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So on my Sims game I have a whole bunch of OTPs living together. Been doing this for a while just to keep my favourite girls in one place. Recently I've set aside basement space for specific types of OTPs... the ones that no longer can function in canon. As in, they have been super sunk and no reality or dream can make life better for these ships. However, the criteria for them is a lot more nuanced than simply a ship that cannot go on. I thought to define these sets of criteria, to truly express my despair at how far down these ships fell.

Initially half the OTPs were in this unfortunate club, but I began thinking about how the two characters were treated in canon and how they interacted, and one definitely has a lot more going for them than the other two. There are six OTPs in total living in the household. This is the order I put them in from absolutely canon, no doubts about it all the way to these two characters have canon ships with someone else. 

1. YuuTouko from Bloom Into You
Bloom Into You is literally a romance story about these two as a couple, or blooming into a couple I should say. It does NOT get more canon than them!

2. KyouSaya from Puella Magi Magica Madoka
Though the status of their mortality is complicated, and I have yet to see the sequel, Magia Record if these two are even in them, as of Rebellion they're not explicitly canon, but as canon as one can get. Sayaka's little subplot with her dude crush is lightyears away at this point.

3. AyaSanae from Touhou Project
A rarepair! Not at all canon, but the nature of Touhou where romance doesn't exist and no one ever dies means literally zero ships will ever be canon or sunk, so these two can be a forever dream, never to come true, but never to be quashed either. Unless something in the status quo has changed, it is firmly on this tier.

4. Tenmiko from Danganronpa V3, Killing Harmony
And this is the ship I mentioned earlier, where I have firmly decided they do not belong in the basement of tears. Yes, one character is canonly dead so it's not as if this ship can ever sail, but they had lots of interaction in canon, and their development as characters depended on each other the most of any other. Plus it is canon in a one-sided sense, as Tenko had chased Himiko until her death. ):

5. Monochrome from RWBY
How are these guys not dead last!? I blame the MLP finale. Yes, Blake is with Yang, but as of season 6 as I have not seen 7 yet, Weiss is still a suitable bachelorette! The series is not over, and technically anything can happen. Also neither of them are dead or anything. I will elaborate on their status later on.

6. PinkieShy from My Little Pony, Friendship is Magic
Sigh.

Pinkie Pie and Fluttershy had the least amount of potential anyway, but it's still gives me a bit of a sad twang what happened to them. Not so much that they are in official relationships with other ponies/creatures even though they are, but rather that throughout the entire nine seasons of MLP, several movies and specials of EQG, and throughout all the comics as far as I'm aware, we never got a single episode focused especially on these two. No conflict of friendship they needed to get through, no obstacle from a third party the two of them had to get over, absolutely nothing. The closest I got was Buckball Season, where the two started their professional sports careers. No I did not see that coming whatsoever, but while it was a lovely episode, they shared it with RD and AJ, and the conflict was between the four of them. In subsequent episodes featuring Buckball, the two of them were always in the backdrop of a different plot, usually involving Rainbow Dash. Why bother putting them in this situation if every future Buckball episode just focuses on the already-an-athletic-member-of-the-cast anyway!? Gah.

There was one EQG short that focused on them, which was ironically a cheerleading short... whereas in Ponyland the two ARE the athletes and that one Buckball episode was Rainbow Dash coaching the cheerleaders... let's just say the EQG short was charming and cute but rather generic in execution. It got to the point that I was simply hoping anytime any of the ponies were paired together it would be them, just once. And not in a lazy, boring way either. Rainbow Roadtrip had the two of them sharing an activity and thus befriending the same villagers, but their subplot was by far the least interesting of them all in an already dull and slow-paced special. You COULDN'T EVEN MAKE MY TWO FAVOURITE PONIES INTERESTING, HOW, WHY. The two of them didn't really interact with one another, so yea. Plus every other member of the main six each had an individual subplot in the story so it felt like Ponks and Floots were like the leftovers they weren't sure what to do with.

But stuff like the Best Gift Ever special, where I was hoping the Secret Santa would yield interesting pairs instead of the same ones over and over again---NOPE! It's the same ones over and over again. They even did it in EQG too. Why is Rainbow Dash always getting Fluttershy? Yes we have had numerous episodes focusing on the two and they were childhood friends as well, so why do we need even MORE interaction for them? Especially this late in the series when the show is ending soon, you could explore OTHER pairs and other interactions but EVEN STILL you just go back to your usual? WHY?!?! You could have done Rainbow with Twilight or something, or Dash with Rarity, or even Dash with Pinkie. We also got Pinkie and Twilight as the pair (it was even MORE disappointing when most everyone just got each other, instead of everyone having to give presents to another pony, like what are the chances of that?) and Rarity got AJ as always. AJ only got Spike so we could have more Spike and Rarity interaction. The song in the end was cute and to be fair, Spike sought out Rarity because of his crush so that one is understandable, but the rest is aggravating.

They probably would have been rock bottom in the list anyway, but I was hoping for at least one episode involving them before the whole series ended. Their dynamic started out strong in Season One, which was a season that was a lot softer and wholesome than the following seasons. See, after season one they ditched their educational rating, so the episodes had more freedom to do whatever and wasn't so strict in terms of their target demographic. However what season one did and what I'm sure Lauren Faust emphasized, since she stepped down after this season and wasn't involved whatsoever beyond the second season, is to keep Pinkie grounded. What I mean is that, it seems like she knew that Pinkie had that potential to devolve into that LOLRANDOM type of character who would become more and more controversial and annoying over time, and in season one it seemed like the writers made sure not to let Pinkie fall into that territory. But without her influence and that child-friendly rating they were free to write Pinkie as they saw fit, and moulded her into the type of comedy they wanted to write as opposed to writing the comedy around Pinkie.

This leads to discrepancies, from Pinkie understanding Fluttershy's sensitivity in episode five all the way in season one, to becoming a one-dimensional gag in episode fourteen of season four, all to worsen Fluttershy's anxiety with her innocently insensitive remarks. We are supposed to laugh at Pinkie because she doesn't know better, but SHE DID KNOW BETTER. She did. I know I've ranted about Filli Vanilli to death at this point, and the episode's reputation is moreso the fans' complaints over the actual content, but as someone who loves both these characters I can't let go of it. Especially when the two of them lack much interaction at all, having one of them to be so negative (as well as the Putting Your Hoof Down incident in season two) leaves a lot to be desired. Who would actually ship them after those negative interactions? Nobody. A lot of the ship's popularity came early, when Pinkie sang and jumped across the gorge to encourage Fluttershy, when Fluttershy jump-hugged her out of worry in Appleloosa. There are however isolated scenes in the later seasons where their interactions have been largely positive. The most notable is the scene in The Mean Six, of season eight. Fluttershy is upset due to a misunderstanding with the animals through an anti-version of her running around, and Pinkie's first impulse is to hug and comfort her, and stop all gags and progress in the camping trip to console her. It's great and I love it, but alas it is just one scene in one season, when their last notable interaction was back in season six in Buckball Season.

Plus a lot of the more recent Pinkie episodes have had her largely separated from the rest of the group. The conflict isn't Pinkie vs. another pony of the main six, but Pinkie is causing the conflict and the rest of them have to fix it, or she goes off to Yakyakistan like always to solve her problem somehow. She doesn't do anything special or specific with any other character. The only reason we got some of that in the theatrical movie was because that movie was written by the earlier writers of the series, who stopped working on the show specifically to focus on the movie. Though Pinkie was still doing some odd and annoying things (We get that she loves to have fun, but she shouldn't be having fun and being goofy to the detriment of others or her own life, like when she leaped happily on the rope and almost fell to her death, but wasn't even phased when Twilight was rightfully angry with her after saving her) she was still in the right when it came down to the climax, but because of her actions previously we completely understand Twilight's frustrations and fury.  

I suppose the last time it was Pinkie versus another specific pony from the Mane Six, it was the Pinkie vs. Rainbow Dash one about pies. Of course I can complain again that PinkieDash eps aren't new or interesting, but even so this episode wasn't like, overdone at this point. I did not mind another Pinkie and Rainbow Dash episode, but in the context of Pinkie episodes as a whole, where she doesn't seem to have many episodes later on with another specifically it's a little disappointing. Secrets and Pies was kind of an iffy episode anyway. At this point with its running theme I get that Pinkie is sensitive herself (which makes her insensitivity all the more annoying) but it still bothers me how often that flaw of hers comes up, and how often everyone else tries to avoid it. Maybe if they told her the truth more often she would not have this complex? I don't know.

As someone whose favourite pony is Pinkie Pie I sure do have a lot to criticize! Well why couldn't she have gone WITH someone to fix Cheese Sandwich in her final episode? And why did they paint Pinkie so dumb in the trivia episode? Yeah she may not have knowledge of everything, but I would imagine with Pinkie's ridiculous organization skills and photographic memory she'd know SOME things. Often these types of characters are wiser than they seem, as a sort of comedic contrast to their personality. I've seen that kind of wisdom come from Pinkie before, but nope! She dumb. Hurr. Especially when the other contestants were largely other ponies of average minds. Like Rainbow Dash is there, and she isn't notable in terms of her study habits, so what gives? I'm not even gonna start with Yakity-Sax.

It's sad when the later Pinkie episodes aren't that great when compared to her champion marathon through season four. Seriously ALL of her episodes in season four were absolute top-tier. Season five was okay, but it all died when the Yaks were introduced. I dunno if they're a symptom necessarily, or a causation, but the episodes did drop in quality when her episodes only involved Yaks or Maud. Yeah I liked the Maud episodes but those were because of Maud, not Pinkie. 

But ANYWAY, about the other ships. I've already given my two cents on the Monos. Well, not necessarily. The reason they're also low isn't because Bumblebee is a thing, even if it is, it's because as the series went on with the White Fang conflict, it seemed like a no-brainer that the Schnee Dust Company and thus Weiss would enter the subplot one way or another, considering the White Fang and the SDC are opposites and enemies. But unfortunately, any nuance or subtlety that plot had was thrown out the window when Adam's character was reduced to that of a psychotic ex-boyfriend. It was like any passion he had in his movement, even if he was extreme, was thrown on the wayside for his absolute pursuit of Blake and everyone Blake loves, specifically Yang. It was a political story about discrimination and oppression, but instead of going for everything they set up for as early as the trailers themselves, it just became like a twisted love-triangle thing to advance romance. Like I wasn't expecting Blake or Weiss to get together, but I knew from their backstories they had this thematic conflict brewing and it would reach a climax one day, with great payoff, but instead we the audience are shocked to see Adam branded with the SDC logo, and then killed off, and Weiss not being a part of any of this. She never even met him! Even if what I expected to happen DID happen and Bumblebee sailed anyway, I'd be less upset. Maybe I'd be upset in the "but they had such great dynamic through their shared pasts!" argument, but at least the story I thought would come to fruition actually did, and if Bumblebee happens it happens.

And somehow these two ships are lower than the one where one is DEAD. Even if Himiko has in canon only ever shown interest in men, and even if she'd never see Tenko beyond a potential friend, when their friendship was finally turning a new leaf and then DEATH, they are still higher than those two. Y'know why? BECAUSE THEIR STORIES DID HAPPEN. THEY CAME TO A CONCLUSION AND WENT SOMEWHERE. Whereas Pinkie and Fluttershy never had an episode despite being TWO of the main characters in a show called FRIENDSHIP IS MAGIC in the span of over TWO HUNDRED EPISODES, and where Blake and Weiss had massive foreshadowing for some sort of racial and political plot from as EARLY AS THEIR TRAILERS which started in the first two seasons but then never went ANYWHERE, at least Tenko and Himiko's stories HAPPENED!! 

And I love their tragic story. Their subplot and characters may be underappreciated by fans, but the writer did not shy away from their progress. Tenko was written to advance Himiko's character. This is true, because Tenko's story ended before the halfway mark, and Himiko went on to survive. But even so, what we did get of Tenko is someone who was genuinely in love with, and cared for the person that is Himiko. She started off with a very shallow and superficial crush that evolved over time to something beautiful. When she saw that Himiko was not the perfect mage girl she had dreamed of, she did her utmost to protect her and guide her along the right path, to help mould Himiko to that ideal. Himiko was suffering and needed someone to be there for her, and for most of the first two chapters it could not be Tenko, because Tenko still only saw Himiko as a shallow crush, but when it came time to defend Himiko when she became a suspect, and when Himiko fell into the cult at her weakest hour, Tenko was there to defend, to go undercover, to protect and assist. Himiko's escapism was met with Tenko's grounded philosophy, so even if the ship could never come true, even if Tenko lived, their stories were intertwined together. They could not exist without the other in the plot! Himiko would be dead if not for Tenko, and Tenko may have had no one to latch on as a morality pet without Himiko what with her overdone and one-note hatred of men.

I don't think I really need to bother with the other three, but I will say my current favourite OTPs are... the ones in the bottom 3. Alas! This is not unique to this ship either. I recall being similarly upset with KazuSayo from Negima. Every character in the class would have their pactio chapter one-day, where they enter a contract with the main character. It was something that always happened and usually did after some character discovered magic's existence, but not necessarily right after. Kazumi discovered it way long ago but only entered the contract in the final arc, but what I was waiting for was for Sayo's. Usually anyone with even an inkling of a crush on the main character got lots of spotlight and panel time for their pactio, and Sayo did have a minor one. I was waiting with eager anticipation for Sayo's chapter, so I'd see more Sayo and therefore Kazumi since they were best friends. They even teased it in like the first page or the front page of the magazine the manga was published in, but it NEVER HAPPENED because Negima suddenly ended. THE SALT I HAD was unfathomable. It's not as if it ended without a conclusion because it got cancelled somehow. The mangaka ended it himself as a protest for some law. A story he had been illustrating for like eight years suddenly over. He simply rushed out a conclusion and epilogue despite many story beats only starting or in the process of, and ended it.

I waited many years for that pactio. Sayo's knowledge of magic came quite shortly after her first appearance, what with magic being required for her to be seen, so I was not a happy camper to say the least. My investment on the actual plot and the more important characters was waning, especially since it had become a full-blown shounen manga, and the main character's power level had advanced so far that all of his students, even the most powerful ones with like one exception could not possibly catch up and could only play support. Only the male characters he meets or already knows with great passion for fighting could rival him, which made the story all the more boring and annoying. A story with such a varied cast of females reduced to that of support in a shounen manga was just not something I felt inclined to follow. My only reason for reading on was for the supposedly-inevitable and even teased Sayo pactio. But it never happened.

I am sad that that scenario happened not once, but twice again. 

I've talked to friends and read many posts about what is most important in their life. What matters to them the most; what truly resonates with their soul. A major one I see a lot from friends, internet, and society in  general since it's been a large issue for years and years is sexuality. The debate and fight to get gay marriage passed and the neverending plight to stop discrimination and hate that comes back the other way. There are other major social issues that I see over and over again as well since no matter how good it may seem on the surface compared to so many years ago, something like racial tension will always be around, lurking underneath an innocent exterior or blown right up and smashed into your face if someone massively influential happens to promote it. (We all know who I'm referring to here) Regardless, there are lot of these kinds of thing that people are very passionate about, and very passionate about making them right, making them better.

I have the fortune of not having much attachment to those kind of issues due to not running into much conflict. I guess the word a lot of people use is privilege. For instance, though I am Asian, specifically Chinese, not only do I not run into much racism at least as much as some of my other Asian peers is because I take up the majority of the Asian populace (that or Indian, I'm not entirely sure who has more population at the moment) and I happened to grow up in an incredibly multicultural neighbourhood. My area was so diverse, that there were more Asian people in my high school than white people. White people were the minority. I never really got flak for my race as I grew up. so I never was as passionate as many other less fortunate folk in terms of fighting it, and thus cannot understand to quite their degree their plights. 

I also have the fortune of living in a very liberal city, but not only that, growing up in a family where my brother came out as gay. Although the fallout of that with my family itself was not pleasant, I learned early on that there was no reason whatsoever to be bigoted to people who prefer one sex to another. I learned very early on thanks to my environment that people can like whoever they please and that's seriously not even the in the top ten of issues we should even be concerned about, but we have to because bigots will always exist and always discriminate. In a perfect world you would think most if not all people would be focused on issues affecting the entirety of the human race, such as global warming and its impact on humanity and their quality of life, or helping out those escaping from war-torn authoritarian countries. No, there's still this major debate that people need to care about who people love, and there's still this major debate about racism and sexism and all these other hot-topics that if we were all decent people would in a utopian society would not even be in a blip in our radar, yet here we are.

And it is an important fight that will likely be endless, but that isn't a reason to never fight, for if we never do, we will never improve. Many wonderful. outstanding individuals over many years have progressed us to where we are today, where slavery in its most traditional sense anyway, is no more in many countries, and everyone above a certain age can vote. Still, as important as these issues are, what really resonates with my soul and frankly in the large scheme of things isn't nearly as important as these issues is friendship.

Yet due to how I grew up, it has affected me very deeply. It's impacted who I am, what I like, who I befriend. It shapes my personality, my attitude, and my perspective. I don't think I've yet to run into anyone who is as moulded by this desire for friendship as much as I have, but again I don't know other people inside and out, so I can't be entirely one-hundred-percent sure. When I was very young. I was this small Asian girl about to start school. I remember how small I was because not only were there photos, but because for the entirety of elementary school and even middle school, I was the smallest person in class, bar none. It's possible I forgot a year where I wasn't and happened to be slightly taller than some other student who didn't stick around the school for long, but for most of it all I was the smallest. It's not hard to forget either. I remember one of my gym teachers referring to me and my other smol brethren as munchkins, and my best friend I made in primary school to this day had always nicknamed me shrimp. I am small, and people will not let me forget.

Before I continue let me repeat that I do have the memory of a goldfish, and for whatever sadistic reason it is in human nature for us to be more likely to remember the unpleasant memories over the good ones. Or it's possible I had a miserable childhood, but whatever the case, when I was in kindergarten I only remember making this one friend. We weren't that close since I don't even remember his name, and I don't consider him the first friend I made, since a kid and their family moved into the basement suite we rented out and she became my very very first friend. Still, due to that girl being two years my junior the first friend I made in school was this boy. My single memory of our friendship me as a young child crying uncontrollably hidden under the biggest, very much unsafe slide we had at the playground, and this boy who I assume was probably responsible felt bad and was trying to apologize or cheer me up in some way. I don't recall how. I only recall that it didn't work. He had to stay behind a year for whatever reason my smol child mind could not comprehend, and I moved onto the first grade.

The only thing I remember in all of first grade is that our school was so small some classes did not even have their own classroom. In first grade my classroom was in the gymnasium. That's it. That's all I remember. (In fourth grade my class was in a library until the portable classrooms were finished construction and then we moved there. There was another grade, probably second that was also in the portable classrooms, but I think we also had a legitimate classroom at one point too, so my memory is faint. Only reason I remember this is because I distinctly remember being super excited to have a Gameboy Colour of my very own with a copy of Pokemon Blue. I guess I made out my new fun toy to be too fun because someone stole it from my backpack not very long after. I never saw it again. D<)

Second grade though was when my friend who lived downstairs started school, and unlike me who made that one kid friend and her as a friend she found a clique right away. Unfortunately being different grades causes problems because she'd bond with these other kindergarteners, and I was two years older and then though I was her friend, she'd rather be with these other similarly aged peers. I remember this one time one of her friends had a birthday party, and I was upset because I wasn't invited. Of course I wasn't invited because I wasn't really close to her friend, but I thought since I was her friend and this clique was like, three people outside of me that we could get to all be friends or whatever and it wouldn't be bad if I joined them too. Or in other words I begged my friend's friend to invite me too, and it it worked, but I really wish I didn't do that, or at least it didn't work because that whole party ended up being very awkward. Still, that friend of mine who had this clique was still my friend probably due to our proximity of living spaces, so the year went by.

Third grade luckily I made a friend but the evils that were DIFFERENT GRADES continued because this friend was in the fourth grade. For whatever inane reason the school had this one BIG KID area reversed for ONLY the fourth grade kids. Keep in mind I was in a very small school, and it was called an Annex so it only went up to the fourth grade until you were shuffled over to a full-fledged big Elementary school that went from kindergarten to seventh grade. Some areas in the country, and well the world have a thing called middle school, which we didn't really have in my area, but that second elementary school was pretty much my middle school so when we get to that part I'm just gonna call it middle school anyway. Now obviously my fourth grade friend would of course want to be in this big kid area. All the other big kids were there. It was the cool thing to do, and hanging out with a friend a year younger than you may lead to kids making fun of you or looking down on you for not being in the cool reserved big kids area. I may never know my friend's reasoning, but she was my best friend this year. I never called the kid that had a clique my best friend, but I always referred to her as my first friend and someone I was close to. Third grade was the worst year of this school for me. My lack of any friends in my own grade was quite a disadvantage and this was the first year I experienced everyone's favourite past time in school, BULLYING! I also had the meanest teacher of all time in this year, and remember several times crying during the year of suffering.

Pull a seat and grab a cup of tea because I may be stuck in third grade for a while. During this tremulous year, I was one of two kids that caught head lice. Unlike the other kid who only had a little and thus, was probably caught from me, I had head lice all over my head. I had to have treatment and my hair cut quite short. This one girl bulled me relentlessly for this short hair. And I 100% know I am cis because despite being a super tomboy I seem to be very passionate about letting people know I was not a boy. I do not look like a boy. Fuck you for calling me a boy. Go the fuck to hell. This was not the first time this happened. For you see, I actually had a few friends outside of school that lived on my street. I had this older female friend likely already in middle school, and this boy a year younger than me who introduced me to THE NINTENDO 64 HOLY FUCK. We spent a lot of time bike-riding and playing video games. I am blessed to have spent time outdoors for my early childhood because let me tell ya the moment I got a computer and access to the internet the outside was a long gone memory. Anyway when that older female friend found out I had this friend who was a boy, all hell broke loose. She had this insane concept that boys and girls could not be friends. PLEASE KEEP THIS IN MIND. THIS IS AN ONGOING THEME. And told me if I did not de-friend this boy this instant, she would de-friend me. To make matters worse, she said the fact that I HAD a friend that was male meant I was TURNING INTO A BOY. I ran off crying. My dumb smol child brain believed that I was turning into a boy because of this, but also being one that is a dumb smol child, instead of defending my male friend or staying with that female friend I stopped hanging out with the both of them entirely. I lost two friends because of this stupid concept. That male friend of mine was probably super upset too, that poor child. However the best part of this terrible little incident is my very first friend came and comforted me while I was crying. 

And this whole choose one or the other kind of thing did not stop there. My best friend in school in the fourth grade and I also made this other friend as well. Now this may be relevant, but my best friend was white, and this new friend was native. So even though it seemed like we hung out with one another (we ate lunch together, I think?) my best friend would constantly bully my native friend. This was odd because I was not that close to the native friend. I'm quite sure it was my best friend that befriended her anyway. Or "befriended" I should say, but being the dumb smol child that I was, I did not defend my native friend. That's just as bad as doing the bullying yourself, but I guess at this point I wasn't willing to be assertive or helpful whatsoever because it's quite clear I have this desperation for friendship, and I'd do anything not to rock the boat and lose anymore friends. If given the choice to defend the poor kid being picked on or staying friends with the alpha female, my choice was to do nothing. Because I didn't want to invite more conflict. I feel pretty bad about those kids I did not defend though. I was not a strong person.

Finally, this friend I wanted to stay my best friend moved pretty much after the third grade. I was only friends with her for one year, and I did not help this other friend of ours, and it was all just sort of pointless now that I thought about it, how much I wanted to stay friends with her due to my inaction and thus enabling of her behaviour but perhaps if I did defend that third friend we would be friends instead. Even so that was not the worst part of this year. The teacher making me cry in front of my dad who berated me as I cried was not the worst part of this year. The losing of two friends due to an ultimatum was not the worst part of this year. Being horribly bullied by this girl with head lice was not the worst part of this year. I had a fallout with my very first friend. I felt like she was bossing me around and I was just letting her, and being submissive so I don't lose her as a friend and so did whatever she wanted, whatever she said. I don't recall what exactly caused us to fight, but I stood up for myself for the very first time and it blew up, and this first friend of mine stopped being my friend. We had this feud, this grudge. Every time I walked by she would turn her head and huff, and to have lost all my friends in the span of one year, including my first was a crippling blow. It only further fueled my desperation for friendship, but not only friendship. True friendship. It's not as if this first friend was terrible or toxic because I do remember the fond memory of her supporting me when I was crying, but well, the moment I tried to be independent, or how I felt like I was being bossed around was the moment I lost her.

Anyway I fucking hated third grade, but yay for fourth grade! I may have entered it friendless, but there was this new kid in class. And we became friends pretty much the moment I met her, and she was the one who always called me shrimp and stuff. Unlike all these other friends who were all different grades, weren't even in my school and of different ages, and not someone I clung to or put on a pedestal or whatever, this friend was my peer of my same grade, and she would pick on me a lot. But friendly picking. Like, the first friend where we can make jabs at each other and not step around egg shells. She has been my friend since fourth grade and is still my friend. Of course at this point I was sort of broken, like friendship is SUCH A HUGE ISSUE FOR ME NOW that it eclipsed everything else. Most people would say the point of school is not only for academics but also to become socially intelligent as the years go by. How to treat other people, how to make friends, all that stuff that is healthy for the human psyche. Yet I put all my buns in that second basket, and so my grades were always average except that one weird year I was top of the class for math somehow. I felt like the KING OF THE WORLD and was DESTINED TO BECOME A DOCTOR, but I digress. For anyone reading who knows of my planned trip to California next year, this friend, also known as Tofumold or some other food-related name will be coming with me. However she has never been an affectionate person and doesn't have this friendship complex like I do, so I started having these expectations like "I wish I had friends that would hug me! Because on TV friends hug!" and other such things. She doesn't do that. So while she is my very best friend since childhood, my years of struggle with friendship before this year gave me these humongous expectations to find these ideal friends cartoons like to feed me. Who are these perfect friends that are always on television!?

Also at the same time all this regular grade school stuff was happening, I was enrolled in a Chinese school that took place every Saturday since I was four before I even started regular school. I never made a single friend in this school. I was extremely bitter about this, and though I mentioned being bullied in third grade, the first time I was actually bullied was when I was four by other fellow four-to-five year olds. Like what the fuck? Kids still have souls at this age do they not!? Anyway my lack of friends gave me an incredible lack of motivation to do anything at this school let alone learn, and I was a pretty terrible student. Around tenth grade I outright refused to go back to the school, I was so fed up. In hindsight the idea of being in this school to retain my knowledge of my own native language was very important because of how many people that spoke the language and lived in the area, but I also understand why I never retained it and never managed to learn much of anything. My mindset was so stuck on this whole friendship thing, this thing I wanted so much but struggled so hard to obtain and when I did, to keep, and if I did keep was it even sincere in the first place? This insecurity struck with me my entire school life, and its remnants still remain with me to this day.

So anyway fifth grade came around, we were off to a new school to the wonderful experience that is middle school. Or the years of my school where douchebaggery was highly contagious and infected most if not everyone including myself. Bullies everywhere! IT'S TRUE! MIDDLE SCHOOLERS ARE SOULLESS HUSKS OF A HUMAN BEING! In an effort to not be at the bottom of the social ladder with my friend, there was this probably mentally handicapped kid with a speech impediment that everyone made fun of. We were not exceptions and it was not a proud moment of my life, but just like all the other times of inaction and trying to be with the majority to not stand out and all that kind of jazz it was a thing I did. School feels like this whole dominance kind of thing where followers will always look towards the strongest alpha student, follow their ways to not be seen as weak and thus be picked on by the populace. It's like survival of the fittest; savage animals trying to stay alive. That's why bullying is such a difficult issue to solve, and sometimes the only way to fix it isn't any sort of the safe, peaceful methods the faculty or parents always attempt, like ignoring the bully or telling a teacher or whatever. Those never work. The only time I've seen someone successfully fend off a bully was to stand up for themselves and punch them back, even if they are also suspended or even the only one suspended because of how backwards school rules are. My god, school is like prison. I've always heard to earn respect or to keep yourself from being a target is even if someone fights you, you must fight back. You can't run to a prison guard or try to hide or anything of the like. Even if you lose the fight horribly, as long as you stand up for yourself people will respect you. THAT'S SCHOOL. Can't tell a teacher, can't be a snitch! You're gonna get punished for being in the fight regardless of who initiated! AND YOU WILL BE BEAT UP ANYWAY. Survival of the fittest everyone.

Around this same time I made some friends! Yay! A few female friends and people I even invited to a birthday party. I even had this silly game I had with one of them where we'd grapple our hands and try to push each other like we were sumo wrestling or whatever. I remember fond memories of eating dried noodles from its package and people playing Pokemon cards, Yu-Gi-Oh, and soon even Beyblade. The trends were here! Of course during said birthday party all hell broke loose. I'm being melodramatic probably, but I'm pretty sure I cried at most of my birthday parties. Or at least was not particularly happy about them. Maybe I'm just a sensitive little bitch, who knows. But the one year I remember this being very warranted. One friend I made was like another one of these alpha females. I don't know why I keep calling them this, but it's like this one girl I befriend who is bossy and I always listen to and such. They command the room. They are the leader. Anyway I have this male cousin of mine, two years junior who I was very close to over the years. The markup of my family tree is sort of complicated but essentially we were the only people in our family of similar age, and everyone else was either just being born, or was not born, or was way older than us (including my brother who is over seven years my senior) so I became fast friends with him and he is a huge influence of my life. He introduced me to LF2 and Negima a few years down the line (attempted to introduce me to Re:Zero but after the debacle that was Negima I learned better >_>) He also had like every game console in existence. I remember playing games on his PS Classic like Worms and Gundam, on his PS2, his PS3, his PS4, his Nintendo 64, his Gamecube. He introduced me to Smash and is just as passionate about it as Souless is. (He once brought a CRT TV to a BOAT so he could play Melee properly with his friends. On a boat. Like don't even get on a boat to be on a boat, go on it to play Melee! To be  fair his father was a fisherman so he probably had been on boats most of his life, but still!) I also got him to play Soldat for a few years. It was nice.

So yeah, when this happened a fucking third time, there was no longer inaction or fear of losing a friend. Because my alpha female friend I had made this year was appalled that I had this male cousin who was my friend. She was like NO BOYS ALLOWED! She and the other (female) friends I had invited to the party locked themselves in MY OWN ROOM declaring it a BOY-FREE ZONE, and instead of joining them all I was outside the door with my cousin who was crying. FUCK. THESE. PEOPLE. This was MY birthday party. That was MY room. And this was MY cousin who I had been close to for YEARS! I didn't care that ALL OF MY FRIENDS were in there with her. I STAYED WITH MY COUSIN. I was so angry! I was so appalled. WHY IS THIS CONCEPT OF MALES AND FEMALES BEING FRIENDS SO TERRIBLE? We were EVEN related! I don't even! Holy fucking shit! 

And you know what? I defended my cousin and didn't lose any of my friends. Not even my alpha female friend.

Of course she moved away a year later. If it had gone down similarly to previous incidents, I may have lost friends and then the one I would have kept would have moved away anyway. I avoided this happening a second time by defending my cousin. We also made some male friends at school we'd play a form of tag with all the time, but we were always the ones chasing them so I assume no one wanted to pick that role and we were willing to be the sharks to try to eat them because we were not particularly high on the social ladder at school. I remember very little of sixth grade aside from not being fond of the teacher, but outside of school it was around this time my first friend moved away and another kid, a boy a few years my junior moved in. We became fast friends, played LF2 and NHL 97, and for a brief period of time this other kid in the neighbourhood played those games with us too. This was also around the time I got my first hamster, and I think I influenced HIS life quite a bit because we really enjoyed manhandling these hamsters (I know better now, lol. Imagine if my parents had any presence in my life during these times of turmoil how different this would all be) and when he finally moved like 90% of my friends do he got himself his own hamster. I got a boy to like hamsters. Cute. He also played Beyblades with me and it seems like though I struggle to keep female friends, I always find similar hobbies and interests with this guy friends and always actually DO stuff together. This never seemed to be the case with most of my female friends. Luckily my very best friend also enjoyed video games, so there was that to bond over. Alas I do not remember much else of this year, so moving on to the seventh grade which i do remember quite a bit.

During this year, we made friends with these two boys that sat at our same table. I actually knew one of the boys for a long time to the point that my family would be like "OH IT'S SPOTTO'S BOYFRIEND!1!" playfully or whatever, but only became friends this year. What's amusing to me is that the OTHER boy actually confessed to my best friend at the end of the year. She didn't recuperate, but that's sort of interesting. I only stayed friends with the boys, but one thing that truly touched me is on my birthday I was given this sketch of myself with a little doggy (because I loved dogs a lot!) and balloons everywhere out of the whim. I still have that drawing on my wall to this day and it is my favourite birthday present ever. I did not have to invite him to my birthday party to get a present. He just did it just because. I wonder if he too liked me beyond friends, but idk. I was still struggling with friendship and my brain was wired that boys and girls could be friends that I never really thought about romance whatsoever. I was a smol child with a smol child brain. Pretty sure I still have a smol child brain now too. 

Anyway it was a generally happy year except that one time I threw up in front of the class during quiet time and got relentlessly picked up by this asshole jock. I also remember this year (or was it the last?) where the popular girl made me do her homework. YAY MIDDLE SCHOOL! But still, I had close reliable friends who I didn't feel like were just friends just because, but people who really cared about me. This was the year I was king of math. Is there a particular reason for that? I don't know. But I think I do better in academics when I'm not flailing about drowning trying to make friends. For once in my life, I felt stable. I had a good friendship with the boy that lived downstairs, and spent lots of time with him and this other kid. I was friends with the kids at my table. My best friend was still here. This was not a year where I yearned for friendship. I had it.

Then everything changed when high school attacked. 

Luckily me and my best friend went to the same high school but due to where our school was located and where people lived, basically everyone at our grade split off to four different high schools. I never saw those boys again. In high school we did end up making some friends... all female. it was a very large clique with say 8-10 people, but due to my everlasting status of being near the bottom of the social ladder and my friendship complex, me and my best friend were not anywhere close to alpha female position, let's just say. I had this desire to make more friends, but CLOSE friends just like with my best friend. But in a clique there's usually even more inner cliques. Two girls will be best friends and do all the stuff together. Same with these other two girls. I came into this clique with my own best friend already, but we weren't all in the same classes ALL the time. And these friends of mine were closer to these other girls probably because they didn't put each other on pedestals or have clingy friendship complexes, so it was difficult to really grow close. I liked the girls that were nicer to me and such, but even then. It was also at this time my time on the internet went on a rise and I found friends online. Online friends who shared VERY close interests to mine since we could communicate over long distances and I didn't know anyone in my school with very similar interests. Due to such, I grew much more closer to these internet friends. I think the most significant of these were the BIFF. Today, only two of the BIFF remain but they have become ultra close friends with me especially Akira, and now I've learned that best friends are few and far between, but will always be there with you. It's not all about having sixty thousand friends and expecting them to all be as devoted as the few.

Akira is the other friend coming down to SFO with me! Let me talk about the internet friends too! We all bonded over Beyblade. Obviously no female friend of mine in high school gave two shits about Beyblade, so the internet was all I could turn to. Unfortunately my best friend who I do share interests with we always sort of miss that interest by a few steps. Like how she prefers RPGs and I prefer shooters, or how she likes Yu-Gi-Oh and I liked Beyblade. We were close! SIMILAR GENRES EVEN, but no cigar! Only the internet could solve this everlasting problem, and solve it did! I began writing stupid stories on crack about Beyblade characters and made friends in the fanfiction community. I had been writing as a hobby since I was like nine on my brother's ancient laptop, so it was not unfamiliar territory for me. Since making friends was SO rad to me I became very attached to these people like I knew them in real life, even if all we had was Beyblade. But once that interest faded, a majority of them faded as well because we didn't really do anything else nor have similar interests otherwise. It was more like a club that liked this one thing, and once people left the club because they weren't interested, it was no more.

No hard feelings or anything... well except this one incident where one of our club blocked us all of sudden, and I foolishly, like the foolish desperate clingy person I was, tried all I could to at least COMPREHEND why someone would do this. Since she really only blocked me, I reached out through another friend, and talked to her. She dodged all our questions and then proceeded to block everybody. I could never understand, but one of my friends told me to let it go. So I did. It was a difficult decision, but to be fair I did step on her toes by not respecting her decision to exit from our lives by trying to reach her beyond her powers that be. I still don't understand, to this day.

Back to high school though, and I don't really feel like splitting it by year so we're just gonna have one giant blurb about high school in its entirety. Since I was closer to my internet friends and couldn't truly reach over to these high school friends, I began having the same problem I did with my very first friend. Where they would do things and not invite us, or only invite us if no one else was able to go. One of my friends gave me ample advice when she realized my little friendship complex. Don't do things for other people before doing things for yourself. I don't remember the exact quote, but basically I was so eager to please i never really thought about my own self considering my very average grades and all, and just tried to do whatever I could to stay friends with people. It's a theme of my life, man. I also had one friend I made some year later (Grade nine? Egads I remember nothing) who I found rather obnoxious, but she was probably the type of person I should have stayed friends with over several others because no matter how much I expressed to her that she was annoying, she was still very accepting and friendly to me. I wish I stayed friends with her. She was one of those people I felt would be one of those once-in-a-lifetime friends if you gave them a chance, but I sadly did not.

There was also one year, later on maybe in junior or senior, where there was this friend who was basically Pinkie Pie in real life. She had ALL OF THE FRIENDS and was nice to ALL of the people, including me, so low on the social ladder! I really wish I could have been a closer friend to hers, but because she had so many other friends it was a nigh impossible achievement. There was also one year where I suffered some of the worst bullying. In sophomore these girls were transferred to our school and she would not stop at anything to call me names or throw pennies at me because I looked like a poor kid. (I wasn't actually that poor in terms of the school. I was just not one who found importance in appearance so I kind of looked like someone who didn't care and was more, let's say, homely than other kids. Or if you wanna bully me too, you could call me a hobo! Because I looked like a hobo. Gee I wonder if my parents had more of a presence in my life I wouldn't always dress up like a hobo to school) 

Back to the internet that I was increasingly spending more time on because I felt so much more accepted on there. Also they can't see me, so they can't tell me I look like a hobo! After discovering LF2 and playing so much of that game, I found another game that this website covered too called Soldat. Alas my friend I spent oodles of time playing games with who lived downstairs moved away, but I immersed myself in Soldat. I found many friends, a clique that in video games called a "clan" and got to see these same people in these same servers over and over again. We had fun, fun times shooting each other in a competitive environment. Though again like the Beyblade days many of these people faded away, there were some I stuck by for a very long time and still talk to today. We call ourselves Spectral Infantry, but I think I'm the only one that does that now because Discord exists and nobody cares about the clan name and my Teamspeak is dying. Regardless, it's not the name that is important, just like the name BIFF was never really important. (It stands for Best Internet Friends Forever. I hope that is the case with the two I am still friends with lolololol) but the people that still stick around. Also obviously a majority of these friends are guys. Because all the guy friends I've ever made friends with NEVER antagonized me for being friends with them despite being a girl, or never purposefully excluded me because if they want to spend time playing say, Path of Exile when I do not even play that game who am I to feel excluded? I don't play that game. It was a lot more transparent I guess. I felt more stable amongst them. My ability to friendship was finally levelling up, but those back at school were as stagnant as ever. The same feelings, the same kind of inevitable conclusions.

It's very important to not only share interests but share hobbies when it comes to friends. Video games were the thing that kept me going with these people. On the other hand, though I share less interests and hobbies with the few female but true friends I have left to this day, I still feel very close to them because we bonded on an emotional level. We understand each other, and we will be there for one another. Both of these have taught me that I do not need to be doing a thing with a person 24/7 to stay friends with them, or trying to be complacent to keep as many friends as possible because only the important friends are the ones that you really need to keep. The ones that will keep you going and motivated like they do me. At the end of high school, the one friend I became closest to outside of my best friend, who gave me a handmade birthday card out of nowhere, encouraged my graphic design and caused me to win the grade-wide competition, and actually gave me HUGS what the fuck, brutally chastised my appearance throughout high school with the harshest words possible over the internet. I blocked her immediately and we are no longer friends. It was one of the worst friendship breakups I have had, on par with my very first friend,. People who were there for me but obviously had some sort of pent up issue with me that the first sign where either I mentioned something or I was out of frame physically they unloaded their frustrations with me. Why couldn't they be honest from the get-go? I guess because I was a sensitive, eager, clingy person with a friendship complex, and the moment any conflict arises could be the end of it all, like it was. But it always blew up in the end because of it. It always ended friendships.

It always hurt.

And now the consequences.

I have had a pretty terrible year in terms of loss and family and pain, but in terms of PHYSICAL pain I went through several dental treatments to get my teeth fixed. Root canals, crowns, and surgery. Oddly enough despite all of those things I mentioned, the worst pain was the first cleaning I had after several several years. Because my teeth were so bad I was very sensitive to temperature so any cleaning felt like the absolute worst. Somehow cold air was worse than giant pointed steel needles being stabbed into my gums. I also buy separate shampoo and conditioner now, and pay for my own toothpaste, floss, mouthwash and toothbrush because my parents cheaped out and always bought the crappiest toothpaste possible, the cheapest 2-in-1 shampoo, and really all the other tools that though I do not blame for why I've had self-esteem issues certainly contributed a small part to it. Oh and I started buying some of my own clothes because throughout all of high school it was hand-me-downs all the way down, and since I was a tomboy I rejected 50% of it. So i kept wearing very old clothes that started getting tattered. My money at the time was going into things that were more important, like computers and video games. THUS THE HOBONESS! 

But the other consequence was where my interests ending up lying. I was so in need of friendship that every single thing I've ever watched, friendship was the most important issue to me. My very first OTP, ship as it were that I blame the whole Beyblade fanfiction community for getting me into, was KazumiSayo. See my icon? STILL KazuSayo. They are relatively minor characters in the grand scheme of Negima, but for what they had I enjoyed them immensely. Kazumi I saw as a role model because she wasn't a character that really developed per-say. She was kind of ideal from the get-go. She did not care about being in cliques or being friends with a cast herd. When the manga started she was in no cast herd, she was alone. And she was fine with it. She was still confident, still spunky, still had the best voice, still was extremely attractive despite such. (How do attractive people not attract friends?) and was very kind.

Then Sayo came along. Sayo was a ghost who had been alone for like some ridiculous amount of time, like sixty years. No one could see her until her teacher just happened be a wizard. Then when her existence was exposed, it was Kazumi who befriended her. Now at first I wondered why Kazumi of all people befriended her. I could see it in terms of practical reasons, like Sayo being a ghost would be ideal for Kazumi's need for intel, what with being an aspiring journalist and all. Meanwhile Sayo's need for a friend is extreme because she has been alone for sixty years and she hasn't become a batshit insane murderous ghost yet. Kazumi gives her this need. in terms of who is giving more and who is receiving more, it looks one-sided.

I guess what I'm trying to say here is that the most healthy and best relationships are when two people improve one another, and while Sayo who I essentially related to since she desperately needed a friend will become a better, more whole person thanks to Kazumi, what does she serve for Kazumi beyond the practicality? Does she make Kazumi a better person? At first I believed maybe Kazumi might be susceptible to becoming the stereotypical yellow journalist who would do anything to get a story. She did toy with the idea with exposing magic to the world, but it wasn't difficult to convince her to keep it under wraps despite such a story being an ample opportunity to launch her career straight into the moon. She also mentioned when she first became friends with Sayo that letting the world know of the existence of a real live ghost would also land her in prime territory to be one of the most renowned journalists out there, yet she is the one that convinces herself not to do so because that would be unfair and plain mean to Sayo, who does not need the attention of the world right now. She does not need to be a zoo exhibit or to be experimented on by scientists or studied, she needs a friend. That's exactly what Kazumi provided. I suppose Sayo fills out the role of keeping Kazumi in check. She was a wildcard for a moment when some members of the class opposed Negi's side of the battle, and Kazumi for a while was working for the supposedly "evil" side (it was more like a huge moral dilemma and no one was painted as an irredeemable bad guy, but still) but once context was given to Kazumi she switched sides pretty easily.

But still, their relationship served to fuel my need for a friend. One who for no reason would be your friend. Like a dog! I love dogs. I always wanted one but it was never right to ever get a dog due to their upkeep and price. Dogs are those kinds of unwavering companions that no matter what will always be loyal. No matter who you are or what you look like. That's why I loved Kazumi and Sayo so much. I saw this character who I looked up to, wanted to be like who gave unconditional support to this ghost character, who needed it above all else and overlooked her own ambitions to do so. It was a heartwarming friendship I wanted out of anyone at all. Still, it didn't serve the ideal kind of friendship I was looking for where the two characters could help one another to be better people.

Touhou came along to bring with it oodles of odd female friendships. I am very attached to female friendships as you can see. With guys, it's just play video games with them to bond because competition or whatever. I even watched Beyblade to figure that out too. But I could not figure out female friendship. I had such a hard time retaining female friends. I've run into so many problems and incidents involving all of that, so my interest was very high for how media portrayed female friendship. That's one of the many reasons I jumped between so many favourite characters and thus so many different OTPs in Touhou. So many different depictions of friendship and devotion! I loved it! One of my first favourites was Murasa and Nue. Unfortunately at the time they were in one of the less popular cast herds, so finding anything notable and meaningful that portrayed the two was a bit of a challenge. The depiction they usually got was that Nue was alone and sort of excluded from the main cast herd that being the Myouren Temple because she was a bit of a prankster/troublemaker. And she felt she needed to be alone (also she was sealed for like several hundred years) but secretly she wanted some form of companionship. Murasa was the usual person she'd  be paired with for that companionship. I remember reading this touching doujinshi where Nue is all self-conscious and stuff, gets attacked by some scumbag humans (not that humans ARE scumbags but these guys tried to kill Nue when she never provoked them, so... ) and they involved one of the legends associated with Nue in the conflict. The nue was shot down by some famous guy (I forget his name) by either his amazing enchanted bow, or he was so amazing he could shoot down mystical youkai like nues. So this guy that was trying to kill Nue had this bow and that guy's name too, so even though youkai usually very easily overpower humans this was not the case here.

Anyway Murasa pops out of nowhere and takes the arrow for her. It's treated as very melodramatic because Nue acts like Murasa is dying even though youkai can brush off such physical injuries plus Murasa is ALSO a ghost and ALREADY kinda of dead anyway, but yeah, this relationship was kind of like KazuSayo to me. My favourite character at the time was Murasa, who was portrayed as this badass ghost pirate captain who was very confident. She had a pretty depressing backstory too, but it wasn't given much detail thus that one story I wrote up about her history. This story serves to teach Nue that no she is not alone, and she doesn't have to feel like an outcast among the cast herd she is associated with. Murasa though I don't see what she learns or how she becomes better by being friends or more with Nue. It again, feels one-sided. Nue doesn't really touch upon any of Murasa's backstory or anything like that. They just happened to know one another. Also the game that came out right after introduced this buddy of Nue's from the outside with a similar ability where they have trickster pranks together and all, and sort of killed the illusion that Nue would ever be insecure to need friends that badly, or whatever. I dunno. I don't know what to think about it, lol.

Of course, moving beyond that I began to like MokoKene. Or KeneMoko. Again a similar OTP to KazuSayo. One person is SUPER LONELY. This person, Mokou, has done something to give herself immortality that causes her to be ostracized by society since she never seems to grow old, so she becomes increasingly withdrawn and a hermit to society. She does this for a thousand years or so. (This is getting absurd, isn't it? Lol. SPOTTO IS SO LONELY, SHE ONLY IDENTIFIES WITH PEOPLE WHO ARE ALONE FOR ABSURD AMOUNTS OF TIME) Of course unlike Sayo Mokou actually does go about killing a whole bunch of people, but moving on we come to Keine, a half-youkai whose character is the basis for the initial conflict between humans and youkai. The perspective of a half-youkai is most unique. (Though Keine is only really a youkai once a month since she is a WERE-hakutaku, so... ) anyway Keine has more of a human-leaning view than a youkai view despite her affliction. Mokou is someone though technically a human, her behaviour over the years and her own immortality makes her out to be more like a youkai if you think about it, but Mokou's first friend after many centuries ends up being Keine. I think there's something truly heartwarming when the protagonists need to go attack Mokou and despite Mokou being INVINCIBLE, Keine still goes out of her way to try to protect her and lead the protagonists away anyway. Keine gets beat up and they go for Mokou despite her efforts. She did this at first to protect the village earlier in the game, but near the end of the game the only reason she fights the protagonists again is solely for Mokou. It's sweet, isn't it?

This spawned a ridiculous amount of the most adorable fanworks I have ever seen. KeneMoko is a fairly popular pairing in Touhou, especially when you consider harem lead Marisa isn't part of it, nor does it involve any other protagonist that usually manages a harem of their own. The characters themselves haven't really been that relevant for several years either, until recently when Mokou showed up in a fighting game and some outsider they introduced Mokou ends up befriending and let's move on from that. Keine is especially irrelevant at this time though, haven't not appeared in anything with any significance since pretty much after her first appearance. Sigh. Well that's how it goes I suppose. It's the same with Murasa too. Not all too relevant now.

So I moved on to the last one I'm gonna mention from Touhou. It's relatively recent, so give me a moment. For the last few I kept sticking with this one lonely character who needed a friend. Or a dog, I guess if you really think about it, but for AyaSanae, this time the character, Aya, was not someone who was well, lonely. Her traditional characterization is usually this confident journalist who will do anything to get a good story, no matter how immoral it might be. At first this portrayal was more prevalent in fanworks, seeing as it was a funny exaggeration for the cast's only media representative, but the creator very quickly adopted a similar portrayal himself, so Aya sort of became a caricature of her initial characterization. I don't know either. Anyway, in-universe she was not the most popular person in the world. All of her mainline ships didn't really serve to improve Aya as a character, as Aya was usually the dominant member and would boss around the character paired to her. I hated that. It took me a long time to really look at Aya as a character I would bother liking. Like, who cares? She's not the role model Kazumi was and she has no qualms about how to achieve what she needs in her career, and she isn't lonely at all!

...or is she?

AyaSanae, a rarepair came along and it came with a very refreshing take on Aya. While yes, Aya isn't exactly human (but we keep applying human-like qualities on values on all the other youkai and non-human species of Touhou anyway, fanworks!) she's not really a well-rounded character with any depth to her motivations. Like why is she a journalist? Why because her crow tengu species are all avid reporters too! Well that doesn't make Aya particularly unique even if she is the most notable of the group. Still, as someone with a friendship complex I can't really swallow that Aya doesn't resent in some way that she may not be popular or have any friends. The character most associated to her in canon, Momiji, canonically hates her or at least has a very strong personal feud with Aya. Aya's other character most strongly associated to her is Hatate, who is just another crow tengu journalist meant to be a rival that makes Aya look like the best tengu around. It's not really all too reassuring. But in comes Sanae, an OUTSIDER with a unique perspective who believe or not, when this ship is portrayed, makes Aya a BETTER PERSON.

THAT'S ALL I EVER ASKED FOR!

So how this all works is that Aya seems to fancy Sanae for whatever reason. I dunno. Figure it out yourself. The point is, Aya feels she can't really approach Sanae properly in that kind of manner because most of her relationships to people are strictly business. Not only that but Sanae is a human and that may look badly on human-youkai relations due to Sanae being involved with the goddesses who sort of want to take over the mountain for their faith which is also where the tengu all live and take claim to. It's a bit of a mess, is it not? There's some agreement in place for both of them to co-exist on the mountain, but it's just not good for tensions if most notable tengu and priestess responsible for spreading faith get together, is all I'm saying.

Yet thanks to fanworks bending canon rules, Aya's acquaintances who are more like close friends in this universe encourage Aya to go after Sanae. Sanae's goddesses want her to be close to Aya too, so they can improve goddess-tengu relations, and if they're friends that'd be good or whatever. So Aya gives Sanae a tour but Sanae doesn't really like Aya because who actually likes Aya, I mean c'mon. Then over time we run into Sanae's own issues of adapting into Gensokyan society, since she came from the outside where she had a normal (sorta) life at school with friends and modern technology, and now has no real peers here and has a completely different life with completely different technology, like magic! Aya comforts her in her very own youkai-like way, in that she hasn't much to say because she can't possibly understand, so she just pops out her wings and envelops Sanae in it. Give her some physical comfort. It's all Sanae needed... and for once, this relationship doesn't start off one-sided or stay that way, anyway. The two help one another. Sanae to adapt, and Aya to be better.

Because unlike Aya's more popular pairs, she's not bossing Sanae around and Sanae is devoted to her anyway for no real reason. Sanae makes Aya second-guess herself, makes her flustered. Sanae's go-for-it attitude and eccentricity is unpredictable to Aya. Every time Aya thinks she has control of the situation, Sanae surprises her. I can't really go into much depth about these two because they are a rarepair and everything I mentioned came from one very talented doujinshi artist, but this person (man? idk) singlehandedly not only made me like this ship, but like Aya! But anyway, Sanae's existence humbles Aya and gives her this sort of humanity and empathy she was sort of lacking, that made her more relatable. But this still wasn't to the level of give and receive I was hoping for, but the farthest I've found so far. Though Aya provided Sanae opportunity to adapt and supported her, I don't see Sanae as a character improving, but she does get a friend and acclaimed to Gensokyo and maybe her own character doesn't really need improving because she isn't as obviously flawed as Aya. Who knows! Still, it's the closest yet.

Potential for such a thing came from this next series, one very not-subtle about what they're trying to achieve with the show since it's titled as Friendship is Magic. MLP.

It took me a while to find a character to like actually. I most related to Fluttershy at the time, but my values were a lot closer to Pinkie Pie's. So I was like "wait, why not just put them together!" which was something somewhat possible due to their interactions in the most innocent of times that was season one. In one of the earliest episodes, Pinkie Pie defended Fluttershy's sensitivity, and kept her and Rainbow Dash (who has known her for years mind you) from pranking her. When Pinkie saw Fluttershy being bullied, she came up with a plan to get the bully back. When Fluttershy needed courage to jump over the chasm in Dragonfly, Pinkie's song encouraged her enough to go over. Not her other friends who were clearly exasperated (especially RD) about her keeping them from progressing very far. Pinkie kept her positivity up and supported Fluttershy wholeheartedly, no hard feelings whatsoever. Then several episodes down the line, for some reason Fluttershy despite being the shiest, most timid of them all, was so happy Pinkie was okay when she went missing (and was most worried for her as well) she jump-tackled Pinkie to the ground the moment she saw her. This would seem out-of-character if we didn't note all these things Pinkie did for her earlier. I thought a lovely cute little friendship was happening. It was one-sided though, but it was blossoming.

Then the most innocent of times concluded. One flaw of Pinkie Pie the writers began to make more and more apparent was her...insensitivity? Which I thought was quite odd because it seemed like she grasped this concept pretty well in season one. I suppose that same episode Fluttershy glomped her in she did start a war with her insensitivity with her not-very-good (rather unusual for Pinkie) song to make sure the ponies and the buffalo could get along. Maybe it was a botched attempt at humour, I'm not sure. Anyway Pinkie seemed to lose this concept and probably unintentionally made the whole Luna situation in Luna Eclipsed worse, then her sense of reality or how other ponies felt dwindled quite rapidly, like in the Friend In Deed episode where she could not grasp Cranky's need for her to leave him alone, if only because Pinkie is SO desperate to make him a friend and doesn't care, or just doesn't understand. Then there's that one episode about the cake she was protecting that was all kinds of wtf in terms of friendship, so let's not go there.

Then of course Pinkie realized with such clairvoyance how her own clones were terrorizing the town in the season three episode. I'm inclined to believe Pinkie didn't realize how overbearing she was until she saw several dozen copies of her acting in the most one-dimensional way possible. Finally in season four despite being one of the strongest Pinkie Pie seasons to date (there is a lot of "I realize I am in the wrong and can see you are unhappy and understand your sensitivity" in Pinkie Apple Pie and Pinkie Pride respectively, maybe even Maud Pie!") we had... Filli Vanilli.

I have spoken so much about this episode, but it really slammed on the pedal and floored it when I was already in the wild wide and hoping to any higher power of existence who could hear me to let us slow down. She was NOTHING like this in season one, and here she is making Fluttershy cry with the most obvious, over-the-top cries, sobs, and wails I have seen and somehow Pinkie cannot see what she is doing that is wrong? I just do not understand how people defend Pinkie in this episode, I can't. It was finally here that I realized the old vision of PinkieShy where Pinkie is the one who can help Fluttershy become bolder and closer was wrong. Or at least, only part of it. If the canon is going to run off with this type of characterization, Fluttershy is the one who needs to make PINKIE the better person! If both parts of what I see does happen, then yes this would be the first time the relationship will be pretty evenly-sided, where they help one another.

I mean Pinkie has her insecurities! Her most infamous episode had her breakdown believing her friends no longer wanted to be with her, and she clearly is very clingy to the friends she has despite having more than anyone. I can relate to that! But despite my idea of the two helping one another, over the years and seasons Fluttershy never needed Pinkie to become more assertive or bold. She did that on her own, through many situations with many friends including her animals friends, and Pinkie wasn't there to support her with as much presence as I hoped. It's like Fluttershy became better and didn't need Pinkie at all. It became a one-sided affair once again. I was so frustrated with this pair that had so much potential in season one. I really thought if the two were close friends it'd be a really heartwarming kind of thing. Two people so very different, with different ideals, but both sharing this same kind of sensitivity, both understanding one another. It would be the closest thing to the ideal pair I have seen, but the engine barely started before the car broke down entirely. An introvert and an extrovert who can both understand what it is like to be an introvert and an extrovert. I really wish this concept was explored.

In what i call a bit too little too late, an episode finally popped up that actually featured the two together though they still shared their conflict with Rainbow Dash and Applejack. There was great pressure to do well in a sporting competition, and surprisingly both Fluttershy and Pinkie buckled under this pressure. At first Pinkie buckling is more surprising, but after Fluttershy's character development you sort of don't see it coming either. Regardless Fluttershy is the first to burst about this towards RD and AJ, and is the one to bring up the problem that paves the way to the well-rounded perfect solution MLP likes to do. Meanwhile Pinkie becomes withdrawn under this pressure, and is the one who is unable to let RD and AJ know what she feels. She actually seems like the more sensitive one of the two! For whatever reason this made the two of them feel like they have a lot more depth than before, but this aspect of the two characters hasn't been explored since, and I'm not really expecting a Pinkie and Fluttershy episode actually focused on only those two anytime soon. :\ 

So if a show literally titled Friendship is Magic wasn't the way, what was?

I found a show called RWBY. The title of the show is the first letter of each protagonist who are paired into a group. Their goal is to go to school to learn to fight monsters, and then fight monsters with that group for the rest of the foreseeable future. Or at least in school, but from the existence of teams that existed well beyond school I'm thinking that is not the case. Anyway we are given tidbits of some background information on these four characters, and they get thrown into the school to learn to work together to defeat the monsters and subsequently become better huntresses and people as a result! I watched a trailer called the White Trailer. It had this character who exemplified all these feelings I've had in my entire life, though the lyrics weren't particularly subtle about it. This beautiful girl, who could get hit in the face and get a RAD SCAR despite her beauty, was all sad and lonely. She is entirely by herself in the trailer and only fights this construct which isn't even technically alive. I felt sympathy for her and loved the music and animation of the trailer. I knew she'd be my favourite character immediately, but in the large scheme of things she was sort of fitting my stereotypical pattern of favourites.

Until she opened her mouth in the series itself.

THIS IS AN ALPHA FEMALE! AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!

But yet, I still loved her.

Why?

Weiss Schnee was this type of person I had conflict with so many times in my life, but I never really saw these people's own perspectives. I had such negative interactions with them, or at least my friendship with them always ended poorly that I never really saw it from their side or understood who these people were. Weiss was like, someone who guarded herself deeply and had a lot of issues inside, and she did it by being bossy and mean. It took her a while to accept those around her, but it also didn't take her long to change herself or see that she had to be supportive if she wanted to keep these people around, these friends. She learned pretty quick actually, so her first impression wasn't really all that significant in the large scheme of things. Seeing her White Trailer and then how she acted I knew right away Weiss wasn't actually like this at all, and unlike a lot of people became intrigued with who she was and what she'd become because of it. Because we already knew there was something about her that didn't match how she behaved.

At first I followed the crowd and shipped her with whoever was most commonly shipped with her, but this was a young show, so anything could change. And change it did because the core of the plot for much of the first three seasons was the conflict between the White Fang and well, everyone else, but mostly the Schnee Dust Corp since they're the ones that led the White Fang to their reputations and extreme beliefs to this day. The person on the side of the White Fang, or at least formerly and with a lot of faunus baggage left in? Blake. And it seemed like Weiss and Blake were very integral to the plot for a lot of these reasons. Well mostly Blake for plot and Weiss for character development, but you get the idea. Weiss needed to shake off her racist upbringing if she was to keep these comrades of hers by her side and for them to become an expert, efficient team of huntresses. This included even accepting the former terrorist group member with an endless amount of issues, Blake. Weiss really came to her own as a character over these episodes, and it even seemed Blake was turning a leaf as well, willing to let people into her life despite having been closed off for years in fear of discrimination and conviction! 

Then of course all the shit happened and it turned into Naruto. Where nobody graduates, the group breaks up, and the broodiest, angstiest person runs away. I guess since this show isn't blatantly titled FRIENDSHIP IS MAGIC I can't expect it to focus on friendship as the core theme of the show, but I had assumed so anyway because of the title of the show and the premise, that these four girls of vastly different background and history must come together and fight monsters. The fact that Weiss and Blake had all this conflict to get over, and all these scenes where they were helping one another, Weiss forgiving Blake for running off with her problems, Weiss trying to force Blake to talk about her problems to the group, Blake choosing Weiss over the White Fang when they were about to kill her, finally letting go of her criminal past and what really needed to be done, to the point that by season three they were amiably having a tea and coffee date with one another. They were willing to spend time with each other outside of training, outside of arguing about their vastly different upbringings and opinions and were friends THAT HELPED ONE ANOTHER BECOME BETTER PEOPLE.

But instead shit hit the fan.

Weiss let go of her racist ways and accepted how poorly faunus were treated. She became nicer, and more supportive as a result. Blake let people into her life more often, began to trust more, and these people who should be enemies at any other time are not. That's heartwarming. That's beautiful. That's friendship! Heck, even beyond! This is the greatest potential for the greatest ship I have ever seen, but of course, of course, this show has decided writing as a priority is like fifth fiddle to things like adding more characters than necessary in every season and not bothering to develop any existing ones, killing random characters off for shock value, and putting more stock into developing side characters and minor characters over the main characters while ignoring and writing out the interpersonal relationships and interactions I watched the show for AMONG THE FOUR GIRLS. They had it! They had in right in their palms and tossed it right over a cliff! THEY HAD IT!

A non-one sided relationship in which two people can help one ANOTHER improve, and not only that their BACKGROUNDS improve. Fix the White Fang, fix the Schnee Corporation to get rid of all the corrupt terrorist bullshit that infects both their backgrounds and them as people. The two being together could solve them as people and SOLVE THE PLOT but it was flung off the cliff, not knowing what they had. I do not expect them to make this ship canon, but their mere friendship is all that is needed for some of the most heartwarming, wonderful, uplifting, and hopeful kinds of solution possible. This is why I like some horribly dark, twisted series a lot despite their theme because the ending of these things (such as Dangan Ronpa) is always one of hope despite all the shitty hardship and death everyone faces. And yes, RWBY is not over yet, I suppose the show too can achieve that same kind of thing, but when we had so many misprioritized plot points and focus on random one-off characters in such a large ratio of the show, the characters of team RWBY no matter their potential is shuffled to the side and in the end I don't even believe they have a friendship at all. There is no training montage where they learned those team-up moves they had in that one season two episode. It was not as if they did not have time because they had a whole plot about Jaune that did not move the plot whatsoever about his own problems I don't give one flying shit about. The solution didn't even matter because Pyrrha dies anyway. Like what the fuck? Yang goes out of her way to reveal some of her backstory to try to help out Blake from imploding inside due to her worries on White Fang activity, but I can't even believe she'd do that because when Blake and Weiss were arguing in season one and Blake ran off, Yang did absolutely nothing. What changed there? Was there some moment of bonding they had that made them closer so Yang would do such a thing? No because they wasted time doing pointless shit that did not improve on the relationships of these characters at all.

Blake had to resort to random faunus monkey dude to support her in that episode, and now he's the only one doing it which is troubling. If they were to be friends then it would be Weiss, Ruby, and Yang that would help her get past what her issues now especially since what Blake is going through affects her team the most, especially Weiss, but most especially Yang because she lost an entire arm trying to help Blake and Blake instead of accepting this traumatic support or helping her friend instead just runs away and leaves them to be,. But this random faunus monkey dude can totally follow her around. That's okay! Is it because he is a faunus? IS THAT THE ONLY REASON!? Ruby is so preoccupied by defeating the enemy themselves she never considers say, staying home to support her most traumatized sister a little longer, or trying to find Weiss or Blake. It's investigate what happened to Beacon, fuck my friends. Yang understandably is too shaken up to do anything for some time, so she is forgiven, but Weiss cannot even leave her father's side. She is stuck there, so she is also forgiven for not reuniting with her friends. But why bother when no one comes after her, and her final conclusion after escaping her father is to find her sister? She clearly doesn't believe they are worthy to seek out and only her sister can support her, and who can blame her!? Fuck her friends! There is no female friendship in RWBY and that's a fucking disgrace. They have no idea how to develop it whatsoever and instead develop male-female friendships that aren't even friendships because EVERY SINGLE ONE OF THEM HAS ROMANTIC SUBTEXT. DOES FRIENDSHIP MEAN ANYTHING TO THIS SERIES AT ALL!? WHAT THE FUCK. Penny and Pyrrha were amazing supportive friends! EXCEPT THEY DIED. OKAY. AWESOME.

It was the most promising and it crashed hard, into a trainwreck that was so bad I finally looked away from it. Yeah the action, choreography was great, but that's not what keeps me watching a series. That's not draws me to a series. It's the female friendship I so long to watch. It's why of everything that has been recommended to me in the past few years Little Witch Academia is on the top of the list because I don't see any of these themes in all the other mystery, comedy, actiony things people recommend me. Maybe I'll give it a chance, but I just feel so cynical after RWBY, that I had to write a giant story to fix this severe problem. That I'd rather just play video games and give up watching stuff forever than to put in hope for what I like to see in stories. It's why I'm so apprehensive with starting anything and would stick to the same series and franchises I have trust in over and over again. And it's because of my friendship issues throughout my entire life that I'm stuck with such a specific kind of theme I really want to watch, and see done well. Maybe I just want validation? I don't know. 

Things like Touhou and Overwatch where everything does not hang on one cohesive story is a lot more approachable than some anime or cartoon people recommend. Since the story is not released all at once and speculation is rampant, plus we can always enjoy them both in other words like actually playing the game or listening  to music, it doesn't depend entirely on what canon says. I really like Mercymaker in Overwatch for the potential of Mercy being one of the few people that can help Widowmaker recover. Also it's hot, but that's irrelevant. It's extremely one-sided though because I do not see Mercy benefiting as a person helping Widowmaker, merely doing what she usually does that she has devoted her life to, but it follows the pattern of the kind of pairing I like. Anyway despite that there's not a lot of canon to back this up, it's just an idea and the fans power these ideas. Most likely due to the story being all over the place and with so many other characters this ship is free to be as large as the imagination desires. There's a chance something will come around to throw it off, but due to the nature of these series I can usually ignore it.

One final last thing I forgot to mention in quite possibly one of the largest rants i have written of everything ever, is that I also had a friend in between Beyblade and Negima, a fandom friend when I was into B-Daman briefly. We made up a lot of story and artwork through our roleplays and I spent a ridiculous amount of time with this girl. Sadly she drifted away eventually, so I couldn't think of anyway to put her in this rant since I mentioned so many of my other friends. Still, i do wonder how she is doing and if she is okay because when I met her she was going through some difficult times. I have no real way to contact her but I hope she's doing well.

Ultimately, friendship is hard. True friends are the few that stick by your side unconditionally, and most people have no idea how to depict the kind of friendship I'm looking for in media. At least of those I've seen, but RWBY has dampened my spirits to the point that I can't be bothered anyway. Just gotta stick with what I already have and cherish who are still around. Thank you my friends. Even if we drift away someday, I am glad you were around when you were. And it's definitely true that a lot of us will not know what we are missing when people are gone. I probably still have a bit of a friendship complex, but throughout all of this I went from this positive outgoing person who really wanted lots of friends to an introvert who would rather stay inside and sleep all day. I do still want to have friends, but I don't have the effort anymore. And I know a lot of people are like this too, but even if they don't talk to me everyday or even every week, when we finally do speak again we can pick off where we left off, like time does not affect our friendship at all, and that's the best feeling to have. We're all adults now anyway. Responsibilities take up our time, but still that doesn't mean drifting away is something that is guaranteed. 

This has been Spotto, and I have revealed quite a bit. Adios!

Regrets

1) Waiting five years for a Sayo backstory chapter that never came. She had her introduction chapter and that was the first and only time she had a chapter dedicated to her.

2) Waiting four years for a good Fluttershy episode. She had Hurricane Fluttershy. That's it. I give up. Do not have Fluttershy as a favourite character. Pinkie and Rarity will take her place.

3) Waiting three years for RWBY to be good. Still waiting...

4) Waiting my whole life for the Canucks to win a cup. (They were cupless for the twenty years before I was born too...) A regret that will go on forever.

5) Waiting too long to go to another home game with my dad. We went to one once in 2009, and we lost pretty terribly (led and then gave up the lead) We kept talking about going again, hopefully to a win. Now it's too late. We had seven fucking years to go but never did.

Nonetheless, in the sense of tradition, I updated my murals crappily printed and taped to wall images from the internet. Have a looksee under the cut!

( very large images )

Blowing off steam because Simcity 4 (playing a multiplayer-region with Ed) is seriously annoying me.

So I'll do something utterly pointless to calm down! AND THAT IS THE COMPARISON OF THE HAPPY MATERIALS:

Yes, Happy Material, a very catchy song and the theme song of the first anime for Negima. Do not believe what others say, Negima is a terrible anime, but an especially decent manga if you ignore the last fifteen chapters or so. Nonetheless, despite the mediocrity of the animations, the music is actually quite good, or at least some of them are. Sadly this does not include the music from the Live Action because 80% of that music is plain amateurish and bad, like the Live Action itself!

Moving on, if you don't mind listening to six or seven versions of the same song, continue reading! Happy Material is a very happy (as the title says) song, kind of poppy or techno-y...or well, I'm terrible with genres. Anyway for the sake of including all the class members, there are several versions sang by a different set of students organized by seat number. That means characters will sing with other characters you never thought would, like Chisame and Evangeline! This post is basically my ranking and especially of such rankings of which Happy Material is the best sounding. As always, shameless bias is present.

Let's start with the original, the good ol' original Happy Material likely listened to the most, what with being the original. Being the first song, the singers are the first few students in the class roster going by alphabetical order. Now already there is some bias floating in my head and likely most people's heads because being the original, it is the one you hear first, the most often, and therefore the one you expect...so obviously one will like it more already. There is further bias on my part because four out of my top five favourite characters sing this version, not only that but a previous absolute favourite character AND someone heavily associated with my favourite characters meaning I do not dislike and do in fact care about each and every singer, including their voice actresses. For the last one, do blame Aoi-dono for that just like everything else.

So yes, it looks like we don't even need to look upon the other versions what with that insane amount of bias already, but rather than just moving on without explanation, let's listen to the song as objectively as possible. It's not only the singers that we're used to, but how the music itself is played. The other versions have some variety in having different instruments and trying to differentiate itself from the original. So the original even sounds like the original, nothing added that may or may not catch you by surprise or anything that will annoy you if you hear it too often (example, a sound in the song like the intro or some character yelling something being very gimmicky and therefore rather tiring on repeated listens)

As for the singers themselves, not only do we have a nice variety of singers, this original also enjoys the privilege of six and not five singers because of the odd number of students for even further variety. The next bit of variety is where and what part the singers sing, it is actually different throughout every version and not static. If you're confused, say Yue sings one part of the song solo, whereas in the other songs that isn't actually a solo, but sometimes sung by two people at once, or the entire group, or only half of it is a solo, etc. I think the original is also benefited that the singing shared amongst the singers, and where their solos are placed are well balanced in comparison to the rest of the versions.

Now we can actually talk about the quality of the singing which will obviously, unless it's live, try to sound the best it can via the wonders of technology, but there are faults. While the voice actress of Yue, Natsuko Kuwatani is an amazing singer and perhaps one of the best in the entire cast, others aren't quite as brilliant as her. I will have to harp on my favourite character's voice actress, Ayana Sasagawa who can't seem to reach high notes at times, in particular her last solo before the song ends. That is a bit of a weak point in the song but luckily only half the song is in the opening of the Anime and Kazumi's solo there sounds fine, even cute and very fitting. Everyone else sounds average and can reach their notes properly. Akira's solos are nice to listen to and we are also luckily to have voices that harmonize well and aren't generic. While Ako's (non-fake) singing can be very ordinary, she is the only ordinary-sounding singer within the song due to Sayo, Yuuna, Kazumi, Yue, and Akira all having either very unique voices or excellent range in their singing or even both. Yue is both, but Akira is an example of the latter. 

 

So after that pointless analysis, I give this Happy Material a 9.5/10. There are a few faults, but the composition is done well enough that you can easily overlook such faults. Everyone's solo makes sense and sounds nice, so there we go. I can't really comment on the lyrics (the second verse is different each version) but even if I did know the words or cared enough to go look it up, they're all probably rather generic anime lyrics anyway. The final thing I must add is that while this song is the original and therefore there are no deviations, there is one. Near the end of the first chorus, you can hear Yue trailing off a bit from the others yelling "Go!" or some such, which is actually quite cute and a bit of an easter egg since people not paying attention can easily miss it unlike the other deviations in the other songs. So let's move on to the second Happy Material!

This one is sung by students Misa to Madoka. I must start off by saying it is unfortunate two cheerleaders are lumped in this one because due to the SHAFT Anime they were almost treated as one entity and spoke at the same time constantly, which made their voice sound very, very generic (just "loud" if anything). This is highly unfortunate because Madoka is supposed to have a "husky" voice in canon (obviously didn't happen) and Misa's voice actress, Shizuka Itou, is a very highly regarded seiyuu and for her to be reduced to such a role in Negima is wasted potential. Oh well, it's not like the casting directors knew the cheerleaders would have incredibly flat personalities when they were deciding on who to play who. Anyway, also thanks to having two cheerleaders in this song, the deviation for this one is everyone yelling GO! GO! whenever they're meant to only say GO! So...not a bad thing or anything, but the deviation might be annoying through repeated listens. (Not that anyone would actually be listening to this repeatedly unless they're doing a pointless analysis like I am at the moment...)

The second version also features the main character Asuna, so you'd think it might sound a little more special in some way, but it does sound oddly generic compared to the original. Madoka not having a husky-sounding voice actress does not help. Chachamaru, though often has wondrous singing (yay for Akeno Watanabe!) is singing at a higher octave and thus not utilizing her beautiful powerful singing like in 1000% Sparking, and so doesn't really sound as different as she could be. Asuna while has a fine voice isn't helping much with her voice range, and there's Misora (Bandou Ai) who sounded absolutely splendid in Infinity Love 2U but again has the Chachamaru problem of a higher octave. So unfortunately this version sounds like a mishmash of various Japanese female teenagers as opposed to the brilliant variety present in Happy Material 1.

Not only that but there appears to be less solos in this version...wasted potential is pretty much this song, but well what can you do if you happen to have a group that doesn't sound all that different from one another? And the singers that can REALLY sing are limited by the song itself due to their natural voice range from sounding like anything beyond cute. So I will have to grade this an 8/10. We move on to a bunch of characters well-loved by the fans...

From Ku Fei to Makie we have the yuri pairing that dominates all fanfiction, Konoka and Setsuna, plus a Haruna thrown in for good measure. Once again a majority of the characters sound like children or really hyper teenage girls...and I guess they are both. The difference here is that even the high voices do have a bit of individuality in them. Makie is of course voiced by the singer Yui Horie and Ku Fei has the very underwhelmingly enthusiastic if performed live Hazuki. They have decently unique voices despite sounding high. While Konoka does sound unique when she speaks and when she sings her own solo songs, she is slightly difficult to make out when singing with Ku Fei in this song. Not only that, she too has a high voice, so when you mix these three together you get a mix of highness that unfortunately overtakes Setsuna's very hammy, very boyish, and very unique voice. Haruna is in the middleground, so whenever there aren't solos it's once again a choir of hyper girls singing a song.

So thanks to several high-tier seiyuus, the quality of the song is nice and you can even make out the solos! The group singing while sounds nice, falls a bit in the variety department but I certainly prefer listening to this one over and over again as opposed to the second Happy Material. How very fitting that Yu Kobayashi sings the "original" line in the song. I'm not really sure where the obvious deviation from the original part of the song is, it's not too different from the original. So I guess in that case it ranks well in repeated listens. A lot of people probably listen to this one as well thanks to the popularity of the characters and the popularity of Makie's seiyuu. Haruna's voice while the middle-ground probably would've fit better in a group of singers with more variety to be able to enjoy her voice more efficiently. Too many high voices in this one drowns her out. The solos are a bit lacking here as well, which is unfortunate because I'd loved to have heard each singer by themselves much more than together. Also Makie's singer falls a bit flat in her last solo just like Kazumi's, but she has no excuse because SHE IS A PROFESSIONAL.

Anyway I'll end that review with a decent 8.5/10. Hurrah!

We lead into version four, from Sakurako to Chizuru...which is like the opposite of the last two versions. Everyone has a very unique but very few of the characters have high childish voices, oddly enough. If some of them were mixed into the previous versions the songs would have a far better balance, but perhaps that would make them all too similar to the original? Who knows. This one unfortunately features even less solos for whatever reason and seems to like giving Kaede extra singing time. Nothing wrong with that, what with her voice actress being a professional singer and her voice being decently unique, but it would probably be more necessary if she was the only one who sounded normal amongst a bunch of females on helium like on the other songs. 

The most unassuming voice is sadly Chizuru's though, which you don't often expect because you're thinking of a more onee-sama type of voice when she sings, but that's only reserved for her speaking. Mana and Kaede make an excellent duo in singing, and Sakurako despite proclaiming a love for karaoke really doesn't sing as much as she should. I much prefer Chao's singing voice in the SHAFT version, what with it being a different actress because her alto (or is it even lower than that?) singing in 1000% Sparking is absolutely GORGEOUS. Here she sounds relatively normal, not her normal voice when she sounds all high-like while speaking thankfully, but not as beautiful as when her new voice actress sings in the other opening.

Perhaps I've listened to this song too often in a row but I can't seem to decipher that much a difference between the music. Oh, different enough and thankfully more variety (I need a thesaurus! :D) than the 1000% Sparking versions, but still. Nonetheless I rate this a flat 8/10 that while they do not sound excruciatingly high or like generic Japanese females, they aren't extraordinary in the singing department and their voices are a bit too unassuming besides Mana and Kaede. Moving onwards!

We have the twins to Evangeline...oh dear, just as I begin to listen I can hear an extreme techno-y difference in the music which somewhat grinds on my probably very sensitive ears at this point. Not only that, but in this song we have very little difference among the characters: three lolis and two nerds. Chisame normally has a deep-like talking voice, but her voice actress has the Chachamaru syndrome (and is probably singing closer to like a Chiu) and so sounds JUST LIKE EVERYONE ELSE in this song yay! Hakase has a high voice as well, and the only voice NOT attempting to be cutesy is Evangeline's, which while still high seems to have an ounce of dignity in it. (If you can have dignity being a five hundred-year-old vampire singing a very silly song with a bunch of classmates you despise) I mean I guess ramping up the music to match the singers' tempo makes sense but egads it just makes everything worse.

The uniqueness of this song comes from the energy of both the twins and Chisame for some reason in Chiu mode. So they continue their lines a bit more with cheers or energetic cries or whatever to increase more of the taste of diabetes in your mouth. I know I complained about versions two and three sounding like immature brats on helium, but this is absolutely absurd. It's like you ate two pounds of pixie sticks and then began to sing with other people hyped up on pixie sticks while bouncing on a bouncy castle leaking helium. 

While Hakase sounds generically high, the twins are overboard cutesy and high, and Chisame seems to have a little bit of originality in her voice, not sure how to describe it besides "not irritating" and then we have the rather misplaced Evangeline. I wonder how Yuki Matsuoka felt when she recorded this song with the others? Her voice is definitely drowned out in the group songs and I cannot make out anyone whatsoever when they're singing in smaller groups. This group is the opposite of the first group, thanks to the twins singing together a lot (and not really having much difference in voice anyway) it's more like only four people are singing this, and there is very little that stands out as well! Of all the versions so far this is the worst. It's not bad, but I would not listen to it repeatedly, egads. 

HELIUM, I rate it 6.5/10.

So we come to version six, Nodoka to Zazie! And chills just went down my spine despite listening to the same tune dozens of times by now...

Because these five singers are perfect.

FREAKIN' JUNKO MINAGAWA and MAI AIZAWA are backed up by the uniquely sounding Mamiko Noto along with the voice you never hear Yuka Inokuchi with the very cutesy but not obnoxiously high Naomi Inoue! Arguably the best singer of the cast (contests with Yue) we have Ayaka who seems to sound amazing despite whatever octave you force her into. Natsumi's singer is actually very surprisingly good because you expect her to be normal and unassuming like Natsumi herself. It is no wonder she was cast as Mio in Nichijou.  While there isn't anyone with a husky or low voice here, Nodoka, Zazie, and Satsuki manage to still sound different so without their voices being THAT different from one another the group actually sounds especially harmonious and the remix of the music aids this mood very well. I don't even get chills from the original song because the original is just the original, but it seems like the music producers kept trying and hit the right note with this version. (It probably helps they got an amazing group to boot!) The lack of extreme techno is so soothing to the ears.

The solo parts are fitting and while again not as numerous as the original, still has just enough. Everyone sounds amazing together or on their own, and they can sing very well and there is a beautiful diversity. This song is like they put all the nicest characters together to sing, WHICH THEY DID! Satsuki is basically flawless. Ayaka gets shotacon jokes but she always has genuinely innocent and meaningful intentions in the end. Zazie may be the most polite demon in existence. Natsumi is unassuming but never puts anyone else down and is, well, nice, and well, I don't think I need to say anything about Nodoka! It also helps that none of these characters are annoyingly energetic like a majority of the class. (I say this while having Yuuna as one of my favourites...herp derp, she's lucky she has a backstory and an incredibly unique voice!) The complete opposite of version five, as opposed to being a clusterfuck of horribly high voices this one is just splendid and wonderful and if you were to choose any version to listen to over and over again for the rest of your life because of some horrible oddly specific curse, choose this one! (Yes, even over the original!) Everything that deviates from the original fits perfectly and isn't forced. 

10/10.

Yep, it defeated my bias. Oh and the unique part of this song aside from everything was that one part after the instrumental where Satsuki said something in a non-overenthusiastic nice voice. Yay.

Apparently there is one last version...the one sung by the teacher and his sort-of family kind of....Negi, Nekane, and Anya version time.

Ah this intro is very interesting, slightly jazzy or whatever...I'm terrible with genres and...LOL.

Sorry, was distracted by the description of this version. The uploader can't figure out Anya's last name...Anya Coconuts. Pft. Anyway the intro was quite unique and I very much enjoyed that sound to start off. Three singers means a lack of variety, but at the same time way more opportunities for solos and such. Rina Satou, being such a veteran in this whole voice acting business, sounds fine. She could not sound any worse or better, very fitting. I could complain that she doesn't sound very Negi-like, but then I'd have go back through this entire rant and mention that for a third of the class, so whatever. Maybe it's not jazzy but kind of acoustic-sounding? Blah. This song is also like 20 seconds longer than the rest huh. Anywho with one singer being an older sister adult lady-like, one supposedly a ten-year-old boy, and another an eleven-year-old girl (who sounds deeper than half of Class 3-A, hahaha) we have an insane amount of variety here despite the lack of singers, so that actually isn't a problem! And the longer length is due to more of the instrumental playing about which is fine and dandy with me, I like the instruments on this song.

Nekane's voice is quite soothing and fitting, Anya's isn't typical moe cutesy little girl like (THANK GOD) but still fits. Negi's higher than normal for the purpose of this song, but they all sound wondrous. Nothing too much to say besides that, dunno what the unique niche of this one is and due to the low amount of singers commenting on the variety is actually quite pointless despite already doing so! I think I'm gonna run into some sort of pointless circle here if I keep that up. I give this one a 9/10!

There are actually more versions like a Konoka version or one with all of them singing but I'm not touching those. So I guess that means our final tally is like this, if you feel like listening to this song go with them in this order:
Happy Material 6 - 10/10
Happy Material 1 - 9.5/10
Happy Material 7 - 9/10
Happy Material 3 - 8.5/10
Happy Material 2 and 4 - 8/10
Happy Material 5 - 6.5/10


The acoustic version is very nice too. 


And that is my pointless post for this lovely blog. I am starving and will once again attempt to fix the roads in my Simcity in futile.

My first exposure to Touhou was not the fighting games, nor well-known PVs like McRoll or Marisa Stole the Precious Thing.

It was in fact this silly PV, posted in 2008 and parodied with Negima characters.

And of course it never got me into Touhou because when I saw that video I liked it mostly because it was associated with Negima. When curiosity led me to watch the original I didn't gain anything. Mostly because this remix of Love Coloured Master Spark sucks and makes it sound like some sort of overly cutesy shoujo-like Anime for children and the monotony and repetitive nature of the song was not outstanding whatsoever. If I knew Love-Coloured Master Spark could sound like this and delved into the ridiculously expansive genre that is Touhou music I'd probably have dived in. Also thanks to Hetalia I saw a parody of Marisa Stole the Precious Thing BUT IOSYS IS TERRIBLE. That is why I didn't get into Touhou earlier, both those vids are by IOSYS and they drove me off rather than pull me in!

And Kero Destiny is far better, but alas I suppose I'm not very good at getting myself into things. In fact back then I do not believe I realized what Touhou even was. I think I even recall saying "It's that IOSYS thing" or something or another. Oh how ignorant you were past-Spotto. I did indeed watch McRoll but didn't find it all that amazing or anything like that. In fact, while I do love UN Owen it's not my favourite theme and if anything UN Owen were to get me into Touhou someone should've showed me this video because oh my god that is one of my favourite vocals of all time. The picture always helps, but Kero Destiny and Silver Forest as an extension (though I have no idea if they also did the video, or if someone else does it. Or if they hire some artist to make the PV to promote their song or whatever! How does it even work? Does Noya work for Innocent Key!? I know IOSYS does their own videos I think maybe!

And even when I'm already in Touhou, I have seen the stage where one of my fandoms parodies Touhou and I already know it. So rather than watching the video on the left here first I saw the one on the right long before and therefore my judgement and bias is already showing. Though objectively Bad Apple really is better. It even got on CNN once. I wonder how someone made it animate so smoothly? Must've taken a long time, yet not because they didn't have to have details. Well either way, in terms of the song I hate singing Bad Apple and I like this humorous version of Bad Apple, or this 3D MMD version. The MLP one has awesome custom lyrics and singing though, far better than I can ever hope to do.

WHY THE FLYING FUCK HAPPENED TO NEGIMA

NO SERIOUSLY

THE MOVIE

 

THE ENDING

 

FUCK

 

REALLY

ENDING IN THREE CHAPTERS YAFIJDNBs HJBDGHFJSAEUYhfigbAYNF&*GTMBMBMBMBMBMBMBMBMBMBMBMBMBMBMBMBMBMBMBMBMBMBMBMBMBMBMBMBMBMBMBMBMBMBMBMBMBMBMBMBMBMBMBMBMBMBMBMBMBMBMBMBMBMBMBMBMBMBMBMBMBMBMBMBMBMBMBMBMBMBMBMBMBMBMBMBMBMBMBMBMBMBMBMBMBMBMBMB
 

THIS IS A FUCKING JOKE

This is not actually a post about the subject because that's been discussed to death. In fact the real topic probably is also discussed to death, but is related to the subject. 

First, let me start by saying I prefer Sheik female, simply because I find it more interesting. I don't actually follow Zelda games that closely, having only played one and was introduced to Sheik through SSBM, so there might be canonical reasons that she/he is male, but in a strict personal and perhaps storytelling standpoint, she is far more interesting as a female.

But why?

I don't know why, really. I suppose it's because of his/her oufit, which covers her/his body, and the fact that her/his face is covered as well. So many female characters,and I really mean it, so many are portrayed in an all too-common way that nowadays is really beginning to annoy me. There's a video game with high attention to detail, stunning graphics that make it as if you're merely guiding the hero through a whole movie, and then they meet a female. What does the developer do to denote that the character is indeed female besides the name or voice, if there is voice-acting? Why, give her boobs of course. And because the audience is nothing but a bunch of perverted dumb fucks, make sure there's plenty of cleavage so they can see those boobs and therefore determine that she is indeed female. After all, all females look and dress like that! 

The ironic part is if Sheik is indeed portrayed as female, her outfit being tight to her skin, will show us all her lovely beautiful curves. Isn't that great?

But the one solace I have at least, is that her face is covered. That gives us a sense of mystery, that even though most characters in fiction have the same goddamn face, maybe her face isn't of a sweet delicate girl, but of a hardened-warrior. Maybe her face is covered due to scars, or covered because she's trying to disguise herself...actually the biggest reason is that we don't have to see her lips. It's not really quite as obvious as giant breasts and womanly curves, but mere coloured lips seems to automatically dictate that this creature is female! Unless you're Frieza. Or his dad. Or his brother.

I DIGRESS.

We've seen in Anime that most males, or at least relatively young ones of the teenage and young adult age look rather feminine. They're not always muscular men with body hair and gruff voices, and in fact even muscular men don't need to have gruff voices, or those with gruff voices do not need to be muscular. I am only asking for the same for females, who should not, especially in the West, always be so exaggerated. I suppose it's one of the oldest tricks of business though, no male fans if there are no sexy women after all. Even then, they don't all have to be like so!

But even still. An example is Negima, many different body types and kinds of females with several different personalities. Great, right? Finally something that portrays people of different heights, skin-colour, body-types, personalities...same faces still, but you get the point right?

...nope.

And it's all because of one thing. Because of the fanservice. Because the majority of the cast is female and having them all be the same would be rather dull. If there was ever a series where the female is the minority, she'd just be female. Not a character, just female. I'm sure there have been many, many rants about that, of the Smurfette Principle. Let me give you an example of the other way around.

The only male character shown in canon in Touhou is one Rinnosuke Morichka. He's not manly. (Canonically, of course) He's not strong. He's not the center of attention or the subject of a harem. (Canonically, of course) He's simply minding his own business, running his own store. He's not a buttmonkey for being the only male. He's not shirtless. (Canonically, of course) He has a personality besides being male. It would not matter if he were female anyway, but nothing in Touhou is affected or changed in him being male, besides het-fics actually existing beyond that of <character>/ZUN. Even though all that time before he was ever introduced males were either non-humanoid or dead/disappeared forever. But why is he male? What is the purpose of making him male if the entire population is female anyway?

Well a theory of why everyone is female is that ZUN can't draw males. This still holds up, since Rinnosuke only appeared in the mangas drawn by other people. That can be the same for any other creation or work out there! If you can't make a good female character, don't even bother with one. Stop trying to attract other demographics if you're just going to do it poorly, and surely not all male fans are horrible lost causes in terms of sexual appeal. Why can't a female be attractive without wearing practically no clothing? Why can't a female be interesting without being stereotypical? I'm sure males would be interested in a strong female character too. 

Let's stretch it further. WHY does the generic default character have to be male? Just create a character, do not worry about their gender, and give them a gender. It wouldn't matter if they were female or male, at all. If at some point in the plot the sex of the character must be brought up and be relevant, then fine, give them the appropriate gender, but why does it matter? Because guys don't like shows with main female characters? What the hell is My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic then? I assure you guys like that show not because they are furries or deranged, but because the show is legitimately good. (Of course, there are always those very deranged vocal minorities!) And look, they're ponies, not girls with well-developed bodies! (or alternatively, completely undeveloped bodies for those people) Their personalities and the setting make it more so that the ponies are young adults, as opposed to children, since they have responsibilities. Life in Equestria just tends to be rather idealistic because after all the main demographic is children.

And yes, this stretches to a few of my berserk buttons in the Touhou fandom. Like Murasa canonically not wearing shorts. I like shorts. I like how most fanartists keep the shorts. Most people see her as a dull forgettable character (and awesome people see her as an awesome captain with plenty of potential! /notbiasedatall) so why not throw her the bone and make her a little more identifiable, like being the only character with shorts. It gives her personality and it's practical in the seas. (I wouldn't wear a skirt in the seas or the skies, what with that wind...) If all females in a type of media is female because they all wear dresses, that'd be highly monotonous. (Unless of course it's in a time period where females are restricted to a type of clothing) Just like if all females are basically a pair of jugs, or if all females are high-pitched annoying people, or if all females...

You get the point.

Moving on, my clan friends (or Ventrilo friends, or friend people male...things. What do I call them now?) assigned each other with various DBZ characters. No one really assigned one to me, so I did it myself, but I'm not entirely sure who to be since I don't really care much for the female characters in DBZ. I went with Dende since Namekians produced asexually so they're not really male or female even if their appearance is very much male. Also Dende is cool. Then I asked Akira who her favourite female character was, and she responded Chi Chi.

You know, at first I was like "Why?" in my head. Because in my memories of watching DBZ as a child, Chi Chi was rather annoying, but after rewatching some of these episodes today...I can kind of see why. And most people who accuse her of being annoying and stupid to me, are just immature teenagers who don't understand her character. Sure, she isn't without flaws and can be rather annoying, but ultimately she is a mother, a caring mother who only wants to see her children thrive and succeed. Fighting, although very awesome and entertaining to watch, and no doubt very important to the safety of the world, will not help Gohan through life in terms of careers. Though I would think the world owes quite a bit to the Son family and the rest of their group for saving the world so often, but they're such nice people they don't even take credit for it.

And she isn't without development, either! She began to train Goten in fighting, when Goku was dead, finally realizing that not allowing Gohan to train as much as he could was foolish as well, but how was she to know before then that the Earth would be the target of evil aliens time and time again? Her wish to keep her children safe, even if she is by no means in any position to having the power level of a mere human is admirable. I found her death scene to the hands of Majin Buu actually rather shocking. She stood up to the villain after her son was allegedly dead and her husband definitely so. It was actually really stupid, but still...you really realize she's just a mother trying to protect her children. Not watching Gohan or Goten to fight such powerful monsters is instinct. It's like the world wars, where all the men have to go fight for their countries. Surely all the mothers, wives, daughters, sisters, etc. just want their family to come home! They don't want them to fight, to face real danger even if it was necessary to stop dictators and empires and whatnot. They just want them to live.

Speaking of her death, Goten was there to witness it. I actually found that a lot harder to take than Gohan losing his father several times or Gohan watching Krillin plus the other fighters die several times, etc. I'm not saying Gohan had it better either, it's just that there's a difference between a man risking his life dying and an innocent civilian. There's a difference when someone who has died once already dies again and someone you don't expect to bite it since they're non-fighters. It's also because Goten seems a lot more innocent at that point, having experienced far less than Gohan, so suddenly seeing someone who you're very close to, not even a person meant to fight die right in front of you is kind of troubling...

Anyway I actually lost that rant but Dreamwidth magically saved it after I thought it was gone forever. +1 for DW.