#'op hes a capitalist' NOT TO ME. NOT TO ME. look at his little eyes.... he went vegan once. let me have this

[bowenoke]

"the watchers top-surgeried grian" comic is in my brain at all times. perfect mix of comedy and horror and comedy out of horror. please let me think about something else though i have exams but this piece of art is like moss that grew in my brain wrinkles

I'm sorry, the only way i got it out was to draw it. best i can do for you is to replace it with different bullshit

mumbo jumbo communism

meme ref the watchers top surgeried grian

[m1ssunderstanding]

Get Back Rewatch 55 Years On: Day Five

The thing is I absolutely love the album that comes out of this mess. Like I know a lot of people do not like Let It Be, but so many of my favorite songs are on it. One of them being “I Me Mine.” The walz element is haunting, and I can read the lyrics as anti-capitalist even though George himself mostly wasn’t. 

Laughing my head off at two boys from one of the best grammar schools in England, who have at this point made millions off of their writing, genuinely not knowing whether it should be “more freer” or “more freely”

The difference in how George shows Paul his new song vs John is striking. For Paul, he’s relaxed, nonchalant. For John, he stands up and performs it. And I think both are a defense mechanism, poor baby, because clearly, although Paul was very supportive of the song while they were alone, when John is roasting it, Paul just laughs along and George has to go “I don’t give a fuck whether you like it.” 

Ah, the famous “up-against-a-wall” conversation. Paul comes in all dominant and sure. “Haven’t you written anything else? Haven’t you?” But then John touches him, and makes him laugh, and Paul’s a melted, goo-goo-eyes mess. This is the real reason why John got to be the leader isn’t it? Because Paul was too damn soft on him to ever follow through with his bossiness.

Their scouse sounds BEAUTIFUL compared to the stupid ugly RP and MLH’s transatlantic shit.

“And now John’d like to say a few words on the subject.” John starts singing, Paul strums along and joins in on the “chorus.” They can’t communicate like healthy people, but they Can do this. 

So Peter Jackson took out Paul’s bitchy nod at Yoko as he’s stealing her man in real time right in front of her eyes. Unforgivable. But he kept in this adorable laugh, so that’s something. 

Three more covers that I think *mean something* “Stand By Me” and “Spinning Like a Top” by Paul, followed by “You Win Again” by John. Yoko’s sweet little shoulder kiss. Thank you for taking care of the poor wet kitten, girly. Maybe don’t introduce the poor wet kitten to heroine, but you do you, I guess. (OP recognizes that poor wet kitten is also an adult capable of making his own decisions)

The cut from Paul literally dancing to get John’s attention straight to John dancing with Yoko while inside Paul’s head a silver hammer is clanging ominously. I can’t. Followed by the knowing, loving smile from Ringo to Paul. You know, those moments when you validate your friend’s bitchy thoughts with a look. 

George is literally SO big inside himself, you know? You have to have superhuman self-love abilities to watch your friend – who is supposed to be helping you – shamelessly make fun of your art . . . and just “Do you wanna do that walz on the show? That’d be great.”

But did you guys know John was actually a really great mover?

“Yes, alright. Just sod off.” I love John. Paul’s people-pleasing ass would literally die first and he needs John to do this kind of shit for him and John’s only too happy to.

The moment when Paul and John are on the same wavelength about Dennis O’Dell’s stage. 

OK but. Did John get the clear plastic idea from Yoko’s art exhibits? 

“Any time we do anything it’s always got to be the best.” Poor Ringo. They’re all literally so tired of carrying so much weight for such a long time. 

“See, I’d watch an hour of him just playing the piano. Cause he’s so great.” With that fond, loving, smile. SUCH big dick energy here. The others could NEVER. 

“And I’ll have the plastic when you’re finished.” Literally for what, though? John, you little hoarding goblin. 

And then Ringo responding to MLH’s “I love you” with “Yes, I love you too.” Yeah, Ringo wins the prize for most healthy beatle of the day. 

*Pattie Boyd voice* “I just wish I knew what was going on there. But something. Something.”

Ugh, John looks so hurt. So tender. So heartbroken. While Paul is over there playing a damn funeral march because that’s the only way he lets himself express anything. But I actually love how Dennis O’Dell knows the clearest path to cheering John up is to say that Paul liked his idea. And how well it works. They’re literally so obvious to everyone but themselves. 

I love the bit when John walks in on the rest of them discussing the live show and MLH calls, “We’ve decided. We’re going to Africa.” And Paul hurries to cut in, “No we’re NOT.” Because he knows exactly how John can get and he’s going to nip this in the bud before John gets let down. And of course, John is all “YEAH LETS GO LETS GO!” And he’s talking about how they always wish they were recording abroad. “We could be in LA, or FRANCE.” (side eye emoji) 

Paul’s “Well said, John.” and “I’ve seen it, John. I went to the premiere. I thought you were great.” Why do all your compliments to him have to be in silly voices? Like, I know you think everyone is going to call you a pussy for saying something genuinely kind to your best friend, but they’re not, and he needs it. 

Holy shit this was a long day. See you all tomorrow with another long-winded-ass post.

[frostbitepandaaaaa]

Nine Minutes and Then Some

Missing scene drabbles

Tagging @today-in-fic

~1,100 words

Rated T (for now)

Episode: Deep Throat

Read below or on ao3

“So, how’s your new partner, Mulder?” Byers asks over his shoulder.

Frohike picks his feet up off the table and leans closer, beady eyes convex and bug-like under his thick glasses. “Oh, yeah there G-man... is there an Agent Arctor that we should consider New-Pathing?”

“Settle down, Frohike,” Mulder mumbles, flipping the page of the September 1991 issue of the The Lone Gunman. It was on cell towers and what, exactly, they may be hiding under their cement anchors nestled in corn fields and mountain tops across the country. There may have been an op-ed about the precipitous decline in sperm count and the “corresponding” increase of said towers that he had read twice. “You make it seem like she’s some evil crony who needs to be put down like a Replicant—“

“Wrong Philip K. Dick there, Mulder,” Langly interrupts, tossing his rainbow Slinky from hand to hand from his perch on the run-down couch with the enthusiasm of a toddler.

“She?” Frohike questions, little caterpillar eyebrows almost on the top of his head.

“Agent Arctor was a victim,” Byers lectures, unfazed, not even turning from his worried pecking at his keyboard. The newest edition of The Lone Gunman was almost ready for print. “If anyone actually read ‘A Scanner Darkly’ you’d know that.”

“Will you shut up?” Frohike requests, gloved hands spread in protest at Byers’ disinterested back. He leans forward and flicks his finger into the spine of the magazine Mulder was pretending to read. “What’s this, Mulder? A lady partner?”

“Frohike, have you ever considered being less of a creep?” His eyes scan over an ad for a voice modulator. It’s odd to think that the Gunmen participated in something as banal and capitalistic as advertising money, but someone had to pay for the laboratory of subterfuge.

“Ah, come on now, Mulder, give Frohike a break: a mole can’t help it’s nature,” Langly quips, growing bored with his Slinky and going for the Rubik’s cube instead.

“Very funny,” Frohike grumbles.

“My new partner is a medical doctor, Frohike,” Mulder offers, knowing the little troll wouldn’t let up until he spills the beans. “She’s an inch taller than you and could kick your ass.”

Frohike raises his eyebrows again. “Sounds hot.”

“A medical doctor?” Byers asks, finally turning away from the keyboard, the lenses in his glasses glowing blue from the monitor. “That seems... strange.”

Mulder inclines his head, agreeing. “She’s also something of a physicist.”

Byers frowns, impressed and skeptical. It reminds him of Scully. “Sounds...”

“Hot,” Frohike reiterates.

“Useful,” Langly provides, elbows on his knees, bottom lip over his teeth. Mulder is inclined to agree but he doesn’t want to tell them that just yet. Besides, ‘useful’ sounds... mechanical. Inorganic and utilitarian, like a tuning fork or an x-ray machine. Scully is more alive than anyone he’s met in a long, long time. She is... an ally. A comrade in arms.

Langly turns down the reel-to-reel, pumping out Iggy Pop. “Why would they assign a scientist to the X-Files?”

“Sounds fishy to me,” Frohike claims.

“Sounds like a spy,” Byers corrects solemnly. “What do you think, Mulder? Do you trust her?”

“How can he trust her, Byers, he’s only known her for what? A week?” Langly protests.

Byers looks outraged on his behalf, staring at Langly with pure disbelief. “Mulder is one of the best profilers in the country. I trust his ability to make a sound judgement.”

“He is friends with us,” Frohike observes proudly, draining his beer and belching in satisfaction.

“I do trust her,” Mulder confesses.

“Uh oh,” Langly says, shaking his head.

“Agreed,” Frohike announces.

“Not good,” Byers confirms.

“What?” Mulder demands, now perhaps a bit offended. He lifts a finger, moves it in a circle, indicating the three of them, regarding him with a kind of weird, affectionate concern. “What’s this concerned dad act for?”

“You got it bad,” Frohike says, waving a hand at him as if that was all the evidence he needed.

“It’s not like that.”

“Then what is it?” Byers asks. “I mean... how do you trust her already?”

“Well, for one thing, you can be attracted to someone and not trust them at the same time.”

“There it is!” Langly declares, positively gleeful.

Mulder shakes his head, spreading his hands in wonderment. “Byers, didn’t you just claim that I was the best profiler in the country?”

“So modest,” Langly sasses, popping open another Shiner with his trusty hula girl bottle opener. He leans a socked foot on the edge of the table.

“You’re crushing hard, dude,” Frohike insists.

“No, I’m not. It’s not—“ He huffs, shakes his head. “Agent Scully is an attractive woman, but I’m not going to sit here and let you three assholes talk about her like that’s all she is. She’s a professional, a scientist and she’s my partner—“

“Oh, it’s worse than we thought, fellas,” Langly laments.

“Will you three shut the fuck up?” Mulder snaps, patience wearing thin.

“Someone’s getting defensive,” Frohike says with a shit-eating grin

“Defensiveness is a sign of guilt,” Byers offers unnecessarily.

“What makes you so sure this Agent Scully isn’t a spy?” Frohike asks, all business now. “We can do a search for you, do some snooping.”

“No snooping.”

“You’re no fun,” Langly pouts.

“I swear to god, if you creeps do a search on her—“

“Okay, okay, settle down, Romeo.” Frohike passes him a beer in conciliation. “We’re just looking out for you.”

He sighs, settles back into the cracked leather couch as his fingers curl over the cold neck of the bottle. He remembers her clutching her gun over the roof an unfamiliar car. A car she had commandeered like a swashbuckler boarding a merchant ship. He remembers thinking, ridiculously, that he was glad to see her, teeth gritted and staring down a half-dozen MPs as he stumbled to to her in some strange farce of a hostage exchange.

He doesn’t remember what he saw out on that sun-baked, wind-blasted runway, but he remembers her, small but steely and unwilling to allow anyone to be at peace until he was returned to her.

There’s something about the memory he feels he can’t tell them. It feels too... personal, too damning.

Plus, he doesn’t owe these cretins anything, even if they’re his best friends.

“Look, I can handle myself,” Mulder assures them. “You’re just going to have to trust me on this.”

The Gunmen shift away, resigned and mostly unconvinced, which annoys him more than it really should.

“I bet she’s hot,” Frohike asserts once again and Mulder throws the magazine laying forgotten in his lap at him. It hits him square in forehead and the matter is settled, for now.

[autumnblogs]

Day 9: Troll Time

Time to get trolled.

https://homestuck.com/story/1527

This is the first of the events that I’ve noticed enough to talk about in Homestuck that alludes to the Alpha Kids. While Roxy on the other side of the scratch is the one actually responsible for the disappearance of Jaspers and the Pumpkins, at this point in the story, we have some pretty good suspects for exactly who disappeared both of them.

I could see myself guessing that Jade’s penpal is one of the trolls, but it wouldn’t be my first guess. I’m going to pay close attention to all of the events on one side of the scratch that are caused by the other side of the scratch, because my theory is that a Scratched Universe, more than anything else, is really terminated rather than truly being retroactively erased. Too much doesn’t make sense from a causal perspective (not necessarily from a temporally linear one) if a scratched universe is actually erased entirely, or even if it is closed off from the rest of existence - why can information enter and leave a Scratched Universe at all from an outside perspective, for example?

Are Side A Side B teleporters, appearifiers, and so on and so on, loopholes? Maybe it has something to do with the nature of Void, the Furthest Ring, and their seeming exclusion from the rules the rest of Paradox Space is required to follow.

The Doylist answer, which in Homestuck is also allowed to be the Watsonian answer, might be that while a Scratched Universe is *materially* erased, information about it is still permitted to propagate through narrative contrivances such as the author. Fenestrated planes can easily be considered narrative contrivances, but if we use this as our theory, it seems like Appearifiers and Sendificators would also have to be Narrative Contrivances (which I’m going to spell with a capital NC from here on out.) I... actually don’t have a problem with this hypothesis, so it’s what I’m going with. Also, since a friend of mine who’s reading this liveblog asked, I’m going to post a link to the tvtropes article on those two terms at the start of this paragraph for anyone who doesn’t know what I’m talking about.

Perhaps, given the proclivity for the Void to preserve lost information in the form of dreams and memories, and given the nature of Space as the medium through which events normally propagate (as well as the fundamental medium of storytelling from which all other storytelling mediums derive their medium-ness), and their proximity on the Aspect Wheel, Narrative Contrivances are objects which have are shared between these two domains - as objects associated with the Void, Narrative Contrivances are permitted to follow their own set of rules which to someone outside of the universe are obvious, but to anyone inside the universe are a complete black box, and as objects associated with Space, Narrative Contrivances function as a means by which to propagate information in such a way as to preserve causality, the logical topology of Paradox Space, and with them, the self-fulfilling nature of Paradox Space. They allow the world-line of objects travelling through the narrative to remain consistent, even when they would violate material geographical conventions.

This description of Narrative Contrivances makes me think a lot of things could be Narrative Contrivances, like First Guardians, for example, who can violate the speed of light.

This is all a lot of silly bullshit, but it’s fun to come up with theories to describe and predict Homestuck (and future Homestuck works, even though I’m not terribly invested in them.)

This has been a long Cold Open. More after the break.

https://homestuck.com/story/1529

John gets cyberbullied!

Man. Cyberbullying has really gone from being an individual concern to being an apocalyptic issue. Who knew? Maybe in writing the trolls and their cyberbullying as being inextricable from the apocalypse, Andrew Hussie predicted this.

I’m not trying to understate John’s issues by comparing them to stuff like massive social media disinformation campaigns - receiving Death Threats as a thirteen year old is terrifying, and on a general level, the fact that this kind of horrible shit was commonplace in the earliest days of social media should have been a big indicator that what was yet to come was going to be so, so much worse.

I’m also not trying to jocularly exaggerate the threat that almost completely lawless social media has on society. If you haven’t already, check out the excellent documentary The Social Dilemma, and then delete your Facebook account if you haven’t already (and since you’re reading my extremely anti-capitalist anti-patriarchy liveblog on tumblr, you’ve probably already done that. If you have, good for you!) And your twitter for good measure, come on, you know who you are. Mabe your tumblr too while you’re at it.

Cyberbullying is part of a larger theme in Homestuck, another one of those things that it’s Capital A About. As a work that is not only about growing up, but specifically about growing up in the information age, Homestuck is repeatedly about the ways that Social Media don’t just bring us together, but keep us apart from one another. Cyberbullying is one of the effects of Social Media pushing people apart - it’s so, so much easier to threaten to kill someone when you don’t have to look them in the eye while you’re doing it, and when you have the anonymity of a string of alphanumeric characters as a name to hide behind.

https://homestuck.com/story/1537

The Black Queen is a very bad woman. It’s always intrigued me that the Queens allow their counterparts’ agents free movement through their territory like this even on the eve (or the advent?) of full-scale war between their kingdoms. PM is just allowed to wander around Derse unsupervised.

I suppose that if even God and Satan can afford each other a bit of token civility while discussing the fates of sinners, so can Prospitians and Dersites.

https://homestuck.com/story/1542

@zeetheus​ John’s definitely proceeds Rose’s bluh.

Rose sips her Mom’s martini for the same reason that she later falls prey to alcoholism. Trying to grow up without help, Rose interprets the martini as a symbol of parental authority, the same way that she interprets the partaking of beverages in general as being a ritual of intimacy with her Mother. Empty signifiers.

https://homestuck.com/story/1549

Jack Noir’s grating voice is so outrageously distracting that it prevents itself as an intrusive thought in the Narrative for PM.

Actually, come to think of it, *all* of the Carapacians talk pretty much exclusively via narration. I wonder if that’s representative of an altered relationship with their narrative reality, which is the first time ever I’ve had that thought pretty much at all.

I always just chalked it up to one of the quirks of Andrew’s writing style, but especially when we take into account the fact that Homestuck is as metanarrative as it is, and that Carapacians are the only characters in Homestuck Proper who interface with the narrative prompt except for the audience, Andrew, and Caliborn himself, I can’t help but wonder. Maybe as living gaming abstractions, in spite of their limited intelligence and abilities, Carapacians have a unique relationship with the narrative laws of Paradox Space (perhaps in the same way that Narrative Contrivances do?)

https://homestuck.com/story/1569

Riffing a little more on the “Fetch Modus as analogous to thought processes” motif previously introduced, Jade’s excellent visualization abilities and vivid imagination serve her well as a Space Player, but tend to misfire, running wild, and seeing patterns where they don’t exist (intrusive thoughts make her see Johnny 5 in her Eclectic Bass and whatever the fuck mecha she’s about to accidentally imagine, I don’t know, I’m not a weeb.) Jade sure does think about robots a lot.

https://homestuck.com/story/1579

I have to say, I consider Terezi’s manipulative abilities to be genuinely pretty strong. I have never known a better way to strongarm me than by pointing out traits that I don’t know whether I feel good or bad about - it just terminates my thought processes.

Although in John’s case, it helps that he is, in fact, a weenie, a stooge, and most importantly, a nice guy. All these facts make him extra manipulatable.

https://homestuck.com/story/1584

<3

I have no reason to believe everyone in Homestuck’s universe isn’t stupidly badass, but I choose to believe that no one is as stupidly badass as the leads because it makes me happy to imagine that these kids are just ridiculously OP superhumans.

(That said, it’s kind of fucked up the level of violence that these literal children are involved in, maybe I shouldn’t get so excited about it. Should we be enthusiastic about the kids’ triumph over their dangerous enemies? Horrified by the travails they are being put through? Probably both motherfuckin’ things.

https://homestuck.com/story/1588

I think about this page a lot.

Rose Lalonde is a very dangerous young lady. She is ruthless, pragmatic, calculating, and cool. She’s even a killer, and literally just killed two imps before fighting this Ogre!

Why is she choosing to show mercy to it now? Is she just trying to get Dave’s goat? Maybe the answer is, deep down, she doesn’t really want to hurt anyone or anything.

https://homestuck.com/story/1589

Kanaya and Dave have a great relationship and I love them as friends very much. I wish dearly that there was more of them in the webcomic. They have approximately the same relationship with authenticity, which is to say that they don’t have an insincere bone in their respective bodies, but practice insincerity nonetheless to impress someone they care about.

For Kanaya relating to Rose, I think it’s a lot more innocent.

https://homestuck.com/story/1590

The least eloquent character in Homestuck has his brief, and I’m pretty sure only encounter with the most eloquent character in Homestuck.

Poor, poor Tavros. While Rose is pretty much always on this level, it seems a lot more innocuous when she’s talking to her friends, or the more mean-spirited and (relatively) competent trolls, the way she treats Tavros almost feels like bullying because of how obviously pathetic he is.

That said, he turns right around, and invokes exactly what’s coming to him. Y’know as much as Tavros is an authentic abuse victim and Vriska gaslights him into thinking a lot of the bad things that happen to him are his fault, there are a lot of times where he does stupid shit that invokes the justifiable wrath of the people around him.

https://homestuck.com/story/1592

While I could pontificate about the fact that Kanaya and Rose are my favorite couple, and squee enthusiastically, instead I will call attention to the fact that, by way of mixing her metaphors, Kanaya has been the victim of an authorial pun - she’s a Fruit Ninja. (Unless Fruit Ninja didn’t exist at the time of writing? It may very well not have.)

https://homestuck.com/story/1596

As the Page of Breath, Tavros sucks at communicating. Here, he sucks at communicating because in spite of his objectively pretty sick rhymes... he is talking to someone who just can’t be arsed.

https://homestuck.com/story/1602

This is one of those absurd moments that at first blush seems meaningless, but I think helps to decipher the kinds of things that John Egbert cares about. It’s one of the moments where he ritualizes an action that one of his heroes takes - John Egbert thinks that Nic Cage is cool, and wants to be like him, so he roleplays Nic Cage for a little while.

https://homestuck.com/story/1603

We’ve barely met the trolls, and they are *already* using the humans as a convenient method to troll each other instead of staying on task.

Karkat also establishes his love of RomComs before his introduction even rolls around.

https://homestuck.com/story/1618

Conceding ground to implacable enemies is generally the correct means to win in Homestuck, usually by getting them to destroy themselves or each other purely by their own unsustainably wicked or stupid conduct. Only a being as powerful as Lord English is sufficient to destroy the Significance-hoarding antagonist that is Vriska, as she threatens to overshadow everyone else in the universe by her own inflated self-importance. Only Vriska, so arbitrarily lucky, could possibly get into position to destroy Lord English. They were made for each other. They deserve each other.

One of my favorite dialogues in the whole comic. Man, I sure love Act 4. There’s something indescribable about the dialogue Andrew writes for this part of the comic. Homestuck at its best whiplashes from silly to scary to heartbreaking to heartwarming, and back to silly again, from beautiful to ugly, and I don’t think that even Act 5, as it piles up layers upon layers, well past the number of parts needed to make a whole, captures the essence of Homestuck as well as does Act 4.

Homestuck is different in every part, of course, and for everyone who says that Act 4 is peak Homestuck you will meet someone who says that Acts 1 through 3 were peak Homestuck, or who says that Act 5 was Peak Homestuck, or that Act 6 was Peak Homestuck. I do not mean to demean any portion of the work by saying that Act 4 is my favorite. The things I like in Homestuck the most are just the most themselves in this portion of the story.

https://homestuck.com/story/1627

I’m feeling less and less intelligent as I read more and more of Homestuck, because honestly, my theories read less like honest-to-god insights, and more like somebody who just wasn’t paying any fucking attention. Here, Jade spells out basically what I’ve been saying.

https://homestuck.com/story/1640

We’ll pause here for the evening. Reading was a little sparse today, but it’s a good place to leave off, especially since for some of these I wrote just stacks of theorizing.

Until tomorrow, Cam signing off, Mostly alive except for a bit of a cough, and not alone.

[cmdrsarahpalmer]

The Infinite Salt post

(I’m just getting this out of my system, I don’t like being a constant downer so after this I will restrict myself to the occasional gif reaction in my new My Salt tag unless there’s some massive breaking news that must be commented upon, I promise.)

Ok, this ended up longer and saltier than I had thought, also more off-brand, so under the cut it goes!

So, gameplay reveal reaction was…mixed. I wasn’t really surprised at them going hard on the Combat Evolved aesthetic and story beats, but after that Slipspace Engine trailer a few years back I was expecting it to look a lot prettier (I don’t really care about 4k and 60fps and all that guff, but when fricking Domino’s is taking shots then yeesh).

Ok, start positive: I like the Pilot, a bit cheesy, but I like him. I like his and Chief’s interaction, I like how Chief responded which shows we’re not just getting block of wood blank slate so the dudebros can project Chief, so that’s nice. Pity I can’t allow myself to get attached, as he’s already getting some heat for talking back to Chief, and if anything gets criticised that means it must be swept away, rather than worked on, developed, or given a conclusion, am I right?!

Confession: I don’t hate Halo 5. It is extremely flawed in execution, and does things to loved characters which needed much more development and explanation in the game, and was too overcrowded to let its characters breathe, but I don’t hate it. (Perhaps one day I will write my True Heresy, ‘Why I Don’t Hate Halo 5: An Essay,’ but I need to write ‘Sarah Palmer is Awesome And You Guys Are Just Mean’ first). With some more work and development, a proper conclusion might have salvaged it.

But nope! Let’s just ignore that gigantic elephant in the room. Let’s kill Banished, they’re like the Covenant, right. People liked them in Halo Wars 2, right? Yeah, so I didn’t care for the Banished. Felt it was a lot of big overture, reality their top guy getting chumped by a century old colony ship. Also Brutes suck to fight, that’s right I said it! And I am extremely sensitive to evil monologueing. Almost ruined the Didact for me, had I not read the Greg Bear novels afterwards (Forerunner Trilogy for life!) I am glad Darin De Paul is getting a pay check though (he’s Mayor of BlizzCon don’t you know)

I’m here for the Infinity crew, not just Palmer. Another confession, Spartan Ops cutscenes was my first exposure to Halo. That’s quite different to traditional Halo, so the vast majority of fans are going to prefer and have nostalgia for the old stuff. I accept that. But I think what’s saddened me is that before I had thought there was room on the edges for me. In interviews 343 keep saying it is a follow on from what went before, and old fans will be able to pick up what’s been going on in the universe these past couple of years. But what I’m hearing is: lore scraps in terminals and collectables for some, reboot and killing aliens and not afraiding of anything for others.

I’m here for cheesy sci-fi action. Love the wider universe, and think the best stuff is outside the main games, so if 343 wants to play it extremely safe looking back at CE and focusing purely on Chief, fine. I’d actually come to terms with that as it’s what they’ve been saying and showing for the past few years. The games are where the conflict between Halo as narrative universe and capitalist product are most in tension. Microsoft needs this number of product shipped by x date or execs and shareholders won’t get their bonuses, after all. So if playing it safe is what they have to do, fine. I was just hoping for a bit more daring around the edges, maybe a little experimental DLC (and hope of hopes Palmer DLC).

They need a good solid Master Chief game at its base, fine, completely agree. But when they’re talking about following up with even more Master Chief adventures, I have concerns. When they talk about the game as a platform and that they will be developing it long after launch, I have concerns. When they talk of the much vaunted ray tracing going in after launch, I have concerns. It sounds like this game is going to be launched no matter how incomplete or broken, because they must make the holiday period and new console launch because everyone will die there will not be bonuses. I’ve heard people expressing concerns it’s going to be a Destiny game as a service, and I’m here going man I wish it were a Destiny (Destiny has room for lots of cool background characters). I think it’s going to be another Master Chief Collection, Sea of Thieves, or No Mans Sky. Love to be proved wrong, but yeah expectations are being carefully angled downwards for the actual game.  

Man gaming fandom is going to continue to be a tire fire.

So. Storywise. The bit I actually care about. My expectations are adjusted as follows:

Good: some lore scraps in the terminals and collectables

Neutral: Palmer, Infinity and other characters I like don’t show up at all

Bad: Infinity blew up so they can slow pan on Chief’s visor as he overlooks the wreckage

So there’s my salt. Anyway, now I’m just going to keep a casual eye on developments, and go back to gifing previous games and writing fanfic and being positive about what I like.

[steve0discusses]

Yugioh S4 Ep6: Gozaburo Kaiba Just Casually Started WWIII And Only This One Guy Cares

Welcome to November, where we celebrate writing a 50,000 word book as if I don’t do that every single time I write about an episode of Yugioh. Hello, this is my season. It’s wordy season. I’m so freakin good at doing this. I can’t say most of what I’ve made is any good, but I CAN say at least I’m prolific. Do enough content to fill that bitter pit and walk right over it, that’s been my motto for the past 5 years.

Anyway, I had an awful flu this past week. (Everyone I live with had it so every bathroom was like ground zero) It was SO bad. I still can’t eat spicy food over a week later (Which is so hard for me because usually I can keep up with my Indian friends, that’s my spicy level--max spicy, please--but since this illness, my white taste genes went into overdrive and I tried putting pepperoncini slices in my sandwich and it set my mouth on fire. Pepperoncini. It’s v embarrassing.)

I did attempt to write this post. Unfortunately I never made it past this cap because I got VERY distracted by the emblem on Alister’s face, and how it isn’t proportionally adjusted to match the angle of his face, and it was like three paragraphs of just wanting to talk about it. And then at some point I got very distracted talking about how many empty glasses I was given at my place setting at this baby shower I went to during the flu epidemic, and it mattered a whole lot to me at the time, but I think, overall, was mostly just some sort of nonsense. The things I’ve spared you. 

(bro has just informed me that the 4 gold-lipped crystal goblets I was given at this baby shower was actually very distressing and a very big deal and that I should absolutely talk to at least someone about it, but maybe he’s just saying that to make me feel better, but I have no idea. I am too sick for sarcasm at this time but my god why was I given so many glasses????)

I straight up have no memory of if I’ve made this joke before. Maybe.

(read more under the cut)

Since it feels like 8 years since the last time I could just eat chicken without feeling like I consumed an entire Thanksgiving meal, a little recap:

-Alister pretended he was Pegasus to lure Kaiba and then, off screen, murdered everyone in Pegasus’ castle

-Pegasus got murdered by I’m pretty sure Mai (which is like...OK then...)

-Yugi and Co went on vacation by driving directly through San Francisco and peeking out the window and saying “yeah that’s enough for me”

-No adults, not even Roland, bothered to come with their kids this time, so the only adult of the entire crew--Pegasus--is dead

-Rex and Weevil are luggage

-The Eye of Sauron showed up and it was the end of the world but Yugi threw a dragon at it so I guess everything is OK now

-Monsters are real but they are hard to animate so we’ll just pretend like they’re causing havoc everywhere although most of the planet seems basically unaffected by this.

-The Grim Reaper is a friendly monster that hangs out in a Japanese park and that feels fairly on brand.

And I think that was all that was happening so far.

In a weird twist of fate, Mokuba is the only one in this room that isn’t trapped which sort of...if you’re the only one NOT kidnapped wouldn’t that also be a type of being kidnapped?

And we finally get to figure out why Alister wants to Murder Kaiba so bad and, spoiler, it reaches.

???

I’m gonna get more to the obvious problems with Alister’s devotion to murdering all the Kaibas in a bit but yes, Alister is in fact going to try and Kill Kaiba on this kid’s show because of Kaiba’s Dad, who is such a horrible and abusive person that Kaiba essentially drove the bastard out of Japan and straight to the bottom of the ocean.

Just kinda feels like Alister has been living under a rock...which, I guess he has been. He has been living in some weird Atlantis structure so I guess he never got the memo that Gozaburo Kaiba is hella dead.

So that’s what they’re up to. How’s Sausalito?

Um.

Huh.

So the North Bay is a really classic scenery. It’s rolling hills. It’s NAPA. It’s like...definitely not Arizona. California has a couple of mesas but they’re no where near here and the Monument Valley style Mesas really only exist in Monument Valley.

And I know it’s because the background artist for Yugioh is all horny for horny rock structures but like...this couldn’t be farther from the Bay Area in the way that it is drawn and it is such a shock after all the work they did last episode to research that Bay Area lore. Once they crossed the Golden Gate they were like “well no one will care about this part” which is true not only of Yugioh but also of real life Californian politics.

Anyway, I have been making a map, but unfortunately my original file will not suffice. time to fix it.

There we go. Now they’re in the right place. Just smack dab in Monument Valley, Arizona, smack dab in the middle of the Navajo Nation and so hypothetically, not even in the United States anymore.

While in the car, Yugi has just been anxious as hell the entire time, and just going “y’all I have a bad feeling I’m uncomfortable I have a bad feeling” while Joey and Tea just patiently stared at him flipping out in the corner. So...kinda like a normal trip with someone who has high anxiety/possessed by a ghost. I  kinda feel like this is every girls trip to Disneyland for me. There’s always one Yugi who’s like “no one said anything about CROWDS.” and you kinda just gotta let them do their thing. Just let them get it out of their system and hide in the bathroom when they need to hide in the bathroom and don’t fight it, they’ll be fine. Just hold their spot in line when they desperately look for a secret place to medicinally vape because there’s too many freakin children at Disneyland.

And it is HILARIOUS that Yugi is able to have this type of premonition but cannot figure out that they have somehow missed San Fransisco and have wandered into a DESERT.

Back in Pegasus’ California (an island that legitimately looks more like California than actual Yugioh California) Alister has decided to go completely off the rails and it happens so fast and without any warning.

the line is actually “This doll used to be my brother’s” which is a very different meaning but both are likely from weird ass Alister and this weird ass show, so I’ll leave the cap like this (although yes, this is what I thought Alister was saying for kind of a while until I recorded it for this blog and was like “oh shoot I heard the line wrong when I had the flu huh.”)

Man, RIP Noah, he would have been excellent this episode.

Honestly seems like just yesterday when Seto and Noah were pitted against eachother by a cyberdemon Dad-head floating in the sky, Mokuba was possessed for some reason and being used as a human shield, Tristan was a robot monkey, and Yugi was just shrugging at Kaiba from across the field like “Kaiba if you don’t play good you die--oh my gods, he died. Well that was bound to happen...again.” Man.

Alister should be their best friend, this is nonsense.

So lets do the math to 7 years before 2002.

I searched Wikipedia for wars during 1995 (they do have a list of 90′s wars) and looked for any that involved heavy use of tanks and their artillery fire (on big swatches of cities like this), inner city western architecture, temperate landscapes, and western clothing that match Alister and Mikey (AKA WWII vibes) and found out:

Nothing fits that description

UNLESS Alister and Mikey are time travelers from a WWII bombing in Europe. This is Yugioh. That could happen. Probably not, but youknow...it’s not too late for Yugioh to bring in time travel.

I mean if you don’t want to get super political in your cartoon just invent a world war I guess? We’ve already clarified that Gozaburo was Big Boss, so at this point I can easily see him inventing wars just to sell ships.

(I could probably add thousands of more deaths at this point but I have no idea where they are, if they’re on a tiny island or an entire country so I’ll just...leave the count alone but just now it’s implied that a hell ton of people died during this episode)

People going off about how Sesame Street is so amazing for talking about issues like you’re Dad going to prison while Yugioh was straight up talking about the intricacy of the War Economy. Yugioh being all “don’t forget kids, your good capitalist economy survives off of the undeserved bloodshed of civilians in other countries! Eat the poor!” and it’s like hot damn this heavy commentary came out of freakin no where.

Anyways, this is stuff most kid’s shows will delicately skip over but nah, Yugioh is going to go here, and they are going to steamroll directly through it with massive tanks.

So, lets kill this kid’s entire family and talk about the terrors of the World War of 1995 and all the war orphans who get recruited to become soldiers at the ripe old age of 9. Alister was 9 when he was recruited to be a child card soldier.

This kid’s show.

Alister is...basically Raiden, right? Like as long as we’re talking about Metal Gear, this kid is just one step away from cyborg implants and weird colored blood?

Better wear bright red when you visit the war crime scene, surprised Gozaburo didn’t invite like an entire photo -op crew to incriminate him even further.

Now we did look up “where the hell is Alister from Yugioh from?” (there is no answer) and we did find out a little factoid. In the Japanese version of the show, Gozaburo had bought the land and was just forcibly evicting Alister and his family from their home with tanks.

Which is wild.

He just straight up evicted an entire metropolitan city????

Like the dub did a way better job than the sub at this one, I’ll give them that.

It’s just so weird that Gozoboro just didn’t like...raise the rent like a normal bad landlord. Instead he was like “rather than gentrify my land and save me a ton of money, I’ll just destroy everything I just bought and murder everyone here” which is like...

...Seto did the world so many favors when he kicked out his Dad, right? Like Damn. I don't understand why Alister isn’t freakin worshiping Seto right now when his whole deal is “I must kill Gozaburo” and Seto’s like “yo I already did that. Twice. I didn’t even have to literally kill him either, I just embarrassed him so bad that he killed himself. His stupid tank company sells joke games now. I literally turned the man into a joke.”

Then again, Alister is on the green magic and like I think it alters your brain chemistry somewhat.

(How ripped did Alister get in this episode, by the way? The kid is like 16 years old or something so how did this happen? ...The perpetual horny line running straight through Yugioh, man. Look at it run. That 16 year old is drawn like he’s 28 and really into Crossfit and his crop top gets smaller and smaller like every scene.)

So like this is a very gray issue that I cannot believe they brought up in a kid’s show (like can you imagine if Scrooge McDuck had to face facts that his company murdered tons of people???), but also this is Seto Kaiba. Seto grew up in the system, so like he doesn’t need to be lectured to about dirty money because he was on the losing end of that not too long ago. Seto is himself basically a upscale war orphan since he was adopted by Gozaburo to continue the machine like a freakin maniac (a Solidus Snake, if you will) so of all the people on this show I don’t get why Seto would care about this. This is just how Seto views the entire world as either losing or winning and no reason to feel bad about it because he’s been both.

Also...Seto stopped the machine. Kind of. He was unaware that cards were the same thing as weapons, but at least he stopped the sale of huge child-stealing tanks.

So they play the game for a little while and Seto does kind of poorly as usual, and just when I thought this episode couldn’t get any weirder...

And just like that, Seto peaces out. Like he does almost every single time he has ever played a card game solo except for that one time he was playing Joey Wheeler. (Which was also one of the few times Seto ever won.)

Like I just want to remind you that this segment is in the same episode as WWIII and the tonal whiplash is pretty remarkable.

That’s right, we’re back in the Unnamed Monster World, which is not the Shadow Realm, and which I thought you could only access if you were dreaming and able to search through the puzzle maze.

Apparently this can just happen at any time and all that stuff with the guiding Kuriboh and Yugi and Pharaoh trying to find this place was just...them wasting time.

Again he ditches the legendary sword so freakin fast because who needs a sword when you have a dragon? Only this anime.

And that’s how Seto, who was absolutely going to lose this game, somehow just barely came to a draw.

So just to recap, Seto has yet to win a card game that he didn’t get prophetic help for via a hallucination or Yugi telling him what to do. Unless you count Joey and grandpa.

Then, the one last adult I forgot about, the driver of Yugi’s car, decides that it’s about time that he also died and left this show as adult free as possible.

THE HELL ARE THEY?

Also...maybe it’s the angle but the writing on that gas station looks a lot like kanji.

Yo, what if this is the backgrounds for a different show and they’re just sharing? I mean I doubt it because Yugioh had a good enough budget but...what if? What if that’s why they’re in Arizona?

Anyway, next time we’ll find out if this guy just drops dead or has been a Yugioh monster this whole time, and I think maybe both?

And if you just got here, this is a link to read all my Yugioh recaps in chrono order

[myheartissetinmotion]

all my thoughts watching 1992 Newsies for the first time in 4 years

Buckle your seatbelts this is a lot longer than I intended

- this music still means so much to me

- YAAAAAS SLAY PATRICK’S MOM why wasn’t this in the stage musical

- Elmer is so frikkin adorable

- look at them goooooooo

- ugh I love these bois

- C R U T C H Y

- I just can’t get over the feather in Oscar’s hat

- ENTER THE JACOBSES WOOOOOOOOOOOO

- loving these instrumentals and harmonies

- LES WITH A TINY SWORD okay I love him

- I feel like I’ve seen Wiesel in something before

- “not like last time” “uh-huh” RACE WHAT AN ICON HAHAHA

- “must be from brooklyn” SPOKE TOO SOON ABOUT RACE BEING AN ABSOLUTE ICON

- Davey I love you

- LEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEES

- that look in Crutchy’s eyes when he says “ya learn from the best” is Priceless

- okay one glimpse of someone who may or may not look sorta like Katherine

- Where. Is. Hannah.

- “now, when I created the World-” *eye roll* haha love this guy

- *dramatic disney villain music*

- sTILL NO SIGN OF HANNAH

- 57 rounds of boxing oof

- is that Snyder? that’s probably Snyder

- yyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyep

- JACK WHAT DID YOU DO oh wait nope false alarm he’s fine

- “WAIT TILL I GET YOU BACK TO THE REFUUUUUUGE” good to know Snyder hasn’t lost his flair for drama

- “well you have a way of improving the truth” okay I see what all you Javid people mean now

- THAT’S MEDDA?!?!?!?!

- Larkson? wonder why they changed it

- Les I love you

- “oh, you’re good” okay she’s okay

- MEDDA SWEETIE I KNOW IT’S THE ORIGINAL BUT WHAT DID THEY DO TO YOU??!?!?!?!?!?!?!!!

- WHAT EVEN IS THIS SONG I’m very uncomfortable

- OH HIS PARENTS ARE OUT WEST IT ALL MAKES SENSE NOW that’s really cool wonder why they cut that

- ooh we actually get to meet the whole Jacobs family!!!!!

- SARAH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

- those Knowing Looks TM between the Jacobs parents

- Les...sweetie...

- why is my head blaring “tonight” from west side story...the scenes looks so similar

- oh wow Santa Fe comes a lot earlier and THE FAMILY ASPECT UGH so good

- “ain’t you glad nobody’s waitin up for you” Jack sweetie aaaaaaaa!!!

- so this guy is totally cool with the fact that a random boy is singing on his wagon

- oh okay there’s a hat now?

- y e e t

- I’m not sure if we know enough about Jack to feel enough sympathy for him at this point, but it’s a short movie so

- so THIS is the dance break y’all have been talking about

- HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

- P R I C E L E S S

- he just. steals a horse

- and it all comes back to the family aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!!!!!!!!!

- the instrumentals, lovely as usual

- that was a Ride

- still no Hannah.

- “dghdghdghdghdghdghdghdghdghdhgdgh” -the distinguished Joseph Pulitzer

- so they’re just giving Hannah’s lines to this guy. I like this guy but still bitter about The Severe Lack Of Hannah

- We Are All Love Mush

- “s w e l l” in case you didn’t know, I. LOVE. CRUTCHY.

- Les being the first one to agree with the strike and holding up his lil wooden sword- AAAAAAAAAAAAA

- oh boy here we go

- from what I’m seeing Boots is important WHERE IS HE BROADWAY I WANT ANSWERS

- this singing. wow. okay. cool.

- Davey just walking around them like “okay is this what we’re doing? musical numbers every day? right here in the street?”

- yas get those turns

- is this Denton? I feel like this might be Denton

- Jack honey that’s not how you pronounce it (I. Love. This. Movie.)

- okay Javids I can see where you’re coming from this is Really Something

- CALLED IT THAT’S DENTON

- “he has to!” *thrown out of door* That’s movies for ya

- okay lET LES HAVE THE LINE

- “so...is the newsie strike important? it all depends on you.” I like him. Give him a Watch What Happens come on disney I want a Denton song

- wow nice zoom-out this is so 90s I love it

- SPOT CONLON THERE HE IS WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

- @ disney on broadway: Where. Is. Boots.

- that slingshot tho

- WHY DID THEY CUT THIS SCEEEEEEEEEEEEENE

- Davey you’re doing amazing sweetie

- okay he’s wearing The Hat again

- OPE IT’S THE SEIZE THE DAY INTRO HERE WE GOOOOOOOO

- Davey getting into the Dramatics TM

- jumpy bois

- HE DID THE LEG THING

- okay we’ve still got a few backflips and jump splits

- RACE HAS A HARMONICA?!?!?!?! love that for him

- Denton just kind of taking notes about their revolutionary dance number

- ooh here come the scabs I’m so ready for the monologue-wait where’s the monologue

- WHERE’S THE MONOLOGUE

- ok so it just breaks into a fight? what happened to “we’re all in this together”?

- yas tip that wagon just like in actual history! rip those papers! woooooo!

- oh no here come the bulls

- I’M NOT READY

- CRUTCHY NO

- NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

- NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

- WHY ARE YOU STILL WEARING THE HAT

- HOW ARE YOU EMOTIONALLY STABLE THIS IS YOUR BEST FRIEND

- ominous musiiiiiiiiiic

- wow this is...quite a plan

- OMG WE ACTUALLY GET TO SEE THE REFUGE

- “Heya Dave, how ya doin?” I LOVE HIM.

- look at his faaaaaaaaaaaaaace

- he doesn’t want anyone carrying him? tell that to livesies Albert

- CRUTCHY SAVING THE DAY AGAIN

- well yeah of course they’re not going to “just go away”

- “done with once and for all” heh heh

- THOSE H A R M O N I E S I love a capella

- yas you go drum kid

- oh boy it’s dance break time

- *t w i r l*

- I love them

- oh boy it’s the scabs

- Davey...honey...you tried

- uh oh someone has chains this can’t be good

- OSCAR STILL HAS THE FEATHER

- IS THAT BROOKLYN

- LOOK AT THEM POPPING UP

- HAHAHAHAHA ICONIC SO ICONIC

- slingshots!!!!!!

- Spot you’re doing amazing sweetie

- y e e t

- Those fake punch sounds tho

- YES JACK TEAR THAT NEWSPAPER YOU’RE BEAUTIFUL

- I love the picture this is so ugh I just love it

- oooooh I can feel it coming, KONY is coming

- “you’re famous you get anything you want! that’s what’s so great about NY!” HAHA RACE I’ve said it before I’ll say it again WHAT AN ICON

- so Jack is here for KONY, this is new (well for me at least)

- DENTON APPRECIATION LET’S GO

- “and payin’ for lunch” R A C E

- the “dead or dreamin’” bit is still just so awesome

- TAP DANCING WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

- this is just so filled with joy I’m in love with this movie

- CEILING FAN TWIRL=ICONIC

- this guy just “okay kids lovely musical number please leave”

- CRUTCHY SWEETIE WHAT ARE YOU DOING

- “how was your supper” AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

- “hey, that’s Jack” Crutchy...sweetie...no....wait no wAIT NO WAIT NO

- SWEETHEART NO THAT VOICE CRACK ON “goodbye” I HAVE SO MANY EMOTIONS UGH

- Race steppin up to save the day

- what. an. icon.

- THE REACTION TO “is he dangerous” UGH I LOVE HIM

- ooh nice fire escape shot

- SARAH HAS RETURNED

- WE STAN A QUEEN

- okay romantic subplot time I can see where this is going

- the way he leans against the window awwww

- wow these are...very typical gender roles

- she’s so pretty I can’t

- “there’s nothing for me to stay for is there” She. Is. Standing. Right. There. Whatareyoudoing

- “I’m not sayin it should matter to you" are you though “I’m just sayin...does it? matter?” okay AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAWWWWWWWWWWWW 

- this pulitzer isn’t half as dramatic, he’s not quite showing the Actual Scary Capitalist, he’s more Typical Disney Villain

- MEDDA WHAT DID THEY DO TO YOU

- oh there’s the don’t come a knockin melody

- they’re all dressed the same like a little gang of evil capitalists

- Davey looks so done I love him

- “what are we supposed to do, kiss em?” RACE IS SUCH AN ICON UGH

- wow they really shuffled the plot around

- hERE’S the monologue!

- Medda what’s happening

- WHAT IS HAPPENING

- I love their fan freak-outs in the audience

- is Sarah the only person that doesn’t know the song

- wHERE DID THE SWING COME FROM

- so extra

- Denton are you planning something

- YES HE IS

- “as in SNIDE? smile, sir” Denton is the greatest

- RACE NO

- Medda come on you’re a dancer you’ve got to be stronger than that

- uh oh

- just y e e t up to the box seats

- STOP HURTING THEM

- that was the fakest of fake punches I’ve ever seen

- Dramatic Slo-Mo TM

-I’LL NEVER LET GO JACK

- “the grounds of Brooklyn” SPOT OH MY GOD I LOVE YOU

- HEY JUDGE YOU NEED TO STOP THEY WERE PEACEFULLY ASSEMBLING SO UH SHUT UP

- Denton to the rescue once again

- I actually don’t know how this is going to go

- wait his parents aren’t actually in Santa Fe????

- davey’s face aaaa

- this is heartbreaking

- “a useful and productive life” NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

- SNYDER YOU JERK

- LEMME AT HIM

- Denton why are you smiling what are you doing

- you don’t tell a huge group of kids that their story isn’t important you just don’t

- come on Denton we trusted you I mean I get it but still

- poor Davey

- omg he crumpled it up right in front of Denton? ooooof

- LES HONEY

- JACK?!?!?! WHAT’S HAPPENING

- is this where the bribe and everything comes in?

- that screen swipe tho

- so I’m guessing this is Pulitzer’s mansion or something?

- DAVEY YES

- Pulitzer what are you wearing

- the way the statue is positioned to be shooting at him-nice touch

- it’s villain monologue time

- okay uh he wasn’t talking that time

- he’s not actually looking Jack in the eye?

- yes Jack

- ooooooooooooooooh the suspense

- Dramatic Villain Look

- it’s not a disney movie without a banister slide

- so THIS is the alleyway scene

- OH WOW YEAH I GET IT

- even the music wow

- oh Sad Reprise time

- “you’re the only light that’s guidin me today” *crutchy appears* yeah that was intentional

- Crutchy’s face....

- this is Heartbreaking

- NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

- Wiesel’s face makes this 8000 times worse

- BLINK’S ANGER

- WIESEL YOU NEED TO STOP

- I CAN’T BEAR THIS

- oh no...dAVEY OH NO NO NO NO NO

- I CAN’T BEAR IT

- DAVEY’S SPEECH AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

- I AM NOT OKAY

- JACK NO DON’T SAY THAT THEY GAVE YOU EVERYTHING

- YOU REALLY DON’T KNOW WHAT FAMILY IS DO YOU

- AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

- “we don’t need you!” this is Real Pain

- “never!” DAVEY I LOVE YOU

- Les sweetie you’re so trusting and they’re still trying to protect your feelings ugh I love

- Jacobs Family Antics for the win

- so he just leaves

- I WISH WE HAD SEEN MORE OF HOW IT AFFECTED HIM IN THE MUSICAL

- WHICHEVER DELANCY THAT IS STOP NO STOP

- at least the other stopped him

- DELANCYS YOU NEED TO STOP NO STOP STOP STOP

- STOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOP

- yes Sarah punch him

- NO NO NO NO NO NO

- oh god here come the brass knuckles

- Jack finally coming to his senses

- it’s about freakin time

- “remember Crutchy?” *bash* ICONIC

- “no, smart.” Jack I love you but you really don’t see how important your newsie family is do you

- Denton spilling the tea

- he shushes Sarah but they’re gonna have a musical number soon yep makes total sense

- wait the whole song is in their heads? MUSICAL TELEKINESIS

- once and for all will always be a bop

- “just hope I get to thank him for it someday” LOVE

- YAS THROW THOSE PAPES

- Y      E       E      T

- yes boys hold that long note as you dramatically pan across a brick wall

- so this is Roosevelt

- so this is where Blush comes from

- it’s just. really good music

- LES HONEY I LOVE THE REPRISE

- RACE I LOVE YOU

- what’s up with these bike people

- everyone knows the words now apparently

- beautiful chord

- what an epic, triumphant feeling this must have been

- THERE’S SO MANY OF THEM

- “and such awful language” glad that’s in there

- but you didn’t break him now didja

- so THERE’S WHERE THE LAMP THING CAME FROM HAHAHAHAHAHA

- so you really think yelling “go home” is going to change everything

- shouting match ftw

- “we only use the best, Joe, so I just wanted to say: thanks again” AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA LOVE

- what’s he whispering to Les-wait AWWWWWWWWW

- WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

- WE WON YALL

- this is such a Disney movie I love it

- WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

- wait now what

- is this what I think it is

- “you don’t have to run. not anymore” I officially love Denton

- okay the “blessed children” melody playing while kids are freed is Poetic Cinema

- IT IS WHAT I THINK IT IS

- HE’S BACK YALL

- CRUTCHYYYYYYYYYYYYY

- still not used to that spelling btw

- “share what you got in common” CRUTCHY I LOVE YOU MORE THAN LIFE ITSELF

- almost makes you feel bad for snyder. key word: ALMOST. hahaha

- “wait who comes walkin in” OOOOOOOOOOOOOOO HERE WE GO

- JACK’S FACE HAHA I LOVE IT

- “that’s roosevelt?” Race I love you

- “so, uh..could he...drop me at the trainyards?” Jack. Old buddy. Old pal. What

- his face shaking teddy’s hand and the music slkdfjlshgoeibnclfboeifvl

- what’s happening he’s just riding away?!?!?!

- THE JACOBSES

- THEIR FACES AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

- im heartbreak

- and jack smiling so big okay Big Sad

- LEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEES

- LEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEES

- love how they’re playing like it’s the end of the movie and by love I mean endless angst

- You know that part in the sound of music when they’re trying to sing but it’s just Not The Same without Maria? Yeah that’s this

- Davey’s lil smile ugh I love him

- the music is building Jack is coming back I can Feel It

- Les reacting! aaaa! this has become a Les Appreciation Post

- Denton’s reaction!

- “besides, I got family here” HIS FACE AND DAVEY’S FACE

- AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

- okay Javids I DEFINITELY UNDERSTAND

- Les just beaming up at him AAAAAAAAA

- THAT LITTLE SMILE. THAT ICONIC LINE. DAVEY YOU’RE DOING AMAZING SWEETIE

- THE SPITSHAKE

- CHARACTER. DEVELOPMENT.

- SARAH

- okay gotta admit this is REALLY FREAKIN CUTE

- LES HUGGING THEM

- of cOURSE SPOT IS IN THE CARRIAGE HAHA KING OF BROOKLYN INDEED

- look at them go!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

- Y E E T

- I LOVE THEM

- did someone in the crowd just say “it’s crazy”

- YES ICONIC HEEL CLICK KID

- well, guys and gals and nonbinary pals, this was A Ride

- thank you for joining me on this journey

[morningmoon]

Overall thoughts of Arc V

posted on NAC, figured i might as well share it here too. It’s a long one.

Setting Maiami City is great. The first we see of it is a modern and post-contemporary design to the city, there's a lot of commercialism on display taking iconic imagery of YGO and plastering it as billboards. You Show and Yuya's house are shown to be pretty unique in their architecture, but still very grounded in reality. It's a world that's probably not more than ten years ahead of us; it's a mayor city but with a very nice housing region. As the first season goes on, we see more of it, we see how important and varied the schools are, we see the not-so-pretty parts of the city. There's just enough depth to Maiami to feel more alive than even Neo Domino did. Then we leave it. The City is up next, and it's just a more surface level approach to Neo Domino. There's the shit part of the city and floating shit that's fancy. Before we can really dig into the latter, we're stuck in the former, then a prison and the rest of the season is the same hotel, racetrack stadium and a bit of the Duel Lanes before going back to the same shit parts. Oh and the trash mines. While 5D's included early on how the trash stuff works and how it's an insane way to fight your way to the nice part of the city, AV's just has this stark contrast that doesn't feel truly connected. If you walk long enough in a direction, you'll reach a nice part of town apparently. The mines and the prison exist, but you can't really pin their location or anything. They're stark contrasts that do not feel connected beyond lore. Heartland... is just some bits of ZX's heartland, but in ruins. There isn't much to the setting at all. Fusion has that sorta venice place we see for a couple of eps and then we go to Academia, which is just a series of corridors with 4 rooms. It doesn't feel real, there's a courtyard but I have no idea how you reach it beyond "go to a corridor and eventually it'll connect" Yuya going Odd Eyes Raeg happens in a room that I cannot fathom where it is compared to Leo's place because it's so hightech it should either be right next to it or buried underground, but the show just has it nebulously inside of academia.It's disappointing. We start with a strong location, a strong setting, and then we ditch it for the next and the next and the next and each is shallower than the last one. Duels You know me. Y'all know my shallow ass don't really care for the yugiohs. Hand me a Yuma vs Gauche once or twice a cour and i'm good. I'll meme that YGO was better when it was about zombire and paint mazes. Arc V promised me something that made me want to care even in my shallow level: Dynamic Duels. The premise of 5D's bought me over when I saw the first riding duel moving all over the streets into an abandoned factory and maneuvering crazy locations a bike shouldn't be able to do. Arc-V then promised me that mobility would be even more important because it's not rigid bikes, it's fluid monsters, able to chance the monster you're riding on the fly and interact with them. All for a goal that is a buff during the duel. You bet your ass I got hype when Yuya got on a pink hippo in that first PV. ACTION FIELD MAGIC CROSS OVER. FUCK. Dynamic places became less common during the first season, but they were still a thing! There were at least entirely different fields in every duel. Then came in Riding Duels and my god. MY GOD. Yugo suddenly makes me nostalgia hard for 5D's, he goes so many places, the scenery changes so much, the time of day the state of the city, it's so beautiful. Cross Over. Duel on the stadium. crossover accel. cross over cross over cross over. fuck. The duels lose intensity as it goes on, they often become duels of two duelists standing in places as if it was DMGXZX and every now and then Yuya will jump and run to get a card. Cross Over Accel usually involves picking up a card from the floor and every other duel will have a sick bike stunt. But yeah, for the most part, the concept's just burnt and interesting navigation is pretty much gone. Yuya is so tied to this. The ultimate thing of the show, is that entertainment is the greatest power, but Yuya can't muster the confidence to use it. Therefore, his duels are directly tied to his state of mind. Is he egaoing? then maybe there'll be some dynamic movements or, if we're lucky and it's a blue moon, Yuya will setup a big set piece act where the game straight up changes to let a big fun and dynamic moment happen. But if Egao is what solves everything, then your main character can't be holding that power, ergo, Yuya's duels have to be gimped most of the time, so stand over there like it's Gx, Yuya, but with less varied fields.It was just so promising, that duels would be a spectacle. But gameplay wise that deteriorated rather fast, with spectacle it got nearly dropped after year 1 and it's ultimately tied to Yuya believing in himself, which is the thing he struggles with the most. Themes and Message I love egao. The idea that smiles make the world better is great. If you are positive and you can pass that positiveness to others then you are improving the world. To look at all the issues around you and decide you can tackle them while also keeping a smile is a noble thing, I love heroes that can stay positive through adversity. A lot of people take issue with Yuya "forcing this down people's throats", but to me the problem is that Yuya needs it fored down his own throat. He's got some doubts here and there in Standard, then in Synchro it is offered that, much like Kattobing with Yuma early on, Yuya doesn't actually know what it means to bring smiles to people: he's parroting his dad and acting as he did. This breaks Yuya hard and he goes back and forth during the rest of the season until he gets a rematch with Jack and shows his answer... is that he believes in his dad, but will also throw in the dimension dragons. uh. Before that point there's stuff like Kachidoki shaking his resolve, and after that there's stuff like Yuto taking over so he cannot use smiles. There's stuff like getting so pissed he can't even think of using it against BB until JACK points it out. There's the fight against the mind control bugs and facing Yuri. And then the final act is him trusting himself all over again. Yuya Sakaki is smiles. If he is not believing at 100% then that's that. There are only, like, four other characters that implement that mentality into their duels. It sucks because it is explicitly shown time and time again to be the answer to the show's conflicts. A whole city is turned, Kachidoki gets happy and stops punching dicks, Yuya becomes more capable, Heartland is brave and starts dueling again. But it's so strong, Yuya cannot be allowed to use it or else show ends too soon. Other characters can't use it or the show ends too soon. To duel for smiles is to have a golden gun. It becomes more and more insane an OP until it reaches a climax: You Cannot Use Smiles On Zarc Because That Would End The Show Too Early. The dragon king is defeated, but not really because the blatant message wasn't used on him. Individualism beat him, but egao will Really beat him. Egao OP pls nerf so it can be a presence in the show. Then there's individuals vs groups. I also dig this a lot, and we see it far more consistently. Yuya gets laughed at by society itself bc daddy. His first foe is an opinion leader. His dad is looked upon fondly not for being a pro duelist, but for being a pioneer.  A big, strong corporation is trying to take over You Show, the smaller school run by a single guy. Yuzu realizes her dad, a teacher, is not enough for her to learn what she needs so she seeks out a tutor who is shown to be a bit of a rebel. Yuya duels wacky schools. After Yuto becomes egao.wav, Yuya's first foe is a guy who got messed up by the institution he's at. Obelisk Force are goons running the same deck, trained to be little more than soldiers with their individuality stripped away. Yuya's pushed forward to continue being a pioneer even when pendulums become normalized. Synchro Year is all about big capitalistic society fucking over the poor. Prison, the defense force and the government are all evil and abuse their powers. Roger is shown to have power but overestimates his own intelligence. Serena, in this time, gets pointed out that her dueling is too by the books and Yugo's unique style can trample her so she needs to adapt and be herself. Reira gets a donut by Shinji, so she doesn't want to blast him, she's starting to not become a child soldier. Jack's entire thing is that he himself crawled out of his hell life. Academia is up next, and, yeah, more of what you'd expect: school's evil, society supports it, individuals have to escape it and form their own place to survive. BB, much like Kachidoki, is ruined by his own school. Doktor creates parasites that strip people from their free will. And finally, we are told via ham-hands that Zarc was made who he was because Society demanded more violence. oh my god. Oh and Ed and the others also escape the school's mentality. It's a neat message, the bit with Zarc is just. It's thematic, it doesn't substitute showing the character and explaining the escalation. But then in Synchro Year there's that bit where Yuya gets the egao gun and destroys the societal norms of Neo Domino 2 in one blast and now everything's better. Kachidoki is back and saved, but like, what does that mean? did he bail out of the physical abuse school his parents put him in?? The conflict is rich and interesting, and yet the payoff is so sudden, escalated beyond belief and never explored. Another bit is what the show actually tells us "take a step forward with courage" or something. Pioneering goes with that, Yusho and Yuya start something new and it can't end there, those two have to keep evolving and lead the way. That message then ties into the war conflict in a cool way, to keep moving forward and not wallow in the past. Academia may have destroyed Heartland, but Shun and Yuto are objectively in the wrong for trying to use violence to get revenge. Leo is later on shown to be bad, not because he committed war crimes (those are retroactively forgiven) but because he is doing all of this to get his daughter back, when that will only tarnish her efforts and legacy, thus bringing Zarc back. Yugo & Shun Vs The Molesting Bugs From Out Of Gx has Yugo staying in the past and only remembering the Rin he loved while Shun remembered Ruri but then pushed forward and claimed how he's changed since. Yuya keeping with his dad's style and not fighting with his own is also a way of this. Every member of the resistance is shown with this problem, every left-party member of Synchro is also basically mourning themselves instead of trying to push forward if you're viewing the show in right-wing eyes I guess. Yuya being sad for pasts mistakes is shown 100% to be bad and he should continue moving forward to solve the issues. It sometimes feels gross because the groups are evil, but only Roger gets comeuppance. Leo caused war crimes, but he's a tragic hero, Zarc is a demon but he's a tragic figure. Meanwhile Shun and the resistance lost it all, Shinji lives in an unfair world and they are presented much more palpably as in the wrong because they are fighting with violence. The makers of war are never punished.The messages are all very, very interesting... but they tie kinda badly to the plot. It basically turns smiles from a philosophy that empowers Yuya and saves people from spiraling into drones of society or revenge hunters, to a golden gun that kills society and sedates the lust for revenge. Villains Now here's Real Problems. The show mismanages its villain cast. You have Himika, basically leader of LDS and actively running a child soldier program and... eventually she's very sad for Reira and turns into a motherly figure. You have Kachidoki, who is the first to awaken the second level of Zarc in Yuya and... he leaves the story for almost two years, only to get a quick defeat so Yuya can have a win. LDS Trio, rival our main trio and have some deep personal beef with Shun, a new comrade to said trio... they never show up again. Shinji argues with Yuya for a bit and is gone forever. Roger is let to sit far and above everyone else, he gets his butt kicked by Reiji and is gone forever. Barret fleshes out Academia, could possibly be an anti-hero fighting for Serena and then he is gone forever before we knew him. Anyone else from Synchro just doesn't show up for the last third. We are introduced to Grace, Gloria, Ed and Kite and they all turn to Yuya's side at the same time in the one-cour half-arc. We finally reach Academia... there is BB, a one-and-done villain for five eps straight. There's bugs that have a loose thematic connection and are gone forever. There is Doktor who only did that bug shit before being banished. There's Yuri with the better killstreak and then there is Leo who is shown to have only been acting out of love, and has enough honor to remove Doktor's facehole. There are all these villains.. and their role is minimum or they are so far from the heroes they don't get to actually Do much before their upcoming defeats present them as weak-willed all along. Then we have fucking Zarc. Hitotsu Ni and all them memes. Basically He's a dragon dick. All along everything was his plan bwahaha except he couldn't see the individuality theme hitting so hard via Reira and Yuya teaming up with Ray. But who is Zarc? ... anyway, Zarc's duel is the biggest in the show (wait, is it? did it have more eps than BB?) but ho boy ho boy. His duel is shite. He just sits three 2v1s in a row without taking any form of damage, then slowly loses enough composure for an admittedly cool finisher, but, just. Eh. He encompasses the show's themes of individuality vs group via the group forcing him down a path of evil. He wallows in his past and his attempt to move forward via the creation of Pendulum and manipulation of his parts puts him in the same  shoes that society had back when he turned evil. Then he saw the value of true smiles while inside of a baby. The problem here is... we never saw the individual crumble. Zarc's biggest failure as a villain is, well, the duel actually, it's just terrible, but his other failure is that we don't see enough of him. He's a thematic concept, but a linchpin of it is him as an individual losing himself for the sake of entertainment. We never see who he was, which worked when he was in a rampage so we'd see him as a monster, but once Yuya is crying at hsi backstory, well, it just feels trite and lame. We cannot feel bad for Zarc, we never knew him, he might've been a huge asshole and that's why things escalated.A big problem with the show is its use of villains. There's just two types, the ones that get disposed of ridiculously quick and the ones that are master planners so far above the cast that they hardly actually interact (or even act) in the story, and whose defeats just end up as underwhelming. There's outliers here and there, but they're not interesting either and ultimately any payoff from the conflict they bring is either too small or not interesting enough. Zarc, the final villain, suffers from all those issues. Characters Reira is god-tier. She begins shy and meek, we instantly assume she is a Mokuba. She gets a few duels here and there but we don't see them, so she's a dueling Mokuba that's strong bc her bro's the strongest. There's something offputting of her, but we just don't see her enough. Then we enter Synchro and she's away from Reiji, she is panicking, stressed and quiet. Shinji gives her a donut and that seems okay, kids like sweets. Then comes Yuya thinking of defending her and the big stuff drops: a) she's not afraid of dueling, she's afraid of having to harm others with duels and thus doesn't want to decimate Shinji and put him in the apple factory. b) legit child soldier shit. JACK offers her advice because he sees his own sadness from when he was a child, Yuya also saw that in her, but ultimately Reiji is right: it's not pity what she needs, it's a drive to make her own choices. It's why not wanting to fight Shinji is so big. The show keeps going, and next she goes further and acts to Defend Serena, she helps her friends now via dueling, fighting her PTSD and it culminates in the last bit to her wanting to save everyone that she's willing to sacrifice herself to get Ray involved, even when her brother tells her that would not work. And she does, and at that point we get her maximum Individuality moment: she defied Reiji by bringing Ray, and she defies us by defining herself as a woman. "Fuck all of you, even the viewers, this is who I am" and she stands tall, she gives one last sacrifice because not even Ray is good enough and she seals Zarc away herself. Fucking badass. And her reward is just being a baby. It's interesting in that it means she will not have the traumatic past anymore, but it also seemingly means that Zarc will always be with her now and that the Reira we knew simply ceases to exist forever. For the character that I rooted on the most, that sucks, i want the characters I like to be happy and exist! Still, her journey is easily the best in the show. JACK ATLAS fits this show like a glove. "It doesn't matter how bad Arc V or 5D's get, JACK ATLAS will always be a good character." Him as King puts an interesting pressure, he pushes characters in interesting ways and is ultimately just an entertaining and good addition. Hiragi Yuzu, well, she was really good that first year! Her arc was great, how she knew more of Academia leading into her interactions with Serena, which ultimately motivate Serena, are pretty great. Her time with Yugo's fun, her role in the tournament is great. It is gross that she was a flagpole for Yuya to reach and kept being yanked away over and over again. After that beautiful motorcycle parry, she just feels wasted, and before that her interactions with the cast were direly limited. Serena was interesting, she only really existed for One season, but her role and relationship with the Lancers was fun while it lasted. I really wish they'd explored her dueling more. Ruri and Rin were waifus. Welp. Rest of the cast, just likeable, not used well enough, Gongenzaka hilariously has an ED where he is one of 3 characters on screen and during that ED's run he shows up less than ten times to interact with Yuya. Sawatari is my man, but yup, not much for him. Shun has an alright arc, not much feeling for him. His end is bonkers. Kite, Ed and Asuka just feel tacked on. They don't offer stuff that only they could, in fact you can fancast many other characters to fit their roles better, I personally would go with Shark, Misawa and Tyranno (maybe Asuka over Tyranno). Ed's duel with Yuya was pretty amazing, tho and I love it, but again, just feeling like you coulda slapped other characters in to better fit the roles they play out in AV. Yuri, he's a fun villain. I went on about the use of villains and why his Pro MLG Killstreak is kinda bad, but he was fun during it. The structure deck stuff was great. His finality is... "we don't have time, or ideas, to make him turn to good. Uhh, shonen shonen shonen, thematic thematic and shonen tropes." He just happened. Yugo, one of my boys. Love his fun attitude, love his blatant crush, his gags are great, he's just overall fun but it didn't feel like they went deep enough for him, specially with how the bug stuff ended. Yuto. That kid is a mess. There's a fairly easy to follow line for his attitude, but he switches as hard as Yuya does from egao, but whenever he is Actually Showing Up, he instantly does a switch in alignment. He doesn't feel consistent. He's messed up and actively ignores all his relationships except the one time he told Shun to trust Yuya. I feel there's an interesting, cowardly, character in there that we just don't get to see because he's more of a crutch to guide Yuya's hips over how his alignment shoul be in the current part of the story. Sakaki Yuya. Wiat, no, there's others i can talk about. Leo's a dummy. I don't mind him too much, but he is a super dummy. I love seeing Reiji get owned. Uh uhhh. fuck. Okay, so, Yuya. Not a great hero. I tolerate heroes that doubt themselves, I do, but jfc the kid changes minds far too often. And like I said, when he egaos right, it feels like he holds a magic gun. He's OP in dueling, therefore he gets nerfed via self-confidence because that's directly tied to his magic gun. That means he needs the help of others to regain confidence, these others include: Yusho, Yoko, Yuzu, Reiji, Jack Atlas and Reira. All yelling at him into his ear that he should believe in himself. Two of these are basically rivals, who should be sources of conflict, but instead they are major supporters of Yuya. The harshest conflict Yuya gets is himself. That's not that interesting when it's hardly himself who overcomes it, it's his massive support network getting through his thick skull. Over and over again. I like Yuya when he is confident. I don't like him when he's not. I hate him when he is becoming confident all over again since that means it's someone else pushing him.Cast is great. Reira is my favorite for very good storytelling happening with her. A lot feel wasted. The Core Conflict Badly paced, basically. Synchro Year feels wasted in retrospect, 50 eps to tell what 2 cours could, and Yuya isn't allowed to keep his development at all times for it. Leo is built up too much, and Zarc too little. It just feels like not enough build up, too much buildup and the villains getting shafted in both ways. There's a lot of exciting series of fights when years end, but it just doesn't pay off nearly as good as it promises. The Finale Confusing. But not intentionally so. We're not left to wonder what the world is, we are told by Leo what happened and we simply don't get to see it. It's not clear what happened to Zarc besides he smiled. Sad. But not intentionally so. Reira smiled, that means everything's good for her while the audience is sad that she's stuck as a baby. The Yugirls and Yubois are gone forever, but Shun accepted that and anyone that might miss Serena and Rin just aren't there, the people who see them are just shocked but never knew them. Shun is happy. Us, the audience, being sad isn't something being played with here. If Barret looked at an empty dorm room, then this would be a bittersweet ending. If the orphans started reading books Rin had marked, that'd be bittersweet. If Shun Showed Any Emotion That He Should Have Then That'd Be A Sad Ending. But it's not. Everyone accepts what happened with an egao. Us being sad isn't intentional, it is the show misinterpreting how we would react to 6 people fucking dying. Duel was alright kinda. Gates are bad. I love Yuya comboing into summon methods, but the gates don't do that, they just activate, use a monster in the grave and extra deck and summon a hybrid. That's not XYZ, that's not Synchro, that's kinda Fusion I guess. That's just not a combo into summon method,t hat's a cheap way to get any monster out. The final action duel race is a very neat concept. The duelists don't interact for the most part, feels like a waste. The pacing in it is also not great, stops too much. Catapult monsters fireworks is fun, I like that it's a final ATK manipulation because BUT YOU'LL STILL TAKE THE DAMAGE. Already talked about the worlds combining and NAC killing Serena in cold blood. Reiji is a terrible final opponent. Yugi vs Atem: Atem is the best duelist ever and is testing Yugi in a test of skills as those two have never fought and we still don't fully know Yugi's skills. Judai vs Yugi/Atem: Judai still needs to get his fun back, he loves fighting strong people and Yugi is The Strongest. Yusei vs Jack: those two have a lonstanding rivalry and the fight has futures at stake Yuma vs Astral: those two have never fought and relied on each other the whole time. Astral puts everyone's future on the line. These are all great back-and-forths, the opponent has an edge, the characters have chemistry and only Yusei vs Jack features rivals that have faced each other. Yuya vs Reiji... is Reiji sitting on his opening hand and denying Yuya's combos until he gets a big enough one. There's no real back and forth, Reiji is basically a rock. Those two have fought a bit, we return to their first fight place... like how the start of the arc also reused duel fields. Feels lazier than it does bookendy. Atem's goal is to see if Yugi is strong enough, and he's ready to stay with his friend if not. Yugi's goal is to beat down Judai's asshole and have fun. Jack's goal is to shatter Yusei's asshole so everyone can follow their dreams. Astral's goal is to have the greatest fight with Yuma ever. Reiji's goal is for Yuya to make his sister smile. Reiji blatantly and explicitly set this whole thing up for Yuya to win. He's loved Yuya's antics since forever, he supports him and he knows only Yuya can save everyone. While everyone else is like a karate master goign "lets talk with our fists!!", Reiji is more like a dad playing baseball with his kid and hoping loudly that the kid will bat the ball he's about to throw. And in doing so, the kid gets to the major leagues immediately.The duel's just not that interesting in setup, the plays are not well executed, the animation doesn't make the final action duel setpiece any justice, the resolution of conflict is confusing and relies on telling rather than showing and hoping the audience loves the themes enough and the fate of the yugirls and yubois is a grossly miss-communicated message. The Pro Test feels like an early concept since the pun is so good. I legit feel that Reiji's laugh suits Sawatari better. Imagine if his almost-mayor dad actually went "That Yuya duel was amazing!", Sawatari then laughing would be such a good way to end his character arc by accepting all that Yuya is. All in all? Disappointed. I like a lot of things, but the execution is ass. There's good bits, but as a whole the show falls apart. BB and Yuri, and Sergei and Yugo and Yuzu and Masumi and duel schools and fight club class and splatoon. So many good bits, but they do not flow well. They don't link to each other. They do not build up. The show fails to use its 3 year runtime. Disappointed.

[chuckfresh]

I’ll be the first to admit I can be cynical. But that’s a plus for you! My cynicism helps flush out the TRUTH about these cruise companies, their policies, their ships, and what your experience might be. Every other idiot’s review of these cruises has been a friggin’ lovefest. Why? They’re on the take! Either as a paid endorser, or as a travel agent. Me? I make money from you reading my reviews and watching my YouTube videos, so I don’t owe anyone, and no one owns me. Get my drift? That’s why my cynicism will help you.

I spent close to three times as much on a short weekend Disney cruise from Port Canaveral aboard one of their older ships, the Disney Dream. Is Disney worth the extra shekels? Let’s take an objective look at the important stuff and you can decide for yourself. Sail along with me here.

Boarding. Since we booked our trip a week out, we were on the low-end of the boarding process. That was actually kind of nice, because we had the majority of the day to chill out and get our stuff together. We slept in (8:00 is our sleeping in), had a nice late breakfast at Cracker Barrel (we asked for Brad’s wife), and slow rolled up to the ugliest cruise port on the east coast.

After paying the $68.00 parking fee (WHAAAAT??? And no car wash?), we shimmied up the very tight path to level 5 and found a parking spot well away from some dingleberry-family minivan that would probably have children slamming their doors into ours. The spots are very tight. The elevators are conveniently located, and there’s a walkway over the busy road below that takes you right up into the Disney security screening area. No goofiness there. Standard TSA-type inspections. That was pretty quick.

Rode the escalator up to the main concourse – and there they were – both Minnie and Mickey, live and in the polyester, posing for pictures. The lines were strangely small, probably because we were pretty late. Check in was very quick and pleasant. As the attendant handed us two lanyards, I was stunned. “What, we don’t have to pay for these?” He smiled at me as if I were an idiot. Every other cruise sells lanyards for up to $30 each, depending on how much bling it has.

We headed right to the gangway. They scanned our Mickey cards with a smile and we headed up the ramp. Some random white shirt asked me what our family name was. Shocked, I answered “Imbecile.” She then pulled out a microphone and announced, “Let’s have a warm welcome for the Imbecile family!” All the other white shirts clapped for us as we walked about. Apparently, no one got the joke.

The Rooms. Like many of the other cruise companies, I expected Disney’s older ships to be sloppy, dirty, loud, and in disrepair. Boy was I wrong. Our room was ready by the time we boarded, so we rolled our small carryons one flight down and around the corner. We touched our keycard to the sensor (no swiping) and the light turned green. We walked inside our room. It was really dark. I fiddled around with the light switches on the wall and nothing turned on. I wondered if Lumière was going to pop out of the shadows singing “Be Our Guest.” No such luck. Genius me figured out I had to slide my cardkey into the slot near the door, and voila! The lights magically turned on.

The first thing I noticed was there were two doors for the bathroom. A walk through I thought? Nope – and this was pretty sweet. One room was a sink and a toilet. The other room was a sink and a shower – with a tub! Not those dinky round pods most other cruise ships use in the cheap seats, but a respectably sized shower with a tub. I pulled out my trusty white Mickey hand and searched for mold spots. None. Zero. It was as if we were the second or third family who had ever stayed in this room – unless many other had, and maybe using bathrooms were against their religion. Plenty of water pressure and hot water all day and all night. The water was scalding hot at times, so watch yourself.

There was ample closet space, and lots of drawers all over the room to tuck away all your junk. There was a surprising amount of space in our room. We peeked into some of the inside rooms, and some were even larger! The inside rooms had a cool round video porthole. We were too late for a balcony, but the enlarged real porthole in our room was huge – and clean. I had never seen windows this clean on any cruise ship. And that cleanliness was apparent throughout the entire ship. Oh, yeah, I checked even the remotest nooks. Same.

The beds were clean and comfy, and the room attendants were top notch. Not much difference there between Disney and the others.

The Boat. “It’s not a boat – it’s a ship.” Oh, shut up. It’s my two grand, I’ll call it whatever I please. I mean, it’s a cruise ship. Eat, eat, eat, poop. What else is there to do? Actually, I was pleasantly surprised to find lots of hideaways for adults on this ship. There were several bars scattered throughout, including one area called “The District,” where you could watch live sports on satellite television and order hot wings and beer.

Most parents dumped their kids off in some hideous aberration of reality called the Oceaneers club. That made no sense. You book this expensive-ass vacation with your kids, then you dump them off in day care and get your groove on. Why? The kids had a blast. I saw kids throwing tantrums when their parents pulled them out on formal dinner nights. I watched some 7-year-old pounding his fists into his mother’s stomach while dad did nothing. I screamed something, and the kid got scared and stopped. She owes me.

Connectivity. Disney has these strange internet packages. Their biggest is about $80, and they’re capped at 1 gigabyte of data up or down. You can share you package across five devices simultaneously. I actually used my entire gig in less than 20 minutes due to my Google backup and Dropbox accounts synchronizing the few videos I had taken so far. Their internet concierge sees this all the time, and he did a one-time reset for free, while turning off all those crazy data-sucking apps. That was pretty cool. We used it sparingly and left with a little unused data. You can forget about Netflix binging unless you downloaded everything at home. Most newer phones will let you talk and text over WiFi. My wife’s worked, mine failed for some reason. Who knows. This was one time I really missed Royal Caribbean’s unlimited data.

Photo Shoots. This is where Disney beats everyone. They’ve got the typical photo shoot setups every night, including the final night, which is wonderful for families who might have had something planned on some other night. And Disney has the costumed characters that will pose with you in your pictures, which is a terrific keepsake. They too have the all-too-crowded photo center with portfolios which contain your printed photographs for your perusal. The logistics of how they got our Goofy photo into our binder within 20 minutes on an incredibly crowded night blew my mind. THAT was magic! Photo packages are available, and singles are roughly $20 each.

Now – what was possibly the coolest thing I have EVER seen on a cruise ship was during character photo ops. The host volunteers to take your picture with their character using YOUR OWN camera! To me, that seemed like capitalist suicide. And when I reviewed my smartphone pictures the host took, they were excellent! I felt so guilty I had to purchase at least a few of the pro shots. To me, that was the most generous thing Disney has ever done. Well done, Mickey.

Food and Beverage. Most other cruise lines require that you purchase a “soda package” for about $8 a day. Not Disney. Soda is unlimited and FREE! I was so overjoyed I would pour myself a random mixture of all the sodas, take a sip, make a strange face, then dump it out. Only because I could. Coke products only, and served via fountain. Canned sodas at bars or shows were extra.

Beer choices are limited, as they are on most cruises. But the bars were fully stocked with top-shelf liquors (Patron, Grey Goose, etc.) and their prices were steep, but not much more than any other cruise. Domestic beers were about $6, shots of 1800 about $7.50, Patron Reposado was about $9.75 I think. Some bartenders were more generous with their pours than others, so find those guys if that’s what’s important to you.

Another thing I noticed was Disney is big on wipeys. While the other cruisers prefer hand sanitizer, Disney makes you grab a cloth hand wipe. I can’t imagine all the trash that creates. Are those things recyclable?

If you’ve been with Royal, you know about their Windjammer. Copious all-you-can-eat buffets almost all day long. Dream ain’t got that. The closest we found was something called Cabanas, which had a very nice lunch buffet including a netload of jumbo shrimp and crab legs, and something for everyone from roast beef to mac and cheese. There were a few additional buffets at strange times (one was 10:30 at night), so keep your eyes on the schedule. Interestingly, the buffets on Disney are much more controlled than Royal or Carnival. Much of the fruits, veggies, fish, and desserts were behind glass, requiring you to ask for them. The shrimp, however, was low enough for boogie-fingered kids to grab by hand. Ew.

Waiters and servers were very friendly. I hate the dining room experience because I’m a super fun bro, but we always get saddled up with some old boring couple. And surprise – we were once again. We only went to let you know how it was. The dining room food was comparable to any other cruise – serving strange concoctions you’d only find in overpriced restaurants cooked and served by folks who can’t afford to eat there. I had sea bass on day one, some sort of strange penne pasta on day two, and their version of beef tenderloins for my last supper. It was all fine, but I do prefer the freedom of a buffet. We left early all three nights to get our cruise on.

We skipped the specialty dining at Palo and Remy this time. Honestly, we’ve done this on other cruises and didn’t find the food to be any better than the dining room or even buffet food. Many folks told us “Oh, Palo is the best meal I’ve ever had.” Yeah, when I was 20-something, I also bragged like that after feeling stupid for buying overpriced cuisine. But then again, Olive Garden is a big night out for a simple guy like me.

Entertainment. This is where I really expected Disney to shine. And yet, this was my largest disappointment. Our cruise director, Trent, a portly cartoonish dork from Australia, was one of those super annoying people who might be a terrific guy, but has absolutely no business whatsoever being around a microphone. Some of us have presence, some do not.

What was really interesting was I noticed several of the party games I invented years ago for adult bars were being played in the teen and kids’ clubs. That was both kind of cool and disturbing. You can read my book for yourself on Amazon here.

We saw something called The Golden Mickeys the first night, hosted by some underperforming actress pretending to be a stage hand. Yeah, there’s a load of characters that dance across the stage in costume in a well-rehearsed show. But it seemed to be more filler than substance, as we were lost about half way through. The little munchkins might like it. The second night had something to do with Disney villains. The best part of that show was the Cruella song. Catchy. The final night featured a show that was supposed to get some bro to believe in magic. Sure, there were some dances, acrobatics, the obligatory suspend someone from the air shenanigans, a really cool light that was supposedly Tinkerbell, and even some pyrotechnics. Yet, there was no real spark. Even the kids were falling asleep. The shows weren’t bad, but they were definitely outclassed bigly by Royal Caribbean. I’d sum it up as too much leaning on their 100-year-old character stable, and not enough original substance. I was shocked. Meh, at best.

Oh – and there are NO POLES obscuring your view in the lower level of the Walt Disney Theatre! There are two in the balcony, but nowhere near the 8 or more Royal Caribbean has on its ships. Every seat in this theatre is a good seat. If you get there early enough, you can sit in the special balcony seats to the sides of the stage.

Music left a lot to be desired. There were some individual vocalists, violin and piano soloists that were quite good popping up here and there. And a few bands in the adult clubs doing their thing who were average at best during the short time I spent there. But no steel drum band on the pool deck? No live tropical music in the tropics? Something was conspicuously missing, Disney Detectives.

They did play some first-run movies in their theatre, including one of the Star Wars flicks in 3D and Beauty and the Beast (while it was still in theatres). Times were sketchy. We missed all the showings due to scheduling conflicts.

And, after an overblown and way too long pirate night show on the pool deck stage (with no seats), Disney tooted and provided the only fireworks show from a cruise ship in the western hemisphere. That was pretty sweet.

Is Disney Worth Twice The Price? Tough call. It’s definitely a good time. We felt safe. Very few obnoxious drunks probably because there are no unlimited drink packages. Clean rooms. Smart bathroom designs. Great service. Good food. And their Castaway Cay is a gorgeous piece of Bahamas property. I can honestly admit I did not feel ripped off.

Add up the free sodas, the cast taking character photos using your own camera, free first-run movies, the time saved by having two separate bathrooms, and, of course, the free lanyard, and I’m sure you too can justify a healthy portion of the additional cost.

If your children are still tiny (and you want to safely ditch them all day), or if you’re a hard-core button-collecting Disney maniac, definitely do the Disney experience. If not, drink til you puke and take two cruises on a lesser cruise line.

(via https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1S_rkBj8jJA)

[nvmullaly]

Trove Cheat

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