#IN MY DECADE-OLD ANIME ED???????

[justplaggin]

CHUUYA & GOJO DUET??????

[cyberdragoninfinity]

wild dana spotted howling and barking about yugioh arc-v out in the parking lot

oh BOY oh boy it's bout that time again. i can't believe it's been OVER A YEAR (?!?!?) since i last did one of these 'i just finished a yugioh here's my little rambly retrospective about it' posts but we are BACK!!! Finished my first ever watch-through of Arc-V last Tuesday after some 8 months of it putting me through the spin cycle and now as it's wedging itself permanently into my psyche i need to talk about its Everything or i will explode. so LET'S SWING INTO ACTION!!! I'M TAKING CONTROL OF THIS DUEL STARTING NOW!!!

[SPOILERS ahead for this decade old anime, of course]

WOW. YUGIOH ARC-V, HUH. before i started it watching it, I knew two things: A.) every single bit of knowledge I'd learned about it from Duel Links events or otherwise had me so, so, unbeliebable fucking hyped. I was absolutely certain this Yugioh was going to be so full of Danabait and completely fry my brain like an egg on the griddle. I had to physically restrain myself for TWO YEARS to keep from jumping the gun and watching Arc-V before I'd finished all the series before it (a decision I'm ultimately thankful for--Arc-V hits kind of fuckign crazy as a chaser to four other yugiohs.). And also, B.) when people Talk About Arc-V they always talk about it in a Very Particular Way. like. it's hard to describe. I feel like you know it when you see it. There is the full range of human emotion in the way people talk about Arc-V. People talk about Arc-V like its a confusing, malicious specter haunting their living room. And this admittedly got me even more hyped to watch it.

And then I watched it and here I am and I KNOW NOW. I KNOW NOW WHY PEOPLE. TALK ABOUT IT LIKE THAT. FROM THE BOTTOM OF MY HEART: WHAT THE FUCK WAS THAT. SLASH POS. SLASH NEG. SLASH SECRET THIRD THING.

Arc-V is a fucking MESS. It starts out SO strong and then it starts setting plot threads on fire and writing conceptual checks it absolutely cannot cash. It falls down the narrative stairs like it has a goddamn death wish. It introduces 342052805 characters and then forgets to do anything with 99% of them. It does things to its girl characters that makes the back half of 5Ds's girl writing failure look like the height of feminist theory. If the stories I've heard about its deeply troubled production are any indication it is some kind of MIRACLE this show got made and aired at ALL. IT'S LIKE WATCHING A CAR WEAVING THROUGH TRAFFIC AT 90 MPH ONLY TO PLOW DIRECTLY INTO THE SIDE OF A PARTY CITY.

and goddamn if I didn't have a FUCKING BLAST watching it. GODDAMN IF I DIDNT HAVE SO, SO MUCH FUN. goddamn if Arc-V might very well end up being my FAVORITE yugioh out of ALL of them when all is said and done. WHOOOOOPSSS!!! 🥴🥴🥴🥴🥴

like. imo Zexal is absolutely from a quality/art direction/narrative/everything standpoint leaps and bounds better than Arc-V. Definitely one of my favorite cartoons I've ever seen period, and most people should give it a shot. Such a beautiful work of art. But Arc-V....... girl they put something In this one. My pre-show hype was absolutely warranted. This show is just one blast of Shit That Makes Dana Crazy after another. Every character absolutely delights me and is my best friend. I'm going to be losing my mind over Yugioh Arc-V for the rest of the year and maybe forever.

As usual I primarily watched the dub, with some sub episodes sprinkled in if I got tipped off about a big change, or just if I wanted to see what was going on back there. (glad I did, of course, for a number of reason--least of all that Arc-V's OPs and EDs are SO fun and so charming!!) (THOUGH SIDE NOTE: THE DUB OPENING SHREDS SO HARD IM SORRY. IT'S UP THERE WITH THE GX DUB OPENING FOR ME. CAN YOU FEEL THE FUCKING POWER!!!!!) Anyway, gotta say, really was blown away by this dub!! It's tied with Zexal for what's imo the 'best' yugioh dub--the majority of the voice performances were just fantastic (truly all the love in my heart for Michael Liscio Jr.'s performances as the yuboys, they all have such unique and charming voices and im OBSESSED WITH THEM.) and having watched some sub eps side by side with the dub it's really cool seeing a dub that genuinely tried to faithfully translate Most of the Original. idk it's just a really solid localization to me!! I loved it a lot!! ALSO IT'S EXTREMELY FUNNY. I SAY THIS ABOUT EVERY DUB BUT IT'S TRUE. there are line reads in the arc-v dub that have me SOBLAUGHING.

anyway. I like to do these little subsection breakdowns in these little retrospective roundups, so let's get into the weeds with it:

Stuff I Didn't Like: loooooooooong inhale through my nose. looks at you with mildly pained eyes. alright. let's get this one over with.

though I did really try to go in as blind as I could/avoid most spoilers with this one, I did inevitably get spoiled by some things from Duel Links, but in the case of. uh. Riley Getting Turned Back Into a Baby At the End. 👶🏼 I AM glad I had that spoiled for me, so I knew it was coming. Because if I didn't know that was going to happen and that clocked me over the head I would have been on the NEWS. I WOULD HAVE BEEN, SO MAD. HEY, YUGIOH: WHAT THE FUCK WAS THAT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 👶🏼👶🏼👶🏼👶🏼👶🏼 WHY DID YOU DO THAT TO RILEY!!!!

"character gets permanently turned back into a baby for Critical Plot Reasons" has gotta be one of my LEAST favorite tropes in anything, it's NEVER GOOD. AND IT'S ESPECIALLY BAD HERE!!! Riley is such a good character, he's got such an interesting arc going on, and THEY JUST RIP THAT TO PIECES. SO RILEY'S JUST FUCKING GONE NOW I GUESS. COOL. ALRIGHT. SURELY THERE COULD HAVE BEEN BETTER WAYS TO DEFEAT ZARC. SURELY. just. good GOD. it was a small miracle to me when this happened like 8 episodes before the end, it was like ripping the bandaid off early, it was like "oh thank christ i got past that. ok well whatever happens it cannot possibly be as bad as the shit they did to riley"

^ (and imo it wasnt. thank GOD. actually let's talk about that)

LIKE. MAKE NO MISTAKE ARC-V'S ENDING IS CONFUSING AND CLUMSY AND SO STUPID AND NOT GOOD. WHY ON GOD'S GREEN EARTH DOES THIS SERIES NEED EIGHT EPISODES AFTER ITS BIG BAD DUEL.WE COULD HAVE WRAPPED THIS UP IN 2-3!!!! it feels like watching Chopped and the contestant has 20 seconds on the clock left and theyre like "i gotta make my whipped cream" like WEEEE DONT NOT HAVE TIMEEE FOR THAT!!!!! WHAT ARE WE DOINGGGG. why are we dueling jack AGAIN. FOR TWO EPISODES. EVERYONE IS YELLING AT YUYA LIKE ALL OF THIS IS HIS RESPONSIBILITY AND FUCKING IS IT??!?!??! HE'S 14. AND THEN THOSE EPISODES HAVE THE GALL TO THROW SO MANY COOL IDEAS ON THE TABLE (Gong fully exploring dueltaining, the Dimensional Highway, etc) AND IT'S LIKE. COOL!! WISH WE COULDVE HAD THIS ANY OTHER TIME THAN THE LAST POSSIBLE SECOND!!! WHAT ARE WE DOINGGGG

BUT all that being said, the way people talk about that fucking last episode I was expecting some genuinely godawful 'zuzu is yuyas mom again like in the manga' tier absolute nightmare scenario. i literally made a secret prediction chart of what insane plot twist i assumed the last episode was going to drop on me.

AND THEN THE LAST EPISODE WAS JUST. FUNNYBAD. just a run of the mill whimper at the end of eight episodes we KIND OF REALLY DID NOT NEED. THE SHEER AMOUNT OF RELIEF I FELT. like absolutely i think going into it completely blind/encountering that ending watching live I would have been pissed, folks are rightfully frustrated with it, but I WAS TRULY. EXPECTING MUCH WORSE. IT ENDS LIKE A FAKE TUMBLR POST. "AND THEN EVERYONE CLAPPED" ASS ENDING. I DO HAVE TO LAUGH

^ YIPPEEEE SIX CHARACTERS HAVE EFFECTIVELY STOPPED EXISTING YAAAAAYY (😬😬😬😬)

ALSO, IN GENERAL. SPEAKING OF. GOD. THE BRACELET GIRLS. YALL ARE SO COOL AND THEN POOR LULU AND RIN DIDNT GET TO DO A GODDAMN THING EXCEPT HAVE WORMS IN THEIR BRAINS!!!! HELL ON EARTH!!!!!! WHY DID THEY DO THATTTT GAHHHHH again!! show that introduces SO many characters, so many FUCKING COOL CHARACTERS, and then does NOTHING with them. Or hits them with PARALYZING NERVE GAS FOR 20 EPISODES. CHRIST!!! WHY DO ARC-V GIRLS SUFFER MORE THAN JESUS. LEAVE MY GIRL ZUZU ALONEEEEE

TO THAT END, ARC-V JUST MAKES; SO MANY CONFUSING CHARACTER DECISIONS. AND CHOICES. why is Yuto just out of the picture for like 60 episodes!!! Let him be Yuya's brain buddy!!! WHY WASNT HE. DID YOU NOT WANNA ANIMATE HIM FLOATING NEXT TO THE DUEL RUNNER??! BE REAL. It's like. GRAHHH In general Arc-V has a pacing problem that is like. Atrocious even for yugioh's bad pacing problems. This series needed to be 400 episodes long. I like the IDEA of a yugioh with a big cast, spending episodes cutting between different groups of characters like some kind of bulky YA fantasy novel, but in practice it got. Real Muddy. RIP Xyz dimension arc you shoulda had so much more to you. And then there's that combined with this way it's trying Really Really hard to ape the themes of the past yugiohs ('dont forget to have fun,' grief/moving on after loss, classism) but it's hitting every damn branch on the way down and just completely fumbling ALL of them, it's not actually doing much to Earn being able to have those kind of themes resonate properly. IT'S SUCH A BAFFLING SHOW. IN THE THEMES DEPARTMENT. AMONG OTHER THINGS. "DONT EVER BE VISIBLY PUBLICLY SAD" IS A FUCKING INSANE MORAL. AND IT TAKES THAT SHIT WITH IT TO THE BITTER END. WHY IS THE FATE OF THE WORLD HINGED ON YUYA MAKING A BABY LAUGH. WHERE AM I!!!!

god. god. ok. ok im calm now. im sure in the coming weeks i'll have more barking about arc-v's various fumbles. but i'll leave it at that for now, i wanna talk about stuff i DID like now lol

Favorite Season/Arc: ok well. this actually is a hard question. um. hrm. LIKE. I'LL GET SHOT BY SNIPERS IF I SAY IT WAS SYNCHRO ARC BUT ALSO

IM SORRYYYYYYYYYYYYY I GOT THAT DOG IN ME (A BACK HALF OF 5D'S LIKER'S SOUL.) and unfortunately I WILL go in there and think about it that hard (the absolutely fucked to hell sociopolitical situation happening in Arc-V New Domino City and how it contrasts with the NDC in 5D's) (one thing about me I love weird fucked up yugioh old people I love those bitchass old centrists apparently governing the entire dimension and doing a piss poor job of it it's just like contemporary American politics!!!!!!) ROGET WAS JUST REANIMATING DEAD PEOPLE AND PUTTING MIND CONTROL CYBERNETICS IN THEM AND WELL YEAH SURE I'LL BE NORMAL GRIP ABOUT THAT. NORMAL. i need to make an arc-v AU Aporia so fucking bad THEN YOULL ALL SEE *talking to empty room*

YES synchro was way too fucking long. but regretfully i love turbo duels and will never not be charmed when yugioh puts guys on motorcycles that have no business being on motorcycles. DAMN I JUST FUCKING WISH YUYA AND YUGO GOT TO ACTUALLY TALK AND MEET IN THE SAME ROOM THOUGH!!!! BUT ANYWAY!!!!

im. kidding at least a little, I actually thoroughly enjoyed like...all of Arc-V's seasons/arcs at least a little (barring a lot of the Weird Post Zarc Duel 8 Episode Dead Zone.) The first 50 episodes really are just peak banger Yugioh, I do love action duels to absolute bits (though Action Spells. Uh. Need Some Workshopping 8| If I See Evasion One More Time Im Gonna Lose It) and the shit especially that first season does with the crazy Action Fields is AWESOME. GENUINELY. GO DUEL IN THE VOLCANO. DO A FLIP. RIDE YOUR MONSTER. it's practically running on Pokemon universe logic i cant NOT love it. And well Fusion Dimension arc does just have a whole lot of episodes that make me go cuckoo bananas crazy. Truly something for Dana in every crevice of Yugioh Arc-V.

Favorite Characters: god I do think like a solid half of why I think Arc-V may be becoming my top fav Yugioh is that the cast is just, really Really fucking good. Like yes so many of them are underutilized but the time we Do get with them really just shows off what delightful characters they all are. Half the reason it took me so damn long to finish was I was having so much fun and was going to miss seeing them!! IT'S GENUINELY HARD TO PICK A TOP LINEUP OF FAVS. THERE'S SO MANY DANABAIT GUYS IN YUGIOH ARC-V. YES EVEN THE SYNCHRO ARC GUYS. LUCAS SWANK I MISS YOU SO FUCKING MUCH.

The Lancers alone are SO good, theyre up there with Team 5D's in terms of Favorite "Main Yugioh 'Friend Group'/Organization". Group of guys who kind of have horrible synergy and only like 3 of them are actually competent. Declan came up with it when he was 13. Funniest group of teenagers imaginable, I love them all. LIKE .YUYA MAY BE MY FAVORITE YUTAGONIST??? IM NOT SURE YET BUT. I DO LOVE HIM A LOT. HE'S A PATHETIC WET PAPER TOWEL AND I WANT TO GIVE HIM A NOOGIE. SLASH POS.

And I mean I'm always gonna be Z-one biased but I do like Zarc as a Big Bad a lot too... damn if I don't love Just Some Guy Has Become God and Is a Huge Tool About It <3 WHAT IS YOUR PROBLEM WHY ARE YOU ACTING LIKE THIS!!!!

ah. but. of course. i'd be remiss if i didn't bring up. Rainbow Carrot Rock Your World.

hey guys. why'd it happen again. why'd the Yugioh Carrot and Company get in my head and completely fry my brain AGAIN!!!!!!!! ORANGE CARROT. PURPLE CARROT. YELLOW CARROT!!!!🥕🥕🥕🥕🥕🥕🥕🥕🥕🥕🥕🥕🥕 YUGO ISNT EVEN MY TOP FAV BUT HE'S IN MY HEART AND IN OUR HOUSE FOREVER NOW. meanwhile i dont want. to talk about what yuri is doing to me. if i think too hard about this little purple freak i'll start going bonkers ballistic chewing my leg off. I like all the yuboys but he is especially. Gripping Me. La Cucaracha Loca. My shithead gay son.

dennis needs his own post he's just. a Lot. may very well be one of the funniest yugioh characters ever. Among Other Things. his dub VA's performance needs to be marked as culturally significant. AND THEY JUST KEPT BRINGING HIM BACK.

IN GENERAL, AS I WAS COMPLETELY EXPECTING, FUCKED UP AND EVIL DUEL ACADEMY REALLY DID ME IN I love you Fusion Dimension kids I love getting sick in the head thinking about card game child soldiers.My Actual favorite Arc-V character may just straight up be Sora..... I just like him a lot. He's got a really solid character arc, his deck rules, he's a little fucker AND an absolute real one. Just 10/10 little guy.

GOD WHAT EVEN IS MY TOP FIVE FAVORITES. UHHHH Okay Sora and Yuri for sure, and Declan, I love Declan. Yugo..... god. GOD IS THE FIFTH ONE DENNIS FOR REAL. I FEEL HIM IN MY BRAIN SO BAD. AAAAUUGHHHH (Runners Up: Yuya, Yuto, GONG MOTHERFUCKING STRONG!!!!!!, Rin my girl my badass mechanic girl IM ON MY WAY. I'LL THINK ABOUT YOU THAT HARD., Riley, Arc-V Aster unfortunately a Dana Guy ever. Why Is He Here. He Didnt Even Go to DA in GX. But all of this is subject to change in coming months as the entire cast continues to hit me with weapons. An honor and a privilege to induct these characters into my Blorbo Hall of Fame)

Favorite Duel: HEY QUICK QUESTION: WHY ARE ARC-V'S DUELS SO FUCKING WEIRD. LIKE. NARRATIVELY. There's like 4352984589 ties and duels that get cut short and DUELS WE JUST NEVER GET TO SEE THE FULL OUTCOME OF ON SCREEN?!?!? WHAT WAS GOING ON THERE. It feels like another symptom of arc-v just desperately trying to bite off more than it can chew 😭 Frustrating!! And god I LOVE the zaniness of Action Duels, but we neeeeeed to do something about Action Spells... GRABBING AN ACTION SPELL SHOULD NOT BE THE CRUTCH OF YOUR WHOLE DECK.........

coughs. anyway. My actual honest to god favorite Arc-V duel is Yugo vs. Celina in the Friendship Cup <3 IVE ALREADY TALKED ABOUT IT BEFORE BUT IT'S JUST SUCH A FUN ONE. It's got some great character moments on both sides, a yugioh girl Getting to Be Cool, the colors are gorgeous, it's SO funny, I just get such a kick out of it....I think part of what I Do like about the Friendship Cup is it really shows this sense of kinetic energy that the WRGP in 5D's really needed. I also really like the Shay vs. Dennis Friendship Cup duel for just going completely off the rails. Blow Up This War Criminal and The Whole Stadium With the Giant Bird Satellite Cannon. DOES NOT GET MORE YUGIOH THAN THAT!!

for all its weirdness Arc-V has a LOT of really fun duels that i enjoy--Shay vs. Sora is beloved for a reason, it also goes hard as hell. So many Season 1 duels are just a goofy blast, I really need to rewatch the quiz show one. For as much of an unnecessary mess as those last 8 episodes are, I DO really like Yuya and Dennis's duel too (THAT GETS REALLY REALLY GAY AT THE END???!?!? ARE WE ALL SEEING THIS.)

Hell even the Zarc duel started making me kind of sick in the head--watching Yuya's friends passing around his pendulum necklace while trying to save him makes me turbo emo WHAT CAN I SAY!!!

Arc-V also has the thing I had with Zexal where there's just some individual episodes that are absolute bangers for me. i love the Prison Break episode, it's fucking INSANE. HIP HIPPO SAID FUCK COPS FUCK THE PRISON SYSTEM!!! I love the episode where Gong and Dennis duel. FOR HOW LONG IT DID DRAG SYNCHRO HAS SOME REALLY FUN ONE-OFF EPISODES which I just really enjoy. Also love when Zuzu and Sora beat the shit out of a pack of cops. Based for that for real.

i do also love Yuri and Yuya's duel. Of course.

Other Miscellaneous Gushing/Shrieking/Losing My Mind About Yugioh Arc-V For Good and Bad and Everything in Between: arc-v arc-veeeeee yugioh arc-fiveeee theres just so MUCH. TO TALK ABOUT. THIS ONE'S GONNA BE IN MY HEAD FOR EONS I FEAR. THINKING ABOUT THE EVERYTHING. The sheer amount of narrative traits that make me specifically lose my mind (in a good way. as opposed to. the babyfication making me lose my mind. in a Real Bad Way :////) that they crammed into this. It's like digging in the treasure chest of elaborate fanfics I was writing in my brain in freshman year of high school. The Sick and Twisted Evil AU Version of Duel Academy. The Trained to Be Weapons Child Soldiers. Mind Control Reanimated Corpse Brain Chip. Alternate Dimension Selves. All of the Split Different Dimension Bullshit. Soul Splitting and Soul Fusion Framed as Fucking Terrifying. It's good I didn't have Arc-V growing up it would have been doing IRREVERSIBLE THINGS TO MY DEVELOPING CREATIVE BRAIN. INSTEAD IT'S DOING THEM TO ME NOW.

(side note, re: terrifying soul fusion: Arc-V is SO FUCKING SCARY SOMETIMES?!?? Like "ohh i wish yugioh was still a horror story" DAWG ARC-V ROUTINELY HAS SOME OF THE MOST DREAD-INDUCING CONCEPTS GETTING FLUNG AT YOU AT 90 MPH. SKIP BOYLE FORGETS HIS DAUGHTER EXISTED AND IT'S ONE OF THE MOST HEARTBREAKINGLY HORRIFYING THINGS IVE EVER SEEEEENNNNN )

The shit Arc-V does with Yugioh's themes of identity, these "when does a piece of yourself stop being you and start being their own person?" "what happens when multiple free standing people are one person" type ideas, you KNOW that makes my Aporia Turbofan ass go CRAAAZYYYY. AND THEN IT HAD RELIGIOUS MOTIFS TOO <3333 YOU'RE ME AND IM YOU AND IT DOESNT MATTER WHO DOES WHAT THE DEVIL WILL COME BACK REGARDLESS 😊💞💞💞

Arc-V takes such bold swings at things and 95% of the time it misses the ball entirely and spins up and out and directly into the fireplace but that 5% of sheer genius and thematic weight hits like a truck. Is Arc-V good? FUCK IF I KNOW. PROBABLY NOT. BUT ALSO YES IT IS. BUT ALSO IT'S NOT. BUT ALSO IT'S SOMETHING SO SPECIAL, AND I LOVE IT. That first like 50 episodes makes for such a good yugioh starter course tbh, the way it goes over different summoning methods and is very engaging and energetic, and then the rest of the show is an 18 car pileup of Card Game War that makes me automatically like DONT. START WITH THIS ONE. WATCH ANOTHER YUGIOH OR TWO FIRST AND THEN COME MELT YOUR BRAIN IN HERE. AND THATS SUCH A WEIRD DICHOTOMY TO HAVE WITH ONE YUGIOH. weird like everything else with arc-v i suppose. :,)

For all the mess and all the madness there truly is so much I love, though. I love the character dynamics, even when the show isnt doing much more with its cast--Yuya and Gong's friendship may be one of my favorite 'yutag and best friend' bonds, it's SO sweet and I'm going to be mad forever that Gong isn't more popular in western ygo fandom. I love the DUEL MONSTERS!! Performapals are SOOOO sillygoofy I have to adore them, the dimensional dragons all kick so much ass I love you Clear Wing my big legless weirdo. I love Shay's increasingly bigger Bird Guns. I LOVE FRIGHTFURS!!!! I LOVE D/D/DS!!!!! SO HAPPY TO SEE THEM ON ESPECIALLY SCREEN AFTER PLAYING THEM FOR MONTHS IN DUEL LINKS. MY FREAKY DECLAN DEMONS. I love the miscellaneous callbacks to past iconic monsters and funky weird AU retrains of the Legacu character's decks. Scarlight Red Dragon Archfiend my friend Scarlight Red Dragon Archfiend

I also do love that Arc-V in theory is trying very hard to be a celebration of past Yugiohs, but it's also instead being completely fucking insane with its 'tributes.' Oh you like Heartland City from Zexal? It's a carpetbombed warzone now! LIKE... HUH!!! When Lazar showed up at the end of season 2 i SCREAMED. I WANT TO KNOW THE LOGIC OF THESE CHOICES. THEY DONT MAKE ME MAD OR ANYTHING REALLY IM JUST FASCINATED BY THEM. i cant really be too angry at arc-v I'm just. transfixed. at every baffling choice it's ever made. I've really truly never seen a show that's so thoroughly felt like some kids doing a roleplay on a forum somewhere, players dropping in and out and mods not really knowing what to do with the lore anymore as things become more and more convoluted. I watch arc-v scenes and i can picture the text RP in my head, the players' forum signatures and all. It's truly some kind of feat to achieve that inherent vibe, that's for sure.

ok im running out of steam i think... what else. god. Yugioh Arc-V is just.... such a teetering Jenga tower of a show, a complete nuclear meltdown of clumsy writing and fantastic vocal performances (dub and sub) and confused handling of its own lore and occasionally some of the fucking coolest most intense expressions and gorgeous shots of any yugioh

I held out on watching it for so long cuz i just fuckin KNEW it was going to grab me by the brain and swing me into the wall and WELL!!! I WAS RIGHT!!!! SHES A MESS BUT SHES MY MESS BABEYYY!!! IS ARC-V GOOD? MAYBE NOT BUT, BROTHER, I FUCKIN LOVE WHEN YUGIOH IS BAD ❤ ive been a disciple of Bad Yugioh for 20 goddamn years and im not stopping now!!!!! I love you Pendulum summoning you insane busted ass mechanic. I love you all four completely fucked up dimensions. I love that they localized Maiami to Paradise City. I love the little nods to past yugioh things (like fusing with a motorcycle <3 Primo Moment...2!) I hate you Leo Akaba explode and die forever (though 'parent going mad trying to bring their child back' do also go me a little bananas.) I love the kickass shots of Yuya's monsters being set in the pendulum scale.I love Sora's relationship with Yuya and Zuzu. I love every fucked up crazyass expression Yuri makes. I love the sense of character design in this show. I love the Action Duel start chants. I love seeing the Synchro Math again and the Overlay Units and the deeply unsettling fusion hand gesture kids use with Polymerization. I love that third ED thats just the Lancers dicking around in different locations and having fun. I love Declan and Riley's complicated but deeply loving bond. I love when characters RIDE THEIR DUEL MONSTERS!!! AND I LOVE THAT DESPITE EVERYTHING I ALREADY WANNA SEE THESE CHARACTERS AGAIN. THEYRE MY FRIENDS!!!!! THEYRE IN MY BRAIN!!!!! MY KIDSSSSS

I KNOW NOW. WHY PEOPLE TALK ABOUT ARC-V LIKE THAT. AND IM ABOUT TO START TALKIN LIKE THAT TOO. YUGIOHHHHHH!!!!!

[ghostsandmirrors]

MASTER WISHLIST

this is far longer than expected.

they are organised by muse, but I'm not organising them as like canons, then originals. they're just all in this together.

note: + is used for platonic, x is used for romantic.

The Menagerie do you have a smug shithead muse? we have a zoo! pick one or two or three to bully your muse with. they're all a pain in the ass. (the menagerie are the animals. they're all canons from different sources.)

The Menagerie + Loki, specifically Cheshire vs. Loki is a thread I've done in the past and it was hilarious, but listen to me; the goose. Loki vs. the goose would be fuckin incredible, and Loki vs. Duo would teach Loki how to fear, I think. it definitely would not teach the owl to, that's for sure.

---

Bucky Bucky and general DC heroes (MCU/DC crossover) (I started writing half my muses on MCU/DC crossover forum sites, including Bucky! I'm throwing him back into his roots)

Batman I just think Bucky meeting Batman would be very funny, especially in a professional setting and especially if canon divergent post-Endgame. Bucky having war flashbacks to being chased through Bucharest by a man dressed as a cat because 'so many superheroes are furries.'

Wonder Woman Bucky and Diana based on that one fan plot where Diana was involved, in some way, with fighting during WWII and they met back then and then meet again in the modern day. bonus points if Diana thinks he's his own grandson and he doesn't correct her.

Superman idk Bucky and Superman would just be kinda wholesome? also if Superman mun comfortable, Bucky would totally have a crush on Superman. you can't convince me otherwise. also Clark and Bucky as a ship would be 'pure of heart, dumb of ass' in that order and it makes me giggle.

Other any of the Batfam would also be fun but there's every chance they get unofficially adopted. new dad! new dad! new dad!

I don't know that many DC heroes. girl help. who else is there? idk but I want them!

Bucky + ship partner post-mission shit. anything. just them being like 'thank FUCK that's over with'. snuggling. idgaf.

Bucky + Steve, Bucky + Sam pure of heart, dumb of ass. this is a never-ending want. it's not a specific want, either. I just like putting them in threads together.

lbr this is also a ship want, like pls give me the gay. ty.

similarly...

Bucky + Sarah Wilson I've never seen a Sarah rper and I badly want to. I love them meeting in TFATWS and listen; I ship it. Bucky x Sarah would be so cute and also borderline hilarious because what are the fuckin chances neither of them are like 'oh this would make Sam mad... it'll be funny.' like shut the fuck up I love this.

Bucky + Thor I don't know why but I've always wanted to and never gotten the chance to.

Bucky x Loki 🥺👉👈 Listen...

Bucky + Spider-Muses I once joked about Bucky adopting various Spider-characters and I still want it. Bucky is the ancient, morally ambiguous MCU Batman on this blog, in that he will not stop fucking adopting people, but at least Bruce usually adopts children. Bucky'll adopt a 30 year old. they're still 70 years younger than him so they're fair game.

Bucky + Nebula the sheer comedy value of these two being friends is worth the gymnastics to figure out how they'd spend enough time together to become friends.

Bucky + Dmitri from 2012's The Winter Soldier comics by Ed Brubaker I so badly want to explore the possible dynamic between these two. I don't want to spoil the story he's from, even though it's been over a decade since those stories came out, but I want him. I wanted to see more of him before that story ended. please.

Bucky + HYDRA muses ... Bucky doesn't get that much opportunity to start shit with other muses. (this is always going to be a negative in terms of relationship and I am not going to pretend otherwise.)

Bucky + Lara Croft from Lara Croft: Tomb Raider (2000s) I just want them to meet. I would love for them to meet. I think it'd be interesting.

Lady Characters lbr I just wanna have him meet ladies. give me ur ladies plz and thank <3

Random Motherfuckers do you have an OC that works in a random, every day job? does your muse like going for walks between 3am and 6am? they should meet and become friends because the mental image of Bucky making friends with random people he walks past on the way to the store or whatever brings me so much joy.

---

Joker Joker + Batman <3 Joker is obsessed with Batman. ofc I want to thread them. I want every possible thread in any verse that's most comfortable. Joker is my comfort villain.

Joker + Batman characters in general (focused on villains/rogues gallery) I have no specifics, I just realised he talks to the Rogues Gallery a lot in comics/cartoons and my Joker… hasn't. ever. I can fix that.

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Dylan Dylan and Heroes (any DC) I also want Dylan and Gotham heroes, Gordon, etc.. Dylan needs more screentime 'cause her ass is overshadowed by the fuckin owl at this point. lbr who isn't.

Dylan and Heroes (any MCU) also Dylan plus marvel heroes since she has an MCU verse. do I have icons? fuck no. am I asking for Dylan threads regardless? fuck yes.

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Jameson Jameson and Heroes (any) Mortitaint is a masked murderer. that's it. that's the pitch. you want your muse hit with a shovel? I can help with that! also if any men want a boyfriend who is sweaty and dirty every day and surprisingly strong……………. im just saying……………… and then they can one day find out the other is a hero/villain……………………….. drama. 👀 (this includes anti-heroes)

Jameson and Villains (any) I just think it'd be interesting, y'know? Jameson doesn't tend to play well with others, in general, but there's a chance it doesn't go horribly wrong!

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Wag Wag and X-Men Characters Wagner Himura is an X-Men oc that, in his entire time on my blog, has never threaded with an X-Men character. it can be any character and any verse. I don't care. I just want him to speak to other mutants, man.

Logan specifically, I would like Wag and Logan threads. I always picture Wag as a general pest when he starts working at the school, like throwing water balloons filled with speed potions at people that annoy him kind of pest, and I get the feeling Logan would either hate his guts, like him because he does not discriminate between students and teachers, or be very cautious because he doesn't know Wag's limits while Wag's just like 'hey ;D I don't actually find you attractive but if flirting means I don't get stabbed, I'll flirt. ;D I'm high as a fuckin kite rn lmao ;D'

Charles Xavier Wag and Charles would also be funny because of the aforementioned 'high as a kite'.

Brotherhood any brotherhood muse in his brotherhood verse would be nice, too. Idk how he got into the brotherhood in that verse and I want to explore it. I just miss writing Wag, lbr.

OCs tbh any OC. let's yeet our x-men OCs together and see what bad ideas they come out with. it'll be funny. I'm willing to make up places that they can go through a portal to, as well.

Wanda ok listen I can't stop thinking about Wagner and Wanda meeting and comparing notes on their powers because they're both technically 'magic' users (she's the Scarlet Witch, he calls himself a wizard) and Wanda being like 'I just do things :)' and Wag pulling out half a library because, 'these are just the ones I carry around with me and I need to know things otherwise I do dumb shit' would be funny.

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Bam and X-Men Characters Bam has an X-Men verse in which he vibrates particles when angry and I just… I miss Bam being chaotic. I miss Bam being a mess. she's gotten too collected and I want disaster Bam back. I don't have specific preferences for this one.

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Wag and Bam Basically, both Wag and Bam (in his X-Men verse) have abilities that can/are activated by emotions. With Wag, he has more control over his abilities and thus the chances of anger doing anything is low but not zero. If his anger is doing anything, it's a silent, 'scorched Earth' kind of anger that mostly shows in things moving telekinetically. With Bam, his power is exclusively activated by anger.

I just want that in a(nother, in Bam's case) thread or plot. It'd be fun.

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Mattie and Avengers/SHIELD/HYDRA Mattie worked for both SHIELD and HYDRA so I would like to establish some kind of relations with SHIELD and HYDRA muses, but she also sent records to the Avengers after the fall of HYDRA and began torturing/murdering HYDRA agents who survived The Snap so like……….. 👀

also Avengers meeting her after The Blip or whatever dumb bitch shit The Snap 2: Electric Boogaloo is canonically called would be… like she a gremlin in the swamplands. she's a whole fuckin cryptid by that point. I want her ex-coworkers to meet the cryptid she's become and be like, '... ayo? you good?' and her to be knee-deep in swamp water, dragging a body, like, '... yup!'

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Arnulf Arnulf and Steve's Friends arnulf needs to meet non-Steve avengers (or others who know him). it would be funny. 'hey you kinda look like Steve Rogers..' '[subtle german accent] a lot of people say that! it's so strange. I don't see it.'

Past - HYDRA threads between like 2012-2014 would be interesting? idk. I feel like I've forgotten how to write serious threads.

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Ultron Ultron + MCU? I'm sure i've mentioned this before but I just really want Ultron to reunite with the avengers through like idk texts? e-mails? something technology based so the urge to blow his ass up is reduced.

this is not limited to just the avengers. you have an MCU hero muse? a child of a canon? I'll take 'em. give me any muse who may know Ultron or his reputation.

Any Tech Character does your character work in or with technology? especially computers? do you want them to meet Ultron?

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Dick + Heroes (MCU) LET HIM BITCH AT AN AVENGER ABOUT THAT ALIEN THAT GOT THROWN THROUGH THE WINDOW OF HIS WORK. he deserves this.

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Ai and Tony Stark I always imagine that they know each other due to being rich and fundraisers and shit like that. Ai might be an assassin but she gives to charity and does all the Very Good Things she's meant to which means attending Stark fundraisers and drinking his booze x

they do not have to like each other. I don't think Ai has met a single person she likes since she killed her husband, I'll be honest.

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Villains generally I do want more villain threads where my villain muses are being villains and doing villainous things. like, I have Joker and Ultron who deserve some attention but also Jameson, Ai, Mattie, Jesse, I have a verse where Bam's a villain (he's doing it for the vibes. that'd hold up in court /s), I have the brotherhood verse with Wag… like�� plz. I want my muses to go apeshit.

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Fandomless OCs (Liaxee, the Bringer, Lieat) also I would like to do more with supernatural/fantasy/generally fandomless OCs and Liaxee or the Bringer or Lieat. Liaxee is a joy to write, the Bringer is my dumb bitch, and Lieat's the cutest muse I have. I love them all, your honour.

I think Supernatural (the show) muses and any of these three would be fun, too. especially Lieat, because idk if there's anything like them in the Supernatural universe?

I know I have two doctor who blogs following me so I'm lumping them in with supernatural/fantasy/fandomless oc/Superrnatural (the show). yous wanna meet a void creature?

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Sasha Kaidonovskaya I generally want threads with Sasha with other PR muses or random OCs or whatever because I really like her but it's been like 10 years since I last wrote her so I'm kinda nervous about writing her, so if you're fine with a potentially dogshit Sasha, lemme write w/ u.

Sasha x Aleksis Kaidonovsky I've always wanted to write with her husband and even at the peak, there was only one Aleksis in the RP space at all on Tumblr. gib me the big ass motherfucker. I love him so much. T.T

Sasha + MCU she does have an MCU verse, so some opportunity to write with MCU characters of any description would be nice, ngl. especially I'd like HYDRA characters, because in my MCU/Pacific Rim crossover, her and Aleksis worked as guards for them (despite not agreeing with them in any way; they needed the money) and left to go do PPDC shit. even though they were guards for HYDRA, she definitely mostly guarded Bucky against HYDRA bcus fuckin look at her.

Sasha + Crossovers, generally since there's a distinct lack of Pacific Rim rp blogs now days, I wouldn't mind figuring out crossovers with people. give me your muses. all of them.

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Eleanor like Bucky, Eleanor needs to adopt more people. come get adopted, motherfuckers.

---

General these are some fandoms that I know have an RP community of some kind and I'm interested in interacting with or interacting with more.

Potter specifically with Grayson, Jameson, Bam, Dylan, Ai, and Eleanor.

BtVS/Angel specifically with Bucky, Peter, Fandomless OCs, Eleanor, and Wagner.

X-Men already mentioned Wag, but also Bam and Jesse.

Batverse already mentioned Joker, but also Dylan, Jesse, and Bucky.

---

Special Requests have you ever seen a Crazy Quilt RPer? he's my favourite Batman villain. please. (this is mostly a joke but if there actually is a Crazy Quilt RPer, I want to know.)

Egghead is another DC special request because I love Batman villains.

also Typeface and Spellcheck. Idk them that well, but I want to and I have Spider-Man.

Marvel's Hurricane, especially if he's based on the 1941 version from Captain America Comics. man was in gloves, boots, and booty shorts. I want to see him in rp.

[iravaid]

top 5 books that changed your brain chemistry!!! and/or top 5 sitautions to put a blorbo though

Heehee will answer both‼️ sitting in my mind palace and thinking soo intently 😤

Books that changed my brain chemistry:

1. Cosmos, Carl Sagan. Oh god his writing enraptured 13-year-old me. The way he talked about the world and science, and hope for the future, really resonated personally, and still does today :) it also introduced concepts in physics that gave kid me several 'aha!' moments in understanding the phsyical environment around me

2. His Dark Materials trilogy, Philip Pullman. The world-building! The characters! The daemons!!!! I really love this setting, Pullman's narrative voice, and how humanity is portrayed as both deeply loving and complex as it is gruesome is a treat

3. An Immense World, Ed Yong. I LOVE THIS BOOK!!! A dive into describing and exploring the concept of 'umwelt' - how different animals across the taxa percieve the world, and how this doesn't make their experience inherently insignificant in the greater scheme of things. Elephants have an incredible sense of smell and zoologists figured this out by messing with a small herd via piss translocation

4. Life of Pi, Yann Martel - to be honest, I don't remember much from this book, due to reading it a decade ago. But it left a lasting impression on me, and I still recall the love in which Pi detailed his world (though i was indignant about his disgust towards spotted hyenas. Character assassination!!)

5. Blood Meridian, by fucking mccarthy!!!!! I hate this book i love this book it's everything it's nothing it's awful it's rewired my brain i hate mccarthy i can't read that stupid book because there's no grammar i couldn't Stop reading it. Disgusting and brutal and vivid and I'll always be thinking about villains as to how they stand up against Judge Holden himself in terms of sheer presence and horror. Wagh!!

Blorbo situations:

1. The torture dungeon, obvs 💅 and then the fallout Of said torture dungeon (either through tangible recovery, or development of Awful coping mechanisms and an eventual crash. And then recovery, maybe ❤️). Maybe even throwing in a horrific villain who hunts after said blorbo post-escape. OR an enemy turned eventual love interest they're forced to cooperate with in order to escape, ultimately changing their perception of each other

2. Giving blorbo (in situations) a life-changing injury, and exploring what that Entails in the fallout. Either through exploring a new relationship between them and their changed mind/body, or navigating a healing period. All for the fun of character introspection, processing their internalised ableism, and interpersonal angst 🙏

3. Unforchies I love giving a blorbo a daemon and figuring out how their character can be expressed through the right animal association (ms thang.... we remember u). This isn't a proper Situation, but sometimes you just have to give a guy a Beast

4. Canon divergence is a favourite AU of mine in general. Especially when it involves putting a blorbo through a gnarly, for the worse 'what if' scenario (what if x was never saved, what if y thing never happened). It's like a fun enrichment exercise for me, and a chewtoy experience for the blorbo 🥰

5. The tank. ...... ... .💥

[shimakaze-revivalism]

this year i've been doing a lot of stuff that i didn't mean to do, and not doing a lot of stuff that i did mean to do. i got involved with the kink scene, i deepened my familiarity with carbonated beverages, i ate a lot of fried chicken sandwiches, i started reading again, and i played a lot of gacha.

and speaking of gacha, the only one that stuck with me from the decent-sized crop that i sampled this year was mihoyo's zenless zone zero! what to say about it . . . it's a Real Game, for one. it manages to shed the unsheddable "rubbishy" feel that is almost universal to gacha. its premise is like if andy and leyley were normal and worked as shadowrun hackers in jet set radio tokyo, in a semi-apocalyptic world where the only people around are orphans, anthros, or both. there are also sentient automatons that have cool outfits, and chubby baby bunny robots, but unfortunately neither of them have rights. it's got a really cool soundtrack, a charming spiderversesque look, and characters i found surprisingly compelling.

new music! well, new to me at least. you know ben and jerry's cherry garcia (possibly the most prominent contemporary cherry-focused ice cream flavor)? well jerry garcia was a guy who had this band that old men loved called the grateful dead. and well, i don't really care for what i've heard of their records to be honest. but it must be said that they were a jam band, and the 16 minute terrapin station gives one a taste of what i assume was the sensory height of a real-life hippy's experience, and i can imagine listening to it for decades to come.

indeed, if one wants a meal in the proggy realm rather than a bite, it's best to look to the guys that do that stuff all the time across the pond. Morgan put me on to electric wizard and their impeccable self-titled album has been in heavy rotation since. jackie put me on to yes' album relayer, and the first track provides the rarefied pleasure of hearing the singer of the irrepressibly lighthearted and goofy jojo anime ED "roundabout" trill about bathing in the blood of one's enemies.

in more occasional listening i have to rep my oshi 星街彗星 (hoshimachi suisei). her consistently strong body of work ranges from saccharine, to heartfelt, to sort of diva-core. listen, it's increasingly popular to reference hatsune miku, and it's often done with a sort of surface-level appreciation of miku, riding off of the long history miku has in overseas otaku culture. i myself have participated in this. but step outside the bit with me here. miku is a synth, an instrument. miku has all the humanity of the DX7. in fact that's what her color scheme is based on (because yamaha made both miku and the DX7)! hoshimachi suisei . . . listen, maybe people aren't ready. but she really is a virtual pop star. she's iconic. she's got a sigma grindset. she has a favorite food and a sister and friends and it's not lore it's reality. she's not a prop owned by a company, but an autonomous performer! miku is a virtual girl. suisei has a virtual face, but she's a real woman with a real dream! won't you believe in it?

staying with japanese affairs for a moment, anime has been good too! gushing over magical girls, perfect show, hannibal for anime girls, delightful and heartfelt. i also watched the vexations of a shut-in vampire princess, which was frenetic, lightning fast and kind of stupid, but i eagerly await another season. both extremely lesbian.

looking ahead, i'm extremely excited for the release of the alters, a game whose demo caught me completely off-guard, and i'm also excited to try the early access release of marmoreal, a sort of isometric completely touhoucore game with so much charm and sincerity.

that's my little roundup! have a great september!

[stackslip]

you're inspiring me to rewatch 2003, it was my favorite between the two when i watched them but I forgot most of it in the decade since. also you're good at highlighting exactly how mangahood doesn't work. I actually watch 2003 before reading the manga and I remember thinking the ending of

it's really fucking frustrating to me that people basically closed ranks around Brotherhood as the 'real one' and dismiss 2003 as a regrettable mistake/error in the One True Canon. I've always really loved that 2003 and Brotherhood diverge it's such a unique collection of art

also I want to rewatch the two sequel movies (Milo's and conquerer of Shamballah) god I love bleak writing

i have never watched the second movie but i remember really enjoying conquerors of shamballah. granted, i was like, 14 then lol. there was a lot that i didn't catch in fma 2003's themes at the time, but same as you, i watched it before i read the manga (and i finished the manga before watching brotherhood) and i remember even then i was disappointed by some of its aspects. then in my early 20s i was like well manga/brotherhood is better bc it's better executed (as like. a mid shounen lmao) and bc it has greedling (i do still love greedling, if only bc i looove body sharing as a trope), but i still thought 2003 had lots of good aspects and couldn't understand how people went from "fullmetal alchemist is one of the best animes ever" to "fma 2003 was a mistake and all bad and stupid actually and its female characters suck compared to mangahood which has MUCH better female characters" (i was thoroughly unimpressed by fma's base female characters. loved mei and lan fan but come on they were hardly given so much depth). not to mention how disappointed the manga version of the homonculi were. like i remember when sloth in the manga was first introduced being SO disappointed.

in retrospect, i think mangahood's status as The Best Animanga Of All Time when even at the time i liked it most i found it..... decent to good at best, and quite overrated, has made me sour on it quite a lot. like it felt impossible to talk about anything i disliked about it bc despite having such a highly praised status, people get irrationally angry and defensive over any criticism of the manga or brotherhood's themes and story. they'll either claim its depiction of genocide and fascism is really good, or when you criticize it they'll go "well it's a shounen, why are you criticizing it for being a shounen!" (i think shounen can do and engage with these themes thoughtfully! and i think if you're gonna use these themes and depict genocide so viscerally you got a duty to do it right to the end or at least TRY to do so). it's when i started rewatching clips of 2003 and being really impressed by the clips, and how much they held up if not actually blew brotherhood out of the water. and it's also my own maturing in terms of politics and understanding of fiction that made me even more open to what 2003 was doing even though i remembered it did fail in some aspects! like, i don't think as a 14 year old i much understood the nazi thing, and as a young adult i was like "eh that was a bit weird" but it's in the past few years in my criticizing of what brotherhood and the manga fuck up that i suddenly realized "oh. 2003 was actually saying the quiet part out loud instead of using this as an aesthetic for its world!"

i was unsure how much 2003 would hold up on a rewatch tbh, and there ARE clunky if not bad parts. making human barry the butcher a serial killer who dresses as a woman to get his victims is............ a choice. it's very typical 90s/2000s transmisogyny and even though it's only one episode it left a real bitter taste in my mouth. the anime filler episodes are not nearly as strong as the main plot episodes (even when they have anime-only content!), though i appreciate the effort to make them thematically relevant to the series and make many of the anime-only characters direct parallels to ed and al. they clearly saved the animation budget for important parts, and it suffers in some episodes (i am fine with that, i watched lots of mid 2000s anime who had the same issue. not everyone can use its budget allocation and limitations like rgu). i don't like the end of the one episode where the tomboy kid suddenly becomes feminine at the end bc she's happy now lmao.

but from episode 1, it's already so much more committed to some of the themes and ideas that harakawa evoked as flavour or background but barely dug into. she was making a fun action shounen with a large, lovable cast, and that's..... fine. it's just not interesting to me, at least outside of greedling's whole thing. it's got SUCH a melancholy feeling to it, it feels like it's digging into the literal guts of arakawa's world and characters. i also actually really appreciate that while it keeps touches of humor, it wayyyyy tones down the gags that are there every four pages or so--arakawa can make it work in the manga, but in brotherhood it's near unbearable how you can't one one serious scene without someone doing something goofy.

i will say, a little thing that i REALLY in 2003 like that's pretty personal is the way the alchemical circles are drawn and used. this might sound weird, but the way i learned about fma's existence was when i was i think 9-10 years old and bought a french anime magazine, and it had a whole part on fma 2003 including a two page spreader detailing the alchemical circles and their uses. it was my first ever impression of fma and i loved the look and feeling of them. there was something occult and dark about the way they were presented in that magazine that coloured my experiences when i watched the anime on a fan page in 244p max with terrible fansubs

[eloquence-of-a-fawn]

I had a dream about the new madoka movie and it was so strange. I'm copy/pasting texts I sent to some friends upon waking up (mildly edited for privacy)

I had the wildest vivid nightmare.

The new madoka movie came out, but it wasn't released normally, it came as scattered clips that you had to find (torrenting, film found in time capsules that were clearly decades old, etc), mostly in found footage style format, and was at least five hours long from what I had pieced together. Most people lost interest because it seemed like a joke at first, especially since the first 40ish minutes were live action. And I was really confused too but kept going out of horrified curiosity.

It started with random interior shots of a massive extravagant mansion decorated with "dimly lit, obsessed with jungle aesthetic (in the racist rich person way) not quite neon but still psychedelic vapour-wave" (the style was essentially identical to the environment in the game Paradise Killer). And then eventually there were (still live action) people walking in strange patterns in a silent eerie dance parading through the house into a large extra dark room on the upper floor that you couldn't see into. It got more dark, jungle vapor-wave-y the higher into the mansion you went. Maybe five floors? Idk.

After lingering ominously on the door closing after the last person when into the dark room (Idk how thousands(?) Of people fit into a single, albeit mansion sized, room), the camera zoomed down (phased through the floors, like a panning shot of all the layers) and stopped on a lower (basement?) Level that had the sci-fi city aesthetic that madoka's city normally had, and for the first time in nearly an hour, there is a 2d animated character (still in live action footage like some of those Looney toons movies like space jam or something) and homura was peaking around a corner with her gun in hand. She is hunting kyubeys. She shoots at one but stops last minute as he's being carried by mami's dead-but-perfectly-preserved body, which he explains that he can puppet for a limited time immediately after their death. He uses her magic and is able to escape. Madoka and sayaka show up with real life blood on the 2d drawn weapons (like still drawn by hand cell animation but they used real life blood to paint the blood on the cell) and homura has to act normal and let kyubey escape.

My dream gets a little fuzzy great because I in dream-real-life get up from decoding and editing these clips together and go to classes (which I had skipped a few days of).

I talked some friends and random people online about how I was definitely sure that this was the real movie and yeah it was so confusing but weird but I had finally found the 2d characters and we talked about what the fuck was happening, and I had the thought of "what if this is like the labyrinth of something more powerful than a witch" since the vibes were similar to the normal scrap-book labyrinths, except this was live action, and also the girls weren't reacting as if this was particularly odd, just another weird and fucked up pocket dimension. After that, I tried sending a bunch of people the video file of what I had edited so far, but everyone said that they had left their phones at [redacted] (my brain static-ed out for half a second whenever anyone said the name of this location) and so couldn't view the files yet. I went back to my home and started editing more clips, and I noticed some of my real life awake friends' phones laying in odd places in the real life dream footage, mostly hidden but still quite visible if you were looking, like an object accidentally left in frame on a movie set. My dream became a you're-about-you wake-up blur and then I real-real-life woke up.

Below are images from the game Paradise Killer that match the aesthetic of the live action mansion.

[philosopherking1887]

Apparently Madeline Miller, of Song of Achilles fame, also still has Long Covid 3 years after catching Covid-19 in early 2020. Her op-ed is copied below (mostly under a Keep Reading link) for those who can't get past WaPo's paywall.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2023/08/09/madeline-miller-long-covid-post-pandemic/

In 2019, I was in high gear. I had two young children, a busy social life, a book tour and a novel in progress. I spent my days racing between airports, juggling to-do lists and child care. Yes, I felt tired, but I come from a family of high-energy women. I was proud to be keeping the sacred flame of Productivity burning. Then I got covid. I didn’t know it was covid at the time. This was early February 2020, before the government was acknowledging SARS-CoV-2’s spread in the United States. In the weeks after infection, my body went haywire. My ears rang. My heart would start galloping at random times. I developed violent new food allergies overnight. When I walked upstairs, I gasped alarmingly.

I reached out to doctors. One told me I was “deconditioned” and needed to exercise more. But my usual jog left me doubled over, and when I tried to lift weights, I ended up in the ER with chest pains and tachycardia. My tests were normal, which alarmed me further. How could they be normal? Every morning, I woke breathless, leaden, utterly depleted. Worst of all, I couldn’t concentrate enough to compose sentences. Writing had been my haven since I was 6. Now, it was my family’s livelihood. I kept looking through my pre-covid novel drafts, desperately trying to prod my sticky, limp brain forward. But I was too tired to answer email, let alone grapple with my book. When people asked how I was, I gave an airy answer. Inside, I was in a cold sweat. My whole future was dropping away. Looking at old photos, I was overwhelmed with grief and bitterness. I didn’t recognize myself. On my best days, I was 30 percent of that person. I turned to the internet and discovered others with similar experiences. In fact, my symptoms were textbook — a textbook being written in real time by “first wavers” like me, comparing notes and giving our condition a name: long covid.

In those communities, everyone had stories like mine — life-altering symptoms, demoralizing doctor visits, loss of jobs, loss of identity. The virus can produce a bewildering buffet of long-term conditions, including cognitive impairment and cardiac failure, tinnitus, loss of taste, immune dysfunction, migraines and stroke, any one of which could tank quality of life. For me, one of the worst was post-exertional malaise (PEM), a Victorian-sounding name for a very real and debilitating condition in which exertion causes your body to crash. In my new post-covid life, exertion could include washing dishes, carrying my children, even just talking with too much animation. Whenever I exceeded my invisible allowance, I would pay for it with hours, or days, of migraines and misery. There was no more worshiping productivity. I gave my best hours to my children, but it was crushing to realize just how few hours there were. Nothing was more painful than hearing my kids delightedly laughing and being too sick to join them. Doctors looked at me askance. They offered me antidepressants and pointed anecdotes about their friends who’d just had covid and were running marathons again. I didn’t say I’d love to be able to run. I didn’t say what really made me depressed was dragging myself to appointments to be patronized. I didn’t say that post-viral illness was nothing new, nor was PEM — which for decades had been documented by people with myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome — so if they didn’t know what I was talking about, they should stop sneering and get caught up. I was too sick for that, and too worried.

I began scouring medical journals the way I used to close-read ancient Greek poetry. I burned through horrifying amounts of money on vitamins and supplements. At night, my fears chased themselves. Would I ever get relief? Would I ever finish another book? Was long covid progressive? It was a bad moment when I realized that any answer to that last question would come from my own body. I was in the first cohort of an unwilling experiment. When vaccines rolled out, many people rushed back to “normal.” My world, already small, constricted further. Friends who invited me out to eat were surprised when I declined. I couldn’t risk reinfection, I said, and suggested a masked, outdoor stroll. Sure, they said, we’ll be in touch. Zoom events dried up. Masks began disappearing. I tried to warn the people I loved. Covid is airborne. Keep wearing an N95. Vaccines protect you but don’t stop transmission. Few wanted to listen. During the omicron wave, politicians tweeted about how quickly they’d recovered. I was glad for everyone who was fine, but a nasty implication hovered over those of us who weren’t: What’s your problem?

Friends who did struggle often seemed embarrassed by their symptoms. I’m just tired. My memory’s never been good. I gave them the resources I had, but there were few to give. There is no cure for long covid. Two of my friends went on to have strokes. A third developed diabetes, a fourth dementia. One died. I’ve watched in horror as our public institutions have turned their back on containment. The virus is still very much with us, but the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has stopped reporting on cases. States have shut down testing. Corporations, rather than improving ventilation in their buildings, have pushed for shield laws indemnifying them against lawsuits. Despite the crystal-clear science on the damage covid-19 does to our bodies, medical settings have dropped mask requirements, so patients now gamble their health to receive care. Those of us who are high-risk or immunocompromised, or who just don’t want to roll the dice on death and misery, have not only been left behind — we’re being actively mocked and pathologized. I’ve personally been ridiculed, heckled and coughed on for wearing my N95. Acquaintances who were understanding in the beginning are now irritated, even offended. One demanded: How long are you going to do this? As if trying to avoid covid was an attack on her, rather than an attempt to keep myself from sliding further into an abyss that threatens to swallow my family.

The United States has always been a terrible place to be sick and disabled. Ableism is baked into our myths of bootstrapping and self-reliance, in which health is virtue and illness is degeneracy. It is long past time for a bedrock shift, for all of us. We desperately need access to informed care, new treatments, fast-tracked research, safe spaces and disability protections. We also need a basic grasp of the facts of long covid. How it can follow anywhere from 10 to 30 percent of infections. How infections accumulate risk. How it’s not anxiety or depression, though its punishing nature can contribute to both those things. How children can get it; a recent review puts it at 12 to 16 percent of cases. How long-haulers who are reinfected usually get worse. How as many as 23 million Americans have post-covid symptoms, with that number increasing daily. Over three years later, I still have long covid. I still give my best hours to my children, and I still wear my N95. Thanks to relentless experimentation with treatments, I can write again, but my fatigue is worse. I recognize how fortunate I am: to have a caring partner and community, health insurance, good doctors (at last), a job I can do from home, a supportive publishing team, and wonderful readers who recommend my books. I’m grateful to all those who have accepted the new me without making me beg.

Some days, long covid feels manageable. Others, it feels like a crushing mountain on my chest. I yearn for the casual spontaneity and scope of my old life. I miss the friends and family who have moved on. I grieve those lost forever. So how long am I going to do this? Until indoor air is safe for all, until vaccines prevent transmission, until there’s a cure for long covid. Until I’m not risking my family’s future on a grocery run. Because the truth is that however immortal we feel, we are all just one infection away from a new life.

[planetpixar]

Hi. I'm James. I worked for Pixar. I was not an animator. I am posting a Chapter from my upcoming book called "The Fall"

Have a read if you like.

Chapter 3: A galaxy, far far away

10 years old. San Francisco. A flickering screen pulsates with the now-iconic blue letters: "A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away..."  This wasn't just a movie; it was a portal. Twenty-one Fridays in a row, I found myself transported to that galaxy, mesmerized by the dazzling visuals, the thrilling adventure, and the timeless story.  Star Wars ignited a spark in me – a burning desire to create worlds, weave stories, and make audiences feel the magic of cinema.

Fast forward two decades.  I found myself in a different kind of wonderland – the Palo Alto Apple Store. The year was 2004, and I was a Mac Genius, a frontline soldier in the Apple revolution. Apple Retail was just beginning and the energy was electric, the technology cutting-edge.  Little did I know, my path would take an unexpected turn, one with echoes of that childhood dream ignited by a galaxy far, far away.

Steve Jobs, the visionary co-founder of Apple, was a frequent visitor to our store. Steve, and the head of Apple's Retail division, Ron Johnson, would stop by the store and make their way over to the Genius Bar every couple of weeks. Steve was incredibly intelligent and let me say that again, Steve was incredibly intelligent, and straightforward, and he had this way of looking through you and biting at you. If he asked one of us a question, which he often did, each one of us knew that the answer given had better be correct, concise, and articulate. In retrospect, I now know that Steve already knew the answer to the questions he asked. He wanted to see if we had the requisite knowledge to stand behind that Genius Bar. He wanted people that were not full of shit. We were the public face of Apple's Retail business and his passion for design, innovation, and creating delightful customer experiences was of the utmost importance. It was all that mattered. The slogan at Apple was surprise and delight, which was far beyond just going above and beyond. Steve wanted to return to retail and Mac Geniuses were the primary vehicles he used to achieve that aim.

His passion for the Apple Retail division reminded me of the spirit I witnessed onscreen in Star Wars. 

Working at Apple was an incredible experience, but the pull of that childhood dream remained strong.

Then, in 2006, fate intervened.  One of my customers, Erik Foreman, the Mac OS X team manager at Pixar, noticed my technical expertise and perhaps even a hint of that Star Wars-fueled passion in my eyes.  He saw potential and offered me an interview – not as a filmmaker (yet!), but as a Mac OS X Systems Administrator at Pixar Animation Studios. I accepted, and after three months of interviewing at Pixar, I was chosen.

Pixar, I soon discovered, had its connection to the galaxy far, far away.  Founded by John Lasseter and Ed Catmull, the studio emerged from Lucasfilm, the very birthplace of Star Wars.  It was a full-circle moment, a chance to be part of the creative legacy that had so inspired me as a child.

Walking through the doors of Pixar on my first day of employment, was like stepping onto a movie set, except the sets were real, alive with creativity and a playful spirit.  While I wasn't directly involved in animation, my role was crucial.  Maintaining the Mac OS X desktops, laptops, and servers ensured a smooth workflow for the talented artists, animators, and storytellers who brought these incredible worlds to life. I was still helping to build a galaxy, albeit a digital one.

Every day at Pixar was a reminder of the power of imagination and the pursuit of a dream.  It was also a masterclass in storytelling.  Witnessing the meticulous detail, the collaborative spirit, and the unwavering dedication to excellence that went into each frame was an education in itself.

Being at Pixar wasn't just a job; it was a return to that childhood spark, a chance to be a part of the magic I had witnessed on screen years ago. The next chapter will explore how the lessons learned at Pixar, coupled with the practice of mindfulness, empowered me to take the next step on my creative journey, and eventually my demise.

End of Chapter 3

Wanna read more? Chunk on the link

[rogueportraits]

The idea of running away to join the carnival is something quaintly historical with a dash of romanticism. Midway Touring Entertainment gets a few kids every stop that slip away from their parents and beg some ride attendant or performer to join up and tour the country. They’ve got childhood ideas about riding the attractions after dark or petting tamed lions – this particular carnival’s an animal-free establishment, excepting personal pets – and cry buckets when refused.

Ed’s of the personal belief that they should just take the kids along for a day or two, show them the real behind-the-scenes, and scare little middle-class Jimmy or Susie right back into a fine life of some white-collar office job two decades down the line. Unfortunately, that’s generally considered kidnapping, and MTE would highly prefer the law stay as far away as possible. He picks at a particularly stalwart hangnail and kicks his foot up on the dashboard. They’re about three hours out of Minot, having gotten the state fair contract another year in a row, and the only thing he likes about North Dakota is that the summer’s cool enough that he won’t be swimming in sweat. To the left of him, Jack starts grumbling and lifts his hand off the wheel.

“Can’t see with your shoes in the way, kid,” Jack makes a shooing motion. “You want an airbag through your knee?”

Ed’s eighteen years old, thank you very much, and his ID says he’s the ripe old age of twenty-one, so in either respect he’s not a kid. Unfortunate facial acne notwithstanding. He bites at his hangnail, rolls the window down, and spits it out into empty interstate air as he swings his leg back down. There’s the rustling of discarded fast-food wrappers against his shoes. “You threatening me?”

“Not anymore.”

Jack fiddles with the busted radio, tuning it to some local FM station playing this summer’s insipid pop hit. The highway stretches out in front of them, heat miraging strange shapes on the horizon. Ed can see the fractured reflections of their convoy in the right rear-view mirror, other cars and trailers and hauling trucks snaking away into the clear sky. He’ll be expected to help with set-up tonight, obviously, and tomorrow too. Probably some painting as well, considering the state of a few attractions. Then a week of his own particular schtick on the midway, a few days of teardowns, and back on the road to do it all over again. He digs in the car door for a lukewarm pop and twists off the cap, proffering it as driver’s tribute.

“You’re alright, kid,” Jack says, like they haven’t been working together since Ed was sixteen and gangly. He sips at it and blanches. “This isn’t.”

“I’ll go stick my neck into the gas station fridge next time,” Ed replies with a shrug. “Nothing but the best for my dear old driver.”

Jack tips the bottle up in a pastiche of enjoyment, snorting, and returns his eyes to the road.

The moon’s centered in the sky by the time Ed’s gotten through his set-up checklist. He’d scrambled up and over various half-assembled rides, checking bolts and greasing mechanisms – can’t have a lawsuit on their hands – and put off some of the detail work for when there’s sunlight. Playing passenger has its drawbacks, but the less cops that get a look at “Edward Neilsen’s” ID card the better. Not that he’s a bad driver, of course.

Ed belongs to the other class of wannabe carnival runaways. He opens the trailer door without the hinges squeaking. It’s not his trailer, because his paydays would have to have at least one more zero on their totals for anything like that, but Jack and his wife have a secondhand couch that suits him just fine. He sprawls across it in a show of exhausted decadence. Pale moonlight lances through a smoke-clouded window, cutting across his torso.

He’s not enough of an idiot to call this a charmed life, like some of the last generation of carnies. It’s work, and it’s a type of work that means he doesn’t stick in one place long enough to make an impression – all the better, logically. There’s more than a few people who’d like to find him for various reasons. Carnie work pays, it doesn’t ask questions about his age or point of origin, and the rest of this traveling group of vagabonds generally doesn’t try to deck him for a smart comment or three. That’s good enough for him. Ed rolls off the couch and pads over to the minifridge, acquiring a can of Pabst. Drinking after work and underage are two time-honored American traditions, after all. He pops the top of the can with a gas-leak hiss and heads back outside.

The night air is cold against his clammy skin. He sips at his beer and stares out towards the flickering lights of town.

Ed can do carnival patter in his sleep. He leans on his prop cane, discreetly stretching out his numb leg, and surveys the midway tourists.

“Step right up! Tired of testing your skill – test mine! Age, weight, height, profession, I’ll get 'em all… and if I don’t, you score!”

The main difficulty with being a carnival guesser is attracting marks. Ed’s stationed himself at the far end of the midway, after all the various citizenry of North Dakota have exhausted their efforts at games-of-skill. He offers them a chance to watch someone else fail. In theory, at least – he’s very good at this gig. He makes eye contact with a tired father-of-two and grins, stepping to the front of his booth.

“How about you? Care to see if you can stump me?”

And there’s the flicker of light in the other man’s eyes. Easy.

“Sure. Do you, ah, do all of them?”

Sensitive about his weight, then. Maybe the guy could afford to cut back on the funnel cake in that case, but heavens (and his paycheck) forbid Ed offer that advice. “Not at all. Your pick, and if I could take a ticket…?”

The man bites at the edge of his lip, tearing off a ticket from what probably used to be a much larger roll. “Age and job, then?”

“Of course.” Ed makes a grand show of scrutinizing, leaning forward and worrying his hands on the question-mark crook of his cane. Two kids, one about eight and the other being carried, no wife and – hah! – no wedding ring. Shirt with an atrocious tropical print, but a pager in his back pocket. Easy. “About thirty-three and in office work, right? Management?”

The man gapes, then rallies. “Thirty-five. But, uh, yeah.”

Really, Ed would have guessed thirty-six, but he’s had to duck one too many swings from daydrunk locals mad about his accuracy. He shoots the man a hundred-watt smile.

“I can’t believe it! I can’t take a peek at your ID, can I?”

Flush on winning, the man obliges by handing over his wallet. Jason Phillips, resident of Velva, ND. Thirty-five. Ed considers some legerdemain and decides against it – Jason’s clearly not been availing himself of the concession-center beer.

“Well, my loss is your gain,” reach back, grab some cheap prize in the form of a plush owl-thing, present it with a theatrical bow, he’s done it a thousand times this season, “and thank you for playing!”

The man meanders off. Ed debates the merits of putting his head in the gears of the carnival’s tilt-a-whirl. Minot is as boring as every other state fair. He gets the next player’s – some giggling college co-ed that looks at him like used gum – weight right. Hard not to with a leeway of five pounds on either side, and a scale that runs two pounds lighter. She’d probably laugh less if she knew her wallet were about ten bucks lighter as well.

He doesn’t consider his side hustle stealing, necessarily. If someone’s dumb enough to hand over their wallet to a carnie and look away, they don’t deserve spare cash.

Anyways, if it were up to him, he wouldn’t be stuck at the ass-end of the midway playing guessing games. He’d have a bigger booth with a better locale, and he’d do riddles. Maybe some lighting, too – he’s always been partial to green. He swigs from his water bottle and watches the ebb and flow of the crowd. He’d do riddles. There’s an art to them that there isn’t to his current gig. A good riddle has one clear answer, but with enough creativity one or two more can crop up. A good riddle has nice, defined boundaries, but doesn’t care about what you do inside of them. It’d take more tickets, too, because if there’s one thing the past two years and change have taught him it’s that people are brainless idiots who can’t see the truth even if it’s spelled out in flashing lights. Which suits him just fine.

Ed coughs slightly, testing to see if his voice holds, and steps forward to start up his patter once again.

[moorheadthanyoucanhandle]

PO THINGS

Opening this weekend:

Kung Fu Panda 4--The titular mammal, Po, has been promoted from "Dragon Warrior" to the more exalted status of Spiritual Leader, and is expected to find and train a replacement for his former position. But he'd rather not; he'd like to just keep having butt-kicking adventures on his own.

This entry, set again in a fairy-tale Chinese past inhabited by talking animals, has Po capturing Zhen, a light-footed cutpurse fox. The "Furious Five" of the earlier films is away on assignment, so the imprisoned Zhen talks Po into letting her serve as a guide on a quest to the distant lair of a villainous shape-shifting lizard, The Chameleon. See where this is headed?

This Dreamworks series has been at the less exhausting, more rewarding end of the CGI animated family flick spectrum starting with the original, back in 2008, and continuing with the first two sequels. It's hard to say if it will be sustainable from now on, but this fourth film, at least, keeps the streak going. The story deals in the usual kid-movie platitudes, but the lighting-fast yet precise slapstick sequences are exciting, and rise at times to laugh-out-loud funny even for adults.  

The voice cast in this film, as in the earlier films, is unusually strong too. Jack Black is exuberant as ever as Po, and is joined again by Dustin Hoffman as the red panda master Shifu, Bryan Cranston as Po's biological father and the great James Hong as Po's adoptive father (a goose, you'll recall). Ian McShane returns from the first film as a sinister snow leopard. New cast members include Ke Huy Quan as a pangolin bandit, and the mighty and menacing Viola Davis as The Chameleon. But the showcase new role is Awkwafina as Zhen; she fits the series like a glove.

In another pretty good touch: Tenacious D rousingly covers "Hit Me Baby One More Time" over the credits.

Opening today at Harkins Shea 14:

Pitch People--Back in the late '60s I was fascinated by the Veg-o-Matic, the infamous manual vegetable chopper sold on TV by Ronco; it's one of my earliest consumerist memories. After numerous appeals to my poor Mom, she wearily ordered one, and we quickly learned that it did not significantly improve the efficiency of her kitchen. Decades later my kid, around the age of eight, insisted on ordering a Snackeez, a drinking cup with a compartment for snacks at the top likewise peddled on TV. The speed with which she lost interest in it was ineffably heart-tugging to me; I could hear "The Circle of Life" playing in my head.

This documentary, directed by Stanley Jacobs, is about the people who have sold products of all kinds, with kitchen gadgets a special favorite, by "pitching" them; demonstrating them with a performer's panache. The art goes back thousands of years, no doubt--it's described here as "the second oldest profession"--but this movie's focus is on the American and British practitioners who took it from boardwalks, notably Atlantic City, to state fairs to shopping malls to TV commercials and later, after Reagan-era deregulation, to "infomercials." 

It's a brisk, amusing, revealing chronicle. Strikingly, many of the veterans we meet here are related to each other, members of the Morris family, with connections to the Popeil family behind Ronco (the credits pointedly declare that "RON POPEIL WOULD NOT GRANT AN INTERVIEW FOR THIS FILM"). They gleefully dissect the strategies for separating audience members from their money, but they don't seem contemptuous of them, and we're told that they truly believe in their products. In any case, they show a certain guileless pride in their performing skills. It's as if the entertainment value of their pitches should offset any disappointment in what they're selling.

Along with Arnold and Lester Morris, talking heads here include Ed McMahon, an Atlantic City pitch veteran before his TV stardom, and Wally Nash, a Brit whose effortless old-school pitch of the "hand-hammered wok from the People's Republic of China" I watched countless times on late-TV in DC. Re-watching it on YouTube I was amazed at how much of I could still say along with him; I wanted to buy one every freakin' time I saw it. 

Inevitably the extended footage of performances makes up the strongest passages of Pitch People. It's also hilarious when we see behind-the-scenes footage of an infomercial rehearsal in which the presenters break several demo models of a slicer before realizing that they're using it wrong.

Alas, a number of the pitchers featured here have left us, as this movie was made in 1999. It saw play at festivals back then but was not picked up by a distributor, and actually had to be restored before it could get a proper release, a quarter of a century after it was completed. There's a delicious and stinging irony in the fact that this movie about selling failed, until now, to sell. Maybe it needed a better pitch.

[borisbubbles]

Eurovision 2023 #37-35

That AWKWARD moment you plan on ranking this year’s Big Evil last, and then rewatch everyone and realize some of these NQs were so PUTRID you can’t in clear conscience rank  them ahead of anyone else. Enjoy three acts so irredeemable I have to rank them below Noa! Decade rankings: 112, 111 & 110 / 116 [Above: Brividi, Below Noa Kirel] 29 Dec Update: Now ABOVE Noa, and below Nadir

37.  36. GREECE Victor Vernicos - “What they say” 30th place

I enjoy being right. 🙂 Sorry, but 14 points in a TELEVOTE, (12 of which from Cyprus) in a semi that has the utterly unvoteable Romania and San Marino in it? Greece was and IS the worst in this year. Sitting through it was like watching a stream of meconium ooze from a baby’s anus.

Sure, one could argue that "What they say” was redeemable as like... a laughable trainwreck, and yeah, it could have been on paper. I have to draw a line somewhere, and “somewhere” is where a delegation sends a minor to the contest, SEES the footage of him utterly flunking the live and then does nothing, allowing him to humiliate himself in front of millions of people. Shitty broadcasters to the fucking bottom of the ranking!

But even besides that, the song is just a wretched Ed Sheeran pretend ballad, like someone took a cleaver to “Castle on the hill” and hacked out all the mildly enjoyable mellow parts and replaced them with a stop-motion-like cadence, cursive singing and Sad Boy Emoness. Victor sings that he hates his feelings and my feelings are that I hate everything about his song.

Like, I can’t be the only person so UTTERLY SICK of these misguided self-aggrandising songs that actively try to use real-life mental health issues to provide unsoliicited social commentary for their own personal gain? Be it in a competition or to make oneself appear ~morally righteous~. Enough with the devious white-washing of actual mental health issues. 

 At least that is what I’m forced take away from this shitty song because these lyrics don’t make any fucking sense: Victor sings that “Lost Souls” make sure no one loses their way and “Hurt ones” can’t stand seeing others in pain, and also that he’s both (?) and that he’s got too much on his plate, wanting to save the others (?????) and that it’s TOO LATE FOR HIM (??????) Someone heard this and wasn’t instantly alarmed by how dark this is? WTF?! SICC A PSYCH ON HIS ASS, ASAP!

But of course, any potential complexity is instantly undermined by the visuals. 

Youngster Victor wants to battle, and his team is one lvl 7 Caterpie.

Add in a few selfie backdrops, some happy skipping (again: this song has a messed-up and depressing message) and perhaps most offensive of all: GREEK LETTERS SPLICED INTO ENGLISH WORDS: 

And you are left with an entry that makes me feel ALEXEEV levels of shame. Like yeah it’s all mercenary and insincere and vile but doesn’t change the fact that that Greece sent a sixteen year old with a song about SUICIDAL THOUGHTS to Eurovision and made it... that. BE SAFE, YOUNG VICTOR!!! Preferably as far away from a guitar as possible.😬

-----------------------------

36. 35. SAN MARINO Piqued Jacks - “Like an animal” Joint LAST

THEY KNOW THE WAYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY 

... to zero points...x

Congratulations Piqued Jacks, you are NOT last in this ranking. 🙄 Count your lucky fucking stars. 

Talk about an entry that fully earned their nil points in the televote. Piqued Jacks accompanied their accidentally predatorial song with black and red lights. Black and red lights are of course the axe murderer colours which they used to complement the date rape lyrics and serial killer faces.  🙃

Seriously, for real:  

Hide your sisters and daughters from this creep and his eerie obsession with “snake eyes” and “biting tongues” and “butterflies in his ears”. I would be less bad if “E-King” (you’re a grown man, consider a name change) wasn’t this off-puttingly smug or didn’t have a voice like newborn goat choking on its colostrum. “Like an animal” is three minutes of extreme discomfort. The absolute opposite of a “Slay”.

------------------------------

35. 34. ROMANIA Theodor Andrei - “D.G.T.” Joint LAST.

Sigh, this one just makes me feel sad.  As you know I was a Theodor apologist before and honestly, I still kinda like him as a person?

DGT was a shambles though. Theodor was always due to create some discomfort, given that he has never not looked like a Project Runway second boot called Susan and DGT’s lyrics involve *this specific person* talking graphically about being carressed by his girlfriend’s fingers and wanting to rip her clothes off. So yeah a hard sell, but not impossible!!

However, the live was a bare step above San Marino in terms of second-hand embarrassment. An weird musical bisection, an amateur hour act swallowed by the LEDs and utter SILENCE from the audience which thundered over the off-pitch wailing condemned Romania to nill pointer hell.

The acoustic start, WHY? 

The CSI floordrops, WHY? 

The selfie backdrops, WHY?

 The black paint on the naked torso, WHY? 

the shrill falsetto WHYYYYYY?!

And just like how the San Marinese cringe is present but in a lesser form, so is Greece’s shitty broadcaster behaviour. After forcing Theodor to transmogrify his opening minute into an unplugged acoustic version (a decision that completely ruined the song), TVR just called it a day, and happily sent Theodor to his doom with no real regrets. WTF?!

Basically, these three nil point flops (yeah totally counting Greece as one, deal!) are all tied for last place, but I had to pick an order. Greece are the most awful for exploiting a minor. San Marino deliberately chose someone with a very annoying voice and face, so they’re second last. Theodor meanwhile, is actually kinda talented and was mostly the victim of TVR’s lack of involvement, to which I say: If your participations in Eurovision amount to throwing an eighteen year old to the vultures because you’re too bothered to actually support him through the ordeal, Romania, then don’t bother with ESC and just fucking QUIT!!!

THE RANKING

[buffchonkfroggo]

Hello!! I have so many names but you can call me Bug! I’m a system so may also be amber or Alex or sky or Willow but they don’t tend to use their own accounts/blogs. Been on Tumblr over a decade now and accidentally deleted my OG blog so I’m starting over here.

Agegre blog is @smolkoifish and unapologetically nsfw one is @kinkykoifish

Im Cree and 22 years old. I gave up on gender ages ago and am too traumatized to figure out sexuality but definitely queer af. Any pronouns work I like trying out new ones but they them are always safe

I’m a writer, artist, Batman nerd, mobility aid user, drag performer, scare actor, irl FSSW trying to get out, OSDD system, Age regressor just overall chaos incarnate

And because I see other people with these in their bios More shit wrong with me includes

H-EDS | POTS | Chronic Fatigue | MS

BPD | CPTSD | ADHD | Autism | OSDD | OCD | and unspecified Paranoia and Psychosis

Usually I post miscellaneous fandom shit including my own writing (you can find me on ao3 at nevertickleasleepinggay) lots of comics, anime and cartoon shit mainly Batman and mha (dabihawks my beloved) also zelda/linked universe some atla, voltron, yuri on ice pls do not expect any consistency here lmao

Oh and uhhh DNI if,,, MAP, Trump supporter, transphobic/homophobic, white supremacist, Zionist, if you see age regression as sexual (I don’t mean kink that’s its own thing and I don’t judge much, but if you sexualize my trauma response? or a systems littles? I- can’t even make a threat just bad no don’t. block me now) probably other stuff just don’t be a dick?

[nobodiesheartlessshitblog45]

So after watching Yu Yu Hakusho is still holds up.

This anime is absolutely timeless, and the English dub is absolutely incredible.

YYH is my absolutely favorite classic anime . Trigun, Cowboy bebop, HunterXHunter, Black lagoon, Big O, Evangelion, Sailor moon, and GunGrave.

I think Yu Yu Hakusho is the reason why I love9 0s and Early 2000s anime.

I love the old aesthetic, anime style that time andjust think it looks so good animation, wise.

Like older, Disney movies like Snow White, and the seven dwarves, Sleep beauty and Cinderella.

Hell, even movies like Hercules, The emperors new groove, Atlantis, Treasure planet, Princess and the frog, Lilo and stitch, The lion king, The little mermaid and Sleeping beauty still look good like decades, later, animation, wise.

I adore older animations for like the 1990’s and early 2000s.

I honestly still think Powerpuff Girls, Ed, Edd and Eddy, Fosters home for imaginary friends, Hey Arnold looks so good years later.

Especially Heimir that that’s still an amazing show. Hey, on age like fine wine.

I just love animation as an art form, I think this is like the reason why I look back on shows that I used to grab and I was a kid. 

 

[an-unprofessional-artist]

I love making maps but they’re also kind of a pain

Lore under the cut:

This world is where the books of ED Baker take place. It’s a pair of book series that I started reading when I was in around 5th grade I think? I revisited them in high school once I started getting into dragons.

Essentially, it’s a storybook world. Multiple fairytales are happening simultaneously, all the fairytale tropes are just how the world works. However, [Paul voice] the author didn’t think about the implications…

There are canonically potentially thousands of people turned into frogs waiting for their true love for decades because it was a fad among witches. Old hags in the woods WILL turn you into a snake if you’re rude. True love’s kiss is the cure for almost any curse. Everyone knows that there’s a chance they might meet an old lady who lives in a candy house and eats children at some point. People get turned into animals and accidentally hunted for food all the time. Many animals are sapient (maybe they’re descended from a human-turned-animal?) but are unknowingly still eaten, and characters who have been turned into animals often become vegetarian after they regain human form. I like to play around in a world where the protagonists are living though classic Disney while everyone else is living in The Witcher. It’s fun to take the little throwaway lines and fully explore them.

For a long time I just thought that it was a completely original world but then several characters mentioned real countries, and that’s what really got me interested in the lore. Why are you talking about France as if it’s far away? Where is this place if it’s not fantasy Europe? The maps included in the books aren’t super consistent (see below). I’m not complaining though, the target audience for these books is like… preteens. They take place on 2 continents made up of fictional kingdoms. I doubt it was intentional by the author, but they do kind of resemble North America in the Cretaceous period. Additionally, the plants and animals mentioned in the books are pretty much all North American species. Alternative geography is interesting to me, but I don’t like the idea of replacing all the cultures of North America with European fairytale tropes so I haven’t figured out where these continents are instead. They are quite a bit smaller than the real ones so that might help.

This is also where my sona comes from. When I started getting into dragons and read about the protagonist of these books being able to turn into one, I was hooked. Being big and strong and being able to fly and breathe fire are appealing to someone who tends to struggle physically. It’s a little embarrassing to admit, but maladaptive daydreaming about it got me through my roughest times in high school

[randomvarious]

Today's compilation:

Vorsprung Durch Drum & Bass Selection One 1997 Drum n Bass

Absolutely ridiculous how this German-released drum n bass double-disc from the late 90s has only managed to net itself a sub-4 rating on Discogs over the years, because usually when something's under a 4 (on a 5-point scale), that means that it's not very good, but this album happens to satisfy on both of the genre's chaotically hard-charging and chillier atmospheric fronts, so the underwhelmed response definitely comes as a bit of a surprise.

But here's a couple things to consider that might help to explain it: one, Germany has never really taken too much to drum n bass in the first place—according to Discogs, only ~300 comps with dnb on them were released there in the 90s, whereas techno and trance both appeared on over 2,500 comps apiece for the same decade—and two, the label that put this out at the time, Sub Terranean, was never really much of a dnb outfit to begin with; their specialty was hardcore rave and Goa trance compilations, and this was the first comp of straight-up dnb that they'd ever attempted to put out themselves. So I think you can imagine that when a typical German fan of Sub Terranean who naturally wasn't too much of a dnb junkie picked this up, it wasn't really their cup of tea 😕.

And to be honest, as someone who *is* a fan of dnb, the start of this album really isn't my cup of tea, either—too slow, steady, and boring. But funnily enough, the first tune where things really do begin to unlock here is with Ed Rush & Nico's brilliant "Technology," a crazy and spaciously abstract groove that linearly strings together a very wide variety of splashily-sampled bits of percussion. And the reason why it's particularly 'funny' is because the old German Audi ad slogan that this compilation derived its very own title from—Vorsprung Durch Technik—actually translates to 'Progress Through Technology' in English! So, kinda fitting that a song called "Technology" would be the first real gem on this album then, especially as it progresses to get better through this very song, right?! 🤯

And then along with Ed Rush & Nico, there're a whole bunch of other household dnb names from the UK that collectively dominate this album too: Rob Playford, Goldie, Dom & Roland, Photek, Jacob's Optical Stairway (aka 4hero), DJ Krust, Jonny L., Blu Mar Ten, Omni Trio, and even Squarepusher, whose own "Beep Street" features his signature drill n' bass sound that pairs soothingly emotive pads with splatter-nutty drum patterns 🫨.

But Sub Terranean also made sure to feature a couple German-made tunes on here too, and one of them unfortunately isn't on YouTube right now, but the other one is. The one that isn't, "When Love Comes Down (Never Trust a Righteous Man Remix - Part1)" by The Righteous Men, sounds like it incorporates some sort of industrial scanner-copier-type sound, and one half of the duo that made it, Thimo U. Seidel, also helped compile this very album itself too. And then the one that is on YouTube, Xyphax's "Treplec," is a pretty uniquely gnarly thing that, among its own bevy of different sounds, may or may not have animal noises on it ⁉️🤔

So don't end up taking the word of the German audience that this comp appeared to originally be intended for, because evidently, they didn't really know what they were talking about when they'd heard this thing. And you can't blame 'em for that either, because as someone who digs plenty of dnb but is generally neither fond of hardcore rave nor Goa trance themselves, a lot of the people who made up Sub Terranean's own fanbase and gave this a shot were probably something like a direct inverse of me; so I think it stands to reason why they wouldn't necessarily totally *get* a release like this in the first place . Nice to see the label try to diversify though, even if this would prove to be the only selection of Vorsprung Durch Drum & Bass that they'd ever make 😅.

Highlights:

CD1:

Ed Rush & Nico - "Technology" Jacob's Optical Stairway - "The Chase The Escape (Chris Energy Mix)" Chaos & Julia Set - "Learn to Fight (First Generation)" Voyager - "Desire (Dave Wallace Remix)" The Righteous Man - "When Love Comes Down (Never Trust a Righteous Man Remix - Part1)" Xyphax - "Treplec"

CD2:

Omni Trio - "Trippin' On Broken Beats (VIP)" Squarepusher - "Beep Street" Intense - "1st Contact" DJ Krust - "Soul in Motion" Jonny L. - "Common Origin" Mastermind - "Imagine" Blu Mar Ten - "The Fountain"