#but also i really did like the union stuff this episode

[whartonists]

I really like what they did with the union plotline this episode--I thought that the stakes of it were taken seriously and that they leaned into the drama in a way that was really compelling. George's visit to the Hendersons' home was a wonderful bit of role reversal, and visually I thought they did that scene excellently--I could write a whole post on the Henderson house set, but I thought it was really well-done, stark (especially compared to the interiors we're used to on this show) but dignified.

But I think my fundamental problem with the handling of this plotline gets back to my complaint about the George-Henderson scene in 2.03, that the writing never allowed Henderson to rebut George's arguments even when they were obviously not only in bad faith but built upon entirely false premises. Here, George's change of heart is just that--a charge of heart, without changing his mind, which casts Henderson and the other (nameless) mill workers as figures of pathos rather than intellect.

They exist within their circumstances to stir George's conscience rather than to pose an alternate philosophy--in part because, of course, if George truly changed his mind a large part of the show's practical foundation would crumble. But by positioning them this way, the show cedes no ground to their perspective, but instead particularizes them within their pathetic (literally and in the 19th century sense, a source of pathos) circumstances, which serves to both a) prevent any intellectual or symbolic reach beyond those circumstances and b) sentimentalize George's decision in a way that keeps him and the show from having to incorporate any of Henderson's arguments--which he was never allowed to make--into his/its worldview.

[burningcheese-merchant]

Psst, hear me out: The Beast being fucking yanderes with the ancients.

You Get It™️ I mean... Did you guys see episode 6? Burning Simp Cookie is already a yandere lol. He's been there and he refuses to leave. And Shadow Milk is honestly not that far behind, he feels some type of way towards Pure Vanilla and it would be cute if it wasn't so sad and creepy lol

Really though, I just love hero/villain ships in general (always have, since long before Cookie Run ever existed) and I get a kick out of villains acting stupid over crushes (read: obsessions), and acting stupid in general. There's just something about a villain being in love with the hero to a psychotic, comical degree, and the hero rebuffing them at every turn that's just really amusing to me lol. Like what Joker sort of has with Batman, you know?

Here are my Yandere Beasts in bare-bones terms:

Burning Spice: come on, if you've read my stuff, you know EXACTLY what Yandere Spice is like lol. If not, I'll refer you to this and this, as well as my fics on AO3. If those don't tell you what Yandere Spice is like then idk how else to help you lol

Shadow Milk: if the final boss of theater/drama kids had a crush but was also a malignant narcissist of some sort lol. Absolutely DESPERATE for Vanilla's attention at all times. If he's not actively trying to worm into Vanilla's brain and harass him in his thoughts and dreams, he's in the real world brainstorming better ways to do that lol. He does not grasp why the creepy puppet shows and gaslighting attempts aren't convincing Vanilla to fall in love with him. Will attack and torment and insult Vani in one breath and then praise and love and worship him in another, because he's a histrionic clown freak with whirlwind emotions. But above all else, he literally thinks he owns Vani and is meticulously plotting the horrible and hilarious demise of any and all he perceives as a threat to their union

Eternal Sugar: World's Laziest Stalker™️. Almost exclusively haunts Holly in her dreams (I have to assume that that's what her power will entail, as the Beast of Sloth); however, she's more "effective" in her wooing attempts due to her past experience as the Herald of Happiness. She actually goes out of her way to construct dreams and the like that have things in them that make Holly happy (or what she thinks makes Holly happy; she, as well as the others, has big tunnel vision and is very selfish and self-absorbed, and thus pays more lip service to her own wants than those of who she loves/obsesses over). Thankfully doesn't run into Holly in person often because that's work... but sometimes she DOES work up the nerve to go after her for real, and... well

Mystic Flour: Denial, denial, denial. Not just a river in Egypt the Golden Cheese Kingdom, but she'll say and act like otherwise. No, she does not like Dark Cacao. He robbed her of her volition and the chance to enact her will. He prevented her from freeing the world from pain and suffering. He is a stubborn fool who refuses to understand the truth. He... is very handsome. She does not like how handsome he is. It is distracting. She doesn't like dwelling on her memories of him and their encounters. She doesn't like how she came to harbor a single kernel of respect in her heart after he stood his ground against her; a kernel that she inadvertently nurtured and cultivated slowly but surely, until... no. No, she doesn't like Dark Cacao. She doesn't think about him all day. She doesn't want to try to lure him back to her land so she can trap him in the flour fog with her again. She doesn't miss feeling his dark eyes on her. She doesn't deeply resent his attachment to his people, and seek to transfer that attachment to her instead. No, she... damn it, he's ruined her. He's made her feel things again. He's made her succumb to selfishness and greed, to earthly desire and attachment - desire for HIM, attachment to HIM. All of her hard work and enlightenment gone to waste... She doesn't want to like Dark Cacao, she recognizes the folly in such a thing, but she's stuck - and so stuck is she that not only does she not really see a way out, she doesn't WANT one. She's become too content with her attachment to him too quickly. Now she has to agonize over her own foolishness, and try to keep denying that she doesn't care while also longing for his attention and wanting to do away with all that steals his attention away from her

Silent Salt: probably the least awful of the five, but he's still creepy and that's not a high bar to clear anyway lol. Has a better grasp on "normal" behavior than the others (like... he pays attention to what White Lily likes/wants and tries to adjust accordingly), but he's following her around everywhere and acting extremely violent and territorial over her towards anyone who he catches approaching her. He's legitimately, surprisingly sweet and gentle towards her; he brings her flowers, he listens to her when she asks/tells him something, he's more or less respectful of her personal space (he will try to be as physically close to her as possible, but actually backs off a little if she asks him to, only to try again, and so on and so forth)... but he's still a villain, he's still violent and creepy, he still gets angry when she pays attention to other people for too long and he has brought actual harm to others out of jealousy. He's the best of the worst but that really doesn't mean much of anything, he's still a psycho creep like the others

In short, they form a tight-knit coalition of absolutely fucking deranged freakazoids and they should all probably die :)

[ladyluscinia]

What Exactly Did David Jenkins Say?

Look, I'm still staunchly of the opinion that Word of God statements and creator interviews are overvalued in fandom, especially when they get pulled out mostly as gotchas without then continuing to analyze whether or not the show canon is successful at getting across that same message. Death of the Author is good, actually, and we should remember that. But they are worth looking at in the context of evaluating intent vs execution, and for future speculation - just, like, please with less of the whole mile high pedestal idolizing and backlash cycles.

But if overvalued "Word of God" is annoying, then overvalued "supposed creator statements that have gone through three rounds of telephone and any given blogger has only heard about a quarter of them, which they'll use confidently anyway" is worse. So, since I'd already looked up interviews for various reasons...

Here is a fairly comprehensive list of interviews David Jenkins has given and statements he's made during them, presented without commentary (save curating which statements get highlighted). All provided with links. I definitely missed some, so if you have any that you want to add, please do - though if you could trim off any commentary and save it for tags / your own post with a link that would be cool.

Also, again, just because he said it doesn't make it incontrovertible canon that only a blind person wouldn't understand. Some of these even arguably contradict each other. The creator's intent doesn't always translate to what the show is doing, nor do you even have to think it was a good idea.

(Listed in chronological order from oldest to newest - post contains spoilers below the cut)

Pre-S1

Gizmodo - Feb 22, 2022 - with Cheryl Eddy (io9) - Link

Why this story - Really, it was the enigma of Stede that drew him in. "I think actual pirate stuff is fine, but it's not necessarily my cup of tea. And I think Taika [Waititi] felt similarly. But hearing about this guy and reading about him and seeing that, you know, he left his family, then he met Blackbeard, they hit it off, and we don't know any of the details in between. So filling those blanks in, and having a very human story, and then being able to do it with the pirate genre, that was like, 'Oh, this would be cool.'"

Post 1x01 - 1x03

Polygon - March 5, 2022 - with Tasha Robinson - Link

David Jenkins, Taika Waititi, and Rhys Darby interview

About Stede running off to sea - "Stede thought he could outrun his baggage, and you can't outrun your baggage."

About S1 - "I don't think there was enough improv on set! We had an insane schedule, with a huge amount of plot. We were budgeted and designed as a one-hour show, but with a half-hour production schedule, which means we really had to chase these episodes to get them shot. And then there are certain emotional beats that we really needed. So trying to find places to find the fun was hard."

Mashable - Mar 5, 2022 - with Belen Edwards - Link

About the show concept - "It was Jenkins' wife who first told him about Stede's adventures; she thought it would make a good TV show."

On casting Rhys Darby - "Stede did a terrible thing to his family. If you cast it wrong, he's a very hard character to get behind," Jenkins said. "Very quickly, the only person I thought of for this was Rhys [Darby]. He has this childlike quality that's endearing."

About the story - "Seeing them discover a need for each other that neither anticipated and charting how that relationship goes is the meat of the story." + "If you're on this ship, you're running from something, and you're running to something that you can't be on land"

Mentions of matelotage - "In fact, one of Jenkins's favorite pirate facts that he learned while working on Our Flag Means Death was the term matelotage, which was a civil union between same-sex pirates. "The more you look at it," he explained, "the more you write to the fact that this is a queer-positive world.""

Discussing piracy careers - "Something else that astounded Jenkins about pirates was "just how fast it all moved — their lives were quite short," he said. "Your career [in piracy] wasn't very long.""

Post 1x09 - 1x10

Decider - Mar 24, 2022 - with Kayla Cobb - Link

David Jenkins, Taika Waititi, and Rhys Darby interview

Pitch for the show - "That was in the pitch," series creator David Jenkins told Decider. "That was the reason, to make them fall in love with each other."

About the romance - "The main thing to me was to side-step coming out," Jenkins continued. "I just want a romance. I want a Titanic romance between these two people. We don't have to do the coming out story and then the non-binary story for Jim [Vico Ortiz]."

About S2 and the show - "The show is the relationship," Jenkins said. "So, we end in a place where there is this breakup. What happens after a breakup between these two people who, one’s realized he's in love and the other one is hurt in a way that he's never been hurt before? What does that do to each of them in an action, pirate world with them trying to find each other again? So again, I really love those rom-com beats."

Collider - Mar 24, 2022 - with Carly Lane - Link

On making it a romcom - "It's the only reason to make the show. If you didn't do that, it would just be weird. I mean, you're using the rom-com beats. You're using these like they're together. And it's funny because so we're so habituated to be like bromance, bromance, bromance, and it's such a simple move to put them together."

Discusses focusing on romance - "I guess I really... I get kind of bored. How much pirate can you do? They're going to rob stuff. They're going to steal ships. There's only so many pirate stories you can do. So if you're going to do a workplace story, I mean, you're essentially having this... You'd have this same amount of relationships in Grey's Anatomy in the ER. So it's standard. It's the most standard. We're making a soap opera on a pirate ship, and to use those soap opera beats... I like it, and I like the flavor in a comedy when you have something that's played genuinely up against very ridiculous things."

Discusses history and kissing scene

Discusses importance of going home to Mary - "Yeah, that was the problem for me in the story. I knew that I wanted to have the end where he goes home, because you need to give Mary her day in court. I just wanted to know from Mary's perspective what happened and then to see that, yeah, they're friends."

Is Lucius dead? - "You got to wait."

EW.com - Mar 25, 2022 - with Devan Coggan - Link

David Jenkins, Taika Waititi, and Rhys Darby interview

Pitch for the show - "To me, [Stede and Blackbeard's relationship] is the reason to make the show," Jenkins explains. "When Taika and I were first talking about it, he was like, 'Oh yeah, that's the show.' I first started reading about Stede and how he befriended Blackbeard and we don't know why. Very quickly, it was like, 'Oh, it's a romance.'"

Polygon - Mar 25, 2022 - with Tasha Robinson - Link

Discusses 3-season intent - "I think three seasons is good. I think we could do it in three."

Discusses acts within S1 - "To me, when you see him get stabbed, and the blood runs through his fingers, it’s like 'Oh, no, the clown got stabbed! And not comedy-stabbed, he got stabbed stabbed!' That to me is cool. And then having Blackbeard find him as the end of what would be the first act of our story felt good to me."

Discusses kiss scene filming and the national moment around gay rights

What to focus on a rewatch - "I think Con O'Neill does such a great job. He's such a complex character, and it's such a tortured relationship. And that's a love story too, between him and Blackbeard. It's a very dysfunctional story, but it's fun to watch. Watch that maybe, on a rewatch, looking where their relationship ultimately goes."

TV Insider - Mar 25, 2022 - with Meaghan Darwish - Link

Discusses show pitch - "When I was pitching [the show] to people, I'd be like, 'Okay, so it's about Stede and Blackbeard, and then they hit it off and then they fall in love.' And then people are like, 'Okay, cool,' Jenkins shares. "And then they really fall in love, and become intimately involved."

Discusses historical inspiration

Discusses S2 direction - "But when [Stede] goes to find [Blackbeard], he's gone and his crew's been abandoned. And so watching them try to negotiate that, that's a good rom-com beat," he adds.

The Verge - Apr 15, 2022 - with Charles Pulliam-Moore - Link

Discusses being surprised by queerbaiting legacy - "...part of me knew that, yes, Stede and Ed's romance was going to be real. But one part of me felt like, 'We're going to do this story, and they're going to kiss, and maybe that's not even going to be that big a deal. Maybe it'll just be a blip.'"

Discusses writing romance - "I'd never written a romance before this one, but I think with Ed and Stede, the question's always 'what's the need for each other?'"

Discusses falling in love and Stede's accidental seduction - "It made sense to have that love be almost like a teenage version of falling in love — one with all these intense and conflicting feelings. They're middle-aged, but Stede's young. Ed's young. Emotionally, they're like 16, and they've both got a lot to learn."

Discusses Con O'Neill as Izzy - "He plays an exhausted quality that's really lovely because this character could just be generically evil, and the way Con plays, it is like, he's credible. I believe that he can do some damage if he wanted to. My favorite thing I've seen about the show is somebody saying that Con's playing the only human with a bunch of Muppets. It does feel like that a bit where he's like Charles Grodin in The Great Muppet Caper."

On Izzy being in love with Blackbeard - "I think Izzy's deeply in love with Blackbeard, and it's a very dysfunctional kind of love, and he's like the jilted spouse who's losing his man to fucking Stede Bonnet, and he can't believe this is happening."

Discusses masculinity and piracy as an escape from that

Discusses diversity and trauma based stories - "And the consensus in that very diverse room was that we wanted to show that isn't just wallowing in trauma. We don't have to do a coming out scene or focusing on the trauma of it — not to say that those stories aren’t valid."

Gizmodo - Jun 20, 2022 - with Linda Codega (io9) - Link

Musing on fandom response to the show - "I'm wondering if the fact that because the queerness of this show isn't gaslighting the audience, and isn't a function of wanting to do something, but not being able to produce the results because of network standards. I think we just happened to be in this lucky spot where the show is actually queer… and I do think that people are responding to that."

Comparing fanfiction to writing - "And Con O'Neill's audition was one of those things I would go back to. I would watch that and be like… Oh, right, that's the show. And in a way, you're writing fanfiction for a certain actor and character because you want them to do something, and you're like–" at this point, it must be said, Jenkins let out a maniacal little giggle. He’s just as thrilled to show off Con O'Neill's ability to seem both deeply exhausted and menacing as the rest of the fandom. "And you [as the writer] you're like… And then Izzy does this now."

EW.com - Dec 13, 2022 - with Devan Coggan - Link

Discusses The Chain sequence - "I had initially wanted that end sequence to be like the FBI raid in a mob movie, where the feds come in, and they've got boxes of stuff, and everyone's running, and someone makes a dash for it," Jenkins explains. "So, it's like a mob movie or FBI raid story, and then it's also a story of Stede's lover coming back."

Pre-S2

Collider - Oct 2, 2023 - with Carly Lane - Link

Discusses fan reaction to S1 - "I thought that they'd kiss, and people would be like, 'Oh, cool, cool!' I kind of thought people would know a little bit more [about] where we were going, but then in hindsight, no, people have been hurt and burned on so many other shows and then made to feel silly."

Discusses starting S2 dark - "One of these characters is very, very damaged and has never made himself vulnerable in this way before, and I don't think [he] would react very well to having his heart broken in this way. I don't think it would be cute, and I don't think it would be funny. I think it would be scary as hell to watch a very damaged guy that we've established in Ed, who killed his dad and thinks he's not capable of being loved, deal with rejection and see that Stede really hurt him."

Discusses adding more female characters

Discusses S2 needle drops including "This Woman's Work"

Discusses 3-season arc

Post 2x01 - 2x03

Mashable - Oct 5, 2023 - with Belen Edwards - Link

Discusses fandom response to S1

About the canon gay relationship - "To watch the explosion of enthusiasm around [the kiss] was disorienting, almost," Jenkins said. "I thought people would react to it, but I didn't think the reaction would be that big. And then it was moving, because I didn't realize that this audience felt so unserved in general, as far as storylines go."

Insider - Oct 5, 2023 - with Ayomikun Adekaiyero - Link

Tease on leaning into the Stede / Ed / Izzy love triangle - "I think Izzy, in a certain way, got the worst deal in the first season," the showrunner tells Insider. "He gets jilted and then he still is in spurned spouse territory at the beginning of the second season."

Discusses Izzy's arc - "What is that relationship about? And I think by the end of the season it kind of becomes a little unexpected of who they are to each other and what they mean to each other," he teases

Discusses addition of Zheng - "He likens Zheng's way of pirating to a successful tech startup, compared with the garage sale vibe Stede had going on the Revenge."

Discusses introducing Hornigold - "I thought Hornigold was the most obvious because he was the person who made Blackbeard what he is. And Blackbeard has a father complex, so it's natural that he's going to bring his former captain back," the show creator said. "It's a struggle with him because he and dad figures don't historically do well."

Discusses importance of the mermaid scene

Inverse - Oct 5, 2023 - with Hoai-Tran Bui - Link

Reveals he didn't commit to the romance until shooting 1x06 - "Jenkins always intended his pirate comedy to end with a romance, but he'd envisioned it as an unrequited love. "It was going to be about Stede learning what love is, and Ed making himself vulnerable and getting burned," Jenkins says of his original pitch. But Darby and Waititi's choices in the scene, which they played without diffusing the tenderness with a joke, made him wonder if they could take the show in a new direction."

Discusses mermaid Stede idea from S1 - "We talked about Stede as a mermaid very early on in the writers' room," Jenkins says. "At some point, yeah, I want to see Rhys Darby as a merman." + "They wanted us to come up with a Season 2 pitch during Season 1. And that was one of the ideas we hit on, and I can't quite remember how we got there, but it was us asking, what is a pirate world? Are there mermaids? Is there magic in this show? With pirate stuff, I don’t know that I want there to be magic, but there was a way where it was something really beautiful about a mer-person, and I like the idea that their coming together would have a mythic size to it."

Discusses historical divergence

Discusses matelotage and pirates as weird outsiders

TV Guide - Oct 5, 2023 - with Allison Piccuro - Link

About the shipping culture - "It's the meat of the show, so it's great to have people bought into the central romance. If it were a bromance that we were trying to make look like a romance, that would suck."

Discusses playlists he makes

Discusses opening dream sequence - "I just like that it started with something badass. Stede, Blackbeard, and Izzy are on an arc together. Whether they're in stories together or not, their ultimate arc is together. I think, by the end of this season, the last episode, that first scene will be gratifying. I won't say why, but their fates are tied together."

Discusses Kraken arc - "But I think the thing that's good about this show is that it can go to really sweet comedy land, but I want there to be, like, if someone loses a body part, for instance, they lose a body part. To do justice to the fact that this guy is a killer and a monster, and dealing with heartache that he doesn't know how to deal with, I think you really need to go there."

Discusses Izzy in S2 - "I mean, he's jilted. He had a partnership with Blackbeard, and he knows he can't live up to this person that Blackbeard fell in love with... Who is that guy? What are his hobbies? What does it look like when he's not totally subsumed with his boss's love affair with somebody, and heartbroken?"

On S2 reunion - "The second season is them being a little bit more mature... It's the thing where you're in your 20s or 30s and you're like, "Well, should we move in together?" They have to make up some time because neither of them have been in a functional relationship before."

About genre of pirate stories - "...is a show about multiple relationships. That's what I want to see when I see this show. I don't want to see a bunch of pirate things that I've seen in other things, I'll just go watch another thing if I want to see that. That's not really my thing. I like the genre, but it's a very hard genre to budge. I want to see relationships in a pirate world."

Discusses the A Star is Born aspect of seeking fame / retiring

Mashable - Oct 7, 2023 - with Belen Edwards - Link

About the mermaid scene - "You need something expressive for when they come back together," Jenkins said. "Their reunion moment has to feel big and mythical. This is not a world where mermaids actually exist, but their love for each other has that size that you can get [a mermaid] in there somewhere."

About Kate Bush - "I love Kate Bush, and I love that song, and I know Taika loves that song," Jenkins explained of the choice. "So I wanted to find a place for that song somewhere in the second season."

Polygon - Oct 9, 2023 - with Tasha Robinson & more - Link

Compares S2 and "Golden Age of Piracy" stuff to Westerns, lists 5 he was thinking of - "Every Western that’s good is that story," Jenkins says. "'This way of life we made is coming to an end. It can't last. It's a blip in time. We created this thing because we need it to exist. We're outlaws, and we need a culture that suits us, but it's running out of time.'"

Gizmodo - Oct 9, 2023 - with Linda Codega (io9) - Link

Short tease on leaning into the love triangle

About Stede, Edward, and Izzy - "I think the three of them are on an arc together that's pretty inseparable," Jenkins said in an interview with io9. "And to watch Izzy try to process what's happened [in season one]… to watch him kind of grow and figure out what's his own story, if he can separate himself from this kind of toxic relationship, is interesting to me and I think gives him a lot of room for growth."

Post 2x04 - 2x05

IndieWire - Oct 12, 2023 - with Sarah Shachat - Link

Discusses directing and show creation

"The limitations of the show also naturally push it back towards moments with the ensemble and plot problems that it would frankly be irresponsible to tackle if you had a giant budget and a fully working ship-of-the-line to sail and then blow to bits. "That's the fun of the show to us, I think. If you open this up and you're like, unlimited budget, that would be terrible because I think you can get seduced," Jenkins said. "[It could be like,] 'Oh man, it's all leading up to a climatic battle on the sea.' And those things are great. But that’s not this show.""

"The nice thing about that, though, is you get to be the lo-fi show that’s like, 'Hey, we’re making The Muppets.'"

PopSugar - Oct 12, 2023 - with Victoria Edel - Link

About S2 Stede - "I like the idea that he learns and grows and he doesn't just stay a bumbling captain. He might be ridiculous, but he is getting better at it."

Discusses genre challenges - "How do you have a show that's a romance show but it's also a workplace show and they're criminals?"

Discusses Edward's redemption - "But Blackbeard still has to come back and apologize and be part of the community again, and give his little press conference. It was fun for us to look at that in the context of piracy, where they all do terrible things to each other. But even by their standards, what Blackbeard did was a bit much."

Discusses Izzy in S2 - "When Izzy shoots Blackbeard and they all mutiny on him, that's Izzy breaking up with Blackbeard. And they're both having their own journey in the wake of it, and Izzy's having his own redemption arc. He's trying to figure out, "Who am I if I'm not Blackbeard's first mate? Who am I outside of this relationship?"" + "If Stede's Spongebob, he's Squidward. I don't know what that makes Blackbeard. But there's a real pathos to Squidward."

Discusses trauma-based narratives - "As a diverse room in terms of sexuality, socio-economic background, and race, we thought, "Wouldn't it be nice to have a non-trauma-based story for these characters who don't get that historically?""

Variety - Oct 13, 2023 - with Hunter Ingram - Link

Discusses three act structure and making Stede work for a relationship - "The way I like to look at a season is in threes. The end of the first act is when they find each other, and this is the beginning of the second act. They've found each other, but they are pissed. Stede thought it was going to be [Kate Bush's] “This Woman's Work,” but, in reality, it is this headbutt –– literally."

Discusses the central romance - "It was always part of the pitch... that is the reason to make the show. The pirate genre is fun, but I wasn’t dying to make a pirate show. Taika wasn’t dying to make a pirate show. But the thing that was interesting to me was that Stede finds love, and he finds it with Blackbeard."

Discusses 2x04 plot - "This episode is based on a very, very thumbnail sketch of "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?." Anne and Mary are Martha and George, and they are Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton."

Discusses adding historical pirates

Discusses Buttons exit - "I just love the idea of him turning into a bird: I love the idea of Buttons somehow being the one character that is able to figure that out."

Discusses Izzy and the crew's trauma plot - "We liked the idea that there is something about trauma and getting past that trauma, even on a pirate ship. They have been through two very different ways of living and they have to get used to each other again. But it's also a family that was separated, and becoming one family again is painful."

Discusses bringing characters back - "We could bring Calico Jack back, who, if you remember, was hit by a cannonball last season. Anyone who is that fun to play with and wants to keep playing, you always find a way to bring them back."

Polygon - Oct 14, 2023 - with Tasha Robinson - Link

Discusses 3-season arc and how keeping them apart with some plot device was never in the cards - "at the end of the first season, they're 14-year-olds, emotionally. In this season, it's more like they’re in their late 20s."

Discussing New Zealand production and ensemble cast writing - "It's pretty organic, because as we're going through and tracking everybody's journey for the season, we're watching the thing that holds us together — what stage of Stede and Blackbeard's relationship are we in? Because the overarching arc is, are these guys going to learn how to settle into a relationship?"

"The second season is more overtly about romance, and more a relationship story."

Energizing aspect of fan reaction

S3 is about "love is work"

Gizmodo - Oct 16, 2023 - with Linda Codega (io9) - Link

About the story - "I want to see them become a functional couple or fail to become a functional couple," Jenkins said. "Those are the most interesting parts of the show."

Discusses fandom engagement - "...ultimately the writers are also "the fans in the room." He goes on to say that, "We're fans of the world. We're writing fanfic about our own characters, our own worlds… It's paid fanfic, but it's fanfic." He gives another example: "If you're writing a season of Succession, you're writing fanfic Succession. You're just getting paid to do it. We, as writers–" it's clear that he's not just talking about the writers in the writers room, "become fans of the world and we all have things we want to see these characters do. What we do is not that different."

Discusses the A Star is Born aspect of seeking fame / retiring

Discusses Zheng Yi Sao

Villains of the series - There are a lot of new villains this season, but, Jenkins says, ultimately, "the antagonist on this show is normalcy… These pirates have a way of life that they're not finding in normal life. They've found a way to live and support each other and be there for each other. And that's always threatened by these larger, tyrannical forces that want to shut them down."

Post 2x06 - 2x07

Mashable - Oct 19, 2023 - with Belen Edwards - Link

Discussing drag performance in 2x06

"It is nice to see with Izzy's arc, where he finally breaks through whatever he's been doing to himself. He lets himself have that moment, which I just love. It resonates for Izzy, and I think it resonates for Con. Just personally, it made me feel good to see how it turned out."

Consequence - Oct 19, 2023 - with Liz Shannon Miller - Link

Discusses intent for romance - "...telling a love story in a serialized medium like television has its perils, largely because it's tough to know how much you can draw out any unresolved tension. "I think we take it episode by episode and we try to not piss people off in taking too long and doing double beats and triple beats," Jenkins says. "You can only do Will They or Won’t They for so long. Then you have to deepen it.""

Discusses pirate setting - "The emphasis on relationships also fits into the show's high-seas setting, which Jenkins finds similar to post-apocalyptic narratives. "It is a little bit like you're doing Mad Max, except there's relationships," he says. "Stuff's shitty, so you gotta try to find some joy. Of course, people are going to have a need for each other in these extreme circumstances, and I like the idea of these characters finding some level of a healthy relationship in these extreme circumstances.""

Discusses Jim x Archie

Discusses 3-season arc

Polygon - Oct 21, 2023 - with Tasha Robinson - Link

Discussing gender and power dynamics in Jackie x Swede / Zheng x Oluwande / Blackbeard x Stede + A Star is Born aspect

Jim not being jealous of Oluwande - "I think that relationship was always seen in the room as a friend relationship that got romantic."

About adding a villain - "I think a lot of the internal forces in Our Flag are the villains." + "I think this is a story about the age of piracy coming to an end. This way of life is coming to an end. And every Western that's good is that story: This way of life we made is coming to an end, and it can't last. […] I think every story about outlaws is about trying to preserve a way of life against normative forces that are kind of fascistic."

Historical accuracy - "The balance of the show is 90% ignoring history, and then 10%, bring it in, whenever we're like, Ah, gotta move the story forward! Remember, the English are out there, and they're really bad!"

Post 2x08

AV Club - Oct 26, 2023 - with Saloni Gajjar - Link

Killing Izzy was always the plan - "We wanted to show the depth of that character. Izzy is one of my favorites. He's like middle management who is in a sort of love triangle [in season one]."

Discusses how they really wanted the happy ending for S2 - "I think with season one's end, it was a gamble to leave it the way it was. Everybody stomached through it. Now if it turned out they didn't want us to make more, I just didn't want to have another story where the same-sex love story ends in tragedy, unrequited love, or if one or both of them are being punished."

Discusses S2 progressing the 3-season romance - "They’re a couple who is like in their late twenties right now as opposed to being teens at the end of season one." + "It was an interesting tension of, which one gives up their dream? A lot of times in relationships questions can come up, like who is going to give up on their dream to take care of the kids? Obviously, no one wants to, but someone ends up giving up more than they want to at some point. What's wonderful about a mature romance, and what I'd want to see more of in season three, is Ed and Stede making these tough decisions." + progressing past the getting together point

Discusses parallels, Republic of Pirates, and Zheng Yi Sao

Short bit about fan response

Collider - Oct 26, 2023 - with Carly Lane - Link

Discusses Ed leaving fishing - "I like that he had a little prima donna moment where he thought he could go and be a simple man, and then it's revealed that he really isn't a simple man; he's a complicated, fussy, moody guy. No, he's not gonna be able to catch fish for a living. For him to be told that, "At your heart, you're a pirate. You have to go back and do it," he doesn't want that to be true, but it was true."

Discusses Izzy's speech to Ricky - "I wanted to give Izzy a proper eulogy for himself. He gives a eulogy for himself, but it felt true writing it."

Discusses Izzy's death scene - "In a way, it's very much for Ed, that speech. The "we were Blackbeard" is claiming that he is also Blackbeard, that Blackbeard is not just Ed’s creation, and I like that for him, too, because he's worked so hard for that — and then just to say, "You can give it up." There can never be a Blackbeard again as far as Izzy's concerned because he's dying, and they did that together."

Discusses Republic of Pirates / music parallels from premier to finale

Discusses finale wedding - "We knew we wanted a matelotage in the season, which is the real term they had for marrying crew members. And yeah, they've always been in relief to Stede and Ed, and they're a little bit ahead of Stede and Ed in how much they can talk about things. So to have a bunch of family things in the season, like a funeral and a wedding, and have the parents kind of watch the kids sail away, felt right, and all of those things seem to work well together and build on each other."

Discusses retirement ending - "That will-they-or-won't-they is interesting to a point, but the real meat of it is always like, "Can they make the relationship, and can they do better than Anne and Mary?""

"Frenchie's in charge of the Revenge" + teases Stede struggling to give it up

EW.com - Oct 26, 2023 - with Devan Coggan - Link

Discusses Izzy's death and telling Con - "It feels like the logical end of Izzy's arc. It's heartbreaking to me because he's my favorite." + "I told him in the middle of shooting because I didn't want him to find out at the table read, obviously. I also didn't want it to leak. He was lovely about it."

Discusses Izzy's final arc - "You know, I didn't expect him to become kind of a father figure to Ed. I think we hit on that while we were breaking the [final] episode. He's in such a weird position: He's like a jilted lover, and then he's a middle manager who has to work for a terrible boss. He gets thrown away, and then he comes back. He really develops, and he becomes a part of this family. I think the biggest surprise was the extent that he was a mentor to Ed. They were both Blackbeard. They both made Blackbeard happen."

Discusses the happy ending intent - "With this season starting so dark, I kind of wanted to reward them for the work that they've done and the character growth that they've had. I wanted to leave them in a place where they're really going to try and make this work. I don't think it's going to be easy for them, necessarily. They're both still immature."

Discusses the wedding - "We knew we wanted a matelotage in the second season, and pretty quickly we landed on Lucius and Black Pete. It seems like they were ready for that. We made up a ceremony and everything, where they call each other mateys, and it was just fun to make our own version of a pirate wedding ceremony."

Discusses potential S3 and Frenchie's Revenge - "But it felt like a good place to end the second season. It felt like a contrast to the first season. If it turns out we don't make any more, I'm comfortable with that being a resting place."

Variety - Oct 26, 2023 - with Hunter Ingram - Link

S3 endpoint - "I love things in threes," he says. "That first act, second act, third act structure is so satisfying when it is done well, and you don't overstay your welcome. I think this world of the show is a big world, and if the third season is successful, we could go on in a different way. But I think for the story of Stede and Ed, that is a three-season story."

Discusses the draw of a "Golden Age" and it's ending

Talks about father figure Izzy and wanting a real sense of loss - "There is a nice parallel to have Ed treat him so badly at the beginning of the season and then come all the way around to where Izzy is this sort of father figure he doesn’t want to lose — because Ed usually kills his father figures."

Gizmodo - Oct 26, 2023 - with Linda Codega (io9) - Link

Teasing future Izzy - "Jenkins looked slightly sad himself, saying that "Ghosts exist in this world." I told him not to make promises he couldn't keep."

"Jenkins said that he doesn't see Izzy as a pure antagonist in season one because on some level… Izzy was right in his hesitations about Stede."

Discussing Con O'Neill & Rhys Darby acting

Jenkins confirms the season was always 8 episodes due to budget cuts

About S2 finale vs S3 - "The first season ends on such a downer, so it made sense to end the second season in a kinder spot." + "I think there's plenty of story left for season three, but I think that it was important to end this as if it was the end of the show, and on upbeat note and avoid the kind of "kill your gays" trope. I don't want to see Stede and Ed punished for giving it a go. I want to see them really say, 'yeah, we’re going to we're going to try to have a relationship'."

Teases S3 revenge against Ricky and going to the Americas

Vanity Fair - Oct 26, 2023 - with Sarah Catherall - Link

About the ending - "It's bittersweet. There's death and there's the rebirth of Stede and Blackbeard's relationship; there's a funeral, there's a wedding, and the idea that this family is going to keep fighting even as they lose members. And then it's about belonging to something." + "A lot of times, with this narrative of characters, same-sex relationships end on a dour, downbeat note, where one of them dies and it's unrequited or it's unrealized; something horrible happens and they're punished in a way. So it was important to leave it open and a lot more show to go, but also leave it in a place where it's happy."

Discusses Izzy as a mentor / father figure - "We felt like Izzy's story had reached its conclusion, where we put him through enough. And then there was the realization that he is kind of a mentor to Blackbeard and that he is kind of a father figure to Blackbeard." + "And it's also a pirate show, so he's got to die."

Discusses filming challenges - "It's a big show; it's basically a one-hour show that we're doing on a half-hour budget."

Discusses adding Zheng Yi Sao

Is the show a queer romance? - "For this show, it's important to me just to write a really bold-bodied romantic show that happens to be between two characters of the same sex. I think that the story beats don't matter, because if you've been in love and you've been hurt and you met someone you love—hopefully we all know what those feelings are."

Blackbeard's arc in S2 - "...the second season is about Blackbeard's midlife crisis. And then when they both have their midlife crises, they can open a B&B together." + "I don't think Stede and Blackbeard are ready to be married. They're emotionally saying: 'Let's give this a go.'"

Discusses historical piracy as "counterculture" that's been straightwashed and whitewashed

Did he feel responsibility to the fan community? - "As opposed to responsibility, it feels more like relief—that people feel seen and they feel good about it and they liked what we did. And so it feels like, Okay, somebody's out there and wants the show. The makeup of the writers room looks a lot like the makeup of the fan base. So as long as we're true to our stories in the writers room, I think we just feel excited that there's somebody waiting on the other end to enjoy it."

Paste Magazine - Oct 26, 2023 - with Tara Bennett - Link

Discusses whether fandom expectations felt weighty - "I think particularly for this season, that "bury your gays" thing… I didn't want to end on a downbeat for Ed and Stede. We did that in the first season. I like that there's a lot of different flavors. It's even a little melancholy because the Republic of Pirates got blown up. But there's still more good things."

Discusses production and plotting - "I wanted to start at the Republic of Pirates this season and end at the Republic of Pirates. And I knew I wanted the Republic of Pirates to be destroyed, ultimately. Within that, we are making a one-hour show on a half hour budget, on a half hour schedule."

Discusses planning the ending - "In terms of ending this season, it all felt right just in talking through it when we were in the room. It felt pretty intuitive. When you get to the third act of the story, things kind of settle in. There's gonna be a funeral. We always knew we wanted a wedding at the end of the second season. And I knew that I wanted Stede and Ed to start an inn together. So once you have those beats, it's kind of locked in."

Discusses Izzy's arc - "It's kind of a strange arc in that I knew we were going to put him through all these things, and I knew he would ultimately die. But I think him becoming a father figure to Ed in the last episode didn't really dawn on us until we were breaking the last episode. Asking what would this man say to Ed at the end because they've been together through everything? He went from a troubled and downtrodden employee to a jilted lover to a discarded employee, to someone that is just trying to find his footing again—no pun intended—to actually becoming this guy's parental figure on some level. And he's one person who kind of raised Ed right, because Blackbeard usually kills his parental figures. So, it felt right and it felt like that's how the mentor dies. The mentor in a story usually dies in the second act and then our hero has to go on and try to do it without them. It felt like the right journey for Izzy and a gratifying one for Con."

On leaving open for S3 - "I don't think it was a very hard thing to do. I think it was more that I felt a responsibility to leave Ed and Stede in a good place, at least for now. It's not gonna go well. They're not going to run a business well. Ed's too much of a talker. Stede can't focus. It's gonna be challenging."

Vulture - Oct 28, 2023 - with Sophie Brookover - Link

Discussing Izzy as a "father figure" and his S2 send-off being a priority

Meaning of piracy - "...what our pirates stand for is a life of belonging to something larger than they are in the face of a crushing, slightly fascist normalcy."

Re: Con O'Neill & Izzy's death - "I had to tell him about halfway through the season"

Third season about the work of a relationship between still damaged main characters

Discusses middles as about change and transitions, and wanting characters to change instead of reset, have them experience permanent consequences

About the final scene - "...Ed and Stede as the parents kind of watching the kids take the ship. Frenchie's the captain now..."

Objective of the crew - "...have had terrible things happen to them at the hands of colonial forces, so they want some payback. Party, plunder, and payback — the three P's."

Metro Weekly - Nov 1, 2023 - with Randy Shulman - Link

Discusses historical premise of S1 and easing into the romance

Discusses S2 genre - "In the second season, it was great because we know it's a romance and we can lead with that. It's a workplace show essentially. I wanted it to be more in the vein of early episodes of Grey's Anatomy or something where there are all these relationships on those shows. That's what you’re following — relationships and friendships that are taking place in a hospital, procedural. That's Grey's Anatomy. This is less procedural for the pirate stuff — and you need the pirate stuff."

Discusses not being into pirates - "But I'm like you. I'm not a big pirate person. In general, it's a big creaky genre that's hard to budge" + "Pirates of the Caribbean, those movies are great. That's not necessarily what I hunger to see, but in that genre, it's great. You're not going to beat that, especially on something that's lower budget. We've seen a lot of this stuff, so it's fun to take it then and don't do any of that stuff."

Discusses adapting historical piracy - "You don't want to see them punch down. You don't want to see them do terrible things to people who don't deserve it, which is not what they really did. So, in the show's world, I think piracy is like a stand-in for something. I think it's a stand-in for being an iconoclast and an outsider and queer in some ways and just different." + "Yeah, I mean, the British are there to be Stormtroopers, or Nazis in an Indiana Jones movie. I mean, they're in there to die essentially."

Discusses diversity staffing

Discusses performative masculinity

Discusses Izzy's death, happy endings, and openness to S3

[vamqrya]

Polands Personality.

No one cares but like in the episode where poland meets lithuania and says "show me your cock and balls", it could've been a conversation starter as he is canonically shy when it comes to strangers shown in the manga (and anime)

However, in history there was a "union" treaty between Lithuania and Poland (it was called the Krewo Union, I think, and if anyone cares – it was before the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth and existed since the 1300s) so Poland mightve known about lithuania and him coming over but in the episode, I think he was whining or crying about it but I need to recheck that, but by that I meant that Poland may have already known Lithuania slightly from the union which is why he may have started a conversation in that way but accidentally made it awkward.

When I was talking to someone about this they said;

"And it makes sense that he'd say something like that as I suppose it was a manly thing to say in Poland's mind, probably very casual too, so bro was really just trying to break the ice in a way he knew 😭

And in the episode Poland was mainly just nervous over meeting Tolys, but since their bosses probably talked to each other previously I'm pretty sure Poland did have an idea of who Tolys was, but just hasn't interacted directly that way"

~

in the scene he was complaining about (I think who the female character in the scene was meant to represent) Jadwiga getting married to Jogaila (the Lithuanias king guy), so he probably didn't know who Lithuania was and stuff because prior to the scene, what probably happened, was Poland just got informed of it and he couldn't imagine Jadwiga getting married to someone he didn't even know, so probably it was he didn't know who he was. He also doesn't seem to have too much human conversation because he does, from my knowledge (and most people portray him as saying), say "like" a lot which can be from him being shy or that he doesn't know how to say something which can signify he doesn't talk to people that much from not having much base on how to speak to people, it can also be the reason for why he's shy. Him starting a conversation with "Show me your cock and balls" instead of something normal like "Hello, what's your name?" can be him trying to seem manly and fit in with "outsiders", not communicating with many people can also make you shy over time.

He also seems to warm up near people he trusts and is close to, he seems to sexualize himself or his friends without knowing it sometimes? I dont know about that but, I have art (I'm not sure if it's official or not) where its him and hungary in quite a 'sexual' position, though it probably wasn't intended?

I don't know how to explain it but me and the person figured he might have autism (me and them are both autistic to clarify were not making it out of our asses)

[o-i-w-u]

Now, the Movies/Shows

(I could talk about these for AGES but I'll do that after I finish the main stuff ahahaha)

Die Muminfamilie -- 1959-1960 -- West German T.V. series, black and white. They were puppets!!

Mūmin -- 1969-1970 -- this. This was. Interesting. It was a 65-episode long anime, but never got popular due to the fact of... how it was made. THEY HAD GUNS. THEY HAD TANKS. SNUFKIN SNIPED A BIRD OUT OF THE AIR. (Also the characters differed WILDLY from the originals. Both in personality and designs.)

Shin Mūmin (not pictured) -- 1972 -- basically a remake of the OG Mūmin in order to make it more kid-friendly. Though it still differed greatly, it followed the book storylines closer.

Mumintrollet (I think I accidentally did two pictures whoops) -- 1969-1970 -- a live-action series written by Tove and her brother, featuring costumes!!

Opowiadania Muminków -- 1978-1980 in Poland, Germany and Austria, 1983-1985 in the UK -- THIS. THIS WAS MY ENTIRE CHILDHOOD. I AM ILL FOR THESE SILLIES SPECIFICALLY. It was many stop-motion animated episodes based on the books, and they're known as the "fuzzy felt moomins" due to the fact they were mainly made of materials. The intro music hit HARD.

Mumi-troll i Kometa -- 1978 -- an 18-minute animation based on Comet in Moominland by a Soviet Union production company.

Shlyapa Volshebnika -- 1980-1983 -- ...We do not speak of these Moomins. They were made by a Soviet Union company, based off of Finn Family Moomintroll. (Duck Snufkin. *shudders*)

Moomin -- 1990-1992 -- Probably the most popular! This was an anime, and it has been where most of the Moomins memes come from. Things like "let's go fill Moominvalley with crime," Moomin with a knife, etc. I don't know what else to say, man. It's just. Really cool.

Moominvalley -- 2019-present -- Still currently going on, with a new season planned to come out later this year. It's a 3D animation, and honestly? One of my favorites. They REALLY highlight things well, such as Snork being heavily implied to be on the autism spectrum and HOLY SHIT WHEN I TELL YOU THEY MADE SNUFKIN AND MOOMIN SO PAINFULLY GAY- ahem.

Hooooo that's all I got for the Shows. I. Still have more though ahahahahaha-

I SAW DUCK SNUFKIN AND I WAS SO INTRIGUEDDD

theres a moomin series ACTIVELY GOING??? WOUGJGH AUTISTIC SNORK????????? MORE SNUFKIN X MOOMIN ?????? YEAHHRHBHHHHGG THIS IS AWESOME LETS GOOOO

all of these sound so nifty :0 i love how they're almost all created in different ways (live-action, stop motion, 3D animation, puppets,,, THATS SO COOL AGH)

moomin is so friend shaped throughout helll yeah <<33

[tired-night-owl]

The freaking theory that the shadow clone is somehow a clone of crosshair bothers me so much you have no idea.

I understand that people try to find the answer that is not the most obvious but like isn’t it impossible to clone a clone ? Wasn’t there an arc in the clone wars that implied that they would run out of jango’s DNA eventually and the clone production would stop bc of that…

I guess it would be cool to have crosshair face an evil version of himself but it doesn’t really make sense to me because of what I mentioned above but also bc like the whole point of these series is to prove that every clone is a unique individual… idk it would feel wrong to me if they went into crosshair copycat mode :/

The theories I do like tho is :

if it was Cody that went under the reconditioning program and ensues a tragic death with Rex or something. It will break me but I do believe there’s something big like that that needs to happen for Rex to go into hiding and let go of the rebellion with his old geezers gang like we see in rebels.

Dogma because that would be a cool use of his character after all these years and because I do believe in the fact that the Star Wars team likes to reuse old characters that haven’t really had that big of a spotlight on them. We got to know a bit about him with the Umbara arc and it ended with a good character development but we never heard of him again like not even a mention… suspicious if you ask me or more like an opportunity for a « plot twist » that I could totally see.

Tech because I cannot accept that he would just die like that without having any kind of presence in the batch/the marauder like crosshair’s bretrayal did. We legit only had a small name drop and a glimpse at his googles which leads me to : why would hemlock look for him and only recover a personal item that means nothing to him ? If the techno union held on to echo’s body for years the empire and most importantly, a mad scientist hellbent on research and testing on clones, would definitely keep an individual with such a exceptional mind as tech’s for who knows how long.

Anyway I’m probably wrong because I usually am not that good at predicting stuff that happens in shows but I really don’t think it’s a coincidence that the shadow clones have voice modulators even after we got to see that these « assassins » are always clones. Also, some merch dropped with wrecker’s CT number implying that tech is ct-9902 and apparently it’s been confirmed that the shadow clone is the last episode is identified as cx-2… Coincidence, I think not !!! Merch has never lead me astray from guessing who dies and who’s important before so I will cling to this little bit of info until I am proven wrong XD

[catluniscia]

Clea Strange

Doctor Strange has a wife in the comics or had I don't know relationships are at the moment, all I know is the outfit she is currently in inspiring and I wanna have fun drawing swishy clothing with rips and stuff...also I really hate that window, which I had to make by hand like 10 times because the things wouldn't line up right, I hope to make it noticeable with all my hard work. (context this was written in late September when only 2 episodes of Agatha All Along had posted)  I really hope she is in Agatha All Along, like I would like there to be more cool bad ass magic users in the universe, which is why I am excited for Agatha, but like I am also one of those who wishes the Marvel Project workers actually talked to each other and or had notes to pass along so things can line up better, Again Multiverse of Madness folks didn't know anything happening in Wandavision, and I really wish they did. I just wish Disney/marvel would stop doing quantity and did quality but you know too much to ask I guess -sips drink- I know Clea is in Multiverse of Madness, and um. I saw her outfit...it's very Marvel Movie. And yes that is a semi insult. Like her concept art for the movie is fine, I like it, but something about it going from Concept to movie something happened and it went from fine, to eh, like it's better than the whole CGI made costumes cause CGI folks aren't unionized yet and there for over worked, but like I don't know maybe the photos I saw aren't that good quality, Mind you online its only like one photo and it isn't even a full body one. Or its badly photoshopped, or AI, which god don't get me started on that rant. Also when looking up I found out there is this fan trailer for Doctor Strange 3 and Google it keeps acting like its legit and like its so obviously fan made it looks...y'all remember when you would photoshop yourself to your fave character, or do ship art? And the quality was clearly photoshopped? That's what the trailer thumbnail looks like to me, like No shit onto the person making this fan trailer, like find your joy would love some more bad ass ladies in the MCU but GOOGLE its clear and bloody obvious its a fan trailer please stop acting like it's legit.  Sorry I think I just zoned out and started ranting about google trying to show fake things as legit as well as complaining about costuming directions in modern movies. UUUUHHHHHH Anyway this is the full art, and I am rambling like crazy and should take a nap, please enjoy this artwork I did and all the texture and detailing. I want a nap and a cookie.

[bonjas]

season 2 predictions:

I feel like I saw way more behind the scenes stuff that I never saw in the actual show, leading me to believe that either A. they already knew they would get a season 2 and filmed it at the same time or B. what was originally filmed was split up, hence why it feels so choppy. BUT probably neither of these things are true I'm just projecting 😩 cuz I still can't wrap my head around this season

I predict season 2 will bring us back to the original plot of Armando and Betty dating on the down-low and sneaking around behind everyone's back and that's how they reignite their relationship, and it's gonna end in another wedding for them.

there's sooooo much to talk about from the last two episodes but I'm too tired to really dive in, I can only think in bullet points lmao:

did I miss something? why did all of a sudden Hugo end the union/strike? that made no sense 😩

how did Mila and them even know about the papero and how to get there.....again did I miss something lol (edit: I forgot they're the original Ecomoda bodegas, but still they were acting like they knew exactly who he was, how lol)

the timeline was so fucked up. so you're telling me they ended the strike, Mila finds out that night about her mom and dads past, the next day Betty goes on the trip to cartagena and they're doing the fashion show at the same time? how did it get done so fast?! no one bothered to ask their president if they could do it, had the funds for it, bothered to ask her to come? HUH????? 💀 showing random shots of sewing and fabric doesn't do shit to show the passage of time 😭😭

the ADR by the beach sucked so bad it looked AI generated lmao. I'd rather have shitty ocean wave audio like in the original lol

Armando's lawyer continues to make no fucking sense as to why she even wants to be with him, it's a useless storyline with no context other than "of course she'd want to be with Armando Mendoza" and just serves as a "see, he's changed he's not hitting on other women" plot device

Betty's lawyer at least got to be cute and have actual interactions with her that help us make sense as to why she'd wanna make out with him 🤪 do yo thang girl

mila and nacho practically living together - huh?????? this novela is HORRIBLE at timelines, sense of time moving, days passing, literally without them saying that we would assume that was their second time sleeping together. bad bad bad.

mila going through the same betrayal as her mom - sorry I rolled my eyes at that one 😭 trying to wrap everything up in a bow having Mila discover the truth by somehow magically guessing his password, finding everything, spilling the beans during the meeting, all in one episode trying to have us connect to her heartbreak, girl we never fucking liked him lmao!!!!!!!! he was always ick as fuck u have horrible judgement 😭

glad her and Betty have essentially mended things but lmfao still have no idea why she was sent off for 5 years like that's not an insignificant time frame, 15 to 20ish is a HUGE stage of life and to have missed that??? like what?? but they depicted Mila so terribly I was still waiting for the other shoe to drop every time there was a "sweet" moment between them because they didn't give me any reason to think she was being genuine, I think that's a huge failing on their part cuz they never showed the love between them only Mila hating her, right to shopping and hanging out, there was a huge disconnect for me.

Mario you were fired, armando "rejected" your firing but what are you even doing here bro

Jeff and his relationship and their drama with Mila is so blah why is it even in this. Mila you suck for kissing him knowing he has a gf wtf? Also her hairstyle at the fashion show was giving Troll doll what did they do to you girl!!!

not letting Betty have a moment with her dad to actually talk about the diary is such a cop out, it could have been a beautiful moment in him confessing that he still failed her after trying so hard to protect her and she married the man that caused her the most pain and she couldve been like yeah it's pretty fucked up it's why I'm getting a divorce, after all that I feel like he still didn't accept us as his family~ or SOMETHING. crumbs, it's all I'm asking.

Ignacio being a sibling instead of a nephew is sooooooooo duuuuuuuumb lmfao literally serves no other purpose than to make people go GASP!!!! no purpose.

I FORGOT TO BRING IT UP BEFORE, WHY DID THEY MAKE BETTY FALL DOWN THE FUCKING STAIRS AT ECOMODA LIKE THAT A WHILE AGO LMFAOOAAO WE ALREADY KNOW SHE'S CLUMSY YOU MAKE HER DROP OR CRASH INTO SHIT EVERY EPISODE

[ponett]

could i bother you for your general opinion on venture bros, having watched it recently? i've been interested in it and know it has devoted fans, but most of the fans i see have been so for a long time- and i haven't been sure if the less-than-stellar aspects of it would be worth tolerating as someone with no pre-existing nostalgia for it. you're very good at offering nuanced thoughts, so i thought i'd ask. thanks!

i ended up loving the show, but it definitely has a lot of jokes in earlier seasons that haven't aged well, as is the case for basically any adult comedy series from the '00s. racial stereotypes that are probably intending to mock the racial stereotypes in the jungle adventure shows they're parodying but don't always hit the mark, jokes where characters speculate about whether or not dr. girlfriend is trans because of her voice, a minor recurring character who's a parody of the thing who's an extremely crude ableist stereotype (and also for a stretch of multiple seasons it feels like they had a quota to say the R slur at least once an episode), the pedophilia jokes with sergeant hatred, etc.

the thing is, like i said, it's kind of just what i expect for a comedy series from the '00s? obviously there was shit like south park, and the early seasons of always sunny loved to try and push the envelope, but even TV-14 network sitcoms like scrubs or the office had these sorts of issues. it's there, and you should be braced for it if you're gonna watch the show, but it feels like it revels in "politically incorrect" shock humor WAY less than a lot of concurrent comedy central and adult swim shit did. it's worlds apart from something like drawn together, which is just unwatchable. and most importantly it isn't trying to drive home some sort of insufferable libertarian moral, unlike south park. it just has some jokes i roll my eyes at

thankfully, as the show went on a lot of this was toned down and/or phased out entirely. but even in the front half of the show there were consistently tons of jokes that hit the mark for me, and i found the gradual shift towards more dramatic storytelling (without sacrificing the humor) really, really engaging. henchman 21 gets singled out as a character with an incredible arc, but i also loved seeing hank and dean go from being bumbling hardy boys parodies whose irrelevance was always the butt of the joke to being characters i actually cared about. and if you like superhero stuff at all, their take on organized supervillainy where it's effectively a union job where you're assigned an arch nemesis to torment is a lot of fun. the show just really gets how fun it is to follow the daily lives of over-the-top supervillains

there are a lot of comedy shows from that era i just can't go back to, but watching the venture bros. for the first time in 2023 i had a really good time

[alicepao13]

Hudson and Rex S02E14 - Tunnel Vision

We reached Tunnel Vision! Yes!

Filming an indie in an abandoned and dangerous mine. What could possibly go wrong?

Why? It's dark, muddy, cold... I really don't see why.

Oh, I forgot Sarah was annoyed to be working that case.

"And I took that personally."

Rex too, actually. He was like, "Sarah doesn't want to be with us?"

"You're not supposed to be friends with the talent when you're a PA". In this indie non-union production? Give me a break.

"I'm devastated about the murder. How soon can we continue filming?" Producers.

Oh, Jesse.

Rex: Oh, I'm sorry, were you supposed to be scary?

Last episode we uncovered how many crooked cops? And you refuse to believe that the SJPD is capable of leaking information to the press?

Jesse the drama queen.

"According to the legend's curse, we have 24 hours to live". First of all, what is this Walmart The Ring? Second, why would the curse extend to you?

Charlie: Don't tell me it was Caleb. Sarah: Ghosts don't typically leave prints. It's one of the perks of the afterlife.

"Antiques on wheels". Oh no lol. To be fair, and I don't know if anyone does this in other countries, but in Greece you will often come up on on-the-road junk dealers willing to help you part with your old stuff and load them in their truck to maybe find something useful later or just to sell them for scraps. They drive through neighborhoods announcing themselves on their bullhorn. I definitely can't call them antique dealers, though, because more often than not they'll leave with some old washing machine that someone couldn't bother to handle themselves rather than antiques. It's mostly junk.

"A lot of tunnels in this place. You go down the wrong one, I might never see you again". I'd worry about myself, Charlie. Rex has a giant nose to get himself out of that place.

Foreshadowing. Sorry, Charlie, but you'll have to get used to tight spaces.

"I hate mushrooms. They ruin pizza. And smurfs live in them". First of all, how dare you? Mushrooms make pizza awesome.

Jesse, come on.

Like any dog, Rex's ears are fine-tuned to recognize the word "walk" immediately.

Aw, Sarah chuckling as she sees Charlie putting the luminescent shoulder collar (I'm just spouting words at this point, I have not idea what it's called) on Rex. You cannot tell me that Charlie's care of Rex had not been one of the reasons she fell in love with him.

He truly is so caring with Rex, though.

Where are they getting this? I haven't found anything to support this.

We have established that we shouldn't yell in the mine and yet Rex is barking and Charlie is yelling at the suspect. And then Ian is yelling and Nell is yelling... I mean, do all y'all wish to die inside this mine?

The collapse scene and the scene with the cave-in afterwards are adequate. Especially since they don't have a major production's budget. Also, the ensuing whump is good.

Of course no one knows they're there. Why? Because they didn't learn from getting stuck in the freezer.

Why does Rex look like he wants to say hell no lol

The text was a smart idea.

I don't envy those who had to make gifs with that near darkness.

Rex while trying to make it through all the mud and debris: I hate it here.

Ian passed out. Good for us.

Translation: Who the fuck cares about him. I want you to live.

Hands. Also, his hand is huge???

Meanwhile, Jesse is reading about fictional people dying while ignoring his phone that could tell him that his ACTUAL FRIENDS ARE DYING!

Stop deflecting with humor. She's opening her heart. Also, I'm pretty sure it's "I'm happy here".

He called her Truong. I don't know why I liked that. It's one of the things that bother me in cop shows, when they barely say each other's first names.

"I just want you to know... I love working with you". Okay, and what else? "And Rex". And what else? Agh, why did you stop?

"I'm glad. Because you're going to be stuck with us for a long time". Normally, I'd be annoyed that an important conversation finally happened and it was in the dark in a collapsed mine but the drama!

Jesse: *finally reads Charlie's text* Oh my god, they're trapped AGAIN!

Can we do this again now??? Pretty please???

Rex: Oh no, I have to go back in there?

Charlie woke up immediately when he heard Rex lol

I know they probably ran out of budget and couldn't show how they dug out Charlie and Sarah.

And we have a murderer to unmask still.

Nice trick, pitting the couple against each other.

This is one of the many times that Charlie has been through a traumatic event and he just brushes it off. Just saying, in case any writers are listening and want to explore this on screen. (They're not. It's fine.)

Well, that was good. Also, if you didn't ship them after Over Ice, you'll surely ship them after this one.

[ecargmura]

Blue Lock Episode 25 Review - Tryouts

Because the episode title lists this episode as Episode 25, that’s what I’m using for the episode formatting for subsequent reviews! Blue Lock is finally back! However, I am a little worried because the trailer made the animation a little stiff. There wasn’t much ball play in this episode besides the Rin and Sae stuff in the beginning, so I can’t be too harsh on the animation just yet.

Right now, this first episode of the new season is introducing to the players about what the Top 35 players will do. However, can someone fill me in if this is a part of third selection or has it stopped? Anyways, the main goal is to find a core team that can face off against the U-20 team. If you’re unaware, the U-20 team is where Rin’s brother Sae is a member of. I believe he’s the star player? Anyways, because of Episode 2, Sae is heavily interested in Blue Lock, hence why the Japan Football Union and the U-20 staff have banded together to have a Blue Lock vs U-20 to see who is better. It’s basically Ego wanting to prove to the JFU about the Blue Lock program and him wanting to give the JFU the middle finger.

In order to create a core team, the Top 6 players will be grouped into three different teams and the rest of the 29 players will have to pick who they’ll team up with. The rest of the episode is basically the players deciding who they should go with and what not. The top 6 are, in order: Rin, Shidou, Karasu, Otoya, Yukimiya and Nagi. According to Ego, the Top 6 is determined by whoever could go up against the World 5, which was seen in the final two episodes, and his own instincts. So, according to Ego, Rin did the best which makes sense because he obviously did the most work in the last two episodes of the first season. I honestly want to see what Nagi did for him to be 6th. If you’re unaware, Nagi’s perspective is a manga called Episode Nagi. Right now, the current story hasn’t gotten him to where the World 5 is yet, so I’m really curious on what he did that got him to 6th. Oh and since there’s an uneven number, one player has to be in two matches against the other two teams, and that player is #7, Bachira. Man, poor Isagi. He’s always being underestimated by Ego. Also, I have no idea who these new characters (Karasu, Otoya, Yukimiya) are like, so I hope the season can help me get to know them better. I am curious to see how much better they are at soccer than Isagi for them to be in the Top 6.

More than the soccer matches, I really like the interactions between the characters, so I really liked this episode! It was nice seeing the remaining Team Z members having a meal together. Seeing Gagamaru being silly with Igaguri was cute. Though, it is a little bittersweet because not everyone made it, especially Kunigami. Chigiri made a comment about how elimination is just a part of what Blue Lock is, but I can tell that he’s really torn up about Kunigami’s elimination on the inside (also, their interactions were so cute together, so it’s a bummer to not see them interact again). I also liked seeing Isagi interacting with other players like Barou, Niko and Reo. There were also interactions that aren’t based around Isagi like Rin and Shidou’s animosity and Yukimiya trying to befriend Nagi.

The trailer showed off really stiff animation for the soccer playing, but it wasn’t all that bad with the Rin vs Sae match in the beginning of this episode. However, I did notice some stiffness in the characters expression-wise. I felt like Shidou and his crazy faces got most of the budget followed by Rin and then everyone else. Though, this is a lay-low episode so I know I shouldn’t worry too much about the animation…okay, I admit my worries are mainly from the opening. The song’s amazing, but the opening visuals are not. It feels a little lazy and if that’s the quality of the episodes going forth, I’ll get worried.

Also, I find the voice actor choices for the new characters interesting. Lots of big names I see. Shidou is voiced by Yuichi Nakamura. Karasu is voiced by Makoto Furukawa. Otoya is voiced by Kengo Kawanishi. Yukimiya is voiced by Takuya Eguchi. If you’re an avid anime watcher, you’ve probably watched several animes with those names in the cast. It’s crazy how they got the money to hire all these S-class voice actors.

The best part of Blue Lock is always the additional time! I totally missed these cute post-credit skits! The fact that they’re all squabbling for sleeping arrangements is both cute and hilarious because no one wants to be in the same room as Rin, yet they still have to. Props to Yukimiya for stepping up. Let’s just hope no one kills each other.

Anyways, if you’re wondering why I’m starting from Episode 25, I wrote a review of the entire first season, which you can find here. I honestly can’t wait to see what this season has to offer in terms of content. What will this tryout bring to the field? Who will be a part of the starting 11? Will Ego ever give the JFU the middle finger? What are your thoughts on the premiere of the long awaited season 2?

[badventist-petite]

so my poor poor mutuals and followers have been dealing with my bruce greenwood obsession for a better part of a year now and i'm so sorry but it's not stopping anytime soon i think

it all started when i binged the entirety of the resident in a week and a half this time last year and said to myself "ughhh i loooooove bruce greenwood, why have i been neglecting him for so long?" 😭😭😭

and in so doing, i found myself back here on tumblr, which led to aos boyce/pike fanfic (shoutout @ofsmokenandgold's "weight of a man" series and @gracieminabox's "the way our horizons meet" series. completely altered my brain chemistry they're both sooooo good)

which led to me going down the rabbit hole of watching everything he's in, stuff i've seen and stuff i haven't seen. i'm not even close to watching everything but i may or may not have created a spreadsheet breaking down how much he's on-screen in the stuff that he's in. because i'm a freak. (but at least @lizzy0305 supports me in this endeavor)

EXAMPLE: he's in the film "Flight" with Denzel Washington, he's plays an old friend of his but he's also the rep for the pilots' union. the film is 138 minutes long, and Bruce is on-screen for roughly 27 of those minutes. which comes out to about 19.5 percent.

the shows are going to be a pain in the ass to calculate. like The Resident. even though he's credited in all 100-something episodes, he's not actually in every single episode

St. Elsewhere is also going to suck because i don't really care for that show AT ALL. 😬 (that show has both bruce and mark, not at the same time sadly, but it still can't hold my attention, i really tried)

and that led to "hey i'm gonna watch some NCIS, i need a reference point for my guy phil boyce in these fics" because iykyk 😏 and then i somehow ended up watching THIRTEEN SEASONS ( @bowserbabe don't laugh at me.) i didn't really watch it too much back in the day but i somehow still shipped kate/gibbs because of course i did 👀 and also watching some of mark harmon's other stuff because he is also very very pretty (like prince of bel-air, he is SO EFFING GORGEOUS in that dumb movie, i love it. i'm probably gonna rewatch it soon. and i just watched the presidio again yesterday, a classic!)

and then i found some stuff of theirs on youtube; sleepwalkers with bruce and a young naomi watts and also surprise! jeffrey d. sams. it was very unfortunately cancelled after six episodes, i liked it so much! and reasonable doubts with mark and marlee matlin but the pilot is the only full ep that i've found on youtube... i really gotta find the rest of those eps. that show got 2 seasons so that's better.

speaking of youtube, i follow some comics youtubers and they also like polls over there. one was "outside of kevin conroy, who is your favorite batman voice actor?" options were: troy baker, jensen ackles (i think), roger craig smith, and of course bruce greenwood. so that's who i vote for, not just because i want him to win the poll (he didn't but he was in 2nd place) but because i do actually feel that he's the 2nd best after kevin.

then i came across another youtube poll asking "what's your favorite justice league animated film?" choices were: "justice league: new frontier", "justice league: doom", "justice league dark: apokolips war", and "justice league: crisis on two earths". and so i voted for crisis on two earths (and it was the clear favorite of the poll). y'know.. the one with james woods as the evil batman couterpart, owlman. he was so good in that role. he's so good as villains in general. probably because he is an actual villain irl so it's not really acting for him.... oh and also mark harmon as superman, no biggie. kinda wish he did it a few more times, he was pretty good.

so after pondering for a little bit and putting two and two together, now my brain is like, wait... huh... i want that 👀👀👀 i want bruce as batman and mark as superman.

and i do kinda ship batman/superman sometimes. 'cause why not? they're cute. and all of the fanart here on tumblr doesn't help! it's so good

i want art of this. i'd do it myself but i can't draw for shit, i'm just not talented in that way

so someone draw that for me, please? i'll give you money and find all of the reference photos you'd ever need. probably more than you'd ever want.

i don't know about a particular art style, it just has to obviously be those two guys? i guess it couldn't be an action scene because i want to actually see that it's bruce's face under the cowl so maybe they're hanging out in the batcave or fortress of solitude after some crime-fighting. or maybe they're out and about as bruce and clark in metropolis or something? nah, i want them in uniform but no cowl on bats! and it doesn't have to be shippy either (but i wouldn't say no 😁😁😁)

[thelegend2t]

The Jregswap Explanation Post

Hello, it has come to my attention that a lot of people are finding out about this old Jreg AU called Jregswap. And, if you found out about it recently, you don't really have much to go off of for information of it's short lived existence, except for this post which I'm making because of said lack of information)

Before I say the rest I would like to give credit to the main artist of Jregswap, @snalz-artt . Not only did he create the art, without him some of the most important stuff wouldn't have been recovered.

The Jregswap Extremes:

Here we have the first Reddit post about the concept, posted by the creator. It shows who the four main extremes would be switched with: Extremes who share many characteristics with them but also characteristics of the opposite quadrant. We have:

The Communo-Capitalist: A communist who believes in the creation of Anarcho-Capitalist Free Cities, where the top 1% would be culled regularly. (Based on this video)

The Homo-Fascist: A fascist who believes very strongly in LGBTQ+ rights. (A Centricide character)

The Anarcho-Fascist: An anarchist with extremely rightist views on cultural homogeny, race and identities in general. (A Centricide character but was also conceived in this video)

The Moneytaker: A radical capitalist who corrupts the state to bend to his will. (Based on this video)

Here's the art of the Swapped Extremes. Again, all art drawn by the person I mentioned at the start.

Here's some art featuring the leader of these extremes, Guevara Jreg. Snalz sent this to me when I asked him to help with this post.

Here's a comic the Jregswap team made. A dub of it was also the first Jregswap video ever made so that's cool.

The Jregswap Centrists:

The centrists in the order of this image are:

The Social Democrat, The Populist, The Centrist, The Neoliberal and The Moderate Conservative.

We never really got to many details on these guys, they seem self-explanatory enough I guess. They also seem to be the ideologies in the most moderate positions of each compass quadrant. Socdem libleft, Populist authleft, Neolib libright and Modcon authright.

None of these characters are based on Jreg characters, except for The Centrist who appeared in The Political Compass Rap at the end.

Here's an image of Socdem buying a non-binary flag from Geuvara.

The Jregswap Wackies:

Here's the image the creator posted on Reddit explaining the wackies of this universe and the accompanying art.

Guntakers origin

Techprims origin

Ecofascist origin

Anarcho-Nazbol origin

Accelerationist origin (As a note, this idea was conceived before Accelerationism made an appearance in Centricide 8)

Here's an image of this AU's Nazbol equivalent, The Bleeding Heart Libertarian. Bleeding Heart Libertarians are economically right but culturally left, this idea was conceived of before Jreg had a Pink Capitalist character.

The Jregswap Overtons:

Here are the moderates, or as they were called in Jregswap, The Overtons!

The (Russian) Reactionary, The Classical Liberal, The Wobblie (Industrial Workers of the World) and the Democratic Confederalist.

Similar to the centrists we never got to much information on these guys, but they are all real movements so whatever.

And here's Wobblie telling you to join a union.

The Jregswap Videos:

JREGSWAP - ''Homophobic Problems'' [Pilot Episode] https://web.archive.org/web/20200628100030/https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kRi4sjPDRKU&gl=US&hl=en

JREGSWAP: Know Your Ideologies

Sadly, these are all the videos ever made for Jregswap, though creating an entire alternate history scenario is pretty cool I'd say.

I would again like to thank Snalz, without him I wouldn't have a link to the second Jregswap video.

[geonppangi]

now that we know that zb1 is getting a show, here are some variety content i want to see

one thing that i don’t really love about variety shows is sometimes they designate one member as the mc/judge because they have an odd number. which is fair! but also i like seeing everyone be able to participate, so i thought it’d be fun if they compete individually or in groups of 3 and then have an expert come in to moderate. so everyone can do it and it would be more educational for everyone too lmfao

also mnet if you’re reading this, feel free to steal these ideas. i want to see these happen so badly

art episode

yes this is because i want to see ricky kill it like????

but i’m also really curious to know how good the other members are at art

maybe like a the members draw each other?? and they can pair up the members who don’t know each other that well

or they can choose what medium they want to use and do like something that represents their upcoming debut like a collage or smth like that

i love mixed media can one of them pls do it

or!!!!! they can do a design contest for the fanclub mascot and we can all vote lmao

so like bts with bt21

would also be a really cute way to introduce the name like maybe the members find out at the beginning of the episode and then based on what they drew we can try to guess what our name is

the potential is endless i’m telling you

i could see them either inviting an actual artist in to help or just straight up letting them go wild

but ricky is their expert

so i just found out after writing this whole thing that jiwoong is also good at art?? ^^his art

so if he and ricky are the new experts now

i think it’d be cool to see them collaborate on a piece and it would be very chill

while in the bg you just hear the members losing it

cooking/baking episode

similar to the cake decorating they did during the finale

i’m also thinking like seventeen’s cooking segments?

we can do teams of 3

can be same format as when they were preparing for their performances on boys planet but instead of killing part, main vocalist, etc, it can be appetizer, entree, and dessert or something like that

to make it even more interesting, they can play a game to find out what ingredients they get or the secret ingredient that they have to work with

so either like the camping cooking segment or like the show mom vs chef where they get an unpopular ingredient and have to make it appetizing

OR no teams and everyone creates their own thing

and they invite a celebrity chef to come be their judge/mc

pls i need a gordon ramsay crossover

i want to see him and gyuvin interact like i cannot tell you why but yeah (also yes, gyuvin can speak english but idk how well)

halloween cosplay episode

i might be biased because i am a cosplayer

but imagine a halloween themed episode where they have to make their own costumes

maybe they’re given like different fabrics or random clothes to work with

and they can figure out their own hair, makeup, and props too

i want at least one member to try sewing like i need to see it

they could invite special guests to come and teach them how to work with stuff like worbla or a sewing machine

and then at the end they have to model all of the costumes and film a dance practice in them because ofc they do

AND THEY ALSO GO TRICK OR TREATING

dorm content

obviously we need some dorm vlogs!!

like if we could get an episode of the members balancing being idols and school for some of them

also a dorm moving in + bedroom decor episode

i’d love to see the members do challenges to win like a budget for their common space furniture

and then an ikea vlog of them trying to get furniture in a certain amount of time maybe??

or it’s a scavenger hunt for money inside of ikea while they’re simultaneously looking for furniture

also cooking vlogs or maybe the members try to host a housewarming party

i’d literally cry if they plan a housewarming and then invite their friends from boys planet to come

please i just need to see dog union and junrae reunite

and imagine if we can get wumuti, seo won, woongki, and hwan hee

this is purely wish fulfillment but i want it so badly

and i want to see their skincare + morning routines

closet tour?? the boys shared their clothes so often on the show that it was hard to tell who wears what normally

pc decorating episode

could be an album unboxing episode

and if the album itself has any sort of interactive element like how seventeen’s semicolon had the weaving kit then they could assemble that

they can also get toploaders to decorate

it can be based on the pcs they pull because i have a strange desire to know what their pc luck is like

also i know this is sort of blasphemy but it is their album so ig they get a pass

but imagine journaling but with the photobook and maybe stickers if they include any

in case you can’t tell, i want to see how artistic the boys are lmfao

amusement park episode

we all knew this was coming

why are we surprised

hear me out, it’s a combo of an escape room and an amusement park

so like to escape the amusement park they need to collect clues which are scattered all around the park

some of the clues require them to go on the ride first

they can also be split up into teams of 3 maybe?? to see who can get out first

and the team that gets out last has to go on a ride that the other two teams pick

school episode

i want yujin to be the teacher

and the rest of them are the students

and they all play some sort of character but like switched

watch sung hanbin and zhang hao switch

jiwoong and gyuvin

matthew and gunwook

this is purely because i need to see gunwook cringe while doing aegyo

gunwook our canadian oppa

tbh i think matthew can pull off the student president character

ooohhhh and he should debate too

and i saved the best for last

taerae and ricky switch, outfits and all

THINK ABOUT IT

LIKE RICH EXCHANGE STUDENT TAERAE

AND LOSER (AFFECTIONATE) FASHION TERRORIST RICKY

---

show and tell?? mini series

like i want each member to teach the other members a specialty of theirs

ig ricky’s was the art episode already so pretend that’s here

cafe episode

yes this was inspired by my idea of hanbin teaching all of the members how to tut and waack

but i feel like that’s too easy, so how about having hanbin bring the group to his family’s cafe and they run it for a day LMAO

or maybe help run it…

and hanbin’s mom can teach them (not hanbin bc cold injeolmi toast…)

i want gyuvin waiter like i cannot tell you why but

and taerae too bc the more i can see him smile the lighter my soul feels

and matthew waiter for the same reason ofc!!!

jiwoong making coffee, pls he has such barista vibes

hanbin on making hot desserts because i want him to redeem himself

and gunwook and yujin on decorating desserts because i also need them to redeem themselves for their cake

ricky on sodas and smoothies because his mocktail video was just too smooth like that’s what won me over

zhang hao on tea and tea lattes

idrk why but i feel like he’d be good on whisking matcha

like the violinist wrist yknow

strings ensemble episode

also zhang hao teaching them how to play violin

he can also play piano and gunwook said that one of his goals was to learn how to play

so what if they make their own little strings ensemble with gunwook piano solo

you cannot tell me that gyuvin doesn’t give off double bass and taerae doesn’t give off cello energy

as a cellist, i’m claiming taerae

ricky would probably play violin, like it has very expensive vibes

and hanbin too because haobin violin lessons…can you see the vision

i think yujin and matthew would play viola. i don’t have any reasoning but ik some violists and they all have that energy

jiwoong gives me saxophone vibes 💀 but since we can’t have that, i’ll also give him the cello

it has a really warm and deep sound?? idk i feel like it suits him but maybe i’m going insane

wouldn’t it be so cute if they played an arrangement of their debut title track

also not alone would be soooooo cute

learning english episode

with our canadian oppa matthew

i think it’d be so funny if ricky and gyuvin pretended like they didn’t know any english

ik vancouverites don’t really have a “canadian accent” but i want matthew to mess with them by doing like a newfoundland accent so badly

or he just starts speaking french but with like an english accent and we see how long it takes the other members to figure it out

i feel like ricky would know but not say anything

debate episode

so as we know, gunwook is a debate kid (i say that both lovingly and maliciously)

so essentially going seventeen’s debate night LMAO

i want the members to vote on something that they fundamentally believe to be true

like what way should toilet paper go

and then put them on the opposite team

BUT we follow actual debate rules so they have to do research and cite their sources

prepare objections, etc etc

all within like 15 minutes lmfao

---

musical episode pt 2

but i specifically want them to write the whole thing

one team can write the script, another can write the music and choreograph and another can build the sets and plan costumes

as the resident actor, i nominate jiwoong to write the script and help direct

maybe gunwook for writing too? he’s a nerd and a debate kid so i feel like his writing must be good

MUSIC TEACHER HAO WITJ DANCE TEACHER BIN AND SINGER SONGWRITER TAERAE

literally the dream team i’m sobbing

ricky on set design and costumes because he’s an art kid so i trust him

and matthew too because his cake in the final episode was actually really cute??

not sure where i’d put gyuvin and yujin? maybe gyuvin on script writing so he can be with gunwook because i will never get sick of watching them interact

and yujin on set design?? but also yujin and jiwoong (T ^ T) and i want to see the sheer chaos that is gyuvin trying to build a set

maybe they can play rock paper scissors to figure it out

actually just a whole school performance episode or mini series??

so each episode could be a different performance that they put on as a school recital

to perform for their parents LMAO (yes this is just the artist battle special star creator stage)

i need them to do a spoken word poem and or interpretive dance because i had to do that in elementary school and i need somebody else to share in my suffering

some ideas include: a poem about the importance of colours?? and a series of tableaus depicting the creation of the Canadian Pacific Railway

they could also do church plays but instead of stories from the bible they can be like korean folktales or disney ripoffs

and ofc they have to do the awkward singing and then doing hand movements that correlate to the lyrics of the song

could also be done with their debut track btw

i want fancams of all of this

sports day

you know i had to do it

isac also works!! but idk if they're doing that so um

so with the summer olympics coming up in 2024, i think it’d be so funny if they do some summer olympics sports

volleyball segment for gunwook our resident haikyuu nerd please

and they can wear the uniforms from the anime too

please please please wakeone think about it

also imagine a skateboarding episode?? idk why maybe it’s the north american but i feel like matthew would be surprisingly good at it?

also surfing?????

idk if the surfing scene in korea is good but if not they can always take a trip to hawaii or smth i certainly will not be complaining

esports + pc building episode

listen we have 3 whole gamers in the group, this is kind of perfect

the gamers can be the captains of each team

i want the lame ass esports poses and intros

and the stats too like imagine

ALSO if you guys have seen the trash taste pc building special but think about the potential

so it’s partly based on skill and also how well they can build a pc

so they build the pcs and then play using the pcs

there should be a separate prize or bonus for building it the fastest (but not necessarily the best)

also i want the editing thing where they have an expert build the pc properly and then every time that the boys fuck up, the clip of them messing up is played right after the expert does it the correct way

think about the chaos

mock trial episode

same sort of thing as the debate night but they have to represent their clients

i feel like sung hanbin would be the defendant like i have no evidence for this but i want someone to indict him

he just seems like he would be really good at pretending to have not committed a crime

and then 2 attorneys and 2 witnesses on each side

prosecutors: gunwook and zhang hao (imagine the haobin tension guys) (also gunwook just has major prosecution vibes idk what to tell you)

defence attorneys: matthew and gyuvin

prosecution’s witnesses: yujin and taerae

defence’s witnesses: jiwoong and ricky

i feel like gunwook and zhang hao would be really good and logical

but like how can you not want to trust matthew and gyuvin like they’re so sweet

also i need them for comedy

gyuvin would 100% object to random shit and i need that

i’m sorry but i can’t imagine yujin and taerae being very good witnesses so ig it balanced out gunwook and zhang hao?

and jiwoong and ricky would be AMAZING witnesses

like it took skill to not be evil edited so ricky would be able to keep his calm so well and jiwoong too like i would trust whatever they say

and the judge could be an actual lawyer they brought on as the expert for the episode

and the jury can be the staff lmfao

now what is hanbin’s crime you might be asking?

being too handsome tbh i have no idea maybe the fans can vote on it the week before or smth LMFAO

---

volunteering mini series!

it really warms my heart to see people give back to the community, especially idols because it inspires a lot of fans to do so too!

it’d be really nice if maybe as a holiday special? they went around to different places and volunteered to spread awareness for the causes

maybe it’d be better if they split up?

the members can choose what they’re passionate about too

my personal suggestions/ideas would be:

a retirement home (they can perform music for the elderly people there. i’m thinking zhang hao and taerae would be a good combo)

a hospital

a soup kitchen

a community centre (i’d love to see hanbin and gunwook teach after school dance lessons to children)

and the proceeds for the episode could go towards different charities or programs for these places (ie if they need more funding or renovations) as well as a link for fans to donate more to these places

---

[thegeminisage]

ok it's star trek update time. once again. i've fallen behind 💀 tuesday we did voy's "the cloud" and "phage" (out of order bc plex numbered them incorrectly/user error), wednesday we did ds9's "dentiny" and voy's "eye of the needle," and last night we watched ds9's "prohphet motive" and voy's "ex post facto."

the cloud (voy):

man this one sucked ass

well, i did like janeway's personal log. i love women getting to have the same normal problems a man would. i like janeway a lot, even if she still feels a bit stiff to me sometimes

actually, WAIT, why is the academy TEACHING captains they need to maintain a certain distance? like sure yes it's a bad idea to fuck your subordinates (even though picard said there was NO?? regulation on that...) but surely you're supposed to like. care about them. between this and deanna winning the kobayashi maru by killing geordi i'm starting to wonder if starfleet expects captains to simply not CARE about people. there's something larger at work in my brain re: this thought, like, kirk was always going on missions himself to protect people despite that putting him greater danger, and now they don't want captains to leave the chair or care about people...hell universe. and since picard never left the chair or cared about anyone it may have made for good policy but it made for BAD tv

ANYWAY.

accidentally got spoiled for neelix being the cook bc of reverse ep order lol

tom paris once again insufferable bc he's like dont invite the captain to poker night or whatever. for a rebellious felon he's really toeing that starfleet line. also, the LAST thing in the world i want is more holodeck but ESPECIALLY if i have to watch tom paris make out with realfake holo women on it. HOLO PEOPLE ARE ALIVE YOU FOOLS

i thought this episode was gonna be about coffee and it wasn't :( it was just a few jokes here and there

the nebula plot was stupid. you ram a hole in it and you're gonna fix it by ramming more holes? neelix is the only mfer that gets it. that said, i DO support women's rights to ram ill-advised things through holes - whenever, however, and as often as they like.

chakotay teaching janeway to find her animal guide (complete with the medicine bundle...) being played TOTALLY straight and serious just about ended me. like i knew they werent gonna be like "haha just kidding you are a REALLY gullible white person" at the end but watching them not do that was really really awful

harry kim just casually dropping he remembers being in the womb. alright.

janeway muting the doc when he is trying to speak :( holo-racist

i do like that firstly harry was like fuck tom paris im inviting janeway and secondly that she can play pool really well. those were nice touches. the non-racist janeway stuff was good! i just wish the rest of the episode had been good too lol

phage (voy):

i liked this one MUCH better. first of all, neelix in the cave about to get his lungs stolen very "mistew obama pwease hewp me" core. then perish. rip in pieces poor neelix :(

secondly, what an interesting ethical dilemma...can you kill a person to save a person? not in starfleet ig but if i was janeway i would have been real tempted. neelix is great

kes giving up one of her lungs to neelix was so sweet, actually. kes has grown on me a HUGE amount in a very very short time. i absolutely love her kindness, which was boring at first because i didn't really feel like she was being kind in a way that stood out from any run of the mill compassionate character. but her scenes with the doctor bring out the best in both of them, i think - like, he kicks her out initially, and then asks her to stay because he's in over his head. and rather than dismissing him she stays and asks if he wants to unionize. the fact that she's DETERMINED to treat him as a fully realized person when he doesn't even treat himself that way...she recognizes unmet needs and works to fix them, just because that's who she is. AUGH she's such a good personnn she;s gonna make a GREAT doctor

lung stealing aliens are way cooler than the slaver aliens even if they are horrible to look at. i LOVE how mad janeway got at them. she was like if i EVER see you again its on sight and i believe her. and she scared them so good they fixed neelix <3 kinda goes to show compassion wins...and that kind of compassion/adherence to morals in the face of personal loss and righteous anger IS a kirk move honorific. and winning because of those qualities is a kirk move. ugh i like janeway so much

"one day i'll surprise you mister tuvok" i love them. wah. tuvok reminds me SO much of spock...he's got that eyebrow thing happening

also, neelix getting his lungs removed totally makes this the spiritual sequel to spock's brain

destiny (ds9):

the whole time i was watching this i felt like sokka in that one atla episode. "can your science prove why it rains" core. like just because there are three cardassians and some river went somewhere...it's especially galling to me that kira buys into it completely. i always forget she's religious, and she's so SMART i didn't think she'd get caught up in the prophecy of it all.

recited the 35th rule of acquisition alongside quark which felt. bad. i still haven't forgiven him but i'm trying

cardassian lady accidentally flirting with obrien was EXTREMELY funny. that's twice now he's banged his head on the ceiling and it's incredibly charming

kira and sisko being buddies 🥺 kira like it's had to work for space jesus!!! so true girl. though she literally was sleeping with a space priest. their bits were sooo good though, you can FEEL how much he doesn't want the enormity of his role, and how much kira believes in him - and i personally get the sense it's because she's SEEN him work. like she believes in him on a professional level, as well, because he ALWAYS has her back. man i would totally believe he was space jesus too who can blame her he's amazing

i did at least like the rational explanation for the prophecies- that nonlinear aliens simply just tell people things. i do wonder why they can't just knock on the wormhole and ask those guys some questions, though

anyway, firmly mid. normally i love kira-heavy episodes but i just had such a hard time not going full sokka in this one. sorry, kira!

eye of the needle (voy):

THIS ONE BLEW MY TITS CLEAN OFF!! best voyager episode yet imho

firstly we are still sending things through holes. fantastic.

also, kes went from "eh she is boring" to "i would die for her" at warp speed......her scenes with the doctor are all SO good. kes recognizing his humanity when most people in starfleet don't know holograms are alive/don't care that holograms are alive, when HE HIMSELF does not think of himself as being alive...mwah. david cage wishes. it feels like an inverse of the data situation, because data WANTED to be alive but struggled to fit in with humanity, whereas the doctor didn't give two shits about being treated like a real person until kes started talking to him about it, and would in fact fit in effortlessly with "real people" were he not confined to the medbay.

and the doctor's bitterness! no one speaks directly to him despite asking him to function as an entire medical staff. no one remembers to turn him off, leaving him to suffer through hours of boredom, or people turn him off when he isn't ready, leading to problems with his experiments. and the existential dread of being abandoned on the ship alone while everyone else potentially transports home through the wormhole...and someone potentially forgetting to deactivate him first.

i really like how janeway reacted to the news that the doctor might be alive. she was like "girl no way" and then kes was like "yes way" and she decided to investigate herself rather than be dismissive about it. she was very good in this episode overall but i like that she showed compassion to someone/something she wasn't even sure was alive. it was very siskocore of her.

and finally...that sweet a-plot. letswatchstartrek, my least favorite website that is absolute essential to my functioning, GAVE THIS A TWO. because "well it's season 1 we all know they aren't getting home this episode." those fucking idiots, that's WHY this episode is good!! it's about hope. do they understand nothing

like, everyone trying SO HARD to curb their expectations at first because the wormhole is so small and so decayed and the absolute MOST they can hope for is to get a message through...the agony of the wormhole going back to where they need to be but them not being able to get through and the only person picking up the phone being a FUCKING romulan who think they're prank calling him

and the way that like this predicament utterly humanizes everyone involved. janeway answering the phone in her nightgown. asking about this romulan's family. the barriers between starfleet and romulus breaks down instantly under the shared connection of being adrift without one's family. what a perfect illustration of the compassion one can have for strangers because deep down even aliens are made of the same stuff as we are.

and then of course by the end janeway is like it doesn't matter! secrecy doesn't matter! let's have hope for a minute let's believe this will work! and then IT DOESN'T WORK. or, actually, what's worse is that it could work, they could theoretically go back to the alpha quadrant 20 years ago, but it will fuck everything up if they do, and they can't even prevent themselves from getting stuck out here. all they can do is send the romulan home with their messages and then..........

............have no idea if he found a way to send them before he died ahead of schedule. like. ALL THEY HAVE IS HOPE. like of COURSE you know theyre not gonna get home in season 1 but THAT IS WHAT MAKES IT INSANE.

also, hi, b'elanna not having anyone at home who cares if she lives or dies...this retroactively makes chakotay's protectiveness of her so much more meaningful. everyone who loves her is already on this ship :( aaaagggh

prophet motive (ds9):

god this one sucked so bad. rare L for ds9 and a major one at that

i spent most of it googling whether or not people actually liked the ferengi episodes (to my dismey: yes, people on reddit think they're funny), but i also spent some time googling how many more episodes we had to suffer through this grand nagus bullshit (4) and getting my little guys stolen on chess.

i have been wanting to see the wormhole aliens again FOREVER and wondered why you can't just go and talk to them and then they show up in this of all places...they so nicely let people go through their wormhole and then this dude disrespectfully bothers them...

also, to SELL an orb back to the bajorans...i hope he dies. i hope kira specifically kills him and loots the orb off his corpse.

the only two moments of note in this episode were 1. quark talking ancient unknowable aliens into letting him and the nagus leave unscathed through a combination of fast thinking and being annoying, which would be charming were i not in such dire anti-quark straits 2. rom robbing the nagus blind LMAOOO good for him. i hope he shared exactly zero of it with quark

on a final note, the space station, unlike tng's enterprise, does NOT seem to be self-cleaning. thank god for that.

EDIT I NEARLY FORGOT JULIAN BASHIR B PLOT!!!!! he wanted to win so bad even though he knew there wasnt a chance 🥺 my poor HORRIBLY competitive fella. and then it was three days of marinating in the fact that he was never gonna win

also odo cold reading him about the acceptance speech lmfao. love that

ex post facto (voy):

i would have liked this episode a LOT if it had happened to anyone but tom paris. imagine if a guy you liked had special brain torture every 14 hours even though he was totally innocent and only a mind meld from tuvok could save him. like, picture almost any other trek character in this situation. bashir. riker. even bones. any of them could maybe perhaps do a little kissing of a married woman and get themselves into trouble and it would be one of my favorite episodes of all time. even the plot twist of WHY he was falsely accused was fun and clever. unfortunately, i simply cannot bring myself to care about tom paris.

tuvok my best friend tuvok. he DID HIS HOMEWORK! the eyebrow movements, the way he did the mind meld from the same position that spock melded with dr van gelder in dagger of the mind my beloved. all these things are unmistakably vulcan because leonard nimoy did them first and SPOCK is unmistakably vulcan, despite all his lifelong insecurities. now that i've met other vulcans properly i know that better than ever and i wish he could too.

ALSO, HI, MARRIED 67 YEARS??? lowkey sad he and janeway can't get it now but also, do we think he has BABIES? do we think he has GRANDBABIES?? grandpa tuvok my best friend AAAGHGH. also, since this series is 7 years long and also because of a spoilery gifset EYE happen to know pon farr is inevitable. but i bet his wife had to fix it herself back home too so ik she will forgive him

anyway, if i was innocent, there's no one i'd rather have on my side than tuvok. he went above and beyond the call of duty there. i was really surprised he powered through the meld and experienced being murdered so well. i mean he took that like a champ. that's on vulcan stoicism...also AUGH janeway INSISTING he not do that bc she knows it will be horrible and the long time she spent searching his face before finally agreeing to it. i would never want him to cheat on his wife but they could also theoretically hypothetically get it.

and finally, CUTEST dog in the world this episode. it's so odd looking it does such a great job at jumping around everywhere

TONIGHT: ds9's "visionary" and voy's "emanations"

[yeah-thats-probably-it]

IWTV S02E05 notes that I wrote down as I was watching

The chemistry between Louis and Armand in the present day is still so so so weird, they’re so clearly play acting being a happy couple who are in sync and playfully tease each other but it feels SO scripted/rehearsed

But I feel like Louis at least IS genuinely invested in believing this “Armand love of my life” narrative

And Armand is obviously hiding something but also scheming with Louis

So how much of this is planned between the two of them, how much is genuine and how much of it is each of them acting separately from each other?

I know this story is told from Louis’ point of view and therefore might be biased, but there sure doesn’t seem to be any question about whether Daniel likes men in this version of events

He literally looks Louis up and down? Hello??

And I wouldn’t exactly describe present-Daniel’s reaction to finding out they DIDN’T sleep together as “relieved”

This is really the season where Eric Bogosian gets to ACT (between this and “she said no,” god)

Louis is doing a great impression of someone drunkenly ranting about an ex they’re not over and he’s not even the one under the influence in this scene (as far as I know)

Okay I do know the spoiler that Armand has been doing some fucky stuff with everyone’s memory. So Louis saying he probably can’t remember what happened because of the drugs is foreshadowing

One of my favorite things about this show is that every argument between Louis and Armand or Louis and Lestat sounds exactly like any normal marital fight except with some vampire words subbed in

“The world’s softest, beige-est pillow” sent me

Armand isn’t boring but that definitely feels like an accurate description of their relationship tbh? They both seem bored and suffocated with it

I’m a simple man (gn), it entertains me to no end when British actors faking American accents have to fake British accents as their American characters (especially toward the end there it doesn’t even sound like Louis is doing Armand’s accent it sounds like he’s doing Jacob Anderson’s accent, which just amuses me a lot)

“I’m good at getting angles, getting people to open up” he is!!! He’s REALLY good at guiding his interview subjects to remember more stuff. Of course, ethically, there are special considerations you’re supposed to take if you’ll be asking your subject to recall memories that may be traumatic to relive, not just launch them right into them. But everything else in this episode is so irreproachably ethically and morally sound that I’m willing to let that slide

This show got so fun when it switched from Daniel trying to coax information out of Louis and Armand to him and Louis working together to figure out what Armand isn’t telling them

Louis found the exact combination of words that were guaranteed to work on Armand to convince him to stop, you can see it in Armand’s face

This Armand calling Louis maitre thing is… some kind of dynamic for sure. Not sure WHAT dynamic, but there definitely IS one

Armand breezing in again in his cool sunglasses after Louis and Daniel have been uncovering all this stuff about him is fucking hilarious. His exes really DID unionize

I’m probably asexual but Assad Zaman is so pretty it confuses and mesmerizes me in equal measure. GOD that man is beautiful. I want to stare at him forever. Respectfully, I want to print out a picture of him and eat it like Dreamstat ate that photograph that Louis took