#i dunno who's winning

[juno-stuffs]

just went on a run

not feeling good

[kyuutekyu]

I dunno what's on line... But Mota and Gomez are definitely competing against each other!

[troius]

What we learned from the war

"Endings are hard" is a something of a truism, but it's borne out in Bleach, where every story arc besides after the first two stumbled at the finish (even the endings of the first two arcs don't really "end" so much as continue into a new story). In the Arrancar arc, the number of characters and plotlines got so overwhelming that an ending that had to be rushed if it was to arrive at all. In the Lost Agent arc, the characters were pared down, but the ending wound up thematically inconsistent with the story anyways, possibly due to real-life circumstances. And the Thousand-Year Blood War somehow managed to have both problems.

The change in direction from "tightly focused character drama" to "sprawling cast of soldiers" meant that it was unlikely to ever give us the development of our protagonist that we craved, and that lack of focus was only aggravated by the widely-reported health problems of the author. And yet, perhaps because we don't get that, because so little of this arc is filtered through Ichigo learning about himself, we get a much clearer statement of the values inherent in the work.

This is most evident in our antagonists for this Arc. Yhwach and the Wandenreich don't really have the relationship with Ichigo that previoius antagonists had. He never knew his Quincy heritage, never identified with their ideals, and so feels very little conflict about opposing them. He doesn't ever develop his Quincy powers, at least beyond integrating them with his already existing powerset. And he doesn't take much of a personal interest in Yhwach, who in turn, doesn't seem to think much of him when he's not directly in front of him.

But for all that Ichigo doesn't end up having much of a dynamic with them, the Wandenreich still manages to maintain a unique character. Every antagonist has a priority, something that they are willing to do great evil for. For Soul Society, it's its own existence, the continuation of the system they've built. For Aizen, it's his own self-aggrandizement. For the Fullbringers, it was simply living another day, screwing over others so that they can't screw you first. But the Wandenreich has no such priority. They simply want it all to end.

That's most obvious in Yhwach's ending monologue, but you can see it from the very beginning as he kills Yamamoto, the man who tried to move on from his bloody past being slaughtered by the man who would absolutely not let it go. Yhwach shows more emotion towards the skeletons of Argola and Huberdt, his dead soldiers from a war long lost, than he does towards any of his living subordinates. And his subordinates follow his lead in showing no love to one another, happily stabbing each other in the back without even the Arrancars' uneasy level of camaraderie. Their movement has no future, and neither do they, so nihilism is the only recourse.

Most of the time. I think it's important to note that every time a member of the Wandenreich expresses positive feelings towards one of their comrades, it's immediately followed by them turning on Yhwach. Liltotto, Bazz, Giselle, eventually, in her own twisted way…even Jugram, at the very end. Sure, Yhwach kills them for their impertinence (he is the bad guy), but he also massacres the Wandenreich faithful en masse. There's no salvation, only death, and he'll enforce that state on his followers rather than allow them to discover any alternative.

I imagine the lesson, and the general attitude of the Wandenreich, was not lost on Uryu Ishida. Even in his relative paucity of appearances, it's he who is at the moral center of the arc. His culture, which he had thought was nearly entirely dead, turns out to be alive, and out for vengeance against the people who exterminated them. It's something he probably fantasized about growing up, and I don't blame him for joining. How could he not?

But at the end, he makes the very easy choice. Calling it a matter of "life and death" is a little on the nose, but it's morally quite black and white. Yhwach has no hope for this world, or for his people within it, or even himself. He lost a war for the nature of existence to a monster a thousand years ago, and never got over it. But Uryu has the strength to look at the horrors of this world and yet hope for better. Because he has people he loves in life, and who love him in return, he can dream of a better tomorrow.

And that's what the ending is all about. Yhwach loses to Ichigo, and it is very much "good guy beats bad guy". But he also loses to Uryu, and to "I hope to have a family with my girlfriend who I love so much" Renji Abarai, and to "I have a tremendous amount of hope to eventually make myself king of everything" Sosuke Aizen, and eventually (in a way I'm still confused about mechanically) to the child Ichigo and Orihime will eventually have, the literal embodiment of the potential of the future.

The final villain of Bleach is not society's tendency to preserve itself at any human cost. It's not individual selfishness, or manipulativeness, or any of the many vices we saw embodied in the hollows throughout the series. It's despair, the idea that life might not be worth living even through all the struggles and horrors our protagonists have endured. Sure, it will always raise its head, sometimes at the most inconvenient, or ill-fitting times. But having its reincarnation be blown away by the supernaturally normal lives of our cast…well, that's as clear of a message as I can imagine.

[a-la-campanella]

New official art! Yanqing is here!

This was posted some hours ago on their other social media. Given that the Lunar New Year lasts for two weeks, we might get some more art in a similiar style soon!

[xcziel]

has anybody else thought about how jk could easily manage sofia's parts of slow dance or is it just me?

[whoblewboobear]

At this point Wednesday and Thursday are the highlights of my week like I’m vibrating with excitement when I know Wednesday at like 7 something I’ll be sitting down to giggle at my favorite show like I- 🤧

I don’t always watch d20 seasons as they’re airing but for fantasy high, it gets so woven into my schedule when a new one drops 👏 like not to get super sentimental (I’m absolutely going to in a read more. Plus the season is ending soon and I’m emo about it but also just excited in general to get all the answers) but this season really means a lot to me. Absolutely none of them will see this (thank god) but the intrepid heroes & BLeeM mean so much to me. They made a show that is so funny and beautiful and kind and so stupid at its core and it just goes to show how lovely they are. The impact they’ve made on the actual play community is so huge. For me a lot of actual play was very intimidating to get into because of huge backlogs or the kinds of stories being told weren’t for me but goddamn, d20 just hits on so many levels. In part due to the storytelling and also just holy shit everyone at the table shows up and cares so much about who they’re playing and their place in the world and the story they’re helping be told. It’s just 🤧💖 I hope one day I’m half the dnd player that Brennan, Emily, Lou, Murph, Siobhan, Zac, and Ally are. They truly inspire me so much.

-

-

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**TW For SA, trauma, mental health + personal shit etc under the cut**

I stopped watching d20 for a long while. Give or take a year or two? I know it was around the zoom season era. Me and A guy I was really close friends with bonded over dnd and d20 and it was one of the main things we had in common. The night he SA’d me we were watching FH S1 from the beginning. And I think that kinda.. like I didn’t watch d20 because it brought up a lot of thoughts of him and that night and just so much ptsd.

D20 was my favorite form of escapism during hard times and it really sucked to lose that for so long. When d20 Junior year was announced I decided it was time to get back into the show because I missed it and I loved it and I couldn’t let him make me so scared that I never went back to what gave me so much joy. I introduced the show to him in the first place, I could reclaim.

I watched freshman year after I dropped out of art school because my parents and I couldn’t afford another loan and I was really lost. It took my mind off a lot of it thankfully.

Sophomore year aired when I started going to community college. I had a night-time psych class that would end about half an hour before the streams would start so it gave me motivation to get through it because I had something to look forward to after. Now junior year is airing while I’m dealing with a lot of health stuff + depression + job stress (now that I write it all out, both college stresses passed and I did end up getting a decent-ish, albeit very shitty job in graphic design, so I know there’s light at the end of the tunnel so to speak, this’ll pass)

I don’t know if they’ll ever do a senior year/graduation season but if they do, I’ll be there still excited and brimming with joy and anticipation for more d20 Wednesdays to come. 💖

[ratcandy]

For some reason it did not occur to me when I went wandering out into the woods for four hours or so that I would in fact encounter woodland creatures. But there I was, staring intently at a tree trying to find bugs on it, only to turn around and be startled half to death by two deer just staring at me like I just burst into their kitchen and stole all their silverware

[lovesbooksdoesntread]

been thinking about the aftermath of the school and elmville being destroyed and maybe one of two ways it'll be resolved:

one: bc of all the time quangle nonsense (affectionate) arthur aguefort is gonna show up at the very very end of the battle, see all the carnage and wreckage of his school and elmville and be like "oh nonono, can't have all this" *clap clap* and just reset the world by 24 hours, sky's not on fire, school's repaired, elmville's back to normal (and then two subthoughts about this: either the only people who remember the actual battle are the people in the gym (i.e. the ratgrinders, the bad kids, porter and jace, ankarna, etc.) OR the entire town remembers and everybody's just like "well, that's good ol' arthur aguefort and elmville for ya!")

two: they just let this terrible school full of evil teachers and insane academic policies BE destroyed and done (sort of in the vein of the end of buffy season 3) and aguefort decides to just completely rebuild over the summer

[facelessanimator]

Two Aus

TWO DAMN AUS- FIGHTING TO BE THE FOREFRONT OF MY HYPERFIXATION.

IM SICK OF THEIR SHI-

[owleics-fr]

apologies for the silly question, but is the account investigation for any roundsey winners or just anyone who wins kickstarter prizes?

Hey anon, no such thing as a silly question! As my name isnt undel I unfortunately can't answer this for certain (and if it was i would give myself a boolean for free) but I'm fairly sure theyre just going to be investigating the "big prize" winners. So yeah kickstarter items and such. I doubt if you're one of the 60 paunchy red percher winners theyre gonna bother giving your account a look over. Again! I could be wrong about this but I'd like to hope devs have better things to be getting on with

[zosonils]

apparently at some point it became my mission in life to have a flight rising dragon for every character from idw sonic

[twentyfivemiceinatrenchcoat]

i think my gojo is fairlyyyy consistent throughout all of my fics but i kinda see them as seperate entities. the ari gojo multiverse. i want them to meet

[pawbeanies]

SICK of being a well behaved boring office boy who doesnt get out !!!! im gonna smoke a weed !!!!!!!!!!!!!!! im gonna be BAD !!!!!!

[zeb-z]

hoping that the teams get their shit together after the end of today because I think they’re forgetting that all the eggs are at stake, and if they figured out who’s cursed and got them to win each time, no eggs would die. they’ve worked together despite the odds before, I’m hoping they see past their anger and anxiety and competitive natures, and pull their head out of their ass to figure out beyond basic survival what is going on and why

[dendixia]

What if. After all the eggs were left muddy and cracked they got taken back as they didn't mean to be given back like that. The worker that worked with them did such a lousey job they had to take them back.

But also all the eggs hate baths so so much and that's why this is taking so long. They're being little menaces god bless 🙏

[minty-playhouse]

Every time I see one of those "sexy [blank] tournament" polls going around I see you guys missing the point of what "sexy" means