#gonzo movie ideas

[gorewound]

Sherlock Holmes is called to investigate a murder

A murder in the Smurf's village

Things take a turn when after being pointed aggressively towards a man living nearby named Gargamel, Sherlock discovers that he is a totally ordinary Jewish man who has had little previous contact with the Smurfs.

Sherlock and Watson immediately reconsider the chosen headwear of their clients, and must investigate the truth without letting them know.

[medzyn]

All I’m saying is that if The Muppets released another movie right about now I’d RUN to go see it. I’d have that on my CALENDAR to attend.

[rowlfthedog]

Watching Muppets From Space I will NOT apologize for the person I am about to become for the next hour

[fearless-seagull]

Okay but regarding a TLT adaptation the ideal form is actually a muppet movie BUT the only characters who are muppets are the lyctors. We go into GTN with absolutely no idea it’s not a standard adaptation until we land at Canaan and we meet Dulcinea Septimus and she’s a muppet. (If we’re assigning Muppet actors I’m thinking Gonzo, he’s the best ingenue but I’m open to suggestions.) No one addresses this. We get no more muppets until near the end when Ianthe becomes a lyctor. A pivotal moment, she’s sitting under the ‘you lied to us’ message, blood dripping down her arms and face and also she’s made of felt and just a little guy. The Cytherea Ianthe fight at the end there is brutal and visceral and also borderline very funny. Harrow turns into a muppet momentarily at the end of GTN but is a person in a spaceship full of muppets for the entirety of HTN.

[nortism]

fuck it, fan casting the les misérables muppet movie:

fozzie bear as jean valjean - idk it just feels right

sam the eagle as javert - just look at him, that’s javert

any human as fantine and cosette. i deliberated over who should be the human but i think this is the right choice so there’d be at least one person present throughout most of the story

kermit and miss piggy as monsieur and madame thénardier - i considered them for marius and cosette but i feel like it could be interesting to have them in a villian role. also having a human child being abused by miss piggy is very funny to me

miss piggy and kermit’s children from a muppets christmas carol as éponine, gavroche and azelma - it writes itself. also i find the idea of éponine being a really sad pig to be very funny

beaker as marius pontmercy - i want him to only say meep meep meep throughout the whole film and i want human cosette to be incredibly in love with him regardless.

bean bunny as enjolras - yeah i don’t have an explanation for this one

gonzo and scooter as courfeyrac and combeferre - courfeyrac as gonzo feels so right to me in a way i can’t explain. also combeferre is there idk

rizzo as grantaire - idk it just felt right

[hypocriticaltypwriter]

BEHOLD! A Muppet Lost Boys AU inspired and thought of by the lovely @gothamslostboy !!! Gotta say the idea immediately put me into a doodle frenzy that I just had to sketch these out really quick! Also have a little rambling if it was an actual movie.

Now, I know what the poll was probably asking was which actual Muppet character would be who- I.E David as Kermit, Rizzo as Marko, or something, but I wanted to explore a more rare idea I’ve seen the Muppets do.

The original cast is very much still around and in the movie, but not the full attention as Michael and the Lost Boys would be. Kermit could maybe be some kind of narrator at the beginning or break the fourth wall here and there with the other Muppet cast following. I’ve seen something like this done in Emmet Otter’s Jug-band Christmas if you wanna get what I’m trynna say, the main plot and focus is with Michael at the puppet Lost Boys, but we aren’t about to go a whole Muppet movie with the Muppets!

I also thought it was a totally cool idea if maybe even Rizzo and Gonzo were like the Frog Brother’s or something- kinda like their dynamic in Treasure Island for those who have seen that one. Also think that Michael wouldn’t be the only human in this universe, I feel like it’d be a mix that’s again, in a lot of Muppet movies where there are people and Muppets, and I think the main folks who wouldn’t be Muppets would be the whole Emerson family, Laddie, and Max.

And we CAN’T forget the actor/super star cameos, those just have to be sprinkled in here and there… Also thought it’d be kinda funny if the Lost Boy Muppets weren’t played by their original live action counter parts, the real TLB cast could make some cameo and say something goofy or witty.

I’m thinking way too much into this anyway thank you for coming to my Ted Talk about MUPPETS.

[thirteenashmctrash]

okay so i have gained a new species of spore for my collective brainrot and i have found the perfect selling pitch to drag everyone i care about down with me. if you know the show this is hilarious. if you haven't watched it pay attention:

the show's called leverage. you know how there's those crime serials that aren't good at all but we've all watched a little too much of at least one of them even though they are blatant copaganda which is morally terrible? take your favorite one of those, but remover the copaganda. all the characters are criminals but their only victim is capitalism. every cop in the show is stupid at best and blatantly corrupt to a disgusting level most of the time. there is just as much genuine and intelligent social commentary as this premise demands.

i sense i already have you hooked. i can make this better. stick with me for a minute on this: the character dynamic is a muppet movie but also the Scooby gang

stick with me here!

You have Parker, who fit into the Scooby gang as Scooby and would be played by Gonzo. her crime thing is that she is a cat burglar and she is very good at it. her skill with it is borderline slapstick (hence Scooby) and she is very autistic coded and misunderstood (hence Gonzo)

You've got Eliot, who is the Shaggy and is played by Sam Eagle. He is the brute force of the team and he wants you to think he is all serious and grimdark. but he loves making the employees and victims of their capitalist targets aware of unions and he is a big himbo. i say he is shaggy because he plays Parker's straight man, he has the second most cartoonlike abilities, and he has a passion for cooking

Hardison is Velma as played by Kermit. he is a geeky hacker with a passion for orange soda and he is the heart of the team. he gets overlooked as leader even though he is the driving force of everything they do. like Velma. he also has that trademark Kermit brand of slapstick and deadpanned humor in balance.

Sophie is Daphne as played by miss piggy. she is basically the world's best grifter, she usually the front man interacting with the target the most. she has that crazy streak and the self defense capacity that miss piggy and Daphne (when she's done right) both have. she also has the confidence and style.

Nate is Fred and he is the human character. Fred has "let's split up gang" and Nate has "then we have to steal *fill in the blank with something comedically unfit to finish the sentence*" Fred and Nate are both flat characters with the main trait "i think I'm the leader but my smart friend does all the work" and the main interest of "trapping and screwing over capitalists" he mainly gets to call himself the leader because he's the idea guy and he has an apartment. his role in the muppet analogy is the peak of my pitch if you're still here. because while this is definitely not the Christmas Carol, Nate is the human character because he is Ebenezer Scrooge if instead of being a capitalist, Scrooge was an alcoholic and instead of character growth he was just steadily losing his mind. his moral compass and general intelligence are on a roulette wheel that is spun at random intervals lasting from seconds to the occasional few hours. also he and Sophie have divorced parents of grown children syndrome and the other three are said children. in vibes, of course, they aren't actually related.

if anyone stayed with me through all of that you should seriously watch it. even if i sound like i pulled this all out of my ass. it's so good.

it's an actively anticapitalist, copaganda free crime show where you get to see fun characters beat up every thing bad in society and fuck it all over. it balances fun comedy and wild characters with serious topics and moments in a way that is very natural and genuine. it also has one of my favorite autistic coded characters, a positive and healthy relationship that develops in a way that feels natural to the characters (as well as a rockier one if you're into drama) and it is in the midst of what looks to be an actually well handled revival series with the original cast. i haven't caught up yet but I'm so excited for it. the original had 5 seasons and the revival is waiting to be renewed for season 3.

please go watch leverage. it's so good and it deserves more fans. also i want more fic and that next season

[homoqueerjewhobbit]

Tumblr has a few really specific ideas of what should be the next Muppet movie (all good ones!) but I think we need to go further afield. Some Muppet adaptations I'd recommend:

James Bond - human villain

All For the Game - make the coach the only human

The OJ Simpson trial - human Judge Ito

The Avengers - keep Sam Jackson; Swedish Chef as Loki, bc Scandinavia is interchangeable

The Great Gatsby - Gonzo as Gatsby (I've posted this before I know)

We Have Always Lived in the Castle - human cousin Charles

How has their not been a Muppet Sherlock Holmes with a patient Muppet Sherlock explaining Muppet logic to a human Watson (there was a comic tho). Especially now they respecting women is in the public domain

[davekat-sucks]

Oooh! I have my own headcanons as well!

John Egbert, movie critic and professional prankster, has a small Youtube Channel named EctoBiologist_143 that does a lot of skit based comedy reviews, think Nostalgia Critic without the scummy business practices. John also tries to code personal birthday card files for his friends, they work half the time, if unzipping the .ath file is recognized on the computer’s software.

Rose Lalonde loves to overanalyze kids media, especially squiddles as it’s a way for her to bond with Jade, and Rose notices quite a lot of references to the deep sea and hidden realms in the media.

Dave Strider, as much as he loves to remix and produce beats, he also learns the drums as a traditional instrument to play band, he made one EP with John Rose and Jade, he says he doesn’t want to publish because it “sounds too normal to be indie” bit really he wants a piece of his second family to keep as a memory. His first family was him and bro, and yeeeeeeah, he doesn’t like puppets, except Randy Feltface.

Jade Harley prefers to be a vegetarian, but her Bec side loves meat, she treats herself to black bean burgers and tofu sausages. Her mostly veggie diet comes from her gardening, making all-organic foods. Her Bec side also makes her droop when she’s near nuclear reactors, that’s why her job is reactor designer and not inspection.

Jane Crocker made an MSPFA called Professional Charlatan, an adventure about a hard-boiled prankster, an Adventuring Dandy and a Populist Ingenious work as a team with intelligensia from Master Kernel to defeat the insidious and undersea work of the MERMAID MOB. It is very obvious this is loosely based on Jane and her friends fighting the Condesce.

Jake English dabbles in the art, and takes from Pablo Picasso’s blue period. Rose has a very psychoanalytical idea for why he likes to draw so many blue landscapes, and round, wavy feminine shapes. Jake also draws Robots, a lot. He even gets commissions to draw corny 1950s sci-fi book covers!

Roxy teaches John how to make code in .ath that does not suck. She and John love to share simple code that range from ripoff arcade games to ascii gifs. She takes a lot of the wine her mom stored to be sold in a wine store she owns. Roxy likes to taste wine, but declines anything more than one glass to drink, modesty is policy!

Dirk Strider works with a lot of felt and soft fabrics. He actually makes quilts as therapy for living on his own for 16 years. He also likes to hang out with Dave, he looks up to Dave and how he turned out even with the worst Dirk in all of Paradox space. Dirk still has a manipulative streak where he tries to subtly convince Dave to binge The Muppet Show with him to grow a tolerance for non-smutty plushes. Dave still can not watch any scene with Gonzo without getting sweaty and tense.

This is a lot of text for 8 characters so if I ever do troll headcanons they are in a separate batch.

[thejadedjewel]

Little Muppet Sesame Things #101

Gonzo: Really? I have a dream, too! Fozzie: Oh? Gonzo: But you'll think it's stupid. Fozzie: No we won't, tell us, tell us! Gonzo: Well, I want to go to Bombay, India and become a movie star. Fozzie: You don't go to Bombay to become a movie star! You go where we're going: Hollywood. Gonzo: Sure, if you want to do it the *easy* way. Fozzie: [to Kermit] We've picked up a weirdo...

The fact that the writers had no idea how big the filming industry in India was back then is highly amusing. Also, I love how supportive Camilla is when Gonzo reveals his dream. When he says that they'll think it's stupid, she quickly shakes her head no, and when he says what it is, she gives a little gasp/sigh noise of amazement/support. Why does a relationship between a Weirdo and a Chicken make me emotional?

[gorewound]

A movie where the protagonist is trying to do the dishes but Ninjas are trying to stop them.

At first they like sneak around and hide the sponges, use a grappling hook to pull the plug out of the sink.

But this just keeps escalating u til the protagonist discovers the ninjas in the act, and they're just like "FUCKING NINJAS! AGAIN!?" and the final act is just harrowing fighting and bloodshed and wave after wave of deadly ninjas are all fought off and defeated by out protagonist who is STILL TRYING TO GET THE DISHES DONE THE WHOLE TIME!

[foreos]

The Muppets Present: The Guy Who Didn’t Like Musicals

based on @the-muppets-present. saw their rule list and felt inspired. might do the other hatchetfield shows later if i feel so inclined :)

i just felt like the story of “average office worker who hates musicals gets trapped in a musical” was just begging to be muppetified.

so, without further ado,

ted- guys i went through so many options for ted. it was immediately hard. eventually i decided on rizzo, because i feel like similarly to ted, he’s kind of an asshole that causes problems for himself and everyone around him. plus, the “kick my head!” scene is even funnier if ted is like. one foot tall.

bill- kermit. i think kermit can and should be a sad dad. bill is like the most earnest man in hatchetfield and the idea of kermit being deeply disappointed that his friend won’t help him reconnect with his estranged daughter because he hates musicals so much is so funny to me.

professor hidgens- gonzo. duh. camilla is alexa. gonzo is the most eccentric bitch in the cast and would 100% kill people to get his musical produced. imagine gonzo shouting “come on you bastard!” at the apocalypse. gonzo would get struck by lightning and climb out of a pile of his friends’ bodies. he just would.

charlotte- miss piggy. stay with me here. from a meta standpoint, i always find it funny when piggy plays the secondary female role in a muppet movie and gets annoyed about it in interviews. from a character standpoint, post-infection charlotte’s high energy would be great to see if it was performed by the one and only piggy. imagine miss piggy singing join us and die. imagine the beginning part. she just beats the shit out of rizzo. gonzo shoots her.

mr. davidson- fozzie. idk i just got a mental image of him putting the newspaper down like jeff blim does at the beginning of the song and then fucking. waggling his ears.

sam- this one was hard because i had to think of you tied up my heart and show me your hands. i eventually picked link hogthrob. sam’s a pig, link’s a pig, etc.

alice- janice. hear me out. it’s not just because she’s “the other girl muppet.” imagine if alice just looked at bill and went “whatever, man” and walked away. truthfully thinking more about watcher world than tgwdlm for this one.

paul- jon matteson. paul stays the same, babeyyy. i think it just adds another fucking layer to his panic because not only is everyone randomly singing around him, they’re fucking muppets. just imagine la dee dah dah day if he was surrounded by muppets. he’s just some guy in a weird situation, and just some guy he shall stay.*

emma- lauren lopez. so i am breaking the number one rule of muppetfication to keep emma the same, but there’s a method to my goddamn madness. the only person paul can relate to in hatchetfield is the one other human being. plus, again, imagine the end of inevitable with emma screaming and crying while surrounded by fucking muppets.

*so i lied. just some guy he shall not stay. when inevitable starts, you first hear paul’s voice. he’s singing, just like he does in the show. emma very quietly goes “paul?” the same way, too. but what’s different is you can’t see paul. the camera pans over.

paul is a muppet.

he’s one of the lookalike ones, like from the first two episodes of the show and the jason segel one from the 2011 muppet movie.

“paul, you’re scaring me” indeed.

[dallonwrites]

lover boy - wip (re)intro

How do you navigate love after losing the person you loved the most?

I realised I don't like writing WIP intros where I just list everything super neatly + have a nice official summary so I am just going to infodump!! Lover Boy is an Adult Literary/Historical novel set in the late 1980s that follows a gay man's navigation of love, sexuality, community and grief after losing his best friend to AIDS. It's inspired by my own experiences of grief + caretaking and the dissertation I did on grief in queer AIDS narratives. It follows Beau, my beautiful special boy, and is like patchwork quilt of all of his avenues of love -- romantic, sexual, platonic, familial, communal, self -- that is stitched together with the grief from this one major loss. This is paralleled with chronological flashbacks telling the story of Bobby's illness, and how Beau took care of him.

Beau and Bobby are best friends who were platonically in love with each other, who had to adapt their relationship as Bobby got sicker and Beau became his caretaker, and in the midst of this adversity became closer than ever. Beau is a lover of love in all ways, who thinks the best holidays Halloween and Valentines Day, who loves sex but is bad at not falling in love afterwards, who has a soft heart, who also has a massive crush on George Michael. Bobby loved his life, his friends and going to the club with them, scenic hikes and swimming, his pet snake named Judas, leather and heavy metal and activism and also the Muppets (his fave was Gonzo btw). He was obsessed with volcanoes and wanted to be a volcanologist. And Beau misses him so much!!! He is trying to understand what his life is now after losing such a big part of it. He is trying to understand what kind of love he wants. He also is trying really hard not to fall back in love with his ex boyfriend who is back in the picture. And he is not really doing any of this well!!

Other features of this novel:

Gay + Autistic protagonist who doesn't know he is autistic but his special interest is horror movies and it shows (favourites are anything monstrous + full of bloodsoaked practical effects. Favourite of all time is The Lost Boys). Beau literally looks towards horror movies to try and understand grief and loss

Protagonist is a guy who actively wants to be haunted and is looking for any signs of ghosts

Lesbian + Gay + Bi + Trans + everything solidarity. An honouring of that history. Exploration on how the AIDS crisis shaped and reshaped community and identity because well, I did an entire dissertation on it and I am not putting that to waste!!! It is interesting and important!!

A narrative that is brutally honest about grief and death, and all the ways it is messy and complicated. A narrative that also doesn't always take itself seriously because sadness and joy are always holding hands

Narrative that plays around with form (video transcripts, letters, journal entries, descriptions of art) and POV (past + present tense blended together, third person present that often dips into second)

Exploration of caretaking on a community level and an intimate, one to one level. Look into how love is often all the little ways we help each other hold on.

Exploration of disability and sickness and how it shapes your identity, your relationship with yourself and others, especially when you're young (I also have a novella planned actually exploring this from Bobby's POV, but you didn't hear that from me!!!!)

The idea that grief never gets smaller, just your life grows around it

The idea that you can love your friends!!! You can be in love with them!! And that love is no "lesser" than romantic love, and it is just as beautiful and big and bright. Even when Beau navigates romantic relationships, these aren't put on a pedestal above any other type of love

A golden retriever named Atlas (Beau's own beautiful, special boy)

This is a personal project that I'm not publishing, but it means a lot to me so I will talk about it a lot!!! I've been playing around with it in its current form for about a year now and am finally making a dent in an actual first draft. My want is to share long, in depth pieces about how I navigate writing a story like this somewhere like Substack, and also all the fun of drafting it along the way. Expect infodumps and excerpts!!!

[elijahs-dumps]

What Happened to Gonzo's Queerness?

Gonzo is, undeniably, the Muppet that Disney has struggled to keep consistent and in character the most. But why is that? If we take a look at any recent Muppets projects, from Muppets Haunted Mansion, to The Muppets (2015), or even Muppets Most Wanted, Gonzo is simply a shell of his former self. An entertaining shell at that, but a shell nonetheless. Before we can get into the how and why though, I’ll explain a little bit of who Gonzo really was when featured in the Muppets of the past. 

A Brief History of Past Gonzo

Gonzo’s key traits have always been that he is zany, immature, unpredictable, and often takes things far too literally. While “Modern Muppets” keeps these core traits in the Gonzo of today, he still lacks his usual depth. Often people overlook the fact that any of the Muppets have depth at all, but they’re all given their own moments, especially film to film.

I think a perfect example of what I’m talking about is his song, “I’m Going to Go Back There Someday”, from the original Muppet movie. Within The Muppet Show no characters ever struggled that much with overarching plots or even real negative emotions that carried from episode to episode. But in film where an episodic format won’t work, you need these small subtle layers. Your characters all have to have more obvious wants and needs to move the story along, or else it’ll all fall flat. This song is just a testament to the Muppets seamless transition from television to film. The number humanizes and grounds a character that is often perceived as ignorant or carefree by giving him a single wish, a wish to return to the sky like he did previously in the movie. Gonzo wants to be free from the world and view it simply as a spectator, completely at peace. It’s a childish wish, but a real and relatable one. The layers of this song can go deeper when you take into account the fact that Gonzo is the only one of his species, and probably spent most of his life alone or without a true home before the Muppets. Combine this with the fact we’re at the lowest point in the movie where all hope seems lost in the middle of nowhere, and then have all the other Muppets in the scene do backing vocals, it becomes a really somber and special moment for the movie as a whole. It connects well with Gonzo, the other Muppets, the film’s story, and audiences around the world. 

Other moments that showcase this level of subtle emotional complexity can be found in The Muppets Take Manhattan during the song “It’s Time for Saying Goodbye”, or throughout the entire Muppets from Space movie where Gonzo discovers and comes to terms with his own identity and place within the world. 

Muppets Haunted Mansion tried to recreate some form of a plotline for Gonzo, but because there was such little set up the pay off felt out of place. The idea was to have Gonzo briefly struggle with the idea of being alone and losing the attention of his friends, but it didn’t even really connect to any past storylines with Gonzo or even past moments within the movie, and just felt forced. Especially since he never truly grew at all from this experience either. 

But depth wasn’t the only thing we lost from Gonzo in the “Modern Muppets”, we also lost so much of his queer-coding. In the past, Gonzo has always been shown as unidentifiable in both gender, gender expression, and sexuality. Some of my favorite pieces of evidence towards this include the Gene Kelly episode of The Muppet Show where Gonzo distracts Miss Piggy so he can be serenaded by Gene Kelly. Gene briefly acknowledges how strange this is, but Gonzo seems unconcerned and so the two sing a love song together and all is well. Gonzo often does this, flirting with both male and female guests on the original show, as well as cross dressing throughout all five seasons of the show. Gonzo also cross dresses on the original Muppet Babies show from the 1980s, and there is even a Muppet Babies picture book from 1986 titled “What’s a Gonzo?” in which Gonzo and the other Muppets try to figure out what Gonzo is, only for Gonzo to be confronted by other versions of himself and told that he doesn’t need to know what he is because he knows who he is. Then, of course, there is also the iconic washroom comic strip from the officially licensed “Jim Henson’s Muppets” comics from 1981-1986, which I will be inserting below! 

Flanderization

Flanderization is the process through which a complex fictional character’s essential traits are oversimplified to the point where they constitute their entire personality. The term’s name is a reference to Ned Flanders from The Simpsons. 

While the Muppets aren’t exactly “complex”, they do have a certain level of depth like I’ve previously explained. Watering them all down to their most well known traits is what causes most problems with the “Modern Muppets”. Obviously, all new versions of the Muppets have been put through unfortunate amounts of flanderization. However, even though all the Muppets have suffered through a similar treatment, I still feel like Gonzo takes the brunt of it. This is also because Gonzo is one of the only core Muppets who has become less of a main character than before. Meaning he doesn’t actually get a lot of screen time, especially when compared to the movies from before Disney bought the Muppets. 

Why is This Happening?

This answer as to why any of this is happening at all is actually quite simple; it’s not marketable! In order to rebrand the Muppets, Disney has had to take the safe approach when it comes to reminding people why they liked the Muppets to begin with. However, in trying to keep things simple as far as character work goes, we then lose that character integrity which is what makes these “Modern Muppets” feel so hollow. Obviously this did not work at all, because Disney had stripped these characters so thoroughly, they thought they could do whatever they wanted with them and no one would notice. Cough cough - The Muppets (2015) - cough cough. 

So yes, while Gonzo does keep some basic sense of his personality through taking things too literally, participating in crazy stunts, and just acting pretty random, it’s such a toned down version compared to the Gonzo so many grew up with. Especially when it comes to all his queer coding, Disney is often too afraid of backlash to even put things like that into their kids or family orientated media. This could potentially be a reason why they sort of shoved Gonzo out of the main cast in everything but promo. The only time they attempted this was around 2021 with the reboot of the Muppet Babies and an episode titled “Gonzorella”. The episode was actually quite charming, and follows young Gonzo as he decides how to tell his friends he wants to wear a princess dress to their costume party. It’s a nice concept, completely in character for Gonzo, and a good message for children about how you don’t have to look how people will expect you to look all the time. It also helps to break the stigma around “boys clothes” and “girls clothes”. Still, lots of parents were very angry about this episode and claimed it was Disney’s “new woke agenda” that was turning the Muppets into something they’re not. As if the Muppets haven’t always inherently been queer-coded and a part of queer culture! 

Conclusions

So, if the Muppets are being washed out to their most basic selves more and more with each new project, what does this mean for the future of the Muppets?

Honestly? Nothing good, in my opinion. The franchise has been going downhill for quite some time, but I don’t think I’ll ever come to dislike it. If you don’t like these “Modern Muppet” adaptations, then that’s more than fine. I just personally don’t see it improving anytime soon, especially since Disney so rarely puts out any Muppets content that doesn’t get canceled. If they do put anything new out, I’ll obviously be the first to watch and praise it, because I really do enjoy the Muppets a lot.

I think the saddest thing here, and the reason I made this little essay, is that Gonzo’s queer-coding will only be lost in translation the more that time goes on. At least, that’s how I see it. The backlash Disney got for that episode of the Muppet Babies is exactly the kind of thing the company is always trying to avoid, especially with the media they make for young kids on Disney Junior. I doubt they’ll ever try something like that again in Muppets media aimed for small kids. And in the family targeted content Gonzo has only become a less and less prominent character. 

That being said, this is all just my opinion based on what I have seen and studied.  I will always be holding out a small sense of hope though, and I will still continue to see Gonzo as a queer icon in my eyes regardless of what he does in future projects! 

UPDATE: If you made it to the end of this essay YAYY!! TYSM<33 In case anyone was wondering, my next piece is gonna be about Kaz Brekker from Six of Crows and morally grey characters in general. It will not be a critique of the character or his fan base though! I don’t always hate on everything lol. However I will probably be talking about online book communities, like Booktok, so prepare yourselves for that if you plan on sticking around :3

[duhragonball]

Neon Genesis Evangelion 04

"We have to use fourteen-year-olds to pilot the Evas. And we have to make rainbow scans of their skinny little butts! The future of mankind depends on it!"

This episode, Shinji runs away from home. Or maybe he's going back to wherever he lived before he came to Tokyo-3, so he's running away to home? He's running away is the point here.

Misato isn't very surprised to discover this, but she's still frustrated. Then Shinji's classmates, Suzuhara and the other guy... I was gonna look him up but I looked up Suzuhara and just got spoiled so fuck that. We're calling him Big Rigg Mahoney now. Yeah, Suzuhara's taller, but I don't care. We're going with it.

Anyway, Suzuhara and Big Rigg Mahoney show up at Misato's apartment because they haven't seen Shinji at school for days. Suzuhara wants to apologize for punching Shinji in Episode 3. He only did it because he blamed Shinji for fighting the Angel so close to the city, which got his sister hospitalized, but his sister chewed him out for this, and he and Big Rigg Mahoney got a first-hand look at what it's like for Shinji when he's piloting that Eva. That's his motivation, Big Rigg Mahoney's mostly involved because he likes war movies and likes playing soldier, and he's fascinated by the Evas, NERV Agency, etc.

They did not expect a grown woman to be living in Shinji's apartment, so they hand her his assignments from school and leave, but now they think Shinji is even cooler, because he's a badass pilot and he's living with a hot babe.

Let me get this out of the way: I did find this episode much more enjoyable than the last one. I had a good feeling about it, since the next-episode preview promised that Shinji would run away, which was encouraging because at least Shinji would have to make a conscious decision and act upon it, like some sort of fictional character might do. But then it occurred to me that maybe Suzuhara and Big Rigg Mahoney might have kidnapped Shinji and told him to run away, in a misguided attempt to help him. And Shinji would be like "hai!" and go AWOL simply because someone told him to. That would suck, so when these two show up early in the episode and they have no idea where he went either, it was very reassuring.

Not that it's too much of a change for Shinji. He's off on his own, but he's still mopey and dead inside. He rides the subway all the way to the end of the line, listening to his playlist of "Track 25" and "Track 26" over and over again the whole way. Then he realizes he has to "go back". I'm not sure what that means, but I assume he's talking about going back to Tokyo-3, since he doesn't seem to have a destination in mind. And yet, he's in no hurry, stopping off at a movie theater that's running some sort of film festival of Second Impact documentaries.

He watches a couple making out in the theater. I don't know if he's envious or fascinated or disgusted, or he just doesn't know what else to do.

Meanwhile, Misato discusses Shinji's disappearance with Ritsuko. We flash back to the aftermath of the battle in Episode 3. Misato had ordered Shinji to retreat before his Eva ran out of power, but Shinji went gonzo and killed the Angel instead. She scolded him for ignoring her orders, but he acted cavalier about it, reminding her that they won, so it doesn't really matter. She warned him that his attitude will only get him killed, and he replied that his attitude doesn't matter, because he's the only one who can pilot the Eva. It's either Shinji or Rei (who's still injured), or nobody, so they might as well let Shinji fuck around and find out. If he gets himself killed they're no worse off than if he doesn't pilot the Eva at all.

In hindsight, Misato is kind of relieved he's gone, because at least this way he won't bring this fatalistic mentality onto the battlefield. The disconnect here is that she's some sort of career soldier, with loyalties and duties and causes to respect. Shinji got drafted last month, and he doesn't want to do this and he's only participating because he's the indispensible man. But Shinji hates himself, so if he gets killed through incompetence, it's no better or worse than winning every battle, or abandoning his post. It's all the same to him, he's got nothing to gain or lose here.

Meanwhile, Shinji happens upon Big Rigg Mahoney, who's playing soldier out in the middle of nowhere. He's got a uniform and a tent and everything. When he spots Shinji he invites him over for whatever he's cooking, and they hang out. See, this is nice. Shinji took matters into his own hands, and now he's hanging out with his friend, Big Rigg Mahoney.

Finally, a bunch of goons from NERV show up and take Shinji into custody. The next day, Suzuhara is upset to hear the Big Rigg Mahoney let them take Shinji without a fight, but come on, man. Big Rigg Mahoney didn't get this far in life without learning to know when to fight and when to take it easy.

Back at the base, Shinji expects Misato to scold him, but she doesn't. She just asks him if he enjoyed his time away, and he says he doesn't know. Classic Shinji. They continue their argument from before. He doesn't want to pilot the Eva because he sucks at it and it's scary and painful, but he doesn't think it's right to leave it all up to Rei and the others. Misato tells him that has nothing to do with it. If he's only forcing himself to go along with this, then he'll never be in the right mindset to do any good as an Eva pilot. Better if he just calls it quits now and forgets he ever got involved.

Meanwhile, Shinji's dad could not give a shit less whether Shinji leaves or not. He's already figuring out what to do when he's gone. If Shinji won't pilot Eva Unit 01, then they'll just reconfigure it for Rei. Apparently that's a thing they can do now. I thought each pilot had their own specific Eva Unit they were bonded to, but I guess not. According to this conversation, Rei was injured while piloting Unit 00, but it wasn't in combat. They were just running experiments on Unit 00 to get it working, and there must have been an accident.

So some of this is becoming clearer. We still don't know why only certain teenagers can pilot the Evas, but we do know that there are others besides Rei and Shinji. They just haven't located very many candidates, so it's not like Shinji is completely irreplaceable. And Rei is recovering, so there's that. And Shinji can resign whenever he wants. He only got arrested last night because he left without resigning. Today, he's decided to go through with it, and NERV doesn't seem sorry to see him go. Shinji asks if he can say farewell to Misato, but they're like "You quit, so you're not authorized to see her." At this point all NERV cares about is escorting him off their base.

Suzuhara and Big Rigg Mahoney do show up to see him off, though. Suzuhara finally apologizes to Shinji for punching him, and insists that Shinji punch him back to restore his honor. Shinji reluctantly agrees, and at first he kind of holds back, but then Suzuhara tells him to hit like he means it, and he does. See, this is nice.

Shinji apologizes for leaving Tokyo-3 in a lurch, but the boys are used to classmates moving out, and they know how hard it is for Shinji to pilot the Eva, so they don't blame him for quitting. Suzuhara promises to beat up anyone who doesn't respect Shinji's decision to leave.

Finally the NERV goons decide it's time for him to go to the train station, but he pulls away just long enough to tell Suzuhara and Big Rigg Mahoney that he has been cowardly and weak after all. It's like he's having second thoughts about the whole thing.

Back at the base, Misato mulls the whole thing over, and it finally hits her that this is how Shinji expresses his feelings. He runs away and waits for someone to care that he's gone. Realizing this, she rushes to the train station to see him, but she sees the train pull out just as she arrives. For a second she thinks she was too late, but then when the train is gone...

They see each other on either side of the tracks. Shinji couldn't go through with leaving, I suppose because Suzuhara and Big Rigg Mahoney were enough to make him question his decision. But now he looks up and sees Misato cared about him too, and that puts him over the hump.

Then Shinji declares that he's home, and Misato replies "Welcome home." And that's a beautiful moment. Everything kind of came together. Now I'm starting to see what the fuss is about here.

I stand by my criticism of Episode 3, though. I don't think they needed four episodes of this show to get to this moment. Two episodes, maybe. They could have ditched all those scenes of Shinji staring at Misato's beer cans in Episode 2, and trimmed a lot of fat from Episode 3. Suzuhara could have found out about Shinji being an Eva pilot some other way before the episode started, instead of that long scene in the classroom.

Still, we're here. Shinji has decided that he actually cares about Tokyo-3 and its people, and he wants to pilot the Eva to protect his home, not just because someone else told him to do it. We'll see how well that goes, but it's a big step forward.

Also, the next episode preview shows Rei looking healthy and doing things, so that seems like a big improvement too. Everything's coming up Milhouse!

[superectojazzmage]

A thing I love about In A Violent Nature is that it does such a good job offering an answer as to why the slasher in slasher movies goes over the top killing all the campers even though usually only, like, one of them really has any reason to be targeted if that... and it pretty much amounts to said campers being REALLY fucking annoying.

Slasher movies all too often have this problem with the cast all being these obnoxious or downright despicable people that hog the screen with insipid relationship melodrama and just get on your nerves til the killer gets them. And so this movie takes that cliche to it's logical conclusion. It makes zero attempt to pretend that the victims are anything but the sort of people who in real life you would want to punch in the face the very instant they opened their mouths. Hell, they barely even come off like functional human beings.

When they aren't screaming in terror, every line from them is completely smarmy and smug, like they think they're the funniest person in the world but can't even get through a knock knock joke without saying some racist. Either that, or ear-splitting whining and bickering about irrelevant nonsense. Their personalities are all interchangeably that of an influencer who would steal your dog than shriek "it's just a prank, bro!" when caught. They treat the forest like a playground where they can do whatever they want. They aren't even nice to each other; they're ostensibly friends and yet seem to do nothing but talk to each other like shit and clearly only hang out because nobody else can stand them.

Like, you watch that scene around the campfire and each and every characters' dialogue seems designed to make them as utterly insufferable and unlikable as possible. From making lame jokes that drag on way too long or laughing about sex abuse and murder. To just constantly yammering over each other's words in a way that'd be infuriating in real life. And you see Johnny watching from the treeline and he's not emoting dramatically but you can just TELL the teens are like nails in his ears. They're filling him with rage. Or you get to the bit with the toy car and watch as Johnny seems to want to just chill out and have a nice day, only for the constant noise and whining from the teens to make him lose all ability to focus and storm off upset and disappointed as much as angry. The only one who seems even remotely, authentically human is Kris, who in true slasher fashion is the final girl by virtue of being the only person anyone can tolerate.

And somehow you understand. You maybe find yourself thinking, "if these people walked onto my property, I would stop at nothing to kill every single one of them just so I wouldn't have to listen to it anymore". It's movie magic of a sort. The whole movie is told from the perspective of the slasher, and as part of the process, it gives you an idea of what might push someone or something to act like that; blind anger boiling over from having your home and person disrespected by some of the worst kind of people imaginable. And through that understanding, coupled with a ton of other aspects of the movie, it sets you into Johnny's state of mind, in a manner almost like gonzo journalism.

You almost kind of forget the whole "crazed zombie killing people" thing and feel like you're watching something more mundane, fitting with the film's toying with moods and comparisons of slashers to wildlife. At many points it stops feeling like a horror movie and instead seems to become a quiet indie drama about a native of a rural area dealing with a bunch of disrespectful tourists... right up until Johnny starts killing again.

All because the characters he's hunting are just THAT irritating.