#this turned into an august defense essay huh

[petrichoraline]

they should have left august have genuine feelings for day imo like we already saw him kinda disappointed it was not a date with mork... the whole kiss thing felt so wrong they did day (and august too tbh) dirty

to start off, thank you for indulging me with a ltts message 🥰 also I hope this isn't too long, i havent had the time to seriously think about this episode so this is my chance 💓

throughout the episode I began wondering if august was a legitimate contender and the thought bothered me for a few reasons: i had been under the impression the plot isn't really about that; that there would be no space to fit in a love triangle of this size if other conflicts were to be explored and resolved. basically that mork and day would have enough on their plate without august in the picture and focusing on those two would only slow down the development of the main couple. I did find the thought of august's intentions being serious intriguing though, a bit frustrating, yes, but also interesting.

now, I had a bit of trouble understanding your point but im guessing you mean we already saw that day was disappointed the party wasn't a date so we're aware of his feelings and they are not aimed at august anymore? so it wouldn't have been an issue if august just continued liking day because day doesn't like him that way anymore, right? because I get that, it wouldn't have been the first time that's happened on screen haha but also that's exactly why I'm not that fond of the idea. day and august having a mutual crush and that going for a few episodes? THAT I find intriguing, an actual relationship trying to figure itself out while it's doomed by the narrative because it isn't the main romance.

but august having actual romantic feelings for day and stepping aside (because the show wants this couple dealt with by the end of the first half, apparently, and it would have cut him off somehow) would be something both sad and also, in my humble opinion, redundant. I've seen it before, it's just a bummer for everyone involved and I don't need it here.

what the plot actually did was very nice, as weird as it sounds. it gave us a character who loves his mate a lot. I do not doubt that august has strong feelings for day. everyone is pissed at him at the moment, day is hurt because there was pity, mork is angry because there was lack of consideration but that boy cares for day, a lot. i suppose there are feelings of guilt, they were on the court together when day lost his vision and then he didn't contact august for over a year. august probably felt some sort if personal responsibility for day's condition or for his behaviour towards him while they were partners, for the fact day felt he couldn't tell him the truth. so there is guilt and there is pity but also there is affection for a friend, for a partner, for the person alongside which you aimed for your dreams. they have a bond (and im sure people have expressed a lot about their sync and dynamic that I haven't picked up on but a bond is undeniable).

august tried to be a better person, a warm one, someone day doesn't recognise. he tried to be everything he wasn't before because thats what he decided day wants and needs. the night at the bar he was already feeling bad about leaving day to hang. on a side note, while the episode was airing i ran to check whether the cast was there that night and if it was on the same arm. it was. august didnt lie and im paranoid lmao anyways

the scene was crushing for mork and us, sure, but it was also very hard for august. he had had an accident, he couldn't contact day and still went as soon as he could after midnight. when he heard the confession he ran which honestly felt like an appropriate reaction - indicating he was there would make day embarrassed and pretending to come in later also wouldn't work because his partner who recently came back into his life with shocking news after ghosting him for a year suddenly confessed he's in love with him. while he's exhausted and hurt. of course the kid needed time to process what the fuck is going on! and he came back the very next morning, ready to make things right.

the issue stems from the fact he had no clue what right is, his underdeveloped brain told him to be a better friend than before but it went too far off in the direction of that thought and landed at "be what he wants you to be to a T" which includes, well, a romantic interest. and that's just not something you can force but alas, earnest, stupid august tried to check off everything on the "make day happy" list.

that boy ran off crying (I would too if mork glared at me like a maddog but still) because he kissed and got kissed by someone he didn't want such contact with ( the reciprocated kiss was A Lot for him) and then realised he'd hurt the person he wanted to satisfy in every way. his words indicate he didn't intend the kiss to be just one, that he wanted to actively change the way he feels about day, that he considered being his boyfriend. I figure he truly realised that was not an option while the kiss was happening hence why the second one had him running away again.

we know august is impulsive and earnest, his intentions were coming from a good place but he couldn't plan to save his life. he acts with his heart and so he was relying on falling for day till the end with no backup plan. it's either that or he knew before the kiss and intended it to be a single gift and I can't tell which is worse. in any case he was aware of the big possibility him and days weren't going to work out so his actions were majorly irresponsible.

the kiss had me screaming NOO literally and then the second one nearly had me gripping my hair, idek what sounds I made from the beginning till the end of that scene but "felt wrong" is something I can understand though it didd feel wrong but maybe not in the way you mean?

i didn't know nor suspect august's intentions and thought process so the kiss felt real to me and though I was against it as an avid morkday shipper, I didn't think that narratively it was bad. day was done dirty a 100% (though he gets mork acting on his feelings finally so..glass half full..?). let's not forget that mork actively supported day's perception of the situation as flirting - not his fault, that's what august was doing after all - but it's something that made the fall that much worse. day was getting hyped up by mork the way he was by gee ABOUT mork before that. he gets affected by his friends' opinions because he relies on them to read the other's body language and intentions. so there is this feeling of helplessness not only because of the pity that guided august's actions but the fact he couldn't assess the situation himself. so yes, for this and many other reasons, day was done dirty by every definition of the phrase.

but as for august and the plot I'm not so sure. august as a character is, to me, much more interesting as this confused and, frankly, unintelligent young man whose heart seems to be in the right place..? but whose actions are totally misguided than if he were, let's say, a good guy finally acting on his crush after years. I suppose he could've stopped before the kiss and told day the truth and maybe day would be a bit disappointed but definitely more forgiving and less heartbroken..

but then how would we see that day can help mork tame his anger with just a touch of the hand? and we needed an act so grotesque that would lead them to have a conversation that makes mork want to scream "I do not pity you, I haven't pitied you for a second, you are so strong and smart and loveable, i love you, how could you ever focus on a nobody like him when you are everything, you deserve so much more, how could you not know that, why did i ever let him near you, i should have never allowed for this to happen, i love you so much god I LOVE EVERYTHING ABOUT YOU" (yes thats what those eyes at the rooftop said, idk what yall heard.)

i believe the charm of this scene and this whole conflict is that no one there is acting out of malice. it's just people doing what they think is right. mork stepping aside was not the right move technically but it fits his character and the plot as well. imo august wasn't done dirty, he was made interesting and also he isn't a bad guy. he did some really harmful shit but by the end of the scene i didn't feel an ounce of malice from him. there could still be love between the two but one that's not based around day walking on eggshells and one that doesn't rely on august to be something he is not. when they arent forced by the outside to be in close proximity and make things work, when they can just tease each other comfortably without taking all of the other's happiness and well-being as their own responsibility, thats when they could have a nice casual friendship with a lot of appreciation for the other. i believe him and day would reconcile at some point in the future when day is ready to forgive and august is ready to stop running.

#this turned into an august defense essay huh #last twilight #ltts #morkday #im sorry if i sound too..whats the word defiant? like i am hardly against your points #i think they are very valid in the sense that we all have dofferent views of our beloved characters and we want different things from shows #truth of the matter is that if the story went the way you envisioned it i probably would still like it! im just satisfied with what we got #i say im tired and then write for like an hour jesus #thank you for this again <33 hope its comprehensible im not checking hahah

[adultswim2021]

Ephemera Week (2002)

I really wonder how effectively I’ll be able to do this in 2003. In 2003, Adult Swim started doing the black and white text bumps, where they give max sass and NO EFFS (fucks), so every week had unique content. I definitely don’t have the resources to catalogue every bumper or even come up with a decent “best of”. Ephemera Corner 2003 may look very different. To quote my good friend Zorak, “Brak, do you ever think about the future?”. To this I say, yes. Yes, Zorak, I do.

BROADCAST ANOMALIES AND SPECIAL NIGHTS!

Adult Swim Action (and other stuff) | February 23, 2002

February 23rd was the first installment of Adult Swim Action. Up to this point, Adult Swim aired a block of mostly comedy capped off with Cowyboy Bebop. This was the first formal separation of Action and Comedy. I remember the bitter rivalry between the two fandoms on various message boards I posted on. It really did seem like a venn diagram with almost no overlap; action fans hated the comedy shows (maybe they liked one or two but hated the rest) and the same went for the comedy fans, except most of the comedy fans I knew were devout anime haters.

At the height of my anime animosity an internet ex-friend of mine started a message board called ANIME SUCKS. It was an experience I’ll always remember fondly. At it’s peak it had over 1000 members. All but about a dozen of those members were actually ANGRY anime fans who just stumbled on the board and were FURIOUS at us for being anti-anime, and we’d just act like obtuse dickheads about it. Like, we’d act stupider than they were and just wind them up.

We developed a few tricks to really set somebody off. For example: they’d write an impassioned defense of anime as an art form, and say something like “it’s not all like Pokemon or Dragonball Z”, to which we’d reply “actually those are the only two animes I like”. This really got them. There was a special thrill to just replying “miyazaki is an idiot” to a guy’s 6-paragraph essay about why anime was “good, actually”, prompting an even longer response. It was really fun! We didn’t have to harass people online, they’d just come to us to get abused. I’ve never seen bait get taken so effortlessly. One day that guy just closed the message board, locked everyone out, and disappeared forever.

That was some aside, huh? Anyway, the arrival of Adult Swim Action meant that Adult Swim stopped airing the Thursday night repeats of Adult Swim Comedy, which was a shame. It Also meant Adult Swim’s Sunday night had an extra hour to fill, which they did with Rocky & Bullwinkle and the Popeye Show. People complained. I didn’t. Vintage animation is just a different take on the “adult” label. Besides, I was used to tuning out by 12AM anyway, so even if I didn’t like those shows (I did!) I wasn’t missing anything, really. But yes, if it were a full hour of Space Ghost repeats I guess that would’ve been better.

The Lewis Lectures | May 19, 2002 - 12:45 AM

A repeat of Lewis Lectures? IT HAPPENED! But what was so different about this broadcast of Lewis Lectures? Well, they accidentally scrambled the SAP audio with the default English audio, causing the Spanish soundtrack to play in tandem with the English one. It was bloody well fucked mate. This is simply no longer England.

I remember becoming an Adult Swim completist and taping this, considering it some kind of void in my collection. Part of me wishes I saved the recording, so I could combine it with the inferior YouTube rip currently up and have a closer-to-pristine copy than the one that’s available. But also, JESUS FUCKING CHRIST THIS IS LEWIS LECTURES WE ARE TALKING ABOUT. How much pain can I inflict on myself?

Harvey Birdman: Attorney at Law Mini-Marathon | September 15, 2002 - 11:00 PM

On this night they aired a little Harvey Birdman marathon of the 4 episodes. This was kinda baffling, as Birdman had 6 episodes to its name and they’d been repeated into the ground by this point. I guess it goes to show that Adult Swim kinda considered Birdman to be their prestige program. I’m hard-pressed to call any one Adult Swim show “smart” in a way that’s apparent on a shallow level. Birdman is set in a courtroom, animated the most competently out of all their other shows, and involved cultural references in a showy way. Like, Space Ghost having Dave Willis absurdly shout “UP THE CHAIN” in the background of a Space Ghost episode is almost just a weird easter egg. But Birdman? Birdman was name-dropping Hanna Barbera characters the same way Frasier would talk about whatever gay shit Frasier talked about.

They aired The Dabba Don, Shaggy Busted, Shoyu Weenie, Very Personal Injury in that order. I would’ve swapped Shaggy and Shoyu and for Bannon Custody Battle and Death by Chocolate, but that’s just me, I guess.

Adult Swim New Years Bash hosted by Carl and Brak | December 31, 2002 - 11:00 PM

Adult Swim officially ended 2002 with this: a night hosted by Carl and Brak in Times Square, watching the ball drop (which was FREAKING MEATWAD!!!!). I remember this night fondly. Unfortunately I can’t find the whole thing, but here’s a single segment I found on vimeo to give you some idea. I think I had it up at one point and Turner very annoyingly had it taken down.

I used to have this massive physical media collection; stuff on VHS and DVD and DVD-R that was meticulously catalogued. I ditched a lot of it in favor of digitizing stuff like this, eternally keeping it on hard drives that I meant to back up but never did. It seems more convenient, but it isn’t. If this were 2003 and I needed to show you this, I would be able to retrieve it from one of my many shelves. I might still have this, but would have no idea where to look for it and it would probably involve me getting in my car and going out to my storage unit and pulling every single box out. I turned it into ones an zeros and stuck it on a nondescript black box that could very well be dead. And now it’s not even on YouTube. Sad? Sure, it’s sad.

PEAK EPHEMERA

(phrase stolen from Grifthorse podcast)

Hey, here are some videos I found on YouTube in case you wanna go down a wormhole of watching old Adult Swim commercial breaks. May the gods of posterity keep them online forever:

February 4, 2002

Spring 2002

June 16, 2002

June 30, 2002

July 27, 2002

August 2002

November 17, 2002

November/December 2002

MAIL BAG:

This ends EPHEMERA WEEK. We’ll do actual episodes soon!

What's the scariest thing you seen on adult swim?

I don’t know if I have a real answer for this. I don’t think I actually get scared by stuff in movies or TV shows. I can’t even come up with a funny answer. Remember the end of that Metalocalypse episode where the little sick girl is dead and her eyes turn into maggots and you hear that screechy voice was like I’M DEAD BECAUSE OF YOU!!! I’ll just go with that even though it made me laugh really hard

Ever watch Limmy's Show

I am content just being vaguely aware of Limmy (no, I never watched his show. Seems good).

Please don't do such a big mailbag. I couldn't believe how many r-words wrote inane bullshit to you. Let keep this blog about the real stars: Master Shake, Space Ghost, Brak, Zorak, Meatwad, Frylock, Debbie, Black Debbie, Carl, Sparks, Stormy, Hesh, Moltar, Harvery Birdman Captain Murphy, Dr. Quinn, Paula, Marco,  Brendon, Jason, Melissa, The Mooninites, the Plutonians, Peanut, Coach Mc Gurk, Mentok the Mindtaker, Virjay, Antoin, Colby, Trotter, Adair WE ARE THE UPRIGHT CITIZENS BRIGADE :)

I can’t believe this IDIOT doesn’t get that by typing such a long message he very IDIOTICALLY contributed to the length of the Maili Bag... LMFAO, what a IDIOT

This is maybe the funniest blog on tumblr. You really think these nasty little cartoons are special, huh?

Hey than-- oh :( Yeah, I guess so :(

would you like master shake if he did the whole thing

I’m sorry what

#adult swim #adultswim2021 #ephemera