying “Yes” (in English).

Lemme guess…people ship the dumb one and the smart one? They’re like a gender-flipped Dice and Gentaro, only the smart one is more uppity and the stupid one is more sporty.

The word appears to be noumei, but that exact word doesn’t seem to exist. Lavie seems to say the word is the opposite to something else, but I can’t tell what that is either…

Albino rabbit, eh?

…people probably ship Rosetta and Tiara too, right? *sigh*

So there’s…no singing in this fantasy/idol show. Whistling is how you invoke magic…so how is someone who can’t whistle supposed to invoke magic?!

Whose idea was it to put the OP in the middle of the episode?

It was “Neechan, daikirai!” “Forget you” is a fairly loose translation…

Little Miss Rosetta = Rosetta-chan.

I think Tiara called Rosetta “sensei” when the former wanted the latter to take care of her (i.e. take her to their dorm).

Titi = Tiara. I didn’t actually figure that out because I thought it referred to the rabbits.

Gah! These almost-real-world names (or real world names, in regards to “Bristol”) are gonna drive me NUTS!

*sigh* Boob jiggle.

*sighhhhhhhhh…* Lemme guess, there’s a potential expulsion on the horizon? Update: Yep. Dropped.

God of High School 1

First Webtoon series I’m covering here.

Oh, I checked out the first chapter of the webtoon because CR linked it to their anime page. The only difference I’ve seen from that, aside from fleshing out the backgrounds, is…that creepy skull (?) on the wall.

You can tell it’s Korean when I don’t understand what the text says. (I don’t know Korean, but I do know some Chinese and Japanese.) Update: This is Japanese-dubbed, but they left the Korean text in.

That intro is much more powerful now that the backgrounds are fleshed out.

Ooh, the colours in the OP are very nice!

Hmm? They’re starting with the grandpa, rather than starting with “I’m Mori Jin, 17 years old”? Good choice.

The expressions in this show are funny. I like them already.

Waittttttttt…I dunno how Korean names work. Is Mori Jin’s first name “Mori” or “Jin”? Update: I checked it up, and I got even more confused!

KORG Arena seems to be…from Marvel? Like BnHA references Star Wars???

*sigh* Moonbucks? Again?...and of course the girls only talk about “hotties”. We need a Bechdel test in this thing.

The comments on ch. 1 said “A new Luffy is born”, so now I agree with it…but they’re not going to show how Mori Jin was enlisted for GOH (as they seem to abbreviate it)?

There’s Japanese, English and Korean in the afro dude’s comments.

I’m amazed that tall dude with the spiky hair wasn’t more surprised about Mori Jin and the girl passing by…

Would those glasses on Mori Jin’s head be any help? Update: Turns out those aren’t “glasses”…they’re a sleeping mask.

Kamina glasses!

They put CR and Webtoon advertising over everything in this anime…geesh.

These red parts of people’s noses are gonna bug me, aren’t they…?

It should be battle royale, right? Update: Okay, so I checked and both are correct spellings.

This seems like the sort of thing that would never get funded because you need to pull off every battle scene right.

They cut the initial fight with “Blondie” out, but that actually makes things more interesting! Good choice.

Lemme guess – Mori Jin is going to have to fight this Kang Manseouk guy at full power one day? *shrugs* (Can I stop referring to people by their full names already??? I can’t stop until I know which is the first name and which is the last.) Update: So the wiki finally helped me out and Mori is the first name and Jin the last, meaning I can call him “Mori”. Got it.

*Mori suddenly pulls the prisoner’s pants down* - That was…random.

I liked it more than I thought I would! (Just for reference, the other protag dude is called Han Dae-wi and the girl is Yoo Mira.)

Muhyo and Roji’s BSI s2 1

(Update for the Tumblr fans: I finished s1 outside the seasonal format.) 

Kokkuri-san never goes well in anime…

Where does Nana work again…?

I don’t think Muhyo and Roji are legally (magically legally?) obligated to tell Nana anything about what they do.

Yay! Goryo is animted for the first time! He has such a beautiful voice~!

Notably, Roji wouldn’t have had a smartphone in 2004 (or whatever year close to that when the manga put this bit out).

Goryo (5) vs Muhyo (6). Didn’t figure this out at the time I read the manga.

I think the subbers misgendered Goryo. Goryo is a dude, as can be gathered from the name “Daranimaru”.

“Waka”? Does that stand for “young head [of the office]” or something?

Okay, whose bright idea was it to pair Now on Air (female vocalists) with Muhyo and Roji’s (a series dominated with dudes)…?

Ah, Funimation is on the production team of this anime. That would explain the dub rights.

[murasaki-murasame]

After all this waiting, we finally know what the new gala is gonna be like, and it wasn’t exactly what I was expecting in a whole bunch of ways, lmao. But I’m still extremely excited for it.

Since i’ve been saving for this ever since the Gala Alex banner ended, I’m currently sitting on a grand total of 600 summons, so let’s just hope I can get what I want with that.

So firstly we now officially know about Gala Leif being a thing, and man was that a roller-coaster of emotions for me. Mostly I’m just happy he’s finally coming out, but I’m still feeling extremely iffy about him being a wind sword, both because Gala Ranzal already exists, and also because I don’t even do eCiella in co-op anymore. But on the other hand, I’m also feeling kinda smug about correctly guessing that he’s be a support unit with two stances, though that probably wasn’t the hardest thing to guess, lol. But even then, his kit just looks . . . kinda strange. I really think I’ll need to hold back on making any judgments about it one way or another until we get his SP costs and damage mods, since that might really make or break him. His abilities also don’t say anything about his stance mechanic, so there might be additional things it does beyond just changing what his skills do.

On paper I think he just looks odd because the strength and defense debuffs don’t really seem that potent, and his S1 defense buff is self-only, which seems like it wouldn’t really be that great in eCiella anyway, and it wouldn’t be able to trigger doublebuff on everyone. Which is weird since he also has a strength doublebuff chain co-ab, with no apparent way to trigger it for the entire team by himself.

And since he doesn’t seem to give team-wide defense buffs, I’m honestly not sure if he’d actually be able to replace T-Hope’s role in eCiella, but for manual play that might not be a huge deal. He also doesn’t seem to have any heals or buff dispel, so he probably won’t also be replacing Lowen or OG Ranzal. And Sylas provides more potent buffs and debuffs. So I’m worried that Gala Leif might just not be able to find a place in the meta, but we’ll see how it goes. Since he has two attacking skills depending on what stance he’s in, he might be a good DPS unit, if nothing else. Which might also go with his Flurry Strength passive, which seems like a really weird ability to give to what seems like a support unit.

His unique debuff punisher co-ab and his debuff skill time ability are also really interesting, but I’m not sure how that’ll work out.

I just think there’s a big possibility that there’s additional mechanics to his kit that aren’t clear just from reading his skills and abilities, so we’ll have towait and see how he goes in practice. It’s entirely possible that he’s like Tobias, and being in his shielding stance lets him attack from range.

I’m still gonna immediately summon for him anyway and if I end up regretting that then that’ll by my problem, lmao. I’ve waited too long for this dude not to chase him.

They’re also putting the upcoming banner units on the gala, which is . . . extremely weird but also really cool. Considering that stuff like this doesn’t lead to anyone having lower than normal appearance rates, this just means that when I chase after Gala Leif I’ll have a good chance at getting some of these units too. Which would be nice, since I was already thinking that they might really tempt me.

It’s also just kinda funny that after finding out about the Xuan Zang alt I got worried that she’d be the new gala unit, which I knew wasn’t gonna happen, but then she ended up actually being on the gala banner anyway even if she’s not the gala unit, lol.

I hope this becomes a trend going forward, since it’d be a great way to give me a shot at non-limited banner units even if I just save for galas exclusively.

Anyway, these new units are the new batch of non-limited light units we’ve been desperately needing, and they look really nice. They still suffer from the fact that there’s no important fights to actually use them in until the shadow Agito boss comes out in like three months, but at least we can use them in this event.

I honestly couldn’t tell what weapon type the Xuan Zang alt was meant to be since she uses a unique weapon model in her boss battle, and she also dies way too fast for me to see her animations, so it’s nice to get confirmation that she’s a wand unit.

In general, Radiant Xuan Zang basically looks like a more tanky version of Peony, which is really interesting. I wonder if anyone will feel bad for summoning for Peony, lol. I think they’re different enough that it doesn’t matter, but they’re still really similar in a lot of ways.

Even though her DPS might not be as high as Peony’s, I do really like how Xuan Zang’s new kit looks. Her S1 strength debuff reminds me a lot of Sylas’, and she also has a shadow resistance buff on her S2. So if that sort of damage mitigation is good in the shadow Agito fight, that’d be really nice. She can also inspire the entire team with her enhanced S2, which seems to effect the entire team and not just people she’s near, so that might have a surprisingly big impact on her team DPS contribution. I think this also makes her the first light unit with inspiration, which is cool.

She also gets the new debuff skill time ability like Gala Leif does, which is cool. I guess that’ll probably be given to new units every once in a while now. The fact that it also covers bleed is really interesting, especially since there’s currently no way to have it apply to anyone who actually inflicts bleed, so maybe they’re laying the foundation for that to happen later. And since we have buff time prints, maybe we’ll get debuff time prints, which could be really useful on certain characters.

One thing that I think is really interesting is that when she maxes her charge gauge, she can lower an enemy’s paralysis resistance level. It sounds like a one-time, permanent effect, but it might have a real impact on team DPS if you rely on paralysis punishing, since this should effectively prolong the amount of uptime you can have on paralysis. It also opens up the possibility of other characters in other elements getting this sort of ability for other status effects, which could really increase the viability of certain units, especially if we get someone who can do this sort of thing for something like bog or blind resistance.

Other than how much she seems to be competing with Peony, my main worry with her is probably that her charge gauge mechanic might hold her back, and lead to her having low uptime on stuff like the strength buff it lets her give the team. Not to mention the fact that it’s an AoE buff effect, not a universal team one, so you might not be able to give it to everyone. It sounds like the amount her charge gauge gets boosted depends on how many teammates are within her AoE field when she uses her S2, so her potential seems to really depend on whether or not everyone’s grouped close to each other.

I honestly wasn’t super interested in her when we first saw her, but the fact that she’ll be on the same banner as Gala Leif makes me a lot more interested in picking her up, and I do really like how her kit looks. I already have Chitose, but I didn’t get Peony, so Xuan Zang might be worth getting. I also just appreciate that she’s effectively a non-limited light strength buff unit, which the element’s really needed for a long time now. It’s not quite as straight-forward as how Chitose’s buffs work, but it’s something.

I also just honestly really like her as a character, and like with Wu Kong I have a lot of nostalgia toward her because her event was the first one I actually got into when I started playing the game. I never really use her welfare version, so it’d be great to be able to use her alt.

Though even more than her, as soon as I saw Zhu Bajie and it became obvious he was gonna be a banner unit, I got really tempted to chase him, lol. Which is another reason why i’m glad that these units are getting bundled into the same banner as Leif. I don’t really need any light units any time soon in general, but I still really want him, and it’d be nice to not have to dream summon him.

In terms of his kit, I don’t really like enmity units in general, but he does look really strong on paper. We’ll have to see his exact damage mods, but the fact that he can manually lower his health while also having Resilient Offense seems like a really good combo. Sadly the shield he gets is just a regular shield like Natalie’s, but it does it’s job. It’s interesting that his S2 also makes it so that he can’t be healed for ten seconds. I’m not sure if that actually works well with his kit or not, since on the one hand he wants to stay at low health as much as possible, but he also needs to dip in and out of low HP to trigger Resilient Offense. He also has a unique force-strike via his ability that has a multi-step charge like the MH units, which gives him knockback res and has paralysis punisher mods. 

Light doesn’t really have the sort of support for enmity kits that shadow does via Grace’s shield utility, but I think he has a lot of potential to be a really good DPS unit, and honestly light really needs more of that, in terms of non-limited units. It’s also nice that he’s an axe, since I didn’t get DY-Malora, and I don’t use S-Luca anymore now that I have G-Luca.

It’s probably worth noting that even though there’s not currently someone like Grace for light, Xuan Zang has her strength debuffs and her team shadow res buffs that should help make Zhu Bajie a lot more tanky if you use them together.

And then there’s the wildcard in the form of Sha Wujing, who isn’t actually described in the blog post they put out because he’s a 4-star. Which is kinda lame, but considering that they’re bundling this with Gala Leif AND also including a new 5-star dragon, I get why they relegated him to being a 4-star.

But either way, he might be a really interesting unit. There’s nothing to go on, but him being a 4-star isn’t an automatic strike against the idea of him being really good. There’s just lots of different things they could do with him.

Basically my main two options I’m thinking about at the moment are in effectively being a light version of Emma, or a light version of Heinwald. It’d be great to get a dedicated, non-limited light strength buffer, but Xuan Zang can kinda do that too, and I’m not really sure if him being a lance unit or something with strength buffs really ‘fits’ his whole vibe. But on the other hand, I really like the idea of him being sort of like Heinwald but for light. It’s been over a year since our last light healer came out, so it’d be really nice to get another one. And tbh as a character he really reminds me of Heinwald, so it’d make sense if they end up being similar units. But who knows.

And finally we’re also getting a new light dragon for this banner, who seems to basically just be light Freyja, except her dragon skill only energizes the team instead of also healing them. Which is a bit lame, but light already has Cupid who can heal everyone, so it’s not a big deal. Either way I’d really like to get a copy of her to use on my light support/healer units.

Interestingly it seems like they’re all still gonna appear on the next banner once the gala ends, but I think this is by far going to be the best time to get them, unless they intentionally increase their appearance rates for their banner or something. Being able to get all of them AND Gala Leif from the same banner is way too good of a deal to pass up.

Also this means that we’re not getting a split banner for this event [at least not in the same way we’ve had with recent events], so that’s great. We’re still probably gonna get more split banners in the future, but it’s nice to have all these units on one banner.

I should probably hold off on my summoning spree until we know how good the new units are [especially since Gala Leif looks like he might be underwhelming in practice], but I’ve been saving for two months for this, so I don’t think I’m gonna be able to restrain myself, lol. Depending on how long I summon for, I might have to actually keep notes of what I get so I can remember it all.

Realistically it might be best for me to just stop if/when I get Gala Leif and then save for the next gala, but with the event units being on the gala banner as well, they might tempt me to keep pulling. We’ll just see how it goes, I guess.

[yinzhengs]

timeline of zhai tianlin drama

—aka, why OS s2 is in peril: the tl;dr is that people are casting suspicion on zhai tianlin’s phd thesis’ validity + it’s blown up. this is taken from this weibo post here that tried to give a summary / timeline of events (note that as far as i can tell, OP is biased against ztl...) 

note that a lot of (if not all) of these claims are unsubstantiated / based on questionable “evidence.” my heart goes out to ztl for having to deal with the massive influx of hate — tags abt this have been trending all week, and this drama’s even made the news. (link to english article, south china morning post)

avenuex also made a video about it here (which i haven’t watched yet bc frankly i don’t have the emotional energy, but i’ve heard it’s good)

throughout the post they refer to ztl as “翟博士” which is lit. doctor/phd zhai. whether or not it’s snarky... well... i’ll leave it to you to decide. all my additions in the form of links or supplementary info are in square brackets.

一个翟博士引发的惨案 / lit. a massacre that dr. zhai started

背景：翟博士微博晒出北大光华学院博士后站录取通知书，自勉“加油，小翟”。

background: dr. zhai shared on weibo his acceptance letter to the brilliant beijing university, encouraging himself with the caption “加油 [jiayou], xiao zhai” (approx. keep up the good work, little zhai) 第一波：翟博士不知知网。网友问他能否在知网看见他的博士论文，他一头雾水问“知网是什么” 翟博士：自我挽尊“我说不知道1+1=2都有人信”。 the first wave: dr. zhai didn’t know about 知网 [zhiwang] / China National Knowledge Infrastructure (wiki link provided, but it’s a research database similar to jstor in the west). netizens asked if they would be able to read his phd thesis on CNKI. completely confused, he asked: “what’s CNKI?”

dr zhai [later], trying to save his own dignity: “people would believe me even if i said i didn’t know 1+1=2.” 

[ie. he commented this to note that he meant it sarcastically. ppl on the net didn’t believe him, sparking the next events...]  第二波：翟博士无c刊论文。网友通过知网查询，发现翟博士没有c刊论文，正规大学毕业一般都需要发论文。 翟博士轧戏无时间上学。网友分析翟博士博士期间的工作量，基本都在拍戏和活动，完全不符合全日制学生的在校时间。 翟博士工作室挽尊：“博士论文将由学校统一上传”，“通过函授、导师进组指导学习”。

the second wave: dr. zhai doesn’t have a paper in the CSSCI (a rather unhelpful wiki link provided, essentially the largest social science publication citation index in china + a measure by which a publication’s authenticity/accredibility is measured). netizens searched across CNKI and found that dr. zhai didn’t have any papers [cited] in the CSSCI, though according to usual university graduation standards, theses must be published [into the system].

dr. zhai had no time to attend class while filming. netizens analyzed dr. zhai’s workload during his phd program [2014-2018] and found that he was always either filming or doing promotional activities — there was no way he could have had time to attend full-time schooling during the semester.

his studio’s damage control: “[ztl’s] doctoral thesis will be organized and uploaded by his university,” “through correspondence [long-distance teaching], his advisor oversaw his studies”

第三波： 网友继续质疑没有c刊论文如何答辩。 粉丝拿翟博士唯一发表在《广电时评》文章挽尊，但被嘲笑不是c刊，又挽尊北电不一定用c刊。

the third wave: netizens continue to question — without a published thesis, how could he defend his dissertation?

fans tried to defend him with an essay he published in “广电时评” [a film-related magazine], but were mocked because that wasn’t a CSSCI publication. fans also tried to defend him saying that beijing film academy [where ztl got his phd] didn’t necessarily use CSSCI. 第四波：于妈下场。于妈发出对话截图，证明翟博士有十万字论文，且高达645k，赞他写的好。 网友质疑十万字论文怎么只有600多k，引用文献和开头学校图标都没有吗。 the fourth wave: mama yu [nickname for director yu zheng, notable for shows like story of yanxi palace + yin zheng’s upcoming winter begonia] appears. yu posts a screenshot of their chat history [with picture of attachments sent], proving that dr. zhai had a thesis w/ over 100,000 words, and a file size of over 645 kilobytes, praising that he wrote it well.

netizens call into question why a 100,000 word thesis is only ~600 kilobytes — was there no bibliography, or even a icon [ie. picture file which would increase file size dramatically] of his school[’s logo]?

[unfortunately... this didn’t really help his case, considering yu zheng has also been involved in controversy regarding plagiarism allegations many times]

第五波：同学被拖下水扒皮。与翟博士一起毕业的其他学生名单被翻出，网友挨个知网查询，均有3-5篇论文，有人非c刊。  电博士不用发c刊论文，含金量受质疑。

the fifth wave: classmates are pulled into the controversy + not spared. the list of the other classmates that graduated w/ dr. zhai was dug up. netizens searched each of them one by one on CNKI: they all had 3-5 papers, some didn’t have CSSCI publications.

beijing film academy’s phd students don’t need to publish CSSCI-level papers — beijing film academy’s academic standards are called into question.  第六波：翟博士抄袭。翟博士发表在《广电时评》的普通文章知网查重高达40%，抄袭十几年前的文章。 文章被抄袭的黄教授朋友圈回应“春晚饰演打假警察的人要我来打假”。 打脸工作室声明没有学术不端行为。

the sixth wave: dr. zhai’s plagiarism. the essay [mentioned earlier], published in 广电时评 was ran through CNKI and [supposedly] had a similarity rating of over 40%, with passages plagiarized from papers over ten years old.

professor huang li hua posted on his wechat: “the one who acted on 春晚 [lunar new year broadcast show] as someone exposing cops as fake has to be exposed by me as a fake.”

[ztl’s] studio officially announced that no academic dishonesty had taken place.

[huang later continued, translation from the south china morning post: “The celebrity’s management company claimed Zhai had no academic misconduct issues, but my essays a decade ago were copied paragraph by paragraph. The truth trumps his argument,” Huang wrote on the Chinese social media app WeChat.] 第七波：学术不端列撤。四川大学将翟博士事件列为学术不端案例，几日后又删除。

the seventh wave: removal from “academic dishonesty” list. sichuan university listed dr. zhai’s case as an example of academic dishonesty, but deleted it after a few days. [link to the world’s worst screenshot] 第八波：导师被拖下水扒皮。翟博士导师被扒出，身为博导却是本科毕业！导师另一位弟子也无c刊论文。

the eighth case: [ztl’s] academic advisor is dragged into the controversy. dr. zhai’s advisor was dug up — he was appointed phd advisor, but had only an undergraduate degree! another one of this advisor’s students also didn’t have a CSSCI-level publication. 第九波：官媒发声。人民日报、共青团微博、紫光阁等官媒发表对翟博士的质疑。 北电回应：自查自纠小组成立。 北大回应：看北电查的怎么样根据规则处理。

the ninth wave: official state media starts reporting: people’s daily [newspaper], the communist youth league’s weibo, tower of purple light [magazine], etc. publish articles regarding the suspicion surrounding dr. zhai

beijing film academy’s response: an internal investigation committee has been established.

beijing university’s response: we will wait on beijing film academy’s investigation results, and then follow standard regulations to deal with this matter.

[ according to smcp: around this time, essay is also reported to have been taken down from CKNI ] 第十波：院长被拖下水扒皮。翟博士毕业答辩导师、北电表演系张院长被网友扒出五十多岁娶了自己的九零后学生刘某，也是杨紫同学，北电下制片厂投资两人演男女主角，找杨紫张一山关晓彤当配角，只获得75万票房。 the tenth wave: a university dean is pulled into the controversy. [one of the] advisors dr. zhai had to defend his dissertation against to graduate, dean zhang of beijing film academy’s acting school, is revealed to have married a student (surname liu) of his born in the 90′s(?), despite being over fifty himself. she was also a classmate of yang zi [this is very irrelevant but she’s a very famous post-90′s actress who graduated from beijing film academy. you might know her for being in ashes of love.] 

a movie production studio under beijing film academy invested in producing a movie where dean zhang + his wife liu were the male/female leads, getting yang zi, zhang yishan, and guan xiaotong [all v v v v famous] to play supporting roles, though it only made 750,000 at the box office.

[so i did some digging and it appears that this is the movie they’re talking about. again it’s mostly irrelevant if you ask me, but maybe you wanted to know. mostly the controversy is for like, taking a really young wife and then making beijing film academy pay for his romantic fantasy movie lol. 

what does this have to do with zhai tianlin? pretty much nothing tbh] 第十一波：北电侯亮平、阿廖沙再次被提起……北电的水有多深? 豆瓣赐翟博士新绰号：靖北侯。

the eleventh wave: previous allegations of professors’ sexual assault cases / misconduct brought back into question ... how much is beijing film academy hiding?

[ the specific cases they reference are 阿廖沙 and 侯亮平, both web names that anonymous posters used on weibo to report/investigate sexual assault allegations at beijing film academy. (the second name is a reference to a character in a tv show who’s a anti-corruption prosecutor); i can talk about those cases but it’d take a whole separate post — tl;dr anonymous poster shares account of sexual assault and ensuing ostracization from faculty/classmates when they tried to bring it to light and ultimately turned to weibo. it was a rly big trending topic for a while back in 2017. ]

douban confers on dr. zhai a new nickname: 靖北侯 

[the meaning, v. approx “peaceful north marquis” is a reference back to “平西王,” “peaceful west king/prince,” the nickname for 薄熙来 (bo xilai), a PRC politician sentenced to life imprisonment for corruption — obviously, the 北/bei also refers to beijing film/uni + 候 is a convenient callback to the previous anon investigator into beijing film sexual assault cases]

that was very very long. i hope this was somewhat helpful ;-; chinese social media has been blowing up about this, this is an attempt to capture some of the context. (this has been stressing me and my friends out as well — fingers crossed for ztl to get out of this unscathed.)

[allbluesanji]

🌻 Folklore and evermore is my fav as I love that type of music. Red is a close one too especially after the rerecord.

I'm in college! I just start the new semester, its only the 3rd week but I'm already 😵 looking at the assessment list for all classes. Yeah,, end of semester is usually a a mess😖 Last semester, my lectures decided to give assignments during the last minutes. I had to do 4 classes assignments in just 3 week jajssjjaaksk

Hmm..for me it depends, sometime I binge sometime I don't. Ooh, that some nice choice! I think the only ufotable anime I know is kny? The art/animation is gorgeous even though I don't watch it.

My choice is also ohshc! It'll be cool if they have a furuba treatment. Noragami! I watched s1 idk why I didn't watch s2 even though I enjoy the s1. I heard that s2 promised neverland is pretty bad. Watched s1 but didn't enjoy it that much to watch the sequel.

Do you follow the 3 episode rule? And do you have anime that you don't like/enjoy but still watch for specific reason? (like maybe bcs of VA or a character)

Also!! the mxtx novels are already out right? youtube recs me an unboxing video of the novel and I'm jealous 🤧 I'm still waiting for my bookstore to be updated ~

oh nice!!!☺️

wow, that sounds intense!!! good luck with everything you have to do!o(≧▽≦)o i'm in med school myself, but what are you studying?? and do you like it so far?

yeahhhh bingeing takes a lot of energy lol, don't always have it. yeah, the main one i know is kny!!! the animation is fucking stellar; i'm always amazed at what they can do. ufotable also produced the fate/stay night series. the animation for that is definitely some of the best i've ever seen, but the actual story is kinda blah (i also don't like the protagonist and that doesn't help). i still need to watch the second and third heaven's feel movies tho,,,,

IKR????? ohshc my beloved! s2 of noragami was excellent! mmmm that was a good move on your part in regards to tpn lmao

three episode rule as in i watch three eps of an anime before deciding if i want to continue or drop it??? ah. no. no, i do not do that. i can see the wisdom in that but i generally don't have the patience savfkbg. there's even been times i cut out of the anime i'm watching before the first episode is even over. i think the worst i've been is for this one anime i tried to watch and i couldn't make it past the op bc the animation was so unappealing. there's just so much anime, you know? subjecting myself to mediocrity for the hope it'll get better seems pointless. but anyway, i digress. what about you???

asdbaksg i really just do not watch anime i don't like, VA's i like or no. tbh i tend to run into them often enough without trying as it is that it hadn't really occurred to me. what anime have you seen bc of this?

yessssss i believe they are!!! so beautiful!!! i've been determined not to buy them but i could absolutely cave at like 3am and buy $60 worth of mxtx novels at once. the fan translation for svsss was funky in some aspects so i suppose i'm curious about the official version. oooooooh i hope your bookstore updates soon!!! so exciting!💕

[sealedbeastnue]

early-mid season (brunch?) anime review time, featuring acclaimed hits such as Oreimo 2: Incest Divide By 0 Error, Re:Zero Sidequest: Furry Fuckers who Shit in the Woods, and my personal favorite, The Cube Show

oh god this is so long im officially otaku trash here we go

so lets start with the best show ever:

clockwork planet: wow this was weak. I really liked No Game No Life but this does not hold that standard (not that it’s a high standard to aspire to but this is just not as fun). This was absurdly slow cheap looking trash that uses a Potentially Interesting concept to do absolutely nothing. dropped. dropped right on its dumb head full of gears.

alice to zouroku: also looks pretty cheap but it has a lot of interesting stuff going on. I don’t know how to Feel. the show hasn’t really ramped up yet but it could go in a ton of directions and I’m ready to be totally blindsided by where this goes.

ID-0: man this really is the Season of Baffling Concepts. tay keeps telling me this is a comedy but im not seein it. I think it’s a pretty decent space sci fi concept show that seems to be gearing up for... something philosophical? no clue. I like what we’re setting up and I want more. unfortunately this is the type of show where, like with gatchaman, I cannot physically focus my eyes on the mech designs long enough to realy appreciate them. probably just my problem though.

seikaisuru kado: the real standout of the SF offerings this season and my personal favorite this far. I don’t want to spoil too much but The Cube Show is not a show you should skip. looks and sounds fantastic, concept is great, writing is... really not fucking around at all, is it? slow, grindy high concept sci fi with very human characters (lol get it). this will be remembered even if it ends up being stupid (it wont). dont miss it

re:creators: I really dont know. every episode is an infodump but we’ve got a cool cast of characters, they’re likeable, and this has tons of potential. IIRC this is the team that did aldnoah:zero so it could go to shit instantly but for now it’s solid and has me wanting more. also gunpuku no himegimi <3 design <3

oushitsu kyoushi haine: had no expectations and was not planning to watch, turns out this is top 5 shows this season? it’s not fujobait. probably. has a fantastic OP/ED pair, looks consistently Really Good and everyone’s likeable. also if we’re going to bring back chibi this is the way to do it: sparingly, and with really strong visual gags. the one thing I REALLY WANT is more worldbuilding

uchouten kazoku S2: glorious so far. this is even more wild than season 1. if you haven’t heard of uchouten and you have even a passing interest in japanese mythology, comedy, or shapeshifting moms you really should go check it out - everyone is a FUCKER and everything Escalates Very Fast. tenmaya is best waifu of this season though... this fucking old guy... hes perfect

eromanga sensei: call me trash I dont give a shit. this show is pretty good. its definitely weird siscon bullshit but its pretty good regardless. I like to have fun. do you like to have fun?

sakura quest: more like Too Real Feels Quest. if you’re a person in your 20s-30s who has ever struggled with adult life in any way, this is for you. I have no idea how something like this got produced in the current industry climate but it’s fuckin great and painful and honest and real. I have a pet theory that Manoyama is Not On Earth as We Know It and that this town is fae folk btw lets see how that plays out

bastard akashic records magical instructor super dangerous dudessss better watch out boyz: likeable just because of how blatantly shitheaded MC is. these character designs... uh... those sure are garter belts... so far this is entertaining and not much else but that’s okay they dont all have to be miracles

soutai sekai: I have no idea why this exists or what can justify this show. Reol why did you get involved in this. you’re so far above trash like this. someone must have offered her serious fucking dosh to associate herself with this. im gonna complete it (its only 2 eps) but this is definitely garbage.

girl beats boys: ever wanted to watch cromartie highschool but with no comedy instead its kind of a weird documentary? turns out I did. this is kind of fun actually! it’s so odd I can’t help but admire it

maid dragon specials: ?????????????okay???? if we gotta

kabukibu: I’m a big fan of SHOUTING AWKWARDLY. dropped instantly. dont care if accurate, this is weird and dumb.

frame arms girl: this is where it becomes clear that I have desperately overextended this season and have become WAY too generous with my time when it comes to anime. this was a miscalculation I am regretting. also, this show isn’t good but I guess I can see the appeal. if anything should be an 8-minute-episodes show it’s this. probably dropped.

forest fairy five: I got bamboozled by the cover. I can’t make an excuse for my foolishness. It Will Not Happen Again.

high school fleet OVA: this needed to come like six months ago if you wanted to capitalize on this. I dont remember a single one of these characters. sorry lads, its not workin

mahoutsukai OVA 2/3: Yes. show coming in the fall is fucking hype

sin: nanatsu no taizai: I, too, like to get fucked by tentacles. also Miami

sekai no yami zukan:

also currently watching:

kekkai sensen: holy shit dude this is so good. I can’t believe the animation and music quality? how is this not legendary? maybe it gets fucked up down the line but on episode 3 this whole concept is such a solid package I cant see myself not loving it very strongly.

scrapped princess: I sscrappedddd (JOKES!!!) this show a few times bt now that I’m finally giving it a chance I can see that the fight scenes have a surprisingly good quality and end up in cool locations (crystal caves with actual foley work to back it up? and a complete tonal shift in the visuals? sign me the fuck up dude)

older stuff I finished recently:

did I mention girls und panzer last time? probably. this is still great though. I cant get over the fucking Finnish artillery gun scene in the movie jfc this is just soooo good

so ra no wo to: fantastic as a slice of life/military show with musical elements. if you see people comparing this to K-On tell them to fuck off because the only similarity is the time they were released. this isnt a light music club show. probably the best visual style of any show I’ve watched recently - really sets the tone of the show and adds a LOT of otherworldly and mysterious qualities... strong girls... let them be strongth... OP/ED is wonderful too

death parade: looked pretty cool. ended up making me kind of sad and the characters were a bit empty (no I’m not counting the fact that they’re Puppets as a valid reason for that). more than enough has been written about this show.

upotte: who told me to watch this? who the fuck? I’m gonna find them strangle them. dropped this is for weird gun otaku smeglords

kuzu no honkai: my dick was absolutely raw at the end of this. I was leaning to the side and hunching over slightly for the next 24 hours. people who dont like this have never been challenged by a horrible relationship and/or are repulsed by raw painful emotionally-charged human sexuality (both of these things are fine by the way)

rakugo lovers double suicide (season 1): on the other hand. with regard to human sexuality. time for probably my most controversial opinion ive ever had. this show is GARBAGE. VALUELESS GARBAGE. the characters are absurdly, laughably flat; the entire season is a bait and switch; it’s REALLY SLOW and drags for about 2/3 of the season because it only had about 4 episodes worth of actual content; every character motivation makes no sense especially the death scene near the end are you serious? did people really take that seriously? I was so irritated by the fact that this went down like this that I actually had to go away from my computer for a while. this show isn’t gay either, it’s the most painfully straight thing and it has no perspective other than that of a straight person who has never experienced anything outside of their sphere of comfort. also FUCK this hoe what is her PROBLEM? go ditch her stupid ass if she’s gonna be like that. she’s an abusive partner who abandoned her child repeatedly and it is absolutely ridiculous that they put up with her presence. they’re all pretty abusive though so whatever I guess that  makes this fine. people who enjoyed this, I’m sorry but you got fucking duped man. this was not written by a fully formed human mind. this was its season’s Yuri on Ice and is currently hideously overrated. please do not waste your time on this. or do, so you can see how awfully it’s written and understand that Most People Are Dumb Idiots With No Taste.

ao oni the animation: please explain why this franchise was ever popular. I do not fucking get it. I really tried. this show came about 6 years too late regardless I cannot justify its existence

gakuen handsome: 2deep4me zaaannkoku no tenshiii no these (evangelion playing in the background my third eye is opening)

yumekui merry: Painful. if this is actually a quality show, my bad but fuck these goddamn cats. I hate anthropomorphic cats with all of my being

[gawaine]

Hey Hanna, firstly the most massive congrats on getting TWO grad entry med places, that is honestly amazing you should be so incredibly proud of yourself! Secondly (in respect to attaining those places), I was just wondering if you could give any advice. I'm about to finish first year biomed, but want to do grad med, and was just wondering when you took the GAMSAT, and when you got work exp, and any general advice because I'm surrounded by smart ppl and feel pretty stupid + demotivated atm lol

Thank you, honey!

Hmm, okay. Well, first of all, I still feel stupid and demotivated, and did even more so back then, so don’t beat yourself up! I think anyone sane would, and it just shows your passion!

Under the cut bc it gets long, but it’s super organised if that’s any consolation

The GAMSAT

I took the GAMSAT 3x in a row: a trial run at the beginning of my 3rd year of uni, in September, which highlighted what I needed to focus on; the GAMSAT Ireland, which I sat in the UK, the following March, and passed; and then I was encouraged by others to try to boost my score that September, which I didn’t.

I passed the second one (obviously) by complete miracle (I was handing in all of my final essays, writing my dissertation, looking after my post-op Mum and my baby brother). I found out in November, when the standardised scores came out for the year and then the cut-offs from the universities, that I was in the top 10-11th percentile.

And honestly? My biggest tip is to play to your strengths.

I met a lot of people during my application who had a biomed background like yourself, and they struggled with Sections 1 & 2, so here are some quick tips:

The texts in S1 are often a lot longer than you’ve prepared for - and harder. You need to read fast, analyse quickly and remember that your answers have to be logical - not necessarily what artistically makes sense.

A computer marks S2. So you need to be hitting those sophisticated levels of grammar and vocabulary. Also (and I can’t remember off the top of my head which, but a quick Google search should suffice), each essay marks different things. One essay is essentially marking your emotional maturity and the other your logical deduction. This was my strength, because... English essays were all I was writing at that point anyway (in March, I was writing all of my final-year essays and my final dissertation), and if this isn’t yours, I recommend you start practicing.In both of the first sections, timing is your killer. Especially in S2. Plan quickly and concisely, and do hand exercises during your practices, as well as on the day of the exam, between sections. Your hands will be killing you by the end anyway, but at least you’ll feel a bit more prepped.

As a biomed student, I’m sure you have S3 down, but don’t underestimate the importance of your stats skills. As someone who has sat it 3x in a row, trust me when I say... They love their collections of bio graphs. A lot of graph-reading skills can be translated into other things useful for the GAMSAT anyway, so even if there isn’t a lot of bio/stat stuff in your paper, it’ll help you with other parts!

Work Experience

The first WE I ever did was during my second year, when I did 3 weeks abroad in a government hospital. It took a lot of planning and honestly, I went more to see if it was something I really had the capability to do more than anything, but it has been so pivotal to my application.

WE is very draining in a different way to uni or anything else, especially when what you’re getting out of it isn’t materially in front of you - at least, not for a long time. Plan accordingly.

In the end, my final application included the following references of work experience:

3 weeks abroad; 1 in General Medicine, 2 in Surgery

Over a year’s worth of volunteering at a specialist children’s hospital in my city

2 years of volunteering with the local Scouts group

Being my Mum’s primary post-op carer, who had a post-op recovery of 6 weeks

Oftentimes, the unis you’re applying to will have a list of different types of work experience that they like, which is what I based mine on. Also, a doctor I know said that choosing a vulnerable age group to work with (because it’s more difficult to get placements) tends to be a good idea - so of the elderly and children, I chose children, because I have more experience!

One thing to remember when applying for work experience is that a lot of places will require you work for them for a significant amount of time before they’ll write you an official reference. Find this out first when you apply and make sure any additional training you have to do is done quickly enough, that you’re eligible for a reference when you need it!

And in regards to feeling stupid and demotivated... I still feel like that, and I got into the better of the 2/3 med schools I applied to! A doctor who I met a few years ago told me that, with med, you always feel like you know less than you did when you started - so take it as a good sign, and know you’re not alone! xx

[courage-a-word-of-justice]

I7 S2 3 - 4 | Appare 2 - 3

These anime have no more notes than this because of COVID-19.

I7 s2 3

Misunderstood my own notes…this is halted as of ep 4, so I have more than enough time to catch up. (Thing is, I was binging other anime for Chibi Tamago and April limited access plus I lost access to my usual doc for a bit, so I’ve fallen behind at this point in typing.)

Eyyyyyyyy…if you need a guy to look good, put him in a suit. (Either that, or glasses. Or both.)

The upright stalk in the tea…it’s good luck, I hope.

When did Yamato start calling Iori “Ichi”? I know why that is, but not when.

Hmm…I don’t think I ever noticed Sougo and Tenn looking similar until now.

They’re trying with the comedy this season, huh…?

*muffles laughter* Trigger got all the sexy ads, I see.

Hmm…come to think of it, I thought Iori was the centre before getting to know Riku, because he’s got the number 1. I can’t really see an I7 without Riku as centre though, now that I’ve been through more than 17 eps with that.

Now I have HypMic…lessee…Tenn = Ramuda. Gaku = a less severe Samatoki and Tsunashi = a more polite Ichiro, or maybe Hifumi.

Hey, Iori! You hypocrite!

If you didn’t get it, the gesture is them asking each other out for drinks.

I7 s2 4

Sometimes this show seems a bit documentary-like…but not as much as ARP Backstage Pass.

Even Kinako is sad…

Koi no Kakera…I don’t know it by heart, but I know it exists from the official Spotify playlist.

Ooh, blackmail. Nasty, nasty Yuki. (somewhat scolding, somewhat joking)

I feel like COVID-19 impacted this back part of the episode, where the art suddenly became more childlike.

Appare 2

This OP is cool. I heard it during AMQ once, so I remember it better than some of the other OPs this season.

“They aren’t hiring where I want to work and I don’t want to work where they are hiring.” – My ethos exactly, bruh.

This GM dude reminds me of Doug (from Double Decker).

Iron = Ford, GM is…well, GM.

I can’t believe Kosame is taking this so seriously he rolled across the floor…LOL.

“What’s impossible and what’s thought of as impossible are two different things.” – Appare Sorano

Uh, random question, but…has Xialian never heard of a bra?! (It bugs me, as you can tell.)

How did Kosame and/or Appare learn enough English to know what to change on the “hit me for money” signs…?

Oh? I thought this show had only scrolling credits…

Appare 3

Aw, dang. If more shows were dubbed this season, this should be one of them. Of course, current COVID-based conditions mean it’s just not possible though.

BMW, much…?

This blonde kid reminds me of Tchaiko (from Classicaloid). Rubs me the wrong way already.

Why is Al so interested in these swords, anyway…?

I dunno why, but Appare on a steampunk Segway makes me giggle so, so much.

Kosame, a pure idjit if you ever saw one.

Come to think of it, how do Kosame and Appare understand English, full stop? Al and Sofia probably only know English, right…?

…Appare didn’t even notice Hototo riding the Segway, LOL.

Do a barrel roll, Al!

LOL, what a red paperclip scenario.

[courage-a-word-of-justice]

HGPC 15 - 16 | Muhyo and Roji’s s2 2 (14) | God of High School 2 | Deca-Dence 2 - 3 | Fugou Keiji 3 | Appare 4

HGPC 15

Is this Element of Water? Or Element of Plants?

HGPC 16

I sort of suspected the three broke up because it would have been like someone stole Fumi from Tetsuya…and I was right. You know that myth about how guys and gals can’t be friends ever? It seems to be in service of that.

It’s Nodoka Hanadera.

…I wonder if this vow will become relevant later?

There was a poster for the Ojamajo Doremi project, Looking for Witch Apprentices (Majo Minarai wo Sagashite). Makes sense though – they’re by the same studio.

Fest = festival, although not in the matsuri sense of the word. It’s more like a smaller, non-seasonal matsuri.

I wonder if the tree will be attacked?

I’m still wondering…how does a penguin have paws?

Is there a tiny tree?...Yep. Just a small sprout, but it is a new tree.

Muhyo and Roji’s s2 ep 2 (14)

…and they continue to misgender Goryo…the manga’s finished translation, so I don’t see why the translator couldn’t go and get a copy to check. (Unless I remembered wrong and misgendering him was actually something they did up until a point? Looks are deceiving, especially in anime…) It’s even on the Shonen Jump website.

I realised that I’m the only Muhyo and Roji’s fan, possibly in existence, in the English world right now…if I were to leave this show alone, it would die alone…and that would be far too sad.

The Showa era was a time of great Japanese prosperity, so it makes sense that there would be lots of building projects too.

“Working from home” – Makes more sense in this day and age.

Oh, I didn’t expect them to put in a really close reference! This probably refers to Minky Momo, except that seems to be an 80s series.

…if this were any other series, this girl would get isekaid.

Japanese doesn’t have a lot of gender-specific words, like I know Italian does. When Ebisu says “Ma’am”, he’s going “yes?” in the Japanese and Nana goes “kono hito…” (This person…) rather than “This woman…”…If they’re going to dub it with all these references to Goryo being a woman intact, then I suggest they not dub it at all.

I think this is the first time Muhyo’s thrown the orb he generates…

I know all this misgendering is going to bug me, but…this is one of the first series I finished. I can’t get in touch with the translators to tell them they misgendered a character, because I have no authority – if I, a rookie translator, went up against pros, based only on what I know of the Japanese language and my memory of the manga…I’d be toast!...However, I shall try, for the sake of the manga I still cherish the memories of.

God of High School 2

Apparently this dude *gestures at this bespectacled man in the first few seconds of the episode* is Iron Man (well, Robert Downey Jnr.)…but also the POTUS. Yeah, that’s confusing, but I’m just parroting what I’ve heard.

Okay, someone explain to me what “charyeok” i-Oh. It’s a concept endemic to God of High School. You could’ve translated the Korean term, people.

Mujin…that sounds familiar…ah! The organiser of the GOH tournament! That’s why.

LOL, there’s a “Yes Man” in the brackets, paired off with Daewi.

Mori is eating a banana, huh? Way to play up the monkey imagery.

Slipper jerk…? (I admit it’s been a few weeks and several anime since I saw the last episode, because I was working on the boss battle for the AniList watching club, so remind me whio that is…?) Update: That would be Manseok.

I would assume the flashbacks are actually the characters’ introductions in the webcomic, if Mori’s was any indication.

LOL, I forgot how much advertising they put all over this thing…

So Mori uses taekwondo, but what’s Daewi’s style again…?

I would assume this refers to the Korean War if it’s referring to anything real. I’ve never heard of a properly-named style of anything which was an “anything goes” style, unless you count the various wacky martial arts in Ranma ½.

Geesh, Elfen Lied with its gore was a breeze to get through, but seeing scenes like Nozomi getting tortured (in Magical Girl Spec-Ops Asuka) and Gamdo getting his arm twisted here…that’s nasty…

Uhh…I swear this is just Hisoka (from Hunter x Hunter)…or Chrollo (from the same series). (LOL…?)

Deca-Dence 2

W-Wuh? You mean, Deca-Dence is a game of sorts?! VR or something?!

This aesthetic is very much like neurons…and cartoons…

(Spoilers for Kado!) If you’re wondering what’s going through my head right now, I feel similar to when Kado became a a fighting show and zaShunina the villain.

Ah, giant ball trackpads (trackballs). I miss those…

I think “The Power” is “ka no chikara”, but I might be wrong. Update: Yup, that’s what the site says.

This ED is interesting, visually speaking.

Deca-Dence 3

I get the feeling the girl – the friend - was programmed to say things to dissuade people from joining the Power.

A lesser show would discard Fennel, I think. See, he popped up in conversation the other time and now here he is in the…uh, digital (?)…flesh.

Sounds like AI, doesn’t it?

This guy reminds me of Kamina from Gurren Lagann…then again, so do the Inferno Cop sunglasses on Hugin.

Those rings on the white-haired guy’s hands remind me of Hifumi’s…for some reason, the host has them.

Pipe is a Gadoll, but he (?) reacts terrified to the yell of “Gadoll!”, hmm?

Fugou Keiji 3

It’s backkkkkkkkkk!

Ooh, mooncake! Also, Daisuke…okay, calling Kambe by his first name is weird, so Kambe…only has one stud in his left [ear]. That’s interesting.

Notably, there is no age listed for Kambe on the official website. We only know he’s < 30.

…LOL, Kambe is such a petulant child.

Ah? Rounin? (That’s what you call someone who failed to get into uni and tries again.)

Atsuta Jingu. It’s in Nagoya.

LOL, got in trouble for a barrel roll. (partially joking)

Ah, so that’s what Onuki and Miyano (voices of Kambe and Kato) were talking about at the con – the fact the director says a lot with a little.

Huh? Is this like that one killer who was streaming their stuff online to garner fans for the YouTuber PewdiePie? (I forget which prolific case that is, though.) Update: I think that’s the Christchurch bombings.

The stud seems to be Kambe’s connection with HEUSC.

The group’s name is read “Yokoitsu”.

Those missiles were just for producing smoke, it seems.

I just realised the finger gun from Kato in the ED looks a lot like Spike Spiegel’s (Cowboy Bebop).

Appare 4

I missed this anime as well! AMQ makes you miss shows even more than usual, it seems.

I love how they made a Red Stapler incident (see TV Tropes on an explanation for that) out of this one boat-car.

Not even tea can convince the great Appare…(partially sarcastic)

You need a big imagination to do a test run of a car in your head…

The song “I got it!” seems very appropriate for a moment like this (Xialian’s racing debut).

I’m worried David will ram Xialian’s car…

…I predicted it. What’s going to happen now…?