#sm rants

I'd even say it was going great, except, of course, for the fact that NO ONE IS TELLING ME ANYTHING.

And not little things. I'm talking important things. Things the fucking STAGE MANAGER kind of needs to know.

There have been at least 5 instances of a line being cut without me being informed, and I'm not sure if that's the on production assistant or not. All I know is that I'm not being told, it's not in the fucking prompt book, and it sure as hell didn't change when I was there.

And, of course, when I am there, the director doesn't tell me. He tells the actors and I have to do my best to hear all the changes over a bunch of chatty pre-teens and/or directly ask because apparently he can't be fucking bothered to tell me.

On another note, he'll ask me to read lines for someone who isn't there. Pretty standard, and it's not like I'm not on book so what's the harm. But then sometimes he'll just decide to do it himself. Which, while aggravating, whatever I can deal, it's fine. Well, it would be fine that is, if he actually read the fucking lines of the script that he fucking wrote instead of ad-libbing out of his ass, taking a ridiculous amount of time and majorly fucking up the lines, and therefore confusing the kids and making it harder for them to get their lines right.

And then he's getting on the kids about how they have to memorize their lines and it's disrespectful to the playwright to paraphrase even though he literally told them that its the intent and not the words themselves that matter.

And these are fucking middle school children getting yelled at by a man decades older than their parents in a summer camp that's supposed to be fun.

Like, sure, I'll raise my voice to tell them to be quiet and get a little testy when it's the third time in 20 minutes.

But there's a difference between being told "Quiet backstage please!" and "Remember to look over your lines!" and "Don't leave your props laying around backstage!" or "Don't play with the basketball, it's a prop not toy!" by an eighteen year old girl and getting yelled at and lectured every fucking day by a half-deaf white man in his late sixties.

This man literally threw his keys at (they slid across the stage, but intent) a group of kids for being chatty. The production assistant told me that one of the speakers doesn't work because of this man and a similar incident. My friend who helped me get a job here told me she was sorry that I ended up with him as my director, said she'd worked with him for three years and he was the literally worst. He gets special treatment when it comes to tech stuff not because he deserves it but because he's an entitled asshole who'll fuck shit up when (not if, when) he tries to do it himself.

Sooo, anon somehow felt the need to send me so many asks that I had to lower the zoom down to 75% in order to encapture them all. Phew! This is going to require a bit of time.

Nothing. Absolutely nothing. Because it’s clear you don’t know your Sailor Moon history well enough to be able to argue about it. Which isn’t anything bad by itself, of course, but it becomes bad if you somehow still feel entitled enough to have discussions in spite of your very flawed knowledge of the facts. But alas, I am a weak person who loves engaging in discourse, so I’ll still take the time necessary to prove you wrong. First of all, it’s not “5-10 years”: from 2005 to 2010 is five years, I believe, 5 and a half if you really want to be retentive. Second, your blind obsession with the old anime somehow made you forget that not just it, but all kinds of Sailor Moon media were put on hold during that period: ever wondered why OldMyu suddenly stopped with Marina’s graduation in 2005 instead of just passing the tiara to another actress like they always did before? No? Did you know that PGSM, which originally aired on TV between 2003 and 2004, was released in two DVD boxes in 2005 that were retired from commerce after only a few months? Did you know that the shinsoban edition of the manga was printed concurrently (2003/2004) and was also retired from commerce in the fated 2005? Did you know that nearly all of these media (the volumes of the manga, the disksets of the anime and the live-action) then reappeared on the shelves in 2010, after the ban was out, except for the musicals, which used to be the most mistreated medium? Or did you think that the 5-year ban only worked for the anime because that’s everything that exists in your mind? Now, we can all discuss hours about the causes of this ban, because different sources claim different reasons for Naoko Takeuchi to decide to put her series in a commercial stasis only to soon change her mind, and it’s a very difficult topic to discuss; but I honestly believe you lack the knowledge necessary to even think of entering the discussion. Now, if you didn’t notice, all of the above also worked outside of Japan: all over the world, in 2005 volumes of the manga and cassettes of the anime were pulled off the shelves. The possibility of getting a non-Japanese version of the shinsoban edition was immediately aborted, and the only media not affected were Sera Myu and PGSM because, as we know, they were never exported to begin with. But, as soon as the ban ended, things changed! Around 2011, many countries around the world started translating the shinsoban edition of the manga and publishing new releases of the anime in the DVD format that they couldn’t use beforehand and, hell, even a freaking videogame for the Nintendo DS was published! You know, it may sound incredible to your ears, but the Sailor Moon world actually doesn’t rotate around the old anime!

Regarding Stars, then, you’ve got your facts all wrong: the fact that you didn’t have it imported back then has got absolutely nothing to do with the Japanese producers and publishers - not with PNP, not with Kodansha, not with Toei, obviously not with Bandai - and instead all to do with your own importing company, Dic or Viz or however it’s called since it seems to be always changing. You might know (but who am I trying to fool?) that the same exact thing also happened in France, where, like in the USA, they decided to stop importing Sailor Moon after the end of the fourth season because they couldn’t come up with a clever enough idea to censor the Starlights’ hermaphroditism. On the contrary, countries with more clever adaptators imported the fifth season regularly in 1998! So, as you see, you really have to blame no one but the censors working for the company of your very own country for the fact that you weren’t able to enjoy a crazily censored version of your precious Sailor Stars back in the 90′s and instead had to wait till 2019 for a loyal adaptation that’s bound to come out in two ultradeluxe Blue-Ray boxes that most US fans will still complain about because their video quality isn’t enough for them to be able to distinguish every single drop of colour on the filmed cels.

Oh! A woman with opinions different from mine! We can’t allow it! But clearly she wasn’t speaking seriously, now was she? Naaah, no one can be serious if their opinion is so drastically different from mine! The fact that you think that all I’m basing my preferences about are the elongated limbs is clear intellectual dishonesty, because you should know perfectly that otherwise I’d be praising Katsumi Tamegai to death, who is the only artist who drew the girls as if they were positively anorexical. And the fact that you think that a character designer’s artworks (which mainly consist of settei) could and should emote tells me that you don’t know the difference between character designing and animation direction. But, somehow, you’ve still got the presumption to act as the lecturer here.

Wow! Arguing with me is so important to you that you actually went and sent me the same answer twice! I’m so flattered! <3

(2/2) Volume dropped but apparently not if we go by the fact that the 3rd Edition was pushed back with no prior notice. And no explanation that I can find. Just boom all of a sudden we’re having to wait four months for 3.