#also i know pb was probably never a princess in this universe but

[moonshineinkwell]

For a former princess, it doesn't seem like you know how to dance..

[inbarfink]

Okay, so here is my Thought…

It’s already being established that the majority of worlds in the AT Multiverse are born from wishes granted by Prismo. I mean, we know there are other types of alternative universes (Like Flapjack’s universe) - but Prismo’s exposition implies they are the exceptions and not the rule. And we already know the Wish that birthed Farmworld, and we even got a Word of God about Babyworld (a Wish made by BMO) but… 

Was Winterworld also born from someone’s wish?

While first watching the episode, I was wondering if that was a universe born from Ice King’s wish to, like, make Princess Bubblegum madly in love with him or something. But after all of the reveals at the end of the episode and thinking about it a bit more - I feel like this is unlikely. 

I mean for once, there is the question of how the ‘One Wish Per Person' rule works with the existence of a multiverse. Because we know our Simon also tried using his Prismo Wish

(And from their interactions in Episode 4 it seems like Prismo considers Ice King and Simon to be the same person, So a Wish made by Ice King would also count as the one Wish for Simon)

So like… if Ice King made a Wish with Prismo and then got teleported into Winterworld where his wish was granted and then like… a duplicate of him keeps going in Mainworld Ooo and that one’s actually the Simon we follow… would that Simon get his own Wish from Prismo? Or would the Winter King count as the separate Simon who didn’t waste his Wish yet? Finn has already used up his own Wish but his situation is kinda unique cause he, like, came back from being Farmworld Finn. I’m not sure about the rules here but I’m feeling like it shouldn’t work, Simon used up his one Wish failing to bring Betty back so that means he probably didn’t wish up Winterworld.

I don’t feel super-confident about that, but I feel a bit more sure of this next observation; Prismo says that the Wishes he grants, whatever he wants them to or not, always have some sort of a Monkey’s Paw or ironic twist thing going on. They never go quite right for the Wisher. And the Winter King was doing extremely well until our Free Radicals came along.

I mean… maybe the fact that Pre-Curse Simon would’ve been disgusted with the Winter King’s actions counts. Or maybe the implication is that with the Candy Queen’s recent ‘escalation’ he would’ve been killed sooner or later even without the Multiverse Trio’s intervention.

But… compared to how throughly and how quickly Farmworld went badly for Finn specifically- that honestly feels like a stretch. I think that if Winterworld was born from the Wish of any character - it was most likely Marceline.

She has all the motivation to Wish for Simon to have his memories and/or sanity back - and had it for the longest time out of all of his acquaintances. And if it was her Wish - then it sure as hell has gone extremely wrong for her. 

The woman that she loves has been doomed to the same torturous existence Simon has been trapped in alongside her entire kingdom. And Simon might have his sanity and identity again, but this vile man who willingly and knowingly condemned PB to a life of suffering in his stead is so much farther away from the kindly father figure Marceline remembers than Ice King the crazy old Wizard ever was.

And then he also stole Marceline's most beloved personal possessions and like… probably killed her and definitely replaced her with an icy duplicate who is forever the child he wants her to be. If this Wish is some sort of Ironic Monkey's Paw to anyone, I think Marceline makes the most sense. 

(I will give an honorable mention to Betty, because she also very much has the motivation and it is kinda weird we haven’t seen her try and save Simon with a Prismo wish. But I think that while, like, dying in the Mushroom War unmourned and unremembered by the man you did all of this for is a pretty miserable fate.... I still think that Marceline’s narrative fits the idea of cruel irony a lot better)

[poorslaindoll]

Winter King episode theory regarding why Finn and Jake aren’t really… around…

Okay so I wasn’t gonna actually voice this theory until after the show was over (or at all bc theory stuff isn’t rlly my thing), but eh what the hell. It’s not exactly particularly relevant to the overall Fionna and Cake plot, but I just find it interesting.

Also I wanna preface this by saying that I might be forgetting certain details that would disprove all of this and render this entire thing pointless. So feel free to correct me because I love knowing that I just wasted my time.

So from what I remember in the Winter King reality, we specifically never hear or see any mention of Finn and Jake from anyone and they don’t seem to be around in any capacity. The roles of Ice King and Princess Bubblegum have been reversed and Finn and Jake’s roles have more or less been filled by other characters too (the ice scouts).

So as I was watching this, it made me come to a conclusion: This is the universe where Finn and Jake disappeared.

In e19s6 of the original show, “Is That You?”, Prismo gets brought back to life via Jake becoming his dream host or whatever. And as a result, Finn became a sword because time paradox shenanigans. Even back when I first watched that episode, I had always wondered what that meant for the timeline they came from. Was there just a world where F and J disappeared without a trace?

This could possibly be that timeline since (unless I missed something), it’s never specified when Winter King became Winter King. Like yeah he said it was about 100 years ago, but 100 years from when??? (Also, I know I’ve seen some theories that this is just a world where Finn was never born, but I think this could be a little more interesting.)

This could also explain why Marceline is gone. Because Stakes happens in season 7 and Marceline becomes mortal again. Maybe Finn and Jake not being there caused things to go differently and Marceline ended up either dying to the vampires, or dying of old age after a while. Then from there, anything could have happened. Including Ice King casting his madness onto PB and creating the world that we see in the Winter King Episode. There wasn’t anyone to stop him at that point.

I initially thought this theory was disproven by the recent Fionna and Cake episode, “Jerry”. I thought that maybe THIS was the actual universe where they disappeared. Mostly because Finn and Jake being gone could have meant the Litch had another chance at killing everyone. Either that or Orgalorg killed everyone and that’s why the sky was that yellow color (I thought this before I actually saw the Litch in the episode). But it turns out this was just the reality from the Litch’s original wish so imo that just means my theory still holds so :P

Anyway yeah… I’m probably forgetting some important detail that debunks all of this. Either that or I’m slow and this is common knowledge or something idk. It’s just been giving me brainworms so I figured I’d type it all out.

TLDR. The Winter King reality is the result of the F and J disappearing to become a cool sword and Prismo respectively and just never coming back.

[popculturebuffet]

Adventure Time: What Was Missing Review

We celebrate Bi-Visablity day with our first look at adventure time! We get our first true taste of Bubbline when the two are forced to work together along with Finn, Jake and BMO to try and get a door powered by music and honesty open to get their stuff back from a well meaning creep what stole it from them. Gay Subtext, Jake shapeshifted into billy idol and rpping off a childlike robot’s face insue. Quit the band and then rejoin the band when dramatically approriate under the cut. 

Happy Bi Visablity Day! As you can tell i’m running behind, real life stuff coupled with not finding about this day until yesterday, something that for obvious reasons won’t happen again but i’m not going to stew in it too long. Point is it’s a good day, a proud day, and a day I naturally felt the need to celerbate as i’m bi myself, and have tons of bi characters I like, as seen by the fact that the two big arcs I covered for pride both had a bisexual as one of the main leads.  However my pride reviews also left me in sort of a bind as i’d used up most of what was in my tank. Luckily I had a few ideas, and among them a review I INTENDED to get to for Pride Month, but my overestimating my own productivity meant some got shelved for later. SO let’s take this one off the shelf and talk about adventure time shall we?  Adventure Time was my faviorite show once upon a time, being one of the front runners of the second annimation renisance of the 2010′s, it wasn’t a hgue suprise.. but it did take me a while to go from casually watching it to REALLY obessing over it, similar to regular show. Like Regular Show while the show wasn’t bad, it was just okay, with creative settings and what not but fairly simplistic characters. Season 2 would sharpen the comedy and add a smidge of emotoinal depth but it was with that season’s finale the show really showed what it could do: IN the same show that earlier in the season had a snail hyjack our heroes house and the two agree out of the kidness of hteir hearts and wanting hteir house back to help him get laid, we had a deathless, relentless monster who was determined to kill everything and voiced by ron goddamn perlman, who nearly succeded in beating our heroes and did end up possesing one of them and killing her for about 5 minutes. It showed the show could really step up in scope when it wanted while still getting really fucking weird and funny.  So season 3 crystalized all that, still having tons of great comedy but also having episodes like Memory of a Memory, which not only gave Marcie’s rather sad and complicated backstory, or at least the first pre-simon part, and the infamous Holly Jolly Secrets where we found out local weirdo and king of incels and ice the ice king was actually once a meek researcher who put on a cursed crown and ended up slowly devolving into madness like something out of a john carpenter movie. The show really deepend the cast, while keeping tthe usual brisk tone and it paid off getting better and better, then backsliding a bit, then going back to better by the end.  I did slide out of the show after a while, but I never really stopepd caring about it and the last year really made me step back and remmeber how much I loved it. And this episode is one of those reasons and one of the things that made season 3 what really defined the show. It was also one of the gayest episodes in cartoon history, before other cartoons actually got away with doing more.  What Was Missing was written by future Steven Universe creator and all around Peach, Rebecca Sugar, who was part of why the show got so sucessfl and steered the ship for a few seasons before leaving to make Steven Universe and even more animation history. Seriously I can’t blame her for her current sabatacle: Whatever she does next is going to have the pressure to utterly change the game and no one wants to step into that right away after running a show for 6 years. So what makes this so great? Well let’s figure it out shall we? 

The episode opens with Finn going to get his secret hunk of Princess Bublegum’s hair. Yup. I’ve had troulbe parsing this because what he’s doing is entirely wrong. BUTTTTT it’s also a 13 year old boy, said hair is naturally just a wad of gum, and the show clearly show’s he’s embrassed by the fact he still has this and that the person who thinks there’s nothing wrong with this is Jake, whose the same guy who once did this to his brother. 

So while his longterm relationship shows h’es good with women he’s not a good judge of what’s approriate. But after teasing his brother and letting him know he knows about the hair, Jake offers to share his hidden possesion, his blankie.. before a weirdo with a key on his head comes in and steals the blankie, the hair wad, and BMO’s controller then creates a door in time and space and heads through.  Our heroes chase after this dude through his doors  as he steals a toy from a kid for.. some reason, it dosen’t quite synch up with his later motive, and something from Bubblegum, who comes with along with Marceline who seemingly has something stolen. Our quintent eventually chase the guy to a giant door that’s unopenable, the door of the door lords.  PB explains what’s up: The dipstick who stole their stuff was a doorlord, a race that she attempted to lockup long ago.. but found it impossible “Because their doorlords” aka because you really can’t keep someone in prision who can just make a door out of it and whatever magic they had she clearly couldn’t contain, likely because of her later established hatred of magic and most likely just calmed down after that to avoid escalating things further. Or something. Why they never showed up again.. I really don’t know. The concept, a bunch of mysterious beings that can fold time and space and don’t talk, and as the episodewill prove have good intentions but go about them in a bad way, is really good and given the show had 7 more seasons after this, and started to really pile on the mythology, I question why this bit of it never came up again despite being really intresting.  

Marcy chides her for not just killing them all, which is hilarious in hindsight to me. While they likely had’nt thought of it  yet, her later backstory has her committing genocide on all the vampires of Ooo, hence why she’s the only one we see until Stakes. It just adds a bit of probably unintend depth to the line: Her ruthless, carefree pre-character development self probably just thinks that’s the easiest solution without considering the fact some of them may be innocent because she rarley considers anything. Just good character stuff. 

So Finn reads the door which reveals the gimmick it has: to be opened it has to be a song sung by a genuine band.. and the genuine part is something I honestly dind’t think about first few times watching this, but is a nice hint at how to really get the door open. More on that later. Finn suggests starting said band since most of the mhave musical talent with Jake agreeing as long as he can be the group asshole. 

Marcy, being the one who’s a musician for an unliving, is naturally the first to take charge, to Bubblegum’s annoyance but she suggests a chill jam, with Jake taking on a british accent, because 50% of all assholes in media are british and because only in britan could you sell an ep of you and your bandmate/brother fighting. No really that’s a thing that happened, thank yout odd in the shadows for letting me know that happened. 

The best thing? This CHARTED.  So yeah our band is formed and Marcy suggests a laidback jam and putting on a decent one that’s a nice gentle song about burying people in the ground but seems to be nice.. then it becomes clear what it’s about, and why there’s so much danged tension between her and bubblegum with one simple line. And it’s always a credit to a writer when you can pivot everything with a line, it’s a skill most need. 

“I’m going to drink the red from your pretty pink face” Yeah there’s no real grey area here. This is about explicit as you can be with their former relationship without outright shouting “They were a thing once” Or having Marcy do an accoustic version of Jodeci’s Freak N You. Which is a thing I want now if anyone reading this has olivia olson’s ear, or if by some miracle she’s reading this in which case “Hi I really love your work also why in the hell are you reading this i’m not that good holy shit thank you”, please ask her to do that.  And now we get to why I chose this one: I admit I put this one on the backburner because, as far as I was concerned, it wasn’t on screen full died in wool gay content.. and I was wrong. You have to take steps to get representation, fight hard, kick and claw and scratch and bite to get representation into media, let alone CHILDREN’S Media because god forbid we show kdis that GASP gay people exist and would give them slightly less money to throw at their competitors in money fights I assume bilionares have. just fuck off with this shit already, christ it’s 2020 and most shows that have had gay characters have gotten tons of attnetion and conservative assholes protesting it only makes the rest of us aware it exists and more liable to check it out. Fuck off and do the right thing you fucking greedy, selfish, incosidrat emorons. 

That tyrade out of the way the point is representation takes time and Rebecca took a hell ofa risk to her florshing career pushing for this. You don’t get to steven universe without this episode, for a number of reasons, and you don’t get to all the other gay without an example to point to and say “see this works your being stupid,, stop being stupid and let us gay dammit”. So I felt this episode, and these two in general as we’ll get to in later reviews, deserved it’s fair due. 

Back to the actual plot, Bubblegum responds to this mildly flirty and remotley suggestive line. with “Marceline, that’s too distastful” Peebs.. she just made a suggestivish metaphor about wanting to make out with you, she isn’t talking about how good your vagina tastes. which is probably really good because bubblegum is delcious but that’ snot a line of discourse i want to get into now or ever.  MOre on this in a sec.  Marcy naturally dosen’t take this well, nor should she, and launches into one of the series greatest songs and one of rebecca sugar’s best work, which is saying something. “I’m Just Your Problem”

Olivia Olson deserves credit too: While Rebecca wrote and composed this amazing bit of music, but her delivery is great, keeping the same tone the whole time while still singing beautifully and conveing just how.. hurt marcy is, with the excellent animation complimenting it. Rewatching it is a joy and I wish it hadn’t taken me this long to get back to the song again.  It’s also a real tearjerker, in a way I didn’t even realize at the time, as the lyrics point out why Marcy is so upset with her: She’s frustrated with how PB seems to resent the fact that unilke her subjects she dosen’t worship her, she dosen’t do what she says.. befor edigging in deep, asking if THAT’S why she avoids her and really cuts both her and the audience deep with this line  “It’s like i’m not even a person am I?” The animation also deserves credit for a moment.. I didn’t notice it before rewatching the song a few times for this review.. but while PB starts and ends the song angry... around this part she looks hurt.. like for one moment her stoic, needs ot be in control, needs to be mature and queenly at all times mask is broken and she’s shaken by realizing just how much she hurt her. It says VOLUMES about what they used to be without giving us a full backstory and it’s wonderful. She still cares.. she just can’t express it properly. Marcy continues her muscial slam saying she dosen’t need to justify herself, and that she dosen’t need to apologize, and shouldn’t be as the gate almostopens.. only for it to stop when Marcy refuses to be open.  And that gets to the heart of why the two fell apart back then, whenever back then was and what’s obvious from here: Both have a habit of holding people at arms length emotoinally but both are such VASTLY diffrent people they couldn’t get through each others walls. For Marcy she’s immortal and has gone through a few hundered years of watching anyone she cares about die, loosing her mother, having her biological dad abandon her and be utterly terrible at actually connecting with her or being empathetic anyway, and having her surrogate dad slowly go insane and having HIM abandon her too if for her own good and then presumibly finding him later as a horrifying shell of his former self, and her ex boyfriend solkd the one reminder she HAD of said man and insulted her over it. She’s had a hard, devistating life and as we see her at this point she keeps people at arms length because she knows they won’t last, it taking some time for her to stop treating finn like a toy to play with and start treating him like her friend and realize that even with her immortality just jackassing around for hundreds of years willl only make her more miserable.  PB also does.. but it’s becaue she’s a very regimented person who belivies things have to be one thing, is utterly rigid in her way of thinking, and rules her people with a benveolnt cnady coated iron fist. She means well, can care about people and is better at forming connectoins despite knowing they’ll be fleeting.. but also has a bad habit of just.. not thinking about what others FEEL just waht’s best to them. She opresses her people, spies on them, locked up an innocent child instead of helping her or adopting her like she clearly needed, and tried to genocide a whole race of robots simply because they MIGHT be a threat to her world. PB at this stage needs things so structured and so her way, she forgets sometimes.. she’s wrong. Wheras Marcy sees her immortality as a curse and hides it behind a seemingly carefree nature, PB sees it as neccity but let it cut her off from other people, still brefirend and love them but hold them a ta distance so she could do the things that needed to be done, the work that needed doing ot insure her people surivive forever and she dosen’t outlive them.  Both have been left stunted by their immortality, and both were in no shape for a relationship, thouguh while I’m sure marcy didn’t help with her issues with honesty, PB probably did the most damage, both not wanting to risk something outside her perfectly consttructed bubble threanting things, and not being able to resist trying to control her lover instead of treat her as an equal. Thankfully both would get better and by present day the two are toegheter or about to be, and both in the place for that to actually WORK. But this shows sometimes relationships just dont work because your not ready yet.. but that you CAN get a second chance, and the one benfiit of being immortal is you don’t have as big a risk as dying without having that chance come up. 

But yeah this fails, and while Jake storms off, Finn tries to have a friendly pasta dinner to keep everyone left together, with Marcy going to get a hot pot for them, and plugging it into BMO which is neat.  It’s PB”s turn and she just tries harmonics and it ends up sounding like a worse version of that song bill and ted play at the begniing of face the music.. and THAT probably woudlv’e worked better. 

At this point everyone falls apart with Marcy spitting on PB, PB walking off in a huff and jake leaving because it’s that part of the true hollywood music story. Also he’s shapeshifted into billy idol, which is awesome.  It’s then we get the second song of the episode.. and one every bit as good as the masterpiece above. 

Finn laments what happened, in song because of course, before admitting how he just wanted htem all together.. and wonders if their even his friends.. as the door glows and he finally realizes what opens it: The truth. This is where the genuine hint comes back together.. the genuine wasn’t in talent.. itw as in emotoinal honesty.  I really haven’t talked about Finn a bunch this review, mostly because he’s mostly just trying to help and be earnest.. but this scene beautifully ties that together showing that deep down, Finn is bothered by how dismisive the others can be of him sometimes and wonders if he’s a “Joke, your knight or your brother” That sometimes he wonders if they care. It’s both relatable as hell and really fits the character, showing PB’s sometimes dismissive attidue of him REALLY bothers him, and Jake and Marcy are guilty of the same at times. He genuinely admits though that through all this.. their his closest friends.. and it’s a really sweet song and really shows what finn is at his core through all his developments good and bad to come: An honest kid who just wants the best for people, and cares about those around him.. and gets those around him to open up as a result. It’s a freaking powerful sequence, and Jeremy Shada acts the hell out of it and the nimation is beauitufl. Good stuff.  The door finally opens and we find out the Door Lord just did all of this to get them to bond and work on their issues... which as I said is well intentioned.. but in a funny bit they whollop him anwyay because you know.. he did so by stealing from them and making them solve a musical riddle. Who does that? BMO gets his controller back, Jake gets his blankie and Finn gets his wad of hair with PB giving out an OH you like this is normal and FInn rexamining all of his life choices. Don’t worry bud, your about to make some considerably WORSE life choices that will make these look midly better!  We get one last bit of Bubbline tease as it turns out PB’s item.. is a t-shirt marcy get her, complete with blushing. Yet there was STILL  vitroicllically insane crowd who swore they weren’t gay because htey wante dto pair either of them with a 13 year old which .. agian no. Just no. No no no no. We also find out Marcy had nothing stolen she just wanted to hang out and we end on her chasing them.  Final Thoughts: As you can probably tell, this episode is a masterpiece and easily one of the series best, and not only that.. but it’s better than I remember. I THOUGHT this would be a quick review but the two hours it took to get this written and the more and more I found in the songs to talk about said otherwise. It’s easily the episode that put the show on the map, with holy jolly secrets being tied with it in this regardf or diffrent reasons, and the one that showed just how far it came. The music as I gushed is utterly fantastic and we’d get more.. then suddenly none once rebecca Sugar left because they coudln’t find anyone else apparently even though that makes no sense. Point is the episode is beautiuflly animated, deeply trenched in it’s characters, and even has some really funny bits like the runner about jake being the jerk in the band. IT’s great stuff and I highly recommend it even if you’ve seen it before. If you liked this there’s regular Loud House Coverage every weeeknd at some point, and regular ducktales coverage every monday if you’d like to follow to see that, and more reviews on my tabs and you can comission one for 5 bucks if your intrested of any episode of any show you want. Until we meet again, Go team venture. Play us out jodeci. 

[appleb18]

Modern Cartoon LGBT Representation Rant

As modern cartoon shows are trying desperately to represent LGBT and be part of the community, however, most of them failed to do it well. So many problems that writers and the fandom are doing wrong to show it and look I know they're trying their best and see that but there aren’t doing it well. So these what I’ve been seeing for three years and why they don’t work

Long Rant 

1) Minimizing the Gay

Most cartoons represent gay characters by showing them less and not making them into an actual character is one of the many problems have with LGBT representation in cartoons. Having them to appear only once and then that’s it which is so BS and doesn’t even count.

For example, most gay characters are shown in the background like Star vs The Forces of Evil - “Just Friends” showed two characters from the same gender kissing, however, it’s impossible to notice it because there some straight characters kissing as well

Then they two male characters with a child in the holiday special and season 2 finale. Many people may see it as LGBT rep but some people will see it as brothers or friends.

Then there are cartoons that show a gay character for only ONE episode and it’s irritating. Such as in Steven Universe, Mystery Girl first appeared in “Last One to Beach City” and then that’s it, we don’t see her again. We don’t anything about her and don’t see her dating Pearl in recent season

Also in 6teen episode called “Role Reversal” Nikki friend , Jean is a lesbian and she admits it to her and she’s dating someone else. However like Steven Universe, she only appeared once than that’s it but at least they confirmed that she’s gay.

The reasons why they're created because the fans can be excited that their gay characters on the shows. Why can’t they just make them an actual character then just leaving them in the dark? A good example of showing gay characters is Tweek and Craig from South Park

They don’t kiss, be stereotypical gay like being fabulous or doing makeup, their just your normal elementary school boys. In the episode “Tweek x Craig” at first they didn’t want to be in a relationship because they didn’t think they're gay and the more they push it back, the more realistic that they're in a relationship.

They even made Craig’s dad in denial that’s he’s gay but he cares more for his son happiness than his grudge

They got back together. Instead of being a one-off thing like South Park intent to do most of the time, they kept it and they're shown on screen together as a couple. Calling each cute nicknames like babe or honey, hold hands and support each other.

So how the hell is Tweek x Craig represent well than most cartoon shows? I know this show is made for adults but this is well done than most I’ve seen. Cartoons should focus on fleshing out the character then just show their gay. That brings me to...

2) Seconday Characters

Somewhat similar to first point however it’s the supporting cast and this is a lot worst because they appeare in episode and show that their gay but won’t give any hints that they are like a kiss or a hug.

An example of this is in The Loud House, Clyde parents are both males but the show doesn’t say that their gay. To be honest, I don’t see them as parents but as friends like Raven Home

Another example to this is Clarence, where Jeff parents are both female but again, we don’t see that if their lesbians by there’s no hints that they are or not

It’s getting dumb that they say their gay but they wont show it like come on, if you want an LGBT character than present it. Stop telling us if they are and show the audience by they hug, it’s not that hard.

3) Effects on the Story 

Another problem I’m seeing is its impact on the story. I really don’t if romance comes to the plot but it has to work because if it doesn’t then it’s just being shown out of context and doesn’t do much with the story. Unfortunately, most cartoon shows fail to do that and it forced

An example of this is they made Korra and Asami a couple at the end of the Legend of Korra. The writer did it on the last couple minute so they won’t potential backlash and they even have to announce that their bisexual couple

Then we have to buy the graphic novel to see more of them as a couple without proper hints and development between the two. You’ll probably be thinking that they did hint that they love each other but really most of the scenes of them together were FRIENDSHIP, not romance. 

Then there’s Steven Universe. Every time that there are Ruby and Sapphire episodes, it doesn’t fit the main narrative of the story. It just feels out of place to the plot than anything else For example, in the episode “The Answer”, Garnet tells a story of Ruby and Sapphire met but the does it relate to the Cluster arc?! Nothing, that’s what it is so they can push LGBT rep

And the whole wedding between Ruby and Sapphire in “The Heart of the Crystal” bomb which by the way is also a waste of time for plot. The wedding was nice but again, how does it relate to the Pink Diamond arc?!

The only that doesn’t feel out of place is Adventure Time. When they add LGBT to Adventure Time, it doesn’t feel force like look at the Marceline and Princess Bubblegum relationship. We can see it develop from being neutral to lovers 

It works for so many reasons such as they’ve been friends for 100+ years but PB work got in the way, leaving them to depart and never talk to each other since until Varmints where they finally talked about it and start hanging out more.

Also the many hints they might love each other like PB sniffing Marcy shirt 

Marceline wearing her sweater from “Stakes”

I can write more about why Bubbline is an amazing ship but you can read it here. It may have been a slow one but I rather have a good romance than a force that doesn’t take time away from the plot.

4) LGBT Propaganda 

Whenever creators announce that they’ll be LGBT in their show, I find it as their desperate for views, for example, the Dragon Prince announce that they’ll be LGBT rep in the show 

Really? Your telling people that there will be LGBT in the show? 

Then there’s Voltron where the writers were hyping Shiro x Adam to be gay but they killed him off like are you kidding me? You’ve been hyping Adam ever since SDDC and then he died, what a waste.

Conclusion

Look, while I don’t mind cartoon shows showing LGBT rep and I support it, however, the way they’re doing it is poorly done and I wish they could’ve done it better than minimize and force LGBT. Modern cartoons could’ve made it simple like a hetero love story or it doesn’t have to be romance, it could be just a character that’s just gay. I hope that in the future that writers could make it better. 

[princet-andy]

Age Regression Tag!

1. Do you have a caregiver?

Yep yep! @littlefoxkit123💕

2. What is your regression age?

 Anywhere from 6 months-8 years old! Though these are hecka rare and I’m usually 2 or 3🍼

3. How many stuffies do you have?

27 last count!🐰

4. What’s your favorite Disney movie to watch when regressed?

probably the aristocats or tangled or barbie movies. 😻

5. Do you like to listen to music when regressed? If so, what song(s)?

YES!! i have a whole playlist on spotify with Raffiki barbie songs disney songs and some covers by peter paul and mommy and also kenny loggins🎵🎶

6. Who’s your favorite Disney princess?

Um Belle or Rapunzel👑

7. What’s your favorite TV show to watch when regressed?

Sophia the first or blues clues and id really love to find classic winnie the pooh and I also love Steven universe📺

8. Do you like reading stories/oneshots about age regression? If so, what is your favorite one?

I do! My current fave is @buttercupagere book they have up on wattpad ( i cant remeber the name)📖

9. What outfit(s) do you like to wear when regressed?

I dont have many little clothes so i usally steal one of my boyfriends shirts ( they make little dresses for me) and where socks!👕

10. Would you rather spend a day at the playground or at the fair?

OH!! my two favorites hmmm the playground is quiet and nice and easier for me but if you ask me im probably gonnna scream fair and beg for all the candy and stuffies and make you hold my hand and ride all the rides!🍬🍭

11. Do you have any age regression gear? If so, what is it?

I reallly only have a paci rn but @littlefoxkit123 is sending me a blanky they made me and a stuffie named charlie and special paci!

12. What’s your favorite candy?

baby bottle pops!

13. Do you like bubble baths?

Uhuh!!

14. Would you rather eat a PB & J or mac & cheese?

Mac n cheese as longs it nawt kraft

15. Do you watch age regression YouTubers? If so, who?

No but I reaaally wanna start watching @hislittlespace

16. Would you rather adopt a duckling or a chick?

hmmm i dunno duckie?

17. Do you like using pacifiers when regressed? If you don’t have any, would you be willing to try? Yes! specially for feelin cute n smol but tbh i like the way my thumb tastes *😚

18. Disney, Dreamworks, or neither?

No preference!

19. Does anyone IRL know you’re an age regressor?

Yep! my best friend does! 

20. What would your dream age regression playroom look like?

OH!! okay so itd be winnie thepooh themed and either soft blue or yellow  and their would be a crib and a toddler bed and a changing table and a winnie the pooh themed play tent and lots of kiddo books and coloring room!

21. How did you find out about age regression?

um not so great story there, when i joined tumblr I followed a bunch of urls i liked the sound of without checking bios fell into kink dealt with a really gross feeling about it and desperatley trying to find sfw blogs and then I found hislittlespace and and a few others and changed from ddlg tags to cglre after realizing that what I wanted wasnt something to get off too but something I use to cope with csa and emotional abuse 

22. Describe your perfect age regression playdate.

um well wed have someone big around to remind us to eat and stuff and wed  probably stay home and we make slime(but from a kit or with specific ingredients it can be dangerous to mix)  and then wed color while we watch amovie and eat lunch (grilled cheese and fries or popcorn! hopefully)and after the movie either nap or play with toys !

23. Would you rather play with stuffies or dolls?

I think i tend to drift to my stuffies theyre softer and they have more set personalities dolls dont seem to for me!

24. Do you like reading books when regressed? If so, which one(s)?

I like any kiddo book!

25. Bottles, sippy cups, or neither?

probably both!

26. Do you like chocolate milk?

um sometimes but i dont really like milk

27. Describe your dream stuffie. (Color, animal, size, texture, etc.)

i super super want a  alpaca stuffie thats either pastel purple or rainbow !

28. Onesies or overalls?

Onsies annnndd overalls!

29. If you could have any mythical creature be your best friend, what would you choose?

mmmm Mermaid or dragon!

30. My Little Pony or Paw Patrol?

My little pony (ive never seen paw patrol!)

Aand imma tag @tinybee @littlefoxkit123 @dinosaurs-and-applejuice @hislittlespace @hisangelprincess @littlebabymaxie

[banrionrua]

FIC PROMPT: BELLAMY AND CLARKE AS JIM AND PAM

it’s like you looked right into my soul and came up with the prompt of all prompts, the prompt of my heart and I love you for it. hope this isn’t absolute trash and sorry it took me so long, I got distracted watching PB&J videos for days on end and have no regrets.

also on ao3

‘the church was plan b’

In retrospect, they should’ve expected this, really.

This wedding was proving to be one shit-show after another, from Jasper tearing his scrotum at the dance party the night before in Monty’s hotel room (splits and keys in pockets were never a good idea) and Clarke (the only sober person left in the hotel) having to spend the night at the ER with him, to Murphy getting banned from the hotel bar approximately five minutes into the night for howling like a wolf and trying to steal three bottles of Jack Daniels, and even to Bellamy himself, who did the one thing they were afraid every and anyone else would do: spill the beans about Clarke’s pregnancy at the rehearsal dinner, in front of her extremely conservative grandmother, Mee-Maw, who then called Clarke a jezebel before refusing to come to the wedding ceremony.

Still, it was hard to put a damper on the day he’d been waiting just about his whole life for.

If someone had told Bellamy Blake five years ago that he’d be marrying the pretty blonde from reception at Factory Station Paper Company, he would have laughed in their face, and then all the way home, too.

Because life wasn’t that good and kind to him, historically, and because timing was a bitch. For years, she had a boyfriend (fiance, if he was being honest) - Finn, the ass of the century who worked down in the warehouse. And Bellamy, he’d just been a kid from the other side of the tracks looking for a steady enough job to get him and his sister by after his mother died. 

So, for a long time, he’d been content to just be her friend. She was his best friend, and God, he was lucky for even that. He came into work everyday thankful for that much. It was a shitty job at a shitty little paper company, and somehow, he still loved every minute of it because of her. She’d changed everything.

It took years, and a lot of waiting (he was a Blake, and patience wasn’t natural to them), and sometimes he thought he’d suffocate from the heavy weight on his chest that threatened to explode more and more everyday as he fell deeper in love with her.

But somewhere, somehow, along the way, his luck changed. She caught Finn with his other girlfriend, Raven, and from there on out, she was short a fiance and had gained a friend. He’d moved away to another branch to try to move on before it all went to hell, then moved back months later when branches merged, with Echo in tow, and it didn’t take Echo all that long to realize he loved her, sure, but not with his whole heart, not the way he loved the receptionist he was always planning pranks on Jasper with, and not the way Echo deserved to be loved. That crumbled, too.

It took tearful confessions and entirely too much time, but somewhere, somehow, he finally got the girl.

The girl he was fifteen minutes away from calling his wife.

So, yeah, despite all the craziness, despite the chaos of inviting their entire office and two mismatched, overbearing families, none of whom listened to their do’s and do not’s for the wedding….he couldn’t keep the smile off his face.

He was kicking around a soccer ball outside the chapel with Ethan, their ringbearer - Wells Jaha’s foster son and the light of Thelonious’ eyes - when he felt his phone buzzing in his pocket. He couldn’t even stop the stupid grin that came at seeing her name pop up with the photo of her licking frosting off his cheek from Fourth of July last summer.

God, he was a goner.

“Are you sure there aren’t any rules against calling me right before we go into the church, Princess? Wouldn’t want to jinx it this late in the game…not sure we could get any of the deposits back at this point.”

“Probably not.” The smile dropped from his face and his stomach sank as soon as he heard her broken voice, sniffles on the other end. “Can you just…come here, please?” She sounded so small, so unlike herself, and he took off before she even hung up, rushing through the back doors of the church to find her.

Please don’t tell me she’s changed her mind. Oh shit, what if it’s the baby? What if something’s wrong? Please, please….

He practically skidded into the small room they’d given her to wait in, finding her sitting on a piano bench sniffling, but even through all his worry - he froze.

Because there was Clarke Griffin, dressed in white, looking more beautiful than he could’ve ever imagined. He was sure he didn’t deserve her, or any of this, but he was thanking every one of the gods, anyway.

“Wow,” he breathed out. “Clarke, you look….wow.”

She let out a watery laugh, “I look like shit.”

He walked over and sat down beside her, thighs pressed against each other, and gently reached out his hand, brushing his thumb against her cheek, feather-light. “Clarke Griffin, I’m not sure you could ever look like shit even if you tried. You look…so beautiful, Princess.”

“No, I don’t,” she said miserably, swiping at her eyes gently, trying not to ruin the makeup Octavia had done for her earlier. “I knew when we found out about the baby that I wouldn’t be able to wear the perfect dress o-or high heels, and that was okay, really, but now I tore my veil and that was the one thing I could control and I just….”

He tried not to show his relief that it was just the veil and not something more serious like his paranoid mind had immediately jumped to, but she still looked so miserable and he’d give anything to make her smile, especially today.

His eyes landed on scissors on the desk to their right behind him, and he reached out, grabbed them, and cut his tie in half.

Her eyes widened, “Bellamy! ”

“Now we’re even,” he shrugged, a lopsided grin on his face. Her eyes shone with more tears, but she was starting to smile, at least. She lifted her hands, motioning a camera click - they’d promised each other to take mental pictures of all the best moments this weekend, something Vera Kane had suggested to them. It was a joke at first, but this?

This she’d remember forever.

He leaned forward, kissing her forehead gently and resting a hand on her barely-there baby bump hidden under the silk of her dress. She sighed and melted into the touch, and he could feel the tension rolling off her body, finally. “They’re all driving me insane, Bell. Jasper and my mom and Thelonious and everyone….I thought this day was supposed to be our day, you know?”

He knew. And honestly, how could they have expected any differently? God love them all, they really were good people, they were just a lot to handle, their friends and family. She was right. Their wedding was supposed to be about them.

This? All this pomp and circumstance, all the decor and frill, it wasn’t them.

He stood then, having made up his mind, and reached out a hand to her, wordlessly. She looked up at him with furrowed brows, but he just smirked.

“Bellamy, what…”

“Do you trust me?” She gave him an unimpressed and still entirely confused look, but put her own hand in his, letting him help her up. He might be crazy, too, but she trusted him more than anyone in the world. That’d been a given a long, long time ago.

“What are you up to, Blake?”

He gave her a quick kiss, still smirking into it. “You’ll see.”

****************************

“Oh my god.”

He closed the passenger door behind her as she got out of the car, jaw still dropped at his surprise. How could they have a destination wedding in Niagara Falls without stopping at the actual falls?

Besides, he’d heard somewhere that boat captains could help them out with the whole marriage thing.

They’d left everyone behind at the church - they’d still be there when they got back, but who cared? This day was about him and his wife.

They could figure the rest out later.

They pulled their blue plastic ponchos over their wedding clothes and walked onto the Maid of the Mist hand in hand, and maybe this wasn’t the grand, majestic affair that Abby Griffin had pictured for her only daughter, or the ‘poppin’ wedding of the century’ that Jasper had certainly planned to dance down the aisle at (they’d found his YouTube playlist of “Best Wedding Entrances Ever - Bellarke Wedding?” the week they’d gotten engaged), but this?

This finally felt right.

Sprays from the waterfall rained on them just as the captain came out and performed their little ceremony, splashing them from head to toe and making Clarke laugh, carefree and blissfully. (Bellamy reckoned it was the best sound in the world, only to later be tied with the sound of their daughter’s first cries when she’s born.) 

He lifted his hands, taking a mental picture, and whether the wetness on his cheeks was from the water or his own tears of pure joy, he couldn’t be sure, but her face looked just the same.

When he kissed her for the first time as his wife, he was sure, for the first time ever, that fate was real, that someone in the great wide universe had been looking out for him after all, because life had led him to Clarke Griffin, and they belonged to each other now.

He said as much a little later as they stood at the front of the ship, her leaning into his side, head resting on his shoulder. She turned to look up at him before leaning up to kiss him again, and it was slow and soft and as magical as the thousands of other kisses they’d shared before, and the millions he planned to keep sharing with her for the rest of their lives.

“Thank you for everything, Bell. For being you. For marrying me. For this plan B of yours….I can’t imagine a more perfect day,” she all but whispered, and he kissed her cold, wet forehead, not able to stop touching her, to stop reminding himself this was all real.

“This wasn’t plan B,” he clarified after a beat. She looked up, that crease between her brows back, confusion written on her face. “Plan B was the church. This was actually Plan C.”

“What was Plan A?”

He turned to her fully now, moving a stray piece of damp hair from her face and gazing at her with all the love in the world. The whole world might be out there, but in that moment, she swore there was no one else but them, in this moment, and if she could pick one moment to live in for the rest of her life, she knew it would be this very one.

“Plan A was marrying you a long, long time ago. Pretty much the day I met you,” he said, his voice softer than she’d ever heard it, and she choked on a happy sob, kissing him again because of all the billions of women in the world, she, Clarke Griffin, knew what it was like to be wholly, completely, unconditionally loved by Bellamy Blake.

****************************

They were over an hour late to their own wedding ceremony, nearly soaked, hair ruined, veil torn, tie cut, and never happier.

When Jasper winked at Monty, and turned on his iPod to ‘Forever’, they couldn’t even find it in them to be upset. Harper quickly apologized to Clarke, knowing this had been explicitly on the Do-Not-Playlist, but Clarke just smiled, telling her to go on.

She looked up to the altar, locking eyes with her husband, and he shook his head with a little shrug. She reached her hands up and took another mental picture.

Yeah. This is perfect.

[mechaspirit]

After the recent chapter of Endless Summer book 3, I’ve decided to create this 2nd profile for my ES MC, which is improved by using the questionnaire and using this mood board above. Note that some of the descriptions have some AU verse in it. Also, this is my final submission for MC appreciation week, if it’s allowed.

ES MC

Name: Yurika Hoshina/Mckenzie

Age: 21 (ES1) 22 (ES 2&3)

Height: 5’3

Hair Color: Blonde

Eye Color: Dark Green

Status: Alive. Married to Jake Mckenzie

Family Background: Well…In the ES verse, Yurika can’t remembered her past, because she’s part of Vaanu and never exist outside of the island. So in this case, she never has one to begin with, anyway. Though in an alternate universe, she would have both of her parents and possibly a paternal grandmother. Yurika is born in Riverside, California and her dad is Japanese while her mom is Caucasian.

Education: She’s majoring in psychology.

Best Childhood Memory: Again, Yurika doesn’t exist outside of La Huerta so she doesn’t have one. In AU, however, her best childhood memory was when her father told her the story behind making origami lucky stars and taught her how to make one, and it eventually became one of her main hobbies.

Favorite Color: Red, ocean blue, and green

Favorite Season: Summer (How ironic) and spring.

Cat or Dog: Yurika is a dog person.

Chocolate or Vanilla: Vanilla

Sweet or Spicy: Both

Coffee or Tea: Yurika likes tea, but she can handle both.

Best Friend: Diego, no questions asked (but how could PB do this to Diego).  And by extent, Quinn, Grace, and Michelle

Love Interest: Jake Mckenzie

What Initially Attracted Them to Their Partner?: Yurika is attracted to Jake when she first met him back at the plane on the way to La Huerta, but she wouldn’t say it was love at first sight. Not to mention, Yurika does have a crush on Sean for the first half of the first book until she realized that she feels more connected to Jake when she first kissed him underwater and then eventually spend a night with him back at her room in the hotel. She started dating him in book 2, feeling that even though that they wouldn’t be able to make it out of the island, she could at least make something special out of their relationship. By the time Lundgren appeared and tried to take on Jake, Yurika realized that she is in love with the pilot. She likes the humorous and affectionate side of Jake as well as his loyalty and protectiveness, knowing that there’s more to him underneath that snarky exterior.

How Do They Express Affection (are they a hugger? More private?): They do love to flirt and tease each other a lot, which can annoy some other people (you could probably see Zahra in the background, holding a middle finger somewhere). And whenever there’s a life or death situation, Jake would pull Yurika aside for a good luck kiss.

Do they Have/Want Children? How Many?: Although not in the rush, Yurika likes the idea of having children. If she were to have any children with Jake, she would hope to have either one or two in the future.

Any Pets?: Does Furball count?

Do They Have a Temper?: She relatively a calm person unless she sees one of her friends being threatened by another person.

Hobbies?: Yurika is good with arts and crafts. She knows how to make origamis from her dad. She also likes reading and stargazing. She’s also good at dancing and gymnastics, which fits her kindred spirit.

Do They Hold Grudges?: Yurika doesn’t really take betrayal very well, but at least in Aleister’s case she can make an exception. Right now, she has a grudge on Rourke. Though, I think most people do.

Do They Exercise?: Considering that Yurika is a skilled dancer and gymnast…yes.

Random Headcanon(s): Yurika has a habit of putting her hand on her right cheek and tilting her head to the side whenever she’s trying to think and most of the time she would do that without even noticing. She does the same whenever she’s blushing in embarrassment, only that she turned away from her friends, refusing the look at them. Also, there is this one time where Yurika make origamis of the her friends’ Hadean Zodiac. Dog (Diego), eagle (Sean), dolphin (Quinn), wolf (Jake), dragon (Estela), swan (Grace), bear (Craig), snake (Aleister), crow (Zahra), peacock (Michelle), horse (Raj. She doesn’t know how to make a centaur from paper).

Fun Facts: 

Depending on how would you write her name in Japanese, Yurika’s first name means “beautiful lily” and her last name has a word “hoshi” meaning “star” in it.

In the extent to that, while Jake would always call Yurika “princess”, Mike sometimes called her “Lily”.

Yurika couldn’t stand the smell of cucumber.

Yurika loves reading mythology and urban legends (usually the ones from Greece and Japan), which was how she was able to solve puzzles in La Huerta and notice some Greek mythology references. During the time the gang gathers around for a campfire story, Yurika would be the one to tell the legends (mostly horror).

Tags: @choices-mc-rules , @@hellomynameisdeviblaire , @@moominlouu , @scgdoeswhat , @luna-gayle . 

[littleshadygrove]

regression profile!

A note from the creator: Copy/paste, complete, and tag 5 people. Please tag me @princetkitten if you do it, so I can know more know more about my little friends~ 😃 Have fun with this! You can add pictures, new categories, etc. & Feel free to be vague about parts you’re not comfy with!

My Regression Profile

under the cut !!

I was tagged by: @littlecuddlebee​ - thanks for tagging me, this is cool!

Name: you can call me shady! or shady grove, doesn’t matter to me :-)

Nickname(s): well shady is a nickname. also my partner calls me little bear or princess <3

Age: 19

Gender: lol

on a seriouser note i guess i’m just androgynous but when i’m in little space i feel like a girl

Pronouns: on here i’m a she or a they, your pick!

Sexual orientation: what is that, never heard of it

Romantic orientation: don’t know him, sorry

Relationship status: happily in a monogamous relationship! <333

Location: southern usa

Little/middle/regressor/dreamer/other: i don’t label myself too hard but i guess i’m a little/middle and i just do what i do!

Community/ies: none

Clubs/daycares/preschools: nah

Follower count: 10! happy to have y’all, i’m really new to this!

Favorite color: ahhhhhh ummm they’re all good. but i love yellow, and pink, and blue, and cyan, and purple, and burgundy

Favorite stuffie: teddy! a little pink bear i’ve had since i was realllllly tiny. unfortunately she is at my family’s house and we haven’t been able to find her since i moved out :-((( i’ve been really bummed about it lately, i just want her back so bad. she’s been so good to me :,-(

Favorite little activities: cuddling! and hugging my big polar bear (kumajiro), or just daydreaming. probably my favorite ever is playing DRESS UP GAMES though!!!

Top 3 little shows: i don’t watch a lot of tv in my little space but i love punky brewster and steven universe and the movie matilda!!

Top 3 little movies: matilda, fantastic mr. fox, and kiki’s delivery service!

Top 3 little books: the velveteen rabbit, anything by roald dahl, and heidi!

Top 3 little apps: pastel girl bc i’m predictable, lily story, and this virtual crosstitch app!

Top 3 little video games: lol we have a gamecube and i play this awful atv racing game and sonic and knuckles. i also have a dsi and i love all the electroplankton games!!

Favorite little gear: i have these really pretty ballerina shoes which is really nice because i never had a chance to do stuff like that when i was a kid. and i have a sparkly tiara ring to remind me i’m a princess even when i’m just in a boring class or whatever. 

Favorite drink: milk!

Favorite snack: ahh i don’t know...pb&j?

Favorite meal: baked pasta!!

Favorite dessert/sweet: strawberry shortcake ice cream bar for sure

Favorite memory: i could never choose one above the others...a good one was writing to my favorite author and getting a letter back with a list of books to read (i asked what he read) and a special card with a cool cartoon!! i was so excited - if you have an author or someone like that who’s still alive write to them!!! you never know if they might read it and maybe even reply <3

One year goal: have my driver’s license

I tag: anyone who wants to! @pinkpastel-kitten @kiddokitto if you want!

[theliterateape]

American Shithole #46 | The Beautiful Things: PBS

By Eric Wilson

It’s raining in Vegas; I can see winds ravage the palm trees just outside my window. I reside in a quiet house today — which is rare; the dogs are unusually silent and Ari is away — and I am going to take my dead wi-fi adapter (keeping me from Sling, which in turn keeps me from CNN) as a cue to write about something I love.

Coincidentally, I might have made a breakthrough in my eternal battle with my temper. I think I broke the wi-fi adapter on the desktop moving it across the room last night, and I reacted poorly this morning when I discovered my predicament. I’ll save the details for another time, but I might have turned a corner.

I hate my temper; yet I have not mastered it. If we are lucky, we learn, we grow, we become better people, etc. — but damn, some of these challenges are fucking life-long. Where’s my End Boss on my anger quest already?

I know one thing that will make me angry — watching our marmalade princess of a president fail at reading sentences on live TV. Fuck the SOTA, let’s talk about the Public Broadcasting Service.

Like many Americans my age, my introduction to PBS was with Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood and Sesame Street.

As I sat this morning pondering my temper, and reflecting on the television I watched as a child, I was struck by a rush of memories, feelings really, when I thought about PBS; everything else, not so much.

I can still remember the comfort; I can’t remember the specifics of episodes, but I recall the comfort — especially with Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood.

I caught a promo for one of the biographies of the man a week or so back; one of the snippets they used was from the time he spent with a severely disabled child, Jeff Erlanger, and he so masterfully navigated that moment at the end of their encounter. To convey to someone so young, dealing with such a difficult situation, that it is okay to feel sad and then to immediately turn that around into joy. Fucking magical. Beautiful. My chest literally swells every time I think of it.

If humanity were on trial for some reason (an unfortunate turn of events for sure) and I were asked to represent our species in some sort of intergalactic court of law (think: Picard vs. Q in Star Trek: TNG), I would introduce as evidence masterpieces of the arts for sure, great deeds, historic events — but I would open with Fred fucking Rogers.

Sesame Street didn’t need to sell me on multiculturalism, my parents are as progressive as it gets in the States, and they certainly fostered in me a sense of social democracy long before I knew what the term meant. But Sesame Street did need to reach millions of Americans unaware of the melting pot they were living in — and reach them they did.

Here’s a snippet from Wikipedia:

“A 1996 survey found that 95% of all American preschoolers had watched the show by the time they were three years old. In 2008, it was estimated that 77 million Americans had watched the series as children. As of 2014, Sesame Street has won 167 Emmy Awards and 8 Grammy Awards — more than any other children's show.”

167 Emmys. Wow. 

In my YA years, PBS delivered again. On Sunday nights in the late ‘70s/early ‘80s, WTTW Chicago unleashed Monty Python on young American lives. (KERA Dallas has the honor of being the first station to share Python with America, back in 1974.) Regarding the development of humor, I cannot think of a more prominent driving prepubescent force than Monty Python’s Flying Circus — except perhaps the Carlin, Pryor, and Martin vinyl I somehow had at the age of ten (back in the ‘70s before the internet).

Venerable programs like Nova (1974–present) and Nature (1982–present) were also favorites among the few kids I knew that were encouraged to learn, and actually enjoyed doing so. PBS really did right by my generation.

Carl Sagan’s Cosmos (1980). Holy shit, how could I forget Cosmos? I recall (now) how it felt as a twelve-year-old to watch that show. I was confused, full of doubt; and here comes Cosmos, where the Universe is a place of wonder that stretches beyond imagination. (Vonnegut, Herbert, and Asimov had already clued me in.)

I am very, very thankful for the influence PBS had on my life.

PBS has done more good for the minds of American children in the last fifty years than any other institution I can imagine. No wonder the fucking republicans hate PBS so goddamn much (the fucking dirty shitbags).

I was thinking about this a few months ago (as it has always been my plan to honor PBS), if I were limited to only PBS broadcasting, I don’t think I would mind a great deal. The PBS NewsHour is the finest hour of news available (in my opinion), and they always follow that (at least locally) with a show I like. Mondays, Tuesdays, and Wednesdays at 8 p.m. are Antiques Roadshow (1997–present), Finding Your Roots (2012–present), and Nature, respectively.

And that is about as much time as the average American has for television anyway.

If you do have the time, there is no shortage of quality programming — old and new — on PBS. Frontline (1983–present) has been around forever (and has received every major award in the business); it’s still the vanguard of investigative journalism. American Masters (1986–present), American Experience (1988–present), Masterpiece (1971–present) — it’s a long list of quality programming.

Even reruns of This Old House (1979–present) are useful as Sunday morning salve; for when you need to nurse that particularly painful hangover. Sure, there’s a bit of hammering, but seeing as you got hammered the night before, it only seems befitting.

PBS has a lot of feel-good shows actually, and not just for the kids. Nature to me is a fantastic example of feel-good television — of which I find there are three categories.

Category 1 feel-good television can improve your mood after a hard day; there are quite a few on PBS. Antiques Roadshow is a category 1 feel-good program for me.

Category 2 is rare; it’s the kind of feel-good show you can put on when there’s been a tragedy, and you and your loved ones are exhausted at the end of the day (one probably spent crying, perhaps looking at photographs of a beloved pet). I stockpile these now; they are like gold. Cosmos: A Personal Journey is a winner there, come to think of it. (Into the category 2 emergency file you go.)

Category 3 is the rarest of all — a show that makes you feel so good you can’t sully it by linking it to pain. It’s just too damn good, and you’d never wait anyway.

That’s The Great British Baking Show (2010–present).

And again, it was PBS that first introduced me to this (acutely British, it’s known as The Great British Bake Off over there) well-spring of good feelings. Every season, every episode — ambrosia-like god-food for the soul.

For fifty years, PBS has been the shining example — perhaps the only example — of what television could be; versus the advertisement-laden, thought-controlling, corporate skull-fucking monstrosity it is nearly everywhere else.

Look, I’m a statist. I’m hardwired for cooperation. I like societies. I like the things societies provide. I don’t think it would be better if society collapsed and I had to shit in the woods every day.

When I think of PBS, I think of the very best our society has to offer.

PBS: Because nobody really likes to shit in the woods.

So I skipped the State of the Union this year, and despite the storm front, it’s been a beautiful day in the neighborhood.

(Author’s note: I watched it.)

Okay, I watched it. A little — but I put it on mute. I can’t stomach his voice. What bristled me from the moment he set foot in the Capitol Building, was the fact that almost everyone else in the room knows he’s guilty of treason. Yet still they stand and smile, and clap (and chant “U.S.A.”f or fuck’s sake!).

I was heartened to see that SOC doesn’t clap for traitors (or suffer those who do), and I was moved by Stacy Abrams’ Democratic Response.

Also, by no design, I watched PBS this evening after the SOTA and DR, and was blown away by American Experience: The Greeley Expedition (2011). 

For my entire life, in each decade, PBS has surprised, entertained and enlightened.

[princessalethea]

“Hello, my name is…”

Everybody gets the story this month—Patrons and blog readers and social media followers alike. Everybody. Because I’m the Princess, and I said so.

*

Hello, My Name Is…

Katy. Simi. Justin. Ursula. Dallas. Kathryn. Bill. An unconscionable amount of good people have left this world since my birthday in January. Want to know the worst part? I feel like I’m forgetting someone. Literally so many people in my life died in the last month that I lost count. 

I light a lot of candles these days. 

Katy died on my birthday. Bianca had whisked me away to Paradise City con in Miami by the time I got the news, so there was no time to grieve. Quincy Allen was around that weekend to provide bear hugs whenever I needed. I left the booth to cry in the bathroom the few times Leanna texted me, but I didn’t respond to her. I was not ready for that conversation. I did not want to “talk to anyone.” I had work to do. So I did it. 

I needed time to think about what sort of farewell I could write to my Audio Dream Girl. I still can’t manage it. There’s just so much to unpack. So much to process. Too much. And now, several weeks later, we’re four or five deaths down the line. 

I feel this way in my career sometimes. The to-do list becomes overwhelming and I don’t know where to start. Logic dictates that I begin with the first item on the list. But that’s not always the thing “speaks to me,” as Sherri Kenyon is so fond of saying. 

Bianca and I were at Orlando Toy & Comic Con when Kathryn went into the hospital. That con only lasted one day, so I was home when she didn’t make it through the second round of surgery. I had time to pray for Kathryn. I had time to grieve. I had time to cry, and scream at the world, and cry again. I cried a lot.

I cried so hard that Tempest came in the room and just hugged me for a while. I told her how mad I was…and how I didn’t feel like I even had the right to be weeping over Kathryn, since I hadn’t had the time to properly grieve for Katy yet. 

“Alethea,” she said to me in that no-nonsense Tempest tone of hers. “That’s not how grief works.”

She was right, of course. I so desperately wanted to apply logic to this whole situation. But Feelings took Logic and laughed maniacally while tossing it out the window. 

But that’s me in a nutshell, isn’t it? The perfect fictional offspring of Mr. Spock and Deanna Troi. Though lately I’ve been wondering if I’m going to evolve into the Mad Hatter instead. Maybe I already have.

I don’t know what to say about Kathryn yet either—as Leanna pointed out this morning, we’ll probably have to wait for Dragon Con for those words and feelings to make themselves known to both of us. Kathryn’s spirit will be with us in the Green Room, no doubt about that. 

But Bill…I do have a story about Bill. A funny story. A story that pertains to writing. So everybody gets the story this month—Patrons and blog readers and social media followers—EVERYBODY. And to hell with logic. Because I said so. 

*

AlphaOops: The Day Z Went First released in the summer of 2006. My very first “appearance” was an official Author Event at Ingram. I’d been an Ingram Book Buyer for six years at that point, and I had attended every Author Event. Every single one. Being able to meet bestselling and debut authors from all walks of life, each at varying stages in their careers—it was the publishing education I never had. 

I also made a lot of friends at Ingram in those six years. I was known far and wide for the Happy Holidays mix-CD I made every December and inter-officed to just about everyone in the company. I learned that the more friends one had at a giant corporation like Ingram, the faster one could get things done. 

So I made a lot of friends. And I did a lot of things. It was incredible amounts of fun. I was the Miss Congeniality of Bookville. 

One of those friends was Susan, the woman in charge of Author Events. The day before my AlphaOops appearance, we had a very important conversation. 

“Susan,” I said. “I need you on Post-its.”

Post-its are a very important thing at Author Events. After the author gives his or her talk, the audience lines up to get their books signed. (Everyone in the audience at Ingram receives a signed book.) One person stands ahead of the signing table, armed with a pad of Post-its. They ask, “Who would you like the book signed to?” They write the name down, spell it properly, and stick it opposite the title page.

In elementary school I was known as “The girl who stars in every play and that PBS show on TV.” People often know my name, but I don’t always know theirs. It’s the down side of a reputation that precedes you.

There were going to be a bunch of people at this Author Event who knew me, but whose names I didn’t know, or who I blanked out on in the heat of OMGBOOKSIGNING. (To this day, I still ask my best friends how to spell their names when signing their books.) I had nightmares of scores of people saying, “Just sign this to me,” as I sat there with zero clue as to who they were. I knew it was going to happen. I just KNEW. So I tried to prepare myself the best way possible: with Susan. 

“I’m on it,” she said.

I had one of most well-attended Author Events in Ingram history. Bigger than Johnnie Cochran. Bigger than Dave Ramsey. Bigger than Al and Tipper Gore. There was standing room only, and people out the door. I told the story of AlphaOops, how it came to be, and how the title was originally The Telaphab from Z to A. 

“My poor mom and I made so many beaded bracelets with the word ‘TELAPHAB’ on them,” I lamented, and about fifteen people across the auditorium raised their hands. 

They were all wearing TELAPHAB bracelets. 

I was so touched, I almost cried. But I didn’t, because I had work to do. After the round of thunderous applause I walked over to the signing table, already piled high with books. Susan stood at the ready, armed with Post-its and a smile, and we made that signing happen. I signed over a hundred and fifty books that afternoon, and I spelled everyone’s name correctly. 

Later that day, flush with triumph and riding high on the wave of a job well done, I grinned as one of the artists from the ad department stopped by my desk. 

“Hey,” he said. “I couldn’t make it to your event earlier, but I had someone snag me a book. Could you sign it for me?”

“Of course!” I said chipperly, taking out my signing pens. But inside I was freaking out. Because I had no clue what this guy’s name was. 

Book Buyers had no business in the ad department, and the artists almost never left their magical, dimly-lit caves lined with twinkle lights. I recognized him, of course—he was the tall, handsome, really nice one. But what was his name?? I tried to remember where we might’ve met, or at what company function I had seen him last. Nothing. Nothing. 

“To whom shall I sign it?” If I was really lucky, the book would be for his daughter or something. 

And then those dreaded words left his mouth. “Oh, just to me is fine.”

GAH. 

I opened the book and uncapped a marker. My hand hovered over the page as if I were trying to conjure the perfect inscription. What went through my mind instead was actually a lot of cursing, followed by HOW THE HECK DO I GET OUT OF THIS???

I couldn’t sign this man’s book. I couldn’t. I was just going to have to own up to my ignorance. 

“How do you spell that again?” I asked sheepishly. 

“Bill,” he said. “B-I-L-L.”

Yup. Bill. 

THIS WAS BILL ELLIOTT. 

Oh my god, I freaking knew that. I mean, I didn’t know, but I knew. And now I was just embarrassed. I felt my cheeks flush all over again as I bent over to sign the page. 

“Well, hey, Bil Keane only has one L,” I blurted awkwardly. 

Bill Elliott was an artist. He’d know exactly who Bil Keane was. Score one for the nerd girl who read everything she could get her hands on: every single TV guide article, cereal box, and newspaper comic strip—including The Family Circus. 

I didn’t have a lot of interactions with Bill after that, but I never forgot him after that day. I made sure he got a Happy Holiday CD every year, and every year I was the recipient of one of his original Christmas cards, even after I left the company. 

When Bill was sent home to rest, before the cancer snapped back with a vengeance that surprised even his doctors, Bill drew a new card to thank all of his friends and family for the support they had shown him during his illness. 

The last card. 

But Bill’s message of thanks is universal—it’s what I would say to all of you—my friends, my family—who have supported my artistic endeavors in the past and who continue to support me still. 

Thank you for being one of my reasons to smile. Your compassion and generosity continue to touch my heart in ways I cannot put into words. May your life always be filled with love, laughter, and peace. 

I love you all—every single one of you—right down the the bottom of my illogical, overly-emotional, crazy-filled, tea-drinking heart. 

*

I will be writing a follow-up essay for my Royal Scholars (after I stop crying) that includes some tips on how to deal with the “Just make it out to me” situation, from both sides of the signing table. If you are not yet a Patron of the Wonderful World of Princess Alethea, I highly encourage you to come join the fun!

The post “Hello, my name is…” appeared first on AletheaKontis.com.

from “Hello, my name is…”

[guywithtime2kill]

Adventure Time: "You Blew It Man!" An Essay Adventure Time“You Blew It Man!”Hello everyone! I’ve been a fan of Adventure Time since its conception, and I’ve often read the thoughtful and intriguing discussions posted on this subreddit. However, I was often hesitant and nervous about positing my own opinions of this show, especially since I was shy and never quite built enough confidence to put myself out there. Now that it is all coming to an end, though, and I see just how loving, dedicated, and supportive the people here are to Adventure Time and for each other, I wanted to post something. Thank you for helping me gather the courage to speak about this crazy, unique, sprawling, imaginative, daring, silly, philosophical, emotional, hopeful, and very mathematical show. It’s a long list, and it’s a testament to this “kid’s cartoon” with all of its creativity and heart that I could use a thousand more words and still have more to say. In the ever expanding and inventive medium of television, Adventure Time proudly stands on its own as a beacon of childhood and hope.To be entirely truthful, Finn the Human is not my favorite character. He is not always interesting and entertaining; and, in his more emotionally volatile years, he can be painful to watch as he flounders in a swirling, violent vortex of relationships and heartbreak. Even at his most selfish and vulnerable, though, Finn is loyal, caring, and righteous; in the context of a coming of age epic, he makes for a great and compelling main character. His development is gradual and meaningful, and this development of his character as he matures and grows is significant enough that we observe a different Finn in each season without losing sight of his heroic heart and noble spirit. There’s the head-strong adventure-seeking child of Season 1, the more accepting and quietly emotional adolescent of Season 3, the sexually awakened and selfish teenage of Season 5, the contemplative youth of Season 6, and the insightful and intelligent young man of Season 7 and Season 8. The episodes focusing on Finn may not always be of high quality, but they all do their best to work in service of his character.The gradual growth of Finn from season to season as he enters manhood is surely impressive, but to see how he also maintains his most important characteristics while he still changes is frankly astounding. Even the best of animated main characters such as Steven Universe or Aang (not “Ung” from the movie adaptation, God help us all) from Avatar: The Last Airbender often stagnate for long periods of time or occasionally act out of character. There are definitely a few hiccups in Finn’s development, such as the return of his arm in “Breezy” (Finn still gets some great development in Season 6 and I love this episode for its handling of depression, but this arm conflict was a big missed opportunity). However, unlike with Aang or Steven, we never lose sight of Finn as a character. He always stays the one true hero of Ooo, and all I can say to that is, “Schmowzow!”Now, I want to discuss a controversial episode which not only showed Finn at one of his lowest emotional points but also hurled a blazing spear of such tremendous velocity and intense force that it impaled and scattered the entirety of Adventure Time’s fan base. This episode is Season 5’s “Frost and Fire.” I was fifteen, just starting high school, at the time. I remember Cartoon Network absolutely hyping the shit out of this new episode, the advertisements exclaiming this was an event not to be missed. Will anything happen to Finn and FP? Is Ice King going to threaten their heating relationship? Stay tuned at (insert time here) and watch the sparks fly! The commercials were probably not that cheesy and strained, but from the crude way a large portion of the fan base strived to match any of the characters into a forced romantic relationship and the poor treatment the channel later gave to its more quality shows, they might as well have been that cringe inducing. The ads were also manipulative in that they influenced many anticipated fans to believe the episode would potentially be another emotionally draining melodrama which further developed Finn and FP’s relationship into something akin to “true love.”It is perfectly understandable why fans held this view, for Cartoon Network was also manipulative in the way they advertised Season 4’s “Burning Low,” a good episode in its own right, as essentially a love triangle among Finn, PB, and FP. The episode certainly possessed romance and dramatic tension, but the focus was on Finn finally expressing his emotions to Bubblegum and the rage he feels for being so conflicted. Flame Princess’s characterization is actually rather thin, and she has very few lines of dialogue here. However, as the commercials depicted and exaggerated, the episode’s drama was genuinely engaging and the emotions brutally raw. More importantly, Finn and FP officially kissed on screen, which solidified their relationship status for many of the fans. There was an intimacy there which few shows, even those developed for adults, could capture well. In addition, Finn is compelling and human enough character that we want to see him succeed and find someone special to live his life with. For a maturing adolescent wandering through a cheerfully bleak land of isolation and sweetness, FP was someone wonderful. If anyone doubts the impact and influence “Burning Low” had on fans, the episode is recorded to have the highest ratings in the show’s entire run, right in the middle of a season with heavy episodes like “I Remember You” and “The Lich.”Of course, Adventure Time doesn’t act like most television shows and is nearly unpredictable, which directly puts it at odds with fans who want to take a more conventional and traditionally satisfying route. If television shows were like rivers with the occasional twist and turn, serenely flowing to their natural conclusions, then Adventure Time is a torrential rapid which breaks off into hundreds of smaller tributaries before pouring up a cliff side as a reverse waterfall, defying the gravity of expectations as it strives for the clouds themselves. And in the midst of ever expanding, the main river takes a moment before flowing naturally again to tumble and swirl into the violent whirlpool that is “Frost and Fire.”There are probably several reasons why this episode plummeted into controversy, but the most important one is also the easiest to identify: Finn and FP broke up over a wet dream. There’s no point denying whether what he did was truly wrong: Finn experienced a sexual awakening and exploited the insecurities of his trusting hot tempered girlfriend and a demented old soul to manipulated them into harming and potentially annihilating one another, all because he wants to get aroused. Consequently, Ice King lost his home, FP lost her only friend, and Finn utterly blew it. I remembered thinking what the Hell just happened, more so than the average episode. Why would Finn act like such a prick of a dick? In retrospect, the answer is simple: Finn is a teenager, and teenagers can do some really stupid shit. As a teenager at the time, I was too self-absorbed to understand why Finn did that shit, but I definitely thought what he and the show did was stupid. Finn is certainly a noble and heroic spirit, but he is also figuratively and literally human. He has no one like him who fully understands what he is going through and how to confront such feelings like arousal. Jake, the wonderful brother he is, simply does not comprehend this aspect of Finn. He does know about prophetic dreams and fate, though, which is why he encourages Finn to commit the deed. Therefore, Finn is essentially alone stumbling in the dark chambers of the dungeon of adolescence, and he poked some big ass monster with his sword trying to find the way out.However, adolescence is not the only reason why Finn acted this way; selfishness is another integral aspect of Finn’s character which motivates some of his actions, and it’s just prevalent enough to be more than just simply being naïve or bull headed. Finn has occasionally harmed others, usually unintentionally, in order to help himself or someone for whom he cares deeply. Unintentional or not, though, the pain is very real. Take Season 2’s “Storytelling,” for example, when Finn abuses multiple innocent animals to create a good story for Jake, or “To Cut a Woman’s Hair” when Finn tries to save Jake from a witch’s bottomless bottom by stealing and/or harassing princesses for their hair. Or how about “Another Way,” where Finn beats up anything and everything to get his foot healed and avoid his fears, or that time in “Sons of Mars” when Finn essentially killed the King of Mars out of his deep caring and tunnel vision to save Jake, or “The Lich,” where Finn steals from every princess in Ooo in order to help BILLYEEE for a highly ambiguous purpose? Better yet, what about “All the Little People,” where Finn gets a chance to play God and fiddle with the lives and relationships of tiny figurines without once questioning their own individuality?The reason Finn’s selfishness is not addressed more often is because Finn has enough of a conscience to later realize what he did was wrong and apologize for said wrong doing. These apologies were enough to patch up the problems with most of the characters he harmed. However, his crime in “Frost and Fire” cuts too deep into a very complex relationship to be forgive so easily with words. As Magusmirificus refers to, this is the point where Finn needs to stop viewing his life as a video game and treat it and the people around him with nuance and consideration. Considering Finn’s own father is Martin, a pompous dingwad who is sucked so far up his own ass that he’s his own black hole, distorting everything around while he himself is filled with nothingness, it is amazing Finn is not even more selfish. That is because Finn has friends who care about him and a brother who loves him. Finn has, as Martin puts it, “a star to revolve around.” The pain Finn feels may last for some time, but it is not forever, and as we see in Season 7, he becomes all the better of person and friend precisely due to everything he has gone through. From here on out, Finn eventually conquers his selfishness and becomes truly selfless.Not everything following “Frost and Fire” is great: Finn is too horrifically awkward to watch in “The Red Throne” considering he already tried this with PB earlier in “Too Old” (an episode I personally really like), and Flame Princess is not strong enough of a character to carry said “Red Throne” or the rather lukewarm “Earth and Water.” However, there is something beautiful in seeing Finn grow in episodes that range from very good to downright brilliant. That is because the crew is so dedicated to Finn as a character and put a lot of effort into making the arc “Frost and Fire” ignited truly work.In addition, there’s really no way to get around this episode when revisiting the show; it is too grounded in the series’ past. We have Finn’s slight selfishness as a character and his initial sexual arousal from “All the Little People” come into play. There are the prophetic dreams and Cosmic Owl from “The Final Frontier” as well as a callback to PB’s probable German roots. We have Ice King’s tragic backstory being acknowledged as Finn abuses him. And, of course, there is the collapsing relationship between FP and Finn that started from “Incendium” onwards. Likewise, the episode greatly influences the events to come that will affect Finn and his friends’ lives. Such events include Finn and FP’s breakup, the destruction of Ice King’s home, the dissolving of Finn’s demon sword due to Ice King’s antics, FP dealing with her betrayal and her subsequent transformation into a ruler who focuses on trust, Finn’s torment and anguish following the breakup, the introduction of the grass sword, the loss of Finn’s arm and the birth of Fern. Many of these plots last several seasons, even extending to the end of the series, and they all stem from the tragedy which occurs here. As suggested by “The Comet,” even the most insignificant act has consequences which go far beyond what we can see and feel. This immaculate randomness and the very real and caring individuals it encompasses is what life is all about.A major component of Adventure Time’s success and identity is its portrayal of childhood and its real sense of hop, that everything will turn out all right. However, in order to confront maturity and retain such hope, Finn, that boy adventurer in a bear hat who in some way represents all of us, has to be challenged in the face of all sorts of adversities, whether it’s candy zombies, selfish acts, the Lich, sexual awakenings, an uncaring father, isolation, or the death of a best friend and brother. If hope can survive that, through apocalypse, adolescence, and loss, then even wonders like Ooo can prosper from destruction, and a young man can have a life that is happy and truly worth living.I know that this was a long ramble which went everywhere and nowhere in particular, but I’m glad I was finally able to speak my mind on this special show. If you still hate this episode with a fiery passion or icy disdain, that is perfectly fine! If you think I’m full of it and want to set me straight, I would welcome such a conversation. To be able to discuss this show, no matter the opinion, is fun, educational, and helps me to become a better and more understanding individual. My only hope is that you give this episode another chance and try watching with a fresh perspective, for even when you become an adult, as a wise nut once said, “You never really stop growing.”Thank you.

[guywithtime2kill]

Why Bubbline will never be canon - and that's okay! Excuse the self-assured title, but I wanted it to be eye-catching. To put out a disclaimer right off the bat, know that I have no problem with people who ship Bubbline, or Bubbline as a concept. Nor am I saying this is 100% true.Everything you're about to read is my own interpretation of Princess Bubblegum's relationship with Finn and Marceline - a culmination of what I've gathered from how they are portrayed, and hard evidence in the show itself and the staff surrounding it.To put it out there right now: I wouldn't care if I'm dead wrong and the show confirms Bubbline in the finale. I would nod my head and go, "Okay, so it is," and reexamine their relationship in light of this new information. All I'm doing here is offering my own insight - because I've been going back and forth with /u/leusid about this for a while, and decided many on this sub would find my ramblings interesting, or at least insightful.I'm aware it's hard to see anything outside of this perspective after it's felt confirmed for so many years, but understand mine as I explain the rest of my reasoning.So here's what I believe: Bubbline has never, and will never, be canon - furthermore, the series may end with Fubblegum.Fucking nuts, right? Why would I think such a thing, when the writers have dropped copious amounts of Bubbline fuel, and Fubblegum's been effectively dead since season 3?!(Can I just say I hate using these stupid ship names? I just do because people know what I'm referring to with a single word.)To address the elephant in the room: the hints. They're so obvious, why would the writers put them there if it wasn't canon!? Well, here's the thing - this show is well-written, and every line and scene is crafted with thought and intent; the characters, despite their strangeness, are very human and real in how they grow and interact. We all know this, but I'm emphasizing it because I agree that - yes - all of those scenes were intentional.Because I think the writers are just fucking with y'all, and I wouldn't put it past them to do that.Everyone interpreted What Was Missing to have Bubbline hints - despite Rebecca's song "I'm Just Your Problem" being a personal song she wrote about how she once felt toward her coworkers working on the show, which is followed by "Best Friends in the World." Despite her work on Steven Universe, I don't think she would just decide to make two main characters gay unless the entire staff, and Ward, agreed upon it.The next time we get any teasing, it's in Sky Witch - and the ONLY tease is Bubblegum sniffing the fuck outta that shirt (which I will talk about further down). Everything from then on was framed in a romantic lens, when in truth, you can just as easily see their interactions as a close, special friendship. From the moment I heard it, Marcy's line from Ketchup - "If that's how you interpret it" - just feels like the writers addressing everyone who reads Bubbline in their interactions.There's three specific instances I've discussed regarding implications of Bubbline in the show, and will use to explain why I interpret their relationship the way I do: a little moment in Broke His Crown, the aforementioned shirt, and that scene with Finn and Bubblegum everyone seems to forget about.First, this moment in Broke His Crown. You have to keep in mind that when creating a show, whether it's live action or a storyboarded cartoon, every character movement is done with intent or purpose. That's just how this medium conveys its story and characters.So with that in mind, take this into account: Gunther, Bonnie, Marceline and Simon are navigating the maze of the crown, trying to find the source of its corruption. In the establishing shot they are walking in this order.But as soon as dialogue starts, it's something private and personal between Simon and Marceline, and it keeps the focus on them. You have to keep in mind that this is the first time Bonnie has encountered the man - and this episode is her finally coming to emotionally understand why Ice King is so important to Marceline.This is important because, when in the next shot with Bubblegum, she's walking beside Gunther, smiling, hand on the back of his head - something interesting about that is she doesn't quite interact with him like Marceline does throughout the episode. She just meekly waves goodbye to him at the end, even. It's not because she dislikes Gunther, but she lacks the connection to him that Marceline does, for a number of personal reasons I bet - primary reason he's just data in a piece of equipment she'll likely never meet again.But this setup is important because it shows that Bonnie respects this is a personal moment for Marcy and Simon, and is giving them some privacy. When Simon asks Marcy if she has a boyfriend, she gives a loud, sharp laugh due to Ash being the only boyfriend she's ever had - her only romantic partner - and he was quite the shitpiece.Many have interpreted Bonnie's reaction here as relief that she doesn't have a boyfriend. But Bonnie doesn't grin to herself like this, as she's already smiling. She only looks over because of this laugh, and turns the moment Marceline says "No" - a sign that she was interested in Marceline's reaction, and also was listening to their dialogue the whole time. When she realizes it's all in good nature from Marceline, she resumes to her previous position of looking ahead alongside Gunther with a smile.If there truly were any intentional romantic implications to this scene, then Bonnie would have looked over as soon as Simon asked that question, and looked away smiling after Marceline said "No."And I was going to mention him anyway, but Ash is one of the reasons why I don't see Bubbline happening. If there was something in the past, Marcy would have likely told Simon. That's not hard evidence but it's more to the contrary of the ship like I believe, as I don't think Marcy would lie to Simon about PB being her girlfriend at one point (or even currently, as some people insanely believe). Ash was Marceline's only romantic partner, and it proves why she, as a person, is not ready for such a thing.The thing about Marceline's character is she craves healthy companionship, with anybody. Throughout her life she's only lost people she cared about, and her early life is what shaped her into the emotionally aloof punk we know and love in pre-Stakes Adventure Time. Ash was one of many instances that shows just how broken Marceline is inside - where she endured and blinded herself to someone who was clearly abusing her, not physically but emotionally - solely because she didn't want to be alone again.If that isn't telling, Marceline even lied to Simon about the nature of their breakup: she didn't dump him because he was a jerk, though that's the heart of it simplified to the max. She dumped him because he betrayed her trust and sold something that was beloved to her - but she doesn't have that specific memory anymore, only the knowledge that he took it away so she'd still be with him.Ash was more than a jerk, and Marceline didn't break up with him because of that. Even though Bonnie isn't Ash, obviously, it's clear that neither Marceline nor the Princess were ever in a healthy emotional state to endure a serious relationship. It's so much more telling, and fitting, that they had their ugly breakup in a friendship sense in the past.Take Marcy's history and person into account, and then take Bubblegum's: she's only ever had the Candy People as her friends, her whole life is dedicated to preserving their's, and she's immortal. Because of these factors it was hard to finally be a real friend with someone who was her equal, just as it was for Marceline, and that's why they had a falling out that, only by the end of Varmints, has finally started to mend itself, and that's because of the friendship they share with Finn.Because a friendship between these two would be incredibly positive for both of them. Although they are very different on the outside, deep inside these two share many spiritual similarities: they have trouble expressing their emotions, yet both have a boundless capacity to care; they're both teenagers, and immortal. Both have gone through untold trials and tribulations that have resulted in their emotional isolation. Since Varmints, Marceline has come to understand why Bubblegum is the way she is, and since Sky Witch, or even What Was Missing, really, Bubblegum's better understood why Marceline is the way she is.Or perhaps not - perhaps long before that. I think Bonnie never had a problem with Marceline (in fact, given how lonely she is, and her rebuttal in What Was Missing, I'm sure she loved the friendship she had with her, and was deeply hurt and confused when she was driven away by an apparent lack of caring).Which brings me to another point: the shirt.First off, before we get into anything about that, I wanna address the smelling - as people bring it up a lot. It's so easy to just look at the scene and not think about it - we see a shirt Marceline gave Bubblegum, and she's just smelling the F out of it. Clearly this has romantic connotations to it, up until you actually think about it and what that means if there really was true romantic intent behind her actions here.Because if there were, then that means she's smelling Marceline's scent, and that makes no goddamn sense, because Marceline obviously doesn't, and hasn't, worn that shirt. I mean maybe I'm weird but I've smelled my own clothes before - and Bonnie's weirder. Her own bubblegum-aroma's ingrained in that thing by now, she wears it every night for Christ's sake.This is probably the exact line of thinking the writers had when making Sky Witch. What you don't know about writers, is they think, a lot, about what they're writing. Any one that has a bit of pride cares about what they're putting out, so I'm sure this has crossed their mind and they knew people would read romance into it because Bubbline is massively popular. People were obviously going to be looking for more fuel for their ship, given that it was the first episode they had together since, but when you take this moment out, the entire episode is just Bubblegum and Marceline on an adventure.I think that was a mistake honestly, because people just saw the rest of the episode through a romantic lens and really missed the excellently crafted dynamic between these two characters - really told a lot about how they viewed and interacted with each other at the time.Now the shirt: I think with everything I've said, it's even more important to both characters that it's a symbol of their friendship.Take my little analysis of them into account, and you'll see why such a friendship is not only an incredibly positive influence on the both of them, but also very important for both their happiness. Stakes, among everything that it accomplished for Marceline's character, also casually displayed why Bonnie is important to her, and vice versa. It isn't in the forefront, but we see in their actions and interactions with each other that they have the ability to be such great friends to one another - and in Marcy's dream, her desire is to live her life being Bubblegum's best friend. And from what Bonnie offers at the end, this is something she wishes for as well. Marceline conceding that they may now be "together forever" shows how much of a growing experience Stakes was for her.I know blushing typically has romantic connotations to it, and Bonnie did so twice in the miniseries: when Marceline tells her this, and when she calls her "nice and pink", though Bubblegum focuses on the "nice" aspect, thinking she actually means nice, as a person. You have to keep in mind that from PB's perspective, at this stage in their friendship, although they've made amends she probably still thinks Marceline is bitter with her - she acknowledges in Varmints how awful she's treated her, after all, and I'm sure she hasn't forgotten about it with a single wave of the hand from Marceline. So these two statements by her must have made Bonnie feel forgiven.So the shirt Marceline gave her, from Princess's perspective, was more important to her than Hambo was to Marcy - something whose significance we are fully aware of.According to Maja, who is the head mistress on all things emotional, that has greater value to PB than a doll Marceline was given by the father figure who'd saved her and was inevitably lost.To me, this just tells me how important Marceline's friendship is to Bonnie. Marcy's one of the few real friends she'd ever had in her long, long life - and I've hammered to death already why that's significant. You're right, Bonnie isn't an emotional person - but she shows so much through her actions, all throughout the series. Look at the lengths she's willing to go to protect the Candy People, her appreciation and value of Finn - even in Broke His Crown, how she doesn't hesitate to help Ice King because she knows how important he is to Marceline.Actions speak louder than words, and Bubblegum understands this better than anybody, even if she herself doesn't realize this. And someone giving her a gift? What was probably the first gift she ever got, and it was from one of the first real friends she ever had? It makes sense why the shirt was valued so for Bonnie - why she wore it every night as a pajama shirt (which, according to Marceline, she never, ever seen her wore).And finally we come to Finn, and I'm going to make that a separate post later in the day.Hope you enjoyed my ramblings, and at least learned a thing or two about your favorite character. Oh, and Marceline too.