#this post actually originally included a line that insulted a writer of another v popular tumblr show

[hulahoopingholt]

Greg always had his own motivations which is why I feel he's consistent despite recast. We watched him decide to go back to school, struggle, transfer to Emory, go into recovery, graduate, move home, start a business. Josh and Nathaniel until the very end existed only for Rebecca to react/interact with. Do you think that was planned by the writers to set Greg apart or a due to a lack of time or clarity from the writers? I never warmed to Nathaniel but I still don't know if I "should" have.

Yup, completely true. Greg’s path makes sense, and he’s able to exist as a character in his own right. As you said, he had his own motivations outside of Rebecca. Nathaniel and Josh eventually just seemed like plot devices to me. Especially Nathaniel, who seemed to just fill whatever role they had a need for at the time. Want an asshole boss antagonist but with sexual chemistry? MEET NATHANIEL. Need a soft love interest for Rebecca? HERE HE IS AGAIN. How did he get to become the soft love interest? ermmmmmm....*elaborate hand waving* HE’S NICE NOW. Josh feels less egregious to me because I think the writers just didn’t know what to do with him post-priest school. Obviously they needed to separate him from Rebecca, which makes sense, but any time it seemed we’d be creeping toward some genuine growth with him it’d disappear. Remember when Josh was sitting there struggling to write the objective of his resume in S3? The show ended and we STILL didn’t know what he wanted out of life, other than he felt ready for a real relationship. Which....yay, good for him, I’m happy for him, but he’s one of our few OG main characters, and ultimately I don’t feel we got to learn a whole lot about him, and that makes me really sad because I LOVE Josh Chan. 

I have a friend who stays farrrrr away from any and all fandom who tried to convince me that the lack of focus on Nathaniel and Josh’s development was an intentional decision on behalf of the writers, that Nathaniel was just supposed to be the “basic white guy” and Josh was the nostalgic, unattainable dream, but honestly...........I don’t have that faith in the writers, especially with the interviews about how they set the trio up to be equally viable options. Because, and maybe this is just because I’m a cynical bitch lmao, but I have trouble reconciling the fact that Nathaniel, who spent most of the series being an asshole who engaged in truly horrific behavior, cried once, decided to be nice in large part because of the influence of an unattainable woman, read a lot of books, and that means he’s therefore evolved, is reason for me to believe there’s actually genuine change that’s going to be long-lasting. Sure, he still seemed nice at the open mic, so that seems encouraging, but at the time of Rebecca’s dates? It had been only a few months. If I were Rebecca, I would NOT be able to view Nathaniel as a legitimately viable option, especially since just a few months ago he was calling me selfish for wanting to prioritize my self-care and used my childhood diary to manipulate me into falling for him. But according to Aline and Rachel, that’s not the case, soooo...

It’s actually really frustrating to me. Because for instance, when Nathaniel was going on in the finale about how he was frustrated working at the firm, I was like, “oh wow, okay, that actually makes sense, I can see this,” and I was glad he was able to do something with his life he found more fulfilling. But I would have found that ending SO much more satisfying (and prob would have actually liked Nathaniel a lot more) if they had started revealing that earlier in the show. Because while it’s no secret I didn’t like Nathaniel and Rebecca as a couple at all, I actually did enjoy a lot of Nathaniel’s interactions with other characters and found him LOADS more interesting. I know the rom com ep is really popular among some folks, but personally, I would have rather had an episode of Nathaniel coming to terms with why he’s unsatisfied with his own life than an episode that again just hinges on his relationship with Rebecca. 

I remember once upon a time on an interview they asked if we’re supposed to ship Nathaniel and Rebecca and Rachel/Aline basically said they didn’t care, do whatever you want. And then they went on this “equally viable” schpiel, so.......I think we are supposed to like them all? Or at least understand them/see why Rebecca would consider them. For me personally, it was a swing and a miss but....idk, maybe it worked for other people.

[arcaneranger]

Final Thoughts - 2018 Long Shows

It’s finally here! I’m so close to being done with 2018 (...mostly. We’ll get to it) that I can taste it, but in the meantime, this list is gonna be weird, because there will be things that were already on other lists since I revised my rules of what should be classified how. This post is specifically for any show that ended in 2018 and lasted longer than 13-ish episodes (including shows that aired a second season during the same year or within six months of finishing the previous one), which means that there’s about as much on it as a usual season of shows, but they all had more time to impress - or disappoint me. I’m doing a better job in recent seasons of getting to everything, but last year there were unfortunately things that I missed (I was burned out in the winter) and just have to leave aside for now because I can’t wait any longer for these lists.

Anyway! As usual, let’s start with what I skipped!

* The Seven Deadly Sins: Revival of the Commandments, The Disastrous Life of Saiki Kusuo S2, Cardcaptor Sakura Clear Card, Garo: Vanishing Line, and Mr Tonegawa: Middle Management Blues because I haven’t seen their previous seasons or parent works. (Yes, even Cardcaptor Sakura. Y’all can shoot me later.)

* Hakyuu Hoshin Engi, Beatless, and Basilisk: The Ouka Ninja Scrolls because by the time I was rounding things up, I hadn’t heard a single positive thing about any of them.

Next comes what I dropped -

WORST OF THE YEAR: Steins;Gate 0 (4/10)

What a fucking mess this show was. Aside from a very noticeable downgrade in production talent from its predecessor, the plot meanders and flirts with maybe actually happening this time before just dropping out again, over and over, to the point where I was perfectly willing to drop it two episodes from the finish line because it was such an insult to fans of the original. (Also, continued disgusting mistreatment of the transgender character.)

Gundam Build Divers (4/10)

Taking the Build series from being a well-written kids show to an averagely-written kids show that hides itself in decent mech designs.

Katana Maidens (4/10)

I remember so little about this show, and granted that I did drop it after one episode almost nine months ago, but what I did remember was that it gave me strong KanColle vibes with laughably inconsistent animation and flat characters. Meh.

Darling in the FRANXX (5/10)

This should probably be lower on the list, but I got out of Darling while the getting was good, sixteen episodes in. I understand that future episodes of the show cemented it as crappy right-wing nonsense in addition to pushing worldbuilding out of its fortieth-story window, but the moment it lost me was much sooner, when the crazy yandere female lead was reduced, almost instantly, to Good Anime Waifu as a reward to the protagonist for going against his friends with his selfish motives.

Persona 5 the Animation (5/10)

In addition to not actually finishing in 2018, Persona 5 just did not give me a single reason to watch it when I’d already finished the source game, with middling-to-bad visuals (thanks to the switch from Production I.G. to A-1 Pictures, and not even the team that created the much better-looking Day Breakers OVA before the game was released in the U.S.) and phoned-in music, which is especially unacceptable in a Persona adaptation. Also, we all absolutely called that the studio couldn’t tell the story of the entire game in just 26 episodes.

Record of Grancrest War (6/10)

There’s people that like this one a lot, but I didn’t see much that interested me in the first two episodes. I’ve heard better things about the manga.

Golden Kamuy (6/10)

I had problems with the first half of Golden Kamuy that the second half simply didn’t fix, and it became difficult for me to keep watching - the show still interrupted almost every fight scene with a dick joke, but still wanted to maintain a serious and occasionally frightening tone - and those things simply don’t go together. It needed to either spend more time being funny, or keep its lowest-common-denominator humor out of the fights.

Next, I have two shows that are (potentially permanently) On Hold, simply because it’s time for me to move on and I don’t have the time or energy to marathon them when the Winter shows are starting to wrap up:

Kakuriyo: Bed & Breakfast for Spirits, because even though I initially dropped it, I’ve heard a lot of good things since and I want to eventually give it another shot.

Yowamushi Pedal Glory Line, because despite the fact that I still enjoyed the previous season, this one started right in the middle of my burnout and I only heard bad things about it. I’ll get to it eventually, but it’s a shame that this series has been on a clear trend downwards since its revival.

And finally, the stuff I finished!

The Ancient Magus’ Bride (6/10)

Keep in mind that this is here entirely on the merits of its aesthetic and its side characters - in the end, Ancient Magus’ Bride is a Beauty and the Beast story where the beast gets what he wants without learning to be less of a dick or even apologizing for his clearly wrong actions.

Major 2nd (7/10)

Always pleased to have even just Good sports shows around, and this one is a very effective reboot of a classic series that’s never made its way stateside (man, the underperformance of Big Windup! really did a lot of damage to this genre in the West). With good character development and a decent second-generation premise, Major 2nd has the potential to be the beginning of a solid baseball story, assuming that it gets a needed followup.

IDOLiSH7 (7/10)

I dropped IDOLiSH7 when it first aired, and though I wound up enjoying it after I was very strongly urged to revisit it, the problems it started with never quite left it behind - that is, it has an okay cast of characters but doesn’t present even passable performance sequences, and if you’re going to include big song-and-dance numbers, they have to be good, or you may as well just be UtaPri.

ClassicaLoid Season 2 (8/10)

In 2017, I gave the first season of ClassicaLoid a near-perfect 9/10, and while this season gives us a satisfying conclusion to the story, it does things both a little better than the first, and also not quite as great. It’s story is much more well-integrated over the runtime so it doesn’t happen all at once in a few chunks, and the jokes that work are still absolute genius, but there’s simply too much that doesn’t quite land correctly, and a little too much immature humor, for it to reach the same lofty Hall of Fame heights as the first season. Still, one of the most underrated shows I’ve ever seen.

My Hero Academia Season 3 (8/10)

God, Izuku in that onesie is too damn cute.

My problems with Hero Academia are frustratingly persistent - the show is at its best when the students are competing with other students, because outside of last season’s Stain (a villain whose motivation is specifically related to the world of MHA), the villains are just not at all compelling and they all seem a little too generic for their own good. I just want Horikoshi to be a little bit less predictable of an author and do a little less reading of the Standard Shounen Playbook. Luckily, when it works, it works magnificently.

March Comes in Like a Lion S2 (8/10)

March remains director/auteur Akiyuki Shinbo’s most accessible work, and one of his masterpieces, as a well-paced and marvelously moody story of a depressed shogi prodigy learning to be a normal teenager before his youth completely passes him by, and the fantastic characters that surround him with their own complex problems and motivations. I just really, really hope it gets a third season eventually, because this one did not leave off on a satisfying conclusion.

Speaking of which...

Food Wars! Shokugeki no Soma S3 (9/10)

It’s almost a shame that My Hero Academia became hugely popular purely based on its accessibility to American audiences, because Food Wars pretty squarely deserves to be the reigning Shonen Jump king - each season has only improved on the previous one, and this one was based entirely on a continuing arc that could only have happened in the universe of this show, Fighting Food Fascism. That being said, it also leaves off right in the middle of the arc (because it had almost caught up to the manga), meaning that we have to hope that it can remain relevant long enough for there to be enough source material for another season. I’ll be crossing my fingers until they snap.

Banana Fish (9/10)

Yes, this has risen a point since my review, but Banana Fish still deserves to be thought of as both a complete masterwork of crime fiction, being fantastically paced and expertly plotted in the use of its many, many twists, and a work that disappointed the side of me that hoped that, in adapting it into the modern day, MAPPA could have managed to get the author to let them depict what is clearly a queer relationship with the authenticity and legitimacy that it deserved. It’s still amazing, though, and Amazon should be pushing it with their most lavishly-made originals. At least it was the last noitaminA show they’ll get to totally bury.

And, finally, the one you all saw coming.

BEST OF THE YEAR: Lupin the 3rd Part V (10/10)

Lupin is, quite simply, one of the pinnacles of the medium. A simple idea that can (and did) go in thousands of different directions, handled by highly creative writers and an animation staff that has been knocking it out of the park for years, despite the fact that it is criminally (heh) unrecognized in the West. To put it simply, there’s a very, very good reason that it’s been around since the 70′s.

Okay! All I have left to do is finish Dragon Pilot (waiting on a friend) and we can get the last two lists out of the way! We’re almost done...

[diamondarmored-blog1]

this is whiny af. and very long. bit of an explanation of some stuff and a wee request. 

warning, there’s a brief mention of sexual abuse and A LOT of historic drama. I’ve tried really hard not to appear in search tags for the relevant areas, so please try not to cause it to appear by mentioning the fandom or muse name without cutting it up (e.g. sei//fer) because as you’ll see, I don’t want these people near me. sit down and let uncle charlie tell you a horror story.

I’ve been slow again on here, I’M SORRY!! I was making an FFX blog. I know I’m getting a reputation for being a serial blog hopper, but the reason for that is, I’ve had two muses I really really loved and nothing else has ever come close. One was my Chuami, who naturally dropped in intensity as time went on (I don’t think that’s necessarily a bad thing - you can’t keep forcing a muse into ever more dramatic scenarios without giving them a break or they end up mutated and OP). The other was V//elka. Seifer is the nearest I’ve gotten but there’s still a void. :,(

V//elka did not die naturally. You may have seen me mention “the other fandom I was in” and how it’s a cesspit of bullying asscreases, sexual harassers, liars, stalkers, thieves and assorted other villains. But you have not heard the tale.

There was one other blog for that muse when I made mine. I asked her if she’d be okay with another being around, even though I’m not obliged to ask permission to make a blog, and she completely ignored me. I thought maybe it was a weird thing to ask, and my other blog in that fandom was welcomed and pretty popular with the non-RPer audience we had. I was the only one of that character active. So I just went ahead and did it, thinking it was nbd. I was Wrong. Within not-very-long, the girl and her friends began to employ every trick, tactic and scheme they could to bully me into abandoning, including but not limited to: forcing new RPers to choose between them and me, freezing out anyone who was seen to interact with me, stealing my content, stealing my friends’ muses(! yeah, the whole thing), copying my backstory and ships wherever ridiculing them didn’t work, incorporating my work into their muses in the same way, copying my art (one of them was an art student and I am a very bad beginner - she would take my drawings and redo them with a higher level of skill and collect the praise for it), sending spies to pretend to be my friend so they could try to trick me into insulting them so they could get caps, lying about me (one of them spread the rumour that I was some kind of sex obsessed pervert - LMAO AMARITE?!), making PSA posts about how I’m not entitled to be part of the fandom, and blaming me for their personal issues (e.g. a historically kind and well mannered user who had been absent for months made a callout post and @’d them all, explaining that he couldn’t be there anymore because they had bullied him and made fun of his abusive history - this was somehow my fault. One of them said I put him up to it because I was jealous of her(?) and they actually responded to him by saying “sorry your daddy touched you” and making jokes about how they’d never be friends with someone as low as him). Eventually, even though me and my main ship partner had a shitload of non-RPer fans for the work we were doing and our partnership was very popular, neither of us could even log in anymore. Every time we spoke or moved, some stupid plan was enacted to make sure it backfired on us. We were replicated and our muses turned into pandering caricatures of what they originally were until we left. My muse was a real point of pride for me, she was the best example of a strong, confident female lead I had ever written, and she was made into a sex crazed goth domme by the very people who accused me of that and declared it abhorrent. Hedge’s was turned from a complicated, fiercely proud, genderfluid(?) killer to a fragile little flower with a dick in a dress. It wasn’t just us, by the way. Every good writer who joined the fandom is gone. They were all gone shortly after I arrived. I tracked some down and asked why, and they all told the same story, one of them said it was cyclical and now that I’m gone, they’ll choose someone else in my place. Meanwhile - here’s the kicker - the group responsible don’t even fucking write.The only time they do is when they’re using it as a weapon against somebody, by stealing their plot or their ship and acting it out themselves. Now that the writers have embarked on a mass exodus and none have appeared to take our places, all they do is shitpost because there’s no one left to target. The stolen muses’ blogs are dead. In between all this, as if this wasn’t enough of a problem, three of them have a penchant for little girls. 

Where are you going with this, Charlie? Well, chums, first of all, it goes a little way to explaining my aversion to smut. It explains why I bang on about welcoming other Seifers so much, why I’m so strict on drama now, and why I’ll bite the head off of anyone who claims to be the sole granter of permission to make a certain muse. I instantly block anyone who overdramatises things to make them sound more dramariffic than they are, no discussion, no exceptions. I am extremely wary of anyone with defensive rules, or people who post unprompted PSAs about ~being nice to duplicates~ because in my experience so far, it’s the shady people who do that - they have something to cover up. I handled it pretty badly at the time, because I didn’t want to make things worse so I let myself get steamrollered. If it happened again now, I wouldn’t mind losing every follower I have as a result of telling them to shove it up their festering assholes. ANYWAY I’m telling you all this because my search for a replacement muse has gone cold, and that’s left me feeling a bit dead and uninspired, which leads me to keep losing my flow with Seifer as well. Lately, I’ve had a lot of casual-sleazy smut crossing my dash from sources I don’t follow, and it sorta brings back bad memories. SO I went onto V//elka’s blog with the idea of reclaiming it somehow, because it feels like she’s in a locked room full of dangerous weirdos and I can’t get her out unless I extract her completely. Here’s where the request comes in.  I really want to bring her away from all that and keep her somehow. I wiped away all the content that was bothering me, changed her url, and I might change her theme too, I’m not sure. Her block list is 200 users long because I blocked fucking everyone from that fandom who was on my follower list to ensure a totally clean break. I’ve added in sketched out FFVIII and FFX verses, removed her source ones and put a request-only line on them to deter anyone who joins that fandom in future. I think the only person I’ll write V in her normal, original verse with is Mirna at the minute (she came from this hellhole as well). If I finish giving her a facelift, will I be able to engage the services of my good friends and neighbours here to help me draw her out of that environment? You don’t have to commit to anything, just treat her like any OC. Even if it doesn’t work and I can’t revive her, at least I’ll have tried. If it doesn’t fail and I do manage to scrape back some focus, the blog hopping will cease, lmao.  If anyone feels like doing me a solid. That’d be great. Cos honestly, that whole experience tainted RP as a whole for me and I’ve never really been as into it since.