#for help so as to igure out what this all means | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

mqttsun-writes · 5 years ago

Note

Good day! Do you do headcanons for all Hashiras? If yes, then suddenly hashiras have a very self-contained s/o? That is, they keep all the negative emotions in themselves, they do not know how to cry, they tolerate everything, they do not talk about their problems and not a very good past, from which their health slightly deteriorates. If this is very bad, I apologize for disturbing you!

u got it anon!!

tw - mentions of self loathing, self depreciation, mentions of death, and negative thoughts!!

also yes ik that dating didn’t exist back in the taisho era but, for the sake of headcanons and writing, lets say it does

also sorry this took me so long adkfjdf a lot of pillars to cover

pillars w/ self contained s/o

Tomioka Giyuu

he’s one that wouldn’t notice for a while

he isn’t the most in tune with his emotions, expressing emotions, or reading other emotions

so if his s/o were to hide their emotions, he honestly wouldn’t notice until someone would point it out like

if kanroji or rengoku were to pull him aside and be like, “tomioka, did you see how sad s/o looked?”

“no, are they sad?”

and they would just give him a look that said are you fucking dumb because he had been with them for nearly half a year and hasn’t even thought to point out something about their emotions

from then on, he’d watch them more carefully

he’d notice more and more things, like how they always took the blame and never accepted any compliments, how they always changed the topic when something was asked about them or how never seemed to do anything but smile and make everyone else happy

and even with this information, he wouldn’t know how to approach them and confront them about it

because he does the same thing. he doesn’t show emotions or weakness, he doesn’t talk about his past, he’s detached from others and refuses to speak about it

but he realizes that this is his s/o, and he learned from doing that, it only made things worse for himself and those around him

so he very awkwardly tries to ease it into the conversation, because he wants them to open up instead of bottling in the emotions that will only hurt them in the future

it takes months, nearly a year to get them to open up, but he’s willing to be patient with them, because he understands this is difficult

Rengoku Kyoujurou

kyoujuro is on the more observant side, compared to the other pillars. he is good at noticing when someone’s mood is down and when they need comforting, so it won’t take him long to realize his s/o needs him

he offers time at first, seeing if they’re willing to open up about it on their own. he doesn’t want to peer pressure them into talking about their emotions, knowing that it could become worse if he did that

he doesn’t want to pry but he knows that if he doesn’t, then they’ll never talk to him about why they feel as though they aren’t strong enough or how they think that the death of their comrades and civilians are their fault

he understands some of the turmoil they go through and does his best to reassure them that it’s not their fault, you can’t save anyone and all that matters is that those you saved can keep on living

if it takes more than a few months for his s/o to think about opening up, he’ll sit them down for nightly talks to hopefully ease their mind

he’ll up the compliments, refusing to let them deny or refute them, complimenting everything about them in all honesty. from their skill set to their appearance and their personality

once his s/o will decide to open up, he’ll gladly welcome them with open arms.

he’ll listen to every word they say, wipe every tear they shed, hold them for every tremor, and offer comforting words for every disheartening thought.

he’s more in tune with his emotions, so he would make sure his s/o never felt these emotions again and would slowly help them open up and realize that it’s ok to ask for help and to be vulnerable.

Shinazugawa Sanemi

sanemi is brash, but he’s also caring.

it’s not the most obvious, but he definitely cares about his s/o more than others think

his brash nature is actually what might lead to self loathing and such in his s/o. with his quick and harsh retorts and blunt remarks that are brutally honest, it’s not surprise that it leads to doubts in his s/o about various things involving appearance and skill set.

if anything, sanemi will start noticing these traits in public or when they’re around his comrades. he’ll be able to point them out better when it’s the two of you alone, considering he’s only focusing on you and you’re responses and physical actions just make sense.

he’s not the type of guy to beat around the bush, he’s blunt and will immediately point it out

“oi, why the fuck are you so mopey?”

not the best execution, but it gets the question on the table and also adds insult to injury.

it starts a fight, at first. his s/o is getting tired and hurt at the harsh remarks - a person can only take so much, and they knew they signed up for this when they decided to date sanemi. that doesn’t change that his words can hurt, and they do hurt

this leads to his s/o blowing up and spewing their emotions at sanemi, ranting, yelling, cussing, and more. for once, sanemi with be silent and soak in the information.

he’ll understand and take in account your feelings, making sure you open up more and also making sure that he thinks before he spews out an insult that he spews to everyone to you

Himejima Gyomei

gyomei may be blind, but he’s not oblivious

he’ll take note of their dismissive behavior, how they deflect compliments and refuse to ever talk about themselves or their troubles

and it troubles him, and it makes him tear up knowing this his s/o is hurting

so he does what he can do confront them early about it

she’s his wife and he refuses to let them suffer in silence, especially if he has something to say about it

so one night, on a day off where he’s had time to think about his words and how he would like to approach this, he would ask them to sit down with him

pour some tea, set the mood to be serious but also friendly and welcoming - after all, it is his wife and they are at home

he would approach the topic slowly and steadily, easing it in and making sure not to pressure too hard

once the mood is set and his s/o starts to pour out their emotions and their problems, he would gladly listen, holding their hand in his larger one and gently caressing it to soothe them

he will make sure you know that he will always be there for you as a shoulder to lean on and that he cares for you

he’s a soft baby boy

Uzui Tengen

this boy will notice in a heartbeat and he will act in an instant

he has three wives, he’s a rather amiable person so he knows an abundant amount of people, which means he’s seen a multitude of personality types and the like

he’ll wait a few days before saying anything, wanting to see if you’ll come open up to him first if you’re comfortable enough

if not, he’ll ease in compliments into the conversation and meaningful, sincere flattering remarks

he wants to make sure you know that you have a voice, your concerns and problems are valid and you shouldn’t be afraid to voice them out to him or his other wives

he’ll make sure that you remember that you are his number one priority, above him and above the lives of other citizens, and that you should feel that way too

he will absolutely refuse to let you act as a doormat

if anyone tries to use you to their advantage, he will instantly step in and teach that person a lesson for even trying. he’ll teach you to learn to say no and to be more assertive

he will never let you forget your worth and how much he absolutely adores you

Igurou Obanai

he is more silent and observant compared to the rest, but as for reading emotions, it’ll take him a little longer as he isn’t exactly the most adapted to that

but since you’re his s/o and he will literally kill for his s/o, it wouldn’t take too long for him to notice

he’s going to assume someone made you feel this way first, asking you who did and swearing to murder them in a heartbeat

but if you reveal that it’s just how you always acted then he would tone down on the violence and up the caring meter to 2k

he will rather easily take you to a secluded and rather calm place to let you talk about it, giving awkward hugs and reassuring affections

he isn’t the best in consoling, so don’t expect kind words or from him

instead, just expect silent physical affections - after all, actions speak louder than words

he’ll do whatever you want to do with him, mainly to get your mind off of it

he’ll be subtle in his affections but he’ll hope he can make you realize that you’re worth more than you think

he won’t force you to talk about his past, considering he himself refuse to talk a bout his own past

but he wants you to let out your emotions, so he reminds you occasionally that he’s there to listen to you when you feel the time is right

Tokitou Muichirou

muichirou isnt the type of person to pry into his s/o or anyones personal life

he’s more of the “if they want me to know, they’ll let me know” kinda person

but he’s also very observant and will immediately take notice if this habit and behavior becomes kind of ongoing and continuous

his first tactic is to try to ask about it in private

“you know you have the right to say no, right?”

“i saw that uzui made you uncomfortable with three more missions and you could’ve said something”

he’ll try to talk some sense into you, first trying to be nicer and not nearly as blunt before just going

“i know how you’re thinking. like you don’t have worth, that if you help others then that’ll give you some kind of purpose, that if you just tolerate everything then it’ll be ok. take a look at yourself in the mirror and look me in the eye and tell me you’re ok.”

if it takes being brash and rude to break down your walls and to get you to spill, then he’ll do it because he knows in the future, you’ll thank him for it

he just wants the best for you, and as a smol bean boi, he will do whatever he can to help you

Kanroji Mitsuri

mitsuri is hesitant to ask or pry

she knows you’re strong and you can take care of yourself

but she sees your health going down rapidly

and she can’t help but worry increasingly

she’d ask rengoku for advice first on how to approach the situation

and he’d immediately advise her to take charge sooner than later, cuz it’ll only get worse the longer she waits to take action

he’ll give words of advice and some pointers that he would say before sending her off immediately to take action right that instant

and mitsuri is a little bit nervous but she puts on a brave face and marches to you

“s/o! remember i love you but what you’re doing to yourself is not good and very bad for your health so please talk to me! i’m really worried and the others are too, so...” she’ll start to waver in the middle of her confidence burst before steeling herself, her eyes getting this built resolve as she continues, “rely on me. rely on us! we’re here for you, so don’t feel like you need to keep doing everything we ask just to make us happy!”

she’ll honestly get a little emotional and cry while in her spiel because she’s spilling out her emotions as to watching you deteriorate your own health

and when she’s finished, she’ll stand and huff for a minute before opening her arms and just offering a hug

she’s good with physical affection so she wants to show you as much as possible to show that she loves you and you are worth so much more than you could ever imagine

that you are her inspiration and reason to keep fighting when she feels as if she has no energy left

so she just wants you to realize this because she thinks its the most obvious thing ever

Kocho Shinobu

see

she does the exact same thing

but this is about you

and since she knows how she does it and how she hides it so easily

she’ll spot it in the blink of an eye and work to stop it as soon as possible

she knows firsthand just how much it can deteriorate one’s health and she refuses to let you suffer through that just as she does

so she will immediately pull you aside, sit you down, and make sure you listen to each and every word that will spill out of her mouth

she’ll half lecture you and half vent to you with her own emotions (in the moment you won’t realize this but later you’ll see that she was dealing with the same thing)

she’ll shed a few tears and let her anger show through just to get her point across

she won’t stop until she’s made sure you’ve understood your worth and your importance and your own health

she will stay up all night by your side just to make sure you realize this because she admires and loves you so much that it hurts her to see you suffering

please expect a lot of cuddles and pampering

she will refuse to let you lift a finger and she’ll stand up for you if a pillar asks you for something

“yo s/o can you take my mi--”

“back the fucK off tomioka”

this ended up being 2319 words and it took me like two months eye--

571 notes · View notes

adifferentworldfromyesterdays · 3 years ago

Text

Stole from @ladyfawkes

How many works do you have on Ao3?38

What's your total AO3 word count? Ew math, jk. 125658

Edit: deleted a fic but forgot to subtract so this is from before. How many fandoms have you written for and what are they? 23

What are your top 5 fics by kudos? (pls don’t ask, some of these are part of my past regrets lol) - pocky game with you

- in which prompto is saved by a prince on a black horse

- by the river

- lost in the fog

-headband

Do you respond to comments, why or why not? Yes and no. In part, I usually don’t get comments so I’m like ‘what if I reply with too much or too little??’ (but I do love getting those big question comments pls uwu)

What's the fic you've written with the angstiest ending? Do I have one? I dont think so lol

Have you ever received hate on a fic?Nope just nonsensical spam

Do you write smut? If so what kind? I do have wips but most of the time I tend to stop myself before I turn it up a notch lol. I like going full steam ahead sometimes.

Have you ever had a fic stolen? Not that I know of.

Have you ever had a fic translated?My first ao3 fic was translated into Chinese (never found it in the end though lol)

Have you ever co-written a fic before? Never, but I’d like to try it someday :D

What's your all time favorite ship? Currently New Dream

What's a WIP that you want to finish but don't think you ever will?A fic titled er I think it was something along the lines of Crescent moon… lol it included Starcrossed lovers, reincarnation, modern AU, all that jazz.

What are your writing strengths?Figuring out characters and occasionally world building if I’m reallly into it. I can write casual but these tend to be below 1k lol. And angst but depends how well I think I know my characters that I’m writing.

What are your writing weaknesses? A lot, really. Keeping things making sense and not becoming a mess. (Wait till you see all four docs holding my wips for Lost in the Fog skcmsm). Descriptive writing and in particular fighting scenes are also a weakness but I’m trying to get better so fingers crossed. What are your thoughts on writing dialogue in other languages in a fic?

Mixed actually. As… I recall always reading Romanji in place of actual Japanese… (Romanji isn’t a language but rather just the readings to help read Japanese and it’s usually the basic stuff like ohayougozaimasu and whatnots). Of course, I understand, hey no everyone can read it! But it’d be kinda cool to see Japanese in its original hira/katakana, kanji script.

if you know a language or like to do language research then by all means go ahead. But sometimes just seeing Romanji gives me second hand embarrassment and it’s not only for the reason listed above.

What was the first fandom you ever wrote for? Digimon

What's your favorite fic you've ever written? Atm Lost in the Fog, I am riding this wave until it finishes.

Tags: whoever wants to do this

#fanfic writing #get to know me #Popped up as a reblog format-ish post on phone bc I copipe’d

2 notes · View notes

kaylewiswrites · 5 years ago

Text

It’s Not Working: Scene Troubleshooting

Welcome back to It’s Not Working, a troubleshooting series that forces me to learn how to fix all my broken stuff, and to share it with you. This week, it’s scenes.

Ah, scenes. If a book was a cell, scenes would be the Mitochondria. If your scenes aren’t working, your story can’t work, so lets do some trouble shooting. Take a scene you feel isn’t living up to it’s potential, and lets ask some questions.

Question 1: Is there a point?

Every scene should ideally be doing at least one of two things:

Developing the plot/side plot: Are the heroes moving closer to the climax of the book? Are you introducing new challenges to achieving their goals? Are they finding new information that changes the situation? If not, this scene might not be integral to the story.

Developing your characters: Best case scenario, you can develop your characters and plot in the same scenes. But sometimes, especially in high action books, you need to take a break to let the characters have a quiet, or joyous, or devastating moment that pushes their character or reveals something about them. It’s best to space these out, so the pacing doesn’t drag, and the plot can still move forward.

Make sure that your scene is doing at least one of these things.

Question 2: Do the readers care?

To make a scene affect readers you need tension. To get tension, there are three main ingredients:

Conflict: No, this doesn’t necessarily mean you have to make your characters argue all the time and hate each other, although that is an option. Conflict means there’s a problem that the protagonist needs to solve. This can be anything, from wrestling with a choice (internal conflict) to figuring out how to get through a locked door (external conflict) to a fifty page battle of Helms Deep-esque fight sequence (seriously external conflict). If there is no problem for the protagonists to fix, it means the story has ended.

Stakes: What’s at risk if your character fails to solve this problem? Their best friend never forgives them, the world ends, the puppies get kidnapped and turned into coats. If the audience doesn’t know why it’s so important these nine travelers journey to Mordor and destroy a ring, they’re not going to be very concerned when the Uruk Hai show up. Let the readers know what failure looks like.

Characters: this is more to do with my previous It’s Not Working, but long story short: readers will have trouble caring about the scene, no matter the conflict or stakes, if they don’t feel invested in their characters.

Search your problem scene for conflict (either internal or external) and stakes.

Question 3: Is the conflict plot/subplot related?

Is that choice they’re wrestling with connected to the story line? Does the locked door they need to get through take them somewhere closer to solving the mystery? Is the Helms Deep-esque battle scene between the protagonists and the antagonists? If not, its coming out of nowhere for the readers, and it’s not pushing your plot forward.

Question 4: Do the stakes make sense?

Most people are used to to believing things like “If I don’t dismantle the bomb in time, the whole city will die!” It might be harder to convince audiences of a contemporary lit genre “If my best friend and I don’t make up, the whole city will die!” If they were super heroes/villains in an action/adventure novel? Yes. Contemporary lit? No. Make the stakes make sense for your story and your genre.

How do I fix it?

Great question. But there’s something else we have to talk about first.

How don’t I fix it?

Don’t take a scene that lacks plot and tack something on that, technically, counts as moving the plot forward. Your scene should be about moving a plot or subplot along, not just includes a paragraph about it.

Fixing scene structures will require heavy editing and revising, if not just straight up rewriting or cutting entirely.

Ok, now how do I fix it?

Before you revise or rewrite, figure out exactly what the point of the scene is. Is it to showcase the villain’s brutality so the young superheroes knock what they’re up against? Is it to get crucial info to the protagonist that changes the way they see heir love interest? (Hint: The answer should fall under “plot point” “sub plot point” or “character development”. If it’s not one of those, it may be time to cut.)

Now that you know the point of your scene, figure out how to present it as a challenge to the protagonist. (Another hint: unless it’s the climax of the book, or you want your protagonist to fail, the problem shouldn’t be the main plot problem. If your main plot is ‘save city from dragon’ the challenge of the scene in the middle shouldn’t be ‘save city from dragon’. Unless you want your hero to lose the battle, which would be great for character development. More commonly it might be ‘steal armor that will let me fight dragon’ or ‘convince this surely wizard to help me fight dragon’ etc. )

Are the stakes obvious? ‘Save city from dragon’, the stakes were probably made clear when the hero went out to slay the dragon. If things weren’t being burnt up and people dying, they probably wouldn’t be trying to do it. But in a lot of situations, audiences might not intuitively know what ‘bad things’ could happen. Make sure they know.

Now, if the scene still falls flat, even if you did all of this, it might be time to turn to critique partners and beta readers. Scenes, like I said, are important powerhouses of stories, but there are tiny building blocks that make up scenes. Things like prose, dialogue, characters, descriptions, action writing, romances, or dozens of others could still be tripping you up. Fortunately, they’re also things that I’m going to be talking about here on It’s Not Working.

Until then, good luck, and let me know if this helped!

#writeblr #writing advice #writers of tumblr #writing community #writing help #its not working: troubleshooting for writers

726 notes · View notes

popculturebuffet · 4 years ago

Text

Top 10 Regular Show Episodes

Close Enough is Close! 2 more days and a show i’ve waited without hyperbole years for will finally land offically. While i’ve seen three episodes preelease, one because of a french film festival the other two because HBO made an oopsie, and it’s more than likely i’ll be seeing those episodes again thursday, it dosen’t make it any less special, as with an offical release comes the fandom finally becoming a thing and the ablility to watch the episodes over and over again.. on computer till HBO gets it’s shit together but still. IT’s a great time. And my hype for the show made me revisit it’s big brother: Regular Show. Created by what would happen if you condesned california into a person, JG Quintel, Regular Show, as you all damn well know but I like doing anyway so as rigby would say, STOP TALKING, was about two slackers and best bros: Laidback hipster and hurricane when it came to talking to women, Mordecai and Rigby a high strung, idiotic, impulsive, and frequently angry racoon who worked, when they absolutley had to, at a park. Joining them at the park were their coworkers and later closest friends: Benson, their constnatly angry boss who constnatly belts out empty threats to fire them and has a rather sad personal life, Skips, a centuries old yeti whose literally seen it all and despenses advice for the duo and is voiced by everyone’s faviorite grandpa/jedi/murder clown Mark Hamill, Muscle Man, a grotesque blob of a man who likes “My mom” jokes and breaking things, Hi Five Ghost, Muscle Man’s sidekick who got like.. one episode focusing on him alone over 8 seasons moving on, and Pops, an odd but unfailingly sweet and kind vicotrian era gentleman whose also basically immortal and is Bensons’ boss in name only. The Park Crew spend their days working, or in our main duo’s case trying to get out of work to do anything else, while dealing with every day issues that would quickly ballon into insanity. Getting pops a birthday present of Fuzzy Dice from a local pizza place ended up with the crew having to fight a bunch of anamatonic animals that were stashing diamonds in there. Trying to get concert tickets involved getting caffine from the nipples of a giant sentient coffee bean in order to stay awake long enough to do the extra work. And Mordecai trying to delete an embrarassing message off his crush Margret’s voice mail lead to him and rigby getting hauled in front of a bunch of a message guardians, one of which is a sentient smoke signal that wanted to burn them while the other replied with “we’ree not going to burn them when have we ever burned anybody”... I love and miss those guys. Oh and it’s resolved by having to playt he embarassing song he sang while said message beings groove to it then ask him to colaberate with them on their album. THis show was on all the drugs and I am all the hear for it. I could go all day obviously but this section is long enough as is, let’s move on.

Regular Show came at JUST the right time for Cartoon Netowork: Similar to how the 80s doom patrol comic started off really bland and cookie cutter and not at all doom patrol and then grant morrison came in, had hte previous writer kill almost everything, then rebuilt it from scratch with crazy, CN had few shows left and was coming off a really terrible attempt at competeing with NIck and Disney Channel’s live action dommance with a bunch of dude broy reality shows and other ill conceved ideas. The network had a few shows, Total Drama, The Clone Wars which got better and I need to watch those better seasons at some point, but they weren’t enough to make the network thrive again. SO enter adventure time and regular show: BOth were creative, funny , a bit rough around the ages, and kind of nuts, but both were massive hits: The shows hit almost every demographics sweet spots: Kids like the bright colors, fun designs, and insanity, teens loved the edgy bits of the humor and also the insanity and 20 somethings and older both found refrences they got and loved, and well.. insanity. I mean being fucking nuts but also wonderful is kind of the watchword for most animation nowadays. While in the past in my own head i’ve played down Regular Show’s part in things, after all it came second and had a rough patch I told myself.. but I was wrong. Both shows had a lot of the same elements; insane stuff, great voice acting and good humor especially as they evolved.. but both also evolved in largely the same way and that way helped change animation for the next decade: Both, despite being comeidies, regular show keeping to it a bit more than adventure time did as they evolved, had the characters grow, something a lot of animated comedies didn’t do as much ast the time, even the good ones. THey had season long arcs, things that are now standard features in most cartoons for good reason were MADE standard by these shows. It’s just regular show’s legacy got diluted by shows that TRIED to copy it but both failed to see that it grew past season one or that it’s being okay for kids but really based in adult life and problems meant copycats like fanboy and chum chum, sanjay and craig and breadwinners, all thankfully long dead, eventually sputtered out and died. That and Nick is REALLY shitty at maintaing shows or treating creators with anything resembling respect. Somehow Teen Titans Go is still alive despite having similar failings but you can’t win everything. It didn’t help gravity falls came along right after and proceded to be even more influentail than both of these shows. Hmmm I just realized I haven’t done any gravity falls reviews here.. I gotta get on that. But while the show got eclipsed in quality and popularity I do still think it holds up for the most part as funny, charming and with , for the most part, good character arcs, it’s just that a bit of incosntientcy, some abrubtly done actions and a REALLY fucking terrible arc in season 6 dull the show a bit in comparison to what came after, but I do realize now it’s still worht watching, remembering and laughing at. It may of not been the greatest, but damn it was good. So with my nostaliga for the show popping up, my faith in it restored, and it’s sucessor showing up in a few days, I decided to do a little something for the ocassion. I WAS going to do a full on review, but had troulbe finding an episode as some of my faviorites are part of a larger arc that was hurt by a later arc, and the show ping ponged between slice of life and utter insanity enought hat it was hard to peg down to jus tone or two episodes. So while I WILL review the show eventually, it has both good and bad episodes needing it, I decided instead to dig out something I hadn’t done in far too long: a top whatver lists! Now while I do get these things are clickbaity, because they are, I.. honestly just love making them. Even if i’ts not for any specific purpose I just love ranking, the stress, even if I normally hate stress given my anxiety, of trying to narrow them down, and the satisfaction of taking a ton of episodes and melting htem down into the best of them. And with a show as long and varied as regular show, If igured this was the best way to show it off before I dived into it eventually. I’ll obviously be doing more top, and bottom lists in the future, but for now this seemd like a godo place to get back to it. As Now a few more things before we finally get started. Yes I know i’ve gone on for a few years now but i’m almost done. This list is obviously, my opinon. If you disagree fine, and feel free to comment or shoot me an ask about it but I stand by my list and what I choose. I had to boil down over 60 episodes I picked to possibly be on the list and even after it was down to 40 cuts were really difficult, .. Also just as a quick note there are no episodes from seasons 1, 6, 7 and 8, and that’s not on purpose, as the last two seasons are really good, it just fell out that way and i’m sorry about it. So with that out of the way grabs some sodas and wings, get out your maxi gloves, and bring out your best sentient earworms wearing sunglassses, after the cut I count down the top 10 Regular Show episodes. OOOOOOOOO!

10. I Like You, Hi (Season 5, Episode 26) As you’ll be able to tell by the rest of this list Season 5 is my faviorite, and it’s where I feel the series hit it’s peak before next season lead to it’s valley. It’s got a ton of great episodes, as this list will attest, some great character development, and was still really damn funny. But what put it over the top for me was the Mordecai and CJ arc. At the end of the last season as you probably know the show wrote out Margret, having her finally get into college like she’d wanted since she got an actual character back in “Camping Be Cool” instead of just being “that hot girl mordecai really likes but is too scared to persue”, and another fantastic episode we’ll be getting to, Mordecai was in position to move on. Re-Enter CJ. CJ was introduced earlier in the season 3 ep “Yes Dude Yes” which itself is really good, where Mordecai thought margret was engaged and with Rigby’s encouragment, ended up meeting CJ, stands for Cloudy Jay if your curious, a sentient cloud voiced by the wonderful LInda Cardenelli, aka wendy from gravity falls and currently co star of the equally wonderful show Dead to Me. Seriously go check it out on netflix, it’s really good. It naturally went pearshaped since Margret wasn’t engaged, he tried going out with both, she turned into a thunderstorm out of rage... as you do.. it’s like the season 6 plot but less infurating and more understandable. But the two remeet, and had a kiss on new years while not knowing it’s the other person under am ask.. and then CJ ran and both thought the other was upset: MOrdecai for him being MOrdecai, and CJ for running out on him and agreed to be friends. That didn’t last, though it did give us another classic on this list, as while exes can be friends and all, the two still had something between them. Thus came this one. And it was a hard one as it barely inched out the finale of their relationship arc, Real Date, which had the ceo of a dating company try to break them up and be really damny funny but it’s ulitmatley this one being just as hilarious while being a great character piece that gets it the rub. As the episode opens Mordecai and CJ have been spending a LOT of time together and i’ts clear there’s a spark there.. but Mordecai insists it’s platonic. And yes there is a bad habit of animation being unable to accept females and males who are into the oppistie sex can’t be friends without being attracted to each other. It’s being cleared up more lately, but as Star Vs showed it still happens sometimes. But it works here: The two STARTED with dating, made out on new years, and are attracted to each other it’s just clear both were in denial about it. It’s not saying “well they have chemstiry so fuck their partners’ like star vs or “if you loved someone once those feelings will return and destroy yoru current relationship” like next season.... season 6′s arc is a tirefire burn it. But the issue is forced when, while texting about an extreme baking show together while CJ’s at her job at a sports bar, it autocrrects from Yuji, the show’s host, to you hi, sending the title message “I like you, hi”. Mordecai, being even less adept with his feelings and anxiety towards women than me and trust me that’s saying something, spirals and we do get the episodes best scene, narrowly beating out it’s climax, where Mordecai summons a war council.. aka the rest of the main cast minus benson but plus Thomas, the intern who I wish stuck around longer even after he turned out to be a russian spy because they ran out of ideas for him, voiced by Roger Craig Smith and distractingly using his future sonic voice.

youtube

I just.. love everything about the scnee. From the term pulling a mordecai, to Rigby joining in, deservedly as he’s had front row seats for a lot of this bollocks, to everyone’s suggestions especially Muscle Man’s half assed one that somehow, but unsuprisngly, works for him and Starla. Naturally Mordecai comes up with what Rigby HIMSELF admits is a Rigby level half assed scheme to get an actual photo with Yuji rather than just admit the truth. Yuji himself is an utter delight, having had his star not rise as fast as he’d like thanks to autocorrect and being entirely on board, and when it backfires as MOrdecai ends up autocorrected and sends the message thrice and gets sucked into the phone again, admits i’ts “pretty extreme’. I love the guy and i’m prety sure he showed up again, to my delight.

In the phone Mordecai meets some old friends, the message guardians who I mentioned in the “insane shit this show has done” bit earlier: old forms of messaging who police texting, all voiced by Rich Fulcher of the Mighty Boosh and Snuffbox Fame.

youtube

I love Rich and wish these guys could show up in close enough. Maybe they can, I don’t know how rights issues with turner properties work when it comes to two diffrent audiences entirely. Anyways what really makes the episode, besides the great callbacks in this scene, is when confronted with everything going on, Mordecai.. tries to run into the void, with Rigby, The Message Recorder and the Smoke Signal all encouraging him to come back. “There’s nothing out there for you, literally it’s just a blank void”. With the leading tape recorder pointing out from their text history not only how great CJ is but how much he seems to like her with Mordecai finally coming back and admitting the obvious: He does like her.. he’s just scared of beefing it again. Which he does but that’s not the point. Rigby, who as part of his character development helps Mordecai quite a bit with this stuff by being a neutral party, though he also likes CJ better than Margret which is a mood even though I don’t care which one you ship mordecai with frankly, you do you, I have my prefrences. And with that Mordecai finally texts her and asks her out, with her accepting via winky face.. with an added text to clarify it for his neuotic ass.. which is also a mood as my neuortic ass could use that a lot. Overall just a wonderful , hilarious and good bit of character growth.. that season 6 throws in the oven, but that’s a long rant for another day. On it’s own, “I LIke you, hi” is a good character piece for mordecai whlie still being really damn funny.

9. Thanksgiving Special (Season 5, Episode 15)

Regular Show was really damn great at holliday specials. Their terror tales from the park every halloween were always a nice treat and a good replacement for Simpsons “Treehouse of Horror” which still exists, it’s just no one cares at this point, and their christmas and new years episodes are both really damn good, the first Christmas Episode being in contention for this list even. But to me the best of the best was easily Season 5′s thanksgiving episode.

The premise is simple: Mordecai and Rigby accidnetly destroy thanksgiving dinner, which the park crew is having for everyone and their famllies and, refusing to take Benson trying to dismiss their attempts to help fix their mistake, end up joining a songwriting contest to try and win a Turducken.. a natural one that’s born every 1000 Years because this is regular show. To do this they have to beat a parody of everyone’s least faviorite president Donald Trump, Rich Buckner. The fact that trump was basically the main villian of a holliday special a year before he became president is not lost on me and is one of the most accurate depections of the man i’ve ever seen. The fact Rich steals the prize despite our boys winning from his blimp with a grappling hook is peak trump. The fact Trump has’nt stolen more things with a grappling hook in real life is only because his hands are too small to use one.

Getting past our president for my own sanity, the episode also has really great subplots: Muscle Man and Fives go to a sports bar to get sides and end up pissing off a former football player and getting into a touchdown dance comppetition, sadly not set to the super bowl shuffle, while Benson, Pops and Skips go to get a turkey and end up fighting over it with men dressed up like a piligrim, a first thanksgiving era native american and a turkey, to which they don’t even really give an explination for.. granted most explinatoins on this show are insane but even by regular show standards, this gets none. And I love it for it. While as you can tell the episode is really damn funny, what really sells it is the emotional core: For once while they do fear for their jobs a bit Mordecai and Rigby’s main motivation in this messup is genuine guilt and wanting to fix their mistake, and they work hard at it, even giving a genuine and awesome heartfelt song that notches itself up with other thanksgiving classics “That thankstiginv themed soul sketch on snl” and adam sandler’s turkey song also from snl. Not a high bar but it’s really good regardless

The episodes’ real strength though is it’s emotional core: For once instead of saving their own asses or understadnably wanting to get one over on the cranky and in the worse written episodes obnoxiously overbearing benson, they simply feel terrible about possibly runing the meal for their arriving parents and everyone elses parents and families and their friends and work to right the wrong. It’s not the first time they worked to do something genuinely good with no benefit to themselves, but it’s probably the best and Benson’s I forgive you, while hilarious is also really sweet. And speaking of sweet

It ends on a really sweet and touching note, as Mordecai and Rigby, after escaping a blimp via a wish on a golden wishbone because of course, make it home to find the various weirdos the park crew met have brought them thanksgiving, and their parents will be there and we get a nice touching ending as the main duo get a well earned toast from Benson. Just an out and out amazing thanksgiving special and a good reminder of what the holiday means.

8. Trucker Hall of Fame (Season 3, Episode 37)

Moving on from Season 5 for a second, Season 3 was where the show really started to hit it’s stride to me. While Season 2 was a nice increase in quality from the sometimes choppy and heavy on “everyone is an asshole” comedy season 1, Season 3 was where the increased focus on the rest of the cast outside of our main duo balloned and what seeds of character were planted in season 2 beautifully bloomed. And this episode is one of the best examples of that. This one focuses on Muscle Man, who earlier on was basically the main duo’s rival alongside his buddy high five ghost, and kind of a dick. While “Kind of a dick” never left any discription of Mitch Sorenstein, this and previous episode muscle woman showed there was more to the goblin man than we thought. It’s also one of regular show’s few early mostly serious episodes and unlike the benson ones, again this list was tough don’t come at me with a machete, and realy showed why muscle man is the human tire fire he is. The episode introduces, and quickly kills off, muscle dad, mitch’s dad who gave him a love of pranks and was a truck driver who died as he live: mistaking a fake bear for a real one during a prank. Muscle Man being not the most stable person on a GOOD day, spirals, as seen above, and Benson tasks mordecai and rigby, since Fives isn’t good with death ironically and isn’t holding up much better, and as a much later episode shows the two became besties in high school so he probably knew muscle dad for a good ten years so he’s probably not in a great place either, nice stuff, to go with him to put his dad’s ashes in the trucker hall of fame. What follows is a sweet and damn sad episode. While Mitch’s frequent breakkdowns can be hilarous their also really sad and having lost my grandpa since this episode aired, I can relate to being fine one minute and a total shrieking wreck the next over the smallest thing. But it also shows that Mitch genuinely thinks of our main duo as his friends, and that beneath his testorrone positned exterior he’s a decent guy, being genuinely greatful. Of course being regular show the 3 end up squaring off with some truckers, while Mitch also grappels with the revelation his dad wasn’t one but a forklift opperator who faked being a trucker for his son’s benifit and dleft a tender note in his picture, figuring correctly his son would break it open when he found out... oh and because this show is still nuts his ghost ends up saving them at the end which is really sweet , as mitch decides trucker or no his ashes deserve to be there. Also his ghost shows up again at thanksgiving so apparently he can just come back once in a while, which is nice but dosen’t demnish the bittersweet feeling of this ep. And as I said the show has a good grasp on continuity as this ep marked a turning point for our main duo and muscle man: while the’yve bonded before after this, aside from mitch’s habit of christmas pranks and his faking his death, they really don’t nearly get as annoyed by him ever again. i’ts a sweet touching ride tha’ts uncharacristic of the show’s usual chaos but really works.

7. A Bunch of Full Grown Geese (Season 4, Episode 19) After a few episodes that were more sentimental on this list, it’s good to get back to some good old regular show madness for this one, which was also the series 100th in production order and is a worthy milestone episode. Season 4 was really good building on the good will from Season 3 and FINALLY having payoff to the margret and mordecai thing, more on that in a bit. Not as much to say as seasons 3 or 5, but it was still spectacular. The sequel to another ep, fittingly given it’s #100, full grown geese has our duo tasked with removing a bunch of obnoxious geese, with Benson in dick mode refusing to give the two more help, though it does lead to one of the show’s best scenes when he gives his usual your fried threat.. and fitting a milestone episode, Rigby calls him on never going through with it and the threat being as empty as my dreams. Benson responds by going nuts and angrishing them out of his office.. really funny. But yeah with the geese attacking them and , in their first attacking, poor pops, and no way to combat them, the two turn to the baby ducks, a bunch of baby ducks from the episode titled that who show up to help.. and this being the 100th episode of an already grant morrison level nuts show, it turns out the geese seek to conquer earth, voiced by david warner of course and have laser eyes.. and can combine. And the ducks do so again, mecha style, and add in our heroes and a bunch of call backs in one of the series best and most batshit sequences> The ending is also throughly satisfying as while our heroes win, Benson chews them out for tearing up the park in the process.. only for the ducks mom to call him out for not only yelling at the ducks, who are just kids, but at mordecai and rigby after they just saved the park from being a smoldering crater and not just trashed and he backs off. Just a fun episode where the crew just went nuts and the results speak for themselves.

6. This is My Jam (Season 2, Episode 13)

Now this one I couldn’t NOT include. This is one of the series best even after it’s immense growth, and a beloved classic for a reason. And like the above it’s a good classic case of regular show hyjinks while also being relatable this time: Rigby gets a brainless but catchy pop song from the 90′s stuck in his head and despite growing to hate it, and Mordecai hating it because this episode establishes him as a hipster, and seemingly exercises it.. only for it to manifest as a GIANT CASETTE WEARING SUNGLASSES THAT PLAYS THE SONG JUST BY EXISTING AND DANCES CONSTANTLY. it’s utterly glorious and used to great effect, also annoying benson because he’s constnatly annoyed. To beat it the main duo get the rest of the park’s help at Skips suggestion to form a band and craft an even BIGGER earworm to cast it out. Oh and there’s a great scene where Pops is forced to awkwardly dance with the incarnation of the 90′s “But I won’t use my best moves”. The climax also has one of Benson’s best moments as, after he’s irritated all episode, he comes in hot, with both the cast and audience expecting him to chew out mordecai and rigby.. only he’s mad because they forgot drums are key to an earworm and saves the day with his drumwork. It’s a great subversion and one of the first times Benson was more than just the angry but understandable, at times, dickhead boss. Just an utter standout and one of the show’s most memorable episodes for a reason. Also the line “you can’t touch music but music can touch you’ is great.

5. Meteor Moves ( Season 4, Episode 28)

This one was a long time coming and to me is a great example of writers taking their own shortcomings and making something awesome out of them. I prefer that: instead of just retconning away bad writing use it as a tool.. I try to do that myself when possible. See early in the show as you all probably know, Mordecai’s crush on Margret was just a plot device: he had a crush on the cute waitress at the coffee shop so they used it to get him to do things. A gratioutis shot of her in bike shorts got him to bet all computer rights for life that sort of thing. The show.. wasn’t great with female characters till season 3 and even as it grew, as season 6 and just.. forgetting to give CJ a proper ending as a character shows, still grappled with it. It took writer Kat Morris saying “no no stop go to jail” to them wanting ot make CJ a difficult woman type, whatever horrifying thing that is. I don’t want to know, let’s move on. The point is it wasn’t till season 3 that Margret and her best friends, and Rigby’s future wife, Eileen got fleshed out a bit: Eileen got smarter and turned out to be good at wilderness stuff while Margret was chill, nice, if annoyed by the chaos around mordecai, and funloving, while also having a clear goal in stark contrast to her future boyfriend: going to college. Even after coming back it was botha fter finsihing college and to start a career. It wasn’t incredibly deep, but it made me not be ehhh to her mere existance like before. The show also started developing her and Mordecai’s relationship seriously with the two bonding and the previously shown Butt Dial showing for the first time, after previously having a terrible taste in men and then just not noticing his crush, that she was receptive to how mordecai felt. And the two had several moments and two dates even, it just.. never went anywhere for some reason.

And this was INFURATING to me: See back then shows had a tendency to just pop in love intrests SOLEY for plot fuel like margret with no intention of following through with things either through rejection or a relationsihp upgrade and by then I was sick of it. The whole spike and rarity thing in MLP (which to be clear I wanted her to just reject him but nope, even after I stopped watching she never did. ), Isabella and Phineas. I was fed up so I went from being “eh” about it to annoyed supremely.. but the thing is the writers realized this.. and course corrected. The first step was picking up Margret, where Mordecai agrees to pick her up to get her to the airport for a college interview and we get a nice deconstruction of things as Margret is anticpatiing things going wrong, and wrongly blames Mordecai for it.. I mean it is his fault sometimes but half the time weird shit just follows him. However she’s won over by him working past it, getting her there in time and kisses him. That blew me away and made me think well it’s finally here.. and it was.. ALMOST. However the creators wisely, if frustratingly to past me, took one more episode to iron it out: Metor Moves has the two growing closer, and semi-going out, but Rigby pops mordecai’s bubble pointing out he never actually made a boyfriend girlfriend move and her move could’ve gone either way. So Mordecai , after seasons of being wishy washy and awkward, finally decides to go for it as he, rigby, eileen and margret go to a metor shower. Being Regular Show it dosen’t go as planned as his attempted kiss is blocked by the guardians of the friend zone.. which is a real, phantom zone esque place here and that’s just fantastic. And it’s also clearly mocking the hell out of the concept, which is dumb. if you want to ask someone out just do it, I learned that the hard way. And if you really are friends, if she says no then you’ll accept it and keep a friend anyway as I have. But it’s clearly parodying it and Mordecai get sreplayed all the times he ALMOST made a move but didn’t but refuses to accept this clusterfuck, realizes he was a screwup when it came to this.. and kisses her.. and this time the two enter a relationship> Granted it barely lasted but still, it was nice while it did and this ep is just great for it. While not the funniest, it’s up this high because it took somethign the show did wrong.. and turned it on it’s head and into a character flaw and had mordecai grow past it, with a genuinely romantic moment on top as well as an utterly funny and batshit concept. It also had some Rigleen, as by this point rigby stopped being a hateful wastebasket to her and warmed up to her, and I regret there’s no reigleen episodes on this list. Their the shows best couple and utterly adorable. Just wanted to mention that at least once this list.

4. Laundry Woes (Season 5, Episode 1) From the begining to the end. While sadly Morderet didn’t last too long in canon, which blows, it did give us some great episodes while it lasted, as with the above entry and their breakup in Steak Me Amedeus. As mentioned before Margret left for college, which while abrupt feeling did pave the way for great stories: The Mordejay arc mentioned above and that will pop up again very soon, This was one of them: the ep while lacking on laughs is a good emotional rollercoaster and starts with an amazing montage that catches us up from the end of season 4: Mordecai is miserable, as you’d expect and wallowing in it with Benson, of all people, letting him. And given Benson seems to have a heart attack any time Mordecai and Rigby aren’t working, that’s huge. But eventually his friends refuse to let it go on and in a really touching montage help him through it, taking him out places, giving him good times and eventually.. the fog starts to lift and he starts to enjoy himself and by the end.. he’s himself again. It’s one of the series best sequences, told with no dialouge and showing just how far the rest of the cast had come: Benson actually wants to comfort mordecai but is encouraged not to at first, underfstandably as it probably woudlnt’ help, and a crew that were once, aside from Pops who much like Krillin is everyone’s friend, just coworkers who barely tolerated each other, and are now close as family and help their own in need. But Grief isn’t a straight line and just as Mordecai’s recovering he’s sent spiraling when he finds Margret’s sweater and uses ita s a flimsy excuse to go return it. It’s here I also get to talk about Rigby, who grew from an impatient idiot who hated Mordecai’s romantic endevors and actively sabtoaged them at times, to an understandting wing man who, while understandably frustrated with his best friend’s own idiocy with women, turned out to know more and be the wise council he needed, triggering both is relationships and only bailing out during the season 6 clusterfuck and even then was there to comfort him after it was all over and go to his aid to pull him out of another misery hole. And here he gives Mordecai the hard truth: He shoudln’t do this, it’s just going to tear both him and margret up again and he just put himself back together. He’s not going to let his best friend do this to himself. And while there is a supernatural elment, the sweater comes to life and tries to get Mordecai to force margret back with him and give up college, likely voicing his darkest wants that he hates himself for wanting, but it feels more like a manfiestation of Mordecai’s own issues than the usual madness. Like “Trucker hall of Fame”, a rare senntence, it’s a less funny packed more grounded episode. And in the end it’s mordecai himself, after rejecting the ghost sweater and seeing his ex truly happy , that gets him to NOT talk to her and just.. let it go. IT’s a good emotional episode and SHOULD HAVE BEEN the end of their relationship... but i’ve ranted about the cheating storyarc enough here, moving right along.

3. Portable Toilet (Season 5, Episode 16) Back to the Mordejay arc. And yes this arc is my faviorite and while I didn’t make it clear at the time I really shipped the two, even before it became canon. I had nothing against morderet, these two simply had more chemistry and these episodes built CJ up as more of a character than Margret was at the time. It’s why that later arc sucks so much to me: it destroys a perfectly good relationship and story arc for dumb reasons and never really did enough with it to justify doing so. I’ll get to it some day, or if someone comissions it soone rthan some day, but as you can tell i’m still sore over it and great eps like this are part of the reason why. It’s the same reason i’m sore on how Tom was handled on star vs. But as you can also tell as bitter and lemon scented as I am.. these eps are still objectivley great and thus took up a third of the list basically. Case in point Portable Toilet, which zooms back a bit to when neither would admit they were into each other but were now friends at least. Also Eileen was CJ”s friend now because plot convience. I mean they worked, and it bothers me a lot that the creators claim cj washed her hands of her even though she’s not the one who made out with margret... which come to think of it adding her to rigleen.. not a bad idea. I mean Rigby didn’t really like margret true, but they did almost go out before mordecai killed him and then reset time because Mordecai’s always kinda sucked. I’ll file that away for later. But my new OTP aside, I did like the two bonding and what not. Anyways with their outside park friend/RIgby’s future girlfriend now friends with Mordeai’s future girlfriend the four have apparently been hanging out which, while i’ve bemoaned off screen stuff at times, works here and regular show uses it better than most shows. While Rigby can clearly see Mordecai and CJ are into each other Mordecai is as we covered in denial and while that dosen’t really progress here, it does lead to one of teh shows finest hours. When talking would you rathers, CJ semi-flirtly dares Mordecai to eat his lunch sandwitch in a portable toilet, which he agrees to and drags a reluctant rigby along for. This being regular show, it goes south fast as the two get stuck, with Rigby’s clautrophiba kicking in leading to an amazing exchange Mordecai; Dude that makes no sense! Rigby: You’s makes no sense! While our dynamic duo try to get mordecai and rigby out the two are carted away and repalced with a new portable toilet, a deluxe one. Also we get another great bit when our dynamic duo find Muscle man, in a robe with choclate’s claming “Eileen, other girl, this isn’t weird” before screaming “This isn’t weird”. Turns out old portable toilets are taken to be blown up by the miltary and we get one of the shows best one off characters in the general, who not only explains it as “toilets being about the same size as the enmy” but when told he should call the president says “the preseident is not my father i’ll blow up as many toilets as I want.”. Spectacular. So now it’s a scramble for one twosome to rescue the other, Rigby lets out a cathartic “THANK YOUUU MORDECAI” over the flirty toilet dare, and the day is saved> This one is another pure comedy one, even if it ties into a plot I really like, and i’ts gold for obvious reasons and manages to take blowing up porta poties, a premise that dosen’t seem that funny, and make it utter comedic gold. Speaking of pure comic episodes that are utterly insane...

2. Cool Bikes (Season 3, Episode 7)

This one feels like regular show boiled down to it’s core: semi-relabtale hyjinks dovetalling into pure madness. And the premise sounds like a shit post i’d make: Mordecai and Rigby want benson to admit their cool and get into progressively weird outfits and tricks to their bycycles to do so, eventually becoming so cool their put on trial by the council of cool , ending up having to make a runner when Benson finally breaks down and admits it. The premise is utterly stupid in the best way possible, with the conflict being the kind of petty bullshit we all get into from time to time with our aquantinces: not wanting to admit something and loose the argument withthings escalating. And in regular show terms it escalate sperfectly into the entire unvierse being threatned adn our heros being on trial for their lives. There’s not much to say here, it’s just pure comedic gold with a premise that just works. It also has good moments for Benson with his finally admitting they are cool and saving the duo’s lives whne he realized he just gave them a death sentence. Utter fun. And now we come to the finale, my faviorite episode...

1. Dodge This (Season 5, Episode 15)

Yup this arc again. But this one has more than my ship going for it, and it’s why it soared to the top: It takes the excellent character work of other episodes and weaves it with excellent comedy to create an utter delight and the episode I remember most fondly and most often. It’s just great. The second part of the Mordeijay arc, not counting yes dude yes, the episode is half that and half sports movie: The Park Guys have been taking part in dodgeball as a team bulding thing and it shows how far Benson’s come as he not only praises mordecai, and launches the mordecai and benson ship in the process, but gives his team full wings and his full support, a far cry from his usual self. It’s also the first big instance of him getting hammered on wings and it’s glorious to see drunk flirty benson. Benson is also genuinely congratulatory to the team’s ace mordecai, and most of them realy for b eing valuable and hopes to win this year. IN their way are two things: The magical elements, aka the floating baby heads that gave skips his immortality, his friend with sparkly eyes who works for them and death himself whose a recurring character and fucking great and who were their bowling rivals too. The other is CJ is back, and Benson in another good moment actually talks mordecai through it and his nerves over it assuring him. So we get a great sports piece as our heroes work through various callbacks and even beat the magical elements iwth Rigby’s hilarious and rediculous rignado manuver, which is as dumb as it sounds and winged a guy hilaroiusly before with Benson scolding him like a toddler. Of course it ends up with Mordecai and CJ against each other, both incredibly awkard over things as mentioned before, and both ending up in a stalmate that magical dodgeball guardians have to resolve because, let’s do this one last time. IT’S REGULAR SHOW. We do get a good moment though as the two work through their awkwardness: both thinking the other is rightfully mad: Mordecai for his two timer date with her and Margret and CJ for running out without talking to mordecai after they had a moment on new years. The both work past it, the park strikers loose,benson likely gets hammered again off screen.. it’s a good one and I have no shame in putting it at number one. It’s got heart, really great jokes, and some good charcter stuff, not to the level of other episodes on this list, but it wasn’t a full episode of that like those were and still works to move the plot forward and is still a classic. Just a fun, breezy, well done epsidoe fully rooted in the cast’s characters and getting laughs out of that.. mostly benson. And with that this giangantic list comes to a close> I hope you enjoyed it, if you liked it follow me for more. I’ll be doing close enough coverage every week, as well as amphibia and owl house among other reviews. Until we meet again, later days.

#regular show #mordecai #rigby #cj #eileen #margret #muscle man #benson dunwoody #high five ghost #pops mallerd #skips #death #yuji #rich fulcher #close enough #top 10 lists #cartoon network

14 notes · View notes

fenzodigital · 4 years ago

Text

How to score IT in the digital experience economy

We love to talk about journeys. Exchanging travel stories, and the journeys of our lives can build a connection, and turn strangers into friends.

With the virus and lockdowns, you and I, more than ever, have gone completely digital to carry out tasks of daily living – grocery purchases, food deliveries, banking transactions, and uhm.. perhaps, job applications?

Common to each of this task is the online experience a.k.a journey. Beyond wanting the goods and services, a compelling and memorable experience sweetens the deal. It is the icing on the cake.

It is about Emotions

The “Experience Economy” is not a new term.

In 1998, Joseph Pine II and James H. Gilmore first offered this idea of “staging the experience” to the world in a Harvard Business Review article.

Fast forward to 2020, that wisdom speaks truth in volumes. Today, a positive digital experience is an expectation. The Conscious consumer values the experience as much as (or even more) than the product/service. In the space of online retail, this means that we have to figure out how do our customers feel about the overall digital experience.

Breaking it down further, what defines the customer’s experience is the customer’s journey.

How the customer would remember his journey is how he feels about his journey i.e. his emotions.

In short, it’s all about evoking the desired emotions when we are connecting with our fellow tribe in the digital space.

Time well-spent and Time well-saved

We all have 24 hours a day. No matter how much technology advances, this fact isn’t going to change (we hope). Technology makes our lives better and it also changes consumer behavior.

Today, customers choose a product based on the digital experience they get when they engage with a brand. Making it Simple for the customer is the difficult part. At each step of the user journey lies the possibility of a pause moment where the customer can re-consider his intention to buy or convert. Hence, it’s a no brainier that the longer the journey, the more opportunities you are offering for a potential purchase decision to be hijacked.

We like to define our experiences, that’s how we share them with our friends and family. If you think SIMPLICITY, FLEXIBILITY, POSITIVITY, your head is in the right place. In short, make it worth a customer’s time to engage with your brand online.

And, one more noun, CONTROL. In a digital experience economy, we want to put the customer in the driver’s seat, and then observe the interactions and behavior that emerge once they have control.

Ultimately, use these observations to design and enhance the customer journey that will fuel the right emotions.

So, how simple is SIMPLE?

If you have grabbed a lunch or a snack at AMAZON GO, you know how swift the process is. It is as long as you take to decide on what you want. Like, seriously.

There’s no lines, no standing in queue, no check-out counters. You simply walk in, grab what you need and go. The only thing the store has is hundreds of cameras to track your every move. So, be sure to smile.

Before you enter Amazon Go, you must install an app. AMAZON GO uses sophisticated recognition software and artificial intelligence to figure out what you have grabbed and charge the right bill to the right customer. The weight sensors on the shelves know when you have taken something, and when you’ve changed your mind and put it back.

Explore the Possibilities of Online Retail

So, how do we translate simplicity and flexibility into online, and create the WOW moments?

1. For starters, can we pay with our smile, face or voice?

The online space needs to hasten its pace to make facial/ voice payment technologies more ubiquitous and acceptable. China has its own version of self-service supermarkets and Chinese shoppers are ahead in embracing facial recognition technologies.

For example, for a one-time purchase, do you want your customer getting up to retrieve that credit card, punching in the long string of numerals and clicking through the personal data fields. That one-time purchase, if made simpler and faster, can draw customers to return.

2. Next, how about automated/ relative pricing?

Can prices be relative based on likes, demand, and loyalty? If you fall in love with an enchanting dress that doesn’t quite capture the imagination of most ladies, can you get it at a cheaper price now, instead of waiting for that seasonal discount? Is it possible for prices to fluctuate in real time based on demand and supply, just like ride sharing?

There’s a whole realm of possibilities to work with online. At Fenzo, we have a range of digital solutions, fully customization to suit your business needs. Let our team help you. Start experimenting now and you may find yourself leading the trend!

Sources: https://fenzodigital.com/blog/how-to-score-it-in-the-digital-experience-economy/

#range of digital solutions #Website design agencies #web design singapore #website design singapore

0 notes

kj-interactivity · 6 years ago

Text

Unity of action and response for an artifact to be functional

I.Introduction

In today’s society where we encounter a range of interactions that has different opportunities for action and response to them, action and response are not only limited to one kind of interaction in an artifact but can have different stages of interaction in one artifact. To understand how these interactions work, and what is behind them, there are six aspects of natural coupling that exist between each interaction that Wensveen, Djajadiningrat and Overbeeke (2004) talks about in their paper. This essay will argue for the significance of action and response concerning feedforward and feedback with the six aspects of natural coupling through a design project and other artifacts. The design project will be used with the six aspects to present how feedforward and feedback is used in interaction and for how a designer might work with action and response. Before starting to present the arguments in the paragraphs below, there is going to be a brief explanation of the design project.

II.School project

Figure 1. Shows how the letters react when there is a sound.

Before talking about action and response, there will be a brief explanation of a project that was done at Malmö University. The project was about how to change the typeface of letters and words by the use of sound. The project consisted of two different parts; first it was to change how the letters and words appear (figure 1) and secondly to highlight a word if it was pronounced e.g. saying the word cat would highlight each letter in order. The project done is something that Wenseveen et al. (2004) calls a ‘natural user interface’, and further down there is a figure (figure 2) showing how natural user interface works with feedback, feedforward, and the six aspects. A natural user interface is when an artifact is built in the way that it only uses the sound and gesture from the user, which leads to a response (something will happen). A few products that utilize this are the iPad from Apple, that uses gestures to be controlled, and the Amazon echo from Amazon that uses the sound from a voice command that the user says (Interaction design foundation, 2018).

Figure 2. Natural user interface

III.Action

Action is what the user does with the artifact to spark a response e.g. making a sound as in the design project. Due to making a sound, which is the action, the response will be the letters changing their shape accordingly to how loud the sound that triggers the response it. In addition, there are different kinds of actions that can be taken that doesn’t consist of the sound needed using the natural user interface, but instead touch could be used, as in physically touching an artifact e.g. the buttons on a TV remote.

A. Feedforward

Because before there is an action there is going to be some visualization that offers information on which action the user should take and that is feedforward (Wenseveen et al 2004). It is with this information that guides the user to what (s)he needs to perform to be able to accomplish the appropriate action for the artifact.

B. Different feedforward

Furthermore, there are three types of information that Wenseveen et al. (2004) about and those are: inherent, augmented and functional information. Since these three are feedforward types means that they will show what action should be appropriated to be accomplished to get a response from the artifact.

C. Feedforward in design project

Besides, feedforward is used in the design project to visualize what action the user should do. However, the design project does not have any inherent information embedded in it. Because of that, it will as described by Wenseveen et al. (2004) capitalize on the cognitive and perceptual motor skills of a person. This means that an artifact needs to show information to the user through other ways as in augmented and functional feedforward. Despite the design project lacking inherent feedforward, does not mean that the design project will not fail to give the appropriate feedforward to the user (thus know what action to perform.)

In the end, feedforward is a part in the artifact the will guide the user to the correct action thus guiding the user to use it in the way it was intended to be used.

IV.Response

Response is what the user will receive from having accomplished a specific action e.g. making a sound or saying a word and from that the letters will react in distinctive ways according to the action. Consequently, doing only one action can give various responses from an artifact one example being that pressing the on/off button on a TV remote will light up a light on the remote and turn on/off the TV.

A. Feedback

Feedback is the information that the user receives from having accomplished an action. The feedback can vary depending on what sort of artifact the user is using and can be defined as “the return of information about the result of a process or activity” (Wenseveen et al 2004). Without feedback, the user would not know if the correct action has taken place.

B. Different feedbacks

As in feedforward, feedback does have the same types of information to it and those are: inherent, augmented and functional information (Wenseveen et al 2004). In order to have a functional artifact, there’s going to be feedback to inform that the action has been accomplished. What’s more, utilizing one or all the types of feedback in an artifact will help generate a product that reacts correctly to the users' activity and provides the feedback that the user expect there to be.

C. Feedback in design project

Furthermore, the design project did not have any inherent information as mentioned before, but it has augmented and functional information. The feedback that the user receives is that when a word is said it will highlight the letters in the word in the same order as it was said in. On the one hand, performing a sound would change the shape of the letters instead of highlighting them indicating that there are different feedbacks depending on what action is accomplished.

On the other hand, if there would not be any feedback to action then the user would not know if the right action has taken place with either not knowing if the artifact is broken or that the wrong type of action took place. E.g. the user start typing with the keyboard with the design project and nothing happens would either indicate poor design or that the user needs to test other ways to use it.

V.Six aspects of natural couplings

The next segment is about the six aspects of natural couplings and how they are used to analyze or look at interaction. According to Wensveen et al. (2004), there are six different aspects of natural couplings and they are time, location, direction, dynamics, modality and expression and described by Wensveen et al. (2004) they “describe characteristics of both the action and the reaction”.

The six aspects of natural couplings are time, location, direction, dynamics, modality and expression and according to Wensveen et al. (2004) they “describe characteristics of both the action and the reaction”.

A. Time

First is time and this is used to analyze if there is a relation between an action and reaction during the same time. Therefore, in the design project, this is when the user does a sound and it reacts without any delay in changing the letters.

B. Location

Second is location and that is when action and reaction happen in the same place and this is something that can be argued if the design project has or not. Because if comparing to Wensveen et al. (2004) example of cutting a paper with scissors, the paper is cut where the scissors are touching it compared to the design project where nothing is touching each other but instead it is that the user is in the same location as the artifact and it reacts to the user sound because it can hear the user.

C. Direction

Thirdly is direction and this is about how the users' action is going to move the artifact in a direction. Looking at the design project it is how loud the sound is from the user and project react with changing the letters depending on how loud the users are and that will change how the letters will shape themselves.

D. Dynamics

Fourth is dynamics meaning that if the user does the action slow then the reaction is going to be slow as well. But here it is how the user does the sound if (s)he does a fast and loud sound or longer and quieter sound it will change how the letters are going to behave according to how the user does the sound. If the user does a long sound that gradually grows louder then the letters will slowly grow bigger because it follows the users sound.

E. Modality

Fifth is modality and here it is what that users’ senses pick up. Such as in the design project were saying a word highlights the letters in order and the user can observe how each letter changes on an order. Moreover, only making a sound would also show the user when the letters change shape because they can see it on the screen.

F. Expression

Lastly is expression where if the user would say a word fast so that it would not be understood then it would highlight the wrong letters or not even do that feedback because it would not understand what the user said.

G. Used as couplings in the school project

Looking through each aspect and how they relate to the school project has shown that the design project has the aspects in it but if there would be something that did not work in it then the six aspects of natural couplings would be used to find and comprehend what is missing. Therefore, it would help with founding out what it is that is missing and that could help the designer to implement the missing information if an artifact does not work to find the missing information.

VI. Design practice

The last segment is going to be about how action and response and the six aspects of natural coupling are used when re-designing or designing a new artifact.

A. Action & response

In other cases, a response from doing an action is significant for the interaction and for the designer because if there is no response from the artifact when doing an action, the user would not know if the right action has taken place. And if the user or the designer does not gain any response then how would they know if the artifact works. Having a response from the artifact is significant for the designer to know that it works the correct way. Nevertheless, if it does not work for the user it could implicate that the wrong action has been done or that it is broken.

B. Feedback & Feedforward

On the one hand, if the sound project would not have any indications with feedback and feedforward, then how would the user know what action to do and what the response should be? But having both feedback and feedforward in the project made it possible for the design project to work as it was intended to. Using the six aspects would be to glance at the interaction of an artifact and identify which aspects are there and which are not. It can be that not all aspects are there between each information and that does not cause the product to be non-functional instead it will not show every kind of information since it is not needed to show every action and response to the user.

On the other hand, if feedback and feedforward would not exist in an artifact it would be difficult to know what action is supposed to be taken and what response the user should receive from an action. Because of this, it is needed from the designer to design an artifact that has feedback and feedforward so that the user will know what is happening. But there will not always be a response from an action e.g. saying a word in a different language in the design project that is not implemented in it would not give any feedback. Because it does not have the support for that language or does not understand the word.

C. Six aspects

Furthermore, the six aspects are used for analyzing or looking at a particular interaction between the difference information’s that exist and if the six aspects would not be between each information then it would be though to create a particular interaction. E.g. pressing a button on the TV remote would light a light up when it has been pressed. Between the action and response, the six aspects are located to do the interaction possible.

But when designing an artifact, is when the six aspects become incorporate between each action and response to determine if every kind of the aspects needs to be implemented or only some specific ones between each information to have a functional artifact that has an action and a response.

Having each step work in unity with each other do so that the artifact will work as the designer has intended, but the user will also have an easier way to operate it too. If there would not be any unity, then when using the artifact, it would be challenging to know what should happen when e.g. a button is pressed on the TV remote. However, if nothing is going to happen or another aspect happens instead of what the user is used to.

Due to an artifact having lousy functionality or lousy indication would either show that the artifact is not working as it is supposed or the user performs the wrong action with the artifact (as told earlier with the TV remote).

VII. Conclusion

In the end what it goes back to when designing a product is that using feedforward and feedback is something that is needed to be implemented in a product to have it functional and easy to use for the user. Recognizing that if feedback and feedforward do not exist in a product then it will be tough to know what kind of interaction the product has. Furthermore, looking or analyzing an artifact with the six aspects of natural coupling is something that the designers includes in the design of a product to recognize what aspects the product has when giving feedback or showing a feedforward.

Consequently, having feedforward, feedback and the six aspects of natural coupling will help the designer to recognize what is missing in the artifact. So, that they can look through what aspects are in the artifact and add the missing part to where it is needed in the artifact to make it complete.

References:

Interaction design foundation. (2018). Natural User Interfaces – What are they and how do you design user interfaces that feel natural? Retrieved 2018-11-05 from https://www.interaction-design.org/literature/article/natural-user-interfaces-what-are-they-and-how-do-you-design-user-interfaces-that-feel-natural

Wensveen, S., Djajadiningrat, T., and Overbeeke, C. (2004). Interaction Frogger - a Design Framework. Proc. of DIS’04, ACM, 1–8.

0 notes