#did you know that there is one anime i don't talk about but love with my whole heart

[couldnt-think-of-a-funny-name]

okay disjointed thoughts about the wicked movie 1 day after watching it lets go

-first of all, my movie theater put speakers outside and was just blasting the entire soundtrack on repeat. we could hear it down the street as we were driving up. that's just simply insane

-the opening establishing shots of the land were great but honestly. the very clearly animated dorothy and gang really annoyed me lmfao like I'm sorry it cannot have possibly been too hard to get a few extras to stand in front of a screen for point 5 seconds lol. it was so fast that I Know I'm being dramatic about it but they looked more cartoon than the flying monkey's did

-baby elphie and baby nessa are the cutest things I've ever seen in my life...

-I kinda...like the more human/animal hybrids that the stage show and the original movie had. sorry. like I Get they were only like that bc you can't make a real life goat sing and dance but they're just more interesting to look at than normal-looking animals who happen to talk!

-jeff goldblum's face being hidden every time he had a dance number...I have a sneaking suspicion that he wasn't really dancing lmfao

-whoever decided to bleach ariana's eyebrows deserves jail time

-when jonathan bailey first showed up on screen my mother leaned over to me and whispered 'he's HANDSOME...'

-when cynthia finished the 'wizard and I' I had to actually stop myself from applauding. it felt so weird and rude for there to be dead silence after that performance my GOD.

-also omg the part where she's singing about the wizard de-green-ifying her and the colors in the suncatchers were canceling out the green so she looked normal....inspired!

-madame morrible had these HUGE crystal ball looking rings and I just want them so much lmao

-glinda's friends were really funny the bit were she was like 'I need to lie down' and they immediately picked her up like a plank of wood and carried her off while the one was screaming 'WE NEED A PASTRY!!! IT'S AN EMERGENCY WE NEED A PASTRY!!!' had me cackling

-I wish there was more time between them moving in and 'what is this feeling' starting? like I wanted more time to see them bickering and then also more time seeing them getting along after the ball??

-'dancing through life' was BEAUTIFUL however two complaints 1) why would they cut the line 'what's the most swankified place around?' I Quote That Often and 2) at the end when glinda and elphie dance together like...it's beautiful and everything but from what I remember after their solo moment fieryo joins them?? and they have a cute three way dance moment??? and I'm very pro "they're all in love with each other" so I missed that lol

-also just in general would of liked to see more of fieryo with the girls! like it felt like ball->lion cub->emerald city, in the course of a couple days, and idk I just feel like they could have slowed it down a bit?? especially since they broke it into two movies?? like I don't think that Actually all happened in the span of a week, but they didn't do a good enough job establishing how much time was passing so it Felt like it. which is dumb bc then it just doesn't seem realistic that elphie and glinda are THAT attached to each other by defying gravity like it feels like not enough time has passed for them to really know each other

-boq felt very mild tbh I know ethan can be more unhinged than that

-would've liked to see glinda in magic class!!

-I was a little underwhelmed by elphaba's costumes? like there were clearly patterns on the material but it was all the same shade of black so you couldn't make anything out. it felt a bit flat. and I love the idea behind the freckles I agree with freckles I am pro freckles HOWEVER her's looked very obviously drawn on. like, I have seen way more realistic fake freckles before. so that was a bit annoying

-other than the lunchmeat dress glinda's costumes were good! especially loved the flower shaped one she wore to the ball

-the whole trying to escape in the hot air ballon scene was cool as hell but as the flaming remains of it fell to the ground I couldn't help but be like wow...she really just killed all those guards huh!

-also lmfao the bit in the woods with the lion club and fieryo has like a scratch on his temple. genuinely thought to myself 'is that his lobotomy scar' lmfao

-still trying to get over the part in dancing through life where people were dancing on the spinning gears in the clock tower...bitch

-the flying monkeys were correctly horrifying

-when I saw the broomstick I was like 'won't that be really uncomfortable between your legs' but then she just held it next to her like they do in the stage show and I was like....okay I guess you win that one? lmfao like I don't mind it for when she's hovering but when they had her like supersonic zooming on the broom it was weird that she wasn't actually riding it

-overall I just don't understand how it's an adaptation of act 1 but it's the length of the entire stage show?? lmao like I wish they took advantage of the split and added so much more but really really it was still just such a solid great movie. 5 stars. I can't keep talking about it right now I'm gonna start screaming.

[myriadparacosm]

Sitcom AU - 1. The one with the bride

wolfstar; jegulus; dorlene; panryly; rosekiller

"What I mean is that it's not right."

"Isn't that kind of homophobic?"

Marlene scowls at Pandora, who quickly pinches her lips together with a coy look, making Remus chuckles in his cup of tea.

"No, no, hear her out," Sirius cuts.

"Two male penguins?!"

"Still can't believe you didn't hear about that before," Peter mentions, stirring his new cup of coffee.

"They got an egg too?! When they have been trying to steal one but they get a reward instead?!"

"That was one solution to stop that behaviour," Remus sagely comments.

"If I did that, I wouldn't be given a child!"

"You don't want one, Marl'."

"Thank God for that too— ouch! Fuck! I'm on your side!"

"Just accept that penguins have more rizz than you," Mary says before ducking at the pillow. "Hey!"

The waitress clears her throat from behind the couch and Marlene smiles toothily at her to lose it as quickly when facing them again.

"As if you have any."

"Shouldn't we be happy that gay penguins are accepted and loved? Especially if they raised a little baby!"

"I believe, their chick was also a lesbian," Remus comments

"Their child too?!" Marlene exclaims in shock. "What is going on in this world?!"

"I could present you someone if you are that desperate," Pandora gently offers. "I have this co-"

"I don't need help!"

Sirius grimaces with a nod. "You do."

"Like you are any better, slag."

"I'm on your side!" He argues with a waving hand that she slaps away. "Cunt!"

"On her side against— queer penguins?" Peter wonders.

"I just can't bloody believe it."

"Sometimes, I wish I was a penguin," Remus mutters and pauses at all the eyes jumping on him. "Erm."

"And you call me desperate."

"You literally have a feud with penguins now?" Mary points out.

Sirius laughs before looking up just in time for James to walk in Hogwarts. Marlene sighs, not bothering to glance since these two always predict whenever their other half is around.

"Hi James!" Pandora greets.

"Hey," he grins even if it's a tad sadder than usual while he puts his wet umbrella against the rack already full. "Whatcha talking about?" He asks, sitting down next to Sirius who scooted over and immediately puts his arm on his shoulders.

"Marlene discovered animals can be queer," Peter explains. "And wants to fight a couple of penguins."

James laughs, turning to her. "But that's so cute!"

She scowls at him. "They have it so easy while we have to bloody pay taxes and they got a marriage and child for free, how is that right?!"

Mary leans toward James. "She got a bad date last night and-" she shrieks at the kick in her back, getting her face smashed in the couch's bottom. Marlene cackles evily just as Mary rounds on her. "You better not have used your shoes on my new shirt!"

The waitress pays them no mind, used to their antics, as she nods at James' order before walking behind the counter.

"Knee."

"You're such a cunt. Don't come whine to me about pain from your trainings because I'm never massaging you again."

"You alright, Prongs?" Peter asks. "Where is Lily?"

He shrugs. "I'm alright. She had work to do so," he says and smiles at Sirius who squeezes him with his arm. "I'm really fine. Just a bit bummed out."

Remus offers a supportive smile, leaning out of his armchair to pat his knee. "You're still friends."

James sighs and takes the cuppa from the waitress' hands with a polite smile. "I know… It's just that I kind of hoped her- us, to be it."

"It's her loss, mate," Sirius says with a startle at Remus' slap on his arm. "What?! It's the truth!"

"Lily is our friend too," he retorts with a pointed look but Sirius only rolls his eyes.

"At least it ended well."

"It might be awkward for some time but everything will be fine," Pandora promises. "You just can't picture her naked anymore."

James blushes. "I wasn't going to! And I know that, I'm just disappointed that it ended up— like that."

"You two dated quite quickly," Mary points out. "It's not that uncommon to realise that despite your attraction, you were both better off as friends."

"And that she is a lesbian."

James scowls at Marlene. "First off, she was almost never attracted to anyone before. Second, she is attracted to me. Third, she is trying to figure it out so don't push her around, Marl'."

Pandora nods. "Yes, I want Lily to stay our friend too. She is lovely."

"Why do you assume I'm going to bully her? I'm just sharing facts!"

"Because you are one," Mary sniffs and flips her off when she sticks her tongue out.

James watches them with an amused grin and meets Sirius' eyes with his own unsure gaze. "She would like that too but she is worried. I told her that it doesn't change anything but…"

Sirius pats his cheek before petting his hair. "Don't worry. I'm sure it will be fine."

"She might only need some time," Remus agrees.

"Breakups, as nice as it went for you two, is still hard," Mary adds with a sorry look. "You were both— intense."

Peter shares the sentiment with a nod as they watch James drinks his cuppa and Sirius brushes his wet hair to cheer him up. He smiles at them, lips wordless for several tries before rolling his shoulders.

"I still love Lily, maybe not as much as a lover like I wanted but at least we are. She offered me a chance to try and… If I'm honest, I felt it for a while."

"Oh, Prongs."

"No, it's fine," he promises with a quick comforting smile at Sirius. "I was happy. Think she was too but you know, no sparks or anything. Comfy but more like friends with benefits rather than lovers."

"Shouldn't it be like that?" Marlene wonders, putting down her cup on the coffee table. "Maybe you only got through the honeymoon part."

"We can't really judge on that," Peter slowly says. "No one has been in a serious relationship more than you. Even Re-"

"Let's not talk about him," Remus interrupts.

Sirius glances at him before settling back on James. "I'm sure there is someone out there that will give you all the sparks you want."

James sighs. "It's stupid but I had everything planned. Now I have to plan another wedding, with someone else, in God knows when but I want to find my soulmate-"

"Lobster-"

"To build our lives together and get married," he finishes with a fond but torn expression.

The doors of Hogwarts slam open and the rain furiously takes advantage of that small gap before it closes after a figure stumbles through on heels. The cafe falls silent, everyone doing a double-take at the long white wedding dress, beautiful despite its soggy state.

"And I want a pony!" Pandora blurts out with eager eyes at the apparition.

The disheveled black hair clashes with the long veil scrunched up in it while the bride frantically looks around with wide bloodshot eyes, which almost pops out of her skull when landing on a gaping Sirius.

"Oh my God," he gasps out, hand frozen in a tangle of James' hair as he straightens up in his seat.

With blank and tears brewing eyes, the bride stumbles to the couch, completely missing the step of the entry but she saves herself with a thunderous look and nails digging into the couch.

"Sirius! Oh my God, there you are," she gasps out.

"Holy crap," Marlene blurts out.

Sirius stares at the bride before jumping out of his seat. "What are you doing here?!"

The bride scowls, angrily pulling at her skirt before throwing it to point out the obvious. "I went by your apartment but then I only found your landlord who told me you might be here-- which you are and I finally found you..," her voice cracks the more it goes as her already ashen face blanches.

Sirius is quite close to follow her by the weak step he takes but stops himself. James is as flabbergasted as him but by his frown he mights have recognized her. Remus glances between them before almost inching over the edge, ready to stand up.

"Pads?"

"Hum, would you like a cuppa?" The waitress asks with a worried frown.

The bride almost glares at her, ramming her dress in one hand, before turning back to Sirius.

"I need your help-"

"How the hell are you even here?! Found me?"

"Sirius can't actually be secretly married, is he?" Peter whispers but Remus is at lost of words.

"I know all your whereabouts."

"Can someone explain to me what's happening?!" Mary exclaims with a barely hushed tone, leaning against Pandora's shoulders to stare at them closer.

Sirius jerks, glancing frantically at them until he lands back on the bride who started to breath heavily.

"Oh my God, breathe!" James says, standing up with a gesture at the couch. "Sit down, catch your breathe."

She ignores him. "I need your help, Sirius-"

"Did you just run out of a wedding?!" He exclaims.

"Yes, mine! You— ne fais pas l'idiot !" She argues with big gasps of air, chest bobbing not by much despite the speed under her corset. "I ran off because I couldn't do it, not anymore. I… I just can't. I had to crawl through a window but I had no idea where to go except to you," she gasps out with a fever splattered on her cheeks, "I think I broke my ankle because of these stupid heels."

Sirius takes a deep breath, leaning onto the couch to look at her legs, before looking up. "What's your shoe size? 13, right?"

"What? No, I'm not a child anymore, Sirius! 5," She says, exasperated.

Every patron are still watching when Sirius jumps over the coffee table to get to Mary. She can barely make a noise before her shoes are grabbed and she shrieks when Sirius only tugs harder.

"Sirius! Stop!" She shrieks, clawing at the rug when she is dragged, before throwing a disbelieving look at them. "Wha- can anyone help me?!" She gasps when one of her shoes finally gives up and Sirius almost falls on Pandora before he does the same for the second shoe.

No one moves and even the bride seems stunned by Sirius, who walks up to him to hand him over Mary's shoes. James gapes at them.

"Padfoot?"

"My shoes?!"

"Free heels."

Sirius throws blindly the pair of sparkly heels on the couch, helping the bride stay upright as she tries to put Mary's shoes on with one hand while the other shakily holds on the dress. Mary, baffled, glances at the heels before taking them with a shrug.

"Sirius?" Remus cautiously calls.

"Don't come in the apartment for like, an hour at least!" He calls as he leads the bride outside, helping her as keeps tripping despite the new shoes.

They watch them through the windows, along with everyone else, while Sirius hastily tries to untangle the veil from her long black hair before throwing it out on the street as they disappear around the corner. Pandora turns to gape at them in excitement.

"What just happened?!"

Remus slightly shakes his head and turns to James. "Prongs?"

He jerks to face them, still standing in front of the couch, and his mouth finally shuts with a loud noise. "Huh?"

"Have an idea who that was?"

"She looked a lot like Sirius," Peter comments.

James nods, clearly in his thoughts, before sitting down with a last look at the windows. "It's Regulus."

"Who?"

"Sirius' brother."

"Sirius has a brother?" Peter asks in disbelief. "Since when?!"

Mary frowns. "Hum, then explain why his brother was wearing heels and wearing a wedding dress? Stealing my shoes?"

"You are wearing the heels," Pandora points out.

"Because he stole them and they are clearly expensive— even if they don't fit with my current jeans."

"He is trans," Remus says. "That's the brother who didn't want to run away with him when they were younger?"

James nods, glancing at the windows again. "Regulus."

"You knew?! How come didn't I know?" Peter asks.

"Wait, is he a trans man or a trans woman because I'm lost," Pandora interjects.

"Trans man," James explains. "He— well, their parents aren't quite accepting that part but he still stayed with them. That's why he looks so… not."

"God, was that a forced marriage and forcing him to stay a woman?" Mary asks in horror. "Wait, is it Regulus as a man or? Strange name."

"That's the name he picked for himself."

"You knew him from your private fancy school?" Peter wonders and looks at Remus. "But you weren't there, so how did you know?"

"Erm, Sirius might have mentioned it to me," he admits. "Barely…"

"Oh my God, their parents must be going crazy. They are just insane-"

"Holy crap, Sirius with tits is hot." James stares in disbelief at Marlene, finally coming back to earth by the looks of it with a slight scoff. "What?! I never thought that would happen! And they look terrifyingly similar!"

"I thought his family was in France," Remus mentions, confused. "How did Regulus find Sirius like that?"

"Should we go check on them maybe?" Pandora asks, straightening up on her knees. "He said to not come to the apartment but maybe we can bring some warm food and drinks for them. Make Regulus feel welcome."

James gasps. "Do you think he is going to stay?"

Marlene frowns at him. "Wait… Didn't you have this huge crush on Regulus?! I remember something about Sirius' sibling!"

Mary cackles at James' vivid blush. He makes a rude gesture at her while Pandora smiles fondly at him, joining him on the couch to rub his shoulder. Remus smiles with a sorry on his lips, remembering James' infatuation on his best friend's brother back when they met during university where Sirius only showed up sometimes to visit with no mention of any sibling except for James.

[eponymous-rose]

Some (many) thoughts on Arcane s2 while it's still fresh in my mind:

(tw: discussion of fictional depictions of suicide)

I'm gonna do some nitpicking here, but only because I really did like it overall - I think for me s1 was a solid 10/10 and this season was an 8.5/10, so I'm certainly looking forward to rewatching it! The animation was a big step up from s1's incredible work, the music was great, the performances were fantastic. I do think the overall writing/story fell down a bit, though.

It's weird, because my go-to when character arcs feel rushed is to want more episodes, but I don't think that necessarily would have solved my issues with this season.

Cait turned on Ambessa on a dime - we love to see it, but I think we maybe needed a few more overt hints of her discomfort with her position, maybe a sense of wrongness in their adoptive relationship and some parallels with Jinx & Silco given what Vi says early on ("why are you the one acting like her?"). Ambessa believes her daughter to be lost, and Cait has lost a mother - they were certainly playing on that substitution, but the eventual turn, while fun, felt a bit quick and unearned. I saw someone joke about the word "Cupcake" flipping Cait back like a sleeper agent, but that's kinda how abrupt things felt.

I think Mel's plot largely hung together okay, although it was pretty disconnected from everyone except Ambessa - would've loved to have seen some acknowledgement that Cait was filling her shoes as Daughter for a while there.

Isha was sweet and I liked the parallels with the Powder-Vi relationship (LOVED Jinx running with the pink chalk and Isha with the blue), but I think the sacrifice metaphor got a little muddled. The parallels with Powder charging in and killing everyone around her, versus Isha charging in and saving everyone but herself felt a little forced and I struggled to see how they served the greater narrative. The whole point of Powder's failure was a messy combination of bad luck, overcompensating for what she perceived as a lack of confidence in her, etc. Isha had Jinx's confidence on her side, I guess, and now of course we have the foreshadowing of Jinx dying to save someone else, which she's been trying to do since Act II.

Suicide was a pretty heavy concept throughout the first season. We had the parallels of Jayce and Viktor, we had the little-remarked-upon moment where Viktor hesitates before cutting the wire on Jinx's bomb. I actually think this season did pretty well with those two (although I'll talk about a couple things that irked me below), but the concept that we can't escape the things that we've done and we instead have to find salvation in those around us felt kind of contrary to Jinx's finally finding a way to die for her sister. I don't know that Jinx's story was necessarily supposed to feel satisfying or complete, but without another season there's not much to dig through there.

And that brings up the main reason I don't think more episodes would have resolved my quibbles with this season: it was pretty prone to overexplaining. To me, one of the most exceptional things about that first season was how little it explained. You had these gorgeous, evocative flashes of Vander trying to kill Silco, Silco stabbing him and fleeing into the night, and that's all we needed! That's it! We didn't need to know the specifics, we didn't need more backstory than that - the whole point of the season was that these kids are trying to make their own stories, and these guys have set the stage and are in the process of bowing out. Much as I loved the glimpses this season into the past generation's adventures, it felt like it was pinning something down that was more effectively left to the imagination.

There were also some weird fumbles with discussions of disability, especially in that last episode. I loved so much of what season one did with it - the older generation of Zaunites almost all had some form of disability due to the way they'd been systematically poisoned and their constant exposure to danger, and that was a really in-your-face way to challenge the early "why can't we all get along" stuff. And so much of Viktor's and Jayce's arcs are tied in with the sense of time running out and how Heimerdinger's long-term goals are incompatible with helping the people suffering right now. But instead we get this weird "you didn't like your imperfections so you tried to eliminate all imperfections", which doesn't quite ring true.

We just fundamentally didn't get to a resolution that I think was heavily implied, especially in Act II. "No one in power is innocent" is a great, raw line, but we didn't really see it play out. Instead, we have everyone stopping from othering each other in order to band together against an even bigger Other. As a side note, I don't think that Sevika's ending is meant to be a positive thing - we see from the skeptical looks of others that she's got a long road ahead. The revolution we saw coming just sort of fizzled out, and I think it's still on the horizon, which makes things feel incomplete.

There were also a lot of notes that repeated instead of echoing or harmonizing. We had variations on the theme of Vander dying three different times. We had Vi being unable to kill her sister several times. The repetition felt a bit like it was filling time instead of moving things forward the way s1's plot kept pushing.

This season is also the first time I felt the hand of League of Legends Canon shoving the plot into place. We knew Vi was heading for that enforcer uniform, but after the initial conflict it sometimes felt more like we just unlocked a new skin for the character. The Vander-as-Warwick stuff was kind of silly and out of left field, although it was executed pretty well and certainly pulled at the ol' heartstrings. Ekko getting his time abilities was fun and impacted the final fight, but I feel like we were missing something there as well that I'm having a harder time putting my finger on. Some of Viktor's lines felt designed to make the League players in the audience go "HE SAID THE THING". And I hate the feeling of setting up the Next Installment in the Cinematic Universe, probably just because I'm exhausted with Marvel stuff - I'd love for an adaptation like this to be able to really and truly stand on its own.

Overall, it just felt less like the characters were driving the story and more like they were ticking off boxes, which is just something that any good finale has to contend with one way or another.

Anyway, that's a lot of nitpicking. Fundamentally, this felt almost like it was a really strong fic that did a surprisingly good job of wrapping everything up and was stunningly put together in places... but still lacked the spark of the original.

Stuff I loved: Vi/Cait getting a pretty strong arc and certainly the first lesbian sex scene I've ever seen in a TV-14 cartoon. Animation and score was stunning. I did love the what-if of episode 7 - something I've been waiting for them to acknowledge is that literally everything that happens in the show follows from that one break-in during episode one. I actually think Vi and Jinx's reunion and reconciliation felt earned.

I'm curious how I'll feel on subsequent rewatches - the first time I watched s1, I remember being blown away but not in a "this is the best thing ever" way, and it wasn't until the second time that it really clicked for me.

[midnight1nk]

So, this week's episode...

[spoilers below cut]

WOW, a Mario Reacts! It's been a long time, hasn't it? Hell yeah, I can work with this!

(no bc seriously, I just finished watching ep. 7 of Arcane before this and I need an emotional break, yeah I know the rest of Act 3 is gonna kill me)

(the following is my live reaction:)

oh hey, Mario! Wassup?

jigsaw, is that you?

oh nvm, hello Swag! nice to see you again since last episode

I'm about to commit a crime [*strikes a pose then walks away*]

I'm willing to work in a government office just so I can come up with an acronym like, gee idk, Y.U.R.I. or something (I should've been a worker in NASA)

NO STOP STOP WHAT ARE YOU DOING?! WHAT. ARE. YOU. DOING?!

At this point, Mario, I would just give up

[*clears throat*] mejor me muero, ni modo que sigo con estos porquerías. bueno como dice Mario, bye bye [*drinks some water*] alright I'm back

TADC? ah, just a normal Saturday

no thoughts, head empty

honestly, mood

well, in his own way, yeah

[*echoes announcer voice*] VR, the new era of entertainment

...mr puzzles? nah jk jk

oh, Four's theory may not be wrong here (omg it's jesus)

still can't believe christianity is canon in the SMG4 universe

oh, so I was right! [*jigsaw voice*] "I wanna play a game."

That's actually kinda sweet that he immediately chooses his brother

OH SHIT OOOOH that's gotta hurt

NO MARIO, THAT SHOULD'VE BEEN ME

[*other me pops in*] emo girlfriend, omg it's smg3

no, we're NOT gonna look too much into this, shut up other me

PPFFFTTT that caught me so off guard

say it with me now: YOU CAN'T CONTROL MARIO [*applause*]

I mean, we've been through simulations before, we can take this one too

unironically, I wouldn't mind a 10-hour video of just Mario (and/or the rest of the Crew) just dancing :)

it doesn't even need to have music, I can just put my playlist on and I would totally join in

ooooh, you want to scan that QR code so badly

but also, how did they get a screenshot of my computer?

Mario 🤝 Mario Buddy from the last episode → destroying PCs for the LOLs

AKLDHLKSAFB;KL just the way Mario goes for a fighting stance just so he could run away will never not be funny to me

LET ME IN LET ME INNNNNNNNN

10 hours, welp I got my wish lmao

Mario morphing his face... hmmmm..... [*flashback noises*]

[SMG4: MAR10 Day]

....

don't think about it don't think about it don't think about it

KIRBO NOOOOOOOOO

NO NO NO SWAG NO

same vibes

meme factory? youtube arc? is that you? /j

(yeah I know that the Team uses the same assets ik)

LET'S DO THISSSS oh welp time to vibe

FIGHT FIGHT FIGHT

what would that be, Swag? Try not to Laugh challenge? I might win tbh

LET'S GO GAMBLING

laughing because of early victory call? very in character for Swag

oooh that's some good animation (y'know, as always)

HOLD UP WAIT A MINUTE

am i thinking too much into this or is this the same military base from last episode?

Alright, my little headcanon: the events of this episode and the last one took place on the exact same day

that's just for me specifically

oh hey, more TADC ref

Also, nice PINGAS STUCK IN A DOOR ref

man Mario can't catch a break dude

Congrats to CMorseu for your art being featured at the end credits 🎉

.・-: ✧ :--: ✧ :-・.

Such a good episode! Not plot-heavy, just a silly episode. I'll gladly take it as my late birthday present. And it's great to have Swag back, kinda was half-expecting Chris to just pop out.

I've said this once and I'll say it again: I wouldn't mind if the rest of the year is just filled with goofy episodes. After all, we just came from WOTFI and we do need a bit of a break so the Team could work on the next arc. (From the looks of things, we might get goop!4 *cough cough*)

Loved the bits of animation and Mario's expressions as always.

Now, I know there is some talk about the SMG4 Crew/Mario Does Things being on hiatus and merging with the Saturday videos. If you can even call it that. Personally, I don't mind it. I completely understand if doing 2 episodes per week is a lot for the Team to handle, though I do wish they would give an explanation for it. I think the best solution would be for the Team making an announcement of the change, the reasons behind it, and how it may be different from the regular Saturday episodes. Also make it clear that "hey, the title says this so it doesn't impact the main storyline".

Anyway, it has been overall a pretty funny episode and I quite enjoyed it! Now, if you excuse me, I'm gonna cry my eyes out watching the rest of Arcane Act 3 and bring that angst to the next episode concept :)

OH THE MISERY EVERYBODY WANTS TO BE MY ENEMYYYYYYY

[sometipsygnostalgic]

Animated Series ending tier list

Okay this is based on a discussion with @j4gm, kim and mifil the other day

These are all cartoons with the exception of Homestuck. I'll admit I don't get invested in a lot of TV shows, even animated shows, so this is limited to stuff I like. Maybe i forgot something but if i did it's probably not worth talking about.

Here's the list if you're interested in building your own.

So I'll go through each item one by one and explain. Yes, I did arrange them based on better (left) and worse (right) for each tier. I'll start from top to bottom so I have the most energy for the better show endings.

I'm rating them both in how they respect the stories of their show, and how entertaining/cohesive they are as a piece of media. To be honest, the former matters to me more than the latter, but some of the shows at the top of this list aren't even ones I particularly like, because their endings were just that well written.

Astonishing

Owl House. This show got better and better with each episode. I don't know, I was blown away by how bad it was at the start and how great it was at the end. And of every item on this list, this one's ending episode had the best pacing. There was lots of room to breathe, lots of reminders of the connections between various characters, and the villain was taken care of in a satisfying way. And we got a beautiful epilogue. The only reason Owl House is in the same tier as She-ra and Gravity Falls, instead of being its own category, is because I felt it had some shortcomings, particularly s3e2 focused on a bunch of characters nobody has ever had any reason to care for, and a lot of the cast don't reach the potential they could do because they lack focus, so I don't have as much emotional attachment to it as a lot of other shows listed here. Anyway here's my favourite moment:

2. She-Ra and the Princess of Power. This is my favourite show on this list because I think it's the most cohesive of the lot. Even though it has a rough start, and often follows cartoon logic, from the very beginning of She-ra to the end it focuses strongly on the same themes. The cycle of abuse and pain and that feeling you will need to earn love, you need to earn the right to exist. It does so with a wide cast of characters, but it's also very good at trimming down to a smaller cast when it needs more focus. There are a lot of good decisions to make sure it worked in the small runtime it had. The ending of she-ra is basically its entire final season. It's one long arc. It doesn't have any major weak spots like The Owl House's final season did, and it has more room to breathe, with 13 incredible episode of about 20 minutes each, more than twice the length. And it delivers on every single character. Every member of the cast gets a moment to shine across the season, yet it isn't so distracted as to pull attention away from Catra and Adora. What makes She-ra's ending a bit weaker than Owl House's is the pacing of the final episode. Heart part 1 and 2, while great, is absolutely rammed, and one of the weaker episodes of that season because of it. You don't get enough room to breathe, you don't get to soak in the characters' emotions quite as much as in the episode prior, Failsafe. But I would count Failsafe as part of the ending. So while season 5's finale isn't even the best finale of She-ra (s3 and s4 were harder hitting), the final season as a whole is incredibly strong. And it's a very entertaining piece of media too! Ugh. I love it.

Here's this powerful scene of Catra whispering and yet screaming to Adora to stay with her, even in the end.

3. Gravity Falls.

To be honest I'm not much of a Gravity Falls fan, so I don't have as much to say as I do about the other two shows, but this ending is highly regarded across the cartoon community. It works perfectly within the smaller scope of the show, bringing a wide, crazy calamity for the characters to work with.

My problem with Gravity falls is Mabel. Not that she's a bad character, but that they don't spend enough time making her a good one. And the ending reflects that - it shows her doing something very major, overturning the world, and that's interesting, but it keeps presenting Mabel's problems as rather shallow instead of focusing on her psychology and why she's making these mistakes. Meanwhile it spends a lot of time on Dipper and explaining and justifying his teenage boy mentality and it drived me crazy how much more of a main character Dipper is than Mabel. Because it's Mabel I relate more to. She's more like I was when I was 12. It's a teen boy's show for teen boys, so I don't like it as much as Owl House or Amphibia. Other than that the ending is a good time and I love the themes of family, I love that Dipper has such low self worth and is grappling with the idea of what manliness even is, facing misguided pressure from other relatives like Stan and Ford. And I love the relationship between Stan and Ford, the mistakes they made, and how Stan ultimately takes responsibility for being an obstructive little shit by removing his memory, taking Bill with him!

Yeah, perhaps this show's ending could've been further strengthened by Stan having his memory lost forever, or having a harder time regaining it. But it makes sense in the stakes of Gravity Falls, where the world resets after every episode even if there was a zombie invasion. I don't see them having Stan forget his great nephew/niece as the ending of the show.

And it has a nice scene with the characters driving off in the bus... Heartbreaking. I love that Stan and Ford go adventuring together afterwards. And I love the theme song.

Remaining rankings below - I think these three should be celebrated most. It's gonna be a shorter summary from here.

Genuinely Good

These are endings that blow you away, but do have a couple nooks and crannies stopping them from reaching the top tier. Another person's list might put them at the top.

Adventure Time Distant Lands: See what's crazy about Distant Lands is that anyone one of these episodes might be the best in the series if it was a different show, but Adventure Time is such a good show that the way Distant Lands is different stands out to me. Like, Together Again, you might think I'm crazy for not putting it above Owl House, but while it's a fantastic episode, really emotional, it's not even my favourite Distand Lands episode. That would be Obsidian which I felt was a more honest resolution to the characters of the show itself, showing the limitless future ahead of the cast instead of what TA did which was demonstrate that Finn really didn't go much further after the end of the show. I felt TA was very limiting in that sense, it contradicted the ending to Adventure Time, which had the strength of "the adventure never ends". Which means that growth never ends. Finn is supposed to be an ever changing character, but in Together Again, he's stagnant.

Other than that, it's absolutely top tier. But not good enough for me to call it the best of the best. Even if I think Finn's character writing was a downgrade, or harmed the main show, I think where DL and TA did better than Come Along With Me is it was actually coherent and had strong themes rather than being a mishmash of random parts of Adventure Time that they wanted to shove in before it was over. It was a better tv finale, one of the best and most emotional ever made, but it's hard to call it a better Adventure Time finale, because AT's legacy hinders on so much more. 2. OK KO: Let's be Heroes: This is a show that went under the radar. It was coming out at the same time as Steven Universe, which was far more popular. So I'll explain it to you: OK KO has two endings. KO has grappled with his alternate persona, TKO, for the entire show. In the first ending, TKO takes over, and starts fighting everyone in a giant tournament. He literally kills all the cast, while KO is struggling to regain control. KO's epiphany is that TKO is a part of himself he buried long ago. KO has always tried to be the sweetest kid possible, so all his rage and fire, all his strength, was neglected and buried. That became TKO. It's similar to the ending of Celeste. They fuse together, but KO is crying because he killed all his friends. So he makes a wish to the God of the Universe to give everyone a happy ending. Then you get a really nice ending montage of all the characters from OK KO having the time of their life. One interesting touch was Venomous, KO's bastard father, had very little to do with KO in this timeline. KO clearly wanted nothing to do with him. But Venomous is shown raising his adoptive daughter Fink and doing a fantastic job. The final episode of OK KO has KO seemingly stuck in time acceleration. Time is flying by, his friends are achieving their goals, leaving the town, way before he can begin to process what he's even doing here. Everything is going faster and faster and it's like he's jumping forward! He doesn't know what's going on!!! But when he explains his plight, he's told... This is normal. This is a normal part of growing up. What seems like time acceleration is just time passing by. Then the rest of the episode show KO going through his life in the same manner. A big gag of the show is KO is age 6-11. That's his age. It's the same as the target audience for OKKO. But you see him grow up. His twelth to fifteenth birthday... 18th to 24th birthday... 25th to 35th birthday... At the end, he's in charge of the Bodega, a full adult looking after runts just like Mr Gar did. I dunno, I felt this was a very meaningful way to end the show. Even if it's not the most emotionally heavy hitting series, even if it's way too short, it did something that stays in my mind to this day. Time goes by in such a flash that you don't notice it was there to begin with, so appreciate the good things life throws at you.

3. The Legend of Korra: The show Korra wasn't particularly great, if I was rating the media as a whole it would probably be at the very bottom of this list. Yes below Star and Homestuck and Kipo. It's not remarkable in the slightest and constantly fumbles.

However I was at the edge of my seat during the series finale in Season 4. I was excited by the conflict between Korra and Kuvira. I loved the metalbending battles. I loved Korra's actualisation, how Kuvira is a very good rival, how their whole conflict plays out with Korra demonstrating such an INSURMOUNTABLE LEVEL OF STRENGTH both in power and character to save Kuvira from her own mistake.

I love how Korra decides to take a break and leave with Asami into the spirit world through the portal she just opened. It was a nice relationship in a show that has so heavily fumbled its prior character dynamics.

And you can't forget how it felt watching this the first time. Afterwards, Bryke made a post on tumblr saying "Korrasami is Canon". You have to remember, this was long before Bubbline was anything more than subtext in two episodes. This was before Steven Universe's "Stronger than You". This was the first time two girls were confirmed to be in a relationship in a kid's cartoon in America. I was so happy. You have to understand Korrasami did a lot of good things and made a lot of the queer representation in these other items possible.

Did the job

These are endings that were OK. They were satisfying but they weren't anything special. They weren't the best episodes or seasons of the series they're from.

Avatar: The last Airbender: I will be honest this show is in a similar realm to She-ra wherein its whole final season is one big buildup to a couple of fast-pased episodes. And honestly its final episode might be better than She-ra's in a pacing sense? But... The simple part is I don't like Avatar as much. I didn't feel particularly strongly about most of these characters. It's a very competent tv finale, with strong scenes - the Agni Kai, and Katara's capture of Azula, are particular strong points. But it's quite long and there are a lot of scenes I don't feel much about, like Aang vs Ozai. Back in the day lots of people were unhappy Aang spared Ozai, and I get that it's not in character for him to just kill him, but it was the original "deus ex machina" for Aang to find a way to get out of it and get what he wanted. It isn't particularly interesting. And then Aang x Katara... I don't care. So yeah ATLA does the job. It's a great final season but I don't care for the finale itself and the characters. while great for the time - by far the EARLIEST show to release on this list - are more childish and cartoony than most. They don't have depth required to compete with more modern cartoons. You've only got maybe two outstanding characters in a tight story vs She-ra's one dozen in a looser story, and honestly I value character more than cohesion because that's what you remember. That's what makes you feel things. Anyone can make a story where things happen but what makes you care? Being a bit harsh here because a lot of people call this the greatest show of all time blah de blah and throw away everything all the other shows do better. But the ATLA finale isn't even in the top ten most interesting episodes of the series. This part went hard though (couldn't find a video of it alone):

Azula starts the scene dominating Katara, and then Katara turns the tables and restrains her using the very ice which fire is supposed to melt, which is mentally destroying for Azula. All she can do is scream and breathe fire when she is restrained, unable to let out all her rage and pain. And Katara spares a moment to witness this, looking troubled, before she runs off to Zuko, attempting to save his life.

2. Adventure Time original ending: Why is my favourite show of all time listed so far down? Why? Well it's because while that AT finale is emotional, hits a lot of themes, it's... a fucking mess. The first part is a war which has only been relevant for two episodes, the second part is a dream sequence which destroy any tension you might've had, and the rest is an unrelated battle against GOLB because we needed a real final boss.

It's a really bad tv finale. And it even does harm to my favourite character in the show, Princess Bubblegum, by making her seem irrational. She's someone who has had the entire series for us to get to know her, to see her biggest flaws and see her struggle to overcome them. So for her to fall back on them yet again, nearly fuck everyone over, with such little buildup and justification and literally throw a child tantrum when Finn interrupts it, it's an injustice to her. She deserved better than everyone thinking she's a fascist forever. The AT crew should have respected their own work on that character better instead of leaving her off like that.

But... even despite these issues, despite being so incoherent? It's a great Adventure Time ending. It makes perfect sense. Of COURSE it's anticlimactic! Of COURSE there's a ten minute dream sequence of crazy shit happening! Of course it's so sudden, things happen so quickly without much time spent to reflect on them! It's Adventure Time! This is what we're HERE for! And the emotional heart of the episode, it isn't really in the Great Gum War or the battle against Golb. It's in Shermie and Beth, and Future Ooo. The fact that the world will end again, but even then.. it's fine. Everything changes. Everything grows. Nothing can stay as it is forever, but letting it go might allow something new and beautiful to take its place.

It's in Jake trying to protect his home, freaking out, and BMO coming in... instead of being looked after, BMO decides to reassure jake, even in certain doom.

It's in Time Adventure. We may not be able to go home, turn back time, relive the past and return to how things were, but... you and I will always be back then.

3. Scavenger's Reign: I felt this show started stronger than it ended. The ending wasn't offensive but it wasn't good either. Honestly I don't have shit to say about the ending, other than that Barry is an annoying stereotype of an autistic character with no agency of his own and it breaks my heart. I liked how relentlessly bad Kris was and I liked Azi struggling to save the day. I liked how her character evolved from being straightfoward and pushing down Levi's curious, kind traits, to embracing those very things in her memory.... while maintaining the strength in adversity needed to challenge someone like Kris. The baby alien thing sure was there. I dunno, the earlier eps with those two hit harder than the ending. The worst part is the sequel bait. We are not getting a sequel. Why is there sequel bait? Seems like the crew were a bit too optimistic for a team of cartoonists working for HBO Max.

But the show as a whole is incredible and has left a strong impression. So, an inoffensive ending is completely fine. I like how everyone is still stranded because of Kris, who meanwhile is dehydrating to death in space because of the organic Levi invasion, and all the people they left behind are chilling in the alien wonderland, learning how to live comfortably.

4. Fionna and Cake: We're now moving into the endings I dislike for one reason or another. I liked Fionna and Cake's themes with Simon and Betty, how it showed a bit more from Betty's side, how obsessive she was with him and he didn't even know.

This does have a weakness though. It removes agency from Betty. It was her choice, in the finale, to sacrifice herself to become GOLB. She was chasing Simon over and over and over again, SHE was the obsessive mad scientist, and she finally achieved her goal at great cost even though could've given up at any time. It was a tragedy. But here it kinda shifts the blame on Simon, even though he was a victim of Betty's obsession. I'm not accusing it of victim blaming, more that I really liked that it was Betty making her own terrible mistakes. It added a lot of character and conviction to her. I don't think Fionna and Cake undermines this much. Kim was a lot more bothered. Besides the Simon plot, the rest is.. ok. It was very predictable Fionna would want to protect the boring, happy world she came from. It fits and it has heart. But it's not remarkable. The ending montage is... weird. Why is Jay and Little Destiny here? Why is Baby Finn here? What about their worlds? Won't they be missed? Did Farmworld Finn fucking die? And the big problem with Fionna and Cake is.. it's such a meanspirited show, even compared with Adventure Time. It relies on you finding tragic shit really funny, like BMO having a horrible gory deeath in jerry. When Fionna and Cake has desensitized me this much, it's hard to feel emotionally invested in this world anymore. It made mistakes by showing too many alternate universes and undermining the world of Adventure Time itself, and I have issues with how Marceline was completely absent from the series - AGAIN - despite allegedly being so important to Simon. It's an outright BAD Adventure Time ending!!! I do love the presentation of Casper and Nova, how it was revealed it wasn't Simon Petrikov but the little Fionna and Cake fan who was able to write the story that finally got through to him and made him realise he needed to stop holding betty back.

"You were a good experience, Simon. Goodbye."

Mistakes were Made

These are the endings that fumbled, disappointed people. They still have value in them but theyre largely disliked by the fanbases involved. I'll explain a bit of why.

1, Arcane: This one just ended last night and is the reason I'm making this post.

I explained a bit here and here, but the issue is: Arcane's a much better show than it has any right to be. It's a league of legends cartoon. But season 1 is so heavy hitting, a tight ship from start to end focusing on the dramas of Vi, Jinx, and the people around them. The main weakness of season 1 was Jayce, Viktor, and Mel. It would distract from the main story in order to focus on them, but wouldn't spend enough time making them compelling characters. Season 2 has this issue tenfold where it seems the scope of the season was so big that it had very limited time to have those amazing scenes from season 1. And there certainly some heavy hitters, like Ekko save-scumming his conversation with Jinx to find a way to stop her killing herself, or Caitlyn and Mel's battle with Ambessa, or Jayce and Viktor yetting themselves into arcane oblivion, but... the finale itself seems very disconnected from the rest of the series, having a generic big bad in Possessed Chaos God Viktor. It lacks any of the intrigue of the Piltover vs Zaun conflict that was so important from s1e1 all the way to s2e4, after which it was promptly discarded in favour of other distractions. And as a result, Jinx and Vi are left as side characters in the ending of their own series, with a lot of their internal struggles left behind. Instead of the tragedy of season 1's ending, we are left thinking of the tragedy of how much better the ending could've been if they had just one more season to give these characters justice.

The strongest episode of the season is probably episode 6. If you know, you know.

2. Ducktales: So if you were a casual viewer of Ducktales you probably had no issues with this one. It's a competent TV finale where stuff happens and all the characters get involved and there are emotional themes.

What's weird about this one, and why it's so far down, is because of Webby's role. Webby is a misfit because she's not a member of the Scrooge family. She's a wannabe. She wants to be part of them, part of the siblings, and she has more in common with Scrooge and Della's brilliance than the other three, but she will never have that blood relationship. Her own parents are dead too, so she has feelings about watching the triplets reunite with their mother.

But in season 3... Ot's like the Ducktales writers were told they only had one episode left to work with and just made something up, and what they decided to do was take the "found family" trope and say "actually it was real family the whole time because Webby was Scrooge's secret clone daughter".

It leaves a bad taste in my mouth. The show did such a good job before this point showing Webby's development as she gets loved and accepted into the family. But for her to have always secretly had that blood relationship undercuts it fully.

It also undercuts her relationship to her grandmother, who tries to move out of the picture as soon as the truth comes out. The show does have Webby embracing her gran to show theyre still family. But we already had this story told in a better way with Webby and Scrooge and the triplets.

The fact the finale has nothing to do with the rest of the season is also why it's so far down. The season 2 finale was pretty spectacular by comparison and had compelling scenes like Della freaking out over protecting her kids and "running to the moon" with them, recycling her trauma (yes a ducktales character has trauma).

If you're not bothered by it, it's an inoffensive, fun finale. But more obsessive Ducktales fans and Webby fans were quite upset, myself included.

3. Kipo and the age of Wonderbeasts

I can't remember much about how this show ended. Honestly that's part of the problem. The first season was far more intrigueing than anything that followed and the whole thing came out across 2020 and it was a forgettable experience despite Karen Fukuhara voicing the energetic Kipo.

What I do remember is being pissed off about some things. Like how a lot of the talking animals were turned into non-talking animals and that was how things ended for them, and no vaccine or anything was made. It pissed me off somehow? Please kipo fans tell me your feelings on this.

I also disliked the final villain. She's a lot like Kris from Scavenger's Reign but even more generic and disappointing.

I dunno, to me the finale represents the wasted potential of this show. How it takes place in a world that rivals Adventure Time's, but Netflix did away with it so quickly, releasing three entire seasons in one year and leaving it with a generic end.

The peak into everyone's futures is nice, but it's not intrigueing like with The Owl House or Adventure Time.

4. Steven Universe: What a hot mess of an ending that threw out so much potential for the wider Steven Universe world. The motivations of the main villains were narrowed down to "we have emotional problems". Steven Universe has a consistent issue where it has emotional scenes at the expense of characters and story.

But I rate this more highly than the SU Future ending, despite that one having perhaps more cohesive writing, because I felt that the SU end had some incredible scenes that carried the spirit of the show while SU Future constantly undermined the original series without providing enough value of its own.

In particular, the scene James Baxter animated of Steven and Steven. This was mind-blowing, it was the climax to the most important part of the story, the truth of Steven's identity and whether he was his own person.

In retrospect that scene brings more value to me than all the bad parts of SU... but SU had so many amazing characters. It's a tragedy that Steven was the only one of them that the show still loved by the end.

Hardest line:

She's GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOONE!!!!

5. Amphibia: Season 3 was plagued by being worse than season 2. The opening episodes on Earth were kinda bad, just "Amphibia season 1 episodes but in a far more boring setting". I hated anything involving the secret agents.

The fact Kipo, Scavenger's Reign, and Amphibia all have corpo villains at the end, and the fact I didn't like any of those endings, shows to me that it's not a particularly great thing to add to a fantasy story.

The first sad part is "the magic is destroyed". A popular theme in Disney shows. Well, what happens here is Sasha, Anne, and Marcy lose their magic abilities, and they decide to stay on Earth and lose the ability to travel to Amphibia. It's not massively offensive but it's kind of played out and generic and it does the sad thing of separating the trio from their found family. What's controversial is the epilogue shows that Anne, Sasha, and Marcy stopped hanging out after the end. They just broke off from each other's lives, it was easy as that. It wasn't a lifelong friendship. They do reunite in the end but it's been like ten years. It undermines the emotional turmoil that was present across the whole show. What Matt Braly wanted to show is sometimes things happen. Despite how much you want to be best friends forever... you stop being close to people, you lose touch with them. But this isn't a story that makes much sense when the characters have been through so much together in a fantasy world. It's like Marcy's worst fears have come true, and while that's a point of growth for her, it's frustrating for the viewers who believed the endgame bonds between the characters were better than that.

[Edit: Other than that, a lot of characters weren't delivered in justice s3 with how they had been built up in season 2. Sasha is hardly present in season 3 and Marcy is genuinely not present at all, and when we watched it we really thought they were gonna do more with Marcy when she came back. Swim in that emotional trauma a little bit! But no she's fine even with her evil father figure gone. It could've been better, should've been because season 2 was so stellar.] And I wasn't a fan of how Anne was portrayed at the end. I don't like how these stories make their characters "grow up" in such a way that they come across as love-all hippies instead of having anything resembling their original personality. Where's her sass? Why is she so melancholic and only melancholic? But that's a personal problem I haven't seen many others talk about.

Other than that, it's a competent episode. But it's the ending to a weaker season compared to what came prior.

The cat in this drawing has been my discord icon since we watched it though.

What the Hell?

These are the endings that shat the bed. I hate them! Everyone else probably does too.

Steven Universe Future: Unlike the other endings of this section, I did feel like Rebecca Sugar was going somewhere with SU future. They had a specific goal in mind for what they wanted to do, and every episode reaches towards that goal in some way. That's why a lot of people think Steven Universe Future is better than the more disjointed, huge tv series that came prior. It had a set start middle and end and carried through those themes. Unfortunately, those themes suck. Yeah, it's great deconstructing the impact Steven Universe had on Steven as a character, showing the damage that was done to him, the ways he's been let down. In isolation, it's a great way to show how a difficult childhood can affect you in adulthood, in ways that you would have never expected. This is the value SU Future has. It also has good sections showing how some other characters have recovered, how Pearl for example is healing and far more social than she ever has been but still has a ways to go, and finally talks to someone about her feelings over Pink Diamond, the previous Pearl that served her. Volleyball is a great episode. Unfortunately it takes the wrong lessons from the mistakes of the show. Steven Universe really wanted us to fall in love with its many characters, but it spent so much time showing Garnet, Amethyst and Pearl's flaws, spent so much time showing them failing Steven, that they ultimately came across as incompetent and sidelined. This is an issue with the original show. Steven Universe Future: "You know what? You're right! That was bad!" Me: "So are you going to do those characters justice and show them having growth and being competent and caring for Steven?" Steven Universe Future: "No. We are going to show them BEING EVEN WORSE and COMPLETELY FAILING to connect with Steven!" Me: "... For the entire thing????" Steven Universe Future: "Yes. this is never fixed and Steven leaves the county because of it." Me: "What the fuck?" Even people who were really into the whole thing were taken aback that Steven's kaiju transformation, the manifestation of his deepest fears about himself, was resolved with a hug. Just like the major conflict in the original show. And instead of a meaningful denouement, the show skipped all the resolution and went to Steven running the fuck away in an episode that would've had equal emotional value if it was in season 1 episode 1, or a competely different series. It was cheap and easy to make a bittersweet ending of Steven leaving the city. And it made it feel like the tragedy of Steven's mental breakdown was more important than his healing. Like they couldn't make an interesting story of him getting better because they're incompetent writers. I did like the scene of Steven crying his eyes out after he detransformed. And a lot of scenes in Future did go hard. But the Crystal Gems deserved better. Hell, Jasper deserved better.

Hardest scene:

2. Star vs the forces of Evil: Hooo boy. In the animation community this is HERALDED as The Worst Ending. It is the flagship of disappointment.

It disappointed people who loved the magical world the show took place in. It disappointed people who wanted to see Star reach her potential. It disappointed every shipper of every ship, not that I ever cared for the romance dramas but they took a lot of screentime on the show to its detriment. It disappointed people who like to apply basic logic to the things they watch. What a disaster!

Okay so why is it so hated?

Well, Star had been on the decline for a while. It had a fantastic start to season 3, with a great big war for Mewnie where everyone had great character moments, Star died and came back to life and utterly annihilated the villain. Toffee was a great villain, by the way.

There had been a bit of romantic tension between Star and Marco and they both had crushes on each other but refused to ever admit it and Marco thought he was into some other girl, and Star let him go at the start of season 3 and started dating... her ex... this shitty guy called Tom... he's a good character but a terrible boyfriend who kind of suicide baits Star back into his life. And Star would become a terrible girlfriend. I dunno, people really thought that pairing would be endgame but it was clear to me it was just an artificial obstacle in the way of the inevitable Starco ship. Like Kelly. Who Marco dates for a whopping half an episode before they break up offscreen. Great?

Anyway the romance in this series is on the same tier as Korra, though it does try to build up its endgame pairing from the start.

But from season 3 onwards Marco felt more like a joke character. I don't know, they didn't treat him with much respect.

The thing that EVERYONE TALKS ABOUT with Star, oh god it's going to be the longest thing on this list, is Moon and Eclipsa and Mina and the atrocious decisions the characters made.

I'm going to bullet point it so it's vaguely readable:

Star's mother, Queen Moon, goes missing following the events of the start of s3 special.

Star learns that the throne was stolen from monster-fucker Eclipsa and wrongly given to her own family line so she gives the crown to Eclipsa, to great controversy. Eclipsa is a dark magic user who is 300 years old and she's pretty cool but the show takes a sharp turn from this point to being about a racial conflict - Monsters being discriminated against by Mewmans and how a lot of people want to keep it that way.

The council which was previously on the side of good really HATES this decisionn and is now portrayed as bad.

Conflict breaks out and people are against Eclipsa and her giant person-eating husband leading the kingdom.

People have their homes given back to the monsters that they were stolen from hundreds of years ago. It's a silly cartoon form of reparations but it is shown giving them hardship because they are made homeless. By the way nobody in history has been made homeless because of reparations.

These homeless or disgruntled mewmans find Moon, who has re-emerged and decided to stay away from the kingdom. They want their old queen back and side with her, and she thinks they need someone to represent them. She also hates Eclipsa for various reasons.

Moon decides the best way to deal with Eclipsa is to arm the biggest fascist monster-killing character in the world with an invincible undefeatable army of magic soldiers, and retake the kingdom and go to war against the side her own daughter is on.

Moon gets a surprised pikachu face when she realises she can't undo the spell she used to make this fascist evil super army.

Star decides the best way to resolve this is to delete all magic. Kill it. They go to the source of all magic and use a spell to kill everything there. Lots of reindeer die.

Then every magical thing in the universe gets deleted. Every single magic-born creature. The entire council is murdered. All of the creatures in Star's magic wand die. Countless portals to other worlds are closed down, meaning many of the characters can no longer go and see their friends anymore. This is directly shown, by the way - not just inferred.

Somehow, Ponyhead survives.

Then this is capped off by Marco and Star wanting to reunite... and in a scene that is supposed to be emotional, they cleave their universes together. Mewnie lands on top of Earth. Normal humans are screaming as they are chased around by giant creatures.

The story ends.

Yeah do I have to explain any more why this one was unpopular? It's the biggest fumble you can speak of.

My biggest issue is how dumb they had to make Moon in order to achieve this outcome.

But Starco is kind of cute, even if Marco wasn't half the character he used to be by the end.

3. Homestuck: Which ending do you want me to discuss? Act 6? The epilogues? Or HS^2?

Let's start with the main work, as that's what makes Homestuck qualify as an animation.

Act 6 was a vast disappointment because it sort of ended. We had so much talking for so long that we were hoping something cool would happen and then we got a flash where the characters hit each other with sticks. There were no stakes in Collide, not really.

Then we got the Frog flash. We watched a frog for 8 minutes.

Then that was it!

There were so many unanswered questions. What the hell happened to the final boss and the MAIN CAST, for example. We had learnt earlier in the story that in some point of the future, the main cast all get stuck in a little homestuck house which Vriska fires at Lord English. But we never learn when, we never learn if they're ok, we never learn if English is killed or what happens to Vriska. So for a long time there was this disturbing implication that the cast would all die not long after the series ended.

We had the Credits which were much better but further solidified this implication, and it had Terezi fly out into the void looking for Vriska forever, which made me sad and depressed but that was because of my personal involvement in the story really.

Act 6 is more of a "mistakes were made" ending, but it's the Epilogues and HS^2, and the actions of creator Andrew Hussie, which are why it's rock bottom here.

I don't want to give my breath to those items. Let's just say they were the most meanspirited, intentionally offensive, hostile, character-destroying sets of stories every done, created by people who accused every homestuck fan who didn't like them of being "not really trans" or "pedophile harborors" or "deserving to be lined up and shot" (real quote).

And then the fact Hussie fired his entire crew twice and blacklisted them if he ever had any suspicion they complained about his leadership or financial decisions anywhere.

And the fact the entire whatpumpkin team were left uncredited in the original release of Hiveswap Act 2 because Hussie didn't want to give them any credit because he wants his friends to be a hivemind.

I have so much hatred for what Homestuck became. It's tragic because this series was such a big part of my life for so long.

It's also tragic because the main work is a masterpiece. Even Act 7, despite the criticism, is Guzusuru's masterwork with how much effort went into the animation. How much heart went into each illustration the old Paradox Space team made.

So that's it. Homestuck is the one that is not just a little bit worse than Star. Leaps and bounds worse.

But that's it. I have a lot of opinions on endings because they can colour how you view the entire previous work.

[sockatoothewafflebird]

‼️🚨‼️🚨‼️🚨‼️

arcane season 2 ending spoilers!!! scroll past if you wanna save yourself! seriously it's so much better if you watch it completely blind.

here we go!!! turn back now!!!

so. oh my god. that was the most beautiful thing i've ever seen.

my first reaction:

i think it's safe to say arcane is my favorite show ever. my favorite piece of media ever.

let's start with the very few flaws:

pacing was way too fast, but i think it's just because episodes were a lot shorter and we only got two seasons instead of the original five. it wouldve been better as five seasons. but oh my god it's still hella good

i think a couple issues aren't handled as well as they should've been, although it's not my place to speak on it. i'll probably talk about it later but for now i'll just say they could have handled jinx better.

i wish we could have seen their graves. the graves of isha and jinx and vi's parents, the graves of everyone she lost. i think it would have been a nice touch, and it would've made me start bawling so hard my head hurt. which is a good thing when it comes to arcane. this one's just a personal gripe though.

now with, um, everything else:

so uh caitvi lets GO? lets fucking go caitvi. also i did not think i'd like timebomb this much! it was so fucking cute! but then um yeah haha that happened

JAYVE AND VIKTOR ARE IN LOVE AND THEYRE COSMIC BEINGS DRIFTING THROUGH SPACE TOGETHER. OH MY GOD THAT SCENE EWS AMAZING. my jaw dropped in the viktor and jayce scene in ep9 and it did mot close until i said "no please no you can't do this to me". so yeah. the lost beautiful piece of animation i've ever fucking seen hands down.

i don't think anything can ever top this. you know when you read a fic so good you're like "no other fic will ever bring me this much joy?" yeah i'm that but with pieces of media in general.... like. arcane is the best thing to ever come on a screen, period. i'm not joking here this is objectively one of if not THE BEST PIECE OF CINEMA EVER. maybe i'm biased and arcane haters dont come after me but this show is so so special to me. i'll never forget it. i'll be on my deathbed as an old lady and someone will play Enemy by Imagine Dragons and i'll come back to life to rewatch arcane.

that's all for now. i'll articulate my thoughts better tomorrow but um yeah i guess it's over. holy shit. it's over.

[arcane-ish]

Nobody is forced to ship it but imo the biggest "pointers" are:

Some people see their jackets hanging together as a Brokeback Mountain reference (= a famous movie about a gay love story).

When Viktor looks into Vander's mind the first thing that pops up in Vander's mind is him and Silco as miners followed by an incredibly sappy "rose colored glasses" picture of young Silco looking cute with a little smile on his lips. It feels like a shorthand from the writers "this is the person Vander loved the most". It makes sense for the character of Vander to be haunted by how he attacked Silco so things like the nightmare picture of the disfigured Silco. But this memory of Silco just seems very cheesy and not very "back in the gold old times when my bro didn't hate me".

The line in the AU where Vander says Ekko should run this place which leads to Silco to pop up and say "So there's a chance for us yet" (imo refering to him and Vander based on body language) To me that just reads like a couple making plans.

Back in season 1 one if the animators went to Twitter and said that they were given a neutral script but chose to interpret them as bitter exes.

We know from season 1 that apparently Silco talked *excessively* about Vander even though Vander has been dead for years. So much that Jinx gets annoyed by how often he does it. "You told me a million times. [...] he was like a brother to you, and he turned his back and blah, blah, blah. Did I miss anything?"(and we know that whatever he told her about Vander made her think that it would have made a huge difference if Silco had found the letter.

Again you are not forced to interpret it like that, but imo that's why I think there's a good chance it is meant that way rather than just "I like it that way".

The reason why I like it that way was in season 1 that you had these two sisters who desperately wanted to make up but were at odds and Silco was sort of a symoblic of Jinx and Vander as a symbolic of Vi in what drives them apart. So those two opposing forces making up and creating a family again and healing the thing that imo clearly haunted both of them was just appealing to me. And Season 2 just takes it further into "Jinx has two dads" territory where Silco of course meant a lot to her, but apparently so does Vander so it's just cute that the happy AU is where Powder has two dads. I just think they would be two fun dads together who tease each other (Bozo no 1 and Bozo no 2).

So that's why I like it, but jackets, watercolor Silco and just the way Silco and Vander act with each other in that scene in the AU verse makes me think it might actually have been meant that way or at least be highly open and suggestive of that interpretation.

And in the end, people who like characters are just prone to shipping what they think makes the character happy and that AU shows them at their happiest and it with them together (rather than "AU where Vander or Silco married Felicia")

Basically, feel free to not ship it, but don't try to police people who do. For example, I also ship Ekko/Jinx and I also thought there were signs in season 1 of there being more to the story. Season 2 of course made it sort of canon. But even now there are people who don't like them even though we KNOW that Ekko is romantically interested in her and she likes him back in at least one universe. But people are still allowed to not like it or prefer another ship. They then go that it's just a phase or that Ekko doesn't really love Jinx. And people have a right to their other preferences. Just don't be an asshole to people just because they chose to see Ekko and Jinx as this tragical potential love or as just a dumb detour.

People are allowed to see different things as cute.

It seems everyone thinks Vander and Silco were in a relationship at some point. And they believe the alternate universe proves that.

I don’t see it though. I’ve always read them as best friends who were practically brothers. Is there somthing I’m not seeing? Did the creators confirm it and that’s why everyone is shipping them? I’m so confused. Even my sibling is saying they thought the were just brothers so it’s not just me.

I mean no disrespect but if someone could help me see what everyone else is seeing, I wouldn’t mind a conversation. I just personally don’t see it at all. I just see two brothers who had a terrible falling out and only in another universe did they manage to reconcile.

I really hope I don’t get shit on for this 😭

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

Hey now, Let her cook!

[egophiliac]

I have SO many thoughts about everything and they are in no kind of order yet, so here's just some quick little bits in the meantime!

I am not normal about any of these characters!

[mushiemellows]

Another Day in the Sun

Chapter 1: Mechanical Precision

Rating: T

Summary:

Sometimes, days on the open sea tended to blend together. The Strawhats didn’t really seem to mind. No one’s noticed that they keep living the same day over and over again, but the machine keeps ticking.

((The crew gets stuck in a time loop. Franky and Robin need to play Matchmaker in order to try and break them out))

extra notes: I'm doing a bunch of writing warm ups out of a book I'm reading. I figured I'd use this new fic as a sort of practice space. I'm trying to keep things fun and casual, but there's a story here. It won't be nearly as long or detailed as my other stuff, but I'm having fun writing.

(tagged initially as Frobin and Zosan just bc that's what I'm setting up in these first chapters, but there will be a lot more.)

[shions-chin-scar]

i want a full essay on haruta, you seem like a knowing person

*cracks knuckles* My time has come.

So, Haruta. Whether you love 'im, hate 'im, love to hate 'im, he's a character that few people in the fandom feel indifferent about. But I believe that he's also slightly deeper than the giggling sword-wielding maniac he seems to be at first glance.

Also there will be MANGA SPOILERS so don't click if you're anime-only

First, let's take a look at his name.

Shigemo is written with 重 (“shige” = heavy, important) and 面 (“mo” = mask), and together those two characters can literally be read as "multi-faced". This is already a hint to his personality: Haruta is someone who acts childish and humorous, but is actually cruel and cold-hearted.

Haruta is written with 春 (“haru” = spring) and 太 (“ta” = thick/big, a common male suffix). Spring is the symbol of new life, of a fresh start. It could be a possible hint to him recently becoming a curse user, or maybe a reference to his power.

Next, his perceptive and cunning nature.

Because yes, Haruta is actually pretty damn smart and tactical despite acting like a goofball most of the time. People are way too quick to write him off as a weakling and make fun of both him and Nobara for her defeat at his hands. Here are a few examples:

^Recognizing Nobara and accurately gauging her growth despite not fighting her during their previous (and only) encounter

^Understanding what the injured Megumi was doing and not letting his own guard down

^Realizing what Megumi was about to do (unfortunately too late)

He's also surprisingly self-aware about his own limitations despite his arrogance regarding his own abilities. When Gojo broke the barrier around the school, what did Haruta do? Immediately dip. When Nanami backhanded him across the whole store, what did Haruta do? Realize he was way outmatched and try to run. He's different from the likes of Juzo (hang rack guy) or Jougo, who overestimate what they can do and underestimate their opponents. Haruta knows he's not hot stuff, and as he says it himself, he's best at picking on the weak.

And let's not forget what a tactical fighter he is.

^Sending his sword after Nitta, fooling Nobara and allowing him to both keep track of her position and take her down

^Targets his opponent's weak spots to take them down

That was actually one of my few pet peeves with the anime: it felt like they made him less tactical. They removed Nobara's line about him aiming for specific points, as well as him injuring her leg, and it made his question about the sword hitting her head seem genuine rather than sarcastic.

His potential past.

This is where I'll be entering headcanon territory, but canon backs me up quite a bit on certain elements of it.

Haruta mentions that he doesn’t even know what exactly his own cursed technique does or how it works. Therefore, the likelihood of him coming from a family of sorcerers or having received a formal jujutsu education are more or less void. Had he inherited a technique like Nobara or Megumi, or gotten schooling, he would probably know more about it.

There is a running theme among curse users (whose past we know) of being rejected, sometimes even persecuted by society for their ability to see the supernatural:

Therefore, it’s not too far-fetched to assume that Haruta likely went through something similar himself. It would explain a few things about him.

Haruta's psychological issues.

I'm going to say it straight off the bat: I won't diagnose him with anything. I'm not a psychologist, though I did study psych in college. All I'm going to do is list a few of the obvious issues he has and their potential causes. JJK is a series of grey and gray, not black and white. No one is pure good and pure evil in it (except arguably some of the Curses because, well... they're Curses), and everyone has their own unique circumstances that led to them being the way they are.

That being said, one thing that immediately jumped out to me about Haruta is his barely hidden low self-esteem and insecurities. He's actually quite self-deprecating. If he just did it around other people I'd be inclined to believe that it's part of his "uwu i'm baby" front, but he also does it when he's alone.

It's worth noting that he also seems to specialize in sneak attacks from behind - fitting for a self-admitted bully who prefers to prey on the weak.

Yet at the same time, he's pretty full of himself and seems to have a certain paradoxical sense of superiority.

That's why I half-jokingly said in the tags of a previous posts that he has an inferiority-superiority complex. I think Haruta knows that he's not strong, but that his technique is absolutely broken even if he himself isn't particularly skilled (though he seems to have gained some confidence between the school invasion and the Shibuya incident - that's part of why I think he's a fairly recent curse user).

It's worth noting that the jujutsu world is much more dangerous than the regular one and death roams around every corner, doubly so for curse users who have a Kill On Sight order on their heads, and triply so when one’s cursed technique isn’t suited for fighting. It must be easy to feel weak and helpless under those circumstances.

Now let's get to the obvious, which are also Haruta's biggest flaws: his sadism and impulsivity.

Haruta obviously takes a lot of pleasure in hurting others, but what's especially concerning is he seems unable to hold himself back when he sees an opportunity for it, or think of long-term consequences. He tried to kill an injured Hanami just because he could, without realizing that doing so would anger the other Curses, and he went after Megumi despite barely escaping his encounter with Nanami an hour or so prior, which led to his death. He actually reminds me a bit of Himiko Toga from My Hero Academia, in that both of them just want to have fun in this world. What Toga really wants deep down is love and acceptance though - unfortunately Haruta never got the character development that she did.

He also clearly lacks empathy, which in itself isn't necessarily a bad thing, but combined with a personality that enjoys tormenting other people and has poor planning skills, it makes for a devastating combo.

^A perfectly healthy reaction to seeing an injured ally

It's worth noting that sadism and aggressive behaviors are believed to stem from both genetic and environmental (e.g., childhood trauma) factors. It can for example be a way for the person to turn the tables on the world and vent out their past hurts and anger, by making other people suffer like they suffered. Or a way to feel powerful - again, Haruta is someone with low self-esteem who preys exclusively on the weak.

TL;DR

Haruta Shigemo is actually pretty damn cool and smart and not just some one-dimensional grunt and he deserved better.

^Me @ Gege

[minakoaiinos]

Lost my original post of this from the other day but I genuinely don't understand how Black Butler discourse ever shifted into the does Sebastian ~really~ like Ciel or is Ciel just dinner line of conversation that is pervasive as it is because Sebastian is the one that has absorbed his whole existence into Ciel's. Sebastian's face is what Ciel wants Sebastian's whole purpose is doing things for Ciel Sebastian's every hell of a butler yes my lord speech is about how he's Ciel's and Ciel is the one going around saying shit like whatever Sebastian is just my pawn 💅

[dogearedheart]

8i've been thinking about the last asks i got today. and i think it's better for me to take a step back from this account. i know the anon didn't mean anything by it, but i still feel like i am being a negative presence on here and weirding people out with who i am is nothing i want. so, i am not deleting or anything. i am just gonna be less present with sharing personal things or leaving tags. I'll probably be more active on my second account where i don't have that many followers :)

[sandinthepipes]

What I want:

1 well made movie,

70 episodes long shows with an ending

What they give me:

The marvel cinematic universe,

2 seasons of 6 episodes shows that don't get renewed

[nexus-nebulae]

what if i wrote a video essay

[sillyfudgemonkeys]

Me: *talking about the older Disney Princess movies and how I'm re-watching them* Someone: Oh yeah, but man those older ones, the OG 3? They were horrible representation for wom- Me:

Me: Speak not another word, lest we get thrusted back into the good year of 2014. This is why Frozen gagged y'all, cause people had that antiquated and twisted mindset of something that doesn't exist.