spotto

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. 

Yadda yadda DRV3 spoilers, you get the drill.

HELLO BLOG!!

HELLO!

I AM HERE TODAY, ON THIS RAREST OF DAYS OF WHICH I AM HERE

TO TELL YOU ABOUT THE GREATEST VIDEO GAME CHARACTER IN EXISTENCE

I FEEL LIKE SHOEHORNING THIS CHARACTER AS MERELY ONE FROM A "VIDEO GAME" IS A MASSIVE DISSERVICE TO THEM

RATHER, I MOSTLY REFER TO HER AS MY WIFE

YES, THE WEEABOO TRADITION OF DECLARING A FICTIONAL CHARACTER YOUR SIGNIFICANT OTHER

BELIEVE IT OR NOT HOWEVER, I HAVE NEVER CALLED ANY PREVIOUS FAVOURITE CHARACTERS OF MINE MY WIFE OR WAIFU

THE CLOSEST WAS WEISS, WHO I DECLARED WAS MY HUSBANDO EVERY TIME I SAW BEAUTIFUL FANART OF HER IN NORMALLY TRADITIONAL MASCULINE CLOTHING, LIKE SUSPENDERS OR MEDIEVAL KNIGHT ARMOUR OR WHAT HAVE YOU

BUT THAT WAS ONLY A MERE FANTASY OF WEISS, IN CLOTHING SHE HAS NEVER CANONICALLY WORN AND THUS I, THROUGH THE IMAGINARY AND ARBITRARY RULES OF CHOOSING A WAIFU, CANNOT OFFICIALLY DECLARE HER AS MY HUSBANDO

I SAW A PRETTY GIRL COSPLAY AS HER, AND WANTED TO MARRY THEM. I VIEWED THEIR OTHER COSPLAYS, AND THOUGH THEY REMAINED PRETTY AND THEIR TALENT IN COSPLAY CRAFT UNRIVALED, I DID NOT FEEL THE SAME WAY

AND ALTHOUGH SHE MAY BE A VIOLENT, GULLIBLE, FASHION DISASTER OF A MISANDRIST, I CANNOT HELP BUT LOVE HER

Ye. You know who I'm talking about.

( Read more... )

BEYOND THIS POINT LIES DANGANRONPA V3 SPOILERS

YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED

So in my endless quest to consume all things DRV3, as that has been my entertainment for the past few weeks (and I just CAN'T GET ENOUGH OF IT) one opinion I've seen spouting about lately is say, which game's cast is the strongest or if the guys or the girls are better or otherwise some sort of ranking of the characters. Did I say sort? I'll throw my sort results on the side too just for funsies. And like, since I do sorts of pretty much anything.

BUT THIS IS NOT ABOUT THE SORT.

You see, I've been seeing an opinion popping up here and there. I've been seeing it quite often. An opinion that is wrong. SUCH WRONGNESS is this opinion that my post shall be devoted entirely to debunking such a blatantly wrong opinion. You are free to have a similar opinion. Just know that is it wrong.

People have the audacity to claim that the DRV3 boys are infinitely superior to the girls. And not just that! For some strange, utmost inconceivable reason, they claim that of the three casts of the three games so far, the girls or DRV3 are the weakest of them all, and the boys are the strongest! WHAT MADNESS. WHAT LIES. I will readily admit that due to the protagonist being male in every cast, and the wildcard character ALSO being male of every cast that the guys do have a STRONG ADVANTAGE over the girls when it comes to influence on the plot, screentime, and even ships. I mean, if the protag is male that means whenever there are FTEs that can occasionally enter romantic territory (and you get everyone's underwear to boot) or even OUTRIGHT RIDDING THE PURITY OF THE CHARACTERS THEMSELVES that is the love hotel in DRV3, guy ships, otherwise known as yaoi, shall too will always be more prevalent. This is a fact I cannot erase nor dispute.

Regardless that does not necessarily mean the men will always be far more developed or are more interesting or intriguing or whatever else reason people have for preferring characters than the women! Far from it! You see DRV3 is the strongest cast so far, and to me a large reason has to do with the female characters. You can even look at the sort see how many girls from DRV3 comprise of my top ten or top twenty characters. I love them THAT much. In fact I think they're far improved over past female characters in the franchise, which I largely chalk up to the creator not being as good as writing them as the male cast. After all, we've had characters who were nigh-impossibly perfect like Nanami who while did have a few flaws were not flaws that ever negatively affected her character or plot. Or Kirigiri whose character is as a cold, calculating detective character. She kinda warms up to Naegi? But she ultimately stays a cold, calculated detective character. There's not a great amount of depth to them beyond what they are on the surface. I say this especially when Nanami is one of my absolute favourites because a character does not have to be super deep with ridiculous backstories and character development that drastically changes them from one thing to another. Hell, my favourite Ibuki is not the most developed nor the most enthralling character from a backstory standpoint. That's one of her biggest criticisms. I still love her nonetheless, as does many others but I can understand why anyone wouldn't care for her as well.

But DRV3 is a major improvement over all of that. And yes while I do like a lot of the guys from DRV3 too, I still think a shining example of DRV3 is its female cast. SO WITHOUT FURTHER ADO, to illustrate my point I shall go through EACH CHARACTER in DRV3 by DEATH ORDER (thus the major, major, MAJOR spoilers) and elaborate on why I think this is so. 

Starting off with Rantaro Amami! A character who seems very popular with the ladies... but for what reason? I suppose he is intriguing. He has great mystery due to his unknown backstory and talent, and his sketchy mannerisms from the get-go. His sprites also mimic a lot of Komaeda's sprites who was no doubt the favourite from SDR2. Still when it comes to his influence on the plot and what we actually learn from his character he's minimal at best. He contributes to the mysteries as much as Twogami did from SDR2, which isn't much beyond some posthumous stuff that in the end, at least for Rantaro, was more relevant to the reveal near the end of the game than about Rantaro himself. A shame really, but not much you can expect from the first victim. I admit to judging people pretty harshly who have Amami as their favourite character. My first instinct is just that they like how he looks. He is eyecandy, but there are plenty of valid reasons to like him beyond that. I however do not hold back on anyone who abandons the game just because Rantaro died. I read a post of someone complaining about this once that was infuriating. The dude did very little, had very little chance to, and somehow your entire worth of the game is solely on this one character? Someone with that kind of reaction definitely only liked him for what he was on the surface and had no interest in the game or story itself. It's even less understandable than people who dump the game after...

..Kaede Akamatsu being a false protagonist.

I fucking love Kaede! I was so, so, SO pumped that finally, FINALLY we had a female protag for a main title in the series! Yay! That means for once, all the gay subtext between protag and any of the same-gendered characters in the game whether that be from FTEs or even just through plot progression was now potentially all with TWO GIRLS instead of TWO GUYS! Imagine if the wildcard character was a girl this time! I was pining it being on Maki considering the promotional material being pretty suggestive between Kaede and Maki. I WAS SO PREPARED TO ROMANCE GIRLS WITH MY GIRL PROTAGONIST OH MY GOD. Then the game began and Kaede's wonderful personality was addictive as crack! She was the leader! She was optimistic! EVERYONE WILL BE FRIENDS AND WE WILL ALL ESCAPE TOGETHER! Shuichi, you must be more confident in yourself! Peppy Kaede! CHEERY KAEDE! YAAAAHHHHH!!

And then she turned out to be the first culprit. Fun times. Or not. The trial and subsequent execution of Kaede killed me. It killed me more than Nanami's two executions. It killed me more than when I discovered Ibuki's hanging corpse. I was absolutely gutted. Kaede is dead. Kaede is the murderer. JUST WHY!?!?

While there was a great loss of potential with the loss of the main protagonist in the end this move was absolutely ingenious when it came from a writing standpoint. I mean people do make a good point that if Shuichi was the initial protagonist but was swapped out for Kaede that would have been an even better twist, but alas we all can't have the most ideal things. Plus due to the personalities of the two characters it just had to be that Kaede would die and Shuichi not. If their personalities were different or heck, swapped, you could argue against this, but I don't know. Kaede's personality of being the go-getter, of being the one to encourage and to raise morale instead of starting off as a timid insecure boy like Shuichi gives her little room of development. I mean again, she doesn't NEED to develop but I was hoping for more character development for girls this time around as there appears to be so little so far in the franchise, at least in the main titles. The only thing I could think of for Kaede was that the contrast of her bubbly, idealistic personality compared to the grim and bloody reality that is the killing game would slowly knock her confidence and optimism down along the way, and maybe some other character like Kaito or whatever needs to pick her spirits back up whenever that happens, but unless the theme or the message of the game is that being naive and optimistic is bad and we have to pick our battles or face reality with certain expectations was what they were going for it's not really a good line of thought to carry. Despite the nature of Danganronpa, the message has always been to face death or grief with a head held high and to never give up, no matter what. Kaito's mere existence is example of that.

But what Kaede DOES subvert is the perfect female protagonist, or deuteragonist. While she succeeds at encouraging and opening up Shuichi, it doesn't mean that's her only purpose and that's all there is to her. She manipulated Shuichi's camera plan to catch the mastermind and turned it into a premeditated death trap... and it wasn't a guaranteed chance whoever they caught would be the mastermind. It could have been anyone milling about in the library and discovering that hidden door. Kaede's plan was reckless, maybe even stupid. She paid for it. And that's wonderful. Because that means Kaede isn't flawless. What she ended up doing wasn't all for naught either, however! Due to Monokuma's motive, where if nobody murders anyone within a set time limit then everyone will die, Kaede's recklessness also saved everybody else's life. Nobody else in this cast made a move to murder when everyone was about to die in like thirty minutes despite the fact that, as we continue on in this game the characters in this cast are much more varied on the morality scale than past casts. She didn't die for nothing.

I think the huge amount of unrest and controversy the protag switch caused would have more merit if Kaede was the victim instead, who would die with us learning little about her character. As is, we know a whole bunch about Kaede with what time we had with her, and we still got to play half the trial with her as well! It's not the female protagonist we wanted, but there certainly were worse ways of going about it. Because of all this, I love Kaede as a character and she deserves the placement in my top ten characters. I really like my flawed characters, and up to this point there weren't many of those as girls in the franchise especially one of Kaede's role.

Next we have chapter two, starting with the saddest most depressing victim in the Danganronpa franchise yet, Ryoma Hoshi, our resident nonstandard character design character who thank the heavens wasn't a pervert. We already got two of those, so it's good they went away with that trope. He's an inmate condemned for death for murdering a bunch of mafia members with his sick tennis moves after they killed his girlfriend and family (or something like that, my memory is not up to par) and thus has a pretty bleak outlook to life and little reason to continue living. Escaping isn't even that desirable of an option to him as he'd just go straight back to prison anyway. His backstory is sad. His existence is sad. ):  I thought he'd be a potential survivor as developing a reason to live would be an excellent character arc for him, but then when he was given some confidence by Shuichi and co. and tried to find a reason to live in the motive videos... he found nothing. No one outside cared about him and he had no one to care for. Of course he was just a sitting duck just asking to be the next victim, and so it went and so it shall be. He thought he had nowhere to go, but really for a character he had a ways to go. Unfortunate he gave up when he did.

I love Ryoma! But sadly being the second victim outside of his unfortunate circumstances he would not have as much time nor influence to the story as he could have. I chalk it up to bad luck and Monokuma being a bitch, but let's move on. His killer on the other hand...

When Kirumi first showed up, I had two initial impressions: Sakuya Izayoi from Touhou and Peko Pekoyama from SDR2. I do like both those characters, but I also didn't at the same time. I generally don't like characters whose entire existence relies on another character to describe. Like for Peko, if Fuyuhiko wasn't there, what would she be? She'd have to be an entirely different character because Fuyuhiko IS Peko's entire character, as her backstory relies entirely on him and his family. I hate that. I hate it in Touhou and I hate in Danganronpa. The second trial of SDR2 was extremely sad and I was very empathetic when it came to Peko's demise, but when it came time to think about how much I cared about her character... it wasn't as strong as it could have been. Maybe if I had shipped Fuyuhiko/Peko it'd have been different, but I don't like ships where one character is entirely devoted to another. I don't like characters who are dependent and can't stand on their own if the other wasn't there or did not exist. 

Sakuya on the other hand was this maid in Touhou who could do no wrong. She was the definition of cool and could stop time and throw knives like a certain Jojo character. She would never break her cold and calculated surface, if there even is anything beneath that surface. I was always frustrated by Sakuya and her popularity because there never seemed to be anything more to her. She was there to be cool. There were no flaws. She was literally called the perfect and elegant maid. That kind of character is just so boring and uninteresting to me. Also memes do not count as flaws. >:

So seeing Kirumi these were the kind of fears I had with her character. And she was basically sort of just that for almost all of chapter two... until it was revealed she was the culprit. She killed Ryoma. Her perfect and elegant shield was starting to collapse, and Kirumi's calm exterior broke until she was doing all she could to deflect blame or to keep herself alive. All of this just because she was one of the unfortunate few (or may even only) to get her own motive video. Bad luck screwed her over. Kirumi became interesting when she died because she did not go out how so many others do, accepting of their deaths admirably with courage. She didn't even go out like the first two initial culprits in the first two games did because she still did everything in her power to escape no matter what (even if that attempt to escape was part of her execution). Like the dialogue of the game said, it was ugly, it was feral, it was raw, but Kirumi did everything in her power to live. Her death was powerful as fuck and basically threw everything out the door that she was perfect or elegant. It was amazing. Props to both her Japanese AND her English VAs for having VERY convincing screams of determination and fury just before she was executed. It was a powerful and memorable moment. Even when I was laughing at how over-the-top her motive video was, it wasn't close to the impact of how Kirumi went out. Fuck yes I love my flawed female characters. 

It is chilling she chose to drown Ryoma though. That does add to her cold and calculated factor. Ah well. 

NOW IT IS THE CHAPTER THREE! Or chapter always known as weakest chapter of every game. I do not know what is up with these chapter threes and their super obvious culprits, but at least this time around that was done on purpose? Anyway I am jumping the gun with the culprit because first we must discuss the holiest of the holiest, the most divine and devoted that is the ANGIE YONAGA, EVERYBODY'S FAVOURITE CHARACTER AND A MAJOR ENSEMBLE DARKHORSE OF THE SERIES!!1!!!

Well, yeah okay. 

I don't hate any character in DRV3. I love them all actually, but Angie is a character who seems to be a little bit of a hate sink. Not to the intensity that is say, Saionji or Ruruka but still, when most people discover Angie's body it's often not a huge fanfare. In fact, Angie dying was pretty obvious and something most people saw telegraphed the moment she took up the antagonistic role of CULT LEADER who splits up the cast causing conflict within! It's actually kind of difficult to comment on Angie's character. She doesn't change all that much, so there's little to no development, and what we learn from FTEs and.... Love Hotel scenes just elaborate on how bizarre her island's customs and her devotion to Atua is. She seems to have to shown up in this killing game already brainwashed, and we never really learn who she is beneath it all. I mean, there is something to suggest Angie is lonely beneath absolutely everything, but she's buried in so much of the cult, religious, devoted stuff that it's so difficult to unearth that aspect of Angie and so, we can't really say with much certainty how much we really got to know her before she died. A shame, really. She did serve her purpose as antagonist of chapter three quite well. I will give her that. All the more emotionally weaker characters fell for her cult to, STARTING with Himiko from way back in chapter two... I will continue that thought when we reach HImiko.

Speaking of Himiko though, there is Tenko. The Tenks. The Tenko of the last name that is too long for my taste. Chabashira? Oh yes. 

I did not like Tenko first time I went through this game. I WILL BE HONEST. I DID NOT LIKE TENKO. FUNNY HOW THAT WORKS. Hahaha. But a large degree of my distaste for Tenko was due to my one-track-mind after Kaede died. You see the despair of Kaede dying was so great, that my focus fell very narrowly onto Himiko, the other character I liked best still left who I was absolutely convinced was going to die anyway because after Kaede's unexpected demise I had no favourite that ever lived and the protagonist dying was the last straw. I paid very little attention to anything else, which was why even the obvious culprit of chapter three came as as surprise to me. I was too busy wondering if Himiko was the next victim, or how she could have murdered the victims. That was my mindset throughout the ENTIRE GAME after Kaede died. That is what despair does, my friends.

Anyway the reason I liked Himiko so much aside from being eccentric and adorable was how relatable she was. In fact, I don't think I've found a character I've related MORE to than Himiko! So just like Himiko, I too had a negative impression of Tenko. I even compared her to Jaune of all characters at one point due to her forwardness. I was like "GODDAMNIT TENKO LEAVE HIMIKO ALONE" EVEN IF YOU'RE A GIRL YOU ARE NOT EXEMPT TO THIS KIND OF CRITICISM, that being far too forward with your crush and not taking no for an answer. (Of course I didn't realize Himiko actually never said no to Tenko hanging out with her once, either because she was too lazy to or some other reason. She certainly said no to some of Tenko's comments and questions to her at times, but never did she actively try to avoid Tenko... more like asking others to do it for her. Ha)

But just like Himiko... over time I realized how wonderful Tenko really was. I think her other major flaw, the degenerate male thing also makes Tenko easily unlikable for many as well. Her FTEs don't even reveal some tragic reasoning for this misandry. She's just a gullible idiot who listens to literally anything her master, a male mind you, says. It is hilarious though. There is that one line in that one trial where she mentions her alcoholic father, so maybe there's some tragic inkling there that we'll never explore because now Tenko is too dead to develop. Alas. Alas. Still! Underneath her many flaws, Tenko is one of the most sincere, earnest, honest, heartwarming characters out there. Unlike Jaune's crush on Weiss that was entirely to his selfish whims. Tenko actually goes about and tries to... IMPROVE HIMIKO AS A PERSON. She never put Himiko on some perfect flawless pedestal who could do no wrong. Tenko knew Himiko wasn't perfect, knew she was falling for Angie's cult and taking the easy way out and she wanted to keep Himiko out of it. She truly wanted to protect Himiko, learn more about Himiko, and her crush was more genuine than mere infatuation on Himiko's surface appearance or personality. Tenko's eagerness to help girls IS REAL AND IS GREAT! Even if her hatred of men is sort of silly and stupid, her desire to protect vulnerable girls is the greatest virtue of Tenko! Despite the disappointing reveal of Tenko's misandrist origins, a lot of her FTEs made me want to learn more about her. How she was even MORE of a spazz and emotive freak, maybe getting wildly angry or having manic attacks even before she began learning Aikido. That Aikido helped her become more stable of a person and how she always recommends it to others for self-improvement as well. Also she does slowly warm up to Shuichi so anything depicting Tenko still being an ass to Shuichi of all people annoys me greatly. She may not have had time to develop completely, but she definitely was changed compared to the Tenko of the beginning of the game!

Also she will never live it down how she died. How she was killed. Fucking Kork. Fucking Korey in the House. Fucking folklore cunt. Fucking tulpaman-- KOREKIYO SHINGUCCI, I MEAN SHINGUJI HAS TOO MANY NICKNAMES. 

Actually I don't hate Korekiyo. Far from it, ha. His motive though. His motive is so over-the-top I can't even take it seriously. Others do and despise his fucking guts, and while there may be actual people like Korekiyo out there, I just cannot get over how absolutely absurd his reason to kill was. For his dead sister who now possesses him in the form of a split personality after a seance that he has incestuous desires towards? And he's almost killed one hundred friends, females he deems worthy to be friends of his sister's in the afterlife already? The fuck man. That reveal was wild. He's also purposely depicted as creepy as possible with an unhealthy fascination of humanity which is justified by his anthropology background and is an absolute joke character in the anthologies. He's great. He's my second favourite male of DRV3 and I don't even know why. This man should be considered vile and unforgivable. 

BUT HE THREW AWAY HIS PERFECT MURDER FOR THE SEE-SAW TRICK, and will never live it down. The see-saw is too precious to abandon. RIP TENKO. RIP KOREKIYO. 

How have I not mentioned the gorgeous girl genius with a golden brain, MIU IRUMA yet!? Quite possibly the most flawed female character in the entire series, unless just being straight up a despair bitch is considered one entire flaw, Miu still manages to be fascinating and wonderful and I STILL like her despite the claim the creator purposely wrote her to be unlikable! She singlehandedly demonetizes Youtube playthroughs with no remorse whatsoever and ruins every single moment possible with her endless uncensored innuendos, but simultaneously along with her comedic side is one of the most useful characters in the game as well. Perhaps not so in the trials (she is wrong during every scrum debate hahaha) but her expertise with the tech allows her to invent so many items that serve so many purposes throughout the plot. I think Himiko (I think it was her anyway) said it best, Miu was very smart but also very dumb. Aside from that Miu seems to have a similar sort of complex Mikan does where most of her self-worth is shot and she has a belief she can really only be useful to someone with her body... if her FTEs or Love Hotel mean anything, anyway. Also Miu is a victim, but she DID attempt to murder someone and showed surprising hindsight when it came to executing her murder plan, but just like that quote she overlooked quite a many things that led to her downfall as well. That slip of hand leading to the bridge being washed away by the river was not the most subtle of things, Miu. She was also my favourite from first impressions. When I first saw the cast and looked at screenshots and such, Miu was the girl that stood out most to me. I didn't have a strong impression of this cast at first as well. I was very whelmed when I looked at the designs. Heck Tenko was my least favourite design. I was wondering why she had over nine thousand hair accessories that made her head super busy looking. The green pinwheel was the worst offender. 

How foolish you were, past Spotto of one year ago.

Anyway! SWEET PURE, PITIFUL GONTA.

I guess he does subvert the beefcake sacrifice of chapter four by being the beefcake culprit of chapter four. I mean he was trying to sacrifice everyone if that counts, starting with Miu, and Kokichi was quite the influence on top of the flashback light... still, he joins the ranks of Sakura and Nidai in dying in chapter four. Sad as it may be... and that's really all I have to say on Gonta. Aside from being a pure boy who wishes to be a gentleman there wasn't a lot compelling with Gonta. I AM SORRY FOR NOT BEING ABLE TO SAY MORE. Gonta was a pure boy who made the trial all the more tragic.

Kokichi Ouma cannot carry all the guys by himself, you know. The only way I can take a claim of a the guys being so much better than the girls seriously is if this guy carries all the weight. And he doesn't! I may like Kork. Gonta may have been a pure boy. Ryoma may have had a tragic existence, and Rantaro was eyecandy, but they were NOTHING compared to Kokichi. AND EVEN THEN, Kokichi cannot carry the entire male cast on his shoulders. OKAY!? Also his rampant popularity has rubbed me off the wrong way, even if I do love his character he is far too overexposed for me. His face is like on 80% of all things DRV3, whether it be fanfic, art, or stupid videos. He is everywhere. Kokichi does not need to be every amusing role that exists on the internet, guys. Seriously. Also Kokichi you are not being unique with your fascination over the male protagonist. Komaeda already got you beat several years ago. He got you beat on the whole KILL MYSELF DURING CHAPTER FIVE AND MINDFUCK THE REST OF THE CAST plan too, so don't you think you're special or anything, KOKICHI!!

Kokichi is still better than Komaeda.

Oh right. Anyway Kokichi is the wildcard character who is basically the embodiment of lies and carries lots of homoerotic subtext. Yay! He's also very short and has the wonderful voice-acting talent of Derek Stephen Prince, who blew his Fuyuhiko out of the water with his delivery of all of Kokichi's wonderful lines. I choose to believe his final words are the truth though, that he lied to himself this entire time, took the role of the villain on purpose for this insane gambit that ended his life all to stop the killing game because ultimately, Kokichi hates killing. He likes pulling pranks and fooling with people, but murder is not a straw he will cross...even if he instigated Miu and Gonta's death, but whatever. His motive video says that much anyway.

Kaito is a poor man's Kamina. Moving on.

Tsumugi is a fascinating masterm--FINE I'LL TALK ABOUT KAITO.

I think the Kamina archetype works best when they die early and heavily affect the main character from the get-go... alas, Kaede who is technically the Nia of this game, took that role. So instead Kaito is around to serve as Maki's motivation, which is fine and all. Really, it's fine. I think. Maybe. Yes he does help out Shuichi too, and his positive influence is great and all, but Kaito is really SHOUNEN PROTAGONIST THE CHARACTER, and I've never really been fond of that kind of character...especially in a genre like Danganronpa where logic and intelligence is the most powerful ally of the main character, to decipher the clues and work out how and who dun diddly decked the dead. Also there's this moment in chapter four people point out a lot, where he's willing to die to believe in Gonta, which is all motivational and heartwarming and all, but it's not like Kaito would be the only one to die if they didn't vote for Gonta... EVERYBODY would, so he was being rather selfish at the time, throwing his beliefs over the welfare of the people (KIND OF LIKE ANGIE, lol) and then he gets super annoyed and pissed with Shuichi for siding with logic and reasoning and all... (I am well aware Tenko said something similar about Himiko in chapter two's trial. The difference here is that I think Tenko is speaking more from her undying love for Himiko whereas Kaito is basing more of his stance on his unyielding belief as opposed to being in love with Gonta or something... also Tenko was defending Himiko at the beginning of the trial when not all evidence was presented whereas Kaito defended Gonta to the very end against all the facts. I'm not sure how Tenko would react if Himiko were a culprit, probably similarly, but I think it all comes down to where their intent lies.. Maybe Kaito's stubbornness would be more understanding if he and Gonta were close friends or something? But Kaito and Gonta didn't have many interactions, and Kaito is just basing it on Gonta being pure and such, not even allowing people to even discuss the mere possibility that Gonta could be the culprit, which we did get to do without great interference from Tenko on Himiko in trial two. I DUNNO MAYBE I JUST WANNA JUSTIFY MY SEEMING HYPOCRISY HERE) yeah he's flawed and I do like flawed characters, but maybe the game doesn't point out these flaws often enough or make it apparent enough. We get a lot of praise for Kaito especially when characters like Maki and Shuichi with all the screentime in the world are so positively influenced by him, but what of his flaws? Why not point them out? Aside from people calling him an idiot which is a trope Japanese media does a lot where idiot is more like a term to describe a... shounen protagonist who throws all reasoning aside to believe in themselves and do their best, there isn't a lot of time where the narrative paints Kaito in a negative light.

Well, I don't have any strong feelings either way, that's just the opinions I've heard. My impression of Kaito is that he's just the run-of-the-mill motivational dude who somehow is the entire reason Maki becomes a better person... okay. LET US MOVE ON.

So! Tsumugi Shirogane is a fascinating mastermind. She doesn't do anything else in this game unfortunately, and her character is almost non-existent since it's almost entirely tied to the big reveal at the end of the game so uhm... okay? You can have this one, fans of guy characters who loudly proclaim they are better than the girls! She's also probably lying a lot during the reveal so we cannot possibly determine what is true and what isn't and what exactly the ending even entails. The ending itself is pretty polarizing and I don't have too much to say on it. I wanna keep this discussion on the characters even if MAYBE that Tsumugi claims about writing their lines and characters is true. Maybe. Perhaps. Possibly. THE CAN OF WORMS SHALL BE CLOSED, OKAY?

Also she was the true murderer of Rantaro and executed Kaede for no real reason, if only to continue the killing game. WELP. This doesn't change how I feel about either characters though. Rantaro still died first (even if it's for a plot-relevant reason) and Kaede though technically wasn't the killer, it's the intent that matters. In some regions, attempted murder is charged as seriously as murder, y'know.

Kiibo or Keebo or Keeboy or K1B0 or Hope or Robonaegi or whatever is a character there to spout PC jokes and be the buttmonkey until he shoots up a school in chapter six. I wish what I said was exaggeration. He's still great though, but little development who doesn't do much until the end, and even though I feel sad about his sacrifice he wasn't especially compelling either way, even if he was the audience surrogate, or the camera, or that we played as him, or that he's the literal Ultimate Hope Robot or any of that. His strongest interactions were with Miu but her death didn't change him as a person, and his complex of being treated as a real human doesn't get anywhere sadly. I wish the cast wasn't all almost entirely robophobic outside of like Shuichi and maybe a few others like Miu. Kokichi may have been the most blatant bully about it, but characters like say TENKO AND HIMIKO also had little good things to say about Keebo. GODDAMNIT YOU GUYS YOU'RE MY FAVOURITES. ESPECIALLY YOU HIMIKO, STOP CALLING KEEBO AN APPLIANCE OR THAT HE SHOULD BLOW HIMSELF UP TO BE USEFUL, GAAAAH. They're very flawed, you see. I have yet to see a post-game fanfic that acknowledges Keebo's sacrifice ever bring up anything like Himiko being remorseful for how she spoke of Keebo. Are we choosing to ignore this?

But I digress, it's SURVIVOR TIME. Because I am biased Himiko will be last, and we'll start with Maki 

Man I wish Maki had more interactions with characters beyond like Kaito...and Shuichi, but Shuichi is a given considering he is the protagonist and everybody interacts with him. Even Himiko got Angie as a friend too along with Tenko, Shuichi as well, being the given, and spent some time with Gonta even. But Maki's entire character is all thanks to Kaito. I think being the Ultimate Assassin trying to hide her talent and stubbornly guarding her lab door for as long as she did was good, but Kaito dragging her out to training and her giving in rather easily flies against all that stuff we established. She gave in TOO easily. From everything we know about her, I thought she'd be far more resistant against people trying to open her up. Yet it didn't take Kaito very long to drag her along with the training, and it didn't take Maki very long to grow attached to him. Again I hate to compare her to Himiko, but Himiko took EONS to get attached to Tenko, and only truly appreciated her after she died! Himiko doesn't get the sad tragic backstory that justifies being cold, detached, and antisocial, but Maki DOES. SO WHAT GIVES!?

I'll give her props for not being as flawless as Kirigiri and Nanami were, but eh... Maki isn't especially unique nor was she all that compelling. She was about as interesting as Kaito. IF ONLY SHE WAS THE WILDCARD CHARACTER WITH THE FASCINATION OVER OUR FEMALE PROTAGONIST, KAEDE. If only!

Speaking of protagonists, Shuichi! Yay Shuichi. My favourite Shuichi sprite is his happy sprite. Well he has more than one, but just the one where his eyes are open and his smile his wide. Well, his smile with his eyes closed is cute too. Happy Shuichi is adorable because his design screams a sad, negative, pessimistic, gloomy character, so seeing someone who looks like that so happy... is nice. I like it. I also like how his entire character arc led to him being so much more confident, that when it came time to go against the final evil dilemma the villain always throws on us his response to to kill ourselves. So intuitive, Shuichi. I know it's the proper response to end the killing games and to sacrifice ourselves so no one ever has to suffer what this cast has to again, but just that line of reasoning and how it turned out is kind of hilarious in hindsight. You have Kaede and Kaito being like YOU HAVE FRIENDS! YOU HAVE TO LIVE FOR THOSE THAT HAVE DIED! BELIEVE IN THE ME WHO BELIEVES IN YOU, and at the very end, at the climax, Shuichi is like, WE HAVE TO KILL OURSELVES!11! He would not have come to this conclusion not only if it weren't for his character development, but also if it weren't Shuichi's personality itself. Kaede I do not think would resort to convincing everyone to kill themselves to end the killing game. I don't see her ever resorting to that kind of tactic. I can see Shuichi doing it, though. Also if Love Hotel events are canon, Shuichi has more game than every other protagonist, and is the defacto bisexual protag of the bunch. And you thought Hinata had homerotic subtext! Ha! I do admit he seemed a little more dynamic when he wasn't the protag though, like how he DEDUCED the dust in the card reader on that hidden door in chapter one, and came up with this proactive plan with the cameras that he never did so ever again. I guess Kaede was there to encourage him and help him out, but after this chapter Shuichi just reacts to things as opposed to causing things because protagonists aren't allowed to move the plot, only react to it.

He does display many aspects of being very intelligent, and understanding things before even the audience does (he goes "wait, this isn't right..." and then doesn't reveal it to the player until the trial, but he figures it out himself loooong before the trial, making his ultimate talent very much earned indeed) so yeah. I found Shuichi one of the more interesting protagonists of the bunch... but still, I will always wonder what could have been with the lost potential that is Kaede... what could it have been? I'm sure Shuichi thinks so too.

HIMIKO YUMENO SURVIVED THE KILLING GAME. WHAT THE FLYING FUCK. 

I am still over the hill about this. This will never not shock me, no matter how much time passes. Never in a million years could I have possibly expected her survival. HOW does she survive? She is a smol weak girl just screaming to be a victim, with a fascinating talent that could have led to one of the more entertaining executions, and instead she fucking lives. People tried to frame her more than once instead of kill her! "Let's see, this is a small child who is somehow a teenager, who has no energy for anything and is a bit slow and is thus very vulnerable. I KNOW! I'LL FRAME HER OF MURDER WITH MY OVERLY CONVOLUTED MURDER PLAN!11!!"  She outright admits murder is too much effort and this is how people react to her. I swear! But one of the biggest reasons she did live was because of Tenko's sacrifice. The moment Himiko really could have died was to the ridiculous seesaw gambit Kork came up with, but Tenko took her place, not only giving her life, but taking Himiko's place as the victim of the endless meme. Godspeed Tenko. Godspeed.

Himiko of course then became the defacto... "useless" survivor. I do not like that term; that's just the one thrown around the most. I think the best way to describe it is the least relevant survivor. Someone like Hagakure from the first game or Akane from the second. I think she gets even more heat as the least relevant survivor because there were only three, so she took up the only feasible spot any other character could have taken that someone may have liked better if we assume Maki and Shuichi HAD to live. BUT NAY! YOU WILL NOT TAKE THIS ULTRA RARE OPPORTUNITY FROM ME, KNAVES! YOU WILL TAKE THIS FROM MY COLD, DEAD HANDS I TELL YOU! Because no matter how unbelievable it may be, I FINALLY have a favourite character who LIVED, and against ALL ODDS it was in the game with the least amount of survivors, taking the SINGLE spot any other character could have taken, and as useless and irrelevant you want to claim her to be, SHE DEVELOPED AS A CHARACTER, and became stronger due to the plot, and thus has earned her right to live on and be a survivor! SO FUCK YOU ALL! FUCK ALL OF YOU!! HA! HAHAHAHA! I HAVE SOMETHING ALIVE! AND YOU CAN'T TAKE IT FROM ME! IT IS CANON! HA! NOW YOU HAVE TO RESORT TO AU STORIES WITH ALTERNATE SURVIVORS OR IT'S ALL A SIMULATION! YOU CAN'T TAKE THIS CANON FROM ME, BASTARDS!

Okay. So Himiko.

Ah yes, the character I super relate to. She started off being a chunnibyou who claims magic is real and she is a master mage at that, despite her official talent being a magician instead, the stage kind with the tricks. She's also lazy as shit, so how she is the master of something that requires so much work is a mystery. She is an introvert who cannot be bothered to initiate any conversation, and if you do want to be her friend you have to always go to her first. Even if she doesn't like you she won't push you away because she is too lazy. She literally tells Shuichi she was too lazy to say no to him. This is how Tenko gets close to her. I also think she's pretty emotionally vulnerable and that's also why she never gets close to people because one can easily be hurt. The killing game affects her mentally quite a bit, and the only reason she keeps herself calm and collected is by resorting to Angie and becoming her friend, thus converting to the ways of Atua and escaping reality to deal with it all. Oh and she doesn't have energy in the first place to do much, which may explain her laziness, always excusing doing things with her lack of MP. She has trouble emoting and sleeps a lot. There are some headcanons out there that Himiko might be autistic and clinically depressed. I sort of agree with both, but unless they're outright confirmed it's only a mere headcanon, and we can't really intertwine such thoughts with her character completely. I will say Himiko seems far more okay with dying than most characters, with only Ryoma beating her for that...lovely title. It's less being suicidal and more giving up far more easily when it comes to Himiko. Again, I think she's very emotionally vulnerable which leads to that kind of mindset. She's also one of the more gullible characters what with falling for the cult and being pretty easily tricked or spooked in trials. Himiko is also terrible at not being suspicious. She either doesn't bother defending herself or flails around in a panic when suspected. It's great and entertaining. She also can't tell the difference between termites and rice. It is as Shuichi said, even if she didn't survive the killing game, how did she even survive life itself? Egads.

LUCKILY TENKO IS HERE, the ultra-supportive aikido master who to my utter disbelief, immediately sees Himiko and SOMEHOW this girl is the GIRL OF HER DREAMS. I don't understand Tenko's tastes whatosever. But whatever, she chose wisely. I mean yes, I like Himiko too, but because I relate to her and she's cute and such, also entertaining. Unlike Tenko though, when I first saw the cast Himiko was amongst the others as characters I was whelmed by. No real response. Tenko sees this witchy smol girl and immediately falls in love at first sight. UHM, OKAY? But really, how I describe this is like a dog who adopts you. They follow you home and love you forever. This is like a dog that adopts a cat, Himiko, who is very much cat-like being lazy, sleeping a lot, rather independent because she'd prefer to be alone and such, also black cats are associated with witches, so y'know. That's why Himiko does not like Tenko from the get-go... and also because Tenko is making some lewd comments and being somewhat inappropriate at times. Chapters one and two aren't particularly positive depictions of either characters. They are BOTH flawed, but one likes the other, and little do we know this infatuation will cause both characters to become so much better as people over time. Unfortunately Tenko's was cut short, but still. 

See, due to the trauma of the killing game, Himiko needs comfort, but she isn't one to reach out. However, Angie is very open and wants more converts to her religion, for those to see the truth and believe in the almighty Atua. Angie's Atua and thus friendship is the comfort Himiko needs to emotionally survive people killing and dying all around her. It may not have been a healthy friendship, but it was a friendship, and I believe Angie despite what her intentions led to, had good intentions. She truly wanted to save Himiko and she truly wanted to be friends with her, and give her the comfort she needs. Angie just wants to do it her way, the only way she knows how. She does come up with the idea of the magical show meant to give smiles to the rest of students, so that's something that would have been very positive for Himiko if someone didn't throw Ryoma's body into the damn piranha tank. >_> 

But unfortunately, relying on Angie long-term would not be healthy. It would be throwing away all your own decision-making and independence for the sake of Atua, and Tenko saw this. Himiko of course did not go to Tenko for comfort when the killing game was going on because Tenko did not offer friendship to Himiko, but rather her unwanted advances for some sort of romantic or sexual relationship with Himiko, which was the last thing she needed, or at least that is what Himiko was seeing from Tenko. Still, Tenko kept up her unwavering support which eventually went beyond lust or the need to protect Himiko as a vulnerable young lady, but Tenko revealed her true motives and wanted Himiko to have her own agency, and become a better person as well, to express her emotions and be herself, not cooped up locking herself away and relying on Atua for guidance for the rest of her life. Especially if Atua truly isn't some almighty god responsible for bringing salvation to people, and is just a big fat lie. (This is all interpretation of course, but Angie dying doesn't help)

When Angie died, Himiko lost this place of comfort, this friendship, and desperately wanted to connect with Angie one more time. When Tenko gives Himiko this advice, to live life facing forward, to survive, since Himiko was making comments of not wanting to go on after her only pillar of support that she assumed she had was gone, Himiko finally realized Tenko was the kind of support she did need, one that did not need to manipulate your thoughts into false ideas. She not only protected her, but Tenko was pushing Himiko in the right direction. For her to stand up for herself, to be her own biggest supporter and stop relying on outside things, to stop escaping from reality and gain the strength needed to face grim reality itself! Himiko was finally beginning to realize this, and how much Tenko was a positive influence on her.

But then Tenko died. 

Just when Himiko believed she had a healthy pillar of support, it was ripped away from her. All the advice she was about to take meant nothing. It was only after the revelations of what a sick bastard Kork was, and after being accused once again, this time of murdering her own friends does she finally take Tenko's advice. For whatever reason people only credit Kokichi for Himiko unleashing her emotions, but even before his harsh words Shuichi was the one who reminded Himiko during the trial of what Tenko said. Tenko may be gone, but Shuichi, Kaito and even people like Kokichi are trying to push her forward, and so Himiko's character development began. She was to be optimistic, to live life as it should, to no longer be the lazy girl she once was. Even Gonta was there albeit for a brief single chapter to keep her spirits up. She had friends! If it weren't for Tenko's words and inadvertent sacrifice, she would never have realized this.

But even after vowing to take that advice Himiko stumbles out of the gate and has a difficult time trying to figure out what this "living life facing forward" meant. She still seems to be low-energy, so her attempts to be bombastic and optimistic drain the MP out of her, but at least this time Himiko is trying. Beyond chapter four Himiko takes up the mantle of comic relief after Miu and Gonta dies and Kokichi is out of commission until "Kokichi" shows up at the fifth trial. When we get to chapter six Himiko is the only character left beyond Keebo (who is too busy progressing the plot at this point) who provides any sort of comedic relief. I guess Tsumugi has her references but meh, never liked referential humour. Plus by the time Tsumugi reveals herself as the mastermind Himiko is the only one there to lighten the mood at all, which is A TALL ORDER to fill when this girl was fine with dying a few chapters ago! (She's fine with dying twice more after that, and the end of the game they literally are like "WE SHALL KILL OURSELVES, so I mean...")

But ultimately, the will of the outside world or Keebo himself, idk this ending man, spares Himiko's life along with the others, and she survives... and regardless of what parts of the killing game and her life were lies, can still continue Tenko's words and live life facing forward, whatever the future yields....nyeh.

FUCK YEAH, HIMIKO.

Now as for OTP, while yes Tenko has super ultra canon gay feelings for Himiko, I cannot say with any certainty if Himiko reciprocates romantically. I WANT to say yes of course, and there is the anecdotal evidence that could back this up, but there's also not enough to be conclusive either way.  Someone claimed in the Japanese translation Himiko uses the word ai, or romantic love in Japanese to refer to Tenko in the final trial but I went  back to the moment and she never says ai at all? The fact that the translation is just word for word the localization which never mentions love doesn't help, but maybe she brings it up sometime else. Tenko is regarded as just as important to Himiko as Kaede and Kaito were to Shuichi and Maki, so I CHOOSE TO BELIEVE, just like Shuichi chooses to believe Tsumugi's words were a lie off a mere hunch, THAT HIMIKO DOES LOVE HER BACK. I MAY NOT HAVE THE HARD EVIDENCE, BUT I CHOOSE TO BELIEVE!!

But yes, Danganronpa gave me an OTP. That hasn't happened. I always thought these characters were too flawed and messed up, especially the SDR2 characters to be shipped believably, at  least for me. And even though Tenko and Himiko were flawed, their dynamic is such an integral part of both characters that is pleases me greatly that they were the token lesbians of this game. (It's always token lesbians because the protagonist is always male.... like in DR1 when it was Sakura and Aoi, but that one was less subtext and more friendship, and in SDR2 with Mahiru and Saionji, which is given more subtext like Ibuki's THE WORLD OF GIRL LOVE, IT'S SLIPPERY WHEN WET comment, but only DRV3 has the token lesbians not ONLY be canon at least one-sided, but was a greatly affected and started the character development of one half of the pair. YES. GOOD. ALMOST EVERYTHING I WANTED!!)

Anyway Tenmiko is a pure good ship that is objectively the best ship in Danganronpa. Anyone who says otherwise is wrong. 

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!

There's an artist on Tumblr who I admire, and who has quite possibly the best sense of humour there is. Unfortunately our opinions don't always align, and she seems extra-sensitive to racial issues like Tumblr is sometimes infamous for. I can't comment on anything not involving my own race for chance of ignorance, but as someone who is Chinese I was a little miffed that despite a large post rebuking an incredibly stupid post written by someone who thought even speaking Chinese when one is not natively Chinese is somehow offensive, apparently Mercy wearing an outfit with Chinese patterns or Widowmaker in a Qipao on just her spray is something they are uncomfortable with.

 ..........

1. you could have used any other character to support Fluttershy, literally any other one
I mean I know it makes most sense with her because childhood friends bullshit,  but i'm sick and tired of rainbow dash and fluttershy always hanging out. You got Rarity making time for so many other ponies but Fluttershy still only hangs with fucking Rainbow Dash. I mean really? For fuck's sakes.

2. last episode was boring as fuck, but they also utilized Rarity and AJ again. Do you see what happens when you keep referring to the same fucking pairs? IT GETS BORING. Then again, the season five AJ/Rarity episode was also DULL AS DOORKNOBS so clearly write another one with the absolute weakest premise possible with the lowest stakes. Good god.

3. what was even the point of AJ and Pinkie appearing. There was literally no reason for them to be in this episode. They just said things that did nothing to advance the plot. Nor was Pinkie being comedic or AJ there to be the straight mare. THEY HAD NO PURPOSE. THEY DIDN'T GIVE HER BROTHER A JOB, SO WHY EVEN INCLUDE THEM

4. speaking of zephyr or whatever the fuck his name is... he's so unlikable it's not funny what the hell. What the hell. The INTENTION was to make us sympathize with his plight, but I JUST HE WAS SO ANNOYING HOW DO YOU EVEN TRY. Like you could have given him SOMETHING that was likable but it just kept piling up. His selfishness, his irritating personality, and he even makes Rainbow Dash uncomfortable by constantly flirting with her what the fuck. AND THAT LAST ONE DIDN'T EVEN HAVE A SINGLE REPERCUSSION. MY LITTLE PONY HAS THIS TYPE OF CHARACTER IN THEIR SHOW NOW. ARE YOU FOR SERIOUS

5. so what even is fluttershy's job anyway? Is she paid to take care of animals? Seems odd she'd be the one in this role when she's the character with the least defined career of the six

6. why are her parents also fluttershy. You could have made ONE of them like her but they're both doormats. That's so uncreative I don't even. At least their designs were alright I guess. Look at Rarity's parents, tacky and embarrassing. Look at Pinkie's parents, amish and droll. I mean I guess they're more interesting than Rainbow or Twilight's parents but they're still just...good god man. Or maybe even give Fluttershy a single parent instead of two. At this rate the only one that breaks the norm is Rainbow's dad (with the least creative design possible) but since he only cameo'd a few times and we know nothing about him we can't confirm or deny anything. He may not even be her dad! He could just be a relative! THAT'S HOW LITTLE WE KNOW OF HIM! Surely MLP is bold enough to have single parents or whatever. They already killed off AJ's parents. 

7. Will I ever like a Fluttershy episode again? At this rate the answer is no.

8. That song was so sudden. I was really hoping last episode had a song to spice it up, especially that "GET MY TOOLS" part, but nope.

9. To be fair I'm not rating this episode as worst-tier. If you see my ranking list I at least prefer it over last week's insomnia-cure of an episode, but I dunno. I guess the spoiler of knowing Fluttershy even had a brother wrecked my expectations. I was hoping he'd be like adopted or a twin or maybe Fluttershy was adopted, or a half-sibling or a step-sibling or just something new to the sibling dynamics in MLP but he ended up being... a stereotypical brony. A neckbeard. A slob. There are fans who apparently relate to him in the sense that he has no real ambition thanks to a low sense of esteem and being terrified of failure, but I guess he spent too much of the episode trying to hide those flaws by being as irritating as possible that I can't seem to identify with him at all. Christ.

10. I'm going back to South Park. Next week cannot be as bad as these last two. (I already jinxed it, didn't I?)

PONES!!

EVERY EPISODE HAS ITS FLAWS, UNLESS IT DOESN'T

I'M GOING TO NAME AS MANY AS I CAN AND JUSTIFY THEM IN AS LITTLE WORDS AS I AM ABLE TO

WITH CAPS LOCK ON THE ENTIRE TIME

READY? STEADY? GO!

1&2. THE PILOT IS EXTREMELY FORMULAIC. BOOK OF LORE. GO TO PONYVILLE. MEET FIVE PONIES. EVIL BOSS SHOWS UP. QUEST TO THE CASTLE WHERE EVIL BOSS IS WITH THESE FIVE PONIES. DEFEAT THEM WITH MAGIC MACGUFFIN. 

3. TICKET MASTER WAS BORING. THE WEEKENDERS DID IT BETTER.

4. APPLEBUCK SEASON'S APPLEJACK'S VOICE WAS TOO HIGH IDK. UNICORNS OP. APPLEJACK PURPOSEFULLY PUTTING WORMS IN HER COOKING IS BEYOND SLEEP DEPRIVATION AND ENTERING DELUSIONAL PSYCHEDELIC LEVELS OF CRAZY.

5. GRIFFON THE BRUSH-OFF WAS PERFECT. YEP. I CAN'T THINK OF ANYTHING BAD TO SAY ABOUT THIS EPISODE. I SUPPOSE IT WASN'T OUTSTANDING? SORT OF AVERAGE? NOT THE GREATEST OF HUMOUR? RATHER SUBJECTIVE. GILDA'S A ONE-DIMENSIONAL BULLY? WHAT DO YOU WANT FROM ME I LIKED THIS EPISODE.

6. PINKIE AND FLUTTERSHY HAD ZERO LINES. BLASPHEMY!

7. UNLESS THE ENTIRE CONCEPT OF PONIES ASKING DRAGONS TO LEAVE AND THE IDEA ACTUALLY WORKING RUINS DRAGONS IN THIS SERIES FOR YOU, THERE IS NO REAL FLAW.

8. TWILIGHT WAS NAIVE AS FUCK.

9. BRIDLE GOSSIP WAS THE FUNNIEST EPISODE IN SEASON ONE. ALTERNATE OPINIONS ARE WRONG.

10. BOTH SIDES WERE OF EQUAL FAULT IN SWARM OF THE CENTURY. THEY HAD A COMMUNICATION FAILURE. PINKIE NOT EXPLAINING ANYTHING IN GENERAL AND THE REST OF THEM NOT TAKING HER SERIOUSLY ENOUGH TO EVEN ASK.

'11. ITTY BITTY TWINKIE PINKIE' WAS INDEED TOO SACCHARINE FOR MY EARS. ALSO SPIKE WAS A DICK. HILARIOUS, BUT A DICK.

12. TWIST IS INTRODUCED SOLELY TO BECOME IRRELEVANT. SCOOTALOO AND SWEETIE BELLE PHASED INTO EXISTENCE AND WERE SUDDENLY INSERTED INTO APPLE BLOOM'S CLASS IN THE MIDDLE OF THE YEAR. (BESIDES THAT NONSENSICAL SCENE WHERE THEY WERE COWERING IN FEAR TOGETHER IN THE PILOT, BUT LET'S IGNORE THAT)

13. NO ONE OUTSIDE OF APPLEJACK AND RAINBOW DASH CARE THAT THEY WERE CHEATING. AT ALL. WHAT THE SHIT.

14. THERE IS NO POSSIBLE WAY EVERY SINGLE MEMBER OF THE MANE FIVE ARE NOT SELF-AWARE ENOUGH TO REALIZE HOW HIDEOUS ALL OF THEIR DRESSES WERE. EVEN IF THEY LIKED THEIR OWN THEY WOULD NO DOUBT REALIZE HOW AWFUL THE OTHERS WERE. EXCEPT PINKIE. 

15. I HAD NO PROBLEM WITH THE MORAL IN THIS EPISODE, EXCEPT MAYBE IT WAS TOO VAGUE AND THAT MIGHT HAVE LEAD TO SOME CONTROVERSY. 

16. RARITY MAY BE VAIN ENOUGH TO NOT REALIZE HOW MUCH SHE WAS SABOTAGING DASH'S DREAM IN SONIC RAINBOOM, BUT I REFUSE TO BELIEVE THIS FASHION DESIGNER COULD COME UP WITH SUCH A HORRID OUTFIT AND NOT REALIZE THE EXTENT OF HER ATROCITY BEING EXPOSED TO ALL OF CLOUDSDALE.

17. UNTIL SOMEONE POINTED IT OUT, I DID NOT REALIZE HOW MANY TIMES THE WRONG VOICE SYNCED WITH THE WRONG CMC. 

18. I DON'T CARE WHAT YOU OR THE PLOT SAYS. SWEETIE BELLE'S OUTFIT WAS CUTE.

19. RARITY KNEW ALL ALONG HOW STUPID THE DIAMOND DOGS WERE, AND SO KNEW HER WHINING WOULD DEFEAT THEM. THE MESSAGE ISN'T "BITCH AND MOAN ALL DAY AND YOU'LL OUTWIT YOUR CAPTORS" BUT SIMPLY "YOU CAN USE BRAIN INSTEAD OF BRAWN TO OUTWIT YOUR CAPTORS" ADMITTEDLY THEY MAY NOT HAVE DELIVERED THEIR MORAL WELL.

20. GREEN ISN'T YOUR COLOUR IS PERFECT. GOOD DAY.

21. THIS ENTIRE PREMISE IS TOUCHY AND THE WRITERS APPROACHED THE ISSUE IN THE LEAST DARING, MOST BENIGN MANNER POSSIBLE THAT THIS EPISODE MIGHT AS WELL BE ENTIRELY IGNORED. FORTUNATELY THE HUMOUR WAS (MOSTLY) ON POINT, EXCEPT FOR PINKIE'S SINGING, AND THE FLUTTERSHY GLOMP IS THE GREATEST SCENE EVER.

22. THAT YAKETY SAX SCENE WAS THE LEAST ENTERTAINING YAKETY SAX SCENE I'VE SEEN.

23. WHAT IS THIS PLACE FILLED WITH SO MANY WONDERS? CASTING ITS SPELL THAT I AM NOW UNDER! SQUIRRELS IN THE TREES AND THE CUTE LITTLE BUNNIES~ BIRDS FLYING FREE AND THE BEES WITH THEIR HONEY! HOOOOOOOOONEY! OH WHAT A MAGICAL PLACE. AND I OWE IT ALL TO THE PEGASUS RACE! IF I KNEW THE GROUND HAD SO MUCH UP ITS SLEEVE, I'D HAVE COME HERE SOONER, AND NEVER LEAVE! YES. I. LOVE. EVERYYYYYTHIIIIIIIIIIIIING!!!! (THIS IS THE FIRST MLP SONG I MEMORIZED BY HEART)

24. THE FIRST OF MANY BORING, MEDIOCRE, DIGNITY-DESTROYING SPIKE EPISODES.

25. PARTY OF ONE IS FLAWLESS.

26. FOR SOME REASON THIS IS STILL THE BEST WRITTEN FINALE OF THE SERIES.

-

1&2. DISCORDED PINKIE COULD'VE BEEN LESS ONE-DIMENSIONAL. UNLESS THE SHOW IS BEING META AND THE OPPOSITE OF PINKIE IS ONE-DIMENSIONAL. I LIKE THAT HEADCANON.

3. PARTY OF ONE ALREADY DID IT, BUT OTHERWISE IT WAS FUNNY. BALLOONS IN MY BASKET IS THE MOST UNDERRATED SCENE AND SONG IN THE ENTIRE SERIES/FANDOM RESPECTIVELY.

4. THIS EPISODE WAS FLAWLE--OKAY, THERE WAS A LOT OF MISCOMMUNICATION ESPECIALLY ON PINKIE'S PART, WHO ESSENTIALLY FAILED TO COMMUNICATE AT ALL. INSTEAD OF BEING WISE AND FIXING THE PROBLEM ANYWAY LIKE IN EPISODE TEN SHE ONLY SERVED TO DRIVE THE CONFLICT, BUT I AM PERSONALLY OKAY WITH IT.

5. WHY IS SWEETIE BELLE FRAMED AS THE CORRECT ONE IN THIS EPISODE? RARITY HAS TO KEEP HER BUSINESS RUNNING BUT APPARENTLY MAKING THE CUTE LITTLE SISTER UPSET IS A HUGE SIN THAT RARITY MUST MAKE UP FOR. I STILL LIKED THE EPISODE THOUGH BECAUSE IT PORTRAYED A SIBLING RELATIONSHIP THAT WAS LESS IDEAL THAN APPLEJACK'S.

6. I DON'T REMEMBER THIS EPISODE BEING MEMORABLE.

7. TANK WAS VERY PREDICTABLE, BUT IT WAS HEARTWARMING ALL THE SAME.

8. EVERYONE'S AN ASSHOLE. 

9. DANG RARITY YOU ONE LUCKY SON OF A BITCH. 

10. I WISH PINKIE'S APARTMENT BEING BLOWN AWAY HAD MORE LASTING EFFECT. OH WELL.

11, HOW ON EARTH DID THE MOST COMPETENT PONIES IN THIS STORY ONLY END UP BEING ADVISORS OR SIDEKICKS? NO WONDER THEY WERE FUCKED.

12. JESUS CHRIST GRANNY SMITH IS THREE-HUNDRED-YEARS-OLD. SHE'S A WITCH!

13. RESPONSIBILITY. RESPONSIBILITY. RESPONSIBILITY. RESPONSIBILITY. RESPONSIBILITY. RESPONSIBILITY. RESPONSIBILITY. RESPONSIBILITY. RESPONSIBILITY. RESPONSIBILITY. RESPONSIBILITY. RESPONSIBILITY. RESPONSIBILITY. RESPONSIBILITY. RESPONSIBILITY. RESPONSIBILITY. RESPONSIBILITY. RESPONSIBILITY. RESPONSIBILITY. RESPONSIBILITY. RESPONSIBILITY. RESPONSIBILITY. RESPONSIBILITY. RESPONSIBILITY. RESPONSIBILITY.
SHUT THE FUCK UP OH MY GOD
 
14. DERPY WAS NOT THE MOST INTERESTING PART OF THIS EPISODE. SHE ISN'T EVEN THE SECOND MOST INTERESTING, OR EVEN THE FIFTH. SCREW YOU TOO.

15. HOW TO BUSINESS? WHATEVER THE EPISODE WAS FUNNY AND HAD COOL SONG, WHO CARES. ALSO IMPLIED ALCOHOL YAY!

16. LET'S PICK THE MOST OBVIOUS CHARACTER TO TEACH TO CHILDREN THAT READING IS COOL. TO THE POINT THAT SHE'LL STEAL.

17. THIS FELT LIKE THE MOST HARMLESS WAY TO SAY "TAKE THAT!" TO SHIPPERS, BUT THAT'S IMPLYING THE EPISODE WAS EVEN TARGETED TO THAT AUDIENCE ANYWAY, AS IF THEY WERE WRITING THIS EPISODE TO ACTUALLY ACKNOWLEDGE THIS SUBSET OF PEOPLE. HA. 

18. GODDAMNIT PINKIE PIE.

19. EVERYONE'S AN ASSHOLE AGAIN.

20. YES, RELEASE THE TIME-TRAVEL BIT AS A PROMO THEN HAVE THAT SCENE PLAY TWICE IN THE EPISODE! SAVE ON THOSE ANIMATION COSTS! 

21. DRAGONS ARE UNCIVILIZED BARBARIC ASSHOLES. STEREOTYPICAL TEENAGE BULLY ONES, ANYWAY. WHAT A WASTE OF POTENTIAL. DRAGON LORE: LOST.

22. THIS EPISODE WAS PERFECT IN EVERY WAY. OKAY SPITFIRE PROBABLY SHOULD HAVE PARTICIPATED WHEN THERE WAS A GOOD CHANCE THE WATER WOULDN'T GO TO CLOUDSDALE AT ALL, BUT EH. MAYBE SHE WOULD HAVE FINED RAINBOW DASH FOR FAILING AND WENT TO A DIFFERENT CITY TO DO IT INSTEAD OR SOMETHING, BUT NOTHING WAS IMPLIED SO HEADCANON EXPLANATIONS DON'T COUNT,

23. I HAVE NOTHING TO SAY.

24. HEY ELEMENTS OF HARMONY EXCEPT APPLEJACK BECAUSE OF TIME AND TWILIGHT BECAUSE SHE'S SHERLOCK, LET'S RUIN OUR BEST FRIEND'S CAKE THAT HER EMPLOYERS MADE FOR THE COMPETITION BECAUSE SHE DESCRIBED IT WITH SUCH MAJESTIC ZEST WE HAVE TO TAKE GIGANTIC DESTRUCTIVE CHOMPS OUT OF THE CAKE NO MATTER WHAT! AND WE'LL DO IT BEHIND HER BACK! AND SHE'LL FORGIVE US EASILY ANYWAY. AND THEY END UP WINNING THE COMPETITION BY COMBINING EVERYONE'S DESSERT INTO A MONSTROUS MESS ANYWAY! 

25&26. CHRYSALIS IS ACTUALLY A TACTICAL GENIUS BECAUSE THIS GUY SAID SO. THE EPISODE WAS GOOD. EXCEPT MAYBE THE PART WHERE LOVE GENERICALLY SAVED THE DAY. I ALSO THINK THE IDEA THAT SHINING ARMOUR AND CADANCE'S LOVE FOR ONE ANOTHER WAS SO GREAT IT OVERPOWERED CELESTIA MADE SENSE, BUT BECAUSE WE WERE NEVER SHOWN THE COUPLE'S LOVE FOR ONE ANOTHER AND ONLY TOLD, WHILE THEIR ROMANCE WAS MERELY A FAIRY-TALE GENERIC ROMANCE LEFT THE IMPACT AND INTENTION OF THAT SCENE WEAK, LEAVING MANY TO INTERPRET THAT INDEED CELESTIA ISN'T POWERFUL AT ALL.

-

1&2. PLEASE TELL ME "TWILIGHT FIXING THE PLOT BY HERSELF WHILE THE REST OF HER FRIENDS ARE EITHER USELESS OR NEGLIGIBLE" DOESN'T BECOME AN ONGOING THEME OF THE ADVENTURE-HEAVY PREMIERES AND FINALES.

3. THIS EPISODE GAVE ME A HEADACHE. ALSO UNFORTUNATE IMPLICATIONS.

4. CONSIDERING HOW THEY HANDLED OVER A BARREL I AM NOT SURPRISED THEY CHOSE THE EASIEST, LEAST DARING SOLUTION TO THE BULLYING PROBLEM.

5. WOW TRIXIE HAS REALLY WEAK MAGIC ON HER OWN. LIKE SERIOUSLY. EVEN A BABY CAN SERIOUSLY HARM SOMEONE IF THEY TRY REALLY HARD, BUT TRIXIE CAN'T EVEN IF SHE TRIED? IS MAGIC THAT COMPLICATED?

6. UNTIL SEASON FOUR HAPPENED, THE MOST WELL-WRITTEN, MOST FLAWLESS BEST EPISODE IN THE SERIES.

7. WOW ONLY ONE PONY'S AN ASSHOLE! GOOD IMPROVEMENT! ALSO SPITFIRE WAS WRITTEN WELL. YOU DON'T SHOW BIAS WHEN YOU'RE SUPPOSED TO BE A MILITARY DRILL-SERGEANT GODDAMNIT. HOW YOU SUPPOSED TO RECRUIT THE BEST-OF-THE-BEST? NOT THAT THE WONDERBOLTS HAVE EVER SHOWN ANYTHING OF MERIT IN ANY EPISODE EVER, BUT STILL. WHY DOES RAINBOW DASH WANT TO JOIN THEM WHEN SHE'S ALREADY BETTER THAN THEM AGAIN? I WILL REVISIT THIS POINT IN SEASON FOUR. "IT'S A TWISTER" IS THE BEST LINE IN THE SERIES.

8. THIS EPISODE WAS AS UNIQUE AND GROUNDBREAKING AS ITS SONG. 

9. I'D BE OKAY WITH TWO SPIKE EPISODES AND NO RARITY EPISODE IN THE SHORTENED SEASON IF THIS EPISODE WAS ACTUALLY GOOD.

10. I ALREADY HATED THE CONCEPT BEFORE I WATCHED THIS EPISODE SO I AM TOO BIASED TO SAY ANYTHING REALLY. STILL, THEY NEEDED FAR MORE TIME TO EVEN CONVINCE DISCORD TO PRETEND TO REFORM, LET ALONE ACTUALLY REFORM LIKE THIS EPISODE DID. I LOVED DISCORD THE VILLAIN, BUT HAVING HIM SWITCH SIDES THIS FAST SERIOUSLY UNDERMINES HIS IMPACT AS A VILLAIN. HE DIDN'T FULLY TAKE THEIR SIDE UNTIL THE SEASON FOUR FINALE, BUT WE'LL GET THERE WHEN WE GET THERE.

11. HEY IT WAS BETTER THAN THE FOLLOWING EPISODE.

12. OUTSHINED BY THE SIMULTANEOUS SPIKE EPISODE. FOR SHAME.

13. I LIKED THE IDEA AND THE CONCEPT, TOO BAD THERE WAS ONLY ONE EPISODE TO DO ALL THIS IN. SONGS WERE CATCHY THOUGH. HOORAY ALICORN TWILIGHT?

-

1&2. APPLEJACK: "QUICK GUYS! WE NEED TWILIGHT T'SKEDADDLE OUT O' OUR GROUP BEFOR' SHE NICKS ALL 'EM PREMIERES AND FINALES FOR HERSELF FOREVEEEER!" BUT THEN TWILIGHT COMES BACK. RIP MANE FIVE IMPORTANT EPISODE PROMINENCE. I ALSO CANNOT WRITE COUNTRY.

3. WHO IS THE PONY OF SHADOWS? WHY ARE WE NEVER GOING TO KNOW? WHY HAVE THAT ENDSCENE ANYWAY!? RAAARGHGHHHH

4. IF DARING DO IS REAL, DOES THAT MEAN THERE ARE OTHER UNSUNG HEROES OUT IN EQUESTRIA WE KNOW NOTHING OF, AND THE WORLD IS ACTUALLY CONSTANTLY DOOMED AND BEING SAVED BY UNNAMED PONIES NOT OUR PROTAGONISTS, MAKING THEIR FEATS FEEL FAR LESS GRAND AND MAJESTIC AND CLIMATIC AS WE BELIEVED THEM TO BE? NO WONDER THOSE MANEHATTEN PONIES STILL ACTED RUDE TO ALICORN PRINCESS TWILIGHT. THEY MUST ALL KNOW SOMEONE. WHY DOES SHE GET THE RECOGNITION WHEN ALL THOSE GUYS DON'T?

5. MAYBE RAINBOW DASH SHOULDN'T BE FLYING THE ENTIRE TIME SHE'S GIVING THAT MOTIVATIONAL SPEECH TO SCOOTALOO. JUST SAIYAN.

6. WELL IF YOU'RE GONNA SHOVE SUPERHEROES IN MY FACE AT LEAST IT WAS ENTERTAINING.

7. IS FLUTTERSHY STILL A BAT? ARE WE NEVER GOING TO KNOW? WHY HAVE THAT ENDSCENE ANYWAY!? WHY HAS THIS HAPPENED AGAIN!? YOU STUPID LINGERING POINTLESS SHOTS!!!!

8. GENEROSITY. GENEROSITY. GENEROSITY. GENEROSITY. GENEROSITY. GENEROSITY. GENEROSITY. GENEROSITY. GENEROSITY. GENEROSITY. GENEROSITY. GENEROSITY. GENEROSITY. GENEROSITY. GENEROSITY. GENEROSITY. GENEROSITY. GENEROSITY. GENEROSITY. GENEROSITY. GENEROSITY. GENEROSITY. GENEROSITY. GENEROSITY. GENEROSITY. GENEROSITY. GENEROSITY. GENEROSITY. GENEROSITY. GENEROSITY. GENEROSITY. GENEROSITY. GENEROSITY. GENEROSITY. GENEROSITY. GENEROSITY. GENEROSITY. GENEROSITY. GENEROSITY. GENEROSITY. 
OH MY GOD SHUT THE FUCK UP 

9. THE BEST EPISODE IN THE ENTIRE SERIES.

10. WHY ARE THE WONDERBOLTS SO TERRIBLE? WHY DOES RAINBOW DASH LOOK UP TO THEM? WHY DOES SHE NEED TO LEARN TO BE LOYAL WHEN SHE'S SHOWN TO BE LOYAL SO MANY TIMES BEFORE? WHY ARE THE PONIES LEAST-FITTING TO BE IN THE OLYMPICS, IN THE OLYMPICS? DID NO OTHER PEGASUS REALLY WANT TO DO THIS EVENT AND BE IN THE SAME TEAM AS RAINBOW-FUCKING-DASH? WHERE IS THE RESPECT FOR HER!? WHAT THE FUCK!?

11. THE ONLY REASON THIS EPISODE IS LOVED IS BECAUSE OF WEIRD AL. UNTIL THIS MOMENT I DON'T RECALL PINKIE HAVING MUCH OF AN EGO AT ALL. SINCE WHEN ARE PARTIES SERIOUS BUSINESS? WAT. OKAY FINE PINKIE HAD GOOD CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT OTHERWISE, BUT INTRODUCING A FLAW OUT OF NOWHERE TO SOLVE IS NOT THE WAY TO DO IT OK.

12. I WISH PINKIE, RAINBOW DASH, RARITY, AND APPLEJACK WERE TAKING CARE OF DISCORD AND NOT TWILIGHT AND CADANCE. AT LEAST UFP MADE AN ENTERTAINING EPISODE OUT OF IT.

13. THE STALLIONS THEY INTRODUCE TO BE LOVE INTERESTS HAVE THUS FAR BEEN VERY UNDERWHELMING. OKAY SO IT'S REALLY ONLY BLUEBLOOD AND TRENDERHOOF, BUT MY GOD ARE THEY UNDERWHELMING. PLEASE HAVE BETTER TASTE RARITY LIKE RAINBOW DASH I MEAN WHAT

14. NO.

15. MAN SWEETIE BELLE CAN BE SINISTER.

16. "THERE IS NO EVOLUTION IN EQUESTRIA, ONLY A LIST OF ANIMALS FLUTTERSHY ALLOWS TO EXIST." GOOD MORAL.

17. I AGREE WITH THE POPULACE. APPLEJACK IS NOT APPLEJACK IN THIS EPISODE, UNLESS WE GET INTO HEADCANONY-PARENTS-BEING-DEAD-JUSTIFYING-PARANOIA-THEORY OR SOMETHING SILLY LIKE THAT.

18. MAUD PIE, THE BEST THING TO HAPPEN TO MLP SINCE PINKIE PIE.

19. MAN SWEETIE BELLE CAN BE SINISTER. THIS EPISODE ALSO GAVE ME A HEADACHE. 

20. YOUR SONG WAS BETTER THE FIRST TIME AROUND, FLIM FLAM BROS.

21. THIS MORAL WAS BALLS-TO-THE-WALLS AWESOME. WAY TO REPRESENT THE NOT-ACTUALLY-DUMB STRUGGLING KIDS, RAINBOW DASH.

22. APPARENTLY TRADING PONIES IS LEGAL.

23. OKAY RARITY LEGIT FREAKED ME OUT MORE THAN ANYTHING ELSE IN THE ENTIRE SERIES. I DON'T EVEN REWATCH THIS EPISODE BECAUSE SHE LEAVES ME SO UNEASY. IT'S THE WAY THOSE GLOWING GREEN EYES ARE DRAWN, MAN. AGH.

24. YAY A GOOD SPIKE EPISODE! YES HIS DIGNITY DID GO INTO THE NEGATIVES, BUT HE MADE UP FOR IT BY SAVING THE DAY. GREAT MORAL. 

25&26. IT IS ONE THING TO REFORM DISCORD SO EASILY TO KNOCK DOWN THE STOCK OF HIS VILLAINY A PEG, BUT FOR HIM TO ACT SO NAIVE AND BE SO PREDICTABLY BETRAYED BY TIREK AS WELL REALLY DAMPERS HIS INITIAL APPEARANCE AS A VILLAIN. I NO LONGER SEE HIM AS INTIMIDATING AND CHAOTIC AS HE ONCE WAS.  ALSO COOL EXPLOSIONS AND MANE FIVE'S ONLY USEFULNESS BEING THERE TO SHOOT THE MACGUFFIN. OH WELL.

-

1&2. WOW THE MOST INTERESTING WELL-WRITTEN VILLAIN SINCE DISCORD! I HOPE THEY DON'T RUIN THIS!

3. I GUESS THEY FORGOT WHAT TWILIGHT LIKED BECAUSE THEY'RE ALWAYS OUT OF THE LOOP WHENEVER IMPENDING DOOM THREATENS EQUESTRIA.

4. JUST LIKE HOW APPLEJACK ALWAYS HAS EPISODES WITH HER FAMILY, WHY CAN'T APPLE BLOOM HAVE EPISODES THAT ISN'T ABOUT CUTIE MARKS? AT LEAST SWEETIE BELLE HAS OTHER PROBLEMS ALONG WITH SCOOTALOO. ALL APPLE BLOOM EPISODES ARE ALWAYS ABOUT CUTIE MARKS. WHY.

5. RAINBOW MAY HAVE COMMITTED ECO-TERRORISM FOR THE PETTIEST REASON EVER, BUT I CAN NEVER HATE AN EPISODE WITH SUCH A GLORIOUS AND HILARIOUS CRYING SCENE.

6. THIS WOULD BE A FILLER EPISODE IN A SERIES THAT'S ALREADY SUPPOSED TO BE FILLER IF IT WEREN'T FOR EPISODE 18.

7. FOR ONCE I LIKE HOW POST-REFORM DISCORD IS WRITTEN. ALL OF THE APPLAUSE TO YOU. THIS IS ALSO THE FUNNIEST EPISODE IN SEASON FIVE. ALTERNATE OPINIONS ARE WRONG.

8. GILDA WAS A BITCH BECAUSE SHE LIVED IN BITCHVILLE, SO WE'LL FIX GILDA AND BITCHVILLE BY LIBERATING IT IN THE NAME OF FRIENDSHIP AND RAINBOWS.

9. HA! I TOLD YOU I WASN'T LOOKING TOO INTO THAT MOMENT IN RAINBOW ROCKS WHEN LYRA AND BONBON WERE PLAYING THE PIANO! I KNEW THEY WERE BEST FRIENDS! AND YOU DOUBTED ME ALL ALONG!

10. I THOUGHT WE WERE DONE WITH THESE SPIKE EPISODES THAT KILLED HIS DIGNITY AND GAVE HIM ZERO CHANCE TO SHINE.

11. WE MUST APPEASE THE TODDLER-LEVEL MATURITY AMBASSADORS BY GIVING IN TO THEIR EVERY WILL! 

12. THIS JUST IN, PONY PALETTE SWAPS CAN ACTUALLY HAVE INTERESTING IN-DEPTH CHARACTER. MORE AT 11.

13. DID MLP JUST FEATURE AN EPISODE ABOUT SELF-HARM? WHAT?

14. ALL THOSE JOKES OF RARITY OPERATING SWEATSHOPS WERE TOTALLY OFF-THE-MARK. 

15. RARITY IS A BETTER AND MORE ENTERTAINING DETECTIVE THAN PINKIE PIE. MY LIFE IS UPSIDE-DOWN AND BACKWARDS. THE WONDERBOLTS CONTINUE TO BE TERRIBLE.

16. I STILL DON'T UNDERSTAND PEOPLE'S FANFARE ABOUT COCO POMMEL. THE BREEZIES WERE MORE INTERESTING THAN HER. SHE'S NOT CUTE, SHE'S BORING. IF PEOPLE CAN THINK FLUTTERSHY IS BORING, THIS CHARACTER IS EVEN MORE BORING.

17.  I THOUGHT MLP WAS TOO OPTIMISTIC OF A SHOW TO EVER MAKE ME CRY, AND YET THE ENDING SCENE OF THIS EPISODE DID. WHAT A POIGNANT PERFORMANCE, PETER NEW.

18. I WAS REALLY TIRED AND OUT OF IT WHEN I FIRST SAW THIS EPISODE SO MY INITIAL REACTION WAS "WHUT!?" INSTEAD OF ALL THE HEARTWARMING CRYING PEOPLE THAT WERE SUPER PROUD OF THE CMC. I THOUGHT THEIR CUTIE MARKS WERE BADLY DESIGNED, BUT I'M USED TO THEM NOW. THIS IS LIKE A BETTER WRITTEN MAGICAL MYSTERY CURE, BUT I STILL LIKE BOTH EPISODES.

19. A GOOD PINKIE PIE EPISODE. WHAT MORE DO YOU WANT ME TO SAY?

20. THAT IN-SYNC SCENE BETWEEN PINKIE AND AJ WAS FAR MORE AWKWARD THAN FUN OR CUTE. MARBLE PIE IS NOT BORING FOR THE SOLE FACT THAT SHE'S BASICALLY A FEMALE BIG MAC. IT'S AN INTERESTING PARALLEL AND SUGGESTS THE RELATION OF THE TWO FAMILIES, MUCH TO THE CHAGRIN OF THOSE WHO SHIP THEM. 

21. THIS COULD HAVE BEEN YOUR ONE CHANCE TO SATISFY THAT ENDING SCENE OF BATS! AND YOU DIDN'T DO IT! WHY! THAT LINGERING SHOT IS FOREVER POINTLESS! GAH!

22. YOU WERE DOING SO WELL WITH THE OTHER DISCORD EPISODE. I DO NOT SEE WHY HE NEEDS TWO PER SEASON NOW. WITH SLICE-OF-LIFE, THE OBLIGATORY LUNA EPISODE, THE CMC EPISODES, THE FACT THAT CELESTIA DESERVES AN EPISODE MORE THAN DISCORD GETTING TWO, AND NUMEROUS OTHER THINGS THAT ALREADY OVERSHADOW WHAT A BORING EPISODE THIS WAS.

23. OKAY.

24. Y'KNOW THE FUNNY THING IS RAZZLE DAZZLE IS MORE INTERESTING TO LISTEN TO MORE THAN ONCE, WHILE "I AM JUST A PONY" IS ONLY AS POWERFUL AS THE FIRST TIME YOU HEAR IT OR AT LEAST ON SPORADIC REPEATS. THAT'S WHY GENERIC POP DOMINATES RADIO STATIONS AND NOT POWER BALLADS OR WHATEVER, UNLESS YOU PLAY "LET IT GO" A BILLION TIMES AND KILL EVERYONE.

25&26. THE FACT THAT I CONSIDER MIDNIGHT SPARKLE THE MOST INTERESTING AND FOREBODING VILLAIN IN THIS SERIES IS VERY SAD. STARLIGHT VILLAINY POTENTIAL = ZERO. ALL IS LOST FOR SPOTTO'S WISH FOR DECENT VILLAINS IN MLP. 

-

1&2. OH I SEE. STARLIGHT HAS NOW TAKEN TWILIGHT'S ROLE IN OVERSHADOWING THE MANE FIVE FOR IMPORTANCE IN THE BIG EPISODES. WHAT A GREAT DECISION. 

3. IF ONE MORE PERSON BRINGS UP THE FACT THAT RARITY COULD HAVE SEWN A POUCH FOR MAUD INSTEAD I WILL PUNCH THEM IN THE NOSE UNTIL IT BREAKS.

4. THIS APPLEBLOOM EPISODE IS STILL ABOUT CUTIE MARKS. THEY ALREADY HAVE THEIR CUTIE MARKS. I KNOW AN EPISODE LIKE THIS SORTA NEEDS TO EXIST, BUT WHY FOCUS IT ONLY ON APPLEBLOOM? IT HAS BEEN SIX SEASONS PLEASE GIVE APPLE BLOOM MORE VARIED EPISODES, EGADS!

5. THIS IS NOT A SPIKE EPISODE. IT IS AN EMBER EPISODE. SPIKE WAS NOT THE MAIN FOCUS. I WAGER HE WAS JUST A VERY HELPFUL SUPPORTIVE CHARACTER. CALLING IT A GOOD SPIKE EPISODE IS A LIE. I ALSO DO NOT WELCOME THE RETURN OF STEREOTYPICAL FRAYBOY TEENAGE BULLY DRAGONS THAT KEEP MISSING THEIR OPPORTUNITIES FOR GOOD DRAGON LORE. WHY DID NO ADULT DRAGONS PARTICIPATE IN THIS COMPETITION? YOU'D THINK THEY WOULD BE MORE FITTING THAN ADOLESCENT DRAGONS. OR ARE THEY ALL SO LAZY AND TOO BUSY SLEEPING OVER THEIR GOLD HOARDS THAT THEY DON'T APPLY? WHO KNOWS? THE SHOW NEVER ELABORATES SO WE CAN ONLY GUESS!

6. DID MY LITTLE PONY PORTRAY A CHARACTER ATTEMPTING SUICIDE? ALSO THIS IS MY "MAKE NEW FRIENDS BUT KEEP DISCORD" COUNTERPART FOR STARLIGHT THE BLEEEEHHHH PONY ALSO TWILIGHT IS WORST PONY CONFIRMED 

7. I LITERALLY FACEPALMED IN REAL LIFE

8. I HAVEN'T HEARD A PINKIE PIE SOLO SINCE A BILLION YEARS AGO 10/10 EXCEPT NO SCOOTALOO AS TINY TIM SO 9/10

9. DAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAANG

AND THE REST OF THE EPISODES WHENEVER THEY AIR! 

 "What are you gonna do, erase the PinkieShy rant so you can write a PinkieShy rant?"

 Ya know what I hate? What I really really really hate? Something I'm about to rant about through all my unbridled rage?

Whenever cute cuddly little animals are featured on some mass social media site like say Reddit for instance (but they are by far not the only offenders and obviously it's not every single user ever that has this same opinion) people tend to react first foremost to how cute and cuddly they are, and then depending on how educated they are about the animal, comment on the animal's demeanour and how good they are as a pet.

Oh wait no they don't.

They squee at the cuteness and then destroy the reputation of said animal via their own misguided experience. Oh that's right. I'm talking about hamsters, folks. Every single goddamn time a hamster rises up to the front page, there's someone proclaiming that they are nasty, vicious, sociopathic animals that bite all the time, eat their young, and are basically the spawn of satan. They are horrid animals not to be trifled with. Then many others agree and the cycle continues. People begin associating an animal with certain flaws and despite how little they deserve such treatment, they are now infamous for whatever it is they do.

Let me start by saying nature is by default, vicious. It does not give one little fuck about whether or not something an animal does is cute or friendly. Animals need to survive and they have all found their own little ways of surviving. A lot of the time the result isn't pretty. For hamsters, it's when they judge the chances of their young surviving the next few days. How much food have they stored? Is the weather decent? Are predators constantly about? If this risk is far too high, they cull the weakest of their lot. The sustenance they obtain from the weakest make them stronger and give them a better chance of raising the survivors. The littlest ones too brittle to withstand the next storm are spared from drowning. That's just how life is for the little critters.

So now they are pets. They haven't been pets for many generations. The Syrians, the largest kinds, have been the longest but not even for a full century have these hamsters been tamed. The dwarf kinds are even more recent than that. They will still retain a lot of their instincts from the wild, including the culling of their young. Humans are foreign, strange beasts to them with an unknown, threatening scent. If they had even the slightest hint of those humans on their young, they would cull them in an instant. There was no way they could survive what attack those large hairless giants had. Or perhaps they are okay with their human owner. They've been handled for a while and trust the food the human provides them from their fingers, but maybe that food isn't enough. They know they themselves will give birth to the young soon, but the proportion of their food has been the same as always. The human is often inexperienced and has no way of telling if their little critter might have babies, especially if they've misidentified the hamster's gender or the pet store did. Suddenly the little pups are here, but with what food they are able to consume, it isn't enough to keep all of their little young alive. They don't realize the human would probably up their food content, so they cull the babies or at least some of them.

Or maybe they DO have enough food, but they live in a tiny, tiny environment. The exercise machine touches the walls and takes up most of their flat, and they cannot possibly see how they could share this small bachelor pad with five or six more rugrats running around. They do not know what the world is like outside this small room, so they cannot possibly realize the strange human may relocate the babies when they are old enough and thus, they cull. Whatever reason a hamster has to eat their young, it is always an instinctual reason. They were not given such survival methods because Satan or God thought it was humorous to see the humans gawk in horror at their cute little pet committing the grave sin of cannibalism. They were given such methods because that was the only way to ensure the safety of their strongest young, who may end up growing up to mate with the next generation and pass their mighty genes along.

As for the biting, well what the hell would you do if a massive thing stretched out their colossal claw above your head? A smart person would take such a dangerous movement to be life-threatening at first. There was no way to tell this massive thing was friendly, and if you guess wrong you'd be flat as a pancake with no second chance at changing your mind. Obviously a little frightened hamster would squeak, hiss, run, hide, and especially bite as a means of defence. Hamsters are prey. Their ancestors had their lives cut short endlessly due to so many factors that it only makes sense these reflexes and reactions originate deep in their DNA.

And no, I would not say hamsters are the most rewarding pet to own. They are not dogs that will run to your doorstep, eager to greet you inside. They are not cats who act as lazy, independent pompous creatures that remind their owner so much of themselves. They aren't even rats, who each have their own unique friendly personality and are dependent on a second rat companion for the full richness of their lives. But they are hamsters. They're cute, cuddly, and they're not difficult to tame. I cannot stress that enough. Of my thirteen hamsters I've owned, only three were not tamed. One was a dwarf hamster who sadly lived the shortest of the bunch and the other two were roborovski hamsters that I mostly viewed as opposed to held, as most robos tend to be kept. (One day I'll handle a robo hamster consistently...) The other ten were tamed. Most of them were fine being held the moment I got them because of how young they were, but the best story I have is of my current hamster, Esper.

Esper was a biter when I got him at first. He didn't look very young in the tank when I saw him. He wasn't a juvenile, but he also wasn't fully grown as he grew larger under my care after a few months. So it's safe to say Esper had been in that pet store for a while. I had asked the store lady if I could handle the hamsters, but she gave an excuse that they sleep in the afternoon and so it'd be better to come in the morning. While that is mostly true, the fact that a pet store clerk would not let you handle a pet to see what their temperament is like is a bad sign. It usually means the hamsters aren't handled regularly and aren't tamed, so they may bite. And well, if a potential customer is bitten they can't sell their hamsters, now can they?

Regardless of that red flag, I brought home Esper anyway. I decided to let him get to know me right away by letting him into my hand and then right after putting him in his cage. He bit. I left him alone in the cage for a week or so before I began the taming process. This process is one often recommended and there are numerous guides, whether written guides, video guides or the like, but there are many on the internet. There's stuff like spending time with the hamster in the same enclosed playpen, usually a bathtub. The best tip I used was wearing gloves. The hamster could bite all they want and realize it does absolutely nothing unless they like tasting leather constantly, which cannot be pleasant. I eventually was able to handle Esper with my bare hands after a couple of weeks, but he wasn't fully tame. For one thing, he confused a tendon in my wrist as something to chew at first, and that bled pretty profusely. A few days later he was eating a wet mealworm off my hand, and assumed the juices left on my palm were more of the mealworm, and nibbled on that.... yet more blood. But after putting on a band-aid and continually handling him for thirty-minutes each and every day, he finally associated my hand and my body as me, and never bit ever again. Even if my hand smelled like food, he knew it was me and never bit. Even if I enclosed him in both hands like a trap or whatever, he was never afraid. He didn't try to claw his way out. He knew it was me. He became incredibly familiar with me. I cannot tell you how wonderful it feels to bond with a hamster properly. Though it takes work, it feels so much better than just being able to hold a hamster right away. 

I earned Esper's trust. He trusts me. I trust him. It has gotten to the point that Esper would relax on my hands, or sit quietly on the couch with me without running all over the place or whatever because he knows I'm there and that he's safe. He is eager to see me, like a dog, whenever I walk by the cage. It's probably because I might give him food, but sometimes it's because he wants to come out. He actually wants to spend time with me. He even licks me as he grooms sometimes. I partially think because he doesn't care since he's also grooming himself that his tongue might land on my hand, but then he just licks my hand without bothering to clean himself sometimes. The level of closeness I feel with Esper is awesome. I've never had such a level like this before. My other tamed hamsters could be handled, but they would never relax in my arms or lick me affectionately. I also never attempt to handle Esper when he's actually in the cage, so I respect the territory he has and that is probably another reason he is so relaxed and friendly towards me.

It's truly a special relationship. That's what having a hamster is like. I've never had a dog or a cat before and I'd love to have them, but for what I have right now, it feels pretty sweet. People who blame their pets for their pets' problems are not the type of people who can understand these animals and probably do not deserve to own them in the first place. For whatever reason it gets increasingly more difficult to understand this the lower the intelligence level you go for hamsters. I will be the first to say hamsters are pretty dumb, but they're not like goldfish you can only admire from afar. They can be held. They can be pet. They can be cuddled. And I know for sure, if you've earned their trust, they like you too. Such a thing with an animal that hasn't been bred to act a certain way for hundreds of thousands of years is pretty special indeed.

Ah. You know what happens when you return to the world of nostalgia? You begin seeing things; things you may never have seen before or if have, never properly ranted about it. This is not one of those rants, unless I discuss my unending quest of discovering whether or not Max has ever worn pants. No, this is a cumulation of frustrations new and old! A pattern that has developed across almost every single one of Spotto's fandoms and favourite characters! A pattern that begins (or mostly, anyway) at Beyblade, an Anime of the past, an Anime of nostalgia, an Anime of great experiences and friendship and one of the first, but most definitely not the last, the first thing I joined as part of the periphery demographic!

And I will tell you why I'm part of it, but not before I illustrate to you, dear non-existent readers, the injustice of media.

I remember back in the day when my favourite character was Rei. I was a young'un back then, replacing terms and names of great beings and deities with Rei's name. I had shipped him with Kai, I recall, and watched and rewatched each and every one of his episodes wherein he shines the greatest. I had friends who shared with me these glorious views and our cult was flourishing across the vast lands of the early Internet. As an old relative of yours may have once said, those were the days. We marched forwards in pride, hoisting our flags high as we declared our love for our one true ship, defending it from what the future may hold. The first season and especially V-Force were kind to us, aiding us in our battle whether they knew it or not as the friendship among the two blossomed. It fueled our massive battleship and propelled it through the seas. We were invincible! We were triumphant! We were the rulers of the Beyblade sea!

But I was not an OG member of this ship or even this character. Oh no. My first love, the being who brought me onto these perilous lands in the first place, invading a peaceful space for little ambitious boys to buy their toys and empty their parents' wallets. I remembered as I kept my salutes high and my loyalty in place, a smaller, more modest, more grounded ship across the bay that I had took my first steps on when I first came to this great land. It called to me and my heart reverberated. I boarded a boat that very night and said a silent heartfelt goodbye to my comrades on the ship as I sailed to a home I held dear. There it stood, as I sailed for many hours, a smaller, older, lightweight ship. It was not the battle-heavy beauty wherein its bow and stern seemed to stretch from sunrise to sunset, with hundreds of thousands of cadets and sailors ahoy, proud of their daily duties. But as I recalled, it was home. 

Though a humble abode it won not many battles, it controlled not much territory, but it existed and welcomed new members with open arms. The friendliness of the embraces that I had received on this very ship brought tears of powerful memories to my eyes. I could not bring myself to ever return to the glory of where most of my comrades stood. This was where I belonged. And so, as I scan through the rich history of this small ship's few records, I can begin my actual rant.

I remember being very annoyed that this series was the Takao and Kai show. It wasn't quite like that at the beginning, but by the time G-Revolution rolled around you knew which characters were focused on the most. As I was a fan of Rei, I languished in the knowledge that so long as Rei was not on Takao's team, he would lose. Heck, even if he was on Takao's team, he'd still lose more than usual. In the first season his Driger (I will call it Byakko to differentiate it from the blade) had left him and then later on sacrificed itself to shield Rei's body. (How it came back as it wasn't part of Tala's army of beasts, we will never know) Then in season two he had it stolen from him by the Saint Shields. Takao in the meantime has never lost his bit-beast (unless the movie is canon) despite being the least experienced Blader of the two and somehow rising to the highest ranks the fastest. Kai has lost it once, to Zeo, but otherwise he kept a firm grip on Suzaku and aside from the time he willingly cast it aside for a stronger, edgier version, such heartbreak was not often felt. When you were without your bit-beast, you were weaker than the others. You had to wait until the rest of them fight the opponent and eventually return your greatest ally, your bestest friend, your bit-beast. But Rei was lucky.

Of the four bit-beasts, Byakko probably had the greatest autonomy among them all. Or at least it had demonstrated the greatest autonomy. Not once did the other bit-beasts leave or shield its owner. Kai had desperately needed it in G-Revolution, but the bit-beasts barely existed that season. Yet Byakko has saved Rei's life not once but twice, and has re-evaluated his owner's worth as well. Meanwhile the few times Dragoon has been uncooperative with Takao (unless the movie counts, again) it simply remained in its blade like a poorly-trained Pokemon as opposed to literally running away. Byakko was quite the bit-beast, I must say. And so even though Rei was given the short-end of the stick in season three, he still had moments where he was the star of the show. He was such a radiant light that he, and only he, had these type of episodes that were largely unique. He had episode forty-nine of the first season, where he almost died trying to tie the best-of-three match against the Demolition Boys. He had episode thirty-eight of the second season, where even though he lacked Byakko, he fought valiantly anyway because a bit-beast wasn't everything to his beloved sport, but that he would do anything to get it back anyway. They were wonderful episodes that showed the viewer how amazing of a character Rei was. He was diligent, stubborn, and never gave up. He had the wins and unique situations to back it up.

So why did I sail away on a little boat back to where it all began?

Rewatching the show reminded me of the one character who instantly took my heart the moment I set eyes on him. Cute adorable little Max. And unlike Rei and definitely unlike the other two, he has no moment to shine at all. At least, not a moment where he beat the indescribable odds and won some ultra-important match that was of great significance to his growth as a character. That doesn't mean he didn't have episodes that focused on him; they just didn't make as much of an impact like the other ones. Max did not fight a battle without his bit-beast to earn his partner back. He did not almost die to keep a series going. He wasn't the one responsible for defeating the Big Bad of the season. His so-called magnum opus performance ended in a tie. Max's episodes were the ultimate "throw-the-dog-a-cookie" episodes. Oh, he'll never win the race. He'll never be the favourite, but by God we gave him a cookie so at least he'd still be happy. He'd still be his optimistic, cheery little self despite winning the least of the four main characters. No wonder he became more serious as time went on (Maturity? What do you mean?) No wonder his final battle was laced with the beginning steps of angst and depression, but even that battle was just throwing the dog a bone. He will never have the prize. He'd have to remain satisfied, in the background, with his participation award.

And well, we all should have known this pattern was going to remain when we see his very first official battle. Max vs. Kai. This battle is all about Max because Kai was obviously going to win. The entire thing was set up so Takao could get his just desserts in defeating the cocky, sourpuss, cold Kai. Yet this was also the battle Max received Genbu. Now unless you're one of Takao or Kai, if you have personal investment in a battle it doesn't necessarily mean you're going to win. First Kai defeats Max easily because he's Kai. Then Max shows off his strategist, tactical nature by launching his blade in the other direction to absorb Kai's finishing move and thus winning the second match. By the third match, Max has replaced his bit-chip with one within his pendant given by his grandma, which is rather convenient. Now, if you were the main character, this would be the catalyst to victory. You now have this great new power that no one has seen before. You'd think by that logic Max would win this match or at the very least tie, since that's exactly what happened when Takao's Seiryuu first appeared and at that point Takao was still less experienced than Max. But no, Max's Genbu shows up and all Kai has to do is summon Suzaku and the whole trump card was for nil. Max loses. Oh, but at least he has a bit-beast now, so it's all okay! Max isn't too sad. In fact he even tried to give Kai a handshake after which because he's such a preciously nice boy. So nice that even the cold-hearted Kai couldn't simply just walk away from. It's amazing what this boy can do.

Now repeat this formula over and over again and you have Max's battles in a nutshell. Sure, he beats Michael during his character-focused arc, but everyone gets their own character-focused arc where we learn of their backstory and motives. It's not unique only to Max. And frankly the PPB All Starz are the most forgettable team of that season anyway. The most interesting character was Max's mom. They even introduced some new guy in season three because of how boring this team was. Beyblade's American stereotypes are awful. Then Max gets an upgrade to his Beyblade, the infamous Draciel F, and I will educate you plebians of Draciel F's might despite winning like practically zero battles during its existence.

It was Draciel F who held back the ridiculously edgy and somehow powerful Black Dranzer (with its fifty-thousand stolen bit-beasts to boot!) during the Kai-redemption episode. Max doesn't actually win on his own though since the whole point was for original Dranzer to knock some sense in his owner's head. Then, as soon as we saw Draciel F's ability Max loses Genbu to the Demolition Boys right after and we never see Max's Beyblade again this season. Welp. They realized how little it was used in Season 1 so by the time V-Force arrived Max was the only one of the four to keep Draciel F for the entirety of the Psykicks' arc. Seriously he doesn't get Draciel V until over halfway through the season! And here, he gets to beat the random scrubs Team Psykick sends out (while losing constantly to Mariam and co. mind you. Kai tied with Dunga and Rei eventually beat Joseph, but noooooo, little Maxie can't win any of his early battles unless it's a random kid!) and finally we have Max's little nonsensical battle with Jim at the tower. Like holy crap, this fight.

I have very mixed feelings about this fight. You see, of the four Max is the only one who doesn't have personal investment in this Tower Arc. Kai's fanboy friend died and he needs revenge. Rei's chasing after some girl because girls. Takao always has personal investment because he's the main character and he fought Kane in a super even and non-cheating heated battle earlier. Besides Takao has abandonment issues, of course he has investment. But Max? Well, too bad so sad. Regardless despite Max's outdated Beyblade and his lack of any plot-related reason to win, he still pummels Cyber Draciel like a little squishy bug over and over and over and over again. And for some reason does this with such reckless and wrathful intensity it's like Max should have had some sort of personal reason! Seriously! For no reason at all Max gets really mad and expressive this battle! FOR NO REASON AT ALL! He acts stubborn and unlike himself...FOR NO REASON AT ALL! Was his friends in danger? Did someone betray him and now he was unleashing his hidden fury unlike anything before? Max has never looked so angry! He has never looked like he wanted so much to win until this fight! BUT WHY!?

And of course, being the water Blader and the smart one, Max begins to suffer from Mercury Syndrome. 

What is Mercury Syndrome? Well if you've seen Sailor Moon you may know what I'm talking about. Sailor Mercury was famous for her seemingly-useless bubble attack in the first season. This was justified by how Mercury fought with her brains and with tactics instead of sheer force like the others. Her bubbles would distract or impede the monster somehow and give the team the upper-hand to destroy it. In the finale of the first season, Jupiter has just died and Mercury stayed behind to hold the somehow unbelievably powerful DD girls back. (Why they weren't used at the very beginning we may never know) Jupiter being the strong one killed two of them in her kamikaze attack. Venus would take one later on after saving Moon, whereas Mars gets a badass "I'm not done yet!" scene where she torches the last two. Mercury gets none because the girls were constantly falling for the monsters' illusions of their loved ones being taken hostage. Even if it was obvious that this was just an illusion, it was effective enough to make the girls' hesitate and it ended up being Jupiter's downfall. So instead of killing off one of the DD girls', Mercury's last stand was to break the jewel on the monster's head to stop these illusions. She then dies, fulfilling her role as the smart one.

Congratulations Max you get to sacrifice Genbu in the name of tactics! He destroys the bit-beast repair system that was allowing Jim to battle Max over and over again. (And like the illusions in Sailor Moon, even if you could just CHOOSE to not accept the challenge again it was still better to rid of it entirely) I mean imagine if Cyber Dragoon was revived over and over again. That's a Godzilla movie waiting to happen. Then of course, his endurance runs out and Max isn't able to defeat Cyber Draciel a third time and he loses his bit-beast. Of course he does. It's just how it works. How do you demonstrate to the audience how dire the situation is if someone doesn't actually lose their bit-beast? I mean sure they had to cheat over and over again to do it, but Max didn't have a plot-related reason to win so even though he absolutely pulverized his competition, he has to sit in the sidelines just like at the end of Season 1 and wait to get his Genbu back. The sad tale of Draciel F ends here, in heartbreak and tragedy. You were a tough Beyblade, Draciel F. You just suffered from terrible luck.

Oh yeah and Max gets punched in the face. That was cut from the dub, but between Dunga and Rick in season three Max sure suffers from assault more often than the others in this series. By the way the two of them share the same voice actor in the dub, so if it weren't for the cuts you could just designate this guy as "the person who voices all the Max abusers".

...Moving on. The series knew it shafted Max during this arc, so he got one all for himself in the next two episodes! The first one was promising. Max reunites with his old friend in America, Alan. We get super adorable glomping and flashbacks. Then it turns out Alan is a little jealous beetle and steals the super amazing bit-beast rock from Max's mom's laboratory and Max is betrayed! It's set-up rather nicely. There's even GTA-esque chase scenes, bazookas, and machine guns all over the place because MURICA yo! Except the machine guns were cut in America. Yeah I don't get it either. Then the second episode was the let-down of all let-downs. Like come on! So Max finally receives Draciel Viper, and isn't behind the times as he used to. (Takao gets V2 like two episodes later. This getting obscene.) He uses it to defeat his friend Alan and...ugh. Let me rewind a bit.

First of all, Alan did this so he could get a cool bit-beast and be on the level with Max, but the person he was working for of course didn't actually do their end of the bargain, so Alan just has a boring normal Beyblade during the impromptu tournament. Also this announcer has a cap with the letters USA on it and the most awful of accents you could ever hear. I know dubs hate silence in Anime and need to fill it up with as much obnoxious dialogue as possible, but geez he was already a terrible stereotype in the original Japanese version. Why would you make it even worse when you're the Americans!?  So anyway, during the actual battle Max fights his old friend but he's so incredibly distracted he almost loses to a normal Beyblade used by a criminal. Wow, Draciel V that is not a good first showing at all. Draciel F may not have won much battles but it had spunk! It was tough! The fact that Max had a whole new upgrade to his Beyblade for this battle and still ties with Normal McNormalson is very worrying. Then eventually he realizes how stupid he's being and destroys Alan like the little insignificant character he is. (Seriously nobody cares about this guy) And no bit-beasts ever appear. 

It was very anti-climatic. Because Alan was ripped off, he wasn't using some massive dangerous force which would've been a great foreboding preview of the next obstacle our main characters would face. Instead it was just a normal Beyblade that made Alan seem all the more pathetic. Meanwhile Max expresses himself greatly and is all the more pumped up for the JIM battle several episodes before, but not this one with the emotional and personal investment. I just don't get it! I just don't get it at all! The first episode set it up so perfectly! The build up was amazing, but the actual product was a crippling disappointment! No wonder no one remembers or cares about you, Alan! I even read a story that had to use an OC to be Max's stray friend instead of Alan! Gah!

Luckily this season isn't all bad for Max. I mean aside from his adorable design upgrade. The best part about the Saint Shields arc was undoubtedly Mariam. When we saw our first female blader in season one it was the sadly stereotypical Mariah, who was as pink as she could be and was basically a girl version of Rei. We finally see another in Emily, but she's only slightly more memorable than the other sports-related characters of the PPB All Starz. Hiromi shows up in season two but she doesn't even beyblade which is frankly disappointing. Mariam is our first good female character in the entire series and is probably the only good female character in the entire series! (Alright Salima was okay as well, but really aside from the two) I will not get into how bad G-Revolution was in developing a character outside of the ones directly related to our main cast until later. She had snark. She had personality. She clashed with her teammates (mostly Dunga) and she had character development too! (Too bad in Beyblade when you have character development you automatically become GOOD IS DUMB and become the next victim of the Worf Effect to the next bad guy in line) And yes, that is how I got into Beyblade! I watched the Max and Mariam episode when they got stuck in a building! I saw a really cute awesome male character with a really beautiful awesome female character! Their designs were nice! The plot of the episode wasn't mindless tournaments and top spinning! We had character development for Mariam! Max gets to be a protector despite being the weakest/cutest-looking of the group! It was different! It was great! IT WAS THE ONLY ONE OF ITS KIND IN THE ENTIRE SERIES! AND THIS IS THE EPISODE I SAW THAT HOOKED ME! THIS EPISODE IS WHY THIS RANT EVEN EXISTS! THIS EPISODE IS WHY I AM HOW I AM NOW!

Why if you went back in time and did something seemingly harmless and insignificant, but it was enough for me to miss this episode I may never have met the friends I have. I may never had joined fanfiction and continued my beloved hobby of writing! What could I have been instead? This was the best episode in the entire series. 

Then Max beats Mariam, she finishes her character arc and all is downhill from here.

Well okay, not necessarily. I do think my least favourite arc of V-Force is its finale however. We get introduced to King and Queen (and no one likes them @_@) because we need characters to fill up a tournament. Do you know how much I hate that? Introducing characters to fill up a tournament? They did that tenfold in season one, but it was okay because each tournament was a setting for each character's backstory, so not only do we learn a great deal about character of the arc, but also the team they face and are associated with. (With the sad exception of the PPB All Starz) Unfortunately we do not really have that for this season except for Zeo and only Zeo. This arc was just ZEO ZEO ZEO ZEO ZEO. The entire season we've had this theme with fanboys and friends who you thought were your friends, but ultimately they fall to the wayside because of their great jealousy of the Bladebreakers. They end up saying YES to drugs (Don't tell me the Psykicks weren't a euphemism for a drug cartel. All those kids were high as fuck) Yuuya/Wyatt dies. Alan goes to jail. And now we have Zeo! Zeo is different because he's actually a robot that Zagart wanted to turn human with the divine power of the sacred four bit-beasts. You know the manga story is a lot more deep and tragic. Zagart stole the first rock thirty-some years ago, but Zeo could not have possibly existed back then. Did he already have the ambitions to bring to life his own mechanical creations way back when? It was a lot more sloppy than the manga story, where Zagart lost his first son, Zeo and forced his second son Leon to adopt the name Zeo so he'd basically become Zeo in his place. 

Anyway, Max teams up with Takao (with Rei and Kai being together) in this sudden tag-team tournament. HOLY CRAP! MAX IS WITH THE MAIN CHARACTER! He's bound to win now! No, he's bound to be tie-breaking fodder so Takao can get all the more glory. :|

Max beats Queen though, somehow. His mind can make his Beyblade spin the other direction just like that. Hey remember way back in season one when he had to slot in his ripcord backwards to make it spin backwards so he could beat Kai? Remember when these tactics actually existed? Yeah they're not coming back in G-Revolution either. Anyway we didn't have the screen-time nor the significance to give Kai and Rei their own super powerful semi-final/quarter-final victims, despite the numerous characters introduced this season. (They were Worf Effect fodder to King/Queen and Zeo, sadly) Oh Zeo has a partner, but he has no characterization whatsoever. He's just there to be his partner because this arc is ZEO ZEO ZEO ZEO ZEO. Then Kai loses to Zeo (Rei has to tie because it'd be absurd if he lost Byakko even MORE) and then we get to the finals match. In some form of crazy miracle, Takao went up first with Zeo's cardboard cutout partner that Rei couldn't beat. So we got Max up against Zeo! YAY!

And he proceeds to DESTROY Zeo! YAY!

And then Zeo summons Suzaku. Not yay.

WHAT HAPPENED TO DRACIEL F'S AMAZING RESISTANCE VERSUS EDGY DRANZER WITH HIS ARMY OF BIT-BEASTS IN SEASON ONE!? Draciel V you suck! (Despite this, Heavy Viper Wall is forever my favourite attack from this series. It's so beautiful) But yeah Max goes first against the biggest threat so the threat's trump card defeats him and makes the situation even more dire. Oh and Max loses Genbu AGAIN. The poor boy just wants to keep his turtle, man! Why is that so hard to ask? And then Takao the main character wins yadda-yadda boo hoo wah wah wah.

Season three is a clusterfuck. I know lots of people love this season,  but they mostly like it for the DBZ-like action and the non-childish (AKA incredibly attractive) designs of the characters. I mean yeah, season two had far too much animal wrestling, but this season didn't really fare better with its stock footage attacks. What is this, Sailor Moon? Basically whoever has the most optimal timing with their stock footage attack wins. I would reiterate back to season one when we had actual real tactics that might really work if these spinning tops were real, but those days are long gone. The first half of the season is a tournament arc and then the second half is a matchup against the BEGA characters. Sigh. Remember when I said I hated tournament arcs for introducing characters solely for the tournament? Unlike season one we don't get the "tournament is a setting for the character backstory". Instead the so-called appeal of the season is that the Bladebreakers are no more and must fight one another. Therefore, Takao needs a Takao-clone to be his new tag-team partner (AKA Daichi) which is really what this series needs. I mean, really. I will never understand these shounen shows.

Max gets a brand new character because of how boring the PPB All Starz are. And since we need our regular serving of Max assault we get the Dunga expy, Rick. Rei and Kai return with their old teams, their partners becoming the heavily nerfed Lee and Tala. (Because they can't outshine our main characters after all!) For whatever reason we need to replace the Majestics with the Barthez Battalion. (Why? I have no fucking clue. There was nothing wrong with the Majestics. They have lovely personalities and probably would've been my second favourite team if they were ever given screen-time.) Aside from some awkward abusive coach arc with these four characters we literally know nothing about them. Whose favourite character is Claude anyway? The only reason someone might like them is because of their designs. Matilda has a fucking hedgehog bit-beast. That's fucking amazing. F Sangre had potential to give us a brother-sister duo we wouldn't hate with all our might, but they didn't really go anywhere either. Am I forgetting any team? Were there really only six teams in this tournament? This is sad. All of this is very sad.

You got this sloppily organized tournament with characters we really don't care about (unless you like their designs!) all so in the end we have a Kai and Takao rematch. Wow. Amazing. Max and Rei aren't allowed to win against either Kai and Takao (who must WIN ALL THEIR MATCHES!!1!!!! Unless of course Takao isn't actually trying and loses in a non-epic intense manner) and when you pit Max and Rei together instead of some intense epic battle of who is NUMBER THREE in the Bladebreakers, we get a "teach Rick teamwork" episode. Don't get me wrong I like the episode, especially Lee randomly winning, but that's so sad. I thought the appeal was to see the old team fight one another, but we don't get to see who of Max or Rei are better? It just emphasizes all the more how much this tournament is just to show off Kai and Takao before they fight one another. (If you really didn't want to reveal who was better make Max and Rei tie and have Rick and Lee be the tie-breaker. THAT'D BE INTERESTING AND DIFFERENT!) THIS IS SO SAD. WHY DO PEOPLE LIKE THIS SEASON!?

Well I imagine it'd be for the BEGA arc if anything. Did I mention Takao's brother by the way? I find his character absolutely pointless for this season. He makes sense in the manga because he shows up in the VERY BEGINNING when Takao is a rookie beyblader. Why would Takao need a goddamn mentor after he's become a two-time Beyblade World Champion? Where the hell were you when he needed you way back in season one? He's just here to be a cryptic (and random) ninja who decides the best way to make Takao better (when he's already the very best) is to train the BEGA bladers. In terms of personality he seems rather bland. He's just there to be eyecandy and the generic mentor person. My god. Oh and after we had such a great character in Mariam in season two we are given an insulting excuse of a female character in Ming Ming. She just sings, magically transforms to be older (like some sort of pseudo-magical girl transformation) when she Beyblades. What is her personality? To be cute? What the fuck.

Then you got Moses (and the dub finds renaming him Crusher the smartest of ideas. WHAT PERSON NAMES THEIR KID CRUSHER!? I mean sure, what person names their kid Dunga or even names their kid Moses, but you tell that to the millions of dudes named Mohammed) who is given a whole sob story about his ill sister, so now Rei's OPPONENT has the personal investment instead of him, so he's destined to win instead. Even though we're all supposed to be sympathetic and such to him, he is still technically working for the BAD GUY. His side isn't supposed to win! 

Then there's Mystel! Who is he? Where does he come from? We don't know! His name is Mystel! That means he's mysterious. His entire persona is being mysterious. Yay. Oh, but god forbid this mysterious gentleman loses because Max ties against him. Max has to tie so Kai can get his revenge against Brooklyn and Takao wins. (God forbid Takao loses or ties!) That way a tie-breaker between Brooklyn and Takao could happen (this entire battle was so what) and it's just. RARGH. You know what I would've done? Max would've WON and then Takao would've tied against Garland. Then Takao and Brooklyn could be the rematch! THEN EVERYONE GETS SPOTLIGHT! Because Max never wins a battle he has an emotional investment in, unless it's that piss-poor of an excuse fight he had versus Alan in season two or the one he had in season one that everyone pretty much had anyway! MAX. WAS. GYPPED!

I'll breathe.

Yes. That Max vs. Mystel battle was another THROW THE DOG A BONE battle. Max didn't win. He doesn't get to win. He's not the main character! He tied so the plot can go on, but he couldn't get the elusive victory no matter how hard he tries. He's always the underdog in every battle but that doesn't seem to do anything for him in terms of helping him win! The crowd cheers for him anyway (and the dubbing of this crowd is so sad I just want to melt into a drain and disappear into the ocean) because that was his bone. He didn't technically lose and the people still like him anyway so he can be back to his happy, cheery self. NO WONDER ALL THOSE MAX FANFICTIONS I TRIED TO READ DEPICTED HIM AS SECRETLY DEPRESSED ALL THE TIME! WHO WOULDN'T BE AFTER ALL THIS!? You can't win! You don't win! Yet you keep up your cheery shell anyway! That's probably why Rei GOT ALL ANGRY this season because he too doesn't win as much and he had to let out such a humongous amount of frustration trying, over and over again, to win. Even if he had the backing of his team and the little symbolism tied around his arm that for ALL ACCOUNTS AND PURPOSES, if this was ANY OTHER SHOW, Rei would've won and defeated Kai! BUT NO! THE PLOT SAYS, KAI MUST FACE TAKAO! IT DOESN'T MATTER WHAT BONE YOU THROW OR WHAT PERSONAL INVESTMENT YOU HAVE!

YOU! WILL! ALWAYS! LOSE!

And that is why there isn't a season four of Beyblade.