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phoenixkaptain · 2 years ago

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I love it when pre Original Trilogy era shows how much effort went into making the Death Star. It took decades, literal decades, and it took so much money and so many people and it was such a secretive thing and it’s staffed by millions because it’s the size of a small moon.

I cannot express how much all of the added information makes it so much funnier that Luke blew it up.

Luke destroys literally everything Palpatine built. He blows up the Death Star, which was referenced in universe as early as the second movie. He blew up the weapon of mass destruction twenty years in the making. And he blew it up pretty much directly after it’s first and only successful attack. It was operational for fifteen minutes, fifteen minutes that Palpatine had the thing he’d been building for longer than Luke has been alive, and Luke blows it up. First day retirement, but first hour retirement.

Luke convinces Darth Vader to turn back to the light side, a feat thought literally impossible by literally everybody. Sidious clearly doesn’t see Vader’s betrayal coming. Vader’s betrayal was not in his plans, nor was it something he was prepared for. Sidious is a powerful Force user with all four limbs while Vader is a man in the tin can Palpatine put him in. If Palpatine had seen Vader turning coming, he would not have allowed it to happen.

Luke literally should not even be alive. Palpatine almost definitely got Padme out of the way on purpose, and he almost certainly was trying for her unborn child as well (there was way too big of a risk that a cute liddol bebe would bring some humanity back to Anakin, and Palpatine did not want Anakin to have any humanity) Luke living is literally the first step in Palpatine’s ultimate downfall, especially once Vader finds out that Luke is his son. His very alive son. His son that is not dead, despite Palpatine claiming Anakin killed Padme. Implying that Anakin killed Padme and she posthumously gave birth. But, she didn’t give birth on Mustafar, which was the last place Anakin interacted with her. And once the mother dies, you have to get those fuckers out fast or they die too.

I imagine Darth Vader piecing all of this together is that meme with all the math floating around his head, because how could Padme have died by his hand and then given birth like two hours later?

Luke killing Palpatine is what ultimately leads to the dissolution of the Empire as an omnipotent entity. Luke killed the Empire. Luke spends a good amount of his adult life killing Empire remnants. We see that in the Mandalorian, since he’s so recognizable that Gideon immediately knows he’s fucked just by seeing an X-wing. We read it in Legends’ continuity, where Luke terrifies Imperials because he can walk into their changing room and stand in their for a minute and they don’t even notice.

Luke destroyed Palpatine’s life’s work. Everything Palpatine spent his whole life working towards, and Luke kills all of it. He blows up not one, but two Death Stars (he may not have pulled the trigger on the second Death Star, but without him, it never would have been destroyed). He convinces not one, but multiple Sith and Dark Jedi to return from the Dark Side. He is the only reason that Obi-Wan Kenobi, the biggest pain in Palpatine’s ass ever born, lives long enough to make it to the Death Star.

Palpatine went through so much effort. And just when he had finally won, when he finally had a weapon capable of destroying entire planets with a single blast, making it impossible for any planets or peoples to go against him, Luke shows up nineteen years late to the Jedi party with space Starbucks and a droid twice his age and almost singlehandedly destroys everything Palpatine ever had a hand in creating.

Luke manages to become even worse than Obi-Wan Kenobi, the ultimate thorn in the side of politicians, and Luke doesn’t even understand any politics. He wasn’t trained in diplomacy like Obi-Wan and Leia, no, he’s a farmboy who left home for the first time in his entire life, just this morning. And he is the one to destroy the Empire.

If they rewrote Star Wars and had it entirely from Palpatine’s perspective, Luke Skywalker would be his greatest foe. Luke Skywalker would be the final boss. Luke Skywalker is the antithesis of everything Palpatine believes in and he is the one character that Palpatine cannot predict. He isn’t as moldable as Anakin, he doesn’t respond to threats very well, he’s apparently impossible to kill via Force lightning (still the funniest scene of all times, the progression of Palpatine’s face falling and him looking like “what the fuck??? Is this kid rubber??? I’ve electrocuted him eight times???”), his unwavering faith in his father’s goodness makes Darth Vader want to be a better person, Luke Skywalker is the big bad of Palpatine’s story and—

There is nothing in this world that is funnier than someone’s biggest antagonist being Luke fucking Skywalker. Luke Skywalker, who saved the galaxy with the power of love and who shouldn’t exist, by Jedi rules and by Palpatine’s own attempts, and whose best friends are literally droids, which Palpatine canonically hates!

Everything about this is hilarious, this is the funniest thing in all of media, Palpatine loses absolutely everything to some backwater farmboy who fucking likes droids.

#luke skywalker #star wars #anakin skywalker #sheev palpatine #darth sidious #original trilogy #the inane ramblings of a madman #listen i recognize that other people are important in the plot of sw #but at the same time #luke is the marble that gets things rolling #just in general #luke is the reason obi wan eventually actually kills maul #luke somehow gave yoda hope that another generation of jedi was an achievable goal #luke saved leia from being executed #luke is the sun of the series #it’s from him that literally everything grows #the story that began this universe #is one of a boy becoming an adult #and so without luke skywalker #none of the characters would exist #thus luke is the sun and we should all bask in the rays #but also in how funny it is #that this guy was more of a pain than obi wan kenobi #a feat previously thought impossible #long post

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filurig · 7 months ago

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– this whole - the dancing, singing, pole...raising. it is all rather ridiculous... 'midsummer'. i fail to... see the point of this human... invention. for once.

arvo's words were slurred, uneven - as if merely letting them past his lips was a great effort... this was, no doubt, influenced by the drink in his hand, resting on his stomach. folke, who had, in fact, brewed the alcohol that they were drinking, giggled - not exactly sober himself.

– i'm... the only human here, arvo. remember...

– no kraksi, or crakam, in sartrill, raises a huge, leafy pole for long summer days, that much i know.

– okay, haha - the pole thing... the pole thing is entirely human, probably. but... gullmar - tomtar, celebrate 'solvarvir' around the same time... trolls celebrate, uh... oh, curses, i'll butcher it... 'rawr - owa'... rawrr - oh wra? rawr... haha!

arvo opened one of his eyes slowly, fighting against some kind of weight that has, somehow, been set upon them - in order to look at the human beside him, still struggling to pronounce the foreign word correctly. a corner of the basilisk's lips twitched upwards.

– hm. nevermind what i said. there is a certain element of entertainment present, i suppose...

#oc #original character #fantasy #midsummer #illustration #art #i would tag midsommar but. i know theres the movie so dont think thatll be very useful...#folklore #fantasy art #oc art #pareidolia tag #oc: folke #oc: arvo #oc: selma #oc: klint #oc: adrian #oc: ylvarg #oc: gullmar #oc: faství #frida and håkan are there too but theyre so small LOL #this is a bit late for a midsummer illustration but whatever #(one day late. LOL)#i kinda wanna mmake it a THing to draw a silly midsummer drawing every year. thing is #will there be a year where im 100% happy with the illustration afterwards. bcs im not satisfied with this but. WHATEVER #shoutout to anyone who remembers the drawing i did last year........#in universe btw some swedish holidays were definitely infuenced by the tomte/human connection #things like midsummer probably came to independently but their traditions got mixed once humans and tomtar began to intermingle a bit #trolls have their own summer celebrations but they tend to be less “1 day” and more like “several weeks” in length #also. this pic is a post story pic...#which is why arvo is actually expressing his befuddlement with human customs

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dandelionjack · 10 months ago

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i hope ruby gets a well-that’s-alright-then-style notdeath. on the one hand it will make haters mad because oh no not another companion with an impermanent end (and i like to see haters mad) on the other it would require creativity to depict this in a new way + i love all the implications i love the dark fairytale quality of these companion exits i love my un-undead schrodinger’s women

with the way the legend of ruby sunday is titled… legends aren’t usually told about living people. legends are stories of the bygone past, of an age long since over, fictionalised and overgrown with folklore like barnacles sticking to an abandoned shell. there is such a thing as a living legend, but they’re exceedingly rare. the unmistakeable raven’s call in the 73 yards teaser, the trailer’s cut to fifteen crying alone after promising to cherry he’d protect her daughter… the foreshadowing is clear as day…

and yet. there’s one massive HOWEVER. ruby appears in s15: millie’s been spotted on set filming it. which leads me to believe — the doctor isn’t one to take the time travel route and revisit companions that in his future are genuinely dead. that would hurt too much, it would cause unnecessary trauma and could break the timeline. that must mean ruby stays alive in some way. ish. she’s alive and a legend and a mystery. girl-ballad girl-song girl-paradox

here she is, fading out.

p.s.: thesis statement on moffatgirls from the tags i left on somebody else’s post about charley pollard.. well it belongs here since it’s basically the semiotic hurricane swirling around ruby at the moment :)

#on a personal level what interests me about these characters is precisely what gets them labeled as being subject to #misogynistic writing by pop-feminist video-essayists. as an autistic girl* (*ish) however; i find female characters that #aren’t quite ‘normal people’; women who represent an idea or concept or are a puzzle to be solved or a manic pixie dream girl to be #more and in a way far more interesting than a girl-next-door-type universally relatable protagonist #they make for more nuanced stories with more symbolism and more layers of interpretation usually. why should there be realism in a #fantastical narrative? similarly i like characters that are haunting the narrative or dead before it began (big locked tomb fan if you #didn’t know) and like. not to be tvtropes but the lost lenore archetype. dead woman who spurs the hero on to recklessness or revenge.#i identify with that dead girl. the laura palmers of the world. set the story in motion without #necessarily having agency. maybe it’s something to do with my #constant background radiation of passive suicidality. in a fun whimsical way :) i would never kill myself but i don’t want to be a real #person. i want to be objectified but not necessarily in a k*nky s*xual way (that too) in a princess in a tower way #the ultimate femme fantasy innit? there’s something about it. hashtag problematic hashtag conforming to gender roles #10000 tags be upon ye #ruby sunday #millie gibson #doctor who #dw #steven moffat #clara oswald #fifteen #fifteenth doctor #twelveclara #amy pond #charley pollard #river song #donna noble #ncuti gatwa #doctor who meta #jamie.txt #haunting

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heireign · 26 days ago

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the fact rhaenyra’s an enduring cautionary tale is so genuinely tragic

#like with daena ? ‘ the dance was sited ‘#with RHAEGAR nearly a hundred and fifty years later ? murmurings of the dance began again due to the tension between aerys and rhaegar #stannis mentioning her murder and claiming its ’ law not cruelty ‘#like stannis represents the enduring view point that likely ? persists to the present day that rhaenyra should have yielded - that she WAS #stealing something from aegon ii and how legally he HAD the stronger claim to the throne #and like shireen is HIS heir … but she’s also his only child. He has no sons to threaten her claim #like it’s ? painful how the narrative is so harshly skewed against her and how the story in UNIVERSE is retold to be something it wasn’t #rhaenyra’s memory being used to preemptively turn people away from ever allowing a female heir again is so - ITS SO .

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seaweedstarshine · 9 months ago

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Sometimes I think of Amy Pond, who grew up being called mad by those who wielded the word as a tool of exclusion and shame —

Amy Pond, who though forced into the hands of four psychiatrists, still clung to that which they called madness until those systems which elevate psychosocial conformity above humanity stripped it from her —

Amy Pond, whose imaginary friend reappeared for a single hour after twelve years and reignited that faith before disappearing for two more years —

Amy Pond, who spent those those two years under the same implicit threat ingrained in her through psychiatric violence, and thus began to believe the man who stopped the invasion was “just a madman with a box,” only for him to agree, and to also call her “mad, impossible Amy Pond,” reframing madness as non-negative for the first time in her life —

Amy Pond, who ignored the disembodied voice of her imaginary friend even as she ran away with him for real, who still lived each day with the traumatic internalization of deviancy dictated upon her by the psychiatric-industrial complex that shaped her from childhood —

Amy Pond, who wouldn't acknowledge the Doctor's voice, such that it took an Angel in her eye that was literally killing her to ensure she couldn't reality check herself —

Amy Pond, who stood before a room which muttered about “the psychiatrists we brought her to,” and though afraid, escaped their rigid parameters of acceptable existence.

#I like seeing it as indicating she began hearing his voice when he was gone for all those years! why else wouldn't she say anything?#actually psychotic Amy agenda #Amy Pond #eleventh doctor #reclaimed language #oh look its another antipsychiatry themed doctor who post #sumn abt in Fairies At The Bottom Of The Garden audio AND Imaginary Enemies comic we see Amelia bein called slurs against psychotic people #(shes called psycho in both)#like!!! and SO MUCH OF AMYS STORY is about her claiming her agency in ways that previous companions weren't allowed to-#companions whose status as a Wife was a signifier of an to end of their value individually- 'this is no place for a married woman' etc #in some cases Wife-ness forced upon them *as* a denial of agency 'I spent all that time trying to find you I'm not going back now!' etc #whereas Amys story deconstructs that; Amys “Choice” is an illusion- Amy being a Wife doesn't demote her agency as an companion #anyways I love that aspect of reclaimed agency for Amy but ALSO #“madness” as an expression of agency against systems of oppression is SO relevant. the mind defends itself and the alternative isnt better #the oppressive system in this case being ableist structures and the psychiatric system ITSELF which is a whole other layer #the moral being that even if the Doctor WAS a delusion? he'd still be a needed coping mechanism for a child who says “ppl always leave”#and instead of examining her feelings of abandonment they insist 'aLiENs DoNt ExIsT' as seen in the 'sTaRs DoNt ExIsT' psychiatrist in TBB #they don't care that she's in PAIN- why would they?- they just care that she's 'abnormal' and therefore not deserving of humanity #(eleventh) doctor is neurodivergent tag #I mean technically this is about Amy but I once (twice) used that tag on the post about the Master. its the spirit of it!#and Amy Pond + her Raggedy Doctor as “mad” people is very *chefs kiss*#((you know what im putting the tag on my last Amy post :D ))#Mels experienced this very differently and I'll make a post about her at some point- I just wanna make sure my points are got across better #sumn abt Amelia's “crazy” was Mels' “delinquency.” Amy treated as if she doesn't know her own life while Mels treated as threatening #sumn abt adultification of Black girls while Amy is infantilized #Amy Pond who could rewrite reality in a reborn universe because she grew up with a Crack in her wall that no one believed was special —#ableism #saneism #unreality #because I mean Amy's stand against psychiatric dehumanization was to REWRITE THE UNIVERSE with her Crack powers

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phoenixtakaramono · 7 months ago

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Truce - Ch3 Preview 2/?

This is in reference to this. I’m agog that I’d somehow forgotten to share this upcoming scene in Truce its entirety—when I thought I had. Honest mistake, luvs. I shall rectify it immediately.

A snippet of my favorite part from this lil interview section:

“Not to worry. Between you and me”—the chair creaked as he leaned in, lips quirked sideways, his brows expressive, and his hand hovering beside his cheek—“Butcher and I got a secret bromance happening behind the scenes, I tell you what.” The discreet Lavalier microphone clipped somewhere on Homelander’s supersuit had picked up the hushed whisper, making the audio crisp and clear. Thirteen different camera angles captured Jimmy’s brows shooting up. He repeated, “A bromance.” “Yep. A bromance for the ages. Color me stoked.” The plastic shell of his features melted away, resembling a more complete flesh-and-blood human. Easing back into his seat, Homelander said, “I just think, like with any large and aggressive attack dogs, as owners we have a responsibility to properly train and socialize them. Now I don’t own a dog myself but if I did, I would keep my mutt on a short leash—and obedient only to me. He won’t bite, not unless I tell him to.”

The full scene the snippet belongs to:

A/N - I’m sure y’all remember Jimmy Fallon’s cameo in S1. It only makes sense to replace Translucent with Homelander now. I originally considered Cole Cameron to ask the hard hitting questions, but he dies in S4 (thanks, Ashley). So I elected to not go with him.

And the line about Butcher not being caped but quite clearly dark is lifted from the comics, as a lil Easter egg ;) but I changed it from Black Noir to Billy because Homelander’s doubling down on the lie/ cover story that he’s the one who “reached out his hand and brought Billy back from the path of villainy by inviting him into the Seven” 🙄

*Note: as always, keep in mind this is taken from an earlier draft; so there may be a couple changes in the final draft that’ll be posted to AO3 when the chapter’s ready. But this sneak peek is pretty much as close to its final draft iteration as you'll see.

(Chapters 1-2 can be read on AO3)

#butchlander #homelander #billy butcher #the boys #the boys amazon #the boys tv #billy butcher x homelander #no I shalln’t share the paragraphs before that describe what a man Billy’s cooking beef wellington in the kch wearing frenchie’s fancy apro #it will be a treat when y’all can read it in full ;)#this isn’t even the wildest thing HL says in this ch so I don’t mind sharing this haha #lying to the cameras to sell that he is the best of chums with his new secret crush #he’s selling the homoerotism for the fans and is it any wonder the hashtag butchlander began to trend in the ‘Truce’ universe?#season 4 what season 4 *please* we’re still in post-season 3 territory #there are only kernels of S4 canon easter eggs dropped in ch3 & 4 (and maybe more if I decide to convert this PWP fourshot to a longfic)#but we’ll cross that bridge when we get there (for now it’s just 4 chapters as god intended; the rest would be considered bonus content #after the main story (aka the four chapters); the longfic will only happen if S4 makes me mad or I get brainworms #I’d talked briefly about wit I’d do if I’d made Truce into a longfic b4 & spoiler alert: we’d delve into the emotional knives territory #plus a wedding epilogue because they deserve a happy ending & I like happy endings #chapter preview #preview #truce #this ch is taking forever 😔 but I swear it’s worth it luvs

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yeonbam · 2 months ago

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the way I have every single tag about lgief muted everywhere since the evening... first because I didn't want to get spoilt before finishing... now I don't have the heart to unmute and see them again lest I go through it in a way worse than I am right now... you'd think it's a bad ending with the way I'm acting but it's BECAUSE it wasn't a bad ending. it's because it was the perfect possible ending Ever.

#the story began and ended the same way #connecting two souls across the universes #ik this is not the takeaway from the drama but goddddd if love doesnt do that for me i dont want it #i hope i can also become powerful because i can love #love game in eastern fantasy #the guide to capturing a black lotus #the world spins the way it did #everything has the perfect timing.#miaomiao was alone but she will find her people #that was the way i saw the ending #and thats why i will cry #ok im done

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bergeronprocess · 2 months ago

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My Favorites of the Year 2024: Anime Review and Selection of Favorite Anime

This is a long one, lol, so it is definitely going below a cut. I review every anime I watched this year and choose my favorite. Please note that I may discuss a show in a spoiler-y manner! Look at the tags!

According to my custom 2024 list I made on Anime Planet, I watched 26 shows this year, but that doesn’t tell the entire story. There’s more nuance. Let me get right into it by reviewing the anime I watched this year and making a selection of My Favorite Anime of 2024! I am going to go in order by my list.

Winter Season

A Sign of Affection: I wanted to like this more than I did! I did like the concept of having a deaf protagonist who uses sign language, and it was a very pretty looking show and I understand they did a lot of research to make sure they were portraying deafness and sign language use accurately, but I just did not really gel with the love interest. He felt very pushy and insistent. That sort of thing appealed to our lass Yuki, but just not to me, and I think that “vibing with the love interest” is a pretty important aspect of enjoying a romance anime.

Cherry Magic! Thirty Years of Virginity Can Make You a Wizard?!: On the other hand, this one was cute! What an interesting concept - remaining a virgin until age 30 gives you the ability to read the mind of anyone you’re touching. The two leads were cute and worked well together. I definitely vibed with them. I also enjoyed the B-plot with the novelist friend and the delivery man he falls for. The end WAS way rushed, though - but that’s just endemic to the state of the anime industry as it is lol.

Hokkaido Gals Are Super Adorable: This was a fun show too. I loved the snowy Hokkaido scenery - definitely lived vicariously through it, since I live in a southern city that almost never receives snow anymore. There didn’t even feel like that much fanservicey stuff considering the lead gal’s looks, either. At its core it was a sweet story about a guy learning more about himself and making friends in a new place. All three of the girls were sweet and relatable characters. The theme song is catchy too!

The Weakest Tamer Began a Journey to Pick Up Trash: I ended up dropping this one at episode 6. Something about the pacing was just not enjoyable for me. I wanted to like it, though! The lead was played by the same actress who played Mari in Love Live Sunshine, the idea that she could “hear” the thoughts of her previous self guiding her along was interesting and the little blue slime companion was cute. Oh well.

Wonderful Precure: Still ongoing and won’t end before the end of the year, so ultimately I can’t give my final thoughts yet. But it’s…fine. Just fine. Doesn’t blow me away the way Hirogaru Sky did. I don’t think I would be as deep into Precure now if I had started with Wonderful instead of Hirogaru. First of all, the show clearly wants Mayu to be the protagonist the way she’s received so much more character growth and development than Iroha. It’s introduced some high-concept ideas with the baddies but has been content to just not really see them through or to just kinda half-ass them. And the fact that we will probably never properly get Pyonderful Precure with Satoru and Daifuku becoming Cures is frankly unforgivable. (No, the movie does not count.) Looking forward to You and Idol Precure, though!

Spring Season

Nijiyon Animation 2: Nijigasaki is my favorite flavor of Love Live and I will always be here for any Niji storytelling. Nijiyon is a silly little short anime based on a 4-panel comic series, so it’s just a little bit of fun, like eating a colorful cupcake. I am pretty much always gonna be up for eating a colorful cupcake. Very much looking forward to the Niji movies being available with English subtitles - and to the Niji video game, also with English, coming next year!

Tonari no Yokai-san: Very interesting concept - what if yokai and humans lived together, and lived together pretty well? It was fun to see the different kinds of yokai and how they adapt to their surroundings. In the end, the big climactic issue of “suddenly the world is inverted and all the yokai disappear” is resolved pretty quickly thanks to the power of love and friendship. Once again, that rushed resolution is probably due to the limitations of seasonal anime. Oh well!

Spy x Family Movie Code White: My husband likes to watch Spy x Family with me, which is very exciting to me as he does not usually go in on anime with me, so we went to see the movie when it came out in theaters. It was fun! It was very clearly meant to premiere in the winter and thus it was a bit strange to see all this snowy goodness when it was already getting warm and flowery outside for us, but overall a good time. Gloriously, Yor got to do a lot of work in this one, unlike in the show when she sometimes takes the back seat. She’s my girl!

Summer Season

Narenare: Cheer for You!: I previously wrote about how I enjoyed this one in spite of some story weaknesses and in spite of the Anime News Network reviewer hating it so much he named it his worst anime of summer. Ouch. So I won’t really repeat myself here, but like - I enjoyed it! It’s not THAT bad! It has fun characters, fun ideas and even shows things like accessibility for a character who uses a wheelchair and shows another character literally going to a therapist for her twisties! It’s fun!

The Magical Girl and the Evil Lieutenant Used to be Archenemies: Gorgeous show. So pretty. The episodes are not full length, but they’re not as short as Nijiyon. Loved the characters, except for the lecherous familiar assigned to Byakuya, who I want to drop-kick into a dumpster. I do wish Byakuya and Mira had officially gotten together and we could’ve seen a kiss or something, but unfortunately the manga this is based on will never be finished because its artist has passed away.

Shy 2nd Season: Ended up not finishing this one due to a combination of the Olympics eating my brain for a few weeks and also not really being wowed by the story. Hope they saved Tokyo tho.

Twilight Out of Focus: This one was also a DNF due to the Olympics. I did enjoy what I saw, which was through episode 4. After I decided to drop it, I learned that my thinking “Jeez, these two sure are moving fast” was actually because the show is an anthology show and was not going to follow the first couple all the way through.

Fall Season (still in progress)

Magilumiere Co. Ltd.: This show is well worth getting Amazon Prime for, and the commercial breaks are inserted at reasonable times - right at the start and then right in the middle. Amazon also famously does not take political ads, so I DEFINITELY appreciated that. It does annoyingly want to get you away from the end credits despite the fact that many (if not all) episodes have a post-credits scene, so be vigilant with that remote control. I’m having a great time with this one so far. Great music, great characters, really great opening credits, great concept. Sometimes I do wish they’d do a bit more worldbuilding because they’ve built a very interesting world. Hopefully, though, this will get a second cour and we can eventually spend more time in the world of Magilumiere!

The Stories of Girls Who Couldn’t Be Magicians: Ooh, this one is just so cozy and interesting. It literally looks like a watercolor storybook and all the characters are cute and quirky. It has some pretty interesting stuff to say about the value of knowing how to do things by hand instead of just relying on tech for everything - something that we could all certainly stand to think about in this age of apps and AI. Plus, there are lots of cute animals. There’s definitely something big going on here, what with the way that dodgy teacher is suddenly willing to offer Kurumi, Yuzu and Aniku a chance to test back into the Magumi. Especially since Kurumi and Yuzu just managed to successfully do ancient magic, he clearly sees these three kids as a threat and wants to get them out of the way. Very interested to see where this goes. Ms. Suzuki’s whole look is so adorable, too, I wish I could cosplay as her lol.

Acro Trip: This show has made me genuinely, truly laugh out loud multiple times. Something about its ridiculous guyfail and girlfail characters being silly just tickles my funny bone big time. I did have to get used to the unusual design of the eyes, but I’m glad I did. I don’t know where, if anywhere, this show is going yet, but I’m having so much fun enjoying the ride. (I literally don’t even care about the Saudi funding and Stu Levy aspects of it all. Even that cannot dampen my enthusiasm.) Chrome’s voice actor should win every award because he is always doing the most and doing it so well. He even sings some of his dialogue in the latest episode I’ve watched! But this is still his funniest moment so far. Just go watch it a few times, ok?

Non-Seasonal Anime I Watched in 2024

It looks like I did a lot of my non-seasonal anime watching during spring and summer. Makes sense - those are traditionally a bit quieter for me in terms of seasonal things I am watching, so it gives me time to stretch out!

Magic Users Club! OVA: Way, way back in the day when I first got into anime, I remember renting the first volume of this on tape from Blockbuster. That sentence alone should tell you my age. I really enjoyed what I saw, but never got to see the rest of it - until now. It has a lot of the same people who worked on the 90s Sailor Moon anime, so that same iconic character style is there. The way the magic works is very interesting and all of the characters are so colorful, though Akane feels a bit one-note - she’s genius at magic but she’s too busy going out with men who are WAY too damn old for her, girl what are you doing, you are a CHILD, I am going to call Chris Hansen on these men. Anyway, this is a fun and lovely little OVA with great opening and ending themes. I am so glad I finally saw the rest of it.

Magic Users Club! TV: There’s a TV series too! It’s a sequel! I’ve watched one episode so far! It’s good! I will probably get back to it in winter and spring 2025 seasons!

Love Live Nijigasaki Next Sky: This is a fun, too-short OVA that’s meant to bridge the gap between the second season of the anime and the upcoming movie trilogy that will (sniff, sniff) bring an end to the Nijigasaki saga. It centers around Shioriko feeling self-doubt (girl SO relatable) and Isla, the British girl that Ayumu went over to visit in London. Once again, I will ALWAYS go in for anything Nijigasaki because I love seeing these gals again. But I wish Isla had been able to perform with everyone!

Video Girl Ai: I remember reading some of the manga for this one in Animerica Extra magazine way back in the day. I may have even had a volume or two of the manga. Again, I’m old, lol. But then I found the anime OVA on Youtube and started watching it! I am actually not done yet - I have about half of episode 5 and all of episode 6 yet to watch - but I have enjoyed it so far. Such great music and art and characters, except for Takashi, who is a fuckboy of the highest order. Moemi, girl, stop pining over him, he ain’t shit.

Gunsmith Cats: Continuing with my “I am old”ness, I would often see a sick-ass trailer for this one at the start of videos made by ADV, and it always piqued my interest but I was never able to find it anywhere at that time. Well, it’s a 3-episode OVA and it’s on Youtube! And what impressed me the very most about this was the absolute attention to detail. It was crystal clear that they actually went to Chicago for research - some of the scenery truly looked like photographs! There are definitely some Blues Brothers vibes for me and I love that movie. The only issue is the length and the fact that it kind of steers away from its main plot to a subplot involving a Russian enemy at the end. But overall it’s a really fun time and, again, pretty short, so go watch it!

Mobile Suit Gundam 08th MS Team: My husband and I like to listen to the podcast Get Played, which is about video games. The hosts of that show also do a side show called Get Anime’d that is a Patreon exclusive. When they mentioned that they would be watching 08th MS Team, I decided to briefly get Patreon and hop in - and, thrillingly, husband joined me again! I like Gundam and I have only ever watched Wing and Witch from Mercury, but I’ve always enjoyed the opening theme for 08th MS Team. It also has a bit less of the space opera aspect than Wing or Mercury, which I think helped to make it appeal to my husband, who isn’t much for sci-fi. It’s a bit more of an earth-focused “war is hell” story. Great characters and story, although the final episode is tonally very strange, to the point that it was literally never dubbed into English. I’m glad the Get Played Gang decided to do this. Plus, it’s a relatively short OVA, so it’s a quick watch. Hulu doesn’t always time the commercial breaks very well, though.

Happiness Charge Pretty Cure!: I set a 2024 goal for myself to finish Star Twinkle Pretty Cure, and I accomplished that goal! This meant I was free to move to the next Precure I wanted to watch, Happiness Charge. I am only 4 episodes in right now, but I like it a whole lot. Love the characters, the designs, the mechanics of the transformations and attacks, the music…love it all. I am looking forward to watching more of this.

Pretty Cure Movie: Miracle Universe: Finishing Star Twinkle means I also feel free to watch its two movies. I have not yet watched the other one, but I did watch and enjoy Miracle Universe. I loved seeing the Kira Kira gang again because I really enjoyed watching their season last year. I am not as familiar with the Hugtto crew, but they’re nice as well based on what I saw here. A fun little crossover movie. I pretended my phone was a Miracle Light. Good times!

Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon Cosmos Movies 1 and 2: GOD, FINALLY. FINALLY. FINALLY. I used to think we were somehow never going to get official releases of this in the West. I really thought Toei could have gotten a bag by just commissioning someone to do English subtitles and include those on the Blu-Ray releases. But finally, Netflix came through and we finally got the conclusion to Sailor Moon Crystal. Once again, as with the Eternal movies, this is a case of the first movie being absolutelycramjampacked with story and plot and then the second movie being almost entirely about a climactic battle. Congratulations to Sailor Cosmos for finally getting an anime adaptation. Truly used to think it just would never happen back in the time before Cosmos was a thing. Insert that meme of Michael Jordan crying while holding the NBA trophy captioned to “I used to pray for times like this” here.

Saber Marionette J: The music for this show is amazing - Megumi Hayashibara is the queen of 90s anime songs and she simply does not miss. This is another show I always wanted to watch back in the day but never had access to. Now I have access to it on YouTube and I’m catching up. It’s got a lot of silly slapstick, but the characters are fun and the story is interesting. I just know it’s working up to something big. There’s a reason why Lime, Cherry and Bloodberry are built different. I’m looking forward to finding out.

Favorite Anime of 2024

I am going to just choose from the new, seasonal shows for this one. This is a tough call, and as a show currently in progress I am going to just have to hope it keeps going well, but…folks…it’s Acro Trip. I’m having so much fun with this one and laughing so much. Take me down to Naniga City, where the grass is green and the folks are silly.

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panvani · 1 year ago

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I actually finished Monster a few days ago but I will state my feelings on it for posterity's sake: I think Monster, while composed of a number of well written and evocative vignettes, ultimately fails to execute its overall emotional arc well. If the story had been explicitly framed episodically with an overarching B-plot connecting these episodes, I might feel more positively towards it, but the fact that it must nominally develop its "main plot" each chapter while devoting most of its screen time to tangentially related stock characters was extremely frustrating. None of the twists or reveals actually felt consequential because information about the main plot is fed to you so painstakingly and in a way that's so repetitive that its conclusion is largely predictable and almost anticlimactic.

Monster ultimately does not do a very good job of developing any of its main cast. Its story and characters warp around Tenma, who is just not very interesting. I was frankly just fed up with him and the unilateral adoration that every character holds for him by the end of the story. Nina was extremely underdeveloped for the character she should have been and supposedly was within the story and any pathos that could have been elicited by her was neutered by first having her be barely present for the vast majority of the story, and second by also relegating her into being a Guy Who Just Loves Tenma. Eva was probably the closest any character had to a real character arc and her writing was just so absurdly misogynistic for nearly the entire story I couldn't enjoy any time she was on screen. Johan should have been an interesting character, but the manga got so long and drawn out that by the end I was just fed up with him.

The story overall was weirdly saccharine in a way that felt almost childish in contrast to its intended tone, and while that's not in itself a bad thing, its attempts to portray humanity as Overall Good felt simplistic and often cheap. It kinda goes hand in hand with how horribly it attempts to address WWII. "Well, The Nazis Felt Really Bad About It" and "If You Think About It, Japanese People Were The Real Victims" are not, uh. Themes that show a willingness to contend with complex morality or any real belief in human goodness aside from superficial self-reassurance. Also Urasawa Naoki is insanely insanely insanely afraid of sex.

Ultimately I think Monster would have been way, way better if it had just been shorter and had treated its main plot in any reasonable manner. It had a lot of interesting, evocative moments, and a lot of the ideas of the main plot could have been really good to chew on if the main plot hadn't lost momentum long before it was actually wrapped up. Nina and Johan are given very interesting treatment on occasion, and I have been thinking about their characters and relationship quite a bit since finishing Monster, but the plot was so bogged down in the Various Extraneous Dipshits and the need to conform every aspect of Nina's character around Tenma that there's no actual interesting conclusion to be drawn from them.

I think on an arc-by-arc level, Monster is quite well written, and it has a few really strong moments. It just makes such poor use of its format overall that it sours the whole experience.

#logxx #I feel like it legit would have been better if the story began with no explanation of Tenma's background or why he's running around Germany #And everything had been addressed on an arc-by-arc basis with the Tenma stuff being built up such that the Nina and Johan stuff #Is compiled/addressed almost entirely within a final arc #Instead of the way it was actually executed where it feels like Urasawa forgot about the main plot ofr like 5 chapters #And then threw in some bullshit line or event so it could be nominally claimed that the plot was progressed #The need to stretch out information that... was literally in universe resolved over a single conversation over several chapters #Was incredibly frustrating #Also the bizarre transmisogyny moment with Johan which would have been bad in any case #But at least would have felt actually relevant and coherent within the text IF THE THING IT WAS FORESHADOWING WASN'T DRAWN OUT OVER 3 ARCS #UGHH

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arolesbianism · 8 months ago

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Some swap au Olivia and Jackie concepts for the main 3 universes 👍

#keese draws #oni posting #first two are from the main rat universe #long story short a while after founding gravitas olivia was like ok so I think me being your boss in our company that we spend most of our #days at has left our relationship in a place that I’m uncomfortable with so we’re getting a divorce now sorry #and jackie proceeded to throw a fit abt that for several years until she got fired over it #in another petty act she tried to break back in to steal some of the work she had done there but got caught #and unfortunately for her during the past several years olivia has been slowly having mere morals broken down piece by piece by the allure #of progress and by the time she did her breaking and entering scheme olivia was far past the point of being ok with kidnapping #the second two are the rabbit universe girlies and they’re less openly hostile with eachother but they still are bad for eachother #they’ve known eachother since childhood and jackie has basically been using olivia as a therapist since they were teens #this lead to them developing an increasingly unhealthy codependent relationship where olivia ends up acting incredibly irresponsibly as #director of gravitas due to her being so stressed and paranoid about jackie all the time #and the third two are the raccoon au which is basically just jackie being too scared of rejection to put her work under her name so she #asks olivia to take credit for it which she does and she ends up getting all the credit and praise for a lot of the early work at gravitas #this combined with jackie’s constant worshipping of her slowly began to lead to it kinda getting into her head #and jackie was also letting it get to her head and eventually her ambition got the better of her and she ended up attacking olivia #now these are all just the basic concepts I currently have these aus are all still in the concept stages #for example I’m still figuring out how I wanna involve the other scientists and if I switch their roles around too #but yeah I’ve been thinking abt these guys lately so they get drawn 👍#oh also fun fact these aus are inspired by the scrapped content back when olivia was jodi #which is why I characterize these two a bit differently then I might if I was leaning more towards my normal stuff #theyre characterized more closely to old jackie and jodie including origin story wise

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em-dashes · 1 year ago

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now that suddence is out to betas i'm oscillating between getting more and more self conscious and overthinking about everything that might be wrong with the story vs. knowing that is literally THE POINT of betas and i can't in good conscience let my story slide out into the world with a bunch of faults i didn't catch simply because i was too close to it

#em dashes #DON'T GO EASY ON ME I NEED TO KNOW EVERYTHING #i just need all my betas to know that I KNOW my story isn't perfect in its current state and that's exactly why it's out for critiques #i think there's always some part of you that wishes the critiques will come back squeaky clean. no notes! absolute perfection!#bc then you'd feel proud! you'd feel like you know what you're doing! like you're a PRO!!#however i gotta remind myself that not even professional writers can crank out perfect stories right away #they all have editors and peer critiques to help them #and i have to be careful about equating critiques as personal failures #because they aren't!! they're there to help!!!#anyway. enough venting for now #it's been a while since i got peer critiques so it's a little unnerving lol #but also also i just saw a very good breakdown of an episode of buffy that deals with grief #and i couldn't help comparing it to suddence which also deals with grief #and thinking 'wow. why didn't i do this. why didn't i do that. am i doing this all wrong'#AHH! writing is a very scary profession sometimes #but to be proud of myself for a second #i've never been so confident as to even show so many people my writing. let alone to receive critique on it #it's so strange to think there was a time where i kept all my writing bottled up and didn't talk about it to anyone even on tumblr #i began posting in 2018. that's not that long ago. that's only five years #and yet it feels like a billion years ago. i was still in university. suddence didn't even exist yet #wow. time is so weird

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morningmask27 · 11 months ago

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I do sometimes find it really annoying that most of the things I do right now are At Least tangentially related to a trauma I lived through.

I am living in a university dorm right now, it's a very typical thing to do, but most people return to their family home during the weekends and only really stay in the dorms because they have classes in the week and having to go from their home to the classes, especially the 9 am classes, can be heavy if they live somewhat further away. I stay in my dorm the entire week. For Reasons I don't want to go back to my old home for longer than half a day to drop my laundry and leave with clean clothes, some food and a chat with my mother. I wouldn't feel good doing so anymore, but mentioning that is weird because most people (except internationals because going to a full on other country just for the weekend, every weekend, would be a bit dumb) return to their home (My dorm feels more like home to me right now than my old house did btw).

When I say I stay in my dorm people are somewhat confused, as it on its own already implies that something must not be that good at the familial home for me to not go there for the weekends. By the simple fact I don't go back it's already implied there is something wrong, and it's true, there Is something wrong, but I can't just start explaining the whole thing, it's not really appropriate for most conversations, and I simply don't want to open up about this part of my traumas. So I just have to quickly and very blatantly brush off that fact and the unpleasant implications to continue the conversation without making it awkward and it's so annoying.

Most of my weird trauma responses at least have the added thing that if I don't verbalize them nobody will really notice. I am good at hiding them, I kinda had to, but this dorm situation is such a blatant sign of something Weird (and not the good kind) that I cannot hide since my actions on their own imply a situation already.

I am somewhat good at dealing with all of these issues, brushing off The Problems is a typical part of normal conversations, but it does get frustrating sometimes when I get severely affected by something traumatic, and it's The Only reason that my problem happened, but I cannot talk about it in casual conversations because of how heavy and intense it is. I have to vaguely mention The Horrors (They Are Complex) and move on before I make my conversation partner uncomfortable. It happened when I had to miss a class because of a severe relapse in my mental health, it happens every time I mention I stay in my dorm the weekends, it happens whenever I get too jittery and weird because of stress (I don't even always know Why I am stressed) and I just cannot explain anything about the cause because it's too heavy for most people to hear. (I do understand that fact, it makes sense you're not going to tell classmates casually about the horrific stuff you went through in your personal life, but it fucking gets annoying when it is fully related to a situation and I have to Shut The Fuck Up anyway.)

It's just frustrating to me that I have to deal with all these Weird Things because of trauma, and everyone sees them, but I cannot explain where they come from truthfully because of how much they are. It's in this weird middle state where people See I am weird hurt, but they don't Know why. I do things differently for reasons they can assume are unpleasant, but I cannot ever truly explain everything to them.

#morningcries #yeah late night frustrations as I just thing about all my friends and such going back to their homes and the occasional somewhat awkward #Lull in a conversation whenever I say I don't return to my kot (so Every time I say that)#Honestly having such a shit childhood really set me apart. But not in a good way #I am weird in many ways. All related to traumas I had and I can't relate to most people #I don't want to return to my home. I don't know what I feel about my sister but it sure as hell isn't a normal sibling relationship.#I have severe attachment issues and fucking cut myself when I was 14 #This mutilation fucked up my brain in the long term too as I now just crassly mention them Like That. They don't mean anything to me anymor #School left me a lonely hurt mess filled with anger and resentment. I had no friends left during my last year there. I had no friends when #I began university. My childhood was horrible and I now have to build something new from the shattered pieces I have left #Some people do help me but in a way my childhood is and always will be lost. I can't relate to what most people got to enjoy #Yes some small moments I do. I went on vacation and stuff and it was fun But somehow something always showed up to make the memory taste ba #When I talk about my past I always have to choose very specific small stories and shave off every negative detail and the grander (bad)#Context

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