#yeah this is some pretty lazy stuff compared to my other art posts but in my defence i have more important things to worry about (prelims)

[misiahasahardname]

it’s raining tacos????? idk man what do you want from me?

making up new awesome non-au related gijinkas… (was originally gonna digitalise all of them but i got lazy lol)

apple is definetly my favourite to draw right now lol

[pinkiepartypopper]

「 INTRODUCTION 」

Name's Jimmy. I'm the new Host of this Blog.

Any pronouns, I don't give a shit.

We are a diagnosed System with mixed Origins.

I'm a Factive, sorry not sorry for my existence. I am NOT the fucking real Guy. I'm myself. Don't compare me.

English/German/Dutch

On Discord we're called just like here "pinkpartypopper" hmu

I'm mean, don't cry. I warned you.

PROFICTION. Hating to refer to myself as this because I just exist, but it's just what I am according to definition.

Pro Art Freedom.

Anti-Censorship/Anti-Harrassment/Ship and Let Ship

Inform yourself about what the fuck Anti-Harassment means before you go cry about it.

If you call me a Pedophile, you're not better as the people that say "That's so Autistic of me". It's a Mental Illness. Don't throw it around like an Insult or a Vibe.

Be against the Abuse, not the Disorder.

You don't fucking know if I am diagnosed with it or not. I am not. And my diagnosis shouldn't be your fucking Business, unless I trust you and tell you.

We are a Psychology Student btw.

I repost alot, I engage in lots of fucking Discourse (If you don't wanna see it, leaveee︎︎♡)

DNI-(Do not Interact) if:

You are fucking judgemental, mean, rude or just outright an awful person. No harassment. Come at me for some bullshit and I will block.

DNF if you are under 18 !!!

If you are and I follow you, sorry. Block me!!! I made this Account recently 18+ because I am now, so Minors shouldn't be here.

I block freely

So if I don't like you, you just get blocked for no other reason. Nothing Personal or.. yeah. Personal.

I encourage you to do the same if you cannot fucking handle me.

——————————————————————

Rosi's stuff is under here. Too fucking lazy to transfer it to the other Blog.

↓↓↓↓↓↓↓↓↓↓↓↓↓↓↓↓↓↓↓↓↓↓↓↓↓↓

If things are tagged on this account with #thanks man i love you , it was Rosi answering on their loved ones.

You looking for the Rosi's Selfship Blog? Click this fucking Text! She's gonna post her stuff there.

Interests of Rosi:

I am Multifandom so I only list what comes to my mind. I am in way more fandoms. Feel free to ask for informations about which/the Fandoms I am in! Some are rare/underrated/unknown and don't really have a Fanbase!

✰ current hyperfix!

English Fandoms:

✰ Fallout (Series & Games)

• Gotham

• The Batman

• Stranger Things

• Misfits

✰ Parker Lewis Can't Lose

• Malcolm in the Middle

• 8 Simple Rules

• Invader Zim

✰ Disjointed

✰ Superstore

• Eddsworld

• Ninjago

• Lego Monkey Kid

• Black Butler

• Code Geass

German Fandoms:

• School for Vampires

• Binny and The Ghost

✰ The Three Investigators

If you have recommendations for Sitcoms please hand me some over 🥺 I love Sitcoms, especially 2000s ones!

——————————————————————

——————————————————————

Rosi's Selfshipping:

I have no solid Self-Insert/Persona.

My "Persona" has different Names, Ages, Looks and Backstories, they are all based on the F/O's Source that I am adding them in.

The gender and pronouns are based on how I feel at the given moment or stay with specific sources.

I have an Sideblog basically for all Selfshipping based posts, there you can see my Self-Inserts!!!

——————————︎︎♡︎︎♡︎︎———————————

︎︎♡ Rosi's F/O's ︎︎♡

·:*¨༺ ♱✮♱ ༻¨*:·

By questions, feel free to ask!

I know I made it pretty hard to understand 😅 I just love labeling things kdfmdm

type:

🧡 - platonic | 🌹- romantic | ❤️‍🔥 - sexual | ❤️‍🩹 - familiar

fambond:

🩸 - related family

(if not placed, it is found family or just familiar bond)

feels/facts:

✨ - parental | 🌟 - sibling | ⭐ - cousin | 💫 - step/half | 💛 - otherfam |

💥 - unhealthy |🫀 - yandere |💖 - comfort

side of type or feel/fact:

🌚 - f/o | 🌝 - s/i

Sharing everyone except for the Pink ones, you can still interact if you are open to share them tho... I will squint.

#Fallout (Series)

Thaddeus 🌹❤️‍🔥💥🫀💖🌚🌝

The Ghoul/Cooper ❤️‍🔥✨💥💖🌚

Bud Askins 🌹❤️‍🔥🩸✨💫💥💖🌚

Norm 🧡❤️‍🩹💖🌚🌝

Maximus 🧡🌟💖🌚🌝

#Fallout (Games)

Nick Valentine ❤️‍🩹🌹✨💖🌚🌝

#Gotham

Jerome Valeska 🌹❤️‍🔥🩸💫🌟💥🫀🌚🌝

Jervis Tetch 🌹❤️‍🔥❤️‍🩹🌟💥🫀🌚🌝

Jonathan Crane 🧡❤️‍🩹✨💖🌝

#The Batman

Edward Nashton🧡💥💖🌚

#Stranger Things

Jonathan Byers🧡💖🌚🌝

Argyle🌹🫀🌝

Billy Hargrove ❤️‍🔥💥💖🌚

Steve Harrington 🧡❤️‍🩹🩸⭐💖🌚🌝

#Parker Lewis Can't Lose

Parker Lewis 🌹❤️‍🔥❤️‍🩹🌟💖🌚🌝

Frank Lemmer 🌹❤️‍🔥🩸⭐🌚

#8 Simple Rules

C.J. Barnes ❤️‍🔥❤️‍🩹🩸🌟💥🌚🌝

Bridget Hennessy 🧡🩸⭐💖🌝

#Disjointed

Travis 🌹❤️‍🔥💫💖🌚🌝

Pete 🧡❤️‍🩹🌟💖🌝

Tord 🧡❤️‍🩹🩸💫🌚🌝

#Superstore

Bo 🌹❤️‍🔥💖🌚🌝

#Eddsworld

#Black Butler

Drocell 🌹❤️‍🩹🌟🫀💖🌚

#School for Vampires

Oskar 🧡❤️‍🩹🌟🌝

Stoker/Fletscher 🌹🫀🌚

#The Three Investigators

Jupiter/Justus - 🌹❤️‍🔥❤️‍🩹🌚🌝

Skinny Norris - 🧡🩸⭐🌚🌝

Dylan Parks - 🧡❤️‍🩹✨🌚

——————————————————————

——————————————————————

That was all.

If you reached to this point: Thank you so much for reading!

I appreciate your sacrificed Time! ︎︎♡︎︎♡︎︎♡

Stay Safe & Positive !!!

Or just fuck off. - Jimmy

[katatonicimpression]

On this note of comparing the relative "problematic-ness" of comics from different eras.

There are ABSOLUTELY comics I have read that I don't think I can recommend with a clear conscious because of fucked up content. For example, I genuinely believe that most of Sam Wilson's most important writing and character development is from the 70s, but I also feel that I have to give caveats to that statement (both to the comics code and its impact on the politics of those stories, and, more importantly, the clear and abhorrant racial stereotyping in that era).

But...

There is this gnarly issue with Marvel comics, and seemingly mainstream comics in general, that the current state of the industry is conducive to worse writing (e.g. series cut shorter because subscription models demand new titles, individual issues being shorter to save costs, less writing and fewer panels per page, less stability/job security so people don't take the right kind of risks etc..). This leaves older comics in the position of not just being beloved because of nostalgia or because a specific storyline was good, but genuinely overall being a better reading experience in a lot of ways because the writing is better.

And the thing is, yeah, like the previous post said, progress isn't linear with this stuff. There's less direct censorship now, diversity is often celebrated and characters are allowed to be openly lgbt. You're unlikely to see the level of crude racial caricatures in official art nowadays, and there is clearly internal messaging to artists to eliminate whitewashing (e.g. with Wanda) and even correct insensitive writing choices (e.g. with Karma's name). And I do think it is worth taking a second to be pleased about this, especially in the current political climate where it feels like they're two weeks away from banning gays from tv at this rate.

But obviously, so so obviously, a lot of this stuff has persisted. Writing is still frequently informed by stereotypes and fucked up or just stale tropes. The art still has problems, even if they're rarely as obvious. Hell, Sam Wilson's writing (and, to some extent, art) is still often informed by racist tropes, and a laziness/carelessness in the approach to the character that cannot be separated from racist attitudes.

The classic example of nonlinear progress in Marvel is obviously the 2000s, and the themes of jingoism, reactionary politics, the straightening of a bunch of characters who were clearly queer before, and abject misogyny that recur in the era. The voyeuristic obsession with sexual violence is a legacy from that era that I think hasn't really been reckoned with.

The other day I was thinking about how X-Men (2013) - the all female xmen lineup - is genuinely a lot of fun. Like, it's not perfect, but it's pretty good. And fundamentally, its feminist credentials hold up in my book. Like, it feels like a group of various women with different personalities, complementary subplots, and a welcome and appropriate theme of found family.

Meanwhile, the flagship feminist series of the Krakoa era was marauders - a white feminist girlboss femdom fantasy, written by a man, with themes that absolutely do not stand up to any kind of scrutiny, and is actually less progressive than the source material it builds on in many ways.

I think maybe this is a good example to illustrate this point. The final products may look better, may be marketed on their progressive credentials, and there are clearly internal mandates to avoid a lot of obvious problems, but that doesn't fix anything inherently, it doesn't guarantee an outcome.

I don't have a conclusion here or anything. I do think sometimes people are vacant or insensitive about very clearly offensive content from older comics. e.g. sometimes people post panels that are just a racial caricature with no awareness of what they're throwing in peoples faces. Or sometimes people take plot beats that are clearly the result of a bigoted attitude from the writer at face value. This is, if nothing else, annoying as hell and I would imagine contributes to an atmosphere that feels hostile to a lot of fans. Especially fans of colour in what are usually white-dominated fandom spaces.

And obviously, read what you want. If you don't want to read a comic from the 70s for literally any reason then don't.

But i think it's important to not get cocky about it. The modern ones aren't exempt from the same criticisms and often represent a backslide on certain topics/themes/characters. And in some cases there might be legitimate and, yes, sometimes even politially progressive reasons for preferring an older treatment of a character.

Idk, I guess I'm saying I think that you should think critically always, but also know that doing so renders nothing exempt from criticism.

[raven-at-the-writing-desk]

hi yes im still alive

DON’T MIND ME, I’M JUST--

HAVING A MOMENT TO PROCESS ALL THE LORE AND STORY CHAPTER 6 JUST DROPPED ON US, I CAN BARELY WRITE

AHHHHHHH, I HAVE SO MANY THOUGHTS 😭 kjdbbaufbiafafvoaybo LEMME PUT ON MY THINKING CAP AND THROW SOME STUFF OUT ASDYUBUASDLI;AGVUOQIB;VI You’ll understand why I used Leona’s face here even though it’s Idia and Ortho’s chapter after you read my thoughts--

***Chapter 6 (and other main story) spoilers below the cut!***

Okay, just to keep it simple, I’ll try to keep things in chronological order!

First is a bullet point list of my thoughts on chapter 6 so far, then all my questions and theories (mostly a biggish theory on Ace) are at the end of the post.

Expectation: Idia cowering in his room, Vil and Rook busting down his door using Epel as a battering ram, dead Ortho theory confirmed

Reality: SWAT TEAM RAID ON NRC, DORM LEADERS (sans Kalim) AND JAMIL GET KIDNAPPED

Admittedly, I’m disappointed to see that the injury Grim inflicted to MC was basically just a cat scratch and nothing more. I thought it would be a lot more impactful if MC had to deal with juggling the realization that Grim has betrayed their friendship and trust while also on the verge of death (or at least while being severely injured)... And given how MC reacted to the attack at the end of chapter 5, I would think whatever struck them was much more substantial than just a cat scratch. I’m going to go out on a limb here and say either the script got scrubbed by Disney, or the intent was that MC was still woozy from VDC / OB Vil, MC felt so betrayed that it shook them emotionally, or that MC was just that weak by default that they can’t defend themselves against cat claws.

Hey, Ramshackle’s finally getting renovated! Proceeds to immediately get destroyed again--

I feel like????????? They tried to retroactively explain why Neige won to try and mitigate the uproar over how VDC ended. There’s some dialogue between the VDC group about how they didn’t perform at their peak because of having just walked out of dealing with OB Vil, and how Neige’s fans were going to vote for him anyway because they resonated with his background. Honestly, I think they should have moved on from that sore spot instead of bringing it up again, even if how chapter 5 ended didn’t personally bother me.

BOOM, HERE COME THE TWST TERMINATORS--

NOT GONNA LIE, THOSE STYX GUYS LOOK HOT SO COOL

AAAAAAND IT’S KIDNAPPING MONTAGE TIME, KIDS

JOABSFHUPAUABDBADB CALM DOWN, RIDDLE??????? YOU’RE GOING TO COMMIT ARSON IN BROAD DAYLIGHT--

Okay, I know this chapter’s focused on Ignihyde and Grim, but the standout part to me (so far) has been the scene where Leona’s being kidnapped. Historically, Leona has not been a character that I like (excluding that one time I had to pretend to like him for a game). I feel like he’s one massive missed opportunity (he didn’t show up much in chapter 2, he’s pretty similar backstory-wise to his Disney counterpart compared to the other Dorm Leaders, he didn’t seem to learn anything or become a better person even a LITTLE after chapter 2, etc.). I’m not a fan of his lazy and arrogant attitude either (even if it is justified by his backstory). But here? THIS IS THE LEONA I ACTUALLY LIKE AND WANT TO SEE MORE OF. 

LIKE????? I CAN’T DESCRIBE TO YOU HOW MUCH I LIKE THIS SCENE???? Yeah, we have Leona fighting STYX at first, but as soon as he realizes who they are, he wises up and surrenders because he knows better than to resist arrest. AND NOT ONLY THAT, but he uses King’s Roar in a smart way--to turn the falling greenhouse glass panes into sand so they don’t hurt anyone nearby (namely him and Ruggie).

And after he turns himself in????? LEONA TELLS RUGGIE TO TAKE CARE OF SAVANACLAW FOR HIM!!! THIS is what a real leader would do. He looks after himself and his people, but he knows when to surrender, AND he leaves his “kingdom” (the dorm) in good hands while he’s away. THIS is the Leona I want to see.

AJBDUASHPFBUABFIABIYFBIPFAAFIAF I ALSO REALLY LIKE HIS SASS WHEN HE JUST THROWS HIS HANDS UP AND ASDBIASBIABAIODDAYOFAIPPADAIDB SAYS “I’ll go with you, but be careful while escorting me, okay? Despite my looks, I'm a precious prince. I’ll get sick/dizzy if you drive recklessly.” SARCASTIC SASSY SMARTASS??????? IF YOU HAD MORE LINES LIKE THIS, I’D LIKE YOU MORE

I love how Azul’s still talking about capitalism/how he can profit from Idia (apparently the Shrouds are like the TWST equivalent of Google??????) as he’s being escorted away by the agents?????? IF I WERE HIM, I’D BE PISSED OFF THAT THEY INTERRUPTED MY BOARD GAME????? At least let the man finish first--

Damn, everyone’s being tasered???????? And apparently all the STYX agents are equipped with anti-magic plates? I guess Bind the Heart can just eat shit then--

Lilia’s ringtone is cute, period.

CROWLEY CALLED STYX TO CAPTURE GRIM???? GRIM IS OFFICIALLY A SCP THAT NEEDS TO BE CONTAINED????

WAIT WHAT CROWLEY’S BEING KIDNAPPED TOO??????? Oh well, the school is probably safer in Trein’s hands anyway--

askhlbfbilhidbabbidasb RIDDLE WAKES UP POST KIDNAPPING AND HE’S USING LEONA AS A LAP PILLOW?????!

How does it feel to be held in a room against your will, Jamil? Yeah, don’t like a taste of your own medicine, do you?

OH HI IDIA, NICE YZMA MAD SCIENTIST GETUP YOU GOT THERE

Wait, what????? THAT’S IT?????? SERIOUSLY???????

MAN.

I have so many questions??????? Specifically about STYX and what they do, and how the Shrouds are tied into all of it.

So they say STYX is a specialized unit called in to quell serious Overblot cases. And if Crowley called them to deal with Grim... well, bad times ahead for Grim. STYX has also been studying Overblot for a long time, which is why (I think?) they captured Riddle, Leona, Azul, Jamil, and Vil. 

There’s been some allusions made between Grim and Stitch in a lot of fan art and fan theories I’ve seen, since their struggles have some parallels: that being them struggling to decide if they are “good” or “bad”. I don’t know if this was intentional on the part of the TWST writing team, but regardless, it’s a really good concept that plays into the themes of TWST itself. There’s no good, there’s no evil, no black and white--most of the characters we see may be BASED on villains, but that doesn’t MAKE them villains. They are good, and bad, in their own ways--and now Grim is dealing with that crisis as he fights to keep his sanity and avoid completely succumbing to Overblot.

Though Idia seems to be involved with STYX’s research, it doesn’t sound like he personally gave the order to retrieve those test subjects (or at the very least, he’s not happy about roughing up the test subjects), it sounds like the orders came from other people in the organization. His parents, perhaps?

They mention briefly that Idia’s parents are asking him to “come home”, so it must be for something urgent. Are they worried about his safety? But Idia’s lines at the end of chapter 5 lead me to think he is estranged from his family, since he straight up rejected a job offer linked to them (Olympus Corp is owned by the Jupiter family, and the Shrouds are a branch family of Jupier), and says something like “I’m not welcome anywhere”. Has Idia done something to disgrace him from the rest of the family? Or is it more of a self imposed/self inflicted statement, given that he always says he’s “cursed” and acts like he’s guilty of something that deserves scorn?

Why is Idia participating in STYX research, even if it means experimenting on his fellow students (and fellow board game enthusiast Azul)? People are speculating that he wants to use blots to fully revive Ortho (if dead Ortho theory is true), or that Idia actually has heroic intentions (he wants to know more about blots to prevent OBing from happening?), but at this point??? Literally anything could happen?!

In future parts, I’m guessing Pomefiore, MC, and Adeuce will team up to break Jamil and the Dorm Leaders (except Malleus, Malleus got left out again www) out? And HOPEFULLY we get to see Rook’s Unique Magic or at least more screen time, since I feel like he got so little in chapter 5... Another thing I’d like to see is Ace and/or Epel getting their Unique Magic, or at least starting to develop it. It’s really mostly Ace I want more details for.

A theory I’ve been holding onto for a long time is that Deuce getting his UM will spur Ace on to become jealous (since he has always seen Deuce as an idiot/”lesser” than him), and that will cause a rift in the friendship, or for Ace to throw himself into a dangerous situation to prove himself (he has done it before with Riddle)... and has his ass rescued again. This would make Ace even angrier, since he feels like everyone is treating him like a little kid or rubbing it in that he isn’t “as good” as they are. I don’t know where it would go from there (I’m sure TWST would get creative), but ultimately it would culminate in Ace making amends with everyone and rushing in to save them from either Grim or Idia OB.

I don’t think Ace would discover his UM in a similar manner as Deuce (Deuce had to embrace his own stubbornness and straightforwardness, but as the term “Unique” Magic implies, the way a magic develops and manifests is “unique” to the user). While Deuce has to learn to accept his own way of thinking, I believe Ace is already sure of his own way of thinking and has totally accepted it. I think what Ace has to deal with instead is coming to terms with his fickleness. We’ve seen him time and time again treating his loved ones kind of callously, from constantly bullying MC, Grim, and Deuce to ghosting his own girlfriend and flaking on people when they are counting on him to do a task.

The issue with Ace isn’t that he isn’t aware, it’s that he is aware and he seems to think this behavior is totally okay. He demonstrates little to no remorse in what he does and says, and he doesn’t seem to care about the consequences either (how many times does he get punished by Riddle, yet he keeps doing the same dumb things over and over?). Ace appears to operate under the mindset of always being in the right, or (if he’s in the wrong), he won’t really acknowledge it, or he will wave it off as “no big deal”--and I think that’s his greatest weakness.

In the scenario I described earlier, I mentioned that Ace’s jealousy will cause a wedge between him and his friends, and I think this will play into him realizing the error of his ways. When he has finally driven away all of the people that supported him, what will he have left? Nothing. Then maybe Ace suddenly finds himself relating to Idia, or to Grim, who have Overblotted and are in a similar emotional state as he is. Confused and lonely... and that energizes him to pitch in again, even if all he has is wind magic up his sleeve. Everyone could be shocked that Ace has returned, and in that moment, he could finally realize his true potential and unlock his Unique Magic!

(Maybe that’s too specific, but that’s a scenario that I’ve had playing in my head for a long time!)

... Buuuuut given that Ace has gotten little to no spotlight so far in chapter 6, I’m not sure if they’ll lean into him developing his UM yet (unless they pull a chapter 5 and really start addressing Ace in the latter half of the chapter like they did with Deuce). Seeing as chapter 6 is dealing with a lot of heavy topics (death, Grim lore, Overblot lore), I’m thinking maybe the TWST team will push off Ace’s UM development to chapter 7???? The only way I can see it happening in chapter 6 is if the chapter is SUPER long, or if the writing is REALLY good or really bad. 

Anyway, I’m keeping my fingers crossed!!! I’m so excited for the rest of chapter 6... I hope that we don’t have to wait too long for it!

[thewhitefluffyhat]

Alikari Halloween Part 2 Ramble

Have you ever wanted to lock two fictional characters in a room and not let them leave until they talked out their problems? This event is literally just that, and not even trying to hide it!

...Naturally, since Alina is involved, it still manages to go terribly!

I mentioned in my post on Part 1 of the event that the situation could have gone very wrong and very deadly, and what do you know, that's exactly what happens.

And I don't hate it? Arc 1 Main Story Alina goes all-in on the evil, but what makes villain Alina interesting to me is the ways in which she still does have a consistent set of values she follows, they're just very divorced from normal morality.

("Only the artist is allowed to destroy their own art," "Alina doesn't lie" - stuff like that.)

But yeah, even with memory loss, if you trap Alina in a room and suggest that killing someone will allow her to escape, she has no reservations about doing so. If anything, I'm kind of surprised that it wasn't her first thought.

Hotaru being so lazy she barely gives a damn when Alina tries (and is stopped by Karin) is pretty funny too. I was initially unsure why Hotaru was here, but her apathy isn't a bad addition to the comedy dynamic.

Moeka and Akari, I'm not as sold on. Though Moeka gets some decent mileage out of being the only person around besides Karin with functional social skills who can stand Alina long enough to attempt to *teach* her those skills.

Yes, in case there was any doubt, Alina's lack of social skills is entirely genuine. Which presents a bit of a problem when the girls realize that to undo one of Karin’s commands, they have to convince Karin that Alina has changed for the better.

Moeka has to tell Alina to try things like "smiling" and "maybe call Karin by her real name for once." But Karin sees through the act immediately of course.

Anyway, once again, I'm looking forward to the full translation. Even just on my own, I noticed quite a few callbacks to bits of Alina's non-Main Story characterization. The "Alina doesn't care if Alina is kind or not. I just do what I want," pictured above, for example.

There's also some interesting stuff in here about Alina not wanting or understanding what Karin wants to change about her.

And there's even a very dark callback to that "Only the artist is allowed to destroy their own art," when Alina finally runs out of patience and gets the idea to kill Karin. Because as of Arc 2, Alina considers Karin one of her artworks, for some reason.

So yeah, Alina's now considered murdering Karin.

Before Alina can actually do anything, though, Karin winds up feeling so bad she preemptively deletes herself via another command. I guess that's one way to turn the situation around! Goodness these two are a mess.

(One day I will find an OTP that doesn't involve the characters trying to kill each other occasionally but evidently that will not be AliKari!! XD)

Anyway this is a comedy event, so of course everyone finds a way to rules lawyer Karin's command and bring her back.

In the meantime we get more silly shenanigans, including a flip of the first half of the event. While Part 1 involved Karin turning the dream familiars into Alina copies so she could role play Alina saving everyone from a witch, in Part 2, there's a segment where the girls all try to tempt Karin back out by pretending to be having fun doing Halloween things alongside some Karin copies.

It doesn't work, though. The actual solution is to have Alina say she forgives Karin for annoying her.

Then Karin accidentally summons the event boss by sleeptalking another command, at which point everyone gets fed up and Hotaru suggests Alina duct tape Karin's mouth shut.

...I've seen Alina compared to Erika Furudo from Umineko before, so that little detail really made me laugh. I, Alina Gray, finally have duct tape!

Anyway, as cruel as that is, it actually allows everyone to escape, so uh. Useful stuff, duct tape.

Overall Thoughts?

The event really does keep up the "this is funny until you think about it more and then it's pretty dark" tone up until the very end.

I remember being quite down on the RikaRen Christmas event, since even though it did involve them solving a minor relationship problem between them, it felt like treading water rather than progressing character arcs. But Alina and Karin genuinely do have a lot of problems in their relationship that would need to be resolved for AliKari to even slightly work. So this kind of story feels a lot more justified and necessary.

Except that it actually ends with their relationship even more messed up than before?

Like, you know how in Alina and Karin's Magical Girl Stories, they both struggle on their own but when they're together, they manage to bring out the best in each other? Alina forcing Karin to be honest with herself and Karin reminding Alina that she's human?

This event is the opposite of that. It's a story about how Alina and Karin can also bring the absolute worst out of each other instead. Alina's stubbornness and disinterest in even the bare minimum of kindness drives Karin to increasingly wild measures and despair over changing her, and Karin's pushiness and inability to stop making things worse eventually backs Alina into a corner to the point that she starts trying to delete people again.

And by the end of the event, they still haven't learned anything.

Karin's conclusion has her getting inspired to write a "The Redemption of Alina Gray" manga, looking to Magical Kirin for inspiration. She just keeps digging her delusional hole deeper.

Meanwhile Alina hasn't actually changed for the better. One of the central questions the event explores is "Can you redeem a villain who doesn't want to be redeemed?" And the answer it ends on is... no, but you sure can break her will enough that she'll learn to lie convincingly to please you!

Hey, uh, you know how Alina could be pretty terrible, but at least she didn't really have the capacity to lie or fake her intentions? Great, now we've taught her to do that! What could possibly go wrong?

[joshhhhhhhhhhhhhhh]

Season in Review - Summer 2020

Holy shit, another season of anime ended! And despite that whacky coronavirus destroying the very world around us, we still managed to get a good couple of anime to TV, including a couple that were supposed to air last season but uh, didn’t. So as I do every season, let’s talk about what I watched! Should clarify before we begin that I wrote this entire post in a single sitting on the same day that the last 2 shows I was watching ended, which might not really mean anything but my usual approach is write about each show as they finish and maybe the different approach will reflect in the writing? Who knows.

Sword Art Online: Alicization – War of Underworld 2

Originally scheduled for last season but delayed to here, we have the final season of Alicization, a journey we’ve now been following for nearly 2 years. And god it’s been a fucking journey. Some of the highest highs in SAO, but also 47 episodes long so many of the lowest lows that it has too are dragged out beyond belief as well. But we’re not here to talk about Alicization as a whole, let’s just talk about this season.

I think War of Underworld 2 is probably the single best season of SAO, in that, it’s probably the easiest season to get over the bad shit for, and everything past the bad shit is pretty broadly enjoyable. That bad shit is pretty simply summarised too. There’s another dumb tentacle rape scene in the first episode which ruined the like 20 episodes with no rape streak we had going. Oh well. And then afterwards the only big issue the show runs into is dragging fights out and characters having dumb bullshit powers. I’d almost compare it to like, the bad parts you’d expect from Dragon Ball, where every supporting character gets to take a stab at the villain and maybe even do pretty well against them, but the villain will just asspull whatever power keeps them alive so that they can’t actually be beat by anyone other than Goku, though in this case it’s Kirito. PoH is able to mind control people randomly and just constantly does that, then it’ll get broken, but he’ll do it again as a twist. Asuna can get a cool finisher on him and he’ll be left with a gaping crater in his torso, but then he’ll just live and beat her anyway. Because only Kirito is allowed to beat villains. The fight against Sheldon Bazinga lasts about 3 episodes with nothing changing other than he’s constantly getting arbitrarily stronger, but so is Kirito, who can fly and turn people into trees and stuff now. Ultimately all these problems exist and persist in the show, but the thing is, they’re such consistently similar flaws that they don’t actually mean a huge amount. If the villain’s got dumb OP powers then who cares since Kirito does too? Fights might be longer than they need to be but the result is that we get to see more great animation. And time spent on fights is time that could be spent on exposition instead and I’d rather just have fights lol.

Just in general, enough time is allocated to fights that the show doesn’t even have the opportunity to be draining to watch compared to previous seasons. Because the fights are fun as fuck, A-1 Pictures genuinely popped off with the visuals this season and gave us like, Ufotable quality action animation for a lot of it, honestly. No hesitation this is the best SAO has ever looked, fucking Ordinal Scale was a movie and it doesn’t compare. And then the emotions behind the fights are honestly pretty decent. PoH and Sheldon are such shit villains that seeing them be defeated is gratifying since they’re finally over with. Lots of Asuna’s best moments incorporate Yuuki in a way that made me pop off because I’m a Yuuki simp, and Kirito similarly incorporates Eugeo into his fights a lot which is also cool.

And yeah, Kirito. He’s finally awake, walked right into that imperial ambush, same as us, and that thief over there. Damn you Stormcloaks, Skyrim was fine until you came along, empire was nice and lazy. Uhm, where was I? Kirito waking up is genuinely satisfying after so long. The delay made that wait even longer but it really did feel worth it. The episode where he wakes up delves into his psyche and established insecurities really well and genuinely made me feel sorry for the dude and all that he’s been through. More than any other season, Kirito is humanised pretty well here, the grief of losing Eugeo seriously affects him and that’s felt for the show’s entire runtime. There’s a great scene when we’re all IRL too where Sugu acts like a fucking sister for the first time in her life and has Kirito tell her all about what happened in Underworld, shit was genuinely nice.

And then speaking of, the IRL scenes and episodes felt significantly less intrusive than they had been for the rest of Alicization. There are some dumb and predictable twists, also Akihiko Kayaba being a robot, but the IRL stuff is more than just exposition and has meaningful stakes of its own, we could spend a full episode away from Underworld without me wanting to kill myself, which is more praise than throughout the rest of Alicization, so that’s pretty epic.

God, what else to say? Uh, this season doesn’t even really live up to the “War of Underworld” part of the title as well as the last season did, since most of the fights that matter at all are 1v1 fights without much in the way of tactics. I didn’t really feel actively bothered by that though, the show rarely pretends to even be about war anymore so I can respect them for committing to a direction. Alice isn’t as focused on quite as much until the very end of the season, and that’s also when she starts being a decent character too lol. There are some fucking nobody characters introduced at the start for no reason, Moonphase and his friends, literally no reason to exist. Eiji and Yuna get a scene that was like, fine, didn’t amount to much but I genuinely respect committing to Ordinal Scale as having canonically happened. The ending is quite silly but in a really indulgently fun and hammy way, and the visuals are so specifically incredible in that scene that they really sell it all. Star King Kirito should’ve been adapted.

And for all of that, I gave this season of SAO a 5/10. Yeah it’s, still not a glowing endorsement, if you don’t have the highest opinion of SAO I’m not gonna tell you to sit through it all just to get to this, but from week to week, this season did more to be entertaining for me than everything before, and very rarely was I bored or anything of the sort. Also the Kirito wakes up episode is like, genuinely the best SAO episode. Yeah.

Re:Zero kara Hajimeru Isekai Seikatsu 2nd season

From one popular isekai sequel to another, let’s talk about the hotly anticipated Re:Zero season 2, which took like 4 years to get here lol. And to just get how I feel out of the way, I don’t really know how worth the wait this was.

Everything that was good about Re:Zero already is still good, Subaru’s still a good character with a lot of interesting development whose position in this narrative just gives the opportunity for lots of discussion, and the world around him is similarly full of fascinating characters that we always want to know more about. The visuals, music and voice acting are also still really great, or, improved actually. The audio mixing especially is played with to really interesting effect, as in there’s one scene where Satella says “aishiteru” and it’s mixed in such a way that it like reverberates inside your fucking brain and is mad disturbing to listen to, it’s great.

However, compared to season 1, season 2 is mostly focused on one specific really long arc that’s almost like, kind of a web of branching paths. Subaru has the same checkpoint for most of the season, and the things he does and experiences and learns in each of his loops are always fucking dramatically different. This leads to a season where 2 episodes can go in completely opposite directions from one another with Subaru not really making much in the way of progress, and having to suffer significantly more than he needs to for the info gained. And I’m completely about it! Having this giant arc where finding a way out feels welly and truly impossible works wonders for the intrigues of the show, and especially for the stakes. There are a lot more lives on the line than is normally the case for the show and despite how much different things Subaru picks up on, the people he’s dealing with are complex enough to where he can’t just win them over and save the day so easily. So many conflicting character interests and goals long term and short term are established really well and we begin to learn more about some of the most already interesting characters like Roswaal and it’s all great. It’s really cool seeing these timelines butterfly effect themselves into completely new directions and working to piece it all together, and that feeling of hopelessness in spite of what we get is pretty damn engaging. We also get to meet every witch here, and they’re all waifu as fuck holy shit. Echidna’s the only one of them who gets to be a particularly noteworthy character, which is to be expected since she has the most screentime of the bunch, but they’re all still interesting and more importantly cute as fuck. Also those super branching timelines have lead to a lot of really brutal and great Subaru death scenes, dude gets munched to death by some rabbits at one point and it’s among his goriest deaths of all lol.

So for all of that, why aren’t I sure if it was worth the wait? Because it’s split cour. These 13 episodes are all we get until Winter of next year. Which is only 3 months, sure, but I’d honestly rather have waited longer for this if it meant the next half came straight after. And that’s because for all the branching this season’s narrative does, for all the characters we meet, places we go to, and things we learn, there’s not really a payoff. The season ends with Subaru being basically where he started.  The only real difference is he has a slightly renewed sense of self-confidence and is gonna work towards loving himself and relying on his friends more. And that’s a pretty big difference and functions as good steps for him as a person, but because it comes at the end of the season all it is is a promise of good things to come. All this cool branching web narrative was in service of something coming 3 months down the line. And if that’s not worth all this, then what was the point? I don’t know if this was worth the wait because it’s spent so much time on branching setup (still cool) but the payoff is still to come, that’s all.

Before I score it, I’d be remiss not to mention that episode 4 I think it was, where Subaru does the first trial and gets a chance to talk to his parents, is a really damn phenomenal episode. Subaru’s parents manage to be really amazing characters really quickly without it feeling like we need to see more of them, and they add a lot to Subaru himself as a character too. The small victories he gets in that episode feel triumphant and emotional as all hell and it’s a really hard episode not to cry at. It’s also just nice seeing the inherent tragedy of getting isekai’d actually be acknowledged by a modern isekai show. I’d call generally call Re:Zero a show fairly worth watching anyway but this episode specifically is a real “watch the show for this one” episode imo. Good time.

So for all of that, I gave the show a 7/10, same as season 1.  Not to say it’s better or worse than season 1, since I’m not really sure. It feels different than season 1 but I also don’t feel like if you dislike season 1 there’s a chance you might still like season 2. It’s just, Re:Zero again, and fortunately Subaru can still be an interesting character on a good character arc even after having a good triumph with his confession in season 1. Cool time. Hope to god that season 2 part 2 is worth the wait.

The God of High School

Hey Crunchyroll are doing another Webtoon manhwa adaptation with God in the title, is this one better than Tower of God? Sure.

According to a lot of people that actually read the source material, God of High School isn’t a great adaptation and cuts out a lot of the stuff that made this story interesting and stick with people. I have no idea if they’re right or not, but to be honest, I kind of don’t care. God of High School the anime is written like a shounen highlight reel, we speed through plot points at a pace only matched by those whacky 3 minute comedy anime, and this is a full length story-driven TV anime so that’s a pretty ballsy move for pacing your story. It kinda works though, because the presentation is strong enough to make you forget about what info you’re lacking. Maybe the source material feels more like a conventional shounen with dialogue to explain fighting styles or whatever, but this anime adapts the things people that are actually into shounen spend all their time talking about. It’s a show that’s so fast paced and energetic and with such strong presentation that like, I genuinely never thought about this show when I wasn’t watching it, the characters or plots did nothing to stick with me. But the moment a new episode came out and I sat down to watch it, I forgot all about that. I was completely in the show’s vibe. It’s a show that thrives purely in the moment while you’re watching it and won’t try to occupy your mind afterwards. Sometimes it goes a bit too far in that direction, episode 12 for example is sorta just noise honestly, but by and large it’s a show you put on to feel some shounen hype and then move on.

And then as for the presentation, I liked the music quite a bit, minus the dubstep crap OP, and I wasn’t big on the character designs, particularly their big red blushing ears and noses look silly to me. Also whenever the art style went chibi to make dumb shounen jokes I wanted to die. Then there’s the actual animation.

God of High School is a contender for best looking TV anime I’ve ever seen.

I have no idea what the fuck MAPPA did to make it happen but they actually managed to produce a show that looked as good on the first episode as it did the last, and everything inbetween. So much of the show is fighting but the show actively avoids taking shortcuts, we’ll see genuinely incredible human fight choreography with detailed artwork that manages to flow really well without compromising itself, tons of the characters are loosely dressed just so the animators can flex their detailed fabric physics drawings, but we’ve still got huge bulky cunts rolling around so they can have a great diversity in character designs that all move as well as one another, and the moment the show starts introducing basically magic and Dragon Ball shit, it’s big and flashy and great to look at too. The visuals are definitely at their best for the hand-to-hand shit, and also in like episode 4 maybe where Jin and Daewi fight each other it does this fuckin calligraphy type shit that looks unbelievable, but the superpowers still look pretty cool. It’s the type of show where it’s worth watching just to look at, because words can’t really do it justice.

So yeah God of High School is a totally forgettable show until you’re watching it, at which point it’s a sakuga wankfest with characters played really straight yet being endearing anyway, and that’s good enough for me. Every single negative take of the show I’ve seen I’ve probably agreed with, but I’m also seeing Diginee and BestGuyEver suck the show’s dick on Khantent and I agree with them too. God of High School exists in a weird sort of place I guess. Oh well, I gave it a 6/10.

Kanojo, Okarishimasu

Henceforth Kanokari. Kanokari is a show probably made by a simp, definitely a show for simps, and objectively is about a simp.

It’s a romcom following a dude called Kazuya who, after breaking up with the show’s best girl, rents a girlfriend for a date and then starts simping hard for her because she talks about fish one time. For the first few episodes it’s sort of a will they/won’t they thing where the two are constantly hanging out and everyone thinks they’re dating for real, best girl included, but while they’re obviously not, it looks like there’s feelings there! The ultimate culmination being the two literally saving one another’s lives from a potential drowning at sea incident.

I think this part of the show’s pretty good, the setup for them to date and stay dating is contrived as fuck but in a really fun way and I think it’s genuinely quite interesting seeing Mizuhara stand up for Kazuya and try to get him to be a better person, all the while doing her job of getting paid to hang around with him. Kazuya’s a simp who doesn’t stand up for himself but that makes their dynamic interesting, you want to see his simping go somewhere – that somewhere being him growing as a person and getting a real fucking girlfriend.

Pretty much straight after the saving the life scene, the show just goes off the rails for the entire second half. This is a harem show, so what was rental girlfriend and ex-girlfriend is now rental girlfriend, ex-girlfriend, and a 2nd rental girlfriend who falls in love with MC for a dumb arbitrary reason and forces him to date her by way of blackmail. She’s barely a character, instead she’s just some hot moe girl who’s likeable at a glance, but narratively she’s an obstacle who serves to drag a plot out way beyond when it already reached its conclusion. And then everything after her introduction is just the show wasting time doing tired rom-com jokes, what was once a funny contrivance for a plot setup is now this constant annoyance, even the funny gacha addict granny we’re doing this all for just turns into some weird fanservice character who gets to grope Mizuhara for some reason? Kazuya ditched a call with his ex to save Mizuhara in that one scene and that was the start of like an actual character arc but he just wastes the rest of the show away being a simp and later an actual stalker, it’s fun revelling in how pathetic he is at first but then it just becomes a show where you’re watching a pathetic dude be pathetic. To top it off they introduce another cute moe girl for the harem in the second last episode which is so late in the show to where you ask yourself why even bother? The show has 5 good episodes and then everything after that is a complete waste of time.

One thing I will give the show though is that the girls are really great as just moe waifus to be attracted to. They’ve all got great designs, they’re all really hot, and they’re also voiced by a fucking impossibly god tier quartet – Aoi Yuuki, Nao Touyama, Sora Amamiya and Rie Takahashi. Kazuya’s VA also does a good job but I don’t care about him really so. Show looks and sounds pretty good all around, to where that second half that’s a waste of time is actually like, not completely horrible.

Think overall I’d go 4/10. Started pretty well, lost steam really quickly, but not bad enough in the second half to be totally unwatchable. Mami’s best girl because I myself am a simp, specifically for Aoi Yuuki. That being said, Sumi was very adorable in what little time she had, so I’m excited for season 2 to get more of her. Oh yeah, season 2! Fuckin, none of the good shows get second seasons so easily, but all the trash pulls it off no problem. Anime is gay.

Uzaki-chan wa Asobitai!

For our next pile of trash that got a second season too easily, we have Uzaki-chan.

Uzaki-chan is one of those “annoying but actually cute girl annoys an everyman MC with occasional romantic scenes” types of shows, which is a more prolific genre than that really specific description implies. It’s not a genre I’ve really dipped my toes into before this, but I don’t think it’s one I’d be opposed to watching more of, despite Uzaki’s quality.

So the good parts of this show are the more like, I guess slice of life scenes with Uzaki and her everyman MC, Sakurai. Mostly because Sakurai’s actually fairly not that everyman, he’s not like some super well realised main character with defined goals or something but he has a consistent personality and likes and dislikes and stuff, I found myself liking him significantly more than I expected to. And then for a good amount of these scenes, Uzaki does a good job of being like, annoying enough to be called annoying but not to the point where you can’t stand her. And when it’s just that pair in that mentality, maybe watching a movie or playing a game or going drinking or to a cat café or something, the show’s fine. It’s not that funny, despite my lack of familiarity with the genre I felt like I’d seen every joke before and I could tell how most scenes (or sometimes episodes – the show really stretches its content) would play out really early on. However, it’s a passable slice of life, not one to really actively love watching but it’s decent for sorta just chilling to and staring at passable visuals and scenes that won’t make you hate yourself.

Where it starts to suck is with the supporting cast. Ami, her dad, and some blond cunt. These 3 are the saddest motherfuckers in the planet. I don’t know if people outside of Scotland use ‘sad’ in the way I’m meaning it here, but sad is what you get called by high school bullies when they learn you like anime or something. These supporting characters are sad as fuck. All that the 3 of them do for the entire show is like, watch Uzaki and Sakurai together. And they’ll talk about how interesting or hilarious or unpredictable the pair are but they’re just, not that whatsoever. Again I don’t think they’re boring to watch on their own but they’re far from good enough to get as much joy out of as these motherfuckers do. And imo it’s sad as all fucking hell that Uzaki and Sakurai provide so much happiness to these characters that they like, go out of their way to put them in situations where they might do something funny or romantic for example. Cause again, the funny shit’s never funny, and also the romantic shit which I’ve not talked about up to this point. Occasionally they’ll do something like eat from the same bread or have a vaguely suggestive conversation and then everyone’ll ship them and they’ll both get flustered as hell. It’s boring as hell to watch. When the pair are just being friends doing chill shit the show’s fun to watch, but you know the romance is never going to go anywhere so I couldn’t stand watching it. I also hate how much the supporting cast want them to be together, fucking cucks. Imagine getting so much joy from seeing fucking Uzaki-chan and Sakurai being a couple? Yeah no thanks. I almost want them to not be a couple and just tell that heteronormative “guy and a girl can’t just be friends” narrative to go to hell, fuckin sucks. Also there’s this one cat that’s technically not a supporting character but it is a recurring one, it just follows them around and makes this really shocked face, and dog I wanted to rip this cat limb from limb it was so annoying.

Speaking of annoying, the entire culture surrounding this show! Uzaki has giant tits. She also looks 12, but has giant tits, but she’s also 20 years old. This has resulted in inordinate amounts of controversy because people can’t fathom the idea that a college age Japanese lady could possibly be this height and have this bust size. Despite the fact that there’s overwhelming evidence to the contrary. And also even if there wasn’t it’s anime who fucking cares? Uzaki also has eyeballs bigger than her hands like shut up. I think Geoff’s girlfriend said nobody’s complaining about her tits but that’s just not even true so, whatever. There are also a lot of people that are like, watching this show out of spite for people hating on Uzaki’s tits, and I think that’s dumb too. The show’s boring or annoying for most of its runtime, Uzaki’s a fictional character, you don’t need to fucking defend her. And neither do I for that matter. Oh well. I know this isn’t a new take I’m sharing by the way, people that defend Uzaki’s tits and also find the show annoying aren’t a minority or anything, but still.

That being said I’m not interested in defending Uzaki’s tits narratively. Every joke you can make with tits in anime is made here, they press up against Sakurai’s back, rub up against his arm, he accidentally gropes her tons or mistakes her tits for a watermelon while doing the classic “accidentally slip my hand under and into your bikini” thing, all that shit. Also every character in this show is fucking stacked anyway but since Uzaki’s the most stacked Ami still gets to be like “Oh I’m so darn jealous of those exercise balls hanging from her chest that she calls tits!”. I’ll defend Uzaki’s tits in the meta sense that anime girls should be allowed big tits but fuck what they actually accomplish in the show, they’re not hot no matter how hard the show tries to convince you they are.

Uzaki’s not hot in general, neither is anyone in the show. Really didn’t care for the visuals in general. The episode where they go to like Tottori had disgusting backgrounds, that filter you applied to those IRL photos looks jank as fuck and doesn’t match the character art. Nothing’s really horrible beyond that but like, it’s not really an art style I dig. I can’t pretend I even remember music playing in the show so no comment on the soundtrack lol. Uzaki’s voice is annoying.

Yeah, 3/10. I’ll watch season 2 anyway.

Umayon

Remember Uma Musume? Okay, you know those like 3 minute special episodes that some anime have in their Blu-Ray releases that are just some cheap chibi skit? Combine them and air it on fucking TV for some reason and you get Umayon!

I don’t even know what I should say beyond that. These episodes are as entertaining as you’d expect from that description. I didn’t know or remember most of the characters, Special Week and Silence Suzuka barely appeared, I had seen most of the jokes before. Yeah, whatever. 4/10.

Dokyuu Hentai HxEros

So you know those shows that are like, softcore hentai? And you know how ecchi is also just lewd content without being lewd enough to not air on TV? HxEros is like, softcore ecchi. It’s that fucking tame.

HxEros’ entire purpose is to like, be hot, but the show is censored in a lot of really, really obnoxious ways. It’s got the typical “fog” censoring you see on TV anime, right, but it’s arbitrary whether they decide to use that or if they’ll instead use these giant fucking sparkles that are even more distracting. And the former is sort of addressed if you seek out the uncensored versions, but they still actually have some of that fog in certain scenes, so there really is no escape. You’re watching a show with “hentai” in the name but it’s afraid to even show the mere shape of a tit, literally what the fuck is the point. And the thing is the girls are hot enough character designs to where you want to see them end up in the compromised situations you’d expect in this sort of show, but you just don’t get to. The only thing this show’s good for is giving you the boner required to go seek out any other porn.

So what is the show outside of that stuff? Uh, boring as shit. It’s some sentai parody where red Kirito and his harem of colourful waifus have to get naked so they can punch these sexy insects that drain your sexual energy and make you want to die because you can’t feel arousal. Silly premise for a silly ecchi show so I won’t complain but my god is it boring to watch, the show’s weirdly serious about it a lot of the time which makes for a really harsh tonal shift when the rest of the show just wants to be ass and tits. It’s forgettable as hell and I just didn’t care.

The visuals are honestly pretty good, with pretty consistently good character artwork and surprisingly nice action animation, but as I already said the main thing you’d watch this for is the porn and it’s too censored to get anything out of. Thing is character designs are hot enough and general artwork well drawn enough to where I assume if this was completely uncensored it’d be one of the better shows of this type. But as it stands, no. And I mean, this type of show is only really a substitute for hentai anyway, but why substitute what’s exactly as easy to find? Idk man, show’s entire existence is dumb like that.

With the boring everything about this show and the hentai not existing, it’s no wonder I started watching it in double speed like, 5 episodes in or something until the very end. 3/10. Hottest and by extension best girl was Sora who got barely any screentime which was disappointing. Actually the tan girl from the other branch was really hot too. Idk. Loli Kirara best girl.

Japan Sinks 2020

I can’t really pretend there’s a meaning behind how I order these shows in this post at all, but this is literally the last show I watched this season, in fact I watched it yesterday, but that’s probably 2 days ago by the time I post this since it’s nearly midnight. Anyway, hey wow a disaster show. I’ve never actually watched one of those before, so how was my first foray into the genre? Well, it was a disaster!

Okay, not really, I just wanted to make that dumb predictable joke that’s definitely been made before. That being said, this show really wasn’t that great.

There are definitely elements of this narrative that worked, the main one being I guess the tone of it all. There’s certainly an inherent unrealism in the setting – Japan being struck with earthquakes so hard that the entire country sinks and Fuji erupts is a bit too extreme to be believable, but I think the show manages to run with it anyway and make this disaster feel appropriately like a disaster, there’s a pretty constant sense of danger and the challenges posed to the characters as a result of the setting feel grounded and more or less human. I also felt like, despite the deaths being pretty predictable, they mostly all came about in natural enough ways to not feel contrived or anything, and they were also generally well placed, it’s never just one character dying after another for no reason.

I also think it works in terms of theming, because a lot of what this show is about is Japanese identities and nationalism. Having those be challenged with the very literal sinking of Japan works, because if Japan’s gone what value is there in Japanese identity? And the show ends up having a nice answer, helped by the 2 main characters being mixed race anyway with a Japanese dad and their chad Philippines mum. The show clearly doesn’t respect nationalism, with some characters we encounter who go on about pure blooded Japanese people only being blown up moments later. But I don’t think it’s one-dimensionally anti-patriotism either, there’s a scene where the main boy raps about Japan’s culture sucking and then this older fully Japanese dude is like “hey fuck you Made in Japan is a sign of quality” so it doesn’t like, hate Japan or anything. But then the ultimate conclusion is having main girl do a whole “borders are just lines on maps, we’re diverse, fuck all of everything”. Heard it before but it’s not like it’s a disagreeable notion, and when Japan rises again they’re all like “okay let’s appreciate Japan but also share it in a way that stops xenophobia or something”. It felt like it worked while I was watching it anyway.

Ending in general was pretty sweet, characters achieve their dreams in a nice way that feels worth what we put them through, and also the happy birthday video Ayumu gets was damn good, I love that trope so fucking much, having a group of long dead people be able to send something they took in the past to someone in the present is fucking great every time.

About why it’s not that great though, one thing about the show that sucked a lot is how often characters make really obviously dumb decisions for no reason that end up having drastic consequences. For example, I just said everyone achieves their dream, and that includes Ayumu becoming an Olympic athlete. But actually, she specifically becomes a Paralympic athlete. This is because at the very fucking start of the show she gets a horrible gash on her leg from the initial earthquake that sets off events. And at no point in the entire show does she give it even bare minimum medical attention. And this show takes place over like, a good 2 weeks or something maybe, I don’t know. It’s a while to just, have a cut on your leg and do nothing about it! She doesn’t even clean the wound or bandage it or anything. Several characters obviously notice it but nobody ever stops to say “hey should we maybe cover that up?”. She loses her fucking leg because of it, and I hate that that had to happen for such 0 IQ reasons.

Another example is the mother’s death, who died because she had to go swimming to free an anchor on a speedboat. At some point she realises she won’t be able to free the rope from the jetty she’s been trying to free it from for a good minute. So do you think she resurfaces to grab some air, take a break, and then try again? Nah dude, she goes deeper. She swims further down, does sort the anchor out, saves the day, but dies for it. Again, 0 reason to be so stupid. It’s the one death in the show that actually does suck and not make sense.

Probably the least offensive instance of this, somehow, is that the entire character of KITE who can fly around on his propeller and parachute setup, decides to ditch said setup and hang with the main fam because it sounded interesting. I get that he’s a YouTuber and a clout chaser but I still can’t really get behind putting yourself in so much danger for the sake of some random family that like, shouldn’t actually be that interesting to him at this point? Felt like a really arbitrary way to get the Gary Stu who can do everything in the party.

Another thing about the show that’s pretty rough is how sidetracked it can get. We spend like, 2 maybe 3 episode hanging out with some fucking weed cultists? And this is only a 10 episode show so that’s a long time. Nobody we meet while doing this is a good character, that pure Japanese guy I mentioned is the only one who gets any “development” and it’s literally just him being pressured to DJ, so now he’s opened up and can talk to people and he was a completely binary character, god. The entire point of this arc ends up being having some old morphine addicted guy we adopted for some reason try to kidnap a child he knows isn’t his but says it’s his because he wants to hold out hope or something? And then he just dies. Also we add a black guy called Mr Onodera to our party and he blinks in morse code and can predict earthquakes, sure. Pure plot device character.

Characters in general were pretty weak. As already said, Onodera’s a plot device, KITE’s a Gary Stu, Japanese boy is completely binary, and then everyone past that tends to suck for one reason or another. The dad’s a boring “I can do it!” guy, which I guess makes him dying first a good subversion. His death results in Ayumu’s worst moment though, where she lashes out at the mum and says like “you blame me for dad’s death” which makes no fucking sense! Like obviously she’s not mentally able to process what’s gone on but that’s still not even a leap in logic, she just decides she’s being blamed for it out of fucking nowhere. It’s a genuinely unbearable scene to sit through. The mum also sucks in this scene and doesn’t even attempt to comfort her grieving daughter, instead just arguing with her. They later pretend it’s because she feels like if she doesn’t act tough then she’ll fall apart but I feel like telling you’re daughter she’s disgusting isn’t acting tough, you’re just being a dick. And then mum after that is basically the same character as dad, “I can do it!” girl. And the main boy’s just annoying, genuinely couldn’t stand his voice or his random English words, it’s so jarring hearing him say normal Japanese sentences but he’ll say “dad” in a really weird accent all the time. TL;DR is that characters were annoying, unlikeable, boring, or just whatever other negative adjective a lot of the time.

Not helping the characters are their actual designs. So let’s talk visuals. This is a Masaaki Yuasa anime, but actually some Korean newcomer director did most of the direction it seems. Explains why it looks really bad. Yuasa’s art isn’t exactly conventionally appealing of course, but what I know of his other shows make up for that with good character designs and great animation. This doesn’t really have either. The characters look so plain and lacking in detail to where they often look underproduced in comparison to the actually pretty solid background art. And they don’t really animate well either. Everyone’s perpetually off model for no other reason than because they couldn’t draw them on model. Just looks bad all around. I mean, maybe not “all around”, there are definitely shots that do look good, it’s just that it’s a glaringly inconsistent production at the most random of times.

I also did not think the voice acting was good. I really like Reina Ueda but her performance as Ayumu in this sounded like a really shit Tomoyo Kurosawa. KITE was Kensho Ono who I like but he genuinely sounded phoned in here, not that it was even a bad performance but he literally sounded like he had been given a broken mic or something. Little boy sounded annoying as fuck as I already said. Everybody else was fine actually.

Soundtrack was really great though, I managed to tell really quickly that it was by Kensuke Ushio which felt poggers as hell. I think especially in the first episode it’s a really interesting decision to have his calm, beautiful piano tracks accompany the utter destruction surrounding everyone, but it worked. And then he had a few more fast paced, almost video-gamey sounding songs in other scenes that would work really well. I think the soundtrack did a lot to enhance the show while also sounding good on its own which is like, the main thing you want out of a soundtrack, so great job there.

Feel like that’s about everything I have to say on the show. 4/10 seems fair. I did have fun with it but also I don’t know if I’d have wanted to watch it if it was 12 episodes.

Lapis Re:LIGHTs

So this show was an absolute fucking shoe-in for me. Magical girls and idols? You’ve boiled it down to all I really want from anime. Simply having those is a guarantee that I will complete your show.

And I mean, yeah I completed this. It was fine. God writing all of these in one sitting is a bad idea actually. Uhm, so Lapis ends up spending a lot of the time in early episodes just being a fantasy slice of life comedy. And that was the best part of the show! The girls are basically all really cute and the show has great costume designs too and it’s a lot of fun seeing this girls play magical dodgeball for a full episode, cute girl slapstick is my favourite thing so yeah. Or like the scene where a girl says “this mushroom looks great” but it’s obviously poisonous and then some other girl’s all “let me see” and then just eats the whole thing and is like “Yep, poisonous!”, that was great! Sorry to explain a whole joke but this show was just mindless moe fun for a good while and I really liked it. It was like God of High School but for moe idol magical girls instead of shounen. The actual idol stuff ends up just being performances put on whenever because of whatever but I didn’t care, even if I literally couldn’t remember a single song after the episode ended. All the magic is generally fun and used for cute slapstick or whatever. It’s just a nice turn your brain off and look at moe girls show.

That is, until it starts trying to have a plot! Yeah so the show like sets up what the main conflict could be pretty early on and then spends the last few episodes on that, but holy fuck is it boring. Hanakana is MC’s sister and just fulfils the “oh I’m edgy and want to protect you” role and it was dull and lifeless and everyone gets to sneak into a castle which was cool but past that the last few episodes are pure noise. Yeah I guess has the same issue as God of High School in occasionally turning into pure noise, but God of High School had that by being like, too over the top shounen, where Lapis ended up there by dropping everything entertaining about it to tell the same boring story we’ve seen a billion times. It’s literally just some dumb interpersonal drama shit that meant nothing to me since the show’s done nothing to make me actually value these characters beyond their base moe appeal.

And like, yeah that’s my opinion of the show. Looks cute, sounds cute, mostly is cute, but gets really boring when it wants to have a plot, and like lowkey even the earlier episodes wanted to have plots and character drama but it’s genuinely impossible to care for, this show has no merit beyond the moe factor. 5/10.

Gibiate

Haha, god what a show this was! Gibiate had a fuckin sick premise, a samurai and a ninja are warped to a few years in the future to fight against this virus that turns everyone into monsters. It’s basic as hell but it’s loaded with cool energy that you don’t see that often. But the show turned out to be really quite the opposite of cool, however the show clearly thinks it’s as cool as the premise implies – or in fact, even cooler. It’s honestly an interesting case study in that regard, the show’s perception of itself versus how the product appears to everyone with half a brain cell.

It’s not really that hard to get into what makes Gibiate so bad either, it’s just sort of impressive that it would turn out this way. See, everything about Gibiate is bad, awful even. Or, no, the background art is alright. But everything else is comically awful.

The music sucks and is always inappropriate as hell for whatever scene it is, the voice performances are all phoned in as fuck, they genuinely sound like the type of shit that any amateur picked up off the street would manage to do, the sound design is so bad as to take you out of every scene completely.

And that’s not even scraping the visuals, my fucking god the visuals. If there was ever an argument against the mere existence of 3DCGI in anime, this is it. The horrible, unfiltered blend of 2D animation and PS2 quality 3D models is in itself a marvellous display of a lack of quality. The 2D artwork is near permanently off-model and it’s not like they make up for it with good animation, you can count the number of frames in most scenes on one hand. And the 3D models have such grossly jank animations and again, no effort was put into like, filtering them into the environment or anything, they literally occupy their own plane of existence and it looks awful.

The character designs would almost be cool if the show wasn’t as visually impaired as it is. Some of the Gibia are almost there but suffer from hilariously bad colour choices and textures, and their constant reusage really highlights those issues. And then of the main cast, my god I don’t know what to say. It’s like, the artwork being what it is obviously hampers them, but can it really be that hard to just make a samurai and ninja look cool? This show fails, they’re so generic and lacking in personality as to be completely forgettable and early on the show was weirdly obsessed with giving their designs slight touch-ups in really forced and unnatural ways. So for example, the samurai gets little belts around his arms just, because girl wanted him to wear them, or ninja has his hair dyed blue because girl wanted that too. And I didn’t really get the point of having the designs go through these slight changes that don’t actually add anything. Some of these changes also came in the form of weapon upgrades – the samurai and ninja find their old swords in a museum in like episode 4 or something and it’s hard to not wonder why the show just didn’t give them them at the start. It doesn’t feel like a cool upgrade or anything, it’s literally just “we decided to give them meaningless shit that they didn’t really need to not have in the first place”.

And that thing of like, hiding things from the plot until early on for no reason somehow extends to entire characters. In like episode 3 or something, they decide to have a monk time travel to join us in the fight too, and that was apparently supposed to happen anyway because of plot shit or whatever revealed at the end, so why didn’t he join them instantly? Is it because he’s not a bishie sexy anime boy so he doesn’t instantly get your juices loose like the other two, ergo we can’t introduce him? Is that also why he’s the first character who actually dies that mattered? No the fucking mum didn’t matter and don’t pretend she did.

And then characters mattering is technically a good excuse to talk about the overall writing, and god is it bad. It’s one of those shows where every single character is just impossibly stupid literally all the time, and they’ll constantly make dumb decisions that get them killed. I mean the mum died because for some reason everyone in the show doesn’t realise that they totally can just sleep in the RV they have, instead they’ll like all go outside to scour some dark factory to look for a place to rest, like what the fuck! You have a place to rest! Even if it’s not good enough why are you so insistent on bringing the noncombatants into every single fight? Like what’s the fucking point! Also the oh so subtley foreshadowed twist at the end is that the doctor was the villain all along, but his reasons for being the villain are so fucking insane. Turns out that he and this one special Gibia called Meteora are aliens, and when the group kill Meteora, he gets mad at them and tries to get revenge. Should be noted that in their 2 prior encounters with Meteora where they fought back against it, the doctor never said anything about it. He literally just lets them kill it and then gets mad at them. Okay. Everything from the grand overarching plot to the simple moment to moment is incompetent in a level one would hardly imagine possible, let alone when a lot of pretty prolific names are behind this thing.

And just one last thing, most of the episodes open with some camcorder interview scenes, which I can’t see as anything beyond a dumb gimmick to fill time since they’re not exactly hard to animate episode after episode. Really this entire show can be described in that same sort of way, dumb gimmicks to fill time, shortcuts to make it cheap and fast rather than being any level of good.

The only truly commendable element of the show is that there’s a really fat guy with a stutter, but there are no jokes at the expense of his weight or stutter, only at the expense of him only ever making curry. Subversive masterpiece.

Gibiate is truly an exercise in incompetence, a masterpiece of being bad. Pupa, Skelter Heaven, Mars of Destruction. Gibiate deserves a place among these shows. In the Hall of Fame for utterly atrocious anime. I don’t hate Gibiate at all, it was surprisingly not that boring, I never wanted to die watching it or speed it up or anything like that. But to give this show anything higher than a 1/10 would be lying to myself. Gibiate is arguably too long to even be worth watching if you’re into bad anime anyway, 12 full length episodes is a lot of time to commit to something as messy as Gibiate. But hey if you can stomach it, I recommend it wholeheartedly.

Anime of the Season – Deca-Dence

At last, we’re nearly done with this post. I’ve been writing this for a good few hours now, I’m not necessarily tired but I certainly want this to be over with, it’s 2am after all and getting to sleep would be nice. I do always end these with my favourite anime of the season of course, so at least we get to end on a high note, though I’m actually not confident in my ability to do this show justice. Obviously in part because I’ve been writing for so long at this point, but also because I feel like I need to rewatch this show first.

Now Deca-Dence isn’t one of those shows that like, requires a rewatch or something. It’s not constantly drip-feeding you info and wrapping you up in a mystery that only makes sense once you’ve got every piece of the puzzle. Quite the opposite in fact. Episode 1 is big on mystery, albeit not very directly, the setting establishes itself quite cleanly in fact, it’s just hard not to notice all the odd little details, like the purple people in the background and shit. And then the 2nd episode is basically just a big exposition scene that reveals everything about the world, including those purple people in the background and shit, woah! And then everything past that is just plot and character progression. I just feel I should rewatch the show because I wasn’t really into the first 2 episodes in a way that made me assume the whole show would sorta suck, but then I loved the rest of the show. That happens to me more often than you’d expect, and every time it does, I rewatch the show and love the parts I didn’t like. I think Deca-Dence deserves that treatment too, being able to love every part of this confidently would be a lot better than, uh, not that. It’s also a show that I think would probably flow better in a marathon setting rather than weekly, but I mean, what are you gonna do?

So yeah with that out of the way, let’s talk about what makes Deca-Dence good! In short, it’s a fairly standard “fight the system” narrative played pretty straight, but in a cool enough setting, with good enough characters, and with all around strong enough execution to make it work and stand out. The Deca-Dence mobile fortress is actually an entertainment facility for cyborgs, though its actual human population doesn’t know that. And if you get too close to finding out the truth, uh, yeah. Meanwhile for the cyborgs, they can actually log into human avatars ala SAO to hang out with the humans and moreover, go do cool monster fights in zero gravity. That’s pretty unique, and they give us both a human and a cyborg protagonist so we can get both perspectives, and so we can fight both systems. It’s just honestly super cool and consistently fun to watch, the most consistently fun thing to air this season in fact. I say that like it’s a surprising statement but this is my anime of the season so, not really a surprise.

And then those two protagonists are really great too. We’ve got Natsume, a cute shounen protagonist girl with a prosthetic. But it doesn’t actually take very long to see her shounen protag mentality be genuinely put to the test, seriously challenged in a way that does a lot to humanise her and make her stand out from the crowd. Ultimately she’s putting on a front, because she has to. How else does she live in a world like this? And Kaburagi is our cyborg rep, someone who’s far more knowledgeable and connected than Natsume, though has long accepted the system he’s in as being inescapable without dying, so he simply waits for death. And when the two characters meet, they’re able to inspire the other, to teach the other how to live. Again it’s not a new dynamic, but it’s a reminder that this dynamic is great, that two characters can be really important to one another and mentor the other in the act of living, and inspire the other to go above and beyond to do new things, to break their limits. And it’s also great to see them not take it in a romantic direction at all. Even without questionable age implications, I think romance would be a layer that detracts from their chemistry rather than adds to it. It’s good that a show managed to run a main male and female character without forcing them to be a couple.

Now as actual characters, the supporting cast hardly hold a candle to Natsume and Kaburagi. Nobody really has much in the way of meaningful growth or development, and the few characters who do get distinct arcs don’t get much screentime devoted to said arcs, they’re very simple and you’ll have seen them before. But those small arcs tend to hit pretty hard, Sark’s some little cyborg dude feeding people his own vomit or something and he gets a heroic sacrifice moment after a genuinely well done redemption arc for example. That’s, actually basically the only example. But yo as personalities? The supporting cast are fucking poggers as all hell. It does not take very long to get a grasp on who everyone is but they’re all so charismatic and feel very realised in their simplicities in a way that makes basically every character endearing, the likes of Donatello and Jill and Minato and Kurenai, you can sorta sum up who they all are in a sentence but they feel like big and impactful characters regardless, and like they earn their weight in the narrative as well. I guess it’s a fairly small cast so it’s not surprising that the important characters are so memorable, but just like, everyone’s always fun to watch for basically the entire show.

And lets take fun to watch and use that to transition into talking about the visuals I guess. Deca-Dence looks really damn amazing. The character designs are easily my favourite of the season, every human character has a really readable and aesthetically pleasing design, with a slightly simpler art style that really lets the characters move gorgeously in those intense zero gravity battles. Flying around ends up being a lot of fun, there’s no fight in the whole show that’s not just fun as hell to watch. Not really surprising given this is directed by the same guy who directed Mob Psycho 100, you’d expect this show to then be great at action scenes and smaller emotional stuff and comedy and yeah, it’s really good at all of those. That comedy aspect comes through more in the cyborg designs, which are reminiscent of like, if you go to the very bottom of the MAL seasonal charts with kids’ shows turned on, yeah all the weird shit you’ll see in there. They’re honestly super endearing and have lots of good visual jokes going on, just because the designs are such that they can really be played with. Also there are a couple of action scenes with them and they animate better than you’d expect, they’re so simple that complex fight animations seem like they’d be undoable but nah the show pulled it off really well. In general Deca-dence is just, say it with me now, fun to look at.

Probably the main thing I’d say against the show, other than the aforementioned episode 1 and 2 things that might be fixed on a rewatch anyway, and also a dumb scene in episode I think 6 where Natsume’s shounen nature is fake challenged for no reason, is the fact that the ending doesn’t actually change the system that much, which seemed to be the goal of the show. But then somebody brought it to my attention that the director wanted to keep the ending fairly open in that sense, basically just because they have more stories to tell in that world and a more definitive ending could kill the chance of having a sequel be greenlit. I’d be happy to see more this setting so I’ll take that explanation just fine.

Cool show, would recommend, probably will rewatch, 8/10.

Girl of the Season – Natsume

Remember everything good I was just saying about Natsume? Yeah well she’s also voiced by Tomori Kusonoki.

Boy of the Season – Natsuki Subaru

Subaru was good this time around, his growth from the first season has been genuinely felt since he’s like, not nearly as annoying now, and the arc he’s been set up for is really great too. Really hope it’s capitalised on well.

And that was that the Summer season. Not a brilliant one to be honest, most shows didn’t get positive scores from me and among those that did I was still only giving out a single 8 as my very highest score. But we got Re:Zero season 2 after so long and it was pretty fun, Alicization went out with a bang, Crunchyroll did a better job with a manhwa thing than last time, and we got a cheeky little surprise with Deca-Dence. I’m happy enough with that.

[myonmukyuu]

hot milk tea, thoughts and feelings

I’ve only mentioned it briefly, but I’ve said that I’ll be taking a break from my SetsuAyu series - mainly because of my uni workload though.

But for now, I have a lot of thoughts about the entire thing as a project as well as myself as an artist. So I figured that I’d write a reflection of sorts (warning: it gets kind of personal).

Can you believe it’s been 3-4 months since the series started? I can’t, and I’ve been the one drawing all of these!! If you’ve been reading my work, I’ll say it over and over but I really appreciate it!!! Like I’m dead serious!!! Completely!! Utterly!! Without a doubt!!! I love all of you!!!

When I posted that first comic, I didn’t think it’d get the positive reception that it did get. Like, I’ve been producing basically entirely Muse content for years and suddenly decided to tap into Nijigaku? You could argue that it didn’t get that much attention, but either way, the attention it did get surprised me. I was so happy that people were engaged (and it still makes me stupidly happy, like on a level where I’m almost embarrassed to admit HAHA)

Recently I’ve just uploaded the bonus for the 3rd update which wraps up that part, and it really just clicked - that I really have invested soooo much time into this series. 36 pages now! And we’re only 3/10 main updates in!! I have so much passion for this - like a fire that can’t be put out. Every single update has something that I want to communicate/show so I always feel fired up. Heck, if you’ve spoken to me during the process you’d catch me always saying “I’m excited for the next one!!!” while working on it LMAO. It’s been my longest string of non-stop work. Usually I feel burned out more quickly but I was always so excited that I couldn’t stop! You’d find that I’m usually in a  state of conflict bc I alwaaaays want to talk about it but at the same time I don’t want to spoil anything. (THE NEXT UPDATE JUICY)

I think it’s a clear reminder of why I draw actually. The answer between each artist always differs, but I think it’s something important to be aware of. And well, for me? I’ve realised I’m a passion-monster. Passion keeps my blood pumping 100%. As a result... you could say I might be a more selfish kind of artist. Maybe it’s burn-out from running all those ask-blogs/RP when I was like 13-16, but I’ve realised that I’m having the most fun drawing what I genuinely love. It’s kind of why you’d rarely see me do requests and why I no longer do commissions. That isn’t to say that I hate drawing for other people. It can be fulfilling! But it’s more like - I barely have the time to draw for myself, so drawing for others is kind of a lower priority in general. It’s also why I’ve decided against studying graphic design when I graduated highschool. It’s just not happening as a career.

When I ask myself, “what kind of artist do I want to be?” I always think “Somebody who marches to her own beat and works hard to make content that she loves.” It’s also why I never delete anything - even my oldest art that makes me cringe. Because the me from 5 years ago put her love into that too. It’s really cheesy sounding but that’s how I see it LMFAO. I couldn’t do that to her. And also, just because I don’t like something anymore, it doesn’t mean that no one else does. So I’ll continue to never delete my old work. As a bonus, we get to see how far I’ve come too~.

I feel a little vulnerable admitting something like this and I’m pretty sure I’ve only told like 4 humans, but I think my #1 goal as an artist is that I want people to be able to look at my work (that I actually put my heart into) and think “this person loves this” or “this person works hard”. If you can do that, and sincerely feel the feelings I put into my comic, then I’ve already reached my goal. Can people tell how much I love these characters? The series? The concept? Can people tell how much work I’ve been putting into these updates? Can people tell when I’m having fun? It’s something I think about a lot. The idea of that people might think so makes me tear up HAHA - I get really sappy thinking about these kinds of things. And well, if people can’t tell then I’m not working hard enough!

That isn’t to say that I’m always putting my life-blood into everything I make. I’m mainly referring to the stuff where I do. I think it’s pretty clear when I’m pumping a lot of love into something. In general though, there’s always an intention for me to like communicate some idea or feeling and doing something like that requires maybe a bit of love~.

I feel like that as a character, Setsuna really resonates with me a lot. In personality? Not at all LMFAOOOO (she’s such a nice girl!!). More because of her ideals and principles. After typing like everything that I did up until this point, I bet you can guess why. I’ll keep it short and simple though, since this post is getting stupidly long.

Basically, I really resonate with her drive and passion as both an artist, and just in general actually? I’m a believer in that if you’re passionate about something, you can spread that passion. That’s the mentality I have with my art. If my love shows, then maybe other people will understand why I’ve come to love something. And maybe they’ll come to love it too. If I’m having fun, maybe they will have fun too! Very cheesy, I know, but that’s just how I roll!!!

Like rare pair? New fandom? Still applies. It might take awhile, but eventually either the people who love that thing will find me, or I’ll help people come to love something new (or at least see where it’s coming from lolol)! 

And as Setsu says:

You tell ‘em girl !!! That devotion is my driving force!!

Of course I know this is idealistic, but I think that’s fine. It’s no bother to me if someone feels indifferent/ negative towards my work because that’s just natural.

I think it’s a form of communication and that’s what drives my art. I’ve been intending on writing a guide/ or talking about my art process for comics for some time now and I think that’d be the first thing I’d mention? I’m always trying to communicate some sort of feeling/tone/idea and that comes from a place of love y’know.

I feel like I’m saying “love” and “passion” a lot - you can really tell I’m vibing with Setsuna huh LMAO. There are other reasons I vibe with her too, but I won’t touch on that.

Coming back to my SetsuAyu series. You can tell why I’m so happy about it right? The story, the pairing dynamic, I feel like that people are understanding what I’m trying to communicate - that people are receiving my feelings of love for it and that makes me smile so widely. I really put a lot into it!!

This series is the first large project I’ve ever taken you see and I’m so so happy that I’ve been able to get this far! It really means a lot to me. But it wasn’t actually the first comic series I’ve tried to do. I actually had a Muse long-running comic planned years ago - a Dancing Stars on Me! AU but it never came to life. I think it was my lack of confidence that held me back. It might be weird of me to pat myself on the back, but I’m proud that I managed to get going this time!! I’ve actually written the SetsuAyu series in a way that for the first half, I could drop the series if I really wanted to at any point (each part is pretty independent, and that description I always copy-and-paste is all the explanation you really need), but now I know for sure that I don’t want to drop it! I wanna keep going!! Even if it gets tough. Although it might be a little early for me to make such bold declarations, I’m only 3/10 through LOOOL. But that’s just the way I feel right now!

I know it’s irrational and it’s something I’d rather not admit, but an anxiety that’s always looming over me is the idea that I’m not working hard enough - or that people think I’m not? Each comic update...takes like a month right? And a month is a long time. There’s this part of me that is convinced that people think I’m lazy for working so slowly. And I know it’s not true!! It doesn’t make sense for it to be!!! But like I said it’s irrational.

I’m really proud of this comic y’know. It’s a really big commitment and I’m proud of myself for being able to commit. I work full time 9-5, and I also am in my final year at university. I’m... kind of busy lol. So the huge factor in that month-long update turnaround is just that I don’t have the time to always be drawing. But I try to draw as much as I can! If you have me on discord you might notice me work on it for like 2-5 hours, almost daily before I go to bed (1am). Of course I’m not only drawing, but after I get everything plotted out sometimes that’s all I do. This comic is super time-consuming LMAO - and I try my best to work on it a little at a time.

So yeah, the entire month of comic-production is me drawing every almost every night.

Yeah it, - it’s kind of exhausting. Even though I’m itching to work on my next update, I’ve decided to take a break for uni crunch which is why I say the next one might be two months. It’s really odd though. The other night I was in bed feeling restless. It was so weird not drawing till 1am that I felt like I needed to be doing something. This comic series might have weird effects on my habits...

It makes me anxious thinking that it’d be so long till next update. But I’ll do my best to push that aside ! Hopefully I can get uni done and dusted ASAP! I want them to date dammit...

I've decided that I want to see this series through to the end. It’ll probably be May next year when that happens though LMAO! Please bear with my slow turnaround time. It’s only been 3 updates, but I can already see that I’m improving with each one. With each update I feel like I really learn from the previous and I always feel this sense of excitement with trying out new techniques and trying to create different feelings. I really want to see how the last updates will look compared to the first!  Technically we’re 3/10 (10 is an epilogue), but after 6 I actually stop doing bonuses? So teeechnically I’m like 40% of the way through~.

It might be a little over-ambitious, but I kind of want to print it out and make a hard-copy when I’m done. I’m not sure about what the demand would be if I were to sell it, but I definitely want to print it for myself first and foremost (after touching up the earlier updates of course LOL). It’d be like a physical representation of my achievement. I hope I can make it there.

Anyways, I’ve rambled for far too long. I’m not sure why I suddenly felt like talking about uh, everything but yeaaaah. If you’ve read this far, kudos to you! You now have a window into my soul that I’m still not sure if I’m comfortable with revealing (but I’m comfortable enough because I’m posting this so...)! 

After reading all of this, can you tell why I always get so so happy after each update? It’s the fruition of what’s usually 2-3 weeks of non-stop hard work! Seeing people connect with it always sends me to another realm of bliss and I always feel soft like putty LOL.

[thicceon]

My Final Views on Pokémon Sword & Shield

There’s my Trainer! Isn’t she lovely? Anyways, this is a game I had so many strong feelings about, so I feel like jotting this down so I can give it a lil’ bit of closure.

The National Dex

This was perhaps the game’s greatest controversy leading up to release, so I want to give my thoughts on this first. I don’t mind the absence of the National Dex as long as it improves the game all around. I think it’s an okay decision moving forward. However, in these games you can tell half the existing Pokémon were cut just to save time in order to meet a holiday release, not to actually improve the game.

Presentation

The game makes a powerful first impression. The campaign’s strongest moments are probably the first couple hours. The narrative really caught my attention in the beginning and I felt SUPER hyped for my first few gym battles. The story’s climax is also pretty exciting. Game Freak did step up to the plate where it counted most, fortunately. 

Gameplay

The game is bare, short, and vapid. Halfway through it’s REALLY apparent how rushed the game is. You end up zooming through tiny routes that feel more like hallways than anything, and only have a couple Trainers in them. Most “cities” are smaller than the ones in Red & Blue. There is a town that’s literally just a corridor with a Pokémon Center and outdoor gym. This is also one of the coolest cities in the game, so seeing that wasted potential is very frustrating. 

The NPCs feel lifeless and have nothing interesting to say. I don’t see anyone else talking about this! The NPCs in BW, XY, and SM actually had some very entertaining dialogue once the tutorial stuff was out of the way, whether it was hilarious, straight-up weird, or genuinely thought-provoking and insightful. Everyone feels so...boring.

The Wild Area is...rough. It looks horrid. However, it’s still where I had the most fun in the game. It’s a great concept and I think Game Freak had a decent first go at creating an open world Pokémon experience. It wasn’t a particularly fun place to explore per se, but it was enthralling just to be able to control the camera and go where I please. Being able to see glimpses of other players here is also a wonderful addition, and something I’ve wanted from the series for a while. All in all, this area has a delightful MMO feel to it. Raids are also very fun! It’s great to have a co-op feature to play with friends, and the rewards and rarity of Gigantamax forms gives you a good reason to do them!

There are many wonderful QoL features in this game. Pokémon’s UI experience has never been smoother. There's one rather large caveat though, which is the online experience. It’s nonsensical not to include a friends list for easy trading and battling with your pals, and most of the time the stamp system just doesn’t work. It’s extremely frustrating, but sigh it’s workable.

I also must say that I hate the Exp. All being baked into the game. The feature itself is not the problem, it’s the fact that I have literally no way of turning it off, despite previous games allowing you to. This was borderline game ruining for me, as it killed any sense of satisfaction I felt leveling my Pokémon. It genuinely felt like the game was raising my Pokémon for me. Yeah, not for me.

The post-game is practically non-existent. There’s a lifeless husk that qualifies as a Battle Tower of sorts, but that’s all you’ll find, Champ. But of course, this has become standard for modern Pokémon games.

Graphics 

The Wild Area looks very shoddy, however, the rest of the game looks genuinely beautiful! The overworld textures are poor, and this is not a high-fidelity game by any means, but the general art direction and colors are gorgeous. The new Pokémon have nice models, and the older ones have greatly improved textures. The cities all look distinct and lovely. However, the pop-in of NPCs is very apparent and feels jarring. I can tolerate a little pop-in, but this draw distance is short enough where I will just about hit NPCs that appear before my eyes while biking.

Pokémon still lack battle animations that are even comparable to the Stadium games. _That’s _the type of stuff that should be improved by cutting Pokémon.

Soundtrack

The soundtrack is decent and has its own flare. There are a few standout tracks, my favorite being the Slumbering Weald at the beginning. Gym battles have a great chanting effect that really adds to the atmosphere. My biggest complaints are that a few of the city themes are weak, and theres a real lack of route themes. 

Story

It feels rushed and empty, like everything else in the game. Conceptually I think it’s pretty strong, and as I said before, the climax is great. However, the story beats leading up to the climax are hilariously rushed and character’s actions begin to make zero sense. You also visit areas that were so obviously meant to be dungeons, but were condensed into single rooms. One significant scene didn’t even get a proper cutscene and was instead told via a slideshow that looked like screenshots of the models painted over. 

As for the characters, I’m extremely disappointed with how underdeveloped the main villain was, despite him having an intriguing, and surprisingly contemporary motive. I was also bummed out that Marnie, a rival advertised as being significant, had practically no story relevance whatsoever. Team Yell also was very underutilized. 

Hop was okay; decently developed. Bede is probably my favorite rival in the series since Cheren. I’m one of those people that’s been complaining for a decade about how we haven’t had a jerkass rival since Johto, and I’m very pleased to finally have one again. His arc is also solid, though a bit under-explored.

Leon was good. It’s rare for the series to tell us who the Champion we’re fighting is before it’s time to tango with them. It was nice to see him have a presence throughout the entire game, and it was interesting to see the types of responsibilities a Champion has, such as protecting the region and...signing endorsement deals.

Closing

Yeah, the game is okay. It’s not a masterpiece. It’s not a train wreck. Just okay. It’s very apparent that it was meant to be so much more though, and that’s frustrating. It feels like even 6 more months could’ve made a world of a difference. I don’t believe Game Freak is lazy. I don’t believe they’re incompetent. However, I do think the yearly release schedule of Pokémon games really hampers the potential of not only the games, but the developers.

But perhaps that’s just what we have to accept from such a juggernaut IP. Sword & Shield is about the quality you’d expect from most MCU movies, or those live-action Disney remakes. It’s solid, and it’s the standard fun you’d expect from the property, but it lacks any depth. 

But I can’t really bring myself to call it a step back for the series. It does its fair share of things better than XY and SM, even if if those two games are much fuller experiences. Right, this is a decent first real entry for the main series into the home console market. However, it’s still nothing compared to the sheer breadth of content available in the GBA or DS games.

But this game signified to me that the “golden age” of Pokémon is really gone for good. Sword & Shield was never concerned about living up to those titles though. Gaming has changed. Gamers have changed. And thus, Pokémon has changed. Most games aren’t intended to last you the better part of a year now, unless they’re a live multiplayer service with consistent updates.

As a veteran superfan that's been absolutely enamored by the franchise since before I could even read, I’ll admit that I find it a bit of a challenge to judge Pokémon games on their own individual merit, rather than against the now substantial catalogue that makes up the legacy of the series. Sword & Shield isn’t worried about living up to the past, it’s a step towards the future, clumsy as it may be. However, that future is still going to need some more substance to it before I can consider it a bright one.

[incognitowetrust]

Let’s see how quick Tumblr tries to destroy dis.

Okay, so, my OP macguffin. Bit of an updated thing. Adding a new form. So, now we have... 

-two smol koi cat long babies that are almost like living dragon balls that purr. 

-Big koi cat long baby that is a fused version of aforementioned smol babies that functions like a pseudo dragon

-And, now, the new form. A fusion of the smol koi cat long babies, but is a pseudo-god godly waifu. 

Because why the frig not. 

I’m putting most of this under “read more” because I’ve worried about how big some of my posts are space-wise, I don’t wanna... like... take up space in feeds, y’know? Don’t hurt y’all’s scrollin’ finger. xD

Uh... I assume y’all are mature enough to handle very basic boobs, right? Because I guess I’ve just kinda had a thing going where I like to make body positive stuff here and there, and I also don’t think breasts should always be seen as sexual. Plus, on Suringa, it’s not really considered any “weirder” for female/feminine people to go topless. So... yeah, sure, why not. 

I’m also putting the two original refs here. 

Because Fumu and Numu on their own, though sentient, are non verbal besides cute noises, and because they don’t exactly do the dragon shit casually, I guess it made sense to make something that was sort of a middle ground. The godly form also has nicknames like “The Lady of Suringa”. 

Fumunumu is the full name of their fusion, but because that’s sort of a mouthful, the pseudo-dragon and the god form often are just called “Umu”. As far as pronouns, “she” and “they” are most accepted. Umu will sometimes refer to herself as “I” and “we”. 

For the most part, Fumu and Numu like to be their regular critter selves, and enjoy romping around, eating, sleeping, and enjoying the company of the Suringi people. It is basically illegal to get in the way of their activities. The Suringians hold them in very high regards, and are pretty self-conscious about asking Umu for any sort of favors that would be considered petty. 

Granting wishes actually causes Umu a good deal of physical and mental stress, she would describe it as feeling as though her soul is being drained. 

Often, when a Suringian person becomes old, they are voluntarily absorbed by Umu (in dragon form, usually). One of the reasons why disrespecting Umu is looked so down upon is it’s also considered a bit like looking down upon their ancestors, because she carries their energy. Giving energy is seen as a way of giving back to Umu, kinda like a natural cycle thing, they make a big deal out of the symbiotic relationship. 

Fumu and Numu have a remarkable ability at sensing danger, and because they are almost always together, they are almost always prepared to fuse and protect Suringa from whatever dangers come their way. If Umu engages in actual combat, it is probably in the god form, while the dragon form is used for things such as sending out a wave of magic that disorients approaching suspicious persons to turn away. 

As far as immortals go, Fumu and Numu and their fusions are usually pretty chill. Cruelty is not their default. However, they won’t hesitate to retaliate against behaviors from others that they find distasteful. They cannot stand people who are overly prideful and arrogant. Having a harmless appearance as Fumu and Numu actually serves as a little bit of a trap from would-be wish makers who might manage to show up to the planet after hearing there was some kind of dragon creature there. Anyone new on the planet is immediately introduced to Fumu and Numu, and that person’s ability to remain on the planet without trouble is highly dependent on how they react to meeting two deceivingly harmless and simple creatures. 

Fumu and Numu are pretty similar to one another, but there is a slight variation in personality. Fumu is the orange and white one, and is a bit more innocent and playful, with higher energy. Numu, the dark one with the light tummy, is calmer, and has a wise and nurturing soul. 

Both have a habit of slinking into people’s houses and curling up next to or on them, if that person is sick or emotionally isn’t feeling so good. They can make a sound that’s comparable to a purr, which almost anyone finds extremely soothing. 

Well... I guess that’s enough for now on this subject. There’s more stuff I wanna do for a while too. Eventually I will wanna get around to, like, concept arts/landscapes/background type stuff, because my ideas for Suringa makes it a very beautiful planet, and I oughta actually attempt to make visuals for it at some point. But later. Because I am lazy. 

[meny-sempai]

MO DAO ZU SHI IS A MASTERPIECE – part 01

OH MY GOD EP 15! That was so… UGH. I have so much to say, yet I’m speechless at the same time! Aaaaa! Ok, that’s it! It’s time!

The first season is over and I can finally talk about my experience with the piece of art that is Mo Dao Zu Shi. Yes, it is a piece of art and I will prove it to you in this short series of my thoughts about the show.

I just have to say – I’m not a native English speaker so bear with the mistakes I’m bound to make. I did read the novel, but only as far as the Exiled Rebels Scanlations translated it (thank you Rebels, you’re gods). I started reading the novel after the first airing of the third episode, so at the very beginning of MDZS mania – I went in blind and… it was FUNNY. I’ll talk more about that down below. And yes, I know a lot of spoilers, but I can’t say I know the whole story – If I start theorizing be aware that I’m just theorizing, I’m not actually telling the plot, but, just to be sure: SPOILERS ahead, I will use the facts I know for my analysis.

For the first two episodes I’m going to tell you my blind reactions and compare them with my impressions after finishing the season. My misinterpretations are hilarious and I admit I was really dumb. Enjoy my stupidity.

The rest of the episodes will have my impressions and analysis that I now have after finishing the show. There will be a few of these kind of posts on my profile because I can’t fit everything I have to say in just one. I don’t actually do analysis of shows here, because this is my personal art blog, but I sometimes make exceptions. As an animation student I just had to talk about Mo Dao Zu Shi. I want more people to see it. I want people to know that it is much more than BL.

So… Here we go!

INTRODUCTION – or, who the hell even asked for my opinion?

I’ve been a fan of anime/manga since I was 13, which was 12 years ago (I’m old, I know). Sure, I’ve watched Digimon, Pokemon, Bayblade and all that jazz when I was even younger, but that doesn’t count, because I had no clue about the concept of anime.

I’ve seen a lot of shit, I’m quite open to a lot of shit and if I’m in the right mood I can take a lot of shit, but I still regard myself as someone who has a good taste. The older I get the less time I have to take a chance at something I wouldn’t normally watch. Even if there is something I’d watch I usually end up not having time for it. Since I started studying and doing animation myself, my criteria for the quality skyrocketed. I long gave up on the three episode rule. One episode is enough to see potential if there is potential (some shows can still trick me – I’m looking at you Sirius the Jaeger).

Ok, ok, I’m not bashing on Sirius the Jaeger. I’m just saying the show had a lot of potential and threw it out of the window. If there was no Mikhail and Yuliy dynamics… Scratch that – if there was no Mikhail in the show, the story would have been completely empty. At least for me.

Since we’re talking about other shows, I’ll use this opportunity to declare Mo Dao Zu Shi as the animation of the year. Sure, the year’s still not over, sure I only watched Cells at Work, Free! Dive in to the Future, Sirius the Jaeger and BANANA FISH, but I still believe in what I say.

Sorry Cells, you’re cute, you make me care more about my body, you make me have weird feelings about Cancer (WTF). I wish I can show you to all the school kids in my country, but you’re not the best this time. Please, give me another season, thank you. Love the manga. Guys, please watch this anime!

Sorry Free, you… Pfff… Ok, yeah, FREE, I love you dude, thank you for all the sexy muscles and almost BL drama (and some actual deep moments). Thank you for all the Rin, we can never have enough of Rin. And thank you for Kisumi and Asahi – didn’t know I needed that. Thank you, but… yeah, know your place (hint: it’s right here in my arms).

Sorry Sirius, I wish you had more episodes to explore the story and the characters. Liked the OP and the animation.

Sorry BANANA FISH, oh god, I really am. Before MDZS I lived for you BF, I lived for you! I was an old fan of the manga and I was so hyped. I can’t say I’m dissatisfied with the anime adaptation. I liked a lot of things they did, the way they adapted stuff, added and changed stuff, but it was just too much plot for 13 episodes and the effects of it became clearer and worse while the anime progressed. I have no idea how MAPPA will handle the second season. My fingers are crossed. Guys, watch this anime. Even with all the flaws it’s worth your time. 

And yes, I watched Voltron and The Dragon Prince. This will be a really long post if I start on those, so I won’t.

So… YES. Mo Dao Zu Shi came out of nowhere for me and took the crown. Wow… where to start…?

How did I find this show…? Actually, how did this show find me? Well… It was my beta reader, I think. After 13 years of being a silent fan of Asian comics and animation, I decided to finally write a fanfiction. Surprisingly, it was for the small fandom of the Korean comic Noblesse (nobody cares, carry on). I don’t know why, but my beta told me about this new BL “anime”. When I realized it was Chinese I rolled my eyes. I’m an asshole, I know, but I just never liked anything I saw from the Chinese (I haven’t seen much, but what I saw was poorly animated/was in 3D and I’m not a huge fan of 3D). I also never liked the voice acting… Ok. OK, I admit! I never liked the language, ok? Shoot me!

Then… Everything changed when the Wen clan attacked.

Anyway… I was bored, I was lazy and didn’t want to do work for my university, so I said: “What the heck! Hit me with some Chinese BL.” I clicked on the first episode not even bothering to read the summary. Man… My expectations were the low of the lowest.

EPISODE 01 – or, what the fuck did I just watch and is there more of it?

Oh shit… I’m terrible at names, especially Chinese names! Am I supposed to remember all this, is this important? The clans, the wars, the titles? This is BL, right? Should I take out my note book? Fuck, pause it. Ok… Ok… I get it? Let’s just continue.

(When I look at it now it was pretty clear. I really am dumb. To be fair, you need time to get used to how they use names. And for someone who never watched Chinese animation seriously and doesn’t know anything about the culture it really was a lot of new information. But don’t let that stop you from watching it!)

Ughhhhh…. 3D… damn it. And it was going so well. Ugh, just look at those wings flapping! Are the wings broken? What the hell! Why do they do this?

(Lol, I was so triggered. XD The bird is actually fine. I like how the scene transitioned from the pupil of a scared man to the pupil of the crow. As if they were watching each other in the eye, only adding to the creepiness. The lighting is also great. Everything is dark and gloomy, fitting the “horror” atmosphere really well, yet at the same time the dark scenes are vivid and clear. It’s hard to make the misty night look clear and colorful. The flying is a bit iffy, but it doesn’t really matter because the effect of hundred birds covering the sky is strong and meaningful.)

Holly shit! This is amazing! Pause it! No, go back, I wanna see this again. Oh my god, that flute! The music is awesome, I’m having goosebumps. Ooohh, love the music, I never heard something like this. Oh, this dude is so cool. Red eyes and zombies and… What is this show about again? Zombie BL? Really? It’s not really zombies, right? Please don’t be about zombies, I hate zombies.

(Honestly, this scene is stunning. A really effective way to reveal a character. Especially a character that we are not sure whether he is good or bad. The most amazing thing for me about this is how they used music. It isn’t just the background music to accompany the atmosphere. It isn’t there just to tell something about the character and make him stand out (it’s not a character theme). The flute is not alone here, there are many themes working with it. Together they are not there to tell us “this is a scary action scene” so feel this, or “this is a sad scene”, or a “funny scene”. No. The music here is its own art piece. It’s actually there to tell us in its own language the story that we are seeing on screen. I don’t know how to explain it. For me, the way the music changed was perfectly synchronized with the way people were saying words, the way Wei Wuxian moved his head, the way the corpses stood up to attack. If I close my eyes I can see the scene by only listening to the music. This is something that regularly happens in this show. I don’t know how they do it, but I applaud to it. I can’t remember the last time the music left such an impact on me in the animation series. And this is just the first episode and the first scene. We have no idea who these people are. We are not expected to feel emotional for them. But I felt the connection. I felt like I was there and the corpses were about to get me.)

Ugh! 3D, you’re killing me! And it was such a cool intro! Ok, calm down, what are they saying? So… That’s the guy with the flute, right? No, it was Wei, but Wei Something else. No, wait, it has to be him. Go back. Yeah, it is him. What the hell is a courtesy name? Ok, never mind, try to remember.

Oh no…! More exposition, more names and clans! My brain is melting! Cool smoke/ink animation, though. Hmm, purple ring. Nice. That’s important, right? Oh! The amulet thing! Remember that. That’s gonna bite us in the ass later, ain’t it? Alright, so “Wei something” died. Killed by… shidi? So… the younger clan member? So…? This Wei also had his own clan? Am I getting this right? I’m probably not getting this right. Ugh, just watch the damn episode, quit pausing every goddamn second! It’ll explain itself.  

I like the OP! The similar smoke/ink animation and… Wow, ok, there are too many handsome guys here. I’ll have to focus. The music is catchy. I like the singer’s voice. Cool!

(I’m now quite fond of the 3D in here. The tortoise and everything. XD Also, in my defense - they have three names, like, come on. I didn’t see that coming. I don’t even have a middle name. Although, I do think having three ways to be addressed is pretty interesting. You can tell and convey a lot by just picking a name the character uses in his speech.

Fun fact no1. – at the time I couldn’t even recognition the names when they would speak. All of the words sounded the same to me, which was so unusual. I can now recognize a lot of words and phrases. And, I think… Well, you’ll see what I now think about Chinese and VAs. I’m just gonna say this: I’d like to learn Chinese just so that I can write a love letter to Guo Haoran.

Fun fact no2. – It took me 6 episodes to actually pay attention to the lyrics of the OP and ED and to realize that they are representing Wei Wuxian and Lan WangJi. That’s a really beautiful touch, very smart. And it brings so much meaning to the table when the ED changes. I don’t think I ever saw OP and ED used in this particular way.)

Well, this is getting really dark and interesting. This Wei may be a refreshing MC. Probably a good guy at heart, but shady as fuck and ready to kill. I do have another name to worry about, but Mo is easy to remember (“Don’t close mountain” – if you know what I mean :P). I wonder if Mo is important to the plot. I see potential for some twists here. 

2D animation is looking good so far. I like how they made us look from the protagonist’s POV. Really refreshing directing… hmm… Still not buying the Chinese, but Wei has a nice voice. The music is still great.

Bahahahaha! Scratch that, Wei is an idiot! Good to know that liquor is your priority, Wei! XD Omg the donkey, too, look at that face, look at the eyelashes!

The fuck is this shit? Are those people flying? While standing? Are they standing on something? What the hell? XD Man, that sky is nice. Oh! Oh, oh, wait, those guys! Those were the shadows I saw a scene earlier. Mmm… Attention to detail. Nice. Looks like I’ll have to pay close attention to every scene. Been a long time I had to focus so hard on an “anime”.

(10 minutes and I was already very intrigued. I didn’t know shit, but I was in. With all the pausing I probably spent 50 minutes on this episode, but it felt like barely 20 minutes had passed. At the beginning I paused a lot because I was too slow to read the subtitles (no, I don’t watch dubs, I’m just too used to Japanese and their culture references that reading subs is child’s play, but this was new territory for me). I also paused a lot because I felt I’ve missed something, or because I was surprised at how some scenes looked. 

I don’t pause that often now. Mo Dao Zu Shi trained me to see and hunt for detail. As I said, it’s been a long time since I had the need to carefully look at the backgrounds and pay attention to all of the characters’ expressions. Mo Dao Zu Shi tells a lot in silence and in small details. It awards you if you take time to look at the scenery. When I find something that I’d usually miss, I don’t necessarily feel smarter, but I feel the show is treating me as someone smart. MDZS respects its audience. It makes them think and remember. Which makes this show 100% re-watchable. I watched all the episodes 3 times. Some I watched even more – like episode 11. And I always have a new experience. I love coming back to it. Even when I work I play the episodes and listen to them. It’s interesting. Try it. Try just to listen to the audio. It has rare quality to it. The sounds and music are used wisely and a piece of music always has a legit reason why it’s played.)

Ok, this run is too slow. I get that he’s fat, but still, the foot exchange doesn’t fit with the distance he’s making. Also, the flying guys are not flying anymore. I got more info. And MORE NAMES. Kill me now. The info is interesting, though. Cultivators are Chinese exorcist, right? I really should have read the summery.

(I still think the running was not convincing. There are moments such as these in the show, but honestly, MDZS has fascinating animation and it only gets better in the later episodes (I’m not even gonna start with ep 11 – ep 11 will get its own post). The animators know what they are doing and the director knows how to make a scene work at full capacity.

Fun Fact no3. – D.Gray-man destroyed me. I now only know how to say “exorcist” the Japanese way.

MDZS also has a way of making seemingly stupid stuff look and be cool. Surfing on swords sounds pretty dumb, but when you actually see it and have it explained to you, when it has plot significance it becomes a fresh idea. I want to have my own sword to surf on!)

Well, hello… Lan… Jingyi ~ (How do you read this? O.O) Mmm… I’m digging the art style. Cute boys~

Also, Wei, you’re a fucking genius! XD The Oscar goes to you, my dude.

(… I still think Wei Wuxian is a fucking genius. I’m not gonna talk a lot about him right now, but I just gotta say that he is such a classic MC, yet at the same time he is so original. He’s just one of the proofs how great the writing this series has.

Speaking of writing – this show has some of the best dialog I’ve ever seen. Not only because of what is being said, but also because of the VAs, directing, music and animation. Dialog often has more than one meaning and always serves to deepen the characters and their relationships. I love how they use animation to show how the characters are truly feeling while saying something and what they actually mean when they say it. Everything they say has a reason and it makes you pay attention to other’s reaction to what is being said. I love how the character can say the same thing in so many different ways and that this is used to show his development and growth. I’m also amazed at how simple “hmm-s” and “mmm-s” mean so much in this show. 

I’m not saying character animation and rich expressiveness is something new, but it is rare and this show is really good at it. For example, quite a few characters laugh or cry but they all do it differently. They raise their eyebrows differently, they’re surprised and scared differently etc. This all sounds as a no-brainer, but it’s not so common. It’s difficult to pull off and I’m not saying MDZS is perfect, but it’s close.)

(Please… You think you can take down someone who spent his whole life perfecting the art of climbing up trees? Pff! You’re not Lan Zhan, Lan Zhan.)

(He looks so comfortable among corpses. It’s funny, yet so sad. These are all great hints for the mind-set of a character that you’ll miss at first watching, but you won’t forget about it. And when the memory clicks – it makes a loud click. Not a second is wasted in this show. Everything has a point. I’ll elaborate more on that with some examples in other posts.)

Bahahaha! I feel you bro! XD

But I feel you too. I mean, I don’t care about you, wench, don’t get me wrong, but it’s kinda sad. I’m liking these zombies. They’re my way of creepy and there’s potential for a deeper plot for them if it’s true that their personalities are still there somewhere. This just adds to the debate whether Wei is good or bad. The grey area… I love the grey the most. All 50 shades of it. And I’m enjoying the mystery vibe of this episode. Was there a mystery tag on this “anime”? Also, the fight scenes are not bad. And it’s cool how they all hate Wei but use his technics and knowledge. Realistic. Cool.

Oh my god! The colors! Whaaat? What the hell, look at that hair animation! And the music from that… string thingy- instrument – so cool. Ooohh, wait, this is the white dude, THE dude. Here comes the BL!

Ooohhh, I see what you did there. Kudos for you, director! Similarities and contrasts. Nice. And it’s over, I can’t believe it’s over! How can you cliff hang like that?! There’s a second episode, right? Mm, the ED is so pure. There IS a second episode! Well, while I’m here, don’t mind if I do!

EPISODE 2 – or, how I got everything wrong!

I bet he’s thinking: “The fuck is with this aim? The little shit almost killed me! I’m annoyed and amazed! Better play a fool and run for it.” But, seriously, that aim! Wei actually paused (love the little wobble effect on the arrow). And I have another name to remember! Ugh! And another color! Are they color coded? That could be helpful. Also, look at that tree. Wow… They’re blending the 3D backgrounds quite well with the 2D.

And Mo is important to the plot! Nice! So he has connections with the Yellow clan. The plot thickens.

I just gotta say – all of them have interesting designs. I wonder if every cultivator has his own sword. Bleach style or something. On the other hand, animators must be pulling out their hair because of all the details. XD

Cool little battle. Great camera work. They showed the difference between a student cultivator and an experienced one in an entertaining way. That soul summoning was nice too.

(This fight served as a nice show of power difference. It adds a lot to the future episodes where all of the main cast are students and have to face various trials. It gives us a hint at how powerful the clan leaders must be, it gives us a new perspective on the war and its casualties. We now get why many cultivators died so “easy”. It also hints at how talented students are different from the average which is an important detail in the plot. This little “unimportant” fight grounds it all and makes the levels in the clan system believable and palpable.)

This is really clever. Kudos for the reflection. Wei, haven’t you ever watched an anime? It’s clear the kid doesn’t have a mom. He probably doesn’t even have a dad.

(Ok… prepare for a full on fangirl attack.)

… My ears are tingling.

… This voice… Oh my ears, please calm down, something big is happening right now. Wait… Oh wow, he knows him! Look at the face he’s making, oh shit! And this new guy…! We haven’t even seen his face and he’s making threats! Hmm… Can’t say I don’t like that. Yeah, I like that… He’s gonna be the villain, isn’t he? I always like the villains and they always have the best voices. Well… if he’s a villain, let’s hope he’s hot-

Oh, wow, this is really good. The way the light appears, and that little shine of the… bell? Purple… Purple? The purple ring? Is this connected? Well, anyway, he has a pretty dramatic reveal and nice music – yep, he’s the bad guy. Let me see your face-

Wei… why are you so scared? They sure take their sweet time in revealing this guy. This may be more important than I thought. Don’t miss anything!

(Are you prepared?)

HOLLY MOTHER OF GOD WHAT THE FUCK OH MY GOD WHAAATT??? Was he this beautiful in the OP? Whaaaatt? AAAAHHHHHH!!!! SCREENSHOT! WALLPAPER! GO BACK, REPEAT THE SCENE! YOU! YOU, MY BOY, HAVE ENTERED MY HAREM. Oh what a day to be alive! Mmmm, ok, calm down, we’ll draw him later, let’s try to focus. Jiang Cheng. Ok, it’s a more common name, I’ll remember him. Heh. Like I could forget this boy. Oh, no, not a boy, a MAN. This is a man. Uhuhuhu~

(Aaaand my mind was a bit hazy for the rest of the episode – you will see the results.

Fun fact no4. – Immediately after this episode I looked up MDZS on Tumblr and realized that the fandom is calling Jiang Cheng JC. Still under the effects of what I just saw I thought calling him God was quite appropriate.)

NICE PROFILE!!! Is he going to be the other love interest for the MC? Are we gonna see the cliché love triangle? If it’s with this dude, maybe it won’t be so bad~ Ok, seriously, watch the show!

Ok, the magic light here is a nice touch. This Jiang Cheng is a bit cold even to his nephew. He doesn’t recognize Wei, but that’s expected. Wei is strongly reacting to him. What’s the connection? Judging by the music – it’s sad? I expected something more, I don’t know, menacing? Evil? But it’s just sad. Maybe he’s not a villain. That… that could open so many doors… TO MY KOKORO.

“Feed your dogs.” Ouch, that’s dark. Someone really hates the “demon” cultivators.  

“Could this boy be…?” What? What is he? Want’s the connection? Should I know, did I miss something?

The white dude and my purple man clash! Holly, Jiang Chang sounds pissed (passive aggressive enough?), while White poster boy here doesn’t give a damn! XD Ahahaha! Could Jiang Cheng be the Chinese tsundere? No, no, no, let’s not call such a man a tsundere. It’s too early.

Oh, Uncle is the leader of the sect. Nice. How old is the Uncle? Is he married?

This obvious metaphor of concealing the light is distracting me from fangirling. It’s interesting how it connects with the Jiang Cheng reveal. I feel that… shit is about to go down.

I was right! He’s the ring! What does the ring represent? And he’s doing what I always do! I play with my ring like that all the time! Nice.

SCREENSHOT! Oh, but he’s pissed. Oh, but I love the way he looks at me~ I feel all mushy.

Ha! Interesting. He’s smart, he has some self-control. Refreshing. But don’t turn your anger at your nephew, please. Also, it seems like the white dude and the Uncle have some history. Hmm…

I thought so. The white dude was the one who killed Wei. The tragic love. I can already see it.

(Yep. I thought Lan WangJi was the Shidi who “killed” Wei Wuxian. You are allowed to face palm.)

Oh no… I know where this is going. And the music…

Oh man… It’s the second episode and I’m already having the feels. What happened, Wei?! I refuse to believe you’re a bad guy!

But, I get Wei’s reaction to Jiang Cheng now.

(I don’t know how it happened, but I was thinking… What if she was killed by Jin Zixuan’s sword? We know Wei Wuxian stopped using his. From this shot we know he wasn’t the one who stabbed her, so was it Wen Ning? It’s obvious he was involved in the tragedy. As far as I know SPOILERS Wen Ning killed Jin Zixuan. If the killer sword is the one we know – if it’s Jin Zixuan’s then Wei’s reflection in this episode has a deeper meaning.)

Bahahaha I feel you, honor student. I like the kids.

(Honestly, they balance the humor and the serious stuff masterfully.)

I died.

This is giving me Gantz PTSD. That shit gave me nightmares. Nephew is really bold.

(I believe Jin Ling has some of his Uncle Wei’s recklessness and hero complex, but he also wants to prove himself just like his other two Uncles. I’ll talk more about them in another post.)

Uuhh, Wei is playing the flute! Risky, I like it.

(Ok, people. Be prepared for the ultimate face palm.)

Oh my god! Don’t tell me he summoned his own body! This resembles the scene from the narration… and he’s wearing black!

I’m right! Nephew wants revenge! Great shot by the way. You can feel the rage in the movement.

(You face palmed yet?)

I really love the way they use the flute! It depicts the flow of the camera so well!

… Wen… Wen what? Wen Ning? Who’s Wen Ning? What? Wait, are they talking about the corpse? What’s going on??? O_O Who’s Wen Ning?! Did I miss something? What’s the full name of the MC again? Ugh… This is so tiring… Ok, never mind, enjoy the beautiful flute song.

Busted!

I swear to god, this guy is illegal!

Oh, boy he figured it out too and he’s… sadistically happy? Eh… But, I get it. If he believes that Wei killed his sister, I get it. And her husband? Did he “kill” the dad, too?

I can’t believe he has a whip AND a braid? And he’s purple??? Did someone look into my diary? Is it Christmas yet? XD Am I dead?

Did he just smile? Am I imagining things? XD I can’t figure him out!

Please! Don’t lie, white dude! “He’s path is uncommon”, yeah right, we all know what you want.

THIS IS ONE OF THE BEST THINGS I’VE SEEN AND HEARD IN MY LIFE.

(This would have annoyed anyone no matter who said it, but because it was Wei Wuxian, I think it was even more annoying in Jiang Cheng’s head. Wei Wuxian knows him too well. It’s even funnier when you know that JC is blacklisted. XD He’s no good even to the lunatic.)

And at this exact moment Wei knew he fucked up. XD This is golden. 

... Please DON’T turn into rape BL.

(It so DID NOT.)

Oh Wei, you’re no match for this guy! :D

Hmm, looks like we’re going back in time. I love me some juicy flashbacks. Can’t wait to see more.

... I can’t believe I actually like this zombie BL. I just hope they don’t fuck up the animation later on.

(And the rest is history. As you can see - I’m obsessed.)

-----

That’s all for today! Next posts will have more character, story and art analysis. Hope you liked this and please forgive me for making this so long. See you! 

[knicks-knacks]

Hey so I've been a follower for some time and am a big fan but like? I'm a little confused about your furry post? I'm not normally one to point fingers but why generalize like that? I get that you're not into it but??? Most of the furries I've ever met are usually nice? Also most of the stuff you reblog is stancest? I mean it's Tumblr so opinion your fucking heart out? But like also why demonize furries when you post INCEST? I mean no one is saying you want to fuck your grandpa? Why do the same?

I just sent an anon and i wanted to clarify I'm really trying not to attack here but most of the time in you support a taboo ship/kink it's just courteous to not generalize and demonize other ones? I've worked as a makeup artist at a BDSM club for 3y and have generally picked up the idea that even if you're not into/think it's gross as long as no one is being hurt, to not try to shame the person whose into it? Humans can be some weird kinky ass motherfuckers but to each there own you know? 

Ok so I just sent in two messages about this and saw your page and it seems like you're already getting a lot of hate. And honestly you're definitely allowed to not like something/the community I was just a little taken aback and sent a message and I don't want to add to all the hate you're getting so like you don't have to respond and if you'd like I can come off anon and we could privately talk if you'd rather. I really wasn't trying to be mean or anything. Sorry if it sounded that way.

Oh, don’t worry, you’re fine - actually all this semi-hate is refreshing for me. Wish it would have happened in the morning so I was less tired, but, what are you gonna do. It’s been so quiet on tumblr lmfao also im putting this under a cut

but yeah in the same vein of tired im gonna be like, really short and lazy with my explanations

incest is gross yes, but i will say the age old stancest-is-the-most-vanilla-incest-ship thing once again, they're both consenting adults, they're the same sex, there's no power imbalance, and seeing as inbreeding and consent issues is the Big Bads about incest it's pretty tame. compared to wanting to fuck things that aren't human and are literally incapable of ever consenting and most of the time it harms the creature in the process? yeah sorry its easy to tell where the scale is tipped

and see, I agree about supporting other people and being courteous and not being a pot calling a kettle back but like... there's lines that need to be drawn? i'll support someone into idfk uh watersports or heavy BDSM or daddy kink or whatever have you as long as it's CONSENTING and not fucking beastiality, i can't say "to each their own" about wanting to fuck animals

and like I said, a lot of furries are fine. not ALL of them are terrible. there's some genuinely very good ones out there - a lot of furry art is really gorgeous and takes a lot of work, the characters are usually unique and cool, and fursuits are works of art that take so much time and skill and dedication to pull off. I'm not shitting on those guys for liking what they like. Those guys are amazing. What I'm aiming at is the sickos who wanna fuck dogs, and like a said, a lot of the furries I've seen, the vast majority, have been like that.

All I was really saying with the OG post was like, don't try and act like those people don't exist, and don't act like people disliking furries in general is unjustified or that there's too many "misconceptions" about furries. They're not misconceptions. They're facts. just like.... don't try and pretend they're not. im really sorry if I upset you in any way or any other of my followers, I was only calling out the actual zoophiles around and not all furries and please don’t feel bad about sending me asks weighing your opinion in on things, I didn’t find this to be hate at all and being upset with me is extremely and entirely reasonable, I just feel very strongly about this subject especially since I’ve always loved animals

[ka-lada]

Tagged!

Yooo the awesome @daniellaux429 tagged me to answer some fun stuff, thank you buddy!!

1: nicknames: The Normal™ ones: Ka, Kaka, K, Kakazinha, Ellen (my surname). My name doesn't really allow cool nicknames The weird ones: Kalada (yep funny story I will tell later), Lambe Sal (Saltlick, because Animal Crossing), Pikachu, PT, Nine, Salvadora de Pudins (Pudding Savior), Dedinhos Mágicos (Magic fingers, because according to my little cousins, I play Mario Kart very well or something), Kakaroto, Kakariko Edit: my sister said I forgot about Katita and Fofoleta All this stuff real people called me, I still can’t believe

2: gender: Female

3: Star Sign: Taurus 

4: Height: 1,60m

5: time: 21:40

6: B-day: May 12th

7: Favourite bands: Coldplay

8: Favourite solo artists: Jeferson Pillar

9: Song stuck in my head: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gKM15TaKLUI

10: Last Movie I watched: Anthem of the Heart, it’s nice

11: Last Show: I’m currently watching the Netflix version of Erased ;3; I really enjoyed the anime, and it’s been long since I’ve seen it, the series was a good call

12: When did you create your blog? December 2012

13: What do I post: I reblog a lot of mixed stuff, things that I found interesting in some way. Funny stuff, cute animals, Nintendo and gaming things, pretty photos, anime and series content, etc.   I also make gifs sometimes and reblog my own art from my art blog c: (and sometimes I vent in text posts but yeah)

14: Last thing you googled: What was the original name of the last film I saw:  Anthem of the Heart =  Kokoro ga Sakebitagatterun Da, almost scared me

15: Do I have other blogs: Yes, my art blog!

16: Do I get asks: Sometimes, mostly when I reblog one of the “ask meme” things :3

17: Why I chose my url: Time for the story I probably already told here: Sooo, I was in eighth grade. I had made a lot of new friends, and I was still very shy around them. And with that, I mean I barely talked to them. It was a large group and a loud one. So I wasn’t sure yet how to speak and join the conversation; I was not used to that yet. When I got the chance to be alone with one of them, I could talk normally. And some of them was surprised that I could. BUT, not all of them were really my friends. There was this person that didn’t like me or my best friend, I guess. Then he and other girl created a fake blog here on tumblr to trash all of us. At the time we didn’t know who did it, so some of us just accused each other. All my friends had a tumblr, except for me and my best friend (i think). So they just created each post tagging that person (without really revealing the name), saying bad things. When we thought they stopped, they posted about me. I didn’t expect to receive this kind of attention. In the post, since I didn’t have a tumblr, they gave this nickname to talk about me: Kalada.  It’s funny, actually. It works perfectly in Portuguese. My name starts with K, so they just replaced the C in Calada. It means “quiet” or “silent”. They basically said that they weren’t sure if I could talk or if I could be trusted because of that, and honestly, it was really lame compared to what the other posts said. They didn’t really know anything about me to trash, you see. Also, they didn’t make a post about my best friend, and that made everyone thinks it was her behind all this. It wasn't.

So, I already used Tumblr by visiting manually my friend's blogs, then I just decided to make one for me. I couldn’t think of a name, so I just picked the one they gave to me lol

18: Following: 191

19: Followers: 523 in this blog, but I hope to decrease this number, since I’m currently blocking the porn bots lol

20: Average hours of sleep: What now Uhh I think 5-6 at best

21: lucky number: 2 and 12

22: Instruments: None!! I’m lame

23: what am I wearing: I got ready to go to the mall with my mom, but she canceled, so now I’m laying in my bed with jeans, a black shirt and a coat. I should really get up and put my pajamas, but I’m lazy kdfjksdjfs

24: Dream Job: I wish I could work making books (designing them or writing lol)

25: Dream Trip: I want to go to Itally, New Zeland, Australia, and maybe Disney for once

26: Favourite food: Lasagna!!

27: Nationality: Brazilian

28: Favourite Season: Summer

29: Languages: Portuguese and English

30: Eye colour: Brown

Yay now I tag: @booksloversnevergotobedalone , @re-exista , @mgjournal , @kokirisaria (lol), @bigbryan , @yureimori , @curlyhermit , @vanover-crossing , @crumpassingmaster

[impurelight]

Avengers Endgame Official Trailer - Bashing On Avengers 3 and 4 Is So Easy It's Almost Sad

So, the 'official' trailer for Avengers 4 came out. Funny, I thought the previous 2 trailers were the official trailers. Anyways. I posted something about the first trailer and something on Captain Marvel about how I think Avengers 3 ruined that movie.

I don't think I have to say that both posts are very negative on Avengers 3 and 4. I am aware of the superbowl ad for Avengers 4 but I didn't really think it was that noteworthy due to being so short. But, yes, it was an utter disgrace too. Especially compared to the Captain Marvel trailer that was also shown in the superbowl that actually showed action.

I actually posted a reddit comment on how I didn't like the Avengers 4 official trailer. It said this:

Using epic music to cover up the fact that nothing happens 90% of the time again? At least they didn't have Robert Downey Jr. monologue for the first third of the trailer this time. Now he only monologues the first fifth of the trailer. And what's with the random black and white? I know they're from previous movies, I don't need to be bashed over the head with that information. Perhaps they're trying to tone the scenes down so they look as boring as the rest of the trailer. Prepared to be even more disappointed in this movie than Infinity War.

And then I added this part:

So many downvotes. Keep them coming. 'This is not not a disagree button.' Lol.

And then I stopped getting downvotes. Probably because if I act too trollish people will just ignore me because I'm obviously craving attention. True trolling is the art of getting people to react without thinking. This actually meshes into my idea that people are lazy evaluators. If you don't make them think they just react. But if you do make them think they think, "Hmm... should I really be downvoting this?" And then they're like, "Nah, this guy is obviously trolling. Don't feed the trolls."

Because I like downvotes. It's pretty annoying if the guy you're arguing with downvotes everything you say but the absolute value of a downvote is an upvote so they're actually pretty similar. They both mean someone read what you said and reacted.

But anyways, the trailer. I'd like to take a moment and expand on my comment and what I think about the trailer. The first thing I noticed upon watching the trailer was the amount of people just staring for no reason. In the honest trailers for Agents of Shield they said it had S.T.A.R.E.S: Slowly Turning, Acting, Reacting, and Emoting Silently. And I never really noticed in Agents of Shield. But I noticed instantly in the trailer. There are just so many S.T.A.R.E.S's in this trailer. S.T.A.R.E.S's practically make up the first half of this trailer.

And I know there are some action scenes and some scenes that are supposed to mean something. Like Hawkeye training someone to shoot arrows. You know, that scene actually reminds me of Avengers 2 where they just hid out in his house for way too much time. Which is really annoying. Avengers 4 is shaping up to be my most hated parts of Avengers 2 combined with my most hated parts of Avengers 3. Now if there's a 5 minute bar scene that'll just be too much.

But the thing about the scenes are they're so disjointed. You know how sometimes trailers are edited so one scene in the trailer is actually 2 scenes that happen at different times sometimes in completely unrelated areas? Yeah, now I know why they do that. Because they want to tell some sort of story with the trailer. Even if it's as simple as the car hit the truck so the truck crashed. This trailer has no story. It's like someone vomited up a series of random events. Some of the scenes could have been interesting if they just gave me a little more like that one where they guy is being chased by fire. But no, they just drop it like they're too lazy to try to edit it in so it looks nice. This does not give me hope that they'll even try to address the fact that Avengers 3 had too many characters.

It's just so boring. Nothing is happening. OK, I should probably mention there is the black and white parts of this trailer that I will get to later. They're just so bad. But at the same time we get this blaring music which makes it feel epic even though the actual content is boring. How do I know? Because they did the same trick in the first trailer. No, I am not falling for that again. Come to think of it I don't think I even fell for it the first time. But I'm not falling for that the first time either.

So now the Robert Downey Jr. monologuing bit. This really bugged me about the first trailer. And they did it again here! In the first trailer he rambles on for roughly 50 seconds. Now he rambles for only 30. Good job Marvel you almost managed to cut it in half. This is not Iron Man 4, although it probably should be as Avengers is supposed to be Marvel's flagship not some piece of trash that all the other movie franchises dump random stuff into.

And I'm actually pretty concerned. 50 seconds of monologuing in the first trailer. 30 in the second. So that's almost one and a half minutes of monologuing. Maybe they'll just cut it in the final release but if he monologues for like 1 and a half minutes that may be even worse than the 5 minute bar scene in Avengers 2. We'll see.

Now the random white and black scenes. Like WTF Marvel. Plenty of other trailers take content from prequels and sequels and reboots. Why couldn't you do that without messing it up? It's like you're holding a giant neon sign that says: "Look everyone! This scene is different! See how different it is!"

It is just... why? What is the point? It is just annoying. It killed any enjoyment I got from the trailer. Now, I said that "Perhaps they're trying to tone the scenes down so they look as boring as the rest of the trailer." Maybe a bit harsh, it's probably not because of that. But why then? Why do you have to drag me out of the trailer to point out something I already know? Why!?!

But it could. These are the only good shots from the trailer. But these scenes actually fit. They talk about Iron Man and they show Iron Man. That's a good trailer. The flying through Asgard (Isn't that destroyed now? Why bother showing it?) is a great shot. Why mark these scenes? If you took away all the black and white shots the trailer would be even worse. Like a super long boring version of the superbowl ad.

So those are my extended thoughts on Avengers 4. I can't believe how fun it is to bash Avengers 3 and 4. Well, if the general opinion of something is really high and my opinion is really low it's fun to talk about. Especially as I'm logically right.

There are some people very vocal of their dislike of Avengers 3, myself included. I would really like to see Avengers 4 crash and burn. But it's not going to happen. I mean if Jurassic World 2 made tons of money despite being almost universally hated I doubt any Marvel movie will do bad financially. I guess the lesson here is this: Don't vote with your wallets because it doesn't work. Rant about it on the internet instead.

[weasley-detectives]

Brave and Merida in a Trumped up world

It's a little surprising to me that the Disney fandom went absolutely apeshit over the "Disneyfication" of Merida in their merchandise - something Brenda Chapman even spoke out against, calling it a cheap ploy to sell merchandise - yet there hasn't been any commentary on other Brave spin-offs.

Merida's a Disney/Pixar heroine who, in Chapman’s own words, was created to be a different kind of Princess. Now, I don’t think it makes me a good feminist to sit here and pit Disney Princess against Disney Princess; I think popular perception of the “Disney Princess” is a different beast altogether when compared with the actual source material, which has both positive and negative aspects. But when it comes to Merida the writers intentionally set out from the start to try something new. She has a fuller, rounded figure, a nuanced relationship with her mother, and romance plays no part in her story. You could argue there’s evidence of a romantic interest, but that’s not the same thing as a romantic subplot, and it’s not overt enough that you can say with any certainty. The writers admit the original idea was to have Merida walk off into the sunset with Young MacGuffin, the suitor who briefly catches her attention early in the film, but that epilogue thankfully only exists in the artbook and deleted scenes.

And let me be clear, there's nothing wrong with Merida having a romantic interest. In fact, I came to love that Merida is subtly shown to be a little interested in Young MacGuffin. 

I was watching Mulan the other night with a @pale-silver-comb​ (who is 100% responsible for my newfound love of Disney- well, that and the fact I need bright happy escapist animation as the rest of my time is spent neck deep in miserable politics). We were cackling over the scene where Mulan ogles a shirtless Shang and later wound up ranting over how rare it is to see women checking out guys in films. When women do make their attraction known, they tend to run the risk of being framed or labelled as shameless, or worse, sluts. On the flipside, how often do we see guys ogling girls in media? Yeah, exactly. It's a shitty myth that women don't own their sexuality in the same ways men do. That's one of the things I love about Mulan and Merida as heroines - they're not "strong female characters" (god I hate that term, can we please kill it?) just because they kick large hairy man arse. They're great characters because they are so relatable. They're funny, they're giant dorks, they stuff their gobs, they check guys out, they can be crass, proud, and make mistakes. These are all things women do, but aren't shown to do nearly as often as men are in mainstream media.

I’m glad the Brave epilogue with Merida and Young MacGuffin didn't make the final cut, because the story wasn't about Merida finding romance - it was about Merida's relationship with her mother, and the two of them confronting their pride, opening their minds to new ways of thinking, and admitting their mistakes. The epilogue had no place in Brave’s narrative. To have included it would have harmed the message of the story by adding romance for the sake of romance, rather than for any narrative purpose. But at the same time I don't want to downplay Merida showing even a subtle interest because yay women owning their own sexuality. One of the things that has driven me crazy since I was a kid myself is the patronising infantilization of girls. A crush is normal, you can pretty much get them at any age, it does not mean you’re not enjoying your childhood to the fullest. Fuck that noise. I had massive crushes from the age of 4 and still managed to climb trees, get into fights and battle Captain Hook and Shredder on my T-Rex with imaginary best friend Gollum at my side (what? fuck you we had a bond). That Merida might have had a bit of a crush on Young MacGuffin reinforces for me the fact she’s a character who doesn't want to get married because she doesn’t bloody want to, not because the suitors are conveniently horrible people she vehemently dislikes. I actually find that even more inspiring. So yes, Brave is a great film with a pretty amazing heroine.

Which is why it pisses me off when spin-off writers take something so progressive and shaft it.

This isn't a ship shaming post at all - fandom is a ship & let ship space, ship Merida with her bow for all I care, it's all good. This critique is aimed at crappy spin-offs and I’m taking Once Upon a Time as an example. Now, OUAT isn’t all bad. Sometimes it takes Disney canon and transforms it into something really interesting, progressive and original. Or, well, it used to. Recent seasons not so much. The actress who plays Merida is the only good thing about OUAT's Brave arc. The rest is unbearably lazy (HA! pun.) writing. The gravest injustice has to be King Fergus, who looks like he's wearing a wig knitted from a highland cow's pubes.

Don't get me started on his accent. I’m scottish. No Scotsman sounds like that. Not unless they’re squeedging out an enormous post-curry-hangover shit. I love Fergus, but honestly I was relieved OUAT!Fergus was bumped off before my ears could go on strike.

The suitors are also sexist pigs. Dingwall and MacGuffin don't even say anything, they just play the lazy mindless followers/minions to MacIntosh who’s probably the most unlikeable aspect of the arc. Really says something about OUAT when the original animation, aimed at a younger audience, portrays its characters as more nuanced. In Brave, Young MacIntosh is all bluff- he’s a show off, a sore loser and generally a bit of a prick, but there are also glimpses of genuine empathy. He's also the suitor Merida is openly put off by in the film. So yeah, in Brave, Young MacIntosh is a bit of a lanky fucktrumpet, but he's not anywhere close to being the scabby sexist cockwomble he is in OUAT. This would be fine if it had some sort of clever narrative purpose, but who am I kidding, it’s OUAT. OUAT!MacIntosh is a proper dickhead and there’s no reason for Merida to like any of the suitors, because unlike in Brave, they’re all fucking assholes. And yet the OUAT arc still ends with Merida giving him the smitten googley eyes. Because romance or something. cool.

Another Brave novelisation published by Disney Random House ends with Merida confirming to the reader that yes, she did eventually marry. Well thank fuck for that! My frail girlish heart couldn't possibly entertain the idea of Merida never marrying. Thank you book, you've reassured conservative parents everywhere.

In addition to that bollocks is.. probably one of the worst offenders. I recently picked up a couple of the Merida chapter books by Sudipta Bardham-Quallen, again published by Disney Random House. They're for wee kids, but I wanted to see more of @gurihiru​​ 's lovely art which I’m fully smitten with. The writing isn’t great, but the stories involve challenging enough themes for very young readers. To the author's credit there's a bit of an effort made to retain a Scottish feel to them and there’s a nice focus on female friendships as Merida encounters new characters. It’s a bit cutesy-poo BFFs!!, the kind of thing I hated as a kid, but hey, we need more female friendship stories. The new characters are even quite likeable, so thumbs up there.

Then I picked up the second book, The Fire Falls (also written by Sudipta Bardham-Quallen), and cringed. Basically bad Merida and Young MacIntosh fanfic involving some classic tropes like: 'I'm not jealous, I’m just better than all those shameless slags flirting with him' and 'arg he's such an asshole but i'm inexplicably attracted to him though there's nothing to show in the story why I should be!' and my favourite - ‘He’s a bad guy but I can change him!’

Here's my main issue: why is it when a female character shows or says she’s not interested in a guy's advances this all too often becomes a springboard for their romance? Why do these stories have such an obsession with positioning the sexist hyper-masculine asshole as the romantic lead? (I'm sure that couldn’t have any dire implications for the worl-oh fuck). And in Brave's case, when the source material and original epilogue show Merida taking an interest in the big fat guy, why don’t any of the spin-offs build on that? Young MacGuffin also happens to be the only one in the entire film to vocally stand up for Merida’s rights. That’s pretty cool! So why don’t spin-offs celebrate that? The cynic in me says we all know the answer - much like Merida had to be “sexed up” to sell Disney merchandise, the fat suitor had to be swapped out for the skinny. 

Really, in a film that revolves around Merida's frustration that people aren't listening to her, it sort of amazes me that these spin-offs don't realise they AREN'T LISTENING TO HER.

And yeah, obviously I know it seems really silly picking on kids books and OUAT, neither of which are ever going to win awards for great progressive writing, but considering America just elected a vile celebrity as President and populism is on the rise, maybe it’s time we all said screw that academic snobbery and paid more attention to popular media. This stuff is common, these tropes are common, and it’s consumed mostly by young kids who internalise these crappy messages.

I make a big deal of it because these coded messages have a profound effect on us as we grow. These messages tell us to ignore a girl's decision and choice: that when she says 'I'm not interested' what we hear is 'I am'; that the most "attractive" and most "masculine" guy will always be the “natural” choice; that being fat or shy or awkward are inherently negative qualities and will always be overlooked by the loud wanker distracting everyone by waving his tiny hands around.

I'm now a published historian and I plan on publishing children's books in the near future; I work part-time in a bookshop, so I talk to kids about the stories they read, the stories they want to read, and their frustrations with the stories they HAVE read, all the time; I studied child psychology as part of my degree in Social Anthropology: this is why it matters to me and why I know all too well how much these coded messages affect us. I know it from my own experiences as a half-Moroccan kid with a dead father, growing up in a classroom of white kids who all came from middle-class households with two parents. This was all brought back to me when I rediscovered some of my old journals and stories I had written for class where I portrayed myself as being blonde/white and talked as if my dad was still alive, because I desperately wanted to be *normal*. I never got to encounter a character like Merida growing up, and I wish to god I had.

Children's authors and publishing houses have an enormous responsibility to make their readers feel included and heard. They also have a responsibility to challenge toxic ideas - not reinforce them. We have to keep pushing boundaries, not limit them.

[rubixa-seraph]

OC Questionnaire Answered

1. What’s their full name? If they’re an alien and their name is in their native planet’s language, have you thought about what it means? Roy Evans King. Don’t ask me why his middle name is like that. It’s complicated both in story and in actual explanation.

2. Say your OC made a playlist on Spotify. What bands would be on that playlist? Any specific genres? He’s a bit moody in many different ways and has several playlists to suit his tastes for the moment…feeling competitive? EDM and bouts of rock. Feeling calm? Calm classical or ballads. Feeling forlorn? Anything soothing and somewhat emotional, usually music from games, anime, or TV shows. Feeling driven or remotely angry? Power music, either Classical or soundtracks of epic proportions. Inspired? He’ll queue up specific things for the inspiration. Not sure? Play the entire “Like” section and hit skip about a hundred million times if it plays things he doesn’t care about at the moment. High maintenance? Yeah. That’s why he has a subscription to Spotify.

3. What kind of video games would they play? Any specific titles? Strategy and RPG, sometimes puzzle games. First person shooters tend to piss him off when multiplayer is involved but he’ll play them anyway. Will only play fighting games if cool weapons are involved, but greatly prefers flashy 8-way-run over 2D-scroll. Plays one too many freemium games on his phone. Stays as far away as he can from harem/dating sim games but you *will* catch him eyeing them once in a while in tempting curiosity. Notable game titles he likes? Typically mainstream stuff: Zelda series, Soul Calibur, Halo, Destiny, Overwatch, Fire Emblem, and a good chunk of anything else that falls under the categories above. (Sorry, my repertoire of game knowledge is pretty lacking.) on his phone he specifically plays Fluttr and it’s moth-content counterpart. He likes to collect bugs, even if they are virtual. Yet he’s not a big fan of your generic monster collecting games.

4. What would their favorite cartoons be, and why? What would their favorite characters be? He was never quite fond of your typical cartoons, but he’s watched every Disney Princess related movie for the sake of some “typical princess fashion inspiration.” Anime of various action and supernatural genres interest him, but half of the time he plays them in the background while he’s tailoring and miss half of the plot because he’s concentrating on his work. But what really gets his attention aren’t cartoons or anime. Sit him down in front of anything Kamen Rider, and he wouldn't want to be interrupted.

5. What’s their favorite type of weather? Do they like to do anything specific on days when the weather is how they like it? He hates windy days, and also doesn’t like to be under the sun…because he likes to wear black on most occasions. Loves the rain but only if he can stay out of it with a nice cup of tea or the likes. After the rain, he would enjoy a nice walk outside. The air tends to be nicer.

6. If they’re a fan of Hot Chocolate, Tea, or Coffee, how do they like either of those drinks prepared? He favors coffee, enjoys tea, and sparingly partaken in hot chocolate. He is definitely a fan of warm drinks. The coffee habit, he got from an “uncle” who was a family friend. Drinks it every morning…or whatever his equivalent of morning would be. Takes it with a bit of cream, no sugar. Tea, he has at least once a day also, if not twice. Black tea is his preference, milk and sugar. Not a fan of green tea, oolong, or chai, contrary to his Asian heritage, but the English influence from his Birthplace of Hong Kong shows through more. He tends to stay away from hot chocolate, finding it too sweet and also a “lazy” hot drink option. (Clearly he’s not familiar with the concept of gourmet hot chocolate.)

7. What kind of animals would they like as a pet? What names would they give their pets if they got any? If they already have pet’s what are their names? He’s partial to travel so he doesn’t keep pets. He’s partial to dogs of loyal and obedient breeds, but he can’t get over the fact the fur and his tailoring profession means more trouble than it’s worth. If he had his way he’d keep a pet snake or scorpion, but those are pretty costly pets in their own ways. He’s pretty bad at naming things outside of his creative endeavors, so chances are he’d be asking for lots of suggestions before picking.

8. How does your OC keep track of time? Do they have a planner? A calendar? Despite how much he loves the latest technology, he’s oddly old fashioned in some circumstances. Appointments, he’d use his phone calendar in order to automatically have reminder alerts set. But commission details and things like address information and the likes? A traditional planner. He wears an analog watch to keep track of time, though the phone is not far from reach when he needs it.

9. How do they write? Do they write in cursive? How do they dot their i’s and j’s? Do they have specific ways that they write certain letters? He really likes his capital letters and they all have a bit of flourish at the beginning or end of his strikes. He avoids writing in cursive to avoid mis-recording information, and writes in neat formation. His handwriting is somewhat geometric when capital letters aren’t involved, but he does dot his letters when needed.

10. What’s their favorite time of day? He has no real preference to the time of day…mostly because inspiration doesn’t care what time of day it is to strike. And he’s prone to an inconsistent sleep schedule.

11. What kinds of foods and drinks do they like? Do they like certain foods to be fried? Do they prefer certain foods to be prepared hot/cold? He’s not a fan of cold foods, and is picky about his fried foods. Dim sum is his favorite kind of food but not what you could call a feasible thing to have every day. He favors soups, and in general would prefer Asian dishes. But a fancy western meal isn’t something he’d turn away from either.

12. If they were an actual character in an animated film or TV series, who would they be voiced by? Do they have a certain accent that the person would need to perfect? Oh god this is a question I’d have a hard time answering. I don’t watch a lot of things with English voices, and I’m not very good at paying attention to actors. My darlin’ said he imagined for Sam Regal to be a fitting voice, so I guess that’s my best answer. Being from Hong Kong, Roy’s accent is somewhat British, but he lived a good amount of years in the U.S. also, so he’s control over the accent varies depending on the circumstances. (He’s found that his native accent garners a bit more positive reaction, though.)

13. If you are an artist, and if your OC can draw as well, could you replicate what their artstyle looks like? Or, if you can’t, could you describe it? I don’t quite have the time to draw right now, but Roy’s drawing skills are limited to patterns and concept art for clothing design and planning. Most of his artistic skill goes into tailoring, whether it be fashion, formal wear, or cosplay.

14. If your OC owned a Tumblr blog, what kind of content would they post? Two different blogs: his tailoring work, and then a blog about bugs.

15. How do they type? Do they use emojis? Do abbreviate and shorten words? He’s a fast typist and will type out every word. No emojis, but he certainly likes his punctuation. And will often narrate his action or mood in some sort of brackets or asterisks quotation…apparently body language matters to him in face-to-face conversation and it bothers him when it can’t be conveyed in text.

16. If your OC was a film director, what kind of movies would they make? If he must, it’ll probably be action scifi fantasy. But please…he’d rather be the costume designer.

17. If your OC was a musical artist, what genres would they do? He may enjoy many types of music, but his old music lessons left him for a bias towards playing classical. That aside, he’d still rather pursue clothing design.

18. What type of singing voice does your OC have? He’s a bit on the tenor side, but he doesn’t really care to sing. He will hum or sing along with his favorite songs like any music lover would, and his sister tells him his voice and musical talent is wasted, but he doesn’t care.

19. Does your OC like to collect things? What kind of things do they collect? Oh boy…other than cloth, ribbons, threads and the likes? Things to do with bugs, but not actual bugs because he doesn’t have that much room to display things like that.

20. Was your OC inspired by anything? Another character? A person? Ah…okay. I hate having to explain this one because it’s very complicated and full of a lot of personal loss and conflict with myself and my family. The best way I can describe it would be…he’s an accumulation of what I have yearned for, lost, and come to terms with. A personification of regrets that I will also put to use for stress relief, and on some levels, a familiar mask to put on in the realm of fiction in order to indulge in pretending life isn’t stressful. His concept seems very depressing, but rest assured, Roy and his fictional escapades are probably a healthier coping mechanism compared to the self harm I could have done. Ah! Please don’t worry about me! With him as part of my conscience and with my new family, I’m doing a lot better. And Roy can actually see some light in some more balance RP and story settings now.

[echoeternally]

its okay im only asking for these ones :). Jk 2 5 6 9 10 11 12 14 15 16 17 18 19 22 24 25 26 27 28 29 30

Geez, that’s a lot. Well, 9, 12, 14, 26, & 26 were already answered in previous posts, so I’m skipping those. The rest? Uh…here goes.

2. Is there a ship you didn’t like at first but ultimately started shipping?

Hmm. Um. I guess Alex/Maggie of Supergirl. At first, I liked it better when Maggie rejected Alex, and thought they could go in a better direction for them after Alex came out, but was then rejected. And I still believe that. But, it’s a canon lesbian pairing, and they’re cute, so sure.

5. What is your most fluffy + happy ship?

…Nothing is. I have fluffy and happy moments that I enjoy and love, but ultimately, I don’t think that I have any pairings that started or will remain that purely happy at any time. Which leads to…

6. What is your most angsty ship?

Everything, probably. All of my ships are full of angst. My more known pairings that I support are gay, so easy gayngst right there. And then otherwise, I just like adding drama and struggles in for everyone. Because torture is good.

10. Is there a ship that makes your skin crawl?

Uh, not particularly. Like, you kind of have to reach for stuff that I wouldn’t think works, which most people either wouldn’t think of, or care about themselves.

For example, if anyone seriously shipped something like Fox/Pigma, kudos to you for going the distance on something so hideous and loving it, but goodness, that’s probably my limit.

Also, I guess stuff involving characters that are underage, but do nothing to age them up. Like, if Bowser Jr. is suddenly in an AU fanfic where he’s in his 20s and courting Peach’s daughter or something, ok, sure. But, if Bowser Jr. is paired straight up with Peach, as a child with an adult? Yuck.

11. What is a character you can only imagine in one particular ship?

The struggles of being a multi-shipper include that you’re typically good at pairing off characters and don’t need them to stay in their ships. Continuing on Star Fox’s examples, I guess, I’d pass Fox around to basically anyone else in the series that I think somehow works.

It’s pretty easy when characters aren’t defined enough, or if you’re not close-minded to headcanons like, “Fire Emblem’s Inigo/Laslow likes all the ladies, but would totally get with guys too, when he’s practiced enough.”

15. What is the first ship you had?

Isn’t this just a repeat of that “oldest ship” question? Whatever, I guess something basic. Mario/Peach, out of sheer laziness, because I liked them together as a couple a while ago, like around when the first games came out. I’ve paired them off since, and I did fall out of it at some point probably, but I don’t know, they’re a nice pair overall.

16. Is there a ship that made you realize something about yourself?

…As in…? I mean, I’ve realized that I love writing lots of pairings? And that I like cute, tender moments, amidst all kinds of hard, turbulent trials? Writing hero/villain things makes me realize how to be kinder to those that we don’t immediately understand? I don’t know, one of those should answer this.

17. Is there a type of ship you always go for?

Nerd/Jock or Popular/Shy have become my go-to pairs, especially gay ones, because yes.

Usual stereotypes in stories include some bigger, muscle dude in a bitter relationship/rivalry with a smaller, smarter guy, or otherwise a quiet, lonely girl that struggles to standout against a loud, popular girl.

So, whenever that happens and when I’m not rolling my eyes from it, I’m like, “But what if they secretly had crushes on each other instead?” And honestly, that’s so much more satisfying, like I can’t even begin.

18. Is there a ship the writers have ruined for you?

Oliver/Felicity, no contest. I think I still have it as a couple that I like, but the longer that Arrow goes on for, the more that I don’t like them together anymore.

It was a cute idea, it could have made for a cute endgame or fun one-off idea. But the writers of the show twisted it so hard to work throughout Season 4 and at moments in Season 3 and Season 5 that I literally can’t stand it.

When it gets to the point where Felicity gets a scene to punch not-Laurel, basically feeding into shipping war fans and siding with one over the other, that’s my limit. Shipping wars happen, but it’s best when writers and stories don’t go out of their way to side with one; you pick one to be canon in the end, not give them ammo to be jerks to other fans with.

19. Is there a ship the fandom has ruined for you?

Let’s stray from the above, because I barely touched into the Arrow fandom once to see Olicity shippers, and goodness, I don’t need to go back.

Hmm. I don’t think any Steven Universe ships have been ruined for me yet, but I feel a lot less comfortable supporting them like I used to. An official artist was chased off of Twitter by Amedot (Amethyst/Peridot) fans, and that was a pairing that I totally supported before I learned about that happening.

Outside of that, it’s not so much that ships get ruined as much as they grow stale to me. Keeping it with SU, I’ve grown very weary of Ruby/Sapphire. It’s like, the series has content that could go for any Gem pair-ups, but because they’re the canon lesbians, they win all kinds of cute and lovely fan art.

Like, I love them, but it’s exhausting to see and go, “Oh. Another fan art of Ruby and Sapphire being gay. How original.” It’s especially weird because they’re not main cast individually (Garnet is), so…yeah.

22. Is there a ship you’ll never admit you have?

Probably, I’m sure. By answering it specifically, that means that I’m admitting to it, right? So, good, I don’t have to think, lol.

24. What is one scene you want to see happen for all your ships?

Well, who wouldn’t want to see their OTPs get married? Isn’t that like the most obvious…really, why is that a question?

25. Is there a ship you wish you didn’t know existed? 

I guess not really. There are ships that gross me out. There are ships that bore me. There are ships that have fans that turn me off of them. But I don’t think there’s anything that I wish I didn’t know about. Otherwise, that would make me feel ignorant upon learning it, or I’d be missing out on some drama.

28. Is there a character you have several ships for?

Gosh, I really need to make it clearer that I’m a multi-shipper. Yes, I can ship multiple characters in multiple ways.

Mario, Peach, and Bowser are all in one love-triangle. I can pair that one off in any way, if not pairing all three of them off together. I don’t care.

Just because I would fight to have Machamp and Alakazam as a couple being a thing and actively encourage people to follow them, they’re not exclusive, and I could see either with other Pokemon.

I started Arrow and thought that the moments between Oliver and Diggle should have become romantic. Some episodes still make me think they should’ve been a couple.

Steven Universe has no “perfect” canon pairing outside of Ruby/Sapphire, and therefore everyone is open game. Do I like Pearl/Rose more than Greg/Rose? Some days. Sometimes Pearl seems better with Amethyst. Or Lapis. Or Peridot.

Every character I come across has a relationship with other characters that, if they have enough development, could be seen in a romantic light. Therefore, I like the idea of any of those.

29. What is the ship you ignore 98% of canon for?

Well, I guess that’s anything Pokemon, because Trainers are always needed, but I usually say, “screw them, go monsters.”

If it means anything with enough plot, then I guess nothing. I don’t really ignore canon, and like to work with it when possible.

If this means for confirmed canon ships, I usually acknowledge canon relationships, especially if it’s beaten to death with confirmation. It doesn’t mean that I’ll automatically like it, but I won’t pretend that it doesn’t exist.

30. Is there a ship you like but you dislike the fandom?

I think Steven Universe is the go-to for that. It’s most definitely not the entire fandom, but I’ve heard my fair share of stories.

Like in the above posts, I like many ships, and I like pairing off characters in Steven Universe any which way that I can. If anyone is looking to tell me, “No, you can’t do that, it’s not canon,” or, “No, you can’t do that, because this one’s better,” then that’s not ok.

The SU fandom is full of that kind of attitude, and the whole “shipping wars” type of attitude. I don’t approve of shipping wars, period. I like comparing and contrasting ships. I like that everyone has different opinions about pairings.

I like civil conversations on them, and people understanding differences and respecting different approaches to pairs. Even things that I’ve talked against, such as the earlier mentioned Fox/Pigma, I wouldn’t outright hate someone over. Like, do you really ship them together? Ok, cool.

There are all kinds of different flavors out there to try. Some you like, some you won’t. You shouldn’t be close-minded to that, and you shouldn’t hate someone for having a different taste from yours.

If the fandom thrives on debate topics that involve insults and rabid hatred of one another, that’s not worth the time or energy. It’s that simple.

There. Done. I feel like I completed the ask meme already, goodness.