Howdy everyone! This is my first time using my blog, something I’ve been meaning to use since 2023. Oh well! Never too late to start, I guess.
In my absence from Neocities, I recently decided to revisit the BFDI series. I had watched BFB when I was around 14 years old, and dropped the series by the time TPOT 1 released. Watching through all the episodes I missed for the first time with my boyfriend (who I managed to rope into watching with me) was a super enjoyable experience, and I’ve come out of it completely hooked. Maybe one day I’ll make another blog post on my thoughts on each season, who knows?
As for my thoughts on the series currently, I REALLY love BFDIA. It’s goofy, fun, and has consistently great animation. I feel that many of my favorite characters, such as Tennis Ball, Golf Ball, Fries, and Ruby, really shine in this season. I adore it with all my heart.
TPOT, on the other hand, has less priority in my head. While I do think it is a great season, some episodes fall flat for me personally. Some are extremely good though! My personal favorites have got to be TPOT 9 and 13.
The Release of TPOT 16 marks the first episode that’s released since I’ve begun watching again. This is huge, not only since I can react live with every other fan, I can also vote for what character I want to stay in the game. I will get who exactly I voted for later on.
Now that I’ve gotten that out of the way, I can really begin to explain my thoughts on this new episode (I’m sorry for making the intro so long). Keep in mind that these are my pure unfiltered thoughts RIGHT after watching the episode, no rewatches or extreme analyzing will be here. Spoilers ahead as well! (obviously).
Okay, this one’s going to start off negative right away. Pin should NOT have gotten out. Unfortunately, Death PACT has an extremely tight knit dynamic, and the moment she was brought on this team I knew she and the other team newcomers were doomed. It’s extremely unfortunate, because I felt like her addition to the team could’ve been something interesting, but I felt she was pretty severely shafted writing wise as she did… basically nothing. Her elimination was inevitable. If I could personally choose who to eliminate this time around, I’d probably go for Marker. He’s cute and funny, but that can only really go so far. I know most people want Tree out, but I don’t know, I like him quite a lot. These past couple Death PACT eliminations have proven that Black Hole, Fanny, Tree, and Marker should’ve been separated. They did it with TB and GB, and Pen and Eraser, other duos that were far too dependent on each other, but not these guys for some reason? Oh well, guess it’s too late now. It’s unfortunate that Death PACT is immediately back to the status quo, even if I think that status quo is entertaining.
I don’t have much to say about Ice Cube’s elimination. Ice Cube was never a character I cared about that much, especially since a majority of her speaking lines for the longest time was recycling old audio clips. I am glad Book didn’t get eliminated just yet though. She's one of the characters in TPOT I enjoy a lot, with her whole deal of trying to make new friends after losing her primary friend group (even if I didn’t like the arc that caused that friendship break-up in BFB). One thing about these eliminations that regularly baffle me is how popular Snowball is. I do not get it at ALL, I had always felt characters like Eraser and Blocky were more interesting versions of him. If any snowball fans want to tell me exactly why they like him so much, be my guest. I don’t get it, genuinely!
I appreciate this episode trying to spotlight characters that have not done much as of late. Grassy was a character I pretty heavily disliked due to him doing so little so far this season, but I found him controlling Tree very charming and funny. I liked it! I’m also very happy to see Roboty again, even if not as a contestant. I feel that screentime between characters felt more balanced, though I could be totally wrong as my memory of past episodes can be a bit poor.
My brain tells me that Tennis Ball needs time on the sideline for the sake of other characters, but my greedy-ass heart tells me that I want him to be a massive screenhog. He was super cute in the short appearance he had, though, so I can’t complain. TV was also extremely cute this episode, supporting his teammates. I love TV, nobody dare look at me and tell me’s “overrated”.
Liy. Liy, Liy, Liy, Liy, Liy. OH MY GOD!!! I’m so happy you guys you DO NOT get it. I have been waiting patiently for SO many years for Liy to finally get some significance in BFDI. I’ve been so deeply intrigued by her. Her first couple appearances since she was voted in were very worrying for me, I feared that Pencil was going to be the rejoin that got all the attention since they immediately threw her into an arc, despite her not even being the EXITor that won. But she was SO good this episode. I love her current relationship with Pen, I think it’s now one of the strongest and most compelling friendships we have right now. I really do hope we get to peek more into her… pretty mysterious complexities. There’s a lot we don’t know about Liy’s backstory and I hope we get to learn more about her as time goes on. I like her encouragement towards Pen to let his anger out, but to control it. Speaking of him, Pen is also a character I never paid attention to, but I think the outright grief he feels towards Eraser’s elimination, and the anger he feels towards Pencil for “causing” it is incredibly interesting, I feel that isn’t something that happens a lot in BFDI, Usually a duo with an eliminated character will have one scene where the contestant acts sad for a bit, but moves on pretty quickly. I hope we get to see more with Pen moving forward.
Pencil is a character I outright hated in BFB, and I was very disappointed with her rejoining in TPOT. This largely had to do with her being far too realistic of a depiction of a “mean girl” in that season, hitting uncomfortably close to home as someone who grew up with people similar to her. I could acknowledge why people liked her, but it was something I couldn’t get behind AT ALL. Her writing in BFB has outright soured every other appearance she’s had for me because of that, unfortunately. TPOT 16 has made me accept the fact that Pencil is a necessary source for conflict, and I do find her a bit more interesting now. I do really hope that her arc is resolved relatively quickly or cools down a bit just because I don’t want characters like Donut and Golf Ball to just revolve around Pencil in the future. I am sort of worried that if Pencil continues down this path, she’ll end up getting her arc cut short with an elimination, even with the vote to save system. I did enjoy how they handled Pencil, Golf Ball, and donut this episode compared to TPOT 14 and 15.
The last thing I really want to get into is that I loved Four and X hosting this episode. They felt very malicious and pre-split-esque here. I definitely love Two as a host, but they’re no match to Four and X’s dynamic. I don’t really have much to say other than I found them extremely funny here.
Now, the twist for this episode is that CloudYAY is up for elimination… twice! I am TERRIFIED. I feel that every character in this team is pretty damn good, and I think any of them being eliminated will be pretty sad, let alone two of them!
Now, as for who I personally voted for, I went for Golf Ball and Donut. I feel pretty secure that GB will stay in the show as she’s extremely popular, but I wanted to be extra safe. Donut, however, I am a bit worried about. He’s one of my favorite characters and I desperately hope he stays in.
Deciding who I would want out of the team is difficult, but I feel that CloudYAY could survive without Pillow and Yellow Face. I find both these characters entertaining, but I think their teammates have much more going on plot wise. I am also extremely sorry to my boyfriend who voted for Yellow Face for betraying him like this.
Not much to say, I just think it was pretty good! Probably one of my favorites so far, but time will tell. I hope TPOT continues on with this level of quality as I feel it would make up for a pretty solid season of BFDI.
To anyone who bothered to read this massive yap session, thank you! Have a great day. :)