#its such a wonderfully bizarre moment

[emotionalcadaver]

I would understand if it isn't in the film for runtime reasons, but I really, really hope that the poisoned apple incident makes it into Oppenheimer. It's just such a wild, hilarious story and I want to see Cillian once again get to go full unhinged.

[carnivalcarriondiscarded]

i've really dithered around the puppet rabbit hole for my entire life, sometimes sitting by it and dangling my legs over the felted abyss, but by worm am i jumping headfirst into it now with perfect diving form

[lurkingshan]

Japanese QL Corner

One show ends this week, but there are several more on the way, including a surprising adaptation. Of the six shows airing now, five are streaming weekly on Gaga and the other is available via fansub.

Takara's Treasure

I. LOVE. THEM. Their little bird watching date was precious and I loved every moment of it, including Taishin's adorable outfit and over preparedness, Takara's secret smiles, and the patient search for the wallet. I was so relieved that Taishin named his fears about them not being suited upfront instead of letting it grow into a huge anxiety in his own head, and I was also happy Takara was eager to speak with him about his impending relocation. That said, NOOOOOOOO I don't want a forced separation and time skip, show. Please I am begging.

Cosmetic Playlover

This was my favorite week for this show by far, because they actually let us see the relationship at its center! I enjoyed finally spending some time with these two as a couple, though I still find the timing and sequencing of these plots confusing as hell. Last week Sahashi gave Mamiya keys to his place and it was implied they'd been dating for quite awhile and were already serious, but this week we learn Mamiya has never spent the night and they are only just having sex for the first time. It was a real record scratch for me; I can't get my bearings in this relationship trajectory with all the gaps in the story. But hey, at least they finally let them make out a little! For a show that sold itself as toxic sexy, there has been very little toxicity or sex, tbh.

I Hear the Sunspot

*rubs temples* This show is really testing my patience. I got excited last week when Kohei and Taichi finally had a real conversation and it seemed like we were moving forward, but this week we're back to treading water. This story did not need 12 episodes; this pacing, while faithful to the manga as I understand it, does not work well for weekly live action. It's been weeks since we've learned anything new about these characters or advanced the central relationship, and the show continues to stumble with its confused depiction of Maya. I just want this show to pull together and finish strong, because I think a lot of this will be much more tolerable on a binge watch. For now I will just gaze at Kohei's beautiful smiling face and hope for a full recovery.

Ayaka is in Love with Hiroko

I said last week that the show had gotten so muddled I didn't think they'd be able to end well, and even with those very low expectations this finale still managed to get underneath them. The last several episodes made a mess of the characters, the conflict, and the themes of the show, and to add insult to injury, they capped it all off with angle kisses, a time skip, and a bizarre sex negative ending that had our "boob monster" adult lesbian refusing to have sex with her girlfriend for over a year so she could "cherish" her before randomly kissing her at the office as if that was the important resolution we'd been waiting for. A truly horrid ending that ruined everything this show did so well in its early episodes. I don't understand!! Big sigh and fingers crossed for a decent sexy gl sometime in the near future.

Mr. Mitsuya's Planned Feeding

I've just been beaming and staring into space for the last several minutes after finishing this episode. No matter what else happens in the shows, I love knowing I am always going to end my week in jql on a good note while this gem is airing. This week marked a transition point for Ishida and Mitsuya, as Ishida had a great conversation with Noguchi, found a new passion and put in for a job transfer, and had his final meeting and meal with Mitsuya as writer and editor. Which they immediately followed with a date and mutual acknowledgment of the feelings between them! And what a fantastic date it was, with every moment so invigorating and wonderfully adult. Mitsuya's quiet confidence and amusement at Ishida's nerves, Ishida's clarity on how he wants Mitsuya to see him, the mutual compliments and gestures and smiles and eye contact, ahhhhhhhhh. I also loved that Ishida got to be the one to show Mitsuya something new at the end, to get him to run with joy for the first time in ages and introduce him to a new food. I am so excited to see their dating era begin in earnest. You can find the episode with subtitles courtesy of @isaksbestpillow here.

Tagging @bengiyo to add this week's anime update.

[sea-changed]

i. Reading Looking For The Good War has, among many other things, I think really helped me to clarify and articulate what I find so disquieting about "Points" as an episode. (Which is not all of it! There are certainly plenty of scenes that I find fascinating and/or enjoyable to watch.) But:

"It is much easier to tell a sentimental war story with a happy ending, in which valor eclipses causes and reconciliation triumphs over everything--a comedy, in other words--than it is to tell another, unsentimental kind of story." (page 89)

This is what it is, exactly--"in which valor eclipses causes and reconciliation triumphs over everything" could more or less be the logline of "Points." This is most egregiously evident to me in the scene of Nazi general's surrender, but the scene where Winters tells the Nazi officer to keep his sidearm is also I think highly indicative of this drive towards reconciliation, however rotten, above all else. And Samet articulates that wonderfully, and articulates as well the cost of this type of narrative:

"Yet sentimentality does more than shape the way we commemorate wars. It informs all those cultural and sociological attitudes in the shadow of which wartime and postwar policies are crafted, and it prevents a more productive and enduring sympathy that, in cooperation with reason, might guide our actions and help us become more careful readers of war's many ambiguities and false seductions." (page 83)

ii. The layers of dislike I have for the Nazi general scene are manifold; the mirroring of Winters and the Nazi general and thereby Easy Company with the Nazi soldiers feels incredibly sinister, perhaps most aggressively so in its weird push to rehabilitate the Nazis as soldiers, and thus to both foreshadow (within the world of the show) and echo (in the world of the audience) the archetypal defense that Nazi higher-ups would put forward at Nuremberg and beyond, that they were just following orders.

iii. The mirroring of Winters and Easy Company with the Nazis is clearly intentional, and somewhat bizarrely explicit ("You've found in one another a bond that exists only in combat among brothers") and maudlin (the panning shots over the Nazi soldiers' faces and wounds), and by the end the urge to parallel the two leaders and the two armies--indeed, to collapse one into the other, in order to make them functionally the same--seems to cause a sort of scriptwriting amnesia about who these words are actually being said by and to. Once again the greater historic context makes this especially chilling, Operation Paperclip being perhaps the most salient point to evoke. (I am also haunted, forever, by a statistic that Michael C. C. Adams cites in The Best War Ever, that a September 1945 survey of American GIs found that 22% believed the Nazi treatment of Jewish people to be justified. Granted, this survey would not have been taken using modern sampling methods, and who knows what the sample size was to begin with or what soldiers in particular were being surveyed. But still.)

iv. The scene leans heavily into the idea of a unique soldierly bond that unites not only each individual army within itself but bonds the two armies together. ("You've found in one another a bond that exists only in combat, among brothers who've shared foxholes, held each other in dire moments, who've seen death and suffered together.") Besides being disquieting for reasons I state above, I think it's notable that the Nazi general's speech emphasizing the brotherhood of soldiers happens directly after the short scene between Winters and Sobel, wherein Winters chides Sobel on a point of military ritual ("We salute the rank, not the man"). Sobel is outside the brotherhood; he doesn't understand how to be a soldier; whereas the Nazis are within the brotherhood, so much so that they are allowed to articulate its terms. (This is egregious no matter what, but becomes all the more so when it is framed as a Jewish man being excluded from the "club" of military brotherhood while WASP Americans and literal Nazis are allowed in.) (Meanwhile, Liebgott occupies a sort of bizarre placement in this scene, there to ventriloquize--indeed, perhaps neutralize, or even legitimize--the Nazi general's words, but not speak for himself.)

v. This gets to another point that Samet makes that stuck out to me, about the inherent tautology of military culture. She quotes William Styron, who in a 1964 review of General Douglas MacArthur's memoir said:

"Anyone who has lived as a stranger for any length of time among professional military men, especially officers, is made gradually aware of something that runs counter to everything one has been taught to believe—and that is that most of these men, far from corresponding to the liberal cliché of the super-patriot, are in fact totally lacking in patriotism. They are not unpatriotic, they simply do not understand or care what patriotism is. [...] A true military man is a mercenary [...] and it is within the world of soldiering that he finds his only home." (Samet quotes Styron on page 233; I'm quoting here from the full review)

The point of being a soldier is to be a soldier; the point of the military is to have a military. She also has this to say--especially saliently, I think, for obvious reasons--about Ambrose, and his perspective specifically in Citizen Soldiers:

"By means of emphasis and convenient omission, Ambrose preserves his focus on unity, not division; right, not wrong; liberation, not subjugation. Paradoxically, given that he makes so much of American idealism, he often subordinates a consideration of causes altogether to a veneration for the magnificence of the army itself. The creation of that army, rather than the victory it made possible, becomes 'the great achievement of the American people and system,' just as the nation's 'greatest nineteenth-century achievement' had been, according to Ambrose, 'the creation of the Army of the Potomac' rather than the end it eventually secured--the abolition of chattel slavery." (page 46)

Here we are back to the first Samet quote from above: valor eclipses causes and reconciliation triumphs over everything. To be a military man--to be part of the club, the brotherhood, the "bond that exists only in combat"--is to "subordinate a consideration of causes altogether to a veneration for the magnificence of the army itself." The country and the cause that the Nazi general and his soldiers fought "bravely, proudly" for become sublimated, while that bravery and pride, stripped of more specific meaning, is extolled. What matters, by the time this scene happens--and it's the last scene in the core section of the episode, followed only by the close of the frame structure with Winters and Nixon and then the baseball scene-cum-epilogue--is not the American cause that Easy Company was fighting for, and certainly not the Nazi atrocities they were fighting against, but rather a reconciliation that views the experience of war as preeminently important. Sobel, who did not experience combat, is dismissed; the Nazi general, who did, is legitimated.

vi. And that, I think, is the core of the message that Band of Brothers promotes. Fandom often refers to the show in passing as propaganda, but I'm not sure that really gets to the heart of what it is, in the end, saying. I would suggest that it's not merely propaganda; it's a recruitment poster. It's not selling truth, justice, and the American way (or if it is, it's doing so only incidentally); it's selling the experience of being in the military as a transformative and ultimately positive one, that unites (a certain subset of) men through the unique crucible of battle, beyond any concerns about what, exactly, one is fighting for. So long as you know when and how to salute, you too can be a part of the brotherhood.

vii. All of which gets back to the scene earlier in "Points," when the Nazi colonel surrenders to Winters. The colonel first makes the explicit parallel between the Nazis and the Americans, and between himself and Winters in particular: "I wonder what will happen to us, to people like you and me, when there are finally no more wars to occupy us." He serves to explicate here more or less exactly what I was saying above: he sees himself and Winters united as military men, above and beyond their particular countries and causes.

Winters doesn't look thrilled about the comparison--but then almost immediately tells the Nazi colonel to retain his surrendered sidearm. I suppose this is supposed to read as magnanimous and fair-minded on Winters's part, but it also serves to reinforce the Nazi colonel's own words, validating the colonel's prioritization of their shared military positions above and beyond their allegiance to the countries and ideologies they were (at least nominally!) fighting for. As the scene itself shows, giving up a sidearm is an expected part of the surrender process, both practically and symbolically; by refusing it Winters is stepping outside military precedent--indeed, bending over backwards--to help the Nazi colonel retain dignity as well as firepower. On its own it is, I think, a frustrating and uncomfortable scene; in the broader context of the episode it sets up and reinforces the Nazi general's speech later on and the ways that Winters and the show itself find meaning in paralleling and reconciling the Americans and the Nazis with one other. (The Nazi colonel knows how to salute; and when he does so, Winters salutes him back.)

viii. Of course it's historically true that American soldiers tended to identify with German soldiers and civilians much more than they identified with people from Allied countries, as Samet herself and even the veteran interviews at the beginning of "Why We Fight" document. (And I don't believe that paralleling the Americans and the Nazis is necessarily something to be dismissed out of hand.) But because the end of "Points" is so overtly sentimental, paralleling the Americans and Nazis serves not as an indictment of American soldiers' amorality but rather as a rehabilitation of the Nazi soldiers and officers as soldiers and a paean to military culture divorced from meaning or cause. As Samet says--"valor eclipses causes and reconciliation triumphs over everything." The military, as an institution, whether it be American or Nazi, becomes the greater good of the war; while the causes those militaries were fighting for become not only secondary, but recede entirely.

[independent-variables]

HELLO !!!

Having now finished binging all of your star wars fics, I come here asking for some recs. Just any of your favourites, bonus points if it will cause emotions (and tears).

Also can't stress enough how much I love your writing, it's so so brilliant <3

(this is neptunesenceladus btw, tumblr hates me and won't let me send asks with a side blog so you get this one)

HI!!! Good to see you, good to see you <3 Always happy to provide recs <3 <3 <3

I want you to know I went through my bookmarks and pulled like sixty fics and had a brief moment of panic, so this is not all of my recs just the first... thirty, or so. If none of these are appealing, oh boy, do I have more!

This list is not in any order other than bookmark order, most are on the shorter side, most are Gen and I am pretty sure all are complete. I tried to warn for stuff that could be a squick when I remembered.

False Dichotomy by nsmorig

Starting off strong with my favorite Cody fic of all time. If you read nothing else on this list I encourage you to read this (if the tags are not a squick) because it will re-shape your brain and shatter your heart into tiny pieces. Basic premise is Force Sensitive Cody gets captured by Dooku and survives torture, experimentation, and imprisonment while trying to figure out his relationship to the Force and to his personhood, and the ways those things are connected. 

What's in a Name by Sankt

This is about Fordo post war and it’s phenomenal characterization. 

The Last Poem of Jedha by schweinsty

How Bohdi Rook becomes a rebel and writes a poem. 

you're like a loaded gun by kazhan

Ok this is E and also Underage, so maybe it’s a skip, but it’s teen Boba/Cal trying to navigate sex and love and secret identities and it’s so fucked up and so good. 

chicken, cattle and cat by deniigiq

Obi-Wan and Maul living in domestic dis-harmony on Tatooine. What more could you ask. 

Little things [are the reason to live] by i_will_bite

Clone medics navigating a slightly hostile working environment and trying to make it less hostile T-T

Two brothers (and a kid) by meerlicht

What if. Waxer and Boil just stayed on Ryloth, with Numa. What then? 

with poise, with grace by andeemae

Stone falls through a hole in a roof and falls in love. Beautiful clone/OC romance and very cute kids, doesn’t shy away from the difficulties of being a clone in love with a civilian. Very much an inspiration for me.

second time around by This_world_of_beautiful_monsters

This is another one I wasn’t sure I wanted to put on here because it deals briefly with rape, but it’s such a wonderfully fucked up take on Anakin and Rex’s relationship. Or, how Vader views Rex. 

The Desert Storm by Blue_Sunshine

If you are looking for an epically long series to get invested in I highly recommend checking this one out. This series and its sister-series are some of the best characterization and worldbuilding for Jedi I have ever had the pleasure of reading and it is a fix-it in all the messy, hard, terrible ways people don’t usually write fix-its. 

Shape-Changer by Fialleril

This is a foundational fic for me. Incredible Tatooine worldbuilding. Inspired me to write the way I write. 

The Sun Is Bright, The Sun Is Blue by ambiguously

CUT AND SU ORIGIN STORY!!! 

most things may never happen: this one will by jaigeye

This is brutal but what if you were a droid and you had to dissect a person. 

Bad Deal by FettsOnTop (GTFF)

Boba/Lando my beloved. A brief look into their relationship and into Lando’s thoughts leading up to Han and them’s arrival. 

and the Force is with me by sauntering_down

Rex and Ahsoka and the way the war changed them, and what they can and cannot do in the aftermath. 

Twilight on Owl Creek Bridge by yellow_caballero

The Fox fic of all time. What if you were trapped in a time-loop with a ghost from the future but your life is so monotonous and simultaneously bizarre you don’t even notice. 

Fishhooks by yellow_caballero

The Boba fic of all time. This author does not write much for SW but every time they do it’s iconic. What if you were a teenager running away from home but also a perfect clone of your father created to be him but better but also his because you will never escape his body and his ownership and his love. What then. 

Staring into open flame by SLWalker

This is such a beautiful and heartbreaking read, it’s basically exploring what would have to happen for Maul and Obi-Wan to have a genuinely healthy and happy relationship post murder and bisection. 

Energy Drink Fox by carrinth

The crack comic of all time. What if Fox had space Monster.

lost cause by catboydogma

The foundational Dogma fic. The fic that got me wondering about how clones spend their time on Coruscant. 

the married au by dharmaavocado

Clone rebellion my beloved. Basic premise is the clones took over Kamino and then went out into the galaxy as a mercenary army of sorts. Rex and Cody are finding their place in the world, creating business partnerships, falling in love, manipulating public perception of clones. (Background clonecest, not between Rex and Cody.)

[animebw]

Short Reflection: Fall 2023 Anime

Is it fair to call 2023 a disappointing year for anime? Maybe it's just that 2021 and 2022 were both so above and beyond that coming back down to normalcy from that peak feels like a letdown. But man, between a mostly uninspiring winter lineup and summer being possibly the single worst anime season since seasonal watching started being a thing, there's been plenty to complain about. Thankfully, there's been plenty to appreciate as well, and while this fall season hasn't been truly transcendent, it's at least left us with a slew of worthwhile anime to close the year out. So let's sift through the rubble and rank all the shows I finished to see which ones ended as true must-watches, which are still worth a look, and which you can skip without missing anything.

Firefighter Daigo (1st Half): 4/10

So, remember Space Brothers? Remember how wonderfully that show balanced naturalistic character building with the excitement and beauty of exploring a high-stakes environment like space? Have you been looking for another show to hit that same sweet spot of grounded maturity and tangible whimsy that makes your childhood dream job feel more achievable than ever? Well... guess you better keep looking, because Firefighter Daigo is not that. There's some beautifully nail-biting tension to the rescue sequences themselves, expertly stacking one thing after another going wrong as our protagonists are forced to think on their feet to save lives under the most pressure imaginable. But the characters are utterly bland, the production is boring on a near-inconceivable level (man, remember when this guy directed a single good-looking episode of To Your Eternity and completely failed to live up to that potential ever again?), it wastes over three minutes each episode on recap footage, and it take such a bizarre, condescending attitude toward its one female character that the whole thing left a bad taste in my mouth. It's an overly cheesy puppet show playing at being a real story, and I will not be sticking around to see if its second cours improves in any way.

Stardust Telepath: 4.5/10

Man, I'm frustrated I didn't like this one more. I always appreciate Cute Girls anime that put this much polish and energy into their adaptation, and the concept of socially awkward Umika Konohoshi wishing she could escape this planet to make friends among the stars, only to find her place on earth on her journey to reach there, has all the makings of a coming-of-age masterpiece. Sadly, it's done in by the simplest of failures: melodrama overdose. All the attempts at heartstring-pulling are so overbearing and browbeating that every moment that tries to drag tears from your eyes just leaves you exasperated instead. It completely lacks confidence in its ability to touch your emotions on the quality of its writing alone, so it smothers you in sappy speeches and ear-bleeding Feel Sad Music until you feel like you're choking on the stuff. Not even the top-shelf yuribaiting between the two leads can wipe the frustration away, and I'm about the easiest mark for that kind of stuff as you can imagine. Someone get this forehead-touch almost-kiss telepathy into a better show immediately!

I'm in Love with the Villainess: 4.5/10

I honestly feel back about being so down on I'm in Love With the Villainess. Lord knows I'm always complaining we need more isekai with an actual point to make, and an unapologetically queer take on the shoujo villainess trope that actually has something to say about the lesbian experience amidst the romantic goofery certainly fits that bill. Except, well... I already watched this show when it was called MagiRevo. And when it was called Mage and Demon Queen. And in a world where those two stories basically perfected the "lesbian disaster courts a closed-off tsundere" isekai-adjacent fantasy yarn, there's nothing this show can offer that hasn't already been done so much better. Well, okay, the conversation in episode 3 exploring the pushy protagonist's complex self-loathing relationship with her own queerness was certainly unique, but you end up spending the rest of the show waiting in vain for it to do something that interesting ever again, only to be met with overly tropey writing, cliches, and unexpected swerves into problematic WTF territory instead. There are good ideas here buried here, but it needed a better studio to refine it to the point it needed to be, and it got stuck with Platinum Vision instead. What a shame.

Uma Musume Season 3: 4.5/10

At this point I have to wonder if even Uma Musume is getting tired of its own shtick. It's been three seasons and an OVA of the most melodramatic sports anime histrionics imaginable, and all that shouting and wailing has to get exhausting after a while. And while season 3 is still every bit as overblown and overbearing as the franchise has always been, it also feels like it's poking fun at itself for taking this nonsense so damn seriously. Two characters have a sappy emotional heart-to-heart while furiously paddling a paddleboat. Former protagonist and resident crybaby Special Week's tearful speeches are basically ignored by everyone else in the cast as they keep talking over her and tuning her out. The running gag of the Overly Serious Race Commenters get upstaged by a pair of even older, more seasoned Overly Serious Race Commenters. Hell, even the fact we only get a single idol performance at the very end seems to hint at just how weary this story's become of its own conceit. Uma Musume has always been an overthought, overdesigned mess of a show, so bloated on anime nonsense and ill-matched tropes that it rarely manages to capture anything real amidst the corporate plasticness of it all. But I'm not gonna lie, there's something equally hilarious and depressing about seeing it finally start to admit its own pointlessness.

Ron Kamonohashi's Forbidden Deductions: 5/10

How good does a show have to be at character banter to make up for a failure of writing in pretty much every other respect? That's the question Ron Kamonohashi's Forbidden Deductions seems willed into existence to answer. As a snappy buddy-cop comedy between an eccentric genius detective and his beleaguered straight-man sidekick, it's every bit the equal of 2011's Sherlock. As an actual mystery thriller... it is also, sadly, every bit the equal of 2011's Sherlock. I could watch the titular Ron fail upwards through his case-solving conundrums dragging the hapless rookie detective Toto with him all day. Their chemistry is infectious. It's just a shame the actual detective work is so hacky and contrived, cheap solutions to mostly dull mysteries that never give you that "Aha!" moment of seeing the puzzle pieces come together. And the overarching plot involving prestigious detective academies, shadowy criminal syndicates, and bizarre involuntary hypnosis powers feels like it purposefully ignores every opportunity to explore any ideas deeper than basic shonen moralizing. I might still pop back in for season 2 to enjoy more wacky hijinks between the leads, but if you're looking for something to scratch your mystery itch, give this one a pass.

Arknights: Perish in Frost: 5/10

Now that's more like it! Sort of. Almost. Okay, look, for the first half and change of its run, the second season of Arknights manages to be every bit the improvement on the first season I was hoping for. It streamlines the plot to keep a constant, propulsive forward momentum, pushing its characters forward and keeping the narrative lens focused so it can do justice to all its major players. And it pushes all those disparate factions on a collision course with each other that leads to constant, meaningful consequences and character building, aided by a production that hits its high water marks far more consistently than season 1. It feels like Arknights has shaken off the bloat and become the best possible version of itself, a dark action season with some genuine muscle behind it... at least until we enter the final stretch and the pacing goes absolutely out of control, speeding into a brick wall so fast and recklessly that you're barely able to understand what the fuck just happened by the time it's over. It's shockingly rushed, to the point you feel like you're watching someone recite the Wiki at you while skipping over all the connective tissue that would make these plot points make sense. It's a frustrating end to a season that came so close to being good, and I can only hope any future installments never make that mistake again.

Undead Unluck (1st Half): 5/10

Undead Unluck is host to one of the single most bonkers sci-fi settings I've ever seen, anime or otherwise. From what starts feeling like just our world with some supernatural freaks and weirdos causing havoc, it gradually reveals itself to be something more akin to a nightmarish cosmic RPG in the hands of a mad god, where none of the rules of our world can be taken for granted and reality is only ever a hair's breadth away from turning on its head. It's a deliriously creative premise to build a shonen battle manga out of, and I can't wait to see what other insanity the writers can milk out of this setup. Which is good, because otherwise, hooooooooo boy this one does not get off on a good foot. What fucking genius decided the main duo's dynamic should be built around the guy molesting the girl to make her powers activate? In what universe was building a love story out of that sexual harassment a good idea? I'm sorry, but when you've mistaken a swaggering half-naked dude-bro casually trying to outright assault his partner as cute hot-and-cold couple banter, you have officially lost the plot. Can somebody break into Shonen Jump studios and teach this company how to write a proper romance one of these days? Deku and Uraraka can't carry the whole genre on their back, guys!

Migi and Dali: 5.5/10

Is Migi and Dali a good show? I honestly don't think I could tell you. What it is, is utterly bizarre in everything in does, yet somehow kind of makes it all work? It's a Diamond-is-Unbrekable-esque off-kilter small town murder mystery, with a pair of identical twins pretending to be one kid to fool their new adoptive parents as they search for the person responsible for killing their mother years ago. The whole thing plays like a pitch-black parody of stereotypical suburban life, finding the cracks in the facade of normalcy and ripping them open until your only options are to laugh wildly or cringe wildly at the resulting desecration. And you will do plenty of both all throughout as it ping-pongs from accidental twincest to toddler play to to not-so-garden-variety abuse to Excessive English and basically everything in between. If there's an aspect of your stereotypical boring, domestic family experience that Migi and Dali can twist into a grotesque mockery of itself, it'll do just that and then some. The unfortunate side effect, though, is that it can be hard to tell where the line lies between intentional commentary and just being gross and uncomfortable for its own sake. And when that threatens to veer into some really misogynistic territory in the final act, it becomes even harder to stomach. Still, I can safely say I've never seen anything quite like this show, and considering the manga's author tragically passed away recently, you can't help but respect the people making it for honoring her memory this way.

Shy: 5.5/10

Shy is one of the rare manga I've read before the anime came out, inspired by a friend who came across it at random and it became their favorite manga of all time after just eleven chapters. I wasn't quite as swept away, and I don't think it's maintained the level of quality its first couple arcs had, but man, there's something special about this one. Which is why I am personally begging you not to watch the anime and go straight to the manga, because this adaptation really doesn't do justice to how electrifying and soul-enriching the manga can be. Masaomi Ando's a good director, but his penchant for paneling and stylistic insert shots, an aesthetic which works wonders on heavily atmospheric mood pieces like Toiled-Bound Hanako-kun and Scum's Wish, is completely at odds with the needs of a straightforward superhero battle series. The manga's artwork has this wonderfully sketchy, explosive quality that makes every action panel feel like a rush of cascading moments; here, every action scene quickly descends into a mess of moving jpegs and awkwardly placed insert frames that cripples its ability to wow you. There's enough of the manga's triumphant spirit preserved that it still shakes out decently- the orphanage arc that closes out the first season is wonderful enough to survive any imperfections from page to screen- but if the story of Teru's struggles and self-actualization touched you at all, you owe it to yourself to check out the source material to experience this story in its best form.

The 100 Girlfriends Who Really Really Really Really Really Love You: 6/10

Listen, you know me. You know how much I despise the harem genre. There's barely a single example of the form I consider anything above mediocre slop. So how did a show with this premise manage to get into my good graces? By understanding one simple fact that so few harem anime seem to realize: if you want something this inherently stupid to work? Embrace the fucking stupidity. Throw caution and common sense and good taste to the wind and just go absolutely bugnuts. Why settle for a scant five or six barely interchangeable waifu bait when you can have one hundred distinct and memorable personalities? Why waste time on cheap melodrama that nobody cares about when there are fourth walls to break and scenarios to push far beyond their logical extremes? 100 Girlfriends knows that the only proper form for this genre is sheer anarchy, going so far over-the-top with its jokes and setups that it's impossible not to get swept up in the sheer audacity of it all. And somehow, by imbuing this madcap nonsense with just a drop of sincerity, it actually makes you care about Best Boy Aijou Rentarou and his ever-growing posse of romantic partners as a strangely healthy polyamorous support system for each other. It's far from flawless and good lord is it problematic from top to bottom, but if you can vibe to its particular brand of earnestly empathetic chaos, it's an experience like none other.

Overtake: 6.5/10

Overtake is the most frustrating kind of anime: a really good show that's constantly threatening- but never fully succeeds- at being great. It has all the pieces you could want! A masterful production from veteran directer Ei Aoki that brings the world of Formula 4 racing to life with tactile, lived-in lushness. Characters who breathe far beyond the confines of the screen, rich with inner life and complex relationships where you come to love the rivals just as much as the scrappy underdog protagonists. A story that tackles genuinely moving and mature ideas as it explores what it means to give your all to something, even when the risks may be too horrifying to reckon with. It's as perfectly positioned for greatness as you could ask from a sports anime... and yet it never quite takes off the way you want it to. It's just missing that little extra something to push it over the edge, but for the life of me, I can't figure out what that might be. It's still absolutely worth a look, but as much as I liked it, I'm gonna be stewing over why I didn't love it for a while.

The Ancient Magus Bride Season 2 Part 2: 6.5/10

Alright, that's more what I was hoping for. After a frustratingly slow and plodding first half, the back half The Ancient Magus Bride's second season finally starts paying off all that torturous setup and reminding us that when it wants to, nothing goes harder than Chise's tale of trauma, abuse and recovery, especially now that she's the guiding light for another girl crawling out of pit much like the one she was once trapped in. It's genuinely powerful watching her try to help Philomena out from under a painfully familiar burden, struggling save someone like her while she's still struggling with the scars her own darkness has left on her. And whenever it's focused on that, it's as good as The Ancient Magus Bride has ever been. It's just a shame that whenever all that potent character drama gives way to fae-on-fae magical showdowns, it's some of the ugliest, clunkiest, most poorly staged action in all of fall's lineup. It utterly fails to capture the sense of eldritch awe and wonder this series' magic invokes, leaving it feeling like a shell of itself even when everything else is operating at full capacity. Hopefully, future seasons will take the time they need to bring that aspect up to par, because a series this steeped in the haunting grandeur of its aesthetic cannot afford to cut corners on that aesthetic.

Spy x Family Season 2: 7.5/10

Do my eyes deceive me? A Yor-centric arc? This show finally gives one of its nominal protagonists a turn in the spotlight after ages of underuse with a big, lengthy, consequential story that lets her shine like never before? It's like Christmas came early. I've been up and down about Spy x Family over the course of its run, but the cruise ship arc that dominates this season is everything great about this show operating at the top of its potential, and god damn is it marvelous to watch unfold. If only it was this good on a consistent basis, it would be an easy shoe-in for one of the greatest anime of the decade. But you know what? As long as it keeps delivering highlights like this, I've got nothing to complain about. At this point, Spy x Family has comfortably settled into being a reliably entertaining action-heavy family sitcom with lovable characters and occasional moments of greatness, and if that's all it ultimately amounts to, well, there are far worse things to be. Just please, for the love of god, keep Yuri off screen as much as possible.

Scott Pilgrim Takes Off: 8/10

So cards on the table: the live action Scott Pilgrim vs the World movie is one of my favorite films of all time. It's such a perfect explosion of geeky awesomeness from one of our greatest living directors, managing to push the medium of live action closer to anime than it ever was before or has been since. So the prospect of seeing the original comic actually made into an anime was very exciting to me. How cool would it be to finally see the source material that inspired this movie brought to life, never mind with Science Goddamn Saru pushing the animation into overdrive? But much to my shock- and eventual delight- Scott Pilgrim Takes Off had much more exciting things in mind than simply slapping a decades-old comic series on screen. Instead, it's something closer to an Evangelion-style Rebuild, taking a sharp left and remixing the story and characters with the perspective of a more mature creator, reckoning with his successes and failures alike as he re-assesses the story he was trying to tell and what parts of it still hold value today. It's Scott Pilgrim as told by someone who's outgrown the transient young adulthood central to the narrative, taking stock of his past from an older, wiser perspective and making amends where he fell short before. And as much as I might have liked a straightforward adaptation, what I got instead was so exciting and fresh that I can't complain. If only every anime was this willing to get creative with its source material.

The Apothecary Diaries (1st Half): 8.5/10

Say a prayer and set off some fireworks, folks: the shoujosei renaissance is here! After a years-long drought, the anime industry is finally remembering that stories targeted at women and girls are also worthy of high-profile prestige adaptations instead of settling for barely animated table scraps. And of all the breakout hits we've had this past year and change, none have slapped quite as hard as The Apothecary Diaries, a historical Chinese mystery drama that marries fascinating courtly intrigue with a bitterly honesty exploration of how the lowest rungs of society- women and poor people especially- are systemically crushed by the structures that govern their world. As hilarious as this show can be, it's also unnervingly frank about the darkness the Emperor's courtesans and their servants must reckon with as pawns in a patriarchal society. And it drives that message home with a truly wonderful protagonist in Maomao, a girl who just wants to keep her head down and get through life without drawing unwanted attention from the forces that could easily squash her like a bug, but has too strong a moral compass to look the other way when she sees the people around her suffering from those same injustices. It's the story of a powerless person using all the tools at her disposal to keep the world's cruelty at bay, and watching her struggle to win what small victories she's capable of against such an overwhelming power structure makes for some of the most gripping television I've watched in quite a long time. And if the second cours is even half as good as good, it will still earn its place among the years' best.

Frieren: Beyond Journey's End (1st Cours): 9/10

The big fantasy adventure is over. The demon king is dead, the world is at peace, and the heroes who defeated him slowly grow old and die in the new age they ushered in. All, that is, except Frieren, a near-immortal elf with such a long lifespan that a human's life is a mere drop in the ocean for her. But with the passing of her former party's leader, she realizes just how much the short time she spent on that adventure have affected her. Ten years- a mere millisecond in the life of an elf- has changed the way she sees the world more profoundly than she ever could have dreamed. So she sets out on a journey to retrace the steps of that adventure, to reconnect with her memories of the old friends she's only now realizing she wished she got to know better before it was too late. Along the way she picks up a couple of those friends' young disciples to join her party, walking reminders of the past she left behind and the future that awaits her. And through their travels, she slowly begins to understand humanity and her place within it... and all the experiences she will carry with her long after they've faded into mere memory.

I'll admit, there are times I like being an anime hipster. There's something inherently indulgent, if not exactly healthy, of feeling superior to a mass-market piece of entertainment that you're too Smart and Intellectual to be fooled by. But sometimes, you just gotta call a spade a spade. Sometimes, the weeb consensus gets it really, really right. Yes, Frieren: Beyond Journey's End is every bit as self-evidently spectacular as everyone says it is, so on-its-face magical it's almost kind of insulting. It's a quiet, meditative fantasy exploration of grief, longing, the passage of time, and what it truly means to live a fulfilling life when everything you cherish within it must one day fade into nothing. It's poignant and intimate on a level that's hard to describe, yet equally grand and majestic whenever it wishes. It's also one of the funniest goddamn shows I've watched in a while, with jokes that hit from unexpected, awkward angles that left me rolling on the floor. If his work on Bocchi the Rock hadn't already proven it, this cements Keichirou Saitou as one of our greatest modern anime directors, a master of melding tones and moods and imbuing every shot with vibrant inner life. It's almost disappointing whenever it leans into action; as spectacularly animated as its battles are, it's those quiet moments of grace and warmth that truly make this show something remarkable. Bottom line, Frieren is a runaway leader for 2023's best TV anime, a show we'll be talking about for decades to come. I can't think of a better high note to start 2024 on.

Dropped:

Shield Hero Season 3 (4 Episodes)

My Daughter Left the Nest and Returned an S-Rank Adventurer (3 Episodes)

[literary-illuminati]

Book Review 69 – Prophet, Volume 2: Brothers by Brandon Graham (et al)

I’m at this point reading these as quick palate-cleansers between longer books. Which is probably a terrible idea, both because I’m sure forgetting all manner of plot-critical details between volumes, and also because this series is so goddamn weird it’s the literary equivalent of having a spoonful of cinnamon between courses. But eh, reading the volumes in a row would both rapidly exceed my patience and also feel far too much like cheating to get my reading challenge counter up higher.

The story continues on from Volume 1, mostly but not entirely following ‘Old Man’ Prophet, a truly ancient superhuman soldier as he goes around the galaxy collecting a ragtag band of misfit allies and trying to organize a resistance to the reborn Terran Empire and its legions of other non-defective Prophets preparing to restore it to its ancient glory. The individual stories within that are pretty episodic, contained within each individual issue – all fairly minimalist and simple to fit within that constraint.

The style of story-telling is honestly the most striking thing about this whole series to me. Everything is very...zoomed out? Mostly, it’s an omniscient voice narrating the events occurring and how the protagonists feel about and react to them, with only comparatively few snapshots of actual dialogue or character beats occurring ‘on screen’. The result feels like a whole book of ‘previously on’ segments, as much as anything – it might be entirely normal in comics, but the few (very strange) ones I’ve really gotten into before this don’t do anything similar.

The art remains wonderfully bizarre – though it often gets to the point where I have difficulty actually parsing the action and whose doing what, which is a real issue in such an incredibly visual series. Still, by far the biggest selling point here is all the weird and wild aliens and gonzo worldbuilding that’s just thrown into the background and namedropped like it belongs there with zero exposition about how anything works beyond what’s absolutely necessary for the plot.

Speaking of visuals, I would like to take a moment to properly appreciate the fact that the Old Man’s dead love who he reminiscences about constantly was a lizard alien and they did not give her breasts (or make her particularly humanlike at all, really). Female alien character design in comic books is a low, low bar but crossing it with flying colors here.

Compared to volume one the story here’s much more conventional – more or less following one protagonist on a mission that’s either archetypal or generic depending on how nice you’re feeling, collecting a quirky and sympathetic supporting cast as he goes. My perspective is probably biased by the fact that the friend who lent me these also said that they technically take place in the far future of one established superhero universe or another, but you can kind of see the trappings of the genre starting to peak through here and there? Not necessarily a bad thing, but this definitely read like what you imagine a comic book to be than the last one.

[cyvonix]

Cyv Reads Homestuck - Act 5 Act 1 Wrapup

Just finished Act 5 Act 1. Holy FUCK. I actually need a moment to collect my thoughts. Might be a minute. Which is to say, no time at all for you, unless you want to simulate the experience of me writing this by walking away from the screen for a few minutes...

Hey, welcome back. Unless you just kept reading in which case you're ruining the sanctity of this whole thing. Shame on you. Anyway.

Act 5 has been a huge departure for Homestuck in a few different ways, and the biggest reason for all of them is our new focus: the trolls. The trolls and their bizarre world help introduce us to entirely new aspects of the story, and presumably prep us for what is to come in terms of both scale and content. This act is one of extremes, taking further steps toward both sides of the emotional spectrum.

On the one hand, things are sillier than ever. The strange and oddly beautiful world of Alternia, its incomprehensible culture, its boisterous personalities; it's all wonderfully playful in its execution, reveling in the ability to craft a whole new world from scratch, unbound by the expectations of our own reality. The characters we're introduced to, consequently, are equally fun to learn about and be placed in the shoes of. Seriously, all the trolls except Equius are a joy to read, each filling the role of a specific archetype that is simple to understand from the onset, yet developed into fuller personalities as the act progresses. There's practically a particular troll for every kind of person, and I can totally understand how such personal connections were formed from a fandom perspective. These motherfuckers BEG for it.

On the other hand, things have never been more dire, more dramatic, more unsettling. Firstly, in the interpersonal sense. This act struck me as one where, as opposed to the previous acts feeling very much like a story about children, it is explicitly a story about teenagers specifically. There is a much greater emphasis on the confusing and sometimes frustrating experience of existing as an adolescent around your peers, letting the determinant factors in how things progress be friendship, romance, jealousy, rivalry, and all the other angsty feelings you would expect from a cohort of this age range. And despite the alien world and any of the bonkers social rituals or mating practices thrown into the mix, these core emotions still come through as clearly as they would in human children, climaxing in often devastating displays of sadness and revenge.

Outside of mere sociality, the cosmic horror present in the world of Homestuck is also more pronounced than ever. With the formal introduction of characters such as Doc Scratch and Lord English, the stakes are raised even further, leading us to inhabit a world truly eldritch in nature, one where time loops and visions of the future can be ghastly and harrowing. Some are left destined for damnation, as we and they are both left simply waiting to see how their undoing will occur. The idea that many of these characters seem trapped within an inescapable path to their own destruction, that some timelines are preordained to be martyred for the greater good - it's all quite unnerving.

Knowing all of this, I can hardly imagine how it will feel once we refocus on our four main characters. Hussie has opened the flood gates in respect to the depth and seriousness the storytelling is permitted, and with the events of the fourth act providing so many world-changing developments to the kids, I can only imagine that they and this new storyline will converge in the biggest and most revelatory act yet. Because as much as I've praised this act, it admittedly did feel mostly like setup; the careful placing of pieces and recitation of instructions before they are all catapulted into something greater. For this, I couldn't be more excited. Once again, thanks if you read all of this, I appreciate it lots and would love to hear what you think. Here are some random highlights and unorganized thoughts of mine before I sign off:

My favorite troll from an aesthetic and relatability perspective is Nepeta, the beautiful perfect catgirl she is.

My favorite from a personality perspective is Kanaya, because she just seems to be a really sweet and caring person and I'm intrigued to learn any more about her. Maybe tied is Terezi, who I find a blast to read absolutely all the time and who also seems to be a pretty nuanced character despite first appearance.

My favorite from a storytelling perspective is Vriska, who I fuuuckin hate. ARGH. Can't stand u. But god damn you're written so well and are so interesting and I wanna know bout u.

On a somewhat related note, wow! [S] Make Her Pay! Cool ass animation this time around: lots of beautiful artwork, sick soundtrack, awesome set pieces. Wonderfully done.

The end of this act?? Omg???? The entire monologue section from Aradia was bone chilling, and led up to what was such a SHOCKING revelation to me in that the trolls created Earth I fucking guess????? idk, maybe other people had guessed it by that point and I'm just an idiot but absolutely no part of me even slightly guessed that that was what was going on and it was insane and awesome to learn.

The art overall kinda took a big step up this act, just wayyyy more panels that were detailed pieces rather than the representational sprite art. I dig it.

So so so curious what ungodly series of events leads to the kids causing a literal rift in time space

[popentertainmentconcertreviews]

Mitski & Tamino – The Met – Philadelphia, PA – February 7, 2024

Singer and songwriter Mitski played her second of two sold-out Philadelphia shows this week. It was a magical evening and from the moment she and her opener, Tamino hit the stage, they both captivated the audience at The Met in Philly.

The show began with Tamino and his angelic voice. The entire theater fell silent when the 27-year-old Belgian singer’s voice shook the venue. Not only is this artist a virtuoso in singing, but he was also an incredibly skilled musician with the wide array of instruments that he played on the stage. I can’t recall how many changes of instruments he cycled through, but I do remember how beautifully he played them all. His set was a masterfully sung spectacle and grabbed my full attention with songs like “The Longing,” “Indigo Night,” and “My Dear Friend and Enemy.”

As for Mitski, to put it bluntly, she was a vision on stage, and brought life to the whole theater. Her music has always held a certain charm that compliments its open-ended nature. As many fans say, “Mitski’s music is unique in that she encourages her listeners to interpret it however they wish.” That being said, a common interpretation I have when listening to her music is that it is both beautiful and meaningful. I was impressed by the set design accompanying her 23-song setlist. While it was not overly extravagant, it was just right to ensure an element of interpretation was still there. An especially notable performance for me was her song, “My Love Mine All Mine,”which was beautifully done. Her voice clearly communicated each word, and her visual aid of floating mirror shards quite literally reflected an indescribable feeling all around.

Throughout the amazing evening, Mitski herself was a joy to listen to as she spoke with the audience in between songs. She is so wonderfully bizarre, and this only makes her performance stronger. I particularly enjoyed her discussion on what it means to be a “gremlin” among people. I felt like I knew exactly what she meant.

With her music often centering around self and belonging, concert goers also connected with songs like “Thursday Girl,” “Love Me More” and “Last Words of Shooting Star.”Her encore performance included fan favorites – “Nobody” and “Washing Machine Heart.”

If you are lucky enough to check out Mitski in person, please do! It is quite an experience, but I would recommend buying your tickets early as her tour stops usually sell out quickly. I hope to see her perform live again in the future. It was a night to remember, and I loved every moment of it.

Jordan Wagner

Copyright ©2024 PopEntertainment.com. All rights reserved. Posted: February 10, 2024.

Photos by Jack Farrell © 2024. All rights reserved.

[maffickingcowplantssubsidiary]

A Haunting in Willow Creek Legacy

Generation Zero: The Haunted Historian

The Nightmare Before the Haunting; Summer, day 1 of 7.

Summer's warm embrace has yet to touch my soul as it grapples with the chilling specters of my abode. Last night was my first gig of the season, and I sought rest during the day, only to be plunged into a nightmare more vivid than reality itself.

In this dream, the walls of my house bled a viscous, red fluid, and the furniture danced to an unseen, sinister rhythm. My ancestors' portraits scowled down at me, their eyes following my every move. I stumbled through the halls, chased by shadowy figures that whispered my name. Reaching the kitchen, I found the stove had grown monstrous teeth and hissed like a feral beast. A cacophony of ghostly laughter echoed as I tried to flee, only to be ensnared by a web of spectral chains that pulled me into the floor. I awoke in a cold sweat, heart pounding, the echoes of the dream still ringing in my ears.

Brushing off the lingering dread, I prepared for the night’s assignment. The evening unfolded with the appearance of several green Specters, their ethereal forms almost charming. One offered me a smoking goblet, which I drank, and suddenly, cocktail recipes I had never known filled my mind. Another Specter gifted me a small ectocake shaped like a ghost. These spirits had been nothing but helpful thus far, so I ate the ectocake without hesitation. Nothing untoward occurred, and I swiftly cleared the haunting, returning home with a sense of accomplishment.

Bills and Bliss; Summer, day 2 of 7.

Arriving home at 2 AM, I slept soundly until 8, awakening feeling rested and wonderfully alive. I spent the day reveling in the sun’s warm glow, engaging in activities far removed from the shadowy realm of hauntings. Bills were paid, a mundane but necessary task, and I relished the simple pleasures of the day.

The Storm and the Slime; Summer, day 3 of 7.

The tranquility was shattered that night by a thunderstorm that raged with ferocity. Sleep eluded me, and in a moment of folly, I ventured outside to converse with a Specter only to be struck by lightning. Limping back inside, I slipped on a fresh puddle of green slime, the mischievous spirits evidently enjoying their pranks.

A profound sadness settled over me, the storm’s relentless fury amplifying my disquiet. As if sensing my melancholy, Guidry appeared. His presence, though spectral, brought solace, and our conversation lightened my heavy heart. The remainder of the evening was spent researching the house's history for the book I intend to write, the storm outside mirroring the tempest within.

The Blue Specters and the Bizarre Idol; Summer, day 4 of 7.

Choosing a new client, I ventured to their residence, where blue Specters awaited. These were different, more elusive, but persistent offerings eventually yielded a bizarre idol. Unsure of its purpose, I cleared a space on my bookshelf for it.

Before heading out, I experimented with the crystal ball in the attic. A presence made itself known, one that felt ancient and powerful, yet familiar. Guidry appeared beside me, confirming my suspicions — this house, my ancestral home, was teeming with spirits.

The night’s gig was straightforward, an infestation of green Specters placated with brownies. One left me with a jar of yellow candies, another successful job in the books. Returning home, I received a text from Bella Goth. Unable to sleep due to her pregnancy, she sought the solace of my company.

The Seance and Baby Jean; Summer, day 5 of 7.

Bella arrived, visibly pregnant and determined to join me in a seance. Despite my concerns for her wellbeing, she insisted. However, the experience proved too intense, and she fled, breaking my concentration. The seance was a failure, but later that night, I received joyous news — Baby Jean Goth had arrived.

The Federal Bureau of Spooky Investigation also contacted me, acknowledging my success with the assignments completed thus far and promising more challenging hauntings in the future.

Meeting Baby Jean; Summer, day 6 of 7.

Mortimer and Bella invited me over to meet their newborn. Baby Jean was as adorable as can be, though Bella seemed understandably stressed. The visit was a brief respite from my haunted endeavors, a glimpse into the normalcy I had left behind but one day hoped to claim for my own.

Guidry’s Wisdom and Brownie Diplomacy; Summer, day 7 of 7.

Guidry visited, sharing tales of past residents who had fled in terror. He revealed the location of his favorite smoking jacket, a relic he had died in. His parting words, “Haunted or not, this is your home,” resonated deeply.

That night, I faced an infestation of blue Specters. Offering them brownies, I received another smoking goblet and a bizarre idol. The goblet imbued me with the confidence of a seasoned debater. Encircled by black-flamed candles, I felt my fear dissipate.

As I set up my newfound souvenirs, a sense of accomplishment washed over me. Summer had ended, and with it, a chapter of my life. Ivy Blackwood, Paranormal Investigator, was well on her way, ready to face whatever the spectral world had in store.

Until next time, dear reader, may your days be bright and your nights undisturbed.

YEAR ONE, SUMMER CHECKIN

Max Medium Skill (5) ✓ Become a Freelance Paranormal Investigator ✓ Obtain a Paranormal Investigator License ✓ Remove the Lot Challenge: Off-the-Grid ○ Complete 3 Beginner (3/3), 4 Adept (1/4), 5 Expert gigs.

Complete the Bestselling Author aspiration and publish a bestselling non-fiction book documenting the history of the home.

Become Best Friends with Guidry.

Collect and keep at least 5 unique items obtained from Specters. (2/5)

Have at least 1 child.

[nyovette]

April is coming to an end, which means it's time for a monthly wrap-up! I've read some really interesting books this month with some great premises and characters, and I've discovered some wonderfully talented authors that I'll be keeping up with. I even visited a new bookstore this month that I can't wait to go back to!

Monthly Stats:

This month, I've read 4 books, with an estimated total of 1,328 pages! My reads were 100% fiction, with my top genre being fantasy ✨️

My average rating for the books I've read is 4 stars.

April's Books:

★★★☆☆

The Story Collector by Evie Gaughan

My Review

This book was definitely a nice enough read. I love when authors incorporate folklore into their stories. The book goes back and forth between following Sarah in the present day, and Harold and Anna 100 years in the past. I loved Anna's chapters. She was very endearing, and she was more wrapped up in the folklore and mystery than Sarah was. I left the book feeling a bit empty, like I expected a bit more to come from everything that had been built up. But it was beautifully written.

★★★★☆

Daughter of the Moon Goddess by Sue Lynn Tan

My Review

I really enjoyed Daughter of the Moon Goddess! Xingyin was a great character who battled with personal desire, self-preservation, fear, and a broken heart from her first love, all while risking her life to free her mother from the moon. I loved the twist - it was unexpected (at least for me) and upped the stakes even higher. I'll definitely be reading the next instalment in the series.

The House on the Borderland by William Hope Hodgson

My Review

Brilliant but bizarre, I think is the best way to describe this book. It had me genuinely questioning myself and what I believed to be true or just the ramblings of a man gone mad. Some of the scenes were truly spine-chilling, and the writing was beautifully poetic. It was different to what I'd usually read, but I was pleasantly surprised. Excellent horror story.

★★★★★

The Spirit Bares its Teeth by Andrew Joseph White

My Review

I think TSBT is one of if not my favourite book I've ever read. I just loved it. It can get incredibly dark, with graphic gore scenes and mentions of SA, so I would recommend looking into the content warnings for this book before reading. But I absolutely encourage others to read it if you can. Silas is a fantastic MC, the plot is haunting, and there were many moments I felt genuine stress from the threats to Silas's safety. When I really love something, I tend to lose the ability to talk about it in a fully comprehensible manner, so, in both my review and wrap-up, I haven't been able to fully express how much I love this book and how I felt about different parts. It's devastating because I want to scream about it to anyone who'll listen but 🤷🏻‍♀️ :') Just know that I could make this book my whole personality.

Final Thoughts:

I'd say this month has been a successful reading month. I set my reading goal to be 12 in a year, and it was in April that I hit and surpassed that goal. I know my reading will probably slow down once I manage to get my career started, so I'm enjoying this while it lasts☺️ Here's to another productive reading month in May!

Please note, all my reviews that I've linked to contain spoilers, so read at your own discretion!

[thefingerfuckingfemalefury]

Thirty One Days of Horror Movies! Day Twenty Eight! :D

The Autopsy of Jane Doe!

When a small town coroner and his son find themselves working late into the night autopsying a body found at a very strange crime scene they soon discover several bizarre and unusual things about the corpse...and as the night goes on things take a turn from merely strange to dangerous as they find themselves dealing with a terrifying supernatural threat...

The movie has a great tense atmosphere and makes use of its single location and small cast to create some wonderfully claustrophobic chills...when you realise that the characters are trapped here you can feel the tension and fear they’re experiencing

This is helped by the fact that the two leads, Brian Cox and Emile Hersche do a great job as the father-son duo, creating a believable bond between the two and making you want to see them survive the night as the events turn increasingly dangerous and bizarre

The movie also delivers some great creepy moments as the events play out as well, doing a good job of building the suspense and fear of the situation gradually as the film moves towards its climax

 If you’re in the mood for an enjoyably atmospheric, chilling and tense horror this Halloween I recommend checking this one out :D

[rookie-critic]

Oppenheimer (2023, dir. Christopher Nolan) - review by Rookie-Critic

A new Christopher Nolan movie is always a big deal. A new Christopher Nolan movie about the man responsible for one of the most terrifying inventions in human history? That's a showstopper. With trailers mostly showing clips from the Los Alamos/Trinity test portion of the film, Oppenheimer played its pre-release cards close to its chest. I went into the theater expecting that to be a bulk of the movie, when it's really only half. The other half, which in a different way is just as engaging as the first, is a courtroom drama concerning Oppenheimer's 1954 security clearance hearings and the Senate hearings regarding Atomic Energy Commission chairman Lewis Strauss' Secretary of Commerce nomination. It's a surprising move from a director that normally leans into the spectacle of things, but it's a move that makes Oppenheimer better, more human, more meaningful.

This is a biopic that throws out the guidelines of stereotypical biopic filmmaking and provides audiences with more of a character study, and a deeply tragic one at that. Even moreso, its a film the deals in the magnitude of its subject matter, in the weight of the man and the invention it depicts. The first half being about a country in crisis; a man who's been put in charge of an impossible race towards an uncertain end goal. Of impossible moral decision making and what, at least at the time, was viewed as a necessary drastic measure. The second the bomb goes off you see the change in Oppenheimer's eyes, you see him realize the sheer scope and potential doom of the thing he had just personally overseen the creation of, and what makes this film so fantastic is that it doesn't stop there, it spends over another hour on the years in which Oppenheimer attempted to warn the world of those potential horrors he saw in that moment. That, and his country, the one he worked with to win the war in the first place, punishing him for daring to do so.

It's no surprise that this film is fantastic from a technical perspective. Nolan's films are known for having gorgeous cinematography and scene work, but the creative choices made in Oppenheimer are almost worth noting even more. Take the above-mentioned Trinity test scene. Yes, the explosion is spectacular, truly a sight to behold, but that's not really the focus, Nolan chooses to turn the camera the other way. To look at the array of reactions on the faces of the people responsible for this thing. Some are looking in wonder, some are stunned silent, some look disquieted, but then there's Oppenheimer. The man predominantly responsible looks like he's having an existential crisis. Not in full blown panic, but you can almost see his chest tighten, the light in his eyes goes out, and the perspective shifts. You see him mentally calculating; understanding the necessity of the moment, but starting to churn the age-old question over in his mind: "Is this worth it?" Which leads into my final positive point about the film: it's star, Cillian Murphy. Murphy is an actor I've always had an immense respect for. From 28 Days Later to Batman Begins to now, Murphy is a presence that has never truly gotten to stretch to the full limit of his ability in a role before now, and now that he has, it seems like the world is catching up to speed on just how wonderful he is. It's really a once-in-a-lifetime performance, and it will be a crime if he isn't at the very least nominated for Best Lead Actor at the Oscars next year. Personally, I think he is currently a shoe-in to win the award, but we'll see what the typical awards-season later this year has to offer.

Oppenheimer is a masterwork of a movie made by one the film industry's modern masters, and I don't think it's a stretch to say that it is among the very best films of his career. Hell, it might even be his best yet, but I'll hold off on saying that definitively for now. In a premiere weekend that saw one of the most wonderfully bizarre double-features in film history, I'm glad I took the time to see both. Oppenheimer and Barbie, while at complete opposite ends of the visual and tonal spectrum, paired quite well together. If you can see both, I highly recommend you do so.

Score: 10/10

Currently only in theaters.

[thealmightyemprex]

Halloweenathon : Doctor Who : Ghost Light

So I wanted to do something diffrent for theis installment ,and decided to do a Doctor Who story.Doctor Who while sci fi has done many a horror tale,and I decided to cover Ghost Light.....Mainly because my other choices werent availiable on the streaming sites I use ,and my other horror choice was Talons of Wang Chiang and......Yeah not ready to deal with that one

Now this is usually where I sum up the story .....But I cant do that this time....Cause I have no clue what happened .Like Ace and the Doctor visit a house that traumatised Ace ,theres a neanderthal butler ,and a guy is doing...things? Bunch of weird characters ,and the big monster is a glowy Liberace looking son of a bitch who is so pissed off at the very concept of change ,like he is taking evolution as a personal attck .Look this episode is just bonkers I had a hard time follow it. Like I dont think I am a complete dummy, I can usually follow Doctor Who,but this one was so bizarre and convuluted.....Buy the way I liked it

Yeah despite the fact I was lost....I didnt hate it and I certainly wasnt bored .There is some good stuff in this ,I like the weird cast ,its got a very spooky vibe (Including a genuinely disturbing scene where the main monster Light casually DISMANTLES A WOMAN TO SEE HOW SHE WORKS .Its just him holding an arm but I dont expect to see severed limbs in Classic Who ) and I love any moment with the Doctor or Ace .Light is a interesting mix of very wonderfully campy about a bit eerie .The big flaw is it is just confusing .

Again....I think I liked it....But it was really hard to follow

@ariel-seagull-wings @princesssarisa @metropolitan-mutant-of-ark @amalthea9 @the-blue-fairie @themousefromfantasyland @angelixgutz @filmcityworld1

[adamwatchesmovies]

Howl's Moving Castle (2004)

Even among Hayao Miyazaki’s filmography, Howl’s Moving Castle is a standout. Filled with breathtaking visuals and sophisticated emotions, it’s so unconventional you need to watch it more than once to fully appreciate the film but what makes it good is so immediately obvious, it’s also a case of love at first sight.

On a way to visit her sister, hatmaker Sophie (voiced by Chieko Baisho) meets a wizard named Howl (Takuya Kimura). She finds him irresistible and although Sophie considers herself a mousy wallflower, she catches his eye. Her visit concluded, Sophie meets the Witch of the Waste (Akihiro Miwa) and is transformed into an old woman. Determined to make the best of her new situation, the now ninety-year-old Sophie enters Howl’s moving castle and “hires herself” as his cleaning lady.

This is a stunning film. From the character designs to the detailed backgrounds and the crisp animation, no detail has been spared to bring this world to life. In outdoor scenes, we can see strands of grass far behind the scene’s focus waving in the wind. The streets are filled to the brim with people going about their own thing. Only the most talented and determined animators could put that much detail in every scene. It’s easy to imagine what must happen to everyone beyond the borders of the frame, which leads us to the secondary plot taking place in the background: Sophie’s nation is caught up in a war with a neighboring kingdom. We regularly see flying machines taking off and heading to who-knows-where. What does it have to do with the main story? It isn’t apparent until we meet Howl. As a wizard, he’s being summoned to fight for the King. He doesn’t want to. Everyone, including his former teacher, Suliman (Haruko Kato), says it’s because he’s a coward. You’re not so sure.

We’ve gotten side-tracked. I was about to tell you about the titular castle: an unforgettable hodge-podge of rooms, pipes, gears and windows unlike anything you’ve ever seen. The ambulant home is as much a character as everyone else. It’s bizarre, kind of scary and wonderful all at once. Pieces are constantly shifting as its legs go up and down but on the inside, it’s a comfortable (though considerably filthy) place that evokes a sense of wonder. 

The second most memorable aspect of the film is Sophie. In any other picture, her quest to get rid of the curse that transformed her into a woman as old-timey and boring as she is on the inside would be the focus. The fact that she is dull and insecure means she instead focuses her time on 1) running away from her hat shop so her family doesn’t know what happened to her and 2) making the best of her situation. Weirdly, her acceptance of what’s happened is the key to breaking the curse. It’s very subtle - so much that it could’ve only been done through animation - but throughout the story, you’ll see her muster up her courage once in a while and stand up to Howl, the fire demon Calcipher (Tatsuya Gashiun) who powers his home, or to Howl’s young apprentice Markl (Ryūnosuke Kamiki). Suddenly, she seems a little less old, a bit more confident. She’s less hunched over; tougher. Once she’s shared her piece, however, her progress stops or even reverses. Isn’t that what growing up is really like? Not a sudden metamorphosis from a caterpillar to a butterfly, but constant steps forward and backward with the steps back always growing slightly smaller until - before you know it - you’ve made real headway.

At points, the film is wonderfully grotesque - bordering on frightening - and will then revert to being the stuff of dreams. Character-wise, so much of Howl's Moving Castle is subtle that when the big emotional moments arrive, they sneak up on you and seemingly come out of nowhere… but then, it makes perfect sense for them to arrive at that precise moment. You know it because you know the people involved so well. Despite this, the love plot can feel a little rushed. That’s really the only criticism I have.

Viewers will place Howl’s Moving Castle into one of two camps. It will either be an instant favorite, like a number 1 movie because it tells this emotional, character-driven story with all of these themes hidden in the background, or it will be the kind of movie that you don’t realize how much you love until later when you’re looking back at it fondly. Either way, it’s enchanting - regardless of how old you are. (Original Japanese with English subtitles, July 27, 2022)

[animebw]

Short Reflection: Princess Jellyfish

Let's be honest: we're all a little weird. Nobody fits perfectly into the role society expects from them, and pursuing that ideal is often a losing game for a booby prize. As a certified genderfluid Aspergers' gremlin, I've been painfully aware all my life of how impossible "fitting in" can be when society's view of normal is far out of reach. But I've also been aware of how rewarding it can be to find your own version of normal out on the margins, finding a happiness all your own that doesn't need anyone else's approval to be real. And above all else, Princess Jellyfish is a celebration of exactly that kind of next-to-normalcy. It's a love letter to all of us who fell short of the scripts we were given but found something far more worthwhile along the way, all the freaks and weirdos and washouts who came into our own by leaven the beaten trail behind and charting our own quirky course through this wonderfully strange world we call home.

Our setting is Amamizuku, a boarding house for women who've slipped through the cracks of society. Chinese history nuts, train otaku, doll obsessives, women who've "failed" to live up to their expected role of finding a husband and becoming a doting wife. But that suits them all just fine: they've found their own kind of family among each other. A bizarre, constantly broke family prone to fits of geeky infodumping about their preferred hyperfixations, but a family nonetheless. All except for the youngest among them: Tsukimi, a girl still coping with the death of her mother and struggling with crippling self-doubt. Her mother always told her that all girls grow up to be princesses, but every time she sees her geeky, chubby, socially awkward uberdork self in the mirror, she sees the furthest thing from a princess she can imagine. And as happy as she is among her new friends, part of her still feels inadequate for not living up to the ideal of femininity she thinks she's supposed to fulfill.

That all changes when someone who does embody that ideal of femininity waltzes into her life. The only catch? It's actually a guy! Kuranosuke is a politician's son who's taken to cross-dressing as a way of distancing himself from his stifling family and social role, staking his own identity as a glorious drag queen in defiance of what someone like him is expected to be. And when he puts on the makeup and dresses and boob pads, he's a more womanly woman than most actual women around him. A chance encounter brings his life and Tsukimi's crashing together, and when it becomes clear that Amamizuku may be in jeapordy due to an urban development project his father is invested in, he decides to partner with her and all the boarding house girls to find some way to save it, preserving the community they've carved out for themselves in defiance of a world that wants to drag them back into "normal" society. Provided his little secret doesn't get out, of course.

It's a wonderfully quirky little show, bursting with the kind of lived-in detail that shoujo anime so often excel at. Amamizuku is a wonderfully realized community of oddball losers, and while some of the characters walk the line between amusing and annoying at times, you really come to adore all of them for their eccentricities. Tsukimi in particular is absolutely adorable, a perfect bundle of nerves and anxiety brought to life by Kana Hanazawa's stammering brilliance. She takes you through the whole gamut of emotions from quiet sadness to freaking out to hyperfixated intensity without ever missing a beat. And seeing her play off Kuranosuke as they help each other understand their own hang-ups a little better really put a smile on my face. Neither of them fit the image of what a man and woman are supposed to be, and in that mutual defiance (albeit far more purposeful on Kuranosuke's part), they're able to see the best in each other that they're not always able to see themselves.

But its in the moments where the woman of Amamizuku crash up against "normal" society that Princess Jellyfish really shines. This show is deeply interested in the connections between the marginal and the mainstream, what it means to be "normal" and what so-called normalcy takes for granted in trying to impose a universal standard. There's a great moment where Kuranosuke's giving the women glow-ups so they look trendy and fashionable in order to infiltrate a board meeting about the redevelopment, and she says, "I won't tell you to change your personal style or fit yourself into their boxes. But if you want to take on this shallow world, you have to fight on terms that shallow people understand." It's such a great summation of the pointlessness of our image-focused culture, how a little lip gloss and Coco Chanel can transform someone's perception from a layabout spinster to a glamorous socialite without changing the person at their core. And in playing with those expectations, Princess Jellyfish is able to draw out a much deeper, more honest beauty from its characters, a beauty that shines just as brightly in a pearl necklace or ratty tracksuit.

The one sour note throughout the show is a subplot involving Kuranosuke's older brother Shuu, a much more politically-minded and traditionally masculine man who gets involved with the woman in charge of pushing the landscape development. She drugs Shuu and takes pictures to make it look like they had sex when he was drunk, blackmailing him in order to get closer to his father and influence his support of her project. It's a deeply disturbing event, and it's really unclear whether or not Princess Jellyfish realizes how messed up it is. Like, this woman essentially makes Shuu think she assaulted him when he was blackout drunk, and it's clear he walks away from the encounter feeling violated (He even says out loud that he was taken advantage of!). But the show pretty much puts all that messiness aside for the sake of fast-tracking a romantic subplot between them that, I'm sorry, is just the most forced thing in the world even without the not-actually-rape hanging in the background. It feels grossly nonchalant about such a serious subject, and while it far from ruins the show, it makes every scene involving them a chore to sit through.

Perhaps that all comes to a much more satisfying conclusion later in the manga. Sadly, this eleven-episode adaptation comes nowhere near close to an ending for any of the threads it sets up, leaving a distinct sense of anticlimax when all is said and done. But hey, if Kimi ni Todoke can somehow wrangle a sequel over a decade later, perhaps there's still hope for a second season of Princess Jellyfish yet. Until then, though, we'll have to remain content with this unfinished but still incredibly enjoyable taste of life on the wrong (but actually right) side of the tracks. And I give it a score of:

7/10

And now to re-watch Kimi ni Todoke and continue reveling in the joys of 2010-era shoujo anime. See you next time!