December isn't just about Christmas or if you're in the upper hemisphere freezing your balls off because you forgot to wear gloves and a thicker coat, also looking back at the year and taking stock.

Starting from the least woke and more extremely bad management, we have Chinese vtuber agency AuroraliveVR that operated like gangsters (so typical Chinese company) and they've lost 41 English vtubers leaving them only 2 which seem out the door too.

Then there is Project Veritas this year where I'd say less woke more corporate in that they didn't want to go against Pfizer same as Fox with ditching Tucker Carlson because he was digging too close to the truth.

Now to the wokies, the big highlight is Budweiser for just how publicly they failed and actually got the conservatives to act effectively in boycott, Target also deserves a mention. Disney for how they seem to be constantly slipping down the hill into obscurity. WB that owns DC might be close but ironically the Hogwarts Legacy drama seems to have given them a life raft when they needed one. Another mention is Creative Assembly that seems to have summoned their Sega masters to bitch slap them after their waste of money on woke projects.

There's too many to list from OpenAI, Unity, Amazon and the disaster that was Rings of Power, which notable ones do you think did the most self inflicted harm this year?

If this was just one or two idiots doing this, I might have passed it off as just idiots. But we're now at our 6th or 7th time that my pattern recognition is kicking in...

Another streamer this time YouTube getting in trouble with Japanese authorities for essentially promoting fare dodging on trains and then issuing a weak ass apology after.

This is happening WAY TOO often with streamers of all people where they are live broadcasting their harassment and even crimes. There is definitely encouragement to do this in Japan but I can't work out if its just idiots going 'I can get attention by being a prick in Japan' or if there's someone higher up directing these idiots there as a way to attack Japanese social cohesion.

Oh, and the biggest idiot of them all, update on him he's getting FUCKED by the authorities there, they are holding him for the maximum detention time then applying new charges to hold him longer. He's getting deported but HE has to pay for his own deportation otherwise he is held at the detention centre till he gets the funds and may be sent to a prison work camp to pay off the debt he owes in compensation for his harassment.

Just something I've been thinking about, you'll get the doomers saying 'WW3 is going to happen, they're going to replace us, we're going to be forced in to slavery' like the plans of the elites can't be stopped.

Something that's both hopeful yet depressing on seeing a simple solution, what would happen if normies just used numbers and stopped, no violence, no purges, just stopped.

For instance, what if all normies stopped joining the military that recruitment went to near 0. How would governments react knowing they have NO force to rely on? Education has long been infiltrated, what if normies just stopped using them, all did home and community schooling? Well teachers unions would be destroyed overnight, probably see LGBT go down drastically because they no longer have stable indoctrination centres. We know the left can't create anything so they'll simply die off with nothing to feed on.

The only one I can't see this tactic working on is mass migration, not because illegals will take up the roles normies stop doing, more because they're still there in your country taking up space. It's slightly depressing that these 'grand plans' can be foiled by simple noncompliance, like a lot of humanity are lemmings walking off a cliff...

Needed a breather post with the shit happening in real word and the debates over fictional content over the weekend. So why not promote stuff most of us can enjoy.

Previous recommendations are in the link, recommend them too ESPECIALLY Real Man on chapter 154 as if you EVER had to attend meetings at work, that will be one of the most satisfying chapters you can read:

It got an anime but I read the manga first (inserts snooty voice):

My daughter left the nest and became an S ranked adventurer: this is a very wholesome story set in a fantasy universe about an adoptive dad and his admiring daughter, no usagi drop, very big positive male role model vibes throughout.

I'm on love with the villianess: mc wakes up in the body of an otome game protagonist that has 3 princes and a villianess noble who bullies her. One issue, she's a yuri masochist so what the bully get really flustered as our mc goes 'more mistress'

For car lovers: Countach: man finds out his gf's a fickle slut as he dumps him for a guy with a ferrari. At his lowest point, his mom calls to tell him she's found a letter from him as a kid addressed to himself. When he reads it, it reminds him of his dream of owning a Lamborghini Countach and thanks to the letter and a rich donor, he gets one. This one is for car fans as you'll DEFINITELY enjoy the series especially seeing the Countach drifting in Japanese mountains.

Christian story: The Knight King who returned with a God: starts off an isekai with our guy born into a fantasy chivalry land, becomes like King Arthur but after the constant waves of demons and monsters becomes the Doom Slayer as last man standing slaughtering them for hundreds of years to then find a portal back to Korea but keeps the King act to achieve his goals. Enjoyable series showing the greatest power of them all: EXTREME RACISM (he really hates orcs)

Medical stories: Dr Player: a fantasy world where all medicine relies on healing magic, our mc has the weakest amount of this magic and an illegitimate prince so lowest if the low. He awakens a game like screen and knowledge of OUR medicine and uses them both to get ahead. Got a nice fusion of our medical knowledge and magic and enjoy the skills he gets especially 'how to deal with assholes' skill.

Perfect Surgeon: guy gets an AI fused into his brain on accident and with it sets out on the goal to be the best doctor/surgeon possible. Focuses heavily on the internal politics within medical field.

Wholesome: A story about a Grandpa and Grandma who returned to back to their Youth: short few pannel stories of a sweet old couple gaining their youth back and their interactions after, also one of the grandaughters REALLY likes grandpa now..

Isekai: Mezametara saikyou soubi to uchuusen-mochi datta no de, ikkodate mezashite youhei toshite jiyuu ni ikitai: set in a completely Sci-fi universe so quite unique for isekai, got space battles, bounty hunter work and an AI controlled vaction planet where robot maids give you the best service of serving you drinks to protecting you with laser guns from a planetary assault.

Release that Witch: a lot of content for this available, mc wakes up in the body of the lowest ranking prince who's a bit despised for being a letch, in a world where witches exist and are hunted. He stops the execution of a witch he wakes up to see and uses her power (fire manipulation) on a plan to use his industrial knowledge of our world to gain more power here. Is a more empire building kind of story.

Revenge arc: The Strongest Brave Who Craves For Revenge, Extinguish With The Power Of Darkness: TLDR; it's really fucked up! What have we got, a brainwashed goddess turned into a masochistic slave for the mc, cannibalism, human experimentation, LOTS or tourture yeah if you want a revenge story against people you'll have no issues with how much they're tortured, this is it.

Motivational: Reformation of a Deadbeat Noble:Starts with a dream/story of a man coming to a village, swinging his sword in practice for decades until his death. Cuts to our MC waking up in his bed, having spent years in self isolation after the death of his mother with the sudden urge to do the same. Slow build but payoff comes through with revelations and perseverance of mc.

Fights galore: Lookism:it went from intrigue about the two bodies of the mc, to finding out more about the backstory of characters, to fucked up cults and underground businesses to mostly how the fuck are they still alive!?! fights. Still highly enjoyable.

Weak Hero: set in high school, features an MC that as the title suggests, looks weak and frail but uses his intellect and tricks to absolutely tourture bullies in fights, very well backstoried characters throughout

Bitches be crazy: The Case In Which Streaming In Another World Led To The Creation Of A Massive Yandere Following: MC is isekai'd to fantasy world with near infinite mana which he uses....to become the worlds first streamer. He garners a very DEDICATED audience including a priestess, saint, Demon lord, assassin etc all gone yandere for him.

Reincarnation Colosseum - Using the Weakest Skills in Order to Defeat the Strongest Women and Create a Slave Harem: our guy gets Isakai'd to another would by a bitch priestess, judged worthless and thrown into a colosseum where if you lose, you're turned into a womam and made a sex slave by the winner. Luckily our MC is a gamer so knows how to use the system to get his revenge. Cultured comedy.

That's the lot of my recommendations, take a gander and see if anything clicks with you guys.

Most will remember him for this meme worthy Harry Potter scene but me I'll remember him for this classic Top.Gear interview of how he always loved to fuck with he press.

Just an open question since we keep getting situations like this where the industry effectively admits it is incapable and unwilling to act to stop the worst elements of the industry (child exploitation, human trafficking, forced involvement, rape etc) that it's probably best to just ban the industry together.

Notice though I said using real people, with AI slowly getting better and CGI improving, why do we need real people to make porn? Just have something animated to be realistic enough as I don't give a fuck about pixels or a drawing. Have whatever kink you want, have entire porn snuff films whatever as no REAL people are getting harmed in the making if it. The worst that can happen is stressed artists trying to meet deadlines.

This might also affect adult streamers which is just a bonus as it'll be like a re-run of Projekt Melody when she became more popular since she did more than just strip and stare blankly at the camera till donations came in. A lot of porn or porn in all but name streaming (which I include Twitch on that) get money off just simply being pretty and that's it, denying that as an easy route will probably cause a shift in a lot of media.

I wouldn't advocate a FULL ban as no matter your feeling on it generally, it is a release so going full puritan invites a backlash and probably just forces more men to deal with insufferable feminist women. But just making that release fully fictional based than support an industry that sweeps horrific practices under the rug for money is probably for the best.

Apparently according to this video it was approved by a vote of 98%, will really only effect AAA studios and means all their stuff gets delayed, at least if it requires voice actors.

Maybe AAA will focus on patches then for their buggy games since they can't make overpriced DLCs.

I'm still hoping the writer's deal falls through, I want it ALL to burn down, get replaced by AI and these guys have to learn to mine since we still need coal not overhyped drama queens. Golden time for indies and foreign non-American dependent studios though.

Later than usual on this, been busy (in a good way) so not caught up on it all and on a bad side one of my favourite places to watch on the high seas is gone so finding a new place to go sailing

Good season overall, plenty to watch and 4 good heavy hitters. Also side note, if you were waiting for the last episodes of Nier amd Demon King to be released, those have dropped so can watch the entire season now.

The heavy hitters:

Mushoku Tensei Season 2 part 1: I put this first as I personally enjoyed this the most, our guy suffering from ED thanks to the ending of season 1 and a LOT of revelations in this season than big action scenes.

Bleach: TYBW part 2: of course this here and great news for manga guys, this anime is fixing plot holes from the original manga.

Zom 100: ever had a job that was so depressing it made you wish for the apocalypse so you didn't have to go in the next day? Is this the anime for you! Bright with comedy elements but doesn't shy away from dark moments.

Jujitsu Kaisen: good return to form and excellent actions scenes to watch.

Still good but more personal preference:

Atelier Ryzu the animation: Yes I am a proud member of thighology, what about it? It's a calm ok anime but I know why you're here, the animators DEFINITELY know from the angles, just admit it.

Reborn as a vending machine: following the example of 'reborn as a sword' showing that your main mc can be reborn as an inanimate object and STILL have more personality than the average Hollywood protagonist

The Devil is a part timer season 2 part 2: it's good with funny moments, I think the unfortunate thing is that when it first released it was more unique and now it's competing in a saturated market.

Reign of the seven spell blades: Interesting premise of a non-pussy hogwarts where everyone's carrying, death rate is 20% and headmaster is a dark side milf.

The great cleric: only carried this on as 1. The animation baited me as it reminded me of 1990s- early 2000s anime style and as someone who occasionally plays healers I sympathise with their plights.

Need to catch up on:

Undead murder Farce: really interesting premise but not enough into it

Dark Gathering: despite how one of the main characters looks, VERY dark series so be warned.

My happy Marriage: heard good things about it but I need to watch more.

Liar liar: it's basically twitter if everyone had above room temperature IQ, everyone's putting up a front and there's a system to steal prestige from each other in this academy setting but if you steal one 'red star' you are granted the ability to tell one lie EVERYONE will believe.

The Gene of AI: a Madhouse work that explores relationships between AI and humans and the personality and consciousness concepts if you have the ability to save it after death.

My Tiny Senpai: other than the twitter rage it caused during announcement, it's ok just wish it was developed more as they are adults working in an office not a high school romance.

The dreaming boy is a realist: I actually have read the manga for this so like to see how the anime compares. A boy who simps hard for one girl just decides to stop and accept she doesn't like him, leading to a situation where she is confused about her feelings now that he's stopped chasing her.

I need to get round to watching:

Saint Cecila and the Pastor Lawrence

HECK

Average:

My unique Skill makes me Op at level 1: standard isekai where guy starts off apparently weak but gets op fast. It's ok but that's it

Dropped

The girl I like forgot her Glasses AND The masterful Cat is depressed again today: GoHands, the people who made the both of these, wtf is with you? Why do you keep doing weird animation angles? I had to drop both of these because I was getting sick, not in a 'I'm sick of this genre' sense, motion sickness. Your animation style was giving me motion sickness!

That's the lot for this season, anything I missed feel free to add and let's hope the left continues to be gatekept.

Heard it here first and looks like Arch is going to mention it in his stream later, both places also mentioning the recent closure of Volition...

My acceleration side of me is going 'DO IT!' because it'd love the infiltrated western studios to burn and all that nice IP feasted on by better studios, maybe I can finally get a good Battlefield and Command and Conquer game again. The non-acceleration side of me.....couldn't give a shit, I have zero apathy for these idiots ever since they said I was bad for finding healthy women attractive and didn't castrate myself to prove how loyal I am.

I know strikers have targeted YouTubers and Streamers too but gaming as well, it really seems ALL these people can be easily replaced by AI if they're kicking this much of a fuss about it.

Edit: just saw this video on the same subject looking a bit more on the social media side. Looks like some streamers who are VAs in support of the strike aren't going to play games from companies unless they are 'indie'. Don't know what their indie games are as they could be walking simulators, but probably best to knock them down too. Part of me actually wants this to extend to include anime dub studios and VAs too, just cut out ALL of the cancer at once.

This isn't a gotcha thing I'm doing, I was watching this AI vs artist Arch was doing where he did one before with black April O'Neil and he's done another with dark skin Velma this time. Some flaws here and there but a massive improvement over the HBO show, at one point, he puts out the idea with what I like to refer to as 'milfy Velma' was having it that she was detached from the group, is a reporter herself and events brings her back with her old friends, so like the show just, not shit.

One of the immediate things that detached me from even trying to watch it was how ugly the self insert Velma was yet if this AI made hotter Velma was in it, I might at least give it an episode.

But a key part of this is that watching shows is passive, you're not interacting so for games it depends for me. Does it fit the setting as if it's a game about giant mechs then it isn't really a factor. If there's character customisation beyond just selecting outfits, then it becomes a big factor as if I want to create a really hot character, the game itself shouldn't limit me. Same as if there's 'romance' choices and all of them are fugly.

I've gotten to the point where having attractive guys but ugly women in a game is a massive red flag for me as then it means this is a self insert game and there's likely to be a lot of ideology in the narrative too. So just want to hear your guys takes if having attractive female characters even affects the shows and games you play/watch.

As the Snow White drama rumbles on, Tim Rice saying it's unnecessary recently, I wanted to show a case where it was retold in a better way.

Been reading 'I’m the Stepmother, but my Daughter is too Cute' which is the 'reborn as the story's villianess' trope in a Snow White setting. Snow White (Princess Blanche in this) is around only 10 in this take and the focus is more on the family relationship side with the stepmother now trying to repair and rebuild a relationship with her stepdaughter and more insisting her father, the king, BE a father (spoiler, he despises all women as Blanche is a product of when he was raped to 'continue the bloodline' when he was 14 by the former Queen).

Now let's compare this story to Disney’s projected train wreck. It doesn't belittle the male characters (in fact it provides more depth behind them), it isn't recasting characters for 'diversity' and clearly markets itself as an alternate take on a classic than 'a modern interpretation' subtlety implying the past version is inferior.

A western version I would also add is the Snow White tale in Roald Dahl's Revolting Rhymes where it's a straight up parody and takes the piss in a very humorous way. Kinda expected when Red Riding Hood pulls out a gun from her knickers and caps the wolf to make a new fur coat. But this does the same thing as the previous story, it honours the original and then goes in it's own direction.

The modern issue we are having is that modern, Hollywood especially, writers have the hubris to assume they can supplant a story that was passed through multiple generations than just provide their own take. Maybe it was started as a disenfranchisement campaign but seeing how many of those same writers are on the street striking because AI looking really good right now, hasn't worked out that well for them.

Anyway, thought I'd show how to do an alternate take of an old story well and just how shit mainstream western writers are. Have you guys got any good retellings you can list compared to Disney trash?

Was watching this latest Arch video where he compares the 'April O'Neil' that was in the latest TMNT property compared to a black April O'Neil he put together with AI. TLDR; the AI despite a few faults still made her hot and look capable in each compared to the frumpy troll the film got.

We know some of this is ideological that they want to lower the standards of beauty, but with AI becoming easier and easier to use that boomers are starting to use it, why pay for over compensated, lazy, unskilled vurtue signalling artists currently striking than just use a machine and then edit it a bit with 1 artist or AI again if it makes a third arm?

I honestly think AI is going to not really hit the blue collar jobs and heavy industry since if something goes wrong you need a human that can adapt to either fix it or turn it off to limit further damage. The service industry will be case by case like if there's been too much of an issue getting staff or with the staff there if it's more beneficial to turn it into a giant vending machine. But the one that I think will be obliterated in the west will be the Media industry, when all they do is repost each others works like a giant human centipede, why pay them when you can just get an AI to write it for a few dollars and it takes minutes not hours and doesn't require giant office's just a computer.

Entertainment is worse as I fundamentally believe we can easily have a lot of films that have the same CGI as the Final Fantasy film for cheaper than it would take to use actors nowadays. Just make sure you get a seperate AI to make the script good. We'll still get your Top Gun Mavericks, your John Wick or even your Sound of Freedoms as they appeal to customers but by large, I can see the bulk of western media being replaced with CGI in the next 2-3 years than a decade.

I don’t see this affecting Asian, Indian or even Eastern European media as much since they are still appealing to a customer base than preaching. I do think at the end of the current strikes, we are going to see a massive reduction in physical studio spaces and 'celebrity' actors and a rise in machine made Entertainment.

I said I'd try to help on the nerd side and rather recommend some stuff I've come across that I think some of you will like as a break from the spam or depressing shit.

Will seperate them into categories and I'd like to add I will put Isakai or regression with some as regression is different in that it's stories that involve travelling back in time with memories intact than Isakai.

You can get all these free by searching the titles on search engines and using sites like MangaKatana, Mangaread etc just have adblock ready

Not action heavy but smarter tactics:

Real Man: It's lonely at the top as this CEO knows, no friends, responsible for job cuts so lots of hate from former employees, wife left as no attention. After a weird encounter he regresses in time to before the interview for the business he became CEO in. Well written with lots of corporate politics set in the war for dominance of smartphones. Also interesting split personality aspect between current self and the older, ruthless CEO he once was.

This is the Law: an accomplished lawyer is murdered by internal security to protect the president (so probably had stuff on the Clinton's). The gods are pissed as he was their guy to clean up corruption so they regress him to a teenager with all his memories and a power to assist him. Its a nice well written story aproaching everything from a legal methodology.

Trash of the Counts family: protagonist wakes up in the body of a count's son that's just trash in the story he read and uses his wits to not be on the bad side of the mc. If you enjoyed The Greatest Estate Developer, you'll love this story.

More action heavy: The world after the fall: excellent art and the story of on man's refusal to bend to anyone's will in the face of impossible odds.

I became the tyrant of a defence game: a pro strategy streamer beats an impossible defence game no one else has managed to do. He finds himself sucked into the game's intro, in a mission where you're meant to lose, one Knight is the only survivor and he's stuck in the body of the doomed commander. Good story for strategy fans.

The return of the Disaster class Hero: just fun action of a hero that gives zero fucks after being betrayed, showing a middle finger to gods and anyone in his way.

SSS - Class suicide hunter: residing in a tower, nothing really happening in his life, wishing for an ability to improve his luck. He gets one, can copy an ability of anyone he DIES TO. This would be useless if it wasn't for a particular asshole and now with this and an ability to go back 24 hours anytime he dies, changes his fate (after 4000 suicides)

My daughter is the Final Boss: failed father regresses in time and uses the second chance to stop his daughter suffering to then go evil. Has good action but main feature is cute cinnamon roll daughter.

Peak insanity:

Mr zombie: one punch man as a zombie, then even MORE insane. It starts at 100 then just goes further, from flipping a city to smashing a person into the moon using an aircraft carrier, it's just nuts.

The Return of the Crazy Demon: the mc is nuts, he regresses from his end and uses this to bitch slap, kill, inflict diarrhea through poisoning any motherfucker that gets in his way then he might randomly dance around the guy he was going to kill because he felt like it.

Calm story: Solo farming in the tower: a tower exists, people randomly selected to be hunters in said tower and our mc was summoned by mistake. Stuck in a cavern in the tower, he tries to grow the tomatoes and spring onions he has on him to survive and with help of a few local monsters starts a farm. Lots of funny scenes and cute moments.

Cultured: Yuru Fuwa Noka No moji bake skill: its a farming Isakai with many funny moments, please pay attention to my tag lol

Leave it there, I can add more but it'll go on too long, I'd HIGHLY recommend the first two, feel free to recommend others, i avoided really well known ones and I don’t do too much manga as I avoid those getting great adaptations (Spy Family, Oshi no Ko etc)