#boy a ton of stuff happened in this episode

[murdererofthumbs]

Listen, although I do find it pretty exciting to see Kendall entering his Evil Era and actually becoming a killer, I can’t stop thinking about the consequences of him leaking all the shitty mud information they have on Logan. Like yeah, PR-wise that might be a great idea, it might actually solidify his position as a CEO (and he is obviously going to try and fuck up Matsson deal and take over the Waystar - I don’t know why he would want to captain the fucking sinking Titanic, but okay). But on the other hand, all the dirt coming out about Logan will be potentially catastrophic for Roman. Apart from the fact that Kendall is very clearly betraying his brother, literally like 5 seconds after he preached about them being a team; Roman will very likely suffer the most if stuff about Logan being an abusive father comes out.

First, it will flip his whole viewpoint upside down - he is so deep in denial and so trauma-bonded to Logan that he doesn’t even acknowledge his abuse, not even when in happens in real time. He doesn’t want to see his father as a monster and as his abuser, because that would actually require him to accept that he was a victim, that he was this beaten dog that everyone already sees him as (to one degree or another). Not to mention all the lies he tells himself about Logan and him being a good dad will go straight down the drain, and can you imagine what happens when something you believed for 40-or-so years cracks down in front of you? Kendall is about to break his reality.

Another aspect is that exposing Roman’s abuse to the whole world will likely destroy any and all opportunities that Roman ever had when it comes to rising to power (even if I’m unsure how much he actually cares about becoming a CEO). He might get some sympathy points, although I very much doubt that he will ever accept that form of pity from anyone. His image will be forever tainted and solidified as “the abused one” or the “one that was hit by his dad”. Can you imagine Roman’s reaction when that whole shitshow leaks? He does say at some point in the preview that he is finished, and although it might allude to Gerri putting out the whole dick pic situation, it might also very well be that his public image will forever now revolve around how his dad hit and abused him (his dad who was essentially his god in more than one way, who he was, and is trauma bonded to, who he came back to time and time again).

Kendall has a tendency of using his siblings trauma to forward his own position (even when he wanted to one up Logan in episode 2 by bringing up Roman’s and Connor’s trauma) and this is no different. But it’s a very easy way for him to blow up whatever alliance was ever between sibs. So yeah, I think Kendall as a killer is a great thing to watch, but also… well, Roman girl in me is already screaming in the void from the possible pain we might come to watch unravel in real time.

[sanchoyo]

literally cannot tell if I’m having a manic episode or actually genuinely just hyper+happy bc it’s finally getting warm and pretty outside and perhaps that’s Doing Away With my bad 3 month long seasonal depression for the time being 🤔 I mean it’s ….nice? To have so much sudden energy the past like, week or so, but also vaguely accompanied with feelings of Dread bc 1. Why 2. How long will it last 3. Can I stop any Impulses and avoid doing anything Regrettable while I am Like This. Bc the track record historically has not been GREAT

[the-ninjago-historian]

New Dragons Rising Article!

(EDIT: I blurred out the episode title last minute. I was feeling paranoid about it. Lol. And I made some last minute grammer fixes. Enjoy!)

The episode titles and descriptions for Season 2 Part 2 just dropped today! There's TONS of new info and lore to unpack. So let's get started! *SPOILERS BELOW THE THE CUT!*

1: So first off we have The Shape of Motion. (This title is clearly parodying The Shape of Water. Lol.) It seems they will be picking up a new baby dragon! Riyu is gonna be a big brother! How cute!💖 I hope Arin finds his parents too. Poor guy.😔

2: Now we have Enter the City of Temples. The Ninja must have found out about the tournament and decided to go there. But why? We're not sure yet. I would think they would want to stay away from the tournament, considering what happened in the last one.😅 Also, Kai and Bonzle are attempting to escape. So that's cool! You guys will get to see them too!

3: Next is Gathering for The Feast. Some how I get an ominous feeling about that title for some reason. Lol. Also, looks like the Ninja's earned their invites somehow and are now in the tournament! And it looks this is the episode where we'll see the return of some old Elemental Masters!

4: Now we have Inside the Maze. This episode is VERY interesting. So much to unpack! Because it's the first mention of some new artifacts. The Horns. Specifically, The Dragon Horns. Arin and the others must have heard about them in the last episode. What are these horns exactly? Are they like instrument type horns? Or literal dragon horns? We'll have to wait and see. We also have a new character called Frak! And finally, something ALL you Jaya shippers have been waiting for...

JAYA TOURNAMENT BATTLE WITH AMNESIA JAY!!!⚡🌊⚡🌊⚡🌊⚡🌊⚡🌊⚡🌊

This is gonna break y'all hearts, I know it.🤣

5: Next is United We Fall. Oh boy! It's named after one of my favorite TSFH songs! Haha! Just kidding! Anyways, poor Wyldefyre is pitted against CINDER?!?! The guy who broke her leg?! Yikes! Looks like it didn't go well either. And the Ninja will have to win they way back into the tournament through a race!

6: Now we have Truth and Lies. Finally a Wu mention! But it doesn't look good. I have a feeling Ras is lying though. Or not. And we'll get some racing action from the rest of the ninjas!

7: Next is The Shattering Sword. Sounds like something from Lloyd's vision, huh? And we get to see the new character Roby giving Arin a museum tour and some new info on the source dragons! (It would be hilarious if Roby was working for Ras the entire time.😂) And here's how to pronounce Roby's name, if you're curious.

8: Next is Clues and Suspects! Tons of cool stuff in this episode! Roby has a way bigger role then I thought! There's a new character mentioned named Bleckt? (I wonder if that's a typo?) Also, FINALLY A ZEATRIX MENTION! And they're transferring her powers for some reason? The how and why are unclear. Also, this new character Bleckt is somehow connected to Arin's investigation. And possibly part of The Administration, since they mention he has an office. My guess is that these Dragon Horn thingies were confiscated by the Administration or something.

9: And here we have The Final Game. That doesn't sound good. Arin learns a "Devastating Secret about the Merge" Uh oh. Cole stays behind to protect the Dragon horns! What??? Oh no! Sora faces off against Nokt and Wyldefyre is too late to stop the "Manipulation of the Games!" OH NO. Yeah, this one is gonna be pretty chaotic. Yikes.

10: Finally, we have Elements of Betrayal. THAT'S AN EVEN WORSE TITLE! It's making me more nervous than the last one!

There's a new location called The Monastery of Gates. That I guess these Dragon Horns are at? Arin, Zane, and Cole seems like a fun combination. Should be a cool fight! And it looks like the elemental masters have lost their powers once again are going to be fighting Ras and his wolf warrior army. NoBoDy SaW tHaT cOmInG. Pfft.

Aaaaaaand, that's it for now. Wow! So much stuff! Sounds like it will be a very exciting collection of episodes! Hope you had fun reading this!

Bye for now!

[picnokinesis]

flux adjacent fic recs

in media res by wreckageofstars (3k, 1 chapter, gen) summary: “Well,” she said. “Now you know what the mattress is for.” Dan shifted. “And the trampoline?” “Best not ask about the trampoline.” //I think this is probably the first Dan pov fic I ever read, and it’s absolutely brilliant. This author gets the character voices down so perfectly it’s unreal, and the whole thing is just so wonderful to see from Dan’s outsider perspective. It’s set in the immediate aftermath of Once, Upon Time, and it does a fantastic job of exploring the impact of what happened in that episode – both from a whump perspective and an emotional one. Angsty, but also funny in the worst kind of way – someone please go give Yaz a break, she REALLY needs one. Anyway, it’s great, everyone go read it right now.

Hearts of Stone by weirdpug (previously xhonia) (1k, 1 chapter, thoschei) summary: The Doctor loses herself. The Master finds her. //Ohhh this one this one, it’s SO awesome – it’s one of those fics that does really cool things with the formatting? Which works great here, because it’s a weeping angel!13 fic and wow, wow! Extremely awesome indeed, and just beautifully written – the prose is just so full of character, even when the Doctor is losing herself and it’s so well done.

Divination by WalkerLister (6k, 1 chapter, gen) summary: “There was a name for someone similar to me once. They called them the Valeyard. You can call me that, if you like. I quite like it, it’s suitably eerie. Little bit of drama never hurt anyone.” //Right, so we all remember what happened when War of the Sontarans aired…we got that ‘next time’ trailer of Once Upon Time…and all collectively lost our minds over the inverted dark coat. Since then, I feel like everyone has been finding really creative ways to get it into fanfics, and this is a wonderful example. And, well, if the promise of dark coat!13 wasn’t enough, this fic is just an absolutely fascinating look at the concept of the Valeyard in the context of the fobwatch from Flux, but focused on Yaz and her relationship with/perception of the Doctor. It’s such a good concept and so so wonderfully done! (also, if you’re a fan of thasmin, this author has a ton of stuff, so definitely go check it all out! For the less thasmin-inclined folks, I highly recommend Ipesity, which is one of my favourite post-TTC fics)

three points where two lines meet by Ymae (4k, 1 chapter, gen) summary: The Doctor tries to get those memories back, and breaks herself, bit by bit. //Oh man. This fic. I still remember when this one first posted and hoooooo boy, it is a hell of a gut-punch and absolutely wrenched my heart right out of my chest but HHHHHHHHH wow!! WOW. Genuinely, I think this fic rewrote my brain a little bit. It's set in the immediate aftermath of Once, Upon Time where the Doctor makes some very unwise decisions about trying to tug at her timeline and it's absolutely incredible. Very angsty, very whumpy, and full of a HUGE amount of the Doctor messing with timelines and very visceral, tangible descriptions of her timesense. It is such a treat, guys. And if you like this one and want something with similar vibes, I also highly recommend this post-flux fic by the same author!

Sheer Poetry! by Papapaldi (57k, 5 chapters, gen) summary: Trapped within her own mind, the Doctor travels through an impossible house, with everyone she has ever been locked inside. Her body is an unresponsive, useless bag of flesh somewhere far and away in reality. The part of her brain that she knows, where her past resides, sits somewhere else entirely within the old machine. The Ravagers eat, buried memories beckon, and the Doctor's faith is shaken to its core. She will never be the same – but that's what she's all about, right? Incredible change. //oh my days. THIS FIC, guys - look, I see the word count, I know, I know. This fic is a serious undertaking, but like so many things in life it is soooooo so worth it. Bucket loads of absolutely ASTOUNDING imagery, more references to Lungbarrow and Timewyrm Revelation than you can shake a stick at, BUT you don't need to have read those stories at all to enjoy this absolutely fantastic saga (put it like this - I've not read those books, and I had a whale of a time). Incredibly poetic, a little nonsensical in the best kind of way (it IS a mindscape fic) but startlingly funny and so beautifully in character. I laughed, I cried. This fic is just a love letter to everything Doctor Who, weaving all of canon into this beautiful, cohesive tapestry. I highly recommend. (and, if you're hungry for more and want tpotd content, there's an excellent sequel as well)

every step i choose to take (begins to set the world aflame) by SleepyMaddy (12k, 1 chapter, thoschei) summary: In a spaceport lost in a remote quadrant of interstellar space, a Doctor who doesn’t know herself anymore runs into a Master who doesn’t know himself yet // Ok so the sheer concept of this one ALONE is absolutely brilliant – the Doctor, escaping from the Division and half out of her head, bumps into the Master, who’s not long regenerated from Missy. And, guys. It’s fascinating. Seeing the Master right at the start, before he finds out everything that comes to define him in this era, and then having him meet a version of the Doctor who is quite a lot further along than him and just completely out of it? It’s like catnip to me, guys. And, of course, it’s all helped by the fact that the writing is absolutely brilliant – the characters are just absolutely spot on, which is quite an incredible feat seeing as they are both in very different places to where we see them in the show, yet they still manage to ring true throughout the whole thing. And also the mindscape imagery? The psychic whump? The emotional gut-punch that is the entire fic? Absolutely unparalleled. (also, if you’re a spydoc fan? Just help yourself out and read this author’s entire set of works, because it’s all fantastic)

see me bare my teeth for you by picnokinesis (16k, 1 chapter, gen) summary: “Do you know your mission?” //This is a bit of a cheeky self-rec, but, in my defence, if you're looking for flux fics, then I think you'll enjoy this one. I wrote it in the week after Village of the Angels aired, and it's basically all my thoughts and theories about what was going to happen in Survivors of the Flux thrown into a 16k oneshot. I was...mostly wrong HAHA but I’m still really proud of it. If you like division!doctor, then this one is for you

we're only dreaming (tell me who i am) by SpaceBetweenGalaxies (2k, 1 chapter, gen) summary: more the-memory-house-is-Lungbarrow clowning //ok, so if you were like me when flux was airing and absolutely lost your MIND over the illogical house which was a bit too on the nose regarding Lungbarrow related things, then THIS FIC IS FOR YOU. Absolutely brilliantly done, with some gorgeous imagery that I'm still thinking about to this day, and just a wonderfully unsettling exploration of the Doctor and how she picks at those cut off memories in the aftermath of the Flux

the stars are bound to change by emptypockets (9k, 1 chapter, gen) summary: Being trisected across the universe has unexpected consequences for the Doctor, and Yaz is tasked with the responsibility of keeping her awake. //ohhhhhh this fic is so wonderful!! It's that weird sweet spot of 'soft angst', where it hits where it hurts but at the same time the whole thing feels like it's wrapping you in a warm blanket. Augh!! Such a lovely portrayal of the Doctor and Yaz's dynamic - I adore how this author writes these two so much. An absolutely lovely (but angsty!) character exploration, with a healthy dose of whump and sleepiness on the side. What more could you want?

Everything by rowanthestrange (24k, 13 chapters, thasmin) summary: In which Yaz wants to know everything, and the Doctor finally wants that too. //Ok, so full disclosure, I don't read that much thasmin, but this fic, guys. It's just gorgeous. A beautifully written exploration of Yaz and her relationship with the Doctor in the aftermath of Flux, which explores the years Yaz spent in the past and how that changed her; the Doctor grappling with her identity issues and how that's changed her; as well as all sorts of other wonderful things besides. Another fic that had tears streaming down my face (the TARDIS chapter got me...). It's such a poignant, emotional fic, and it's very focused on character in a way that I really adore. If you like thasmin, this is an absolute must-read. If you're not a fan of thasmin, I recommend it anyway (- signed: a thoschei shipper) because it's just such a brilliant portrayal of these two.

[ultfreakme]

Thoughts on Jessie Gender's video on NATLA

I really admire Jessie Gender's videos usually, she's the one whom I usually go to to see videos on gender and queerness in media. I like her stuff a lot and respect their work.

But the NATLA video left me going "no, wait, that's not what happened" a lot. I can't summarize the video, I suggest people go watch it if they want to know but I disagree with practically everything for the most part.

I'm not anybody on the internet. But what I do have is a lifetime of growing up on ATLA, a degree in Sociology and English Literature, coming from a culture that ATLA is based on, studying about colonial rule, researching the cultures ATLA is based on in my spare time and a love for the original. Does that establish some legitimacy? If for some reason you feel like you need to go hate on Jessie for this, DON'T. DO NOT. This is me just critiquing because I think the video content was biased and I want to honestly engage with the points made because everyone has a tendency to demonize the adaption without looking at it on its own merit. With that said:

Point 1: Sokka's sexism is taken out to make the show more palatable and his arc in the Kyoshi Island episode undermines Suki to prop up Sokka.

She says that Sokka's sexism and him addressing it is a show-long arc, and him deconstructing that is him fighting against the colonial sexism of the Fire Nation.

Sokka's sexism is explicitly dealt with in one episode. He's shown to be overtly sexist in the first 4 and never again except for little comments here and there that every other character makes as well and goes unaddressed. His sexism is not because of the Fire Nation- FN is very inclusive of women as warriors. Sokka's sexism is an anomaly because no one but him cares that Katara isn't just sitting home mending clothes(Bato, Hakoda, none of the men on the ship they are on in S3 say a word and she takes off to join Aang in the Fire Nation islands).

If Sokka's sexism is not systematic to the Southern Water Tribe or caused by the Fire Nation, what kind of commentary on sexism is this?

She also says Suki is played down and demured to give Sokka confidence when she's teaching him, taking away her arc as she pines for the new boy who she likes because he's shirtless. Sokka's throughout the episode shows insecurity and a more subtle form of sexism where he's trying ton prove he's as good as her. He's trying to show off his strength to her, and failing miserably and when he realizes she bested him, he walks away. He goes into it assuming he's better than her but walks away realizing shit she is GOOD. Then he goes to her dojo to observe the practice and follows along, Suki invites him in seeing him fucking up the forms outside and teaches him.

Suki falls for a tackle Sokka does in the og and live action. In the OG, it's shown as Sokka ACTUALLY being better. In the live action? He isn't. One lesson doesn't make him better, she transitions from actually teaching him to kinda flirting until she completely stops. She's not weakening herself for him, both of them are expressing romantic interest. How did Sokka, a boy who that morning was defeated by them, get better than SUKI in a spar she put genuine effort in? I think that's frankly more sexist than the live action take.

Additionally, Suki was meant to be a one-off character meant to teach Sokka that sexism is bad. She existed entirely to serve Sokka's character arc and had no independent motivation in season 1. In the live action, we see her talk about wanting to go into the world, and see her growing motivation through Aang's presence of wanting to not just protect Kyoshi Island, but the world. She became what she is only in season 2 and 3. Sokka's sexism arc didn't even pan out well because he never addressed the issue with Katara after that episode, the first and most affected victim of his sexism.

Sokka wearing the armor in the original, is a joke. Aang calls their uniform a dress while laughing (it's not, like it's not even constructed like one, the bottoms are loose pants called Hakama). He isn't put into the uniform to show solidarity, it's a joke, and we are meant to be laughing at Sokka for the most part. Queer fans have reclaimed and redefined that scene to be like drag, but that wasn't the original intention of the show because we get jokes on Aang's masculinity which never actively get refuted from Toph in season 2. Katara of all people points out Sokka wearing a poinytail in a demeaning manner multiple times, a supposedly girly hairstyle. If the original wanted to honor Sokka embracing gender fluidity, they wouldn't consistently mock him for being choosy about buying a bag and wearing a ponytail(which in-universe has cultural importance to him).

All signs of 'femininity' in Sokka are played for laughs in the rest of the show(down to the scene where he draws a rainbow, and his master Piandao simply rolls his eyes).

Sokka is also never once shown as a better warrior in the live action- his story is the opposite. Sokka yearns here to be an engineer, a scientist tinkering away with new inventions. His father Hakoda and the SWT discourages this because there is no value in that for them. Value is shown for them to come from physical strength, which Sokka NEVER has in live action season 1(him having biceps and being shirtless is not a glorification of strength). He's good, but he's nothing special. His true highlight is in his intellect and the show implies pretty well that Sokka doesn't need to be physically strong or a warrior to fight back against oppression.

That's his defining line in the show teasers "you do not need to be a warrior, to be a hero."

Point 2: The sexism arc isn't replaced by anything more nuanced.

It is! It's replaced by the biases against bending. Sokka discourages Katara from bending because the Fire Nation attacked the SWT to eliminate waterbenders. Both Katara and Sokka hold fear for waterbending, a part of their own culture, specifically because of the Fire Nation's hegemony and hierarchical beliefs. Waterbending = preservation of culture and Katara says these exact words in episode 1. Sokka stopping her is him being under the colonial hegemony of the FN because waterbending is what brought Fire Nation soldiers to their shores to kill their mom. That's the new arc and it has follow through to the end. Instead of Sokka telling Katara to kick ass because he isn't sexist anymore, the live action Sokka says it because he's embraced waterbending and his own culture now through seeing Katara grow and letting her choose for herself what's best for her (instead of smothering in his faux warrior persona, which they literally discuss when stuck in the cave). This arc is exclusive to the show, there's no comment on the cultural significance and erasure of waterbending in the original.

It's made more explicit in Katara's arc, where she needs to get past the fear the Fire Nation has put in her of the dangers of her own bending, and embrace that her people wanted to protect it (Kya sacrificing herself, Gran-Gran hiding the waterbending scroll).

Point 3: Showing the genocide of the Air Nomads is disrespectful

In the original, the Air Nomads are nothing but a memory. At all times. We never see the influence of the Air Nomad culture on Aang, or see them alive and thriving at any point. We see them fight back on the live action, and the actual genocide is a few short minutes, interspersed with Aang sinking. It's not a lingering process and it shows the abilities of Air Nomads. Jessie says this is purely aesthetic and to be cool, but there are significant moments that happen here.

Establishing the powers of Air Benders- this is the first and last time we'll get to see Air Bending on this scale and this shows what they can do

There's a scene where two air nomads nod to one another, and the air nomad switches from defensive to an extremely offensive move. It shows that this isn't typical for the Air Nomads, and that they are being pushed to their limits

This is a festival, they were defending themselves and it's important to show that the Air Nomads didn't just go silently without a fight and were ambushed on an important day.

To show the Fire Nation's cruelty and the extent of their power during the comet specifically.

To give weight to WHY everyone Aang runs into is so critical and hateful of the fact that he was gone, and to also show why Aang never refutes them and the weight of what he's lost (and also that even if he were there, he couldn't have done anything)

It's not just to be cool, it's honestly not cool to watch and taking Gordon Cormier, a child's quote to say that's what everyone's impression is, is disingenuous despite the disclaimer given. The kids' quotes always get taken out of context. Reviewers and Avatar fans who went to the premiere were disturbed overall by the violence. They did not think of the Fire Nation as "cool", they saw the Air Nomads like that. Like don't we want people to think of the Air Nomads in a positive light for fighting back?

Their culture gets little to no expansion in the original, and whatever Aang has left of them is actually slowly stripped away in the original.

Aang is made to okay the destruction and modification of the Northern Air Temple when destruction is shown as wrong during his rage and grief in the Southern Air Temple. The new settlers have used the gliders of Air Nomads to device weapons that fly, which were then sold to the Fire Nation. The Mechanist and his people continue this and create more weapons to fight the war in the temples(albeit this time agaisnt the fire nation but the cycle of violence continues using devices and cultures of a peaceful people). A once-peaceful place, is now a center for war innovation and Aang is told to accept this because he must let go of the past to look to the future.

The above, in comparison to Aang simply saying "I should let go of the past and look to the future" is FAR more disrespectful of Aang's culture and past. The live action keeps Gyatso's memory a constant companion to Aang, he is terrified of letting go of the past and it hinders him from simply living.

Point 4: Violence is shown as good and the cycle of violence is perpetuated.

She says Kyoshi demanding Aang to fight back and hit hard is showing that Aang needs to embrace strength and power. That everyone telling him to fight and be alone means strength is given importance, and that the same is shown when Zuko says "sometimes the weak can become strong, sometime you just have to give them a chance."

Kyoshi is wrong. She is willfully portrayed as powerful, but harsh. Roku(though his screentime was small) disagrees with her and tells Aang to find his own way of fighting and that is ultimately what Aang follows.

Kyoshi doesn't come off as correct, she's demanding and harsh, unforgiving. Aang initially lets her take over because he is scared of the power he holds and she promises she can control it to help others. Aang doesn't want power(he literally says 'I don't want these powers'). In the finale, he gives in to the ocean spirit and does what Kyoshi asks; save everyone, even if it costs his own life. But it is shown as a tragedy. Katara calls back for him and tells him he shouldn't have to sacrifice himself, that he has a place in this world as he is no matter what others tell him and he listens to THAT. He says he will save the world not alone, but with his friends, in the memory of the Air Nomads to ensure it never happens again.

Physical strength is only a priority to Katara's character. Sokka doesn't fight in the end, he's begging Yue to not sacrifice herself and is protecting her. He's not some macho man. Aang is also not embracing power.

Zuko says that line not to show that he can grow stronger, but that people should get second chances. He's a hurt kid wishing his father had the compassion to let him grow. But he doesn't and Zuko walks away from it thinking physical strength and bending prowess is important, crushing his compassion. That line on a meta level isn't even about physical strength. It's about mental fortitude and character, and the strength to be compassionate.

Jet was mentioned as being portrayed as more wrong, but in the original he was ready to sink a village of innocents. in the live action he genuinely helped Katara with her waterbending and was justified in wanting to kill the mechanist(who collaborated with the fire nation) and King Bumi (who is neutral, incompetent and has let the Fire Nation run rampant in the city). He's more sympathetic here because he's doing it with a concrete reason, and he didn't even manipulate Katara the way he did in the original. She was genuinely charmed by him.

A big problem I had with Jessie's video was putting in clips from some right-wing channel between critique of NATLA....which....why? Huh? And these were used to say NATLA is leaning into fascist tendencies and smoothing out any critique of colonialism when it really isn't. I think NATLA is very explicitly saying the same message as the original. Not in the same way, but it is. The show actively engages audiences and the characters in discussions of cultural erasure and the problems of valuing power(the latter especially through Zuko and Azula).

There are million issues with the live action (Sokka's casting, ableism in Zuko's burn scar, the writing issues, pacing issues, the lack of screen time for Aang and focus on the Fire family). The ones Jessie Gender discussed though, are not it.

[moxie-girl]

DRDT EP 13/14 ANALYSIS/THEORIES

I said I'd do this once I collected my thoughts! haha Warning! This is super long…

To start, I'm going to pick apart all the stuff I predicted for ep. 13 (I'll try not to make it too long…)

Levi's Secret

Well. Levi sure did admit to. All that! I think this eliminates any last doubts I personally had about him being the killer… (your honor just because I'm a serial killer doesn't mean I killed that specific person /ref) I really like that he isn't shown as a bad person just because he lacks empathy, and he's actually actively trying to be a good person… the fact that he just admitted his secret because he thought it was the right thing to do is so funny though, there go all my theories lol! (I'm still a little worried about rule 14 though…)

Ace's (Almost) Murder

Yeah!! This is probably what we're gonna spend episode 14 talking about, with murder method and alibis, etc. I still don't think it was Nico though! (I want to say I called that it'd be relevant, but it felt a little obvious…)

The Murder Method

I think we can say this has been all figured out, with the method being exactly what several people much smarter than me all figured out.

The Possible Culprits

Rose was still acting a little odd, but I think Whit on the other hand, despite whatever all that was, is off the hook for now, so my number 1 suspect is still Hu! I'm like 90% sure she was the one who tried to kill Ace, at least, and that's become very important now!

Secrets

Well, we got all the secrets figured out! (Hu :( ) The fandom interpretation was pretty much correct, except for Teruko's (we'll get to that later…) I do hope that after this trial, some of the secrets that are not relevant/haven't really been discussed do get adressed, because I could even see them becoming motives for murder again. But also, I just want the characters to talk about them! (gimme that juicy juicy angst…)

Ace

He didn't re-open his injury or really freak out like I expected, but we got some vulnerability (and a new sprite!) from Ace, and considering next episode is probably gonna focus a ton on him, I'm still expecting at least one of the two to happen…

Teruko

Luckily for Teruko, we didn't have anything unlucky happen to her this episode! But she sure did get her time in the protag spotlight anyway, I'm glad she didn't let the mistake from last episode get her down!

☆ ☆ ☆

Also, my bingo card! I got a bingo!! (ft. my messy tiny notes if you want to read them)

A few of my other bingo predictions I'm still going to hold on to for the next (few) episodes, but now, onto some new stuff!

Final Arei Flashback

Whoooah boy was that scene a doozy. I'm starting to think David's murderous rage towards the blackened at the start of the trial was genuine, because me too, man. I'm really glad Arei got at least a little bit of closure before she died, though! She also had an interesting take on the "good person" role, something that has been very important to this trial thus far and will likely continue to be. (I'm thinking that the killer may have had a "good person"-related motivation for killing, which is why it's the chapter's overarching theme?)

Also, to adress the elephant in the room… EDEN??? Well, no wonder Xander "didn't expect her to attack [him] like that" - and from her expression I wonder if she expected it either - I'm really looking forward to learning more about what, exactly, happened before the killing game that involved them! I didn't really believe in Mastermind!Eden before this, but it's starting to look pretty plausible... (Also Xander is the king of haunting the narrative oh my god lol)

Teruko's Secret

Many of us, myself included, were hoping/guessing/assuming that when all the secrets were figured out, David would reveal that he actually had Teruko's, not Xander's. While that didn't happen, the way he reacted after she claimed "her" secret essentially confirms it, as does a lot of other evidence:

That secret being hers would complete a secret circle of Teruko -> Rose -> Whit -> David -> Teruko and a secret pair of Xander <--> Min, which makes sense considering all other secret swaps are either circles of four or in pairs.

Xander and Min would have each other's secrets logically since neither of them can receive secrets, so theirs would probably be separated from the rest.

MonoTV's line about not knowing whether they're all correct feels like a reminder/a hint that some of the secrets are incorrect, and those two feel like the most likely options.

Teruko apparently has no idea which secret is actually hers, so may have just guessed the one that sounded more like her, except we know she never knew her parents and only had one sibling (as does Charles… I wonder if he'll notice)

EDIT: I cant believe I almost forgot, but I feel like David’s attitude towards Xander (and Teruko) makes more sense with these secrets, because why would he idolize Xander if the killing game was his fault, but he would idolize him if he thought Xander was trying to end the killing game by killing Teruko, the person David now thinks/knows is at fault.

However, since David didn't claim out loud that Teruko was lying, it's likely that this piece of information will become relevant much later in the series, and he'll be keeping it to himself for now.

Veronika and Hu

When did Veronika and Hu make their pact? And how did Hu, presumably the one who wanted to make the pact, know that Veronika had her secret? Also, what on earth do you mean, Veronika, that your secret isn't the worst thing you've done???? This little section with the two of them could just be entirely innocent and a way for the dev to get the rest of the secrets on the board, and let Veronika be a little unhinged as she tends to be, but I get the feeling at least some of this is relevant. (I'm betting on either Accomplice!Veronika or Veronika's actual "worst thing" being important to a later trial…)

David

Ohhhhh, David. I feel like Veronika with how much I want to psychoalanize this guy. He is on the verge of a breakdown, and I can feel it! The question being, of course, whether Arei's death was enough to make it happen this chapter, or whether this is something that's gonna last another chapter or two before coming to a head. My money's on the second option, because I think this trial is about to be about Ace and his impending breakdown :)

I do hope after this trial we do get to see a little more of what David's actually like beyond his facades/the roles he's been playing! Also, as much as I'd like to see David survive and have to deal with the consequences of revealing his "true" personality on live television, I think it's more likely he'll go the way of DR antags trying to end the killing game via self-sacrifice.

(We also better keep a close eye on anyone who tries to befriend or help David in Ch3, because they're gonna die next! /j)

J's Morality

This is a short one, but I just wanted to comment on another analysis I saw point out that J has been one of the most vocal people anytime murder has been brought up. I think that behind her rougher personality, J is a more empathetic person, and/or has very strong morals, making her a narrative foil to Levi now, so I do hope the two of them interact in Ch3!

Whit??

Whit. Whit why do you know so much about hanging??? Being serious though, I saw someone else bring up that his mother might have died by hanging and he researched it afterwards as a coping mechanism or something? That's the saddest possible explanation, but it does make the most sense by far… I honestly don't think that Whit is the killer, because then why would he be being so helpful in figuring out the murder method, but he's still so weird and suspicious sometimes.

Nico!

Even though I still don't think it was Nico (crime scene makes more sense if seen as Nico trying to help Ace, they may have just admitted to it because it was the less confrontational option, next ep is def not the last one and I think it'll be about proving who it was other than Nico, and if you look at Nico's secret quote…) I still do hope they get the chance to get mad! Get mad at Ace! Get mad at David! Get mad at whoever the (attempted) killer was for putting the blame on them! Idk I just want them to have their moment.

☆ ☆ ☆

And finally, here are my new bingo cards for the next episode:

(I can't believe ep14 is gonna be 40 mins + there's a "non-spoiler" thumbnail rn oooooh I'm so nervous)

[gren-arlio]

So. Let me tell y'all about a guy named Camus. And a girl named Lala. And other folk. Welcome to Episode 14 of Waku Puyo Extras.

(Ah, back at it again writing these things.)

Hey guys, Gren here, and welcome to Episode 14 of Waku Puyo Extras, a series where I cover basically random stuff about Puyo and Madou as a whole. The Waku part is just because my brand is a single game I translate.

As my free time gets smaller and smaller, the drive to show off cool stuff remains about the same. Thank goodness school is over soon. I'm still alive, don't worry.

Finals and AP Exams are very much happening, so I'm spending that time studying. I'm hoping I pass.

Now, you would expect me to write about PPPP (P⁴ as I call it, Puzzle Pop in other locations) since it released and has a ton of stuff, notably well written characters. But alas:

I'm an Android user. Can't play it.

Frankly, at the moment, I'm not too interested in it right now.

So, the last episode was about Draco, that famous lass. What about this time? Well, since 80% of my work here is Madou related, why not give a showcase of some of the lesser known characters as a whole? Manga and novel stuff included.

With that, hope you enjoy. Also I said a bigger post is coming soon and drop it a literal month later. Damn.

So, Who ARE These Guys?

If you're not familiar with these characters, I honestly don't blame you. These guys are considered kinda niche in the franchise, but are more well known than some guys. I could mention Hanzo and no one besides people who played the game he's from or read the wiki would know him. Oh, or maybe Skeleton-D if we wanted to.

For now, I'll just cover the people have at the very least some stuff about them.

We'll begin with Camus, easily the most recognizable one that we'll be covering today. I swear if he was in Puyo now, he'd be so damn popular.

(From the manual of the Mega Drive release of Madou 1. Notable for being one of the very few times Camus is drawn with the teenage Arle and Lala, both 16, making Camus 18 in this.)

The man, or rather boy, in that photo is the fabled Camus of the Sable Ord- I mean Madou Monogatari 1, both on the SEGA Mega Drive and Game Gear. Since this is a game where Arle is in kindergarten, Camus is her senior. Yeah, senior is the word for this one. He's notable for being the only person to get a perfect score on his exams, that lucky bastard.

Oh yeah he's also like 8 years old for the record in that

In the game, he's both helps you and hinders you for different reasons. Sometimes he's very nice and teaches you things, and other times he's taking stuff from you for playing the game for longer than three hours.

However, at the end of the game (Where he also might help you depending on some stuff), it turns out he was an illusion all along, which is always...fun, you know? That one guy who's been helping you out turns out to not even be real, least in the Game Gear version of things.

Honestly? He's a pretty interesting guy in the game. Arle holds him with some respect, and Lala quite literally has a massive crush on the guy that she's willing to show. Unfortunately.

(Things are really serious in the Kindergarten Exam Fandom...)

He can come off as rude but at the very least he means well. And my goodness, his theme in the game is good.

Underrated gem.

Now, up until a while ago, I kinda thought that'd be the only games he was in, a grand total of 2 whole games. However, by doing this for...a year now, turns out that there IS one more appearance of Camus, presumably to be 18 in the game because...Well, Arle is a teenager there.

Arle Man'Yuki. Or Arle's Travel Log.

Now if I'll be honest, I STILL dunno all too much about the game, despite doing an entire episode on it. The game is super text-heavy, so I don't know EVERYTHING besides some of the Japanese history involved with it. (Crazy how the Heian Era is now some JJK meme. Time is a fun concept.)

Here, Camus has taken the role of the leader of the Shinsengumi, Kondo Isami. It's a long story, so... I'll just link my own work here. (I FINALLY LEARNED HOW TO PUT LINKS IN MY TEXT...)

I never covered Camus extensively in that game due to his admittedly small role in that game, but he's a fairly upstanding guy. Schezo works under him as the vice leader. Ain't that cool?

Check it out if you're curious about that, some basic Japanese history that may be a tad inaccurate, or JUMP HERO.

And err...that's every game he's from. Yeah, he's in a grand total of what, three games? It's not much but it's still something. He's a very cool lad.

-----

Wait, who's Lala?

I'm glad you asked, me. Lalah is a character from Mobile Suit Gundam that works with Char after he...well, this is a Madou blog. If only I could talk to you about Gundam. But alas.

Lala is ACTUALLY a girl who's the same age as Arle, and the girl who's madly in love with Camus...as I've told before. But she does have a little more than just that, don't worry.

In the Game Gear version at least, she sneaks into the tower Arle went into to graduate, upset that she wasn't the one to take the exam, but rather Arle. And yes. She broke a brick wall to get to her.

(A 6 year old is stronger than any of us. LMK if you can run into a brick wall just fine.)

Now if I had to describe her, it'd be "Arrogant but funny as hell". Because she's arrogant but funny as hell. Arle calls Lala her BFF, to which she doesn't take that reply nicely and says they ain't BFF'S, they ain't even friends. Straight hater energy. (She wasn't able to take the exam due to a cold.)

Camus appears to stop her from interfering, and she goes on this tangent about how wonderful he is, and how he always eluded her... and chases him, as shown more above.

Things start to get funky when you get deeper into the tower, as Lala makes a literal trap hole, and Arle falls down. However, Lala is mad that she fell and NOT Camus, leading him to appear in the floor above and basically say "Idiot. I'm not falling for that." and she continues to chase him.

Her reign of terror ends when Camus SEALS HER AWAY for the rest of the game. But she's okay after it all don't worry. Arle summed it up the best way I could. She ends up fine after the end of the game, however.

Lala also appears in Chaotic Final Exam too, now 16, but honestly...it's one of the games where I know next to nothing about it. Apologies. Just know that she's there and not Camus. (Though with the style of how the game looks...probably for the better.)

She's just overall what we call in the industry... a girlfail. She tries her absolute best but fails so, so much that I can't help but laugh at her and pity her at the same time.

-----

I have no cool segway into this section. Introducing... Rasp.

You might've seen them around if you've checked my blog here or there as a front page image for my works.

And you'd be right. Rasp is from the Waku Waku Puyo Puyo Manga, a brand new character just made for the thing. They're basically a minion who mostly impede the way for Schezo and Rulue. I say "they" because, well, Rasp is genderless.

Fun fact: Their salary is unknown, but they apparently get paid more than a Manga artist, so take that as how you will.

Rasp does appear frequently throughout the volumes, and does indeed fight Schezo. While they do lose, at least they looked pretty cool while doing so.

-----

Lightning Round:

Now these devilish goofballs are folks I want to show...but don't have much info on them just yet. Or there wasn't that much to begin with.

Septem:

(Creatura...La creature 98...)

Septem is another genderless character from the series, coming from Arle no Bouken, a game I know next to nothing about. All I know from it is them and that they cling to Arle like a sister. I love them.

This is absolutely one character I wish I knew more on, since she's much more developed as a character...I just don't know much about Arle no Bouken.

Dark Witch:

(What is this, a doppelganger bargain sale?)

Now she has a little more to her that I DO know but it's nothing spectacular.

Planned to be in Puyo N but was scrapped due to the idea of her being too serious, which is quite the reason for Puyo, but appears in Comet Summoner anyways as a final boss.

You can even play as her, and fight Witch herself and beat her... and possessing her. Kinda, sorta.

Runelord:

(Dweeb appeared in one game and changed a man)

Runelord is an odd case, because some of his lore is stuck onto True Madou Monogatari, which in of itself...is kinda iffy lore wise. And also really long.

In Madou S? Wants Schezo to be the next successor, he says no, fight happens, Schezo wins but is affected anyways. Apparently he was beaten by Lagnus, but that comes from True Madou, so the accuracy of the Canon can be very much debated. It all depends if you think it's Canon or not.

-----

And honestly, that'll be all for this time around. Apologies this took so long. Life's been quite the journey. Graduation's happening soon, and finals are happening soon. The list goes on. I'm hoping I get by through the school year, but alas, I'm happy you read this.

Adios.

[constellationguy]

Another perspective

Episode six

"Text: regular talking

'Text': regular thinking

"Text": Saiki talking telepathically

'Text': Saiki thinking

Previous episode

ATTENTION! You might want to rewatch episode six of The Disastrous Life of Saiki K before reading to fully understand the events.

Summary: Episode 6 in L/N Y/N's perspective.

Today Y/N was preparing for movie night with Kusuo. Y/N knew that today, Saiki was going to spend his allowance on coffee jelly so they decide to make a couple different cookies instead.

Kurumi always loved their cake-box cookies, Kuniharu likes white-chocolate macadamia nut, Kusuo like double chocolate cookies and Y/N just liked eating what they made. So they decided to make all of them if Kusuo’s parents wanted to sit want participate in movie night too.

When Y/N got inside the Saiki’s residence they walked into Saiki sitting at the kitchen table with the brightest, happiest face while eating coffee jelly.

“Well I’m glad I didn’t make coffee jelly, this time,”

Saiki then looked up at Y/N almost pouting.

“I had a feeling you’d spend your allowance on coffee jelly so I made a ton of cookies instead.” Y/N smiled and lifted up the lid on their tray to show off the array of cookies they baked.

Kusuo’s sad face then turned into a sweet smile and everything was alright again.

—————————————————————————

“What, you went to the house of fortune telling Chio?” “It was amazing! They told me I’d finally be able to break up with Takeru and find a new boyfriend!” Yumehara beamed.

“Takeru, you’ve been to the house of fortune telling?” “Ya it was great, they said me and Chio would make up and find happiness.”

“Well both fortunes can’t be true.” “Guess that’s a dud, if there really was a real fortune teller it would be so cool!” Y/N half complained, half speculated

“How naive, fortune telling is a ridiculous fantasy concocted on false profits trying to pry on the weak minded.” Kaido commented.

“For once me and you agree on something.”

“Anyway there are more important things happening. Come with me after school, haven’t you noticed? There’s a strange aura and Dark Reunion’s behind it.”

“That’s just a ridiculous fantasy you concocted. Don’t you have anyone else to ask to go with you.”

“Buddy! Did you hear about the new telling of fortune stuff?”

“It’s called the house of fortune telling and I’m sick of hearing about it.”

On Saiki’s way home, he came across the house of fortune telling. ‘So this is it?’

“How was it Kiyomi?” “Okay get this! They said that Kento Yamazaki’s fate is destined to mix with mine!”

“Oh hey look, it’s Kaido. Why is he here? Didn’t he say this stuff is bogus a couple hours ago?” Y/N whispered to Saiki.

“I don’t care about his excuses but their fortune telling seems suspicious.” Saiki commented back.

“Ah! She said I will go out with Kento Yamazaki!”

“Kento Yamazaki has two girl friends now.”

“Either it’s real and Yamazaki is a player or it’s fake and the only modern day celebrity she knows is Kento Yamazaki.” Y/N said amused.

“Next in line”

“We’re already here, might as well check this place out.”

“Hey Kaido! Do you mind if I go in with you? I’m rather curious and I think it’d be fun!” Y/N said trying to be charming.

“Oh L/N! I just want to warn them about Dark-”

“Okay how about we do it together then?” Y/N said while linking their arms and leading Kaido into the room with them.

“Welcome to the house of fortune telling, please have a seat.”

“Okay…” “Sure thing.” Kaido and Y/N then sat side by side.

“My name is Mikiko Clairvoyance and it is a true pleasure to read you two today. What made you come here seeking my advice?”

“Nothing in particular really, just curiosity ,” Y/N spoke for both of them.

“Oh my, I’m getting a very special aura from you. You’re no ordinary boy are you? I sense you have special powers.”

‘Now that he’s reacted like that she sees right through him.’ Y/N and Saiki thought.

“And you… I sense that you are ordinary but you have a big secret. Perhaps a secret between you and a friend or you and yourself. I can tell you have close relations to a very special person as well.” The woman said addressing Y/N.

‘Does she mean me?!’ Kaido blushed furiously.

“Mh, perhaps, but doesn’t everyone keep secrets? And for all I know you could be thinking me and Kaido here are dating or that my neighbor’s mom is a demon. You’ve got to be more specific, being general will get you no where.” Y/N replied smoothly, almost as if they were a character in a show being interviewed.

Kaido was in awe of Y/N smooth talking and was still pretty flushed at the thought of them dating.

‘That was quite the reaction. Hasn’t Kaido dated any- never mind.’

“Something is troubling you right?”

“How did you know?!”

“Let me tell you what it is, a romantic dellema……… is not the problem, so concerns about school or your future… are also not what’s troubling you but relationships with your friends…”

The woman paused a little bit longer on the first problem while looking between Y/N and Kaido, Y/N was looking back at her and Kaido was still blushing and looking sideways at Y/N, but she knew she could get a better reaction so she carried on. And she was right, on the last suggestion he gasped and made a funny shocked face.

“Yes thats it! I am getting a strong sense that your sense of distress has something to do with friendship!”

“How did you know?!”

‘You make it too easy’ Y/N and Kusuo thought plainly.

“Yes you’re right, that is the source of my distress. You see, I’m actually have super powers that…….”

‘This is gonna be a minute….’ Y/N thought.

“I’m used to fighting evil, but fighting solitude, that’s the hardest part. I have no friends- I mean comrands to rely on…”

“Oh Kaido… you could have told me that a long time ago, then you wouldn’t have to be so alone dear,” Y/N said while slowly rubbing Kaido’s back comfortingly.

‘I know we aren’t really close but I don’t want him spending money to try and get some when he already has me, Nendo, and Kusuo.’ Y/N thought.

“Oh uh, I guess I should have….” Kaido said blushing again and looking away from Y/N.

“You’re looking for someone to understand you am I right? Well that’s the wrong approach, you must understand them first. And I get a feeling that the people you are looking for are already close by so with thi-” the woman tried to get Kaido to spend money on things but Y/N caught on to early and interrupted her.

“I agree Kaido. How about we get about of here and we can schedule something with Nendo and Saiki hm?” Y/N said gently looking into Kaido’s eyes.

“Oh um, sure.” Kaido said awkwardly.

“Thank you miss, we’ll be going now.” Y/N said as they got up and started to walk out. Kaido was close behind following Y/N like a puppy.

“That was interesting want it?” Y/N said looking to Kaido.

“It was!” Kaido replied a little flustered.

“Hm, well, I’ll see you tomorrow ya?”

“Yes! I’ll see you tomorrow…..”

“Bye Kaido,” Y/N smiled and waved goodbye, leaving Kaido to find Saiki.

“You didn’t have to do all that you know?” Saiki said.

“Well I didn’t want him spending all his money to get what he already has, that’s just sad and cruel. And I doubt I really did anything, it’s nothing Kaido won’t forget in a week, right?” Y/N replied. Saiki only hummed in response.

—————————————————————————

“Are we there yet?”

“Oh! Fancy meeting you here Saiki!” Teruhashi said to Saiki.

“OH WOW” Nendo and Kaido yelled.

“What are you boys up to today?”

“Well knew said he knew of a good ramen shop so he’s taking us there now!”

“Ya we’re gonna pig out- I mean eat like gentlemen.”

“Oh ramen sounds good! Do you mind if I invite myself to tag along with you? Oops, I hope I’m not being overly pushy.” Teruhashi asked the group.

‘Tell me why I’m here again,’

‘Cause you wanted Kaido to get friends,’ saiki respond to Y/N telepathically.

“I don’t have a problem with it. Do you have a problem with it?”

“Nono not at all!”

‘Seriously,’ ‘Why are those two being so weird?’ Y/N and Saiki thought consecutively.

“Oh wow, just look at her!” “So pretty!” “Oh wow!”

“I never pegged you for a ramen girl,” Nendo tried to make an attractive face.

“Say Kaido, why do you always wear those bandages on your hands?” Teruhashi asked.

“It’s to keep my powers in check!” Kaido responded.

“Uh powers? Sorry I’m afraid I don’t understand what powers you’re referring too.” Teruhashi commented.

“It’s actually just something that happened by accident!….” He replied all flustered.

‘I didn’t know it was possible for Kaido to take those off.’ Y/N thought.

“Ah, we’ve arrived. There’s the ramen shop.”

‘I can’t tell if I like his voice like that or if I hate it.’

“Oh wow,” Teruhashi dead panned at the honestly moldy looking shop.

“I hear their ramen is like crazy good. My friend’s cousin’s ex dog walker said it’s good so gotta be good.”

“Ya I wouldn’t trust a rundown shop to feed me anything, that’s just begging for food poisoning.” Y/N commented generally.

“Something urgent just came up-”

“Are you out of your mind man?! She’s got class so there’s no way she’s gonna eat at a place like that! You don’t really want to eat in this run down rat hole do you Teruhashi?”

“I’m okay, with this place.” she responded looking like a corpse.

“Whoa! You’re sure you’re okay with this?” Kaido asked Teruhashi again.

“Ya, I’m fine with it.”

“Ah! What is this place, it’s filthy! Hey seriously, don’t feel pressured to stay.”

“I’m fine. Taste is what matters.” Teruhashi responded cheerfully.

‘Health and safety is what matters.’ Y/N thought honestly shocked with Teruhashi.

“Hey, I don’t think I can eat now. I’m visiting my grandparents later and they will pester me to eat their food until I’m overly full. So I think I should save my stomach space for later tonight. You guys order with it me.” Y/N was quick enough to make a good excuse to get out of eating. Saiki was a little jealous he didn’t think of that.

“Yo! Mr manager! Four ramens!”

“Four ramens coming up.”

“Here you go”

“Noodle time!”

‘Oh wow’ the whole group thought.

The only person to actually eat the food was Teruhashi, but she looked pretty sick walking out of the shop.

—————————————————————————

Next episode: in progress

—————————————————————————

I didn’t really have any ideas to add it the last two segments about Toritsuka and the gym cloths or the precognition and explosion so I left it out of this episode.

[autisticandroids]

Hey ur my fave spn blogger by far (heavy is the head that has the crown etc etc) it occurred to me I've never heard u talk in Bobby? Any thoughts? Id love to hear em.

hey! so this is an interesting question. probably the reason i don't post much about bobby has to do with the fact that... well... i actually broadly enjoy bobby, and i enjoy him for exactly the same basic, surface level reasons as the show expects me to.

like, normally, if i'm watching supernatural, i am at least somewhat in conflict with the text. it expects me to like things i don't like (these are called "dogshit episodes" and they're a common hazard), and when i do like it it's often not really for the reasons that the show is expecting me to like it.

like... if you really want to see me shout and cheer, you should see what it looks like when i rewatch exile on main st., but neither a randomly selected mainstream audience nor miss gamble herself would necessarily agree with or even understand why i was doing so. like my enjoyment of that episode requires a lot of interpretive effort.

but fast forward three episodes to weekend at bobby's, and i could sit in a room with a general audience person, a reddit bro, a wincestie, and dabb/lofflin themselves and we would all basically have the same watch experience. i might be critical of the treatment of japanese culture, or annoyed by the way crowley's heel turn was handled, or something else, some specific element. but in terms of the broad strokes - bobby going around doing things, hunting a case, existing in relationships with a series of other characters - i like it for exactly the reason i'm meant to.

and that's kind of how bobby as a character is for me. there just isn't a lot of distance between what i'm supposed to enjoy and what i do enjoy. and it's that distance, and the interpretive labor required to close it, that generates thoughts, and thoughts are what generates posts. which means i don't really have a ton of posts about bobby.

i guess i will say... i used to be cautiously pro-killing-bobby-off in s7, definitely more than other characters who died in gamble era. because i was like "man, you gotta kill the father figure." that's the nature of these things. but upon rewatch, i actually think bobby's role as father figure is overstated. certainly it's overstated by the fandom, but even in the show to an extent. although i will concede a bit because i love when soulless sam tries to kill him. only good thing that happens in appointment in samarra. but overall bobby is as much just a friend as he is a father, you know? he engages with the boys on much more equal terms than a parent does.

but anyway. i don't like that they killed him because 1) they kept bringing him back, frequently stupidly. i liked safe house, but otherwise i am against basically all of bobby's appearances post-s7. i guess inside man was fine, but like. that's just the thing. it was fine. resoundingly okay. and safe house could easily have happened with bobby alive, just like. have him having the flashback. and 2) i think it has a bad effect on the show because like... after bobby died, the interpersonal conflict became even more dour. and it's already so fucking dour. there are no outside characters whatsoever to observe when things happen and so stuff spirals into madness even more and worse than it used to. no one is there to yell at dean the way bobby did in season four, you know? and then 3) i just enjoy bobby a lot i'm an enjoyer. i would have liked the show more if he stuck around in a meaningful way (and not just as a constantly recurring oh he's back from the dead for an episode plot).

[ineffablenlghtingales]

Look, the thing(s) I love about Good Omens is this.

1) It's witty. The humour is quick, clever and it's almost like blink-and-you-miss-it.

2) There's TONS of hidden things, references (not to mention those of Doctor Who among others)

3) The amazing storytelling. I've watched shows that have been well written and have twists and turns and whatnot but I have not before seen one like this that portrays the events in a way that (well I don't want to say 'misdirect' in the sense that they're directing us wrong but that they're leading us to believe on thing and actually doing another) gets us to think one thing and then another.

Case in point: The spray bottle Crowley uses when dealing with Hastur and Ligur. We see him (I'd say exaggeratedly but let's be real, he knows how dangerous holy water is for someone like him) preparing to handle the thermos Azi gave him and carrying it gingerly with tongs while wearing gloves that cover most of his arms and a smock. Now he's STILL holding the spray bottle that way when he carries it (but the spray bottle, we later discover, didn't have any holy water). It was pointed out to me that this could possible have been to make us thing that it had holy water because up until the moment when the droplet rolls down and lands on Crowley's finger, we're all not sure and probably crying out "No! NO! Crowley, no!" But then we realize, with Hastur, that it didn't have any. Other point, the appearance swap. I don't know about everyone else because you all were there when this stuff all happened and I've only just joined this wonderful fandom but when I saw that episode, and I saw my boys about to face their impending annihilation, I was thinking, "Well, damn, how are they gonna get out of that." But then the swap happened. It's so clever, and I love it.

4) The complexity of the characters and the perhaps intentional reversal of what might be stereotypical ideals

Case in point: Crowley. He's a demon, the Serpent of Eden who tempted Eve and brought about the downfall of the human race. But he's not entirely evil (we see that in the fact that he didn't want to and didn't kill Job's children or his goats...the fact that he, of his own volition, stopped a girl from unaliving herself despite the punishment that would mean for him and his concern, care, whatever you want to call it for people. Wanting to get them out of harm's way when Shax and her demons came to attack, pleading with God not to test humanity to the point of destroying them...the list goes on.

Need I say more? I am in love and I do not understand how I did not discover this earlier. Ah, of course, also David and Michael's chemistry and fantastic acting, that's a big factor too.

[aihoshiino]

chapter 148 thoughts!

New chapter! New arc! New - Osh no Beach Episode?! Uh - sure, fuck it! Why not!

Chapters Since The 143 Kiss Happened And Went Completely Unacknowledged And Unaddressed Count: 5

It felt weirdly jarring to realize it was late summer in series for some reason lol… I think it's a combo of it still being pretty chilly here in the UK and me just having entirely lost track of the passage of time while we were in Movie Arc Purgatory.

I actually don't have a ton to say about this chapter as it's kind of just an echo of what we got with 138; a little breather beat between emotional upheavals that sets up the oncoming drama at the end. I definitely think it does so less gracefully than 138 and I ultimately enjoyed it less. That's not to say it's a bad chapter and watching everyone have goofy fun in the sun was cute - it just didn't quite Hit in the way I was itching for, especially after last chapter was… well, the way it was. There's some stuff I have to complain about which I think will make this post read as more negative than it maybe is, but it's one of those chapters where the good stuff doesn't really warrant a lot of comment other than 'i liked it'.

On that note, things I liked: everyone hanging out was really cute! I was honestly hoping we'd get more interactions like this during the Movie Arc with everyone scrunched together onto a single project but I'm happy to see it now.

Gotanda being being Dads With Cats this chapter was also really cute. It's a throwaway line but that little lore crumb of him having been looking forward to starting a family at some point is… honestly really sad and interesting? I think it adds a lot to the way he takes to Aqua and looks out for Kana, on top of the way he throws himself into his art.

frill taking a big ass break between projects is really good, too. i hope she has a very good time doing absolutely nothing.

that said. the fact that the only time we've gotten an acknowledgement of ruby and taiki's sibling relationship in the manga after like 80+ chapters is him making a comment about her tits makes me want to put aka akasaka through a pasta maker.

but no, for real. joking aside. Taiki and Aqua's relationship and Taiki going from being standoffish to accepting Aqua as his younger brother is one of the more understandably sweet relationship arcs in the series and it feels like a waste that we didn't get anything similar for him and Ruby. In general, Ruby is starting to feel very isolated from the rest of the cast which I'm not a fan of.

frill's full body wetsuit was a god tier joke though i gotta admit

Kana hyping herself up to flirt so overtly with Aqua was… funny, if a bit weird, especially given the note the chapter ends on. But Akane going right in and getting all over her thighs. holy shit, girl.

tsukuyomi at the beach what will she do

Akane's chat with Aqua also made my ears perk up in the way it continues a theme established by 143, of Aqua being challenged on his dedication to his self destruction by the people around him. Ruby and Kana were able to poke and prod at the issue but Akane, having the full picture as she does, is able to more directly shake Aqua and point out what he has to lose. In trying to self destruct, he will only end up destroying the thing he's trying to protect.

Also worth pointing out; Aqua is back to double black hoshigans as of this chapter which seems to line up with my thoughts on them representing his wavering dedication to his revenge play.

And then Kana….. whooooooooooo boy.

Like I said earlier, this ending feels super jarring off the back of both the last AQKN interaction and Kana's attempted flirting in this very chapter. As part of her overall arc, I think it makes sense but within the scope of this chapter it's too abrupt and lacks any real trigger. I can assume she saw AQAK talking to each other and made some assumptions but we don't actually see it. As it's presented in the comic, Akane basically walked up to her and triggered a cutscene lol

It is interesting to me that we're getting this overt push towards romantic resolution happening now given that… well, I'm not keeping that 'chapters since 143' count going just for goofs. I'm honestly torn between frustrated and darky amused at how much of a nothingburger 143 has turned out to be in the long run given that its only persistent status quo change (Aqua's white hoshigan) has fallen back by the wayside again. Neither Ruby or Aqua are acting like anything at all has happened. Literally right now it feels like you could skip 141-143 completely and not miss anything. It's baffling and it really does feel like that kiss was used as cynical reaction bait. Ruby's feelings are being treated with little to no respect and I'm honestly tired of it.

Obviously we're going to be getting some future resolution eventually because any Aqua-related romantic resolution is going to end up dragging Ruby into things but man. The fact that THIS is how Akasaka is choosing to drag it out is just insane to me. What was even the point of that kiss if it was going to have literally no impact on either character or the status quo whatsoever?

As for what this means for relationships… who even knows at this point. If you put a gun to my head and forced me to make a call, I'd say that in a romance manga, this would make me very confident in a Kana endgame. 'Girl tries to selflessly give up her love' is a pretty huge 'winning' flag in these kinds of situations. But Oshi no Ko is not strictly a romance manga and there's so much other relationship baggage floating around, who even knows what this is all going to mean. You could tell me this is the flag for an Aqua/Minami endgame or something and I wouldn't be surprised at this point.

At least we'll find out next week, assuming Akasaka doesn't offscreen the rest of this talk lol

[multifandombullshitbabes]

Random Merlin Rewatch: Where a random number generator gives me a season and an episode from BBC Merlin; and then I comment on it as I go.

Today's episode: Season 3 Episode 9 - Love in the Time of Dragons

Before I start, very excited for season 3! Especially this episode! I don't remember all of it, but we're sure gonna get a TON of Gaius on this one. Love ittttt.

And we're back to young boyyy

Alice (?) has such a kind little face.

What the fuck is that thing. What the fuck is that. Ew. Hello???

EWWW THE ANIMATION ON THE FACE IS SO WEIRD, I HATE IT, WHY DID IT MAKE THAT FACE EUGHH

Damn intro music came in early. Not complaining, LET'S GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

I love how, even though magic is being used for good, for performing miracle cures on people who would've otherwise fucking die or something, Uther HAS to see a problem with it. Like. Hello?? I'm very curious to see how Arthur is throughout this episode, seeing that magic here is doing something obviously good.

Merlin judging Uther so hard (as he should).

"I'm not the king, after all." I wonder if Camelot citizens are not as hateful of magic as Uther; fearful of course, and that's valid in my opinion, but the fact that Gaius said that and that's all it took for somebody to basically admit to treason?? Interesting dynamic this kingdom has. An obvious divide I think between the lower classes and the royal one.

Is Gaius smiling?? He's smiling so wide as he's walking out of the inn.

HAHAHAHHAH Gaius lying so clearly to the king and Merlin is the only one who knows, his face!!!! Like, that powder was bright blue and glittery, obvious magic, no denying it.

MERLIN'S FACEEEEEE

GAIUS GASLIGHTING MERLIN?? HELLO? This is hilarious, our poor boy is so confused.

Not Gaius taking away Merlin's meal like. LET MY BOY EAT!!

BABYYYYYYY. Also love that he's reading in bed, in fact fell asleep on it. It's probably a magic book, but it could be literally anything else!! Maybe a book on medicine and stuff, Merlin is Gaius' apprentice.

Merlin looks so handsome in just his sleep shirt, so cute.

BED HAIR!!!!!!!!!

Oh my god, Gaius and Alice are so sweet :(

MERLIN'S FACEEEEEEEEE he's so curious!! But like a happy curious!!!

"You've lost none of your charm." Gaius was a charmer when he was younger, confirmed. Womanizer.

JESUS FUCKING CHRIST!!!! AFTER THAT WHOLESOME SCENE BETWEEN ALICE AND GAIUS, WHAT THE FUCK!!!

Merlin trying to find out about the tea. Also love this role reversal, where the child is the one asking the parent where did they go last night. So fucking silly, love it.

"Do your suppliers normally kiss you?" HAHAHAHHAHA MERLIN!!!! YOU CAN'T JUST SAY THAT!!! GAIUS SCANDALIZED FACE, HELP!!

Merlin acting like Gaius is a silly teenager with a silly little crush is so amusing, I'm in love with this episode (let's ignore the weird creature part for now).

Just when Gaius find a job as the king's physician, she finds Alice. We know from a previous episode that Gaius got this job just when Arthur was born, right? I'm pretty sure. So they met for a little time, before the purge happened. I'm assuming the writers fucked up a bit on the timeline and Gaius was employed before Arthur's birth, which makes more sense to me.

I'm assuming Alice lived in Camelot for longer than Gaius, before he came to Camelot. I think Gaius might have learned his skills as a physician somewhere that's not Ealdor, but I'm assuming he was born there as Hunith is there, etc.

Merlin's like "Fuck yeah. Romance. Go get her, uncle."

Merlin is just straight up getting his shit rocked.

SDFGYHGFDTRESRDTGYUIJOKO

MERLIN IS JUST STRAIGHT FUCKING SUNSHINE WHEN HE MEETS ALICE HE'S SO CUTE

Oh my god, I would KILL Gaius if he just gave my room to somebody else's just right there on the spot. Merlin is better than me, for sure.

Not Merlin sleeping on the fucking floor, jesus christ.

THIS CREATURE MAKES ME SO UNCONFORTABLE WHY IS IT MOANING WHEN IT TAKES OUT VENOM, EWWWW

Oh I wonder how it was like before magic was banned. How people lived and learned all about it.

Ohhh how interesting, the way Gaius is not as scandalized by dark magic as maybe one would normally be. I wonder if it's not as bonkers unless it's taken to an extreme degree. I also wonder how "normalized" it was before the purge. Like how did sorcerers react to it then, and also now.

Of course Gaius doesn't want to admit Alice might be doing something evil, not just because this is their second chance and they haven't seen each other in so long, but also because she's obviously not the kind of person to do so.

Oh wow, we've never seen Gaius so blatantly angry with Merlin before. He's really hurt by Merlin's accusation of Alice.

Who the fuck screams "MORNING." in the library, Merlin. Also, it's just shock-full of cobwebs, someone PLEASE clean this place up, what the fuck.

Okay, so Merlin's still struggling with being a physician. I bet he's learned it since he's technically there to be Gaius' apprentice, but he doesn't like it much. He can take care of some stuff, but he won't like it that's for sure.

"Can I help you?" "No." MERLIN SDFGHJHGFDSEDTFGHJ

So interesting that Geoffery didn't react at all badly at Merlin asking about a magical creature. He even joked about Merlin seeing it or not. I bet he was just happy that somebody was using the fucking books and shit.

Merlin is just such a clumsy little shit, oh my god. Jesus fuck.

Love the face journey that Merlin just did where he landed on "Oh I'm gonna use magic in a silly way."

WHAT A DISNEY-ESQUE SCENE LMAOOOO

I don't think we fully appreciate how well Merlin is able to research things. Sure, it might be a little luck, but he's just elbows deep in a bunch of books, some opened, just researching for whatever he's trying to find. There's skill in research, y'all!

OH NO GAIUS' FEELINGS ARE HURT, NOOOO, GAIUS PLEASE LISTEN TO MERLIN!!!

Seeing Alice just live so naturally in Gaius' chambers really makes me yearn for an AU where Alice stayed with Gaius somehow and Merlin got to be raised by the two of them in Camelot. That would be so sweet :,))

Love how whenever Merlin is obviously upset about something, no matter how "annoyed" Arthur might act, he always asks what's wrong. It's so cute.

Arthur's strategy whenever he fights with his father is to just wait for him to get to his senses?? Arthur, babe, do you know who your father is?

AWWW ARTHUR TRYING TO CHEER MERLIN UP. Too back he's not a jock.

OOP!!! WE GOT A GAIUS AGE!!! A book Alice gifted him on his 50th birthday!! He got it a bit confused with when he became court physician, so maybe he was around that age when he got the job!! That would make him around 70 years old in present canon, which isn't too far fetched in my opinion. He looks older, but honestly being in the medical field, and also having to watch all your friends die right in front of your eyes, probably ages you a tad bit.

Oh the guilt is EATING HER UP inside. Oh Alice. Oh darling.

This is so interesting, it's the second episode where Arthur has found his father, at bed time, in his chambers in some way sick, meaning Arthur must check on Uther every other night? Every night? For what? It's probably matters of state or something, but don't they have all the time during the day to do that? In the start of the episode they're literally sitting side by side looking at documents. I wonder if Arthur just checks on Uther just because. I bet Uther's been the occasional assassination target during the purge. Maybe it's Arthur being paranoid (for good reason, I guess).

Oh Gaius is so deep in denial about Alice, this is just sad.

Wait, all of Uther's food is brought by armed guard up to his chambers? What about those family meal scenes we have. I'm assuming they must not happen every time, maybe. When the king is not too busy, the royal family eats together and any other time his food is brought to his chambers. And all of the food and drinks are tested for poison, of course.

Well. Arthur proving once again that he is smart. Sad it happens selectively. Also, he'd be a great detective.

Gaius implying that he might have taken the blame of Alice's actions, knowing the truth. This is just sad, bro.

I wonder if Merlin's magic truly isn't strong enough to kill a creature of the Old Religion. Sounds plausible, for sure, but I bet he can come VERY close.

THE WAY THE MANTICORE JUST FUCKING LEAPS AT MERLIN STRAIGHT AWAY MY BOY CAN'T GET A BREAK!

LET'S GO GAIUS USING MAGIC!!!!!!!!!!!

Some very stressful few seconds, I must say.

Gaius getting an adrenaline kick of what is just basically a normal Tuesday for Merlin.

It's so sweet that a lot of the characters do try and have open communication. It's very refreshing to see. They admit their fears and insecurities and they talk. It's so nice.

The fact that Merlin jokes about the dungeons being "so secure". 'Cause we all know they suck ass bro.

Why are they eating raw meat?? Y'all gotta cook it babes, what the fuck.

And that is it!!!! What a fun episode. No Gwen or Morgana though, sad :(.

[nofacednerd]

just some more episode 6 thoughts

Obviously the Hughie thing is pretty prominent in my mind because uh. comfort character got SA'd but I'm seeing a lot of people here and on twitter think the writers were treating it as a joke? Idk if I agree with that. I think they were trying to make the scenes with it extremely uncomfortable to watch intentionally. The end of the episode at least makes it VERY clear that it (at least in the aftermath) isn't a joke. He's clearly extremely upset about what happened? idk maybe I'm not seeing something other people are seeing.

That being said, it's so gross that people on twitter/instagram ARE treating it as a joke. I think, yeah, it was kind of extreme (a lot more extreme than the other times it's happened in the show, which usually is a cut away and then talking about it afterwards) and the cake thing was just weird, uncomfortable, and unnecessary but idk I really don't think it was meant to be played for laughs for the most part

Unrelated to the above, I fucking loved Neuman this episode. Tbh I've liked Neuman a lot since season 3, she's a fun villain-ish? I'm gonna be honest, maybe I'm missing something somewhere or forgetting something, but isn't her end goal to literally just give supes opportunities to live outside of the entertainment industry? Like yeah she killed a ton of people but I feel like Neuman and The Boys have the exact same goals (killing Homelander/keeping the general public safe from superheroes) and she keeps trying to make an alliance with them??? Hughie she was your bestie for like a year and a half I know you feel betrayed by her but genuinely I don't think she's your biggest problem

Anyway Neuman especially shined this episode. The head exploding thing. Me too girl. Also her and lobotomy!Sage interacting was so funny I wish we could get more of that

Also loved that at the beginning of the episode, literally all of The Boys were there. That's his family and they're there to support him!!!!

ALSO I really like that they separated Frenchie and Kimiko this season a little bit, it's nice to actually see that Kimiko is friends with the others beyond him. Her and Annie both immediately agreeing to go rescue their boy in the mansion...... Hughie Kimiko besties are real and not just in my head for once

Tbh this whole episode showed really good team solidarity between at least Hughie, Kimiko, MM, and Annie. They all showed up to support Hughie while spreading his dad's ashes, Hughie off screen seems to have talked to Kimiko enough to know why she's upset, Hughie IMMEDIATELY coming in with the purell for MM, all 3 of them realizing how much danger Hughie was in and all going in with halothane to go rescue him, Kimiko going off to find A-Train and convincing him to take MM to the hospital, Kimiko, Annie, and Hughie all torturing Tek Knight for information and stealing all of his money and donating it to charity..... like this group was all so in sync with each other this episode it was great

Main negative thought is that honestly I'm confused on where the last 2 episodes are going to go? So far this whole season has just been disconnected B-plots. No major changes or revelations have happened yet (and based on this episode, I'm getting the feeling that Hughie might be tapping out for a bit from the team stuff). The main plotline is mostly about the supe virus and Sage, but that's all been very background stuff and it feels like there isn't going to be a lot of time to unpack everything going on? Especially since there's so many plotlines that haven't been completed yet. I know the thing this season is that the team isn't doing great, hence why they're all wrapped up in separate, personal dramas, but the last episode barely accomplished anything, on both sides.

I'm not complaining per se, I think this is the biggest issue with streaming service shows tbh. It's very obvious that the show wants to complete a bunch of emotional character arcs going into the final season (Hughie confronting his grief/inability to let go, Kimiko and Frenchie confronting their pasts and the guilt that comes with it, Annie struggling to figure out who she is as a person and as a symbol, MM struggling with his mental health and being a good dad, Butcher struggling to not kill literally everyone, ect ect) but there just isn't a whole lot of time to do both character studies, exploring different group dynamics, fulfilling show-long arcs, and keep up with a main plotline when you only have about 8 hours to do all of that and about 15 characters to do all of that with. If the seasons got more episodes, we could deal with a few filler episodes here and there to focus more solely on the characters vs the plot.

Tldr ^^ this season is more character-driven than plot driven, which makes it all kind of feel like filler and idk how the last 2 episodes are going to go

[ash-pile]

Starting a thread for myself of theories and ideas about tmp. Gonna update it as I listen to episodes.

I’ve listened to 11 as if this first post. Also I think it goes without saying but there will be spoilers here, I might not have a ton of info but I do have and reference stuff in the episodes

Jon/chester/computer bois:

I think that Jon is using the cameras and things to see and listen, which is why he’s able to give statements that are very close to what’s happening with the characters.

Also I think he is trapped, but idk if he’ll ever get out. Maybe if he and Martin get out then Jonah Magnus can too so they’ll have to choose.

I wonder if they’ll be the same if they escape?

Or if there is a jon and Martin in the world too?

The entities:

-I saw someone else say this (don’t remember who or where tho) but I think that when the web and Jon pulled the entities thru the crack in reality in tma, they got squished and melted together.

- It would explain why statements often multiple fears now.

- They are so squished/interwoven that they litterally can’t separate.

Can they still do rituals/summonings?

Alice

-Another thing I saw but makes so much sense. Alice used to hold Lena’s job/she’s secretly the boss-boss of OIAR

-would explain why she and Lena got the message that Sam was trying to access restricted files.

-I mean why would Alice of all people see that. Lena make sense but Alice would only see it if she had the same kind of access

-also It might not end up being canon but I want Alice, Sam and Gwen to end up together as a poly. The whole scene with the mocha and Alice being confused but not hostile to Gwen was sweet and I want more of that trio

Celia

-I think she and the others who weren’t in any fear domains were brought here, so Georgie and Melanie could be there too.

-Would also explain why she seems to know more about the archives that most, cause she would have heard about them from those two.

-Maybe she ends up in random places regularly hence the ‘not again’ because the world recognizes she isn’t supposed to be there

-or she’s like Micheal. Tma 198 did reveal that the cult was taken back to their domains, maybe Micheal/something like him got to her before the end?

So she’d be able to jump around with doors. Probably not on purpose tho.

-either theory explains why she’s looking into dimensions and space and physics things

Lena/OIAR

-I think that when Jon and Martin and Jonah and the fears came through, they came through at a different time but same space. The explosion from the gas destroying the building would have been brought over at the same time and thus destroyed the archives in this world

-and maybe if it was an important place for the eye/the eye is ‘staying’ there/leftover energy from the panopticon, maybe thats why redcanary was so affected and pulled out their eyes. They were forced to by some kind of eye powers

-so with that, I think OIAR formed to document what changes came about after the fears came through. And their database doesn’t work with the fears separately cause they aren’t separate any more

-I haven’t figured out what Lena’s deal is yet, I just think she’s aware of the fears in someway and uses them/avatars/whatever the monsters would be called now to control the amount of fear being spread

[sunnykeysmash]

the structure, the "explosion", change and authenticity: a dissection of season 15

As usual I'm prefacing this post by saying these are my personal ramblings about always sunny meta so if you don't like to see that, then please move along.

When season 15 ended, I didn't end up analyzing it because my fixation had ended as well, so that's what I wanna do here, but in order to do that I have to touch on some themes that were heavily relevant in previous seasons but especially season 14.

I also want to properly explain why I've been calling season 14 "the last classic season of sunny", and why I think of season 15 as "a transitional season".

It seems weird, but I wanna start by talking about the season 13 episode, The Gang Escapes.

I've done a quick rewatch of s14 and 15 and the more I did that, the more I started to see Escapes like the predecessor for a lot of it.

So, in it, the gang is playing a game of escape rooms. They are trapped inside of Mac and Dennis' apartment, with only Dee knowing how to get out having done it before. Despite this, she is locked out, and is unable to help them. The boys separate and wrestle for a pair of heartshaped lock and key, and in the end, when they finally settle on how to open it, they discover that inside it says "And so the game begins".

The lock contains a ton of instructions on what to do next, but the gang quickly realizes they have run out of time and are unable to do them all, only for Dee to take the fall allowing them to win albeit in an unconventional way.

This episode reads to me like a cautionary tale on the fate of sunny.

Spending so much time on deciding how to do something or whether they should at all, that when they finally do it, they don't have the time to properly explore the choices they've made. As an example, this comes back with the concept of the seeds. In general, this is always touched upon whenever "imminent death" is explored, because it doesn't allow them more time to continue. This is often paired with a need to "go crazy/explode" by the end.

As a result, feeling constrained inside something and needing to get out before it's too late.

I'll elaborate more on all of this as we walk through s14/15, all the ways in which these themes come back, but for now I want to say that to me, this is likely how RCG has felt writing sunny sometimes: feeling too constrained/boxed inside the way they have always written it, that didn't allow them to branch out and explore the stuff they really wanted to "until the end", which in a way made them feel like sunny itself was the problem and made them consider ending it (aka cutting the head because the hair is a lie) to explore the stuff that interested them, rather than just... doing it while they have time, and being more loose with writing it in general (like how Gus said, the bible is a guidepost, interpretations can change over time).

As such, Escapes is an incomplete view on the situation, a negative one, it shows us what would happen if nothing gave in. Which isn't what happened in the end, but it's still important to keep in mind to read the rest of it.

This is, to me, why they even asked for four seasons in the first place. To have the time to properly explore all the things they wanted to touch on, with their new plan.

I'm gonna try to dissect every episode singularly (the ones I think are relevant anyway) and point out the connection in themes and what I think it all means. I tried to stay brief, believe me.

All in all, some of the themes I've found are as follows: the structure, death/catastrophe, running out of time/losing something (even disappointing an audience), change, and choices. They all apply to writing sunny.

Season 14

This season brings back a lot of stuff from past sunny. It seems s16 will do the same, but back when s14 was just airing, I remember this felt odd to me. Chokes is a direct continuation of dines out (with it being charlie and frank's anniversary dinner) and also calls back to mac's mom burns her house down and dennis system (with the whole poisoning someone so they can depend on you and nursing them back to health etc), poppins comes back, jackie denardo comes back (storm of the century, which also references bryan o' bryen), thundergun comes back, dee day (which is a continuation to mac day), global warming references Spies like US (the fish factory dudes), the waiter comes back... and so on. It felt like they were honoring the past.

But the reason why I consider it the last season of classic sunny, is because it's the one before change strikes. Many episodes seem to place us in front of an inescapable choice that leads to disaster. Some don't even offer a choice, just speak of imminent death.

The Gang Gets Romantic

Breaking this episode down, it's important because it introduces the whole concept of the "structure". A guideline, if you will, that the characters can either follow or stray away from. Throughout the two seasons we will see it redefined constantly, so it's important to understand what it is.

We are given two mirroring plotlines making use of this (romcom) structure. Frank and Charlie follow it pretty closely, and in the end they are rewarded with a romcom-y ending. Mac and Dennis stray from it, because they don't realize that the tropes are applying to the two of them, and in the end, their plans fail. This is actually counter to most other examples of structure that will be written later, and it shows us something important, which is that the structure can work if applied correctly and when appropriate.

So is the structure good or bad? Should it be followed? And what is it?

To me, the structure is a guide. It can aid you find what works on average, but it shouldn't lock you in. Exactly like structure in writing.

But it doesn't matter how you call it: the structure, the algorithm, god's plan, the bible, the base, the four walls encasing you, tradition; it's about something that gives you a foundation, but that you can branch out of, if needed. If your feelings tell you you should.

Multiple episodes will come to grips with this concept. Trying to run from it entirely, or embrace it to the point of almost doing things they don't want.

This is RCG's own struggle with understanding how to write sunny, and what sunny even is, hence why the main theme of season 15 is identity. How much can you stray from your core structure and still be yourself? How much before you don't even like where you're going? What defines you?

And in fact, a crucial theme in TGGR is falling back in love with something.

Pushing it away at first because you think you can get better than that or because you're bored of it, only in its absence to realize that it was already the perfect match. This is the charlie+frank/alexi+nikki plot (we'll be back in one year... covid aside, this is about the show returning and not ending), but it reflects season 15 in general (when you love someone, you can't bear to leave them behind).

Finally, "you think they're gonna give us a bad review?", hinting at the fear of how others will react.

Thundergun 4: Maximum Cool

The gang is selected to judge the sequel of a franchise they are big fans of. However, upon discovering the many changes applied to it (they're rebooting the franchise), they are disappointed and angered. In the end, Dee comes up with the plan that forces the franchise to go back to its roots, and the gang still doesn't support it.

So, how does this fit into our themes?

We have a franchise that has changed to the point of upsetting its fans.

We also have Dee once again being the key role in the story by coming up with the successful plan.

We have talk of a powerful formula that could destroy millions of lives in the wrong hands.

We have change seen as scary and upsetting, and we have talk of "rebooting the franchise".

Most importantly:

"Sometimes, in order to save something, you have to destroy something. And I think I know what we have to do to save Thunder Gun."

"Destroy it?"

This will plateau with Big Mo with its fake ending, but it speaks to the larger theme of considering ending sunny to get to the stuff they want to explore, only to realize they can explore it better if they start now and give themselves more time and just stay looser with the structure.

This is a talk they actually had with Larry David (who will be referenced as Larry Takashi later, creator of Fun Zone laser tag).

"McElhenney continued, “He (Larry David) said, ‘Don’t be an idiot. Never stop. Just keep doing it. One, because it’s the greatest job you could ever want and two, because if you do a final episode they’ll just destroy you for it.’”"

Around the same time, another article came out where Glenn mentioned wanting to follow Curb Your Enthusiasm's model.

"So with all these other projects, like last year, I'm sure you've talked now and again about ending the show for good." G: "We talked about it. At a certain point, we might look at this and go “Yeah, we did it and it's time to move on,” and all that kind of stuff. But I think at the same time the way I see it, we're more like a band than a show now, where we all go off into our side projects, but like, this is the band, and if we feel like putting out another album, we'll put out another album. At this point, it doesn't really make sense to end the show in any official capacity. It's possible that moving forward we move to sort of like a Curb Your Enthusiasm model if we can get away with it. Larry David actually pulled Rob aside at some kind of a function and told him "One piece of advice I'll give you guys: Don't ever end the show. Just don't end it!” I think he figured that out after Seinfeld. I think he was really burned out. But with Curb he knows he might want to come back to it years down the line."

Keep in mind, when these two articles came out, season 15 had not even been written yet. Despite this, me and others started speculating that A. the seasons would return whenever instead of each year; B. each season would follow a story arc.

Seasons got shorter (and point A may still happen), and season 15 ended up following a story arc.

Finally, Dennis once again places us in front of a choice by saying "give me dong, or give me death", implying those are the only two options the franchise has.

Dee Day

There is a choice that has to be made by vote, and the gang is trying to sway the results. In the end Dee hatches a successful plan that just so happens to have the same outcome wanted by the gang in the first place.

We start with them stretching (irony not lost on me 😭) to stay loose because they're preparing for the plan.

"Can we just start?"

"No, we can't just start, okay? Preparation is the key to victory."

Reminds me of Chokes:

"Yeah, but can we just, like, play already?"

"No, we can't just play, Charlie. We can't just play."

"Are you insane?! We can't just play!"

Again getting lost on the how, on preparation, instead of starting. Arguing instead of opening the lock.

Additionally, it's said that Dee wants to do a whole retrospective of her characters. It fits with what S15 has done so far.

Still, we are shown Dee pulling the strings even when it comes to directing the characters.

"And like all great plays, this one is going to have a happy ending."

The Gang Chokes

Frank almost chokes to death during their dinner. Charlie admits he almost let him die because he was mad at him for "interrupting him". At the same time, Mac is taking all his cues to act from Dennis, even in drastic situations, instead of showing that he can make his own decisions, which is what Dennis really wants.

"I would've stepped in, but, of course, I was taking my cues from you." "Why?" "Well, you didn't tell me whether I should save him or not." "But why?" "I mean, why do I still have to tell you what to do?" "And why is it up to me to decide whether or not you're going to save a man's life?"

Being able to make your own decisions depending on what you want to do, instead of always following someone else's directions, regardless of what the outcome is...

"So you were still gonna rely on a decision that somebody else made, only, this time, you were potentially gonna kill a man?"

Dee also starts living on the edge of life and death because it gives her a thrill, but ultimately experiences true death and realizes there is nothing on the other side.

Frank goes to live with someone else (the waiter), but in the end realizes Charlie was already perfect for him. Once again, breaking out and almost ending things only to see all he already had in the end, because Charlie apologizes to him.

And Mac learns to make his own decisions instead of depending on others. Like the structure meta.

The Gang Texts

The bananas thing with the gorilla.

"I sit there, eat a banana real slow, and he comes up to the glass, and he's banging on the glass like the dumb ape he is."

"It will bang its hands bloody trying to get the banana."

"How is that funny?"

"It's funny 'cause he can't get the banana."

Just like the seeds in s15, it's about writing, or rather questioning the way they have written things in the past. Frank insists withholding the wanted thing is hilarious, and Charlie questions it.

Like in Still in Ireland:

"Oh. I should eat it again. Then it would be funny 'cause I didn't learn my lesson."

"No, that wouldn't be funny. It'd just be kind of dumb, you know."

Deriving humor from the characters never learning their lesson, being beaten down by the narrative, never getting what they want. Which is a key component of the classic sunny structure. The meta is questioning it, probably because there's many things RCG wants to do that would go against this. Just like the Shelley arc in s15, after all.

In the end, the characters are allowed to understand each other, looking each other in the eyes as the circle of life plays.

The Gang Solves Global Warming

Talk of an imminent crisis. People are gonna revolt soon (like the audience for Thundergun), and the bar (which has often been used as meta to represent the show) doesn't have enough resources to accomodate everyone.

"We didn't have enough to accommodate the people that were here before, and now it seems like we've doubled in size and we just don't have enough."

"Where is your God now?"

"He will reveal himself at some point."

"Oh. Well, is he gonna do it before all these people revolt and destroy the place?"

"I don't know, Frank. I don't question God's will. If he wants to destroy the Earth, that's on him. I support it!"

Could refer to both RCG's burnout as well as not having enough time. Either way, it leads to disaster.

Mac talks about God's plan, something that is predetermined and thus cannot be changed.

"Guys, we don't really have to worry about global warming, because... yes, is the Earth getting unbearably hot? Of course it is. But it's all a part of God's plan. Look, if God wants to roast us like turkeys, there's got to be a good reason for it."

Mac acknowledges that the plan that is locked in is leading to a horrible unbearable outcome, but still insists there's nothing they can do to change that ending.

"See? It's all a part of his divine plan, Dennis. And that's locked in, so we're good."

"Okay, so all we have to do is nothing?"

"No. No, because... we have free will, Dennis, which means that we have to take the necessary steps to make sure that that plan comes to fruition."

"Which is predetermined."

"Yes."

"But it doesn't matter what we do if it's all predetermined. You see how your argument... doesn't make any sense?"

Just like the structure, this plan doesn't allow the characters to change anything, and it only leads to eventual doom. Or imminent death.

Paddy's Has a Jumper

There is a man who wants to end his own life on the roof of Paddy's, and the gang uses an algorithm to try to determine whether they should do something about it.

So there is a threat of imminent death, and through the algorithm (like the structure), they have to decide how to proceed, only the algorithm eventually leads them down a path they are not fully comfortable with, pushing Bryan off of the roof.

The episode starts with them watching an episode of a show on TV, and being surprised by a twist (a marriage proposal... thinking of dennis' shell that can only be broken by marriage... anyways). The algorithm decided they would like this show, but we learn at the end that they didn't (once again, the audience revolting, whether it be thundergun fans or patrons at the bar).

At the same time, it's repeated that this algorithm takes the emotions out of decisions:

"So, guys, I think I have a way that we can solve this argument without human emotion mucking it all up."

"I don't need your opinions. Okay? 'Cause based on the analytical conclusions that we draw here, we're gonna be able to come up with a mathematically-accurate, non-emotional answer to all of our questions. Okay? We just need to think like a computer."

"Well, it still feels a little weird, but feelings are irrelevant in the face of facts. Is that what I'm hearing? The feelings... feelings just get in the way."

I remember when this episode aired, people interpreted Cricket getting the casaba melon in the end as David Hornsby writing the finale of the season, Big Mo. The casaba representing the show, plus the talk of "helping Bryan die" and "crashing the casaba melon" with him catching it sounded a lot like "ending sunny", which plays both into Big Mo tricking us into thinking sunny was ending, and later acting like the finale to classic sunny. One last season following the old structure before RCG allows themselves to change things up in way that could be risky in fan reception.

This whole episode, with the discussion on Bryan, the egg, and the casaba, reads like RCG deciding on what to do with the show. Do we end it? Do we change it? What makes the most sense vs what do we want to do?

"And then we could be known as a suicide bar, and that's no good." "I don't want to be that." "Yeah, kind of grim." "I'd probably take my business elsewhere." "You don't have business." "What, uh, what if you lean into that, though?" "Like, you don't make it grim, but you make it playful."

This decision they keep hinting at could shift the tone of the show forever, and potentially "drive away business".

So they want to try to decide on it by sticking to what works mathematically, in this case the algorithm, however... it doesn't reflect their feelings.

"Uh, yeah, I know, but mathematically we were supposed to kill a man today."

"Maybe that's, like, part of the problem of, like, taking the humanity out of decisions."

"Perhaps the science just isn't there yet."

When it comes to exploring the canon of sunny, there is a lot that, if the normal sunny structure were to be used, would never be explored in an emotionally satisfying way, which is what RCG ultimately wants to do. I remember when Mac Finds His Pride first came out, Rob kept insisting "the characters change, but they don't evolve", and when faced with so much criticism about the episode not feeling like sunny, he answered that "he decides what feels like sunny, because he's the writer".

I quote:

"What was the reaction like to your epic dance number in the season 13 finale?

MCELHENNEY: It was both negative and positive, which is one of those things we talked about. It’s great to surprise people and have them not have any idea what we’re doing and why we’re doing it. I have people saying, “Oh my God, I love this, it’s one of the best things you’ve ever done,” and then I have other people saying, “You’ve destroyed my show, you’ve ruined it.” And I’m like, “Great!” That’s exactly what we should be doing on the show, is we should be destroying somebody’s idea of what Sunny is on a regular basis. OLSON: It was kind of weird just how many people would just blatantly comment on his body and to me, and we were like, “What would happen if they were commenting on my body to you? Like, ‘Ahh, Kaitlin’s chest…’” MCELHENNEY: A lot of people didn’t like it. Because a lot of people felt like it didn’t fit into the lexicon of what the show is. And I can’t say that they’re wrong, but the difference is that I get to dictate what the lexicon is and they don’t, and that’s a part of the experience."

This episode is also where a lot of explosion talk happens, with Mac and Dennis mentioning they crave it, and the way they want to reach it is by destroying the casaba melon (which as we've established represents sunny).

In the end, it's discovered it's where Frank hides his weed ("I don't think you have to hide it, man"), and Frank reveals it's also "full of loads".

A Woman's Right To Chop

An episode fully about choices and their perceived life altering consequences. Dennis and the rest of the boys want to control what other women decide to do with their hair, Dee defends their right to do it. There's talk of tradition and "upsetting the natural balance of things". The tradition thing will be brought up again in the finale of s15.

I wonder if Poppins could also be considered a metaphor for the show itself. Very old, but full of potential new life that, if let out, could kill them.

Either way:

(Talking of Keri Russell) "Millions of adoring fans, hit television show, you know, and then she went and did this." "Shocking, isn't it? With this one tragic decision, Keri Russell alienated all of her fans, she got her show canceled, and man, she was never heard of ever again."

Frank's talk about cutting all of his hair and losing it forever due to this drastic decision also fits. Burping from his backed up valve due to missing what he lost, the hair that never grew back ("And you're not just giving up being at the top of the leaderboard at some, you know, laser-amusement-themed park, man, you're talking about giving up everything. Everything. Everything we built. Everything we worked so hard for.").

Waiting for Big Mo

And we're finally at the finale for season 14. This episode was structured to trick the audience into thinking the series was ending with its walking out. Not only that, but it's a key episode for meta interpretation of these two seasons.

"Time to end the game" echoes Escapes' "And so the game begins". Because it references the same thing, the game being the show itself.

This is reinforced by the gang saying "it feels like they've been playing it forever", "they never win anything" and that "they get to go crazy at the end of it".

But if the game is sunny, what is the base they're trying to defend? That is the structure.

"Just guard the base, man."

"Kind of sick and tired of guarding the base. What if we go out there, run around? I want to go out there and have some fun, man."

"We gotta guard the base. That's what we always do, and that's what we figured out works a long time ago. Plus, we're waiting for Big Mo."

Dennis is desperate to hold the base and protect it because it's what they've always done, and because Big Mo is threatening to take their place on the leaderboard.

If they were to go out, run around and explore, they would go down the leaderboard, and that is exactly what happens.

"Oh, Charlie, you got to get out there with us. It's so fun. We're finding all kinds of corners of this place that we've never explored before."

"Yeah, I'd love to, I really would, but we're actually... we're losing right now."

An article from season 13 times about "Mac Finds His Pride" reads:

“Some of the uncharted waters, if you want to call them that, were genuine emotion,” Day said on a 2018 Television Critics Association panel. “Once we stumbled on the episode becoming more about Frank being more tolerant and accepting something, we thought, well, this is something we haven’t really done. Our characters rarely change or learn.”

To me, this dissatisfaction is something they felt for a while, and the first time they started really having fun with it again was when they decided to have Mac come out, in Hero or hate crime specifically. That is, because until then, the characters being incapable of change was part of the structure of the show. Something that allowed no wiggle room. But the audience making themselves heard after Goes to hell came out showed them it didn't have to be that way, necessarily.

It didn't come without struggle though, this interview from TheWrap reads:

GLENN HOWERTON: "He’s out (Mac). It’s definitely a big deal for us. I never thought we would do that. … I was against it at first, and the reason I was against it was his character has always been an opportunity to satirize a particular attitude, that still sadly exists, that there’s something wrong with being gay. And I think that it was important to me at least to maintain that level of social satire which is such a big part of the show to me: taking an attitude, taking a point of view that exists in our society, and giving it to one of our characters and sort of blowing it out of proportion. Watching the inevitable outcome of the most extreme version of that point of view. That’s always been my M.O. in terms of the writing of the characters. And to me there was always such a darkly comical and sad element to having this character continue to deny his own sexuality because of the societal pressures that he put on himself… that he had internalized. So I never wanted him to come out of the closet because I thought that to me is… showing just how deep that mentality goes. And despite all the evidence and despite all the support of his friends, the man will still continue to deny his sexual orientation. But then I got to a point where I realized, I’m holding too hard and fast to that rule. And I think we have made plenty of jokes in that arena. We’ve satirized that to death. What sort of possibilities does it open up when that character finally does come out of the closet? Which is why we decided to have him come out once and for all."

Mac coming out forced RCG to reassess to which level the characters were in fact allowed to change.

This article from 2019 has him saying:

“we wanted to make sure that even though the characters might change, they don’t evolve. We wanted to make sure that he (Mac) doesn’t become a better person or a sweeter person or more endearing person or a nicer person. We felt like we wanted to still keep the tone. So I would say, in all the right ways, things remain exactly the same.”

And the amount of change the show as a whole was allowed was something they've grappled since, and something I'm pretty sure caused Dennis Double Life (I mean, Dennis being mindnumbingly bored at how everything stays exactly the same - like his own apartment - but running away at the possibility of change, with the RPG "on the table"...).

Anyway, during the whole episode, the others keep wanting to quit the game for good, because the way Dennis is making them play is miserable, and they'll only be allowed to have fun at the end.

"I actually got an idea. Like, what if you guys don't play the game up in the air ducts this time, but you go down on the floor? Where everyone's having all the fun?"

"They look like they're having so much fun playing laser ta..."

"Will you shut up?! This isn't about having fun. Okay? This is about staying alive and winning."

Dennis (in true double life fashion from him...) places this dilemma like an impossible choice: either you stay alive, miserable, and win, OR you have fun and eventually Big Mo (imminent death) gets you, and you're forgotten. He doesn't see the answer in the middle, which Charlie is quick to point out: playing the game AND having fun with it, not caring how it affects "how well they're doing".

Eventually Dennis learns about what really happened to Larry Takashi (aka Larry David), and the whole gang, for a moment, agrees to "end the game", aka end the show. This was obviously a fake show ending, finishing with them saying "they're never going anywhere". But why is that? Because instead of guarding the base, they decided to play by their own rules.

As such, Big Mo still acts like a show finale, to what Sunny was prior to this decision.

This brings us to...

Season 15

Introduced with the trailer description as "new era, same egos",

Predictably, this season ends up "breaking the bounds" of philly, to travel all the way to Ireland. As Big Mo had announced, they "went out to explore"... but literally.

What happens next is the natural first step of exploration, aka reassessing your own identity.

Season 15 isn't the "franchise rebooted" just yet, it is experimentation. Experimenting with how far they can push things, getting comfortable with the new structure (of a season arc, and otherwise).

With an end comes a new beginning, and a question, what is sunny now?

So, the theme of identity touches every single character on its own, each with their personalized arc that ends with the character coming out changed in some way. This is why to me season 15 is transitional. The show, the characters, are finding new footing. This is especially true for Dennis, whose character has been intrinsically linked to sunny meta for a while now, but I can't fully get into that here (or I would derail the section. I get into it later a bit. also I have gotten into it before tho, though the post is slightly old so some parts may not hold up).

Some characters attempt to cling to their roots, others run from it.

All in all, this season challenges each character on one fragment that always defined their identity, and has them come out of it with a new understanding.

As a matter of fact, this is, to me, the first season where all the characters are actually allowed to develop.

Trying to keep to the point before we get into each episode, here is the arc that each character goes through:

MAC: At first, he is compartmentalizing his own identity. Depending on what he feels is the dominant one, he feels he has to act accordingly, and every single decision is dictated by this. He places great importance on his irish roots, when all of a sudden, this belief is challenged when it is "discovered" that he's "actually dutch". This sends Mac into a spiral, trying to determine what really defines him now that his roots are out of the question. He can't reconcile the fact that different aspects can coexist in a singe person, hyperfocusing on one at a time. Until it's revealed in the finale that he is in fact irish, and Dennis and Charlie tricked him. ("So you thought you'd just unravel my entire identity?" "Nothing's unraveled! We didn't unravel anything! You're still you! You've always been you!"). So what does Mac gain from this arc? Another shamrock tattoo... no, I'm kidding, he gains security in his own identity outside of outside validation. For a moment he experienced what it was like to have everything you thought you knew about yourself be shattered, and what it gave him was an awareness that you're still you even in the face of change, and a determination to stand his ground. All in all, to me, his character is the one who actually changed the least (makes it counterproductive that I'd talk about him first...), which is why season 15 throws him for a loop. RCG already had him where they wanted as far as development goes at the start, due to the fact he was allowed to develop in past seasons as well, so what they did instead was bring him back to a previous point, reawakening his insecurity in his identity. He thought he knew pretty well who he was, until he didn't. And then he's sure again. What this did was have him see that it really didn't matter in the end, he was always him. Another thing this arc did was set him free from his dad's shadow for a moment, as he got another last name. That's because, as the gelled back hair would remind you, he's always looked up to and wanted to prove himself to his father. As MFHP marks the climactic point of Mac trying desperately to have his dad understand his identity, and failing, Jumper shows us that he still thinks of his name in a positive light or at least tries to defend it still ("My dad's name is an homage."), like he's still in denial. In a way, by assigning him the Vandross last name for a while, he was allowed to cut ties with his own name and exist as someone else, only to come to the conclusion that nothing really changed about himself, and he shouldn't stress about identity so much.

DENNIS: In many ways, Dennis' arc is the foil to Mac's. Unlike Mac, Dennis doesn't want to hear a single thing about identity. He doesn't think it should play a role in the decisions you make at all, in fact he thinks no action you take can ever define your identity, and you are whatever the hell you say you are, regardless of where your heart's taking you. Now, on some level, his argument may appear reasonable, or at least more grounded than Mac's. It's true, "Identity doesn't have to factor into absolutely every decision you make.", and you do have power over how you define yourself at the end of the day. Dennis being Dennis, however, we all know the extreme to which he's taking this. He is drowning in denial. Refusing to accept reality at every turn. He doesn't have covid, he's just allergic to sheep wool, and the castle looks great, it's not decrepit. So, Dennis starts the arc with one main ambition: have an authentic experience. He's obsessed with things being true, being tampered with. This is also a season theme, in general (the burning of the shredded documents for example), which again plays into how Dennis meta is almost always show meta as well, but I digress. He forces himself to do things the european way, effectively running away from his roots entirely. The opposite of Mac. Throughout the season however, things escalate. He gets worse, and he starts doing things the old way regardless (like driving the wrong, but right for him in philly, side of the road). It reads like he's trying to negate his actual authentic nature, while being driven insane by the perception of others doing this as well. He wants things to feel authentic, he just can't figure out how, because he can't see as he's blinded by all the denial that's literally almost killing him (you could say he's been trying to pull the wool over our eyes...). It's hard to define in this arc which exact aspect of his identity is challenged, because it's all of them. As the finale states, his whole "essence" is broken, his back, you know, the structural foundation of every person, ("You've always said that your back has the symmetry of the Vitruvian man, and it's the foundation of your structural essence.") the structure of the show, the structure of Dennis. This is another way in which it is a foil to Mac, as he is already secure and open about who he is exactly, while Dennis denies all of it. They're like opposite extremes for how to tackle the structure, and the answer of course lies in the middle. (wink. see I told you it's impossible to write impartial sunny meta, because macden is intrinsic to it... anyway). By the end of his arc however! Dennis has admitted to himself that he had covid. Almost dying from sheer denial gave him enough of a scare to cut that out, if you will, and I can't tell you what the new Dennis will be like or what he has gained besides the lack (or decrease) of denial, because his change is the most fundamental. He will probably be further redefined in season 16. All his identity was impacted.

DEE: This one's easy, what is something that has always defined Dee's identity, to everyone and herself? (Clip Show: "Dee, are you a successful actress?" "Oh, I could have been." "Dee, be serious! Yes or no?" "No.") Since always, she has wanted to be an actress. Finally, she gets the once in a lifetime opportunity to be just that. Earlier in the season, it is hinted especially with her acting classes that what he really wants is to have power and control. This of course echoes what we've seen of her in season 14 (and prior), she comes up with the plans, pulls the strings, prefers to be the director. However, what does an actor do? Follow orders and directions. Previously, she fell into this role due to her search for validation. This is shown with her literally begging the director to have a role. Her arc shifts her character from looking for others' directions, permission and validation to gaining agency (which even echoes thundergun 4! "So, you... you want the female characters to have less agency?") by crushing the possibility of her becoming an actor, her last chance, all the while showing her how miserable it truly is to have to follow everyone else's lead. Anyway, now that the actor fragment of her identity is put to rest, she is free to redefine herself and take charge. Additionally, Sinks in a Bog may have also started a thread to redefine the way she sees female allyship, in fact I think it was the central theme of the episode for her. Thinking back to Making Paddy's Great Again, she was willing to get rid of a perfectly fine new gang member in favor of Dennis, just because she was a woman which made her feel threatened. In Thundergun 4, similarly, she feels threatened by the new female character, and wants other women to be below her, is always in competition with them. Bog puts her in a situation of need where only the Waitress, another woman, can help her. In the end, she lets the Waitress sink in order to get out, but the episode still forces Dee to face a situation in which women working together is the only viable way to get out of trouble. I don't think this specific arc is finished yet for her, but I wanted to mention it still.

FRANK: Another easy one. Thanks to MFHP and the discussion surrounding it by RCG, we know that the role of Frank in the gang is that of surrogate father. However, just because we the audience know, does not mean he does. Frank as a character dismisses responsibilities such as "being a dad". He may show the occasional tender affection towards Charlie, but those moments are far in-between, and when asked if he's Charlie father, he has run from it in the past. We, like him probably, always assumed in the end that he was indeed Charlie's biological dad, despite the lack of test. Season 15, of course, puts a wrench in all of this. This is the fragment of Frank's identity that gets challenged, his fatherhood. Not just to Charlie, but to Dennis as well, which he ends up treating as a "rebound son" and bonding with while he is separated from Charlie. Frank has always kept people at a distance, and almost losing Charlie reminds him to treasure what you have, otherwise you run the risk of losing it. By the end of the season he's almost flipped, in that he is willing to show Charlie that he is "useful", to make himself worthy of being in his life, instead of expecting it. What he gained, in my opinion, is feeling comfortable with the idea of being a father. Actually wanting it. Finally stepping into the role of "the gang's surrogate dad" that has been preannounced ever since MFHP. So that's how his identity was impacted. Not saying he's gonna become dad of the year, just that he's now open to seeing of himself as a dad at all.

CHARLIE: He is the protagonist of the season, the one that gets to have the big emotional beat of the finale, and as such I've left him for last here, because there's more to chew on. Charlie isn't setting out to do anything when he arrives in Ireland. He's pretty content in how things are and who he is, he's just along for the ride... or so he thinks. By finding out the existence of his actual biological dad and meeting him, he is confronted with a whole world of... everything he's ever wanted. Suddenly, what he had before doesn't cut it anymore. He wasn't looking for this, but as he stumbles on it, he realizes quickly that it's everything he's been missing out on his whole life. He wants to start fresh with his dad, wants to learn more about his roots, he is ready to abandon the life he thought he was content in, because he sees how incomplete it actually was. Only... that's not how life works. You cannot alter the past. You can only impact the future. ("The first time round is a bitter pill, but the second chance is better still") He cannot make up for all the lost time and chances, because his dad dies. ("You weren't there! And I needed you! I needed you there. You were supposed to carry me!") The finale says it best: "I'm glad you're dead. Now I don't have to spend the rest of my life waiting for you to pick me up." Charlie, like Dee, is allowed to move on from a fragment of his identity that was weighting him down. He's allowed to let go of his need to know who his real dad is, and is rewarded with the knowledge that he does have people who care for him despite everything. His identity is thus also redefined: he's no longer waiting to know who his "real" dad is, because he knows what makes family real.

In a way, this is the "Big Mo" we'd been waiting for. Despite the apparent negative outcome of the trip overall, the team underwent successful arcs that ended with them all together in the bar, deciding to go back up there on that mountain and help Charlie finish the job ("No hesitation, no surrender, no man left behind!"). Just like a sports team getting "in the zone" and starting a winning streak by working together really well.

So, lets get into the episodes.

2020: A Year in Review

Talk of wanting to set off fireworks in the bar to celebrate.

Obviously, this refers to how sunny passed the record as longest running sitcom with its fifteenth season, but let's also look at the dialogue:

"What if we let off some fireworks in here, huh?"

"Fireworks in the bar?"

"It's never been done before. Right? That could be kind of good, right?"

"You'll burn the place to the ground."

The kind of explosion Charlie wants to set off because "it's never been done before" (echoing Big Mo... exploring new things) could potentially destroy the bar... which, as always, is a metaphor for the show.

The evergreen bar = show metaphor doesn't stop here however.

The gang is expecting a "huge potential investor" and they're gonna try to ask him for a loan for Paddy's pub.

In the past year they've asked for, and gotten, plenty of them for their own little side ventures/failing businesses, and now they want one for their main thing, the bar.

He's not there to give out PPP loans though, what the guy is actually there to do is collect on the ones already given.

Here's how I interpret this. Think of every season a show is given, as a small loan of a set number of episodes that they will then use to tell their story.

Throughout the years, sunny has been given plenty of these, and rarely has it used them to explore a lot of canon, because of the structure of the show that didn't really allow for it.

This is the same sentiment as Escapes, the fear of not being allowed more time, more seasons, to actually do all the stuff they want to do, that they were saving for "the end".

Because as the man hears all the ways in which they have wasted the previous given loans, he obviously doesn't give them another one for their actual main business venture.

So, Mac and Dennis decide to get involved with the election, and as such their loan is for tactical gear, but they end up getting sidetracked entirely, running their own separate poll where people get to vote, while also getting back to their initial thing of singing together.

"Now, the labeling... in hindsight, was a bit obtuse and created a great deal of confusion."

"It kind of backed up the whole system."

"Right. Yeah, there was a whole kerfuffle... I don't know if you remember this... about, like, what votes were supposed to be counted and what votes aren't gonna be counted. And are these legitimate votes, are these not legitimate votes? What's this, what's that? I mean, we put our boxes all over the damn place. So, you know, we created a mess."

This ep also has the whole running out of materials thing that Global Warming did for when Charlie and Dee are making masks and it's hard to meet the demand.

"Um, so, hey, listen, um, listen, we really do believe that with a major cash infusion, we could turn this bar into something..."

"No, no, no."

"...even more successful than it already..."

Thankfully, as we've covered, they managed to get four seasons, I'd say that's a pretty big loan that can only be justified if you have some sort of plan... to "turn this show into something even more successful than it already is".

Or perhaps just to do something so altering that it's potentially show ending, without the fear of getting cancelled immediately.

The Gang Makes Lethal Weapon 7

As this episode has the gang directing a set, it's easy for some elements to mirror the making of sunny, as that's the intended thing in the first place. (stuff like "We could make this more of an art house film. I'm open to it.", whereas in Thundergun 4, their role was that of the audience, which is why there Mac goes "I hope they don't show us some boring art house movie.").

There's talk of a big bang, "I'm sick of getting jerked around, I'm ready to explode".

They start to redefine who the "villain" of the story actually is, something that will also come up later in Mac's discussions about God with Gus. The concept of a vengeful God set out to send a catastrophe to smite and punish them. Like Global Warming. An imminent death, in this case in the form of a tidal wave, an act of God.

I think it's interesting how throughout these seasons, this talk of a "big event", an explosion, is both talked of as a huge catastrophe, yet something that is deeply craved.

Reminds me of Chop, again:

"They're clearly bored and lonely and needing to do something extreme in order to make themselves feel special." "Take this one for example. You don't get a monkey cut like that unless you're broken inside."

A chop, an action that's so drastic it could potentially destroy everything they've built...

"Out of the smoldering ashes, however, I pieced together a cautionary tale. An exploration, not of what is gained by learning, but of what is lost by staying ignorant."

They can't change the past (the first time round is a bitter pill), but they can embrace the future (the second chance is better still), taking what feels like "smoldering ashes" and exploring the lost potential that staying ignorant left them with. In the case of season 15, Charlie couldn't stay with his father and all he was left with was the missed chances ("You weren't there! And I needed you! I needed you there. You were supposed to carry me!"), but in the midst of this, Frank learned the importance of his role as a father (and then we find new seeds to sow, to grow our love we didn't know).

The Gang Buys A Roller Rink

As always, the bar = show metaphor makes a reappearance.

This one is packed, but to summarize, this as well is about falling back in love with something. Or rather... the first half of it. The falling out.

Imagine you've been with something your whole life, you start forgetting why you kept choosing it to stay in your life (reminds me of dennis being asked by he lives with mac in clip show...), you slowly grow bored of it as you realize that it has never changed. You've kept it exactly the same.

You think that means something has to change, something has to give.

You fantasize about how different things could be... that's the roller rink. The roller rink serves the same purpose as them going to Ireland... going as far away from their base as possible, because of this need for change.

Except...

"Don't it always seem to go That you don't know what you got 'til it's gone? They paved paradise and put up a parking lot"

Once again, the implication being that they stuck with it for so long for a reason. The show, that is. Or the bar.

But that's not all this episode talks about to me.

Because it shows the gang acting very uncharacteristically, especially in regards to Dee.

"You know, Dennis looks like Jerry Seinfeld."

"Thanks, man. Yeah, that's kind of what I was going for."

"I don't like how mean they are to each other on that show."

"Aw, Sweet Dee. So pure of heart. You know?"

"Hey, when you going to Hollywood, Dee?"

"Tomorrow. Yeah, this is my last night in Philly. I'm actually super nervous."

"Oh, you got nothing to be nervous about."

"No, you're gonna do great out there, sis. They're gonna love you. You just have so much natural charisma, and you're so funny."

"Such a good-hearted person. Guys, thank you so much for not making fun of the size of her feet. They're very big."

"Oh, no, dude. I would never make fun of her physical attributes."

"Look at her go, man."

"Yeah, she's really flying, huh? Imagine if she didn't have to slow down for her friends."

"She doesn't have to. No, no, no. I... When she asked me to tighten her skates, I secretly loosened them, you know, 'cause real friends don't slow each other down, right? They help them soar."

These are all very "unsunny" moments typically ("I need their aggression at a ten"), especially in the context of the episode where we're meant to read the roller rink stuff kind of as anti-sunny... but something sticks out to me, and it's the last example I brought up.

Normally, it wouldn't fit the sunny structure, and yet we know that's not true, or at least... not anymore. Not always. They did come back for Charlie in the finale.

This is also lampshaded in Goes to Ireland:

"That's exactly what we did."

"Because we wanted to be supportive."

"No, you didn't!"

"Because we are always there for each other."

"No, we're not!"

"Right, guys?"

"In good times and in bad."

It's possible that's one way in which the previous structure didn't allow RCG to do what they really wanted to. Because the gang is not supposed to be there for each other normally, we know this, and yet it's been happening more and more in recent seasons.

Anyway, by having the roller rink part feel so unlike sunny, I think it's yet again addressing this fear that changing too much could lead them to... that. To straying too far away from what they had, only to find out it was already perfect.

Not to mention, they only get into this discussion at all because they just found out the roller rink is closing down.

"I mean, you know, doesn't quite have the same pageantry as a roller rink, but, uh..."

"Well, there's a palpable sadness in here."

This concept of pageantry coming back from A year in review.

"This guy's a huge potential investor. He could give Paddy's tons of money."

"I know, we need pageantry. We need, uh..."

So in a way, its closing down reminds the gang of all the lost potential, of their initial dreams, reminds them of all the things they said they'd do with the place.

This concept of potential... is something that I feel comes up a lot too. Whether it's the potential of new life with the puppies and the seeds, or something more abstract like them looking at Paddy's ("But that said, I mean, you know, it's got potential. It doesn't have to be this, right? We could gut this place, make it totally our own, right?").

The Gang Replaces Dee With A Monkey

Sigh. This one starts really on the nose.

"No. No, no. This can't be happening. I-I-I'm too young. No, why are you doing this? I don't want to change. I don't want to change. Oh, God, it's hot. It's always so goddamn hot. Someone's got to crack a door or a window. Oh, God, no. It's all happening too fast. I had plans, and they were perfect plans. This is just all too soon!"

We start the episode with, again, change, that is leading to losing something, running out of time.

Anyway, talk about wanting to go out, to experiment, and yet again the gang talking about where to go and trying to decide looks a lot like how a decision would be made inside a writer's room. Down to the use of a whiteboard, actually.

Now, about the monkey.

"See? Great, huh?"

"No. No, not great. Ridiculous. You think a monkey can run a bar?"

"Run a bar?"

"It would be great if we could hire more monkeys to do our job for us while we're gone. Like, a team of monkeys who run the bar, you know what I mean?"

"I do have to admit, though, it-it is a little disappointing to, um, discover that a team of primates could do our jobs for us, but..."

To me it sounds like the over reliance on a predetermined system, when writing, often lead to a feeling that RCG's own input wasn't as needed to make decisions, because they already know what works. To the point that a monkey could do their job. In a way, like the algorithm.

"And, uh, everybody write down a destination on the napkin, and then we'll put that destination in this bowl right here, I'll pick one out, and that way not one of us decides ...but we let fate take over. What do you guys think about that plan?"

They are... once again, in the position of having to take a decision. Like Escapes, getting lost in the specifics because they can't agree on them.

Unlike the previous examples however, this is suggesting the complete opposite approach to using a structure.

And it continues:

"You know what, guys? I'm having a lot of fun here. Uh, but I do want to figure this out, so, new plan. All right, here's what we're gonna do. Instead of writing down places, why don't we write down key words? Or phrases, you know? Let's go with our instincts, you know? Whatever we want to feel, whatever we want to experience on the vacation, okay? And then we'll put it up on a board. We'll look at it all together and then maybe the destination will just reveal itself to us."

Like the anti-algorithm, which took emotions out of the equation, this method instead prioritizes them in decisions. And much like Dee Day, the boys took the complicated route, Dee took the simpler one, but they all ended up on the same outcome. Ireland.

Another thing that season 15 introduces...

"You're just being honest about how you feel."

The theme of feelings is now accompanied by that of honesty, of authenticity.

"You're making me realize something here. Maybe this doesn't have to be a scam. What I mean is, [...] I can control you. I can make you feel however I want you to feel, which will help you be a better actor. [...] Oh, that's real power. Way more power than just acting, and I think that's what it was probably all about for me, you know? I just... I was searching for a sense of control."

And of control. People often do something drastic to look for a sense of control.

"And if we can't stop them from making stupid and selfish choices, then we need to give them a place to go to be stupid and selfish." (Chop)

The experimentation, the exploration of feelings, that's what they really wanted.

"You weren't looking for the gay thing. But it gave you a sense of something bigger than yourself."

Something that makes writing sunny exciting... the ability to make us feel whatever they want. By embracing feelings.

But what has authenticity got to do with all this? Well, whatever it is that they're planning to do, something drastic and potentially catastrophic, I think there was genuine fear that it wouldn't be authentic to the show. That it would stray too far.

Think once again of the algorithm.

First, they had to decide if it was something feasible... Something they can actually pull off (Could he?). Then, they had to decide if it was something that would actually happen, within the show (Would he?). And finally, they had to decide if they actually wanted to go through with it (Should we?).

This method was supposed to determine if something fits the canon of sunny, and thus is allowed to be written in.

For this specific thing that seems to trip them up (rolling my eyes because I'm trying to be unbiased here but... come on. well either way, it works for many decisions, like charlie's father, for example), perhaps they kept getting stuck in each of those points of the algorithm, putting it off season after season, without realizing their feelings on the matter, regarding what they really want to do.

The fear of causing sunny's death by going too far (perhaps jumping the shark) started to turn into the desire to end sunny to get to the good stuff that lies at the end quicker... until realization hit. Why end it at all? Why not just... risk it?

So... Ireland.

The Ireland Arc

I think, for the sake of my own convenience, I will treat the Ireland episodes as one big section, because I can't address them separately.

"What did you want me to do, Dee? Did you want me to rent a big obnoxious American truck like that one over there? That's exactly what we're trying to get away from. Okay, you know, the tiny car, that's all part of the charm of-of Europe. You know, like driving on the left-hand side of the road. Dangerous for Americans like you. But, you know, it's authentic and that's what I want, that's what I'm going for. An authentic Irish..."

Dennis is looking for an authentic irish experience. This, to him, includes driving a tiny car, something that's actually clearly causing discomfort to everyone. This will repeat a lot. What he's actually doing, is straying further from his true american nature.

Learning, eventually, to fall back in love with it by the end, because "We are America, sweetheart! And we carry our country with us wherever we go. Because we love her! And when you love someone, you can't bear to leave 'em behind!". I think this phrase, in particular, shows the ultimate acceptance that the gang loves each other, and it's therefore not inauthentic to sunny that they would be there for each other sometimes. It is, in fact, part of its identity. And it always has been.

Anyway, in The Gang Goes To Ireland, eventually we arrive to a cat who has died because it got stuck inside the room of Frank Fluids' headquarters.

Frank is here however to get his hands on some documents, that he needs to shred in order to cover up a lot of evidence for past events.

At the same time, Dee arrives and Dennis reveals having experience "covering up blunt force trauma", so he helps her out by redistributing the blood on her forehead.

So, they are all examples of what can happen if you let structure control you. You can end up occulting the truth in the process. Covering up the past, "repressing" the blood... letting something that's otherwise glaring go unchecked and actively hiding it. And in fact, Dennis can't smell the dead cat.

Something has gone obviously wrong by getting stuck in the room (Escapes...), and everyone else can instantly smell it except for him, because the covid prevented him from sensing the authentic smell.

To extend this though... it prevented him from seeing reality as a whole. That's why he started hallucinating, why he complained about wool, because he couldn't accept reality. And by being unable to accept reality, he couldn't experience it around him. Couldn't sense the smell of the cat, of the hair...

Still, we see s15 change things up with the canon that they probably wouldn't have done before. Charlie being able to read gaelic, for one.

"I'm gonna kill myself, Frank." "He's not really gonna do it, dude, he's just being dramatic." "Do it, bitch!" "Yeah, do it, bitch." "I'm not really gonna do it. It's just a cry for help."

Paralleling Jumper, and thus the whole "wanting to end the show just to be able to go crazy with it". Chop too...

Another thing from Chop that returns here... when Mac thought "Poppins" was sleepy and tried to jumpstart their system with the air horn. Same concept as here with the stew.

"This stew is really doing it for me now."

"Well, yeah, 'cause you're using it as food, instead of using it as a reviving mechanism."

The problem being expressed here, is that it was never about the show not being fun to do anymore per se (comparing it, for example, to a dead body you have to carry up a mountain), but rather that there was a lot of potential stuck inside that was unaccounted for. In the case of "Poppins", all the puppies. The dog was pregnant, not sleepy. In the case of the stew, they were using it to throw it in people's faces or wake them up from having passed out, and not... as food.

Anyway, the gang meets up at Patty's, yet again showing that despite being all the way in Ireland, deep down they miss home, since they picked basically the irish copy of Paddy's to hang in.

Finally, in The Gang's Still in Ireland, we're introduced to the castle.

To me... the castle represents sunny (unsurprisingly, since I'm analyzing the meta about writing sunny).

"Dee, I haven't even begun to do half the things I want to do with this castle. Now you're asking me to leave?"

Dennis insists the castle is perfect, despite the fact it's falling apart.

"Whoa. This place has a dark past. Murder, betrayal, beheadings."

"Well, you know, it's a castle, Dee. You know, people were going crazy in castles all the time. And beheading people... that was just their way of solving problems back then, you know."

Reminds me of Mac's comments towards Paddy's at the end of roller rink, palpable sadness and all that, also Big Mo with the whole "getting to go crazy" at the end. The boldened part makes me think of the old structure. The old structure dictated all the darkness and didn't allow space for exploring something in a genuine way. The old structure demands the use of the murder hole.

Dennis follows the castle's instructions, which drive him further into denial and to act unlike himsels, almost possessed. He hides behinds the painting, which to me symbolizes subtext ("I think there's another man in this room."), but in the end falls out, which follows the meta of the seeds as well, in the sense that Frank is able to get them out of his throat.

About the seeds.

"The first time round is a bitter pill

But the second chance is better still

And then we find new seeds to sow

To grow our love we didn't know"

You could think of the new era as a second chance. But perhaps it applies to the characters as well. Perhaps this plays into God being merciful (more on this later).

The point being, there was a lot of unexplored potential, of lost chances, and by embracing that instead of getting bogged down, they'll be able to build something new. Even if they have to destroy some things for it (Thundergun 4), like the established canon, or the set rules. To fall back in love with the show, by embracing the emotional side of it.

Charlie's reaction to Frank getting the seed out could mimic the audience. Getting a seed unstuck doesn't guarantee that everyone will be onboard.

"I found you, seed. Look at it. I coughed it out."

"Yeah. Gross. Yeah."

"Oh. I thought you'd be happy for me."

Frank proposes he should swallow it back because it would be funny, because that was the old way of doing things and making jokes. The gang never learning as per the structure stopped them from delving deeper. But they don't care about audience reaction anymore ("we'll jam it down their throats till they enjoy it!" "we'll force them to like it!").

"Walking this path is a serious commitment. One that requires considerable training."

"Oh, Father, look, I've been S'ing and F'ing my way through life for far too long. I think it's time that I started sucking down the words of the Bible. And instead of looking for pieces of ass, I'd just look for peace."

"Well, your language leaves a bit to be desired, but your heart's in the right place."

Mac finds the same lesson in his time in the church.

"Many of the stories in the Bible are metaphors. Parables with lessons. Look, you're looking at this all wrong. The Bible is a guidepost. Interpretations can change over time. And so can the Church. Our God, the God we teach here, is a merciful God."

So if RCG is the God in question, then the message is one of mercy ("I'm gonna save you. Unlike you, I'm not a psychopath." "And like all great plays, this one is going to have a happy ending."), unlike the God in Global Warming and Lethal Weapon 7, a vengeful God that punishes its disciples ("to smite me for the urges that He gave me when I made the original sin of being born" ...kinda poetic, because RCG as God created them and made them act as they do, for the sole purpose of punishing them, having been created for this, and they don't really have a say in it).

Most shows also have what's called a "bible", although I remember RCG saying sunny doesn't, but it does have a canon and a structure, a set way that things work and have been done, and what's being argued here is that it should act more as a guide to follow when needed...

"You have urges that, traditionally, the Church has been very clear about. Well... I have those urges, too. [...] It's not uncommon. There's nothing wrong with it. It's who He made us. But our path, this path, is very clear. We must never act on those urges."

...And discarded when not needed. In Mac's case, him being gay, following this teaching from the bible would obviously be wrong.

Also, in general, we hear a lot of bell ringing in this season, both in the context of death (when the corpse is revealed, for example), but also whenever a scene with the church starts. Bells are usually rung only in funerals and weddings, so I thought that was another neat point to the overall themes.

Same goes for them using the song "Can't fight this feeling", that's all about... well, if you've read the lyrics you know. It's all about following your feelings...

The finale also places great importance on tradition, they have to carry the corpse that way because... that's the way things have always been done, that's tradition, that's the structure. But they don't end up carrying it, using a truck instead. Fulfilling the tradition and "sending him off with some dignity" but their own way, making things easier for themselves.

Death also keeps being a looming presence, in this case because of the curse of the banshee. It is said that when you see a banshee, "the end is near". And then death does hit, with Shelley. However, it wasn't the curse that did it, it was covid. The curse wasn't real.

But the corpse tells me something else, too.

"The poor guy's dying from a banshee curse, and now he's got to deal with COVID on top of everything else?"

The corpse is the show. This is important, because there is no death they have to fear. It is already dead. They've been trying to "jumpstart the system", with stew, with the air horn, but nothing they can do to the show can kill it more than how dead it already feels. The act of writing it the old way feeling like carrying a corpse up a mountain, an act so arduous each gang member keeps leaving, and the ones that stay ask for a break all the time.

This calls to mind the time Glenn actually left, and the part where Dennis trips and lets go seems to hint at this as well.

"Could it be maybe the banshee curse? Does it have something to do...?"

"Were you not carrying it?"

"Not carr... What are you talking about, man? Not carrying it? Yeah, I was carrying it."

"Why did it get lighter?"

"Oh, my God. It looks like he was dragging his feet back here."

"Were you hanging on it?"

"No!"

"He must have tripped and lost his grip, and that's how he fell."

"Oh, goddamn it! You were taking a ride? You weren't even holding it."

Seems to be mentioning the fact that Glenn didn't write any episode for season 13 after coming back.

When Mac stops carrying the corpse, the gang mentions that it feels like he was carrying a lot of weight, which to me refers to the most recent arcs being heavily Mac centric with his coming out, probably being the most exciting thing to write about, and thus "carrying" the corpse.

"Um, can I suggest something? What if we burn the body and carry the ashes up the hill?"

"Uh, guys, can I suggest something else? Uh, what if we, uh...? Now bear with me here. What if we chop the body up? Come on. And we carry it in pieces, right?"

"Look, this isn't working, okay? Look, you don't want to burn the guy? Fine. Personally, I don't understand it, but there are other solutions to this problem, okay? Let's just chop the body up. It's already mangled."

Dennis, despite initially insisting he "thinks it's awesome" to carry the body up the mountain, quickly starts getting fed up and trying to find alternative solutions. This probably reflects the reason why the seasons got shorter. A sentiment of burnout that they probably all felt.

The role of Dennis is crucial in this, and it cannot be overlooked. The moment his back is mentioned, especially as it's called his "structural essence", he's inevitably tied to the meta of the show as a whole because of the structure, meaning that breaking the show structure hinges on breaking Dennis' structure. This isn't the only moment this is implied, far from.

A few examples in quick succession, many of which I've already explored in my old post in more depth, some that will be new because they're from S15 (do allow me the freedom to bring into the discussion the concept of "love", that gets brought up a lot, and ties with the "embracing your feelings" I've dissected plenty already):

Dennis entering and exiting the structure in Gets Romantic ("So I'm still your leading man?"). Likewise, there's a lot of recasting talk in Lethal Weapon 7 and later with Dee in S15. Mirrors him leaving for ND as well.

Dennis being paralleled to Thundergun (he finds out he has a son, and in the end he "dies", / "So, this is the midpoint twist." "What is?" "Um, ThunderGun finding out he has a son." "He has a son?" "Yes." "But how is this the twist? I mean, because he's got a kid? I mean, he's probably got a thousand kids, all the raw-dog loads he drops." / "I say give me dong or give me death." / "You weren't looking for the gay thing. But it gave you a sense of something bigger than yourself.")

Dennis being forced by Dee to remove his make up in Dee Day ("Buddy, makeup or not, you are the Golden God. It's all about what's in here." / "Today of all days, and now I'm being forced to listen to her feelings? I won't do it. And who cares about her feelings anyway? Nobody, that's who. What about my feelings? Now, that's interesting, okay?" / "This man is clearly a monster, and he will be punished accordingly.")

Dennis wanting Mac to make his own decisions instead of looking at him for answers ("Well, you didn't tell me whether I should save him or not." "But why? I mean, why do I still have to tell you what to do? [...] And why is it up to me to decide whether or not you're going to save a man's life?"), being upset that Mac wouldn't just jump in to save him. Dennis being worried about his own mortality.

Dennis being paralleled to the Jumper, with the algorithm centering on what they should do with him. Also being the one insisting emotions be kept out of it, yet constantly acting emotional. The casaba, arguably, since Dennis is the Jumper, and the casaba was meant to represent it... ("I don't think you have to hide it, man").

The salon in Chop being called <3 or death, Dennis trying to stop others from making choices reads like him regretting North Dakota ("They're clearly bored and lonely and needing to do something extreme in order to make themselves feel special"), plus the obsession with hair mirroring that in S15, insisting that cutting the hair doesn't follow tradition (structure). Dennis being paralleled to Poppins ("My dog came back!" "How the hell is that dog still alive?" "Yeah, Mac, why don't you just put that poor thing out of its misery?" "Put him down? What, are you crazy? This is my dog, Dee. I love him.") both for having kids he doesn't take care of, and for leaving and coming back.

Dennis being at the center of Big Mo, insisting they keep guarding the base because doing otherwise would lead to death, and then also being the one to say that it's time to end the game. The entire revelation that brings us to the new era started by S15 hinges on Dennis' turning point, deciding not to guard the base (the structure! ...his structure?) anymore.

"They leave but they all come back." is the credits backwards message to season 14. Parallels Dennis leaving for ND.

Dennis having covid parallels Frank's dialogue about Barbara and thus Dee's dialogue for the role she's trying for ("Overnight, she became completely irrational with the hot flashes and the mood swings and the paranoia. That was the worst. Always accusing me of having affairs.").

Dennis' obsession with things being authentic while he himself is so in denial it almost causes him to die. The castle as his facade/identity, telling him what to do, the banquet of humiliation being about punishing a dad for abandoning his child, like Dennis did ("You wine and dine the man while also pointing out all of his character flaws, and then you lure him over to the castle's murder hole." "I'm not gonna kill him or anything, but it's got to be hot enough to be annoying as sh¡t, right? You know what I mean? Yeah. Burn him. Uh, he's gonna get burned. But, I mean, Charlie's got to see him lose his cool, so we can expose him as the child-abandoning monster that he really is.")

The recent seasons have kept laying down implications regarding Dennis in particular. We all remember the Range Rover ("I got to tell you, guys, that Range Rover, that was... that was like a part of me. You know, I considered it part of my identity, really." from New Wheels) being blown up by Mac with the RPG. Without getting into the specifics of what it may be (draw your conclusions, I'll draw mine), something about Dennis' identity is being... concealed, like with make up. Been tampered with, like the hair. Covered up, like Frank's shred-and-spread. Basically, it stands to reason that his back is the one that breaks in the finale, because we may get to explore that, his identity. (And because he feels like he's being left behind by the gang...? Remember tends bar... and thundergun too, its whole motto is no man left behind and yet he dies, which goes completely against that!)

"All right, you know what, guy? Here's what I'm feeling. Forget this dude. He was a deadbeat, right? Can we just go home?"

Season/ritual finished, they return home to their roots, with a newfound love for it.

Not letting the corpse (show) get between them (RCG).

"And we carry our country with us wherever we go! Because we love her! And when you love someone, you can't bear to leave 'em behind!"

So what does this mean for season 16?

The main analysis is done.

It was my goal inside this post to speculate as little as possible, so that hopefully the meta discussed would hold up regardless. This small footnote is for me to go crazy at the end, if you will.

If you were to ask me... season 16 is the aftermath of change. Wanting to go back to the way things were, back to your roots... but you've all changed. It's you (the gang) who's different. No matter where they are now.

"It's the end of the Vitruvian era! It's over! Goddamn! Goddamn! My essence has... been ruined by tiny cars, castle beds and... Goddamn. I hate this godforsaken country!"

So, if you were to see the "falling back in love with something" as an arc, this to me may be the moment in the story where you start to realize what you've missed out on, and what you miss that you already had. Paddy's may be the same, but the gang isn't. Least of all, Dennis.

"Love I get so lost sometimes Days pass and this emptiness fills my heart When I want to run away I drive off in my car But whichever way I go I come back to the place you are All my instincts, they return The grand facade, so soon will burn Without a noise, without my pride I reach out from the inside"

Because when you love someone, you can't bear...

I wonder if we'll ever get to see the RPG fired, that's clearly the type of explosion they crave, isn't it? Sometimes in order to save something you have to destroy it...

"Dear Anna, our time apart only makes my heart grow fonder." (oh like inflation?)

I don't know. I think Dennis, like the show (since their meta aligns), will try to embrace taking decisions based on feelings rather than being cold and calculative. And I think the gang will find that very weird, and may think he's got his bell rung or it's a cry for help or "he's probably faking it".

I also think we will be introduced to the concept of a new structure. That may be the DENNIS system reworked (or just realizing how appalling the old one is, underlining how that structure doesn't work for them anymore), or it may be some method Dennis is using to try to improve his mental health (it would make sense in meta... trying ways to get better... and failing too, like the trip to ireland being a disaster, but still teaching them something along the way), "What's the first word that comes to your mind to describe us?", something like that. Attempting to redefine what was previously established in a new way that works better, that adapts to their current needs.

So we will have gone from... classic (s14), exploration and change (s15), redefining (s16).

Of course, I don't think the exploration and change is finished either. The scene with Frank and Charlie finding a bathroom (which btw... also reminds me of my spec script...) still recalls Big Mo ("We're finding all kinds of corners of this place that we've never explored before."). I think all seasons moving forward will bring up past stuff they never got into before, to some extent. They have a lot of seeds to wade through, after all. They're not running out of those any time soon. Maybe that's what the scene refers too, believability? Might be why there's all those lamps (I didn't discover this... someone smarter than me did). After all this is something they never had to battle before from the comfort of their structure, but now that they're changing things, how much can they do before it's not believable?

I'm not even gonna get into the gang gets cursed without a synopsis, there's too much at stake for me to get wrong... some thoughts were the curse of the banshee, the curse from gets trapped (indiana jones reference... also referenced in s15... ark of the covenant... the crate... "In the bible, there are passages that explain that if a man touches the ark or looks inside it when it is opened, he will die." ...hm! fascinating), the god hole... I won't. I can't. The post is already way too long.

So... this is the end.

Thank you for reading all the way to here, you're insane for doing that, but I deeply appreciate it. Leave some tags if you wants, this took me 5 days to write and I also lost some edits at the end which was like three hours of work... woof.

And please feel free to add your own thoughts and considerations about this meta, despite how long this post ended up being I'm sure I've only scratched the surface of it, especially because I had to disregard almost everything prior to s14 for the sake of staying brief (I KNOW RIGHT?), and I'm sure there's dialogue I didn't include or multiple interpretations that escaped me. It happens, this show is hefty with them. But I hope you enjoyed. Thanks.

[zvtara-was-never-canon]

I made it better

I'm assuming this is because of me getting annoyed at Azutara shippers in my other blog and calling them and Tyzula fans the "Azula fandom's equivalent of Zutara and Zukka" XD

Anyways *grabs a megaphone and gets on a soap-box*

As a bisexual woman that would go crazy with joy if Azula was gay/bi, and that ships her with Ty Lee and Mai, and even Toph and Suki every now and then, let me make one thing very clear here: Azula DOES have a confirmed canon sexuality, and it's straight. Heterosexual. Likes guys and only guys. The idea that ANY gay ship was CANON in ATLA, a show made in 2005 by a kid's Network, is ridiculous.

Azula explicitly stated that she has tried to flirt with boys before and it never worked out because they are scared of her. She was jealous that boys were paying attention to Ty Lee - and while fanfic writers, and even I, like to say stuff like "Oh, you don't like them getting too close to your gilfriend, Azula?" it's VERY CLEAR that the show was going for the classic "Why do they like her and not ME?" aka she wanted attention from GUYS. She wanted to hook up with Chan, and immediately went for "Let's conquer the world together!" after one kiss. Even the up-coming Azula comic has her dreaming of a guy trying to flirt with her and calling her pretty.

For fuck's sake, Grey Delisle already admiting to voicing the scene between Azula and Zuko as if Azula was trying to seduce her own brother. Meanwhile, even though she likes Tyzula now, when asked about the ship her first reaction was the same as the one every actor, writer and/or showrunner had to hearing about popular gay ships: "I did not see that coming."

It might seem surreal nowadays that the Network let the show get away with incest bait but gay characters were out of question, but that's what happened because, surprise surprise, homophobia was still going strong. Hell, it's still going strong TODAY.

Lots of Nickelodeon shows from the 90's and early/mid 2000's tried to get away with implying or flat out saying "This character is gay" and it ALWAYS resulted in banned episodes, some of which became lost media because the Network was just that desperate to bury any evidence of it to avoid controversy. Even characters that never had any love interests ever were assumed to be straight - not as in "treat them as being straight unless we say otherwise" but in "They are straight because that's the only thing allowed to exist in kid's media." There was no "otherwise" to be heard of. Fitting for years that followed the policy literally called "DON'T ASK, DON'T TELL."

THAT was the general sentiment around homosexuality at the time, especially on TV (KIDS TV, I remind you): pretend you don't know that's a thing.

Even The Legend Of Korra, that parts of the fandom still pretends did anything for gay representation, had the creators (the same who made ATLA) that they never even bothered to ask Nickelodeon if they could Korrasami happen, and thus kept the whole love triangle, with the girls fighting over a GUY, going. It wasn't until the very end that they had the guts to ask "Can we make them hold hands in the finale?" and Nick said "Sure, the final season will basically not be aired on TV anyways." Bryke even had to state ONLINE that "Yes, they are a couple." Only THEN, with the positive response from audiences, that neither the writers nor the Network had thought could ever gain any sympathy for the show, did they make Korra and Assami have an actual relationship in the Korra comics.

Do these guys sound like the type that would leave a character's sexuality up for debate or even try to write a gay couple into the show IN 2005, years before Korra was allowed to get away with a slight hint of gayness that to be explained on Twitter?

They didn't make Azula's attempts to win guys over fail to show she was a gay teen trying too hard to be something she was not, her envy that Ty Lee was getting a ton of attention from boys while she wasn't was meant to be taken as EXACTLY that, and no cutesy moment between her and her friends was meant to be taken as anything other just gals being pals.

We can, and should, point out that it is unfair that gay relationships were treated as "too adult" while straight romances weren't. We can change any character's sexuality in fanfics. We can ship whatever the hell we like. But claiming Azula was EVER meant to be seen as anything other than a 100% straight girl that just sucked at flirting and thus was struggling to get a boyfriend is just a flat out lie.

She's not bisexual. She's not a lesbian. Her sexuality was not "left up to debate" because THERE WASN'T SUPPOSED TO BE A DEBATE!

Again, I would love a bisexual Azula (provided that wasn't handled by people like Yang and Bryke, who see her as nothing more than an ableist stereotype), but let's not kid ourselves here.

Nickelodeon is not our "ally", they're a company that wants your money. Bryke, by their own admission, were not revolutionaries who pushed for gay representation and were ready to give up on the idea of same-sex relationship with no resistence if the Network told them "no, only straight romances allowed". Korra was no Steven Universe or even Adventure Time, it was basically Disney with it's 50th "first" gay character that gets five seconds of screentime. Azula's sexuality absolutely WAS confirmed and it is (sadly for me) heterosexual.

And to the people that claim to love headcanons for bisexual Azula, but still insist I should only ship her with women, or make her strongly prefer women, or only have had bad experiences with men and positive ones with women, otherwise she'll be "basically straight": your biphobia is showing, stop hating on bi women everytime they shatter your ilusion that we're just confused/in denial and will eventually realize we're actually lesbians.