#captalisim

[dunbrine47]

Looks like the charging port on my Galaxy A15 bit the dust. My usual trick of canned air is not working and multiple cables are not either. JFC, I've only had that phone for a year and three months. Edit: I guess I did not can air hard enough (for now).

[popculturebuffet]

Monthly Muppet Madness: Survival Street Review: Brought to You by the Letter's F and C for Fuck Captalisim (Comission for WeirdKev27)

Today's review is courtsey of viewers like you.. specifically you. Kevin. Thank you

Hello all you happy people and welcome back to Monthly Muppets Madness, my look at all things muppety. And after last month's adventure with mean green mother's from outer space, we're back to more felty corners of the muppet globe with Surivial Street, a 4 issue mini series from 2022 by the writing team of James Asmus and Jim Fesante with art by Abbylay Kussainov.

Asmus is a longtime comic book writer whose work I have read before with his decent runs on Gambit, Quantum and Woody and All New Inhumans. He also co-wrote the second arc of Robert Kirkman's Thief of Theives. So while not someone I seek out, he's a solid writer.

As you can guess by the title and that awesome cover, Survival Street is a parody of Seasame Street, though heavily on the affectionte side: it's very clear from the writing Asmus really loves the show and it's goals of free education for children who might not have acess to it and teaching love and kindness are core to this book.

That said Survival Street is also over the top as hell. It's messages are as subtle as a brick to the head saying "Corproations Bad' and a lot of the book can come off as

Okay some are.. but most of them probably aren't going to listen to their bullshit being called out in the first place, let alone by muppets. The question is can this book ballance it's over the top satire with it's heart, fairly well thought out characters and comedy? Find out under the cut won't you?

We open with America: A Timeline. In 2025 in this timeline, Jury's out on ours, the Supreme Court voted to make Corporations able to run for public office. Naturally this backfired and soon corprations pulled their money out from other candidates and ran themselves, and by 2028 they've taken over the country, privitazed everything and in our proper oppening scene, invade Salutation Street, our Seasame Street expy and shut it down. It's also clear there's rampant anti-muppet xenophobia in this universe, something that will only grow worse as we cut to present day: 2031, in New Best America TM.

It's in this new corprate hellscape we meet our heroes who are traveling around america in an RV. Driving it is an expy of Gordon, Mr. Burton whose dealing with a checkpoint. As it turns out though roads are now privitazed and upon seeing a family hassled over this, our grover stand-in, Herbert decides to take a more hands on approach

This does save the people there.. but is quickly used as propoganda by the local fox news stand in. Because of a course a corporate hellscape still has fox news, every hellscape needs one or it's just not a hellscape. Their anchor is Irma, our ernie stand in, who spouts out the usual racist drivel but about muppets this time. I do like the touch of having the two headed monster be their right and left wing commentators.

We then ove to the a-plot: Junior, the president is auctoning off detained children of illegal immigrants to the highest bidder in florida, with our heroes sneaking in to stop this via the global warming flooded ocean outside.

I mean a bunch of rich assholes auctoning off children is both plausable and has likely actually happened, but it dosen't make that funny or entertaining. Junior himself is, from saying his assitant asking about his medication he stole from his daughter is a HIPPA violation to how over the top he is and it keeps things from being too GET IT GET IT CAPTALISIM BAD GET IT. It's enoguh to take me out but not enoguh to make me leave.

So our ABC team break in and we properly meet them all as they make their way through. And since the comic has really fun intro captions for each of them...

Their leader, Bert stand in and the one holding the brain cell

Kind to a fault and mostly a "master of disguise" because he's the only human they have.

Like Burton we've seen him before. Explosives expert with a short fuse. ANd god I love that gag: it's so damn dark and it should not work but it does.

Our Cookie Monster with traces of Zoey given the pigtails. I also thought Elmo but we'll meet our equilvent for him in isue 3. Kind, good at inflitration but struggling with staying clean.

Our big bird, a good strong boy whose basically big bird if he was a grown man and could also suplex you.

Their tech guy and oscar the grouch.

Our heroes begin their plan once they get it: THey found about this thanks to a fellow muppet calling for help, so now their inside they can excute the plan: Gurgle and their inside man will use card scanners that burton stole and rigged to steal all the money from the auction, explaning how they keep funded when public funding no longer exists. Hippy resuces the prisoners using his massive strength to free the kids and his kindness to help calmly guide them out, and Herbert.. nearly snaps and kills everyone and everything in his path after finding out these bastards are using the children for their organs. Thankfully Birdie is able to calm him down in one of my faviorite jokes of the mini

It's what makes this work: while the satire is about as subtle as a chainsaw through your front door wielded by a screaming goat man, the muppets in the thick of it.. still ACT like muppets on seasame street. They still have the same kindness and sensiblities.. it's just tempered into bloody action by being the only source of hope and freedom in a dystopian hellscape.

Birdie and Tony set up signal jammers so they can hyjack the procedings.. only to find out that Irma is here, gladly promoting this shit show like any republican. Birdie is naturally just the slightest bit livid her ex is promoting child organ farming but she soon has bigger issues.... desert is being served early.. and ice cream is present.

And with that Gurgle is exactly no days sober of ice cream and shit officallly hit the fan. On the bright side Shit is our word of the day. So at least there's that. Anyways our heroes are soon outgunned and out manned, with Birdie barely saving gurgle by tearing herself open and using her string to sew her up, but the two are soon cornered and Birdie does the whole save yourself i'll hold them back routine. Thankfully , Herbet dosen't listen well and when , as seen in the panels above, told not to go out loud.. he didn't listen. He rigged the place with explosives, blows up the wall holding out the water real good and floods the bitch. Our heroes valantly escape, but not before Hippy beats the every loving shit out of Junior, showing he may be nice but he has limits.

Birdie however makes a late exit as she and Irma have some words, with Birdie hyjacking her limo. So Birdie, needing some answers... asks irma a very important question

I love this page.. mostly for making Irma a more complex villian. She could easily jsut be "birdies very obvious ex who sold out"... but you see she's just someone who got broken by the fact that nothing they did mattered. She's still not a good person: she still sold out muppetkind for her own profit and is still bad.. but it's more intresting to hav ea reason why she ended up the sack of shit she is instead of just, as Birdie wondered, always having been like this.

Birdie isn't swayed and goes on with the rest of our heroes.

Issue 2. I love the structure of this series as the first three issues are all made so they can be read done in one for the most part. Ther'es a cliffhanger at the end of issue 3 but it's nice when a comic makes good use of the isdsue by issue format. Issue 4 ties it all together well, but it's still essentailly three connected stories that lead up to one big finish.

Anyways issue 2 begins with our heroes hiding in a church under a hail of gunfire: Burton and the RV are halfway across town, and it dosen't look good. We flash back to how they got there and find out WHERE they are: Hollow Point, a company town ran by the WRA, the NRA's legally distinct cousin. Yup this is a gun rights issue, with the town having become a conceal and carry paradise where people can just.. have gun duels to decide whatever and Charlton heston is naturally given an honrary statue.. and Clint Eastwood an expy in Cain Westwood.

The head of the WRA is present and naturally gives a gun to a baby.. and the satire works a BIT better this issue as frankly.. none of it's exagerated. The NRA GENUINELY want this, they genuinely talk about crying "lib tears". Clint Eastwood is an advocate for them. Their extremists probably would argue the right ot carry begins at conception. I"m not saying ALL gun owners or even nra members are this fucked, I have a friend who owns guns and keeps them in a safe, locked up where no child can get to it. But the NRA as an orginzation sure as hell is.

Our heroes try using this dueling strategy to call the WRA chairman's bluff.. but he turns it on them: since their basically challenging the law itself witht heir duel they've challenged the orginzation.. which means it's 5 muppets against a whole damn town armed to the teeth.

We then get a flashback to Herbert's childhood on M'Na N'Nam, part of the snufflpogaos islands. A muppet paradise.. until a shady buisness man shows up offering a partnership for a chemical they can find on the island.

I'm going to go ahead and cover all of this now for simplicties sake as the flashback's only two parts: Years later their leader.. has shown her true colors, fully selling out to ethe corpration and the mine as it's poinsing her people and end sup casuing an explosin.. and rather than help , the company pulls out, leaving the villiage to die in fire and Herbert forced to immigrate, barely scraping by thanks to racisim until he got the job on Salutation Street.. only to find out later his parents died on the island. It's a well done story too as horrible things like this happened all the time and without the hyper exagerated satire... it's something entirely real and entirley painful: a culture exploited and destroyed by greedy white assholery.

Back in the present the fight continues, as our heroes are held down. Thankfully Hippy and Gurgle make a distraction and do one of my faviorite manuvers: having the smaller characteer on the bigger characters shoulder. Mostly for this one scene from x-factor

Sadly Flint Westwood decides to join the party.. as does anamatronic charlton heston, so our heroes are soon on the backfoot... but not before Tony is able to complete his plan, hyjacking their cars and easily taking down the mob since, naturally their cars are also mad max murder mobiles. As for the head of the HRA himself.. well given he's sorta the lead this issue.. Herbet takes care of him personally.

He then challenges the man to a duel, though Birdie IS able to talk him down from shooting the man on live tv... but not from killing him as he shoots out the camera and impliclity finished the job offscreen.

But that leaves a vacum.. and Westwood is promoted to the job.. and given the job to hunt down our heroes. More on that later

So issue 3 introduces us to Milo, our Elmo expy. He's rich and like irma is working in the corprate hellscape. Unlike her though he's still in kids television , still talks to the others even if things are understandibly tense with most of them, and while reluctant to their request has a good reason for both taking the seemingly easier route and being reluctnat to help.

It's a scene I love a lot. Milo comes off at first like a smug asshole.. but then it's clear beneath that is someone who GENUINELY values what he's doing. It's a reminder of how important children's intertainment is... and how important it is that when you have the power to do something good and necessary, you do it, regardless of the risk.

Our heroes go to rescue the kids, who are fire fire fighters and make a good entrance enough, coming in in a garbage made recycled buggy, saving them.. but soon our party is left trecking through the wild fire. THey got in thanks to milo's friends, but it was one way. So while Gurgle finds an ice cream truck, the kids tell their tale: turns out in this dystopian hellhole future they outlawed abortion.... keep in mind this comic launched just two months after Roe V Wade was overturned, so the timing is eerie as hell. The kid they talk two's mother didn't want her born into this hellscape, got arrested for it and she got sold to corproations using her as a proxy for their crimes. The fact any of this sounds like it could become actual law at some point should spoeak to how horrifying it is. While this book isn't subtle, and it's a weakness.. it's strength is that Asmus goes just a TOUCH beyond what we have now after the first issue. The first issue is plausable, but a bit over the top. With the nra having a whole lawless western town or children being sold into slavery to work off corprate crimes... it's a lot more plausable given how fucked our legal system is and it makes it that much easier to buy.

Our heroes naturally wepp at this waking nightmare, so it's a good thing they get distracted.. the bad thing is that it's by Gurgle, trying to save her from more fire. Birdie gets horribly injured in the process and needs help NOW.

Things.. look bad as they hit a corprate checkpoint, by the same monsters that turned off the water the fire kids were using, and there's no hope of escape or out shooting them. This causes the team to break down playing the blame game.. which is bad enough.. until HIPPY of all people breaks.

This.. destroyed me. Up to this point Hippy had been the unbreakable optimis they needed.. but now .. we see that beneath his sunshine is a lot of regret, a lot of doing this because he had nothing else and feeling what thier doing.. simply isn't enough. But Mr. Burton's message is right.. and it's the messasge the book goes for: things are bad, they will probably get worse.. but we can't just give up and do nothing. As a wise vampire once said "If nothing we do matters, all that matters is what we do". And to prove that point.. an old friend drops in to help

So the asholes are left to die, Milo implicitly adopts the kids having them play in his pool and Birdie wants to see them all.. only Gurgle's missing, having left in Milo's tesla. Because of course he has a tesla. Gurgle's gone.. and she's gone to the enemy

I was nervous going into this one when I first read it. The fact is this book while optimistic is still fairly dark so while I felt our heroes MIGHT win, they could just as easily loose or barely get away.

They could... but instead we get something way better.

Though to start things aren't looking great: Rufus, head of F News, is talking to a bunch of other corprate overlords including Elon Musk, suprising no one. THeir not happy that his propoganda machine isn't keeping the puppets from having an impact: Junior is facing public backlash for his child selling, the babies carrying firearms bill has been blocked.. this needs to stop. So the network cranks up i'ts proogranda, with anti-muppet racisim rising and a a puppet child attacked by some other kids. When one human girl tries to help him she gets maced.. thankfully

Things still aren't great: Birdie's recovering and Faux News trots out Gurgle.. and somehow makes a valid point, making them somehow have a point abovfe the actual fox news: apparently Gurgle used to be called "Sundae Fiend". While she says "it was a diffrent time" being remidned of it clearly bothers her.. while Rufus wants more answers: where. are. your friends.

And it seems he got them as we see a heavily armed WRA troops, with junior and westwood along for the ride and livestreaming the whole debalce. Turns out the Muppets main hq is a Salutation Station theme park. Not disneyland as Senator Disney does not want to be associated iwth muppet terrorists... again. That was their joke by the way, great stuff. Also means we might meet kermit and friends counterparts if this ever gets a sequel.

What follows.. is one of the most awesome cilmaxes to an arc i've seen in a comic. Turns out... our heroes were ready for them: they aren't the ones trapped... the WRA are. Not only that for once it's entirely legal: since Salutation Street is it' sown corpration, the park is soverign terriotiry and they entered illegally. So after all their racist, anti-immigraint retoric.. their the ones who are the actual invaders.. and are soon wiped out with rides, from a cyclotron type thing spinning some to oblivion.

To the recyling troll melting a bunch of mooks with acid and recyling Charlton Hestron into scrao abd cumilating in a one on one brawl between Bernie and Westwood which ends with Bernie killing the motherfucker via rollercoaster

The moment after it is easily my faviorite of the whole book though, with Bernie confronting the mooks left

It's a reminder that while Bernie is the quickest to kill among them, easily.. he's still a kind, good person. Just one who will cap your ass when necessary.

Faux News TRIES to use Gugle to get the narrtive under contorl.. but as you likely guessed by now, she too was part of the plan

I fucking love this issue for the setup: you EXPECT it to be our heroes darkest hour and them to barely make it out or Gurgle to at least still be a traitor.. instead? It was a plan the whole time: Gurgle finally kicked her addiction after last issue, our heroes easily take out their enemies with the home field advantage and to cap it off, we get one hell of a chekovs gun: earlier we saw mascot suits... so Birdie sends junior out, his mouth taped up in one with the recording to talk. THey shoot him down thinking hie's hippie.. and thus the presiden't sson whose also the president I guess is dead, everyone involved int he raid is entirley to blame and our heroes just got free publiclity showing THIER not the bad guys here. We wrap up as Irma flees to her dressing room... only to find a letter from birdie

And that's survivial street. It's heavy handed.. but damn if it isn't good. The jokes present land, the action is beautifully drawn and the characters are compelling. It takes what COULD'VE been a lazy joke premise, and fills it with heart and character, deconstructing PARTS of seasame street.. while at the same time remaining true to it's spirit. It's out in trade from darkhorse if your intrested, I HIGHLY recommend picking it up. And hopefully we'll see more of it again some day. But for now, we got something specil here and i"m glad I got to share it with you all.

[aidontdraw]

I think we need to cut Naruto some slack when it comes to him perpetuating the system he grew up in. Naruto shows the most realistic way of dismantling a system in fiction. It's not a Dystopain YA Novel where after the hero kills the bad dictator everything magically gets better. It's a complex series that shows the harsh realities of systems like this.

One thing we have to remember when considering Naruto being the Hokage, is that while he is "perpetuating the cycle" of hatred, it's still the best option. Naruto is actively dismantling the shinobi system as Hokage. By maintaining peace with the other villages, the shinobi system is dying, and we know this from the final chapter.

Tenten can not make a profit selling ninja tools. With the symbolism we get throguh out the series that ninja are tools of war. We're bassicly being told there is no need for shinobi any more.

Naruto can not break the Cycle of Hatred with violence, if that worked, the cycle would have been over centuries ago. The same way Rome was not built in a day, it wasn't destroyed in a day either. You can not destroy a system quickly, especially since this violence is their primary source of income. They need to slowly transition these ninja into other job fields. Otherwise, you just get the Akatsuki again.

I think we forget, Naruto technically grew up in a time of peace. The Thrid Shinobi war ended a year before he was born, and all the villages chose to do a disarmament. However, that just created more problems. With out a steady streem income coming in, villages had to go to extreme measures. Some where on the break of failing, and all of their people literally dying.

Powerful shinobi, like Zabuza & all the members of the Akatsuki didn't have any income from their villages coming in. So Zabuza had to work with the Demon Brothers in order to put food on his plate. Like yeah, we could argue that he could have just gotten a job at non-Ninja McDonald's. But he's essentially a war veteran at age 15, with no other marketable skills than war. His best option for money was to use his skills to further captalisim.

The Akatsuki was able to rise in power because the villages could no longer afford to raise the type of Ninja required for certain missions any more. It became cheeper and more effective to hire the Akatsuki than to hire ninja from a village.

80,000 shinobi fought in the Fourth Ninja War, 10,000 died, that leaves us with roughly 70,000. That's just ninja from the Five Great Villages, there are ninja from other villages. This means if Ninjas as an occupation were to magically end that's at least 70,000 people who need to find new jobs, not including all of the industries who create the tools to support the military complex. This sudden ending could cause a massive issue toppling economy. And, boo-hoo the economy, except that's how people gain the resources they require to live.

In Gaara's book, we read that Suna doesn't even have adequate maternity wings in their hospital and their people struggle to eat after the Fourth Shinobi War. We are forced to sit with the reality of what a failing system actually means to its people. Because of how isolated Suna is we can only assume it gets worse. I'm suprised they even exist in Boruto with how bad we're told it is.

Then we have to consider the cultural loss. These people will lose their connection to their culture. Techniques will have no more use to be passed down. Yes, these techniques are murder, but they are still thousand year old traditions that will no longer exist. Which is sad.

Theres also the potential of more genocide, it's what happened after the Thrid Shinobi War. Essentially, the clans realized they wernt getting paid by the villages any more and started gaining outside power again. Because the village system was only 50ish years old at that point, it was relatively easy. Unfortunately it put a target on their backs, and they were genocided. So that's another fear you have to work with with dismantling this system. Some people like the system and want it to continue, so they can make money to live.

In Boruto, we see they aren't even having kids at replacement levels. Each character, besides Naruto, bassicly has one kid. If we think about Sasukes goal to revitalize his clan, how's he going to do that with only one child. What we can assume is, they know the systems dying, so they aren't bothering to make enough kids to fill that system.

Naruto is dismantling the system, it just takes time and has a lot of moving parts. He's only been Hokage for 3-5 years at the start of Boruto. It's barely long enough to make any significant change.

Naruto is also only 33. That is incredibly young. Like insany young. Like he's not even old enough to be president of the United States of America young. So he had a long road ahead of him to make the changes he wanted to see in the world.

Thinking about Naruto

The day you realize Naruto and all his friends are child soldiers being raised by child soldiers— you aren’t watching the same show twice anymore. The cycle of violence never ends because you raise child soldiers to forfeit their humanity in a nationalist society.

Don’t get me wrong— as Naruto gets older and understands more— he is able to break pieces of that cycle. He never escapes it though.

Naruto was a leader amongst his peers because he didn’t comply with apathy. Naruto let his empathy guide him throughout the world. In the society he lives in— empathy is a radical concept.

When you really think about the values the shinobi world drills into their citizens: unemotional, lethal force, and nationalism— Naruto’s desire to see others and understand them is defiant of those values.

Naruto’s capacity and willingness to see others as individuals first and strive to understand, and then see them as from another nation second separates him from the rest. Naruto’s empathy and love for humanity gives him the ability for open dialogue with people he thought of as enemies (Zabuza, Haku, Nagato, Gaara). He is able to cry for his enemies ( again— zabuza, haku, gaara, and sasuke). He is has the capacity for forgiveness and growth. Through these radical (in this society) concepts of empathy, understanding, forgiveness— Naruto changed people for the better. He changed his nation for the better.

He never breaks free though. Naruto becomes the hokage and continues the cycle. His village still raises child soldiers (in less harsh values)— he promotes incorporating empathy and extending your understanding outside of your own nation. The violence still continues. He still facilitates a violence society in raising these child soldiers— he is not the only one— gaara and the other kages are right along with him.

The show feels very different when you realize that Kakashi was a victim of a system that raised victims of a system— that went on to raise more victims of a system. The show feels different. Suddenly it’s not just a shonen battle anime with bright colors and cool concepts. It becomes thought provoking and reflects realities of a society and continuous cycles. Brilliant writing. Dark and layered undertones.

[tropicana-on-the-walkway]

Ugh do I go to college and get a dead end job i hate and don't get respected for minimum wage and be 100s of thousands of dollars in debt or do i go straight into the work force and get a dead end job i hate and don't get respected for minimum wage

[strangeauthorarchive]

walmart sucks cause its everything that i hate about captalisim and its run by pure evil people but i literally have nowhere else to go to get groceries and stuff and they have such a huge monoply and i fucking hate it i hate walmart and i hate capitalism

[startrek-rewatch]

The Last Outpost

TNG Season 1, Episode 5

The Last Outpost:

The Enterprise encounters a race known as the Ferengi, a race believed to be more pirates, than traders. But, in the course of pursuit, all power is lost in the ship, just as the alien ship comes to bear. But surprising results await upon contacting the other ship.

Please feel free to reply or reblog with comment. These posts are just to give people a place to start discussion.

 LMFAO THEY ARE SHITTING ON CAPTALISIM WHILE DISCUSSING THE FERENGI AND THIS SHOW CONTINUES TO HAVE AMAZING SOCIAL COMMENTARY -aeryn

[aidontdraw]

No, this is accurate.

Pain & Konan are government officials. The taxes just go back to them anyway.

Itachi's still technically employed through Konoha, he's got a 1099 contract.

Kakuzu is a business man, and captalisim goes strong. Number one skills money laundering and tax evasion.

Tobi makes a new identity every few months to hide from the government.

Sisori too. He's got enough dead bodies laying around.

I will say, Hidan is a man of the church, he's exempt. No taxes in religion.

Didaria is a starving artist. Hes never made enough to qualify to pay for taxes anyway.

Can't tax a fish.

Can't tax aloe vera.

I present to you, the Akatsuki "Do They Pay Their Taxes" Scale

this came to me in a vision

(yes, I know as criminals, none of them are paying taxes, but please suspend your disbelief with me)

[dunbrine47]

Old post I made to myself but relevant for future posts:

It seems my new career coach is jumping on the "let's get you more hours" bandwagon in order to fix my poverty issues. For reference I make $17 and hour and work about 6.5 hours a shift give or take and work 3 to 4 days a week give or take. So let's break down why 17 an hour is not going to cut it and go on a side tangent of how I keep making less and less money post 2020/2021.

17*40 is 680. Let's take 20 percent for tax. 136. So 680 minus 136 is 544 a week. 544 times 52 is 28,288.

Going to reference my previous job, 637.5 was my weekly salary. This was after tax. 33,150 a year.

Now to reference during the pandemic times. 600 from the feds and 200 from my state's unemployment. 800 a week after tax came out to 41,600 a year.

While still not enough money to live on my own in NJ you do see the fucking joke I'm the receiving end on right? The DVRS and thier employment coach vendors (on a systemic level) are a fucking joke. My friend had a similar expirence. All they were able to get out of it was a part time job they burned out of in a few months and have done fuck all for the past year plus.

But that does not matter, "let's get down to business, and apply to EVERYTHING on Indeed. We have no meaningful employment connections, come back when you are lower functioning". Jesus Motherfucking tap dancing Christ on a cracker.

[popculturebuffet]

Loud House Reviews: The Loudest Thanksgiving

It’s almost Thanksgiving! And a vastly diffrent one than in recent memory: Most of us are slimming down family gatherings to just whose in our house, you know because theirs a pandemic going on and it’s not worth risking your life for it. To those either guilting their families into it or doing so because MAGa or some such I only have this to say. 

Speaking of Black Friday i’ts spread over a week and it’s cyber deals mean I got a ton of graphic novels for a dollar a piece and my christmas shopping almost done. So in other words, boo Maga, yay safe and responsible captalisim.  But while the holiday may be diffrent, as well as the pseudo holiday attached that spawned a wonderful musical and many many injuries, one thing stays the same; Holiday Episodes. And despite being the less popular of the three holidays, Thanksgiving still produced tons of great holiday episodes and specials. And with everything being so busy I simply didn’t put too much thought into what to do for Turkey Day.. well okay the day proper i’m going to eat, spend time with family and watch a bunch of mystery science theater 3000, stay the course even in these troubling times, just with only the 4 other people who live in my house. But in terms of episodes I thought i had nothing.. then I started actually thinking on it and what do you know I have three things I want to do for the holiday, though one might wait till next year, and possibly a fourth. But given my workload currently, i’m not one to back away from a challenge, so welcome to a three or four course meal of reviews. First course: The Loud House thanksgiving special, the loudest thanksgiving.  I originally wasn’t going to do this one, mostly because due to my large workload and constant battle with procastination, I keep having to push back the latest episode review, and I have to do that one soon, as there’s a new episode in december and a christmas episode i’ve put off watching for far too long , as I INTENDED to watch eleven louds a leapin for every chirstmas up till now and never got to it before the season was over.  But just like elven louds.. Nick forced my hand.. and by that I mean the SPINOFF got a thanksgiving episode that’s also a sequel in some fashion to this episode. If I wanted to cover that episode this thanksgiving or the next I had to at least watch the original. And frankly, this close to the holiday there was no reason not to review it. So with that out of the way. 

Let’s Get At Er. This is The Loudest Thanksgiving... after the break

The Loudest Thanksgiving takes place during season 3, and still pre-casagrandes spinoff launch despite the christmas special taking place earlier. This is actually easy to explain: The Loud House runs on Comic Strip time... i.e. the characters don’t age unless the writers decide they do. But while the spinoff was in motion at this point, it was still a season off airing wise, and ill advised raitings stunt mini series wise, so in order to keep the Casagrandes fresh in people’s minds presumably, they did a crossover that at this point wasn’t a crossover but now technically is because the show exists but this existed before the show. 

It’s just a show, and I should really just relax. Point is this is a pre-crossover crossover, the two families meet for the first time, the man already said pitter patter, let’s get back at er.  So we open with Flip serving as our magical snowman narrator and regaling us with the tale of steven. Every compastionate can you imagine it... and i’m fucking with you, it’s of course abotu that time the louds and the casagrandes tried having thanksgiving together. 

We then cut to Lori and Bobby being all cute, as usual, and both talking over the phone as each show off their thanksgivings to each other and the enusing family shenanigans. On Lori’s side Lynn is wearing baggy pants so she dosen’t miss the game or the meal by going to the bathroom.. because that’s how pissing yourself works. Look if your going to do something that gross, stupid and broish just woman up and wear an adult diaper. The twins are guarding Lynn sr and the food, poorly, and Lisa has invented a Gravy Squriting robot. I can only see this ending one way. 

Yeah those single function robots really get useless once the exestnetial crisis kicks in. 

On the casagrandes side, Rosa is likewise guarding her kitchen, Frida is painting and Hector plans to sernade eveyrone because Hector is the best and you all should know that. Even with the recent Bobby Abuse he’s still awesome. As for the Mercado, CJ and Ronnie Anne are running the annual canned food drive because CJ is better than the best and should really be used more often.  Both wish they could be there.. and both honestly talk about possibly spending thanksgiving with each other and just one of their family. It’s not a wild proposition: Both are going to college soon, both are in a longterm relationship.. they plan to get married down the line for now. If things hold they will eventually have to figure this out. Of course rather than fate let them figure this out themselves, Hector overhears on Bobby’s end and Lincoln, whose busy A Clock Work Oranging himself so he can stay awake during dinner, overhears on Loris, leading to an emergency family meeting for both sides.  Both families are worried their prospective teenager going to another house of their longterm significant other for one year will mean they get all the holidays. Having never had a relationship last long enough to worry about this, I don’t quite get it as in my experince watching couples juggle this.. they usually just alternate years, spoilers the solution the episode goes with, or trade off christmas and thanksgiving, both fair solutions. Buuut as much as this bothered me at first the more I thought about it the more it actually made sense: People.. aren’t always rational and won’t always do the smart or correct thing, especially when it comes to their children. And with Lori leaving college and the casagrandes being togehter for thanksgiving for the first time in about 5 years, with both ronnie anne and her mom not having had a proper one in some time due to her mom needing to work thanksgiving, presumibly because of the eternal curse of gravy chugging contests, they have valid emotional reasons to go a bit nuts and do some irrational and assholish things. They just don’t want to loose their big sister and big brother, and that’s fair. It may not be at all accurate but it’s fair. 

So thus began the great Guilt Off of 2018. ON the Loud side they START with a fairly soft pitch, the twins simply offer her food early, and she takes it because honestly I would too. Then again, i’d also take free food in just about any situation, so i’m not really a good gage for this. As long as it’s not poision i’ll probably eat it if it’s free. The next two are a little.. less subtle, with the kids talking about Lori’s roll in the annual thanksgiving skit.. which I’m assuming is soley for Lynn Sr. as no one else seems to be going to their thanksgiving. Which granted theirs valid explinations for why their neighbors didn’t go, the mcbrides and mr grouse have their own families and while Mr Grouse rarely gets to see his, he now has neighborly friends after the last holiday special happy to help. But Pop Pop.. makes no sense as his girlfriend, the only plausable reason he wouldn’t be there, was said to not have much family in her debut. So he’s just.. absent from thanksgiving for no reason. Thena gain we later find out this play is movie length, so maybe he was just trying to escape that which in that case, who can blame him. Rita almost reigns things back in with the mother’s trump card: parental guilt. Almost. She then almost crushes lori’s hand but it’s funny enough.  At the Casagrandes, their opening move is largely the same only Rosa wins in terms of execution, cooking up some of bobby’s faviorites to specificially target him. Frida paints him into a painting, again the Casagrandes win his one in terms of effort. They do tie in the last bit, as Maria and Ronnie Anne try the same sort of guilt slining with the same bone crushing.  Eventually both teens get fed up with the next bit; For Lori, Lucy gives her a long overdramatic poem about an empty chair which is easily tied with one bit later for best bit of hte episode.. which granted when I can only think of two or three gags that really made me laugh...

Bobby likewise gets Hector telling the story about a realitvie not going to thanksgiving. Both get angry.. which for Lori, isn’t all that suprising, if entirely warranted. For Bobby though? It’s like pissing off a dolphin. IT’s hard to do and very much not something you want to actually pull of. Both families are forced to admit they eavesdropped, and are incredibly worried about this whole situation, with Lynn Sr selling lincoln up the river for telling them... this man’s capacity for selling out his children is as awe insprising as it is truly pathetic. 

So the two teens go back to their rooms to figure something out and come upon a reasonable solution: just have one of the families host and both come to it. That’s more than fair. But given we still have a full special to pad out, both families are still treating this like a competion: while the louds win the coin toss, both sides are determined to win thanksgiving. IT’s far from the most insane contest i’ve seen this month, x of swords was happening and i’ve seen a russian yank a goblin out of the demonic alligator skin he was using as a puppet. And we don’t know for sure Arrakoa and Krakoa didn’t have a trial over a baby turkey being adorable as one of the challenges. Other challenges included getting drunk, an eating contest, telling someone to murder a kitten and a wedding, all of this is actual stuff that happened in this recent crossover, I have made up nothing. 

So after the break and Flip realizing oh shit the audience is back, the war begins. The Louds are preparing for war, with Lola putting out a picture of herself instead of bobby and laurie because of course.. still not a half bad gag. The Casagrandes arrive and in in a passive agressive move that was already done a year before this special by Brooklyn Nine Nine and better, brought their own food.. though the roast pig is a nice and unique touch. Points for that.  And this.. is where the special gets tedious. Yeah while the IDEA of this episode was really good and I was excited to cover it in practice it’s just similar gags on both sides done for both halves: The first being “let’s guilt them into staying” and the second being “Let’s one up each other” with only two bits really working: Frieda having a painting and the louds annual skit.  And the skit is because it raises a LOT of questions: Why is it 90 minutes, who played the adorable turkey in the years between babies? Was it just whoever was youngest? Who wrote this? Who is this for besides Lynn Sr and Pop Pop? Who all has sat through this thing at some point? Is that why the mcbrides don’t come over for thanksgiving? It’s just.. fantastic is what i’m saying.  

But otherwise this part is just the family trying to one up each other with food, or toasts, or song, before devolving into a big fight. What makes it not work is.. there isn’t a lot of personality there. You have these two big, plentiful, intresting casts, even at this stage with the Casagrandes far less established and fleshed out. And instead of finding interesting ways for them to play off one another meeting for the first time, and to use that to also flesh the characters out more for the inevitable spinoff, it’s just 

For most of the second half. Thankfully it DOES manage to bring things around as after things degenerate into a food fight, the families decide to just ASK the two of them where they want to go.. and find them entirely missing.  It then turns out, in a nice twist, this is where Flip came in. Since his place is the only place open 24/7 and 365, barring fishing season, Bobby and Lori fled here to flee their insane families.. who then follow them there because Carlos and Lisa have them chipped. I was suprised at first Carlos had a tracker on bobby but honestly, i’ts just common sense. The man is like a golden retriver in a man’s body. Here’s an artists interpretation

Both families breifly bicker before Lori and Bobby announce their starting their own family thankgiving with blackjack, and hookers. They really shouldn’t of let Flip in on the brainstorming session. Both families don’t want that, and apologize, admitting they just didn’t want to loose them and both genuinely offering to let the other have them next year. Flip, who despite having a “pay for my colonoscopy jar” with a picture of his ass on it, is somehow the voice of reason and just suggests trading thanksgivings every year, everyone accepts, and we do get a genuinely heartwarming ending of both sides gathering everything for a gas station thanksgiving. Honestly reminds me of king of the hill’s airport episode, but in a very good way and still unique enough circumstances to work.Also Flip, of all people, donates the cans needed to finish the can drive.. granted i’m not sure if they WANT any of that meat, but hey, he meant well and it made me really like the character.  We get a heartwearming duet between hector and luna and sono the whole family and we’re out. 

Final Thoughts: This was disapointing. I’ve listed most of my complaints already, but overall it wasted a good premise of two families coming together, and even the feud parts could’ve been funnier. As it is it’s just.. ehhhhhhhhhh. It has some good parts, and bobby is an angel here on earth as always. But the whole just feels padded. Like this was SUPPOSED to just be 11 minutes, got bumped up, and thus here we are. It’s not the worst Loud House has done, i’ve seen and heard of muccch worse, but for a holiday special it just feels stale and i’ve seen way better thanksgiving specials. And i’ll be getting to that.  If there’s an episode of a cartoon you’d like me to cover, just pop in my ask box or dms and you can comission a review for 5 bucks a piece. Discounts on bulk, 15 for movies. Until then , happy thanksgiving.

[ixnova]

1. Do you fact check things bro because

2. You realize I joke when I say cult bc Viacom is major captalisim player and captalisim is bad.

3. Neopets site literally has links to nick jr and shit bc of being owned by same company. Ive never seen a trace of jumpstart on the site in my lifetime.

[dunbrine47]

Probably going to push the stream to Fri. Captalisim kicking my ass again.

[dunbrine47]

Quick update: Still alive, either been busy with friends, Captalisim kicking my ass or recovering from Captalisim.

The next stream will not likely be tomorrow. It will likely be sometime in the 2nd week of September.

The topic will be a recap stream of my time at Fursonacon.

That's right, I finally get to go to a furcon after a lot of missed opportunities this year.

I will be attending FSC on the 30th and 31st. Feel free to say hi. If you don't know what I look like IRL just look for the badge with Salty on it.

[tropicana-on-the-walkway]

Why must i commit to a profitable job and further society , is it not enough to live in a van and play the guitar

[launturnforest]

Captalisim is cancer

Do y’all ever just get ANGRY about how cool technology is inevitably used for evil. Like, smart homes could be such an exciting concept?

Imagine: your home is entirely voice activated. You can run yourself a bath when you’re exhausted and sore without having to get up to turn the water on. You can alleviate your anxiety about having left the stove on without having to leave work. The roomba can find your glasses for you when you drop them and all you have to do is ask.

Now imagine that this is all on a closed circuit! Your TV can predict what shows you’ll like, but it won’t give that information to a company that will use it for disturbingly specific advertisement. And everything has manual overrides, just in case.

Can you imagine a future where every car is self-driving? Maybe even solar powered? Or better yet, apply those same concepts to widespread public transportation! We could almost completely eliminate traffic jams.

My house could feed my cats while I’m on vacation! My fridge could tell me when I’m low on milk! I could brew coffee without getting out of bed!

Hell, most of this stuff already exists!

But nooooo, I can’t have any of it because there are people and companies out there who will actively use that stuff against me and I don’t want fucking Amazon to know what kind of underwear I own.

I’m not bitter or anything.

[tropicana-on-the-walkway]

Yeah yeah captalisim bad but let's talk about the sense of purpose packages give me. Like someone's gotta sign for these books

[tropicana-on-the-walkway]

Captalisim? More like i can't keep living like this.