#love live spoilers

[nijigasakilove]

AHHHH BUBBLE RISE IS SO GOOD. THEY ATE. Love love love everything about this episode idc what superstar haters wanna say this is peak idol stuff here. Phenomenal episode and this season looks outstanding from a visual standpoint too.

Finally we get to see a little of Margarete’s true self and despite that prickly exterior she’s just as vulnerable as anyone else. She’s the sort of person who doesn’t necessarily say how she’s feeling but if you pay attention you can see how much she respects and trusts Kanon and over the course of the ep we really saw her open up. She’s always been chasing her sister’s shadow, but you’ll never be able to be anyone else!

The performance at the end where she was finally honest about knowing she rubbed people the wrong way and just let all her defenses down for a bit was so sweet. Kanon and Tomari grabbing her hand gave her the strength she needed to keep going forward ❤️

Tomari was amazing too. It’s interesting learning about her rivalry with Natsumi. Pretty funny that sibling rivalry is at the core of this new idol group that Kanon’s formed. Margarete with her sister and Tomari with Natsumi!

Kanon has had such a big impact on Margarete already and now they’re living together they’re gonna grow even closer but I’m kinda worried about Tomari, she’s even more profit driven than Natsumi lmao.

[waffleweirdo]

I finished the love live sunshine movie… wow, it was very good, wow, wow

Spoilers for sure. I’m mostly just going to be talking about my overall impressions, but there are definitely going to be some plot points I mention that spoil show.

Thoughts on the movie first:

I absolutely love that they seem to go completely insane with the concept of the movies. Like yeah the first half can involve the cast chasing each other around Italy!! Why not?! It was pretty obvious Mari’s mom was hiding something, and that makes her ridiculous plea to get everyone’s help even funnier. She thought that was believable?? And it worked??? Ridiculous and amazing. I love how much fun they had playing around with a new location too.

The little interactions between Aqours (also I just realized I’ve been spelling Aqours wrong this entire time) are as entertaining as always. They are all so wonderful. But Yoshiko stole the show for me I think, her attempts to hide from You and defaulting to just pretending to be a cat. Her redemption and then literally becoming a fallen angel again- I could go on, but it’s all so good.

Saint Snow’s conclusion and the special Love Live was great. I’ll talk about them more in overall thoughts, but I thought they worked really well in the movie!

Unfortunately the only version of the movie I could find didn’t have English subtitles for the songs, so I need to go back and look at those, but I’d say my favorites might be Saint Snow’s song, their song in Italy, or Mari, Kanan (I also think I’ve been spelling her name wrong!) and Dia’s song in Italy.

As far as the overall story goes it was spectacular. I was a bit unsure at first, but it really nailed it all in the end. Aqours moving forward with just six members was heartbreaking, and yet done so well. The ending scene with Dia, Mari, and Kanan did make me cry… I’ll talk more in general thoughts, but I thought this was a wonderful ending for Aqours.

General Thoughts:

Love alive Sunshine is so good!!!!! I love the characters so much!! I love the story!!! It’s super funny!!!! It- it’s great!!!!!!!!

I have a lot I want to say about the story as the whole, but one of the first things that comes to mind is how I genuinely thought they were going to save the school. At the start of the show I was a bit skeptical because they brought up the school closing and I remember thinking, ‘well in this case it sounds more like a population issue, I’m not sure school idols could fix this’. But as the show went on and I saw all their efforts I truly believed they could do it!! And then they didn’t…, They pulled an Orpheus on me! I was tricked and it was glorious.

But I think there’s a piece of that failure that makes Aqours so wonderful. Going in after just watching the original and Mu’s I kind of thought Aqours would be largely pretty similar, and while many of the core ideas were the same it was a new perspective that was just spectacular. Coming in last place in their first concert. Failing to save the school. Even though they often couldn’t succeed they kept moving forwards and they really did turn a zero into a one. That motto alone just encapsulates how effort toward even a mundane thing will eventually make change, even if it can’t be miraculous. I think that layer of harsh reality made them even more special. That’s a lot of the reason I really like them continuing on with just six. They can’t all stay together, but can still move forwards. I’m not saying it nearly as well as the show / movie does, but yeah.

Overall, season 1 was great, season 2 felt a bit iffy at the start (though this could’ve been personal fatigue), and then the middle and ending of season 2 were some of the best episodes I’ve ever seen and made me cry and cheer and yeah-

As far as characters go I love all of them. Chika is definitely my favorite, but basically the rest of the cast is all tied like one step behind her.

I really like what they did with Saint Snow! Having them serve as another perspective of people trying to be school idols, and their interactions with Aqours were just great! It was cool having side characters that got a lot of focus.

General Love Live thoughts:

I don’t really want to compare the series against each other, but I want to look at how cool the ways that Sunshine uses the fact that it’s a sequel are.

Obviously there’s a lot of narrative similarities in structure, and that contributes a lot to the Orpheus moment (listen it just makes sense in my brain). But what I really think is neat is how it plays into inspiration. Love Live as a whole definitely shares a lot of common themes and one of those is being inspired. And the opportunity to have the characters in your sequel be inspired by the first cast is so cool!! I think that idea of inspiration is really cool because a lot of Love Live feels a bit unreal, there’s nothing wrong with that, but I think just seeing something cool that inspires you, even if by chance like Chika is exactly how things like dreams happen. At least for me personally it just felt so real. And her efforts and struggles to turn it into reality benefited a bunch from that. I’m not sure if that made sense, but the connection is cool to me.

Oooookay, I think I’m probably not going to watch anymore Love Live for a bit. I can tell that I’m starting to get burned out, and oh gosh I need to actually do work for school oops. I definitely want to watch more in the future though!

[turbo-autism]

will forever love ryoko kui for depicting spooky evil laios despite him not actually having a villain arc

like thank you. i needed this. laios would never, and yet we have been fed anyway. ah dungeon meshi, as they say. do you get me.

[quadsuki]

falin touden babygirl they could NEVER make me hate you. this is all i saw anytime she was onscreen in today's ep

[prouvaireafterdark]

listen I know it's heartbreaking that Claudia dies and it's understandable to wish she didn't, but let's please not accuse the writers of fridging her. to do so is a fundamental misunderstanding of the story and is frankly insulting to the intelligence and skill of the writers of the show.

Claudia's death, and the overwhelming grief and regret her parents experience because of it, is quite literally the point of the entire story. she dies because Anne's daughter Michele died of leukemia when she was five years old and there was nothing she or her husband could do to prevent it.

writing IWTV was how Anne coped with the unimaginable loss of a parent losing her child. she created a story about a little girl that could not die and then killed her anyway. Claudia's death is a senseless, unavoidable tragedy, just like Michele's was. the grief that haunts Louis and Lestat for the rest of their lives is the same grief that haunted Anne and her husband.

so when you're accusing people of killing Claudia off to benefit a story about two men, please remember that in real life sometimes parents lose their children. please remember Michele Rice.

she's the reason Claudia exists.

she's also the reason Claudia cannot be saved.

[ambrosiagourmet]

I want to talk about why I think this is the one of the most important Falin panels:

So, Falin is really nice, right? It's one of the first things we really learn about her. She's kind even to the monsters of the dungeon - choosing to ward the party rather than fight spirits and cause them needless harm.

In the above early flashback in chapter 11, we see Marcille fawning over Falin's kindness, calling her an angel. Namari calls her soft-hearted. We see Falin choose not to fight even when a zombie attacks - instead she resolves the confrontation with a hug. After the flashback, the first thing Senshi says is that Falin "sounds like quite the person," which Marcille strongly affirms.

At this point in the story, all we have seen of Falin are these impressions; she is a healer, an angel, a caretaker with an infinite well of kindness towards everyone she meets - both friend and foe.

And honestly, that remains most of what we have to go by to understand her. The only times we get to see Falin on the page, alive and just herself, are in the opening and closing pages of the story and in the brief period of time after she is resurrected.

Nonetheless, we do have some more details to work with. For one, there is the scene that The Panel is from - a short memory in chapter 75, when Marcille flashes back to while she's dying. In that scene, Falin prepares to teleport them all out, and says that she's sorry "if there is a person at [their] destination." And that's when we get The Panel.

If you teleport someone or something into another person, the person teleported into is likely to be, at minimum, severely injured. They could die.

We can see a lovely little horrifying example of exactly why in one of the Daydream Hour doodles:

So, hmm. That's not... that's not SUPER nice. Certainly not displaying the same "kindness to all, friend and foe included" we saw represented earlier. On a basic level, this adds some nuance to Falin's kindness. We see it break a little, when pushed to the limit. We see her chose to protect the people she loves above all else.

Which makes sense! As Laios says when the Winged Lion accuses him of similarly being motivated more by his friends' safety than everyone else in the dungeon, "...most people, aside from virtuous do-gooders, would feel the same way."

So, we can take The Panel as simply showing a moment of weakness for Falin. A time when she was pushed to her limits, and that "most people" selfish side of her shone through.

However... I think there's a little more going on with Falin than just her being an angel 99% of the time, except just that once. I love The Panel because I think it helps us understand that Falin isn't just motivated by kindness - she also has a desire to avoid seeing people in pain.

Isn't that the same thing?

No, no it very much is not.

Let's look at a short comic from the Falin section of the Adventurer's Bible, because I think it illustrates this point perfectly. The group is complaining about how much Marcille's healing hurts, and comparing it to Falin's, which "doesn't hurt a bit." Marcille retorts with the following:

Now, the punchline of this comic is that, despite Marcille's sentimental assertion that she's "thinking of [them]" by letting her healing magic hurt, they all still prefer to be healed by Falin.

But hey, this wouldn't be the first time that Dungeon Meshi hides a very real character beat or insight in a gag, so let's think about this somewhat seriously.

If Marcille is right (and she knows a fair bit about magic, so we can assume that she has at least somewhat of a point), then what Falin is doing isn't kind. I suppose if someone specifically requested to not feel the pain, it could be kind, but that's not really what happened here. She is the one who felt badly about the others being in pain, and she is the one who decided, without telling them or giving them a choice in the matter, to take away that pain.

Both Marcille and Falin are healing the party, but Marcille is doing it in a way that accomplishes the task in the most straight forward way, without any additional interference. Falin is going out of her way to perform the healing in a way she is more comfortable with. A way that avoids pain.

Going back the The Panel, I don't think its a coincidence that the only time we see Falin (well, non-chimera Falin) willing to do something that could hurt someone is when any potential pain will be far away from her. If she got someone hurt or killed by teleporting the party to the surface? Not only would it be far out of her sight, but she'd be dead before she had to deal with any consequences of that action.

Falin is not a confrontational person. She doesn't push when Marcille won't tell her the truth about the resurrection, and she comforts Laios about her own death - both of those things happening in the only full chapter she is alive and conscious in the whole story.

We also know that she considered accepting Shuro's proposal, despite not having any special feelings towards him, and that Falin never explained to Marcille that she wanted them to share a meal together. When she brought Marcille various foods at the academy, she just accepted Marcille's confused rejection and gave up.

And lastly, we know that she is still in contact with her parents, despite the neglect and abuse she suffered at their hands. Although the way someone chooses to handle contact with abusive or bad family is a complicated topic, which I don't want to overly simplify, I do I think this fact gets at the heart of how she handles conflict.

So many people that Falin loves have hurt her. There are understandable hurts, like Laios leaving the village, or Marcille not understanding the food. And there are bigger, far less justifiable hurts - like her parents neglecting her throughout her childhood, and sending her away to be alone at the magic academy.

It doesn't seem like Falin has ever confronted any of it directly.

And the unhealthy aspects of this kind of avoidance of pain and confrontation is one of the things that the story of Dungeon Meshi is all about. We see Laios grapple with it before he goes to kill Falin, and we see Marcille acknowledge it at the end of the story, when she tells Laios that she has come to terms with Falin's death:

Eating is a part of life. Consuming other living things is a part of life. It isn't really possible to avoid that pain - you can only hide from the truth of it. You have to be selfish everyday. You have to eat - to choose to live. To choose to take up space.

And this is something Falin embraces, too. She comes back to life, after all.

We see her choose to come back to life.

And how does she make that choice? She eats. She consumes, and then she is asked a question by the manifestation of hunger itself:

Do you want to eat more?

There is a double meaning in the Winged Lion's final words on the next page.

When I first read this, I took it as him saying: life is cruel. You will suffer. You will feel more pain.

But perhaps, especially for Falin, this also means: you are choosing a path where you must cause pain. Where you must consume. Where you must take, and must be selfish. Because eating is the special privilege of the living, and it is their burden, too. In order to stay alive, she will need to keep eating.

And she chooses that. Chooses to be selfish. It's why her resurrection scene is so important, and it's why The Panel is so important. Because Falin coming back isn't the ultimate reward for all of the party's hard work.

It's her choice. Just like it was her choice that started everything in the first place. But this time, she doesn't choose to accept causing pain for the sake of Marcille and Laios. She does it for her own sake.

[expelliarmus]

[beaulesbian]

Emmrich & Lucanis banter about/with Spite because it's a very fun angle of conversation between them

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[saragrosie]

Sketching while streaming s5...

Jonathan Sims I will learn to draw you (this is my doing. I could draw him however I want and I choose to stick with an image of him in my brain that is difficult for me to draw. Masochism.)

Not s5 Mahtins below I enjoyed drawing cuz hes neat:

(Edit: I yassified Martin in the do not separate cuz I wanted his hair fluffier)

[krussyarts]

Family

[nick-nellson]

DOCTOR WHO | Rogue

[lizardkingeliot]

louis whispering in lestat's ear and kissing his face gently is all i care about this is all i'm talking about until season 3 goodbye

[mobius-m-mobius]

#my man was NOT subtle 🤣😉

+ bonus: message received 😅

[soldrawss]

Watching and Dreaming doodles cause im 🥺🥰

[cryptocism]

a dænce of roëmænce

depictions of the ace experience never seem to include the nightmare-borne skeleton creature from hell so kudos to the dimension 20 team for their commitment to accurate rep

[nidbaesenpai]

I'm always sad whenever I think about the implications of Loop having no mouth.