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poetzproblem · 24 days ago

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I am so with you on the Agatha All Along brainrot. What are some of your favorite headcanons about the show and/or Agatha and Rio's relationship?

This got very long, so apologies. I'm hiding it all under that cut and also recommending that you go read creator, you destroy me by velvetprayer if you haven't already. It more or less matches my own personal headcanon about the Agatha/Rio past, though her version of Lady Death might be a little gentler overall than I imagine her to be - although fully as angst ridden.

My winded rambling as follows:

So, I’ll preface this all by saying that I’m not really deep into Marvel lore. I only know any of it through the cinematic universe, but I can’t say I’ve ever watched the entire filmography, I did watch Loki and Wandavision, and I obviously fell in love with Agatha from that. I did a rewatch after the first episode of Agatha All Along dropped to refresh my memory, and it helped me form a headcanon for her, though there are some pretty big missing pieces that I haven’t quite worked out, mostly due to the incomplete backstory in AAA and Marvel’s general monkeying up of timelines between their television projects. (The Darkhold was an entire plotline on Agents of Shield, but WV and AAA both imply Agatha has had that book for a significantly long time.)

So before I go too deep into character headcanon, I will say that I mostly loved AAA. I think it was well written overall with so much foreshadowing and so many easter eggs that really make rewatching the episodes a joy. I appreciated the practical effects, and the song was a banger in every version. I will admit to being a little disappointed that the Road wasn’t real all along but a pocket dimension created by Billy, though I did just enough research about him to know it was one of his powers and saw the speculation about that twist being talked about, so I was expecting it by the last two episodes.

I also was disappointed with the Salem Seven being a big non event. Rio describes them in the first episode as "the worst of them," and they’ve supposedly been hunting Agatha for something like 320 years, so I expected them to be a real threat. But from what little we saw of them, beyond being creepy, they had no real bite. It felt very much like a fully powered up Agatha, especially one in possession of the Darkhold, could have easily squashed them all a century or two ago? (Again, when did she actually acquire that damned book?)

So Agatha. She’s unapologetically wicked, but I think of her as more selfishly power-hungry than outright evil. Knowledge of the craft is important to her, that was clear in her whole initial confrontation with Wanda, so she’s clearly well studied in addition to powerful. I imagine she really does think she’s more deserving of every other witch's power than they are, so why not take it?

Her one tiny line in the sand (or salt circle) seems to be not hurting children, although she really didn’t seem all that concerned with Billy or Tommy disappearing with Wanda’s powers during WV. I can only assume that was because Wanda magicked them up in the tiny span of a day or two out of nothing but her chaos magic with fake sitcom labor, so Agatha didn’t see them as real. And now that I know she had a son who she carried for (presumably) the full nine months and put in the real work for, I can kind of understand that.

WV showed her coven trying to kill her in 1693, and AAA put Nicky’s birth in 1750. That’s 57 years of wrecking havoc with her lover, Lady Death, and my own take on that is that they didn’t actually meet until after Agatha offed her coven. I’m sure Death was there for that event, and I even play with the idea that Death had been hovering around her long before that, but I don’t think she showed herself to Agatha at that point and Agatha wouldn’t have noticed her physical presence yet.

I don’t actually believe Agatha could control her siphoning powers before she killed her coven - in fact, she seemed genuinely surprised that she wasn’t dying when they blasted her and that her own power was pulling theirs into her. And her coven and Evanora sure as hell couldn’t have known she could do that, or they would have chosen another way to kill her.

And now that we know Agatha could absorb magic with her touch (kiss?), since that’s what she did with Rio in the end, I think that’s probably how her power worked before the attempted execution. In fact, I headcanon that she started siphoning Evanora’s powers during childbirth, and that’s why her mother thought she was evil and wanted to kill her at birth. I think the trauma of being born triggered baby Agatha’s magic and Evanora started growing weaker and weaker as it dragged on, and she felt her magic being leeched by the child she was birthing, but because Agatha was only a baby and not really all the powerful yet, she couldn’t draw enough to kill her mother outright, only severely weaken her.

And yes, I also imagine Lady Death was hovering in that room, waiting to see if she’d be taking Evanora Harkness or the baby, and maybe Agatha and her potential intrigued her from those first moments, so maybe she kept an interested eye on her - since Death is technically everywhere all at once.

There are so many circumstances when a young Agatha could have had her siphoning ability triggered. Like, imagine her trying to steal a treat or something and Evanora grabbing her hand away only for Agatha to start sucking up her magic through the touch. It would have made Evanora slap her away and refuse to even touch her again, and she certainly wouldn’t have ever wanted to allow Agatha to have the knowledge of how to use her power with intent. So of course young Agatha has to go looking for knowledge on her own. I don’t believe she had the Darkhold at this time, but there are certainly other tomes of dark magic she could have gotten her hands on and started reading, trying to understand what she is and why her magic works differently than the others in her coven.

Side note - siphoning through touch would only work in small doses, since once the other witch noticed it, she’d be able to push Agatha away. I mean, Agatha didn't exactly seem skilled at hand to hand combat there, so I imagine her childhood was a series of accidents or ‘accidents’ until Agatha figured out a much better way to employ her magic stealing touch. Let’s just say, I don’t think using her lips to steal Death’s power was the first time she used that trick, and I imagine the other witch might be too pleasantly distracted to realize what was happening for quite some time.

Maybe this is even the way she betrayed her coven and got put on trial. Both defiling the natural order by cavorting with other women and killing a fellow witch with her touch.

Anyway, she doesn’t figure out the much easier and, more importantly, faster way to steal power until her coven tries to kill her, but once she does, she gets very good at getting witches to blast her. (I also think this is why she told Lilia the supposed trick to her siphoning - because if she couldn't immediately provoke her, she could have tried going old school with it by latching onto her until she used her magic on her to shake her off, and then she’d get what she wanted the fast way. I mean, Lilia seemed old and frail. Agatha probably though she could take her no problem.)

So, back to past Agatha, now sans coven. She undoubtedly ends up killing more witches sooner rather than later, supposedly in self defense, after she pisses them all off enough to provoke an attack, and that finally brings Lady Death fully into her orbit. There are a number of fic writers who have already imagined the ‘meet deadly’ moment, so I won’t spend much time on that because this answer is already too long with no end in sight. Suffice to say, they spent 57 years being gay and doing crime. Agatha got more powerful and Lady Death - Rio now in her corporeal, Agatha-loving form - got her bodies and a taste of life that she'd never had before.

I headcanon that they did (still do) love one another in their own very disturbed, ultimately unhealthy way. And I definitely think Agatha was learning so many things from Rio in relation to magic during their years together. Rio is, after all, The Green Witch, so presumably no one knows more about green craft than her. And as Lady Death, she probably knows about every magic, and Agatha would just soak in all that knowledge over their time together. She probably learned to control her siphoning abilities from Rio so there wouldn’t be any accidental draws on the ancient power that would kill her.

I also imagine Rio’s presence might have kept the Salem Seven at bay for those earlier years. (Were they a factor during the Nicky years? Did Rio keep them at bay then too to protect her family from a distance? Why didn't they make a move in the any of the 200 years after?)

Anyway, jump skip to Agatha’s pregnancy which was doomed from conception. If we go with the thought that Nicholas was somehow created by both of them, then he carried the essence of Death inside of him and couldn’t have existed in a mortal body, doomed by his very nature. If we go with Agatha making him herself from scratch, it might have been her own inherent magic that doomed him. Maybe it was even a combination of both.

In either case, I imagine Rio warned Agatha what Fate would demand from the beginning if she carried the pregnancy to term - what she’d force Rio to do. (If Nicky is hers too, then his very existence is an abomination against the sacred balance.) But Agatha, with her severe mommy issues, was determined to go ahead with it and prove her mother wrong, because the rules of magic have always bent to her power. Death herself has bowed before Agatha - certainly she’d do the same again. Certainly, Agatha is powerful enough to bring her child into the world unharmed.

Spoiler: she is not.

But Rio does, in fact, bend the rules for her again, and grants the only thing she can - time. This is why it cuts Rio so deeply when Agatha throws all of that special treatment back in her face on the Road (that isn’t real) - why that argument de-escalates at the mention of Nicky and what really happened. Because what is more awful than the truth that Agatha had loved and been loved by Death herself and even that - even all her own power and the power she stole from other witches - couldn’t save her (their) child?

Would it ultimately have been kinder for Rio to have just taken Nicholas before he’d drawn his first breath? Maybe. Maybe not. I don’t think there was an answer that could have saved their love at this point, but Rio did (does) love Agatha, and she went against her very nature and defied the laws she was bound by to grant her love time with her (their) son.

And we know how that part of the story plays out, though I do share the popular headcanon that Rio was lurking around for those six years that Nicholas lived, perhaps visiting him in his sleep, because he went to her without fear or hesitation in the end. She obviously has the ability to infiltrate the mind-space - she did it with the spell Agatha was trapped in.

That it happened when he was asleep - more importantly, when Agatha was asleep - is the thing that I think has fueled her anger and resentment of Rio all this time. Yeah, she was always going to hate Rio for taking him and be angry for a very long time, but Rio never gave her the chance to say that final goodbye, and that's what made it truly unforgivable. Rio probably thought it was better that way - a more peaceful death for Nicky - but Agatha could never be capable of understanding that.

So Agatha immediately embarks on centuries long rage and grief spree to gain even more power using the ballad she’d written with her son, and you’d better believe she’s gleefully using those bodies to taunt her ex along the way. That’s what we see, anyway, and there were no black fingers, so she wasn’t actively using the Darkhold for that Witch's Road con she was running. (Again, when did she find that book?)

Rio clearly implies in the first episode that it’s been a long time since they’ve seen each other and that Agatha has been using the Darkhold to hide behind - essentially hiding from Death. Did she have it for fifty years? One hundred? Two hundred? You’d think she would have gone looking for it soon after Nicky’s death, maybe hoping it would have some spell or ritual to resurrect him. But she didn’t. Or maybe she couldn’t? Maybe Nicky, being the son of Lady Death, didn’t end up in the same place as other, purely mortal souls, so whatever spell the Darkhold contained couldn’t work to draw his soul back?

(And if anyone is interested after this long ass post, I also have a separate headcanon about Nicholas and the Afterlife that I won;t get into here.)

I haven’t fully settled on how I think the timeline of those missing years lines up. I’m leaning toward Agatha having had the Darkhold for at least a century - long enough to make it really hurt for Rio to not be able to see or sense her, left with only bodies she knows Agatha left in her wake.

Now, Rio. Lady Death.

When we first meet her, she’s inserted herself into Agatha’s crime drama spell. I don’t think she was physically there at the time but projected herself into Agatha’s consciousness, and at this point it’s been either decades or centuries since she’s been able to sense her ex. First the Darkhold hid her and then Wanda’s spell - “You live here now. No one will bother you” - and as soon as both of those are gone from the multiverse, the spell begins to break. No, I do not think Billy broke it. It was already breaking before he tried his analog magic spell. At best, he sped up Agatha’s awakening.

So Rio has been unable to confront Agatha for a very, very long time, but I believe there were confrontations before Agatha got the Darkhold and after Nicky died. I think it’s fair to assume those were violent and angry on Agatha’s side and probably sad and regretful on Rio’s. They probably hate fucked a time or two. But any mention of Nicky would have set Agatha off and sent her running, safe in her anger and hatred of Rio, so other than the blame game, I don't think they actually have a real conversation about him.

I think Rio probably tries at least once to see her and apologize and assure her that Nicky is at peace and being watched over, but that really wouldn't have be met with anything but venom.

Agatha is the only mortal Death has ever loved and who has ever loved Death, and she doesn’t know how to let go of that. And then Agatha ghosts her metaphorically before ghosting her literally.

But still, Rio is surprisingly patient with Agatha as Agnes, even though she very definitely made a beeline to Westview the moment Agatha’s aura came back on the map. When Agatha is finally free of the spell and confronts Herb, he says she’s been acting extra weird on her true crime kick for a few days. That implies she was just rolling along in the Nosy Neghbor Agnes persona prior to that, while Wanda was alive and the spell was still in full effect.

I think her change in behavior should have coincided exactly with Wanda’s death, even though it doesn’t exactly jive with ‘Ralph’ knowing Wanda was dead when Billy seeks him out. That’s one of the rare plot holes in the writing of this show. Unless he just assumed Wanda was dead since she disappeared after Westview and went into hiding.

Anyway, Rio shows up and assesses the situation her ex is in, deciding she needs to help Agatha wake up before she tears into her over the decades / centuries of ghosting her. Because what satisfaction can she get if Agatha doesn’t even remember why she hates Rio?

Billy stumbles into the situation after Rio, so his presence can only speed up what was already started.

And then Agatha is awake, and what we see in that first confrontation is an angry and hurt Lady Death wanting to strike back at the love of her (un)life for almost certainly stealing the Darkhold and using it to hide from her (and the Salem Seven and probably the Sorcerer Supreme and every other witch/witchhunter out for revenge) while likely also trying to the resurrect their dead son against the laws of the universe and upset the sacred balance.

She’s saying she wants Agatha dead - which for her would also mean Agatha would be hers forever, no way to run again - but she also clearly still just wants her back in a more willing way. This first fight is very likely flirting for them, and she does want Agatha to get her purple back. She wants them back to the way they were before Nicky. It’s impossible, of course, but after 270-ish years, she’s hoping maybe Agatha has finally processed her grief enough to forgive her.

I don’t think Billy is on Rio’s radar at this point. Maybe this is because of the sigil. Maybe it’s that William Kaplan wasn’t dead long enough to pull her to his body when Billy jumped in. Maybe it’s a combination of both.

I do think he’s on her radar the moment the Road becomes real - or at least, the chaos magic that created it is. And since Wanda is gone, that really only leaves one possibility.

Rio is definitely already in the neighborhood for poor Sharon. She clearly doesn't need the door they opened for her with the summoning spell to come and go from the Road, as she demonstrates when she tears through reality to leave it in episode 8. She does tell Agatha that it wasn't her choice since magic took the path of least resistance, but I interpret that to mean that their spell gave her an excuse to show herself to all of them and investigate what was going on.

When she’s acting as Death, she’s stoic and calm. With Agatha, she’s sad and angry and creepily playful - the humanity Agatha brings out of her on full display. With the others when she arrives on the Road - well, she’s exactly what Agatha accuses her of being - a tourist. She knows the Road wasn’t real before exactly as Agatha does, so her reaction to being there is exactly what you’d expect. She’s admiring the scenery, the vibe, and the magic that created it. She even says, “this is cool,” when she first starts walking it.

I believe she knows Teen is Billy Maximoff before the sigil breaks. She asks about him as soon as she and Agatha are alone in Alice’s trial, and Agatha immediately tries to distract her with the promise of bodies. And when he ends up hurt, Rio once again makes an exception for Agatha when she begs, “Don’t.” She could have taken him then and maybe had a chance of grabbing his soul before he reincarnated because he hadn’t fully come into his powers yet in this life. But she waits because her guilt over taking Nicky is still a tangible thing, and Billy is saved, and Rio is going to lose her chance to re-balance the scales.

She’s still hoping for Agatha’s forgiveness, and she makes her confession of Agatha being her scar, and then they share that moment in the woods. But Rio isn’t truly forgiven for Nicky, and she knows it, and she stops Agatha because she doesn’t want her misplaced gratitude for sparing Billy Maximoff. After multiple viewings, I’m now reading - “That boy isn’t yours” - as less Rio reminding Agatha that Billy isn’t Nicholas and more warning her that Billy isn’t hers to save. He isn’t her second chance at motherhood with a powerful, magicked up son. He’s Wanda’s boy. He’s an abomination. He ultimately shouldn't exist, and his soul (and possibly William Kaplan's suppressed one) belong to Rio.

If she was going to ignore the sacred balance for anyone, it would have been Nicholas.

I’ve already posted about Rio’s reaction in Agatha’s trial. How the camera cuts to her after Evanora says she ought to have killed Agatha at birth. First we see Agatha, obviously, because it''s the confirmation that her mother has always thought her evil from birth, and the pain of that statement is twofold for her because she literally begged Death to spare her own child and then spent six years, presumably, trying to amass enough power to somehow save him. I think she believed that if she killed enough witches, if she collected enough of the kind of magic that she didn’t have - healing, protection, divination - she might one day figure out how either outrun Death or conjure more time for her son.

But right after Agatha, we see Rio with that look of pain, closing her eyes and looking away, because she nearly did with Agatha’s son - with her own son - what Evanora wanted to do. She nearly took him at birth because he wasn’t meant to exist in the living world, and then she was still forced to take him eventually. Just as Agatha hasn’t forgiven her for it, Rio has never forgiven herself for what she had to do.

And when we next see her after this episode, we see stoic Lady Death again, collecting Alice with bored indifference. Because that’s her job. Her vacation is over. The trials on this fake Road aren’t any fun anymore, and she’s done humoring Agatha with whatever con she’s trying to run this time. Because she knows Agatha could have ended all of this before it started if she’d admitted the Road was never real and Billy created it.

Billy has come into his powers at this point, and Rio’s likely pissed at herself for letting her chance to collect him slip away thanks to her eternal soft spot for Agatha. Once again, she’s given special treatment and risked upsetting the balance for this woman. And on top of that, Lilia easily took out the Salem Seven - bad ass of Lilla but so anticlimactic for whatever threat the Salem Seven were intended to be - so Rio's chance of finally getting Agatha over to the other side just took a nosedive. She’s not allowed to do it herself, and I’m not sure she’s yet at the point where she really wants to torture Agatha into begging her for release. If Agatha manages to finish the Road and actually gets her purple back, Rio will be chasing after her again for another century or two.

She’s close to the end of her patience with her ex at this point. Poor Nicky is never going to see her (other) mother again.

And then Agatha offers to deliver Billy to her, which I think Rio realizes is bullshit. I don’t think she really believes that Agatha intends to follow through without a trick, and even if she did, she doesn't believe Agatha will actually be able to convince Billy to give himself over to Death. But Rio plays along, wondering what Agatha wants from her this time. Maybe she even thinks Agatha will want to trade him for Nicky - one abomination for another. Maybe Rio actually hopes it would be this because it would give her a loophole to finally say yes. Maybe the prophesied demiurge would be more than an equal trade for the son of Death alive in the world again.

And incidentally, I do find it hilarious that Agatha’s condition is for Rio to stop following her - like, you’ve spent 300 years killing witches. It’s impossible for Death to do anything else but follow you. But it’s the part about not wanting to see her face when Agatha eventually does die that finally breaks Rio. I mean, that was basically the whole point of wanting Agatha dead now - a way for them to be together with their son.

It guts Rio, and you can see it in her expression.

And I believe Agatha fully expected her to refuse - to tell her that it wasn’t possible. All roads lead to (Lady) Death, after all. She’s the inevtiable end of all things, and she hates ghosts. There’s no way for Agatha to avoid her. The best she could do is greet her in her true form and let Rio Vidal die.

But for Rio, this isn’t just a rejection of her. It’s also a rejection of everything about their shared past. A rejection of Nicholas. If Rio can’t take her soul to the Afterlife, then she can’t take her to Nicholas either. Is Agatha really that much of a coward? (The answer, of course, is yes.) So she reluctantly agrees, heartbroken, but she also expects that Agatha won’t be able to keep her end of that deal, so she won’t need to keep hers.

It’s kind of a stalemate where they both think - shit, what the fuck did I just agree to?

It’s ironic really. To some degree, I think Agatha finally comes to some acceptance of Nicky’s death in that final trial. "Sometimes, boys die." "From death, life."

At the same time, this is when Rio fully snaps. She’s stewing over this whole Witches Road deal and Agatha's final rejection, and frankly, fully aware that Agatha just helped Billy create another abomination, messing even more with the rightful balance of things.

Yeah, Rio has been angry with Agatha, but also guilty and hurt and lovesick, so it’s tempered her somewhat. She’s been the antagonistic kind of angry where Agatha could easily assuage her, but now, with Agatha’s last rejection of everything about their shared past and helping that kid disrupt her domain even more, she embraces her rage in a way she hasn’t allowed herself up to this point. The human emotions that Agatha sparked in Rio take over all her reason and balance and duty, and she lashes out. The rejected lover, finally allowed to indulge the anger and grief that Agatha spent two centuries indulging with her own rampage.

I know we didn’t get to see the magical battle due to budget restraints, and honestly, I’m only a little disappointed by that. The Wanda/Agatha one wasn’t exactly spectacular with the boring energy blasts. But we get enough of it to see that Rio never hits Agatha with her full power. She isn’t trying to kill her here; she only wants to hurt her - vent her own rage and heartbreak. They’re even back to their weird kind of flirting halfway through it, but then Billy gets involved again, and oh yeah, the kid is still here. Something has to be done about him, because Rio can’t ignore her duty forever, and Agatha knows she can’t defeat Death.

So finally, we get that moment, when Agatha looks like she’s getting what she wanted and Billy is willingly surrendering himself, and she could walk away with a nice charge from his power and the promise to never have to see Rio again.

It’s my understanding that Billy’s mental plea wasn’t originally in the script, and I actually wish they’d left it out. I don’t actually think that his mention of Nicky in that moment would have changed her mind anyway. I think it would have probably had the opposite effect since she’s always reacted badly to the mention of him except when Rio brought him up in that last conversation on the Road.

But, in the context we got, that isn’t how Nicky died. He’d been stolen away in the night after Rio had granted him six more years than he should have ever had. Agatha would have never traded his life for hers. She would have traded hers for him in a heartbeat. So yeah, I get why that was added, but I don’t fully think it was necessary. Agatha was always going to realize that leaving Billy with Rio was the wrong thing, and she was crossing the one meager moral line she had - hurting children. And this one, specifically, reminds her too much of her lost son.

She puts a hand to her chest before she turns, right where we know her broach always sat. I’ve watched that scene a few times, and I noticed that we can’t see her broach on her costume for maybe the only time since she broke out of Wanda’s spell. But it’s obviously there somewhere because it’s the one thing left behind when Rio speed runs her decomposition - yet another bit of special treatment in allowing it to remain as a means of tying her spirit to the mortal realm.

And yeah, like Agatha said, it was a calculated risk. I don’t think Rio has ever outright lied to her or broken a deal, and Agatha technically upheld her end of their bargain but also very much didn’t, but Rio does slightly change the terms of the bargain before that last battle, such as it is. She gives them both the choice - “One of you is coming with me.”

And yet, she hesitates to take Billy as soon as he offers himself. Because taking him means losing Agatha forever, and despite her anger, she isn’t fully ready to do that. In the end, her hesitation gives Agatha the time to change the terms. She gives Rio what she’s claimed to want from the beginning - Agatha’s death.

Agatha gives herself to Rio in a way that speaks of both acceptance and forgiveness. And maybe, it’s also forcing the bargain that Rio never gave her the chance to make for Nicky. Her life for his.

And Rio keeps their bargain about seeing her face again anyway, because I think she knows that she’s finally been forgiven, but Agatha still isn’t ready to face Nicky. She doesn’t collect Agatha’s soul and even allows that broach to stay behind for Billy to take. I think Rio knows full well she just allowed Agatha to remain as a ghost, but she lets her go. She finally lets Agatha go and lets herself grieve their lost love.

She lets Rio Vidal die with Agatha and reclaims her eternal role as Lady Death.

And now her sacred balance is shot to hell, because she’s got not one, but two, abominations roaming around in bodies that don’t belong to them, and one stubborn, ornery ghost who she knows damn well is going to meddle in all of that chaos magic.

And, I think, she also hopes that maybe one day, Agatha will be ready to cross over and see Nicholas again - maybe even see her again - but, it’s all in Agatha’s power now.

Like Rio said in the very first episode - “If you want to be in control, you can be.” And it speaks volumes that Rio has honored that at every turn.

Now she just has to explain to Nicholas how she let his mama slip through her fingers again and stick around to mentor that Maximoff boy.

#agatha all along #long winded headcanon #fic rec

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bleachbleachbleach · 10 months ago

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Saw your reblog on tragic unrequited platonic love and technically, that trope definitely applies to the betrayed trio, especially on Hinamori’s end (depends on whether or not you subscribe to the view that she was crushing on Aizen). The way I saw it in my initial viewing of bleach, it was more of the type of intense admiration for an authority figure that can be misconstrued as a crush cuz you (the devotee) lack the ways to properly articulate it. Like how u feel abt the rlly cool English teacher u sometimes eat lunch with before they get arrested for like fraud or something. After experiencing the Horrors, of course Kira and Hinamori are going to imprint hard on the first semblance of stability and symbol of safety at the time. So that what they went thru meant something. Also, let me take this moment to briefly gush abt the headcanon u presented in the B3 fic cinematic universe abt hinamori’s fixating on squad 5 because it offers her the knowledge beyond her town that she’s lowkey seeking + the values she wants to strive towards (source: from afar). These nerds just wanted to be mentored so badddd!! Thus, the reveal of the fact that they were only a means to an end, specifically chosen on where they fall on the “easy to manipulate” scale hits HARDER. All that devotion?? Loss of work life balance and for WHATTT? Extended medical leave ? 😭 oh bleach my fave workplace sitcom AND workplace drama u will always be famous

PS: thank u for tagging me in that post!! In the process of drafting my response. It was so lovely of you.

You're right! That totally works here. It's interesting because (and I'll just focus on Hinamori here, because otherwise I'd feel compelled to honor the distinctions between her and Aizen vs. Kira and Ichimaru and Hisagi and Tousen, and this would probably end up reading very convolutedly) I think it kind of asks a question about when the platonic pining would have happened.

Is the pining part of suddenly realizing the disjuncture between what Hinamori thought something was and what Aizen did, and mourning something lost (and something that never really was)?

Or was there also pining when things were Good? We see Aizen be reassuring to Hinamori and generous with his time, etc. and we see Hinamori happy to receive from him, and quite devoted both to her VCship as well as to Aizen on a person level (or as he put it, "as a man" lol). We know she's well-respected by her division, and esteemed by her colleagues (okay, Kira and Hitsugaya may have some bias in this arena, but they both describe her as highly skilled).

But was she needed? Was she doing, and did she get the opportunity to do, things that Aizen couldn't do better? Did she have opportunities to express things that Aizen found interesting or outside of his expertise? Even as they are not equals--and there is no expectation that they should be--in the most fruitful mentorships, both parties have things to teach and learn.

Did Hinamori ever look at other Captain/VC relationships and yearn for pieces of what those looked like to her? Nanao would probably say "god i hope not" because Kyouraku's "reliance" on her often takes the shape of her having to do all the busywork and also herd cats, but in spite of this there's an intimacy there, an openness or trust, that Hinamori might yearn for. And that's taking Kyouraku--shadowy and full of many surfaces himself--into account. Hitsugaya and Matsumoto also have something that both Hitsugaya and Matsumoto probably complain about to Hinamori, but there's a degree of mutualism and collaboration to whatever's going on at the 10th that Hinamori might not mind a taste of, too. Renji has been Byakuya's VC for a month but Hinamori has probably already thought to herself "Kuchiki-taichou let him do WHAT" at least twice. Even though Byakuya is Byakuya, judging by how they handled their "meeting Ichigo in the street" mission, it seems like Byakuya lets Renji have his little projects. Like Renji is part of his investment portfolio and Byakuya feels very comfortable considering Renji a volatile but potentially valuable property and in order to get that ROI you need to stick with him through several honorless tech startup busts and commit long-term to the thing. Er, but I digress. My point is, Renji gets projects. "Develop training menu." Creative opportunity! With a result that has Renji all over it.

Does Hinamori get projects? Does it ever feel like she's pushing the envelope of what the 5th can be and how it can function on her own, without it being something Aizen already predicted the outcome of, or was actually his idea that he let her propose and take nominal ownership of anyway? Despite being completely blindsided by the actuality of Aizen, was there already that sense of inevitability/Aizen all over everything that happens at the 5th? (Competing, of course, with Hinamori's self-concept as a creative person; and her love of Aizen as a person, not just as a boss and mentor; and feeling as though she just needs to excel more and be creative better and she'll eventually meet this need she feels--it's not the environment that's the issue. She's happy here. Mostly. She doesn't need to leave, she simply needs to surpass--)

#hinamori momo #aizen sousuke #bleach headcanons #thank you for reading my fanfic! <3 ToT <3 #and i look forward to your meme responses!#asks #no brain just bleach

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bewitching-elizabeth-olsen · 3 years ago

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Press/Gallery: How Elizabeth Olsen Brought Marvel From Mainstream to Prestige

“The thing I love about being an actor is to fully work with someone and try so hard to be at every level with them, chasing whatever it is you need or want from them.”

GALLERY LINKS

Studio Photoshoots > 2021 > Session 008 Magazine Scans > 2021 > Backstage (August 19)

Backstage: Elizabeth Olsen grins widely over video chat when recalling many such moments on set with her co-stars. Yet, she can’t bring herself to divorce such a lofty vision of film acting from the technical multitasking it requires. The camera sees all.

“But then you move your hair, and you’re in your brain, like: OK, remember that! Because I don’t want to edit myself out of a shot. I know some actors are like, ‘Continuity, shmontinuity!’ But the good thing about continuity is, if you remember it, you’re actually providing yourself with more options for the edit.”

That need to balance being both inside the scene and outside of it, fully living it and yet constantly visualizing it on a screen, feels particularly apt in light of Olsen’s most recent project, “WandaVision.”

The mysteries at the heart of the show grow with every episode, each fast-forwarding to a different decade: Could this 1950s, black-and-white, “filmed in front of a studio audience” newlyweds bit be a grief-stricken dream? Might this ’70s spoof be a powerful spell gone awry? Could this meta take on mockumentary comedies be proof that the multiverse is finally coming to the Marvel Cinematic Universe?

The series’ structure, which branches out to include government agents intent on finding out why Westview has seemingly disappeared, calls for the entire cast to play with a mix of genres, balancing a shape-shifting tone that culminates in an epic, MCU-style conclusion. What’s key—and why the show struck a chord with audiences during its nine-episode run—is the miniseries’ commitment to grounding its initial kooky setups and its later special effects-driven spectacle in heartbreaking emotional truths. It’s no small feat, though it’s one that can often be taken for granted.

“I was thinking how hard it would have been to have shot the first ‘Lord of the Rings,’ ” Olsen muses. “Like, you’re putting all these actors [into the frame] later and at all these different levels. All the eyelines are completely unnatural. And yet the performances are fantastic! And technically, they are so hard. People forget sometimes that these things are really technically hard to shoot. And if you are moved by their performance, that took a lot of multitasking.”

As someone who has learned plenty about harnesses, wirework, fight choreography, and green screens (she’s starred in four Marvel movies, including the box office megahit “Avengers: Endgame,” after all), Olsen knows how hard it can be to wrap one’s brain around the work needed to pull off those big, splashy scenes.

“If you think about it, it’s, like, the biggest stakes in the entire world—every time. And that feels silly to act over and over again, especially when people are in silly costumes and the love of your life is purple and sparkly, and every time you kiss them, you have to worry about getting it on your hands. Those things are ridiculous. You feel ridiculous. So there is a part of your brain that has to shovel that away and just look into someone’s eyeballs—and sometimes, they don’t even have eyeballs!”

The ability to spend so much time with Wanda, albeit in the guise of sitcom parodies, was a welcome opportunity for Olsen. Not only did it allow the actor to really wrestle with the traumatic backstory that has long defined the character in the MCU, but having the chance to calibrate a performance that functions on so many different levels was a thrilling challenge.

“It was such an amazing work experience,” she says. “Kathryn [Hahn] uses the word ‘profound’—which is so sweet, because it is Marvel, and people, you know, don’t think of those experiences as profound when they watch them. But it really was such a special crew that [director] Matt Shakman and [creator] Jac Schaeffer created. It was a really healthy working environment.”

Related‘WandaVision’ Star Kathryn Hahn’s Secret to Building a Scene-Stealing Performance ‘WandaVision’ Star Kathryn Hahn’s Secret to Building a Scene-Stealing Performance Considering that the miniseries spans several sitcom iterations, various layers of televisual reality, and a number of character reveals that needed to feel truthful and impactful in equal measure, Shakman’s decision to work closely with his actors ahead of shooting was key.

“We truly had a gorgeous amount of time together before we started filming,” Olsen remembers. “Our goal was—which is controversial in TV land—that if you wanted to change [anything], like dialogue in a scene, you had to give those notes a week before we even got there. Because sometimes you get to set, and someone had a brilliant idea while they were sleeping, and you’re like, ‘We don’t have an hour to talk about this. We have seven pages to shoot.’ And so, we were all on the same page with one another, knowing what we were shooting ahead of time.

“Matt just treated us like a troupe of actors who were about to do some regional theater shit,” she adds with a smile.

That spirit of camaraderie was, not coincidentally, at the heart of Olsen’s breakout project, Sean Durkin’s 2011 indie sensation “Martha Marcy May Marlene.” As an introduction to the process of filmmaking to a young stage-trained actor, Durkin’s quietly devastating drama was a dream—and an invaluable learning opportunity.

“It was truly just a bunch of people who loved the script, who just were doing the work. I didn’t understand lenses, so I just did the same thing all the time. I never knew if the camera would be on me or not. There was just so much purity in that experience, and you only have that once.”

The film announced Olsen as a talent to watch: a keen-eyed performer capable of deploying a stilted physicality and clipped delivery, which she used to conjure up a wounded girl learning how to shake off her time spent in a cult in upstate New York. But Olsen admits that it took her a while to figure out how to navigate her career choices afterward. In the years following “Martha,” she felt compelled to try on everything: a horror flick here, a high-profile remake there, a period piece here, an action movie there. It wasn’t until she starred in neo-Western thriller “Wind River” (alongside fellow Marvel regular Jeremy Renner) and the dark comedy “Ingrid Goes West” (opposite a deliciously deranged Aubrey Plaza) that Olsen found her groove.

“It was at that point, when I was five years into working, where I was like, Ah, I know how I want it. I know what I need from these people—from who’s involved, from producers, from directors, from the character, from the script—in order to trust that it’s going to be a fruitful experience.”

As Olsen looks back on her first decade as a working actor, she points out how far removed she is from that young girl who broke out in “Martha Marcy May Marlene.”

“I feel like a totally different person. I don’t know if everyone who’s in their early 30s feels like their early 20s self is a totally different human. But when I think about that version of myself, it feels like a long time ago; there’s a lot learned in a decade.”

Those early years were marked by a self-effacing humility that often led Olsen to defer to others when it came to key decisions about the characters she was playing. But she now feels emboldened to not only stand up for herself and her choices but for others on her sets as well.

“[Facebook Watch series] ‘Sorry for Your Loss’ I got to produce, and I really found my voice in a collaborative leadership way. And with ‘WandaVision,’ Paul [Bettany] and I really took on that feeling, as well—especially since we were introducing new characters to Marvel and wanted [those actors] to feel protected and helped,” she says. “They could ask questions and make sure they felt like they had all the things they needed because sometimes you don’t even know what you need to ask.”

It’s a lesson she learned working with filmmaker Marc Abraham on the Hank Williams biopic “I Saw the Light,” and she’s carried it with her ever since. “I really want it to feel like we’re all in this together, as a team,” Olsen says. “That was part of ‘Sorry for Your Loss’ and it was part of ‘WandaVision,’ and I hope to continue that kind of energy because those have been some of the healthiest work experiences I’ve had.”

If Olsen sounds particularly zealous about the importance of a comfortable, working set, it is because she’s well aware that therein lies an integral part of the work and the process. As an actor, she wants to feel protected and nurtured by those around her, whether she’s reacting to a telling, quiet line of dialogue about grief or donning her iconic Scarlet Witch outfit during a magic-filled mid-air action sequence.

“Sometimes you’re going to be foolish, you know? And [you need to] feel brave to be foolish. Sometimes people feel embarrassed on set and snap. But if you’re in a place where people feel like they’re allowed to be an idiot,” she says, “you’re going to feel better about being an idiot.”

This story originally appeared in the Aug. 19 issue of Backstage Magazine. Subscribe here.

Press/Gallery: How Elizabeth Olsen Brought Marvel From Mainstream to Prestige was originally published on Elizabeth Olsen Source • Your source for everything Elizabeth Olsen

#Elizabeth Olsen #WandaVision #Avengers #Scarlet Witch #Wanda Maximoff #Sorry For Your Loss #Avengers Infinity War #Avengers Age of Ultron #Captain America Civil War #Ingrid Goes West #Godzilla #Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness #Marvel #MCU #Candy Montgomery #Love and Death #Avengers Endgame

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tibby · 3 years ago

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tibby cinematic universe enjoyers when nicholas braun as bark shows up in the saw sitcom series

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twh-news · 3 years ago

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To land ‘Loki,’ Kate Herron had to pull out all the stops. How she won over Marvel

As a teenager, Kate Herron was obsessed with the “Lord of the Rings” films.

In particular, she recalls heading to theaters repeatedly with friends who shared her passion to see “The Two Towers” (2002), the second installment in director Peter Jackson’s trilogy based on J.R.R. Tolkien’s epic fantasy novel. She even wrote “Lord of the Rings” fan fiction.

“It was very silly,” the British filmmaker insists, revealing that one of her stories saw the heroic Fellowship traveling through a magical fountain and getting trapped in New York. “Honestly, I was just writing the stories to make my friends laugh. I guess it was kind of that first foray for me: ‘How do I tell a story?’”

Years later, Herron is again involved in telling a story about a protagonist displaced from the world he knows. But this time, her audience is much bigger.

Herron, 33, is the director of “Loki,” the Marvel Studios series that follows the adventures of the titular god of mischief after he has been plucked out of time by an agency charged with maintaining the sanctity of the timeline. Thus, the six-episode series, which premiered earlier this month on Disney+, features a slightly different version of Loki than the fans of the Marvel Cinematic Universe have grown to love since his first appearance in “Thor” (2011) through “Avengers: Endgame” (2019).

“I love villains,” says Herron during a recent video call from Atlanta, where she is putting the final touches on “Loki.” “I think that if a villain’s done right, you don’t necessarily have to like their actions, but you have to understand them. And I think that Tom [Hiddleston], in the last decade, has brought such empathy and wit and pain to a very real character for so many people. I just wanted to be part of whatever [Loki’s] next chapter was going to be.”

The series, on which the self-described Loki fan also serves as an executive producer, is Herron’s highest-profile project to date. Her previous credits include directing on Netflix’s “Sex Education,” as well as “Five by Five,” a series of short films executive produced by Idris Elba.

While growing up in South East London, Herron never considered filmmaking as a career. Her love of movies manifested as the aspiration to become an actor, and she often goaded her peers into putting on plays or making movies using a friend’s father’s camcorder. It wasn’t until some astute and encouraging teachers at Herron’s secondary school pointed out that she seemed more interested in storytelling that she changed course.

By introducing Herron to new texts, these teachers — as well as a film studies class that covered films directed by Stanley Kubrick and Akira Kurosawa — helped expand her perspective.

“I just didn’t know that you could have a voice and an authorship over a film, which probably sounds a bit silly. But I just hadn’t really thought about films in that way,” says Herron. Soon enough, she was on the path to film school at the University for the Creative Arts in Farnham, England, where she graduated with a degree in film production.

Herron laughs as she remembers how she believed she would just go off and find work in film straight out of school. “Obviously that did not happen,” she says.

With no post-graduate roadmap (or job offer) to help her break into the industry, Herron eventually started writing and directing short films with “no money” while juggling a day job as a temp. Both experiences provided Herron with material for “Loki,” which introduces a new bureaucratic agency called the Time Variance Authority to the MCU.

“I’ve worked at a lot of random places, which weirdly has influenced ‘Loki’ in some ways because we have this office culture kind of running through it,” says Herron. “I’ve worked in a lot of offices.”

In order to give the retro-futuristic offices of the TVA “a real lived-[in], breathed-in office” feel, Herron incorporated details that viewers could recognize from the real world — from paper files to the posters on the walls — and gave them a fantastical twist befitting the superhero series.

“One of the most exciting things to me about Kate is she has this amazing attention to detail,” says “Loki” co-executive producer Kevin Wright. “That was something that we saw on her very first pitch [and] it works its way into every frame of the show. Every monitor, every piece of paper in the TVA … she has looked over and approved everything you see.”

In an email, “Loki” star Hiddleston described Herron as “a dream collaborator” who possesses “a unique combination of extraordinary diligence, stamina, energy, respect and kindness.”

“Her affection for and understanding of Loki was so deep, profound and wide-ranging,” Hiddleston wrote. “She built a new world for these characters to play in with incredible precision, but she was also acutely sensitive to their emotional journey.”

Herron’s affinity for outsiders is apparent throughout the course of our conversation. There is of course her love for Loki — the heir to the king of Frost Giants raised as the prince of Asgard who has become one of the MCU’s most beloved villain-turned-antiheroes. Herron’s first introduction to the world of Marvel as a kid was through “X-Men: The Animated Series,” about the superhero team with mutant powers that set them apart from average humans. Herron cites Lisa Simpson — the overachieving, opinionated middle child from the animated sitcom “The Simpsons” — as the reason she is a vegetarian who can play the saxophone.

And although Herron describes herself as shy, it’s no match for the passion she brings to discussing film and television.

She calls Wes Anderson’s 2001 film “The Royal Tenenbaums,” co-written by “Loki” actor Owen Wilson, “a perfect movie.” In addition to being obsessed with “The Simpsons,” Herron gravitated toward genre shows such as “Buffy the Vampire Slayer,” the updated “Battlestar Galactica” and “The X-Files” when growing up.

As Herron enthusiastically dives into “Loki’s” influences — which include “Alien” (1979), “Blade Runner” (1982), “Brazil” (1985), “Metropolis” (1927) and, yes, even “Teletubbies” — it’s easy to see why Wright knew she was the right person to bring “Loki” to life from their very first meeting.

Upon learning that Marvel was developing a show about Loki, Herron tasked her agents with calling Marvel every day until they would meet with her. And it worked.

“I was just so excited that somebody was chasing the project,” says Wright. “Which sounds crazy, that Marvel would be excited somebody’s chasing us. But it was the early days of us trying to get this Disney+ streaming stuff off the ground, so people were very hesitant … they didn’t know what it was yet.”

Herron’s enthusiasm for the show landed her a video meeting with Wright and executive producer Stephen Broussard. Believing it might be her only shot at the project, Herron came armed with so many stills and clips to illustrate her discussion of the scripts she’d been sent that a simple meet-and-greet turned into a four-hour conversation.

“Over the course of the next week or so,” Wright explains, “it was really figuring out how to set Kate up to succeed when we got her in front of Kevin Feige to pitch this.”

Herron put together a 60-page bible of ideas for the characters, the story, the visual references and more. The rest is Marvel history.

She learned not to wait for permission, she says, after graduating from film school and becoming involved with improv and stand-up to both develop her comedy chops and to meet funny collaborators to be in her short films.

“I think I’d always find excuses, almost, [to not do it],” says Herron. “It was that thing of being like, ‘Oh, well, I’m not ready. So I’ll wait. I’ll wait until I’m perfect at it and then I’ll go do it.’”

Taking inspiration from Robert Rodriguez’s “Rebel Without a Crew” and a SXSW keynote speech by Mark Duplass, Herron realized that she just needed to start making things. She told herself it was OK if the films were messy. If a short was bad, nobody had to see it. If a short was “halfway to good,” she would submit them to festivals.

It’s this tenacious creativity that connects the dots between her early fan fiction, her short films, her pitch presentations — and now “Loki” itself. It’s a trait that has helped her navigate the industry to her current success, even during the periods it’s been most frustrating. As a female director, “I got asked crazy stuff in interviews sometimes,” she says of life on the festival circuit. “I remember being asked, ‘Are you sure you’re ready? Are you sure you’re ready?’ And male colleagues of mine were never asked that in interviews. I think that’s probably why I was so driven to just go out and make stuff.”

#loki #loki series #kate herron #interview #los angeles times #article

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pulaasul · 4 years ago

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Lightning and Nexus

Billy, as Captain Marvel, was patrolling Fawcett city when he came upon a glowing red hexagon near the train station where he first met the Wizard Shazam.

Naturally, he investigates.

FFN I Ao3

Preface: Not at all related to my Justice League Unlimited in the DC Animated Universe and Marvel Cinematic Universe crossover, but I'll be using the Billy Batson of that crossover but minus getting sucked in during Endgame.

If you want to read the fic, it's called "Undo".

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Billy was just minding his own business, he was patrolling Fawcett City when he noticed an eerie red thing glowing at the alleyway near the train station where he first travelled to the Rock of Eternity. He cautiously approached the glowing hexagonal thing.

Upon closer inspection, the red hexagon had tints of blue around it.

He cautiously tried to reach out it when the Wisdom of Solomon warned him of it.

That was when he learned that the glowing red hexagon was a combination of spells that were cast by the homo magi from before the Salem Witch Trials.

"Mom! H-he-help me!"

Billy could hear two voices coming from the hexagon, two voices that the Wisdom of Solomon supplied to be coming from children.

"SHAZAM!" Billy shouted

Thunder cracked as lightning lit up the night sky before lightning struck Billy's champion form.

Billy soon found himself, as a fifteen-year-old, inside the Rock of Eternity.

"I'm sure the Wisdom of Solomon has informed you that those were cries of help young Billy Batson." The Wizard Shazam's ghostly form appeared sitting on the lone throne.

"Is it safe?"

"You are the world's mightiest mortal young Billy Batson." The Wizard offered, "The gods, your benefactors, through the nexus of the multiverse has provided you with the power."

"Nexus?"

"A being, place, or thing that is outside the confines of time and space," Shazam explained. "The constant in every universe," Shazam's ghostly form approached the teen. "Only you and your family can pass through the nexus of all realities, even a lord of order like Doctor Fate will have trouble passing through there."

Billy looked a bit reluctant as he processed what the wizard told him.

"Young Billy, what does your heart say?" The wizard asked his young champion.

"I want to help."

"Then you go help."

"What about this universe? What about Fawcett City?"

"I'm sure young Mary and young Freddy are up to the task."

Lightning struck the ground a few paces beside Billy before he saw his twin sister and best friend stood the ground where lightning just struck.

"Billy? What's the emergency?"

"Young Billy is about to travel to a different universe." Shazam informed the new arrivals.

"Travel?"

"Different universe?"

"A hexagonal portal just appeared in Fawcett," Billy supplied. "It's a call for help."

"You want to help them, don't you Billy?" Mary sighed.

"And we're called here so we can pick up the slack." Freddy raised an eyebrow. "We'll be this world's champion of magic while you go dimension-hopping to help someone in need."

"This show of humility and selflessness proves that I chose well in you young Billy." Shazam's ghostly form smiled.

"What about me?" Freddy pointed out. "I get why Mary was called here but without Billy, no one would give me Shazam's powers."

"Freddy's right, Billy shares his powers with Freddy," Mary nodded.

"Do not worry young Freddy, you'll still be able to transform into your champion form even if young Billy is not in this universe." The Wizard assured.

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Not before long Freddy, Mary and Billy were in front of the glowing red hexagon in their mortal forms.

"I trust that you'll take care of things here." Billy smiled at his best friend and sister.

"Don't worry Billy, I've got the league handled." Mary assured his brother.

"And I'm taking care of everything else." Freddy proudly announced.

"Oh please Freddy, we're taking care of everything in Billy's absence." Mary rolled her eyes.

"Seriously, what about Pedro, Eugene, and Darla?" Freddy voiced out. "They'd want to know where you've gone to, especially Darla."

"Not to mention Batman would go to great lengths to find where you've gone," Mary muttered to herself. "He might commission Superman's services to check the areas where technology is still sparse or outright non-existent."

"Just tell everyone that the wizard sent me somewhere to restore order," Billy instructed. "As the Wizard was once a Lord of Order."

"Wouldn't they ask Doctor Fate about that?" Freddy questioned.

"Doctor Fate is the least of our worries," Billy shook his head. "We have to worry about how Constantine is going to react."

"Why Constantine?"

"Because he's as unpredictable as sorcerers and homo magi go, one of the rare homo magi that have been to hell and back," Billy answered. "Just tell Constantine everything from my encounter with this thing." He gestured to the hexagon.

"Tell the family and Constantine the truth then tell everyone else that the Wizard sent you somewhere to restore order." Mary summarized the instructions.

"Got it one Bill." Freddy grinned.

"So this is goodbye?" Mary asked.

"For now." Billy smiled at his sister. "I promise that I'll come back."

"SHAZAM"

Lightning struck Billy Batson, and Captain Marvel was standing where the young boy stood.

"I'll leave everything in your hands." Captain Marvel smiled.

Captain Marvel reached out to the glowing red hexagon and braced himself for what was about to happen.

All Freddy and Mary could was watch as Captain Marvel was yanked into the red hexagon even when he was already approaching it.

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Captain Marvel found himself in an empty street wearing some sort of cosplay of his hero costume; form-fitting red shirt and red form-fitting trousers, bright yellow belt, and boots with a big black lightning bolt with yellow outlines printed across his shirt.

Thanks to the Wisdom of Solomon, he was able to identify that he was supposed to be in some sort of sitcom-like reality, and apparently it's just starting their Halloween episode.

"SHAZAM!"

Lightning struck the heroic captain and was replaced by his mortal form, Billy Batson.

Billy was wearing a smaller version of the outfit he was wearing as Captain Marvel from the form-fitting shirt to the bright yellow boots.

Billy shook his head and decided to forego thinking up of theories and possibilities like he used to when he was fighting with the Marvel family and ran straight ahead.

As Billy was running he noticed few people were out and about, standing stationary in their places. He narrowed his eyes and approached one of them. He waved his hands in front of one kid, trying to get a reaction but to no avail.

He tried to do the same from an adult but to no avail. He even tried poking them in areas he knew most people were ticklish but he barely got an 'eep' from them.

Not a moment later, everyone around him started moving, children running around going house-to-house trick-or-treating some adults were putting up Halloween decorations in their lawns.

"Sorry boy, I didn't see you there," The adult he was just poking earlier stated. "Let's get you to my front door."

The adult escorted Billy to the house.

"Trick or treat!" Billy exclaimed, trying to blend in.

"Here you go boy, you're costume looks great, a circus performer right?"

"Yeah! I just love them! Especially that one family that does all their acts together." Billy grinned.

It didn't escape Billy's notice that everyone started being responsive and moving when a woman in red walked with what seems to be her family.

-----------

Billy continued trick-or-treating but he kept passing by the odd family. Apparently, the man the lady was with was her twin brother and the two boys were her children. The four of them were dressed in costumes that one would find in the pages of a comic book.

From passing by them constantly, he was able to put faces on the voices he had heard back in Fawcett city. The other boy's voice back then was just overpowered by his brother's voice. They were clearly trying to get some help, they were trying to call their mom to help them.

Acting against his better judgment, he decided not to approach the family.

It can never be said that Billy can't learn from his mistakes or the mistakes of others. He knew that he did the right thing when he and Superman fought because of Luthor's machinations. He just hoped that Superman can learn from his own.

That was during this moment that Billy noticed that all his candy were gone and he was covered in silly strings. He looked at the family only to find the red woman talking to a man in a zombie costume. He looked around his surroundings and he can see the blue and red streaks breezing around his immediate surroundings.

-----------

Night came, and the family was at the town square and they pointed at Billy as if they finally found him.

"Mom, that's him." Billy heard the boy with the red cape exclaim.

The family approached Billy and handed him a handful of candies.

"Now boys, what do you say?"

"We're sorry," The Maximoff twins apologized. "We won't do it again."

"It's fine," Billy smiled at the twins. "I understand the feeling of having all the candy to yourself especially on Halloween night," He stated. "What do you say that you two split the candy you got from me earlier?"

"Really?" Tommy looked at Billy expectantly.

"Are you sure?" Wanda asked.

"I'm sure," Billy nodded. "It's my fault that I wasn't attentive that you were able to steal my candy," He grinned. "I've been an orphan for years and that was basically what I first learned after running away from my uncle. It's my fault for letting my guard down after being sent to a foster home here."

It wasn't a complete lie, after Billy ran away from his uncle Ebenezer, one of the very first things he learned was how to guard all of his things and make sure that none of them end up getting stolen. Ever since Uncle Dudley took him in and then by the Vasquezes, his guard had been lax.

However, Billy knew that super speed was applied during the Maximoff twins' candy heist, but they didn't need to know that he knew that.

Wanda glanced at her twin brother and frowned.

The Maximoff twins looked at each other then looked at their uncle.

"If you're sure." Wanda nodded, unsure how to process the information. "What is your name?"

"I'm Billy Batson." Billy introduced himself.

"No way!" The other kid exclaimed. "My name's Billy Maximoff!"

"No way!"

"What should we call you little dude, I don't think we can call our Billy any other name." Pietro offered.

"You can't even tell the difference between us." Billy Maximoff fired.

"Hey! I've been here for a day only," Pietro defended himself. "You can't blame me if I can't tell the difference between you two demon spawns."

"You can address me as Batson, my family name." Billy Batson suggested.

"Now boys, what do you say to Batson after he graciously told you to keep the candy that you stole?" Wanda asked her twin boys.

"Thank you, Billy." The Maximoff twins expressed their gratitude.

"It's no problem," Billy grinned. "Gotta run, I have a few more houses to get to, assuming you returned the candy you stole to the others." He gave off a smirk. "See you around."

"See you around Billy!"

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As soon as Billy was a distance away from the Maximoffs, he can sense something different from the twins and their supposed uncle. It may just be the Wisdom of Solomon leaking out to his mortal form, but he just had this feeling.

Billy nodded to himself as a plan formed in his mind.

"SHAZAM!"

Billy transformed back into his champion form of Captain Marvel. He flew upwards and gained a fair distance from the ground.

He looked around and finally found the family he was looking for.

It seemed like the feeling he had as Billy was right. The Wisdom of Solomon has informed him that the boys were mere constructs, living constructs, of the mother.

The uncle on the other hand has a different feel from everyone he had encountered so far, minus the Maximoff twins. It felt like he didn't belong in this universe, just like he was. Then there was the fact that he the man was showing signs of magical possession, and Wanda, the mother of the twins, was none the wiser.

But before he could even take action, he saw that the boys approached their mother frantically which was followed by Wanda blasting her supposed brother with red energy.

It looked like Wanda has just realized who the man was.

The next thing Captain Marvel knew was that everyone around Wanda, minus the twins and the man who was just blasted away stopped moving in the middle of what they were doing as if time had stopped for them. Someone was even jumping when they froze in the air.

A pulse of red energy was released from where Wanda stood and engulfed everyone it came in contact with.

When Captain Marvel came into contact with the pulse of energy, which was when things clicked into place.

Magic.

Wanda was casting magic through sheer willpower. She simply has to think of what she wants and the magic, as if it was subservient to her will, would follow her desires to a T.

It was a good thing he was in his champion form or the red magic would have placed him completely under Wanda's control and cast him to a role in this reality-warping magic. The rock's magic protected him from the supposed effects Wanda's magic would have had on his mortal form.

As soon as the effects of the pulse subsided, everyone was suddenly walking to their respective houses all robot-like with no conversations, no laughter. They were just like machines ordered to go back to their storage centers.

----------

Captain Marvel soon found himself in the morning when everything has changed shape as if trying to depict a certain era: buildings, advertisements, even the cars were changed.

He ignored the fact that it was suddenly morning and decided to fly around the area and see what the effects of the red magic pulse earlier was. Much to his surprise, the area seemed to have expanded as there were areas that weren't present before.

Captain Marvel decided to descend near where the circus was situated. He saw, an unconscious man?

A machine?

A synthezoid?

A synthezoid that emanated the same magical signature as the twins, which would mean this man was also a product of Wanda's magic.

He was about to approach him when the circus became lively. People were coming out of circus tents and started practicing their supposed routines and acts.

-----------

Only a few short moments have passed and the machine woke up from slumber and approached the woman in chains, her supposed role was that of an escape artist considering the ease she showed in escaping from the chains she was previously bound in.

A few more moments of observation, the synthezoid pressed two fingers on the woman's temple. It unscrambled the magical energy that was lingering unto her heart and brain, suppressing it.

Captain Marvel was about to approach the duo when he noticed what he was wearing. It was certainly something. He was now wearing what Clark Kent would wear when covering stories. He supposed that Wanda's magic rewrote his clothes into that of a journalist considering that he was a radio reporter himself, despite the rock's magic protecting him from further alterations.

He shook his head and decided to approach the duo who were now about to board an ice cream truck.

"Excuse me." Captain Marvel called out. "William Batson from the Daily Planet, I would like to ask the escape artist some questions."

"Sorry," The machine apologized. "We really have to go, we were double booked."

"It's fine, this is an ambush interview, and I could ride with you to your destination." Captain Marvel bargained.

"Fine, he can come with," The former escape artist acquiesced.

The ice cream truck moved and both persons talked to each other as if they didn't have any other passenger with them. This does work to his advantage, he didn't have to ask any potentially triggering questions that would be detrimental to anyone involved.

"This was fueled by grief." Captain Marvel shared his conclusion.

"Wha-?"

"I'm sorry I had to lie earlier," Marvel apologized. "I didn't lie that I was supposed to be a journalist set to cover the circus in town but I knew that I didn't have the same mentality as the rest of them," He admitted. "That gist of what I knew was that I was suddenly in a place where people acted differently."

"You noticed that we acted differently from the others, that's why you approached us." The man in red surmised.

"That's the gist of it."

"What do you mean this is fueled by grief?" The woman asked. "I'm Dr. Darcy Lewis by the way."

"I'm The Vision."

"As far as I know, based on your explanation, this Wanda person seems to have more powers than what was recorded: telekinesis and telepathy. Why not say that her power evolved through grief or even say that her powers are magical in origin?" Captain Marvel offered.

"Magic would make a lot of sense," Darcy nodded. "Especially considering what's happening."

"A sitcom-like reality where nothing dangerous or traumatic ever happens." Captain Marvel nodded along.

"I'm still stumped on that fueled by grief part." Darcy frowned.

"It makes the most sense, according to you, five years ago this universe experienced an extinction-like event that erased half of the universe's population out of existence and it wasn't until a few months ago that those who got their existences erased returned."

"For Wanda, when she returned, my death was only a few minutes earlier."

"And in turn make your death only a few months old from her perspective," Darcy concluded.

"Grief has five stages and Wanda's on the first stage of grief – Denial." Captain Marvel somberly stated. "Add that with magic, and she can essentially deny the reality of her losses."

-----------

As the conversation inside the ice cream truck evolved to a myriad of topics, they waited for the group of school children to pass through the intersection. Captain Marvel must admit, if he wasn't being subjected through these circumstances, he would get a good laugh about this situation.

Not a moment later, Vision the synthezoid, flew upwards and phased through the truck's roof and left Dr. Darcy and Captain Marvel inside the truck.

"O-okay, meet you there." Darcy remarked belatedly.

"Dr. Lewis, I suggest you hold on tight." Captain Marvel suggested as he exited the truck from the back door and lifted it up in the air.

"Gaah! What are you doing?!" Darcy exclaimed in surprise.

"Getting us to our destination faster."

Captain Marvel lifted the truck off of the ground and flew towards the direction where the Vision flew.

------------

Captain Marvel placed the ice cream truck at the town square where a lot of Westview's citizens were living their days as they cast of Wanda's sitcom reality.

"Take a minute to compose yourself then do what you need to do." He instructed before he flew off.

Captain Marvel flew towards a strong magical presence, not of Wanda's, that's filled with mal intent. The feeling he got from this magical presence was the same feeling he got from facing one of the seven deadly sins way back when.

Captain Marvel utilized the speed of mercury and increased his flying speed that he was able to overtake the Vision and see what was happening near Wanda's residence.

"Let my brother go!" Captain Marvel heard Tommy demand as both he and his twin struggled from the purple strings tied around their necks. "

Captain Marvel summoned a lightning bolt to his hands and threw it towards the strings that connected the noose to the floating woman's fingers, cutting the captive boys free.

As soon her twins were free, Wanda immediately launched two red energy balls at the woman, knocking her back a few meters away from where she floated.

"Go to your room boys." Wanda ordered.

"Mom, we can help." The twins protested.

"Listen to your mother boys." The woman remarked as she got up from the pavement just by planting her feet on the ground.

"But-"

"I'll take them home." Captain Marvel volunteered.

The lightning hero flew towards the twin boys and carried them under his arms towards their residence.

"Who are you? How do you know where our house is?" Tommy frowned.

"Never mind that boys, you need to get inside while I go help your mother."

Captain Marvel left the boys and tackled the woman in purple robes and actively utilized the Wisdom of Solomon once more.

The woman before him was Agatha Harkness, an ancient witch from the Salem witch trials. She dabbled in magic that was above her station that cost the life of her entire coven when they punished her for going above her station.

"Another magician in the midst." Agatha smirked.

The purple witch sent out a pulse of purple energy that sent Captain Marvel flying towards the sky however she failed to notice the flying car that Wanda had summoned and slammed her into a nearby house.

By the time Captain Marvel was able to regain his bearings from being unceremoniously blown away from where he was, he immediately flew back to where he knew Wanda was at only to be greeted by the Vision flying towards a white version of himself and Wanda chasing after Agatha.

Captain Marvel was about to chase after both witches when he saw clear signs of magical tampering on a certain house. He flew towards the top of the house and shouted at the top of his lungs.

"SHAZAM!"

As thunder cracked on an otherwise clear sky, he immediately flew away from the structure as the lightning he summoned dispelled whatever magical spells the house was under by way of a purple-tinted glass dome shattering to pieces.

As soon as the purple dome shattered, the lightning hero could feel insidious magic emanating from the house, magic that would even make the Lords of Chaos back in his home universe giddy with excitement.

Marvel shook his head as he immediately headed for the window at the top of the house in question only to be greeted by a woman straddling a man.

"Nice to meet you, Ralph."

"Hello, Peter." Marvel greeted.

"H-how…"

"None of that right now, Peter your speed is needed now," Marvel ordered. "I fear the residents of Westview are going to be caught in a crossfire between a fight amongst witches, and robots, once the dome we're in opens, I need you to transport all of the civilians outside."

"Gotcha!" Peter nodded.

"As for Captain Marvel…"

"You mean me? I'm not her." Monica raised an eyebrow.

"Right, Danvers is the Captain Marvel of this universe." Captain Marvel muttered to himself, "You're on guard duty, your powers can be used to protect the civilians unlucky enough to get in between Wanda and the other witch."

"How will I get there?"

"You're going flying with me."

"See you on the flip side." Peter saluted before speeding off towards the town square.

----------

Monica and Captain Marvel flew towards the town square only to be greeted by a screaming Wanda Maximoff, whose magic seemed to strangle the crowd that formed around her.

"Wanda, control your magic," Captain Marvel called out. "I know grief can be drowning and this magic is the only thing keeping you afloat but you need to control your powers so you won't hurt others in the process.'

Wanda looked around and saw for herself what was happening, everyone around her on the ground struggling to breath.

"No! Stop!" Wanda forcibly dispelled the spell that she unconsciously cast on the townspeople. "Stop! I'm sorry."

Captain Marvel nodded to Monica as he set her down on the nearest sidewalk, intending to assist Wanda.

"I will, I will let you go, I will." Wanda remorsefully nodded.

"What's stopping you?" Agatha inquired. "Use your power and do it now." She urged the grief-stricken hero. "Heroes don't torture people."

"You've done enough damage, Harkness." Captain Marvel growled.

The lightning hero summoned a lightning bolt to his hand and threw it right at the purple witch, missing her by an inch. He summoned another one and threw it in the same direction.

"Were those supposed to hit me?"

"No, they weren't."

As if on cue, the billboard behind Agatha started to crumble and fell towards the witch. He knew that the witch was able to save herself from the oncoming fall, but it was enough distraction so that he can tend to Wanda.

Before he could even approach her, Wanda screamed and summoned a pillar of red magic that pierced the skies, opening the hexagonal dome that trapped all of Westview.

"Go!" Wanda ordered. "All of you! Now!"

"Peter now!"

Two by two, Peter Maximoff carted off the residents of Westview just outside the premises of the dome as military-grade trucks entered its premises. The speedster ignored the people going inside in favor of getting the residents out of the dome Wanda has created.

As the surroundings flickered back and forth to different eras, Captain Marvel was vigilant and observed everything. Even with the powers of the gods at his beck and call, he still doesn't know where Harkness would soon reappear next.

He was a bit surprised when the Vision plummeted towards the ground, slowly but surely disintegrating. He soon witnessed Wanda's twin boys arriving, also sporting the affliction that plagued their synthezoid of a father.

The recent turn of events has made Captain Marvel come to a conclusion: All of Wanda's living constructs are tied to the dome that she created. Dispelling the dome would technically kill her family as well.

The family that kept her afloat from the sea of grief within her.

"Now do you see?" Agatha appeared in front of the downed billboard. "You tied your family into this twisted world, now one can't exist without the other."

"Mom!"

"Boys!"

"Save Westview or save your family?"

Peter managed to return to the dome and nodded to Captain Marvel.

"Wanda, close the dome!" Captain Marvel ordered. "Every man, woman, and child of Westview has been evacuated."

Wanda looked at her husband and sons, and that was all the motivation she needed to close the dome that was slowly and but surely killing her family as painful as possible.

With the dome closed, the Vision, Billy, and Tommy Maximoff reformed to their original states.

"M-mom!"

"Mom! Are you okay?" Billy Maximoff asked his mother.

Wanda simply hugged her boys as a response while the Vision hugged his family.

"Really?!" Agatha growled, sending a beam of purple magic towards the family.

"Oh no you don't"

Captain Marvel threw a car to intercept the purple beam and exploded as Wanda erected a red shield to protect herself and her family.

Agatha didn't give up and sent another purple beam towards the Maximoffs, this time Peter reacted and was able to whisk away the younger twins with the lightning hero grabbing both Vision and Wanda.

"It makes me wonder," Agatha spoke. "How come I haven't absorbed your magic sorcerer?"

"I know how your absorption magic works Harkness," Captain Marvel responded. "You're not getting a whiff of mine or any more of Wanda's magic."

"Let's see about that." Agatha smirked as she fired off purple balls of magic towards Captain Marvel, all of which were dodged.

As Captain Marvel dodged every attack that came from Agatha, military-grade trucks came running before military personnel exited their vehicles and pointed their guns at the Synthezoid-Human family in the center.

"Listen, boys, your mother and I never really prepared you for this." The Vision started, eyeing the military personnel pointing the guns at him and his family.

"But you were born for it." Wanda finished.

Vision flew towards his differently-colored counterpart as Wanda and the twins stared at the military before them.

As Captain Marvel continued to dodge the purple balls of magic coming towards him, some of the military people pointed their guns at the flying beings in the sky, namely himself and Agatha.

With one final purple ball, Agatha shifted her attention to the gun-bearing men and lifted them off of the ground.

"Same story, different century." Agatha scoffed. "There will always be torches and pitchforks for people like us Wanda." She smirked as she faced the lightning hero.

Agatha dispelled the floating spell she cast on the military men, with gravity doing the rest of the work for her.

Captain Marvel was quick to save a few of them, as did Peter who was watching from afar not knowing what really to do next, but there were some of them left who would surely plummet to their own deaths.

Wanda was quick to act and saved the remaining few with her magic and stopped the momentum of their fall before unceremoniously dropping them on the pavement.

"Boys," Wanda faced her sons. "Handle the military, mommy will be right back."

Wanda flew towards Agatha.

The military turned their guns on the Maximoff twins but Billy Maximoff already had a plan in mind. He immobilized everyone from the military, who were pointing their guns at him and his twin, through his magic, while Tommy used his super-speed to steal their guns, a hat, and a pair of sunglasses.

"Right on, my dude!" Peter praised.

"Uncle P?" Tommy questioned, unsure.

"Not exactly kid," Peter shrugged. "But close enough." He grinned.

Another person exited his vehicle and pointed his pistol right at the celebrating kids.

From a distance, Monica was riding the ice cream truck with Darcy as they helped Peter in evacuating the residents of Westview, saw what the man was about to do.

"No, no! That Hayward!"

"What about Hayward?" Darcy questioned when she noticed what her passenger was doing. "Monica! What are you doing?!"

Monica ignored Darcy's questions, and the fact that the vehicle she was in was still moving, and exited it before rushing towards the boys, leaving behind a golden streak, and placed herself between the twins and the man firing his pistol.

The bullets passed through Monica before falling just behind her, losing their momentum, but one lone bullet whizzed past her, helpless to stop as she did the bullets before.

Billy Maximoff used his magic to stop the bullet in its tracks before he dropped it to the ground.

"Nice tricks." Monica praised.

"I like yours too!" Billy Maximoff returned the compliment.

"I'll take this."

Captain Marvel landed before the man, Hayward, and grabbed the emptied gun from his hands and crushed it all the while glaring at the man who dared to shoot at children.

Hayward scrambled to get to his vehicle to make his hasty escape. He was able to successfully drive the car backward only to be slammed by an oncoming ice cream truck, stopping him dead on his tracks.

"Have fun in prison." Darcy quipped.

Monica was quick to rush to Darcy's aid, even if she still didn't know how to open the door that was most likely slammed shut from the driver's stunt earlier.

Billy Maximoff knew what to do, he immediately used his magic to open the door as Monica helped the relatively unharmed driver out of the truck.

With the de-facto leader pinned inside his vehicle and the other military personnel deprived of their guns, and he just saw the white version of the Vision fly upwards, Captain Marvel instantly knew that the remaining threat was the witch, Agatha Harkness.

Captain Marvel looked around and there he saw Agatha looking down on the Vision, his kids, her supposed husband, Monica, and Darcy. He was about to charge when he saw Wanda approach the unsuspecting witch, albeit creepily, and whispered something to her ear.

The next thing that happened was Wanda and Agatha jumping off of the roof before flying towards the sky.

Wanda began attacking Agatha, firing off red energy balls, some of them hit the other witch right on the chest while some outright missed.

Vision and Captain Marvel flew towards Wanda only for her to cast a dome right at the both of them, which the lightning hero was able to evade leaving Vision trapped inside the dome which left him with no choice but to land back towards his sons, hugging them.

"What are you doing Wanda?" Captain Marvel shouted.

That was when Captain Marvel realized, he looked at the places where the energy balls hit every time Wanda missed Agatha.

Wanda was casting runes, magic dampening runes.

Runes that would make any other sorcerer, witch, or wizard incapable of using their magic once inside them.

Before Captain Marvel could react, Agatha started the process of absorbing Wanda's magic.

A few moments passed and it seemed like Agatha has absorbed every ounce of magical energy inside Wanda as she floated lifelessly in her place.

"About our deal, once cast, the spell can never be changed. This world you made will always be broken." Agatha blinked. "Just." She raised a lone finger. "Like." She pointed at Wanda. "You."

Agatha raised both of her arms, intending to deal a finishing blow towards her opponent, but once she placed her arms forward, her spell failed to materialize.

She repeated her actions but nothing still happened.

Wanda slowly straightened her body as the effects of having her magic drained on her body faded and reflected her age, with a slow turn of her wrist, the runes Wanda has cast beforehand revealed themselves.

"Runes?"

"In a given space, only the witch who cast them can use her magic." Wanda quoted Agatha. "Thanks for the lesson.

Agatha glared at Wanda.

"But I don't need you to tell me, who I am."

"No, no, no." Agatha panicked.

An ethereal red crown appeared on Wanda's head as magic around her, including the magic that Agatha has absorbed from Wanda and various other witches, were going towards her.

It took everything in Captain Marvel's power not to get swept up in the magic absorption that was happening but he successfully landed on the pavement, albeit on his knees.

"SHAZAM!"

Thunder cracked as lightning flashed the sky, not a moment after, lightning hit Captain Marvel's chest, much to everyone's shock, to which he turned back into his mortal form, Billy Batson.

"No way!" Billy Maximoff exclaimed. "You're that lightning dude!"

"Yeah, I'm the lightning dude." Billy Batson nodded.

"How?" Darcy questioned.

"How did you do it? Did you just de-age yourself? Why would you go back to being a kid?"

"Slow down." Billy Batson chuckled. "To start with, I'm Billy Batson, I turn into lightning dude, I call myself Captain Marvel while in that form."

"Captain Marvel? I thought I heard you say 'Captain Marvel of this universe'."

"He also mentioned how this universe experienced an extinction-like event." Darcy chimed in.

"Who are you Billy Batson?" the Vision questioned.

"I'll explain once Wanda's done with Agatha." Billy smiled at the group.

As Billy, Darcy, Monica, and the Maximoffs, including Peter watched how Wanda close this threat.

"So what now? Just gonna lock me up somewhere?"

"No."

Billy tensed at Wanda's response.

"Not somewhere."

"Wanda no," Billy immediately spoke up. "I know it can be tempting to exact vengeance but that will never satisfy you, it may bring temporary relief and closure, but it's just that, temporary. You just have to believe that if you're good, good will follow."

"Here." Wanda paid no heed to Batson's outburst.

"Here?" Agatha questioned.

"I'll give you the role you chose, the nosy neighbor." Wanda approached Agatha.

"No, please!" Agatha begged.

"I'm sorry."

"No, you're not," Agatha scoffed. "You're cruel."

Wanda ignored Agatha's last verbal stance and approached her some more.

"No you, you have no idea what you've unleashed, you're gonna need me." Agatha bargained.

"If I do, I know where to find you."

"Wait, wait, wai-"

Wanda touched Agatha's left temple and a red swirl of magical energy morphed Agatha's whole appearance to that of an unassuming person.

"Hiya hun, say, that's some kinda get up you're wearing," The woman who was known as Agatha grinned. "Did I leave the oven on, is that just you, hot stuff?" Agatha chuckled.

"You live here now, no one will ever bother you."

"Okay dokey, artichoke."

"I'll be seeing you, Agnes."

"Not if I see you first, hun." Agatha-turned-Agnes fired back.

"Mom!"

The Maximoff twins ran towards their mother and hugged both in joy and relief. Wanda returned the hugs with kisses on both the boys' foreheads.

"So it would appear that our dream home has been reduced to a fixer-upper," Vision commented. "I know you'll set everything right." He looked around. "Just not for us."

"No," Wanda shook her head but in affirmation. "Not for us."

"It's time, should we head home?"

"Yeah."

Darcy, Monica, Billy Batson, and Peter looked at the family of four with sympathy, especially for Wanda. They knew that this will be the last time they'll see this family.

Wanda looked at the four of them but only nodded in acknowledgment.

Monica and Darcy simply nodded back at them.

"I promise you'll get your answers, but there is something that I need to do first."

"I'll take you there."

Peter placed his hand on Billy's shoulders before they disappeared from view.

-----------

"Boys… Thank you for choosing me to be your mom."

Wanda turned off the lights and closed the door.

"SHAZAM!"

Billy transformed back into his champion form and entered the boys' room. He looked at their sleeping forms as they were slowly but surely disintegrating one piece at a time as the barrier of Wanda's dome inched closer.

Captain Marvel raised his arms sideward, each hand hovering over one of the boys. Harmless bolts of electricity seeped out of his hands and made contact with the Maximoff twins.

Captain Marvel was going off of what he did to Freddy years ago, after his fight with a villain resulted in broken bones and losing a grandfather. While he may not have fully healed the broken leg, it did protect his best friend from further injuries even as Freddy Freeman.

Despite the minimal amount of contact Captain Marvel had with the boys, both as Billy Batson and Captain Marvel, he knew that the Maximoff twins were sentient and possess a soul of their own, and they just lack a body.

As they were beings constructed with magic, there is a high chance of them being used against Wanda, and he was hoping that what he was doing to them, that by sharing a small amount of divine magic to them, would protect them from malicious beings that would use them against their mother.

As soon as he was done, it took everything for Captain Marvel not to keel over from the experience. He might have done something more, something unexpected, to the boys and the experience was draining, to say the least.

Captain Marvel looked at the boys for one more moment and that was when things clicked, thanks to the Wisdom of Solomon. He left a small imprint of himself, of Billy Batson, on the magic that he shared with the Maximoff twins.

All things considered, it was probably for the best, now he knew that the boys would have someone else with them, regardless if that someone was just a small projection of his mortal self, at the very least the boys won't be lonely by themselves.

Billy knew loneliness and no one deserves that fate, especially not children who chose the Scarlet Witch as their mother.

With everything done, Captain Marvel exited the boys' room and shouted his magic word before transforming back into his fifteen-year-old self.

Almost as soon as Captain Marvel returned to his mortal form, he and Peter made contact with the contracting dome of magical energy as everything transformed back into what it should be: including the disappearance of the house in front of them, leaving one Wanda Maximoff standing at the center of the lot.

Peter immediately approached the grief-stricken mother.

"Can I hug you?" Peter asked.

Wanda simply nodded, still unable to form a coherent sentence.

"Why did I have to lose everyone dear to me?" Wanda muttered to herself.

"I can't give you an answer to that myself." Peter rubbed Wanda's back.

"You're not Pietro." Wanda removed herself from Peter's hug."

"I'm not."

"Why do you have his power?"

"It's because he's your brother in another universe." Billy answered.

"Batson."

"What do you mean another universe?" Peter frowned.

"Ask Wanda of something you're sure to exist." Billy urged the speedster.

Peter decided to humor Billy and looked at Wanda.

"Do you know of a Professor X?" Peter asked Wanda. "The X-men?"

"Professor X? X-men?"

"You mean to say that there are actually multiple universes out there?" Peter exclaimed at Billy. "There's no way mutants don't exist!"

"Mutant?"

"You're standing in one Peter." Billy smiled.

"I'm a long way from home." Peter realized.

"Who are you Batson?"

"I'm just someone from another universe who's here to answer a call for help," Billy answered. "And no, it's not someone from Westview or the people from the military." He sighed. "Frankly speaking, I don't think I'm done with this."

"Not done?" Peter raised an eyebrow.

"I'm not sure myself, it's just this feeling I've got."

In truth, the Wisdom of Solomon who alerted Captain Marvel had informed him that he wasn't done just yet. Billy does have a sneaking suspicion that he may have travelled to a point in this universe before the boys, Wanda's twins, were asking for their mother's help.

"How did you come to this universe, Peter?" Billy asked. "I came here through a hexagon portal in red of my own free will."

"I'm not sure…" Peter trailed off. "I was on an en errand by Professor X when I felt like one of my sisters needed me," He admitted. "The next thing I know was that some woman approaching me and forced on me a necklace then I found myself at your doorsteps claiming to be your 'long lost brother'."

"Sisters."

"It's possible that you responded to Wanda's grief and pulled you out of your home universe." Billy hummed.

"Did I… No." Wanda gasped. "I promise that I will send you both back to your home as soon as I understand my powers."

"No need to rush sis," Peter grinned. "I can wait."

"As I said, I came here of my own free will," Billy repeated. "I can wait, maybe even assist you."

"No, I need to do this on my own."

"I understand," Billy nodded. "But if you need me, you can simply cast one of your spells and I'll immediately come to you."

"Count me in on that too."

"I have to go." Wanda excused herself.

"We'll go together." Billy smiled.

---------

As Wanda walked towards the town square of Westview, she has her hood up as if hiding from the glares the citizens were giving her.

Billy and Peter tried their best to shied Wanda from those stares. No matter what they did, it won't erase the fact that they were held hostage by someone who should have been their hero. The feeling of betrayal was there, and Billy was familiar with that kind of feeling.

Especially after his bout with Superman years ago.

Wanda approached Monica.

"They'll never know what you sacrificed for them."

"It wouldn't change how they see me." Wanda sighed.

Monica simply nodded, agreeing with Wanda's sentiment.

"And you, you don't hate me?"

"Given the chance, given your power, I'd bring my mom back." Monica nodded. "You know, I would."

"I'm sorry, for all the pain I caused."

"I know,"

"I don't understand this power, but I will."

Wanda looks around her before looking at Monica's eye.

"Goodbye, Monica."

"Bye Wanda."

Wanda turns her back on Monica before transforming her clothes into something else and flew off to who knows where.

"As for the both of you." Monica looks at Billy and Peter. "Care to tell me who are you both?"

----------

"Let me get this straight, you two are from a different universe, different from this one." Jimmy questioned.

"Seems to be the most plausible explanation," Peter shrugged. "Seriously, no one here knows about mutants or even the X-men or even the brotherhood of mutants."

"Where are you from then Billy? If that even is your name."

"I came from a universe where one of our heroes dresses as a bat." Billy shrugged.

"A bat? Seriously?" Peter snickered.

"Hey I was an orphan who was given these powers by a wizard, I'm not one to judge on why he dresses as a bat."

"No more joking this time." Jimmy groaned.

"I'm not joking." Billy told the trio seriously.

"And so am I." Peter nodded.

"I'm sorry, but I'm still lost at 'the different universe' part."

"Yet you're not at all surprised that the Norse god of thunder is part of your hero lineup." Billy raised an eyebrow.

"He has a point." Darcy conceded.

"Why are you here Billy?" Monica took over the questioning. "What about your home universe?"

"I've got my family to pick up the slack." Billy smiled.

----------

"M-mom!"

"H-help us!"

"I don't know if Billy can last much longer."

--------

Somewhere, Wanda in her Scarlet Witch costume, opened her eyes as it glowed red.

#wandavision #justice league unlimited #billy batson #wanda maximoff #billy kaplan #tommy shepherd #billy maximoff #tommy maximoff #the vision #monica rambeau #justice league #l and n #story

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that-shamrock-vibe · 4 years ago

Text

WandaVision: Dissecting the MCU’s Most Successful Superhero Couple

Disclaimer: I am only using the term WandaVision as the coupling name for Scarlet Witch and Vision. I am not centring this discussion on the upcoming Disney+ series but rather talking about the 6 year build up to it.

Introduction:

Despite the fact the likes of Hank Pym’s Ant-Man & Janet van Dyne’s Wasp along with Mister Fantastic and Invisible Woman are Marvel Comics’ most prominent superhero couples, Scarlet Witch and Vision have always been that “unusual couple” that became a fan-favourite, didn’t diminish either character’s individual stories and, once the two were officially introduced into the MCU in 2015′s Avengers: Age of Ultron, became a hotly anticipated coupling by fans from their somewhat instant connection.

Not only is this comics-accurate love story finally being realised in the MCU, but the fact Kevin Feige feels as passionate about them as fans like I do that he is giving them their own series to shine, along with Wanda herself being involved in the MCU’s next big arc with exploring the Multiverse, I think it is safe to say that WandaVision have outshone the likes of Ant-Man and the Wasp and other couplings to become the MCU’s It couple.

Well, considering Disney+ released a new behind the scenes series called Marvel Legends last week with the first two episodes focusing on Wanda and Vision, despite them being no more than clip-reels of the characters MCU timeline, I wanted to delve in deeper and discuss how characters that were deemed B-worthy enough to be sent to streaming...which suddenly seems like the place to be...have suddenly become the hottest commodities in the MCU.

The Age of Miracles:

Wanda Maximoff first appeared in the MCU in an mid-credits scene for 2014′s Captain America: The Winter Soldier, adding the cherry on the top of what was already a glorious cake of a movie by unofficially introducing Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch to the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

Sidebar, this was, at its time, very confusing for fans who believed that Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver were owned by 20th Century Fox in their X-Men movies. However, after the announcement of the Maximoff twins in the MCU and Quicksilver appearing simultaneously in 2014′s X-Men: Days of Future Past, it was revealed that a deal was made between Fox and Disney that the twins would only have certain traits in either universe.

For the X-Men movies, they would be Mutants, have their origins as the children of Magneto and...even though this never happened...appear as members of the Brotherhood of Mutants.

For the MCU, the Maximoff twins are known as enhanced individuals gaining their powers from the Mind Stone after experimentation from HYDRA. There is no mention of them being Mutants, their parents were indirect victims of Stark Industries, and despite Pietro having his original speed physiology powers, Wanda started off with Psionic Manipulation rather than Chaos Magic as her comic-book counterpart has.

However, it has been confirmed by Kevin Feige that Wanda’s shapeless red energy is magic of the same elk to Doctor Strange, just untamed. Meaning the upcoming alternative sitcom reality Wanda has created in WandaVision restoring Vision, could be an application of her latent reality warping powers.

The Maximoff Twins were officially introduced in 2015′s Avengers: Age of Ultron originally as operatives of HYDRA, before moving on to serve Ultron until defecting from him after realising he was evil and joining the Avengers in their fight to save their home country Sokovia.

Vision meanwhile was officially introduced at the end of the second act for the movie but his predecessor JARVIS was first introduced in Iron Man way back when in 2008...the movie that started it all.

As Tony Stark’s A.I. assistant, JARVIS was stated by Stark to be a top of the range program that runs more of Stark Industries than anyone other than Pepper Potts as CEO. However, when Stark had the ingenious idea to create Ultron...otherwise known as RDJ wanting to steal Hank Pym’s most famous comic-book storyline...as a peacekeeping program to safeguard Earth from extra-terrestrial threats, in typical sci-fi fashion Ultron goes evil and seemingly destroys JARVIS.

However, JARVIS simply retreated into the server only to return after the Avengers acquire Ultron’s recently created synthetic android. The Science Bros. transfer JARVIS’ conscience into the synthetic body and with the help of Thor/s thunder charge Vision was born.

I have to say also, while superhero movie trailers do get me excited for said superhero movie, seeing the reveal of Vision in the final Age of Ultron trailer gave me that wow factor moment only X-Men trailers usually do.

Comics to Movies:

As I have always admitted, I am not as in-depth with the comics as the movies. However, Scarlet Witch and Vision are two characters I have followed pretty since I first found out about them in the mid-noughties as a teenager.

But what cemented the two as my favourite Marvel characters overall, from Comics, to Movies to TV, is the literal creation of the twin sons Wiccan and Speed who became key members in the Young Avengers.

Now yes, both characters have had lives separate from each other because, as I said before, they are still their own characters despite being also known as a couple. But while Wanda has had a somewhat twincestuous relationship with her brother in far comics history, and Vision had his own family of synthetic androids including daughter Viv, who was a playable character in Marvel’s Avengers Academy, I find the best in Marvel Comics writing was actually after their twins were reabsorbed into the demon Mephisto as they were fragments of his soul and Wanda went crazy heralding in the House of M.

Also, not only is Wanda apparently getting her Scarlet Witch moniker either during or after the MCU Multiverse arc, but also a more comics-accurate costume. Up until now Wanda’s costume in the MCU has been they street-casual which does suit the Wanda of Sokovia. Even when she joined the Avengers and got an upgraded costume it did seem more like something someone could wear for a casual day out...as proof, my sister dressed up as the MCU Scarlet Witch by finding clothes in standard clothing stores rather than costume outlets.

My favourite Scarlet Witch outfit to date has been her full-length red gown complete with headdress from the comics, the headdresses of Magneto’s daughters are so iconic that when Polaris crafted her own out of Magneto’s medallion in The Gifted I was fanboying so hard.

We already know Wanda will be wearing a Halloween costume inspired by her iconic comics suit in WandaVision, but if the Halloween costume looks that impressive, I cannot wait to see what her actual supersuit looks like.

Throughout the MCU:

Right from the start, I really enjoyed both Scarlet Witch and Vision in the MCU, despite Scarlet Witch still not to be known as Scarlet Witch to date in the MCU. But from when we see cameos of Wanda and Pietro as experiments of HYDRA, that one quick shot of Wanda displaying her powers I was sold.

Vision meanwhile gave himself a somewhat modified version of his comics-accurate cape because he saw Thor had a cape and wanted one. He could also wield Mjølnir, does this make him worthy? It must do despite the Avengers constant mithering about it. If you can wield Mjølnir you’re worthy.

Talking from a romance perspective, it was a big tease of the two getting together right up until 2018′s Avengers: Infinity War as while it was teased in 2016′s Captain America: Civil War, a romance wasn’t actually shown until we find them in Scotland.

Interestingly enough in the comics, the couple retire to New Jersey rather than Scotland.

Also, like a lot of heroes, both Wanda and Vision seemed to get an upgrade in powers every movie. We always got teases of both their full potentials in the quieter moments like when Pietro died and Wanda, feeling her twin dying, vaporised the surrounding Ultron Sentries in a moment of distraught heartache and when Vision destroyed the last Ultron Sentry.

But it wasn’t until Captain America: Civil War, where we learned that Wanda could control the Mind Stone powering Vision and Vision could easily severely injure another hero and then in Infinity War when either Vision created a human guise for himself or maybe Wanda did, while Wanda not only made short work of Thanos’ army but could also destroy the Mind Stone and, in Endgame take on and possibly defeat Thanos single-handed, that we got a true display of her powers.

MCU creatives have stated that Scarlet Witch is in fact the most powerful MCU hero after it was originally stated Captain Marvel was, so when Wanda finally upgrades and realises her true potential this should be fully realised making Scarlet Witch the most powerful MCU character.

WandaVision and MCU Future:

Here’s what we know about WandaVision:

Wanda finds herself in a sitcom television universe potentially of her own making after not only losing Vision, but not forgetting also Wanda has lost her family including her twin brother as well as friends and teammates Black Widow, Captain America and even Iron Man.

For someone who was late-teens early-twenties at the time of Age of Ultron, this makes her late-20s early-30s by the time of this series, my age, and so obviously all of this loss and grief will play havoc on one’s mind let alone everything else she has gone through.

Also Vision is back but I still don’t know to what extent that is, is he only back in this alternate sitcom reality or has Wanda willed him back into existence in the same way that she willed their twin sons into reality in the comics.

Speaking of which, we know the couple have twins in the series as when they’re in their 80s sitcom setting, we see two bassinettes and it’s hinted we will see them as teenagers.

It has to be Wiccan and Speed, it can’t not be. This would be a massive red mark on WandaVision’s scorecard if it isn’t. I have recently heard rumours they could be human-android hybrids to match the parents and someone even suggesting Viv could be one of the twins...but I can’t fathom why if the Young Avengers are coming into play with the confirmation of Kate Bishop, America Chavez and Stature, why these two core characters wouldn’t be at play.

The other hotly anticipated character introduction is Kathryn Hahn as Agnes...again if this isn’t Agatha Harkness then it is major tease. Agnes is surely an alias for Agatha Harkness who in the comics and even X-Men: Evolution was Scarlet Witch’s mentor for controlling her powers.

The only difference between the two incarnations is in every other version of the character Agatha is an old woman whereas Kathryn Hahn looks like Kathryn Hahn. It will also be great to see Agatha Harkness in a comedic setting as Kathryn Hahn is hilarious.

We also have returning MCU characters Jimmy Woo, Monica Rambeau and Darcy Lewis added to the series. All three may not be connected or they all could be working for SWORD which is the successor to SHIELD first seen in the post-credits scene for Spider-Man: Far From Home.

I’m thrilled to have Kat Dennings back in the MCU and considering both she and Randall Park have a history in comedy, the sitcom settings should suit them well.

I’m not sure why any of these characters are connected to Scarlet Witch or Vision considering all three are connected to separate heroes Ant-Man, Captain Marvel and Thor respectively, but any excuse to bring them back I’ll take it.

What is also more or less confirmed is the ending of WandaVision will see a massive witch fight between Wanda and Agnes resulting in Wanda tearing a hole in the multiverse starting the Multiverse arc in the MCU which will be picked up in Spider-Man 3 and resolved in Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness with Wanda set to appear in both movies.

As for Vision’s fate post WandaVision, it is currently unknown where he will appear next if at all, and it may actually depend on the success of the series, but we know that Wiccan and Speed will become part of the Young Avengers so they’re staying on.

It is also worth noting that in the Young Avengers, a second version of Vision known as Jonas was a member of the team created through Nathaniel Richard’s neurokinetic armor gaining sentience after having Vision’s operating system downloaded into it.

Nathaniel Richards is a distant relative to Reed Richards aka Mister Fantastic who is set to appear in the upcoming Fantastic 4 movie, but is also a time remnant of Kang the Conqueror who is set to appear in the upcoming Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantummania and may be alluded to in the upcoming Disney+ series Loki.

Nathaniel is also Iron Lad, who forms the Young Avengers as part of the Avengers Fail-Safe program. Do you see how this all ties together?

So basically even if we don’t see this Vision again after WandaVision, we may see Jonas in the Young Avengers.

As for the future for Scarlet Witch post-multiverse, if they are bringing in Wiccan and Speed, I really want the next big arc to be the Children’s Crusade. I know fans want House of M...WandaVision is possibly as close to House of M as we’re going to get.

Children’s Crusade is how Wiccan and Speed learn about and are reunited with their estranged mother who has lost her memories and is living in wedded bliss with Doctor Doom...who could easily be introduced in said Fantastic 4 movie.

Conclusion:

Whatever the future holds for Scarlet Witch and Vision, no one can deny that this love story has not only been an organic one, but with it set to be the running theme for WandaVision, this love story is most definitely one for the ages.

So that’s my analysis of the newest superhero superpowered couple currently at play in the MCU, what do you guys think? Is WandaVision a couple for the ages? Will they have a place in the MCU after the upcoming Disney+ series?

Post your comments and check out more MCU Reviews as well as other posts and WandaVision starting this Friday (Jan 15).

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popculturebuffet · 4 years ago

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Top 20 Animated Episodes of 2020 Part 2 (#10-#1)

And we’re back.. The first part is HERE, which includes the first 10 and my thoughts on this past year in animation, so we can cut the long intro and get right into it. This is the best episodes this year had to offer in animation, and it’s , without meaning to, at least a third bojack horseman. On with the show.

10. I Am My Monster (Steven Universe Future) “We all had Steven when we needed him, but the only person who's never had Steven is Steven. He's always been there for us, so... how can we be there for him now?“ Oddly “The Future”, a finale I did really truly enjoy.. is not on this list. Really good episode, it’s just Future was easily one of Steven Univereses best season, tightining up the pacing without loosing what made the series feel special and really digging into some of more unhealthy aspects of steven’s life. And while the future is good and certanily the needed epilogue.. this episode is the climax, the cumilation of EVERYTHING Steven had done and gone though and something fans sadly saw coming and just had to simply watch, unable to help as Steven slowly lost himself. Previously on this list we saw him hit rock bottom and it only got worse: He went to home world, attacked white diamond due to his pent up trauma and once again ingored attempts to help him, this time from the diamonds and spinle, angrily refusing to listen to his own words she she sang Change at him. This only got worse in the briliant and sadly edged out of the list “Everything’s Fine’ A really damn painful episode where steven tries to assert he’s okay and act normal.. only he cant and he destroys everything around him, and even repeats pearl’s text trick from a single pale rose with a pained voice message to connie saying to help steven. But the pressure of the LONG overdue intervension and the fact it came too late.. means steven confsses his recent sins.. and instead of taking them for twhat they are, spur of the moment acts caused by a toxic influence and a fuckload of ptsd and unreseovled issues with white that while certanly not okay are symptoms of a larger issues takes it to mean “Im a fraud”.. and thus he horriingly corurpts. So here we are as Greg, Connie and the main gems all gap ein horor as Steven has corrputed himself, reduced to a monster whose not even malcious just.. sad.. so full of self loathing he can’t function and at risk of STAYING like that. And the relization hits hard.. and hits everyone who joins in hard. The auxilery crystal gems soon join but attempts from both groups to stop Steven do nothing. The diamonds arrive.. and not only are saddneed by what htey’ve doned but equally powerfless to stop him. Everyone breaks down, blaming themselves for not seeing this sooner and for speding YEARS piling their issue on the kids, everyone ready to give up as they loose the person they care about most.. except one. Connie proves to be the hero of the episode, rallying the others with the above, pointing out Steven would happily help them if he could.. and that’s the problem. He’s spent his whole life fixing other peoples problems and focusing on that.. but never had someone to be HIS Steven. Fighting him’s not going to work.. he needs to know he’s loved... in the end the final battle of the series is not some struggle of life and death.. but of love. What wins the day isn’t a fight, though our heroes various powers do come in hand to restrain steven.. but it’s all of them, one by one telling them they love him in easily the most tearjerking moment of the series, cumilating in connie softly playing a kiss on his nose... and it’s this that FIANLLY frees steven from his self made prison.. finally realizing h’es not alone and that no matter who or what he becomes.. his family loves and forgives him. While we REALLY needed the next episode to wrap things up after this swell of emtitions. this was the climax the series desrved: after spending 6 seasons trying to help everyone ELSE and fix their issues he never should’ve had to.. it’s eveyrone else who gladly pitches in to fix steven’s own issues, to help HIM when he’s at his lowest point like they’ve been, and make it so he can FINALLY heal and finally find himself once and for all. IT’s one of the finest episodes of the series and easily the best of future.

9. The Perfect House (Close Enough) “I’m this close to connecting garfield, TO JESUS” This one’s just really funny, charming and creative. Simple as that.. I could move on but eh i’m a wordy bastard. Once again we’re focused on Emily, this time as we find out an endearing hobby of hers: She likes visiting open houses and fantasizing about affording a better place she likely never will afford, one with trash can nooks, a kitchen and a living room that are fully seperate, and indivudal bins for tea and sugar... and when it’s pointed out she dosen’t drink tea it’s only because she has nowhere to put it. But after Josh and Candace get them thrown out, if adorably so, Emily is forced to face reality... i.e. Alex, in one of the series finest gags, in his underwear with conspiracy boards trying to connect garifled to jesus and having a jug of his urine around for some reason. Did I mention I love this weirdo because I do. Brigette is painting in the ktichen.. using her body as the canvas, though in a bikini because the show wasn’t streaming only yet. You’ll have to wait a season for possible boobs. Naturally this just stresses her out so she goes to visit more houses while Josh vows to buy a family bike, a large circular bike for the whole family, as an activity because of course he does and of COURSE he also has a recurring issue of being mocked by some random kid about not having one.

So she escapes and meets dave and caitlin, a husband whose family life is miserable and a child star who got emanicapted and they quickly form a psuedo family to look at open houses.. only to, as if to remind you what show your watching, instead end up in a tgif sitcom... and trapped in a styigian void, with only Emily desperate to get out. Also she’s been missing three days and Josh has some thoughts on that and goes after her. Naturally given she’s crashing in on her fake sitcom family, this oly has him seen as a plot element, and Emily’s attempt at cursing and everything she can , while hilarious fail.. but the climax is what makes the episode and what inches it slighlty above quack pack.. which itself was fucking awesome. Instead of FIGHTING the format... Emily is forced to play into it, and realizes a cheesy moment of emtional honesty is what’s needed. She apologizes to her fake family, saying their nice but she has to face the world and to josh and much like Donald, seroiusly this episode was made years ago and there’s no way in hell frank knew about it, she just needed an escape but it’s more healthy: instead of wishing for a life she never had Emily just wants a break from the life she does for five minutes. She’s happy where she is, with her loving husband, wonderful daughter, impulsive but still carring best friend.. and well okay maybe not Alex, there’s somethihng really wrong with him, but as much as I love the guy I admit he’s not for everyone. I’m also a borderline feral man covered in hair who wants people to know i’m smart. I get him.

IT’s this that sets her free.. and we get another amazing gag as Dave’s family shows up and Dave chooses the fantasy.. though instead of this being thorughly pogiant it’s just “classic dave”. COmplete with title sequence. And of course it ends on a family bike with Emily getting those tins from Josh. Their relationship.. is REALLY what makes both this show and this episode in paticular work. Here while Emily screws up, it STARTS innocently enough, simply faking being a family and spirals into tgif because while this show isn’t, possibly, in the regular show cinematic universe, it’s defintely in the same multiverse. She just wants some peace of mind from a chaotic life, but dosen’t resent her husband or anything.. he just frustrates her sometimes which is fair. But he’s never portrayed as an abusive asshat which you think would be a low bar to clear but.. you’d be suprised. Point is it’s a wonderfully weird and somehow still unique despite being one of three tgif parodies this year. Seriously that shit is a goldmine. It’s how Dashieel Driscoll got half a season out of full house and a good chunk of a very special epsiode as a whole out of it. Though a certain incident helped.

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Point is good show, jolly good show... and ew’ll be right back with the rest afte the cut

8. Agony of a Witch/Old Bodies, Young Souls (The Owl House) “You always thought you were better than me! That I could never Beat you at anything! “ “I AM Better than you!” “Then WHY WERE YOU SO EASY TO CURSE?!” The Owl House was a show I took WAY too long to catch up on after missing the second half of season 2.. minus Enchanting Grom Fright which I caught first run and we’ll get to that story shortly. Point is my procastnation did me dirty here as this show , which was already fantastic just got better and better, cumulating in this epic, heartdestroying, soul punching, beautifully animated finale that takes everything the show has built up thus far, blows it up in some places and uses it to beautifully end in others, leaving us with a new road for the future. So yeah naturally it’s been a long ride as one of Owl House’s strength.. is that no episode is filler. No really, each one has a purpose great or small in the larger narrative, and every major arc has been expertly paced and crafted, bringing us to this point. The only major arc or plot thread left out is Amity, and that’s honestly for the better. Make NO mistake, she’s a great character.. but like fellow great Donald Duck, she was left out because the episode had a LOT of emotional stuff going on, a lot of plot to fit in, and a lot to do and it’s simply better for her character and for the moment’s she’s bound to have in response to well.. everything happening here, to let it breathe next season rather than try to shove it into an already stuffed two episodes. But this episode is one long string of payoffs, and payoffs creating more setups: So all season Eda, our loveable witch, has been grappling with a curse that turns her into an owl beast, one that’s been getting worse as far back as the mid season finale Escape from the Palisman. She’s been needing more and more elixer to combat it, a harrowing parallel to some real world diseases: Sometimes your meds can only DO so much to combat something actively killing you.. thankfully this time.. not speaking from personal experince. And Luz finds out soon into the episode as Eda makes a cloak of witches wool, which can deflect powerful spells, to protect herself.. only to black out and go owl just as she’s saying she’s fine. Like most parents would Eda hid just how bad things have gotten and it’s gone from needing just one bottle of elixer to needing their entire suply, and even that barely worked. Despite her mentor’s assurances, Luz is now PAINFULLY aware her mentor is on borrowoed time... not helped by the fact the coven attacked earlier that morning and she finds out by finding hooty playing tea party with them, meaning Eda is outgunned, outmanned and while Lilith failed, again.. the emperor can now easily find her himself and send whoever he wnats and however many people he wants to fetch her.. and Eda can’t use too much of her magic or else. So while Eda and King, touched by how much Luz has changed them, decide to throw a suprise party with King making a big cake to jump out of and Eda using witches wool she intended for herself to make her a cape. Meanwhile as you’d expect Luz.. is plotting a dangerous and life threatning mission: with a field trip to the Emperor’s Coven that day, one she was going to sit out because you know they hate her second mom for dogmatic and vile reasons the episode fleshes out, she finds out they have an artifact called the healing hat that can seemingly heal anything. So she does what Luz does and comes up with an impulsive plan to heist the thing.. but for once her impuslivness isn’t played for laughs. Her mother figure is slowly sucumbing to a fate worse than death, for once instead of just acting rashly because Luz.. she’s doing so because she KNOWS, that she has no other choice. Nothing else in sight and she’s smart enough to know that if Eda had a cure she’d of told Luz about it. Even if it was dangerous or required a sacrifice or something Eda would’ve just left that part out. But the trip serves a few other purposes besides getting Luz where she needs to be for the plot that makes it work: it elaborates on just what the emperor’s coven is like and WHY Emperor Belos gets away with everything: He claims to speak for the titan, the giant dead monster whose body makes up the boiling isles and who, as Luz has discovered, is the source of the magic there. So when he bloodily, I mean it’ sa kid show so they dont’ say so but given how violent this one is i’m asssuming bloody, took power, he claimed they were doing magic wrong, killed any hertiics and set up the rigid coven system. It explains just WHY the boiling isles limits themselves, gives the whole thing a creepy dogmatic religion vibe.. something that i’m REALLY suprised disney let them get away with as they had to fight for gays in the series.. but at the same time shouldn’t be because hunchback of notre dame exists and Soul , released the same year, was a big gamble against the bible belt. So their not afriad of religious groups.. but they ARE afraid of homophobic groups.. which have a lot of overlap.

Point is it’s a good storytelling device.. and cathartic given i’ve been playing Fire Emblem: Three Houses as I finally bought it with some christmas money. Good game, probably will talk about it in the future, not the point here.

The point is that the visit gives us some worldbuilding that helps show just how much of a threat the coven is and why their so intent on capturing Eda. We also finally meet belos, god emperor and man tired of Lillith’s shit and giving her till twilight to get Eda.. or presumibly die. I mean he dosen’t say it but he sure is implying it as loud as he can. That’s when things go pear shaped for Luz who finds the hat.. and LIlith who has found her barganing chip to lure Eda to her, which works as well as you’d expect and leads to the best figh tin the series thus far and one of , if not it’s best scene; A duel between edith and lilith. And while they fought back in Covention this time it’s not a petty squabble between siblings masquerading as one trying to capture the other.. it’s fight NEITHER can afford to loose. Eda can’t loose her protege and Lilith will loose everything, dying at best being cast out of the coven at worst, if she fails not to mention loosing what she feels is her only chance at saving her sister. But it’s also VERY clear Lilith is groosly outmatched, and while no slouch herself Eda’s constant bragging about being “the most powerful witch on the boiling isles”.. is entirely backed up. Lilith barely is able to hold herself and only gets ahead by using a child as a shiled, going even lower than her sister. However the stress of this, the build of having been the older sister of someone who constantly outshined her then turned entirely against her, finally causes lilith to snap.. and reveal the curse is her fault. Cissy Jones delivery here.. is jsut perfect, showing a mixture of rage and pain, showing that she’s spent YEARS hiding this, years resenting her sister for constnatly being better desptie working harder and doing the right thigns. Even when she’s trying to HELP Eda, genuinely trying to undo her mistake as we find out and as we’ve seen genuinely sees the emperor as the wise and benevlolent god he portrays himself as.. she can’t let it go. SHe can’t see past her own bitterness to see her sister is right and if she could just let this go and work on Eda’s terms instead of forcing Eda into her world, then maybe it wouldn’t of gotten this bad. Maybe she could’ve told her.

Eda takes it about as well as you’d expect, and Lilith.. uses this to threaten luz’s life and force eda to use up her magic to save her, leading to the series most heartbreaking moment and Wendy Mallick’s best acting so far as she bids her appretnince a tearful farewell. Luz RIGHTFULLY and angrily lashes out at lilith calling her a monster while Lilith takes Eda and urges luz to go home... and after a tearful ending with king realizing something’s deeply wrong.

So thus next episode after a history lesson from king and some suprisinging caution as he KNOWS what Luz is up against.. Luz still decides she dosne’t care. Eda’s sacrificed herself, to Luz it’s her fault she’s in this which while KINDA accurate missues some fine points such as her sister’s stubborness or the fact had lilith not shown up she could’ve taken the hat. And the fact LIlith saying the hat was junk was pretty unreliable. What i’m saying is maybe the child shoudln’t blame herself for being kidnapped while genuinely tring to reach the same goal.

But Lilith soon learns to her horror her sister was right. While Belos restores Eda’ss sentience even fully owled.. he has no intrest in helping her, eveyr intrest in publicly petrifying her, and not even the slightest hint of remorse at betraying lilith this deeply. After all her faith in the man.. Belos spat in her face and told her to like it. Meanwhile Luz goes on the warpath, and we see just how far she’s come.. and WHY Belos is probably so restrictive with magic and put it on such a tight leash: we see that with her natural power and just a handful of spells, the four she’s pciked up over the season, she easily curbstomps the conformotrium staff, gets to Eda fairly easily.. and fines sshe can’t free her and eda wants the door destroyed so whatever Belos wants with it, he can’t have it. Luz heads home, ready to destroy the door.. onlyt of ind two things. her magic dosen’t work there.. and Lilith followed her and grabbed king. After a breif fight and Luz angrily and rightously confroting the asshole, wish she was in Eda’s place.. Lilith admits luz’s right and gives her backstory: That her insecurity was so great that on the day before a duel with Eda to determine who got into the emperoror’s coven, she curfsed her own sister, with no idea it’d last this long or get this bad. And with no idea Eda had lost intrest in it and WILLINGLY gave her sister teh spot.. It’s very clear despite her masssive flaws that will need to be adressed.. lilith never stopped caring about her sister, and it took all this to make her realize that trying to fix the mistake on HER terms without including her sister.. instead has almost cost her it. So Luz and King relucntnatly take her help, though the other two are quickly capatured when theyt ry to get to hte exceution platform and thrown in the cage with Eda.. which dosne’t help the coven’s reputation as gus and willow try to make a case for Eda. Meanwhile we get the SECOND best fight of the series as Luz challenges Bellows.. and it’s UTTERLY chillling and while he’s had scenes before this it’s here we get the true scope of who he is ..and that like eda the god complex is something he can back up. Whlie Luz proves just how strong she’s gotten by keeping up with him it’s barely, and it’s clear from the moment go, and one of the series best shots, with Belos creeply materlizing behind her before announcing “sure, i’ll play” that this is a game. She’s no challenge to him and he simply wants to see waht she can do and is mildly impressed if a tad annoyed at her actually damaging his mask. But with Eda, King and Lilith’s lives in the ballance the only way Luz can save htem.. is to give him waht he wants.

Thing is, just like Lilith, just like everyone has, good an dbad all season.... Belos undereesitmated luz.. who left fire runes on the door, willnig to sacrifice ever seeing her mom again if it meant keeping him away from her. While he has no invasion planned whatever it is CANNOT be good. Luz saves them, and Eda flies them off with Belos saying the titan dismissed them. Also that Belos has a big penis.. super huge, size of a tractor that one. Yeah that’s the ticket.

But we get a happyish ending as LIlith does what she should’ve done a long time ago and apologizes, and Eda starts to fogive her, brought on by King earlier standing up to her as whle he’s not happy with her either, he realizes from her story she’s not a bad person.. just a very messed up one who couldn’t own up to her mistakes. One who belivied in the wrong person to fix her problem and finally takes repsonsiblity and part of the curse into her. So with the sequel hook of Eda having lost her internal magic power but still being able to use glyph’s like luz, we also find out the Emperor has the door and a mysterious masked minon,.. who i’m fairly certain isn’t amity only because it’s too obvious. This is simply how you end a season: It’s engaging, heartbreaking, well animated and pays off EVEYRHTING so far while setting up the season to come. It’s going to be a LONG wait till next time, mid-this year.. but I can wait. The high from this one’s going to last a while.

7. Good Damage (Bojack Horseman) “ That means that all the damage I got isn't good damage. It's just damage. I have gotten nothing out of it and all those years I was miserable was for nothing. I could have been happy this whole time and written books about girl detectives and been cheerful and popular and had good parents, is that what you're saying? What was it all for?! “

Bojack Horseman is one of the best shows of the last decade, and an important one to me. it was the first one I watched when we switched to all streaming. I really related to Bojack and his struggles with depresion and self loathing.. which backfired given he’s a much worse person than me and while I could relate, I also compared myself too much to a character who in retrospect is both far worse and has FAR MORE issues than I do and diffrent ones at that outside of the depression and self hatred. The point i’m framing is that the series and I have a complicated relationship and that coupled with how bad 2020 was meant it took until a few days ago to finally finish it, almost a year later. But I cannot deny how good the show is: it has faults, a bit of reptititon in some character arcs, casting a white woman as a Vietnamize-American woman (something both Ralph Paul Waskerberg and Alison Brie have apologized for to their credit), and .. I can’t think of a last one. They never brought Ralph back? Yeah let’s go with that one what the fuck there. So I felt I owed the show one last round and it payed off as the final stretch, while easily the hardest to get through due to covering the collapse of Bojack’s life, is easily one of it’s best.

But before the fall, we get Good Damage, which instead of focusing on BoJack focuses on Diane, said asian woman voiced by a white lady, neurotic writer and Bojack’s best friend, who has moved to Chicago to be with her boyfriend guy, a chill, charasmatic and likeable buffalo cameraman. Things are going better than they ever have: she’s in a supportive relationship and thanks to her antidipresenants, while still her loveably neurotic self, is now not obessing over shit as much and is solving her problems with applomb. Even the weight gain from her meds, which she dreaded in the previous half of the season.. has insteead only made her look healthier and happier, and more beautiful than ever.

The only problem is she can’t write her long promised Memoir, which Princess Carlolyn, her former boss, agent and loveable pink cat and single mother, has promised to a lot of celebrities. She TRIES, she puts lots of work into it, keeps trying to sit there but nothing comes out. And what makes the episode truly great is how this is presented. Bojack is no stranger to beautiful, visually diverse episodes, Stupid Peace of Shit being a notable example and one similar to this one but uniquely great in it’s own way, but this one is easly the bes,t using a squiggly crude style to show just how chaotic and uncomfortable diane is and how stuck she is. She’s TRYING, but she just can’t make her life’s story into anything GOOD, she can’t get the words out which as someone whose had reams of projects I never startd, even to this day and who has genuine trouble writing fiction.... I related to this like all hell. But even people who have never had an intrest in writng can just get the feeling thanks to the wonderful writing and animation, from cameos by the rest of the cast to Diane’s father showing up as a goblin to the word boxes showing what she’s writtne it’s just a treat. But what centers this amazing visual represtnation is Diane’s internal struggles as an encounter with a rude sales person leads her off on a tangent..and to Ivy Tran, a teen detective whose upbeat, optimstic, and in a great bit outlines who she is in jsut the right amount, and solves mysteries in a food court. It’s a genuinely good idea, one I honestly think could support it’s own series... seriously get on that Ralph-Bob. Get on that. Point is it’s good.. but Diane’s so hung up on what she SHOULD be making, she can’t see what’s right in front of her, despite guy saying the passages are good. Things come to a head when Diane makes a huge mistake and goes off her meds.. which from experince never ends well: for the entire episode she’s been under the impression she can’t write because of them.. only to be proven HORRIFYINGLY wrong. It’s a VERY necessary aseop: that your medication will always be with you and that going off it suddenly, or blaming it for writers block not only isn’t true but is DANGEROUS. Diane spirals, cries and her writing gets dark and full of self hate. It’s then Guy proves just how fucking majestic he is: he figures out what’s going on after she tells him, and helps her get to bed so she can rest, puke whatever she needs and they’ll talk about things after she takes her meds again and gets her head on straight, when she’s in a good place to do so. As someone with mental illness.. ti’s nice to see a character who not only supports someone fully, but knows how to handle it. Instead of a shitty third act breakup like many shows would do guy stands by her. He does however step SLIGHTLY over the line, if iwth good intentions and reason and send Princess Carolyn the Ivy Tran pages, because as he puts it he made an executive decision.. and when Diane is a bit annoyed by that as it does sound a tad douchey, he rightly points out she was in a really bad hole of a place, stuck in a loop doign something that even before going off her meds was clearly hurting her and going nowhere, and needed SOMETHING to snap her out of it, and did so not to hurt her or because he thought he knkew better or , like her ex husband, because he was oblvious to her needs; he did it because it was the hard but necessary thing to get her to seee she had something special and that she dosen’t have to constnatly tear herself up by diving into past traumas because of some internal obligation.

Naturally Diane dosen’t take it despite Princess Carolyn not only being impressed but PREFERRING the ivy pages, as she was genuinely unaware Diane had something so happy and charming in her. While Diane is worried about it when the two end up meeting in person, we soon find out why: If all the damage she went through wasn’t “good” damage, things she could writ eabout and use later.. what was it for? Could she of just been happy this whole time? Did she waste her life. And in a rare moment betwen the two PC helps Diane walk it back, explaning that she can do what she always wanted: write something that makes someone like her feel not alone. That she dosen’t HAVE to make her life story into something complicated, just make what makes her and other people happy. Something PC’s daughter could enjoy one day. So Diane finally accepts that maybe there’s something else for her.. and then we get a segue into the next episode with bojack having a panic attack and pasing out but that episode, good as it was didn’t make it so moving on. We also check in with Penny, the daughter of an old friend of bojacks who he nearly slept with and is stil haunted both by the decision and a drunken later visit to apologize... which isn’t helped remotely when max and page, two reporters inovlved in teh subplot that tears bojack’s life apart, start hounding her. While they have good intentions, exposing Bojack’s connection to Sarah Lynn’s death, the two’s methods still come off as creepy, following a, at this point , 21 year old girl whose been through ENOUGH home. While the two aren’t terrible people their actions.. are.. while getting hte story ismprotant is it truly worth genuinely harming this person. And penny wonders if she SHOULD air her story.. she ends up not.. but only because her mother, while lettiner he decide, poitns out it may not be worth all the pressure and possible trauma it digs up,especially since Bojack is getting what he deserved anyway. IT’s a decent subplot tha tties up a loose end but really makes our journalist characters feel like assholes for again, basically stalking and harassing a young woman who didn’t want to rehash the worst moment of her life. Otherwise top notch stuff.

6. Heart (Parts 1 and 2) (She Ra and the Princesses of Power) “Don't you get it? I love you! I always have! So please, just this once... STAY! Stay. “

Now we get to the gays winning.. and to one of the best series finale in recent memory. And given the other two titanic shows ending, one of which we’ll get to’s ending in a moment, last year, it’s a huge compliment. Heart is how you end a space opera... with big wonderful speeches, great payoff, a huge climax.. and a beautiful cathartic kiss paying off the relationship at the heart of the series that ends up saving the universe. So let’s just go ahead and crack open that pinata: The kiss.. was easily one of the best moments of animation this year and, at a time when the quarantine was starting, misery was spreading, and things looked pretty damn bad, having a major animated show, one of the biggest of the last few years, climax with an emotional moment between two women, one the series had been setting up since day 1... it was a huge step foward for gay representation in children’s animation, and warmed my big bi heart. And it’s not just good because of that: the fact it’s a giant pile of representation is wonderous, but it’s because it’s also well baked into the show. This is the conclusion of both their character arcs: Catra finally realizes Adora will not abandon her and her leaving the Horde was not choosing them over her.. it was simply doing the right thing. So instead of running or trying to escape she’s grown enough to fight for what she wants and fight for a future with Adora. Adora meanwhile finally overcomes her martyer complex, her determination, especially after Angela’s death, to make sure no one else is gone and she’s the only one that suffers and looses. To make sure there’s nothing else. It’s Catra’s confesssion that FINALLY gets it through her thick skull that she dosen’t have to be alone or bear anything alone.. she’ll always have someone with her to do that.. and even before Catra.. she’s always had friends for that. She dosen’t have to be alone. So the two embrace and it’s fucking beautiful..and gives adora the full power of the doomsday device they went to shutdown in the first place, restoring the planet.. and allowing her to destroy horde prime’s fucking soul. I just want to reiterate that because it understandably got lost in the shuffle of the gays winning, but our heroine fucking tears out the main villian’s soul.. and it is SO damn satisfying given what a truly repulsive , irredemible, asshat Prime was. So the two finally get a future together, a chance to build and to stop letting the past define them. It’s wide open. But while that alone would probably net it on this list but it’s damn good otherwise, an epic final struggle between our heroes and the horde for the fate of not just their planet but ALL of htem as Prime prepares to finally wipe everything else out in egomanical genocide. There are just.. tons of awesome moments in this one: Bow and Glimmer’s suprising but welcome love confession, Seahawk annoying mermista into fighting her chip, the people of etheria fighting back.. and the reason they do is easily the second best moment of the episode. With the chips down, not literally, and things looking bleak Bow hyjacks Prime’s egoamnacial hologram.. and broadcasts for everyone to fight, to fight back, and to END THIS. After spending most of the series as the one trying to keep his friends together, the glue of everyone.. it’s bow’s heart, courage, and voice, the one that lead his friends through some rough times and severed as reason when they needed it most wether they listned or not.. that frees the world and with Entrapta turns the tide at long last. It’s just a hell of a moment. And the only other moment equaling it is Hordak freeing himself and deciding he is his own man, he made himself tha tway for better and worst and kills prime, at least before adora finsihes the job with the badass “I am HORDAK and I DEFY your will. “ It’s just a wonderful, epic finale that pays off most of the shows major arcs, gives our heroes a MUCH deserved happy ending after spending their lives at war, and let it be said one last time, gave gay representation in children’s cartoon one hell of a win.

5. Nice While it Lasted (Bojack Horseman)

“ No, I need to tell you... thank you... and... it's going to be okay... and... I'm sorry... and... thank you... “

Back to back finales here and honestly both are REALLY close in quality, both satisfyingly paying off their series. But both take equal and opposite routes: Heart is an epic finale in scope size and impact... while Nice While it Lasted is a very stripped down character piece: there are other characters in the background but after the intro the only voiced characters in each segment are Bojack and one of the main cast, each one both showing how much said relationship has evolved since the show began, and giving Bojack time to reflect on his possible future. I say possible because one of Nice While it Lasted’s best aspects it that there’s no real concrete ending for Bojack. Ther’es still closure: after his life emploded and he nearly died, more on that in a bit, Bojack ended up in prison, offically for breaking and entering but unoffically for all the shitty things he did with him glumly accepting it. So one year later he’s out thanks to Princess Carolyn for her wedding, sober again thanks to prison and even started his own acting class at the prison he’s geninley invested in, inteding to continue it once he gets out. But otherwise.. his future’s in flux. HE’s sober for now, but he’s painfully aware that could change again, his friends while, with one excpetion, still having a place for him in their lives, have moved on, and his career is on the upswing again despite being a pariah a year ago because as I mentioned earlier and as PC brilliantly puts it

So he could become a better man, get his career back, make amends for what he did and stay sober.. or backslide and fall down into the same traps he always has. It plays into an aseop the series has always preached: There are no real endings, life just goes on. Even for the rest of the cast hteir lives aren’t over.. their just in a good place.. maybe bojack will, maybe he won’t. Tha’ts up to the indvidual viewer and I like that. While ambgious endings can be frustrating and I get while some preferred the more concrete if still somewhat ambgious ending of a view from halfway down, I feel this fits the series better: Bojack, like the end of every season is moving on to something new, but this time we don’t know what, and that’s okay. IT’s time for us to move on. Well okay not from this entry as each vingette deserves some praise: Our first has Mr. Peanutbutter pick up Bojack from prison, and even get him a new suit.. and then another one offscreen because predictably for his life BOjack got meatball all over it. He also calms our hero down when he wants to go back to jail, letting him know it’s okay and he’ll be there for him.. unless his friend Erica shows up but what are the odds... 1:1. But what’s nice about it is while Bojack still makes jabs, it’s clear he’s gone from truly hating and resenting PB for being the betterversion of him.. to truly seeing the guy as one of his best friends, his jabs having gone from hurtful and bitter to wry and warranted. I mean they were warranted a lot back then too he’s just a lot softer about them.

At the wedding Todd and Bojack finally reach some form of understanding after years of awkwardness, the two having reconclied but not being really remotely close or in each other’s lives hardly anymore after Todd’s understandable blow up at Bojack in “It’s You”. Here Todd has Bojack rush him to the beach to cary him on his shoulders.. to watch fireworks because he could tell he was overhwelmed, the two having found a rhtym again, with, like with mr peanutbutter, Bojacks jabs being a lot friendler and Todd having a respect for his own needs while actually being present for bojack instead of ignorant of how bad things were like he was at the start. He even helps BOjack see even if he DOES replase.. he can get right back on the horse, couldn’t resist that one sue me, and as the hokey pokey says turn himself around.

After, in one of the best payoffs of the series, finally trying Hondedew and finding it’s not so bad, Bojack dances with PC, admittingh e half hoped he’d have to help her go thorugh with it before the two run through the scenario, and PC expresses some honest fears with bojack helping her showing how the two hav egone from a horribly stiffing relationship.. to two close friends who are probably stuck with one another for life. Sunk costs and all that. And if bojack does want to act again she knwos some people. But for now PC finally really has everything she ever wanted:: A daughter, and a loving husband in judah.

Finally we have the most painful of the group because of course the Bojack finale wouldn’t be all sugar and would have to punch us in the gut. Bojack finds Diane again who hasn’t talked to him.. because he called her the night of his near death/sucidide and due to putting the blame on her due to being high out of his mind, made her feel like it was his fault during the 7 hours she could reach no one and thought he was dead. Diane is hurt, feeling betrayed that bojack promsied he’d be fine then possibly left her with the pain of his death on her concious forever. Thankfully she’s doing fine, as she’s now married guy and Ivy Tran is a huge success and probably a series now.. but it’s abudnantly clear her friendship with Bojack is over.. but even this bittersweet, and necessary, seperation, as Diane has moved past LA and Bojack needs to stop relying on her and stand on his own two hooves, still warms the heart as she thanks him and lets him know i’tll be okay, and endugles him in telling her one last story, a rathe rfunny one about prison movie night bfore the series ends on the melancholy and apporriate song mr blue as the two gaze out and they see each other and we see them for the last time.

4 The Wasteland (Infinity Train)

“I'm as good as dead, and if my last act is to bring you with me, sliver, I can't imagine a better way to go!” “Well, I can! “

So from a bittersweet ending to holy shit that’s depressing, we have our only entry from Infnity Train on the list. That’s not to say the series did bad this year. Season 2 was easily the series finest hour, taking the framework from season 1 and crafting a gripping story of a teenage mirror person who just wanted to live without assholes trying to kill her for what she fundementally IS, and be recognized as a person, with the help of a magical deer and a more optimstic teen grappling with his peer pressure issues. The series was still undoubtly silly with a parasite voiced by Bill Corbett, wonderfully so, and again a magical deer named Alan Dracula, long may he reign, it simply deconstructed the nature of the train and thus opened up the floodgates. By giving us a denzin who, after years of being someone’s reflection in both senses of the word, just wanted to live and how that clashed with the train and the racist assholes she met alnong the way, from the ones who wouldnt’ stop trying to kill her.. to humans who considered her as nothing more than a plaything at best and something to get rid of at worst. While Season 3 was not bad, if a bit way too strcuturally messy and trying to do too much at once, Season 2 still handled the same issues but in a much tighter frame storywise. And that’s why only one episode made it: Most of the episodes, espicially the later ones, are pieces of a large whole, with the show being heavily seralized. Which while a great approach intended for streaming, also means it was hard to find a chapter that worked that well on it’s own, steven universe future had similar issues. But I did and the wasteland is easily the darkest, harshest and most intresting episode out of the batch. The episode opens at MT’s darkest hour: The apex told the mirror police where she is, Jesse is gone, and MT is now running for her life from the sadstic assshole and his spinless partner who want her dead just for existing.. gee can’t imagine why a bunch of assholes refusing ot acknolwedge other peoples opinons, rights or even existance was a big topic last year.. or this year.

So while Mace, the main mirror cop, manages to handcuff her MT manages to throw him under the train. THe result is her trying to escape the train by wondering i’ts vast desert, forced to drag Mace along as he taunts her, bleeding out slowly from you know being bisected by a train. It’s a really moody peace as Mace mock’s mt’s dreams of escape and justify’s his own selling out, while MT pokes holes in that: he was so desperate to not nonexist.. he’s willing to kill others who just want the same. IT’s a damn hard watch but fuck if i’ts not compelling.

And the climax is what makes it. MT finds out she can’t leave the bounds of the wasteland, as it only projects so far and after escaping the ghoms ends up back on the train, with Mace, not long fo rthis world trying to kill her.. so we get a 13-14 year old GRINDING HER HORRIFYING ABUSER UNDER A TRAIN WHEEL. Just jesus.. I mean I kind of get HBO Max’s point that MAYBE this is a bit much for kids. I mean i’ve seen other really dark stuff but holy fuck a man died.. and we see his blood splatter. But it’s this horrible, harsh moment that makes the episode.. as is MT”s reaction.. not one of triumph.. but of exaustion and horror at what she’s done, before steadying herself to prove him wrong. A hard one to write about but damn it was good.

3. Enchanting Grom Fright (The Owl House) “Dear Luz, will you go to Grom with me- Amity�� Now we THANKFULLY get to something lighter: the gays winning.. again. Coming out during pride month, phrasing, and only a month after the she ra finale we got this delightful episode. As I said earlier I watched this one first run: while I was super behind, I couldn’t resisit to the point I watched it before that week’s amphibia. I was that curious what was going to happen. See as i’ve given out about quite a lot.. and I mean a LOT, Disney dosen’t have the best track record with gay representation: they don’t do horrible sterotypes or anything.. but they also don’t do much of anything for the most part. Alex Hirsch has outright spoke about how much he had to fight just to get Blubbs and Durland firmly together in the finale, and how the symbols for the love god were widdled down to just male and female. And around the time this episode came Disney was coming out of a REALLY bad batch of pr stunt gay representation: They made a big deal about the first gay x in an x having gay characters in avengers endgame, star wars: Deep Hurting and onward.. but these were cameos AT BEST, with the endgame one being so minor I genuinely didn’t realize the character was talking about dating a man and only found out afterwords. Sure Ducktales had gay dads, which is awesome and always will be.. but none of the major cast was allowed to be openly gay. I mean we know webby and lena are gay but hell if disney would allow that. But miracoulsy.. shockingly and wonderfully.. Disney DID mange to finally just say fuck it and let some big gay rep in, something so obvious it can’t be ignored and that actually features the main character and one of the most major supporting characters. And what do you know, the good press and pats on the back outweighed the bad. It’s almost if giving up homophobic markets in exchange for doing the right thing.. is a GOOD thing while also being profable. Who’d a thunk. Point is via sheer perstiance, Owl House creator Dana Terrance got to not only make her lead bi, which Terrance herself is, but have her love intrest be a girl. And I find it genuinely wonderful that gay, bi, pan and what have you children can watch this and say “tha’ts me and this is okay”. But even minus Owl House saying gay rights.. the episode is just REALLY good and part of it is who it focuses on. Amity easily has the most character devleopment out of the cast going from someone who walls herself off from everyone, revels in her superiority.. to slowly opening up to heroine Luz, realizing Luz is not a bad person and that Amity herself dosen’t have to be, and right before this starting the road to patching things up with her former best friend willow. Allt hrough this said friendship had been prettty, prettyy, prettyyy gay. And that’s wonderful obviously, but part of why I watched this was while I HOPED they’d get to be couple.. I wasn’t convinced since see a fucking bove. But I was happy to realize that oh my god I was wrong, the gays won all along.

So with Amity a better person she’s naturally syampthetic when sh’es put front and center at hexside’s prom equvilent which while having a dance, gromprosals and a disco ball tha’ts also a sentient being, becuase boiling isles, it also has the queen or king forced to fight a horrifying monster that manfiests as your greatest fear. And, as we find out towards the end.. Amity’s is being rejected by Luz, having her love letter, which she fails to deliver due to running into luz.. and co (which is my faviroite gag of the episode and the adorable smiles gus and willow give in response are what make it). And . it makes sense. When you stop and think about it.. Luz is the best thing in her life. She got her to change as a person, genuinely cares about and adores her, just wants to be her friend and thinks the world of her. Given her siblings, while trying to be better, are two disaster bisexuals who just stopped a lifetime of untietonally harsh bullying and her parents are controlling asshats who made her abandon her best friend at a young age and she sees LILITH as a mother figure, just let that sink in given a few entires back.. yeah.. no wonder sh’es utterly terrified of rejection. Poor baby.

Of course WE know Luz wouldn’t. Luz may be many things, including oblvioius to thte freaking obvoius as this story line has revealed, but shes not cruel and even if she said no, which I higlhly doubt she would, she woudln’t be a dick about it. But being surrounded by cruel assholes for some time has made Amity a bit paranoid so Luz volunteers to sub in to both genuinely help her friend.. and to prove to eda she can do this. Eda is also chaperoning. and looks neat in a suit, while King and Gus get a wonderful b plot of mcing the dance with the egotisticl king having issues with stage fright. I will get more into that when I review the episode proper, come back in a month for that. But yeah while Luz does well when the time comes, and while sadly not wearing her otter suit does wear a wonderful tuxedo with a tutu.. she has her own repressed issues to adress as Grom takes the form of her mother, as Luz has been nursing guilt over not telling her the truth about what’s going on. Luz runs, and Amity ends up facing her fear to save her crush and the two get a wonderfully romantic, and desturctive dance together as they face hteir fear, untie as one and kill that motherfucker... well okay i’m not sure grom can die but it’s gone for now. The dance sequence.. is easily one of the best scene’s all year, beauituflly animated and painstakingly planned out, with wonderful music.. it’s just awesome and what takes the episode ove rthe top, with the two perfeclty in synch as they take grom out in less than a minute. Also king become prom king and queen, he is best of both as Luz’s own personal issues put a damper on things. Also someone’s been writing her mom.

Overall just a perfect episoe and a perfectly gay episode of one of the best shows going right now. Speaking of a perfect episode of one of the best shows going right now, tha’ts also on disney.

2. Escape From the Impossibin! (Ducktales) ”We have to keep them safe” “But not like this!” So from some emotinal torment mixed with some lovely shipping, we get a whole buttload of emotional anguish but with a robotic scrooge and the time loop room and the time loop room and the time loop room, and time l...

As I said in part 1, Season 3 is easily Ducktales best so far, having far better pacing, character ballance and bolder and more intresting stories than ever before. While the first two seasons are still excellent, this one has taken everything great and honed it and no episode shows off just how great this season is than this one. This one takes place in the fallout of “Let’s Get Dangerous!”, with the family dealing with finding out FOWL”s not only still alive, but is run by Bradford, head of scrooge’s board of directors former shush agent as we’d find out later, and asshole, who knows all their secrets. And given Scrooge is mildly paranoid on a good day and Beakly is extremley paranoid on her best day, it’s done a number on both as they’ve split the family minus launchpad, who just had a whole episode so fair enough, up: Scrooge has taken Della and Louie, wiht their see all the angels schtick, to test out his new security, while Beakly and Donald are securing the house while Beakly has webby throughly test the boys. Neither side goes well. The bin ends up locking our heroes out due to Scrooge’s password being changed, and forcing them to work past it. Louie rises to the challenge, as does della.. but as they beat a robot versoin of scrooge, because of course the final test would be a robot version of scrooge, Scrooge is instead of triumphant at not being dead, incredibly depressed and furious. Because when told he’s scrooge mcduck he tellingly replies “AND WHAT IF THAT’S NTO ENOUGH’. For once.. Scrooge is SCARED, up against someone who knows his every move and is one step ahead, iti’s how it’s always been, no matter what he’ll do, he’ll always loose and Bradford will always win. I REALLY need to watch spies are forever, point is he’s scared and Bradford PROVING the point by revealing he was behind it and taking over the robot dosen’t help. Our heroes win though in a damn impressive action sequence, but as it turns out.. it was just a distraction.. but we’llg et back to that. The other plot though is whyt his is so high. While the first plot is a fun romp with deep eomtional consequences.. the second plot is decidly far darker.. it still has some good bits as webby terorizes the boys and easily one of the best in the season when she horrifying imitates dewey, but its’ only when she does finally attack she realizes she’s taken it way toof ar. She’s terrorized her brothers, caused huey to break his leg and then turn her away when she tries to help.. all she’s done is turn them AGAINST each other and they can’t win this way. Beakly strongly disagrees and clealry lost in her own paranoia and fear, prepares to attack huey.. and thus Webby steps in... leading to one fo the most heartbreaking and tense fights in the series as grandmother and grandaughter fight one on one but both are outmatched.. but Huey and Dewey, despite everything, refuse not to help their sister and help pull webby up, with Webby panickidly realizing something’s VERY wrong and her granny usually isn’t like this when sparring... and is also chasing them. This leads to the roof, in a rainstorm no less, and Webby relcutnatnly ready to fight even though she clearly knows she both can’t win.. and dosen’t want to anymore. Despite her wilingless to scrap, fight and train.. Webby dosen’t WANT to hurt her granny she just wants to help her. Thankfully, the boys attempt to stop this, while failing horribly, catches donald’s attention as he catches them, ntocies what’s going on and furiously refuses to let this go on. While Beakly tries to ignore it and fight..s he instead slips and despite everything, the rest of the group rescue her, with Webby impressing on her grandmother that they aren’t fowl. They wont’ win acting like them and tearing each other apart.. they need to be the family they are. But if all that wasn’t enough turns out.. yeah, Bradford’s thing was a distraction and with the rest of the group distracted with Beakly, that meant his plan went off without a hitch: all the missing mysteries have been taken by FOWL, in a masterstorke that ties both plots together and brings what seemed like isolated adventures on their own in a tagnetally related plot into the fore. Everything so far has built up to this.. and despite the loss.. the family, having been through a dark night of the soul, is ready to fight back. They want the rest of the mysteries? Their going to have to fight clan mcduck in their elment. And it’s been glorious so far. A tense, well paced, hard hitting episode, this one’s a winner. and almost got #1.. ALMOST. But as much as I tried to not go with the obvious chocie, the one with tons of press and praise and that’s graced tons of best of lists... I had to go with what was honestly the best. So...

1. The View from Halfway Down (BoJack Horseman) “Oh BoJack, there is no other side. This is it. “ This episode was my main reason for catching up with the series and finishing it off once and for all. Awash with praise and hype I was curious about this one.. and my curiosity paid off. This is easily one of if not hte best episodes Bojack put out in it’s storied run: it’s creative, impossible to look away from and devistating: in short it’s the show in a nutshell.. and it’s a hell of a view.

Previously as mentioned before Bojack’s life blew up and he lost just about everything, from his friends, though as the finale bared out only one of them stayed away for good and for good reason, his only family in hollyhock, his house, even horsin around. He had nothing left.. so high on drugs and in his old house he passed out at the end of last episode.. and we wake up here with a recurring dream as Bojack has a dinner party at his mother’s house, another wonderful performance from Wendy Mallick. Everyone there is someone Bojack knew who died: his former best friend he betrayed Herb, Sarah Lynn his former child co start turned washed up 30 something he let die, Courdory, a co star who died trying to get off david caradine style, Crackerjacke, the uncle he never knew who die din the war and his parents, distant mother Beatrice as mentioned and his father, who is in the body of his hero secretariat who comited suiccide in this unvierse due to getting banned from racing, as that’s the kind of weird shit dreams do. Also Zack Braff, who has no real conncetion to bojack but still died during that time Mr Peanutbutters house sunk into the earth and his ex wife Jesscia bIel formed a death cult. The group play a game of best and worst, lay into each ohter and have some really intresting conversations with Bojack confident of when it’ll end: before the show their always mentioing. But this time, it’s diffrent.. Bojack is there for it so we get a trippy and horrifyimng stage show as Bojack watches the various people one by one vo into a black door, allt he while bojack coughts up sludge and is persued by it, unaware where he was before this. Sarah Lynn gives one last song, a reprise of a song from previous in the series, Courdroy does a ribbon dance and zack braff gets on roller skates. And bojack has a frank conversation with his dad, with his dad/secretariat revealing he DID care but was just so filled with loathing he coudlnt’ admit it to his son and thus was an abusive ass.. and then reveals to bojack he’s not waking up and bojack horryfigngly see shimself, drowning ina pool. And while he frantically, heartbreakingly tries to flee... he can’t. There’s no exit for him. As herb tells him, this isn’t the afterlife, this is his brain making sense of his last moments, and ther’es no way of knowing if he’ll get rescued, no way to do anything but watch.. watch as his father secretairat shows suicide in all it’s horror by letting it know he wouldn’t of done it if he knew “the view fro halfway down”, a horrifingly haunting poem that sells just how bad it was. As beatrice and crackerjack also go we’re down to herb who introduces bojack... before going in himself, claming there is no other side. Bojack tries not to go genle and runs, and in a horrfying sequence is surronded by the ooze as he tries his damndest to escape.. but in the end he can’t. As herb said.. he can’t do anything about this. So speaking to his min’ds version of diane he accepts he probbaly won’t be coming back and we hear a monitor as we fade out. While we know it’s not the end now... there’s no way of telling then.

The View from Halfway Down is a haunting, beatuflly animated, masterwork, taking 6 seasons worth of communinity and regret and shoving it in bojack’s face in an intresting way, while bringing back characters we thought we’d never see again for one last go round. It was patcually nice to hear LIn Manuel Miranda and Wendy Mallick again,, and Kristan Schaal is always great. The show ALWAYS had a horrifying habit of having it’s penutlimate episode be an utter gutpunch that broke you, with the finale picking up the peices and offering some hope.. and this was no exception. They literally saved the best for last, and it was worth the wait. The view from halfway down may be gahstly,.. but the view of this episode is hauntingly beautiful.

So that was the list, and it was.. a lot taking 2-3 days to finish all together over both parts. But it was worth it and hopefully we can get back to some regular stuff later today. For now, thank you for reading, and hopefully i’ll see you somewhere in the sunset.

#steven universe future #steven unvierse #the owl house #lumity #catradora #She Ra and the Princesses of Power #bojack horseman #close enough #infnity train #2020 #best of the year #animation #disney #cartoon network #hbo max #netflix #disney channel #lbgtq

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