#got around rewatching this cartoon

[leikeliscomet]

(Reposting from twitter)

My POV as a Black fan that thinks Dot and Bubble's racism commentary is trash

Rewatched Dot and Bubble and I'm gonna break down from my POV as a Black fan why this episode didn't work for me & why it's an awful racism commentary. Long arse post incoming:

The whole "You should've noticed the cast was all white except for fifteen ha your bias is showing" doesn't work for a show that's been predominantly white for 60+ years. D&B casting has been the default for most of the show so its not abnormal enough to be a racial litmus test. An example is the Matt Smith era The only reoccurring character of colour in s5 (2+ appearances) is Liz 10. Artie n Angie in s7. 0 in s6. RTD's own era isn't fully safe either. For many eps Martha or Mickey are the *only* Black characters. Most POC are side characters or extras.

White fans should be aware of the predominantly white casting of the show but this late in the game feels cheap. Most of the show has gone through 100% white episodes including fan faves and it was never an issue back then bc it was beneficial. This is so hollow. Representing racists as cartoon caricatures SEVERLY underestimates the danger of white supremacy irl. White supremacy is system designed and constructed and rebranded over centuries. It is not accidental. People aren't racist bc they don't know they're racist because they *do* They know the system that oppresses POC, Black people especially, benefits them socially and financially and that is why they participate. Its not stupidity it's intention. That should've been the Finetime core not Lindy goofing around bc the arrows are gone or some shit.

Human Nature showed us racist young people that exercised this power bc they knew this. They may be children but they are still dangerous bc of their views. Martha knew this. The silly tech obsessed gen z angle erases this danger and that of actual gen z white supremacy

Instead of the camp goofy tone we could've gotten a serious focused episode. The slugs and millenial/gen z social media silly distracts from what could've been the main theme of colonisation instead of saving it for 10 mins of exposition at the end & scattering microaggressions. Saving Fifteen's racism scene for a goofy episode was a horrid idea. Spending 30 mins on representing racism as silliness then giving a dramatic dangerous score is the definition of tonal whiplash. Representing his oppressor as a blonde bimbo again does not take this seriously. Fifteen went to 1960s BRITAIN & got through it unscathed. Finetime is a fictional futuristic land but the racism of 1960s Britain was real. If anytime was right it could've been Devil's Chord. Distancing yourself from a panto villain is easy but addressing your history is hard.

The scene itself is incredibly performed so I'll give Ncuti his flowers but what he used this skill for could've been so much more. Having his FIRST SCENE begging to save a racist is disgusting. It isn't Black people's responsibility to show compassion to people that want us dead. Yes the Doctor helps the baddies bc they care. But they're aren't ignorant to prejudice. The liberal anti racism of who is so jarring and why I still think Thin Ice is performative. When white people are angry at injustice it's radical. When it's Black people we're aggressive.

Respectability politics is a tool of white supremacy. That if one pleads and is nice enough they can earn liberation. What would white fans think of Fifteen if he DIDN'T beg Lindy? If your allyship with Black people depends on showing kindness to racists you are NOT an ally.

Next up is Ricky. It was established ALL Finetime citizens have white supremacist views yet Ricky September stans refuse to see him in any negative light. Just like Joan Redfern white dw fans refuse to see racism if a character is likeable. If nice guy Ricky's a racist, then anyone no matter the niceness can be racist too and that's a pill white fans aren't ready to swallow. If racism is systemic and not about individual character, then what's keeping them safe? What happens when YOU are under the microscope.

THIS is why we NEED Black writers in Doctor Who. The nuances, depth and complexity of the Black experience can only be told at it's best by Black creatives and not guessed, assumed or spoken over by white fans and white writers. It's okay to put ego aside and say you don't get it.

"Im white but I loved the Doctor's reaction" "I'm white and i thought the racism commentary was great" "I'm white but i-" Yet again, we have to sit through another round of white and non Black fans of colour dictating Black representation for us. I'm so fucking tired man. AGAIN IM YELLING FROM MY HILLTOP TO WATCH SHOWS BY BLACK WRITERS. Almost EVERY single theme in Dot and Bubble and frankly most of the show has been done WAY better in other media. RTD is not the authority on Black stories. We are. Always have been and always will.

Tl;dr Dot and Bubble is an unserious and tacky racism commentary. It's core message is drowned by more RTD Who camp. Don't tell me this episode was good at representating my own experience. It wasn't. S15 having Black writers isn't a need it's a must. Goodbye.

Reblog this version pls

[kenananamin]

I LOVED your girl dad nanami hcs. This isn't a request but I was wondering like, imagine (I whole heartedly agree he's a girl dad) reader and nanami they had three sons. Don't get me wrong. Nanami LOVES his boys so much. And all of them are such gentlemen. He's raising them so good. Exact copies of him in manners and in looks some ways. The eldest son has his blonde hair, the middle son has his eyes and the youngest one has his highschool emo hair. BUT (now to the fun part) Reader is pregnant again and this time it's a girl.!!!!!! How would he react? And the boys too. Secretly they've also been wanting a little sister (that's so cute 😭)

Now, how do you think Nanami would react? I think he would cry, like legit he would. He's always wanted a baby girl. This is like a dream come true for him. And and the baby girl after being born looks exactly like him, hair, eyes, nose EVERYTHING.

While the boys take more after Nanami regarding their personality, meaning they're mature for their age and very well mannered. But his baby girl takes after reader's playful nature and is just so so precious and sweet. Of course she has good manners too. But she's like everyone's princess in the family.

Her brothers love her and are protective of her. And she's just so playful and adorable that no one can get mad even if she pulls a prank or messes something up at home.

It's like, even when Nanami tries to scold her (he never would) or discipline her, she would just giggle and and grab his arms and legs and just hold onto it (IM LITERALLY.. THIS IS TOO SWEET) A heavy sigh escapes Nanami and he smiles knowing his daughter has him wrapped around her fingers and he can never ever even try to talk to her in a stern manner. She's just so innocent.

Sorry sorry this was so Long 😭 even if you don't reply to it, I hope you enjoyed reading this at least.

i'm so happy you liked my girl dad nanami hcs!! thank you for reading it! 😭 and honestly while writing it, i was thinking of the exact opposite too, boy dad nanami but he finally gets his little princess at the end 🥹

so here are my hcs for nanami as a boy dad while secretly hoping the next one is a girl, and the boys praying their next sibling is a girl

is excited to have a boy as their first born, he thinks about the things he will teach him and how nanami plans to show his son how to treat women RIGHT

tells you that he's got this covered and his fiery passionate eyes tell you he indeed does got it

decorates the baby's room with old action figures and comic books/manga from his childhood

rewatches his old cartoons and shows to make sure they're appropriate for his son to watch with him

tells everyone how he has your eyes and his hair and lowkey brags that it's the prettiest combination

is excited to buy mini sneakers and baseball caps but stops with the shoes bc baby outgrows them in 0.2 seconds

likes to carry his son like a football bc it makes him giggle his heart out and nanami knows you're looking at his bicep 👀

is ECSTATIC when you're pregnant again and immediately wants to know the gender. he's excited for his son to have a partner in crime and is happy you saved all the things your first son used (nanami is very very pro-hand me downs and wants to see those tiny sneakers used again)

tells his son to kiss your tummy throughout your pregnancy bc he wants them to be super close from the beginning

on that note, nanami kisses and hugs his boys all the time to start to show them they can be a tough guy and like hugs and kisses just like daddy and not be embarrassed about any of it

is brought to tears almost every time he passes by the baby's room and the eldest is holding the baby's hand through the crib railings telling him "i love you baby"

likes seeing the eldest's patience when the baby is learning how to share and rewards the eldest with ice cream and tickles

tells his boys to open every door for mommy and hold it open if there's someone behind them

plays a little rough with the boys when they're play wrestling but they're all scolded by mommy when someone ends up crying (nanami was poked in the eye by a tiny finger and the boys thought they made their daddy cry)

buys his boys barbies so they can create a realistic fantasy world when they play. the eldest eventually puts the barbies in charge most of the time

nervous when you're taking the next pregnancy test and quietly hopes it's a girl. the eldest wants a girl too and the soon-to-be middle child just thinks it's another regular thursday aka he does not care yet lol

sighs when the doctor says it's another boy, he's happy bc they have everything they would need for another boy but he really was hoping for a girl since this might be their last child

last boy ends up being the blend of both kids, patient and quiet, but can be excited and loud if he's really into something

dedicates special quiet time w the boys to teach them to listen and appreciate quiet activities

takes his boys out to play sports every weekend to give mommy a break from so many boys and chants random phrases with them in the car

make his boys help with dinner, clean-up, and laundry bc he wants them to appreciate everything that's done for them

tells the boys to come into the room while you get ready for date night so they can see everything you do from deciding what to wear to hair to makeup, etc etc. this is when the boys get a front row seat to seeing how much dad appreciates and loves mom

then pulls them into the closet to show them everything he does to get ready bc a man needs to put in just as much effort

has coffee dates w his boys where he'll get his tea or black coffee and the boys will get a lemonade and their cake pops and they can drive around

hugs and kisses each one of his boys when he gets home which in turn makes the boys get used to being affectionate with each other

buys his boys flowers when he takes you yours. he wants to be the first one to ever them their flowers. this leads to the boys going outside to bring back a flower, dandelion, leaf, or rock to their dad. dad now has a collection of random things in his spot of the garden

weekly sit-down w the boys to talk about emotions to teach them how to put their feelings into words

does not explicitly tell his sons to kneel for women but his sons see how dad always kneels for you if you're sitting somewhere low (CUE TO EP 12 W NOBARA AND NITTA, THIS IS CANON)

is in shock when the boys come in for an intervention-like meeting asking why they don't have a sister yet and when they can get one

is impressed with how the eldest pulls him aside and shows him the plan to have a younger sister now so that he can have enough time w her before he leaves for college (eldest is not older than like 10 lmao but he's a planner just like dad)

shows you the plan and is in love with how everyone wants a girl

is very happy to keep trying 🫣😮‍💨

all the boys go w you to get the letter w the gender of the baby and start to plan a big gender reveal bc they all have a "feeling"

all start to cry uncontrollably when the inside of the gender reveal closet is full of pink clothes, blankets, and toys. someone's on the floor (eldest), someone is running laps around everything and everyone (middle), someone is carefully touching your tummy (nanami) and another is asking if they can name her like their favorite anime character (youngest)

all start reading and researching how to raise a girl and are visibly stressed yet excited

nanami starts creating lists of cute clothes and can stay up all night imagining a giggling little girl on his shoulders

cries if he's by himself and in his feelings bc he's so overwhelmingly happy w his life and kids, feels like the luckiest man

goes to lowe's to get paint to prepare his princess's room and the boys are in overalls and ready to paint when he gets home

imagines a little girl joining their coffee dates and the boys giving her their mud pies and holding her hand everywhere they go

sees the most beautiful little girl and is blinded by the love his kids have for each other

will pass by the baby's room in the middle of the night to see all 3 boys sleeping on the floor right next to her crib. grabs his pillow and joins his boys on the floor

buys a new baby kangaroo for the boys to decorate and carries their princess EVERYWHERE

has to break up arguments the boys start to have over who gets to push the stroller this time

the boys dress her up in their old sneakers and baseball caps

all wear tutus and tiaras while they patiently wait for her to pour them their cup of tea during tea time

the two youngest boys teach her how to get someone in a headlock to defend herself and nanami and eldest have to step in

eldest then secretly teaches her men's weak spots and plans to take her to a self defense class eventually

babygirl is always giggling and is so playful, her and mommy have got these boys wrapped around their fingers

nanami is always swaying whenever he’s standing still bc babygirl attaches herself to his leg and he swings her back and forth for as long as he’s standing straight. making a sandwich? swinging the baby on his leg. brushing teeth? swinging the baby on his leg. working on his standing desk? swinging the baby on his leg.

the bros get defensive if someone tries to scold her but they’ll pull her aside themselves and tell her why it was wrong. nanami stands outside the door and listens to them

nanami still asks his boys to go out and at least two suggestions from the boys include the little princess

nanami and boys for sure stare at mommy and princess in awe at random times

they all know the girls have the deciding vote and they run the whole house. and they love it 😌

nanami is so girl dad coded BUT he would be the best dad in general. he for sure needs a little girl somewhere in the mix but he’d win the fatherhood award for sure

[kimberleyjean]

The Ineffable Detective Agency Presents: What Happened in Before the Beginning?

Hello Good Omens clue hunters and detectives! I’m super excited to share what we’ve discovered in Before the Beginning. Read on if you want to see what no one else has spotted yet!

To put a long story short, something is “up” about Good Omens - Season 2 in particular. While the eagle-eyed have documented a number of odd things in Season 2 already (summarised here), I’ve never seen anyone call into question what was presented during the Before the Beginning scene. Let’s take a closer look shall we?

Remember this scroll to start the nebula? Well, guess what - it changes!

Here’s the first scroll we see on screen, I’m going to call this the “new” scroll. Note the straight edges and completely pristine look, like brand new paper:

Then suddenly, here’s what it looks like as they start up the nebula:

Whoa, that’s looking pretty old and ragged! It’s got rips, a bit of discolouration, several wavy bends running through it. That’s a significantly more worn scroll than we were just shown. Let’s show that in close up just to be sure:

Yup, that’s certainly not meant to be the same scroll!

During this scene, the old scroll is seen again during the close up of Aziraphale holding it. However, once Crowley instructs him to put it down, it’s the new scroll again. (And then at this point it disappears into hammerspace like in a cartoon, or drifts off into space, never to be seen again).

So... there's TWO scrolls?

Well, yes, but also, no. If you're wondering, “Are they both real scrolls? Are you telling me they had two on set?” the short answer is no, this was done with VFX. To explain why we know this, I’m going to hand over to our resident Art Director, @noneorother:

Hi all, @noneorother here. Sure. So it's mostly to do with the shadow inside the scroll curls and under the right hand side curl. You can see when it's the real scroll that the shadows are all orange or brown, because of sub-surface scattering:

It happens when light partially passes through a thin porous object like skin or paper. So when the scroll is new, it's real. Where they've added "scroll is old now" VFX on top of the shots, it's very well tracked, but there's no more sub-surface scattering because it's VFX, not filmed. So the shadows are now base-black inside the curl and to the right hand side of the image. This is the VFX scroll here:

They already perfectly tracked the astronomy animation into the center of the scroll, so they had all that tracking info just sitting around. It wouldn't have been very expensive to add the "old scroll" the way they did it (the cheap and dirty way).

Thanks @noneorother! So there we have it folks, the Good Omens team have intentionally designed some shots with the old-looking VFX scroll and some without. They had the assets created for the old scroll and the tracking to place it correctly, so how could they possibly make the “mistake” of adding it sometimes but not others? This wasn’t a budget thing. If it were budget related, they wouldn’t have created the old scroll VFX in the first place.

Personally, I think this discontinuity was to tell us, the dedicated rewatchers, that what we initially saw in S2 was not the whole story. There is something else at play during S2. Something that, depending on what we find, may make S3 even more enjoyable.

So, why do this? Is this scene being conveyed from different perspectives? Are we viewing different characters’ memories of the same event? If so, why would that be important? Is someone tampering with past events? Did “Before the Beginning” happen multiple times and we’ve seen a spliced together version? What do you think?

One More Question...

The other question worth asking here (which Aziraphale helpfully asks for us) is “which way up” does the scroll go? Look closely at the central rings.

Is it the top version (small rings to the right)?

Or the lower version (small rings to the left)?

... and what happens if you create a nebula upside down, I wonder? Here I’m reminded of the Nightingale Sang in Berkeley Square lyrics:

The moon that lingered over London Town Poor puzzled moon, he wore a frown How could he know we two were so in love The whole darn world seemed upside down

In a season where something is going "Down in the Up", and the answer to Gabriel’s mystery is achieved by turning the delivery box upside down, this is yet another up-down reversal we can add to the list!

..................................................................................

If you’ve been following our Good Omens posts up until now, you’ll be aware that this is not the only time scenes have been inconsistent or discontinuous. If this is new to you, please check out my summary post on Season 2 discontinuity here. For more of our posts, plus a collection of Clues and metas from all over the fandom, see here.

However, there is still more to come, so watch out for future updates. If you’re not currently puzzling over Good Omens and would like to join in, please do! We’d love to hear what you find - you can use the tag #ineffable mystery.

Special thanks to @noneorother, @embracing-the-ineffable, and to all the other lovely people at @ineffable-detective-agency (@theastrophysicistnextdoor, @ghstptats, @somehow-a-human, @lookingatacupoftea, @dunkthebiscuit @havemyheartaziraphale, @komorezuki, @251-dmr, @maufungi).

[pyxaperson]

Final post about Adventure Time/Fionna and Cake for tonight, but I was rewatching episode 5 and I noticed that during the scene where Fionna, Cake and Simon are eating dinner with farm-world Finn and his family - Simon quite clearly doesn’t eat during the scene.

I didn’t really notice on my first viewing as we don’t really see any of them eat except for Fionna and Cake, but it’s still implied that they did. We see everyone around the table has bowls towards the end of Dinner except for Simon.

(Note: Cake’s bowl is not present because it’s in her hand. Fionna’s is possibly covered by Simon’s head. Jay, Bonnie and Finn don’t have bowls because Jay moved them to the sink)

This is especially odd considering that he was given a bowl before dinner started.

Now this could just be an animation error (it most likely is tbh), but it got me thinking about how Ice King’s weight changes throughout the series as his eating is heavily reliant on his mood.

It then reminded me that throughout the 6 episodes we have so far, Simon has only eaten one meal. That is the cereal he had for breakfast in episode 2.

Besides that, the only other time that he would have consumed something full-filling would be the coffee he makes in the same episode, but he doesn’t even finish that. In every other instance, he is seen a majority of the time drinking alcohol.

The lack of eating would be fine for the most part since it could just be summed up to cartoon logic, but we have also seen many instances of Fionna and Cake consuming full-filling foods and drinks (hot chocolates, sandwiches, soups etc.).

All of this made me realise that Ice King’s eating habits might not just be an Ice King thing, but something that originated from Simon. Idk.

[creatingblackcharacters]

I've been rewatching Teen Titans (2003) lately, and I'd like to share Cyborg for the September Challenge!

Teen Titans is an action-comedy cartoon show from the early zeroes (not that Teen Titans Go! spinoff nonsense, we don't talk about that mess) about a team of five young superheroes.

Prefacing this with that I am neither Black nor an amputee, so there's probably a lot I haven't picked up on - this is an outsider's perspective.

Cyborg is the team's tech expert, handler of security and new inventions, as well as unofficial second-in-command (it is never brought up, but whenever the team's leader is out of commission, Cyborg naturally takes charge and the others follow him).

Cyborg is just ... an absolute delight. He's passionate, fun-loving and caring, and just seems like the kind of guy I would love to hang out with. He gets to have a full range of emotions that are taken seriously. I'd describe him as generally upbeat, but whenever things get serious, he is too, and he's allowed to show anger and frustration, also at his white teammates (him and the leader of the team, Robin, frequently butt heads, but they're also shown to be absolute besties the rest of the time. I generally love how this show writes the characters as being teenagers in stressful situations, trying their best) without being punished for it. He's shown to care a lot about his friends, and they care just as much in turn. I love how emotionally open he is, and the other characters always take his feelings seriously and are shown to be there for him

(the last screenshot has him in a holographic disguise, displaying what he looked like before he was in an accident)

A lot of his focus episodes focus on his disability and how he feels about his cybernetics. He also has a dedicated story line where the villain is a white man with mind-control powers, which Cyborg manages to resist, and the villain growing obsessed with Cyborg as 'the one who got away', eventually stealing his blueprints to try and find out what allows him to resist - in the end, it turns out it's Cyborg himself, his spirit, that the villain can't control.

He's cool, he's powerful, he has a good heart and just comes off as a comforting presence overall. I love him. He deserves the world. I wanna do something nice for Cyborg. Even outside of his top-tier design of security system, I would immediately feel safer with Cyborg around.

Did I mention he can cook? He also built an entire car by himself. What can't he do.

[hamletshoeratio]

"But no new content 😭!!" that means jack shit. We have several literal decades worth of content we can watch or rewatch. The writers and now the actors too are not only fighting for their livelihoods but for the futures and the soul of their industries.

Fuck new content, fuck the executives and producers and powers that be who make millions upon millions while the people, who create the content that make them rich, can barely make ends meet.

Here's some suggestions to anyone who doesn't know what to watch;

Nostalgia rewatch; watch old favourites, shows and movies you haven't seen in years but that stayed with you, the ones that mattered to you.

Watch the shows your parents didn't let you watch growing up because they thought the show was "too mature" for you.

Watch the shows and movies people have recommended to you that you never found time for before.

Watch indie films!!!

Look at different genres than what you've watched before and give them a go.

Try films and shows from other countries and/or in other languages. There's dubs and subtitles available and these shows and movies can be just as good if not better than their American and/or English speaking counterpart.

And remember when watching shows, that you do not have to binge them all at once, you can have your own personal tv schedule and watch say an episode a week like you would've done when/if they aired before streaming

Look at some older films and shows, why does it matter if it's in black and white or the camera quality is lower than 4k and hd, so long as it's good? And so many of those shows and films, while not perfect, have aged better than shows that have come out in the last decade, like the golden girls for instance has aged so much better than say glee (ok many many many shows aged better than glee but let's be real for a second, music was better when artists were terrified of the Glee cast doing a better version of their song on the show. I do still wish it was a show my mom didn't let me watch tho, lmao glee was fine but no, her twelve year old being obsessed with Les mis and rewatching it religiously was cause for concern 😂😭 I was just as obsessed with glee for seasons 1-4 especially).

It's ok to indulge your inner child and rewatch the classics tm. The shows and movies you grew up with. Rewatch the shows that got you through sick days from school, the tv movies you remember watching premiere, the cartoons that MADE your Saturday mornings, etc.

On the topic of animation, that's literally an unlimited genre you can tap into, which rarely gets the recognition and respect it deserves.

Don't be afraid to watch the one season wonders, the shows that networks and streamers cancelled after one season in spite of strong reviews and good ratings. Or the shows that ended abruptly around the season 3 or 5 mark because networks and streamers cancelled them because they didn't want to negotiate contracts and have to pay the actors and writers more. Get angry, remember what the actors and writers are fighting for.

The privilege of older shows that either concluded naturally or that writers were given a heads up on might be on it's last season is that you get closure, unlike with the above. That might not mean an ending is good but a bad ending is better than a cliffhanger. There's always fix its fics for a bad ending. And if the ending is good, it's typically GOOD in my experience. The fear of a cliffhanger and zero closure has already turned many against watching new content until the show is renewed for another season or is fully wrapped (and fans don't hate the ending).

Watch the shows that were in their day or are popular or critically acclaimed, they usually hold up to the hype.

Watch the old shows and movies your favs were on/in before they were your favs.

Try a soap or a telenovela, they can be entertaining af (holby city my love, Tuesdays have never been the same since the BBC robbed me of you).

If you liked a reboot or a revival of a show, try the original (in certain cases, the og is even better, see boy meets world v girl meets world).

If you like period dramas, try shows and films from other countries based on their history. A lot of times when people are telling their own history it goes far better than when Hollywood tries it (see the many times Hollywood has actors brought in because producers think they're good for box office and they then go on to butcher the accent their character should have, see Cameron Diaz, Julia Roberts, Meryl Streep and so many others who have absolutely butchered the Irish accent over the years for instance. There's also many many instances even recently of just blatant whitewashing see Matt Damon as the last samurai...).

Listen to recommendations, watch the shows and movies you know your family and friends loved but you never got around to watching.

[callsignfate]

Hi I have some ideas for Valeria ( if you need something 😆)

1. Movie night with a fem reader, we know Valeria is cold and heartless but for her girlfriend...she can be a total sweetheart. Reader finally convinced Valeria to watch a cartoons with her ( I love cartoons 🙈) so they take some snacks and go watch cartoons. Unfortunately reader fall asleep after an hour and that was a moment when Valeria realized how good and safe she feels with her girlfriend

2. Valeria had a stressful day (obviously 😅) when she finished her work only thing she wanted to do was to go to sleep. She went to her bedroom but she couldn't find her girlfriend (reader) so she went to find her. Reader was in the kitchen cooking something for both of them when Valeria found her. A lot of fluff ,maybe some sexual tension who knows 😆

I have a lot if ideas and your stories are always sooo good and I think it might be interesting 😆 I hope you like it

Thank you 🖤

Reader x Valeria

TW: Possible sexual content viewer discretion is advised

Okay so, Authors note, I had taken such a long time off of writing that I had to rewatch all of the Valeria scenes to make sure I wrote the character as closely as I could get. This didn’t take long but, yea. I also went and found a laptop with a great deal so I use it just for writing and can now write whenever I want instead of having to write only on my desktop that's having some minor issues right now. I would like to apologize again for the large wait in between posts as I have a lot of things going on with my mental and physical health. I kept trying to get back into writing but every time I would I’d end up sick, at the doctor's for some reason, or just not in the mood to write. I also have been getting into other shows and games so might expand the characters and fandoms I write for. This is the 2nd prompt btw I will work on editing the first prompt draft after I post this.

Lightly edited as I wanted to post something ASAP!

She ended up taking longer than even her normal long days, finding herself up to her eyes in work and calls that had to be done soon to move her products smoothly as some unforeseen hitches had ruined her previous plans with ease. Her office was now shrouded in dark other than the two lamps she had turned on absentmindedly. Her last call was the longest and most infuriating one as luck would have it, her foul words being muttered under her breath and she slammed her phone down and left the office she found stuffy and claustrophobic after sitting in it ceaselessly.

Valeria was a busy woman, of course, often keeping her empire running wasn't a small feat. Her days weren’t the standard eight hours as most were, after your busy schedule that kept you busy for eight to nine hours of the day. After work, you often waited around for her while relaxing and walking about the endless villa she called home.

Her mind was fuzzy with stress and exhaustion as the night before was restless and short, her morning with you being cut short had made the day already negative, only making her day longer and filled with her having an even shorter fuse. She yearned for sleep, to hold you in her arms while she listened to you ramble about the simple things that kept your mind busy and happy.

The trudging steps became lighter as she got closer to your shared bedroom where she half expected you to be in bed curled up either asleep or awake pouting and waiting for her with some small comment about how long you waited for her.

Instead, when she opened the door to get ready for bed you were gone, her eyebrows pinched together and furrowed in frustration. Her thoughts were filled with endless questions and fear? She scanned the room again to see the clothes she had seen you in when you had visited her office before were thrown into the hamper hanging off of the side of it messily. With a slightly agitated huff, she began opening doors down the hall in search of you, the bathrooms were cool and the mirror wasn't fogged up meaning you weren’t there, so she headed down the stairs before a sent of warm food led her to the kitchen, her eyebrows raised as she found you wearing an oversized sweater and short thin sleeping shorts that you usually wore to bed after she bought them for you on a particularly hot day a year or so ago.

“What are you doing?” She finally spoke with a slightly playfully mocking tone, making you jump while you leaned back and forth and mouthed the lyrics of the song you were listening to in your earbuds.

“I was making us something to eat, I tried to lay down but I got snacky and bored waiting.” You said after quelling your quickened heart and letting out a small breath.

“I had calls to make and the idiots on the other side weren’t listening.” She muttered with a small hint of frustration before she moved to stand behind you, her arms wrapping around you before they moved under your hoodie so slowly that your mouth slacked and goosebumps raised on your arms and the back of your neck.

“Let's eat and head to bed.” She hummed out in your ear with a small teasing and cocky laugh.

You offered a nod and plated the food before her hand slipped into your loose shorts making you lean forward onto the counter, your stomach tensing as a gasp escaped your lips. 

The food, sat on the counter cold you realized as you watched her sleeping soundly, the subtle soft snore making your lips turn up into a small smile.

[elephant-in-the-pride-parade]

Prodigy Recap

I love it I love it I love it I could watch it forever

I'm truly irrevokably in love. I'm done for. I'm probably going to rewatch this all month before I am satisfied I've fully taken it all in. I NEED to rewatch Mindwalk and Supernova again ASAP because knowing what I know now about the memories HJ had just recovered. I know it is going to wreck me to watch her in those episodes with S2 in mind.

My ship HELD HANDS GUYSSS. HE TOLD HER SHES HIS HOME. HE DIDNT FEEL LIKE HE BELONGED ANYWHERE UNTIL THEY MET. SHE BROKE TIME FOR HIM AGAIN AND AGAIN. HER EYES GOT SO BIG! THAT HUG LOOKED SO GOOD. (I'm getting off topic a lot but i need to get the "my ship is canon - in a way i don't hate!!!" fangirling out of my system.) breathe. breathe. okay gonna keep going.

Its gonna take me a few more watch throughs to fully wrap my head around the paradox. And around how you fit a humpback whale in the original ISS Voyager (seriously. has that been there the whole time? does OG Voyager have a whale? was she retrofitted in the AQ? did Mirror J steal a whale from 1996?) And if that timeline where KJ was lost on the infinity means shes also trapped on future solum with Chakotay or just dead. and and and... so many things. so many fic ideas. so many plot bunnies

(wait no -- shoves the plot bunnies away -- go away. not ready for more wips yet)

There. was. so. much. that I loved. it was such an ambitious story to tell in 2 seasons and oh my god, i really feel they mostly pulled it off. They brought back Voyagers legacy characters and put them to work in a plot that fit them, and it was such a joy to see them again. They stay true to who they were on Voyager - thoroughly wonderfully 100x better than on Voyager in Chakotays case. and i really believe theyre the same characters with a few more years of life since ive last met them.

And the new characters too. I love Dal and Gwyn and Rok and Murf and Zero and Jankom and Maj'el to pieces. (Majel!!! is such a perfect tribute!) I want to see so much more of Noum and Tysses. I am in tears over Adreek. God how much i want Season 3 just to see how their stories continue.

But I think... what strikes me most and what I appreciated the most was how much this show wholeheartedly respects its fans!!!

It never dumbs things down or babies it's younger audience. its very mature for a kids show. it is a great introduction to star trek and the universe without over explaining. there are storylines in these 40 episodes that would be right at home in TNG or Voyager. it's really more of a fun for the whole family show than a kids show in that way. (it says something that it's the first "cartoon" my parents have ever cared for and they are watching it wholely for themselves.) It really manages to tell the story in a framing thats aimed at kids without taking anything away from the story its telling for all ages.

And it's adult audience...

I worried about how it would feel to have enjoyed such a rich fanon universe in the 3 decades since the show ended. There were advantages to having a ship with very little canon. the fan universe thrived on how much room there was to work within. After that - having headcanoned and written and imagined so many futures for the characters - I feared having some new canon come in and make a new story for them that would invalidate so much if that imagination, or create something so unsatisfying or rigid or antithical to their last canon encounter that nothing new would be inspired by it. (P/C in Picard was like that for me)

Prodigy didnt do that. Prodigy made no grand sweeping canon for the years in between Voyagers homecoming and the new show. Prodigy didnt shoe horn any character into a rigid relationship status. Prodigy picked them up, set them on a new adventure, sprinkled in tantalyzing new details, and left a wealth of room around the events of the season and the relationships between the characters for so much fan imagination to thrive. The possibilities before and during and after the seasons for the characters are bountiful and perfect for imagining their other adventures. I couldnt have imagined my ship becoming canon (or maybe affirmed by the canon is a clearer way to put it) in a better way.

And then they went and added Tank Top Action Janeway in there as a treat.

Truly a masterpiece. i'm so grateful for this show. i hope it gets the 3rd season it so dearly deserves.

[pestorik]

I got an ask from someone saying they are interested in watching adventure time but I accidentally deleted it :( anon if you are reading this here are some great reasons to watch it!

the later seasons are really awesome bc they start going really heavy on the lore and start to develop more of an overall plot. it's like watching the climax building in a movie but spread out over multiple seasons. it is 100% the best lore ive seen in a cartoon.

the show is really convenient to watch bc each episode is only 11 minutes but there are so many of them you dont get sad about finishing it too soon. this was back in the days of cable so theres anywhere from 20-50 episodes per season (yes, 50).

it's one of the only shows ive known that keeps the same voice actor for the entire series. the actor started around the age of 12 so you can literally hear him getting older throughout the show and the character gets older with him, voice cracking a lot and slowly deepening. i find it cool that they chose to do that instead of keeping the character eternally young.

you get attached to characters in ways you dont expect. as more things are revealed about them you begin to feel their loneliness, their insecurities, their desires. since the show lasted so long they had really amazing opportunities to develop the characters over a prolonged period and didnt need to rush it.

easter eggs! concept art! backgrounds! if you are an artist it's hard not to become obsessed with this show. and all these things are very well recorded online. even at the age of 26 i can think of ways that adventure time has influenced my art.

the idea of a post-apocalyptic setting being fantasy instead of sci-fi is so creative and unique. im personally not a fan of sci-fi but love fantasy and they did so many amazing things with this universe and it worked so well.

it is genuinely so funny. I think i actually laughed more rewatching it as an adult than i did as a kid.

you will gain a new appreciation for tom kenny if you've only ever heard him in spongebob. (also the VA who plays princess bubblegum played starfire, and jake's VA played bender)

if you do end up finishing the show (that will take a while) you have even more to look forward to! Distant Lands and then Fionna and Cake! the wiki also reveals some amazing stuff about each episode and you learn a lot of things you didn't know before (i dont recommend reading it while watching the main series bc it wont hide spoilers)

[bucketspammer4life]

great tiger hc dump because why shouldnt i

tip of the day: you probably shouldnt eat sheet metal or sushi you brought from a supermarket

Didn't see his dad much but still loved him nonetheless, he couldn't really speak to him much since he worked a lot overseas, savoured any chance he got to talk to him.

Got into magic because of an old cartoon he really enjoyed watching, he absolutely loved it and watched it everyday, rewatches it when he's sad sometimes,has the theme song living rent free in his brain.

Got his boxing name through a nickname his mom used to call him, used to think it was really cringy and tacky but loved it later down the line.

Really acrobatic thanks to him doing gymnastics as a kid, he had dreams of working in a circus to do tricks.

Absolute cat person, used to have a kitten when he was younger, adored and would treat it like its his own baby.

Loves singing & dancing, not as much as Disco Kid but still enjoys it, you could probably catch him humming a tone or just dancing in place multiple times a day, unfortunately has the voice of a dog with a throat infection so its not really pleasant for anyone else around him when he sings.

Started out as a singer/songwriter before getting into boxing, a lot of his fans were absolutely bamboozled when he announced he was going to start boxing.

Originally started making clones of himself when he got lonely but really didn't have anyone else to reach out to, his first attempts were shabby and bordering on nightmare fuel, but as he practiced more and more they became more life-like,this caused him to neglect relationships he had and only talk to himself for a while.

Doesn't really drink too much coffee, he finds it makes him too jittery, doesn't handle caffeine too well.

Would love to adopt a pet tiger but can't because its very much illegal.

Pretty squeamish about bugs, can't stand to look at close up pictures of any.

[ducktracy]

What are your opinions on Looney Tunes: Back in Action? I personally have a soft spot for the movie nostalgia or not, plus it was my introduction to the Looney Tunes so I'll always love it for that.

I'M DUE FOR A REWATCH! i'd like to give it a fair shake, because i think the last time i saw it was in 2021. i unfortunately am not the biggest fan :((((((((( my stance on the LT movies i think is "i prefer Space Jam [the original] over BiA while acknowledging that BiA is superior to Space Jam in every way".

BiA is not an exhaustive shoe commercial, so that helps immensely. it's clear that it was made by fans of the shorts and there are a lot of deep cut cameos that i really value and appreciate. i think part of my aversion stems from my contrarianism that i've been able to curb PRETTY well in the past few years, but being a child of the early '00s, i grew up surrounded by the Corporate Chuck Jones LT aesthetic and BiA is the pinnacle of that to me--i naturally have an aversion to that style and i've been good at overcoming it (i now love Joe Alaskey as Daffy, but it took me a long time for this to be the case), but BiA falls into so many of the trappings of that era that i really just don't like. stuff like acting like The Hunting Trilogy shorts are the only LT shorts ever made

i also have a hard time taking it seriously, and that is a problem because i felt that this film often tries to get you to take it seriously and i just can't. i said this last year and still stand by it in discussing its "Hollywood pathos":

I THINK PART OF IT ALSO IS LIKE. again. unrealistic contrarianism. sorry but if Daffy Duck were thrust in my lap and i had to go on a wacky road trip with him i would be ECASTATIC. i hate how he's treated as like "uhhhhhh only people who live in their mom's basement like you as a character lol because you suck and are mean and rude!!!!", and i know he's trying to prove otherwise etc but i'm just soooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo tired and averse to that narrative. Bugs is amazing Daffy sucks yahoo yippee. it feels like they missed the intent of the originals in that Daffy Does Not Actually Suck and is in some cases exhaustively more competent than Bugs, but he's just so quick to be foiled by his own impulses and vices.

most of my critiques against the movie are moreso in regards to my tastes rather than an indication of its objective quality. i do wish other characters got more screen-time, i think i would like it more... i'm not the biggest fan of the Bugs and Daffy cartoons because they enable a lot of my aforementioned gripes. i've slowly been able to turn around on them and even love shorts like Rabbit Seasoning! but their dynamic always runs into the same trappings and i get rubbed very raw by those trappings. what i want from Bugs and what i want from Daffy, i don't get out of either of them at all when they're paired together. and so i'm obviously not going to like an entire movie centered on that dynamic

i do want to give it another shake though because i may be able to appreciate it more now or, at the very least, be able to suspend my reservations more. but it's just not for me. which is a shame! because, kind of like TLTS, i've tried many times and seen it multiple times to try and understand and see what other people see in it but i just can't. the curse of being too protective of the duck

[tapwater118]

The Post-Split Rant, Part 2

a.k.a.: Grown Adult somehow whines about Baby Cartoon for even longer

Part 1

BFB Post-Split is my least favorite season, so I’m gonna keep whinging on about it. As a reminder to all who bother to read this, this is my opinion. It is fine if you disagree with me about something, and you probably will. This is a good thing! Disagreement invites discussion, as long as all involved are willing to discuss.

Ok let’s just get right into it.

BFB 22

THE LEAFY PLUSH IS NOW AVAILABLE!!!!! I don’t have really anything to say about the ad intro other than it’s become a vocal stim for me. Moving on.

erm taco got out and she was my favortie character so this js the wrost epistioe

Ok, but seriously.

Overall, this is a pretty fun episode! “Court case” doesn’t really sound like it would make for that good of a challenge, but they make it work! A lot of funny moments all around. Jet-flying class is a top tier bit.

That being said, I have two VERY BIG ISSUES with this episode that keep it out of my favorites list. The second one I want to save for later (after BFB 24), so let’s talk about that first one.

This episode, and the resulting elimination segment in the following episode, is the biggest middle finger to Bubble Post-Split ever pulls. She is killed off very early into the challenge, and is not recovered until the next episode. I believe this is directly responsible for her elimination. Leafy gets her moment with Firey (more on that later), Lollipop and Gelatin form their Newbie Alliance, and Teardrop has some cute moments with the typewriter. Every Have Cotter gets to do something intriguing or endearing this episode, except for Bubble. She is, quite literally, written out of the show. It’s not even like she did nothing because she’s a boring character; Bubble is a very interesting character! She was just killed off. (Honestly reminds me of how in season 1 they were pretty obviously trying to get people to vote Ice Cube out near the end, only this time they didn’t have to resort to a contestant vote to do so.)

Like I said, we’ll get to that second issue in a bit.

BFB 23

One last one-two combo on Bubble for really no reason or payoff here. Pretty much nobody remembers she even died last episode, and her elimination is by far one of the most anticlimactic in the entire series. No drum roll or anything, and she barely even gets to say bye. Spongy, the character everyone always seems to point to when people talk about characters being mistreated by the writers (rightfully so imo), had a more impactful elimination.

This episode is just bland. Challenge-wise it’s the exact opposite of BFB 22; the premise for the challenge is really interesting (A jailbreak! That’s exciting!), but they execute it in probably the most boring way possible. One team spends the whole time jumping on boxing gloves, and the other basically has a repeat of BFB 21. The Flower and Purple Face stinger is the best part of the episode.

Just wanted to mention Flower here because I’ll probably forget to do this later; she’s actually written pretty well, by Post-Split standards. I’ve seen people say she wasn’t done well by Post-Split, but I honestly don’t really see it. Post continues her character quite cleanly from Pre-Split; she wants to make friends and make amends for her past behavior, while also still being a bit rude and off-putting. Don’t really see where the issue is here. (As for why she’s like this versus her BFDI/A self, we’ll probably have to wait for IDFB to pick back up.)

BFB 24

Unless something really dumb happens in BFB 28-30 that I’m forgetting (haven’t got there on my rewatch yet), this is probably the worst episode in all of Post-Split, and maybe even the whole series. I know this is the worst episode because it was the only one during my rewatch where I checked how much time was left, saw I still had half the episode to go, and audibly groaned. Nothing happens the entire challenge except for people shitting around and talking, and the overall payoff for most of the contestants not doing the challenges is like one and a half kinda funny jokes. We barely get to see any of them getting the supplies for their parties, or setting them up, or even anything related to the parties until it comes time to judge. The intro/Cake at Stake are so much more engaging than the actual challenge portion. The best part is the Flower and Leafy team-up and even then barely anything happens. Definitely up there with the likes of BFDI 16, BFDIA 1, and BFB 5 for the “real stinker challenge segment” award.

Purple Face becomes a mainstay here, so I guess I’ll comment on him. He’s whatever. He has some good bits, but overall feels like he doesn’t bring anything new to the table. Kinda unnecessary for what Post-Split goes for (or at least tries to go for).

I’ll be completely honest and say I completely forgot about this Gelatin-Teardrop “arc” before this rewatch. It kinda comes out of nowhere too; their moments of “conflict” are not brought up as such (not even any subtle insinuation) until this point. But hey, maybe if they expand on it, Post-Split could really have something intere—aaaaaand it’s over. The same episode this “arc” is established, it gets entirely resolved. Glad that that conflict totally got fleshed out and developed to its full potential. Yup.

Ok, I said we would talk about it after BFB 24, so here we go. My second main reason for making this rant:

I do not like how Post-Split resolved Firey and Leafy’s arc

If you’re gonna disagree with me on anything in this rant, it’ll probably be this.

Let’s start with BFB 22.

First off, bozo, she DID try to talk with you, you just slammed the (soundproof) door in her face before she could get a point across. Ok time to talk about the actual writing.

As a whole, this whole scene comes off as extremely biased towards Firey. Yes, Leafy never apologized for stealing Dream Island, but Firey never apologized for both excluding her for an extremely petty reason and for ignoring her in the years since. This SHOULD have been a mutual make-up between the two. Both apologize for their misdeeds towards the other, and both promise to do better with each other moving forward.

Instead, we this one-sided argument wherein Firey is given much more pity than Leafy by the show. He isn’t even all that remorseful about how he’s treated Leafy, he’s more distraught over potentially being eliminated for stealing the diary. And Leafy, of course, offers to throw the challenge to make sure he isn’t up for elimination. Ok. Sure. Maybe that is in Leafy’s character, to help save Firey from elimination when he’s done something the viewers won’t like; she is the super nice one after all.

Anyway here’s a completely unrelated screenshot from BFB 15. Just putting this here for no particular reason.

Episode ends with them being friends again, and Firey’s only punishment for stealing the diary is to clean the railway. Yippee.

Fast forward to BFB 24: Lollipop snarks in Leafy’s direction, and Leafy tells Firey she’s upset about him not standing up for her, as well as all the time he spent ignoring her. And Firey apologizes! Great!

THIS SHOULD NOT HAVE TAKEN 2 MORE EPISODES TO GET TO!!! THIS SHOULD HAVE BEEN IN BFB 22 WITH THE REST OF THE MAKE-UP SCENE (aside from the ferris wheel probably)!!!!! I can only imagine the crew realized how one-sided BFB 22 was to Firey, so they decide to shoehorn in this scene into BFB 24 to try and fix it. It doesn’t, and this moment feels so phoned in.

Overall, my main issue with how Post-Split handles this reconciliation is that it feels sloppy. It’s too biased towards one side, and they try and correct for that too little too late. It feels like rather than something they wanted to write, it was something they had to write, as they (correctly) predicted Firey didn’t have much more time in the game left, and if they didn’t do this now they wouldn’t get a chance to later.

Anyway, Firey gets eliminated so no more of this arc for a bit. Let’s move on.

BFB 25

Just want to mention it here, because this episode has a perfect example of it, but Four has definitely changed from Pre to Post-Split. Here Gelatin slaps Four, and instead of Four giving him a face full of zappies like Four most certainly would have in Pre-Split, Four just kinda insults him and then the episode moves on. I won’t really say whether this is a good or a bad change, but I will say I like Four much more in TPOT than in Post-Split.

SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP

Meme-slop aside, this is a very whatever episode. More just walking and talking, you know how I feel about these already. I do like both the detail of how Flower’s vomit-repelling sweater was what was causing the vomit-filled totem to run away from her, as well as the fact this detail goes pretty much unspoken. Certainly a nice change of pace from the amount of over-explaining characters tend to do (COUGH COUGH LOLLIPOP COUGH).

The best part of the episode happens near the very end. You know what part I’m talking about.

i need her

BFB 26

It’s the Profily episode! I guess I’ll touch on them a bit. They’re a pretty funny joke character! I can’t decide whether it’s funnier for them to have been there all along and nobody noticed, or for them to straight up be lying about everything. This is a good thing. Past that though, they’re just ok. Some good bits here and there, but after this episode they just become another face in BFDI’s minor character menagerie with nothing to really set them apart.

Nothing really to complain about here. Fun episode! Lots of silly things, and nothing stays still for too long. This and BFB 20 really show how good Post-Split could have been, I think. I do prefer 20 a good bit more, but I’d rank this one above 22.

Time to ditch the Pillary Ruins.

BFB 27

The thumbnail is the worst thing about this episode. Just look at it. Why is there just an ugly chartreuse slab on the side. Why are the characters arranged so haphazardly. What even is this composition. It barely even fits with the rest of the Post-Split thumbnails. I hate it.

What gets me is that there was a scrapped thumbnail that looked a lot better! No clue why they switched it.

I do like the desert as a setting more than the Pillary Ruins, which might be an uncommon opinion idk. The ruins always felt too cluttered to be good default backdrops, so going to something simpler is nice.

Yeah I don’t have much to say about this one, another “whatever talky bluh bluh” episode, but this does have some more funny moments than others like it so there’s that. The Flower and TD montage was silly, and it seems like they kinda set Leafy up for elimination solely because they didn’t want her in the top 3 again. Nothing really much else to say.

Actually, come to think of it, this is the last “regular” challenge before the final all-in-one challenge. Maybe escaping the oven was a callback to BFDI 22’s escaping the volcano? If so, BFDI 22 did it better.

This seems like a good time to stop for now. They’re about to bring back all of the eliminated contestants, so I’ll be touching on both Taco and Firey/Leafy again in the next and final part of this rant. We’ll also get to the third main reason I’m making this rant: BFB 30.

Part 3

[zhuzhudushu]

Lingopie — Chinese Review ★★

So I did 3 months of Lingopie (stylized as Liñgöpie) so you don't have to (unless you want to lol).

I mention a Chrome extension, the Zhongwen dictionary, quite a bit in this review. It is here, I highly recommend it (click)! It's also available for Firefox (click).

What is Lingopie?

Lingopie is an app and desktop extension/website that allows you to watch tv shows and cartoons with interactive subtitles for language learning. It currently has Spanish, German, Russian, Italian, Portuguese, French, Korean, Japanese, and Chinese. It claims to improve your language learning by 80% (compared to Duolingo which is around 20%).

Here is their website. (click)

Pricing: (March 2024)

3 months $36

1 year $71 "on sale" (normally $144)

Lifetime $199 "on sale" (normally $663)

Please note: I have never seen these full prices. It appears that the "sale" is permanent.

My Review / TL;DR Version

Extremely disappointed both in functionality and content for Chinese. Maybe this is a good program for other languages, but for Chinese there is extremely limited content with pinyin subtitles only available for the non-Netflix shows. All the best learning features are available for non-Netflix shows, yet those tended to have significantly worse translations than Netflix. I would not recommend this product for Chinese. While it had a few good features and I enjoyed it for 6-7 episodes of one show, it then had a glitch where an entire episode was subtitled wrong, so I gave up.

See below the cut for full breakdown.

Strengths:

Has access to Netflix shows and films including some popular ones (e.g. Meteor Garden, Dear Ex, Nezha Reborn)

This is nice and I enjoyed rewatching the ones I was familiar with and getting a better grasp of listening and vocab. I appreciate that they try to incorporate kid-friendly along with more serious/adult content with animated and live action tv shows and films. I also liked that it specified if the show was from Taiwan or China, and also included shows that had some Cantonese influence (e.g. Scissor Seven)

Allows you to have English and Chinese subtitles simultaneously or alone, and you can easily click them on an off while watching.

This is pretty standard for all video/subtitle based educational apps, but it was nice to easily click them on and off in case I wanted to double check my understanding, and to compare the direct translation of the words to the full translation of the sentence.

Allows you to pause automatically after each subtitle. Can also loop subtitles over and over. There are also AI-produced explanations of grammar.

This hands down was the best part about the entire experience for me, and why I ended up using Lingopie for 3 months. While it was sometimes clunky (see below), this made singling out specific lines/words for listening practice so easy. Once I got in the groove, I was able to get through episodes fairly quickly and was starting to be able to listen and hear new words in sentences later.

Click on the words in the subtitle to make flashcard sets

This was a nice feature, but I do wish the flashcards were a bit more functional, see below. It was easy enough to use and a quick way to remind yourself of the new words you learned before you jump into the next episode.

Weaknesses:

Pinyin subtitles available on desktop only, with no pinyin subtitles for Netflix shows (as of May 2024)

This is a HUGE flaw, and I was 100% dependent on using another chrome extension for hover-over dictionary while using Lingopie. I know they are working on pinyin subtitles for Netflix and mobile, but I used this for 3 months and it still was not implemented when I ended. To me, if I have to use another app in conjunction with this one in order to fully learn, then what's the point? Especially since I watched Taiwanese and Cantonese-influenced shows with very non-standard pronunciations, comparing standard pinyin to accented productions is necessary for me. Even with the pinyin subtitles for the non-Netflix shows, it left a lot to be desire because they're tiny above the Chinese characters, and sometimes difficult to read. More than once I thought a ǒ was ō because of how tiny it was.

Not enough content, especially cartoons/beginner level

The one above and this bullet are the main reasons why I don't recommend this app for Chinese specifically. Maybe other languages are fine, but there is simply not enough content for the price. I was hoping for more beginner/lower intermediate content like children's cartoons, however there are none for Chinese. All the animated options are more teenager/adult oriented. There also weren't many light-hearted or comedy options, meaning you would have to watch a lot of serious dramas, thrillers, and violent shows if you wanted to get your money's worth. For my personal taste, I don't want to have to pause every dialogue line for an adult thriller. That would ruin my experience of the show and the suspense. For the non-Netflix options, most shows were incomplete with only 1-5 episodes available out of 10+. They also tended to be lower quality productions, with significantly worse English translations. The majority of what is available outside of Netflix are short films (~5 mins) and cooking shows (10-20 mins) which aren't bad for beginners. I personally have no interest in cooking, though lol. Essentially, there is no TRUE beginner fictional content in Chinese available.

The dictionary is... rough

Again, I was fully dependent on the Zhongwen extension. While the English subtitles themselves are good, the individual definitions of words that you hover over are definitely rough. They weren't actually that helpful for breaking down meanings of things like slang and characters' names. For example, in Scissor Seven there were quite a few animal puns, e.g. 汪星人 which is internet slang for "dog" Lingopie translated as "Woofer" which was... awkward and strange. Without the Zhongwen extension I would have had no idea what this was actually referring to. It would been nice if it functioned more like the Zhongwen extension, where it would highlight individual characters or phrases/combos depending on your mouse placement. Particularly on the non-Netflix shows, the translations even in the English subtitles were incredibly rough and at times I couldn't understand the context in either language. There was also one instance of an entire episode (Netflix) that had incorrect subtitles, I suspect subtitles from a different episode? That was the final straw for me.

It chooses whether or not to highlight single words or phrases so you have no control over your flashcards

This made the flashcards not as functional to me. Sometimes, I wanted just the specific noun/verb in the sentence, but it would make me highlight the entire sentence. Other times, I wanted a really functional phase, but it would only let me highlight the individual words. I barely used the flashcard feature because of this.

Clunky interface (Chrome & Firefox)

I can't speak for mobile or Safari because I didn't use them. Since I was relying on the Zhongwen hover-dictionary, I only used Chrome. You can only use Chrome or Safari if you want Netflix shows. Sometimes the auto-pause after each subtitle would be too early or too late, meaning I would have to actually click things pretty persistently throughout each episode. Using the spacebar to pause/unpause hardly ever worked, and using the arrow keys to flip between subtitles also never worked for me. Sometimes the hover-definitions of words would linger even after I clicked away, and would not disappear until the next subtitle appeared. This was super annoying and would block a good portion of the screen. Sometimes I would have to click things 2-3 times before it registered in both Chrome and Firefox.

Overall, I think it's a great idea, but needs some pretty major improvements in order to be worth the price.

In my opinion, if they were to add significantly more shows, including kid's cartoons, and improved their subtitles, dictionary, & interface function, it would be worth the price.

Maybe in a few years as Lingopie grows, it will be worth it. But for now, it's not. For now, it's clunky and limited. If you were to watch it for an hour a day, you would probably get through all the shows that interested in you in about 3-6 months. It wouldn't take longer than a year to go through all of the Chinese content, as of right now. So why would you pay for a year or lifetime price for that?

(divider credit here)

[raeynbowboi]

I couldn't Finish One Episode of Netflix's Avatar Reboot

I went into this show optimistic. I really hoped it would be fun and enjoyable. Instead, what I ended up with was just tedious. I got about 37 minutes into the first episode before I'd had enough, turned it off, and decided to rewatch the animated version instead. I get that this show wanted to be a gritty dramatic version of the show, but it didn't really succeed. Okay, actually seeing the Air Nomad Mass Unaliving was certainly darker than anything the cartoon showed. But in the process, everything else about the original was scrubbed away. Every single actor was wooden and stiff. Aang and Gyatso's teasing around is said with as much emotion as Zuko uses when scolding his crew. There is no emotional weight to any character's dialogue. And the jokes are horrible. There's a moment where Aang just repeats the word 'Sky Bison' over and over again. Which seems like very juvenile humor. I thought this was supposed to be the gritty dramatic adult version, so why the juvenile humor? Pick a tone and butcher it. And Gramgram really put the nail in the coffin. She just starts reciting the show's opening monologue, Aang runs out of the room, and Gramgram keeps expositioning to the Waterbenders in the room like Aang didn't even leave. And then Aang talks about how heartbroken he is with the exact same tone of voice he used when joking with Gyatso because tone is dead, apparently. At which point, I promptly turned the show off. I expected it to be different, but I was just bored. In its attempt to be darker and more mature, the show missed the human core that made the original so charming, which was the warmth of the characters. Without it, it just feels soulless and lifeless. At the same time, the original actually feels more mature than this version because there, emotions had weight and value. Worse still, it wastes so much time expositing so many things that the original got across painlessly and seamlessly through natural dialogue. Honestly, if Netflix had just done the effortless braindead thing and just made a shot-for-shot line-for-line remake, it would have at least been entertaining. The actors would have at least shown an ounce of emotion. I'm certainly not impressed. I'd rather watch season 2 of Legend of Korra on repeat than episode 2 of the Netflix reboot.

[phantomrose96]

how did you originally find and get on tumblr? (friendly tone) (sent by ask cultujre post)

So technically my original tumblr was from, I think, late 2012. My high school friend was like "you totally need to get on tumblr" and I was like "okay."

However that's not this blog. THIS blog is because, around March 2013 I got deep into a rewatch of Danny Phantom (which is something I would do every few years and fill my head with Danny Phantom brainrot for months). And I was like "hmm I know this series is 10 years old, but I wonder if anyone on tumblr is talking about it?"

And what do you know they were!

So I lurked for a while. But then one day I had a thought I wanted to contribute. Which I did not want to do with my blog my high school classmates followed because like "hey Chrissy, what are you, a high schooler, doing talking about horror-angst fanfic concepts for a 2004 Y-7 rated Nickelodeon cult classic cartoon that only ran for 3 years?" (The answer is: exactly the same as I'm doing as a 27-year-old still talking about horror-angst fanfic concepts for a 2004 Y-7 rated Nickelodeon cult classic cartoon which somehow does still have an active fandom almost 20 years later.)

I had, previously, in 2011 written some Danny Phantom fanfiction under this username on fanfiction.net. So I went ahead and made a brand new tumblr account with the same name in order to Danny-Phantom-post. And I've just been here ever since!

[trapastrology]

Comfort Shows & Comfort Person...

As you all know I've been talking a lot about 12H synastry as of late. I was rewatching my fav comfort show for the 100th+ time & it dawned on me....

Look to the synastry you have with your favorite show!

To pull a chart for a show/movie, look for the month & date it was released in your region & if you remember the air date or can find it, perfect!

This is the Synastry I have with my comfort show....

Sun, Merc & NN in my 12H- I feel seen & completely understood. This show has more depth than a lot of ppl tend to realize. Sometimes I felt like this show was speaking directly to me, I know it was, & i love that for me! All the songs are songs that I can put to my real-life situations (if you'd like more details, i got yall). I literally light up everytime i talk about this cartoon. If you watch the whole series, you can better understand me at a deeper level. Which i don't allow ppl to do (scorp asc).

Moon in my 1H- Moon plays as a light/beacon of hope & comfort for the house person. I feel the most emotional comfort when watching this show. I could be having the worst day & I turn this on & suddenly my day is going great. I wouldn't say this show "raised" me, but it's been around for majority of my childhood until now. I feel like the characters read my mind & they display feelings that i feel & gives me a better way to cope with them. I have a lot of deep memories & nostalgia here. a lot of self-reflection also happens here. I feel more open emotionally & childlike. Have a reflected some of the positive coping mechanisms in this show? YES! usually when i feel emotionally overwhelmed i come here.

Venus in my 2H-sets a strong foundation, which is why I will never everrrrrr lean off this show. & I have spent money to buy merch.

Moon trine my Moon-showing a soothing nature between the show & I. Enhances emotional understanding & clams nerves.

Nevertheless, The moral of the story is to keep someone who makes you feel how your comfort show does, most times, if not all, you'll have the same synastry you with ur show, with them. I have most of these synastry placements with my forever person!

Also, if you want to get a closer look into the hearts of ur loved ones, ask them about their comfort show!