alias_sqbr

It's available to stream officially from Funimation/Animelab in most English speaking markets (and Bilibili in most other places, afaict)

Summary (from my guide post): The main character, Xie Lian, is a former golden child who ascended to god-hood at the age of seventeen full of idealistic intentions...and it went so badly he spent 800 years as a God of Trash. As the story begins, he's gotten another chance at real godhood, but at this point is cheerfully cynical about his odds of ever actually achieving anything meaningful. But while he's doing Heaven's bidding, Xie Lian encounters a strangely charming demon king who seems to know him...

The original novel is m/m romance as well as fantasy/horror, but censorship means the romance will only be subtext in the donghua.

I watched the first two episodes and they're pretty good! This part of the story is mostly character introductions and a creepy ghost story, which all works pretty well so far. The LI only appears very briefly but gosh darn is that brief appearance shippy. The art/acting/writing etc is pretty well done and it's fun seeing everything animated (Liiiing Weeeeennnnn my loooove).

Content Notes for the book: consent issues, sexualisation of children, gore, mixed treatment of cross-dressing, suicide, child harm, mild quasi-incest, ableism, abuse, gender stereotypes, racist subtext, ANGST

This won't have the sexual stuff but it's still likely to be pretty intense (and is keeping the crossdressing, for good or ill). The book itself worked around censorship via a lot of situations which Could Only Be Solved By Kissing, I'm curious to see if any of them squeak into the donghua.

I have finished all five seasons and it is GREAT. If you like girly animated scifi with MAGIC and SPACE SHIPS and PRINCESSES and GIRLS ANGSTILY TRYING TO KILL EACH OTHER AND THEN KISSING then this is the show for you.

It's definitely a kids show based on an 80s toy franchise: the worldbuilding is silly, there's lots of dumb jokes, and everything ends in hugs even when logically it maybe shouldn't. But it's got a good story and characters, with a surprising amount of moral and emotional complexity, as well as thrilling fights and cool scifi explosions etc.

Also the level of queerness just...ramps up over time, and season 5 is VERY QUEER INDEED :D There's MULTIPLE canon same sex relationships, all with enjoyable levels of angst-then-fluff, as well as a delightfully morally ambiguous canon non-binary character. I mean it's not a show ABOUT romance, the focus is on Beating The Evil Robots With Friendship etc. But the writers went out of their way to NOT centre m/f relationships and feelings.

A repeated theme is characters screwing up due to traumatic upbringings and having to work past it. So (a) this means watching characters work through trauma (b) it's the kind of fluffy show where most characters end up friends by the end, including some characters who caused trauma or were really awful as a result of it. I overall liked how this theme was handled, but YMMV, and some redemption/acceptance arcs are a bit glossed over.

Also I both ship Adora/Catra and also kinda see them as sisters, so.

Now for some random reactions I wrote from about the middle of Season 5 to the end, so I didn't flail at various people who haven't watched it yet and don't want spoilers.

This isn't a reaction post in any organised way and will make no sense if you haven't watched all of She-ra.

** Spoilers**
( Read more... )

As a belated birthday present for kitsune_iii I made this animation of a kitsune:
(click for bigger)

Researching it was fun, lots of cute pictures of foxes :) Though I kept finding stuff about 20th Century Fox or some anime called Kitsune etc.

My favourites:
4 cute fox cubs in our garden in wimbledon
this sad little animation .

I took a bit of creative license with the markings :)

No really, it's a movie.


Today was heaps of fun. Met up with mexicanjewlizrd (and none of the other people who expressed interest in free Scitech tickets, so I still have three for anyone who can be bothered getting them off me), watched..odd intepretive dance/comedy, harveystoat doing standup, and then did an animation workshop. I also chatted to a bunch of the staff which was really nice, and also saw Ken and meljane.

And then a driving lesson, with an instructor who was actually impressed with my ability (it was the first lesson. She will soon learn that while 11 years of intermittent lessons have gotten me to a mediocre standard, lifting my game any higher is harder than it looks)

Now, a hypothetical. Imagine you're a waitperson. You have the following conversation:
Customer: Can I have the chicken burger please, no sauce.
You: Not even barbeque sauce?
Customer: None. No mayonnaise, no tomato sauce, nothing but chicken, salad, and bread.
You: Got it.

Which of the following condiments do you put on the burger:
(a) Butter
(b) Mayonaise
(c) Cheese
(d) All of the above

If you said (d), congratulations! You're suitable to be hired by the "Club" cafe. *mutters*