#esp when they're really talented and good at writing and art like rab and luna

[bisexualkramer]

so i’ve been bingeing penumbuddies bc i’m starved for content and it SLAPS but like. i just finished the day that wouldn’t die ep and it honestly might have changed my opinion on the entire episode?

i honestly don’t know how i made it through season one of the junoverse bc looking back i like. Did Not Like prince of mars or day that wouldn’t die, and i’m kind of surprised that i didn’t quit? like, okay, prince of mars has genuine structural problems (that they go into on penumbuddies as well - i totally agree that it has too much plot, which is part of why i have gaping holes in my memory of those episodes) that make it less effective than the revamped murderous mask episodes, and i guess i kept going because i loved juno as a narrator, and then day that wouldn’t die is a genuinely good story that i just wasn’t super into, partially because i was upset by the sibling death and partially because, while i ADORE mick mercury, i couldn’t understand his role as anything other than comic relief.

but on penumbuddies they started talking about mick as a storyteller, and yeah, okay, that tracks, and then for day that wouldn’t die they talk about mick as this guy who clearly misremembers the past and carries it with him in a way that’s very different than sasha and juno - for sasha and juno, it’s shameful, it’s this thing where they failed to protect someone, and it informs a lot of their current decisions, whereas for mick it’s this sort of tragic adventure story where he has become the leader in his mind and that makes it technically his fault that annie died, but he also doesn’t seem to carry that guilt forward into any changed behavior (for better or worse)

but then they start talking about the past as a story you tell yourself, and how mick’s memories of this event have been altered because he’s been taking on all the blame since juno and sasha left, and idk??? all of a sudden i feel much more sympathetic to sasha as a character and to the idea of mick as the ultimate unreliable narrator who, by being so CLEARLY an unreliable narrator, throws all of the narration in the junoverse into question. we see that a lot more in season 3 - mick’s episode is clearly altered, vespa’s episodes go a lot into not being able to trust your senses and your subjective reality being different in a very noticeable way - and suddenly mick as a character becomes SO important for understanding the show, and i don’t have any more thoughts here because i’m not good at meta and this is mostly regurgitating things they talk about on penumbuddies

anyway penumbuddies is on youtube and you should listen (and i’m reblogging with a link bc tumblr hates links)