Bartimaeus

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:

I'm liking the sound of Sailor Stars a lot more already, .

Hope you enjoy it - what did you think of the first episode? Literally all three things you just listed are improved on in S, IMO. Yeah, it's going to be, uh, interesting to try to watch SuperS. I can only really start passing judgement once I've actually started watching it, though. Kind of preparing to be traumatized at this point, really.

Don't know whom that is, but it got a burst of laughter from me, . @majestic Each season has had two intros, so I took a guess and opened up the last episode of S and what do you know, it has your intro. So even the first episode of S has the second intro for you? Whoever put these Italian DVDs together seem to have know what they were doing more than everyone else in every other region, . Also, for kicks, I tested the first and last episode of SuperS - there are two different intros there too, although they're very similar (only a few scenes were changed, similar to S's first and second intros). Yep, I'm always in favor of going with the outcome actually setup by previous events rather than simply "SURPRISE, literally nothing that previously happened had any effect on the outcome and instead we're going with something totally out of left field!". Really, if you're going to do something out of left field, it should be the result of a more unpredictable/lesser known character(s) doing something that changes the situation radically, and not the main characters whose personality and intentions are already known and set (and the main characters should, of course, still react in ways that make sense!). also wth @ the manga thing lol, that sounds so dumb (although admittedly I'm sure there are details to be had...)

Good lord, this show could've used somebody else writing the titles. Not only are they ridiculously long, they spoil waaay too much. This episode had the worst title I've seen yet.

Oh yeah, I can't believe I didn't get all that. What was I thinking?

that's almost verbatim what I was going to say: I had "what the hell was that lol" written up and was searching for something else to say lmao

Depends on what kind of garbage is in it. Lead poisoning won't kill most people, but it'll cause brain damage/underdevelopment and is likely to lead to a much earlier death! The water difference up here is night and day compared to when I lived further down south...the tap water from where I was before was from the Mississippi, and let me tell you, the Mississippi is not even in the same universe as Lake Superior. I also actually prefer drinking hot water (not cold! ...also, note that I say "hot", not warm - warm water is terrible, hot water is great), so being able to just get great hot water from the tap is such a ridiculous convenience that I don't want to give up anytime soon.

I think I've used the phrase "supremely stupid" for the show a few different times in here (particularly early, and then again when KaineParker was contemplating watching), but I only meant it in the best of ways. Yeah, I know exactly what you meant re: dismissing criticism out of hand, I can basically never get behind that either. I've said it before, but I almost always take negatives of stuff a lot more strongly than I do the positives, so it's difficult for me to just brush off issues - I'm just not that kind of person. Even with literally my all-time favorite show, Steven Universe, I have an endless laundry list of different things that I think (and know) that they could've done better. The key is to have enough stuff that I like while minimizing the actually terrible stuff (as opposed to simply not-so-good stuff) that I can forgive and love it. I have not been able to watch any more. Too busy with a few other things at the end of this week, and the little time I've had for watching shows has instead gone to stupid Speed Racer on the insistence of someone that is not me (shockingly, no, I'm not the only person dumb enough to watch this crap - ideally, though, I'd like to finish S before KaineParker does because S is probably the part of the show that I'd be most sensitive to spoilers for...but I fear that I won't). And don't talk to me about music - I'm the type of person that will listen to an industrial or darkwave album and immediately follow it up with something like Studio Ghibli, Weird Al, Disney, or Sailor Moon, then immediately go in reverse. I'm pretty retarded about music, .

I live right up on Lake Superior. We're been in some kind of 'polar vortex system' or some such nonsense (that's what people keep calling it, I have no idea if it's actually accurate) for like a week here, and it's been negative 20 to negative 25 each night...without windchill. Some of the nights, the wind chill has been -40 or worse. I, too, question why I live here...until I remember that housing in my particular area is relatively sane, the summers aren't nearly as bad as the rest of the state thanks to being right on Superior (and I hate summer a lot more than winter, so that's important), and the water is so amazingly good that I dread the day I ever have to go somewhere else (you wouldn't think this is that important, but I cannot understate how nice it is to have pure crystalline tap water that is legitimately better than filtered water most everywhere else). I'm not happy with the cold, but I'll happily take it relative to my other options...so here is where I'll stay while I can, .

Yeah, I've always liked that AMD hasn't deliberately and totally ruined their lower-end chipsets like Intel usually has, and as a result, OEMs actually make some solid motherboards (with even some pretty good VRM components/configurations) for the lower-end chipsets. Thanks for the advice - some of these were ones I'd already seen mentioned as good and sensible options elsewhere, so it's only reinforcing. I'm usually particular to Gigabyte and MSI boards (although from what I'm vaguely recalling, MSI has been kind of scummy for a few reasons lately), and have only had numerous troubles with ASUS boards...but we'll see what I end up with.