#anyways. answers is freaking nuts. so glad that it came back at full force in endwalker with a remix(?) and some leitmotif stuff

[thatcritterthatskitter]

badly misinterpreting lyrics today, despite how much i love answers i could never get all the words right

[helenarlett-rex]

Goosebumps Review #12

So as I’m doing this little project of reading and reviewing all the Goosebumps books I never got a chance to read as a kid, it occurred to me that eventually I’m going to read Deep Trouble 2 and anyone who is actually bothering to follow these reviews is going to be wondering why I didn’t do the first Deep Trouble. The answer to that is because I actually did read that one as a kid, but you wouldn’t know that, would you? So I’ve decided this time around I’m just going to do a bunch of mini reviews for the ones I read as a kid, as best as I can remember them at least...

It Came From Beneath The Sink!

Goosebumps (original series) #30

This is the big one. The one that started it all. The first Goosebumps book I ever read. The one that got me into the series as a kid. And to this day still one of my favorites.

This story of a girl who moves into a new house and finds a living sponge-like creature under her kitchen sink called a Grool, which then binds itself to her life-force and becomes a living bad luck charm that she can’t get rid of without dropping dead, really freaked me out as a kid. I think the most effective part of this monster was that it was more of a force of nature than an actual monster. It wasn’t something you could fight. It wasn’t something chasing you around trying to kill you. It was just... there... making your life a living hell... and there wasn’t anything you could do about it.

Night Of The Living Dummy

Goosebumps (original series) #7

This was another book about a monster that didn’t want to kill you. It just wanted to make your life miserable. Although this one wasn’t as effective as the Grool from the last book. In fact, it’s not even Slappy, despite him being on the cover of the book. This is like a Friday the 13th, where the main villain of the series isn’t the villain in the first book. The villain in this one was a totally different dummy named Mr. Wood. Slappy doesn’t even come to life until the last page of the book. And while it’s my understanding that Mr. Wood is at least a little bit more of a threat than Slappy ever was, (I haven’t actually read any of the books with Slappy in them, but I’ve read about them) he still isn’t nearly as frightening as the Grool.

Oh no! Mr. Wood wants me to be his slave and if I don’t do what he says he’s going to get me in trouble with my parents! What will I ever do? Oh, right... He’s just a wooden dummy, so I guess I’ll take him out to a construction site and throw him in front of a steamroller. Huh... That was easy enough...

I’m glad this wasn’t the first Goosebumps I ever read or it may have also been the last.

The Girl Who Cried Monster

Goosebumps (original series) #8

Most people don’t realize it, but when you read between the lines, this is actually the only Goosebumps book told from the perspective of the antagonist. Unless you count Go Eat Worms... But I would probably consider that more as the perspective of a little shit head instead of the perspective of the antagonist. This one is the story of a young girl who lures a kindly librarian to his death just because he happened to be a monster. He wasn’t a bad monster. He wasn’t doing anything other than eating bugs and the occasional turtle, all of which he purchased with his own money to be used as food... He was just a monster. That’s all... A monster living his life, working a nine to five, and helping children find books. And our protagonist got him killed with the hopes of reward for rooting out and getting rid of a monster. And the twist ending is that she and her family were secretly monsters as well!

This is pretty much the same story as How I Met My Monster, which I just covered in my last review. In fact I’m pretty sure that one was meant to be a retelling of this. Although this one works better when you get to the ending and realize that the protagonist was just an evil little shit who killed an innocent man so her parents would let her stay up late, as opposed to a monster who didn’t realize he was a monster because of convoluted rules that apparently didn’t even matter.

Deep Trouble

Goosebumps (original series) #19

I was so disappointed in this book as a kid. Not because it was a bad book per say... But because I expected it to be a shark book! There is a flipping shark on the cover! I wanted a shark book! Instead I got a book about two kids and their uncle capturing a mermaid and then almost getting killed by generic “bad guys” who wanted the mermaid for themselves. Now that I’m older I’m able to realize it wasn’t really bad. It was one of those man is the real monster stories, which were all the rage back in the 90s. And for what it was, it wasn’t bad. But I still wanted a shark book... I mean, there was a shark in it. For like, two pages... But with a cover like that I call false advertisement.

Attack Of The Jack-O’-Lanterns

Goosebumps (original series) #48

You know what was more disappointing than Deep Trouble? This book. This one was absolute garbage. The first half of the book was just an endless stream of “And that’s what happened last Halloween” followed by “And that’s what happened the Halloween before that.” And so on and so on... You have to get half way through the book before the story even starts, and then when the story does start, it’s just some weird Jack-O’-Lantern headed creatures forcing some kids to walk without rest for hours on end. I guess if you think walking is scary it might be okay... But I’m pretty sure a never ending night of trick or treating is a dream come true for most kids... not something they are scared of...

I actually had to force myself to finish this one, and I didn’t enjoy it...

Ghost Camp

Goosebumps (original series) #45

There were actually a lot of Goosebumps books set in Summer Camp. It’s probably R.L. Stine’s second most used trope (the first being moving into a new house). Kind of makes me wonder if Stine had some kind of traumatic experience at a summer camp as a kid... But despite there being so many books with this setting, this was the only one I read. (Something I plan to fix.) And as far as Goosebumps goes... It’s okay... JUST okay...

I know the cover shows a girl at a camp full of ghosts, but the story is actually about two brothers, Harry and Alex, who go to summer camp where they later find out everyone else there is a ghost. I’m just going to pretend that girl on the cover is actually Alex and Alex is a trans girl. Yeah... The book couldn’t say it because it was the 90s and that wasn’t acceptable in children’s fiction at the time, so they had to use the cover art to sneak it in. That’s my headcanon and you can’t change my mind!

And of course the ghosts are all bound to the summer camp and can’t leave on their own so they have to lure living children in and possess them so they can leave and live the kids’ lives in their place. Too bad the ghosts are too busy fighting over who gets to possess the kids that they end up killing each other and the kids are able to escape...

Although now that I think about it... Harry almost got possessed by a ghost named Lucy. So maybe we did have a trans character in this book... I mean, that was a girl ghost who was pretty eager to live the rest of her new life as a boy.

The Headless Ghost

Goosebumps (original series) #37

This is another one where I’m glad this wasn’t the first Goosebumps I ever read. Actually I think this may have been the second one I read, and wow... I’m glad It Came From Beneath The Sink was as good as it was or I probably would have given up after this one...

I don’t even remember much about it. Just that it was really boring and kind of hard to follow. I know there were two kids visiting one of those haunted house tours and then they decided to sneak away from the tour group and spend the night in the house after closing time, or something like that... I think they wanted to find the head of the famous Headless Ghost... for reasons... I’m pretty sure the book was just the two of them stumbling around scaring themselves all night until actual ghosts show up at then end. Oh, and the tour guides were also secretly ghosts. I remember that much... But yeah, this one wasn’t good enough to leave any lasting impressions in my memory.

Night In Werewolf Woods

Give Yourself Goosebumps #5

While I don’t remember a lot about this one either, it did leave one lasting impression in my memory. It was the first time I ever made it to the good ending in a choose your own adventure style book and it was pretty epic. Oh and actually... This one was kind of a summer camp book, so I guess I have read more than just Ghost Camp. Although it’s not a traditional summer camp. This is more like a family camping trip at a national park kind of thing, but they are there on vacation so I assume it’s summer. It’s summer and you’re camping. That’s close enough to summer camp for me...

In this one you (because you are the protagonist in all the Give Yourself Goosebumps books) and your family and your geeky friend are camping in this national park kind of place, but some other kids steal your friend’s D&D miniatures. You go after them, but oh no! Those kids are werewolves! Maybe they wanted the miniatures for their werewolf only D&D night?

Anyways, what follows is a you choose adventure lost in the woods being hunted by werewolves and all kinds of other batshit insane encounters. These books were always totally nuts with some of the endings and I loved them for that. If you get the good ending you end up beating the werewolves with the D&D minis, which okay... is kind of silly... But I still thought it was epic because it was the first time I ever managed to find the good ending in one of these books.

Escape From The Carnival Of Horrors

Give Yourself Goosebumps #1

I recently revisited this book and gave a full review of it here.

Deep In The Jungle Of Doom

Give Yourself Goosebumps #11

Cool fish monster on the cover? Young Helen Arlet was sold on this shit right away! And on man... imagine my joy when I found out this book involves you eating a weird fruit and actually turning into that fish monster and going though the book like that. This one was a dream come true. Although to be honest I’m having trouble remembering a lot of what actually happened in it. I think there was an evil troll in the book who was after me at one point? But fuck it, I’m a bad ass fish monster!

I have a copy of this sitting on my bookshelf so I’ll go back and refresh myself on it at some point.

Werewolf Skin

Goosebumps (original series) #60

I was actually 14 when this one came out and pretty much done with Goosebumps by that point, but I still remember picking it up and having a look at it because it was another werewolf book and I was big on werewolves. But I’m not going to give a mini review on this because this is one of the next couple of books I plan to give a full review on. (After I re-read it to refresh my memory.) So you’ll just have to wait for that.

[darkzorua100]

Playmaker won, Bohman lost, Bohman used Storm Access in a Master Duel (f*ck off) and the episode ends with Playmaker and Soulburner having to log out (really f*ck off).

*long annoyed sigh* Really I should have known better for who was going to end up winning this duel but seriously Vrains? The amount of bullsh*t you are having these characters do nowadays is really getting ridiculous. Bit and Boot having two Skills I can understand since they are two people (still cheating though), Soulburner beating Go because of a scripting error happens every once in a while in a Yu-Gi-Oh series but it is still cheating, Soulburner pulling freaking Super Poly out of his ass is just bad writing all together but Bohman using a Skill, not just any skill, Playmaker’s skill of all things, in a Master Duel, really takes the cake. I love how they don’t even try and explain how he can even do that. And then there was the ending to this whole mess with the whole place glitching out which forced Playmaker and Soulburner to leave. So like Ghost Girl and Blue Girl’s mission, this whole thing was completely pointless. I knew there was no way in hell they were going to allow them to continue on. If they did, they would meet up with their boss and it is to soon to reveal who that person is. This really is just lazy writing. If they seriously wanted them to be forced out, Playmaker should have just lost with Soulburner rescuing him before he could have been captured or something!

I’m sorry for my rant but the duel and the ending to this episode sucked. I just wanted to get that out of the way before I talked about the things I did like about this episode. If you take out the bad parts, it was actually pretty good plot wise since we got a few things revealed and foreshadowed in this episode.

This is my baby. I claim evil little Yusaku as my own. I really wish I knew how to freaking work Photoshop. I would turn this image of Yusaku into Dark Signer!Yusaku in a matter of seconds.

But no seriously, I loved this scene. Like we all know Bohman is lying, regardless of the fact that he thinks he is telling the truth, but I felt so bad for the “real” Yusaku during this. Just to have your life completely stolen from you by a clone is bad enough but for the clone to turn around and smile like that had to be the final nail in the coffin. 

And the thing about this whole thing is that even after this duel was over and done with, we still don’t have a definitive answer if the Yusaku we have been watching for a year now is a clone of the real one of not. The same can be said with the rest of the children and that’s what I find so interesting. Playmaker also said something that I feel like is foreshadowing something major down the line.

“If someone can imprint fake memories. there’s a chance my memories were replaced too.”

This duel might have been stupid but it really has introduced something amazing. We honestly can’t trust anyone. Anyone in this show could have had their memories altered or replaced at some point or another and they wouldn’t even know it. Add in the cloning subplot to the Hanoi Project and it really brings into question who is telling the truth of not. Ai said it himself. You can’t check to know if someone’s memories are fake or not. Brings a whole new meaning to a “Wolf in Sheep’s Clothing” huh? This really can lead to some amazing plot twists if this is done right.

And then my favorite part of the episode, pretty sure everyone’s favorite part of the episode from what I’ve been seeing, baby Datstormshipping meeting! Holy crap, Kogami you asshole! I knew you were an asshole before but you seriously even used Ryoken as your way to kidnap these kids?! I admit, that is a smart way of doing it but wow. I have to make some major changes to Nemesis now great -_- Also, Yusaku is smart so how the heck did he not put two and two together sooner when it came to who Ryoken actually was because of this? The Stockholm Syndrome was clouding his mind apparently (guess Yusaku and Spectre have more in common then we thought). Anyway, if this is anything to go by, Ryoken has met all of the kids and really is the one responsible for the Hanoi Project beginning in the first place. Wow, Kusanagi is really going to murder Ryoken now. Then there is Takeru and oh boy...okay seriously, Ryoken is back in the picture. Revolver vs Soulburner when?

I also love how I was right on the money when I said that Yusaku was going to use Ryoken as a way to prove that Bohman was full of sh*t. 

Playmaker: Okay, if you are me, who kidnapped us?

Bohman: Dr. Kogami of course!

Playmaker: Yeah, you are a fake. It was my boyfriend.

Bohman: You mean my boyfriend?

Playmaker: ...

Ai: Oh you shouldn’t have said that...

*Playmaker perceives to murder Bohman with Cyberse Clock Dragon*

Tell me this wasn’t what happened XD

Then we have the preview and holy crap, the males in the Knights look like they are apart of a boy band in this shot LMAO That is amazing. Just walking into the prison like they own the place. At least Ryoken is. 

I’m really glad that this actually isn’t in a Link Vrains’ prison. We need more real life action, especially from the Knights. Hopefully we get to learn Spectre and Genome’s real names during this episode as well. Also I find it interesting that Yusaku said in the preview that “Revolver is making his move” so could this be hinting at a Yusaku and Ryoken reunion at the end of this episode or will Yusaku just learn about the breakout? If so, what will he do with this info? His group still needs to rescue Jin but it makes me wonder if Yusaku is going to insist on going after Ryoken first which will also cause some cracks to form between him and Kusanagi if the end of today’s episode hasn’t already. 

Oh I can’t wait for next week. As much as I hope for that Datastormshipping reunion, the thing I really want to see happen is the Knights kicking some ass and especially Ryoken holding someone at gun point. You can’t just name the guy “Revolver” and give him gun dragons and not have him go nuts during a prison break.