27 Jun 2015

Deadly Premonition

Boy, hasn't it been a while? Ever since the last blog, I've found out I passed my exams and bought a ton of games. And not found a job. So let's ramble on and on about a game, everyone loves that, right?! :D

And don't worry, I'd never just copy my post about a game I have been playing from FH in an attempt to get more people to read it... Never!

Perish the thought.
I've recently bought the Director's Cut of Deadly Premonition for only €2,50, which was 90% off. The game itself is some kind of weird combination of So Bad It's Good and So Genuinely Good It's Brilliant, I'm not sure how to even describe it, but it's a bizarre mash-up of several genres, with you assuming the role of FBI Special Agent Francis York Morgan (Please, just call him York, everybody does) as he instigates the ritualistic murder of a local teenaged girl. It's with full confidence that I'd say that Francis York Morgan is by far the best protagonist I've ever seen in a video game and the one I know the most about after playing the game, he is a delightfully quirky, flawed yet likable character and much of the game is as much about his personal story and growth as solving the murder case.

Clear as a crisp spring morning!
The game takes elements from all kinds of genres, the plot itself is mostly structured as a mystery game where you need to talk to people and gather clues, but there's also a very prominent open-world exploration theme because you're encouraged to investigate on you own and follow around the 30-something NPCs who all have their own daily schedule as they go around their daily life, going out to a diner, shopping at a local convenience store, go to work or relax at home. It's probably the most alive-seeming open world I've ever seen in a game just because it knows to keep its scope relatively small and focus on individual NPCs who you can meet at your own leisure before the plot even decided to dictate you should meet them. 

Neither can I!
There's also elements of maintaining York's hunger and tiredness, as well as changing clothes often so you don't become a Stinky Agent bit a Trendy Agent, as well as having the option to shave your beard or let it grow wild. If any of this sounds like a pain, you really don't need to worry since the game throws foodstuffs and beds at you, and you get plenty of money to buy it because the game rewards pretty much any action you can take, a move I'm sure was intentional to create a ridiculously over the top video-gamey feel. You can't drink a cup of coffee or check the weather without the game awarding you money for it. A lot of the game seems like it pokes fun at such video game elements, like having a Resident Evil-like bizarre squirrel key fetching quest filled with trivia about squirrels or making you solve a more Silent Hillish chess-related puzzle in order to visit the local potato-chip obsessed doctor.

Trust me, he's not joking.
It's not all great though, since the game does have somewhat clunky RE4 style combat, but that can be mitigated by doing sidequests for the various colourful characters in the game that award powerful and infinite ammo guns as well as very powerful melee weapons with infinite durability. Or you can whack enemies with a guitar, which also works surprisingly well. Honestly I had more fun with the clunky combat because most of the time I was dropping enemies like they were flies, which is satisfying after a long period of interviewing townspeople and rearranging storerooms or fishing for sabers and cans of tomato sauce.

Taking the power of rock to the next level.
The biggest problem with the game is that the PC port of it is knows for being rather buggy, but with some bugfixes and patches you can avoid the major brunt of that, and there's also mods that enhance the game by reducing some desaturation the game got after the Director's Cut version came out. I remember how difficult it was to get the game going, but once I got things set up it rarely crashed, and it helps that there's abundant save points and you get paid for frequent saving and saving is really quick too.

Me whenever the game crahses
Really, the game itself is wonderfully bizarre and I think it has a peculiar way of telling its story which is both very videogamey but also feels much more natural at times than most games as well as having a sort of humour that can be easily mistaken for being poorly written or bad when it's really intentional and all the funnier as a result, just looking for weird/funny scenes should show you just what I mean. ∞ YouTube ∞ ∞ YouTube ∞∞ YouTube ∞

I finished it a few days ago, clocking in at around 57 hours, quite the deal for 2,50. Too bad the deal's off now, though. I hope to make another blog soon again, one that's not just a ramble about videogames, perhaps? Not that I have a topic in mind... Hm, I guess I could always go for "A tale of Laser and Lords". 

Just kidding.

12 Jun 2015

World Tournament Hijinx



Whoo, today I made my final exam! I'm pretty sure I passed it, meaning this is when my Summer Break starts! So I have three months to spend as I wish!

Of course, right now it seems I wish to write a blog, so I'll write about a topic that has been on my mind: Medabots! In case you're not familiar with the series, it pretty much started as a series of Pokémon inspired games in which rather than collecting Pokémon, you collect Medabots. But what sets the series apart is that every Medabot is made from four parts, the legs, two seperate arms and a head (torso included!), so you can mix and match parts so you can use a supportive head skill, a shooting arm and a healing arm and a pair of legs that best suits the Medabot and the terrain. It gets pretty deep because there's tons of different strategies, and a lot of tactics counter the other.

Most games follow a rather similar plotline, which is that the main character gets his first medabot, faces off against the evil Rubberrobo gang which are grown adults wearing rubber suits (really) and other assorted characters, but of course you also have rivals, friends and even dating sim elements because most games allow the male hero to follow one of two romantic paths. There's tons of other stuff too, like a hopelessly incompetent and corrupt police force, dramatic masked heroes of justice, aliens, ancient kingdoms and making the main character walk around in a skirt, kimono, dress and fursuit. A lot of it is pretty goofy and it doesn't take itself too seriously, and there was even an anime about it, which was somehow even goofier than the games yet also much darker in the end.

Really!
But I'm not here to talk about rubber-clad villains or aliens. I'm here to talk about World Tournaments, yes! The games often include tournaments, unlike the Pokémon games, and while usually you square off against recurring characters, the first two games and both their remakes spice things up a bit by making it an international tournament, inviting famous Medafighters (People who use Medabots to Robattle others recreationally) from other countries to battle against the winner of some prior tournaments, which of course is the protagonist.

This is not exactly exciting in and of itself, but I rather liked these battles because they tend to use foreign Medabots, which pretty much boil down to stereotypes like a Sphinx Medabot or Native American Medabot or Cacti with sombreros and AK-47s for hands (really), ones which you basically can't find otherwise, meaning you only get one or two chances at getting their parts when you defeat them. They also each come with unique designs reflecting where they come from, so they are pretty much stereotypes, but it's interesting to me to see how they would visualize them and to compare them between the four different versions of the game. Maybe if you make it to the end, I can even throw in a special reward, oooh~

Really!
Anyway, it's probably easiest if I start with the only game that got an English release, which is the remake of the second game. 

The boy prince from the Southern Kingdom!
The first character, Prince Kir, is already rather bizarre. He's actually from a fictional Kingdom called the "Southern Kingdom", which the game never explains where it exactly is geographically. He does use obviously-Matador inspired Medabots, though, creatively called Redmatador. He's also the only character who doesn't seem capable of speaking English/Japanese (We'll be seeing lots of Japanese. No, I can't read any of it. ;-;) and he even comes with his own interpreter, who is a generic Salaryman. I like how he has a little crown on his head, and how the main character can tell he's angry when he just says "!!?!?!?!?! Ge?!" after being beaten.

"Well, at least I can figure out that he's mad..."
Rather than going to the next character already, though, I first want to look at the original design for the prince! The first notable thing is that expression, of course, I love how he looks so perturbed, like he's probably some young prince made to compete in a foreign tournament and he has no idea what is going on and what people are saying. He also has some rather stylish shoes, they rather remind me of clogs. Maybe he's part Dutch?! You might also be able to tell he doesn't actually use three Redmatadors, but actually three different Medabots, though the old GBC only shows what leg type they use (Multi-legged, Tank and Wheels respectively). He still uses a Redmatador as a leader, but he also adds a Frankenstein Medabot and a Clown Medabot. An odd choice of medabots, that.

Shandy with her trademark Italian sunglasses!
Okay, so there is one thing that is very wrong about this image. No, it is not that there is a black person in a game made in Japan, for some bizarre reason, the translators decided to make the Egyptian woman with Sphinx Medabots... Italian. I have no idea why they did that, and the accent they give her could compete with Mario's in accuracy. Despite that, I like her design, the fact that she is the only black person in the whole game does make her stand out, and I like her hairstyle and sunglasses. Plus, her Kingpharaoh Medabots (which for some odd reason have the female symbol engraved on them, why aren't they female Medabots?) are actually really strong too, she's easily the hardest opponent in the tournament. Incidentally, they also changed the main character from Japanese to American, even though the anime based on the game keeps him Japanese and his name, Ikki Tenryou, doesn't sound American at all. Also, apparently Shandy is a Dutch mixed drink, 1/5 beer and 4/5 7Up. Huh.

"Japanese boys are kinda cute!"
It's interesting how much gets lost when you change full-body art into just portraits, the old game seems to focus a lot more on the Medafighter and their pose and expression while the new one uses more generic art and focuses more on their Medabots. She looks much more battle-ready, and looks more amused than determined, which suits the little dialogue she has better. Interestingly, besides a Kingpharaoh, she uses two Two-legged Female Medabots, one of which is inspired by a patissier, and the other, called Auroraqueen which we'll see later, is based on a skier! A skier-inspired Medabot seems sort of odd coming from an Egyptian Medafighter, but it does make them just a tad more well-rounded than just using three obviously stereotypical Medabots.

His sharp skills trained in the frozen wastelands of Siberia are used to enrage his opponents!
Skier Medabots certainly make a lot more sense from a Medafighter out of Siberia. Pretty much all of his dialogue is about the heat as well, including his rather bizarre pre-battle dialogue from here. He actually uses a really nasty combination of three Auroraqueens, which are Medabots whose geometrical arms and head can strike enemies and freeze them solid in place, and he likes to chain his attacks so all three Medabots attack the same target in a row, and frozen Medabots are rendered defenseless meaning they take more damage and stay frozen longer when they get attacked repeatedly. He's also one of the few male characters to use female Medabots on his team, three of them nonetheless! Unfortunately for him, they're also very fragile Medabots, so if you don't get shattered during the first assault, it's easy to strike back and take them out quickly. Also, did you know Spumoni is a kind of ice-cream? I wonder if there's a theme here, hm.

"Is my next opponent a kid? I don't care if you're a kid, I'm not taking it easy on you."
He certainly seems much more jovial in this version, rather than grouchy. He kinda looks like a fun old man, though his dialogue probably suggests otherwise. Interestingly, he doesn't use any Auroraqueens in this version, but he uses a more customized team which is based around laying traps, dodging attacks and speeding himself up. I wonder whether the game still calls his skill sharp and enraging? His tactics do require you to work around them, but they don't directly affect you and they're not as sharp as the blades of his Auroraqueens. 

A swell Native-American working on Medabot research!
I said there were Native-American Medabots, and here they are! They've creatively been called Wigwamo (that's such a silly name :p) and they can use their acid attacks to Melt the enemy Medabots, which pretty much acts like Poison does in most games. Medabots are kind of violent, they use all sorts of nasty attacks, like rifles, chain guns, swords, hammers, they inflict viruses, burning, melting, they can paralyze you or freeze, they can shoot gravity beams which forcefully compact you or break you apart, they can shoot lasers and beams, and of course missiles and napalm strikes... Good thing they can't hurt humans because they have a Limiter!! As for Joe himself, he's more talkative than the other characters, talking about how he feels honoured to fight with the protagonist and how he works on research together with his father Ja Swihan. He'll pop up again later, just wait. For some odd reason, the Medabot Tournament Hall holds his heart? He also says this line if you fight him over Medalink, which is like the internet. Maybe the place was built on top of a Native-American burial site, oh no!

"Another memory in my heart."
Huh. His design has probably been altered the most. He's the only character from the tournament who actually appears on the show, so maybe they felt they had to redesign him? He rocks much longer, black hair as well as rounded glasses and a different outfit as well, and again, the fact that you see the character posing rather than a portrait also makes him look more distinct. Oddly enough, he uses a Wigwamo as his leader, but also uses a Ninja and Samurai Medabot. The Samurai Medabot uses swords that shoot frigging laser beams. Yeah, Medabots are awesome like that.

The passionate boy who brings with him the Latin Fire, Tequonic!
This is where things get a bit more complicated. Medabots, like Pokémon, tend to be sold in pairs as games, so while one person gets Metabee version, the other gets Rokucho version, just like with Red and Blue. Usually the differences between the versions in Pokémon are a few version exclusives, and Medabots largely follows the same formula, though because you get parts by winning Robattles, they also mix up which Medabots some random battles and most bosses uses. Tequonic, however, is a version-specific character, appearing in the Metabee version, while the Rokucho version gets Ryo, who I'll look at later. Unlike the other characters, Tequonic and Ryo fight the player outside of the tournament and over Medalink, first battling you as you're on a fetch quest, insisting on a battle and attacking you and excusing themselves because Medabots can't hurt people. This gets them arrested, of course. Later on, you fight the during the tournament, but they also fight you if you talk to them in the locker area where you can configure your Medabots before each battle. They're kind of jerks. 

I don't know why the game calls Tequonic a boy, the translation is pretty wonky in places, but he's obviously a grown man. A grown man with a poor grasp on English, though at least better than Kir's, I'm pretty sure this is kinda racist, but then it's not like he goes around shouting "¡Amigo!" like the Mexican Medafighters from the anime do, so it's not all bad. Aside from that, Tequonic pretty much insists on fighting everyone because he's hot-blooded like that and he uses his Chain-gun shooting Sabotinas which are the aforementioned cacti with sombreros and AK-47s for arms. I kinda wish Pokémon would go bonkers like that more often, but people seem to hate it when they do. I like Sabotina though. And Tequonic, his bumbling passion and broken English amuse me each time I play through the game, he's so quotable. 

"I am the winner of today's defeat!"
Yipes. The old version of Tequonic makes him look much creepier, what is up with that pose? O.o Sadly, I can't recall what Medabots he uses and the video I took the screencap from doesn't actually show the fight because you fight him thrice... 

The mysterious wandering Medafighter, Ryo!
Ryo is pretty much an alternate universe version of Tequonic, but while Tequonic is a Mexican who speaks broken English, Ryo is from Parts Unknown and treats Robattles as honourable duels to the death. He actually asks you for your name because he can't put you in the grave if he doesn't know your name. When beaten, he asks you to finish him off, which prompts the hero to say "Why do I have to kill you?!". Yeah, both Tequonic and Ryo seem pretty out there, but while Tequonic just seems too hot-headed and doesn't speak English very well, Ryo seems to live in a world of his own where honour has more value than life or reason, and you nickname your attacks like "Waza Kick", "Drill Attack" and the dreaded "Beauty Kiss", which he even made a battle cry for: "Sparkly twinkly squishy smooch!❤". Yeah, he's weird, and I'm not sure what his deal is, but just like Tequonic, the main character is embarrassed to know him. I think he's rather amusing, though, both he and Tequonic basically show how silly you look when you take your hobby too seriously. His Medabots are rather underwhelming compared to Tequonic's Sabotina, sadly. They are called Spiralle and they are... I'm not sure what they are, really. They use their drills as swords and have high health, but don't do much damage and aren't very accurate.

I couldn't find any art of his old version! So now I'll move on to the next segment! Think we were done already? HA! This is only the half-point! ... Well, not really. The next part shouldn't be as long, but the above parts were of the second game and its remake which was also released in the west. This is where I'll look at the characters from the first game and its remake which wasn't released in the West. Maybe you'll see why. Basically, while the second game doesn't really explain who the people in the tournament are except foreign Medafighters, in the first game you become the Japanese champion and fight against the champions of other continents, like Europe, America, Africa and... America again. Hm.


Doesn't this picture just say it all?! ... What do you mean, no!? Well... I don't know much either! All I know is that this gentleman is the European champion, and he represents... England? Or France? I'm not entirely sure, but I think he represents France. Interestingly enough, his team mostly consists of Rabbit Medabots that instantly charge up an ally's action, I'm not sure what the theme there is supposed to be, I know little of the first game. So, what did he look like in the remake...?


... Well, he looks different. It's not at all obvious at first, but this game is actually a remake of the first game, based on the engine of the second game's remake, but with an entirely different artstyle. This game's artstyle is very bizarre, you could say. I just posted an album of it here, with some old screenshots of the game: http://imgur.com/a/XZg9D And there's a lot of other portrait rips here, some of them truly special: http://i159.photobucket.com/albums/t148/Demonlemon/medapeeps-1.png At first I didn't like the style, but as I played on, it kinda grew on me, it just looks so unlike any other game, especially compared to the rather bland anime style of the second game's remake. Still, I can see why it's not for everyone. But as for the image itself, I'm kinda curious what his design is all about. Could you tell he's from France by just the design alone? It's a really weird design, but that makes me like it! As for the Medabots he uses, they have pretty little offense, the first can impair your parts making them unusable, while the second confuses you, which randomizes your Medabots' orders and makes them able to heal enemies and attack allies or themselves. It can cause a reality-breaking animation where they attack themselves. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zoaxEzLzAmI&feature=youtu.be&t=3m2s Overall, it's not a very difficult battle because status effects can't stack.


Oh look, It's Ja Swihan, Joe's dad! And he uses three Wigwamo. ... Uh, yeah. I think he represents America, but it's sorta hard to tell since there's also a Medafighter from New York, is he from South/Middle American?


Hm, yeah, this design definite screams Native-American, doesn't it? Yet for some reason he uses cacti with more obvious AK-47s, but without sombreros! One thing about this game that probably led to it not doing well was that it only had half as many Medabots as its predecessor, the remake of the second game, and most Medabots in this game have the same stats and abilities as Medabots from the other game, but they just got redesigns that most people would probably call uglier, but I'd prefer to call "wackier" and "weirder". There's some kind of charm to it all, but it's hard to deny the game looks a lot more childish, which might not appeal to everyone. Just look at these Medabots: http://i159.photobucket.com/albums/t148/Demonlemon/medarips-2.png


The medafighter from New York. Again, not really much to say about this, except that she uses Redmatador. Huh, so far Redmatador has been in the South Kingdom team and the American team. The remake of this game uses Redmatador for regular generic NPCs too, though, but the Cows in particular use three of them, for ironic. And yes, you can robattle cows in Medabots. Medabots is weird. You can robattle your dog in one of the games too. Or stray Medabots. Or men dressed as kappas. Yup.


Here's the remade version of her. She looks a lot more competitive here, she's got the most definable personality from her sprite, just like Tequonic and Ryo, she robattles you in the locker room if you talk to her there, indicating a competitive Robattler. Corelis told me she also says "Mii" and "Yuu" in Japanese, so she's probably speaking English a little bit, I guess it fits with her being from New York. Her Medabots can shoot Lasers which are deadly since they do double damage, and while most Laser-using Medabots are slow, hers are pretty fast. One very dangerous lady.


Hey, look, another Egyptian! They actually used this design over Shandy's when they used an Egyptian Medafighter team in the anime, and her name in the anime was Petra. She again uses three Kingpharaoh in this game, but her design is pretty respectable, even if cliché. So, between Shandy and Petra, what does the remake of this game offer for the African representative in the Medabots World Tournament?!

Oh.
Yeah, I was kinda surprised when I saw they went with this design for the remake, it's certainly something. I dunno if a design like this would fly in an international release, it certainly seems like the most transparently stereotypical and likely to cause offense, considering something like Jynx didn't fly, and that was a Pokémon, not a person, though I couldn't comment on her dialogue since I can't read Japanese, but it sounded pretty standard, typical dialogue from what Corelis told me. Still though, it's a very different direction from Petra and Shandy, who both look way less like a discredited stereotype. I wonder whether it's the yearly controversy over the whole "Zwarte Piet" issue, which I sort of incorporated in Dutch Quest in a way that probably made little sense, but it's pretty uncomfortable anyway.

Medabots-wise, she's pretty much identical to Petra and Shandy, though, using three altered versions of Kingpharaos, who are actually female in this game, huzzah! Medabots tends to give female Medabots the shaft, they largely get more typecast into being cute and having servant-like qualities, like Medabots based on maids and the like, so it's nice that the first game's remake adds some more variety, largely by turning male Medabots female, like a Plant Medabot, Spider Medabot and even the final boss becomes female Weapon Type Medabot, inspired by Korean Princesses apparently. 


Anyway, I just wanted to talk about all this, yes! This blog is probably more fun for me to write than for others to read, since most of these blogs are me wanting to get things off my chest more than anything else, though feedback and comments are of course very appreciated too! I probably spent more time writing this than most people spend time on these tournament parts of the games, but I just kinda like seeing games like this add a sort of international flair, even if it means the enemies are stereotypes and their mons/bots are too, maybe it's even better for it, like how the whole Punch-Out roster is filled with national stereotypes, but plays it for laughs and not seriously. What would an international Pokémon tournament be like? Or a Miasmon tournament on AF? What Miasmon best represent the six petals? What would the archetypal Goblin be and what team does he/she use?!


... Eh, what? I promised something special if you made it to the end...? ... Hm, well, alright. I can cover just one more character, I guess. Perhaps something she says is familiar?

Bibbity bobbity milky moo!~
Yes, it's the character who's the basis for my entry and exist messages, woo! I should probably give some context as to who she is and why she says this. During the third 'chapter' of the game, the main character and friends go to an amusement park, which is also where the tournament takes place. At one point, you find out children have gone missing in the park, and the Rubberrobos are selling pictures of "cute kids" (They also have Medabots tickle girls during the first part of the game, what's up with that? O.o) and at one point you end up taking a tour through the Witch's Castle of Milky the Witch. Milky basically proclaims you the hero and you fight the evil army of the Dark Master, who are obviously just Rubberrobo Gang members, but when you save one of the children on the tour from the Dark Master, who's just a Medabot actor, the girl actually is never relinquished, and after the tour ends and you're ready to leave the park, a concerned mother says she lost her kid in the Witch's Castle. You basically go back in to take the tour again, but then choose to split up from the tour and snoop around, until you find a stairway mysteriously leading down. As you approach it, Milky basically says it's for staff only and the battle above begins. 

She probably just says the line about the spell to stay in-character, and her Medabots are Sunwitch the Witch Medabot and two Wolfeel the... wolfeel Medabots. Wolfeels are animals and they're totally adorable. Apparently they are rather curious and friendly animals, even though they can bite.

Aww
Anyway, yes, Sunwitch shoots banana peels at you, called the "Pushover" ability. The banana peels cause you to slip and fall on your head, damaging the head and making you unable to perform your next action if you are facing towards your target. It's a pretty broken ability and destroying the head destroys a Medabot, and it shuts down slow Medabots, it's an ability no other Medabot has. Wolfeel, meanwhile, is the only male Medabot capable of inflicting Paralysis, making its parts very valuable too. Too bad you can only get three parts total out of 8 you'd want to have... Ah well.

Milky has an old design too, where she looks much more child-like.
After you beat Milky, and she says you are too old for her spell to work, she becomes angry with you and makes you the prize jewel of her collection as she throws you into her dungeon which is where the stairs led to. There's several kids there who explain Milky basically works with the Rubberrobo Gang to supply them with kids who can join their ranks while she can keep the cutest, sweetest purest children to live in a magical castle somewhere else with her. The game never implies she intends to actually do any harm to them and her she thinks she's doing them a favour, but she's obviously still just kidnapping children. You don't meet her until later in the game, where she's up to her old tricks again, and you beat her again and make her realize some dreams are not worth chasing and association with the Rubberrobos is not a good way to live one's life, and she releases the kids and warps away, never to be seen again... Well, except on Medalink, apparently she uses the internet as well, just like every other named NPC, even one from the ancient past... Yeah.

So I based my entry and exit messages on an adult who kidnaps children to take them to a 'magical land' by working together with a group of rubber-clad adults selling pics of cute kids. Yep. :D

10 Jun 2015

Barbara Millicent Roberts Season 7, Episode 7: Alone in the Dreamhouse

The Great Chelsea Theorem

Have you ever noticed that the pacing, tone, and story development of the Barbie series is filled with bizarre and inexplicable moments? That the continuity between episodes seems lacking, suggesting there is no real passage of time? I have a theory.

In this episode of Barbie, which I have dubbed the Grand Revelation of the show, all the pieces of the puzzle suddenly connected once I realized the true events that lie behind this episode and the shocking, disturbing light it casts on the entire series. 

Please, watch this episode intently: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4mux__bUO_8

For you who would rather not, allow me to explain: On an unassuming summer day, Barbie decides to take two of her sisters, Skipper and Stacie, with her to the beach, leaving her youngest sibling, Chelsea alone. Chelsea is initially saddened, but quickly realizes this means she has the house and the pets all for herself and chooses to take advantage of that fact. She decides to ride a surfboard off a staircase and out of a window into a pool, and what follows are some other scenes of her having fun, such as playing cards with her pets or warding off neighbours Raquelle and Ryan who are invading her house, thinking someone must have broken into Barbie's house, since it was meant to be unoccupied and catching the criminals might get Raquelle her own soda line. After successfully repelling the well-intentional duo, Barbie returns and takes Chelsea to the beach at last, finally remembering she forgot to take her.

Doesn't all this seem strange to you, incongruous even? Like the rest of the show, abnormal events occur without having the consequences they should. I always found this aspect of the show disturbing, often I would find myself sleepless at night, feeling that something was amiss, but what could it be? What about this show was so despair-inducing, what secrets lie beneath that pink and plastic exterior? It was then that I discovered that horrifying truth and my life forever changed.

Chelsea is in a coma.

Now, I know this might sound ridiculous, but it actually explains everything. After Chelsea rode the skateboard out of the window, she never landed in a pool filled with water... The pool was drained of water that day. That was when poor, innocent Chelsea crashed right into the ground, filling the pool with her blood as she lied unconscious.

Scene of the incident
Raquelle and Ryan never meant to break into her house, they actually witnessed the events and saved Chelsea... Though perhaps saved is a big word, as now she lies in a coma in the Barbie Hospital.

It is my belief that this episode is actually the first episode in the Life in the Dreamouse chronology, and that all other events of the Life in the Dreamhouse series are Chelsea's mind trying to cope with her inner demons in a child-like struggle between Good, Evil and Nothing.

Terrifying
Every aspect of the show, every character represents a part of Chelsea's mind. Barbie, for example, is Chelsea's perfect big sister. She is always there for her, she is the woman who can take on any job, she is the world's biggest star, she has a loving boyfriend and she herself also loves everyone else. This highly idealized image only shows how deeply Chelsea feels overshadowed by her talented big sister, an overworked doctor at the local hospital who always seems busy with things beyond Chelsea's grasp, to her it must seem like she has a dozen of BFFs and jobs. Barbie has it all, Barbie is all, Barbie is Everything, Barbie is Perfection.

Perfection
BFFs. Is it not odd how many friends Barbie has, yet Chelsea never seems to have friends herself? In her own mind, Chelsea idolizes friendship, Barbie can maintain a best friendship status with half a dozen people, but that ideal does little to hide the fact that when Chelsea tries to imagine friends of her own, her mind cannot conjure any image. The only time she tried, her friends ended up being colour-swapped clones of herself. 

Blond, brown, black
As you can plainly see, Chelsea never had any friends, and now she's in a coma, she never will...

Chelsea has two other sisters, Skipper and Stacie. It is my belief that they represent Evil and Good respectively. Skipper is a girl who is all about technology and teen-like apathy, to Chelsea she represents fear of going through puberty, fear of growing up, fear of time itself, that she too will one day become rotten like her older, unappreciative sister.

The face of Evil
Meanwhile, Stacie, the sister we see less of, is enthusiastic, likes to plan in advance and is always up for a game of sports or hanging with Barbie. She is the antithesis to Skipper, and in Chelsea's mind the opposite of Evil is Good. This is all what Stacie represents to Chelsea now.

The face of Good
So, Evil and Good. What remains? Nothing. That's right, Nothingness itself. Ken might seem like he is perfectly made for Barbie, like he is almost like a part of her. But the truth is that Ken never existed in the first place, he is a figure Chelsea made up to cope with the concept of love, but in doing so, she made Ken a lesser form of Barbie, he is just as loving as her, but where Barbie is competent, Ken is incompetent. Where Barbie has a whole, rich life of her own, Ken is defined almost solely by his relation to Barbie and those related to Barbie. In a world where Barbie is the center of all, where Barbie is everything, Ken can only ever be Nothing.

The face of Nothing
Now, I mentioned the concept of love before, but it is my belief that Chelsea struggles with the concept of love herself. Though she is still a small girl, she is already questioning her sexuality in a world of a perfect match between Everything and Nothing, a man and a woman. But Chelsea knows deep down she doesn't want a man, she wants a woman. But this clashes with her image of Barbie, her image of Everything. To cope with these feelings of anxiety, she created a deceitful duo who intend to stop at nothing to break up the pair of Barbie and Ken: Raquelle and Ryan. Though they are dutiful neighbours, in Chelsea's fantasies they are a pair or perpetual apples of discord, Raquelle doing everything she can to undermine Barbie while Ryan does the same with Ken. Though at first glance it seems Raquelle lusts after Ken, and Ryan after Barbie, it is actually the other way around.

Throughout the whole show, Raquelle does everything she can to one-up Barbie, to not just equate but triumph over her in the field of attention, affection, fabulousness, anything that is Barbie, but Barbie is ever ignorant of it and sees her as just another BFF, not a candidate for love. Meanwhile, as a sort of sick copy of a copy, counterpart to a counterpart, Ryan secretly lusts after Ken, but his personality is doubly vacuous, his sole trait being vanity for his own, male form, a form Ken shares, a fact that drives him to madness yet also peculiar arousal.

The faces of Love
Of course, this has only accounted for the important human cast. Though the animals exist and they can talk, I believe this to be Chelsea's childlike innocence and her interest in anthropomorphism, perhaps she is a budding furry, but I do not believe I can give a conclusive answer to that effect. More worrying, however, is how everyone else, every other human who is not a part of Chelsea's life, is actually exactly identical. They all use the same base models, Raquelle and Ken's specifically. I do not believe this to be a coincidence, they are the closest to Barbie without being Barbie, the perfect filler.

Who are these people?
All-in-all, I think it's quite clear now what is really going on in Barbie: Life in the Dreamhouse. I do not know if I shall sleep well tonight, or if I shall ever sleep again, but day after day, my mind is haunted by the thought of the torment Chelsea is going through... Forever is she trapped in a world of plastic and fakeness, of dolls and deceit, of endless friends yet no friends, forever being pulled apart by the forces of Good, Evil, Nothing and Love, as Barbie watches on forever, smiling and showing all the concern a loving sister would, just like the real Barbie is as she looks over the real Chelsea, her hands in her hair, unable to cope with the reality of what her forgetfulness had caused. 

Truly, Chelsea is living inside of a Dreamhouse, because nothing what goes on in her house is real anymore...

8 Jun 2015

An examination of examinations, being better in bed and emptiness from goodness

For some reason, it feels like it's been a while since I last wrote a blog! Even though it was just the fifth of June, and it's about the be the eight for me as I'm writing this. I guess it's because there's been multiple things I've been wanting to write about the past few days, but I only got around to it now, so there's probably going to be about three parts to this blog.


First of, there's the exams. I tend to mention my exams while chatting on Skype, at the end of each semester. Exams have always seemed like the most tangible obstacles in life to me, you know what you can do to prepare for them and you know whether you passed or not as soon as you get your grade. I've always had little trouble passing exams, but it sure starts to sound sad when those are somehow the things I consider the hurdles in my life, unlike something like maintaining a social life, getting a (temporary) job,  not to mention a love life... Maybe I just have this one-track mind, and all I am focused on is my education? Though that is hardly a good thing...

Really though, it's odd looking back at how my mind always sees these exams as these big things like that when they happen, yet in retrospect they all seem much less meaningful, and certainly less daunting. Back when I first started at university, I was always so scared of exams, yet when I look back at them now, they seem like child's play compared to my third year. The entirety of my first year was devoted to economics, and by extension maths, accounting and finance. It's odd to think I saw things such as Quantitative Methods as so daunting, while I now have law courses which take much more time and effort... But going to university for three years now, being at the end of my year and so close to getting my Bachelor, it feels like much of that nervousness has just eroded. I'll be so glad when I finish my exam the upcoming Friday with a good feeling, yet I'm also afraid what to do next without such a tangible goal in front of me. There's the Master afterwards, but that's three months away, and I really don't want to waste three months, not like last year... But I suppose I'll need to work on that, yes! Starting by sending a phone call to the local cinema, how tedious that right after I send an open appliance and it's rejected, it turns out an employee is going to leave, giving me a second chance. And if that doesn't work out, I guess I'll need to find something else.


The weather's really turned around lately as well, just last Friday, we had a barbecue and everything! That day was a rather weird day, I spent pretty much the entirety of the day either laying in bed or outside. For some reason, doing things inside of bed always feels the most right to me. I always go over my notes and other paper-based material in bed, doing that feels much better to me than sitting at some desk or heavens forbid doing it digitally. Yet so much of the world is digital now, but reading things from a screen while sitting just doesn't sit as well with my as doing it from bed. Considering I had to plow through a 90-page summary, I pretty much rearranged stuff so I could lay in bed while studying from the PC, taking breaks at times while using the remote keyboard to play games on the PC. It feels so much better than just sitting, it's like sitting makes my mind wander off to all sorts of places while laying in bed does not. I wonder if that's a common thing?

It reminds me of how I can't stand sitting in a lecture hall in the middle of the day, which makes me fall asleep, yet laying in bed and listening to a recording of a lecture during the evening is more relaxing than anything... I guess it's not possible to do everything from out of the bed, though. I wonder if I could set stuff up so I could use the PC from bed? I doubt it, sigh, I guess that is what makes playing a game on a handheld or a console feel different from a PC, or reading a book, like Goblin Quest. I do need to get back to that, I finished the first book, but there's still two left! Maybe there are other books to read? Ones about Goblins, of course. I can't imagine sitting down and reading a book, but doing it in bed just feels right.


Something I don't think I've talked about at all recently is a show I've been watching, As Told By Ginger. I think  started about a month ago, maybe longer ago, and I stopped at some point, but yesterday and today I watched most of the last season, and it left such an impact. It's a show mostly for young teenagers, probably aimed more at girls than boys too, but I just found the characters, plots and such so likable that I watched the whole thing, and it got so poignant at moments, it just left me feeling very good yet also sort of empty since it's over now. I guess that's the feeling you always get when something you enjoyed had a satisfying conclusion, huh? Whether it's a show, a book, or that one wacky space adventure game you got so obsessed with only to spend days listening through audiofiles and going through hours of video footage... Yeah. So many things feel empty lately, and it's only going to get emptier, I really need to get things together once the week's over, I really do...

5 Jun 2015

A walk in the woods

I was just going through my Facebook feed, as I sometimes do, and I came across a post from George Takei about some kind of relational psychology test thing. It piqued my interest, so I checked it out.


It sounds like hokey psychology and I doubt it has any real value, but I tried it anyway just to see what kind of nonsense it has to say about me. Spoilers: It's probably nothing valuable.

Okay, so I am walking through the forest with someone. My mind kinda just farted and I chose to go into the forest alone. Oh woe is I!

Oh, but apparently there's an animal with me, a snake!! Yes. Eek, very scary. Except it's not scary because it talks and it's totally sassy and whatnot.

So, me and my sassy snake come across this house, it's not a house though, it's more of a small, dilapidated shack, showing signs of age, wear and tear, with a murky inside that surely hides some kind of forest-dwelling psychopath.

So, of course I go in, what are they going to do to me when I have a sassy, wise-cracking snake with me? Psh, I'm the protagonist! Except there's no psycho inside, there's only a table with some items on it. A dusty, murky old book and the sort of fancy coffeepot you would expect in a sweet old lady's house.

Choosing not to partake in any caffeine, I choose to go into the garden instead, where I see a cup made from hardened clay. Figuring it must be absolutely filthy and dirty, I lay it on the ground right after picking it up. Yuck!

At the end of the garden, which is somewhere between a garden for growing vegetables and a swamp, there is a pool. A rather typical pool, not too large or small, but it's pretty much a disgusting swamp, eurgh. 

I cross the pool to get back home, getting intensely soaked, dirty and probably terminally diseased in the process. Nobody knows where the snake has gone. 


A delightful tale, but what does it all mean?


The person you were walking with is the most important person in your life.

Well. damn. Either I have nobody important in my life, I am my own most important person, or I just really wish I had a wisecracking serpentine sidekick. Sadly enough, the last one is probably the least of a downer.

The size of the animal you come across is a representation of the size of your problems.

Size? How big is a snake? Do you measure it by length? It is probably long, but could fit in a small box, probably. See, this is my real problem!

If your action was more severe, it means you tend to be more aggressive. If it was peaceful, then more passive.

I'm going to assume wisecracking means I am just very passive-aggressive? Oh, sure, that makes perfect sense. I'm so glad I did this whole story, oh I truly am!

The size of your home is representative of the size of your ambition.

I guess that one's right at least.

If there was no fence around the home, it means you tend to be more open.

Apparently I am very open with the creepy murky depths of my soul, oooh. :o

If what you saw on the table wasn’t food, people, or flowers, it indicates some unhappiness.

I AM HAPPY YAY :D

How durable the cup you found was is representative of how strong your relationship is with the person in the first part of the story. What you do with it is representative of your attitude toward them.

I put myself down in disgust? That sounds like me after a healthy dose of masturbamation. Ohyesh.

The size of the body of water is related to the size of your sexual drive.

Well, compared to any natural body of water, I guess my sex drive is small and artificial...? And apparently very dirty and swampy. ... Uh-uh,

If you became very wet, it indicates that sex is important to you. If not very wet, it may mean it’s less important.

ME WANT SEX GRR.


So, that was my walk through the woods. My take on it? Nature sucks, just stay inside, the wisecracking sidekick's not worth it.

1 Jun 2015

Barberdeboob Season 7, Episode 6: Dissin' Cousins

omg

lik today ther was a new barbs episode!!! XD

and it had ken and brbie adn it was amazin!!!! O_O'''''

but then ben shwd up n hes kens cosuin and i hat ben lik go away ban!! >.<''''

bt then bn fites a ber adn teh bers like raaaaaaaar and te bers on a diet lol XD

so ken is lik totes down cuz bens like such a dork ken nooo lol >.<'''''

bt then brabies lik ken i luv u adn kens lik rlly and rabies like rlly it was so cut lol O/////O''''

adn ben doesnt lik sherbt but i think hes gay lol XD

also ken is min so hadns off lol!!!! >.<'''''

overll mi ratins like 1000/5 lol ken is da man lol i luv u ken marry me lol jk XD''''''

http://kisscartoon.me/Cartoon/Barbie-Life-in-the-Dreamhouse-Season-07/Episode-006-Dissin-Cousins?id=56680