#another random object show season 1 episode 5

[another-random-object-show]

ANOTHER RANDOM OBJECT SHOW

EPISODE 5 — Who Shot Who?



"like, what’s that prism doing?” Heart asked Star. “It looks like she's cross-teaming, PENTA! Report?” Star asked Penta. “She’s planning a Merge with Mime.” Penta informed Star. “Sigh, why do we do this?” House said. “BECAUSE I’M THE LEADER! YOU HAVE TO LISTEN TO ME!” Star yelled at House. “Jeez… alright.” House said.

“plus, if you don't like, listen to us, then you simply HAVE to get out. I mean, it’d JUST be you and Triangula voting against us if you tried, so, what's the point?” Heart said, now sipping on a Macchiato. “Exactly. Darling, how about we get out onto the field?” Star puts away his binoculars and looks over at Heart. “Good idea!” Heart says, now holding Star’s hand and walking out from the bushes as Penta then goes invisible to continue being a spy.

GyroGyro was calmly dancing with Exclamation Mark, Period looked at the two and said— “WHAT ARE YOU DOING?! >:(“ Exclamation Mark yelped at the interruption before GyroGyro began to try and explain, only for the wind to howl through him. “Ohh…” Cloudy said, nodding at GyroGyro, resulting in him allowing more air to pass through as he talked to Cloudy. “You understand him..?” Period looked up at Cloudy. “Ofcourse I do! How do you think I’m able to move around in the skies? The wind helps me!” Cloud explained. Exclamation Mark asked— “What is he saying…?” Cloudy answered: “He says he was teaching Exclamation Mark an ancient Japanese Dance!” Hangman then popped out from Cloudy, his rope extending to say— “I can confirm he said that— something interesting about being able to fit inside Cloudy is the fact that I, too, can understand the wind. Something I’ve been hearing are small conversations between The Gourd and someone else?” Hangman sighed. “Either way, apparently that dance is ancestral.” Hangman noted as Cloudy said “Yep.” to agree. “D-does it do anything…?!” Exclamation Mark seemed horrified now, only for GyroGyro to howl once more and for Cloudy to answer: “No. It’s a Japanese Dance that symbolizes the expression of Tranquility.” She blinked. “..oh.” Exclamation Mark sighed.

Simultaneously, Question Mark approached Comedy, Tragedy and Phantom then asked: “So, what are you three?” Phantom seemed surprised and said— “Oh, well, we’re all porcelain masks!” Question Mark thought, then said “What happened to your right half?” Phantom then seemed surprised about the question, but before he could answer, Lunartic was yelling again. “YOU CAN’T DO THIS!” He hissed. “Get out of my way.” Moony said, holding Sunny’s Hand. “You can't STOP me from letting him meet HER.” Moony scowled. “MOOONY! C’mon! Think about it! He doesn't NEED or WANT her! He has US! Right, buddy?” Lunartic shakily said. “Yeah!” Sunny said. “See, no iss—” Lunartic was cut off by Sunny saying: “but I wanna know who Moony is gonna show me to! ^^” Lunartic grumbled; “LISTEN!! Sunny, she’s an AWFUL person , don't you remember what she did?! SHE—” Moony, with years of resentment and rage built up in her, inhaled deeply before pushing him out of the way. “Huh? Wait, GASP!! Isn't that—?! :D” Sunny began to run towards Starry, but before he got the chance to talk to her, The Gourd teleported everyone to their teams.

The Gourd now took off a Hard Hat and a Belt he was wearing, before saying: “CONTESTANTS! This next challenge is one I’m SURE you’ll all love!” The Gourd announced. “LLLLASER TAG!” He unveiled a Laser Tag arena, causing Sunny, who was just now sad, to cheer in joy. “Firstly, let’s all get inside!” The Gourd said, herding the teams into the Arena.

“Alright, everybody, stay still for one second—” Everyone got black, styrofoam vests that had a LED Circle Light in the middle, glowing their Team’s Color. “Great! HERE’S THE RULES!”

“Ofcourse, number one— DON’T touch other players! Laser Tag is NO-CONTACT!” The Gourd looked at Star. “Rule TWO! DON’T cover your sensors! The only way a person can get you OUT of the challenge is by shooting you with their laser!” He looked at Heart. “Rule THREE! BE a good sport, won’t ya? I mean, ,’mon guys! I TRY to have fun challenges, isn't that the LEAST you can do?” He looked at Lunartic pleadingly. “Rule FOUR! THIS IS A GAME THAT LITERAL CHILDREN PLAY! Keep. Your. Cool.” He glared at all of the contestants. “RULE FIVE! …that's it actually.” The Gourd shrugged. “SO! There are 8 of each type of gun! Each team gets each! There are 3 types, to be exact! One’s a Short-Burst, so you should use it afar! One’s a Long-Burst, use it up close, and the last one is a Beam-Gun, holding it releases a constant beam! Each gun will begin to click after 5 seconds of being used consistently! When that happens, LET GO OF THE TRIGGER! You’ll have to wait another 5 seconds until the Lasers inside recharge!” The contestants began grabbing their weapons. “AS FOR HOW TO BE ELIMINATED! If you're SHOT by a Laser, your Vest will begin to beep! After 3 beeps, it will turn OFF! Once your vest is OFF, that means you're OUT!” The Gourd sighed. “ALRIGHT!! ISSS EVERYONE READY?!” He said.

Sunny, Period, Comedy, and Paperplates all cheered “YYYEAAHHHH!!!”, resulting in The Gourd to say— “ONCE YOUR IN THE ARENA’S PEREMITTERS, YOUR VEST WILL TURN ON! GO!”

Contestants began to swarm into the Arena, Moony and Sunny separated, and immediately afterwards, Moony bumped into House, resulting in the two of them simultaneously shooting each other with their Laser Guns. The Morse Code for the letter “S” played, and both of their vests turned off. “...sigh. Time to sit out.” Moony said. “Hey! Before you sit— I need to let you know that—”

“HOUSE AND MOONY ARE OUT!” The Gourd announced, cutting House off. “What were you going to say?” Moony asked as she walked. “...nothing.” House sighed, walking with her.

As GyroGyro and Sunny wandered, GyroGyro was shot by Paperplates. “Ack! Hmph!” Sunny then shot at Tragedy, who was at her side, resulting in Paperplates gasping and looking over, to which Tragedy said— “What was the point?” and walking out. Paperplates “Hmph!”ed and began to scale the wall next to her to get a good shot, Sunny began running around her as they both began to aim.

Meanwhile, Comedy shot at Penta, eliminating him. “HAHA!! 3 more to go!!” Comedy ran further into the arena as Starry came out, only for Period to shoot her. “Sigh, good job, big one!” Starry then walked out as Period stood there. “Big one..? She thinks I’m big? SHE THINKS I’M BIG? OHMYGOSH… SOMEONE THINKS I’M BIG!!” Period began to squeal and, despite them being his only form of stability, tapped his feet quickly and excitedly on the floor. “DOT! Help me get Paperplates!” Period snapped out of it and said— “On it!” Now helping Sunny.

“GYROGYRO, TRAGEDY, PENTA, STARRY AND PHANTOM HAVE BEEN EL-IMINATED!” The Gourd annouced over the speakers. “THAT’S 6 MEMBERS LEFT FOR THE MASQUERADE, 5 MEMBERS LEFT FOR TEAM FUN, YET ONLY 4 MEMBERS LEFT FOR TEAM “WHAT?”!” He clarified.

“Ha! We’re in the lead! >:)” Paperplates told Sunny and Period. “Not anymore!” Sunny shot at Paperplates, causing her to be eliminated. “Aw, man! :-(“ she hopped down and ran off. “Who’s next?” Period asked Sunny. “You lead! <)”

Exclamation Mark yelped as a Laser went off! “PAPERPLATES AND MIME ARE NOW OUT! THE MASQUERADE, YOUR AT RISK!”Exclamation Mark sighed as Mime walked past Sunny and Period.

As Triangula was walking around, a Blue Laser pointed at he Vest, causing both the Laser and the Vest to beep rapidly, before the vest exploded with Blue Paint. “BLECK! THE HELL?!” Triangula groaned as she walked out.

Meanwhile, Question Mark shot at Hangman, getting him eliminated. “Who’s left?” Question Mark asked, before spotting Period and Sunny.

“THE REMAINING CONTESTANTS ARE! SUNNY! COMEDY! PERIOD! CLOUDY! STAR! LUNARTIC! EXCLAMATION MARK AND QUESTION MARK!” The Gourd announced as Question Mark began to team up with Exclamation Mark.

Comedy got distracted as Heart passed by, saying— “NICE BLUE MAKEUP, ICE QUEEN!” Heart blew a kiss towards him as she walked out. Sunny then took this opportunity to shoot Comedy, eliminating him. “AWHHH! >:(“

“Where is Cloudy…?!” Period said, looking around. Cloudy, however… was atop one of the many decorative structures, asleep.

“Lunartic?!” Exclamation Mark feared, “What?” Question Mark pointed out to him— “Look, down there!” She pointed out of the North Sniping Tower, towards Star in the Maze. “Got it, thanks.” Lunartic now gripped the trigger and fired.

“...” Star’s Vest Beeped.

“GAME!” The Gourd announced. “Team FUN! , you have 5 members left.” Exclamation Mark sighed, “Good thing we raised such a killer, right hon?” Exclamation Mark said to Question Mark. “Is that Blue Paint?” Question Mark pointed towards the South-West Sniping Tower, which had a strange blue substance, which was seemingly still fresh inside of its walls, alongside numerous paper towels and makeup wipes stained blue. “Probably nothing.” Lunartic shrugged.

Question Mark, Exclamation Mark and Lunartic then got down to collect Sunny and Period and get out.

“Now that the challenge is finished, I can announce that like the Chamber of Lava, and the Tightrope Skylands, you may also use the Laser Tag Arena freely!” The Gourd announced, to Sunny, Period, Comedy and Paperplates’ Pleasures. “NOW! Tea— WAIT!” The Gourd yelled.

“Triangula, did you shoot ANY of your team members?” The Gourd sternly asked. “..no?” Triangula said, confused and trying to get the paint off of her. “...someone committed friendly fire then.” The Gourd seemed frustrated. “One of Team “What?”’s members has committed Friendly Fire, which is indicative of sabotaging their OWN team.” The Gourd sighed. “Until I find the perpetrator, the Laser Tag Arena is not to be used.” Sunny, Period, Comedy and Paperplates now all groaned. “Triangula, take this bucket of water—” The Gourd summoned a bucket of water. “and clean the paint off.” The Gourd now turned to Star, Heart, Penta and House. “Team “What?” see you at elimination tonight.” He nodded and disappeared.

Heart looked at Triangula, knowing full well she’d be leaving tonight.

AT THE ELIMINATION CEREMONY.

“Jeez, you guys just can't stop LOSING! It's pathetic, it really is.” The Gourd said.

“ANYWAYS! You know the drill.” He said as Heart got up to make her vote.

As expected, the team unanimously decided…

“TRIANGULA. You're the next eliminated contestant.” The Gourd said, as Triangula sighed.

“You guys are gonna have to break apart now, you do realize that?” Triangula said as her last words.

“..WELP! See you next time!” The Gourd cackles as the lights go out.

END.

AROS was written by TheWiseGuest.

All characters' voices, present or not, were acted out by L. Alberto S.

FIN.

“...sigh. I need new friends.” Triangula said as the bus to Another Random Object Show parked in front of her, allowing her to be the first person on the bus.

[ordinaryschmuck]

Hey, do you remember this irritating little turd?

Yeah, that one. From Foster's Home For Imaginary Friends. Remember how it was frequently annoying how he was constantly antagonistic towards his friends, made his own best friend be constantly annoyed by him, and was just sometimes the worst character in the show? Turns out that there's a reason for that.

Apparently, Craig McCracken WANTED Bloo to experience this neat little writing trick called "Character Development." But Cartoon Network, wanting more of an episodic sitcom, gave a big fat no to that idea. Because they wanted this series to have no continuity, they had to make sure that the characters couldn't develop. And that is...nonsense for a number of reasons.

#1

These shows came out the same time as Foster's:

The continuity wasn't MAJOR with these shows, you can still watch any episode at random from either of them and still have a good time. BUT they still had this sense of subtle progression where characters, villains, and little touches in the story. Granted, they're both more along the lines of action adventure stories instead of sitcoms, but KND is a lot more or less the same as Foster's in terms of characters going on goofy adventures and being a comedy for kids. It just so happened that the comedy could be taken a little seriously at times. Besides...

#2

Sitcoms CAN have character development and continuity. You can watch any episode of either of these shows too, BUT there's a noticeable sense of character progression and continuity from all of them. Sometimes it's something simple as a character dating someone else at a certain point or a change in location or even when a character is working a certain job or not. Character development and continuity can still exist and work in making an episode enjoyable without previous context, but seeing these characters grow, even in subtle ways, is great. Mainly because...

#3

Character development is NOT a bad thing. Far from it, in fact. If anything, it makes watching a show more interesting as you can look back at how a character USED to act with a fond nostalgia of "Man, remember when they used to act like THAT?" And then look at how they CURRENTLY act with the sense of, "Wow, this character's really grown up in the last few seasons." And while it feels SLOW in some cases, it gives the sense that the character can learn, grow, and BE BETTER despite how they might have started off. Even Foster's understood this, because...

#4

The Show HAS character development AND continuity. Like how Cheese just didn't exist in the show until a certain point and became a main stay for the entire series. Or how Goo was introduced as another main stay character. Not only that, but after her introduction as this overly imaginative little girl, she learned her lesson to cool down her over imagination so she wouldn't cause the exact same problems in the future but still faced a NEW problem with her imagination that she and the others could learn from. Like it or not, that IS character development AND continuity. It's just that other characters can experience it instead of Bloo. But fine. They wanted to make Bloo a stagnant character who never changes? Sure. I can accept that...Except for one last thing.

#5

DID THEY HAVE TO MAKE HIM SO IRREDEEMABLE?! In fairness, the bus episode IS entertaining, but that still shows how Bloo, as a character, went through regression instead of development. He's not the same as he started in the first season. Heck, he's not the same as he was in the FIRST THREE EPISODES. There, he was written as brash and a bit immature, but still apologetic and polite in certain spaces. He was even about to object to Wilt giving him the bed, but Wilt was too polite to let Bloo refuse his offer. If this was the Bloo in future seasons, he would have guilt tripped Wilt into giving him the bed and would have been the first to suggest Wilt would sleep on the floor.

If the show wasn't allowed to make Bloo develop, I can understand that. Networks and studios can kiss all the asses. But when it got to the point where I couldn't understand why Mac was friends with Bloo anymore, it leaves me wondering why they had to highlight his worst qualities instead of his best ones? To quote MY favorite character in this show, "I'm sorry, but that is NOT okay." The writers have my sympathy, it's not easy trying to appease your network overlords while still making the show good. But if Bloo's an example of anything, it's that studios should trust showrunners more and that character development is NEVER a sin.

[sunnydale-digest]

The Sunnydale Herald Newsletter, Monday-Tuesday May 29-30 Part II

[Fandom Discussions]

My progression on “Once More With Feeling”: by ghostofbriggiesmalls

Riley by hmslusitania

Season 5 of Angel should have had more scenes of Spike and Angel attacking each other. by aphony-cree

spike is like objectively at his most unhinged in season five by froggierboy

Buffy cuts her hair when she’s really going through it by hero-adjacent

Faith and other Slayers by oveliagirlhaditright

also it’s pretty stupid to blame Willow for the mutiny by tuiyla

Please elaborate on the Willow/Cordy parallels you found watching AtS 4x14 by tuiyla

so does anyone have a link to an essay or video essay that concisely analyses Willow’s metaphorical role as the Spirit by tuiyla

later seasons Spike righting his s2 wrongs: by hero-adjacent

there’s something about the way when Spike is first introduced to the audience by disco-tea

I’m on the end of season three in my rewatch by hmslusitania

if joss didnt wanna bring bangel back i’d have been fine if he made spangel get together instead of spuffy. by jammarammaxxx

Top 8 Spuffy fics I’ve read (May 2023) by mcgnagallsarmy

The way that Buffy's main love interests (in no particular order, Angel, Faith, and Spike) all don't have last names... by juanabaloo

Thoughts on drusilla? by redead-red

It was so unfair to Briley to sandwich their first kiss and finding out about each other's secret identities between IWRY (Bangel) & Something Blue (Spuffy) by hero-adjacent

Buffy and her drivers licence (or lack thereof) by someonefantastic, figsandfandoms

Willow Rosenberg and Walter White by nestaenthusiast

watched seeing red with my mom by catastrophic-bi-tch

hi tumblr have some 2 am thoughts on dawn summers by tales-of-lellu

Drusilla as a Scooby by faithl3hane

Once more, With Feeling is sooo much better than other tv shows sad attempts at musical episodes by nestaenthusiast

Angel and Drusilla love cooking. by boopsterliv

Discussing Buffy The Vampire Slayer 7x19 "Empty Places" Reaction by girl4music

Angel is a Whedon Show, and brings with it that baggage. by kingoftheu

Harsh Realities Rewatching Buffy by Cohen

Take Out The Trio, Insert **** by Multiple Authors

Question Was AtS Season 4 really that bad? by Mott1

Representations of traditional masculine and feminine character traits by Nothing13

Any Willow and Xander shippers here? by Buffvamporigfan

Saddest thing I’ve ever watched by Joka0451

Random Buffy trivia that blows your mind? by MousseAncient7251

Spike in the Boom Comics is such a badass by Almighty_Push91

It's kind of hilarious that Buffy told her the truth multiple times. by Opening_Knowledge868

I Love the Colours by Moon_Logic

Write a short synopsis for the worst possible Buffy/Angel episode by shocked_the_monkey

Does anyone know of any fanart for the new buffy the vampire slayer? by knighthunter3994

How many vampires would it take to overpower a Slayer? by Beached-Peach

Comic Order Question by alloutofbraincells

Would Drusilla’s hypnosis work on Buffy? by Itchy_Initiative6180

Drusilla is very strong. by thelovernotaplaya

Hi, I’m Angel, The founder of Angel investigations. Roast me! by Buffvamporigfan

how is Buffy's death and subsequent ressurection explained in season 6 by TrollChef

Was this just a goof by the writers? Buffy dying doesn’t call another slayer. by loveofGod12345

What was your first experience with Season 5, episode 1? by dismustbetheplace

Whenever Angel lost his soul, besides killing Jenny what was the worst thing he did? by kaitalina20

Most hilarious (slightly) underrated episode? by Opening_Knowledge868

Scooby Gang or Angel Investigations? by PatrickB64

Season 7: Him - questions (Mild spoilers) by Inoutngone

is it just me or by a_noine_noine

Spike & Joyce’s friendship was so wholesome by buffyangel468

Xander opinion. by Half_A_Mind87

[Articles, Interviews, and Other News]

PUBLICATION: Buffy Just Gave New Meaning to Spike & Drusilla's Romance by Screen Rant

Submit a link to be included in the newsletter!

[slade-neko]

End of the Year Questionnaire!

Saw some End of the Year questionnaire thing going around and wanted to do it. If anything for myself as a way to review this year.

1. Song of the year? Alestorm ~ P.A.R.T.Y.

No brainer here. This song has been living rent free in my head for the last 7 months since its release. 🤘🏻

2. Album of the year? Dragon Ball Z: Movie 8 - Broly The Legendary Super Saiyan

Not new by any means, but dang watching this movie again this year and hearing that early 2000's American metal soundtrack. Ingredients for an EPIC childhood right there. 🤘🏻😝🤘🏻

3. Favorite musical artist / group you started listening to this year? Alestorm ~ The pirate power metal band

Pirate Metal is the genre I didn't realize I needed in my life until I heard them.

4. Movie of the year? Dragon Ball Z: Movie 8 - Broly The Legendary Super Saiyan

Again, not new, but I rewatched it for the first time in YEARS and it was just as glorious, if not more so, than the last time I watched it. That 1993 animation and again, the English dub metal soundtrack hit me HARD! Broly's still my favorite DBZ villain even if he's non-canon. The idea of an bloodthristy evil Saiyan, let alone an incredibly powerful Legendary Super Saiyan, is such an interesting concept.

5. TV show of the year?

I rarely watch TV outside of anime... might have to go with the new My Hero Academia season. The non-stop action and fight scenes has been very welcome.

6. Episode of tv or webisode that defined the year for you?

Nothing stands out at this moment... but to go along with the previous answer, there was that one episode where Mirko kicks the ever living daylights outta those disgusting freakazoid Nomus in MHA was pretty dang cool! Go, bunny! 🐇

7. Favorite actor of the year? Nobody!

I don't idolize people. That way I can't be disappointed when they inevitably let me down. 🙃

8. Game of the year? The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time (PC PORT)

Technically an unofficial re-release, BUT without a doubt this is my GOTY. Absolutely freakin' phenomenal. It's objectively the BEST video game ever created finally freed from it's console shackles on PC Master Race. Seriously, 60 fps, true widescreen, gyro support, restorations, gameplay enhancements, built-in randomizer, mod support, RESHADE, you name it. Fans always treat Nintendo's games better than Nintendo and this clearly shows it. Bless the team behind the Ship of Harkinian port. They made a lot of dreams come true this year.

9. Best month for you this year?

Every month I draw breath is a good one!

10. Something that made you cry this year?

HA! I don't cry, but no seriously I feel like there was something I watched this year that made me teary-eyed, but I can't remember... Oh, well, must've not been that important then!

11. Something you want to do again next year?

Play more old games. 🎮

12. Talk about a new friend you made this year.

I don't make new friends, BUT my best friend I haven't seen since 9th grade of high school visited me in person for the first time in nearly 13 YEARS! Let me tell you something, best friends are the ones that will never fade over time and will always be there. That's amazing and I'm lucky to have 'em! 🤗

13. How was your birthday this year?

I aged. Another reminder of my fleeting mortality. 💀

14. Favorite book you read this year?

I don't read books. 🚫📚

15. What’s a bad habit you picked up this year?

I don't do bad habits.

16. Post a picture from the beginning of the year.

Jan 13th, 2022. My first Sims screenshot of the year. Deadpool staring at the camera while lightsaber dueling one of my Miqo'te OCs.

17. Post a picture from the end of the year.

Dec 6th, 2022. Aaand my last screenshot of the year... is a smug shirtless Sasuke. Well okay.

18. A memorable meal this year?

Pizza 🍕 (probably the one I shared with my long time friend if I'm going to be sappy about it.)

19. What’re you excited about for next year?

Playing more video games.

20. What’s something you learned this year?

By far the biggest lesson I learned is new things suck! Nothing is better than the old stuff. Games, shows, all of it. Too many remakes/ reboot cash grabs that are shameful in comparison to the classics.

21. What’s something new about your place of residence (room, home, or general location) now vs the start of the year?

Nothing. It's exactly the same. Just the way I want it. WELL I might have a few more anime figures and a Monokuma plush that I didn't have before...

23. Favorite place you visited this year?

Wait... did I leave my house this year?

24. If you could send a message to yourself back on the first day of the year, what would it be?

"I wouldn't want to ruin the surprise."

25. Did you keep any New Year’s Resolutions?

Play more old games. 🌟 Yeah, I did and I want to play MORE! 🕹️

26. Did you create any characters (in games, art, or writing) this year?

I assume this means OC's... Well uhh, I made a lot of sims recreations, not many OC's. I guess I just don't have a lot of "original" creativity! Oh, but there was that werewolf girl I designed. She's cool!

[phantom-le6]

Episode Reviews - Star Trek: Voyager Season 6 (1 of 7)

Apologies to any regular readers out there for taking a while to sit down and get the next season of Voyager started reviewing-wise. There are a few reasons for this, but rather than bore you with those, let’s crack on and look at the first few episodes from the show’s sixth and penultimate season.

Episode 1: Equinox (Part 2)

Plot (as adapted from Wikipedia):

Following the events of Part 1, Seven has encrypted the codes accessing the Equinox warp controls, delaying the plan of Captain Ransome and his crew to murder another 63 aliens for fuel. After learning the Doctor in their sickbay is from Voyager, and erasing his ethical sub-routines as they did with their own EMH, they tell him to probe Seven's brain to obtain the codes, despite the fact this may permanently incapacitate her. During the Doctor's preparations, he idly sings "Oh My Darling, Clementine" in a duet with the partially incapacitated Seven, much dismaying Ransom as he suddenly sees her in more human terms.

 Janeway starts taking the objective of stopping Ransom to extremes. She orders torpedoes to be fired on the Equinox, nearly kills an Equinox crew member during an interrogation, tractor beams an Ankari ship to strong-arm their cooperation, and relieves Chakotay of duty when he questions her orders.

 Ransom starts to realize the error of his ways and orders the crew to return the Equinox to Voyager, but the remaining crew, except for Ensign Marla Gilmore, attempt to mutiny against this. As Voyager attacks, the mutineers fight back, the Equinox EMH supplying his shipmates with Voyager’s shield frequencies (having taken the Doctor’s place at the end of part 1).  However, with Gilmore's help, Ransom transports part of the crew, as well as the Doctor and Seven, back to Voyager, while the remaining mutineers are killed by the aliens. After transporting Gilmore to Voyager, Ransom stays behind, sacrificing himself to pilot the ship far enough away from Voyager to protect it from the resulting explosion.

 As Voyager resumes its journey home, Janeway reinstates Chakotay to Commander and strips the five surviving Equinox crew members of their ranks while integrating them with Voyager’s crew. Seven promises to help the Doctor secure his ethical sub-routines from being deleted in the future.

Review:

As good as this episode and its part 1 instalment from season 5 are, it is also justly criticised by Trek writer Ronald D Moore, who briefly joined the writers on Voyager following the end of Deep Space Nine.  Season 6 of Voyager was the first time since TNG season 5 that only one Star Trek show was on TV, so now this show was getting all the limelight and attention.  However, going by Moore’s comments, it wasn’t doing all it should with that spotlight. In part 2 of ‘Equinox’, Janeway starts losing her moral compass to get Ransom, while Ransom in turn begins to regain his, and the former situation creates a worse schism between Janeway and Chakotay than the one we saw back during the two-part episode ‘Scorpion’.

 According to Trek wiki site Memory Alpha, Ronald D Moore criticised the episode for both failing to explain the rationale behind these changes, and for resolving the Janeway-Chakotay schism too quickly and cleanly.  These are valid points, and it’s emblematic of the show as a whole relative to the metrics of good Trek.  All too often, episodes fail to be “about” anything, and while overall I prefer Voyager for its high level of autism-like characters, that doesn’t excuse a lack of substance.  Part 1 did give us a kind of “there but for the grace of being a main cast goes our crew”, but part 2 just seems to coast on this and throws in random drama until the action at the end.  Seven’s abduction doesn’t justify this, as Janeway barely voices much concern for her, and it’s not like Janeway ever learns that Seven’s life is on the line from the Equinox crew.  In turn, Janeway barely knows Ransom and Trek has known a fair few rogue officers at times within the ranks of Star Fleet.  That means Ransom betraying Janeway lacks the depth necessary to justify an Ahab-like pursuit of Ransom; Sisko and Eddington had that in Deep Space Nine, Chakotay had this with Seska in early Voyager episodes, but for Janeway and Ransom, it’s a hollow excuse for a vendetta.

 Ransom’s reasons for going the other way are also very thin.  Just because he sees Seven potentially suffering for his actions, that’s when he decides to have an attack of conscience?  Why do I get the feeling that if it was Tuvok, Neelix or anyone other than Seven, we’d never get this turn-around?  Probably because, as has been noted by Youtuber Jessie Gender, this is an episode from the Berman era, when Trek was handled by a sexist idiot that didn’t believe in Trek and just did a favour to the late Gene Roddenberry. Bottom line, this is a poor follow-up despite good acting and decent guest actors.  The show also fails to really follow through on the addition of the Equinox survivors to Voyager’s crew due to Berman’s myopic insistence on Trek as episodic television.  In the end, I give this episode only 5 out of 10.

Episode 2: Survival Instinct

Plot (as adapted from Wikipedia):

Voyager is docked at the Markonian Outpost Space Station, which has welcomed the wayward ship with open diplomatic arms, allowing the free exchange of gifts and ideas. While meeting several representatives of various species in the mess hall, a man approaches Seven of Nine and reveals a container of several Borg compenents from her original unimatrix, which she takes in trade. The sight stuns Seven and brings back memories from her past as a Borg. As the man walks away, it is revealed that he is in telepathic communication with two other guests aboard Voyager, colluding with them to penetrate the ship's security systems.

 With B'Elanna Torres' help, Seven examines the components but denies having experienced any feelings at the sight of them. After returning to her Borg alcove to regenerate, the man and his two accomplices enter the cargo bay, revealing themselves as former Borg drones. They attempt to inject Seven with nanoprobes but she detects their presence, stops the attack, and alerts security. The three are subdued and taken to sick bay. The Doctor determines that while they are former Borg, the process to remove their Borg implants was blundered, and they’ve apparently been left with a shared mental connection. When they awake, the three affirm their condition, stating that they were also part of Seven's unimatrix, and want to bring her into that connection to learn what happened some years ago when their Borg scout ship crashed on an uninhabited planet. Seven herself cannot recall the event, but agrees to link to the others temporarily to attempt to uncover it.

 Told in flashbacks through the episode, after the crash, the four survivors lost contact with the Borg collective and constructed a communication array to contact the Borg for rescue. As they waited, the other three began to feel some aspects of individuality. While the other three embraced this, Seven fought against it. When they realized the Borg were approaching, the other three attempted to flee, but Seven followed them and re-injected each with nanoprobes, neutralizing their individualistic tendencies and re-assimilating them into the Collective.  This created the mental link within the trio, and upon learning this in the present, they fall into a coma.

 The three former drones have only two options for recovery: return to the Borg so they can become drones again, or have the Doctor remove the affected implants, severing their connection to each other. However, this process would mean removing Borg implants their brains are dependent on, leaving them with only a month to live. The Doctor asks Seven for her opinion, and she consults Chakotay, who asks her what she would rather do: live as a Borg for a normal lifespan or as an individual for a month. Seven is visibly moved and tells the Doctor to remove the others' implants. The Doctor protests, saying that his objective should be to preserve life at all costs; however, Seven argues that, like herself, even the Doctor was once a "drone" of sorts (confined to the ship's Sickbay) and that he would resist any attempts to force him back to that state. The Doctor accepts this logic and removes the implants from the former drones. Lansor (the former Two of Nine) elects to explore the station for the remainder of his life; Marika (Three of Nine) accompanies Voyager on its journey; and P'Chan (Four of Nine) chooses to spend his remaining days on a nearby uninhabited planet.

Review:

Leave it to an American TV show to force characters into a “liberty or death” scenario.  This episode ends up feeling like a load of melodramatic tripe when it gets to that part, because aside from anything else, this is a sci-fi show that has previously show-cased that its title ship has various ways of putting people in suspended animation.  How about instead of having to choose between essentially life-limiting the ex-drones or handing them back to the Borg, they just put the trio into suspended animation for a later cure down the road?  Seriously, the plot of this episode come the last act is just pointless histrionics and, quite honestly, a let-down in Trek tradition.  How have we gone from someone like Kirk who didn’t believe in no-win scenarios to people who make the choice without even looking at alternatives?

 The one redeeming aspect of the episode is that it goes back to the idea of Seven being akin to someone being liberated from a cult.  In the flashbacks, we see she’s had a prior experience along the same lines as her original introduction to Voyager along with three other drones.  However, Seven’s reaction differs because she’s been assimilated by the Borg as a child instead of as an adult.  This left her without the means to function as an individual from a mental perspective, which is often why cults in real life would target young people wherever possible.  The earlier in life someone is indoctrinated into a given belief, the less likely they are to abandon it because they develop a dependence on that. Frankly, I think the episode would have done better chucking out the life-or-death medical stuff and focusing more on Seven reconciling with what being Borg did to her and the other drones through her.  Overall, I give this episode 6 out of 10.

Episode 3: Barge of the Bead

Plot (as adapted from Wikipedia):

While returning from an away mission, B'Elanna Torres encounters interference from an ion storm which results in a concussion. Commander Chakotay finds a Klingon artifact lodged inside Torres' shuttlecraft, and Torres sees this emitting blood and hears voices speaking in the Klingon language. Since the USS Voyager is stranded in the Delta Quadrant, the ship is several thousand light-years away from Klingon-controlled space. Morale officer Neelix plans a celebration of the discovery of the object, since it’s a symbol of the Alpha Quadrant and thus Voyager’s home; Torres resists the proposal for a party. She consults with Lt. Tuvok, who believes her negative response to the object stems from her hatred of her Klingon heritage. Tuvok assaults Torres with a Bat'leth, saying she is not a true Klingon before dismissing her as dishonoured. While attending the festivities in the mess hall, Torres notices the Doctor and Seven of Nine singing Klingon drinking songs and Tom Paris eating Klingon cuisine. After witnessing several Klingon warriors killing the crew, she falls and finds herself aboard a boat. Torres discovers she is being transported to Gre'thor (the Klingon version of hell) on the Barge of the Dead, and that her mother Miral was placed aboard as a dishonoured soul.

 Torres awakes to find she has been in a coma the entire time. She had almost died from the accident in the ion storm. Chakotay believes Torres' encounter with her mother was a hallucination prompted from her near-death experience, but she believes that it was real. Torres believes her mother is being punished because of her daughter's dishonour, saying that she must return to the Barge of the Dead to rescue her. Captain Kathryn Janeway permits Torres to put herself in an induced coma, with the Doctor monitoring the procedure. After being placed in a coma, Torres successfully returns to the barge. She reunites with her mother, but they argue about whether or not she has truly embraced Klingon spirituality. Miral responds by telling her she does not understand what it truly means to be a Klingon, as B’Elanna plans to be revived before the barge reaches its destination, thereby cheating. After their conversation, Torres decides to take her mother's place on the barge; even though Miral resists the transference, she is allowed to move on to Sto-vo-kor (a part of the Klingon afterlife similar to the Norse Valhalla) while Torres is escorted into Gre'thor.

 She discovers that Voyager is her version of Gre'thor, and is confronted by alternate versions of the crew. Miral returns to explain that she cannot fully be released into Sto-vo-kor until Torres completes her journey. Tuvok attacks Torres again with a bat'leth, but she surrenders rather than fighting back. Miral identifies this as the first step in her path. She informs Torres that they will reunite either in Sto-vo-kor or when Torres returns home. Torres is resuscitated and embraced by Janeway.

Review:

Working religion into Trek is one of the ultimate delicate operations in fiction writing.  Handle it right and you get a great Trek episode because it covers genuinely new ground in character development, maybe explores issues with real-life religions or otherwise delivers something of substance.  Handle it wrong and you just prove Roddenberry was right making future humanity in an optimistic future a very secularist concept. For me, this one went all wrong.  It’s one long riff on the same old things we already know about B’Elanna; anger issues, hates her Klingon side, blah blah blah. In theory, the near-death hallucination/religious experience she has should make the episode better, but frankly it doesn’t, because it comes close to basically saying “this religion is right about the afterlife”, and that’s never a good way to handle religion.

 When Trek has done religion right in the past, it’s either kept things firmly in the show’s real world, making the story all about belief without even suggesting the supernatural, or it’s provided a simultaneous scientific explanation, leaving it up to a given character to make a decision if what they felt was science or mysticism.  This episode, however, doesn’t lean enough on its science side.  It also fails to really explain what the heck B’Elanna is really going through at the end. Top-to-bottom, it’s an episode I think the show should just never have bothered with.  3 out of 10, next episode please.

Episode 4: Tinker Tailor Doctor Spy

Plot (as adapted from Wikipedia):

The Doctor asks Captain Janeway to alter his program to allow him to captain the ship if an emergency occurs. Janeway refuses the request. Despite this, the Doctor alters his own sub-routines, allowing him to daydream, while Voyager is traveling through an apparently harmless nebula. Among other ego-fulfilling fantasies, the daydreams include one where he becomes the "Emergency Command Hologram" and defeats an attacking alien vessel using a fictional deadly photonic cannon. The Doctor finds that his daydreams are occurring when he doesn't want them to, a side effect of his faulty programming, and the crew disables the new routines.

 Meanwhile, undetected by Voyager, the crew of an observation ship of the Hierarchy has been monitoring Voyager's passage. As they have done with other ships that pass through the nebula, the Hierarchy determines whether there is any value on the ships, and if so, attacks them. Unable to scan Voyager via normal means, Hierarchy crewman Phlox instead uses a microscopic tunnelling scan. This latches onto the Doctor's program, allowing him to witness events experienced by the hologram, but these are actually the Doctor's fantasies. Phlox soon realizes his mistake, which the Hierarchy will severely punish as soon as it becomes known. The attack on Voyager for its anti-matter reserves already has been scheduled, so Phlox needs it to fail while appearing that what he reported was true.

 Phlox uses the tunnelling scan to reactivate the Doctor's daydreaming programs to allow him to communicate with the hologram. Phlox explains the situation to the Doctor, who in turn reports this to Janeway. As Voyager's crew becomes aware of the approaching Hierarchy ships, Janeway arranges for the deception to be complete, temporarily turning the Doctor into the Emergency Command Hologram. The Doctor, less confident in reality than his daydreams, is still able to bluff regarding use of the "photonic cannon" and the Hierarchy quickly retreats. Janeway commends the Doctor for his performance and arranges a team to evaluate the prospects of putting the hologram in charge of the ship under emergency situations.

Review:

Now this episode is actually a great episode, despite the unfortunate necessity of the Voyager crew having to invade the Doctor’s fantasies via the holodeck when his program goes awry.  It’s a rare occasion where Trek does comedy over action or something else and manages to do it well, yet at the same time also develop a character and explore an issue.  It’s interesting to see the Doctor exploring daydreams, because that’s a very human thing we all take for granted, and his fantasies are very relatable.  Whether it’s the action hero fantasy where the Doctor becomes the Emergency Command Hologram, or imagining the female crew members being attracted to him, the Doctor’s imaginings aren’t much different from those of most people in real life.

 As I say, the downside of the episode is the rest of the crew having to spy on his fantasies when the Doctor malfunctions. I’m glad they at least express some reluctance, especially since the Doctor is one of the show’s autism-like characters.  That autism-like quality in the Doctor is also why, even though I also see Seven as autism-like, my patience with her reaction to the Doctor’s fantasies is rather thin.  Ultimately, fantasies are a private thing, and frankly given the advancement of technology in Trek, I have to question why the crew even needed to put those fantasies on the holodeck.

 Yes, the Doctor fantasised about Seven coming onto him, and about sketching her in the nude, but ultimately, it was a fantasy. It was not a real event, ergo Seven doesn’t have much of a right to get annoyed about it.  This is why it’s a good thing human society isn’t telepathic; it’s bad enough watching the tabloid press in real life invade the privacy of the high-profile and then drumming up judgement from the public over perfectly legitimate, if not always well-understood, activities.  Imagine if we all showed the same lack of respect for privacy by tip-toeing through other people’s thoughts to see their private hopes, dreams and fears.  There’s a reason why in real life, most of us only reveal our innermost thoughts to close family, romantic partners and/or mental health professionals; we don’t want every Tom, Dick and Mary to know everything going on in our heads.

 Given this, I think someone should have taken five minutes to point all this out to Seven, or even better, I think the crew should have fixed the Doctor’s program without playing out the fantasies in the holodeck like a damn peep show.  However, it’s still the best overall Voyager episode of this round, and I give it 8 out of 10.

[andswarwrites]

Day 18

While I have nothing against Star Trek and Star Wars, I feel like they're so "mainstream" as far as science fiction goes that you are expected to hand in your sci-fi nerd card if you don't love either or both.  So when I tell people I like science fiction, I'm expected to be a fan of either franchise. I grew up watching Voyager, so my first captain was Janeway.  I also knew the crew of the original series thanks to the movies which I watched with my family.  After I married S-, he and I watched a few seasons of The Next Generation.  Ah yes, and more recently we watched Picard, but only the first season.  That about sums up my experience with the Trekking of Stars.

As for Star Wars, I watched Episodes 4, 5 and 6 as a teenager when my parents rented them for me from the library.  I had expressed an interest in seeing them.  I enjoyed them, but I didn't get completely absorbed into the universe as I later would with Stargate, and I didn't watch the story unfold with amazement as I would when I watched Babylon 5.  I was not impressed with Episodes 1 to 3, especially not 3; I preferred Genndy Tartakovsky's Clone Wars mini series (2003).  I've played Star Wars as a tabletop game, I've read some of the fiction, and I am such a fan of The Mandalorian that the theme song is my ring tone.

I also enjoyed the quirky randomness of Doctor Who from Doctors 9 to 11. BBC made a movie called An Adventure in Space and Time (2013) which tells the story of how this incredible show came about.  On my to-do list is to watch all of the 26 seasons of the original run from 1964 to 1989.  If you think that is an overwhelming objective, I also want to watch every single episode of One Piece. A girl can dream. 

I'll make the argument that I became a science fiction lover thanks to books, more than anything. When I first read the Foundation series, and then the robot-themed short stories by Isaac Asimov, I was hooked.  Cities in Flight by James Blish, Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card, more recently The Martian by Andy Weir: these are books that make me forget what planet I'm on.  I know technically science fiction is a genre that is supposed to be speculative in its nature, positing how society would be affected if a certain technology existed.  As far as I'm concerned, whether it's set in the future or in space, if it takes me on a fantastic voyage (see what I did there?) I call it sci fi.

When S- bought the boxed set of Firefly and had me watch it while we were dating, he did not know how those fourteen episodes were going to affect me.  For a while, I watched the whole series over with every new season, so that was four times a year.  It got that I could recite entire scenes, playing each character in turn, with the proper inflection in the dialogue and even matching facial expressions.  It's been a while since I watched Firefly, but I'm planning to watch it this summer with N-.  I can't wait to see her reaction.

What I loved about Lost in Space is that it was about a family, and how each one of them was equipped with a separate set of skills, but when they combine those skills they can overcome so much together.  I don't really enjoy boiler plate stories.  In fact, one of the reasons I had terrible writer's block in my twenties is the concept that "there is nothing new under the sun".  Yet.  Every individual is unique, right?  So every storyteller, even if they are telling the same story, has the ability to make it their own and share their own unique perspective.

I could go on about all the science fiction books, shows and movies I enjoy, but I think the point has been made.  I don't consider myself an "expert" by any means.  I just know what I like, and I am not embarrassed or intimidated.  I like a story that doesn't take itself too seriously.  I like well-rounded characters with a little angst.  I like a setting that can absorb me completely into another time and/or place.  I especially love a mind-blowing twist, or a  heartwarming denouement or a thought-provoking conclusion.

So I've made my case.  As far as I'm concerned, I'm a science fiction fan. I may be a tepid fan of Star Wars and Star Trek, but I still get to proclaim my love of sci fi.  In French there is a saying "les gouts ne sont pas a discuter" - tastes are not to be discussed.  Even so I like to discuss them.  I always have.  If I meet someone who hates or loves certain media as much as I do, I have the nerdiest response: I gesture emphatically, my voice goes up a pitch, I express my enthusiasm at having found a kindred spirit.

I'm not limited to science fiction.  I like historical fiction, fantasy, coming of age stories.  I'm a major fan of comedies, though a lot of the shows I like can actually be classified as dramedies.  And I simply love animated movies.  I have since I was a kid, and the love has never faded, in fact it has only deepened.  I wonder if I'll always be this intense fangirl, with passion and fire for what she likes?  I recently went to the movies and I saw a group of guys standing around, discussing easter eggs and certain scenes, and making predictions about sequels.  I remember doing that.  I still do, in the car on the ride home with S-.  I guess he's my favorite person to talk to about this topic, because he knows me so well and it's always safe to share my point of view.

It's interesting, I feel more self conscious about sharing on this topic than I did about anything else this month.  I think I've got something very backward here.

[samthecookielord]

Never really been that interested in object shows but I may check some out of curiosity, I may like them. Any you recommend?

Besides the one you are clearly super hyperfixated about.

Dagdszhdshf give it a week or so the spaceboy brainrot will come out stronger lol im not done thinking abt that silly guy

Anyways, as for object show recs, ive only really mostly seen the big ones but yea i guess im recommending those to you gdsdshdh

1. Battle For Dream Island - 5 Seasons Long, 1 ongoing, 63 episodes so far according to google

This one's a certified™ classic, the first object show created! It's hella long though lol but its charming and silly! I haven't rewatched bfdi in a while but from what I remember it's mostly silly and hashtag random™ with a few emotional moments. The animation of older seasons still hold up i think? It gets better at season 4 though imo. Also BANGER OST IN S4/5

2. Inanimate Insanity - 3 Seasons Long, 2 ongoing, 40 episodes total so far

The second object show ever!!! Another classic.

Season 1 SUCKS but I promise it gets better in Season 2!!! You could skip season 1 but season 2 will reference things and continue from things that happened in season 1, so you'll be losing that context. If you're not sure how much of season 1 you're willing to endure, there's this handy infographic of what episodes to watch from this video by iAnimate38! Far left being least interested in season 1, and far right being interested in seeing it all!

I'd describe II as equal parts fun and an emotional ride! Also they sometimes sing in season 2 if thats like. important to you dgasgdshd

And now i talk abt object shows other than the big two ones

3. The Daily Object Show - 8 Seasons, Probably Complete, about 50 episodes total i think

This one is insanely short, nearly each episode being no more than 5 minutes long because, well, it did in fact release daily. It's very jokey and silly (like. one of the characters is named Normal Pill hrshrsarhhsr) and you could absolutely finish this show in a day if you wanted to

4. Brawl Of The Objects - 1 Season, Complete, 13 episodes total

One of my personal faves! I just never talk abt it lol. It's a nice short object show that doesn't go on for more than a season so if you're just looking for something fairly quick (yknow, other than the daily object show sgdshrs), you can check this out! Also a fun one with a lighthearted tone and a side of dark lore and thought out foreshadowing that's helpfully explained in a later video!

Yeah that's the end of my list thanks for coming to my ted talk

[dreamylyfe-x]

you know i'm rewatching the gallavich wedding planning and i can't help but feel like i don't know who this is, but it ain't mickey! them writing him to be all specific about colors and sh*t, like where's the real mickey from s4 who was annoyed with that guy listing beer types? i get they wanted to do that dumb gag but they should've used someone else for it. i mean ian's the one who was always meticulous about details, they showed that from the beginning. i don't know i just found it so weird

Aw, yeah. I get that reaction -- I think it’s pretty widely shared. And I suspect that storyline did come from someone pitching “it’d be funny if Mickey was a groomzilla.” Which is an idea I find annoying. Because I find the whole bridezilla thing annoying. 

But... I kinda love it, to be honest. 

I really like the idea that Mickey has an aesthetic and some artistic tendencies. We know he draws. I think there’s some indication in canon that Mickey is creative -- both in problem solving and in, let’s say, his sartorial choices. Mickey seems to act on things a lot. He’s not buying those hoodies without sleeves. He is creating hoodies without sleeves.  

Ian IS meticulous... or at least, he’s organized. He’s also given to executing a plan that isn’t necessarily of his own devising. He is drawn to uniforms and he seeks out knowledge he can apply to systems and processes. He seems to have an appreciation for creativity and art, but he isn’t particularly creative himself. 

So of the two of them, I think Mickey is actually much more likely to observe the details and to have opinions about them. That’s still a long way away from having a meltdown about gold chiavari chairs with white cushions. I do realize this. And I remember how that scene came out as a sneak peek the week before and I was... concerned. But when I saw it in context, I honestly liked it. Not so much the scene itself, but the story of that episode. It’s pretty much the only ep that season where Mickey’s concerns are foregrounded over Ian’s and, though (as always) I would have liked MORE of it, I like that we got this one episode about what the wedding mean to Mickey. 

So here are the top reasons why I like and buy this story. 

1. Right off the top, I don’t think Mickey objecting to being given a list of beers indicates he’s not going to care about what chairs are at his wedding. Putting aside that he’s lived an additional five or so years since then, Mickey doesn’t get annoyed in that scene because he thinks it’s dumb to know a lot about beer -- He’s annoyed that Ryan has asked him a question he can’t answer. I’ve always thought of that as a class issue -- He has never been in much of a position to CARE about what he drinks, and he drinks mass-produced pilsners because that’s what everyone in Southside drinks, because it’s cheap. He might love a winter wheat. He has no goddamn idea, because he isn’t living a life where you get to concern yourself with whether or not you’re into IPAs or lagers. Mickey DOES like beer. I was surprised and delighted when he recently ordered a stout at The Alibi, because it does indicate that his life has changed enough that he gets to know a bit more about beer. That at some point, he had the time and inclination to alter his tastes. He might have a different answer for Ryan now.

2. That Mickey wants things. Just... I don’t know. Mickey wanting anything other than food, shelter and Ian gets me so much. Mickey attending to his hierarchy of needs legitimately makes me teary. For people who grow up like Mickey -- asking for things can be a very big deal. So the fact that he just decides he’s going to make a wedding happen -- and a wedding with nice flowers and chairs that will reflect the light (because, we find out, that’s why he wants the gold) and a singer who will perform Livin’ on a Prayer -- is a big deal. And as many have cited before me, it makes sense that Mickey wants a better wedding with Ian than the one he had with Svetlana. But what we also find out, when we get the moment with the vows, is that Mickey takes the whole thing very seriously. He delivers those vows with complete commitment and deep sincerity. So I understand why he wants that space to carry the weight of what is happening. 

3. Mickey doesn’t break the chair because it’s not gold. He breaks the chair because every single person he’s encountered that day is a fucking dick. And they’re being a dick about his wedding. Something he’s happy about, and something he wants to celebrate. And, honestly, he’s not asking for much. He’d be annoyed, but most likely not violent, if his father hadn’t aimed a gun his face and some random old lady hadn’t refused him as a client because he’s gay. Brooks -- who tries to gaslight and act like the chairs are the chairs that were asked for when he knows damn well they are not -- is taking the wrath for a number of other people. But to me, the most important line in that scene is “why does everything always have to suck?”

4. Another thing about this is... back when Mickey responds to Ryan’s multiple choice beer question with “how ‘bout beer?” Ryan covers the awkward moment by making a joke about his own sexuality. The implication being that relating to beer with the kind of detail traditionally reserved for wine, is not masculine. And the thing is, Ryan is making a joke at his own expense, but he’s also acknowledging something that has always been true for Mickey. That Mickey has to make sure he never, ever displays any of these qualities Ryan so casually exhibits. Whether it’s natural for him or not, Mickey has to avoid anything that can be read to be a stereotype. He has to be hyper masculine, both because he’s from House that Toxic Masculinity built, but also because HE knows, even when he won’t acknowledge it, that he’s gay. So when we see Mickey openly talking about what flowers and chairs he wants at the wedding, he’s letting out something that could very well have always been there, but that he never, ever would have expressed back in seasons 1 through 4. Mickey doesn’t kiss Ian for two whole seasons because he’s so messed up about his sexuality. I 100% buy that, at that same time, he isn’t acknowledging having opinions about home decor. 

5. I like it when Mickey defies our expectations. I’m find with him discovering or revealing new facets or abilities or interests -- what I don’t like is when they have him do something that seems more like a regression. The show lampshades that this is something of a surprise, for Mickey to want a wedding, by having Ian be absolutely baffled by it for most of the episode. But they also participate in the end. There’s an indication that Mickey and Ian plan the eventual wedding together, though I imagine Mickey’s stronger opinions took the day in most cases. And the gesture at the end of that episode -- a romantic gesture just as surprising from Ian as anything Mickey does in that episode, really -- validates Mickey in a way I think is pretty beautiful. Like... he gets to be a guy who wants someone to sing Livin’ on a Prayer to him while he holds his boyfriend’s fiancé’s hand. He wasn't allowed to be that guy for years. I like that he gets there. 

So. We might not agree on this, but I really like that you drew a parallel between that scene and the party scene at Ryan’s because I hadn’t though of that before and I think it’s a very interesting one. I also enjoyed thinking so much about this on the day that we mark their one year anniversary! Because holy fuck. Gallavich is married! 

[jupitermelichios]

On a more possitive note, I’ve started watching Sword Art Online. It’s one of the worst things I’ve ever seen (and the last film I saw in cinemas was Cats to give you context for the scale i’m working on here) and I kind of adore it in much the same way I love garbage like Smallville or Twilight. It’s so stupid on so many levels. You could challenge someone to write the worst anime, and it would almost certainly be better than SAO. It’s almost hypnotic how terrible it is.

No one should watch this terrible terrible show so I therefore don’t feel at all bad that I’m about the spoil absolutely everything, but honestly if you do also hate-watch this please come talk to me about how terrible it is. I don’t know anyone else who watches it.

Highlights of Season 1 include:

everyone is trapped in an MMO, and if you die in the MMO you die IRL. but if you were a beta-tester you’re probably fine because they just let them keep all their levels and items from the testing, so they’re all massively OP and everyone just accepts this as a normal and non-game-breaking thing

it’s a fantasy MMO but there’s no races, no magic system, no weapons except swords and maces, and not even an option to dual wield - literally all you can do in this fucking game is stand in front of an enemy and mash the attack button. I’m pretty sure they’re trapped there because the devs realised no one would play this post launch-day otherwise because it’s boring as shit

when the villain traps everyone he also just changs all their avatars to look like they do IRL for absolutely no reason, like actually none, he doesn’t even say he thinks it would be funny, he just does it and no one questions it and it is literally never mentioned again because this is the worst TV show ever animated.

in the second episode the main character deliberately witholds information about how to defeat a boss, indirectly causing multiple deaths. there is absolutely no reason for him to withhold it, he was just being a jerk because he doesn’t like people

in the third episode they reset his entire personality and he’s now a selfless hero pretending to be a lower level than he really is so people will find him more relateable and be his friend because all he wants is to help people. this is not a consequence of episode 2, they just decided they didnt like the character as he’d previously been written.

he makes some new friends who are all objectively terrible people who have decided for no season that the twelve year old who doesn’t really know how to play and keeps having anxiety attacks about the very real possibility of death has to be the guild tank. the MC is high enough level to be functionally immortal in like half the levels, but doesn’t tell anyone this he just lets them go on bullying this child

none of his friends survive that episode, in the game or IRL. which is also a christmas epsiode. a child dies in battle because she’s a terrible tank and then a man commits suicide out of guilt, so then the main character murders santa to try and bring them back from the actual dead but it doesn’t work because again, this is a video game and they are dead IRL, so then he walks off into the snow alone. Christmas!

we meet the best character in the entire show in episode 4, Rosalia, who has gone evil and started just straight murdering people because she’s sick of being an attractive adult woman who can’t get a date because she’s surrounded by lolicons who are only interested in the preteen characters (not a joke, that comes up, the show is firmly on the side of the lolicons)

in the same episode we get an extended bra and panty sequence staring an actual fucking child, like canonically this character is maybe 13 at best. this is one of only 2 occaisions when they feel the need to undress a character and it’s the fucking 12 year old, it’s so gross it reads like a parody of itself

literally every single named female character aged over 8 who talks to the MC falls in love with him after like 5 minutes (and in season 2 this includes his actual sister). he shows absolutely no interest in any of them (including his sister, thank god) until...

the main character gets engaged to a girl he only knows from an MMO after a virtual single date (he doesn’t actually win her in a PVP match but only because he looses the match, he 100% canonically tries to win her in a match, which she is apparently fine with). he then doesn’t bother to ask for her real name until the final episode, he just calls her by her screen name

(that’s okay though becuase it turns out that this moron of a love interest used her real name, on a local server, in a game where your character looks like you do IRL, because apparently getting doxxed is her hobby)

they then get in-game married off screen. there’s not even like a still of a wedding photo. nothing. the main character proposes and then the show immediately jumps to the honeymoon, it’s fucking bizarre.

they find a creepy child dressed all in white with no memory alone in the woods a week into their honeymoon who starts calling them mommy and daddy literally seconds after they first meet her, and they don’t suspect anything suss is going on and adopt her

for hilarity bear in mind the main character may only be 15 at this point (he says he’s only just turned 16 in the last epsiode, but his actual birthday is never mentioned), and his virtual wifu is 16, but no one ever questions the marriage or the adoption, even though ‘hey marriage in a video game is as important and meaningful as marriage in real life’ is an actual conversation people have multiple times. also they think the child they adopt is an actual IRL 8 year old who thinks these randos she met in an MMO are her mum and dad and everyone just goes with that like it’s a totally normal thing

a character called ‘Thinker’ agrees to meet an enemy faction leader for peace talks. the “peace talks” take place in a high level dungeon and he is told to come alone with no weapons and no fast travel. he does this. no one ever comments that his name is ironic, and in fact they seem to think that being betrayed and trapped in a dungeon with a boss is a totally unexpected turn of events Thinker could never have planned for

they take their new baby into the dungeon to rescue thinker, because they went to the jean grey school of baby rearing, and she imediately reveals that she’s actually a magical maggufin with infinite power, murders the grim reaper, and then dies. In literally the second episode she’s in

after she dies the MC hacks the admin account of the game, converts her corpse into an in game item, and saves to the local storage on his console, with the intention of bringing her back to life as a robot once they’re saved from the game. I’m not joking, that’s an actual thing that happens.

the fact that the main character can just access the main admin account and make massive game-breaking changes isn’t used again in that game and he never thinks to try and use it to force log people out or give himself infinite life so he can just rush the game and free everyone. nope, convert a corpse into an item and then never think about it again.

there’s an entire episode where all they do is go fishing. its the only filler episode in the season, and it immediately follows the death of a small child. it’s the most tone-deaf beach episode in writing history

it turns out this game, this game where they didn’t bother coding in any difference races, weapons, or any kind of magic system, was intended to have fully sentient AI therapists, because why the fuck not at this point honestly

oh also the game has PVP and you can trick the game into thinking a sleeping player is in PVP with you in order to actually murder a real person without it flagging in-game as a murder making the crime impossible for the real life legal system to investigate even though you just murdered a person. and they expect us to believe this game had actual beta testers. at least cyberpunk wasn’t played on microwaves you connected straight to your brain (also not a joke, the VR consoles canonically work by sending microwave radiation into your brain, no wonder VR never caught on)

the set up for the show is that they have to reach level 100 of a dungeon in order to win. At level 75, the writers got bored and the show just ends.

it turns out the power of love allows you to just break the fucking game and the main villain literally has a line about how ‘love allows you to remove debuffs, huh, we didn’t think to plan for that’ because again, there’s no metaphors in this show, everything is 100% literal including the fact that falling in love with another player means you’re immune to the paralysis status effect

power of love also allows you to very briefly become a poltergeist after being killed, but only for like 2 seconds. again not a joke or a metaphor, main character is killed but then gets to hang around as a ghost for a little bit to enable him to defeat the boss. he also doesn’t die in real life despite that being the entire fucking premise of the show, again because power of love.

the bad guy literally has no plan, he’s just doing shit for the sake of having something to do. His actions directly cause the deaths of more than 4,000 people, and it’s not even in aid of anything. they ask him why he trapped 10,000 people in an MMO and allowed them to slowly die, and he’s just like ‘huh, i forgot i did that, random’ and then just fucking peaces out

the fact that he committed one of the largest mass killings outside of war never really comes up again, as far as we know he doesn’t even go to jail. i think the show actually kind of thinks he’s a good guy, which is a fucking WILD moral stance to take on the deaths of 4000 completely innocent people for absolutely no reason

If this sounds hilari-bad but you don’t want to invest the time to watch a show which is objectively garbage, it has an abridged series which is famously better than the show it’s parodying (i’m dead serious, people have character arcs, the getting married after one date thing is properly addressed, the mc has to deal with PTSD because of all his friends dying in epsidode 3, they don’t immediately follow the death of a child with an extended fishing montage, the villain has an actual plan). It’s mostly actually pretty good, but this is the internet and it’s an abridged series, so while there are a lot fewer yikes moments than most it still has enough that I’m not comfortable recommending it without the caveat. that said I still enjoyed it a lot, although possibly not at much as pointing and laughing at the garbage that is the actual show.

[objecttalks]

Battle For Dream Island - The OSC's Roots

RANK: S Tier

REVIEW WRITTEN ON: 1/1/2022

BFDI is really the fundamental object show. The start of it all. From two little 12 year olds in love with the show Total Drama Island messing around on flash, to a nearly 12 year old show with merchandise and millions of views on YouTube. I love this series so much and if you haven't seen it yet, I highly recommend it.

Below is a brief overview of the show, and my thoughts on each of the seasons

If you haven't seen the show already, the show as a whole is an enjoyable surrealist serialized comedy about several characters competing with eachother in a survivor-type contest. Each episode centers around a different challenge, the characters interacting and having interpersonal drama with eachother. Most of the show's appeal comes from the character's interactions and the show's humor, and, of course, the unique quality of audience participation by way of viewer voting to eliminate the contestants from the game. Each season has different merits but every season is, at least in my opinion, enjoyable.

THE SEASONS

Battle For Dream Island

The rocky but charming begining to BFDI is surprisingly good at what it does. Despite being written and nearly single handedly produced by two 12 year olds in 2010, it steers clear of overly edgy humor, only occasionally having crude jokes such as "pen island" or "pin? Wrong finger...". This season for me is proof that kids have a real knack for surreal humor.

While the show starts off on a foot that may be unappealing to a lot of people, seeming too kiddish and unprofessional, that's definitely part of the charm and lends to an appreciation of the improvement the creators make throughout the series.

The characters are strong, none of them feeling too stereotyped or one dimensional, and the limited amount of voice actors leads to some pretty unique and charmingly awkward voices for the cast. One of my favorite things in this season is the focus on established friendships and rivalries between all the characters right off the bat. The characters aren't nobodies who existed in a vacuum before the start of the show, they already had lives. This makes interactions feel natural, despite the admittedly stilted way the characters talk throughout the season; which, to me, adds to the charm, but it can be off putting and a bit difficult to get through especially for new or older watchers.

The character arcs and drama, especially near the end of the season, are genuinely intriguing and enjoyable. By now you care about the characters and are excited to see who will win, and I can only imagine what it would've been like to be voting at this time, since I only joined the OSC around the time BFDIA episode 5 wrapped up.

Surprisingly, the show feels very natural in the way characters are eliminated. A feeling of character arcs being "nerfed" is a pretty glaring problem in other series and even seasons of this show going forward.

Battle For Dream Island Again

BFDIA is my personal favorite season of BFDI. The surreal nature of the show is taken up a notch in this season, since a lot of the plot has little to no direction. In fact, there's a whole episode about them realizing they're battling for nothing in this season. The care free yet inexplicably competitive attitude all the characters have this season really rubs me the right way.

This season also shows a lot of improvement in both writing and animation. There are moments where things are amazingly fluid, there are more voice actors, the jokes hit a lot harder, and yet the charm from the first season stays. The surreal humor is more surreal than ever, random and weird facts are dropped multiple times every episode (such as pins sweating ooze instead or water, or snow and gasoline mixing to create glue) which is another reason this show has some of the best "random" humor. It's not just characters screaming things. It's creating its own special logic that makes no sense, and yet you go along with it because the characters just go like, "okay" at it. It's so funny.

I personally think character arcs take a bit of a back seat this season, but what is done with the characters development wise is fun, interesting, and genuinely gripping at moments. The development of freesmart/the alliance with the introduction of new characters this season is one of the major highlights.

Something of note about this season is that it doesn't have a proper ending, getting put on hiatus and abruptly canceled by the release of IDFB. However, I don't think this is to its detriment. I feel like episode 5 was the perfect way for this season to end. It has the great cliff hanger but ultimately contains itself in a way I find very satisfying. The "go with the flow" energy of the season definitely helps, making it easier to accept that episode 5 is the final episode. However, this may be seen as disappointing to some.

IDFB

This "season" is only one episode long and is never being continued. This, unlike BFDIA, is actually a shame. This season had so much potential but was released at the wrong place and time for the creators and it made continuing it nearly impossible.

The general idea for this season is that there's NO competition, and instead it's ALL just characters messing around and living their lives. The audience participation this season was going to be that the audience could pick someone who had been eliminated or recommended from the prior seasons to join the current cast. This set up was so intriguing and endearing, letting the characters stand on their own without a competition creating conflict. It would've been so interesting!

Since it is only one episode I don't have a ton to say about it in a broad sense. I could spend a while analyzing it but what else is there to say beyond it's a shame this didn't continue. However, I am kind of glad it didn't continue, because if it had we probably never would've gotten what we have now.

Battle For BFDI

BFDI's great return set a new precedent for the object show community, and rejuvenated the series in many new and interesting ways. From the extremely large cast of characters to the humor to the art style itself. This season had a lot of great little character arcs and moments, and every character had a little something to bring to the table.

To me this season is internally divided into different sections, since as the show continued, the vibe changed.

Early bfb (episodes 1-5) have a very slap dash but uniquely surreal, almost stilted and awkward quality to it, that gives this section a lot of charm and character quite like the first season, except a little better executed. A lot of the jokes hit me hard, although the weirdness of it was off-putting when the series first came out. I also enjoy how for the most part, this section was the most alien we saw four and x act. I don't know if I necessarily consider the early section better, but the weirdness is something that kinda leaves the other parts of this season, which makes me kinda sad.

Mid bfb (episode 6-10) is a lot of fun because of all the changes with the hosting and the randomness of the challenges. Reminds me a lot of BFDIA which is definitely my style. Although I do think this is a strange period for the show, since it feels like they're starting to take more time and effort on the episodes. Its so entertaining! I feel like a lot of the energy from this section in particular carries on to battle for bfb.

I get why this could possibly be some people's least favorite chunk of episodes since the show feels a little directionless, and there's a lot of things trying to shake up the formula (something very prominent in BFDIA and BFB-B) which may be something might not be into really. This was also when the taco-shunning arc was in it's midpoint, which while the pay off is definitely worth it, it's a bit of a slog since it feels like they just don't seem to grow until the next section. But that definitely doesn't ruin it. This section also flows really well during a binge-session, which is impressive considering the time passage between episodes.

And late bfb (episodes 11-16) is a weird one because I feel like it's the highest quality put out by this season, with some of the best arc writing and some really hard hitting jokes, the return of four, and some of the most impressive animation of the season- however, I do feel like this section of the show wasn't allowed to just be. There were expectations growing and it shows, in both a good and not so good way.

I think the most controversial thing about this season WAS the split for sure, but breaking it down into sections kinda makes it clear- to me at least- why the split tracks. The quality of late bfb verses the weirdness of early bfb. Overall though, wether the decision to split was good or not, this season IS a lot of people's definitive bfdi season.

Battle For BFB

OKAY now, I don't know why so many people seem to dislike this season. I really like this season, personally. I think it's some of the funnest stuff bfdi has made. It's so weird and enjoyable and also some of the BEST character work they've done.

This season reminds me so much of BFDIA in the way the contestants all kinda just, fuck around the whole time? And it also reminds me of late season 1, where it became more like, character relationship focused. The smaller cast really let characters shine and grow, and the switch to "vote to save" was SO smart, at least for bfdi.

I love how like, the characters this season are so open about their feelings. If a character is hurt or feels weird about something, they tend to talk it out. That's how we got things like the firey and leafy conflict resolution, the blocky and woody friendship, the conflict and friendship between gelatin and tear drop, and of COURSE: the flower win.

What rubbed me the wrong way with this season though was the intrusions by Patreon characters or purple face. I'll admit I do think purple face DOES serve an interesting purpose of providing a character who wants to feel wanted and feels as though he never got a chance to be appreciated, but that doesn't mean he didn't annoy the hell out of me.

Even with that, I just care a lot about this season and I definitely think people are a little too hard on it, or a little too quick to decide it's not for them. In my eyes, the end to BFDI is exactly what it needed to be. I really liked how they wrote this season, things felt like they MEANT something. Characters had arcs that the large cast in pre-split BFB just, couldn't give time to.

The Power of Two

Okay so on the rankings, literally the only reason it ranked so low within the bfdi tier ranking (WHICH, to reiterate, is all still s tier) is because it's currently only one episode. But god damn, is it a good episode. This series has almost TOO MUCH potential. From the first episode alone, it takes all of my favorite things about late pre-split BFB. I love all the new dynamics it establishes and I can't wait to see where the series goes. I'll just, sit and watch this episode sometimes when I'm sad and it really does make me perk up every time. Not a *ton* to say since it is only one episode and there's not much to judge, but tpot makes me look forward to the future of BFDI.

To conclude:

I love bfdi and it rules and makes me happy :)

SEASON RANKINGS (best to worst):

[incarnateirony]

So here we are, The Great Supernatural Rewatch, 01.01 Pilot. If unfamiliar with this rewatch, please check my Objectives and Bracketing post [x], and then my Methodology Notes [x]; Also, reminder that I’m not the only person doing this, though each in their own ways. My Objectives and Methodology are my own. 

I’m trying to get a little ahead of the official Jan 3 start date, since I know I will... inevitably fall behind, and this episode was ripe for the initial pick-through for the inevitability of a thousand call backs.

That said, with level  1. SYNCHRONIC: As it reads, unto itself, as best divorced from future knowledge of the story, it’s difficult to do much actual “meta” as much as review and commentary since literally it’s all character and story introductions. There’s some to be had, but beyond things like lighting, the Level 1 viewing tier is not going to lend towards much beyond basic archetypes, and a lot of mythology breakdown. This post will be heaving Level 2 weighted as a result. Most tier-1 posting is going to be an early build of key words, phrases and signs to assemble throughout the season watching (and tap back on later for tier 2 by tagging.)

Also a few unannounced side projects; I’m about to start a “Combat Counter” and “Marksmanship Counter”, to see how Sam and Dean handle both in physical battles/scraps over time compared to each other, and who has the better overall aim in the long term.

Some things saved in this post will seem random and arbitrary, but are potential flags I intend to keep, mostly for later level 2, DIACHRONIC study.

Now to get to the meat:

STUDY: REWATCH/REVIEW STAGE

Allow me to lead with: this episode even unto itself is a fine spectacle of just how much the genre shifted over time. I am a huge fan of David Nutter’s directing; many would know him from, say, Game of Thrones. He didn’t stay long--just Pilot and Wendigo--before moving on. But some of his touches stayed with the show for a few years. The entire ambiance is a giant testiment to survival-horror, a grimness to it, even if the CW itself could never truly capitalize on it. The mood and ambiance was successfully played on. The entire episode is rife with cloudy lighting beaming between bars and through windows, bold silhouette shots, and more that gives an air of mystery even after some characters are established. Dynamic shots are plenty.

Your early reading here isn’t going to tell you much you don’t already know, but is for filing, review, and even reminder/refresher purposes. As the season unfolds, there’s going to be more to interconnect, obviously. If you would like to read more observations on actual parallels, scroll to the DIACHRONIC STUDY header. If I’ve taken a screenshot, even in Synchronic, it’s because it’s a flag I do expect to come back up in diachronic study later and need to catalogue for future parallels and address.

So, imagining it’s 2005, we’re watching Supernatural for the first time. We’re in a very different world, Both in the show, and in the real world. A standard, haunting discord rattles the minds of the audience as a tree moves like a hand towards the window of a suburban home.

We see a classic, nuclear family in this standard home, saying their charming goodnights to an infant. But within moments, we’re told in every classic way that everything is wrong. The infant’s mobile turns on its own accord; the clock stops.

It’s 8:12pm when the world goes haywire. The decorative moon in the room flickers, growing dim. The mother wakes to the sound of a distressed infant on the baby monitor. She rises from bed in her gown.

This is a point I’m left to negotiate cursed knowledge: to all visual cues, the mother’s attire appears to be white. The audience perceived it as white. But we know it, and Jess’ gown later, was actually pink; the film stock failed to capture it. Both short term and much louder in the long term, these two colors can deliver two very different meanings. But for us, a viewer consuming a digital medium with no knowledge beyond what they published, I’m left to decide that the text seems to determine her in a white gown.

The wife sees a stark silhouette, asking if the child was hungry, assuming it was her husband that quieted her. She turns away, tapping on a flickering light over an old marriage portrait that one can only assume was a previous family generation. She descends the stairs.

Here she finds her husband is sleeping. Panic takes her, bringing her to the room. Quickly, chaos erupts. As does she, once seen bleeding down onto the hand of the father from above the crib. We see her, sunken eyes, already dying, screaming without a sound. Silent. Unable to make a noise.

The camera details the desperation of the father rushing his infant to his older child. “Take your brother outside as fast as you can, don’t look back. Now Dean, GO.”

I’m unclear what John thinks he’s going to achieve running back in for Mary as fire takes the home. But soon, he finds young Dean, 4, outside, holding an infant, “I've got you Sammy.” John erupts out of the house as the windows begin to blow, sweeping in to carry Dean, who carries Sam.

As the fire department arrives, the first cords of a song we would later come to recognize as Americana haunt through otherwise chilling music that climbs actively to punch out through our first cold open.

The Winchesters are our first cold open.

We find ourselves in modern day with the rick of a rock cord, and a young woman in a white nurse outfit adjusting her earings while framed by an image of John and Mary--the mother and father--in a picture frame. Though she calls for Sam, we see nothing of Dean--not even a picture. The image on the counter tells of a life Sam(my) was too young to even know, but perhaps is in his blonde-haired woman who teases him about halloween while standing in front of a mirror.

Sam is clearly in his young prime, celebrating his LSAT with a 174 score much to his chagrin with friends dressed up in all styles of wardrobe. Behind Sam a neon black cat sign may just jinx his future in warm but dull lighting; ghostly drapes hide behind Jess in a blue, sharper light.

Sam’s friends perceive he must be the Golden Boy of the family. Jess is proud of him. “What would I do without you?” “Crash and burn.”

Night onsets. Dim lighting feels dusty despite the otherwise hopeful environment. Heavy creaking, groaning, footsteps; Sam rises on instinct, spying an open door and catching haunting noises--sounds. An intruder. And one fateful fight. The choreography spares little.

In actual combat, the intruder--quickly identified as Dean--comes out on top. (Combat ticker: Sam vs Dean: Dean 1) Easy there, tiger. As Dean haunts, revealing his roguish personality quickly, he’s then gotten the better of (this is not going to be considered a combat ticker, it’s not actual combat, but aftermath).

Sam challenges why Dean broke in, but Dean knew Sam would have never picked up without him. They’re interrupted from their silhouetting by the light flicking on, and Dean further displays his roguish charm, enjoying her smurfs, not dreaming of her getting dressed; but soon, it’s down to business--Dean says it’s private family matters. Sam, a unit in the doorframe with Jess, says it can be said in front of her. Until the fateful line: “Dad’s on a hunting trip, and he hasn’t been home in a few days.” The camera zooms on Sam’s set jaw to tell the audience how much weight is in that line as the audio itself drags a raw cord of suspense.

The dizzying stairs are a descent into a world Sam seems to have left behind, with the audience viewing from below. Quickly, we’re introduced to ideas: the Poltergeist in Amherst, the Devil’s Gate in Clifton, “always missing and always fine.” Sam’s bitterness is thick: rather than telling him not to be afraid of the dark, “dad gave me a .45″, though Dean challenges what he should have done. They soon stand in a cage of sharply lit bars, arguing if this was what their mother would have wanted--to be raised like warriors.

Dean challenges if Sam would want a normal apple pie life; Sam slaps back: not normal, safe. “And that’s why you ran away.”--But John told him to stay gone. Regardless, Dean doesn’t want to do it alone. Sam asks what he was hunting, and why Dean wasn’t there; Dean was working a voodoo thing in New Orleans.

Dean reveals Jericho, California--10 men over to years on the same 5 mile stretch of road.

The “Ran it through A Goldwave” is a funny side comment but I’m not gonna get into why beyond LOL “through a goldwave”, that’s-- whatever. But we hear, in EVP, “I can never go home.”

The average viewer, at this point, isn’t going to be deeply instructing the story parallels--and in the scheme of it, Sam’s fear of going home barely scratches the meta surface. We do know John has been missing for three weeks. And find out Sam has a Monday deadline for his entry to lawschool, “whole future on a plate.” Jess worries over disappearing with his family, reminding of the deadline, but he promises to be back in time.

A sharp cut to JERICHO, CALIFORNIA. The driver shares similar concerns to Sam, “if I miss it, dad’s gonna have my ass,” he tells his girlfriend on the phone. A woman in white appears down the road as the car clock fries at 10:17, asking to be taken home. “Take me home?” “She lives at the end of breckenridge road.” “A girl like you shouldn’t really be alone out here.” She hikes her skirt. “I’m with you. Do you think I’m pretty? Will you come home with me?” hell yeah.

They arrive at a dillapidated home. “I can never go home.” No one even lives here. He steps out, turns around, and she’s gone. An eerie handprint appears on the window.

He decides to leave, clearly feeling the offsettling vibes, but isn’t alone. She steams with animosity in the backseat.

He looks into his mirror.

And wipes out.

After a violent death, we cut back to our boys and another exposition: credit card scams (jesus, could sam have yelled it any louder?), breakfast in a gas station bag, you gotta update your casette tape collection--why? because for one, they’re casette tapes. Black Sabbath, Motorhead, Metallica--it’s the greatest hits of mullet rock. “House rules Sammy, Driver picks the music, rider shuts his cakehole.” “Sammy is a chubby 12 year old.” “What, can’t hear you.”

ENTER, JERICHO

Internal impala shots galore will end up being a major vibe of our next few years. A spunky guitar theme plays that we will eventually come to know.  Dean pulls out a cigar box full of fake badges ranging from FBI to Bureau of Tobacco from the glove box, quickly showing us how deep this path goes for them already.

The cops review the mystery: no fingerprints, spotless; we find out that the victim was dating the cop’s daughter, who was posting missing flyers downtown. The boys introduce themselves as federal agents, are challenged for being too young, and Dean sasses his way through, “that’s very kind of you.” -- while gathering basic intel, we quickly find Dean’s tongue getting ahead of him, calling their lack of ability to find a connection beyond them all being male victims, calling it crack police work. The brothers’ dual personas exit the crime scene with a cuff upside the head from Sam to Dean, a bickering match, and Dean leaving a Mulder and Scully crack on the cops.

They quickly find Amy, the girlfriend, and lie to claim that were Troy’s relatives and had heard about her, and move to a diner to talk about events.

No major unusual things to warrant events; Sam compliments her necklace. She jokes that Troy got it for her to freak out her parents for “devil stuff”, but Sam quickly educates her on the pentagram meaning the opposite, a symbol of protection.

But there are weird rumors in town--people talk. In-sync, “what do they talk about”; a local legend. She tells them of a girl murdered on centennial where anyone who picks her up disapears forever. The brothers quickly move on to a library with a clunky monitor, fully dating us; not just the lack of good cell phones and wifi, but the equipment and the appearance of the search engine alone. Right, we’re watching this in 2005. 

The brothers slapfight again, but Sam shows that even away from the life he never lost his prowess. He asks, “Angry spirits are born out of violent death, right?” and searches for suicide. 1981, 24 years prior. “Our babies were gone and Constance couldn’t bear it.”

 So they go to see where Constance took the swan dive.

The brothers begin to fight.

SAM Dean, I told you, I've gotta get back by Monday—

DEAN turns around.

DEAN Monday. Right. The interview.

SAM Yeah.

DEAN Yeah, I forgot. You're really serious about this, aren't you? You think you're just going to become some lawyer? Marry your girl?

SAM Maybe. Why not?

DEAN Does Jessica know the truth about you? I mean, does she know about the things you've done?

SAM steps closer.

SAM No, and she's not ever going to know.

DEAN Well, that's healthy. You can pretend all you want, Sammy. But sooner or later you're going to have to face up to who you really are.

DEAN turns around and keeps walking. SAM follows.

SAM And who's that?

DEAN You're one of us.

SAM hurries to get in front of DEAN.

SAM No. I'm not like you. This is not going to be my life.

DEAN You have a responsibility to—

SAM To Dad? And his crusade? If it weren't for pictures I wouldn't even know what Mom looks like. And what difference would it make? Even if we do find the thing that killed her, Mom's gone. And she isn't coming back.

DEAN grabs SAM by the collar and shoves him up against the railing of the bridge. A long pause.

DEAN Don't talk about her like that.

They’re interrupted as Constance appears, diving off the cliff, and immediately taking control of the Impala.

“Dude, who’s driving your car?” Dean holds up his keys.

They flee, over the bridge, and share another movement. One more fake card later, they find themselves in John’s room, room 10, in a motel. Sam remarks that the place is covered in Salt, and Cat’s Eye Shells. The entire room is covered in case work and lore. 

I’ll break down the lore of these in a later mythos reblog, though the Asmodeus one really catches my eye for reasons outside of this episode.

Sam finds a photo-- a distinctly different family than the one on his college dresser. There, it’s John and Mary as an ideal image that framed Jessica. Here, it’s the life he walked away from. But while Dean heads out, he’s spotted by police, and their old coded dialect pops out, “Five Oh, take off.” Federal marshalls confront him: They’re looking for his partner (cue Wincest fans trying to make meta that’s about to be shot down one scene later, in the distance), fake US Marshalls, fake credit cards, is there anything about you that’s Real. My boobs.

Just putting a flag in the name Sheriff Pierce, we’ll figure out if that’s ever valid to anything later. But he tells Dean of the trouble he’s in with a room full of missing people and devil worship, for Dean to snap back he was 3 when they went missing. But they knew he had more than one partner. An older man. John’s journal is thrown out (Wincest meta dies a terrible death beyond previous scene)

Again, I’ll translate the FUTHARK in a follow up post, this is already taking a lot of time as it is.

Meanwhile, Sam is investigating the leads they and John both found. Previously spoken intents to burn her has him ask about her being buried at an old plot by Breckenridge at their old place.

SAM And why did you move?

JOSEPH I'm not gonna live in the house where my children died.

SAM stops walking. JOSEPH stops too.

SAM Mr. Welch, did you ever marry again?

JOSEPH No way. Constance, she was the love of my life. Prettiest woman I ever known.

SAM So you had a happy marriage?

JOSEPH hesitates.

Putting a flag in this for later.

But Sam decides to call the man out.

SAM A woman in white. Or sometimes weeping woman?

JOSEPH just looks.

SAM It's a ghost story. Well, it's more of a phenomenon, really.

SAM starts back toward JOSEPH.

SAM Um, they're spirits. They've been sighted for hundreds of years, dozens of places, in Hawaii, Mexico, lately in Arizona, Indiana. All these are different women.

SAM stops in front of JOSEPH.

SAM You understand. But all share the same story.

JOSEPH Boy, I don't care much for nonsense.

JOSEPH walks away. SAM follows.

SAM See, when they were alive, their husbands were unfaithful to them.

JOSEPH stops.

SAM And these women, basically suffering from temporary insanity, murdered their children.

JOSEPH turns around.

SAM Then once they realized what they had done, they took their own lives. So now their spirits are cursed, walking back roads, waterways. And if they find an unfaithful man, they kill him. And that man is never seen again.

JOSEPH You think...you think that has something to do with...Constance? You smartass!

SAM You tell me.

JOSEPH I mean, maybe...maybe I made some mistakes. But no matter what I did, Constance, she never would have killed her own children. Now, you get the hell out of here! And you don't come back!

Sam is flushed out, and makes a fake 911 call to break Dean out, pointing out that the husband had been unfaithful. More dramatic silhouette shots really capture the early spirit of the piece, with Dean using a phone booth in lieu of other options. Hell, Dean was able to find a phone booth, let that take you back. They determine that John left Jericho, and establish his ex-marine habits with the coordinates, 35-111 that Dean had lied through to the cop. But while on the phone, the woman in white appears in front of Sam on the road, non-crashing. 

She controls the car again, and forces him to drive to a broken home, repeating, “I can never go home.” Sam recognizes: “You’re scared to go home.” And that’s when the creepy ghost rapey vibes start, mounting him, demanding he hold her, she’s cold. “You can’t kill me, I’m not unfaithful.” He argues. You will be. Just hold me.

As she goes to rip out his heart, she flickers with the beat of his.

Dean breaks into the scene, unloading 12 shots into the ghost with iron bullets to disrupt her manifestation, giving Sam time to sit up and say, “I’m taking you home.”, where he drives through the house. Dean helps Sam out of the car, only to be telekinetically pinned by a dresser to be disabled.

The lights flicker again. Children manifest, water runs down the stairs, looking eerily like the light could be the Winchester’s old home

Here, she falls when reunited with her children. Sam clarifies--she could never go home, she was too afraid to face her kids (while not viable for the synchronic study, for my own sanity I’m going to note this season, Home will be all but mandatory to touch back here.) Dean says Sam found her weak spot.

They drive down the road with a blown headlight, Sam using an old map and ruler to locate the coordinates. But it’s realized Sam isn’t going with Dean to blackwater ridge, colorado 600 miles away. His interview was in ten hours. Dean declares, “I’ll take you home.”

There’s banter over meeting up later, and being a good team, but Sam goes inside and calls for Jess. “You home?” He finds a plate full of cookies with a note “missed you, love you” and relaxes in bed with the distant sound of a running shower.

And of course.

And so it began.

SYNCHRONIC STUDY: IN-EPISODE PARALLELS

In a first episode, there’s only so much to address. While we may question how much the Woman in White being in White may have been intentional with Jess and Mary, who wore pink (a diachronic full text body note later), in the initial review, it’s worth mentioning for the reasons in part 1 I’ve decided to air towards white in the final text product. Resultingly, the tie between Constance->Mary->Jess seems tangible. But it isn’t really so simple.

“Home.” Home is a huge keyword.

"I can never go home."  within the episode unto itself, Sam is struggling to well, get back home. And frankly, returning home is the key of it. (hears distant uppity Wincest stans) The difference here is, this isn't a direct parallel, of course, as much as a general ambient mood that will haunt is forward through the show, even if current viewers just watching episode 1 don't recognize it yet. Sam going home kills Jess, essentially; or at least witnesses her death. At the same time, Sam fears returning to the hunter life, or more doesn't think he can because John told him not to come back. But now that Jess is dead, well, Sam can never go home to the life he was building. He has no choice but TO go back to the other home--the hunter life. Even if he’s certain it’s not what Mary would have wanted for them.

DIACHRONIC STUDY: IN-SEASON PARALLELS, LOOKING FORWARD

There’s no way I’ll have them all in mind, these are just what are flagging me along the way.

1.09 Home As the “Home” rewatch is not that far away, I’m going to save this as a placeholder with general notes about “Mary apologizing to Sam,” even if frankly, she should have to Dean too. But even if, at the time, the exact details of the deal may or may not have been established or hashed out by the authors--we’re not picking at arguing if the authors intended it or not here. Here, Mary apologizes for her deal. Here, Mary apologizes--for drowning her children. For magnetizing this poltergeist to this place that she demands let her sons go, where she forces the spook to let go of Sam. She couldn’t really go home in the truest sense until that passed. (I’ll have deeper chain-link connections on this looking-forward once actually at the episode.

DIACHRONIC STUDY: IN-ERA PARALLELS, LOOKING FORWARD

They’re here, but not pinging me at 1 AM beyond vagueblogging about Lucifer showing up as Jess to haunt Sam and the inevitable time travel episodes about Mary, so placeholder for later updates.

DIACHRONIC STUDY: BEYOND-ERA PARALLELS, LOOKING FORWARD

Obviously compare to above-dropped screenshots.

11.04: Mistakes were made.

Listen, Dean’s grimace seat has been in discussion lately, don’t blame me for thinking of Joseph’s mistakes right after the season as Dean-mirror Pastor Joseph. Funny how Sam’s get shown and Dean’s don’t.

11.23/12.01: Mary’s return in the (white or pink, I’m rolling with white as-above) gown, and all extending details.

12.22: Mary's dreamspace.

12.23: Dean, Castiel's death, Sam removing Dean

15.01: Woman In White, We've got work to do

I feel like the Woman in White is the most interesting of these that hasn’t been as talked to death as, say, the 12.23 elements with the Destiel parallel. After all, the Woman in White largely focused on Sam. It was his fear of home. It was him being faithful to Jess (and being unfaithful can be more than sex, really; after all, he made a promise to come back.) But in season 15, it’s Dean that the ghost of the jilted lover approaches, shortly after Dean nearly killed Jack in his pain. Was Dean the weeping woman? Or was Castiel? Who held the animosity in the back seat?

Or is this a shared path? As Dean puts the Equalizer away under the Cigar Box, he has his own haunting issues in the mirror.

Those will be addressed more deeply when we get to that episode in like half a year. But for now, I’m just putting a pin in it. With a side scribble of “Cas got his Secrets/Mary, Sam got his serial killer and clowns and Dean got... the woman in white with Belphegor.”

15.02: Road Closed

15.03: If one insists Mary and Jess’ dress are pink, Rowena’s dress upon wedding and unbirthing to death (and queendom)

15.04: I still think about Jess (shortly before Eileen’s return.)

15.13: If one insists Mary and Jess’ dress are pink, atop the eventually-addressed meaning of lighting (death and transformation) vs the Empress symbolism (fertility, rebirth), Castiel in pink light.

15.15: If one insists Mary and Jess’ dress are pink. Amara’s trenchcoat.

15.20: Beyond the obvious quotes, and the (IMO failed) attempt at nostalgia, there’s honestly very little callback to the original episode. 

That’s it on first glance, I’m sure more will rattle out as we go forward. Well, mostly. Keys to the Legacy from Mint Condition is flagging me alongside control mechanisms like Castiel losing control of his vessel. But those are thoughts to put pins in for now and develop later.

COMBAT COUNTER:

DEAN VICTORIES: 1 (sam vs Dean)

MARKSMANSHIP COUNTER:

DEAN SHOTS: 12 shots, 12 hits.

(hits for any individual will be considered accurate even if targets teleport/flicker out as long as it should have hit the body)

The mythology pasted all around John’s Room is worth a second trip, but off the top of my head I see the Bell Witch and Asmodeus from the Lesser Key of Solomon (near the motel door).

I’ll reblog later to add commentary on that.

[beybladefanboy]

My Top 5 Least Favourite Beyblade Characters

I've talked about this in a few asks but I thought I'd go more into detail about the characters I hate most in this metal top show. Remember, I like more characters than I don't like and some of the characters I'm going to talk about are actually well-written characters objectively, they just annoy me personally. Starting with:

5) Masamune

Masamune is lowest on this list because I don't hate him. I personally find his personality annoying but he is a well written character. He gets good development over the course of Metal Masters and Metal Fury and his friendship with King is really cute. However, he is completely full of himself. The difference between him and someone like Kyoya or Ryuga is that at least in comparison, Kyoya and Ryuga don't actually talk themselves up that much. They let their actions speak for themselves for the most part. They are absolutely arrogant and do brag but not to the same degree as Masamune, who is far less skilled in comparison. He also doesn't know when to shut up and was a really shitty friend to Toby and Zeo. However, at least the show calls him out for what he did to Zeo and Toby and makes it part of the plot. Still completely selfish and horrible though.

4) Johannes

Cat-boy thingy is creepy and I don't like him. He makes me uncomfortable. I don't have a reason really I just don't like the way he is. I’m a cat person too but the way he literally acts like a cat, meowing and sitting like one, is just weird. He’s also just some annoying boring villain underling, like Jack or Reiji without the brainwashing and sympathetic backstory, which spared the two of them from this list by the way. I may not like either of them but they are interesting to talk about and I get why other people like them. Johannes meanwhile is just there to get in the way. He doesn’t do anything interesting he’s just weird and annoying to me. Tetsuya is the same way to me by the way and I could’ve put either him or Johannes on this list.

3) The Garcias

I'm lumping this entire family together because while I have separate small reasons for hating them individually, I hate all of them for the same big reason: I hate their attitude. They act like they're better than everyone else because they apparently "suffered more." First of all, suffering is subjective. Saying that one person has suffered more than another diminishes their suffering and is just arrogant. Yes, the Garcias live in poverty in a harsh neighborhood. They had a hard life and are trying to get out of it but that doesn't excuse them being obnoxious cheaters. I hate how they act like no one else has suffered more than them when LITERALLY EVERYONE ON GAN GAN GALAXY IS HORRIBLY TRAUMATIZED. Besides Masamune at this point but he didn't get out of season 2 unscathed. Meanwhile, the rest of them were at Battle Bladers. They all had to watch their friends get murdered by Ryuga or tortured by Reiji. Tsubasa was one of the people who had to battle Ryuga and came out of it infected with dark power, hurting himself and his friends. Meanwhile, Yu was manipulated and taken into the Dark Nebula and later kidnapped when he tried to leave. Don't even get me started on Gingka. I HATE hearing these know it all Garcias talk about how bad they've had it compared to the characters I've seen get traumatized for the past 70+ episodes at that point. It makes me not give a shit about their suffering because they're flaunting it and using it to excuse their frankly obnoxious and disgusting behaviour. Even Reiji, Jack, Damian, and Ryuga didn’t do that. Ryuga and Jack even admitted their mistakes later in the series with Ryuga especially taking actual steps to better himself. Meanwhile the Garcias stick to their bullshit philosophy to the end, even after it was proven wrong. They’re not any better in Fury either. They pretend to be fighting to manipulate Zeo and Toby to help them just to try and win a battle. It’s just frustrating to watch. Meanwhile, as individual characters, they still annoy the shit out of me. Enzo is an annoying brat that constantly repeats the same phrase over and over, which gets really annoying really fast, Selen's tactics make her battles against Masamune and Gingka frustrating to the point of boring, and Argo is an over the top borderline psycho, and not in a fun way. I don't have a specific reason to hate Ian but I don't really like him either so he gets lumped in with the rest of his siblings, since they all have similar attitudes. They also made Shogun Steel even more of a pain to watch.

2) Ryo Hagane

My reasons for this are mostly in Metal Fusion. He allows his teenage son to believe he's dead for reasons he claims are righteous, all while using this lie to justify hurting his son. Gingka's point counter being broken does drive him to take things seriously and push himself to fight harder to get into Battle Bladers. That is important to the plot and I won't deny that. But did it have to secretly be his dad who broke it? No. It could have been any random person, it could have been Tetsuya. Having his dad do it is an act of abuse, not to mention theft and property damage. I know no one gives a shit about the law in Beyblade but this is still messed up. I don't like the twist that Ryo lives but he does give Gingka semi-important information in the final episodes of Fusion and I might have been able to stomach this twist a little more if Ryo hadn't broke Gingka's point counter. That was a step way too far for me. I still wouldn't have liked Ryo though because allowing his teenage son to think he was dead is still messed up. He's also a terrible director. It frustrated me so much to see him force the Japanese and African teams to battle despite nearly all of them not being well enough to battle because they don't want to "show favouritism." How the fuck is it showing favouritism?! You shouldn't be making any teams fight when they're injured! It's not "showing favouritism" it's common decency. Gingka and Kyoya shouldn't have been allowed to battle when they were in such poor condition and Ryo was being both a bad director and a bad father by forcing them to battle. It seems like a small thing but it makes me hate Ryo even more than I already did. In short, Ryuga was right: "l always knew that your old man and his bey were second rate."

1) Rago

He killed Ryuga. That's it. What, you wanted an essay? Do I really need another reason? Well, he's also a one note villain without any traits to make him stand out among the other power-hungry villains of the series. He could have been replaced by a robot and his impact on the plot would have been the exact same. He's as boring and lifeless as a plank of wood. People say the new characters in Fury are boring. In this one case, I agree. This series has no excuse. Ryuga in season 1 was an excellent nuanced villain even though he and Rago's motivations were technically the same: power. Ryuga however had charm, he was scary, his greed for power began to physically control him by the end, giving us a hint of depth to a previously one note psycho. Doji was effective through his plans and presence in season 1, even Ziggurat had more to him than this "Rago" bitch. Ziggurat had an interesting plan and brainwashed children, Rago is just nothing. He does nothing interesting or memorable and the only reason I remember his name at all is because the one memorable thing he did was murder Ryuga. That alone wouldn't be enough to justify saying he's the worst character in the series but the fact that he's also a lazily written villain seals the deal for me.

Okay, there’s my list. Again, I like way more characters than I dislike and if you like any of these characters, that’s fine. I know for a fact Masamune, Johannes, and the Garcias have fans and while I don’t really understand why in the case of those last two, I can respect that opinion.

[dokidokivisual]

Gochiusa BLOOM episode 1 impressions

Ok, now that some time has passed let’s look at the long awaited first episode of the third season of Gochuumon wa usagi desu ka? aka Is the order a rabbit? in detail. I spent a lot of time on this, so any feedback would be appreciated.

The opening scene of the season is a sendback to opening scenes of the first two seasons. The episode starts as usual with a several establishing shots of the setting, which is based on various European towns, mostly in Alsace region. This shot in particular is based on Little Venice area in Colmar which I have visited a few years ago.

Then we see Aoyama Blue Mountain going through the town and ending up by the Rabbit House sign. Previously Cocoa and Chino were shown in a similar situation. However the road seems to have been repaved between season 2 and 3 (probably because a different studio is making the backgrounds now).

After the opening sequence ends, we see the title card and... no opening? Well, this is different. Anyway, the story starts and as was expected it’s based on the first chapter of volume 5. We see the staff of Rabbit House trying various measures to resist summer heat, and eventually deciding to create new, less stuffy uniforms.

On the way to the store Rize has to carry everybody and then fight through the crowds. Understandably even she has her limits. But then, a wild Sharo appears! I thought this scene had pretty cool animation.

Then the girls go to acquire fabrics for the vests, however they can’t find Cocoa’s signature pink color. Cocoa proposes this sequin fabric, which might be the sparkliest object I’ve seen in anime. It’s quite impressive how it was animated too. Unfortunately Chino hates it.

After that Chino’s concept for the summer uniform is revealed. What I find interesting here is that in manga this drawing was black and white, and the label “pink” was actually useful, but now it’s colored and the label is redundant.

Shortly after we get introduced to a new character? Which happens to be just a random background girl playing as Phantom Thief Lapin. An interesting bit of foreshadowing, but possibly confusing for those who only follow the anime?

The scene that follows features an amazing ad-lib (perhaps?) from Cocoa

なんとかなーる (somehow it will happen) どこかにあーる (somewhere it exists)

In the manga Cocoa only says the first line, but now it rhymes and allows the characters to think about where it might be. A sudden realization comes to Cocoa and she starts rummaging through Rabbit House’s storage room.

Here the story naturally links up with volume 5 chapter 9 (the brocante/flea market chapter), as Cocoa discovers various items that junk up the place. Anyway she finds up the exactly right fabric and we get a glimse at “nice body Cocoa” 10 years in the future, as though she will still be wearing the same outfit and working in Rabbit House for 10 years. By the way, the manga will reach 10 years of continous publication in May 2021, so at least from our point of view she has been working there for almost 10 years.

After a brief intermission with Takahiro and Tippy (I actually laughed at the bake-usagi joke) we move on to the B part. At the flea market (with 100% female attendance for some reason), Cocoa, Chino and Rize set up a stall. Sharo is also there, and her obsession with ceramics is recalled, while Chiya helps her carry the purchases. This scene is expanded compared to the yonkoma version with Chiya displaying some gray (green?) morality by blaming Sharo for caring more about the cup than Chiya. The original joke in the manga was that Sharo desperately jumps for the cup despite saying how she can’t be unladylike in the presence of fine china just before that.

Next scene is a bit of a cultural reference to “tataki-uri” sale. Here’s a video of a guy selling bananas in this style with a help of harisen in Osaka. Harisen is an important prop in Manzai-style comedy, where “straight man” of a duo (tsukkomi) often slaps “funny man” (boke) with it. Seeing as Sharo is usually in tsukkomi role, her lack of “my harisen” is surprising to Chiya.

One of the most impactful scenes of the episode is when Chino meets a lost child and makes her stop crying using her old rabbit toy. This is another scene that got expanded compared to the manga, showing how Chino overcomes her shyness and how compassionate she can be. The fact that she gives away the toy for free is also original, the mother actually bought it in the manga.

Next there’s a scene about Chiya trying on a shirt she bought from Rize. This scene is interesting because the anime adaptation cuts some dialogue from the manga where it was revealed that the clothes Sharo wears are actually hand-me-downs from Chiya. As a result Cocoa tries to give hand-me-downs to Chino, and then when she asks for Chino’s clothes to wear, Chino’s reply that “it would be just an exchange” actually makes sense. Is it just me, or the same reply doesn’t make sense when all hand-me-downs dialogue is cut out?

Now we move on to the final(?) scene where Cocoa reveals that she bought the magic set herself. Cocoa even tells us the moral of the story about how things have their own history. Cut to the scene where she demonstrates her magic skills for the first time. Even those who didn’t read the manga probably expected her to fail at this point, and she does indeed fail the cane trick. But then... something magical happens.

We see Chino (still wearing Cocoa’s hand-me downs) staring enthralled as Cocoa prepares her next trick, with other girls chatting in the background. We now see Chino’s point of view. Everything but Cocoa disappears, she’s now in a magical BLOOM dimension where it’s only two of them. Flowers spring from Cocoa’s magic hat, petals flutter in the air and the camera zooms on Chino, who is absolutely amazed by it all.

And then it transitions onto the opening sequence! Wow, I did not expect that. Mostly because the flowers trick failed in the manga. But also such a strong allusion to Cocoa kind of being like a mother figure for Chino. In this moment Cocoa is Saki (=BLOOM). I mean, you can interpret it differently, I don’t know.

But this is not all. After the opening there’s a C part, which is really a continuation of the A part. Such “sandwich” composition has been employed before in season 2 episodes 1 and 12 for example. Cocoa shows off her summer uniform which is pretty similar to the original uniform to the point where I’ve seen people saying stuff like “hope they’ll show the summer uniforms in the next episode”. This is it, this is the summer uniform:

This is also a callback to when Cocoa wears the uniform for the first time in season 1 episode 1, with Rize and Chino’s responses being the same. This is lampshaded in the episode itself though.

Since the opening theme serves as the ending theme for this episode, the actual ending theme (Nakayoshi! Maru! Nakayoshi! by Chimame-tai)  will likely be shown in the next episode. Not to break from the tradition, the next episode “preview” is a scene with Takahiro and Tippy, who deploy some amusing meta-commentary this time around. The next episode seems like it might have Phantom Thief Lapin in it, based on the title, so I better get my Lapin figure ready.

So that was the event-packed first episode of Gochiusa BLOOM. I think it might be one of the best episodes in the series so far, and the key drawings by the new studio are so beautiful, I couldn’t stop screenshotting it on my first watch. What did you think of the episode? It’s kinda hard to find any decent Gochiusa discussion out there... Please look forward to the next episode and my review of it!

[theongreyjoy]

well,,,,,, thoughts we are waiting

Oh yeah, the ending slapped.

1- After defeating the devil and god themselves, dean dies unceremoniously on a random hunt which is....realistic. honest. the last episode was basically an epilogue telling us the life isn’t sustainable. Heroes can die in a blaze of glory and thats fine, but a whimper is closer to the truth. 

Dean’s death was also beautiful because it showed us his eternal after right away. He didn’t DIE, he was relocated to a place where he could actually be at peace and be rewarded for his years of sacrifice.

2- Of course, I wasn’t super keen on Sam living a full life, but it was played out beautifully and in the end, the fact that Dan only had to wait moments for him was chef’s kiss. I liked that we got to see his ups and downs. I liked the comfort he had knowing he had a god he could believe in to take care of Dean. 

3- I liked the focus on the brothers. I mean, my heart still wanted Bela and Meg to show up last minute, but if we are talking about the great and powerful legacy of the show, we are talking about 1-5. Nobody is going to cite the leviathan season or the Lucifer baby daddy season as their strongest in the series. The finale went back to the series roots. A small hunt. A small window. The episodes BEFORE that wrapped up the other characters arcs (imperfectly, might I add) and the final episode takes us back to the world Kripke created so lovingly, with Sam, Dean, and sometimes, Bobby. 

4- In the end, all of the characters for the most part, were happy and in heaven. I just don’t feel like this is debatable. Heaven is living, it’s the ultimate life, and every single main or primary side character got that. The fanfiction itself is tremendous. Its the domestic bliss the characters deserved, though of course I myself would have gone for more of a downer ending. 

I’ll say it’s not the ending I would have written because I would have gone more depressing, but I was very happy!

This ending really should have pleased everyone. Each character ended up finding home one way or another. Wanting Misha Collins to show up last minute and not getting it doesn’t break the episode. Shame some folks can’t be objective about that.

[peterstanslizzie]

Reacting To: The Hollow (Season 2 Episode 6)

Episode Title: Dead End

Spoiler Warning: Kindly proceed if you’ve watched the episode already or don’t care about spoilers.

1. The episode begins on a somber note; Adam, Mira, Kai PLUS Reeve and Vanessa are standing next to Skeet’s burial. They’re obviously distressed by the sudden passing of their friend. Regardless of what we’ve just seen, I still think that the show is going to find a way to bring him back. 

2. As they make their way to the Jazz Club, Reeve tells Vanessa he still doesn’t trust the trio and the same goes for Adam. Reeve also believes that they’re still playing the game. 

3. Kai notices Adam wearing the skull key he had stolen from Jules’s chateau in episode 5 and points it out for everyone to hear, including Reeve and Vanessa. Reeve is suspicious of Adam collecting random objects without keeping them in the loop. Umm, they just got together as a group; Why would he think that Adam is withholding information from him especially after everything they’ve been through last episode? Reeve is always so hot-tempered; It’s really annoying. 

4. Adam and Kai get to arguing with each other and thank goodness for Mira because she pulls them by their ear, which causes them to stop. She must have done that plenty of times when the three of them were a team back in the day. But they go back to bickering when they couldn’t decide on a path to take. This time, Kai is the one to stop them. We also find out some tidbits about Kai’s parents; Apparently they don’t seem to have a good relationship with one another. I wonder if they’re separated or divorced...

5. Reeve asks Vanessa (who seems out of it) to fly out to scout for locations but there’s no need for that because Mira discovers a random underground metro station behind the bushes. As they descend, Kai reminds Vanessa that he’s still mad at her for manipulating him last season. 

6. I’m glad Mira is around to keep the peace between Adam and Reeve. Their constant arguing is getting old real fast. They board a train and it immediately starts moving. But they’re not the only ones on this train because there is also a group of ghosts seated on the train as well and just like Jules, they’re French too lol. PS, I didn’t catch the ‘ghosted’ pun Kai made at first when he was talking to one of the ghosts. 

7. They look at the map of the metro and are unsure if the train will take them to the jazz club. Vanessa points to a headline of a newspaper one of the ghosts is reading that mentions about a train that had crashed at the end of a train line. By the way, can Mira read French? There are also photos of the victims and it turns out that the ghosts of the victims are in the same carriage as them. Creepy!

8. They then realize that these ghosts are there to relive the crash again, which means that the very train that they’re on will crash too. They run over to the driver (also a ghost) and pleads for him to stop the train but he isn’t able to do anything; I guess it’s because he’s a ghost lol.

9. Yet again, Adam and Reeve are arguing about which buttons to press to stop the train. Kai, who is extra sensitive to listening to people argue because of his parents’ history isn’t coping well during this time. Poor Kai! He must have been so traumatized. Adam, go get yo’ man, even if y’all are about to die. 

10. Vanessa tells Kai to fix the predicament they’re in but Kai is still hurt by the bad stuff she’s done to him. I’m glad Kai is calling her out and not sweeping those things under the rug. What she did was absolutely terrible. Anyways. with his powers of ‘engineering’ (I guess), he asks Adam to pull the lever to set off the braking system but Reeve starts to butt in. OMG REEVE! Kai asked Adam! UGHHHH! It’s not a competition. They accidentally break the lever and I am so mad. Mira does the best thing in the episode so far and that is locking them out of the train conductor’s room. Thank you Mira!

11. Kai breaks open the control panel, exposing the wires underneath but he’s not sure which ones to disconnect. Luckily, Vanessa realizes that the metro map isn’t a location map, it’s actually a map of the circuitry. With the basic knowledge of French she has, she tells Kai to disconnect the blue and green wire and the train manages to stop just before it could crash.

12. The doors open and the ghosts are free to leave the train at Montmartre station. But they’re ghosts?! They should be able to phase through objects, no?

13. I’m loving Mira in this episode! She is not taking any of Reeve or Adam’s BS! I agree, their constant fighting is so dumb and it’s not accomplishing anything. To be honest, the main problem here lies with Reeve. He is so stubborn but I  wonder what really happened that caused him to leave Adam and Mira in the first place.

14. They exit the station and immediately, they see the jazz club just opposite of them. The door opens and from the looks of it, another team is leaving the club. They explain to our protagonists that they don’t have their memories and they have their own set of powers. These people are probably in the same positions Adam. Kai, Mira and Vanessa, Reeve, Skeet were last season. 

15. However, the long hair girl (we find out later that her name is Nisha) quickly assumes that our main characters are the bad guys and she threatens to attack. Reeve, who is the most annoying person on this show so far makes the first move on the only guy on their team, Tyler. But he’s not down for the count because he strikes Reeve with a lightning bolt. So, we get this episode’s first fight scene.

16. Nisha also has fire powers like Kai and she proceeds to attack Kai and we get a fire on fire battle between the two. We also find out here that players can’t have the same powers within ‘The Hollow’, which is definitely not the case at this moment. Interesting! I didn’t know that. Hence, the digital world that they’re in now is very different to what the game was last season. 

17. The shaved-head girl, whose name is Iris I believe (from me checking the end credits) has the power to grow bigger. She tries to attack Mira but Reeve uses his telekinetic powers to stop her. Oh and on top of Tyler having lightning powers, he has the ability to summon hail too. So, he has weather powers a la Storm from the X-men, I’m assuming. He distracts Reeve with the hail, allowing Iris to break free from Reeve’s grip. 

18. She then confronts Adam and wants to fight him but Adam, with his chivalry, doesn’t believe in hitting girls. Well, Adam is gonna have to face the consequences because she grows into a giant and picks Adam up and she snatches the skull key from him. He really should’ve left that thing in his pocket. We see that this opposing team has stolen a gun-like weapon from Jules’s chateau and thinks that the key will activate the weapon. But Iris is shrinking and they decide to make their escape instead. 

19. Okay, so it seems to me that Vanessa had something to do with the game restarting and all of them being back in ‘The Hollow’ once again. With tears filling her eyes, she tries to tell them but the rest of the group were too busy focusing on getting to the club. Ughh, I want to know what she did! Maybe her eventual revelation will explain the glitch she had in her eye at the end of Season 1 after the game was over. And no wonder she acted weirdly when Reeve mentions about the glitch to her earlier in this episode. So, is Vanessa a glitch herself? Hmm....

20.  ‘Death’ is back! And he’s working as a bartender/mixologist behind the counter lol. However, Death doesn’t recognize them, just like how Akuma didn’t seem to remember them in episode 4 either . I guess resetting the game had something to do with it. They ask him about Weirdy and he tells them that Weirdy is going to be performing later tonight.

21. Benjamini, the short-stature bodybuilder-like Italian man from the carnival last season is also working at the club. The five of them sit around a table, waiting for the show to start and Vanessa tries to confess to them something about the weapon the other team has but she gets interrupted again! It would be best if these people actually listen to her! So, is her secret about the weapon and not about the glitch? Or is it both? I’m confused. After interrupting her, the others talk about the other team they just fought and what would happen to them if they were to win the game. 

22. Anyways, the show starts and Plague (from the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse) is on stage and he introduces Weirdy to everyone. Our heroes try to go over to him but they are blocked by Benjamin, Benjamini’s partner/brother?, also from season 1. Weirdy proceeds to play the piano and he starts to sing the song, ‘Creep’ by Radiohead. How appropriate, given his name. I’m actually digging this cover. It starts out similar to the actual song and then it turns a corner and we get a Jazz rendition of it. It’s pretty cool!

23. They do their best to capture Weirdy’s attention but the Benjamins are making sure his act doesn’t get interrupted. Reeve uses his powers to disable them and they manage to get to the front. Weirdy is really into his own performance but eventually, he notices the group and is really surprised to see them. He actually flat out tells them they don’t belong here and he thinks that they’re coding errors, despite telling their truth to him. He ends his song with a snap of his fingers, which opens a portal under them and they fall into it. 

24. They all teleport to the tip of a mountain, where the only thing supporting them is a weird looking platform. What’s with ‘The Hollow’ and it’s love of high altitudes? LOL. Anyways, they are all balancing the platform at different points and if anybody were to make even just a slight step, it would cause the entire platform to tip over. Why can’t Reeve use his powers to levitate everyone? Adam reminds everyone not to move, which is sound advice but guess who doesn’t like being told what to do? F*ckin’ Reeve. LIKE WILL HE EVER SHUT UP?!

25. For the 4th or 5th time this episode, these two argue on the platform. Kai calls out for Mira to stop them. And ironically, she’s in the centre of all of this...lol. I feel for Mira in the picture above; She’s either going to yell at them again or break down crying from all of the stress of them two arguing. And the episode stops here. Well, this was certainly an episode filled with argument after argument, wasn’t it? It annoyed me to no end. Check back with me tomorrow for when I upload my review of episode 7. Till then, have a great day everyone! Bye!

[notmyrick]

Okay this is a theory not theory or a "hear me out" type of thing. This actually isnt a theory, just a cool what if. Something to be scrapped.

But if you're with me this far let's begin overanalyzing shit!!!!!!!

Argument: The entire show is evil Morty

*mic drops ready for the tomatoes to be thrown*

But guys let's take a step outside of Rick and morty for a second.

You want to talk about rick and morty without talking about rick and morty?

Yes! Second voice I'm using purely for a narrative aspect!

Remember some time ago that Rick and Morty was suppose to be or at least considered to be a procedural type show?

Procedural shows are shows like the Simpsons, Family Guy, American Dad, Tom and Jerry, Futurama, Phineas and Ferb, etc.

Typically a show that has a very obvious formula with characters that typically never change, don't age, and rarely grow. Typically you could tell a show is procedural of you can watch any random episode from any season and understand what's going on (given it is not the final episode of a completed series).

Objectively if you look at Rick and Morty, you can say it it still holds true to its procedural structure. I could start on any episode season 1-4p1 and understand the dynamics of the Smith family.

Okay now just keep in mind that procedural shows last longer than serialized shows.

You can give me shit, but who the fuck is still a fan of Degrassi. And I know that there are some hardcore fans of GoT or Twilight, but I havent seen anymore hype or recent buzz about either of them since it ended (or near ending I dont keep up with stuff). Yet i could go to a person and ask if they watched Friends and some third party will scream to us "PIVOT!" or "They were on a break".

But I'm getting a bit off topic. The thing is Rick and Morty are now going semi serialized, but (hopefully) still keeping it procedural.

The fact is you can start anywhere in the series given the few special episodes. Episodes that are a direct continuation like the ending of season 2 to the premiere of season 3. Those episodes MUST be played together. Ending season 1 to premiere of season 2 is kinda iffy bc they basically summarized/hinted what happened at the end of season 1 with a few sentences.

If you go to most procedural type shows, they tend to have a serialized component which to be honest can be summarized by certain episodes. The serialized component can be either, what I call a "time stamp" or a character change. For time stamp it's mostly used a certain time period the characters response (i.e. the relationship of Rachel and Ross). The other characters tend to reference their relationship in certain episodes.

Or the character change, can be also known as character development, can be the serialized component in which a drastic epiphany happens to the character that changes the relationships with the characters or changes to their environment.

With this as a foundation, let's talk evil morty.

We know that their are infinite versions of Mortys out there. One of them is evil Morty, but it has been shown, by not being shown, how or why this morty became evil. There are many theories out there, most of which I like, but they are just wild speculation. I am going to twist up my own version of it now lol.

What if we've been watching a possibility of a Morty becoming evil. With Rick and Morty being a Procedural type show, the episodes aired does not have to be "in order" with the exceptions of of the special episodes.

Rick, in Rick and Morty, rather not Fuck with time travel, but doesnt mean the audience won't.

Think of it like an archeological excavation. We keep uprooting or discovering more about ancient civilizations or what our past ancestors did, but we don't find them in order. One min. We are discovering something about King Tut, the next we discover something about the the first homosapien.

With this, besides the special episodes, nothing was in order.

This theory is making a huge assumption that we've been watching the same Rick and Morty pair throughout the seasons. Meaning we've been watching Rick C137 and this Morty. This could explain why we dont see alternate versions of our favorite side characters. Why we dont see alternate versions of BirdPerson, Squanchy, Crombobulus Michael, hell another version of Tammy. If we've been watching (at least) the same Rick this entire time, then besides the special episodes, we've been jumping to moments of Rick's life. Like with the recent episode of Never Ricking Morty, Morty was able to buy the toy train because this took place before Rick destroyed the Citadel, but after the introduction of the evil Morty.

With what I've stated previously, hear me out, we've been watching the evolution of evil morty, or at least another version of him. ALTHOUGH only granted that evil Morty is one, if not the biggest climax to Rick and Morty. Remember how procedural shows may have some serialization in their shows. This also means they are not confined to one story arc. Which means evil morty is one of many sotry arcs to be discovered. This "theory" only works if Evil morty is one of the bigger climaxes to the show.

Recall previous procedural shows:

Futurama has 140 episodes

Phineas and Ferb have 189 episodes

I primarily used these tv shows because I am biased and watched them.

I would argue both had procedural and serialized components

With Futurama they had a few story arcs in their show, the one I remember and personally favor is the Leela-Fry relationship.

Similar to Phineas and Ferb, they also had had a few story arcs, with again being bias my favorite being the Phineas and Isabella relationship.

Note: can you see I like relationship arcs

If Evil morty is the one of the biggest story arcs of the franchise they would need to make sure that the ending for evil morty was satisfyingly tied up in a bow similar to the phineas and ferb final episode. If Evil Morty was the Final climax/arc of the franchise, I would say the ending needs to loop back around to make it "open ended" to keep it procedural similar to Futurama for replayability.

Rick and morty was renewed 70 more episodes somewhere after the end of season 3 making the current total of Rick and Morty episodes to barely pass over the 100 episode threshold. Which is the benchmark for networks for a shows profitability or syndication(profit and syndication are completely different dont get that confused).

So with my, hear me out theory, Rick and Morty has a lot of time to explore the evil morty story arc and/ or make better arcs for the future. Expecting it to be explored now in SeASoN 4 feels a bit too soon. If they keep a 10 episode per season schedule we can expect 6 more seasons of Rick and Morty to explore it. If they decide a 12 episodes per season then at least 5 more seasons.