#just that many seasons with Mickey only in a few episodes is too much to handle alone | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

kitkatopinions · 2 years

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Got anymore Doctor Who nitpicks?

Oh boy, strap in folks, because I've got a ton. XD

Gonna put them under a keep reading for convenience and in case any Doctor Who fans don't want to see the criticism. Please note, I just finished rewatching up to season four so anything I say about the other later seasons is just what I remember, and I don't know much about Classic Who.

One of my sisters pointed this out, but the time agents exist and interfere in time even if they try to stay in the shadows, so the fact that the Doctor doesn't have more run ins with them is weird. As far as I know, the only time agent we encounter at least as far as season seven is Jack Harkness and he had already left the agency.

The second season, with the Tenth Doctor and Rose, they did the whole 'the Doctor and Rose might be separated forever' plot a couple times too many. I love that season and I adore both of those characters, but it's like Frodo almost dying, after you've seen one of them freaking out about losing the other every episode like six episodes in a row, it's just like... Maybe they should do something else.

We didn't see Rose or Mickey ask about Jack to my recollection after he 'died' to the Daleks in the last Christopher Eccleston episode. And I know that they were both really busy with other things, but I don't even think there was a 'where's Jack' 'not right now' kind of interaction.

I like the Love and Monsters LINDA episode, but I wish that the Doctor actually hadn't been able to get Ursula back. I don't know, I just think the episode would've worked better as a bit more of a tragedy, with Elton being the only survivor.

Nurse Redfern in the Family of Blood episode is not my favorite, and I wish there was less of a big deal made out of her. If she'd been in just one episode like Madame de Pompadour, I'd be annoyed (I kinda don't vibe with one episode only romances,) but it'd be fine-ish. But like, when the Tenth Doctor is dying and he's going around and seeing all the companions we love who have been involved so much in the show, he stops by Nurse Redfern's descendent to talk about Nurse Redfern? I could not care about her less, they should've cut her out and done a scene with somebody else, or did an extended scene for one of the others, or something.

In the Blink episode, I do really like both Sally and Larry, but I don't think they should've gone with a romance angle there, it just seemed like they were better as friends. Not that we see much of them, but still.

In the Master episodes in season three, I really feel like the 'turning the Doctor into a tiny old baby-sized creature man' thing was wholly unnecessary and just didn't add anything to the story. I don't know anything about Benjamin Button, so all I have to compare it to is the Benjamin Button style day dream in the Secret Life of Walter Mitty, and it makes me unable to take it seriously.

I feel like the Adipose episode has great Doctor and Donna moments, but I really just don't like the Matron. I feel like she's just kind of boring. Quite a few of the Doctor Who villains are somewhat two dimensional, but they at least have aesthetic things that make them stand out.

The Unicorn and the Wasp was my least favorite episode in the fourth season and I think part of that is that I've never read a single Agatha Christie, and I've never really watched anything based on her books either. So I got some of the detective/mystery tropes, but it was basically a tribute to something I didn't know anything about and so I've never been anything but bored during the episode. And there were I think a couple too many characters to get attached to any of them.

The Silence in the Library/Forest of the Dead episodes have quite a few little nitpicks in light of what went on in seasons five through seven. River's screwdriver isn't the Eleventh Doctor's, and she should be weirded out about the Tenth Doctor's being like the one he gave her instead of being like the Eleventh Doctor's. She also says he opens the TARDIS with a snap of his fingers as if that's something he does all the time as Eleven, when if I remember correctly, it's actually pretty rare. I'm sure there's more, and some of it is just vibes, but yeah.

In the End of Time episodes with the Master, Wilf's little group of friends who try to find the Doctor with him is eh okay, but how much fun would it be if he was in a group with Elton and that guy who gave information to Rose in the very first episode.

Also, gotta say that Martha and Mickey being a couple at the end of David's Tennant's era wouldn't annoy me if they'd had like, at least two even small conversations. As it happens, it just kinda comes out of nowhere.

I think my very first complaint of Matt Smith's Eleventh Doctor era is the fact that he feels his hair and is shocked and wonders if he's a girl, but his hair really isn't that long, so... It's just a weird line. Why would he just assume that? It'd be different if he had shoulder length hair, or if the eighth doctor didn't have longer hair than the Eleventh. It'd still be a weird and stupid line, but as it is, the line doesn't even make sense to me.

I haven't gotten to season five yet, and I don't intend to keep re-watching after Amy and Rory leave (for a number of reasons,) but I do have a couple of nitpicks off the top of my head for the Matt Smith seasons.

Although I get that a lot of the threads to David Tennant's era had been tied up well, I'm bummed that Jack just never comes back when it would make sense for him to be at least kind of involved every now and again, especially in A Good Man Goes to War when the Eleventh Doctor gathers together a bunch of people to help him and just... It makes sense for him to not include Martha because she walked away and he thought that was good, and it makes sense for him to not include Mickey either because he might know he was with Martha. But Jack? And I also get that Eleven is 'the Doctor who forgets' or whatever, but bro could be not selfish when Amy and her child's lives are on the line. Jack should've had at least one appearance in these seasons.

As somebody who cares about Sherlock Holmes, it kind of bothers me that the 'this was the inspiration for Holmes and Watson' characters have a master-servant relationship. I know it isn't just a master-servant relationship and they're literally lovers, but that kind of makes it worse. There's no problem with a 'inspiration for Holmes and Watson' romantic couple, but Watson was never Holmes' servant, their relationship was on much more equal footing than lots of people seem to realize, and it makes one of the few queer couples we see for more than an episode at the very least problematic.

This might be bigger than just a nitpick, but I'm gonna say it anyway. Mels being River would've been much better and would've felt less out of nowhere and rushed if Mels had been set up as a side character. If she'd made appearances in Leadworth and had been talked about by Amy and Rory and had been at their wedding, then it'd feel like pay off when she turned into River. Instead it's like "oh here's a character we don't know, guess the author is telling us she's super important to Amy and Rory? Oh, I guess she's evil? Wait, she's dying? Wait, she's River?!" Like how were we supposed to get emotionally invested?

And finally, Amy should've had reading glasses at least all throughout season seven, and it'd be best if she'd started wearing them sometime during season six. Because the Doctor wearing Amy's glasses after she and Rory were gone was a great concept, but because they'd just appeared for the first time in Amy and Rory's last story it felt a lot less emotional than it could've and instead it just felt like the author trying to force an emotional response without having earned it... Which was pretty much just what it was. If they'd wanted to have the Doctor wear Amy's glasses, she should've been wearing them for long enough that they became attached to her character.

So yeah, I'll probably have more nitpicks once I watch the Matt Smith series, but that's it for now. This ask was a lot of fun, so thanks for sending it!

#anti doctor who #is that the proper criticism tag? XD #My nitpicks are starting early but weirdly not about RWBY lol

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camxnoel-updates · 3 years

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Cameron Monaghan brought the character of Ian Gallagher to life on Showtime’s hit series, Shameless. The series aired for a total of 11 seasons after originally premiering in 2011. It ranked as the network’s no. 1 comedy, longest-running series, and had the youngest-skewing audience of any Showtime series. Monaghan also joined two legendary universes with roles in both Gotham and Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order, which I got to ask him about too!

The final season of SHAMELESS finds the Gallagher family and the South Side at a crossroads, with changes caused by the COVID pandemic, gentrification, and aging to reconcile. As Frank confronts his own mortality and family ties in his alcoholic and drug-induced twilight years, Lip struggles with the prospect of becoming the family’s new patriarch. Newlyweds Ian (Cameron Monaghan) and Mickey (Noel Fisher) are figuring out the rules and responsibilities of being in a committed relationship while Deb embraces her individuality and single motherhood. Carl finds an unlikely new career in law enforcement and Kevin and V struggle to decide whether a hard life on the South Side is worth fighting for.

Along with the final season, fans also got a six-episode series that featured new Shameless scenes juxtaposed with a retrospective look at each character’s journey over the prior 10 seasons, titled, Shameless Hall of Shame. The first episode followed Ian and Mickey, showcasing their unique relationship and its evolution from a teen fling into a loving, complicated marriage.

I was able to chat with the actor over zoom and ask him all of my burning questions regarding the series finale, Ian and Mickey’s future, the show’s open ending, the representation his character provided to those watching, what he kept from the set, his future projects, and so much more! Keep reading to find out everything he told me.

So first of all, I want to say a huge congrats to you for wrapping Shameless after 11 seasons and bringing this character to life, who has inspired so many and that so many relate to. I wanted to ask, what has your time on the show meant to you and how would you describe how it helped you grow as an actor?

Cameron Monaghan: I mean, it’s so difficult to distill 11 years into some sort of concise answer, but it’s meant a lot for so many reasons. I think that obviously it’s been important for my career and my life in a sense of how it’s not only given me exposure but also given all of us a platform as performers to be able to tell interesting and challenging stories and to really develop and grow. Obviously, we had a couple of old pros on the show– when I say old pros, I’m not calling them old, just that they’re professionals and they’ve been doing it for a long time, but like William H. Macy, Joan Cusack, and a number of people who had very storied careers. Then we had actors on the show who had never appeared on anything prior and for a lot of us, we were somewhere in the middle, where we’d been working for a number of years, but hadn’t been given the opportunities to really put ourselves out there in such a significant way.

So being able to get an audience over the course of 11 years– and the show grew steadily, it was a marginal success at first, but it wasn’t until like season 4 or 5 that it really started to be seen by people and really connect on a larger platform, and a lot of that had to do with Netflix. When that happens we had such an influx of people kind of saying how they related to it and I think that that’s something that I’ve really taken away– I think we’ve all taken away, to be able to hear a lot of other people’s stories and how they’ve connected these stories in entirely different ways. Everyone has had different favorite characters or storylines and they have brought their own personal experiences to that, but for people to say that they feel seen or heard in some ways by these stories, I think is very special. You know, the character that I was playing was an LGBT love story, as well as a story about mental illness, and coping and struggling with that. I had so many positive responses from people regarding those things, and it was amazing to hear people’s responses. So I think that not only was I able to grow as an actor but being able to hear that response and feedback helps you grow as a human being too. I guess that’s what one of my major takeaways is.

What was that final day of shooting like for you, and how did you feel when you officially wrapped?

It was a bit surreal. I don’t think it really set in at first. It’s always funny when you wrap on a project, I feel like it comes in waves, and with something like a TV show, you start to feel it on the last few episodes of like, “Oh, wow, it’s going to be over.” You start trying to find your little ways of saying goodbye to people and understanding that these conversations are obviously not the last for everyone; we’re still close with each other, but you start to recognize that within the context of the show they’ll be your last so that’s a difficult thing. I’ve never been particularly good at saying goodbye, you know? I feel like in general, I’m kind of a person that just likes to be like, “I’m just going to walk away from it cause I don’t know what else to do really.”

So, we were shooting pretty late at night and we were all there hanging out and cracking jokes, and it was just of like, “Oh, I guess that’s it.” We all kind of looked at each other like, “Well, what do we do now?” A bunch of us stuck around for a few hours afterward, we popped a bottle of champagne, and we sat in each others’ trailers and just kinda hung out until pretty early in the morning, the next day. Then we’ve all kind of just been hanging out and seeing each other since. Everyone’s been really busy, thankfully. So we’ve been traveling and going to different cities for work, but when we’ve been in town we’ve been trying to see each other. I had dinner with Jeremy and Ethan, who played my brothers on the show last week. Noel Fisher, I just saw yesterday. I’m going to see Shanola Hampton in a few days. We’re all still staying in touch with each other is what I’ll say.

Were you personally satisfied with the ending of the show? I think it was very open-ended, which was kind of nice and left a lot open for the future. And was there anything you wanted to see for your character that we weren’t able to?

Endings are difficult in general, but I feel like, especially with a show like Shameless, which is a show about a slice of life and sort of how existence doesn’t really fall into a perfect narrative; it tends to be messy and kind of just continue in spite of itself, and it’s a stream of these little victories and these constant mistakes. So you can’t really cap off a pure ending to a story like that. I think that what John Wells tried to do with writing it is not really conclude the stories. He concludes certain aspects, but the way that he explained it to us is he wanted it to feel like if you were walking through the streets of Chicago, maybe you might bump into these characters. Maybe they’re still out there and maybe they’re still doing things. Some of us had more resolution than others.

I would actually say that the Ian and Mickey storyline was one that did have a fair amount of resolution for the final episode. It was about their anniversary, how they were going to deal with their future, and they’ve kind of figured out some sort of life with each other. There are still large questions, whether or not they’re going to have kids and what the terms of their marriage will entail in the future, but those are questions that are lifelong questions, and ones that I think that we know these characters well enough and we understand their relationships well enough that we can draw our own conclusions for. I think there is something beautiful about the fact that the audience will project what their future for these characters will be.

I think it was a challenging final season because of so many extenuating factors in the world. All shows, businesses, everything was trying frantically to keep up with a changing landscape, and the fact that we were able to make it in spite of all of those things, I think is a victory in itself; one that we are all proud of and happy with. I do think there’s still a future, years out, where we might return to these characters and explore them further. I think that I’m happy putting them to bed for now, I think we all are, but I would like to maybe check in with these characters in 5 or 10 years, and just kind of see where they’re at and what they’re doing.

Kind of like a little Shameless movie, just to play catch up for a little bit.

Yeah, I think that’s something that is kind of more possible now with these streaming networks. They’ve done it with a few series, to sometimes success and sometimes mixed results, but I do think there is a possibility of a reunion season or something like that, depending on where the show fits into the public consciousness in a few years, you know? It’s an open question, but one I’d be excited to see.

How you would describe Ian’s evolution and journey on the show?

I think that Ian has come a long way in terms of confidence and assuredness in himself and his own decisions. I think that’s what a lot of the exploration of the character was, especially in the middle seasons between seasons like 3 to 8 or 9, are this guy who sort of just doesn’t necessarily know what he wants for himself and he’s dealing with a bunch of surprises about himself that he doesn’t necessarily understand, or hasn’t really come to terms with. I think it’s amazing to see Ian in these earlier episodes where he’s kind of getting kicked around by his relationships and by his family. He’s kind of a forgotten kid a little bit. He’s like a middle child, who’s just sort of– people aren’t really looking out for him. His brother does to a certain extent, but also his brother is kind of telling him what he wants for himself and Ian isn’t as active.

At a certain point, he starts to really come into his own as an adult and as a human being. I think it’s amazing how we see him as not only a big brother by the end of the series, but also sort of– there’s something a bit paternal about him. He becomes a bit of a father figure, even a little bit in his relationships. I think it’s interesting how Mickey was always sort of the commanding force and deciding factor for so much of the series; when Ian was really struggling with mental illness and down in the dumps, Mickey is the kind of guy who was looking after him, but by the end of the series, Mickey is a bit childlike in certain ways. Ian is kind of protecting him to a certain extent, and even with his older brother, Lip, Ian is sort of looking out for him in a slightly paternal way, which I think is kind of interesting. He really comes a long way in sort of being confident enough in himself to start looking out for other people that I think is a really great quality. It makes him a character who has made a fair amount of mistakes but mistakes that we understand, and I think that ultimately he’s a guy that I understand and really relate to because he does have this quality to him.

So I have to ask you some questions about Ian and Mickey. I personally love them together, they were one of the reasons I started watching the show. In the end, as you said, we kind of get some closure, but also an open ending with them and it’s a happy one; they’re together and celebrating their anniversary. In your head, what do you think that their future holds? Do you think kids are in the picture; do you think they’re going to be parents? Ideally, what is your version of their happy ending, if you could create it?

I think that they both still need to do some work. I would say that they need to do work as a couple in their marriage still of just defining the terms of what is it that they want financially, sexually, intimately, personally, all of these things. It’s a show full of people who aren’t great at communication or dealing with their own feelings– I mean to a certain extent, most human beings aren’t, but these guys, especially, come from a rough background and they have that tendency of just kind of wanting to push that stuff down. Ian has really opened up Mickey and Mickey to a certain extent has really opened up Ian over the course of the series, but I still don’t think they’re fully all the way there. Mickey has a lot of emotional baggage when it comes to parenthood, his father, and dealing with responsibility.

I don’t know if Mickey is fully there. Hopefully, he would be one day in the future. And hopefully, Ian would be patient enough to give him the space to make that decision and to not want to rush into it. I do think that it would be something in their future. Parenthood was a huge motivating factor for Ian earlier in the series, going so far as to steal someone’s baby at some point because he wants to be a father. I would hope that they would be able to provide that for him and for themselves, but there’s no way to know, we have to sort of make that assumption for ourselves, but I think so.

Ian and Mickey have been this fan-favorite couple that means so much to the LGBTQ+ community in terms of representation. What was the moment that you personally started rooting for them?

I think it was pretty early. I was rooting for Ian from the first episode, from the pilot, but the second that Mickey gets introduced to the show, he brought such a fun dynamic with him. Obviously, a massive amount of charisma that was coming from Noel Fisher. The scenes were always fun, exciting, and felt steeped in a lot of dramatic tension. Whether or not they were destined to be together was kind of a question that still was developing. In the first season to the third season, the Mickey character is pretty rough emotionally and physically; he is at points pretty, extremely abusive in a way that is great for a character and for a story, but if I was talking to Ian as a person in real life, I would probably say, “Get the hell away from this guy. He’s awful for you.”

But within the context of the story, we’re able to get the internal life of these characters and we understand them well enough to really want to be rooting for them and see them succeed. It builds into this pretty epic love story of these characters that really do feel kind of intertwined by fate and something greater. It feels like you have these forces pulling for them in a way that you want with every fiber of your being to see it work out for them because you care for them. So obviously, Noel and I had been rooting for these characters the entire time, but it was really fun playing some of the ridiculousness of the situations of the two of them, where they were just very at odds with each other at times. It was a joy bouncing off of each other in both the highs and the lows of the character.

Is there sort of a message that you hope their love story gives to viewers that see themselves in these characters?

Well, I think the aspects of the characters, especially for Mickey, that I’m sure a lot of people relate to, and it is sort of the greatest tragedy of the character, is how he is deeply in the closet and he feels that he can’t embrace his own self and also this beautiful love because of this situation that he’s in; a traumatic home life, specifically an abusive father, and also an environment that doesn’t allow him to be what he wants to be. I guess the message that I do hope that people who are relating to that get is that there are places where you can be accepted and there are better options for you, and sometimes that takes time, but as cliched as it is, it does get better. So hopefully people are able to find these safe environments for themselves to be able to improve the quality of life and to get better situations. I hope that people find hope in the story ultimately.

Another relationship of Ian’s that I have to discuss is his relationship with the whole Gallagher family; that was a focus of the series since day one. What was your favorite part of their dynamic and playing off that?

Obviously, the chaos of the family is always really fun to play. We had these scenes that were kind of an amazing balancing act of like 8 or 9 people in a scene, all messing around with these different storylines that are bouncing off of each other, intertwining, and you have this really biting sharp satirical dialogue that all had a very specific rhythm to it and was a sort of flow that was established early in the show that was kind of kept across the entire series; one that was a genuine joy as a performer to play. But I think that specifically the relationship that I’ve always been a fan of and I love from the start, is probably– it’s definitely one of my favorite relationships on the show– was the relationship between Ian and Lip.

There’s not a lot of depictions of brotherhood and intimacy between men that are deeply sensitive, close, and uncomplicated. Those are definitely scenes that I felt very personally moved by, of two brothers who have just had a world of shit, a lot of complicated and messed up things that have been dropped on their heads that they’ve been dealing with for the entirety of their lives, but they’ve sort of made a pact that they were just gonna be there for each other no matter what. If they weren’t there for each other, who knows if they would have survived. I think that there’s something really amazing about those scenes in that they’re just very open with each other, and that’s something that’s established right from the start and was kind of one of those key relationships for the show that survived until the very last episode and that I’m very proud of, cause I do think that those are some of my personal favorite scenes of the show.

Here’s a fun three-part question: most challenging, fun, and insane storyline for you as an actor?

Most challenging would probably have to be… we reached a point in the series around season 8 and they were trying to contextualize the characters in a modern way, put them into new circumstances, but try to retain what the characters were, but they’ve moved a lot from where they originally were. We were at a point where we were getting so many new writers onto the series, and the show I feel struggled for a second, which happens with any series that’s been on for a while. It felt like there was a point where they didn’t know what they wanted to do with Ian. There were a couple of episodes where I was kind of looking at the story and being like, “What are we doing here? It doesn’t really feel like anything is happening with him and we’re kind of floating across these relationships.” I wasn’t sure what we were trying to say, but that being said, that is kind of true to life, to a certain degree, where we do find ourselves sometimes in these ruts where we don’t know what we’re doing with our relationships, our lives, and ourselves. There is a little bit of a struggle there and that is kind of real to a certain degree, and I do think having those episodes make when they started finding the way with the character and relationships again, kind of more satisfying cause he sort of loses his way and he comes back. So it was kind of a challenge, but I think it all worked out ultimately.

Craziest would have to be… so this is one that no one would even know is like a thing really, no one would even think of it as a thing, but the scene in the pilot episode, Lip and Ian jump out of like a window and they run out of a house to escape an angry parent, right? And they’re kind of running in a rush. So they run out in their socks, down the street, and it’s the middle of January in Chicago and the streets are covered in mud, water, and ice. I think it’s the first time I’ve ever felt in my life that I actually thought my feet were going to like fall off. I thought we were going to have to amputate a toe because of frostbite. We did the scene a bunch of times, and because Jeremy and I were young, we were just sort of trying to be tough, just like, “Yeah, whatever, it’s not a problem. We can do this over and over, not a big deal.” Then I definitely learned a lesson of like, when something is a problem, you have to say, it’s a problem.

Most fun… I don’t know if I can distill it to just one scene. I think the most fun was just getting to interact with all of the wildly different personalities of our show, and just kind of get to sit around and hang out with everyone. There were times that we would just be laughing so hard that one of us would start and we just end up crying, laughing. Usually, it was because of Howey cracking jokes or something like that, but it could be just the dumbest to smallest thing, but it’s the kind of thing when you become so comfortable with people, it just starts to happen. Sometimes it was just the downtime and these little small kind of boring or mundane moments that really ended up being some of my favorite experiences.

Did you take anything from the set at all?

I did. So in the final season, there’s a storyline where Frank steals Nighthawks, the Edward Hopper painting, and that was actually done in cooperation with the Art Institute of Chicago and the Edward Hopper estate. They did these really high-resolution prints of it that were then painted over by hand, and they even took pictures of the back and mimicked the way that the canvas wrapped over, the small writing, and everything. It’s a pretty damn good forgery of Nighthawks. So I stole one of those and that’s hanging up in my living room. I also stole one of the mugs cause in the show we’re always having breakfast and drinking coffee, so there are these rooster mugs and I stole one of those.

Since you’re talking to The Nerds of Color, I have to ask you about Star Wars and Gotham. What stood out to you about Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order compared to your other work, and what did it mean to you to join that iconic universe?

I mean, what stood out pretty quickly was that it had a tone all of its own. Star Wars is a very specific tone. It has sort of its own language, pacing, style, and rhythm; there’s something very specific about it, something that I’m a big fan of. I grew up watching the Star Wars movies and that was definitely… you know, anytime that you’re jumping onto something with an active and passionate fanbase it’s going to be slightly intimidating. There’s no way around that. Thankfully, I’ve at this point done enough projects with really passionate fanbases to kind of understand what that entails, which is that there’s going to be a lot of opinions. A lot of people are really excited about things and no matter what, even the smallest things, someone’s going to be very, very angry about it. That comes along with the territory, but that’s kind of fun to a certain degree; it’s fun to hear such minutiae and being examined, and these conversations are ones that are being had on set too.

There’s so much conversation between the Lucasfilm story group, Respawn, and EA, who are the production companies behind the game, and also the cast, directors, and everybody involved are sometimes discussing, “How does a person stand? How does one get onto a speeder bike? What kind of sound does this monster make?” And there’s always a genuine deference and respect to the series. We know how much people care about it. We know because we care about it a lot, and everyone on this project are huge fans of the source material. So that was exciting to be a part of, obviously; I mean, that should go without saying. It’s so freaking cool to be a Jedi and to be the face of this massive franchise, and to be able to not only be a part of a really well-known property and part of this large project but also to be able to tell an interesting and intimate story within it. For as bombastic as all of the action is, and as big as the Star Wars universe is, I feel the story of Cal Kestis and the people that he interacts with is a somewhat smaller one and a more intimate one. It’s ultimately, at least for me, a pretty emotionally resonant one and a story that I actually very much care about and relate to. I think that was probably the most exciting part about it, was being able to within the framework of this big machinery of what Star Wars is, still tell a story that might actually affect people and make them feel things, I think was just really cool.

Could you describe how it felt to take on the role of the Joker?

Exciting, intimidating, an honor, and challenging; it’s a role that I didn’t take lightly. I understood what it was, which is that a lot of the people who were seeing me in the role had never heard of me and didn’t know who I was, and it was a way to prove myself and to show off my take of what I could do with this. It was really cool too with that show that we were getting to do something that had never really been done before with the character, which is to show multiple versions and possibilities of what that character could be, and to kind of tip our hat to some of the famous stories that came before, and then kind of give a unique spin and show off some new things with it as well.

Obviously, that show was heightened to a certain degree and kind of existed in this wacky over-the-top violent, but also slightly cartoony universe that was kind of its own little thing. That was really fun to play around with it and to totally get to do something kind of different with that, something that we hadn’t seen before. But I think it was specifically really intimidating because, at that point of casting when I performed the episode in the first season of that show, no one had played the role since Heath Ledger had posthumously won the Oscar for the role. So the only people who had touched it in live-action had been Jack Nicholson and Heath Ledger, which are just massive, massive shoes to fill and two people that I deeply admired. Again, it’s just sort of a case of respect and wanting to kind of come in, just do my absolute best with the material, and to try to pay a certain level of honor to the people that came before.

Anything you can tease about what you’re going to do next? Any future projects?

Absolutely. It’s always difficult with this stuff because there’s only so much you can say. I can say that I just shot a film that hasn’t been announced yet, but I was out of town shooting it for a while. It’s the starring role in the film, and that will come out to theaters in the near future. I’m also working on another project over the course of the next year that I will be working on and off for. Again, thanks to the joys of NDAs, I can’t actually say what it is. I have a movie that I will be doing in June and then also I’m starting to move a bit behind the camera as well. So I’m working on producing and starring in a feature in August or September. And I’m writing a couple of projects right now as well. So it’s a loaded year for the next year, but it’s all very exciting that’s happening.

#LOVED THIS #cameron monaghan #shameless #shameless us #ian gallagher #gallavich #noel fisher #mickey milkovich #jerome valeska #the joker #gotham #jeremiah valeska #mr j #cal kestis #jedi fallen order #star wars

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dreamylyfe-x · 3 years

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Your trevor meta is making me realize how weird it is that the writers and cast were so insistent that mickey wasn't coming back, because I don't think theyve ever really known what to do with ian's story without him. They put him in these lukewarm relationships and tell us they're so much better and healthier, but then have ian straight up admit that he still loves mickey and nobody else has made him feel the same way. How do they set that up and then have him go back to trevor? They set up ian moving on with "I'm not that person anymore" and follow up with season 8. It's like okay...who he is now is gay Jesus? Lmao. He's always been the shows forgotten middle child and after they wrote mickey off "for good" they could have taken him in a million directions but they chose one so shitty it basically made cam leave lmao. Sometimes it feels like fan insistence kind of forced mickey back but in actuality, the seasons where he's gone just hammer home that he was always the inevitable end to ian's story. So bizarre how little the showrunners understand their own story sometimes.

Ok. I’m going to be a little more Doylist here than I usually am, because we’re talking about what the writers are thinking. And I’m also going to take this opportunity to share this fascinating article from the AV Club in 2016: When Fan Engagement Goes Wrong. Everyone beware, it contains significant spoilers for The 100. But it’s also largely about Gallavich, the fact that online promotion of Shameless leaned hard into the popularity of the couple, and were up against it when Noel left. I’ll quote:

“[Supervising Producer Shelia] Callaghan’s choice to be honest and straightforward when engaging with fans is admirable, and yet also on some level futile. She can’t tell them exactly why Fisher chose to leave, she is (logically) unwilling to spoil future storylines outright, and she can only speak her own mind as part of a collaborative process over which she holds only some influence. So while many fans respect her effort to maintain the connection to this now marginalized community, others attack, reinforcing that attempting to manage these situations is a full-time job that no one has been properly trained for.”

This article links some tweets and the one I find the most interesting is this one:

“But the actor left. So...what to do? Have them just break up?? Felt way less true to me than a forced separation!”

That tweet is from Krista Vernoff, who wanted to convey that they tried really hard to come up with what they do with Ian now that he’d lost Mickey. And I’m sure they did try really hard. And.... People hated it. Mostly.

Here’s what I think, based on what I’ve read and the interviews I’ve seen, on deleted tweets and Tumblr rumours and YouTube clips: The show didn’t want Mickey to leave the canvas. At all. Noel wanted more money. The show could not come up with both that money and the money they needed for everyone else. The show let him go. And hoped they could solve the creative problem their budgetary problem had dumped in their lap.

I actually think Ian’s story in season six is decent. I miss Mickey, of course. I find the last scene with him really painful -- but it’s not painful because the show is trying to diminish him. They write and then cut together a scene where Mickey is DEMONSTRATIVELY still deeply in love with Ian. He’s carved his name in his chest. He is looking at Ian like he’s the most beautiful creature ever given breath. And Ian can barely meet his gaze. They tell us Mickey is being sent away for 16 years but when we see the last of Mickey Milkovich in season six I think “God, this is so sad. They love each other so much and this is so fucked up.”

I do NOT think “We are NEVER EVER EVER getting back together.”

The show always knew what it had with Ian and Mickey. They leaned into it promotionally. They gave meaty storylines to the characters, particularly given that Ian was the fourth lead on a family dramedy built around six children. John Wells replaced Aaron Sorkin on The West Wing. He knows how hard it is to follow a phenomenon.

The more I think about it, honestly? I don’t think they tried. I think they knew that they couldn’t bring in Mickey Milkovich, the sequel in season six, so they brought in Caleb. And maybe they meant for him to be a LITTLE more viable than he was... but I think there’s a pretty good chance they were just throwing something at the wall to see if it stuck, while being fully aware that the important storyline in season six was getting Ian from despair to a fulfilling career. Caleb was just there as a catalyst.

Season seven if more interesting, because Trevor is brought on and it’s very much... “Hey, let’s do something new. Let’s bring on a transmasc character and put him into a relationship with Ian and explore those complications.”

“Great! Put it up on the board!”

“Also. Let’s call Noel Fisher’s people and see what we can work out because we can do better with Mickey’s send off and people are yelling at me on the street about it.”

Quite honestly, these are not equal tasks for his writer’s room. You have one story -- Create a whole ass new character. The only thing we know is that he’s trans. Figure out the romance from there. You have six episodes to get them together as an established couple.

Then: Bring back the well-established and beloved character for an epic romantic two-episode arc where he reunites with his true love and they run away together and then ultimately realize it cannot be, and say goodbye and it all feels like I Will Always Love You should be playing in the background. They actors worked together for five years. They have a great professional partnership. They like working together. They have a ton of history so there’s lots of juicy subtext. The longing and sexual tension comes pre-established. See what you can do.

HOW do you make both those things work out so that they are equal? You need lightening to strike. And that already happened on How I Met Your Mother. They squandered their good luck and now there is none left for Shameless. I do not disparage Elliot Fletcher at all when I say that for Trevor and Ian to really work he’d have had to have come with scorching chemistry with Cam, rich material that really gave them a good opportunity to build rapport between the characters, and A wizard standing by to cast spells in the wings. They had SIX episodes, a pretty average connection between the actors, and the “these are the LGBTQ+ people in your neighbourhood” scene.

I just can’t believe that someone with as many years of TV writing under his belt as John Wells has expected that to work. He hoped the Trevor story might be good, and was certainly going to break some ground in terms of telling trans stories. And the Mickey story was going to be the highlight, because he knew people wanted it and he also knew that they’d had something pretty special to start with. Which is why people were yelling at him at Comic-Con. I DO think he hoped it might placate fans a bit. But... he wasn’t going to completely close the door on Mickey this time, either.

So... I don’t really think the show every intended to write Mickey off “for good”. I think they wrote him off “for now, and we’ll see what happens...” -- and they did that with Karen, Shelia, Jody, Steve and Fiona, too. They only brought a few of those people back... They brought Mickey back three times. They ended Gallavich FOUR times. Noel is in ever season except eight. I don’t think they wanted Mickey gone -- but I KNOW the fans also made it pretty hard for them not to know his value, so absolutely I think that played a role. But when you create something people love and you get that lightening in a bottle like they did with this story, I think writers are always going to be excited to get that back. They like praise! They like people to be excited about their show. And Gallavich was always one of the things that got people excited about Shameless.

I think they also wanted Gay Jesus to be a great story. But that’s why the lightening in the bottle is so valuable. You can’t just get it anywhere.

#asks #I hope this answered the question #I am honestly so interested in the behind-the-scenes efforts to make season 7 work #and I do think they wanted Gay Jesus to be a great story #and instead... Cam quit #because no #writing is hard #shameless season 7 #shameless season 6 #shameless season 8 #shameless without mickey #thanks for asking!#God I hope that was an answer #Gallavich meta

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oatmilkovich · 3 years

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I'd really love if you made a post about Noel's acting this episode! If you still want to

hey!! <3

this episode reminded us (not that we needed the reminder, looks at the writers) what the show is missing out on when they reduce the characters and their storyline’s down to comedy with very little substance.

this is the first time in a long while that it feels like mickey’s trauma surrounding terry has been giving the time, space and the dialogue it deserves. I’ve been waiting many, many years for this sort of resolution for mickey...

my thoughts on noel’s performance under the cut (it’s a little lengthy!)...

as always, disclaimer: this is all my opinion, but i did go to drama school and have a degree. there’s a pandemic and nothing else to do, i just like talking about it.

firstly, something I’ve always admired about noel’s work is his ability to tell us a thousand things without saying a single word. we’ve seen it from the very first season – there’s very few other actors on the show that consistently carry that much power with their silence and noel really did the most this week. let’s look at this moment:

mickey doesn’t say anything until prompted by ian and yet because of the intensity in noel’s look and the sheer amount of tension he’s carrying, we’re completely aware of mickey’s feelings in the moment without having to hear any dialogue. his physicality tells us more than any dialogue would. his shoulders are tense, his face is fight – it’s a deep, visceral reaction to seeing his father. noel has clearly thought about mickey’s pov here – not only about terry, but about this moment in general, about the first time he sees him after coming home from the hospital, about watching the man who tortured him for years finally be met with even an ounce of the same pain he was subjected to. immediately, we’re thrown into the heavy weight of the moment and when mickey does speak, it only echoes what we already know from his physicality. the dialogue complements noel’s performance, rather than solely carrying it. he’s managed to tap into the perfect balance of allowing the lines to come from truth — they don’t feel planned out or rehearsed but delivering them in a way we can tell that mickey has thought about it – mickey’s history with terry is lengthy and incredibly complex and that’s completely embodied in how noel delivers each line. It’s important to me that we can feel the history there, but that history is left at the door when it comes to his work in the scene. he’s not displaying the history, he’s existing in it.

my personal ‘acting theory’ (to avoid sounding like a wanker) is that you don’t act as your character, but that you exist as yourself under those circumstances. mickey’s circumstances in the scene are noel’s circumstances and he reacts — as he would — in the moment. prep work for this is key. noel has said in previous interviews that when approaching mickey in the earlier seasons, he focused on having a secret and lengths he would go to protect it. knowing this, we have a small idea on how he approaches mickey now. he clearly has taken something in his own life and used it to personalise this situation with mickey, he’s thought about how he himself would react in those circumstances, because he is himself in mickey’s circumstances — this is why it feels so personal, this is why his performance is still so consistently nuanced all these years later. this is why he can tell us so much in a simple shift of the eyes.

take emma’s performance during this episode – in the moments she’s talking about sandy and how upset she is (eg: inside the ambulance with ian and mick) she’s very much really going for the oh my heart is so broken blah blah, but it doesn’t land because you don’t believe her heart is broken. the lines are empty. you compare that to the subtleties noel shows us throughout the episode and it’s almost unfair that they have her scenes next to his. this isn’t to roast her, but just to highlight the differences in nuance and depth. allowing dialogue to carry a performance vs actually living in the performance.

discomfort played a huge part in noel’s performance in 11x06 too and discomfort in scenes can bring wonders. mickey is uncomfortable — he’s faced with some horribly difficult decisions. we see a stark difference from his easy going ‘just pull the plug on him’ energy vs when he’s actually given the chance to. the stakes in the scene and situation are extremely high – mickey is quite literally battling with an opportunity he’s been waiting his entire life for. the weight of those stakes are heavy on his shoulders and the highlight of the episode for me was the physical journey on noel’s face as he holds the gun to terry's chest. noel gives us mickey’s internal battle – there’s the pent up rage he clearly had been carrying with him on the ride over, then the irritation, the fear, the sadness, the frustration. you can almost see everything mickey has ever had to go through because of terry in the way he looks at him.

this shot above in particular has really, really stuck with me. the way he doesn’t respond to ian, keeping his eyes firmly planted on terry – he’s lost in his thoughts, in his history and you can feel everything behind noel’s eyes.

it’s such a fantastically layered performance that he makes it impossible to look away. he allows the moment to play out and live and doesn’t speed run to achieve anything in his performance. he doesn’t push. noel doesn’t walk into the scene and go ‘oh i’m gonna make mickey feel this on this line and this on this line’ – he gives the emotions their time and place to land, we see and feel mickey’s journey without a single word. it all comes from his natural reactions to the circumstances. he doesn’t try and show us what mickey is going through when faced with the option to kill terry — he lives it, he sits in it and he exists in it.

we also had a great example of noel’s range this ep. he delivered his funny, usual one liners like he has done throughout this season but really hammered home his talent when given dramatic scenes. it was a refreshing balance.

overall, noel’s performance in this episode is a great example of how a well acted scene doesn’t have to contain screaming or crying or overt, obvious dramatics in order to be categorised as ‘good’. similarly to what I said in my post about ian’s vows, some of the smallest and subtle moments can carry as much as a 5 minute monologue or an intense shouting match.

this is long and probably a little boring, but I could honestly talk about his work for ages. thanks for the question (and the other anons too!) and please feel free to send me anymore – especially as we now have a 3 week break before the next episode <3

#i lied and got anxious so here it is an hour later #willa's acting thoughts #enjoy though! i hope i didn't ramble too much #but really i just enjoyed this episode so much #pls ask me anything else if you want to have a discussion!#noel fisher #shameless #tw guns #actingasks

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steve0discusses · 3 years

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Yugioh S5 Ep 18: A Series of Ecological Disasters

Booting up ye old Yugioh, booting up a new aesthetic playlist to type to. (today’s playlist is webcore, which would feel like such a damn fake aesthetic, if it weren’t that every single one of these -core aesthetics are pretty damn fake and everyone knows it.)

Anyway, it’s been so long that, I’ll be honest, I thought I booted up the wrong episode:

I usually skip the anime intro, but I try to watch it once each arc, cuz the intros change, and this arc was like “screw it, here’s all the other villains, just pretend this arc isn’t happening.” They had Pegasus, they had Marik, they have Bakura (who is kind of in this shot as well, you can see him phasing in there.) And like...I guess they’re hiding the villain of this arc or something because that was it. Alexander the Great got just nixed from this villain list and that’s a shame.

Just a real weird choice, but since apparently this arc didn’t air in Japan they probably had to outsource this anime intro and whatever studio in charge of it just cobbled together stuff from every other season and then a couple of shots of capsule stuff.

Speaking of capsule stuff: get a load of how many freakin lines the animators have to deal with every time they draw Grandpa.

Bro saw this and was like “oh yeah, this is a Shonen Jump” and yeah. The hair does give those vibes. We got a good look at what Vegeta would look like if he really let himself go.

(read more under the cut)

Sorry, my playlist started playing a song where every single line of the song is “Adrien Brody” and it took me like a few minutes to realize I was listening to “Brodyquest” completely seriously.

Damn it, webcore, don’t betray me like this.

Anyway, this arc does something super surprising: Yugi actually hugs somebody and doesn’t look like he’s going to pass out standing up.

It is pretty fitting that the good Yugi hug would go to Grandpa.

And, as night falls, Joey Wheeler has gotten hungry, and there is nothing to eat but his new best friend and spirit animal, baby dragon. Unfortunately he shares life points with the dragon, and I think if you eat it that just instakills you.

And directly underneath him--since this world is like 100 feet wide and things just conveniently happen--Tea has told everyone that they needed to stop worrying about Joey. Which is a lot coming from Tea, because her worrying about Yugi/Yami getting hurt is most of what occupies her headspace in this series.

But even Tea was like, screw Joey, I guess.

Who kinda just falls directly into them upside down, and shows us what Joey’s hair looks like when it’s sticking straight up.

For reals, admire how long Joey Wheeler’s hair is. If Tea were upside down, she would have the same length of hair.

Also speaking of Vegeta, I am low key concerned that Joey has what appears to be a significant amount of male pattern balding going on for a teenager.

Apparently getting set on fire many, many times did have an effect on Joey, and this massive pompadour he wears is a combover. Poor baby.

Holy crap, if this is what card stress and getting killed multiple times did to Joey Wheeler, can you imagine what’s going on under Seto’s bangs? That’s probably why his bangs ride so low, Seto likely wears a freakin toupee.

Guys, Joey’s gonna lose his hair at 25 at this rate. Those locks just aren’t long for this world. Poor baby.

After Joey rejoins the party, he immediately eats all of their food. Not sure why they can’t just have Baby Dragon eat like...whatever Baby Dragon naturally eats...and then transform that into shared Joey Wheeler life points, but it’s not clear exactly how much of a life-connection they have with their Yugioh monsters. Not like it matters because Joey Wheeler is default starving all the time anyway.

Tristan has decided we should start laying blame, I guess because Duke Devlin isn’t here anymore to be the local kill joy. This doesn’t seem to be important at any point, and most of the characters are just ignoring Tristan because like...once you’re in the haunted game in a haunted tomb in a random part of India--it’s kind of moot to argue about who’s fault that is, youknow?

Joey reminds us that he found this quest item in a treasure chest under a secret waterfall. No one says “that was convenient that you landed there after getting chased through a ravine by man-eating birds after you got your dragon from when you got your crotch injury from getting spliced by that tree.”

Which is when Tea says “Wait! We haven’t had a plot thing happen in like 4 seconds! Wait!”

Hey what degree of “I don’t trust nature” do you have to be to assume that all the flowers are trying to eat you?

Like what level of anxiety is Tea where she not only is like “pretty sure the flowers are going to destroy us?” but also...she’s correct? Like she’s not wrong.

They set the dog flowers on fire, but unlike the Jungle Book this doesn’t solve any problems (which apparently got taken off the Disney+ kid’s menu so...yet again, I make a Disney reference in these recaps that future generations will not understand because so much of the Disney library has been banned from the vault. It’s almost like Disney should let go of that copyright they held on for like a hundred years, because what they’re holding on to is only going to get more racist with time. But nah. Gotta hold on with their greedy mickey mouse gloves.)

So instead of using fire, Tristan used his monster to electrocute the air (?) and blind the dogs. Wisely, the animators quickly jumped to this other scene so we wouldn’t have to analyze why it’s suddenly daytime or why that plan would even work.

Joey and Tristan do a lot of buddy buddy stuff this arc. Usually we see a lot of Joey and Yugi’s bottomless friendship, but we don’t get this much Tristan/Joey love. So shippers rejoice, these two seem to have several coordinated dances and songs...and I’d say that teens don’t typically do that, but I went to summer camp, there are situational places where teens will sing the entire vacation and make coordinated dances.

Weirdly, since Joey and Tristan share so much time together, this also means Tea and Yugi actually sit next to eachother for a lot of this arc, almost as if they were a couple. Mind you, they’re chaperoned closely by Grandpa, but youknow...that’s a different energy than I’m used to seeing.

That and like, they can’t have Tea dance with them because last time she did a dance, it was like a DDR fight and she elbowed some guy like it was a fisticuffs situation. Like there was some sort of dance war going on behind the scenes of Yugioh’s card war, and it came up once and I guess Tea resolved it and the dance fights haven’t come back since.

Overall, if they did a dance with Tea, they would get kneed in the face, so that’s probably why they insist on doing cancans as a duet and not a trio.

After Joey and Tristan freak out over having no food, Tea decides to just start eating in front of them.

and like...didn’t Joey eat that food yesterday? Like last night? The short term memory loss on all these fools.

Immediately after this we realize something weird in the water. That’s right, it’s a massive head.

Yugi seems to have forgotten they lit this turtle on fire and electrocuted the entire sky the night before. Not that it mattered.

There were like...nesting birds on those trees on that island. What the hell? They just killed so MANY of those man-eating dogs that are flowers.

Seriously are land turtles allowed to just...dive underwater for long periods of time? How does that ecosystem even work? It’s like...That’s wild to think about.

Inside the temple, they have to fight a genie or something.

In case you were wondering, the only reason Tea and Grandpa got iced is because they were the closest to the door. The two who were actually standing out of harms way were the closest to harm the whole time.

Bro tells me this is also what will happen to you if you are in the front or the back of the party while playing Cthulu D&D

Anyway, Pharaoh decides to disclose that his big problem of feeling guilty all the time and taking all the blame, which he did all of last season...is still a huge problem he will probably never tackle.

Straight up, don’t be fooled by my caps, everyone else has completely forgotten about Alex, who is still running around that temple up there. They haven’t even asked Grandpa “hey is this your protege? Is this your mentee you never told us about?” Nah. They already forgot.

How wild is it that Pharaoh thinks this is all his fault when he was the only one who was like “YUGI IT’S A TRAP DON’T GO IN THE- well...OK I guess we’re doing this, fine.” Is he upset he didn’t take control from Yugi and walk back to the plane? Because that’s the only way he could even be partially responsible, He was the only guy who was like “I see the end from the beginning on this y’all, and it’s the massive pyramid in India.”

Speaking of forgetting, they came across this language Pharaoh has decided to have nothing to do with.

This was actually a riddle and it was like...it was a riddle, sure, I guess.

And so Joey Wheeler does not hallucinate his dead wife from a previous incarnation and get on the back of his Baby Dragon to sail away into the sunset. Instead they’re just gonna walk.

Too bad Tea’s orb covered in wings only seems to hover a bit. Every single wing on that weird orb is absolutely useless.

And then Pharaoh’s pokemon is just a fire--which is hard to sit on--and Celtic Guardian...who would allow it, sure, but probably doesn’t fly (I think. He might fly)

And then Tristan’s Pokemon kinda seems like if you sit on it, you will get electrocuted. It can probably fly though. It’s very round. Seems like an anime thing that the more round your mascot character is, the more likely it can at least bounce a good distance.

So, next time, I’m just going to assume that we are going to do even more camping. And youknow, if you told me exactly HOW MUCH CAMPING was in this card game show with super future tech, I would not have believed you. But like...a lot of this series is set in the woods right? Like a lot a lot? I have grown to appreciate the woods.

Anyway, as always, if you just got here, this is a link to read these in chrono order:

https://steve0discusses.tumblr.com/tagged/yugioh/chrono

See you next time!

#yugioh #yu-gi-oh #recap #photo recap #S5 #Yugi muto #yami muto #grandpa muto #tea gardner #joey wheeler #tristan taylor #baby dragon #Ep18

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casually-slips-into-coma · 3 years

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An Essay (sort of) Explaining the Many Grievances I Have With Debbie Gallagher

Once again, Debbie is the fucking worst.

I’ve been wanting to write out my feelings towards her character for a fucking minute now just so that I have a full concise list. Now, I can talk about how Debbie has a constant need for attention, or how her character has become someone unrecognizable in the past few seasons, or how she’s a terrible mother, but what I really want to focus on is the center of my issues with her: her sexuality. Don’t get me wrong, this isn’t about to be a homophobic rant or anything. I just think her queer development has been written terribly and that should be addressed.

Too often I see people praising queer characters or relationships based solely on the fact that they are queer, and as a member of the community, I get it. I am also starved for representation. This, however, does not mean I’m going to settle for annoying, poorly written characters.

Why Make Debbie Queer?

The first thing I want to address is why suddenly develop a WLW storyline for her. Given that Debbie started as a little girl on the show, this gives the writers a lot of opportunity to give a character like that interesting storylines because she does not yet have a solid personality. It gives writers the liberty to take her story anywhere they want to without the constraints of established character because she, as a person, is still developing into adulthood. The show runners unfortunately dropped the ball with this.

From season 4 and onwards was when Debbie began showing interest in dating, sex, and romance having just turned the corner to puberty. From then up until season 9, she has shown exclusive interest in men. It isn’t until Alex the welder that Debbie deviates from this path. Alex is portrayed as a stud who confuses Debbie. I am inclined to believe that Debbie was originally attracted to her because she was masculine and therefore close enough to the people Debbie had previous experience with.

This arc was treated very much as Debbie experimenting with her sexuality, something that Alex also ends up realizing after Debbie tells her that having sex with a girl is “not that bad” and “like having sex with yourself” (S9E4). Once this storyline wrapped up (with Debbie shouting “you make me want cock again”) the writers powered through, adamant about Debbie now being a lesbian.

I have two theories as to why they’ve been fighting so hard for her queerness.

1) This was around the time that Cam was leaving Shameless. This obviously didn’t end up happening, but I was under the impression that the writers were freaking out at losing their token gay character and needed to fill that position. When Cam ended up staying, they were stuck with a queer Debbie storyline and decided to just go with it.

2) Shameless was planning on doing a WLW storyline regardless of Cam’s choice to leave and were originally going to give it to Fiona and her lesbian tenant that she had a close relationship and a lot of chemistry with, but Emmy Rossum wanted to move on from Shameless, and so they pivoted and gave the arc to Debbie, a character that was not supposed to be moved in that direction and so her new sexuality seemingly came out of nowhere. Fiona as a bisexual character would have made sense. Debbie still does not.

Shameless’s Awkward Relationship With Bisexuality

One of the biggest issues I have with Debbie is her insistence on being a lesbian. Lesbianism doesn’t come out of nowhere. Bisexuality, however, can. When you grow up being told that you are supposed to feel attraction to men, and you genuinely do feel attraction to men (which Debbie has expressed in past seasons/episodes) it’s easy to ignore your attraction to women and write it off as something that either isn’t a big deal, or something that isn’t there. It’s a lot more confusing than being strictly at one end of the spectrum. It would have been so much more believable if they had simply made Debbie bisexual. Unsurprisingly, they didn’t because the show has a history with bi erasure.

Bisexuality has been treated badly all throughout Shameless, used as a vengeful plot device back in the earlier seasons where Monica was only ever with women when unmedicated. Then in Season 7 when Ian’s boyfriend Caleb cheated on him with a woman (enforcing the stereotype of bisexuals being unfaithful) Ian, possibly acting out of anger or ignorance, said things like “only women are bisexual. When a man says he’s bisexual he’s really just gay”. The only semi positive bisexual representation on the show was Svetlana and Vee when they were in a poly relationship with Kev (though I also think that storyline wasn’t handled as well as it could’ve been).

This fight against the bisexual label in media is not a new one but it is also a harmful stance to take when writing a sexually fluid character. Debbie declaring that she is, in fact, a lesbian after waxing poetic about how Matty had a big dick and Derek had a great body and knew what he was doing is not the way to go.

You could argue that Debbie, like many other queer women, is an unfortunate victim of compulsory heterosexuality, but frankly I don’t think the writers are well versed enough in queer theory for that to be a possibility.

Debbie as The White Feminist

Debbie is the pinnacle of white feminism. It’s an unfortunate thought that has occurred to me a few times throughout the show. She talks a big game as a man hater and someone after the equal treatment of women but she herself participates in a lot of problematic and anti feminist behavior.

For one, she r*ped Matty back in season 5 when he was blacked out and unconscious. This was a point in the story that was glossed over and one where she suffered no repercussions other than Matty no longer wanting to be around her. It was explained in the show that Debbie didn’t realize what she did was wrong until after she was explicitly told so because she was maybe 14 when it happened (not 100% on the age Shameless is very inconsistent about timelines). It was treated as somewhat of a punchline, something that Shameless has unfortunately done more than once when referring to male sexual assault (Mickey’s r*pe, Liam in season 10 ((i think??)) and in this latest season, Carl) but that is a different topic.

There was also the time in which she lied to her boyfriend about being on birth control so she could trap him into a relationship with pregnancy (which also counts as r*pe!!) Good on Derek for getting out of that.

Debbie has also been pro-life in the past. Now I understand this was when Fiona was pressuring her into aborting her pregnancy, and as a pro choicer myself, I believe that Debbie was fully in her right to have bodily autonomy and go through with the pregnancy. This isn’t where the issue lies. It’s when Fiona finds out that she too is pregnant and tells Debbie that she wants an abortion that Debbie accuses her of “killing her baby”. Again, her behavior could be explained by her age given that Debbie was still a young teen during this time.

When her actions as a White Feminist become less excusable is mostly in the latest season. Her relationship with Sandy is one that I’m not really happy with because Debbie doesn’t deserve her.

Recently, it has been revealed that Sandy is actually married to a man and has a son. It’s explained that she was basically married off against her will at the age of 15 to a man twice her age. This implies that the product of the marriage, her son, was most likely conceived through dubious consent (or worse) at the hands of an adult when she was just a kid. Just because Debbie thinks that Sandy’s husband “seems nice” does not give her the right to try and make a victim of grooming feel bad about not wanting to be with her abuser. While I understand that Sandy’s son has no fault in how he came into the world, I’m still gonna side with Sandy when it comes to having to take care of a child she didn’t want and who is most likely a source of trauma for her. It’s not difficult to sympathize with Sandy and see that she’s clearly gone through something fucked up and Debbie, despite claiming to love and support her, AND despite her dumb white feminist arc about wanting equal pay and all that jazz, turns her back on the girls supporting girls aspect of feminism.

This isn’t even mentioning how shitty it was to just leave Franny by herself and assume that one of her siblings would take her to school and pick her up and stuff as if they don’t all have separate lives. She talks a lot about being a good mother but decided to “let off some steam” by fucking off to a gay bar to get loaded on coke and fuck a gay man (which wtf thats not a thing that really happens with casual coke but whatever I guess). Once she realized she fucked up, instead of taking responsibility she decided to paint herself as the victim as well as spew offensive bullshit about how she “probably has AIDS now” because of her sexual encounter with a gay man. No lesbian in their right fucking mind would ever say that because as members of the LGBTQ+ community, you are at least a tiny bit informed as to how devastating and tragic the AIDS crisis was for queer people.

(I also have an issue with how Debbie capitalized on her felony as a sex offender and her sexuality to start her Hot Lesbian Convict business but I think that’s enough said.)

Blame the writers

The show got almost an entirely new cast of writers after season 7 which is why the show feels more like a sitcom with low stakes and no consequences rather than a drama, but if there is a queer writer on the team it’s not very evident. Even the better half of the queer relationship story, Ian and Mickey, I don’t feel has really been done justice since the change in writers. It’s just become painfully obvious that the actress is a straight girl playing a gay character (not to mention I have never seen any chemistry between her and all of her female love interests). I don’t fault Emma Kenney (the actress) for this. I actually really like her as a person and I like the videos she makes about the cast and such, and I think she does her best with the script she’s given. My complaints with Debbie are targeted entirely towards the writers.

This brings me to my final point. I need them to let Debbie be alone. Her whole thing for the second half of the season has been that she clearly has abandonment issues and is afraid of being alone. It’s why she’s so adamant about keeping the house and fighting with Lip about it (I’m actually on Debbie’s side for that one but that’s besides the point). They had her and Sandy break up which leaves Debbie to spiral further into her loneliness. From a writing point of view, it makes sense to take this opportunity to give her an arc in which she can overcome that and feel comfortable with herself so that she can move on as an adult instead of jumping into a new relationship. This is especially true since this is quite literally the last season ever of the show and any character development needs to be wrapped up. Introducing a new character out of nowhere does not give the viewers enough time to actually get invested in the new relationship. It’s also unfair to Debbie’s character because her arc is going to feel incomplete.

Anyway,,,,,,uuuhhhhh,,,,,feel free to add on if u want lmao

#shameless #debbie gallagher #sandy milkovich #lesbian #ian gallagher #mickey milkovich #terrible queer rep

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gallavichy · 3 years

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So I have a thought about the steam room and orgy scenes this episode that is, I think, a slightly different take than either of the extremes out there (Gallavich would never! And Shut up, it’s totally fine).

My general take is that they decided on whatever they did this ep TOGETHER. So they’re being safe, sane, and consensual. I also think that the steam room and the party gays are both isolated situations that don’t suggest ANY sort of future problems or infidelity.

But narratively speaking, I think it’s also worth looking at how the world of Shameless codes these things. Yes, this is hard to do because of serious issues with homophobia and racism in the writing, general inconsistency in the writing, screwing with the show Bible when when necessary (or not 😡), and retconning whenever the fuck they want, BUT, there is the realm of the world if this show, and it’s worth looking at.

- This show does not define true love, lasting love, and meaningful love as something built on fidelity and monogamy. I’m not saying that it promotes polyamory, but I am suggesting that we have been presented with couples whom we are supposed to believe love each other deeply...and very few of them have had perfectly closed relationships. And this is not just for gay couples! Think about Helene and her husband, Kev and V in their throuple, etc. so WE might see airtight monogamy as something we want, but the show has almost never presented us with that as an option.

- The shameless piece of Shameless means that the writers will often if not always subvert the fandom’s desire for sweetness and romance if/when something sexy and scandalous can happen. It’s not always infidelity, but it’s often something we wouldn’t want for the couples we like. Kev and V acting out master and slave stuff on the internet?? V’s MOM?? Lip being monumentally stupid in all of his relationships? Lip lying to Tami constantly this season? Steve being married when he shows up after S1? Most of Gallavich seasons 1-5?

- The show is about family and survival and loyalty (not romantic loyalty, necessarily, but the I-can-count-on-you-no-matter-what loyalty). What we’ve been shown in s10 and 11 with Gallavich is that they ARE these things for one another. They are family, lovers, AND friends. While I think the show fucks up in a lot of ways, I think it’s been clear about this.

Okay, and then lastly - they lived happily ever after is a hard claim to stomach if a couple hasn’t been shown to face the hard questions when the show concludes. Showing us that they can go to the steam room or an orgy and end the night together singing Gaga and Ariana in the gross Gallagher bathroom is the reassurance we need that their marriage will survive all the random stupid shit that might come their way. It’s also important to note that even though he’s a dumbass, Ian is better at relationships than all his other siblings. Seriously. Except maybe Liam!

all great points here! ♥️

i really don’t want to talk too much about this because i’m not one to engage in conversations about ~controversial aspects of episodes as i have genuine troubles with articulating big thoughts to the point that it stresses me out. however! i do just want to mention a few things and preface it by saying that my general thought is that people are allowed to feel however they want about this--particularly the fans who’ve been around since the beginning and who feel like this is a less-than-desirable turn of events after the degree to which they’ve followed this relationship. i get it.

but i also want to say that while i understand some of the extremes to the interpretation of this, i also think it’s important to note (and may make others feel better?) that what’s happening between them is not polyamory and does not suggest romantic or physical disloyalty with permission. i’m reading it as a kink, more than anything. they’re each other’s one and only. but just like adding toys to their bedroom activities, they’re open to adding a guy or two to the scenario whenever they have the desire and opportunity, which i don’t imagine will be frequently, just as i don’t imagine they get out the ballgag more than a couple times a month, if that. i just can’t make myself view this in any way as them being open to sex with other people. they’re clearly jealous. their “who knows what might happen...” is enough to get mickey to agree to making gay friends with ian and ian to agree to stay for the dinner party. they absolutely don’t want their husband to have sex with other people in any capacity that isn’t a scenario in which they’re like, together in a steam room with two other guys or taking part in an orgy in which, let’s be honest, they probably made out with each other while receiving blowjobs or while they side-by-side topped other men. it’s a partnered activity and just a fun new way to enjoy sex and the physical bodily pleasures with the man they love.

to address your ask (sorry for basically hijacking it lol), i do agree that the show certainly doesn’t seem to present to us many instances of strict, as you say, “airtight monogamy.” but unlike the other examples--helene and her husband, the throuple thing--ian and mickey’s situation doesn’t even feel like that. idk. i guess i just tend to view this as them occasionally having adventurous sex that, no matter if there are other guys in the mix during the act, is always about them in the end and is ultimately still sex with each other. i think they’d go mental if they were to like, split up and each pick up a guy to take to two different locations. they’re way too possessive and jealous for that. to your second point, i do think they tend to subvert our desires when it comes to characters’ sex lives--mostly as evidenced by the kinkiness discovered this season--but yeah, idk, this whole scenario in 11x07 was sweet as hell to me. they love each other so much and that, to me, was palpable, regardless of how many guys were in the equation.

i feel like this doesn’t address your ask at all and was, instead, me just going on tangent after tangent, but again, i tend to do this and it’s why i suck at responding to very thoughtful asks like yours. ♥️♥️♥️ anyway, you’ve made great points here and i absolutely agree with them as valid commentary on the show, i just personally don’t fit ian and mickey’s sex life into that based on how i view their arrangement in the first place.

#<33333 #likelife19 #ask gray

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gallavictorious · 3 years

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Outsider POV Gallavich Fic: Captive Look

For a while there this spring, I was mildly obsessed with the CO in 10x03: you know, the good-looking guy who seems so completely unfazed by finding two armed inmates stabbing an old man, and then for whatever reason doesn't report it? (He can't have; Ian's parole wouldn't have happened so soon after something like that.) I also really dig his beard... Anyway, IMDB identifies him as Raymond and I've had this short little piece about him and his interactions with two certain dumbasses sitting almost finished in my draft doc for months and months and months, so... you're welcome? 2882 words, to help pass the time until the new episode!

You can read it below or on AO3.

---

It's half past eight on a Thursday when Raymond catches sight of them across the bar at South Side Social. He’s there to celebrate his baby sister’s birthday, familial obligation overriding personal preference, but after an hour of politely chatting with her increasingly wasted college friends over obnoxiously rustic-only-because-it’s-trendy food, he’s ready for a break. Catching Tina’s eye, he mimes lightening a cigarette; she raises an eyebrow at him and smirks. She’s a clever kid, his sister – the first in their family to go to college – and she knows him only too well. Knows, for instance, that he gave up smoking years and years ago.

Offering her a rueful grin, he gets up and gets out and spends the next few minutes breathing in Chicago’s poisonous evening air. It’s December, but unusually warm for the season, and somewhere underneath the dusty stink of exhaust fumes and concrete there’s a faint trace of melting snow.

On the way back to the table Raymond stops at the bar to order another beer, and that’s when he spots them, just three feet away. Two men in their mid-twenties, casually dressed and apparently in the middle of a not-very-serious argument, complete with waving hands and mock-scoffs. It takes a moment for the vague feeling of familiarity to click into actual recognition, and when it's does it's not so much their faces as the way they pause to look at each other.

It's not the sort of look you see a lot, especially not in prison.

So, well, he’ll be damned. It’s Milkovich and Gallagher. Cellmates, lovers, and occasionally a goddamn pain in his ass. Released, as improbable as it sounded, within days of each other less than half a year ago, and now laughing over drinks in a half-way decent restaurant in downtown Chicago. It’s not the sort of place he’d expected to find them in – but then again, there’d been a lot of unexpected things about that pair.

Not them hooking up, necessarily, not once they’d ended up sharing a cell; trading sexual favors for protection (whether voluntarily or not) was common enough. Frowned upon in theory, of course, but in practice –

Well. You didn’t have to like it, but it was what it was. Idealism didn’t survive long at Beckham. Raymond himself had never harbored any grand notions about the redemptive potential of his work, but he’d seen his fair share of fresh-faced new CO:s have their illusions crushed after a week or two caught between the often violent offenders who despised them, the indifferent malice of many seasoned CO:s, and the stifling drudgery of the American penal system in general. Not Raymond, though: he did his job, did it well, and went home and didn't spend waste moment of thought on it. You did what you needed to do to pay the bills; no need to dwell on it.

So no, Gallager getting in bed, quite literally, with Milkovich hadn’t been a surprise. The nature of their relationship, though...

Sure, it wasn’t unheard of for inmates to fall for one another, or for established couples to end up in prison together. Didn’t happen a lot, and actual homosexuality was still more likely to get you beat up than laid, but yeah, it did happen. What, in Raymond’s experience, never happened was having to people look at each other the way Milkovich and Gallagher sometimes did, whenever they thought no one else was watching: there was a kind of wonder to it, both staring at the other like they’ve been handed a goddamn gift and couldn’t quite believe their luck.

Particularly on Milkovich’s face the look was baffling.

Ever since the young man arrived at Beckamn he'd moved down the gray corridors and among the yellow-clad crowds like a man born to it. Raymond supposed he was; his father Terry had spent much of his adult life in the very same prison, as had a great many brothers, cousins and assorted associates. Though Raymond didn't know any details, and didn't really care to know them, he'd bet dollars to donuts that Mickey Milkovich's criminal career had had both an early start and a sense of inevitability to it. Various stints in juvie, followed by a real prison sentence for... attempted murder, wasn't it?... followed by a widely publicized jailbreak and an eventual and far less publicized return to Beckman.

Milkovich was tough enough to make others back down when he had to but smart enough not to start any unnecessary fights, not with the other inmates and not with the ones set to watch over them. Knew how to work the system, too: how to get things in, get things done, which guards could be bribed. Raymond didn't play that game himself, but he wasn't getting paid enough not to turn a blind eye when others do. And Milkovich had been pretty smooth about it, especially since his return; careful not to cause a stir.

Gallagher, on the other hand... He'd been the kind of inmate Raymond would've been seriously worried for, had he been inclined to worry and had Milkovich not been there to watch his back and show him the ropes. Not because Gallagher struck Raymond as even remotely helpless, but he so very obviously did not belong in prison, and so very obviously did not really have a clue about what was what in here. The nastier inmates would have eaten him alive long before he'd had the chance to navigate the intricacies of prison politics and find the friends needed for protection. He'd have ended up someone's bitch, or ended up in the infirmary, or dead.

But he'd ended up with Milkovich, and as unlikely as it had seemed at the time, that had worked out. (There were moments when Raymond wondered about that, wondered about them: apart from the looks, there were little touches, too, casual things that spoke of a familiarity far beyond what they could possibly have developed in their short time in a shared cell.)

That wasn't to say that their relationship had been all rainbows and lollipops, and it sure as hell hadn't been fun for everybody. They’d driven half the cellblock insane sometimes, as well as occasionally one another. Other prisoners had complained about their bickering and their fucking (though never officially complained, because you didn't, not unless you wanted to go looking for your teeth in the shower drain), and Raymond recalled vividly the time when not one but both of them had gotten roped into Chester Russom’s endless quest to spend the rest of his life behind bars –

He'd been passing by the infirmary when he'd heard the screaming and come running. Hadn't been surprised, exactly, to find what he found, but that didn't lessen the urge to smack both Milkovich and Gallagher on the head for being so damned stupid.

Neither of them had seemed particularly concerned about getting caught stabbing another inmate. In fact, they'd fallen over themselves to take the blame, which Raymond might have taken as an unselfish attempt to save the other – if he'd been a complete idiot and if the two of them hadn't been sniping at each other all the way from the infirmary, to the point where he felt like his head would explode.

“Imma murder you two if you don't stop talking,” he said, glaring at them as they sat chained outside the small office. Thankfully, they did stop, looking neither at him nor at each other.

Raymond waited for a moment, deliberating.

“What did Chester promise you?” he eventually asked. Gallagher might have agreed to help the old man out of the goodness of his heart, but Milkovich sure as hell hadn't.

Neither man answered. They were studiously avoiding looking at each other.

“You're not going anywhere until you tell me,” Raymond warned them. “If I have to leave your sorry asses chained to this bench all night that's no skin off my back.”

“We needed a break,” Gallagher offered eventually, reluctantly. Milkovich gave a little snort at that, but – wisely – kept his mouth shut. “So we thought that if one of us got sent to solitary... “ He trailed off, shrugging half-heartedly.

Oh, for the love of God - ! “Why did both of you have to stab him if the goal was to get one of you to solitary?”

Again, there was a protracted silence, and somewhere in it – in their earlier insistence that each of them had been the first to stick the shiv into Chester – Raymond could just about make out the shape of it.

“You are both idiots,” he said, moving to uncuff them from the bench, making a decision. “Come on, let's go.”

“Wait,” Gallagher said, not rising. “You're not reporting us? What about solitary?””

“You don't get a damn reward for stabbing someone, so no, you're not going into solitary, you're going straight back to your cell – where you will hand over all contraband you've hidden there.”

“Now, wait a minute – “ Milkovich began, but he faltered when Raymond fixed him with a hard stare.

Raymond had no illusions about intimidating this particular inmate, but Milkovich really did know how this worked; knew better than to ever be friendly with a guard, not even the ones he bribed – but knew when not to push too.

He had kept their hands cuffed for the walk back to the cell, which was policy, but was him making a point too. While there were extenuating circumstances – primarily the fact that Chester had asked them to stab him – by all rights they should be going down for this, and Raymond wasn’t one hundred percent sure why he wasn't letting them. Save himself the paperwork? Yeah, sure. Why not? As good a reason as any.

“Now, am I going to have to search the cell or will you give it up voluntarily?” he asked once they'd made it to the cell. “You make me look, I won't be too careful with your shit.”

A lot of the guards would be deliberately careless when they tossd a cell, either to prove a point or just for the hell of it. Raymond usually didn't bother with that sort of power trip bullshit, but he was prepared to make an exception if these morons proved stupid enough to give him any more trouble. He was already cutting them considerable slack here, and neither of them have the brains to appreciate it.

They had shared a look, and then Milkovich gave an imperceptible nod. Without a word they set to bring forth an array of cigarettes and foodstuff, little things that would have been commonplace and unremarkable in the real world but was made precious by its scarcity on the inside.

Raymond wasn't naive enough to believe they actually gave him everything they'd got in there, but enough of it to inconvenience them, which would have to do. He grabbed the the items, then fixed them both with a firm look.

“Either of you cause me any more trouble, I'm taking your books,” – he pointed to Gallager, then to Milkovich – “and your pens and paper. You think you have it bad now? Imagine sharing a cell and having nothing else to occupy you.”

He had hoped to God he wouldn't have to make good on his threat, though. The other prisoners would probably riot if they have to put up with more of ´bickering from these two.

“I catch either of you with a shiv again, you'll be fucking sorry,” he continued. “Talk it out, or agree not to talk, or whatever. Split the cell into his and his, I don't give a damn. But sort your shit out.”

Maybe they had, maybe they hadn't; the point became moot just a few weeks later, when Gallagher was released. Milkovich had soon followed him – and how exactly that had happened, Raymond still didn't know, because there was no way in hell anyone actually thought releasing that one back into society was a great move – and that had been that. For now, at least; he fully expected to see Milkovich again. Guy like that wasn't going to quit, and sooner or later he'd get caught and find himself back behind bars. Rinse repeat, until he got himself killed or locked away for good.

Only now here Milkovich is, but in front of a bar rather than behind them, and with Gallagher right by his side, laughing like they'd never stabbed a man just to get away from each other.

Raymond hesitates. There's some small part of him that actually wants to step up and say hello, and that throws him a little. He's got a rule about never getting emotionally invested in the fates of the inmates; that way lies nothing but heartbreak, because most of those who find themselves at Beckman will find themselves there again and again, for longer and longer. Don't abuse the prisoners, but don't care too much either: it's been Raymond's private policy for the past five years, and it's worked out so far.

Except now he's actually considering chatting with a couple of convicts, just 'cause he really is a little bit curious about how this unlikely pair is doing.

But nah. Forget it. His rule aside, it'd be pretty uncool to intrude on their evening out. They're free men now – kind of – and having a CO check up on them can't be high on their list of wants. But before he can move away, they both look his way; sees him. Recognizes him, too, from the way they freeze.

Okay. Call it fate, then. “Hello,” Raymond says, going for neutral good and a little nod; I come in peace.

A beat. Milkovich is eyeing him with a wariness he doesn't bother to conceal and it's Gallagher who speaks first:

“Officer Reese,” he says, managing a polite smile. “Hi.”

Raymond notices the way they glance down at the beers they technically shouldn't be having.

“I'm not your PO,” he assures them. “I don't give a damn if you drink. Might want to take it easy, though,” he can’t help but add. “Getting shitfaced is a quick way to get into trouble.”

Milkovich opens his mouth, but after a quick glare from Gallagher he closes it again. Probably for the best; Raymond can’t imagine him playing even remotely nice now that he doesn’t have to.

“Didn’t mean to interrupt your evening,” he says. “Looks like you’re doing all right.”

“Yeah, yeah, we've got jobs and... “ Gallagher pauses to glance at Milkovich again, as if asking his permission. Milkovich rolls his eyes but says nothing, and Gallagher turns his gaze back to Raymond. There's a real smile on his face now, small, but filled with something akin to disbelieving delight: “We got married. Couple of weeks ago.”

“Oh, wow. Congratulations.” Raymond isn’t quite sure what surprises him more: the fact of their marriage, or the fact that he is genuinely happy for them. Maybe he’s getting soft in his old age… Or maybe it’s just that there’s so very few happy endings for those who find themselves at Beckman, whether as inmates or as guards, that they need to be treasured whenever you find them.

“Ian!” someone calls across the room, and Gallagher turns his head to look at a blonde woman gesturing wildly. “Where are those drinks?”

“Shit,” Gallagher mutters. “Better get this to Tami before she has a fit.”

Another smile, and Gallagher is gone. Milkovich, however, lingers, seemingly debating whether to say something more. Curious against his will, Raymond does his best to look approachable. Evidently, it works, because Milkovich clears his throat:

“You’d reported us when we stabbed that old fucker in the infirmary, Ian wouldn’t have gotten his release.” He pauses, looking uncomfortable, then forces out: “Appreciate it.”

Raymond merely nods. Maybe he should say something about being glad taking a chance on them had paid off, that he is glad to see them doing well – but he’s pretty sure Milkovich wouldn’t much appreciate the sentiment.

“Your boy doesn’t belong in prison,” he says instead.

Milkovich face immediately collapses into a scowl. “Well, I didn't fucking put him there,” he growls.

But Raymond isn’t intimated; just hold his gaze. “Gonna keep him out of trouble then?” Gonna stay out of trouble, he doesn’t ask, but Milkovich isn’t stupid, so he'll hear it all the same.

Milkovich still glares, but something in his eyes seem to soften ever so slightly. “You betcha. Won’t have anything on us ever again,” he promises ambiguously, with a cocky grin and one eyebrow raised.

When he walks away, swagger in every step, he is every bit the unrepentant gangster – but Raymond keeps his eyes on him and sees the way he relaxes as soon as he stops next to Gallagher. Reaches out to touch him lightly on the arm, catching his eye. That same wondering smile on both of their faces.

Raymond thinks that maybe he won't actually see either of them again.

He is glad of it.

#gallavich #fic #my stuff

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popculturebuffet · 3 years

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House of Mouse: Max’s Embarrassing Date Review

Hello House Mouses and welcome back to the house of mouse. Another comission by Kev and my second House of Mouse for the valentine’s season. This time we’re not tackling a Valentine’s Episode necesarily, but a romantic one all the same as fan faviorite couple Max and Roxanne finally go on a date. I always liked Max. Even as a kid when I wasn’t the biggest fan of “A Goofy Movie”, didn’t like the darker patches like the principals office scene or the Pete Hot tub scene.. though in hindsight both had legit greviances with Max... it just dosen’t make either less terrible as the principal still told an innocnet man who wasn’t responsible for what his kid did and was trying his best that his son was going to become a crminal because of one stupid but mostly harmless prank, and Pete.. is just an abusive, unlikeable and unlovable ass in both Goof Troop and Goofy Movie, and I hate how he treats his son, don’t blame his wife for leaving him or taking their daughter and dog, and am really sad he got custody of PJ somehow. And for the record this isn’t ALL petes, just this version. The rest are fine and just the right level of asshole.

Point is despite my problems with the first film, I had none with the second and even now I like it due to having some really good ideas and concepts while also being gloirously rediclous due to the loveably dated X-Games element. While I do have a spot in my heart for the Dana Hill and Shaun Fleming versions, especially the latter once upon a christmas is awesome, Jason Marsden’s version is the best by the mile having the right amount of ego mixed with self doubt to make him likeable enough to brook him being an ass to his dad a lot. He’s a good character.. and it baffles me Disney NEVER uses him nowadays. No really, the last time he showed up was in twice upon a christmas and no one liked that because he was dating someone who wasn’t Roxanne just to rehash the same plot they’d already rehashed better in Extremley Goofy Movie. I REALLY need to rewatch that one. Hmm.... gonna see if I can squeeze that one into May or later in April. That’s for another time.

But yeah while he’s at one of the disney parks, that’s it. The character just .. vanished, and hasn’t been brought back in any way shape or form. Though I could see either a Disney Plus reboot of goof troop or a goofy movie with max having his own kids. That could be intresting. Also bring Roxanne back as weirdly this episode i’m reviewing, a goofy movie and now her ducktales cameo are her ONLY apperances.

Seriously I get she’s not the most fleshed out.. but then flesh her out. Like Max she’s crminally underused and while I get her absence as a character in the sequel, the plot really didn’t need her, he still could’ve been dating her off screen. Though clearly the two worked things out and tried again as this episode came out AFTER extremely did. But did this episode work out? Join me under the cut to find out.

As i’ve decided is my standard for House of Mouse Episodes, shorts first, then wraparound, then Mickey Mouse live sex celebration. Though I will say i’ve picked up there are two kinds of formats for the show: They either use two of the longer Mouseworks shorts or just one close to 11 minute short, a medium one, and one of the little two minute segments. There might be a break from this in the future, we shall see but for now those ar ethe two standards. This time we have two longer shorts.

Pluto’s Penthouse Sweet:

I’ve mentioned in the past I dont’ really get why Pluto is part of Disney’s sensational six along with Mickey, Minnie, Donald, Goofy and Daisy. And I stand by that: While he’s had his own cartoons they just aren’t as entertaining and creative as MIckey’s or hilarous and relatable as Donald and Goofy’s. He’s just an average cartoon dog. He works fine in tandem with Mickey, but on his own he’s just nothing and his spot should be taken by pete, who while not a goodie all the time, again the goof troop version needs to step on a rake and fall into a well.. somehow. i didn’t think my insult through. Point is pete is better. And this short isn’t BAD .. but to me it’s what some fans THINK the disney shorts are: Bland, maybe one or two good jokes but almost nothing new or intresting. As I found out last year, that’s far from the case, as a lot of the Donald shorts are still hilarious today and a lot of the mickey shorts are shockingly creative, like Thru The Mirorr where he goes .. well thru the mirror into a wonderland like world where all the inanaimate objects are alive and he can shrink and what not via astral projection, or Mickey’s Mechanical Man, which I sadly didn’t know about when I did the MIckey Birthday Special and for some reason isn’t on disne plus. In it Mickey creates a robot and has it box a monsterous looking gorillia.

How has Mickey piloting this thing but giant sized against various kaiju been a thing yet? And if it has someone tell me. Seriously with all the comics and animated series how. I’d even settle for a Wonderful World of Mickey Mouse episode. Just bring this guy back. Point is there was far more invetnion than it seemed.. at least at first as it slowly died out as they went by the late 50′s. But Pluto just seemed even in their hayday like your standard pet gets into antics thing without the creative slapstick of tom and jerry or the likeablity of sylvester who never could get that asshole Tweety Bird. This is just weak sauce and whiel I could forgive the older shorts, as their from another time and likely lead to say Tom and Jerry... I can’t forgive this which was made probably in 1998 and released in 1999 originally. Comedy had evolved a LOT by that point and unlike the Goofy how to shorts, which are a format that is immortal and still evolved to match the times and felt fresh, these just feel stale and boring and like the last Pluto short I covered this one was a chore to sit through though not nearly AS bad.

Still though the premise is about the same, Pluto’s left to his own devices, and finds a female dog, though in this case she’s VERY intrested in him. I”m also not entirley convinced she’s a dog, but instead one of Jumba’s experiments and that Lilo and Stitch later had to journey to.. wherever these shorts take place to fetch him. Or more likely the house of mouse. I mean Proud Family, Recess, American Dragon Jake Long and Kim Possible all take place int hat universe, why can’t house of mouse? Also tell me you wouldn’t watch an avengers style team consisting of Kim, Ron, Jake, Penny, Probably TJ, Lilo, Stitch and Donald Duck. If you wouldn’t i’d call you a liar because you would be.

Seriously the eyes give her away.... just look at them. Very experimenty. But before Pluto can do it like they do on the discovery channel he has to get past the guard dog.. though how he does produces the one great gag of the short, as he BUILDS A GIANT, TROJAN HORSE ESQUE PLUTO OUT OF JUNK. Just holy shit that’s awesome> It gets him inside, only for him to find his lady friend is a bit TOO affectionate and he has to escape, he does so, and MIckey wonders if he missed him etc lame button. This short was a vacuum of comedy outside of GIANT PLUTO. Seriously where’s my disney giant mecha series. YOu have five main characters, and Pluto among with MANY, MANY side characters, frmo scrooge to the boys to hopefully Della, to even possibly pete and mortimer who could have their own mech against the heroes but maybe join them in the last episode. Maybe max and pj could have some, have a father vs son thing with PJ and Pete. I”m just saying, i’d watch it. I know my nieces would watch it. I know my nephews would watch it. Greenlight it. Or i’ll make it.. somehow.

How to Ride a Bike: Speaking of the How To Shorts, as usual for the House of Mouse era ones.. this was awesome, pretty much what you’d expect, some goofy, pardon the pun, gags about goofy riding a bike and then a fun climax of him in a bike race. Not a ton to add, other than that hamster bike above is genius. Just needs some tweaking. Really funny, really simple, and really good as you’d expect from a good Goofy Short. Easily the best part of the episode.

Max’s Embarrassing Date: So this was a disapointment. Like i’d try to be nice.. but I had high hopes given this brought Roxanne back, and while the premise was stock maybe they’d do something funny with with it.

But no the plot is pretty standard, very predictable and fairly obnoxious. Max has a date with Roxanne, and is playing it cool and what not, but is worried his dad will find out.. which he somehow did offscreen. Probably Clarabelle.. I mean they do go out sometimes in this one, wouldn’t surprise me.

So Max pleads with the rest of the HOM staff to keep him away because he fears his dad will overdo things, which.. is fair and one of the few things I like> He dosen’t want him to overdo it on the mood because this is well.. a first date. He dosen’t want to pressure her or himself and just wants it to be nice and calm. The problem is it’s framed like him once again being embarassed by his dad and having to learn better.

At this point we’d had TWO movies do this already, one of which was only two years old at the time of this episode. This plot is stale as old toast even if it dind’t have goofy in it. And the twist is predictable: the HOM crew end up also overdoing it: Minnie comments on how cute they are and wants candles brought, Daisy gets them a bigger table forgetting how dates work,t hough we do get a great gag of hte 7 dwarves stacked, and Mickey while having .. some.. gopher? I honestly can’t tell who it was, usually i’m better at the cameos. Speaking of which they also have a runner of beast going on a date with Cruella Devile.

I mean is he cheating on his wife? Is she holding his wife hostage? Is this before belle because we see a post transfomratoin beast too so maybe the House of Mouse is an intersection of space and time? That’s.. actually the most resonable answer I can think of honestly and when i’m focusing more on how the hell your gag works than how funny it is, you clearly failed somewhere along the line.

Point is Mickey puts his good friend in a pothole, and not only calls max little max, which while an understnadably close family thing to do is still embarassing, but also takes pictures while their eating the spagetthi.. which i’m 100% sure was Huey’s idea nad had Mickey not interrupted, would’ve been tied up down the middle for a lady and the tramp thing. It’s his signature move. Well that and having a panic attack. That’s also one of mine the others being lettterkenny refrences and sex jokes about disney characters. But yeah this just.. dosen’t work. Them being as embarassing? that’d be fine.. if they weren’t wholly unsympathetic for not only keeping their friend from WELL INTEITONEDLY trying to help his son on his date, something his son shold have no problem with since ROXANNE’S MET HIM. AND IS FINE WITH HIM. AND NEVER CARED ABOUT YOU BEING HIS SON LIKE THE DICKHEADS AT SCHOOL. MINUS BOBBY WHO YOUR FRIENDS WITH FOR SOME REASON. My point is this plot bothers me a lot, and it makes the mickey crew come off like assholes for doing this to thier friend instead of just talking to him like a person. Especially since only ONE of them is a parent and Conviently donald is mostly absent. Likely because he realized this was going to end badly and just agreed to tie the spagetthi like huey taught him to keep his involvment in this shit show and gaslighting his best friend to a minimum.

Eventually Mickey takes things a step too far and has Sebastian almost sing kiss the girl. Max cuts him off though yelling that he just wants them to back off, he just wants them to relax and he TOLD them this, which makes them come off worse as they KNEW he didn’t want this and did it anyway and never apologize becaue apparently the first rule of house of mouse is never apologize for anything, huh huh. Goofy naturally steps in, tells them off and agrees to serve them and Roxanne finds him entertaining and gives him a nose kiss for being a good dad. He’s a good guy that Goof. Roxanne then whispers something in max’s ear at the end of the date... which gives him an audible erection. No really. And given his age is vauge here I’m suddenly super duper uncomfortable so let’s move on.

So max tells them she liked it and wants to come back.. 100% sure that wasn’t what she said but what she said isn’t fit to print and you’ve seen what i’ve said and what I put in the we’ll be right back. Point is he’s happy, though Mickey says we’ll try to make it extra special next time. Mickey.. did you do a space mountain’s worth of pills and cokea nd just forget the entire evening? Did you take some of those hangover roofies/ Why would you do that? Was that pete’s new plan to steal the house of mouse? To drug you guys and make you forget you already paid the rent? Did PJ stop him? Inquiring me wants to know.

Final Thoughts: Yeah this wasn’t a very good episode. Roxanne is wasted despite having a suitable replacment Roxanne voice in Grey Delise, with no real depth just to rehash the plot of the first and second goofy movies. And this one didn’t have an inexpilicable beatnik cafe, PJ getting laid and finally being happy for once, a standard college fraternity plot surgeically infused with an out of nowhere obession with xtreme sports that was nowhere in the first film, Goofy in an afro, Goofy finding love, That disco sequence, and a climax in which Goofy carries Brad Garret out of a fire, then Brad Garret probably kills the villian of the film who certainly deserved it. My points are this episode was an underwhelming rehash only saved by some good shippy moments and a good goofy short. It was weak, not all that funny, and not all that intersting. My other point is that an extremley goofy movie is awesome and also kinda insane and I love it for that. I’m glad I saw this one but i’m really disapointed in how bleh it was. Next time I visit the house of mouse is.. actually in a few days as Pete Does a One Man Show. So yeah already 100% better just by having THAT musical number in it, see you then and if not, there’s always another rainbow.

#house of mouse #max goof #roxanne #the goofy movie #max x roxanne #goofy goof #goofy #donald duck #mickey mouse #minnie mouse #daisy duck #cruella de vil #beast #disney #comissions

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gunterfan1992 · 3 years

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Episode Review: ‘Obsidian’ (Distant Lands, Ep. 2)

Airdate: November 19, 2020

Story by: Jack Pendarvis, and Kate Tsang, Adam Muto, & Hanna K. Nyström

Storyboarded by: Hanna K Nyström, Anna Syvertsson, Iggy Craig, Mickey Quinn, Maya Petersen, James Campbell, & Ashlyn Anstee

Directed by: Miki Brewster (supervising), Sandra Lee (art)

Of all the many colorful characters in Adventure Time perhaps none has a more elaborate backstory than Marceline the Vampire Queen. In many ways, Marceline really was the writers’ gold goose, engendering complex story after complex story. By the time the series ended, the vampire’s life had in more ways than one been woven into the very fabric of the show’s mythology.

But because I am a Marceline fanboy—whose zeal for her majesty is rivaled perhaps only by Glassboy himself—I always felt like the show could have done even more with her backstory; I mean, when the series finale aired, there were still plenty of questions that had yet to be answered (What happened to her mom? What is Simon going to do now that he’s “cured”? How did Marcy and Bubblegum meet? Were they romantically involved before the events of the main series? How did it all go south?). Nevertheless, when "Island Song” played for the last time at the end of “Come Along with Me,” I forced myself to push aside this minor, fannish grievance and applaud the show for writing such an excellent character. I didn’t need for every last detail of her life to be explicitly shown on screen. I was happy.

But then, about a year ago, news dropped that one of the Distant Lands specials would really delve into the history of Marceline and Bubblegum’s relationship. In an instant, I tossed my stoic “I-am-satisified-with-what-I-received” mentality right out the window. We were going to get another Marceline episode, and it was going to dive back into her elaborate backstory!?! I could barely contain my excitement as I waited for the episode to drop.

Well, was my excitement worth it? Or was “Obsidian” a big ol’ let down—a tragic victim to grandiose expectations that were never meant to be fulfilled?

I’m quite happy to say that not only was “Obsidian” a remarkable special in its own right, but it is arguably one of the strongest episodes of Adventure Time, period.

The plot of this episode is fairly standard, as far as Adventure Time episodes go: Glassboy (a new character voiced by Michaela Dietz, the voice of Amethyst from Steven Universe) accidentally sets a giant fire monster named Molto Larvo loose on the Glass Kingdom, and Marceline and Bubblegum—who we learn have been living their best cottagecore life together in Marcy’s cavehouse—are forced to save the day. But the series’ writers take this otherwise quotidian adventure idea—a story which, at least on paper, could have easily fit in during any of the show’s many seasons—and employ it as something of a Trojan Horse, using it as a pretense to delve into both Marcy’s traumatic childhood and her and Bubblegum’s romantic history. And, boy, is it a ride!

With regard to the former story thread, the audience learns that sometime after the Mushroom Bomb detonated, Marceline and her mother, Elise (voiced this time not by Rebecca Sugar, but by actress Erica Luttrell, who played Sapphire in Steven Universe), roamed the wastelands in search of shelter; after Marceline’s mother came down with some sort of sickness, she sent Marceline to be on her own. Elise was hoping that this would spare Marcy the trauma of seeing her mother die before her very eyes, but due to some communication issues, Marceline never learned what became of her mother. As such, Marceline began blaming herself for “leaving” her mom to die in the wreckage of the world. This plot thread is perhaps one of the bleakest that Adventure Time has ever explored, and the show does it masterfully, balancing the darkness (e.g., Marceline’s mother coughing up blood) with bright spots of comedy (e.g., the "wazzup” dog) that never feel distasteful.

Likewise, when it comes to the story thread about Marcy and Bubblegum’s romantic history, the special does not hold back. We get to see “Bubbline” at its best and its worst. I have a feeling that the word “fan service” is going to be used by a lot of folks when talking about this episode. As the AV Club writer William Hughes notes, this word is usually hurled around like a pejorative, but it aptly describes the appeal of “Obsidian”. After all, this episode really is “fan service at its finest”—not only does it give the ravenous shippers the story tidbits that they have so long to see (e.g., the moment Marcy gave Bubblegum her rock shirt, Bubbline’s epic break-up), but—and this is very important—it does so in a way that is fundamentally meaningful. “Obsidian” does not feel self-indulgent, unnecessary, or pandering. On the contrary, it is overflowing with deep emotion that allows us to better understand how Bubblegum and Marceline really feel about one another. Sure, over the centuries that the two gals have bummed around Ooo, they have bickered and fought, but deep down, their love is passionate. In many ways, it is like the titular obsidian, which means that nothing short of an enchanted diamond pickax is strong enough to break Bubbline apart for good.

(It’s also quite nice that after seasons and seasons of tip-toeing around the question of Marceline and Bubblegum’s sexuality, “Obsidian” can explicitly focus on their life together, showing the two characters cuddling, kissing, and dancing. In terms of LGBTQ+ representation, it’s a huge leap forward, and I’m so happy that Adventure Time has had a part to play in normalizing queer relationships!)

Marceline episodes almost always featured a catchy diddy, but "Obsidian” really cranks things up to 11 by featuring a whole bevy of catchy songs, several of which are perhaps among the show’s strongest. The first right banger, “It’s Funny,” is the song that plays over the special’s credits. With a grunge-meets-riot grrrl feels, this track really sets the tone for the episode, signaling to the audience that we’re in for, as Lumpy Space Princess once put it, some “drama bombs.” The next standout is “Woke Up,” a brutally honest diss track that Marceline used both to contain Molto Larvo and break up with Princess Bubblegum centuries prior to the start of this episode. This song was written by pop rocker Zuzu, and it—as the kids say—slaps. Layers of fuzzed-out guitar and digitally processed vocals are used expertly to sell Marceline’s emotions and convey how, on the surface, she’s delighted to no longer be under Bubblegum’s romantic spell... even if her heart may not be so sure.

But arguably, the musical jewel of the entire special is “Monster,” a somber ballad that Marceline sings to Bubblegum when they find themselves trapped in the collapsing furnace and are facing what they believe is certain death. Written by indie pop artist Half Shy, this song is, in many ways, something of the inverse of “Woke Up”: soft, happy, and filled to the brim with a sort of love that few are lucky to receive and even fewer can honestly express. Not only does “Monster” finally cement Marceline’s real, visceral love for Bubblegum in song form (remember: almost every prior Bubbline song was either indirect or delivered by an angsty, heartbroken Marceline), but it also “tames” Molto Larvo, allowing him to metamorphose into a strange but harmless cat-butterfly critter. Just like “Come Along with Me,” “Obsidian” proves that the power of love and music will save us in the end—if not physically, then at least emotionally.

Regarding the production-side of things, there’s a lot of praise to doll out. First off, the look and style of “Obsidian” is gorgeous. While “BMO” opted to experiment somewhat with the classic Adventure Time art style, trading cel shading for an almost watercolor feel, “Obsidian” echoes the aesthetic of the original series. That said, there’s an undeniable animation bump—likely courtesy of that sweet, sweet HBO money—that lets Ooo and its denizens shine in all their glory. You can tell that Adam Muto, art director Sandra Lee, supervising director Miki Brewster, and all the members of the production staff really went above and beyond the call of duty. The episode's soundtrack, composed by Amanda Jones, as deserves a shout-out. Jones did an excellent job mixing the chiptune style of the original series with a bass-heavy rock sound that highlights Marceline’s starring role. Bravo!

As another production aside, I should point out that CN/HBO’s decision to make these specials each 44 minutes was the right call. The 11 minute format of the original series often left something to be desired when it came to plot development, as many an important episode was forced to end somewhat prematurely due to time constraints; conversely, the 8-episode miniseries format that the show experimented with during its latter days sometimes felt like too much time (Stakes, Islands, and Elements all had whole episodes that felt like nothing more than the show treading water). The length of “Obsidian”, however, was just right, giving us plenty of time to take in what was happening without ever feeling like it was dragging.

A final aspect of this episode that is worth mention is its many call-backs to previous episodes and characters. “BMO” was mostly a self-contained story that, due to its nature as a prequel in space, really couldn’t reference the Land of Ooo without feeling forced. “Obsidian,” however, throws in everything and the kitchen sink (Adventure Time superfan and all-around cool person Jagm has collected most of them here for those of you who want to see everything laid out nicely). Stand-outs for me include Choose Goose (someone who we really haven’t seen since season five) smuggling sketchy products into the Candy Kingdom, post-Ice King Simon trying his hand at open mic nights, Bronwyn as an adventurous hero, and Finn the (Adult!) Human complete with beard and scars! Of note, Jake does not appear in this episode, except as a tattoo on Finn’s chest. Many in the fandom are now speculating that the events of “Obsidian” take place after our beloved shapeshifting dog’s death. Oh say it ain’t so! Perhaps we’ll learn more in “Together Again.”

Mushroom War Evidence: Unlike “BMO,” which directly referenced the Mushroom War and its fallout (both literally and figuratively), this episode returned to the show’s roots by featuring gobs of explicit hints in throw-away lines or elaborate background pieces. Honestly, there is far too many to list here in a pithy paragraph, but some major references include: the reveal that the Glass Kingdom, like the Fire Kingdom, was created by ‘magic’ blaze from the heavens (almost certainly a nuke); the fact that Marceline and her mother wandered for a time in the debris-filled wastelands following the apocalypse; and the reveal that Marceline spent at least part of her childhood holed up in a bomb shelter surrounded by the bones of myriad dead humans. Honestly, while references to the Mushroom War have always been sad footnotes to an otherwise cheery show; in this episode, however, the references are very graphic, illustrating the sorrow and horror of mutagenic war.

Final Grade: As I said earlier, I’m a Marcy fanboy, so I’m horrible biased, but I don’t care. This episode rocked. Q.E.D.

#adventure time #atimers #adventure time distant lands #distant lands #atdl #obsidian #marceline the vampire queen #marceline #bubblegum #princess bubblegum #bubbline #adam muto #hanna k #hanna k. nyström #jack pendarvis

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mjsarcastic · 3 years

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SPOILERS FOR SHAMELESS

I watch the finale of Shameless, and damn it, I'm pissed off. WTF kind of ending was that???

Where was the resolution? Why were there so many random subplots thrown in literally twenty minutes into the episode? Why is Ian and Mickey and Kev and V the only two good pairings left on the show? Are you really trying to convince me that Tami, after spending literally the ENTIRE season telling Lip they had to move out of the Gallagher house, suddenly decided it was fine if they stayed and raised a possible second baby? Did anyone even find out about Frank dying? Did they really end this amazing show slowly gone down hill by basically leaving the entire cast singing fucking Kumbaya and pretending like they weren't all about to go through a bunch of shit? What the hell kind of writing went into this episode?

Sorry about the rant, I'm just upset that this was how this show I loved so much ended. I love the cast, I love the characters (besides Tami. I want Mandy or even Sierra back,) and I love this show. But come on! I can't be the only one who agrees that this was a terrible ending to a truly amazing show.

So, to make up for it, here's my alternative:

We start out in the morgue of a hospital, where Frank lays dead on a table, and when a nearby physician asks if he had any other family, Fiona is revealed to be standing there with a frown as she replies that he did (my mom pointed out that she was probably still his emergency contact even after Fiona left, and I agree.) Later, at Frank's wake, and after a reunion between Fiona and her siblings where she has to reveal the news, there's a small get together at the Alibi where Frank had been cremated and put in an empty bottle of whiskey that sits on a little table, and all the Gallagher's are there and give small speeches.

Liam is the most distraught out of all of them, and he finally stands up for himself and tells the gang that Frank cared for him more then they ever had, and he announces he had been accepted into a STEM school in, like, California or something and heads off because this kid deserves better, but of course he makes up with his family then heads off using his cut of the house money made from selling the house.

Speaking of, Lip stills manages to sell the house to that Shelby guy and invests in opening a bike shop with Brad and some of their old coworkers, and there happens to be an apartment for rent above said garage he rents out with the promise to Tami that she, him, Fred, and their possible new baby would be in a nice house by the end of the year. Yada, yada, I hate the pairing but it's pretty much too late to change it, so go with it.

Debbie, unfortunately, doesn't realize that her new girlfriend what's-her-name is basically her Jimmy-Steve and goes to El Paso with her, bringing Franny along, which is pretty unfortunate but there isn't enough room in the episode for Debbie to realize she jumped back into a relationship way too soon.

Ian and Mickey, my favorite pairing on the show, pretty much have the same storyline as in the episode with the discussion of kids and such included. I moved their anniversary up to a bit later, since my idea includes a short few month time skip, so bare with me here. Just know that they still had the anniversary party in the Alibi.

Carl decided to buy the Alibi as suggested in the show, and a few months later, there's a reopening where everyone attends including Fiona, who stayed to help, and Kev and V, who had flown back with their girls to attend the reopening before they officially moved to Kentucky and never looked back. Debbie isn't there, I honestly wouldn't expect her to be, but Liam is and so is Lip and Tami, and due to the success of Lip and Brad's bike shop, the pair were planning on renting a house soon where they could raise Fred AND their new baby...sarcastic yaaay. Fiona plans to go back on her travels later that night, Liam and Kev and V plan to leave to their seperate places the next day, as do Lip and Tami, while Carl stays and acts as a cop and a bar owner. There's a painting of Frank with a glass of beer raised and a smile on his face that Carl had commissioned.

And as the camera zooms away from the bar, as the Gallagher's all pour out and begin to go their seperate ways while a recording of them singing the same song in the real finale plays, the new name of the Alibi is revealed to be called "Frank's."

Finally, at the end, Frank stands on the beach in front of a barrel fire like how the series started, and he says the same thing he said in the real finale before he drinks from a bottle of beer, makes a toast to the audience by saying, "And to, you glorious bastards, for watching the Gallagher's suffer for your amusement for the past ten years. Here's to you, you motherfuckers!" And the camera zooms out away from him as the song finishes, and the credits roll for the last time.

Bonus credits scene: Tommy and Kermit sit at the new Alibi and stare at the painting of Frank as Kermit asks if the painting would follow him like the Mona Lisa, and when he tests it out, the whiskey bottle full of Frank's ashes that sits on a shelf under the painting falls and breaks into pieces, and Tommy and Kermit look at each other with the thought that Frank now haunted the place, and then, it cuts to black.

There it is; my alternate plot. Don't like it? Well, it's not canon, so move on with your life and deal with the real ending like the rest of us have to.

GOODBYE SHAMELESS. THANKS FOR ALL THE GOOD TIMES, AND THE BAD TIMES!! ❤❤❤❤❤❤

#shameless #shameless ending #im so mad #why did they do this #tvshow #showtime #gallaghers #i mean #seriously guys #wtf was this

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dreamylyfe-x · 3 years

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I’m kind of curious, what do you think of Ian and Trevor’s relationship? And that leading to him blowing up a van

Ahhh. Trevor. Yeah. I don’t think that was so great.

First of all, it’s like two different relationships, really. You have season 7 when they’re meeting, getting together and falling apart... and then you have season 8 where they are... I don’t even know what.

Season 7, I mostly think the show really didn’t have the time and space to tell the story of Ian getting involved with Trevor, but they decided to proceed anyway. Which, if they had wanted it to be an eight episode arc, would have been ok. But Trevor is around for 18 episodes.

I mean, let’s lay this out. Trevor arrives in 7x04. 7x06 ends with Ian deciding he does in fact want to date him. 7x09 ends with Ian finding out Mickey’s back. Trevor and Ian are together for a hot second. And during that time, we don’t get to find out that much about him. Like we know he’s generous in a lot of ways, but also quick to anger. Kinda condescending. Kinda sweet. Mostly he’s all over the place. A lot of the time I struggle to find Trevor organic. When he gets mad, I’m always like “how did you get there, my dude?” and when he’s all moony I feel the same way. There are multiple scenes of Trevor and Ian laughing over something that go TOO LONG and feel a bit like old episodes of Murder, She Wrote, where they always had to have the show about violent death end on Jessica smiling. Then there’s stuff like Trevor telling off Frank. Trevor telling Fiona she’s a badass. It has a real Poochie vibe to me. But.... Trevor is not a Poochie. Trevor is a character who, if he had any chance of working, is about to get cut off at the knees.

The show cannot be confused about what is going to happen in 7x10 when Mickey comes back. Not just to Ian, but to the audience. Storywise, we are going to be shown positive proof that Ian is still in love with Mickey. Not just a little bit, not lingering feelings, but try to leave your family and job and give all your money away in love with his ex. And even outside of what’s on the page, they’re like “Here. This is what is looks like when Cam has chemistry with someone. This is what the performances look like when there’s some complexity and history and subtext. Here’s a character with a strong voice and a well-established personality.”

And now... Here’s Trevor.

I’m sure Trevor had his fans. Like, I get it. I particularly get it if people just really like Elliot Fletcher. But the people behind this show aren’t idiots and they know how to craft a story. You can see it with Mickeys’ two-episode arc. They have to know you can’t have that story and have a viable Ian/Trevor romance in the same season. You gotta pick one. And they picked Mickey.

AS THEY SHOULD.

*ahem*

That brings us to season 8, which is even weirder on the Trevor tip than season 7.

For most people, if you’ve been dating some guy and the second the ex showed up your boyfriend not only instantly falls back into bed with him, but then runs away with him for a few days and only comes back because of a bunch of considerations that have nothing to do with whether or not he’s in love with the guy... that’s gonna be it. EVEN if his mother dies. The normal thing to do would be, in the words of Lip Gallagher, to fuck someone else. Like ANYONE else. He cheated weeks in. It’s done.

So why the heck are they still hanging out together in season 8? Like from a story POV. What is the reason?

My theory on the Ian front is detailed in my story Unsent and it’s basically this: Ian was desperate for comfort and Trevor must have been a person he thought he could get that from. He had gotten it from him (imperfectly, maybe) in the past. I DO NOT KNOW what Trevor wanted. I really don’t. I never got to know Trevor well enough.

I’ll tell you want he didn’t want: What was best for Ian.

And honestly, why should he? Ian is his ex. For good reason. Trevor does not need to be nice to him. Trevor doesn’t even really have to tell Ian to go away, though he almost certainly should have. It probably would have been kinder. But honestly, so much of what comes next only makes sense if you decide Trevor is low-key evil. He lets Ian pine (pretty normal level of ex-punishment), tells him he loves him (NOT POSSIBLE. I love Ian Gallagher too, sir, but that is NOT POSSIBLE. You were together for a minute and you are not that ridiculous) and then does this gross, dehumanizing weird thing involving men with bigger bodies. Lets/encourages Ian to prostitute himself to get money for the shelter. Yells at Ian over Geneva when a conversation might have been more appropriate/made more sense. And then, right as Ian starts to tip into really concerning behaviour, kiiiiiinda get back with him, sort of? And then vanish when it becomes extremely clear that he’s sick.

But I don’t think the show intends for him to be evil. I’m not sure what the show intends him to be, but I suspect we’re supposed to think he’s a good guy. He almost functions like Harry in Dexter. Just the guy standing at Ian’s elbow and making comments on the action. He isn’t really being written like he’s separate from Ian. He’s there to provide some sort of stimulus to direct the action. But it’s hard to view Trevor as a character.

I actually think Shameless has incredible skill to bring in characters for ten minutes and make them seem like rounded characters. I don’t think they get there with Trevor because I don’t think they ever really decided what they were doing with him. They didn’t entirely have room for the character on the canvas in season 7 and then they kind shoehorn him in to what comes next. I also think the issues with Trevor extend to Caleb, actually. They’re both strangely changeable. Sometimes encouraging and affectionate and sometimes cold, manipulative or bullying. I personally think that Caleb is the worse of the two, but neither of them are easy to root for.

I’m not 100% I’m sure I am interpreting what you’re asking about the van correction. I certainly don’t attribute that to Trevor and I have much less frustration with him than I do with Ian’s family for not recognizing how many bright red flags there were. Certainly Trevor’s hesitancy seems to come a little late. But Trevor isn’t Ian’s boyfriend and he might consider himself Ian’s friend, but he’s also clearly got some serious feelings of wrongdoing where Ian is concerned.

In Trevor’s defence, with the whole series finished, I think season 8 is certainly one of, if not THE weakest season. Trevor isn’t the only problem. But I don’t think he’s a very successful character for them.

#asks #trevor #should I tag this anti-trevor?#ok #anti-trevor #I'm not so much an anti here as a confused person #shameless season 7 #shameless season 8 #Ian Gallagher #I skimmed a lot of Trevor scenes for this anon #so please feel loved!#and #thank you for asking!

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yetanotherfilmkid · 4 years

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TV Shows I’ve Binged During Iso & Brief Thoughts on Them

I noticed lately that I have been watching far more series than movies so I thought I’d share a few thoughts on what I’m watching at the moment.

High Fidelity - I loved this show so much that I watched it twice (once by myself and the second time with my friend, Ethan). Definitely the standout feature of the show is the soundtrack, it sent me on a 4 week Bowie-Bender both times, and Rob’s outfits (much time was spent with Ethan discussing her killer style). I definitely recommend this if you’re a music lover.

Fleabag - Fleabag is competing to be my favourite show of all time. Even though I personally believe that season 2 was (eeeeever so slightly) better, the whole show is funny and brash and sad and relatable and I want to just loop it in my brain forever. High Fidelity and Fleabag are cut from the same cloth in subject/format but I think Fleabag does a more intimate job of it. This is easily one of the most satisfying shows ever, the character development is beautiful and doesn’t feel forced. Also, fourth-wall-breakers, take notes. Phoebe Waller-Bridge is just an amazing writer and actress, holy hell.

The Good Place - I accidentally binge-re-watched all 4 seasons in 6 days (oops). I don’t even know where to begin on how much I love this damn show. It just keeps getting better as you go along, even though the first season is phenomenal, the rest just ...improves?? It’s genuinely hilarious (“I love you too, egg” has had me cackling at 3 am like a madwoman more than once) and the discussion on ethics and humanity is just *chef’s kiss*. It’s not often that you see a show with decent and insightful commentary on morals, politics, humanity and the good and evil binary; multiple POC in leading roles; genuinely good humour and aesthetics and set design that deserve love. Everyone should watch this show.

Community - This was another re-watch for me (Ethan recommended it to me a couple of years ago) but it has always held a special place in my heart. Much like The Good Place, the heart of the show runs through the idea that humans, together, are better and will make each other better people. I could continue to be sentimental about the characters but that wouldn’t give me enough time to gush about the several other beauties of the show for example, homages to classic movies, Donald Glover, the many 3%er jokes, paintball episodes, Troy and Abed doing literally anything, the absolute absurdity of the show, the list is infinitely long and it’s only a matter of time before I accidentally summarise each individual episode. #SixSeasonsAndAMovie bitches ✌

Love - Ethan and I watched this together and it was pretty fantastic. We both agreed that Gus and Mickey were kinda overrated as a couple and as human beings but even so it was a fun and wholesome watch. We spent multiple hours bitching about all the characters, especially Gus and Mickey, and occasionally the writers. This is the kind of show you watch because you’re super invested in the side characters and have a reluctant soft spot for the main characters, but as a whole is entirely lovable. (Bertie deserves better).

Midnight Gospel - Midnight Gospel is an absolute trip to watch. Animating a podcast was a really cool idea but how can we possibly make it cooler?? By animating groovy space creatures in psychedelic palettes of course! The whole show is sensory overload in the best way possible and I want to re-watch it asap because there is so much to absorb in such a short amount of time. Even though the early episodes are totally awesome, the last few episodes are my favourites by far as they feel more personal and not gonna lie, I cried in the last episode. I really hope it comes back for more seasons because it was a really strong start.

Normal People - I read the book and then counted the days til the series came out. I’m not joking. I loved this adaptation a lot. It paid a lot of respect to the book but managed to divert comfortably into its own medium too. I was super worried they’d turn it into a flowery teen romance series and I’m infinitely grateful they didn’t. Ethan thought that the series was actually an improvement on the book whereas I love them both equally. The two highlights for me were the cinematography, the shots were so damn pretty, and the pacing of the script, it left a lot open for the audience to sit with and think about before moving on. It’s probably one of my favourite adaptations of a book ever.

Unorthodox - Ethan and I watched this most recently and this is another one everyone needs to see. I’d like to start this by saying I don’t think I’ve ever seen a Hasidic community portrayed in any media before which was really interesting, I feel like majority of devout followers in media are Christian so this was an interesting learning point for me. Unorthodox was really beautifully made and, most importantly, it was made by people who genuinely care about the story. The absolute standout was the amount of raw emotion packed into it all. The characters don’t even need dialogue for us to feel what they’re feeling. Shira Haas did a phenomenal job portraying Esty. I think it’s also important to remember that it’s not an indictment of religion, but rather, an exploration of Esty’s personal relationship with God and herself. Just thinking about this show makes me want to talk about it for hours

One Day at a Time - I watched this one with my sister @juicebox-baby and holy crap it is extremely wholesome. It’s your classic family sitcom but it’s also super heartfelt and inclusive. Full disclosure, I cried like an absolute baby on like 5 or 6 separate occasions. At times, the writing feels like it’s trying to cram too much in and as a result, the arcs can feel a little bit rigid but that’s fairly easy to look past in favour of the really sweet family feel. Also I have to take a second to say that Abuelita is a gift to humanity.

Killing Eve - Phoebe Waller-Bridge is back. Can Jodie Comer and Sandra Oh please get all of the awards for having stupid amounts of talent? Not to quote the ads but they really do have killer chemistry and it’s a little offensive how amazing they are. I don’t normally go for murder/espionage shows but there was something about this one that had me completely hooked. Even my mum (who falls asleep during every. single. show.) managed to stay awake almost the whole time and was nagging me to watch the next episode with her.

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steve0discusses · 3 years

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S5 Ep 3: Apdnarg is Really Hard to Spell

Yo guys, people are getting vaccinated, the sun is parting through the clouds, and I felt so nice that I even stopped listening to quite so many throwback 00′s BTS mashups (and yet I keep clicking on these dissonant catastrophes thinking “this time it’s got to be better. This time they’ll figure it out.” and like, no. Turns out you can’t match Brittany’s Toxic with BTS’ Black Swan. You can’t do that.)

This must be a sign that things are getting better. If anything, it means my personal tastes are improving. I mean I only clicked on like 3 “Dark Academia” Playlists where I could pretend I’m some sort of spooky witch in an abandoned library with a bad music player and basic taste in classical music (like can we ban Satie from Youtube for a little while?). Hell, I might even do a prompt update to this blog!

Yeah, you heard me, I’m actually going to stay ahead of the update schedule for Yugioh Abridged (maybe. I haven’t actually watched cuz of spoilers, I just noticed the thumbnail pop up on Youtube and was like “Damn it, they came out of hiatus??? I got hurry UP.”)

Anyway, speaking of the sky parting.

I’ll have you know my bro said this is actually more like a circumcision and it was one of the worst thing I have ever heard.

We get a chance to take in this lineup of confusing and varied character designs, and Joey. who is...still Joey.

The animators probably had to hold a strike in order for them to put Yugi in the audience, lets be real. There are TOO MANY PEOPLE in this shot and one is wearing a turban where you draw every single wrap. I hope those artists charged by the line.

Tea has a subplot where she’s just very frustrated with everyone she knows. They have been traveling together for like many weeks and got trapped in a foreign country so I get it. But at the same time, it’s kind of hard to picture Tea with female friends.

Because right now you got this 12 year old child, the other duelist who does not care about anything besides cards, and Kaiba’s 3 dragon cards that we’ve all collectively decided are female.

Hell it’s almost like the writers are asking themselves why Tea is here. Maybe they forgot. There’s no more ghosts to bus, no more people to knock out with her ass with random Olympic feats. Tea’s just sidelining.

(read more under the cut)

Mokuba is a itty bit bit taller this season, and so I guess that means he can legally climb on top of the cherry picker in order to give a riveting speech.

Really says a lot about Mokuba that he is so unphased about talking to, I dunno...an entire planet of people. Kind of a shame we never see this courage from Mokuba used for anything other than talking really, really big and giving everyone around him a really hard time.

Mokuba takes a moment to dunk on Yugi Muto, as is Kaiba tradition.

And then introduce the first pair of duelists, which obviously must be between the few people in this tournament that we actually know and care about.

Thankfully, in between last episode and this episode, Yugi has figured out who his own Grandpa is. This is a relief, because Yugi is such a mess, that I was fully convinced it would take over half a season for him to recognize it. I mean how long did it take him to figure out he shares a body with a ghost? Like half a season?

Instead Yugi recovered gracefully from not recognizing his grandpa, but it’s not like he bothered to tell anyone else, so the rest of our cast is just gonna be like “Is he my hairdresser? The guy who delivers my mail? Who is this guy who made absolutely no significant changes to his outfit or voice?”

Like sometimes this show goes full Spongebob silly kid’s show and you never know when to take it seriously or not. They might be sacrificing the entire cast next episode. I really don’t know. But for now their big concern is who is grandpa??? Like an innocent card version of “Are you my Mother?”

Faced with public speaking, Yugi decides to have a melt down.

We have seen him face monsters, we’ve seen him on TV dozens of times, he’s been in multiple competitions...but give a speech? Of course he can’t do that. The kid doesn’t attend enough school to know how to do that. Them’s learning skills.

And that was when a newly assembled wife-jet spliced through the sky like a souped up razer scooter and deposited 1 fully equipped Seto Kaiba in a Buzz Lightyear jetsuit.

THE RECOVERY.

Seto always watching over his Brother, ready to save this awkward party if it kills him (and it really should, that suit is held together by two seat-belts), making sure to get on that platform before Yugi starts going off about how he’s half an Ancient Egyptian. (Ah, life before social media. You could just be hella famous and also half a dead dude and people would just not know. I kinda miss the time before I knew literally everything about everyone.)

Please admire how close those flames are to setting Mokuba’s heavily hairsprayed mane completely alight. It would be an unforgettable spectacle.

These were absolutely just random ass jet packs that Gozaburo Kaiba made to kill hell tons of people, right? Like Seto found it in the family cabin, clutched to the heart of some crispy fried corpse and was like “neat! Mokuba! I found a cool toy!” and just plucked that thing out of that skeleton’s clutches and has been flying around for months?

Like this is Seto Kaiba’s Butter Glider, right?

Seriously what type of vehicle license do you need for one of these things? RIP My ‘Seto only has a scooter license’ headcanon.

Which I’m only even thinking about because I’ve had to try and make an appt with the DMV for days to get a freakin REAL ID. I went to sleep in 2019 and I could fly on a plane. I woke up in 2021 and it’s like “Want one last screw you?” and just...can 2020 please stop screwing me over? It’s March.

Anyway, the Jet is removed soon after, so no, this is not part of his new outfit. He goes right back to his Post-S4-Trauma-Normcore.

After wrestling this competition out of his brother’s hands and confusing everyone in the audience, Roland must have gotten the memo to cut the microphone before Seto got too excited and we were quickly ushered on to the next stage of the tournament.

One sec...the BTS Mashup playlist I just clicked on did a Black Swan X 7 rings mashup and it’s the worst thing my ears have ever heard.

Holy crap. I had to actually turn down my volume. Like...Ariana Grande already has music that has way too many overlapping singing parts on it--and then lets just stick a 52-person boy band on top? That’ll fix it. Yeah. Go ahead.

Wow. Even I had to change the song and you know how much I enjoy pop culture mistakes.

Spot the Mickey but like a million times easier because it’s a Massive Dick Shaped Dragon.

Yep. That’s my grocery shopping outfit. Except maybe not a lab coat and a duel disk. Wish I had a duel disk, that would make social distancing just a hell ton earlier. Just a “Yo, only one person in checkout, please” and then bap them on the head with a propelled discuss/hologram.

Anyway, Grocery shopping/Doctor man dueled the Purple Hair Boy, and considering that Purple Hair got screen time and shook Yugi’s hand once--I think that Doctor man doesn’t stand a freakin chance.

Good. I hate him.

Also, every time he breathes he’s gonna fog up his glasses. I have experience in this area. He can’t read his own cards in the same way I can’t read my phone if I’m in the refrigerated aisle.

So the way this tournament works, is everyone has to sit in the stadium to watch the show. Kinda like showing up to a football stadium just to watch a recorded TV monitor...but then again...that is how it feels to watch a football game at a football stadium when it’s live (at least with the tickets I usually get.)

And as we watch Grandpa waiting for his competitor, we find out that his competitor (Joey) is too busy eating snacks to give him the time of day.

Why do cartoon hot dogs always have lettuce? Is that seriously supposed to be relish? Or is there a place in the world where you put lettuce on your hot dog?

Sorry, bro has just informed of his favorite hot dog order, which is absolutely terrible so I will share it with you: a Five Guys hot dog with ketchup, mustard, pickle relish, onions, mushrooms, pickled peppers, and you guessed it--topped with freakin lettuce.

My own kin. How am I over 30 and just finding out that my baby brother thinks it’s normal to walk into a restaurant with normal god-fearing law-abiding people and order lettuce and mushrooms on a hot dog?

I have fully failed him.

The rest of this episode is watching both Joey Wheeler and Mokuba have a shared panic attack while Seto does freakin nothing.

Please remember that Seto has both a jetpack and a dragon wife plane and could have easily solved this problem. But nah.

Then again, Seto Kaiba has given this crew so MANY rides, that maybe he’s tired of being the Soccer Mom for the team?

Like they don’t actually say this episode, but Seto was the one in charge of like...this entire place, do you think he made the 2 for 1 special just to get Joey where it hurts the most? Or does it actually not take any subterfuge to screw Joey Wheeler because he’s just naturally this way?

Like Mokuba wasn’t there when Joey was told “stay right here, and then we will all go together to fight Dartz” and Joey was like “I’mma save Mai from herself although she told me not to!” and then he Hella Died. But, Mokuba did see the result, AKA, Joey’s dead body being carried on the back of Tristan. Maybe Mokuba never realized that Joey died because he went out of his way to be late?

Lets do a tally of every time I can recall with my dodgy memory that Joey was threatened to be DQ’d/pretty much was DQ’d either by his own fault or no fault of his own

-When he wasn’t allowed to go on the boat to Murder Island because he was a stupid nobody kid who did not have a dueling glove

-When he wasn’t actually supposed to be in Pegasus’ tourney and was, in fact, secretly using half of Yugi’s entrance ticket the entire time

-when Bandit Keith stole the ticket that Joey got from Yugi so then Joey had to borrow Mai’s ticket although she had just used it so it really shouldn't have counted. Because, really anyone could have just piggy backed off of each other’s ticket until the whole boat went through that castle.

-When his account was hacked to get entered into Kaiba’s tourney when Kaiba very clearly told him he could not apply solely because he was Joey Wheeler.

-When he was late to his sister’s eye surgery because he got mugged by Marik’s Rare Hunters, so she almost refused to do the surgery.

-When Joey got possessed by Marik, and as Marik, threatened to murder everyone else in the tournament including both of the Kaiba brother’s who’s tournament it was, and then chained himself to Yugi Muto to throw both of them to the bottom of the ocean.

-I think there was a point when he threatened to attack Kaiba in Kaiba’s own tourney while not possessed? Like several times?

-when he got struck by Lightning and almost did not stand up fast enough after being struck by lightning, which is apparently a type of DQ in Duel Monsters.

-When he tried to save Mai from getting hit by a fireball, but then Yugi did it instead, and then so many people were standing on the dueling platform that Kaiba couldn’t possibly DQ them all.

-When he entered the restricted area of the blimp in order to hassle Kaiba into landing the Blimp, which Kaiba did not do.

-When Marik killed Joey before Joey could press the “go” button on his duel disk to play the card that should have won Joey the match.

-When he was dueling a lawyer in a digital universe but then the dice was like...weighted? So Noah had to walk over and be like “The hell is this weighted dice? This is my perfect digital world? How did you even do that?” and then Joey won because the match was no longer legit.

-When Joey yelled at Noah too much and so Noah turned Joey to stone for being a rude ass spectator

-When Mai was like “Wheeler and Valon, listen closely: do NOT murder each other” and then Joey did a murder on Valon so she was like “I guess I have no choice, I was very clear” and killed Joey straight up.

-When Joey decided to block Seto’s fireballs while Joey Wheeler WAS a playing card, somehow disrespecting both Dartz and Seto Kaiba at the same time.

-When Joey was playing cards but then got absorbed into a giant Leviathan and basically couldn’t play anymore after that.

-There’s probably hell ton of S0 stuff I just haven’t seen yet.

-This episode

And Joey runs fast for a montage of wacky things that really have no business being in a theme park. Things like this:

(remember when Bakura almost died from a rock that ended up being a balloon? It comes full circle.)

The stuff that the Kaiba brother’s think is normal and fun.

Anyway Joey fights off a bunch of hologram snakes and bats and everyone is like “Should we tell him it’s just holograms???” And it’s like wow, guys, how many times have these ‘holograms’ straight up murdered Joey Wheeler and everyone else on this cast? Too many? Because I have a google doc with so many deaths on it. 7,805,844,048, to be exact.

Anyway, he gets there with five seconds to spare and Mokuba’s like “well at least you were still entertaining while we filmed you in front of a live audience being a total spaz for 15 minutes straight, so I’ll let you go.”

Grandpa and Joey start playing, Joey completely oblivious that this is just an older Muto, while Hawkins walks up awkwardly and is like “hey guys. I’m so sorry about this.”

(welcome to my font choices, for those new here, I have to make weird font color choices to make sure it’s legible for the colorblind and also for the non-colorblind. This one is not much contrast, so I may change it up in the future, but for now, this is Grandpa Muto’s new font. I apologize to every graphic designer reading this. Please don’t tell anyone who has ever hired me for graphic design about this blog.)

What’s funny about this exchange is that after they find out that Yugi’s Grandpa is Apdnarg (HOLY my brain cannot get around the spelling for that, and I will not change it in the caps. I cannot do a ‘pdn’ ever again), they don’t stand on his side of the field or anything. Hawkins is legit Solomon Muto’s only fan during this exchange and like...damn. Way not to back your Grandpa, Yugi.

Yugi immediately strides up to Mokuba to non-confrontation-ally inform him that he has stepped over a line and Mokuba is like “what are these things you say called ‘lines?’”

According to Mokuba, Solomon Muto begged him to be in the competition so he could relive his glory days (glory days making no sense here, because the game has only been released for the past 15 years, so glory days is like...the before times that can only be referring to disgraced archeologists and Pegasus ((who is, in his own way...a disgraced archeologist, too))) and Mokuba was like

“You trained Yugi Muto, right? Hey that’s good enough for me. This drama is gold. People will eat it up. Hell yes. Don’t be afraid to abduct him a little bit. Maybe trap a couple people in a digital hellscape for a little while? Now we go by Pegasus house rules here, so fire as many lasers as you want, but just make sure not to hit anyone in the face. Oh man, we are going to be swimming in cash. Love it, Muto Sr, love it.”

But I dunno, I feel like Grandpa won’t make it past next episode. It is Joey. We kinda need him to make it past Ep 4 of the arc. If Grandpa Muto becomes the new Joey Wheeler, that will be a weird transition for this show to make.

But that’s all for today, as always, here is the link to read these in chrono order becuase there’s SO MANY that you don’t need to read backwards--don’t do it--just use the chrono tag (and I don’t know if you can add compound tags, but I did separate the Season from the Episode, so if you write S4, it should only pop up stuff from S4. I didn't’ do that to seasons 1-3 though because I just...didn’t.)

https://steve0discusses.tumblr.com/tagged/yugioh/chrono

And because I brought it up: here it is, the best BTS Mashup that I found on my deep dive. Like legit--this one isn’t a mess:

youtube

Most of other ones are horrible in a fascinating way. Like I’m not even a BTS fan, I think I sort of age out of that metric, I’m just bored and quarantined. And lets be real, we all appreciate a good bop when we hear it.

#yugioh #ygo #yu gi oh #photo recap #recap #episode recap #yugi muto #seto kaiba #mokuba kaiba #Joey Wheeler #Apdnarg #Grandpa muto #tea gardner #tristan taylor #professor hawkins #and then I ranted about BTS #but please don't quiz me about BTS I know nothing about them aside from the music #I actually thought there were over 12 of them because every time I see them perform it feels like an entire stageplay production of people #like a 101 dalmations situation where every time I saw BTS there were 3 new people #I assumed it was like the Gorrilaz where people just show up and then disappear in a rotation #but no. There's 7 BTS members #that can't be right #there has to be more than 7 #is this a berenstein bears situation?#how is there only 7?#I swear there used to be like 16 #and they would be introduced like here's jimin and Jungkook and red and yellow and green and brown and scarlet and black and ochre and pea #like is google seriously telling me there's only 7 kids in this band?#this is the biggest scam google has ever played on me #this weird alternate timeline that not only has an epidemic but also only 7 members of BTS

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