M-M-M-M-M-MONSTER SORT!

You might be wondering, "Why are you doing this again?" and "If you are, why not after August" when TH15 is entirely out? Well considering none of the new characters from the demo or the new boss from the new fighter showed up in my top 50-ish list, I don't think too much will change from here to then. What changed from before to now, however? Well, quite a lot. Since quite a lot changed, I figure doing it again is fine and it is not because I have nothing to do because I'm writing this while my friends are waiting for me to play MH4U with them, so...

But I digress! Can you see what massively changed recently? :D? I cannot guarantee such changes will be permanent. After all it has happened quite literally overnight, though I started writing all this a few days back and just continued right about now, so at this point it wouldn't be overnight. Nonetheless, I'm going to go off on a tangent here that is marginally related to the picture on the left, but mostly not really.

I feel like as one grows older one begins to care less about things. Now, the degree of caring is very important. After all, if you start caring about nothing that stops being normal and starts running into say, depression territory or what-have-you, but when we're all adolescents, we tend to care too much. We care far too much what other people think of us, and for some of us academics must be perfect or death! In reality academics didn't really matter until later on in high school and even then one could still get into a prestigious post-secondary institution in a myriad of ways. In fact nowadays with the absurd costs of continuing education it's more cost-effective to delve into something else. But whether or not we find success in these other fields highly, highly vary. Regardless, when one gets older, one cares less.

For instance, this blog. If I cared more, I'd be ranting my pants off and posting here much more regularly than I have like I did frequently when I was younger, but now I usually do not have much to say or much to rant about. At some point you start wondering if there is a purpose to blasting certain things in two-thousand words or longer. It's probably a good exercise in a way, sort of like letting off the steam and working on personal dictation. Yet as I've grown older I've become far less passionate in things. And usually things I'm passionate in are fairly benign run-of-the-mill not especially important in the grand-scheme-of-things kind of topic. Like that image to the left. WHO CARES WHO I LIKE? Is it that important that I show up here and explain to you all lovely readers why so-and-so have shot up my ranks? Not especially! It's mostly an exercise for oneself, splaying out the reasons for such in text and not leaving it to die to the mercy of poor memory. What if five years from now I wonder why on earth i would ever have Sanae third? Was I a madwoman back then? Well now I have this text to fall back on to see why!

But of course there are pros and cons to such a mindset. I truly love being passionate about things. Everyone does. However, there comes a limit to how passionate you should be. Being passionate leads to extreme highs and lows in terms of opinions and emotions. The opposite, being casual, is that you are pleased by smaller things easier, and let down by things less than you normally would, but you would never experience the joys of something you're super into coming true. What if a show you loved to death when you were a child came back on air? You'd be ULTRA-EXCITED and then because you loved it so much, you would be incredibly observant to everything you see on screen. Are the voices still the same? Is the animation still okay? is the writing of the same spirit as it was once before? And if it is, you're elated. You are simply bursting with joy through every seam in your body. A childhood dream, a nostalgic little tidbit of your life has resurfaced, has revived. One cannot possibly describe such euphoria when you're that passionate for such a thing.

However most likely a reboot or a sequel will be terrible, or even if it's decent it will never have the same flavour as what it originally had, so disappointments, even ones not warranted will exist. Being this passionate means every little flaw is all the more magnified, and you, being so hopeful, feel all the more crushed the less similar to the thing it once was, was. You begin ranting, criticizing, maybe even flinging insults you normally never would just because of how betrayed you feel because you are that passionate by that little thing.

If you liked the show when you were young and it came back, and it was pretty similar to how it was beforehand, with some differences you can overlook so you ultimately enjoy it, you're casual about the thing. It doesn't take much to make you happy, but you would never experience that ultimate high you might have if you felt all the more invested. A lot of people say these ultra-dedicated fans are incredibly annoying, but if the person who is ultra-dedicated is happy with where they are, to the point that they do not care how they are thought of by others then they have achieved true happiness, I say. Unfortunately that is not the case most of the time. Such people will be disappointed more often than not, and this phase in their life may end and they may come out of a more aloof person, a casual if you will.

I can describe all of this for something like My Little Pony. When it first came out and I watched it I was ecstatic. What a great show! Every episode is the best! There are no flaws! The writers are the best people in the world and when they go to Valhalla after they've lived incredibly long, storied lives they should be treated to the grandest of beer and the most magnificent of parties for the rest of eternity! Basically normal humans are slammed onto pedestals because they can do no wrong. They've pleased people to the extent that if they do make an eventual mistake, their flawless, perfect image will come crumbling down to the ground. In reality everyone is a normal, flawed human who can make normal mistakes. I, being super passionate about Pinkie Pie and Fluttershy's friendship, was absolutely crushed by Pinkie's depiction in Filli Vanilli. I could not possibly believe she was capable of such insensitivity. Certainly she had displayed traits of such behaviour before, but not to such an abhorrent extent. The fact that Fluttershy's response to this is endless crying and an attempt to literally escape from her friend is treated as comedy personally offended me. I related with Fluttershy's anxiousness and insecurities. For it all to be treated like a joke, for Pinkie's behaviour to only be reacted by being smacked by a newspaper as if she were dog, it was just crushing to that passion of mine. I began ranting; I even flung insults (I don't think on this blog, or if I did not much) to people responsible. That's what happens when you are involved in something that much. Most people just thought, since they either didn't relate or were casual about it, thought the scene was okay and people may have been overreacting. A lot of Pinkie fans did not like her behaviour, including me however. This spawned a few fanfics and ideas that these two could not possibly be great amazing friends had it not been for the existence of the Elements of Harmony, but that idea goes entirely against the whole Friendship is Magic message in the first place. So how to explain what happened?

Well, to explain all we can do is that not every episode is flawless and not everyone is perfect. Someone thought, "Hey this scene would be funny!" and well, it unfortunately did not come off that way for some people. That's just reality. Now, I still watch the show. It's not like I've dropped it or dumped it or whatever, but I no longer think every episode needs to be absolutely perfect. If it isn't, I'm not about to spend hours of my day spewing text on why so-and-so sucks and needs to be better written. I may dislike an episode but I just move on. Shows and stories like MLP change and evolve over time. What was once seen often in season one might not show up as much in season four, and that's okay. Someday, I may stop watching or maybe I'll watch until it inevitably ends, either way the expectations are much lower, but not because the show is worse all of a sudden; the passion is no longer there because I enjoy the show more often when I have a more casual attitude about it. When episodes do come by and happen to be especially good, that's awesome, but no longer do I fall into the extreme lows if something I don't like happens. I mean, I certainly hope Pinkie never acts like that ever again, and that instance of her is the most extreme she ever gets, but you can't predict such things.

This rant just turned into another goddamn Filli Vanilli MLP rant didn't it? I AM SO SORRY. It is SO irrelevant to the picture to the left. So instead of talking about Touhou I'll go into another just-as-irrelevant rant! I stopped watching Achievement Hunter. OH NO. WHAT A TRAGEDY. Perhaps I'll go back to it someday. It's not like some sort of dramatic, angry abrupt stop at consuming their content. It was just a gradual sort of thing. At one point I watched a video they released every single day, then it dwindled until I watched a few videos a week. Just recently I began watching just to bide my time as I played with my hamster. Yes, there's a problem when you simply watch the video to pass time instead of for the purposes of entertainment. Is it because Ray left? That may be a part in it, but I guess their brand of humour and their attitude to gaming and such just became repetitive and old at some point. I did watch their stuff for almost two years after all. A lot of their humour is bashing things, mostly jokingly, but it does feel old after a moment. For instance, I like hockey. They bash the fuck out of hockey whenever it comes up, but I know it's in a joking manner. Recently they played NHL 15, and I watched the first video but for whatever reason I just don't have the desire to watch the second part. I guess even though I know they were joking I got tired of their constant ignorance about a sport I am passionate about.

Another thing is that I've begun seriously watching tons of ASMR. I've become so much more calm and chill because of it and I love that stuff. The topic came up in Achievement Hunter, one member apparently hates it and finds it creepy. That's okay. It's not for everyone. But then it got to the point that they started joking it was a sexual thing somehow? Which is a stereotype I really don't want being spread around at all. They even spoofed an ASMR video by whispering and making tons of innuendoes. Again, they were probably joking, but the hoards of thousands of fans that watch and have no clue what it is will probably think it is just a sexual kind of thing. You get kind of tired when such stereotypes are tossed around. Like every gay person is flamboyant! All girls like shopping and dresses! Yaoi fangirls are perverted lost causes! Fans of ponies are neckbearded manchildren! People on Tumblr are fierce SJWs who have "NO FUN ALLOWED" permanently installed on their lawns! Redditors are just fuckboys who hate women! I SEE THIS CONSTANTLY ON THE INTERNET ALL THE GODDAMN TIME IT GETS OLD GODDAMNIT. And when there are constant jokes and humour meant to shit on people, which I'm fine with honestly, I do love me some South Park. It's just that if such a brand of humour is done in really cheap, direct manner, it's not all too funny anymore. South Park is brilliant because it's written excellently with some great satire. Doing things offensively because it's offensive is not clever whatsoever.

I'm not saying what they did was offensive. God knows there are tons of other things people have concerns about, but it's just in general. You get tired of it and that's the brand of humour they operate on. You go talk to your friends somewhere in a relaxing, open place where you can be yourself, but then you can't because suddenly someone makes a sandwich joke about girls. And you just sit there and take it, but internally you're like "THIS IS FUCKING OLD." I can appreciate smart humour that subverts your expectations. Or puns. The best cheap humour is puns. Whenever someone makes an incredibly ignorant comment about something I don't get angry, I just laugh at them. They're that stupid. It's how people continue living life, by laughing because man do things get old.

Okay that last rant wasn't really coherent whatsoever. I basically just got tired of the "Deal with it" attitude. Like, instead of complaining (well I technically am now but whatever) I'll just stop watching. The passion will be gone, and it has. And despite all my grievances the ultimate reason is that their stuff just got boring. They just play the game now it seems. I don't really laugh anymore. I loved the Minigolf stuff, always laughed at that. Then Ray left and they filmed the rest of that series in a week. While there was some genuine hilarity in the last few videos it felt like a drop in quality because instead of spreading out the content they played it all at once, so everyone remembers how to play the game. It becomes "a bunch of dudes playing video games" instead of "a bunch of entertainers playing video games". Maybe my tastes have matured? Their audience is the teenage audience anyway.

Oh yeah, Touhou.

I guess I am still passionate about some things. I am here ranting after all. So speaking about Reddit, I re-subbed to the Touhou subreddit because I wanted relevant Touhou news. (I'm never going to remember when Reitaisai happens without this!) but notice how I say "re-subbed". I un-subbed because they kept posting NSFW art or questionable art. I was really hoping such content was moved to some other subreddit, and when I re-subbed I didn't see any, but then after a week of course all that came crashing back down. Luckily actual NSFW art doesn't have a thumbnail, so I can usually ignore them, but questionable art does not get tagged like this, so I'll be scrolling down the front page and suddenly, someone's butt.

Okay, one reason to love Touhou is the designs, in particular how non-sexual these designs are. Certainly they're wearing very elaborate clothing one would not really expect of the time they live in. (I mean, exposed armpit mikos? Lol) But it's not anything that's really revealing and it's really nice for a change. Of course then the fighting game comes out and they decide the religious nun character should have bouncy boobs, and when she rides a motorcycle a rather revealing biker outfit during her special, which you most likely will miss considering how fast the picture comes by, but still. Nonetheless, I can tolerate it. I did after all start liking Touhou after SOMEHOW enduring the blatant and vast fanservice that dominated all of Negima, what with being an ecchi. I didn't complain too much about it (except when the proportions were incredibly stupid) because if I'm reading an ecchi I might as well be expecting fanservice, so if I see a small amount of it in other things it's not a huge deal. But actual porn or questionable fanart of normally very tastefully-dressed Touhous bother me. (Though I do recall complaining about said bouncy boobs. Seriously, Byakuren of all people!?!? I know the rest aren't as well-endowed, but really?)

But it's all about choosing to see things. You see I frequent Danbooru because I'm insane. I am well aware Safebooru exists, but the translations/comments (or at least the comments) won't exist on Safebooru because sadly, not as many people browse such a site. Now you might be wondering why the comments are so necessary that I'd stay on the site like so, but you don't exactly realize how insane I am. I enjoy reading comments to the extent that I read Youtube comments. I AM THAT INSANE. Because of such, I keep any complaints I might have about Youtube comments to a minimum (do you see a rant about that here??) because if I'm willingly reading about them, complaining about it is utterly pointless. I did install Alien Blue to replace Youtube comments with Reddit comments (which contrary to popular belief is not always better) but if the video does not have many Reddit comments or none at all, you damn well know I'm reading those horrible Youtube comments. So yes, you'd think seeing questionable content would not bother me. After all, I HAVE YEARS OF NEGIMA EXPERIENCE.

But Reddit is a place where I don't want to see such content, like at all. It's a place I don't expect it. It's a place free of such things. That's why a NSFW filter exists! But then questionable stuff gets through anyway, and again you don't have to click it! BUT IF IT SHOWS UP IN A THUMBNAIL, WHAT DO YOU DO!? WHAT DO YOU DO!? That's why I unsubscribed to r/WTF. (Why the fuck is that subreddit a default one anyway!?) Hell, I actually expect it on Tumblr because of how Tumblr is organized. Unless you specifically only follow strictly SFW people (which I don't because too many cool people to follow) there is always a chance you'll see NSFW on the dash. That's why I never Tumblr in public, but Reddit, ironically, IS THE ONE PLACE I DON'T WANT TO SEE SUCH THINGS. And thus this dilemma.

Good lord I'm still not talking about the sort.

Well.

It's all very simple really. I've only been paying attention to canon Touhou stuff until recently, so Miko returning in ULiL and her badassery has promoted her to first place, while Keine I still like as much. She just hasn't done anything so she's stagnant. Sanae is playable again in TH15: Rabbit Season! Yay! But that's not at all the reason she's up there, or any other character might be so high up. As you can see, UFO as a whole except Byakuren dropped out of my top ten, which is a sad depressing thing. I truly enjoy UFO. I'm just still forever annoyed that Stage 5 bosses like Shou and Orin are left to the side because they are youkai cats. SUCH DISCRIMINATION. At first the rule was only humans can be playable, but then Reisen became playable in TH15 (probably because she's relevant and also she is for some reason identifying as human in this game, idk) and Seija also became playable despite being a youkai. So clearly being a cat is a bad thing in the Touhou universe. I guess I'm just disappointed that due to Shou being really just a figurehead and all of her power canonically coming from that pagoda, there is no reason for her to be playable in a fighting game or be relevant in too much. This is unfortunate. Shou has all the wonderful design to look utterly badass while fighting, but I guess her looks are just for...Shou.

I do not regret that.

Anyway that includes the rest of UFO not in the game. Ichirin actually went up, from 50th-ish to 30th-ish so it's not like everyone went down! I still like Murasa and Nue but they've also become far less relevant. Nue's involved in a million other things now, like hanging out with Koi and Flan (fanon, but still) or having hijinks with Mamizou or being compared to/drawn with Seija due to design similarities (all fanon! But they're not doing much in canon anyway so eh). Meanwhile Murasa is now commonly mistaken for a Kancolle character. SUCH A SAD FATE. Or at least when I go "OH MY GOD THAT THUMBNAIL OF MURASA LOOKS COO--it's a Kancolle character. Fuck everything."

Okay I'll stop avoiding the obvious.

AYASANA IS THE WINK OF A WIND GOD

....wow the translation of that sounds awkward.

Yep! It's just like how KeneMoko propelled Keine to god-status. I have recently adopted a new wonderful pairing because I am a shameless hardcore shipper who despite the numerous rants (like that RWBY rant where I declared I stopped shipping...and now I have an actual OTP in that fandom >_>) will always return to these seemingly adolescent roots. I'M SORRY. IT IS HARD TO DENY THE CUTENESS. You see when Aya isn't portrayed as the most annoying bird in existence and when Sanae isn't portrayed as the most manic youkai exterminator in existence, they're actually quite nice characters who are really fucking cute together. Like holy crap. This is oddly enough not unexpected. I recall years ago being bored and going through the Aya and Sanae tags because I WAS THAT BORED, and I actually went through all the AyaSana stuff despite having little investment in the pair. It was cute enough for me to LOOK AT EVERYTHING. Now I randomly returned to it (I don't know how. I, on a whim, purchased an Aya keychain recently and now it sits on my desk IN FRONT OF ME for some reason and the figure MUST'VE HYPNOTIZED ME TO look up Aya things) I also blame Wind God Girl. I think I was listening to it and decided to look up Aya stuff. ALL OF IT IS HAS CONTROLLED MY BRAIN.

I say this because I've always liked Sanae. She's my favourite playable. I always main her. THEN AYA, OUT OF NOWHERE. The only reason she had not swapped with Sanae's place is because I've liked Sanae longer and until my preferences have been solidified some I'm not allowing some random character to stick its face so high up so soon. It'd be weird! But if all of this love remains and doesn't die off eventually then technically I am once again shipping another reporter character... hm. I never was too fond of Momiji/Aya, or Aya/Hatate. I tried to get into Sanae/Reimu but I don't find Reimu shippable personally. I AM ALSO OPEN TO SHIPPING EITHER OF THEM TO ALICE. Because Alice is great. I still love her. She's just ninth because...reasons.

BY THE WAY I WROTE ALL THAT ABOVE LIKE TWO WEEKS AGO AND JUST RECENTLY FINISHED THE SONG SORT AFTER A WEEK. Click the image for the massive full sort. It took that long, though admittedly there were days I didn't touch it at all and days where I spent like 2-3 hours. Some days I just did it for like fifteen minutes, but at around 40% in I finished the rest all in one day in around 3 and a half hours. By "finished" I mean rushed, so that led to multiple music casualties, wonderful underrated or usually amazing songs that are sadly lower on the list because I liked one song better than it but didn't like THAT song better than others despite probably liking the casualty better than the songs that I liked better than the song I liked better than it. Did you get that? Was that confusing? Nonetheless I'll list a few casualties and a few surprising songs I don't listen to very often that happen to be casualties but need a listen because damn they are just that good. Oh and one thing about the character sort which I did a few weeks back....I did say things might change after a while and it did! I'd probably swap Sanae and Aya. That's about it. THE EVIL KEYCHAIN THAT SITS ON MY DESK UNLIKE ALL MY OTHER FIGURES HAS TAKEN TOTAL CONTROL OF MY BRAIN. This all happened due to an impromptu purchase of an Aya keychain. All of this. The sudden Touhou takeover of my blog despite several rants being entirely unrelated, but still!

I'd also like to mention two other recent events, such as MLP's 100th episode which was pretty much a fanservicey (not in that way) love letter to the fans and that the Stanley Cup has been won by the Chicago Blackhawks...again...for the third time in six seasons! Egads! That just means they not only have a really strong team but really strong scouting and management to maintain such a successful team for so long. At this point they might as well be called a dynasty, perhaps not the crazy Montreal Canadiens of old or the Gretzky Oiler days, but at least on par with or even better than those dominant teams of the 90's (like the Avalanche and the Penguins). Meanwhile my Vancouver Canucks have nothing to show for in forty-four years. I dread whatever decision our management makes for the upcoming draft because we are once again (like a tradition it seems) deciding on two goalies with bright futures and one of them is my favourite player. I most certainly hope they will make the right choice but after all these years following this team I'm very prepared for crushing disappointment and it's just getting really old. I'm to the point I may consider some other team if they keep doing things like trading away favourite players or making mindnumbing decisions. How long can this loyalty last? It's like my rant earlier in this post. If I were a casual and only cared when my team was doing really well maybe this wouldn't be a problem but it is because of passion, passion which as time goes by feels more and more misplaced. PLEASE DON'T DO WHAT I THINK YOU WILL DO.

If they do, well I'll be here on that day, either ranting or just deflated.

As for the one hundredth pony episode...wow. It's going to fly over really casual fans' heads unfortunately. Those who are only here for the Mane Six and haven't participated in the fandom and how often they write, draw, and make videos of various background ponies will be lost. Derpy (or Muffins if the credits are of any indication) is the most well-known one even for the casual fans but how many people I wonder will get Doctor Hooves or understand why the hell it seems like Lyra and Bonbon are a little more than friends, or why the hell Bonbon is out of nowhere a secret agent or remember who Steven Magnet is or realize the significance of his name or remember Octavia? Aside from Derpy there's Vinyl who has a few toys of her that's more exposed than the most (she was a McDonald's toy once I believe) and she had a sizable role in the movie so Vinyl and Derpy will probably be the ones those who aren't super invested will get, but still the majority of the episode will go WHOOSH over their heads.

I've never been the hugest fan of the background ponies. Unlike say, a minor character, background ponies don't really speak and are really only there to make the scenery look more crowded. However instead of say a bunch of completely grey/black people some cartoons and Anime might do, ponies happen to be multicoloured and therefore several will end up with rather distinct designs despite being in the background, so people notice them and start making up stories for them. I unfortunately need a little more than that to like them. For instance Touhou has tons and tons and tons of characters, but since you face a majority of them in battle through the game, you get to see their danmaku patterns, their spellcard names, their dialogue, see any potential backstory in the manual, listen to their theme which is usually indicative of their personality, and then you can go from there to establish who they are and if you like them or not. THEN the fanon comes in and does whatever they want with them with very, very, very mixed results. I didn't mind these characters as say, minor characters or side characters in fanfics I read, seeing as I usually search up something like I dunno, a Pinkie Pie story (there's an Octavia story somewhere in that recommendation list) but seeing them with this much spotlight in canon? Now this is a surprise!

Quite a surprise in fact, that because of this very episode I liked all these characters more than I ever did before. That's all I needed to start giving them a chance. Actually, the Rainbow Rocks movie had a little scene involving Lyra and Bonbon and I was like "Well, these two get shipped extremely often in the fandom and they have an awfully close piano playing scene here" which made me overjoyed for some reason. Then now, in episode 100 we have them actually talking and saying things like "SUCH BEST FRIENDS" while their actions speak just a little further than mere best friends...

AND THIS LEADS ME TO SOMETHING I'VE BEEN WANTING TO RANT FOR A WHILE.

When I was younger and involved in the shipping community, I understood what most people said when people didn't want things shoved in their face. You know, like ponies. That may be the reason some people dislike the phenomenon (among other things anyway) but then, this perspective soon changed. Not so much for something fairly minor like an interest in ponies, which frankly should not be shoved into people's faces because well, it is ultimately just a TV show, but something a little more significant like, shipping is not something I agree on. Do you know why? Sure, the hordes of fangirls and fanboys with their OTPs charging down the halls clinging onto every tiny little scene may be annoying and there might be the dreaded ship wars that make most fans hate their own community, but by god, if the show has a scene between two ponies that is OBVIOUSLY hinting at something more, is it really "shipping goggles" to see more? Because, it's not shipping that's the "annoying problem" about these people. Saying that a scene like Lyra and Bonbon is just there to please shippers without outright confirming anything isn't merely "fanservice"...it's a lot less shallow than that.

Perhaps it's due to being on Tumblr so long, but seeing as most people I follow on Tumblr fall on a spectrum, their posts that continually fill my dash day-by-day depicting the things people on a spectrum must go through all the time really changes your mind, nevermind how I'm still fucking confused where I fall in this spectrum. A friend of mine is asexual for example, and she's told me a few times of her grievances with people who do not seem to understand this concept of asexuality. Apparently, someone doesn't like sex. They don't like it at all. They have no desire to be with someone. They do not have such carnal instincts as others. They are literally affecting no one else by not liking this. There's plenty of people who live through life single for reasons like this or others, but because our society is driven so much by the norms of a boy liking a girl, someone's just gotta bother my friend about this all the time or the topic or something subtle or subconscious always pops up. Like maybe someone will ask you who you like, and you say "no one" but they refuse to take this as an answer because they're so used to relationships in your life. My best friend for instance has a mother who keeps asking her to get a boyfriend, and well, if you told that lady you either didn't want one or preferred a significant other of another gender that must be hell to go through.

Now you're wondering "Well Spotto, if you fall on this spectrum why aren't you explaining what you go through everyday too?" While my parents have touched on the topic occasionally they seem to have stopped asking this question, of when I'll get hitched, probably because either they think I'm a lost cause (lol) or well, my brother who's eight years older than me happens to be gay and has gone through this before with my parents, which I've witnessed, and since he hasn't had one single friend beyond a friend at all, I think their traditional expectations have nosedived. I'm blessed my brother took the brunt of it all. It also helps that I'm not out probably because I DO NOT HAVE ANY CLUE. So there.

How does this relate to shipping you ask? Well, people always complain that shippers are in every fandom and ruining everything, taking over other lovely discussions like debating on lore or character analysis for instance, and oddly enough most shippers seem to ship same-sex. Why is this? The 100th episode showcased a fucking wedding between a girl and boy donkey, I mean jack and jenny, and no one cares. Not a single person is going "Wow why are they shoving these two in my face?!?!?!" nor did anyone bat an eye at the Canterlot Wedding (except for people who think brothers who pop out of nowhere and alicorns popping out of nowhere are bullshit, but that's besides the point) but two characters who aren't even the main characters who show up in the background together a lot, and now that they are given more attention thanks to the fandom have some scenes where they seem to get along real well, apparently it's shoving it into their faces if we proclaim our OTP has been canonized or something. Apparently we CANNOT say they are really together, (even the show itself can't outright say it) despite all indication otherwise because that's just "desperate shippers with shipping goggles" or people "looking into it too much" and "tons of friends act like this all time!" NOT IN THIS SHOW THEY DO NOT! I have not seen a single instance where some other group of friends gave each other bedroom eyes, held their jaws in their hooves, or smooshed cheeks together like Lyra and Bonbon does! And if the first thing did happen it's a freeze-frame shot of a pony blinking instead of prolonged dreamy eyes! But no, instead of "YAY MY LITTLE PONY HAS A CANON GAY COUPLE" it's controversial and AMBIGUOUS!!

Like, I have complained about shippers overtaking something before. iCarly for example is 100% shippers and no one at all cares about anything else. MLP is not like this. There's lots of shipping yes, but there's a HUGE amount of stories, fan videos, music, and art all about comedic moments with one character or a video devoted to Luna and Celestia's past or an askblog about the CMC's adventures or the Mane Six in a huge fantasy fairy tale fighting an all-out-war! Of all things MLP does NOT have an over-abundance of shipping! But two background characters often shipped and usually having funny background events are given a few of these scenes and suddenly we're looking too hard and are too desperate and they're just friends! YES. LYRA AND BONBON ARE BEST FRIENDS. SUCH GOOD GOOD FRIENDS. THEY ARE SO CLOSE AND GET ALONG SO WELL. BEST FRIENDS AND BEYOND ARE NOT MUTUALLY EXCLUSIVE!

The whole point is, we can have weddings and freakin' Twilight being paired with a random high school boy not of her own native species in an alternate universe, but a few scenes edging on the line of two ponies of the same sex and suddenly AMBIGUOUS CONTROVERSY. You know what I think about these people? Fuck these people. They are the reason our society isn't as progressive as it should be. They are the reason thousands of people went up and arms about Korrasami, which I know nothing about and is possibly something that could've come out of nowhere, I wouldn't know since I don't watch the show, but by god at least let people BE HAPPY that they can watch a show where there are people just like them in there, and it's normal! Because people on a spectrum have to watch shows and movies and read books where straight people literally have sex (yes I read this on a post) and no one bats an eye, but someone who MIGHT HAPPEN TO BE gay exists and everyone blows a fuse. Seriously, FUCK YOU.

I'm sorry. I was just super happy about the 100th episode (like there are things that felt a bit much but still) and went around reading tons of reactions and such and like half of them was about denying Lyra and Bonbon. People saying "the ship is sunk" because they mentioned being best friends like eight hundred times. Normally people don't mention they're the best of friends a bunch of times in a row. It was likely the writers throwing those lines in there tons of times to get what their actions were like through censors. Even if it was a joke on shippers (which it could've been) they threw in Lyra and Bonbon very closely piano playing in the movie which wasn't at all a scene make to point fun at something, so I'm inclined to believe the consistency of these two scenes existing means the writers actually want to include something like a gay couple in their show too, even if it's in a stealth way that doesn't officially announce it so. After all, these writers live in very open, liberal areas (California) and the animators are in freakin' CANADA. Unfortunately for a lot of people unless you blatantly show them on a giant billboard that reaches the heavens that two characters of the same gender are together, they will deny until the end of time. FRIENDS, you say. This is also a reason there aren't a lot of male-female friendships in media either. I have lots of friends who are guys, but when I go on Reddit for instance, for all the people there in that community, it seems like being friends with someone of the opposite gender is a MYTH or something considering some of the comments and questions I've seen. Christ on a fiddlestick.

And I know why they think it's a myth because this whole stupid "friendzone" thing is so prevalent. It completely erases the importance of friendship. Why can't we be friends? Why don't you want to be friends? Why is it "BE MY GIRLFRIEND OR BE NOTHING"!? Why is this such a thing in our society, our culture? It's like someone sees someone else who is attractive and suddenly they MUST skip that whole friendship thing or undermine it because hanging out with someone because they are cool just can't be a thing if you happen to be attracted to them! I SWEAR!

I want to throw things through my window right now. These things are just so infuriating.

With that out of the way, let me fall on the other line for once.

If you've read this blog a lot (and I don't know why you do I write mountains of text, like this post) but if you've read a whole bunch of it you'll know I'm not some person who's wholly against like sexuality and hates it in every single medium. I see it way too often but I'm not like, asexual or anything like that (I think? Blah I don't know) So even though if I see a character I like dressed very provocatively for the billionth time and want to fling glass shards at whoever thought another one of these images was a good idea, there are times where I welcome such a thing. It's like how you ask a guy if they like, say this part of the body more or the other. Say some people like broad shoulders on a man, or the obvious "I like big boobs" people, or what have you. I have this too. I absolutely love navels. If a girl has her stomach showing I will never be complaining. I just said girl without thinking too. Guys' stomachs are okay (well, you might be like "WHAT ABOUT ABS" and abs are cool, but I actually just like flat smooth stomachs more than anything. Besides for a guy I prefer like, pronounced eyebrows and jaw-lines over the stomach) But all of this is entirely appearance-based. If I ever like someone it'd probably be personality above all because well, in reality you gotta be compatible with that person right? If they make you laugh and are a charming, nice person, the looks really don't matter in the end.

I mean, yes, I am saying this on a blog without that much experience on the thing so maybe it's two-faced or blatant lies. But really, if I happen to like someone thanks to their personality, they're a lot cuter to me than they ever would be normally all because of that lovely personality so while yes, obviously looks will be in play, it's really not the biggest thing whatsoever.

Now where was I?

OH RIGHT THE SORT HA HA HA.

So, like I said many paragraphs ago, I did a music sort too! It took a while. The reason I rushed it all today was because leaving Chrome open with a game was causing graphical glitches (among other things, I'm looking at you Steam!) so I wanted to close Chrome...except I had this sort up and if I closed it I wouldn't be able to continue where I Ieft off, so I decided to just do it all at once, get it done. This of course led to many songs I do like quite a bit far lower than they should be due to my stubborn lack of choosing tie, and my tastes being all over the damn place. Also, the first four PC-98 games were sadly excluded because I thought some of the best PC-98 songs were all in Mystic Square. I forgot Mima was a playable character, not a boss in Mystic Square so her theme wouldn't be in it. I also thought Luize was Elly, and confused their themes together. Luize is in Mystic Square, but Bad Apple, the song I wanted, belonged to Elly who was instead in Lotus Land Story. Also other cool songs like Strawberry Crisis were left out as well so those are some unfortunate casualties of this sort. I'm never doing it again; it takes way too long, but I do love those songs. However including Mystic Square made me realize where some remixes came from (I've neeeeever played the PC-98 games ok) and I found other songs that sounded quite good I didn't really listen to much before. Unfortunately one of these was quite the casualty, the stage one theme of Mystic Square called Dream Express. Since I was rushing I was unfortunately judging a lot of songs I didn't know as well on like, the first few seconds of the song so I could move on, but this theme is really damn good. A lot of Touhou songs do have some long intros or take a while to get to the good stuff. This is why Last Remote is ninth. I love Last Remote, but it takes ages to get to the catchy melody part. Meanwhile something like Extend Ash is good the whole way through or Little Princess' lead up fitting really well with the song.

If I listed these songs manually Dream Express would likely be in my top 50 or even top 30 but due to my rushing it is a sad 233rd. -_-

There are a lot of these. I dunno if there are any in particular I still remember, but something like Wriggle's stage theme is really low, or Yukari's IaMP theme is really low, etc. (It didn't read as "Yukari's theme, just Shrine theme or something so it didn't click to me automatically it was Yukari's other theme, so being some random IaMP theme it dropped like a rock). Despite ticking off arranges, there was a particular game that remixed its opening for all the pre-battle themes (or most anyway) which is SWR. Its title theme is remixed from IaMP's title theme and Soku's title theme is remixed off it as well, but wow every damn pre-battle theme being a remix was annoying. I like the song sure but I didn't want a song to be 13 spots lower than it should be because I voted for the title themes and all its remixes to be near the top. (The Soku version is in my top ten; if I had done this my top 20 would be just THIS SONG'S REMIXES D<) so there was that.

Oh and even though no MoF songs made it to my top ten (partly due to casualty) it was by far the hardest game to judge. I love EVERY SINGLE song. Any MoF song not in the top 30 was a casualty. Even though some themes are above others they're pretty much all ties in my heart. There were also songs voted in spite. A prominent one is Sanae's theme, Faith is for the Transient People. You see, Twitch Plays Pokemon recently did a Touhoumon run and Sanae was their starter. Someone suggested doing a remix/mashup of the themes of their six champion Touhoumons, but adamantly deemed Sanae's stage theme as superior, so it ended up in both mashups that existed. The first one that was posted only had the stage theme and not the boss theme and even though I DO AGREE the stage theme is really good and is probably better than the boss theme, I have always associated Sanae with her boss theme because IT IS HER BOSS THEME and it's pretty distinct, so that peeved me off. The second mashup had both, and this was nice. Unfortunately this happened again with MIMA. Apparently Mima's stage theme or second theme or whatever is superior to Reincarnation. No matter how good a theme it might be (I listened to it, it didn't catch on with me at all) REINCARNATION IS A CLASSIC! It's a song I instantly associate Mima with, so I was just full of petty spite at the end and when it came to this sort, though Reincarnation was unfortunately not included I fucking voted for Faith is for the Transient People over Sanae's stage song, BECAUSE FUCK YOU that's what!

I mean I love Nostalgic Blood of the East faaaaaaaaaaar more than Plain Asia for Keine, but if someone uses Plain Asia for Keine instead of Nostalgic Blood I won't mind whatsoever because Plain Asia is her actual boss theme. That is the one associated with Keine the most .It is her theme. Stage themes technically shouldn't even be associated with any character; it's only ZUN trying to set the atmosphere while you kill faeries heading to the next boss. Maybe they can be applied for midbosses that have no other themes, but really.

As for unexpected results, well...IN having three entries to MoF having none in the top ten was a surprise. Of course, I really love Extend Ash and Nostagic Blood, but I underestimated how much I loved Lunatic Princess. Those Princess songs man, they're always so damn good. The problem is MoF and SA both killed each other and themselves when it came time to fight against other games' songs because I love the music from both so bad. Those wonderful years of MoF and SA coming out were imo the pinnacle of Touhou music. While music before then was great and music after is still good, the best came in those years. I love pretty much every song from both their games but MoF does edge out SA.

I've always said Emotional Skyscraper is my favourite Touhou song, but apparently I have eight billion remixes of it on my phone and have heard it too damn much, so it's sadly now fourth. :C

Anyway I should probably post this and not leave it up for a week for when I want to add MORE rants making this even longer. I shall end with a playlist of my apparent top 31 touhou songs according to this sort, just for anybody who can't recognize the song itself from the name. Why is it 31? Because if I made a list of them all no one would listen to it all, not even me! Why 31 in particular? BECAUSE FAITH IS FOR THE TRANSIENT PEOPLE! SPIIIIIIIIITE!!!!!!!!!!!

"" (Watch on YouTube)