#perfect timing considering Gen V's season just ended

[zoanzon]

OH SHIT, I WASN'T PAYING ATTENTION TO TIME AND DATES, S2 OF INVINCIBLE IS STARTING TO AIR

[aqvarius]

I hope the rmd mc for kasumi is a bit different cuz she rly be hittin on my last nerve and I don’t think she would rly v✨i✨b✨e with kasumi in her current given state

i’ve decided i need to play matsunaga and cc before getting a better sense of the eicu guys but honestly some of these recent asks feel like my own brain jumped out of my head and started sending me anon asks lmao bc i totally agree. anyway i know it’s a controversial opinion to not like the rmd mc and i’m TRYING to be fair and put aside my bias against her and try to analyse what exactly it is that i don’t like, but yeah i just don’t really find that she has romantic chemistry with the characters (that i’ve read, i.e. takado and hosho). not that anyone ever asked for this, buuuuuut this ask has basically triggered yet another mc rant so stop reading here or get ready and settle down with some popcorn lmao.

DISCLAIMER: this is all just my personal opinion! and i’m sure many of you will disagree with me. please place a “i think/believe/feel” before every claim i make as everything i say here is just my own feeling towards her. i also need to disclaim that i have only properly read takado and hosho’s routes (bc i’m still...mad at sen’s route, and i’ve only made it through one chapter of matsunaga so far) and i understand (and fully subscribe to) the idea that mcs read differently depending on the route as well. and as always, please don’t let my opinions affect your own enjoyment of any characters or titles that you love!

ALSO as i was writing this, i went back and read my previous rant about her and i realised that i’m more or less reiterating the same points i made there but in a (hopefully) more structured and slightly more developed manner whoops. 

so here’s almost 3000 words and a whole bunch of screenshots under the cut because i don’t want to spam everyone’s dashboards with my unprompted Opinions(tm).

so anyway i’ve been thinking it’s a translation/tone thing. when i have the time/energy, i might sit down and really try to analyse the actual language, but just going off my intuition, i think maybe it’s because:

1. sometimes they choose to express something idiomatically and so that tone doesn’t come across as sincere. this isn’t a real example, but let’s think about the difference in tone between “oh no!” and “yikes”. because of modern day vernacular, we kind of associate “yikes” with a sarcastic and judgmental tone, whereas “oh no!” might connote a more genuinely concerned reaction. so sometimes i think that the use of very contemporary vernacular (which, lbr, trends towards a more sarcastic tone in general bc us gen z kids are mean) results in a lack of sincerity which makes the mc come across as a little more callous and less... actually kind and nice? i did get the feeling that hlitf mc has recently swayed towards this sort of tone as well and suspected that they had the same translator (which was confirmed later in a voltage Q&A). i’m definitely #biased but i can forgive this more because we had a good amount of content with her being adorable before the tone switch so i have a pre-established impression of her in my mind. 

by the way, i just want to say that while i do have this critique, i do really admire and respect the voltage translation and localisation team (and am... super indebted to them) and i do think they do fantastic translations generally. 

anyway, i believe this linguistic issue is at least partially responsible for my personal perception of the rmd mc’s personality that i expand on in the succeeding points, but my next point has more to do with the writing and characterisation of the most recent wave of mcs.

2. rmd mc has very few visible vulnerabilities. i think this is one of my biggest qualms with the new title mcs like rmd, destind and mk but i think stories are at their best when you get to see the mc fail and be vulnerable and wallow. the reason why i love certain mcs - particularly the ones whose titles and storylines centre around their careers (hlitf, irresistible mistakes, my last first kiss, scandal, celebrity darling, kiss of revenge, sleepless, otbs, arguably msb, etc.) - is because we get to see them fail and then grow. not only that, but you often get to see the relationship between the mc and the love interest deepen in these moments. but if you have a ‘perfect’ mc, then there’s no room for growth, so plotlines are forced to fall back on drama and trauma on the love interest’s side which... is exactly what rmd and mk do. 

this is not to say that rmd mc doesn’t make mistakes, because she certainly does, but i don’t find that they’re ever genuinely serious mistakes. for example, think about hlitf mc’s repeated mistake in season 1 of going after small crimes without seeing the bigger picture and thus potentially messing up an entire investigation. they allow her that space to mess up and be completely wrong for public safety. then they give her the time to be self-reflective and run away back to nagano really think about what her mistakes are, and where to go from there. she is confronted with humbling failure, and is forced to address issues about her own pride/ego, and matures into someone who has a more nuanced idea about justice. on the other hand, rmd mc never has to (consistently, afaik) go through a genuinely humbling experience, so she her pride/ego/arrogance never gets seriously called into question. maybe this is because the premise of rmd has to do with life and death and they don’t want to make it seem like she’s directly responsible for someone’s death, but hlitf also deals with life and death issues and the mc learns that if she messes up to save one civilian, she may actually be jeopardising the lives of tens or hundreds or more. 

anyway, taking takado’s route as an example, because this was our exposure to her as a character, the most frustrating thing is the way that she tries to lecture takado that he’s wrong about his attitude towards amputations, and never actually has to personally experience the potentially disastrous consequence of putting her ideology into practice. i think i would have enjoyed the route a lot more if she had gone over his head and naively made the decision not to do an amputation and then the person ended up dying or having to have a larger section amputated all because she was like uwu we can’t just cut off people’s limbs without waiting. i think if that situation had happened, we could have seen her actually have to confront her own naiveté and realise that she’s a noob and too idealistic and that reading a lot of medical journals does not translate to having actual field experience and intuition and who is she to question him like that when she knows nothing. she only realises that omg... we may have to consider some things with something called nuance... basically when more of takado’s backstory is revealed.  

(maybe this is because i work in academia so it extra-frustrates me, but omg if i had to one-on-one mentor a student like her, i would genuinely go nuts. she reminds me of some students that some colleagues and i have had where they  “well, actually” at everything you say bc they read some stuff on reddit or twitter that has absolutely not been proven through practical application of, or research conducted through the lens of, their theory. like imagine i told my advisors “despite being experts in [their respective fields] and having written numerous very important books, you’re wrong because i don’t agree but i have never myself conducted proper research to counter that!!”)

basically i wish they treated takado’s route like kaga’s routes (bc lbr takado and kaga are maybe... the same person?). look at the self-reflection here:

and here:

she does get down on herself at times, but look at the way that she humbly accepts her mistakes. sometimes she wallows on her mistakes, as anyone would, but look at the way she examines her failures and turns that feeling of inadequacy into motivation to work harder and smarter. 

by the way, these screenshots are from his ms1 and ms2 - so pretty early on - and we get to see her learn from these mistakes because she’s allowed to make them. we also get to learn more about kaga’s strictness and his kindness because of these mistakes.

i don’t know if the whole refusal to allow rmd mc to make significant errors is a response to readers who are like “omg.... why are voltage mcs so weak, why can’t they be perfect women who never get anything wrong” but ANYWAY i just feel like they never confront or address her hubris properly. 

3. following on from point 2, i find her one-dimensional. i’ve mentioned this before in a rant, but i don’t find her to be a very deep character bc to me, she reads as mostly surface level sass. i said: “her dialogue with them often reads as like they put 100 points in “snark” and 0 points in any other personality trait” lmao. so she’s great in one-off screenshots where you can see her bite back with a very screenshottable one-liner, but i find it tiring to have 30 chapters of her just literally running her mouth. because of this constant tone that they keep giving her, i find it really difficult to see any emotional depth in her character. because she’s the perspective character, her internal dialogue is just as, if not more, important as the love interest’s external dialogue in terms of carrying the emotional weight of falling in love, and i just don’t understand how there’s any sense of two people falling in love and getting to know each other when every sentence out of her mouth is just sass. can you imagine you meet someone and you get to know them but never have any genuine conversations bc every line out of your mouth is sarcastic? like your date is opening up and telling you about some difficulties he’s going through (which i’m sure you all know is a very vulnerable and scary thing to do) and instead of being empathetic and kind and understanding, you’re just like “sucks to be you dude”. and instead of saying “you don’t need to carry everything on your shoulders”, you say “you’re STUBBORN and i’m RIGHT”. OF COURSE i’m being kind of hyperbolic here (not even that much tho, see screenshots below) but that’s basically the tone she constantly takes. 

so when takado opens up about the rina thing, instead of being like “oh shit i’ve been judging him all this time and i’m genuinely sorry because i didn’t know a thing about you and yet i’ve been running my mouth”, she says “your head is as hard as a rock ya know?” and then KEEPS GOING. 

where’s the empathy sis? where is it? i’m looking but i can’t find it.

EVEN TAKADO WAS LIKE “I WAS TRYING TO TALK SERIOUSLY ABOUT IT”

and then the writers just push off her rudeness as like “it’s okay it’s chill!! takado laughed about it afterwards and it made the issue sound insignificant!!” even tho it’s obviously an extremely traumatic thing? WHY does he even fall in love with her??? i don’t UNDERSTAND alsdkfjs she has NO FEELINGS!! i just want genuinely romantic moments... is that too much to ask... it’s called romance md...

once again, let’s compare that to hlitf mc, when she finds out about kaga’s trauma. literally the FIRST reaction she has is to consider his feelings.

without even hearing his side of the story, she defends him because she trusts him and immediately empathises with him and the first thing she does is try to understand him and where he’s coming from. 

later on, when she hears him just dismissing things and playing callous, she actually cries on his behalf, which shocks him because he’s not used to people caring about him:

isn’t that a MASSIVE difference in reaction to essentially the same character opening up about their trauma? which do you find more conducive to developing emotional intimacy? in my opinion, it’s so much easier to fall in love with someone who supports you and has your back and trusts and believes in you and tries to understand you and can have a genuinely caring conversation with you when you need it. by the way, it’s not like kaga’s mc doesn’t sass him either! they have great bantery chemistry and she shit-talks him ALL THE TIME (a lot of the time under her breath and he’s like HUH? it’s great). 

and yet... we still actively see her caring about him... instead of being like WHOOPS my tongue slipped, i can’t help that i’m naturally insubordinate ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

by the way, i’m not trying to put the onus on female characters/heroines to be caring/empathetic/kind/loving. i’m putting the onus on ALL characters to be caring/empathetic/kind/loving in their own ways if we’re supposed to be convinced that they’re falling in romantic love. sure, kaga’s mc is exceptionally loving but kaga returns that love with his own ALL the time ;~~; anyway i’m gonna stop talking about them for now bc otherwise i would just completely derail and keep going on and on about them. 

anyway, back to takado, i actually find him to be more caring and loving than his mc? i actually genuinely like takado as a character and i think that real life me and him would be great together so i’m like extra offended that he’s with her rather than ME??? i would treat him so much better. 

i consider this lack of emotional depth to actually be a bigger hindrance on my enjoyment of the game than the lack of flaws thing. voltage’s recent wave of mcs with the love choice titles have been trending towards the ‘perfect woman’ type of mc, but while i have some Thoughts(tm) here and there about the other protagonists, none of them strike me as being as hard to get along with as rmd’s mc. so i’ve mentioned my issue with the masukisu mc’s weird moral boundaries (more an overall voltage issue that manifests the most strongly in her character), but i also do find that they don’t let her make big mistakes and they present her as this perfect superwoman figure with no weaknesses which like... unrelatable. but at least her banter is flirty banter and there’s a lot of chemistry there (even if it’s sometimes lacking emotional depth, as in some of kazuomi’s scenes - and that’s not her fault, that’s 100% on kazuomi lol). you can definitely understand why they’re attracted to each other at least, and you can definitely see real, deep love form between her and yuzuru the most. even though the masukisu mc is a ‘perfect woman’, the premise is designed to spark relationship conflict and the writing really helps us understand the emotional turmoil of falling in love with a target because of how much it lets the mc dwell on it. destind too basically has a perfect mc in terms of work/career, but they let her have her very glaring weaknesses and, once again, the premise forces her to address her shortcomings with regards to her idealistic view on soulmates/destiny and explores the head vs heart thing where she has to really examine her emotions and how they potentially come into conflict with her preconceptions of and preoccupation with numerical compatibility. 

thinking about it objectively, i feel like takado’s mc and mlfk ayato’s mc have a couple of similarities in the way that they don’t realise they’re in love for the longest time (although obviously childhood friends to lovers provides a better context for not realising that love - same with my boi natsume), but there’s just something lovable about mlfk’s mc that i don’t see in rmd. without going too deeply into it bc (1) i’m tired and (2) i’ve been going on about this for WAY too long now, i think that comes back to tone or writing (and possibly translation) style. i think at some point, i might actually go and compare the language in the “omg am i in love...?” scenes between takado’s mc, ayato’s mc and natsume’s mc but uh... not tonight haha. 

actually, at some point, i genuinely wondered if rmd mc was aromantic. i really just thought she did not experience romantic attraction because i literally got no sense of it through her internal monologue bc they kept pushing the whole like “i only relate to people’s ~aesthetics~” thing. and then i wondered how they were going to make an aromantic mc fall in romantic love...? because... it’s an otome game? (btw i’m not saying that aro people can’t enjoy otoge, i definitely know people who do! but there’s a big diff between someone playing an otoge vs someone being a character falling in romantic love in an otoge. but please call me out if i’m misunderstanding aromanticism!). anyway, long story short, rmd mc (takado’s especially) falling in love is absolutely unconvincing to me because i find her dialogue - both internal and external - rather unfeeling. 

these three points (1. translation that favours colloquialism over communicating emotional tone; 2. characterisation of a hubristic mc who doesn’t need to overcome significant challenges; 3. lack of emotional depth and empathy/understanding) are basically why i don’t think that she has good romantic chemistry with the love interests in romance md that i’ve read so far. i also have some very petty personal gripes (sekai...........) but they’re not relevant to this particular topic and frankly just... really petty so i don’t want to get into them here.

so anyway, long story short: i agree that i don’t think she would really vibe with kasumi in her current given state. like, they could be friends, maybe.

[delineative]

writing year in review

i was not tagged but i've wanted to do this meme for years, and FINALLY this year i wrote more than 2 fics, so here i am at last!

total number of completed stories:  

ao3: 15 (+1 unrevealed)

tumblr: 3

overall: 18

total word count:  

ao3: 46 302

tumblr: 1 881

overall: 48 183

fandoms written in:

7 seeds

boku no hero academia

haikyuu

mystic messenger

pokemon go

yugioh arc v

looking back, did you expect to write more fic than you thought you would this year, less, or about what you’d expected? way more. way, way more. to put it into perspective, i wrote 11 572 words for 2014-2015 combined. i can't believe i somehow managed to write nearly 50k this year, particularly considering how busy i was with school… it's not much in comparison with other writers, but i'm a notoriously slow and unproductive writer, so i'm very proud of that wordcount!

what’s your own favorite story of the year? a tie between 'a girl of routine', which i'm ridiculously fond of despite the pacing problems, and 'the snow covers us', which i think hit the balance between pretty prose and intensity of emotional impact. they're not perfect, but i really love them!

incidentally, least favourite would be 'all the choirs in my head' and 'all of those better days' because i'm not happy at all with the characterisation (i've kicked them both onto a pseud).

did you take any writing risks this year? quite a few! i signed up for hqhols for the first time, wrote treats for the first time (1 in hqhols, 3 in yuletide), broke 10k on a fic for the first time in 'A History of Storms', published a fic on the same day i wrote it, and tried out epistolary for the first time! i did quite a lot of experimentation with my writing style, going from super dense and flowery ('an outline of shapes i used to know', 'the dimming divide') to more relaxed and subtle ('a girl of routine', 'i won't say it') and ending up somewhere comfortably in the middle.

do you have any fanfic or profit goals for the new year? next year i enter the Hell Zone of school so honestly, i'll be happy if i can finish just one fic. i'm going to try signing up for yuletide again (even though it's right in the middle of my exam season) as well! this year i spent a lot of time working on dialogue and narrative flow, and next year i'd like to work more on pacing and plot. i'd also like to figure out how to strike the balance between authentic narrative voice and my writing style.

best story of the year? 'A History of Storms', definitely! overall i think it's my best work in terms of plot, pacing, characterisation, prose and general narrative construction, and i'm very happy with how it turned out.

i'm also very proud of 'emerge in the telluric light', which i feel was a sort of turning point re the quality of my writing--it was the first fic i'd written that i felt didn’t have any glaring errors in flow/pacing/characterisation/dialogue.

most popular story of the year? 'i won't say it', which is sitting on an incredible 630 kudos and 24 comment threads! the reception to this fic has really blown my mind. i wrote and published this the day the team leader designs were released, and i suspect getting in early (creating the blanche/candela tag, no less!) played a big part in this fic's popularity… thank you pokemon go fandom!

story of mine most under-appreciated by the universe, in my opinion: i'm not generally surprised when my fics don't get much reception, because i tend to write rarer fandoms/ships/characters, but that being said i think 'how the sky looked after they left' is still a pretty nice story. it's a short gen character study of a minor female character, though, so i understand why it hasn't gotten as much attention as my other fic.

most fun story to write: all of my 7 seeds fics were a blast to write, but particularly 'show some entrepreneurial initiative'! shoutout to my best girl mayu for having such a fun pov to write in, and for the general weirdass hyperspecific summer a narration style.  

story with the single sexiest moment: um… i think the scene where candela kisses blanche's hand in 'A History of Storms' is very sexy. there is also a wound care scene in the unrevealed fic which is pretty hot, imo.

i don't think the actual pwp has any sexy moments.

most sweet story: i think the most straightforwardly sweet story i've written is 'tell me we'll never get used to it' which is pretty much just 1.3k of domesticity with slight edges, but even that dives a little bit into the oikawa talent narrative. maybe 'show some entrepreneurial initiative' if taken purely at face value and ignoring canon etc?

”holy crap, that's wrong, even for you!” story: n/a nothing is wrong for me, this year it finally hit me that i don’t owe anyone anything and i can literally write whatever i want, which i did.

but i guess i did venture past a soft T rating for the first time and write something slightly more explicit than my usual fare of 'thinking about holding hands'/'intense eye contact', so that's something.

story that shifted my own perceptions of the characters: i began 'the snow covers us' with a vague but earnest enthusiasm for minor female characters in general and finished the fic as fuyumi's #1 fan. i have so many thoughts about her position as the eldest child in a family like the todorokis (and all the failed expectation that comes with that), and her relationship with her youngest and most powerful brother. i wish someone else would write an epic fuyumi biopic so i won't have to!!

most unintentionally telling story: all… of them… but i projected particularly hard on blanche in 'the dimming divide', and jaehee in 'heart wide as the sea'. something about that imposter syndrome and repression of feelings. you know. the sudden shift in tone to optimism in the endings is pure wish fulfilment.

and i didn't realise it while i was writing it but 'a girl of routine' was absolutely me setting out one of my biggest fantasies ie being able to step away from something you've devoted a huge chunk of your life to so you can evaluate how you feel about it from a safe distance, and then reengage with it on your own terms, surrounded by a support network, without any fallout or consequences for leaving in the first place.

hardest story to write: i started 'an outline of shapes i used to know' last year and it took me half a year to finish because i really wanted to do oikawa's character justice and acknowledge as many different facets of his personality as possible! i was also working through a lot of personal stuff re his natural talent vs hard work arc and publishing the fic was definitely kind of cathartic.

biggest disappointment: pokemon go fandom at the height of its hype really spoiled me with my first two fics, so i'm a little bit sad that the kudos count on 'A History of Storms' doesn't really reflect how much effort and energy i put into it ;v; especially considering that it's my best and longest piece by far! it isn't the fic with the lowest kudos count--that would be 'antebellum' and 'all of those better days', both on 3 kudos--but since those are for small fandoms like yugioh arc v i'm not too disappointed by that!

biggest surprise: still not over that word count?!?!? also, breaking 100 kudos for five different fics when i'd never managed to do so before (my shock when 'all the choirs in my head' and 'i won't say it' broke 100 kudos in like a day…)! and the fact that people have offered to translate three of my fics, which i will never be over. honestly i will probably never, ever be over the fact that people like my fic at all, so if you've ever read/kudosed/commented on/recced anything i've written, thank you from the bottom of my heart ❤️

[ggdbcheapsale-blog]

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[magicmorningmeteora]

Q1 & Q2 Roundups + Q3 Schedule Announcement

Greetings, Citizens of the Universe!

Sorry it's been so long since a post roundup. I... simply kept forgetting, in the midst of the chaos and fatigue. (However, one big reason for my absentmindedness is that I’ve been preparing for the future!)

Roundups for Q1 & Q2

Q3 Schedule announcement! (The first post will go live on July 19!)

Anyway, we have a lot to cover so let's go!

Q1

Pump Up a Thank You, Beautiful Dreamers!!! - To celebrate the blog getting 10,000 views, I reviewed some MVs from Up Up Girls (Kakko Kari). This was rather timely as two members (Sengoku Minami and Sato Akari) had graduated in September 2017.

M3 Project Announcement: 20 Years of Fun - As part of the 20th anniversary festivities, I announced some fun poll-oriented projects designed to inject some fun and festivity to the air.

At the time of this writing/publication, the Anniversary Review Vote is in its third iteration while the Momusu M3 Grand Prix is suffering from sophomore slump.

Ping Pong Pinpoint, January 2018 Edition: Beginnings and Endings Galore - A digest of minor news from the last quarter of 2017 all the way up to the post’s publishing in mid-late January 2018.

Momusu M3 Grand Prix: Rounding out the Firsts - An update on the first round of the Momusu M3 Grand Prix

C-ute Memorial Survey: The Results Show - The obligatory memorial survey for legendary C-uties made its splash.

Hey Brother, Ho Brother! Nice Rider, Go Rider! - Speaking of H!P Kids, in one of three M3 10th Anniversary Reviews for 2018 (four if you count the Charisma Kirei review from the year before), the Berryz get spotlighted with their famous cover of Dschinghis Khan’s, well, Dschinghis Khan.

Roles in the Polls That Shake Up Everyone’s Souls - The results of the first round of the Momusu M3 Grand Prix and the Q1 Anniversary Review Vote, which led to...

Lovely Riding into the Sunset - ...this winning review spotlighting Buono’s sophomore single (which didn’t suffer from sophomore slump).

Q2

Strap in, folks. This one’s been a busy one for Magi-Kat...

Wahahaha~! Youth’s Passionate Journey Serenade - The first of many H!P 20th Anniversary reviews features Mano Erina's Seishun no Serenade as the 2011 representative. (On that note, CONGRATULATIONS to Manoeri on her wedding!)

PON This WAY WAY WAY -  The first #MemeMusicMonday review of #MemeMay, featuring Kyary Pamyu Pamyu's psychedelic PON PON PON.

CONGRATULATIONS on Your Happy Summer Wedding! - The H!P 20th Anniversary celebrations continue with Morning Musume's Happy Summer Wedding representing 2000. (On that note, didn't a royal wedding happen around this time?)

“What Basic Premises Inform Your Blog?” A 2017 Perspective - A revamped version of the questionnaire post that is perfect for anyone who stumbled onto the blog.

A Leafy Explosion of YATTA! - The second #MemeMusicMonday in #MemeMay brought us green leaves, courtesy of Happa-tai's YATTA!

A Melon-Flavored Carelessly Whispered Chance of LOVE - Melon Kinenbi carry the torch for the H!P celebrations as they represent my gateway year of 2003.

Picking, Poking And Peeking at PPAP - Pikotaro brings the memes in the third #MemeMusicMonday in #MemeMay.

Smile for a Summer Night - Morning Musume represent Hello! Project's birth year of 1998 with their sophomore major single (and debut single of the 2nd Gen). Wait, wasn't their anniversary year last year?!

Help a Blogger Out: A TLS Survey, MorniMete Style 2018 - Similar to the “What Basic Premises Inform Your Blog?” questionnaire, another updated primer to M3 is unveiled.

Revenge of the Twitter Questionnaire Meme – Part 1 - I made good on my word from five months before....

Declarative Nonsense from the GAL-o - #MemeMay ends where it began. Its entire reason for existence? An excuse to properly review an early 2000s J-hip hop song that was played during a WVGCW pre-show -- and the accompanying meme-tastic MV that was done by then-future Bob Team Epic artists. I am NOT making this up! (That and they all were considered as April Fools ideas and given my schedule, May was the nearest time I can do it uninterrupted and in season.) 

Cabbage Patch FEELS - May gets wrapped up on the Hello! Project end with Peaberry's major single representing 2013. (Fans of Tsubaki Factory may recognize this tune ;))

They’re Blue, Ba Da Dee Ba Da Di - One of the winning topics of the Q2 Anniversary Review Vote, Morning Musume's Resonant Blue takes the center stage and paints it a resounding blue...

Extra Strong Kisses of Hardcore Love - ...before co-winner Buono! lightens it up with passionate kisses. A-i-shi-te-ru

A Wordless “I LOVE YOU”: A Sandwiched Farewell to V-U-Den - In the midst of what was supposed to be break time, a surprise M3 10th Anniversary Review shows itself with v-u-den's grand finale.

Q3

I had originally planned to make a video essentially doing the below and posting it on June 19th, but the unsteady social climate made me uneasy about it.

(Plus, I needed to find a way to do something about the gridlock in the Momusu M3 Grand Prix in the least poll fatigue-inducing way possible. I may just roll virtual dice/use Random Pickers to pick the winners, but that’d go against the very spirit of the whole thing....)

Ping Pong Pinpoint, July 2018 Edition (July 19, 2018) - This was originally meant to be part of Q2, but due to the Anniversary Review Vote tie, I moved it to Q3.

Tomboyish Ponies in Paradise (August 2, 2018) - The H!P 20th Anniversary celebrations in Q3 commence with v-u-den's Jaja Uma Paradise representing 2007.

War Cry of Friendship WAO! (August 9, 2018) - The H!P 20th Anniversary celebrations continue with Berryz Koubou's Otakebi Boy WAO! / Tomodachi wa Tomodachi Nanda! representing 2010.

We Can’t Live Without You (But We Must) (August 16, 2018) - Similar to the previous post, the Berryz take the spotlight in the anniversary festivities, representing 2004 with their debut single Anata Nashide wa Ikite Yukenai.

Spacey La Ta Ta (August 23, 2018) - The H!P 20th Anniversary celebrations have us party like it's 1999 with Taiyo to Ciscomoon's Uchuu de La Ta Ta.

Thanks for Tonight! (August 30, 2018) - The H!P 20th Anniversary celebrations bring us to 2006 with Thanks! to GAM.

Title TBA (September 6, 2018) - Content to be determined.

Sgt. Pepper's Wonderful Hearts Club Band (ETA: September 10, 2018) - The final M3 10th Anniversary post of 2018 takes us down as we go to Morning Musume's strawberry fields with Pepper Keibu.

Q3 Anniversary Vote Winner (September 13, 2018) (voting in progress! - Ends August 31, 2018 at 15:00 UTC / 11:00am EDT)

The special event for Q3, Magic Metal Meteora, will be announced on July 20th!

Anyway, please look forward to these posts... and pray for my sanity in the process. (I already pondering some possible last-minute changes to the Magic Metal Meteora lineup, due to some... things surrounding one of the originally intended topics that came to my attention in early July.)

See you soon!