Hear Ye , Hear Ye! Princess Pinkie has returned with a gaming post!
Salutations my loyal subjects and sweet island guests. This video game review might be the last normal one I play in a while. I got something new planned that I am really excited about! Something very random! Yet today I want to talk to you about a very fun game I played with some friends. Mario Party! Except it’s not Mario Party. It IS ..but also it isn’t! The game I am talking about is called Pummel Party!
A Rebuilt Game
Pummel Party is created by a studio called Rebuilt Games who offer their fantastic game for just 13 euros on steam, so I ‘d estimate about $15 dollar or so. In this game you play a coloured dude hidden in some sort of customisable morph suit! You play against 1 to 7 other guys dressed in a coloured Morphsuit and that’s it. How do you do that?! Well you walk across a board game by rolling a ten sided dice, which can land you on all sorts of tiles that make the overworld react with you, you either get a currency, in this case keys, you can make a ghost steal other’s people’s keys…or rip them apart, and you can gather items or make random things in the world happen.. like the water level rising. You all do this so you can reach a specific spot at a board where you can exchange your currency for a chalice! The one who owns the most chalices at the end is the winner. At the end of every round you play a minigame.. and at the end of the game you are awarded bonus chalices that can totally change the game.. you must not just try to play for yourself but also hinder other players from winning …and …. wait… this is THE EXACT gameplay of Mario Party?!
Yes let’s get this thing out of the way first, this game is Mario Party without the nintendo license. Instead of 20 (or 10) coins you need 40 keys . Instead of a toad, there is just a chest you open.. instead of Boo, it’s the Grim Reaper, but nearly everything you can do in this game is just based on Mario Party. The way the map branches of in all sorts of routes, the way you can earn currency trough minigames. Even the bonus stars are copied. If you like Mario Party as a concept but never had a Nintendo console, this is the game that emulates the sensation quite well! Extremely well even.. during the game all my friends and me kept using super mario terms for words because we just felt this was Mario Party.. yet at the end I had to draw a conclusion. I liked Pummel Party more than I like Super Mario Party.. by a fair margin! At least compared to the newer Mario Parties. This game feels more like a modern take on Mario Party 1.
A party for everyone
To a lot of people, the Mario flavour is what makes Mario Party games so fun! It’s great to play as Mario or Peach and humiliate your friends! Pummel Party has no such sentiment, you play a blank character in some general stages. To many that will mean this game already is deemed inferior. Yet I like to argue that Mario Party has a bit of confusing flavouring. Suddenly Peach is as physically strong as Donkey Kong and Bowser, suddenly Mushrooms and Stars work very differently and while the characters are super iconic their motivations and story changed quite hard. That is not a problem, it is a perfectly fine solution ..but it DOES show that the “Mario” Part in the party is strictly a cosmetic one. There isn’t anything intrinsically Mario that makes the party better. It’s just Mario being there that makes it fun and easier to fall in love with characters or stages to those who love mario. If for a moment we would strip all recognisable features away.. I think Pummel Party is the stronger of the two titles, because it knows it is a more generic game and caters to it.
Pummel Party needs an angle.. it needs to have it’s angle in gameplay, rather than esthetics and that it does. You see where in the more known series you can screw each other over a fair bit, this game takes that much further. You do not just steal coins from each other. You shoot each other in the face. Toss Nuclear Waste on others and can actually murder characters on the overworld map.. which resets them to a more disadvantageous position. Even in the minigames, you do not just win currency; those who do well get rewarded with items to mess each other up a bit. Another great idea is that turn order is based on how you performed in Minigames. This makes it so that someone can dash for a chalice if they do well at Minigames, but also allows the later players to mess them up a lot more as they are oftenly in the more reactive slots. The items in Pummel Party are less “cryptic” .. A boxing Glove punches someone in the keister, while a disintegration death ray does exactly what it says on the box. My favourite item is the nuclear waste, which causes extreme swellings and damage over time.. but that same swelling prevents the affected player to use items. Either way of battling you can enjoy it if your not a big Mario fan.
The same thing happens with the minigames of this game. The first Mario Party and maybe the second one, were simple enough. Bounce each other platforms, hit stuff with a hammer to get as many coins as possible! Yet as Mario Party moved on, these minigames became less user friendly. Mario Party 10 brought it back to normal a bit, but a lot of their minigames tend to feel gimmicky. “Where do you detect the most rumble, water a flower in the distance, using balloons and stuff. It’s all okay and simple enough to understand but some games tend to really farfetched. Pummel Party goes for a much simpler approach in 90% of their minigames. Play a game of “King of the Hill” , play a short round of a third person competitive shooter, play a short bit of air combat game and play 3 rounds of slither.io/snake. It feels much more as if you are playing actual video games that have been scaled down, rather than play gimmicks with a mechanic to beat it fast. As a result most games feel much more instinctive with a bigger focus on direct competition which increases their fun.
Hushed Game
One thing where Mario Party has Pummel Party beat is at it’s sound design. Pummel Party has a very quiet feel to it. There is no loud background music and there is not really any memorable music in the games. It all is very far away. Even when you pick up keys on the maps you don’t hear clingely sounds or something very satisfying. You do hear each other’s bones cracking and the weapons firing as you go around, but other than that it’s a bit boring in the audio department…. then again I think this is a good thing as well. You will play this online with friends, perhaps stream the game or whatever people do these days. The music is so silent it will never get copyright claimed, if it would even do so at all! The game even partnered with Twitch, having some Twitch inspired costumes and even a stage based on Twitch! It was perfectly mixed to hear my friends on my headset while still knowing what is going on in the game! Yet the sound design does reveal a secondary flaw compared to Mario Party.
While you CAN technically play this game by yourself against AI , it is not very fun to do so. The AI is a lot more competent than it’s Nintendo counterpart but because everything is so quite, when no one is talking to you, the game is quite boring. It just does not feel satisfying to use that disintegration laser on an undeserving AI, while it feels hilarious on an undeserving player, just so you can get an achievement out of it! Mario Party has things talking to you, a more upbeat soundtrack and other things that can really make a game, this game unfortunately can’t do the same! No story mode, no mini game island, no single player content at all. It really is made to play with your friends! The game has a chat feature so even if you are shy to talk, you can communicate, which is an option I very much appreciate, even even if just chatting the game is pretty fun.. but the motivations to use the cool items are much more personal So playing this by yourself is pretty much a no go.
The game isn’t too ambitious with it’s unlocks either, you can unlock some cloaks for your character but that’s about it! The game does seem to receive some updates every now and again so that is a plus, but again in it’s design it just feels a tad bit tinier than the well known franchise. Maybe it’s a tad more humble?! The game doesn’t have that many stages, though still more than the most recent Mario Party and one of the stages has a random layout so in terms of repeatability this game will go far! As long as you have friends to enjoy this game with!
The game also has a slightly higher pace than the title I mentioned many times already! There is less dialogue due to it’s quiet nature and every dialogue pops up faster and is handled with a single button press. We don’t get shouty pop ups for every turn, we do not have two random characters making bets on who is going to win and there is no huge stage exposition! The game kind of expects you to know how this game works from just looking at it.. or by experimenting and reading descriptions and for that I do really love it again. It has a much better pacing and drops silly things like having a minigame on the last turn, as earning keys no longer matters; it can simply be cut! It does a great job!
I genuinely believe that this game is in many ways better than it’s bigger more famous inspiration. It feels more accessible and more for gamers, at the same time making it something I truly could get on board with. It cuts the clutter and doesn’t beat around the bush as much and honestly I really do like dressing up as a Pink Morphsuit Ragdoll with a unicorn hat and a rainbow cape more than dressing as an iconic character. It is hard to explain the feeling but because the drop of famous characters you can punish each other in more satisfying ways, you can be more build and visual and it results in more satisfying minigames. Mario can’t be cut in half with a lightsaber but a pummel buddy can! It triggers these primal instincts and I just end up feeling more satisfied with this one! I really love a game of Pummel Party!
Have you played Pummel Party?! What did you think about the game? Have you always wanted to shoot a death beam of doom at your friends? Let me know in the comments and if you want me to find more party game gems like these please consider supporting my Kofi! Kofi for content! Stay Random!
Hello again dear Mortals, Halloween draws closer, so of course the mystical forces that might be rise! Now of course they would not stay away from the fictional island of Paradise. So today we visit a small story about what happend for Halloween on Paradise. Like always the manager is hard at work when stuff suddenly turns strange! Can she survive a night of terror find out in this little story!
The Broomcloset
Manager Pinkie was sitting in her office. Working on her Pink Little Laptop to make sure she had plenty of cocktails to distribute to her guests on the lovely island of Paradise. She didn’t like working late on Saturdays but due to her moving to another Cabana on the island she had to spend quite a few extra hours in a day! She looked at the callender.. 31st of October.. time was going so fast. She looked at her laptop and saw a half finished blog, plus some of the fictional work to be done on her island on her fictional computer… and sighed. Almost done! She would get a hot bath and an early night sleep…well as far as you can call it early. It was already getting close to midnight. Just as she was about to wrap up her work, suddenly all the lights in the office went out. Even her adorable Jigglypuff Light. By the glow of her laptop she looked out of the window and see that the entire resort was out of power. That was so strange. She opened a drawer of her pink desk to look for a pink little mobile phone. She called Indigo but no one answered. Was he in the Dinosaur Suit again?! Maybe Sunny could help her find the fuse box. So using her little pink phone as a little pink Flashlight the manager set out in the hotel to go find her janitor person who loves to be called a cabana boy.
“Why are these hallways so empty?” she wondered while her heels clicked on the marble like hotel floors.Their echos bouncing around the luxurious hallway filled with Pokémon paintings. Through the window she could see the outside lights that would provide light to the front of the hotel were out to! What was going on here? Did all the fuses blow at the same time?! Then the ground shook as the hallway was bathed in a pink silver light. Shadows of some of the Yu-Gi-Oh statues lengthens as it were lang shadowy figures trying to approach her. A loud clap followed. A thunderstorm! That must have knocked out the power. Yet she never heard the first one. Could it be that she was so sucked up in her blog that she missed it?! No she was loafing around right?! This was so strange! Having encountered no one she encountered Sunny’s broom closet… she had an awkward experience there once. Thinking Sunny wanted something from her and screaming while he actually just wanted to show her some yellow caterpillar with a horn he found in Pokémon Go asking her to identify it! This time however she suddenly heard clear moaning noises from the closet. Did he have another person in there?! Her guests needed her though so she would apolgise to Sunny later. She gave the door a brisk but clearly audible knock. In the tempo of Pink Fluffy Unicorns Dancing on Rainbows!
No answer.. just moaning! She would have accepted a.. “be with you in a minute” or even a “not now” but this was just plain rude. The moaning continued. She knocked again, this time knocking “Space Unicorn” ! The same thing happened though! No answer! What in Arceus’ name was going on. Annoyed Pinkie pulled open the door and there she saw Sunny! In his hand was the lantern he so often carried around.. but blood seemed to be dropping from it.. and a head shaped object seemed to be inside. Her eyes glanced over to Sunny, his hair looked even more sloppy than normal, his normally so sunkissed skin had a pale quality even blueish.. his mouth mask was not moving up and down at all.. as if he was not breathing! He moaned… and then uttered a single world. BRAINS! With a new lighting strike very close by her phone dropped to the ground as she yelled .. staring into Sunny’s much more dead eyes! Z-Z-ZOMBIE!!!! YEEEE AAARGH!… Pinkie Ran out the broom closet tripping over a Yellow bucket! With a loud smack she landed on the floor.. but the adrenaline rushing through her kept her going.. tossing her shoes at Sunnies head she managed to dash off .. she had to get Indigo! He could help!
The Security Office
The manager had to go to Indigo but she also had to keep her guests safe from this zombie! That did not seem to be that much of an issue though! As she approached the lobby no was there. Zombie Sunny slowly waddled after her and could not keep up.. A new flash of lightning made her scare and hide between the reception desk for a while. She was pretty sure she saw a presence. Zombie Sunny kept chasing.. he would soon be here and her lungs already felt like they could burst. She could not keep running forever; she wasn’t built for it. So she looked up the administration book and found a yellow marker on the desk. She quickly ripped out a page and folded a plane out of it! She began to colour it yellow as fast as she could.. She was just about done when a cold bluish hand slammed on the reception desk. He was there.. just before he could grab at her Pinkie tossed the yellow paper plane down the hallway to the staff rooms again. With a slow look behind his back Sunny turned around and shambled back into the hallways. That would buy her a few minutes. How did he become a zombie?! Did he get bitten by some weird mutated fish?
As Pinkie got up right to dash to Indigo’s hut. She noticed that zombie Sunny left a blue streak on the desk! Weird.. it could be dangerous though She would not want people to get infected by this. Even if it put her at risk. A bit of blue got on her hand and she felt sick to her stomach! She had to prevent herself from being infected.. so she ran into the kitchen. The chef wasn’t there .. which was weird..there should be some chefs to prepare midnight snacks! Did they go out to fix the power as well! Without a doubt Pinkie took the sharpest knife she could find and cut her ring finger off! She bit on a spatula to prevent screaming and drawing attention. Using some kitchen towels she made herself a bandage. She had no time to waste. She had to go to the security office. Using the emergency exit she left the building. Knocking on Indigo’s door.. in blind panic. As she knocked some organ music seemed to play inside.. and another thunder rumbled the area. “Come in.. Fleshy Mammal” she heard from inside. “What an annoying greeting” Pinkie taught before she opened the door. Inside was Indigo..but his leather coat ..had been replaced.. by .. a cloak! He turned around and looked all pale, his eyes red! “I smell blood,” he said. Pinkie gasped and screamed!Vampire!! Indigo is a vampire! “Pinkie look in my eyes” Indigo said.. but she was too smart she would not be hypnotised.
Pinkie dashed away ..now chased by a Vampire and a Zombie. What happened here?! Had she crossed over into the Twilight zone?! Did it have to do with the blue goop she found? What is with this weird thunderstorm! She saw flashes but no bolts.. and the sky seemed without a cloud! This seemed like some occult stuff! Wait! Occult! Maybe her horror expert Kuro could tell her more! Slightly woozy she began to ran towards the pool bar, the vampire in hot pursuit. As she look behind her to see if he was catching up she saw Vampire Indigo reaching out his arm .. then she suddenly fell.. as if tripped by telekinetic powers.. sparks shot out around her. and a sharp burning sensation in her knees. When she got up she realised she lost her glasses! Everything was blurry.. What happened. Did she just get hit by a spell?! Indigo drew closer! “I am not dying today,” Pinkie said to herself as she crawled back up. In an attempt to get away she took a dive through one of the hedges.. surprisingly it worked! She realised her entire weight just broke the branches as she stumbled off.. it seemed to have shook off Indigo!..Which makes sense she guessed.. wooden stakes and all. She outsmarted a vampire! But she pretty much ruined her dress.
The Bar
Tears began to well up in Pinkie, was she gonna die?! I mean she would rather be a vampire then a Zombie.. when suddenly she saw Sunny Shamble near the pool area! She had to go the long way around to reach the bar! Could you sneak past Zombies?! Her bandages smelled like a freshly defrosted steak! If she went through the gardens she might avoid Sunny all together and reach the bar via the beach. So she ran into the gardens. Huge Spiderwebs were everywhere. There in the bushes she found the cook! Motionless his white outfit stained in red liquid.. at least she thought it was the cook! He had a chefs hat on! Having -5 in both eyes she was fairly blind without her glasses. Whoever this man was .. and she assumed it was the chef! He was dead! She wasn’t sure who killed him. The bottle of cooking wine.. used for their famous Coq au Vin was the weapon he made his last stand with! Suddenly she heard “Pinkie” behind her and Irina stood behind her. dressed as Ghostface from Scary movie.. but the mask was made up instead! So she could still recognise her! In her hand bloody knife glistend.. Pinkie screamed and hit bonked Irina on the head with the Winebottle. It was empty so it did not make that much of an impact.. but enough to give her a window to dash away.
From the gardens Pinkie ran onto the beach, her feet struggling on the star-shaped sand! And yes star shaped sand is a thing! It is difficult to run in! Irina chased her.. and she looked angry! No way Pinkie would let herself be taken down by a slasher villain that isn’t even an Island OC. It gave her strength to run again. Still half blind! Maybe she recognised Irina through the alcohol smell! Why was she wondering this right now?! Eventually she reached the bar.. out of breath. Kuro looked at her and said. What’s wrong Pinkie you look terrible?! Do you need a drink. Pinkie nodded..while trying to catch her breath. As Kuro poured her a Hibiki.. a purple hand put the glass in front of her. Pinkie looked up and saw two horns on Kuro’s head.. teeth very sharp and a skin totally purple. They wore a demon red and black Yukata. Before Pinkie could take a sip she stumbled back.. tripping on a barstool. She fell.. and she kept falling. She felt almost as if she was sinking. Kuro was an Oni..she had no chance.. now she fell and was sinking.. did she knock herself out?! She was dead anyone she would just let herself sink. It was all over. She opened her eyes.. and saw a black shadow looming over her..as she took a breath a sharp pain filled her lungs! Then two strong hands grabbed her and she was being dragged towards a big dangerous looking presence and then it all went black.
Paradise
Pinkie woke up with a shock! “Stay off my body” she yelled wildly swiping at her environment. Kuro the demon stood before her. “That’s it I am cutting you off for tonight” they said. Pinkie gasped in terror! “What will you cut off?! I already cut my own finger off you don’t you think that is cruel enough?”. The face on the demon changed from Malice to concern. “You did what?” Pinkie began to see everyone more clear again.. she was surrounded by monsters .. even the chef Irina murdered was back. “Didn’t you die”. The Chef looked at her and grinned “Wheeen …Didz.. Eye..Die..?! *Hic* Isszzz.. Spilled…..wine…all over.. me.. Rini…brough…goood… booze…*Hic* I had.. a bit much…and…all over..my stuff..*hic* fell in the roses’. Pinkie looked confused. “So Senpai is not a slasher villain?” The woman showed Pinkie she had a plastic knife and said “No.. the only thing I butcher is my spelling sometimes” Pinkie coughed up a bit of water , still skeptical. “Then why did you chase me?” Irina looked a bit shifty… “I kinda felt bad that I got your chef so drunk.. when he passed out in the bushes I wanted to tell you it was my fault not his..but you looked so upset I thought he would get fired because I forced him into a drinking game with me”. Pinkie felt like a Pokémon she was so confused it hurted.
“But if you are not evil, then why doesn’t the demon attack you” Kuro grinned. It’s the 31th of October! It’s Halloween… it’s a costume! All the staff dressed up! Look Indigo dressed up as a Vampire and Sunny is a zombie. Pinkie once again asked why she was chased then Indigo replied that he saw her distressed and possibly injured so he chased her.. but when she tripped over the electrical wires that caused the lighting effects and spooky music on the island he had to fix that first..or it would be a hazard for guests. Sunny was just having a little fun and did not think Pinkie actually believed he was a zombie. He could not bite her anyway because he was smart and still wore a mask! Pinkie looked at the wrapped up hand and was afraid to ask. “Then was that blue zombie goo?” Sunny shrugged..”I had a lot of fun colouring myself with the body paint so I might have added a few extra layers.. I tried to make myself a Yellow zombie but that did not work too well.. so that paint was very thick”. He smiled sheepishly while Pinkie unraveled her bandage. “So I cut off my finger for nothing?”
Everyone stared at Pinkie’s missing finger and suddenly people began to laugh. “Oh Pinkie that is so you” Indigo offered to bandage it up more properly. “Let me wrap that up for you a bit nicer and then we will go enjoy the party you silly girl” The manager blinked. “This isn’t that funny”. Kuro looked at her and said “Well at least now you can do a very cool Assassin Creed cosplay” Pinkie grumbled “I don’t like any game but the second” Everyone laughed again. “Time for drinks” Irina yelled and as she opened the little first aid tent Pinkie saw a huge beach party going on. Everyone was in a costume. “I was so busy working I did not even notice it was Halloween” she thought to herself.. still her friends all took this cut finger very lightly! As if they are characters in a story that was wrapping up and the writer did not care about the details.. and suddenly everything goes all happy! Kuro gave her a pad on the back “gotta get back to work…i’ll make you a pink cocktail.. and hey your final girl costume is pretty genuine now” Pinkie looked at her dress as everyone went out to party. Pinkie looked at her destroyed dress, felt her dishevelled hair and looked at her hand one more time.. “Final Girl huh…seems there are plenty of people here still.. I guess I will party for now..but next year..I will be the true final girl! The only one left alive” Pinkie laughed like a maniac in her tent. She would know what her friends did last Halloween……next year!
Hello Island Guests! In this blog we are going to do something special! We are going to analyse one of my most vivid and geeky little dreams I have had in awhile. I still remember the story very well. So I thought it would be a good and funny tale to tell. It turns out…it might have had deeper issues than I thought. I have had this dream twice now with only minor variants.. like in the second run I was aware I had this dream before so I could alter some of the events.. but only to minor effect. For all intents and purposes I shall tell you the story of the first variation of the dream.
My dream begins in the Southern of France, there is some sort of Formula 1 like race going on.. but the cars are also racing Sonic the Hedgehog and a few other video game like characters. This being a great bridge between Dad and me we decide to go watch.. but we still need to buy tickets and no one has money for it. Yet then Fred and George Weasley show up on their brooms saying they have a plan! We could rob the local beer Factory and sell beer for the races cheaper than on the circuit itself.. it would be a gold mine. So I go along with them and we steal a pallet of beer! I nearly fall but Fred and George save me! We bring the pallet to dad who managed to get a sales license but he betrays me.. he only got permits for himself Fred and George as he does not want me talking through the race. Fred and George give me a few beers but really want to see the match so they agree with Dad. I try to get in anyway but dad puts the blame for stealing the beer solely on me and reports me to the authorities so I have to flee.
The dream skips ahead a few days and I am in a different hotel a really weird one. I made some new friends there, some based on my real life friends ..well one.. and the others are new friends. I help out in a hotel to stay there but now I got some free time and I am able to swim with my friends! But the pool is made entirely out of milk! People do not seem to mind and bring up the name of the hotel is Cleopatra resort. One of the other pool guests is a Wailmer pokémon and for some reason Widget the alien is sunbathing there. All the other guests are like minor geeky things or elements of my life. The weirdest thing is like a stick of Butter who once tosses us our beach ball, me and my friends play with when in the pool of milk. Suddenly a wall explodes and there is Deadpool! Who has been hired to kill me for stealing the beer! (Thanks dad) , he murders everyone in the pool first and I try to hide under a bed. He comes after me and says I can not escape. I get fed up with him and tell him I will haunt him from the afterlife.. so he says he will hunt me there as well. He stabs me in the heart and then cuts off his own head. I try to escape but the wound kills me as I fall and sink in the milk.
I then wake up in a indoor pool.. the walls are very bland. there is but one big pool with a huge diving board. My friends are there… but all as 6 or 7 year old school girls. I notice I am a six year old or so as well. I notice there is one extra girl who peels of her face.. to reveal Deadpools mask behind it.. but Shoujopool realises she doesn’t have swords. So she points at the diving board way up high and tells we should hold a diving competition instead. The loser will go to hell and the winner can return to earth. So that is what we do. We realise there is no judge so we decide to let my friends score.. and give a score ourselves. Deadpool goes first and I talk my friends into giving him bad scores. 1/10 from all.. but that friend who was a real friend who gives him a 9/10 ..saying he now she loves Deadpool laughing loud at the silly jump. I climb up but my motor skills really make me slow.. I finally get there as I think I already disappointed my friends… This pool is filled with water…but to make the water appear I have to drop a peanut into the pool. Which luckily I had on me and a fountain shaped like an M&M begins spraying water.. he was in a dream before and he was a chocolate fountain then.. each time I need a liquid I need to toss a peanut at him this is a recurring thing ever since I was 16.
More on that later though… I jump into the pool.. but flop real sloppily so I think my one friend will give me a bad grade.. but he doesn’t ……because Deadpool ripped the heads of all my friends and build himself a tipi (native american tent) of their bodies and a hat of their heads. He tells me I scored zero and I lost. I tell him he cheats and he should give my friends back.. so using some of those cocktail sticks he puts their heads back which revives the girliest girl among them somehow.. but not the rest. He says whoops! Then the girly girl tells me to fight him and Gonna Fly now begins playing and as we both yell Ding Ding.. We punch each other in the face.. the Screen pans out slightly and we become dwan animations on parchment..slowly zooming out while Subtitles roll to reveal we are actually a trading card. After the subtitles are over that trading card is at the Milk pool..I pick it up.. look around and realise everyone is still dead. I swear.. and that is the moment I wake up.
So now I will use a book of interpreting dreams I once got to identify elements of my dream and come up with an analysis! I haven’t done this before but I felt like it might be a funny post so here we go! The father stuff is fairly obvious.. he is increasingly ignoring me from his life so the way he acts in this dream makes perfect sense. A vacation appearing in a dream according to my little encyclopedia stands for desiring a change of pace or wanting to renew my energies. I have been dealing with a very pesky fatigue as of late so I assume it is the later. A racetrack means can mean I feel my life is going in circles according to this book.. given that a vacation is a thing theme as well.. those two might meet.. since we did take a vacation TO a racetrack. Combined with my father I begin to see a connection. Fred and George I did not think had a deeper meaning. Looking it up though Wizards in dreams mean there are hidden forces at work.. so I guess they could represent Dad’s girlfriend who is manipulating him against us.. but never openly does so. Stealing should mean I feel misunderstood and that I feel like I lack emotional support and appreciation.. that in context makes a lot of sense. Beer apparently is an indicator for hiding behind a mask, now showing my true face and that is a big issue for me.. especially around my family, mostly dad. I fake a lot so I don’t get into conflict but I feel sad that my true self can not be appreciated by him.
The scene that my life is being saved by Fred and George apparently means my head thinks I should let go of a unhealthy bond which makes an awful lot of sense in this part of the dream. The betrayal of my father at the end neatly wraps it up as Betrayal means the dreamer is doubting between the bond between the betrayer and themselves. So yes.. my relationship with my father is indeed not a very good one.. the time I had this dream was just after he had successfully had a malignant tumor removed. Before when he was sick he reached out to us and as soon as the operation was done and he was going to live .. he began shutting us out again. I saw this coming from before and even spoke this out to the rest of the family that it would really hurt me.. they said that would not happen but it did. Nowadays Dad just criticizes us wherever he can so if I need to drive back home with him (as I can not drive myself) I feel super uncomfy and just talk to keep him from condemning me. Each time we meet he promises things will go better and every time we are shoved out further. So this first act.. makes a lot of sense! Except for Sonic!
The trait that stands out most in the second act of my dream is milk. Milk stands for the desire to have a better relationship with your friends or family…which makes this dream quite scarily consistent. Imagining friends who aren’t real stands for having elements of myself that I really suppress.. or at least according to this book. In real life I have indeed been pretending al lot to have a semblance of fitting in. Seeing friends of old signifies a desire to go back to a simpler time and seeing friends die shows i am worried about my friendships continuing to exist. Each time I had these dreams a friend the friend of old in question I dreamed about really distanced himself further from the group. The first time he blamed us for not going anywhere in our lives and how that marooned his ambition and job comes before friends. Second time he was really negative about all the people I care about in our group and wished for a return to the super male energy of before my coming and of my bestie.
A pool with water I can not see through.. and I assume milk counts as that, shows that I might be emotionally confused which again was true for the time at the dreams. I wish to continue this friendship..with the male energy person and at times he is a great friend. Yet the fickleness at which I can be tossed out when I am not convenient at the moment hurts. I am not sure I can live with that. I am worth more than be a friend when convenient. Butter , also has a meaning, it represents happiness. I think it stands for how I cope with that relation. Some of our other friends are very focussed on how he acts now at them. Hate him for his unreliabilty, he’s hurting us an selfish. I do not want to lose him so I focus on all the good memories. Widget the Alien.. might mean someone pushes me to my limits or beyond. I am not sure he counts but well I bet we can explain that. If we consider Wailmer the whale pokemon to represent a whale it means something is currently overtaxing me or pressing heavily on me …which again makes scarily much sense to me.
It gets worse when Deadpool shows up. See my book does not mention a fourth wall breaking super hero as a possible analogy thing.. but a masked figure I am scared off like I was in the dream .. is actually in my dream book thing again. Apparently a Scary Mask means that I feel …. And I wish I was joking… A lack of harmony in my family or friends. When I started this I genuinely thought this might be tons of fun.. but I am kinda weirded out by how consistently accurate these elements are in my dream. I am not fully sure if I believe in dream analogy but this is a pretty big coincidence at the very least. You can easily say.. but deadpool’s mask is not scary..and I’d say sure.. but I was terribly afraid for him in the dream so it counts! I also think it is safe to kill Deadpool a killer. When you see a killer murder others the dream book explains it means for emotional sadness another has caused in me.
This can both reflect on my dad again as well as that friend who moved away because he chose ambition over friendship. Ever since he left a few members of our group gave up.. he was the host and now even if I try to host some others just don’t come ..because they rather would go to the other guy.. I am not good enough. Being murdered myself by a killer ties in with that quite well as it shows my brain feels like people are working against me together. While I do not feel they actually conspire against me.. I do feel that the negative actions of one.. trigger negative actions in the other yet another stays at home because that second guy is not coming and no one wants to break this cycle. So yeah I have to say.. the second chapter of my analogy also makes a lot of sense. It’s more intangible than the first but these are worries in my head at the time of dreaming. I am not lonely but I can feel myself slipping.
Now onto the final part of this dream. Luckily the implications of this part are a bit more positive! I think they actually represent my blogging life because these dreams occured on the time I felt quite empowered by my blog! The being reborn part stands for getting a second chance to obtain something I thought was unobtainable, to deal with stuff I want to deal with but could not before or it can represent that I am ready to move on with my life. I am getting close to accept how things are and move on from the pain and start a new phase in my life. Since I see myself as a younger person now I am more inclined to believe it represents that second part! Because seeing yourself as a young person represents the desire to make up for mistakes I made in the past. Or seize opportunities I did not before.
When my clique was very tightly knit I never had any reason to make new friends.. I loved this group of friends and having these people was more than enough for me. At conventions I rather would hang out with them as new geeks because they were all I needed. They went out to socialise with others a lot though and now I do regret not doing that as much . I was content with what I had but I wished I could have reached out to others and now I can. Seeing a group of kids ..which in this case are my imaginary friends.. which we already discussed were reflections of sides of myself I could not show.. means the merging of several aspects of my personality… In other words I suppressed a lot of my persona.. and blogging brings this out more and more and I accept more and more those traits of my personality around you guys! I also show it more in real life! If people are slipping anyway, I might as well make friends by being the truest me!
The Clear Swimming pool, stands for a much healthier emotional life. Since my tonal shift on the blog around May.. which was around the first time I had this dream means, I have been much more honest about my emotions. I accepted myself a lot more and the implications being myself had and even if something sad happens like a person not liking me I was more okay with it because at least it was real. The diving board stems from a temptation and the empty swimming pool I saw for an emotional emptiness. Around April and recently..when things were at a low I was very tempted to harm myself…in the permanent way. By jumping from a great height even…a temptation I had a hard time to fight off. There were times that I felt so alone.. and unheard I was empty.. much like the hall this dream was set in. My health sometimes makes me feel like a time-bomb. I want people to have a positive memory of me. When everything is slipping..sometimes the thought occurs that I should exit stage left now! While I still have some some semblance of control The competition however stands for a will to fight.. so I fight that temptation. No matter how often the thoughts are in my head.. I know I have people who love me still. For them I fight! For them I live! So that temptation..will only just be that. A easy to resist temptation that sometimes nibbles in my mind. But let’s not dwell on that.. this part is about positivity!
The Peanut.. believe it or not also represents something.. it apparently signifies gaining popularity on a personal level. The M&M I am going to interpret as a piece of candy because brands are not considered.. candy represents social Pleasures and an increase in friendships and love. I have actually made friends by blogging.. by being more personal with and more me recently I have gained a bit of popularity as well. I know some people still just like a post without reading it and I know who.. but I have gained this “pack” as of sorts.. a group of people I regularly interact with and it has made me so happy. and at ease with myself.. Again showing a full clear swimming pool.. much more healthy on an emotional level. It’s like as if my mind says! Don’t worry girl you got more people behind you then you think!
The decapitation allegedly stands for me not wanting to think on certain elements and everyone who read my anniversary special knows that this is indeed a worry. I have a demon on my shoulder telling me people actually hate me. I want to starve that demon, not think about those doubts! The boxing shows I have an inner conflict. Like I mentioned I have that little demon on my shoulder that tells me you all hate me.. so you are a source of pain.. yet also a source of happiness and stability. Boxing also represents throwing up to much barriers for myself.. like what I did before! People can like me well enough without always having to respond to me.. by making them react to me.. I place a barrier on my happiness while just sending them a message or getting a like or a smile can be enough. The Card I pick up at the end allegedly shows I want some form of attention .. which is true of course. I would not be blogging otherwise. The fact that I appear at the world of the living again means I won from Deadpool and victory stands for successfully overcoming attacks from rivals or obstacles. I can beat that inner demon and I can have that attention! I need to accept myself for it and accept some relationships do not work! Not everyone has to be a bestie as either. Support and positive energy can come in all sort of quantities and from all sort of places. I just need to be willing to accept it. I should not be scared to lose bonds over time.. I should be happy and excited to form new ones.
And on that high note I will end today’s post! It was much more interesting to analyse this dream as I thought.. such a silly dream had a lot of elements that really seemed applicable to me and I actually feel a lot more sane now! Even though my dream was weird.. I think in the end it was mostly about very normal desires that have been a bit fritzy lately! I know I talk about this subject a lot but before I started translating I did not know this was going to be what it is about. Have you ever analysed your own dreams? Let me know! And for everyone reading truly thank you! You are the reason I do not swim in milk anymore! You gave me a peanut and a card. You give me a reason to decapitate people in my dreams..because in such an awesome community I have better things to think about than my woes and worries!
It was the age that Dutch people massively saved their heads bald, put on track suits and spasmed to the beat of music like they were controlled by some unskilled puppeteer. It was the golden age for quiz shows and making people do weird stuff for money. Like there was a show where people had to do like a challenge like.. pee in your pants for a 1000 bucks you have 10 minutes to do so or find 11 people to slep in the face. It was the age where the adults did not wonder about YouTuber X tweeted or which , vaguely half assed celebrity cheated on their spouse and now they had to be destroyed for it.. no they sat on the couch ate some crisps and wondered if Ross and Rachel would ever get back together. I was a kid.. from the age of 4 up until 13. I did not know about those things, I just hoped that Shredder would not harm April O’Neil or that the Biker Mice from Mars would find their way home! Today we take a look at my 90’s!
I want to to thank Winst0lf Portal for tagging me for this one! I am going to have some fun with this one! Also a note, due to it requiring many clips from YouTube this post is not WordPress-Reader friendly.. please use the actual website to enjoy this post!
There are several answers to this question. What would be my favorite 90’s show in hindsight. That would probably be Friends! I still enjoy watching that so much! While it carried on into the 2000’s most of it was 90’s as heck. Back then I think I would have either said DuckTales or Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles but those are cartoons so I am no sure if the count. But in the end.. all things considered I am going to have to say the one that shaped me most and the one that I really went all out on was Mighty Morphin Power Rangers. It is the perfect amalgamation of 90’s and what basically is anime! Kids with superpowers and giant combiner robots including multiple transformations and monsters of the week! I wrote Tommy Oliver if he wanted to be my boyfriend after Kim dumped him… I was young but I’d make a great pink ranger! I went to a life show in our concert halls! It was the best thing i had ever seen. While in truth it was not a lot better than the Turtles coming out of their shell tour! .. You really should watch that! Luckily you an right here! (If you are not reading this on WordPress Reader)
Power Rangers stuck with me until this day! I still like it! Ducktales I see got outdated and the new DuckTales series is soooo friggin good it ruined the old show for me. However while I have seen a lot of Power Rangers series and kept updated with more of them even if I could not watch, nothing beats that time capsule feeling of the original. Don’t get me wrong. Power Rangers in Space is like the absolute best series but MMPR is the closest thing to live changing. It introduced me to the concept of soap opera acting and I to this day think there has been no better Blue Ranger than Billy Cranston. Portrayed by David Yost. While Amy Jo Johnson’s Kimberly Hart always has a warm place in my heart I have to admit that my favorite Pink Ranger is Kendrix Morgan played by Valerie Vernon but now is not the time for that! It’s about the 90’s and yo do not get more 90’s than MMPR. The way we have socially grown since then, the outfits, the visual effects, the lessons and what ever kept our minds back then.. there is just so much in this show to remind me of those good old days! I also hate like a treasure chest full of Power Ranger toys so I must have really liked this show.
Honorable Mention to Buffy the Vampire Slayer by the way! I discovered it late.. which isn’t uncommon for us Dutch to get something fairly late but that is another thing that had me hooked and one of the first times I had a girl crush! Season one is from 1997 so I’d say it does count.. though the majority of it happend in the 2000’s But hey.. the winner still is MMPR! Another honourable mention is there for Pokémon, the anime aired here really soon and like Power Ranger it changed my live. Yet like with Buffy , the majoirty of it’s lifespan happend in the 2000’s so just a mention!
That time has come again for me to talk about THAT song! But before we do I am going to show you guys a few other songs. You see as I lived in the Netherlands.. back then we did a lot more “our own thing” rather than dub your shows or post all of america’s top hit songs in our charts.So while doing my tag I am showing you a bit of the dutch 90’s as well! The first song I am going to pick here is a bit more international. Of course I wanted to pick something some of you guys might have forgotten so no Barbie Girl from me! I love how much pink is in that clip though! Not even Toy Box with Best friend.. no instead we go with Bewitched with C’est La Vie!
Okay that one was not my favourite song. I mostly listened to dutch music as it was a lot easier for the by then still mono lingual me. When three Soap Opera Stars formed a girl group using character name to become the Netherlands most desired girl group , I was playbacking and singing along with this song! A song about the breathlessness after sex, but back then I did not know that. I just repeated the words and took it in the most innocent way possible.
I am sure that one was not very interesting to your guys though! It’s a bland clip and the words would make no sense. The other dutch song I am putting up here is something about a dutch group called Gabber’s. A variant of Ravers who would shave their heads, put on a lot of golden chains and would go do a dance named Hakkuh! Which basically would translate to something as Chopping. This got parodied by a dutch comedian and a group named Hakkuhbar and it resulted in this weirdness that I do hold dear. It is a pretty good representation of the “Gabber” Lifestyle.. though the music doesn’t reflect it that well, the Gabbers are still a thing today.. though a lot less of them! This is a real life style to people.. and this clip.. shows it’s quirks very well.
As for my favorite piece of 90’s music! Well in 1990’s a certain video game dropped here in the Netherlands and Japan. It was in America Early..but hey 1989 counts! My love for this song has been mentioned in many tag post and will continue to be mentioned so here it is!
While I don’t know many international adds from back in the time, again the Netherlands did a lot more of their own thing back then so here is a dutch commercial. This is a great commercial for an insurance company that .. despite the “victim” being outdated, would work today, just replace this man with anyone relevant of your choosing! I hope you enjoy this one!
Spice Girls! Girl Power and all! But if I had to choose between the two it would definitely be Back Street Boys! I never liked boy bands all that much but Backstreet’s Back was one of the better songs. I really never liked Justin Timberlake, like ever! Though in the 90’s he had some seriously Giorno Giovanna hair! But yeah Boy Bands always were aimed to make girls dream about boyfriends and make them feel a weird form of ticklish! I never got that so this appeal was lost on me! Not the biggest music fan either! I preferred the Smurfs cover famous music!… or video game music.
I guess Spice Girls here then? Maybe the smurfs?! I honestly do not really idolise music artists at all, Bon Jovi was alright! Robbie Williams had some nice songs.. but yeah I was not really a fan of anyone. I always had a thing for one trick ponies like Eiffel 65 and to lesser extend Lou Bega and of course Los Del Rio. A song captures me not an artist. I am going to with the Spice Girls! I think they would make an awesome anime.. maybe even a JoJo series with them as the main cast! Then again.. a Jojo with Los Del Rio Might even be better! They even already pose!
I was an avid Flippo collector, I am not sure if those existed overseas or if they were exclusively a dutch thing but they were super hype here. I think I saw some with other language prints.. but back then the world was a lot smaller so who knows! Little disks with Looney Tunes characters on it that you played a sort of slamming game with. You threw your Flippo on a stack of your opponents Flippo and everything that fell of the stack face up was yours to collect everything face down including the one you slammed with ..would belong to your opponent.
No one did that though it was just a trading commodity! We send our mothers to buy us the folders in which we could collect them and they came in bag of crisps so we ate like 2 bags a day and begged old ladies for their flippos. They spawned many incarnations including Pokémon spin offs, heavier variants in special flavor of chips and flying flippo’s which you could launch and something called topshots which were flippo’s but of soccer players. I even collected those even though I hate soccer. I once got two air packs of crisps in a row with tose as they really got poorly packaged and they just send met the entire set as an apology! I was so mad they ruined the fun of collecting for me now as well!
If we count the official ones not a lot, if we count the brandless ones about five. Not five different ones though, me and my sister would get one at the same time, and she would always end up abandoning them and I would try to save hers as well. So we got one of those things that grow up from blob into dino things, though I had a more chicken like creature. I lost that one on a vacation and then I had my sisters dino for a while ..but that one could no longer be silenced anymore after one of the buttons broke and one day it disappeared from my room never to be found again ..weirdly enough.. I guess it went to go live on a farm. The third and fourth one was a really weird dog like thing with a hat.. me and my sister got the same thing. That one did not die if you left it alone either, it would take a little handkerchief and tie it to a stick and just walk out of the tamagotchi, it would abandon you. The problem was that thing was super fickle! Like even if you took the best care of it in the world it could still decide to walk out on you for no reason at all. So my sister quickly gave up on hers and I tried to maintain two! Eventually their batteries ran out and that was the end of them.
Sorry for the Stock Image! Try finding the image of a bootleg Tamagotchi!
The final one was a birthday gift my sister had gotten.. it was a dog that could talk and it had a lot more functions.. but the twist was.. it did not walk around on your screen.. it was the device the screen was just it’ face. So instead of playing games you had to wipe crummies off it’s face and do a sort of Simon Says with it. That one I loved the most but eventually that one ran out of batteries as well and I could not be stuffed to begin all over with it all again. Not that long after that Pokémon would come out anyway so I had now virtual pets that were just as cute but a lot less stressful to maintain.
This was your screen on the final one.. minus the colour and the sleep at night.
Ducktales for NES is one of the contenders of favorite video games but my favorite console definitely was the SNES! My glory days of gaming! While I loved all Nintendo Consoles to bit up until the Wii , which almost made me renounce Nintendo for a while, the SNES is always my highlight.
While Nowadays I’d arguable say Chrono Trigger or Final Fantasy VI/III are my favorite games in quality I am going to have to say Donkey Kong Country takes the cake for my favorite 90’s gaming experience. I was so proud when I finally beat it! The music the graphics and the overall gameplay was so amazing for it! I vastly preferred it’s platforming over Mario’s. Beating an enemy felt so much more satisfying and the level design back then to me was unparalleled. While there are games I acknowledge are better this is one of the games I could always be asked to play and I will always enjoy myself with even if it’s just to look at it!
I can’t remember if we ever had cereal toys, I do remember that for quite a while though I was really into the rice based cereal. Like Coco Puffs or Rice Crispies but I really alternated. One of the best cereal memories I have though is that of Kellogs Frosties. Back in the 90’s I would stay over and my grandparents , who lived in the same town, a lot. It would often be a break from my sister. I was always a kid that really thrived on some alone time. While Grandma was always overly caring she would often let me wander her big garden or the big house alone! I could play hours finding some old board games she had trying to understand the rules, or wandering on the 7 meter sound wall her garden was edges off with, I would always be up fairly early because she woke up very early and she would make me a soft boiled egg and I would get this beautiful little crystal bowl with super cold milk we got in a very special supermarket in Belgium where I could eat my Frosties from.. after the soft boiled egg was finished. We always made our egg super salty so the milky and sugary stuff afterwards were really good! I would come back home so relaxed and thoroughly overfed.
I was 13 when the 90’s ended! I wasn’t very feminine and mostly into geek stuff. Like Power Rangers but also Dark Wing Duck and I had a big thing for classic monsters. Horror books but also pseudo-scientific books on how Vampires, Werewolves and Zombies worked. I wasn’t to busy with a crush back in the days. So no one really. Maybe Really late in the 90’s I began picking up Buffy the Vampire slayer and I realised much much later that it might have actually been a crush I felt towards Buffy.. and later when I became more self aware for Willow.. though as the series progressed into the fifth season and beyond I’d lose those crushes on both of them. Phoebe Buffay is another 90’s character I ended up having a bit of a thing for but again .. not in the 90’s !… They are 90’s characters though so you can decide if they count. I never got into that Backstreet boy love thing though! Nor did I ever had a Celebrity crush aside from Deborah Ann Woll.
Ducktales the movie! We did not have the Disney Channel but I am pretty sure that one would count right? The one with the magic lamp? The scorpions! It once aired belgian tv and we videotapes it and I watched the heck out of that! Those wishes, that ending.. I loved it so much! The villain scared me for a bit but I watched this movie until the video began breaking. The sound began to go off key and more and more wear began to show on the tape from rewinding it so much! I loved it more than the show and that already was very dear to me! Not my favorite show back then because some episodes weren’t all that good but this movie made me happy every single time!
Now this one is tricky, we had none of those networks in the actual 90’s they all came to us much later, or required some expensive additional package for tv to access. The shows that did reliable air where the Disney shows that usually aired on the Belgian public access channel that me as a kid living near the border could view without any trouble. I loved Gummi Bears, Rescue Rangers and Duck Tales but I guess I have to say my favorite one was Darkwing Duck! It was so funny and zany! I really liked that almost “fake” hero thing he had going on for him. It was cool to see a hero who is often plagued by bad luck. His analogies stuck with me for a long time as well! Darkwing Duck is the reason why I hate Talespin..as it was the show that replaced it. Back than I was really fickle and just replacing my favorite shows was enough reason for me to hate you with a passion!
Velcro shoes! I know that isn’t as zany but I was hardly going to shave my head and put on a track suit now was I?! I was bullied for a large part of the 90’s as well, (like from 1994 onwards) so my clothing was usually to be as stealth as possible , also something that would not be to bad to ruin when kids threw their juice boxes at me or squished worms all over…so I wore very casual stuff with shoes I could not trip over.. It was not enough to run away as I had a weird motor dysfunction that made me slow and clunky.. but at least I managed to run away a few times when I was absolutely terrified..so a good practical trend. Poor worms that died to bully me! Of course shoes back then had to have light in them so you had to turn that on before you ran away! So that is kinda weird?!
Power Rangers…with barbie/ mini clothes on! I never liked playing with barbies or something like that to much. She always felt like a shallow girl to me! Kimberly and Trini were much more interesting people! I would play the wedding between Tommy Oliver and Kimberly heart a million times dressing them up in barbie clothes which either were way to large or we had adapted. It would not always be a happy wedding though.. Lord Zed would come over and turn their wedding cake into a monster or send Pudgey Pig to eat their wedding buffet. Or they would go to a movie date together and I would just sit them next to me and watch a movie! …Most of the time that Ducktales one.. Sometimes my stories would also be a bit more messed up.. like when Kimberly got stung to death by Grumble Bee which was actually a Bee on a bouquet given to her by Tommy. Tommy who caused her death killed himself from guilt but also in the hope he can find her in the after life. But he gets send to hell and now has to use his ranger powers to battle an army of demons..which were the small soldiers from that terrible movie! I had all those as toys as well.
None of the above we did not have them as channels here! We did get Fox Kids though! Which would be by choice! I remember on wednesdays they had this block of action cartoons named Power Rock which had shows such as Spiderman TAS and X-men TAS. The Tick was also part of that solid line up. During the day there was amazing stuff like Eek the Cat! It also had Power Rangers and Mystic Knights of Tir Na Nog!
That really depended on my mood, we had three major cartoon sources. We had Kindernet, which had awesome shows like Earthworm Jim, Bouli de Sneeuwpop (Bouli the Snowman) Maple Town and Star Street. While some are actually 80’s show they ran until deep into the 90’s. I could not get rid of Nils Holgersson even if I tried!
Telekids had stuff Animaniacs but also a lot of ecological stuff like Seabert the Seal , WNF Ranger kids, and of course Captain Planet. Their sunday would be a bit “nature” themed. While on Saturday they would hold a big live show filled with skits, and games , it was super fun. For example there was this segment where kids had to ride derpy cowbot-hatted horse named Harry. Just before afternoon the hosts would do a skit show of our most famous soap opera!
Fox Kids finally would hold the cartoons that one might identify most with Saturday Morning Cartoons, shows like Kidd Video, Biker Mice from Mars, Street Sharks and Inspector Gadget. Fox Kids was usually my go-to but it all depended on my mood.
I actually never really liked McDonalds, I did not like the food and I never really got the toys I wanted. One I remember very vividly was a Flounder from The Little Mermaid that was like a squirt gun! I wanted that as a Bath toy but all I got was stupid Prince Eric! One I did kinda like was those disney figures of Beauty and the Beast and most of their disney stuff. I loved the dress changing Belle Toy a lot! I was upset though there was no Lumiere toy! He was my favourite character! I liked show people and the singing and dancing.. perhaps that’s why I like Idol Girl shows this much nowadays?! I also loved those Disney Characters in a car or train thing.. but those were hard to make a nice story to play with!
Back then it was definitely horror , I was a big collector of those Goosebumps books by RL Stein my favorite one was Horrorland which got sold so short in the tv series adaptation the book was so much better. Yet my favorite book would definitely be “De Griezelbus 2 or 3” Griezelbus was a dutch book series written by Paul van Loon, in which a writer by the name of P Onnoval would lure kids into a trap to eat them. In the first part he is werewolf and by telling them horror stories he tries to wait for the full moon to eat them.
He travels around in a bus that holds props that each tell a story but secretly he is trying to isolated these kids. Part 2 is set in a car graveyard, kids stumble upon the bus as a radio voice begins to tell them stories to stall them until Onnoval now a vampire can rise from his grave and feast on them. In Part 3 he is even further destroyed and is now a virtual presence.. the bus now has become a museum piece and as a special the museum hosts a fake story telling by the dead writer.. and all the kids experience horror stories in virtual reality. In each story a character dies or nearly dies.. but what the kids do not know is that one kid.. experiences the story they see first person.. they are tricked into thinking they are dead. Once weakened Onnoval can choose the body he wants to possess and dispose of the others without resistance.
This book came out in 1997 and while Book 4 had my absolute favorite short story I think the virtual reality and forcing children to experience their own death trough horror experiences was the strongest book to me!
Like I mentioned earlier Power Rock on Wednesday was my jam. Power Rangers, Mystic Knights of Tir na Nog! I loved that stuff, but I think it was on Tuesdays but I can not remember there was this show called the Droom Show on our public access channels. In this show kids would compete in about an eightish number of settings.. each episode had another set.. like Medieval, Undersea or Candy Factory and Horror, each “dream” had its own games where kids could compete for the highest score and in the end they could participate in a price game. Which could win them gameboys, tv’s but also stuff like a day to a theme park or new pyjamas and cool notebooks. Tests of agility , intellect and strength would come into play in one of the best children game shows I saw and I was completely silent when watching this after school! Sure nowadays this would not fly anymore but to a kid this was amazing!
I miss a lot of things, some I can’t even say without trouble. I guess the best way to summarise it is I miss the inconvenience of the 90’s in some cases. How hard it was to get a copy of a game. You had to go out to the store to buy a game, you could only multiplayer by having friends over.. there were only so many screens people in house could watch so you had to make compromises. Video games weren’t always good but if you made a bad buy you just had to suck it up and try again. Nowadays we don’t have to put any effort into anything anymore. A bad video game can be so burned to the ground because you have a new video game within seconds. People who play Fortnite are often so insanely toxic to another because it no longer is hard to see what exactly happened, people have access to how they humiliate you, in slow mode and normal as well in high quality, they can stream it online with the push of a button and there are millions of others who play that shitstain of a game with them so if you suck.. they can just bully you out of there and only have a penalty for like a second. In the 90’s .. matchmaking was a hassle non existent if it was .. it’s a huge hassle. You could not ridicule your opponent because if they left.. you had no one to play with. Even if they picked Oddjob in Golden Eye!
To rent a video or a game you needed to go to a store, talk to people learn about other cool games.. now you can just type the name in a search bar tab a button on your phone and your playing exactly what you want.. this has resulted into a lot of people having a super small world. An anime is only good if it scores a certain MAL rating right now, a movie with a Rotten Tomato score below 50% isn’t worth watching.. back then we did not have that we had to experiment as a result we would be much more grateful to the good stuff. I really wish that we had the social-cultural understanding of today mixed with the gratefulness for any shape or form of content of back then.. only then I think people can be really open minded..
This had SOOOO Many questions! This took me a lot time! I was afraid the next 90’s might have come! But it was very fun to do! So time to tag some people!
First of all I would like to tag my Blogging Bestie Foovay! Who I am sure will have a different look in this than me!
Second I wouild like to Tag Geek Girl Joy. I am curious to see what her childhood is like!
Thirdly I would like to tag Lita Kino, who I know is a Pokémon and Power Ranger loser like me! So I am eager to find what else we have in common!
If you want to participate you can answer this question! What is Pinkie’s Power Ranger? Of course all my Coconuts are automatically tagged so check out if you are a Coconut or become one by supporting my Kofi! I will see you in the next blog! Now I I can finally get out of this ridiculous outfit!
Welcome Island Guests to the second part of my how to pick your Anime post! Today we will be discussing a few more ways you can pick an anime the advantages and disadvantages of each method! Perhaps somehow someway we can distill the ultimate technique from this! So we can find “the PERFECT anime”…but it’s me writing this so I seriously doubt it!
<Disclaimer> This is strictly my opinion and does not contain facts , I think by now now I finished about 40ish anime series and dropped/tried about as much as well. So that isn’t a whole lot. I am not inexperienced but I am also not nearly as dedicated as many here. Any form facts only refer to my opinion.. It is a fact I feel this way.. no one has to share any of these opinions or feel compelled to do so <End of Disclaimer>
Thanks to this method Irina made me watch Kyousougiga , Fred made me watch Bloom Into You and Naja made me watch Samurai Flamenco. A recommendation from a person you trust and believe can be an absolutely empowering way to select an anime you are going to watch next. It has the potential of bringing people together and depending on your range of friends .. or bloggers you follow you could end up with some items very unaware to you! So how does this method hold up?
Positives
Like with the other two this one is among the more social ones methods. You can respond to another’s recommendation after all. It offers room for discussion that is actually a fair bit different than the other two. You can either respond to someone’s blog or they can ask you very insightful questions. These things are often catered towards you so the conversation feels a lot more personal which to me is the way I prefer to talk to people. Generally you know the person whose advice you took to an extend as well so you can extrapolate and really judge pretty well if this anime is something for you. It can give a sense of purpose to watch on.. to talk about it with a friend or familiar.
Discussing something in a group of random people is always more tricky! I really dislike Sword Art Online for example, but I would not make a twitter post saying how much it disappointed me! Reactions can be to extreme even if I do have my motivations and can explain them clearly to people! They won’t listen.. with friends that is a bit less of an issue at least there is a chance they will! At least as long it’s not something they are completely enamored with. Letting a Friend, Senpai or Peer advise you can give you access to series you have never even heard of before. In turn allowing you to experience stuff you would by your own accord. This is a method I really seem to prefer if things are going well. It is really fun to discover anime like this.. However this one comes with a pretty steep disadvantage as well.
Negatives
While this method can allow for pleasant conversations and deep discussions This one can also polarize you and your friends! One of my best friends recommended me Code Geass and I watched it.. when I told him I hated it, but I did see why he would like it as I can see it’s a good anime, just not for me, he got incredibly salty. I disliked anime he liked before and that wasn’t to much of an issue but this one hurt his soul. I will always be honest with my friend and honestly I really disliked a few things in Geass as it just wasn’t for me and I saw a few flaws such as some events feeling very forced. I don’t think it’s a a bad show which I told either but the atmosphere was soured for a bit. When a stranger tells me I should die because I do not like code Geass it stings, when a friend says ‘I thought you had better taste than that’ it actually really hurts. While the hate ratio is a lot smaller.. if things go bad.. they go a lot worse than among strangers.
A show I genuinely could not stand was Goblin Slayer, a friend of mine adored it. During a anime with friends night we hosted .. In this format we do a draw a lucky person who picks an anime. We watch 3 episodes and move to the next person. Who picks another anime, or can continue to watch on. My friend made us watch trough Goblin Slayer as he got selected first so I played nice and watched it with a polite smile. Then I was picked for the next selection but he interrupted me. ‘Let’s just watch all of Goblin Slayer, if you guys watch anything else now I think i’ll just go home and watch it myself’. At least two other people did not like the show (which meant 50% of us and one felt neutral) but no one dared to speak up so everyone agreed. To scared that disagreeing would anger him. I said I’d prefer to watch something else and just got “well it’s not like we would watch anything better than this is better!’ I agreed as long as next time we would let someone else pick. He said that’s fine and he will just stay home that time.
I stayed for one more episode, but I already was boiling inside! I hated the show and I hated how he acted. To vent I decided to play on my phone a bit (to calm a bit) and he sneered at me for it! Basically calling me an idiot for looking away. I told him I hated the show and that I already said that before and that I don’t mind being her for the company but the show is just not for me and that I would like to stay to see if we might watch another show later and for the company. He then declared we had to watch in absolute silence and I left.. he did not speak to me for days for disliking a show he loved. Whenever a reviewer I trust loves a show I don’t like at all I do notice some distance increasing. It’s not that much of an issue in the long run but disagreeing with people you have close to your heart never is all that fun. It can at times even discourage me from watching something they absolutely love that doesn’t sound like it’s completely me!
Advise
I can honestly say that this is a great method to approach anime but be a bit weary. People tend to see things very black and white in this day and age and if your friend is like that sometimes it’s just best to keep smiling. It’s not like it’s as toxic as the internet.. but a bad reaction can last longer than a few negative comments. Know your friends and know yourself. If your friend something you know you really know you’ll dislike.. stay away from it. There is nothing you can gain by destroying his favorite when you talk about it. There is nothing you gain by lying how much you love it either! They wil notice because they want to talk about it more! Forcing yourself to sit trough something you hate just to please a friend will not result in a fun time for anyone.
Always keep yourself in mind, friends and close ones react better to you genuinely liking something than you faking, Kirito’s duel wielding skill being kind of interesting! Conversations will always expand and you will be caught in the act of faking! Being overly blunt will also get you no where though! So while this method has the biggest gain.. it could come at risk being an obstacle between you and your friends. Know what type of anime your friend watches, know why they recommended it to you ( ‘Pinkie I think you will really like this anime’ usually is safer than “you guys everyone check it out I just watched and binged the Frick out of it”)
A lot of you seem to really be into Manga and while I am not that much into the reading habit, myself that is mostly to blame on availability and me not being very comfortable with the digital form of the media. My phone screen is to tiny and I like to read in a relaxed position and I can’t do that with my laptop all that much! So this is the form of anime picking I am least familiar with. Still it is worth taking a look at. Let’s investigate!
Positives
The most obvious positive from doing an anime pick this way is that you are familiar with the source material. Most of the time anime adaptations are fairly faithful though abridged renditions so if you like the story beats in a manga, you’ll probably like them in animated form as well. This form of anime watching also offers you a unique viewing experience compared to the others. You see your already beloved work come to life. Take Bofuri for instance for me. I would not have imagined Maple’s demon voice to be so funny! I did not read source material as I do not dabble in Manga myself but I sure as heck would not have imagined this so funny! Jojo’s Bizarre Adventures is something I have read and when I saw it come to live it blew away my mind. The music, the style, the whole shabang.. this is one anime I think really is better than it’s Manga counterpart.
Still such a viewing experience is totally different from what you get when watching something in season whose source material you do not know! It can be very empowering and nostalgic, or it can be quaint a funny! The comedy and horror genre work a lot better in animated form in my opinion because they now have actual timing. When you read the manga first you often get some interesting insights in characters as well. A experience that the non-manga anime watcher misses. These characters you already know! It’s like a reunion with friends rather than meeting some for the first time. So your experience can be amplified when it spans across media! Like seeing the Seven Page Muda come to live or see the Super Saiyan transformation animated for the first time after just reading it.
Negatives
Kicking in open doors again! The book is always better. When something is written down it usually always gets the motivations of characters more fleshed out, it’s usually more consistent and also easier to make a call back. A Manga also moves at your own pace rather than the shows pace so you are the one in the driver seat. All in all I do think it’s fair to say that “the book is better” is a way more popular opinion than “the anime was better than the book”. So there is an increased risk of being let down if it’s already something you absolutely love. Air Gear would be a good example that comes to mind and a friend never shuts up about how D-Grey-Man the anime was so lackluster compared to the Manga. I personally disagree I did not find the anime lackluster at all but that might have to do the next negative.
The Pricetag! If you want a book in your hand like me , reading manga first can be an extremely pricey hobby! Meanwhile Crunchyroll, Netflix and other services on the internet are relatively a lot cheaper. At least here! I do not know how prices are in the rest of the world but paying 13 euros for a single book of manga for a show that is in its entirety on Netflix for the same price a month…plus access to all the other shows is off. I know it supports the creator more.. but I’ll be honest I can barely afford my own food and clothes..When money is an issue..Manga is not always an option. I know there are ways to get it digitally, but I just don’t have a pleasant experience with that without an E-Reader. My phone is too tiny..and I feel uneasy not having that available to make notes for my blog or not able to tell my manga loving friend about the amazing thing I am reading. I don’t like reading on comics on my laptop all that much either.
The final negative is the simple fact that you’ve already seen it. It isn’t very surprising. Don’t get me wrong this can be a good thing for some people but something that never surprises me .. essentially it’s a remake and I tend to like those but I am never overwhelmed by love for them as I miss that raw emotional experience new products can give me. While your standard Shounen can be rewatched without to much drama, stuff like Danganronpa (Okay thats a game and an anime but same fault applies) where you find out “who did it” can really have a lessend impact on you.
Advise
If you have money to burn, this method is super healthy for the community! It keeps mangakas strong and series ongoing!(If you read/buy ongoing releases) It also will give you a very consistent pay off, if you get that stick out of your ass and don’t look at what an anime skips/misses from the manga but rather how it brings that same story to the table in a new way.
You need to be the type that thinks like ‘Cool they made an anime about Attack on Titan.. that means more Attack on Titan’ rather than be the type that goes ‘Okay let’s see if this anime does my beloved manga justice’ If you can look without having a list of checkboxes I’d say this is a unique anime experience that no other method can offer, but honestly.. I’d rather buy manga of an anime I love than the other way around.
Anime series in its own can be rather random, so randomly selecting the randomness seems like quite a fitting way to go about things. Of course it’s chaos of the utmost level. It’s the equivalent of that Harry Potter Jelly Bean stuff. Every flavour beans! Anime is so fast and wide that you can experience Foie Gras while you never heard of it (it’s delicious even it’s a no-no) but you also can go “Alas.. Ear Wax” It sounds incredibly fun! Let’s investigate!
Positives
People tend to really stick inside a comfort zone, this applies to both the ones viewing the anime as the ones recommending it. People usually are very careful about what they pick! It’s always .. “something similar too” or something with a high MAL score (which can be a whole selection method of its own but I am including it here if you can read between the lines) In my experience.. everything that gets a super high MAL score is great.. yet at the same time is also catered to everybody. Which in my opinion means it will not resonate as strongly with me as an anime that cater to a sentiment I love. Take Dragon Quest : Your Story for example. So many people hate the ending but I love it so much! Not per se designwise.. but the sentiment. That feeling that something is made for you!
In general you do not get that from the high scoring anime. You do not get that from what a friend recommends (unless they really really know you!) That can only happen by you searching the internet yourself and even that is biassed towards your self proclaimed like pattern. You might overlook something great. While Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann is quite well known I discovered it by accident. A friend asked for fun for a Kamina hugging pillow, she did not recommend the show to me as she felt it might be to weird for me as a rookie! I only saw a picture of the guy and by searching I stumbled on the show not knowing what it was. I watched it to make sure I had the right person in mind for who Kamina was ! Within two days I saw the entire show! That to me is the magic of anime and that to me is an experience I almost uniquely get from watching something randomly. I knew Magical Index was fairly good, so even though I recognize it I never get that blowing back expectations sensation. It’s fine about what I expected
Selecting Random Anime is also a great way to pick anime to watch with your friends.. because I tried about seven times before by vote and the discussions that arrive with all putting in picks we hardly make progress. They either hard refuse to watch anything but their own pick.. or are just in a different mood from you and might not feel like Isekai..while you don’t want a standard Shounen etc. This way it’s always a completely neutral unbiased pick and that can give you some sense of rest, no conflict , just blisfull chaos The best thing! There is a website to do this with the click of a button and you can even specify if you want a dub , a sub or pick a genre if you still want some inkling of control! You can select a random anime right here.
Negatives
Where all other forms I posted have some form of control this one does not. It can recommend a very good show.. but it can also make you watch one of the worst anime ever rated on MAL. There is no way to tell.. well it actually tells you the MAL score.. but if you play it in honesty and abide by the rules of randomness this one has by far the biggest chance to waste your time. Now I am a loon that really commits herself to these things in order to discover. When I am on vacation in a foreign country and I do not know a certain dish in a restaurant that is the one I am getting. This left me with a few painful experiences and random anime will not be any different.. I am very lucky in this usually though.. most bad stuff came from random cooking at home. Regardless if anything is going to waste your time.. this method is it!
It is also is probably the least social anime pick ever. Where your own pick can at least allow for some discussion by picking a vaguely familiar sounding name, no one will really discuss Record of Lodoss or Ground Control to Psychoelectric Girl with you. It might make interesting blog topics.. but I am not sure how well random anime reviews would work. You could try and risk wasting even more time but who knows it might be the next hot new trend. Obviously I am going to try reviewing completely random anime I even already rolled for what I have to watch before next week’s post! I have no idea what it will be about! I just wrote down the name! What it is I will keep secret! To avoid spoilers.. even though by the time this post has gone life I probably already have seen it. So I do need to get back how heavy this negative will turn out to be! Just a suspicion for now!
Advise
So guess what, I hyped myself up for completely random anime selection! This seems something really fun I want to try now.. but that’s because of the person who I am. I wonder why I haven’t done this before! Well for one I did not know about the website but still! Basically if you rolled your eyes when reading this section title, this isn’t for you. If you went oooooh and did an eyebrow lift in intrigue this one’s for you. If your face did not move I challenge you use the website and pick a random anime! Write us about your random experience! I know I will! A post I will try to knock out for next week! I will watch the first five episodes of a random anime and will tell you if I will pick it up and watch more! Yay! I am so happy I am doing this.. so while I I can think of a few more methods to pick your anime, I will get to those somewhere along the road! Until then I am going to be random!
Hey Island Guests, I am sorry for closing the island down for nearly an entire week but I was in rough shape. As you might know I try to make love and positivity an important element of this blog and I felt I could not bring that to the table. A talk shook my believes and destroyed something beautiful I sorta had..without having it… Now I wonder.. can strictly online based feelings.. of either love or friendship ever be real?
Only Real is Real!
A Covid-instigated-depression came and completely wiped me for a bit. Luckily I could chill with Animal Crossing while I dealt with my issues..but I got this seasonal switch energy drain alongside it.. so the past few days have been a bit hazy and sad. I am a weak person, healthwise so I am kind of scared for this virus.. which got me into conflict with one of my best friends. He wants me to use public transport, go with him to fun places where there are people… and basically do anything the doctor advises against. Me being a frail little person with a weak heart and damaged lungs… prefers to listen to the doctors. I told him we could hang out online and voice chat and such… and he told me that online bonds are never real you have to see someone face to face…. somehow that got stuck in my head…. and completely floored me… what in my life is real.
He then blamed me for thinking that I could sustain a friendship online. He did not want some “bug” to water down our friendship. I would happily travel to him to have dinners with him if he would not break all the Corona rules himself.. he keeps travel to friends all over the place, hugging them, being super close to everyone. It’s not like I blame him either, he is young and healthy and will not have a lot of trouble so I don’t disapprove of it.. just because he does it I can’t hang out with him or risk the 1 hour by public transport trip for two hours of company. I rather phone, chat or whatsapp… but he told me it all isn’t real. Plenty of people think like this and it kinda messed me up. Am I wasting my time looking for online friends? I wasn’t sure for a bit. I was still pretty sure that I made some valid friends…. then a series of unfortunate events put some cinder blocks on my feet and threw me into the deep end of the pool.
Ce-Web-rity Crushes
I am not a very passionate person, I love people to bits but always in a very platonic way. I haven’t had a major crush since 2016. Yet the past few months I suddenly felt happier than I ever did. My new online lifestyle suited me and I felt I connected to people. On youtube (as a viewer) on Twitter and even more “locally”..on my main hangout here! The were 3 separated people I had “feelings”for. Now I would not say I was completely smitten with any of these three (alleged) women but I just felt happy to interact. I would say they would more qualify as people I really wanted to be friends with and would not mind being more than friends with. The latter in a really weak sense of the word though. Youtube , Twitter and WordPress personalities don’t always have to align with how someone is so .. it felt like picking a Waifu that is a fictional character inside an anime.. Like two levels of fiction… Still it was a nice and innocent fantasy to have. It made me happy that I felt this again.
The youtube personality hit me hardest, you see an actual person. However what made me want to be her friend was the way she edits her videos. The first videos I watched of her where so perfect… like I would edit them in the exact same way and if I wondered why she missed a reference it would pop up a second later. She is a (inactive) Lolita youtuber that visited Japan and vlogged her adventures. Not too pretty (being too pretty is like a turn off to me.. if you look like a hollywood actor I am NOT gonna be attracted to you) but cute as a button, a mind similar like mine and she introduced me to some fascinating things I all really enjoy. Our mindsets are super compatible. I followed her and interacted with her on Twitter, again showing that we are mentally on the same page.
She’s straight so I knew it was never going to be more than friendship. She was going to play Animal Crossing and I hoped that one day we could play together…arrogant as I can be. Her channel doesn’t have that many followers (somewhere between 500 and 700 I think) so I thought there might be a chance. She explained she would only play with mutuals and actual friends though… which is fine and completely understandable. However this happened on the same day as the prior incident… so suddenly this happy bubble of “what if” popped for me. Again I completely understand her.. but the phrasing and timing felt like a gut punch.. reality can be a female dog.
Social Media Deception
Through this you tuber I got to know one of her friends on Twitter. Playing Dungeon and Dragons, quite pink, loving many tv shows I did. Again we talked a bit , though nothing to special, but hey interaction is interaction and it made me happy again. I learned stuff about them , got to show some support and we played a few of those “social media games” I normally tend to avoid..because hers looked like fun to me. Now that doesn’t mean I hate the other games.. but I don’t listen to music on my phone and most of the pictures I get on there are either of people’s pets or stuff I use for my blog.. so those “share the last” thingies I just don’t do. Tell about yourself in 3 vampires.. feels a lot more personal and interesting and doesn’t require me to break trust of other people or listen to music to fill a list. Getting of topic here.. she was just someone I loved to interact with. Her low follower count, made me feel like .. I mattered.. in a way. Which is a bit of a deception.
Just because someone on YouTube or Twitter or WordPress doesn’t have a lot of followers doesn’t mean that they see you as an actual friend. Friendship is a subjective term and it’s important to keep this in mind. Just because Twitter says you follow someone and they acknowledge you doesn’t make them your friend yet. I am well aware of this and do not consider this person as a friend yet..but I felt there was friendship potential. However .. (I told you before I get really unlucky) around the same time I went through my crisis this person went to hers. It basically invalidated what happened before. A reset button of sorts was pressed. Other than me a few real friends reacted to messages and from the way you talk, you can tell I am just a follower. Both ways.. which i fine and again I do not really expect to get anything more out of it…yet it’s like you get new shoes. You proudly show them off to your friend and than all the other girls at the party take out their phones and show off complete new outfits. No matter how happy you are with your new shoes it pales in comparison. Social Media has all sorts of weird rules.. which aren’t true. People only care about you if they are mutuals is not true, because both the above appreciate my words they just choose to keep their Twitter feats as clean as possible. There are people that matter more to them or things they rather keep of their pages. In their own way they do appreciate and evaluate me… but just like those shoes.. due to having access to other dialogue it can all seem pale and empty.
WordPress Friends
Does that mean however that online friendship can’t be real? Because we always look at things from different angles? I do not think so. I have a few online friends who I actually think of a friends. I have a few people in my online D&D game that I think the world off, even though I haven’t seen any of them in person yet. There are some bonds that I made through role playing in video games that will last and I really hope to achieve that on WordPress as well. You know the “ lets talk in DM’s on Twitter” or add “me on discord” kind of friends. I am not there yet, though I do think I am beginning to know a few of you very well. I think I might have spotted some unspoken things about a few of you. I may be wrong..but I see patterns, I see when people act different than they usually do and that makes me feel that we are actually forming actual bonds. Some people begin to trust me and open up to me, others just ramble against me like it’s perfectly normal.. like in a way you would talk to a friend. So WordPress really does make me happy.
Yet because of the words of that friend, I began to worry. I began noticing the “dark things”. I see cliques forming. “Islands” as it were of a cluster of bloggers. For example there is the OWLS bloggers, but the clique is very centered at the original members. Than there is the Jon Spencer Gang, a lovely bunch but something I could not really connect to as our angles are to different. I feel to shallow or bubbly to fit in there. I feel like a sweet lolita with a pink sparkly pen.. writing among monk robed scholars writing with goose feather pens and east Indian ink there. The underachiever in the room. I felt really bad and could not mesh with the tone so I left his chat silently. There is also the Island of Lita, which tone wise I connect closer too but experience wise I am way behind. Anime is one of the things I care about but It’s one of the things I do spend less time with, simply because I don’t have a great set up to watch it as comfily as I can.. watch a movie on tv. I feel too inexperienced to follow their conversations most of the time. I also followed Hikari’s channel but it was heavily focused on Manga and I am just not that much into manga. Way less than I am into anime. Anime and Manga are a bit of a hassle for me to obtain and for the first one I do think the effort is worth it for the second not so much. I feel like I am adrift between islands. I am there and I am recognized.. but I am not sure if I belong.
Pink Floaties
It’s not like I am drowning in the open sea because I got a few bloggers that keep me adrift like pink floaties of happiness, giving me the idea that at least somewhere there is a land where I can make new friends. The thought kept me going and keeps me trying new things. Like SMILE-Force was a thing. (And still is going to be ) I got two sign ups ..though one still has to write me about it, and maybe that can be a springboard towards that sense of community. I love the support of some of the people here and the wisdom of some people here and again that keeps me strong enough not to throw in the towel. Yet I do realise that what I wish to achieve with this blog is a community.. people to talk with, to banter and just have fun. Writing does help me deal with stuff as well to clear my head as it were, yet I still feel like I am not good enough at it. This is for example why I never participate in the Jon Spencer Creator Showcase things anymore. I write because I have fun doing it.. not because I am proud of it. Let’s be honest if you actively follow me, you do so because my tone suits you or you like to read something that’s a bit different. I do not produce high quality journalist grade content..so if you are not following me already , I do not think Jon Spencer’s Showcase will convince you to do so.
Which brings me back to the whole adrift in the sea thing! Followers that stick to me, come from places like Irina’s I Drink and Watch Anime and sometimes from Megan’s A Geeky Gal. Along with some lesser active places. Now when I say followers, I don’t mean people who see a tag post and click follow this blog and not do anything about it ever again. I mean people who read and comment, people like Foovay, Iridium Eye (I would use your first names but I opted against it as people most likely will now know who I mean) Fred, Mallow and the likes. Of course if you actively read my blog ..and I have a fair bit of insight in who does and who doesn’t I’d count you amongst those people as well. .I just am not willing to guesstimate this by naming names. However I do notice that some of my articles get less views than they do likes. So I have a fair bit of courtesy followers as well. While a courtesy follow does add some air to my pink little floaties, it doesn’t bring me any closer to finding my island.
All in all I think there is some semblance of community there. Some people I would almost count as friends and for the most of you I would still love to get to know you better! I do think online bonds are real but like actual friendships it needs to be mutual! So I played with open cards here! Now that I am way to many words in I realise I never even talked about how my WordPress Crush crumbled. Well that one kind of faded away due my new realizations. I am pretty sure they are taken anyway. I realised that I don’t need a crush right now.. I have a goal to find my island and find the place where I belong. That means I can not be distracted by singular people! I should be the me who I was… the one that says…. Remember I love you all, keep smiling and stay positive! Thank you for being my pink floaties!
Now to close of Tag Week I decided to launch a second round of my very own blog tag. The Super Happy Love Award. It felt like a nice and fitting way to end this as well as sending out some positive vibes in these weird times! So here we go! It is time for my for my final tag! (For Now)
The Rule of Six
This is a fairly simple blog-tag , even though it has a BIT more rules than most others. Why?! You will see… teehee!
Thank the one who tagged you and if at all please tag the original post as well. This is my first blog tag and a bit of a passion project so I would like to see where it spreads! Oh and use Super-Happy-Love as a tag!
Display the Super Happy Love Logo in your post Share the rules!
Choose a minimum of 2 out of these 6 prompts to answer in this blog! More is always allowed! These six prompts are as follows! – Tell about a person you love, this can be a friend, partner but also a celebrity or even youtuber who means a lot to you. As long as they once took breath on this earthly realm you are allowed to pick them… Tell us why you love them. – Write something about a fandom or franchise you love. It can be your favorite game series or about just about anything that is bigger than just a single product! Tell us why you live this so much! – Tell us something about a character that you love. Do you have a Waifu, a Husbando, maybe a mentor or someone who taught you a valuable lesson. Tell us why you love them. – Tell us something about a piece of music that you love. Does a anime intro mean a lot to you? Did you have a special memory to a pop song, like your first dance at your wedding? Maybe a piece of video game music? If you love it, you should tell us why! – Write why you love a piece of media so much! A Book, A Game, A Anime, A Movie maybe even a random piece of fan art, you are free to pick as long as you can show us why you love it. – Write something about yourself that you love! For those who like a challenge, there is a hard mode in this blog prompt as well. Tell us why you love a certain aspect of yourself
Put on your rose tinted glasses. For once you are allowed to gush about the things that you love without having to balance it out with negatives so that you seem objective. In fact your are actively encouraged not to bring negativity into this tag. So no “Nowadays.. <topic> is poopoo but back in my days.. .it was great. Just say it was great! Love is blind after all!
Tag 6 bloggers you love so they can take on this challenge as well.
Everyone who comments something lovely about your post ALSO gets nominated. (Should they so choose)
Six is the number of Venus, it is a number linked to love! So please try to respect the number as much as possible when tagging other bloggers. There is a meaning behind it! Thank you so much!
Like before I shall answer all six prompts so I better get started!
A Person I love!
In the first version of this I talked about my best friend Bean. She is really awesome. I do not have a significant other to talk about. This week I would like to talk about someone I shall nickname Mac. Mac is a person I have never met in real life but a person I can really synergise with. He is a player in my online D&D games I hold on mondays .. Bean is in there as well. He plays a chicken Bard with a popular twitch channel. Mac to me is a person that showed me different things can mean different things to others. While for me hosting a D&D weekly and talking to him felt very natural it made him very happy. It gave him a creative outlet. Mac played the adoptive daughter character of my Star Wars Sith. Very unladylike and hilariously awkward, we (almost) always saw eye to eye when it comes down to roleplay and expressing yourself.
However what to me felt natural and like being a good friend clearly meant more to him as one day.. he gifted me a Switch. In our talks I mentioned how awesome the machine looked and how I would get one if I could ever free the money for it. J ran into a streak of bad luck and actually missed a Pokemon game! Mac was off so well he could give it to me without having any problem and missing that money meant little to him. Bean helped him get that gift to me and now we talk about my switch adventures and I show him how happy he made me that day and we still continue to rp together. I got this incredible gift for just being me.. and while it did not feel deserved.. I am so grateful to Mac and all he has done for me! It might be weird that I got so happy from something so material but sometimes a game can bring true happiness. He helped me achieve that in recent times.. now again with the new Animal Crossing game being out.. so I love him for all that he did for me and the amazing person that he is that never is afraid to be himself. Except for when he identifies as a dog! He does that a lot!
A Franchise or Fandom I love
Last time I already talked about the Pokémon Franchise, another fandom I truly adore is that of Dragon Ball. Train Tickets and meals needed included to see it, I pay 50 euros to go see the Broly Movie in original Japanese in 4d and it was great! I played just about every Dragon Ball game I could ever lay my hands on, including the bad ones. I adore the Masoko X What If stories he tells on his channel. MasokoX is the one who voiced Goku for Dragon Ball Abridged. His knowledge on the subject is amazing. His stories are so vibrant and he is one of my big examples as a storyteller. This franchise is so much more than just shouting people.
Like I mentioned in an earlier tagpost this week, Dragon Ball is what helped me get into anime. Stuff like Naruto, Bleach , Sailor Moon and Pokémon did that too but Dragon Ball introduced me to so many anime concepts and the rule of cool thing! Villains are so well known we as people gave them more meaning. This is a franchise we take beyond its own confines all the times. Dragon Ball AF, Super Dragon Ball Heroes, Dragon Ball Fusions and all those amazing fan stories. Some got acknowledged some received winks. It is a franchise that does listen to it’s fans and thus became bigger than just a show we follow. A fusion between fan contributions and ongoing great stories from Toyotaro and Toriyama have caused a us to be Fangaka! A fusion that is greater than the sum of its parts! And I love every shred of content from it.
A character that I love
Last time I talked about Uni Kitty here. A character that is very much like me! Today I will use this space to talk about one of my OC’s. Ellestraa initially got created as a young Draenei with big dreams and even bigger misfortune. When the latest expansion thoroughly destroyed my roleplay community I took Elle as she was nicknamed a step further and made her into a full fledged tiefling in DnD.. which is basically the same thing aside from some weird tendrils. What makes Elle so special to me? She is the deeply flawed hero.
Elle is heavily on the autistic spectrum of perceiving the world, due to her extreme bad she was kept inside, locked in a room with only books. People would get hurt around her. Her bad luck was a curse placed on her by her brother who never wanted to share the family… aided by actual bad luck! She was born on friday the 13tth of the fourth month during a thunderstorm.. that shook the house so hard all mirrors broke.The fact that she was cursed again.. was just bad luck.Her parents also blanked out any form of innuendo out of Elle’s books. So she knows nothing about the more carnal aspects of romance. I have so much fun playing into her character traits as it is traits I have but amplified to the max. She is so different from your everyday hero and her way to view things from a purely analytical point of view.. but one that doesn’t borrow from other people’s view.. something that is directly perceived and experienced. Like a genius child..gosh I love playing her!
A Piece of Music I love
Chromesthesia is an important way in which I select my music. This is where sound is related to colour. I like brown music .. like Jazz and other “lazy” brass like music but where my heart truly lies is pink music. Surprise! When it comes to Pink music , you can’t get much pinker than Kyary Pamyu Pamyu. Ponponpon was the hot song at the first con I visited and later Candy gave me an important memory as well. My favorite song of her however is HARAJUKU IYAHOI.
I mean for those who read this in WordPress Reader.. please visit my real site so you can watch the youtube link that I am providing.. because if you do not know this song, you have to see the video! I love it so much! This song is also about a love of oneself and one’s heritage or so I have been told. Loving the person you are and what you do. I honestly wouldn’t know because I do not speak japanese. Still the super catchy melody and the atmosphere of fun that is in this song really gel with me! I hated dancing and when I hear this I just want to dance along and be silly!. If this song is what I think it is about it is a great contestant for this list.. and otherwise I just love it so much that it is still a great contestant for this list.
A Piece of Media or Fanart that I love
Last time I talked about the original smash brother game here. Telling a story about my childhood. So this time I wanted to choose something that was important to me in my adulthood. The thing I chose was a character this time. A Gijinka character credited by an artist named Fluorocarbon. This art is truly amazing. Sylveon is my favorite pokémon followed by Alcremie and Galarian Rapidash…though it would have been so much better with wings as a fairy flying type. Sylveon is great and this Gijinka, which is a humanification of the majestic little monster I might even love more.
I encountered it first when I had a D&D online which was heavily based on pokémon, story arcs country design and other things were all elements in a classical d&d adventure. Seven angelic sisters of various disciples of magic lost their 8th sister and the party had to find her. Each of them a Eeveelution… the missing one Sylveon. Who they could find in an amusement park in the city of Erykah.. which was known for its magical themepark/gamebling/shopping place. This city was known to be protected by these angels.. an all female group.. but due to them losing their sister.. the one who kept the group together.. this protection began to fail.
I later used the character as my avatar for several online rp adventures dying her hair into a brownish blond..similar to mine.. and editing down the ribbons a bit for practicality. To this day, I look for ways to emulate it. The light in those eyes, the elegant robes the amazing hair. I want to be her! And so this is one of my dream cosplays! Plenty of reasons why this character should be on the list.
Something love about myself!
Last time I talked about how I see the world differently and how I talk to plushies because maybe they have feelings.I talked about positivity This time I talk about empathy. I can read people very well, which is weird for this socially awkward person like me.. I can tell my friends are dating even if they tried to hide it from me.. in seeing the way they hug change. I can tell a friend is sad based on how he chooses his words and I can sense my sister is stressed based on how she sits in a chair. Now this talent is something I of course use to help my friends.. but I am also not shy from using it in my favor. Pinkie is good at poker or games against her friends.
People also often come to me for advice, people are easy to entrust me with their feelings, even if I don’t know them very well, people know I listen to them and I made plenty of friends by coaching a few troubled individuals.. mostly online but some in real life as well. The empathy also applies to online. Based on word choice I can still get a pretty solid read, if I know you a bit. I am beginning to see some patterns already on WordPress and beginning to get some contact with members! So who knows! If you ever feel like you have something you need to get of your chest know that I love that I am a pretty emphatic person! Maybe we can chat!
Nominations
Now these are the six people I would like to nominate!
And Remember the rules! If you wish to partake leaving a lovely comment will get you nominated by default!
Ta ta ta ta ta…that’s all folks for this months tag week! So what can you expect for the upcoming week?! I am not entirely sure yet! There definitely will be a lot of animal crossing stuff! I hope to knock out a new Pinkie has Anime Powers.. and with some luck I can do my mid series review of Futari Wa Precure! Due to the crisis my schedule has been a bit funky and I had some extra troubles fall into my lap! So no hard promises! Remember though, I love you all and keep smiling! Stay positive!
Welcome again island guests. As anime fans I am sure you oftenly get questions about you hobbies. These people asking questions can ask you various questions some more sincere than others. “If I were to try anime, what would you recommend” is most likely one of the ones everyone has heard by now. A Shounen or a Ghibli movie are you most standard go toes in such cases. However, there are also people who ask questions like ‘Anime, isn’t that the weird japanese cartoons where everyone tries to fuck little girls and they do that stupid magical girl stuff?’ The stereotypist tries to have fun at our accounts. Even if you explain them there are many subgenres they and there are plenty of different stories they do not listen or forget and next time you bring it up again, they talk about tentacles or japanese weirdness again. One of my friends kept doing this so when he asked to watch anime with me , as I had no money to go out, I showed him Bludgeoning Angel Dokuro Chan.
Baka-Baka
For you that don’t know this show is about the misadventures of Sakura Kusakabe a thirteen year old boy who at the age of thirty three would develop the technology in which women do not age past the age of 12, so he can create a Pedophile’s World. Unbeknownst to him however this technology also makes these little women immortal, which pisses of god. So god sends the bludgeoning angel Dokuro-Chan to kill Sakura. Dokuro who looks like a twelve year old girl gets feelings for Sakura and instead tries to keep him busy enough so he is unable to invent that technology 20 years in the future. This often results in situations where she uses her angelic strength to kill Sakura to teach him a lesson on how to behave, after which she brings him back using the spell Pipiru-piru-piru-pipiru-pi.
These kills are always very bloody and nearly always involve decapitating him, tearing his face off or causing other fatal wounds with her mace Excalibolg. She also turns one of his classmates into a monkey, which no one seems to mind and barely even notice. Another angel is send to finish Dokuro’s original mission named Sabato. Now Dokuro has to both save Sakura from death, while murdering him over and over again to teach him some manners and prevent him from turning into a pervert. The protection part of course is done by oftenly stealing Sabato’s halo, which obviously gives her cray diarrhea. I am such a good friend, if my friend wants to watch anime and he only thinks weird magic and sex with little girls is anime, I oblige. Sometimes I wish I could marry myself, I am so helpful and clever and if you mess with my hobbies, I mess with you back. Teehee.
Please! Don’t glare at me like that.
Dokuro-chan is one of those 10 minute per episode anime, that since its original run have since come bundled on various sites and media. Episodes can be disjointed from just walking around to school to going on a field trip. You can watch the entire series in less time than t would take you to finish a random marvel movie, with a lot more dead and blood and at times better jokes. However this show is completely bonkers. The opening song along has some very clear SM themes and considering they are sung by a “twelve year old” girl that will already show you how far away from reality ths show stands. Characters all have hugely inflated persona’s without having much depth, but I at least think they are all hilarious. Think of it like if South Park only consisted out of Eric Cartman’s and Randy Marches and throw in a bit of Rick from Rick and Morty as well and let them interact with each other. It’s about that level of odd. If you step on my hobby, I’ll lock you in my living room and beat you silly with the silliness you expect I am into. Of course I took into account that my friend might request the show to be turned off, so I invited some of my anime friends to join us as well. The more the merrier, my friend agreed and said to go for it. Yet now he could not ask me to turn it off , because with a few drinks my other friends were really into this fun little show.
During the first few episodes you could see my bigoted friendstruggling, afraid that I’d kick him out of my life if he left early or that my friends would hang him if he would ask to watch an easier show. While in reality I learned that this friend asked for anime because he wanted to gossip about my hobby to another girl whom he had plans with the next day, I still love my friend and trough teasing a bit back.. that’s just how I show my love.
Bloodstained-All-Over Dokuro Chan
About three episodes in I began to notice a change n my friend though. He gotten over the initial weirdness and began to appreciate how different it is to the media your “standard Normie” usually consumes. You can watch South Park, Family Guy or Rick and Morty and those shows are not THAT different from each other. Sure the latter is a bit more out there and caters to the abnomal a bit more already but it’s still very dependent on pop-cultural references and catering to the same vices, being drugs booze and lust like most of our comedy. Dokuro-chan is REALLY out there on the absurdity scale were even common logic doesn’t always need to apply which results into something unpredictable and seemingly random. My friend began to appreciate seeing things he never saw before, of having a sense of being completely gobsmacked. I feel, like wester media is made from the imagination of the target audience, we treat our audience as dumb and they need to GET IT , because god forbid you show doesn’t gets a negative review. Anime and Manga I feel myself are made much more with the content creator in mind. They think it is fun, they like their joke and you do not NEED to get it, but credit to you if you do then you can share the love. This is what I love about anime it doesn’t feel stale as it isn’t bogged down by expectations and that is what my friend kind of figured out as well.
I might have punched him in the face with an anime that’s definitely NOT for starters and toyed with him for not showing me seriously it actually had results. When we neared the end of the story and the whole Pedophle story neared full circle he was genuinely laughing at the discovery and liked that it wasn’t stated directly but he kinda had to discover it on it’s own through the weirdness. Of course he got the theme song stuck in his head and final episode , we sang it all together…. to get it out of our head and because we had a substantial amount of alcohol already…because it’s that type of anime, it’s one you throw on when a party is getting a bit stale and you want to energise people with laughter and just have some silly no brain fun. Each kill, each splatter of blood and nearly each action is just meant for comedy sake. It is exactly what the “non-believers’ think anime is but more. I might have kind of stabbed my friend in the back by setting him up like this, but at least I did not leave him in the cold and showed him the fun of weird. That’s just how I show my love.
Pipiru-piru-piru-pipiru-pi
When the show was over we talked a bit and for the first time he kinda listened that there were other types of shows but that he kinda made us ridiculous by thinking all anime was this. So I just showed him HOW ridiculous things can get. Realising fully well that not everything could be THIS zany he made that connection or something. As he is a big slasher/horror buff we ended up watching a few episodes of Higurashi as well. He asked me if there were any horror anime on netflix and I told him that if any slasher like anime would ever make it to Netflix it would probably be Future Diary/ Mirai Nikki which he would say he would definitely watch then. He could even see the appeal of the weird. Anime has the reputation of being weird, perverted and infantile and while Dokuro is exactly what a Muggle-Weeb (or is it Weeb-Muggle?) thinks we watch it still has something to say. When you watch CSI, or NCIS o Criminal Minds or whatever show, we do not hear the voice of the writer. We hear the voice of the test audience. That’s why we see so many similar episodes across the shows…because people like “the crime committed in the sky” or the “man who got murdered without a weapon’ so that’s what they put in.
While anime also relies on tropes, these tropes are engines that drive the plot..rather than the plot itself. We like magical girls so we get a lot of those shows, how those shows unfold however can go any way. This gives anime and manga a much stronger voice than your average western show. Dokuro REALLY makes this clear. Why it is never briljant, never THAT clever and not well written at all , Dokuro s very much Dokuro. It’s it’s own thing. Compare it to a roller coaster. Most of them have loopings and corkscrews and run really smooth. Dokuro is a coaster with some many elements of her own in it, you might very well dislike. Instead of rapid descents it like has a staircase.. instead of loopings it has a seesaw and instead of an acton photo somewhere you get like a party hat. Disjointed but unique. So whenever your real life friends keep making fun of your love for anime force them to watch Dokuro with you (and make sure they cant leave) .. they might die a little inside at first but trough Dokuro’s spell they will come back to live again… either more open minded…or just punished for talking bad about you beloved anime.
Pinkie's Paradise 