#not gonna lie I got a little excited to finally work on the joker cast

[ariparri]

The Former Jack of Spades

HPHM Cardverse Masterlist

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Duncan doesn’t catch a break does he? I could have given him a good life, but no I like the angst.

I know I was struggling to pick a color scheme for his appearance. In the end, the brown hair and black eyes spoke to me more xD I also wanted to give him a lighter color scheme in contrast to Coby's dark one. It’s a nice contrast to their characters.

❌ NO REPOSTING ❌

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Duncan Ashe, the esteemed Jack of Spades, also known as the Chancellor. Before his role, he was a mischief maker and enjoyed causing trouble alongside his friend, Coby McQuaid. Since they are good friends, Duncan acts as the voice of reason for the ambitious King Coby. They share a strong bond and both comrades can rely on the other in times of need. Even as Coby is the King, Duncan still refers to him by name rather than his title. Coby would even insist that their friendship shouldn't be treated differently due to their roles.

Duncan is a calm and flexible leader with universal capabilities. Praised for his determination and cunning, he does his best to inspire several of the younger members of his court, as he finds them to be the hope for their country should something happen to him. He carefully arranges his words to be as concise as possible; his eyes catch onto minute details; his actions are never wasted. Whenever a problem occurs, he acts upon the most efficient solution available to him.

Like with his second in command, Jacob Cromwell, Duncan also viewed Rakepick with suspicion and confided in him, "Patricia Rakepick is a person who does her actions on her own accord and will one day be someone who cannot serve under another." He then told Veruca to avoid the Ace at all costs after her brother's death. Rakepick and Duncan’s ideals would clash when it came to running Spades now that Coby wasn’t around. Duncan became worried when Rakepick was issuing stricter laws and rules over the country against his approval. His predictions of her character proved correct as she took full control not too long afterward.

There was too much tension between the Jack and Ace, the entire country could see it. And it wouldn’t be too long if Duncan had gained the support from the people to dismiss Rakepick from her position. Knowing he had to be dealt with immediately, Rakepick had invited Duncan to the clocktower under false pretenses that she was willing to let him handle human affairs. However, Duncan was aware of what Rakepick was planning and cut their conversation short by drawing his weapon. The two officials engaged in a duel, Rakepick having more experience in combat had no problems holding her own against Duncan. While he had more skills in marksmanship, Duncan was a decent swordsman. Rakepick commended Duncan for his insight, especially when he figured out what she had originally intended for him. Yet mocked him for thinking she’d be the one to deal the final blow. Duncan was caught off guard when he got stabbed in the back. When he finally sees who the perpetrator was, he is more than shocked to see the director of the museum, Verucca Buckthorn-Snyde brandishing a knife. The two women left Duncan in the clocktower. If the poison didn’t kill him, the blood loss would.

When it was announced that Duncan was assassinated, many of the people mourned his death. Some time after the civil war, and Veruca had claimed the throne, a monument was made as a memorial of Duncan. The country still celebrates his birthday with people placing flowers by his monument. Only a few people know that Duncan’s ghost haunts the clocktower. Rowan Khanna seeks Duncan’s advice on her position as the new Jack. Veruca, Olivia, and some members of Duncan’s court visit him just to keep him company.

[raggscat32]

[this got incredibly long winded about like nothing i'm so sorry??? no need to read it in full lmao idk what good juicy info there is in here anyway]

legitimately it's been SO long LMAO but lemme see what little i remember in the heat of the moment ... so I wasn't actually on Tumblr yet, and i'd been a starkid fan for only a few months at that point. most of my interactions with the fandom were based purely in instagram and some very embarrassing wattpad fics I can't divulge the details of for the sole reason of some things just need to stay between me and my limited use of wattpad.

(((and also i realize I said july in the initial post, it was fully june through august.)))

i'd been watching tin can skits for a minute because I was kinda obsessed with Brian for a moment (idk i was 14 also he's great let's ALL be honest) so when they announced this musical's internet release I was SO damn excited because firebringer hadn't come out yet so it'd been a bit since we'd gotten new starkid content, and I was again, very very new, so this was like an intervening divine gift. (by that point I had already worked my way through the entire catalog of starkid content.) anyway backstory aside here's some fun facts about the upload schedule and the general vibes as best as I can recall.

the first upload was part 1 and part 2, so naturally we all thought ok it's gonna upload two parts at once each week. WRONG. these jokers uploaded one part per week for the next months (MONTHS) EXCEPT act 2 pt 6 and 7, thank god, which nowadays everyone's like well that's not a big deal! it was only a week wait! girls (gays and theys) these parts are in like 15 minute segments if not shorter it was HELL.

I wasn't so much theorizing as spewing a lot of again, mostly incredibly embarrassing comments on every single act. i was actively losing my mind in all of these comments, I've looked back on them to respond to this and it's actively killing me. who let 14 year olds be loose on the internet.

a lot of the thrill for me mostly came from 1) getting to be a part of something like this in it's initial release stages (even though I did not get to watch the livestream they did during the release of act 2 pt 6 and 7 unfortunately I probably was busy being a teenager) and 2) getting to read other people's comments as each part came out. some people had gotten to see it live and they'd be like "during my show ___" and other people were doing more theorizing than I was capable of. the twist legitimately got me, i'm not gonna lie, owen's reveal was INSANE and frankly it still gets me every time i rewatch it.

pretty much every time a part came out I watched it immediately. I remember the final parts being dropped while I was at my grandparents and having to watch it and not scream because there were other people in the house. the end all be all of it for me as someone who wasn't super active in the fandom was that i got to BE there while it was released. and then ofc the cast album release was a whole other thing that i was super pumped for because obviously this entire musical slaps (I do not remember if it came out before or after the youtube release at this point, but that's neither here nor there).

anyway if i ever think of anything where i actually Was theorizing...I'll update lmao i honestly can't remember anything super specific but i think it's important to mention i was a gravity falls fan as well right before this time so I wouldn't be surprised if I Was in my head and just forgot. or saw any posts from anyone else (debatable given my limited online scope at that point).

showed my roommate SAF last night and was instantly whiplashed by the reminder that 8 years ago i watched this thing come out live over the course of July-Aug of 2016. truly nothing compares to the absolute insanity of being there for every upload of each new part and watching the story slowly unfold.

[arcaneranger]

Final Thoughts - 2019 Long Shows

Dear Lord. This is where all the good shows went.

2019 was absolutely awful on a season-by-season basis (except for Summer, anyway), but that’s mostly because most of the best shows ran longer than what has become the industry norm of a single season. And indeed, heading into the new decade, we seem to be seeing a major renaissance for two- or split-cour shows, given the massive success seen by shows like My Hero Academia, Food Wars, and Haikyuu!!..particularly in comparison to the new perpetual-runners Black Clover (which, despite running for over two straight years now, is still not the most popular show of Fall 2017 by viewer count on MAL, and sits at a ‘meh’ 7.2), and even worse, Boruto: Naruto Next Generations, which is faring even worse on both counts even though it premiered two whole seasons earlier and the fact that it is the sequel to Naruto.

As a reminder of my rules, the shows on this list may or may not have premiered in 2019, but they finished airing this year. The split-cour rule (stating that I judge any show that “finishes” and then premieres a “new season” within six months) didn’t come into play for any 2018 shows, but it will for Ascendance of a Bookworm and Food Wars this year, at the very least.

With that being said! 25 shows running longer than thirteen episodes finished airing this year after being simulcast, and of those…

I skipped 6:

Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure Part V: Golden Wind, Fairy Tail Final Series, A Certain Magical Index III, Ace Attorney Season 2 and Cardfight Vanguard (2018) because I either dropped or have not finished their previous (also long-running) seasons.

Yu-Gi-Oh VRAINS because the simulcast started late and also it was bad.

I Dropped 8:

Worst Long Show of 2019: The Rising of the Shield Hero

It’s always fun to see that a show you hated from its first episode only gets more and more distasteful afterwards, but it’s less fun when a service you have to promote because they’re the legal option is forced to shove it down your throat because they had a hand in making it and it became a massive hit that your friends don’t see any issue with because the author wrote a story that justifies its hero’s patronage of the slave industry. This is my punishment for watching the whole first season of The Asterisk War before I knew better.

YU-NO: A girl who chants love at the bound of this world

A confusing mess from the word go, this ill-fated adaptation of a visual novel from the nineties seems like it was mostly made to cash in on the popularity of the Science Adventure series, but failed to present itself in a way that made an ounce of sense or looked remotely interesting.

Fairy Gone

Am I really the only one that saw potential here? I mean yes, it ended up a boring slog that didn’t care to move its plot in a meaningful direction, but the first episode was at least cool. I guess Izetta: The Last Witch should have taught me better.

We Never Learn

I know that I’m in the minority in terms of the male demographic for shows like this, but honestly, how are bland harem shows still this easy to market? A copy-pasted protagonist with copy-pasted waifus drag down what could be an interesting setup for a story. 

Karakuri Circus

The first episode of this one had me excited, the second and third left me bored to tears and wondering if it would continue to look uglier by the minute. I haven’t seen a three-cour show look this janky since Knight in the Area.

Radiant

Having heard good things about this show from my cohorts, I do feel bad for saying I’ll probably never return to Radiant, but when you have a show that’s notably written by a European author...and it turns out to be a frustratingly standard shounen affair with middling production values, well, you can see my earlier annoyance with Cannon Busters.

Ensemble Stars

This one still gets to me. It almost looked like a male-idol show I would finally be able to get behind, what with its rebellious attitude and oddball setting...that is, until the setting got to be too unbelievable and the show began drowning its audience in side-characters because they had to squeeze every husbando from the mobile game into the story, and it all began to resemble UtaPri a little too much...but without the production value.

Boogiepop and Others

This was a hard drop, honestly. I spent a lot of time trying to figure out how I felt four episodes in, before concluding that I was bored and not particularly invested, two things that should never describe the experience of watching a Madhouse show. The fact that this was the project responsible for ruining One Punch Man only made it worse. There’s a slow burn, and then there’s walking away without turning the stove on.

And I Finished 11 (holy crap that’s like three hundred episodes just on their own).

That Time I Was Reincarnated as a Slime (5/10 & 1/10)

I’ll be honest, I had forgotten just how livid I was with the ending (and especially the sad excuse of a recap episode) of Slimesekai, and reading back through my write-up of it, it’s certainly coming back to me. While this year had bigger demons to fight (Shield Hero), the bad taste that Slime left me with hasn’t really faded, and the wasted premise bugs me to this day.

Hinomaru Sumo (7/10)

What Hinomaru lacked in production value, it happily made up for in good execution and earnest heart. I can’t believe this came from the same studio as Conception, Try Knights and 7Seeds, but if they can only get out one good show a year, I’m glad that we got one bringing attention to a sport that many will joke about but few understand, respect and appreciate.

Kono Oto Tomare (7/10)

Speaking of giving love to traditional Japanese culture, here’s a decent-if-unoriginal show about a local high school koto club down on their luck, and the troubled teens coming together under a scrappy protagonist to bring it back to life. Kono Oto Tomare doesn’t have much that you haven’t seen before, but a decently-executed club drama with Your Lie In April-inspired musical performances is more than enough to keep me interested, and since Forest of Piano kinda crashed and burned under the weight of its own self-importance this year, it was nice to have an alternative.

MIX: Meisei Story (8/10)

It’s hard to judge MIX next to the other shows on this list because it’s almost too old-school for its own good, revelling in an eighties storytelling style that didn’t end up jiving with a wide audience this year. But at the same time, its fun character dynamics (and a very good dub from Funimation, despite them saying they’d never touch sports anime again) were very entertaining to watch, even if it didn’t focus as much on the sport it was supposedly about as much as I’d have liked.

Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba (8/10)

I fully admit that I’m very salty about the fact that this won Show of the Decade in Funimation’s poll while it was still on and I thought there were hundreds of more deserving shows, but I can’t deny that Demon Slayer was a very enjoyable experience, albeit one that I had notable problems with. That’s not gonna stop me from getting mad when it sweeps the Anime Awards in a few weeks, though.

Fire Force (8/10)

I was very afraid that David Productions wouldn’t be able to match the energy of Studio Bones’ adaptation of Ohkubo’s previous work, Soul Eater, but I was happy to be proven wrong. Even if the last few episodes contained a bit too much infodumping, it was all sandwiched between jaw-dropping fight scenes that proved that the people who make Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure can still handle the reins of a more traditional action show.

Fruits Basket 1st Season (8/10)

I know that my score for this one is a bit lower than others, but I think that Fruits Basket did pretty well in its first season, considering that it was largely spent setting up future storylines and adapting the part of the manga we’d all seen before, but with much higher production value. I’ve been familiar with this part of the story for over a decade, and the scene with Tohru and Kyo (you know the one) still made me cry. Now, we get the real plot going.

Dr Stone (9/10)

A great start to a totally new spin on shounen, Dr Stone gives me hope for survival in the post-Shokugeki world in which we’ll soon live, as a show that wears its research on its sleeve. A complex plot weaving interesting characters in and out of a narrative surrounding a philosophical battle where both sides actually do have fair points (even if one of them is going about it in a pretty cruel manner). More please.

Vinland Saga (9/10)

Once again, a great start to what will hopefully be years of quality storytelling, Vinland Saga made it seem like it was dragging in the middle only to reveal just what its slow burn had been leading up to, with twist-heavy storytelling and a fantastic cast to match the high visual quality of its brutal battles.

Run With the Wind (9/10)

It’s not often that Production I.G. gets to make a complete, fully-realized show anymore, and this one was a glorious reminder of the potential of the studio in the TV space, and a great rebound for the director of Joker Game. It’s gorgeous to look at, the cast is wonderful, and the story is both realistic and idealistic in a satisfying balance. It’s a miserable process to get to the finish line in real life, but sitting back and watching this was nothing but a treat. At least, until a minor fumble at the end.

Best Long Show of 2019: Dororo (9/10)

Speaking of complete stories, Tezuka Productions and MAPPA teamed up for a breathtaking adaptation of an underappreciated Tezuka classic that expands upon the story in exactly the right way to create a thrilling, savage, beautiful masterpiece that focuses a laser-sharp eye into the relationship between two characters in their journey to, literally and figuratively, become complete people. Also, that opening was killer.

And that’s it! That’s the fun list. Next comes the painful one. Stay tuned for the trash heap.