#seriously if this season had come out like last year i would've come to terms with some things more quickly

[popculturebuffet]

Proud Family Black History Month Special: I Had a Dream and Juneteenth (Comissioned by WeirdKev27)

Happy Black History Month all you happy people! And once again we're celebrating it with the Proud Family.

Last year Louder and Prouder launched and I covered it as it did and soon after covered Father Figures, it's wonderful ep about gay parents. I.. never finished the season as none of the episodes apart from Al Roker as Himself, a Magical Genie intrested me. And yes I will likely do all threre Al Roker as Himself, A Magical Genie episodes at some point. It didn't seem BAD it's just the inherent meanness in a lot of the comedy, some of the stuff that hadn't aged well like Oscar hitting on women who aren't his wife, and other probelms simply .. hadn't gone away and there's no excuse given the creators had two whole decades to refelct on the original series. THey still did well updating it for today in both clothing and refrences and the series is still deeply entrenched in black culture in a wonderful way, so it wasn't bad I just wasn't intrested.

Thankfully Season 2.. seems to be an improvement, as the creators have now proven the show can be a hit and thus are running with the creative freedom. Just from the clips i've seen, I intend to watch the seaosn in full when I have the time, their going hard. As someone with Autisim, their treatment of it seems nuanced, deep , and incredibly well done and heartfelt, and it seem the season has a nice ballance of usual hyjinks and some fairly deep subjects done well and that kids could bear to know about like colorisim, slave ownership and just how much the country was BUILT on slavery, as shown in what's now become the series most notable scene and ione i've watched a LOT at this point, despite seeming to come at the end of an episode that has nothing to do with the topic, yet still feeling fully waranted

And that's what brings us here. See in the wake of this, as those of you thankfully off twitter may not be aware of tons of right wing trolls came out of their troll holes to gnash their teeth at how THE PROUD FAMILY IS WOKE NOW and HOW DARE YOU BRAINWASH OUR CHILDREN. Which is extra hilarious as I didn't know till watching today's episode from Louder and Prouder, Juneteenth, that they actually TACKLE this sort of thing and it has a term: White Fragility, where white people with thin skin get defensive at the first sign their history is racist among other things. They even brought up a books pecifically that i'm now going to try and get simply because I want to avoid this sort of shit myself. Seriously i'm not making this shit up, they likely knew damn well at least one of the episodes would piss off white people, and were well prepared for it.. and they proved them right. And i'm white myself.. and I find our history of slavery, racasim and overall colonalist bullshit fucking horrifying. It's the right thing to do. It's bad when you find out something or someone you belivied in was horrible. It sucks, but the responsible thing is to move on, not support it, and let history show.

It also brought up a valid point: Proud Family WAS ALWAYS woke. While it didn't have as many episodes covering it tha'ts not because "Oh they got worse with age". Shows CAN change in revivials and sometims for the worse… but this really isnt' it. It's a simple fact that they coudln' likely tackle topics like police brutality, slave ownership and racisim int eachers without the network yanking their collars and letting their white fragility get the better of them. We live in a time where we can now have those discussions we shoudl've been having all along. And to show it i'm covering two episodes and while this was comissoned, I gladly would've done it for free…. I mean I need money to eat, and I could think of worse things to cover for money.. mostly because I just did staurday

But still, let's take a look at the proud family then and now and see how stupid people are being while we honor black history month with two episodes focused on black history

I Had a Dream

I Had a Dream was the shows black history month episode, coming in season one. The plot is simple: To teach Penny's class about black history, something she's relutcant on as she figures "what's past is past" but still takes to the task wholeheartdly, their teacher has each of his class dress up as a black historical figure. He also goes into the origins of the holiday, something I wasn't familiar with. WHile I saw this episode as a kid i'd clearly forgotten this part in the haze of history: in 1946, historan Carter G. Woodson wanted to spotlight black achivements and thus created Negroe History Week. And in a nice touch he corrects Penny on saying african american as not only was that the closest to a pc term as the time.. but white people called Black Persons MUCH worse, a way to refrence the giant and horrifying parade of horrible slurs without saying them since disney likely had one reaction to them coming up

But they get by with Negro and Colored, both terms I hope never to have to type again. Penny's friends are dicks to an uptight white janitor played by my boy Stephen Root whose somehow important to this episode and penny slips leading exactly where you think it's going to end up.

Penny gets Angela Davis, activist, author and professor. Oscar both gave her the natural necessary to pull off the part and is said to help her study a touch I like, as well as the fact he celebrates freely not only putting on a dashiki at breakfast (and making a fun sarcastic comment about the fact that black history month is the shortest month of the year), but hosting the levar burton film festival. I'm with Trudy i'm not sure there is enough films for one of those and I did look it up. It's mostly tv movies and mini series like roots. Though if it includes Roots and Star Trek The NExt Generation i'm down and it should fill out the night. I love that it shows Oscar, despite often being a dummy… has depth and really knows his own culture and history and encourages that in his daughter. It's something i've noticed in black media with Jumstart making a habit out of it early on of having Marcy quiz her husband joe every year to be ready to teach their children when they got older. I mean their now stuck at 10 and `12 for eternity but still.

Djonay is awful as usual and gets a way better icon than she deserves: Betsy Coleman, one of the first black women pilots. @jess-the-vampire, who I watched these eps with, actually knew a LOT about her, and gladly shared: she had to go to france because she coudln't get taught here, was mostly a stunt performer, and died in a tragic plane accent because planes weren't exactly safe back then. Lacienga is the first black woman to run for president Shirley Chisom and Zoey is CJ Walker, self made milonare. Also while we thankfully don't see sticky he's al sharpton, actvisit, preacher and anti-semite.

Penny gets swept up in winds wizard of Oz Style and winds up in 1955. This part of the episode is… eh. I do like how it shows just how only close to 50 years before this epissode things were worse: black acomplishments weren't recognized (I mean.. even more than they were at the time. I didn't even know a black man invented the traphic light), Zoey avoids her and the school's play area is segregated.. but weirdly the class isn't? Also Stephen Root is the teacher and their teacher is the janitor because racisim. Why they made Janitor Man the token racist is beyond me, esepcailly sinc ein the present he dosen't come off racist just overly obessive about cleaning and wasn't INTENDED to be a bad guy, as the kids later apologize and claen up the hallway for him. So why make him one for this scene?

That ends up being this episodes problem: for those saying "oh proud family isn't subtle anymore".. they never were. This episode is about as subtle as a brick to the head with a note attached saying GET IT IT WAS WORSE. THe episode isn't AWFUL, as it shows both how arbitrary these things were, and dosen't entirley sugarcoat things… it does a little,e specially in comparison to say the color of friendship which I reviewed for a previous black history month, but it still uses the term colored, has Oscar not happy with Penny befriending zoey, and still has the fucking army show up when Penny leads a sit in for immigration. But it honestly also feels a bit … makes it easy. Penny easily gets dream zoey to turn, has a fucking musical number with sticky and recites had a dream. The only thing that makes any of this over the top, "let's all dance and skip" tyep of aseop work is that A) it was likely all they could do at the time and B) it is LITERALLY penny's dream, so the naitvite and toned down aspects come off as what a 12 year old who dosen't likely know just how horrible things were or how severe the punishment for speaking out could get's version of things.

That said taking it as a product of it's time.. it's fantastic and still has a valuale lesson. While ti's watered down yes, the fact they could do this ep at all is a lot, and it's lesson is important for kids: don't forget the past. It's an easy aseop sure but given how much of black history was buried, evne more than I ever realized, and how much said past can be whitewashed and glorified to make people who were racist or had racist tendencys or parts to them that were just awful even if a lot of their actions were noble. HIstory is best when you admit the hard parts with the easy and do not forget what's happened lest it repeat.

And thus while this episode was decent enough.. it makes it fitting that it's sequel series has a spirtual followup: while I agreed to do these episodes before rewatching and watching them, the two end up synching up perfectly. This one was about not forgetting your own history and how hard it was as there's still a ways to go. Juneteenth.. is about those ways to go, facing hard truths, and fighting even when ti's far from easy. This one avoided the consequences of standing up for what you belivie in. This one…. fully leans into them. So without further ado….

Juneteenth

I would be shocked if this episode dosen't make my best of the year list for 2023. This was one powerful as hell half hour that was well done, honest, and awesome.

This one focuses on Maya, the new additon to the series and an activist who acts exactly how a 13 year old actvisit would: often smart and on point, but also just as often lost in her own cause. This one though has her entirely in the right.. but in a way that fits.

So Smithville, where our heroes have lived all this time as it has a name now, is having a celebration honoring it's founder Christan A. Smith, hosted by Mayor Wizard Kelly Ya'll, both of which you can probably took as I did as red flags.

Turns out he's realted to Maya's dad barry, whose going nto get honored as his decendant at a big ceremony and Maya's proud of her heritage. So naturally since she's proud in the proud family.. she gets haunted by a ghost.

Yeah the episode has the ghost of what seems to be a black teenager follow Maya around, hinting that the supposed narrative about smith isn't what he thinks it is. We also get some nice microagression from Maya's teacher who at first refuses to belivie maya is a decendant and then says "It's not really your history is it

Like holy shit we went from "White janitor who'se really cool in real life honest guys and racist teacher verison comes around" to "White Teacher micro agression". It's what I meant: the show was always woke.. it just didn't fully go into the implications of things. Back then they woudl've been told "this wasn't realistic" or some such bullshit. Now they can do this freely and it's.. honest. I was white in school but my own textbooks barely touched on the restoration and glossed over a fact that's key to this episode: that some states held out on slavery and got assurances from Lincoln they wouldn't be effected by abolition. That was just to get the south. Because my own state didn't want to admit it's past wrongs it was framed as "oh well missouri just was for slavery but it was all cool you guys honest. "

And she never.. really gets a compuance. She's shown comtpemplating at the end but.. she never apologizes or anything for what she did or her hero worship of Smith. She's not used as the easy villian of the piece either tho: she's not leading the celebration ons mith: she's just a white idiot worshipping another white idiot and unitenotally conributing to whtie washing his history.

Maya starts to question her history, but holds back from bringing in her dad as h'es so happy. Also we get to see Barry shirtless.

just.. hot damn. I didn't know village people biker was a thing for me. Randall is a damn lucky man.. as is Barry. Just holy shit. I needed a moment.

Back to the actual point of the episode. KJ helps his sister as she can't find anything. And here I get the sense that while the creators of proud family MARGINALLY understand the internet better than they did when they did a whole episode comparing napster to drug addiction and pointing out how record stores would di ebecause of it and other dog whistling… they still really don't as they go to

Which.. isn't how that works. I mean there are other search engines But it is clear Wizard Kelly Google Ya'll is hiding his history before th efounding and something is up.. and while cleaning up his statue with walking white privlage , the ghost poitns Maya to a box that gives her hard evdience to her suspcions: a Diary of Emily, a black woman around their age who lived in Smithville back then.

Since Maya RIGHTFULLY thinks Mrs Karen wouldn't be of any help at best and hide this at worst they instead go to another teacher, Brother Kwame, played by my boy Leslie Odom Junior. Kwame reads the diary out, as it turns out to be the diary of Emily, a young slave who not only planned a Juneteenth in secret.. but was OWNED by smith. Smith owned slaves. And look a white man owned slaves.. isn't shocking. Even George Washington did and Thoms Jerfferson outright assulted one. But the larger point here is it was covered up: that instead of just having open discourse about this man's history and if we really should be on the side of someone who when given the option to let his slaves go or not did not, it was buried. That we shoudlnt' celebrate someone whose inherently awful because of heritage in shit if the bad he did outweighed the good. Keeping people chained up for his own convience trumps "founded a town I guess". Some other white man likely woudl've founded this town. It's not that big bro. HIding history dosen't make it any less fucked up and celebrating fucked up people isn't good. It's whY Colombus Day needs to stop being a thing: because he acomplished ntohing and was just a racist colonizing rapist. Hiding the past.. dosen't make it not there.

So with that Kwame decides to go talk with Wizard Kelly, ya'll, while Maya is forced to tell her dad the awful truth. And Barry, being an upstanding man, loving father and nice dude.. entirley denys it and can't belivie it sending his daughter away in tears. And Randall.. dosent remotely tolerate his shit not backing him up and pointing out his white fragility. And while yeah , plugging the book directly could be a step too far given I didn't know this term existed and now want to read said book, I say it works and frankly more people need to knwo it's an actual term and how to combat themselves doing it. Barry reads it and the animatoin here is wonderful as his face shows he clearly sees himself in the page Randall had ready… but can't bring himself to admit it. And i'm not immune to this: while i've never loudly said "no YOUR wrong that can't be true"… it still took until this episode pointed out Lincoln wasn't just not for freeing the slaves but wanted to simply DEPORT ALL BLACK PEOPLE, for me to finally just shake the notion he wasn't a great person. He did good trying to sew the country back together but he didn't free the slaves and he wasn't trying to do it because slavery was wrong. And I wasn't even that ATTACHED to lincoln, it was just hard to find out something i'd been told my whole life was entire bullshit. It can be hard when you have an emotoinal stake… but it also means you have to do the hard thing and cut tha tpart out of you. When I found out JK Rowling was the TERF she is I sold all my harry potter stuff: it didn't fund her and if you can watch the films and seperate art from artist, go ahead. But I just couldn't bear to have something attached to that monster in me. It was hard to cut out that part of my childhood.. but it needed to be done. You don't pretend it didn't exist, but you acknowlege it's tainted now and may never be the same and you may neve renjoy it NOW like you once did, and that's okay. As with the previous episode this one is about learning from the mistakes of the past instead of trying to simply "move on" and act like it never happened.. and no the irony on me isn't lost disney does this sort of thing constantly and I doubt it was lost on the writers of this episode.

SHOCKINGLY the grossly corrupt billionare mayor who has shown not one iota of a soul to this point didn't respond to an underpaid school teacher bringing the book to him, respnding with "It was in the past ya'll". So our heroes have to go with plan b…. well okay plan C. Lacienga's plan B was "PULL THAT FUCKING STATUE DOWN BITCHES".. I mean she didn't say it that way but it was in her tone. Brother Kwame instead sugggests simply protesting.. though dosen't join in for some reason. Which is somehow the weridest plot element in an episode with a ghost. Though givne we've had actual genie al rooker, talking babies and pandas, and it taking till apparently THIS SEASON for Oscar to get his factory shut down for gross violations when he's far from rich enough to bribe officals, it's far from teh least realistic thing that's happened on this show.

The actual protest.. is brutal as.. it's shockingly realistic. Our heroes simply show up protesting.. and Wizard Kelly's response is to "put those kids in cuff's ya'll". Seriously all the dialouge he has this episode sounds like I wrote it but no, he really says that

And I like that it's Wizard Kelly who does it: they don't invent a white boogie man or have the teacher from before sick the cops on them or pull a karen. They have someone whose black himself simply sick the system on chidlren because the lie he's kept is more convient to his pocket than the truth. It shows how the system is inherently racist to the point it benefits the rich of any race to buy into it instead of fight it. It also helps Wizard Kelly is genuinely awful and him sicking police on children sounds like something he'd do because they stepped on his lawn or something.

Seeing these children swarmed by faceless goons really sells just how.. horrirfyign the police can be, how they don't care about age or diffrence just abotu enforcing whatever someone tells them to enforce. The facelessness ot me shows regradless of color, though i'm sure that color is mostly white, the system itself is designed to opress instead of help. The kids parents and even Barry and Sunset despite being cops themselves get swept under and everyone ends up in prison.

We get a truly heartwrenching scene and props to Zachary Quinto for his delivery: Barry admits he was wrong and it was just hard to admit adn dosen't expect his daughter to forgive him, but apologizes. It's what we all should do when confrotned with something like this: accept the truth, and deal with it like an adult. Given several people's responses to JUST the "slaves built this country" segment alone was

It's clear it's a lesson that BADLY needed to be said. The right path.. is almost never the easy one. But Barry took it and his daugher warmly accepts her dad back. We also get a brave action as our heroes choose to remain in prison till shit changes.

So one month later, though I assume Wizard Kelly kept them in there like. .a week at most, things have changed and the town has been renamed to emily ville with Maya reading her diary and fear.. and us finding out that unlike dying as was implied earlier (a bold move in itself) she lived a long happy life and her kids are there. It's a touching end that shows we still have a ways to go.. but we CAN change things to make it better as Maya and her dads watch emily, now as she was when she died head back into the great beyond.. and also have a lot of questions now they know ghosts are real but that's for next season.

I loved this episode.

Yeah shocking I know, but it was beauitfully done, nuanced and a true triumph. It has convinced me to watch the rest of (or at least most of) season 2, and is worth your time this black history month. Both episodes are.. but it's clear with the restraints gone this is what the proud family crew was capable of and it is glorious. Check this one out asap. And as you can see… Proud Family was always woke and always shoudl be and if they keep pulling out home runs like this it might become one of the best shows of two diffrent generations. We'll have to see but honestly, I can say it left me wanting more and more.. and that ain't bad at all. Thanks for reading

[gayferrari]

re: charlos & charles preferring carlos as a teammate to lewis, i do agree but only over carlos vs lewis - goven how fred was (allegedly) not planning to resign carlos (due to lack of obeying team orders/preferring understeer/possibly something to do with political drama vis-a-vis his family), and fred had generally seemed to be in line with what charles wants for the team, i think charles only prefers carlos over a very small number of drivers who also aren’t big on obeying team orders/prefer understeer/wish to come into the team & challenge his position as number 1 driver.

i think if a driver like magnussen or bottas or maybe even i heard rumours of alex albon came into the team, he’d immediately prefer them over carlos because they would make his life easier & the team & engineer’s lives easier

re: this unpopular opinion ask.

I definitely agree that Carlos isn't Charles's Favourite Pick Of Teammates from the grid but I disagree that Carlos's renewal was ever seriously in doubt until Lewis came along. iirc, Ferrari never actually truly considered replacing Carlos with anyone else — which is the whole reason his deal fell through; Carlos's camp knew there was a lack of alternatives and he wanted to negotiate for the same deal Charles got and it all dragged on while Elkann was wining and dining Lewis.

Regardless of the drawbacks (meddling family + team orders drama) no top team is going to fire the driver who got them the only non RBR win of the season and replace it with someone who's been fighting for his life in the deep midfield for years. I absolutely don't doubt that last year Charles would've taken Alex over Carlos any day, but that was never an option — Ferrari aren't currently in the position to pull a RBR or a 2017 Mercedes and hire someone to be a number two. They wanted two proven capable drivers even if it meant friction vs. having a less competitive driver and missing out on points. They didn't want to commit to Carlos long term for the aforementioned drama reasons and wanted to keep the contract short in case someone better came along (probably planning for Ollie by 2027 if he did well enough as a rookie) but I really doubt letting Carlos go was anything but a worst case scenario if the Lewis deal fell through.

Anyway. Now the Charles / Lewis lineup is here. I hope we get at least one (1) instance of Spa 2024 kind of post race presser where Lewis is all ✌️☺️ congratulations to my teammate for winning 💪 while staring at the camera with murder in his eyes. Fun for the whole team :3

(one thing, though: understeer / oversteer preferences and in general driving style are way less of a factor than many people on f1blr seem to believe. A good driver has to be adaptable regardless of the car, and cars are developed years in advance, regardless of driver lineup. I really doubt a TP would ever look at someone's car preferences as a factor when considering hiring or firing them)

[midnightmeteora]

2024-MEDIA THREAD-JANUARY

Heyyy, I going to make monthly posts about the media I see throughout the year, just for the fun of it. I want to just vibe around here and blog my opinions on the things I like. Most of the entries are written in the moment. So they may not accurately reflect my thoughts later on. I'm doing this outta fun so don't take me too seriously if you decide to engage :P

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#1.-Horimiya: Piece

I watched the og show with my GF and WE LOVED IT. It's not a complicated romance anime. But that simplicity is so effective. It was a really cozy anime with good chapters dedicated to just teenage love and it's soo good at it. It excels in character so it makes sense to make a companion piece for it dedicated to just the characters… Sadly it didn't grabbed quite the same until the end :/ I think my main issue is just the kinds of stories they chose, many are funny and enjoyable, but the weakest ones are the ones that have little payoff. EP10 for example was kinda dissapointing for me because the payoff didn't resolved the main conflict. Also I really disliked the teacher character, He gets a ton of screentime on the later half and is such a bore. Overall, is fine if you watch it along side the og or after the og but the main show is WAY better.

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#2.-ORAS' national dex

Not really a piece of media per se, but it was a big project that I started last year around february/march and that I left for a while. This is my first National dex completion and I'm honestly quite proud of it. Will admit, I used PKHex and PKSM to transfer mons from my ds and gba save files to fill the entries I needed. But I grabbed them from my own save files + I had help from my Bestie (I also inserted event mons like the mythicals but like, how else was I supposed to get them gdfñsglk). This was quite straightfoward to do since blissey bases streamline grinding SO MUCH. I love ORAS so much and i'm glad this was the game where I got the full nat dex (not a living one but I ain't doing that yet hell nahhh).

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#3.-Given (TV Anime)

Damn great! It was a really short and sweet show. I'm queer myself. But I haven't gotten too deep into queer media yet, so I'm really glad that this was a really nice anime showing MLM in a rather good light. It's very simple but the characters are so loveable and fun to watch. The music side of it takes a while to fully go nuts, but it has a really warm focus and as someone who also loves music. This was inspiring even dslgkj. I'd love to see a second season sometime.

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#4.-Kung Fu Sion (rewatch)

Still one of my favorite movies, I managed to catch up more details and jokes this time so it was a nice chill rewatch lol. I kinda wanna get into more Kung Fu movies after watching Ip-Man last year.

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#5.-Given Movie (2020)

It was really soft and a great followup of the show. I will admit, I'd like it more if it wasn't for the apartment scene being a bit too creepy. It's not the worst but it was very uncomfortable for me. Regardless it was a nice conclusion to one of the unresolved plot threads from the anime. The last part of the movie was so damn sweet man ngl.

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#6.-Persona 3: Spring of birth

Last stop before Reload comes out, I'm quite excited for P3R since the leaked proof of concept. I've already replayed the main game with FES (minus the answer but whatevs). And the movies are going to be my last P3 recap. So for the first one I gotta say, I'm let down. It wasn't horrible. But it felt like an average anime recap movie to me. Its pacing was too fast and I'm quite let down by this decision. Akihiko and Junpei get very shafted in terms of screentime which is sad, because their character flaws are stablished in this part of the story. For this quarter of the main game (which is easily the weakest of the game imo), it would've benefited a ton from a more character focused story. Fuuka got a pretty nice arc compared to the game, but everyone else lacked screentime. The animation and overall style is sick, but I do wished it wasn't so "on model" for most of the runtime and action scenes, it feels a bit rigid at times. Overall, is just a fairly standard recap of the first quarter of P3. 1 down, 3 more to go.

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#7.-Persona 3: Midsummer Knight's dream

WAY BETTER THAN THE FIRST MOVIE. It feels less like a recap, and more like an actual adaptation. It still has a fast pacing, but it isn't as distracting now that the plot always moves foward, with substancial scenes and character moments for almost everyone. I really like how Ken and Shinji were done here, it has a way more personal focus imo. Ken shines way more here than in the og game, his backstory is so well adapted in this film. Shinji is excellent too, they really use every moment he's on screen to show you more of his character and I love it. This whole movie has excellent storytelling and it's a great adaptation of the Ken/Shinji storyline. The only sour spot that distracts me is Makoto, I kinda get what they are trying to do with him. But it doesn't land for me, I wish we saw more of his inner thoughts and monologue, instead of relying so much on his dialogue. Because he lowkey stands with strega on not ending the dark hour (WHICH IS A VERY BOLD MOVE AND I LIKE IT). But he doesn't express said feelings in a compelling or interesting way. I don't mind quiet MC's. But I'm not digging this Makoto thus far tbh. Maybe movie 3 and 4 will change my mind. Also, the animation is a bit better now! It breaks model more often and it feels way more dynamic and fun to look at in action scenes. It isn't perfect, but it's a great improvement!

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#8.-Persona 3: Falling down

MAN THIS WAS SOO GOOOD, So far this is my favorite P3 movie, it was so thematically rich and substancial. Everyone had their moment to shine and the overarching theme of letting go and the fear of attachment was CHEF KISS. Makoto is great in this movie, while I still hold the opinion that he was very flawed in the last two movies, in this one he steals the spotlight. We now see his inner thoughts and feelings. Tying most of the cast resolves to his own struggles is soo good. He essentially becomes THE antithesis of P3, and it's a great way to develop him, we get a good a idea of him as a character while still keeping his quiet and reserved personality. Junpei gets the love he deserves, and just like the game, he has one of the best arcs in this story. I still feel that he was robbed of more because of the first two movies, but in this one he gets the entire spotlight and it's great. My only complain is that Akihiko and Ken do get sidelined a bit, and their resolve isn't as satisfactory as everyone else, since they start the movie already moving on from the aftermath of the last movie. Which can take you out of it because there's no real payoff for their feelings other than that one pawlonia mall scene but I still find it quite underwhelming. One more to go!

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#9.-Lupin the third: The bloodspray of Goemon Ishikawa

I really want to get into more adaptations of Arsene Lupin. And Lupin the Third sounds really promising. I've already seen Castle of Cagliostro a good amount over the past 3 years and I really like the vibes of this franchise. I saw this movie bc one of my friends really liked the animation in one scene and as a Standalone story is neat. But I did felt that I lacked some kind of context and apparently I did. Since this is a whole series apparently. Will return to this one eventually once I have the proper context, regardless it was a fun 50 minute watch.

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#10.-Pokemon XD: Gale of Darkness

Ok so I played this game mostly because I want to get a Ribbon master Scizor. It was either getting thru this game once so I can get the Scyther, or playing Colosseum in japanese so I can get Scizor with the E-reader functionality. So not much of a choice but anyways. I mention this because admitedtly, I kinda speedran the game so I was able to transfer my pokemon to my Emerald save file. So I skipped a ton of extra content. Hell most of the time I fainted the Shadow Pokemon because it was easier and I barely change my team. Regardless, I'm still rather dissapointed with this game. I played a bit of colosseum last year and it was ok. It had a neat premise and concepts that I wanted to see more if. I didn't finished it mostly because my emulator config was garbo, but I didn't hated it. It was a very slow paced game with tons of issues like the long battle animations and clunky purification mechanics. But it was an interesting game that I would've completed if I had the means to do so at the time. XD however left me dissapointed because of the premise and story. It was quite dull for me and nothing grabbed my interest. Colosseum wasn't peak fiction or anything. But its premise felt more interesting to me. A rogue pokemon trainer that captures shadow pokemon from evil trainers? Quite the sick concept ngl. XD has a child protag that is sent to do the work of everyone else. It's such a silly thing to critize the narrative of this game solely on the premise. But at the very least colosseum had a better narrative premise that made me interested in watching how the story unfolds. XD feels like your usual Pokemon narrrative, but if it was only focused on the "evil team" Subplot and nothing else, it just doesn't work for me. And because it was so centered on battling dull grunts over and over again, I was very bored throughout the whole game. I could probably have a better opinion after a replay, but as of now I'm dissapointed.

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#11.-Black Rock Shooter OVA (rewatch)

Small rewatch with my gf. I still really live the cozy vibes and the simple, yet effective story. I vastly prefer the 2012 anime (may rewatch soon who knows), but I respect this little OVA a lot. I lovee the animation and I relate a ton with the story. Let's go lesbians.

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12.-Percy Jackson and the Olympians (Disney)

My GF LOVES Percy Jackson, so this was a must watch for both. As an introduction to this series. Is pretty good imo, I might not get everything yet (since it's a slightly abridged retelling of the books according to my GF). But this was a pretty good first season. I really like the main conflict and drama of this first part and I hope it delivers a banger season 2.

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#13.-Persona 3: Winter of Rebirth

F u c k The best P3 movie by far. I literally have no complaints, that was a perfect adaptation of the last story arc of the game. I'm amazed tbh, it was so damn good. These movies got better as they went along. And i'm so glad they didn't stuck with just re-telling the original game like the first movie did. This movie is P3 as a whole, and it embodies the game perfectly. Not much to say dude, it's peak. As of writing Reload has just came out, and sadly I won't be able to get the game on release, but damn am I reallyy looking foward to that first playthrough. Hopefully I will be able to blog it in this year's thread >:3

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If you reached this far thanks, hope u have a good day :]

[moonmoonthecrabking]

i'm going to go on a big season three bisexual rant because there are no thoughts in here apart from some gremlins chanting "bi bi bi bi"

very happy for redlyn being bi4bi, it's pretty rare to have on bi character, let alone two, let alone in a relationship

i really appreciate that it's a disney+ show aimed at a younger audience giving this representation. despite my thoughts on disney as a Company, at least there are creators within it who are like "you know what? queer rep."

neither ash nor red (presumably) cheat on each other when figure out their respective identities, and neither of them are really portrayed as promiscuous or super popular characters unlike brittany in glee or whomstever in euphoria. not that this is bad at all to be, and if people see themselves in those characters, then that's of course great!!! but having it in this way made me realise there's never been too much "kid-friendly" bi rep (luz from toh predating this by a couple of years), and i am so happy that we're now getting that

ashlyn being "nO I Just Like Her As A Friend" until the fireworks? iconic sapphic experience

her "I HAVE A BOYFRIEND WHO IS MALE" is kinda an examination into comphet and that experience of. well. i've liked men in the past and this is a girl and it's not exactly identical but it's definitely not a friend thing was really relatable to me

and while it hasn't really been confirmed if she's a secular or religious jew (because unfortunately i don't know enough about judaism, sorry!!), it seems that at least a little part of her was struggling with the intersection between religion and queerness. and again, while that's not a lot of people, there are religious people in the queer community and that representation can be really helpful for people who want the best of both world

also??? lesbian (yes i am assuming madmad are lesbians BUT I COULD BE WRONG) AND bi AND gay men representation???? quality content right here.

that being said, there are some flaws. i didn't love how we didn't get to see her come out to her friends or big red. i get that the latter was an intimate moment, but like so was the rina kiss. she mentioned that her "dating pool has expanded" but it didn't seem like she had told anyone yet, until carlos showed up with a pride pin (king behaviour btw).

it seems like the in-universe show is going to out her??? maybe she ended up putting something in the confessionals but... idk the way it was edited was really confusing to me

actually yeah that's really it. i'm so confused about the timeline and people's coming outs. for example, i assumed that when ricky looked at ashlyn for confirmation and she nodded she already knew, but i've seen other people interpreting that scene as her finding out??? i personally would've liked some things to be spelt out more.

just let her have a one-liner next season like "I'm too hot and bisexual for this" it's not that hard???

while i would like redlyn to stay together, i understand that you can't always get what you want. IF they have an amicable break-up then i think that there are a lot of potential fun scenes there!!!

btw ricky bowen? not straight. no way. elton with his storyline may be harkening back to the og trilogy's "gay coded but...". gina and kourtney could be straight but i don't want them to be. and i would love it if there were some aro/ace/trans/enby representation with any new characters!!!

also rip to portwell shippers, congrats to rina shippers. good luck to both of you

[nox-os]

Heck man--that one take of Shademan having to watch his own kind die? I can imagine some of the good guys would hesitate knowing that, because even though they're not good to the rest of humanity, the idea of it is just so... depressing. And lonely. And utterly, horribly sad.

Sure, the more battle-oriented ones like Laika may be more inclined to see past that because the Darkloids are still dangerous to the rest of the NetNavis (and Shademan IS planning on taking over the whole Net and stuff), but it may just give a more somber tone to when they do end up deleting the Darkloids. Finally realizing that the ones you've been fighting are just as capable as suffering and feeling like any other Navi? Watching them deteriorate and die? In the end, should they have found out about how Regal was supplying the Darkloids with something that would eventually kill them and then battle said Darkloids, it might just feel a lot more like a mercy-kill instead of battling some mindless evil being. And perhaps--just maybe there'd be some sort of glimpse of understanding when it comes to the fury of the leader of the Darkloids.

Tl;dr: your thoughts have made me sad and now I wish to see someone point that out/wonder how things would've played out if the protags knew that. Because they were, in fact, kids, and that would've been one heck of a self-reflector when it comes to fighting the Darkloids.

TOOK ME A SECOND TO COLLECT MYSELF BUT, YES!! YES THIS.

Disclaimer that I will never be like "Shademan isn't a terrible person," because UM...seriously excusing a man who wanted to wipeout humans really isn't the way. BUT I think it's disingenuous to ignore the suffering that happened--for the Darkloids, and for him. You can still call them antagonists with a full chest, yes! And addressing this aspect of the story adds another layer to the characters involved without necessarily doing so. Not mutually exclusive thoughts, etc etc.

They have to be dealt with. For everyone's safety. An interesting question is kind of raised though by that offhand moment the protagonists offer to be Bubbleman's friend/for him to join their side, implying that there is some room for mercy if only the Darkloid in question showed some sort of humanity. But we know most weren't like Bubbleman and had few redeeming qualities. It's still crazy to think about, because it's the one time (if memory serves) we see a Darkloid extended a helping hand.

Okay. That was a bit--aside, but yes, absolutely, I think it's a shame the protagonists didn't get to see what was happening behind the scenes in terms of the Dark Chips. If only they could have seen how the Dark Chips were directly deteriorating the Darkloids. I think it would have bolstered Regal as being an absolutely despicable person. I don't want to say he's worse than Shademan, considering their end goals, but...isn't that just another excellent and terrible facet to Regal's cruelty? Truly it would be more merciful to just let the NetPolice delete them.

Listen though, we know my big complaint too is that last bit--all of this is happening on the Darkloid's end and it all goes back to Shademan. Shademan made the deal with Regal. Shademan watched numerous Darkloids slowly corrupt and die. And to add insult to injury, Regal takes control of the remaining Darkloids. Shademan would have wanted what was best for his own kind, only for them the be turned against him.

I do not think Shademan should have been forgiven. But I do believe there's an immense sadness to his story that was never fully addressed or made real to the audience. I think this was one of the darkest parts of the comparatively darker season Axess was, and in my eyes, one of the most compelling aspects of it.

God. I feel like I need to make five more infodumping posts because I have SO MANY THOUGHTS. I'm glad though that we can talk about this now years after the show because I am absolutely fascinated by the Darkloid storyline. It's my favorite but also was not explored as much as it should have been.