#i think i stopped literally under 10 eps before it ended and then skipped to watching like half the finale and called it a day hahaha

[dontgofarfromme]

Maybe the mighty nein show will make me go back and finally finish the campaign lol

[steve0discusses]

Yugioh Ep 35 S4: Raphael Joins the Pile of Dead Bodies

Ah 2020, thankfully we have one trashfire somewhat behind us, but I’m still avoiding social media for so many obvious reasons because of all the other trashfires that just never seem to stop burning, so lets talk about Yugioh with all of this newfound time.

Ah, card games. Card games that go on for 6-7 episodes. Lets see how they pad it out:

In a lot of ways, Roland really is just padding for the show, and that’s OK. He’s doing his best, by doing literally nothing but stand outside and check the time.

Inside the dusty soul chamber, Tristan has decided to do us the favor of recapping what happened last episode, which included the return of our four dead friends, so that they could die...again.

Seto’s reaction to seeing these dead people suddenly alive again was very “guys...I went nuts like years ago, I’m just going with it at this point.” and he’s still 100% positive that this is all a hologram and that no one will ever die.

Whatever it takes for Seto to get out of bed in the morning, I guess.

(read more under the cut)

One of the big mechanics the game is that you need to stay level headed, or the Orichalcos just kind of slurps you up. This explains a little why Dartz is so freakin chill basically all of the time, just the Bob Ross of evil over there. It also is sort of funny because Pharaoh and Seto are the least chill people to have ever lived so he’s just kind of waiting it out to see whom between Seto and Kaiba gets the most angry first and completely botches it.

Yugi has to do literally nothing and for the first time in his life this is the right choice.

I’m so glad he gets to use his big brain move of “If I don’t play, no one dies!” from S1. Glad it came back to serve him for once instead of just make everyone else really annoyed.

Yugi just...not moving means it’s now Seto’s turn to put down some cards, and he kinda looks over at Pegasus and goes...well you know what’s gonna happen next.

I have no idea why he didn’t attack Pegasus. Like this episode is kind of weird because we got these flashbacks of Pegasus being like “you’re my only hope, Yugi!” and it’s like wtf, Pegasus trapped you on a murder island and tried to kill you multiple times. He abducted Mokuba and turned both the Kaiba brothers into cards.

yo did Seto and Pegasus get back together in between seasons or something? Was there a whole character development where these two have fun brunches in San Fransisco now? Because I would watch that anime. I would watch the anime where Seto and Pegasus are co-hosting Diners, Drive-ins and Dives, and just destroying every unsuspecting local restaurant they brunch in.

But are we just assuming that the eyeball did all that evil stuff from S1 and that otherwise Pegasus is a good person? Because like...he was a mess before he got possessed. He’s kind of a Yugi, he’s kind of a Bakura, he’s kind of a Marik...in that there’s a mess in that bean, and getting possesed just only amplified what was already there.

So, with his smug as hell grin, Seto surprises Dartz by only barely getting affected by this inescapable moral dilemma and Seto just very quickly deciding to do a murder. And then we get a little blimp throwback to S2 (S3? I don’t even remember at this point, since we’ve been stuck in S4 for an entire year. Thanks 2020.)

If blocking the shot when Marik did it in S3 or S2 or whenever that was, didn’t get Mai to like Joey, then it shouldn’t work if you do it a second time.

But hey, I guess it’s better than letting her perma-die. Although this show desperately needs to figure out how to use Mai if they’re gonna keep her around, youknow?

Like all ships are fine and valid here, ship whatever you want to your hearts content: I don’t ship at all, as you know, but I hope one day they give Mai a personality that is consistently likeable. I do want to like her because she’s like...good at what she does when she plays cards and can be that can be a fun “hey I’m a girl but I’m not a freakin ‘gamer girl’ you male chauvinist assholes” type of character. But, the show just...the show doesn’t know what they want outside of a little romantic tension that they legally can’t follow through because of a 5-6 year age gap with a teenager.

This show actively tries to destroy this ship, and then turns around and is like “oh shoot this ship is all we have.” This show tries to lift up Mai as a feminist icon one season, and then tears her down for being “too” feminist the next season when she decides to--youknow--kill Joey Wheeler because he made her feel weak or something when he saved her life. 

Like the show does a lot to explore weakness and strength, and how what we see as weakness is actually strength, and how what we tend to attribute as strengths is actually weakness, and how our modern career/school/success expectations set us up for failure, but I think they explored that way better with Seto than they ever did with Mai.

Could’ve been cool Mai, you could’ve been cool.

Anyhoo, that was my spicy commentary on a 10+ year old anime, good to get it off my chest.

Seto and Yami have the typical problem they have whenever they play cards together, where one goes completely rogue. Except this time, the one going rogue isn’t Seto, it’s Yami. He’s just like...I’ll make life for Seto very difficult and I will lose this game and I don’t even mind because I’m already dead, deal with it.

So honestly this is an episode where it’s just Seto demanding we kill a bastard, and Yami being like “but not THAT bastard” and Seto just shrugging and saying “I have to kill A bastard, Yugi! Just CHOOSE one!”

That actual line in the show (I forget what it was exactly) does infer that Seto thinks Joey holds him back, and that implication speaks miles about Seto’s insecurities.

HOW THOUGH..........what are you jealous of, Seto?

You’re better at cards than he is, he’s never beat you at anything. It’s not about who’s best friends with Yugi because...Yugi’s possessed so Yami is always going to take first place...

......so what could it possibly BE?

Seto doesn’t attend school anymore, is it about that? Is it because Joey is likeable? Is it because Joey pretends he has a much older girlfriend? I mean hypothetically, Blue Eyes White Dragon is WAY older than Mai so...that can’t be it.

.....what IS it???

Does the “friendship” he have with Joey make Seto too soft? Is that what’s holding him back? Because Seto doesn’t actually think he’s friends with these people and says that Yugi and co are “Mokuba’s friends” so like....

.....what are you talking about, Seto???

Is it because you’re addicted to cards again? Because that’s...sort of Joey’s fault because he was the one who told you he needed a ride to Jacksonville, and then let slip that the “King of Games” title was up for grabs, is that it?

Are you just tired of Joey asking you for a ride?

Not like it matters, because Joey survives, and Seto gets to feel like a complete asshole about it.

As Raphael (who is this purple blur here) motorcycles into the dome of souls, Rolands last words were

“You can’t go in there!”

which was the weirdest thing to say to a guy you just saw fall down a 50 story building a few hours ago. Raphael not being dead should be the thing Roland fixates on, but instead he’s seen so many people die and come back to life, that he’s only concerned that Raphael will get in trouble for trespassing.

Again, Roland is the only Kaiba that hasn’t died yet, and it’s because he’s the only Kaiba that hasn’t broken the law.

Dude. What if the reason Roland is standing outside is because he’s been politely looking for the doorbell to be let in?

...the players asking for death...like clockwork...and me asking for the end of this freakin game...we played...1 turn this episode...

This episode was 1 turn!

And you may ask...well what else could possibly happen to stretch this out and well...

Raphael dives in on a motorcycle to save the day. Which is an aesthetic, by the way, this huge man covered in like a dozen belts, doing a wheelie jump into a chasm of 1 million souls. that’s an aesthetic.

So he shows up, gets off his bike and I was like “Oh good, someone to maybe save Yugi saving Joey saving Mai?” And instead, I was...not given that.

Mostly Raphael is here because he ALSO wants to kill Dartz, and is like “can I join? I know you’ve only played like 1 round, just deal me a new hand, it’ll be fine.” and it’s like...we already played the Orichalcos Raphael, this is not a game of Uno, you cannot just jump in.

Dartz is sort of obsessed with how everyone around him has potential for evil except for him, the chillest human to ever be born, and I gotta say...when he’s in this room...Dartz has a point.

+++++++++++++RANT ABOUT BEING PERFECT FEEL FREE TO SKIP++++++++++++++

It is sort of nice to have the concept of an older generation (in this case 10,000 years older) fighting with a younger generation. To have the older, more typically wiser generation say “Listen, I kinda screwed the planet and the war economy and the prison system...and I’m gonna keep doing that...and you can’t stop me because you’re a bunch of hypocritical dumbasses.” and then the younger generation say. “We don’t care if we’re a mess, dude. We aren’t the problem here.”

I may be putting some recent topical STUFF into this mold here, but it is a nice little analogy that they made even someone who is such a human disaster as Yami and Seto “morally good” enough to fight Dartz. You don’t have to be a perfect Harvard Grad to fight the system, you don’t have to be an entirely problematic-free savior, you can be even as problematic as Seto Kaiba--just get rid of the dumb assholes trying to destroy the world. That’s all.

Like this concept is strangely prescient because in 2020 we’re in a weird time period where if you aren’t perfect, you’re not allowed to have opinions. You’re not allowed to make content. You’re not allowed to make change. This is mostly an online problem in places like twitter, but it’s a real problem--because in the end what you’re left with is no one that wants to step up to the plate because they know that they, too, are flawed.

And like not even just as a political thing, even as a creator, as an artist, I see this problem more and more with kids. Kids who are like “I am afraid to draw because what if I do it wrong and I get dragged on twitter years later?” or “I want to make a story, but I’m afraid to get cancelled because my fantasy story has problematic stuff in it? Am a bad person for wanting to write it?” And it’s like...what are we doing to young creators right now? Did we all fail humanities? How have we failed art and literature SO badly that we’ve come to this point that people are too afraid to even learn how to do it right?

Anyway that was a tangent, but like...you see the similarities, right? That if you really were as perfect as Dartz either politically or creatively, you’d be a freakin monster and would probably just tear down everyone else around you on twitter rather than lift other people up. It’s a stretch but eh, it’s been a while since I went on a good Yugioh tangent and like

---it’s not like I can say this on twitter---

+++++++++++++++END OF THAT RANT+++++++++++++++++++

So it’s at this point that Dartz turns to Raphael is like “I mean...we weren’t really doing anything else, and Yugi and Yami are playing so slowly...I guess I have time to bust your nuts” and decides to bust his nuts.

Oh hey, I was right.

And yeah, that’s still effed up. Dartz killed his Raphael’s family, left him on an island, and then adopted him later after forcing him to dig up their graves. Like...Raphael, that’s effed up.

He also did the same thing to everyone else (and for Valon he just kinda glazed over that really fast because we had to edit his backstory out of the English version)

PS at this part Mokuba started sweating bullets and Tea leaned over and was like “Is this true, Mokuba?”

And Mokuba was like “...yes.”

Because, I don’t think Mokuba can keep any secret from Tea. Like for reals, Tea may be the most dangerous thing to all of KaibaCorp if she wasn’t so distracted by Yami’s endless string of problems. Mokuba is constantly telling them all of Seto’s deepest darkest secrets and there is like nothing Seto can do about it.

The animation of Gozaburo turning into a beautiful Dartz was just a simple fade to white, but man--imagine if they had dome some crazy effed up animation where Gozaburo just whips back his head and he has ass length blue hair and long, luscious lashes?

Imagine.

Anyway, this was enough for Raphael, who was already our most gullible and unstable person on this show, to just flip that switch and go lime green like all those other minibosses before him.

Really glad we built up Raphael for him to just die at the door hahaha.

That was so freakin random.

OK then. Thanks for nothing, Raphael.

I guess we go to the next episode to see if we finally play another turn? We can hope for good things. But if we don’t play a full turn I will NOT be surprised.

https://steve0discusses.tumblr.com/tagged/yugioh/chrono

[touchmycoat]

e!you anon i rewatched the last ep to accurately tell you ^^; i hadn't watched it in over a year !! ok so they both forget at different times and remember, haru disappears before the final scene, kyung loses 2 haru lovewise, yeojoo ends up with namjoo, the story ends and we skip to a uni au. haru and dan oh keep on missing each other but eventually reunite oct 10 under the tree. it is a HE !! god ok liujiu is--well ok bingliushen isn't happening and yqy isn't ever going to communicate directly

p2 e!you anon so i was thinking of sj Despising that he's so toffee sweet w maiden lbh on stage while he vividly remembers past lives a la trumpet creeper with yqy and yqy being a character that doesn't remember, he stumbles across lqg and is like, piss off numbskull and lqg is ?? wtf and sj's like whatever you won't remember anyways--basically i want them to be wretched to each other but also have no one else to confide into. basically 'one good honest kiss' but electric boogaloo ykwim

e!you p3 im so excited that i relit the fire under u!! may ur pants not be on fire!! YES the webtoon is nuts and ripped me a new hide with the angst. i can't remember if the webtoon has a HE or not because i think i blacked out for the rest of the story. i also want to point you towards 'the romance of the tiger and rose' which has a similar-ish premise. pls disregard the wet wig scene i blocked it from memory. han shuo is an absolute delight as a male lead.

p4 e!you i just think liujiu would be awful for them and that's exactly why i'm pinpoint keen on them !! lqg would be like ur faces are similar --> projection of feelings and sj would be like :/// i could do worse than u and yqy would avoid the a3 room !! omg im thinking of the lunch scene with haru and dan oh wait what if yqy finds an au version of haru. and sj sees him pityadopt another guy and is like so im Replaceable + ups his cattiness to yqy god they're so bad at communicating i love it

--

BABE YOU GOT ME HOWLING THROUGH THIS WHOLE MULTI-PARTER one good honest kiss the electric boogaloo ndjfnkjndfksjnfkbgldk that's my literary goal right there. you blacked out for the rest of the story sjfksjndfklskfsdld i mean big mood i read a few chapters and i think i'm already ready to black out. how the fuck did i ever main Yi City, i feel so vulnerable to angst right now that the slightest touch of it has me jumping for the icy mountain spring

DUDE THE ROMANCE OF HTE TIGE R AND THE ROSE. NOT TO OVERSHARE ON MAIN BUT 陳芊芊 IS LITERALLY MY NAME SO YOU BET YOUR ASS I WATCHED IT. some of it. like 6 episodes??? it was so batshit what the fuck but the main leads, jfc. Han Shuo is so?? fucking??? fine??????? i think i literally had to stop watching 'cause i was not ready to get slutty over another new man all i wanted do was slap him and watch him make faces. AND CHEN QIANQIAN IN THE VERY FIRST SCENE WHERE SHE'S LIKE. "hey he's hot, bring me to my bedchambers immediately." EXCUUUUUSE ME. EXCUSE ME!!!!! WHERE WAS THAT SHOW!!!! WHERE DID THE REST OF THAT SHOW GO I NEED THAT!!! AND THAT DRESS!!!!! FUCK MEEEE!!!

romance of the tiger and rose gave me whiplash literally every scene change. it legit never went the places i thought it would, and not always in a good way, but never in a genuinely bad way. I remember the...friend?servant? with the magnificent faces? Qianqian is so. fucking. dumb. i'm obsessed with her. I was like yes, thank you, thank you for representing me and me specifically. i can't believe i entirely forgot about this show until this very moment hahahhaha thank you for the reminder

hello, i'm in love with the idea of carrying the "bitchy school idols" trope to its logical conclusion of "they've got such awful personalities that the only one who can stand them are each other so they fuck amongst themselves" for liujiu haHAH. like, you're right!!! this is a free-for-all!!! my ponderings this morning took the e!you AU into SY/SJ/SQH territory nfnjfdjdn and i'm honestly fine with that. What about some pair the spares action too??? How about LBH/LQG/YQY pityfucking each other????

[popculturebuffet]

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. 

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. 

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. 

[espbee]

i wasn’t originally going to post this since i’ve seen several other (perfectly valid) mob psycho timelines out there but you all wanted to see it so here it is!

this does not include pre-canon or the reigen spin off. the first b/c i didn’t really care lol and the second b/c i haven’t read the spin off for reasons i’m sure you already know.

almost every single one of these dates is based on canon evidence (see notes below) but a few are speculation. i go into depth under the cut so if you want to know, say, exactly what day mob buys the monkey shirt you can find out. if you want to see a specific panel hmu!

feel free to use as reference when writing fanfics or meta or whatever else you might want to use it for :D just please don’t repost 

Spring of Youth Arc

it’s not super important how many days pass in ep 1 but i think it’s all within a week. might be some overlap with ep 2 (tunnel exorcism on same day takenaka quits club? according to the manga it happens later anyway)

going by anime here: takenaka quits the club monday or tuesday, tome asks mob to join the club wednesday if i remember right (also the day he goes to the girl’s high school) and he joins the body improvement club friday)

(LOL) Cult Arc

not much to say. it’s literally an afternoon and the teru arc starts the very next day

Teruki Hanazawa Arc

happens basically immediately after the cult. like mob knows dimple for like 3 days before he’s “exorcised”

fight on a friday bc it’s on weekend news

aftermath: mob in pink hoodie probably on saturday, mezato interrogates him monday

Big Cleanup Arc

shigeo mentions in the divine tree arc that student council meetings are on mondays. however only having weekly meetings would make this arc take a really long time so i’m guessing it’s semiweekly. i’m guessing the other day is thursday because ritsu says he has a meeting on the thursday that mob confesses

same monday as end of teru arc: student council meeting where ritsu suggests a big cleanup, mitsuura gives ritsu his card

thursday: big cleanup plan submitted, mezato and onigawara look for mob (for totally different reasons), ritsu in the street w/ tokugawa

next monday: student council plans to get rid of onigawara

awakening lab might be on the same day as above but i’m not sure, mob also goes on a “date” with tome that day and sees koyama for the first time. that night is when shinji’s family gets after him for not being perfect and he decides to go apeshit

i’m guessing the recorder scandal happens the next morning (wednesday?). it doesn’t actually say if ritsu awakens that exact day but i’m just going to say it does

a little bit of time goes by (about a week?) ritsu’s becoming popular and he develops his psychic power. teru vs ritsu happens somewhere here. people are complaining about the big clean up

the day that ritsu and kamuro confront onigawara in the body improvement club room is the same day that ritsu first attacks the delinquents from the other schools (monday)

im guessing a day goes by before kamuro is beaten up (tuesday), then another day before he’s beaten up again (wednesday)

kamuro is absent from the student council meeting the next thursday

ritsu only has his powers for 9 days before announcing that he’s obtained loss

7th Division Arc

one month before touichirou arrives in japan. this makes sense because it’s not like the day he arrives he’s going to attack. touichirou probably arrives in late september or early october, prepares things for a couple weeks

mob goes to shinji’s house on sunday, ritsu and mob talk on the swings monday, shinji apologizes to onigawara tuesday. the kageyama parents know about ritsu’s power by tuesday night (what was that conversation like)

Mob’s Girlfriend Mini-Arc

2 weeks long: one for the elections and one for the dating

sidenote: psycho helmet cult has gained 700 followers by now and it’s been about a month according to mezato (and the timeline!)

mob works the monday after his brother’s kidnapped jeez reigen give the kid a break

going to say it’s wednesday when shinji resigns

mezato talks to mob about running on thursday

one week later: elections! (going to say they’re on a friday). emi asks him out that afternoon

mob and emi “date” for a week. im guessing she “breaks up” with him friday and he fixes her torn up story on monday since there’s enough time for everyone to react. i think the anime has all that happen on the same day though. either way is good

Urban Legend Arc

reigen complains about four days without customers

kuchisake-onna: it’s the weekend b/c mob’s wearing a sweater instead of his uniform and also b/c i doubt mob skipped school

reigen makes his website overnight and mob’s wearing his uniform the next day which means the trip to the urban legend town has to be on sunday

the first trip to the ghost house is on a sunday (what a busy day!), and the second trip is on monday

Keiji Mogami Arc

literally the day after the ghost house wtf (so… tuesday?)

if it feels like 6 months for mob would that mean he’s almost a third year in the dream world? or already is a third year? oh no…

uh technically there’s an aftermath the next day but really the arc is one day

Separate Ways Arc

kumagawa’s birthday is in late september btw. idk if there’s any kumagawa stans out there but now you know he’s a libra

kijibayashi’s birthday: 10/5? (also the day mob finally cant take reigen’s bs anymore)

mob doesn’t show up to work for at least four days pre-birthday (probably five days since kijibayashi’s birthday needs to be on a school day)

reigen’s birthday: 10/10 (also i’m assuming this is either the day of or the day after he defeats the video game thing)

he has to have enough time to offer classes and become a local celebrity… i’d assume he offers that course at his office that friday night (10/12). he’s interviewed that day too. a few days later he goes on tv (i’m going to say 10/15)

goes to bar 3 days after the tv show (wednesday 10/17)

thursday 10/18: reporterless-day

friday 10/19: press conference, “my master… he is a good person” *sobs*)

World Domination Arc

mob has 10 days to prepare for the marathon

marathon on friday (11/2)

teru fights shimazaki for the first time saturday morning, mob doesn’t wake up until sometime in the afternoon, and rei-gun is in the evening

mob sleeps like 18 hours… oof

the kageyama parents return home monday evening

Yokai Hunter Mini-Arc

this isn’t listed as seperate from the Divine Tree Arc according to the wiki but i’m calling it a mini-arc because the broccoli isn’t really the focus

mob mentions the future prospects assignment is due in a week

seri starts working at spirits and such a few days after the wd arc ends

going to guess there’s some overlap with the future prospects assignment and that it’s due sometime during culture festival preparations because otherwise the timeline breaks

okay everyone i know culture festivals are usually on or around november 3rd but according to all canon evidence there is absolutely no way that can happen on time. there’s literally no time. it has to take place at least 2 weeks after the wd arc

going to say the culture festival is nov. 18 because that’s all that makes sense (the previous weekend is too soon, and the next weekend is after the divine tree arc

Divine Tree Arc

Friday: Tsubomi sneezes — why dont u stop doing bad things

Saturday: buys The Shirt

Sunday: Psycho Helmet

Monday: Teru, Ritsu, and Reigen all brainwashed, Mob vs Dimple part 2

Telepathy Mini-Arc

finally a nice long break :D

find out about takenaka about one month after Divine Tree Arc

aliens on New Year’s Eve/Day

inukawa’s abducted by aliens for 10 days

???% Arc

inukawa has to be back by the time school starts

Mob finds out Tsubomi’s leaving the day he gets back from winter break (monday) :(

i think he calls her two days later?

the day after that mob is hit by a fucking car (also student council day so… thursday)

Epilogue + Omakes

we all know the epilogue is on 10/10/2013

the summer omake has to be after the ???% arc but i’m not sure what day. probably july

idk what else to say other than i can’t believe i spent so much time on this

[sailor-cresselia]

Zi-O 21; both raw AND subbed~!

Advance Warning: I have never seen Ryuki, and it’s probably going to show. A lot, if only because I have no connection to whoever the Guest Characters are, and what any issues they bring in could mean. I’ve seen Marcosatsu’s History Of Ryuki though, so that should help a little. (three links, because he wound up doing it in three parts)

Starting off with watching the Raw!

BlackWoz’s Storytime Vault doesn’t have much to offer, aside from a worrying angle at the end.

I’m impressed by Uhr’s control with reversing the damage he’s doing to that mirror. Of course, he’s paying almost zero attention to Schwartz in the process, but there’s a method to his being a little brat this time.

He’s trying to get the attention of some guy in Ryuki’s mirror world.

Sounds like his idea is “So, my new candidate? He’s from another world. Remember how that Tsukasa guy traveled? It’s kinda like that, but not.”

(What was going on in Ryuki?! Also, how many endings is this going to make for that season? Because I seem to remember hearing that there’s like, five? At least?)

I like the touch with Another Ryuga’s name and year – they’re backwards, like you’d see in a mirror.

Sougo’s DEFINITELY using Gun Mode a lot more recently. I like it’s finisher with Double, though – it’s basically a smaller scale version of the CycloneTrigger Memory Break. … What was that one called? Ah, there it is. Trigger Aerobuster.

Names are important. I’m doing my best to get them right.

But it’s basically that, with purple shots in the center of the wind bursts.

… of course, it gets reflected right back at them, because MIRRORS, but still. Points for fighting at a distance, especially with that dragon arm – that was doing some damage, it looked like.

Geiz’s Drive armor is back! (I’ve missed the shift cars, so it’s nice to at least see Max Flare, Funky Spike, and Midnight Shadow’s tires again.)

But again, mirrors.

Tsukuyomi: So, you lost him?

Sougo: Well, yes, but also we had to help the injured construction worker.

Geiz: And everything got sent back at us, so…

blah blah, ‘whats the deal with the time jackers’ blah…

“What IS this Day of Oma you mentioned, anyway?” Good question, bud.

“Well, in our history, it’s the day that Oma Zi-O took over the world.” Geiz, I get that you’re upset. But. Um. What did you just do to that chessboard?

As far as I know, you’re not able to cause shockwaves. Not just by symbolically slamming a chess piece down. ...I don’t know anything about chess, but I’m assuming that piece is the Black King. Wiping out all of his opposition in one strike… along with all of his allies.

Sougo retaliates with “And the one WhiteWoz is from, says that you stopped that from happening.” He uses the White Knight to knock down the Black King, leaving the Knight alone on the board.

And then we have the Time Jackers, trying to get someone else altogether in charge. Black Bishop takes out the White Knight. The Time Jackers are from the same timeline as Tsukuyomi and Geiz, after all.

That day is when the world’s future is decided… ooh, ominous.

… drat, have to skip the next bit of exposition, but while they’re outside talking about… victims? I think?

I hear that same sound that heralded Geiz’s Time Mazine arriving back in Episode one.

Okay, so the victims are all connected to the magazine/journal/website from Ryuki? Makes sense.

Oh man, Shinji’s already dead?! Welp, that’s it, arc over, time to go home. (dusts off hands)

Hm. He covered up all the reflective surfaces – which would include windows and vents. Because Mirror World.

Of course, that poses a problem when you use a gas heater.

Okay, so at this point, while I was watching, Over-Time posted their subs. So I just got the script, went back to the beginning, and started over.

Well, at least BlackWoz is going along with the nicknames for now. I guess he understands the need for the distinction.

Hm. Schwartz seems to think that Geiz is going to be trying for the throne on the Day of Oma. But, sir, have you met this kid? Yes, yes you have, we’ve seen you interact with him. There is nearly no way that Geiz would ever want to be in charge.

...I say nearly, because time travel and predestination and all of that jazz. WhiteWoz is screwing with the kids head.

HUH. Uhr’s logic isn’t even “it’s kinda like that Decade guy”, he was specifically told about the Mirror World by Tsukasa. (insert a certain 10-year-old meme here.)

And what’s even more interesting than that… is that Schwartz didn’t know about the Mirror World.

And we’ve already seen that Schwartz can go to other timelines, as per when he created the Another Shinobi Watch.

Hm, looks like we’re in for another variation of ‘not the Another Rider you think he is’, aren’t we? Another Ryuga has the last portion of his name covered by what appear to be burnmarks. Much like how Another OOO’s year was cracked, so it could appear to be 2016 while actually being 2010.

Oh dear GOD they’ve been fighting Another Ryuga for a WEEK. He just keeps showing up and disappearing. (Because mirrors, not that they know that.)

“Why do they keep getting harder to fight?” Well, Sougo, it’s probably largely because we’re about out of Phase Twos, and the Earlier Heisei Riders were pretty brutal, from what I’ve heard. Plus, you keep getting teleporters involved, so that doesn’t help in the slightest.

Thank you for finally asking what the Day of Oma is, though.

(Low INT, high-ish WIS.)

“Well, what future do the two of you want?” Asks the noodle with a pretty decent Charisma stat. And neither Geiz or Tsukuyomi actually have an answer for him.

(Ow, my heart.)

Okay, all the victims followed Ore Journal online, but it has since gone completely under, since it just couldn’t keep up with the times.

I was right on the money about Shinji, though, he clearly knows full well about the reflection teleportation, and now so do The Kids.

GEIZ I UNDERSTAND YOUR LOGIC. BUT THAT DOESN’T MEAN I HAVE TO LIKE IT.

“Beat him in the time before the attack returns.” Because there’s a lag before the mirror shield shows up, so there’s a brief window of time. But an attack that would take it out that quickly would return just as powerful… directly at where it came from. Also known as the Rider who launched it.

And also also known as Geiz, if he gets his way.

Because a soldier who can’t defeat his enemies isn’t much of a soldier, now is he?

(Thanks a lot, eps 15 and 16. Thanks.)

Aaaand Uncle Tokiwa doesn’t actually know Woz’s name! All he could do for the Watch was clean it up… oooooh...

Sougo’s next powerup has an awful lot of that burnished gold on it. The same, or almost the same, tone as Oma Zi-O’s.

“Hello, my overlord~!” “Not. Now.”

Good boy, Sougo. And you even met this weeks tribute, and didn’t realize it!

I still don’t buy the “he doesn’t remember” thing, by the way, especially given the mirrored surfaces – how would he have known without having been Ryuki? Does he know about all the other victims? I don’t think you’ve actually talked to him yet. But I’ll let the memory ‘detail’ slide for now, since it looks like BlackWoz is actually being straightforward at the moment…

Aaand Sougo’s desperately trying to ignore him. Fair. Since that second Zi-O watch is tied to him becoming evil and all. Decent WIS stat, and also BlackWoz’s idea of ‘subtle’ is very much not so.

Meanwhile, with Geiz and Tsukuyomi… Yeah. He doesn’t plan to come out of this fight. Because what good is a soldier who can’t win?

And also, he, too, knows he is being stalked by his own personal Woz.

“What’s your end goal? If I come out on top, what’s your future like?”

“Just like this, a peace as if time has stopped.”

… Hi, yeah, not here for that phrasing at all, actually. Having just come out of HUGtto! Precure, wherein ‘stopping time so that despair can’t happen’ was kind of the villians whole thing, I’m trusting you even less than before.

Nothing can disturb the peace if nothing moves again, now can it?

But for Geiz and Tsukuyomi, literal veterans who have seen armies destroyed in the wave of an arm… they don’t have that frame of reference, now do they? They might just hear the “a time not unlike the one here” aspect.

“Hey, think I can use that notebook?”

“Nope, nuh-uh, OP reality warper powers are mine and mine alone.”

OOF. Right. Uhr contracted Mirror World Shinji, didn’t he? Which, of course, means that his existence is tied to Regular World Shinji’s existence. Can’t defeat the Another Rider? Take out his other link to living.

WhiteWoz and his “Obstacles are for killing” attitude does not sit well with Geiz.

“Hey, other me! You want revenge on that guy, right? The one who attacked you? Of course ya do! Why not!”

Meanwhile, Regular Shinji looks like he’s having thoughts along the lines of “I’m not going back to the belt! I’m out, man! I finished! I’ve finished like FIVE times already! Let me retire!”

Huh. The smudge over ‘Ryuga’ is gone. Neat. (aaand at which point I realized i’ve probably been spelling it wrong, and went back to fix all the places I used two ‘u’s on instinct.)

Clever, clever Uhr. “You can’t get a watch from a person who never existed, from a world that no longer ever was.”

...well, Schwartz could go to alternate timelines, so… Hey, Geiz, Tsukuyomi, Sougo, did any of you happen to get Tsukasa’s contact info?

Also, Tsukasa, did you have to clue the Time Jackers in on the ‘other worlds’ thing? I’m just saying, that might come back to bite you.

You are coming back, right? You don’t get to drop cryptic ‘I’m destroying this world first’ comments, and give tips to the assorted groups, and then just never come back.

It’s rude.

We need some sort of follow-through on this stuff, at least.

Geiz attempts his suicide attack… but Sougo knocks him out of the kick before he can gain momentum…

“I’m not letting you die, damnit! You still need to make sure I don’t go evil, and I’m definitely tempted by this watch right now...”

and then said watch doesn’t even try to activate.

Aaaand then Sougo gets wrestled into the Mirror World.

(Isn’t that place supposed to be super fatal if you don’t have an Advent Deck?)

Aaaah! The backwards writing, and the fact that some of it is glitching is bad enough. But the lack of sound? Nope, I’m not here for that at all. That’s never a good sign.

Although Kudos to O-T for getting the subtitles for some of those signs. Well done.

So, yeah, sorry Sougo, it’s not 3-Days-From-Now You this time. (But seriously, what happened to him?) This time it’s Evil You.

Not even 50-Years-From-Now Bad-Ending Evil You.

We’re talking a “Terran Empire Enterprise” type of Evil You. … well, at least he doesn’t have a goatee.

OH GOD AAAAGH GO BACK TO SILENCE PLEASE

Distorted belt effects are not okay! Agh! NononoNO!

Oh, and uh... Hey! Remember literally yesterday? When I said I’m loving the ‘parallel self’ juxtapositions that Zi-O’s been doing?

I should probably have remembered that the Ryuki tribute was next, and that I’ve seen the preview screenshots with Mirror Sougo being super creepy.

I may have changed my mind a bit on that juxtaposition love.

MISTAKES WERE MADE.

[empty-dream]

Me watching Fate/Apocrypha ep 10

Sieg: *trembling while holding the sword* “Fight me!” Mordred: “Learn to hold a goddamn sword first”

Astolfo: “Dude I did not suffer for this!’ Sieg: “Really sorry about that!” Mordred: *send them both away with one blow* “gET A ROOM”

I’m choking Mordred is definitely pulling a “Are you serious? Right in front of my salad sword?”

Wow Sieg’s glare is pretty chilling. Finally some depth on his on screen appearance.

In addition, it’s when he declares his new name and his existence, so good job.

Caules and Fran getting on the hit-them-when-they-talk bandwagon.

You thought regular looting is bad? Try heart looting.

Hello to the people who come here thinking Jack is hot innocent loli, behold she is actually blood-splattered lunatic scavenging dead hearts from dead people. 

The idea of the most famous serial killer being an apparition shaped as little girl dressed in futuristic stripper outfit bathed in blood and corpses while fiddling with a Nokia 6000 series is WAY BEYOND WHAT I COULD EVER COME UP IN MY ENTIRE LIFE

“Our new room” more like “room we literally kill people for”

Jack: “Okay mom, bye bye!” *Naruto runs*

How is that walking metal armor not electrocuted by Fran’s lightning that’s some EX magic shit going on here

Caules hon that’s not what I’d call acting with discretion.

‘Third-rates’ wow Mordred your trash-talking actually hurts huh who did you learn from? Gawain?

I just realized that since Clarent is powered by Mordred’s hatred for Artoria, then it basically runs on the power of emo LOLOLOLOL

Well all is funny until she blows everybody several yards away with it.

Yo Mordred do yo always go and see people and be like “this one is homunculus, this one is not”??

On the other hand, good job A-1 at showing explicitly that Fran is indeed not a homunculus nor a human but a true artificial creation.

I don’t like saying this but Mordred, if you want an enemy real dead, go for the head.

I think she was all about decapitating people before so why suddenly just stabbed?

Um nice try Sieg but don’t you see that metal armor is like this thick and Mordred is like Terminator?

The sword looks like a toothpick jammed lightly it’s awkward now

Mordred angrily turns red, literally.

Remember that Astolfo saved Sieg just because he could? Now Sieg saved Astolfo simply because he saved him. 

Ugh getting stabbed by that huge-ass sword should hurt A LOT huh

It’s been like two days out of the castle and Sieg experiences death. AGAIN.

Sieg you need to stop dying this is not Supernatural.

I guess Mordred’s characterization is definitely aimed to be jarring between the savagery she displays in battle and the chivalrous nature she harbours as a knight. 

Astolfo: “HOW DARE YOU KILL THEM?! ARE YOU SERIOUS?! RIGHT IN FRONT OF MY SALAD LANCE?!”

That’s some chilling scream Astolfo

Kairi: “Did you make sure she’s dead?” Mordred: “Dude I stabbed her with giant sword like in the torso” Kairi: “Shit boi did you forget this is a magic war? People sparkles when they die!”

Fran’s mace: *standing up ominously* Mordred: “Weird” Me: Maybe you should be called “The Knight of Obviousness” instead of “The Knight of Treachery”

Fran: SURPRISE BITCH THOUGHT YOU’D SEEN THE LAST OF ME

Fran taking strangling with bare hands to a whole new level

Wow the mace suddenly floats, does some clicking, whirling, becomes green, and now it looks like green thunder chupa chups

Uh as much as I hate Celenike, I can’t disagree with her saying ‘stand back and don’t get roped into a suicide bomb’

But I guess if she doesn’t force Astolfo he’d definitely bolt to the ground zero trying to get a better ending that’s just like him

At this point, it’s pretty clear that none of Fran Al-Qaeda-ing her way is Caules’ command.

But instead he just understands her and gives the last command spell to boost her, no matter how painful of a decision it is :(

Wow does using the last command spell always induce flashy tron lines and sharp lightning?? Is this the Apocrypha style? Last time I see people do that, it’s just dramatic wind.

Caules’ glasses breaks and cheek gets slashed only adds the dramatic tension. And it looks cool in gif.

hOLY CRAP THE BLOOD TURNS INTO FLOWER PETALSSTOP IT STOP THE FLASHBACK IT FUCKING HURTSSSS

It’s bad enough if a dying person’s life flashes before their eyes bUT IT’S ENTIRELY ON DIFFERENT LEVEL IF IT FLASHES BEFORE THEIR CLOSE PARTNER’S EYES

Fran gets super pissed at Mordred she decides to talkIt’s actually a bit funy that everybody from the author to the animators making sure people notice Fran’s lightning pierces Sieg like ‘yo reader it’s important clue for our protagonist’s powers!’

Wait I just notice the role of the Berserkers from both faction is literally the same: to become servant bomb

At least Fran goes out in a beautiful electric explosion tree........

Astolfo: “Please be dead please be dead” Mordred: “...Yo...Hhh... Surprise....hh...bitch-” Astolfo: “ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME!?”

Caules babe :’’’(((((((

He’s such a good master he honestly thought he screwed up and let Fran die in vain and he couldn’t do anything for her even until the end

In the novels, from this point on, everything about Caules and Fran will just hurt like a bitch.

Okay let’s cut the sadness and LOOK SIEG’S HEART BEATING

Siegfried appears!!!!!

I kinda forget that bathing in dragon blood means he’s actually covered in blood from head to toe that’s pretty disgusting if given more thought.

So Siegfried’s previous life was literally on the range of ‘national hero’ to ‘professional killer’ to ‘matchmaker’

Sieg: “You lived your life as a wish-granting machine but do you ever have a wish yourself?” Siegfried: “Dude you’re like born months ago don’t throw existential crisis on me right now”

Siegfried: “Now let’s get back on you. Do you have a wish?” Sieg: “....Uhm..” Siegfried: “See existential crisis doesn’t feel good.”

Siegfried takes Sieg from aurora field to dragon dungeon so Sieg’s ego grows like wow that’s hardcore

What is this? A King Arthur play? Sword in the stone??

It’s mandatory to have a fate anime with somebody dramatically decides on a life purpose and dramatically pulls out a sword.

You know, I’ve always liked Balmung’s design. It screams ‘WILD HERO’ and it’s got this badass design and color and sheath. In fact, it’s the third place in my heart after Durandal and maybe-not-suprisingly La Pucelle

That’s why I’m THIS close to be angry that it appears like a cannon fodder sword but thank God it transforms

Mordred: “Wew that was close!” Kairi: “Don’t ‘wew that was close’ me that servant you called third rate just nearly deep fried you if I didn’t bail you out and now I’m tired”

Astolfo be like “My friend is dead, my other friend is dead too, my other other friend is also dead, and now I’m facing a terminator why God”

Sieg!Fried: *standing ominously under the moon* Mordred: “Master, he’s dead right?” Kairi: “Yeah I heard so” Mordred: “Well now we have The Walking Dead”

I think I just squealed hearing Sieg!Fried’s asking “Are you okay?” that sounds so gentle and so hot at the same time?????

Sieg!Fried: “Are you okay?” Astolfo: *blush* “Baka” Mordred: “GET A FUCKING ROOOMMMMMM”

I love how chill Kairi is when facing this anomaly he’s like “Dude, it’s magic war, anything can happen”

Mordred you don’t get to call Balmung a cosplay sword when Clarent also looks like a gigantic cosplay sword

And cut to Shakespeare giving comments as usual. Do Semiramis and Shirou have to watch every battle while listening to his narration?

HAHA Semiramis has to place her hand palms up because of the spikes WHY IS THAT SO FUNNY?

Hm I kinda don’t know what to make out from Shirou’s words but I presume it’s about Sieg should just live like a pure baby he is instead of letting that purity dyed in everything good and bad in being human?

If that’s so, it’s a big hint of Shirou’s goal, no?

Shirou’s practicing if-looks-could-kill without even trying

Semiramis and Shakespeares are such good friends to Shirou they notice him look evil in a matter of seconds

Shirou be like “I thought my feelings are all secret but guess not I should perfect my poker face” just like his servant. Truly a match of heaven.

Lol guys that boy you just declare worthless will be the final man standing against you lololololol

Indeed Shakespeare is the Genre Savvy™ as expected of THE playwright

Mordred: “Master what’s his weakness?” Kairi: “His weakness is ‘Do your best and find out yourself’” Kairi is such a lil shit I love him

And there you have it the first battle scene in the first episode

Y’know, the novel describes Balmung as emanating orange light like the twilight when activated but the very same novel also illustrates it with vivid blue light and it’s making me having the existential crisis since forever

Balmung vs Clarent Blood Arthur more like Let’s nuke each other

Aw they skip the calling the name of the noble phantasms if you ask me I prefer if they include it in this episode too

Oh now it’s Sieg’s command spell on the closing title and with completely different background and SCATTERED FLOWER IS THE TITLE OF THIS EPISODE THANKS FOR REMINDING ME AGAIN THAT IT HURTS ):

Fran’s dead, Caules cries, my heart really hurts

Trust me, the novel version is far worse than the animation. The narration from the moment Caules notices what he has to do to his reaction after her death is just painful. All the root cause of it all? It’s because they care for each other. Even he acknowledges that.

Oh yeah and also Fran dies with a little smile while speaking those words in the novel, kinda different vibe with the anime version

In the novel, the Siegfried’s flashback also reveals his one wish: To become an ally of justice a.k.a. the same dream possessed by the Kiritsugu and Shirou Emiya. Now it may differs from each person but for me personally, while it serves as a driving force to Siegfried’s character, it’s also yet another a form of homage (or maybe long running serious gag?) to both Fate/Zero and Fate/Stay Night. Whether it is good or not to omit that from the anime, I can’t really say....

NEXT: I think we need some Jeanne now. Hopefully not Naruto running again.

[radialarch]

dadvans replied to your photo “it has literally been eight hours & i’m still thinking about this so...”

i think secretly every carly rae jepsen song is about victor nikiforov

CRJ & VICTOR NIKIFOROV: A COMPREHENSIVE INVESTIGATION

--

pre-canon

worldly matters: what happened to me on the way to something higher / what will be left when i have all that I desire?

both sides now: i've looked at clouds from both sides now / from up and down and still somehow / it's cloud's illusions i recall / i really don't know clouds at all

money & the ego: sometimes it’s hard to see / anything lovely / all the people around me going for / money and the money and the egos 

la hallucinations: planes i'm hopping / cards i'm dropping / no shop can fill me up / there's a little black hole in my golden cup / so you pour and i'll say stop

sour candy: no, we went under, the weight was too much to carry, and / i felt the thunder / mister, don't look so scared / i never knew, i never knew / that i could be so sad / we went under

sochi banquet :

sweetie: we were both headed different ways / both in a rush, trying to get away / i ran into you-ou-ou / like a crash of thunder

tiny little bows: you're the one that i want / you're the one that i know / and everywhere you are / is a place i wanna go / dancing really high / dancing really slow

just a step away: here we are / dancing ‘cross this floor together / with every step i take i seem to want you more than ever

(yuuri) i didn’t just come here to dance: it’s your fault, baby boy / ‘cause you're the one that sparked this / shine a light / with your eyes onto me in the darkness

picture: would i like to see you again? / you name the day / and i will pick the city / we’ll fly away / ‘til then, call me when you miss me

call me maybe: hey, i just met you / and this is crazy / but here's my number / so call me maybe

ep 1:

[stammi vicino non te ne andare] | run away with me: you're stuck in my head, stuck on my heart / stuck on my body, body / i wanna go, get out of here / i'm sick of the party, party / i'd run away, i'd run away with you

ep 2:

“yuuri, let’s sleep together” | i really like you: i really really really really really really like you / and i want you. do you want me? do you want me too?

first night | tell me: inside you there’s a room / a room with a door / i finally come knocking / and i've been here before / oh, i’ve got this love for you, but what is it for / if you can't hear me

ep 3:

onsen on ice | hurt so good: when you smile like a tease, baby, you don't even know / you don't even know / and my heart skips a beat, darlin', every time you go / every time you go

ep 4:

"let’s go to the ocean” | talk to me: talk to me, why won’t you talk to me / can’t you see i’m burning up / when you look like that / and i’m looking right back

"he meets me where i am” | all that: i'll be your lighthouse when you're lost at sea / i'll keep my light on, baby / you can always come to me / i wanna be the place you call your home

ep 5:

chu-shikoku-kyushu regionals, free skate | bucket: lately you've been working too hard / and i've been waiting to recognize / that sparkle that's in your eye / those two dimples on your cheeks / the joy that lights the fire

ep 7:

cup of china, post-fs | warm blood: i would throw in the towel for you, boy / ‘cause you lift me up and catch me when i'm falling for you

dealer’s choice, first time | favourite colour: should i stay? / making love until the morning light / making out like it's the end of the world / and i really wanna get it right / but it's gettin' hard to slow down

ep 9:

airport, post-rostelecom | making the most of the night: baby, i'm speeding and red lights, i’ll run / what i got, you need it, and i'll run to your side / when your heart is bleeding, i'm coming to get you

ep 10:

"i’ll try my best from tomorrow on, so-- tell me something for good luck” | higher: if you wanna know what i'm thinkin' / ever since you came, i’m livin' / on top of the world, i can't deny / every one of my fears has vanished / and i don't know how you managed / to wake me up and come alive

“after the final, let’s end this”: 

first time: we won't get too sentimental, not tonight / i could meet you in the middle, we won't fight

(yuuri) gimmie love: eyes so bright / you've got a hold of me the whole damn night / i toss and turn, but still i can't sleep right / i should've asked you to stay, begged you to stay / but when i get right next to you / i hear this heartbeat break in two

never get to hold you: just say you'll stay the night / i need you ‘til the morning light /  ‘cause oh, darling, don't you know / my only heart is beating for you

ep 12:

(yuuri) grand prix final, post-fs | heavy lifting: you deny the other side of me / that strips good love away / and you kissed my mirror reflection / when i looked at me today

post-canon + february pash! poster:

let’s get lost: baby, let's go get lost / i like the way you're drivin' slow / keeping my fingers crossed / that maybe you'll take the long way home

drive: oooh, i don't care about my lipstick / i just wanna drive you to love, love, love, love / chasing the sun, don't wanna miss it / i just wanna drive you to love, love, love

[redrobin-detective]

Not trying to get into the shipping war but I didn't get into Avatar TLA fandom until post S2 and it had never occured to me to ship Katara/Zuko. They were enemies who fought over Aang. They had the worst relationship w/each other until post TSR ep (which for a number of reasons I thought was the most anti romantic Zuko/Katara ep that also pushed why Aang was more compatible). I personally find their platonic dynamic, be it as enemies or friends, much more fascinating/better for each other.

(Just want to take a moment to say thank you anon, I’ve been looking for an opportunity to rant about Zutara when I see this in my ask. Thank you for giving me the chance to rant about something that’s bothered me for 10 years)

People are allowed to ship what they want, I can’t stop them and I generally don’t care but Zutara has bugged me since I decided to watch ATLA (the Day of Black Sun was the first live episode I watched). If you like Zutara, go ahead and please enjoy it. I strongly dislike it and I’m going to explain why. If you don’t want to see it, don’t read under the cut. I will be discussing why I dislike Zutara and why I support Maiko and Kataang (with caveats).

I think Zutara was the first, really big ship I encountered in fandom. I was blown away by how mean and intense some people were into shipping fictional characters (still am tbh). This is also probably the first real time I was exposed to the ‘Opposites Attract’ trope of shipping which. I. Utterly. Despise. Everyone was all 'oh fire and water, opposites coming together in love uwu’ and I’m like ??? Even 13 year old me who’s terrible with people and was still icked out by the idea of guys knew that opposites attract is a complete fallacy in a relationship.

People don’t fall in love with their opposite! Or maybe they feel strong attraction but to have a stable, respectful relationship you simply can’t work with someone who you can’t find common ground with. Now I know this isn’t completely true even as I type this, there are exceptions to everything but in most cases, opposites don’t work for romance. Let’s also kill the 'Oh these people hate each other, it must be sexual tension’ trope while we’re at it. Sometimes you just gotta let people hate each other.

You may argue that Katara and Zuko aren’t complete opposites and I would agree, they actually have a decent amount in common. The main problem I see with them is their complimentary traits don’t suit each other and as a couple they wouldn’t achieve a healthy, happy relationship.

- Both Katara and Zuko have unresolved anger relating to their childhoods and respective traumas. We see in TSR that Zuko is trying to reach out to her by feeding her anger and Katara very nearly does something she would have regretted later, something opposed to her basic traits while Zuko is having his father’s teaching on hatred and revenge justified to an extent. This is not a healthy thing.

- Both Katara and Zuko are compassionate and protective almost to the point of jealousy and rage. Again, that sort of personality wouldn’t promote respect but become confining. Zuko has shown that he struggles with romantic jealousy (though most of that incident was born out self-hatred, it’s still there just better controlled) and Katara has a desire to mother and protect. Those two instinct would war with each and make the relationship troubled from the start.

- Both Katara and Zuko are fiercely loyal to their people. I have never been more confused than I was by a text post saying Zutara should have been endgame because Katara “wouldn’t have had her cultural identity erased to become Aang’s baby momma” like??? Aang, for all his faults, loved Katara as she was and she maintained her Water Tribe roots even as his wife. If Katara married Zuko, she’d have been Fire Lady, loyal to the Fire Nation first and forced to live in a Palace. Katara would HATE that level of confinement and while she mightbe better with the Fire Nation now, I doubt she’d be totally cool spending the restof her life amongst the people who murdered her Mother.

Not tomention the whole animosity they had literally throughout the entire series. Ofcourse, Zuko proved himself in TSR but I don’t think Katara really accepted himuntil Sozin’s Comet. And before you cry your tears about how Zuko saved Katarafrom Azula’s lightening, I’m 100% certain given Zuko’s character that he wouldhave done that for anyone. Azula knows her brother is softhearted and we’veseen Zuko protect literal strangers when he didn’t need to. That could havebeen Old Man Li and Azula would have shot that lightening and Zuko would havethrown his stupid ass in the way.

I can see Katara and Zuko growing to begood, close friends. Because we all have those friends that we care and rely onbecause they’re different from us,think differently and bring something unique. Zuko probably relied on Katarafor counsel, advice on how to be a kind but strong ruler while Katara wouldseek him out on political manners and how best to handle Aang. Zuko is a partof the Gaang, now and forever more, he and Katara are the mature ones of thegroup, there to bring order and peace and pave the way for the new world. Butas a romantic couple, they’re simply not complementary in personality andlifestyle to have a truly happy relationship.

Whichbrings me, briefly I promise, to the relationships the two characters are in:Maiko and Kataang. I love Maiko, it’s my favorite of the ATLA ships (aside fromSokki) because I feel they do work and complement each other. I’ll start by gettingthis right out of the way; yes it’s kind of ridiculous that Mai and Zuko hadthat cute lil kiddie crush and then, 5 minutes after Zuko’s back in the FireLord’s favor, Mai makes a move. I’d have preferred if they showed more build-upto the relationship but I guess there wasn’t enough time. But I don’t get allthese accusations of Maiko being abusive. Becauselet me tell you, just because someone messes up in a relationship, makes amistake for the right reasons, that does not mean they’re abusive.

To me, Maiand Zuko are products of the same environment: emotionally stunting/abusive,rigid, accepting nothing less than perfection but they handled it differently.Zuko chose to become angry and emotional over his circumstances (I thinkbecause it’s the only way he could fuel his bending) and Mai chose to bury herfeelings. Healthy? No, Realistic? Yes. Mai liked Zuko because he was genuinelynice guy, he was expressive and open when no one else around her was andencouraged her to be more open. Zuko liked Mai because she was cool and calmbut also a bit nurturing when he needed someone to soothe his flames.

Twodamaged kids helping to repair each other’s faults, what’s better than that?Mai makes mistakes with Zuko, she doesn’t know how to handle his troubles in the Fire Nation and, frankly, she couldn’t. Zuko needed that time to self-reflect and understand that what was happening was wrong. Zuko likewise behaved badly in a few episodes when his anger and self-hatred were making him explode. They both worked through this to improve like, gee, a normal healthy relationship.

Plus Mai would make a good Fire Lady. The Fire Nation needed stability afterthe war and Mai was nothing if not stable. She comes from a good, noble family(to soothe traditionalists) and she’s experienced in keeping firebenderscontrolled (for those worried about Zuko’s youth) and experienced in the waysof the world like Zuko so he can bounce ideas off of her and have her give backa more well-rounded perspective. It’s not perfect but when the series endedthey were 16/15, they have time to learn and grow together. (also I’m ignoringthe comics after The Promise because everything after has sucked)

Kataang I’ma lot less invested in but I can still understand it. Like Zuko and Mai, Aangand Katara have a lot in common and provide a good balance for one another.They really bring out the best in each other, Aang’s encouragements and naturalcheer brighten Katara’s inner sadness/anger and Katara gives Aang a sense oflove and purpose while also gently nudging him the way he needs to go. Peoplecomplain that Kataang was pushed from the start and it was, but man if Aangdoesn’t love the hell out of Katara. He respects her and relies on her andadores her but is still able to push back when she’s out of line. My main thingwith Kataang, which will eventually resolve itself, is the ages. Aang is 12when he’s freed from the iceberg, Katara 14. Aang’s love was a kiddie puppycrush on a calming maternal figure which made me feel a bit icky during the finalepisode.

Because earlyAang did love Katara but he also needed her as a guide and a mother figurewhile Katara was nurturing Aang and making sure he’s safe and happy when hereally needed to be facing the consequences of some of his actions. I see whythe characters did what they did but it makes a romance then kind of ug. I’dhave preferred if the series ended with hints and then skipped to LOK where wesee they married and junk. Because given a few years, I can see Aang and Katarabeing a good healthy couple (with no *shudders* sweeties to be seen).

Aang has just changed the world, he needstime to settle himself as the Avatar and to help Zuko and other leaders repairthe damage done by the 100 year war. Katara needs to figure out what she’sgoing to do, go home? Travel? A romance isn’t advised, especially since they’reso young. But when they’re a few years older, Aang is more mature and iswilling to see Katara as a partner and not someone to mother him and Kataragrows into her potential and decides what she wants, yeah then they’d be happy.

TL;DR: Istrongly dislike Zutara (along with the ‘opposites attract’ and ‘animosity =sexual tension’ tropes it embodies) because it’s not a healthy, compatible shipwhile the canon ships: Maiko and Kataang are much more in line with thecharacters and their goals and have the chance to be long-lasting and happy.

[steve0discusses]

Yugioh S4 Ep 27: Joey Punches Valon to Death and Seto Kaiba buys a Car.

My favorite character is back!

THE STORYBOARDER.

Like clockwork, the best storyboarder of all of Yugioh saw in the episode notes “This is the one where we shall Destroy Joey Wheeler” and he was like “Yes! this is extremely my thing!” and he’s back at it again, destroying Joey Wheeler with such finesse.

Like it’s so hard to explain in caps because you can’t see stuff move, but this animator is so good at the Yugioh vibe--he makes these character designs WORK for him (or her? No idea the identity of the mysterious storyboarder (or team of storyboarders--maybe this was one little group they freelance out to that worked really well together? I dunno) ) they really capture what Yugioh IS in a really unique way and still remain fairly economical in the animation sense. They do not hold back on any pose, and go completely ham into this ridiculous concept of a card game where you put on a special suit and punch eachother in the face.

Mind you, it’s still a card game and I skipped all that, but man...this is such a good storyboarder and I know that next episode they’ll be gone but for now I’m just gonna bask in it.

First off, Rebecca manages to figure out Seto’s 6-letter password in order to access billions of people’s personal data off of a satellite (we don’t get to find out what the password was) and although the storyboarder is great--they did make one fatal mistake.

The bane of every Californian who leaves California. LA is like a completely different country to San Fransisco but everyone only knows of two Californian cities and assumes we’re right next door to each other.

And it’s like...no, man. I don’t have Disneyland. Do I sound like a cheerful person that lives next to Disneyland? Do I say “bruh” and smile with the force of 1000 suns as we surf the coast on the backs of Lisa Frank dolphins? No dude, I have a strong Bay Area accent that makes me sound like a dry sarcastic asshole and I wear sweatshirts to the freakin beach because it’s very cold and filled with great white sharks.

(Sorry I just had to delete like 10 k words where I compared the entire cast to US cities by saying cryptic stuff like Joey Wheeler : Seto Kaiba is like LA : San Fransisco and like it was the biggest random tangent that only makes sense to me. Quarantine brain, y’all, I got SERIOUS quarantine brain. Anyone else? Anyone else just find themselves wasting like 2 hours thinking of which cities match the personalities of different characters on a show that came out so long ago? Man I need distractions right now.)

But back to what’s happening on the show, Yami is coming to terms with Joey’s struggle about as well as Yami does.

Which is mostly Yami saying “I’m pretty sure I killed Joey in that card game with Bakura in S1 and Tea had to bring him back from the graveyard so like wtv.”

(read more under the cut)

This was like 2003??? I think I keep forgetting when this season came out but we had printers at this point. We had google maps and a printer.

I don’t think I’ve touched a map like that since the 5th grade, where we had this competition to make a hypothetical road trip across America. It was Awful, and if you won the competition to get from SF to New York with the shortest distance, you would win something like pizza and a cool engraved name plate. We did not win pizza, because I could not even unfold this asshole map.

And now we have Google so like thanks, Mrs. Lambert, it was cool, but I’ll never use that information again. I hope. It was such a vivid frustrating memory that these maps still fill me with anxiety to this day, hearkening back to my 5th grade self just desperately trying to use string to measure how many miles the freeways across the midwest contain. (spoiler: a lot)

How OLD is this kid? Rebecca’s like secretly a 68 year old. She’s secretly Mrs. Lambert.

At this point we had a swell in the music as each friend of Joey joined in to announce their willingness to risk danger and save him.

Were they...not going to join him the whole time? It just seemed like a weird thing to bring up sooo after the fact.

Yami then turned to Duke and was like “but not you. You stay here” and he was like “Oh, thank gods.”

Rebecca stayed behind because the animators don’t want to draw her. Honestly, she’s incredibly helpful and they were mad stupid to leave the only smart one in the car. But youknow...this team loves being mad stupid. It makes the show more entertaining.

As they left we had a weird aside where Arthur Hawkins reflected “Rebecca is having just a REAL hard time trusting Yami” and it’s like--Arthur Hawkins! You’ve been dumping on Yami for like an entire season, that’s why. Like don’t pretend you’re all on team Pharaoh now. Why ever stop dunking?

But youknow, character development, Rebecca is going to learn the trust the ghost that possessed her crush/best friend that she’s had for 2+ years on a kid who’s been living in Japan this whole time who literally forgot who she was 2 weeks ago. You trust that ghost, Rebecca.

Or not. I mean you really don’t have to. You don’t owe Yami anything, dude. You don’t need to blindly trust idiot men, Rebecca. You just do you. Trust that instinct of “is this guy not trustworthy?” because yep. Chances are if you’re having that thought, that he’s totally not.

Storyboarder!

Storyboarder what ARE you???

STORYBOARDER!

after this followed a scene that I’ve seen gif-ed just so, so often that I assumed it was in a Yugioh Spin-off. I don’t know why I thought it wasn’t in this OG series, but I didn’t expect it to be here, in the Dartz season. But, it does make sense that this scene was under the best Storyboarder‘s direction because *chef’s kisses * it’s perfect. Every frame is a joy. The amount of sinister expressions on Mokuba, the level of sass coming off of Kaiba. It’s such a freakin shame that this man’s best work so far only lasts like a few seconds.

PS my bro looked it up and this car salesman has a wikipedia page.

He also looked up if anyone has shipped this car salesman and it’s our lucky day because this ship does not exist with any human ever in the world. Thank you, humanity. But, they DID make a wikipedia page so maybe we’re just putting off the inevitable?

I’m not even gonna cap it because I KNOW this is a gif you can easily download from everywhere but mm--this is a SOLID piece of animation. This animator is just flexing so hard, man. Yugioh did not deserve this much care and attention to detail.

Shippers rejoice, Seto Kaiba did briefly consider helping out Joey (before he absolutely drove away in the opposite direction)

(They’re clearly in the financial district already, PS. They are driving 5 ft to Dartz’ house.)

At some point Joey nabbed Valon’s card and so now he also gets to wear a bunch of stupid armor outfits.

This one is weird! It’s very Kamen rider-ish...but it’s a color scheme that feels very valentines day. It looks hard to wear. Good thing it’s animated.

I may need to capture this walk sequence though...if I still have the energy...the picture does not display his very energetic arms-in-the-air walk cycle I haven’t seen since that one Season zero episode. I dunno if it’s a reference to that, but I can’t think of any other reason why Tristan is walking like that.

This is when Mai finally shows up.

Valon lost his helmet during this fight, which lead to this:

What a good note to end on.

Anyways, I have no idea what my update schedule will look like or be, so if you’re new here and you want to start reading these from the beginning, I have a link for that:

https://steve0discusses.tumblr.com/tagged/yugioh/chrono

[arielufret]

Favorite Albums- from START to FINISH

I feel like we all have a handful of go-to albums that we can listen to without skipping a single song.  Not because we are lazy, but because we genuinely enjoy every track.  Albums to me are special because they (should) tell some sort of story.  I am going to list the ones that are on my go-to list.  Would love to hear what yours are!

No particular order! (I am going to try to remember to link to each of the albums via Spotify, too, so feel free to give these a spin for yourselves!) 

Switchfoot - ‘Hello Hurricane’  This one is special to me because even before hearing the first single, I got to hear the band play this album from start to finish live.  Its symbolism is impressive and creative, as its meant to represent an actual HURRICANE. The way the songs build and flow, it sounds like a storm rolling in... you can tell when you have made it to the eye of the hurricane and when the storm starts to subside.  If you haven’t given this one a listen, I suggest it.  Start at 1... no shuffle.  Go all the way to the end.  Then give me a buzz and tell me you don’t love it.  You won’t be able to. :)

Mumford & Sons - ‘Sigh No More’ This should come as no surprise to anyone who knows me... even if you just kind of know me.  This band can really do no wrong in my book, but ‘Sigh No More’ is a perfect album from start to finish for me.  The world would not be the same for me, personally, without each and every one of these songs.  I can’t say that for many other albums, if any.  It’s special and exciting when you discover an album that has that kind of impact on you. 

Jessie Baylin - ‘Firesight’ & ‘Little Spark’ I have Matt Nathanson to thank for introducing me to the absolute gem that is Jessie Baylin.  I love women singer songwriters and she is at the top of my list.  ‘Firesight’ is a bit more “pop”, but I use that term quite loosely.  I also do not think there is a single thing wrong with the term.  You will see that later in my list when I go FULL ON BUBBLEGUM.  The follow up (which I waited on with baited breath) was equally special and different, but in a way in which you can still listen to both albums shuffled together and its cohesive. Do yourself a favor.  Listen to these two albums.

Matt Nathanson - ‘Beneath These Fireworks’, ‘Some Mad Hope’, ‘Modern Love’, ‘Last of the Great Pretenders’, ‘Show Me  Your Fangs’ As you can see from the list here, this man can do no wrong in my book.  Not only did he introduce me to Jessie Baylin by bringing her out to open on a tour of his many years ago, but I’ll be damned if he isn’t one of my all time favorite songwriters/story tellers.  A live show from Matt is equal parts music and comedy show, and he does both parts with uncanny ability.  Over the last decade+, Matt Nathanson has provided me with endless hours of listening.  Some songs have pulled me out of myself for long enough that I can see things the way they should be instead of staying inside my own head and self destructing.  If that isn’t talent, then I don’t know what is.  Honorable mention: Live album, ‘At the Point (Live)’.

Tom Petty - ‘Full Moon Fever’ Here we have my first favorite album of all time.  It will always be special to me, as long as I have ears to listen to music or a memory of how special music is to me.  I was a whopping four years old when this album was released.  I stole it-- like legit STOLE it-- from my dad.  I still have it in my possession today.  He never got it back.  From the moment I heard it, it was like something inside me clicked ‘on’ and it never turned ‘off’.  For that, I will forever be indebted to the one and only, Tom Petty (& the Heartbreakers, of course).

Billy Joel - ‘Storm Front’ Again, this one is sentimental to me because it happened when I was just really discovering music and picking out  my own favorites.  My parents were in one of those ridiculous “CD clubs” where they would send you those sheets of stamps that you would go through and pick the 10 albums or whatever the number was that you wanted and they supposedly would charge you a penny or some ridiculous nonsense.  I was 4, so I didn’t understand what a pyramid scheme was, but I am sure there is someone out there searching for my parents to pay off their cd club debts to society.  Now that we have the back story-- there was a day my parents were look through their little CD cover stamps and I begged to have them let me pick a few for myself.  I was a spoiled brat, so of course they obliged.  My first choice was Billy Joel’s ‘Storm Front’.  Because of my obession with “We Didn’t Start the Fire”.  I wore that album OUT.  It also left me with a skill that not many others have (I have asked and literally no one I have met can beat me at this).... I can sing every. single. word to “We Didn’t Start the Fire”.  I am still holding my breath for an update from the 90′s to present.  Get on that, Bill.  I know you’ve got it in you!

Taylor Swift - ‘Red’ and ‘1989′ When you think perfect pop music, if you don’t think Taylor Swift, then I am not sure what you are looking for you in your pop music.  Love her or hate her (I know what I would say to the haters-- ‘Why you gotta be so mean’) you have to admit her songwriting talent is there.  And it doesn’t seem to be going anywhere, as she seemingly is getting better and better with age and experiences.  ‘Red’ was still when Taylor was in the country world but toeing into the wavy waters of full fledged POP.  They are both in my ‘driving albums’ rotation.  Perfect singalong at the top of your lungs material, especially if you are in a post break up, girl power mode (who isn’t always in that mode, though?)

One Direction - ‘Midnight Memories’, ‘FOUR’, ‘Made in the A.M.’ While I am on straight up POP, I have to discuss One Direction.  I grew up the the world of the boyband.  I was certain after the early 2000′s this fad would go away to return maybe never but certainly not with a group put together by Simon Cowell on a British competition show.  But... alas... HERE THEY WERE, right in front of my eyes.  Each of the 5 members of the band auditioned as solo artists.  They did not make it, but the genius of Simon Cowell said ‘Wait just a bloody minute!!!’, at least thats how I imagine it going down backstage.  And he pulled the 5 adorable youngsters together and said “SING AND DANCE AND MAKE THE WORLD LOVE YOU” and then they did just that.  They did not win the X Factor but considering they are one of the top earning groups of all time and no one knows who came in first that season, I would say they fucking WON.  In the process, they won my (much to old for this) heart and I have not been the same since.  Luckily, I have friends my age who think the same thing, and they are all of age now, so I don’t have to feel creepy.  Also, one of them knocked up one of the judges on the X Factor and she is older than me.  So, I suppose its all in good fun.  If you are ever in the mood for perfect pop, look up a One Direction album.  NO SHAME!  I promise. 

Taking Back Sunday - ‘Tell All Your Friends’ Now, for the emo section.  This album is high school for me.  Senior year.  It also reminds me of ex boyfriends from hell, which is not usually a welcome thing, but isn’t that what emo music is for?  Open up all of the wounds you thought you’ve licked clean and healed just to remind you what it means to FEEL something. Anything.  These songs aren’t all F YOU anthems to ghosts of girlfriends/boyfriends past, though.  Some are genuinely fun, at least for me.

Brand New - ‘Your Favorite Weapon’ In another emo nod to high school memories, we have Brand New.  Now, this band has beef with Taking Back Sunday and you can actually tell in their lyrics if you pay close attention.  See if you can find it!  Its fun!

Fall Out Boy - ‘Take This to Your Grave’, ‘From Under the Cork Tree’, ‘Infinity on High’, ‘Save Rock and Roll’ Here is another band that I have literally ZERO shame in admitting my love for.  Emo? Whatever. Who cares?  They have badass, long song titles that make nearly no sense with the song’s theme and it makes me love them even more.  Plus, just google for some leaked photos of Pete Wentz and then you can have that visual to go along with the tracks and think happy thoughts.  Dirty.  I know.  I am sorry.  Its late and I am not sleeping until I finish this list. Panic! at the Disco - ‘A Fever You Can’t Sweat Out’, Too Weird to Live, Too Rare to Die’ Another band with a flare for a killer, long, sometimes ridiculous song title.  The first album from this band is ALL sophomore year of college for me.  Just as wonderful and confusing as those days were, this album is all of that and more.  Their 2013 release is just as special to me, and the songs are just so good.  I don’t care what your preconceived ideas are on this band.... give these songs a whirl.  Their other albums are great too, but I do tend to skip a song or two when playing the album from start to finish, so rules being rules... I had to keep them from the list.  But some of those songs will land on a list of of some of my favorite songs.  So keep that in mind and give the full catalog a spin around the block for good measure.  Brendon Urie, while we don’t have access to cell phone photos of what is under his clothes, we do have the video for a song called “Girls/Girls/Boys” which is almost (maybe more?) satisfying in a nod to the D’Angelo video for “Untitled (How Does it Feel?)”.  YOU’RE WELCOME.

Howie Day - ‘Australia’, ‘The Madrigals EP’, ‘Stop All The World Now’, 'Live From.... EP’  As far as singer-songwriters go, Howie Day can basically do no wrong in my book.  I stumbled upon Howie in the beginning of my desire to learn everything I could about John Mayer circa 2001.  Thanks to that, I found one of my favorite artists of all time with Howie (he opened for John on some key dates in the earlier days of his career).  His debut, ‘Australia’ still gets regular play from me, as to his other albums. Howie had some radio success and VH1 love for a couple of singles, so you may recognize the tracks “She Says” and “Ghost”.  Now, my love for Howie isn’t just his boyish charm and great songwriting.  Its also that mother F’ing looping pedal.  The first time I saw him live, so many years ago.... I about had a heart attack.  I had never seen anything like it.  He was a one man music machine and I couldn’t get enough.  Now, if anyone performs with a looping pedal, I automatically compare them to Howie and they rarely stack up to his skills.  But I still fall for a man with looping pedal skills & an acoustic guitar, it never fails.   

John Mayer - ‘Inside Wants Out EP’, ‘Room For Squares’, ‘Any Given Thursday’, ‘Heavier Things’ Oh John Mayer.  Where do I even start?  Discovered just shortly before the blockbuster release of ‘Room For Squares’.  He gave me one of the greatest moments of my teenage life when I won upgraded tickets (front row) and meet & greet to his first big headlining tour. THANKS FAN CLUB!  That was also the beginning of the end for me and live music... spoiled rotten.  There are not many songwriters alive today that I can say I believe have more raw, indisputable talent than that of this human being.  Don’t even get me started on his guitar skills.  If you haven’t already spent some time with his catalog, I suggest starting from the beginning with these 4 suggestions. 

Not ALL of them made the list, but as artists before on this list it doesn’t mean that those unmentioned albums aren’t nearly perfect.  So give those a listen to, if you like what you hear from these suggestions.  They just might be YOUR perfect album.  Who knows!?

okay.... I am not done.  So stay tuned for more.  I will just be editing this post, not making a new one.  

[steve0discusses]

Yugioh S2 Ep 21: Hey, It’s a Party, Lets All Get Kidnapped!

Ah, it’s been a while since I’ve worked on these. I’m back from my cross-country travels, I’ve overcome my food poisoning because of said travels, and I did like 2 Inktobers so I’m officially allowed to quit and then never do Inktober again till the end of the month so now that’s over with, lets get back to Yugioh. Thankfully, Joey is here to recap for us what has been going on so far in the show, via a phone call to his sister where he literally started off the episode saying this line.

It is episode 21, Joey has run out of excuses, and the crew has decided that now is the time to finally find their friend who definitely is being tailed by a murderer with psychic powers.

Because no one wants to ever call the cops on this show.

I can see why Yugi and Grandpa might not, since Pharaoh may have done some criminal nonsense before he reformed at the end of S1 (I mean Season Zero isn’t not NOT canon) and I can see why Joey might not because bro mentioned that he had some sort of dealing with the mini-Yakuza or something in Season Zero (I look forward to that). Tristan already thinks he is a cop so I can see why he doesn’t either. But maybe Tea should call the police. She doesn’t work at the must-be-18-to-work-here-so-it’s-probably-a-stripper-joint-after-10-PM burger place anymore, she’d be fine. Probably.

I mean they did illegally invade a country last season and was complicit in the removal of that country’s leader’s right golden eyeball so like...yeah...

But now that Yugi has the company of three people inside of his head and Kaiba alongside him--who is always communicating with Mokuba on his jacket walkie talkie (like he went out of his way to make a jacket that has solely one function because it clearly doesn’t keep him warm without those arms--and the function is to call up his little brother and complain about the people who are two feet away and can hear him complaining about them), but this means Yugi actually has more people in his 2-person party than the other crew of 4 people. Anyway, he’s certainly not lonely.

But first we gotta throw Tea’s phone around and have some comedy hijinks.

(read more under the cut)

Tea x Cell Phone giving me more energy than Tea x Yugi but that’s actually true of every teenager and their intense relationship with their phone. Accurate. Hell, it’s true of me as an adult.

I also love how they throw this phone in our face just to remind us how neither Yugi has called Tea or how Tea could easily call Kaiba AKA the guy in charge who knows where everyone is, since he’s in their High School phone book, but wtv. We gotta first sort out who’s gonna pick up Serenity from the hospital although her bandages aren’t even off yet.

We’ve already clarified how dangerous this whole tourney is, and the fact that during these finals they might be ground zero for when the world might actually stop functioning entirely, maybe don’t throw your blind sister into the mix? Girl has enough problems right now. Maybe keep her in the hospital preemptively. Y’all are probably going to end up there anyway. She can book you a reservation.

I do appreciate the Tristan stance in this shot.

Anyway, sensing that the crew might actually do something, Bakura decides to show up and make some mad insane nonsense again. Ah, our wild card, Bakura, our Charlie Kelly.

Lol What? His big master plan is to feign an injury? (I’m assuming this is fake? But he’s also sweating a whole lot? Maybe they had a fight club behind the scenes that got edited out?) But you know, if you’re gonna try to sell a broken arm then wouldn’t you want to like...wear an sling?

Wtv, we’ve already learned from last season that literally all these people are the very worst boy scouts and would absolutely die in the woods. Apparently they would also absolutely die if they had to administer actual first aid rather than vague card magic. I was kinda thinking that Marik miiiight be a better scout from all his tomb runs, but from the looks of it he’s too busy being as incompetently evil as possible to learn how to tie a simple bandage.

Nice that Bakura waited until the moment Tristan left to start being shady again. I guess that Bakura also remembers that one time that Tristan hulk-punched him so hard - in the shadow realm where mere mortals should not be able to even move - that God-Mode-Bakura passed out for like 45 minutes.

I’m a little confused at how this at all works with Marik’s plan, since it’s really not that hard to abduct Grandpa, but o well, this was the plan they went with. They ARE teens after all, and teens kind of live by the mantra of “I dunno, it seemed like a good idea at the time.” I guess it’s less complicated than making sure he watches a haunted VCR tape.

So off Grandpa goes with Bakura, meaning Gramps is probably going to be a card or some other sort of lifeless husk in a few episodes or so. It was a good run, Gramps.

Honestly, Bakura should just heavily suggest Gramps just go back to work the counter of his Super Gonna Curse You Weasley’s Wizard Wheezly’s, you know, the shop he actually owns. That shop who’s name is canonically “Turtle Game” (good name for a card shop, really gets it across. Great business decision.) And really, it’s been 2 days since he’s stayed open past 9 AM. Does he not pay rent? He seriously might not, we do not know who’s the owner of that house/shop. For all we know it’s Yugi’s Dad who is........somewhere?......

And speaking of missing people, the two most direction-less folks in the universe decided to make this show even longer when they could have easily skipped like 8 episodes if they had just crossed the street. Instead, they’re going to backtrack back to the Shamu exhibit while somehow not overhearing Bakura screaming in his British(?) accent.

Sometimes I’m impressed by all the well placed irony in this show. Here come the two God-characters of the A-team. One has the infinite reaches of technology, the other has the infinite reaches of dark magic. They can do anything except navigate a map and find their friends who are within I assume a 10-block radius.

Now I know, I know, Namu’s an actual name people actually have. Much like Mary Jane. Or AceBluntz420. But forgive me, I am from California.

Also I just went down a rabbit hole of K-pop and the only song I could find that said “tree” enough times was “tree of Sephiroth” which was a pretty good banger but not what I was going for. Again, I’m stymied by my naive, elementary level K-pop education. One day I will be a master of K-pop but I am yet just a newbie with a couple of Black Pink and BTS on my Spotify.

One day I will know enough about Kpop to know which of the songs are about romance and which are about weed but alas, I just like looking at the pretty lights and the pretty colors and the fun dancing like a newborn babe.

But anyway, couldn’t help but notice - THAT’S the name he actually chose for himself, huh?

I mean I looked it up and Namu is also a Buddhism reference in Japanese and that’s probably what the show makers were going for, but safe to say, Marik is clearly not a Buddhist. He is literally in charge of a Pharaoh cult. Well, used to be. It seems like Marik’s just out to destroy his own God. He’d be the hero in really any other anime with motives like that. Hm.

Honestly, if it wasn’t for Marik wanting to vaguely rule the world I’d probably side with him completely, lets be real. Pharaoh is kind of a huge problem. And while I do like Pharaoh now, it took me kind of a while, and if Marik showed up S1 I’d be like “Yes, finally, please kill the already dead insufferable ghost.”

So, Marik decides to become friends with Joey and Tea.

This sure was a lot of work to become friends with Joey and Tea. Did Marik not realize that if they’re also buds with a guy who is possessed by a ghost, they might have low enough standards that he doesn’t need to jump through any hoops?

Marik could have just walked up and said “hey, remember me? From class?” and these two would have been like “yeaaaah” because it’s been so long since they’ve attended that they would have had no idea that he was never enrolled.

Anyways, Pharaoh’s arrived to scream at the top of his lungs about a bomb threat at a theme park.

Bummer that Mako Tsunami finished his act and I guess went back to his home island on the back of another whale he had parked outside the theme park.

Also it says a lot about what this town goes through that Yugi, shouting about how everyone’s going to die, doesn’t seem to perturb a single member of this audience. They’re just like “shaddup, I’m looking at the large dolphin.”

The total amount of time that Marik could handle being friends with Tea and Joey : maybe about 30 seconds.

Which makes you wonder why he even bothered with this charade, but maybe he just wanted to get rid of Bakura because that guys kind of a mess.

And then just when I thought it would never ever actually happen.

It happened.

I don’t recall any era where non flip-phones had little antennae. I think this was kind of before my time. Good. Finally something on this show that I’m too young for.

Jokes on this mook for thinking he could ever crush a Nokia with his shoe. Actually impossible. I’m sure there’s Nokias that have outlived being run over by a Jeep.

Yo my payphones never had digital minute indicators on it. You can even read the numbers on the numpad? And there’s no gum lodged in the coin slot? This is not how I remember payphones.

Yo second thought, maybe those are 33 seconds and not minutes? Eh, what do I know, I’m a millennial, I don’t really remember how those awful things worked. RIP payphones, you were always spooky and the worst. Like honestly if a ghost Pharaoh would live in anything, it would be a payphone. If you ever had to use a payphone with a phone card, then you’d understand that it’s more an unsolvable puzzle than any puzzle pyramid.

And I guess that Mokuba just felt left out, so he decided to leave his brother and just wander off by himself on a rooftop where there’d be no witnesses?

Mokuba, why are you on the roof? How does everyone in Domino have roof access? And is the internet so bad in this town that you must be on a roof to get any signal?

please admire the leg wraps on this guy’s ankles. They’re like high fantasy legwarmers.

*why ever duel with cards when you can freakin fly*

WOW, KIDS SHOW. That sure is dangling a small child off a helicopter!

And like, Mokuba just hangs there for a while--no joke, he’s just hovering in the background of every shot for kicks and I’m just like...how did this kid’s show get made????? The 00′s was a different time.

This past week I’ve been watching my older brother’s 5 kids and so I’ve been watching their TV shows and youknow The Descendants 2 would have been a very different movie with edgy, rogue helicopters in it. Though I will admit Yugioh could do with a couple more dance sequences. (and Yugioh might legit have better fashion than The Descendants 2, why the hell was Cruella DeVil’s son wearing bright red baggy capri shorts to a cotillion ball? Anyway, I’m putting Descendants on my “possibly recap this later” list.)

I get that the intern who was putting this scene together might not have known about the helicopter incident in the shot right before this when they drew in these people just on the street on their cell but mannnnnnn.

I love the implication that this happens so often to children in Domino that no one freakin cares anymore.

Reminder that Kaiba refuses to believe in magic and has no idea wtf is going on. Like he knows there’s some yummy cards he wants--that’s it. He doesn’t think this is the end of the world, he doesn’t think anyone here is magic. He just thinks Yugi is a super weird kid from Spanish class who's voice keeps cracking and that Marik is some sort of weird mafia boss. He was not expecting this tourney to become kidnapping central and I mean no one could have predicted this next part either.

...

So Marik’s plan, lets just walk through it.

These two loose to Kaiba and Yugi, then these two violently pass out, Pharaoh runs over and shakes up the fat one for a little bit, and then Kaiba and Yugi go to a theme park. These two guys intentionally lost and got beat up for no reason?

And then, he sends the same people who have Already Lost back to Yugi and Kaiba, to use a different deck than the one they used the first time?

Why not use this amazing deck they had the entire time the first time? Why are all of Marik’s plans so roundabout?

I mean I guess they had to lure these two to the roof but not really actually--once you beat Yugi in a game then boom the puzzle is yours so you don’t actually have to...whatever, they’re on a roof and and it’s edgy and it’s scenic and it’s gonna get real Jack Baur on us.

oh man this workaround to “but they never actually go splat because they die before they hit the bottom” which is infinitely worse than actually just falling down.

So seeing no other solution, they decide to endanger the lives of hundreds of people and play this exploding rooftop version of Yugioh.

I mean last season we sure did go through a lot of time trying to get Kaiba off a ledge of a tall building and now he’s just...back on that ledge. Well. OK then. These kids and ledges.

Really was a line in the show that Kaiba listed the only two things these guys have done wrong and it’s like--well they used the wrong deck the first time. That was probably actually a really big thing they did wrong. Also they could have kept Pharaoh in an infinite rock-paper-scissors loop but passed up on the opportunity. TBH these guys make a lot of mistakes but we’ve been over this before, Kaiba can only remember 2 things. Weird that this has become canon, but here we are.

I guess Kaiba suddenly remembered he had a grudge.

He forgot for a few episodes, but the grudge is back. He must have written it on the back of his hand “don’t forget you hate Yugi” and then when he went to  scratch an itch was like “OMG I can’t believe it, I forgot again!”

That bean.

Anyway, next week, on Yugioh:

Does Kaiba’s helicopters get into a helicopter fight with Marik’s helicopters and keep Mokuba dangling there the entire time? Does Joey get to throw a couple mooks over his shoulder like that time he took on 18 ruffians in a warehouse or will these ruffians be too ruffian even for Jo? Will Tea, after her hearts been consumed by darkness, and she becomes a nobody or a heartless or whatever, realize that she’s dating a dark wizard this entire time so it literally doesn’t matter?

Anyways, I mentioned K-pop so here you go, a moment of happy handsome boy Zen in this overwhelming world.