With as much Russian Kool-aid America has drank at this point, I feel the country as a whole is still doing a lot to help Ukraine. I can get behind a plan for The West to take a more active role, but I would rather see that be lead by NATO or a European coalition that having the US go in with guns blazing. I don’t feel any county, including Russia, as far as the actual citizens at least, will benefit from a Russian success. With so many parties that should be concerned with the outcome, I’d rather see the US remain in a supporting role to put to bed any accusations of this being some kind of colonialism.

While this is somewhat of a bad take IMO, I looked up this guy and while he is a Republican, he has been steadfast in his support for Ukraine, and even has a very based official website discussing what aid is going to Ukraine, and as part of his committee duties has worked to come up with planning to ensure Ukraine does not give in to Russia and insists the US should increase aid to Ukraine.

From the Proposed Plan for Victory in Ukraine:

Ukraine needs the longest-range variant of ATACMS, F-16s, and sufficient quantities of cluster munitions, artillery, air defenses, and armor to make a difference on the battlefield. … A path to victory for Ukraine will require (1) providing critical weapons to Ukraine at the speed of relevance, (2) tightening sanctions on the Putin regime, and (3) transferring [$300 billion of] frozen Russian sovereign assets to Ukraine.

This strategy will ensure Ukraine is able to make the needed advances on the battlefield to force Putin to the negotiating table. If Ukraine doesn’t negotiate from a position of strength, there can be no lasting peace.

Russian forces have committed countless war crimes in Ukraine, including executions, torture, and rape. Russia has also kidnapped tens of thousands of Ukrainian children and sent them to so-called re-education camps in Russia and occupied Ukraine. Those responsible for these crimes must face justice. If Russia is able to conquer more of Ukraine, millions more innocent civilians will be subject to a similarly horrific fate.

The rest of the document is biased Republican garbage, bashing Biden and other rhetoric, but it is a plus to see there are at least some Republicans (2 others worked with Turner on the Plan for Victory) supporting Ukraine, despite some questionable motivation. This gives me a little bit of hopefulness that if Congress doesn’t remain under Democratic leadership that Ukraine may still manage to keep getting support.

Again, I’m not going to cheer for this guy, but I will give some credit where it’s due that he isn’t following the MAGA crowd in trying to drop support to Ukraine and allow Russia to get away with things. I don’t think the US actively escalating things is going to benefit anyone, but continued supply and support efforts still seem very crucial.

I really enjoyed season 2. I was looking forward to the arc that’s the second half since it came out in the manga.

If you like the show in general, you should enjoy the movie just as much.

Watched Spy X Family: Code White the other night, and was very pleasantly surprised. I wasn’t expecting much, and went in mostly blind other than knowing it wasn’t based on manga content.

Animation looked great, and for a plotline that centered around the family going out for dessert, it turned out to be a very compelling story. It fit in perfectly with the regular anime/manga, and you could watch it wherever you’re at in the series without being lost or it feeling out of place. All 3 MCs got a good amount of story time as well, and a lot of side characters had appearances, so it’s not just an Anya story or Loid, etc.

If you haven’t seen it, but enjoy the show, give it a watch. It was a lot of fun!

I liked them playing a bit with the animation styles in some of the reaction shots. The show feels old and new at the same time, which I’m enjoying.

The animation seemed somewhat improved from last week. I still feel this should have gotten 2 or 3 more episodes, as none of the tension has much time to build before we see the climatic moments.

I’ve been reading Ito’s other works, and I feel a lot is predictable in many of the tales, not necessarily that you always know what’s going to happen and certainly not what it will look like, but more a 1) meet nice character(s), 2) meet the obvious creeper, 3) nice characters discuss the creeper and say nah, they can’t be as creepy as they seem, 4) your anxiety rises as you wait for the reveal, 5) Lovecraftian horror is revealed, 6) the end.

Step 4 is the one that sucks you in, even if it’s formulaic. It gets you invested in what’s going to happen. Without that time for the creepiness to bloom, it just feels like you’re working through the checklist.

I feel there’s some old comment about the CSI type shows where it’s always suspect number 3. You get introduced to some possible people, but if they always went to the first guy and they’re all oh yeah, this is the killer, the end, what’s the point? That’s what this adaptation has felt like to me.

I love a lot of Ito’s ideas, and the art style is great for his stories, but I feel most of the narrative is just there to string the creepy drawings together. I’m cool with that. But with the anime, you’re just on to the next scene before you get time to get creeped by what you just saw.

This was pretty rough. I was already iffy on the first episode, and this episode felt even more rushed and disjointed. It jumps around so much I feel there’s no building that sense of dread.

Not too much up my alley this season, so I watched Shikanoko and Plus Sized Elf.

I have one episode left of Shikanoko. It was unique, and fun for what it is. The songs were great. I enjoyed the antagonism of the whole thing. Would I watch another season? Not sure, but I don’t regret watching this one.

Two episodes of Plus Sized Elf left, but I’ve read the manga. Read it and watched it mainly to see what they’d do with it. At first, it seemed like they were going to actually put more health and fitness stuff in it, but it really fell back to drawn out scenes of slapstick nudity. Nothing wrong with that in itself, but I feel they could have done more with it. Also, many potato puns weren’t translated, so most will miss out on half the jokes. The translation I read had them all, and they were one of my favorite parts.

I will say, I really enjoyed the cast though. They all made the characters as likeable as they were in my head reading the manga. If you’re checking it out more for the curiosity than the nudity, it really isn’t terrible.

Somewhat off topic, but this season being light for me had me repeatedly going back to Delicious in Dungeon even though I was not really enjoying it. The characters were likeable again, but it felt pointless to me watching people eat fake food, though some monsters were really creative. I kept hearing wait until they get back to the red dragon, so I persisted.

Holy heck, did this show flip a switch to awesomeness! The back half of the season was great and I was left wanting more. The plot twists and the surprising backgrounds of the characters and new characters really made things come alive and give a much deeper sense of urgency and delivered much more than the episodic snack of the week format was doing for me.

If I had anything else even remotely exciting, I would not have stuck it out that long.

Looking forward to see what they do with Uzumaki and Ranma. Also see they have a Gintama special movie thing of the Kintama arc coming out, so that should be fun as well.

I haven’t read the manga, which my understanding is what the reboot was following. I watched it now out of curiosity, due to the original anime being one of my main gateways to anime as a whole.

If I hadn’t seen the original multiple times, I probably would have been lost at multiple points in the reboot. Characters seemed to pop up out of nowhere for unknown reasons.

My girlfriend had never seen the original, and she originally wasn’t paying attention as I watched this on my own, but after a few episodes she got pulled into it as well, so it seemed to make enough sense to someone unfamiliar that they’d at least be curious.

I enjoyed it mainly because it got me to think so many new things about one of my early favorite anime universes. It filled in a few gaps I had, such as I liked how we got to spend more time with Project Seeds and learned more about the Plants species and Knives’ overall goals.

It made my list because it exceeded my expectations as I was not looking forward to CGI animation and I was concerned about them “ruining” the story I had in my head, but the animation was beautiful, VA was great, and I think about the universe of the story more than I have in years.

It’s totally subjective what anyone else will take away, but everything else on the list I went into blind, with no expectations. Trigun I came into very biased due to my love for the original, and expected eww to meh, but as a whole, it gave me a great time.

• Supercub
• Cestvs
• Great Jahy Will Not Be Defeated
• Aharen Is Indecipherable
• The Yakuza’s Guide to Babysitting
• Do It Yourself
• Tomo-chan Is a Girl
• Trigun Stampede
• Insomniacs After School (read it but havent watched the anime)
• Love/Hate: Farming Life in Another World
  I’ll agree with OP on Summertime Render and Days at the Breakwater as well!

.

If we’re counting continued in the 20s:

• Golden Kamuy
• Ancient Magus Bride . .

I saw you had all the Trigun stuff, but not the recent reboot, Trigun Stampede.

Aharen is Indecipherable and Tomo-chan is a Girl are fun RomCom shows.

Golden Kamuy isn’t on your list, but it’s one of my all time favorites that I’ll always recommend.

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Totally agree with you. I feel bad for the young people that didn’t get to experience the Internet before business started to take it seriously. The Fediverse is a nice taste of those days though!

I’m not sure what to make of your “helped me get through feeling much like OP”.

I’ve talked extensively with Blaze and others on the Fedigrow community about pretty much your exact set of bullet points over the past few months and the shine started to wear off Lemmy for a bit. You’re far from alone in feeling how you described in your post, as can be seen in most of the replies here.

I think it’s just taking a step back and being able to appreciate what we do have. We haven’t turned into some complete right/left hellhole, the top posts everyday add up to thousands of comments, we have some quality content providers, and some really fun commenters. I certainly wouldn’t be ashamed to show someone my Lemmy feed.

It’s good that you still have the drive to want to keep improving things around here in the ways you feel comfortable contributing to. Many initial hurdles to getting on Lemmy feel resolved, and so many in apps are equal to the Reddit apps for most use cases. Many initial accounts were probably from people trying to figure things out. I know I had like 5 accounts and only really use 1 now.

I think we’ve just hit a plateau for now. My personal feeling is working on the culture is our best way forward to be different than Reddit and to pick up more people looking to escape the toxicity. The time to set our tolerance levels for certain behaviors is now before we get too big to reign it in. We’re a pretty good group now, and I hope it stays this way or gets a little better like last summer.

I’m glad when I see people speak up like this though. It makes us all reflect on the guys and bad we see here and to think about where we stand ourselves in all of it.

You and the Fedigrow crew helped me get through feeling much like OP a while back. I think that was a really good idea, because it is tough and emotional at times doing what we do. It can be easy to feel alone when you put yourself out there every day and feel like nobody is around or like you’re doing something wrong and people are falling off.

I never set out to be anybody here, but I was done with Reddit, and wanted to keep something that made me smile continue on, so I just sucked it up and did what needed to be done. You guys make it worth it, and as long as the people that do show up are having a good time, I’ll do my part to keep the party going. I get old, pre commercialized web vibes from Lemmy, so I’m gonna stick it out here as long as I can, because this is the kind of thing you don’t just get anywhere anymore.

Appreciate the shout out as always! We have a great set of people here, and we should all be happy with this place we’ve built together, even if it’s still a humble, cozy place. I feel we have organic growth, and it will come in waves as Lemmy builds and improves. Just keep doing what we’re doing and we’ll be good!

I feel it is pretty stable here. I post every day, and it’s been a tad slower lately, much like I believe Blaze said, feels due to people going away for trips. Weekends are a decent bit slower, where usually they have been busy. That’s where I notice it the most. My subs are lower than at the start of the year, but they’re still going up slow but steady. Interactions are still steady, which is my main concern. As you’ve mentioned, people want to see that interaction. I don’t want to say my content is useless, because people don’t need owl pics and animal rescue facts every day, but I typically get 100+ likes per post, and a handful of comments.

The key I feel though, is I have the same people coming in regularly every day, or every other day, and they are also participating. They make the place look alive more than me just throwing things out there. But that is a specific thing I work on, as much as the post content itself. When people come and make comments, I give them my full attention. I talk back to them, I laugh at their jokes and puns, I take time to answer their questions, I pay attention to what content they like or don’t like, how I post links. I treat them like they were clients. And now in return, they see that the community is a fun place to hang, and they come back regularly, even though I’m not giving them anything they couldn’t find, but I am adding value to their days. I make them smile, I make them feel like their effort commenting matters, I make them feel like they motivate me to keep posting (because they do!), and I teach them about things they never expected to care about.

But it’s a lot of hard work! I try not to think about the time I put into this just for fun. Many of us have been here before the API exodus or before and have put in hours posting to nobody or a dozen people until we’ve built up momentum. Most people won’t even upvote, let alone comment or post, so it’s going to come in waves building up this place. You’re still in the wilderness here. We’re still pretty much the first wave of Fediverse settlers. We’re here while it is rough, setting the foundations of what will hopefully come, keeping us from fading to nothing. I don’t think new people appreciate that point. It’s not like 25% of Reddit broke off and came here with all the posters and the audience, we’re starting from scratch. I think what we have is amazing for a bunch of nobodies with no corporate cash. We’re all volunteers, building the social media we want to have. We should be proud of it, no matter what stage it’s at.

Moderation is an area I feel could be stronger. Most threads are pretty good, but some could use a bit more reigning in. Part of the problem I see with that though, is the vocal part of the community is already hating on “heavy handed mods”, and you missed all the trashing of Beehaw for doing what I considered to be appropriate moderation. The Fed is full of a pretty diverse group of people. I talk to people from multiple countries, and the amount of LGBT I’ve gotten to get insight from has been amazing. It’s really helped me grow in my understanding of some things just being around all these people. But we need to ensure everyone is treated equally and respectfully, and there are many that want to bring Reddit behavior over here, and it’s up to the mods and commenters to decide if that’s what we want or not. I don’t want it, but many see no issue. I’m glad when people comment on it, because if people just accept it without speaking up, no one will know.

There is a lot of good here, and even with 50k users, there’s going to be much more mid and crap than gold, but it’s here. Your comments look good, and you seem to stick to things you enjoy and avoid some that drag you down, and it’s important to notice your own behavior if you click stuff that is going to annoy you. I hit delete on a lot of comments when I wade into some of these topics. Some stuff I just don’t want to get involved in, especially as someone that is at least somewhat “known” around here now and is too lazy to make an alt. But I remind myself I’m here to have fun, and if I want news without the potential drama, I’ll leave here and go to AP or whatever. I’d hope posters would make stuff to help you have a good time, but it’s our job to cultivate our own experience ultimately.

I could go on forever talking about this stuff, but I’ll stop for now. Just give it time and explore more, and since you seem to comment, keep doing that. It’s the best thing for this place. Post, comment, give feedback, repeat.

Finished up Isekai Suicide Squad. Overall, I’m glad I stuck it out with this show through my general malaise, as I don’t think I would have came back to it, but the last couple episodes were pretty great with a lot of cool fights and some hilarious surprises.

The big bad having shrimp cocktail horns was still a bit distracting, but we weren’t supposed to like her anyway. There was a big twist ending that sets up a season 2, and is check that out. The series as a whole may be worth a rewatch for me when I’m in a more receptive mood.

Gave the Rick and Morty Anime a go out of morbid curiosity. I have no idea what the hell I watched. It was just odd in general, and it felt like some kind of prank on the fans.

Rewatched a few more Gintama episodes, and those were still great. It was the handful were Kagura’s Dad came to try to take her back home, and the ones where Sadaharu got massive. Also the Dom Peri contest with the hostess club. Odd Jobs and friends can still get me laughing consistently!

I was happy to hear Sakamoto Days is getting a show. I felt they would get one due to having a similar vibe with SpyxFamily and a bit of MHA/JJK.

Oh cool, I was wondering if this was going to get its own anime.

I picked up the manga after seeing it on the popular reading list. At first it seemed like a Spy x Family clone, but it has become its own thing. It is more like someone had all the characters from SxF, but wanted to make a series more like MHA or JJK. There’s more emphasis on the fights and special superhuman skills of the assassins, there’s assassin school, all kinds of crazy weapons and gear, but still a good bit of silliness. There’s some solid characters, good and bad, and a few good family moments.

With a lot of familiar elements but its own twist on them, it seemed like a good time for this to be picked up.

Summit kicks so much butt! I’ve tried about a dozen apps, but this is the only one I use, though Connect was good too.

The dev is great, and I’ve gotten lots of help and same or next day fixes whenever I’ve reported issues.

It’s beautiful, versatile, and powerful, with a great person backing it up.