#like they’ve made one of the most popular shows of this generation

[jonathanskarma]

i think its so funny how people are constantly complaining about the Stranger Things writing and bad choices the Duffers make, and this isn’t specifically about Stancy but just in general. like don’t get me wrong obviously i don’t agree with everything that happens in the show but like whatever like i just don’t get when people are like “this was their worst decision” or smth like that but IT THEIR SHOW NOT YOUR SHOW. why are we acting like this is a group project?? if they were writing a show based on what the audiences wanted they would be sending out instagram polls BUT THEY ARENT if you are really that unhappy about it go write your own show with your own characters and your own stupid sorry lines and ships leave the Duffer‘s writing out of it

[lilyginnyblackv2]

Buddy Daddies Interviews with Ayase and DURDN:

This will just be the quick notes version, with bits of information that I personally found to be the most interesting, I’ll link to the full interviews below in the comments.

Ayase wasn’t given any specific orders about the song, but since it was an OP, he wanted to do a song that had some speed to it, instead of a quiet feeling.

Since Ayase knew that the plot would be about the main characters raising a child, he wanted to use the idea of them confronting their ideas of “love” and how, internally, they were constantly changing, as themes for the song. But, Ayase notes that he also wrote a bit about his own life and his own feelings towards the responsibility of loving others as additional themes that link to the work.

The title of the song, SHOCK, comes from the expressing the impact of the story in Buddy Daddies. The idea that, when you are so emotionally distraught and desolate that you turn away from personal feelings like love, and then you meet someone that has a huge impact on your way of thinking and feeling. That’s the SHOCK. And that’s how it links backs to both the story of the anime and the impression of said story.

Ayase also noted that the series is a bit of a dark comedy, and he found that to be interesting/amusing, and that the series has a bit of a foreign feel to it, and there were interesting points that he had not seen before. 

----

DURDN is a group made up three people: Baku, SHINTA, and yacco. When asked what their first impression of Buddy Daddies was, SHINTA answered “familial love.” the love for one’s family. Because of that, they wanted to write a soft, enveloping song. 

Their past songs have been “not so bright” and usually have a “shadowy” side to them, but they didn’t want those aspects to appear in My Plan. Since it was about an anime, they want a cheerful sound to it.

yacco was the one in charge of writing the lyrics, and they admit to being confused and worried at some points, because they wanted to write a song that was positive and filled with happiness, but they had never written something like that before. It seems they also didn’t have a very happy family life (they didn’t experience that “family love” found in Buddy Daddies), so they wrote the song more from the POV of “this is the kind of family that would make me happy.”

SHINTA was in charge of the tracks and arrangements, so they wanted to give Buddy Daddies a 90s feel. So the song is arranged with an eye towards Japanese City Pop and pop songs based in that era.

They were able to see the full-version of the show, that was not yet completed, so they feel that they were able to get a general idea of the story from that, and write a song that captured the worldview of Buddy Daddies. They also apparently entered the song as the OP too, they really wanted their song to get picked, lol. 

They’ve noticed an increase in overseas fans and English comments, leading Baku to realize that anime really is quite popular overseas. 

[heartlandians]

Chris Potter talks about starring in ‘Heartland’ and directing the series

Actor and filmmaker Chris Potter chatted about starring in the popular series “Heartland,” and directing the series.

Potter also opened up about being an actor and filmmaker in the digital age.

Heartland

“Heartland” is a Canadian family comedy-drama TV series, and Season 17 will premiere on April 25 on the streaming service UP Faith & Family.

“The series ‘Heartland’ has been fantastic,” he exclaimed. “We’ve been at it for a very long time. We are now going into our 18th season.”

Portraying Tim Fleming

Potter plays the character Tim Fleming. “My character is pretty consistent at this point,” he admitted. “I know him like the back of my hand. I like how he is antagonistic, which can be challenging, so it keeps me interested.”

“While I don’t really like my character very much, I do like playing him,” he added.

Working on ‘Heartland’

“Heartland is a wonderful environment to work in, which is a big key to its success,” he said.

“People are all in when they start the season,” he said. “Heartland is the best gig that you could possibly have in the country, especially to be able to work on it from the beginning to the end. It doesn’t get any better than that.”

“They don’t make shows like that. Our show has been around for 17 years and counting,” he added.

Potter on directing ‘Heartland’

Directing the show has been “very good.” “It revolves around a multi-generational family and the components are children and animals, logically, it is not an easy show to direct because there are a lot of moving parts,” he said.

“For me, directing it has always been a challenge,” he admitted. “There are so many components with weather and scheduling. We shoot in blocks of two episodes, so there is a lot to pack in that time. I enjoy doing both at the same time, when I feel fully engaged. I’ve been happy that they’ve allowed me to direct over 30 episodes.”

“I started directing in the ‘90s for the USA network cop show that I did called ‘Silk Stalkings’ and I loved doing that show because it had a lot of cop action and car action,” he explained.

“We filmed that one in some beautiful locations of California, while Heartland was a different environment when I started directing there,” he added.

The digital age

On being an actor and filmmaker in the digital age, he said “I think it has been a bonus.”

“For a long time, people were nervous with the transition such as they were with the transition from analog in music. I think it has done nothing but improve the landscape. It all comes down to the storytelling and writing,” he explained.

“While I don’t really participate in social media world, I think I was more of a technie as a young man than I am as an older man. I think it has all been a benefit,” he added.

Voicing Gambit in ‘X-Men’

On voicing Gambit in the “X-Men” animated series, he said, “I miss Gambit and I loved playing him.”

“I am very excited to be involved in the new ‘X-Men ’97’ as Cable,” he said. “I am really happy to be a part of it. I feel like I’m the original Gambit and your new Cable provider.”

“It is fun to have been involved with both of those characters. Gambit is always going to be in my heart,” he added.

Playing Dr. David Cameron in ‘Queer as Folk’

Potter is known for playing the role of Dr. David Cameron in the ’00s drama series “Queer as Folk.”

“It was fantastic. What an opportunity. It was groundbreaking,” he called. “David was a great character too, and it was a very important series. It was riding the Jetstream of the original series in Britain.”

“I had a lot of laughs on that show; there were a lot of funny men on that show. The cast made that show fun to do, and the writing was really great. That led me to ‘Wild Car,’ which was the exact opposite,” he elaborated.

Advice for young and aspiring actors

For young and aspiring actors, Potter said, “Don’t do this unless you have to. Most artists would understand that. There is no easy road and there are no secrets.”

“Your talent is your secret and if you truly have it, it will emerge, and you can’t really hold it down. Acting is a lifestyle, and it can be a very working-class lifestyle,” he explained.

“In the acting world, my favorite part of it is the one between the words ‘action’ and ‘cut’,” he noted. “The rest of it is just life and how you deal with it; it’s your journey. It is still a career and it’s worth pursuing if you have to do it.”

Potter acknowledged that a career-defining moment for him was actually getting into the acting business itself.

Stage of his life

On the title of the current chapter of his life, Potter said, “Life is so good right now.”

“My wife, Karen, and I have four children. They are grown-up and thriving, and they love their partners,” he said. “Things have worked out pretty well for us.”

Favorite motto to live by

Regarding his favorite motto to live by, he said, “To thine own self be true.”

Success

Potter equates the word success with consistency. “Success allows you the opportunity to have a consistent lifestyle,” he said.

“I’ve been doing steady work for 35 years. Success is also an opportunity at times to help others,” he concluded.

Source

[canmom]

Animation Night 155: Kunihiko Ikuhara

...or Ikuni to his fans. The Utena guy.

Since the very beginning of this series, Ikuhara’s been someone I’ve been desperate to cover. He’s exactly the kind of weirdo we like around here. And you know how much the Tumblr girlies love Utena.

But only now, at Animation Night 155, is Ikuni getting his due. Why so long? Well, let’s put it like this. Ikuni’s very much a TV guy. Revolutionary Girl Utena is 39 episodes and a movie. Mawaru Penguindrum: 26 episodes. Yurikuma Arashi is 13, as is Sarazanmai.

And if we’ve managed to cram in 13-episode series into this format, it’s always been with difficulty - take Heike Monogatari [AN91], Alexander Senki [AN125] or Houseki no Kuni [AN97]. It generally takes multiple nights. So I thought, that’s fine, we’ll do Adolescence of Utena, the movie, and, um... hmm.

Luckily for us they just made a new Penguindrum compilation movie! Problem solved let’s go!

And with such a long wait behind us, let’s try and do the guy some justice.

So. Who is this guy with the rabbit? (Picture from his website. Though this is a plain outfit by Ikuhara standards!)

If you were trying to summarise Ikuni’s works... you could probably say something like this: surreal, densely symbolic stories about the difficulties of real human connection. Sort of like the anime version of Lynch. But if that sounds too cerebral, let’s not forget that an episode of Utena involves a character gradually turning into a cow for no particular reason. He’s just as much a goofball who loves to tell lies.

Ikuni came into the business back in the mid eighties, at Toei. [c.f. AN149 for a brief history of Toei!]

So. In the late 70s, Toei had established a powerful niche to themselves in long-running, wildly popular series such as Galaxy Express 999, but most of their work was much less high-profile. Take a glance, see how many of these you recognise - I would guess not many! Hot out of art school, Ikuhara became an assistant director under the wing of Junichi Satō, later well known for shōjo anime such as the avant-garde Princess Tutu (2002-3), or Ojamajo Doremi (1999-2000).

But of course, the most renowned Satō project is Bishōjo Senshi Sailor Moon (1991-7, Pretty Soldier Sailor Moon). Satō directed the first half, and then Ikuhara took the reins for the rest. For Satō it was his debut as a director,  I’ll talk more about his tenure on Sailor Moon in just a minute, but first, let’s get a little context about... magical girls!

(quick! tell me which sailor this is! you have five seconds)

Magical Girls! 魔法少女 mahō shōjo. An ordinary high school student makes contact with a powerful magical being, who may also be a cute mascot character, and agrees to help. Now she can transform: manifest a stylish outfit, gain suitably themed powers, and fight monsters of the week... but she’s got to maintain a double life as a regular student. The henshin (transformation) sequence itself will usually be an extremely elaborate sequence that is played regularly (a ‘bank’ shot).

By now it’s one of the absolutely central anime archetypes, one people are likely to recognise even if they’ve never watched a magical girl show. It’s been parodied, it’s been genderflipped, it’s spun off a dark otaku-oriented variant.

But it wasn’t always so! Everything must begin somewhere. Very quickly reeling this off then... Osamu Tezuka’s 1953 manga Princess Knight is seen as the earliest proto-magical-girl work; Himitsu no Akko-chan (1962-5) as the earliest true magical girl manga with the elements of the genre, and 1966′s Sally the Witch as the big populariser. In the 70s, Toei started producing them in a big way, known collectively as 魔女っ子 majokko series (‘little witch’).

The actual phrase 魔法少女 mahō shōjo was introduced in 1980 with 魔法少女ララベル Mahō Shōjo Lalabel. With the economic bubble in full swing, other studios started to join the party - notably AshiPro with Minky Momo, and Pierrot, the studio behind epoch-defining megahit Urusei Yatsura, who entered the arena with Creamy Mami, the Magic Angel (1983-4). Why is she creamy? I don’t know, but that’s her stage name as an idol; the manga was designed to promote an actual idol singer Takako Ōta. This business model proved wildly successful, and even today anime production committees usually include record companies who use the show as a vehicle to promote a song or group. Toei no longer had exclusive hold on the matter of girls, magical.

Visually here we’re seeing 80s-style bishōjo, the same as over the fence in sci-fi series such as Macross. Mostly the stories are comedies, following in the footsteps of Urusei Yatsura.

What was missing from the formula at this point? Surprisingly, the henshin sequences! It’s not that magical girls didn’t transform, but they would be more likely to transform into something like an aged-up version of themselves, and the act of transformation wouldn’t be given the same importance. This final ingredient was to be found over in tokusatsu land - Kamen Rider and Super Sentai.

So, that’s where Sailor Moon came in at the beginning of the 90s - first a wildly successful manga by Naoko Takeuchi, and in very short order a TV series at Toei. Takeuchi came up with the idea of fusing the magical girls with sentai: instead of a motorbike-like Rider suit, the girls would get sailor fuku. And that means every magical girl transformation is in a sense a homage to this one.

Sailor Moon tells the story of a girl called Usagi. She’s a clumsy and forgetful audience-identification character - perhaps even to point of being a Huineng-type character? - but she’s informed by a talking cat that she’s the guardian of Earth, soon to be joined by a number of other girls from her area who are, collectively, the Sailor Guardians (セーラー戦士 sērā senshi). To fight, she activates a magical brooch and, that ^ happens.

Why? Well, the Dark Kingdom is invading! They want to free the villainous Queen Metaria. In past lives the Sailor Guardians fought those guys, and now they need to get back on the job. The forces of the Dark Kingdom (and numerous subsequent enemy factions) arrive in the form of a series of themed villains, much like the villains in a tokusatsu show. Outside of fighting those guys, it’s gentle comedy with a large cast, not so far from the works of Rumiko Takahashi. In fact it’s apparently a fair bit more comedic in tone than the manga, and a chunk of that can be credited to Ikuhara’s influence.

It’s hard to try and summarise the 90s for anime, it wasn’t just one thing. Even as the economic bubble popped, the movies got increasingly ambitious, reaching for more complex emotions and darker themes with incredibly complex animation to match. And to a certain extent, that was also true on TV, by which I mean “Evangelion happened”. But it was also an age of a return to more limited animation. If you wanted to make a TV anime, you had to be smart about using all the tools you could to cut corners. You could keep a bank of reused shots, or for a joke, transform a character into a much simpler caricatured design with more limited animation. At the same time, photography was getting more advanced, and animation techniques were getting more sophisticated.

Even so, a lot of the credit for the art of working effectively in limited animation goes way back to Osamu Dezaki, who back in the 60s and 70s established many of the iconic ‘anime’ techniques. I’ve written about him before back on Animation Night 95, but as much as that covers the history, it doesn’t say a lot about Dezaki’s style. So let me pull in this video, which will helpfully illustrate the important examples...

The relevant period is when Dezaki directed on Aim for the Ace! (エースをねらえ! Ēsu o Nerae!) - where, in contrast to his earlier work which was comparatively cinematic, he started to push in a more theatrical, abstracted direction, prioritising conveying emotion over realism. Still frames (with the famous ‘postcard memory’ effect), simplified background details framed to draw attention to the important stuff, repeating an important shot multiple times - oh, that’s just Utena, huh? And while Dezaki influenced just about everyone, but for Ikuhara, he’s a massive touchpoint.

Designs were also changing - in contrast to the rounded bishōjo of the 80s came more angular and blocky designs. Take Slayers for example:

Hold onto that thought because we’re going to talk about Utena in a minute. Sailor Moon didn’t go quite that far, but Kazuko Tadano’s designs were very effective in conveying a lot of appeal in quite simple shapes. Usagi in particular has an instantly recognisable hairstyle. But it’s also a style very amenable to simplification.

TV anime in this period ran long. Nowadays, the norm is one cours (‘cour’ if you’re not feeling pedantic) of 12-13 episodes, sometimes not even that. Back then you could easily see counts in the 50s or even hundreds. Such is true of Sailor Moon: crazy popular in both Japan and, in its heavily localised dub, America, and with a premise flexible enough to run for years. In the end it racked up some 200 episodes and several movies.

The Ikuhara period starts with the Sailor Moon R movie in 1993, then the series proper starting mid Sailor Moon R and then Sailor Moon S in 1994. Not sure which episode he took over, but S begins at 90. This is a post about Ikuhara (no, really!) so we should ask, how did Sailor Moon change once he took the reins? Let’s have a look at some of his favourite themes, as they appear in the Sailor Moon R movie, based on his own notes...

Lesbians - Not so much in the R movie, but once S gets going... big controversy! Sailors Uranus and Neptune were a couple whose dynamic was one of the most popular in the show, but this would be heavily censored in nearly every localisation, notably the American one which made them cousins.

Flower imagery - Ikuhara decided to set his first project as director in a botanical garden, naturally.

Lost connections, the distance between people - to quote the linked blog...

Ikuhara compares the reunion between Fiore and Mamoru with that of being stuck on a train in-between stations when suddenly you notice you’re standing next to an old friend you haven’t seen in years.

At first you’re both excited to see each other again and kill the time by catching up on each other’s lives. But eventually you run out of things to say, and the conversation just kind of dies off, leaving you both standing there in awkward silence.

Creative editing, use of music - 18 second long scene of Tuxedo Mask getting stabbed? Musically timed fight? Mm.

Darker themes - let’s watch the girls incinerate a field of flower monsters! At one point Usagi would nearly die! Ikuhara tried to keep it ‘fun’ and lighthearted, but just couldn’t do it, he says. Nothing on the level of where his later work would go, but definitely harsher than your average episode.

Vaguely hinting that some element is key to understanding everything, and then refusing to elaborate further - oh yes.

Which isn’t to say that Ikuhara’s Sailor Moon instantly became Utena. Rather, the seeds of his interests as a director, the sort of emotional arcs he’d like to portray, were there. I regret that I can’t really comment in much detail on what Ikuhara did in his actual run on the TV series - I’m sure I have some big Sailor Moon fans here who could fill me in and tell me if I’ve described anything wrong.

Working on Sailor Moon, in any case, also got Ikuhara used to technical elements that would become part of his stylistic fingerprint. We mentioned the transformation sequence, the elaborate bank shot with accompanying music that would recur in nearly every episode. I am less sure about other Dezaki-esque elements, like jokes based on repeating the same sequence with minor variations.

Eventually, Ikuhara’s run on Sailor Moon would come to an end. The final arc of the show saw the Sailor Guardians facing... themselves, from a distant bad future. But for that final season, Ikuhara had already stepped down. Where did he go...?

You see, Ikuhara chafed under the creative restrictions placed on him by Toei. Turning down an offer from Anno to work on Eva(!), he set off to found his own group, Be-Papas, along with...

the famous shōjo manga artist Chiho Saito, animator Shinya Hasegawa, writer Yōji Enokido, and producer Yuuichiro Okuro

and before long also recruiting composer J.A. Seazer, known for his work with avant-garde dramatist-filmmaker-writer-poet Shūji Terayama - another big influence on Ikuni, incidentally. What did Be-Papas make? Just one anime, after which they disbanded. That anime was... Albert Ei-

That anime was Utena.

Oh man. This is the one.

少女革命ウテナ - Shōjo Kakumei Utena. In English, Revolutionary Girl Utena. Now the time has finally come to write about it, I’m nervous. Could I possibly do justice to Utena in a single blog post? Is that why I spent so long writing about Sailor Moon?

Let’s start with the aesthetic: French Revolution-esque outfits that would be comfortable in Rose of Versailles. A school made of white stone; architecture that is strange, avant-garde. Roses. So many roses oh my fucking god. It draws heavily on the Takarazuka Revue, which I wrote about previously on Animation Night 92 in the context of Ikuhara’s protege Tomohiro Furukawa.

Utena is about a girl called (wait for it) Utena, who attends a school of sorts called Ohtori Academy. But it’s a school only in a fairly abstract sense - it’s more like a palace. She wears a distinctive masculine uniform, and shortly after transferring in, discovers a mysterious underground duelling society who go to a strange abstract battle arena outside of school hours. There, they attempt to strike the rose from the other duellist. The winner of the duel gains custody of Anthy Himemiya, the ‘Rose Bride’. At some point, whoever possesses Anthy will gain the nebulous power to ‘revolutionise the world’. With me so far?

Utena walks in and immediately wins her first duel, establishing an initially frosty relationship with Anthy. But the White Rose duellists won’t take this lying down. Over the first series of episodes, we learn about each of the duellists and their motivating conflicts, culminating in an attempt to defeat Utena. (She walks up the stairs every time.) They lose every time, but the point isn’t really about whether Utena will win or not - it’s about introducing us to a collection of fucked up guys, and then making them even more fucked up.

But it’s not all high drama. A lot of Utena is just straight-up antics, which is to say, just about any time Nanami is on the screen. There’s a greek chorus of shadow girls who comment on the events of the episode. The broad strokes are hard to miss, but the subtler, more obtuse stuff is the sort of thing that can get you into an almost endless rabbit hole of analysis. Don’t take things too literally! You could probably call it at least a little Brechtian in how much it foregrounds its own artifice.

After Utena’s defeated just about everyone at the White Rose, the Black Rose arc introduces a new element. Now, characters from beyond the duelling circle will go down an elevator to guy who renders a fucked up sort of anti-therapy which will motivate them give into their worst impulses and have a go at Utena. Utena, meanwhile, is harbouring a complex where she needs to live up to an ideal of fairytale prince following an incident from her childhood -  and oblivious to what’s actually going on with Anthy.

Then at last Anthy’s brother Akio shows up - the actual prince from the upside-down castle in the sky that represents the power to revolutionise the world, and the architect of the monstrous system. It turns out he’s been incesting Anthy, that she’s complicit in all his shenanigans (guess who was behind the Black Rose thing). Moreover, Utena is pulled in to Akio’s orbit, an ugly, abusive relationship... that is conveyed mostly through visual metaphors involving cars.

The finale is... complicated to explain. But it gives us one of the most iconic pieces of cinematic lesbianism ever animated, as Utena reaches for Anthy, refusing to be pushed away (by stabbing) or let Anthy remain in her state of self-inflicted pain, and they are able to escape the academy and its system, at the cost of being separated. What future they have outside the academy is left unspoken...

And that’s just scratching the surface. If you ask the hardcore Utena fan, just about every element of every shot is dripping with meaning. You can’t take everything too literally, but you definitely have to take some portion of it literally or you don’t have a story and characters at all.

Visually, the characters in Utena are designed by Shinya Hasegawa - and as much as they are recognisably ‘90s’, they really push it. People are long and faces - noses and chins especially - are pointy. Characters tend to be reserved and stoic in their facial expressions, unless they’re Nanami, in which case all bets are off. Animation-wise, JC Staff did the work under Be-Papas’s direction - and as much as it uses limited animation for effect, it’s really got the goods, especially in the duel sequences and the bank shots (Utena climbing the stairs? Not CG!).

Did you know Yoh Yoshinari was on it? I didn’t until today! So too was Mamoru Hosoda.

Remarkably for such a deliberately challenging show Utena was pretty successful! This was the era between Eva and Lain: it was an excellent time to be making something really experimental and push those genre boundaries. (One thing I don’t really know is how Utena got funded in the first place, but all the big names attached to the project probably gave them some pull.)

Alongside the anime came a manga by Saito - but neither is really an adaptation of the other, they’re just two different interpretations of the same general concept and premise, produced at the same time. And in fact, Ikuhara and Saito clashed heavily over the direction of the series, particularly in regards to whether the relationship between Utena and Anthy should be presented as romantic. Saito did not believe that shōjo audiences would be on board with the yuri, but Ikuhara refused to back down. (Saito eventually changed her mind.)

With all this success, they went ahead to make a movie. Now, usually a compilation movie of a successful TV series will cut out down the story to fit the runtime, reanimate a few scenes and call it a day. But this would be all but impossible with Utena, which is so tied to its episodic structure and use of repetition. And in any case, Be-Papas had bigger ambitions!

The film would be titled 少女革命ウテナ アドゥレセンス黙示録 Shōjo Kakumei Utena: Aduresensu Mokushiroku, literally Revolutionary Girl Utena: Adolescence Apocalypse, though in English it’s usually given the shorter title Adolescence of Utena. It is kinda sorta a condensed version of the series at first... and then in the latter half it goes completely off the rails. This time Akio is long dead. And he’s not the only one! It ends with this absolutely nuts sequence where Utena turns into a car to drive Anthy out of the academy, pursued by Shiori, who also turns into a car. I still can’t say I really understand it, or how it relates to the ‘car is a rape metaphor’ role in the TV series? But it looks beautiful.

Compared to the series, the movie features the expected higher drawing counts and flashier animation... but the really novel aspect is the architecture. This movie goes absolutely wild with it: the Ohtori Academy this time is far stranger and more intricate, looking less like a regular old European palace and more like something dreamed up by the Russian avant-garde.

It’s less of a summary of Utena and more of a companion piece. Seen on its own by someone who’s not familiar with either... I’m not sure how it would come across! Maybe you’ll just think I’m insane. Maybe you’ll be right.

So, some 3000 words into this post, I’ve finally told you the first movie we’ll be watching! That’s right: we’re going to jump in at the deep end and enjoy Adolescence of Utena. You don’t need to have seen the series.

After Adolescence, Be-Papas disbanded, as if following Monsieur Dupont’s injunction that radical groups must exist for a single purpose and then disband. Ikuhara left anime for a long time, like twelve years. He wasn’t entirely cut out from the industry, occasionally dropping in to storyboard an episode or two (for example, Episode 2 of Diebuster, or the OP to yuri series Aoi Hana). But for the most part, he turned his attentions to other mediums.

In that time he published a shōjo manga, which was poorly received for being a lot more conventional than Utena; he also wrote a novel called Schell Bullet which, get a load of this...

As a result of gene manipulation, society is segregated by genes into "Majors" – intersex humans who maintain a monopoly on stronger genetic material – and lesser dual-sex "Minors". (Ikuhara stated that he chose to make the Majors intersex because he wished to create "a race which combines the good parts of both women and men."[1]) Protagonist Ors Break is hired by the intergalactic trading company Balt Liner Corporation to pilot a schell, a bio-organic mecha, by claiming to be a Major. When the truth of his Minor status is revealed, he comes to an agreement with his superior, a Major named Delbee Ibus, to continue working for the organization.[1][2]

...and another serial novel called Nokomono to Hanayome, described as ‘Lolita hardboiled’ (I believe as in ‘Elegant Gothic’ rather than as in ‘Nabokov’s novel’). This last was a precursor to Penguindrum - animal costumes, the a story about the 1995 Tokyo sarin gas attacks.

In 2011, Ikuhara came back to anime. Why? And why did he leave in the first place? itsamystery.jpg. In any case, his new project was... Mawaru Penguindrum. It’s about, I guess you might say, the abandoned children of cultists who connect to a supernatural penguin being through a hat. But honestly it’s even tougher to attempt to summarise than Utena. There’s a “child broiler” involved. That’s just the start. And this post is already very long.

So, it’s time to split it. You’ll be able to read more about Penguindrum tomorrow (or later today, if you’re also staying up insanely late in the UK).

Animation Night 155, in its cosy new Sunday timeslot, will be running (if all goes according to plan) at 8pm UK time. That’s about 13 hours from the time of this post. The plan will be to watch Adolescence of Utena and the two movies of Re:cyle of the Penguindrum, for a total of about five and a half hours. (Sorry Sailor Moon fans! I’d really like to squeeze in the R movie too, but I underestimate how long Penguindrum is in movie form. We’ll find another day to do Sailor Moon though!)

If you’ve read all this so far, thanks so much! I’ve wanted to do a proper Animation Night on Ikuhara for ages, and there’s so much I can write about. So far it’s all history, but we wanna do some analysis too. For now... hold on tight.

[nevros-fr]

Introduction Welcome to my UMA musings. If you have no idea what a UMA is, it stands for user made accents that are directly sold by users to other users instead of being distributed by the site, I did a look at UMA acronym history here (Nevros, 2023). I wanted to look at how the uma sales decisions changed over time since I saw words like premades to refer to the current way artists would sell skins, that is having a design and collecting names of people who are interested in buying it, as opposed to customs, which would be making species designs for each person. I was also curious about when preorders started. I really like this honour system that helps artists fund their uma without having to pay a large portion by themselves to bring the skin to market. The current market consists of artists who want to sell their skin, set up a shop with prices around 500g for an accent and 750g for a skin that includes the cost of buying a blueprint and then they run preorders. They also usually ping GASP, the general accent and skin pinglist to see if there are any interested buyers. Methods I went through each thread individually from the skins and accents thread for the June to August 2013 of FR to get a gist of it, then started cherry picking months to look through for the general trends because 500 pages of threads is a lot to look through one at a time! I also think a massive caveat is that the older threads are the ones that may not have been as successful because threads get bumped up as more people post so the threads get found based on their last post rather than their first post.

Results I went all the way back to the start of June 2013 and tracked how things may have changed. For one, this was the unknown frontier, so there was no established or efficient way to sell skins yet. As I mentioned before, premades are the most common way to market a skin that an artist would like to sell, with customs being an available option, but not necessarily popular. People were bringing this terminology from previous sites they’ve played, such as Aywas or Wajas. Prices for these premades ranged wildly from 50k to 200k in treasure or 700g to 5000g for a single copy of a skin without a blueprint (Morau, 2013). Otherwise, they would state a price for the skin plus the blueprint or the cost equivalent in gems. I saw a few artists who would have liked to sell the psd of skins to users so they may print skins at their own discretion (Balu, 2013). With these prices in mind, I think it’s clear that skins were pretty inaccessible to the wider public unless people bought gems with real money. Despite the fact of people marketing skins by selling the psd file, I haven’t noticed any skins showing up multiple times in the game database due to this practice. Either none of them were made, or possibly they were reorganized to reduce confusion since the credits on every skin usually go to the person that printed it. Rules such as “one payment equals to only one use of the skin” was popular, presumably since the user would be given a psd file for them to print. There was also a common rule to not sell premade skins for more than you bought it for. It did not take long for people to consider selling multiple copies for premades at once. Remember, a single blueprint is 1000g for accents and 2000g for skins, but multicopy packs are considerably cheaper at 2500g for 10 accents and double that for skins (Custom Skins, 2013). The earliest person that I saw to consider selling multiples of one accent was Xaishi but never actually set up a show (Xaishi, 2013). All these developments happened in June!

What does July bring? People who accidentally submitted the wrong skin and have no idea what to do :> Before the establishment of the Skin and Accent Problems, users would need to message mods or admin to see if they can get those errors fixed. I found the intent to sell premades using multipacks with a thread dating back to July 1 (Pathojay, 2013). I also saw people selling multiprints for the very first time as a 5 print run where the artist paid for the blueprint pack first (AkaPanuka, 2013). With these early threads, more people were selling skins in the range we see now at 800g which includes the blueprint price now. There were still many people selling skins with single print prices and multiprint options. It also seems like preorders to fund blueprints were also rising in popularity (Dactyl, 2013).

I can also see the topics change as time goes on. In June/July 2013, people were offering designs only as interest checks. In August/September 2013, people were requesting constructive criticism and help with designs. September showed that the markets settled people into two big models, supply your own blueprints to the artist or join preorder runs (Magyr, 2013). It was clear to me that the people who used preorders and standardized their prices ended up doing better than the people who sold umas without blueprints (Violet, 2013; Incarnation, 2013; Grimgram, 2013)

By the early 2014 in April/May, preorder runs became the standard and prices reflected what we see nowadays (Kanamine, 2014). Though, there were people selling skins at dynamic costs, where prices would decrease if more people joined the run (Kenjinthala, 2014). Skin retirements also happened more often in 2014 where the artist wanted to stop printing a certain uma because they wanted to move on to newer designs. This is similar to what happened around 2018 up until 2020 ish. It’s taxing to keep an active catalogue instead of retiring some to make pinglists more manageable. I think the time between standardized, and thus cheaper prices, and my rising interest in skins during this time was probably no accident. I would bet a lot of people also joined because of the reasonable prices and clearer organization.

Many interesting things happened in 2014. An event I came across was from the Mistral Jamboree event where people designed skins and had the chance to win a 10 print blueprint pack (Amphitere, 2014)! Selling UMAs to a secondary market started around this time where people were only selling a handful of UMAs (Dabble, 2014). I also want to state that the [accent=skin id] tooltip didn’t exist yet so everyone was using the png image of the tooltip. Moreover, if people had skin/accent problems, there was a thread to post to now (Aequorin, 2014)! No more pming mods, admins or sending in help tickets!

“Looking for x accent” or “accent wanted” threads became popular in 2014, which meant it clogged up the board for artists looking to sell their umas. This heralded the rise of GASP version 1 in early 2015 where google sheets made its big debut into the skin and accents board (GASP, 2015). Artists also started using google sheets to contain their pinglists to make life easier instead of checking pings to see who needed to be added (SarcasticSketch, 2015). This allowed better coordination to allow artists to monitor many different skins and the status of multiple runs.

By 2015 to 2016, skin shops had stronger branding with different banners and personal archives of what skins they have made (YusukeKitagawa, 2016). Since shops were also gaining stability and popularity, there was also a stronger desire to limit runs or else be stuck in administrative purgatory. It takes a lot of work to keep all skins active between taking preorder payments, then trying to send them out to everyone with crossroads or private messages. This did introduce the subtle distinction where accents artists were interested in running again are called “reprint” runs, when the umas can return for sales weeks after the initial print.

Third party skin previewers also popped up around this time so that people can conveniently overlay their dragons with skins and imagine what it would look like. There was a crack down on those tools for data scraping but other go-arounds such as requesting the user to save all necessary photos locally to upload them on the previewing website instead of pulling them from FR.

Hold on to your hats, early 2017 ushered in a new way to distribute skins with the fancy pantsy new private auction system (FR News, 2017a)! This meant a way to streamline the selling process since the interface is friendlier for massive order processing. Traditional preorders can still work with the PA system if patrons send gems to the artist and that meant the artists could list the umas for 1 treasure. For artists that could afford it, names were taken down for preorders but they could list umas privately to the buyer for the full price and eliminate the hassle of organizing payments upfront. The Dressing Room also came out in 2017 where people can now preview printed skins on their dragons and scries (FR News, 2017b)!

I feel like from 2018 onwards, the uma market reached an equilibrium with what we more or less see today. There have been a few noteworthy updates. With the rise of limited skins and popular artists, resales and the secondary accent market became quite popular. GASP conducted a survey around how they could deal with the overflowing reselling ping issue (GASP, 2018).

The one part that I feel is different, is that there are more artists who are keeping shelved catalogues. It was normal in the past, but it seems like artists are actively combating the steep price increases that come from reselling limited umas. It is more hassle for the artists but the users who buy are surely happy with the shift from limited to shelved.

Conclusions The start of uma shop culture and multi-prints preorder runs started as early as July 2013. I thought this finding was funny because it's the reverse of what I found with UMA acronym history, where that started much later than I thought. Thanks for reading!! Stay tuned, the next installment might be me going through all the player skins in the database and looks at trends

[pink-ttes]

ℐׅ 핑크 ─ THE PINKETTES : LET’S TALK POPULARITY

a semi-brief overview of the popularity ranking within pinkalicious and the solo activities that each member has. (ib. @/moirtre)

001. ∬ ˚ ⋆ ࣪  CHARMEINE YU

Coming in at the most popular member, Charmeine was favored before even debuting. She is one of the wealthy heiress’ of the well-established LEE FAIMLY. She’s also the cousin of already debuted Lee girl, BRIAR LEE, who got her musical start in 2016 under TROUVAILLE. Due to her already having a following before THE PINK TAPE aired, her name being mentioned skyrocketed viewer ratings and anticipation for the show. That popularity only took off even more after seeing her on the show, getting a taste of her many talents. She regularly trended during the survival shows airtime for her dancing skills, vocals, and stage presence—not to mention her variety skills. It was no surprise that she made it into the lineup, winning the entire show and being crowned QUEEN PINK. Following her debut, Charmeine’s popularity failed to fade, only growing.

Over her career, Charmeine has had a plethora of solo endeavors, to the extent that some people may even recognize her as Charmeine Yu rather than Charmeine from The PINKETTES. Being the third member to debut as a solo artist and easily the most successful, she came out with her first solo album in 2022 which was a hit instantly. Her promotions for the solo were incredibly iconic, pushing her further in popularity by miles. She became a global ambassador for CHANEL in 2019. She also went on a number of variety shows solo, her most memorable appearances being: THE MANAGER, AMAZING SATURDAY, and her labelmates podcast/talk show, CHATTY WITH ADDY.

She also went onto model for other brands such as ALEXANDER MCQUEEN, MARC JACOBS DAISY, and UNDER ARMOUR. Aside from brand deals, she’s also earned quite a few musical features from artists like Ravana’s KYRIE. It’s safe to say that Charmeine is booked and busy.

002. ∬ ˚ ⋆ ࣪  TANA KANAROT

Majority would thank TANA’S heritage for her popularity, ranking at the second most popular member. Her mother, being a famous model and her father being a well-respected industrial designer with lots of money, her name was already in talks. She is constantly battling with CHARMEINE for most popular but it’s more common for Charmeine to win. A part of her lesser popularity with fans and the general public can be accounted to her likability. She’s had a history with Netizen’s criticizing her attitude, often accusing her of having “Celebrity Sickness.” That isn’t to say that Tana hasn’t had a successful solo career, becoming one of VERSACE’S global ambassador in 2020 and the second member to debut as a soloist in 2021. Her solo was a commercial success, surpassing LONDON’S solo. However, her fans were upset when Charmeine’s solo outperformed hers statistically—charts, streams, and sales.

Taking after her mother, most of Tana’s solo activities, if not all, consist of modeling gigs. She’s posed for brands like NIKE, ARMANI, and HERMÈS BIRKIN.

003. ∬ ˚ ⋆ ࣪  BAE YOONA : LONDON

Most known for her likable personality and Girl-Next-Door image, LONDON ranks in at third most popular member. She was quite popular during THE PINK TAPE, even beating TANA in popularity. The general public favored her being “down to earth” and sweet. They also praised her visuals, likening her to an Angel and even giving her the endearing nickname NATIONS ANGEL. However, this popularity seemed to turn against her with a large few of Netizens slandering her for her relationships with male idols. Though she’s never had a public relationship with any, she’s friends with a lot of male idols and they’ve never shied away from showing their appreciation and admiration for her publicly.

Majority of her solo promotions come from her reputation as a TV personality, becoming a beloved MUSIC BANK MC, making appearances on THE RETURN OF SUPERMAN, HOME ALONE, and RUNNING MAN. However, she has dabbled into the pool of sponsorships, officially becoming a global ambassador for CARTIER in 2020 and is frequently receiving gifts from them all the time. London also accumulated deals with the likes of DIOR BEAUTY and INNISFREE.

The first to do so, London debuted as a soloist in 2020 which received high-praise from the general public.

Although not really publicized, a large majority of Pinkalicious’ discography is credited to London. She has a considerable amount of writing and producing credits under her belt, working with a plethora idols that the public wouldn’t even think. She also plans on publishing a book some time in the future. She has her hands in a few things.

004. ∬ ˚ ⋆ ࣪  KANG MIKYUNG

Due to a cesspool of attitude scandals, MIKYUNG only sits at the fourth most popular member of the group. From the moment she was revealed on THE PINK TAPE, Netizens bashed the girl for her “narcissism” and labeled her as a diva. What Mikyung viewed as self-confidence, others looked at as unattractive arrogance. The general public went on a witch hunt with her, which continued even after her debut—which only fueled their hatred for her, seeing as she still made the lineup in spite of her personality.

Twitter and fans in general have a ball demonizing her. She still managed to garner fans, mostly praised for her dancing talents, unique visual, and stage presence. Aside from this, she doesn’t have as many solo promotions compared to the members ranked above her, although she still was chosen as an ambassador by MIU MIU in 2020. She has been a loyal ambassador for the brand ever since, regularly sporting Miu Miu purses and attending fashion shows covered from head to toe in Miu Miu. She’s also posed for them countless times, often being named the FACE OF MIU MIU. Additionally, Minkyung teamed up with BLUMARINE, MICHAEL KORS, and JACQUEMUS.

Almost all of her variety show appearances are with a group or another member. The most variety time she has is if she posts a vlog in the groups official YouTube channel, which is usually either about dancing or her trips overseas. Occasionally, she’ll go live either by herself or with a member and stream mediocre but funny gameplay and interact with fans.

005. ∬ ˚ ⋆ ࣪  CAI ARNELA : NELLY

Easily the most blatantly disliked member, NELLY is ranked last in popularity. She was never really noticed or given any real attention during THE PINK TAPE from viewers. There were the occasional comments about her being pretty or “they hope she still debuts,” because they just knew she wasn’t making it in the lineup. When she did, however, all hell broke loose. Initially, there was only supposed to be the top four making it into the group. But Nelly, ranking at five to everyone’s surprise, was added to the lineup at the last minute. Everyone already had looked at the top four as THE CORE FOUR, and essentially the best lineup to come out of Pinkalicious. So Nelly’s addition was riddled with comments such as “rigged,” “unnecessary,” and “filler member.”

Safe to say, it’s hard coming across a BFF that doesn’t at least have a little animosity toward Nelly. Especially considering songs were swiped from their debut rollout, allegations about Nelly not being able to keep up with the others labeled as the reason why.

Putting aside all of the controversies, Nelly was still able to bag her title as a global ambassador for CALVIN KLEIN in 2022, becoming the last member to become an ambassador for a brand. She doesn’t attend variety shows without the members and she rarely gets solo CF’s, however, in 2022 she filmed a CF for MCDONALD’S and appeared in a TOYOTA advertisement.

[that-glitter-chick]

Mighty Ducks the Animated Series Headcanons

GOOD GUYS

Wildwing: Bi, Aromatic. Type, Canard & Tanya. His heart belongs to his childhood best friend Canard, but I think Tanya could’ve made him happy too, if you want to go that route.

Canard: Gay. Type, Wildwing. It’s always been Wildwing. He thinks he’s being subtle but everyone can see it, except Wildwing of course.🙄😑🤷🏻‍♀️

Nosedive: Straight, but open minded if the right guy came along. Type, he thinks it’s “gorgeous and sexy” (typical teenage boy), but it’s really “fun and quirky”. So basically thinks it’s Lucretia when it’s actually Tanya lol. For guys, someone caring and wise like Duke or Grin, but they’re too old for him, so they’re just friends.

Duke: Pan with a female preference. I blame Falcone for scaring him emotionally and making him hesitant to try men again. He is a little attracted to Wildwing but there’s the age difference and the whole he’s the leader thing, it’d be too much drama.

Tanya: Same scenario as Duke, Pan with a preference for males, because Lucretia messed with her head and heart so badly in the past. She keeps herself busy so she has an excuse not to try again.

Grin: Ace. Ace-est of the Ace. King of Aces. Ace-Zilla. Mountain of Ace. You get the idea.

Mallory: Straight as she shoots. I like to think she had a little crush on Canard back in the day but it was really just misinterpreted respect and admiration. She’s subconsciously attracted to “bad boys” (*cough*Duke*cough*).

Thrash: Pan, Asexual. In a polygamist relationship with his two roommates, one guy and one gal.

Mookie: Lesbian with a steady live-in girlfriend she’s been dating since Junior High. If they ever broke up, Mookie would ugly-cry.

Phil: Closet Gay. Not even the Ducks know. He dates but only when out of town and eventually all his relationships end sadly, because of his unwillingness to be open about them. He’s worried being outed will ruin his business aspersions (keep in mind, the show was set in mid to late nineties after all, things were even harder for the LGBTQA+ community back then, especially in California).

Captain Kleghorn: Straight, widower turned voluntary bachelor. He has lady friends he invites to important events and goes dancing with, but it’s very clearly a “just as friends” thing for lonely seniors.

BAD GUYS

Lucretia: Lesbian, but knows she’s extremely attractive to most people with an interest in females and uses it to her full advantage. Seduces for fun and/or profit. Curses herself for actually falling for Tanya, because that ship has not only sailed, it sank a LONG time ago.

Falcone: The term “Disaster Gay” looks like a tailored made suit on this fella. He’s still down to F, but Duke ain’t stupid. Not happening, nope!

Dragonus: Gay. I mean, come on! Tim Curry is his voice actor, that accent is too delicious to waste on Heterosexuality lol. Dragonus was extremely popular on his homeworld but his egotism and violent streak ruined all his relationships.

Wrath: Ace by choice. Tony Jay made him sound just so done with the universe in general lol! I headcannon that Wrath is so old, he’s seen and done everything and has better things to do with his time than date.

Chameleon: Pan. I tend to think all shapeshifters are Pan. I mean, when you literally can become ANYTHING… 🤷🏻‍♀️ I like to think he has a little crush on Siege, but the big bulldozer is too stupid to notice, and Chameleon is ok with that.

Siege: Straight, but he’s an idiot, so he’s got no game.😛

SHIPS

Wildwing/Canard. They’ve been in love since they were Ducklings, but both we’re afraid of ruining their friendship, so they dated other people. Eventually they got themselves in a row (get it? Because they’re Ducks? 🦆😜) and end up together. No one is surprised.🙄😑😅 Ship names preference is Team Captains, but I also like Leadership, always was a sucker for a good pun.😁👍🏼

Nosedive/Tanya: No one saw this coming, not even them, but it oddly works so well for them. Like an opposites attract kind of thing. Grin calls it “Karmic Convergence”, which makes protective big brother Wildwing very uncomfortable lol! 😅 Duke and Mallory are also protective of Tanya, whom Duke thinks of as a little sister and Mal as her best friend, so there’s a lot of “Shovel Talking” going on at first. Grin and Canard just try to stay out of it but privately approve of how the couple balance each other out. I’ve never heard a ship name for them, so I’m inventing VanderFlash, a combo of their family names, Vanderflock and Flashblade. It just sounds cool.🤷🏻‍♀️😅

Duke/Mallory: Blatant “Hostility is actually Mutual Reluctant Attraction” if I ever saw it. Practically canon. They, like Nosedive and Tanya, are opposites who attract, except Duke and Mal are chaotic lol! Again, I can’t recall any ship names. Please educate me if you know any really good ones💜😊😘

[yonemurishiroku]

Heyyy what are your thoughts on the title of nico's book and the plot in general (pls i want a rant

I love you conteud btw

Omg this ask akxhakdhsksj hold on just let me show you this. So, this is my post:

And the reblogs:

LMAO believe me this is so funny istg. Why? Because that is exactly how I feel about the title.

- First, I’m gonna be perfectly honest here, I’m NOT comfortable with the Adventure part.

Because the same as @gods-nico, I don’t like how it downplays Nico’s physical and mental trauma as a… field trip. Yeah let’s just go with that.

I’m aware of my enthusiasm for angst materials, but this is just a little too much for me. I have always seen Tartarus as a forever deep, unfixable, indelible scar to Nico’s body and mind (i came up with a disable Nico AU based on that. like, srsly). He suffers from it and never manages to fully escape. It’s terrible. It’s nightmarish. We’ve all seen how difficult it was for Percy and Annabeth to trek through it. Tartarus is not, by any mean, someplace one would wish to explore in a freaking adventure.

It’s like saying all the horrors they’ve gone through down there are actually magical wanders. Or tourist attractions. Something along that line. Please, just. No. Don’t do that to me.

In fact, the sole reason Nico wants to come back to Tartarus is because he loves his friend Bob too much to leave him. It’s a rescue mission. They’re jumping head first in a hellhole to save Nico’s friend, not go sightseeing and definitely not a picnic. 😦😦💀💀

I’m saying this with utmost respect: the fact that the title practically sugarcoats Tartarus and dismisses Nico’s dedication to his friend upsets me.

- However, as much as I ‘value’ Nico’s trauma, I’m also amazed by his strength and ofc, eager to see more of it. That’s to say, I wholeheartedly wish to see Nico conquer Tartarus.

I’ve said it once and I’d say it again: I love both Nico’s sufferings and toughness.

Nico would be powerfully beautiful standing up against one of his deepest trauma, all resilient, unafraid and unrelenting. He manages to overcome his fears and thus, is finally able to heal fully. (Nico di Angelo deserves to goddamned heal)

This is the only scenario in which I indulge a less terrible Tartarus, not because the hellhole itself is any more lenient, but that Nico has become much, much stronger. And with the help of his boyfriend, they’re enough to fight it and win.

It’d be absolutely splendid. And I’m nothing if not a powerful Nico enthusiast.

It’s many things coming at once. Nico’s resolve. His resilience. Will’s support. His love. Their love. All of them get Nico another step closer to his happy ending. And what kind of Nico’s self-proclaimed mother would I be if I’m not forever grateful for that?

When I see Nico win over Tartarus, it’d be thanks to his inner strength and everything he’d managed to gain by himself, NOT because the hell itself is ridiculously nerfed weak.

That’d be the true prove to Nico’s astounding character development.

- Regarding the Sun vs Star part, we’re probably talking pretty lively about it so I’ll just skip it lolol it’s 1:30am.

Moving to the plot.

- I’m genuinely excited to see Bob again, not only because I adore his and Nico’s friendship but also I want to see how his character development would progress, provided that Iedeptus’ memories show signs of coming back. And ofc, how that would affect the friendships he’s made with the demigods.

This is the closest, most detailed I get to see of Nico interacting with a side-character. Exactly what I’ve been harboring a special liking for.

Bob isn’t a popular character. And when some beloved unpopular character of mine gets the spotlight, I’m more than thrilled.

- But again, the title “Adventure” does dump a bucket of cold water on it. I’d be extremely disappointed if Nico’s rescue mission turns out to be a children’s walk in the wild park. Hopefully not.

- Ofc, Will Solace. How a healer like him is gonna fend for himself and keeps Nico from physically/ mentally deteriorating at the same time really intrigues me.

I don’t have specific expectations for Will like plague abilities etc, but still I’m genuinely looking forward to see how Rick and Mark would work it out for him. A well-built background for him would be nice, too - I’m aware a lot of us love Will on a spiritual level - but I’d have no problem to be sufficed by a Nico-centric story.

It’d be lovely if through Will, we have the connection to Apollo/ Lester as the protagonist of the previous series, as well.

- Frankly, Will Solace and Solangelo practically have the most potentials LOL. They are both unexplored/ poorly-portrayed fields that hold a lot of materials to work on. And I know for a fact that a large number of loyal fans would want to feast in it.

I only hope they’re well-written and logical. If Solangelo turns out to be forced and poorly-written I might just bury myself.

That’s all I’ve got to say at the moment, I guess.

For the outro, just let me establish that, while I may have some qualms with the title, I’d refrain from commenting on and spreading information about the book itself - as long as it isn’t published yet.

A title doesn’t say everything about a book, so I’d like to keep the expectations/ worries in check while everything is still veiled. What I rant about the title does not stand for how I judge the book. We’ll get to it when I’ve actually read the final work itself.

Lastly, sincerely thank you, anon, for this ask!!! 🥺🤩👍 I get to rant freely lol. Even when you might have opposing opinions to mine, please feel free to send more asks if you want to discuss more! (´▽｀) I’m open to everything except hate, really.

Have a nice day, and I hope none of us would be disappointed when the book comes out.

[monkeydluffy19920]

This song got stuck to my head and the main reason the inspiration hit was that the chorus, especially the "spoiling" part made me think of Sanji and Nami, immediately *laughs*.  

The song is called "Ihana kipu" (quickly translated "wonderful pain" or "sweet pain") and it's sung by Viivi and Robin who are quite popular singers in Finland at the moment. The song is basically about being in love :D

So it's in my native language and the chorus says first "Sä oot niin nätti et sä pilaat kaikki muut" and later "Heti kun nähtiin tiesin pilaat honey mut"  and the funny thing is that the word "pilata" actually literally means "to ruin something" but it is also very close to the words pilaantua/hemmotella which in english are translated "to spoil" which can be interpreted in various things but in this song/project it made me think of Baratie arc and how Sanji already from the beginning pampered Nami like a princess.

Anyway,  first sung verse is more viewed from Nami's perspective, her being left with a dreamy feeling after they've met and her missing Sanji already and her pondering whether she should call or text him.

Just like pondered in previous posts (for example x and x), I still doubt Nami would be that kind of person who shows her crush/love very openly (at least yet) in canon version especially if the other crew mates are around. The most logical reason is still that One Piece is a shounen and it's main target isn't romance in general.

But if we look this love-topic from Nami's perspective again, we should consider the fact that she is most likely very traumatized by her past (being forced to first witness a murder and then survive all by her own in order to save her loved ones). So, it's obvious that seeking for love might not be her tor priority at this point. However, if she would share a deeper interest in Sanji, there is a high possibility that what keeps her holding her emotions the most is that she is protecting herself from getting hurt.

Of course, Sanji would never hurt her (especially after Wci arc) but when the mind is traumatized, those inner demons keep on pushing (In Nami's case the fear of losing someone close one is haunting, this was seen for example in Water 7, Zou and Wci) so no wonder she would want to keep those feelings hidden. Besides, we don't know about her past relationships (since storywise they are pretty unnecessary at this point) but there can also be bad/toxic relationships in her history which could've affected her too. Then the chorus could be seen from both of their's perspective, first Sanji admiring Nami being so beautiful that other (ladies) "fade away" from his sight and then him missing her in general. Then next there is Nami admiring how Sanji from the first glance treated her well and her dreaming about meeting him again.

It was tempting to edit amv longer but since Adobe Premiere Elements 7 old and laggy and keeps crashing more than the stocks the amv ended up being shorter than expected). Anyway, I wanted to use also clips from filler episodes after a long break since mosty I've been focusing on the WCI-clips in the latest SaNami or Sanji videos)(I have like million ideas in the to do-pile *laughs*) and perhaps in the future projects there will be again more filler-clips who knows?

 Anyway, hope you fellow fans enjoy :)

[utilitycaster]

Putting this below a cut as it’s long and is a response to a callout of me. If you'd like to ignore, I wouldn't blame you. Currently rebloggable; will be made non-rebloggable if people cannot behave themselves.

This is in reference to this post. It’s also going to reference ongoing, though, to be honest, relatively minor harassment by at least one other person who ships Imogen and Laudna.

The person making the callout came to my attention shortly after Laudna’s death, in which I came across this post while looking for content on Laudna. I recognized this was in reference to these posts from me, and I've kept an eye on them since. I finally blocked them about a month ago in the hopes that if I did so, they’d stop obsessing over me as they have since their very first post; they even say they made this blog because of me. Unfortunately, they seem to only have escalated in this obsession. 

[Sidebar: it is very interesting the inciting cause was that I seemingly liked Imogen more than Laudna, and now I don’t like Imogen enough, when I’m pretty sure I’ve been about the same on Imogen throughout, but that’s a tangent I’d love to get into another day.]

Anyway, here’s what’s I've done:

I post my opinions a lot on my own blog. This is how blogs typically work.

In those posts I sometimes disagree with statements I’ve seen other people in the fandom make, in a general sense.

I truly almost never reblog someone else’s post with commentary outside of tags unless it’s their reblog on my original post, which is what has this person in a snit right now. (Note: it is not even their post.)

I sometimes disagree with people who ask me questions in my inbox

I don’t find im*dna compelling

That’s it. You’ll have to take it on my word, but I do not send anon hate or indeed any questions other than the occasional ask meme. This is a side blog (which I’m open about in my bio), so I don’t even post replies. It’s reblogs with tags and original posts and that’s it. I don't consider myself an arbiter of the fandom (I actually, in one of the two posts from me linked above, outright say I'm not) and I doubt anyone thinks that of me. I write meta and funny posts and I reblog things. That’s it. Any popularity I have stems from that alone. Honestly, I’d be more popular if I did post positive things about im*dna.

It is not policing or shutting someone down for me to express opinions - even if they are in disagreement with other people’s. It is not policing or harassment to respond to comments on one’s own posts. And it is the tantrum of a spoiled child to claim that it is.

For those wondering: in terms of shutting down and harassment, another blog unrelated to the person I'm linking above (here shown reblogging my post) regularly harasses not just people who don’t ship im*dna, but people who don’t ship them in the same exact way they do. I’m pretty sure this is their side blog, incidentally, given the patterns of fandoms they’ve been in, which, if true, would mean that the second post is block evasion since I’d blocked them on their other one. 

Now, obviously, that’s only one case, and a couple bad apples in a large ship says nothing about most people, but here’s the truth of the matter: despite the harassment above and the general victim complex on display here, Im*dna is far and away the most popular ship for Campaign 3. A check of other popular C3 ships did not even give me a tag follower count. It’s also worth noting Laudna is by far the most popular of the C3 characters; FCG and Chetney don’t even get follower counts on their tags. Im*dna has almost as many fics as some canon Campaign 2 ships do, after far less time. If such a thing as a fandom arbiter existed, and I were one of them? I’d be failing miserably.

Here’s the other truth of the matter. I don’t have any secret insight into Marisha or Laura’s decisions nor any control over what happens in canon. I could stop posting today and it wouldn’t change a thing about what happens on the actual show. I think it’s worth considering why someone primarily known for textual analysis isn’t terribly enamored with a ship, the bulk of the canon content of which stems from unseen backstory or scenes when one of the parties wasn’t even there, but if you're into it? Go ahead.

You know those videos in which a dog is desperately trying to reach something outside of its cage, and they pan out to show that the door is fully open? This is me telling you the door is open. No one is forcing you to see my posts and no one is stopping you from saying what you want. You’re getting in your own way and making yourself mad. If that's what you want to do, that's fine, but leave me out of it.

[kolbisneat]

MONTHLY MEDIA: July 2023

Summertime! Full of good vibes and a bunch of good movies I’ve yet to see. Here’s how I spent the month of July.

……….FILM……….

Barbie (2023) Just incredible. As an artist who works with existing properties overseen by a lot of people, I was amazed at just how deep, critical, and weird this movie was able to get. I truly had no idea where it was going. Funnier and sillier than I expected but am so thrilled that this wasn’t a generic cash-in.

Lupin the Third: The Mystery of Mamo (1978) Years ago I saw a poster by Sam Bosma and that was both my first introduction to Lupin and the reason I wanted to check him out as a character. Going in mostly blind (aside from knowing the main character is a master thief), this movie was weirder, hornier, and way more avant garde than I was expecting! Some really cool animation on display and while the pacing is up and down, I can’t recommend it enough. The main villain reminded me of a mix between Akira’s espers and Paul Williams and turns out Swan from Phantom of the Paradise was an inspiration! So wild.

……….TELEVISION……….

Jury Duty (Episode 1.01 to 1.04) The premise is fun and just when I thought it was starting to dip it turns out the fictional case is compelling too so I’m BACK! Very keen to see how the season ends and what Ronald makes of this in the end.

Mashle (Episode 1.01 to 1.12) This series seems to answer the question: what if Harry Potter was a meathead with no magic? It didn’t really hooked me and the characters are kinda thin but it has moments of wonderful goofiness that I’m glad I finished out the season.

The Bear (Episode 1.04 to 1.08) Just when I thought the show was getting less stressful, the characters pointed out that fact! Then the following episodes ramped up the stress again. But it never feels contrived or unnatural. Everything, from the humor to the stakes to the character interactions, feels wholly organic. Like we’re watching real people live out real lives. I dunno I guess what I’m saying is it’s really good.

……….YOUTUBE……….

Why American Cities Are Broke - The Growth Ponzi Scheme [ST03] by Not Just Bikes VIDEO (Title if needed) I’ve been watching a lot of videos about transit lately (like this series by Vox) but the above video is probably the most important one you can watch. His entire Strong Towns series is great and succinctly explains why north american cities suck and keep getting worse. Vote for elected officials that push for density.

What if We Had a GREAT X-Men Game? by The Cosmonaut Variety Hour VIDEO Real shift from bikes and cities but I keep thinking about this video. Speculative stuff rarely hits for me but this is really great and hits all the right notes for the series. Really wish this sorta stuff could get made.

……….READING……….

Bullshit Jobs by David Graeber (Complete) I think it was a mistake to keep the original article/essay that inspired this book at the beginning. I found the points made were clearer and more succinct in the condensed version and the book’s tone seems to waffle. There are some good ideas in here but I think it needed more time in the oven. If anything, read the article and the last chapter and I think you’d be good.

……….AUDIO……….

Lofi Covers of Popular Songs (Playlist) I’ve been writing a lot lately so I haven’t been engaging with a lot of music. HOWEVER this playlist on spotify has been on in the background and offers the perfect balance for me: not distracting but engaging if I focus on it.

……….GAMING……….

Oz: A Fantasy Role-Playing Setting (Andrews McMeel Publishing) The Mof1 Crew is currently on the run after the retiring couple they kidnapped escaped but I’m sure everything will work out just fine.

Neverland: A Fantasy Role-Playing Setting (Andrews McMeel Publishing) The group is still navigating a group of elves on the island and seeing what happens now that they’ve let their star-collecting duties slip. Big trouble. You can read about it here.

And that’s it. See you in August!

[zanewatchestuff]

A Cultural Studies Analysis on Invincible

In my video essay, I looked at Prime Video’s Invincible (2021-) and analyzed the various themes of identity that appear throughout the show, all revolving around the main protagonist of the series, 17-year-old Mark Grayson. I pair this up with various Critical Studies sources that cover reception theory and critical race theory and intersect some of the arguments made to highlight cases of othering within the show. As mentioned, the analysis is centered around Mark’s identity as a superhero, as a young adult, and as a half-Human and half-Viltrumite, as he develops his powers and ‘learns the ropes’ of the superhero job. 

In regards to his identity as a superhero, I look at how Mark/Invincible is othered in the scope of superhero media through how his origin story diverts the theme of loss and redemption. Stuart Hall’s reception theory delves into the coding and decoding of messages in certain texts.[1] I pair his argument on how instances of codes can be made to appear as though they haven’t been constructed anymore because of how popular or generally used they’ve become in certain communities with Max Horkheimer’s and Theodor W. Adorno’s argument that in the production of mass culture, more specifically in media, the audience can more or less easily predict the structures and narrative elements of the piece.[2] Superhero media is one of the highest-grossing genres currently across both television and film, meaning that audiences have grown accustomed to the stories of the genre. A result of that is a discourse that mirrors the arguments made by Hall, Horkheimer, and Adorno. Fingers have been pointed specifically at large corporations such as Disney, who mass-produce superheroes in a manner that utilizes the same molds and structures repetitively and has greatly influenced superhero media across the Western production world especially. Attempts at creating unique texts in this genre have been made, resulting in the subgenre of ‘capepunk’, a genre that aims to tell more grounded and realistic superhero worlds and critique mainstream superhero media while making use of adult themes and explicit content. This genre has been popularized in recent years thanks to shows like The Boys (2019-) and Invincible, however, arguments have been made that these types of media eventually end up becoming the media that they’re trying to subvert and critique. I acknowledge that Invincible certainly does appear similar to the media it makes critiques on. It’s not convoluted or unique and fits the descriptions of media that Hall, Horkheimer, and Adorno describe. I do argue that it presents several cases in which it can break off from the mold and create new and refreshing cases that are coded. 

The instance I look at in-depth is how Mark continuously faces loss and how this plays into his identity as a superhero. Comparing his journey to a common superhero origin story that is presented in most popular instances of the genre, Mark ticks most of the boxes, but one thing he manages to keep doing is losing. And it ends there. He doesn’t have some kind of redemption or resolution within the episode of the season or the next season, Mark will lose a fight and the episode will end there. We move on to whatever conflict he has to face in the following episode. This is an important aspect of Mark’s origin story, as it not only grounds his story but also reflects his ideology and how it changes. As he physically endures countless beatings and is left unconscious multiple times, his belief in what it means to be a superhero is challenged and broken each time. This repeated loss, however, is interpreted negatively in large circles in online forums who have expressed their annoyance at Invincible’s inability to win fights, or even whether he should be able to call himself ‘Invincible’, causing Mark to be othered from his superhero counterparts across the genre. Mark’s case is seen as unique, in some respects, an early failure in the image of a superhero. I believe this perspective is evidence of being unable to decode the message of the creators on the constant battle that Mark endures in his belief system, which is also symbolized by the title sequence of the show. The “INVINCIBLE” title card is splattered with more blood each episode of the first season, mirroring the repeated damage that Mark endures, while in the second season, the title card is completely covered in blood and begins to crack. The cracks grow in each episode, revealing a new layer underneath. 

I bring up how this is made more clear in the second season, more specifically in the mid-finale, and present clips and narration on a case where Mark’s ideology takes a drastic shift. The entire premise of learning to fight with the mentality of killing the opponent creates an opportunity where Mark can go toe to toe with his opponent, yet this ideology conflicts with his identity as a superhero, and this conflict causes him to ultimately lose the fight. This ideology is not only tied into Mark’s identity as a superhero, as additionally,  it is also his racial identity. As mentioned in the video, the Viltrumite alien race is coded with the definitions of colonialism, imperialism, and racism that Robert Stam and Louise Spence present.[3] They use their superhuman abilities to kill and conquer different alien races across the galaxy. Mark, the only Viltrumite in the entire galaxy that opposes this idea and seeks to protect his Earth, is othered by other Viltrumites. Interestingly enough, physically and biologically, Mark is a Viltrumite, but they are completely indistinguishable from humans apart from the supernatural abilities they possess and their prolonged life spans. Mark seeks to other himself as much as possible from the Viltrumites. This is symbolized by his superhero outfit that sports a color scheme of yellow, blue, and black and has a unique design, which is completely different from the white and grey uniforms that Viltrumites wear, depicting the uniformity of military garments. Mark’s father, Omni-Man, wears a unique combination of the base of the Viltrumite uniform with a human superhero design on it, symbolizing how he is caught in between these two worlds which is explored more in the second season of the show. 

Mark steers away from conforming to Viltrumite ideologies and fights and prepares to save or liberate Earth (and potentially the galaxy) from Viltrumite's influence. I mention how his Asian identity fits the mold of Stam and Spence’s argument on naive integrationism, as the creators substitute an Asian character into a role dominantly played by white characters and never truly explore his Asian identity, however, I argue that Mark’s role as an active opposer of the coded ideologies Viltrumites embody, and therefore doesn’t play Stam and Spence’s argument.[4]

Invincible creates a unique plot in a medium that is saturated with the elements that the show subverts. Mark embodies roles that while othering him from his counterparts both beyond and within the scope of the show, present the case for an unlikely superhero who may be able to surpass those around him. Especially when he’s able to win his first major fight.

[1]Stuart Hall, “Encoding, Decoding,” 551

[2]Max Horkheimer, Theodor W. Adorno, “The Culture Industry: Enlightenment as Mass Deception,” 98-99

[3]Robert Stam, Louise Spence, “Colonialism, Racism and Representation: An Introduction,” 753

[4] Stam, Spence, “Colonialism, Racism and Representation: An Introduction,” 757

@theuncannyprofessoro

[dearweirdme]

This whole dating rumor only made jn an easy target. She’s called names and it seems that she’s in a spotlight now. I think whether the rumor is true or not, it only benefits her. However, the attention that she’s been getting is so negative. Now people notice how bad she sings and performs, how awful some of her outfits are, how she’s promoting a p*rn show, how she’s friends with problematic people, how she’s hopping from one guy to another, in short, people sl*tshame her. Only her fans hype the rumor, while kths and other armys are dragging her to hell and back. I wonder if she knows everything people have been saying about her. It’s not doing good for her image. If Tae is really dating her, I wonder how he feels about all this. Wouldnt it be hurtful for him, too? He seemed like he doesnt care, though, but that’s just coz Tae is a private person so we’ll never know.

Hi anon!

Let me show you a bit of business perspective. So there’s basically three different groups at play here. Blinks, armies, and the general public. From what I’ve seen, Blinks mostly have Jennie’s back and that is probably what matters most to her. Although Tae has been getting quite some hate as well, I feel his fans also still have his back. Then there’s the general public. Those are neither army nor Blink and will not be aware of most of the hate and tormoil that’s going on within these two fandoms. All they will hear is that one huge star is possibly dating another huge star.. but nothing is for sure yet. It peaks their interest. And general public is most likely who they are targeting here. New fans, new people to go watch Jennie’s HBO series and buy Blackpink albums, new people to buy Tae’s album when it get out. Pr for fans that are already there is different from pr for getting new fans. This pr-relationship is clearly to gain more popularity. Pr for already existing fans is more like fansigns, vlives, photoshoots.

And also… they’ve got two huge fandoms attention on them 24/7… they don’t care if it’s hateful at times.. attention means money (and I suspect Jennie knows how to avoid social media hate, she won’t be scrolling Twitter right now).

Tae did not seem bothered at all during his short live. I believe If Tae were actually dating her, He would not let things go like this.

[marinersubmariner]

ANDOR POST

This show has been so good and I’ve enjoyed it so much that part of me is actually mad about it, purely because it proves that Disney could have been giving us this level of quality THE WHOLE TIME and they DIDN’T. Which I realize is not a wholly rational complaint because it has different directors, writers, production teams, etc. and Disney/Lucasfilm isn’t a monolith no matter how much we imagine it to be. No franchise is uniformly consistent in quality and style. But the standard of the visuals and writing and just overall execution is so much higher than the other Disney+ series—NOT TO MENTION some of the movies—that I can’t help but feel cheated. Like they’ve been gorging us on subpar fast food and then wheel out a five-star meal and it’s like whoah whoah whoah hold on, you let us eat shit and made us think it was the best you had to offer while you were cooking THAT?

Of course nothing is ~flawless~ and I’m very excitable when it comes to impressive production design and cinematography. But the production design in particular has blown my mind!!! The sets and locations, the props, the costumes, getting to see more of these lived-in corners of the universe, and all of it filmed in a way that’s genuinely beautiful and cinematic—THAT’S what I want, not just from Star Wars tv shows but Star Wars in general! WORLDBUILDING!!!!!! YEAH!!!

It gives me a similar feeling to TLJ in that it uses the existing universe in ways that feel fresh simply by virtue of having a strong visual aesthetic and solid thematic viewpoint. It may still be a prequel but it adds to and shades in details and does its own thing in ways that actually seem new and expansive. It really feels like going into “a larger world” where the other shows and some of the movies’ constant callbacks and repetition have felt reductive and constricting. One of the things that still makes me so sad about TROS is that it felt like the world got smaller, in the ways it presented its story and the ways it concluded, and that is such a horrible place for Star Wars to be. It should be BIG! Mythically, emotionally, visually, hypothetically. It’s a galaxxyyyyyy, I want it to feel that way!

It is very funny to think about how I was excited for a Cassian show when they first announced it because I loved Cassian in Rogue One, but what I was imagining was more like “oh boy we’ll get to see Cassian and K2 becoming buddies yay” and not like “the grim realities of fomenting rebellion.” But I LOVE IT. It’s like a wholly different genre, and while I wouldn’t necessarily want all SW to be this serious because I do watch most of it with the mind of a child, I’m excited to get something like this as a facet of the overall franchise.

It’s concerning that I’ve seen comments to the effect of “nobody’s talking about this show, you’re all sleeping on how good it is” (I don’t know, I’ve ignored discourse about it and enjoyed it in isolation because I’m too irritable about fandom nowadays, and I cannot gauge the popularity of anything on the internet—I’m on tumblr where people still talk about Supernatural, I have no frame of reference). Because if it genuinely isn’t popular then Disney is absolutely gonna learn the wrong lesson and think nobody wants good quality Star Wars and decide crowd-pleasing garbage for an unpleasable crowd is the way to go. (that’s how we got TROS!!!!!!!!) I’m already bummed that the initial plans for a five-season show got cut down to two. Despite being a firm believer in quality over quantity, good quality never fails to make me want more. It’s the worst. :(

My only real complaint is that I wish there were more aliens. It’s mostly been a whole lot of humans and that’s the main thing that I’m iffy on. I saw a comment from Tony Gilroy that basically said they made it human-centric on purpose so that it feels grounded and relatable, which I get, it does make it feel more relevant to our real world. But I can’t see enough of an in-universe justification for it since this is supposed to be a galaxy-wide struggle, and one of the major things that separates the Rebellion from the Empire is the inclusion of other species.

It is absolutely WILD to me how much Maarva’s send-off was beat-for-beat something that would have worked for Leia. Off-screen death, a goodbye message to her son to affirm her love for him and alleviate his regret and encourage him to move forward and become who he should be, a rousing message as a respected and beloved leader to the masses spurring them to fight against the evil that has been allowed to fester through inaction. A HOLOGRAM CARRYING A MESSAGE OF THE REBELLION, I mean, COME ON. And it was so resonant, it worked so well! Imagine if Leia’s death had been this meaningful!!!! I know I’m too fixated on connecting unrelated things back to the Organa-Solo Massacre of 2K19 and that my mind immediately leapt there because it’s always there, but the counterpoint to TROS is so stark it’s genuinely impossible to ignore. HE WILL BE AN UNSTOPPABLE FORCE FOR GOOD. THERE IS A WOUND THAT WON’T HEAL AT THE CENTER OF THE GALAXY. I’m gonna fuckin lose it

And I keep thinking how this show is so good at feeling truly tense and dark but also legitimately hopeful. It earns an emotional response because it all feels like it matters to the characters and the universe. The awful things that happen MATTER and are integral to moving forward. A dead character becomes a literal building block!!!!!! Symbolizing everyone in this story as simultaneously foundations for the future and makeshift blunt instruments in a fight!!!! Even while Cassian becomes a cog in a much larger machine too big to even perceive, constructing the building blocks of his own demise!!!!!!!!!!!! It feels so purposefully aimed toward telling a story with cohesive theming and messaging, not just throwing easter eggs at a wall.

It’s done such a good job of conveying scale and making the universe seem populated and alive, and I think the use of actual locations subliminally makes it feel like a real world in a way that the Volume and totally CG sets just don’t do. There is something oddly restrictive about cheap-looking visuals and obvious artificiality that makes a story look and feel small. There is so much in the other Disney+ series and even TROS that looks like a soundstage with bad lighting and it just yanks me right out of what’s supposed to be happening. Whereas everything in this show conveys a sense that it EXISTS and life is happening even beyond the edges of the frame. In any case, Rogue One is next to TLJ as the prettiest of the new era of movies, and I’m thrilled they put so much effort into maintaining its visual aesthetic.

It’s gotten to a point with Disney Star Wars that I recoil in disgust from the way fanservice is incorporated (or, you know, what they think fanservice is—the lowest common denominator “I understood that reference” shitty callbacks and cameos), and the complete lack of anything blatant like that in this show has been AMAZING. The post-credits stinger is the only part that got close to that type of thing and even that was effective because a) I think most people guessed they were building Death Star parts so it’s nice to confirm it, and b) I LOVE that perspective shift of being so entrenched in a ground-level story that then zooms way out to show a glimpse of the macro scale that is imperceptible to the people within the machine. You’ve been watching all these tiny moving parts adding up and working together and building toward something, only to see how truly small they are and how much of an uphill battle they have to match this inconceivably massive system they’re working against. It’s such a great gutpunch that I think it transcends the stupid “teehee hey nerds look it’s the Death Star like in the movie.”

What I loved about Rogue One and its depiction of the Rebellion was how much it emphasized the smallest actions of the individual as being important to the whole. The final relay race with the Death Star plans and how tenuous their success is; the entire climax of the film giving each character a linchpin moment where if they weren’t there, everything would have failed. It showed what a delicate chain reaction it was to ultimately get to Luke firing those torpedoes into the exhaust port. And now on Andor with its ensemble, once again there’s this great sense of all these small parts that are integral to the bigger picture that they’re a part of, and approaching something inevitable but doing so in a way that still feels precarious and uncertain.

Ironically without a Jedi storyline the concept of Empire vs. Rebellion = Sith vs. Jedi stands out even more prominently than in the stories where both aspects of the war are present. The conflict here is structured with such weight on fighting against darkness that it becomes glaringly obvious to extrapolate it into “JUST LIKE THE FORCE!!!” Of course Luthen’s speech brought this to the foreground, but Nemik and Maarva’s speeches really drove the point home. The light side and the dark side have obviously always been a metaphor made literal, but in a story that’s more centered on humanism than spiritualism it’s interesting that those concepts from the more fantastical side of things are still right there in the language, hidden in plain sight—like the Rebellion, like Luthen in the crowd passing unseen by the people who are hunting for him, like the shape of the Imperial insignia subtly repeating everywhere: all of it is apparent if you just know what to look for. “Oppression is the mask of fear.” Like. LITERALLY. THE MASK. OF FEAR. There is no Vader in this story and yet Vader is in this story. I LOVE IT SO MUCH. This narrative is haunted!!!!!!!

Miscellany:

There wasn’t much spaceship stuff but the little we got was SO GOOD. The escape in The Eye and the visuals of the meteor shower were amazing, it was so stressful but totally thrilling at the same time. And of course Luthen running from the cops HOOHOHHOHOHO GOOD SHIT. Rogue One has THEEEE best space battle so getting to see that practical model-like lighting again is so cool, and it was just FUN fun in a little more of a traditional Star Wars way. Spinning! That’s a good trick! Also I got a kick out of Luthen’s phony “hi lol I’m just a regular guy! lol! sorry officer!” voice. Big Han “we’re all fine here :)” vibes

Something I’m delighted to now be able to say about Star Wars is that I love Mon Mothma’s lesbian cousin. :) The reveal that Vel is related to Mon gobsmacked me, I enjoyed the way they held that off for so long so your impression of Vel kept changing. “So she’s a grumpy gay freedom fighter. Oh she wears fancy clothes too? Oh her family is rich? OH SHE’S RELATED TO MON MOTHMA?!??” A wild ride!

BEEEEEEEEE new best droid friend!!!! Has a stutter, takes a lot of effort to do anything, has to spend huge amounts of time recharging at home: most relatable droid of all time??? LOOK AT IT IT’S GOT ANXIETY

😍 Brasso 😍

TV news!!!!

SPACE FOODS!!!!!!

The living spaces oh my god I’m so excited. I know the Karns’ apartment is supposed to be kind of depressing but the modular design and ‘70s retrofuturistic accessories are SO GOOD. Syril’s sad little room with his action figures. Maarva’s house and her plants!!!!!!! Mon’s beautiful gilded cage of an apartment, aahhhhhhhh. By nature of being an adventure story there isn’t usually downtime in Star Wars to spend in homes or bedrooms, but it’s something I’m always wishing for so I’m particularly delighted that a longer-form series has finally allowed us to see more of those everyday details. SPACE HGTV

MONNNN MOTHMAAAAAAA. She’s the best and I am just so pumped that we’re finally getting more of her. It is, however, hilarious to think about her hair and wardrobe downgrade once she’s fully with the Rebellion.

The score has been great—between this and Mando and the final run of Clone Wars it’s awesome that the music is really getting outside the box in terms of what Star Wars can sound like. Synths!!!

Cassian with the sky kyber... matching crystal necklaces with Jyn........ ;____;

Those blue pelicans on Niamos!!!!! CREATURES

Andy Serkis was excellent but it was pretty bizarrely funny to hear Snoke’s voice making a good guy speech instead of a bad guy speech

“The first spark of the fire,” Canto Bight name drop... TLJ relevance for the sophisticated palate 🥂

One thing about Cassian Andor is that he’s always gonna have a shitty time at the beach

UGH I CAN’T BELIEVE WE HAVE TO WAIT SO LONG FOR SEASON 2. I hope it maintains quality and I hope it doesn’t feel rushed with how they’re planning on covering the time period. Since they’re starting production now I think it’s unlikely that they’ll suddenly change course and give us an extra season, but... I really wish they would at least add one more season on there... but then even if they could do that it just makes it less likely that they would be able to keep up the quality and budget. I guess we’ve just gotta savor what we get. ;___;

[satorus-leftarm]

TATE LANGDON AS GHOSTFACE

i feel like he would have a list

tate doesn’t really seem like an organized person BUT this is murder so u kinda have to leave like zero evidence

he would just gather up a bunch or people from his school and add them to said list

either people that pissed him off, general jerks or just a couple randos

his killing pattern is no pattern

(i hope someone got the hotel reference)

anyways, he would show up at someones house late at night

most likely some sports buff that bullied him

so he would call them

do the “what your favourite scary movie” thing

i dont think he would have the voice changer. just bc he thinks its kind of tacky but as the killings go on, he would invest in one

he would stab the sports buff, leave a messy as hell scene, blood everywhere, all that shit

the sports buff’s parents would come home and see their son dead

they would call the cops and then tate’s real fun starts

for the sake of this hc, vi and tate go to school together bc why tf not

so, obviously, tate’s in love with violet

she’s cool, a badass, really pretty, smart etc etc

they would sit beside each other in english class. bc why not

and she would lean over and ask him about the murder of one of the most popular guys at their school (ie sports buff)

he would lie and said he didnt know much but say that he’s pretty sure that if there are anymore, there would be a curfew

vi would show her interest in the killings, would suggest a possible motive, a reasoning behind the costume etc

tate was OVER THE FUCKIN MOON that vi was so damn interested in the murders

this is the first full conversation they’ve had

ever

and he was loving every damn second of it

as days went on, they would only really say hi

and given tate is a touch starved lonely son of a bitch, it made him sad

and if “ghostface”, as the police we calling it, was the only way violet would talk to him

then so be it

[the-one-where-casey-watches-tv]

Modern Family episode 8.18 "Five Minutes"

Jesse Tyler Ferguson and Eric Stonestreet in "Five Minutes". Image courtesy of ABC.

I’m a little worried that I missed the era of long-running shows. I actually used to wish for this- it seemed that even my favorite 11 season shows didn’t get there without some lulls along the way, fading into the background of pop culture for a year or two before resurfacing, good again but a little different somehow. So, I wished for shows to not overstay their welcome; I thought a good story didn’t wander. I don’t necessarily think that’s true anymore, and I’ve come to find that the passage of time does something to a story that can’t be replicated any other way. Modern Family is a case in point.

I watched the whole show for the first time over the past nine months, and I honestly felt a little embarrassed. I wanted to talk about it but I didn’t want to admit that I was just now getting around to what feels like the world’s most popular show. Even if it wasn’t the most talked about, I’ve never encountered anyone who’s never heard of it.

Over the years it grew into a comfort show, not because it’s a guilty pleasure, but because it provides the warm familiarity of hanging out with your best friends, who happen to be really funny. As the show neared the end, it was effortlessly emotional because it really was a whole era that was coming to an end. Seeing glimpses of how little Manny, Haley, Alex, and Luke all used to be made me wish that that much of my own life had passed alongside them and I could look back on how much I’d accomplished as the Dunphy’s grew up. I imagine that’s really special for the people who really did get to spend 11 years with the Pritchett clan.

I want to talk about “Five Minutes” just because I think it’s a really good one. On the whole, I think Mitch and Cam are Modern Family’s weak spot- their stories are generally superficial and repetitive and they are actually awful to each other, lying and keeping score all the time. But in this episode, they’re a perfectly silly united front. They’ve just boarded a plane bound for Turks and Caicos and popped some sleeping pills, settling into vacation mode. Then, a technical issue forces them to deplane and wander around LAX in search of a new flight- now high as kites. Having recently taken an edible in the LAX security line just for my flight to immediately get delayed, it seemed to me like a very plausible and hilarious premise. In their altered state, Mitch and Cam are a dumb and dumber team as they try to make their way to their new flight, with a connection in Dallas, that leaves in five minutes:

Cam: I don’t want to go to Dallas.

Mitch: Yeah, we’re going to Turks and Caicos.

Desk Attendant: Dallas is just where you make your connection.

Cam: I’m having a very hard time processing information right now.

They walk away, then look down at their boarding passes.

“Wait, why do these say Dallas?”

“I have no idea.”

“Ma’am, I’m sorry, there’s been a horrible mistake.”

“We don’t want to go to Dallas.”

They meander, forgetting everything under the sun as they walk. They find themselves at a hat stand- a haberdashery, as Cam calls it. They try on hats, complimenting each other as they do.

Jesse Tyler Ferguson and Eric Stonestreet in "Five Minutes". Image courtesy of IMDb.

“Oh, look, little girl’s hats.”

“Oooh we should get one for Linda.”

“Who?”

“Um. Our daughter.”

“No, that’s LILY.”

“Oh I love that name!”

Eventually, they’re rescued by an employee on one of those indoor vehicles they have at the airport. I don’t know how else to describe them, but you know the ones, right? They’re delivered to their gate and make it to Turks and Caicos, happily ever after. But the ending is less important to me here than the journey, that was full of silly yet genuine affection for each other and forming a united front against a problem that neither of them caused.

Meanwhile, Haley is at dinner with her boyfriend, weatherman Rainer Shine, celebrating his 45th birthday. Five minutes before the cake arrives, things take a turn for the significant when Rainer, entering a midlife crisis, proposes to Haley. She initially says yes and both are excited, but cracks in their compatibility quickly surface, punctuated by a thunderstorm that Rainer failed to predict. In what is, in my opinion, one of the funniest and most underrated moments of the show, Haley hides the fact that she has the Weather app because the idea of not being people’s sole weather source hurts Rainer’s feelings:

“If it helps, my weather app didn’t predict rain either.”

“Your what?”

“Nothing.”

Sarah Hyland in "Five Minutes". Image courtesy of ABC.

The rest of the characters are also occupied in this episode; Manny is trying to park at the movie theater five minutes before the movie starts, while Jay and Gloria bicker in the car. Phil and Claire, worried about Alex’s social life in college, pay her a surprise visit. They fear she is embarrassed when she tries to get rid of them, but it quickly comes to light that she’s not lonely or embarrassed- she’s just dating Claire’s weird assistant Ben.

Not to say I don’t care about those parts of this episode, but they aren’t the reason it continues to stand out to me as I progressed through three more seasons. Mitch and Cam’s wholesome silliness, and Haley’s genuine sincerity were both refreshing changes of pace for their characters that made this episode special.

Have you seen Modern Family? Who’s your favorite character? What do you think made it the household staple that it’s become? You have to date one character, who would it be?