Bartimaeus

Yep, all that seems legit to me! I'm sure I would've been able to come up with that if I had just thought about it for a few more minutes, .

I couldn't make much sense of the movie. It seemed like a re-telling of the same story that randomly added and retconned a bunch of stuff. Also much more direct in trying to get what it wanted to say across, yet felt even more incompetent. I completely gave up about halfway through, .

Thanks for the write-up, all of that makes sense and seems like a good way to interpret what was intended. In regards to Ohtori, I think it doesn't really matter what it is, to be honest - kind of besides the point, I think, .

I don't know about anyone else, but yesterday's weather was bordering on apocalyptic yesterday here. Skies went green: insane lightning storm that lasted from like 8 PM to maybe 2 AM with literally 70mph winds that were knocking down or outright breaking trees in half left and right, plenty of hail, some flooding, and the power was out most of the night. Saw a neighbor nearly get squashed by a big chunk of their oak tree snapping off and missing them (as in their actual person, because they decided being outside during the worst of all of this was a good idea) by literal inches. Stay indoors during insane weather if you can, folks.

I used to hate the emote reactions, but then I learned that they're actually good for either acknowledging someone's post without having to directly respond (especially where a response wouldn't really be necessary outside of the acknowledgement itself) OR for when you forget to actually quote what someone said and you want to make sure they're given some kind of alert. Because of that, I got more into the habit of using them, .

Yeah, I'm not sure what the mental block with CCS is - when I muster up the energy and motivation, it always continues to be the most amazing show that I utterly adore, but for some reason, it's so difficult to get past that. I think I'll have more in me next week to get a few episodes done. The plot has been relatively dark and certainly much more serious than I expected, but it doesn't feel as dark as you might necessarily expect based on how I described it. In addition to the show just feeling more old-fashioned than you might expect (in terms of tone and style, it really feels more like something closer to...say, Heidi than like...Sailor Moon, if that makes any sense), I think the biggest thing that prevents it from feeling more dark is that the uncle is like moustache-twirlingly evil while also being an utter baboon, and I would bet my life on him biting it in some way sooner or later here because this just cannot stand. Oh, and here's the intro if you want to watch it (note: watch in video player, not browser, because my video recorder decided to encode in x265 instead of x264 and apparently neither Firefox nor Chrome know how to play x265 or at least neither of mine do): https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/s/tft08mgc1oe0l8c/OSwMO1UqEr.mp4 I certainly didn't expect all this terrible stuff to happen right away with a silly, gentle intro like that, . (e): On top of x265 not playing in browsers, it appears to be a little choppy - I see some funky chugging and frame skipping in that recording. Grr!

Feel free to do some research after you've finished everything and then write up a short essay for me once you've figured it out, because the movie sucked all will to care out of me, . In other news, my other party wanted to watch Nadia: Secret of Blue Water next, and I was like HELL NO, I need something silly and lighthearted in between that and Utena first. So now I'm five episodes into Legendary Idol Eriko, and it's...more old-fashioned than I would've expected? In terms of dialogue, writing, pacing - it feels 10 years Ranma 1/2's senior, more like something I'd expect to watch that came out in the late 70s/early 80s in that it's very direct, relatively simple, characters are certain expected archetypes, etc. But I'm still enjoying it, it's not an endless nightmare like the second half of Utena, so there is that. Although it's been less lighthearted than I expected...some relatively broad spoilers for the first five episodes:

I was more thinking I'd want an actual reaction emote, like you can do in the bottom right of other people's posts, for posts that are so inexplicably terrible that they warrant no response, just that look of disgust or outright death, . Some say you can still find traces of them in the darkest depths of these forums...

Yes, on second thought, the lack of "negative" emoticons is pretty wise: ignoring is much more effective.

There should really be a puking or skull or something emote reaction for occasions such as these.

Yeah, I got a few minutes through their video, heard Jay say "probably my favorite movie since The Witch", heard Mike say "yeah, I loved it too", and was like, okay, guess I'll go watch this even though it looks like a complete joke and finish the review later. In regards to streaming it, this is really strange, because I figured it was just widely available but currently for a price...but no, literally the only place I see where it's available to stream online is from just my local internet/cable company's on demand service for like $6, . Not on HBO, Prime, Netflix, Hulu, or anywhere else that I can see.

Pig (2021). To my great shame, this was actually a pretty good movie. I normally can't stand Nicholas Cage, but he did good here.

Yeah, I thought the first arc was goofy, weird, but enjoyable. It also mostly made sense even if it was weird. The second arc really started to go to some uncomfortable and inexplicable places...but mostly stayed sane and the same show as the first season. And then the third arc is really where the show fell off into the abyss...and it never really came back. Sort of like being hit with the entire CONGRATULATIONS sequence (both the surrealist lead-up to it and that particular scene itself) over and over and over. After Utena, it *does* kind of feel like I can feel his incredibly messed up influence on the whole Chibi-Usa/Helios saga...

Ikuhara is *hilarious*. I mean, seriously, the way he puts together scenes and dialogue is actually super funny, transcending even the language barrier. All of the actually intentionally humorous parts of this show are great and land so perfectly even when there's no reason they should. Him trying to do something serious, something thought-provoking has been a complete, unmitigated disaster of the highest order. And I thought Evangelion was frustrating...holy freaking crap.

Yeah...so, Utena's Bizarre Adventure anyone? where her giant gold chain tho

I was actually going to make a clip of either the SU congratulations (which, by the way, isn't that - that one's from the extended intro, the "congratulations" is from The Test in S1) or the actual Evangelion congratulations, but then I got distracted and realized I was going to have to watch the movie, which we're starting in just a few minutes here, please wish me luck...

I finished Neon Genesis Utena. (E): OH CRAP THERE'S A MOVIE

That's definitely another way to interpret it, but for Utena's sake (as I outlined in the double post above the one you just made), I gotta interpret it my way for the sake of my own sanity.

In her defense... ACTUAL SPOILER:

lmao USA Basketball lost to France because our players insist on bricking 3s over and over and as opposed to driving into the paint and making easy layups There was literally a situation at the end of the game where USA was down by 2 and it was 4 vs 5 with a clear lane to drive for an open 2 and instead we shot a 3, missed it and got the rebound, shot another 3 and missed it and got the rebound, and then shot another 3 and missed it. Embarrassing.

Bizarrely, there's been a few times that after Utena has won a duel that the episode is ending and Utena sees whatever character(s) dueled her and is like "well, seems like they've worked it out" or "looks like they're feeling much better today" and then Anthy will contrarily state something like, "No, they're exactly the same as before." What's up with that?

Yeah. Chu-Chu, probably. Probably. Because who cares about characters making sense when you can a mercurial plot instead?

Won a Newegg shuffle for a 3070 TI yesterday, but forgot to check my email in the 3 hour slot. Whoops. I wouldn't have bought it for myself anyways (I have literally no need of it), but I'm quite certain that I know someone that would've. Oh well.