Lords of Kobol, hear my prayer...

++ Euphoria came out with a teaser trailer for its second season, which will premiere January 9th. Finally, finally, getting the new season after it being delayed since the pandemic happened. I know that they filmed special episodes that were shown last year (and the beginning of this year), which I appreciated the efforts for what they were able to do, but I'm even more excited to have the continuation of the story that was being told.

++ Meatbun Doesn't Eat Meat, the author of 2ha (a.k.a. The Husky And His White Cat Shizun), has revealed that an official English translation of her book is in the works. At first I kind of wanted to wait until the negotiations have been completed and we got an official confirmation, but I have to admit that I'm excited about this happening. I've been curious about 2ha for some time now, and who knows when the live-action adaptation will eventually come out of being in limbo, so I'm looking forward to getting to have an official English translated copy in my hands.

++ In some more serious news, I just recently learned that Eliza Dushku testified to a congressional committee in regards to being silenced from speaking out against sexual harassment in the workplace, and how she was fired for calling out this harassment. Her entire testimony is available to watch, which I highly recommend because she goes into further detail of what happened, and it's definitely worse than what was initially revealed at the time. Thankfully, the committee voted in favor of abolishing the forced arbitration clause which she, and many others, were testifying against, and it's onto the next step forward into hopefully making that happen, which is good, it's progress at least. Regardless though, what happened to her is horrifying and disgusting. I also learned that Eliza stopped acting entirely after this incident, which is understandable but it's just so sad and unfair that she suffered through something so traumatic that when she tried to fight against it in the most professional way possible she was fired and treated like she was in the wrong, while her harasser is still employed with no repercussions whatsoever to his behavior.

++ I talked about HBO's Euphoria before and how it was the best discovery I had last year, and how excited I was when it was renewed for second season. They had to unfortunately halt production for the second season due to the pandemic, but thankfully they didn't want to leave us with nothing so they cleverly decided to make two special episodes to give us something to look forward to. And after watching the first episode that has been released, let me tell you I wasn't emotionally prepared. It's basically a therapy session, and it was purposefully done so (as mentioned in the behind-the-scenes video, they looked at the state of 2020 and went "well, we're gonna make you feel something"). It's also a bottle episode, filmed entirely in a diner, and it doesn't move the plot along so much that it's just more introspective to give us more insight to our main character Rue and her mentor, Ali. It's basically an hour of them just talking. About many things, very real and difficult subjects of discussions that is handled in such a graceful yet openly raw and honest way in which I haven't seen before, especially in regards to the topics they discuss.

I'm not going to spoil anything else for those who haven't watched, but it's just a very creative and fascinating, very different from the main show and how it's filmed (it's less glitz and glamour and more grounded in reality, given the nature of the topics they discuss), and the performances are absolutely phenomenal. It makes me excited to see what Jules' episode is going to be in January, whether it'll be of the same vein or be something completely different.

++ The Expanse is back! (ﾉ◕ヮ◕)ﾉ*:･ﾟ✧

( Spoilers for the first three episodes. )

I was actually surprised they released three episodes at once, since it was mentioned they would be releasing episodes weekly instead of dropping the entire fifth season at once. Judging by how heavy this season is gonna get, I don't want to rush binging it because I don't think I can emotionally handle it. Also, the creators of the series have reassured us about the decision to end the show after six seasons, which honestly I like their explanation, since it makes sense. I would rather a show end naturally and that's satisfying for the story being told and something that isn't rushed. Did I have hopes that the show would go on a bit longer to adapt the rest of the books? Yeah, but if they're content of where things will naturally end, then so am I.