Anime: Emotions on a Rollercoaster

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

4 hours ago, Bartimaeus said:

That first episode was basically "we want to make a billion DBZ references, how do we do that without breaking our universe...oh, by setting it in a DIFFERENT universe, OBVIOUSLY!".

Well, you're past the group of weirder episodes I mentioned, .

That's it, now I have to watch this show. And I don't even like DBZ lmao

3 hours ago, majestic said:

Well, then I got something to look forward to, at least once I wake up. Planning on turning in before midnight for a change. I'm kinda tired... and really hungry. I'm liable to break my fasting if I stay up any longer. Meh.

OH MY GOD! Silly majestic, how will you write your slashfic if you sleep ? surly you don't want to end it their ?

Ok, my fiance hates Super S a lot and we decided tomorrow we would be finished with it. If we ever watch Sailor Moon again, Pedosus and the rape gang are getting skipped because it's creepy and boring. I hope Sailor Stars is better. It has to be.

[Bartimaeus]

45 minutes ago, ArtistFormerlyKnownasKP said:

That's it, now I have to watch this show. And I don't even like DBZ lmao

OH MY GOD! Silly majestic, how will you write your slashfic if you sleep ? surly you don't want to end it their ?

Ok, my fiance hates Super S a lot and we decided tomorrow we would be finished with it. If we ever watch Sailor Moon again, Pedosus and the rape gang are getting skipped because it's creepy and boring. I hope Sailor Stars is better. It has to be.

I do wonder if you'll enjoy it. It seems like majestic is enjoying it well enough, but my impression is that he's not (YET?) in love with it. We'll see if that changes. If he doesn't love it by the time he hits what's probably my favorite run of episodes in the series (assuming he makes it that far, which is the second half of season 2 continuing for a bit into season 3 - the end of season 2 runs directly into the first chunk of season 3*), then I'm probably a worthless hack fraud and you guys can launch my sorry hide from a trebuchet or whatever is the anime equivalent out of this thread.

It's a show that's...kind of difficult to ever recommend without caveats because, well, as I'm sure majestic can attest to, it can be a bit all over the place, especially with how it starts for like the first 10 episodes where it seems like it's going to be purely a goofy/slightly off-color kids' show.

* (explanation of development issues because of Cartoon Network shenanigans)

Spoiler

The first season is 52 episodes long; the second and third seasons are about 26 episodes each and were originally intended to be one season but Cartoon Network is gonna Cartoon Network. I mentioned that this show had seriously troubled development, did I not? It doesn't help that it was during this time that Cartoon Network had just been bought out by AT&T and was having serious leadership and communication issues with changing attitudes about how they wanted to handle their new studio and its properties. So the same thing happens with the 4th and 5th seasons, and there was originally intended to be "6th" and "7th" seasons (aka a full 4th season, if you assume seasons 2 and 3 are actually season 2, and seasons 4 and 5 are actually season 3), but uh, yeah, Cartoon Network is gonna Cartoon Network. IIRC, the SU team didn't know until about halfway through production of the fifth season that they weren't going to get at least one more, and so season 5 gets kind of crazy because they have to finish up the main story they'd been building up to from literally the first season when they expected to have two more seasons - all they managed to get out of Cartoon Network was like a ~6 episode extension to give them enough time to at least get the most important stuff, even if it didn't quite get the breathing space or gravitas it would've with another season or two. My understanding is that piles of interference and other types of shenanigans that the creators were only allowed to hint at were going on behind the scenes throughout all five seasons, unfortunately.

(e): In fact, as I recall, the show was nearly canceled entirely by Cartoon Network before season 5 for a tremendously stupid reason relating to some completely safe for children content that the creator wanted to show and absolutely would not budge on. Cartoon Network eventually capitulated. Crap like this was probably why the show frequently had random 6-month hiatuses in the middle of seasons. You try to make a kids show with some good characters and decent themes and story that's relatively popular, and you almost get cancelled about a dozen times while absolute dogcrap like Teen Titans Go gets a billion seasons of absolute worthless filth and drivel.

 

Edited March 27, 2021 by Bartimaeus

[majestic]

Your talk of troubled production made me go and look at Andromeda quotes. They sure wrote a lot of memorable stuff in the first two seasons. Later, not so much. The dialogue is a huge part of what I love about the show, but it's not just that, the character interactions are great and they slowly built up everything. Tech invented or found in one episode would come up later (this was early 2000 and all we had at that point was Star Trek forgetting almost every piece of new tech right after the episode ended no matter how useful it would have been later... mostly).

Anyway, the mid season 2 point is where Robert Hewitt Wolfe took a stand and said this far, no further, and... got fired over it.

Just ran across one of my favorites, it always makes me laugh. The crew except for the gruff mercenary type with uncertain loyalties (Tyr) and the pilot (Beka) are waiting on the ship, and they're bored, so Tyr decides to make dinner and invites Beka. He surprises her with a fully set table, including some candles.

Beka Valentine:
Where did you get the candles?

Tyr Anasazi:
I rendered them from the fat of my enemies.

The line is delivered in such a perfectly deadpan fashion. Heh.

Eh, enough of that.

4 hours ago, Bartimaeus said:

It seems like majestic is enjoying it well enough, but my impression is that he's not (YET?) in love with it. We'll see if that changes. If he doesn't love it by the time he hits what's probably my favorite run of episodes in the series (assuming he makes it that far, which is the second half of season 2 continuing for a bit into season 3 - the end of season 2 runs directly into the first chunk of season 3*), then I'm probably a worthless hack fraud and you guys can launch my sorry hide from a trebuchet or whatever is the anime equivalent out of this thread.

I do enjoy it well enough, and the few story related episodes I've seen so far were great, I also like the little hints here and there. So far it's a little uneven indeed, but hey, that was the first season of Sailor Moon too, and it wasn't before the middle of R that I knew I loved it, and the rewatch elevated the first season for me.

Uhm, so don't mistake the lack of any essays as not appreciating it. If the one two parter so far is any indication for later then I'll end up loving this show for sure.

5 hours ago, ArtistFormerlyKnownasKP said:

Ok, my fiance hates Super S a lot and we decided tomorrow we would be finished with it. If we ever watch Sailor Moon again, Pedosus and the rape gang are getting skipped because it's creepy and boring. I hope Sailor Stars is better. It has to be.

It is better, but I'm not sure you will like it any better. It does retread old ground and feels derivative, and given your feelings on Ami's SuperS power-up episode which was perfectly fine and well made (not just for a SuperS episode, but in general) because of reused plot points I'm not entirely certain that it'll be all that interesting for you.

On the other hand, @InsaneCommander seems to love it, so hell if I know. That's the problem with these either hate or love it seasons. While SuperS is generally considered the worst outside of a few weirdos who think that the first was the best season and thought S was trash that only die-hard fans of the show could enjoy, there's really a strange divide on Sailor Stars. There's the anime fans that love it and think it's the best thing ever (or second best, next to S), the anime fans that hate it, and the manga readers who think that everything after the first season was bad because it didn't follow the manga closely enough.

[Bartimaeus]

2 hours ago, majestic said:

While SuperS is generally considered the worst outside of a few weirdos who think that the first was the best season and thought S was trash

What if you're someone that thinks S is the best (i.e. of the objective highest quality by various measures) but whose actual favorite is still season 1? I have the fondest feelings for season 1 - perhaps because it was the first, perhaps because it had some attributes that the other seasons didn't have (like more random and low-key episode concepts, less Mamoru nonsense since he hadn't really joined the group yet, the girls' relationships still being in their infancy, probably being the funniest season, etc.).

2 hours ago, majestic said:

Uhm, so don't mistake the lack of any essays as not appreciating it. If the one two parter so far is any indication for later then I'll end up loving this show for sure.

Not to worry, I didn't, . Similarly, I wasn't entirely sure how I felt about the show until the second season as well - I just knew I wanted to see where it was going.

Quote

During the production of the second season, Wolfe claims that he and the studio quarreled over the non-episodic nature of the show and the studio's requests for "more aliens, more space battles, and less internal conflict,"[4][5] eventually resulting in his departure. Actor Kevin Sorbo confirmed the statements, saying that Wolfe, "is a genius, but was developing stories that were too complicated."

Ugh. Well, that's boneheaded. Apparently, Kevin Sorbo himself claimed some responsibility for it.

Quote

"Did I have a voice in it? Yeah, I had a voice in it," he says. [...] For Sorbo, his experience doing seven years of Hercules in New Zealand has given him a clear vision of what he thinks a syndicated action hour should be -- and can't be. "The original idea of this show only partly materialized in the first half of the first season," he says, "and it got further and further from that. We're not even near what this show was originally pitched to me as being about."

"And so now, if we're going to take this direction, let's take it in this direction. Let's throw in some Mel Brooks. Let's throw in some Airplane! stuff. I still love scenes that have really well-written dialogue, but this isn't The West Wing." The formula for success in this type of series, "especially if you want to sell it overseas, like this show is doing in 155 countries," Sorbo says, is "You have to make it easy for the people in other countries to watch and enjoy without getting bogged down in dialogue. "It's that old adage: Keep it simple, stupid. We're not dumbing down the show, but we're not going to make it difficult to follow."

As if anyone needed ANOTHER reason to hate Kevin Sorbo...

[Oner]

Watched the DotA anime, it was better than I expected, enjoyed it.

[majestic]

13 minutes ago, Bartimaeus said:

What if you're someone that thinks S is the best (i.e. of the objective highest quality by various measures) but whose actual favorite is still season 1? I have the fondest feelings for season 1 - perhaps because it was the first, perhaps because it had some attributes that the other seasons didn't have (like more random and low-key episode concepts, less Mamoru nonsense since he hadn't really joined the group yet, the girls' relationships still being in their infancy, probably being the funniest season, etc.).

Then... you're a... no, actually, that's fair.

My opinion of the first season changed a good deal in the rewatch. It was pretty good, actually. I'd put it up there with R nowadays (maybe even ahead... not sure). Before I would have ranked it above SuperS because what else other than crotch rot would be ranked below that, but not as better or even equal to the other seasons. That's probably also because I joined watching in the middle of the run, with the team almost fully assembled already.

The filler arc of R was less good than I remembered it being, even if Makoto trying to explain food and love to Ali is still one of the highlights for me (I've read that the live action TV show actually made Makoto get a husband - and while it was Motoki out of all people, good on the show to do that), and the R storyline wasn't nearly as interesting or good as I remembered. Nor was Chibi-Usa as annoying.

The first season had something the others didn't - more time to do random things. It's the season with the most episodes and the fewest of them being used on manga storyline focused adaptations. At a first glance R had a lot of episodes too, but it has two storylines to follow and much more story focus at the end, so it's effective episode count to do fun or exploratory things with the characters wasn't much higher than that of S. The reason why I rank S higher than R or the first season (the fandom calls the first season Sailor Moon Classic, but that's really not a good idea now that there's Crystal, first it has the same abbreviation in SMC and Classic could be taken to mean all of the 90ies anime now) is because it's the only time the storyline episodes are actually fairly decent. Maybe even good, so they feel less of a waste of screentime.

Sailor Stars clearly got the short end of the stick there. Which is unfortunate, because I would have liked more episodes with the other characters. But that was kind of doomed to fail in the first place, with 10 Sailor Guardians, Mamoru and the three new characters to write about and only 34 20 minutes episodes, good luck with that. Live action TV series with 26 episodes per season, a 45 minute runtime and a cast of five have problems giving their characters equal screen and focus time. Let alone equal quality.

And SuperS... well who gives a damn.

1 hour ago, Bartimaeus said:

Ugh. Well, that's boneheaded. Apparently, Kevin Sorbo himself claimed some responsibility for it.

Yeah, "rumor" has it Sorbo had a problem because he didn't understand the stories or what was going on and wanted more focus on himself. Well, can't change that, it is what it is. RWH at some point released a screenplay of an Andromeda episode where he revealed what his originan plans for the show were.

I'm not entirely sure I would have liked where this was going to be going, but it was an interesting concept, and the sheer scope of it was audacious, to say the least.

It was also the only show I've come across that has done consistently interesting timetravel episodes. I mean, yeah, "consistently", there's like two of them, one of which copies the Star Trek TNG finale's concept of something affecting the present that has yet to happen in the future, and the other one is really just there to give some of the characters a massive moral problem to resolve (and to establish some character traits) that happens very early in the show.

Actually, the first time travel episode was what sold me on the show, and it only got better from there. For a while, at least.

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

3 hours ago, Bartimaeus said:

As if anyone needed ANOTHER reason to hate Kevin Sorbo...

Man, Kevin Sorbo's taste is worse than his politics.

Oh, and ran down two episodes of Sailor Moon. I don't remember the numbers but there are six left.

One massively creepy one where the girls deduce Chibi-Usa has a boyfriend. If they thought the dude in the coat was too old, wait until they find out about Pedosus. Something tells me he bolts. Anyways he and Chibi-Usa have a night out together where she rides him around. If this wasn't pedophilia and beastiality it would have been cute, but every scene with Pedosus just screams grooming.

The second one was the volunteer at the coming of age ceremony. It didn't make me feel creeped out and had some fun moments with the gang and the Amazon Quartet. The monster was pretty forgettable like most.

Whelp, looks like the mirror queen is coming in. Guess that means I'll watch 2 hours of her doing stuff.

[majestic]

4 hours ago, Oner said:

Watched the DotA anime, it was better than I expected, enjoyed it.

Gotta ask... how do you make a story out of DotA? Like Battleship the movie did?

[Oner]

26 minutes ago, majestic said:

Gotta ask... how do you make a story out of DotA? Like Battleship the movie did?

Smack some character backgrounds together until plot falls out?
I know the story revolves around some playable characters, but I don't know to what degree their backstories got adapted in or how much they're related to each other.

[Bartimaeus]

I'm just gonna finish this.

Episode 36

Spoiler

uh I kind of spaced out for a minute there, what the actual hell is nehellenia talking about now

I don't really understand why the Amazoness Quartet are doing what they're doing, but whatever gets us away from this drab dark BORING queen, I'm all for it

This whole "why are we fighting, we should just give up and live selfishly!" business would work a lot better if the Dead Moon wasn't currently in the process of destroying the world. Kiiind of makes it a tough buy that they can just give up and stop being Sailor Guardians and have everything work out fine.

A rare sighting of Sailor Moon's Destructo Disc!

The writing towards the end of this episode was, uh, not ideal.

an episode

Spoiler

Boy I sure love the sound of Chibi-Usa screaming. Ami had time to sit and nerd out for like an entire minute while Zirconia just sat there and watched her figure it out - not great fighting, Bob; AND THEN IT HAPPENED AGAIN WHILE THE AMAZONS WERE TALKING ABOUT BREAKING THEIR ORBS, smh my head.

This finale really takes the cake for melodrama while everyone stands around doing nothing. But hey, both Pegasus and Zirconia died in the same episode, so at least something good happened here.

technically sailor moon

Spoiler

"Sure, we're all lying in bloody heaps like we're dead, but I guess we can pick ourselves back up again if Sailor Moon says 'we can't lose'."

lmao, Nehellenia with some serious fisheye here:

Is she sitting on a...golden-green elephant throne? Interesting choice. Aaaaand Helios (who is unfortunately NOT MCDONALDS HAMBURGERS AS HE CURRENTLY SHOULD BE) kissed Chibi-Usa while she was in a coma, well doesn't that just figure?

So...Chibi-Usa was the one that could channel the Golden Crystal all along? FML, great job scouting that one out you stupid donkey.

"Please, I need all of you to pray with me!" we MOTHER/EarthBound now boys

I guess officially the last episode of Sailor Moon SuperS, I finally made it

Spoiler

getting old sucks, don't it?

 

[majestic]

Congratulations, I feel like you didn't like the ending too much. How... surprising.

Final toughts on SuperS? Like, greatest season ever, right? RIGHT?

Even joking about that turd is boring.

2 hours ago, Oner said:

Smack some character backgrounds together until plot falls out?
I know the story revolves around some playable characters, but I don't know to what degree their backstories got adapted in or how much they're related to each other.

I don't know anything about DotA other than it is a MOBA, which is everything that I don't like about RTS games condensed into a new genre. That's why I asked, but that answers another question, namely if knowing anything about DotA is necessary to enjoy the anime.

[Bartimaeus]

The only thing I'm really left wondering is what happened to...

Spoiler

(a reminder that Hawk Eye made this face for Usagi's mom)

 

[majestic]

Next up you'll be facing a six episode filler arc in Sailor Stars. It's... well it's better than SuperS, but, eh, yeah. You'll see.

edit: Thanks for the gif. Dear god.

Edited March 27, 2021 by majestic

[Bartimaeus]

I considered editing it to reverse cleanly, but decided that was way too much work for...that.

[majestic]

27 minutes ago, Bartimaeus said:

I considered editing it to reverse cleanly, but decided that was way too much work for...that.

It's more effective this way anyway. Freaking rape gang.

Anyway, Steven Universe S01E35:
 

Spoiler

 

Is Steven Half-Rose in a human-gem fusion way? Does that mean he cold be broken? No? Why was Rose pregnant then. Huh. Is this going to be explained at some point?

Also, you mentioned that Pearl's a little unhinged. She's getting more and more unhinged. That was creepyish.

 

 

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

1 hour ago, Bartimaeus said:

The only thing I'm really left wondering is what happened to...

  Reveal hidden contents

(a reminder that Hawk Eye made this face for Usagi's mom)

 

 

[majestic]

SU S01E36

Spoiler

Well that was a fun Lt. Barclay sees something in the transporter stream knockoff until sh*t got real very quickly.

SU S01E37:

Spoiler

Okay. Steven and Conny, that was a bit quick huh? For a moment I thought he'd keep fusing and gobble up all the townies in the process on the dancefloor, but nah, they just uncoupled. Defused? Haha. De-fused. Get it? xD

SU S01E38:

Spoiler

For a moment I though the real test was going out of bounds. This is definitely better than the run of random weirdness episodes.

 

Edited March 27, 2021 by majestic

[Bartimaeus]

All four of what you watched were good episodes. While I've watched through the entire series twice (soon to be three if you keep watching), there are certain select episodes I've seen more than that because I occasionally like to revisit moments special to me, even though a lot of the series is pretty etched into my brain at this point. There are even some episodes I've seen closer to ten times because they consistently make me feel in a way that not a lot else can, especially taking the fact that they're repeat viewings into account - like I said, this show feels like it was made for me, so even though I've seen some parts of it so much already, my brain still completely turns off while watching. You've got one of those very special episodes not that far off...

The Test episode:

Spoiler

Did you like the Evangelion "CONGRATULATIONS!"?

 

Edited March 27, 2021 by Bartimaeus

[InsaneCommander]

I was busy today and yesterday so I didn't watch any episodes. But I'm enjoying Sailor Stars.

 

On 3/26/2021 at 2:40 AM, ArtistFormerlyKnownasKP said:

Sailor Moon 158.

  Hide contents

OK then. Ummm Pedosus is actually Helios and is a preteen boy. I wonder why they didn't lead with that instead of making it appear Chibi-Usa was being pursued by an adult man disguised as a horse. Did they want to maximize creepiness until the tail end or you know whatever, I don't care and I'm not going to try to understand. Pegasus showed he wouldn't be interested in Chibi-Usa if she hit puberty and he's probably like 9000 years or something.

Regardless, Pedosus still has behavior that screams grooming and abuse even if we ignore his pedophilia. Like in the last episode he disappears when Chibi-Usa did something he didn't like, and in this one he doubles down and says he will leave if Chibi-Usa doesn't give up her dream. And he is painted in the right because if Chibi-Usa dared to have her dream, it would kill him. My fiance said it hit pretty much every note for an abusive **** who guilts people into staying with them. Small favors Pedosus goes to the glue factory after the season ends.

 

Yes, everything is wrong there. And regardless of his age, nobody should be attracted to children. If he is a child, he shouldn't be that interested in a relationship (or at least not in the way we see), if he is a preteen/teen, he would be attracted to teenage girls or older. But his behavior shows he is very mature.

Btw, talking about age, it seems Pallapalla is the second oldest of the Amazon girls and the third (Vesves) is 14. So congratulations Usagi, somebody on your age is even more childish!

 

On 3/26/2021 at 2:16 PM, majestic said:

edit: Never mind, that's way too problematic to leave here. @Bartimaeus, @ArtistFormerlyKnownasKP if you're interested, I'll PM you the details. Let me know!

Now I'm curious.

 

15 hours ago, majestic said:

On the other hand, @InsaneCommander seems to love it, so hell if I know. That's the problem with these either hate or love it seasons. While SuperS is generally considered the worst outside of a few weirdos who think that the first was the best season and thought S was trash that only die-hard fans of the show could enjoy, there's really a strange divide on Sailor Stars. There's the anime fans that love it and think it's the best thing ever (or second best, next to S), the anime fans that hate it, and the manga readers who think that everything after the first season was bad because it didn't follow the manga closely enough.

After Super S, everyone will kind of love it.

I'm enjoying it. It has several funny episodes (especially the one with the chef). And it is very different in one aspect:

Spoiler

So far no Chibiusa or Mamoru, if you don't count the first 6 episodes and Mamoru's farewell.

 

On 3/26/2021 at 6:22 PM, Bartimaeus said:

  Hide contents

THEY'VE ALL HAD DREAMS OF PEGASUS SINCE THEY WERE KIDS!?

And they don't remember what happened in those dreams. So we better not think too much about it.

Also, better not think about what the three creeps will do now that they are non corporeal voyeurs that live in dreams.

Edited March 28, 2021 by InsaneCommander

[Bartimaeus]

15 minutes ago, InsaneCommander said:

Also, better not think about what the three creeps will do now that they are non corporeal voyeurs that live in dreams.

Unfortunately, I think I already have a pretty good idea, actually...

Spoiler

 

Edited March 28, 2021 by Bartimaeus

[majestic]

1 minute ago, Bartimaeus said:

All four of what you watched were very good episodes. While I've watched through the entire series twice (soon to be three if you keep watching), there are certain select episodes I've seen more than that because I occasionally like to revisit moments special to me, even though so much of the series is pretty permanently scarred into my brain at this point. There are even some episodes I've seen closer to ten times because they consistently make me feel in a way that not a lot else can, especially taking the fact that they're repeat viewings into account - like I said, this show feels like it was made for me, so even though I've seen some parts of it so much already, my brain still completely turns off while watching. You've got one of those very special episodes just a little ways off...

  Hide contents

Did you like the Evangelion "CONGRATULATIONS!" in The Test?

 

I, uh.

Spoiler

Have seen like 2 episodes of NGE and only know that the ending is supposedly super weird. I know the meme and found it mildly amusing, but I haven't actually seen it... uhm, yeah.

Also completely know what you're talking about. When I feel like that I turn on an Andromeda episode or two, usually Star-Crossed or The Mathematics of Tears. Or, interestingly enough, I've seen the talisman episode of S a couple of times now. It's really up there, that ending affects me no matter how often I watch... or how much I know it'll be all right.
 

Spoiler

 

Both of the Andromeda episodes deal with Rommie and her ongoing struggle with her new avatar body, her relationship to the crew and being afraid (and as you can imagine by the title alone, Star-Crossed has her fall in love to... not a very pretty end). Spoilers, I guess, as if anyone would watch the show, but I'll mark them anyway.

Background information: High Guard ships of the Line were really advanced in their day and could only be run with the help of full AIs, so Andromeda is really just like any other sentient being, except she has no body for the first few episodes. The pilot episode has them trying a slingshot maneuver around a black hole in order to get out of an ambush that marks the beginning of an uprising against the Systems Commonwealth, a Type III civilization on the Kardashev scale spanning the Milky Way, Andromeda and Triangulum, but it fails and they lose 300 years in time dilation.
 

Spoiler

 

Minor tangent (spoilered off for better formatting)

While the uprising failed insofar as that the attackers did not manage to establish an empire of their own (and infighting caused them to fracture into several smaller groups) they did take the Commonwealth down with them. The current time this is set in has a very dark ages / post Roman Empire feel to it. Fun fact, that early time travel episode puts the crew and the Andromeda at the point in time where the decisive battle between the Nietzscheans (the attacking force, formely part of the Commonwealth) and the Commonwealth was fought.

They immediately begin to discuss if and how they should try to fix history, Tyr, the Nietzschean on the crew, argues that the Commonwealth is all but destroyed anyway, but if they could prevent the Nietzschean prides from fracturing they might at least restore order to the galaxy (if not the Democratic government Dylan, the captain played by Sorbo) would want. The engineer (Harper), who grew up on an Nietzschean occupied Earth, meanwhile works on a way to blow the incoming Nietzschean forces to smithereens, which should be easy - they know exactly when and where the ships will show up after all.

Dylan decides to not interfere with history only to notice that the historical data seems to be inaccurate. The Nietzschean force is a hundreds of times stronger than historical records suggest. The episode ends with Tyr deciding that he'd rather take his chance surviving in the present there is, rather than potentially die trying to fix the past for his people, so he helps the others in what essentially is a mass slaughter of his own people. It gives good insight into his behavior for later. Well wasn't that a tangent.

 

In The Mathematics of Tears they follow rumors of a surviving High Guard ship, only to find Andromeda's older "sister", another cruiser of her type, the Pax Magellanic, in an asteroid field where a planet is supposed to be. At this point Harper already built her body. The andriod version of her is for the most part, autonomous, somewhat seperate from the ship AI but essentially the same (i.e. she ha full control of the ship's systems, but technically couldn't refuse an order by the ship AI). Important for later, but... yeah, never mind.

The Pax has lost FTL capabilities and is 400 years of sub light travel away from the nearest population center. The AI seems stuck in a loop, the only transmission they can get out of here is "no tears", but surprisingly they do find crew members on board. They tell Dylan and the others that they tried to fight off a Nietzschean attack and that the Nietzscheans destroyed the planet, their FTL capabilitiy was destroyed and they've been stuck there for a while, but they stopped aging.

Curious about that they immediately begin testing the crew, looking at the debris and Dylan orders Harper (whose actual first name is Seamus, and nobody calls him that, just Harper) to help them fix the Pax's FTL drive. Meanwhile Rommie tries to help her fellow AI.

Try tells Dylan that the story is bogus, because Nietzscheans, for all their faults, would never destroy a habitable planet on purpose, not even when facing defeat, and Dylan knows that too. They find out that the crewmembers of the Pax aren't human but androids, and that one of them is the ship's avatar, like Rommie is for Andromeda. Going over the logs and fixing the struggling Pax AI they find out what happened. The captain of the Pax had her build an android body for herself, and they actually had an affair.

During the battle on the planet the High Guard's defense collapsed and the captain ordered the Pax to self destruct so that she doesn't fall into enemy hands. Confused by her love wanting to kill herself the AI got stuck, used the ejected the FTL drive core as a weapon and accidentially destroyed the planet - including the person she felt betrayed by. The Pax ends up attacking the Andromeda. They do fire back in an attempt to disable the ship, but the Pax doesn't activate any defenses, and just explodes.

Back on the ship Rommie and Rev Bem (eh, who I haven't mentioned yet, he's essentially a wandering priest that was on Beka's team but stuck around because he likes the idea of recreating the Commonwealth) talk a bit about emotions. Rommie is uncertain about crying, because that's entirely new to her, and something the Pax Magellanic didn't understand (hence the episode title and "no tears" on repeat).

Rev tries to console her, but Rommie is terrified that she'll end up like the Pax, and asks, since he is a priest and believes in such things, if High Guard AIs can even have souls. Bem says that he thinks that anyone capable of love has a soul (if that sounds like a certain plot point in Mass Effect 3 then that's because it... is, EDI is also essentially the same as Rommie). Rommie doesn't like that answer too much and says that love may just drive someone crazy as they've just witnessed.

Rev looks at her and says: "Then maybe that is what tears are for."

The episode ends with Rommie crying over the loss of family and because she's afraid, finding an outlet for the emotions that the Pax kept pent up to her detriment.

Star-Crossed on the other hand has her falling in love for the first time. She's completely school-girls silly about it, including wanting to abscond with someone she just met, and the crew is really nice to her about it, even if she itself is weirded out by it (she says "I'm supposed to be warship, not a lovesick schoolgirl!"). Except for Tyr who finds the romance ridiculous because love is a trick played by your brain in order to propagate your genes, and androids have no genes to pass on. Rommie calls him a cynic.

The episode also makes it clear that avatar Rommie is distinct from the ship AI in some ways. They start arguing with each other. Or... with herself. It's a confusing scene for them.

But with the title being what it is, they do find out that Gabriel, the android she fell in love with, is actually just there to disable her defenses. His love for Rommie is real, but he can't refuse a command from his governing AI any more than she could. He tells the Balance of Judgement, a former High Guard ship and now leader of the Restorians (a recurring enemy in the first season), a group of terrorists believing that space travel was a mistake and ever race should stick to their home planets, where the Andromeda is and sabotages her.

After the confrontation, the now freed Gabriel and Rommie still want to leave the ship, but Rommie finds out that Gabriel is still lying to her, because Gabriel has received a transmission from the Balance: A current copy of its AI. Rommie is forced to destroy Gabriel, and afterwards asks Dylan for permission to decommission her android body. It's more trouble than it is worth, she hates the emotions she has to go through and she hates herself for killing Gabriel, and more importantly she doesn't want to end up like either the Pax or the Balance, both of whom had avatars that caused their ships to go insane.  

Dylan hugs her and tells her that no, she has no permission to be "chopped into pieces and thrown out of the airlock" and that it is part of being human to go through emotions like that, and that he and the crew not only need her, but consider her a valued friend. Rommie asks if the pain will ever go away, and Dylan says: "I don't think it is supposed to."

's funny, that's probably the sort of scene and dialogue Kevin Sorbo didn't want to play. Too sappy, huh?

That blurb reads like a silly fanfic romance novel, and it really comes across as such without seeing the episode. It's the actor's performances that really sell it - and the chemistry between Rommie and Gabriel. On the other hand, the two of them kind of cheated. Michael Shanks and Alexandra... ahem, Shanks, these days, met and actually really fell in love with each other on the set.  

+1 for romance.

Anyway, seeing Rommie deal with emotions and her reactions to them gets me every time. She reminds me of one of the Sailor Guardians that I like so much. You know, strong, powerful, yet oddly vulnerable at the same time? Hmm... dunno. Heh. Must be my imagination.

Well, that silly stuff ended rather abruptly though. Season 3+ Rommie is a stone cold badass killer author power fantasy who has no use for interesting interactions with the crew. Other than kicking ass and depopulating planets and stuff.

 

 

7 minutes ago, InsaneCommander said:

Spoiler

So far no Chibiusa or Mamoru, if you don't count the first 6 episodes and Mamoru's farewell.

 

Wait a moment.

Spoiler

Farewell? Is that an issue in the dub as well? Curious choice of words.

 

[InsaneCommander]

3 minutes ago, majestic said:

Wait a moment.

  Hide contents

Farewell? Is that an issue in the dub as well? Curious choice of words.

 

I meant

Spoiler

Usagi said goodbye to him. My choice of words, not the dub.

 

[majestic]

4 minutes ago, InsaneCommander said:

I meant

  Hide contents

Usagi said goodbye to him. My choice of words, not the dub.

 

 

Spoiler

No, no, I was referring to what the Three Lights say after you see Mamoru's plane, uhm, being lit up.

edit:

Also, are you CERTAIN you want to read a story outline for a slashfic? If so, then yeah, I'll send you a copy. 

Edited March 28, 2021 by majestic

[Bartimaeus]

2 hours ago, majestic said:

That blurb reads like a silly fanfic romance novel, and it really comes across as such without seeing the episode. It's the actor's performances that really sell it - and the chemistry between Rommie and Gabriel. On the other hand, the two of them kind of cheated. Michael Shanks and Alexandra... ahem, Shanks, these days, met and actually really fell in love with each other on the set.  

Nah, that sappy-but-well-written character-driven garbage is exactly what I live for with characters I love, so I totally get it (and is why I recommended Steven Universe in the first place on the basis of what I thought you most loved in regards to the Sailor Moon characters - that and the fact that it has other good qualities besides just that). It's impossible to get the feelings you do without actually seeing the show and loving its characters like you do, but I get it on an empathetic level.

2 hours ago, majestic said:

Anyway, seeing Rommie deal with emotions and her reactions to them gets me every time. She reminds me of one of the Sailor Guardians that I like so much. You know, strong, powerful, yet oddly vulnerable at the same time? Hmm... dunno. Heh. Must be my imagination.

This is one of my favorite character types (when executed well, of course) - unfortunately for Makoto who most strongly represents this in least Sailor Moon, it comes right after the difficult-to-adequately-encapsulate (oxy)moron/paradox character who's all over the place that is Minako, .

Once again, a big middle finger to Kevin Sorbo (...and anyone else that was a part of that show's willful slide into 'Hercules in Space'), .

(e): also my b about the Evangelion thing, thought for some reason you'd seen Evangelion already

Edited March 28, 2021 by Bartimaeus

[InsaneCommander]

2 hours ago, majestic said:

 

  Hide contents

No, no, I was referring to what the Three Lights say after you see Mamoru's plane, uhm, being lit up.

edit:

Also, are you CERTAIN you want to read a story outline for a slashfic? If so, then yeah, I'll send you a copy. 

Why not? You made me curious now.