#in episode 2 his character intro | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

yourfavoritehouseplant · 5 months

Text

I watched James Somerton's final video, and all I got was this 6 page document

As soon as I learned his final unreleased video was on Revolutionary Girl Utena, I knew I had to hate watch it. I didn't know that I'd spend the following 4 hours making a comprehensive doc on everything I hated about it. But here we are.

The TLDR (is this too long to be a TLDR?)

The intro section, as well as Part 2, are directly plagiarized from wikipedia. The rest is unclear.

He makes a “haha this show is so weird right guys” joke 10 different times

He reads Anthy as so emotionally stunted she literally has to be taught how to think for herself, and believes that being the rose bride makes her feel good

He says that his reading is ‘vastly different” from the rest of the community, before boldly stating that this is because he sees it as a “deeply allegorical and symbolic story”

He sees the sexual abuse as “not to be taken literally”

Insists that the show be separated into parts that are strictly literal and strictly allegorical for the entirety of parts 3 and 4, before making the contradictory move of analyzing characters as allegories during part 5

The only characters that get dedicated sections are Akio and Dios, who he doesn’t believe are the same person.

He says Dios gets his powers by “deflowering women”

He calls Akio, known child predator, a chaotic bisexual

Uses 14 year old SA survivor Anthy’s passive personality to make a joke about her being a bottom

His final point is that Utena was the real prince all along

There are no citations

Anyway, full version for people who hate themselves under the cut. With time codes, because I cite my sources.

Part 1: Intro

This entire section is almost exclusively quoted from the Wikipedia article for Revolutionary Girl Utena. Words have been changed, but the order at which certain topics come up is not. Highlights include:

0:56 In his introduction of Be-Papas, lists the founding members in literally the exact same order as Wikipedia.

1:40-2:00 His list of Be-Papas previous works is lifted entirely from wikipedia, only with the words changed. This leads to a strange moment at 1:52 where he claims Be-papas ‘lent their talents to’ Neon Genesis Evangelion, a show which started production at least a year before Be-papas was founded. On the wikipedia article for Utena, this is instead referring to the previous work of Shinya Hasegawa and Yōji Enokido

4:23 he uses a quote by Yūichirō Oguro describing the production as a “tug of war”. He seems to have lifted this in its entirety from Wikipedia, as he does not cite the actual source it is from (the box set companion book, btw)

As for James Somerton originals, at 0:44 he claims that out of all magical girl series,”none to my knowledge have been more discussed and dissected than the 1997 series Revolutionary Girl Utena” He will go back on this at 5:05, where he states that “Sailor Moon takes the lion’s share of discussion” in regard to influential magical girl anime

Part 2: Part 1

(At least I know I’m not funny, unlike James Somerton)

Speaking of which. Here is every single time he makes a “wow this show is sooooo weird you guys” joke: 6:00, 8:50, 10:40, 10:58, 13:46, 17:07, 24:16, 30:34, 41:19, 48:01

Here’s every time the punchline to the joke is the existence of Nanami, a character who he otherwise completely disregards: 10:56, 12:05, 16:22, 42:40

6:16 Claims that the “Apocalypse saga” and “Akio Ohtori saga’ are two names for the same several episodes, depending on the release. This is untrue. Instead, different releases either only have the Apocalypse saga, or split the episodes into an Akio Ohtori saga and then the Apocalypse saga.

7:58 Claims Utena intervening on Anthy’s behalf begins the first duel. While this happens in the movie, Touga intervenes in the scene he uses clips from (like literally right after the shot he uses in the video). Utena only gets drawn into the duels when Wakaba’s love note to Saionji is posted. Youtuber Noralities’ Utena video also gets this wrong, which makes me wonder if this was copied.

9:09 Claims Akio’s “End of the World” moniker is actually more closely translated to “Apocalypse”. In reality, the translation moves away from a more apocalyptic reading, with 世界の果て (Sekai no hate) apparently translating closer to “the furthest reach of a known world” or “edge of the world”. (Love the implications of this translation, but I digress)

9:10 As can be assumed from the previous point, this means I can’t find any sources that point to them not using the title “apocalypse” for religious reasons

10:10 Uses Anthy’s extreme passivity under her Rose bride persona to make a top/bottom joke. I’m gonna repeat this in case you’re just skimming. He uses a trait that likely stems from years of abuse, (possibly exaggerated by the persona Anthy uses to manipulate people), and uses it to call her a bottom.

He also just doesn’t seem to understand how the whole point of Utena constantly telling Anthy that she's just a normal girl who should make more friends is framed as Utena imposing her will on Anthy, just as much as the previous Engaged have done.

11:54 Apologies in advance for my most “um, actually!” point yet, but technically his statement that Anthy stops being host to the Sword of Dios is wrong. Akio literally pulls a sword out of her chest in the final duel. It's a more evil-looking sword of Dios, granted.

13:02 !!! CANTARELLA SCENE ALERT !!! He interprets it as them fighting over Akio?? Which like. I will allow people to have their own interpretations of vague and symbolic scenes. I will. I swear. This is not technically incorrect. It just makes me want to eat my own intestines.

14:44 Bad Anthy take #1: He states Anthy “is emotionally stunted to the point where she needs people to make decisions for her because she does not know how to think for herself” This ignores several moments of Anthy clearly making her own choices throughout the show, including the suicide attempt Somerton mentions about a minute prior. This also strips Anthy of what little agency she has throughout the story, usually exerted through messing with Utena or Nanami. (The fact that she repeatedly makes choices that contribute to her own abuse is, in my opinion, one of the most interesting parts of her character, and it's a shame that Summerton’s ‘reading’ of the story completely disregards that)

Additionally, he once again reads Utena ‘urging Anthy to think for herself” in the first arc as an unambiguously good move, and not as something critiqued in the show.

14:52 Summerton reads the Swords of hatred as symbolizing men’s hatred specifically. Again, I’m trying not to completely disregard differing interpretations to a show like Utena, but this feels very simplistic, especially considering the harm we see aimed towards Anthy by other women

16:42 Here he claims that his reading of the story seems to be “vastly different” from the bulk of Utena discourse. What is this reading? That the show shouldn’t be read literally. Or, in his words, “[we can interpret] Revolutionary Girl Utena as a deeply allegorical and symbolic story about the struggles of coming of age amidst widespread institutional corruption in a high school and which describes a passive culture of inaction in regard to brazen instances of domestic exploitation in which there is not only a question about the caporeality of the events transpiring but also which events can be taken for granted and which events are meant to signify abstract sociological institutions.” The idea that he believes this is in any way a new reading of the material honestly baffles me.

Part 3: Part 2

17:48 through 18:50 differently quotes the Wikipedia article for postmodernism. He even makes a joke at 17:55 about Wikipedia. Please kill me.

The first three themes he lists at 19:11 are just the three main themes listed on the Revolutionary Girl Utena Wikipedia page. What was that about a “vastly different” reading, James?

You’re gonna have to take my word for it, but this section is so short because it's just him talking about the various ways the story can’t be taken literally. He does, ironically, call this a hot take.

Part 4: Part 3

Here’s where the reading falls apart folks

At 23:15, he states that some things in Utena are allegorically coded, while others are to be taken literally. This is true. However, he seems to take this to mean that some parts of the show are Strictly Literal, while others are Strictly Allegorical for things going on in the Literal World.

This is apparently why he prefers the Anime to the Movie, where there basically is no separation between the Literal and Allegorical

This take is bizarre to me for several reasons, but here is my favorite. At several points, he mentions how Revolutionary Girl Utena is a work of Magical Realism. Magical Realism is literally defined by its blending of the “literal” and “allegorical”, the mix of fantastical elements in a mundane, realistic setting. This idea of the impossibility of a blurred line, that Utena must either have lore where the magic is all real and means nothing, or dedicated allegory segments quarantined from the rest of the story, is contrary to the very idea of Magical Realism.

I can’t help but wonder if Somerton took his mentions of Magical realism from a previous work, due to how little it is consistent with his final argument. Either way, this section suggests a great lack of creativity in his analysis, a shame for such a creative work.

24:36: Shiori slander, for those who care

After this he gets really worked up about people assuming symbolism in everything, even when the author ‘doesn’t make it clear something is symbolic’. He shuts down a reading of a shot in the Lord of the Rings. Miley Cyrus is there? Very The Curtains Were Blue of him.

28:22 Claims that Wakaba is the key to telling where the Strictly Literal segments end and the Strictly Allegorical segments begin. He states that, under this lens, deeply personal moments of character suffering such as all of the sexual abuse and Anthy’s suicide attempt (which he literally cites) should be read as symbolic and be “approached with uncertainty rather than confusion”. (28:24-29:13)

This also somewhat falls apart when you consider Wakaba is the jeep in the movie's car chase

And then he rants about people not liking his Attack on Titan video for a bit. Since its potential symbolism also doesn't follow hard enough rules to be symbolism. Once again, the separation of “fact vs allegory” I haven’t watched AOT, so that's all I’ll say.

Part 5: Part 4

Thank god this part is short. Much like Dios’ on-screen presence.

32:55 Makes the extremely bold claim that Dios is not Akio. As in, never even became Akio. because Dios is Strictly Allegorical.

Just to be a pedant, this is pretty explicitly disproven in the show

Confusingly, both earlier and later he will address these two as the same character.

33:04 he also explains the root of Akio’s name in a tone that suggests this is supplemental information and not like. Literally something he explains out loud in the show?

Part 6: Part 5

This section is nearly entirely about Akio Ohtori. I would like to note that him and Dios are the only characters with dedicated segments.

38:30 The part where he states that Dios gets his powers from deflowering women.

38:46 Claims, once again, that Akio’s abuse of Anthy “may not be literal”.

38:59 “the instance of exploitation here is used because assault has deep roots as indicating that akio's gender is the source of his imbalance” THE ASSAULT IS ABOUT AKIO NOW???

39:45 Bad Anthy take #2: “Anthy’s conformity to the Rose bride is based around the fact that she feels good being subservient because this is the only thing in her life that has ever brought her any kind of positive reward”. This is a direct quote. Anyway, I can’t think of any instances in the show where Anthy’s subservience gives her a positive reward, except maybe when she’s intentionally using it to manipulate others. As for her feeling good being the rose bride. She tries to commit suicide. Dude.

Side tangent, but isn’t this exactly what Akio says during the final 2 episodes? That Anthy enjoys being a witch? Is the main villain, who consistently says things during that very episode that are blatantly false, our source of information for this take? I guess so, since this is the dedicated Akio section.

At 40:20 he decides to introduce the concept of Anthy, Akio, and Utena as stand-ins for wider concepts, which is antithetical to his approach in analysis beforehand

Part 7: Part 6

42:40 he finally acknowledges that he’s been spending too much time talking about Akio, and literally no time on characters like Nanami

46:10 states that Utena’s exclusive motivation “is to protect Anthy from the predatorial intentions of the other dualists”, which disregards the fact, which she states herself, that she was largely participating in the duels and protecting Anthy to feel like a prince

48:04 The part where he says that Akio has ‘chaotic Bi vibes’ in regards to him sleeping with Touga, who is 17 and implied to be a long-term victim

Part 8: Part 7

54:01: His concluding point is that Utena was the real prince all along.

In true Somerton fashion, the video then ends over a scrolling wall of patrons, with not a single citation in sight.

#the autism won again you guys #revolutionary girl utena #james somerton #shoujo kakumei utena #utena #anthy #hbomberguy

2K notes · View notes

eriexplosion · 2 months

Text

Tech Lives: An Ungodly Long Essay

(AKA: Turns out that my Tech Lives compilation post comment was actually a threat.)

There have been hundreds if not thousands of posts since Plan 99 aired wondering if Tech might have made it after his fall - it's probably been brought up more than any other hanging plot point, even after season 2 scooped up Omega and left us on a massive cliffhanger. Now that season 3 has started, though, Omega and Crosshair are home (for now) but we have received an almost aggressive lack of Tech info. So, I've gathered up some of the stronger Evidence for why Tech might be fashionably late but still on his way back from The Void!

THE LEAD UP

So to start, let's go back to what came before the whole Incident. This will focus mostly on season 2, seeing as that was definitely Tech's season to shine, but with bits about plotlines in season 1. Which brings us to our first bit, that's not really evidence so much as some gentle push-back on a common argument.

Doomed By Character Development?

We've all seen this particular situation before - a character is slated for a tragic death, so just before it happens the writers gives them a little extra relevance to the plot to make sure the audience really feels it when the time comes. The Clone Wars was especially good at this, giving characters like Fives an arc of his own that ended in his tragic death. Season 7 gave us a better look at Jesse, first in the Bad Batch's intro arc and then again through the Siege of Mandalore, all to bring us to the chip activation that led to his ultimate death.

When season 2 started off with one of the two intro episodes spotlighting Tech and our first breather episode of the season also spotlighting him, people started to get worried. So is it fair to say that his spotlight in season 2 was setting him up for a permadeath?

Looking at it, I don't think so, for multiple reasons. For one, Tech didn't just get a spotlight episode, his development dominated a good chunk of the whole damned season, often taking priority over the other characters that wouldn't be dropped into the mists. While giving a little bit of character development to a doomed character can be a good move, giving ALL your development to a doomed character ends up feeling like a good portion of your season was actively pointless.

The Bad Batch is not an open ended show. It seems to have been planned for the three seasons it got, and they would have gone into it knowing they had a set amount of time to work with. Dedicating so much time to developing Tech in preparation for a character death takes away all of their opportunity to develop, well, anything else.

But, along with the amount of time that was dedicated to Tech as a character through season 2, they also didn't develop him in the ways that most often get used for a doomed character. Namely...

That Sure Is A Lot Of Open Plot Lines

And not one of them got tied up. Currently, Tech has two open plot lines to himself, both started in season 2, as well as a key place in the overall show narrative arc. As the overall show narrative arc takes precedence, we'll start with that.

The Bad Batch sets up a few different narrative arcs very early. One is if clones can be more than soldiers - this is the central thing that we see them struggling against from the start, they've been created to be soldiers and don't know much else about how to function in the world. Theoretically this arc can be fulfilled with one or two of them still dying as soldiers, as long as a few of them make it to find a new life for themselves.

The arc that can't be fulfilled without everyone though is the ongoing thread of reuniting the batch. Much of the show is geared towards making the viewer want this specific end result, as soon as they talk about Crosshair, Omega says they'll just have to get him back and complete their family. The end of season 1 teases us with this only to pull it away at the last moment, then season 2 teases us with it again only to yet again pull it away, this time seemingly permanently.

Ending one of your key narrative threads you've been using to draw audiences in only 2/3rds of the way into the show and without ever resolving it... well it would be a choice. If Tech is gone for good then the last time we saw everyone together would be the end of season 1. Rewatches would lack impact because something that was made to seem so vital ended up going nowhere, and the series finale would never quite reach the height that hearing the full batch theme kick in over the team fighting droids together did. It absolutely destroys the central narrative to leave him gone without ever having reunited the family.

And then there's his personal plots.

Let's start with the obvious one. Tech got a whole potential love interest this season and they absolutely did not resolve a damn thing about it.

Again, this takes a trope that we all know - the young army man that's going to go home and finally marry his girl, who has his whole life ahead of him, but dies tragically in his final mission - and seemingly intentionally subverts the beats. Because what makes the trope work is that the plot line is resolved as soon as that young man decides how he's going to move forward. He can't die uncertain of if he's going to marry his girl, he has to make a decision, and the longer we spend on the relationship to his girl the stronger the decision has to be to consider the narrative line resolved and free him up for some tragedy.

Tech/Phee is a tentative little 'will they or won't they' romance. They're flirting, they're feeling each other out, they're seeing if they're compatible. To tie up this narrative line we would have to find out if they are or not, get a yes or a no on the question. Will they or won't they? We simply don't know because the writers didn't put a resolution in.

We do get the traditional pre-mission scene with them, which would normally be when we get the first kiss or perhaps the promise of a date, either of which would have had me digging Tech's grave for him to fall into from the second it happened. Or even a 'we can't do this right now, but maybe some day it will be the right time' which would have been a kind of lukewarm resolution but would have at least represented a decision.

Instead we get a scene that almost aggressively refuses to resolve anything. They have an awkward interaction, but not one that says they won't get together, no promises are made for the future, no decision point is reached, and the plot line is still dangling wide open when Tech falls to his supposed death. If we truly leave it off here, well, what was the Tech/Phee subplot for? Why did we spend precious time on it when it could have been spent on something else, if it was meant to make Tech's death hit harder why did it not go further?

A second subplot with Tech is that he certainly made the most progress on seeing options outside of the Empire - it starts early on in Ruins of War when he meets Romar and gets his eyes opened to the idea of cultures that existed unconnected to the war. Serenno existed before the war and before the separatists, and Romar introduces Tech to that idea of an ongoing culture. He gets a taste of racing in front of a cheering crowd, leans further into his teaching of Omega and gets new insights from her regarding their lives as soldiers, his relationship with Phee picks up right when he finds out that she is interested in the preservation of cultures. It's a quiet little subplot, but Tech was seeing the full scope of what the galaxy contained beyond being a soldier in a war.

But, like the Tech/Phee, it never resolves. He never decides to settle down, he never chooses to stop being a soldier or even openly discusses the idea of what life will look like after. Rescuing Crosshair isn't positioned as a final mission that they have to complete in order to give up their lives as soldiers. Without that decision point being reached, the plot stays open, we never find out what he Would Have Done so we don't get a sense of the future that he would lose by dying, which is what the purpose of these types of plots is for a planned permadeath.

The Kaminoans don't create without purpose and writers working on a three season timeline don't typically write without it either. So if we spent the time on Tech/Phee but Tech is dead before it ever went anywhere, if we spent time on Tech's relationship with being something other than a soldier but he never really pursues it, what is the payoff?

Too Much of a Survivor To Die?

There's also the matter of how they chose to build Tech's character this season. Namely they beefed that man's skills up incredibly high making it intensely unbelievable that he's dead without seeing some sort of concrete proof. Things we know about Tech as of the end of season 2 include:

Incredible pain tolerance - Tech fractures his femur in Ruins of War and seems shockingly unbothered by it. The femur is frequently listed as one of the most painful bones to break. This is not a broken toe the man is hobbling around on, he fractured the strongest bone in the body and kept going through the woods. He physically fought and killed a man with that busted femur.

Lightning fast mental processing - this is of course on display nowhere so much as Faster where he's put up against droids and wins by taking calculated risks that no one else is willing to try.

A cool head in stressful circumstances - this one is hilarious because he outright says it, but Tech does demonstrate time and time again that when it comes down to it, he's able to keep calm no matter the circumstances.

Essentially, we spend the entirety of season 2 setting up why Tech is the perfect person to drop out of the sky and have him survive. He has the ability to keep calm and come up with a plan in seconds and he has the grit to keep moving even if he's grievously injured once he hits the ground. When you set a character up like this, you can still kill them, but you have to work harder to do it convincingly. Leaving Tech not at the moment of death but with probably at least a minute to act in and then not showing us the body is the exact opposite.

We have a moment in The Crossing showing us Tech's precise aim, and it comes up again to brutal effect when he shoots out the connection on the rail car. If moments through the season were used to set up that particular instant of the finale, then we can't discount the numerous scenes demonstrating his survival skills as being irrelevant to his chances.

Plus, looking back at Ruins of War - one of the big moments in the episode is towards the end, where Romar tells Tech, "I'm a survivor. Remember?" The camera then lingers on Tech for a long moment. It's not the kind of action that demonstrates his capabilities as above, but it works to associate the words with Tech in the viewers mind. Romar is a survivor, and Tech is a survivor too. And when you intend to kill someone off, it's kind of an odd choice to spend that whole season setting them up as a survivor.

THE FALL

Which brings us to the scene itself. Plan 99, implied to be one of the last ditch plans that they have. It's absolutely a heartbreaking scene, and one that can be tough to analyze when it's so well done, because it's rough to watch repeatedly. But, it's worth doing, because the scene itself is FULL of questions, some structural others more based in the visual presentation.

What is Plan 99?

Well, that's just it, we don't actually know.

We know what it's implied to be, a self sacrifice plan where one of the batch gives their life for the others to get away. But in show it's never actually defined, leaving the full meaning of Plan 99 up to interpretation. It could be as simple as what it's implied to be, but that brings up questions like 'why not provide any lead up or foreshadowing for it?' and 'does killing yourself actually count as a plan?'

Removing the assumptions from it gives us room to speculate. Is the plan actually that they leave him behind, dead or alive? Hunter ordered them to do so without a plan number in season 1, but he is the sergeant, so plan 99 could easily be something that bypasses his authority - if a batcher calls a plan 99, you go and you don't question his decision. It's certainly closer to a plan if there's something they are supposed to be doing from their end rather than just an announcement of intent.

It's not strictly evidence one way or another, but it is something of note when Tech's entire sacrifice is based around a plan that we're not privy to the details of. TBB has hidden its twists in ambiguity before, so it would not be the first time that it let us assume something only to pull the rug out later. But ambiguity is not the only thing that makes this scene stand out in the raising questions department.

Pacing Goes Out The Window

Generally speaking, a self sacrifice is the climax of an episode. Think Kanan, Hardcase, Gregor, Hevy, etc - Even a minor character sacrificing their life tends to make up the most climactic portion of any given episode, let alone one of the characters from the title squad. It gets to be the big central moment, the big rush of music and feeling, the pinnacle of the viewers attention.

Tech's sacrifice is not. It happens around 5 minutes into the episode, is rapidly moved past with barely a moment to think, and then the actual climax is Omega's capture on Ord Mantell. They even repeat the music when Omega is captured, except much stronger this time, making it clear that this is the emotional crux of the episode, this is the scene that is supposed to stick with you.

The opportunity to make it the climax of an episode was certainly there. The storyline could have been adjusted to put Tech's fall at the end of The Summit, allowing more time in Plan 99 for processing his loss and making it feel final. The pacing choice is one that doesn't allow the viewer to process the loss, only giving us maybe a couple minutes of time with actual emotional reactions before we're barreling off to the next plot point. Why was Tech's death de-emphasized within the episode if it is indeed our last moment with this central character?

Tarkin, Eriadu, & Saw Gerrera

A lot goes into the set-up for Plan 99. We have Tarkin's base on Eriadu as the setting they're working within, going up against Tarkin for the first time since early season 1. This is the big leagues, and something that's come up in multiple interviews is that when going into the den of one of the franchise's big bads we have to have consequences, something to demonstrate that Tarkin is not to be trifled with.

Sounds reasonable enough. Except Tarkin doesn't actually do anything in either of these episodes. The thing that actually threw them off was Saw's planning mixing in with their own.

All Tarkin does upon finding out that the batch is stuck on the rail is order an air strike and ignore that this would kill many of his own men. This is certainly evil, but it's standard Imperial evil. Rampart would have given that order. Hemlock would have given that order. The guy in Tipping Point that we know for 5 minutes before he fried himself would have given that order.

So if the point of this finale was to demonstrate Tarkin's power, then bringing Saw in both complicates the plot and devalues what they're claiming they are trying to show. So is the point to get them to Tantiss? No, because they fail in that. They don't plant the tracker, they're no closer to finding Crosshair than they were before.

By all accounts the point of the whole endeavor is in fact just to drop Tech off a sky rail for reasons unknown and injure Omega to force them to go back to Ord Mantell. These two things could have happened anywhere in any way of course, so why choose Eriadu and why choose to complicate the plot by introducing Saw rather than letting Tarkin handle the job?

They're questions we don't have answers to yet, but they're very hard to get answers to if Tech is dead and completely out of the picture. Having a dead body on Eriadu is fairly useless to the plot, having a living Tech on Eriadu though? That has potential to move them huge leaps forward in a very short amount of time once we bring him back in. Especially given his conversation with Saw prior to everything going downhill - Tech was in favor of gathering intel from the facility rather than destroying it.

And what about Saw, anyway? If he was genuinely there to cause problems and fly away, again, that's a plot wrinkle that isn't needed and took time away from everything else. If he's there because they needed someone to pick Tech up though? There's potential there.

Did Tech's Sacrifice Mean Anything?

In universe, Tech's sacrifice means everything, of course. It's a decision made in the moment to risk everything to save his family. It's a noble deed and one he does without hesitation. But pulling away from that narrow scope of an in universe perspective, what did we accomplish narratively with his fall?

Well... not much actually! They got over the bump in the road that they encountered all of five seconds ago and promptly crashed headfirst into another, different bump in the road. Tech's dramatic sacrifice didn't allow them to escape unharmed, it didn't allow them to find Crosshair, it just allowed them to move a few steps forward, after which Omega is almost killed and then captured, which is a fairly weak reason to sacrifice a whole major character.

But not every character death is exclusively about narrative, sometimes it's about the character arc itself. So does this close out anything for Tech's character development? Again, not really. Tech has always been completely loyal to the squad and would have risked anything for his family. He never had a choice not to fall, it was either just him or the whole team, and he is an endlessly logical actor. The action would have played out the same had it happened in the series premier or the season 1 finale, or any other time in the show. If anything it's a backtrack on his character by putting him solidly back into the soldier box that the show is trying to let the clones grow out of.

Maybe it's not about Tech's character though, maybe it's about everyone else's! Does his death change anyone's trajectory? Again... no, not really. We'll get into season 3's lack of mentioning Tech later, but in the immediate aftermath of his fall, no one's course or actions is majorly changed because of his loss. Hunter wants to go back to Pabu where it's safe, the same thing he wanted to do before they ever left for this mission. Omega puts herself in danger to save her brothers, which has been one of her defining traits since season one. Wrecker is following Hunter's lead, same as he always did. (We get very little of what Echo hopes to do, but the opening of season 3 reveals that they went back to work with Rex, exactly like they were doing before.)

So narratively nothing required him to die, the character's arc isn't completed, and the other characters aren't motivated to change. If Tech dies here, it's the picture of a shock value death. It doesn't complete or inform his character, it doesn't need to narratively happen in order to put Omega on the path to being captured, and thematically it exists just to give the viewer an unnecessary gut-punch when just the failure to rescue Crosshair and the loss of Omega would have been enough.

Framing is Everything

In a death scene there's nothing more powerful than our final shot of a character. The very last we'll ever see of them, the image that will linger in our minds when we think of that character from then on. This is especially important in animation where everything has to go through several iterations before deciding on what that final look will be. You want it to be impactful, you want the audience to have one final connection to the character before they're gone for good.

So why does Tech die with his helmet on?

If there's one thing TBB is good at, it's their expression work, and a death scene is a perfect place to show off their full range, which is why most deaths meant to have a heavy impact occur with faces unobscured. Crosshair loses his helmet and takes Mayday's off so we can see both of their faces as Mayday dies, Slip, Cade, even Clone X and Wilco, all die helmetless. Looking into older series you have Kanan dying without his mask, Fives, Hardcase, Waxer all dying helmetless with one last good look at their faces and expressions.

And while Tech's helmet gives us a good look at his eyes, the rest of his face goes unseen, and Wrecker's face as he watches this happen is completely obscured. We're denied a look at a lot of their expressions as the decision is made and Plan 99 is executed, rendering it less personal than it otherwise could have been. Tech could have lost his helmet in the blast that knocked him from the rail, Wrecker could have had his helmet knocked off at some point to give us a good look at his expression. TBB isn't known for pulling its punches, so why leave our final look at Tech's face back in The Summit and not here?

Then there's the framing choices. We get some absolutely amazing shots of Tech during the fall, from taking the shot to falling backwards towards the cloudy cover - but here's where some interesting choices are made. Rather than letting our last shot of him be a face up shot that keeps eye contact with the camera as he falls, they make the choice to have him flip over, and we hold the shot as the rail car goes down after him, partially obscuring him.

Which means instead of our last glimpse of Tech being something like this.

We end up with something closer to this.

Which, while we all love those Tech crotch shots is somewhat less impactful emotionally. These frames go through multiple departments and get multiple eyes on them before going through final animation, and no one thought that leaving him face up and unobscured until he disappears into the fog would stick more firmly in the viewer's memory?

The Flip Might be Intentional

And I don't just mean out of universe, as every detail of animation is often intentional, but in universe as well. If you look closely at Tech as he falls, he seems to roll his shoulders back in order to begin flipping over. It was a specific enough detail to send me searching for a reason and I found it in instructions on how to survive a long fall - the first thing that you're supposed to do? Get into the arch position like a skydiver to slow and control your fall.

The flip was important enough to not only include but to include the small detail of Tech intentionally flipping himself over into said position. It's not a confirmation but it's an interesting detail, and one that has very few other reasons to exist.

THE AFTERMATH

Image chosen because even thinking he's alive I didn't want to pull from Omega reacting to the fall on Ord Mantell. Looking at her makes me Sad. So the fall has happened, the rail car has rushed forward and crashed, and Omega fades in and out of consciousness until finally waking up on Ord Mantell to the bad news.

"What if he's hurt?"

Omega is our POV character for the show. We may sometimes see things she doesn't, but emotionally she remains the center of the narrative, the character that the target audience will see themselves in. Her ultimate thoughts on a situation are the closest we have to a clear indicator of our intended takeaway.

So it's interesting that the first thing we hear out of her, having heard that Tech 'didn't make it,' is a firm denial. He can't be gone, he might be hurt, he needs them and they need to go back for him. And, despite Hunter continuing to talk with her about it for a bit, we never actually hear Omega explicitly take it back or verbally acknowledge Tech as dead. The closest we get is 'lost' which she also uses for Echo in The Crossing.

Now, here's where the interpretation between the adult and child audience will likely differ. From an adult perspective, this is a reasonable reaction for a child her age. It comes off as very natural that she doesn't want to accept it and that she doesn't have time to really process that it's true before the scene moves on. It makes sense from an in universe perspective.

However, the main audience is still children who actually are Omega's age and who are being presented with her as their window into this world. And their takeaway, seeing that same scene, is likely to be that Omega is correct. They don't know that Tech's dead, just because an adult says it doesn't make it true and just because Hemlock says it DEFINITELY doesn't mean it's true, they have to go back and check.

If they wanted the main audience to think that Tech is dead for sure, they could have had Omega be the one to say that he's gone, with Hunter simply confirming it for her. Alternatively, Omega accepting it when Hunter tells her would also function in the same way - ultimately, as the POV character, if Omega doesn't accept it there's a strong possibility much of the audience won't accept it either, especially without other evidence.

No Body?

And, as we all know, we simply don't have other concrete evidence. Not only are the batch given no time to look for Tech's body or any confirmation that he died, but we get a whole scene with Hemlock and the goggles where he also confirms verbally that he doesn't have a body either. There's very little reason to have him say this outside of putting a bug in the viewer's ear that he might not be gone for good.

Not only do we have that verbal confirmation, but we have multiple places where a body could have been included or implied without adding much to the runtime.

Easiest place would probably be when Omega passes out - there's a trooper's corpse right there in front of her, and it would have been very easy to make that identifiable as Tech. Have one of the boys check his pulse like Crosshair did with Mayday and then be forced to leave after confirming he's dead. Would it require a little bit of fudging the details of how he landed so close to them, sure, but it would have been narratively streamlined and easy.

Have Hemlock bring his helmet rather than his goggles (and damage it in a way clearly incompatible with survival) or confirm that he did find a body but has no use for the goggles.

Put the body in Hemlock's lab when Omega is brought there at the end of the episode. Have a sheet covering him even if you want and just one of his hands hanging out, especially the one with the distinctive light on the back of it. Give us her reaction to that.

These are just the ones that don't involve adding scenes or making major changes - instead, in a franchise known for bringing back everyone and their grandmother especially if there's no body, they chose to leave it extremely vague.

Reused Score

The soundtrack for Tech's sacrifice is fantastic, I don't think anyone can argue that. In fact it's so good that it's used occasionally used as a reason for why he's dead for real. If it's a fakeout, why go so hard on the music?

It almost sounds like a reasonable argument, except that the music isn't even unique to Tech's fall. We get the same motif later in the episode with Omega's capture, and it actually comes in even harder and more impactful there than it did with Tech falling.

Reusing bits of the music has two results. It lessens the impact of hearing it with Tech if it is in fact his Death music, because it makes it clear that he is not the central feeling of the episode but rather, Omega's capture is. As mentioned before, deaths are usually the climax of their own episodes partially to avoid them being upstaged by any other plot points, but here Omega's capture is fully prioritized over the loss of one of our central characters.

The second result is that it changes the meaning of the music. It's no longer meant specifically to underscore a tragic death, but rather a more general one of loss and separation. And if it's simply about that separation, then it no longer requires Tech to be dead to have that same impact. They're apart from each other, and that's painful enough.

SEASON 3 SO FAR

Which of course finally brings us to season 3! We're five episodes in as of the posting of this, so a full 1/3rd of the season down, which gives us a good idea of how they're handling the whole grief aspect of this scenario.

They Aren't!

That's right, we simply have not directly acknowledged or dealt with the whole 'watching your squadmate fall to a presumed horrible death' thing even once in five episodes. Tech has been mentioned by name twice, we've seen his goggles once, and Wrecker makes one sideways reference to him having not made it back.

In universe, there is a several month timeskip and it seems to be implied that the majority of the grief milestones happened in that gap. For example, we don't see Crosshair finding out from Omega, we don't see Omega grieving her brother, we don't see Phee finding out (more on her in a bit) despite her fledgling romance. Months of grieving and processing skipped over and what comes out the other side is single line mentions that go by in seconds.

This is especially apparent after episode 5, where we got something to compare it to. Crosshair has a long, painful moment of grieving with Mayday's helmet when they return to Barton IV. It's deep, personal, and intimate and we take a minute with him gathering up the helmets of Mayday and his men to set them up on the crates the same way that Mayday had honored them.

Mayday is a one episode character that was important to only a single character, Crosshair - Tech is a core member of the team present through two full seasons and shown as close to every member of the squad. Yet the single scene grieving Mayday is longer and more emotionally gripping than every short mention of Tech so far in season 3.

Narrative Grief

Seeing characters grieve their loved ones onscreen is about more than just the characters themselves. It's also part of the viewer experience - through the characters' grief, we're able to process our own grief at the loss. It makes it feel real, it makes it feel personal, and the amount of grieving needs to be proportionate to the character's importance in the story.

This is especially true in a show written for children like The Bad Batch. Kids don't typically have the same experience with death as adults, and a well written main character death within a children's show will need more time and energy spent towards making the loss feel real. We see this with deaths like Kanan's; it wasn't Jedi Night that told the viewer that Kanan was really, truly dead, it was Dume, where the characters mourned him and dealt with the aftermath.

Currently, with Tech, we do see holes in the team that make us miss Tech but they remain completely unaddressed by the characters. We see Tech's goggles, but Hunter isn't looking at them, he's looking at Lula. Omega mentions Tech having taught her all the plans, but without any real sadness on her or Crosshair's part. The closest we get to actually bringing it up are Wrecker saying 'not everyone came back' and Echo mentioning the datapad would be difficult without Tech, and both of those are only seconds long before moving on. They don't serve as any kind of catharsis for the viewer, relying more on gut punch impact and keeping the wound open rather than allowing it to heal. The difference between the treatment of Tech's death and Mayday's just makes it more stark.

How Do You Like Yearning?

Interestingly, though, it strongly resembles the writing team's handling of another situation: Crosshair's departure from the team in season 1 vs Echo's in season 2. The show even drew a lot of flack for the lack of discussion on Crosshair's betrayal, as outside of a couple conversations the matter often went unremarked on. Echo leaving, on the other hand, got a whole episode dedicated to processing the loss immediately after it happened.

So what was the difference? Crosshair's departure is part of a long term plot point. We're supposed to want him back, we're supposed to want the team to talk about him, anything that would ease the tension. The writers on the other hand want that tension to remain until it's time to actually resolve the plot. So we get those slow drips in between bigger encounters, we get opportunities for Crosshair to come home that he doesn't take, and we don't get the catharsis of the team actually talking about any of it. We're left to want and imagine it, using the yearning to keep it on people's minds more than anything.

If Crosshair had been discussed on screen long enough for the characters to actually come to terms with his absence, though, that would have made the plot feel more settled and resolved early on. It might be conversations we want to see, but it doesn't keep the viewer on edge and craving a resolution. Best case scenario we're just not as desperate for Crosshair to come home - worst case scenario we accept that he won't be returning and find the fact that he eventually does to be unrealistic.

Echo on the other hand gets their absence processed immediately, because their absence from the team is not meant to be a huge plot point. It's something the team has to deal with, yes, and the viewer wants to see them again just like Omega does, but Echo returning isn't meant to be a maybe, and it's not supposed to keep the viewer wondering and worrying. It's a when, not an if.

Similarly to Crosshair, Tech has never felt like a resolved plot point. We don't get confirmation on his death, we don't get any long term grieving, and we get drip fed acknowledgements that pry the wound back open. If we actually see the team discuss and come to terms with their grief and loss, the plot point closes, the wound closes and we begin to fully accept a team without Tech in it, which makes it harder to reinsert him into the storyline if he is in fact alive.

If he's truly gone for good, what is the point of denying closure to the audience? We know that they are capable of writing an intense mourning moment that feels completely in character for otherwise emotionally repressed men such as Crosshair, so why not give us that with the team mourning for Tech? A memorial, an intimate moment with the goggles, a short scene of Crosshair finding out about the loss, or anything at all really? Once again it's something that makes sense if he's alive and we're simply not being shown yet, but makes very little sense to not capitalize on if he's dead.

What's to Come

We have ten episodes of season 3 to go, and a lot to cover. Reviews have indicated that Tech is not explicitly brought up in the first eight, so the earliest we could possibly have a survival reveal is in episode 9. Will it actually happen? Maybe, maybe not. Though interestingly episode 9, The Harbinger, is almost exactly one year after Plan 99, just like The Return aired almost one year after The Outpost. Could mean nothing, but they do enjoy their anniversary dates.

One thing we do know for sure is coming up is Phee's inclusion - she's seen in the official trailer, as well as briefly in a recent twitter spot. This is interesting as Phee is, of course, Tech's teased love interest, and her connection to Tech has been emphasized multiple times, including on her Databank entry and the official 'what you need to know about season 3' guide. When she comes onto the scene, it's very likely that more information about Tech will too.

MARKETING, INTERVIEWS, & SOCIAL MEDIA

I wanted to keep this mostly focused on what can be seen within the show itself, but it's impossible to talk about whether or not Tech is alive without pointing to the absolutely bizarre messaging from the cast and crew, as well as the marketing choices surrounding his sacrifice. (Example: the Instagram Mourning Filter they layered over him in the official trailer, as seen above) I won't get quite as detailed here as in the above, but it does have to be mentioned.

Constant Focus

In between the end of season 2 and the posting of the season 3 trailer in late January, there were several posts on various official Star Wars media. The majority of them were about Tech and Plan 99. In fact, I don't think I ever saw anything mentioning the giant 'Omega's been captured' cliffhanger, just Tech. Over and over again.

Once a character is dead, marketing generally stops caring about them. They're forward focused after all, they want you coming back for what's to come not lingering on what won't be relevant again. So why the constant focus on Tech?

And it wasn't just the social media either - a huge portion of the trailers and reels included old footage of him too. For the most part this was from Plan 99 and bringing up his fall again to rip open those old wounds, but in one case they included action footage from The Summit. This was an interesting case, because the majority of people watching wouldn't have recognized it immediately. Fittingly, the entire comment section was full of nothing but 'Was that Tech?' style comments, which they would have known was going to be the case to start with.

So why are we so focused on a man that's supposedly dead? If he's genuinely never going to show up again why keep putting him in? Everything? While not even bringing him up all that often in the show? If he's dead, this is a truly bizarre marketing decision.

Never Say Die

In interviews or in official material. For several months the word 'dead' was never used for Tech anywhere, not in interviews, not in official material, nowhere. It took until January 23rd for all of the databank entries to be updated, and among all of the main cast he's only referred to as 'killed' once, and it's on Hunter's page not even his own. Then, the Friday before the premier, an interview came out referring to him as dead - on the part of the interviewer, not the creators themselves.

Everything else seems to use a variety of euphemisms. His sacrifice, his absence, his loss, he 'plummeted out of sight', he 'fell from a tram car', he did absolutely anything it's possible to do except outright die apparently.

It's an odd choice when there's known controversy over if he's dead or not. The standard operating protocol of course, in a planned comeback, is to refer to them as dead anyway and allow fandom to fuel its own speculation, but with a fandom as devastated as TBB's was, it's quite possible that the odd behavior had to be introduced just to keep speculation going. The only interviews that sound remotely final came out right before the episodes started coming out - if they had done that from the beginning, the chances of people outright refusing to come back to the show likely would have been higher.

Much like the marketing, this is not necessarily proof of anything - but in combination with the multiple odd things in the show itself, it's certainly suspicious. Speaking of suspicious...

What an Odd Thing to Say

The cast and crew themselves have not been skimping on making strange comments when it comes to the Tech situation.

There is of course the well known Joel Aron (lighting director for the series) tweet that came out the day of the Celebrations panel (AKA when the Tech trauma was at an all time high) and in direct reply to a fan that was having a hard time with Tech's death. It's hard to take it as anything but a reference to Tech given the timing, and it was certainly taken as being about Tech in the quote tweets. If it's not about Tech, why tease the fandom with it? And the specification for it being a mid s3 episode as well...

Also from the day of Celebrations, and from the panel itself, we have Michelle Ang saying in front of God and everybody, that Tech "doesn't come back... in this episode, at least." At the time there was a possibility she didn't know and was just leaving it open, but with that only being ten months ago and the extremely long timeframe of animation, it's almost certain that she would have been done with all primary recording by that point. If you know he's not coming back, how do you accidentally imply that he is with no one correcting it?

Dee Bradley Baker, when asked for a farewell message from Tech at a con, came out with "the life of a soldier is fulfilled by fulfilling his mission and supporting his brothers. And this was the end of mine. And that's a good thing." Which was a perfectly serviceable goodbye right up until he said that the end of Tech's (life? soldier's life? mission?) was a good thing.

During an instagram interview we have Deana Kiner, one of the composers, in response to the interviewer talking about the final episode containing a major loss, saying, "It's kind of a loss... It's complicated." The claim on twitter was that this was about Omega, because everyone knows that when someone mentions the major loss in Plan 99 they're definitely talking about Omega.

So is Tech alive? Is Tech dead? We still don't know. But while one or two of the above might be a coincidence, having all of them at once coalesce around this single character death is a lot to chew over. The Bad Batch team has shown willingness to address grief and loss prior, as well as a willingness to show us death onscreen and front and center. So why, with such an important character, sidestep it all in order to keep it vague? Why keep it from sounding final for so long, if the intent the entire time was for him to be dead for good?

We won't know until he either shows back up or the show ends. If Tech's alive, all of the above starts to make sense. If he's dead... well a lot of things will just never quite add up. I feel that this team has shown enough willingness to follow up on their trailing plotlines that they've earned my trust. Fingers crossed for a satisfying resolution for all of us, and for our boy Tech, whatever that resolution may be.

#the bad batch #tbb #tbb tech #the bad batch spoilers #tbb spoilers #the bad batch speculation #this thing is some 7500 words i might have an obsession problem

285 notes · View notes

butchsophiewalten · 2 months

Text

2/27/24 Twitter Space Recap

Martin, Kyle and Eva held a twitter space earlier today, featuring a short Q&A portion like halfway through! Here's some stuff they talked about:

Martin talks about how "Bon", in his behavior and manner of speech, was inspired in part by Paul Dano's Riddler. "Very unhinged and childish."

The "Wonderland" scene at the end of TWF4 was written by Eva, and Martin talks about how the vision he had for that scene was a lot less subtle, and involved Bon's behavior being much more obviously villainous. But when he shared it with Eva, she came back to him with an idea for a much more subtle and manipulative approach to Bon, which he though was "such a cool vision for [the] character."

-Eva mentions how when writing for "Bon", she couldn't help but get actually upset and frustrated with how manipulative he was being.

-Martin mentions how he's always kind of imagined Bon to be in contrast to Felix, where Felix's behavior is very regretful and cowardly, Bon is just unabashedly a "very, very evil person."

-Eva mentions how the decision to have them voice "Bon" in TWF4 was made only a few weeks before the episode's release. Martin says he'd love to talk about that more, but he's still very attached to the idea he originally had for Bon's voice, and wants to revisit it eventually.

-Eva mentions that a lot of the episode's most iconic and impactful scenes were made "only a few weeks ago". The intro scene with Edd & Molly, The Jack and Felix scenes, and the Wonderland scene at the end were all made extremely recently before the episode's publication. Martin talks about how when he broke TWF4 into 3 episodes, he realized the new TWF4 seemed honestly like it was going to be really boring, and he thought people were going to hate it, so he went back and started adding small scenes to give the episode more interest.

Martin says he thinks those scenes elevate the episode so much, but he was under so much time crunch when making them that he wasn't really taking the time to appreciate them, and was honestly really disappointed with and embarrassed by them immediately after he finished, and was really surprised when TWF4 got such a positive reception. He brings up the Jack scene specifically, saying he thought it was so shit when he first finished it, that it didn't turn at all like he imagined, how he felt like he was just screaming into a microphone as Jack, and how the scene didn't have as much animation as he originally envisioned. He says that he's come around to appreciate it more, though.

-Martin says that between 4, 5, and 6, episode 4 is his least favorite, and that episode 6 is his favorite episode in the series.

-Kyle says he's really insecure about his performance as Charles in TWF4, that he wasn't really used to the voice yet and wasn't really confident in performing it.

-Martin recalls a funny tweet he saw begging for TWF5 to be a slice of life episode, and says that it actually kind of is a lot like that, just not in a wholesome way. He says TWF5 is a much calmer episode.

-He says episode 6 is "such a fucking nightmare", and that it's "a very traumatic moment for these characters", and is a turning point for one specific character. He specifies, though, that it doesn't mean the episode is going to have a lot of analog horror jumpscares or anything.

-Martin mentions that in 1974 Charles is divorced, but is very recently divorced. He says that Charles and his wife (who the thinks is named Emily, but doesn't remember exactly) divorced "a few months before everything goes down", and that if Charles didn't go missing, they probably would have resolved things between each other. Probably not that they would have remarried, but that they absolutely love each other and would have stayed close as friends.

Martin specifically contrasts this to Felix, saying that Charles is a very selfless person who can recognize that this relationship he's in is bad for both him and his wife, and is willing to take the steps to separate but stay friends, where Felix would never have done that despite being in a genuinely very similar situation with Linda.

-Kyle says that his favorite dynamic between any of the characters in The Walten Files is the dynamic between Charles and Susan, and Martin says that their dynamic is very endearing. He says that "they really care for each other", and that they're "the bestest of friends".

Martin mentions, however, that he was really afraid that after episode 4, he was going to start seeing people shipping Charles and Susan. He says he definitely wrote them to be just like a good platonic friendship.

-Martin starts talking about Jack & Felix's friendship. "Felix & Jack, to me, I've always wrote them as people who seem very social and friendly, but are actually very isolated people, in their own way. So, Jack, I think the only person Jack is completely and entirely honest with is Rosemary. That's the only person that knows Jack very well. And Felix is just, Like, someone that doesn't- people wonder, like, 'oh, how could Jack not know about Felix's addiction if they've been friends for years,' and I think that Felix would definitely be the type of person to try his hardest to hide it from Jack.... Felix looks up to Jack. To me, Felix sees Jack as this person that he would love to be. So, even if there's some love there, some affection, there's also a lot of envy. That Felix is trying his hardest to be on this person's good side, so he would not tell Jack about this."

-Kyle mentions that a personal pet peeve of his is when people come up with ship names for characters for are married, like "Jackmary" or "Homarge". He says that Jophie gets to be an exception, because they aren't married, and Martin jokes that they could get married and still be Jophie, as "Sophie Jophie" and "Jenny Jophie".

Kyle and Eva joke that if Sophie and Jenny got married, they would do rock, paper, scissors to decide who's taking on the other's last name, and Kyle asks Martin who would win. He says Jenny is "great at rock, paper, scissors." Martin says "Yeah, I think Sophie would change her name to Sophie Letterson if they got married... I think she would not like to be reminded of the last name of everyone that's missing, y'know?"

-"Does "Bon" ever reveal his own motive for his actions in the series, or is it never explained?" "He doesn't try to hide it, to some people, but he doesn't reveal it. He's not like your classic kind of villain, and goes 'ah, yes, my plan is doing this and to do this'. I think something I've kinda learned is that actions speak more than just outright saying it, y'know? It would be really boring if Bon just, like, sat down and explained what he was doing. I think it's more fun to see him actually go through his plan and keep you guessing, until it's really clear what he's trying to do."

-"Do we have any small videos on Chris, or will he have any mentions in the episodes?" "Ah, I think he's mentioned- He appears in photos, but not mentioned. The little I can say of Chris is that I think he's someone who knows how to, like, turn a situation in his favor. He's a real go-getter kind of character, and I think it's a really- the dynamics he has later on in the series with the main characters- they're all really interesting. I really like Chris... I really love this character. I think, uh, there's still a long way to show it- there's a design we have for Chris that's one of my favorite designs we have for a character in the series, it's so cool. It's, uh, the design you see in episode 2, where he has like, the caretaker outfit, uh, he has a different design later on, and I really love that." Eva chimes in, asking, "Oh, is that the 1982 design?", to which Martin responds. "Yes. I fucking love that design... I can't wait for people to see his role in 1982, because, uh, it- it's way different than what people think it is. I think people just think 'Oh, he's just like one more employee', but- augh, I can't say anything."

Eva responds saying "One thing I will say is that people- Obviously, there is no like, "correct" understanding of Chris at the moment, because we know nothing about him, but I think a lot of people seem to be very, um, have a very different expectation of who he is." to which Martin says "He's silly. I-I- think Chris is a really good blend of a silly character, but also a very serious character when he needs to be. I think Chris is very similar to Charles in a lot of ways, just less naive in some aspects."

-Someone asks for a Charles fact, and Martin says that he's someone that will always put his daughter first before everything, and Martin likes to think that he would bring Lily to work a lot, and that everyone would make time to play with her, even if they were working on something important. He adds that it'd be funny if Felix ended up telling Lily that Santa didn't exist, or something like that, on accident.

-Someone asks for a Brian Stells Fact. Martin announces, with a lot of fanfare, that Brian's type of women would be "middle-aged single mothers", and that he definitely would've tried flirting with Rosemary after Jack's disappearance. He then posts this drawing to Twitter:

-They keep joking about Brian trying to hit on Rose, saying that he'd show up at the Walten household before Jack's disappearance, and that Jack would meet him at the door with a shotgun. Martin jokes that Jack would shoot a perfect outline around Brian as a warning, and that he's actually a really good shooter, and that there would be "more on that in episode 5."

-"If there's one thing we can say about Chris, it's that Chris is like a more mature Jesse Pinkman. He-he has like that silliness. He's like the season 4-season 5 version of Jesse."

-Martin says he got approached by a company that's currently producing the Harmony & Horror VHS tape for Battington, wanting to make a similar VHS of episodes 1-6 of The Walten Files, but it couldn't be done because of the amount of copyrighted material in the series. So Martin pitched an idea of an entire 10-episode season of a Showstoppers cartoon in the style of the merch videos to release Direct-To-VHS. They say that after the tapes have sold, they'll release the entire series to YouTube. They all seem very enthused and excited to work on it.

-"I have this idea that CyberTelly should be like the lawyer of the Showstoppers. Whenever they fuck up, he cleans everything up behind the scenes, and that's why everything goes back to normal the next episode."

-"Susan or Linda Thompson fact?" "I think the only other person Linda talked to when she was leaving was Susan. Because they were good friends, so she definitely wanted to say goodbye to her."

-"What was the hardest scene to animate in TWF4?" "The hardest scene to animate was probably, um... the Felix scene, when he's on the river. Most of the other scenes are in very dark places, so that saves a lot of time because I don't have to add that much detail to everything. But with the Felix scene it's so lit up, it's in the middle of the day. Augh, that was such a pain in the ass to animate, so yeah."

-Martin says the planned Showstoppers cartoon would consist of 10 11-minute episodes, and that there's going to be a lot of recurring characters, and a lot of characters that had to be designed to fit in with the style of the series.

-Someone asks what would be Rosemary's favorite character she designed, outside of Sha. Martin answers that Sha was definitely her favorite, but next would definitely be Billy, because he's always imagined that she really loves clowns. Her ranking of favorite characters would go: Sha, Billy, Bon, Boozoo, and last would be Banny, because she's just Bon but Purple.

-"I think Edd would be a very mischievous kind of fellow. And he would try to like, do a lot of pranks and stuff like that. I think between Sophie, Edd, and Molly, he'd be the most rebellious of all. He'd be very, like, 'Augh, stupid house! Stupid fathers!* I'm grounded!' and, uh, Molly would be more like, 'No! Edd! You can't do this, you can't blow up the school, that's not right!'" (*My Note: By 'fathers' Martin definitely means 'parents'. This is a really common mistake to make when speaking English and Spanish is your first language, and is a slipup he's made in Spaces before.)

-"Was Molly a feral child?" "Nah, I think she was very behaved."

-Martin says that Rosemary's sister's name is Laura Peony, and that she's intended to appear in Season Two. He says that Rosemary and her sister don't really speak too much, and that Rosemary doesn't like her family that much, and doesn't speak to either her sister or her mother.

-Kyle asks Martin to list a favorite drink for everyone in the Walten Family. Martin complains about this question, saying that it's so much work, and asking how the hell he's supposed to know that, but spitballs some answers anyway. He says that Jack would like Ramazzotti or Wine, that Sophie would probably like Mojito, that Rosemary would like Champagne, and that Edd & Molly are too young to drink :( .

Kyle chastises Martin for his interpretation of the question, and tells him to pick non-alcoholic answers. Martin says that Molly would like Pepsi, and that Edd would like liquid mercury. He also jokes that Jack would have a gallon of root beer in his office.

#the walten files #twitter space recap #this was like easily one of my favorite twitter spaces i had such a good time listening honestly #i'm addicted to these. i need more. so badly

220 notes · View notes

mimicha-arts · 9 months

Text

I have not written fandom theories for a long time, but LInkClick fuels my interest and search for meaning too much. Recently, I reviewed all the available series, and came across details that I had not connected before. For the most part, this post is speculations about Cheng Xiaoshi, as well as ... timeline.

Spoilers! Please be careful.

Considering so many details about Cheng Xiaoshi, it seems that there has always been something strange about his "symbolism". In fact, I'm really into the theory that the moment in episode 1 of season 2 (when Lu Guang gets stabbed) is the vision & flashback of the past about Cheng Xiaoshi's death. In fact, it amazes and delights me how many details in OverThink support these thoughts. At least because once a frame flashes, which somewhat resembles a scene from Lu Guang's flashbacks.

But there is more. We have 3 main points: clock, сlockwork and camera. 1. Clock - possible time of death Very specific time appear several times. The clock hands look very strange, still not 6, so probably the time is 5:20 (thus, given the symbolism of 520, I have even more questions). They show the same time in any frame.

But the most interesting thing is that at the very end, when we see Cheng Xiaoshi (with the design from the first season), for a few seconds, in addition to the patterns of gears, a very faded inverted dial of this clock appears on him, where inverted 4 is the most visible part. No need to say that 4 is a symbol of death.

This can only be seen in 1s1s ED. Because, in fact, there are 2 versions of the ED, and it's different (without these details) for the remaining 10 episodes.

Even the very first intro with characters contains very similar clock placed in the background of Cheng Xiaoshi. So, at this point, I'm guessing that this strange 5:20 was the key node and the death of Cheng Xiaoshi.

2. Clockwork - сhanging a key event Gears are shown both literally and in pattern. For a long time, I thought that Lu Guang's shadow was just a shadow, or an indistinct noise, but if you look closely, it becomes obvious that Lu Guang is covering a pattern of gears - probably as a sign of changes with clock mechanism and time. Details such as water drops and film strips are also interesting, as both OP (Dive Back in Time and Vortex) connect these elements to Cheng Xiaoshi.

One of the moments shows how the silhouette of hands (overlapping the trees, which may coincide with the background of the forest in the vision in s2s1) touches the inverted clock, after which the second hand of the clock begins to move back.

And the most beautiful thing .. The fact that the hands belong to Lu Guang, as well as the context of this action, confirms that the animation literally coincides with the scene from the end of 4th (and the beginning of 5th) episodes, when Lu Guang explains to Cheng Xiaoshi how key events (nodes) and changes in the past work. But inverted. What a coincidence, right?

Honestly, I think that all these details can further support the theories about Lu Guang, which already have enough speculation. Given all the hints, it is possible that due to Cheng Xiaoshi's death, he changed something in time, thus erasing the "future in that present" and created a new present as an alternate reality. Just a thought.

3. Camera - another timeline Let's go back to the very end again. Here Cheng Xiaoshi is holding a camera in his hands.

Remember this diamond-shaped mark. This camera is very specific, as it has appeared several times, but not in the main series (yet). There is an easter egg in the mini-series, Lu Guang has a rather similar model, only with a round (clock-like) mark.

It's importance becomes even more obvious, especially now that we have a poster for the second season.

So. What's wrong with this camera? Because there are actually two of them. The one on the table has a rounded clock mark. But the camera in reflection is the one that Cheng Xiaoshi holds in the ED, with a diamond mark.

For me... Seems like it is probably one of the main connecting elements or "anchor" between the timelines / alternate realities, at least conveys this idea. All this makes me feel excited and inspired, how it was possible to place all this so neatly. And which of these can really confirm conjectures and theories … Thanks to the scriptwriters and animators, it's nice to be a part of this game.

Or maybe I'm just overthinking… Anyway, thanks for reading to the end. Perhaps someone has their own thoughts, feel free to discuss ~

#link click #link click s2 #shiguang dailiren #shiguang #cheng xiaoshi #lu guang #link click spoilers #i'm about to lose my mind

627 notes · View notes

eardefenders · 3 months

Text

Sherlock & Co - Mailbag Episode 1 Transcript

00:00-00:30 Intro Music

*Typing Sounds*

0:36 Sherlock: What are you doing?

0:37 John: I’m collating the questions from the fans. Ah-well, d’you know actually they might not be fans. They might just. *pause* I don’t, I don’t know, listen, but, uh, ah, you know not actually, you know-

0:48 Sherlock: -Like you?

0:49 John: What?

0:49 Sherlock: They might not actually like you.

0:51 John: Us. The show. Anything. What do you mean ‘not like me’? Why would they not like me?

0:57 Sherlock: Well…you can come on a little strong…sometimes, I suppose.

1:02 John: In what way?

1:03 Sherlock (voice slightly high): You’re just, rather, keen. (voice normal, reassuring even) Nothing wrong with that of course.

1:07 John (sarcastically): Oh, great, thanks.

1:09 Sherlock: That’s something people add after making a crude observation on another’s character.

1:14 John (warily): What is?

1:14 Sherlock: “Nothing wrong with that of course.”

1:17 John: So you just added it because you thought-

1:19 Sherlock: It would soften the blow.

1:20 John (sarcastic): Lovely. Very kind.

1:23 Sherlock (clearly missing the sarcasm): Quite alright.

1:24 John: Okaaay, we got some Q’s from the L’s, and now its time for us to provide the A’s. That’s, uh, that’s questions from the listeners and for us to provide the answers.

1:36 Sherlock: Yes, I cracked the code, Watson.

1:39 John: Right! So! Beau from California wants to know where they should go when they visit London.

1:44 Sherlock: Er, sorry, uh, I thought this was about crime?

1:47 John: Whaddya mean?

1:48 Sherlock: I thought there would be questions regarding criminal activity?

1:52 John (lightly sarcastic): Oh, right yeah, sorry. Um, there is one here from ‘PsychoMurderer69’ who wants to know if he should stab his next-door neighbor.

1:58 Sherlock (seriously): What’s the length of the blade he’d have access to?

2:00 John: Jesus Christ.

2:00 Sherlock: Does the neighbor show signs of possessing any self-defense skillsets?

2:04 John (interjecting over Sherlock): Alright, no, where should Beau visit in London, please?

2:09 Sherlock: Um, uh, St. Dunstan in the East. Little Venice. Spitalfields. Brick Lane. The Vaults! Neal’s Yard is rather charming as well, I suppose…pleasing colors on display.

2:20 John: Right, great. Colors. See, that wasn’t difficult, was it?

2:23 Sherlock: South Kensington Ice Rink.

2:25 John: Yeah, lovely. I- Sorry, where are you going?

2:26 *Sound of door opening.*

2:27 Sherlock: I just said.

2:27 *Audio Cut - Vaguely outside sounds.*

2:28 John (sounding like he’s struggling to balance): Heeey, folks its, woah, woah, Ja-ah,*sound of skate blades scraping deeply in ice* Jesus, aw, bloody hell, ahahaaah Christ. *sounds of the mic rubbing as he presumably falls down, a sharp intake of pained breath* Ahh.

2:35 Sherlock (sounding at ease): Get up, Watson.

2:36 John: Ah, oh yeah, thanks for the advice. Uh, um, hey folks-*under his breath*ah, God- Sherlock, can get *sounding unsteady on his feet* easily distracted when he’s not w-w-what’d’you call it. Uh. Totally onboard with something. So he wanted to *sounding unsteady again* go ice-ce skating. Uhum *clears throat*, uh there’s a-a rink. Temporary rink open in South Kensington right now so we’re skating- hey-oh, ooo-getting up some speed now. Oh here we go. Ha ha hah! God is this what Canadians feel like? Oy oy! *laughs proudly*

3:10 Sherlock: Very good, Watson. You’ve got the hang of it.

3:11 John: Hahah, yeah well I wouldn’t go that far, but I’m not smashing my ribs into the ice, uh, for the time being. So-woah! Shit!- *clears throat* Right! Another question!

3:21 Sherlock: Go for it.

3:22 John: “What are your favorite hobbies?”

3:24 Sherlock: *with relish* CRIME. Deductions. Observations! Intricate studies that focus my mind. Feeding my hyper fixations, which often stem from crime and the desire to understand it.

3:37 John: …Riiiight. Yeah, I think the listener Sherlo8 in Poland, uh, I think they meant more like, um, you know, I don’t know. Golf?

3:48 Sherlock: Golf? *chuckles* I don’t golf. I live in Baker Street.

3:52 John: No, I-I know, but, um. *deep breath* Right, okay. My hobby is-

3:58 Sherlock (interjects): Podcasting.

3:59 John: Well, no. Uh, that’s my job.

4:00 Sherlock (skeptically): Is it now?

4:01 John: My hobbies. Uh…so I like to play football. I like films and tv. Ummm I’m very partial to a board game. Uhhhh… Oh! Ok! So here’s a confession. I have the flight tracker app. I’m not saying I’m a, a plane spotter, but um… I like to, yeah, just check in with that. Y’know? See what’s overhead? Where it’s come from, where it’s going. Picture the kinda people that uh. *sigh* Oh I don’t know, going from swha-Rome to Mexico City, y’know? Th-th-the weary business men and women tucking into their inflight meals, families that have created a whole crate of memories that they’re going to talk about for decades.

4:42 John (dramatically): The lovesick Italian man flying out to see his Mexican sweetheart. His heart bursting with excitement and fear that the stewards who keep complaining about some bloke in Row G, c-

4:49 Sherlock (interjects): Trains.

4:50 John: Hm?

4:51 Sherlock: Trains. I like trains. And, dinosaurs.

4:56 John: Ok. Great! Well, haha! That’s wonderful! We did it, another answer to another question. See, I told you it’s bloody easy- *sound of an ice blade scraping the ice too hard/wrong, a loud hard thump, the mic is rubbing terribly against clothing, sound is muffled* Oh, God!

5:07 *Audio Cut-Vaguely café sounds*

5:09 John (pained): Ahhh *sucks in air through his teeth* Oh that stings. *sounds like he’s holding his face*

5:15 Sherlock: Yep, they’re loaning us their frozen peas.

5:18 John: Oh what, they’ve got frozen peas in this place? Why aren’t they fresh, meals are twenty quid?

5:21 Sherlock: Uh, do you want the frozen peas or not?

5:23 John: Yeah! Yes, please, give’em here. *sound of a bag of frozen peas being shuffled around, John’s voice is muffled* Oh, yeah. Oh hoho, that’s the stuff, baby. Oh yeah. Ahhhhhhhhh. 5:39 Sherlock: Just to confirm,

5:40 John: Uh hunh?

5:40 Sherlock: they are paying for this? People are…paying for this audio?

5:46 John: Yeah, mate. Oh! Ah God! Ooo! Ouchie, ouchie, ouchie, ouchie…

5:49 Sherlock: Understood. Well, people can be rather odd, can’t they? Nothing wrong with that of course.

5:55 John: Uh, d’you mind? I see- I actually know what you’re doing with that ‘nothing wrong with that’ lark. So, right! Next question, ‘How did Archie get his name?’ says May Van der Hayden in New Zealand. Ah, well mate, I didn’t have much say in the matter. *clicks tongue* Um, I bought him as a birthday present for…uhhhh. M-my ex-girlfriend. Um, e-e-ex…yeah, y’know she was. She was-she was the bi- big one. The one I l-lived with and planned t’m-my life. Around. Sort of thing. Um. *clicks tongue* B-bought him for her, she chose Archie. Um. I-I don’t know why? Ha. And then she chose my friend who had a Range Rover Sport. So, yeah, she left me and the dog. *clicks tongue* And I left the dog to help the Ukrainians. Now I’m back. *clicks tongue* Got a dog and a master detective. Uh, lucky me. *awkward chuckle*

6:55 Sherlock: I feel your answers should be more concise.

6:58 John: Yep, thank you for that input. May also asks, Sherlock, seeing as you have handled cases for other countries, have you ever handled any in New Zealand?

7:07 Sherlock: Yes.

7:08 John: Oh! Lip, lip. Now numb. Ah, ah. Can you expand on that please?

7:13 Sherlock: Yes, but you’d have to stop recording or redact it from the podcast.

7:17 John: Aw, what’d be the point of that?

7:19 *Audio Cut- Sounds like they’re on the tube now*

7:23 John: Question here from Chloe Davies in Canada. Hi, Chloe. Sherlock, your hugging machine, is it based on that of Temple Grandin?

7:31 Sherlock: Er, she sent me some early designs, yes. I needed to tweak its pressure loads to clench my shoulder blades.

7:40 John: That’s the way you like it, is it? Hugwise?

7:43 Sherlock: Yes. Any sensation below the diaphragm causes me to stress.

7:47 John: Good to know. Uh, Nick Licher or, er, Licker. Uh…let’s go with Nick Licher. He asks, “Why did Sherlock need your shoelaces?” Yeah, why did you need my shoelaces?

7:58 Sherlock: I was conducting a thorough cleansing of our garments following the proximity to duck poo we had undergone that day in the park. *sucks in air sharply* The shoes contain the most potentially harmful pathogens. I removed the shoelaces for deep cleaning.

8:11 John: Okay.

8:12 Sherlock: Okay? Is that it? For potentially saving you untold hours and days on the toilet?

8: 19 John: How so?

8:20 Sherlock: E.coli, Watson.

8:22 John: Yeah, but on my shoelaces? Mate, I wasn’t going to chew on them. Right, Adrien Kaiser from Minnesota. “John, if you miss an upload should we just assume you and Sherlock have been arrested or are dead?”

8:32 Sherlock: Yes. As assumptions go, those options would be some of the likeliest. Wouldn’t you agree Watson?

8:39 John: No.

8:40 Sherlock: Why not?

8:40 John: Well, I don’t know. Maybe my laptop breaks, maybe we don’t get an adventure that week, I’m ill, your ill, a long list of things that aren’t dead or arrested, Sherlock.

8:50 Sherlock: It was Adrien that said it, not me.

8:52 John: *heavy sigh* Arlo asks, as a Shakespeare fan-him, not me- he asks what my favorite play by him was. Uhhh, um, I love Romeo and Juliet. Bit of um, a sucker for romance, me. *awkward chuckle* Hamlet’s too long, should’ve streamlined that a little. I’m uh going to go Romeo and Juliet. Or Julius Ceasar. Good drama in that one, I think. Kind of can’t understand what they’re saying, but uh I hold my English teachers at school responsible for that one, I mean also why are we reading them? Yeah, they’re meant to be performed, come on. Uh, next question. Soma asks “what’s your favorite tv show?” Uh, I loved ‘Band of Brothers’. Um, but, of course, an ex soldier would say that wouldn’t he. Um, psh, yeah, ‘Band of Brothers’. Or, something light and millennial, like, um, I don’t know. Fraiser? Or, uh, Will and Grace?

9:46 John: Sherlock? Favorite tv show?

9:48 Sherlock: This is us.

9:48 John: Really? I never saw it.

9:49 Sherlock: No, Watson! This is us! Quick!

9:52 John: Oh, bollocks, Oh! The doors are closing! Ow!

9:53 *Audio cut-sounds of a tube station/outside*

9:54 John: Misha asks,

9:56 Sherlock: Mmhm?

9:57 John: “Do you have a sweet tooth?” Well, I can tell you, Misha, that yes, he bloody does! Sherlock?

10:02 Sherlock: Yes, I bloody do. *awkward chuckle, sharp intake of breath* Yet, my diet is highly unpredictable and more often then not tied to my mood

10:08 John: Yeah, I can vouch for that. One minute he’s slurping down some borscht on a whim. Next minute, he’s going ten straight days eating tomato penne pasta.

10:16 *sound of a building door opening*

10:19 *sound of the door closing, presumably they’re in the foyer of 221 Baker Street*

10:19 John: *sigh* Uhhh, just trying to find uh…

10:23 Sherlock: Yet more questions?

10:23 *sounds like they’re removing their coats*

10:25 John: Yep. Uh, ooo, questions, right, last one. Uh, “Doctor Watson, hope this question doesn’t make you uncomfortable. Do you use a cane for your leg injury? I use a cane myself due to joint pain from Ehlers-Danlos syndrome. In fact, one of the canes was hand painted by a family in Ukraine during the war.” Well aw! *delighted chuckle* Aw that’s nice. Um, no I don’t use a cane. Uh, I had some surgery, and I was very kindly along with a few others flown out to Florida for some rehabilitation and then back to the UK for some hydrotherapy courtesy of the Ministry of Defense. Uh. Then they sacked me. So, heh, booooo. *chuckles* So, no. I’m actually cane free. But, uh, I have had moments. Especially climbing these bloody stairs *sounds of him stepping heavily up stairs* where I’ve wanted something like that.

11:15 Sherlock: Finished?

11:16 John (slightly out of breath): Finished.

11:17 *sound of a door opening, presumably 221B’s*

11:17 John: Right, say ‘Bye, Listeners’.

11:19 Sherlock: ‘Bye, Listeners’. You know, you do have a rather silly gait. *pause* Walking style. *sound of a door closing* The cane may have been needed. You do look weird when you stroll. Nothing wrong with that of course.

11:32 John (under his breath): For God’s sake.

11:33-12:03 *audio cut to end theme. It’s Mad Prodigy but a different part not used in the main show with a bit of piano.*

END

#sherlock & co #sherlock and co #sherlock holmes #john watson #johnlock #mailbag 1 #transcripts #transcript #mine

217 notes · View notes

weirdly-specific-but-ok · 3 months

Text

pt XIV good omens season 2 (still not traumatic) episode 2

Here we go. It might not have been traumatic, but it has made me utterly in love with a fictional character. Great.

While everyone runs around between episode 1 and 2 to use the loo or fetch emotional support fruit, in preparation for my inevitable gay panic for Crowley, I eat an emotional support banana as the intro sequence plays.

I realise too late that bananas remind me of fellatio.

The episode begins. There are incoherent screams of BILDADDY through the chat. The phrase religious fervour and ecstasy comes to mind. I do not say it.

God and Satan are betting on a poor bloke so his goats and kids are going to be dead, Crowley has a permit to wreak havoc, Aziraphale is scandalised.

Gabriel's angel hair is very Lord Farquaad. Everyone agrees.

Jimbriel is determined to make his new dad proud, and rearranges all the books in alphabetical order of the first letter of the first sentence. Aziraphale struggles to compliment him.

CROWLEY LIVES IN THE BENTLEY. I'M READY TO RIP THROUGH REALITY'S FABRIC TO GIVE THAT IMMORTAL SOME LOVE AND AFFECTION. AND OF COURSE HE STILL KEEPS ALL HIS PLANTS AND HAS THEM IN THE BACK. @neil-gaiman WHY MUST YOU CAREFULLY CRAFT BEAUTY THAT BREAKS ME.

Anyway.

NO NOT ANYWAY I'M STILL RAGING BUT WE HAVE A SUMMARY TO DO AND I'M A FUCKING PROFESSIONAL GODDAMN IT.

Angels are assholes. Jimbriel is very supportive bookseller's son.

The shit-job subtlety attempt last episode was very powerful because TOGETHER THEY ARE STRONGER! *unicorn music*

Aziraphale strokes Crowley's chest. The fandom sobs.

Crowley suggests getting humans wet to make them 'vavoom' and the apple falls from my slack jaw mid bite.

Aziraphale and Crowley are shit at interpreting human media.

Job storyline. If I open my mouth I'll start scream-crying about how Crowley didn't even kill the goats. He had both heaven and hell's permission, orders from God and Satan, and he didn't even kill the goats. Anyway no we're not doing this now thanks.

Crowley introduces Aziraphale to food. Aziraphale goes ham on the ox rib while Crowley has a little spring awakening about his kinks. I eat my other emotional support banana in honour of the blowjob angles.

Crowley didn't even want to reveal that he'd saved the goats to Aziraphale even though Aziraphale was looking at him with betrayal, because it was for the goats and he wanted to-

Sorry. I'm so fucking normal about goats.

David Tennant and his son are having a HECK of a time.

All Crowley wanted to do was ask questions and christ if he isn't angelic who is he put goats' safety over his-

Bildaddy is the best cobbler and obstetrician. Gabriel is an idiot.

Back in actual time, Crowley gives up on Aziraphale mid-flashback and they saunter off to facilitate some lesbian romancing.

OUR BOOKSHOP. OUR CAR. PLENTY OF USE.

Boundaries, Aziraphale, please. Someone reminds us that the Bentley is all Crowley has left. I fill with preternatural RAGE again.

Aziraphale poor baby has a crisis over betraying heaven. Crowley comforts him even though Crowley fell so every defence of heaven is an attack to himself. I'm totally normal and start eating my emotional support kiwi.

Still eating my emotional support kiwi when the episode ends. Crowley says Aziraphale is too pure and angelic looking to be a demon which means that she doesn't see how pure and angelic she was while making the stars, she thinks she was marked in some way, imperfect. It is okay for her to fall, not Aziraphale.

Anyway yes summary all done.

BUT THE GOATS. CROWLEY DEFIED HEAVEN AND HELL FOR GOATS. AND-

END END THE SUMMARY NOW.

187 notes · View notes

mary-kasexual · 2 days

Text

In honor of lesbian visibility week, I present a full list of female characters from Total Drama who have canonically shown no attraction to men! (as far as I'm aware)

Staci - Only present for one episode and only spoke for one episode, having no lines in the finale. None of these lines hint at Staci displaying any interest in men.

Dawn - The closest thing I could find was the "I didn't know you were a beetle whisperer!" scene, but even then, that could easily be read as platonic. Svetlana - Similar case to Staci in that her lines are pretty limited due to being actively suppressed by Mike or Mal. However she has not, in fact, said anything that hints at her liking men in those few lines.

Sammy & Amy - Other than that one "Topher thinks you're fat" line of dialogue (which could easily be played off as Amy trying to mess with her), neither of them have shown any on-screen interest in men.

Scarlett - The only extensive interaction she has with men are Max, whom she DESPISES, and their alliance is only romantically framed for the sake of a gag.

Sugar - Nothing in canon hints at her liking men. She admires Leonard, but this is most likely due to his perceived magical abilities rather than any sort of attraction as she displays a similar interest in Max later on.

Tammy - Similar case to Staci, she only had a very brief speaking role in episode 1 and never in these lines was it implied she was attracted to men.

Mary & Ellody - Only here for a short time (with Mary only having dialogue in the episode she was eliminated in rip), but neither of them express interest in guys.

Laurie & Miles - Same deal as Mary and Ellody, they go pretty early overall but haven't been shown to like men.

Jen - You'd expect someone of her character archetype to mention looking for 'cute guys' or something similar, but surprisingly no? The closest thing she has would be her friendship with Tom, which is treated as 100% platonic by the show even if you don't take into account the fact that Tom is gay.

Taylor - Another surprising one imo, it's never stated or implied that she likes guys in the show, not even a passing mention from what I've seen which I could've sworn happened on first watch. Mandela effect I guess 🤷

Josee - Similar deal to Jen as far as I'm aware, being that her closest relationship to a guy is with a gay man and treated as platonic throughout the race.

Sanders - Pretty clear-cut, no scenes of her expressing interest in men or romance in general.

MacArthur - "What about Brody?" The only time she's shown to return his affection is during the finale and she's actively trying to throw him off his game by using his crush against him. She only asks Brody to call her in the Surfers ending, which she doesn't do at all in the Cadets ending implying that she's most likely only in it for the money.

Scary Girl/Lauren - While she does hold an interest in Damien, nothing in canon says she's attracted to him, only to the sound of his screams.

Nichelle - Too busy having no lines to talk about boys. seethingwithrage

Millie - Zero attraction to men in canon, the most interactions she has are with and about Priya. She's sorta friendly with Damien, but it doesn't rise anywhere above platonic (probably because she shoved him into a meat grinder but who knows) and actively seems to be disgusted by or otherwise pretty averse to most of the male cast.

MK - Has never been shown to be interested in guys or even romance in general. In fact, she actively seems to dislike it as seen in the episode where Caleb and Priya kiss where she goes “Yeah, that was sweet, but it’s also how you get mono” (this is ace mk propaganda btw). There was also Nichelle's intro in season 1 when she was looking at her starry-eyed, clearly a joke but yk still noteworthy.

Julia - My favorite lesbian <3 zero attraction or hints at attraction to men in canon + listen... we all watched season 2 you know what I'm talking about don't lie. The closest things she has to romantic interactions with men in canon are at most one-sided and always with her actively disliking said man on the other side (Wayne + maybe Ripper in season 1).

#total drama #tdi #td roti #tdpi #tdrr #tdi reboot #if I missed anything/anyone please lmk!#happy lesbian visibility week!

127 notes · View notes

taakosleftshoe · 9 months

Text

Nanofather Lore insanepost

Alright. We've seen my murderboard. It's incomprehensible. But for those who haven't, here it is:

It includes... a lot of everything. I couldn't begin to describe the journey I went on putting this together. Without further ado:

The Nanofather, also known as "The Weaver," "Creaky Man," and sometimes "Geltfrimpen" or briefly as "wily weaver," "dirty jeremy," "muck dweller," and "crusty man," is a recurring ominous character which appears most frequently in the opening segments of The Adventure Zone: Steeplechase. He says a lot of weird shit. And after 33 episodes, I believe I have a pretty good understanding of this shit. Take a walk with me, through this 8-part dive into what the Nanofather's deal is.

I will warn you, this is... insanely long. Turn back now.

1. The Foretelling [moments leading up to the weaver]

Back in episode 18 of Ethersea, Justin mentioned how he's the last of them who has yet to DM. Then, later in the episode, Griffin loses his train of thought and Justin prompts him with "Spin the... spin the yarn" and the riffing leads Clint to say, "weave," and Justin says, "step up to the loom... let the weaving begin at the loom."

In the next episode, as the intro song fades out, Justin interjects in a high falsetto song, singing "Weave another tapestry! McElroy Family and me," and the bit goes on for a minute or so. Later, in Ethersea 24, when trying to convince Griffin to reconsider what happened in the narrative, Justin asks him to "Check your loom, weaver!"

When Justin finally makes his Steeplechase debut, he initially struggles with starting the story. So, Griffin jumps in with,

Griffin: "Can I do what you usually do to me?" Justin: "Please." Griffin: "And be like [singing dramatically] 'The yarn-spinner takes the loom in his hands and weaves a magical tale. Take the wizard by his hands as he flies you around on his rug made of wings and a angel’s hair.'"

Every subsequent episode has the same opening. The recurrence of these instances have culminated in the persona of "The Weaver."

2. The Stew [in which the nanofather discusses various culinary topics]

The Nanofather routinely brings up the food of his world, in some way. This starts as early as episode 3, in which he says, "Perhaps a few more moments before the stew is prepared."

Other segments include advice about nano-nutmeg [12], clarifications about cilantro (called corriander in the UK)[29], and directing the addressee to search for pepperoni and green pepper in "the pyre" [19].

The other three instances of mentions of food directly address Shookles the cat. First, "Shoockles, your master calls. Where's the scum canteen? Fetch it from the shoof... my thirst is unslakable" [7]. Then, in the very next episode, says, "Please... the pollen broth. My throat became so dry... Fetch me the pollen broth, Shoockles" [8]. And most recently, he speaks rather dramatically, saying, "I believe I went… as far as I could… I don’t know if… it was far enough… I’m terrified to push it further… I believe this is the limit… Yes… no, that’s true… It’s true… The greater danger is hesitation, yes… I will add one more half-teaspoon of cumin, Shookles. Thank you, Shookles, I… should listen to your culinary acumen more" [22]. This is assumedly in reference to something he is cooking, perhaps the stew mentioned in episode 3. Perhaps all of these ingredients are being used in the stew.

Either way, these interactions tell us that the Nanofather has an interest in cooking, and that Shookles acts as an assistant to him.

3. Direct Interactions [in-character conversations]

There are several instances where the Nanofather speaks with our player characters, or appears within their world.

This first happens in episode 20, when the crew enters the lair of Geltfrimpen and hears a voice familiar to the players coming from the dragon. He says, "Excuse me for this, but I have to keep up appearances." He continues to speak with the boys throughout the scene as they fight the animatronic. He says, "I’m having trouble staying here," and within the scene, Justin describes that, "The sound seems to be coming from like... the entirety of Geltfrimpen. It’s emanating from him, not localized to any one point in the dragon’s body." Beef asks the Weaver if he could come out of the dragon, to which he responds, "Would that I could." When Montrose begins refering to him as Geltfrimpen, he says, "I am not Geltfrimpen. I am here. But I am not Geltfrimpen." Emerich asks for his name, which is met with "Would that I know," but because Beef had called him creaky man earlier, the voice says "Creaky Man will suffice for now, I suppose. A good amount of christening."

He goes on to explain his situation at their behest:

"I will do my best to tell you what I know. It takes quite a bit for me to be as here as I am. But I will try. Part of me is in Geltfrimpen. But I am many places throughout the world. Part of me is here. Part of me is imprisoned here, I think. And through this act, I am no longer... trapped here, this part of me. I’m able to be more concentrated, if that—if that is the correct word, else... elsewhere... I will not be here long, and then I will vacate Geltfrimpen for good. And I will be a little bit more myself, elsewhere."

The implications within this one paragraph are that he does not have much of a physical form, and is potentially some sort of spirit, but he can manifest part of himself at will in some places. Montrose asks if he has a home base, but he says, "I’m... scattered. More accurately, I think... shattered."

He follows with even more interesting information,

"I’ve seen you elsewhere, I was... in one of the vans, as you made the thrilling escape. I was there. I called out, but it was so loud. I have watched you from the porch of Ustaben. In the... the whittling I sat, a rocking chair... I couldn’t summon up enough voice to reach you, but I called out. I called out to anyone who would listen, honestly. But you three are the first who seem to... be looking hard enough to hear."

There have been two heists with van escapes. The first is in episode 3, when Gravel pulled up in a stolen truck/van (it is important to note that they use them interchangably). The four of them were the only ones in the vehicle. However, this escape was not very thrilling, so we are going to refer to the Gutter City heist.

Sticky Finger(s) Paul Pantry asks the three of them to steal a truck called the Clean, and notes that it is made of Hardlight. When the time comes, Emerich has attuned with the hardlight Short Doug and drives in one of the trucks with him [9].

The second thing the Nanofather mentions is an obvious reference to the Ustaben attraction, Whittle Around. In the setup episode, Whittle Around is established as having a porch where "grandpa" sits and whittles wood-- grandpa, of course, being a hardlight construct who was initially Eustace but has since been replaced [0].

The combiantion of these two implies that the Nanofather exists for moments within, or as, these constructs. His spirit seems to be able to travel between them-- to what extent this is under his control remains questionable. Perhaps he is living within the park itself, haunting it. This is given further support at the end of episode 27, when an arcade machine in the back of Poppy's Place crackles with static and we hear the Nanofather say, "act... quickly." Emerich however is unable to make further contact, and this is the last time he seems to interact with them. Montrose says that they "have a ghost in the machine"[28].

4. The World He Inhabits [what we know about the environment, the character, and allusions to mechanisms of communication]

In his first appearance, the Nanofather says to the audience (which may be moreso to the players/player characters? uncertain), "welcome travelers," establishing that we are not from the same place he is.

The world he lives in is fleshed out through each episode. Highlights include "quite a long day tending to the muck fields" [5], "I've missed the meeting with the rust council"[13], and the afformentioned scum canteen. He also says, in episode 6, "I have a new tale for you. Of a muck-dweller turned hero to his- to his people… I seem to have lost it in the last rust storm." This sets him in a sort of wasteland. He also says, or rather, sings, "I'm a neutron guy, you're my nega-girl, I'll sweep you through the ash waste as we make our way through the,"[10] before he cuts himself off.

It seems to be a world where things are rough-- he says, "to make it 37 years is quite a blessing"[13]. That implies his age is 37, or that he has survived 37 years in the conditions that he is in. Additionally, he says, "you will find it in the pyre"[19], a pyre being defined as "a combustible heap for burning a dead body as a funeral rite," implying that they either have to make their own fires or 'bury' their dead.

Notably, there seems to be a recurring theme surrounding weather and time.

"It's gotten so quiet, lately... in the nights... and in the mornings... and the cyber night, the time between the night and the mornings..."[14] "It seems the storms have come early this evening"[4] "The last rust storm"[6]

This implies that time is somewhat technologically controlled, and weather is on a cycle. The building of Steeplechase, or what we are to assume is, is like holographically augmented[31], and so are the inside skies of the park. It is plausible to say the environment wherever the Nanofather is could also be simulated.

5. Wall Breaks [speaking to the players]

These indicate communication from the nanofather directly to the players. They imply to us more about the world, but more importantly, the means of communication and lore surrounding it.

In episode 9, we open the episode hearing a different voice. They say, "Hello? …Hello, spirits?" and begin to knock. "Nanofather says the spirits can hear you through the wall. Spirits… are you there?" But they are interupted by a familiar voice-- "Kavecca!," the nanofather says. "Just another of his stories, I suppose," Kavecca amends. "Kavecca, away from that! You dabble with powers you do not understand!" This raises a lot of questions from the players, about who Kavecca is, why there is another person speaking to them, and what the fuck the 'nanofather' means. What interests me is the referral to their audience as "spirits"-- and what implications does that have? Are they between the world the players inhabit and Steeplechase? Are the players spirits? Also factoring in Blades in the Dark, which has ghosts in it, which have been altered into hardlight for Steeplechase-- maybe the hardlight kept some of that original intent. Maybe that's how the nanofather is able to inhabit hardlight.

In the following episode, we find the nanofather singing a song. What follows is pretty strange.

ohh… I’m a neutron guy… and you’re my nega-girl… I’ll sweep you through the ash waste as we make our way through the…. [click] …do you hear me, Travis? Travis: What? I’m sorry… I didn’t realize I’d left the horn on. Travis: Are you speaking, are you- talking to me? Fare thee well. [10]

First, in "I didn't realize I'd left the horn on," a horn is primarily UK slang for telephone. That could be interpretted here as a literal telephone or whatever line of communication they seem to share. Next-- he directly addresses Travis. This is the first conversation the players have with this character, and so far the only. But it isn't the only time he addresses them:

Clinton? Travis? Gribby? My three… my three favourite micro-nephews. Here to visit me. What a wonderful treat this is… Come. Let me see if I can’t find you a new tale… Griffin: Gribby! Gribby can only say his own name. Justin: Oh? Griffin: Yeah, that’s sort of his thing. Justin: Do you… how do you… I’m surprised you have insight into these three new characters… already. Travis: I’m trying harder and harder to just pretend like we are not on the call when he records that part. Griffin: It’s the only way to not be... ensorcelled by the tapestry he weaves. Clint: Not me. Not me. Did you say Clinton? Clinton… Travis: It sounded like Clinton. Clint: I wonder who that is. Justin: Clinton, Travis and Gribby are apparently, I’ve just found this out with you guys, is— did he say— Griffin: The micro nephews. [15]

This is interesting because Travis is the only one whose name is not altered, and he was specifically addressed before. What we also glean from this is that the nanofather views them as micronephews, so he has an alleged relation to them. Previously, he has called them children but it wasn't apparent until now that he was addressing them specifically.

In the intro with Kavecca, it is important to note that they are the first person to call the weaver "the nanofather." We know from his time as Geltfrimpen that the nanofather has no proper name. Nanofather is more likely to be a title, or rather, a signifier of Kavecca's relationship to him, such as being his child or grandchild. This would put Kavecca on the same family tree as Clinton, Travis, and Gribby, if they really are his "micronephews."

6. Descent Into Weirdness [tonally different moments and their implications]

Everything The Nanofather says is weird, but these are the moments that absolutely baffle me, or upon which he is commenting on the story somehow.

The first time he seems to comment on the events of Steeplechase is in Episode 16, in response to a plot twist at the end of the previous episode (in which the Barrister arrived to kick Emerich's ass but they got him stuck in a machine). He says, "Oh, that’s not right… [rustling paper] …Oh, but this doesn’t make any sense, it was… The story wasn’t like this …. Or… I-Is it changing?" He then follows this in the next episode by... just... breathe-whistling menacingly? Note that this episode takes place when they are travelling between layers, on the start of their Ephemera quest.

Episode 18 starts with, "Oh… Oh, they haven’t… even begun to fathom it… But you…. You swore, we both swore? You know they’re not ready!" I wonder who the "you"/"we" is in this. Is it us as the audience, the players, or perhaps Kavecca? Eighteen is the beginning of the time they spend in Ephemera, and at the beginning of the episode Krystal has an encounter with someone in the Gallspire. This adds on to the commentary in 16 and implies that there is something bigger at play...

Episode 20 presents us with a poem of sorts:

Ever faster, ever closer, ever never slowing down… Ever nearer, ever clearer, ever nipping at the gown... Ever spinning, ever grinning, ever hearing what they please. Ever growing, ever knowing, that they are the disease…

There is no direct indication of what this is talking about, but I think it's about Dentonic. They never slow down, they don't know when to stop dreaming! They will warp whatever they must to fit their narrative and they don't care what the casualties are.

When the Weaver makes his entrance into the world of Steeplechase, at the end of 20 and speaking through Geltfrimpen, these occurences get more frequent:

"Oh, I… I’m mostly… mostly… with them now… [chuckles] ah… ah… smaller than I… assumed…" [21] "Mostly… echoes… yet to be… I’m sorry, I know that doesn’t… answer your question…" [23] "Yes… yes, I was surprised too, Shookles. What? Oh… Oh, they didn’t hear…"[25]

25 ends with Gravel being arrested for Sticky Finger Paul Pantry's murder. 26 opens with, "…yes, but I’d assumed it was… consigned to legend! I never would’ve expected- i guess… my understanding is not… what I’d thought it was. Terrifying, in a way, but also… quite wonderful." I can't even begin to parse what he's talking about.

Then of course, there is 27: "No, no, not to the boat... Only one... one node per layer... I tried to maintain hopping... but it’s too taxing... too many...noises..." What fucking boat? And he tries to hop between layers- maybe the nodes are in the things he is inhabiting. Geltfrimpen, the arcade box, hard doug, eustace... The arcade machine and Geltfrimpen aren't made of hardlight, and these are the methods through which he has actually been able to speak (he could only see through hardlight)... maybe these are the "nodes?" I wonder what the noises refer to.

When things start looking down for the crew as they try to piece together what the fuck is happening, The Nanofather opens episode 28 with, "I’m not sure yet… I’m hopeful… Ah, Shookles… optimistic…or perhaps… perhaps optimism is just the last refuge of those… with nothing left to lose..." The Nanofather is referring to himself in this line, and the fact that he considers himself to have "nothing left to lose" implies that he has a strong connection to the events in Steeplechase, particularly to the crew-- which makes sense given their previous interactions. But what is at stake for him is unclear.

In episode 30 he says, "The thought had crossed my mind… But it can’t be long now…" I must say this is particularly ominous because I have no idea what the "thought" is or what he is waiting for. His salvation?

Finally, we have episode 31. His last appearance.

"It feels… like something… has frayed…"

In this episode, Kenchal Denton speaks to the crew a lot about cutting loose ends. And then he drops them out of a hovercraft into a desert that seems to be entirely disconnected from the electrical grid Steeplechase is on. And we don't hear from The Nanofather again.

7. Ties to Clint McElroy. [the ways in which this comes back to him.]

[post-discussion following the moment in episode 10 when the nanofather asks, "do you hear me Travis?"] Travis: Is that guy my real dad? Justin: You wish Griffin: Legally, you have to tell Travis, if the muckdweller is his real dad Justin: Not the muck dweller. The nanofather. Please- Travis: Oh, it's right there in the name! I should have seen it a mile away it's so obvious now!

Now, this may be a stretch. And it started out to me as a joke, but guys. The further I get the further I am convinced. The Nanofather is connected to, if not is, Clint McElroy the Planeswalking Janitor.

Evidence A: He calls them "children" when he goes to tell them stories. Counterpoint: Clint can't be his own son. Counter-counterpoint: Clint's full name, according to Griffin on an episode of Wonderful, is Clinton Emil McElroy Jr. Meaning, he has a father named Clint.

Evidence B: When the Nanofather refers to Travis, Clinton, and Gribby, Justin later describes them as "these new characters," in the same way he insists that Clint McElroy his father and Clint McElroy the Planeswalking Janitor are separate things [Spiritbreakers Live in San Jose].

Evidence C: The Nanofather hops between layers, in a similar way to how Clint hops between planes. And the Nanofather seems to be fractured, scattered, not his whole self. He is powerful but weak. He is able to speak to players, characters, and potentially the audience? It transcends the boundaries between the two worlds...

Evidence D: Justin is a big fan of the TAZiverse. He has shown this multiple times but the ones I remember most are of course, when he introduces "Taako from Television" in Ephemera (and other Balance things, implies it was a legend passed down, etc), and when Griffin introduced that he would be playing Indrid in Dust 2. Like of fuckin course he'd be excited to bring things together more in small ways.

Evidence E: There has been increased Clint McElroy the Planeswalking Janitor activity, the most since before Ethersea. In April, Justin played the character Clint McElroy the Planeswalking Janitor in a liveshow in San Jose (I was there hi!!!), which had initially been planned for November but was rescheduled. Both of these, though, fall under the time in which Steeplechase was active, so he was thinking about this character during that time. Additionally, the merch of the month for August is a sticker of Planeswalking Janitor Clint McElroy. And he was mentioned in Steeplechase Episode 26, when there was debate over whether something was said by Emerich or his player.

Travis: I think that was Dad. Justin: Oh. Well, I mean... yeah, I guess dad could be in it too, Trav. Is that what you’re saying? Travis: No, I’m just saying, I think Dad was making the observation— Clint: Oh my God! Is this an appearance by Clint McElroy, the planes-walking janitor? Griffin: No, no, no, no, no, no, no. Clint: Okay— Travis: No, no, not yet. Justin: No, we can’t, we can’t. Travis: Don’t force it, don’t force it.

Evidence F: I didn't expect to find this one. Honestly I think it shows that I have gone too far as a person. But... guys this one drives me crazy. So. We meet Shoockles in Episode 4, when The Nanofather introduces him as "Cat bart... he's my cat. Bart Shoockles." And guys I was like haha that's funny there is no way this is related... But then I was on Clint's Instagram trying to figure out if maybe he had a cat, since I know Justin has one. And I came across a photo he took of a white dog, which I wasn't sure was his until I got confirmation from an old post on one of the boys' Instagrams. But... in the caption of the post with his dog, he calls him Homer. Clint McElroy has a dog named Homer. Let me just, direct you to the Simpsons family tree:

Finally, Evidence G: Justin would go really far for a bit. He likes to have fun and get silly with his family and he knows Clint would get a huge laugh out of this. And he would also do anything to get a good age joke on his dad.

8. Conclusion [how it all comes together]

The moment you've been waiting for. What does it all mean?

The Nanofather seems to play no real importance to the main plot in Steeplechase at this point, but he has huge potential to. More importantly, looking at the Nanofather gives us some insight into the state of the park and where the player characters find themselves. He works as both a narrative framing device and as a part of the story. He talks to the players, the characters, and the audience, truly bringing a special flavor to Steeplechase.

With everything we've seen and heard, there is sufficient evidence to say that the Nanofather lives within the walls of the park, travelling using its energy grid. He has only been able to manifest to the characters through the electronics and hardlight creations. When they arrived in Kidadelphia in episode 32, it was apparent they were not connected to the same electrical grid, and there was no hardlight. The fact that he was completely silent in both 32 and 33 supports this theory, because there would be no way for him to communicate with them. Either that or they were too late and he died.

He has found himself in a wasteland, with weather and times that are controlled electronically. He is scattered, does not have a name-- a shell of who he once was. If the Carmine Denton Nanofather theory were correct, this would be a beautiful picture: the guy who created a way for others to escape is trapped in the destruction that his creation wrought... Regardless, I am concerned for his wellbeing since it seemed like he was in a hurry.

The interactions between the Nanofather and the heist crew imply that there could be a larger plot with him, but I don't know how close that is to happening. The Nanofather is one complicated guy, and if they want to save him I... guess they'll have to never know when to stop dreaming.

Thank you for coming along with me on this long and gruesome ride. I started this way back after episode 30 aired, I think. It's been simmering for a month, my own personal stew of sorts... For those of you who have helped contribute to my madness, thank you, and to those who have watched in horror, I'm sorry. It's been a real one.

And now, to send you off, I present to you this excerpt from Episode 10:

Justin: Our friend and employee Jupiter is kind enough to help pull together recaps of this dumb stuff, but Jupiter, showing a lot of wisdom here, does not track the story of the nanofather […] Travis: I think they realize it's been so clear cut at this point that any child could keep track of all the nanofather/muckdweller lore.

275 notes · View notes

j4gm · 7 months

Text

SPOILERS!!! REFERENCES AND EASTER EGGS IN F&C ep. 9: CASPER & NOVA (1 of 2)

I hit the image limit so this post will be in two parts.

These last two episodes feature traditional Adventure Time title cards with intro credits, which is something the others haven't had.

There is a butterfly floating above Fionna when she enters the "Land of Ooo". The same thing happened to Cake when she entered Ooo, and to Simon later on, but this butterfly doesn't have a face on it like those. This is our first hint that something is wrong.

The Betty statue in the background of this shot is on top of a four-faceted object that sort of resembles Glob's helmet; an item that she used to gain her magic powers in You Forgot Your Floaties. Also in this shot are several gnome fairies from The Enchiridion and Billy's Bucket List, and of course Mrs Cupcake and genderswapped Chocoberry. Mrs Cupcake has appeared before but I think Chocoberry is a new design for this episode.

This is our first and only look at what Hunter Wizard would look like. Mostly the same as his main universe counterpart.

This species of dragon first appeared in Memories of Boom Boom Mountain and has been in several subsequent episodes. I'm not sure who the giant cyclops is. It could be a genderswap of the cyclops from Another Way, or perhaps the rock giant from Five More Short Graybles.

Lots of the text in this scene is hostile. There is this sign behind the counter, of course, but lots of the books on the shelf also have violent names.

This series loves giving us extremely fucked up Simons.

This background character looks like Phlannel Boxingday. It would be hilarious if that was the case, considering he is widely assumed to have been a disguise of Princess Bubblegum rather than his own character.

This might be genderswapped Tiffany. She's wearing Tiffany's pink shirt under her jacket. Maybe she has a masculine name in this universe.

We get a better look at the newspaper from the first episode, featuring Betty. It also features the fake butterfly from the dream which feels like a bad omen.

Marshall Lee's t-shirt features the cake pop from Princess Bubblegum's rock shirt, first seen in What Was Missing.

The Lich first mentioned being a Scholar of GOLB in the episode Whispers. In this episode it is confirmed that he has been working towards his goals in GOLB's name. But it doesn't seem like he's actually had any line of communication with GOLB this whole time. GOLB doesn't seem to appreciate The Lich's efforts to wipe out all life; and now that GOLB is fused with Betty, they certainly don't.

The Lich rips off Billy's skin to reveal his skeletal form, which is the same as it was in Escape from the Citadel, complete with the metal plate on his ribcage.

GOLBetty turns the Lich into a tetronimo, implying that all of the tetronimoes surrounding them were once powerful beings who defied GOLB; perhaps they are even all alternate versions of The Lich.

Shermy and Beth! This episode incorporates a lot of the extra lore that writer Steve Wolfhard published shortly after the release of Come Along With Me. It canonises the fact that Shermy and Beth are rebels who oppose the tyrannical rule of Gibbon, who is Charlie's future son from Daddy-Daughter Card Wars. This place is the Pup Kingdom, which is featured in the Come Along With Me title sequence and is a central part of Wolfhard's 1000+ lore.

These are the same kinds of soldiers as seen in Graybles 1000+ when Cuber interrupted the space wedding. In that episode, you only got a very brief glimpse of their jowls. This episode makes it more obvious that they are pups.

All of these pups in the windows are designs from Steve Wolfhard's "Every Pup Has a Power" series of drawings. They once had superpowers, but their powers were extinguished by Gibbon.

This is Jake's favourite mug from the episode Puhoy, and the house in the snowglobe is Tree Trunks' house.

There is a Shermy plush in this pile of junk. There might be some other recognisable stuff in that pile too. I think the popcorn machine is from something but I can't remember what, and the pool toy might be a reference to the Lub Glubs from Beautopia.

This is our best shot of the Pup Kingdom, with its space elevator.

Beth is a revolutionary communist confirmed.

Shermy Simon shouts breadballs, an expletive that he previously used in the episode Simon & Marcy.

The clouds in Fionnaworld are shaped like GOLB blocks while Simon is in the presence of GOLB. We also get a better look at all the glitched out buildings, like that door that leads nowhere.

I think the creature next to Gunter in this advert is a yeti from the show Summer Camp Island, which a bunch of Adventure Time alumni went to work on after the original show ended.

There is a poster for Super Porp, a fizzy grape juice introduced in the episode Dark Purple, along with their mascot Cheryl.

Jake is on these packages in one of the shops.

The Library looks incredible now. In the original show, only the top part with the dome could be seen sticking out of the ground. Either the ground has eroded away to reveal the rest of the structure, or the library has been greatly expanded over time.

Turtle Princess is dead and apparently a robot took over her empty shell and continues to work as a librarian. These are the first gun-books we've seen that also function as actual guns.

These are the pagelings from the episode Paper Pete. They're much larger than they used to be. They don't have many books left to protect these days.

Casper & Nova mention lodging in the seaside town of Scandia on their quest to find the crown. This is a reference to the fact that Simon and Betty found the crown in Scandinavia, as mentioned way back in Holly Jolly Secrets.

I hit the image limit! Link to the second part.

#adventure time #fionna and cake #easter egg posts

245 notes · View notes

mizunoryuu · 2 months

Text

Bonus #2: What is the first memory you associate with Digimon Adventure?

Tai and Matt fighting and rolling around in the snow.

Basically, this was my thought process as a 9 year old child on this episode: "What is this Pokemon rip-off, oh god why is the intro theme catchy but also cringy, wait is the main character punching him? And the other guy is crying about his worries?"

… "We are calling this a Pokemon rip-off???? I'm confused. This is NOTHING like Pokemon."

I saw these two idiots throwing punches in the very first episode of Digimon that I got to catch on TV and had to wait for reruns to catch up and find out what exactly the deal was with this show. Kids shouldn't be fighting each other. Also the monsters were cute and cool.

Never regretted my curiosity.

Not once.

Except for maybe when my mom actually brought me to the theaters to watch Digimon: The Movie and had to sit through Angela Anaconda followed by the Digi-Rap.

#daweek2024 #digimonadventureweek #digimon #fan art #taichi yagami #yamato ishida #tai kamiya #matt ishida #my art

118 notes · View notes

connabeth · 4 months

Text

The first two episodes were wonderful and I really enjoyed the imagery and cinematography along with how every actor embodied the character but here are things I will complain about because I can:

1. I don’t want to see R*ck in it, why did they have to show his face…

2. Sally Jackson still just seems like a Random White Woman™️ to me. The acting was good but something just isn’t clicking for me. Also…the way she was a hardass on grover…i did not like it.

3. WHY WAS THERE BARELY ANY ANNABETH?? my girl is the star of the show!!! she’s supposed to be the one to show percy around camp and have that funny banter where he asks her questions and she answers all of them without answering at all, leaving him more confused than he was before. that was the best part of the intro chapters imo. WHY DID CH*RON TAKE HER PLACE???

3a. the full shot of a little percy standing next to chiron’s absolute wagon while walking into the hermes cabin still absolutely sends me 😭😭. it ALMOST makes up for a lack of annabeth

4. why was annabeth just hovering there in the infirmary and not nursing him like she did in the book😭 they rly made her stalk him instead of just being the person who introduced him to everything. in the book, he was already taking mythology lessons with annabeth by the time the quest came around. she didn’t feel quite as integrated into the narrative as she should’ve been. i did love how blunt she was though. she’s many things, but apparently a liar isn’t one of them.

5. clarisse didn’t call him prissy

6. why was smelly gabe so…sanitized. he’s a loser who doesn’t treat them well but his depiction also doesn’t live up to the abusive pos he really is. the interactions with him didn’t have the same gravity as they did in the books, they just seemed too lighthearted…he also should’ve looked greasier. i know abuse comes in many forms and doesn’t always reveal itself right away but he was a lot more of a pushover than i would expect him to be if sally stood up for herself

7. the plot about the hellhound that sets up luke as the traitor…simply vanishing. annabeth shoving percy’s ass into the water to figure out he can heal was funny though. would’ve been cooler if it healed a giant hellhound claw mark rather than a nick

8. percy doing some half-assed flossing on a rock alone while waiting to be maimed during capture the flag, not knowing who his dad is or if he’ll ever get his mom back is so fucking funny in the most miserably way but also…why is he a fortnite kid, this is supposed to be 2006 😭. the implication that annabeth is standing there silently watching him almost makes up for it. i can’t imagine what was going through her mind…like girl that’s your future husband good luck

#percy jackson #percy jackon and the olympians #pjo tv show #pjo #percabeth #pjo series #annabeth chase #ash.txt

110 notes · View notes

bengiyo · 4 months

Text

Cherry Magic Anime Ep 1 Stray Thoughts

Yes, you read that correctly. While GMMTV is doing a Thai version of Cherry Magic, Japanese studio Satelight (Fairy Tale, Log Horizon, and more) produced an anime version that just began airing on Crunchyroll. What a time to be alive. My primary hope is for this version to go further than the live action or the movie did. The manga is ongoing, and I’d like to see the parts that haven’t been adapted.

I like how quickly this is breezing through the early stuff. Adachi already knows about his powers and is continuing to be glum. He’s explicitly interested in girls, and I like the character design that has his hair constantly covering his left eye.

Wow, we got through the convenience store, train crowd, and then reached the elevator scene in 2:40.

For those who care, Kurosawa does not yet have yaoi hands.

The intro is decent. It at least lets us know the whole gang is here.

Adachi thinking he’s hallucinating his powers is a good shorthand as he’s figuring out if Kurosawa is for real.

Oh, fuck yes, anime Kurosawa is much hornier in his head.

Wow, we’re also getting to Adachi staying over in the first episode.

The fact that Adachi and Kurosawa like the same manga is actually a really significant detail. I can’t maintain regular friendships, let along romances, if I don’t have much media in common with someone.

Yeah, I’m enjoying how much more explicit Kurosawa’s fantasies are in this version. Here they translate him as saying he bought the pajamas to fantasize about Adachi wearing them.

Oh, Kurosawa, you remain one of my favorite simps.

I’m not like Adachi. I would show up every morning before work if someone else was going to cook a full meal for me.

Oooh, the boss’s coupon for a meal date must have been in the manga since the Thai version captured this too.

An expired coupon on an expensive meat dinner? Pain.

Oh, Adachi, how you struggle with someone having affection for you compels me every time.

I really like introducing Tsuge in the tag.

It’s really fascinating how each adaptation so far has approached the timeline of events. I kinda like holding off on the supporting case for a full episode and just focusing on Adachi being a loner who doesn’t know how to deal with Kurosawa being so attracted to him while making no overt moves about it. It’s really cool because it doesn’t just feel like the live action. We got through events that were in the first two or three episodes of the live action here, but also didn’t touch other beats yet. I like it. This is such a cool set of comparisons we get to make right now.

#Ben watches #cherry magic #cherry magic! thirty years of virginity can make you a wizard?!#cherry magic anime #japanese bl #bl series #30 sai made doutei dato mahoutsukai ni nareru rashii

125 notes · View notes

schrodinger-swriter · 2 months

Text

Helluva Hotel Masterlist, Volume 2

Copied from the first list's intro:

Here you will find my writings for Hazbin Hotel and Helluva Boss. I more so go off of what we are shown within the episodes, as I do not follow Vivzie and the crew on social media. Any headcanons that may go against what has been said outside of that is purely do to this fact. I stress that you be patient.

The characters listed below do not determine what characters I will and wont write for. I will not be writing for Valentino, though. For reasons I feel I do not need to explain.

CHARLIE:

Charlie x Bullied!Reader

Platonic Charlie x Socially Anxious!Reader

Prompts 22 and 28 with Charlie

VAGGIE:

ANGEL DUST:

Angel Dust x Bullied!Reader

Prompt 20 and 29 with Angel Dust

ALASTOR:

Alastor x Reader who makes club music

Platonic Alastor x Asexual!Reader

Alastor x Artist!Reader

Prompts 1 10 and 13 with Alastor

Prompts 19 and 20 with Alastor

SIR PENTIOUS:

Sir Pentious x Shy!Reader

Sir Pentious x Snake Demon!Reader

Sir Pentious x Fan!Reader

Sir Pentious x Overprotective!Reader

Sir Pentious x Reader who died in the 2000s

Sir Pentious x NB!Autistic!Reader

Sir Pentious x Reader who is struggling

Sir Pentious x Bullied!Reader

Prompts 8 9 and 13 with Pentious

The Reader taking care of Sir Pentious

Sir Pentious x Reader seizure aftercare

Prompts 23 and 28 with Sir Pentious

The Reader helping Sir Pentious shed

LUCIFER:

Lucifer x Protective!Reader

Lucifer x Sinner!Reader who constantly changes their story

Lucifer x Reader who is on their period

Platonic Lucifer helping the Reader with their homework

Pre Fallen Angel!Lucifer x Angel!Reader

Lucifer x Bimbo!Reader

Lucifer x Fan!Reader

Lucifer x Reader who is good at chess

Lucifer, the Reader, and Lilith

Lucifer x Succubus!Reader

Prompts 22, 23, and 28 with Lucifer

Lucifer x Wingless!Fallen Angel!Reader

ADAM:

Platonic Adam x Angel!Rock Fan!Reader

LUTE:

Lute crushing on Sinner!Reader

F Y I for Lute

HUSKER:

VOX:

Vox x Demisexual!Reader

Vox x Reader who works in the fashion industry

Vox x Streamer!Reader

Vox x Reader who is on their period

Reader putting Vox on the period device

Vox x Reader who loves his claws

Prompts 21 23 and 27 with Vox

ROSIE:

General Rosie x Reader headcanons

Marriage with Rosie

Prompts 1, 11, and 12 with Rosie

VELVETTE:

General Velvette x Reader headcanons

MULTI:

Lucifer, Adam, Lute, and Husk x Reader who is afraid of heights

Lucifer x AFAB!Reader telling Charlie she's going to be a big sister

Platonic Charlie and Vaggie x Reader who doesn't want to leave Hell

FLUFF ALPHABET

THE TROPES THE TROPES PART 2

#hazbin hotel x reader #hazbin hotel x you #hazbin hotel imagine #hazbin imagine #hazbin x reader #hazbin x you #charlie morningstar x reader #vaggie x reader #angel dust x reader #alastor x reader #husk x reader #husker x reader #niffty x reader #hazbin adam x reader #hazbin lucifer x reader #sir pentious x reader #lute x reader #vox x reader #hazbin rosie x reader

76 notes · View notes

mimicha-arts · 8 months

Text

Date: 09/13/2023 In my previous post, I wrote that time in s2 is broken and dead. I was curious if this was true for s1, too… For me the main problem of the last month was the dates in the files (character intros), the date of Emma's death + September 9th mentioned in episode 3, so I tried to consider these as related things. I always was confused by April-September thing, I thought that it is a mistake, but. Probably not. So. Let's break down the first episode! It was a deep dive, I'm not sure how real any of this can be, but (c) Let's divide everything into three parts:

Сhronology

It's not about Quede

April is not April

WARNING: SPOILERS

Chronology

April 16, which we see hours later that day. Qiao Ling receives an order from an unknown customer.

The goal is to get financial core data of Quede company. Information has to be obtained by diving in Emma, during the last financial settlement meeting before the release of the financial report, 2 days ago, on the April 14th, photo was posted at 10 pm.

Additionally, it is mentioned that there was an earlier photo, but they start with the most recent one so that the information is not “outdated”.

Events take place from April 16th to 17th in the present for Lu Guang. From April 14th to 15th in the past for Emma and Cheng Xiaoshi.

April 14th: 10:00 pm - start of diving. As Emma, Cheng Xiaoshi lived through the events in the company's office and stayed for overwork.

April 15th: About 2:45 a.m. Emma's parents text to her, Cheng Xiaoshi decided to reply.

9-10 am, morning, the meeting began. A conflict situation occurs, the laptop falls, Emma!Xiaoshi is on the floor. Lu Guang records data from the screen - Cheng Xiaoshi returns to the present time.

Later this day. Somewhere later that day, information about the company is leaked, involved people are arrested (news from April 17th)

Before 10 pm: Emma comes home after this day, she realizes that the situation with Quede is a stain on her career, because she was Mr.Zhu's assistant, there is no way for her to find a job in this field anymore.

Lately she discovers messages (02:48, that Cheng Xiaoshi texted) with her parents - this becomes her motivation for a call. It's the same day, still today (今天）- April 15th. This is the reason why we know that the disclosure of the company's affairs occurred on the same day after the meeting.

After 10 pm, before 10:30 pm Emma goes to the train station but runs into Liu Min, agrees to go with him.

About 10:34 p.m Liu Min attacks Emma.

Somewhere between April 15th and 16th. An accident occurs, Liu Min will be left paralyzed.

April 16: At the moment of dawn, Emma jumps from the bridge.

Later this day, Quede Company was suspended (news from the 17th)

Later, Emma's body is found in the river in the evening (mentioned as "yesterday", news from the 17th)

April 17: present 9-10 am: Lu Guang gives instructions to Xiaoshi, they successfully obtain the information, Xiaoshi returns to the “present” time.” Evening, the same day: We receive information about the disclosure of financial fraud in the past tense until the 17th from the news at the end of the ep. Additional note: in these events, there is another Cheng Xiaoshi from the "future" (events of October 22-23), who hides first in Liu Min's trunk, and then on the bridge with Emma. The chronology of events can be written as follows:

So it's clear - Lu Guang himself receives the necessary information about the company on the 17th at 10 am. By that time, Mr. Zhu had already been arrested 2 days ago and the company's activities had been suspended 1 day ago. Precisely because of financial fraud.

Also his reaction to Emma's death is interesting. Okay, that's a guess, but I always had the feeling that he knew she was dead from the very beginning of the case.

2. It's not about Quede

And so, we know that data about the company and financial fraud were already published on the 15th. The question remains simple - why did the mysterious unnamed client need the data, since he would have received it only on the 17th, after information about the fraud in Quede was already made public before they (the client) offered this task/job. So what other events are happening on nearby dates? They're not in the episode, they're in the characters intro. Obviously, the unknown client was unknown for a reason. As we also know, there is a character (or characters, there are 2 signatures on the documents) who are collecting dossiers on the main trio. There is a high chance that all of this is connected. This event takes place from the 14th to the 17th in total. Date on Qiao Ling's file: april 8th Lu Guang's file: april 10th Cheng Xiaoshi's file: april 12th

Documents for Lu Guang should be destroyed on the 17th, for Xiaoshi - on the 19th. This timing is kinda perfect. In my opinion, this task/job came as part of an "investigation" so that the unknown could better study the process of trio's work, understand the abilities of Cheng Xiaoshi and Lu Guang, probably, what their time limits are. So, yes. If we look at it from this side, this is not about Quede, it is not about financial fraud, it has never been about it. This research is to answer questions about the abilities of Cheng Xiaoshi and Lu Guang that remained on the files.

3. April is not April

April is a lie. Events take place in September. Although it’s more likely that the time has already been broken since the first season, and we technically don’t know which one is correct. Although Lu Guang's watch and documents (character dossiers) point to April, real events cannot possibly take place in April for many reasons.

1. 3rd financial quarter This is the main reason. This is stated in the first episode by Qiao Ling, and should immediately raise questions. The third quarter cannot possibly be April, absolutely. Because the following months are considered the third quarter: July, August, September.

2. News, 3rd ep Qiao Ling listens to the news on her headphones. We are not given a name, but the circumstances are the same - we learn that Emma's "suicide" was most likely a murder. Once again, it's September.

3. Cold weather is coming Emma's parents arrive to bring Emma warm clothes and mention that it is getting colder. If it were April, on the contrary, it would only get hotter, but everything is different when it comes to autumn.

4. Murders I am firmly convinced that the numbering of victims does not correspond to the real chronology. Yes, we know that there were more victims, and Emma was never "first", I mean those cases that were consolidated by the police and are in Xiao Li's documents. We have dates for an early murder in April, Emma being somewhere in the middle of that "break", since she was killed in both “April” and “September”, and there were murders after her, where the month was not indicated. Which once again points to the fact that something is wrong with these two months. Now things are going to get confusing, we consider April like September here. I can't see and understand details, so I'm only able to find the dates, since the numbers can at least be distinguished. Emma is considered the first murder only by number (died "April-September" 16th), but number 4 (Zao Cai, a blond man) died before her, "April-September", 2nd. In the folder, her documents go after his case. I think the fact is that initially the police believed that Emma committed suicide; at first, her case was not classified as a part of a series of murders, so police did not assign a chronological fifth number, but later, with new clues, simply moved her old documents in the "correct" chronological order to fifth place.

This technically makes Emma a 5 case… Or even a 6th. Because case 6 (Nan You) is also not without mysteries. The date of death is 14. I'm not sure why they put her file after Emma. Maybe they're unsure of the date or something and it's just an estimated date? So her date of death also “fell out of space.” But if 14 is correct, then this girl died 2 days earlier than Emma herself, and Emma technically becomes case 6.

The eighth case (Zhao Lin) occurs on 25th. The mystical 7 case is somewhere before that date, but we don't know how much of this is actual April or September.

In addition to mysterious 7th case, we also have 3 other earlier victims. They had to die before "April-September" 2nd, so the time of their death is roughly "March-August". We haven't seen their documents, but we know about their cases because of the photographs (the girl in the pink suit is probably the girl with the dog from ep11, since the BG is the same)

And also Xu Shanshan.

Who technically didn't die due to the time loop, but most likely "died" (since Lu Guang was thrown out) in the original events, which was still visible for Lu Guang in the unaltered photo.

I mentioned this in the post about s2 - the interesting thing is that Xu Shanshan's phone, as shown in s2, does not have a single photo from May to the end of October (current events with unknown date), which is quite. Strange.

All the murders had to happen with the similar style and certain time frame that they could be connected as a series. Given the news about Xu Shanshan: it was written - no new murders had occurred for several weeks (数周未出现新的受害者), which fits the September-October period (s1 ends at October 23). So we know for sure that the last cases with unspecified months should have occurred in September.

So. Obtaining financial information as a goal does not make sense, "someone" studies our main characters at the "perfect time", and all the dates are intertwined and have inaccurate implications. Like, almost half a year was literally “stolen” from time? Or something similar. The dates are so deliberately strange that I am speculating solely that time was broken from this point already, not even in s2 - what happened can only be speculated for now until we are told the background of Lu Guang's story. And who is the real 7th victim if April and September are mixed up, and the time has been “changed”. The funny thing is that everything also connected to the birthdays: April 15th - Cheng Xiaoshi's birthday September 16th - Qian Jin's birthday October 23th - the day Lu Guang was stabbed, exactly before his birthday Maybe I understand something incorrectly and I'm going down the wrong path altogether. No conclusions. My CPU is blown up. Thank you @wrathyforest for discussing this with me, trying to find connections, completing everything with time points, you are the best!

#link click #shiguang dailiren #link click s2 #link click spoilers #I myself died like Emma while writing this #I don't know how many times I rewatched s1 at this point #I need to sleep #mimicha.lc

226 notes · View notes