#as i've said before: You Can't Retroactively Change A Show That's Already Over

[vanilla-blessing]

qb's top 10 seasonal anime of 2022

2022 in anime was a year of many known quantities, but what really ended up sticking out were the shows few saw coming before they took the world by storm, and before we knew it, everyone was watching a guitar-playing pink blob with severe anxiety while drawing her band on every album cover ever made. 2022 was the year I watched a new Gundam for the first time, I experienced unforgettable trash gems like Pride of Orange, ESTAB-LIFE, and Extreme Hearts, and I was let down more by the wasted potential of the Biscuit Hammer anime than any anime I've ever watched, easily. All considered, this year was unusually good on average for the shows I finished, so I ended up with a glut of series I wanted to put on this list that I had to cut down for time. I would make this list longer, but you know, then it might come out in 2024.

Top 10 in order:

Cyberpunk Edgerunners - Studio TRIGGER's take on the world of Cyberpunk 2077 was an unexpected contender - it was announced so long ago I sort of forgot about it, I wasn't expecting much from the batch release of a Netflix-Trigger anime after BNA's messy release, I underestimated the potential of Cyberpunk 2077 as a setting after the very public trash fire of the video game, and it should have been overshadowed by the next thing after a quick Netflix dump in the middle of a season. Should have had its lunch eaten by the similarly edgy violent action of Chainsawman, should have been yet another failed videogame anime, but none of this stopped Cyberpunk Edgerunners from being the anime I enjoyed the most from 2022.

Bocchi the Rock - the breakout hit school band anime of 2022 was also relatively unexpected, although I at least knew it was stacked with talented animators going in, I didn't predict the sheer memetic power of the result. This series shatters the fourth wall over its knee and livens up an already pretty funny manga with demented, free-flowing gags in a particular way that wouldn't work at all without detailed and well planned sequences which come off so naturally it's hard to believe this was originally a (lightly subversive but still) 4 panel strip. The album cover redraws were the best thing to come out of Bocchi and I hope they never end.

Pop Team Epic 2 - some kind of fucked up comic strip but aoi shouta is there? I thought they promised they wouldn't make this

Mob Psycho 100 III - everything I said about the second season of the popular shonen manga adaptation but moreso, it finishes out the series in exactly the way I hoped it would. Third OP is just mad flexing. look how many hands we can draw. Episode 8 changed my life forever. knowing they nailed the landing retroactively improves the whole series for me.

Do It Yourself - original anime by studio PINE JAM, DIY is pure aesthetic hobby-ani with a mildly entertaining cast of extremely animated characters. very enjoyable but may not have enough momentum or things happening for some. soundtrack is another standout by y0c1e but at a noticeably different speed from Gleipnir and Spyce.

Kaguya-sama Love is War: Ultra Romantic - everything I said about the second season of the popular romcom manga adaptation but moreso, it reaches the climactic peak of the series in exactly the way I hoped it would. I'm still reeling from the entire rap battle episode (sub and dub), and can't believe the Starship Troopers ED was real.

My Dress Up Darling (Sono Bisque Doll wa Koi wo Suru) - excellent manga adaptation, effectively gets across the dangerously horny but strangely wholesome vibe of the series.

The Demon Girl Next Door Season 2 - everything I said about the first season of the popular magical girl romcom manga adaptation but moreso, it reaches an inflection point in the manga with exactly the same manic pacing and blatant disregard for breathing room I hoped it would. out of everything else on my list I hope the most this one gets another season, because it kind of needs it.

Mobile Suit Gundam: Witch from Mercury - original anime in the long-running GUNDAM series which is sort of like Robot Jox for kids. This is definitely the first time I've watched anything from Gundam before it was completed and I immediately regretted not having more to watch as a direct consequence. Half of my enjoyment right now is coming from experiencing it in tandem with the rest of the internet, but it's sure to hold up in retrospect as one of the best modern Gundam seasons. Look forward to a future very annoying post by me claiming g-witch ripped off Granbelm.

Call of the Night - another above and beyond manga adaptation, probably the anime OP of the year. It strongly intensified my longing for studio SHAFT to not be dead anymore.

Assorted Shoutouts

Going by rating number scale rules, Chainsawman and Spy X Family should be here, but I'm not going by rating, I'm going by what I feel deserves more attention. those anime already have too much recognition.

The Executioner and Her Way of Life (Shokei Shoujo no Virgin Road) - If you asked me what the most hidden gem is from 2022, this is what I would answer immediately. Irresponsibly complicated and unusual take on the hated isekai genre in the most disrespectful way possible, twisting anything familiar about that tired setting into an unrecognizable pretzel shape. Recommending this is a challenge, because the less I explain the better it is, but nobody would want to watch this on its face. Everyone should watch it though.

Ya Boy Kongming - banger soundtrack and some eye-popping color choice elevates this manga adaptation from average to a certified Cool Time.

JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: STONE OCEAN - My favorite (not best) Jojo part, the anime greatly improves the readability of the last third from the manga. Tokyo Mew Mew New - It's almost comforting how little they tried to update the love triangle of incredibly shit boyfriends in this remarkably normal magical girl anime reboot. I pleaded for someone to make a normal regular magical girl anime reboot and they delivered something totally acceptable.

Reiwa Di Gi Charat - Dejiko drags society kicking and screaming into the Reiwa era. This is the anime of all time of 1999, 2022 and 2023.

qb - friend of the no show (@queuebae on twitter still, unfortunately)

#2022 anime list #vanilla blessing #puraore #reiwadigicharat #bocchi za rokku #mob psycho 100 #dejiko

[forgottenpnffacts]

I didn't really like the new movie because It didn't fit kn the PnF timeline, with Bufford and Candace not recognizing Doof or Perry not knowing that that Doof wouldn't recorgnize him without his hat. Where do you think that this movie takes place in the timeline? (And what is your opinion on the movie as a true PnF fan?)

While I do like the movie, i’m not considering it canon at all (especially since Phineas and Ferb officially ended in 2015)! If anything, it takes place in an alternate timeline where Candace was in the right position to notice the pod before it went back, or even in just a similar alternate dimension in general like the ”Lost in Danville” and Phineas and Ferb the Movie: Across the 2nd Dimension ones (as then the various inconsistencies seen in the movie wouldn’t be such).

Even beyond everything I said in the second linked post above (which I strongly urge anyone who’s interested to read before this part) about the various errors/inconsistencies and the drastic developments from the movie not fitting in with the entire rest of the series: when would Phineas and Ferb the Movie: Candace Against the Universe be able to happen in the existing timeline? You nailed it that Doof and Buford teamed up in “Bully Bromance Breakup,” but didn’t initially know each other in that episode. If CATU came before, they would have recognized each other then. If CATU came after, they would have recognized each other from that. In “Night of the Living Pharmacists” (which takes place after “Phineas and Ferb: Summer Belongs to You!” since Phineas references their bouncing around the world in NOTLP, and is the last episode set in the show’s universe/summer before “Last Day of Summer”) the kids (sans Baljeet and Buford since they were already infected by then) don’t know who Doof is. If CATU came before, they would have recognized each other then. If CATU came after, they would have recognized each other from that. Phineas and Ferb the Movie: Across the 2nd Dimension takes place around mid-July due to a reference to the July 11th episode “Candace Loses Her Head.” When Phineas and Ferb talk about making Candace a gift in CATU, they also reference “Candace Loses Her Head,” which means CATU would be at least in July or later. If CATU came before ATSD, then Phineas and Ferb would have recognized Doof then. 

If CATU were canon, Dwampy say that it would be set in the middle of the summer that PnF takes place in, which means definitely after “Phineas and Ferb: Summer Belongs to You!” in June since all the kids are supposed to know Vanessa already but not Doof (this makes Candace singing at the end of CATU about learning how Phineas and Ferb aren’t the bane of her existence inconsistent with how she already learned/sung about that in “Phineas and Ferb: Summer Belongs to You!”). ATSD being in July means that it already took the spot of being set roughly in the middle of summer (not to mention Candace singing in CATU about the growth elixir from “Attack of the 50 Foot Sister” means that CATU would definitely take place after the middle of summer). If CATU took place after ATSD, then aside from the issue of it no longer being in the middle of summer, we also just run into the problem again of the events and developments that happened in the movie never having any impact or being mentioned/referenced again (compared to the events of ATSD being referenced at least three times in Seasons 3 and 4, even with the mind-wipe that everyone but Perry went through). Additionally, Dwampy have been shown to be wrong about PnF before (and in general tend to dig themselves into plot holes when releasing information outside of the show), so i’m not putting much stock in their word on CATU.

Bonus thoughts regarding Seasons/episodes without hard dates: Candace learned by “Sci-Fi Pie Fly” in Season 3 that she can take a break from busting to the betterment of her mental health sometimes. When does this movie take place? Candace mentions pyramid sports and a Trojan horse in her CATU "Such a Beautiful Day” song, and those projects were respectively from “Thanks But No Thanks” and “Troy Story,” which are Season 4 episodes. In “Thanks But No Thanks,” Vanessa is dating Monty, which only happened after “Sipping with the Enemy” in Season 3. When does this movie take place? Also in "Such a Beautiful Day,” Candace references “Buford Confidential” (which takes place after “Phineas and Ferb: Summer Belongs to You!” and around “This is Your Backstory,” in which ATSD gets referenced) as “other nonsense coming soon.” When does this movie take place? Candace says she's feeling for the first time ever like she's someone/that she matters, but she was a person of importance in “Lawn Gnome Beach Party of Terror”/“Flop Starz”/“Run Away Runway”/“Lights, Candace, Action!”/“Unfair Science Fair Redux (Another Story)” (which gets referenced by Baljeet in CATU)/“Gi-Ants” (”Gi-Ants” taking place in May). When does this movie take place? 

My verdict? it doesn’t.

#as i've said before: You Can't Retroactively Change A Show That's Already Over #like if you bury a time capsule you can't dig it up years later to add something to it and then bury it again #anyway i don't want to throw the baby out with the bathwater so the original run of pnf is the canon i stick by #(i don't consider the new chibi shorts or the old doof's daily dirt series to be canon either) #i think of pnf's canon like a jigsaw puzzle: we already have all the pieces & these new ones being thrown in don't match the box's picture #if any of you still want to believe it's canon then best of luck with reconciling the movie with the rest of the series (i couldn't do it) #just be prepared to retcon all of PnF in the process #jacky1-4ever #asks #long post

[womenfrommars]

Hello Juno! Since "Laurel" Hubbard I've been researching a lot about the Barr Test and all other genetic procedures natal women have to go through to "prove" they're women before being allowed to compete. It's contradictory, in my view, to state that women with XXY chromossomes have an advantage, but, at the same time, allow XY athletes like Mr. Hubbard into major sports events such as the Olympics. Sounds like the International Olympic Comitee has no clear reasons as to why apply the Barr Test to women, because, once the reason would be ban people with physical advantages, how could a natal man not have those and a XXY be considered a threat? However, I still don't understand why some people call those tests discriminatory against natal women who happen to have "abnormal" chromossomes, because if they do indeed have an advantage over XX women that'd be unfair, no? Not as much a grown ass man competing, but an advantage nonetheless. Do you mind to share your opinions on women taking those tests as a mandatory procedure?

Hi anon, I don't know of any XXY women. I believe XXY is called Klinefelter's and leads to the development of normal male genitalia. I do know XY women are overrepresented in female sports, but whether or not this is unfair depends on your definition of unfairness. Surely, we wouldn't object to an overly tall person becoming an extremely successful professional basketball player. The fact of the matter is, many professional athletes have ''quirks'' about their body that gives them a great advantage. Michael Phelps, for instance, has a unique body that is perfectly suited for swimming. Usain Bolt, fastest man in the world, likewise has an advantage because he is quite tall. When competing against shorter male athletes, you could argue the race is unfair, but professional sports can never be completely ''fair'' in the sense it is impossible to compare equal bodies, given every body is different. Professional sports show us the ultimate capacities of the human body, so naturally the athletes will often be exceptional people.

The thing is, we segregate sports by sex because male and female bodies have different capacities. Women are actually better at sports that require elegance (e.g. ice skating) because the female body is more flexible. When allowing males in female sports leagues, you'd also create a situation where average male athletes compete against exceptional female athletes. These men are cheating, plain and simple. MTF athletes have often competed against males before transitioning, and their performances were often average. They want to enter the female league so their rank will be higher. In my opinion that's not the same as allowing an exceptional woman to compete against more typical women. Female sports are meant to show the capacities of exceptional women, not the performances of average male athletes.

I believe the testing is very complicated, however. You can simply go by sex registered at birth, but in several countries, transsexuals can change the sex on their birth certificate. Testing with hormones is probably not very reliable (and I believe it was introduced for the benefit of transsexual athletes) and chromosomal testing may not necessarily reveal someone's level of performance or their ''true'' sex (like I said, some women have XY chromosomes, for women with Swyer syndrome and CAIS). So as for the testing, I don't know what to do. I'd suggest simply going by birth certificate, because I don't support legal sex changes for transsexuals in the first place. I don't know if retroactively reversing legal sex changes is possible though. You can outlaw the practice but I'm not sure if you can reverse the changes that have already been made. I believe the book ''TRANS'' by Helen Joyce talks about the sports thing and all the various ways of testing for sex in more detail. I read the book a number of weeks ago though so I can't remember the details but she outlined how testing can be problematic in various regards

[maryellencarter]

(I have cropped any personally identifying information out of the pictures for obvious reasons.)

So here's all the information I have at the moment on the Bonus Situation.

* To recap, the bonus projection software has been telling me for a couple weeks now that I would get a $96.06 bonus. Normally in the past this has occurred on the second paycheck of the month.

* Many of us have noticed the bonus projection software not updating properly since about October 4.

* I called IT the other day and filed a ticket about the frozen bonus projections, on advice from a friend on the support team.

* Today, or rather yesterday by the time I'm writing this, I got my electronic pay stub for the payday coming up this Friday, and discovered that it was unexpectedly short, specifically because the bonus listed on it was $12 instead of $96.06.

* I emailed my supervisor about the shorted bonus. She has forwarded the email up the chain of command but has no firm information yet. We will not both be at work again till Sunday, so I will hear no more from her on the issue till then.

* Later in the afternoon, I received the above email, from the admin in charge of the bonus projection software. Several things are hinky about this email. To wit:

* "The data for the M[onth] T[o] D[ate] numbers has been paused as of early this month because they are used for the calculating of the monthly bonuses, which is still being worked on." I am not here to criticize Mr Admin's grammar, but to point out that this is a blatantly flimsy excuse, for the extremely simple reason that there is a whole separate tab for last month's bonus data, and in fact that tab is still fully functional and showing my $96.06 bonus! It is this month's daily tracking of bonus data which has been frozen.

* Granted, if one were to admit the concept that the bonuses were still being calculated, it could be taken to explain why I'm only getting a $12 bonus on my paycheck. However, the bonuses were calculating themselves in realtime for the whole of September, and the last metrics finalized themselves on October 7. In the week since then, I could have calculated the bonuses for the entire bloody company using nothing more than my smartphone calculator and paper if I was given a paid 40-hour week to do it in, let alone having a software that was already displaying the answers!

* Also, you know, the software has never before needed to be frozen while last month's bonuses are "calculated", let alone a week after the metrics were finalized. And it has always previously told me accurately whether it was going to send me a $500 bonus or none, or something in between. This is, in short, fishy.

* Mr Bonus Admin goes on to state, "You should still be able to access the daily values" (I can't), "but the monthly ones will not update, and in fact should now not show up at all, until the work to change the scorecard and bonus structure is done. That activity should hopefully be done next week."

* The other picture besides the email is the completely blank screen where my outdated bonus projection resided until today. The one about the metrics I'm currently getting for October, not the one about the $96.06 bonus I was supposed to get for September, which may I remind you is still quite visible.

* "Your numbers are wrong? Boom, NO MORE NUMBERS! There, I fixed it." XD

* The referenced "work to change" the software has not been announced to workers at my level in any way, and no changes that could possibly involve shutting down the whole system have been made or announced. I am frankly Suspicious.

* Other agents have also said things about missing bonuses or confusing bonuses. One supervisor announced that the bonuses would not show up till our Halloween paycheck, which I could hypothetically swallow, if I didn't have a $12 bonus sitting there in black and white on this week's pay stub. Seems like there's a lot of misinformation floating around right now. (Also a certain amount of what smells very like disinformation.)

* So, lacking any information what is actually going on, and faced with an email that would have to put on black tights and a domino mask to look any more disingenuous, my brain is going for all the wildest explanations, like "The system has glitched out completely and is assigning random bonuses to everybody, and they're frantically trying to cover while they get it fixed", or even more dramatically, "Maybe the company can't afford to pay all our bonuses and is retroactively revamping the bonus system, and it was supposed to be done in time for payday but they're running late, and also maybe they really are only going to give me $12". That seems slightly less likely though because they did just give me, on the same paycheck, $28.08 in backdated raise.

* I'm also stressing the fuck out about bonuses in general because I had a really bad stats day today. A disgruntled gentleman (whose account was legitimately pretty thoroughly fucked by a previous incompetent agent) gave me a low survey, which busted me straight down from the $2/hour bonus tier to the 50¢/hour bonus tier. If my other numbers are really good for the whole rest of the month I can maaaaybe struggle my way back up to the $1.25/hour bonus tier. :P

* I also only took 9 calls today, averaging a half hour each (not counting outbound callbacks after various calls dropped), which fucked my call length for the month from the truly astonishing 795 seconds I'd been running, just under the wire for an additional 50% on top of my bonus, all the way up to 901 seconds, where I'm barely scraping by under the cutoff for having my bonus cut in half. I'd have to come in under 700 seconds every day for the rest of the month to recover from that, and I can't recover from the flunked survey at all.

* So, you know, I've gone from expecting a $96.06 bonus on Friday and hoping for a $474 bonus next month, to getting a measly $12 bonus, a runaround from tech, and maybe a $79 bonus next month if my numbers don't get any worse. It really feels like a kick in the gut.

* (If a fucking miracle happened and I wound up with upsells over $30 a call, non-repeating callers over 86.5%, and an average call length under 930 seconds, I could hypothetically get a $197.50 bonus. Or if I also managed to squeak my surveys back up above 82% good... okay, that's only one more good survey and no more bad ones, it could happen. More likely, my upsells wouldn't quite hit $30 and any further good surveys I get would go toward making up the difference. But if I had both my repeat callers and my upsells excellent, I'd only need one more good survey -- assuming no more bad ones, obviously -- to squeak back up to the $2/hour tier for a hypothetical bonus of $316.)

* The trouble with that being that I don't... I don't know if I have any faith anymore that I'll actually get my bonus as projected? Like I can't think of any way that mysterious and unspecified "work changing the bonus structure" mid-month combines with an inexplicable $12 bonus to work out in my favor. I feel like I'm bracing for a slap.

#eletelephony #how to care about your future when you don't think it exists #i legit haven't even managed to calculate my budget out #to see if i can make November's rent with my paycheck being shorted my bonus #and normally numbers are so comforting and give me a sense of control #but like #I'm just too depressed and fucked up #like if i can't fucking trust the numbers to follow the rules then what's the use of anything?! #*cries quietly*