#as far as the actual number of episodes in the show i mean

[dear-kumari]

Looking at some of the post drafts I wrote at the height of my fever and feeling very relieved that I did not finish or publish any, bc the last thing I needed to do when I already felt like shit was take a big ol’ swing at a hornet’s nest

[maxwellatoms]

Hello Mr. Atoms, I'm an animation student in college and fan of your work. I got this assignment in which I need to ask questions to a professional in the area. Could you pretty please answer them? It'd mean a lot to me.

1- Are you happy with your career? How it's going.

2- What are your opinions, expectations and hopes about the independent animation industry that's developing?

3- What do you think about the advent of artificial intelligence? Do you fear for the future of animators?

4- If money wasn't a problem, would you still do what you do?

5- Any animators you admire and would like to mention?

Okey dokey.

1- Are you happy with your career? How it's going.

Not really, in that there seems to be no career left.

The animation industry swelled its numbers greatly before 2020. Almost immediately after that, corporate greed synergized with a pandemic to reduce animated programs and the number of people working on them to almost zero. It takes almost a year from beginning to end to make a single episode of an animated show (by the modern standard). There was nothing being made in 2020 and four years later, we''re not in a much better spot. It's going to be a long drought for (especially) Kid's TV Animation.

Recently, many of my former co-workers have hit the financial wall and can't continue, moving away after (sometimes) 20 years in the industry. I begin to wonder if I'm very far behind.

A "bounce back" a year from now would need to start today. There are still some animated shows being made now, but those are almost universally "library" properties. That means it's an existing I.P. (Intellectual Properties like Garfield/Mario/Batman/Star Wars) so as an artist you're immediately in that box. Depending on the property and the studio, it can be an unpleasantly tight box. I grew used to holding and maintaining the vision for a show, but it's less fun when it's not my vision. It's even less fun when you can't inspire someone to follow your vision because they've been so ruthlessly abused.

I'm pretty sick of how big media corporations treat their employees. If I inherit one more burnt out crew due to mismanagement, I'm gonna lose it.

Over a decade ago I fought hard to get board artists story credit for the episodes they were actually writing, and felt like I'd won a big victory for everyone. The second my back was turned, it all reverted.

Mostly... what is the point now? My career is/was developing ideas, crafting those ideas into a workable show, then managing teams of thirty to seventy people to produce a couple of dozen episodes per year. Studios actively do not want new ideas right now, and are actively searching for ways to eliminate what artists from the process. I'm not sure what my job would be under this new system, but it feels like they decided to hang onto the anxiety-inducing deadlines while removing anything remotely pleasurable from the experience.

2- What are your opinions, expectations and hopes about the independent animation industry that's developing?

It's the only way to get anything done, currently.

The current state of the industry is not sustainable. I (along with a lot of other animators I know) are trying to decide what's next, and pretty much everyone agrees that "you just have to make something".

It is (in that very specific way) a great time to be a young animator. The system was never going to treat you well anyway. If you can get something like a Hazbin Hotel happening without studio help, you can currently write your own ticket. I'm super proud of Vivsie, because that's a LOT of stuff to handle. I never had to handle my own marketing or drum up money to make Billy & Mandy happen.

There are opportunities there, but it's definitely "Hard Mode". The best idea is probably to team up with a few other people you like and like to work with.

Hopes? I hope that the young animators take over and make something new on top of the bones of the old industry, rather than just allowing that industry to patch its rotting hide with their collected works.

3- What do you think about the advent of artificial intelligence? Do you fear for the future of animators?

I suspect true AI might just peace-out like ScarJo in "Her", but we're not there yet. What we have now isn't Artificial Intelligence at all (though I do believe it may be the underpinnings of the Artificial Suconscious of what may one day become an actual Artificial Intelligence.)

The LLMs and "Generative AI" are (so far) a big dumb waste. They consume tons of energy and aren't great for doing anything creative. If you've sat down with Chat GPT for a creative writing session, you've probably run into the "out of the box" limitations which prevent it from talking about sex or violence-- which happen to be a major component of most stories.

Still, the technology has come incredibly far in an incredibly short amount of time. I imagine we're going to hit the point where we're being hazed by artificially generated political ads way before Generative AI can produce a consistent and usable character turnaround, so that'll be the test. Whatever the legal fallout is from this stuff over the next few years will set the tone.

Still, studios have a vested interest in pleasing their shareholders. Generative AI potentially has the capability of not only replacing swaths of money-eating artists, but handing that control directly to the billionaire studio heads. Mark my words: We're headed straight for billionaire-generated content.

I don't think the public at large will want to watch Elon Musk's fever dreams, so there's that. So law and general distaste might stave it off for a while, but I think there's just too much impetus for studios to continue to try to please their investors. "AI Art" is here to stay.

Eventually that will lead to millions and millions of bots generating millions and millions of songs and paintings and movies all day every day. Most of it will be utter trash. Right now (so I'm told) viewers are already burnt out, and will generally only click on what they already know. On Netflix, where there are twenty things you've never heard of and one you have, you're more likely to pick the thing that gives you comfort and gives you a guarantee you're not wasting your time. With exponentially more A.I. trash, how would you even begin to filter it out?

You'd need absolute control of an already existing distribution system. We currently have a few of those, and all of the media companies are desperately trying to merge with them to insure their own survival.

To me, the post-Gen-AI landscape looks a lot like old-school Cable, but with endless I.P. and fewer masters.

4- If money wasn't a problem, would you still do what you do?

The real question is, maybe, "What am I even doing?" These days I try to do a lot of gardening. I'm trying to learn new art skills, because suddenly twenty five years of experience managing, drawing, and writing isn't worth much. I recently worked on Jellystone until Zaslav lost 2.5 billion in the wash and had to find justification for his new yacht. The show before that? Also culled midway through to save money. The days of multi-year gigs seem to be over, and if I'm going to scrape by doing freelance, maybe I can do that somewhere else.

I'll always make art. I can't seem to help it. Ideas aren't my problem-- it's executing those ideas without the help of a structured pre-existing system. I honestly don't know if I'll ever be able to pull that off. My strengths are great, but were always supported by friends I worked with.

Can I start an indie cartoon with all of these cool friends? Sure, maybe. Most of those people have gone on to have other careers of their own and got used to being paid. Now nobody is getting paid and no one can pay anyone else. My immediate circle are all now middle-aged people with families and no jobs. Convincing them to give up a large chunk of their day for an idea that's not guaranteed to pay off is going to take some real effort.

I technically have fifteen years until I can claim my "retirement", assuming that still exists by then. That's a pretty big hole to fill with... I don't know what.

The difficult "What comes next" discussions at home are really just starting.

5- Any animators you admire and would like to mention?

There are a lot of cool animation people out there. I already mentioned I was proud of Vivsie. I was also reminded recently just how great C.H. Greenblatt and Mr. Warburton are. I know they're my friends. They're both just really upstanding, creative people who take good care of their crews.

The treatment of animation industry professionals by the studio system has been one of the most demoralizing and heartbreaking parts of this demoralizing and heartbreaking time.

---

So there ya go. If you want to look for someone whose attitude is a little more upbeat, I won't blame you a bit.

Wherever you are, I wish you the best of luck. For me, just climb up there and crush it. I would very much like to add you to #5 someday.

[cyanmountains]

Every episode of this season has had a "false reality" so far. people living in myths or stories coming to life, where reality is exposed or restored in the end:.

Space Babies: The boogeyman beeing created from a story and how Nan-E is actually a real person instead of a robot

The Devil's Chord: The concept of music is alive. Plus the bad timeline this episode which gets prevented and the surreal dance number at the end

Boom: The soldiers believing there are enemies in the fog, the reveal that there is no enemy, they've been fighting an imaginary threat

73 yards: Ruby's alternate timeline that unwinds itself at the end. also the pub guests telling a made up myth to scare ruby, and Mad Jack coming to life as Gwilliam. *

Dot and Bubble: Finetime as an artificial, contained reality. Lindy's true nature beeing exposed in the end. And how the Finetimers are out of touch with reality, thinking they can survive in the wilderness and their racist belief of beeing the "pure chosen people".

(*I really like the theory that everything in Ruby's 73 yards timeline is shaped around her perceptions and beliefs - a false reality that she has unintentionally made herself)

This could mean nothing but it's definetly an interesting theme!. If this is intentional it definitely would fit a "they are in a tv show" plot twist. I'm excited to see if Rogue will continue that theme (based on what we've seen, it seems likely - with groff playing a mysterious secretive character and the synopsis of the episode)

[pastanest]

Spencer Reid x gn!reader

A/N: been gone for a hot minute due to personal circumstances but just wanted to drop a lil something (that anyone who watches Doctor Who will be able to tell I started writing a BIT ago given the references here lol) to let you guys know I’m still kickin it <3

warnings: slight hint at an age gap but nothing specific

A Smile

You can imagine the rest of the team would be floored to hear that Spencer has actually exchanged texts with you on a multitude of occasions, outside of professional settings. Numbers were swapped on your first day, naturally, and to begin with you only dared text Spencer if you had absolutely no other choice (if another member of the team could text him, you’d busy yourself to ensure they would, rather than ask you, to save you the embarrassment). But, ever since the first occasion that you texted Spencer a random question out of hours - regarding trivia you definitely hadn’t spent a concerning amount of time deciding on before you sent it to him - you have formed a bond that’s unspoken beyond typed words.

You: so, are you looking forward to the 60th Anniversary? :P

As you hit send, you roll onto your bed, grinning giddily down at your phone. In no more than a few seconds, your screen tells you that your beloved genius is already typing back to you, and within a minute, you receive the paragraph you’d anticipated.

Spencer: Absolutely. The revival of Russel T. Davies’ era, coupled with the return of Murray Gold’s legendary scores, are sure to ignite the spark of nostalgia that the show has been missing for some time. In particular, I am looking forward to seeing how Russel will format this new regeneration of the Doctor, and how many references to his predecessors will decorate the anniversary episodes, especially. I take it you are excited for the anniversary episodes, too, hence the question?

His formality and enthusiasm being conveyed in a way that is so distinctly Spencer, even over text, is enough to have you giggling. You know by now that if you ask something about one of Spencer’s interests, whether it be facts, statistics, generalized trivia, questions, literature, Star Trek or, in this case, Doctor Who, there is no way he can downplay his excitement.

You: knew it! :D and yeah, I'm super excited!!

Mostly, you are thrilled by the thought of discussing the episodes at great length with Spencer for weeks after they’ve aired, but you keep that safely in the subtext of your conversation.

Spencer: Of course you knew. Perhaps we could share a live commentary on the anniversary episodes, if we’re not otherwise engaged with a case?

Only Spencer Reid can make your heart stop with a suggestion like that. Before you can consider any consequences, you are frantically typing back to him.

You: I’d love that! will the commentary be by text or call?

He is typing the moment your message reaches him, his ability to read at what you consider to be the speed of light making for a wonderfully speedy texting partner in every conversation you have.

Spencer: Either is fine, but if we aren’t away on a case, I must admit the idea of experiencing the episodes together in person would be most preferable. It eradicates the risk of our viewings not being synced up or our call connection potentially spoiling the immersion. What do you think?

And just like that, he’s stopped your heart again. In fact, you truly have to consider whether Spencer Reid has figured out a means of reaching through his phone to yours, to snatch your heart right out of your chest. As though he hadn’t already stolen it on the day you met.

You: I think you’re right, like always, Doctor Reid :P

That’s a rational reply, you think. Not too eager. Not the resounding ‘yes’ that every fiber of your being is screaming. In the chess game that is how-to-text-Spencer-Reid, you have marked yourself as the queen. He’d tell you that’s not how chess works, but he’d probably also agree.

Spencer: I’m far from right “always”, but I very much appreciate that you think so.

You’re about to reply, when another text appears on your screen.

Spencer: (:

Doctor Spencer Reid has double-texted you. And, not only that, he’s sent you a smiley face. This is unprecedented. Your jaw drops.

You: omg you did not just send that

Honestly, your life is flashing before your eyes as you lie on your bed. Is this the power of your influence? Could you truly indoctrinate older men into sending emojis? Could this really be you?

Spencer: I most certainly did. I’ll even do it again.

Spencer: (:

He had to send it as a separate text. He couldn’t just add the smiley face to the end of his original message. No, of course he couldn’t.

You: omg who are you!!

You’re laughing now. Actually, properly laughing at the ridiculousness of this situation. Wait until Penelope hears about this.

Spencer: I don’t think these suit me very much, but they are fun. What about this one - 🙂

This is going too far. You’ve played God. You’ve flown too close to the sun. You’ve created a monster in the form of Spencer Reid using emojis while still being so formal. Still, you can’t deny that this is perhaps the funniest conversation you have ever had, with anyone, specifically because it perfectly demonstrates the unique humor shared between the two of you.

You: woah! careful! don’t push it, genius!!

And, in response to that, Spencer Reid is left with a philosophical question he has never before pondered: how does one convey sincere laughter via text? This reply takes him the longest, because he has to consider it very carefully. He wants it to indicate how funny he did find your message, and does find you, in general. He wants it to be obvious in its intent and impossible to misunderstand. So, after four minutes, you receive a text that has you laughing so hard you very nearly fall off of your bed.

Spencer: Haha.

Sometimes, that’s simply how your text conversations with Spencer end. While he does, generally, prefer a more traditional ending in the form of a goodnight text (that he actually makes the effort to sign off with a “- Spencer x”, like it’s a handwritten letter), he enjoys the nuances of an open end, on the basis it means a conversation with you doesn’t have to end. Only has to pause, temporarily, until one of you picks it back up again. There is something poetic, Spencer thinks, to the notion of you being his constant both in metaphor and literally in a text conversation that isn’t formally closed. That door is left open to you, much like the door to his heart is.

And that night, he closes his eyes with a smile on his face at the thought of you, everything you are, everything you make him feel. Everything that makes you, you, and how that makes you everything to him.

A text could never truly convey the heaven that you bring to him by existing, but just like proposing plans to watch Doctor Who with you, it’s a good place to start.

[jaspvids]

The Diagnosis Of David

Disclaimer: I am by no means a mental health professional. This is just a meta-analysis.

What do we think of when we think of David?

His values of kindness. Optimism. Hope. Conviction. Passion. His drive to do his best every single day. The way he always makes an effort to reach out to others.

But also:

Attachment issues. People pleaser. Rose-colored glasses wearer. And at times, though the fandom doesn’t want to acknowledge it — Selfish. Unstable. Rude. Hypocritical. Kind of a dick.

See this video I made;

He’s complex, so let’s try to unpack him, and figure out what he’s got going on under that floof.

On David’s Childhood

David has been through a number of traumatic events in his childhood, most notably:

Witnessing Jasper fall to his near-death.

Finding Jasper, and being almost mauled by bears during the escape.

Clown school was apparently very bad, given the flashback-like reaction he had when it was mentioned. I’m unsure of his age when this occurred, however.

The fight with Jasper at the cave before they parted ways.

Losing Jasper. He says Cameron told him he was picked up by his parents, but I’m not convinced it’s not just his mind trying to erase painful memories.

As far as what we don’t necessarily see in the show, but can infer, David’s father was either not present or not great. He dreamt Cameron was his real father, as seen below.

And we all know Cameron is an awful father figure to begin with.

Yet, that’s better to David, apparently, than whatever he had at home. Which implies it was likely a pretty bad situation.

This can also be backed up by his attachment to the camp — growing up (and even now) it seems to be more of a home to him than his actual home.

That’s a home that hasn’t ever been mentioned, by the way. Contrary to Gwen, we know absolutely nothing about his family. He hasn’t talked about them once, if I recall correctly.

David is often open with emotions, if not wearing his heart on his sleeve. So why would he never mention his family and home?

We know why.

Even as an adult, he has retained this attachment to Cameron (who has in turn, continued to use this attachment to his benefit). He gets very excited about helping Cameron change in “keep the change” — because he needs to believe people who hurt him can get better. Otherwise, it’s too painful to bear.

The Loss Of Jasper

Part of his childhood, but significant enough to warrant its own section.

Jasper and David had a very interesting relationship. We’ve seen in the past that David was pessimistic, foulmouthed, and hot-tempered, directly compared to an optimistic, peppy, popular Jasper.

But then Jasper saw Cameron’s real self, and David received a modicum of praise for what was likely the first time based on his reaction. And so, they basically did somewhat of a switcheroo.

(David takes on many traits of Jasper after this experience, showing that he does admire him at the end of the day. I believe these traits are the foundation of David’s many masks.)

Despite the whole shebang, further episodes show us that they form a strong bond (or maintain one, we don’t know what happened before the first Jasper and David episode.)

What makes this friendship especially crucial in David’s development is that I believe Jasper was the first person to truly stand up for David.

David is, as we have seen, easily manipulated. Jasper picks up on this, and knowing Cameron’s just trying to use his best friend, tries to take Cameron down.

Jasper essentially died trying to protect David.

If Jasper hadn’t died, I don’t think David would have ended up as gullible and dependent as he is. If he had the more rational and realistic Jasper by his side during the rest of his developmental years, I believe things would have ended up much, much differently.

With Jasper’s death, there seems to be nobody else at camp who knows of Cameron’s crimes, or possibly, doesn’t want to speak out about them. Nobody to stand up for him. Nobody to redirect him.

So there’s nobody to stop the unhealthy-attachment-train from picking up speed.

Cameron And David’s Relationship

Cameron is manipulative and abusive towards David. This even becomes physical:

Despite this, David continues to idolize him as is seen in many cases of abuse. He works his ass off maintaining Cameron’s camp. Cameron’s approval makes or breaks him, because this is the man he sees as a father, unfortunately.

In addition, David is unable to let go of the hope that Cameron can change, because he’s convinced himself that deep down Cameron is still “good”, based on his skewed perception of him. And we all know how that ended.

But as Diane from Bojack Horseman once said —

And that is David’s problem — he wants so much for there to be a “deep down”, that there will be a day where Cameron showers him with praise and throws signed adoption forms at him, etcetera.

He judges Cameron not on who he actually is, but who he wants him to be. And so, the unhealthy attachment remains.

(Which is, of course, incredibly destructive to his mental health.)

Other Things We Know About His Mental Health, From Canon

We know he takes meds.

We know he has (sometimes dissociative) panic attacks.

We know he has been seen to suddenly snap, even to the point of violence.

My Final Conclusion: C-PTSD

(As the trauma has been not just one event, but many over the course of his life, and among other reasons, I believe CPTSD fits better than PTSD.)

David meets much of the criteria, most notably:

Lack of emotional regulation

Dissociation

Flashbacks

Anxiety

Guilt and shame

Distorted perception of abuser

Relationship difficulties

Okay this was long I’m tired good night.

[noneorother]

All the music you didn’t hear: The Good Omens soundtrack is lying to you. *Part 1*

The Bonkers Meta Series part 2: Electric Boogaloo.

I so rarely get a chance to misuse my experience in classical music, but here we are. When I realized on my most recent watch-through of the series that the David Arnold score was brilliant, but also really wonky in some parts and I couldn’t put my finger on why, @embracing-the-ineffable suggested I listen to the album soundtrack to compare.

And when I tell you what I found hidden in there, you’re going to need Eccles cakes...

1) The Song is the Clue

So right up top we have this banger. The 12th track on the album is the orchestral backdrop to the scene in the Job minisode where Aziraphale reveals Crowley’s crow/goats. The duration is 2:22 (the only track with multiples on the album), and if you look at the track by itself it doesn’t mean much. But the song just before it is actually from this fucking scene:

You know, the one where there’s a song that’s a clue to a mystery. Except Clue is capitalised, and Aziraphale pronounces it. I’ve seen guesses that this is a reference to the movie Clue, but I would put a lot of money on the fact that we are supposed to read the title of the song currently playing at that moment in the show *as a Clue*, which is super convenient, because the word Clue is capitalized in the track listing. 

Seems like the overlords of Good Omens have a message for us : The song is the Clue. It’s what God wants. Cool cool cool. WHAT SONG?

2) Symmetry in all things 

Before I straight up tell you, we have to go back and look at season 1.

Now I’m far from the first to notice tons of parallels between the story, details and even lines in both seasons. It got me thinking that maybe there are some fun synch-up parallels between the two season’s soundtracks, seeing as they are both 6 episodes long. Here’s the end of S1 and then S2

Oh that’s a bummer, I thought to myself. 

They don’t even add up to the same number, or playtime, and neither of them is exactly 60 tracks. But do you want to hear a secret? S2 is actually missing 3 tracks on the album. And because there are 2 discs in S2 (cute), the numbers of the tracks start over again from 1. Remember how much God likes sevens? Check out where all the weirdness is happening in disc 2 (I’ve added the missing track listings in red to add context):

After checking each track with the show and listening side by side (for reasons that will become clear in another post) I can definitively say that there is something *very weird* going on at the end of episode 4. 

First is track 7, Zombie dressing room, which seems to actually reach over two distinct scenes of the photo evidence in the dressing room and then Shax in hell even though it only has one title.

But *between* these two scenes we get an eerily silent wine date with Aziraphale & Crowley.

There’s really no music or even sound here besides the dialogue and room tone (until after the cheers), and it seems like a very intentionally silent version of a ritz date from season 1.

My best guess is that we are supposed to divide that track into two tracks of 7, before and after the date to get a second track 7. Or maybe the silent one is missing music? The third track number 7 is the weirdest one. It’s this scene here, when Nina parks her bike, and Aziraphale parks the car at the end of S2E4.

If you take a close listen to the music, it’s a jaunty little piece, with an oom-pah base in 3 ⁄ 4 time. The thing is, this music does not exist in any Good Omens album. Please feel free to correct me, but I’ve tried to find any part of any song that this could even be a reprise of, and I Shazammed it to be sure it wasn’t anything else. This song does not exist anywhere except in this scene. (It quickly morphs into a reprise of the original theme once Nina leaves Aziraphale). It’s an invisible song.

So we have 3 tracks at the end of S2E4: a long one, a silent one and an invisible one. Only one of which is numbered 7, but that all fit into that place in the track listing.

Which, when we add the two extras to the original total of fifty-nine we get... sixty-one! Hey wait a minute.

How are we going to get to 62?

3) The real missing track. 

So the real reason we had to go back to the S1 album was because it contains the missing track that God is talking about. Let’s compare the last tracks on each album.

I’ve highlighted the mismatch between the in-show music and the album in S2, which means I had to add A Nightingale Sang in Berkeley Square back into the S2 album because guess what, it’s not in the S2 album. Even though it plays in the show. 

You want to know how not in the album it is? Amazon had to track it in the show as a season 1 song. They had to give Tori Amos credit for her song on Good Omens in the X-ray bonus features because that’s how not in the album this song is.

So my fellow beings, if the song is the Clue, then It’s what God Wants.

And if God wants a happily ever after with Aziraphale and Crowley on their own side, then by Job, I think Neil is going to give it to her.

-----------

And there's more where that came from! Part 2 coming shortly.

[suffersinfandom]

Controversial opinion (?): the Kraken Era wasn’t all that dark.

There’s a lot of meta and fic out there that portray Ed as a bloodthirsty, hyperviolent monster, and when that portrayal is challenged, the rebuttal is usually along the lines of, “I’m just doing what canon did. Did you even watch the show? It's racist, not me!”

I did watch the show, and honestly? I went in expecting far worse based on meta and fic I read during the hiatus. When I see people say they didn’t think Ed did enough to redeem himself or that he went past the point of no return, I just don’t understand.

I already went into this in my way-too-long meta about Ed and abuse, but I do think it bears repeating (in a shorter post) because it seems like Ed’s actions -- more than the actions of any other character -- are scrutinized and discussed outside of the context of a comedy about pirates. There’s tons of casual violence in Our Flag Means Death. Sometimes the violence is even funny! 

So what does Ed actually do in the first episodes of season two?

We see Ed directly harm someone twice in the first two episodes: first on the wedding boat, and then when he shoots Izzy in the leg. Kind of unimpressive numbers, yeah? I'd expect more out of a heartbroken Blackbeard.

The first instance involves Ed shooting a man during a raid. That man has a sword through his chest before Ed fires, leading me to believe that Ed’s still following his season one pattern of keeping himself a step removed from murder (technically, the sword killed that guy). We also don’t see the murder happen; the man tumbles offscreen before Ed shoots. This makes the action less brutal. If the writers wanted us to be appalled by Ed’s violence, we would’ve gotten a graphic kill or several.

And the second instance is Izzy. Ed shoots Izzy in the leg after he suggests that the shitty atmosphere is because of Ed’s feelings for Stede. Hot take, maybe, but I don’t think that was entirely out of line. Ed’s feelings for Stede are not the only problem; a significant chunk of the problem is Izzy. Izzy called in the navy and led to their capture. Izzy threatened Ed back into the Blackbeard persona the last time Ed tried to talk things through, and that was without an audience of potential mutineers.

We’re also told that Ed has taken more of Izzy’s toes between seasons. This isn’t cool -- bosses definitely shouldn’t be asking for their employees’ toes -- but there is a precedent for it. In season one, Ed told Stede that he used to feed people their toes for a laugh (yuck). For a laugh. This, to me, implies that it’s not a huge deal. It’s certainly not completely unexpected pirate behavior, and it seems more lenient than a keelhauling or a whipping. I think both of those things would've felt far more gruesome and dark.

As far as violent actions go, that’s not a lot. Like, numerically.

Things get darker in S2E2 when Ed becomes increasingly desperate for someone, anyone, to send him to doggy heaven. He’s unhinged and working his way up to a murder-suicide before he’s stopped. He hacks the wheel right off of the ship and threatens to shoot the mast. He orders Archie and Jim to fight to the death. He ignores anonymous crewmembers as they’re swept overboard in the storm. This is bad! It’s self-destructive and selfish! But it's also tragic and human and understandable.

In my opinion, the worst thing Ed does in these episodes is force his crew to do violence for him -- not because it’s violence (again, they’re pirates), but because the violence hurts them. THIS is what traumatizes them. Their trauma flashbacks are scenes of them hurting others, not of Ed hurting them directly. Ed didn’t physically torture his crew (with the exception of Izzy, and that’s complicated). His crime was driving them to do one violent raid after another, killing and plundering without any joy or theatrics. Ed feels trapped in the role of Blackbeard -- the role that he’s been desperate to escape -- and, in his heartbreak, he opts to trap his crew with him. 

Yes, Ed is messed up in the first two episodes of season two. I don’t blame the crew for almost killing him; it’s what needed to be done. I think that Jim, Archie, Frenchie, and Fang had every right to want Ed gone after Stede’s return. 

But I don’t think that Ed was a super violent monster who tortured his crew and murdered his way through his breakup. He engages in very little onscreen violence, and the person that most of his violence is focused on -- Izzy -- is the same person who told him to be violent. I think that anyone who says that Ed’s actions in the first part of season two are extremely dark is either looking at them out of context, misremembering what actually happened and just recalling the dark tone, or working with some kind of motive.

In conclusion: Ed is a man who, at his very darkest, was still operating pretty firmly within the bounds of "stuff pirates do" (but not stuff Ed has historically done, presumably).

Also look at him. Thank you.

GIF by unearthlydust

EDIT: Read the reblogs for some amazing and more nuanced additions!

[chirpsythismorning]

The Vanishing of BLANK Wheeler

I wanted to make a list, from least likely to most likely, for which Wheeler I think is going to go missing.

But I also wanted to give a little disclaimer first, that even if these titles are real, they could still be fake, or could even possibly change given how much time we still have until s5 actually premieres.

For s2-3, the Duffers literally released official promo videos announcing episode titles for their upcoming season, with some of them changing when the season finally premiered.

Like in the case of s3 for example, they dropped a s3 episode promo video only a day after they completed filming. Meaning them titling 3x06 The Birthday, made absolutely no sense. They knew they didn't film anything birthday related for that episode. So they intentionally gave that one a fake name.

In the case of s4, that was the first time they promoted an upcoming season without giving fake titles, with the s4 promo announcing them following through with what we ended up with when s4 finally dropped.

I guess I sort of assumed s5 would follow in s4's footsteps, but from a leak standpoint, it might be smart to remember that fake titles are still a possiblity regardless. Especially in this case, where it's getting to the point in production where leaks are unavoidable. And so that might even explain why they play with this idea of fake episodes, which is because they can rest easy knowing leaks will mostly consist of half fake titles they planted there.

But for the sake of this post, lets humor the title for episode 2.

For starters, it's worth noting that the person who shared this leak originally said 'BLANK wheeler'. So as far as I know, they did not give any number of letters via underscores (_) to hint at who this Wheeler could possibly be. It's when ST news accounts caught wind of the leak and started rolling out posts, replacing BLANK with 5 underscores, that led a lot of fans to assume that the Wheeler had to have 5 letters in their name, which would have obviously ruled out Ted and Mike. But since all the Wheeler's are still on the table based on the original leak, they will all be included in this list.

5. Ted Wheeler

Believe it or not, there is something that I think actually warrants considering Ted as a possiblity.

There were some posts @stranger-chichka made a while back, comparing visual parallels between Stranger Things and Chernobyl, which could be hinting at this concept of Ted being in danger.

TBH though I think Ted being in danger or ending up dead is a possiblity regardless of him actually being the missing Wheeler.

Technically speaking, quite literally no one on the show is ruled out from being in danger at this point, so that's not saying much.

And considering the show is going to need to kill off some people next season and they are insistent on not killing any of their leads, supporting characters amongst the ranks have a high risk at being taken out. The emotional connection for Ted from the audience isn't as strong as other characters, but at least him being in close relation to a few main characters is something? I mean, he's funny I guess?

Quite frankly I don't think it's likely nor do I think it would actually make sense narratively for Ted to be the one to go missing out of all of them. I think it's a lot more likely they'd just kill him off, hence the Chernobyl parallels which imply he's gonna die. And so wasting time by having him go missing, only to kill him, just doesn't track. I think they'd just get that over with without dragging it out for very long, if anything.

Can you just imagine someone on the show shouting emotionally, It's Dad (Ted). He's gone.' Like, okay... And? I have a hard time imagining the characters being in serious turmoil over this, at least not enough for it to warrant like final season stakes amongst a bunch of other crazy shit happening. At best, the characters would be indifferently guilty for getting him roped into all this.

So yeah, I really don't see it happening.

4. Nancy Wheeler

I honestly feel like Nancy is even less likely to go missing than Ted, but the un-seriousness of an episode titled The Vanishing of Ted Wheeler is so astronomical, that I really had no choice but to put him last.

The reason I think Nancy is just very unlikely to go missing is because they technically already had her go missing as a cliffhanger between Vol 1 and 2 last season. It would just fall flat if they repeated something along those lines, with that same character, 3 episodes later. Vecna could have killed her and yet he didn't. His point was to send her a message, which was why he did what he did and then released her. The choice to target Nancy and taunt her about her family's safety in the first place, felt like their attempt at foreshadowing the danger that is to come for all of them, but one specifically. One of them that is not her. Which will make this moment back in s4 feel a lot more impactful upon rewatches.

So yeah, not feeling like Nancy is very likely.

3. Karen Wheeler

Karen is sort of a hard nut to crack all around. In the case that she is somehow connected to the Creels (Alice), anything is possible in terms of not only her being targeted, but again the entire family being at risk in some capacity. Without much to go off of outside of the obvious very haphazard timeline confusion, I feel like putting her somewhere in the middle. She was given a poster for s4. If she is Alice, then yeah it would make sense to target her. The stakes are also a lot stronger in comparison to Ted, because she was the parent in the family that actually came to Mike or Nancy and told them verbally that she wanted them to open up to her and is actually shown trying on several occasions. Whereas Ted is sort of just there when he's on screen. So the characters' distress would be a lot more dire and interesting to see unfold amongst everyone.

I also remember there being a leak in relation to Karen, Holly, Mike and Nancy all being at the hospital filming. And this was also like a day or so after ST dropped a video of Cara saying she was filming that day to hype up fans. So that leak did check out on the Karen front at least. Which puts her at the hospital at some point, potentially along with the rest of the Wheelers. Now that I'm thinking about it though, this could all fit with a Ted Wheeler death...

At this point, I'm sort of like indifferent to the possiblity, but it's still more likely than Ted and Nancy to me.

2. Holly Wheeler

It all goes back to s1, when Karen was visiting the Byers to console Joyce after Will went missing, when Holly sort of ventures off to Will's room, being guided by the lights, and sees the demogorgan in the wall.

I feel like people overlook this moment too, because it's kind of crazy that Holly has seen UD shit for herself. She was young enough that she could rule it out as just imagining things. And that could be partly the case even if she is skeptical.

There is something about Holly that makes her curious and sort of open to this world that most around her have no idea exists. And yet simultaneously some of the people closest to her do know about it and could easily clue her in when the time comes to do so, and because of that, I think she would probably be able to believe it all a lot faster than others.

Maybe this is a story where things need to happen and it just always ends up this way, but she has this tendency to be included in things that feel very important. Like in s4 with her playing with the lite-brite, and how that ended up being used to communicate with the others in the UD. There's this almost clairvoyance vibe about her. Her feeling the need to follow the Christmas lights to Will's room and her noticing and then fixating on the trees in s3.

Like I said, I don't know if it's something deeper, but it very well could be in the case she is connected to the Creels.

And while that is all somewhat compelling, at the same time it also feels very convoluted. Even if the Wheelers are Creels, I don't think that means the Wheelers would have powers, given that Henry got them when he was a child, meaning none of his family could have gotten them unless they too were taken in by the lab at some point, or were born with it.

Though I'm being full serious when I say the theories about Mike having time powers or maybe just manifestations from his emotions connected to the powers of others around him is one of my favorite theories of all time. I want it to happen. It would be cool. But that just opens the door to all of the Wheelers in my opinion, assuming his time powers came from being related to Henry. And if it was done that way, I feel like it would add way too much confusion to the story, where now all the Wheelers are gonna need to have powers, and then as a result would just takes away from the uniqueness that is already associated with Henry, El and potentially Will. One person potentially having powers without us knowing until the end aka Will, is enough honestly. Adding the Wheelers to the mix might be a bit much.

I'm also not totally convinced of the Wheeler's being Creels, and yet I also can't seem to want to rule it out entirely. But the prospects of Holly having powers or some sort of ability and just going through the same thing as Will when he was young and unaware of his powers, who is just now finding out the truth about his experiences... It just feels like serious whiplash honestly, when they haven't spent much of any time on Holly up to this point.

Like what are the stakes here exactly? What makes her disappearance and what that would look like compelling, on her front specifically? Because sure, I can see it being compelling watching the perspective of those around her reacting to this, what they would do to try to save her and all that, but what does that mean for her exactly? Are we going to see what she's doing? Are they going to hide it from us like they did with Will and then have to spend even more time uncovering it later on. And what does she even gain from being alone and taunted by Vecna presumably? What does the audience gain from witnessing that sort of event? There isn't a lot of story to explore there, outside of maybe making direct parallels to Will in s1? And then wouldn't that sort of take away from the importance of Will's role in it all just now being uncovered, if it all just repeats for Holly?

Which brings me to something that I see a lot of people using as strong evidence for why it has to be Holly, which is the fact that they recast her character.

What I think people are failing to consider is the fact that the twins who were cast to play Holly originally, were like 3-4 years old while filming s1. They weren't just kid actors, they were damn near baby actors. And while I know a big part of the reason why they gave Holly such few lines over the years was because the actors were aging way faster than the character they played, I think another factor could have been the fact that their acting experience is near nothing outside of Stranger Things, which is also pretty little on its own as well given that they have very few lines on the show.

It's not at all uncommon for child actors, let alone toddler actors to leave the industry once they start getting older. It could be for personal reasons, like wanting to explore other ventures, or it could be that they just don't perform as well with all the added expectations that come with acting as a character who is a kid with a lot of lines vs. a baby with 2 lines.

The girls got cast because at the time, they were able to perform as well as a 3 year old possibly could and would be expected to be in that role. But does that skill carry forth as they grew older? When now they have to deliver full sentences and carry conversations for scenes that are longer than 5 minutes? They've never really had to do that up to this point. Is it something that they feel comfortable with doing? Is their performance believable and is it something the writers feel confident about?

Honestly, I think they might have recast Holly, not because I think she is going to be targeted and focused on as this missing person they have to find, going through a near identical situation to 11 year old Will, but because they simply want her to be more apart of the story in general. And maybe because either the twins and/or the production didn't feel that they would be able to perform it in the way that they wanted it to be done.

And I mean, even if Holly isn't the one to go missing, one of the Wheelers is going to go missing based on this leak. If it was one of her parents, she would get a lot more scenes than she has in the past. If it was one of her siblings, again it would make sense for her to be more involved with the story. No matter what she is going to have a bigger role.

So no I don't think her being recast is as strong enough of proof as some might believe. If anything I think there is much stronger evidence that, like Karen, if they are related to the Creels, Holly is as fair game as any of them. The stakes could be high because she i such s a child. And her parents and Nancy and Mike worrying about her seems like something they would obviously do because she is so innocent and completely ill-equipped to endure something like that. But like I said, I just can't picture an focus like that on her, for her character, being very compelling given that Holly isn't really someone that needs like alone time with us witnessing it...

But there is one Wheeler left, and boy oh boy would he benefit from being alone.

1. Mike Wheeler

The most simple explanation for why it makes sense for it to be Mike, is that he genuinely benefits more than anyone when it comes to being alone with his thoughts, and with the audience watching. There's a lot of stuff dude has to work through in his own head, and since they haven't really let us have a moment alone with him that isn't under ten seconds since s3, an episode or two dedicated to making that a priority would make him coming back and things building up to the end, feel a lot more earned.

The audience needs to feel confident about how Mike feels about things. It can't be a guessing game for much longer when so many different factors are involved.

And while I think Mike may be the strongest possiblity in terms of the value it would add to the overall story is compelling enough to put him at number 1, the evidence supporting it happening is even stronger.

If we want to be crazy we can go back to the beginning. Plenty of fans have already speculated about how Mike is always late at the start of every season and how that might play into the beginning of season 5 again. I made a post about this recently and speculated it would happen one last time around the 15 minute mark. And maybe I was wrong... but maybe I was also right? Because if the second episode is called The Vanishing of Mike Wheeler, it's likely Mike's fate wouldn't be confirmed by the opening of 5x01, but in fact the closing scene of 5x01.

Throughout the show Mike plays a key role in leading the others, he's even referred to as 'the key' in s3 by Hopper. You know this show and their keys, they don't joke about that sort of thing. It's likely that Mike's story and what it is leading to is going to be central to how all of this ends.

Also in s3, there is one scene in particular that I think could be hinting at Mike being targeted, along with the s4 main poster with all of the characters. In the poster, we see El at the top, with Max and Mike as near equals on each side of her. Of course their roles are central and that's a fair layout on it's own arguably, but the equal-ness provided to Mike and Max feels very intentional. While she is slightly bigger than Mike in the frame, that could be a hint in regards to her being central now in s4, with Mike joining the mix alongside her in s5. Honestly, they could have made it so these two were beside other characters that also played a huge role in s4, and yet they chose those two to give a specific focus to. I think that is interesting (and probably intentional).

But if I'm being honest, there are so many moments in s4 specifically that hint at Mike being in danger, that I will not be able to include it all in detail in this post. So I'm going to link those below and then build off of some of it with some new details I've recovered that are worth re-contextualizing again with all of this in mind.

Hints regarding Mike and Will being targets of the town, but Mike specifically being focused on after the word 'missing' is said...

I'm gonna expand on this one because I think it's important to recognize the massive curtain in the background as this is all happening. And I vaguely reference this concept here as well which is worth checking out. But not is this whole concept of the curtain pretty blatant in this episode, this scene of the town all fleeing to hunt down hellfire club, is followed directly after, by this:

Notice how Mike is nearly always central in these moments? And how what follows feels eerily similar to what is about to go down at the end of s4 aka Suzie = Mike.

Now, this has already been talked about plenty so I won't go into detail, but... based on everything else happening surrounding this, this would apply to Mike in the sense that not only is he not in love with El, he's gay and in love with Will aka a boy. A BOY!

And then this mention of 'the terrible truth'. This word has been used like 3 times in the last few minutes. First intensely during Jason's speech about a terrible truth, with Ted and Karen being focused on with the Mike and Will extra in the background.

But what is even more crazy is that what follows sort of seals the deal for me that, this IS about Mike and it's foreshadowing what is about to come in s5.

5:02... 5x02!!!!

Also peep the watch and the letter from Dustin under it... I don't want to speculate but lettergate is looking extra relevant within all of this as well...

And to close off this point, lets show the shot that follows directly after this one.

Then later in the season, after Nancy is back from being taken by Vecna, here we have this long and emotional pause before she says Mike's name, last after her mom and Holly.

If they wrote and filmed this scene, knowing Mike would be the Wheeler missing early s5, it would make sense for them to list off the characters like this.

Mike peeking in the frame at this moment is not suspicious at all...

If it wasn't enough that Jason hyped up the whole town to see the Hellfire club as their enemy responsible for all of this, here we have a focus on Mike specifically being targeted by Jason.

The Duffer's statement about the show overall in the Piggyback script, and I gotta say it fits Mike a lot more than any of the other Wheelers.

Mike is a Paladin. And when they break an oath, they might spend an all-night vigil as a sign of penitence... aka everything is going to come to a head and Mike is going to be alone dealing with this shit for a bit, until he can come back ready to face it.

And I know it's controversial, but this post explains perfectly why Mike being central to this would make the show go full circle in a really compelling way.

Mike hasn't really unpacked...

Karen lookalike standing in front of the missing persons board. Could be any one of them but still, considering the costume of this extra looks closer to what Karen was wearing when she reunited and hugged Mike... I'm gonna put it more so with him.

Mike's guilt and shame regarding the past and what it has led them to could also play a big role and why him going missing would be worthwhile to explore. Part 1 / Part 2

Mike paralleling Yuri, who eventually reveals the truth (in his pocket) after stalling. If Mike parallels him all throughout the start of that moment, what does that mean for how it ends for Mike?

An antique funeral home fan behind Mike in the s4 character promo photos in the Creel attic, how Mike is seen sitting before Will sits beside him shortly after and it involving upside down imagery, Mike's first line in the show being used to later foreshadow his fate in early s5, and also bringing it back to Suzie's house which I already went into but it might be helpful to look at it again from this lens.

The Duffers would not pass up on the opportunity to parallel Mike with Finn's other character Richie in IT, which is literally based on a book that heavily inspired ST in the first place. And how all of that plays into the queer-coding for Mike going all the way back to s1.

The Duffers revealed after posting the funko-pop shotplanning pictures (2) that they were finished with planning for 5x01-5x02.... meaning this shot of Mike all by himself, is going to occur in one of those episodes...

We could still hypothesize Holly is the one to be taken, given that she doesn't have a funko and so they couldn't include her here regardless. But the fact that Nancy is with the other seems to imply to me that they are all likely working together to get Mike back, who is alone.

This one is a little more hard to pinpoint for sure, but it comes from a BTS Ross posted recently.

We are clearly in the Wheeler's house here. And if you zoom in, it looks like someone is standing (hiding?) behind a doorway/curtain. And the only person that seems to fit it imo is Mike... But why would he be hiding in his own house...?

It just makes me think about what is going on with Mike in early s5. What would be occurring that has him in this sort of situation? And it makes me wonder if him going missing has solely to do with him being taken and gone in one single moment, or if it could involve him avoiding his family and others potentially, with him being taken after that.

Lastly, I'm going to go into more choppy territory, stuff I know only a couple of people will actually consider. But it is pretty fucking fitting of what is about to go down so I can't not mention it.

In the Puzzle Tales' most recent Hellfire Campaign, this is the title...

Like the whole chapter is just a big joke on Mike about him being scared to be alone, which is painfully ironic if this is the direction the show is about to go for the next 2 upcoming episodes.

And then we have a song WSQK posted on Twitter back in January. I know people don't believe that this account is connected with anyone in the production, which is fair because I myself rarely believe leaks from anonymous accounts as it is. But I've been keeping up with it and it genuinely doesn't seem like a fan could come up with these songs.

The song I'm about to mention is the 7th song they posted, called Army Dreamers by Kate Bush. And you might fight it sounds a lot like the situation Mike might find himself in in early s5.

And though I'm sure I didn't cover everything, I feel like all the things I've mentioned and referenced from other posts are plenty to at least consider this as opposed to rejecting it all together.

At the end of the day I think there are some valid arguments for all of them to some extent. And quite frankly all of the Wheelers and most of the characters in the show will find themselves in danger in a way that is going to probably last longer than just one single moment the entire season. So even if it's just one of them, I don't think that rules out the others playing a bigger role in what is going down.

I just think narratively, there is one person that benefits from being on-screen and alone with their thoughts. And the other 4 being confronted with what that person discovers eventually will also make all of this a lot more worthwhile than any of the other options in my opinion.

[xerith-42]

I was wrong

It takes a lot to admit that, even more for me to admit that about MCD, but I was wrong about something in regards to this series. In a previous post I said that the worst episode of MCD was Season 2 Episode 95, because it was the culmination of the absolute failure that was Laurance's character arc. And I wasn't wrong about that, S2E95 is an objectively bad episode and I stand by it being one of the worst. But it's only one of the worst episodes of this series. Probably second or third worst.

The actual worst episode of Minecraft Diaries happens far earlier in it's run time than I anticipated. The actual episode that begins the degrading of every single main character happens within it's first season. The worst episode of Minecraft Diaries is Season 1 Episode 65, Our Fears.

For those of you who haven't watched MCD in a minute, or aren't insane like I am and recognize what happens in an episode from just a number and a thumbnail, this is the episode where Aphmau and Dante get chased into Malachi's abandoned castle and fall victim to his uncontrollable magic. A magic that shows people their greatest fears.

Now the concept of a ghost that forces the audience and the characters to come face to face with the leading characters greatest fears is a fantastic idea. I'm serious this is one of the best concepts for character work in the entire Aphverse. This is great, this can go so many good ways.

Aphmau's fear is pretty weak mostly because it shows her house on fire, nobody hurt, and Malachi comments that she's "Scared of losing the ones you love." My honest reaction to this was "She lost her house in episode 36 and didn't seem to care because her loved ones are safe. You wanna communicate that she's scared of people dying just show Zoey lying on the ground or something smh." It gets the job done, but not very well.

Dante's fear is the only one that's well done because it's an image of Gene about to rip apart the realm barrier in the Nether. This works surprisingly well despite only being one shot because it gets across Dante's connection to Gene and the Nether pretty well, setting up for the reveal later on. Dante's existence is this episode's single redeeming quality. And as much as I like the guy, he's not enough to hold up the episode after what happens next.

Now, dear viewer who presumably knows the plot of MCD because you've read this far into a post about this single episode, you know that at this point in the series Garroth has been found out by his brother and has the looming threat of the entire O'Khasis military on his mind all the damn time. Zane has already hurt members of his village in direct ways, and only didn't do more damage because he was called away for an emergency. Garroth has already failed to protect one lord, and he's nearly failed to protect another.

Laurance is a shadow knight. And even though the lore of shadow knights is still flimsy at this point, we know that they are very prone to killing lords, it's why Laurance renounced his position as head guard of Meteli and refuses to return. But that doesn't mean his desire for blood is gone. It just means it has a new target. Like say, the lord he comes to the castle in search of? That he has explicit romantic feelings for?

Again, this idea of forcing the audience and the characters to face their greatest fears is such a good idea, especially with these three, because they can all be interlinked. Aphmau fears losing her loved ones, Garroth fears failing to protect his people, and Laurance fears that he'll give into bloodlust. Are you picking up what I'm putting down? I don't know if I can make it anymore obvious where the show should have gone from here.

But, no, unfortunately Jesson wrote this series. So what could have been one of the best moments of character work in the entire series, instead became the beginning of the end for our would be love interests. I'm of course referring to how it's revealed that their actual "worst fear" is Aphmau getting with... Another guy. Not even her picking one over the other, just her holding hands with and kissing some guy that Garroth and Laurance DON'T EVEN KNOW!

And despite Laurance saying he's happy as long as he has Aphmau in his life, he starts getting enraged that another guy would have the audacity to kiss her. Even though the scene he's shown seems to be entirely consensual. And in response to this, BOTH OF THEM DECIDE TO TRY AND KILL THIS ILLUSION OF DANTE JUST FOR KISSING THE GIRL THEY LIKE!

AND THIS IS SEEN AS A GOOD THING BY THE SHOW!! Attacking this illusion breaks the barrier around the real Aphmau and Dante, and Garroth and Laurance are never punished for their actions here. Aphmau is barely concerned that her guards, the men she's willing to trust with her life, were willing to kill someone for the crime of kissing her. Hot fucking take, Aphmau maybe shouldn't trust these people after seeing that they're willing to kill a man over the crime of loving her when they want to.

And even hotter take, GARROTH AND LAURANCE WOULDN'T DO THIS! Both men have been shown to be highly protective over Aphmau, which makes sense it's literally their job to keep her safe, but that protective nature shouldn't cross over into actively interfering with her romantic life. They're fucking lucky it was just an illusion, what would have happened if Malachi used mind control? What if he was using Aphmau and Dante's bodies as puppets? What if Garroth and Laurance just killed an amateur guard whose only crime was being forced to kiss the girl they liked?

This is one of those writing decisions that truly baffles me. It was RIGHT THERE, HOW DID YOU MISS, IT (the perfect piece of character work) WAS THREE FEET IN FRONT OF YOU! The answer is that Jesson don't really care about the interesting character work, they care about tropes. They care about the main character being in a love triangle with two guys who equally suck but in different ways. They care about fans getting excited and debating over which ship is better. They care about pushing this love triangle onto viewers regardless of what makes sense for the characters involved because the writers fail to see the nuance of the characters that they fucking wrote the nuance of.

I fucking hate Episode 65. Easily the worst episode of MCD. Any episode after this when Garroth and Laurance act horrendously out of character in service of this love triangle (I'm looking at you episode 77, and episode 90, and season 2 episode 95, and season 2 episode 98), know that it started here. It started with episode 65.

Fuck this episode.

[antianakin]

Pong Krell. It’s universally agreed that he deserved worse than what he got and I get that. I just wished we got to see what he was like before he Fell. Did he always hate clones, was it gradual? Did he suspect something off and went over paranoid?

I’ll say this one and I’ll say this probably a thousand more times but I wished the creators focused on more details with characters. It’s absolutely fascinating that they created a Jedi that Fell but did nothing with it besides outright evil.

How other Jedi reacted to learning that a fellow Jedi betrayed everyone? How did the Republic?

I just wished they did more with him than just, yeah that dude was a dick and killed clones.

Yeah, it's one of the things I don't like as much about TCW, the extremely episodic nature of it means that there really is never any build-up to anything or lasting impact from anything. Unless it's happening within one of the 2-4 episode arcs, we RARELY get to see any kind of build-up or fallout. It's one of the major issues with Barriss, too, we see her ONCE in season 2 and she's calm, kind, methodical, and selfless. And then three seasons later in season 5 she's suddenly ruthless, selfish, doubting everything and everyone, merciless, etc. There is NO BUILD UP to that radical 180 to her character and there's no real exploration of how Ahsoka really feels about that particular betrayal afterwards, the focus in later episodes after the Wrong Jedi focuses only on Ahsoka feeling betrayed by the COUNCIL and her feelings about that. Nothing since TCW has ever touched it either (Rebels, Mandalorian, the Ahsoka show). Satine's death never really comes up again after it happens aside from Bo-Katan being an asshole. Obi-Wan goes from being totally fucked up about Maul coming back to being chill enough to take on Maul and Savage alone and winning without us getting to see him actually deal with those emotions.

Pong Krell and the Umbara arc IN GENERAL falls into this category easily (so do the Zyggeria and the Deception arc tbh). Krell is such a basic evil character, there's so little nuance to him and we never get to see the Jedi react to the revelation that one of their own turned at all. Dooku turned after he had already left the Order as far as any of them really know, but Krell was still IN the Order when he decided to betray them and it would've been really interesting to see the impact of that on them. It would've been ESPECIALLY interesting to explore that more during the Wrong Jedi arc in particular in how the Jedi feel like they can't trust their own people not to betray them anymore after Dooku and Krell.

Krell is presented with like. Zero nuance. He is just unequivocally evil and despite Anakin greeting him in a friendly way at the beginning, the visuals tell you this dude's no good right from his first appearance. There isn't really any chance that he's going to be a good guy at all. So all we are left with are headcanons.

And I remember discussing my Krell headcanons somewhere, but I think it might've been on a Discord server I've since left, so I unfortunately cannot find them again. So I'll try to remember them and immortalize them here, I guess.

Here's the thing about Krell. NO ONE suspects him. So he cannot be overtly acting like a bigoted asshole from the jump at any point, he HAS to be acting in such a way that it's not trickling out to the other clones and to the Jedi themselves that Krell is an absolute monster. Even Fives takes a moment to decide that Krell is suspicious and only brings up Krell's casualty numbers after he sees Krell's behavior for a minute and combines that knowledge with what he's now personally experiencing and is starting to come to conclusions based on that. He doesn't go into the relationship thinking Krell is worse than any other Jedi already.

And based on what we know of EVERY OTHER FALLEN JEDI (Dooku, Anakin, Barriss), they didn't start out as monsters. Dooku was a highly respected Jedi Master who seems to have had a really positive relationship with Yoda and Qui-Gon and simply became disillusioned with the Senate and his care for the people of the galaxy got twisted into something darker over time. Barriss was kind, selfless, compassionate, brave, and resourceful, and it was the war that caused her to start letting her fears and pain consume her into turning on the Jedi. Anakin was kind and spent years having his fears and doubts twisted into selfishness and greed and darkness that allowed him to justify murder and genocide for power. So it wouldn't make sense to me that Pong Krell wouldn't fall into the same pattern where he was once kind and good and selfless and brave, but that the circumstances surrounding the war caused him to lose faith and fall.

My headcanon is that he lost an entire battalion early in the war, much like we see happen to Plo Koon during the Malevolence arc and that that loss and failure just BROKE him. Krell DID care about the clones, he cared about his men, and he FAILED them all. And I think that he saw all of these clones dying by the dozens in all of the other battalions and instead of choosing to let go of his pain and fear and lean into his compassion, he chose to distance himself from them entirely to make it hurt less. If he didn't care about the clones, if he just saw them as the cannon fodder that the Senate treated them all as, then it would hurt less when they died. Maybe the Senate itself even dragged him over the coals for that initial loss. Or perhaps it was the opposite, maybe most of his battalion was killed, but it ultimately ended in a victory anyway because they were forced to just keep going despite the consequences. And so Krell decides to enter this mindset where he is disillusioned with the Senate and just CANNOT allow himself to care about the clones, because it won't change what the Senate is going to do to them anyway, so he may as well just treat them the same way.

And this wouldn't have happened overnight. It wouldn't have been a sudden 180 where he decided he was just going to treat them like shit. But he maybe decided to put some more professional distance between himself and his new battalion, not get close to them, not use their names (although he still knows them, still remembers them all). Maybe one day they're in a tricky situation and all of his options are bad, he HAS to sacrifice some of his men in order to salvage the situation at all, and it's a choice between a full retreat that he KNOWS the Senate won't take well, or sacrificing the men to achieve the victory. So he sacrifices the men. It's not an entire battalion, it's not even a whole company, but it's more than it would've been if he'd retreated. Maybe next time, there's a choice between going back to save some of the men even if it poses a risk to his own life or the mission or something, and he chooses not to go back for them because the mission is more important, or he rationalizes that his life is more important as the Jedi General. And it's just more and more little decisions like that that add up over time to being able to see the clones as nothing more than tools.

The disillusionment with the Senate leads to him sort-of agreeing with things Dooku and the Separatists have said and he can look at the war and realize that it's entirely possible that the Republic is going to LOSE, and he CANNOT be the one who loses again, so maybe he starts bouncing around the concept of maybe switching sides. And of course initially he rejects the idea. He's a Jedi, he won't just abandon the Republic, he can't be a traitor, who in the Separatist side would ever trust him anyway. But once that seed is planted, it doesn't go away and it keeps coming back up and he keeps finding ways to rationalize why it might be a good idea and then deciding not to do it over and over again. Until one day, he can't convince himself that it's a bad idea or that it wouldn't work. He tells himself it's the ONLY option, if he doesn't change sides then he's dead. But Dooku WON'T trust him unless he can prove that he's not on the Republic's side, so he has to come up with a plan to gain their trust. And what better way to earn that trust than to ensure a Separatist victory in an important campaign by double-crossing the Republic.

And once he's chosen to go down that path, it's even EASIER to stop caring about the clones because, well, they're all dead anyway. The Republic is going to lose, the clones are all dead men walking no matter what, so why bother caring about them or trying to keep them alive? He can't lose so often that the Jedi or the Senate become suspicious of him, of course, but it's REALLY easy then to get to Umbara and treat the clones like crap and turn them against each other and intentionally try to get them all killed. They're dead anyway, he's not the one killing them really, is he, the Senate is, the Jedi are, the war is. They were dead from the moment they were created in that test tube because they were created for this specific purpose. It's not his fault.

And much like Barriss turns against the Jedi in part because she did LOVE the Jedi and was devastated by what she saw happening to them and the pain of seeing her people forced to become something they were never supposed to be, as much as her actions were intended as some kind of message to try to sort-of save the Jedi from a course of action she saw as their downfall, I think that Krell turns on the clones because at some point he DID care about them. A lot. And that care became his downfall, the pain at what was being done to them just absolutely gutted him and it threw him down a path that ultimately led him to turn against the very people whose deaths had hurt him so badly just a few short years ago.

Krell might not have been the most effusive or emotional person prior to the war or anything, he might've been a more reserved person similar to Mace or Dooku or Luminara, but I think he probably was a perfectly good Jedi who was kind and selfless and compassionate once upon a time.

And none of the headcanons above have even touched what his relationships with other JEDI must have been like. It's just as possible that he did have friends and people he considered family among the Jedi. Maybe he had a padawan once at some point. And maybe all of those people had died by the time we get to Umbara. Maybe he had to watch a lot of the people he was closest to just fall like flies, and so it starts feeling like nothing matters. Maybe one of the Jedi who died on Geonosis was a former padawan of his, but Krell himself obviously wasn't there and the pain of THAT loss and the guilt he feels at not having been there (even though this padawan had been knighted for a while and there was a good reason Krell wasn't there that day) just sticks with him, too, and he never quite manages to let that go, either.

I think a lot of people choose to just headcanon Krell as having just always been kind-of an asshole even when he was a Jedi, but that doesn't work for me. If Krell was always an asshole, I feel like the Jedi would've stepped in at some point before the war even HAPPENED and tried to manage that situation. And it doesn't match up with the way pretty much every other fallen Jedi has ever been written, where they were GOOD PEOPLE once upon a time who saw awful things happen that they couldn't stop or had an awful thing happen TO them that they couldn't stop and the pain of that experience consumes them to the point that they spiral into darkness as a result. Krell should be the same way, which means he likely was a perfectly good normal Jedi before the war. He would've been kind, he might've been good with younglings (he's tall, maybe he was the one the younglings went to all the time for piggy back rides, maybe he often taught dual wielding to padawans who asked because of how clearly proficient he is at it), he might've taught a student of his own successfully, he would've been wise and selfless and compassionate, he would've loved the Jedi and the people of the galaxy.

Like, to be frank, if Tales of the Jedi HAD to explore a fallen Jedi story, they should've explored Krell instead of Dooku. Dooku has been explored before, we know quite a lot about him and his motivations and his backstory, but Krell, as you noted, is left a mystery and is stuck in the realm of being just purely evil for the sake of the story they were telling in this one arc. Krell needed more nuance in a way Dooku just did not.

[tamtuliko]

I have to mention a few more things about Great and Tyme.

Great said: you were dying for me that night.

But darling, you were dying for him too that night.

Their eye contact here is so much. You can feel need, lust, want, they are dying for each other. I know Tyme did it for recording, but dude was so into it.

Look at his face, for revenge my a$$, he was into it as much as Great. Also Greats hand on his ribcage. Oh boy.

The fact that we see both angles is such a masterpiece.

Like in Greats timeline it's mostly his POV, but here we are watching from both side.

We see Tymes POV and we see Greats as well. The camera work for this is so good.

Small details I think about it.

• Time for their $ex in real timeline and making love in Greats 4 minute limbo. I tried to zoom in and screenshot Great's watch, but I can't clearly see it. But I think it is midnight. This show is all details and the fact that Bible is wearing watch every moment and especially during their intimate moments, makes me wonder if the time was the same.

Another tragic thing:

Greats Timeline, they won Real Timeline Tyme left

Cross road and bridge

Decisions. Hard choices. Encountering a crossroad and not sure which way to go. Why is life so difficult at times? Life is filled with choices, both large and small. Some are minor, but others will be life-changing, one way or the other. We can not avoid them;when you stand in crossroad, you are at a stage in your life when you have to make a very important decision. Turning points & deciding moments. See Tyme leaves Great here, he made choice, not to use him, not to scar this broken boy anymore, because he saw how tragic Great is, and I'm not saying that Tyme is good guy here, or Great is oh so bad guy, they both are red flags, but here we see their characters better. Tyme, who wills to move forward, but refuse to use Great anymore cause he might develop some feelings towards him. Great, who can't go after Tyme because he downs even knows what he wants, just $ex? Hook up and all. Or to be ally and go against his father, let Tyme use him? He does what he can, avoids making choices, and calls his brother to reject him. This kid is all alone.

In Greats 4 minutes limbo, he and Tyme cross the bridge and go somewhere far away.

To dream that you are crossing a bridge signifies an important decision or a critical junction in your life. This decision will prove to be a positive change filled with prosperity and wealth in the horizon. Bridges represent a transitional period in your life where you will be moving on to a new stage, isn't this sad??? Great wanted to have better future with Tyme, to move to new stage not just to fuck up. Bridge could be symbolic of connection, stability, and progress. Often, when bridges appear it could mean you are encountering a new start, travel, different way of life or a change or transition. It is normally a symbol of hope and commitment. Also, it is a symbol of relationships with others, especially those with whom you have strong, lasting, and deep connections, and I believe Tyme and Great have a strong connection. Maybe fucked up one, but still.

Another small things I'm thinking but can't find the conection:

In Greats Timeline, this ball also fell in a hole when he was calling someone to ask what time it was. And then the time moved.

They show us time here 11:50 pm. Why?? There is no way they are just giving it to us...

<still>, I mean you can do research, but what kind of research this dude did, so he knows about Greats fear of dogs??? Suspicious...

We see these minutes in real timeline as well. Why show it us with so big numbers?

Their meeting at bar, can't see clearly is the watch says 11??

Finally, this Shot is crazy. Tyme you little piece of shit, you did enjoy it 🤣

2 more days to watch episode 7, hoping we will get more answers this time. Cause I need to focus on my actual life, okay???

[doctorprofessorsong]

Hello! I recently watched The Winchesters and had a question, which I figured you could answer/discuss?

I'm aware that the show takes place in an Alt Universe, and that Spn's John never fell into the hunting life earlier, so he never knew Carlos personally. But still, it's still him — and he is not homophobic towards Carlos who is canonically bi. It can be argued that he just does not know, like he did not know about Carlos serving the Navy, but then what about Anton? We know Lata knows, of course. But has it been explicitly stated that Mary & John know too? And it's not like Carlos hides himself; he's open about his interests and that's amazing, but John is never portrayed as a Hater, no? Not in this sense in the show.

But we, as a fandom, have concluded that John is the reason for Dean's suppression of his own feelings — in general, and about being into men — but then... Carlos.

Did Dean assume his father would never approve? Because he never does of anything that has to do with feelings; it's always hunting and more hunting and revenge, of course. Is that what happened, rather than John actually being homophobic, he was a colossal failure of a parent who "just" pushed away his son(s) emotionally to a level where potential abuse and discouragement were more realistic than anything else? Does this also mean that when Dean does come out to John he would be supportive, at least, of this?

It's just been bugging me, is all.

Hoo boy. Throwing me an easy one before coffee, huh? :)

As a fun aside, there is a scene where a Carlos is mentioned in the mothership. It's not established to be the same Carlos in SPNwin, but the SPN episode was written by Robbie and he has acknowledged they are in his mind.

That doesn't get us to an answer, but it's nice to know that Dean and Sam possibly knew a version of Carlos.

Leading with the short answer to the actual question: what you have described regarding canon is a lot of assumptions and headcanons, which are fine and can absolutely be read as "John was just different in the different universes,' but I personally find that to be the boring answer. I think this fandom tends to write John as the evil bad dad, when a complex gray John is far meatier, so I'm often inclined to go deeper.

The answer I feel works better is the possibly unpopular opinion that we don't actually know John is homophobic at all and it's very possible Dean’s relationship with his father, while fraught with expectations in any number of ways, may not actually be driving his choice to live in the closet and/or his delayed realization of his sexual orientation. It's extremely possible John isn't homophobic at all. Dean may have read him that way or he may have felt pressure from external sources. These days my preferred reading tends to actually be something else entirely: that Dean knows he is queer and simply doesn't reveal it because he is of an era and a world where queerness is often not open and obvious to outsiders.

This is gonna be a long haul so I'm gonna pop in a courtesy cut and jump in. Don't worry. There WILL be headings and bullet points. Regret asking me yet? 😆

Is John homophobic?

Canon support

There isn't a ton of canon support for the homophobic John reading. That's not saying it isn't a valid reading. It's just that it's an interpretation and not fact. Here are the things I have seen or remember:

Martin and Tara - taking these together because they are a similar pattern. Both tell Dean his dad would be disappointed in him for running around with this male shaped monster (boyfriend). The textual reading is that John wouldn't want him running around with monsters. There is a subtexual reading that John wouldn't want him to have a boyfriend which is super valid. It just doesn't tell us much about John because 1. We know he was very black and white on monsters, 2. neither of these characters knows John that well. Tara got ghosted by him. It's possible this is a reflection of the larger hunter community (though possibly not even that). The point is it's canon evidence that can be taken either way.

Lee? A lot of people write that scene as John finding in them in a compromising position and I get it because Christian Kane and Jensen Ackles looked like they were about to sneak off to the bathroom, but the actual story is "You remember that time he caught us wasted on a Hunt? Hm? He was so mad, I-I thought he was gonna have an aneurysm." We know that John is really hard on Dean and Sam specifically because he chooses preparation for monsters over all (including their mental health) so this is absolutely consistent with his character regardless of any romance between them.

The nuns - this is not technically canon, but there is a story about John sending Dean on a solo hunt on his birthday to chase after queer nuns. First and foremost, I am noting this is sketchy from a canon/non-canon evidence perspective. It is something written and endorsed by SPN in the same way as the cartoon and the upcoming graphic novel. It's not fan fiction, but I would say it's not truly canon canon. But taking the evidence for what it is, it's interesting to note that in the journal John doesn't actually say anything homophobic. He describes the hunt as "Simple salt-and-burn mission. Nuns in love with each other, then discovered. Killed themselves." There's no commentary. No slurs. They were "in love." The real meat of the homophobia here is that he sent is queer son alone on his birthday to deal with them and it could be read as a message. That doesn't mean it's intended to be one.

That's all I can think of. It's not a lot and it's not definitive. It's perfectly valid to read it as support for homophobic John AND I think there may be some writer intent in the same way that monsters are often an allegory in the show and in media for queerness.

But it's also not a smoking gun. It's more of a unloaded gun with bullets next to it. So why do people think John is this super homophobic person?

Non-canon support and factors

There's a lot that goes into the interpretation of John that lies outside of the text.

His age and upbringing - He was raised in a time and place where acceptance of queer people wasn't exactly the default and then he went into the military which is also not exactly known for being particularly great for queer acceptance.

Classism - I say this gently to the fandom, but there is this idea that people who aren't in urban areas, and especially in poor rural areas must be homophobic. This comes up a lot in the Sam went to Stanford and is educated and therefore is a better ally headcanon. It's worth considering whether that is a factor here.

He raised his kids with military precision when he was around - there is no doubt that John was a hard man who treated his children like soldiers. A lot of people group gender and sexual orientation, especially when it comes to the gender aspects of masculinity where "be a man" and "be tougher" is frequently aimed at queer men. There's a lot of masculinity reinforcement for sure in the text and subtext of the show.

He's a bad dad and we're a bunch of traumatized queers with daddy issues. I know because I'm not only the owner, I'm a member.

I'm simplifying some of this, but there are a lot of factors that contribute to this reading and they are real and valid reasons. They just aren't textual and in some cases they are absolutely based in stereotypes. That's fine! Stereotypes aren't always incorrect. But they can be and it's worth wondering whether or not they are true.

There are plenty of people like John who are either not homophobic, or of the nature of it's fine if I don't see it variety of homophobia (which would actually be fairly logical to read into given the time and place of Dean's upbringing and the risk being openly queer presented especially for John who's priority is physical safety and preparation).

Personally, I find the lack of text to be fairly compelling, especially when we look at Dean's other behaviors, but that is my interpretation. I personally think John would have a problem with a monster boyfriend because of the monster bit, but doesn't give a fuck about the boyfriend bit except to the extent it may draw danger. I don't actually think John fits the rural strict father homophobic stereotype very well. He's not particularly religious. He doesn't seem to care what his kids do as long as they are safe and in the family business. He doesn't quiz Dean about where he was or who he was with.

I grew up in the South and have known a lot of homophobic parents in my day (including my own! See above). The pattern is often a parent who wants their kid to meet a certain social standard. Don't be gay because it will reflect bad on the family and you will go to hell. John shows negative interest in that arena.

He shows some of the don't be gay because it isn't manly aspects of that type of parent, but I also think a lot of people conflate masculinity with sexual orientation in this analysis. I say this specifically nodding to the Krikpe quote about umbrellas which in no way mentions being gay, but does mention being tough hunters not scared of demons. The text of that tweet and the story the fandom tells are two very distinct things.

It's very possible that those aspects of John's personality are part of why Dean performs tough het male so hard and that would be an aspect of what you are describing. I will also say however that Dean cries a lot. He's very open with his emotions and with caring for people. He's very good with people. Hes always been openly a caretaker. So he isn't performing masculinity so hard that those pieces of him are erased or hidden.

Why is Dean Like That if it isn't the daddy issues?

Let's look at this as if John wasn't openly and particularly notably homophobic. That is to say he had the casual homophobia of the 80s and 90s combined with a friend group of hypermasculine beer and bourbon drinking dudes with guns, but he wasn't, say, abusing Dean if he caught sight of potential gayness. Just to analyze the other question which is Dean's suppression of his feelings or denial of his queerness.

The fandom is not a monolith and I think there are lots of fans with lots of differing analysis in this arena, so I just want to again reiterate, this is all interpretation and headcanon! It's fine to fall anywhere in this spectrum.

Dean is Like That because he assumes he knows how his Dad would react

It's possible John talked about this idea that he has to get to an apple pie life long enough and made assumptions about the gender of his future partner, or that he was so neglectful or abusive, or that he made enough comments about being a "man" because he was worried about Dean being a victim, that Dean assumed his father would not support him. It's possible the canon events above where never intended to send a message to Dean that he still believed and read into them. That's not a criticism. We all interpret the things that happen to us. We are the ones who put meaning to an event, and that meaning may not match with the other person's intent. It doesn't make it invalid.

As you say, it may be a failure of parenting.

Dean is Like That because he grew up in the 80s and 90s

As someone who was born between Dean and Sam, I can say with the authority of experience that the 80s and 90s were a rough time to be queer. Like a really rough time. There were a lot of cultural things happening. Not to mention Dean had a rough upbringing.

HIV/AIDS - There are greater and more knowledgeable sources than me about this topic, but growing up during this time I can say that people were absolutely fucking awful about HIV/AIDS. We had school assemblies full of misinformation. Scores of people were dying and being told they deserved it. A lot of queer kids were internalizing the idea that queerness was a death sentence. I cannot actually come up with a good comparison in modern day. It was absolutely awful for the community, and the messages being delivered to kids was: "if you choose to be gay, you will die."

Casual homophobia - Remember when Misha used the f-word and people lost their fucking minds even though he was talking about lived experiences for most of us of a certain age? Yeah, that outrage was unimaginable to me as a kid. The idea that people would ever get to a point where the use of the word in a non-slur posture would even register. Slurs were thrown around all the time. People and things were "gay" and that was bad. Dean spent time being thrown from school to school and it would have been a massively important for him to come in performing cool masculine untouchable guy who enjoys women.

Dean lives in a transient space - He's constantly alone and in charge in places where someone might take advantage of him or Sammy. Being noticed and assumed weak is dangerous.

Counterpoint: Dean's upbringing may support more comfort rather than less with queerness, but it encouraged secrecy

To fully contradict myself, Dean was in transient spaces. That means he would have been interacting with more queer people than the average suburban or rural teen. He's in truck stops and no-tell motels. That boy met queer people. But he met people who were living in the shadows. This isn't unusual for that era. Queerness to dean was cruising and truck stops and one night stands in seedy motels. Something to be done but not to be seen.

Dean's reaction to queer people in canon supports this reading. He's never disgusted, but he's often surprised specifically about open and public displays of queerness. He tends to react to openly queer people with surprise and longing, but specifically most of his oh right there are queer people faces are reactions to open displays of queerness.

Even HIV/AIDS may have hit different in the hunting community. Dean didn't expect to live to an old age. I say this mainly because the lack of blood squick.

Consider a reading that he knows

We have so many lovely coded moments of queer Dean. The bathroom he disappears into. The way he gets clocked and doesn't deny it at times. Any denials he makes can be read to be situations where he doesn't know what the other person will react like.

I think it's very possible he isn't repressed at all! He just uses the closet as a shield or he doesn't share that information with people unless he wants to/trusts them/feels it's relevant to them.

PS DM me if you want to chat more and also I may have a discord of interest.

[anthurak]

Taiyang Xiao Long: The Latest in a Long Line of Fuckups

So there’s been quite a bit of discussion by this point from a number of people, myself included, about the idea that Taiyang Xiao Long isn’t actually the ‘Good Dad’ that much of the RWBY fandom has long seen him as. That he is in fact just as much of a dysfunctional fuck-up parent as Qrow, Summer, and yes, even Raven. There are a few different factors to this that others have gone into more detail on, but for me it really comes down to one core point in particular:

If you have checked out of parenting to the point where the two girls under your care can both state overtly and matter-of-factly that the older of the two raised the younger, then it frankly doesn’t matter WHAT your reasons were for checking out or how hard you may have been grieving. You have unequivocally, massively, FUCKED UP as a parent. The fact that the show has made it clear that Ruby considers Yang, her SISTER, to be her primary parent-figure does not speak well to ANY of Team STRQ’s parenting, Tai included.

However, with that said, I thought it would be worth talking about what all this discussion could actually mean in practice, ie; how might all this end up being actually explored in the story of RWBY itself?

After all, it’s not like Tai’s failings as a father have really been directly focused on or confronted or even overtly spelled out in the show thus far. The most direct we’ve gotten was during Yang’s talk with Weiss in the episode Alone Together, and even that wasn’t so much directed at Tai himself so much as describing how Yang was forced to take up so much slack in the family after Summer’s apparent death. Right now, discussion of Tai’s failings as a father is still very much ‘reading between the lines’.

And I believe that is all deliberate on the part of the writers. Thus far, the references to Tai’s failings as a parent haven’t meant to be overt and obvious to the audience. But rather they are meant to be hints and foreshadowing hiding in the margins and not immediately obvious to the viewer.

At least until it’s time to MAKE them obvious.

You see, I believe that Taiyang as a character is going to turn out to be all too similar to the likes of Qrow, Ozpin and Ironwood.

Men who are introduced appearing to represent noble and good-natured archetypes, but who wind up being revealed to have DEEP and extensive personal failings and flaws that wind up hurting themselves and all those around them. The warning signs of which turn out to have been floating around the margins, between the lines and just outside the audience’s field of view since practically their first appearances.

Consider for a moment just how characters like Ozpin, Qrow, Ironwood and Tai were/have been overtly presented in their early appearances. In other words, how the story at first wants us to view them:

The Wise Teacher

The Quirky Mentor

The Heroic Soldier

The Good Dad

And now let’s remember just how the first three wound up failing our heroines. And all of the hints we got that FORESHADOWED that failing:

All of the ‘Shady Oz’ behavior that people were noticing as early as Volume 2, and which only compiled and built over the subsequent volumes until being finally dragged into the light at the start of Volume 6.

Qrow’s rampant alcoholism, which he was outright introduced with in Volume 3 and later noted by Glynda to ALWAYS to be drunk. And shown later in Volume 5 when Ruby doesn’t bat an eye at Qrow showing up at their house near-passed out drunk.

And of course, ALL of the red flags that Ironwood was on the fast-track to fascism right from his first appearance when he showed up for the preparations of a festival celebrating peace and unity with a fleet of giant warships.

Now we have Tai, a character who turns out to have all kinds of indicators pointing to him actually being a complete dysfunctional fuck-up as a father once you start looking closely. From Yang’s multiple recountings of how Tai shut down and left HER to care for Ruby, to his shall we say QUESTIONABLE mentoring advice to Yang, to Ruby outright stating that it was YANG who raised her…

Really if you just start taking a closer look at Tai’s actions and behavior across the show, you can start finding plenty of hints and red-flags to his dysfunctional parenting hiding under a thin veneer of ‘expected’ character-archetype behavior, just like what happened with Ozpin, Qrow and Ironwood.

For example, just look at Tai’s ‘mentoring’ of Yang in Volume 4. At first glance, this scene is framed like a typical ‘hero gets tough-love advice and help from their wise and experienced parent’ situation, which is the takeaway most of us probably got on first viewing. Yet the moment you take a closer look and start unpacking what Tai is actually saying in this scene, it becomes clear, particularly in hindsight, that Tai is FULL OF SHIT. To the point of seemingly not even understanding how Yang’s semblance even works.

Or how about his claim that Raven ‘did a number of this family’, which if you actually take a minute to analyze, ESPECIALLY now in hindsight, makes no goddamn sense. How exactly can Raven have ‘done a number’ on the family when she’s been GONE from said family for the past 18 years? Particularly now that it seems like if any member is guilty of ‘doing a number’ on the STRQ, it’s actually SUMMER for going off on her super-secret suicide/martyr mission. We can’t even say that Tai can blame Raven for what happened to Summer because as Ruby’s Tree Vision made clear, Tai doesn’t even know Raven was involved. What this statement REALLY feels like is a shitload of projection and Tai blaming Raven for all of HIS fuckups as a parent.

HOWEVER, because none of this is directly framed by the show as being explicitly ‘bad’ and doesn’t present Tai with traditional/obvious ‘bad dad’ traits (see Jacques, and more on him in just a bit…) and generally couches his behavior with a veneer of ‘feeling baseline care and affection’, it’s easy to overlook on a first viewing.

Really, it feels all too much like how Volume 4 also presented Ironwood on the surface as the noble, heroic ‘only sane man’ among the authority in Atlas, all while slipping in NUMEROUS red-flags of him being on the fast track to fascism.

Speaking of Jimmy the Child Shooter, it’s been noted by a few people at this point that in hindsight, it’s pretty clear that Jacques Schnee effectively served as a red-herring villain to distract the audience from the growing red-flags surrounding Ironwood, both in Volume 4 and again in Volume 7.

Well, what if Jacques was also being used to distract the audience from TAI’s own parenting red flags in Volume 4? After all, it’s easy to be more forgiving of Tai’s sketchy parenting choices when the show keeps cutting back to Jacques’ brand of ‘parenting’.

Really, I think in hindsight Volume 4 is giving us three different looks at fatherhood: We’ve got the caring, nurturing father in Ghira, the abusive villainous father in Jacques, and the dysfunctional fuckup in Tai. A real ‘the Good, the Bad and the Ugly’ situation.

And finally, the simple fact that Yang raised Ruby. The biggest indicator of Tai’s, as well as the rest of Team STRQ’s, MASSIVE fuckups as parents which goes all the way back to Volume 1 when Gold framed Yang as a motherly figure to Ruby, outright comparing her to Summer.

It all points to Tai being set up for the same kind of big, subversive narrative rug-pull as Ozpin, Qrow and Ironwood. Men who are introduced as these strong, capable, ‘good-guy’ archetypes, only for it to be later revealed to both the heroines and the audience that these adults that they trusted are actually massive fuck-ups who have been making a mess of everything.

The only difference with Tai is that the story simply hasn’t decided to shine the light of narrative focus ON all of his numerous problems and fuckups and force our heroines to confront them like it already has with Ozpin and Qrow in Volume 6, and Ironwood in Volumes 7 and 8.

At least, not YET.

And wouldn’t you know it, the last RWBY Beyond episode set up what could be the PERFECT opportunity for that with Yang’s line about Tai being on ‘special assignment’.

Sure, people have been saying stuff like ‘Oh he’s gotta be doing something super important like guarding the Relic of Choice’, but this is RWBY we’re talking about. The show that ALREADY made a big point about how the ‘Daddy had a good reason for abandoning you’ trope is utter bullshit.

So frankly, I’d say there is NO WAY IN HELL that Tai has an actual ‘good reason’ for not having come to Vacuo to see his daughters.

And that this is instead the setup for Ruby and Yang to finally have to DEAL with all of their parents’ dysfunctional bullshit.

[captainhunnicutt]

I just finished "Dreams," and I always toy with an interpretation of the episode as a whole - and can never quite land on what I'm specifically zeroing in on. I think I finally am ready to share it.

There are seven very distinct dreams for seven very distinct characters. The number seven is often considered lucky, and I don't think it's a coincidence that there are seven main characters at the time of "Dreams." It could be a very subtle way of nodding to the idea that yeah, we know these seven are lucky in a lot of ways, but now we're about to show you how they aren't.

If you take the seven characters and their dreams, they can be divided into two different categories:

1.) The viewer sees the character wakes up from their dream.

2.) The viewer does not see the character wakes up from their dream.

In category 1: Potter, Charles, Mulcahy, Klinger and Hawkeye.

In category 2: Margaret and BJ

I think this split among the characters could potentially be really telling. Knowing how the show ends, and what the characters experience and go through (all the way up through GFA), it's possible group 1 are actually the ones that have started to come to terms with what the war (or in Potter's case - multiple wars) has done to them. They are the ones who recognize that they are forever changed. They don't need to wake up. They know what's happening and what has happened and it will be up to them on what to do about it once home.

Which means that group 2 are the ones that leave in some level of denial. They are the ones that can recognize that something has shifted within them (positive or negative), they haven't quite come to terms with what that actually means for them in the long run. I talk extensively about this in regards to BJ, and I am not at all an expert on Margaret - but it doesn't feel that far-fetched to wonder if it isn't until she is actually immersed in her life post-war that she finally allows herself to really feel and grieve and accept that while she was a g'damn rock, she didn't escape as unscathed as she might have been hoping she had. I think with Margaret it would take some actual time and distance away from the war and all that it encompasses to allow her to really truly be 100% Margaret - and only then would she potentially "wake up." Does that make sense? Eh.

Anyway, the point is - is that I think it was a very deliberate choice to not show every character waking up from their dream.

[dubiousculturalartifact]

Obviously I’ve been queerbaited before, like, a genuinely incalculable number of times, and maybe thinking Buddie might actually go canon is a ‘fool me sixteen times, shame on me’ scenario, but I think one big thing that’s keeping my hope alive is this thought: If you genuinely believe that Buddie isn’t going to go canon, 100% zero possibility and absolutely no intention of trying... Then you also have to believe the people who create the show we’re all fans of are purposefully cruel dicks. 

Because we have SEEN what it looks like when the showrunner of 911 knows there is no possibility of it happening, has no plans of it, and is generally trying to avoid accusations of queerbaiting.

It looks like S5 & S6. Little bits here and there, the odd important scene to throw breadcrumbs… but a lot of keeping the two characters apart, being circumspect in interviews, PR shut downs on the actors, etc. The show has proven they are capable and willing to exactly that!

So indulge me, and imagine for a second. They had the conversation with the new network, and the execs told them they wanted to continue with the status quo, to write as if Buddie is never going to go canon, BUT were willing to bend so far as to make one of them queer, to keep the fans happy.

What would that look like?

I don't know, call me foolish.... But I think it would look like keeping the same dynamic from The Drought Seasons. Having them be friends and important to each other but still fairly disconnected, not having as much screen-time, etc, It would look like having Buck’s coming out arc be a SEPARATE, individual narrative. If they just wanted to write Tommy and Buck, and that's it, they could have done things differently.

There are just so many conceivable ways they could have written Buck’s coming out arc, to almost completely separate it from Eddie and have it be made clear, in no uncertain terms, that Buck is bi but that doesn’t mean he cares about Eddie like that, that Eddie is a hetero McHetero.

Buck’s coming out arc could have included him being jealous because he’s suddenly faced with Tommy in the flesh and is insecure about how he was technically ‘Tommy’s replacement’ at the 911, with Eddie not relevant to it at all, or have Maddie and Chimney be the ones to interrupt The Date, or literally any other scenario that didn’t make it all about Eddie. 

They could have had one short scene where Eddie and Buck talk about it, and then the rest would be like, Buck talking to Hen about being queer, Buck interacting just with Tommy and getting to know him, Buck doing a research binge about bisexuality and info-dumping at an inappropriate time during a call, etc etc etc.

That’s how you tell that story and only be writing it for the proverbial ‘general audience’.

But they didn't. They purposefully reversed direction. They chose for Buck’s coming out arc to... highlight his nigh-feral jealousy over Eddie forming a homosocial bond with another guy, having said guy repeat with genuine surprise and shock that it was him and not Eddie that Buck was interested in, have Eddie interrupt their date, have Buck be more worried about lying to Eddie than the fact that he’s queer at all, have Maddie say what she did to Buck about telling Eddie in specifically ambiguous terms…

In a season that also included the Fire Extinguisher Incident, and Buck saying he ‘wishes he could help’ with Eddie’s sexual frustration, and a big increase in social media engagement, and having Buck being Eddie’s rock in the last few episodes while he had a bizarrely platonic affair with his dead wife's doppleganger…

If they did that while KNOWING the plan was actually for Buck/Tommy endgame and Eddie riding off in the sunset with a hot female firefighter who has a cool motorcycle or whatever the fuck, or them both dying in a freak car-washing accident, or….

If they GENUINELY planned that? If the entire Buck jealousy plotline was intended to be nothing more than a deliberate queerbait-and-switch? Then they’re fucking assholes, sorry. They would have to know full well exactly what they were doing, how many people’s hopes and emotional investment they were toying with... If they were actually planning to keep dragging it along for seasons more of baiting and dangling things in front of us, while knowing categorically that they had no plans to deliver? That would be genuinely GOD TIER levels of specific, intentional queerbaiting.

Which could be the case! I won't deny that. Shows have done it before, plenty of times. Tim et al could be callous bastards deliberately instructing the actors to wink it up in interviews and share suggestive Tiktoks, and writing Buck’s coming out arc as being entirely focused around Eddie and throwing out hints... All while laughing behind Buddie fans' backs about our gullibility, how we’re keeping the show trending on the force of our delusions, etc. Maybe that's it! Maybe they just genuinely enjoying fucking with people. Or maybe they were just shitty enough writers that they didn't know what they were doing, and it was all a total accident, somehow, the proverbial monkeys pounding at keyboards and accidentally spelling out B U D D I...

But you know what? Call it naive, but I prefer to think they’re not huge assholes, or hugely incompetent.

That there might actually be a point to all this, somewhere down the line.

I guess we'll find out.

[aihoshiino]

Rie Takahashi Interview (Oshi no Ko Anime Guidebook: First Report)

In the recently released First Report guidebook, a number of key staff members from the Oshi no Ko anime project were interviewed about their work on the show - so you can imagine my excitement when I saw that not only was Takahashi one of those interviewed, but that she had a lot to say about her performance as Ai and how she interpreted her character. I just had to translate it!

I will say up front that I have no intention of translating the other interviews in the book - this one took me long enough as it was and I fully admit it was pure blorbo bias that kept me going the whole time lol. Given that an English release of Glare x Sparkle is already in the works at YenPress, I imagine an English version of First Report might not be far behind so be sure to support it when it comes out. I'm just impatient lol.

As usual, this TL is a combo of my own comprehension, various online dictionaries such as Jisho.org, some MTL and me collapsing, weeping into smarter people's DMs to beg for their help. If you catch any mistakes, please let me know!

Anyway, enough rambling. Check out the interview behind the cut!

Please tell us about your favourite scene and line from episode 1.

Since Ai only appears in the first episode, I really wanted to make every moment count, so each and every one of her lines are special in their own way. It's hard to choose just one, but as a fan of the original work, the line "lies are an exceptional form of love" was one I was especially particular about. Since it's the line that truly encapsulates everything about Ai, I wanted to make sure that one stuck in people's minds.

You've said in the past you were an 'Oshi no Ko' fan even before being involved in the project.

While I was reading the original work, I actually admired Akane-chan the most. Obviously, I loved Ai as well, but being a voice actress myself, I was particularly interested in how a genius actress like Akane-chan prepared for her roles and what performances she'd go on to give. The chapters where she rises above all the online harassment especially left a huge impression on me. Anyone who's worked as a creative or even just in the public eye probably knows what a pulse-pounding experience it can be when you see slanderous comments about yourself - feeling like all of society has turned its back on you and you have nowhere to belong, and not being able to talk to your parents about it. It was depicted with such care and detail that I ached with her as I read it. But then, seeing her rise back up and declare "I don't want to quit like this" gave me a lot of strength. I wanted to become an actress like Akane-chan, who could come back to acting no matter what struggles I went through.

Since I loved Akane-chan so much, when I heard there were auditions for 'Oshi no Ko', I thought "I want to play her!". I even had the thought of 'Since the original work touches so deeply on what it means to be an actor, if they don't get a good actor for this, I might end up hating Oshi no Ko!' (laughs)

As a result, when I was cast as Ai, I knew I had to step up my game. I told myself, "If I'm going to play Ai, I need to give it my everything. Anything less won't do." I gave it my all with that in mind.

Did you audition for the role of Ai?

Yes, I did. But I couldn't get Akane-chan out of my mind, so I gave her a shot at the table audition. When I was preparing, I went over the manga at home and tried voicing each character and scene and there's a part in episode seven where Akane-chan mimicks Ai as she says "I sure am sleepy. We record way too early". When I tried that scene, I went "Hold on, maybe I really am the best fit for Ai?"

I guess my hunch was right because I didn't even make it through the first screening for Akane (laughs). Because of that experience, I'm deeply grateful to (Iwami) Manaka-chan for playing my beloved Akane-chan. I love both her work and her approach as an actress, so I'm thrilled to be working alongside her. I started off as a troublesome hardcore fan thinking "If they don't cast good actors for 'Oshi no Ko,' I might end up hating it!" but now I'm just like "thank you, voice actors!!" (laughs)

Were there any scenes you thought would be particularly difficult to perform based on the script or the original work?

So, I prepared for the role by going over volume 1 of the manga, the scenes where Akane-chan channels Ai and the short story, but there wasn't much more material at the time (laughs). So just preparing for the role was tough.  During recording, I sometimes checked in with (Akasaka) Aka-sensei about Ai. Now the story has progressed and Ai's character has become more defined, I secretly get a little nervous every time I read a new chapter. "I hope my performance in episode 1 wasn't off... I hope...!" (laughs) Obviously, Aka-sensei and the team were present during recordings, so my portrayal was probably fine but a revelation about her could still catch me out (laughs)

What sort of things did you hear from Akasaka-sensei?

There's a scene where Ai talks to her ex on a public payphone. I had to make sure there was the right amount of distance between them, and whether or not Ai still had any attachment to or fondness for him. I'm the sort of fan who enjoys analyzing the original work so I had mixed feelings about getting told the answer (laughs). But because I knew all the ins and outs of her backstory, I could contextualize her behaviour and the things she says and does.

Another scene was when Ai was scouted off the street and talked about her past, mentioning being abused by her mom. She wasn't saying it with the sense of "it hurts, I can't take it, I want to die" but instead she weaponizes it like "look at what I've been through, poor little me, right?". I tried to make my performance a balance of resilience with her vulnerability.

Also, I was directed to keep the monologue before Ai gets stabbed "emotionless", so I ended up giving a much more detached and matter of fact performance than I'd initially planned.

Were you mindful of the differences between Ai in her private life and Ai on stage when performing?

The tricky part of portraying Idol Ai is that if I make her too distinct, she'll stop being Ai. For example, if I play her as an innocent, optimistic idol, she'd be Ruby, not Ai. I focused less on "what to do as Ai" and more on "what not to do". In "Viewpoint B," Ai says, "The "idol" Ai is pretty much the complete opposite of who I really am, but she's the person I'd like to be." so that was the feeling I used as my reference when portraying Idol Ai. Incidentally, in my work as a performer, I purposely try to avoid drawing a line between my public and private self. So for Ai as well, the switches between the real Ai and the idol Ai feel surprisingly seamless to me. It's not that there are two distinct faces, but that Idol Ai exists inside the real Ai so it's more a question of which side of herself she shows at any given moment.

Ai’s fans in the original story only know the Idol Ai. What do you think draws them to her?

Like in the lyrics of YOASOBI's song "Idol," she's nonchalant, carefree, and easygoing. I could've portrayed Idol Ai as more cutesy, bubbly and flirtatious, but I felt that wouldn't have a convincing appeal to characters in the story like Gorou-sensei and the otaku who support her. I wanted to make sure it was believable that idol otakus in this world end up falling for her. I think it's her more laid back vibe, not the hyper energetic or "look at me!" type, that charms people.

So what would you say is the appeal to fans in the real world who know her full backstory?

Firstly, Ai-chan's overwhelming visual appeal. When you think of shocking pink and purple, you think of Ai! (Yokoyari) Mengo-sensei’s art is so powerful, and the glittering animation is also fantastic. I also find Ai's professionalism in her work really appealing. While she has the cuteness of an idol, she's not just cute—she works with an incredible level of dedication and professionalism. I admire and love her for everything, including her behind-the-scenes efforts. It's impressive, she’s really cool! 

I’ve ended up with a lot more respect for the word ‘idol’ as a result. In the past, when my voice acting involved singing, dancing, and participating in unit activities, being described as an "idol voice actress" didn't quite sit right with me. But now, I realize how honorable and responsible that title is. Idols work hard behind the scenes, constantly smiling while singing and dancing, and performing so brilliantly. If there are moments when I'm called by the same title as those incredible idols, I feel I need to make an effort to match their quality, or it would be disrespectful. It really motivates me to do my best.

There’s a line in Ai's monologue where she says "I wanted to love someone, I wanted someone to love." Why do you think Ai wanted to give love rather than receive it?

It could be that she's looking for somewhere to belong, hoping that "if I can love, I might be loved in return". Ai's history of abuse and mistreatment likely made the love she received feel very different from the love most people experience. I think it all stems from Ai thinking of herself as an abnormal person - she might have believed that to be loved, she needed to become someone who could genuinely love others. It’s a bit of a chicken and egg situation with a lot of complex feelings. That’s just how I interpret it, though.

And in the end, she realizes her love for the twins is not a lie.

I think that Ai loved the twins all along, not just in that last moment. But the word “love” was like a curse for her, so she couldn't actually say it. That feeling only intensified after I watched the anime. There's an anime original bit where Ai kisses the twins on the foreheads and says, “I'm off,” when she leaves for work. That's the kind of thing you can only do with love - she was just too scared to actually put it into words. Though she was able to express her love fully in her final moments, it’s still sad it took such an extremely situation for her to be able to say it. If it’d never happened, or if she’d simply put the door chain on, she might never have said it. She might have always struggled to say those words. But it’s thanks to the twins she learned how to love. Even the love she has for her fans, that she derided as a lie, was always true. And when she told Ryosuke-kun, “I want to love you,” I think she was already loving him even then.

In the audio commentary included on the Blu-ray & DVD bonus disc, I was struck by the mention of Ai being so nervous before she says “I love you” to Ruby and Aqua, that she takes a deep breath. What sort of direction were you given for that line?

There wasn’t any direction, actually. During the recording, my focus was entirely on expressing Ai’s breathing after being stabbed, how much blood she was losing, and the urgency of conveying her final words. It was an intense experience. It’s a rare moment as a voice actor to feel like me and the character I'm playing have our hearts beating in sync, but this was one of those times. I think I was genuinely nervous myself as well. I could feel my heart pounding and my chest clenching like when you’re about to make a confession. That feeling still hasn’t left me.

Additionally, in the last monologue of episode 11, where Aqua reflects on Ai's words after she was stabbed, we couldn't use the original recording from the first episode. The recording from the first episode captured a raw and genuine emotion, as Ai was gasping for breath. So we re-recorded it with the intention that the more it resonated warmly within Aqua, the more unforgettable those words would become for him. I wanted to make sure that Ai’s final words would leave a lasting impact, something Aqua would revisit in his mind over and over again. Personally, I approached the recording with a deep sense of love, like passing the baton and saying, “Thank you, everyone, for your hard work in the first season.” There was a lot of warmth during that session, not just towards the twins, but towards the entire cast, staff, and the "Oshi no Ko" project itself.

What were your thoughts upon reading 45510?

I got to the end and I was like “Don’t delete the blog! I want to know more!” (laughs) The entire story felt like a box that really shouldn't be opened. Everything from the meaning behind the password numbers to the fact that Ai left behind a blog wanting to reconcile made it feel like Ai really, truly wanted to love the other girls in B-Komachi even when they were jealous of her.

In the anime, we only get a brief moment of interaction between Ai and the other members - that moment during dance practice, when one of them says, "You look kinda down, Ai-chan" and Ai replies with a smile, "That’s not it. I didn’t get to eat lunch!" So I was careful that Ai’s response didn't feel sour at all. If the sigh she let out before they spoke to her had even a hint of annoyance, it would’ve been a reason the other girls took offense with her. I felt like Ai’s invincibility should’ve been the main factor for their issues with her.

It’s just a brief interaction in the anime, but ‘45510’ really fleshed out that distance between Ai and the B-Komachi members. I based my understanding of these boundaries in her relationships on ‘45510’ and ‘Viewpoint B’ and I also read ‘Oshi no Ko: Spica, the First Star’ to get a fuller picture. The more I read, the more I understood - Kana Arima’s got the right idea!

YOASOBI’s song ‘IDOL’ closes out episode one.

The music itself was impactful, but the music video that was released after the first episode aired was something else altogether. We watched the first episode together with the cast, and then, after seeing the music video, I felt overcome by Ai’s presence all over again - I was left speechless by how powerful the experience was. "Oshi no Ko" really is an immersive experience. I mean, you willingly open YouTube and relive Ai's death yourself. Even after everything was conveyed in the main story, the music video introduced new layers of emotions and concepts. Seeing how YOASOBI's song "Idol," which was about Ai, resonated with so many people really made me realize all over again just how significant Ai's impact was!

And then you yourself sang IDOL at the Strawberry Productions☆Fan Thanksgiving Festival 2023 (FanFest).

For me, "Idol" is a challenging song to sing even at karaoke. So, when they asked me to sing it at the FanFest my initial reaction was, "Oh, that might be too much!" (laughs). It’s not a song that you can easily perform live (laughs). It's a song that only an incredible artist can pull off, so when I thought about singing it live on stage, I was like, "Really? Me?" But when I saw the setlist for the live part of the FanFest, I started feeling like, "Actually, I think I should give it a shot." As a performer, I had some reservations about whether I could deliver the quality it deserved, but the "Oshi no Ko" fan in me couldn't resist. I was like, "Everyone wants to see Ai's voice actress sing 'Idol'" (laughs). After a lot of back-and-forth, I decided to go for it. I understood how Kana Arima felt when she joined the new B-Komachi. The joy of being relied upon by the team and the desire to meet the expectations of the work won out in the end.

Between “Our Sign is B”, “HEART's♡KISS” and “STAR☆T☆RAIN”, which is your favourite B-Komachi song?

That’s a tough one since they’re all A-side quality! (laughs) It was like, "Wow, B-Komachi is seriously awesome!" You can really feel the passion from the music team, like they were determined to bring the world of "Oshi no Ko" to life through these songs. It was also surprising to see how the series expanded from the manga into this whole new realm of music.

Was there anything specific you focused on while recording the project’s songs?

I tried not to change my tone just because it was a song. My focus was on making sure that when people listened, they could immediately recognize it as Ai's voice. At first, it was really hard to come up with a solid idea of what "Ai singing” sounded like. Usually, she's a pretty laid back and carefree, but she can’t exactly sing like that during a live performance. Ai’s a pro when it comes to entertaining the audience and enjoying the moment with them so I was constantly trying to find the right balance between Ai’s characteristic nonchalance and the high energy of a live idol performance. The first recording I did was for "HEART's♡KISS," and honestly, I ended up putting too much force into the opening line, "I'll send you a cheer." Since the song's theme is about sending everyone good vibes, I got too intense with my delivery. I got an ‘OK’ on that take but when I listened back to it, I felt that it wasn’t quite right, so I asked to redo just that part. If people didn’t immediately sense Ai at the very start, I worried that they wouldn't feel her presence throughout the entire song.

If you were to send a message to Ai, what would you say?

There’s so much I’d love to say to her, it’s hard to pick just one thing. Still, I think Ai was really happy in her life because she got to say "I love you" in the end. Even though her life might seem tragic to others, the feeling that stuck with me from playing her was a sense of incredible contentment. So, I’d probably just want to have a casual chat with her and watch over everyone together. Oh, but I’d definitely tell her to keep that door chain locked!