scavenger's reign has speculative astrobiology, gorgeous animation, artistic inspiration from Moebius and Miyazaki, and it even has LESBIANS!!!!!!! it's like it was made in a lab for me specifically!!!!!!!!!!!!! and it's ONGOING???? spoiled!!!! I'm spoiled!!!!!!!!!!!!

Just a little spaceshow nothing to worry about

this really doesn't make any sense. but at the same time. when we found out that fiona created levi and thats why they share a voice. well. this was all i could think about. whoops.

One of the things I'm liking about Scavenger's Reign and that it does pretty well is the 'in media res' start. A lot of shows (LOOKING AT YOU, FOUNDATION) try to make the audience care for the characters without taking time to establish them and throw them into the Big Situation. Scavenger's Reign starts slow and lets the audience experience the planet (and its weirdness) and how the characters interact with it: Ursula is inquisitive, Sam is pragmatic, Azi is wary, Kamen is fearful, Levi is accepting. This is established through Little Situations/ side quests before joining the main. They aren't being thrown into the Big Adventure without showing us little bits of who they are and how they've survived this long.

I see people calling Hollow evil but they're really not and I think that understanding that is vital to understanding Scavenger's Reign's themes about human influence on the ecosystem. Hollow did not start over-killing or even eating whole animals until Kamen started killing animals without the need to and bringing them to Hollow. He represents humanity's destructive role in our environment; he kills without cause and disrupts the natural order of things just because it initially makes him feel powerful.

Hollow is not an evil mastermind, they are an animal trying to survive who has been majorly influenced and removed from their natural role in the ecosystem by humanity.

🌱

in Scavenger's Reign, I love how Ursula illuminates the tension of delight in discovery. How observing and interacting with beauty beyond our imaginations often means blundering into harming that beauty. We see it in people arguing over the existence of zoos and nature preserves and exotic pet keeping and off limits national land and tourism and so many others.

so Ursula. she's the biologist. she's the one who especially sees the beauty of this hostile planet. she can recognize strategies of survival and intuit behavior patterns of the life she encounters. it's literally a flower opening up to her touch

or after her touch, in the moonlight

presumably she's the one who recognizes the energy ball in the first episode, and the creature they cut open dies. she's the one who suggests blending in as the creature's young during the storm, and the parasite dies. she's the one who witnesses a wonder in the maze. and that beautiful intelligent creature. dies.

of course these incidents are all happening within the context of immediate danger and survival, and Ursula's keen observations save her and Sam many times over.

but watching those flowers in the pale moonlight, all I could think about was how grotesque it all felt. death of beauty. beauty in death. and how Ursula's love of discovering it saved her and killed them

+ pls be gentle in the notes, I still have 3 episodes to go

tv show reccomendation: Scavengers Reign!

adult animated series on HBO Max about survivors of a spaceship wreck surviving on an alien planet, a pal originally pitched it as "Nausicaa meets Annihilation vibes" in terms of whimsy + body horror elements, and I think that both fits and is a compelling way to describe it. the plot isn't the most in depth but I think that allows the show to wrap everything up nicely in the 12 eps and maximize screen time on the best part which is the alien planet's ecology and worldbuilding.

it was also just very refreshing i feel like theres been a divide in western animation in recent years where a lot of "adult" shows are that way solely because they're crude/sexual/edgy, and meanwhile anything "whimsical" gets slotted into kid genres and is therefore limited in how far it can push anything. so its nice to get a show that balances whimsy with body horror elements without relying on like, sex or fart jokes.

also the last episode has a really gorgeous animation sequence nearish the end, you rarely see animation of earth-biology/geology/evolution done with such care and attention to detail, and it was really wonderful to see how much effort the writers/animators put into that aspect of the show and clearly loved it + wanted the viewer to love it too

Please watch Scavenger's Reign I'm shocked by how much people are sleeping on it.

i started rambling in the tags of a scavenger's reign reblog but realized Too Late i rambled Too Much so i'll put the thoughts here as a screencap instead but there's spoilers in it

Scavenger's Reign (2023)

im actually fine when fictional gay people die but u don't want to talk to me when they kill the robot

Don't YOU want to work tirelessly in an extreme MANIA to build a DISGUSTING MUD CAVE for your INTESTINAL PARASITE??

*points at Barry*

THAT LAD IS AUTISTIC

im watching scavenger's reign and it is REALLY GOOD, psycological horror, body horror (in cartoon style, so bearable to me!!!), environmentalism themes it seems, VERY cool creatures & alien ecosystem, really gorgeous animation. meloncholy vibes but not so sad I can't watch it. and again, cool creatures!!!!! as someone who adored movies like Avatar and Star wars almost exclusively for the glimpses of cool creatures this is a wonderful feast