Moments when a piece of entertainment completely rocked you.

[Mask_De_H]

So, just got back from concert.

The band Aboleth puts on a great high-energy performance - if you are at all into metal/blues fusion sound, check them out. The truly rocking part is that their use of a D&D monster name is intentional, and they will happily sign anything.

So I'm now regretting that I didn't tote a Monster Manual or a couple minis to the show.

Are they inspired by/do they outrock Josh Homme's Kyuss?

Also, I hope to one day love something like Ryan Reynolds loves Deadpool, after watching DP2.

[EightWave]

Just watched episode 10 of Westworld season 1. It honestly had one of the best, most well-crafted, most "oh my god wow" plot twists I've seen in any movie or TV show, possibly in my life.

William is the man in black. Fucking hell!

[rasmuswagner]

Just saw Deadpool 2 with the wife. That shit is funny. I even did the "shaking like a retarded seal because the laughs won't come out" thing.

The 10 or so other people in the cinema didn't seem to be enjoying themselves as much. Probably because the amount of background needed to catch all the fun is seriously massive. It's not enough to be up on your MCU, you need the full X-men set (and some of that shit is seriously old), your classic 1980ies music videos and God knows what else. Seriously, the final "death border" scene must be a lot flatter if you don't have the video to "Take on me" burned into your neurons.

[Leress]

Since people keep bringing up "What we do in the shadows" (which I still have to see), I want to bring up a short lived series...well one episode of it.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Urban_Gothic_(TV_series)

Episode 2 "Vampirology", it has the same set up as What we do, but it is more serious and played straight.

The whole series can be found on youtube.

Episode 2 Part 1
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4jfz13gbrzY

[maglag]

Darling in the Franxx has got so bad it actually feeling good.

After 3 episodes of almost nothing but background exposition and philosophical questions like what price would human society be willing to pay for comfy immortal lifes and how idiotic can teenagers be, turns out there were aliens manipulating everything behind the scenes and hellbent in cleansing the universe of every lifeform they consider a threat.

And then they pull a giant exterminatus space fleet out of nowhere because of course they do.

Also the seemingly mindless monsters that were fought for the rest of the series are actually the gud guys (in multiple senses since they were also the protagonist's mechas) that just wanted to protect Earth from the evil aliens they had already fought in the past and now they deploy the ultimate titanic mecha they managed to steal back from the evil aliens.

Only to turn out the evil aliens were actually smart enough to install a remote-operated self-destruct system in the ultimate titanic mecha, and now it's on countdown to blow up the whole planet.

Also not-lance of not-longinus shown for a moment.

So I'm all "sure, why the heck not" and just enjoying the ride at this point.

[Mask_De_H]

You could've saved a lot of words and said "Darling in the FranXX is now Gurren Lagann," maglag.

Brevity is the soul of wit and all :V

[maglag]

But it's also Evangelion since they were taking orders from jerk dad and also piloting monsters that will go berserk if they don't take care and we also we got a glimpse of not-lance of not-longinus. But it's also Getter because organic giant monsters with tentacles a plenty. But it's also Eureka 7 because some of the protagonists actually got laid and now there's a pregnant pilot and you can bet the unborn fetus will play a role. But it's also Gundam Wing because the mechas have super powerful self-destruct systems.

Basically they seem to be trying to cram as many references as possible.

[shinimasu]

Darling in the Franxx has got so bad it actually feeling good.

After 3 episodes of almost nothing but background exposition and philosophical questions like what price would human society be willing to pay for comfy immortal lifes and how idiotic can teenagers be, turns out there were aliens manipulating everything behind the scenes and hellbent in cleansing the universe of every lifeform they consider a threat.

And then they pull a giant exterminatus space fleet out of nowhere because of course they do.

Also the seemingly mindless monsters that were fought for the rest of the series are actually the gud guys (in multiple senses since they were also the protagonist's mechas) that just wanted to protect Earth from the evil aliens they had already fought in the past and now they deploy the ultimate titanic mecha they managed to steal back from the evil aliens.

Only to turn out the evil aliens were actually smart enough to install a remote-operated self-destruct system in the ultimate titanic mecha, and now it's on countdown to blow up the whole planet.

Also not-lance of not-longinus shown for a moment.

So I'm all "sure, why the heck not" and just enjoying the ride at this point.

While I agree that the tone shift is jarring, poorly implemented, and under explained, I think the idea that

APE were secretly evil aliens manipulating humanity into waging a proxy war for them against the klaxosaurs

was telegraphed basically the moment we found out they didn't have bodies. It just only really became clear in episode 19 where you have all these conspicuous robe guys who by the narratives own admission just sort of showed up one day with this new miracle technology. And then explicit in episode 20 because apparently they got tired of maintaining that mystery and were over eager to go "Aliens, it's aliens you guys."

I love this goddamn tiddy robot show more than I should but it's had terrible pacing problems since it started.

[maglag]

Although looking back there were indeed some people presenting the alien possibility (and there's always some people saying that aliens did it regardless of the story), I don't see how "no body under the robe"="ALIENS!". If anything I was more of the "rogue AI" camp since they do show up when human is at a technological peak and looking for better energy sources is a hot topic of modern society.

Also the whole "you'll be released from your shells, aka your bodies" and the mention of mind uploads was screaming virtual matrix to me.

Monster princess even calls them "human wannabes", which to me strongly suggested they were something wanting to be humans, so basically misguided AI, but maybe she was just fooled too and didn't realize the aliens would be perfectly fine blowing up the planet and wiping humanity.

Still yay tiddy robots!

[DSMatticus]

Darling in the Franxx is bizarre and meandering and stupid. It is convinced it has things to say, but neither you nor it have any idea what they really are, and then it immediately forgets about them because space aliens. I am watching it not because it's good, not because it's so bad it's good, but because it is a trainwreck and I have to know the final body count. I have to.

The show starts as a not even remotely subtle metaphor for puberty. Take a bunch of adolescent mecha pilots and shove them in a dystopian world that substitutes interpersonal relationships with brain-make-happy machines and have them pilot their robots in boy-girl pairs because plot contrivance. Voila, you have a story about a bunch of kids fumbling through puberty together in a world where literally no one can help them understand what the deal with that is. Also, giant robots.

Then minor protagonist finds a book on babymaking and there is suddenly straight-up a subplot about gender roles in which the good guys are "but I want to do the man-woman things I saw in this book!" and the antagonists are "boo, gender-conforming sucks!" It was... staggering. I was worried it was going to escalate past "slightly creepy" straight to some explicitly shitty and regressive bullshit, but apparently I didn't need to be that worried, because it just ended. Out of nowhere. With no point or conclusion except sads. It needed to end, you see, to make room for piles of exposition. The piles of exposition that culminate in suddenly aliens.

What's the show about? What the fuck is it about? Is it a metaphor for puberty? Is it a commentary on gender? Is it dumb robot action with a tacked on pretense for fanservice? I don't know, because the show doesn't know, and it's a beautiful disaster.

[Kaelik]

I have stated many times that Darling in the Franxx is like 7 stories. 2-3 of them are really good, most of them are mediocre, and at least one of them is bad.

Then they just poured them all into a blender, and the resulting mixture is so thematically inconsistent, and the characters slightly different enough to be jarring, that the end result is somehow worse than most if not all of the stories before they were slathered together.

I think, if you go back (you shouldn't) you will be able to find vague hints of the suddenly aliens and the gender roles and the.... atheism is bad? from the exposition? and everything else, but because they are the tiniest drop in a story they don't fit in when they were first broadly presented, the result was that at the time you felt like they were mistakes that made it worse (because they were) and now that suddenly aliens takes over, all the other parts that used to make slightly more sense when they predominated are now also equally terrible.

[shinimasu]

I'm glad it wasn't just me who got "This feels like it's trying to say something but I have no goddamn idea what."

I am also glad the creepy regressive bullshit was stopped by suddenly aliens before it could become explicit, though we still have four more episodes and a possible pregnancy subplot to wrap so who knows. This could still take a sharp nosedive into "Oh fuck no" before the series is over as opposed to "this is terrible but glorious."

I have a betting pool with my fiance going as to whether or not the lack of period episode means that the pregnancy subplot is going to amount to nothing, or if it's an oversight because male writers forget that the bleeding is a necessary step on the path to babies. I refuse to believe kids that don't know what kissing is, and are probably not supposed to experience puberty at all outside of this one experiment, got the talk about "oh by the way you're going to start bleeding and here's why."

Anyway, Things I appreciated about this show:

- The in universe justification for why Hiro doesn't die when he pilots with 02. A lot of times inexplicable compatibility isn't ever actually explained, the idea that it was essentially bio-contamination here was neat.

- The action and the robot designs. Good trigger fun.

- Goro. This guy deserves to be in a better anime.

- 02 is some A+ character design, she also deserves to be in a better anime.

- As corny as it was, the episode where Hiro and 02 reunite is the kind of thing I watch clips of on youtube just for that triumphant finale. Incredible props to Hiro's Japanese VA, the way he shouts "I love you" gives me an actual emotion.

[Longes]

the antagonists are "boo, gender-conforming sucks!"

That's... not really the position of the Nines though. Nines very much do want the protagonists to conform, just in the specific ways approved by the evil government.

[shinimasu]

Call them anti-binary then but having your villains be the ones to espouse, metaphorically, that it's OK to be gay or trans or what have you, while the heroes go on about children and how cool it is when men and women get together, is at best unintentionally icky. Ikuno is our resident lesbian hero and her arc goes... nowhere really. She gets a bro hug from her crush but nothing is really resolved and at this point I don't expect it to be.

A lot of this story feels like it really wants to be a commentary on Japan's aging population and declining birth rate and how maybe expecting your kids to cary the old generation on its back is unreasonable, but also babies are important and you should keep having them. And then aliens.

Someone also pointed out that if you smush VIRM and APE together you get VAMPIRE. That's a useless bit of trivia but it's still there.

[Longes]

Call them anti-binary then but having your villains be the ones to espouse, metaphorically, that it's OK to be gay or trans or what have you, while the heroes go on about children and how cool it is when men and women get together, is at best unintentionally icky. Ikuno is our resident lesbian hero and her arc goes... nowhere really. She gets a bro hug from her crush but nothing is really resolved and at this point I don't expect it to be.

A lot of this story feels like it really wants to be a commentary on Japan's aging population and declining birth rate and how maybe expecting your kids to cary the old generation on its back is unreasonable, but also babies are important and you should keep having them. And then aliens.

Someone also pointed out that if you smush VIRM and APE together you get VAMPIRE. That's a useless bit of trivia but it's still there.

That is not even close to what the Nines are espousing. Their position is that it is only okay to act and have sex the way Nines do it and any other way is not okay. They are not LGBT, they are conservatives.

[maglag]

I have a betting pool with my fiance going as to whether or not the lack of period episode means that the pregnancy subplot is going to amount to nothing, or if it's an oversight because male writers forget that the bleeding is a necessary step on the path to babies. I refuse to believe kids that don't know what kissing is, and are probably not supposed to experience puberty at all outside of this one experiment, got the talk about "oh by the way you're going to start bleeding and here's why."

All bets are off when we're talking about genetic engineering. They only need to be able to reproduce to pilot the mechas, so it's not entirely impossible periods were just coded out and the girls only ovulate when they actually have sex or they figured out a way the cycle doesn't end in a mess of blood. In particular because you don't want your elite pilots to be suffering period pains when the giant monsters attack.

In the other hand we also don't see the boys getting any "oh by the way your dick is going to start getting harder at random moments plus wet dreams and here's why." Masturbation is never mentioned either. And if anything they all religiously believe everything papa and their caretakers say, so it's entirely possible the "talks" all happen in the background.

- The action and the robot designs. Good trigger fun.

- Goro. This guy deserves to be in a better anime.

- 02 is some A+ character design, she also deserves to be in a better anime.

- As corny as it was, the episode where Hiro and 02 reunite is the kind of thing I watch clips of on youtube just for that triumphant finale. Incredible props to Hiro's Japanese VA, the way he shouts "I love you" gives me an actual emotion.

Yeah, there's some pretty good design and acting to be found.

Call them anti-binary then but having your villains be the ones to espouse, metaphorically, that it's OK to be gay or trans or what have you, while the heroes go on about children and how cool it is when men and women get together, is at best unintentionally icky.

Did you forget the time when the lesbian tries to pilot a mecha with another girl and it fails to even start up ? APE were pretty clear that only boy+girl is ok.

Meanwhile recurring pregnancy vomits is not exactly what I would call "cool".

[shinimasu]

That is not even close to what the Nines are espousing. Their position is that it is only okay to act and have sex the way Nines do it and any other way is not okay. They are not LGBT, they are conservatives.

Right and the Nines official conservative viewpoint is that gender is stupid and procreative sex is bad and wrong because Papa says it is and he's basically the alien pope.

Do I honestly need to explain how having your conservative villain conformists in your dystopian setting be the ones to go "gender is stupid and unnecessary and y'all need to stop with your het baby nonsense" is problematic(TM)?

It's literally not how they're saying it, or why they're saying it. It's the fact that they, specifically, are the ones saying it. It's not actually clear if we're supposed to agree or disagree with them because the rest of the narrative is such an incoherent mess, but it was still a weird inclusion to begin with.

Did you forget the time when the lesbian tries to pilot a mecha with another girl and it fails to even start up ? APE were pretty clear that only boy+girl is ok.

Meanwhile recurring pregnancy vomits is not exactly what I would call "cool".

Aside from the pregnancy (which I mean, Kokoro seems pretty fucking excited about pregnancy vomits, I can't imagine the medical pamphlet neglected to mention those) the characters will occasionally aside about how it really is amazing what boys and girls can accomplish when they work together (namely franxx piloting) which is more what I was referring to.

because the Franxx are a metaphor. You can only save the world by piloting the tiddy robots, and you can only pilot the tiddy robots with a boy and a girl in a predefined position (though the nines seem to have boys on the bottom because fuck the binary I guess) though it's doggy style so I guess the aliens let them have some concessions.

Though I guess the aliens reveal kind of draws the whole metaphor into question which is why reading too much into this is an exercise in futility and why the weird gender nonsense is especially pointless.

[DSMatticus]

the antagonists are "boo, gender-conforming sucks!"

That's... not really the position of the Nines though. Nines very much do want the protagonists to conform, just in the specific ways approved by the evil government.

DSM: "Hey, did you know Bob is color-blind?"

Longes: "WTF Bob isn't blind. He's a photographer!"

If you drop random parts of a compound word, or random words in a noun phrase, you'll change the meaning. It's fucking black magic, I know. But when I said 'gender-conforming,' as in conforming to gender norms, I didn't secretly mean conforming, as in obeying the state, or what the fuck ever. I meant the 'conforming' word to be modified by the 'gender' word and you need both of them which is why they're both there.

Episode 17-18 are the culmination of a subplot in which the blonde one rediscovers heteronormativity from an ancient text and decides to marry her boy-crush. That's not even remotely an exaggeration. That's literally what it is. And you know what? That's actually fine, because there's sure as hell nothing wrong with a woman living as a woman and crushing on dudes. Except then the bad guys show up, and say almost verbatim "there's something wrong with a woman living as a woman and crushing on dudes." And then next episode Good Guy Straight Girl literally has her wedding crashed by authoritarian post-gender Bad Guys in a dystopian LGBTQ society.

It is super WTF. The bad guys are not 'conservatives.' They are a fear-mongering conservative narrative about feminists/LGBTQ/SJW's played straight. Those dirty authoritarian leftie SJW's won, and now men have to pee sitting down!!1! in a dystopian post-gender society. And before anyone could figure out whether or not that was deliberate or just LOLWTF, suddenly aliens.

Did you forget the time when the lesbian tries to pilot a mecha with another girl and it fails to even start up ? APE were pretty clear that only boy+girl is ok.

Mecha piloting is done in boy-girl pairs because that is what the technology requires, and the technology is stolen so they just have to fuckin' deal with it. One of the Authoritarian Post-Gender LGBTQ Bad Guys in the "eww, the hetero cis girl wants to make a baby, disgusting" scene is incredibly unambiguous about what he thinks of all that, which is that it's stupid and its only purpose is for the operation of robots. APE are very clear that they hate gender and sex and would prefer you spend your time in a brain-make-happy machine as a genderless, infertile immortal. Our main cast are a unique experiment in using less brainwashed children to pilot robots.

You would be forgiven for having thought the robots were a representation of APE (APE are clearly dystopian child-abusing assholes a la Evangelion's SEELE; the boy-girl limitation seems creepy and regressive; "I wonder what the show is trying to say by having the bad guys mechanically enforce heterosexual couplings"). But no, it turns out the bad guys weren't doing that at all, and robots are stolen alien technology that must be operated in boy-girl pairs and APE has criminalized even basic knowledge of sex and gender norms in order to create a brainwashed, agendered society. WELP.

[Chamomile]

Franxx also started with a plot in which Hiro has a metaphorically sexual relationship that is both deeply pleasurable and gives him significant prestige, but his partner in that relationship has a long history of destroying her partners and demonstrates a serious lack of concern for Hiro's boundaries. By total happenstance, Hiro did need to have his boundaries pushed a little early on, but then 02 kept on pushing those boundaries because it turns out she doesn't actually care, she's just dragging Hiro along with her wherever she wants to go regardless of his feelings on the subject, and Hiro's friends keep telling him that he needs to break it off with her, but he refuses because even though their relationship is literally killing him, she only cares about how much fun they're having. This ends with the pretense dropping completely, she yells about how Hiro is just more fodder to be fed into her maw, and then...it turns out that your abusive girlfriend will change for you if you just love her enough. So this isn't even the first time Franxx has set up something cool and then taken a hard right into something terrible.

[Josh_Kablack]

So, just got back from concert.

The band Aboleth puts on a great high-energy performance - if you are at all into metal/blues fusion sound, check them out. The truly rocking part is that their use of a D&D monster name is intentional, and they will happily sign anything.

So I'm now regretting that I didn't tote a Monster Manual or a couple minis to the show.

Are they inspired by/do they outrock Josh Homme's Kyuss?

Inspired by: Maybe.

Outrock: in my subjective opinion, probably. If you're like to form your own opinion, here's fan footage of their live set:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dx9RL94eKJ4

Or if you don't want to sit through all of that, here're their two-to-date videos. (I think the live set shows them off better, but the video/sound quality is pretty rough)

https://youtu.be/TCaLpVEuLFE

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VsOnUvBEYeM

[maglag]

the antagonists are "boo, gender-conforming sucks!"

That's... not really the position of the Nines though. Nines very much do want the protagonists to conform, just in the specific ways approved by the evil government.

DSM: "Hey, did you know Bob is color-blind?"

Longes: "WTF Bob isn't blind. He's a photographer!"

If you drop random parts of a compound word, or random words in a noun phrase, you'll change the meaning. It's fucking black magic, I know. But when I said 'gender-conforming,' as in conforming to gender norms, I didn't secretly mean conforming, as in obeying the state, or what the fuck ever. I meant the 'conforming' word to be modified by the 'gender' word and you need both of them which is why they're both there.

Episode 17-18 are the culmination of a subplot in which the blonde one rediscovers heteronormativity from an ancient text and decides to marry her boy-crush. That's not even remotely an exaggeration. That's literally what it is. And you know what? That's actually fine, because there's sure as hell nothing wrong with a woman living as a woman and crushing on dudes. Except then the bad guys show up, and say almost verbatim "there's something wrong with a woman living as a woman and crushing on dudes." And then next episode Good Guy Straight Girl literally has her wedding crashed by authoritarian post-gender Bad Guys in a dystopian LGBTQ society.

It is super WTF. The bad guys are not 'conservatives.' They are a fear-mongering conservative narrative about feminists/LGBTQ/SJW's played straight. Those dirty authoritarian leftie SJW's won, and now men have to pee sitting down!!1! in a dystopian post-gender society. And before anyone could figure out whether or not that was deliberate or just LOLWTF, suddenly aliens.

Did you forget the time when the lesbian tries to pilot a mecha with another girl and it fails to even start up ? APE were pretty clear that only boy+girl is ok.

Mecha piloting is done in boy-girl pairs because that is what the technology requires, and the technology is stolen so they just have to fuckin' deal with it. One of the Authoritarian Post-Gender LGBTQ Bad Guys in the "eww, the hetero cis girl wants to make a baby, disgusting" scene is incredibly unambiguous about what he thinks of all that, which is that it's stupid and its only purpose is for the operation of robots. APE are very clear that they hate gender and sex and would prefer you spend your time in a brain-make-happy machine as a genderless, infertile immortal. Our main cast are a unique experiment in using less brainwashed children to pilot robots.

You would be forgiven for having thought the robots were a representation of APE (APE are clearly dystopian child-abusing assholes a la Evangelion's SEELE; the boy-girl limitation seems creepy and regressive; "I wonder what the show is trying to say by having the bad guys mechanically enforce heterosexual couplings"). But no, it turns out the bad guys weren't doing that at all, and robots are stolen alien technology that must be operated in boy-girl pairs and APE has criminalized even basic knowledge of sex and gender norms in order to create a brainwashed, agendered society. WELP.

That's like saying every fanatic chaste/no-marriage organization is actually a LBTQ conspiracy. Forbidding marriage is simply a matter of reducing the risk of your minions having divided loyalties. In particular when you want them to fight to the death, which they may not be willing to do so if they have a loved one waiting for them or if their loved one was also ordered to fight to the death.

Thus APE doesn't go to arrest girl that crushes on a boy when she finds sex book nor when she has sexytimes with her crush. They even sit back and wait a long time. They may not approve but they're willing to overlook that like the Nightwatch tolerates 99% of their numbers going to see prostitutes every other night.

APE only sends in their troops to crash the wedding. That is the sign the girl really cares about her crush and wants to exchange vows with him.

And APE can't have that because APE wants fanatic pilots who'll obey with no questions, up to and including blowing themselves up on command. Holding a marriage and exchanging vows suddenly means their main devotion isn't to papa anymore, and APE will not allow that.

Yeah, the kids were kept in the dark about sex, but they're kept in the dark about virtually everything that's not directly related to their job of piloting to kill giant monsters.

So if anything it's an analogy to crazy possessive parent that controls every bit of information their kids get and will not allow them to date/marry anybody. There's a reason why they make the kids call the APE leader papa and everything.

[Kaelik]

Actually, it's clear from the show that since they have cameras everywhere, they called up the assault mind wipe squad as soon as they had sex and that they happened to show up during the marriage was basically just a for funsies and they didn't care about the marriage at all.

[DSMatticus]

Evil Bad Guy Man: "Do your recognize this?" [He holds up 'Your First Childbirth.'] "Looks like you do. Mind giving us an explanation, Code 556? You're the one who dropped this, aren't you? But this is really strange. It wouldn't have been providied in the study here, and it surely doesn't belong to you. What's the meaning of this?"

[Confused protagonist murmurings.]

Blonde One: "I'm sorry for not telling you all. I want to make a baby."

[More confused protagonist murmurings.]

Evil Bad Guy Man: "Wow. But you do know Papa's banned that, right?"

[Suspicious protagonist murmurings.]

Blonde One: "You know, is that really such a bad thing? I mean, that's how the adults, we, and all humans are born. It's how we were all born. It's what we've done since ancient times."

[Shot of Evil Bad Guy Men making angry faces.]

Blonde One: "That's how all living things have kept their species going for thousands of years. So, well, that must be why we have boys and girls. This may be selfish of me, but I want to leave a mark - leave something behind before I'm gone."

Evil Bad Guy Man: "Leave a mark?"

Blonde One: "Yes. We've lived our lives believing our only purpose was to ride the Franxx into battle. But you know what? That might not be true! We could carry new lives and leave them here for the future. When I learned about that, I was so happy..."

Evil Bad Guy Man: "Disgusting. You're absolutely disgusting. This is ridiculous. Humans have evolved and cast their reproductive functions aside in the process. Reject that, and we'll all have to go back to conforming to one gender."

[Blonde One frightened murmurings.]

Evil Bad Guy Man: "Doesn't the thought often cross your mind? That gender is a pain, an annoyance that's only tolerated to operate the Franxx? And that's all it really is."

Actually, it's clear from the show that since they have cameras everywhere, they called up the assault mind wipe squad as soon as they had sex and that they happened to show up during the marriage was basically just a for funsies and they didn't care about the marriage at all.

Actually, the between the lines is that the adults were overlooking all this bullshit because it's the Doctor's pet experiment with less-brainwashed pilots, but the Nines report directly to Papa so their presence fucks everything up.

Red Hair Adult Lady: "This is why I didn't want to let the Nines in! I knew it'd be nothing but trouble!" [Followered by lecture about how reproductive organs are only for piloting robots. Blonde One leaves, Evil Bad Guy Man shows up.]

Evil Bad Guy Man: "I hope you go back to doing your actual job from now on, instead of getting up to mischief with the doctor. I'll be reporting this to Papa and the rest."

[Black Hair Adult Guy grimaces. Cuts to scene of him talking to doctor.]

Doctor: "Oh, so [Blonde One] is useless now?"

Black Hair Adult Guy: "I believe continuing the test will be difficult."

They're talking about how Papa is 100% going to mindwipe Blonde One when he finds out. Then Blonde One has sex and they play at marriage. The defining moment is the argument with the Nines, both narratively and literally. Papa schedules the assault mindwipe squad when he gets the report from the Nines about how Blonde One is relapsing into (gasp) gendered thinking, and it's obviously the moment that is meant to put the conflict in context for the viewer's understanding.

[Josh_Kablack]

Just discovered this youtube series:

https://youtu.be/ImYu9dJM4kQ

[Wiseman]

So what I'm getting about this is that my apprehensions about watching Darling in the FranXX were right and I should avoid the series like the plague?