Media Review.

 Delaying my next book review for either tomorrow or, well, later today at any rate.

Today I finished watching the anime Puella Magi Madoka Magica, and I thought it deserved a little discussion.  Advance warning:  the comments will have spoilers, as I really really want to chat about all the twists and turns with people.

Anyway, Madoka is a show that combines the magical girl genre with... existentialist horror.  The foundational concept appears to have been someone asking themself the question "Who the Hell would make young teenaged girls fight battles against evil, and why?"

The answers are grim, shocking, heartbreaking, and sold with an intense and compelling narrative over a relatively brief twelve episode run.  You can find the show free to watch online, and if you have four hours to kill, I'd recommend it.

It became only the fifth movie or TV show I have ever cried at.  And then it broke a record and became the sixth I ever cried at, too.  The tenth and twelfth episodes were some of the most finely crafted and heartwrenching things I have ever seen, and the fact that I flat-out wept is just about the highest recommendation I could possibly give this show.

So.  Fellow viewers, let's take to the comment threads and chat about it.

More Thoughts.

I just accomplished a life goal here, guys.  One of my favorite authors just told me he got choked up by something I wrote.

Over at the awesome forum game at the Incrementalists Forum, his character and my character have been arguing.  I was sill feeling tremendously moved and inspired by the ending of Madoka, so I took that, plus my long-standing interest in Horace's Ode 3.30, plus a dash of Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night, and wrote an in-character post about mortality and immortality that played into the argument and, you know, raged against the close of day.

And he complimented my writing.  And I clearly inspired exactly the emotion I wanted to convey -- that is, the emotion I was feeling at the moment I wrote the post.  So, you know, I accomplished something, and I impressed one of my heroes in the field of wordsmithing.

Right now I feel like I could take on the whole Empire myself.

I feel like my words just forked lightning.  


Travelogue is pretty wrapped up, I think, unless Megan or Kait wants to hear my thoughts on something else about the Virginia trip.  Book Reviews will continue tomorrow.

Also, the Incrementalists' Forum is a lot of fun.  You guys should come play.