#5.11.23

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Phoebe on her IG story 🎀

This might seem out of nowhere bando but I actually can't stress enough just how much you've struck a nerve with me on this one. Because a very popular genre of like Sonic AU is just the cast beating Eggman and all other villains permanently, growing up, all their adventures end forever, and they just settle into boring generic capitalist jobs. Oh guys look Tails runs a mechanic shop, Cream and/or Amy sell flowers, Big owns a fishing shop, every single character regardless of actual characterisation settles into a boring life running a mom'n'pop. And I genuinely can't stand it. The idea that their exciting globe-trotting adventures should just stop so they can all settle down and get married and run fucking shops or whatever while every antagonist the series has ever seen is just dead in the water because he'd get in the way of Rouge selling jewellery legitimately pisses me off, and while I obviously don't make a point to shit on fanworks from people that are just making content they enjoy, every time I see somebody make or engage with one of these AUs I genuinely don't understand what they even get out of the Sonic series. The idea of playing like City Escape from Sonic Adventure 2 and jumping out of a helicopter onto the streets of San Francisco and then saying "this is cool I guess but what if instead of that Amy ran a restaurant???" just doesn't compute to me. It's so separate from the appeal of any part of the series that I just don't understand it at all. Why you would ever wish capitalism on Knuckles the Echidna is beyond my grasp.

Uhhh, I don't know man. I think a lot of the discussion prior to this anime release had me expecting the ending to be like, wayyyyyyy fucking worse than it actually ended up being. But at the same time it was a pretty bad ending and the more time I try to think about it the worse I feel that ending gets. More than anything else I think it trying to do a sympathetic angle for Eren where he was really trying to force a situation whereby his friends can become heroes is just like, huh? It's cheap. It's weird. I can't help but wonder if Iseyama was thinking like "oh I've accidentally made Eren an unlikeable piece of shit let's redeem him" not realising that him being an unlikeable piece of shit is the best thing about him. It's also weird in that it results in an ending that seems outwardly optimistic, before just being like "but nah shit's still fucked". Obviously shit's still fucked, I wouldn't have it any other way, I don't think a happy ending would even be possible in this setting. But that did make the optimism angle feel just a lot weirder. The thing is you can basically cut out lots of the Eren and Armin time travel conversation and have the core events end the same way and in that regard it's a decent enough ending - I'd describe the series as fundamentally cynical so it's not like the ending being bad for everyone involved would hurt the series. It's just that Eren and Armin convo is what the absolute fuck, you know? Fwiw though over the years I've gotten better at taking bad endings to good shows in stride, so like I still largely enjoy the rest of the series and think it's a worthwhile watch, this ending being ???? as hell hasn't like shattered my goodwill or anything like that. Fun series, questionable ending, sometimes that's enough. Attack on Titan was one of the earliest anime I watched and I believe the first one I watched subbed, and I guess a decade later that journey is finally over, but uhhhh I have no real sentimental statements to offer on that fact lol. It kinda just is what it is. But yeah no uhhh penis chat.

Next week I will continue working on the rough draft, and probably go back and make changes to the draft/making sure it is compliant with whatever format I end up using. Right now I am leaning MLA.