All of the Feels

I cried at the end of Life Is Strange: Farewell. Max ended up moving away on the day of Chloe's dad's funeral. We finally get to see her parents, but they don't have lines. I still don't like them. It's clear from the way Max talks that she spends more time at Chloe's house than her own, and they're probably the reason. They don't abuse Max, but they probably spend more time working, and their work is the reason they're going to Seattle. No words at the funeral, just patting Max on the shoulder as she stands next to Chloe and her mom, and they walk away expecting her to follow. What's worse is Max's recorded message to Chloe at the end, which is heartbreaking since you just played through a game in which Max doesn't keep in touch with her.

Power Rangers Super Ninja Steel has had some pretty dumb episodes that require everyone to be stupid otherwise problems wouldn't last the whole episode. In some cases, they teach lessons that didn't even need to be learned. Hayley and Preston are in the drama club, yet Calvin doesn't think they could be rehearsing for a play (though they were being pretty method about it), and rather than admit to her stage fright Hayley continues to avoid and lie to him. Then Sarah has to give up working on her hover board to spend time with her friends despite having won fairly the first time but didn't because everyone falls for Vincent and Monty's tricks (Vincent didn't start at the same time she did and just appeared on the track with her). It seems like she gave up too easily after Mick shamed her for using a monster's ninja star. Mick may have had a point about using stolen tech, though he just came across as jealous that she didn't use one of his ninja stars, but that would still be cheating. And he already has a habit of doing crazy/dumb things just to prove a point, like when he purposefully dropped a hammer on his foot and yelled at Calvin.

At least around here, the stock of Dunkin Donuts is the same (though the non-24-hour ones have more than just plain or everything bagels, they don't have onion either). At least the people at the one across the street from where I work are nice.

The Michael video is up, and the Miles video will be soon. I'm still working on the lightning round.

What Did I Just Watch?

The Raven vs Twilight Death Battle didn't shock me with the outcome, but it didn't really make sense to have them fight at all. I feel like, if they had to fight at all, they would end up stopping the fight and realizing it was stupid. The two of them have similar personalities and are even voiced by the same person (Tara Strong, but not in this). They'd probably just end up having a discussion over tea or something. If they were going to keep the Teen Titans Go! aspect of Raven playing with pony figurines, then she shouldn't have gotten defensive about it when she suddenly found herself in Twilight's library (although Twilight was not among her figurines). If anything, Twilight should've asked (as she would) about her having the figurines in the first place. And Raven certainly wouldn't have set the books on fire. Speaking of TTG, I was pleasantly surprised (though a little put off since it's still TTG) by Cree Summer voicing the gender-bent version of Beast Boy.

I found out there was a prologue to the Cardcaptor Sakura: Clear Card anime that closely followed the end of the manga and differed a lot from the final episode of season two of the original anime. I also found out there was another dub of Cardcaptor Sakura, possibly by one of the same companies that dubbed DBZ atrociously (seriously, I think the same actress might voice Chi-Chi and Meilin). It's equally bad, though the dub I grew up with wasn't exactly perfect and was far from complete.

I've been so busy lately forgot about Year of the Dog.
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Also I cobbled these together just for fun (emphasis on cobbled).
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Top 10 Random Encounters Musicals

Honorable Mention: Bendy and the Ink Musical
They worked really hard on this one due to all the stop motion. It's really impressive and pretty catchy.

10-Friday the 13th the Musical
It's short, but given the horror tropes and gameplay references, this was pretty funny. It has a great melody too.

9-Kindergarten the Musical
With all the roles played by AJ, it's hard to pick a stand-out. Nugget has the best lines, though. "Nugget says no!"/"Throw her in the Nugget Cave."

8-Finding Mr. Midnight (Fran Bow the Musical)
I like SparrowRayne's voice. I like the game's atmosphere as well.

7-Muffins the Musical (A Derpy Hooves Song)
While kind of dumb, this one's upbeat and cheery and made my day the first time I saw the video.

6-Go Go Pokemon Go!/Pokemon Go! in Real Life
Out of all the Pokemon Go! music videos I've seen, these are the best. It also serves as a wonderful culmination of all previous Pokemon musical numbers starring Peter as the trainer.

5-Phoenix Wright the Musical (supercut)
Originally a three-parter, this set of videos and later supercut video retell the Turnabout Storm storyline in a very entertaining way. I especially like Miles' line toward the end, "Answer the question or my sister will beat you." Another outstanding performance by SparrowRayne.

4-What's in Your Basement?/Up on My Housetop (Hello Neighbor the Musical)
It's too bad the final game didn't live up to the hype or these videos. First it's AJ trying to get into the neighbor's house (even dressing up like a Girl Scout to do so), then Santa. I like how the neighbor (played marvelously by Peter) tells them both off, which lines such as "I will put you in the ground" and "Kiss my rear!" respectively. A poker game with the likes of Bonnie Bunny, Strong Bad, and The Beard was a better twist than the one we got.

3-Just Monika (A Doki Doki Literature Club Song)
The newest one as of this post, but it somehow put me in a better mood that day. Just shy of the number two spot (though for a very similar reason), this takes the number three spot due to its sweetness and insanity. I like the twist at the end where Monika is wiped from existence and it becomes "Just Sayori" (as it should be).

2-Senpai Notice Me (A Yandere Simulator Song)
Monika may be a monster, but Ayano is the OG. If this game were an anime, I'd watch the hell out of it. This song, performed by SparrowRayne, illustrates the lengths to which one lovesick girl is ready to go to eliminate the competition. Info-chan and Kuu Dere as the Yandere Posse was a nice touch, also. Too bad Nate as the Senpai didn't get to sing, though he did get to speak.

1-FNAF the Musical (supercut)/Blood and Tears (Sister Location)
It really wasn't going to be anything else. The odd-numbered parts were my favorite out of the original five-part series. SparrowRayne was great as Baby, even if she hated the series and was absolutely giddy when they got to tear down the set, which was dominating their house. Mark and Nate were the unnamed guards and AJ was the hapless purple guy, which is weird now since we didn't know anything about the Aftons at the time.

Maybe someday they'll do a Life is Strange the Musical, or at least FNAF 6.

You've Got to be Kidding Me

At first I wasn't worried when I heard that Dunkin Donuts was scaling back their menu since I don't get anything fancy, but I was wrong. I'm not sure if it was left up to individual owners, but the one closest to my apartment only has a choice of plain or everything bagels (as far as bagels go), and one of them just ran out. Granted, this is a 24-hour location and they're always running out of things anyway, but there's barely anything there anymore. I'll have to check other locations along my route, but I'm surprised they went that far. They didn't have white hot chocolate either (and neither did the store), so I ordered some from Amazon. I'll have to see what kind of donuts they have after the Valentine's ones run out. They gave me the wrong ones and weren't very nice to me the last couple times I was there. I should be used to disappointment by now.

I'm adding a third video to my audio swap project, which is going to be a lightning round of other people's characters. Instead of exploring characters' interactions and voices, it's just going to be one-off memorable lines from one character put into another character's mouth (sometimes two, and sometimes more than one trade). I started Miles' video and am putting some final revisions into Michael's, so that should be up before the end of the month. RWBY Chibi already beat me to Jaune singing the Camp Camp theme, though.

Meilin appeared in the Clear Card Arc anime via video chat. It'll be a little weird not hearing Nicole Oliver voice her. If I remember correctly, Rika could play the piano, but that role has been assigned to Syaoran. At least she got to say something over the phone that one time. The most recent episode referenced Dragon Ball  during Kero's Corner, as he mentioned he knew a monkey boy who stole a peach, and Spinel asked if he knew Goku.

That Explains It

Now the RWBY volume 5 opening sequence makes sense - Emerald made a hallucination of Salem. She was there after all. She took Cinder's death pretty hard. I wonder what she's going to be like next volume, or what she and Mercury are going to do. I don't feel bad for Lionheart at all because he was the worst. The stinger reminds me of the end credits of Kingdom Hearts Birth by Sleep when a feather falls near Zack and then he's gone. Has Raven gone to try to patch things up with Tai? She's kind of the worst but she didn't have to be. Will there be new characters introduced into RWBY Chibi season 3? Oscar? Raven? Salem and/or her inner circle? Ilia? Blake's parents? Depends on which voice actors they can get, I guess. They probably haven't been able to get Kathleen, hence Glynda's absence.

I'm currently working on two video projects. They have the same basic premise, but I decided not to combine them into one video. One involves characters voiced by Michael Jones, and the second involves characters voiced by Miles Luna. I'm really into making the Michael video right now, so it's going to be a little longer than expected anyway. The same thing will probably happen once I get into the one for Miles. I have no set date for finishing or posting them yet, but Michael's is almost done.

The dub for Cardcaptor Sakura: Clear Card Arc is already out, so that's nuts. I guess it's going to be like Tales of Zestiria the X that way. It sounds weird with different voice actors, even with Monica and Jason reprising the roles from their Tsubasa days. If they were to go back and redub everything like they did with Sailor Moon I guess I wouldn't mind, just to have some consistency. Now that I think about it, was Rika/Rita's only character trait that she had a crush on the teacher? Is that why she isn't in this anymore?

It's probably too late for me to get into Steven Universe, but recently I've been watching fan videos about it and took a personality quiz on Buzzfeed (I got Opal).

Old and New

The only reason I would like Hazel less (besides him being scary, but then so was Blake's dad) is that he's asking Ozpin how many more children need to die while he's fighting the group. I did miss him making the connection to the train station the first time around, but that's not what I'd wanted to happen since Oscar only says "Why does he hate us?" meaning him and Ozpin. What I'd wanted was a "You?" YOU!" moment. Instead it was "OZPIN!" "Oh no." I don't know why Weiss hooked and dragged Hazel back into the building after Nora went to the trouble of putting him through a wall in the first place. Him getting knocked through the wall and surprising Adam was similar to Oscar knocking Lionheart into him earlier. I especially liked how Hazel told Adam that he could go fuck himself in a turn of cruel irony. If Cinder is really dead, did Raven get the Fall Maiden powers as well? Having two Maiden powers is what Cinder wanted, but I don't know if it's what Raven wanted. A part of me wonders if Vernal could have been the Spring Maiden but Raven had trained her to keep her in her mind even if she's being killed so that she'd get the powers. Emerald's not going to be happy when she finds out. She's either going to stop functioning or power up for revenge.

I've been trying to decide which characters I like in the new Critical Role campaign. I liked Percy and Pike the most last time, so I thought I'd like Mollymauk and Yasha. However, I'm only neutral on them so far, especially since Ashley will be gone most of the time for work anyway. Frankly, I'm amazed she showed up to start this at all. I like Caleb so far, so maybe Liam will be my new favorite.

I like how the Clear Card Arc anime mentions the anime-only characters (Wei and Meilin) in passing instead of trying to incorporate them into the ongoing narrative.

Teen Titans Go to the Movies sounds like what they just did with the 200th episode but on a much larger, much longer scale.

Wham!

Nice going, Nora and Ren. Hazel said he didn't want to fight you, and you fought him anyway instead of helping your other teammates. Hazel's face when he said no one was getting in or out did not look like the face of a man who was happy about that. He doesn't like what Adam is doing and is completely indifferent to the fight unfolding before him. Hopefully Blake and Sun show up soon. Maybe Weiss won't be dead. Spoilers: she's not because Jaune turned out to be the white mage - and no one fucks with the white mage. It also turned out that Vernal was a decoy and Raven has the Spring Maiden powers. Vernal is still super dead, though. And Hazel is still my favorite. Still no recognition between him and Oscar; Hazel just wants Ozpin to die "over and over again." Then Ruby regained consciousness and gave Nora and Ren orders to do what they should've done from the beginning of the fight (help Weiss/Jaune/Qrow).

I finished reading the rest of "Smartest Book," including the ending. Greg does realize that the book is baseball-heavy and apologizes for it, saying there would be less baseball next time around (if he decides to write another book). He also does include the phrase "it sounds better than the truth" when referring to how icky white guys control history again. Speaking of books, the 358/2 Days light novel will release in June, which is a step in the right direction. We're getting that much closer to the Birth By Sleep omnibus, and I can't wait. If I like it, which I probably will based on what I've already read, I might pick up the KH2 ones afterward. I could pick them up now, but my interest in them is predicated on how the prequel is handled. I have plenty to read right now anyway; I also just read Coraline for the first time. It's not the movie, but that's also a good thing; I really liked it.

I watched the first episode of the Cardcaptor Sakura Clear Card Arc. It picks up where the second season left off in place of the second movie. It feels the same, like it could've come out as a natural third season of the original series instead of all these years later.