#and throughout season 3 i always got the impression that the two had developed a sort of platonic love tbfh

[ivystitches]

the more i think about the ted lasso series finale the more upset i get

[atopfourthwall]

Ive only recently gotten into classic Star Trek so I don't think I can properly answer but what is it specifically about Discovery and recent Star Trek that classic Trek fans hate?

Putting this behind a cut because... it's a lot.

Well, first of all a big rejection of it is just on an aesthetic level. Up until the 2009 movie (which was considered a reboot, even with time travel elements), Star Trek tried to treat the original series and how it was portrayed as pretty sacrosanct. Sure, they might occasionally make jokes about goofier aspects of it and discard some of the stupider stuff (like how in the final episode, penned by Gene Roddenberry himself, that women weren't allowed to Captain starships), but how TOS looked? That's how the 23rd century looked. Buttons and multi-colored outfits and boxy computers and smooth, undetailed ships WAS what was appropriate for the time. When Scotty came back in TNG, they had him on the holodeck and it was the TOS bridge. When DS9 traveled back in time to that era for an episode? They went onto the Enterprise and visited it. When in an Enterprise 2-parter we had a TOS-era ship? It looked like a TOS ship. They even did a 2-parter on Enterprise to explain why Klingons had smooth foreheads when later (and earlier) they didn't. Star Trek up until then cared about maintaining that continuity of appearance. But Discovery is set in the TOS era... but nothing looks like TOS. Even when we got the Enterprise and those uniforms and we saw inside the ship, it was an upgraded form. The only logic I've seen people try to argue about WHY it doesn't look like it actually did was "Well, audiences won't accept something as cheap as TOS being futuristic." Well, then you've got a few responses there: -Don't set in TOS era, then. -That's horseshit, because audiences from the 90s through the 2000s accepted it just fine. Even a piece of dialogue from DS9 explained it perfectly: "I LOVE 23rd century design." It LOOKS cheap, but it was just the aesthetics of the period. And the Enterprise 2-parter it still looked good in HD. Hell, arguably it looked BETTER in HD because they knew how to light it and create mood and its own unique flavor. -It's even more horseshit because people are STILL going back and watching it even today, as indicated by you saying you've started watching it, so clearly it's not that much of a barrier. But what's even more egregious is the TECHNOLOGY. You might be able to accept updated aesthetics if at least matches what was present during the period... and it doesn't. Holographic displays and communication (holodeck technology AT ALL, frankly - it's possible it was there, but TNG seemed pretty adamant that the holodecks were fairly new, very impressive technology), weapons not looking or acting like they traditionally did, Enterprise and Discovery having R2D2-style repair droids that certainly did not exist in TOS, the wrong sound effects being frequently employed, replicator technology for good-looking food instead of food dispensers that gave out marshmallows and cubes, and honestly the tech level shown in Discovery looks just as advanced - if not MORE advanced than seen on TNG 100 years later. And this is a minor thing, but despite the attempt to make the future LOOK futuristic, from a cultural perspective, the future looks... way too damn similar to now. The excessive swearing (it was said in particular in Star Trek 4 that while they certainly did cuss, it was less common and they sure as hell weren't dropping F-bombs), a party on Discovery that looked like a rave (when previously it seemed like the most popular music and culture of the 23rd/24th century was considered fairly high-brow entertainment [classical music, Shakespeare, great works of literature and plays, etc.] - and while you could certainly argue that that snootiness and love of that stuff is a problem with Star Trek and a sign of how sterile and homogenized it is, THAT is the future they presented and a character in Voyager loving some of the goofier parts of 20th century culture like jukeboxes and old sci-fi serials was considered unusual), and just the general way people talk betrays the idea that the writers aren't thinking about how society changes in the future. It's just the modern day, but with cooler technology. But hey, let's set aside the general aesthetics - some people aren't going to mind that and find

ways to handwave away a lot of stuff (even Discovery season 2 TRIED to handwave away stuff like the holographic communications, but did a piss-poor job of it). This brings us to the problem of the WRITING. And the problem with the writing is a big Michael Burnham-shaped indentation. To be clear, I don't mind Michael as a character or her actress - there are interesting aspects to her, centering a Star Trek show around the science officer is a neat idea (though that means you should probably NAME IT AFTER HER and not around the ship, because it suggests this is a standard ensemble group and not JUST her)... but the actual execution is that it feels like the entire universe bends over backwards for HER. She has a unique relationship with a beloved longtime character that is retconned in. She has unique relationships with several important characters to the point where the fate of billions of people hinges on her and the decisions she makes. She is presented as almost always correct about everything, and those that oppose her are often wrong, naïve, or active enemies. Now, this is less of an issue in the third season - but that has its own unique problems - but in the first season, the resolution of two major storylines (mirror universe and the Klingon war) revolves around her and her relationship to the Terran Emperor and Lorca. In season 2, her mother trying to help or save her is the basis of the ENTIRE friggin' plot with time travel and the like, with special knowledge and history having to do with her and everyone ready to abandon their lives for her so she won't be alone when she has to go to the future when arguably they barely know her (the timeline of the show is debatable). Season 3 has a few different problems with her - the first is that she keeps being involved in things that don't concern her (why is she going down to Trill?) and she keeps violating orders. Now, her violating orders is a problem throughout the entirety of Discovery - in fact, it's kind of the instigating factor OF the series. And arguably, other Star Trek characters are guilty of that and they face no consequences, just as she faces none... and yet it's the brazenness with which it happens, and in those other series it's arguable because the series tries to avoid excessive continuity changes for its episodic nature, so the status quo MUST return to normal... but Discovery is pivoted as one of MAJOR continuity, so her lack of consequences (and indeed eventual PROMOTION) is baffling to the point of frustration. Now again, let me be clear here - she is not a bad character in and of herself. Honestly what it shows is that being the science officer on a starship is not where her talents lie. She should be in a position where she has a lot more freedom to act and not in a major command structure... but being in that command structure, what we see in season 3 is that she lacks the discipline, emotional maturity, responsibility, leadership qualities, and general other traits necessary to be a Captain. Only once during season 3 did she display such a quality - putting the safety of the Federation above a friend and colleague... but other times she will happily disobey orders and put herself and others in harm's way, creating potential new problems. Now, again, Star Trek is rife with characters doing that... but usually not the Captains. And, in fact, when this happened once on DS9 with one officer disobeying orders and putting their own personal feelings above the greater responsibility, it was made VERY clear that the incident would mean that they would never be able to command a starship because of the unofficial reprimand. What's even more frustrating about her is that the character is ALWAYS shoved to the forefront so much to the point where we just get sick of her. SHE is the one giving log entries (usually pretty piss-poor ones, at that - very flowery and nonsensical and kind of dumb) and not the Captain. SHE is the one given so much focus and how the plot of the episode affects her. Barely anyone else gets any focus episodes - I STILL can't

remember the names of some of the secondary characters because they're so rarely said, and a PTSD-related plotline in season 3 for one of the secondary characters basically gets resolved OFF-SCREEN. Michael would be fine if we actually had a chance to miss her... but we never do. Arguably one of the best episodes of the show is in season 2, when it focuses on Saru and his people because Michael DOES take a back seat. It's his story and his development and problems relating to him and his people. And even if, again, we forgave the idea of so much focus on her even in plots that aren't about her... she never seems to really change that much. She'll TALK about how she's changed, but I see no real difference in the way she acts (MAYBE season 1 to 2, where in season 1 she was stiffer and more Vulcan-like, but that's it). But hey, let's assume that's not a problem for you - you really, REALLY like Michael and are fine with so much focus on her. Simply put, the writing of the rest of the show... is just kind of dumb. The ship is powered by magic mushrooms that let it teleport everywhere because the universe has super fungus capillaries throughout it that nobody can see and also it's magic and can resurrect the dead. The time travel plot of season 2 doesn't make any sense when you sit down and diagram it. Well-established Trek lore is just kind of sprinkled in, but now in ways that doesn't match what it was before or at least in ways that completely recolor how it's supposed to work, because it needs to serve THIS plot. Everyone remembering a murdererous monster fondly after she leaves because "Hey, she was coooool." The explanation for the big mystery in season 3 is just fricking stupid and one of the two big reasons why I've finally given up on Discovery, because it's just so absurd, doesn't match how anything works, and just feels like the writers giving the middle finger to the audience because they care more about "YOU MUST FEEEEEEL THINGS!" instead of it making sense. And indeed, there is certainly a balance to be made of plot vs. emotion-driven storytelling - some stories are dumb, but are forgivable because the character writing and emotion are so strong that they override how goofy the plot is... but sometimes a plot is just so dumb it overrides anything I'm SUPPOSED to feel. And it would help if I already liked the show, already gave it some benefit of the doubt... but I don't and it hasn't done enough to impress me. A little thing that's a problem with ALL of current modern Trek shows is that whole sprinkling lore thing - I don't think a single episode goes by in ANY current modern Trek series that doesn't have a random reference to classic Trek lore. A name, a line of dialogue, etc. It comes across like the creators don't trust you to enjoy it on its own merits, but want you to like it because "Hey, remember thing? We know about thing! Like us because we mentioned thing!" But hey, I recognize that these are things that other people may not have any problem with or just disagree in general. But for me and my family, these are the big ones that keep us from enjoying it. Hell, my brother and dad still watch it for hatewatching purposes, but I was done after season 3. I gave it plenty of chances to impress me, and while each season MARGINALLY got better as it went along, I'm tired of waiting to actually like it and to stop feeling like it thinks I'm a fucking idiot. If other people still like it, great - it clearly appeals to them in a way that it doesn't appeal to me and they are free to enjoy it. Other people probably have their own issues, but this long, rambly bit is the major stuff for me.

[inmyarmswrappedin]

So, because Fatou’s season ends today and, as far as we know, Druck hasn’t been renewed yet, I want to go over the things I feel the team did well in this season and the things I hope they take with them when they sit down to write the next season (which I’m manifesting will be Ava’s).

I think that s5 and, perhaps to a bigger extent, s6, were the team’s attempt to address fan feedback for and criticisms of s3 and s4. So I have hopes that, after possibly the most scrutinized season of any Skams, they are still willing to read even more feedback and sit down once again to craft a couple more seasons (possibly even 3 or 4 more seasons!).

So, without further ado, things that were done well! (Do I have to add “in my opinion”? Do I??)

I liked that for both s5 and s6, the thorough-line for the season wasn’t made obvious or shared in a press release, but rather it was up to fans to connect the story threads for themselves.

I loved that the team sought to address one of the biggest criticisms of s3, that is, that Matteo was given so many symptoms of a mental illness, but it ultimately went unaddressed in the narrative. They did this by giving Nora a dissociative disorder, and Fatou dyscalculia. (Matteo has been headcanoned as being mentally ill and having a disability.) It allowed the teams to develop both fan theories into full-blown seasons and give each of them the importance they deserved.

I have said this already, but I really appreciate that the team chose misunderstood, misrepresented and underrepresented mental illnesses and disabilities. I feel like s5 and s6 will be referents for many years, because they really took the time to portray a dissociative disorder and dyscalculia in a down-to-earth, unhurried way that isn’t meant to shock and awe, but simply allow us to understand why and when Nora and Fatou will struggle. Druck got the viewers to anticipate when Nora and Fatou would struggle, and that’s the first step in being able to anticipate and accommodate the needs of the Noras and Fatous of the world. I really can’t overstate how important this is and what a difference it makes in a real, tangible way. These seasons aren’t meant to be enjoyed for voyeuristic reasons, but they will legitimately help people.

One of the biggest criticisms of s4 was that Amira and Sam didn’t connect as women of color. In fact, it seemed like in s4 Sam was treated as another white friend, when in s2 both she and Amira were the victims of Kiki’s racism. The team addressed this by giving us Ava and Fatou’s friendship, which I want to say might be the first friendship between main characters of color where their race is a substantial reason for their bond. (There are the Sanas with their Jamillas, but the Jamillas aren’t main characters, and then there are friendships like Jo and Megan and Zoya, or Imaan and Liv, or Luca and Yasmina, but iirc in every case their bond as women of color isn’t made explicit.)

Another criticism of s4 was the way Kiki turned into the world’s most understanding white friend offscreen. The team addressed this with the Ava and Mailin storyline, which I think was wonderfully and subtly set up in s5, then built on with the biology test leaked answers.

On the topic of race, I think a major criticism of s3 was that David’s ethnicity wasn’t acknowledged (to the point where a white actress was cast to play his sister gvhvhv). The team has made up for this with Josh (more in the s6 sm than in s5, but I still count it) and with Kieu My. Fatou and Kieu My bonded over being first/second gen children of immigrants, and in doing so, they acknowledged that these characters aren’t white and have different experiences than white Germans.  

The first 6 episodes of this season were some of the finest writing in the Skams. The storylines all connected and built on each other. The motifs were just so good and beautiful and fitting. The themes were all clearly defined and easy to follow.

The tortoise plot was one of the most fun and imaginative storylines in any Skams, it connected Fatou and Ismail in a believable way. And not to rave about a fucking tortoise, but animals can be really uncooperative and that tortoise delivered every fucking clip. Druck has a reputation for being one of the most depressive versions of Skam, but the Maike/Burger plot was just plain fun.

I feel like some of the old gen’s instas were a bit self-indulgent. I’m thinking specifically of Matteo’s memes and how they they weren’t necessarily the kind of memes a gay dude born in 2001 would pick, but someone a decade older. I think this is much better done with new gen. Fatou’s memes reflect her age and her sexuality, and not just that, but Ava, Mailin, Kieu My, Josh, etc. all pick memes and even focus on different aspects of recent news, based on their gender, race, personalities, interests, etc.

I appreciate that the team found a way to fit a sex scene between Fatou and Kieu My to add to the small catalogue of wlw sex scenes on Skams (I’m including the scene in lovleg or we’d only have two lol). While I understood the reasons eskam opted not to include one, I thought there were ways to feature a sex scene that didn’t sexualize the actresses and didn’t require nudity. Cases in point: the lovleg scene, and this scene in Druck.

And it also needs to be said. This is the first original season with a main of color, and the third season overall (after Liv and Imane) where 10 episodes are given to a character of color and no one else. Of the three, it’s certainly the season that loved and respected its main the most. The bar is so low it’s in hell, but Druck did clear that bar!

With all that said, let’s talk about the things I would really want the team to address in following seasons:

The thing I most want them to fix might be small or unimportant for a lot of people, but I think it’s at the core of why the season has been unenjoyable or certain plot points haven’t come across the way the team wanted, for many people. I am talking about the overly expositional nature of the writing.  It appears as if the team approached the writing of the clips with the intention of hitting each beat as noted in their agreed upon outline, and absolutely nothing else was to be added. This is an issue both in s5 and s6. It’s just less noticeable in s5, because s5 is setting up stuff for Fatou’s season, and possibly even seasons that haven’t been written yet. The fact that absolutely every second counts makes for a stressful watching experience for me, because the narrative tension is always heightened. Whereas with Skam, the narrative tension would build throughout the clip. Take the Pride scene in Skam, for instance. The clip allows for Isak and Eskild to get increasingly more agitated as they butt heads. I feel like if this Druck team had done the Pride scene in s5 or s6, the clip would’ve started with both Isak and Eskild already on edge, and cut much of the dialogue that got them there.

On the topic of naturalistic dialogue, this season doesn’t have it. Here is an example from ep 10 clip 2, Wieder vereint/Reunited 11:37.

Fatou: I’ll get a certificate too and bring it over to you. And I checked it, I only have to change one course and my schedule will work.

Teacher: Miss Jallow, you are not the first one to come to me with an epiphany. We could fill entire school weeks with the lessons you missed. In addition, Doctor Steinberg told me about your, well… activities. You don’t have a lot of arguments on your side. 

Fatou: But I’ve spoken to all of the teachers and they said they are okay with it. 

Teacher: You seem to have friends among the teaching staff. Mrs Pavlovic put in a word for you. Okay then, do it and go before I change my mind. [translated by @kieu-tou! Thank you!] 

Like. This is the bare bones version of a dialogue. This should be the first draft, not the final version. The coordinator goes from absolute no to yes, with just one line from Fatou. The coordinator gives reasons that would necessitate more than one sentence of counterargument, like Fatou’s absences and the Biology test leaked answers. The coordinator even says Fatou doesn’t have a lot of arguments on her side, and yet it takes Fatou one line to change her mind!

And of course we viewers don’t want or need a lot of time with the coordinator. And particularly at this point in the season, no one would enjoy a naturalistic dialogue with the coordinator of all people.  But my point is that this is an issue with the dialogue all this season (and last season as well, but this season has been more scrutinized), the reason I picked this example is because of how easy it is to see here.

Which brings us to the pacing of the clips, and specifically the Friday clips. Because the script goes straight to the information the team wants to convey to the viewers, skipping the build up to it, many Friday clips have fallen flat, felt abrupt, and have been, tbh, unsatisfying. Again, I had this issue in s5, but as that season went on, I felt like the team had a better grip on Friday clips. But then they did it again in the first Friday clip this season, and so I think this is something the writers really should work on. The first Friday clip in Isak’s season closes on Isak being sandwiched by Emma and Even on a bench, visually setting up the love triangle, or more accurately, the personifications of who Isak should want to hook up with and who he really wants. But in order to get there, we’re shown a good amount of info, from the way Vilde, Eva and Sana are handling Noora’s absence, to Chris and Kasper, Even hovering around Isak, Emma trying to impress Isak, Isak escaping and, like, draping himself on the walls because he’s so over it all. Isak playing a game on the bathroom to stall for time. The paper towel maneuver to immediately give us a sense of what a weirdo Even is. A conversation between Isak and Even that gives us some clues about Even’s shame, as well as establish interests in common (like weed), and this is all before Emma even joins them! Just think of all the stuff we learn about who Isak, Even, Emma, Eva, Vilde or Sana are as people, before we get to the point of the clip! Fatou’s season simply didn’t have that. Compare it with the first Friday clip of Fatou’s season where the cashqueens quickly talk about the leaked answers, one of the major storylines this season that only gets a couple lines, before Fatou says she doesn’t want to talk about school (Fatou’s struggles with school, another major storyline), and then we’re onto the point of the clip, which is that Kieu My likes girls too. AND FADE TO BLACK. When people say they want longer clips, what they mean isn’t artificially inflate the clip length or add more plot stuff. Just let us watch the characters interact with each other so that we get a feel for how they relate to each other. I know I wish we’d have gotten more of Ava and Fatou interacting with each other before things turned to shit, and Ava with the other girls, so that I know why they all like and value Ava so much. I wish we’d have gotten more of Kieu My talking to the cashqueens about, like, why she didn’t make use of the biology test answers, instead of getting it on a chat. Or food combos they don’t like. So it makes more sense that later on Kieu My actually thinks she and Fatou are friends.  And every line doesn’t have to count. In Skam España, the characters are constantly talking and not everything they ever talked about ended up being relevant. When one of the characters lied about her house undergoing renovations to hide the fact that she was poor, the characters joked about Italian marble and put on bad Italian accents and made that Italian hand gesture. None of this was important to the plot because those renovations weren’t real to begin with, but they made viewers feel like these were real friends joking around, instead of characters needing to hit every storyline beat in a clip.

I have this joke with my friends about Druck always going 🤪🤪 in the last third of every season, in which a season that was very tightly written and cohesive suddenly pulls something inexplicable and pretty much impossible to resolve in 1-3 episodes. Hanna’s season suddenly switching to Mia, Björn creeping on Mia in episode 9! of a total 10, David getting outed in episode 8 and then disappearing for a whole week, Amira’s season pivoting to Mia and Hanna. It has happened in every season except Nora’s, so I thought the team had learned its lesson, but then the forgotten date with Ava happened. To be clear. It really makes no sense that Nora would have hung out with Ava several times since Tuesday, and the topic of the cashqueens being officially introduced to Kieu My wouldn’t have come up. it’s just not realistic.gif I feel like at that point the writing for the rest of the reason became super contrived to keep Fatou miserable and apart from Kieu My and Ava to artificially delay the reunions until episode 9 and 10. Why add a cheating insinuation and the main checking her partner’s messages in episode 8 if you know you won’t be able to properly resolve it? Why make Kieu My mock Fatou’s “uhm” if it’s not going to be addressed in their reunion clip? Kieu My had taken the initiative for a lot of the relationship, so it’s okay for Fatou to take the initiative when it comes to making up. You don’t have to add things that can only be resolved through an expositional info dump. (Please no more exposition than it’s necessary! I think we’ve established that at this point lol.) In the case of Fatou’s season, this is even sadder because I feel like Kieu My’s intimacy issues could’ve been the reason to drive them apart for two weeks, rather than the Maya/uhm stuff. This could’ve also been resolved through Fatou and Kieu My explicitly negotiating their boundaries and how they want to be comforted and how they want to comfort each other, which I thought was the issue with Fatou rejecting Kieu My’s attempts to help while wanting physical touch, while Kieu My didn’t want to be touched but rather seen.  

There are going to be many thinkpieces on why a myriad of stuff didn’t work for people, so I’m going to keep this simple and address one last thing. I think that choosing to focus on Nora’s mental illness and Fatou’s disability is a great choice that doesn’t complicate the themes too much, but Druck (and all the Skams, but I’m invested only in Druck succeeding at this point) still struggles with being intersectional. This is the major reason why the Ava/Mailin storyline ended not with a bang, but a whimper. There just wasn’t enough work done to connect Fatou’s struggles not just to her disability, but also to her race (and even her sexuality). I think that if people really want (and lbr, it’ll be mostly poc who will put in that effort and work), they can see how Fatou’s race affected the way other people and especially adults reacted to her, but this wasn’t made explicit. If Ava and Mailin are going to argue about racism all season, why not connect that with Karin firing Fatou from Aquarius? As it stands, Karin fired Fatou because of a disability neither of them knew Fatou has, and that was the resolution to that storyline. Why not make it explicit that the Physics teacher had preconceived ideas about Fatou because Fatou is black? Why wasn’t Fatou’s disability addressed in the meeting with the coordinator? Why didn’t Fatou express to Mailin that Fatou, too, had issues with how Mailin was acting wrt racism? It felt like, with the way the season was putting so much emphasis on racism, all these threads were going to be connected. In the end though, it almost felt as if only Ava is affected by racism (aside from Mailin mentioning Fatou in the last episode). It’s not like talking about how racism affects Fatou is going to make the topic redundant for Ava’s or Ismail’s season. As a light-skinned black lesbian with a disability, Fatou’s life is going to be impacted by racism in a different way than Ava’s will, as a dark-skinned black fat straight cis girl, or Ismail’s, as a Turkish-German possibly Muslim possibly non binary person. All these experiences are specific enough, and different enough, that they can be touched upon in different seasons without becoming redundant. The fact that Fatou’s season almost seemed to forget at times that she is a black lesbian, doesn’t bode well for Ava’s and Ismail’s season to acknowledge all their struggles.

The bottom line is that this season really was great and did a lot of good, and I feel like the writing just needs to be tweaked a bit for further seasons to be even better and more enjoyable overall. I am very pleasantly surprised by how the team took s1-s4 fan feedback to heart and worked to implement suggestions, and so I really trust them and hope they keep working on the show. It’d be a shame if Druck wasn’t renewed, with this team at the helm.    

[macgyverseries]

rebutting and debunking frequently used arguments against macriley

I made this 10-page google doc rant a while ago, but I never ended up posting it. Today, however, I woke up and chose violence. So here it is: my thoughts on frequently used arguments against macriley.

I took some quotes and arguments that people put online (reddit, tumblr..), and I debunked them all :p I feel like I always see the same arguments all the time, and I’m honestly getting a little tired of hearing them. I’m here to settle this once and for all.

and yes, i did manage to cut down the google doc by 3 pages :D (but it's still long af so rip my brain)

1.”Mac and Riley are siblings because Jack is their father”

I can (mostly) get behind the argument that Mac and Riley shouldn’t be in a romantic relationship because of their super strong friendship. Some people really value that sole platonicness, and I get that.

But the argument that I can’t get behind is that: Mac and Riley are siblings because Jack is their father figure”

If you google the definition of “father,” the first result that comes up is: “a man in relation to his children.”

Now, Jack was definitely the father figure to Riley, and I would consider her his child. He raised her. He helped shape her ideals and upbringing.

Mac only met Jack when he left MIT. So it was pretty much after Mac was raised (by Bozer’s parents haha), that Jack really came into his life. Mac already became his own person. (also, I always saw Mac and Jack as more of a bromance)

So because Riley and Mac met Jack at different periods of their lives, and they were raised differently, I wouldn’t say that they were siblings who were raised by the same father.

2. “The show writers left the impression that there was a huge age gap between them”

I understand this a little. I do think Riley was introduced as pretty young and idk naive? Because she was literally in highschool, and then she went to prison, and then she got released into the wild. Personally, when I started watching the show, I googled the whole cast. So I started the show knowing that they were the same age.

And also, the more I got to know Riley, the more that I thought that Riley was more mature and had an old soul herself. I think it was because she was just a dynamic and round character, who is well-developed.

But, I get first impressions. I feel like once you get stuck on an impression, it’s hard to go away from that.

Also, Jack would’ve totally shipped macriley, and you can’t change my mind.

3. "Riley isn't ready for a relationship"

I honestly think that this argument should be more geared towards Mac. He needs to figure himself out and go to therapy ffs. However, this person targeted Riley (the literal queen), so I shall defend her:

I understand wanting Riley to take some time off, and figure herself out before going straight into another relationship with someone. But here’s the thing. Throughout the first few seasons Riley’s character was very well established, and she didn’t have any partners during that time. She has proven that she is a strong, well-rounded, independent woman (with or without a partner). So i think it is valid to say that she isn’t just some girl who only has boy toys. She is much more than that.

My next point is that Riley has made it clear that she wants a lasting relationship with someone who will support her. When talking with Mac in 4.04, we see her express her interest in a stable, healthy relationship. It’s not wrong to go out and look for that potential partner. This applies to everyone (not just fictional characters): It’s going to take a few relationships and self-discovery, to find a good relationship, and people shouldn’t be shamed for searching for that.

Riley has only ever had two major boyfriends that I remember. First was Billy; she took that relationship very seriously. She really did seem happy with him. It was a shame that he cheated on her. Second was Aubrey. She also took that relationship very seriously. She had been living with him for six months (and they even had the cutest date nights!) So I wouldn't say that Riley only has boy toys. She has meaningful relationships.

Lastly, I think this was written when season four started airing, but it’s been over a year (and a pandemic) since Riley has dated. I think enough time has passed.

*4. I had to split this one up because, oh boy, there is a lot to unpack here.

4a. “If that was the direction they’d chosen to take with that relationship from square one… My issue with it is that Mac and Riley were presented to us as friends/ found siblings for three years. There were NO romantic vibes to speak of between them..”

I actually felt the same way about macriley. The thought of them being together in season one, made me want to throw up. I don’t think the writers intended on having macriley, and I was perfectly fine with that.

I know that people look for different things when they ship. Some really like having instant gratification with the spicy, hot, sexy parts of a relationship, like macdesi (which is why I was fine with the idea of shipping macdesi in the past).

I always wanted to see macriley do more: have hot, flirtatious banters/interactions. it can be hard to ship people who seem to be missing that part of the love equation. So i agree. It's definitely strange. And I understand if you genuinely have a hard time seeing the romantic potential of macriley, when the writers have only dragged out and shown us the platonic potential of them.

Also, the reason why it is difficult to see macriley as romantic, was because they ALWAYS PRIORITIZED AND WERE DRIVEN on their friendship. A partner should be friends first, and then makeout buddies second.

But just because people start off as friends, doesn’t mean that they still don’t have that potential to be lovers. Because guess what?! Feelings change. It’s now canon that Riley has feelings for Mac, and Mac always had feelings for Riley (but never acted on it).

I'm sorry, but you like a boomer when you say “bAcK iN mY dAy, tHeY dIdN’t HaVe fEeLiNgS fOr EaCh oThEr.” like okaAAAyyYYyYY????? We are not “back in your day” anymore. We are in the present. We are in today. And today, macriley is real :)

4b. “There’s the incredibly tired trope where long-term coworkers suddenly catch feelings for each other out of nowhere”

Personally, I will never get tired of the friends to lovers trope. I think the fact that Mac and Riley had such a strong friendship and foundation is what makes them perfect. Again, I know that some people just like instant gratification, but I love when a couple can take their time to have depth, emotion, and realness in their relationship.

Obviously I am biased because I have so much love for this trope, it's my favorite trope, but I don't see why you would use the “it’s overused” as reasoning to hate a ship. Just because a trope is used a lot, doesn’t mean it is bad (that’s probably why it is so good lmao). I can understand getting tired of it, and growing a dislike towards a trope. For example, I have grown an extreme dislike towards the love triangle.

A bit of a tangent: But the difference between overusing love triangles and overusing friends to lovers, is that love triangles aren’t just commonly used tropes. They are cliches. They cause unwanted drama and unnecessary hurt to one character. Whereas friends to lovers doesn’t involve as much drama and pain for a character. It is more of just angst between two people. And we know that they will get together eventually with a happy ending. So it was never really problematic.

And even then, the great thing about overusing or utilizing tropes, is that they can act as a guide. It allows the show writers and cast to make it personal, make it their own, adding their own special flair to it

I just don’t see the “this trope is used a lot” as a valid reasoning for disliking a ship .It just seems like this commenter doesn’t like the friends to lovers trope for the sake of not liking it.

I could be very wrong in my assumption of this person’s thoughts on friends to lovers, maybe there is a deeper reasoning as to why they don’t like it, but the tone that i interpreted when i read this section, was that they don’t have a real reason to dislike it, it’s more of just because.

4c.“then there's the fact that Riley had a mostly single Mac in her life for 3-4 years and she never even considered him romantically until he was with someone else”

First: Riley didn’t CHOOSE to fall in love. You may recall that “emotions aren’t a science. You can’t control them.”

Second: Mac was broken up with Desi when she caught feelings for him. Plus, the moment Riley saw that Mac and Desi were getting happy together, she moved out and gave them space. She sacrificed her own feelings for his happiness, despite the fact that her heart was breaking.

4d. “and finally, Mac not only still doesn't seem to even have Riley on his radar in that way but he literally told another woman that he loves her just last week. Neither of them look particularly good here if they get together now.”

I'm assuming that this was written when 4.12 first aired. I'm also assuming that this comment was more directed towards the idea of Mac and Riley getting together immediately at the end of the season, rather than later down the road. I always saw of macriley as more of endgame material. That i would see them get together sometime in the future. So I agree. Macriley getting together during that time period, would be too rushed and unsatisfying.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

So those were most of the supposed arguments that I saw for people who were against macriley, but I also wanted to provide some really good examples of people who were very respectable, and actually had valid reasoning for disliking them.

1. they just don’t like shipping in general

Ships can be annoying af. Seeing people ONLY focus on the ships is sometimes tiring. I, myself, even feel a little guilty making this post, because I need to chill and mind my own business lmaooo. I really should let people do whatever they want to do with their lives, and not get caught up in the ships, but here I am :p

Anyways, I know that there is a lot of unnecessary drama that comes with shipping, and it's tiring to see people constantly go on and on about romance, when there are other perfect things about the show.

2. No matter how hard they try, they just feel it.

This is literally so dumb (and a little hypocritical/self-contradictory), but if you have a gut feeling, and you just can’t get yourself to ship it, I get it. If you truly and genuinely believe that they are best platonic friends, I can't change your opinion. And I have respect for you (if you say it in a kind manner).

Here is a nice example of a person who expressed their opinion in a nice way, with no BS.

So the moral of the story: I can't control your deepest thoughts. I can't control your gut feelings. And that’s okay. But the moment that you start backing up your thoughts and insights with BS reasoning, is the moment that I lose respect for you.

[ae0nx]

FRUITS BASKET S3 EPISODE 9 RECAP AKA TOHRU IS A GOD!!! (aka Grace finally finds an ounce of peace with Shigure and Akito)

I literally raced to my laptop as soon as I finished the episode cos... I'm so excited for the completion of this season! I'm gonna miss it but it's so nice to see all the puzzle pieces go into place FINALLY and we're not even done yet lol

ANYWAYS

--------------------------------------------------------------

Ok. So, this episode really just laid it out finally how much of a duality and twisted reflection there is between Tohru and Akito. I've always seen it mostly in the way that they both have a huge sway over the zodiac's lives (Akito's negative to Tohru's positive) and I've always joked about it but... Tohru might actually be the missing piece to the God 'equation', if you wanna put it like that lol. I think Tohru's a genuine representation of the metaphorically torn out and lost Heart of the original God of the zodiac after the tradition of the banquet had been slowly poisoned over time. Therefore, leaving an empty, soulless God looking and demanding love and loyalty from the rest of the zodiac members. Sorry, if this got a bit 'spoiler-y' but those who know... know.

But, godliness aside, I really appreciated seeing Tohru come to Akito's level and realising that she feels the exact same way about feeling lonely and wanting things to remain the same even if it is hurting themselves too. It was nice that Akito finally had someone talk to her out of understanding rather than judgement or fear or loathing and Akito definitely needed that. Wow... this episode did a number on me, I'm actually empathetic to Akito... (I dunno about forgiving yet - sorry)

To me, I feel like Akito and Tohru are more so parallels of each other than Tohru and Kureno. Although, I'll get to how I feel about those two later.

Also, great performance from Colleen Clinkenbeard as Akito. This is her best episode yet (as it should be!)

Hmmm... there's something about Shigure's whole demeanour this whole episode...

For some reason... out of everyone this episode I was most curious about Shigure's reactions. Mostly cos I'm still grasping at straws for the story to make me see him and understand him. But, I was surprisingly satisfied with his reactions and actions throughout this episode (drunkenness aside lol). How mature he was when Akito was frantic and panicking. How he called for Hatori's help and to check on how things were going at the main estate with Kureno. It's funny because it's basic decency really but coming from Shigure, it's quite surprising!

You also definitely got the impression through his facial expressions and even tone of voice that... he's tired. Sometimes, winning the war isn't all good. Especially when people have to get hurt along the way. It's always been my main frustration with Shigure that he appears untouched by everything going on and even though we weren't given a huge breakdown moment like we were given in 2001, this was enough. And I'm content with that. My soul is at peace. I hope he carries that weight. :) 😂

---------- QUICK ROUNDS ------------

Seeing how loved Tohru is by the rest of the zodiac was nice and yet heartbreaking seeing all of their reactions (TOHRU IS A GOD, HAVE I NOT SAID THAT ENOUGH)

The visual representation of Tohru walking away from her mother to Kyo, then walking with Kyo and Kyo walking ahead without her almost like she's preparing to accept that Kyo can go forth without her was HEARTBREAKING. THESE STUPID KIDS <3 Stop giving each other up!!!!

Lol, that scene with Yuki and Tohru's grandfather was nice but all I could visualise in my head was Yuki warming up to go kick Kyo's ass and I can't. WAIT. ...Sorry, catboy. 😈

Momiji radiating stern, yet truthful, yet patient judgement on Akito? KING SHIT.

Tohru and Kureno to me are more so a 'warning' of the different ways of how kindness can be a detriment to yourself and your own safety and development which is cool. But, at the same time... I doubt they'd actually learn from it

While the ending with Akito was super cute and really just confirmed to me that no one really wants to see anyone suffer even if they are an awful person, I do hope that this isn't the be all and end all of Akito's road to redemption... cos she owes a HEFTY SUM

And finally...

They've still got a bit to go... but this made me so happy! 😭I just keep imagining Takaya-sensei writing this like: "I want them to get together so bad but it's not exactlyyy the right time but... ermmm... fuck it, let them kiss"

I get it. We all get it. It's cool, man. 🤣

--------------------------------------------------

Ahhh, I'm so glad we got a nice ending this week cos last week had me on EDGE. As I said, we've still got a bit to go but at least we're a little bit more out of the dark than we were before.

I'M GONNA MISS THIS ANIME SO BAD.

See you next week!

[starberry-cupcake]

The Chinapuri finale and its montage aka censorship who?

I decided to do all of this in one post and read more, so that the 95% of my followers who are uninterested on this particular drama/source material can easily skip it. Here are 7 relationships showcased in the montage ranked and 2 bonus (a family relationship and an extra). 

Note: I’ll speak about the relationships as they were portrayed, whichever the form of relationship chosen to display in this version. Also, I’m glad that everyone was aged up in this version, kinda wild but very much appreciated that some of these actors are my age or somewhere around there lol 

#7 Lu Xia (Echizen Ryoma) and Qi Ying (Ryuuzaki Sakuno) 

This drama was a bit more romantically-inclined in terms of these two than the anime/manga was, but some of that may be also influenced by them giving their version of Sakuno more room (which yay!) and having them be older. 

For this to stand alone as a drama, it was a needed step, I believe. I found Lu Xia to be more vulnerable than Ryoma, he doesn’t feel quite as ~cool~ and it doesn’t take away from the character that he has moments showing internal struggle (in tennis as well as at home). These two were sweet and adorable, which gave the drama probably more of an expected appeal for a wider audience, to make it stand on its own as a drama and not only an anime adaptation. 

#6 Yan ZhiMing (Inui Sadaharu) & Liu Lian (Yanagi Renji) 

Kinda mad they didn’t do this for Fuji (Zhuo Zhi) and Saeki (Zuo Xiaohu) but they did good with these two. I didn’t know at first why they started to build up their relationship so early, but it ended up being a good emotional plot point during their match, which is, as we all know, a determining factor in Seigaku’s (Yu Qing) win against Rikkai (Hai Guang). 

I don’t remember being as invested in their match in the anime as I was here, maybe I was just too focused on the Fuji match at that time, but what they did to build that game as a decisive point in the season finale was so well developed, I was impressed. 

#5 He XingLong (Kawamura Takeshi) & Ya JiuXin (Akutsu Jin) 

This is a relationship that can get complicated and even problematic if handled incorrectly. Akutsu’s journey through the anime is pretty long and takes a while for him to be on a healthier place, but the added element of aging the characters could have gone really wrong here if they had done him exactly as in the anime or manga. I think they did pretty well with the time they were given, showing his turmoil and learning curve. 

XingLong was allowed to have a more in-depth journey being older and about to graduate, it made more sense for him here to think about his career at this stage and added the gravity of this being THE moment to decide whether to keep pursuing the sport or take over his dad’s restaurant (they even adapted the type of food they cook to match the cultural impact of the family-owned business, which was great). 

I think the two complemented each other really well and worked interestingly together, in a way I didn’t think the drama was gonna give them time to do, so I’m really pleased. 

#4 Qiao Chen (Momoshiro Takeshi) & Zhang BaiYang (Kaidoh Kaoru) 

My younger self is thriving with this one being included tbh. These two were so much fun in the anime, two rivals and opposites that represented the future of the team upon their elders leaving. 

I was surprised to see them so focused here, because it’s not a relationship most adaptations put emphasis on (their loss), but it paid off immensely by the time their game against Bunta and Jackal (Jin WenTai & Ke Jie) came around. 

Kaidoh is a tough one to adapt most times, and they did him so well in this one, I think this is my favorite live action Kaidoh in any adaptation, and I’ve watched a whole bunch of tenimyu in my day. They really captured the ambiguity of his character, how he balances a tough exterior with a sensitive core. Qiao Chen maintained his feelings for Xu Xingzi (Tachibana Ann) but that didn’t stop them from showing these two every time they could. 

#3 Mu Siyang (Tezuka Kunimitsu) & Ji Jingwu (Atobe Keigo) 

Oh, these two. Hyotei (Xing Yao) wasn’t featured as much as one would probably expect (I’m a Fudomine fan and with Yu Feng I got more than I even was expecting, but I admit Hyotei is a riot and I always live my best life when they show up). Still, they did the Tezuka/Atobe match justice and then some. 

Mu Siyang was incredibly compelling as Tezuka, and had a vulnerability to him that made me worry for his health more than I probably did for his anime counterpart. Maybe also the fact that he was older than his anime version yet looked younger than him made it sink more that his injury was something to worry about. I wish we had time to include anime!Tezuka’s issues with yips with Siyang, because I know the drama would have pulled it off, but that was further down the line in the story. Maybe for a season 2. 

Anyway, the Atobe/Tezuka game is one of the best games in tenipuri history and the drama knew it. The game felt like it earned its gravity with the development of both Siyang’s injury and Ji Jingwu’s determination to play against him. Then they sprinkled the camp on top, as the anime does, with Ji Jingwu paying for his every expense and calling him to get updates, which is 100% canon compliant imo. 

I feel like Ji Jingwu didn’t have enough room to be as much of Atobe as he could be, but then again, that’s not easy for anyone to pull off. Not even Kato Kazuki can do Junichi Suwabe as well as Junichi Suwabe.  

#2 Bai ShiYan (Yukimura Seiichi) & Tian ZiLong (Sanada Genichirou) 

So, it’s tough to feel for Rikkai (Hai Guang) at this point of the story. You learn about Yukimura’s health and it’s difficult, but you just met them and the first impressions haven’t been great. 

However, the relationship between Sanada and Yukimura has always been something pivotal for the way the team is constructed (they were named that way for a reason, two parts of a same hero and all that) and they sustain the team in a way other teams don’t have to. They are the mom and dad of the team, the coaches, the leaders and the pillars. They have a balance of severity and permissiveness, of strictness and instinct. They are like a couple who has been married for 25 years. 

How on Earth, I asked myself, will they achieve that with censorship on the way? I don’t know, but they did it, the mad bastards. 

It really does come through 100% the importance of their relationship and the way in which the captain’s health affects the team and, more than anything, their vice captain. It reaches a crescendo during the final match, before ShiYan’s operation, and they manage to pull it off with the time they have. 

Also, their scenes are like shot for a contemporary romance drama and I appreciate that vibe. 

#1 Tang JiaLe (Kikumaru Eiji) & Chi DaYong (Oishi Shuichiro) 

Oh boy. Look. I still own Golden Pair merchandise from my Days, ok? These two hold a special place in my heart. I saw actors who portrayed them grow up, succeed and pass away, sadly. I still sing Depend On Me sometimes. There is a cheerful vibe with these two, a sense of overcoming obstacles and finding balance, I don’t know. Fuji is my favorite character but these two are special in their way. 

This freakin’ drama just went full on Golden Pair. The level of content was off the charts. The moment they came on the screen, the second they talked about their doubles, it was already setting the tone of how deep their relationship was going to go. I am a bit amazed that they avoided to get closed down for this ngl. And I appreciate the risk because it paid off.

They have a body language communication that is captured in every shot. Even when they’re not the focus of the scene, they’re close, touching or holding each other, arms around each other, hands on each other’s shoulders, grabbing each other’s clothes. When they fight, that language changes drastically, and the distance they take feels intense and cold. You go through it with them and the team shows it as well. There’s an entire episode I had screencaps of and never posted when the team falls apart because they do. 

My favorite part, though, ironically, isn’t what they did with them together but what they did with them apart. They took time to develop them as individual characters with their own issues, their fears, their worries and weaknesses. They were allowed to be flawed and wrong and have to mend their ways. 

What really got me and impacted me deeply was the fact that they chose DaYong to talk about mental health. They gave room to speaking about the physical implications of anxiety disorders and about how self esteem issues can give more magnitude to ongoing issues with your mental health. Again, the age of the characters being changed helped add a depth to some issues that get developed with more intensity in a drama of this kind, and the way in which it takes TIME to get resolved, it isn’t a one episode thing, it’s an underlying issue that spans the season...*chef’s kiss* 

Even though there’s a specific tenimyu incarnation of these two that I hold dear and will always remember fondly, I think that Xu Ke and Zhu ZhiLing are the most successful and best portrayed live action Golden Pair I’ve ever seen. 

Bonus that was in the montage but it’s specifically about a family relationship: The Zhuo Bros

I have said Fuji has always been my favorite and his relationship with Yuta as an older brother (albeit he’s not the eldest sibling like me) is one I always felt close to. 

In the anime, the two have a rocky relationship that gets developed throughout, but the drama is very good at establishing not only Zhuo Yu’s (Fuji Yuta) self esteem issues, the subsequent use of that Guan Yue (Mizuki Hajime) does and Zhuo Zhi’s (Fuji Syusuke) attempts to breach the gap between the siblings, they also use it to develop Zhuo Zhi’s character and his reticence to show weakness. 

It’s tough to get Fuji towards a place of vulnerability without breaking character, but they used family and the care he provides to his brother as a point to further his story, and I appreciate that a lot. They managed to build Zhuo Zhi up with this sibling bond as one of his core elements, and that gave a lot of dimension to his games and his character. 

Bonus that wasn’t in the montage but I’m including in some capacity: Mu Siyang (Tezuka Kunimitsu) & Zhuo Zhi (Fuji Syusuke) 

I thought these two deserved a place in the list, even if they weren’t grouped much in the montage, because the drama did make them share moments together that I feel gave more depth to their characters. 

There was a very interesting moment in which they showed Mu Siyang and Zhuo Zhi establishing their differences when approaching tennis, and how serious Mu Siyang is about taking the team to victory. I think that strengthened the character as a captain to me, in a way that shows it rather than tells it, and allowed for his guidance to still be present when he wasn’t physically there. His determination ultimately influenced Zhuo Zhi to take things more seriously, and that was a pretty interesting development to see. 

All in all, I should, at some point, go and do a serious review for MyDramaList but I wanted to leave in my blog how much I appreciated this adaptation. I wasn’t expecting much and I was delivered everything.

[unforth]

Hello unforth! Thank you for your wonderful blog, and the the untamed art blog!! I followed you years ago for destiel, and you were one of the people that got me into the untamed. I watched it last summer and have been binging various cdramas ever since!! I had a question for you about reading. After watching the untamed I read the novel, and didn’t enjoy it as much as I thought I would. I think you’re someone who prefers the show, but if not, sorry if I’m remembering wrong… hoping you understand. I want to try reading other novels but I found the romance in mdzs to be kinda off. I guess I’m wondering if you have a recommendation for the best novel you’ve read so far? It would be great if it’s one with fanfic but if not I’m still curious to try! I hope this didn’t come off as rude about the untamed, it’s just a personal preference. Thanks in advance, and thanks again for all your work in fandom!

Howdy! *waves*

You have not misremembered, I definitely prefer the Untamed to the novel of MDZS (and I'm with you, no shade on people with different preferences, of course!). I also didn't enjoy the novel of MDZS as much as I thought I would, though I think some of that was because I read the Exiled Rebels Scanalations translation which - again, no shade, translating that was a HUGE job and kudos to them - but I do here from native speakers that some questionable translation choices were made, which can detract from some people's enjoyment of the novel (and can enhance other people's, it just depends how those translation choices relate to each person's personal likes and dislikes).

Now, I can tell you what I've read and what I've thought of each one, happily - I don't know what turned you off about MDZS specifically, beyond an aspect of the relationship dynamic, so it'll be hard for me to say which of these might appeal to you more? But, here's a list of which danmei novels I've read, and my opinion. The list is shorter than you'd think - danmei novels are long and I read slow, lol.

Note that all of these end happy, for various definitions of "happy," and the main ship is canon in all of them. Also note that I tried to avoid spoilers, but sometimes it's hard to even talk about the ship dynamic without some mild spoilers.

These are (roughly) in the order I've read them; I just finished the last a few days ago. All art is by the official artists, but I'm not always sure what their names are, sorry - I've tried to figure them out for my art blogs but it's REALLY hard.

1. Mo Dao Zu Shi, by MXTX.

(since I'm writing this post for you, and you're already familiar with it, I'm not putting in TW and plot)

My take: I figure knowing my opinion of MDZS will help you assess all this? There are things I loved about MDZS, including the book, but MDZS is still obviously trying to figure out pacing. Whereas in SVSSS, the storyline doesn't always flow that smoothly and the ending is rushed, in MDZS in my opinion the biggest issue is that she clearly didn't plan some things ahead. For example, Miangmian and Wen Ning are both introduced within a few pages of when they'll be needed to Do Shit. It shows that she hadn't quite worked everything out as she was going, and every once in a while was like, "shit shit I need a character for this thing" and hastily added them. The plot itself is better paced, though, though I could have wished for a less talky denouement. When it was the only one I read, I also often thought, "this author doesn't understand consent," and, "this author has kinks I don't share." Now that I've read all three of her books, I completely retract the first one. MXTX absolutely understands consent, and was intentionally playing with it in MDZS. Not sure if the evidence of that got lost in translation, or what, but...yeah.

Relationship Dynamic: ...the second of those opinions, I still kinda feel. The consensual non-con is just not really my thing, like I'm okay with it in small doses? And I don't love some aspects of Lan Wangji's domineering attitudes and Wei Wuxian's act of bare tolerating it. And don't get me wrong, now that I'm more familiar with her work, I think it was an intentional writing choice and I also think they're both largely roleplaying it a lot of the time...but I still don't personally enjoy it much.

2. Scum Villain Self-Saving System, by MXTX.

Genre: modern transmigration into a fantasy xianxia world.

Where to find it: English translation by BC Novels | donghua season 1

Trigger warnings for: graphic descriptions of suffering, non-con of the "fuck or die" variety, and body horror...I can't think of anything else rn?)

Plot: SVSSS is MXTX's first novel, and is a satire of classic stag harem novels. Shen Yuan, the protagonist and half the main ship, is reading a serialized web novel by "Airplane Shooting Towards the Sky" about a demon named Luo Binghe who has a harem of over 3,000 women and has done all kinds of ghastly awful things. He hates this novel but has read all, like, 3 million words of it or something, and trolls every chapter...until one gets him so angry that he dies...and then he wakes up in the book right around when the book starts, in the body of one of the early antagonists, a cultivator named Shen Qingqiu who abuses a young, innocent Luo Binghe physically and emotionally and, ultimately, is horribly tortured to death. Shen Yuan, in Shen Qingqiu's body, thus sets out to not be horribly tortured to death by Luo Binghe. Hijinks ensue.

My Take: In terms of my opinion of it...SVSSS secured for me that MXTX is a much more brilliant author than I thought when I'd only read MDZS. She understands tropes and subverts them brilliantly throughout the story, and from a writing standpoint, I was impressed with her. However, from a plot standpoint...she's got all the ideas but hasn't, imo, yet figured out how exactly to bring them all together. The pacing is off at times, and the ending felt abrupt to me. It's also the only danmei I've read where I ship a side ship more than the primary one (which is, of course, Shen Yuan (as Shen Qingqiu)/Luo Binghe. (also, oops...I read SVSSS after TGCF and just put them in the wrong order, oh well, not gonna change it now.)

Relationship Dynamic: In terms of relationship weirdness...it's hard to sort in that regard, because, like, it's supposed to be weird? I think it's a really interest book but I'm not sure I'd recommend it in your situation. Bingqiu's main dynamic is...uh...tolerance and obsession? They're kinda hard to describe. Shen Yuan often seems like he's just kinda putting up with Luo Binghe, whereas Luo Binghe is...god. So hard to describe, lmao. He's a big clumsy ox in a museum full of porcelain dishes and he really, really loves his Shizun. (also note that Shen Qingqiu is Luo Binghe's teacher. They don't get together until after they're not master/student, but if that's not your thing, another reason to avoid.)

3. Tian Guan Ci Fu, by MXTX.

(art is by Starember)

Genre: historical China (loosely), xianxia (note that I'm still figuring out exactly how stuff gets classified so sorry if I get one wrong, but I think I kinda get it???)

Where to Access It: English Translation by the astonishing yummysuika | manhua (this is an official translation by Bilibili! It's a few chapters behind the actual release, but still...) | donghua season 1 is on Netflix | a live action adaptation is juuuuust getting started on script reading and filing

Trigger warnings for: MCD, temporary MCD, body horror, graphic violence, epic levels of mind fuckery, uh...genocide?...again, racism/colorism, probably other stuff, sorry, I can't take as long as I'd like to for this post so I'm not being as thorough as I oughta be.

Plot: TGCF is about Xie Lian, an 800 year old man, and it commences at the moment when, unexpectedly, he ascends to godhood...for the third time. Unfortunately, when he ascends, he accidentally does some damage in Heaven, and he has to repay that, so he gets sent back to earth to deal with a ghost who's been causing some problems. Hijinks ensue...and then fucktons of angst ensue...then more hijinks...then more angst...and basically it broke my heart like four times and I am grateful for it every day? The main ship is Xie Lian and a ghost named Hua Cheng, but it's hard to even talk about without some spoilers because of some identity shenanigans. (they're VERY mildly identity shenanigans, but still).

My Take: So, you asked what my favorite of the danmei novels I've read is? It's TGCF. TGCF is one of my favorite novels ever, and it has a growing fandom, a donghua that's on Netflix, and a live action that's just starting to film. TGCF is the culmination of the skills MXTX developed through her first two works, imo. She clearly plotted it out all from the start, and while Book 1 especially often seems kind of random - lots of elements are introduced and then kinda...apparently...forgotten? And never explained? But she actually DOES bring it ALL together and it's flat-out masterful. I'm a big fan, obviously.

Relationship Dynamic: it again depends on your preferences and what you didn't like about MDZS, and there's no way to talk about it without spoilers, so consider yourselves warned. Xie Lian ascended to godhood first at the age of 17, and right around then he also saved the life of a 10 year old boy...and that boy is Hua Cheng. Hua Cheng is a follower of Xie Lian's, in that Xie Lian is literally a god, and Hua Cheng is literally one of his followers. However, they're separated for almost 800 years, so the age difference is largely irrelevant, and while some people complain about Hua Cheng's behavior being stalkery and obsessive, I honestly think they're dead wrong. It's more like when you read a celebrity/fan AU, and it starts weird, and then they really genuinely fall in love. Like, the fan may have been in love the whole time, and how they felt about the celebrity before they really met might feel slightly ooky, but it's how they act AFTER they meet their idol that matters more, and...yeah, Hua Cheng is great, they're both great, antis fight me. Xie Lian is easily one of my favorite characters EVER, he is all my favorite tropes in one horribly, wonderfully fucked up martyristic idealistic sweet kind laid back package. I would kill for him, lmao. In terms of their relationship dynamic...they love and respect each other? There's really nothing that weird about it other than the aspects of the "fan" Hua Cheng that get revealed over time - and he's always terrified that when Xie Lian realizes what a fanboy he was, Xie Lian will be upset or disgusted, but of course Xie Lian never is. They adore each other. It's glorious. Highly recommend. :D There's also no explicit content in TGCF (unlike MXTX's other two books).

4. The Husky and His White Cat Shizun (aka 2ha) by Meatbun Doesn't Eat Meat.

Genre: original world, xianxia, time travel, dimension hopping, it's so many things, 2ha is so hard to describe lmao

Where to Access it: English Translation by the amazing yummysuika (things are complicated, though, and it's not finished) | a manhua is in the works and should be out this year | a live action called "Hao Yixing" or "Immortality" is already filmed and could theoretically air literally any time cause it's completely ready, but when will it actually come? Who knows!

Trigger warnings: all of them. Literally. MCD, temporary MCD, murder, suicide, suicidal ideation, suicide attempt, rape/non-con, abuse, manipulation, gas lighting, torture, graphic violence, body horror, literal graphic onscreen horrible blood murder of a small child (I had to skip that chapter), teacher/student relationship sort of but not exactly, probably other stuff, this book is dark as fuck, and a lot of these tags apply to behavior of one half of the main ship toward the other, but...it's complicated, and there are reasons things happen, and those reasons aren't "well they're just a bad person."

Plot: This is another one that's hard to describe because there's sooooo much mind fuckery going on, but I'll try. 2ha is about Mo Ran, who rises to be the Emperor of the World, Taxian Jun, but slaughtering all who oppose him...and who is so miserable that he commits suicide, only to wake up in his 16 year old body. This is pretty much perfect from Mo Ran's point of view, because he's gone back so far that the love of his life, his fellow disciple Shi Mei, is still alive. He has a chance to fix everything that went wrong, starting with preventing his awful evil Shizun, Chu Wanning, from letting Shi Mei die.

Spoilers: the main ship in this book is Mo Ran/Chu Wanning.

Hijinks do NOT ensue. There are no hijinks in 2ha. It is all pain all the time (but I swear it ends happy).

My Take: ...well, from a structural standpoint there are some pacing issues. The book is incredibly long (over 300 chapters, over 1 million words) and there are definitely some chunks that could just be excised and it'd still be fine. However, other than that, it's pretty amazing and absolutely masterful how it's plotted. As a reader you'll spend 100+ chapters thinking you know what's going on, and who the good guys are, and who the bad guys are, and how they relate to each other...and then Meatbun starts in on revealing what's ACTUALLY going on and she then spends 200 chapters repeatedly punching you in the face! Like, I went in knowing a LOT of spoilers, because the tags were so dark that I felt that for my mental health it was important I have a general idea what was going on, and I STILL ended up sobbing my eyes out (and I am NOT an easy crier and don't usually cry at books) over something I knew was coming.

Relationship Dynamic: That's about the only thing that the title accurately conveys about this book. "The Husky and His White Cat Shizun," sounds so soft and fluffy, right? That's how they get you, ha. But, Mo Ran is absolutely a big dumb husky who wants to do the right thing (well, sometimes he does) but just completely fails depressingly often. When he sees someone he likes come in the front door he WILL jump all over them and bark in their face as his way of trying to communicate affection. And Chu Wanning is equally absolutely a cat. He is emotionally constipated, poor at expressing himself, uptight, touch starved, desperate for affection, and so lonely my chest hurts when I think about him. And for how they relate to each other...well, picture that big dog greeting a loved one at the door...except that loved one is the most hide-bound proud white cat you can imagine.

That's their dynamic.

(However, also...there are multiple timelines at play, and Taxian Jun does some truly awful things to "his" Chu Wanning in the original timeline, and many of these things are graphically described, and while it's ultimately all explained, it still all HAPPENS, so if you're going to have trouble reading fucktons of abuse between the main ship, I would not recommend this book)

5. Thousand Autumns (Qianqiu) by Meng Xi Shi.

Genre: historical China (like, references actual people, as far as I can tell), xianxia

Where to Access it: ...reading Thousand Autumns is HARD, it's split over like four websites/translators. This Carrd can kinda help? I can get you the rest if you want | donghua season 1 | I heard there's a live action in the works? But I don't know more than that.

Trigger warnings: graphic violence, mentions/threats of sexual violence (but it's all stopped before things really go wrong), starvation, description of child death (from starvation), near-death, emotional/mental abuse, major semi-permanent character injury, god, minor character death, they're major characters depending on your pov, I can't actually think of others, after writing about 2ha it feels positively fluffy). Note that there's not really any explicit content, just implications of smut, and not til basically the very end and extras.

Plot: Yan Wushi, sect leader of a demonic sect, has just come out of an extended seclusion to improve his cultivation when he and one of his disciples come across a man who is wounded to the point of near death. This turns out to be Shen Qiao, the sect leader of Mount Xuandu. When Shen Qiao awakens from his wounds, he's lost his memory, AND he's blind, and Yan Wushi decides it would be great fun and an excellent use of his time to fuck with Shen Qiao by trying to turn him evil - because Yan Wushi is certain that ALL people are inherently evil, and shattering Shen Qiao's veneer of righteousness will just help prove that.

Spoilers: it's not a veneer.

Not spoilers: Not many hijinks ensue, but there are a few hijinks, and even when it's not hijinxed, it's still not that painful...usually.

My Take: despite that synopsis, a lot of the plot of Thousand Autumns is actually political, and I like political plots, so I liked that aspect of it. However, it has some serious pacing issues imo, and it's also hard to read in English atm because it's not fully translated; it's close, now, much closer than when I read it a few months ago, so it'll be easier to read soon. Or maybe I shouldn't say it's pacing problems, but rather, it's more of a sequence of multiple major plots, strung together, with the growing relationship between Yan Wushi and Shen Qiao playing out in the background. I think if I'd known there was no "one big plot" that would have actually helped me, because it kept feeling like, "Oh, THIS is the main thing," but it never was. Things would feel climactic...except then there'd be more. So it's probably better to actually think of it as more...episodic? And the episodes/stories build, and interrelate, and do have a culmination, but not all of them directly tie in, and not all the threads end up coming together/getting resolved.

Relationship Dynamic: early on, Yan Wushi is definitely abusive and manipulative, intentionally so, and I would argue that, imo, Shen Qiao falls for it. However, mid-way through, there's some big reveals, and after that when they're reunited Shen Qiao no longer takes any shit and Yan Wushi continues to act like he doesn't care even when he clearly does. They're not a typical ship in ANY WAY, and I'd say their relationship is more founded on mutual respect than on love. Indeed, in the author's notes at one point MXS actually says they doesn't see them as the kind of couple to ever exchange love declarations, and I thought that was really interesting and it really helped me to understand how they worked together because I'll own I struggled with at times. Yan Wushi is self-interested, often cruel, and ethically and morally dubious. Shen Qiao, on the other hand, could probably ascend to Daoist godhood, he's so pure. Yet...they DO work. I'd say "opposites attract" but that's ALSO not their main trope, not exactly. They're a VERY hard ship to explain, and I know some people who've read the whole book and still don't really...get them...and I've had to really think about them to wrap my head around them...but the more I've thought about them, the more I like them.

6. Those Years in Quest of Honor Mine by Man Man He Qi Duo.

Genre: historical fiction set in either actual China or make-believe China, I'm not sure if this is directly incorporated any real people

Where to Access It: English Translation by Perpetual Daydreams | manhua (untranslated, I'm not sure if there's anyone translating it into English) | I think there's a live action in the works? Not sure beyond that though.

Trigger Warnings: suicide attempts, suicidal ideation, drug addiction, drug abuse, chronic illness (different character than the drugs), manipulation, abusive, awful parents and parental figures (not all, but definitely some), some homophobia (but way less than there could have been), probably other stuff

Plot: After 7 years away, Zhong Wan returns to the capital of the Empire with the three children of his benefactor, the seven-years-dead Prince Ning. Prince Ning was executed for treason against the previous Emperor, and Zhong Wan has done all he can to protect and raise the three kids, but he's got a lot of worries about returning to the capital and what could happen to his charges if they get pulled into the politics surrounded the Emperor. But, even worse, he's got even more worries about being reunited with Yu She, nephew of the Emperor, with whom he has more than a little history...and about whom he has been lying for the past 7 years, claiming that he is Yu She's lover, in a bid to help use Yu She's reputation to protect Prince Ning's children.

Hijinks ensue.

And so does a political nightmare.

My Take: TYQHM was a hard book to get into because there are just so many characters and it's all about politics - this is NOT a xianxia or wuxia novel, and these characters are NOT cultivators. There's basically nothing supernatural in the whole book; instead, it's about Zhong Wan and Yu She figuring out their own histories, and accepting each other, while trying to survive in a political world that increasingly wants both of them dead. However, I adore political plots, and when all was said and done I really enjoyed it, and I'm trying tooth and nail to claw other people into the fandom with me, so far with basically no success. It only has like 15 works in English on AO3. And so not only does it not fit that requirement of yours...

Relationship Dynamic: ...I think you would also probably not like the relationship dynamic? Zhong Wan is a bit like Wei Wuxian-as-Mo Xuanyu, except more...genuinely? Like, it's his actual personality, not an act, in quite the same way. I don't mean the "flamboyantly gay" part...usually...he definitely has his moments...but he's just...like, he's been through so much that he'll basically say anything, and drag himself entirely through the mud, to distract people who might hurt the three kids (they're like 16, 13, 13, now I think? It was never THAT clear to me, tbh...certainly, all are at least 10...) and, later, Yu She. He has zero face, and doesn't mind having negative face when he feels the situation demands it...and Yu She, on the other hand, has MAJOR depression issues, is sure he deserves nothing, and mostly wants to destroy everyone around him and then kill himself, at least until Zhong Wan starts giving him a reason to live again. But, more than that...Zhong Wan is like the fucking epitome of a bratty subby bottom. He wants to get fucked SO bad. And Yu She is an incredibly reluctant dom, hilariously so at times, uncomfortably/manipulative so at others. When all was said and done, I was pretty fond of them both, but there were definitely moments that made me grimace, and given what you say of how you felt about MDZS, I think this one is less likely to be to your taste?

Bonus 7: Guardian by Priest. I never finished the novel version of Guardian because the translation had some issues that caused me not to enjoy it, so I won't get into it too much, but again, Guardian is a very different book than any of the others, because it's modern fantasy(ish, like, it's still deeply embedded in Daoist-related tropes but it's more "magic spells" and less "cultivation." Like, in terms of what it's like, it felt more like Japanese modern Onmyoji style stories, to me, than it felt like the ancient Chinese wuxia/xianxia cultivation stories.). I'm not gonna get into lots of details, because I read part of the book more than a year ago, and have seen the show (which is VERY different) like three times, so I can hardly even remember what they're like in the novel. There was definitely some weirdness, though? If you're potentially interested, I'd suggest starting with the drama instead. The plot for that is...

Plot: Zhao Yunlan heads a Special Investigation Unit in the human world tasked with maintaining a treaty between humans and the dixigren ("undergrounders") who are (in the show) aliens (in the book...it's the world of the dead). While doing this job, he keeps running into this professor, Shen Wei, who definitely knows more than he oughta.

Hijinks ensue.

And then it murders you with feels.

The live action streams from YouTube - here.

(Warning: uh, I don't want to give spoilers, but my "guaranteed happy ending" does NOT apply to the Guardian TV show...but it does apply to the book, as I understand it.)

*

Anyway, this was a terrible use of my time but it was definitely more fun than what I should be doing, and it's probably way more information than you wanted or needed, but since I wasn't sure what exactly you had in mind, I figured...might as well be thorough?

(Today's hyper-focus fail: this post, ha...)

[cloudyskywars]

The Magnus Archives, Season 2

Hello again. I’ve now finished listening to Season 2 of TMA and have lost my mind. @reese-haleth can confirm. After Season 1 I wrote my “statement” regarding my thoughts on the season. I’ve done it again, even though no one asked lol. Listen, I just love this podcast a lot, okay? Enjoy my 2,000 word report on Season 2 of The Magnus Archives. 

Statement below the cut.

Continued statement of CloudySkyWars and her experiences listening to the second season of The Magnus Archives. Statement originally given 28th April, 2021. 

I… don’t really know where to begin. It has now been a full day since I finished Season 2, and I still don’t quite know what to think. So many things were revealed in the season finale, and throughout the season in general. I don’t quite know what to do with all the new information I have now. In rereading my previous statement, I was right to be nervous for Jon. I didn’t think it was possible, but his situation got worse.

Let’s start with an easier- well, not easier- but more approachable topic I suppose? Sasha is gone. I think I’ve known that from the end of last season, when her voice changed abruptly and no one seemed to notice. Her scream as she was eaten, or taken, or whatever it was, was terrible. I suppose I shouldn’t have expected her to come back from something like that. Still, it hurts me to know that she’s truly gone. 

We now know more about the being that took Sasha. I’m still not sure what it is called exactly, but for now I shall refer to it as the Not Being. It has apparently been around for ages; hundreds, possibly thousands of years. As it said itself, it wears the person that it chooses as its victim. It transforms into them, for lack of better word, except it changes its appearance, yet somehow tricks everyone into believing that that is how the person has always appeared. Well, almost everyone. It is odd how there always appear to be one or two people that the being cannot fool. In the case of Graham, it was his neighbor across the street. In the case of Sasha, it was Melanie, the ghost hunter. As Gerturde Robinson said, it is strange that a being that has the power to assume someone’s identity and change pictures and hundreds of people’s memories somehow misses just a few people that remember who the person was at first. I do not know for sure, but perhaps those that it cannot fool are somehow protected by another one of the Beings. 

That’s another difficult topic. The Beings. I don’t know exactly what to call them yet. Jon has slowly been putting the pieces together, and with the statement of the now late Jurgen Leitner, the pieces form an almost complete puzzle. From my understanding, there are 10 Beings so far that we are aware of at this time.

Here is my understanding of the Beings so far. I don’t know how correct any of this is, but I know I still have much to learn.

Being 1: Darkness. The form of darkness incarnate, responsible for the founding of the cult The People’s Church of the Divine Host. It can dim lights, and also affect the water when it is near. The head of the cult in the 1990s was one Maxwell Reiner. 

Being 2: Michael, aka The Spiral. It lies. This Being appears to be a master of deception and trickery, and has no regard to others except to watch them in its tortured games. I will discuss Michael further, but right now we know the appearance it chooses to take at this time: a tall man with curly blonde hair and bulbous, swollen hands. 

Being 3: Meat. I do not know much about this being at this time. It appears to be vicious, and quite literally thirsts for blood and meat. 

Being 4: Fire. Again, my knowledge on this particular being is limited. I believe it to be closely tied to Agnes Montague, and perhaps be an enemy of the Not.

Being 5: Not. As I stated before, this being takes the identity of its victim and warps it, manipulating almost everyone’s minds to forget the original form of the person ever existed. It always seems to miss a few though. Its one weakness seems to be the wooden table that Jon has now destroyed. Jon was under the impression that the Not got its power from the table, but the opposite was true. The table was binding it, and for a bit it seemed as though the Not had almost unlimited power, taunting Jon in the tunnels. But I’m getting ahead of myself. The Not can trick photos and people’s minds, but appears to be unable to alter voice recordings of the victim as long as it is recorded on magnetic tape. This is how Jon realized that Sasha was indeed Not Sasha, as he found the tapes from Season 1 where her voice was recorded. It also seems to be unable to alter polaroid photos.

Being 6: Abyss. We don’t know much about this one yet, either. It takes the form of some abyss or another, whether it be the sky or the deep blue ocean. I am not ashamed to say that this Being is one of the scariest for me.

Being 7: Giant- I feel this is a poor descriptor for this being, but it is the best I can come up with at the moment. It is exactly as it sounds; a giant. So far we have primarily seen it manifest as a giant hand. Perhaps that would be a better name for it. Hand. 

Being 8: Thin- This is, I fear, not an accurate description of this Being. It is described as being tall and thin, with limbs like knives. Not much is known about him at the moment, however we believe that his “brother” of sorts was the werewolf creature from a previous statement. 

Being 9: The End- The Being of death and disease. I strongly suspect that this is the being responsible for Jane Prentiss, as well as John Amehurst, who has shown up multiple times so far in the series. 

Being 10: Eye, aka the Beholder- This Being is in control of The Magnus Institute, and ‘owns’ all those who work there. The Eye watches people, as its name suggests. It also apparently protects those it owns from the other beings, and the protections are strongest in The Institute itself. 

I hope that the Darkness has mostly gone away, for now. Basira claims that Maxwell Reiner, the head of The People’s Church of the Divine Host, is now dead. Hopefully this means that the Darkness will have less influence over this world for the time being. At least until it can find another host.

And that’s another thing. Basira. We were just introduced to the character this season, and already I am very attached to her. It disappoints me that she has left the police force and will no longer be able to help Jon, but I do not believe we have seen the last of her. Her leaving the police opens the door for her to help Jon more in the future, especially now that he is on the run for murder. I will… discuss that more deeply later. Basira’s introduction also caused us to meet Daisy, who I quite like at the moment, but I feel that will change quickly as she is the one investigating Leitner’s murder and will most likely be leading the manhunt for Jon. For the moment though, she is in my good graces. 

Daisy’s first statement talked about her first encounter with a paranormal experience. It dealt with the coffin from the statement of Joshua Gillespe. The moving company, Breekon and Hope, is not gone. I don’t think it ever will be. I do not yet know which Being they are associated with, if any, but they have caused problems in the past and I have cause to believe they will continue to cause problems in the future.

Now for the difficult part: Jon. He is in quite the predicament right now, and I am scared to see what will happen to him. He is on the run for murder, because Elias Bouchard brutally murdered Jurgen Leitner and has now framed Jon for it. Elias had me fooled. I thought he cared about Jon, about all of them. But he is clearly dedicated to the Eye, and anything that threatens the Beholder and what it watches, holds, and owns- Elias will stop at nothing to protect it. I do not know if Elias is a paranormal being himself or is simply an instrument of the Eye. 

I desperately hope that Jon will be alright. I think, (though I could be wrong), that he will reach out to Basira and ask for her help. Season 2 has developed outside characters more so than Season 1, and I believe it is so that Jon has connections that he can reach out to. With Basira leaving the police force, it opens the possibility that he can go to her for help. The same is true with Melanie. She and Jon have something that could almost be considered a friendship, though most of their conversations end in a verbal sparring match or fight. Nonetheless, Melanie was heading to India, and Jon was aware of that. Perhaps he will go to her for assistance, or maybe he will wise up and realize that Martin actually cares about him and ask him for help. We shall see. 

Gerturde Robinson is another character we have learned more about this season. She is hardly the absent minded old woman we were led to believe she was. In the beginning, Jon complained about her lack of organization in the Archives, but now I think there was a reason for it. She put the pieces together, and was murdered for it. She was trying to separate the pieces, to make it safe for whoever took her place, as well as attempting to fool Elias into thinking she didn’t know what was going on. She failed at that, as he discovered her knowledge and murdered her in the tunnels beneath the Archives. It was also revealed that she was working with Jurgen Leitner.

Leitner has been mentioned since the beginning, though we heard from him for the first and last time in the final two episodes of Season 2. Contrary to my assumptions, he was not making his books evil, simply trying to harness the power they already possessed. I am thankful that he saved Jon from the Not Being, as Jon would have surely died had Leitner not interfered. He is very knowledgeable in paranormal matters, and did his best to explain it to Jon. However he was murdered by Elias before he had a chance to explain all he wished to. Leitner claims that the books are the Beings in their purest form, and I am certain we have not seen the last of the books from Leitner’s extensive library. 

Martin and Tim surely think that Jon murdered Leitner. I hope that Martin at least will continue to have faith in Jon, and that he will possibly find the supplemental tapes that Jon had been recording and realize what was actually happening. Only time will tell, though. 

Another Being that we learned more about this season was Michael. He was first introduced to us by Sasha (the real one), back in season 1. At the time, it was portrayed as either a passive or helpful Being, showing Sasha how to kill the worms that came from the thing once known as Jane Prentiss, but this season has proved that not to be the case. Michael has trapped people multiple times, (notably Helen Richardson), and has since shown more aggression than before. It stabbed Jon, who then proceeded to lie about his wound because he didn’t trust his coworkers. To its credit, in the second to last episode of Season 2, Michael helps Jon get a head start from the Not Being after Jon accidentally sets it free. However it then proceeds to trap Martin and Tim in one of its corridor labyrinths for days in some sort of sick game for its enjoyment, and comments that it may also kill them. Luckily it either failed or changed its mind. Time will tell whether or not the Being that calls itself Michael will be more of a friend or foe. 

I suppose that’s it, really. There are surely many things that I have forgotten, but I have done the best I can to document my thoughts and my knowledge of The Magnus Archives at this time. I don’t know all that is going on, I don’t know how things will be resolved. I don’t even know if the mystery will be fully solved. But I desperately hope that things will be explained, that we will receive answers, and that the mystery will be solved. It has to be. I don’t know what I’ll do if it’s not.

Statement ends. 

[amimons]

Miraculous Sweet-ember (Sept. 29th)

September 29th: Ikari Gozen, Desperada, Startrain, &  Timetagger

Ikari Gozen started a friendship between Marinette and Kagami. After meeting Kagami she noticed how close she and Adrien have been getting and feared that her opportunity to be with Adrien would be hindered. Kagami’s exterior front was also a pretty cold one making it harder for Marinette to connect to her. So she was viewed as a rival until Friendship Day in Paris fixed that. Turns out much to her dismay that Marinette was paired up with Kagami for the treasure hunt and the idea made her nervous and uncomfortable. Kagami on the other hand was willing to get to know Marinette and form a new friendship. Forming relationships doesn’t come easy to Kagami because just like Adrien, she did not grow up in an environment with the opportunities to make friends. 

Throughout the treasure hunt, Kagami was earnestly trying to get to know Marinette but it came off as awkward and stoic. Marinette was determined to get away from Kagami and lose the treasure hunt since the prize was to get a picture with Adrien. It wasn’t until she learned that Kagami is friendless and trying to be genuine that she regrets her intentions. She even took care Tomoe when she called Kagami to figure out where she went off to. Marinette called herself a friend of Kagami which was great for Kagami but Marinette’s truthful answer lead to Tomoe getting akumatized. In season three one of the main things Marinette’s development was focusing on was how she handled her crush on Adrien and love rivals. She started as someone who felt threatened by Kagami to someone who felt she needed to connect with Kagami. She experience some real growth when she decided to friend Kagami and give her a miraculous. 

Desperada was a troubling ordeal for Adrien. At first, he believed it was a wonderful opportunity for Ladybug to get to knowingly work side by side with Adrien. He wanted a chance to impress and woo her and he felt very honored that Ladybug thought Adrien was capable of being a miraculous hero. Unfortunately, Adrien discovers that he was not best suited for the snake miraculous after many failed attempts. 25,913 attempts to be exact. No matter what he did, no matter the approach Ladybug was always met with the same fate. Adrien was so determined to prove that he was able to help Ladybug out that he has forgotten that he already plays an extremely vital role as Chat Noir. Taking Chat Noir out of the equation was not a good move. 

The way the miraculous work is that they are specifically suited for specific types of people. Both Ladybug and Adrien tried to fit Adrien into the role of the snake holder but it doesn’t align with Adrien at the end of the day (or end of the months in Aspiks case). Although it always ended in tragedy the Ladrien moments were very adorable in all the attempts we got to see. The scene where Adrien finally surrenders the snake miraculous had him open up to Ladybug in an emotional way. Something that Chat Noir has never done with Ladybug before making it one of the first times he was emotionally vulnerable around Ladybug (even though she didn’t know he was Chat). Chat made a habit of always jumping in front of Ladybug when danger is around but as Aspik he was unable to do so. It was also the first time that Adrien had to accept that he wasn’t the one needed to help his lady with the snake miraculous and even suggesting to hand it over to someone else. Adrien is used to having a lot of responsibilities placed onto himself but to feel comfortable to let go of one was pretty big for him.  

Startrain had the iconic scene where Adrien and Marinette nap together on the train ride over to London. Enough said. It's such a sweet moment between the two of them. Marinette rolled her head over on Adrien and that boy did not even hesitate to lean into Marinette and join her in napping. And the moment her head rested onto Adrien he smiles down at her. Then when Marinette woke up the first time when the commotion started on the train she saw exactly what happened while she was napping and usually Marinette immediately has an outburst of nervousness around Adrien but instead, she smiles and decided to continue resting. It's not often that we get a setting where we get to see them just enjoy each other's company comfortably so it was a welcome surprise before the akuma ruined it. 

For the other half of the train ride, they had to deal with Max’s mother being akumatized. What was interesting about her predicament was that the akuma wasn’t meant for her. It slipped away from Hawkmoth’s grasp after a failed attempt to akumatize Sabrina’s dad. The suitcase slipped on board via Sabrina’s suitcase and instantly went to Max’s mother as soon as she felt a big feeling disappointment. She sent the whole train off in space which meant not only did we get a zero-gravity fight but Hawkmoth was so far out of range from the akuma that he couldn’t control it. To get a scenario where Hawkmoth doesn’t have the ability to guide the akuma’s attacks brought a change in the usual formula. It was also high stakes for him once he learned his son was on board and he once again put Adrien in danger.  

Timetagger is Bunnix’s debut episode excepts its Bunnix from the future we meet. Future Alix is a time-traveling miraculous holder who has to come to her past to help defeat Time-Tagger. She can’t give too much away about the future which includes the status of our main heroes’ relationship status. That doesn’t mean she can’t mess with him by giving him a confusing answer. We also learned about potential future plotlines like Chat Noir accidentally damaging the bunny miraculous with cataclysm and Hawkmoth position being overthrown. There are so many exciting details about the future that our full of mystery that I’m looking forward to. 

Since Timetagger was sent from the future it meant that current Ladybug and Chat Noir weren’t as experience to handle the situation. That didn’t prevent Ladybug from being an all-star with her plan to take down the akuma. Her plan with her lucky charm was all about timing...only Ladybug could think of sending a message to her future self so the future heroes of Paris and destroy the item the akuma was in. In order for the plan to be successful Ladybug had to pretend to admit defeat convincing everyone that she was out of solutions. Chat didn’t fact Ladybug on her choice and went to go with her to hand over their miraculous but she made sure to through a reassuring wink in his direction. She had to make sure her and Chat’s placements where exact because she drew a map for their future selves to open up a portal to the spot Timetagger was standing. It was such a cool way to incorporate the current Ladybug and Chat Noir and their future selves as well as reassuring our beloved heroes are still on top of their game.  

About Sweet-ember:

For the month of September I wanted to spread some positivity and praise Miraculous Ladybug on the things I’ve appreciated/enjoyed from the show.

Everyday I’m going to select one particular moment, event, theme, etc. from an episode of Miraculous and shared what I liked from that episode. Each post will discuss 2-3 episodes (from season 1-3; 78 episodes in total).

Whether its something big or small there is something positive that I can take away from every single episode of Miraculous.

Please feel free to add a moment from these particular episodes that you loved to this post as well!

Salt towards the show, characters, ships will not be tolerated!

Sweet-ember posts

[1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] [8] [9] [10] [11] [12] [13] [14] [15] [16] [17]

[18] [19] [20] [21] [22] [23] [24] [25] [26] [27] [28] [29] [30] [31]

[timeless-hollywood-classics]

Richard Ewing Powell (November 14, 1904 – January 2, 1963) was an American singer, actor, voice actor, film producer, film director and studio head. Though he came to stardom as a musical comedy performer, he showed versatility, and successfully transformed into a hardboiled leading man starring in projects of a more dramatic nature. He was the first actor to portray the private detective Philip Marlowe on screen.

Powell was born the middle son of three boys in Mountain View, the seat of Stone County in northern Arkansas. His brothers were Luther (the eldest), and Howard (the youngest). The family moved the boys to Little Rock in 1914, where Powell sang in church choirs and with local orchestras, and started his own band. Powell attended the former Little Rock College, before he started his entertainment career as a singer with the Royal Peacock Band which toured throughout the Midwest.

During this time, he married Mildred Maund, a model, but she found being married to an entertainer not to her liking. After a final trip to Cuba together, Mildred moved to Hemphill, Texas, and the couple divorced in 1932. Later, Powell joined the Charlie Davis Orchestra, based in Indianapolis. He recorded a number of records with Davis and on his own, for the Vocalion label in the late 1920s.

Powell moved to Pittsburgh, where he found great local success as the Master of Ceremonies at the Enright Theater and the Stanley Theater.

In April 1930, Warner Bros. bought Brunswick Records, which at that time owned Vocalion. Warner Bros. was sufficiently impressed by Powell's singing and stage presence to offer him a film contract in 1932. He made his film debut as a singing bandleader in Blessed Event.[4]

He was borrowed by Fox Film to support Will Rogers in Too Busy to Work (1932). He was a boyish crooner, the sort of role he specialised in for the next few years. Back at Warners he supported George Arliss in The King's Vacation, then was in 42nd Street (both 1933), playing the love interest for Ruby Keeler. The film was a massive hit.

Warners got him to basically repeat the role in Gold Diggers of 1933 (1933), another big success. So too was Footlight Parade (1933), with Keeler and James Cagney.

Powell was upped to star for College Coach (1933), then went back to more ensemble pieces including 42nd Street, Convention City (both 1933), Wonder Bar, Twenty Million Sweethearts, and Dames (all 1934).[3]

Happiness Ahead was more of a star vehicle for Powell, as was Flirtation Walk (both 1934). He was top-billed in Gold Diggers of 1935 and Broadway Gondolier (both 1935), both with Joan Blondell. He supported Marion Davies in Page Miss Glory (1935), made for Cosmopolitan Pictures, a production company financed by Davies' lover William Randolph Hearst, who released through Warners.

Warners gave him a change of pace, casting him as Lysander in A Midsummer Night's Dream (1935).

More typical was Shipmates Forever (1935) with Keeler. 20th Century Fox borrowed him for Thanks a Million (1935); back at Warners, he did Colleen (1936) with Keeler and Blondell. Powell was reunited with Marion Davies in another for Cosmopolitan, Hearts Divided (1936), playing Napoleon's brother.

He made two films with Blondell, Stage Struck (1936) and Gold Diggers of 1937 (1937). 20th Century Fox then borrowed him again for On the Avenue (1937).

Back at Warners, he appeared in The Singing Marine, Varsity Show (both 1937), Hollywood Hotel, Cowboy from Brooklyn, Hard to Get, Going Places (all 1938), and Naughty but Nice (1939). Fed up with the repetitive nature of these roles, Powell left Warner Bros and went to work for Paramount Pictures.

At Paramount, he and Blondell were cast together again, in the drama I Want a Divorce (1940). Then Powell got a chance to appear in another non-musical, Christmas in July (1940), a screwball comedy which was the second feature directed by Preston Sturges.

Universal borrowed him to support Abbott and Costello in In the Navy (1941), one of the most popular films of 1941. At Paramount he had a cameo in Star Spangled Rhythm and co-starred with Mary Martin in Happy Go Lucky (both 1943). He supported Dorothy Lamour in Riding High (1943).

He was in a fantasy comedy directed by René Clair, It Happened Tomorrow then went over to MGM to appear opposite Lucille Ball in Meet the People (both 1944), which was a box office flop.

During this period, Powell starred in the musical programme Campana Serenade, which was broadcast on NBC radio (1942–1943) and CBS radio (1943–1944).

By 1944, Powell felt he was too old to play romantic leading men anymore,[citation needed] so he lobbied to play the lead in Double Indemnity. He lost out to Fred MacMurray, another Hollywood nice guy. MacMurray's success, however, fueled Powell's resolve to pursue projects with greater range.

Powell's career changed dramatically when he was cast in the first of a series of films noir, as private detective Philip Marlowe in Murder, My Sweet, directed by Edward Dmytryk at RKO. The film was a big hit, and Powell had successfully reinvented himself as a dramatic actor. He was the first actor to play Marlowe – by name – in motion pictures. (Hollywood had previously adapted some Marlowe novels, but with the lead character changed.) Later, Powell was the first actor to play Marlowe on radio, in 1944 and 1945, and on television, in a 1954 episode of Climax! Powell also played the slightly less hard-boiled detective Richard Rogue in the radio series Rogue's Gallery beginning in 1945.

In 1945, Dmytryk and Powell reteamed to make the film Cornered, a gripping, post-World War II thriller that helped define the film noir style.

For Columbia, he played a casino owner in Johnny O'Clock (1947) and made To the Ends of the Earth (1948). In 1948, he stepped out of the brutish type when he starred in Pitfall, a film noir in which a bored insurance company worker falls for an innocent but dangerous woman, played by Lizabeth Scott.

He broadened his range appearing in a Western, Station West (1948), and a French Foreign Legion tale, Rogues' Regiment (1949). He was a Mountie in Mrs. Mike (1950).

From 1949 to 1953, Powell played the lead role in the NBC radio theater production Richard Diamond, Private Detective. His character in the 30-minute weekly was a likable private detective with a quick wit. Many episodes ended with Detective Diamond having an excuse to sing a little song to his date, showcasing Powell's vocal abilities. Many of the episodes were written by Blake Edwards. When Richard Diamond came to television in 1957, the lead role was portrayed by David Janssen, who did no singing in the series. Prior to the Richard Diamond series, he starred in Rogue's Gallery. He played Richard Rogue, private detective. The Richard Diamond tongue-in-cheek persona developed in the Rogue series.

Powell took a break from tough-guy roles in The Reformer and the Redhead (1950), opposite wife June Allyson. Then it was back to tougher movies: Right Cross (1950), a boxing film, with Allyson; Cry Danger (1951), as an ex con; The Tall Target (1951), at MGM directed by Anthony Mann, playing a detective who tries to prevent the assassination of Abraham Lincoln.

He returned to comedy with You Never Can Tell (1951). He had a good role in MGM's popular melodrama, The Bad and the Beautiful (1952). His final film performance was in a romantic comedy Susan Slept Here (1954) for director Frank Tashlin.

Even when he appeared in lighter fare such as The Reformer and the Redhead and Susan Slept Here (1954), he never sang in his later roles. The latter, his final onscreen appearance in a feature film, did include a dance number with co-star Debbie Reynolds.

By this stage Powell had turned director. His feature debut was Split Second (1953) at RKO Pictures. He followed it with The Conqueror (1956), coproduced by Howard Hughes starring John Wayne as Genghis Khan. The exterior scenes were filmed in St. George, Utah, downwind of U.S. above-ground atomic tests. The cast and crew totaled 220, and of that number, 91 had developed some form of cancer by 1981, and 46 had died of cancer by then, including Powell and Wayne.

He directed Allyson opposite Jack Lemmon in You Can't Run Away from It (1956). Powell then made two war films at Fox with Robert Mitchum, The Enemy Below (1957) and The Hunters (1958).

In the 1950s, Powell was one of the founders of Four Star Television, along with Charles Boyer, David Niven, and Ida Lupino. He appeared in and supervised several shows for that company. Powell played the role of Willie Dante in Four Star Playhouse, in episodes entitled "Dante's Inferno" (1952), "The Squeeze" (1953), "The Hard Way" (1953), and "The House Always Wins" (1955). In 1961, Howard Duff, husband of Ida Lupino, assumed the Dante role in a short-lived NBC adventure series Dante, set at a San Francisco nightclub called "Dante's Inferno".

Powell guest-starred in numerous Four Star programs, including a 1958 appearance on the Duff-Lupino sitcom Mr. Adams and Eve. He appeared in 1961 on James Whitmore's legal drama The Law and Mr. Jones on ABC. In the episode "Everybody Versus Timmy Drayton", Powell played a colonel having problems with his son. Shortly before his death, Powell sang on camera for the final time in a guest-star appearance on Four Star's Ensign O'Toole, singing "The Song of the Marines", which he first sang in his 1937 film The Singing Marine. He hosted and occasionally starred in his Dick Powell's Zane Grey Theater on CBS from 1956–1961, and his final anthology series, The Dick Powell Show on NBC from 1961 through 1963; after his death, the series continued through the end of its second season (as The Dick Powell Theater), with guest hosts.

Powell was the son of Ewing Powell and Sallie Rowena Thompson.

He married three times:

Mildred Evelyn Maund (b. 1906, d. 1967). The couple married in 1925, and appear on the 1930 census in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, where Powell was working in a theater, and on a 1931-passenger list for the SS Oriente, returning from Havana, Cuba. They divorced in 1932, although Mildred retained her married name.

Joan Blondell (married September 19, 1936, divorced 1944). He adopted her son from a previous marriage, Norman Powell, who later became a television producer; the couple also had one child together, Ellen Powell.

June Allyson (August 19, 1945, until his death, January 2, 1963), with whom he had two children, Pamela (adopted) and Richard Powell, Jr.

Powell's ranch-style house was used for exterior filming on the ABC TV series, Hart to Hart. Powell was a friend of Hart to Hart actor Robert Wagner and producer Aaron Spelling. The estate, known as Amber Hills, is on 48 acres in the Mandeville Canyon section of Brentwood, Los Angeles.

Powell enjoyed general aviation as a private pilot.

On September 27, 1962, Powell acknowledged rumors that he was undergoing treatment for cancer. The disease was originally diagnosed as an allergy, with Powell first experiencing symptoms while traveling East to promote his program. Upon his return to California, Powell's personal physician conducted tests and found malignant tumors on his neck and chest.

The marker on Dick Powell's niche in Forest Lawn Memorial Park, Glendale, California incorrectly identifies his year of death as 1962. Powell died at the age of 58 on January 2, 1963. His body was cremated and his remains were interred in the Columbarium of Honor at Forest Lawn Memorial Park in Glendale, California. In a 2001 interview with Larry King, Powell's widow June Allyson stated that the cause of death was lung cancer due to his chain smoking.

It has been speculated that Powell developed cancer as a result of his participation in the film The Conqueror, which was filmed at St. George, Utah, near a site used by the U.S. military for nuclear testing. As well as Powell, who directed the film, about a third of the actors who participated in the film developed cancer, including John Wayne and Susan Hayward.

During the 15th Primetime Emmy Awards on May 26, 1963, the Television Academy presented a posthumous Television Academy Trustee Award to Dick Powell for his contributions to the industry. The award was accepted by two of his former partners in Four Star Television, Charles Boyer and David Niven.

Dick Powell has a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame at 6915 Hollywood Blvd.

[crying-over-gay-dramas]

Okay here is my official rant post about My Engineer, specifically the finale. Spoiler: I literally have zero criticism for it so it’s just gonna be me gushing about how perfect it was, and analyzing some things. (I save the best analysis, RamKing, for last)

I’ve mentioned this before, but as a whole this series was so good I think for just how well put together it was. All the couples got pretty equal or at least well distributed screen time. And for couples who got less (Like TharaFrong) I assume they’re keeping it open for season two. You couldn't really get bored watching because it always flowed so well into the next scene, and all the couples were really great and special for their own reasons. Plus the character development was great and I know it’s gonna get even better in season two.

Now I want to go in and talk about all the couples:

BohnDuen

Throughout the airing of this series, I saw many people having doubts about BohnDuen. I saw many good points such as how they were reallly bad at communicating, Duen never tried to understand Bohn’s feelings, and Bohn was always too pushy about things. However as the series progressed we could see them slowly evolving and becoming better. Obviously even at the end, they still have problems but they’ve improved so much and I know that in Season two they will continue to progress. For Bohn, he started out super jealous. He was always really pushy towards Duen. Towards the middle he finally started to become better, keeping his jealousy more in check and pulling back a little. For Duen, who kept ignoring Duen’s feelings, he finally started trying to see things from Bohn’s point of view. He opened up a little more and even changed their relationship status on Facebook, something he knew would mean a lot to Bohn. For both of them, recognizing their flaws was hard but they wanted to be better for each other. Also in the finale, we got Duen finally telling Bohn he loves him. That was a really big deal for Duen who honestly is pretty shy. This is his first relationship. He’s not used to someone being jealous over him, someone thinking he’s cute. Physical affection was also something that came hard to Duen, but as seen by the finale (*sobs*) he’s evolving in that regard as well, even initiating a kiss himself. 

I really liked too, how before the second kiss when Duen put up his hand to block him, how Bohn kissed him through his hand (twiceeee). Bohn accepted that maybe Duen wasn’t ready for a second kiss yet, and let Duen make the choice. Even when Duen lowered his hand he let him make the choice, which he did and initiated that second kiss. <3 I think these two putting in so much effort for each other and developing so much as a couple, and as individuals indicates a really great future ahead for them. 

MekBoss

Okay I’ll be real, I may have doubted Boss for just a tiny second. I heard a rumor they were gonna have an unhappy ending so when Fon (Is that her name? I’m too lazy to look it up) showed up I got scared. But omg Bossss!!!! He handled it so well. He was so sweet to Fon, and that hug honestly made me cry a little. I was really happy that he told her she shouldn’t give up becoming an idol too. It wouldn’t have been right for her to have to give up her dream for Boss. (It was really sweet that she was willing though) And then when he went back to Mek and revealed their relationship with that megaphone? A cinematic masterpiece. For Mek, who had spent so long hiding his feelings for Boss, Boss clearly stating that they are together and that he loves him in front of everyone would have been such a cathartic release for Mek. For Boss too, who had also had feelings for him tucked away. 

In that moment Boss was choosing Mek 100% without a doubt. All the time they had spent together, the way Mek always helped and took care of Boss. He was fully realizing that he wanted Mek and only Mek. They spent so long being so close but so far from each other. That moment was a new start for them, a real start.  lmao and Ting’s reaction will never not be the funniest thing ever: “What the hell? Did I join a volunteer camp of a love camp here?!” 

TharaFrong

Agdhh poor Frong lmao. I had a feeling nothing major would happen with them in the finale since they were moving slower than the others. Frong, after getting over his feelings for Duen so quickly falling for someone else, Thara, would be really hard. After experiencing Duen’s rejection (sort of, Duen was so clueless during that smh) putting himself out there again would be really hard. But he started falling for Thara anyways, falling for the way he took care of his patients (specifically Frong’s mom), the kindness he so naturally gives to others (such as searching for Thara’s necklace, and the weirder aspects of his personality (such as a certain adorable lizard he can’t seem to stop talking about). 

I don’t really see Thara’s line as friend/brother zoning him. More as I feel that he hasn’t considered Frong in that way yet (although him taking pictures of him shirtless was a bit suspicious lmao) and I think in season two we’ll see him develop feelings as well. (I’m kinda hoping for them to be a lil angsty ngl)

Okay. Here it is. RAMKING.

They 100% had THE best buildup, and plot. The way they met, the slow transformation into friendship, people around them either shipping them or thinking they were a couple, it was all so !!! It was perfect too, because they had us so convinced that King was gay panicking, and pushing Ram away because he didn’t understand what he was felling BUT NO he knew EXACTLY how he felt, and he’d just been holding himself back this whole time. I can’t get over that. All those flashbacks they showed, King knew exactly what he was feeling and it was overwhelming that he finally couldn’t take it anymore. I think when Ram made him that crown, and their friends commented that they looked cute together, like a couple.. I think that’s when King really started to realize he couldn’t do it any more. While Ram was smiling, King had a different look. 

He seemed to be under the impression Ram didn’t feel the same, or maybe he was hesitating because of all the stress that Ram has been under with his dad. I think it was the former though. His face when Ram put his arm around him in episode 13 was so unsure. I originally took it to mean that he didn’t understand what he was feeling, but now I’m thinking it was because he couldn’t understand why Ram was doing that. It’s like he was torn between his feelings, and his uncertainty of Ram’s feelings. He had no way of knowing for sure if Ram had feelings (although at the point, the way Ram looked at him and took care of him it would have been hard to miss, but when your emotions for someone are so strong it’s hard to see things from a clear perspective. Does it seem like they feel the same because you want to? Or because they really do?) For King, who understands Ram so well, not being able to tell how he was feeling was terrifying, and having to hold himself back was painful (as he said himself *sobs*) As for Ram, I think he also knew full well what his feelings were, and also didn’t know how King felt. He was happy just staying by his side, as a friend taking care of him. King suddenly pulling away was confusing for Ram. It hurt him to be away from him, but he was patient and waited for King to tell him why he was acting the way he was. King had always been so understanding with Ram’s emotions, and Ram wanted to do the same. While they were apart, I noticed how during BohnDuen’s reunion and MekBoss’ confession they focused on King’s reaction. He was happy for his friends, but I saw another emotion in his expression. One that reflected the conflict and pain he was feeling over his emotions for Ram. 

The way he went from smiling, to that face was soo good. That one little moment was a big indicator of what was going on in King’s head and the pain he was currently feeling.

Then, finally (it might have helped that he was a little drunk) King admitted to everything he’d been feeling. That he was pushing him away because he feels good with him, and it was painful to hold back around him all the time. And we all know what happened next (*Sobbing noises*) They finally released all those emotions they’d been holding in, the pull they’d felt for each other since day one, the unexplainably deep understanding they have for each other. It all came together. Okay but that kiss was so !!!! Like the !!! the foreheads!!! The closed eyes!!! It was all passion, emotion it was so aHHH 

Then the way they were lying the next morning (also may or may not be my new computer wallpaper oops) was so !! They’re turned in towards each other, King’s arm lying against Ram’s chest, his head tucker into him. I thought that position did a great job of reflecting them as a couple. The way they kept being drawn to each other. Also, after King woke up and the way he so quickly believed that Ram had forgotten what had happened last night, made me even more certain that King is scared and uncertain of Ram’s feelings. They both obviously have feelings for each other, it’s now just a matter of figuring out how to express them to each other. (Although who knows what complications Season 2 could throw at them)

Okay So I lied, I do have a very small criticism: I didn’t like that Bohn pulled the “I don’t like men, I just like you” line. That always bugs me. In BL there’s always a fine between a series being genuinely good and romantic and a series being focused on mainly fan service. I’ve always seen that line as a sign that a series is gonna be kinda fan service-y. However, My Engineer was not at all like that. It was definitely one of the good ones (one of the best honestly) so in this case that line wasn’t a bad sign. Still, I wish that hadn’t been included. Also, we deserved more Cupcake content and we better get some in season two. I want to see Thara baby his lizard some more god dammnit. 

Also this is random but I really hope they give Ting a man in S2. She deserves it. (Or a girlfriend in which case I volunteer I love her so much)

This was a really massive post and if you read this entire thing I would like to give you a virtual hug. Have a good day!! <3 I’m gonna go back to sobbing and replaying the episode now

[aion-rsa]

Rick and Morty: A Guide to Every Voice Actor

https://ift.tt/eA8V8J

The world of Rick and Morty has grown to absurd proportions. The show spans multiple planets, galaxies, timelines, and multiverses, meaning there’s always an opportunity to meet strange new people and creatures. 

As such, Rick and Morty’s voice cast has grown along with the adventures of its titular pair. While co-creator Justin Roiland, Chris Parnell, Spencer Grammer, and Sarah Chalke have reliably voiced the central Smith-Sanchez family this entire time, the show also relies on a large crop of other voice actors. Some actors recur while others pop up only a time or two as very special guests. But all contribute to the rich aural tapestry of Adult Swim’s very ambitious animated series. 

Gathered here is a list of (to the best of our knowledge) every voice actor who has popped up on Rick and Morty, who they played, and where you may have heard (or seen) them before. 

Justin Roiland

Rick, Morty, Mr. Meseeks, Mr. Poopybutthole, Mr. Always Wants to Be Hunted

Justin Roiland is not just the co-creator of Rick and Morty but also the vocal engine for how much of the show sounds. Roiland portrays Rick, Morty, Mr. Meseeks, Mr. Poopybutthole, and countless other distinctively voiced characters in the show’s weird world. From the pilot on, Roiland’s tic-filled voice patterns have driven a lot of the humor behind the show. 

Roiland has been an animator and a voice actor for quite a long time, getting involved with his eventual Rick and Morty co-creator Dan Harmon and his Channel 101 imprint back in 2004. There he made Internet-only cult animated series like House of Cosbys, and 2 Girls One Cup: the Show. His voice was previously well known as Earl of Lemongrab (“Unacceptable!!!”) in Adventure Time. 

Chris Parnell

Jerry Smith

Former SNL cast member Chris Parnell has had a prolific career in comedy both as a live-action and voice actor. Parnell is best known for playing Garth Holliday in Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy, Dr. Leo Spaceman in 30 Rock, and many more roles in film and television. In the animation world he’s voiced characters on Archer, Robot Chicken, Gravity Falls, and beyond. His voice is often perfect for the “everyman” role and as such he has only been required to embody the sad form of Jerry Smith on Rick and Morty thus far. 

Spencer Grammer

Summer Smith

The daughter of Kelsey Grammar, Spencer Grammar got her start as Casey Carywright on the ABC Family college dramedy Greek. Since then, she has done chiefly live-action work on shows such as CSI, Chicago PD, and Grey’s Anatomy. 

Sarah Chalke

Beth Smith

Canadian actress Sarah Chalke brings two enormous roles from TV comedy’s past to her work on Rick and Morty. At first she was best known as the “second Becky” on ABC sitcom Roseanne. She would then go on to portray Dr. Elliot Reid for nine seasons of the classic Scrubs. Chalke is still chiefly a live-action comedic actress today but has done some more voice work in the past, including on Clone High and American Dad. 

Kari Wahlgren

Jessica, Cynthia, Samantha, Mother Gaia

Kari Wahlgren works extensively as a voice actress for animated movies, TV shows, and video games. As evidenced by her character list above, she is often Rick and Morty’s go-to voice to portray one of Summer’s teenage peers. 

Brandon Johnson

Mr. Goldenfold

Brandon Johnson is a familiar face and voice to Adult Swim audiences. He has previously popped up on NTSF:SD:SUV and American Dad. On Rick and Morty he voices Mr. Goldenfold, who is seemingly the only teacher at Morty and Summer’s school. 

Phil Hendrie

Principal Gene Vagina

Philip Hendrie is best known for hosting The Phil Hendrie Show, a proto-Comedy Bang Bang-esque talk radio show in the 1990s where he portrayed both a fictionalized version of himself and many other wacky characters. He broke into animated voice acting in the late ‘90s, voicing dozens of characters on King of the Hill and popping up in Futurama as well. On Rick and Morty he plays the unfortunately named principal of Morty’s school. 

Ryan Ridley

Frank Palicky, Lighthouse Keeper, Concerto

Ryan Ridley is a writer and producer on Rick and Morty, and like many of the show’s writers is sometimes called upon to lend his voice to a character or two. His best known creation is the Lighthouse Keeper on the Purge planet obsessed with his terrible screenplay. Ridley has also written for Ghosted, Blue Mountain State, and Community. 

Rob Paulsen

Snuffles, Centaur

Rob Paulsen is a legendary voice actor best known for voicing two Ninja Turtles (Raphael and Donatello) and several Animaniacs characters. His filmography is truly impressive and includes the important role of Snuffles the Smith family dog on Rick and Morty.

Jess Harnell

Scary Terry, Ruben

Harnell is another Animaniacs veteran. After voicing Scary Terry and some additional voices in season 1, Harnell has yet to return to Rick and Morty. 

Patricia Lentz

Joyce Smith

Patricia Lentz provides the voice of Jerry’s mom. She’s had a long, impressive career of live-action and voice acting with some highlights including Runaways, Sabrina the Teenage Witch, and Happy Days. 

Dana Carvey

Leonard Smith

The voice of Jerry’s dad is provided by one of SNL’s better known alums in Dana Carvey. A master impressionist, Carvey was an important figure on SNL during the ‘80s and would go on to star in Wayne’s World, The Master of Disguise, and Trapped in Paradise. Shortly after his SNL career, he hosted The Dana Carvey Show, which did not last long but is notable in TV history for having an incredible cast of writers including Louis C.K. Charlie Kaufman, Jon Glaser, Robert Carlock, and frequent Dan Harmon collaborator Dino Stamatopoulos. 

Echo Kellum

Jacob Philip, Brad, Triple Trunks

“I throw balls far. You want good words? Date a languager.” So sad that we had to leave Brad behind in C-137. Echo Kellum provides the voice of Brad and several other Rick and Morty characters.. Kellum is a UCB grad who has appeared in Key & Peele, Comedy Bang! Bang! and most notably Arrow as Mister Terrific. 

John Oliver

Dr. Xenon Bloom

John Oliver now carries on the legacy of The Daily Show in his superb HBO news series Last Week Tonight. Prior to finding his perfect comedy news niche, Oliver had a lengthy comic acting career starting in his native England and extending into his new home in the U.S. Oliver previously played an important recurring role in Harmon’s Community and pops up just once on Rick and Morty. 

David Cross

Prince Nebulon

David Cross is one of several sketch comedy legends who lent their voice to Rick and Morty as part of their lengthy careers. Cross created and starred in sketch series Mr. Show with Bob and David alongside co-creator Bob Odenkirk (how has he not popped up on Rick and Morty yet?). Since then he’s had a successful stand up career and been a part of some impressive TV ensembles such as Arrested Development. 

Dan Harmon

Birdperson, Kevin, Mr. Marklovitz, Davin, Ice-T, Dr. Glip-Glop, Nimbus

Dan Harmon is the co-creator of Rick and Morty alongside Roiland. The two share a long history going back to the Channel 101 days. While both Roiland and Harmon are skilled storytellers, Harmon has truly delved into the science of story throughout his career. Harmon is best known for creating and showrunning Community, which became an onscreen sensation for fans and an offscreen nuisance for NBC due to Harmon’s at times difficult behavior. On Rick and Morty, Roiland and Harmon deploy Harmon’s deadpan delivery to good use, with him often playing monotone characters like the beloved Birdperson. 

Tom Kenny

King Jellybean, Squanchy, Conroy, Million Ants, Etc.

Tom Kenny is an incredibly successful voice artist who you likely best know as none other than SpongeBob SquarePants. On Rick and Morty, Kenny’s roles are decidedly less wholesome than the sponge who lives in a pineapple under the sea. Kenny was a big factor in season 1 playing King Jellybean and Sqaunchy. He’s popped up sparingly in seasons 2, 3, and 4 as well, most notably as Million Ants of the Vindicators. 

Cassie Steele

Tammy Gueterman, Tricia Lange

Somebody’s gotta play Tammy Gueterman, that traitorous monster. And that “honor” goes to Cassie Steele. Steele’s name is recognizable to Canadian (and some American) audiences due to her role as Manny Santos on Degrassi: The Next Generation. Rick and Morty was her first voice acting role. She will continue her voice acting career as the lead in Disney’s upcoming Raya and the Last Dragon.

Claudia Black

Mar-Sha/Ventriloquiver

Claudia Black has turned up on Rick and Morty twice, once in season 1 and once in season 4. It’s a surprise she hasn’t done so more often as she’s built up quite the voice acting career. After becoming well known in sci-fi series like Farscape and Stargate SG-1, Black continued on into a successful gaming career, providing her voice to Uncharted, Gears of War, and Dragon Age. 

Maurice LaMarche

Morty Jr. Brad Anderson, Abradolf Lincler, Crocubot

Maurice LaMarche’s smooth baritone is quite familiar to many animation fans. LaMarche has voice acted in everything from Animaniacs to Futurama. He’s got a killer Orson Welles impression and that seems to be the starting point for many of his Rick and Morty characters. 

Alfred Molina

Mr. Needful

Many of us know Alfred Molina from his incredibly successful film career in projects like Boogie Nights, Spider-Man 2, and The Da Vinci Code. But Molina has also had quite the career as a voice actor as well. In the past couple decades, Molina has lent his sturdy voice to Rango, Monsters University, Ralph Breaks the Internet, Frozen II, and more. He was clearly a shrewd choice for the Lucifer-like Mr. Needful. It’s a wonder why he hasn’t turned up on Rick and Morty more. 

Richard Fulcher

King Flippy Nips

Richard Fulcher is best known as the unofficial third member of British comedy troupe The Mighty Boosh, though he himself is American. Fulcher wrote and acted in every incarnation of The Mighty Boosh. He has also had a prolific career in comedy acting outside the troupe. As of late, Fulcher has leaned into his voice acting abilities including this sadly one-off role on Rick and Morty as King Flippy Nips, ruler of Pluto. 

Nolan North

Scroopy Noopers, Multiple Others

Nolan North has done extensive videogame work in franchises such as Uncharted, Assassin’s Creed, and the Arkham series. That’s right: the voice of shrimpy Plutonian Scroopy Noopers on Rick and Morty is both Nathan Drake and Desmond Miles. North also voices many other characters in positions of authority for the show. 

Aislinn Paul

Nancy

Aislinn Paul is another Degrassi: The Next Generation alum who has broken into the voice acting world. On Rick and Morty, Paul plays only Nancy, Summer’s nerdy classmate who everyone is always mean to. Hopefully one day there will be justice for Nancy. 

Alejandra Gollas

Lucy

Alejandra Gollas is a bilingual Mexican actress who has acted in films, TV shows, and stage productions for decades. Her only Rick and Morty role was that of creepy Titanic enthusiast Lucy. 

Scott Chernoff

Revolio Clockberg Jr.

Originally referred to as “Gearhead,” Revolio Clockberg Jr. is one of Rick and Morty’s most recognizable recurring characters. Embodying this important role is veteran voice actor and TV writer Scott Chernoff. Chernoff has lent his voice to dozens of animated properties and has even written for many successful comedies including BoJack Horseman, The Tonight Show with Conan O’Brien, and School of Rock. He is one of many Channel 101 veterans involved in Rick and Morty and pitches in with some other background voices on the show here and there. 

Keegan-Michael Key

Schleemypants

Keegan-Michael Key is likely best known as half of the ultra successful sketch comedy duo Key & Peele. (Wonder whatever happened to the other guy!) Key has had an enormously successful career as a comedic actor on television. On Rick and Morty he plays testicle-looking time cop Schleemypants. 

Jordan Peele

Second Fourth-Dimensional Being

Oh, here’s Peele! Schleemypants’ unnamed partner is the only character Peele has played on Rick and Morty. 

Jemaine Clement

Fart

New Zealand comedic actor Jemaine Clement is best known for being half of the Grammy award-winning comedic musical act Flight of the Conchords alongside Bret McKenzie. Clement has also worked extensively with fellow Kiwi Taika Waititi to produce recent classics like What We Do in the Shadows. His deadpan delivery was a perfect choice monotone gaseous being “Fart.”

Andy Daly

Krombopulos Michael

Krombopulos Michael is Rick and Morty’s Boba Fett: he looks cool but ultimately does nothing. Playing K.M. was one of the most sought-of “character voice actors” in the industry. Daly’s cheerful everyman delivery has proven useful on dozens of comedy shows across the entertainment landscape. Perhaps best known for his starring vehicle Review with Forest MacNeil, Daly has also lent his voice to series such as Harley Quinn, Bob’s Burgers, and Big Mouth. He can also be heard as a crucial role on Roiland’s Solar Opposites. 

Christina Hendricks

Unity

Christina Hendricks is best known for her role as Joan Holloway on Mad Men. In addition to that, however, she’s appeared in quite a few genre films and shows like Firefly, Life, and The Neon Demon. Hendricks has done some voice work here and there and her only role on Rick and Morty to date is assimilation expert and one-time Rick Sanchez paramour Unity. 

Patton Oswalt

Beta-Seven

Patton Oswalt is basically the dark matter of the comedy universe. He and his voice turn up just about everywhere. Perhaps his best known voice acting role is that of lead character Remy in Ratatouille. On Rick and Morty he has played only Beta-Seven thus far and is surely due for some more appearances. 

Keith David

The President

Even if you’ve never heard of Keith David, you have surely heard his voice. An unmistakable baritone with gravitas, David has leant that voice to projects such as Gargoyles, Halo, and Spawn. David has worked with Harmon before on the final season of Community. Surely, there is no better voice for Rick and Morty’s unnamed President…or its Reverse Giraffe.

Kurtwood Smith

General Nathan

Not sure if you recognize Kurtwood Smith’s voice? You would if he called you a dumbass. Yes, Smith is best known to TV audiences as Eric Forman’s ornery dad Red on That ‘70s Show. He provides that same ornery spirit to the role of General Nathan on Rick and Morty in “Get Schwifty.” 

Stephen Colbert

Zeep Xanflorp

Stephen Colbert is of course a longtime comedic actor, host of The Colbert Report, and now host of The Late Show on CBS. The Late Show understandably takes up most of his time nowadays but he was nice enough to portray the intelligent alien living inside Rick’s flying saucer’s Miniverse battery. 

Nathan Fielder

Kyle

“The Ricks Must Be Crazy” has quite the star power among its voice cast. In addition to Colbert’s Zeep, the episode also introduces another Microverse populated by Kyle. Kyle is played by Nathan For You’s cringe comedy maestro Nathan Fielder. 

Jim Rash

Glaxo Slimslom

Jim Rash is another frequent Dan Harmon collaborator, best known for his role as Dean Pelton on Community. Rash is an accomplished comedic actor and an Oscar award-winning screenwriter. He’s the perfect choice to play alien couples counselor Glaxo. 

Matt Besser

Fungo

Matt Besser is an improv comedy specialist who is a founding member of the Upright Citizens Brigade comedy troupe. Over his long career, he’s appeared in just about everything. On Rick and Morty he portrays alien diplomat Fungo, who tries to convince Jerry to donate his penis to Shrimply Pibbles. 

Werner Herzog

Shrimply Pibbles

Werner Herzog might be the strangest inclusion in the Rick and Morty voice canon. Herzog is a towering figure in the cinema world as a director, screenwriter, documentarian, and occasional actor. His German accent and generally serious and pessimistic disposition has made him a natural target for comedies looking to inject a bit of weird humor into the proceedings. 

Chelsea Kane

Arthricia

Chelsea Kane has appeared in several TV series targeted to tween audiences like Disney Channel’s Jonas and Freeform’s Baby Daddy. Her brief role as the Purge planet’s Arthricia was a jumping off point to try more voice actor roles on shows like Hot Streets, Regular Show, and DC Super Hero Girls. 

James Callis and Tricia Helfer

Pat and Donna Gueterman

James Callis and Tricia Helfer portray the parents of double-agent Tammy Gueterman for a very specific reason. Callis and Helfer are best known for their roles on Syfy’s classic series Battlestar Galactica, with Callis playing brilliant scientist (and traitor to humanity) Gaius Baltar and Helfer playing Cylon model Number 6. Pat and Donna Gueterman on Rick and Morty look just like the actors playing them, which should have been our first clue that something is amiss.

Nathan Fillion

Cornvelious Daniel

Who is Nathan Fillion if not nerd culture’s best friend? Fillion came into prominence by playing Captain Mal Reynolds on Joss Whedon’s beloved Firefly. Since then Fillion has had a solid career on shows like Castle and The Rookie. In his spare time, however, he provides his voice to animated series like Rick and Morty and Big Mouth, often playing a thinly-veiled version of himself. Cornvelious Daniel is notable for being the first character onscreen in Rick and Morty to enjoy that sweet, sweet McDonald’s Szechuan sauce. 

Tony Hale

Eli

Tony Hale won two Emmys for playing the Vice President’s bagman Gary Walsh on Veep. Before that he was the youngest Bluth child, Buster, on Arrested Development. As of late, however, he’s getting more into the voice acting scene. You (or your kids) may best know him as the beloved Forky in Toy Story 4. But prior to that, he popped up as a cheery Mad Max-style biker named Eli on Rick and Morty. 

Joel McHale

Hemorrhage

Joel McHale is, of course, another Community alum. He played lead character Jeff Winger on Harmon’s old NBC series. In addition to that, McHale has had a lengthy career in comedy, having hosted The Soup and Netflix’s recent Tiger King special. He was also a tight end of the University of Washington football team but that’s neither here nor there. He voices bucket-wearing post-apocalyptic warlord Hemorrhage on Rick and Morty.

Susan Sarandon

Dr. Wong

Perhaps no character on Rick and Morty has delved deeper into Rick’s psyche than Smith-family psychologist Dr. Wong. Lending her voice to Dr. Wong in the infamous “Pickle Rick” episode is legendary actress Susan Sarandon a.k.a the Louise in Thelma and Louise. 

Peter Serafinowicz

Agency Director

Peter Serafinowicz is a British comedian and actor who used his role voicing Darth Maul in The Phantom Menace as a launching pad to befriend some truly talented creators and get some truly fascinating roles. Serafinowicz has popped up in Shaun of the Dead, Guardians of the Galaxy, Parks and Recreation, and more. He also portrayed the titular Tick in Amazon’s The Tick. His role in Rick and Morty is briefly that of a Russian villain agency director who tries to take down the ever-elusive Pickle Rick. 

Danny Trejo

Jaguar

“Pickle Rick” really has quite the impressive guest voice cast. Danny Trejo joins Peter Serafinowicz and Susan Sarandon in lending his voice to this episode. Trejo plays Rick’s loose canon action hero ally, Jaguar. Outside of Rick and Morty, Danny Trejo may be one of the most recognizable faces in entertainment. A frequent collaborator of Robert Rodriguez, Trejo has leveraged his fascinating upbringing and tough guy appearance into countless roles. 

Gillian Jacobs

Supernova

Another Community alum! Superhero team The Vindicators requires a lot of guest voice talent and clearly Dan Harmon knew one place to turn. Jacobs played Britta on Community (she’s the worst). The Pittsburgh-born actress has also appeared in Girls, Don’t Think Twice, and Ibiza. 

Christian Slater

Vance Maximus

Christian Slater is a big get for Vindicators leader Vance Maximus. While he’s best known to modern audiences as the titular Mr. Robot in Mr. Robot, Slater got his start as an actor with popular roles in movies like Heathers, Interview with the Vampire, and Broken Arrow. Slater has had a fruitful voice acting career as well, having previously played “Slater” in Archer. 

Lance Reddick

Alan Rails

Alan Rails is another one of the hallowed Vindicators crime-fighting team. Playing the ghost train-summoner is Lance Reddick. Reddick has been a mainstay on television for decades, turning up in Oz, Fringe, Lost, and more. Most notably he played Cedric Daniels for the entirety of The Wire’s run. 

Logic

Logic

Logic is one of the few Rick and Morty guest stars who gets to be an animated version of himself.  This Maryland-based rapper has released five successful albums and enlisted Rick and Morty to help promote his sixth mixtape Bobby Tarantino II. 

Clancy Brown

Risotto Groupon, Story Train passenger

Talk about a guy with a commanding voice. Clancy Brown has been a successful actor for a long time, going back to his roles in Highlander, The Shawshank Redemption, and Lost. He’s undoubtedly best known to animation fans, however, as the voice of stingy Krusty Krab owner Mr. Krabs in SpongeBob SquarePants. On Rick and Morty, he’s played alien restaurant manager Risotto Groupon and a Story Train passenger in season 4’s “Never Ricking Morty.” 

Thomas Middleditch

Tommy Lipnip

Thomas Middleditch is likely best known to television audiences as overmatched tech tycoon Richard Hendrix on HBO’s Silicon Valley. That’s just the tip of the iceberg for Middleditch’s comedy career. The prolific improviser played Tommy Lipnip in Rick and Morty and must have impressed Justin Roiland enough to give him a lead role on his Hulu comedy Solar Opposites. 

John DiMaggio

Multiple Minor Roles (Death Stalker, Leader, Knight, etc.)

John DiMaggio is an incredibly busy voice actor. If you’ve ever enjoyed an animated comedy, there’s a good chance DiMaggio contributed his voice to it. His best known roles include Bender on Futurama, Jake the Dog on Adventure Time, and Scotsman on Samurai Jack. 

Sherri Shepherd

Judge

Sherri Shepherd is an actress, comedian, and TV personality best known for being a co-host on The View for seven years. Since then she’s turned up as an actress or talking head on many shows and lent her voice to portray a judge that deals with Morty in the season 4 premiere. 

Sam Neill

Monogatron Leader

In addition to having one of the best Twitter accounts in the world, Sam Neill is also an actor best known for playing Dr. Alan Grant in Jurassic Park and Jurassic Park III. The New Zealander has continued to work quite a bit in recent years, turning up in Thor: Ragnarok and Peaky Blinders. On Rick and Morty he plays the leader of the  Monogatron alien race in “The Old Man and the Seat.”

Taika Waititi

Glootie

Playing another Monogatron, this one named Glootie, is New Zealand actor/director Taika Waititi. Waititi got his start in the New Zealand comedy scene alongside other Rick and Morty guest star Jermaine Clement. Since then he has only gone on to become one of the most in-demand filmmakers on the planet. Waititi is behind Thor: Ragnarok, JoJo Rabbit, and an upcoming Star Wars film. 

Kathleen Turner

Monogatron Queen

Kathleen Turner is what you would call a “get” for Rick and Morty. Turner has won two Golden Globe awards and been nominated for an Oscar and several Tony awards. She is best known for her roles in ‘80s movies Romancing the Stone, Prizzi’s Honor, and The War of the Roses. Turner has also been working as a voice actress since the ‘80s, voicing Jessica Rabbit in Who Framed Roger Rabbit and going on to act in The Simpsons and King of the Hill as well. 

Jeffrey Wright

Tony

Jeffrey Wright is no stranger to sci-fi, having toiled away as sad robot Bernard on Westworld for three seasons. Wright got three-quarters of a way to an EGOT in one role by playing Belize in Angels in America. Since then he’s acted in several Daniel Craig Bond films, Boardwalk Empire, and The Hunger Games. On Rick and Morty he plays the role of an alien who vexes Rick into an existential crisis by continuing to use his private toilet. 

Elon Musk

Elon Tusk

Elon Musk is a South African/Canadian/American engineer and industrialist who serves as the founder and CEO of SpaceX and CEO of Tesla, along with numerous other ventures. Presumably he did not call anyone behind the scenes of Rick and Morty a pedophile but you never know. 

Justin Theroux

Miles Knightley

Justin Theroux has had quite the career in Hollywood. He first came to prominence acting in the David Lynch films Mulholland Drive and Inland Empire. He then continued to appear in major films while also writing some for good measure like Tropic Thunder, Iron Man 2, and Rock of Ages. On television he played Kevin Garvey in HBO’s The Leftovers. For Rick and Morty, he played the role of “heist artist” Miles Knightly in “One Crew Over the Crewcoo’s Morty.” You son of a bitch, I’m in. 

Pamela Adlon

Angie Flint

Pamela Adlon is the rare case of an actor who was first best-known for voice work breaking into the live-action arena in a big way. Adlon is best known for giving voice to Bobby Hill on King of the Hill, while also voice acting in other animated projects like Recess, and 101 Dalmatians: The Series. A longtime collaborator of Louis C.K. (though not so much anymore), Adlon appeared on FX’s Louie and got a well-received FX show of her own, Better Things. On Rick and Morty, Adlon portrays Angie Flint – a lock-picker who Rick recruits to his heist team.

Matthew Broderick

Talking Cat

Matthew Broderick is a longtime stage, film, and television actor best known for his roles on Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, WarGames, The Producers, and much more. Most recently he turned up on Netflix’s sadly-departed post-apocalyptic comedy Daybreak. On Rick and Morty, Broderick plays a Talking Cat with a secret so heinous it will drive anyone to near insanity. 

Liam Cunningham

Balthromaw

To portray the voice of a wizened dragon, Rick and Morty turned to an actor best known for a series filled with them. The Irish actor Liam Cunningham is known to most people as Ser Davos Seaworth from Game of Thrones. Though not usually a voice actor he must have enjoyed his role on Rick and Morty as he turns up again briefly in Roiland’s Solar Opposites. 

Phil LaMarr

Multiple Minor Roles

The first two things most people (and by most people I mean me) think of when they think of Phil Lamarr are his time on Mad TV and the moment his head explodes on Pulp Fiction. But aside from sketch comedy and head explosions, LaMarr has had a remarkable voice acting career. He portrayed the title character in Samurai Jack while also providing his voice to Justice League, Static Shock, and countless video games. It’s surprisingly hard to figure out what voices Phil LaMarr plays on Rick and Morty but given his talents it’s certain to be quite a few.

Christopher Meloni

Jesus

When Rick and Morty briefly presented the savior of mankind in season 4’s sixth episode, surely there was only one choice to play him. Christopher Meloni has had one of the more fascinating careers in entertainment. After playing the deadly serious role of Elliot Stabler on Law and Order: SVU for years, Meloni has re-embraced his comedic side in projects like Happy!, Harley Quinn, while reprising his role in the Wet Hot American Summer franchise.

Paul Giamatti

Story Lord

Paul Giamatti once joked in a late night talk show interview that his role in any given heist or action movie would be the guy wearing a headset in a van, typing on a computer, and telling the hero to “get out of there, man!” He has since parlayed that character actor sensibility into a remarkable, multi-award-winning career. Giamatti is best known recently for portraying Chuck Rhoades on Billions and producing AMC’s Lodge 49. Prior to that he played lead roles in American Splendor, HBO’s John Adams, and much more. The guy has a good handle on stories and therefore makes perfect sense as Rick and Morty’s Story Lord. 

Alan Tudyk

Chris, Observant Glorzo, Multiple Minor Roles

Alan Tudyk is a nerd culture mainstay. Very few comic-cons come and go without Tudyk involved in at least one project presenting within them. Tudyk has played Hoban “Wash” Washburne on Firefly and its spinoff movie Serenity, Mr. Nobody on Doom Patrol, and many more beloved characters. His live-action appearances are just the tip of the nerd iceberg, however, with Tudyk providing his voice to everything from Solo: A Star Wars Story (K-2SO) to Harley Quinn (Clayface/The Joker). On Rick and Morty, Tudyk plays several unnamed characters. 

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Rob Schrab

God

Rob Schrab is a Channel 101 veteran and longtime Harmon collaborator. Schrab is best known for his work as a director of projects like Monster House, Community, Parks and Recreation, and more. On Rick and Morty he plays none other than God…or at least the Zeus-like god of a remote planet. 

Jim Gaffigan

Hoovy

Jim Gaffigan is a wildly successful standup comedian who co-created and starred in a TV show about his life for TV Land called The Jim Gaffigan Show. While he’s appeared sparingly in films, of late he’s dabbled in voice acting, lending his voice to Hotel Transylvania 3, Playmobil: The Movie, and Luca. His kindly Midwestern accent lends itself nicely to the helpful but doomed Hoovy on Rick and Morty.

Planetina

Alison Brie

Five seasons in and Rick and Morty is still finding old friends from Community to make their debut. Alison Brie played Annie Edison on Dan Harmon’s classic series. Since then she’s become quite the star, serving as a lead on GLOW and voice acting in BoJack Horseman and The Lego Movie 2. She even provided the voice of Natasha Romanoff a.k.a. Black Widow in the video game Marvel Avengers Academy.

Steve Buscemi

Eddie

Steve Buscemi is a prolific and talented character actor known for his classic roles in Fargo, Reservoir Dogs, The Sopranos, and more. That he plays such a relatively minor role on Rick and Morty suggests that he might be a fan of the show and just wanted to stop by and say hey. Buscemi is also notable for being a New York firefighter prior to his acting life.

Christina Ricci

Princess Ponietta

Once known as a talented child actor, Christina Ricci has continued her creative work into adulthood. The actress has starred in films like Speed Racer, Black Snake Moan, and the upcoming fourth Matrix movie. Bless her for dropping by Rick and Morty only to play an CHUD horse-person princess pregnant with Rick’s heir.

Kyle Mooney

Blazen

Kyle Mooney is an SNL cast member and writer who specializes in offbeat characters and sketches. He also wrote and starred in 2017’s Brigsby Bear. His role hasn’t been officially confirmed on Rick and Morty yet but it seems as though he voices the Mortal Kombat-esque faux badass Blazen.

The post Rick and Morty: A Guide to Every Voice Actor appeared first on Den of Geek.

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[formula365]

The Greatest of All Time - Imola Grand Prix review

It’s Christmas in 2004, and Maranello is a happy place. Ferrari has just crushed their opposition, winning 15 of the 18 races to claim a sixth consecutive constructors’ championship. And it wasn’t just another title: this was one of their most dominant, the F2004 a car so quick that in their first test at their private track in Fiorano they thought something was wrong with the track sensors. This hadn’t quite been the same level of dominance as 2002, when they scored as many points as all the other teams combined, but was pretty close.

Going into the next season, everyone expected Ferrari would be fending off challengers but staying on top. Just as in 2003, the competitors should be closing the gap a bit, but the Scuderia should remain the team to beat. Such was the quality of the 2004 car that the team led by Ross Brawn decided to evolve the car to adapt to the regulations tweaks of 2005, rather than work on an entirely new design.

But as the cars hit the track in Melbourne, it became clear the competition had more than caught up. The 2005 car was only supposed to make his debut in round 5 in Barcelona, but given the poor results in the first two races, its debut was brought forward to round 3 in Bahrain. It didn’t matter: plagued with aerodynamics issues, a gearbox too big and Bridgestone tyres that were losing the performance battle to Michelin, the F2005 won a single race, and only because all the teams using Michelin refused to race in the now infamous US GP, due to safety concerns.

At the time, it seemed impossible such a downturn in fortune could happen. The all-conquering Ferrari, the first team ever to win 6 championships in a row, had fallen off a cliff, finishing a distant third in the standings. No one had seen that coming, least of all those running the team itself.

What does this have to do with this weekend’s race? Obviously, everything. As expected since pretty much the first round of the season, Mercedes has just confirmed their seventh consecutive world title with four races to spare, beating Ferrari’s record, while reaching performance levels similar to those 2002 and 2004 titles. Just like Ferrari, they are at their peak, but the difference is that they show no signs of slowing down or becoming the c-word: complacent.

Ferrari’s 2005 season is a cautionary tale for any team dominating their sport: don’t take anything for granted; this is exactly what Mercedes have always done. Through every regulation change, they have continuously pushed the boundaries on every single level, taking every defeat as a chance to improve, and turning every setback into an opportunity. In what team principal Toto Wolff has described as a relentless drive to perfection, they keep on pushing when most, convinced their superiority would keep them ahead, would have relaxed.

A good example is the improvement made to their engine in this off-season. Clearly beaten by Ferrari in 2019, the team led by Andy Cowell worked to get back on top, not knowing that the only reason the Ferrari engines were so ahead was due to some shenanigans that weren’t entirely legal. The result is that the Mercedes engine took a leap forward in 2020, while Ferrari’s moved backwards, making the increased performance on the back of the Silver Arrows look even more impressive.

There is regular debate among F1 fans about who is the greatest driver of all time; now that Hamilton is beating pretty much every meaningful record, this debate is hotter than ever. But there is less debate about which is the best team, and that is because there are very few arguments left against this incarnation of Mercedes. It’s not just that they make the best car: it’s also that they keep winning even when they don’t have it. There were periods throughout 2017 and 2018 in which Ferrari had the best car on the grid, but due to driver performance or strategy calls, Mercedes would end up winning races that, on paper, it shouldn’t have won.

To me, there is no doubt that this is the best team F1 has ever seen. Through regulation changes, personnel departing and adversaries’ improving, they have kept pushing, onwards and upwards, relentlessly searching those marginal gains, those milliseconds that keep adding up to big advantages. Once this phase is over and someone else is spraying the champagne, we will have the time to really appreciate what they have achieved. But we are not there yet, and their records will keep improving, their chunk of F1 history becoming larger and larger.

Nothing lasts forever, especially if you don’t work hard to keep it going; this is particularly true in F1, where nothing stands still for long: blink, and someone has replaced you on the top step of the podium. That’s what happened at Maranello when preparing that 2005 car. That moment is still to happen to Mercedes, but no one is betting on it happening just yet.

Talking points

•  The rookie class of 2019 has been having a torrid time of late, and if Norris at least got himself on the points after three scoreless races, the weekend was far less kind to his friends. Russell had a first points finish within his grasp when he crashed, in P10, behind the safety car. He will pick himself up and be better for it, but right now it has to hurt. It’s not the first time either, as he lost opportunities at Hockenheim last year and at Mugello. He really needs to take his first points to get this monkey off his back.

Albon, on the other hand, is running out of opportunities to show Red Bull he deserves another year in the senior team. He spun at the restart and ended up at the back of the field, but even before that he was not capable of making a dent in the race. Granted, overtaking at Imola is not easy, but this was another lacklustre weekend from him. Even those like him who hope he does get the nod are finding it hard to come up with reasons why Red Bull should keep him.

•  Could Daniel Ricciardo be wondering if he made the right call in choosing McLaren over Renault? While the papaya team are moving backwards, Renault are improving by leaps and bounds, and this weekend saw him score his second podium in three races. The French team are probably now the favourites to claim third in the championship, which might make him wonder if he should have waited for a few races of 2020 before making this decision.

•  This podium was ultimately thrown away by Racing Point’s decision to pit Perez behind the Safety Car, when the Mexican was running third. To be fair to them, it was a hard call, since they had no way of knowing what those behind them would do. If Perez had been the only one staying out, he would have been vulnerable and would all be criticising the team for not pitting him. In any case, the only reason Checo was in contention anyway was the brilliant strategy to run long on the medium tyres, that had allowed him to leapfrog pretty much the whole midfield.

•  On the other side of the pink garage, Lance Stroll is in dire need of a reset. His Monza podium is looking like a curse, with the Canadian driver scoreless since then. To add injury to a dismal weekend, he even hit a mechanic in his second pit stop.

•  First double-points finish of the season for Alfa Romeo, with a rocket start from Giovinazzi and another steady race from Kimi. Their are winning the battle of the backmarkers, and it will take a miracle for Haas to take P8 from them now.

•  I wrote in my preview about drivers about to drop off the grid for 2021 and hoping they can enjoy and give us some good memories. That was exactly what Kvyat did: as his unlucky teammate was forced to retire from P5, the Russian had a fantastic race, clinging on to the back of Leclerc and Albon’s cars, and then using a fresh set of soft tyres to beat them and Perez at the restart. For a moment it seemed like he could even challenge Ricciardo for the podium, but, as it was, P4 was a brilliant result. Helmut Marko all but confirmed he would lose his seat at the end of the year, but if that is to happen, this is an impressive calling card for his job search.

•  So much talk about track limits, weekend after weekend. To me, this is the simplest of debates: the track limits are the white lines, and if you are going over them, you need to brake earlier. Done. Drivers who want to not have to worry about this should probably be considering moving to IndyCar.

•  McLaren are still in the fight for third in the championship, but not by much. They continue to maximise their results almost every weekend, but this time around they didn’t seem to be able to compete even with AlphaTauri. The development of the car has brought them backwards, and this must be a big concern for Andreas Seidl. With the cars remaining largely the same next year, they need to start making progress on this front sooner rather than later; otherwise, losing P3 in 2020 will be the least of their concerns.

•  Can Esteban Ocon get a lucky break? His return season has been underwhelming, but his luck with reliability has been abismal as well.

•  Oh, and while we are at it, can Vettel get a lucky break? Fantastic race from the German with a broken front end plate, only to be wrecked by a pit stop 11 (eleven!) seconds slower than normal. 2021 can’t come soon enough for him.

[popwasabi]

“Picard” S1 Review: Doesn’t boldly go but is nonetheless engaging

Produced by CBS All Access

Starring: Patrick Stewart, Isa Briones, Allison Pill, Michelle Hurd, Santiago Cabrera, Evan Evagora, Harry Treadaway

Many fans had high hopes for “Picard” going into CBS All Access’s continuing voyage into the Star Trek franchise.

Fans wanted to see the lore finally expanded into the future after its previous three ventures (Enterprise, Abrams Trek, and Discovery) took place in the past, bring modern themes and ideas to Star Trek’s futurist’s world view in a way that felt fresh and relevant, but most importantly continue the story of the franchise’s greatest captain; Jean-Luc Picard, of course.

(He’s the best captain. This is not up for debate. Don’t @ me!)

In some ways the new series succeeds at this. We get glimpses of the previously untouched world of Star Trek post “Nemesis,” new themes that are resonant with real world events and exploratory, even critical, of the Federation’s worldview, and of course plenty of Picard himself as he navigates the strange new galaxy he inhabits.

But Picard ultimately misses the mark due to rushed storytelling, half-baked side plots, and just plain poor execution overall. It’s sad because “Picard” and this very talented cast and production team have their moments throughout this first season’s ten episode run but somehow even with 10 episodes of content to work with fans still end up with a somewhat jumbled mess.

(Me by like the eighth episode.)

This isn’t to say “Picard” isn’t worth your time if you’re an avid Star Trek fan or just someone who likes Patrick Stewart in this role in general but the first season will leave you still hungry for more and not in a good way.

“Picard” continues the story of the titular captain, now retired admiral, many years after the events of “Nemesis” as a retired Jean Luc reflects on his life in Starfleet and of his late friend Data who gave his life for his. A synth ban has been enacted in Starfleet after a major riot on Mars some years prior and Picard is understandably sour on the idea, given his relationship with Data, while also fighting Starfleet on not helping the exodus of the Romulans after the supernova that wiped out their homeworld in “Star Trek (2009).” When a young woman comes seeking Picard’s aid after an attack by mysterious assailants, revealing that she is an android and the possible daughter of Data, and gets killed, it is up to the retired Admiral to find her twin sister before she suffers the same fate.

Before we get started let’s throw out some of the bad faith arguments on why this series wasn’t all that good.

“Picard” doesn’t suck because it has “politics” in it. At this point, if you are complaining about the existence of social viewpoints and political/philosophical discussions in your Star Trek, or let alone any series for that matter, I don’t know what the hell you’ve been watching the past few decades. Star Trek has always been more than just a show about cool-looking spaceships and laser beams, you neckbeards.

(Hell, even the other “Star” got more going on in it than that.)

It’s also not bad because of female representation or “girl power.” Again, Star Trek has always had this and frankly having a few more instances of the women of Trek taking center stage doesn’t even come close to rebalancing the scales on the overall massive representation of cis white men across the genre and even the series anyways.

Also get the fuck over the use of curse words in this series. While certainly some instances in this show felt awkward, the use of the word “fuck” does not dilute Star Trek’s overall story.

(It would have made earlier season’s funnier for sure.)

Now that that’s out of way let’s get into the real reasons that, for me at least, the series fell short of an otherwise promising goal of delivering great new Star Trek.

The main problem stems from the series overall jumping off point in its first episode. Picard is understandably still upset about the death of Data and having him deal with survivor’s guilt is a great way to bring this character into the future and reexplore the humanist viewpoints Data touched on in the older series. But also having Picard deal with his fallout from Starfleet, both from the synth ban AND the Romulan exodus, creates chasmic diverging plotlines that never quite come together. The story really needed it to be one or the other. Either Picard wanting to advocate for the continued existence of synthetic life or the rescue of the Romulans post super nova. The latter is touched on a bit through the addition of the character Elnor but doesn’t quite work given that majority of the Romulans in this series are portrayed as villains.

There is definitely a post Brexit, anti-immigrant hysteria message being told there but not enough depth and nuance is given to make it look like Starfleet was particularly wrong here to abandon them given that they do end up being spies committing espionage in the Federation and the clear villains of the first season. The showrunners could have brought these two stories together by perhaps making Soji a Romulan bent on bringing down synthetic life because maybe her twin sister died in the riots on Mars, making Picard have to choose between his commitment to both minority groups abandoned by the Federation but of course, that’s not what the series goes with.

Also suddenly shoehorning in a convoluted anti-synth worldview into the already ultra-secretive Romulan empire was muddled to say the least.

(A decent summation of the Romulans, pretty much ever. Also why is the only Asian actress in this scene in Osaka depicted as an alien, Mr Kurtzman?...)

Some of these ideas could’ve been saved through better editing and pacing though but not enough is done in this first season to mitigate these issues. Too much of plot is told through plain exposition; people sitting down and talking for five-ten minutes about prophecies and backstory instead of having the story simply show us instead. It makes the pacing often slow even by Trek standards and grinds the action to a halt even when there are lasers being shot at one another in the next scene.

Many of these plots get barely any attention too. The Borg cube, why it’s abandoned, and why Hugh is working for the Romulans through the Federation is given surface level development at best. Seven of Nine returns and at one point is momentarily hooked up to the Collective and she doesn’t really say much about it after it happens. The new character’s Rios and Raffi both have side stories given to their development that get touched on once and never brought up again. Dr. Jurati straight up murders her lover and is set to turn herself into the Federation and it’s just kind of forgotten about in the finale. And Elnor, well, he gets to do his best Legolas impression slicing and dicing fellow Romulans with his sword I guess.

(He is still best boi though :3...)

The main co-star however, Soji the perfect android, has a particularly rushed development going from a scientist unknowing of her nature, to supposed prophet of doom, to predictably the savior all in one season. Her arc needed more time to develop with perhaps her Romulan love affair with Narek being the first season’s main driving force and her realization as an android being the climax. 

Instead we get basically four seasons of Battlestar Galactica’s Sharon arc crammed into one season and it unfortunately makes the story feel half-baked.

(Ok, Boomer.)

Don’t get the wrong idea, all these new characters have great individual moments as well throughout the season but sooooo much side plot is shoved in already into a muddled overarching narrative that it feels like several seasons worth of storytelling stuffed and edited down into a ten episode arc. Why the series felt it needed to conclude this robust story about synth hating Romulans in “Picard’s” first season feels like an unforced error in this reviewer’s opinion even if Sir P Stew only has maybe a couple seasons of extensive acting left in him anyways.

But the season isn’t completely worthless, as much as this review has been spent dunking on its less than stellar parts. The cast is exceptional, even working with the spare parts they’ve been given. Episode 5’s “Stardust City Rag,” in particular, stands out as a good mix of old and new Trek, with a decent dosage of cheese featuring Patrick Stewart trying on a French accent in a space bar. Santiago Cabrera is delightful as the ship captain Rios while also playing various forms of himself in AI form in equally enjoyable roles. Evan Evagora is fun as the deadly yet somewhat aloof Elnor, even if his character doesn’t do all that much except cut up a few Romulans. Seeing Jonathan Frakes and Marina Sirtis reprise their roles as Riker and Troi respectively in episode 6 was heartwarming and felt the most like TNG out of all the episodes. And Jeri Ryan seems liberated in this series in this version of Seven of Nine, no doubt glad to be rid of that restrictive corset and Rick Berman’s meddling hands.

(Big “Fuck you, Rick Berman” energy going on in this scene.)

The production value is obviously high level as Trek has rarely looked this good on the small screen. There’s some great cinematography throughout the season whether it’s Picard’s chateau winery, the haunting nature of the Borg cube, or the synth homeworld in the season’s final beats. The spaceships look cool as always and the world of the future feels well futuristic.

The musical score is also top notch, with a great opening theme that feels very much in line with Trek at its futurist glimpse into a hopeful cosmos.

The season’s best moments though are between Picard and Data and will remind you why they were more than likely your favorite characters on TNG. Generally speaking, exploring the humanist themes of artificial intelligence in new Trek was a good choice and having Picard deal with survivor’s guilt kept the pulse of the muddled story still beating. Brent Spiner is still great as Data and will remind you all again how talented he has always been as an actor and though his age seeps through the makeup a bit he is nonetheless still a perfect android.

Though the finale as a whole is underwhelming, the characters do share a nice final moment that is both touching and reminiscent of everything a fan loves about Star Trek. It’s a great cap to an otherwise ok return to Star Trek for TNG’s top characters and its truly touching in the best way that this franchise has always been known to be.

(Deactivating my emotions chip because I just..can’t! I just can’t, ok! *Sobs*)

But great acting and high production value can only mask so many flaws with a convoluted plot and “Picard” unfortunately suffers from the bloated and uncooked nature of its many ideas. What the story really needed was three season arc not just ten episodes and it shows. I guess the plus side is with this particular plot wrapped up it leaves the door open for new ideas and a fresh start in the second season but it does feel like an overall miss for Picard’s homecoming back into the universe of Star Trek.

Overall, though there are worse ways a Star Trek fan can spend their quarantine than watching “Picard” and there’s certainly enough here for fans to latch onto and have hope for better things in the next season.

Hopefully things are less rushed or at least more focused in the second season and we can see a more proper return to form for both Picard and future Star Trek.

Here’s hoping the producers and writers make it so…

VERDICT:

3 out of 5

Let’s hope we get a return of Q in the next season.

[stevesnailbat]

thoughts on Steve’s character arc thru the seasons? love u!

thanks han, love u!!

I think about this topic a lot honestly and have a lot of opinions about it, so you’re in for a treat with this one

so for some background on my experience watching the show: I did NOT want to watch it, but my boyfriend kept bugging me about it (look at me now, all obsessed and shit) BUT he turned the show on one day when we were hanging out in summer 2018. he didn't let me watch episode 1 the first time bc he “dOeSn’T LiKe PiLoT ePiSoDeS” but that’s another story.

we only watched an episode or two before I had to leave, so I was on my own to watch all of seasons 1 and 2 (which I did in about a day and a half). most people probably felt the same as me watching s1, I HATED steve at first. my bf told me steve was his favorite character, I was so confused. I hated his characterization, I thought he’d just be a throwaway character, which obviously changed towards the end of s1 and into s2.

throughout the seasons we get to see him change from the complete asshole the duffers had written to the completely lovable, parental figure that joe keery molded steve harrington into (you cannot tell me the duffers did that on their own-they even admitted that joe was responsible for the arc they gave steve).

when watching the show for the first time, I could see where the duffer brothers were going with steve, it’s obvious that he was meant to be just a surface-level, shallow teen at first. as the seasons go on, steve’s arc is, in my opinion, something amazing. steve was a spoiled teen who had gotten damn near everything he had ever wanted for the first 17/18 years of his life at the beginning of s1. within those 8 episodes, he had come to the realization that life wasn't always gonna be handed to him on a silver platter. s2 steve to me is just a heartbroken boy who is trying to cope with everything that’s going on in his life, from his girlfriend leaving him to the upside down. s3 steve is where I see the most development, honestly. he’s accepting and has grown so much as a person, he isn't that materialistic douchebag from high school anymore, he’s trying his best.

i’ve watched all 3 seasons twice through now so after watching for a second time was when I got REAL DEEP with my arc analyses okay?

deep down, steve has always felt like he wasn't good enough, no matter how hard he tried. his parents obviously were never around to assure him that he was doing good, so he never felt loved. it seemed like nancy was the first person to even make him feel like he was worth something more than his so-called stupidity. when nancy hurt him the first time, he got back at her in a horrible way, but it was all that he knew. he’d grown up with tommy as his best friend, so getting revenge in petty, confrontational ways wasn't something new to them. steve realizes what he did was wrong once everything goes to shit, and that's when his hero complex really starts to show. the wake up call that steve went through at the end of s1 was huge, being willing to man up and try to apologize to jonathan AND help them fight something that he didn't know about? he was turning a new leaf

as said before, s2 steve was obviously heartbroken about everything he was going through. but, that didn't stop him from feeling the need to help. as much as nancy may have hurt him, he still loved her and respected her, he was never really an asshole about the ending of their relationship. he felt the need to apologize to her even though he had no idea what he was apologizing for, and proceeded to keep his promise about keeping the kids safe. he may have lost the only person he’d loved, but at least he was able to keep everyone else intact. steve sacrificed himself so many times and didn't care about the consequences, because he doesn't believe he deserves to be saved and everyone else does

s3 steve was a complete 360 from the boy we first met in s1, personality wise. in his eyes, he had lost his touch. he wasn't able to get the girls anymore, he didn't really have any friends, he felt lost. working at scoops was leading nowhere, and he wasn't ever going to leave Hawkins, he felt like a true disappointment. despite the fact that he didn't get the girl by the end of the season, he had finally realized that he found his place in the world. the group of people he had gone through hell and back with were his people, he finally realized where he belonged. s3 steve was accepting and caring towards the people he cared about, but still had the same hero complex as before.

so, I am indeed a big fan of steve’s character arc throughout the seasons. if I could keep his arc right where it is, I would. he’s happy now, he doesn't feel the need to impress everyone anymore and I feel like the pressure he was feeling from his parents had diminished by the end of the season. I hate to talk about this, but it seems like steve’s hero complex could be his downfall. although he seems more content now doesn't mean that his need to save everyone isn't there. that could be a problem in the next season, I'm honestly scared that steve’s arc will end with him making the ultimate sacrifice, if you know what I mean, which would physically end me

[the-awful-falafel]

Rick and Morty - S4E10 “Star Mort Rickturn of the Jerri” Podcast Summary/Breakdown

I said I’d keep doing these breakdowns if people were interested, but I was also waiting for a podcast that gave some good analysis/trivia on the characters and writing process. And what better podcast to summarize than the one about the season finale? I recommend watching it yourself if you have time.

(Link to full podcast video here!)

The interviewed staff this time are Erica Hayes (director), Anne Lane (writer), Brent Noll (lead prop designer), Steve Levy (associate producer)

The way episodes get scheduled/made is that the writers try to break as many stories as possible and see what sticks within the production time they are given. If they have to rewrite an episode a lot it can possibly get pushed to later in the season than they originally intended

This episode wasn’t necessarily always going to be the season finale during the early writing process, although it was always intended to be in the latter half of the season

Star Wars is so big in our culture that there is seemingly an obligation to trope it, which the writers are kind of exasperated about, so that led to the type of referential humor in this episode

Justin Roiland was the one who wanted Rick’s internal organs to be partially cybernetic/synthetic, and it wasn’t initially in the storyboards. It’s also meant to show that Rick’s enhanced and able to take more punishment than a regular human

The placeholder music for the Phoenixperson VS Rick fight was heavy metal, which made it feel almost DBZ-ish, but they toned it down once the actual track had to be composed because they wanted to focus on the brutality of the fight

The writers try to never force characters/plotlines to come back early, and their idea is that characters should only be brought back when it’s the right/optimal time to use them

They’ve been discussing whether or not Beth is a clone in the writers room since early in Season 4

Anne Lane points out how the show—and, in a way, its take on continuity and its own internal canon—seems to be predicated on “nothing matters”, a viewpoint often shared by Rick, but that philosophy is constantly called into question and shown as not true by characters such as Morty, because things do matter to them on a personal and emotional level. Family matters, their experiences matter, humanity matters. If this was the “Rick” show, it would probably be entirely episodic, but a canon exists regardless because no matter how much Rick tries to deny it, he himself is also human and cannot help feeling human emotions.

The invisible garbage truck gag was originally going to be a part of the main episode as a culmination of Morty and Summer’s plotline. It was planned to get teleported onto the Federation ship, driven by Jerry, and brutally crush guards into a gory pulp while they couldn’t even see what was killing them. The gag was cut because it didn’t help the story enough, but everyone was still really attached to the concept, so it got moved to the post-credits scene instead

The original episode title they came up with was “Star Mort: Bethisode 2: Ricktack of the Clones”. They chose a different Star Wars title to riff on since this version was obviously too spoilery

Space Beth’s spaceship was intentionally designed to look like Rick’s spaceship, as he originally built it for her when he sent her off into space and she’s been making upgrades to it ever since

The Gromflomites’ insectoid ship designs weren’t created until season 2 despite the species originating since the pilot

The interviewed staff are absolutely aware of the fans who idolize Rick, and they believe that viewpoint has become less popular in the fandom as the show went on due to the show increasingly highlighting Rick’s flaws and making it clear how terrible he truly is. Pickle Rick and Dr. Wong’s speech was brought up as an example

The writers didn’t actually go into Season 4 planning “this is the season where Rick is taken down a peg”. It was more of an organic result of the writing as they broke the story for all the episodes, as well as coming from an interest in telling stories about Rick that focused on the side of him that he doesn’t want expressed, rather than focusing on the “badass smartest man in the universe” schtick that we’re already familiar with

They were still aiming to be consistent with depicting Rick’s character in Season 4 as someone who, following Beth taking control of the family back in the Season 3 finale, is trying to not “rock the boat” too much while still attempting to find ways to get away with what he did in the past. They were basically looking at Rick as someone struggling to find his place in his family and the universe this season

Despite the huge episode order and having 60 episodes left to go, they don’t really plan ahead or focus their energy further than a season-by-season basis (10 episodes at a time). So they probably don’t have any massive character arcs set in stone this far in advance, they mostly play it by ear

Rick and Morty is an incredibly difficult show to make from an animation standpoint compared to other adult/”edgy” cartoons due to how high-concept and ambitious its environments, characters, and camera shots are. It’s especially stressful because they said that they reached a point recently where they juggled 3 seasons at once, which has never happened in the show before.

They try to cope with the high demands of the animation by reusing background characters and environments whenever possible. They try not to reuse background characters that got dialogue and then got killed off, though, for the sake of continuity. They also try not to use stock aliens that have gotten recycled too much in past episodes.

A lot of the gun assets are reused throughout the show. The weird organic bug-gun Beth used in this episode was a new design, and it apparently gave Brent Noll a lot of difficulty in the prop design phase

A caller asked what Roiland and Harmon were referring to in a past interview which heavily implied there was a Season 4 post-credits scene which would lead into Season 5, and all of the interviewed staff were confused (since no such scene exists and they don’t recall any from development) and came up with different theories about what they might have been talking about. They also point out that most post-credits scenes are written as jokes and that the only real plot-related one was the Tammy and Birdperson one back in Season 3’s premiere episode. They prefer to keep implied future plot elements within the episode itself. “They’re not like Marvel post-credits scenes.”

The Wrangler jeans joke came pretty late in the process and wasn’t an actual paid advertisement. It was given to the Gromflomite ship as its weakness because the Gromflomites are very corporate and they were already parodying the Death Star trope so they wanted it to feel hackneyed

The Zeus fistfight and the Phoenixperson fight weren’t meant to be parallels to each other despite how brutal they were in episodes released back-to-back. Initially the planet-fucking episode was placed earlier in the season so it was mostly a coincidence. Also, the Zeus fight was meant to be more of “a dick measuring contest between two idiots” rather than anything impressive or epic

The reason Beth turned the clone decision back onto Rick is that she realized the choice he gave her was, once again, him stepping back from the responsibility to care about his daughter. So Beth attempted to force Rick to choose for once in his life whether or not he wanted her around, and he failed to commit to even that, which was the cowardly action needed for Beth to move on from her father’s emotional neglect.

Steve Levy dismisses the allegations that only the first and last episodes of the season advanced the plot, as the staff consider character growth  to also be part of the canon and something that is advanced throughout this season (using Morty’s character as an example). They also have pointed out that they’ve done canon-heavy episodes in the middle of past seasons before, such as the Ricklantis Mixup in Season 3, and it was only by coincidence that Season 4 had the major lore episodes be the bookends.

They also point out that some episodes that fans consider “filler” can be called back to later, retroactively making them important to the canon, so there’s always an implied level of continuity going on unless they explicitly call out an episode as non-canon (like the story train episode)

The interviewed staff don’t know when Season 5 is coming out, but they do believe it will be sooner than past seasonal gaps

Many of them are currently working on Season 5, and some of them are even working on Season 6

Erica Hayes is currently working on a different show because the board artists/directors are usually first in the process, meaning they wrap up work first and have to find other work in the meantime. She’s wrapped on Season 5 and expects to be back for Season 6 once the scripts are ready

And that’s it! Hope this was comprehensive enough for y’all to enjoy. (And now, I wait for Season 5′s podcasts.)