#The ghost IS Molly Mcgee

[emositecc]

Im excited for this one.

[tgammsideblog]

How The Ghost IS Molly Mcgee plays with the body swap trope

One episode i want to talk about is The Ghost IS Molly Mcgee. In this episode Molly and Scratch ¨swap¨ bodies and each one has to deal with the other's problem. This episode was pretty well received by the fandom, one of the reasons being different from body swap from other animated shows.

In this post i'm going to talk what separates The Ghost Is from other episodes of its type and how that made it be a more unique take on the trope.

1) The voices switching between Molly and Scratch kinda make sense in universe

One thing that it is common in body swap episodes is that the characters switch their voices when they swap bodies too. This is kind of annoying for some people since there isn't any explanation of why this happens.

In Tgamm when this happens is a bit different because Molly and Scratch don't exactly swap bodies: Molly becomes a wraith and Scratch takes control of Molly's human body. When Scratch posesses a human, his voice comes off mixed with human's voice that he is controlling. But because Molly's spirit isn't in her body and Scratch is posessing an empty husk, only his voice comes out of it.

In Molly's case, she isn't controlling any body. She is in her wraith form disguised as Scratch. It does make sense why we hear her natural voice from her.

2) Molly and Scratch don't change bodies to see who ¨has it easier¨ like in other body swap episodes do.

The reason Molly and Scratch do body swap in this episode is because they think the other would be more capable in completing certain task. Scratch is better at being honest and firm than Molly is, as shown in ��Goat Your Own Way¨ and Molly is better at being kind and sentimental.

Scratch is tasked with running the school play Molly is in charge of and Molly has to make the Ghost Council feel appreciated so they can get back to work.

This is another main difference with other body swap episodes. The characters involved are trying to help each other out instead of acting like jerks. It's a nice change of pace for a episode story trope that has been done many times in other shows.

3) Molly and Scratch don't have to ¨fake¨ being each other. In fact they have to act like themselves to solve the other's problem.

Another thing that is common in body swap episodes is that the characters involved have to fake being the person from the body they find themselves stuck into until they can reverse the swap. This can be funny depending on the situation, specially if the characters have very different personalities.

In The Ghost IS Scratch and Molly don't have to fully fake being the other. In fact, the way to solve their problem is to act like they would naturally would. In Scratch case being rude and tough and Molly being her usual nice self. Again, they aren't doing this to sabotage the other, they are trying to help each other out.

In conclusion: The Ghost IS Molly Mcgee plays around the typical premise of body switch tropes by changing some aspects of it and, as result, it gives it a more unique take on the trope, making it a fun episode to watch.

[drakkonyan]

guess who arted some lil more before going sleepy

[candydos]

The Ghost IS Molly McGee/All in the Mind

https://mega.nz/file/cLpTxTgA#p2Qez3fz_sgQRRyJPx-b1LT8ZCnRmLetUOnOdBB7hTY

(if that doesn’t work, try https://drive.google.com/file/d/1PpIXPGIS1GGxJEnFSKGB4sBiHdyFuexM/view?usp=sharing)

[cheesytrishy]

"oh where was I? oh right...crippling sadness"

[pauliedraws]

Trucy in the Molly McGee style

[awakefor48hours]

I just want to know how much these audiences overlap

Please consider reblogging for a larger sample size.

*If you don't know what qualifies as "watching" (ie you're not done or have given up on the show), if you've watched season 1 to completion, then consider it as you’ve watched it.

Edit/clarification: If your definition of "watching" doesn't align with mine, that's fine. Use your own definition if you want, the definition I added was just for the people who I knew were going to comment under this with "OP, define 'watch'"

[candyheartedchy]

It’s finally spooky season! 🎃

[yourpalsalamander]

its past midnight for me rn but i had to scribble something out bc i love molly mcgee so much and i can do whatever i want with my ability to draw

(look over here »»-----------►)

[parasomnico12]

"Plushie"

[emositecc]

My sillies being sillies again

[tgammsideblog]

Scratch and Leadership

The season 2 episode premiere ¨The New Paranormal¨ explores the consequences of Season 1 finale ¨The Jig is Up / Molly vs The Ghost World¨. With the original Chairman getting destroyed, the Ghost World needs a new leader to fill the space that got left. Since Scratch is the ghost that ¨defeated¨ the previous ruler, he has to become the new Chairman.

In ¨The New Paranormal¨ Scratch gets tricked by the Ghost Council into becoming the new leader by having to use the chairman robes to scare the frightmares that were in the Mcgees house away. He gives the order to not cause any chaos to the ghost population, since ¨it brings trouble to him and he hates it¨. Scratch makes a deal to work with the Ghost Council considering they know how things work.

In general Scratch doesn't want anything to do with taking charge of his responsibilities in the Ghost World. He would rather do his best to avoid them or quickly be done with them and teleport back to what he was doing previously. He doesn't make much of an effort to learn how the system works nor tries to change it for the better. He feels like it is a role that was unjustly dropped into him without being able to make a choice in it.

A lot of this seems to come from Scratch feeling like he was stuck in a very repetitive job that made him miserable as human (Todd). Once he became a wraith/ghost he lost his morals of taking responsibility since it unconsciously reminded him of his depressive state when he was human. This could explain in part why Scratch avoids most of his chairman duties and responsibilities.

As the creators put it in an interview, Scratch's arc as chairman during season 2 is about this:

One of it was [that] a lot of people want to grow up and be in leadership, and something like want[ing] to be president. But then, to be president is really hard, and it takes a lot of responsibility, and you have to care about what you’re doing. So, it was sort of a little metaphor about [how] leadership is tricky, and it takes a lot of attention and care and thought. Again, he’s the leader now, right? He’s the guy in charge, and that comes with a whole raft of responsibilities. And we’re going to see, like Bill just said, being a leader is hard, and you got to be intentional about it. And Scratch is not. And that’ll lead to disasters coming down the pike. Many of them.

Source: https://www.nerdsandbeyond.com/2023/04/01/interview-the-ghost-and-molly-mcgee-creators-bill-motz-and-bob-roth-on-what-to-expect-from-season-2/

In multiple episodes we see Scratch making questionable decisions as chairman, like avoiding his duties, making others do the work for him, causing a mess in the workplace and misusing his power.

In ¨Dance Dad Revolution¨ he tricks ghosts into cleaning the Haunty Haunts club by making it look like a fun dance instead of doing it himself. He abuses his power as chairman, ordering others to do his duties as it was a game while he goes to sleep. At the end of the episode a mess is caused that leaves the room all dirty again and he is forced to clean it up himself.

In Season 1 there has been a few episodes that show how Scratch would be pretty authoritative, if not abusive, if he decided to take his role as leader more seriously. These episodes being ¨Goat Your Own Way¨ and ¨The Internship¨. During both occasions he was giving orders because he enjoyed the power that came with it and it was a responsibility.

¨The Ghost IS Molly Mcgee¨ also shows that he could be an effective leader if he put his mind into it when he decided to take Molly's place to be charge of a play. He threatened kids with using a hammer if they didn't follow his orders, making obey him quite quickly. In this example he was doing this to help Molly and for the sake of having fun, demostrating again that he cares about leadership if he sees it as a game.

As much of a disaster Scratch is as chairman, he does make some positive changes to the Ghost World: He doesn't use the Flow of Failed Phantoms as a punishment for ghosts, instead chosing to trap them in things like dolls and canisters if they are causing trouble for others.

He does give Lord Doom, one of the most dangerous ghosts, a second chance after he got cursed to be trapped into a doll. In Necro-comicon episode he is happy that Lord Doom is doing well with his new family. In ¨Unhaunting of Brighton Video¨ he is seen helping the team dealing with Blair and her unfinished business. He brings down the whole system of forcing ghosts to scare off humans and keep the Ghost World miserable since he doesn't feed off from misery like the original Chairman did. Ghosts now scare for fun like seen in the episode ¨Frightmares On Main Street¨. This allows them to be able to be more friendly with humans. In general he lets ghosts to have fun and be more free under his reign as long as they don't disturb other ghosts or humans.

He seems to have a lot of fans seeing in ¨The Afterlife of The Party¨ and ¨Jinx!¨. Not surprising considering he isn't as authoritative as the past Chairman and he is a lot more approachable. There is a crowd following him in ¨Jinx!¨ asking for his autograph and he gets invited to a popular ghost party in ¨The Afterlife of The Party¨. In contrast, when the original Chairman showed up in ¨A Very Hungry Ghost¨ in the Mcgees's backyard, all ghosts disappeared, being terrified of the Chairman.

The way ghosts act around Scratch in Season 2 resembles someone meeting a celebrity rather than a leader. Makes sense because Scratch doesn't take his job seriously and uses is for the status and fame that gives him. Still, most seem to like it regardless of that.

In ¨The Afterlife of The Party¨ he lies about being sick to Geoff so he is able to go to an elite ghost party, something he wanted to do all his time as ghost. Before becoming the new chairman he was always pushed around by most of the ghosts. He was happy when he got invited to one of these popular parties for once. Near the end of the episode he learns that the party was Geoff and Jeff's 100th anniversary of being partners. He apologizes to Geoff for lying to him and Geoff forgives him.

Scratch constanly misuses his chairman powers to throw random curses as a way to fix his problems. He uses curses to help Molly with her fears in ¨FONAA!¨ and to get a perfect day in ¨Perfect Day¨, only for the curse to end up backfiring. In ¨Alaka-Sham¨ it is shown that he used so many curses that the curse cabinet was as its fullest and, because Scratch refuses to do something about it, the cabinet ends up exploding on him and the Ghost Council and has to clean up all the mess. There is one occasion he used this in a way that was useful: In ¨All In The Mind¨ to find why his spectral body was having bubbles all around. He and Molly went inside his own mind and found a memory that was a childhood friend that Scratch had named Adia.

In ¨All Shark No Bite¨ he learns that he can create ghost creatures using his chairman powers and they obey his commands. He accidentally created a ghost shark that he later adopts as his pet and names him ¨Sharkie¨. Sharkie appears in some episodes after that, either in his small or big form.

In spite of having many followers, there is someone that doesn't see him fit of being a chairman. That is Jinx, who was a huge fan of the previous chairman and wants things to go back the way they used to be before Scratch became the new leader.

Jinx represents someone who doesn't like the idea of losing the power she previously had in the past status quo. She enjoyed being a joy hunter and feels like Scratch stripped that away from her. She doesn't consider Scratch worthy of being the new chairman, thinking that she would be better at it instead.

As petty as Jinx is, she does has a point of Scratch being lazy and irresponsible as leader. Jinx had to explain to him how jinxes worked, something she pointed out it is a thing the chairman should know about. She acts as a constant reminder for Scratch that he isn't a good leader for the Ghost World.

All Scratch's irresponsible behaviour culminates in ¨Jinx VS The Human World¨. This episode starts with Scratch leaving the chairman robe unprotected and unguarded, which Jinx takes advantage of and steals it, using to take over the Ghost World and almost the Human World. Scratch also makes the mistakes of accidentally getting Molly captured by Jinx when they look for her in the Ghost World.

Near the end of the episode Scratch comes up with a plan to stop Jinx. He suggest others to ¨spread out joy¨ and extra feeding the sobgoblins, making them explode as result. Sharkie gets summoned by Scratch and grabs the chairman robes from Jinx. The Chens trap Jinx inside the phantom canister so she can't cause any more trouble.

The ghost celebrate Scratch as their true chairman. This leads to Scratch to reconsider things and to finally admit that he isn't a good example of a leader. He uses his powers one last time to make the chairman robe select the person they consider the ¨most worthy¨ to be the new chairman. The robe fly away, looking for a new leader.

In the end, Scratch's arc as chairman this season gives the lesson that not every person is fit to be a leader and it would be better to step down and give that role for those who would be more responsible. While Scratch did bring some good things to the Ghost World, he was incredibly lazy and didn't take the job seriously, which end up putting both worlds at risk. He gives up his status, knowing someone should be in the position instead of him.

[cloudysarts]

ive seen SEVERAL 'bill and mabel friendship' au's over the years and i love them all, so i figured it was about time i show the world mine!! ^^ im calling it Mabel's Muse. details under the cut!!

(DISCLAIMER: THIS IS NOT A MABEL X BILL AU. GROSS. PROSHIPPERS DONT TOUCH THIS)

in this au, bill and mabel form a bond in the very early era of the show. like, early to mid season one. much like ford did, mabel lets him into her mind, and they form a close bond. she has no idea he has any ulterior motives. the rest of the shack, and honestly the town in general, chock this up to a weird "phase" of hers, referring to bill as "mabels imaginary friend". but mabel calls him her muse <3

theres a little more to it than this but its honestly still a work in progress, so take this for now and let me know if anyone would be interested in seeing more of this!!!

(edit: if you're interested, you can now check out more of this au (with additional art and lore) over here!) (EDIT EDIT: made some more!! here and here <3)

[chytag]

I’m gonna miss these two.

[ckamato]

the STReSS GIRLZ⚡

[pauliedraws]

You've seen Maya McFey, here's her cousin Pearly McFey. This will probably be the last Ace Attorney pic I do in the TGAMM art style. That part of my life has been over for months now and now that the season 2 finale is coming out, I think it might be time to move on for me.