Stock Icon Challenge

Hi, sorry, I've been lost to the Pokopia dimension XD Real talk, I've been unable to put it down, and I only managed to get through the JP enstars event through sheer force of desire to have New Characters.

so yeah that was cool but pokemon is my life now XD

ALSO OH MY GODDDDDDDDDD I can't get too into it because I'm already zested, but the end of Trigun Stargaze? Way to shit on everything Stampede built up...and like, I didn't even like Stampede that much compared to 98 and the manga. And yet this was worse! It was so much worse that I it's been hours and I'm still enraged + baffled at the choices.

ughhhhhhhhh

I'm gonna paraphrase some of Liz's thoughts because they made really good ones and my brain is mush from frustration. But like. Stargaze has a lot of the same problems Stampede had with pacing and tone, but magnified to such an extreme that I can't take it seriously. I was honestly trying to give it a chance because so many people were hating on it + it took me awhile to get on board with Stampede, but yikes. This is...not a good anime. So much of it felt like "hey you know that scene from trimax that you loved? we recreated it without any understanding of what made it good or impactful!!! that's what you wanted, right?????"

And so then the final episode was all of that and more. There was a mostly mediocre, uninspired space battle + Vash and Knives fighting, and like okay. I know Trigun is DEEP SPACE PLANET FUTURE GUN ACTION but it's not all just......firing lasers in space, you know? I hate space lasers but Trigun made me love the setting, and Stargaze absolutely didn't. There was no Chronica and Domina - which I predicted, but I'm still disappointed - and we did the stupid fucking "pan over every named character to see what they're doing during the Big Fight™ as a way to pretend they're still important to the action" that I haaaaaaaaate.

ALSO. I'M SORRY. Vash would not try to coerce Knives into dying with him/committing suicide together. Like??????????? THAT'S NOT VASH THE STAMPEDE!!!! That's something Knives would pull, yeah, but it just felt sooooooo OOC in a way to seem ~edgy~ or something, idk. But I guess since Knives died to save Vash, it's "fine" and he's "redeemed" or whatever because he was sad about it, weh weh. GIMME A BREAK.

Don't even get me started on how they did Legato dirty. His death was had no fucking weight because they never did anything to build him up into a threat!!!!! He basically never became more than Knives's thirstiest follower, and that's an insult to his character. He's got more depth and yeah, he's a terrible person, but Stargaze pretty much made him into a generic anime villain who's just evil and gay coded. Thanks. That's totally all there is to Legato.

So, yeah, Knives's death was just. Shrugs. It didn't feel like anything. And that's kinda how most of Stargaze felt!!! And like they just couldn't properly decide what they were doing, so it just.....didn't matter? Are doing an everyone lives AU? Not for long! We can't actually save everyone, we better kill off the """irredeemable""" ones!! And we can't do anything with the ones we let live, especially Wolfwood, so they can just....stand around, I guess? You like that, right?

NO. I DON'T LIKE THAT AT ALL, STUDIO ORANGE. How could you do this to me ;w;

Oh but of course we have to find a way to shoehorn in the ending of Trimax, even though we'd been in the middle of a tonally different conversation. Tonal whiplash is the best way to tell a story, you know! And then we've got the final shot of Vash doing his signature ✌🏻 with the crossed fingers cuz we gotta check all the boxes!!! This is how you make Trigun Good, right?

I also hate that basically everyone but a select few scientists are leaving Nomans Land??? Like....okay yeah it wasn't great there, but it feels like it's missing the theme of human determination and making something beautiful out of a less than ideal situation. Just another example of Stargaze missing the mark!!!!!!!

okay. okay. I gotta stop because I have to eat lunch and get some writing done I was just so upset I had to write it out.

I really thought this entry would be shorter oops

ON A FINAL, GOOD NOTE, TODAY MARKS THE FIRST DAY OF MATRIX IN ENGSTARS!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I was one of the few people who really liked it and I remember posting about it as it was coming out...an early liveblog of enstars ;w; Very nostalgic, very good. I'm looking forward to reading it properly now that it's out on the ENG server~

And I'm finally gonna try to type of the popstar Knives AU I wrote in.....2023.......................


sittin' at my desk and everything!!!!