#like a foreshadowed threat that takes multiple episodes to recover from

[reddogcollar]

I think her name should've been tricksy instead of trixie

[catfishofoldin99colours]

With young justice now on Australian Netflix (and with as many jokes I crack about it not being on American Netflix, I sincerely hope it goes back up really soon), it got me thinking about the list of what I love so much about young justice.

Said list is literally 8 miles long, but I’ll talk about one thing I haven’t seen anyone else mention so far, and one thing I love:

Young Justice never assumes it’s audience needs things dumbed down for them. Despite its PG rating, YJ deals with some pretty heavy stuff - abusive families, political mess-ups, public images and how they can be manipulated, origins of a person versus their intents to do good, morally grey characters who have the right idea and are understandable but ultimately go about it the wrong way, children playing the part of soldiers, heavy crime, orphans and what that experience is like, psychological and physical trauma and the effects of that, to name a few. The issues in it are complex and multi-layered, with sometimes no clear answer, and often having multiple characters take multiple viewpoints.

And I remember when watching it for the first time in early 2016 (sue me I’m late to the party XD), never once did I feel like this was a show created to dumb-down the issues it explored for a younger audience. Granted I was 16 at the time, but my point stands. 

Young Justice explores its issues, its stories, its characters in an amazing amount of depth and respect towards the complicated situations it deals with. Not to say any of the characters are actively pitted to have ‘sad backstories’ for the sake of drama, but what does come up is dealt with in an honest and respectful way that doesn’t sugar-coat the complexities of it.  Things like a dictatorship, public appearances of heroes and villains, political coups and child abuse are looked at, in a respectful way that not only shows the issue but works through it so the story and characters all learn and recover from them. Nothing is left out or glossed over because it’s ‘too mature’ for the audience, rather, its explained in a way that makes the situation understandable, so that the audience will have an idea of what’s going on in the context of the story without necessarily needing to know everything about the real-world context it’s drawn from.

This is something I find incredibly important and beautiful to see, because these days a lot of children-directed shows and films are increasingly simple and ‘dumbed-down’. Not all of them are, there are masterpieces out there that manage to do what YJ does in terms of their own stories. But to me, personally, it seems a certain attitude has happened in terms of what kids ‘are’ and ‘aren’t allowed to understand in their own media - there seems to be this idea that kids are simply too young and innocent to understand things like ‘death’ and ‘politics’ and ‘sexuality’ and what being manipulated is or looks like. ((keep in mind this is in my own personal experience, this isn’t to speak for everyone)). And yes, those are rather weighted issues, with a lot of history and different points to them that require a certain degree of patience and critical analysis to understand properly. But that’s not to say kids can’t understand certain aspects of them.

This idea is bad because it not only underestimates the intelligence of children (and kids are ridiculously smart ok, I’m convinced they’re getting smarter every generation) but also disadvantages them in having a voice about anything intellectual or observational. If you tell a child they can’t possibly know something they’re trying to tell you they know because they’re ‘too young’, you set them up to think they’re faking it the whole time, and encouraging them to stay quiet and silent about matters which might be important to them. This could have really damaging effects if a child experiences something like abuse or manipulation, and they know it’s wrong and feels wrong - but because a trusted adult thinks they’re too young to really know what it is, they can be discouraged from talking about it, which helps silence their voice and can make them an easier target for potential predators.

This is why I adore YJ so much - it NEVER glosses over the effects of something, and perhaps those effects are made even more powerful by the fact that the entire main cast is, predominantly, children themselves. There’s something very powerful about seeing kids, super-powered as they may be, deal with issues that ultimately affect everyone, and written to do so in a way that’s respectful of their situations and experiences, in a way that gives children a voice to their thoughts if they feel they have been affected by these things too. 

Take the episodes ‘Failsafe’ and ‘Disordered’ (episodes 16-17 in s1). The entire team is placed into an ‘all-or-nothing’ scenario, where the choices are a retreat and let the world get taken over, or die trying to save it. The situation is ripped out of control by M’gann, plunging them all into a seemingly endless spiral of destruction and death - and they’re all ranging in age from 13-17 at this point. Things go wrong, and nearly everyone dies, till J’onn stops M’gann from her fear-induced nightmare spiral, and understandably, she’s heartbroken that she’s done this. This episode, while terrifyingly sad and depressing, is good because it looks at the issue of the ‘child soldiers’ that the team essentially is, and the lengths they are expected to go to to protect the earth should the Justice League fail. While not explicitly done so, it raises questions about the ethics of the team’s situation and also questions about how they see themselves within the context of their roles - as well as the question of ‘what happens if they’re just not enough?’

The entire next episode is devoted to them dealing with the trauma of that experience. We see different sides come out in all of them - Artemis’s stoic refusal to admit she may need help, even if she acknowledges that that simple fact isn’t weakness, revealing a fierce desperation to prove herself; Wally’s attempt to just brush it all off and ignore what pain may be happening, which reveals a certain level of insecurity about his pain; M’gann’s absolute terror at herself and foreshadowing of her self-hatred and desperation to hide her true self from everyone (’canary: you’ve... gone white! / m’gann: what?! ...oh, you meant caucasian...’); kaldur’s deep concern about his own actions in the heat of battle, which brings up questons of whether he’s the right choice to lead the team simply because he’s the oldest, which in turn brings up major concerns about anyone else being the leader, especially dick being so young; conner’s realisation about his purpose as a clone and the threats to everything this brings, not to mention the fact he comes to terms with his emotions about this and seeks professional help; dick’s stark horror at realising just how ruthless batman, his father-figure, saviour and mentor, can be, and the fact that he’ll be expected to follow those footsteps.

This is all in TWO EPISODES. Granted, these episodes are heavier than most, but that’s not to say any episode is ever pointless fluff. Every single episode of YJ is like this to some extent, and deals with similar issues in exactly the same respectful and fully-articulated way.

If nothing else, Young Justice proved to me that kid’s shows can be complex and deal with the same issues that adults face, with the same amount of respect and attention - all while still ultimately being hopeful, and focused on the beauty of teamwork and friendship and working together, and more than anything, being honest and trusting each other.

TLRD; Young Justice is an amazingly complex show that never ever feels the need to make its content ‘dumber’ so its audience can understand it because it knows they can, and works to help them understand more.

[sometipsygnostalgic]

Been thinking about Jesse Moynihan’s work. How I’d have criticised it as a fellow creator, rather than as a fan.

In my opinion, the best episode he ever worked on was The Vault, while the biggest miss was Something Big.

Yes, I have much more issues with Breezy, but that wasnt so much to do with its completeness as an episode as it was to do with whether the content belonged in the AT world. If Breezy was in Jesse’s own show, it’d be beautiful, but as an Adventure Time episode it’s plain uncomfortable. Something Big, meanwhile, is… Disappointing in general, and the easiest highlight of Jesse’s weaknesses.

So let’s first talk about why The Vault is Jesse and Ako’s best episode, and perhaps my personal favourite in the series. This ep has decent visual imagery from the start with the Magic Hexagon joke. It has a solid beginning with Finn breaking his house at the ghost vision, leaving us curious. It slowly feeds this curiosity by showing us his past lives. Then we get onto the middle section where we see what happens with Shoko, which has its own tense conclusion, hitting the climax of the ep. Then we have the end, where we are back to Finn retrieving what was lost and returning it.

The entire storyline was filled with a sense of mystery, suspense, and tragedy. Shoko’s story could have worked as a standalone by itself, making her a sympathetic, interesting character to follow, but AT took this several steps beyond… It was *jampacked* with interesting lore that the series had been building up to for years, and it executed this *perfectly*. How could we have expected The Vault to give us an important glimpse of the Candy Kingdom’s creation? To show us the younger Princess, interacting with past iterations of Finn and Jake? To give foreshadowing and hints of what was to come, from Finn’s life as a comet to PB’s amulet? The whole arm shit? It connected so many things together, leaving an overwhelming sense of payoff.

The ep, importantly, was hilarious too. Jesse and Ako’s humor is so *on point* when they work together. Finn vibrating at the beginning and breaking the floorboards at the end, PB bragging about being a technical wonderchild and wanting to do two-arm stuff, Shoko beating up that one bath boy… It made the tragic end to Shoko’s tale hit that much harder, followed by the bittersweet melancholy of Finn making amends in his new life.

Now, let’s talk about Something Big.

Unlike The Vault, where we only knew about the green ghost lady (admittably an exciting premise) and got a huge surprise, Something Big was approached with enormous expectation only to be disappointing to just about everyone. What we knew was that Maja was planning to finally attack the Candy Kingdom, using the magic from PB’s tshirt she traded for in Sky Witch. It was implied that Maja was conducting a huge plan using the enormous magical potential Peebles had given her. When Something Big finally came, the preview promised an awesome battle between Maja and the Candy Kingdom, showing off the episode’s more actionpacked moments and a bit of humor. Excitement hit the roof!!! How was the princess going to deal with this threat that she helped create, even?

Well when the episode came out, it suffered from serious structural, pacing, and tension issues. The start was promising with showing multiple casualties, and pb saying she didnt want to use her ground troops, but it’s hindered by the distracting and pathetic death of Root Beer Guy. This random execution of a character we thought to be important reeked of Homestuck level immersion-breaking insensibilities, and Jack Pendarvis’s weak justification for the decision did not help at all. I’m not sure if Jesse or Jack was responsible for how poorly it was executed though.

Then we cut to a flashback of Maja summoning Darren, and this is where the episode’s structural weaknesses start to show themselves off. The way Darren is summoned is deeply intimidating and Maja’s explanation about the shirt is interesting, but too much time and focus is drawn on Darren himself considering his role later in the episode.

Then we cut back to the candy kingdom, where Colonel Candy Corn employs his defensive strategy and does something cool. Yay, i guess? It’s funny and I enjoy seeing candy people do their thing but once again, the episode loses focus, and doesnt put enough on these guys for it to have any real stakes. Then FINALLY we cut back to Peebles, who realises the boys are gone and decides to defend the kingdom herself. The only truly tense scene in the episode occurs when PB gets knocked off her swan and nearly *erased* by Darren, but this is interrupted before it can be processed by Finn appearing straight out if nowhere with the Ancient Psychic Tandem War Elephant. Now, this is where the ep *really* gets off the rails.

Darren and Eli talk about the old days, which in a better episode could have been an amusing addition. Finn defeats Darren by going up his nose and punching him. Thats it. No drama, no investment, he just does that and it’s over like no big deal. Everybody EXCEPT RBG is healed by miracle juice and doesnt care anymore. Peebles doesnt give a shit either and everyone celebrates, then we go to the Elephant having some sort of breakdown over being nothing but a weapon. Finn peptalks it and he goes to help Mahja recover from a coma, saying you cant light a candle without a match. The ep ends with two cards that go “In memory of Root Beer Guy” and “Crunchy is OK”.

Jesse said that this ep was originally going to be the start of the movie. This makes sense considering how poorly structured it is, and how much content it tries to cram into a short 11 minutes.

The ep’s humor is… Decent at best, not the most lolworthy but ice seen worse. However the biggest criticism I have is, what - and who - was it *about*? It wasnt about Maja cos she just hovered in the background and had no meaningful dialogue. It wasnt about PB, even though it looked like it should have been, because despite the character study Maja gave for her, she had no development, serious dialogue, or real action in this ep. It wasnt about Darren cos he unceremoniously died. It wasnt about the Elephant cos it only appeared for the last few minutes of the ep. It wasnt about the Candy Kingdom cos Finn, Jake, and Eli withdrew any focus from them at the end.

The only theme I can identify that applies to most of these things is that it’s about old people not being able to move on. Peebles harbored the shirt and built the kingdom, empowering them with the sentimentality of her past hopes and regrets. Maja was hellbent on destroying the Candy Kingdom to use one of her dumb spells. Colonel Candy Corn was moping about his exes and not talking to girls his age. Eli and Darren explicitly felt stuck in the past and unable to veer from their original purpose, but after uhh talking to tje goddamn Sun, Eli decides to take a new path. He becomes the candle and the match, caring for the person he comatised until she heals.

This theme is so halfbaked and scattered that theres no way any person would care for it. The characters they use to express it are unimportant and get no focus throughout the episode. Was it really right to hamper the expectations fans had, also crushing many other things like poor root beer guy, just to try expressing this poor idea? Eli could have had their own episode pitched at the very least… Consequentially, Something Big fails to be anything more than a series of poorly connected events with no emotional core and not nearly enough humor to pull it off like Apple Wedding did. It wastes the potential that focusing on Maja vs the Candy Kingdom could have had. We could have seen Maja and Peebles antagonizing each other, elaboration on why the latter carries so much sentimentality into everthing she owns to the extent that it nukes Hambo in comparison… We could have seen more candy people being candy people, the gumball guardians having a non halfassed reason for fainting, Root Beer Guy having a meaningful sacrifice, Darren having a satisfying defeat… The ep wastes avenues for lore, tension, emotion, and character development, wasting it on a poirly built premise that it fails to deliver effectively. Its attempts to poke fun at itself with the cards at the end only serve to further jar the mood and insult the audience, rather than be funny.

This is why Something Big is the worst episode Jesse has ever storyboarded. Future work like Astral Plane, and the previous episode Breezy, despite also having poorly built philosophy and that general author mouthpiece vibe they had cohesive beginnings, middles, and ends, focusing on specific characters and showing at least limited growth. Astral Plane was funny and followed the adventures of numerous people, and Breezy nearly made me cry, so they definitely had some emotions in their core.

The Vault, meanwhile, highlights the best of Jesse’s potential. The philosophy presented in this ep is directly meaningful to a relationship between two major characters, and the payoff delivers perfectly for *seasons* worth of work. It is a x3 combob origin episode and one of the best Adventure Time has ever had to offer, humorously, analytically, and emotionally.