#overanalysis

[the-overanalyst]

despite n25 being founded on the desire to disappear, iirc we didn't see any of the girls actually express that desire (in present day) for over 3 years pre-mizu5.

mafuyu, even while going through such a harrowing time with her mom, couldn't want to disappear because kanade had promised to save her and she believed in that promise. she knew she could lean on n25 for support, and they gave her another way out of her situation.

i think ena in insatiable had been the most recent instance of wanting to disappear. idk if she said it outright, but destroying everything that mattered to her and running off to empty sekai the same way main story mafuyu did certainly gave that impression. but she hasn't sunk to such a depth since then because she realized n25 was there to support her too, to assure her that her existence had value.

but mizuki couldn't rely on n25 the same way. she wouldn't let herself. she deliberately created distance between them and her because she thought she didn't deserve to get closer. it's because of this internal isolation that she ended mizu5 without a shred of hope for the future. the return of the phrase "i want to disappear" was a natural conclusion.

but now... writing all this out, i realize there's another person who doesn't see the group as something to rely on, who has positioned herself as separate from them in a totally different way. how would kanade, as the leader, as the one who's supposed to save everyone, deal with a situation where she needs to be rescued? would she accept their help and become more secure in her friendships like ena did? or would she retreat into despair before they even have a chance to reach her, like mizuki did?

[that-one-unhinged-dadvid-blog]

Anyone else notice how nervous Max looked before hugging David...?

The poor boy probably never received hugs, and has only seen it in tv shows and stuff, and was unsure about if this was a good time for a hug or not, and just wanted to hug his dad camp counselor :(

Even when he hugs David, his face is super scrunched up, like he's still nervous if this is the right time or if he's even allowed to. Despite KNOWING how David is. Jesus, what did Max's parents DO to him?

And the fact that the hug is so quick, like Max had to gather up all his courage to do so, is also really fucking sad. Someone protect this child

Also, the fact that he hugged David during PARENT'S day, and how people in cartoons and tv shows usually hug their parents; the hug was DEFINETILY meant to signify how Max now sees David as a father figure. I love these 2 sm.

[ihopeicanchangethislater05]

the songs they choose to satisfy hilson is just, something.

like THIS IS SO HOUSE SINGING IT

as if he wants to be free of his leg and pain and i can see only one person he loves in the frame.

[chronicbeans]

Okay I'm working on the hair headcanons, BUT I wanted to make a little extra note here for something I noticed.

So, a lot of people have noticed that Hypnos' hair has a small section that looks like a wing! Most likely a little reference to how many depictions of him have wings on his temple, or only one wing after a myth where his other is torn off.

However, I don't see this mentioned very often and I didn't notice this myself until just a few seconds ago... but Nyx's hair looks a little like she has wings, too! The way a section of her hair flairs up vaguely resembles them, with stars looking like the underside of the "wings".

Might just be me being blind to what should be obvious, but it makes sense because many depictions of Nyx have wings.

I find it extra interesting, because I haven't noticed any wing imagery on Thanatos, yet, outside of his outfit. Meanwhile, both Nyx and Hypnos have "wings" in their hair, which is a part of their body like they both inherited them. Of course, Thanatos could have wings but just not show them, and I'm probably doing my fun pastime of Overanalyzing™, but it's an interesting detail.

I like to think of it as Thanatos inheriting Nyx's "colder" parts of her personality. Like how serious the both of them can be. Meanwhile, while Hypnos is a pretty cheerful and unserious a lot of the time in the first game, he inherited his mother's wing hair.

Which makes it all the more depressing when I look to Hypnos in Hades II and his little wing in his hair is GONE. 😭

I have so much more I could say, but I'm going to keep it for the full post. I mainly wanted to get this out because I found it cute (and sad when I give a little context in my full post but I'll leave you in baited breath).

[fandomwe1rd0]

Rick and Morty's dynamic for each season! I finally finished it!

THIS POST IS VERY VERYY LONG, THE WHOLE POST IS UNDER THE CUT

Heyyy, happy Easter to my followers! This is my easter gift for y’all! Don’t say I never do anything for you! Sooo, since I reached 300 followers! I love you all, by the way! Mwah! Mwah! And to celebrate, I made a poll to ask you guys what you'd like me to do, anddd you said that you'd like me to make an overanalysis of Rick and Morty's dynamic each season! This doesn't exactly surprise me; a lot of people said that they followed me because of my analysis! So this doesn't surprise me too much! And this will be the 2,000th post on my account! I honestly never expected to keep this blog going for this long, but I'm glad I did! Because if I didn't, I would've never met so many kind people! Okay, okay, enough with the sappy stuff before I turn into a tree (I stole that joke from a youtube, who did I steal it from? I'll never tell! Mwah-ha-ha- wha-? This is a Wendys? Oh uhm yeah of course, sorry) Now let's jump into it starting from the beginning!

~ Season 1 ~

Okay, let's begin with them in season 1! This was definitely their dynamic at their most exploitative, I'd say. In episode 1 alone, we see that Rick:

1. Barges into Morty's room while he's sleeping and DRAGS HIM OUT OF BED BY HIS ANKLE so they can go on an adventure

2. Drags Morty out of school so he can help him on an adventure, then pressures Morty when he's hesitant

3. Didn't care when Morty's legs broke due to Rick not telling him something, then acted like it was Morty's fault for not knowing information that Rick didn't give him, and only fixed Morty's legs when he was rightfully pissed at him

4. Encourages Morty to stick megaseeds up his uh...bottom so they can smuggle them through interdimensional customs, then didn't do anything when they dissolved, which made Morty lose his motor skills and brain functionality for 72 hours

5. Lied to Morty about the security guards being robots, so Morty shoots them, and showed no sympathy for Morty when he was horrified that he shot them

6. Used Morty's temporary super intelligence so he could get himself out of trouble, then ranted to Morty, telling him that he will keep his mouth shut about their adventures

And that was in the first episode alone, and we can clearly see that he has very little to no respect for Morty. Only using him for adventures and not caring about Morty's feelings or autonomy, outright forcing him to go on adventures when he doesn't want to. Even in Rick's worst season (season 4), he never forces Morty to go on adventures with him, even if he is mean or annoyed when Morty doesn't want to. It's pretty safe to say that for the first few episodes of season 1, he didn't even see Morty as a person but instead as a tool that is useful for adventures.

We see him again, disregarding Morty's autonomy in episode 3. Dragging Morty away from a family Christmas without making sure he's ok with it. Even insulting Morty's intelligence for literally no reason afterward. Calling his brain his "little walnut" and casually mentioning to him that he has to hold his breath before he minimizes him or his organs will collapse. He also minimizes Morty's girlfriend in this episode, keeping Morty isolated and preventing him from having a relationship with someone his age. We see him doing something similar when he drags Morty away from Jessica at the end of episode 1. While I heavily doubt that Rick is grooming Morty (For non-sexual reasons, ofc), and if he is, that's not what the writer intended; he does fit the isolating step disturbingly well. However, he is most likely doing this to keep Morty dependent on him and not to groom him. It's still fucked up either way.

Then we see him disregard Morty's autonomy yet again in episode 4, where he drags Morty out of class, speaking for Morty when Mr. Goldenfold says if Morty leaves he's giving him an F. (Granted, Rick knew that this wasn't real, but he knew that Morty didn't know that, and believed that Morty was real) 

Mr Goldenfold: If he leaves, I'm giving him an F!

Rick: He doesn't care!

Now, Rick does actually care about Morty in season one and has episodes where he shows that, but these are few and far between, and the bad in this season heavily outweighs the good, but for argument's sake, I will point them out.

1. Episode 4, he gets angry and protective when he finds out that aliens watched Morty while he was...uncovered, even attempts to lunge at them for doing so, which is sweet considering that Jerry, Morty's dad, didn't give 2 flying fucks.

2. Episode 5, comforts Morty after what happened with Mr. Jellybean, and even kills Mr. Jellybean for the sick shit he did, which is absolutely deserved.

3. Episode 9, Rick was happy to see Morty when he was alone at the Smith's house, but quickly covered it up because feelings are for losers, ig. 

4. Episode 10, Rick angrily tells the other Ricks to "leave my Morty out of this" when they take him to the council.

5. Episode 11 has cute bonding moments with Summer and Morty at the end of the episode.

Now, Rick, despite still caring about Morty, was very exploitative and saw Morty more like a tool he can use on an adventure instead of a person. A good example of this is this exchange in episode 10

Morty: Oh my god, Rick! There's a bunch of people strapped to that building!

Rick: Not people, Morty...Mortys.

Soooo yeah, that line straight up shows that at this moment, he didn't see Morty as a person, he even admitted to fiddling with the concept of torturing Mortys to hide from other Ricks (He says that he did it "On paper" but we can see when the memories are scanned that he did do this) and he took a voucher for a free replacement Morty. Again, showing that he saw Morty more as a tool that can be replaced easily, and not a real person...but that was until...

~ Season 2 ~

We're at Season 2, baby! Now, Rick and Morty's dynamic was still toxic in season 2, but Rick is finally seeing, or at the very least starting to see, Morty as a person rather than a tool. A VERY good example of this is in the very first episode, A Rickle In Time, I'm sure if you've watched the show, you know what scene I'm going to bring up, the scene where Rick, without hesitation, gives Morty his time collar. This is a huge moment. Also, in that episode, the timeline splits whenever a character is uncertain about something, and when Rick gave Morty his time collar, letting himself be stuck in a timeless oblivion so Morty will be ok. And his literal only request was that Morty be a better person than him. 

While this scene is adorable and is the only proof that you need to see how much Rick truly cares about Morty, it also shows that he still sees himself as "above" Morty in some way, due to his delusional god complex, which was still strong here. Considering that he said, "Be better than me," saying that he doesn't see Morty as above him, it could be implied that he sees Morty as equal in this scene, but considering how he treats Morty in this season, I doubt it. Now, in this season, Rick is definetily less exploitative. He still doesn't treat Morty great, but he doesn't exploit him as much as he did in season 1. 

Now, this isn't to say he treats Morty well; he still emotionally abuses him regularly, not caring when Morty is hurt by what he said. Like in A Rickle in Time, when Morty tells him, "Words hurt!" and Rick has no reaction. He also insults him a lot in Mortynight Run, even when he thinks that Morty is hurt after Fart left. Completely willing to kick Morty down, and the way he does it so gleefully doesn't exactly help. He also wasn't worried about Morty when he left in These Ricks Must Be Crazy, which will wildly contrast season 3, where they went HARD on Rick caring about Morty. Not that I'm complaining! 

Rick also leaves Morty twice in this season, adding to Morty's abandonment issues, which, uh...isn't something a good grandpa would do. He fully meant to abandon Morty in Auto Erotic Assimulation, but only came back since Unity left him. He also left Morty to turn himself in in The Wedding Squanchers, which, whether Rick notices it or not, is a common manipulation tactic for codependency. Showering someone with attention, then leaving, which will make people so desprate for more attention that they will quickly become depedent on you, which is what Rick did here, although I am pretty sure it wasn't intentional, as he did what he did out of a desire for the Smith family to have a normal life, after he heard Beth crying saying that she'll let Rick do whatever he wants because she doesn't want him to leave again. I refuse to believe that was a cold, calculated move, as I doubt that he would want to willingly relive his trauma in the season 3 premiere. But whether Rick intended it or not, he did use this manipulation tactic, which caused Morty to become very codependent on him, since I would argue that he wasn't as codependent in earlier seasons as he is in later seasons. Especially considering that Morty threatened to kill Rick in Look Who's Purging now.

This is where tension starts to build in their relationship, and we see more of Morty's seething anger towards Rick and repressed rage. Rick is aware of Morty's repressed rage, but doesn't do anything about it, making Morty believe that he doesn't have it at the end of the episode by lying to him that a candy bar he ate amplified his violent tendencies. This may seem sweet, and in a way, it is, since Rick did this to clear Morty's conscience. But Morty deserves to know about his repressed rage so he can do something about it and work on it. But Rick is inherently keeping this information from Morty, making the inherent power dynamic they have, considering it's a younger family member and an older family member, even more unhealthy. Since Rick knows something big about Morty that Morty doesn't know about himself, Rick is purposefully keeping this information away from him. Although we never see Rick attempt to exploit Morty's repressed rage, keeping something this big from him isn't ok.

Again, Rick still cares about Morty in this season, sacfricing himself to save Morty, saving Morty in Mortynight Run, although he bitched and complained, being worried about Morty when Unity blew up a town, watching a movie with Morty and Summer and happily getting ice cream with them, etc., etc.

We do get more moments of him and Morty caring about each other and bonding since Rick is seeing Morty as a person instead of a tool he uses on adventures, but their dynamic is still heavily unhealthy with a huge power imbalance, and has Rick making Morty's codependency on him worse.

So while Rick exploits Morty less and is finally seeing Morty as a person, their dynamic is still very unhealthy, with a huge power imbalance and codependency galore. Now, let's get to season 3!

~ Season 3 ~

In season 3, we not only get more tension with Rick and Morty's relationship, with Morty shooting Rick in the head and yelling "Who's stupid now bitch!?" To be fair, it was a fake gun, but Morty didn't know that. Morty also tricks Rick into taking Jerry on an adventure since he just wanted a break from the adventures. But we also see the codependency leak into other parts of Morty's life. Morty starts to have repressed rage towards Jerry, as we see him attacking people while pretending that they are Jerry in Rickmancing the Stone.

You may be wondering how this has anything to do with his relationship to Rick, while codepedency can lead to estrangened relationships with other family members (https://castimonia.org/2021/09/05/codependent-families-family-roles-whats-yours/) since family members may struggle for power, which is something we see Jerry do with Rick, another reason why Morty may have repressed rage towards Jerry is because people who are codepedent on others may adopt their opinions on the belief that it'll give them validation (https://codependencyrecovery.org/2022/11/04/worrying-what-other-people-think/) so another reason could be because Morty recogonized that Rick hates Jerry and adopted that same opinion without realizing it, causing him to seethe in anger before his repressed rage for Jerry formed. It could also be his way of getting his repressed rage out by taking it out on unrelated people, he literally said this in season 3 episode 2, "What if we...didn't do it? What if we just went back to the blood dome and kept taking our baggage out on unrelated people?"

Rick also isolates Morty more with his season 3 premiere speech.

"I just took over the family, Morty! And if you tell your mom and sister I said any of this, I'll deny it! And they'll take my side because I'm a hero, Morty! Now you'll have to go and do whatever I say, Morty! FOREVER!"

This is a common manipulation tactic. Making your victim believe that nobody will believe them, so they may as well not even bother telling anyone, also burdening your victim with a big secret, and expecting them to keep it, which allows the abuser to hold more power over their victim. He knows that Beth has abandonment issues and knows that she'll take Rick's side if Morty tries to tell her just how dangerous his adventures with Rick are. It's chilling how many manipulation tactics Rick takes with Morty, to keep control over Morty and to keep Morty codependent on him. 

Now, for Rick, this makes sense; he craves control. This codependency is something that Rick doesn't get, he's uncertain about it, and it doesn't make sense to him, so he tries to control Morty so he can regain the feeling he likes of having everything under control. He also sees that Rick KNOWS that doing these manipulation tactics is giving him control over Morty, which makes it VERY unlikely that he's doing these on accident, as he says this to Morty when he's in his toxic form in season 3 episode 6:

"You can die when I say so! I control you! I control the universe!"

We also see just how badly Rick's emotional abuse affected Morty, with toxic Morty being HEAVILY insecure, saying things including but not limited to:

"I don't want to be on camera, I'm ugly and gross, please!" "I did it, Rick! I got the tank! I'm a piece of shit, but I got the tank!" and "I think my voice is annoying"

We also see him agreeing with Toxic Rick with everything, something that emotional abuse victims tend to do to minimize abusive events, this becomes even more apparent when we find out that Mortys are breed to be as forgiving as possible, and a lot of emotional abuse victims tend to be forgiving towards their abusers (https://psychcentral.com/health/coercive-control#recap)

Morty also being heavily insecure is another sign of codependency, as when someone is codependent, their view of themselves is heavily tied to what the person they are codependent on thinks of them. Morty also saying that he dislikes confrontation in the episode could be tied to emotional abuse, or it could be that and a mix of codepedency, as people who are codepedent have self worth tied to the person they are codepedent on, and because of that will avoid conflicts with them since they want to be liked by them. (https://www.simplypsychology.org/signs-of-codependency.html)

Another thing I want to point out is Morty’s lack of boundaries with Rick. An example of this is in Rest and Ricklaxation. Rick goes to drag Morty out of school again, and at first Morty says no since he found out that Jessica was single, then Rick is dismissive of him, and continues to pressure him. Which Morty agrees to. Also in the season 3 garage rant, Rick repeatedly invades Morty’s personal space, and while Morty is clearly scared, he doesn’t do anything about it. This is a common sign of codependency (https://americanaddictioncenters.org/rehab-guide/family-members/codependent) We do see Morty begin setting boundaries with Rick in season 7, but after years of neglecting his own boundaries when it came to Rick, it will take a while to undo this. We also see this in season 1, with Morty being able to successfully share his boundaries with Jerry about coming to his room without knocking, while we see Rick do that exact thing multiple times, and Morty just lets it happen, not setting clear boundaries with Rick, letting Rick have more control over him. Now this is NOT Morty’s fault, as Rick is the one who got Morty codependent on him, but that’s just another way for Rick to control Morty, as Rick is a control freak.

This also seems to be the season where Rick's codependency on Morty gets worse, so he desperately tries to retaliate by controlling Morty more. An example of this is in episode 4, where he gets jealous of Morty seeing the vindicators as his heroes and not him. Rick probably doesn't feel this a lot, it's weird to him, he doesn't know why he cares so much about what Morty thinks, and why he's so mad at the thought of Morty seeing other people as his heros, so he does what he knows best, he goes to drink so he can numb himsef and feel like he's in control. 

Rick seems to crave control a lot; the reason for this most likely stems from his backstory, Diane and Beth dying from Rick Prime. This was a situation Rick wasn't in control of. In the few seconds he had to gain control, he was frozen in shock. In Rick's mind, their deaths were his fault because he didn't have any control over the situation, so he wants control over everything. He hates being uncertain and confused. His dynamic and codependency with Morty confuses him. He hates caring about others, scared that if he cares about people, they'll leave him, be put in danger because of him, or die. He cares about Morty. He should hate Morty, but he doesn't. It confuses him so much that he tries to control Morty as much as he can to combat this feeling, but it doesn't work. It never does. Rick also revisits the memory of Beth and Diane's death in the season 3 premiere, he is reminded of what happens when he doesn't have control at all times, people he loves die.

While season 1 was their dynamic at its most exploitative, seasons 3-4 were their dynamic as it's most controlling. Rick can feel the codependency becoming worse and tries to combat this with control, yet it still doesn't work. Let me quickly list off moments in season 3 where Rick attempts to control Morty.

1. Rickmancing the Stone attempts to push Morty into doing stuff he doesn't want to do and continues to push Morty to do the things, even when Morty doesn't want to. An example of this was him trying to push Morty to leave, even when Morty said that he wanted to stay. Or him volunteering Morty into the blood dome and not caring when Morty was mad at him for doing so.

2. Pickle Rick. He tries to manipulate Morty into lying for him. Saying this: "Morty, I assure you I would never 'find a way' to 'get out of' family therapy." 

3. Vindicators 3: Return of Worldender. Put the Vindicators into a SAW so Morty can see what horrible people they are and hopefully idealize Rick over them. He didn't actually want to kill the vindicators, but still.

4. Rest and Ricklaxation. Toxic Rick controls Toxic Morty for this whole episode, bossing him around and straight up saying, "I control you."

5. Morty's Mindblowers. Rick literally removes memories from Morty that make Rick come off as pathetic, are embarrassing for Rick, or even a moment where Morty gets the slightest bit of power over Rick. An example of this is when Morty made fun of Rick since Rick thought that "Take things for granted" was "Take things for grainte" or when Morty won a checkers game against Rick. Then acting like Morty was overreacting when Morty was rightfully pissed at Rick after he found out the truth.

But, Rick also slightly softens up in this season, letting himself be a little more relaxed with Morty, like when he always tells himself to just have a fun time with Morty at Atlantis. This was off-screen, but in the after-credits scene, it's clear that they both had a nice time and were fondly talking about their adventure together. Rick also takes Jerry on an adventure, despite not liking Jerry, because he thought Morty was genuinely worried about Jerry and wanted to make Morty happy. Even if he tries to brush this off by saying, "You know how Morty gets when he gets emotional, it impedes my work." We also see Rick and Morty geuinely enjoy Minecraft together, without Rick making any snide or backhanded remarks towards Morty, while this was their dynamic at it's most controlling, we also see them become more like friends...but then we reach season 4...ooo boy, aren't you in for a treat...

~ Season 4 ~

So in season 4, we get another attempt at Rick trying to control Morty with him trying to control Morty as usual, but he was trying to drag Morty on an adventure without caring about if Morty wanted to do it or not, but Beth actually stops him, since now she's having Rick ask Morty, giving Morty more autonomy, sadly though, it's not nearly enough considering how controlling Rick was of him in season 3, and this season. Morty did agree to the adventure, but when Rick died, Morty chose to let Rick stay dead so he could die with Jessica. Again, this shows the budding tension between them, with Morty coming to hate Rick, or at the very least not love him. This will change, though, as it tends to with codependency, as Morty will begin to trauma bond with Rick. 

Rick did 3 VERY fucked up things in season 4. I like to think of it as the fucked up triology. So, first he manipulates Morty into hating heist movies like him, so he doesn't get too busy with it to go on adventures in One Crew Coocco Over Morty. Gave Morty a BLACK EYE in Rattlestar Ricklatica, and traumatized Morty into being terrified of ever defying him again in Vat of Acid.

There are also very few moments where he cares about Morty here, 

He shields Morty in the premiere and has a cute garage rant with him.

Tells Morty that he loves him in the ending of Never Ricking Morty (We’re ignoring the lips if you want part, thank you very much! Although it is another good example of how Rick ignores Morty’s boundaries and Morty lets his boundaries be ignored)

He and Morty have a bonding moment in Promortyus.

And uhhh that’s about it! Now, let’s talk more about the fucked up shit he did because…whoo boy, is it MESSY.

Now, starting off with the heist episode, this is another attempt by Rick to get more control over Morty’s life, which sadly works. So, a quick refresher in case you forgot (I doubt it, what Rick did here is pretty infamous for good reason), Morty was writing a heist script, and because of that was flaking on adventures with Rick, which annoyed Rick to no end. Then, when he heard from Summer that Morty could get a Netflix deal, he heard 4 words that set off alarm bells in his head.

“You could lose him.”

Rick is also codependent on Morty, relying on him far more than anyone should rely on a 14-year-old. So the thought of losing Morty terrifies him, so he said that he would “Nip this in the bud” but luckily Beth butts in. Telling Rick that he won’t be doing anything bout it, and if Morty gives up, it better be his own choice, and not because of Rick. 

Now Rick hears this, and, like the emotionally stable, well-adjusted man he is, took this as he’s supposed to manipulate Morty into giving up on the dream, so he remains codependent on him and so Rick doesn’t lose him, as he is terrified of losing Morty, since he lost 2 people that were so, SO important to him, and Morty quickly became the most important person in his life after their death, so he would do anything not to lose him. Even if it means doing things that he knows would be damaging to Morty’s psyche.

This is what I mean when I say that Rick does love Morty, just not in the correct way. He loves Morty, but in a selfish way, as he doesn’t care about how his actions affect Morty, only wanting Morty to stay with him, no matter what the cost it may have on Morty’s psyche. Now, Rick does treat Morty better and cares more about how his actions affect Morty, but this realization came a little too late; his actions already damaged Morty immensely, and I don’t think Rick realizes this. As he never even considered that Morty’s greatest fear could have something to do with him in Fear No Mort, but we will get to that, TRUST ME. I don’t think Rick is being intentionally abusive, he’s just doing whatever he thinks he has to do to protect Morty, as he believes that caring for people is basically a death sentence for them. So he tries to pretend like he hates Morty, terrified of admitting and showing just how much he cares about Morty, but this didn’t make him hate Morty; it only made Morty hate himself. And Rick’s manipulation of Morty seems to be his attempt to keep Morty around him by any means necessary.

Now I am by no means defending Rick’s actions, they are ABSOLUTELY abusive, but I don’t think Rick realizes that, as very few people are intentionally abusive and manipulative. They mostly do not recognize that they are abusive (https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/invisible-bruises/202210/do-abusers-understand-their-behavior-is-wrong). Although this does not excuse their actions, it is interesting to bring up. They also tend not to realize how their actions affect their victim, as the change happens slowly. Which is also something I believe is true for Rick. He definitely doesn’t realize how much he has hurt Morty, although this doesn’t make Morty’s hurt ok. Rick truly has no idea how deeply he’s scarred his grandson. 

Vat of Acid is another VERY fucked up thing. This also has to do with Rick’s fear of losing Morty. So, Morty saw firsthand that one of Rick’s plans failed, and he lashes out at him for it. He then manipulates Rick into making an invention for him by using reverse psychology, which works, of course, since Rick has the most fragile ego known to man. But it turns out Rick didn’t do what Morty wanted, instead transporting Morty to a different timeline, killing the Morty that was originally in that timeline, eventually revealing this to Morty, traumatizing him. He also had Morty merge all of the timelines together, so only one Morty did all of the things Morty did in that episode. Take a shot for every time I say Morty in this post! I’m kidding, don’t do that. You’ll definitely die of alcohol poisoning. So Rick did this, one to preserve his ego, as he wants Morty to see him as cool, despite not wanting to admit it, because basic human emotions are for losers! And two, did this to keep Morty with him. As he says in season 6, after he believes that Morty hates him:

“This is what happens when you let people in and they stop respecting you!”

Morty didn’t respect Rick here, and Rick, being terrified of what that could mean, makes a whole contrived plot to keep Morty from ever critiquing him again. Hoping that this would keep Morty respecting him.

Rick is an incredibly fucked up indivual, but he typically does have a reason for doing the reprehensible shit he does, which makes it interesting to anaylze, and shows how complex he really is. So while season 4 was Rick at his worst, it IS a pretty interesting season to use to analyze Rick’s character.

This is also the season that kicks off Rick’s redemption arc. In the finale, Rick realizes how much of a terrible father he is, which leads him to sit alone in the garage and reflect on his behavior in this season. Unable to face the family after he realized just how horrible he is. This is a MASSIVE moment of growth for Rick, as he realized how much his actions hurt Rick, and how horrible it is to look at those actions play out. 

Now let’s get to the REAL reason why any of you are here for this post! Season 5! Rick’s redemption arc is starting, babbyyy! Let’s go!

~ Season 5 ~

Ok, so at the end of season 4 with the whole clone Beth thingy, Rick realizes what a truly bad person he is, and sits in the garage thinking about how horrible he’s been in season 4. Since, imo, he was at his worst in season 4, and Rick seems to agree since he begins his redemption arc in season 5. With the very first episode, we already see how different he acts. He tells Morty to leave him and save himself when they are literally in a life-threatening situation. Another example of how, while Rick may be a horrible grandpa, in the end, he loves Morty more than he loves himself. Which isn’t saying a lot because he hates himself, but uhhhh y’know what I mean. In this season, he respects Morty’s autonomy a lot more. For example, in the first episode again, Rick tries to drag Morty off so Morty can watch him sign a peace treaty with Mr. Nimbus. This was right after Mr. Nimbus says that this has to be someone Rick would trust with his life, by the way. But when Rick tries to, Morty yanks his arm away and says, “Rick! I did everything you asked today! Now, can I just spend some time with my girlfriend?” And Rick, instead of just ignoring Morty’s protest and boundaries again and just dragging him off, as, say, season one Rick would’ve done, he doesn’t try to drag Morty away and just says, “Your girlfriend?” Which, I would normally say that this is rude, buttttt considering how this is Morty’s 1st date with Jessica and he’s already using the “girlfriend” label, thissss is pretty fair I’d hate to say it. We also have Morty saying this line: “Y’know, sometimes you have to BE an asshole! My grandpa taught me that!”

Hell, Rick even let Morty off the hook for screwing up later in this episode, even if he’s snarky about it (“I fucked it up, ok?” “It’s ok Morty, it’s what you do, now lemme Deus Ex Machina this shit and let’s go home.”) when usually season 2 Rick wouldn’t hesitate at the opportunity to repeatedly insult Morty for it, and when he’s in the middle of an argument with Nimbus, he immediately drops it when he hears Morty screaming for help, with a: “Screw this. What am I even doing?”

We do see more of Rick’s jealousy and possessiveness over Morty in this season tho (In a platonic way to any proshipppers who are reading this, GET OUT!) in “A Rickconvient Mort” Morty ditches plans he had with Rick to hang out with Planetina (FUCK PLANETINA) and Rick actually doesn’t force the plans him and Morty had on him. So obviously in this season we’re getting more of Rick actually respecting Morty’s autonomy, which is really cool! Buttttt this is where his jealously and possessiveness comes in, he drinks a lot, calls Summer his favorite grandkid right in front of Morty to get under his skin and hurt Morty like how he hurt him (DAMN that is fucked) andddd basically ignores Morty for the rest of the episode. While Rick is a smart man, no doubt about it, he acts very immature when it comes to Morty. The best way I can describe Rick’s possessiveness and jealousy when it comes to Morty is…y’know, when a toddler has to share their favorite toy? Yeah, kinda like that. They get huffy, fussy, and won’t admit what’s wrong. Yep, that’s how our emotionally closed-off boy acted in this episode in a nutshell. He’s scared of showing how much he cares about Morty, since bad things happen to people he cares about; they either die because of him, are put in danger because of him, or leave him. Take, for instance, his original Beth and Diane, Unity, Birdperson, Squancy, hell, Mr. Poopybutthole’s life was ruined because of him. He also just isn’t really the best at dealing with his emotions, considering how much he represses them.

Now, he does slap Morty here in season 5 episode 7 (“Gr-grandpa fucked up, glasses on! Act like a turkey!” “Wha- Are you scared?” *Slaps* “ACT LIKE A TURKEY!”) But this slap was a lot softer contrasting the punch from Ricklatica, as he doesn’t leave a fucking black eye on Morty’s face. But still, hot take…slapping your younger relatives…is bad…*gasp!* I know, I know that’s very surprising and a very spicy take, but…I had to say it.

There’s not a whole lot to comment on for this season, since it focused more on Rick and Morty’s dynamic with other family members, but there are a few important things. One is…despite it being from one of the worst, if not the worst episodes of the entire series, we do get some good moments of Rick caring about Morty in…eugh…Rickdependence Spray…

Ok, this episode is completely shit, and is an abomination, BUT, there IS some good parts about it…and by “parts” I mean Rick, so, he get him greeting Morty in a weirdly nice way “Oh, hey kiddo, how’s your Saturday?”, and he also is pretty protective over Morty in this episode, telling him to step away so he doesn’t get caught in the blast, shielding him and putting Morty behind him when Sperm monsters were attacking, immidately grabbing him when the ship was going down, yeah even though this episode was absolute pure unadulterated garbage, these moments still managed to get an “Awww!” out of me…what can I say? I’m weak! I love me some protective Rick, even in a shitty episode. Also, when it comes out that Morty uh…”used”...a horse machine and because of that all the sprem monsters happened…i-it makes slightly more sense in context, ok? He does shame Morty a little for it, whichhhh is honestly kinda deserved, sorry baby, but the insult is very minor “Morty, you nasty little, lying, world-ending pervert!”, “I always knew your hormones would start a world war Morty, I just didn’t think it would be like this” and “Not really accepting apologies here while I’m stuck as handjob solo here…” but again, these are very minor, and aside from these lines, he lets Morty off the hook for it.

But oh boy, then we get to the toxic cesspool of the season 5 finale…so, in season 5 episode 9, Forgetting Sarick Mortshall, Rick is terrible to Morty, which is kinda essensital for the plot to happen and so one of the best episodes of the series can happen, but it’s still a dick move no matter how you slice and dice it. He calls Morty replaceable, had a wheel of better things than Morty, and purposefully attempted to hurt Morty so Morty will come back and, ideally, have less complaints now since he’ll believe that Rick is fine with replacing him…fuck…I absolutely love Rick, he’s my favorite without question, but he can be SERIOUSLY fucked up at times. Making this analysis made it all the more blatant. One thing I do like about this episode is that it had the BALLS to tell the audience about how fucked up and toxic their dynamic is, many shows will try to brush it off, or make excuses, like “Oh yeah, but they care about each other when it counts” it actually acknowledged the intense toxicity between Rick and Morty, I just kinda wish they directly addressed it more, since this episode didn’t really have a satisfying end to it…actually the episode ends with Rick LEAVING.

Yeah, Rick fucking LEAVES, because I guess giving one of his relatives abandonment issues wasn’t enough. (Yes, ik he never abandoned his original Beth, but he still abandoned this one multiple times) He had to do it with his 14-year-old grandson…yaaaay…

Now, it does try to say that the reasons why he’s leaving are because he’s abusive towards Morty…but if that were the case, he would work to make their relationship better, instead of continually removing Morty’s autonomy. Since now, he can’t even choose to leave Rick, because Rick has already made that choice for him. Making Morty even more dependent on Rick, since he probably feels incapable of making decisions on his own, considering how much autonomy that Rick has taken away from him. Hell, at times it’s like he’s not even his own person, he’s just Rick’s tool for adventures, he does get slightly more autonomy, but this just zaps it all away. Now, I do think Rick did have good intentions with this, buttttt now we’ve got abandonment issues as well! Which makes codependency even worse! (https://codependencyrecovery.org/2024/05/05/the-fear-of-abandonment-in-codependency-how-it-shapes-your-choices-and-what-to-do-about-it) yay….I mean, he did fix Morty’s arm and was genuinely worried when he saw Morty hurt, and gave Morty his portal gun as a parting gift, so like…that’s something, ig. Who cares about abandonment issues when you get a portal gun that you get to keep for a few days out of it!?

Rick does come back in the very next episode when the crows…I don’t wanna use the weird terminology that the show uses…soooo I’ll just say stop adventuring with him. Annnndddd just about nothing has changed, with Morty being ready to go back to how things were before, even when Beth tries to get Morty to tell Rick that he wants his respect, Morty refuses…my poor baby. It’s still nice seeing Beth take a more active role in Morty’s life, though, even if a lot of what she does is the bare minimum, it’s still nice to see. Especially since it shows that her love for her son is stronger than her abandonment issues. Beth is a LOT of things, but she does love her son.

Now, Rick is actually treating Morty like…*gasp*...a human being! He agrees to a dinner with Evil Morty despite not wanting to, since Morty wanted to. Let Morty find out about his past, even picking Morty up, even though Morty chose to do it at like the most inconvenient time. And gently put Morty down. And he AGAIN tells Morty to leave him for dead when Evil Morty offers Morty to come with. And Morty, being the codependent bby he is, chooses to save Rick instead, despite Rick admitting that he only came back because he didn’t have the crow anymore. He was too guilty to admit it, but his silence was answer enough, and after Rick admitted that he didn’t have a plan to get out…damn codependency is crazy, now obviously I do believe that they genuinely love each other, but you have to admit that there is a LOT of stuff that’s done due to codependency.

And the ending that I hate to admit brings me to tears, when Rick is handing a ship, he sees a booster control that says that it will only work with a partner, he takes Morty’s hand with a fucking SMILE on his face and they work TOGETHER as equal PARTNERS instead of the usual Rick being the leader and Morty being, for lack of a better word, a sidekick. This, to me at least, is when Rick consistently starts respecting Morty as a person, instead of only respecting Morty when he acts like him.

Nowwww, let’s see the moments Rick cares about Morty in season 5!

Rick tells Morty to leave him in Mort Dinner Rick Andre, drops an argument with Nimbus to help Morty when he hears him screaming for help, and lets him off the hook for screwing something up, instead of dogpiling on him like usual.

Genuinely wanted to have a good time with Morty with no ulterior motive in Rickmancing the Stone, even if Planetina ruins it (FUCK PLANETINA)

Being very protective over Morty in Rickdepedence Spray and mostly letting him off the hook for screwing up

Fixes Morty’s arm and gives Morty the portal gun in Forgetting Sharick Mortshall

Trusts Morty with his past, carries him, tells Morty to leave him to save himself, AND works with Morty as an equal partner

Woo! Ok! That was season 5! I had a LOT more to say about that than I thought…what can I say? I love yapping about my boys! Now we’re onto the 2nd to last season…for now, I mean Rick and Morty will be getting like, 12 seasons, so we don’t gotta worry about it ending for a while, season 6! And we get more of Rick’s redemption arc here, baby! Ohhh, this will be fun!

~ Season 6 ~

We’re almost at the end! We’re at the home stretch! Keep reading this for just a little bit longer! Even though at this point, assuming you read it all in one go, you’ve read for abboooutttt…25 minutes?! You could’ve watched an episode by now…fuck…uhmmm but you’re a fast reader! I’m sure you took a shorter time…HAHAHAHA! Please don’t stop reading. You don’t know how much time I spent on this…I actually…RESEARCHED and…LEARNED SOMETHING! EUGH! Alright, moving on, sorry, Wendy’s waitress.

First, we have Solaricks! GOD, I love this episode! I love it so much! Now this whole episode is great…butttt that’s for the episode ranking…that’s coming soon, I PROMISE! For this analysis, we’re just focusing Rick and Morty here, but DAMN is it good! So, the cold open show Rick and Morty about to die, since the ship they escaped on is out of gas, and get this, when Rick and Morty were legit about to die, Morty’s FIRST instict was to go over next to Rick, curl up, and cling onto his arm…and Rick, instead of shrugging Morty off or doing an asshole move like that, he actually lets Morty hold onto his arm, and leans his head on Morty’s.

Rick is gentle and vulnerable with Morty in a way he NEVER is with anyone else. He never lets anyone else in the series touch him in such a close way. All Morty wanted was to die while holding onto Rick, and Rick actually let that happen. I honestly, honestly couldn’t see season 4 Rick doing this, but since season 6 Rick is finally letting himself be vulnerable, he’s letting Morty do this. And, more importantly, he’s letting himself do this, he’s letting himself be close with someone else without pushing them away. Because he’s FINALLY beginning to trust himself. Also, in this episode, we find out that Rick Prime was our Morty’s, Morty Prime’s, original Rick. Do you have any idea how big this is? To let a relative of a man you despise, the man who killed your family and ruin your life, to not only not hate them, but to love them, more than you love yourself, for them to be the only one you can trust with your life, to be close with them in a way you never let yourself be with any else ever since your wife and daughter died by that same person’s realitive? THAT’S one of the reasons why he considers his attachment to Morty so irrational, because this is the grandkid of your enemy, and even if you know they can’t control who they are blood-related to, realistically, you should have some resentment towards them, right? I mean, logically, rationally. And Rick, being a very logical and rational person, just can’t get why he holds no resentment towards Morty at all. Holding him in very high regard, even if he’d never admit it, since uhm…feelings are for people who want their families dead, ig. 

Man, I REALLY yapped about that for a WHILE, huh? What can I say? I love my boys, I mean…of course I do, this analysis is nearly 8000 words as I’m writing it right now. Hell, I’m writing this instead of sleeping…it’s 4 in the morning and I just have ICP in my other tab and writing about Rick and Morty in this one…what is my life?

Okay, enough with that existential crisis, you came here for an analysis about an abusive grandpa and his anxious grandson! …You weirdo. 

Now, later in the episode, we have one of my favorite scenes…I-I think in the whole series? Oh, you think I’m overexaggerating?! …Maybe. But this scene is really great, I made one too many posts on it. I’ll just show you the exchange.

“Get outta here! [When Morty was about to do something stupid and dangerous…awfully hypocritical of you, Ricky] You did this last season! You’re like a suicide bomber!”

“Takes one to know one!”

“Yeah? Well, you get it from him [Rick Prime], not me!”

“I don’t know him! You’re my grandpa, Rick! Rick and Morty, 100 years!”

This scene is soooo good, I CAN’T! I love how Rick lost his anger at hearing that, I love Morty immediately disowning Rick Prime, I love the found family, I love the callback to the pilot, GOD! I love it so much. Seriously, that callback was so good, even though Morty was literally rendered immobile because of Rick when he said that, and Rick had zero care about that, it still meant SO MUCH to Morty! Ugh, I need to stop gushing about this scene and carry on with the analysis already…ok, so this is a pretty good example of the genuine (I shouldn’t even have to specify this, but whenever I say “love” I’m talking about PLATONIC and FAMILIAL love! Ok? Ok.) love between them, there is a LOT of codependency between them, but they both do genuinely love each other a lot, Rick just isn’t in the right mental space to show it in the right way, he’s getting there, but he still has a WHILE to go, due to all of his trauma and a whole buncha self loathing! Ahh, THIS is why I relate to you, Rick! I hate myself, too! …That’s not concerning, right?

This is also what makes Rick go back and help the girls, who are in trouble. Morty is the ONLY person who’s able to talk Rick out of doing stupid and self risking stuff, since he’s aware of Rick’s self-destructive tendencies, that just shows how well they know each other, and how much they DO genuinely love and care for each other, even if it can seem hard to believe at times with all the emotional abuse, codepedency, and toxicity.

Also, a bit before this scene, when Morty was stuck in his original dimension, despite him saying “I knew you wouldn’t leave me!” to Rick when he came back, thissss isn’t exactly true. You see, he was talking with Jerry Prime, and, if he actually believed that Rick was coming back when he was talking to Jerry about it, he would say “When Rick comes back,” Butttt well…I’ll just show you what he said.

“If Rick comes back”

If, despite everything, Morty’s abandonment issues are still strong, of course they are, he’s terrified of losing the most important person in his life, the only person that gives him consistent attention, and now he knows that Rick would leave him on a whim, he knows that all of that could be ripped about like, *snap*, that. Who wouldn’t be terrified of losing the only person who actually pays attention to you after you’ve been lonely your entire life?

And it doesn’t help that when Rick came back, Morty was so overwhelmed with relief that he ran to Rick with outstretched arms to hug him, and Rick, being uncomfortable with physical touch, takes Morty’s shoulder and gently pushes him away, leaving Morty feeling more alone than ever.

That’s all I have to say about this episode, but damn, it’s even better than I thought, it reveals SO much about Rick and Morty’s dynamic in one episode…Or I could be overanalyzing this silly drunk grandpa cartoon….nahhh, that’s not it! This was all intentional, and I’m NOT crazy or obsessed, who said that!? 

We also have Rick: A Mort Well Lived, and I’m…split on the episode, I WILL give credit where credit is due, it DOES say a lot about Rick and Morty’s dynamic. It sets the stage for the best episode in the series by showing that Morty thinks Rick doesn’t care about him. This was first introduced as a throwaway line in the season 3 premiere (“Because he doesn’t care! Because nobody is special to him, Summer!”), So it’s nice seeing it expanded on in this episode.

So, basically, Morty was split into a lot of little pieces because of a Roy game…it makes just as much sense in context. I gave you the context. And this, as multiple lines showing just how badly years of Rick’s abuse affected Morty, they straight up just don’t think Rick cares about him…or…them…? I dunno, it’s confusing, the truly heartbreaking thing is, you can’t really blame him, after years of emotional abuse, of course, he would start to believe that Rick doesn’t care about him. We have to remember, we are watching them on TV. We can go back to the moments where Rick cares about Morty and gush about them all we want, but Morty can’t. For Morty, these moments are just that, moments, quick and fleeting. Then after this, he just goes on with his life like normal. So why would he think that Rick cares about him, if all he hears is negative things come out of his mouth 90% of the time? I mean, put yourself in Morty’s shoes for a moment, your grandpa constantly insults you and made it very clear that he considers you 100% precent replaceable, he does have moments where he cares about you, but these are very quick, yeah, you probably wouldn’t think he cares as well. 

Also, while Rick is getting better, we have to remember that Morty is 14, and again, he isn’t watching this on TV. He can’t go back to different episodes and analyze the differences in how Rick treats him, the change is slow and gradual, it makes it all the more realistic, but also makes it all the harder to spot. Of course, a 14-year-old isn’t going to pick up on this, how would he? The Rick he knows the majority of the time in the manipulative, sarcastic, rude Rick, not the kind, gentle, loving Rick that we can see over and over again. 

Also, the one piece of Morty that Rick admitted was a good grandson, was going to admit that he loves, AND was the only one to challenge him and demand that he shows affection towards him…or…uh…her…? If he…she…? Is going to follow what he says. And guess what? She’s the only one who gets left behind on her own request. The only part of Morty that could challenge Rick is gone forever, set to die in a video game. Morty again loses more autonomy, he straight up says: “You know best, Rick! I trust you implicitly!” I swear, he’s becoming more and more like a lifeless husk with no personality that Rick just drags around.

There is also JuRicksic Mort. This doesn’t really reveal much about their dynamic, but they have a really cutesy dynamic here. Hell, Rick even tells Morty, “Give me a hug!” and playfully ruffles Morty's hair when he finds that piece of the asteroid. He also gently elbows Morty and asks, “Get it?” after he tells a joke, and actually attempts to defend himself to Morty when Morty is bitter about Rick not laughing at a joke he made. Which is…weirdly adorable? Rick also takes Morty to Boobworld with no hesitation after he fixes portal travel. Happily saying, “Figured my guy deserves a vacation.” Also, him calling Morty “my guy” is adorable, shut up. Also them gently punching each other’s arms is so fucking cute. MY BOYSSSSS ARGHHH! Also, this has literally nothing to do with the analysis…but I can’t NOT mention Rick absolutely failing at skateboarding, I’m sorry that’s too funny not to mention.

We also get Full Meta Jackrick. And DAMN. This episode is good! It might seriously be S-Tier for me, it is SO good! This episode is a great example on how much Rick changed. He’s physically gentle with Morty, gently holding his arms and hands, helping Morty up, hell, this is also a great protective Rick episode! When Rick thinks Joe Campbell got Morty…uh…pregnant…which, considering how Morty is amad, I…don’t know how that’s possible. Rick’s first reaction? To kill the only other male who could’ve done it,  Joe. He did it by drowning as well, a surefire way to make it as painful as possible. Hell, even when Morty says, “It wasn’t him, Rick!” Rick angrily asks, “Then who?!” Clearly wanting to deal with the man who did that himself. Also, you are INSANNEEEE if you think I won’t mention him putting his lab coat on Morty when Morty was cold. That was legitimately adorable, especially since we rarely see Rick give someone else his lab coat. This was the first time he did, actually.  He did it a second time in Mort: Raganrick (I thought it was called 90s Fad Toys for the longest time bc the site I pirate Rick and Morty from got it wrong, but shhh, that’s a secret between us) was when it threw it to Bigfoot in Summer’s body butttt I thinkkkk that has more to do with the fact that Summer was naked…

Ok, next up! Anaylze Piss, Rick and Morty don’t interact a whollleee lot here, we do get a pretty empowering scene for Morty setting some boundaries with Rick, not agreeing to keep a secret of a man’s suicide for Rick and telling the rest of the family. Rick also goes to therapy! Which is something season 3 Rick turned into a pickle to try to prevent. So yeah, Rick has grown a LOT from season 3, and I’m really proud of him!

Alright, so that’s about it for season 6, Rick and Morty has a much healthier, more cutesy dynamic, sure Rick can still be emotionally abusive, and manhandles Morty when they are running away from others, but he’s a lot gentler now, and treats Morty like an actual person instead of just a tool for adventures that vast majority of the time, now onto season 7, the final one! Then we’re done with this analysis that took way…WAYYYY too long. Wait- what!? No! I don’t want to talk about the last 2 episodes! I don’t want to, I’m not gonna, you’re not gonna make me! Wait…you’ll buy me a Rick plushie if I do…? 

…

Damn you comfort characters. (I say despite making an entire analysis on how abusive Rick is, yes, he is still my comfort character. Meeseeks and Destroy. That’s it. That’s my reason.)

Ok, so, in A Rick in King Mortur’s Mort, damn these long titles, Rick straight up abandons Morty...again. He’s tryna win the Olympic gold medal for how many times he can traumatize this kid, istg. Give him DOUBLE the abandonment issues, why not!? He did make a robot designed to literally make Morty happy, which, y’know, is sweet in that special Rick way. But he still abandoned his grandson for months because he couldn’t pull himself out of his obsession with Prime.

Why is this?

Because of Morty.

Morty insulted him once, and it caused him to spiral.

Rick never really cared about Morty’s insults, but now he’s finally starting to respect Morty, so now those insults actually hurt, insults are a lot harder to brush off if you actually respect the person they are coming from.

It actually broke Morty that Rick would do this, he cries, and it’s heartbreaking. “He’s [Rick’s] busy…and I hate him, and I lost my lightsaber, and now it might destroy the earth, and it’s the worst Christmas ever!” Hell, after Rick lashed out with the most victim-blaming speech I’ve ever heard in my life, he immediately feels bad, and starts to blame the president, even now he’s incapable of holding Rick accountable, that’s how bad his codependency is.

And Rick still doesn’t see why what he did was wrong, why would Morty love him? He insulted him, that must mean that he doesn’t care, shouldn’t he be happy that Rickbot is nicer and more thoughtful than him? Why did Morty even care? Rick felt like a victim because he assumed Morty didn’t care about him, at least in Rick’s eyes. He probably thought Morty just finally realized how shitty of a person and didn’t understand how Morty could still love someone like that, forgetting what Morty said in Solaricks.

“You’re my grandpa, Rick.”

That’s why he hated Rick replacing himself with Rickbot; he loves this Rick, Rick C-137, his grandpa, and he just replaced himself with an impostor for months, not the Rick he chose over his biological grandpa, but a robot. He straight up tells Rickbot this.

“You’re not my grandpa, you’re a fucking robot.”

Morty is so terrified of being replaced, and Rick replacing himself terrified Morty that Rick got sick of him, and was going to replace him and leave him, again.

By the time Morty insulted Rick, Rick thought Morty truly didn’t care about him, so he just replaced himself with a better, nicer version of himself so he could focus entirely on finding Prime, thinking that that’s why he’s no good to anyone. That if he could get rid of Prime, everything would be fixed. 

Also…Morty was the reason why Rick stopped hunting Prime, but Morty was the reason he came back to it. Sound familiar?

“The corrosion of 2 personalities that reshape each other until they’re incompatible”

…

And with that, we move on to season 7

~ Season 7 ~

Season 7, baby! We’re in the home stretch!

After spending hours on this and continually getting sidetracked because Depression is a fucking BITCH, we did it! So, sadly, we don’t get as much of their dynamic in season 7, since Morty got sidetracked a LOT in this season, butttt, we still got a lot to talk about, because this season has Fear No Mort!

This season is when their dynamic is at its healthiest, they seem a lot more like friends, which is nice to see. Rick, of course, still insults him, because this is Rick, of course, he’s still going to be emotionally abusive, ya can’t just erase that overnight, but like before, these insults are a lot less harsh, making him seem more like a rude friend than anything. He only insults Morty, like, 7 times throughout the whole season. Which, while it isn’t uhm…great, it still is a massive improvement. Morty is also more of Rick’s level, snapping back at him more than once, which makes their dynamic seem a lot more equal, than it just being a poor kid getting emotionally abused by his grandpa, which, don’t get me wrong, that still is definitely what’s going on, but it’s more equal now than it was before, the power dynamic is still there, but it’s not as unequal as it used to be, which is a definite plus.

Also, Rick actually lets Morty hug him! Contrasting season 6, where he lightly pushes Morty away when Morty tries. In Unmortricken, Morty hugs Rick, and Rick stiffens up, but lets him. And again in Fear No Mort (Oh, we’ll get to you later) Morty hugs Rick, and Rick, despite being obviously very confused and stiffening up again, does albeit awkwardly and half-assed, does try to hug Morty back, butttt Morty does pull away, and Rick, instead of being upset, looks more worried that he did something wrong, although he quickly returns to his resting bitch face afterwards. I love this man so much.

Rick also has a pretty good handle on his anger here, mainly in Mort: Raganrick, when Morty messes up things again, and Rick, instead of showering him with insults as usual. *Cough* Mortynight Run *Cough* He seems a lot more like a frustrated parent, more mad at the situation rather than Morty. He does insult Morty, but it was pretty tame and only once. And to be fair, it was after Morty insulted him, and he does reassure Morty afterwards, despite being stern about it. (“You’d rather stay dead until you win than live as a loser, Christ, maybe you belong here with these idiots.” “Yeah, I could probably teach them how to hit a red button!” “...I said I was sorry….” “And I said keep killing them, while I finish the relay, and I will find a way to get us back home, ok?”) We also see them being equal here, when Morty complains to Rick to get them back home, Rick, instead of hand waving Morty’s concerns away, actually explains his point to Morty (“You need to find a way to get us back to life!” “Without my infinite energy, Morty? I don’t think you’re understanding this, Morty…if I get back, we won’t have another shot at this, you think next time these idiots see an old guy on the battlefield, they’re going to give him a beer?”)

We also get a lot of protective moments between both of them, not only in this episode, but in Unmortricken as well. With Rick wanting Morty to stay away from Rick Prime, since he’s very dangerous, and actually getting angry at Evil Morty when he brings Morty Prime along. (“You brought Morty?” “I’m not worried about him, I’m evil.”) And with Morty getting mad at Evil Morty when he insults Rick (“Reallyyy learned your lesson about chasing this guy…” “Hey, man, you can leave now.”), There is also, of course, the ending, with Morty’s lips trembling when he was waiting for Rick’s response after asking Rick if he was ok. And when Rick says yes (Rick, you fucking liar.) Morty hugs Rick, and Rick, instead of pushing away, lets Morty hug him, just giving him a weird look and stiffening up, I mean, hey, baby steps. Rick also pretends to be happy for Morty which is just…so fucking sad.

And in Rickfending your Mort, we get to see Rick spoiling Morty, and them having a genuinely good time together, hell, despite them arguing here, they actually get over it pretty quickly, and the insults they hurl and each other feel a lot less personal than usual. Just basic ones like bitch and stuff. And even then, Morty still didn’t like the observer talking down to Rick. We also get Morty calling Rick “Grandpa” instead of “Rick”, which is always nice to see. (“It’s some weirdo Grandpa hired to prove I’m a bad person.”) And we get Rick encouraging Morty when he comes to talk to the observer (“Yeah, get ‘em Morty!”) and not being angry when he sees that Morty steals money from his wallet. We also get an adorable ending. (“Rick and Morty! We’re back, baby! Check the glovebox!” “Woah! Another gun!”) Now, despite this episode being adorable, there issss a downside. This is another example of Rick relying too much on Morty, I mean, he literally relies on Morty to keep him mentally stable, which is something you should never put on anyone, much less a 14-year-old. 

There’s also Wet Kaut Amortican Summer. Buttttt we don’t get much of their dynamic here, but we do get confirmation that Rick now regularly spoils Morty, which is adorable, and Rick is actually able to take criticism from Morty without traumazing the poor kid. *Cough* VAT OF ACID *Cough*

Anddd now we get to the one! You know the one. FEAR NO MORT BABBBYYY!

Now, I could gush about this episode till the cows come home, talk about how it’s funny, a great character study on Morty and Rick, how the ending scene is the best ending and twist in all of Rick and Morty…buttttt that’s not what you’re here for, so! Let’s just explain what it means for our boy’s dynamic!

So, in Fear No Mort, we find out Morty’s greatest fear is Rick not caring about him, which is so fucking heartbreaking. And Morty’s realization of the fear is awful, also yes I memorized this scene (“I’m afraid that if I jumped into a hole, you wouldn’t even bother jumping in after me! You’d just stay there and watch! This entire thing has been about ME! YOU’RE NOT EVEN IN THE HOLE ARE YOU!?”) And holy hell, the voice acting is wayyy better than it had any right to be. Harry fucking KILLED it! What hurts the most about that line is that Rick actually DID jump into a hole for Morty in A Rickle in Time, but Morty can barely remember it since he had so many memories of that same moment where Rick didn’t jump in for him, and it’s absolutely heartbreaking. He forgot one of the biggest acts that shows how much Rick really did love him, where he gave his life for Morty’s. AUGH FUCK! 

What also hurts is when Morty gets out of the hole, Rick was just waiting for him. He did just sit there and watch. To Morty, at the very least, his greatest fear was confirmed. Morty jumped into a hole, and Rick didn’t bother jumping in after him. He just sat there and watched. And that breaks Morty’s heart, you can hear him begging that Rick did try to jump in with the amount of pain in his voice (“Oh no…aw jeez no…you…you didn’t go in at all…?”) and Rick said that he didn’t breaking Morty’s heart without realizing it.

But there is something Morty didn’t realize, when Morty woke up and was safe, Rick happily said “Morty!” with a smile on his face, clearly happy to see that Morty was ok, but Morty of course wouldn’t realize a small detail after the overwhelming terrifying experience that he just went through, and to the overwhelming belief that Rick truly does not care about him at all. 

Also Morty asks Rick, just to see if he was still in the hole “Rick…am I…irreplaceable?” Since irreplaceable was the very word that set Morty off, the one word that caused Morty to realize that Rick wasn’t even in the hole, and it was “You’re irreplaceable!” He truly believes that Rick would just replace him at any moment, and when Rick answers that question with: “I mean…define ‘irreplaceable’” This, this fucked up sentence, Rick being a dick, is what caused Morty to realize that he wasn’t in the hole. This made Morty so happy that he hugged Rick, he loves Rick for who he is, for being the asshole that simtaniously ruined and changed his life forever. Rick is single-handedly the reason why Morty can’t have a normal life, and Morty still loves Rick despite this. And Rick stiffens up and looks confused, but actually hugs Morty back. And this terrifies Morty, causing him to break apart and scream “NO! I won’t know if I’m out!” He’s so accustomed to receiving negative attention from Rick, that even the smallest amount of affection from him feels alien, it doesn’t feel real. Now, let’s get something straight, Rick is changing and is getting better, this doesn’t take away from the fact that Rick has deeply traumatized Morty, and Morty is still dealing with the trauma that Rick has put on him after 6 years.

We also see something else, in the hole, Morty was terrified that if Rick had to choose between him and a fake version of Diane, he would choose Diane, but guess what actually happened in the end, when Rick gets that choice?

He rejects it. 

He rejects the ability to see his dead wife again, and instead just looks at the hole, takes a deep breath, takes a picture of Morty that was carefully folded in his wallet, mind you, and puts it on the wall of people who went into the hole and successfully came out, then walks away with a smile, clearly proud and happy of Morty, content with walking away from the past to spend the rest of his evening with his grandson. Fuck, I hate how just describing this scene is making me tear up.

~ Conclusion ~

Now, season 8 hasn’t come out yet, but it will come out soon! But according to staff, Rick and Morty will have more of an equal friendship, sooo this should be the healthiest we’ve seen of Rick and Morty yet! 

So, what did we learn from this? Well, Rick and Morty, despite everything, do genuinely love and care for each other, although this mainly gets overshadowed by their codependency and the general toxicity of their dynamic. And while Rick is getting better and is treating Morty a lot better overall, this doesn’t erase all of the trauma Rick has put on Morty, Morty is still very deeply traumatized from the, at fucking BEST, 6 years of consistent emotional abuse, that even sometimes turns physical. (Rickstar Ricklatica, I’m looking at you) And despite the fact that Rick is changing for the better and does love Morty, and Morty loving him back, Morty still has no obligation to forgive Rick for all of the trauma Rick has dumped on Morty. 

Their dynamic is so insanely complex and layered. I love how it shows that abusers can love their victims, but just not in the right way. Honestly making this analysis of their analysis made me respect the writing of this show even more, as they did a legitimately awesome job at show what can happen to someone with codependency. And it is legitimately so insanely interesting to anaylze, and I absolutely love it! Ok, after multiples months, multiple hours of procrastinating and getting distracted, so SO many spotify songs, and nearly 12k words, this analysis is finally finished! I really hope that you did enjoy reading this analysis. I know it’s long, but I hope it gave you a new understanding of their dynamic! I know it did for me, and I did actually learn a lot when I was researching for this analysis, so it was legitimately an educational experience for me! I think I need to stop saying legitimately- But yeah! This was a very long post and analysis, but I did genuinely enjoy making it! And I hope you enjoyed reading it as well! Thank you!

[wamo]

Idk if this has been done b4 but some stuff I noticed in the fiddauthor Sorry pic (aka overnalayzing it)

fidds took this photo is taken with his camera propped on a tripod stand, hence his writing on the back

ngl I think that's grass since bmu is hella poor + a goat being there already, meaning their dorm is located on the ground floor (or it's just a shag carpet. shrug)

judging by the ragged curtains, there used to be a window but was replaced with a whiteboard (from staff or prev freshmen?) maybe to stop the grass from growing with lack of sunlight? another option is that it is a window, but it doesn’t reflect anything outside. might be a white wall blocking it

fidds only drank a cup of coffee whilst ford drank at least 5 cups of coffee & 1 pitt cola (fidds putting the word coffee in quotation marks ("coffee") means he has never tried it/drunk it before, and is first introduced to the drink by ford. he's also possibly restricted from foreign drinks/was warned about coffee by his grandma)

upon ford arriving at their dorm they bonded immediately for 9 hours, them being outcasted by others, sharing similarities

other than proving their theory, they stacked the empty red paper cups to throw a ping pong ball (?) at, like bowling

on ford's bed, his blanket is askew & he has a horrendous pillow (maybe it's fidds?) also love how ford had the time to nail his guy crush carl sagan poster on his side of the room

there's no reason for the blankets to be askew like that (if they've been solely theory solving the entire time) + ford in his socks & green boxers, while fidds still kept his JEANS ON & cowboy boots ... they're not beating the queer allegaytions

they're both possibly each other's first friend (and best friend)

I don't think ford would be comfortable with taking off his shoes & pants like that with someone in the room unless they're someone he trusts (like fidds lmao)

this is ford's usual attire minus his signature trenchcoat, navy blue slacks, and his black dress shoes, also his sleeves are rolled up. girl atp just strip it all down

notice how only ford has sticky notes on him, this could mean: the original theory came from fidds so he wrote down the equation & put them on ford OR they both wrote down the equation & ford insists he put them on him to help figure it out OR he put the sticky notes on ford first then wrote the equations down (2 of which are on his tits. awesome.)

non-queer (aka boring) interpretation of ford's state: he accidentally spilled coffee & it left a stain on his pants & shoes, hence he took them off. or he just needed to piss! too much coffee. do whatever you want pines

feel free to make your own interpretation of this! these are mostly my headcanons anyway

[honey-sweet-poet]

Yeah maybe the curtains are just blue but maybe the author likes that you see that as symbolism for sadness. Have you ever thought of that? Maybe writers like when you find meanings in their works that they didn't think of. Just because it wasn't intended doesn't mean it can't be true.

Over analyze everything. Find meaning where there was nothing before. We found God in the stars, we can find meaning in the curtains.

[dr-spectre]

Wait... is that...? Surely not... it can't be! NO! IT CANNOT BE.... THE GREEN MARK... THE EYE... THE GREEN THINGS ON THE LEFT AND RIGHT THAT LOOKS LIKE WASABI STICKS..... nonono It cannot be... HIM!

This is just an easter egg right!?!? Just a funny little easter egg?! Don't tell me he's gonna show up?!? RIGHT?!?!?!

Is... is it time...? Is it time for him to come back? After 2 years? Is he gonna be rocking with the girls?! IS HE GONNA SHOW UP IN THE PUBLIC EYE?!? IS HE FULLY A GOOD GUY?!?! IS HE GONNA FINALLY BE FULLY REDEEMED?!?!?!

....I gotta be looking too much into things... maybe it's just a promotional poster about... HIM... he has had one in the past so yeah!!! Surely... it's an easter egg...

.....right?

[magentasnail]

one thing you should know about me is that I'm a little insane

all of the new bill cipher stuff and euclydia had sparked a lot of discussions about the nature of a 2D dimension, so now I have a very strong one sided beef with anyone trying to claim that "we, as 3D beings, can only see/perceive in 2D" and as a 3D being myself I have to disagree and if I don't voice my opinions in public I will lose my mind

so welcome to "magenta's trying to explain physics without actually knowing physics to anyone who's willing to listen"

so first of all, one major key of this debate is the difference between "see" and "perceive", because that can lead to some confusion

in my opinion there are basically 3 stages to "sight" (and any other senses): 1. the information the eyes gets (our retinas?) 2. the image our brains create from interpreting that information 3. us comprehending what we see

I personally think of "seeing" as at least level 2, but for the sake of this argument let's refer to seeing as level 1 and perception as 2 and 3 (separating them to perception and comprehension doesn't add much to the discussion) however I still think vision encapsulate the entire thing, so keep that in mind

if that's the case, I do understand why people claim that we can only "see" in 2D, because in a technical sense: one eye can only see a flat image

for example, if we have these 2 balls in front of us in a 3D space, we wont really be able to tell anything about their distance and size with just one eye

HOWEVER, and that's the thing I'm mainly getting at: we do have the ability to tell size and distance in real life! by this great thing calls "depth perception"

now this is not really a concept I can explain with images since they are inherently flat, but you probably know it already just think 3D glasses, VR, or even just look around in your room! our two eyes + our brain gives us the ability to tell the distance of things from us! you can theoretically map the objects around you on a 3D grid just from looking at them, and if that's not 3D vision and perception idk what is

well, actually, I did see a thing being argued that "3D vision means seeing all sides of an object + inside of it, which is what 4D creatures will see" so lets think about that for a second

this argument stems from the way we interact with the 2nd dimension

as all the flatlands lovers here know, when we look at a world of 2D creatures, we are able to see all of their sides, and their inside, so supposedly a 4D creature would be able to do the same for us

but that's where things gets interesting, so let's go deeper!

this usually comes up in order to say "this ability to see around and inside of an object defines what 2D vision is, and thus only 3D being can see 2D, while 2D beings can only see 1D" however, I don't think it has to do with sight at all! but rather with point of view and existing in a higher dimensional plane !

the special thing about us really is our ability to move on the Z axis and separate ourselves from the 2D plane, and thus get a fuller view! so this doesn't have anything to do with us "being limited to 2D" but rather with us being 3D creatures in a 3D world and 3D perception!!! so supposedly, a 4D creature would be in the same situation, having 3D retinas and an overall 4D vision and perception!

if we were to be on the flat plain along the other shapes, our vision isn't going to serve us much better than it does for the 2D creatures, the only additional thing we will be able to see is the Z axis, which isn't really relevant to 2D beings

so now raises the question: can 2D creatures see in 2D? don't they only see 1D? ( - a line ?)

I'm going to jump through some loops here so I need you to hold my hand and bare with me

lets say we have this triangular fella with one eye, the light information they are getting is linear, so basically a line (which is represented on the right)

now this is where I'm making a bit of a leap: will their vision have 2D depth? like we have?

think for a second of the way we see, technically, even the flat image our retinas see is based in some 3D: specifically, objects appear smaller as they are far away, lines wrap into a vanishing point in the horizon, stuff like that!

the 3D world around us is getting compressed into a flat image with perspective, which we can later decipher back into 3D using both our eyes !

and as you might have noticed, a similar thing is happening in our triangle friend's vision! even though both circles are the same size, the light blue circle is closer, and thus takes a much larger portion of their field of view!

unfortunately, as we have established before, while this is a result of depth, this isn't equivalent to depth perception, as our poor triangle cant tell anything about the distance of the circles! is that circle close to him? is that a giant far circle? who knows!

this is where having 2 eyes might help!

our other friend, the 2 eyed triangle, should in theory be able to have depth perception similarly to us, and thus perceive 2D visually!!

how specifically their brain interprets that information is beyond me, the changes in distance, size and angles/curves might be visible as color changes or even width

it's important to remember that since there's no defined "width" to the "line" of their vision, it's actually filling their entire field of view and perception of sight, so it's not like it's a line within a black void but more of the definition of everything, so when compared to our perception of sight it's something more like this:

and if you want to incorporate the idea of closer objects appearing larger in their perception, it might be something like this (for a bunch of random circles in different distances):

the main thing is, when we are trying to say 2D creatures can only see 1D, it's usually just because we think of "2D vision" as a matter of height and width, when it can actually just be depth and width, both of these are valid ways of representing 2 dimensions! because there are 2 dimensions represented ! it's just a matter of point of view!!

I don't think our ability to see 2D objects from all their sides at once is defining what counts as 2D vision, it's just a way to see it from further away, and without relaying on perspective I guess?

so I guess that's the thing really, the core of this discussion: does perspective count? I mean perspective is what makes the axis that's "forwards" accessible, distorting the size to substitute distance. supposedly, when we step back to look to look at a 2D world, we don't need any of that distortion, and we can easily see both the accurate size and the distance of objects, so does that mean our vision is superior? that it's actually true 2D?

in my opinion, the distortion of perspective doesn't take away from our vision, it's just a way to represent the forward axis! no matter how many dimensions you have, forwards is always the first dimension to exist, and while you are looking straight ahead at one dimension lower than you are, your over all vision consists of a stack of "straight ahead views" along the additional axis, which I consider as giving it it's missing dimension!!

trying to argue we can't perceive the world in the dimension we exist in doesn't make sense to me, we are 3D beings in a 3D world which we intuitively interact with! just like we can move around the 3D space and hear the direction sounds are coming from, I don't understand why vision should be limited to any less, and definitely not perception!

well that was fun! this is basically just a matter of semantics, but thinking and trying to analyze vision and different dimensions was just really interesting! and I hope it was interesting to read for you dear one person who read this! have a candy! 🍬 hopefully now that I release these thoughts into the world they won't hurt me as much !! time to dissolve i guess !

[thestalkingentity]

One of things I love about the Wizard of Oz books/movie is that, What the Scarecrow and Tinman want and go onto be is different than what they were.

The Scarecrow wanted a brain, and gets appointed the Ruler of Oz in the end. (to later take places in the Winkie country) He doesn’t become good at scaring crows. He becomes a ruler.

Similarly the Tinman he doesn’t want to no longer rust to be a better wood chopper, he wants a heart to be able to care and feel. Later he ends up the ruler of the Winkies because they were so fond of him.

They weren’t good at their jobs so they found a job they would be good at. Not changing themselves for what they are supposed to be but finding something that fits. Dose the scarecrow stay the ruler of Oz? No he ends up deciding to hang out with his friend the Tinman.

[kazperthegh0st]

Leo doesnt know about the ninja turtles.

“The mantel was inscribed with a name, like a tomb.

“‘The passage is around here,’ he said. ‘This guy’s final resting place is in the way. Raphael somebody.’

“‘Famous painter, I think,’ Hazel said.

“Leo shrugged. He hada cousin named Raphael, and he didn’t think much of the name.”

(Mark of Athena, page 440)

If Leo knew TMNT he would have made a reference. Leo should have known TMNT. It would be right up his alley.

[the-overanalyst]

i just had a realization about n25's (original) worldlink cards. so all the cards have them underwater, which can symbolize how they all struggle with mental health. but...

ena knows exactly how to get past the water. she's on her feet and walking toward the light with determination.

mafuyu is being pulled toward the surface and the light, but it pains her to leave the dark water behind.

mizuki is so close to the surface. she could swim up to it, and her expression suggests she wants to, but she's resigned to staying in place.

and kanade is smiling. she isn't even thinking about leaving the water, even though it's darker here than in any other card.

if you think back to how each of the girls were just after 3rd anniversary, these cards basically say it all.

[that-one-unhinged-dadvid-blog]

Ever think the reason why Max REALLY didn't want to do the ropes course (Despte being good at gymnastics) was because it reminded him of the wood scouts rope course?

[notmasonpines]

Creating a General Timeline for the Demon Realm

Hey everyone. Remember me? I once made up an entire system for translating glyph combos just to have a way to create a glyph combo for whatever spell I wanted to use. I also overanalyzed the calendar system of the Boiling Isles and the floor plan of the Noceda household. If you remember those, good to see you again! Enjoy the incoming text wall.

Tl;dr, This time I return to this place to dump yet another product of my overanalysis: putting together a general timeline for the demon realm, from the time of Titan civilization, to the creation of the Isles, to the present.

With 'general' timeline here I'm talking about the big picture, and less about smaller events and details (though there will be plenty of those to come). Think more 'Big History' and less 'Conventional History.' As a heads-up, there will be quite some headcanons involved in the construction of the timeline, simply because so much is either a gap or not fully established, though I believe every headcanon presented in the sections below is at least canon-supported/hinted at.

The general structure of this little essay will consist of a brief discussion on an important general element of the timeline, followed by a description of the headcanons involved, and arguing for why they're at least probable in canon. Lastly, everything gets wrapped up in a nice big bullet point list listing my version of the full general timeline of the Demon Realm. Not sure I'll get to use it in any of my own future stuff right now, but it's good to have it all in one place at least. But that all aside, hope you enjoy the semi-structured ramble!

The Undetermined Pacing of Time

When it comes to the timeline, the most important reference point, in my opinion (besides the present day) is the confrontation between the Collector and King's dad/The (Last) Titan/Papa Titan/etc., ending in King's dad dragging his spirit and the Collector into the In-Between, trapping them there, and his body falling into the ocean, creating the Boiling Isles. I'll call this event the Fall.

Now, as the heading of this section has cryptically hinted at, an important topic that should be mentioned before diving into the real meat of things is the span of time that passes between the Fall and the present day, because it's not clear at all.

The lowest limit we have for certain is about four centuries, as that is the time of the Deadwardian era, when Luz physically traveled there. Obviously this is an extreme low-ball estimate, but it should be established (and as a note, while the Deadwardian era takes place in the 1600s Earth time, the Edwardian era of which it is a spoof is the early 20th century. Some BI weirdness going on there, I'm sure).

Expanding on that, we can take into account that 'Every myth you humans have is caused by a little of our world leaking into yours,' meaning we can safely say the Isles and its demon inhabitants have been around for at least as long as human myths have been, so on the scale of thousands of years (at least four-thousand).

Side-note, if we actually want to take 'Oh, yeah. We banished [giraffes]. Bunch of freaks,' seriously and making it adhere to Earth history, then that banishment would've happened about a million years ago, which was when modern giraffes popped up. For various reasons, mainly the idea of witches somehow being around and organized enough that even a million years later they still have a civilization and the information on the giraffes' banishment (though there'll be a big section talking about when witches came around further down), I won't consider this for the rest of the analysis. As an alternate explanation, the giraffes were only banished a couple thousand years ago, and witches (or more creepily, the giraffes) changed fossil records after the banishment to fool humans into thinking they're a natural part of Earth history.

For a better indication of the scale of time we're talking about between the creation of the Isles and the present day, there is the Hecktaceous period, dinosaur demons and all, where the decay of the Titan was much more active (though it still looks to be in an advanced decay state with most of its flesh gone) which is a spoof on the Cretaceous period, which spanned 143 to 66 million years ago. Though, as the Deadwardian-Edwardian stuff showed, being a spoof doesn't automatically mean equivalence in the timeline.

In truth, it's impossible to know if the Demon Realm is mimicking real life here or if the Hecktaceous is only a few thousand years before the Deadwardian era. Similarly, while I could cite that, since all demons arose from the Titan's decaying flesh, and these proto-demons would have to evolve into the variety of demons we see in the present day, it'd take millions of years for evolution to do the job, we also have to take magic into account, which might've just massively accelerated the entire process.

In general, it's honestly impossible to determine whether the span of time between the Fall and the present is only a couple millennia or millions of years at least. The only thing I can really give further comment on is that I personally believe the much longer time span works better generally since it mimics Earth's natural timeline (though parts of what I'll discuss later has made me biased to this).

As one final disclaimer, the upcoming topics are all headcanons or known theories, and while I'll argue for their canonicity, or at least show how they can be hinted at by canon, they're not guaranteed fact, and people are free to choose to believe whatever they like. But with all those asides aside, let's get into it. It'll be quite the spread of disparate topics, but I hope to string it all together in one logical chain, for ease of reading.

How the Archivists Wiped Out the Titans

I think the biggest question when it comes to the Titan-Archivist conflict that led up to the Fall (or war, depending on how it happened) is how exactly the Archivists won. After all, we've only ever gotten an indication that there were four of them (plus the Collector as non-combatant), and the amount of mountain-sized titans was definitely a lot more than that. This, coupled with the fact Titan magic beats Archivist magic without fail, meaning their best hopes would be to deal deadly, physical wounds through indirect magic, shows it'd be almost impossible for the outclassed and outnumbered Archivists to achieve what they did through normal combat.

Sure, they could've used trickery and subterfuge to kill all the babies and yet to be fully grown members, or had a third party do it (though I'll get back to the topic of the Trappers later), but no subterfuge or trickery or third parties would've let them beat all the fully grown titans to the point only King's dad was left, and anyone who's not an Archivist or a Titan wouldn't even stand a chance. Some fics have tackled this as titans being able to shift down in size massively, reverting upon death, and others have used titans using avatars that can be killed outside their body (both possibly inspired by King's dad and how he changed from fluffy dad to skeleton form in the In-Between), but we can't be sure those were things Titans could do in the mortal realm (might just be an In-Between quirk and King's dad being an all-powerful ghost), and I'd rather have something that feels established and very much possible and supported in the show's canon.

So how else could they have done it?

Giant death ray from the sun.

…or something like it anyway.

Now why am I jumping straight to Death Stars instead of, I dunno, raining down meteors (or the other two methods mentioned earlier)? Well, one of the only spells/powers of Archivist origin that we know of in canon is the Draining Spell (besides general telekinesis and the Collector's puppeting spell or the scroll transformation spell, but they seem to be the same type of 'archiving' spell). And it's pretty obvious that Belos wasn't using that for its intended purpose. After all, aren't you supposed to use all the energy after you siphoned it into the nearest star?

So having an inverse of the Draining Spell, one that unleashes all stored energy within a star as a beam of planetary surface destruction (or a similar attack), with all elder titans congregated in one spot (ready to fight), seems the most practical (and maybe Belos really was intending to use all that energy to wipe out the entire planet, since a big flaw of the plan we saw in canon was that only the witches of the Isles would've been affected, rather than the entire realm. Definitely a good reason to get the hell back to the Human Realm in time). As an aside, it's my (unsupported) headcanon that the Archivists can use stars as batteries or an energy network, possibly to boost/fuel their magic.

To go a bit further with the main point, where would such a spell/attack have impacted the planet then if it was actually used? The Titan Graveyard on 'the other side of the world,' of course! We know the Isles is the only Titan skeleton on the planet that's still fully intact, while the rest are in pieces. Well, if all mountain-sized titans were hit dead-on by a death ray (or something like it) then either their bodies and skeletons would've evaporated completely, or they would've been blown to bits, their parts blasted across the planet, leaving a large graveyard around the epicenter.

The only titan who could've survived this event intact, becoming the last one left, would've been King's dad, whose final resting place just so happens to be on the other side of the world of 'the other side of the world,' shielded by the entire planet.

As an added thing, such an event would also neatly take care of any loose ends. After all, if you, as a nearly all-powerful space god just discovered a planet that gave rise to a race that could end you, then you should make sure that planet can never give rise to something like it again, right? Burn all existing vegetation and land life, boil the oceans to destroy all marine life, the works. And like the Collector's bedtime story said, 'but should they meddle in our affairs, we'll clean the planet and scorch the air.'

Literally scorched earth policy, which they've apparently employed enough in the past to warrant a piece in Archivist lore. Speaking of which…

Pre-Fall Demon Realm was Earth-like

Bit of an out-of-nowhere claim to make, right? Well, if the Demon Realm planet had all its plant life wiped out and its oceans turned boiling, then it could've looked like anything pre-Fall.

From what we've seen in the present day, the natural (non-Titan) landmasses are barren, reddish rock, no nature around, and the nature we do see on Titan corpses is red.

Except the nature on King's island is green. And isn't it interesting that the one place we know for sure was built before the Fall, and was made to be protected against any and all Archivist interference, is the only place on the planet that has green, Earth-like vegetation?

It's essentially a small piece of preserved land (artificially-made with construction-like magic, based on its strange shape) from pre-Fall times, from an era where Titans evolved into existence from existing life and dominated the planet (kinda like dinosaurs did on Earth, except with human-like intelligence and magic). This, combined with the assumption that the oceans were made of magicless, regular water, means the planet was definitely a parallel to Earth (if you want to go extra shocking, maybe even an alternate history Earth where Titans evolved from prehistoric canines five million years ago?)

But since we're talking about King's Island…

King's Island was a Hatchery

I think this is a pretty popular theory that doesn't need much explanation. But essentially, the theory states that King's Island wasn't just the place where his egg was hidden, but that it was a hiding place for all the titans' eggs, no doubt created in secret when the adult titans realized their young were disappearing.

Furthermore, whether King's dad was the one who constructed the island or not, why would such a place need hundreds or thousands of stone golems for just one egg? And more importantly, in Echoes of the Past, when flying up the central tower we see a bunch of platforms leading into alcoves off the central hole. On first sight these seem on the small side, maybe the alcoves are decorative and the platforms are just handholds for the golems. Except in other shots these platforms and alcoves are shown to be way bigger. Big enough that each alcove is its own room that can fit a human. Big enough for one egg per room?

Of course, if that is the case, and King's egg was placed all the way at the top, directly under the sigil hiding the place from the Archivists, and locked behind a door only a titan could open, then it's very obvious King got to experience some early nepotism, and his dad was the architect and builder.

That does mean that the sad truth is: an entire generation of titans were saved from the Archivists, only waiting to hatch (for possibly millions of years without an adult to help incubate them naturally. I doubt any natural species would ever have hatching times on the order of millennia or longer), and all of them did, even though none of them survived after hatching for long enough to be around when King finally hatched, leaving only him.

Witches Evolved from Humans

A brief aside, though this will loop back to the Hatchery point, another well-known theory is that witches are humans that got stranded on the Isles through a natural portal and evolved to use magic through a bile sac after constant exposure to Demon Realm food and usage of the glyphs, gaining demonic traits over time from breeding with sapient demons (also giving rise to magic-wielding biped demons in the same way).

While this is not supported whatsoever, it's my personal headcanon that the first modern humans that came to the Isles were from the last ice age, about ten- to forty-thousand years ago, and emerged from Eclipse Lake on the Knee.

Truth be told, out of all the unconfirmed fan theories out there, this is the one I firmly believe is one hundred percent intended as canon, as it so strongly pairs up with what we know of the earliest witches from Eda, and how the show keeps separating witches from demons, with only demons confirmed to have come directly from the Titan, even though many demons are equally sapient and capable of using magic as witches.

But this is where that mention of Titan Trappers and 'a third party' and the very first discussion on the span of the timeline all come back into play. Because if I one hundred percent believe this theory is canon, to the point I won't budge one bit on it, while also preferring the idea of the Titan-Archivist conflict taking place millions of years in the past, when the genus homo didn't even exist yet on Earth, then that would mean…

Titan Trappers didn't Exist pre-Fall

From the moment I started writing this post I had an idea this was no doubt the point that would be the most contested. After all, don't we have murals in the Hatchery that depict Titan Trappers fighting titans (albeit suspiciously biased towards the Trappers while demonizing the Titans) and more on Titan Trapper island, and in the Archive House that the Collector creates in season 3 we have a replica of that first mural as a tapestry, plus another tapestry of an Archivist donning a Titan skull à lá Trapper, with a Trapper in the background? And didn't the Collector mention the Trappers directly '-even when those Trapper guys starting acting weird!'

To the second-to-last point, all those tapestries were created by the Collector in the present day, so not exactly relics from the past and with a not-too-reliable person as their source. As for the murals, from both islands…well, their legitimacy is extremely questionable, based on how one set got there, but that's for two subsections further down. But either way, both sets of murals were created by Titan Trappers at some point after the Fall, a group currently led by Bill. They can easily exaggerate for propaganda's sake. All in all, not many reliable or trustworthy sources available to back up the Trappers being involved in the main conflict.

Whether witches are truly evolved humans or just happen to be the Demon Realm equivalent of them, no evolutionary relation whatsoever, we know for a fact that witches only learned how to do magic after the Fall. After all, Eda said that early witches (the ones who did magic 'some other way' i.e. without the bile sac i.e. glyphs) went to the Knee to connect with nature (again, to have the glyphs revealed to them), and it's only after they discover and use the glyphs that they evolve the bile sacs, doing away with and forgetting the glyphs. So if these proto-witches truly were around pre-Fall, and just happened to coexist with titans, then they'd be completely magicless. Sure, humans have taken down big, dangerous prey in groups, but I don't think it's possible magicless witches could take down human-sized or larger young titans who wield magic and have equal intelligence to them, especially not on the scale where they're all eradicated by the time the Archivists take out the elder titans, and they don't stand a chance against the full-grown titans.

And if the Trappers did exist and had done their job by the time the Archivists finished things up (nevermind how they survived the scorching of the entire planet, since why would the Archivists care about some magicless creatures after their use is up?) then Bill, who has encountered a live Titan (one he wrongfully claimed to have been the very last) would be insanely old, way beyond anything I could believe was reasonable.

For the point that maybe the Trappers used to be demons back then instead of witches, demons arose from The Titan, obviously after the Fall, and the murals depict witch/human-like bodies under the disguises. That, and the Trappers today are curiously all witches, with not a demon in sight.

So if Titan Trappers, and witches in general, didn't exist during the Titan-Archivist conflict, let alone involved in things, then why would the Trappers be a thing post-Fall? And what would their purpose be?

The Titan Trappers' True Purpose

Let's bring back the earlier point that King's Island was a hatchery that hid the eggs of the entire Titan race, meaning all the eggs that used to be there hatched and left the island at some point in the past. Either the incubation without a parent around takes millions of years, and all the hidden eggs began hatching over the course of the last few thousands of years before canon, or it's completely variable (like magically set in a sort of stagger) and over the course of millions of years, eggs slowly hatched. Either way, that would be a significant problem to the Archivists, especially if they realized they couldn't find any eggs.

After all, now, to prevent the Titan race from resurging, they'd have to play a cosmic game of whack-a-mole with the hatching eggs over the course of millions of years (or starting millions of years in the future in the first scenario).

And what do you do with a difficult problem that forces you to keep staying near some useless planet when you have a cosmic job to do? Delegate.

In this case, by the time witches evolved into existence, they would be the perfect ones for the job. And since one of their annoying imprisoned little sibling's communication mirrors was found by one such group of witches, why not pretend to be them after they made contact, tell them a twisted history that painted the titans as the bad guys that turned the planet into the hellscape it was now, trick them into worshipping their little sibling as the one who got rid of the problem as some grand Huntsman, and then tell them they had to hunt down and kill all remaining titans as they popped up to free them from the last Titan's prison, twisting whatever the Collector had said about how a titan could free them?

Of course, the Collector, even if they barely made any contact with the Trapper tribe, would eventually notice that something was up when they started worshipping them and aiming to kill new titans when that wasn't what they wanted to have happen ('even when those Trapper guys started acting weird'), but maybe there's a reason the disk was split in half eventually, and not as an accident.

In truth, if you ignore my insistence on the timeline being millions of years in length and witches being evolved humans, then both paradigms are equally likely. The one I described above, with a separation of several million years, and the more accepted one where everything only happened a few thousand years ago and the Trappers were involved in the actual Titan-Archivist conflict.

But going with the former of the two scenarios, the Trappers would continue to do the Archivists' dirty work for many generations, even taking out some hatched titans that managed to live long enough to grow beyond the size of whales, like the skeleton the Trappers have on display in their HQ, before eventually finishing the job, since King's the only titan around by the time he hatches.

The Hatchery was Found pre-Canon

By the time 'Edge of the World' aired, in retrospect, the murals present on King's island, while a great red herring at the time, paint a depressing picture. After all, they could only be painted by Trappers. No titan or titan-related person would create what is literally Trapper propaganda. In fact, if any titans were still hatching and saw the murals, they'd think they were a Trapper, and would eventually come seek them out, only to be immediately killed (just like what almost happened with King in canon). Since there was no litany of young titan corpses or shattered eggs awaiting the crew in canon, either the malfunctioning guardians somehow cleaned up, or all the eggs there had already hatched and departed from the island long before the Trappers found the place, to be hunted and killed by Trapper ancestors (maybe the only reason they could even find the place when they did was because the presence of the eggs was powering the protections, and with only King's egg left they were too weakened).

Of course, if Trappers were on the island, to the point they were painting their own murals in the central chamber, then something would've had to happen to prevent them from discovering King's chamber and to make them abandon the place, wrongfully concluding all titans had been accounted for and hunted into extinction. There's one easy way for that to have happened, one that neatly takes care of another Titan-related thing coming from the Trappers and probably caused the rubble at the entrance.

At Least One Titan Was Alive pre-Canon

Remember Bill saying he encountered a live titan in his youth? One that was definitely not King at the time? Even if we entertain the idea that the Titan-Archivist conflict was only a few thousand years ago, and Bill is somehow immortal/extremely old and was around back then, then 'the last Titan, the one that got away/disappeared' couldn't have been King's dad, who was the last to fall during the conflict, and Bill wouldn't still be searching for his last titan when he's already well aware of the last titan's fate of becoming the Boiling Isles, and thus definitely did not 'disappear.' (This is also another reason why I believe there were more eggs hidden along with King's that hatched and were hunted down prior to canon. How else could Bill have encountered a living titan long before King had even hatched but after the Isles were created?)

So if he's just an old dude with a regular lifespan of around a century at most, then the titan he encountered in his youth would've been the one that hatched second-to-last, the one before King. And if the Trappers found the Hatchery after every other titan had hatched and been hunted down, then an encounter with this second-to-last titan, one that ended terribly for the Trappers (with the titan escaping and Bill's eardrums shattered) would've been enough to make the Trappers abandon the Hatchery (under the false assumption that all eggs had hatched, given that all but King's hidden egg were gone).

Am I saying this titan could feasibly still be alive during the present day? I am. And this entire scenario of Trappers finding the Hatchery is something I explored in this one-shot I wrote a while back (while the linked chapter below is part of a multi-chapter fanfic which is part of a series, the chapter functions as a stand-alone, minus two or three sentences near the very start that you can ignore).

https://archiveofourown.org/works/50837365/chapters/130773595

Of course, it's also likely that someone hunted down this other titan without the Trappers knowing (like the Huntsman Archivist), leaving only King as the last of his race by the time he hatches. We in fact know an Archivist did visit the planet relatively recently, since the Owl Beast was 'archived' by one, long after the Titan Graveyard was created, and things adrift in the ocean can travel thousands of kilometers in months, so the scroll would probably reach the Boiling Isles a few years to a decade or two later, comfortably in time for Lilith to buy it off the night market, leaving enough time for all of it to have taken place within Bill's lifetime.

Putting it all Together

So with all those things laid out, here's my (canon-supported) headcanon flavored general timeline of the Demon Realm (with additional, completely unsupported headcanons interspersed in italics inside brackets).

Millions of years ago: on an Earth-like prehistoric Demon Realm, canine-like creatures evolve into the Titan race (probably by evolving the ability to stockpile raw magic in their blood and wield it)

With the advantage of magic, Titans quickly grow intelligent and become the dominant species on the planet (since titans eventually grow to become mountain-sized, or at least too big to interact with babies and young titans, the younglings would be mostly disconnected from their elders)

The Archivists find the planet and discover the Titans and the threat their magic poses. They send in the Collector to lower their guard, with the elder titans eventually inviting him to play with titans 'his own size'

The Archivists use the Collector as their unwitting Trojan Horse, donning disguises like skulls and methodically getting rid of all the communities of young titans the Collector visits, until none are left

The elder titans eventually catch on to what is going on, though far too late, and task one of their own (King's dad) to secretly build a hatchery to hide all their eggs in.

(Once the Hatchery is completed, the elder titans decide to bait out their enemy, tasking King's dad with keeping an eye on it and congregating on the exact opposite side of the world)

The Archivists appear, but rather than engage in combat, they annihilate the entire congregation with one massive spell in an ambush (possibly powered by them kidnapping and branding some of the young titans in the past and using the Draining Spell to drain them to death for their energy). The epicenter of the attack becomes the Titan Graveyard, with bits of detonated titans getting blasted across the planet, all the while the attack burns all life on land and permanently boils the oceans, killing everything else

King's dad, now the only survivor after having been shielded by the planet, is approached by a wandering Collector, who no doubt says something unintentionally sinister like 'hey, do you know where all the baby titans are? I wanna keep playing with 'em,' realizes they must be the enemy and are way too close to the hidden hatchery, and attacks them

He roars one last goodbye to his son and forcefully ejects his own soul into the In-Between, dragging the Collector with him and trapping them, before his now soulless body falls into the ocean just a few (Titan's) steps away from the hatchery, becoming the Boiling Isles

With their job done, the Archivists realize they can't find any of the eggs, but eventually leave, deciding no life could ever form again on the barren planet

(Eventually, King's dad realizes the Collector wasn't the culprit, and creates and sends the communication disks into the Demon Realm to atone, where only a future Titan from the Hatchery could decide to release the Collector from the In-Between)

Over millions of years, however, the parasites and other animals that lived inside the Titan's body (like whatever Hooty is) survived and continued to evolve, the ones adaptable enough to survive the new outside world becoming the first proto-demons. (HC: The basilisks are the most preserved descendants of these proto-demons. After all, complete shapeshifting ability would be the most adaptable in that world and an easy explanation for rapid diversification of demon races, and raw magic would be the most abundant source of energy on a freshly decaying Titan corpse. That, and the general shape of basilisks makes them look like corpse maggots from afar, which seems very fitting for early-Isles)

(Around the time of the Hecktaceous period, most proto-demons had lost their shapeshifting ability in favor of adapting to more niche environments, with only minor shifting abilities like the Stonesleeper's ability to morph to stone remaining)

Tens of thousands of years ago: Stone age humans are transported to the Boiling Isles through natural portals and discover the Titan's glyphs, giving them the edge to survive. They eventually mingle with sapient demons to create bipeds, and evolve bile sacs, phasing out the glyphs and forgetting about them, becoming witches

At some point, witches or demons discover the main communication disk from the show and seal it away in a temple in the Titan's head (either for worship or because they decided the Collector was too dangerous. The legends Philip heard must've started from somewhere)

A tribe of witches discovers a second communication disk and make contact with the Collector. At some point, one of the Archivists checks up on the planet and sees several growing titans wandering the oceans (they'd eventually leave the Hatchery, especially if only one hatches every century or more). They decide to tackle the problem of the missing eggs and their annoying trapped little sibling in one go, and pretend to communicate through the disk as 'the Grand Huntsman,' instructing the tribe to trap and kill all titans that pop up, to 'free' them from their prison. The Trappers do exactly this over the millennia, until only two titan eggs remain unhatched

Four hundred years ago: The story of Caleb and Philip Wittebane occurs. Luz travels to the Deadwardian era

A century ago: The Titan Trappers, including a young Bill, discover the Hatchery, painting their murals within to revel in their victory when they realize there are no eggs left. An incident occurs that forces them to abandon the place (possibly with the second-to-last hatched titan Bill talked about being involved), with Bill's titan fleeing. Though they believe all other titans have been successfully hunted

A short time later the Huntsman returns, deciding to take care of this last titan on their own in secret to avoid their annoying sibling from actually being freed by the Trappers if they ever catch it. While they're at it, they also hunt down some unique Titan-born creatures, like an Owl Demon, though they end up losing the demon-turned-scroll, which drifts along the ocean current for years before washing ashore on the Isles, where Lilith eventually uses it to curse Eda decades later

Eight–nine years ago: King is the last egg to hatch in the Hatchery, eventually being picked up by Eda on the run

Present day: The Collector is released from their prison by King and King's dad finally passes on after helping Luz defeat Belos. Glyphs no longer work

Wew that's a lot of stuff. I know this turned out to be part-overanalysis, part-headcanon time, but I hope you at least enjoyed the general timeline of events I laid out above, and that it may give anyone a clear picture or framework they can use in their own stories and world building, or at least as a valid alternative scenario to whatever timeline you believe in. But let me know what you think, or in what ways your interpretation differs from mine. With that said, I'm heading out. I actually have an Owl House fic to write again (nowhere near as big as my last one, thankfully, but definitely fun).

[one-awesome-beetle]

sherlock season one analysis ramble (feat. johnlock. a lot of johnlock.)

ok so i had a sleepover with my best friend and she may or may not have introduced me to bbc sherlock and i may or may not have gone on an hour-long tangent (after watching ONE EPISODE) about johnlock that i cannot FOR THE LIFE OF ME REMEMBER but im just gonna keep typing and see what bullshit i end up with. also i have only watched season one, and we are going to rewatch it before moving on to season two because!! I JUST WATCHED LIKE FIVE HOURS OF TWO MEN FLIRTING. THEY ARE SO IN LOVE ABHUDFGNZMRNCGAJBghnsccbHVHAUVHAAAAAAAAAAAUGHH

shit ok so, ahugsabhfbdn okokokokok so i'm going to yap in two sections (mainly, they will cross over and blur at one point and i will not apologise for that), one regarding mainly sherlock and one mainly regarding john, because both their characters are so incredibly complex and interesting (aaaaahhh)

firstly, sherlock

he is... so incredibly interesting. he investigates crime because it excites him, not because he's concerned for the wellbeing of others- no, he wants to get into the criminal's head, to understand. he states that he is married to his work, but what i see there isn't love; what kickstarted it was likely this need to know what was off about a case, like an itch he desperately needed to scratch, which then developed into a habit, a passion, and then a(n unhealthy) obsession - at least, that's how i see it. venturing into more johnlock territory, to me, john is definitely his first love. i see him with past relationships, but i think he would've had them because that is what is standard and expected, but it was never truly love, you know? this is why we get the flirting-but-not-flirting when he's talking to john, because he's used to flirting, he knows how to, he just has to get accustomed to the new feelings that now come with flirting. i also believe he's definitely not a virgin, he gives far too much power bottom energy (the way i see it, john def tops and sherlock is being a flirty brat until he actually gets flustered and gets hit with the "oh shoot, he's hot")

this kind of brings me to john, though i'll probably get back to sherlock when i actually remember what else i have to say

john was immediately my favourite character, he's... i lack the words to describe him properly in the moment but HES INCREDIBLE AND I LOVE HIM. having been a soldier and a doctor, he is more stoic and reserved than sherlock, definitely braver, while sherlock is just stupid but never has to face the consequences due to his brilliance; how my friend put it was "if he was an average person, he'd die first in a horror movie, but since he's sherlock holmes there's no way he wouldn't survive". this gives us a lovely contrast of character which is wonderful as it paves the way to so many corny ship dynamics and tropes that i will be taking advantage of. firstly, i want to draw attention to the fact that while john makes himself as small as possible, sherlock wants to occupy and cover as much room as he possibly can - this also leads to john being more sturdy and reliable while sherlock spreads himself just a little too thin.

i do think it's interesting that in hindsight, throughout this section i have mainly analysed john's character by comparing him to and showing the contrast between him and sherlock, which, ironically, also tells us a lot about him as an individual. he is always second to sherlock, to others, because without someone else to bring attention to him he'd be able to live practically unnoticed by anyone - this can be attributed to his trust issues and lack of people he can, or wants to, rely on. this is especially funny when you consider his hesitance to trust people in the context of sherlock. because while he may not trust him, completely, he's definitely already developed this form of unwavering loyalty. one of my favourite scenes where this is shown is in episode one (i think ?) where when sgt. donovan warns john about sherlock, he is so quick to doubt her, his "why?" is so fast and delivered with such intent and confidence it shook me, and left me with such a lasting impression it is still such a core line i associate with him.

next i want to touch on just how much gay (johnlock) subtext there actually is, especially in the first and third episodes, because trust me when i say there is a lot. i obviously won't be able to explain and analyse all of the gay scenes as there are far too many but i will try, and will spend the most time on my favourites. firstly, within 24 hours (i think) of meeting him, john watson has killed a man for sherlock. what the fuck.

[insert 15-ish minute break where i paced around the kitchen muttering to myself like a lunatic]

this man is, somehow, in a way that even he can't comprehend or understand, completely devoted to helping sherlock. "why??" you ask? because he is also a fucking madman. he isn't traumatised by, but rather misses the war, and to get back to that sense of adrenaline and excitement he is willing to go around with a (technically) unqualified, unemployed detective who is thrilled by serial murders and bombings. though he might look at sherlock differently, or even so much as get scared by his attitude towards his their line of work, he gets off on it as much as sherlock, and the only reason he hasn't left, like a normal, sensible individual who values their life would've is because he too indulges in the thrill of the chase, and is very content to be able to marvel at sherlock's skill and hang onto his every word*, though he refuses to admit this to himself, as he seems to value independence pretty highly. this is interesting in contrast to sherlock because while he too values independence, he seems to not mind relying on others - that is, until you consider his refusal to trust in or rely on the police, professional organisations, other detectives, etc. this is when you notice that the people he doesn't seem to mind relying on are himself, and john.

*again with the complete and utter devotion. also half of season one is just john listening to and being in awe of sherlock's rambling.

i just got very sidetracked, though i'm still technically on topic (and still typing) so i count that as a win. in episode one, when john and sherlock go to the restaurant (i vaguely remember it being for something relating to the case but that's besides the point), their conversation basically goes like this:

john: so... do you have a girlfriend?

sherlock: no, not really my area (im gay haha) (...but why is he asking me this? [gears turning]

wait.)

john: (oK, OK OK)... do you have a boyfriend? that's cool btw im uh... ally! woo (im gay. i'm GAY)

sherlock: (oh sHIT he's hitting on me) *fast* i know its cool (I KNOW YOU'RE GAY)

john: (ah, ok *resignation*) so you have a boyfriend-?

sherlock: *way too quickly* no

john: (OH, :0) so you're single - i'm single btw too (what the actual FUCK am i doingggg)

Then we have 1) sherlock just rocking up to john's date

and 2) THE MORIARTY POOL SCENE

i can't even EXPRESS how incredibly i was giggling and squealing and kicking my feet im sorry??? as soon as he thinks jim is gone and he can drop the calm and composed act he- i-

[thoughts then proceeded to refuse to let themselves be expressed in writing so here have a video clip]

moriarty: i am going to burn, the HEART, out of you

sherlock, completely apathetic/used to people telling him he's too heartless/cold/etc.: i have been reliably informed that i don't have one

moriarty, after seeing him completely flip out (internally) when he saw john in the bomb vest with a sniper pointed at him: but we both know that's not quite true

(^^ i don't know that quote just stuck out to me. a lot.)

another thing, that, now having rewatched i am able to string into coherent thought, is sherlock as soon as moriarty is gone is concerned with nothing other that is john okay? is he alright? will he be alright? he doesn't seem to be able to recognise that his life was on the line as well, because he doesn't think his own safety is nearly as important as john's. (godAMMIT THIS MAN)

alright, thank you for coming to my ted talk, i have more thoughts that didn't make it to this rant that i will likely post over the duration of the next few weeks, but that is the majority. thoughts? :)

BONUS FOR READING TO THE END

screenshots of texts i sent while writing this:

[myownperceptions]

Minions: The Rise of Gru- details, trivia, goofs, random notes (Pt. 4)

First part Previous part

Figurines on the bed; Nun-Chuck is not that posable. Also Jean's lobster claw is on the wrong side.

Posters of the V6 showing off their villainy. Some make a reappearance in Poppy's treehouse in DM4.

Meanwhile, Svengeance looks like he's posing for a dating profile.

Also Gru totally copied JC's pose here; this picture is from a newspaper Gru has hanging up in his house.

Gru's 'Help Wanted' ad is a reference to 'I Want YOU' propaganda posters from WWII.

Below that, someone has a 'Dungeon for Rent'.

Here's a clearer view of the various pictures/posters in Gru's room mentioned in the previous part. There are some dialogue bubbles in JC's drawing, but I can't for the life of me make out what they say.

Some figurines of the V6 and a clearer view of some drawings he made. Also:

It's his macaroni rocket from the first movie's flashbacks!

That's not how condensation works.

Bob is the only one who doesn't look annoyed at Otto.

Forgot to mention before, Gru's jet-bike has a skull at the top and definitely looks Evel Knievel inspired.

Song that plays during this short part is 'Vehicle' originally by The Ides of March.

'Hey, I'm walkin' here!' Obvious reference to Midnight Cowboy.

We've got a lot in the record store; I'll probably miss something.

Some labels include: Top Hits, Exclusive, Greatest Hits, On Sale, Compilation, and Best Sellers.

Sara Rose is not a real artist as far as I can tell. Looks like animated versions of The Beatles on some covers. Other labels I can make out include The Arms, The Armpits (what a name), The Rims (a far worse name), She Rocks, Jamaica Joanna, Beatnik Poetry, and Cocktail. All for the low-low price of... $7.99, $9.99 and $11.99. That's expensive for 1976, but actually historically-accurate pricing. Forget villainy, that's criminal.

Poster advertising 'free piano lessons'.

The Booboos Band is looking for a guitarist.

NO REFUND (can't make out what's in the brackets).

This poster says: King Richard Concert, May 14 1970, Washington DC Convention Hall, Pepperland. Buy your tickets now.

Love how nobody questions why there's a whole chemistry lab in a record store.

'Sticky Fingers': a propensity to steal. A fitting name. Also the name of an album by the Rolling Stones. It copies Nefario's hand movements.

This whole bit kind of ignores the fact Gru met and bought a freeze ray from Dr. Nefario back in 1968 at Villain-Con. Simplest explanation is he forgot.

Nefario looks around briefly for any unwanted attention.

More album covers including Apricot's Child, Mike Limbda (not a real person), and The Schlings, I think? I hope that's an I.

The poster behind Nefario tell us that The Booboos Band is hosting a free concert at Wembley University on May 19th 1970 (I think we may have missed it).

More interestingly, Nefario seems to have written a note saying '10pm, 622 [something] St. (bring the snack). I imagine this has something to do with the V6, but what exactly? I find the idea they bring snacks on heists funny.

Real song, real artist, real album cover. You're No Good was a song cover released by Linda Ronstadt in November 1974; her's success far exceeded the original's.

This rocker guy is listening and conducting to a classical piece with a name that escapes me. The old lady is rocking it out to Cat Scratch Fever by Ted Nugent.... which was released in 1977. Criminal Records must be so ahead of the game they have songs that haven't even been released yet.

Another Sara Rose poster and a concert by The Loobster.

Poster for Teen Tune Night 71' featuring Poco Loco. Also another band called Big Apples.

'Mum's the word': keep quiet, don't reveal a secret.

He's excited for him! I find it interesting also that he told Gru to let the V6 'have it'; in hindsight, he probably wanted them to get mad and screw up. After all, without him showing Gru the ropes and giving him Sticky Fingers, the movie wouldn't have happened. He orchestrated it! Nefario!

'Welcome to the Vicious 6': I think the voice on the record is Jean-Clawed, but don't quote me on that.

Very 70s waiting room. These guys' character models (aside from Wingman) are reused a lot.

That's a real edition of MAD magazine congratulating Richard Nixon on his presidency; a bit late considering he resigned in 1974.

Edit: On closer inspection, this edition has been altered a little; it congratulates Nixon on his impeachment.

Fun fact: he can be seen at Villain-Con in Minions.

Butcher guy glances at Gru here. He's being pretty patient all things considered.

Hologram technology? Hell yeah. A good-quality sound system? You must be dreaming. Butcher guy also glances over when it goes off.

This is gonna take me a stupidly long time to finish, isn't it? But I promise I'll finish it. I hope you guys are finding it interesting so far. You too, non-Tumblr general internet users.

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