#we were so happy together i mean as partners at acme | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

redcxackle · 4 years

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REDCRACKLE THEORY TIME:

Alright... so during the Opera in the Outback Caper, I noticed that after Carmen had stood Gray up, there were sightings of at least 5-6 couples around them... mainly around Carmen.

I think the creators placed the couples there to show Carmen and Grays longing to be together and to symbolize how much they wanted to go on the date by having them isolated by themselves while everyone else is with their partner, which makes them feel even more torn because Carmen and Gray can’t have what the couples have. (If you know what I mean)

But during the Crackle Goes Kiwi Caper, the streets and the cafe were empty... I mean there was like one or two people in the background, but not couples.

The place is empty bcuz Carmen and Gray no longer feel that yearning to be together since their wish had been fulfilled and they finally had the date. And in the last two pictures above, we had that long shot where Carmen and Gray were once again isolated from each other... but this time they were smiling and in a better mood, because they finally got to be together

Also I wanted to point out some parallels between season 1 and 2 when Carmen leaves the cafe in the pictures below.

Based on these two pics... I just wanna say that Gray brings a lot of happiness into Carmens life. He cares about her a lot and does whatever he can to make her feel special. And you can tell that whenever Carmens with Gray... she mostly has a smile on her face.

What I’m trying to say, is that Carmen spends her entire life fighting. She deserves a life where she can just settle down and not have everything be about the job. And she has that with Gray.

Sure she still worries about him regaining his memory, but all those scenes where Carmen and Gray were at the cafe and just talking made it seem like Carmen could finally chill. And she did say, “Chilling makes her fidgety.” But you don’t see her fidgeting or worrying about VILE’s next move or ACME trying to capture her like she did in season 1 when she went on that vacation.. instead she was just smiling and having a good time with Graham. And Carmen deserves someone who can make her feel happy like that.

This is probably one of the main reasons I love this ship so much... these two deserve each other♥️

I hope these theories made sense lol... I’m terrible at writing theses kinds of things😅

#red crackle thoughts #redcrackle supremacy #carmen x gray #theories #carmen sandeigo netflix #red crackle

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acmetraitor · 3 years

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the art of evasion

“You two did a lot together,” Hawkins says outside the coliseum in Rome, and that draws Jules out of her reminiscing, draws her away from the memory of Carmen’s victorious smirk when they finally slapped the cuffs on the boss of that smuggling operation. “What happened? I mean, why did she leave ACME?”

“...Maybe I’ll tell you sometime,” Jules manages to reply around the rising lump in her throat. “For now, let’s concentrate on tracking her down.”

It’s easier to dodge the question than to admit she has no idea.

Carmen was always a loose cannon, even back when she worked for ACME.

Once, on a stakeout in the dead of night, she and Jules trailed a suspect to a warehouse where the heads of a trafficking ring were temporarily hiding out. Carmen peeked inside to survey the situation while Jules called the Chief to send backup, but any teams were at least two hours away and the culprits were already in the process of clearing out.

“There’s no time,” Carmen concluded. “We have to catch these guys ourselves, now.”

“We can’t!” Jules hissed in protest. “There’s got to be at least ten of them in there!”

“Fourteen,” Carmen said. “But we have these.” She pulled out two pairs of night-vision goggles from her bag and shoved one into Jules’s hands. Then she dashed for the circuit breaker before Jules could stop her.

Once the lights went out, it was too late to turn back, so Jules went along with her partner’s crazy plan as her heart hammered in her throat the whole way. In the end, with the cover of darkness as their aid, they successfully neutralized all the suspects, but Carmen got a bullet graze wound to her shoulder because one trigger-happy goon got lucky.

After everything was over, Jules punched her in that shoulder. Carmen laughed through the pain.

That’s just who Carmen was. She knew she could do anything, she was an unstoppable force, and nobody could ever hope to rein her in. Not even Jules. So whatever reasons Carmen had for leaving ACME, she made that choice on her own, and everyone who blamed Jules for her partner’s betrayal honestly gave her too much credit.

Nothing Jules did could have made Carmen leave.

(Nothing Jules did could have made Carmen stay.)

Hawkins thinks he can do anything. He almost reminds Jules of Carmen in that sense, except Carmen didn’t think she could do anything, she knew it. And Jules knew it, too. Hawkins, though, is still an impulsive and overconfident rookie, and he doesn’t truly understand what he’s up against.

Jules cautions him in Cape Town, keeps him from breaking down the door because recklessness will only get them in trouble. But then Carmen leaves the scene in her chopper, and Hawkins is livid.

“What were you thinking, Jules?!” he cries. “Did you want her to get away?!”

He doesn’t really mean that, Jules knows, he’s just lashing out because he’s frustrated. But those words still hit her, somewhere deep inside.

So Jules dodges the question. She’s found herself doing that a lot with Hawkins.

What Carmen and Jules had wasn’t a romance.

They agreed on that from their very first kiss—Carmen was just doing what she wanted, and Jules wanted that, too. So they kissed, they fooled around, they made each other feel good, but the relationship was never serious. Sure, Jules was a little in love with Carmen, but loving Carmen also meant accepting that she was the type of person who could never be tied down to anyone.

So Carmen never opened up about herself, and Jules never asked her to. Jules never asked for anything more than what she got. Being Carmen’s partner was enough, and Jules was happy with their life together at ACME.

It never really occurred to her that maybe Carmen wasn’t.

Carmen had been MIA from ACME for a week when she announced the success of her very first heist via a video broadcast to the world. “I have stolen the Crown Jewels,” she proclaimed, and that was definitely Carmen on screen holding Cullinan I in her hand, her smug smile and twinkling eyes framed by a bright red fedora Jules had never seen her wear before. “And this is just the beginning. For I, Carmen Sandiego, am going to become the world’s greatest thief!”

The next morning, the Chief called Jules to her office, asked very seriously if Jules had ever noticed any signs that Carmen had been planning to defect. Jules told the truth: she hadn’t had a clue. Protocol demanded that Jules be taken off all her cases and thoroughly vetted anyway, but for what it was worth, Chief seemed to believe her.

Nobody else did, though.

“Maybe she and Sandiego had a fight,” her coworkers whispered amongst themselves, when they either didn’t know Jules could hear or didn’t care that she could. “There must be something Argent isn’t telling us. I mean, how couldn’t she know? She was her partner.”

Jules vowed to be the one to capture Carmen Sandiego, if only to prove to her peers that it wasn’t her fault. That just because she’d been Carmen’s partner didn’t mean she’d been anything more. She’d certainly never been Carmen’s confidant. Perhaps she’d never even been Carmen’s friend—

Except, Jules remembered: Carmen once took her to the top of the Eiffel Tower on one of their nights off, and kissed her breathless as they watched the Paris lights. Carmen once agreed to try all of Jules’s favorite restaurants in Chengdu, persevering even as her face flushed red because Jules liked her food much spicier than Carmen did. Carmen once went undercover as a musician for a case, and for a moment as she performed on stage, strumming her guitar and singing a love song in her native Brazilian Portuguese, she stared right at Jules’s spot in the audience and for those beautiful three seconds, it felt like the song was just for her.

...Okay, so maybe Jules was more than a little in love with Carmen.

(And maybe the idea of locking Carmen behind bars was just as painful as her coworkers’ censure, if not more.)

“You’re practically burning holes in your journal,” Hawkins tells Jules, during the plane ride to Germany right after retrieving the Mayan calendar. “What are you thinking about?”

Jules looks up from the entries she was reading: the ones from the mission where they retrieved the Mok’o fish gong. “I’m remembering the wolf statue in Quebec, and that Sorbonne poster in Paris.” The proof that Carmen Sandiego donated a lot of money to causes she cared about. “There is some good in Carmen,” Jules murmurs, an echo of what she said back in Mexico.

“There was some good in Carmen Sandiego,” Hawkins says. “I’ll believe that much. But Jules, she’s not your partner anymore. The past is the past. You need to focus on now, on this case.”

“I am focused on this case,” Jules insists. “If...if I can just figure out Carmen’s reasons for doing all this, I can figure out what she’ll do next.”

“Figure out...” Hawkins repeats, and something seems to click into place in his mind. “You don’t actually know why she left ACME, do you?”

Jules might as well admit it to him now. “I really don’t. When it happened, it surprised me as much as anybody.”

She’s half-expecting Hawkins to express disbelief like everyone else: How couldn’t you know? You were Carmen’s partner. But instead, he just cocks his head to the side and asks, “In that case, what makes you so sure she even had a reason?”

“...It’s Carmen,” Jules says, unable to produce a better answer. “There must have been a reason.”

Hawkins doesn’t really seem convinced at all, but he doesn’t push the subject any further.

Jules appreciates that.

Jules knew Carmen better than anyone else did. That didn’t necessarily mean she knew Carmen well, but at the very least, she was positive that Carmen wanted to make the world a better place. Whenever Carmen had talked about conserving the environment, about preserving world cultures, about learning from the past so that we may improve the future, there was real, undeniable passion there.

(If nothing else, Jules certainly knew Carmen’s passion.)

But the Carmen who Jules knew, the Carmen who had wanted nothing more than to do good—how in the world had she become the Carmen who stole, who laughed at the law, who left taunting and sometimes cruel messages behind?

Hello Julia. Still trying to prove yourself?

Maybe you’ve lost your edge, Jules.

You’ll learn, Agent Hawkins, that Julia can get quite frustrated at times. Not to mention opinionated.

The remarks hurt, honestly, but they also just didn’t make sense. Carmen hadn’t cared enough about Jules to stay, obviously, but...she had cared. Jules knew Carmen leaving ACME had never been about her, yet now, Carmen was acting as if she had something personal against Jules all of a sudden.

It’s almost as if, a voice whispered in the back of Jules’s mind, Carmen is trying to make you hate her.

And when Jules thought about it like that, she realized: if the Carmen she knew had, for whatever reason, believed she could somehow better the world by making herself into the villain...

She would have.

One hundred percent, she would have.

“Maybe she masterminded these thefts so the whole world could benefit,” Jules ponders aloud, after Carmen escapes her and Hawkins in the lost city. Even as she says it, she knows there’s no proof. There’s nothing there but her own intuition, and maybe too much hope, and a love for Carmen that will never truly be able to leave her heart.

Hawkins doesn’t believe it. The Chief probably doesn’t either. And even if Jules ever caught up to Carmen, even if Jules ever managed to pin her down long enough to ask if her theory was correct, Carmen would never answer her honestly.

That’s just who Carmen is. And Jules will just have to live with that.

“I still think Carmen Sandiego is a bad apple. Rotten to the core,” Hawkins says, because he and Jules don’t agree on a lot of things and will likely never agree on Carmen. But even so, his can-do attitude as the Chief reports Carmen’s next heist is contagious, invigorating. It honestly makes Jules feel better.

Carmen would never answer Jules honestly. But there is still the possibility that Jules could find out the truth for herself.

So, with the chase back on and her confidence renewed, Jules turns to Shadow and smiles.

#treasures of knowledge #jules argent #shadow hawkins #carmen sandiego #julethief #2001 julethief to be precise cuz buddy i been riding this ''enemies who used to be partners'' ship since i was 8 #but also jules & hawkins being bros because i love their relationship too it's so fun #my writing

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autistic-singer515 · 3 years

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The ending of the Pinky and the Brain quarantine episode before the Julia Surprise ending Redone.

Since I’m already vaccinated, I wanted to redo my previous comic. So here’s my previous fan comic of the opening scene I want in the Animaniacs reboot I’ve redone about everyone having a world lockdown due to the fake piggy flu. It was all set up by Pinky and the Brain to make everyone in the world obey them. But mostly the Brain. He gave people two doses of the piggy flu vaccine to make it 100% effective against the virus.

The side effect? Obeying the Brain at every command!

But Pinky added an antidote into the serum when the Brain wasn’t looking because he thought the first dose of the vaccine wasn’t working. It causes him and the people to break out of the mind control. The people realized that the piggy flu scare was a fake. Nobody got sick when they got outside. Needless to say the people weren’t happy. They thought Pinky put the antidote into the serum by accident and was still angry with him for faking his own death.

Then it would cut to Julia watching over them on her game boy in anger.

Transcript:

In the suburban house, the restless father tried to unlock the front door to see if they could go outside now. But it was still locked because of the Brain’s auto lock in every house. He realized that he and his daughter couldn’t go outside and play yet.

The Father: “Oh, great! It’s still locked!”

The daughter cried out of frustration.

The Daughter: “But I wanna go outside now!”

She tugged her fathers hems of his house coat.

The Daughter: “Daddy! I wanna go outside and play now!”

The father sighed disappointedly as he sat down on the couch.

The Father: “Sorry, sweetheart. I’m afraid we still have to stay inside until the piggy flu pandemic subsides. Professional Doctor Brain says so. And we’re due to a second shot.”

The Daughter stomped her feet angrily.

The Daughter: “But I hate needles!”

The Daughter jumped up and down and grabbed her fathers hair.

The Daughter: “I wanna get out! Daddy! We can’t stay here forever! I wanna get out! This is so dull! I’m bored out of my skull!”

The Father rolled his eyes disapprovingly, knowing he and his wife had to stick with his daughters constant whining until the pandemic is over.

The Father: “Help me.......”

What were they going to do now?

Then suddenly their wide TV screen turned on automatically.

The Brain’s usual stoic face showed up on screen. He wore a tuxedo with a tie and some black shoes.

The Brain: “ This is Doctor Brain speaking!”

The Father, daughter and mother both watched the TV with anticipation.

We’re they allowed to go outside now?

But the Brain looked very serious looking.

The situation must be more serious than ever!

The Brain: “Dear people of the world...... It is with great sadness that my partner Pinkfert has died from the piggy flu today. He fought very valiantly. But alas the flu won. He was a sweet but stupid frie-! Associate! We’ve been working together for over 20 years. We’ve both tried to get, but failed world domination. But now I’ve succeeded! But Pinkfert sadly didn’t. But he told me to move on with my dreams of becoming a doctor.”

But the Brain didn’t tear up for his partner. He remained stoic and brave.

The suburban family got teary eyes seeing the news. Even the daughter.

The Mother: “Poor Pinkfert.....”

The Father: “So sorry for your loss....”

The Daughter: “That’s so sad.....”

The Brain picked up the needle with green liquid in it.

The Brain: “To commemorate my partner..... You will stay home unless you will swear fealty to me. And I will sanitize the world and when you’re all safe to go out again, you will worship me as your leader!! But if you go outside now..... You will end up like Pinkfert. So just wait a little longer. Keep grocery shopping online until I give everyone their second piggy flu shot to block out the virus 100 % guaranteed! And you will all be safe! We must not cry or get scared despite this horrible pandemic! We must be strong! For Pinkfert! Showing weakness will not save us! We must fight!

The family: “Yes Doctor Brain!”

But Pinky who was swirly eyed was lying in the hospital bed with his red curly wig on his head and he wore a green patient scrub. But then his eyes turned back to normal as he heard the Brain talking.

Pinky got teary eyed.

Pinky: “Pinkfert is dead?.... Oh no.....”

The Brain: “Yes!! I am the Brain! Your world’s greatest dictator and hero! I am not sad or afraid! I am proud and mighty!”

Everyone who saw the Brain on tv were impressed by his bravery. They couldn’t wait to get their second shot. They had to be brave for Pinkfert too.

Then later on, they all got their second shot at their own homes. Then their eyes began to swirl as they felt lightheaded. They knew they had to obey Brain now. He is the leader. There is no turning back.

The suburban family got teary eyed for Pinkfert as their eyes swirled as they faced the television screen at the Brain.

The Brain smiled at everything. Including his brainwashed human servants who stood there with their cameras. He knew the mind control serum will grow 100% powerful after the 65% powerful first dose and there would be nothing to get rid of the mind control serum’s effects.

The Brain: “Are you ready to obey me? And save everyone?”

The brainwashed suburban family: Yes! Please save us, Doctor Brain! You are our only hope for humanity! Save us!”

The brainwashed Father was mesmerized by the Brain’s stoic brave face. How he wished he was like him.

The Father: “Wow! That little guy is so brave and strong despite the piggy flu fiasco! I wish I was that strong like him! No weakness in sight! He never whines about stuff! Yes! We must not show weaknesses! We have to serve him and fight for survival!”

The Brain smiled much wider and much more devilishly than normal.

The Brain: “Yes..... At long last.... World domination is finally coming to fruition! The second dose of the 5G serum will make the mind control permanent! Once I inject the mind control serum into their bodies the second round, they won’t be able to resist me! They will forever sing my praises! Nobody can stop me now! Yes! Nobody!”

His human slaves: “Must obey Brain!”

The Brain chuckled maliciously as he turned away from the camera. And then his chuckles turned into a loud evil laugh. He curled his fingers while doing that.

The suburban Father looked at him curiously despite being brainwashed.

The Father: “Ummm.... Doctor Brain? Why are you laughing like an evil mastermind for no reason?”

The Brain stopped laughing and gave him an awkward, confused and shocked look.

Surely they are still brainwashed, right?

So the Brain turned around to face his human slaves on the screen. He had to come up with a lie to keep his slaves from getting too suspicious towards him and to keep his mind control serum working forever.

The Brain: “It’s a.... (Fake coughs)! Just a cough! As I was saying, you will stay home un-!”

Then Pinky popped up at the screen and started crying his eyes out, blocking the Brain out of the way.

Pinky: “BWWWWWAAAAAAA! POOR PINKFERT!!!!!!....... I’ve never got the chance to see him!......”

Pinky blew his nose on his handkerchief.

The Brain tried to get Pinky out of the way by pushing him, but Pinky remained on the screen by crying and pushing back.

The Brain: “Pinky, you idiot! No! Stop! What are you doing?!”

Pinky: “I wish I would’ve met him sooner!.... BWWWWWWAAAAAAAA!!!!!!”

Then people watched Pinky and the Brain with suspicion.

Pinkfert? He’s alive?

It causes the mind control serum to wear out of their systems.

“Wha?”

We’re they lying to them all along?

The Brain watched everyone resisting his mind control. He was beyond confused and angry. He stared at the nervous Pinky.

The Brain: “They resisted?! But how?!”

The people got even more suspicious at the Brain and Pinky as they heard this....

The Brain: “That could mean one thing! Some blithering idiot must’ve added the antidote in the second dose! PINKY!”

Pinky gulped nervously.

People looked around themselves. They didn’t get sick when they were outside and were together. Then they turned to Pinky and the Brain. They grew angry and betrayed. They’ve been lied to. They’ve nearly been robbed of their freedom thanks to the Brain. Pinkfert was Pinky all along.

The Brain noticed this and pushed down Pinky out of the screen. The wig came off of Pinky’s head. The Brain smiled at everyone nervously.

The Brain: “Oh! Um.... (laughs nervously)! You see.... it’s Pinkferts twin brother, Pinky! It’s all a big misunderstanding, everyone!”

Crowd #1: “LAIR!!!! THERE’S NO PIGGY FLU?”

Crowd #2: “Mind control?! Seriously dude?!”

The suburban family growled at the Brain on the screen.

Crowd #3: “You locked us in against our will just so you could control us!”

Crowd #4 “We didn’t get sick! Nobody did!”

Crowd #5: “I should’ve known!”

Crowd #6: Let’s get them!”

Crowd #7: “Yeah!”

The crowd angrily walked towards Pinky and the Brain. Pinky and the Brain shook in fear.

Pinky took a lollipop out of his pocket to try to offer them one.

Pinky: “W...W... Wanna lollipop?....

Pinky and the Brain both gulped nervously. Then they ran for their lives.

The Brain: “Run Pinky!”

They ran and ran and ran in the city and the Warner movie lot. Then they spotted Acme Labs. So they hid behind there when the people weren’t looking. The Brain took off his tuxedo as he watched the oblivious mob run the opposite direction. Then the mob were gone for good.

The Brain and Pinky felt relieved that they’re gone.

The Brain: “Good! They’re gone!”

Then the Brain remembered Pinky screwing up his plans again. His anger grew intense. He turned to Pinky furiously. He bared his teeth. His angry eyes became bloodshot.

Pinky jumped in fright at the sight.

The Brain: “PINKY!!!!! COME HERE!!!!!”

Pinky already took off his scrubs and threw it away nervously. He shook in fear again.

Pinky: “I’m sorry, Brain! I couldn’t help it! You see, I put the antidote into the second dose because the first dose wasn’t working! And losing Pinkfert is so sad that I cried!”

The Brain growled and shook his hands like a maniac. He slowly walked towards Pinky in anger. Pinky yelped in fear.

The Brain jumped and bumped Pinky on the head.

The Brain: “Pinky, you imbecile! You ruined my plan yet again!”

Pinky felt dizzy and injured from the hit.

Pinky: “Sorry, Brain....”

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grahamcarmen · 4 years

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What's your ideal s3?

ideally? i have some vague beats i want the story to touch on but I more or less trust the writing team for any specific path. (kind of a boring answer i know but genuinely i’m happy that i can say that i trust...the writers of all people)

but some things i’d like to see!

PLEASE GET CARMEN SOMEONE WITH MEDICAL KNOWLEDGE OR LIKE A SIDE DOCTOR THE TEAM TRUSTS BECAUSE SEASON 1 ENDED WITH RIB CRUSHING HUG AND S2 HAD HER NEARLY FREEZE TO DEATH AND I NEED MY DAUGHTER TO BE OK!!!

focusing on her mama finding mission is just something that’s been curious to me because?? are they going to make her alive? or are we going to lean into her found family? idk but i’m glad that the show gives carmen a lot of bonds to strengthen and make. i’m just hoping that its neither underplayed to focus on her family when they left us on an empty coffin or overplayed when team carmen is finally coming to some new depths of found family

BUT A RED CRACKLE EPISODE OF COURSE!!!

and more specifically for all the links being thrown at graham to finally come to some sort of fruition and for him to get his memory back. i am just so (SCREAM) about what he’ll decide when he remembers that “OH YEAH I WAS A THIEF FOR A VILLAIN ORGANIZATION WHO MIND MANIPULATED ME AFTER I FAILED TO “TAKE CARE OF” MY FRIEND WHO I AM KINDA THINKING MIGHT MEAN MORE TO ME”

IF IT’S ACME: graham and Julia to meet literally as Julia is about to bounce (side note: Julia should bounce) and ACME is trying to take advantage of graham + interact in general. i’d be so happy for Carmen to get two new allies, allies who by the way she actually pretty fond of, and even more so if they happen to get along. i know i’m kinda vague on it but i think that graham is just a really good character in the way he’s able to show support: how he listens. how he trusts, how he’s accepts when someone is just stronger than him in whatever area, and how he can be verbally uplifting. Julia’s current connections has been just...so lacking in these areas. not just the chief and chase but her new acme partner zari too ( i was so disappointed because i wanted to love her u don’t even know). i’d really like it if her interactions with graham were...refreshing for a change. i’d like it they were friends. (and also if they try to stab me in the heart with graham is bad ending Julia is strong enough to keep him in check)

IF IT’S VILE: GIMME THE ANGST! there was a hint in the opera caper that there might be mind control going into the graham plot if its VILE who decides to use him and i’m just spazzing out at the idea of graham choosing carmen and then being sleeper agent-ed into being VILE anyway like wth. but that wacky fan-fic IMJUSTKIDDING idea aside i think that if VILE is the one to activates his memories again its a good time to reconcile with the things that graham has done while on VILE’s dime (because there is the fact that he was ...of the correct aptitude to be considered a VILE candidate in earnest) while seeing where he’s going to go from there (hopefully away with Carmen to do good deeds instead) and on that note

JULIA AND GRAHAM BACKSTORY! we get hints of Julia being into art and we have graham’s current electrician job but aside from that maybe some more details about their lives outside carmen and VILE drama to flesh them out a bit more. (p.s also maybe player focus??)

;_; i want red crackle to go the beach guys

i want a masquerade episode guuuuuuuuuuuuys

but more importantly i want carmen and graham to keep their bond. they’ve been torn apart, walked apart, drifted apart, and yet they keep coming back like they were meant to be together. i have no illusions of canon romance in this show but i want their bond to end up positive because they are a good team when they get a chance to work together and they genuinely want to be that good team. and me...please...do it for my sanity showrunners

I’m also excited for what the development with Ivy is going to be considering she’s worn the red outfit so much, she’s been shown to be the one to make the tools, and in general to be able to step up as almost a substitute femme rouge should the occasion arise.

development for chase....s2 had some crumbs but ooof he was just cut outta the middle of the season . I know i called him out on how he treats Julia but I don’t want him to stay like that. I want him to grow because i actually do like that man. he just needs to find a healthier way to deal with his insecurities (and for the narrative not to overlook his accomplishments and special skills he brings to the investigation). he’s honestly a fun character and it’d be a shame if the narrative didn’t take advantage layering growth on top of that. honestly when i started the show i thought they were going to have such a solid friendship akin to Juliet and Lassiter from Psych and it was pretty disappointing that their relationship didn’t get a chance to become more than Julia feeling undermined while downplaying Chase’s actual big breaks in the case. instead it kept escalating until in ep 9 we had a really honest conversation which i thought would lead to more honesty and growth in s2 and then adfnsalkn. NOPE! i think they still could be a strong duo since Chase DOES have skills he can teach Julia (like when he let mime bomb go so they could follow him) and Julia’s intelligence does help give Chase’s determination more direction. when its not negative they have strong buddy cop vibes. we just need ...DEVELOPMENT.

i’d also like some zack bonding? of all her friends i feel like zack is the least secure in their friendship. its shown in the {need for speed caper} where she gets mad that he doesn’t understand her as well as ivy does when he mistakes her anger as a genuine hatred for them and he’s the one to immediately consider the offer to leave. we had the whole zack is the duke episode but it was more of a gimmick than actually developing that bond and it makes me really sad. so yeah. let zack be closer friends with carmen.

THE SHADOW-SAN BOND IS AMAZING AND I WOULD LIKE FOR IT TO STAY AMAZING. WITH CARMEN AND EVERYONE ELSE ON TEAM RED

It sounds like a weird point to end with since I started with “please get ma girl a doctor” but i want VILE to have a genuine win. no ifs, ands, or buts. carmen as a show works with her always winning mostly because of the principle of {if its not important if we win or lose then the stakes come from somewhere else} and that somewhere else is her PERSONAL bonds with shadow san, zack and ivy, Julia, ACME, her past, and Graham. and all of those were fantastic and ended great or at least with some potential to end good with the exception of ACME...but i don’t want ACME to win anything. i’m honestly horrendously biased towards VILE faculty showing they’re competent. season 2 was a great season for testing her bonds with team carmen but to keep the testing of the bonds the conflict in s3 wouldn’t work so well /for me anyway/ because it would feel like re-treading ground when instead of “testing” they should instead be deepening. shadow, player, zack, and ivy now have a home with carmen. no need to make their new bond status reset to tenuous. i mean this mostly for her inner team since Julia has that little “carmen thinks i betrayed her” and Graham is a ticking time bomb of potential. looking at s2 tho a huge chunk of it was concentrated on her inner circle members being tested over us actually ever worrying if carmen was going to lose. in fact we got a longer list of VILE members who fail to deal with her which left behind some of our familiar faces like tigress, el topo, and mime bomb. the new faces were nice but they were also less impact in terms of actual menace because...carmen wins. always. so yeah...i want a win for VILE to throw in a new problem to the narrative mix.

...so...yeah XD

#red crackle thoughts #red crackle #ask #sorry to be late and winded about it but i had some thoughts #lol

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vinylexams · 5 years

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INTERVIEW with Brian Cook of SUMAC, Russian Circles, Botch, These Arms are Snakes, and Roy

Brian Cook of the MANY gnarly bands listed above took time to answer a bunch of questions that had been burning a hole in my mind for years earlier today. Did you know that aside from playing bass in some of the heaviest bands currently in existence, Brian is also an avid record collector and he also runs a very similar page where he posts all of his records and writes up a bit of history and personal context with each one? A man after my own heart! I’ve dropped a link to his Tumblr below and you’d be a fool not to go check it out and follow his work there.

https://bubblesandgutz.tumblr.com⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀

I really appreciated having a chance to talk to a very talented musician who also places a LOT of importance on physical medium and the recording process. All too often I get submissions from bands who either don’t know the in’s and out’s of the vinyl format or they took a lot of shortcuts and deprive their art a chance to really shine in the ways that vinyl allows. I picked Brian’s brain about his approach to creation of physical musical media as well as his history as a collector (and even tried to convince him to get These Arms are Snakes play my big gay wedding reception!). Thanks for taking the time to tell your story to us, Brian!

You've been a member of several incredible bands over the past few decades (Botch, Sumac, Russian Circles, These Arms Are Snakes), all of which have released pretty much everything they've recorded on vinyl. How important is the vinyl medium for you as a musician and creator?

Thanks for the kind words. It's really important to me for my music to have some sort of physical format. I realize that mode of thinking might seem sort of old school or outdated, but i've always been enamored by music as a kind of historical artifact. When I was younger, that meant it was important for me to have an actual Dead Kennedys cassette as opposed to a dubbed version from my friend. It was like the difference between owning a painting versus owning a xerox of a painting. When I became a musician, it was a sign of validation. By having a record with my name on it, I had created something that would potentially outlive me. And now in the digital age we've convinced ourselves that everything lives forever on the internet, but it's not true. Myspace just lost all their music. I've written for a lot of online music outlets that have closed shop or simply deleted old posts. Meanwhile, I have a trunk full of old zines that outlived the supposed permanence of blogs. So while the digital age is great for convenience and scope, creating a physical recording is really the more reliable way to make sure something exists for more than five to ten years, or however long it takes for the newest technological fad to become obsolete. Vinyl seems to be the longest lasting format, so it's my preferred medium. But if my music exists on tape or CD, that's fine too.

Do you approach your recording and production processes with specific formats like vinyl in mind? If so, what do you do differently? Absolutely. The main concern is that we're dealing with the time constraints of vinyl. For bands like Russian Circles and SUMAC who have really long songs, it means we have to be careful how we sequence our records because we can easily exceed the 22-minutes-per-side rule. We've also been told by pressing plants that it's better to have long drones in the middle of an album side than at the beginning or end because there tends to be more surface noise at the beginning of a side and more warble at the end, and drones don't do much to mask these imperfections. But while one can complain about the limitations of vinyl, there are also issues with digital formats that can alter the way an album is put together. For example, the digital version of Empros has a longer drone at the end of "Batu" than the LP version, partially because of vinyl's limitations, but also because digital outlets like iTunes don't recognize records with long songs as full albums unless at least one track is longer than ten minutes. So we stretched it out on the digital version so that we'd be compensated appropriately for our work, but condensed it on vinyl so that we didn't compromise the sound quality.

Of all of the albums you've contributed to, which one stands out to you as the one you feel most connected to?

Probably Geneva by Russian Circles, if I had to pick one. We wrote that record over the span of several months at a house in rural Wisconsin. It was one of those ideal scenarios I'd always dreamed of---hunkering down in some isolated retreat and just immersing ourselves in the writing process. I've never walked away from an album feeling as accomplished as I did with that one. It just felt like we'd achieved something that had previously been out of my level of expertise. I think we've made better records since then, but I don't think I've ever felt as successful in making the sounds in my head translate to the recording. With regards to my other bands, I feel that way about Botch's We Are The Romans, These Arms Are Snakes' Easter, Roy's Killed John Train, and SUMAC's What One Becomes. But Geneva will always hold a special place.

How did you get into vinyl collecting and how does it play a part in your life?

I started buying vinyl around '92 because it was cheap. My first LP was Shadowy Men on a Shadowy Planet's Savvy Show Stoppers. I bought it for $2. Then I discovered 7"s, which was the dominant format for hardcore and punk bands at the time. Throughout high school, I mainly bought 7"s because i could buy 3 or 4 a week on my allowance. And let's be honest... most hardcore bands in the '90s had better 7"s than full albums. But vinyl was so dead at the time that you could also go to thrift stores and scoop up the entire Creedence Clearwater Revival discography for the cost of one CD. Even new vinyl was cheaper than their CD counterpart back then. So it's a bit of a drag now considering that vinyl is currently the most expensive format, but I still get a thrill from going to record stores, digging through crates, and coming home with a new LP. I can't say I buy that many 7"s anymore though.

What do you think about the relatively recent resurgence of large-scale vinyl production and collection?

It certainly has its advantages and disadvantages. I buy a lot of reissues just so I can have a clean, good-sounding copy, so I appreciate the resurgence in that regard. At the same time, the vinyl boom has made used record shopping a bit more of a drag. I don't know how many copies of Neil Young's Harvest I saw in used bins throughout the '90s and '00s, and then when I finally decided to buy a copy five years ago, it seemed like they'd all been snagged and the reissue was going for $50. When the Zeppelin discography got reissued a few years back, I mentioned wanting a new copy of Physical Graffiti to my husband. He went to our local indie record store in Brooklyn and asked the owner if they carried it and he totally balked at the question. "Why would we carry a reissue when you can buy a used copy of that in any record store for $5?" he said. My husband was like "every used Zeppelin record you carry is beat to shit and goes for at least $20... what the fuck are you even talking about?"

If you had to pare down your entire collection to no more than three albums, which would you keep?

What's the broader context? Like, are those the only three records I can listen to for the rest of my life? Or is it just a matter of only being allowed to own three records? If it's the former, I'd probably choose Bob Dylan's Blood on the Tracks, Miles Davis' In a Silent Way, and a Can album... either Ege Bamyasi or Soon Over Babaluma. Ask me tomorrow and I'd probably list off a different three. If it's the latter... like, if i'm merely holding onto records because the actual artifact means a lot to me but I can still listen to music in some other capacity, then I'd probably go with the His Hero Is Gone / Union of Uranus split LP, Undertow's At Both Ends, and Sticks & Stones Theme Songs For Nothing, just because those seem like a pain in the ass to replace and they're important records to me. I have records that are worth way more money, but I'm not someone who buys records because they're valuable.

Do you have a "white whale" record you still haven't found?

Not really. For ages I resisted the urge to buy used records online, but I've since relented. The record that finally broke my ordering embargo was Hack's The Rotten World Around Us. They were a band from Adelaide, South Australia in the late '80/ early '90s who sounded like a grungier version of the first couple Swans records. Super heavy and scary. I got turned onto them through a 7" on Alternative Tentacles, but the LP was never available stateside. The first few times I toured Australia i went to every record store I could find in hopes of finding a copy. No one had ever heard of Hack. The singer was in another band called Grong Grong, and members of that band had gone on to be in King Snake Roost, Lubricated Goat, and Tumor Circus (with Jello Biafra on vocals), but no one had heard of them either. In my mind there was this rich underground of Australian noise rock from that time period that was still vital and valid, but the reality is that it was largely ignored and forgotten. I eventually found a copy online and bought it for $20. A year later i found a used copy in Boise. Oh well. I'd love to find Acme's To Reduce The Choir..., or an original copy of Popol Vuh's second album, or the Neu! 7", or the Greenlandic prog band Sume's Sumut album.

Hypothetically how much money would I need to raise to get These Arms Are Snakes to reunite to play my wedding reception? My family will hate it but my partner and I will be very happy, etc.

We still talk about doing some proper "farewell shows" since we bailed on doing them back in 2009/2010. Granted, now they'd be reunion shows, but in our hearts they'd be our proper goodbye. We're putting together a vinyl release of various odds and ends for next year, so maybe that'll give us an excuse to finally book something.

#vinylexams #vinyl #vinyljunkie #onmyturntable #nowspinning #sumac #botch #thesearmsaresnakes #seattle #taas #roy #russiancircles #briancook

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