#everything i said mostly applies to every episode in the series tbh but there's /something/ to the pilot

[shantechni]

Just rewatched the first episode of Samurai Jack after a literal two decades of not doing so and man I kinda wish it got a whole movie like the PPG origin being turned into a movie.

Like, it's so beautiful in the way it's illustrated and moves. There's a perfect level of simplicity to the art that doesn't take away from the grandeur of the world and the story surrounding it all. And the scenes with little to no dialogue?? Where the audience is left to their own devices to pick apart who's who and what's going on???

Peak cinema fr.

[meimae]

Look at me, not being on time for my April Immersion Overview as is the usual. (・w・;

First, little blog updates to get out of the way:

I reached 100 followers! Got an influx of people checking out my 1 year update post, and got plenty of nice compliments on my data collection.

For those of you wondering just why I keep up with so much data, it's mostly because it can get really hard to notice how much you're improving in a language especially with something like immersion learning that for people who don't get it feels like a waste of time or a time sink.

Graphs showing consistency, improvement in reading speed, increasing vocabulary counts, and generally just seeing numbers grow turns language learning more fun and motivating for me, and if as a bonus, it encourages someone to try immersion learning then that would be cool!

With that said, whether you're here as a fellow language learner, graphs enthusiast (笑), or just want some Japanese media recommendations, ようこそ! 

Also, made a tiny DP change - it’s チト from 少女週末旅行. Pretty sure it’s the first manga series I ever finished in Japanese (not the first one I started since ちはやふる is still ongoing), and I always felt a bit of a ☆connection☆ with  her - between her book-loving personality and being a no-nonsense kind of person, there was no way for me not to enjoy her character. Great beginner anime/manga if you’re not into most beginner recommendations.

-☆-

April has been a pretty good immersion month, as I was able to dip my toes in a variety of media. A bit competitive, too! The club I joined has been pulling all the stops to get to the Top 20 Immersion Leaderboard in it’s first month. I was able to snag the 9th spot among a bunch of people of different comprehension levels (the majority being N1+ since they’re able to comprehend much more and in turn stand longer immersion hours). Lots of tiny complaints though of potential “whitenoising” content (”listening” and “reading” but not comprehending very well just to get a large number to post), but really what can you do? People lie all the time on the internet. Besides, it’s internet points that doesn’t do anything beyond being a little shiny I guess.

Enough about that, let’s get into the nitty-gritty details you came here for!

ANIME

フルーツバスケット

Might need to rewatch this one. Felt like I didn’t connect with the characters the way the rest of its fandom has. I’m kinda sad about it, since I normally love Slice of Life and Fantasy, and I know this is one of my friend’s diehard shows.

ラブライブ! School Idol Project S2

A filler anime to watch tbh. Nice and easy enough to follow for beginners. Pretty good songs. With regards to it being a show about music and moe, I still 100% prefer K-On! if I’m going to be honest, but for a show about non-toxic idols, it’s good!

魔法少女まどか☆マギカ

First read this as English translated manga when I was 13 or something. Mistakes were made. Let’s all just agree to throw キュウベえ into a pit of fire and never talk about it again. Great ending and a show that really reworked the magical girl genre. But seriously, I was traumatized by マミ’s death then and now, help.

四月は君の嘘

Already knew what was going to happen even before watching this so I didn’t ugly cry like I was expecting. Still got that awful sinking feeling though. 10/10 would recommend for a good cry. Also, I’m planning to read the manga, might enjoy that more, because I’ve always liked it more than anime actually. *shocked pikachu face*

ホリミヤ

Watched before I even finished the manga which felt like a mistake at first until I realized that it perfectly stops where I stopped reading. Nice and comfy anime, the kind I would have loved as a teen. Fun animation too, making parts very dramatic even though it wasn’t really that deep of an issue even in the manga. Just teens feeling feelings. Still salty that we lose bad boy styled 宮村, but I get why it had to happen.

AUDIOBOOKS

氷菓

Second re-listen. I understand it fine, but it’s very easy to drift off when you can’t catch all the words so I had to replay often. Will have to mine more from the anime/book.

君の名は

I mined from the anime, and was really pleased to be able to follow all 6 hours of this audiobook perfectly fine. Will need to read the book, because I realized just how seamless reading it would be after listening to it with hardly any issue.

BOOKS

キッチェン

Completed! Read my thoughts about it and see my stats on this post.

君の膵臓を食べたい

Still trudging on with this one. It’s not a bad story, it’s pretty well written actually, I just made the mistake of watching both the anime and live adaptation first, so I know exactly what’s going to happen and it’s killing my motivation to keep reading. I guess reading the book first before watching the movie still applies in any language with me. Really need to 頑張れ and finish so I can move on. 

三日間の幸福

Started reading towards the end of the month, mostly because I realized that every chapter is only 5000-15000 characters long, and I was able to read up to 40k in a day with Island most days. Only two chapters read so far though because I got distracted by manga, but it’s shaping up to be a really good plot and potentially a really sad one, too, so I’m interested.

DRAMA

花ざかりの君たちへ イケメンパラダイス

Heard this was a classic so I gave it a try. Loved 生田 斗真’s character in this one the most especially all his internal dialogue acted out. Also, 小栗 旬 in anything is bound to be a good watch. Simple and fun watch. They dragged the ending so much though lmao 

ごくせん

Look, I see 松本 潤, I click. Definitely the kind of show you should watch for some great life advice. Planning to watch the 2nd and 3rd seasons even if there is a terrible lack of 松本 潤, because I love my strong female protagonists, and man, ヤンクミ is such a great character. Need to read the manga, too, if I can find it.

極主夫道

Oof, this was kind of hard. The yakuza talk was throwing me off, but the rest of it was enjoyable. Not really plot heavy as I thought it was going to be. The comedy side of it was fun and predictable after the first few episodes. Overall, pretty good slice of life, family story with a twist.

MANGA

Read a bunch of manga this month, mostly because I am struggling to find the next vn to read.

おやすみプンプン

Read a couple of volumes (6-7). This manga is so good, but it’s so depressing I need to stop to take a breather every once in a while. Please don’t leave any spoilers. The club has been reacting to me reading this, and it has mostly been a lot of crying emotes. It’s both been enjoyable to see and really worrying. 笑

チェンソーマン

Club recommendation. Only read the 1st volume so far. I really need to get into more 少年 anime/manga. That’s currently my 苦手 genre which is awful because literally all the top anime/manga is 少年 help. I just can’t enjoy it much still even though it’s comprehensible to me.

ちはやふる 中学生編

Read Vol. 1, chill read to me at this point after reading 45 volumes of the regular manga. Look, it’s my favorite 幼馴染 manga in baby format, of course I’m going to read this! 太一 has been a flake way before season 3 confirmed. Don’t come at me たいちはや stans bc I also like his character.

約束のネバーランド

Volume 7. I’m taking my sweet time with this one, because I heard the anime for season 2 sucked, so I’m avoiding it like the plague. This is 少年 how am I enjoying this and not everything else what.

ヲタクに恋は難しい

Enjoyed the anime hated the movie why did they make it a musical that sucked (ps i normally love musicals hated this one) 

The オタク jargon is kinda hard to read suprisingly but I do enjoy this ship very much. It’s a lighthearted take to otaku culture which is great because seriously it’s scary out there.

ツバサ -RESERVoir CHRoNiCLE-

It’s my childhood ship, obviously I will read this again (read in English several years ago). Still as plot twisty as I remember it being (now at a bonus hard level reading it in Japanese 笑). Really enjoyed reading this one (I finished it this May).

-☆-

I’m starting to really dislike furigana in manga. It was a great help as a beginner, but now it’s like training wheels that you can’t take off. I feel like the gains I’m getting from manga is much lower than it was when I first started which makes me both proud of how far I’ve come, but also sad because I love manga. Sad that I might have to start choose VNs over it, because it’s not going to challenge me as much going forward. I mean it didn’t stop me from reading a lot of it this month, but you get the picture.

VISUAL NOVELS

ISLAND

Completed! See my stats and read my long spoiler filled post here.

ファタモルガーナの館

Picked up this VN and finished two doors (15 hours) before stopping. On the fence about it, because it has been kind of predictable so far, and I don’t particularly enjoy the horror genre. That said, this is more psychological than anything, so it’s probably not that that’s putting me off. The language is not exactly difficult, too - maybe some oddly specific words because it is after all historical fiction (which is one of my favorite genres, btw), and 敬語 is definitely interesting to read for once after encountering so many お嬢様 characters in anime/drama so far. 

I think maybe it’s the conversations that are kind of dull - dots (silence) every few clicks that keeps breaking the flow of reading. Probably judging it really harshly too early, because it’s rated so high everywhere, and I just have high expectations. Definitely not dropping it yet though, just taking a break and testing a couple of other VNs before I settle with whatever I end up choosing. It is, after all, going to be another 50+ hour read, and I just don’t want to not enjoy the process, because having fun with the process is a huge part of immersion learning.

Let me know if you’ve read Fata and if I should continue! 

-☆-

That’s it for this month!

If you have any suggestions on what to watch and read next, please send me a reply, especially for VNs because I’m struggling over here.

[steve0discusses]

S5 Ep6: Joey Wheeler is on Fire, Yet Again

Came down with a little sickness-not the biggie, just a little sly guy. But I took some meds, I’m a little floaty, I’ve only been listening to baroque music all morning for some reason? And I hate baroque music usually? But I’ll leave it to bro to tell me if this is fluid enough.

Just so you know, these caps were kind of a hot mess for a while and some of them read like that Garfield in of hot eat the food comic until...today. So pls don’t judge me, Judge my damn DMV where no one was following Covid regulations because I’m pretty sure that’s where I got this damn cold.

We start off with Roland getting more attention than he ever has in his entire life. Like honestly, I don’t know what Roland’s job really is...but he’s got a very diverse set of very useless skills. One of which, is knowing how to announce sports games that aren’t really a sport, while those games he’s announcing slowly fall into chaos.

Anyway, Roland’s taking so long cherishing his sweet time before everything goes to hell, that he’s boring Joey, who’s kinda turned into a ball of stress in the waiting room.

A lot of this episode is us watching them watching Joey having a break down moment by moment, TBH.

(read more under the cut)

Yugi telling Joey to study his cards and straight up--what?

Like at this point they know what’s on the cards, right? Like there comes a point where even Yugioh cards have a finite amount of words and I’m just going to assume that like...Joey probably knows them all in his own deck, right?

(bro note: they have no limit on what they will put on a card)

Then again, maybe Yugi doesn’t know what “study” means?

Also, appreciate how some artist crosshatched the hell on Joey’s nose there and I zoomed out and ruined it.

Now for some reason every duelist is hanging out in the duel lodge, including our current arch-villain guy who’s brought a book. I want to know what book this guy even reads so no one could suspect he’s actually a hacker who uses computers. He’s reading romance, right? And I don’t think he’d even be into Twilight, I think he’s straight up into hard core Mom romance like a lame ass Nicholas Sparks over there reading “Dear John” for the millionth time because he is completely un-phased by anything else happening in this room.

Joey, our hero, just out there being an asshole for no reason.

After Tea is pushed into a locker or something screaming about her need for female friends (which she screamed in earshot of Rebecca again, who I figured was on friends terms with her after last episode...but I guess not) Leon hops up to remind us that we should be caring about the fact that his character exists.

And like, I love Leon’s hair color--that’s a good choice, and legit that is the color I tried to dye my hair at the beginning of the epidemic (it didn’t work PS, my hair cannot take dye for the life of it) but also like...he just kinda feels like a weak Rebecca as far as characters go. He’s young, he’s good at cards...I think he goes to a private school? That’s all I can think of about Leon.

He mostly just reminds us that the big prize of this tourney is to duel Yugi, who anyone could have dueled at any point even without the tournament.

On the way out of the...duel room? lounge? Area? Joey decides to like...make peace with Zigfried, and I gotta tell you, I kinda have to side with Zigfried, because Joey spent the last ten minutes being a freak in the dressing room/lounge/bathroom and at one point looked like he was going to hold the entire locker room in a stranglehold.

I would also want some space from Joey Wheeler, is what I’m saying.

After insulting Joey’s style (which honestly, Joey...has a style? He pops his collar, that’s his entire style.) Zigfried assures us that Joey’s gonna lose and like...

...probably, right? Just looking at the plausible direction this season will go.

Anyway, Joey is such a mess (which is the theme of the episode, that Joey needs to learn to chill in order to win at card games) that Rebecca is like “I understand if all of you leave me to go help our poor baby Joey.” And no one felt bad for her.

Mokuba comes over to tell everyone all of the Kaiba family secrets because Mokuba has no filter.

Seto has devoted himself to staring at a computer screen for the rest of this episode. I guess he’ll put their names into Google, realize that social media hasn’t been invented yet, and then just lie his head down on the desk and take a power nap until the tournament is over. Much like I did after taking Dayquil this afternoon.

I like how Seto dressed for success and then locked himself in the server room for most of this arc so far. Maybe he’s just...really tired, I dunno. I don’t really blame the guy, he’s had a hard time.

And then Yugi was like “DAMN IT MOKUBA, JUST ONCE CAN YOU NOT INVITE THE ILLUMINATI???”

And we had a weird scene where Yugi just started talking to the ghost and it was while he was talking to everyone else, and the show didn’t treat it like that’s a weird thing to do...but it was a weird thing to do.

This show does that sometimes, where I guess they imply that Yugi’s Pharaoh conversations are split second conversations but...they’re not, right?

Also this chick ain’t gone yet, and Mokuba is just failing at his entire job for not zeroing in on vibes coming off this chick like stinky cheeseman.

So listen.

Did the Kaibas make like 3 types of Blue Eyes Caboose to one up Noah? Because Noah made one choo choo dragon, and then Mokuba and Seto were like “how dare” and then made sure that everyone ride every single version of the blue eyes caboose just to see how proud of them they were.

How many months of troubleshooting was the train? Like how long in development did Seto and Mokuba spend on these? A lot right? Like most of the time?

I did not check the subs to see if Roland said Jumping or Champion but I like to believe that Roland thought it was a cool new name he gave him.

Then these guys all showed up.

Hey so...can we talk seating arrangements?

Tea decided not to sit next to Yugi after complaining about not spending time with him for like how many episodes? Or was it too awkward to sit on top of what was probably Pharaoh?

Or did Mokuba go like “please, Tea, I cannot sit next to the others because I’m pretty sure one is a mole that is about to go cray” and was Tea like “Good, I need female friends, these ones are driving me crazy!” and then was Mokuba like peering desperately over the edge of his self made dragon train prison realizing he has to listen to Tea complain about boys for the rest of his ride across molten lava?

Headcanons abound about this weird seating arrangement that the animators drew for the reasons they did...but reasons I cannot fully understand. That and the Dayquil is making me overfixate on random stuff.

And also, Tea is kind of the Kaiba’s security’s understudy. Just there to always protect Mokuba with her ass because she’s the strongest woman alive.

PS I missed the tumblr wars because at the time I was trying to like...run a proper business on blogger. When Blogger died and I jumped over here it was like a weird ruin where everyone was like “tumblr is the most toxic place alive” and...I’ve had a really nice time here, actually. Completely missed that civil war period and I have no regrets.

Now I was there for the Petz wars (warz, I guess) where people were very militant about Petz abuse (abuze?) where apparently people were using the spray bottle on their catz too much and people were very, very upset about it to the point that they were like campaigning about it on their angelfire websites with the most bizarre grassroots campaigns that I still recall, to this day because they were like...well they looked like this:

PLAPA. Not only am I 100% positive that only this one guy ever called this movement PLAPA, but I’m 100% positive that not only are Catz not real people, but also this wasn’t actually happening and we never had any proof that it was. Either way, if people knew or suspected that you hadn’t deleted the spray bottle from your game (which at the time I had no idea how to do because I was a wee child) they would basically assume you were on a one way road to being a mass murderer in real life.

In real life we were 7 years old so like...thanks?

But that’s the closest I got to toxicity and at the time I was too young to make an email account and actually converse with these people. I was just there to download their Petz hexes, and I already made a post about how wonderful and incredible Petz Hexing was.

And y’all, I heard, just now after a little deep dive into the Petz Abuse debacle (which yes, is on the wiki), that apparently, like gardening, Petz Hexing came back in a big way during the epidemic--and I have found an active Petz forum in this the year 2021. The only problem is that I no longer remember how to use old timey forums...and I think I’m locked out of seeing most of these threads (and like this forum is so old I think I have to send them a letter in the physical mail to apply). But, I’m pretty sure they’re hosting a picture contest for who’s dogz poses the best. And I’m pretty sure someone created a hexxed Pickle Rick. Or it’s a photoshop that was made to look like a hexxed Pickle Rick.

Dammit why did it have to be Pickle Rick? That’s not worth re-installing Petz and getting it to run on Windows 10...

Guys is this the Dayquil? Is this really happening? I feel like I’m losing my mind for so many reasons...

Anyway, speaking about useless hexing it’s about time that our villain did something that was actually dangerous, so Zigfried decided to install a new virus that does more than turn off the lights. (it still turns off lights)

the Spreadsheet Virus!

Confounded by the spreadsheet software, it...um...it does this:

Straight up how does Excel make a volcano erupt? Is that why I have to pay for Microsoft office now?

All this because Joey made fun of Zigfried’s naturally pink hair? Which is the most normal hair on this series outside of like...Tristan?

Hey guys...Joey’s fine, right? Like how many times has Joey been on fire? And once in an iron cage next to like...a Fire Golem?

Joey’s fine.

MAN I miss Fire Golem. He had a good mug.

And then we just kinda watch chaos go across the park, chaos that includes: Too many ghosts in the haunted mansion (which honestly--you’ll get your money’s worth, sounds great!), the Ferris wheel goes kinda fast and thus might accidentally be fun, the lights turn off at some concert stage that only had 2 people on it (so it might just be motion detector lights and not even a virus), and um...literal fire and magma are going to set Joey Wheeler on fire.

Just...one of these events does not seem like the others. In fact most of these things sound like good improvements to the park and they should just hire Zigfried at this point.

Roland puts down his microphone and jogs across the stage, about a mile through the audience bleachers, and into the staff lounge, to go and bother Seto Kaiba, who is in a room that has a hi-def classical painting copy-pasted on the wall and I can’t look away from it.

I almost did a Google search on this painting but then thought better about it. There’s like...a billion classical paintings that look exactly like this, and they wouldn’t use like a Monet, they would have to do something that’s harder to catch to avoid copyright issues (because yes, even old ass paintings have copyright issues, but no one tell NFT’s which are going to be so freakin screwed and was such a bad idea, that I can’t even start).

Anyway, I have no idea who it is and it is legitimately driving me up a wall, but I’m on too much meds to do the effort of putting it in a reverse google image search.

Plus, a reverse google image search would only pull up Seto Kaiba.

So Kaiba takes us on a little flashback to his weird ass past, a weird ass past that just...doesn’t follow any of the established timelines, but I assume was shortly after adoption but before Seto got into a phase where he wore his school outfit everywhere and tried to shove his MMO off onto his Dad as a business model.

Seto is like 8 for some reason. I don’t know why, they kinda drew him younger this season anyway, like maybe they got a lot of fan mail and realized “Hey I think we made the 16 yo boy too sexy?” And they just toned Seto the hell down. That, and it’s a different animation team, and maybe they looked at Seto’s character design and were like “we don’t get paid enough to draw this well.” So...since Seto actually looks like a teen again, I guess his 12 year old self has to look like he’s in Elementary school.

Also, I only recognized this, because at some point in S3 as I was roasting Noah Kaiba’s weird fashion:

I remember distinctly roasting that little bow tie. I don’t remember when I wrote it, I think there was a version of this outfit that was in color...but I don’t remember where.

Anyway, it’s not the same jacket...but man that’s kind of awkward, ya? Like the maid who dressed Mokuba deffo got fired?

He um.

Turned the lights off a little bit.

Guys this villain is like...

...why does he think lights are scary? Like look at little Seto here. The boy is already bored. Seto duels on the edges of cliffs...he doesn’t care about the freakin dark.

We had a guy who killed everyone on the planet last season, and this season we have a little fashion gremlin standing in the corner and flicking the light switch going  “wooooo you never catch me!” and it’s like...

...I’m starting to think this guy isn’t a witch.

Like we’re at Episode 6, there’s still time for this guy to be a witch...but I really am starting to think this guy is just...straight up not a witch. It’s everything Seto wanted, a rival who isn’t a freakin magic person...and sets Joey only fake on fire instead literally on fire like last time...

and Seto is just completely unhinged by it.

Anyway, I’m off to go drink a bowl of soup and pass out. If you’re new here, this is a link to read these in chrono order.

https://steve0discusses.tumblr.com/tagged/yugioh/chrono

[scuttleboat]

510 reactions

INDRA IS THE BEST OMG lol I love her so much. If she had a morning alarm app it would be "Rise and face the day. You will die, but proudly, and that is good." *beep*

Gaia was an fun surprise this episode and I loved pretty much every scene she had with Indra. The fight was great.

I loved the assassination attempt and I loved Octavia's reaction to it? That was the one really unpredictable moment in the episode for me and I thought the suspense > to > diffusion of tension by throwing back the spear was just... wonderful. In an episode with some great dialogue and some painfully creaky dialogue, that little screenwriting moment was a delight. It was the most #powermove thing that Bloodreina could do in that moment and that speaks in interesting ways to how she's become so sensitive to politics and drama while becoming so desensitized to the people around her.

The Blake stuff was all the drama I could ever want and I think Bob and Marie showed off their wonderful screen chemistry. But I admit I'm a little unsure what this means for Bellamy's character? This feels like it should have been a turning point for him. His insistence not to fight felt genuine up to the moment, and then he did fight, like I was expecting. I guess I wanted more out of that moment? Like, that should feel like a huge thing--his choice to survive over waiting for Octavia to save him--but somehow, it didn't? Nor did it feel like a switch that really indicates him in person conflict over his near- pacifism stuff. I think it was the fact that Monty arrived and saved the day, there preventing Bellamy from actually having to hurt someone he considers an ally in order to survive. So he skates by on being Soft Bellamy still, in the episode where I was hoping he'd be a little bit more of Rough Bellamy. I've been thinking that he has a building up of internal conflict this season wrt "can I be the new me or the old me?" and I was hoping we'd see that reach a major point this episode. Now I'm not quite sure if that's what they're doing with him. I'll have to wait to see. If Bellamy's major conflict really is just about his sibling and his childhood this season, that would feel like a missed opportunity. I want some meaty self-examination!

The other sibling got a solid WHOLE EPISODE of self-examination, lol. Marie was splendid. It veered between powerful and heavily melodramatic. The whole mirror thing was WAY over the top cliche. Come on, t100. Come on, HIC. You can be a little better than that! And "You can't save someone who's already dead." Really? Okay then. I guess it's not t100 if there aren't at least two lines per episode that make me roll my eyes. Even the good episodes! Which this was, to be fair. For about 90% of it I was quite entertained, although I think it's too dark to have a fun rewatch factor. Snarkiness aside though, I did enjoy seeing the dark workings of the soul of a female character being given such deliberation on screen. Octavia Blake genuinely is a unique character in television, and is allowed to go places female characters rarely are. I feel like my read on Octavia this season has been dead on correct: to her, Bloodreina = Wonkru and Wonkru = Bloodreina. Octavia doesn't see herself as a person anymore, just as the figurehead of this system. She is also terrified of everything and Bloodreina is her only way of facing world she created so that her people could survive. She can't give up being Bloodreina, therefore she can't give Wonkru to someone else because if Wonkru and Bloodreina can exist separately, that flies in the face of "all of me for all of us", which is the only thing that kept her and everyone else sane (mostly) in the bunker. If that's structure falls apart or if Octavia loses it, then all she has is the memories of the terrible things she did. And even if she did it to save them all, to lead them to the next day and the next, without Wonkru she would have to bear those memories alone, and she cannot.

Hmm what else? 

The flashbacks to their childhood on the Ark was very moving. I liked getting more details of their life. I liked the balance between the weight & pain Bellamy endured to protect Octavia and the weight & terror Octavia endured being raised as the source of fear for her family. It was clear that the trauma of the Ark was terrible for them both, infecting even happy the memories.

Monty telling Octavia no was a classic Monty moment. I liked his scene a lot, but tbh I was hoping for something a little more creative or complex in how they used him? One of the drawbacks of this episode's slower, more character-based tone is that it seemed fairly predictable what was going to happen from scene to scene. That's why I like the moment when she threw back the spear, because I genuinely didn't know how that scene was going to go. Monty saving the day with flowers though was not exactly shocking when it came around. I feel like a reaction video to this episode will just be a consecutive sequence of "hmmm" and "HMMMM" and "ooh nice" and "okay then if you must", none of it rising above conversational tone.

I liked the bunker departure scene because we got to see everyone in the open sunlight. That was nice. Octavia's blood makeup was so ~artistic walking out of that bunker, you know she had to apply it and wash it and re-apply it 2 times at least. I've been there, girl.

The farm burning means the bunker society idea is torched and I'm sighing a little over that. Do we REALLY need to write out EVERY possible solution with salt-the-earth finality? Where is this series gonna end, with 11 people on a life raft floating out to sea? If there is a sea, still. This show is so bonkers.

The stuff with the chip is still firmly in my zone of "but really DO WE HAVE TO BE DOING THIS?" but it could have been worse. I was confused at one moment when Madi said "I just put it back in." Maybe I need to re-watch it, but I honestly don't understand that line. Was that the A.I. talking through Madi, claiming her as a host? Or was that Madi saying she'd taken it out and in again?

The Lexa stuff was just.. can we not. Give the child. Memories of her mom's dead lover. That's so skeevy on so many levels, and that's skeevy BEFORE even getting into the 'lover' part of Clarke's past with Lexa.

So... Becca was burned alive as a witch by Cadogan? Or whoever. That seems really weird to me. Like, super out of place for the show. I don't understand how that fits into t100 at all, since the people burning her were like, people from future-modern New England and shit. Even if I started living in a Mad Max Society tomorrow, I don't think 4 years of apocalypse would be enough to convert me to the idea that "Yeah, you know what humanity's real problem is? SPACE WITCHERY. Let's just BURN HER." How does that even come up? I totally get it if they blamed her for killing the world, and if the mob executed her for it. I also get it if they distrust the A.I. she brought down. But come on, they'd just shoot her! That's what you do with rich people when the end comes and everybody's backs are against the wall. They wouldn't waste firewood for a witch burning; that's ridiculous.

I have a feeling like they're gonna leave the chip in Madi. I hope not. My best case scenario for this unnecessary plot they forced us into is that by experiencing the memories, Madi retrieves some vital piece of new information that will help save everyone. Maybe she finds out what is going on with the other Elegius mission, since Becca worked on that stuff. Hopefully then Madi can take it out? But honestly, the fact that it seems like the show is going to decide "well we'll leave it in if she says she wants it" is really uncomfortable for me. If she couldn't consent to getting it last episode, she can't consent to keeping it this episode. The same problems with the situation exist regardless of whether Madi thinks she's getting something valuable out of it, or if it makes her feel powerful in a world where she is otherwise powerless. Letting a child use dangerous mind altering substances to help them feel more powerful and safe is NOT the same thing as actually keeping that child safe or empowered. It's the opposite of that. Of course, Clarke can't really do much about that right now without re-traumatizing Madi on top for the trauma she's already experiencing. But the longer they leave it in, the harder it will be to remove without psychological damage if Madi's developing brain becomes dependant on it. Because, you know, SHE'S ELEVEN. Maybe twelve? But her brain is literally growing, as children's brains do, and right this second it's growing with a cyber-parasite shaping it. That seems profoundly wrong and gross to me. ...Ideally they give it to Gaia or Indra. Just let them have it.

Oh that's a bit of a down note to end on? I am not sure where this takes us, but I think the episode was good. I'm not sure it was actually the episode they needed it to be though. It seemed to accomplish several things, but I'm not sure the particular things that it accomplished were the best choices. Vinson finally eating people was lulzy. I just wish the stuff that Abby was doing in that scene wasn't filmed and directed in such an amateur looking way. But finally, SOME CANNIBALISM! Now we wait til next week to see what else comes out.