Bartimaeus

Man, screw Cartoon Network, .

Today I learned that Usagi was designed after Mickey Mouse.

Ami is her Japanese & new English dub name, so that's perfectly fine to use if that's what it is (but if they used Serena for your dub, then it's probably Amy too - no-one will be confused if you say that). (e: ninja-ed literally as I hit post)

...Hold on a moment. Serena? ...Are you watching the original English dub? If so, wow! ...But wait, Ami would be Amy, so maybe you're just using that name ironically?

Heidi, Girl of the Alps: I watched the first episode of this, and I liked it a lot. Seems sort of like a proto-Totoro in terms of style and potentially themes with some changed elements (nothing fantastical, presumably...and no sister, but I'm perfectly good with these changed elements). Japanese only, but they have a very naturalistic way of speaking (even though the audio quality is indeed sadly bad like everything from this era), so I don't mind it at all. Sailor Moon S Episode 26:

Well, my Frankenstein system is more or less complete. Borrowed 32 GB (out of 64) from a different PC until I see RAM I like at a half-decent price, and I've got an "old" 5700 XT that I received for free sometime back but couldn't use due to its power draw (noting once again that I barely use my GPU, so I may end up going back to my GTX 1060 if I have too many driver problems, especially since a number of cutting-edge emulators, including for the PS3/Wii U/Switch, reportedly play poorly with AMD cards due to said drivers issues, and that's more important to me than anything else). As for my motherboard, I ended up going with a solid but unspectacular choice in the MSI X470 Gaming Max Plus. No bells and whistles, but I wasn't looking for any - just decent VRM/power phase design and all the standard features, and strangely, this board punches a bit above its weight, having tested for better VRM design than many boards literally twice what I paid for it. Didn't go for watercooling (I never overclock and the thought of running liquid in my system is skeevy to me), but the FUMA 2 I got tests just as well as some significantly pricier options and is even quieter. System is up and running but nothing's formatted yet and it likely won't be for a while because a migration is going to be very difficult. I have not yet decided whether I'll use Windows 7 Ultimate or Windows 10 LTSC. Windows 7 is my preferred option, but man is it getting lean in the years - and it'll take a bit of tinkering to get it to work with the 5000 series CPU. Windows 10 LTSC...is a compromise, but one I've been using for some time with my laptop, I'm not sure if I'm ready to fully jump over yet for my main desktop, though...I wish there was an even further modded version of Windows 10 than LTSC that stripped out some of remaining annoyances and problems to make it a little more hands-off Windows 7-style...perhaps I should do some investigation, since there are certain to be others who feel the same way. Complete specifications for now: Case: Fractal Design Meshify C Blackout PSU: SuperFlower Leadex III Gold 750 W MB: MSI X470 Gaming Plus Max CPU: AMD Ryzen 7 5800x Cooler: Scythe FUMA 2 RAM: 32 GB something or another (temporary) G.Skill 32 GB 3600 GPU: Asus Radeon XT 5700 SSD: TBD, want a 2 TB TLC+DRAM drive, saw one I almost bought yesterday for a great price, but hidden in the details was the fact that it was QLC - no deal!

There's definitely a lot of subjectivity involved. I should note that a lot of my problems with anime (outside of voice-work) are more directed towards more "modern" anime (i.e. 1990s and especially 2000s or later). When I look at like lists of "best 1980s animes" or earlier, there's stuff that looks a lot more stylistically acceptable and interesting to me...and then I remember that I just can't listen to Japanese voice-acting (it doesn't help that it seems everything past a certain point seemingly has between bad and abysmal audio recording quality on top of everything else...hell, even Sailor Moon itself doesn't have very good voice recording quality for its Japanese dub, and it's, what, mid-90s?) and go "welp, guess I don't have to worry about that!". It's a shame, but oh well. Sadly, I've never seen an episode of How I Met Your Mother, so I only have the very limited context of remembering that everyone hated the ending (which was something like...it was all a dream, IIRC?). My favorite sitcom is probably Seinfeld (though I haven't seen all of it) but that's less about the written jokes/plots and more about the specific delivery from the actors who are charming and brilliant and make for bizarrely likable characters even though they're all terrible and borderline sociopaths. I can definitely see watching a show like that as long as you continue to like the characters and their interactions, though - the rest is just gravy at that point...unless the show is spectacularly screwing up in some other way, anyways. I tend to drop shows almost the moment I feel that I've gotten what I can out of them - no issue cutting a show off if I feel like I'm not going to enjoy it anymore here. Given my mildly obsessive compulsive personality, I am very thankful I don't have to worry about that, .

That's literally what I had been envisioning. Indeed, I'd love to, at some point, just turn around and absolutely dunk on my viewers and make them hear what I really think about them live on-air, and just go down the list of disgusting hypocrisies and lies that "we" had been espousing up until then. Predictably, a big chunk of them would no doubt just say I was brainwashed or blackmailed by the "deep state" or some garbage and go on pretending that pre-reveal and post-reveal me are two totally separate people. Some psychos would no doubt concoct some plans to kill me...and yeah, thinking about that, I'd more likely be an absolute coward and just say I was retiring for """health reasons""" at some point and then very quietly try to make amends. Ugh. There are certain things I can live with being on my conscience, but realistically knowing that my words undoubtedly fueled a not insignificant amount of hatred and harm towards some very vulnerable people who are just trying to make it in life same as the rest of us, maybe even indirectly leading to some early deaths...not something I'd want to live with. (e): Also, I am a huge believer in deplatforming sources of hatred and division. When you give a voice to people's insecurities, failures, fears, prejudices, etc., a much-too-large section of the people to whom your words apply to are emboldened and become even more radicalized on those ideas, as a "strong" voice has given them "legitimacy" and publicly said out-loud the things that most people used to only think or mention privately. It is a real thing that I have seen happen to way too many people over the last decade (and I am certain it is something that has happened throughout all of history), and I want absolutely no part of it. (e): On the other hand, if I was some scumbag millionaire, I could afford to have a drug habit (you guys ever notice how poor people usually have drug "addictions" while rich people instead have drug "habits"?) to "help" with both my chronic pain and depression. Presumably, my public stance would also be against both drugs and mental illness as a whole, so bonus points for being a hypocrite. Then I could just eventually OD and will everything to charitable causes. Now that's a plan! But back to the topic at hand, I fundamentally believe that you are personally responsible for the things you broadcast out to the world, particularly if you do it under your own name/platform. So I understand why people are glad he's gone. Some of us have a little more tact, sense, and/or empathy than others, though - I don't wish he was dead insomuch as I wish he had been a better person that would've made it easier to wish he was still alive...but that is the more rational part of my brain talking, and it's the same kind of wish I would extend to other historical monsters.

I rewatched just a little bit of the last episode in Japanese, and TBH, she doesn't sound that much more shrill to me than...I don't know, the five main characters? She does have more of a...simpering tone to how she talks compared to the others, which I hate, but I hate Japanese voice-acting in general, so I'm probably not the best person to ask here, . My problems with anime are not really to do with character types/tropes, per se (although if badly used such as they are in many animes, that's sure to be an annoyance as well). It's more stylistic and sensibility problems. It starts with the way characters express: horribly high-pitched screaming/squealing/simpering/whining female characters, overly dramatic/angsty male characters, absolutely horrific weird mouth sounds that characters make constantly that make them seem like aliens to me, bizarre/over-the-top character expressions (though I've kind of gotten more used to this one over time), etc. And then the clothing and hair styles...and on top of that, I just don't care for typical anime art styles - by and large, they're very ugly to me. So yeah, pretty much almost literally everything about anime offends me from a character design standpoint. And for me, characters are the beginning and the end of most shows - other things can be important to a specific show as well, but if I can't like the cast to some degree in some kind of way, there's absolutely no hope for the show. That's not to say characters need to be lovable - it totally depends on the kind of show it is, different kind of characters of course fulfill different kinds of roles. But I'll almost definitely never be able to watch even Sailor Moon in Japanese - it's just too offensive to my ears and the type of Japanese voices used in their VA industry simply don't gel with the kinds of characters that I think the main cast are, and character voices are such a critical part of how I perceive characters. I recently switched to Japanese during one of The Professor's bits just to see - and he was instantly a much different (and less enjoyable) character to me with his Japanese voice. And then you throw in bad/overused writing tropes and inconsistencies and too fantastical/artificial settings and ridiculous/convoluted plots - everything falls down like a house of cards all too quickly for me to be able to enjoy anime by and large. Whatever it is that my sensibilities for watching shows are, they're simply not attuned for anime, and they probably won't ever be. Sailor Moon is lucky in that I actually didn't mind the general art style of the overall show to start with (now, I think it's actually pretty nice but also very unique - I simply haven't seen stuff like it elsewhere) and also it hasn't fallen prey to...well, pretty much literally any of my problems with anime. In fact, I feel it has at times outright made a self-aware mockery of some of them. But yeah, characters have stayed grounded and pretty well consistent, the English dub pretty well perfectly uses different types of voices that fit/have become their characters, the general setting is adequate, the story plots are...well, the main plot lines are what they are, but the smaller character plotlines are simple, sensible, and grounded for the most part, etc. Sailor Moon just does things right that I don't see the vast majority of other animes doing - at least, not at a glance. Also, funny that you should bring up yandere, since part of the reason my 'first' anime show that I tried was My Hero Academia, where I read about some of the characters in advance (instead of, you know, actually watching a clip or two of the show that would help demonstrate how the show functions in practice which would've immediately revealed that the show was unwatchable trash - a mistake I will not make again). One of the characters I specifically loved the sound/design of was a lady named Himiko Toga, which is apparently like the villain embodiment of yandere (she's a literal vampire doppelganger that drains the blood of the people she loves/admires, and then uses their blood to actually become them). That was about one of the coolest cartoon villain ideas I'd ever heard of that I thought you could have a lot of fun with - too bad the show was unwatchable, .

Not everyone is built the same, my man. I've already had enough problems with chronic depression (started since I was literally about 12 or 13!) and life in general before you add in becoming someone I utterly abhor. Sure, money is great, but having literally an endless list of mistakes and awful things you've said and done for just money's sake is not something I particularly to commit to in the long run. In direct service of that, I've always been the type that is more content with doing as little as possible to get by for mental health's sake and having more free time to myself. Being a despicable ***hole is a full-time job that would occupy way too much of my brainspace and emotions, so I can't really see being able do it for a long time.

Maybe, maybe not* - but also, yeah, I wouldn't be too upset if the people that I advocated hatred for and personally professed hatred towards also hated me back and were none too quiet when I died. In fact, after I died, I would not care about anything at all, because I'd be dead. *I'd personally think I'd hate myself too much to keep doing what he did for decades, so while I may have initially tried to do it, I would've eventually had to stop after doing enough to secure my financial future. He did not do that - by all appearances, he seemed to love his role.

Well...if enemies weren't constantly surprised and distracted by his roses most of the time (as opposed to, you know, just ignoring them because they're freaking roses), he'd be a hell of a lot more ineffective, .

In that sense, he is definitely more a symptom rather than the problem. Though I don't believe that in any way absolves him of the things he's personally said...but we wouldn't know he existed or any of the horrible things he's said if it wasn't for his audience - he'd just be one of another many crazies.

I've never known where to draw the line. I'd celebrate Hitler dying...but Rush Limbaugh isn't Hitler. He ain't Mother Theresa either, though - he's responsible for a lot of hatred and celebration of others' misery. The world is very arguably a tiny bit better place without him, so I can see why people would celebrate. Practically, celebrating his death just stokes even more division and hatred...which does seem like a fitting legacy for him.

Yeah, he's...something alright. @majestic

(e): whoops, wrong thread but it's a stupid meme not worth posting over in the US thread too

Yeah, I've learned to pretty much not care about the main plot at all for this show (although as you said, S definitely got me a little more interested compared to the other seasons, especially since it was more good-character-driven and less neurotic-villains-driven...plus, The Professor is actually a pretty funny dude - still as ineffective as ever, of course, but definitely funnier and more personable). I've been forced to watch Sailor Speed (uh, what I've been calling Speed Racer because I have too much Sailor Moon on the brain) the last couple of days instead, so no progress made unfortunately. And on that note, Speed Racer has been...uh, not very good, but "not very good" in a sort of funny "what the absolute hell is wrong with this show" sort of way, so it remains entertaining. Well, until this last episode that we watched, episode 5, which was so unforgivably and inexplicably terrible, absolutely nothing happened the entire episode...until there were only literally about 2 minutes left in the episode and like a hundred freaking goons on motorcycles (each individual goon had their own motorcycle) all came pouring out of one single flying helicopter (yes, just one, and yes, it was currently flying) one-by-one and literally started bouncing off of mountain-sides and crap while landing. I think my brain broke because I just started absolutely howling with laughter, and I really didn't stop laughing for like literally another ten minutes after it ended. It was like a programming error, where a value gets so low and then gets decremented past its minimum and then loops around to the maximum - the episode was so unbelievably awful and somehow managed to get just a little bit more awful and suddenly became the funniest thing I'd ever seen.

They're undoubtedly afeared that Stacey Abrams will win in 2022 and make it so they can no longer continue to pull such shenanigans. The beatings purges will continue until morale improves Republicans win!

That's what Wikipedia lists it as, exactly 240 minutes. I cannot imagine a universe where I could possibly sit through a Zach Snyder film for four hours. The ten to fifteen minute chunks I've been subjected to over the years were already completely exhausting.

I was just remarking to a friend that I loved that he put his name literally in the title of the movie. Really: the official title of this is called "Zack Snyder's Justice League". If it somehow isn't actually at least good (and I think the chances that it is are about a million to one), he's going to deservedly be an even bigger meme than he was before...and hack Hollywood studios will continue to hire him. And then I looked at the runtimes...exactly 120 minutes for the original cut, exactly 240 minutes for the new cut. Just what I want from terrible directors: special re-releases of their awful films except twice as long! Great! Maybe we'll get a good Half in the Bag out of it. Probably not, RLM seems increasingly kind of over mainstream movies as of late.

Replies to Majestic (1st) and Kaine (2nd), spoilered for InsaneCommander's innocent eyes: