#final thoughts

[therandomestwriter]

Oh, Euphoria… 🤦🏻‍♀️

Going to be honest, I’m glad the show is finally over. That last season was fucking rough to get through (although that last episode or two weren’t too bad despite how bleak it all was).

I get they wanted to give Nate some bad karma right back, but holy shit. His scenes annoyed the shit out of me even if Jacob acted the shit out of them.

And precious Rue… oh, baby girl. I wish things had worked out better for you. They really put you through some craziness.

[yen-sids-tournament]

The Coolest Disney Castle Winner Bracket

The winner of this Mini Tournament is The Beast's Castle from the 1991 Beauty and the Beast!

Thank you to everyone who submitted, voted, and/or gave notes to the event.

We were excited for the wide range of 'castles' these 14 ended up being. They were not only homes to the official Princesses and their families, but villains, heroes, emperors, and others. Pulled from not just animated classics but also reached into television, game, a park, and more movies. We also love the range in design, from ruins to sprawling palaces, to pointed spires, and even a rock formation! And their location: the real world, the deep sea, lost in a forest, an island, in the middle of a city, on the shore, and in the mountains.

Some choices were clearly harder than others, but we think each structure has a special quality that will always set them apart in the best of ways. (like ice, ice really can make a cool castle)

It has been noted that one's home is their castle, so even if none of the above descriptors applies to your dwelling, it can still be your castle if you want it to be!

[kittencrowley]

I keep telling myself that the Good Omens finale won’t be as bad as Game of Thrones.

—The only other fandom I was in that wasn’t completely finished before I joined—

There’s no way it’s gonna be that disastrous.

[yen-sids-tournament]

Poor Little Orphans No More!

First off, thank you to everyone who participated in the tournament. Votes, submissions, and notes alike. Without you this whole blog wouldn't happen.

Our winner is Quasimodo from the 1996 The Hunchback of Notre Dame film. Having been orphaned as a baby when his mother tried to flee Judge Frollo's hatred with him only to end up dead. And that was only the start. Yet he never truly let it get him down.

Nani Pelekai and Lilo Pelekai both had a single loss on their record. (Lilo's to Nani and Nani's to Quasi) The sisters were both orphaned after a rainy car crash but the after math for the young adult and the young child were quite different. Luckily they found their way back to Ohana.

And the last of our top group was Koda. A fit of rage taking his mother from him was the start but the worst part might have been finding out who was responsible. However he is blessed with a final moment with his mother allowing healing to begin.

Along the way to this finality there were many exciting moments! We started with two rounds of 16 polls (never let us do that again), the winners of the first facing off against the popular submission in the second.

It did surprise us how many of our selected orphans made it through both rounds, and who they bumped out! Elsa and Anna each failed to more on and Mama Coco took out Eugene! But the biggest surprise for use was how devoted the Gravity Falls fans were in this tournament. They managed to defeat some other popular franchises, like King from The Owl House, only falling to the one who took the title: Quasimodo. In fact, the most popular poll was the Shape Shifter v Quasimodo (677 votes!)

Thinking of all the orphans, they were from a fantastically wide variety of stories. The famous animated features did dominate, from the original Snow White and other classic eras to more forgotten films like the Rescuers, revival ear and modern icons. There were also actual human children, from the always positive Pollyanna to Pete (without his dragon). Some of you dabbled in the acquired and borrowed ips: Star Wars and the MCU had a few and there was an Annie and another Cinderella too. Disney also put orphans on the small screen, with five of them making the cut. And we had single reps from the Broadway Stage and international publishing/franchises. We love it all!

In all 48 polls we didn't get any ties, but there were a few decisions! The closest was the single point victory of Lewis Robinson over Princess Elena! Number two was animated Cinderella's victory over Oliver, the cardboard box kitten. There were also some pretty clear preferences, both Pelekai sisters won early rounds with over 85% of the love.

It's been a blast this month! We hope you'll return for the next game!

And as a reminder that all of these orphans (except apparently the Gravity Falls ones?) were able to get through their struggles and find happiness with the support of those around them. So always know that things do get better and try to be that better for those around you.

(alternative outlook: Play Pollyanna's game and soon everyone will play it for you.)

[stylistic-nightmare]

Obituary - Final Thoughts

[my-hyperfixation-station]

Okay I after beating the final boss of MHS3, I have some thoughts.

Spoilers below the cut

There are a few things I wish they had wrapped up better- what will happen with Clarissa and Eleanor in more detail, for example.

Can the Skyscale Rathalos Twins cure Crystallisis?

Since the Covenant was rewritten, how many Vermeilans will cross the Maridian for a new start? How about any Azurians?

All of these are things I think the story could have wrapped up better. But there is one thing I think they handled well- Amara's amnesia.

I am honestly fine with the fact she doesn't get her memories back, and stays with the Scriveners. As satisfying as it would have been for her to remember it all and come back to her husband, King Arken, and the player in Azuria... I think this is also a good outcome.

Not everything needs a perfect, happy ending. Instead of waving away her amnesia with a trope or something, the writers allowed Amara to remain an amnesiac, but also showed that she and the player are able to have a new, healthy relationship. It isn't perfect, and maybe one day Amara will remember it all, but for now, she is at peace with not knowing, and the player still gets to have her in their life again.

It isn't clean-cut, it is messy, and honestly it is a real representation of what can happen when a loved one loses their memories in real life. The game presents a valid and positive outcome for the Azurian royal family, without a magical fix-it.

Even the things I wish were clarified more that I listed above can also fall into this category. And as much as I want to know more, I also appreciate the open-ended approach the developers took. And if we never get those answers, that is okay.

I will just go to my own head canons and fanfiction, as I am sure many of us will do.

Now I just need the ability to explore post-final boss like the last titles, and all will be well.

[neospokenworld]

WINTER ANIME 2026 FINAL THOUGHTS (PART 2)

Part one here

‎(WARNING: SPOILERS. This is a Final Thoughts post, so I will be talking about my opinion on the story in general and that might delve into spoiler territory)

JUJUTSU KAISEN SEASON 3

‎You know... This is slowly getting better lol

‎As I said on my first impressions post back when the season started, I am not the biggest fan of jjk (everything before Shibuya was good but not much more, and Shibuya really amped the quality in my eyes from a 5-6/10 show to an 8/10 show) and while this season started just like S2 quality wise (good, but not that good) it quickly managed to tweak itself up and maintained a good enough quality for me to watch it fully.

‎Going onto the positives first, almost every character introduced this season (Hikari, Kirara, Higuruma, Takaba) was absolutely amazing and definitely deserve a spot among my favorites, especially Higuruma and both his style of fighting and his backstory, definitely a really well done one.

‎Now on the technical points it's obvious, but MAPPA really loves this show with how good everything looks. From fluid movements to insane camera work; great VA; obviously amazing animation, and fight choreography this season is absolutely a step up from the last one and one can only expect everything to continue going up from here honestly.

‎Lastly the OP was absolutely amazing as well, although that is a given seeing how King Gnu were the ones who made it lol, Specialz was great as well so no surprise there.

‎Negative? I still can't find it fully grabbing me. I feel that the season had good moments sure, but if you asked me what episodes I truly liked front to back I think it'll be at most 4 (Zenin Clan massacre, Kirara vs Fushiguro, Higuruma vs Yuji, and this finale) other than that is just getting it through most of the time and then seeing a good moment to leave somewhat satisfied lol. I still don't care about most of the main cast either so outside of those moments it's still just something to watch in the meantime rather than an anime for me to deeply follow.

‎Obviously this is just personal taste, if you like it then good, but for now I still can't find myself saying that I truly like this anime outside of "yeah it's good" lol.

‎In the end, pretty good season, it's definitely getting better as it goes.

ROLL OVER AND DIE

‎Started it only because it's a yuri, ended it being incredibly interested in the world lol

‎Seriously, I started it because I've been hearing amazing things about it from the Yuri community and well, they were right lol. Every character was really good and the story itself was pretty engaging; episode 9 was one that left me in the same state that shows like Chainsaw Man with it's 8th episode or Koyomimonogatari with it's final episode have done it before, that sense of absolute uncertainty and a question if "what now?" Because it was just that crazy in general, and while they did end up undoing quite a bit of what happened in that episode right at the finale, it still left quite a bit of lore drop and mysteries that genuinely got me hooked into knowing more about this world.

‎Only thing I didn't like was the usage of RPG terms since I found it quite jarring at the start, but I got used to it lol.

‎I definitely wish more people saw this anime, the relationship between Flum and Milkit is incredibly adorable, the action was good, it's more horror elements were well executed, and in general I would say it was a great anime in general.

‎Also the OP is a BANGER AND A HALF!! I know that PassCode was a good band (they did Shy's S2 opening "Wilshine" after all) but I really wasn't expecting that opening in the slightest, if you wanna give it a listen it's called "Liberator" and trust me, it's an amazing metal song lol.

‎Outside of that everything was pretty good in this anime, now the LNs await me because I 100% wanna know what happens after lol

SOUSOU NO FRIEREN SEASON 2

It doesn't matter if it's 28 episodes or just 10, Frieren continues to be a masterpiece of an anime...

It's crazy, because this show doesn't seem to drop from the perfection that it has been carrying from literal episode one. This will very likely be a shorter thoughts because everyone has already said everything there is about Frieren, but I gotta say that it really is a masterpiece in every side of the industry.

Even on this season that was definitely a bit slower than usual (no big conflict outside of Revolte, but it's understandable since it was a bit of an in-between season) it managed to deliver banger after banger of an episode every single time. From the warmth that the show gives me and has managed to get me really close to tears multiple times to the bits of action with it's very hype moments, Frieren literally never miss at all lol.

And even then they somehow managed to better perfection by bringing in motherfucking YUTAKA NAKAMURA ONTO THE SERIES, like omg that Revolte fight was insanely good to look at combining both his expertise (which to put a recent example look at Gachiakuta E21) and the already really high quality that Frieren already has by default. Truly amazing...

Now, it's time to wait. It'll be a long time until Fall 2027 (already all of my Oshis in Umamusume will be out on the global servers lol) but I'm sure it's gonna be worth the wait, because I've heard a lot of praises towards the Golden Land arc, I'm honestly really hyped about it but for now, truly an amazing show from beginning to end

HELL'S PARADISE SEASON 2

I was gonna read the manga but decided to put it on halt while I watched the season (to not spoil myself) and ngl I'm glad I did it lol.

This season was, just like the 1st one, extremely good. I'm so glad that we left behind rather quickly the amnesia plot point that they left hanging at the end of season one, since as we could see here we have much bigger problems now.

Definitely a season that everything that it needed to do they did it right, it's kinda crazy that this anime is probably outside of my top 5 of the season but it just shows you mow much quality there was in this anime season in general. This one in particular had great animation, good fights, intense emotional moments, and just about everything done the exact right way to be an amazing second season altogether.

Now my question is... How much is there left? Because as a somewhat anime only (I'll be returning to the manga soon) it seems like all that's left is kind of like movie length, or at least for a 5-6 episode miniseason to wrap things up. Because we already have our main fights about to happen and afterwards we'll need to finish up the Tensen altogether, and while they can help you last for 2-3 episodes each, Shugen & Co. Feel like it'll be one episode mostly; they're still humans at the end of the day...

Needless to say amazing season, can't wait for the final one!!

YOU AND I ARE POLAR OPPOSITES

This shit was so cute, I wish romance was real lol

But seriously, I think this might be my favorite anime for the season, evern surpassing Frieren and Gnosia. This literally felt like a comfort show for me to either end or start the week; with really lovable characters, a great humor, a nice little story and developement for each of the pair presented, and the best part being LITTLE TO NO DRAMA!!! You have no idea how much I adore that this series isn't looking for drama and it's just teens learning how to work in relationships lol.

Every single pair on this show was absolutely fricking cute in their own way. Tani and Suzuki starting their relationship extremely early and developing as individuals and as a couple as the series went on (you can clearly see Tani becoming more forward little by little as it continues, and Suzuki wanting to go further as it goes on as well) meanwhile Yamada and Nishi are more or less a genderbend version to put it in a way, but also developing slowly their own sort of relationship even if they aren't officially dating yet (Nishi on one hand thinking that it's one sided love and Yamada, while being in love, is still figuring that out himself) and lastly Taira and Azuma, while going much slower, they're slowly going into being less dejected individuals and maybe there end up being some sparks in there in the future when Taira learns that he can be happy lol.

Going into technical, the animation was surprisingly good and smooth with it's movements which definitely made this even more pleasant to watch, I absolutely love how in some scenes you'll get this really beautiful close ups fully encapsulating the love either Suzuki or Tani feels towards each other, I really hope we can get to see more scenes like that in S2 for the other couples too. There's also the more comedic ones where they end up making chibi versions of the characters (with Suzuki looking a bit more bear-like, or at least that's how I felt it lol) the visuals for the anime were surely a treat to watch

Musically it was also amazing, I really wasn't expecting to love both the OP and ED as much as I did but they are indeed amazing, and the BGM for the episodes was also really good and fit the show well.

Overall an amazing first season. From my understanding S2 will come in July and will cover the rest of the manga, so I'm extremely hyped for that lol.

And that's it!! Definitely a lot of really high quality shows, and a few more are on its way for the Spring season so if you got here, thanks for reading and see you in a few days for the first impressions post of Spring lol. Here's my ranking for every anime I saw this season:

You and I are Polar Opposites

Sousou no Frieren Season 2

Gnosia

Oshi No Ko Season 3

Roll Over and Die

Hell's Paradise S2

Shiboyugi

Does It Count If You Lose Your Innocence to an Android?

Jujutsu Kaisen Season 3