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CyanideFishbone
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Posts posted by CyanideFishbone
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Okay y'all- sorry about the wait (week after I posted this was rough- summer job didn't work out but I'm starting another soon) and I feel bad for not starting later but I can affirm that it will be starting soon (probably this weekend). Sorry about the wait!
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I'm on summer break and with me being on summer break I'm looking for things to keep me occupied- and since recently JJS reached out to me with my list of the top 25 worst Spongebob episodes from a long time ago for this year's list, I thought it would be a fun little project for me to reevaluate the list because it's so old and to be honest, I barely remember most of the episodes on the list. I almost feel like some of the placements are remnants of edgy middle school me just hating random episodes for very minor reasons, and I think it'd be fun to reevaluate this list, decide what actually deserved it's placement, and what doesn't. As real life and other interest took its place, my interest in Spongebob has also largely dwindled since I joined this site back in 2013, and I feel like a project like this is a good excuse to get me to watch some episodes again- even if they're from the show's weaker years.
A few quick rules- if an episode is removed, it's gone from the list and is either in my good graces or is just an okay episode that isn't among the worst, depending on circumstance. If an episode is kept, it stays on the list, where it may be rearranged, but is still a bad episode in my eyes. I may be inconclusive on some, so those will be considered a tossup if need be.
Also feel like noting when I'll be posting- there won't be a deadline or any set date where I update, I wanna take my time with this and do it when I want to do so, since honestly I've abandoned a lot of similar projects in the past and I'm worried about doing so again. But I should be updating somewhat fairly frequently- I'm starting my summer job on Friday, so I may have less time but I should be able to fit in an 11 minute episode into my schedule fairly frequently.
Anyway, before we get started, here's the list. I'll be going from #25 to #1:
1. Little Yellow Book
2. Greasy Buffoons
3. inSPONGEiac
4. One Coarse Meal
5. Demolition Doofus
6. Keep Bikini Bottom Beautiful
7. Restraining SpongeBob
8. SpongeHenge
9. The Thing
10. New Fish In Town
11. Buried In Time
12. Sentimental Sponge
13. Summer Job
14. Boating Buddies
15. A Flea In Her Dome
16. Penny Foolish
17. Sun Bleached
18. Squid's Visit
19. Pet or Pests
20. Truth or Square
21. Pineapple Fever
22. The Other Patty
23. Drive Thru
24. Walking The Plankton
25. Sweet And Sour Squid
One thing I will say in advance is pardon me if I don't have a lot to say about the more talked about episodes like Boating Buddies as for a lot those episodes everyone knows why people don't like them, but with that, that's really it. I'm really excited to revisit these episodes after years and the first entry should be out soon!-
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Demon Slayer is so overrated and I feel like I'm the one person in the world who wasn't completely head over heels with Mugen Train. I don't dislike either, I still enjoyed both for the most part, but they are far from my favorites. As someone who really enjoys shonen/manga, I really love Dragon Ball, FMA, One Piece, My Hero Academia, etc. I even like series like Fairy Tail and Bleach which a lot of people shit on, so I was kinda expecting Demon Slayer to be a slam dunk for me in terms of enjoying it; especially considering how much I've enjoyed some of the more recent shonen I've read like Jujutsu Kaisen (still need to watch the anime) and Chainsaw Man (despite it going to Shonen Jump's seinen branch). With most things, I went in just expecting a good time, but was not expected to be this BORED watching Demon Slayer, especially at the start.
Quick obligatory the animation of Demon Slayer is goddamn amazing. It looks like a movie throughout the entire series. That is one thing I believe lives up to all the hype, and then some honestly. The fight scenes are also super well done and extremely well animated ofc. But it really feels like all the elbow grease went into those things when writing it because jesus christ the characters are uninteresting as hell for the most part. I really don't get what everyone sees in Tanjiro, the dude has the personality of a wet blanket and is literally THE most boring protagonist I have ever read in a story. I at the very least would prefer loud shonen idiot protag to this kid. Tanjiro has no personality, no nuance, nothing; he's nice and cares about saving people and his friends. That's pretty much it. No fun character quirks, no other dimensions, that's really it. And when you have a weak protagonist, personally I find it hard to get super invested- which doesn't help because Demon Slayer's plot really isn't very interesting either. It's the most generic shonen plot I've ever seen, if I had a shot for every shonen cliche that's been beaten into the ground throughout Demon Slayer I would have alcohol poisoning. None of the antagonists are interesting at all, Kyogai was the only one that stuck out to me, but also I don't know how much that has to do with the fact I love Steve Blum and hearing his voice in an anime again is just bliss honestly. Also his powers were cool and that part of the story was where things started to pick up with me so there's that.
A lot of people give Zenitsu shit but honestly I enjoyed his presence, but I don't know how much that had to do with the fact that Tanjiro has the personality of sandpaper. Inosuke is a great character though, but I feel like half the time he was on screen I was wondering to myself how much better this whole thing would be if he was the lead instead of a piece of human sandpaper. I feel like Nezuko's purpose is more concerned with fighting occasionally and being cute since she barely talks if ever, and she does pass that admittedly with flying colors (goddamn she is adorable I'll give the series that). I literally do not remember anything about any other characters. No fun character quirks, moments, nothing. The mentor serves his purpose for the plot and is pretty much ditched after that, but he barely had any personality at all. Like just, jesus, it's not hard to give your characters personality. You did it twice with Zenitsu and Inosuke and did it fairly well but I just feel like all the other characters are just a hodge podge of random shonen stock character traits or there was no attempt to make these characters stand out and feel important which in turn makes them feel like plot devices to me. And the characters not being great wouldn't be a huge issue to me if the story was interesting which it really isn't. Nezuko gets turned into demon, dude runs into professional demon slayer, goes to train, does the exam, becomes demon slayer, fights some monsters, meets Inosuke and Zenitsu, eventually they find out Tanjiro is holding a demon, meets the Hashira, they say Nezuko is fine, than the events of Mugen Train. Not really much more than that. Ehhhhh.
Mugen Train is gorgeous visually. That I will attest to again. The fight scenes are also super well done, and the dream concept was pretty well done. But I don't know, I just felt like everyone walked out of it in awe and I did so for other movies like the Broly movie 2 years back and I just kinda walked out of the theater for Mugen Train like "okay, that was a thing". I will say the movie did a really great balancing act at keeping Zenitsu both serious and competent while still keeping him goofy comic relief to which the anime adaptation more teeters toward the latter. But I don't know, maybe it's moreso the media hype as opposed to the movie's quality. The villain was also awful. I've never been a fan of evil for the sake of being evil villains and this was that. Because fuck motives, am I right?
Also the villain looked like blatant 13 year old emo girl tumblr bait but that's not important just a funny note.And also while Mugen Train was gorgeous, I didn't think of it as much more a visual spectacle as opposed to Broly, the MHA movies, and even some of the recent One Piece movies like Stampede. Demon Slayer's animation is absolutely theatrical level, so seeing it for a TV series is pretty amazing, while here it just felt pretty by the note for a theatrical anime movie. Although to be fair I don't think the American movie-going public at large is as used to visual spectacles like this for anime movies so that's understandable from their perspective.MUGEN TRAIN SPOILERS (FORGOT HOW TO DO A SPOILER TAG)
I also did not feel anything when Rengoku died. I also hated how the main antagonist died only for another one to show up without any sort of buildup or any foreshadowing that this would happen- it really just felt like a cheap trick by the plot so Rengoku could die and the arc could have it's emotional climax. Also I feel like by this point in the series we're given so little screentime with Rengoku so his death doesn't feel worth it. The reason why the deaths of characters like Jiraiya in Naruto, Ace in One Piece, etc is we're given time with these characters. We understand the relationships they have with the protagonists and other central characters, what they value in life, who they are, and maybe even some of their past. None of that is given with Rengoku. He's nice when he's introduced, is kinda cool, and then dies and the series is supposed to make me care about him. I don't, I'm sorry. These characters need to be fleshed out when they die for them to have any emotional impact for me. Even Rosinante from One Piece had a bigger emotional impact when he died, in a flashback, and who was around for FIVE chapters as opposed to Rengoku being around for so much longer. But that's also because Oda is a great writer and understands that Rosinante needs to be fleshed out for his death, and thus Law's flashback, to have emotional impact to which it did in spades for me. Your characters need to be fleshed out before they die for it to have any emotional impact, which I feel like Demon Slayer does not understand.
And that's that, I guess. I still enjoyed it but Jesus Christ it is not one of my favorites and doesn't deserve to be mentioned in the same breath as some of the greats IMO. Also I know it's petty and I'm also insanely biased but the fact this overtook One Piece in sales for a little while kinda peeves me. Comparing this to One Piece is like comparing Taco Bell to an authentic Mexican restaurant.
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"Rosy Jack World" // The Frogs
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I think a lot of the backlash against James Rolfe is super overblown and silly. Yeah his content now isn't anywhere as good as it once was and I know he doesn't write his own scripts anymore, but he's also raising two very young children. He just sounds creatively burnt out mostly and hasn't done anything problematic besides that (The Ghostbusters thing was just a giant misunderstanding), and we live in the golden age of YouTubers being exposed as groomers/pedos/etc, so if that's the worst Rolfe has done is be a bit lazy, so be it. To me, a lot of his detractors just seem like angry people who don't realize that when you have kids, especially ones as young as Rolfe's, that's pretty much your entire life until they're able to be self-sufficient.
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"My Michelle" // Guns N' Roses
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Sorry not sorry but the ICarly cinematic universe >>>>> any superhero thing ever
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On 10/28/2020 at 2:27 PM, CyanideFishbone said:
I know it's weird, and kind of a taboo thing that I'm really not open about at all, but this year I've realized I have a really strange interest in vintage erotica/porn, really just the history of it all, especially in America from the turn of the 20th century and especially during the 60's-80's. It's really not because I'm particularly interested in the sexual subject matter (I honestly am to an extent), I think it's really because it's almost like a second, more underground film industry as juxtaposed to the very accessible main industry. It's something that was shunned for years, still has been shunned, and something almost everyone who consumed it did so in private. Now I think despite it being a very intimate thing, society has a big stick up it's ass about sex in media and the history of sexual media being demonized (still is to an extent) while those who made them persevered, knowing there's not inherently anything wrong with depicting sex in film (Minus stuff like Deep Throat where actors were raped on set, all of the films where actors were abused in one way and another were awful and should not be celebrated). It's especially interesting considering that a lot of porn in the 70's and 80's were feature length and pretty much had plots, a far cry from what you'd find on the internet nowadays and even if you were to buy porn DVDs, they're usually very short in terms of length. Not criticizing those at all, it's just a big difference. I'm a film major, and IDK, vintage porn and exploitation films are just fucking fascinating to me, because of how much they challenged the norms of filmmaking and what's considered normal in it and how, especially with the adult film industry, it's almost like an underground, second industry in a way, especially back in the day. Back then, you either stole your dad's Playboy stash, had to settle for the underwear section in the local department store magazine, or found the classic lone box of Playboys/other porn in the woods, or you went to the adult room in your local video store and ran the risk of social suicide, or if you knew where any adult stores were (back in the days where you couldn't just google where these things were), went there and again ran the risk of social suicide.
I don't feel exactly comfortable sharing it, but I do wanna get it out there. I really do keep it to myself as sex is a very intimate thing and not one I'm comfortable being open about, but the history of the industry is goddamn fascinating to me. My interest admittedly kinda dies around the 90's, but whatever. I just think it really ties into my interest in things that are non-conventional, and again, my interest in film and it's history.
I didn't really realize it until the other day but the main reason I'm interested in it is despite it being a multimillion dollar industry, porn is pretty much barely documented at all. Which is weird, because it's a decently well-known genre that almost all of us are aware of. And a lot of these films, mainly in the late 60's-70's played important roles in the sexual revolution and film history in general in regards to exploitation/more experimental/underground cinema but these films just really were never documented thoroughly. A lot of the industry is shrouded in mystery and kinda lost to time and that stuff always interests me so that too. Also establishments like porn theaters and stuff like porn magazines and adult home video from back in the day fascinate me, again from the lack of documentation. Ofc I'm only almost 20 but it's just so weird to think that 40 years ago if you wanted to uhh..... do your business and had no access to home video of any sort (be it betamax or a film reel) you had to go out and do it in public, avoid trying to get caught and arrested for indecent exposure, risk social suicide, and do it in a shady ass movie theater. I don't yearn for those days, in fact they sound miserable, but it's just so weird considering now an insane network of it is at our fingertips pretty much whenever.
I've kind of picked up a small interest in dinosaurs. Idk they all look so different and a lot of them just look wack and are really cool when you read up on them, but I'm also really interested in prehistoric life in general. I've also been fascinated by Iceland recently, idk why. Nordic countries interest me in general and Iceland is beautiful as hell, but man I didn't know it was that small until recently.
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Weezer are the most inconsistent band in history but I do recommend checking out both Everything Will Be Alright In The End and The White Album if you haven't- they're both very solid records that were a great return to form that they unfortunately pretty much blew straight out the window. Sigh....
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god damn it finally after like seven years of waitingI'm really excited for both. The open world Pokemon games seems really cool and Gen 4 was the gen I grew up with so I've been waiting for these remakes for a long time. Hoping that they'll fix the issue of like the 3 Fire lines that are in the original Diamond/Pearl but I'm picking Chimchar because that was who I picked first and I love my fire starters so I guess it doesn't effect me too too much. Hoping to see some Unova/Galar/Alola/Kalos pokemon in the game but with the Dexit stuff idk if we'll see that. Still happy to have my Gen 4 remakes though.
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I'm almost 20 and a lot of Blink's songs still hit so goddamn close to home and hit me like a truck. Definitely one of my favorite bands, listened to them a lot as a teenager and their music hit so close to home for me then and they do still do now. Can honestly throw on them whenever, too. Not a fan of Matt Skiba Blink-182 though at all, some of the songs are alright but it's way too overproduced IMO and Matt Skiba, while good with Alkaline Trio, is not a good fit for Blink IMO.
Great list as always.
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"Super Stupid" // Funkadelic
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3 hours ago, StardustSpeedwayFace said:
Dragon Ball Super is more pathetic and worse than what DBGT is
Ehh idk about that one chief. DBS is far, far from perfect but I wouldn't put it on the same level of GT. Super's worst arcs are mostly just boring and uninspired while GT has some serious "what the actual fuck were they thinking?" moments. IMO, Super's biggest problems are some of the uninspired and sometimes confusing (*cough* Goku Black *cough*) arcs and how bad they botched Goku's character and made him just absolutely braindead. At the very least, while Super as a story is super far from perfect, I still find a good portion of it enjoyable (while not as good as DB or pre-Buu DBZ) while GT really only has the Baby Saga going for it.
Also the Broly Saga/Dragon Ball Super: Broly is hands down the best thing the franchise has put out since the Cell Saga and no one can change my mind. Still need to reread the Galactic Patrol Prisoner Saga as it's done but I wasn't impressed with the bit of it I read. It had a lot of promise but just kinda killed it iirc.
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I don't think Seasons 4/5-7 of That 70's Show aren't as bad as many people make them out to be (not including Season 8, fuck that shit). Yeah a lot of the characters, especially Eric get flanderized hard with the whole bumming around the house thing, but the core of the show to me was always comedy instead of heart, and those seasons for the most part are still funny so they still got my attention and there's a handful of great episodes then (albeit I don't think I'll be revisiting it any time soon with Netflix taking it off and how much of a fucking monster Danny Masterson is but that's besides the point). Also Hyde and Jackie is easily my favorite ongoing plot point/relationship in the show, the two have such fucking good chemistry. They're definitely a drop in quality, but I wouldn't call them bad. Just wish good shows and group efforts wouldn't be tainted by a cast member being a serial rapist who's part of a cult who's lackeys orchestrate the poisonings of the pets of his victims, but again, besides the point, and hopefully I and many others will be able to come back in 5/10 years because that really was one of those comfort shows for me that I could just throw on whenever and not really have to pay attention.
Gecko Moria is the single most underrated antagonist in One Piece. I always see people bring him up when bringing up the worst villains in the story (usually Wapol and Foxy; Foxy honestly serves his purpose very well, fuck Wapol), and I can't figure out why. Where Moria excels as a villain is highly dependent on to where he's introduced in the story- just as the Straw Hats are about to make it to the New World, he's a reject of it after his crew was wiped out by Kaido. The idea of a villain creating an undead army after being struck with grief and trauma after watching his old crew all be massacred is a damn neat idea for a villain, and it's done pretty well in my opinion. And from that, he's just completely lost his mojo, he's fat, unmotivated, and has to resort to petty pillaging and crimes with abducting pirates and leaving them out to sea. He's literally a SHADOW of himself (no pun intended; might have on Oda's half given his penchant for stuff like that, hence Doflamingo being a literal puppet master), and something that always stuck out to me was the scene where Luffy meets him for the first time and hurls the classic Luffy "I'm gonna kick your ass!" spiel, and like most of the other villains who are either riled up by it or just sit by relaxed not believing him/what not, Moria just sits back, and laughs nervously, faking a confident persona and doing a bad job at it. I don't think he's one of the series' best, like I don't think he's near Doflamingo, Lucci, Katakuri, Eneru, etc but he's a way better villain than most give him credit for IMO.
U2 is so pointlessly overhated. Yeah they kinda became generic studio rock as they went on and what not but even then they're still passable. Also War, The Unforgettable Fire, The Joshua Tree.... all fucking classics.
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I miss answering questions so AMA, I miss y'all
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On 10/29/2020 at 12:11 AM, President Squidward said:
i know i ain't a boomer but it doesn't feel like seven years
100% this lmao. Feels like it's been forever.
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I don't like Neon Genesis Evangelion. I don't hate it, but I would never put it up with other cult classic 90's anime like Cowboy Bebop. I really, really wanted to like it, and watched the entire series and the OVA and just could not get the appeal at all. There are things I do love about it; the art, the EVAs themselves, a lot of the concepts, and a good chunk of the fight scenes, but I think the whole show falls apart when it comes to the plot and its characters. I get it was the 90's, but the characters in Evangelion at least to me are so unmemorable, one note, and I could not get myself to care about a single one. Shinji is downright fucking excruciating to watch at certain points with how whiny he gets, and is definitely one of my least favorite protagonists I have ever seen in anything I've ever watched. I get that he's going through shit and what not but it does not make for an interesting, enjoyable character to watch for me because if he's gonna be like that, there has to be another side of his character that juxtaposes to it and makes up for it, but there's really... not. Rei isn't super interesting, but she's fine by me; nothing too notable, but nothing too bad. I get it was the 90's and the trope wasn't as overdone as it is now, but Asuka is literally the most boring, textbook tsundere ever (again I'm honestly a little biased because I also hate the tsundere trope with some exceptions). And most of the other characters for me were so forgettable, one-dimensional and uninteresting that I don't even feel like noting them. I could not care about any of these characters if I tried. And it's a show where they're all depressed as shit and to enjoy the plot I gotta sympathize with them and I can't. So it's kind of dead on arrival for me there. However, despite me disliking the characters, I do think the plot of the show is fairly solid for about the first half, before it gets so up it's own ass pretentious, impossible to follow, cluttered, and of course that infamous terrible ending. I think the only part of the second half of Evangelion I like is representing Shinji's weird fantasy or whatever the fuck with crayon, which I get they mainly did that because they used most of their budget at that point, was a really cool idea. I just feel like the series goes off the rails during the second half and a lot of people interpret a lot of its story flaws as post-modernism and what not when in my opinion, a lot of it is just poorly told storytelling trying way too hard to be complex and poignant. But I guess I'm missing something if it's so beloved. I really wanted to like it, and I sat through it all and End of Evangelion (although that one is a little fishy because my friend showed me it after I finished Evangelion and I was blasted off my ass when I first watched it and could not follow it to save my life because of that and barely even remember it), but I just don't get it at all. I find it's plot poorly constructed, confusing as all fuck, and pretentious as all hell in certain parts, and find the characters insanely boring. Also uhh, on one of the few things I remember from End of Evangelion, the "I'm so fucked up" scene is one of the most pointlessly fucking disgusting scenes I've ever watched. It doesn't further literally anything in the plot or Shinji or Asuka's character, it's just.... well, you know if you've seen it.
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I know it's weird, and kind of a taboo thing that I'm really not open about at all, but this year I've realized I have a really strange interest in vintage erotica/porn, really just the history of it all, especially in America from the turn of the 20th century and especially during the 60's-80's. It's really not because I'm particularly interested in the sexual subject matter (I honestly am to an extent), I think it's really because it's almost like a second, more underground film industry as juxtaposed to the very accessible main industry. It's something that was shunned for years, still has been shunned, and something almost everyone who consumed it did so in private. Now I think despite it being a very intimate thing, society has a big stick up it's ass about sex in media and the history of sexual media being demonized (still is to an extent) while those who made them persevered, knowing there's not inherently anything wrong with depicting sex in film (Minus stuff like Deep Throat where actors were raped on set, all of the films where actors were abused in one way and another were awful and should not be celebrated). It's especially interesting considering that a lot of porn in the 70's and 80's were feature length and pretty much had plots, a far cry from what you'd find on the internet nowadays and even if you were to buy porn DVDs, they're usually very short in terms of length. Not criticizing those at all, it's just a big difference. I'm a film major, and IDK, vintage porn and exploitation films are just fucking fascinating to me, because of how much they challenged the norms of filmmaking and what's considered normal in it and how, especially with the adult film industry, it's almost like an underground, second industry in a way, especially back in the day. Back then, you either stole your dad's Playboy stash, had to settle for the underwear section in the local department store magazine, or found the classic lone box of Playboys/other porn in the woods, or you went to the adult room in your local video store and ran the risk of social suicide, or if you knew where any adult stores were (back in the days where you couldn't just google where these things were), went there and again ran the risk of social suicide.
I don't feel exactly comfortable sharing it, but I do wanna get it out there. I really do keep it to myself as sex is a very intimate thing and not one I'm comfortable being open about, but the history of the industry is goddamn fascinating to me. My interest admittedly kinda dies around the 90's, but whatever. I just think it really ties into my interest in things that are non-conventional, and again, my interest in film and it's history.
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Chicken is definitely my favorite. Idk if I'm eating it wrong but I think beef is fucking disgusting (with some exceptions, like me a good cheeseburger but that's mainly because of the combination of everything on it and the meat, but beef by itself/thick patties are gross to me). Don't mind pork at all though, but don't like turkey. Haven't had anything else on the list but am interested in trying them. Exotic meat is a fun rabbit hole to go down if y'all ever get bored.
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In all honesty ~2 years since I've started smoking I've found nothing has helped me deal with living with Aspergers and social anxiety in general quite like marijuana has. I used to be really anxious and honestly really stubborn in general but after smoking it all just kinda.... went away. I still have anxiety and what not but all of that has pretty much been non-existent since smoking. Also with aspergers I had and still have absolutely abysmal social anxiety and pretty much 0 social confidence at all and I always feel a million times more confident while smoking, which gives me the drive to try to just be more confident in my everyday life. Also these last two years of mine have been kind of absolute fucking dogshit and marijuana especially during quarantine really made/makes it all so much more bearable. Both my parents found out too and are supportive/indifferent which is nice (both my parents are fairly liberal/I still make good grades in school so its really just something I do in my free time), they just don't want to smell it which I can totally get since it really isn't the most pleasant smell. I don't know if I'll still be smoking 10 years down the line but for right now, god it's really helping me deal with a lot of the shit I'm going through and my social anxiety. I don't need it to function, I spend most of my week sober, but it really does help. Also man that 50$ bong I bought literally right as quarantine broke has been a goddamn life saver.
Also as another benefit, I'm on SSRI medication and have been for over six years now and it helps a lot but as antidepressants do it limits my sex drive, to which weed helps me work around that- I have a fairly high sex drive for someone on SSRI as long as I have been to be fair but weed does really help bolster it, providing yet another benefit of it for me.
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9 hours ago, jjsthekid said:
It's no secret I haven't been a huge fan of this show's direction in the past few years, but that Pandemic Special was one of the strongest and spot on episodes in a very long time, despite a few issues. Seems like Trey and Matt still do have their hearts in it when they want to. Don't know when Season 24 is actually coming (since apparently this didn't start it), but if that's all we're getting from SP this year, I'm content.
Agree 100%. Watched it today and it felt very spot on with a few minor issues. Cartman loving quarantine felt extremely in-character. I really haven't been a massive fan of the show since Season 18 with a few great episodes here and there but I really enjoyed the special, and if it's all we get for this year I'm perfectly okay with it.
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Both candidates suck ass but I live in North Carolina so I really really gotta vote and I'm just gonna vote for Biden. Far, far, far from perfect but a Biden presidency from what I can tell would be pretty much a return to Obama's policies, which weren't perfect but a million times more preferable than 4 more years of this chaos. I'm fucking terrified for November 3rd, please vote guys, especially if you live in a swing state.
I will say though, on the flipside (and I don't wanna get ahead of myself), this year's senate map looks way more preferable to Democrats than both 2016 and 2018. Doug Jones is def gonna lose but Arizona and Colorado look like they're definitely gonna flip, and Iowa, my home state, and Maine since Susan Collins's approval ratings went from sky high to in the toilet since Kavanaugh look like somewhat likely flips. Georgia, South Carolina, Montana and surprisingly enough Kansas also look to be getting competitive, which if Kansas flips blue will be crazy, since they haven't elected a Democratic senator since the 30's which is insane to me.
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Really, really enjoyed reading this. I'm glad the show means that much to you and the feeling of something hitting so close to home to you, giving a "THIS is what I missed out on?" feel after getting into it is something that really hits close to home for me.
I've got a pretty interesting history with MLP; when I first found out about it I kinda shrugged it off/thought it was weird until one day I decided to watch the first episode as it was linked on the MLP Know Your Meme (look, it was 2011 and I was 10) page back in August 2011 and I just kinda became super obsessed. I used to tune in for new episodes every Saturday and it just became a full blown obsession as adolescence and puberty was rearing its head for me. Also worth noting that I have Asperger's and it was really bad as a kid and throughout my entire life I've never felt like I belonged with others my age despite having friends (most of which weren't true friends in all honesty) here and there and while I was always in a normal class with other kids, I had a lot of accommodations in regards to my education and as I've gotten older I realized I was that autistic/weird kid during elementary and especially middle school. Regardless I was so into it that I started buying those 2011-era MLP shirts from Hot Topic and what not and wearing them to school in fifth grade and generally just started being super open about it.
Kids during late elementary school and middle school are fucking monsters, man.
For the latter half of fifth grade (2011-2012 school year) I basically became the grade's punching bag, especially with the boys in my grade; it got so bad that my teacher found out and talked me about being bullied and all that and mentioned that his like 3 year old daughter also liked the show which in all honesty just made me feel even worse. But yeah, I never really gave up on liking it. I even had the toys for a while, and for a long while it was pretty much 80% what I talked about. I never shied away from liking it even in middle school, which if I thought the bullying was bad in fifth grade, I hadn't seen anything yet; instead of being the punching bag of the boys in my grade, I became the entire school's punching bag. Girls started making fun of me just as much. It was baaaad. 8th graders I never even knew were making rumors about me. I was legit infamous as "brony kid", was constantly called gay, homophobic slur starting with an f I don't want to say, etc. My interest still never waned and I'm thankful for the show providing me solace in the darkest times in my life, which back then in sixth grade, unbeknownst to me, was about to get even worse. My bullying reached an apex like a month into seventh grade; I had friends who turned out to not be friends (one of them was horribly verbally abusive/manipulative toward me actually) and had no friends upon entering seventh grade. Anyway because of course it did and just because it was something I never was/still am not 100% comfortable with (changing in front of others), the boy's locker room became a bullying hotspot for me. My middle school had the dumbest fucking policy where there were stalls in the boy's locker room but you weren't allowed to change in them for zero reason, so I always changed in the shower in the back away from everyone else. Anyway the bullying in the locker room got so fucking bad that my gym teacher arranged for me to change in the cafeteria bathrooms (which the cafeteria was right next to the gym) and basically some kids came in one day while I was changing, found out who I was, and tried to steal my backpack. This was the final straw for me and my mom, who had me transferred to another school, where I continued to be open about it, and people generally gave less of a shit; the problem was the transition was so hard and I just faced other non-MLP related bullying, and eventually things like depression caught up with me and my MLP phase really ended by the end of seventh grade; still liked the show, but was not expressive about it at all. I actually watched Season 5 and most of Season 6 as they came out and finished the end of Season 6 later and honestly haven't watched since. It's not a bad show at all, but I personally lost all interest as I've grown older and it's just not my thing anymore. I do want to rewatch some older episodes sometimes for nostalgia.
Despite dwindling interest, it still does have somewhat of a soft spot in my heart for providing me solace during some of the darkest periods in my life, and I'm very, very grateful for that. It's crazy that I got into it almost 10 years ago at this point, and the show in general is almost ten years old; fuck I'm feeling old (despite only being 19). I go back and forth on whether or not being bullied to hell and back for liking it changed my perspective on it; said bullying plays a large part in my demeanor nowadays unfortunately (keeping to myself during school, not really talking to anyone in class, having some degree of trust issues and I need to fix all this but that's another story for another time) but I remember never backing down in regards to liking it so I really don't think it's that. There's also some narrative problems I have with later seasons (sick of nearly every villain being redeemed, show feeling a bit tired) but that's whatever, because I do think I've just moved on but I do think the first couple seasons deserve a second look from me sometime, and I hope I can enjoy them as much as I did as a kid.
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I'm a huge fan of Tawna's redesign and reimagining in the franchise as a whole. Really glad they're trying to make her an actual character instead of this uncomfortably hypersexualized love interest.
CyanideFishbone's Top 25 Worst SpongeBob Episodes REVISITED (Summer 2021)
in SpongeBob Episodes
Posted
And we are live! I'm really sorry about the wait- a lot of unexpected stuff got in my way but I finally started working on this list. And with that I have our first entry.
"Sweet And Sour Squid"
Season 8 E5A
Written by: Aaron Springer, Mr. Lawrence
Plankton befriends Squidward in an attempt to get the secret formula, and must compliment Squid's music- while knowing just how bad it is.
A lot of these episodes I haven't seen in years, and this one is no stranger to that. So when I rewatched this episode, I was pleasantly surprised by just how much I enjoyed it. It's not the best episode, nor the funniest episode, but it has a neat premise that mostly delivers. Plankton and Squidward have a fun dynamic and while this episode isn't the funniest, the gags sprinkled in do work. Something that really stuck out to me was how in-character everyone in this episode was (for the most part)- one of my biggest gripes with later Spongebob (and one many others share) is how much the characters have derailed but everyone was pretty much solidly in character here. I will say that Spongebob seemed a little more obnoxious and naive than normal but everyone else was very in character and it never really got too jarring so I can hand wave it. Characters in shows like these can me malleable to fit certain premises, which I'm fine with as long as the change isn't too bad, which it isn't here. The highlight here is definitely the Pinball Wizard segment, Mr. Lawrence does a fantastic job doing a twist on the song, but the other jokes and plot elements work. I remember largely disliking this one due to the ending and... I don't see anything wrong with it. After Plankton finds out Squid doesn't know anything about the formula (very in character with his apathetic work ethic), he makes a run with Squid's clarinet, to which he runs into the townfolk pissed at him for accompanying Squid who played all over town to everyone's annoyance- and ends up arrested for disrupting the piece. I think I remember thinking it was dumb or something, but it really isn't. First off, Plankton is often treated as a butt-monkey in-universe, so it makes sense that he would get bit in the ass like this, especially with a plan of his that doesn't work out in the slightest. I'm striking this from my worst list without a doubt, I was pleasantly surprised by how enjoyable this show was. Especially considering I really don't like Seasons 7-8, this one is definitely a diamond in the rough. That squid does sure play a mean clarinet.