#but evil morty is going about it in way too extreme a way for morty to condone it for long

[mistress-of-vos]

I'd make a longer post (and maybe one day I will) but since Lore Olympus, the story that introduced me to webtoons is coming to an end I'd like to say something:

I can't believe it is considered problematic. It has to be one of the sweetest, fluffiest, simplest stories I have read (hence why I still like it, it's a relaxing read before bed) and somehow it got too "kinky" for mainstream. It's laughable.

Everytime I dare to click on their tag or look for the # on Twitter or FB I see people clutching their pearls as if Lore Olympus were brainwashing teenagers into marrying a non existent God of the dead and have babies with him. What the hell?

The fact that people think LO is too dark makes me laugh. A single episode of Rick&Morty, BoJack Horseman or HQS has way more explicit content and dialogue. In fact!!! If it were up to me LO would have gotten genuinely kinky!!! All it does is have some surface spicy tropes that get sugar coated to not make puritans awkward and tbh that's sad. LO and the author get terribly hated anyway for daring to portray the most common female fantasy.

And this all makes me laugh but also mad because you'd think LO at least has some genuine dark themes but no? At most we have Persephone's trauma due to Apollo's abuse and yet that topic is treated as a therapy pamphlet because people couldn't handle an imperfect victim. Hades is a wife guy who shows little to no anger. Hera was re written to be sort of a feminist so that people stopped being annoying about women having emotions.

LO is a sweet, simple story with tiny spicy things here and there that were eventually pushed aside because people couldn't handle it. I wonder how Rachel feels about this, because at the beginning the story was extremely spicy and the only crime was being published in a platform as webtoon, full of people who can't differentiate reality from fiction.

Is LO a masterpiece? Idk! I enjoy the story, it's very self indulgent for me, but I won't go and analyze every detail to see how it should be labeled as it's not meant to be a perfect media. It's meant to be an entertaining, nice story of romance and it does that job very well. This need to demand perfect writing while also crucifying authors over "dark" themes is ridiculous and contradictory.

And I keep wondering, if these people loathe LO so much, why dedicate all that time to the infinte posts they make about how they would have told the story? And all those re tellings are boring! It's always "So Persephone and Hades won't ever kiss here because she's a lesbian. Also he doesn't appear at all. And Demeter isn't an abusive mom! Oh and everyone is ugly because gods shouldn't be beautiful! And Apollo isn't evil he's uwu baby. And no toxic relationships here, Zeus is a good husband!"

Sweet Gaia, you guys wouldn't handle Saint Seiya having Athena in the body of a teenage girl with big tits and who's constantly in the edge of breaking her virginity vows. This attitude screams of jealousy and puritanism and both are disgusting.

TLDR: LO being too problematic for people is both funny and annoying. I wished it actually were as kinky and dark as people insist it is. I'd pay for a toxic romance, but that being said, I LOVE it very much as it is and it's nice to have a re telling that, while not pretending to be loyal to mythology, didn't go for a route of sanitizing all the myths. I hope that once it ends haters will move on and let real fans and the author alone. 🙏

[potetosaradas]

I've been marinating on some Rick Prime thoughts/theories. I might be completely wrong and way off base, but this was a delusional idea that ive had and can't seem to let go of sksjfdkdl this post got really long rIP to anyone who decides to read this

I'll be referring to this timeline I made. I'm basing the years off of known/confirmed ages in the show from when the show started airing in 2017, to track and pin down some possible key dates/time frames in the Sanchez/Smith family past.

I've always wondered about Prime and his timeline. Like, did he have a Diane before/during/after he met Rick? When did he meet her? How and why would he meet her? I feel the circumstances would greatly change the flavour and impact of their relationship, knowing this information!

But! Based off this timeline, i have reason to suspect that Prime met his Diane after he killed Rick's family, given that his Beth is younger than C137’s Beth.

Now... why would he do that? Why would he purposefully go and meet Diane, marry her and make a family, when he JUST killed Rick for the same thing?

WHAT IF. Prime was using Diane as cover to hide from Rick?????? SUPPOSEDLY, Morty brainwaves do that whole complimentary, masking brainwaves thing-- but WHAT IF, Diane's ALSO had the same ability?????? had to come from somewhere right??????

ANYWAY it seems like it takes 3-4 years after killing Rick's family to he starts his own. I imagine in this time period, Rick and Prime were playing a game of cat and mouse across the universe. What if Prime decided to go back to his own dimension to lay low?

He finds out that Diane brainwaves keep Ricks hidden, so he goes back to find his own Diane. He woos her, love bombs her and within 1-2 years he's dated her, married her and started a family with her.

See, I dont think Prime ever really loved or cared about his Diane. I don't think he actually even wanted to get married at all. So why tf would did he do that???????? Well, I could definitely see him using marriage for self serving purposes. After all, didn't c137 do the same thing? He went back and used Prime's family for his own gain.They have no issue using people 🤷

So anyway, Prime hides himself from Rick for 15 years with Diane and Beth. He plots away at his Dastardly Evil Plans, keeping tabs on Rick, hiding from him as he slowly pieces the Omega Device together until it's ready. We know that Prime was an absent father and I can't imagine him having a better relationship with his Diane compared to C137/Diane C137, so I'm willing to bet he had an extremely strained marriage with her. BUT AGAIN, that would make sense, if he was only using her to his benefit only caring about the construction of the device/hiding himself from Rick C137.

additionally, i dont think he immediately went to go back to find Rick C137 as soon as it was completed. Contrary to popular belief, i dont think Prime was using the omega device to specifically torture C137. I definitely think it played a big part in it, but there were definitely other reasons as to why he made this device.

I'm not clear on what Prime's exact motivations are, but it's always seemed to me that he wanted to make an army of Ricks or at least, he seemed to be searching for superior Ricks/that could match his level.

I'll be using some scenes from the crybaby backstory for some points:

After Prime killed Rick's family, it looks like (from 00:33 to 01:05) Rick has been adventuring around the universe, checking out new universes and also looking for Prime, feeling frustrated when he comes up empty.

If you look closely, it doesn't look like Rick is looking for Prime on Earth dimensions. Again, making me think that Prime went back to his own dimension to hide from Rick-- its almost kind of like the last place Rick would ever go look for him too??

In the very next scene, Rick has visibly aged. If Rick was 27-30 in previous frames, the aged jump makes Rick look like he’s 35-45 (maybe even older). He's glumly eating noodles and clearly doesn't look happy at all. He looks super jaded. During this time, we can see him in his rebel phase, fighting with BP and the infamous Bloodridge battle.

BP rejects him, and as we know, Rick doesn't take kindly to rejection. What happened when Morty rejected him in s6? He went back to the one thing that has always made sense to him, the one thing that's always kept him going. So perhaps, he goes back to his hunt for Prime after having lost his purpose and way with BP.

According to the timeline that I have, Prime is about 51 years old when he might've completed the Omega device. This lines up pretty neatly with Rick in his rebel phase era (tail end of 40 years old) So, what does they do next?

According to the video, we can see Rick starts finding a pretty good lead on Prime. If Rick and Prime were the only ones to actually invent portal tech, the old Rick using a portal gun at 01:15 is a Rick that Prime shared portal tech with. That's a pretty great start to tracking Prime. He tracks Prime down to a maze like base with OTHER RICKS BUT there are guard Ricks (that perhaps are Ricks that Prime has recruited to his side???) and also other Ricks he is competing with to get to the center. We see Rick is visibly frustrated when the other Rick smashes the Cube in the case. What if that was a lead to Prime directly?

In season 7, we see that Prime likes to play with other Ricks in the form of SAW traps. He seems to like weeding and sorting through Ricks.

WHAT IF, this maze like base was also another competition? And Prime was gathering Ricks using the potential of the omega device as bait?

Anyway, I have reason to suspect that the omega device was first triggered and destroyed by 1999 as Morty seems to have very little attachment to Diane making me believe he never met her or remembered her presence AND also at 01:57 in the video, Rick visibly ages again (becoming the Old Rick we all know so well, I would definitely place him at 60-70 at this point). He's back at his old home, the last place he ever saw Diane alive. He's drinking and he's still so very very sad, massacring Ricks left right and center. To meeeee, this sort of I really dont give a fuck anymore attitude seems a LOT like the attitude of a man who's REALLY lost everything. If he thought he lost Diane once, he's now forced to consider the reality that you could lose the person you love over infinity entirely. It would be even worse if it was Rick that accidentally triggered the omega device to go off killing all Dianes lol even if he managed to destroy the device in the end. Anyway, strong possibility that he did it considering how many Ricks start going after him????

IDK.

I HOPE SOME OF THIS MAKES SENSE?? Im not very good at explaining myself 💀

[zeep-xanflorp]

ok i'm just gonna ramble ab unmortricken bc i have exactly ZERO COHERENT THOUGHTS AB IT

evil morty backstory - i rlly like that they just made him some random morty who rose above everything after getting sick of rick's abuse. it makes what he did feel even more earned and weighty. i think his motivation is a bit extreme still but i can't rlly blame him.

it's cool seeing infinity beyond the central finite curve. the jetsons inspired bit was v amusing bc i forgot about them lmao. but otherwise it seems absolutely wild west beyond the curve and i LIVE for that.

i also didnt imagine that we'd be seeing him again. i thought the way he left the show was perfect and if they brought him back it would just feel cheap but it DOESNT in this episode i love his appearance.

i rlly like seeing our morty be supportive of rick. he's literally trying everything to cheer him up and it's very important to me.

the prime decoys confuse me. like do they all share a consciousness? is prime just very very good at fucking with ppl that he's made all the decoys communicate w each other?

evil morty outsmarting rick is a great recurring theme in the episode. "filter for probability stasis" YEAH U TELL HIM LITTLE DUDE. we've never seen a morty like that EXCEPT for him and i think it's wonderful.

the exchange between rick and evil morty. "you're such a narcissist" / "literal glass house" / "you think you're better than me?" / "jesus i HOPE SO" SHITTING

i didnt initially like the decoy trap thing being full of loads of other ricks. it made me feel like our rick wasn't very important to this dude and rick just made an enemy of a guy who didn't know he existed. BUT i don't stand by that anymore. the rest of the episode made me change my mind very quickly with.

the omega device. holy fuck this is the worst reveal to come out of this episode. she wasn't just killed, she was ERASED by prime in every reality. like she is GONE gone. that's why we've never seen her, save in flashbacks and memories. she's gone.

and i'm pretty sure it's our rick's fault that he did that. we see his beth and his diane be killed by a bomb, not wiped from reality like slo mobius is later in the episode. so his family was killed BEFORE all the shit with the omega device. ik correlation ≠ causation, but it rlly explains why our rick in particular is so hungry for revenge. if he was the one that made prime kill diane everywhere then he had to be the one to make prime pay for it.

i like how the multiple monitors seems to be prime's signature move. it happens here and in the s6 premiere.

and oh fuck the parallels. "when i invent something it works, it's called being talented" in story train vs "when i make a weapon in works."

oh man the diane head weapon thing. it's interesting that it was programmed to mock rick sexually, but even on our rick who knows it's a trap, it still affects him seeing her face again. "god i missed that face." and then the blank stare when she asks for a kiss. pretty sweet and fucked up.

rick and evil morty having to work together to get their portals working. the contrast between our morty freaking out and evil morty blank staring.

the bit with the portal closing too soon. i know it happened earlier this season and i think it's so funny lmao.

I CANNOT STRESS TO YOU ENOUGH THAT I WAS SO MADE WHEN I WORKED OUT THAT INSTEAD OF YELLING WHILE GOING THROUGH THE CURVE THING IN THE MIDFLE OF THE EP HE WAS SCREAMING "PRIME" THOSE DIABOLICAL LITTLE BASTARDS AT ADULT SWIM.

prime calling rick the Wife Guy. hilarious. raises questions. makes me gnaw on my cell bars.

AND THEN the second incredible reveal of the episode: "Honestly, Wife Guy, I do miss when it was just us. The only two Ricks who actually invented portal travel." WHAT bestie prime bby girl u need to say that again. you guys were the ONLY ones who invented interdimensional travel, every rick's claim to fame. but no they just got the technology from prime who started a boys club of ricks who wanted to leave their lives behind that our rick refused.

but the reference to a time when they were closer, when it was only them - HELLO?? maybe i'm grasping at straws bc i want them to bang but holy shit.

the confirmation of the fan theory that rick based his AI voice on his wife. 10/10.

and then the fight scene. oh gods the fight scene. rick just screaming that he'll kill prime. prime regenerating constantly, looking unscathed as our rick becomes more and more dishevelled. it's too perfect i CANT. but otherwise they both seem pretty evenly matched w all the implants and stuff so without the regeneration i think rick would've had him. oh well.

rick like literally died during the fight.

the cool grandson/shitty grandpa exchange gives me breath. i LOVE how it's a morty that outsmarts prime. it's what he deserves.

prime still trying to be a smartass to evil morty, growing more and more panicked as it goes on bc he doesn't know what to do with the situation and control for once is not in his hands.

"what are u gonna 'aw geez' me to death?"

evil morty not even explaining his plan, just silently dragging in our rick and reviving him. saying "knock yourself out" with the intended double meaning. prime's almost scared expression as rick gets dragged in.

and then our rick has a choice. he can stop evil morty from keeping the weapon plans or he can kill prime. but that's a choice he made already. it's not even a decision. so his other enemy gets away.

the brutal brutal scene at the end when rick is just hitting prime. no tech, no implants, no gadgets. just fists. and rick beats him literally to a pulp as prime screams and laughs at him and taunts him further. it's meant to be sickening. it's meant to be personal. and it accomplishes that perfectly.

they don't even show prime's body in great detail. it's RIGHT in the background but we heard the sounds of the punches, we saw his nose break and his bloody teeth and haemorrhaging eyes and his brains coming out the side of it head and all we can make out is his fucked up swollen and broken face in the background as he sits still attached to the chair, a river of his blood pouring from the room.

but its not triumphant. they made rick's revenge hollow and bittersweet. its over but it destroyed rick in the process. who is he now that he isn't hunting prime? fucking no one.

then "look on down from the bridge" starts playing. we heard this in season 1 in rick potion #9 after morty had to bury a version of himself. he was struggling with the purpose of his life after switching universes. but he deals with it and overcomes it.

i think that scene is rick, for the first time in the entire show, struggling with his nihilistic philosophy. bc yes, he's shown to be an existentialist in the show (the difference being existentialists are "nothing matters but this matters to me" instead of "nothing matters so i don't have to do anything"). he had a drive. he had ppl he cared about. but now he's reached his goal he just feels empty and hollow. everything's meaningless and he's NOT okay with that. he never has been, but he has to grapple with that finally now he doesn't have a distraction. i don't think he can just bounce back and move past what happened.

ppl are saying this episode felt overstuffed and maybe it was but i'm very pleased with it and want to know where it's going.

i feel we still don't know the full story with prime. i'm predicting a flash back episode in the future explaining what the nature of their relationship was like before the bomb incident.

we also know that evil morty has this weapon that could destroy all ricks. so that is just a ticking bomb.

anyway i can't wait for angsty rick.

i actually watched unforgiven for this episode bc i'm a big fan of westerns anyway. the only real parallels i can see is they both have a group of three (two are already partners and the other one is the call to adventure) and an unsatisfying ending. bc that's the nature of westerns. they should NEVER end happily, and if u think so then ur wrong (/nsrs enjoy media how u want).

some things i haven't mentioned but enjoyed nonetheless

the schematics for the omega device is titled <SCHEMATICS BOOGER-AIDS-V2>

the arm/leg swap best in the fight

the comparison between the song at the end playing here and in season one shows with just visuals how the dynamic of beth and jerry's (and beth's) marriage has evolved since then.

everyone freaking out when indiana jones rick shoots and it ricochets off the wall and evil morty just stands expressionless until it hits his forcefield.

morty going to hug rick covered in blood, realising, hesitating, and then doing it later anyway to try and make rick feel better.

evil morty making a point to say that he doesn't want vengeful summers coming after him for omega devicing rick. not vengeful mortys, vengeful SUMMERS.

just evil morty in this whole episode was an absolute delight i need to see him more.

THE TEAR MARKS AFTER RICK EMERGES FROM BEATING PRIME TO DEATH

slo mobius' wife almost going down the same path our rick did only to find someone she loves and focus on that, saving her. makes me wonder if they're gonna try putting rick in a relationship.

this ended up being way longer than it should have. anyway. very pleased. this season is hitting all the marks for me overall.

also don't be too hard on me i didnt edit this 😭

[starrbitez]

Why Morty Smith is “like a dog” (pun unintended)

Okay so i saw a post (I’ll link it in comments!) that was talking about how Rick is more like a dog than Morty, and I definitely agree that Rick is similar to a dog too, I am going to discuss my personal opinions on Morty’s dog-like symbolism, parallels with snuffles/snowball, and my own ideas for the dog analogy. It begins below the cut :3

Firstly, there are some parallels between Morty and his former fluffy companion I think are important and very interesting !

One example, Morty is treated very similarly by Rick to the way Jerry treats Snowball. See; Rick pushing Morty down the stairs, Jerry rubbing snowball’s face in his pee. Both unnecessary punishments or just entirely unnecessary.

Morty is also threatened emptily a lot, in the way that an owner might threaten their dog when they do something bad, ie. “we’ll take you back to the shelter or replace you if you dont stop peeing on the rug,” and the replaceable nature that abusive pet owners exemplify towards their dogs is the exact same treatment Morty gets, with the you’re replaceable almost ‘I’ll take you back to the shelter’ threats Rick gives.

Morty is treated like a dog constantly, and while all Morty’s are on some level imo, Pmorty is the most. When Rick takes the voucher for a free replacement Morty — it’s like getting a discount on a rescue dog or picking up a stray when your dog dies.

Then, morty is talked down to like a dog, just like how Jerry talks to snowball.

Morty: whats wrong?

Jerry: your idiot dog! …. Don’t praise him Morty, he peed on the carpet! Bad dog, bad!

Rick: youre a perfect suit of impenetrable armor, Morty! because you’re as dumb as I am smart!

And then,

Morty: look rick, there’s a bunch of people strapped to that building!

Rick: Not people morty. Mortys.

At this point in the show (s1e10) Rick doesn’t even consider Mortys to be human, and he values Morty about the same amount that Jerry valued snowball — little to nothing, simply valued to feel superior over something.

I also think that in Rest and Ricklaxation, healthy morty and toxic morty are two opposite and extreme sides of the spectrum of dog-like behavior. While normal morty is loyal to a fault, he still his has own morals and enough personal confidence to argue with rick and engage in adventures. There’s a clear divide in his character in many episodes where he see his more violent tendencies, and in this episode you can see a split between his more “feral” side and his “domesticated” side. Healthy Morty is a sort of lone-wolf, he believes that health is being able to survive on your own, be strong and completely confident to an almost selfish and narcissistic point, and he desires to be a leader. Toxic Morty sees himself as weak, and he says that he just wants to die. He feels like the runt of the litter, left behind and clinging to the first person that offers him protection — rick. When combined, morty is somewhere in the middle, but the separate parts are opposite sides of dog-like behavior.

OKAY now im going to talk abt my SNOWBALL PARALLELS a bit more….

When snowball realizes how he is being treated, on some level gaining sentience, he starts to develop his intelligence, get stronger, more independent, rebel against the people who treated him like shit and took advantage of him. Snowball realizes how he is being treated and he does everything he can to prove he is intelligent, but out of his care and loyalty to morty, he leaves because he wants morty to live and be happy !!! Sound familiar?

Yes it is the exact same track as Morty’s character development.In season 3 episode 7 after the dinner with evil morty, morty realizes he is being manipulated, that he is replaceable, that he is just someones property. He gains ‘sentience’ or the conciousness of his free will ? Kinda. And from here on we see Morty’s attitude change significantly, asserting himself over rick often in season 4. Morty joins in on the intro, he leaves rick to die, he focuses on himself, he becomes more violent and more in control of his own decisions. In season 4 we see him become independent from ricks control, but he is still loyal and wants rick to be happy, the same loyalty snowball had to the one person who treated him right.

Snowball had an attachment to morty because morty was the only one to treat him well.

Morty has an attachment to rick because rick is the only one who gives him praise, albeit irregularly. He gets attention from rick. Morty is continuously in vulnerable or weaker positions to those around him, and i believe it is symbolism !! I think its even in subtle ways like when rick will pat morty on the head, call him ‘buddy’, rick even outright compares morty to a dog with his unwavering loyalty. Which — just like a dog — he was bred for.

I think the acknowledgement of morty being similar to a dog in his loyalty, his obedience, but also in his parallels to snowball align well with the citadel plot of Mortys being bred for forgiveness. Only when the Mortys. Become aware of their treatment and how they could be better, they start to change into a more violent/feral/intelligent/confident form, depending on the Morty. Intelligence seen in evil morty and c-137, feral behavior in the mutated morty’s on the citadel who are aware of their position And the corruption around them.

I think we are in track for morty to become more and more of an independent kid, following in the footsteps of snowball and developing his intelligence, confidence, ad strength until he will possibly leave or find independence from his codependency on rick, just like snowball was able to escape his codependency on humanity in general. (Interesting to think abt how Beth and Jerry have a codependent marriage and rick and morty have a codependent partnership… v interesting)

But yes . These are my thoughts on morty smith c-137 and the general theme of Mortys being a dog. For more info read my fic, like a dog. Jkjkjk B)

Pls pls tell me ur opinions on this !!

[skinnypaleangryperson]

It's funny how it's seems to be hinted that all Ricks have roughly the same personality at their core: painfully sentimental and romantic, tempted by power, insecure about it and covering it up with coded ego, hellbent on hyperfixating on an extremely intense purpose for years because it's the only way they can make sense of existence, and excessive relationship attachment issues.

Rick Prime has the same traits as Rick, they're just shuffled around differently. He's embarrassingly fixted on taunting C-137, spends his whole life not letting his want for power go just like Rick never lets his want for family go, is patronizing towards caring too much towards himself (as in c-137) and is an all around extremely intense and specific person. Rick's seem to usually be tormented between power or family, but they all showcase the same general core of a dysfunctional confused man who obnoxiously dedicated to the goal he does chose to dedicate himself to, no matter what.

But every Rick has that awkward, stumbling heart when they're around family members. Like when Prime saw Morty in the last episode. Idiot didn't know how to act, because even though he still vauled power over family with that version of him, he still has the same heart as C-137, just shuffeled around differently.

C-137 is extremely narcissistic, but ultimately chose family. But he definitely seems to value power for awhile in seasons 2,3.

All the Rick's in the last episode were extremely romantic and vengeful at the same time.

Kind of feels like that because even though they're all "different," because they're all Rick, they keep banging their heads against one another in the multiverse, because they truly are all the same in what counts, which is character. Lol. Just presented differently. But they all seem to care about their families (Prime is the furthest from this) Just a man too smart for his own good.

Ricks also seem to be deeply fragile and unhinged on an emotionally level and emotionally handicapped; they all seem to be inherently suicidal. Evil Rick, for example.

I love Rick's character, is what I'm saying.

[nekobami]

Hi people look at my generic business man

Hes very evil, very rich and very gay

(And there's some text and unnecessary lore, like always)

(I guess some of this days I'm gonna build my mansion with texts as bricks, broo)

Basically he built his own wealth little by little while evolving his own body. His species used to be known for adapt and blend in with the fauna and flora of other planets without be perceived

(without the block of text and the close angle. Everything in pink/green is 99% sarcasm or whatever, just ignore it)

Basically he's Evo Hazard (got the reference? I'll probably change it someday) He's apparently 25 years old more or less and probably this one isn't his real name and is just a name he decided to use

More precisely, Evo has decided to adapt himself to technology. He sought to improve his body and mind in every way he could, not limited to biological evolution. But he still hasn't completely let go of being nice to see for other people. The biggest project he ever built was an immense tower with countless floors on a planet he had worked to modify and make it suitable for human life, just because he wanted to receive Ricks, Mortys and every other kind of life there. His tower were basically a Hotel, Nightclub but also a Laboratory at the same time, where his friends could have fun without being worried about money or whatever (a sugar daddy, obviously, why not) because anyway, he gets a lot of money for the unique studies, information, and discovers from his laboratory, He also has his own brand of drink, his own """"empire"""", I would say that money is not lacking anyway

Evo, despite being extremely kind and refusing to charge people to enter his tower, he's extremely controlling and possessive. It's not that he likes to give orders or trapping people inside his hotel. He specifically loves to know that everyone is enjoying something he has made. Like, too much. He could pass his entire life observing people walking and having fun inside his hotel. At his own parties, he is seen serving some of his guests and welcoming them. He gets all sorts of Ricks and Mortys, probably even Miami Rick and Morty have been to his club

His biggest goal was to create a place where no one has to suffer and life is totally balanced. In the middle of his plan, was eliminating the greatest danger to the life forms he loved most: the federation.

According to what Rick discovered from his searchs, (always having to get where NOBODY called him) Evo has worked on the cloning and controlled evolution of endangered species inside compressed artificial planets, mimicking the nature they used to live in, but causing changes on certain points to make them adapt and develop in the way he wanted. So, he would take their evolution for himself and restore them after (and there's nothing wrong with it, obviously) ignore the pink text it's REALLY wrong

Afterwards, when Rick confronted him, he told him that his plan was to become one with technology, a new form of life like no one had seen before. A marvel of technology, An unstoppable creature whose power would only grow. And with that power, he would build a utopia. An ideal place for living standards. Which he himself would protect with his life. A perfect world, where everyone could live in harmony in the way that was best for them. He told that he would use the tower and the federation to build this place, as soon as there wasn't even one person in the tower. Therefore, Rick invaded the laboratory when Evo had sent everyone to a safe place, those places could be their own home or other of his smaller buildings

However, when Rick heard these words from Evo, his face darkened.

He declared, amidst other arguments, that Evo should not be trusted with power, much less of that nature

And after that, I don't know what to do

I'll think about it later so the post won't get too long and if I think of something good I'll share the story in the other drawings I intend to do

[jeezricksa]

morty:  grows  a  backbone,  talks  back  to  rick  and  stands  up  for  himself  more  often,  understanding  that  even  if  rick  does  care  about  him  the  way  he  expresses  it  is  toxic  and  can  border  on  abusive

fans:  oh  my  god .............   HE’S  BECOMING  EVIL  MORTY!!!

[thesoftboiledegg]

One thing I want to point out is how insanely complex Rick and Morty's relationship is. Most of the relationships in the show are straightforward--Morty and Summer argue but stick up for each other, Beth and Jerry have their moments but are ultimately shitty parents, Beth and Rick go back and forth between arguing and shallowly trying to gain each other's approval.

This isn't a bad thing since we're talking about side characters. But while the basic leader/sidekick dynamic is the public perception of Rick and Morty's relationship, their relationship is so complex that you could write pages of meta and still not catch every angle.

It's true that Rick drags Morty on adventures. But they fight, bicker and antagonize each other because their personalities clash--and yet, they work well together because they're so different (unlike Rick and Beth, who don't get along because they're too similar.) Even when they're fighting, they're still working together to meet the end goal.

They engage each other in a power struggle where Rick tries to maintain control and Morty tries to knock him off his feet. Rick smacks him down when Morty challenges him, but Morty's getting cockier and Rick's having an increasingly difficult time controlling him.

Despite this, Rick still craves Morty's attention and approval. He has a full-on mental break whenever Morty leaves him and lashes out in violent, self-destructive ways. And Morty's got no problem walking away--he turns his back on Rick as soon as he finds his replacement. Still, he always runs back when it doesn't work out, and Rick takes him back like nothing happened.

And it's not always bad times. We usually don't see their "good" adventures onscreen, but sometimes they screw around and have fun like a couple of teenage boys. Rick jumps at the chance to regress back into childhood. Usually, Rick doesn't even have bad intentions with their adventures. Something always goes awry, but he's not deliberately trying to get Morty killed.

Still, it's not healthy. In the beginning, Rick sees Morty as a sidekick; later, he sees Morty as a peer. He treats him like an adult until he wants to take charge of the situation--then Rick suddenly takes a position of authority and talks to Morty like he's a child (which he is.) But while Rick wants control over Morty, he also wants to be a teenage boy again and get on his level.

And let's not forget that Rick is just straight-up an asshole. He backs off a little as the series goes on, but he bullies Morty, manipulates him, makes fun of him and insults him. Instead of showing him love, Rick tries to control every aspect of his life to keep Morty from leaving him. He's terrified that Morty will abandon him, but he's also terrified of getting close to people, so he clings to him and pushes him away at the same time.

Morty thinks he's nothing like Rick, but that's not true. As he gains confidence, he takes on Rick's mannerisms and his brutality. Watch "The Old Man and the Seat" and see how Morty talks exactly like Rick. And he's slowly losing himself because he has none of the life experience Rick has that occasionally stays his hand.

Funnily enough, Rick and Morty get along well when they want to. Unfortunately, that's not always a good thing. When they team up in the Glorzo episode, they cause more destruction than ever. Getting along only reinforces their codependency and makes it harder for them to walk away from the relationship.

And yet, despite all the insanity that I just pointed out, despite the extreme highs and lows, there's genuine love in their relationship.

Morty won't say it to Rick's face, but he sticks up for him when he's not there. He shows off Rick's inventions to impress Jessica and Bruce Chutback. In "Rickmurai Jack," Morty sides with Rick over Evil Morty even though he's just seen the depths of Ricks and their cruelty.

Likewise, Rick looks after Morty and protects him, albeit in backhanded ways that Morty often doesn't know about. At the end of season 5, he shows him sincere love and affection for the first time. This time, Rick's the one walking away--and Morty cries because he's never dealt with this before. He always had control over that one aspect of their relationship.

You also can't deny that Rick's the only person in Morty's life who gives him attention and actually wants to be around him. He has a healthy relationship with Summer, but she's got her own life. Morty seems to have no friends at high school, and his parents are cold and distant. Rick gives him attention, affection and adventures beyond his wildest dreams, although it all came with a price.

Other people have noticed. Summer calls Morty a "creepy little grandpa's boy." In a later episode, she says "Rick has Morty" when she talks about feeling alone, implying that Rick is the most important person in Morty's life and vice versa. Rick seems to be genuinely attached to Morty even though he could've picked up a clone any time at the citadel.

And when you get to the end of season 5, you learn about the reasons behind some of Rick's behavior. It's not an excuse, but he's so traumatized that he can barely function. He jumped into a situation where he had to be a grandfather to kids that never existed in his universe. He doesn't even know how to be a father. He chose this life, but this life didn't choose him--just looking at Morty is a constant reminder of everything he lost. No wonder it breaks his heart every time Morty walks away from him.

With all that in mind, this is one of the most complex relationships I've ever seen in a TV show. And we've still got five seasons to go (well, unless something changes), so who knows where this is all headed. But as it stands right now, this show isn't about adventures or cartoon nihilism--it's about Rick and Morty and their fluid, obsessive and devouring relationship. Rick and Morty, a hundred years--right?

[evilmortys]

okay,  so,  here  are  my  thoughts  on  the  finale,

i’m  gonna  start  with  the  things  i  didn’t  like,  just  because  of  who  i  am  as  a  person!  my  feelings  are  mixed,  but...  looks  lovingly  at  evil  morty.  he  truly  was  the  only  exception  as  usual  ♥

i’m  not  going  to  lie,  this  whole  thing  felt.  rushed.  although  some  of  rick’s  meta  commentary  about  not  touching  citadel  shit  because  it  was  canon  and  he  and  morty  were  supposed  to  be  going  back  to  lighthearted  one  off  adventures,  and  “the  second  he  reveals  that  he’s  evil,  we’re  out”  made  me  laugh,  it  also  felt  very  disingenuous  and  ham-fisted.  having  him  do  all  these  fourth  wall  breaks  honestly  took  away  from  the  impact  of  what  this  episode  could  have  been,  but  whatever.  

i  just  got  the  vibe  that  they  wanted  everyone  to  stfu  about  the  citadel  and  evil  morty,  so  they  quickly  stuck  together  this  episode  that  dealt  with  fans’  demand  in  one  fell  swoop  so  they  could  move  on  from  the  existence  of  both  plotlines.  i  honestly  thought  it  was  a  bit  wasteful  since  tales  from  the  citadel  resonated  with  a  lot  of  fans  and  it  was  an  interesting  bit  of  worldbuilding  with  compelling  narratives  going  on.

you  already  all  likely  know  how  irritated  i  am  with  morty’s  character  degrading  so  much  once  again.  this  entire  season  has  been  building  him  up  to  becoming  so  much  more  capable,  only  to  wrench  it  away  from  him  again  by  instead  having  his  co-dependency  with  rick  ramped  up  to  the  point  it  was  literally  out  of  character.  this  has  come  out  of  nowhere.  at  no  point  in  the  show’s  entire  run  has  morty  ever  been  this  needy  with  rick.  

again,  i  feel  like  this  may  have  been  written  around  what  eventually  ended  up  happening  at  the  citadel,  with  the  revelation  that  mortys  are  ‘bred  for  forgiveness.’  it  would  have  been  far  more  compelling  for  our  morty  to  have  continued  to  go  down  the  path  of  being  decidedly  unforgiving  of  rick’s  bullshit,  thereby  making  him  deviate  from  the  norm  in  a  similar  way  to  evil  morty  himself  and  implicating  that  the  cycle  of  a  morty  going  to  these  extremes  is  going  to  be  repeated  once  again.

rick  did  not  deserve  or  earn  voicing  the  recognition  that  his  dynamic  with  morty  was  toxic,  and  abusive.  are  you  fucking  kidding  me?  the  smartest  man  in  the  universe  only  JUST  clocked  onto  that?  bullshit!  he’s  known  all  along,  and  he’s  been  using  it  for  his  own  gain!  he  doesn’t  get  to  just  say  it  with  that  regretful  voice  as  if  he’s  been  clueless  /  oblivious  to  it  this  entire  time.  they  just  wanted  the  audience  to  feel  sympathetic  for  him  by  throwing  in  this  tidbit  and  a  tragic  backstory,  as  if  that  even  sort  of  makes  up  for  everything  he’s  put  his  family  through.  

abandoning  the  people  you’ve  hurt  is  ALSO  abusive  and  toxic  behaviour!  he’s  done  it  time  and  time  again!  how  is  acknowledging  the  fact  that  you  hurt  people,  that  you  hurt  your  family,  the  people  that  love  you  despite  the  fact  you  objectively  don’t  deserve  it,  then  ditching  them  once  again  instead  of  staying  with  them  and  improving  as  a  person  and  helping  everyone  heal  from  what  you’ve  put  them  through,  ANY  BETTER??  he  never  changes!!

i  also  couldn’t  really  process  the  fact  that  rick  just  handed  morty  his  portal  gun  like  it  was  nothing--  i  feel  like  him  topping  it  off  and  using  it  behind  rick’s  back  should  have  been  a  bigger  deal  than  what  it  was.  also,  morty  would  not  break  a  guy  out  of  a  mental  asylum  without  a  second  thought.  he  simply  wouldn’t  do  that.

we’ve  fallen  right  back  into  the  status  quo  of  morty  being  stupid  and  rick  being  the  smartest  one  in  the  room  who  always  knows  what’s  going  on,  even  when  he  actually  shouldn’t  for  the  sake  of  a  few  meta  jokes.  which  is  more  annoying  than  i  can  put  into  words  tbqh

obviously  i  hated  all  the  parallels  they  were  attempting  to  make  between  rick  and  morty  having  a  romantic  relationship  and  “breaking  up.”  never  has  morty  behaved  so  uncharacteristically  in  any  other  episode  of  the  show.  it  honestly  felt  disrespectful  to  all  the  growth  he’s  had  as  a  character  to  reduce  him  to  something  so  pathetic.

i  guess  this  is  less  of  a  thing  i  disliked,  and  more  of  a  commentary  on  rick’s  character?  but  once  again,  his  hypocrisy  really  leapt  out  at  me  once  it  was  revealed  that  he  always  has  a  hand  in  bringing  together  beths  and  jerrys  in  order  to  ensure  that  more  mortys  will  end  up  in  the  multiverse.  i  find  it  unbelievably  sad  that  he’ll  willingly  ensnare  the  two  of  them  in  the  throes  of  a  relationship  that  he  knows  is  likely  to  become  toxic  and  cause  the  both  of  them  to  be  miserable  throughout  their  time  together;  they’re  rarely  happy  /  compatible  together  and  always  end  up  sticking  it  out  for  the  kids.  it  also  makes  his  constant  shitting  on  jerry  even  more  egregious  and  almost  serves  to  call  his  love  for  his  daughter  into  question  for  me.  he’s  using  her  as  a  means  to  his  own  ends  by  manipulating  situations  so  she’ll  meet  jerry  and  they’ll  likely  end  up  together.  

don’t  get  me  wrong,  i  actually  really  loved  the  fact  he  had  a  hand  in  founding  the  citadel  he  now  loathes  so  much,  and  i  think  the  constant  creation  of  mortys  as  grandsons  ‘bred  to  forgive’  ricks  is  so  fucked  up  and  awful  in  the  most  intriguing  way.  it’s  akin  to  him  fiddling  with  the  concept  of  keeping  mortys  in  constant  pain  to  cloak  his  comings  and  goings  around  the  multiverse  (on  paper,  morty,  on  paper!),  except  this  time  he  did  it  in  reality.

evil  morty.  oh  my  god,  evil  morty.  my  saving  grace.  my  ray  of  light.  i’m  so,  so,  so  pleased  with  the  way  he  was  handled.  while  i  admit  i  was  looking  forward  to  more  of  a  slow - burn  thing,  getting  a  bit  of  insight  into  his  presidency  and  possibly  exploring  a  dynamic  with  him  and  c-137  (we’ll  get  to  that)...  i  honestly  still  really  loved  what  ended  up  happening  with  him,  even  though  i  still  believe  on  some  level  that  they  just  wanted  to  tie  up  his  narrative  thread  so  fans  wouldn’t  remain  fixated  on  him.

of  course  he  did.  of  course  that  motherfucker  rick  created  a  boundary  within  the  infinite  multiverse  that  ensured  he’d  always  be  the  smartest  man  within  it  as  far  as  mortys  and  other  people  in  his  life  were  concerned.  i’ve  always  found  it  odd  that  such  universes  were  never  brought  up  even  in  passing;  the  nature  of  infinite  possibilities  always  dictated  that  someone  smarter  than  him  must  exist  out  there,  and  that  worlds  existed  where  he  was  nobody  special.

him  being  morally  gray.  i  could  cry.  i  was  clinging  on  to  the  hope  that  it  would  be  shown  he  hates  ricks  more  than  he  looks  down  on  mortys,  and  it  absolutely  was.  while  he  was  okay  with  killing  and  hurting  mortys  to  achieve  his  own  “selfish”  ends,  it’s  clear  that  he’s  unhappy  with  the  cycle  of  abuse  from  their  infinite  grandfathers  that  pushes  him  to  these  extremes,  loathes  the  concept  that  mortys  are  not  supposed  to  defy  their  ricks.  “if  you’ve  ever  been  sick  of  him,  you’ve  been  evil  morty  too.”  he  hates  ricks  FAR  more  than  he  does  mortys,  and  you  can  pry  that  from  my  cold,  dead  hands.  he  believes  mortys  are  beyond  help  because  of  the  way  they  stick  by  rick--  the  fact  they’re  literally  created  with  being  yes-men  for  rick  in  mind.

he  didn’t  seek  to  make  changes  for  the  greater  good  of  other  mortys  within  the  citadel.  i  think  he  understood  on  some  level,  it  was  impossible.  i  think  he  has  this  belief  that  other  mortys  are  part  of  the  problem,  because  they  perpetuate  the  cyclic  dynamic  of  toxicity  and  harm--  they  don’t  move  to  break  free  from  it  the  way  he  does,  and  so  he  feels  no  guilt  leaving  them  behind  while  he  breaks  into  the  aspect  of  the  multiverse  where  rick  has  no  power.  it’s  honestly  heartbreaking  that  he’s  come  to  have  a  mindset  like  that.  

i  think  seeing  c-137  reach  out  to  help  rick  up  once  again  instead  of  accepting  what  i  hope  and  pray  was  a  semi - genuine  offer  to  join  him  as  he  departed  was  just  yet  another  instance  of  him  witnessing  a  morty  doing  the  most  to  save  the  man  who  makes  their  lives  a  living  hell.  if  he  was  truly  unsympathetic,  he’d  have  made  no  such  offer.  if  he  thinks  a  morty  is  capable  of  pulling  away  from  the  hold  ricks  have  on  them,  he  wants  them  out  of  this  shit  just  as  much  as  he  himself  wants  to  break  free  from  it.  i  think  he  has  the  mindset  that  i  know  they  tried  to  play  it  off  with  “haha  the  other  seat’s  a  toilet,”  but  i  don’t  think  that  was  the  case  and  they  were  once  again  just  undermining  the  moment  for  no  good  reason.  SCREAMS!!  don’t  get  me  wrong  what  he  did  WAS  selfish  and  evil.  but  in  a  way  you  can  understand  where  it  derives  from

again,  it  REALLY  irritates  me  they’ve  undone  so  much  of  morty’s  character  just  to  ensure  he  wouldn’t  end  up  taking  evil  morty  up  on  his  proposition.  if  morty  had  retained  even  a  tenth  of  the  character  growth  he’s  been  having  from  late  season  four  until  towards  the  end  of  season  five,  wherein  it  began  to  unravel,  he’d  have  left  rick.  undeniably.

the  yellow  portal.  oh  my  god............

it  made  me  so  fucking  emotional  to  see  that.  he’s  won.  he’s  free.  

[sour-n-salty-citrus]

Do you have any hopes for the season finale? I saw in another ask, you described the dynamic between rick and morty this season as "very weak, distant, and downright frankly boring" and I completely agree with you! I hope that, because this is most we'll see rick and morty interacting this season, it'll have at least a few moments of what makes their dynamic so interesting to watch.

(Ok i started airing my grievances with this season, which ended up being... long, so skip this paragraph (starting at / / /) to get to my thoughts on the finale)

Oh gosh I remember that ask (I think-). And yeah, maybe I'm being a bit overly critical. I'll probably look back on this season with retrospect, and a kinder, fonder view. Ik androgynousblackbox (think thats right) made a great point about it being the season FOR rickorty shippers. And sure, I agree on some bits, like Rick acting all pissy and partying the way you would if your ex got with someone new in the planetina ep. Overall though, i think my problem lies in that I was enjoying more individual moments than episodes themselves, especially the middle three. For example- Amortycan Grickfitti. Like, I really liked the idea of the Ship getting on a crazy adventure with Summer and Morty (and Chutback). I like the idea of a Beth-Jerry-Rick adventure. But put together, it's just kinda... meh? You know? I liked the first half of the Thanksgiving special... but it kinda dragged on after that. I get that they want to give other characters (particularly female ones) more attention, which is completely understandable and i encourage it(!) but I can't help but find it underwhelming. Like, Summer in the voltron ep was like- girl how are you STILL vying for Rick's attention! He's the worst! Haven't we done this already? (I will say though I ADORE how far Beth has come, props to her for continuing to seeing through her dad's BS. I was worried the character would relapse into a more typical s1/s2 Beth, and I'm glad she didn't). Some of these plots, funnily enough, seem more fitting of the comics (they actually had a voltron parody already). Fun and entertaining for two or three-something issues, not so much a 22 minute episode. i think most of my complaints come from the dynamic between our titular characters- ok, I know I'm very biased (I mean you can see it), but I came to the show primarily for their relationship. It doesn't even feel drama-fueled, just that they kinda... can't be arsed. I'm torn because on the one hand, they're unhealthily codependent and this separation is probably a good thing, but on the other... it doesn't feel natural? I'm not sure if that's the right word- it's like, season 4 had them practically joint at the hip, but all that's suddenly flung out the window. It just kinda feels like this "i got better things to do" vibe from both of them and its strange. The only time they both got a solo adventure (I'm classifying "solo" as an adventure where they spent a significantly large portion of time together, without the other family members) was in the sperm ep and Thanksgiving ep. And, well, in the Thanksgiving ep Morty felt like a side character in his own show, and the sperm ep... um. Yeah. I don't think it's AS bad as people were saying, but I was cringing the whole time (the second hand embarrassment for Morty was so strong I had to turn off the episode multiple times and return to it. It's just like- godammit MORTY). And I think there's good reason those two seemed to be the most disliked episodes overall. They're the ones RaM spend the most time together and it's... meh. Meh? Meh. I don't mean to say the season overall is bad (it has loads of good points, and its amazing for Smith family as a whole) just that if we're talking specifically about the dynamic between these two? Yeah, I wouldn't recommend a single episode from this season so far to use as an example of their relationship.

/ / /

There's one thing this season has been pretty good at, though. And it's showing us what happens when Rick is alone.

And that brings me to the finale.

"Who is Rick without Morty?"

Well... we already know the answer to that. Pathetic. Sad. Lonely.

This season has been phenomenal in humbling Rick. (And trust me I'm happy for it- every time someone beats the crap outta this shitty old man I'm like YES!!! IT'S WHAT HE DESERVES!). Ep 1 had his "nemesis" clearly besting him, ep 2 had Beth making constant digs (love her) and overall pointing out his extreme callousness and cruelty towards even himself(ves). Ep 3- when Morty shows interest in a girl and ditches him (like seriously it's not like he's moving out, chill) he immediately goes on a bender and develops a deep attachment to the first person he can (wearing yellow, funnily enough). Ep 4, he devotes himself to becoming an "honest man" for his new child, only for it to instantly be taken away from him. Ep 5 highlights how RICK is the asshole for making fun of and taking advantage of someone well-meaning and honest, if "simple", and how literally not cool that is. Ep 6 has his crazy rivalry with the president, and they both get smacked down a couple pegs for that. Ep 7 shows what happens when he allows himself to get carried away, and that he can end up driving everyone else away in the process (lucky they still wanted to save his ass when he needed them). And episode 8? Hooooo boy. Episode. 8. We see a direct parallel in Birdperson with Morty, and the whole "Rick and [insert] 100 years!" Rick has few people he cares about, arguably only one or two that he truly devotes himself to, but when he does, boy does he go HARD. We see younger Rick, optimistic, energetic, friendly and hopeful. And we see all of that crushed in minutes. Rick is desperate for a companion, someone to see the stars with. He needs someone there, someone he can trust and rely on to stay. Someone like Morty. So without Morty, who is Rick?

No one.

And the thing is, Morty doesn't need Rick anymore. Not like Rick needs him. In season 1, Morty was this bright-eyed kid who was new to the cosmos and the multiverse, who needed his grandpa there with him as they explored all these places together. But that's not him anymore. That's not them.

The promo has Morty using the portal gun to go somewhere w/o Rick's permission (i like to think it's boob world lol). It doesn't matter to me as much where he's going, as much as he's doing it alone. He doesn't just not need Rick there, he doesn't want him.

(Also correct me if im wrong but I've missed that sweet portal gun so much. I think the last ep was like- the first time this season we saw it).

Morty's response to Rick? "Replace me!". And wow. Wow. WOW. Morty doesn't give a FUCK! I think Rick thinks that because he's so smart, that he can offer so much, that Morty will come crawling back, and I don't think he will.

Hopes for the finale! Hmm. I mean, I definitely hope "evil" Morty makes a reappearance, haha. I think we all do tbh ;). I want to see some Morty development too, this season has been very Rick-centric (not that there's anything wrong with that!) so I wanna see what's in store for Our Boy. I really hope we get to see the Citadel again, and see the state it's in, but I doubt it. We know something super big is in store, it's just a question of what? Other hopes I have is some Summer + Beth action (please let them team up Im BEGGING) and Jerry too ahaha. I'd love if some other side characters made an appearance as well. Oh- I'm definitely expecting a dramatic cliffhanger at the end of the first half leading to the second half, with the kind of angsty music that leads into the credits (pls that shit is so good (OH WAIT imagine if it was like, for the damaged coda, but like- the chopin version or smth so it could be more subtle maybe bruhhhh)). Ok haha, maybe that's asking too much, the writers made it clear in the story train ep that they weren't gonna do that big dramatic showdown (... unless 👀). Oh, I'd also love some Premium Angst too, like someone getting kidnapped/nearly dying (like ACTUALLY nearly dying). These stakes better be so damn high I could spear a man on them! OH, also I remember androgynousblackbox (is that right? I hope it is) mentioned something along the lines that they could be driving Rick and Morty apart this season in order to have them come back together stronger than ever in an explosive finale, which, I'm strongly hoping for myself.

Thanks if you made it this far! If you have any thoughts on or hopes of your own for the finale please feel free to share! :D

[jedi-order-apologist]

A Refutation of Telltale’s “Is the Jedi Order a Cult?”

I was directed to this video that claims that the Jedi Order is a cult during a discussion on reddit earlier, and while the person who linked it respectfully asked to end the discussion we were having, I figure the video is worth addressing on its own, separately from that discussion. So I’ve cleaned up the points I made over on reddit and stripped out the stuff relevant to that conversation, to explain just what I took issue with with this video.

To the video-maker’s credit, he does acknowledge that the Jedi are presented as correct within the narrative of the films. Having run into one too many “the point of the prequels was the flaws of the Jedi” across the Internet, I have to say it’s refreshing to see Jedi-critical arguments made without that assumption.

I still disagree with pretty much all of the points made in the video, and found it to be uncharitable, blatantly incorrect at times, and almost completely lacking in concrete examples and evidence of his claims, but he has a right to his own interpretations, especially in that he acknowledges that they’re not the intended takeaway. But I hope that my response will show that it’s not something actually reflected by the source material, and that the Jedi are not actually a cult, even setting aside creator intentions.

Disclaimer – I’m not familiar with this video-creator’s other work, but from what’s said in the video, it does seem that this isn’t his usual kind of material, and that he intended this as “lighthearted” video. With that in mind, its lack of robustness and misinformation is forgivable – this response is mostly meant as something for me (or you, if you want) to point to the next time someone brings this video up to support their position, not as a criticism of this video-creator or his work in general. If you choose to engage with the video directly, please be kind.

He begins his arguments by claiming that the Jedi erase people’s identities by having them block their emotions completely - this isn't true; what we see the Jedi say is "be mindful of your feelings" (Mace Windu, TPM), and "don't let your personal feelings get in the way" (Obi-Wan, AOTC), and "don't let your feelings cloud your judgement" (several times). All of that requires acknowledgment of one's emotions and dealing with them appropriately.

He then claims that those who leave are shunned - this is again, blatantly untrue. For instance, at the beginning of AOTC, Dooku is still spoken of highly long after he has left the Order - the Jedi are reluctant to even entertain the idea that he could be behind the attack on Padmé. The Sith are for one thing, not necessarily ex-members of the Order, and for another, they’re "shunned" because they're going around torturing and murdering people, not because of heretical views on the Force. We see in TCW that the Jedi Order co-exists peacefully with other Force traditions, even dark-sided ones like the Nightsisters.

Another claim he makes is "There aren't any checks and balances for the Jedi Council", which is again, untrue - the Jedi are accountable to the Senate, and, if anything, that arrangement is skewed in favor of the Senate, because the Senate is not truly accountable in turn. The Jedi Council is ultimately pressured into decisions against its will, especially as the war goes on – most notably, Anakin’s appointment to the Council in ROTS.

He is critical of the Jedi taking in children, but the same can be said of any adoption - simply taking in children is not, in of itself, cult behavior, or else every adoptive family is a cult. The approach the author of this video takes to this category is too broad and does not adequately establish how to distinguish cults preying on children from healthy child-rearing.

He then claims that Jedi are expected to obey unquestioningly – but I disagree that this is evidenced in the source material. The Jedi are expected to respect their elders but we don't see harsh punishment for disobedience or dissent, merely disapproval. For instance, the most trouble Qui-Gon, as a noted maverick, gets is some exasperated side-eye. Similar to the previous claim, the approach the author takes is too broad and doesn’t distinguish a cult’s expectation of obedience from a parent’s expectation of obedience.

He claims that the Jedi control clothing and hairstyle - this is misleading at best. While the padawans all are expected to wear the braid, the hairstyle isn't set beyond that (many species don’t even have hair!), and even with the Jedi sporting a traditional outfit, we see their robes and tunics come in many different shades and colors. Some forgo the traditional robes all together, such as Ahsoka Tano, Luminara Unduli, Aayla Secura, some of them even wearing the ornamentation of their homeworld cultures on top of that (again, Ahsoka, Luminara, and Barriss Offee, and Depa Billaba, and Shaak Ti...).

Sith are, again, not ex-members as the video-author implies, and again, the issue with them is the torturing and murdering and enslaving people, not simple philosophical differences. The Jedi are perfectly allowed to speak with outsiders and presumably critics of their Order; they just don’t want to let a bunch of genocidal despots have their way with the galaxy. The video also makes an unfair assumption that Jedi can't get information from outside sources; there is no evidence for this – in fact, we see in AOTC that Obi-Wan turns to an outside source when he can’t get the results he wants from the Temple droids, and even trusts that outside source over contradicting information coming from within the Temple’s information base (i.e., the existence of Kamino – he does not simply accept that Kamino doesn’t exist, he seeks further wisdom on the matter).

The video-author completely omits the fact that Palpatine is arrested not merely because of being "on the dark side", but because the man had orchestrated a war for his own sake and was attempting to turn the Republic into a dictatorship under his control. That is a very good reason to arrest someone.

Regarding the good versus evil section - first of all, the Jedi in the first six films never once refer to "the light side". Not once. I don’t recall if it came up in TCW (aside from the beings on Mortis, but they are not Jedi), either. Luke does refer to the "good side" in the OT but his teachers don't call it that. This point also goes against the visual metaphors that Lucas makes use of: “Color plays an extremely important part. The bad guys exist mostly in a black and white world; the good guys live in an organic world of browns and greens. Philosophically the bad guys live in an absolute world of black and white, where the good guys live in a more naturally nuanced world.” - George Lucas, the Making of ROTJ. The Jedi’s belief system is more nuanced than “this is good” and “this is bad”, and their rules and Code are not purely about morals.

The video goes back to the identity thing – but as I've already said, several Jedi are seen wearing the garments and ornamentation of their birth cultures. They also keep their birth names, and seem to value names highly given how they approach the clone troops under their command. Here’s a good post going into that even more.

The "Code" and swearing-in ceremonies he cites are not used in the films or TCW. I’m not sure where the swearing-in is sourced from, either, and the “Code” is a meditation mantra.

The things the Jedi say are not to stop complex thought – his example of Obi-Wan even at once point telling Anakin to “use the Force! Think!”, indicating that he would like for Anakin to think things through – he echoes this later in ROTS, trying to get Anakin to consider the Chancellor’s suspicious behavior. There’s also the fact that the way Yoda speaks is by George Lucas's own words, designed to get people thinking about what Yoda is saying.

Comparing meditation to hypnosis is...completely uncharitable.

And again with the emotions thing - at no point are any emotions labeled evil, nor do they avoid them - they are expected to be mindful (i.e. cognizant) of them, and to not let those emotions rule their actions. There is nothing to indicate that their teachings are the most uncharitable and extreme interpretation you can take from their words (as this video does) instead of a reasonable and healthy approach to self-control that is actually valuable psychologically.

His final claims repeat the earlier claim of “shunning” - again, there is no evidence for this behavior towards non-believers, especially as we see them having friends outside the Order. And at no point does anyone say that there is no happiness outside of the Order.

I hope I addressed all his points and sufficiently explained why they don’t match up with what we see in the source material. If you want further reading on how the Jedi actually function, with robust sources, I recommend checking out @gffa’s reference guide for the current continuity. There is also my “in defense of the jedi” tag, which collects my and others’ meta posts on the Jedi, their philosophies, and actions.

[ficletfan]

Could I be incredibly selfish and ask for either Dmitri or Liam (either way) with a short (trans) male s/o? I love those vampires and there isn't much rep for people like me :'3. Take your time, and thank you either way!!!

I hope I can do it justice for ya Anon! I'm assuming F2M Trans for this, apologies if I'm wrong

Short TransMale! S/O

Liam:

- He treats your transition with respect, you're his boyfriend, Its the least he could do for you honestly

- The biggest, most rolliest eye roll ever if someone brings up the old ways of people doing things about gender identity, "Such mainstream thinking, does anyone actually think your cool or just you?"

- Even though he says its not "mainstream" he knows its not for that purpose, this vampire is 4XX years old and knows a thing or two about identity

- Normal days he loves to take pictures of you two together at lunch for his blog and you can have his lunch afterwards if you want it

- Dates to underground music clubs, private, unique and he can excitedly tell you about the music he likes and doesn't like. Disagreeing is no issue though, if you like it thats fine

- In a private place he can be quite affectionate, kisses, leaning on you, but he's shy about PDA, although if you're bold enough he won't stop you from holding his hand or hugging him anywhere!

- Some times hes too focused on his Aloof outward image to realize he can be dismissing at times, but he is never ashamed of his S/O! Making it very clear "I picked you because I'm not ashamed of you and what I feel for you... That was extremely cheesy but you get it"

- on top of an award winning personality you're adorably short, Liams a bean pole of a guy but not super tall either, so he's used to shorter people.

- If you're against being called cute or small hes going to call you "Handsome Size"

- Has to Explain Dimitri to you when he starts calling you his dad's... "Okay, I'm not a father BUT I Did turn Dimitri into a Vampire 300ish years ago and-- he thinks I'm his immortal father figure"

Dimitri:

-This guy is too busy brooding and evil planning to know what you mean when you tell him your trans, he has no idea what you're talking about " No, you're my prince of darkness"

- He's going to need a little help, but the pieces will fit together eventually, give him time to learn

- It changes absolutely nothing in your relationship though, he comes back to you with as much understanding as he can get "You're still my dark prince"

- He's going to introduce you to his best friend Morty (the Minotaur) immediately as soon as you start dating- and their favorite Alpaca. His demeanor changes a lot around Morty and You, he's a lot happier, still evil but happy!

- You're going to see the coven gals often, they actually don't have a problem with you as much as they have a problem with Dimirti and his evil plans. They will check in on you to see how you're doing and if Dimitri is treating you right. As Hope explains it "Ya know, the whole evil thing"

- Dates of darkness! Aka a fancy dinner with wine, blood, evil lighting and fancy matching tuxes ( hes not wearing the shirt part on his, go figure)

- Will try to attempt to convince you to at least TRY the blood wine and he'll try some of dinner if you do

- His dark servants and minions tend to most of your needs but he doesn't trust them to feed you, give you drinks or Anything he thinks can be poisoned. He'll do it himself, as silly as it looks for the lord to be serving drinks

- Dimitri tells you Liam is his sire, no matter how many times Liam clearly tells him that "vampiric rebirth" is not like normal birth, he is not his dad

- "Meet my Boyfriend Y/N, papa!" Eye rolls into another dimension "Hey Y/N, so you've clearly met Dimitri"

[jerkdouglas]

Jerk recommend me some good cartoons and video games.

HMMM.... So the thing about GOOD shows is that a lot of them start out good but then languish and become dramatic and awful. I think pound for pound, Mighty Magiswords is the best for me, because it’s got zero unfunny taint from bitch dramatics. But it may wear on others because it’s too doofity and sillypants. Other than that, early seasons of Steven Universe and Star vs the Forces of Evil are fun but be warned, things really drop off a goddamn cliff with both and they become absolute blah. That being said, the new Ducktales is an absolute powerhouse with only a few schmaltzy bits to get stuck on.

DC superhero cartoons are generally pretty good across the board. Marvel cartoons are often beyond terrible save for Avengers: Earth’s Mightiest Heroes which is clever and fun. I like very few adult swim cartoons cuz most of them are just stoner wank, but Venture Brothers and Metalocalypse were very consistent experiences. Hot Streets is the penultimate idiot doofus stream of conciousness shit I tend to write so it’s funny to me, Rick and Morty is damn good but I’ve noticed people on 4chan complaining about it because they all think they’re smarter than God. One of my favorites is Mr Pickles because it’s a real spectacle or retarded violent shit set at an overwhelming pace. I like a lot of animes, one of my favorites right now that I unironically suggest is Shokugeki no Soma (food wars) because they execute the idiotic faux drama extremely well. Dr Stone is fun at the moment but it’s ongoing, and who wants to wait week after week? My Hero Academia is cool but again, ongoing. Best to save that shit up. And I’ve always been a One Piece fan. Most animes is the same. But I will say the spinoff anime “Railgun” is way better than the main series “Magical Index”, which I think is impossibly boring by comparison even though I always liked the main character guy for not being a wimpy cunt. I play a lot of roguelike videogames... I have a zillion hours in binding of isaac, and half a billion in risk of rain, most recently I lost a few weeks to streets of rogue, but I’m over it now and never want to look at it again. Every year I play through Terraria until I get bored of stockpiling like an autistic wizard.  I hate the piss out of dark souls but I really really enjoy Sekiro because it captures serious samurai drama and high stakes in the swordplay. I think the quick clang/dodge around made me happy whereas idiotic i-frame dodge roll slog made me angry.  And I like both of the Prey games. The old Prey is a crazy breakout super bleeding edge concept FPS that did portals almost better than Portal did, among maaany other things that were ahead of their time, and of course it got completely ignored. Then the new Prey is really quite honestly one of the coolest games I’ve ever played, it being an insanely sober, thoughtful thrillride with serious conservation mechanics. And it likewise got mostly ignored. And for this reason I don’t believe people really understand what a good game is.  For story stuff, the telltale Walking Dead was actually pretty great for one go through. I just got really deep into the character dialogue system cuz it flowed really well, and there were a lot of choice moments to say absolutely nothing to dramatic effect. Not sure if their other products are of that level of quality. Anyways that’s some things.

[omniversalobservations]

Fandom Mashups Are On The Rise

Fact: Two fandoms are better than one. When your favorite fictional worlds collide, it’s a mashup made in fandom heaven. Fandom mashups are becoming more popular, with crossovers popping up in TV shows and movies, fan art, original cosplays, and even new collectibles, making pop culture hybrids a top trend in the geek world.

Fandom mashups have such a powerful impact because they join together two groups of extremely passionate fans — or two halves of your own geeky heart. While products and entertainment moments that feature themes from two separate worlds may be a little more niche —  not every Dungeons & Dragons fan would get schwifty with Rick and Morty — they have the ability to draw fans from one property into another. And the most accessible way for companies to pull off this concept is with gotta-have-it merch — and lots of it. With the right properties and the right fan bases, the collaborations can be seamless and maintain the integrity of each brand.

Take FOCO’s line of Game of Thrones MLB Bobbleheads, for example. The cross-licensed series pairs Major League Baseball players and mascots with Game of Thrones characters and settings. The first series merges three distinct bobblehead styles — the Iron Throne, the Night King, and the Ice Dragon Viserion — with mascots and branding from all 30 MLB teams.

“We definitely think it’s an emerging category, this cross-licensed mashup that we’re going to explore,” says Matthew Katz, licensing manager at FOCO. “… We tried to make sure we had the right balance. You don’t want to go too far one way or the other because you want to capture the people who are superfans of either baseball or Game of Thrones, and then capture those people in the middle as well.”

The bobblehead collaboration started off as a partnership for MLB’s theme nights, during which every fan who walks through the stadium gates gets a promotional item, like a bobblehead. The promotion opened the door to a conversation on how to expand at retail, especially for people who couldn’t make it to the promo nights or desired a more high-end collectible than the ones handed out at the games.

A unique aspect of pop culture mashups is that it gives the creators a bit more freedom in playing around with storytelling. The Night King was an ominous Game of Thrones villain, but he’s a bit more lighthearted when he’s wearing team-themed armor and ditching his spear for a baseball bat made of ice with the team’s logo on it.

“Developing a non-traditional product line like this gives a fresh perspective and allows a fan who has love for both brands to get a refreshed look,” says Josephine Fusezi, MLB’s vice president of global consumer products. “Being able to play with key elements from both baseball and Game of Thrones gives the consumer something different and refreshing. It also gives us an opportunity to have a little fun with our fans.”

Response to the first bobblehead series was so positive that FOCO quickly developed a followup series in just six weeks, featuring characters such as the direwolf, the Kingsguard, and a White Walker, available now for preorder. New MLB theme nights began in June for a Netflix Stranger Things collaboration, too.

Fans will also know exactly who to call with Hasbro’s new Ecto-1 Ectotron figure. The Transformers universe already has heroic Autobots, evil Decepticons, and now ghosts! The iconic Ecto-1 Cadillac from the 1984 Ghostbusters movie is now a Transformers robot — a converting Paranormal Investigator called Ectotron. The figure comes with its own Proton Pack and Slimer accessory, and it converts between Ecto-1 and robot in 22 steps.

This year marks the 35th anniversaries of both Transformers and Ghostbusters, making it an ideal year to combine the best of both franchises. A five-part origin story from IDW Publishing will also be available this year, giving fans insight on Ectotron’s background.

“Brand anniversaries not only allow us to celebrate a franchise, but we can also tap into nostalgia around a brand,” says Tom Warner, senior vice president for the Transformers franchise at Hasbro. “The Transformers and Ghostbusters brands are filled with waves of millennial nostalgia as new parents share the toys and brands they loved as children with their own kids.”

Ectotron preorders sold out within 24 hours after the figure was revealed at Toy Fair New York in February, so additional preorders were made available. Fans should also be on the lookout for other potential Transformers and Ghostbusters collaborations soon, according to Warner.

“On the surface, the Transformers and Ghostbusters franchises may seem vastly different; however, they share more in common than one may expect,” Warner says. “Both have two passionate fandoms, sharing a mutual bond over out-of-this world storytelling rooted in science fiction. When combining both worlds, our goal was to create stories and a product that stays true to the origins of both brands.”

The Avengers movies are probably the most well-known, most popular crossovers, but they weren’t the first. Think of all the “most ambitious crossover event in history” memes that circulated around the time that Infinity War came out — and how we were reminded of Disney Channel’s That’s So Suite Life of Hannah Montana, which came out in 2006, or 2003’s The Rugrats Go Wild, in which the band of babies met Eliza and her family from The Wild Thornberries, on Nickelodeon.

Entertainment crossover content is so successful because fans of these franchises can see all of their favorite characters interacting in situations they normally wouldn’t, like when the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles visited Gotham in Batman vs. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (2019). In this movie, the heroes in a half-shell and the Dark Knight team up when Shredder joins forces with Ra’s al Ghul, and all of the heroes need to work together to defeat the combined might of the Foot Clan and League of Assassins.

These crossovers can also span multiple age groups, such as Sesame Street’s “Respect Brings Us Together” campaign. Two commercials launched in April featuring Elmo and Cookie Monster, one of which starred the notably at-odds Lannister siblings from Game of Thrones. And if anyone can convince Cersei and Tyrion Lannister to get along, it’s Elmo.

Fan demand for this type of content is loud and clear, as is the case with The CW’s DC Universe. The network has created crossover content yearly since 2014 through its DC TV shows, starting with Arrow and The Flash. At the time, in December 2014, the two-part Arrowverse crossover between the two shows was the most-watched December telecast in seven years for the network, and the most-watched episode for both shows since their respective series premieres.

In 2016, the network’s #DCWeek event delivered The CW’s most-watched week in six years, featuring a four-night DC crossover between Arrow, The Flash, Supergirl, and DC’s Legends of Tomorrow. The CW’s fifth-annual Arrowverse crossover last year, Elseworlds, introduced Gotham City and Batwoman into the mix, and concluded with a tease of the Crisis on Infinite Earths crossover, set to air this fall.

The ratings for The CW’s crossover events clearly show that fans crave this content, and it’s safe to say we can expect more of it in the future.

Pop culture mashups also come from the most important community: the fans themselves.

While manufacturers and entertainment companies have the power to bring pop culture mashups to the masses, fans can express themselves through cosplay and fan art — without the shackles of licensing rights getting in the way. And here, creativity is key. Out-of-the-box fan mashups, including one-of-a-kind cosplays and stunning illustrations, all have one thing in common: They fuse two things that would likely never be together otherwise.

Eric Proctor is a digital artist at TsaoShin who draws vibrant fantasy pieces, with a heavy focus on pop culture artwork. His gallery features bright, fun, and whimsical pieces that incorporate characters, such as Stitch from Lilo & Stitch and Toothless from How to Train Your Dragon.

“For me, the crossovers are a Venn diagram where the two circles completely overlap of things that I absolutely love,” Proctor says. “So, any crossover that I’m currently doing is going to just be just that I love A and I love B, and I’d love to see A and B together.”

Proctor is currently working on an ongoing Grumpy Cat and Disney series, which had accidental roots. Proctor bought a new rig and tablet for his illustration setup and was practicing with his new equipment. He sketched out the iconic The Little Mermaid scene in which Ariel is singing on the rock with water splashing around her, and because he doesn’t like drawing people, he drew in Grumpy Cat as a last-minute decision. He showed it to his friends, expecting to delete it, but then people asked him what Disney scenario he was going to put Grumpy Cat into next — and the series was born.

“I say that I love both of those things, but one of the things I felt so guilty about making that particular series is that I really, really love Disney, but I’m putting Grumpy Cat in a scenario where it’s just ruining it,” Proctor says. “It’s this little bit of dark humor where you’re like, ‘I really love Disney, but honestly if Grumpy Cat was in it, this is probably what would happen.’ So it’s taking something that’s a little sacred and then ripping it to shreds a bit. I think the humor was one of those things I had to play around with.”

Proctor is currently working on his next Grumpy Cat Disney installment, a Cinderella-themed piece titled “Bippidi Boppidi No.” It will show the scene from the animated film in which the fairy godmother grants all of Cinderella’s wishes, but with everything completely ruined, such as a pumpkin dress, Lucifer the cat being the size of a horse, and other mishaps.

“It’s one of those situations where it’s so easy to imagine a lot of those crossovers together; they seem so real and fitting that it just feels like a marriage of two ideas that you’ve enjoyed both of those things so much,” Proctor says. “For me personally, when I look at a crossover that just succeeds so well, I just get so happy because someone else saw the thing that put those two things together and they made that real.”

With pop culture mashups, fans get to express themselves in a whole new way, and manufacturers and entertainment companies are taking note of the increasing fan demand and creative potential. The possibilities are limitless.

Source: The Pop Insider

(image via DeviantArt)

[bitter-cosmos]

After reading your Coco post and seeing what you had to say about Miguel actually acting like a kid (saw the film already, it was great), can you please list some examples of child characters that actually behave like children, as well as child characters that don't act their age? Asking because I have this big idea for a story which has three main protagonists that are kids.

hoo boy, that’s an interesting inquiry! here are some personal characters to list (from both animation and live-action); these are pretty good “kid characters that act like kids):Olivia (Great Mouse Detective)Hogarth (The Iron Giant)Greg and Wirt (Over the Garden Wall)Lilo (Lilo and Stitch)The Losers Club (IT 2017)Gosalyn (Darkwing Duck)The Brisby Children (Secret of NIMH)  Gus and Rosie (Troll in Central Park)The main cast from Land Before TimeAnne-Marie (All Dogs Go To Heaven— Don Bluth movies in general tend to have believable little little kid characters)Russel (UP)Dash (The Incredibles)Fly, Stella, and Chuck (Help! I’m a Fish)The DigiDestined (Digimon season 1)Penny (The Rescuers)Madeline (1998 film)Chihiro (Spirited Away)Charlie Brown and friends (Peanuts)

And those are just to name a few.  (If anyone’s got others in mind, tell me because I love kid characters!)

For many adults (especially working in visual fiction), writing kid characters can seem extremely difficult as they tend to lean more on the tropes of “naive little hyperactive person” and that’s basically it most of the time. Either that, or you get instances like Harry Potter and every anime in existence where the kids seem more like tiny 40 year old adults in the way they speak and act. It’s like a meter where one end is “over the top excited little moron” and the other is “literally just a middle-aged adult basically like what”.

Even before I got a job working around kids and teaching and stuff, it’s clear what can make kid characters separate from KID characters: understanding the maturity of their age (especially in our modern day) and remembering that… well… kids are NOT stupid. They are curious, but they are not stupid. And children also have PERSONALITIES. They have likes, they have dislikes, they have goals, they have interests, have flaws to their personalities, they have friends and enemies and love things and hate things and they can UNDERSTAND SCENARIOS THAT COULD SEEM INTENSE. They are capable of understanding when something is dangerous or scares them, just as they are able to understand things that bring them and the people around them lots of joy. They don’t see a dog get kicked then go “Mommyyyyyy? Why did the little fluffy butt fall down?” (or whatever). They are also able to grasp when something is too much for them when they were so sure they got the gist of things. They can change their minds, they can prioritize.

(And, from a kids’ guide to you: … kids… love… violence. NOT REAL VIOLENCE, but like, cartoon violence. They love seeing fighting and death in animated films and they love seeing bad guys DIE. It’s damn wild. A lot of kids also tend to enjoy seeing “scary” things in animated films because it allows them to feel challenged - of course, though, it’s not for all kids. And I’m talking 2nd grade to 5th grade here.) A lot of kids also tend to enjoy feeling “like adults” so they might often be caught showing off swear words (which is a tremendous no-no so like… try to tell them “Hey. We don’t say that.”)

I wish you luck with your project!!

PS: Kid Characters that DON’T act like kids (And no, this list doesn’t mean I dislike the characters; I just personally don’t think they act like believable kids):Steven (Steven Universe)Morty (Rick and Morty)Harry, Ron, Hermione (Harry Potter - years 1,2,3)animeDipper and Mabel (Gravity Falls)Star and Marco (Star vs The Forces Of Evil)Huey, Dewey, Louie, Webby (Ducktales 2017)Game of Thrones kids

- mod s

[yeonchi]

Kisekae Insights #15: Hiroki and Akari’s Strawberry Mysteries Part 1 (with Hybrid explanation)

These next two instalments weren’t easy for me to write. Off the bat, the subject of these instalments is the relationship between the protagonist, Hiroki Ichigo, and his wife, Akari Ichigo. Why wasn’t it easy for me to talk about it? The subject and the storylines associated with it are heavily based on elements of my life and their associated fantasies.

Writing the review for Can You Hear Me? has really inspired me to talk about some high school friends who I wasn’t necessarily friends with (I say that because I never hung out with them much). In that review, I mentioned my high school crush as one person I was reminded of after watching the episode. The character of Akari is based on her, but this infatuation goes way deeper than you think given how much effort I put into writing her storylines in my project.

Portions of these storylines were inspired from the final episodes of certain TVB dramas from 2013-14. As such, I feel obligated to provide content (trigger) warnings as these storylines contain themes associated with mental illness, suicide and domestic violence.

In case you haven’t seen, I’m going to be giving my answer to the Hybrid in this instalment. I’m leaving the IRL context until Part 2 in the next instalment and I’ll also be taking a break after that. For now, enjoy the rollercoaster as we start going down the rabbit hole that is Hiroki and Akari’s relationship.

Hiroki Ichigo: The Enigma Beneath

You will notice that the character profiles for Hiroki and Akari are different from the ones I’ve done so far, particularly in that they have no job or personality descriptions. Aside from being officers or superheroes, any job I give them ends up being forgotten once the story arc gets going (I wish Chibnall could say the same about Yaz), so they don’t end up mattering anyway. As for Hiroki’s personality, I’ve already covered that in #2.

I’ve detailed Hiroki in his final incarnation here because most of the storyline revolves around this incarnation, but his previous incarnations do have significance in the storyline likewise.

Also, you will notice that I’ve designated Hiroki as the Hybrid. I’ve never really liked the Hybrid arc because it gave too many possibilities that pointed to multiple figures potentially being the Hybrid. Steven Moffat did reveal that the Hybrid was supposed to be the Doctor and Clara together, but to me, that’s just a red herring for the identity of the real Hybrid. This is my answer to the Hybrid arc – Hiroki Ichigo is the Hybrid.

Here are some of the criteria given for the Hybrid throughout Series 11 (BBC Series 9). The Hybrid is a creature crossbred from two warrior races, supposedly the Time Lords and the Daleks. According to all Matrix prophecies, the Hybrid will stand in the ruins of Gallifrey and unravel the Web of Time, breaking a billion billion hearts to heal its own.

Let’s break down the Doctor’s final line in Heaven Sent:

“The Hybrid is not half-Dalek. Nothing is half-Dalek. The Daleks would never allow that.” Just because the Doctor can say it can’t be half-Dalek doesn’t mean that it isn’t. Besides, Hiroki isn’t half-Dalek anyway – technically, he is part-Kaled, the Kaleds being the ancestors of the Daleks. But since the Kaleds are synonymous with the Daleks, this fulfills the Dalek portion of the Hybrid.

“The Hybrid destined to conquer Gallifrey and stand in its ruins… is me.” Some people believe “me” refers to Ashildr, also known as Me, but I think that the Doctor accusing Ashildr of being the Hybrid is just him deflecting the blame because he was in denial of being the Hybrid (plus, the Doctor seemed to prefer calling her Ashildr instead of Me). The Doctor was born from Hiroki, so the Doctor saying that is a bit of a stretch. However, to be fair, the Doctor didn’t even know who the Hybrid really was until Rassilon told him in Space Squad Part 3. In comparison, Hiroki realised that he was the Hybrid in the Decade finale.

Now, for the time being, Hiroki has never stepped foot on Gallifrey, but I’m planning on rectifying that in Soulbound Series 4. As for unravelling the Web of Time, that’s already been done if you count all the timeline changes I’m going to detail, so hopefully I won’t need to address that again. Since Hiroki is a warrior, you can bet that he’s broken as many hearts as he’s willing to break in order to heal his own.

So how did Hiroki become the Hybrid? Firstly, Hiroki was born a human with Time Lord and Jenova DNA (see #2). Later on, in 2012, Hiroki became part-Kaled/Dalek after his DNA got mixed up with Akari’s during a regeneration (read on to find out).

In 2018, during Age of Riders Forever, Hiroki found himself being pursued by alternate versions of himself who had banded together and based themselves in the Capital (like the Citadel of Ricks in Rick and Morty). Hiroki upgrades his vortex manipulator so he can travel in time. After incorporating Kamen Rider Wizard’s Time Ring into his manipulator and using his own body to calibrate it, Hiroki manages to go into the past and make contact with his past self multiple times.

At some point, Hiroki was found and brought to the Council (the equivalent of the Council of Ricks), where he was given a mission to detonate a memory bomb in exchange for leniency. He does so, but when the Council comes to pick him up, he refuses to go back with them and teleports away. Hiroki’s travels had caused numerous paradoxes, but his vortex manipulator caused the temporal energy to build up inside his body, which would rip him apart and scatter him throughout the Time Vortex instead of ending the universe.

Sure enough, Hiroki’s body was ripped apart, but his consciousness was saved by his ex-wife and her family that he saved inside the supercomputer in Dewey’s library on Never Land. They then sent Hiroki back out and made him a new body using fairy dust, pollen, the happiness of everyone on the Mainland, the remains of his DNA from his old body and about half a field’s worth of dandelion seeds. After that, Hiroki leads the fairies and Flowertots in an attack on the Capital, saving his friends while killing the Council and all the other versions of himself. With Hiroki now being part-fairy and part-Flowertot, he gained the ability to utilise some forms of Never Land magic, but because he doesn’t possess a source of magic or a connection to one, it requires some time to recharge naturally.

And so, that was the story of how Hiroki became the Hybrid.

Akari Ichigo: Mystery Girl Becomes Seductress Becomes Assassin Becomes Wife

I didn’t put a personality description for Akari in the pic mainly because she’s based on my crush and I have no idea what her personality is like. Therefore, my personality description for her would only be based on my impressions of her and what I think she would be like in the project. Needless to say, I didn’t put a lot of thought into it. When she’s good, she cares for Hiroki really much (though it’s mostly because of the hypnotic seduction perfume), but when she’s evil, she just doesn’t care about him. In the Series 9 finale, there’s a bit where she literally says “I’m gonna put a cap in your ass” in a yandere-like manner before Hiroki smacks her around and shoots her in the head, but we’ll come back to that in Part 2.

Originally, I was of the belief that Akari was born in 1998, making her six months younger than Hiroki, but I later found that I was one year off; Akari was actually born in 1999, making her eighteen months younger than Hiroki. This change doesn’t affect the story a lot, but I am kind of pissed that I didn’t know this earlier.

Akari’s paternal grandfather is a Kaled named Antoni, meaning that from him, she has a link to the Daleks. Akari was used by both her family and the Daleks as a tool to get to the Doctor by having her seduce and kill Hiroki. They didn’t know that Akari would end up getting seduced herself and before they knew it, she ended up getting in too deep that they had to wrench her off him with the help of Girl Power.

On top of that, they also didn’t know that Akari had made such an impact on Hiroki that he went to extreme lengths to either take her back or kill her. Akari never loved Hiroki, but she never had the guts to say it to his face and break off their relationship amicably. At the end of the Last Great Time War, when Girl Power were defeated for good, Akari got back with Hiroki and all was well again. Or so they thought…

The introductions are over. Let’s get into the story. Before I do, I want to clarify that Hiroki and Akari weren’t known by those names until 2014 onwards.

First meeting retcon

Based on the release order of my stories, Hiroki and Akari originally met in 2011 when they were in their secondary school armies. However, paradoxes, timeline changes and retcons have made that first meeting WAY earlier than that.

The root reason why schools were forming armies and fighting each other goes back to the 90’s when the state government established Arming Schools for the Future alongside One Country Two (Naming) Systems. Towards the end of the 90’s, a member of Akari’s family became an MP to prevent those two programs from being abolished when the opposition party formed government.

After Antoni went off to fight in the Time War, Kaled agent Neramix met with his children and helped them incite a war between the schools to support the Dalek cause. The two armies that they incited happened to be the kindergarten armies that Hiroki and Akari were in.

In March 2003, the two armies went into battle. This was the first battle of the Time War on Earth and the first battle for Hiroki and Akari. During the battle, Akari runs away from her unit and hides. Hiroki spots her and sneaks away from his unit to follow her. After encountering each other, they hide together and talk to pass the time. Akari doesn’t want to fight because she doesn’t want to make the world scarier than it already is, but Hiroki fights because he wants to make the world nice again. Hiroki decides to escape with Akari and take her home, but after a distraction involving two incarnations of the Doctor and some TARDISes, Parker finds Hiroki and drags him back into the battle, leaving Akari wondering what happened.

Thanks to that interaction, Neramix had what he needed to slowly mould Akari into Hiroki’s future killer. Neramix would be killed by Kamen Rider Decade soon after, but his intention was to have Antoni’s grandchildren, namely Akari’s brother and cousins, oversee this plan and fight in the Time War in place of their parents.

Over the next few years, Hiroki and Akari would meet out of nowhere, but little did they know that these meetings were a result of time manipulations by the Daleks. On top of that, additional changes to the timeline led them to meet more frequently.

By February 2010, Akari’s primary school army had become part of the Oda Army. Parker was planning a campaign for his primary school army to defeat the Oda, Mōri and Date armies and conquer their territories. He arranged for Hiroki to “defect” to Akari’s army and act as a spy for a few weeks. When the invasion occurred, Hiroki returned to his army, breaking Akari’s heart. Another few weeks later, the two of them reconciled when their armies encountered each other again in battle.

The date of their “first meeting” was rapidly approaching and at the way the timeline was going, the Web of Time would become damaged. In December 2010, during the primary school armies’ graduation ceremonies, the Master (Harold Saxon) used a dimensional splitter to transport them into a pocket dimension and pit them against each other in a “Graduation Battle Royale”. Hiroki and Akari met each other again, but Kamen Rider Decade arrives and fights them as he attempts to detonate a memory bomb (a replica of a forbidden weapon of the same name in the Omega Arsenal) between them. Decade evades them and successfully detonates the memory bomb just as the armies are returned to their rightful locations.

The memory bomb would supposedly restore people’s memories of the correct timelines and erase the memories of Hiroki and Akari interacting with each other before 2011. As a side effect, however, their timelines were burst open with metaphorical superglue on the broken ends. A couple of months later, in February 2011, Hiroki and Akari were in the same secondary school army. At the end of their first day, Hiroki and Akari encounter each other again, weeks before their actual first meeting. They accidentally touch hands as they dodge a falling flowerpot and as a result, they discover that they are fading out of existence until they touch hands. After seeing the Doctor, they discover that they have “Intertwined Pinkie Syndrome” – well, not really, but their timelines were fused and if they were to let go of each other, they would fade out of existence as their timelines would have no beginning or no end.

As such, Hiroki and Akari were forced to live together for the time being. The next few days went a bit like the two music videos below (because this storyline was inspired from them):

Later, the Doctor discovers that the effects can be reversed if Hiroki and Akari are willing to sacrifice their lives to save someone. At the same time, the two stop an old lady from being hit by a reversing van. Their hands let go, but they do not disappear. Their timelines return to normal and they go back to their own lives.

Without the courage to say “I’m sorry”

Finally, Hiroki and Akari meet each other for the first time in March 2011. Hiroki begins to fall in love with Akari and before long, their friends become aware of this along with Akari’s cousins, Daniel and David, meaning that the pieces of their plan are finally coming together. They formed the Teiro Army and began taking action by intruding into Hiroki’s battles. Eventually, after Parker’s death and the fall of the Sanada Army, they built up enough strength to ally with other armies, who have affiliations with Hiroki, and turned them against him.

Over the course of the next 16 months, Hiroki’s friends encouraged him to talk to Akari and ask her out, but he never ended up doing so, either because she was with her friends or he couldn’t muster up the courage to do so even when she was alone. He got more acquainted with Akari’s friends than Akari herself. When Akari and her friends founded Girl Power in February 2012, Hiroki just happened to be on the other side of Hong Kong. Eventually, Maya, one of Akari’s friends, tells Hiroki to talk to Akari before it is too late.

In May 2012, Hiroki writes a love letter for Akari, though this was partly as a result of a plot by his friends. She shows it to her cousins, who then launch an attack on Hiroki and his allies, the Takeda Army. Despite fighting each other in the battle, neither of them even brings up the love letter.

Later, in July 2012, the Teiro Army takes over Hiroki’s secondary school army, forcing him to escape with the Takeda Army. Daniel contacts Hiroki and tells him that they have taken his friends hostage. Hiroki realises what is going on and calls out Akari for being too scared to tell him face-to-face about the love letter, causing her to snap and agree to meet him alone.

Sure enough, the two of them meet alone in a hall or stadium. After some pressure from Hiroki, Akari admits that she doesn’t love him the same way he loves her, but they can still be friends. Hiroki accepts her offer, but Daniel throws some rape gas (that he stole from the police) at them, saying that they don’t deserve each other.

Going on a tangent for a bit, rape gas is similar to tear gas, but the principle of how it works is basically “rape or be raped” – depending on a person’s mental state, they would either faint or develop the urge to sexually assault anyone in sight. In July 2011, the police first tested the rape gas at a university, where protesters and counter-protesters were protesting about kids fighting in armies, racism/crime, climate change, the fact that you can drive from Melbourne to Tokyo in a matter of hours and ACAB. However, this time around, Daniel modified the rape gas, meaning that Hiroki or Akari would have to violate or kill the other person in order to get out alive.

Hiroki and Akari managed to resist the effects of the gas, fighting each other until Parker and a few others, who had managed to free themselves, break in and save them. Parker dispels the effects of the rape gas from them, causing them to lose their memories of the past couple of hours as they are knocked out. They regain consciousness later before Hiroki, Parker and their allies purge the Teiro Army and their allies from the city.

Under his spell

Following the final battle against the Teiro Army, the Arming Schools for the Future program was abolished and the armies would become schools again once the holidays were over. Hiroki was given the privilege to choose whether he would stay with his army or leave and he chose to leave. For a while, Parker gave Hiroki a choice to join him or become a ronin (wanderer), but he refused because of Akari. The reason why he decided to leave was because people had become afraid of him following the events of the battle. Instead of joining Parker or the Takeda Army, he decided to become a ronin because aside from fighting, he had nothing else to live for.

Hiroki decided to travel the land while Akari went to Okinawa with her cousins, Narutaki and Veronica. Hiroki’s travels would eventually lead him to Okinawa, where a parallel version of himself from a parallel universe would help him ask Akari out by spraying him with some hypnotic seduction perfume. Akari became caught in the perfume’s spell and so, she and Hiroki became a couple.

A few months later in November, the Salacian Time War came along. Hiroki and Akari were not involved in the war itself, but they played a role in its endgame. Hiroki and Akari were hanging out with the latter’s friends when Daniel had them kidnapped and taken to their base in the Serra do Mar mountain range, codenamed “the forests of Wanmokai”. Hiroki is subjected to a weapon known as the Dehydrator, which sucks the strength out of the victim and drives their brain to the point of insanity. After a while, he manages to untie himself before falling to the ground. Following a meta-crisis regeneration which results in Takumi Kamijō being born and escaping from the base, Hiroki and Akari are found by Parker, who teleports them back to his base in Santos.

Later, Parker and the others are trying to power up the Harmony Signal, but even with Ultimate Madoka’s help, they still can’t get it fully charged. Hiroki is still struggling to regenerate following the meta-crisis and requires a catalyst in order to regenerate, so he decides to propose to Akari. As they kiss, Hiroki regenerates, but his DNA gets mixed up with Akari’s, making him part-Kaled (fulfilling the Time Lord and Dalek requirements for the Hybrid) and making his subsequent prototypes their children. The new prototype, Kumiko Hayashi, is able to provide Parker with enough energy to fully charge the Harmony Signal.

At this point, some people would say that dating for 3-4 months before proposing is a bit fast, but when you think about it, they’ve known each other for nearly two years, or nine years with seven on-and-off.

After another year of dating and getting caught in turbulent events, Hiroki and Akari got married in December 2013, with Princess Celestia acting as their celebrant and singer Miyuki Nakajima featuring as a guest at their reception.

A chaotic marriage

Even before his wedding, Hiroki had suspected that Girl Power was plotting something behind the scenes and that if he were to walk into their trap, he would die. Borrowing the Pony Doctor’s TARDIS, Hiroki went on a farewell tour in order to delay his own wedding, but upon hearing that his old friend, one of the commanders from his primary school army, had died, Hiroki decides to accept his fate.

The day after Hiroki and Akari’s wedding, a man named Reona Yukawa (a man from a hentai game with an IQ of 256) worked with the Master to save Antoni from the Crucible. Soon after, the Daleks begin attacking Hong Kong. Hiroki and Akari work with the Fourth Doctor as they meet with Parker and Violet, who defeat the Daleks with newer Daleks. For context, it is the bronze (Time War) Daleks fighting against the coloured Daleks of the New Dalek Paradigm. Despite their reception, I’ve never liked how the latter was underused throughout the series, so I thought I’d give them some love here. Meanwhile, the Fifth Doctor is in seclusion on Paris Island with Marco Wong and his wife, Princess Maritan (from the manga that teaches Japanese people how to swear in English with army imagery).

Suddenly, Antoni transports the landmasses containing the Doctor and his friends to their base at Koshi Castle in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. Hiroki, his prototypes and their partners are taken and they have their germ cells taken and placed in the Progenitor, rendering them infertile as the Daleks breed super-soldiers out of them. Soon after, Akari is kidnapped and brainwashed by Girl Power, who pairs her with a new husband, a white man (I don’t know why I pointed that out, that makes me sound racist) named Shaun. When Hiroki and the Fourth Doctor find them, Hiroki tries to grab Akari, but he is shot by all the Girl Power officers. The Fourth Doctor runs away to find Parker and Violet while Hiroki makes his way back to his TARDIS and regenerates into a new prototype, a four-year-old boy who would be named Kyōya Shinomiya.

In the Progenitor, a baby is being grown from Hiroki and Akari’s DNA – their daughter, who would be named Kasumi Shinomiya. Due to Takumi’s interference, the baby would end up in Manchester in December 2005, coincidentally the same place where Akari and Shaun would encounter Kyōya and Kasumi and form a family together. Meanwhile, Hiroki, having lost his magical boy powers following his regeneration, accepts a deal from the witch Walpurgisnacht and manifests into a female incarnation who would call herself Momoka Mizutani. Momoka opened up a Hong Kong-style café in Salford, with red drone Daleks disguising as her human staff, and for the next eight years, Momoka would become acquainted with the Shinomiya family as they became regular customers. She also uses an infostamp to make contact with Kyōya, unbeknownst to the rest of his family.

Eight years later, the Fourth and Fifth Doctors arrive in Manchester. They encounter each other and head to Momoka’s café to talk. Just as they learn who actually owns the café (Hiroki), Ayaka Kikuchi comes in with her army and engages in a shootout with Momoka and the Daleks. After defeating Ayaka’s army, Momoka transmats herself and the Shinomiya family to her ship, where she prepares to have Ayaka, Shaun, Kyōya and Kasumi exterminated using the Yashio’ori, a mythical weapon (from Warriors Orochi 3) capable of firing Dalek energy rays like machine guns or a concentrated laser beam that can pierce even dwarf star alloy. Unfortunately, the Yashio’ori was sabotaged by Ayaka and her allies so that the laser beam would not charge after Momoka fired it once during a demonstration.

Momoka is killed in the ensuing battle, but Walpurgisnacht took over her body and regenerated her, allowing her to continue with her plan. She searches out people who had wronged her over the years and enacts her own brutal justice on them. She also begins to experience psychosis brought on by a regenerative crisis, causing her to hallucinate her previous incarnation. The Doctors and Parker catch on to this and begin searching for her. Parker and Violet encounter her at UNIT and they convince her to surrender herself and not give up hope that things will be better. As Momoka proclaims that she still has unfinished business to take care of, Parker and Violet decide to work together with her so they can help her find the help she needs.

After confronting the Shinomiya family again, Momoka shoots Akari in the arm and kidnaps Shaun. She takes a video of him confessing to stealing Hiroki’s wife from him and sends it to Parker and the Doctors. Under the guise of delivering the ransom money to Momoka, Violet picks her up at a carpark and takes her to a getaway car she and Parker left for her. However, when they get there, Momoka is cornered, so she lets Violet go before she shoots herself in the head. Her body disappears as her TARDIS takes her away.

All this time, Reona, Antoni and the Master had used the distraction provided by their allies to prepare an army to start another Parallax War. The Daleks prepare to bind Akari and Shaun’s minds together as they prepare to become the emperor and empress of the new Girl Empire, but Kyōya, Kasumi and Momoka had been working to prevent this. Momoka summoned Hiroki’s past incarnations, along with his prototypes and even Storm Dasher, to fire infostamps at the throne, separating Akari from Shaun and breaking her from her conditioning. As the mind-breaker’s efficiency approaches 100%, Momoka uses a key to connect her mind with Akari, intertwining their timelines and making their previous encounters with each other fixed points in time.

Akari is freed, but all the Daleks turn on Reona, Antoni and the Master. After the first two are exterminated, the Master destroys Koshi Castle with a nuclear device before escaping, killing all the Daleks and super-soldiers with it. Girl Power managed to escape as well and most of their members went into hiding, but Shaun was apprehended off-screen, convicted of war crimes and sentenced to cryogenic suspension. Following this, Momoka regenerated into Hiroki, her final incarnation, and got back together with Akari. As a result of events, they (and some others) were eight years older than they should be.

This storyline was inspired by the final episodes of A Great Way to Care II (仁心解碼II), with Momoka being based on the character Apple Lam Chung-yan (林頌恩) played by Tavia Yeung (楊怡). Momoka would become a prototype and return in Series 9.

Anyway, I think that’s enough for now. If you thought that last storyline was harrowing enough, wait till you get to Part 2. It’s the part where things get turbulent and I cross the lines of morality so many times that you’ll be calling me an incel before you even get to the IRL context. My judgement day is nigh. See you in the next instalment.